OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 104 W93 < Z - * A*, •V- K & V* Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. • .y . ’ ' . • University of Illinois Library ' * i ; y* ) i( 'Si 6 - / i3i 5 JUL 2 2 ® 9 m - QCf p r > OCJ ~ 8 m 1 4 /u Q u 71 ' o JUN I jgg ! r r. r , i y i r, y I ^ i ■- 7 m ■ 0 FE8 22 196b ■' nun 9 4 iqCO ore 20 (95 r C .1 0 1952 \ \ JfcN ’ 4 \ p C i> ILO , 2 U 136 7 \ MAR - *!> 116? \ MRR2 01971 L161 — H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/philosophicaldis00wrig_1 CHAUNCEY WRIGHT III 1 WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR \ 13 Y CHARLES ELIOT NORTON NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1878 ( Copyright, 1876, by HENRY HOLT. Trow’s Printing and Rookbinding Company, 305-213 Hast t 'zth St., NEW YORK. B. Hermon Smith. Stereotyper, Ithaca, N. Y ten Wli i PREFATORY NOTE. This volume contains the greater part of the published writ¬ ings of its author. The beginning of the article on “ Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind,” and the fragment on “ Cause and Effect ” are now published for the first time. 111598 CONTENTS. km;** Biographicai Sketch ot- Chauncey Wright . v.i A Physical Theory of the Universe. i Natural Theology as a Positive Science . 35 Tiie Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. •. 43 Limits of Natural Selections. 97 The Genesis of Species . 128 Evolution by Natural Selection. 168 % Evolution of Self-Consciousness. 199 The Conflict of Studies. 267 The Uses and Origin of the Arrangements of Leaves in Plants . 296 McCosk on Intuitions. 329 Hansel’s Reply to Mill. 350 Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind. 360 McCosh on Tyndall. 375 Speculative Dynamics. 385 Books Relating to the Theory of Evolution. 394 German Darwinism. 39S A Fragment on Cause and Effect. . . .. 406 John Stuart Mill—A Commemorative Notice.414 Index . 429 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. Chauncey Wright died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 12th of September, 1875, aged forty-five years. His name was not widely known. He had written compar¬ atively little. A few essays by him on scientific subjects had appeared in “The Mathematical Monthly,” and the “ Memoirs” and “ Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sci¬ ences”; he had contributed several articles, mostly upon phil¬ osophical topics, to the “North American Review,” and he had printed numerous briefer papers in “The Nation.” His work gave evidence not only of a mind of rare power and un¬ usual balance, but also of wide acquisitions and thorough in¬ tellectual discipline, and he had won recognition from compe¬ tent judges as a philosophical thinker of a high order, from whom much was to be expected. To collect his principal writings, and to present them in a form accessible to students was a duty to his memory, and in the interest of philosophy. Fragmentary, as of necessity such a collection must be, and but imperfectly representative of the scope of the author’s mind, the general character of his philo¬ sophical opinions and method may clearly enough be learned from it. It seemed desirable to prefix to this selection from his writ¬ ings an account of the author, not merely to gratify the nat- via CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. ural desire of his readers to know something of the man to whom they might owe the incitement of thought, but still more because the character of Chauncey Wright was no less remark¬ able than his intelligence, and was of such uncommon and ad¬ mirable quality that upon those who knew him intimately his death fell as a great misfortune, and has left a void in their lives that can never be filled. The task of preparing this account has been assigned to me as one who knew him well, especially during the last fifteen years of his life, and who had enjoyed the happiness of his close and helpful friendship. The external events of his life were not striking, and all that need be told of them can be said in a few words. Chauncey Wright was born in Northampton, in the year 1830. His father and mother were of old New England stock, with such characters and habits as were the results of a Ions: sue- cession of generations who had lived simply and seriously, transmitting from one to another the traditions of labor, fru¬ gality, domestic comfort, and intelligence. His father w-as an active man in his town, carrying on a successful country trade, and occupied with the various duties of the office of a deputy- sheriff of the county, a post which he filled for many years. Wright’s boyhood v r as fortunate in the advantages common to New England country boys at a time when the conditions which have, during the present generation, wrought so rapid and great a change in American society, had hardly begun to manifest themselves. The circumstances of his life were em¬ inently wholesome. He was an affectionate, reserved, and thoughtful boy, fond of animals and plants, observant of their habits, and in general more interested in outdoor than indoor pursuits. He did not especially distinguish himself at school, except, perhaps, in mathematics and in the writing of compo- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IX sitions, which he often preferred to write in verse rather than in prose. No strong personal influence seems to have affected the natural development of his intelligence; and, though neither solitary nor unsocial, he worked out much by himself the problems and devices of his youth, and early displayed the solid independence of his mind and character. He had a se¬ rious disposition, and even in early years he, at times, suffered from a tendency toward melancholy. He entered Harvard College in 1848. His classical attainments were slight, and he took little interest in the study either of languages or of litera¬ ture. The bent of his mind was strong toward abstract pur¬ suits, and he applied himself chiefly to mathematics and phi¬ losophy, displaying the acuteness and originality of his intel¬ ligence in his themes and other written exercises. He had a certain inertness of temperament which caused the action of his mind to appear slow and difficult. But often when he seemed least active, he was engaged in reflection, and the want of brilliancy or vivacity of power was more* than compen¬ sated for by solidity of acquisition, as well as by the assimila¬ tion of his knowledge with his thought. He learned slowly, but he knew whatever he learned. His memory was retentive, and well disciplined, so that its stores not only became abun¬ dant, but were also held in good order for service. One of the most marked features of his intellectual nattire, even at this comparatively early date, was the steadiness and consistency of its growth. There was nothing desultory in the pursuit of his aims; and, though his efforts were often intermittent, they were not dispersed. His modesty and reserve combined with the nature of his interests to prevent him from being well known by any large circle of acquaintances; but the disinterestedness of his dispo¬ sition and the amiability of his temper endeared him to a few X CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. intimate friends, while his classmates generally felt for him more than ordinary regard and respect. Soon after leaving college, in 1852, he was appointed one of the computers for the recently established “ American Ephem- eris and Nautical Almanac.” By occasional contributions to the “Mathematical Monthly” and other journals, he grad¬ ually won repute as a mathematician and physicist of distin¬ guished ability and accomplishment. In 1863 he was made Recording Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a place which he held for seven years, and which gave opportunity not only for the exercise of his sound judg¬ ment in practical questions, but for the exhibition of critical discrimination in the editing of the Academy’s “ Proceedings.” His attention gradually became more and more fixed upon the questions in metaphysics and philosophy presented in their latest form in the works of Mill, Darwin, Bain, Spencer, and others, and in 1864 he published in the “North American Review,” then under my charge, the first of a series of phil¬ osophical essays, of which the last appeared only two months before his death, and of which it is not too much to say that they form the most important contribution made in America to the discussion and investigation of the questions which now chiefly engage the attention of the students of philosophy. From the* time of his leaving college to his death, he resided, with brief intervals of absence, in Cambridge. In 1872, he spent a few months in Europe. In 1870 he delivered a course of University Lectures in Harvard College on the principles of Psychology. In 1874-75, he was instructor in Harvard College in Mathematical Physics. He lived all his life simply, frugally, and modestly. He had few wants, and he used a considerable part of his somewhat scanty means to add to the comfort of those who were dear to BIO ORA PHI C A L SHE TOIL xi him. He had what may be truly called an elevated nature, not remote from human interests, but above all selfishness or meanness. The motives by which the lives of common men are determined had little influence with him. He did not feel the spur of ambition, or the sting of vanity. No thought of personal advantage, no jealousy of others, affected his judg¬ ment or his conduct. His principles were so firmly established that his moral superiority seemed not so much the result of effort as the expression of what was natural to him. His sym¬ pathies were not stimulated by his mode of life, but they were keen, and so interpenetrated by his intelligence that in cases of need they made him one of the most helpful of men. He was, for instance, admirable as a nurse by the sick-bed, alike tender and firm; and while the touch of his hand and the modulation of his voice afforded the invalid unwonted comfort and repose, the steadiness of his judgment gave the supporting tone so often wanting in the sick-room. The same qualities brought him frequently into happy relations with children and with old people. If his imagination once felt the appeal, his adaptation of his strength to their weak¬ ness, of his multiplicity of resource to their need of enter¬ tainment, was so complete as to win for him the love of young and old. He was fond of games with children, and would devote himself to their amusement with unwearied pa¬ tience and spirit. He had great skill in sleight-of-hand, and frequently amused himself with finding out and reproducing the tricks of the most renowned jugglers. He would hardly have been suspected by a casual acquaintance to be a master in legerdemain; for his massive build and heavy proportions, and the absence of agility in his common movements, seemed to unfit him for performances of this sort. But, after seeing him display his dexterity, it was easily recognized as the out- CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. xii growth and indication of faculties already exercised in higher fields. The same fine touch and precise and delicate move¬ ment which were shown in his nursing, the same quick and ex¬ act vision which distinguished his observation as a physicist were exhibited in his feats of parlor magic. He brought his keen analytical powers to bear on the seemingly mysterious processes of jugglers or of spiritualists; he used his knowledge of mechanics in the construction of toys, and applied his mathematical genius to the invention and performance of mar¬ velous games and puzzles of cards. I dwell thus at length on what might seem a mere trivial accomplishment, not only because it affords a vivid illustration of marked personal traits, but more because it was the means by which he gave concrete and visible expression to certain mental qualities trained to rare perfection in higher fields of exertion. His temper was naturally calm, and he early attained a de¬ gree of self-discipline that enabled him to keep it under com¬ plete control. He was fond of debate and argument, and the full force of his mind was brought out through the animation of talk, more than in the solitary exercise of writing. Yet he was seldom ruffled by controversy, and never made ungenerous use of his strength, or forced his opponent to pass through the Caudine Forks of unwilling concession and acknowledgment of defeat. This control of his own temper secured that of his adversary. To argue with him was a moral no less than an intellectual discipline. The words he used of Mill apply with equal fitness to himself. “He sincerely welcomed intelligent and earnest opposition with a deference due to truth itself, and to a just regard of the diversities in men’s minds from differ¬ ences of education and natural dispositions. These diversities even appeared to him essential to the completeness of the ex- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xm animation which the evidences of truth demand. Opinions positively erroneous, if intelligent and honest, are not without their value, since the progress of truth is a succession of mis¬ takes and corrections. Truth itself, unassailed by erroneous opinion, would soon degenerate into narrowness and error. The errors incident to individuality of mind and character are means, in the attrition of discussion, of keeping the truth bright and untarnished, and even of bringing its purity to light.” It was in this spirit that Wright himself carried on the dis¬ cussions in which he engaged. He early learned that truth is a double question; and in the pursuit of truth, which was the controlling motive of his life, he disciplined himself by the study of opposing opinions. As he himself said, “ Men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians; but by their education through a more and more free and enlightened discussion, and by progress in the sciences, they are restrained more and more from going to extremes in the directions of their native biases.” And this general remark may be applied with fitness to him¬ self. For while his intellectual operations were directed by a spirit of observation and experiment, which, though training the judgment and imagination in habits of accuracy, might also have a tendency to direct the attention to exclusive views of truth, he was on the other hand in all matters of specula¬ tion, to use a phrase of Mr. Mill’s, essentially a seeker, testing every opinion, and recognizing the difficulties which adhere to them all. He exhibited that union of science and of philoso- * phy which is the highest distinction of the leading thinkers of our time, and which hereafter will be indispensable for all who may succeed in deepening the current of thought or in open¬ ing for it new channels. It was a marked quality of his genius as a thinker, that its XIV CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. springs were mainly fed from other sources than those of books. He was no wide reader; but, making himself mastet of a few comprehensive books, he gained from them, by re¬ flection upon them, much more than their mere contents. He was never a persistent and systematic student; but he was es¬ sentially a persistent and systematic thinker. During his college life he had been a judicious reader of Emerson and of Lord Bacon, but in the years of his early manhood, while he was accumulating large stores of observa¬ tion and reflection, two or three books, similar fin interest, but widely different in spirit and in method, were of special interest and importance to him,—chiefly Sir William Hamilton’s Dis¬ sertations and Lectures, and Mill’s Political Economy and his System of Logic. The repute and influence of Hamilton as a metaphysician and psychologist have undoubtedly declined since the publication, in 1865, of Mill’s Examination of his Philosophy,—a philosophy, which professed to combine in an original form the German and French developments of the earlier Scotch reaction against Locke and Hume, with the demonstrations of modern science in respect to the necessary limits of knowledge. Hamilton had, however, succeeded previously not only in re-awakening among English students a fresh interest in metaphysics, but also in exercising a strong influence upon the general current of philosophical opinion. It was his great service, and one which will always deserve recognition, whatever be the ultimate verdict upon his special doctrines, that he produced a real revival of interest in a sub¬ ject of fundamental importance which for a generation at least had ceased to receive due attention, and that he forced once more upon the consciousness of his generation the conviction * that a true Psychology is, in the words of Mr. Mill, “the in¬ dispensable scientific basis of Morals, of Politics, and of the BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xv science and art of Education,” and that upon the resolution of the difficulties of metaphysics, using the word in its proper sense, depends the assurance of the solid foundation of all knowledge. For this stimulus, and for this conviction, Wright, like many others, was indebted to his early studies of Hamil¬ ton. But he had studied Hamilton too thoroughly, and with too much clearness of mind, not to have become aware, even before Mill’s exposure of them, of some at least of the weak points and inconclusive determinations of his system. But Mill’s work was much more than a simple refutation of the errors of Hamilton. In accomplishing this, he did much to re-establish, and upon more solid foundations than before, certain principles in philosophy of which the validity had seemed to be shaken. He showed that the determination of the vexed problems of metaphysics was to be sought in a properly scientific, and not in an a priori , or spiritualist psy¬ chology. His work went far to determine the mutual depend¬ ence of mental philosophy and. of experimental science, the general recognition of which has already become effective in determining their respective courses of advance. The doctrine of experience may not yet be the dominant doctrine of the En¬ glish school of psychologists; but the fact is obvious, that the recent independent investigations of science, and the rapid and unforeseen developments of knowledge, have tended to confirm its main propositions, and to strengthen its claim to accept¬ ance. With this doctrine in psychology, the ill-named but generally well-understood doctrine of utilitarianism.in morals is closely associated, so closely indeed that one may be said to be in great measure dependent on the other. Whatever contributes to the support of either, contributes more or less directly to the support of both. It may not be correct to assert, that if either be overthrown the other must fall with it; but it is at least XVI CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. certain, that the validity of a great part of each depends on evidence common to both. The consistency among the postu¬ lates of psychology, and morals, has never been so clearly mani¬ fest, and has never received such valuable exposition, as during the last twenty years, mainly through the efforts of English in¬ vestigators and thinkers, with Mill and Darwin at their head. The effect of Mill’s doctrine upon the direction of Wright’s thought was confirmed by that of Darwin’s work on The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection. The strong moral element in the works of both writers found a warm re¬ sponse in his own nature. The entire candor, the love of truth, the disinterested search for it, the patience of investiga¬ tion, the accuracy of statement, the modesty of assertion, characteristic of both these masters, were in entire harmony with his own mental traits. The conclusions and the theories of Mill and Darwin may be disputed, may be overthrown, but their respective methods of investigation and of statement are of such excellence, and their desire for truth so sincere and im¬ personal, that their works would remain as models of scientific investigation and philosophic inquiry even though they should lose their doctrinal authority. The questions opened and partially solved by these authors were those which chiefly occupied Wright during the last ten years of his life. The rare combination in him of a genius for reflection, disciplined by long exercise, with great natural powers of observation, and with unusually wide and accurate scientific attainments, fitted him to deal with them not merely as a re¬ porter of other men’s thought, but as an original investigator, capable himself of making additions to the sum of knowledge. The position which he occupied as a philosopher is the stand¬ point common to one of the two fundamental divisions of the philosophic world; namely, that of the assumption of the uni- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . XVII versality of physical causation. It cannot be stated better than in his own words. “ The very hope of experimental philoso¬ phy,” he says, “ its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on the induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by ex¬ perimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent in¬ visible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental an¬ ticipation or metaphysical meditation. Or, as Bacon said, it is not by the ‘anticipations of the mind,’ but by the ‘interpre¬ tation of nature,’ that natural philosophy is to be constituted; and this is to presume that the order of nature is decipherable, or that causation is everywhere either manifest or hidden, but never absent.” The methods of this interpretation of nature or, in other words, of this discovery of truth, he regarded as those of all true knowledge; namely, the methods of induction from the facts of particular observation. This was his position in respect to the much-debated problem of metaphysical caus¬ ation, or the question of what are called “real connections be¬ tween phenomena as causes and effects, which are independent of our experiences, and the invariable and unconditional se¬ quences among them.” “ To those,” I cite his own words, “ who have reached the positive mode of thought, the word ‘cause’ simply signifies the phenomena, or the state of facts, which pre¬ cede the event to be explained, which make it exist, in the only sense in which it can clearly be supposed to be made to exist; namely, by affording the conditions of the rule of its occur¬ rence. But with those,” he adds, “ who have not yet attained to this clear and simple conception of cause, a vague but fa¬ miliar feeling prevails, which makes this conception seem very inadequate to express their idea of the reality of causation. XV1U CHAUNCEY WEIGHT. / Such thinkers feel that they know something more in causa¬ tion than the mere succession, however simple and invariable this may be. The real efficiency of a cause, that which makes its effect to exist absolutely, seems, at least in regard to their own volitions, to be known to them immediately.” “But,” he goes on, after an interval, “that certain mental states of which we are conscious are followed by certain external ef¬ fects which we observe is to the sceptical schools a simple fact of observation. These thinkers extend the method of the more precisely known to the interpretation of what is less precisely known, interpreting the phenomena of self-consciousness by the methods of physical science, instead of interpreting phys¬ ical phenomena by the crudities of the least perfect though most familiar of all observations, the phenomena of volition.”* It is not to be assumed, from the phrase in the preceding extract concerning those “who have reached the positive mode of thought,” that Wright classed himself with any spe¬ cific school of so-called Positivists. He used the term positive , . / as it is now commonly employed, as a general appellation to designate the whole body of thinkers who in the investigation of nature hold to the methods of induction from the facts of observation, as distinguished from the a priori school, who seek in the constitution of the mind the key to the inter¬ pretation of the external world. It xvas only in this sense that he himself was a positivist. So too with regard to his use of the word “ sceptical.” In his employment of it, it had no di¬ rect theological significance. It meant with him the temper of mind which puts no confidence in assertion unsupported by the evidence of experience; it meant the temper of question¬ ing and investigation as opposed to that of concluded opinion; * North American Review, 106, p. 286, notice of Peabody’s Positive Philosophy, January, 1868. BIO GRA PHICA L SHE TCH. xi x the temper in which the unknown remains matter of inquiry, not of dogmatism, and to which the unknowable, or that which lies plainly outside the range of human faculties, is of no con¬ cern save as matter of sentiment. To the quality of this sen¬ timent he gave great weight as a test of the worth of individ¬ ual character. His scepticism rested upon the proposition, that the highest generality, or universality, in the elements, or connections of elements, in phenomena, is the utmost reach both in the power and the desire of the scientific intellect. There was nothing aggressive in such scepticism as this, except so far as it led him to expose the fallacious arguments of the supporters of the orthodox metaphysics. The sympathetic quality of his nature showed itself in his respect for individual beliefs sincerely held. He felt, to use his own words, ‘‘that the subordinate, almost incidental value that some traditional metaphysical issues, like the ultimate nature of the connection of mind and matter, and of cause and effect, and the depend¬ ence of life on matter, have in the view of the scientific psy¬ chologist, is with difficulty comprehended by those w r ho ap¬ proach the subject from a religious point of view.” He had no liking for the iconoclasts who would destroy ancient faiths in the hearts of those who are incapable of substituting, with good effect on their lives, rational convictions in the place of senti¬ mental beliefs. He had confidence in the constant and pro¬ gressive extension of the field of knowledge; but he did not believe that the question of the origin and destiny of things would ever be included within its limits. If asked for his spec¬ ulations on these topics, that so greatly exercise the curiosity of the race, he would have been very likely to reply with the words of Newton, which were among his favorite apothegms, “Hypotheses non jingo” In the year 1870, Mr. Wright published the first of a series XX CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. of papers, of which the last appeared but a short time before his death, expository of the true nature of the doctrine of Natural Selection, of its various applications, and of its rela¬ tions to common metaphysical speculations. In the first of these articles, which had the form of a review of Mr. Wal¬ lace’s contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, Mr. Wright touches upon the application of the principles involved in the doctrine of Natural Selection to the development of the mental powers of man. The full importance of the topic did not, however, appear till the publication, more than two years ^ afterward, of his most considerable contribution to philosophy, his essay on the Evolution of Self-Consciousness, in which a natural explanation is given of the chief phenomena of human consciousness, involving the refutation of many of the main propositions of mystical metaphysics or idealism. In 1871, he published a paper on the Genesis of Species, in reply to Mr. St. George Mivart’s attack on the theory of Natural Selection. The vigor and effectiveness of his defense of the theory led to the republication of this essay in England, at Mr. Darwin’s instance, and compelled Mr. Mivart to attempt to make good his position in a communication to the “ North American Review,” the journal in which Mr. Wright’s article originally appeared. To this reply Mr. Wright rejoined in the succeed¬ ing number of the “Review,” July, 1872.* In these discussions of the problems of modern research, and other shorter papers on similar topics, published for the most part in “The Nation,” Mr. Wright showed the wide reach of his thought, his powers of keen analysis, and the large store of his acquirements. His training in the sound scientific method of investigation gave precision to his statement of the - —_____—.-• * In his recently published work, entitled “ Lessons from Nature as manifested in Mind and Matter,” Mr. Mivart reprints his reply to Mr. Wright’s criticisms, but fails ta notice Mr. Wright’s rejoinder. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXJ inductions of philosophic thought. He carried the scientific method into the region of reflection. In respect to all matters concerning which the facts necessary for the formation of opin¬ ion were not known, or had been but insufficiently observed, he held a suspended judgment. He never seemed to have a prepossession in favor of or against any opinion, concerning which the testimony of experience was doubtful, and the evi¬ dence of fact apparently inconsistent. But his thought was by no means limited to the topics which philosophy derives from the exact or the natural sciences. The main attraction of science and philosophy to him was not on the side of abstract truth, but much more on the application of truth to the life and conduct of man. The questions of morality, of politics, of jurisprudence, of education, in the light thrown on them by psychology and by experience, were those which in his later years were continually assuming an increasing share of his attention. And in his treatment of these questions he displayed the most eminent trait of his genius, and the highest result of the discipline of his philosophic powers,—I mean a good practical judgment, or the quality of wisdom. Chauncey Wright was in the true sense a wise man. I do not assert, that, in the ordering of his own life, he was always guided by the considerations of wisdom. In some important respects his self-control was greatly deficient in steadiness. Few, indeed, of .the wisest men have succeeded in conforming their lives in all respects to their principles. Wisdom more frequently manifests itself in objective relations, than in the complete mastery of personal dispositions, and a consistently judicious regulation of conduct. And, in all matters in which the interests of others were involved, Mr. Wright’s judgment was one of the most trustworthy. His sympathetic nature gave him the power to enter into moods of character and conditions of feeling widely XXII CHAUNCEY WRIGHT. diverse from his own, while his judgment in each particular in¬ stance was the result of inductions of large experience and careful reflection. Instant as the expression of his opinions might be, there was nothing of haste in their formation. Emo¬ tion, sentiment, opinion, all rested with him on a rational foun¬ dation. I should give a false image, if, in thus speaking, I were to convey the impression of anything dry or formally deliberate in his intercourse with others. He was, especially in his later years, always ready and fluent in talk, easily ani¬ mated, accessible to the ideas of others, neither preoccupied with his own reflections to the exclusion of external sugges¬ tions, nor using the predominant weight of his own intelligence to crush the slighter fabric of the thought of his companions. He had the modesty of the philosopher in happy combination with his just self-confidence, and the vigor of his moral senti¬ ment was as evident in the manner as in the substance of his discourse. I have referred to his tendency in early life to mel¬ ancholy. He was never wholly free from occasional periods in which some defect of physical organization or constitution showed itself in uncontrollable mental depression. But he was for the most part cheerful, and often gay. He was an easy and equable companion, and the lighter regions of life and thought were as open and accessible to him, as the grave solitudes in which he habitually dwelt. Those who knew him best will most clearly discern the fact that his published writings, able as they are, and deserving of the respect due to high qualities of thought, fall short of being a satisfactory expression, even of the purely intellectual part of his nature. The action of his mind in composition was labo¬ rious, and his style was often too compact of thought, and not sufficiently relieved by the lighter graces of expression. His writings and his oral lectures sometimes required closer atten- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxiii tion on the part of readers or hearers than it would have been well to demand of them. His thought, indeed, was never obscure; but it was too condensed, and at times too profound to be readily followed. His own ability misled him, and he did not always estimate aright the average incapacity of un¬ trained intelligence to follow a process of exact reasoning. But nothing of this defect was to be found in his conversation,which was constantly lighted up by the pleasant play of a suggestive humor, that often added a happy and unexpected stroke where¬ with to clinch the point of argument. In talk, the readiness of his intelligence was not less remarkable than its force ; and the abundance and variety of his resources not less surprising than their accuracy. Whatever he knew was at his command, and his knowledge extended over many fields with which he might not have been supposed to be familiar. One could hardly turn to him with a question on any topic, however remote from his ordinary studies, without receiving from him an answer that seemed as if he already had devoted special attention to the subject now for the first time presented. The method of his thought was so excellent that new topics fell naturally into their right positions, and received immediate illustration from previous acquisitions, made originally without reference to any such application. With such capacities as his, and with such training as he had given them, the growth of his mind was con¬ stant. There was no period to his progress, and what he had done seemed but the beginning and assurance of the greater things of which he was capable. His sudden death in the full¬ ness of power was a loss to be mourned by all who have at heart the interests of philosophy; that is, by all to whom the highest interests of man are of concern. PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE* In 1811 Sir William Herschel communicated to the Royal Society a paper in which he gave an exposition of his famous hypothesis of the transformation of nebulae into stars. “ As¬ suming a self-luminous substance of a highly attenuated nature to be distributed through the celestial regions, he endeavored to show that, by the mutual attraction of its constituent parts, it would have a tendency to form itself into distinct aggrega¬ tions of nebulous matter, which in each case would gradually condense from the continued action of the attractive forces, until the resulting mass finally acquired the consistency of a solid body, and became a star. In those instances wherein the collection of nebulous matter was very extensive, subordinate centres of attraction could not fail to be established, around which the adjacent particles would arrange themselves; and thus the whole mass would in process of time be transformed into a determinate number of discrete bodies, which would ultimatelv assume the condition of a cluster of stars. Her- * schel pointed out various circumstances which appeared to him to afford just grounds for believing that such a nebulous sub¬ stance existed independently in space. He maintained that the phenomena of nebulous stars, and the changes observable in the great nebula of Orion, could not be satisfactorily ac¬ counted for by any other hypothesis. Admitting, then, the existence of a nebulous substance, he concluded, from indica¬ tions of milky nebulosity which he encountered in the course of his observations, that it was distributed in great abundance throughout the celestial regions. The vast collections of neb- * From the North American Review, July, 186a. 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. ulae which he had observed, of every variety of structure and m every stage of condensation, were employed by him with admirable address in illustrating the modus operandi of his hypothesis. ” * Laplace, in his Syste?ne du Monde , applied this hypothesis, by an ingenious but simple use of mechanical principles, to the explanation of the origin of the planetary bodies, and of the general features of their movements in the solar system. Supposing the original nebulous mass to receive a rotatory motion by its aggregation, he showed that this motion would be quickened by a further contraction of the mass, until the centrifugal force of its equatorial regions, would be sufficient to balance their gravitation, and to suspend them in the form of a vaporous ring. Again, supposing this revolving ring to be broken, and finally collected by a further aggregation into a spherical nebulous mass, he showed, in the same way, how the body of a planet, with its system of satellites, might be formed. The material and the original motions of the planets and their satellites could thus, he supposed, be successively produced, as the nebula gradually contracted to the dimensions of the sun. No scientific theory has received a fairer treatment than the nebular hypothesis. Arising as it did as a speculative conclu¬ sion from one of the grandest inductions in the whole range of physical inquiry,—connecting as it does so many facts, though vaguely and inconclusively, into one system,—it pos¬ sesses, what is rare in so bold and heterodox a view, a veri¬ similitude quite disproportionate to the real evidence which can be adduced in its support. The difficulties which ordina¬ rily attend the reception of new ideas, were in this case removed beforehand. The hypothesis violated no habitual association of ideas, at least among those who were at all competent to comprehend its import. Though resting on a much feebler support of direct evidence than the astronomical theories of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, it met with a cordial recep¬ tion from its apparent accordance with certain preconceptions, of the same kind as those, which, though extrinsic and irrele- * Grant’s History of Physical Astronomy. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 3 vant to scientific inquiry, were able to oppose themselves suc¬ cessfully for a long time to the ascertained truths of modern astronomy. The test of conceivableness, the receptivity of the imagina¬ tion, is a condition, if not of truth itself, at least of belief in the truth; and in this respect the nebular hypothesis was well founded. It belonged to that class of theories of which it is sometimes said, “that, if they are not true, they deserve to be true.” A place was already prepared for it in the imaginations and the speculative interests of the scientific world. We propose to review briefly some of the conditions which have given so great a plausibility to this hypothesis. In the first place, on purely speculative grounds, this hypothesis, as a cosmological theory, happily combines the excellences of the two principal doctrines on the origin of the world that were held by the ancients, and which modern theorists have discussed as views which, though neither can be established scientifically, have no less interest from a theological point of view—namely, first, the materialistic doctrine, that the world, though finite in the duration of its orderly successions and changes, is infinite in the duration of its material substance; and, secondly, the spiritualistic doctrine, that matter and form are equally the effects, finite in duration, of a spiritual and eternal cause. At first sight the nebular hypothesis seems to agree most nearly with the materialistic cosmology, as taught by the greater number of the ancient philosophers; but the resem¬ blance is only superficial, and, though the hypothesis possesses those qualities by which the ancient doctrine was suited to the limitations and requirements of the poetical imagination, yet it does not involve that element of fortuitous causation which gave to the ancient doctrine its atheistic character. In the nebular hypothesis the act of creation, though reduced to its simplest form, is still essentially the same as that which a spir¬ itualistic cosmology requires. The first created matter filling the universe is devoid only of outward and developed forms, but contains created within it the forces which shall determine every change and circumstance of its subsequent history. 4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. The hypothesis being thus at once simple and theistic appeals to imagination and feeling as one which at least ought to be true. Such considerations as these doubtless determined the fate of another ancient cosmological doctrine, which, though adopted by Aristotle, was regarded with little favor by an¬ cient philosophers generally. For there could be but little support, either from poetry or religion, to the doctrine which denied creation, and held that the order of nature is not, in its cosmical relations, a progression toward an end, or a develop¬ ment, but is rather an endless succession of changes, simple and constant in their elements, though infinite in their combi¬ nations, which constitute an order without beginning and with¬ out termination. While this latter doctrine was not necessarily materialistic, like that which has been so termed, and which was more gen¬ erally received among the ancients, and though it has the greater scientific simplicity, yet it fails on a point of prime im¬ portance, so far as its general acceptance is concerned, in that it ignores the main interest which commonly attaches to the problem. Cosmological speculations are, indeed, properly con¬ cerned with the mode or order of the creation, and not with the fact of the creation itself. But that the first cosmogonies were written in verse shows the almost dramatic interest which their themes inspired. “In the beginning” has never ceased to charm the imagination; and these are almost the only words in our own sacred cosmogony to which the modern geologist has not been compelled to give some ingenious inter¬ pretation. That there was a beginning of the order of natural events and successions may be said to be the almost universal faith of Christendom. The nebular hypothesis, conforming to this preconception and to the greatest poetic simplicity, passed the ordeal of un¬ scientific criticism with remarkable success. Not less was its success under a general scientific review. A large number of facts and relations, otherwise unaccounted for, become expli¬ cable as at least very probable consequences of its assumptions; and these assumptions were not, at first, without that indepen- A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 5 dent probability which a true scientific theory requires. The existence of the so-called nebulous matter was rendered very probable by the earlier revelations of the telescope; and, though subsequent researches in stellar astronomy have rather dimin¬ ished than increased the antecedent probability of the theory, by successively resolving the nebulae into clusters of star-like con¬ stituents,—suggesting that all nebulosity may arise from defi¬ ciency in the optical powers of the astronomer rather than in¬ here in the constitution of the nebulae themselves,—and thereby invalidating the scientific completeness of the theory, yet the plausible explanations which it still affords of the constitution of the solar system have saved it from condemnation with a considerable number of ingenious thinkers. With astrono¬ mers generally, however, it has gradually fallen in esteem. It retains too much of its original character of a happy guess, and has received too little confirmation of a precise and definite kind, to entitle it to rank highly as a physical theory. But there are two principal grounds on which it will doubt¬ less retain its claim to credibility, till its place is supplied, if this ever happens, by some more satisfactory account of cos- mical phenomena. To one of these grounds we have just alluded. The details of the constitution of the solar system present, as we have said, many features which suggest a phys¬ ical origin, directing inquiry as to how they were produced, rather than as to why they exist,—an inquiry into physical, rather than final causes; features of the same mixed character of regularity and apparent accident which are seen in the details of geological or biological phenomena; features not sufficiently regular to indicate a simple primary law, either physical or teleological, nor yet sufficiently irregular to show an absence of law and relation in their production. The approximation of the orbits of the planets to a common plane, the common direction of their motions around the sun, the approximation of the planes and the directions of their rotations to the planes of their orbits and the directions of their revolutions, the approximatively regular distribution of their distances from the sun, the relations of their satellites to the general features of the primary system,—these are some 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of the facts requiring explanations of the kind which a geolo¬ gist or a naturalist would give of the distribution of minerals, or stratifications in the crust of the earth, or of the distribution of plants and animals upon its surface,—phenomena indicating complex antecedent conditions, in which the evidence of law is more or less distinct. The absence of that perfection in the solar system, of that unblemished completeness,'which the ancient astronomy assumed and taught, and the presence, at the same time, of an apparently imperfect regularity, compel us to re¬ gard the constitution of the solar system as a secondary and derived product of complicated operations, instead of an archetypal and pure creation. Such is one of the grounds on.which the nebular hypothesis rests. The other is of a more general character. The ante¬ cedent probability which the theory lacks, from its inability to prove by independent evidence the fundamental assumption of a nebulous matter, is partially supplied by a still more gen¬ eral hypothesis, to which this theory may be regarded as in some sort a corollary. We refer to the “development hypoth¬ esis,” or “theory of evolution,”—a generalization from cer¬ tain biological phenomena, which has latterly attracted great attention from speculative naturalists. This hypothesis has been less fortunate in its history than that of the astronomical one. Inveterate prejudices, insoluble associations of ideas, a want of preparation in the habits of the imagination, were the unscientific obstacles to a general and ready acceptance of this hypothesis at its first promulgation. Though in one of its applications it is identical with the nebular hypothesis, yet, in more direct application to the phenomena of the gen¬ eral life on the earth’s surface, it appears so improbable, that it has hitherto failed to gain the favor which the nebular hy¬ pothesis enjoys. Nevertheless, as a general conception, and independently of its specific use in scientific theories, it has much to recommend it to the speculative mind. It is, as it were, an abstract statement of the order which the intellect expects to find in the phenomena of nature. “Evolution,” or the progress “ from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and from the simple to the complex,” is the order of the prog- A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 7 ress of knowledge itself, and is, therefore, naturally enough, sought for as the order in time of all natural phenomena. The specific natural phenomena in which the law of “evolution” is determined by observation as a real and established law, are the phenomena of the growth of the individual organism, ani¬ mal or plant. As a law of psychological phenomena, and even of certain elements of social and historical phenomena, it is also well established. Its extension to the phenomena of the life of the races of organized beings, and to the successions of life on the surface of the earth, is still a speculative conclusion, with about the same degree of scientific probability that the nebular hypothesis possesses. And lastly, in the form of the nebular hypothesis itself, it is extended so as to include the whole series of the phenomena of the universe, and is thus in generality, if accepted as a law of nature, superior to any other generalization in the history of philosophy. As included in this grander generalization, the nebular hy¬ pothesis receives a very important accession of probability, provided that this generalization can be regarded as otherwise well founded. As a part of the induction by which this gen¬ eralization must be established, if it be capable of proof, the nebular hypothesis acquires a new and important interest. We are far from being convinced, however, that further in¬ quiry will succeed in establishing so interesting a conclusion. We strongly suspect that the law of “evolution” will fail to appear in phenomena not connected, either directly or re¬ motely, with the life of the individual organism, of the growth of which this law is an abstract description. And, heterodox though the opinion be, we are inclined to accept as the sound¬ est and most catholic assumption, on grounds of scientific method, the too little regarded doctrine of Aristotle, which banishes cosmology from the realm of scientific inquiry, re¬ ducing natural phenomena in their cosmical relations to an infinite variety of manifestations (without a discoverable tend¬ ency on the whole) of causes and laws which are simple and constant in their ultimate elements.* * The laws or archetypes of nature are properly the laws of invariable or unconditional sequence in natural operations. And it is only with the objective relations of these laws, 8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. In rejecting the essential doctrine of “the theory of evolu¬ tion” or “the development hypothesis,” we must reserve an important conclusion implied in the doctrine, which we think is its strongest point. There are several large classes of facts, apparently ultimate and unaccountable, which still bear the marks of being the consequences of the operations of so-called secondary causes,—in other words, have the same general character as phenomena which are known to be the results of mixed and conflicting causes, or exhibit at the same time evidence of law and appearance of accident. That such facts should be regarded as evidence of natural operations still un¬ known, and perhaps unsuspected, is, we think, a legitimate conclusion, and one which is presupposed in “the theory of evolution,” and in the nebular hypothesis, but does not ne¬ cessitate the characteristic assumptions of these speculations. An extension of the sphere of secondary causes, even to the explanation of all the forms of the universe as it now exists, or of all the forms which we may conceive ever to have existed, is a very different thing from adopting the cosmological doc¬ trine of the “development theory.” Naturalists who have recently become convinced of the necessity of extending nat¬ ural explanations to facts in biology hitherto regarded as ulti¬ mate and inexplicable, but who are unwilling to adopt the cosmological view implied in the “development theory,” have adopted a new name to designate their views. “The deriva¬ tive theory,” or “derivative hypothesis,” implies only con¬ tinuity, not growth or progress, in the succession of races on the surface of the earth. Progress may have been made, as a matter of fact, and the evidence of it may be very conclusive in the geological record; but the fact may still be of secondary importance in the cosmological relations of the phenomena, and the theory ought not, therefore, to give the fact too prom¬ inent a place in its nomenclature. as constituting the order of nature, that natural science is concerned. Their subjective relations, origin, and essential being belong to the province of transcendental meta¬ physics, and to a philosophy of faith. According to this division, there can never arise any conflict between science and faith; for what the one is competent to dec'are, the other is incompetent to dispute. Science should be free to determine what the order of nature is, and faith equally free to declare the essential nature of causation or creation. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 9 That the constitution of the solar system is not archetypal, as the ancients supposed, but the same corrupt mixture of law and apparent accident that the phenomena of the earth’s sur¬ face exhibit, is evidence enough that this system is a natural product;* and the nebular hypothesis, so far as it is concerned with the explanation simply of the production of this system, and independently of its cosmological import, may be regarded as a legitimate theory, even on the ground we have assumed, though on this ground the most probable hypothesis would assimilate the causes which produced the solar system more nearly to the character of ordinary natural operations than the nebular hypothesis does. With a view to such assimilation, and in opposition to “the theory of evolution” as a general¬ ization from the phenomena of growth, we will now propose another generalization, which we cannot but regard as better founded in the laws of nature. We may call it the principle of counter-movements ,—a principle in accordance with which there is no action in nature to which there is not some counter¬ action, and no production in nature from which in infinite ages there can result an infinite product. In biological phenomena this principle is familiarly illustrated by the counter-play of the forces of life and death, of nutrition and waste, of growth and degeneration, and of similar opposite effects. In geology the movements of the materials of the earth’s crust through the counteractions of the forces by which the strata are elevated * This argument for physical causes is apparently the reverse of that which Laplace derived from the regularities of the solar system and the theory of probabilities; but in reality the objects of the two arguments are distinct. For the legitimate conclusion from Laplace’s computation is, not that the solar system is simply a physical product, but that the causes of its production could not have been irregular. The result of this computation was a probability of two hundred thousand billions to one that the regular¬ ities of the solar system are not the effects of chance or irregular causes. The gist of this argument is to prove simplicity in the antecedents of the solar sys¬ tem; and, had the proportion been still greater, or infinity to one, the argument might have proved a primitive or archetypal character in the movements of this system. It is therefore in the limitations, and not in the magnitude, of this proportion, that there is any tendency to show physical antecedence. Hence it is not from the regularities of the solar system, but from its complexity, that its physical origin is justly inferred. Regarding the law of catisation as universal, since, if not implied in the very search for causes, it is at least the broadest and the best established induction from natural phenomena, we conclude that the appearance of accident among the manifestations of law is proof of the existence of complex antecedent conditions and of physical causa¬ tion, and that the absence of this appearance is proof of simple and primitive law. 10 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. and denuded, depressed and deposited, ground to mud or hardened to rock, are all of the compensative sort; and the movements of the gaseous and liquid oceans which surround the earth manifest still more markedly the principle of counter¬ movements in the familiar phenomena of the weather. Of what we may call cosmical weather, in the interstellar spaces, little is known. Of the general cosmical effects of the opposing actions of heat and gravitation, the great dispersive and concentrative principles of the universe, we can at present only form vague conjectures; but that these two principles are the agents of vast counter-movements in the formation and destruction of systems of worlds, always operative in never- ending cycles and in infinite time, seems to us to be by far the most rational supposition which we can form concerning the matter. And indeed, in one form or another, the agencies of heat and gravitation must furnish the explanations of the circumstances and the peculiarities of solar and sidereal sys¬ tems. These are the agents which the nebular hypothesis supposes; but by this hypothesis they are supposed to act under conditions opposed to that general analogy of natural operations expressed by the law of counter-movements. Their relative actions are regarded as directed, under certain condi¬ tions, toward a certain definite result; and this being attained, their formative agency is supposed to cease, the system to be finished, and the creation, though a continuous process, to be a limited one. It should be noticed, however, in favor of the nebular hypothesis, that its assumptions are made, not arbitrarily, in opposition to the general analogy of natural operations, but because they furnish at once and very simply certain mechan¬ ical conditions from .which systems analogous to the solar system may be shown to be derivable. The dispersive agency of heat is supposed to furnish the primordial conditions, upon which, as the heat is gradually lost from the clouds of nebulous matter, the agency of gravitation produces the condensations, the motions, and the disruptions of the masses which subse¬ quently become suns and planets and satellites. And - if the mechanical conditions assumed in this hypothesis could be A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNI VERSE. 1 1 shown to be the only ones by which similar effects could be produced, the hypothesis would, without doubt, acquire a degree of probability amounting almost to certainty, even in spite of the absence of independent proof that matter has ever existed in the nebulous form. But the mechanical conditions of the problem have never been determined in this exhaustive manner, nor are the con¬ ditions assumed in the nebular hypothesis able to determine any other than the general circumstances of the solar system, such as it is supposed to have in common with similar systems among the stars. A more detailed deduction would probably require as many separate, arbitrary, and additional hypotheses as there are special circumstances to be accounted for. Until, therefore, it can be shown that the nebular hypothesis is the only one wfliich can account mechanically for the agency of heat and gravitation in the formation of special systems of worlds, like the solar system, its special cosmological and me¬ chanical features ought to be regarded with suspicions, as opposed to the general analogy of natural operations. We propose to criticise this hypothesis more in detail, and to indicate briefly the direction in which we believe a better solution of the problem of the construction of the solar system will be found. But before proceeding, we must notice an able Essay, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the first in his Second Series of “Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative.” In this essay on the “Nebular Hypothesis,” and in the fol¬ lowing one on “Illogical Geology,” Mr. Spencer has attempted the beginning of that inductive proof of the general theory of “evolution” to which we have referred. Undoubtedly the clearest and the ablest of the champions and expounders of this theory, he brings to its illustration and defense an extraordi¬ nary sagacity, and an aptitude for dealing with scientific facts at second hand, and in their broad general relations, such as few discoverers and adepts in natural science have ever exhib¬ ited. For dealing with facts which are matters of common observation, his powers are those of true genius. In the essays following those with which we are immediately interested, and particularly in the essay on “The Physiology of Laughter,” 12 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. and in the review of Mr. Bain’s work on “ The Emotions and the Will,” he displays the true scope of his genius. In psy¬ chology, and in the physiology of familiar facts, we regard his contributions to philosophy as of real and lasting value. He is deficient, however, in that technical knowledge which is neces sary to a correct apprehension of the obscure facts of science; and his generalizations upon them do not impress us as so well founded as they are ingenious. In his resume of the facts favorable to the nebular hypoth¬ esis, he has committed sundry errors of minor importance, which do not in themselves materially affect the credibility of the hypothesis, but illustrate the extremely loose and un¬ certain character of the general arguments in its support. A singular use is made of a table, compiled by Arago, of the inclinations of the planes of the orbits of the comets. The legitimate inference from this table is, that there is a well- marked accumulation of the planes of these orbits at small inclinations to the plane of the ecliptic. In considering the directions of the poles of these planes, we ought to find them equally distributed to all parts of the heavens, in case the orbits of the comets bear no relation to those of the planets or to each other. Instead of this, we find a marked concen¬ tration of these poles about the pole of the ecliptic, showing that their planes tend decidedly to coincide with the ecliptic. But Mr. Spencer has drawn from this table a conclusion directly the reverse of this. Assuming, as we cannot but believe on insufficient evidence, that the directions of the major axes of the orbits of those comets whose planes are greatly inclined to the ecliptic have nearly as great an inclina¬ tion as they can have, or that they are nearly as much inclined to the ecliptic as the planes of the orbits themselves, he regards the table of the inclinations of the planes of the orbits as indi¬ cating, at least for such comets, the directions of their axes. and draws thence the conclusion, that there is a well-marked concentration about the pole of the directions of the axes of the cometary orbits, and hence, that the regions in which the aphelia of comets are most numerous are above and below the sun, in directions nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. This A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UHL VERSE. 13 conclusion, though the reverse of that which is legitimately drawn from Arago’s table, is not inconsistent with it; and if Mr. Spencer were correct in his assumption concerning the directions of the axes of highly inclined orbits, the table would show that there are really two well-distinguished systems of comets, the one belonging to the general planetary system, and the other, Mr. Spencer’s, forming a system by itself,—an axial one, at right angles with the general system. But either conclusion serves the purpose of the discussion equally well. For what Mr. Spencer wished to show was, that the relations of the comets to the solar system are not utterly fortuitous and irregular, but such as indicate a systematic con¬ nection; and this is undoubtedly true, since the connection of the planetary and cometary orbits is even more direct and inti¬ mate than Mr. Spencer has suspected. The inference which Arago’s table warrants is, then, another in that interesting series of facts which some physical theory, whether nebular or not, by “evolution” or by involution, may some day ex¬ plain. The greater number of the arguments, old and new, which Mr. Spencer adduces in support of his thesis, do not apply specifically to the nebular hypothesis in particular, but are simply an enumeration of the facts which go to show the ex¬ istence of physical connections, of an unknown origin and species, in the solar system. In his handling of the me¬ chanical problems of the nebular genesis, Mr. Spencer has succeeded no better than his predecessors. In attempting to account for the exceptions to a general law which the rota¬ tions of the outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, and the revo¬ lutions of their satellites, exhibit,—the great inclinations of the planes of these rotations and revolutions to the planes of the orbits of the primaries,—Mr. Spencer makes what appears to us a very erroneous assumption, and one from which the conclusion he wishes to draw by no means inevi¬ tably follows. It is one of the few successes of the nebular hypothesis, that it accounts in a general way for the fact that the planes and directions of the rotations of the planets, and the revolutions 14 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of their satellites, nearly coincide with the planes and direc¬ tions of their own orbital motions. A ring of nebulous matter, detached by its centrifugal force from the revolving mass of the nebula, contains within it the conditions by which the direction, and even the amount, of the rotation of the result¬ ing planet is determined; and this direction is the same as that of the revolution of the ring. The ring must originally be of a very thin, quoit-shaped form, even if it be composed of separate, independently moving parts; otherwise the planes * of the orbits of the several parts would not pass through or near to the centre of attraction in the central nebula, and the parts must either pass through each other from one to the other surface of the ring, which would tend, along with other forces, to flatten it to the requisite thinness. Hence, a hoop¬ shaped fluid ring, or one thinner in the directions of its radii than in a direction perpendicular to its general plane, could not exist. Much less could such a ring be detached by its self-sustaining centrifugal force from the body of the nebula. The nebula must necessarily be flattened in its equatorial regions to a sharp, thin edge by the centrifugal force of its revolution, before those regions' could be separated to form a ring. The supposition, therefore, which Mr. Spencer’s inge¬ nuity has devised to account for the anomalies presented in the rotations and the secondary systems of Uranus and Nep¬ tune,—a hoop-shaped ring, with a less determinate tendency to rotation in forming a planet,—is untenable. But this is not all. Supposing such a form possible, and even if the parts of the ring did not move among themselves, or press upon one another so as to flatten the ring, yet the direction of its tendency to rotation in contracting to a planet is just as deter¬ minate as in the quoit-shaped ring. We have gone thus into detail, to show the vague and uncertain character of the mechanical arguments of the neb¬ ular hypothesis when they deal with details in the constitution of the solar system. In his treatment of recent discoveries and views in stellar astronomy, we think Mr. Spencer more fortunate. We agree with him in believing the current opin¬ ion to be an error, which represents the nebulae as isolated A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. *5 sidereal systems, inconceivably remote, and with magnitudes commensurate with the Galactic system itself. There are many reasons for believing that the nebuloe belong to this system, and that they are, in general, at no greater distance from us than the stars themselves. We think, also, with him, that the actual magnitudes of the stars are probably of all degrees, and that their apparent magnitudes do not generally indicate their relative distances from us. We would even go further, and maintain, as both a priori most probable, and most in accordance with observation, that the free bodies of the uni¬ verse range in size from a grain of dust to masses many times larger than the sun, and that the number of bodies of any magnitude is likely to bear some simple proportion to the smallness of this magnitude itself. Star-dust is not at all distasteful to us, except in the form of nebular boluses. For reasons which will appear hereafter, the smaller bodies are not likely to be self-luminous; and star-dust is probably the cause of more obscuration than light in the stellar universe. That gaseous and liquid masses also exist with all degrees of rarefaction or density, dependent on the actions of heat and gravitation, is also, we think, very probable; and the three states of aggregation in matter doubtless play important parts in the cosmical economy. Before leaving Mr. Spencer, to attend more immediately to the merits of the nebular hypothesis, we wish to adopt from him an estimate of the value of certain ideas in geology, the bearing of which on our subject is not so remote as it may at first sight appear to be. Geology has not yet so far detached itself from cosmological speculations as to be entitled to the rank of a strictly positive science. The influence of such speculations upon its termi¬ nology, and upon the forms of the questions and the directions of the researches of its cultivators, is still very noticeable, and shows how difficult it is to start anew in the prosecution of physical inquiries, or completely to discard unfounded opin¬ ions which have for a long time prevailed. Greater sagacity is sometimes required to frame wise questions, than to find their answers. Geologists still continue to collate remote strati- i6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. fications as to their stratigraphical order, mineral composition, and fossil remains, as if these were still expected to disclose a comparatively simple history—simple at least in its outlines —of the changes which the life of our globe has undergone. A story, dramatically complete from prologue to epilogue, was demanded in the cosmological childhood of the science, and its manhood still searches in the fragmentary and mutilated records for the history of the creation. But doubtless the story is as deficient in the dramatic unities, as the record itself is in continuity or completeness. Referring to Mr. Spencer’s admirable essay on “Illogical Geology” for our reasons, we will simply state our belief that nothing in the form of a complete or connected history will ever be deciphered from the geological record. “ Only the last chapter of the earth’s history has come down to us. The many previous chapters, stretching back to a time immeasurably remote, have been burnt, and with them all the records of life we may presume they contained. The greater part of the evidence which might have served to settle the development controversy is forever lost; and on neither side can the arguments derived from geology be conclusive.” We must not ascribe to Mr. Spencer, however, our opinion, that, even if this record were more complete, we should not necessarily be the wiser for it. According to Mr. Spencer’s views, the first strata, had they been preserved, would have contained the remains of protozoa and protophytes; but, for aught we dare guess, they might have contained the footprints of archangels. Evidence of progress in life through any ever so consider¬ able portion of the earth’s stratified materials would not, in our opinion, warrant us in drawing universal cosmical con¬ clusions therefrom. Alternations of progress and regress rela¬ tively to any standard of ends or excellence which we might apply, is to us the most probable hypothesis that the general analogy of natural operations warrants. Nevertheless, as we have already intimated, we accept the purely physical portion of the “ development hypothesis,” both in its astronomical and biological applications, but would much prefer to designate the doctrine in both its applications by the name we have already quoted. This name, “the derivative hypothesis,” simply con- A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. *7 notes the fact that, in several classes of phenomena hitherto regarded as ultimate and inexplicable, physical explanations are probable and legitimate. But it makes no claim to rank with the names of the Muses as a revealer of the cosmical order and the beginning of things. We are aware that in thus summarily rejecting the cosmo¬ logical import of the nebular hypothesis, along with its special physical assumptions, and retaining only its fundamental as¬ sumption, that the solar system is a natural product, we leave no provision to meet a demand which we allow, and we ought to justify this insolvency by proving the bankruptcy of the hypothesis whose debts we thus assume. It would be difficult, however, to prove that this hypothesis cannot fulfill the promise it has so long held out. Much more difficult would it be to supply its place with an equally plausible theory. But our ob¬ ject should not be to satisfy the imagination with plausibility. If we succeed in satisfying our understanding with the outlines of a theory sufficiently probable, we shall have done all that in the present state of our knowledge can reasonably be de¬ manded. The agencies of heat and gravitation acting, however slowly, through the ages of limitless time, and according to the law of counter-movements, or according to the analogy of the weather, constitute the means and the general mode of operation from which we anticipate an explanation of the general consti¬ tutions of solar and sidereal systems. There comes to our aid a remarkable series of speculations and experiments recently promulgated upon the general sub¬ ject of the nature and origin of heat, and under the general name of “The Dynamical Theory of Heat,” the principles of which we shall endeavor briefly to explain. It is a funda¬ mental theorem in mechanical philosophy, that no motion can be destroyed, except by the production of other equivalent mo¬ tions, or by an equivalent change in the antecedent conditions of motion. If we launch a projectile upward, the motion which we impart to it is not a new creation, but is derived from forces or antecedent conditions of motion of a very com¬ plicated character in our muscular organism. It would be PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. t8 confusing to consider these at the outset; but if we look simply to the motion thus produced in the projectile itself, we shall gain the best preliminary notions as to the character of the phenomena of motion in general. The projectile rises to a certain height and comes to rest, and then, unless caught upon some elevated support, like the roof of a house, it returns to the ground with constantly accelerated motion, till it is sud¬ denly brought to rest by collision with the earth. In this series of phenomena we have in reality only a series of com¬ mutations of motions and conditions of motion. The project¬ ile is brought to rest at its greatest elevation by two forms of commutation. A small part of its motion is given to the air, and the remainder is transformed into the new condition of motion represented by its elevated position. The latter may remain for a long time permanent in case the projectile is caught at its greatest elevation upon some support. But a small auxiliary movement dislodging the projectile may at any time develop this condition of motion into a movement nearly equal to that which the projectile first received from our mus¬ cles. The small part that is lost in the air or other obstacles still exists, either in some form of motion or in some new con¬ ditions of motion, and the much greater part which disap¬ pears in the collision of the projectile with the earth is con¬ verted into several kinds of vibratory molecular movements in the earth, in the air, and in the projectile itself; and per¬ haps in part also in various new molecular conditions of mo¬ tion. If we designate by the word “power” that in which all form? of motion or antecedent conditions of motion are equivalent, we find that in the operations of'nature no “power” is ever lost. Nor is there any evidence that any new “power” is ever created. It would be foreign to our purpose to follow into their ramifications the speculations by which this interest¬ ing theorem has been illustrated in many branches of physical inquiry. We are immediately interested only in the three principal and most general manifestations of “power” in the universe, namely, the movements of bodies, the movements in bodies, and the general antecedent conditions of both. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. I 9 The proposition that the principal molecular motions in bodies are the cause which produces in our nerves'the sensa¬ tions of heat, or that they are what we denominate “ the sub¬ stance of heat,”—the objective cause of these sensations,— has long been held as a very probable hypothesis; and has latterly received experimental confirmations amounting to complete proof. The three principal manifestations of “power” in the universe are then, more specifically, the mass¬ ive motions of bodies in translation and rotation, their molecu¬ lar motions, or heat ; and the principal antecedent condition of both, or gravitation. In comparing these as to their equivalence we obtain a sum of “power,” which remains invariable and indestructible by the operations of nature. It remains to determine the precise relations of their equivalence, and what the operations are by which they are converted into each other. The mechanical equivalent of heat is a quantity which has been very accurately determined by experiment. By means of it we may very readily compute what amount of heat would be produced if a given amount of massive motion were con¬ verted into heat by friction or otherwise; or conversely, what amount of massive motion could be produced by the conver¬ sion of a given amount of heat into mechanical effect; but it is unnecessary to our purpose to give the precise method of this computation. The mechanical equivalent of gravitation is another quantity or relation depending on the changes of what is called the “potential” of gravitation, or the sum of the ratios of the masses to the distances apart of the gravitating bodies. The “power” of motion is a relation or quantity, commonly called the “living force ” of motion, and depends on the mass and on the square of the velocity of the moving body. The living forces of all moving bodies, minus the potentials of their forces of gravitation, plus the mechanical values of their heat, equal to a constant quantity,—is the precise formula to which our cosmical speculations should conform. It will be impossible, however, to make any other than a very general use of this precise law. What concerns us more 2 o PHIL OSOPHICA L DISC US SI O NS. nearly is the consideration of the natural operations by which these manifestations of “ power ” are converted into each other. The origin of the sun’s light and heat is a problem up<3n which speculative ingenuity has long been expended in vain. The metaphysical conclusion, that the sun is composed of pure fire, or of fire per se, the very essence of fire, is one of many illustrations of the ingenious way in which speculation covers its nakedness with words, and can really mean, we imagine, only that the sun is very hot. That the sun, like any other body, must grow cooler by the expenditure of heat, is without doubt an indisputable proposition; and the question, how this heat is restored to it, is thus a legitimate one. The nebular hypothesis explains how the primitive heat in the sun and in other bodies could be generated by the condensation of the original nebulous mass, in which the heat is supposed to have been originally diffused; but it affords no explanation of the manner in which this heat could be sustained through the ages that must have elapsed since the nebular genesis must have been completed. There are no precise means of estimating the amount of heat contained in the sun, since the capacity for heat of the materials which compose it.are unknown; but from general analogy it may safely be assumed that the sun must grow cooler at a sensible rate, unless its heat is in some way re¬ newed. Concerning the rate of its expenditure of heat, and the means which the dynamical theory of heat proposes to supply the loss, we will quote from the interesting lectures of Professor Tyndall, “On Heat considered as a Mode of Motion.” “The researches of Sir J. Herschel and M. Pouillet have informed us of the annual expenditure of the sun as regards heat, and by an easy calculation we ascertain the precise amount of the expenditure which falls to the share of our planet. Out of 2,300 million parts of light and heat the earth receives one. The whole heat emitted by the sun in a minute would be competent to boil 12,000 millions of cubic miles of ice- cold water. How is this enormous loss made good? Whence is the sun’s heat derived, and by what means is it maintained ? No combustion, no chemical affinity with which we are acquainted, would be competent to produce the temperature of the sun’s surface. Besides, were the sun A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE OWL VERSE. 21 a burning body merely, its light and heat would assuredly speedily come to an end. Supposing it to be a solid globe of coal, its combustion would only cover 4,600 years of expenditure. In this short time it would burn itself out. What agency, then, can produce the temperature and maintain the outlay? We have already regarded the case of a body falling from a great distance towards the earth, and found that the heat generated by its collision would be twice that produced by the combustion of an equal weight of coal. How much greater must be the heat developed by a body falling towards the sun ! The maximum velocity with which a body can strike the earth [arising from the earth’s attraction] is about 7 miles a second ; the maximum velocity with which it can strike the sun is 390 miles a second. And as the heat developed by the collision is proportional to the square of the velocity destroyed, an asteroid falling into the sun with the above velocity would generate about 19,000 times the quantity of heat generated by the combustion of an asteroid of coal of the same weight. ^ “Have we any reason to believe that such bodies exist in space, and that they may be rained down upon the sun ? The meteorites flashing through our air are small planetary bodies, drawn by the earth’s attrac¬ tion, and entering our atmosphere with planetary velocity. By friction against the air they are raised to incandescence, and caused to emit light and heat. At certain seasons of the year they shower down upon us in great numbers. In Boston [England] 240,000 of them were ob¬ served in nine hours. There is no reason to suppose that the planetary system is limited to vast masses of enormous weight; there is every reason to believe that space is stocked with smaller masses, which obey the same laws as the large ones. That lenticular envelope which sur- rounds the sun, and which is known to astronomers as the zodiacal light, is probably a crowd of meteors; and, moving as they do in a resisting medium, they must continually approach the sun. Falling into it, they would be competent to produce the heat observed, and this would constitute a source from which the annual loss of heat would be made good. The sun, according to this hypothesis, would be continually grow¬ ing larger; but how much larger? Were our moon to fall into the sun, it would develop an amount of heat sufficient to cover one or two years’ loss; and were our earth to fall into the sun, a century’s loss would be made good. Still, our moon and our earth, if distributed over the surface of the sun, would utterly vanish from perception. Indeed, the quantity of matter competent to produce the necessary effect would, during the range of history, produce no appreciable augmentation of the sun’s magni¬ tude. The augmentation of the sun’s attractive force would be more ap¬ preciable. However this hypothesis may fare as a representant of what is going on in nature, it certainly shows how a sun might be formed and maintained by the application of known thermo-dynamic principles.” * * Appendix to Lecture XII. p. 455. 22 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. This part of our inquiry—how gravitation and motion are converted into heat—is receiving the amplest illustration and discussion from physicists at the present time; and, though the somewhat startling conclusions we have quoted are still too new to be generally credited, they are too well founded in ex¬ periment and the general analogies of natural phenomena to be passed lightly by. The second part of our inquiry—how heat is refunded, in the eternal round of cosmical phenomena, into the antecedent conditions of motion, or to the conditions which preceded the production of the motions that are converted into heat—is a subject to which physicists have given little attention. In¬ deed, the cosmological ideas which prevail in geological inqui¬ ries beset this subject also, and impede inquiry. The order of nature is almost universally regarded as a progression from a determinate beginning to a determinate conclusion. The dynamical theory of heat lengthens out the process better, perhaps, than the nebular hypothesis alone; but both leave the universe at length in a hopeless chaos of huge, dark masses,—ruined suns wandering in eternal night. It seems not to have occurred to physicists to inquire what becomes of the heat the generation of which requires so great an expenditure of motion. The heat is, in another form, the same motion as that which is lost by the fallen bodies. It is radiated into space, while the bodies .remain in the sun; but this radiation is still the same motion in other bodies, in the luminiferous ether, or in the diffused matters of spu.ce. It can¬ not be lost from the universe, and must either accumulate in diffused materials or be converted into other motions or into new conditions of motion. But if the solid bodies of the uni¬ verse are gradually collected at certain centres, and their mo¬ tions are diffused in the form of heat throughout the gaseous materials of space, what do we gain ? How do we by such a conclusion avoid the ultimate catastrophe which we regard as the reductio ad absurdum of a scientific theory ? How do we thereby constitute that cycle of movements which we regard as characteristic of all natural phenomena ? Perhaps we have been somewhat too hasty in adopting the conclusion that the A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 2 3 fallen bodies must necessarily remain in the sun, and grad ually augment its mass. Let us, therefore, examine this point more closely. The principles of the steam-engine afford a clew to the converse process we are in search of, by which heat may be refunded into mechanical effects and conditions. The mechan¬ ical effects of the expanding power of steam are only partially developed in the work which the engine performs. This work, converted back to heat by friction or otherwise, would be in¬ sufficient to reproduce the same effects in the form of steam. The remaining power consists in the motions and the power of expansion with which the steam escapes from the engine. This is lost power; but if it should be allowed to develop itself by an expansion of the steam into an indefinitely extended vacuum, the molecular motions of the particles of the steam would gradually, and on the outside of the expanding vapor¬ ous mass, be converted into velocities or massive motions ; the vapor itself would be converted back into water, or even be frozen into snow, and the particles of this water or snow would, at the top of the expanding cloud, finally come to rest by the force of gravitation. A part, therefore, of the lost power of the heat which escaped in steam would be converted into that antecedent condition of motion represented by elevation above the attracting mass of the earth or by gravitation; a part would continue to manifest itself as velocity or massive motion; 'and the remainder would still continue to exert an outward press¬ ure in the form of heat in vapor. This development would continue so long as the steam continued to discharge itself into the indefinitely extended vacuum we have supposed. The rain or snow falling from the top of the cloud would convert its gravitative power back again into motion, which, again arrested by collision with the earth, would suffer other trans¬ formations in the endless round. In the actual case, where the steam escapes into the air instead of a vacuum, the phe¬ nomena would be less simple. The history of its heat would become involved with the grander phenomena of the weather, —phenomena that may be regarded as typical of that cosmical weather, concerning the laws of which we must inquire in con¬ sidering what becomes of the sun’s heat. 24 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. This heat is capable, provided it could all be so expended, of lifting the amount of matter which, by falling into the sun, is supposed to produce it, to the same height from the sun as that from which the fallen bodies may be supposed to have descended. This follows from the'general mechanical princi¬ ples we have stated. But how is this lifting effected ? What is the Titanic machinery by which the sun performs this labor ? The velocity with which a body falling from the interstellar spaces enters the body of the sun is sufficient, when converted to heat by friction and the shock, to convert the body itself into vapor, even if the body be composed of the least fusible of materials. The heat thus produced is not, however, con¬ fined to the fallen matter. A large portion is imparted to the • matter already in the sun; but parts, no doubt, both of the projectile and of the resisting material are vaporized. The atmosphere immediately surrounding the sun contains the va¬ pors of many of the most refractory metals that are known, as w r e learn from that wonderful instrument, the spectroscope. And this is made evident by the absorption from the sun’s luminous rays of certain portions characteristic of these metals. Doubtless, in absorbing their characteristic vibrations, these metals are further heated and expanded, and gradually lifted from the surface of the sun; and the vibrations of light and heat that pass through them and escape are probably all ulti¬ mately absorbed in the same or some similar way in the dif¬ fused materials of space. Tire speculations of the elder Struve on the extinction of light in its passage through space—con¬ clusions founded on Sir William Herschel’s observations of the Milky-Way—afford a happy and independent confirmation of these views. Moreover, the spectroscopic analyses of the light of the stars show broad dark bands, indicative of great extinctions of light. And we may add, that many gases and vapors which are transparent to luminous rays are found to absorb the obscure rays of heat. Such is the kind of evidence we have of what becomes of the light and heat, and a portion, at least, of the material of the sun. The heat which is not expended immediately in vapor¬ izing these materials is ultimately extinguished in further heat- A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 25 ing, expanding, and thus lifting the materials (may we not be¬ lieve ?) which have already been partially raised to the height, whence perhaps, in former ages, they in their turn were rained down as meteors upon the sun. In these suppositions we have exactly reversed the nebular hypothesis. Instead of, in former ages, a huge gaseous globe contracted by cooling and by gravi¬ tation, and consolidated at its centre, we have supposed one now existing, and filling that portion of the interstellar spaces over which the sun’s attraction predominates,—a highly rarefied continuous gaseous mass, constantly evaporated and expanded from its solid centre, but constantly condensed and consoli¬ dated near its outer limits,—constantly heated at its centre by the fall of solid bodies from its outer limits, and constantly cooled and condensed at these limits by the conversion of heat into motion and the arrest of this motion by gravitation. There are certain chemical objections which apply equally to the views here advanced and to the nebular hypothesis. But these must necessarily arise from the limits to the knowl¬ edge we can gain of the whole range of chemical phenomena. For what takes place in the chemist’s laboratory, under the very limited conditions of temperature and pressure he can command, ought not to be regarded as determining the possi¬ bilities, or even the probabilities, of that cosmical chemistry of which we can hardly be supposed to know even the rudiments. We shall consider this subject, however, more particularly, after attending to what is now of more immediate interest, namely, the secondary mechanical conditions and phenomena that result from the suppositions we-have made; and particu¬ larly the question, how the systems of the planets and their satellites stand related to the round of changes we have con¬ sidered. The fundamental and most important motions of the solar system are, as we suppose, the radial movements of solid bodies inward and of gaseous bodies outward, arising from the coun¬ teractions of gravitation and heat. But these radial move¬ ments must assume a vortical form, if one does not already exist, such as is constantly exhibited by movements in the air and in water. The rotation of the sun, imparted to the mate- 2 26 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. rials which rise in vapor from its surface, continues in them as they rise higher and higher, and though exhibited in a con stantly diminishing tangential motion, remains in reality con¬ stant, as measured by what mechanicians term “rotation area.” Or, rather, it is slowly increased by the mutual resistances of contiguous strata in the expanding gases, so that when this matter f&lls again towards the sun in the form of solid bodies, it falls in spiral trajectories, and only reaches the sun after perhaps many revolutions, or not at all, unless its motions be rapidly diminished by the resisting medium. If the resistance of the medium is not sufficient to convert the path of a falling meteor into a spiral, the meteor will mount again, and con¬ tinue to move perhaps for a long time in an eccentric orbit, like a comet. When, however, the meteor at length, in any way, reaches the sun, a part of its motion is expended in in¬ creasing the sun’s rotation, and thus compensating the loss of motion continually sustained by the sun in the evaporation of its material. The denser the resisting medium is in any system, the greater will be the revolution of its outer parts, and the larger will be the spiral trajectories which its falling bodies will describe. Such spiral or vortical motions as would thus be produced, or rather sustained, in the matter surround¬ ing the sun, is exhibited by the most powerful telescopes, in the forms of the appendages to certain nebulous stars, and in the structure of the so-called Spiral Nebulae. Perhaps the bodies which are supposed to give rise to the appearance of the zodiacal light would exhibit some such spiral arrangement, if seen from a point far above or below the ecliptic. It follows from this vortical motion, that the form which the diffused materials of the solar system would assume, or rather maintain, would be that of an oblate ellipsoid or of a flattened lenticular body. The height to which the matter would rise in the plane of the sun’s equator before its massive and molec¬ ular motions would be arrested by gravitation, would be much greater than in the directions of the sun’s axis of rotation. The degree of oblateness which such a system of diffused mat¬ ter will maintain depends on the frictions or resistances that successive strata exert on each other. It should be borne in A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 2 7 mind in this connection that friction is not a loss of force, where all kinds of force are taken into account. Friction or resistance can only effect a conversion of massive into molecu¬ lar motions, or the motion of velocity into the motion of heat. Hence, whatever velocity is lost by interior strata in the gase¬ ous materials of the solar system, and is not gained by those exterior to them, must yet be ultimately restored; for the sta¬ bility of such a system is no longer a question; this is insured in the fundamental mechanical law on which our speculations are founded. It may still be a question, however, whether the planetary bodies of such a system are successively produced and de¬ stroyed, like generations of animals and plants, or whether they are permanent elements in a system of balanced forces and operations. So far as the effects of mutual perturbation are concerned, and independently of a resisting medium, as¬ tronomers have shown that the latter supposition is the more probable one; but there are several other considerations which point to a different conclusion. In the first place, the consid¬ erations already mentioned. The existence of systematic rela¬ tions in the structure of the solar system, some of which are independent of its stability under the law of gravity, indicate the operations of causes other than the simple ones on which this stability depends,—such causes as the nebular hypothesis endeavored to define, but which we, in rejecting this hypothe¬ sis, have still to search for. It has undoubtedly occurred to our readers to ask how the planets stand related to the meteoric system, and in what man¬ ner, if at all, their motions and masses are affected by this per¬ petual shower of matter. As out of every two thousand million parts of the light and heat of the sun’s radiation the earth receives one part, so out of the two thousand million meteors sent back in return the earth will receive one, or per¬ haps a somewhat larger proportion, since the meteors are sup¬ posed to fall most thickly near the plane of the sun’s equator. If we multiply this proportion by ten, as we probably may, it is still a very small quantity; but if we are permitted to multi¬ ply it by a factor of time as great as we please, this insignifi- 28 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. cance will disappear, and in its place we shall have a cosmical cause of the greatest moment in the history of the solar sys¬ tem. Two hundred million years is but a day in the cosmical eras, yet in that time the earth,could receive as many bodies as fall to the sun in a year, or a hundredth part of the mass of the earth itself. In a hundred such days, then, the earth might be built up by the aggregation of meteors, provided it should lose none of the material thus collected, as the sun probably does. But this calculation proceeds on the supposi¬ tion that the earth would have caught as many meteors when it was smaller, as it probably does now. A correction is there¬ fore required which lengthens the period to three hundred such days, or to about a cosmical year, if we may so estimate times which are without limits or measure. In sixty thousand mil¬ lion years, then, the earth could have been made by the ag¬ gregation of meteors.* In this time the sun itself would have received and evaporated fifteen hundred times the amount of its present mass, provided a permanent amount of matter and heat should have been maintained in it during so long a period. In these estimates no account is taken of the heat immedi¬ ately absorbed in evaporation, or absorbed in the space in¬ cluded within the earth’s orbit. This heat would probably require a still greater expenditure of motion, and the fall of a still greater number of bodies. Hence the period required to build up the earth’s mass might be materially shortened. Such a method of inquiry, however, violates the canon we have laid down for our guidance in physical speculation. We must not suppose any action in nature to which there is not some counteraction, and no mode of production, however slow, from which in infinite time there could result an infinite * Most of the materials which fall to the earth are probably in the form of very small bodies, which must be disintegrated by heat in their passage through the atmosphere, and must consequently reach the earth’s surface in the form of fine dust. At the rate of accumulation estimated above, this dust, when reduced to the mean density of the earth’s materials, would add one foot to the thickness of its crust in about three thousand years. In the loose form of dust or mud this accumulation would amount to about a hundredth of oh inch in a year. The materials which have accumulated within histor¬ ical periods over the ruins of ancient cities may thus in great part have been collected from the sky. The agencies of the winds and of flowing water in transporting and de¬ positing the loose materials of the earth’s surface would distribute this star-dust in de¬ posits at the bottom of the sea, and in hills and mounds on the land. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 2 9 product. We must, therefore, conclude that the planets either ultimately fall into the sun, and make a restitution of their peculations, or that heat and gravitation preserve in them also the’ balance of nature and the golden mean of virtue. The existence of a resisting medium favors the first supposition, unless it can be rendered probable that this medium revolves with velocities equal to those of the planets at the same dis¬ tances from the sun. There is also another cause affecting the mean distances of the planets. An increase of mass in the sun will diminish the size of the planetary orbits, and con¬ versely a diminution of this mass will increase the size of these orbits. The rate of change in the mass of the sun, whether to increase or to decrease, must depend on the relative rates of cooling by radiation and by evaporation. As the sun grows cooler by excessive radiation, its mass must be increased by the fall of meteors, and the planets will draw nearer to the sun; but if its radiation be diminished, and a larger proportion of the heat be expended in evaporation, then the planets will withdraw from the sun. Such are the causes which may affect the mean distances of the planets. If on such grounds we may adopt the first of our supposi¬ tions, that the planets are successively formed and finally lost in the sun, like the meteors, the most probable hypothesis we can make concerning their origin is, that they are formed by the aggregation of meteors. Certain conditions, which, in the present state of our knowledge, it would perhaps be impossible to define, must determine the distances from the sun where these aggregations will begin; but the body and the attraction of the planet, when once begun, will determine further aggre¬ gation until the planet either falls into the sun, or approaches to such a distance that the evaporation of its material keeps pace with the fall of matter upon it. The size to which a planet could attain would thus be determined by the distance from the sun at which it begins to grow. A nearly circular orbit, and a small inclination of its plane to the plane of the sun’s equator, would result from the circumstances attending the fall of the meteors,—their approach to the sun from every 3 ° PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. direction near the plane of the sun’s equator.* A vortical motion and a rotation of the planet might result from such aggregations, which would be analogous to those of the sun and the general system. A more rigorous and comprehensive discussion of such problems than has yet been attempted is required before trustworthy conclusions can be formed. The following considerations may materially affect the con¬ clusions we have drawn from the existence of a resisting me¬ dium. The gaseous medium of the solar system might receive from the sun’s rotation, and by the mutual friction of its own materials, greater velocities in its interior parts than the planets could have at the same distances from the sun, provided the exterior parts should move with less than planetary velocities, and should press with a portion of their weight upon the parts below them. For the centrifugal forces of the interior parts might thus be balanced, not merely by their own gravitation, but by a portion also of the weight of the superincumbent masses. At a distance from the sun less than half the mean distance of the planet Mercury, a period of revolution equal to that of the sun would produce a planetary velocity. At a greater distance, the medium might revolve more rapidly than the planets. But there must be a limit where the revolutions would be simply self-sustaining, and beyond this the medium would move less rapidly than the planets. So far, therefore, as a resisting medium could affect the motions of the planetary bodies, it might tend to increase the dimensions of the interior orbits, and to diminish those of the exterior ones; and it would thus tend to concentrate the planets, not in the sun, but at this limiting distance, where the medium would neither accelerate nor retard their motions. The motions of the medium would produce the greatest effect upon the smaller bodies of the solar system, which would, therefore, approach most rapidly to this limiting distance. That region in the solar system, about half the distance from the sun to the orbit of Jupiter, which is so thickly crowded with small planetary bodies or asteroids, may * The rare occurrence of spots on the sun beyond thirty degrees either side of its equator may indicate some connection between these spots and the fall of meteors and serve to determine the limits of the meteoric system. A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 3 1 be regarded, on this hypothesis, as the region in which the gaseous medium now revolves with planetary velocity. Could this limiting distance remain fixed for a very long period, most of the planetary masses of the solar system might accumulate there, and be concentrated into one huge planet or secondary sun, and the solar system would thus be converted into a binary system, like those observed among the stars. But from the small amount of matter probably contained in the asteroid system, we ought to conclude that this limiting distance changes from time to time, as the medium grows denser or rarer. The planets are not the only aggregations of meteoric bodies which we have to account for. Besides the comets, there are probably streams of meteors falling to or circulating # around the sun. This is rendered very probable by the phenomena of the showers of these bodies which fall into our atmosphere at certain seasons of the year, or at certain positions in the earth’s orbit.* And further, the rings of Saturn are probably examples of the same kind of meteoric aggregation. For of the three hypotheses in regard to the constitution of these rings which have been submitted to rigorous mathematical examination,— namely, first, that they are solid, secondly, that they are fluid, and, thirdly, that they are composed of distinct bodies or me¬ teors,—the latter is the only one which has been found to afford the conditions of stability which are implied in their continued existence. It is unnecessary to add the physical reasons which render this hypothesis still more probable. We have no space to consider the many interesting geological * There is a period of about eleven years in the numbers of spots that appear on the surface of the sun, a period coincident with that of the amount of diurnal variations in terrestrial magnetism,—an amount undoubtedly due to the influence of the sun. This period also coincides nearly with the period of the revolution of Jupiter, the largest planet in our system. If, then, we may suppose that the sun’s spots are occasioned by the fall of large meteors, the courses of which lie near to the orbit of Jupiter, the attrac¬ tions of this planet, alternately turning such a stream of bodies upon and away from the surface of the sun, would connect these three nearly coincident periods by a common physical cause. The phenomena of magnetism and electricity, as subordinate manifestations of motion and conditions of motion, have not been included in our speculations on the commuta¬ tions of “power,” on account of their insignificant values as compared with the three principal forms of “power.” For the same reason, we omit any consideration of the numerous but minute modifications of “power” which are manifested by the forces of vital phenomena on the surface of the earth. 3 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . consequences which follow from our hypothesis. Let it suffice to remark, that the formation of the earth’s mass by meteoric aggregation precludes the hypothesis, otherwise improbable that the core of the earth is a molten mass. The occurrence of volcanoes in local systems, distinct from each other, points to local causes of an unknown chemical character as the true sources of these phenomena. The heterogeneous character of the materials of the earth’s crust, in which are mingled, in the most intimate manner, all kinds of substances, irrespectively of their chemical affinities, and in opposition to their chemical forces of aggression, could hardly be the results of the actions of heat and aqueous solution, both of which afford conditions favorable to chemical aggregation. Indeed, in most cases in which such aggregation occurs, where homogeneous and chem¬ ically simple substances are found in considerable quantities, the agency either of heat or aqueous solution is evident. It is hardly necessary to add, that the theory of meteoric aggregation is the one which would most readily explain these facts. But we must here leave the consideration of these interest¬ ing problems, and return to a topic much more obscure, to which we called attention a few pages back. The dynamical theory of heat has not only suggested new and interesting inquiries concerning the constitution of the universe, but it throws new light in the philosophy of chemical phenomena on such problems as the origin of the three states of aggregation in matter, and on the character of the changes which may take place under circumstances beyond the reach of chemical experiments and observation. That the dreams of the alchemists were at fault rather in point of method than of doctrine, is a confession which the modern chemist must make, when he compares the slight re¬ sources of experiment at his command with the possibilities of nature. If, as has been surmised, the characteristic properties of different kinds of matter consist in characteristic internal or molecular motions (and molecular conditions of motion), a complete destruction of such motions would obliterate all the characteristic differences of matter, and such a result might be attained by the production of absolute cold. In respect to A PHYSICAL THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 33 the motions of light and heat, however, the universe, so far as we know it, and even so far as we could know it, is a perfectly continuous body. In no corner or recess of its unfathomable depths to which the feeblest light of a single star could find its way, can there be an absence of the motions of light and heat. Nothing can set bounds to the all-pervading reach of these mo¬ tions except limits to that medium of motion, the luminiferous ether; and these, so far as all cognizable physical conditions are concerned, would be limits to space itself. That potent sidereal influence, the absolute cold, transmuting all substances into one, could only arise momentarily, in nodal points or lines or surfaces, but could not be extended discontinuously into space of three dimensions. What may happen at such times and limits, where matter, expiring from one form of chemical life, may be awakened to another, according to the kind of molecular agitation which may next overtake it, and deter¬ mine its history, perhaps for myriads of years, is what the chemist cannot tell us, and only the alchemist can dream. It suffices for our instruction, that the chemistry of absolute cold has possibilities of which experimental chemistry affords no criterion, and may play a part in the economy of nature not inferior to that of gravitation or heat. But it may be objected, on grounds of experimental chem¬ istry, “that the sun’s heat, though sufficient to volatize the least fusible materials, could not keep them in the form of vapor at the heights and in the temperature of the interplan¬ etary spaces, much less lift them in the form of vapor to the heights of the interstellar regions whence the meteors are sup¬ posed to fall. For most bodies which are solid at ordinary ter¬ restrial temperatures tend, upon cooling, to crystallize with such energy that they would soon be precipitated from the vaporous form.” But this objection takes no account of those effects of diffusion, expansion, and commingling of heterogene¬ ous materials, which must remove the parts of a volatilized body to such hopeless distances from each other that the forces of chemical aggregation might require ages to collect what is thus dispersed. Nor can any account be taken of such un¬ known laws of chemical affinity and aggregation as are possible 34 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. under the circumstances we are considering. The known laws of chemical action should, then, be ranked with those laws of life, exhibited in the phenomena of growth, which were too hastily generalized and applied, in “the theory of evolution,” to the interpretation of the riddles and the explication of the order of the System of the World, NATURAL THEOLOGY AS A POSITIVE SCIENCE.* Natural history and anatomy have hitherto furnished the principal grounds to the theologian for the speculation of final causes, since these sciences exhibit many instances of a com¬ plex combination of causes in the structures and habits of or¬ ganic bodies, and at the same time a distinct and peculiar class of effects, namely, those which constitute the well-being and perfection of organic life; and from these causes and effects, regarded as means and ends in the order of nature, the argu¬ ments and illustrations of natural theology have been chiefly drawn. The facts of these sciences are not merely the most useful to the theologian; they are indeed indispensable, and occupy a peculiar position in his argument, since they alone afford the class of effects on which, assumed as ends, the spec¬ ulation of final causes ultimately rests. It is only by assuming human welfare, or with this the wel¬ fare also of other sentient beings, as the end for which the uni¬ verse exists, that the doctrine of final causes has hitherto found any support in natural science. Though it is still maintained by theologians that the argu¬ ments for design are properly inductive arguments, yet the physical proofs of natural theology are not regarded by many modern writers .as having any independent weight; and it is in mental and moral science that the facts are sought which will warrant the induction of design from the general phenom¬ ena of nature. It is hardly considered logical, even by the theological writers of our day, to conclude, with Paley, “ that * From the North American Review, for January, 1865. 3 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. the works of nature proceed from intelligence and design ; be¬ cause, in the properties of relation to a purpose, subserviency to a use, they resemble what intelligence and design are con¬ stantly producing, and what nothing [which we know] except intelligence and design ever produce at all.” For it is denied by the physical philosopher that causes and effects in natural phenomena can be interpreted into the terms of natural theol¬ ogy by any key which science itself affords. By what crite¬ rion, he would ask, can we distinguish among the numberless effects, that are also causes, and among the causes that may, for aught we can know, be also effects,—how can we distin¬ guish which are the means and which are the ends ? What effects are we warranted by observation in calling final, or final causes, or the ends for which the others exist ? The belief on other grounds that there are final causes, that the universe exists for some purpose, is one thing; but the belief that sci¬ ence discloses, or even that science can disclose, what this purpose is, is quite a different thing. The designation of those effects as final in nature which contribute to human desires or human welfare, or even to the welfare of all sentient beings, cannot be legitimately made for the purpose of this argument, since human and other sentient beings are not the agents by which these supposed ends are attained; neither can the causes which bring these effects to pass be regarded as ser¬ vants obedient to the commands of the agents to whom these effects are desirable. The analogy of natural production to human contrivance fails them at the very outset; and the in¬ terpretation of natural causes and effects as means and ends, virtually assumes the conclusion of the argument, and is not founded on any natural evidence. These considerations are overlooked by most writers on this subject, who, in addition to a legitimate faith in final causes, assume the dogma that these causes are manifest or discoverable. They begin with the definition, sometimes called an argument, “that a combi¬ nation of means conspiring to a particular end implies intelli¬ gence,” and they then assume that the causes which science discovers are means, or exist for the sake of the effects which science accounts for; and from the relation of means to ends, thus assumed, they infer intelligence. NATURAL THEOLOGY AS A POSLTIVE SCLENCE. 37 The definition we have quoted contains, however, more than is really implied in this argument, since the relation of means to ends in itself, and without further qualification, im¬ plies intelligence, while a combination of means conspiring to a particular end implies a high degree of intelligence; and it is with this, the degree of intelligence manifested in the phe¬ nomena of nature, that scientific discourses on the natural evi¬ dences are really dealing, though sometimes unconsciously. These discourses really aim, not so much to prove the exist¬ ence of design in the universe, as to show the wisdom of cer¬ tain designs which are assumed to be manifest. But for this purpose it is requisite to translate the facts of science, and those combinations of causes which are discovered to be the conditions of particular effects, into the terms of the argument, and to show that these combinations are means, or exist for the sake of particular effects, for which, as ends, the universe itself must be shown to exist,—a task for which science is ob¬ viously incompetent. Waiving these fundamental objections to the argument for design, which, let us repeat, are not objections to the spiritual doctrine of final causes, or to the belief that final causes exist, we will turn to the objections which modern writers of natu¬ ral theology themselves allow. It is essential to the validity of P ale y’s argument, that “ de¬ sign,” or the determination of effects by the intelligence of an agent, be shown to be not merely the only known cause of such effects, but also to be a real cause, or an independent de¬ termination by an efficient agent. If intelligence itself be a product, if the human powers of contrivance are themselves effects, it follows that designed effects should be ascribed, not to intelligence, but to the causes of intelligence; and the same objection will hold against the theologian’s use of the word “design,” which he urges against the physicist’s use of the word “law.” “It is a perversion of language,” says Paley, “to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of anything. A law presupposes an agent, for it only is the mode according to which the agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which this power acts. Without this agent, PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the daw’ does nothing, is nothing.” By substituting the word “design” for the word “law” in this quotation, we have the materialist’s objection to the theologian’s perversion of lan¬ guage. This objection was entirely overlooked by Paley, who seems to have thought it sufficient for the purposes of his ar¬ gument to consider only the phenomena of the visible material universe. But later writers have seen the necessity of basing the argument for design on the psychological doctrine that in¬ telligence is a free, undetermined power, and that design is the free, undetermined act of this power. Without this assump¬ tion, which indeed Paley himself virtually makes, it would be as unphilosophical to refer the course of nature to the deter¬ mination of intelligence, as it is to refer it to the determination of the abstraction which the materialist prefers, or to the “agency of law.” “That intelligence stands first in the absolute order of exist¬ ence,—in other words, that final preceded efficient causes,— and that the universe is governed by moral laws,” are the two propositions, the proof of which, says Sir William Hamilton, is the proof of a God; and this proof “ establishes its founda¬ tion exclusively on the phenomena of mind.” Without this psychological proof, the order of adaptation cannot be logically referred to the order of design; and the resemblance of human contrivances to the adaptations of nature can only warrant the conclusion that both proceed from similar conditions, and by a power of whose efficiency human intelligence and phys¬ ical laws are alike» manifestations, but whose nature neither hu¬ man intelligence comprehends nor physical laws can disclose. Even such a result, which is all that the unaided physical sciences can compass, is not altogether barren of religious in¬ terest, though it is made so by the materialist’s attempt to de¬ fine the nature of power by assigning to physical forces an absolute efficiency. The spiritualist, on the other hand, if we allow his psychological proof that intelligence stands first in the absolute order of existence, and is a free, undetermined power, is logically competent to interpret the order of nature as a designed order. Yet to him physical proofs of design NATURAL THEOLOGY AS A POSITIVE SCIENCE. 39 have little or no value, and can only serve as obscure and enigmatical illustrations of what is far more clearly apparent in the study of mind. And though logically competent to inter¬ pret the order of design, if his spiritual doctrine be true, yet the difficulties which we first mentioned, and waived for the nonce, are difficulties as insuperable to the psychologist as to the physicist. He gains no criterion from his studies by which to distinguish, in the order of natural phenomena, which are the means and which are the ends, or where the relation of means to ends is to be found, among the infinite successions of effects which are also causes, and of causes which may, for aught he can know, be also effects. His faith in final causes is not a guide by which he can determine what the final causes are by which he believes the order of nature to be determined. These theoretical objections to a philosophy, which assigns physical reasons for a faith in final causes, are by no means the most important objections. The practical influences and effects of such philosophizing are, we believe, more obnoxious to the true interests of religion than its methods are to the true principles of philosophy, and fully justify an examination of its arguments. For bad arguments may go for nothing, while good ones necessitate their conclusions; and we think it fortunate for the purity of religious truth that theologians have succeeded no better in this direction. Not only do the peculiar doctrines of natural theology add nothing to the grounds of a faith in final causes; they, in effect, narrow this faith to ideas which scarcely rise in dignity above the rank of superstitions. If to believe that God is what we can think him to be is blasphemy, what shall we call the at¬ tempt to discover his intentions and to interpret his plans in nature ? If science were able to discover a much closer anal¬ ogy than it does between the adaptations of nature and the designs of human contrivance, would it be any less derogatory to the dignity of the Divine nature to attempt by such analo¬ gies to fathom his designs and plans, or to suppose that what appears as a designed order is really any clew to the purposes of the Almighty ? And when, even transcending this degree of presumption, theology would fix a limit to the researches and 40 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. hypotheses of science, on the ground that they tend to subvert religious doctrines, or the assumed results of a religious phi¬ losophy, we are warranted—nay, constrained, from practical considerations—to question the grounds of its pretensions, to allow it no longer to shield its falseness and weakness behind the dignity and worth of the interests to which it is falsely dedicated. It is from the illegitimate pretensions of natural theology that the figment of a conflict between science and re¬ ligion has arisen; and the efforts of religious thinkers to coun¬ teract the supposed atheistical tendencies of science, and to give a religious interpretation to its facts, have only served to deepen the false impression that such a conflict actually ex¬ ists, so that revolutions in scientific theories have been made to appear in the character of refutations of religious doctrines. That there is a fundamental distinction between the natures of scientific and religious ideas ought never to be doubted; but that contradiction can arise, except between religious and superstitious ideas, ought not for a moment to be admitted. Progress in science is really a progress in religious truth, not because any new reasons are discovered for the doctrines of religion, but because advancement in knowledge frees us from the errors both of ignorance and of superstition, exposing the mistakes of a false religious philosophy, as well as those of a false science. If the teachings of natural theology are liable to be refuted or corrected by progress in knowledge, it is legit¬ imate to suppose, not that science is irreligious, but that these teachings are superstitious; and whatever evils result from the discoveries of science are attributable to the rashness of the theo¬ logian, and not to the supposed irreligious tendencies of science. When a proof of special design is invalidated by the discovery that a particular effect in the operations of nature, which pre¬ viously appeared to result from a special constitution and ad¬ justment of certain forces, is really a consequent of the general properties of matter,—when, for example, the laws of plan¬ etary motion were shown to result from the law of universal gravitation, and the mathematical plan of the solar system was seen to be a consequent of a single universal principle,—the harm, if there be any, results from the theologian’s mistakes, NATURAL THEOLOGY AS A POSITLVE SCIENCE. 41 and not from the corrections of science. He should refrain from attributing any special plan or purpose to the creation, if he would find in science a constant support to religious truth. But this abstinence does not involve a withdrawal of the mind from the proper religious interests of natural science, nor weaken a legitimate faith in final causes. Even the New¬ tonian mechanism of the heavens, simple, primordial, and necessary as it seems, still 'discloses to the devout mind evi¬ dence of a wisdom unfathomable, and of a design which tran¬ scends interpretation; and when, in the more complicated order of organic life, surprising and beautiful adaptations inspire in the naturalist the conviction that purpose and intelligence are manifested in them,—that they spring from a nature akin to the devising power of his own mind,—there is nothing in science or philosophy which can legitimately rebuke his enthusiasm,— nothing, unless it be the dogmatism which would presumptu¬ ously interpret as science what is only manifest to faith, or would require of faith that it shall justify itself by proofs. The progress of science has indeed been a progress in relig¬ ious truth, but in spite of false theology, and in a way which narrow theologians have constantly opposed. It has defined with greater and greater distinctness the boundary between what can be discovered and what cannot. It has purified re¬ ligious truth by turning back the moral consciousness to dis¬ cover clearly in itself what it had obscurely divined from its own interpretations of nature. It has impressed on the mind of the cautious inquirer the futility, as well as the irreverence, of attempting a philosophy which can at best be but a finer sort of superstition, a real limitation to our conceptions of final causes, while apparently an extension of them. But instead of learning these lessons from the experience of repeated failures, theologians have constantly opposed new hypotheses in science, until proof has compelled a tardy assent, and even then they have retreated to other regions of science, as if these were the only refuge of a persecuted faith. Humility and cautiousness, and that suspension of judgment in matters about which we really know so little, which a recent theological writer has recommended, in view of the pending 42 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. controversy on the origin of organic species and adaptations, are virtues, which, had they been generally cultivated by theo¬ logians, would have rendered this controversy harmless at least, if not unnecessary. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER* Why the inductive and mathematical sciences, after their first rapid development at the culmination of Greek civiliza¬ tion, advanced so slowly for two thousand years,—and why in the following two hundred years a knowledge of natural and mathematical science has accumulated, which so vastly exceeds all that was previously known that these sciences may be justly regarded as the products of our own times,—are questions which have interested the modern philosopher not less t^ian the objects with which these sciences are more immediately conversant. Was it in the employment of a new method of research, or in the exercise of greater virtue in the use of old methods, that this singular modern phenomenon had its ori¬ gin ? Was the long period one of arrested development, and is the modern era one of a normal growth ? or should we as¬ cribe the characteristics of both periods to so-called historical accidents,—to the influence of conjunctions in circumstances of which no explanation is possible, save in the omnipotence and wisdom of a guiding Providence ? The explanation which has become commonplace, that the ancients employed deduction chiefly in their scientific inqui¬ ries, while the moderns employ induction, proves to be too narrow, and fails upon close examination to point with suffi¬ cient distinctness the contrast that is evident between ancient and modern scientific doctrines and inquiries. For all knowl¬ edge is founded on observation, and proceeds from this by anal- i ysis and synthesis, by synthesis and analysis, by induction and deduction, and if possible by verification, or by new appeals to * From the North American Review, April, 1865. 44 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. observation under the guidance of deduction,—by steps which are indeed correlative parts of one method; and the ancient sciences afford examples of every one of these methods, or parts of the one complete method, which have been generalized from the examples of science. A failure to employ or to employ adequately any one of these partial methods, an imperfection in the arts and re¬ sources of observation and experiment, carelessness in observa¬ tion, neglect of relevant facts, vagueness and carelessness in reasoning, and the failure to draw the consequences of theorj and test them by appeal to experiment and observation,—these are the faults which cause all failures to ascertain truth, whether among the ancients or the moderns; but this statement does not explain why the modern is possessed of a greater virtue, and by what means he attained to his superiority. Much less does it explain the sudden growth of science in recent times. The attempt to discover the explanation of this phenome¬ non in the antithesis of “facts” and “theories” or “facts” and “ideas,”—in the neglect among the ancients of the former, and their too exclusive attention to the latter,—proves also to be too narrow, as well as open to the charge of vagueness. For, in the first place, the antithesis is not complete. Facts and the¬ ories are not co-ordinate species. Theories, if true, are facts,— a particular class of facts indeed, generally complex ones, but still facts. Facts, on the other hand, even in the narrowest signification of the word, if they be at all complex, and if a logical connection subsists between their constituents, have all the positive attributes of theories. Nevertheless, this distinction, however inadequate it maybe to explain the source of true method in science, is well found¬ ed, and connotes an important character in true method. A fact is a proposition of which the verification by an appeal to the primary sources of our knowledge or to experience is direct and simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true, has all the characteristics of a fact, except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means. To con¬ vert theories into facts is to add simple verification , and the THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 45 theory thus acquires the full characteristics of a fact. When Pascal caused the Torricellian tube to be carried up the Puy de Dome, and thus showed that the mercurial column was sus¬ tained by the weight of the atmosphere, he brought the theory of atmospheric pressure nearly down to the level of a fact of observation. But even in this most remarkable instance of sci¬ entific discovery theory was not wholly reduced to fact, since the verification, though easy, was not entirely simple, and was incomplete until further observations showed that the quantity of the fall in the Torricellian tube agreed with deductions from the combined theories of atmospherical pressure and elasticity. In the same way the theory of universal gravitation fails to be¬ come a fact in the proper sense of this word, however complete its verification, because this verification is not simple and direct, or through the immediate activity of our perceptive powers. Modern science deals then no less with theories than with facts, but always as much as possible with the verification of theories,—if not to make them facts by simple verification through experiment and observation, at least to prove their truth by indirect verification. The distinction of fact and theory thus yields an important principle, of which M. Comte and his followers have made much account. It is in the employment , of verification, they say, and in the possibility of it, that the superiority of modern inductive research consists ; and it is because the ancients did not, or could not, verify their theories, that they made such insignificant progress in science. It is indisputable that .verifi¬ cation is essential to the completeness of scientific method; but there is still room for debate as to what constitutes verification in the various departments of philosophical inquiry. So long as the philosophy of method fails to give a complete inventory of our primary sources of knowledge, and cannot decide au¬ thoritatively what are the origins of first truths, or the truths of observation, so long will it remain uncertain what is a legiti¬ mate appeal to observation, or what is a real verification. The Platonists or the rationalists may equally with the empiricists claim verification for their theories; for do they not appeal to the reason for confirmation of deductions from their theories, 4 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. which they regard as founded on observation of what the rea son reveals to them ? The positivists’ principle of verification comes, then, only to this,—that, inasmuch as mankind are nearly unanimous about the testimony and trustworthiness of their senses, but are di¬ vided about the validity of all other kinds of authority, which they in a word call the reason, or internal sense, therefore verifi¬ cation by the senses produces absolute conviction, while verifi¬ cation by the reason settles nothing, but is liable to the same uncertainty which attends the primary appeals to this authority for the data of speculative knowledge. But not only does the so-called metaphysical philosophy em¬ ploy a species of verification by appealing to the testimony of reason, consciousness, or internal sense; but the ancient phys¬ ical sciences afford examples of the confirmation of theory by observation proper. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy was an instance of the employment of every one of the partial steps of true method; and the theory of epicycles not only sought to represent the facts of observation, but also by the prediction of astronomical phenomena to verify the truth of its representa¬ tion. Modern astronomy does not proceed otherwise, except that its theories represent a much greater number of facts of observation, and are confirmed by much more efficient experi¬ mental tests. The difference, then, between ancient and modern science is not truly characterized by any of the several explanations which have been proposed. The explanation, however, which, in our opinion, comes nearest to the true solution, and yet fails to des¬ ignate the real point of difference, is that which the positivists find in the distinction between “objective method” and “sub¬ jective method.” The objective method is verification by sensuous tests, tests of sensible experience,—a deduction from theory of consequences, of which we may have sensible experi¬ ences if they be true. The subjective method, on the other hand, appeals to the tests of internal evidence, tests of reason, and the data of self-consciousness. But whatever be the origin of the theories of science, whether from a systematic examina¬ tion of empirical facts by conscious induction, or from the THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 4 ? natural biases of the mind, the so-called intuitions of reason, in other words what seems probable without a distinct survey of our experiences,—whatever the origin, real or ideal, the value of these theories can only be tested, say the positivists, by an appeal to sensible experience, by deductions from them of con¬ sequences which we can confirm by the undoubted testimony of the senses. Thus, while ideal or transcendental elements are admitted into scientific researches, though in themselves insusceptible of simple verification, they must still show creden tials from the senses, either by affording from themselves con sequences capable of sensuous verification, or by yielding such consequences in conjunction with ideas which by themselves are verifiable. It is undoubtedly true, that one of the leading traits of modern scientific research is this reduction of ideas to the tests of experience. The systematic development of ideas through induction from the first and simplest facts of observation, is by no means so obvious a characteristic. Inductions are still per¬ formed for the most part unconsciously and unsystematically. Ideas are developed by the sagacity of the expert, rather than by the systematic procedures of the philosopher. But when and however ideas are developed science cares nothing, for it is only by subsequent tests of sensible experience that ideas are admitted into the pandects of science. It is of no consequence to scientific astronomy whence the theory of gravitation arose; whether as an induction from the theories of attractions and the law of radiations, or from the rational simplicity of this law itself, as the most natural suppo¬ sition which could be made. Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained,—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems, and concerns itself not at all with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas. This mode of philosophizing is not, however, exclusively found in modern scientific research. Ptolemy claimed for his 48 PHILOSOPHICAL DLSCUSSIONS. epicycles only that “they saved the appearances;” and he might have said, with as much propriety as Newton, “ Hypothe¬ ses non Jingo” for it was the aim of his research to represent abstractly, and by the most general formulas, the characteris¬ tics of the movements of the planets,—an aim which modern astronomy, with a much simpler hypothesis, and with immense¬ ly increased facilities, still pursues. We find, therefore, that while moderns follow a true method of investigation with greater facilities and greater fidelity than the ancients, and with a clearer apprehension of its elements and conditions, yet that no new discoveries in method have been made, and no general sources of truth have been pointed out, which were not patent and known to the ancients; and we have so far failed to discover any solution to the problem with which we began. We have seen that it was not by the em¬ ployment of a new method of research, but in the exercise of greater virtue in the use of old methods, that modern scientific researches have succeeded. But whence this greater virtue ? What vivifying, energizing influence awakened the sixteenth century to the movement, which has continued down to the present day to engross, and even to create, the energies of philosophic thought in the study of natural phenomena? Ob¬ viously some interest was awakened, which had before been powerless, or had influenced only men of rare and extraordi¬ nary genius, or else some opposing interest had ceased to exer¬ cise a preponderating influence. We have now arrived at a new order of inquiries. We ask no longer what are the differences of method between ancient and modern scientific researches, but we seek the difference in the motives which actuated the philosophic inquiries of the two periods. We seek for the interests which in modern times have so powerfully drawn men of all orders of intelligence to the pursuit of science, and to an observance of the conditions requisite for its successful prosecution. We do not inquire what course has led to successful answers in science, but what motives have prompted the pertinent questions. In place of the positivists’ phraseology, that the ancients followed “the subjective method,” or appealed for the verifica- THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 49 tion of their theories to natural beliefs, while the moderns fol¬ low “the objective method,” or appeal to new and independent experimental evidence,—if we substitute the word “motive” for “method,” we have the terms of one of the conclusions on which we wish to insist. But these require explanation. By a subjective motive we mean one having its origin in natural universal human interests and emotions, which existed before philosophy was born, which continue to exist in the maturity of philosophy, and determine the character of an important and by no means defunct order of human specula tions. By an objective motive we mean one having an empir¬ ical origin, arising in the course of an inquiry; springing from interests which are defined by what we already know, and no* by what we have always felt,—interests which depend on ac quired knowledge, and not on natural desires and emotions Among the latter we must include the natural desire foi knowledge, or the primitive, undisciplined sentiment of curi¬ osity. This becomes an objective motive when it ceases to be associated with our fears, our respects, our aspirations. —our emotional nature; when it ceases to prompt questions as to what relates to our personal destiny, our ambitions, our moral worth; when it ceases to have man, his personal and social nature, as its central and controlling objects. A curi¬ osity which is determined chiefly or solely by the felt imperfec¬ tions of knowledge as such, and without reference to the uses this knowledge may subserve, is prompted by what we call an objective motive. A spirit of inquiry which is freed from the influence of our active powers, and the interests that gave birth to theological and metaphysical philosophies,—which yields passively and easily to the direction of objective motives, to the felt imperfec¬ tions of knowledge as such,—is necessarily, at all times, a weak feeling; and before a body of systematic, well-digested, and well-ascertained scientific truth had been generated, could hardly have had any persistent influence on the direction of inquiry. The motives to theological and metaphysical speculation exist from the beginning of civilized human life in the active 3 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 5 ° emotional nature of man. Curiosity as a love of the marvel¬ ous, or as a iove of facts,—new facts, prized because they are new and stimulating,—also dates back of civilized life. These motives find play in human nature, as it emerges from a semi¬ animal state; but they also persist and determine the growth of the human mind in its most advanced development. The questions of philosophy proper are human desires and fears and aspirations—human emotions—taking an intel¬ lectual form. Science follows, but does not supersede, this phi¬ losophy. The three phases which the positivists assign to the development of the human mind—the Theological, the Met¬ aphysical, and the Positive or Scientific—are not in reality successive, except in their beginnings. They co-exist in all the highest developments of civilization and mental activity. They' co-existed in the golden age of Greek civilization, in the in¬ tense mental activity of the Middle Ages. They move on to¬ gether in this marvelous modern era. But until this latest epoch positive science was always the inferior philosophy,— hardly a distinct philosophy at all,—not yet bom. But at the beginning of the modern era its gestation was completed. A body of knowledge existed, sufficiently extensive, coherent, and varied, to bear within it a life of its own,—an independent life,—which was able to collect to itself, by its own determina¬ tions, the materials of a continued, new, and ever-increasing mental activity,—an activity determined solely by an objective curiosity, or by curiosity in its purest, fullest, and highest en¬ ergy. We are probably indebted to the few men of scientific genius who lived during the slow advancement of modern civilization for the foundation of this culture,—for the accumulation of the knowledge requisite for this subsequent growth. These men were doubtless, for the most part, the products of their own time and civilization, as indeed all great men have been, but still originators, by concentrating and making productive the energies, tendencies, and knowledges which, but for them, would have remained inert and unfruitful. It is to such men, born at long intervals in the slow progress of civilization, each carrying forward a little the work of,his predecessor, that we THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 5 * 'probably owe our modern science, rather than to the influence of any single mind, like Bacon, who was, like his predecessors, but the lens which collected the light of his times,—who prophesied rather than inaugurated the new era. And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization. We find, then, the explanation of the modern development of science in the accumulation of a body of certified knowl¬ edge, sufficiently extensive to engage and discipline a rational scientific curiosity, and stimulate it to act independently of other motives. It is doubtless true that other motives have influenced this development, and especially that motives of material utility have had a powerful effect in stimulating inquiry. Ancient schools of philosophy despised narrow material utilities, the servile arts, and sought no instruction in what moderns dignify by the name of useful arts; but modern science finds in the requirements of the material arts the safest / guide to exact knowledge. A theory which is utilized receives the highest possible certificate of truth. Navigation by the aid of astronomical tables, the magnetic telegraph, the innumer¬ able utilities of mechanical and chemical science, are constant and perfect tests of scientific theories, and afford the standard of certitude, which science has been able to apply so exten¬ sively in its interpretations of natural phenomena. But the motives proper to science, though purified by their dissociation from the subjective determinations and tendencies, which gave an anthropomorphic and teleological character to ancient views of nature, are not the only legitimate motives to philosophical inquiry. There is another curiosity purified by its association with the nobler sentiments,—with wonder, ad¬ miration, veneration,—and with the interests of our moral and aesthetical natures. This curiosity is the motive to philosophy proper. “Wonder is a highly philosophical affection,” says Plato’s Socrates; “indeed, there is no other principle of philos¬ ophy but this.” Curiosity determined by natural sentiments and emotions— subjective curiosity—is the cause of a culture co-extensive with civilization, long preceding the growth of science, and constitut- 5 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. ing all that is peculiar to civilized life except the material arts, However meanly the conclusions of theological and metaphys¬ ical speculations may appear, when tried by the objective stand¬ ard of science, they too have their superiorities, by the test of which science becomes in turn insignificant. Unverified con elusions, vague ideas, crude fancies, they may be, but they cer¬ tainly are the products of activities which constitute more of human happiness and human worth than the narrow material standards of science have been able to measure. Philosophy proper should be classed with the Religions and with the Fine Arts, and estimated rather by the dignity of its motives, and the value it directs us to, than by the value of its own attainments. To condemn this pursuit because it fails to accomplish what science does, would be to condemn that which has formed in human nature habits, ideas, and associations on which all that is best in us depends,—would warrant the con¬ demnation of science itself, since science scarcely existed at all for two thousand years of civilization, and represented as a dis¬ tinct department during this period only the interests of the servile arts. The objects of Philosophy were those which the religious ideas and emotions of man presented to his specula¬ tive curiosity. These motives, though proper to Philosophy, also gave direction to inquiries in Physics and Astronomy. The Fine Arts sprang from the same interests, and persisted through the conservative power of religious interests in a de¬ velopment to which the modern world offers no parallel. We have no styles in Art, no persistently pursued efforts for per¬ fection in beauty, because we are not held to the conditions of this perfection by the religious motives which directed ancient Art. The growth of Theology and Metaphysics is less vigor¬ ous now for the same reason. Theology was Philosophy de¬ veloped in the interests of Religion or of religious feeling, and Metaphysics was cultivated in the interests of Theology. Both aimed at truth; both were determined by the same love of sim¬ plicity and unity in knowledge, which determines all search after truth; but neither cared for simple truth alone. When pursued for the truth of fact alone, they both degenerate into affectation and emptiness. We do not omit the sceptical phi- THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 53 losophies of antiquity from this description, because they were not held independently of the religious interests of the orthodox philosophy, but in opposition to them or in criticism of them. Theology and Metaphysics failed to apply a correct method and to arrive at certain results, not because philosophers were ignorant of method, but because the object-matters of their re¬ search were not questions of sensible experience,—were not mere questions of facts of which the mind is the passive recip¬ ient through the senses. Their aim was to prove truth, not to discover it,—to reduce opinions and ideas which had the war¬ rant of religious associations to the simplicity and consistency of truth; and when ideas and opinions have this warrant, it does not require the verification of the senses to make the con¬ clusions of Philosophy acceptable and true to the religious in¬ stincts. To educe Conclusions acceptable to these instincts and in opposition to no known truth,—in other words, to free relig¬ ious beliefs from contradictions and to give them consistency,— was the aspiration and the devoted service of Philosophy. Philosophy has in fact three phases instead of two. For as Theology was a speculation prosecuted in the interest of re¬ ligious feeling, and Metaphysics a speculation in defense or criticism of the doctrines of Theology, so Criticism or Critical Philosophy is an examination of metaphysical conclusions. But the latter is properly, in its motives, a scientific specula¬ tion. Such is the true logical order of Philosophy proper, though all these phases may and do co-exist in history. It is the opinion of many modern thinkers, besides the so- called Positivists, or avowed followers of M. Comte, that sci¬ ence, as we have defined it, or truth pursued simply in the in¬ terests of a rational curiosity, and for the mental discipline and the material utilities of its processes and conclusions, will here¬ after occupy more and more the attention of mankind, to the exclusion of the older philosophy. It is also the opinion of these thinkers, that this is not to be regretted, but rather wel¬ comed as a step forward in the advancement of human welfare and civilization; that the pursuit of science and its utilities is capable of inspiring as great and earnest a devotion as those which religious interests have inspired, and which have hitherto 54 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. determined the destinies of mankind and given form to human thought, and one vastly more beneficent. Whatever foundations there are for these opinions, it is cer tain that the claims of science, as a new power in the world, to the regard of thoughtful and earnest men, are receiving a re¬ newed and more candid attention. Through its recent prog¬ ress, many of the questions which have hitherto remained in the arena of metaphysical disputation are brought forward in new forms and under new auspices. Scientific investigations promise to throw a flood of light on subjects which have inter¬ ested mankind since the beginning of speculation,—subjects related to universal human interests. History, society, laws, and morality,—all are claimed as topics with which scientific methods are competent to deal. Scientific solutions are pro¬ posed to all the questions of philosophy which scientific illumi¬ nation may not show to have their origin in metaphysical hal¬ lucination. Prominent in the ranks of the new school stands Mr. Her¬ bert Spencer, whose versatility has already given to the world many ingenious and original essays in this new philosophy, and whose aspiring genius projects many more, which, if his strength does not fail, are to develop the capacities of a scien¬ tific method in dealing with all the problems that ought legiti¬ mately to interest the human mind. The programme of his future labors which his publishers have advertised might dispose a prejudiced critic to look with suspicion on what he has already accomplished; but the fa¬ vorable impression which his works have made, and the plaud¬ its of an admiring public, demand a suspension of judgment; and the extravagance of his pretensions should for the present be credited to the strength of his enthusiasm. It is through the past labors of an author that we must judge of his qualifications for future work, and the complete¬ ness of his preparation. Mr. Spencer’s writings evince an ex¬ tensive knowledge of facts political and scientific, but extensive rather than profound, and mainly at second hand. It is not, of course, to be expected that a philosopher will be an original investigator in all the departments of knowledge with which THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 55 he is obliged to have dealings. He must take much at second hand. But original investigations in some department of empirical science are a discipline which best tests and develops even a philosopher’s powers. He has in this at least an ex¬ perience of what is requisite to an adequate comprehension of facts. He learns how to make knowledge profitable to the ascertainment of new truths,—an art in which the modern natural philosopher excels. By new truths must be under¬ stood such as are not implied in what we already know, or educible from what is patent to common observation. How¬ ever skillfully the philosopher may apply his analytical proc¬ esses to the abstraction of the truths involved in patent facts, the utility of his results will depend not so much on their value and extent as mere abstractions, as on their capacity to enlarge our experience by bringing to notice residual phenom¬ ena, and making us observe what we have entirely overlooked, or search, out what has eluded our observation. Such is the character of the principles of modern natural philosophy, both mathematical and physical. They are rather the eyes with which nature is seen, than the elements and constituents of the objects discovered. It was in a clear apprehension of this value in the principles of mathematical and experi¬ mental science, that the excellence of Newton’s genius con¬ sisted ; and it is this value which the Positive Philosophy most prizes. But this is not the value which we find in Mr. Spen¬ cer’s speculations. Mr. Spencer is not a positivist, though that was not a very culpable mistake which confounded his speculations with the writings of this school. For however much he differs from the positivists in his methods and opinions, he is actuated by the same confidence in the capacities of a scientific method, and by the same disrespect for the older philosophies. Mr. Spen¬ cer applies a method for the ascertainment of ultimate truths, which a positivist would regard as correct only on the suppo¬ sition that the materials of truth have all been collected, and that the research of science is no longer for the enlargement of our experience or for the informing of the mind. Until these conditions be realized, the positivist regards such at 5 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. tempts as Mr. Spencer’s as not only faulty, but positively per¬ nicious and misleading. Nothing justifies the development of abstract principles in science but their utility in enlarging our concrete knowledge of nature. The ideas on which mathematical Mechanics and the Calculus are founded, the morphological ideas of Natural History, and the theories of Chemistry are such working ideas,—finders, not merely sum¬ maries of truth. But before examining more in detail Mr. Spencer’s method of philosophizing, it will be useful to consider his career and character as a thinker and writer. Born in Derby in 1820, he was educated by his father, who was a school-teacher in that town, and by his uncle, a clergyman of the Established Church. At the age of seventeen he entered on the profes¬ sion of civil engineering, which he followed for eight years. He then abandoned this pursuit for a literary career. He had already published in a scientific journal several papers on pro¬ fessional subjects, and at the age of twenty-two gave an ear¬ nest of his tastes for political speculation in a newspaper article on “The Proper Sphere of Government.” He after¬ wards became a writer in the Economist, and in 1851 pub¬ lished his “Social Statics, or the Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the First of them devel¬ oped.” By this work he became first generally known to the reading public in America. This work exhibits the traits which characterize all Mr. Spencer’s subsequent writings. A constant and close student of facts both political and scientific, with the practical bent of the English radical and idealist, he is none the less strongly attracted to the abstractions of speculative thought. He aims at the same time at system and at effect. No distract idealist, though always actuated by that uncontent which moves revolutions and reforms, he uses abstractions and abstract modes of thought for moral ends. His allegiance to his speculative and his practical aims seems sometimes divided, and then he shows a tendency to follow out the consequences of theory, and to trust the welfare of mankind to its omnipotent care. He has great faith in the self-sufficingness of things. The very elements have in them THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER . 57 the seeds of moral perfectibility. But he would leave out of the category of natural agencies in politics the paternal care of the rulers of mankind. He regards with lofty scorn that presumption in the governing classes which pretends to com¬ prehend and help forward the inherent progressiveness of the world. Moral idealism colors all Mr. Spencer’s views, both in science and politics. This gains him a popular hearing, es¬ pecially with the youth of democratic America. But Amer¬ ican democracy itself sympathizes with English radicalism only as the rich and benevolent sympathize with the poor. We wish them the good of universal suffrage. We are studying how to remedy the evils of it. To us this boon is a present fate, mixed of good and evil,—a thing neither to seek nor to avoid, but of which we must make the best. We suffer our legislators to exercise that absolute tyranny which Mr. Spencer proves to be an absolute immorality,—a compulsory universal common-school education,—without a murmur. We have not even suspected its immorality. Some of us regard it as a little overdone; but few or none have found that the system is radically faulty, though it be at variance with Mr. Spencer’s moral premises. But we must defer the consideration of the arguments of this work, for we are at present only concerned with the characteristics of the writer. The strong tendency to speculative and abstract modes of thought which his first work evinces found a more distinct utterance in the author’s “ Principles of Psychology,” published four years later, in 1855. The choice of .this subject seems to have been determined by the author’s genius for the kind of thinking to which this subject is adapted, rather than by any special training in its literature. Indeed, this work, like the “ Social Statics,” is characterized by great originality. Con¬ strained by his entire sympathy with modern movements in thought and scientific culture, he is perforce a scientific em¬ piricist, though his peculiar genius would have found a more congenial employment in scholastic philosophy. Mr. Spen¬ cer believes in developments. All his writings are develop¬ ments, and most of them are about developments. He de¬ lights in “ evolutions from the homogeneous to the heterogene- PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 58 ous,”—in “ changes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, through continuous differ¬ entiations and integrations.” He not only discovers them in all the objects of scientific research, but he rings these changes in all his discourses on them. Analysis is his forte , and devel¬ opments are foibles. But he had not yet in his “Principles of Psychology ” fully developed these foibles. He finds, however, in the problems of Psychology scope for his analytical powers. Like all writers who do not speak from the urgency of con¬ viction or dissent, he is an eclectic. He aims to combine in his Psychology what is true in empiricism with what is true in metaphysics; and he had special reasons for this course. Mr. Spencer is here no longer a champion. His moral convictions find their utterance in his political and social essays. In Phi¬ losophy he is charmed with ideas, and with his power to un¬ ravel them. He is actuated by a simple love of truth, and he is therefore an eclectic. He has no real respect for ideas or for the religious grounds of metaphysics. As between pure empiricism and religious metaphysics his choice would be un¬ hesitating. He would choose empiricism. But ideas are fine things when one has more power to unfold than to find them; and they are still found, as heretofore, by the insights of scien¬ tific sagacity rather than by any method. Pure empiricism, however, or Positivism, refuses to Psychology any place in the hierarchy of the sciences. How then can Mr. Spencer get the ideas on which to exercise his powers ? There is only one course; he must postulate them. Ideas are all derived from experience, it is true; but we must not seek in actual particu¬ lar experiences for their validity. These may be, and probably are, beyond the reach of resuscitation. What then is the test of truth or of reality in the grounds of any idea ? “ The in¬ conceivableness of its negation,” says Mr. Spencer; and so he adopted a principle from metaphysics, but with a limitation. This inconceivableness results from the discipline of experience. It does not depend on any plastic power of the mind as an original nature, determining the possibilities of experience and thought, but it is determined in the mind by invariable experi¬ ences. Those orders and relationships of events in nature THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 59 which are present to the mind from its first determinations to thought, those which are never contradicted in experience, de¬ termine also the possibilities of thought; and in turn the possi¬ bilities of thought are tests of invariable experiences, though the particular experiences are lost in oblivion. In other words, the mind has but one faculty peculiarly its own, and that is memory. The mind is pure memory, but this has various forms. The primordial memory, the intellect, that which is as it were the framework of all the others,—the containing mem¬ ory,—consists of certain beliefs, the negations of which cannot be conceived, but the particular grounds of which are forgot¬ ten. This memory extends back of the individual life, is de¬ rived from the experience of the race, and constitutes the in¬ nate tendencies and mental powers with which the individual life begins. This sounds like Plato’s doctrine, that learning is a kind of reminiscence; but it is in fact pure empiricism. Mind is but a reflex of organism. But the organism has a memory,—a memory of the results of all invariable experiences in the continuous evolutions of the race. No empiricist can find any radical fault with this account of innate ideas. But Mr. Spencer evolves it in a somewhat different manner. He is seeking for a basis of psychology which shall be consist¬ ent with the truth of empiricism, and at the same time with the possibility of psychology as a distinct science. Some first truth or truths peculiarly psychological are wanted, for Mr. Spencer proposes to try his speculative powers in eliciting what has eluded the sagacity of his predecessors in psychology,—in the analysis of ideas. Now, the existence of beliefs, proved to be invariable by the inconceivableness of their negations, is a fundamental fact of consciousness,—the most fundamental fact. Beliefs of all sorts are the constituent elements of con¬ sciousness. Every act of the mind involves a judgment, that is, a belief; and the only test, indeed the only meaning, of the truth of a belief is its persistency . Hence invariableness in a belief, as proved by the inconceivableness of its negation, is the highest possible warrant of truth. Sensible experience can give no higher warrant. The mind, therefore, contains in itself the criterion of truth; and psychology, or a scientific 6o PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . evolution of the data of consciousness, is a legitimate philoso¬ phy. And this is thought to be not inconsistent with the em¬ pirical explanation of the origin of invariable beliefs, namely, the formation of the mind by invariable, often repeated, special experiences, both in the individual and in the race. But there is a superfluity somewhere,—too many authorities. Occam’s razor is not too old to apply to this new philosophy. The characteristic common to particular, real experiences, and to universal, necessary truths, so called,—namely, that they are believed, and believed without appeal to anything else,—this characteristic is either from the same or from different sources. If from different sources, then empiricism is false, and Psy¬ chology is a legitimate philosophy. If from the same source, namely, particular experiences, then these are a sufficient au¬ thority, and indeed the only final appeal, though invariable beliefs, “proved to be invariable by the inconceivableness of their negations,” may be excellent approximate determinations of what experience certifies. No empiricist will deny this ex¬ cellence to natural beliefs, but this is not ascribing to them any proper authority. In discussing this his criterion or “universal postulate,” Mr. Spencer encounters two of the acutest of modern thinkers, Mr. Mill and Sir William Hamilton, whose opinions he finds opposed to his own on opposite grounds. Here is a fine chance for eclecticism, to combine what is true in both these philosophies; but first he must refute what is false. Speaking of the effect of habit in determining the limits of our conceptive faculty, Mr. Mill says : “ There are remarkable instances of this in the history of science; instances in which the wisest men rejected as impossible, because inconceivable, things which their posterity, by earlier practice and longer perseverance in the attempt, found it quite easy to conceive, and which everybody now knows to be true.” While grant¬ ing that this evidence is sufficient to disprove the doctrine of the a priori character of our natural beliefs, our author thinks that “it does not really warrant Mr. Mill’s inference, that it is absurd to reject a proposition as impossible on no other grounds than its inconceivableness.” Further on he says: THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER. 6l “If there be, as Mr. Mill holds, certain absolute uniformities in nat¬ ure ; if these uniformities produce, as they must, absolute uniformities in our experience; and if, as he shows, these absolute uniformities in our experience disable us from conceiving the negations of them, — then, answering to each uniformity in nature which we can cognize, there must exist in us a belief of which the negation is inconceivable, and which is absolutely true. In this wide range of cases subjective inconceivable¬ ness must correspond to objective impossibility. Further experience will produce correspondence where it may not yet exist; and we may expect the correspondence to become ultimately complete. In nearly all cases this test of inconceivableness must be valid now; and where it is not, it still expresses the net result of our experience up to the present time ; which is the m that this “survival of the fittest” neous beliefs It Y & „ struggle for existence ” among our primitive beliefs, ImSstes'criprion is’equally figurative as applied .0 Natural Selection in the organtc " The application of ^tlnlid^Ius"'"» 'dS said, the faculties wlth .^ ^ the faculty of using and inventing language. How Natu- that most efficient aux « Y, _ . not so ea sy to trace, and is an almost wholly ml Selection could ^vemugi^ faculty consists essentially, as we have supposed, in a speculative ques * . ^ spontaneous over the passive powers of the brain, effect- preponderance ot t , mind while the latter simply result in the L turning-hach or actron of „ eed J depend on the following-out or sagacous h , ^ of (he powers that depend on itsquan- absolute sire of the br 1 , * y V e shou ld naturally suppose, therefore, that the tity to those that depend o q y. ^ creatures , perhaps much less so than the earliest men J most likely, very social; even more so, perhaps, present uncivilized races, Bu V & strong mQtive t0 ca U this complicated than the sagacious savage for be c bserved that sagacity and and difficult mental action into exercise; and it is ev en now LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION. IX 7 erly be called a problem), the origin of sensation or simple con¬ sciousness, the problem par excellence of pedantic garrulity or philosophical childishness. Questions of the special physical antecedents, concomitants, and consequents of special sensa¬ tions will doubtless continue to be the legitimate objects of empirical researches and of important generalizations; and such researches may succeed in reducing all other facts of actual "experience, all our knowledge of nature, and all our thoughts and emotions to intelligible modifications of these simple and fundamental existences; but the attempt to reduce sensation to anything but sensation is as gratuitous and as devoid of any suggestion or guidance of experience, as the attempt to reduce the axioms of the mathematical or mechanical sciences to simpler orders of universal facts. In one sense material phe¬ nomena, or physical objective states, are causes or effects of sensations, bearing as they do the invariable relations to them of antecedents, or concomitants, or consequents. But these are essentially empirical relations, explicable perhaps by more and more generalized empirical laws, but approaching in this way never one step nearer to an explanation of material con¬ ditions by mental laws, or of mental natures by the forces of matter. Matter and mind co-exist. There are no scientific principles by which either can be determined to be the cause i jf sociability are not commonly united in high degrees even among civilized men. Growths both in the quantity and quality of the brain are, therefore, equally probable in the history of human development, with always a preponderance of the advantages which depend upon quantity. But the present superiority of the most civilized races, so far as it is independent of any external inheritance of arts, knowledges, and institutions, would appear to depend chiefly upon the quality of their brains, and upon characteristics belonging to their moral and emotional natures rather than the intellectual, since the intellectual acquisitions of civilization are more easily communicated by education to the savage than the refine¬ ments of its moral and emotional characteristics. Though all records and traces of this development are gone, and a wide gulf separates the lowest man from the highest brute animal, yet elements exist by which we may trace the succession of utilities and advan¬ tages that have determined the transition. The most essential are those of the social nat¬ ure of man, involving mutual assistance in the struggle for existence. Instrumental to these aie his mental powers, developed by his social nature, and by the reflective char¬ acter of his brain’s action into a general and common intelligence, instead of the special¬ ized instincts and sagacities characteristic of other animals; and from these came lan¬ guage, and thence all the arts, knowledges, governments, traditions, all the external in¬ heritances, which, reacting on his social nature, have induced the sentiments of morality, worship, and refinement; at which gazing as in a mirror he sees his past, and thinks it his future. 118 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of the other. Still, so far as scientific evidence goes, mind ex¬ ists in direct and peculiar relations to a certain form cf matter, the organic, which is not a different kind, though the proper¬ ties of no other forms are in themselves capable, so far as sci¬ entific observation has yet determined, of giving rise to it. The materials and the forces of organisms are both derived from other forms of matter, as well as from the organic; but the organic form itself appears to be limited to the productive powers of matters and forces which already have this form. The transcendental doctrine of development (which is not wholly transcendental, since it is guided, at least vaguely, by the scientific principles of cause and effect, or by the continuities and uniformities of natural phenomena) assumes that in the past course of nature the forms as well as the materials and forces of organic matter had at one time a causal connection with other forms of material existence. Mental natures, and especially the simplest, or sensations, would have had, accord¬ ing to this assumption, a more universal relation of immediate connection* than we now know with properties of the sort that we call material. Still, by the analogies of experience they cannot be regarded as having been either causes or effects of them. Our ignorances, or the as yet unexplored possibilities of nature, seem far preferable to the vagueness of this theory, which, in addition to the continuities and uniformities univer¬ sally exhibited in nature, assumes transcendentally, as a uni¬ versal first principle, the law of progressive change , or a law which is not universally exemplified by the course of nature. We say, and say truly, that a stone has no sensation, since it exhibits none of the signs that indicate the existence of sensa¬ tions. It is not only a purely objective existence, like every¬ thing else in nature, except our own individual self-consciousness, but its properties indicate to us no other than this purely ob¬ jective existence, unless it be the existence of God. To suppose that its properties could possibly result in a sensitive nature, not previously existing or co-existing with them, is to reason entirely beyond the guidance and analogies of experience. It is a purely gratuitous supposition, not only metaphysical or transcendental, but also materialistic; that is, it is not only asking a foolish ques- LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION. 119 lion, but giving a still more foolish answer to it. In short, the metaphysical problem may be reduced to an attempt to break down the most fundamental antithesis of all experience, by de¬ manding to know of its terms which of them is the other. To this sort of fatuity belongs, we think, the mystical doctrine which Mr. Wallace is inclined to adopt, “that force is a product of mind”; which means, so far as it is intelligible, that forces, or the physical antecedents and conditions of motion (appre¬ hended, it is true, along with motion itself, through our sensa¬ tions and volitions), yet bear to our mental natures the still closer relation of resemblance to the prime agency of the Will; or it means that “all force is probably will-force.” Not only does this assumed mystical resemblance, expressed by the word “ will-force,” contradict the fundamental antithesis of subject and object phenomena (as the word “mind-matter” would), but it fails to receive any confirmation from the law of the correlation of the physical forces. All the motions of animals, both voluntary and involuntary, are traceable to the efficiency of equivalent material forces in the animal’s physical organiza¬ tion. The cycles of equivalent physical forces are complete, even when their courses lie through the voluntary actions of animals, without the introduction of conscious or mental con¬ ditions. The sense of effort is not a form of force. The pain¬ ful or pleasurable sensations that accompany the conversions of force in conscious volitions are not a consciousness of this force itself, nor even a proper measure of it. The Will is not a measurable quantity of energy, with its equivalents in terms of heat, or falling-force, or chemical affinity, or the energy of mo¬ tion, unless we identify it with the vital energies of the organ¬ ism, which are, however (unfortunately for this hypothesis), the causes of the involuntary movements of an animal, as well as of its proper volitions considered from their physical side. But Mr. Wallace is inclined to the opinion that the Will is an incident force, regulating and controlling the action of the physical forces of the vital machine, but contributing, even in this capacity, some part at least to the actual moving forces of the living frame. He says: “However delicately a machine may be constructed, with the most ex- 120 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. quisitely contrived detents to release a weight or spring by the exertion of the smallest possible amount of force, some external force will always be required; so in the animal machine, however minute may be the changes required in the cells or fibres of the brain, to set in motion the nerve currents that loosen or excite the pent-up forces of certain muscles, some force must be required to effect those changes.” And this force he supposes to be the Will. This is the most in¬ telligible materialism we have ever met with in the discussions of this subject. It is true that in a machine, not only the main efficient forces, but also the incident and regulating ones, are physical forces; and however small the latter may be, they are still of the same nature, and are comparable in amount with the main efficient forces. But is not this one of the most es¬ sential differences between a machine and a sensitive organ¬ ism? Is it impossible, then, that nature has contrived an in¬ finitely more perfect machine than human art can invent,— machinery which involves the powers of art itself, if it be proper to call that contrivance a machine, in which the regu¬ lating causes are of a wholly different nature from the efficient forces ? May it not be that sensations and mental conditions, generally, are regulating causes which add nothing, like the force of the hand of the engineer to the powers which he con¬ trols in his machine, and subtract nothing, as an automatic ap¬ paratus does, from such powers in the further regulation of the machine? We may not be able to understand how such reg¬ ulation is possible; how sensations and other mental conditions can restrain, excite, and combine the conversions of physical forces in the cycles into which they themselves do not enter; though there is a type of such regulation in the principles of theoretical mechanics, in the actions of forces which do not af¬ fect the quantities of the actual or potential energies of a sys¬ tem of moving bodies, but simply the form of the movement, as in the rod of the simple pendulum. Such regulation in the sensitive organism is more likely to be an ultimate inexplicable fact; but it is clear that even in a machine the amounts of the regulating forces bear no definite relations to the powers they control, and might, so far as these are directly concerned, be reduced to nothing as forces; and in many cases they are re¬ duced to a minimum of the force of friction. They must, LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION. 12 I however, be something in amount in a machine, because they are physical , and, like all physical forces, must be derived in quantity from pre-existing forms of force. To infer from this that the Will must add something to the forces of the organism is, therefore, to assume for it a material nature. But Mr. Wallace escapes, or appears to think (as others think who hold this view) that he escapes, from complete materialism by the doctrine of the freedom of the Will. Though he makes the Will an efficient physical force, he does not allow it to be a physical effect. In other words, he regards the Will as an ab¬ solute source of physical energy, continually adding, though in small amounts, to the store of the forces of nature; a sort of molecular leakage of energy from an absolute source into the nervous system of animals, or, at least, of men. This, though in our opinion an unnecessary and very improbable hypothesis, is not inconceivable. It is improbable, inasmuch as it denies to the Will a character common to the physical forces with which the Will is otherwise assimilated by this theory,—the character, namely, of being an effect in measurable amount as well as a cause, or the character of belonging to cycles of changes related by invariable quantities; but as we do not re¬ gard the conservation of* force as a necessary law of the uni¬ verse, we are able to comprehend Mr. Wallace’s position. It is the metaphysical method of distinguishing a machine from a sensitive organism. But we do not see why Mr. Wallace is not driven by it to the dilemma of assuming free-wills for all sentient organisms; or else of assuming, with Descartes, that all but men are machines. The latter alternative would, doubtless, redound most effectively to the metaphysical digni¬ ty of human nature. Mr. Wallace appears to think that un¬ less we can attribute to the Will some efficiency or quantity of energy, its agency must be regarded as a nullity, and our appar¬ ent consciousness of its influence as an illusion; but this opin¬ ion appears to be based on the still broader assumption, which seems to us erroneous, that all causation is reducible to the conversions of equivalent physical energies. It may be true (at least we are not prepared to dispute the assumption) that every case of real causation involves such conversions or 6 122 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. changes in forms of energy, or that every effect involves changes of position and motion. Nevertheless, every case of real causation may still involve also another mode of causation. A much simpler conception than our author’s theory, and one that seems to us far more probable is that the phenomena of conscious volition involve in themselves no proper efficiencies or forces coming under the law of the conservation of force, but are rather natural types of causes, purely and absolutely regulative , which add nothing to, and subtract nothing from, the quantities of natural forces. No doubt there is in the actions of the nervous system a much closer resemblance than this to a machine. No doubt it is automatically regulated, as well as moved, by physical forces; but this is probably just in proportion as its agency —as in our habits and instincts — is removed from our con¬ scious control. All this machinery is below, beyond, ex¬ ternal, or foreign to our consciousness. The profoundest, most attentive introspection gains not a glimpse of its activity, nor do we ever dream of its existence; but both by the laws of its operations, and by the means through which we become aware of its existence, it stands in the broadest, most funda¬ mental contrast to our mental natures; and these, so far from furnishing a type of physical efficiency in our conscious voli¬ tions, seem to us rather, in accordance with their general con¬ trast with material phenomena, to afford a type of purely reg¬ ulative causes, or of an absolutely forceless and unresisted control and regulation of those forces of nature which are comprised in the powers of organic life. Perhaps a still higher type of such regulation is to be found in those “laws of nature,” which, without adding to, or subtracting from, the real forces of nature, determine the order of their conversions by “ fixed , stated, or settled ” rules of succession; and these may govern also, and probably do govern, the successions of our mental or self-conscious states, both in themselves and in their relations to material conditions. Simple, absolute, inva¬ riable rules of succession in phenomena, both physical and mental, constitute the most abstract conception we can have of causal relations; but they appear under two chief classes, the LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION. 123 physical laws which determine the possible relations of the forms of force, and those which are also concerned in the still further determination of its actual orders of succession, or which, by their combinations in the intricate web of uniformities in nature, both mental and physical, determine the events in particular that in relation to the laws of force are only deter¬ mined in general. The proper laws of force, or of the con¬ versions of energy, are concerned exclusively with relations in space. Relations in time are governed by the other class of laws. Thus, in the abstract theory of the pendulum, the phenomena of force involved are limited simply to the vertical rise and fall of the weight, upon which alone the amounts of its motions depend. The times of its vibrations are deter- • mined by the regulating length of the rod, which in theory adds nothing to, and subtracts nothing from, the efficient mutually convertible forces of motion and gravity. What is here assumed in theory to be true, we assume to be actually and absolutely true of mental agencies. But it may be said, and it often is said, “ that this theory of the Will’s agency is directly contradicted in both its features by consciousness; that we are immediately conscious both of energy and freedom in willing.” There is much in our voli¬ tional consciousness to give countenance to this contradiction ; but it is only such as dreams give to contradictions of rational experience. The words “ force,” “ energy,” “ effort,” “ resist¬ ance,” “conflict,” all point to states of feeling in our volitional consciousness which seem to a superficial observation to be true intuitions of spontaneous self-originated causes; and it is only when these states of feeling are tested by the scientific definitions and the objective measure of forces, and by the orders of the conversions of force, that they are found to be only vague, subjective accompaniments, instead of distinct ob¬ jective apprehensions or perceptions of what “force” signifies in science. Such tests prove them to be like the complement¬ ary or subjective colors of vision. In one sense they are in¬ tuitions of force, our only intuitions of it (as the aspects of nature are our only intuitions of the system of the world); but they are not true perceptions, since they do not afford, each 124 \ PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. feeling in itself, definite and invariable indications of force as an objective existence, or as affecting all minds alike. Even the sense of weight is no proper measure of weight as an ele¬ ment of force; and the muscular effort of lifting is only a vague and variable perception of this conversion of force, and does not afford even a hint of the great law of the conserva¬ tion and convertibility of forces, but, on the contrary, seems to contradict it. The muscular feeling of resistance to motion or to a change of motion is an equally vague measure of inertia. Indeed, the feelings of weight and resistance, which are often regarded as intuitions of gravity and inertia, are insusceptible of precise measurement or numerical comparison; and though capable of being trained to some degree of precision in esti¬ mating what is properly measured by other means, they could never have revealed through their unaided indications the law of the fixed and universal proportionality of these two forces. The feeling of effort itself (more or less intense, and more or less painful, according to circumstances, which are quite irrel¬ evant to its apparent effect) appears by the testimony of con¬ sciousness to be the immediate cause of the work which is done, —work really done by forces in the vital organism, which only the most recondite researches of science have dis¬ closed. But if this much-vaunted authority of immediate con¬ sciousness so blunders in even the simplest cases, how can our author or any judicious thinker trust its unconfirmed, unsup¬ ported testimony in regard to the agency of the Will ? Is it not like trusting the testimony of the senses as to the immo¬ bility of the earth ? With hardly a point, therefore, of Mr. Wallace’s concluding essay are we able to agree; and this impresses us the more, since we find nothing in the rest of his book which appears to us to call for serious criticism, but many things, on the con¬ trary, which command our most cordial admiration. We ac¬ count for it by the supposition that his metaphysical views, carefully excluded from his scientific work, are the results of an earlier and less severe training than that which has secured to us his valuable positive contributions to the theory of Nat¬ ural Selection. Mr. Wallace himself is fully aware of this con- LIMITS OF NA TURAL SELECTION. I2 5 trast, and anticipates a scornful rejection of his theory by many who in other respects agree with him. The doctrines of the special and prophetic providences and decrees of God, and of the metaphysical isolation of human nature, are based, after all, on barbaric conceptions of dignity, which are restricted in their application by every step forward in the progress of science. And the sense of security they give us of the most sacred things is more than replaced by the ever-growing sense of the universality of inviolable laws,— laws that underlie our sentiments and desires, as well as all that these can rationally regard in the outer world. It is un¬ fortunate that the prepossessions of religious sentiment in favor of metaphysical theories should make the progress of science always seem like an indignity to religion, or a detraction from what is held as most sacred; yet the responsibility for this be¬ longs neither to the progress of science nor to true religious sentiment, but to a false conservatism, an irrational respect for the ideas and motives of a philosophy which finds it more and more difficult with every advance of knowledge to reconcile its assumptions with facts of observation. THE GENESIS OF SPECIES.* It is now nearly twelve years since the discussion of that “ mystery of mysteries,” the origin of species, was re-opened by the publication of the first edition of Mr. Darwin’s most re¬ markable work. Again and again in the history of scientific debate this question had been discussed, and, after exciting a short-lived interest, had been condemned by cautious and con¬ servative thinkers to the limbo of insoluble problems or to the realm of religious mystery. They had, therefore, sufficient grounds, a priori , for anticipating that a similar fate would attend this new revival of the question, and that, in a few years, no more would be heard of the matter; that the same condemnation awaited this movement which had overwhelmed the venturesome speculations of Lamarck and of the author of the “Vestiges of Creation.” This not unnatural anticipation has been, however, most signally disappointed. But what can we say has really been accomplished by this debate; and what reasons have we for believing that the judgment of conservative thinkers will not, in the main, be proved right after all, though present indications are against them? One permanent consequence, at least, will remain, in the great additions to our knowledge of natural history, and of general physiology, or theoretical biology, which the discus¬ sion has produced; though the greater part of this positive contribution to science is still to be credited directly to Mr. Darwin’s works, and even to his original researches. But, besides this, an advantage has been gained which cannot be too highly estimated. Orthodoxy has been won over to the * From the North American Review, July, 1871. THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 127 doctrine of evolution. In asserting this result, however, we are obliged to make what will appear to many persons impor¬ tant qualifications and explanations. We do not mean that the heads of leading religious bodies, even in the most enlight¬ ened communities, are yet willing to withdraw the dogma that the origin of species is a special religous mystery, or even to assent to the hypothesis of evolution as a legitimate question for scientific inquiry. We mean only, that many eminent stu¬ dents of science, who claim to be orthodox, and who are cer¬ tainly actuated as much by a spirit of reverence as by scientific inquisitiveness, have found means of reconciling the general doctrine of evolution with the dogmas they regard as essential to religion. Even to those whose interest in the question is mainly scientific this result is a welcome one, as opening the way for a freer discussion of subordinate questions, less tram¬ meled by the religious prejudices which have so often been serious obstacles to the progress of scientific researches. But again, in congratulating ourselves on this-result, we are obliged to limit it to the doctrine of evolution in its most gen¬ eral form, the theory common to Lamarck’s zoological philos¬ ophy, to the views of the author of the “Vestiges of Creation,” to the general conclusions of Mr. Darwin’s and Mr. Wallace’s theory of Natural Selection, to Mr. Spencer’s general doctrine of evolution, and to a number of minor explanations of the processes by which races of animals and plants have been de¬ rived by descent from different ancestral forms. What is no longer regarded with suspicion as secretly hostile to religious beliefs by many truly religious thinkers is that which is denoted in common by the various names “transmutation,” “develop¬ ment,” “derivation,” “evolution,” and “descent with modifi¬ cation.” These terms are synonymous in their primary and general signification, but refer secondarily to various hypoth¬ eses of the processes of derivation. But there is a choice among them on historical grounds, and with reference to as¬ sociations, which are of some importance from a theological point of view. “Transmutation” and “development” are under ban. “ Derivation ” is, perhaps, the most innocent word; though “evolution” will probably prevail, since, spite 128 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of its etymological implication, it has lately become most acceptable, not only to the theological critics of the theory, but to its scientific advocates; although, from the neutral ground of experimental science, “ descent with modification ” is the most pertinent and least exceptionable name. While the general doctrine of evolution has thus been suc¬ cessfully redeemed from theological condemnation, this is not yet true of the subordinate hypothesis of Natural Selection, to the partial success of which this change of opinion is, in great measure, due. It is, at first sight, a paradox that the views most peculiar to the eminent naturalist, whose work has been chiefly instrumental in effecting this change of opinion, should still be rejected or regarded with suspicion by those who have nevertheless been led by him to adopt the general hypothesis, —an hypothesis which his explanations have done so much to render credible. It would seem, at first sight, that Mr. Dar¬ win has won a victory, not for himself, but for Lamarck. Transmutation, it would seem, has been accepted, but Natural Selection, its explanation, is still rejected by many converts to the general theory, both on religious and scientific grounds. But too much weight might easily be attributed to the deduct¬ ive or explanatory part of the evidence, on which the doctrine of evolution has come to rest. In the half-century preceding the publication of the “Origin of Species,” inductive evidence on the subject had accumulated, greatly outweighing all that was previously known; and the “Origin of Species” is not less remarkable as a compend and discussion of this evidence than for the ingenuity of its explanations. It is not, therefore, to what is now known as “ Darwinism ” that the prevalence of the doctrine of evolution is to be attributed, at least directly. Still, most of this effect is due to Mr. Darwin’s work, and something undoubtedly to the indirect influence of reasonings that are regarded with distrust by those who accept their con¬ clusions ; for opinions are contagious, even where their reasons are resisted. The most effective general criticism of the theory of Natural Selection which has yet appeared, and, at the same time, one which is likely to exert great influence in overcoming the re- THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 129 maining prejudice against the general doctrine of evolution, is the work of Mr. St. George Mivart “ On the Genesis of Species.” Though the work falls short of what-we might have expected from an author of Mr. Mivart’s attainments as a naturalist, yet his position before the religious world, and his unquestionable familiarity with the theological bearings of his subject, will undoubtedly gain for him and for the doctrine of evolution a hearing and a credit, which might be denied to the mere student of science. His work is mainly a critique of “Darwinism”; that is, of the theories peculiar to Mr. Darwin and the “ Darwinians,” as distinguished from the believers in the general doctrine of evolution which our author accepts. He also puts forward an hypothesis in opposition to Mr. Dar¬ win’s doctrine of the predominant influence of Natural Selec¬ tion in the generation of organic species, and their relation to the conditions of their existence. On this hypothesis, called “Specific Genesis,” an organism, though at any one time a fixed and determinate species, approximately adapted to sur¬ rounding conditions of existence, is potentially, and by innate potential combinations of organs and faculties, adapted to many other conditions of existence. It passes, according to the hypothesis, from one form to another of specific “mani¬ festation,” abruptly and discontinuously in conformity to the emergencies of its outward life; but in any condition to which it is tolerably adapted it retains a stable form, subject to varia¬ tion only within determinate limits, like oscillations in a stable equilibrium. For this conception our author is indebted to Mr. Galton, who, in his work on “ Hereditary Genius,” “com¬ pares the development of species with a many-faceted spheroid tumbling over from one facet or stable equilibrium to another. The existence of internal conditions in animals,” Mr. Mivart adds (p. iii), “corresponding with such facets is denied by pure Darwinians, but it is contended in this work that some¬ thing may also be said for their existence.” There are many facts of variation, numerous cases of abrupt changes in individuals both of natural and domesticated species, which, of course, no Darwinian or physiologist denies, and of which Natural Selection professes to offer no direct explanation. 13° PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . The causes of these phenomena, and their relations to external conditions of existence, are matters quite independent of the principle of Natural Selection, except so far as they may di¬ rectly affect the animal’s or plant’s well-being, with the origin of which this principle is alone concerned. General physi¬ ology has classified some of these sudden variations under such names as “reversion” and “atavism,” or returns more or less complete to ancestral forms. Others have been con¬ nected together under the law of “correlated or concomitant variations,” changes that, when they take place, though not known to be physically dependent on each other, yet usually or often occur together. Some cases of this law have been re¬ ferred to the higher, more fundamental laws of homological variations, or variations occurring together on account of the relationships of homology, or due to similarities and physical relations between parts of organisms, in tissues, organic con¬ nections, and modes of growth. Other variations are explained by the laws and causes that determine monstrous growths. Others again are quite inexplicable as yet, or cannot yet be referred to any general law or any known antecedents. These comprise, indeed, the most common cases. The almost uni¬ versal prevalence of well-marked phenomena of variation in species, the absolutely universal fact that no two individual organisms are exactly alike, and that the description of a species is necessarily abstract and in many respects by means of averages, — these facts have received no particular expla¬ nations, and might indeed be taken as ultimate facts or highest laws in themselves, were it not that in biological speculations such an assumption would be likely to be misunderstood, as denying the existence of any real determining causes and more ultimate laws, as well as denying any known antecedents or regularities in such phenomena. No physical naturalist would for a moment be liable to such a misunderstanding, but would, on the contrary, be more likely to be off his guard against the possibility of it in minds otherwise trained and habituated to a different kind of studies. Mr. Darwin has undoubtedly erred in this respect. He has not in his works repeated with suffi¬ cient frequency his faith in the universality of the law of THE GENESIS OF SPECIES . 131 causation, in the phenomena of general physiology Or theoret¬ ical biology, as well as in all the rest of physical nature. He has not said often enough, it would appear, that in referring any effect to “accident,” he only means that its causes are like particular phases of the weather, or like innumerable phenom¬ ena in the concrete course of nature generally, which are quite beyond the power of finite minds to anticipate or to account for in detail, though none the less really determinate or due to regular causes. That he has committed this error appears from the fact that his critic, Mr. Mivart, has made the mis¬ take, which nullifies nearly the whole of his criticism, of sup¬ posing that “the theory of Natural Selection may (though it need not) be taken in such a way as to lead men to regard the present organic world as formed, so to speak, accidentally , beautiful and wonderful as is confessedly the hap-hazard re¬ sult” (p. 33). Mr. Mivart, like many another writer, seems to forget the age of the world in which he lives and for which he writes,-—the age of “experimental philosophy,” the very stand¬ point of which, its fundamental assumption, is the universality of physical causation. This is so familiar to minds bred in physical studies, that they rarely imagine that they may be mistaken for disciples of Democritus, or for believers in “ the fortuitous concourse of atoms,” in the sense, at least, which theoiogy has attached to this phrase. If they assent to the truth that may have been meant by the phrase, they would not for a moment suppose that the atoms move fortuitously, but only that their conjunctions, constituting the actual concrete orders of events, could not be anticipated except by a knowl¬ edge of the natures and regular histories of each and all of them,—such knowledge as belongs only to omniscience. The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of con¬ structing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on the induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical meditation. Or, as 132 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. Bxcon said, it is not by the “anticipations of the mind,” but by the “interpretation of nature,” that natural philosophy is to be constituted; and this is to presume that the order of na¬ ture is decipherable, or that causation is everywhere either manifest or hidden, but never absent. Mr. Mivart does not wholly reject the process of Natural Selection, or disallow it as a real cause in nature, but he re¬ duces it to “a subordinate role” in his view of the derivation of species. It serves to perfect the imperfect adaptations, and to meet within certain limits unfavorable changes in the condi¬ tions of existence. The “accidents” which Natural Selection acts upon are allowed to serve in a subordinate capacity and in subjection to a foreordained, particular, divine order, or to act like other agencies dependent on an evil principle, which are compelled to turn evil into good. Indeed, the only differ¬ ence on purely scientific grounds, and irrespective of theological considerations, between Mr. Mivart’s views and Mr. Darwin’s is in regard to the extent to which the process of Natural Selec¬ tion has been effective in the modifications of species. Mr. Darwin himself, from the very nature of the process, has never supposed for it, as a cause, any other than a co-ordinate place among other causes of change, though he attributes to it a su¬ perintendent, directive, and controlling agency among them. The student of the theory would gather quite a different im¬ pression of the theory from Mr. Mivart’s account of it, which attributes to “ Darwinians ” the absurd conception of this cause as acting “alone” to produce the changes and stabilities of species; whereas, from the very nature of the process, other causes of change, whether of a known or as yet unknown nat¬ ure, are presupposed by it. Even Mr. Galton’s hypothet¬ ical “ facets,” or internal conditions of abrupt changes and successions of stable equilibriums, might be among these causes, if there were any good inductive grounds for sup¬ posing their existence. Reversional and correlated variations are, indeed, due to such internal conditions and to laws of inheritance, which have been ascertained inductively as at least laws of phenomena, but of which the causes, or the ante¬ cedent conditions in the organism, are unknown. Mr Dar- THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 133 win continually refers to variations as arising from unknown causes, but these are always such, so far as observation can determine their relations to the organism’s conditions of exist¬ ence, that they are far from accounting for, or bearing any re¬ lations to, the adaptive characters of the organism. It is solely upon and with reference to such adaptive characters that the process of Natural Selection has any agency, or could be supposed to be effective. If Mr. Mivart had cited anywhere in his book, as he has not, even a single instance of sudden variation in a whole race, either in a state of nature or under domestication, which is not referable by known physiological laws to the past history of the race on the theory of evolution, and had further shown that such a variation was an adaptive one, he might have weakened the arguments for the agency and extent of the process of Natural Selection. As it is, he has left them quite intact. The only direct proofs which he adduces for his theory that adaptive as well as other combinations proceed from innate predeterminations wholly within the organism, are drawn from, or rather assumed in, a supposed analogy of the specific forms in organisms to those of crystals. As under different circum¬ stances or in different media the same chemical substances or constituent substances assume different and distinct crystalline forms, so, he supposes, organisms are distinct manifestations of typical forms, one after another of which will appear under various external conditions. He quotes from Mr. J. J. Mur¬ phy’s “Habit and Intelligence,” that, “it needs no proof that in the case of spheres and crystals, the forms and structures are the effect and not the cause of the formative principle. At¬ traction, whether gravitative or capillary, produces the spher¬ ical form; the spherical form does not produce attraction. And crystalline polarities produce crystalline structure and form; crystalline structure and form do not produce polarities.” And, by analogy, Mr. Murphy and our author infer that innate vital forces always produce specific vital forms, and that the vital forms themselves, or “ accidental ” variations of them, cannot modify the types of action in vital force. Now, al¬ though Mr. Murphy’s propositions may need no proof, they *34 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. will bear correction; and, clear as they appear to be, a better interpretation of the physical facts is needed for the purposes of tracing out analogy and avoiding paralogism. Strange as it may seem, Mr. Murphy’s clear antitheses are not even partially true. No abstraction ever produced any other abstraction, much less a concrete thing. The abstract laws of attraction never produced any body, spherical or polyhedral. It was actual forces acting in definite ways that made the sphere or crystal; and the sizes, particular shapes, and positions of these bodies determined in part the action of these actual forces. It is the resultants of many actual attractions, dependent in turn on the actual products, that determine the spherical or crystal¬ line forms. Moreover, in the case of crystals, neither these forces nor the abstract law of their action in producing definite angles reside in the finished bodies, but in the properties of the surrounding media, portions of whose constituents are changed into crystals, according to these properties and to other conditioning circumstances. So far as these bodies have any innate principle in them concerned in their own produc¬ tion, it is manifested in determining, not their general agree¬ ments, but their particular differences in sizes, shapes, and positions. The particular position of a crystal that grows from some fixed base or nucleus, and the particular directions of its faces, may, perhaps, be said to be innate; that is, they were determined at the beginning-of the particular crystal’s growth. Finding, therefore, what Mr. Murphy and Mr. Mivart suppose to be innate to be really in the outward conditions of the crys¬ tal’s growth, and what they would suppose to be superinduced to be all that is innate in it, we have really found the contrast in place of an analogy between a crystal and an organism. For, in organisms, no doubt, and as we may be readily con¬ vinced without resort to analogy, there is a great deal that is really innate, or dependent on actions in the organism, which diversities of external conditions modify very little, or affect at least in a very indeterminate manner, so far as observation has yet ascertained. External conditions are, nevertheless, essen¬ tial factors in development, as well as in mere increase or growth. No animal or plant is developed, nor do its develop- THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. *35 ments acquire any growth without very special external condi¬ tions. These are quite as essential to the production of an organism as a crystalline nucleus and fluid material are to the growth and particular form of a crystal; and as the general resemblances of the crystals of any species, the agreements in their angles, are results of the physical properties of their food and other surrounding conditions of their growth, so the gen¬ eral resemblances of animals or plants of any species, their agreements in specific characters, are doubtless due, in the main, to the properties of what is innate in them, yet not to any abstraction. This is sufficiently conspicuous to “need no proof,” and is denied by no Darwinian. The analogy is so close indeed between the internal determinations of growth in an organism and the external ones of crystals, that Mr. Darwin was led by it to invent his “provisional hypothesis of Pangen¬ esis,” or theory of gemmular reproduction. The gemmules in this theory being the perfect analogues of the hypothetical atoms of the chemical substances that are supposed to arrange themselves in crystalline forms, the theory rather gives prob¬ ability to the chemical theory of atoms than borrows any from it. But we shall recur to this theory of Pangenesis further on. General physiology, or physical and theoretical biology, are sciences in which, through the study of the laws of inheritance, and the direct and indirect effect of external conditions, we must arrive, if in any way, at a more and more definite knowl¬ edge of the causes of specific manifestations; and this is the end to which Mr. Darwin’s labors have been directed, and have par¬ tially accomplished. Every step he has taken has been in strict conformity to the principles of method which the examples of inductive and experimental science have established. A stricter observance of these by Mr. Murphy and our author might have saved them from the mistake we have noticed, and from many others,—the “realism” of ascribing efficacy to an abstraction, making attraction and polarity produce structures and forms independently of the products and of the concrete matters and forces in them. A similar “realism” vitiates nearly all specu¬ lations in theoretical biology, which are not designedly, or even instinctively, as in Mr. Darwin’s work, made to conform to the 13 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. rigorous rules of experimental philosophy. These require us to assume no causes that are not true or phenomenally known, and known in some other way than in the effect to be explained; and to prove the sufficiency of those we do assume in some other way than by putting an abstract name or description of an effect for its cause, like using the words “ attraction ” and “polarity” to account for things the matters of which have come together in a definite form. It may seem strange to many readers to be told that Mr. Darwin, the most consummate speculative genius of our times, is no more a maker of hypoth¬ eses than Newton was, who, unable to discover the cause of the properties of gravitation, wrote the often-quoted but much misunderstood words, “Hypotheses non fingo.” “For,” he adds, “ whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impen¬ etrability, the mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of motion and gravitation, were discovered. And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies and of our sea.” Thus, also, it is that the variability of organisms and the known laws of variation and inheritance, and of the influ¬ ences of external conditions, and the law of Natural Selection, have been discovered. And though it is not enough that vari¬ ability and selection do really exist and act according to laws which Mr. Darwin has explained (since the limits of their action and efficiency are still to be ascertained), yet it is enough for the present that Darwinians do not rest, like their opponents, contented with framing what Newton would have called, if he had lived after Kant, “ transcendental hypotheses ,” which have no place in experimental philosophy. It may be said that Mr. Darwin has invented the hypothesis of Pangenesis, against the rules of this philosophy; but so also did Newton invent the corpuscular theory of light, with a similar purpose and utility.. THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. *37 In determining the limits of the action of Natural Selection, and its sufficiency within these limits, the same demonstrative adequacy should not, for obvious reasons, be demanded as con¬ ditions of assenting to its highly probable truth, that Newton proved for his speculation. For the facts for this investigation are hopelessly wanting. Astronomy presents the anomaly, among the physical sciences, of being the only science that deals in the concrete with a few naturally isolated causes, which are separated from all other lines of causation in a way that in other physical sciences can only be imitated in the care¬ fully guarded experiments of physical and chemical laboratories. The study of animals and plants under domestication is, in¬ deed, a similar mode of isolating with a view to ascertaining the physical laws of life by inductive investigations. But the theory of Natural Selection, in its actual application to the phenomena of life and the origin of species, should not be compared to the theory of gravitation in astronomy, nor to the principles of physical science as they appear in the natures that are shut in by the experimental resources of the labora¬ tory, but rather to these principles as they are actually work¬ ing, and have been working, in the concrete courses of outward nature, in meteorology and physical geology. Still better, perhaps, at least for the purposes of illustration, we may compare the principle of Natural Selection to the fundamental laws of political economy, demonstrated and actually at work in the production of the values and the prices in the market of the wealth which human needs and efforts demand and supply. Who can tell from these principles what the market will be next week, or account for its prices of last week, even by the most ingenious use of hypotheses to supply the missing evidence ? The empirical economist and statistician imagines that he can discover some other principles at work, some pre¬ determined regularity in the market, some “innate” principles in it, to which the general laws of political economy are subor¬ dinated ; and speculating on them, might risk his own wealth in trade, as the speculative “vitalist” might, if anything could be staked on a transcendental hypothesis. In the same way the empirical weather-philosopher thinks he can discern regu- A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 138 larities in the weather, which the known principles of mechan¬ ical and chemical physics will not account for, and to which they are subordinate. This arises chiefly from his want of imagination, of a clear mental grtisp of these principles, and of an adequate knowledge of the resources of legitimate hypothesis to supply the place of the unknown incidental causes through which these principles act. Such are also the sources of most of the difficulties which Mr. Mivart has found in the application of the theory of Natural Selection. His work is chiefly taken up with these difficulties. He does not so much insist on the probability of his own transcendental hypothesis, as endeavor to make way for it by discrediting the sufficiency of its rival; as if this could serve his purpose; as if experimental philosophy itself, without aid from “ Darwin¬ ism,” 'would not reject his metaphysical, occult, transcendental hypothesis of a specially predetermined and absolute fixity of species, — an hypothesis which multiplies species in an organ¬ ism to meet emergencies, — the emergencies of theory, — much as the epicycles of Ptolemy had to be multiplied in the heav¬ ens. Ptolemy himself had the sagacity to believe that his was only a mathematical theory, a mode of representation, not a theory of causation; and to prize it only as representative of the facts of observation, or as “saving the appearances.” Mr. Mivart’s theory, on the other hand, is put forward as a theory of causation, not to save appearances, but to justify the hasty conclusion that they are real; the appearances, namely, of complete temporary fixity, alternating with abrupt changes, in the forms of life which are exhibited by the scanty records of geology and in present apparently unchanging natural species. Before proceeding to a special consideration of Mr. Mivart’s difficulties on the theory of Natural Selection, we will quote from Mr. Darwin’s latest work, “The Descent of Man,” his latest views of the extent of the action of this principle and its relations to the general theory of evolution. He says (Chapter IV): “ Thus a very large yet undefined extension may safely be given to the direct and indirect results of Natural Selection; but I now admit, after reading the essay by Nageli on plants, and the remarks by various authors THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. I 39 with respect to animals, more especially those recently made by Professor Broca, that in the earlier editions of my ‘Origin of Species’ I probably attributed too much to the action of Natural Selection, or the survival of the fittest. I have altered the fifth edition of the ‘Origin’ [the edition which Mr. Mivart reviews in his work] so as to confine my remarks to adaptive changes of structure. I had not formerly sufficiently considered the existence of many structures which appear to be, as far as we can judge, neither beneficial nor injurious; and this I believe to be one of the' greatest oversights as yet detected in my work. I may be permitted to * say, as some excuse, that I had two distinct objects in view: firstly, to show that species had not been separately created; and secondly, that Natural Selection had been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action of the surrounding conditions. Nevertheless, I was not able to annul the influence of my former belief, then widely prevalent, that each species had been purposely created; and this led to my tacitly assuming that every detail of structure, excepting rudiments, was of some special, though unrecognized, service. Any one with this assumption in his mind would naturally extend the action of Natural Selection, either during past or present times, too far. Some of those who admit the principle of evolution, but reject Natural Selection, seem to forget, when criticising my work, that I had the above two objects in view; hence, if I have erred in giving to Natural Selection great power, which I am far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.” In one other respect Mr. Darwin has modified his views of the action of Natural Selection, in consequence of a valuable criticism in the North British Review of June, 1867; and Mr. Mivart regards this modification as very important, and says of it that “this admission seems almost to amount to a change of front in the face of the enemy.” It is not, as we shall see, an important modification at all, and does not change in any essential particular the theory as propounded in the first edi¬ tion of the “ Origin of Species,” but Mr. Mivart’s opinion of it has helped us to discover what, without this confirmation, seemed almost incredible,—how completely he has misappre¬ hended, not merely the use of the theory in special applica¬ tions, which is easily excusable, but also the nature of its gen¬ eral operation and of the causes employed by it; thus furnishing an additional illustration of what he says in his Introduction, that “ few things are more remarkable than the way in which 140 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. it [this theory] has been misunderstood.” One other consid¬ eration has also been of aid to us. In his concluding chaptei on “Theology and Evolution,” in which he very ably shows, and on the most venerable authority, that there is no necessary conflict between the strictest orthodoxy and the theory of evo¬ lution, he remarks (and quotes Dr. Newman) on thenarrowing effect of single lines of study. Not only inabilities may be produced by a one-sided pursuit, but “a positive distaste may grow up, which, in the intellectual order, may amount to a spontaneous and unreasoning disbelief in that which appears to be in opposition to the more familiar concept, and this at all times.” This is, of course, meant to apply to those who, from want of knowledge, lack interest in and even acquire a distaste for theological studies. But it also has other and equally important applications. Mr. Mivart, it would at first sight seem, being distinguished as a naturalist and also versed in theology, is not trammeled by any such narrowness as to disable him from giving just weight to both sides of the question he discusses. But what are the two sides ? Are they the view of the theologian and the naturalist? Not at all. The debate is between the theologian and descriptive naturalist on one side, or the theologian and the student of natural history in its narrowest sense, that is, systematic biol- ogy; and on the other side the physical naturalist, physiolo¬ gist, or theoretical biologist. Natural history and biology, or the general science of life, are very comprehensive terms, and comprise in their scope widely different lines of pursuit and a wide range of abilities. In fact, the sciences of biology contain contrasts in the objects, abilities, and interests of scientific pursuit almost as wide as that presented by the physical sci¬ ences generally, and the sciences of direct observation, descrip¬ tion, and classification. The same contrast holds, indeed, even in a science so limited in its material objects as astronomy. The genius of the practical astronomer and observer is very different from that of the physical astronomer and mathema¬ tician; though success in this science generally requires now¬ adays that some degree of both should be combined. So the genius of the physiologist is different from that of the naturalist THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. I 4 I proper, though in the study of comparative anatomy die ob¬ server has to exercise some of the skill in analysis and in the use of hypotheses in which the student of the physical sciences displays his genius in the search for unknown causes. We may, perhaps, comprise all the forms of intellectual genius (exclud¬ ing* aesthetics) under three chief classes, namely, first, the genius that pursues successfully the researches for unknown causes by the skillful use of hypothesis and experiment; secondly, that which, avoiding the use of hypotheses or preconceptions alto¬ gether and the delusive influence of names, brings together in clear connections and contrasts in classification the objects of nature in their broadest and most real relations of resem¬ blance; and thirdly, that genius which seeks with success for reasons and authorities in support of cherished convictions. That Mr. Mivart may have the last two forms of genius, even in a notable degree, we readily admit; but that he has not the first to the degree needed for an inquiry, which is essentially a branch of physical science, we propose to show. We have already pointed out how his theological education, his school¬ ing against Democritus, has misled him in regard to the mean¬ ing of “accidents” or accidental causes in physical science; as if to the physical philosopher these could possibly be an absolute and distinct class, not included under the law of cau¬ sation, “that every event must have a cause or determinate antecedents,” whether we can trace them out or not. The accidental causes of science are only “accidents” relatively to the intelligence of a man. Eclipses have the least of this character to the astronomer of all the phenomena of nature; yet to the savage they are the most terrible of monstrous acci¬ dents. The accidents of monstrous variation, or even of the small and limited variations normal in any race or species, are only accidents relatively to the intelligence of the naturalist, or to his knowledge of general physiology. An accident is what cannot be anticipated from what we know, or by any intelli¬ gence, perhaps, which is less than omniscient. But this is not the most serious misconception of the acci¬ dental causes of science, which Mr. Mivart has fallen into. He utterly mistakes the particular class of accidents concerned in 142 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. the process of Natural Selection. To make this clear, we will enumerate the classes of causes which are involved in this proc¬ ess. In the first place, there are the external conditions of an animal’s or plant’s life, comprising chiefly its relations to other organic beings, but partly its relations to inorganic na¬ ture, and determining its needs and some of the means of satisfying them. These conditions are consequences of the external courses of events or of the partial histories of organic and inorganic nature. In the second place, there are the general principles of the fitness of means to ends, or of sup¬ plies to needs. These comprise the best ascertained and most fundamental of all the principles of science, such as the laws of mechanical, optical, and acoustical science, by which we know how a leg, arm, or wing, a bony frame, a muscular or a vascular system, an eye or an ear, can be of use. In the third place, there are the causes introduced by Mr. Darwin to the attention of physiologists, as normal facts of organic nature, the little known phenomena of variation, and their relations to the laws of inheritance. There are several classes of these. The most important in the theory of Natural Selection are the diversities always existing in any race of animals or plants, called “individual differences,” which always determine a bet¬ ter fitness of some individuals to the general conditions of the existence of a race than other less fortunate individuals possess. The more than specific agreements in characters, which the best fitted individuals of a race must thus exhibit, ought, if possible, according to Cuvier’s principles of zoology, to be included in the description of a species (as a norm or type which only the best exhibit), instead of the rough averages to which the naturalist really resorts in defining species by marks or characters that are variable. But probably such averages in variable characters are really close approximations to the characters of the best general adaptation; for variation being, so far as known, irrespective of adaptation, is as likely to exist to the same extent on one side of the norm of utility as on the other, or by excess as generally as by defect. Though varia¬ tion is irrespective of utility, its limits are not. Too great a departure from the norm of utility must put an end to life and THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. H 3 its successions. Utility therefore, in conjunction with the laws of inheritance, determines not only the middle line or safest way of a race, but also the bounding limits of its path of life; and so long as the conditions and principles of utility embodied in a form of life remain unchanged, they will, together with the laws of inheritance, maintain a race unchanged in its average characters. “Specific stability,” therefore, for which theological and descriptive naturalists have speculated a transcendental cause, is even more readily and directly accounted for by the causes which the theory of Natural Selection regards than is specific change. But just as obviously it follows from these causes that a change in the conditions and resources of utility, not only may but must change the normal characters of a species, or else the race must perish. Again, a slow and grad¬ ual change in the conditions of existence must, on these principles, slowly change the middle line or safest way of life (the descriptive or graphic line); but always, of course, this change must be within the existing limits of variation, or the range of “individual differences.” A change in these limits would then follow, or the range of “individual differences” would be extended, at least, so far as we know, in the direc¬ tion of the change. That it is widened or extended to a.greater range by rapid and important changes in conditions of exist¬ ence, is a matter of observation in many races of animals and plants that have been long subject to domestication or to the capricious conditions imposed by human choice and care. This phenomenon is like what would happen if a roadway or path across a field were to become muddy or otherwise obstructed. The traveled way would swerve to one side, or be broadened, or abandoned, according to the nature and degree of the ob¬ struction, and to the resources of travel that remained. This class of variations, that is, “ individual differences,” constant and normal in a race, but having different ranges in different races, or in the same race under different circumstances, may be regarded as in no proper sense accidentally related to the advantages that come from them; or in no other sense than a tendril, or a tentacle, or a hand searching in the dark, is acci k I H 4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. dentally related to the object it succeeds in finding. And yet we say properly that it was by “accident” that a certain ten¬ dril was put forth so as to fulfill its function, and clasp the par¬ ticular object by which it supports the vine; or that it was an accidental movement of the tentacle or hand that brought the object it has secured within its grasp. The search was, and continues to be, normal and general; it is the particular suc¬ cess only that is accidental; and this only in the sense that lines of causation, stretching backwards infinitely, and unre¬ lated except in a first cause, or in the total order of nature, come together and by their concurrence produce it. Yet over even this concurrence “ law ” still presides, to the effect that for every such concurrence the same consequences follow. But Mr. Mivart, with his mind filled with horror of “blind chance,” and of “ the fortuitous concourse of atoms,” has en¬ tirely overlooked the class of accidental variations, on which, even in the earlier editions of the “ Origin of Species,” the theory of Natural Selection is based, and has fixed his attention exclu¬ sively on another class, namely, abnormal or unusual variations, which Mr. Darwin at first supposed might also be of service in this process. The error of his critic might, perhaps, be re¬ garded as due to Mr. Darwin’s failure to distinguish suffi¬ ciently the two classes, as well as to his overlooking, until it was pointed out in the article in the “North British Review,” before referred to, the fact that the latter class could be of no service; if it were not that Mr. Mivart’s work is a review of the last edition of the “Origin'of Species” and of the treatise on “Animals and Plants under Domesti¬ cation,” in both of which Mr. Darwin has emphatically dis¬ tinguished the two classes, and admitted that it is upon the first class only that Natural Selection can normally depend ; though the second class of unusual and monstrous variations may give rise, by highly improbable though possible accidents, to changes in the characters of whole races. Mr. Mivart char¬ acterizes this admission by the words we have quoted, that “it seems almost to amount to a change of front in the face of the enemy”; of which it might have been enough to say, that the strategy of science is not the same as that of rhetorical dispu- THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. *45 tation, and aims at cornering facts, not antagonists But Mr. Mivart profits by it as a scholastic triumph over he “esy, which he insists upon celebrating, rather than as a correction of his own misconceptions of the theory. He continues throughout his book to speak of the variations on which Natural Selection depends as if they were all of rare occurrence, like abrupt and monstrous variations, instead of being always present in a race; and also as having the additional disadvantage of being “in¬ dividually slight,” “minute,” “insensible,” “infinitesimal,” “fortuitous,” and “indefinite.” These epithets are variously combined in different passages, but his favorite compendious formula is, “minute, fortuitous, and indefinite variations.” When, however, he comes to consider the enormous time which such a process must have taken to produce the present forms of life, he brings to bear all his forces, and says (p. 154): “It is not easy to believe that less than two thousand million years would be required for the totality of animal development by no other means than minute, fortuitous, occasional, and in¬ termitting variations in all conceivable directions.” This ex¬ ceeds very much—by some two hundred-fold—the length of time Sir William Thomson allows for the continuance of life on the earth. It is difficult to see how, with such uncertain “fortuitous, occasional, and intermitting” elements, our author could have succeeded in making any calculations at all. On the probability of the correctness of Sir William Thomson’s physical arguments “the author of this book cannot presume to advance an opinion; but,” he adds (p. 150), “the fact that they have not been refuted pleads strongly in their favor when we consider how much they tell against the theory of Mr. Darwin.” He can, it appears, judge of them on his own side. For the descriptive epithets which Mr. Mivart applies to the variations on which he supposes Natural Selection to depend he has the following authority. He says (p. 35): “ N dw it is distinctly enunciated by Mr. Darwin that the spontaneous vari¬ ations upon which his theory depends are individually slight, minute, and insensible. He says (Animals and Plants under Domestication , Vol. II, p. 192): ‘Slight individual differences, however, suffice for the work, and are probably the sole differ- 7 I 146 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. ences which are effective in the production of new species.’ ” After what we have said as to the real nature of the differences from which nature selects, it might be, perhaps, unnecessary to explain what ought at least to have been known to a natu¬ ralist, that by “ individual differences ” is meant the differences between the individuals of a race of animals or plants; that the slightness of them is only relative to the differences between the characters of species, and that they may be very consider¬ able in themselves, or their effects, or even to the eye of the naturalist. How the expression “slight individual differences” could have got translated in the writer’s mind into “individu¬ ally slight, minute, and insensible” ones, has no natural expla¬ nation. But this is not the only instance of such an unfathom¬ able translation in Mr. Mivart’s treatment of-the theory of Natural Selection. Two others occur on page 133. In the first he says : “ Mr. Darwin abundantly demonstrates the vari¬ ability of dogs, horses, fowls, and pigeons, but he none the less shows the very small extent to which the goose, the peacock, and the guinea-fowl have varied. Mr. Darwin attempts to explain this fact as regards the goose by the animal being valued only for food and feathers, and from no pleasure having been felt in it on other accounts. He adds, however, at the end, the striking remark, which concedes the whole position, ‘but the goose seems to have a singularly inflexible organiza¬ tion .’ ” The translation is begun in the author’s italics, and completed a few pages further on (p. 141), where, recurring to this subject, he says : ‘‘We have seen that Mr. Darwin him¬ self implicitly admits the principle of specific stability in assert¬ ing the singular inflexibility of the organization of the goose.” This is what is called in scholastic logic, Fallacia a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. The obvious meaning, both from the contexts and the evidence, of the expression, “singularly inflexible,” is that the goose has been much less changed by domestication than other domestic birds. But this relative inflexibility is understood by Mr. Mivart as an admission of an absolute one, in spite of the evidence that geese have va¬ ried from the wild type, and have individual differences, and even differences of breeds, which are sufficiently conspicuous, THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 147 even tc the eye of a goose. The next instance of Mr. Mivart’s translations (p. 133) is still more remarkable. He continues: “ This is not the only place in which such expressions are used. He [Mr. Darwin] elsewhere makes use of phrases which quite harmonize with the conception of a normal specific con¬ stancy, but varying greatly and suddenly at intervals. Thus he speaks of a whole organism seeming to have become plastic and tending to depart from the parental type (‘ Origin of Spe¬ cies,’ 5th edit., 1869, p. 13).” The italics are Mr. Mivart’s. The passage from which these words are quoted (though they are not put in quotation-marks) is this: “It is well worth while carefully to study the several treatises on some of our old cul¬ tivated plants, as on the hyacinth, potato, even the dahlia, etc.; and it is really surprising to note the endless points in structure and constitution in which the varieties and sub-varieties differ slightly from each other. The whole organization seems to have become plastic, and tends to depart in a slight degree from that of the parental type.” The words that we have italicized in this quotation are omitted by Mr. Mivart, though essential to the point on which he cites Mr. Darwin’s authority, namely, as to the organism “varying greatly and suddenly at intervals.” Logic has no adequate name for this fallacy; but there is an¬ other in Mr. Mivart’s understanding of the passage which is very familiar,—the fallacy of ambiguous terms. Mr. Darwin obviously uses the word “plastic” in its secondary signification as the name of that which is “capable of being moulded, mod¬ eled, or fashioned to the purpose, as clay.” His critic quite as obviously understands it in its primary signification as the name of anything “having the power to give form.” But this is a natural enough misunderstanding, since in scholastic philosophy the primary signification of “plastic” is the prevail¬ ing one. Such being Mr. Mivart’s misconceptions of the principle of Natural Selection, and such their source, it would be useless to follow him in his tests of it by hypothetical illustrations from the history of animals; but we are bound to make good our assertion that his difficulties have arisen, not only from his want of a clear mental grasp of principles, but also from 148 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. an inadequate knowledge of the resources of legitimate hy¬ pothesis to supply the unknown incidental causes through which the principle has acted. These deficiencies of knowledge and imagination, though more excusable, are not less conspic¬ uous in his criticisms than the defects we have noticed. He says (p. 59): “It may be objected, perhaps, that these diffi¬ culties are difficulties of ignorance; that we cannot explain them, because we do not know enough of the animals.” It is not surprising that he adds: “But it is here contended that this is not the case; it is not that we merely fail to see how Natural Selection acted, but that there is a positive incompatibility between the cause assigned and the results.” And no wonder that he remarks at the close of the chapter (Chapter II): “That minute, fortuitous, and indefinite varia¬ tions could have brought about such special forms and mod¬ ifications as have been enumerated in this chapter seems to Contradict, not imagination, but reason.” In this chapter on “ Incipient Structures,” two facts are quite overlooked,—the one, which is so conspicuous in the principles of comparative anatomy, how few the fundamental structures are, which have been turned to such numerous uses; that is, how meagre have been the resources of Natural Selection, so far as it has depended on th§ occurrence of structures which were of no previous use, or were not already partially useful in directions in which they have been modified by the selection and inheritance of “individual differences”; the other, how important to Natural Selection have been the principles of indirect utility and “correlated acquisi¬ tion,” dependent as they are on ultimate physical laws. The human hand is still useful in swimming, and the fishes’ fins could even be used, for holding or clasping, if there were occasion for it. We might well attribute the paucity of indif¬ ferent types of structure to the agency of the rarest accidents of nature, though not in a theological sense. Animals and plants are no longer dependent for improvement on their occurrence, and, perhaps, never were after their competition and struggle for existence had fully begun. It is so much easier foi them to turn to better account powers that they already THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 149 possess in small degrees. Previously to such a competition and struggle, when the whole field of the inorganic condi¬ tions of life was open to simple organisms, they were doubtless much more variable than afterwards. But variability would then have been, as it is now, in no absolute sense accidental. On the contrary, variation, instead of comparative stability in species, would have been the most prominent normal feature of life. The tentative powers of life, trying all things, but not holding fast to that which is good, or not so firmly as after¬ wards, instead of its hereditary features, would have been its most characteristic manifestation. Our author’s general diffi¬ culty in this chapter is as to how variations too small to have been of use could have been preserved, and he is correct in thinking that it could not be by Natural Selection, or the sur¬ vival of the fittest, but wrong in thinking that variations are generally so rare or so insignificant, even in present forms of life as to require a power other than those of life in general to bring them forth when needed, or to produce them in useful amounts. The first example of the working of Natural Selection is the well-known *case of the neck of the giraffe. This, it has been imagined, though not by Mr. Darwin, was produced by its supposed use in aiding this animal to feed on the foliage of trees, and by the occasional advantage of length of neck to the highest reaching individuals, when in drought and scarcity the ground vegetation and lower foliage were consumed enabling them to survive the others and in continuing the species, to transmit this advantage to their offspring. With¬ out denying that this is an excellent hypothetical illustra¬ tion of the process of Natural Selection, Mr. Mivart attacks its probability as a matter of fact. In reply to it he says: “But against this it may be said, in the first place, that the argument proves too much; for, on this supposition, many species must have tended to undergo a similar modification and we ought to have at least several forms similar to the giraffe developed from different Ungulata ,” or hoofed beasts. We would even go further than Mr. Mivart, and hold that, on the hypothesis in question, not only several forms, but PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. *5° the whole order of Ungulata , or large portions of it, should have been similarly modified; at least those inhabiting re¬ gions subject to droughts and presenting the alternative of grazing on the ground and browsing on the foliage of high trees. But as these alternatives do not universally exist in regions inhabited by such animals, very long necks would not, perhaps, if this hypothesis were true, characterize the whole order; as the habit of herding does, for example. We may ob¬ serve, however, that this illustration from the giraffe’s neck is not an argument at all, and proves nothing, though the hy¬ pothesis employed by it is very well called in question by Mr. Mivart’s criticism. But can Mr. Mivart suppose that, having fairly called in question the importance of the high-feeding use of the giraffe’s neck, he has thereby destroyed the utility of the neck altogether, not only to the theory of Natural Selection, but also to the animal itself? Is there, then, no important use in the giraffe’s neck? Is it really the monstrosity it. appears to be, when seen out of relation to the normal conditions of the animal’s life ? But if there be any utility left in the neck, as a teleologist or a believer in Final Causes would assume without question, and in spite of this criticism, then this other utility might serve the purposes of Natural Selection even better perhaps than that of the mistaken hypothesis. If Mr. Mi¬ vart had approached this subject in the proper spirit, his criticism would probably have led him to an important ob¬ servation, which his desire to discredit a much more im¬ portant discovery has hidden from his view. He would have inquired what are the conditions of existence of the Ungulates generally and of the giraffe in particular, which are so close pressing and so emphatically attest the grounds of their severest struggle for life, as to be likely to cause in them the highest degree of specialty and adaptation. The question of food is obviously not concerned in such a struggle, for this order of animals lives generally upon food which is the most abundant and most easily obtained. Mr. Mivart compares his objection to one that has been made against Mr. Wallace’s views as to the uses of color in animals, that “color being dangerous, should not exist in nature/ or THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. I 5 I that “ a dull color being needful, all animals should be so col¬ ored.” He quotes Mr. Wallace’s reply, but does not take the clue to the solution of his difficulty respecting the giraffe’s neck, which it almost forces on him. This reply was, that many an¬ imals can afford brilliant colors, and their various direct uses or values, when the animals are otherwise provided with suffi¬ cient protection, and that brilliant colors are even sometimes indirectly protective. The quills of the porcupine, the shells of tortoises and mussels, the very hard coats of certain beetles, the stings of certain other insects, the nauseous taste of brilliantly colored caterpillars, and other instances, are given as examples of protection with color. Now, what bearing has this on the long neck of the giraffe? According to Mr. Mivart, who is himself at this point on the defensive, it is as follows. He says: “ But because many different kinds of animals can elude the observation or defy the attack of enemies in a great variety of ways, it by no means follows that there are any similar number and variety of ways for attaining vegetable food in a country where all such food ot,her than the lofty branches of trees has been destroyed. In such a country we have a number of vegetable-feeding Ungulates, all of which present minute variations as to the length of the neck.” Mr. Mivart is appar¬ ently not aware that he is here arguing, not against the theory of Natural Selection, but against a subordinate and false hy¬ pothesis under it. But if he thinks thus to undermine the theory, it must be because he is not aware of, or has not present to his imagination, the numberless ingenuities of nat¬ ure, and the resources of support the theory has to rest upon. There can be no doubt that the neck of the giraffe, whatever other uses it can be put to, and it is put to several, is pre-emi¬ nently useful as a watch-tower. Its eyes, large and lustrous, “which beam with a peculiarly mild but fearless expression, are so placed as to take in a wider range of the horizon than is subject tc the vision of any other quadruped. While browning on its favorite acacia, the giraffe, by means of its laterally pro¬ jecting orbits, can direct its sight so as to anticipate a threat¬ ened attack in the rear from the stealthy lion or any other foe of the desert.” When attacked, the giraffe can defend itself !5 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. by powerful blows with its well-armed hoofs, and even its short horns can inflict fatal blows by the sidelong swing of its neck. But these are not its only protections against danger. Its nos¬ trils can be voluntarily closed, like the camel’s, against the sandy, suffocating clouds of the desert. “The tail of the giraffe looks like an artificially constructed fly-flapper; and it seems at first incredible,” says Mr. Darwin, “that this could have been adapted for its present purpose by successive slight modi¬ fications, each better and better fitted, for so trifling an object as to drive away flies; yet we should pause before being too positive, even in this case, for we know, that the distribution and existence of cattle and other animals in South America absolutely depend on their power of resisting the attacks of insects ; so that individuals which could, by any means, defend themselves from these small enemies/would be able to range into new pastures, and thus gain a great advantage. It is not that the larger quadrupeds are actually destroyed (except in rare cases) by flies, but they are incessantly harrassed and their strength reduced, so that they are more subject to disease, or not so well enabled in a coming dearth to search for food, or to escape from beasts of prey.” This passage recalls our main problem, which does not con¬ cern the giraffe alone, but all the Ungulates; and its solution will show that this order of animals exhibits, almost as well as Mr. Wallace’s examples, the resources that nature has for the protection of animals that have the disadvantage, not, indeed, generally of brilliant colors, but of exposure by living exclu¬ sively on bulky and comparatively innutritious food. Nearly all the resources of defensive warfare are exhausted in their specialties of protection. The giraffe alone is provided with a natural watch-tower, but the others are not left without defense. All, or nearly all, live in armies or herds, and some post senti¬ nels around their herds. The numerous species of the ante¬ lope resort to natural fortifications or fastnesses. “ They are the natives for the most part of the wildest and least accessible places in the warmer latitudes of the globe, frequenting the cliffs and ledges of mountain rocks or the verdure-clad banks of tropical streams, or the oases of the desert.” Other tribes THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. *53 depend on their fleetness, and on hiding in woods like the deer. Others, again, on great powers of endurance in flight and long marches, like the camels with their commissaries of provision. Others, again, with powerful frames, like the rhinoceros and the bisons, resort to defensive attack. The ruminant habits and organs of large numbers are adapted to rapid and danger¬ ous foraging, and to digestion under protection from beasts of prey and insects. But Mr. Mivart, with little fertility of defense for the theory of Natural Selection, is still not without some ingenuity in at¬ tack. He objects, in the second place, that the longest necked giraffes, being by so much the larger animals, would not be strong in proportion, but would need more food to sustain them, a disadvantage which would, perhaps, more than out¬ balance the neck in times of drought; and he cites Mr. Spen¬ cer’s ingenious speculations on the relations of size, food, and strength, in confirmation of this objection. But he forgets or overlooks the important physiological law of the compensa¬ tion or economy of growth which prevails in variations. A longer neck does not necessarily entail a greater bulk or weight on the animal as a whole. The neck may have grown at the expense of the hind parts in the ancestors of the giraffe. If we met with an individual man with a longer neck than usual, we should not expect to find him heavier, or relatively weaker, or requiring more food on that account. But let us pass to the next illustration of the insufficiency of Natural Selection. This is the difficulty Mr. Mivart finds in attributing to this cause various cases of mimicry or pro¬ tective resemblances of animals to other animals, or to other natural objects. In some insects this is carried to a won¬ derful extent. Thus, some which imitate leaves when at rest, in the sizes, shapes, colors, and markings of their wings, “extend the imitation even to the very injuries on those leaves made by the attacks of insects or fungi.” Thus Mr. Wallace says of the walking-stick insects: “ One of these creatures, obtained by myself in Borneo, was covered over with foliaceous excrescences of a clear olive-green color so as exactly to resemble a stick grown over by creeping *54 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. moss or jungermannia. The Dyak who brought it me assured me it was grown over with moss, although alive, and it was only after a most minute examination that I could convince myself it was not so.” And in speaking of the leaf-butterfly, he says: “ We come to a still more extraordinary part of the imitation, for we find representations of leaves in every stage of decay, variously blotched and mildewed, and pierced with holes, and in many cases irregularly covered with powdery 1 flack dots, gathered into patches and spots, so closely resem¬ bling the various kinds of minute fungi that grow on dead leaves that it is impossible to avoid thinking, at first sight, that the butterflies themselves have been attacked by real fungi.” Upon these passages Mr. Mivart remarks: “Here imitation has attained a development which seems utterly beyond the power of the mere ‘ survival of the fittest ’ to produce. How this double mimicry can importantly aid in the struggle for life seems puzzling indeed, but much more so how the first begin¬ nings of the imitation of such injuries in the leaf can be devel¬ oped in the animal into such a complete representation of them ; a fortiori , how simultaneous and similar first beginnings of imitations of such injuries could ever have been developed in several individuals, out of utterly indifferent and indetermi¬ nate infinitesimal variations in all conceivable directions.” What ought to have been first suggested to a naturalist by this wonderful mimicry is, what clever entomologists some insectivorous birds must have become to be able to press the conditions of existence and the struggle for life in these in¬ sects to such a degree of specialty. But this, after all, is not so very wonderful, when we consider what microscopic sight these birds must have acquired and what practice and exclusive interest in the pursuit! We may feel pretty confident, how¬ ever, that neither Natural Selection nor any occult or transcend¬ ental cause has ever carried protective mimicry beyond eye¬ sight, though it may well be a better eyesight than that even of a skillful naturalist. There is no necessity to suppose, with our author, that the variations on which this selection depended were either simultaneous, or infinitesimal, or indifferent, for “individual differences” are always considerable and generally THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. J 55 greatest in directions in which variations have already most recently occurred, as in characters in which closely allied races differ most from each other; but, doubtless, a very long time was required for these very remarkable cases of mimicry to come to pass. The difficulties they present resemble those of the development of sight itself, on which Mr. Mivart com¬ ments elsewhere; but in these particular cases the conditions of “hide and seek” in the sport of nature offer correlated difficulties, which, like acid and alkali, serve to neutralize each other. In these cases, four distinct forms of life of widely diverse origins, or very remotely connected near the beginnings of life itself, like four main branches of a tree, have come to¬ gether into closest relations, as parts of the foliage of the four main branches might do. These are certain insectivorous birds, certain higher vegetable forms, the imitated sticks or leaves, certain vegetable parasites on them, and the mimicking insects. But the main phenomenon was and is the neck-and- neck race of variation and the selection between the powers of hiding in the insect and the powers of finding in the bird. Mr. Mivart overlooks the fact that variations in the bird are quite as essential to the process as those of the insect, and has chosen to consider elsewhere the difficulties which the developments of the eye present, and to consider them in equal independence of its obvious uses. The fact that these, as well as other ex¬ traordinary cases of mimicry, are found only in tropical cli¬ mates, or climates equable not only in respect to short periodic but also secular changes, accords well with the probable length of time in which this competition has been kept up; and the extraordinary, that is, rare character of the phenomenon agrees well with the probable supposition that it has always begun in what we call in science “an accident.” If its beginnings were common, their natural consequences would also be common, and would not be wonderful; and if it arose from a destructive, unintelligent, evil principle,—from Ahriman,—it has, at least, shown how the course of nature has been able to avoid destruc¬ tion, to the astonishment of human intelligence, and how Oromasdes has been able to defeat his antagonist by turning evil into good. PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . * 5 6 Let us take next Mr. Mivart’s treatment of a supposed origin of the mammary, or milk glands: “Is it conceivable,” he asks (p. 60), “that the young of any animal was ever saved from destruction by accidentally sucking a drop of scarcely nutritious fluid from an accidentally hypertrophied cutaneous gland of its mother ? And even if one was so, what chance was there of the perpet¬ uation of such a variation? On the hypothesis of ‘Natural Selection’ itself we must assume that, up to that time, the race had been well adapt¬ ed to the surrounding conditions; the temporary and accidental trial and change of conditions, which caused the so-sucking young one to be the ‘fittest to survive’ under the supposed circumstances, would soon cease to act, and then the progeny of the mother, with the accidentally hyper¬ trophied sebaceous glands, would have no tendency to survive the far- outnumbering descendants of the normal ancestral form.” Here, as before, Mr. Mivart stakes the fate of the theory on the correctness of his own conceptions of the conditions of its action. He forgets, first of all, that the use of a milk gland in its least specialized form requires atjeast a sucking mouth, and that sucking mouths and probosces have very extensive uses in the animal kingdom. They are good for drinking water and nectar, and are used for drawing blood as well as milk; and, without reference to alimentation, are still serviceable for sup¬ port to parasitical animals. Might not the young, which before birth are, in a high degree, parasitical in all animals, find it highly advantageous to continue the habit after birth, even without reference to food, but for the generally quite as impor¬ tant use of protection against enemies, by clinging by a suck¬ ing mouth to the body of its dam ? If this should cause seba¬ ceous glands to become hypertrophied and ultimately a valuable or even an exclusive source of nutrition, it would, perhaps, be proper to describe the phenomenon as an unintended or acci¬ dental, but not as a rare or improbable one. Moreover, though on the theory of Natural Selection (or, indeed, on any theory of the continuance of a race by modifications of structures and habits), the race must, while it lives, be fitted to live, yet it need be no more fitted to do so than to survive in its offspring. No race is so well fitted to its general conditions of existence, but that some individuals are better fitted than others, and have, on the average, an advantage. And new resources do not imply abandonment of the old, but only additions to them, THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. *57 giving superiorities that are almost never superfluous. How, indeed, but by accidents of the rarest occurrence, could varia¬ tion (much less selection) give superfluous advantages, on the whole, or except temporarily and so far as normal variations anticipate in general, regular, or usual changes in the condi¬ tions of existence ? We have, to be sure, on the hypothesis we have proposed, still to account for the original of the sucking mouth, though its numerous uses are obvious enough, on the really uniform and unvarying types of natural law, the laws of inorganic physics, the principles of suction. But we are not ambitious to rival nature in ingenuity, only to contrast its re¬ sources with those of our naturalist. His next example is a criticism of the theory of Sexual Selection. Speaking of apes, he says: “When we consider what is known of the emotional nature of these animals and the periodicity of its intensification, it is hardly credible that a female would often risk life or limb through her ad¬ miration of a trifling shade of color or an infinitesimally greater, though irresistibly fascinating degree of wartiness.” Is it credible that Mr. Mivart can suppose that the higher or spiritual emotions, like affection, taste, conscience, ever act directly to modify or compete with the more energetic lower impulses, and not rather by forestalling and indirectly regulating them, as by avoiding temptation in the case of con¬ science; or by establishing social arrangements, companion¬ ships, friendships, and more or less permanent marriages in the case of sexual preferences ? All such arrangements, all grounds for the action of taste or admiration, or any but the most monstrous friendships, are prevented or removed in the lives of caged beasts. His example and his inference from it are as much as if an explorer should discover a half-famished tribe of savages sustaining life upon bitter and nauseous food, and should conclude that not only these but all savages, the most provident, or even all men, are without any choice in food, and that in providing for future wants they are influ¬ enced by no other considerations than the grossest cravings of appetite. But to return to Natural Selection. The next example is PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . 158 that of the rattling and expanding powers of poisonous snakes. The author says that “in poisonous serpents, also, we have structures which, at all events, at first sight, seem positively hurtful to these reptiles. Such are the rattle of the rattlesnake and the expanding neck of the cobra, the former serving to warn the ear of the intended victim as the latter warns the eye.” This “first sight” is all the use our author discovers in these organs; but why should these warnings be intended or used to drive away intended victims rather than enemies ? Or is it among the intentions of nature to defeat those of the ser¬ pent? If the effects of such “warnings” really were to deprive these snakes of their proper food, would not experience itself and intelligence be sufficient in the wily serpent to correct such perverse instincts? It is, indeed, at first sight, curious that certain snakes, though these are the sluggish kinds, and cannot so easily escape their enemies by flight as others can, should be provided, not only with poisonous fangs, but with these means of warning either victims or dangerous enemies. But Mr. Wallace has furnished a clew to their correlation by his example of the relations between conspicuous colors and nauseous tastes in many caterpillars, the color serving as a sign of the taste and warning birds not to touch these kinds. The poisonous fang and its use are expensive and risky means of defense; the warnings associated with them are cheap and safe. But if, as is very likely, these “warnings” are also used against intended victims, they can only be used either to paralyze them with terror or allure them from curiosity, or to produce in them that curious and paralyzing mixture of the two emotions, alarm and something like curiosity, which is all that is probably true of the supposed powers of fascination * in ser¬ pents. Perhaps, also, the rattle serves to inspire the sluggish snake itself with courage; and in this case the rattle will serve * This is a real condition of mind in the subject of it; a condition in which interest or emotion gives to an idea such fixity and power that it takes possession at a fatal mo¬ ment of the will and acts itself out; as in the fascination of the precipice. It is not, however, to be regarded as a natural contrivance in the mental acquisitions of the vic¬ tims for the benefit of the serpent any more than the serpent’s warnings are for their benefit; but as a consequence of ultimate mental laws in general, of which the serpent s faculties and habits take advantage. THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. J S9 all the purposes that drums, trumpets, and gongs do in human warfare. The swaying body and vibrating tongue of most snakes, and the expanding neck and the hood of the cobras, may serve for banners. But the rattle has also been supposed to serve as a sexual call, very much as the inspirations of war¬ fare are turned into the allurements of the tournament, or as gongs also serve to call travelers to dinner. What poverty of resources in regard to the relations of use in the lives of ani¬ mals thus distinguishes our naturalist from the natural order of things! What wealth and capital are left for the employ¬ ments and industries of Natural Selection! In the next chapter Mr. Mivart charges the theory of Natural Selection with inability to account for independent similarities of structure; “that it does not harmonize with the co-existence of closely similar structures of diverse origin,” like the dental structures in the dog and in the carnivorous marsupial, the Thylacine, closely similar structures and of exactly the same utilities, though belonging to races so diverse that their com¬ mon ancestors could not have been like them in respect to this resemblance. But these structures really differ in points not essential to their utilities; in characters which, though incon¬ spicuous, are marks of the two great divisions of mammalia, to which these animals belong. Mr. Mivart here attacks the theory in its very citadel, and has incautiously left a hostile force in his rear. He has claimed in the preceding chapter for Natural Selection that it ought to have produced several independent races of long-necked Ungulates, as well as the giraffe; so that, instead of pursuing his illustrations any further, we may properly demand his surrender. Of course Natural Selection requires for similar products similar means and con¬ ditions ; but these are of such a general sort that they belong to wide ranges of life; and as it does not act by “blind chance,” or theological accidents, but by the invariable laws of nature and the tentative powers of life, it is not surprising that it often repeats its patterns independently of descent, or of the copying powers of inheritance. That the highest products of nature are not the results of the mere forces of inheritance, and do not come from the birth i6o PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of latent powers and structures, seems to be the lesson of the obscure discourse in which Jesus endeavored to instruct Nico- demus the Pharisee. How is it that a man can be born again, acquire powers and characters that are not developments of what is already innate in him ? How is it possible when he is old to acquire new innate principles, or to enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born ? The reply does not suggest our author’s hypothesis of a life turning over upon a new “ facet,” or a new set of latent inherited power's. Only the symbols, water and the Spirit, which Christians have ever since worshiped, are given in reply; but the remarkable illus¬ tration of the accidentality of nature is added, which has been almost equally though independently admired. “ Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind blow- eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The highest products of nature are the outcome of its total and apparently accidental orders; or are born of water and the Spirit, which symbolize creative power. To this the Pharisee replied: “How can these things be?” And the answer is still more significant: “Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?” We bring natural evidences, “and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly (natural) things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly (supernatural) things ? ” The bearing of our subject upon the doctrine of Final Causes in natural history has been much discussed and is of considerable importance to our author’s theory and criticism. But we propose, not only to distinguish between this branch of theology and the theories of inductive science on one hand, but still more emphatically, on the other hand, between it and the Christian faith in divine superintendency, which is very lia¬ ble to be confounded with it. The Christian faith is that even the fall of a sparrow is included in this agency, and that as men are of more value than many sparrows, so much more is their security. So far from weakening this faith by showing the connection between value and security, science and the theory of Natural Selection have confirmed it. The very agencies THE GENESIS OF SPECIES . 161 that give values to life secure them by planting them most broadly in the immutable grounds of utility. But Natural Theology has sought by Platonic, not Christian, imaginations to discover, not the relations of security to value, but some¬ thing worthy to be the source of the value considered as abso¬ lute^ some particular worthy source of each valued end. This is the motive of that speculation of Final Causes which Bacon condemned as sterile and corrupting to philosophy, interfering, as it does, with the study of the facts of nature, or of what is, by preconceptions, necessarily imperfect as to what ought to be; and by deductions from assumed ends , thought worthy to be the purposes of nature. The naturalists who “take care not to ascribe to God any intention,” sin rather against the spirit of Platonism than that of Christianity, while obeying the pre¬ cepts of experimental philosophy. Though, as our author says, in speaking of the moral sense and the impossibility, as he thinks, that the accumulations of small repugnances could give rise to the strength of its abhorrence and reprobation; though, as he says, “ no stream can rise higher than its source”; while fully admitting the truth of this, we would still ask, Where is its source ? Surely not in the little fountains that Platonic explorers go in search of, a priori , which would soon run dry but for the rains of heaven, the water and the vapor of the distilling atmosphere. Out of this come also the almost weightless snow-flakes, which, combined in masses of great gravity, fall in the avalanche. The results of moralizing Pla¬ tonism should not be confounded with the simple Christian faith in Divine superintendence. The often-quoted belief of Professor Gray, “that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines, like a stream along definite lines of irrigation,” might be interpreted to agree with either view. The lines on which variations are generally useful are lines of search, and their particular successes, dependent, it is true, on no theo¬ logical or absolute accidents, may be regarded as being lines of beneficial variations, seeing that they have resulted through laws of nature and principles of utility in higher living forms, or even in continuing definite forms of life on the earth. But thousands of movements of variation, or efforts of search, have 162 PHIL 0SOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. not succeeded to one that has. These are not continued along evil lines, since thousands of forms have perished in conse¬ quence of them for every one that has survived. The growth of a tree is a good illustration of this process, and more closely resembles the action of selection in nature generally than might at first sight appear; for its branches are selected growths, a few out of many thousands that have begun in buds; and this rigorous selection has been effected by the accidents that have determined in surviving growths superior relations to their supplies of nutriment in the trunk and in ex¬ posure to light and air. This exposure (as great as is consist¬ ent with secure connection with the sources of sap) seems actually to be sought, and the form of the tree to be the result of some foresight in it. But the real seeking process is bud¬ ding, and the geometrical regularity of the production of buds in twigs has little or nothing to do with the ultimate selected results, the distributions of the branches, which are different for each individual tree. Even if the determinate variations really existed,—the “facets” of stable equilibrium in life, which Mr. Mivart supposes,—and were arranged with geometrical regu¬ larity on their spheroid of potential forms, as leaves and buds are in the twig, they would probably have as little to do with determining the ultimate diversities of life under the action of the selection which our author admits, as phyllotaxy has to- do with the branching of trees. But phyllotaxy, also, has its utility. Its orders are the best for packing the incipient leaves in the bud, and the best for the exposure to light and air of the developed leaves of the stem. But here its utility ends, except so far as its arrangements also present the great¬ est diversity of finite elements, within the smallest limits, for the subsequent choice of successful growths; being the 7 iearest appi'oaches that finite regularity could make to “indefinite vari¬ ations in all conceivable directions.” The general resemblance of trees of a given kind depends on no formative principle other than physical and physiological properties in the woody tissue, and is related chiefly to the tenacity, flexibility, and vascularity of this tissue, the degrees of which might almost be inferred from the general form of the tree. It cannot be doubted, in THE GENESIS OF SPECIES . 163 the case of the tree, that this tentative though regular budding has been of service to the production of the tree’s growth, and that the particular growths which have survived and become the bases of future growths were determined by a beneficial though accidental order of events under the total orders of the powers concerned in the tree’s development. But if a rigorous selection had not continued in this growth, no proper branching would have resulted. The tree would have grown like a cab¬ bage. Hence it is to selection, and not to variation,—or rather to the causes of selection, and not to those of variation,—that species, or well-marked and widely separated forms of life, are due. If we could study the past and present forms of life, not only in different continents, which we may compare to different individual trees of the same kind, or better, perhaps, to different main branches from the same trunk and roots, but could also study the past and present forms of life in different planets, then diversities in the general outlines would probably be seen sim¬ ilar to those which distinguish different kinds of trees, as the oak, the elm, and the pine; dependent, as in these trees, on differences in the physical and physiological properties of living matters in the different planets,—supposing the planets, of course, to be capable of sustaining life, like the earth, or, at least, to have been so at some period in the history of the solar system. We might find that these general outlines of life in other planets resemble elms or oaks, and are not pyramidal in form like the pine, with a “crowning” animal like man to lead their growths. For man, for aught we know or could guess, but for the highly probable accidents of nature, which blight the topmost terminal bud and give ascendency to some lateral one, except for these accidents, man may have always been the crown of earthly creation, or always “man,” if you choose so to name and define the creature who, though once an as- cidian (when the ascidian was the highest form of life), viay have been the best of the ascidians. This would, perhaps, add nothing to the present value of the race, but it might satisfy the Platonic demand that the race, though not derived from a source quite worthy of it, yet should come from the best in nature. 164 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. We are thus led to the final problem, at present an appar¬ ently insoluble mystery, of the origin of the first forms of life on the earth. On this Mr. Darwin uses the figurative language of religious mystery, and speaks “ of life with its several pow¬ ers being originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one.” For this expression Mr. Mivart takes him to task, though really it could mean no more than if the gravita- tive properties of bodies were referred directly to the agency of a First Cause, in which the philosopher professed to believe; at the same time expressing his unwillingness to make hypoth¬ eses, that is, transcendental hypotheses, concerning occult modes of action. But life is, indeed, divine, and there is grandeur in the view, as Mr. Darwin says, which derives from so simple yet mysterious an origin, and “from the war of nature, from fam¬ ine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals.” Mr. Mivart, however, is much more “advanced” than Mr. Darwin on the question of the origin of life or archigenesis, and the possibility of it as a continuous and present operation of nature. He admits what is commonly called “spontane¬ ous generation,” believing it, however, to be not what in the¬ ology is understood by “spontaneous,” but only a sudden production of life by chemical synthesis out of inorganic ele¬ ments. The absence of decisive evidence on this point does not deter him, but the fact that the doctrine can be reconciled to the strictest orthodoxy, and accords well with our author’s theory of sudden changes in species, appears to satisfy him of its truth. The theory of Pangenesis, on the other hand, invented by Mr. Darwin for a different purpose, though not inconsistent with the very slow generation of vital forces out of chemical actions,—slow, that is, and insignificant compared to the normal actions and productions of chemical forces,—is hardly compatible with the sudden and conspicuous appear¬ ance of new life under the microscope of the observer. This theory was invented like other provisional theories,—like New¬ ton’s corpuscular theory of light, like the undulatory theory of light (though this is no longer provisional), and like the chem¬ ical theory of atoms,—for the purpose of giving a material or THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 165 visual basis to the phenomena and empirical laws of life in general, by embodying in such supposed properties the phe¬ nomena of development, the laws of inheritance, and the vari¬ ous modes of reproduction, just as the chemical theory of atoms embodies in visual and tangible properties the laws of definite and multiple proportions, and the relations of gaseous volumes in chemical unions, together with the principle of isomerism and the relations of equivalent weights to specific heats. The theory of Pangenesis presents life and vital forces in their ulti¬ mate and essential elements as perfectly continuous, and in great measure isolated from other and coarser orders of forces, like the chemical and mechanical, except so far as these are the necessary theatres of their actions. Gemmules, or vital mole¬ cules, the smallest bodies which have separable parts under the action of vital forces, and of the same order as the scope of action in these forces,—these minute bodies, though probably as much smaller than chemical molecules as these are smaller than rocks or pebbles, may yet exist in unorganized materials as well as in the germs of eggs, seeds, and spores, just as crys¬ talline structures or chemical aggregations may be present in bodies whose form and aggregation are mainly due to mechan¬ ical forces. And, as in mechanical aggregations (like sediment¬ ary rocks), chemical actions and aggregations slowly supervene and give in the metamorphosis of these rocks an irregular crys¬ talline structure, so it is supposable that finer orders of forces lying at the heart of fluid matter may slowly produce imperfect and irregular vital aggregations. But definite vital aggrega¬ tions and definite actions of vital forces exist, for the most part, in a world by themselves, as distinct from that of chemical forces, actions, and aggregations as these are from the mechan¬ ical ones of dynamic surface-geology, which produce and are embodied in visible and tangible masses through forces the most directly apparent and best understood; or as distinct as these are from the internal forces of geology and the masses of continents and mountain formations with which they deal; or as distinct again as these are from the actions of gravity and the masses in the solar system; or, again, as these are from the unknown forces and conditions that regulate sidereal aggrega- i6 6 PIIIN sophical discussions. tions and movements. And as to the size of the gemmules, the various orders of molecular sizes are limited in our powers of conception only by the needs of hypothesis in the representation of actual phenomena under visual forms and properties. Sir William Thomson has lately determined the probable sizes of chemical molecules from the phenomena of light, and experi¬ ments relating to the law of the “conservation of force.” Ac¬ cording to these results, these sizes are such that if a drop of water were to be magnified to the size of the earth, its molecules, or parts dependent on the forces of chemical physics, would be seen to range from the size of a pea to that of a billiard-ball. But there is no reason to doubt that in every such molecule there are still subordinate parts and structures; or that, even in these parts, a still finer order of parts and structures exists, at least to the extent of assimilated growth and simple division. Mr. Darwin supposes such growths and divisions in the vital gemmules; but our author objects (p. 230) that, “ to admit the power of spontaneous division and multiplication in such rudimentary structures seems a complete contradiction. The gemmules, by the hypothesis of Pangenesis, are the ultimate organized components of the body, the absolute organic atoms of which each body is composed; how then can they be divisi¬ ble? Any part of a gemmule would be an impossible (because less than possible) quantity. If it is divisible into still smaller organic wholes, as a germ-cell is, it must be made up, as the germ-cell is, of subordinate component atoms, which are then the true gemmules.” But this is to suppose what is not im¬ plied in the theory (nor properly even in the chemical theory of atoms), that the sizes of these bodies are any more constant or determinate than those of visible bodies of any order. It is the order only that is determinate; but within it there may be wide ranges of sizes. A billiard-ball may be divided into parts as small as a pea, or peas may be aggregated into masses as .arge as a billiard-ball, without going beyond the order of forces that produce both sizes. Our author himself says afterwards and in another connection (p. 290), “ It is possible that, in some minds, the notion may lurk that such powers are simpler and easier to understand, because the bodies they affect are so THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. 167 minute! This absurdity hardly bears stating. We can easily conceive a being so small that a gemmule would be to it as large as St. Paul’s would be to us.” This argument, however, is intended to discredit the theory on the ground that it does not tend to simplify matters, and that we must rest somewhere in “what the scholastics called ‘substantial forms.’” But this criticism, to be just, ought to insist, not only that vital phe¬ nomena are due to “a special nature, a peculiar innate power and activity,” but that chemical atoms only complicate the mysteries of science unnecessarily; that corpuscles and undu¬ lations only hide difficulties; and that we ought to explain very simply that crystalline bodies are produced by “ polarity,” and that the phenomena of light and vision are the effects of “luminosity.” This kind of simplicity is not, however, the purpose which modern science has in view; and, consequently, our real knowledges, as well as our hypotheses, are much more complicated than were those of the schoolmen. It is not impossible that vital phenomena themselves include orders of forces as distinct as the lowest vital are from chemical phe¬ nomena. May not the contrast of merely vital or vegetative phenomena with those of sensibility be of such orders? But, in arriving at sensibility , we have reached the very elements out of which the conceptions of size and movement are con¬ structed,—the elements of the tactual and visual constructions that are employed by such hypotheses. Can sensibility and the movements governed by it be derived directly by chem¬ ical synthesis from the forces of inorganic elements? It is probable, both from analogy and direct observation, that they cannot (though some of the believers in “ spontaneous genera¬ tion” think otherwise); or that they cannot, except by that great alchemic experiment which, employing all the influences of nature and all the ages of the world, has actually brought forth most if not all of the definite forms of life in the last and greatest work of creative power. y EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION* The physical problem, proposed independently and almost simultaneously near the beginning of this century by three eminent men of genius, Goethe, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and the elder Darwin, how animals and plants came to have the structures and habits that characterize them as distinct species, this question which was proposed in place of the teleolog¬ ical inquiry, why they were so produced, has now fairly be¬ come a simple question for scientific investigation. There is no longer any doubt that this effect was by some natural process, and was not by a formless creative fiat. Moreover, there scarcely remains any doubt that this natural process connects the living forms of the present with very different forms in the past; and that this connection is properly described in general terms as “descent with modification.” The question has thus become narrowed down to the inquiry, What is the nature of this modification, or what are the causes and the modes of ac¬ tion by which such modifications have been effected ? This is a great step in scientific progress. So long as a doubt remained about the fact that such modifications have been ef¬ fected, and that present living forms are the results of them, the inquiry, how they were effected, belonged to the region of profitless speculation,—profitless except for this, that specu¬ lative minds, boldly laying aside doubts which perplex and impede others, and anticipating their solution, have often in the history of science, by preparing a way for further progress, greatly facilitated their actual solution. Difficulties and ques¬ tions lying beyond such doubts—walls to scale after outworks * From the North American Review, July, 1872. EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. 169 and ditches are passed—do not inspire the cautious with cour¬ age. And so the scientific world waited, though prepared with ample force of evidence, and hesitated to take the step which would bring it face to face with the questions of the present and the future. Darwin’s “ Origin of Species,” by marshaling and largely reinforcing the evidences of evolution, and by can¬ didly estimating the opposing evidence, and still more by pointing out a way to the solution of the greatest difficulty, gave the signal and the word of encouragement which effected a movement that had long been impending. The “ that,” the fact of evolution, may be regarded as estab¬ lished. The “how,” the theory or explanation of it, is the problem immediately before us. Its solution will require many years of patient investigation, and much discussion may be anticipated, which will doubtless sometimes degenerate into acrimonious disputes, more especially in the immediate future, while what may be called the dialectics of the subject are being developed, and while the bearings and the limits of views and questions are being determined, and conceptions and definitions and kinds of arguments appropriate to the discussion, are the subjects on which it is necessary to come to a common under¬ standing. It is highly desirable that this discussion should be as free as possible from mere personalities, and there is strong hope that it may be kept so through the manners and methods of procedure established by means of the experience which the history of modern science affords. That it is impossible, however, to avoid errors of this sort altogether, is evident from the provocations experienced and keenly felt by some of the noblest of modern students of science in the estab¬ lishment of theories in modern astronomy, and of theories in geology, to which may now be added the theory of evolution. That the further discussion of rival hypotheses on the causes and modes of evolution will profit by these older examples may be hoped, since there have grown up general methods of inves¬ tigation and discussion, which prescribe limits and precautions for hypothesis and inference, and establish rules for the con¬ duct of debate on scientific subjects, that have been of the greatest value to the progress of science, and will, if faithfully 8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 170 observed, doubtless direct the present discussion to a successful issue. These methods are analogous in their purposes to the gen¬ eral rules in courts of law, and constitute the principles of method in experimental philosophy, or in philosophy founded on the sciences of observation. They serve to protect an investigation, by demanding that it shall be allowed on cer¬ tain pretty strict conditions (in the conduct of experiments and observations, and in the formation and verification of hypotheses) to proceed without hindrance from prejudice for any existing doctrine or opinion. An investigation may thus start from the simplest basis of experience, and, for this purpose, may waive, yet without denying, any presumption or conclusion held in existing theories or doctrines. Again, these rules protect an investigation from a one-sided criticism or ex parte judgment, since they demand of the criticism or judgment the same judicial attitude that is demanded of the investiga¬ tion. Advocacy, and especially the sort that is of essential value in courts of law, where two advocates are set against each other, each with the duty of presenting only what can be said for his own side, and where the same judge and jury are bound to hear both, is singularly out of place in a scientific discussion, unless in oral debate before the tribunal of a sci¬ entific society. Moreover, there are no burdens of proof in science. Such advocacy in a published work claiming scien¬ tific consideration is almost an offense against the proprieties of such discussions. To collect together in one place all that can be said for an hypothesis, and in another all that can be said against it, is at best a clumsy and inconvenient method of discussion, the natural results of which mav best be seen in the present condition of theological and religious doctrines. These practical considerations are of the utmost importance for the attainment of the end of scientific pursuit; which is not to arrive at decisions or judgments that are probably true, but is the discovery of the real truths of nature, for which science can afford to wait, and for which suspended judgments are the soundest substitutes. No work of science, ancient or modern, dealing with prob~ EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION. 171 lematic views and doctrines, has more completely conformed to these principles, or more fully justified them by its success, than the “ Origin of Species.” For its real or principal success has been in convincing nearly all naturalists, a majority of whom, at least, were still unconvinced, of the truth of the theory of evolution; and this has resulted from its obvious fairness and spirit of caution almost as much as from the pre¬ ponderance of the evidences for the theory when thus pre¬ sented. And the very same qualities of spirit and method governed the leading and more strictly original design of the work, which cannot, however, yet be said to be a complete success, namely, the explanation of evolution by natural selec¬ tion. That Mr. Darwin himself is fully convinced of the truth of this explanation is sufficiently evident. He holds that natu¬ ral selection is the principal or leading cause in determining the changes and diversities of species, though not the only cause of the development of their characters. Conspicuously at the close of the Introduction in the first edition of the work, and in all subsequent editions, occur these words : “ I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the most important, but not the ex¬ clusive, means of modification.” That the work is not a merely dialectical performance is clear ; and it is equally clear that in proportion to the strength of the author’s conviction is his solicitude to give full and just weight to all valid objections to it. In this respect the work stands in marked contrast to much that has been written on the subject and in reply to it. Once to leave the vantage-ground of scientific method and adopt the advocate’s ex parte mode of discussion almost neces¬ sitates a continuance of the discussion under this most incon¬ venient form. Mr. Mivart’s “ Genesis of Species,” which we examined in this Review last July, though a conspicuous exam¬ ple of such a one-sided treatment of a proper scientific question, was by a writer so distinguished for his attainments in science that his criticism could not well be passed by without notice; and, having also the character of a popular treatise, it came within a wider province of criticism that that of strictly scien¬ tific reviews. Our notice of his work was chiefly devoted to sup¬ plying something of what could be and had been said in favor 172 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of the theory thus criticised, both by way of defining and de¬ fending it. We also followed the author to some extent into the consideration of a subject, namely, the general philosophical and theological bearings of this theory, which does not, we en¬ deavored to show, belong properly to the discussion, and ought to be kept in abeyance, so long, at least, as the laws of exper¬ imental philosophy are observed in the conduct of the inquiry. One of the first questions asked in past times in regard to phys¬ ical hypotheses, which have now become established theories or doctrines of science, was, if they were orthodox, or at least theistic; and the negative decision of this question by what was deemed competent authority determined temporarily and in a measure the fate of the hypothesis and the standing of those who held to it. It was to be hoped that, in the light of such a history, this discussion could be spared the question, at least till the hypothesis could be fairly tried, when, if it should be found wanting in scientific validity, its banishment to the limbo of exploded errors might, without much harm, be changed to a severer sentence; and, if it should withstand the tests of purely scientific criticism, the same means of reconcil¬ ing it to orthodoxy would doubtless be found as in the case of older physical hypotheses. Mr. Mivart himself claimed and argued a similar exemption for the general theory of evolution, or rather attempted the later office of reconciliation, or the af¬ fording of proofs of its conformity to the most venerable and authoritative decisions of orthodoxy. But he appeared unwill¬ ing to allow either such an exemption, or the possibility of an accordance with orthodoxy, to the theory of natural selection, for he more than once quoted and applied to the discussion of this theory the saying and supposed opinions of an heretical heathen philosopher, Democritus. In his reply to our criticisms,* he wonders who could have so misled us as to make us suppose that his was a “theological education” and a “schooling against Democritus”; the fact being just the reverse of this, his education being in that phi- * See the number of the North American Review for April, 1872. Mr. Mivart has. reprinted his reply, without notice of the present essay, in his volume entitled, “Les«- sons from Nature,” London, 1876. EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. 17 3 losophy of “nescience,” out of the evils and fallacies of which he had at length struggled. Clearly we were misled by the author himself. Our error, slight except as a biographical one, would have been amended if we had referred the character of his criticism to his theological studies. This would have left the period in his life in which he acquired his mode of thought and discussion as undetermined, as it was unimportant to the point of our criticism; since, through the influence of these studies, or similar dialectical pursuits, his unquestionable abili¬ ties appeared to us to have been developed, and, as we believe, misapplied. It was the bringing in of “ the fortuitous concourse of atoms,” and “blind chance,” “accidents,” and “hap-hazard results,” in a discussion with which they had no more to do, and no less, than they have to do with geology, meteorology, politics, philosophical history, or political economy. It was this irrelevancy in his criticism which we regarded as oblivious of the age in which we live and for which he wrote,—the age of experimental philosophy. Mr. Mivart thinks he is clear of all blame for speaking of the theory of natural selection as lia¬ ble “to lead men to regard the present organic world as formed, so to speak, accidentally , beautiful and wonderful as is confessedly the hap-hazard result,” since he qualified the word “accidentally” by the phrase “so to speak.” The real fault was in speaking so at all. Accidents in the ordinary every-day sense are causes in every concrete course of events,—in the weather, in history, in politics, in the market, — and no theory of these events can leave them out. Explanation of the events consists in show¬ ing how they will result, or have resulted, through certain fixed principles or laws of action from the occasions or opportunities, which such accidents present. Given the state of the atmos¬ phere over a large district in respect to temperature, moisture, pressure, and motion,—none of which could have been antici¬ pated without similar data for a short time before, all in fact being accidents,—and the physical principles of meteorology might enable us to explain the weather that immediately fol¬ lows. So with the events of history, etc. In no other sense are accidents supposed as causes in the theory of natural selec-' *74 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. tion. Accidental variations and surrounding conditions of existence, and the previous condition of the organic world, (none of which could have been anticipated from anything vve actually know, all in fact being “accidents”)—these are the causes which present the occasions or opportunities through which principles of utility and advantage are brought to bear in changing structures and habits, and improving their adap¬ tations. If this is like the philosophy of Democritus, or any other excommunicated philosopher of antiquity, and is, there¬ fore, to be condemned for the heresy, then all the sciences with which we have compared it, and many others, the con¬ quests of human intelligence, must share the condemnation. We dwelt in our review, perhaps unnecessarily, on the fact that accidents in this sense, and in the theory of natural selec¬ tion, as well as elsewhere, are relative to our knowledge of causes; that the same event, like an eclipse of the sun, might be an accident to one mind, and an anticipated event to an¬ other. We did so because we could not understand otherwise why our author should single out the theory of natural selection from analogous theories and sciences for a special criticism of this sort; or except on the idea that the accidents in natural selection were supposed by him to be exceptional, and of the type which Democritus is reputed to have put in the place of intelligent design, or on the throne of Nous. We did not, as Mr. Mivart imagines, think him “ignorant that the various phenomena which we observe in nature have their respective phenomenal antecedents,” nor suppose that he “held the opinion that phenomena of variation, etc., are not determined by definite, invariable, physical antecedents.” We only thought that, knowing better,—knowing that “natural selec¬ tion,” like every other physical theory, dealt with physical causes and their laws,—he was unjust and inconsistent in con¬ demning the employment of it, as a leading or prominent cause, in explanation of the phenomena of the organic world, in the manner in which he did; except on the hypothesis, which we repudiated in behalf of experimental philosophy but without positively attributing it to him,—the hypothesis of absolute accidents. It was inconsistency and irrelevancy which we meant to attribute to him. EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. *75 That he supposed absolute accidents to be meant in the an* cient atheistical philosophy appeared from a passage in his chap* ter on Theology and Evolution (p. 276), in which he speaks of the kind of action we might expect in physical nature from a theistic point of view, as an action “which is orderly, which disaccords with the action of blind chance and with the ‘fortui¬ tous concourse of atoms’ of Democritus.” But in his reply to us he repudiates the idea that this old philosophy held events to be accidental in the strict sense; and he further says of us that we “know very well that Democritus and Empedocles and their school no more held phenomena to be undetermined or unpreceded by other phenomena than do their successors at the present day.” We are far from being so well informed, or willing to accept this as a statement of our views. For, in the first place, the terms “undetermined” and “unpreceded” are not synonymous. Moreover, so far as phenomena are deter¬ mined, they are “orderly,” “harmonize with man’s reason” (p. 275), though in their complexity they may be quite beyond the power of any man’s imagination to represent or disen¬ tangle; and, as our author has said, they are what we might expect “ from a theistic point of view.” Whether Democritus believed in absolute accidents or not we do not know. Little is really known of his opinions in this respect. The question has been disputed, but not decided. All his works are lost, except a few quoted sentences and max¬ ims. He is in a peculiarly exposed condition for an attack from any one disposed to be his opponent. The words ascribed to him are unprotected by contexts, or by the scruples an oppo¬ nent might feel about their meaning were he assigning to him his place in the history of speculation. It is very likely that he did not hold to absolute accidents as occurring in the course of nature; though it is very doubtful whether he was so thoroughly convinced as his “successors of the present day” are of the universality of the “law of causation,” or that every event must have determinant antecedents. The concep¬ tion of cause, as based by experimental science on the ele¬ mentary invariable orders of phenomenal successions, is, even at the present day, altogether too precise and abstract for the 17 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. apprehension of a mind untrained by scientific studies. How much more so must it have been when among the old Ionian philosophers the first crude conceptions of science w r ere being fashioned by attempts at discovering the physical bond of union and the inchoate form of nature, regarded as a universe. It is an anachronism to speak of these philosophers as mate¬ rialists and atheists, since the distinctions and questions which could make such a classification intelligible had not yet been proposed. And it is equally an anachronism to attribute even to later thinkers, like Democritus, such a conception of physical causation as only the latest and maturest products of scientific thought have rendered definite. There can be no antithesis in the problem of the beginning of the world between accident and law, that is, between accident and the orderly movements which imply determinant antece¬ dents. The real antithesis is between accident and miracle, that is, between accident and the extraordinary action of pre¬ existent designing intelligence; and in this relation Accident can only have an absolute meaning, equivalent in fact to Des¬ tiny or Fate, when unintelligible. Unintelligible Destiny or “blind chance” is directly opposed to the intelligible Destiny which is the principle of “law” in nature; though these have often been confounded as equally fatalistic and atheistical. Mr. Mivart, however, does not confound them; for he has said that the latter is what we might expect from a theistic point of view. It is altogether likely, however, that the Democritus to whom the former meaning could be attributed as a characteristic one is not the real thinker, but is a myth; or is rather the orthodox lay-figure of atheism of the theological studio. The reputation for atheism which the real Democritus doubt¬ less had may have come from a cause which has often pro¬ duced it in the history of physical science. He invented a theory of atoms with which he attempted physical explanations quite in advance of previous speculations. And the invention of physical hypotheses has often been regarded as an invasion of the province and jurisdiction of divine power and a first cause. For men rarely allow the explanation of any impor¬ tant effect in nature to remain an open question. If observed EVOL UTION B Y NA TUBA L SELECTION. 177 or inferred physical causes do not suffice, invisible or even spiritual ones are invented; and thus the ground is preoccu¬ pied, and closed against the inquiries of the physical phi¬ losopher. It is probably the general direction or tendency of these inquiries, rather than any positive positions or results at which they may arrive, which puts the physical philosopher in an apparently irreligious attitude. For in following out the consequences of physical hypotheses into the details of natural phenomena, reasoning from supposed causes to their effects, his interests and his modes of thought are the reverse of those of mankind in general, and of the religious mind. He appears to turn his back on divinity, and though seeking to approach nearer the first cause, or the total order of nature, his aspect of looking downward from a proximate principle through a nat¬ ural order appears to the popular view to be darkened by a sombre shadow. The theory of universal gravitation was con¬ demned on this account for impiety by even so liberal and en¬ lightened a thinker as Leibnitz. This seems very strange to us now, since the law of gravitation is almost as familiar as fire, or even gravity itself. When in ancient times any one had burned his fingers, or been bruised by a fall, one did not, except perhaps in early childhood, attribute the harm to a person, a spirit, or a god, but to the qualities of fire or gravity; yet the sounds of the thunder were still referred directly to Zeus. We all remember how in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes the comic poet puts impiety in the mouth of Socrates, or the doc¬ trine that Zeus does not exist, and that it is ethereal Vortex, reigning in his stead, which drives the clouds and makes them rain and thunder. Such a view of physical inquiries is not confined to comic poets or their audiences. The meteorolog¬ ical sophists of that day were in very much the same position as the Darwinian evolutionists of the present time. However important it may be to bear these considerations in mind, there is, as we have said, no more occasion to do so with reference to the theory of natural selection than with reference to many other analogous theories, not only in physical science, like those of meteorology and geology (including the theory of evolution), but also in sociological science, like theories of po- 178 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS, litical economy, and those theories of history which explain the growth of institutions, governments, and national charac¬ teristics. The comparison of the continuous order in time of the organic world and its total aspect at any period, to the pro¬ gressive changes and the particular aspect at any time of the weather, will, doubtless, strike many minds as inapt, since the latter phenomena are the type to us of indetermination and chance, while the former present to us the most conspicuous evidences of orderly determination and design. This con¬ trast, though conspicuous, is, nevertheless, not essential to the contrasted orders themselves. The movements in one.are al¬ most infinitely slower than in the other. We see a single phase and certain orderly details in one. We see only confused and rapid combinations and successions in the other. One is seen in fine, the other in gross form. But looked at from the same point of view, regarding each as an ensemble of details in time and space, they are equally without definite order or intelligible plan; “beautiful and wonderful as is,” according to Mr. Mivart, “the hap-hazard result.” It is in the intimate and comparatively minute parts of the organic world in individual structures or organisms that the beautiful and wonderful order is seen. When we look at great groups, like the floras and faunas of various regions, or at past geological groupings,—the shifting clouds, as it were, of organic life,—this order disap¬ pears or is hidden for the most part. There remains enough of apparent order to indicate continuity in time and space, but hardly anything more. Perfectly as the individual organism may exhibit adaptations or the applications of principles of utility, there is no definite clew in it to the cause of the partic¬ ular combination of uses which it embodies, or to its exist¬ ence in a particular region, or at a particular period in the his¬ tory of the world, or to its co-existence with many other quite independent particular forms. But in precise analogy with what is conspicuously regular and indicative of simple laws in the organic world, correspond the intimate elementary changes of the atmosphere, some of which, like the fall and even the formation of rain and snow, the development and disappear¬ ance of clouds, are almost as simple exhibitions of natural EVOLUTION BY NA TUBAL SELECTION. 175 laws as experiments in the laboratory. What, even in the laboratory, can exceed the beauty, simplicity, and complete¬ ness of that exemplification of definite physical laws which the fall of dew on clear, calm nights demonstrates ? More¬ over, there are in the successions of changes in the weather sufficient traces of order to indicate a continuity in space and time corresponding to the geographical distributions and geo¬ logical successions of the organic world. The elementary or¬ ders, which exhibit ultimate physical laws in simple isolation, are, in their aggregate and complex combination, the causes of the successions of changes in the weather and the source of - whatever traces of order appear in them, and are thus analo¬ gous to what the theory of natural selection supposes in the organic world, namely, that the adaptations, or the exhibitions of simple principles of utility in structures, are in their aggre¬ gate and complex combinations the causes of successive and continuous changes in forms of life. Far more important, however, than such analogies in the doctrine of evolution is the clear understanding of what the theory of natural selection undertakes to explain, and what is the precise and essential nature of its supposed action. There appears to be much confusion on this subject, arising probably from the influence of preconceived opinions concern¬ ing the nature both of the matters explained and the mode of explanation, or, in other words, concerning the nature of the changes which take place in species and the relations of them to this cause. These would seem, at first sight, very simple matters for conception, and difficult only in the evidences and the adequacy of the explanation. Such appeared, and still appears, to be the opinion of Mr. Mivart. Perhaps the best way to make a difficult theory plain is the negative one of correcting the misconceptions of it as they arise. This is what we attempted in our former review with reference to the character of the variations from which nature normally and for the most part selects. But new difficulties have emerged in Mr. Mivart’s later writings which deserve con¬ sideration. In his answer to Professor Huxley, in the January number of the “Contemporary Review” (p. 170), he says of PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 180 the theory of natural selection, “That the benefit of the indi¬ vidual in the struggle for life was announced as the one deter¬ mining agent, fixing slight beneficial variations into enduring characters,” for which he thinks it quite incompetent. And again, in reply to us (p. 453), he speaks of “ The origin, not, of course, of slight variations, but of the fixing of these in definite lines and grooves”; and this origin, he believes, can¬ not be natural selection. And we believe that his conclusions are right! That is, if the more obvious meaning of these expressions are their real ones. They appear to mean that natural selection will not account for the unvarying continu¬ ance in succeeding generations of simple changes made acci¬ dentally in individual structures (whether the change be large or small), or will not account for the direct conversion of a simple change in a parent into a permanent alteration of its offspring. Such is the apparent meaning of these expressions, but they might possibly be taken as loose expressions of the opinion that this cause will not account for permanent changes in the average characters, or mid-points, about which variations oscillate; and, in this case, we believe that he is wrong. This permanency must not be understood, however, as meaning that changes cease, but only that they are not reversed. The same cause, natural selection, prevents such reversion, on the whole, and except in individual cases which it extermi¬ nates. The first and obviously intended meaning of these expres¬ sions has let in light upon the author’s own theory and his gen¬ eral difficulty about the theory of natural selection, which we did not have before. They show how fundamentally the mat¬ ter has been misconceived, either by him or by us. That we did not more fully perceive this fundamental difference doubt¬ less arose from a tacit assumption of the principle of “specific stability ” in his earlier criticisms, which was explicitly treated of in a later chapter and as a subordinate topic. This, as we shall find, is the source of the most serious misunderstanding We were not aware that any one supposed that particular varia¬ tions ever became fixed and heritable changes in the characters of organisms by the direct agency of natural selection, or, in- E VOL UTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. x 8 T deed, by any other known cause. The proper effect of this cause is not to fix variations, though it must determine their averages and limit their range , and must act directly to in¬ crease the useful ones and diminish the injurious; or rather to permit the one and forbid the other, and when these are directly opposed to each other, it must act to shift the aver age or normal character, instead of fixing it. Variation as a constant and normal phenomenon of organization, ex¬ hibited chiefly in the ranges of individual differences, is, as it were, the agitation or irregular oscillation that keeps the characters of species from getting too closely fixed in “definite lines and grooves,” through the too rigid inheritance of ances¬ tral traits; or it is a principle of alertness that keeps them ever ready for movement and change in conformity to changing con¬ ditions of existence. What fixes species (when they are fixed) is the continuance of the same advantages in their structures and habits, or the same conditions for the action of selection, together with the force of long-continued inheritance. This, though almost trite from frequent repetition, appears a very difficult conception for many minds, probably on account of their retaining the old stand-point of philosophy. It would appear that Mr. Mivart is really speaking of the fixed species of the old and still prevalent philosophy, or about real species, as they are commonly called. Natural selection cannot, of course, account for these figments. Their true explanation is in the fact that naturalists formerly assumed, without proper evidence, that a change too slow for them to perceive directly could not exist, and that characters widely prevalent and so far advanced as to become permanently adapted to very general and unchanging conditions of existence, like vertebral and articulate structures, the numbers and positions of the organs of locomotion in vari¬ ous animals, the whorl and the spiral arrangement of leaves in plants, and similar homological resemblances, could never have been vacillating and uncertain ones. It was not many years ago that a distinguished writer in criticising the views of Lamarck affirmed that “the majority of naturalists agree with Linnaeus in supposing that all the individuals propagated from one stock have certain distinguishing characters in common, 182 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. which never vary, and which have remained the same since the creation of each species.” The influence of this opinion still re¬ mains, even with naturalists who would hesitate to assert cate¬ gorically the opinion itself. This comes, doubtless, from the fact that long-prevalent doctrines often get stamped into the very meanings of words, and thus acquire the character of axioms. The word “species” became synonymous with real or fixed species, or these adjectives became pleonastic. And this was from the mere force of repetition, and without valid foundation in fact, or confirmation from proper inductive evi¬ dence. Natural selection does not, of course, account for a fixity that does not exist, but only for the adaptations and the diver¬ sities in species, which may or may not be changing at any time. They are fixed only as the “fixed” stars are fixed, of which very many are now known to be slowly moving. Their fixity, when they are fixed, is temporary and through the acci¬ dent of unchanging external conditions. Such is at least the as¬ sumption of the theory of natural selection. Mr. Mivart’s the¬ ory seems to assume, on the other hand, that unless a species or a character is tied to something it will run away; that there is a necessity for some internal bond to hold it, at least tempo¬ rarily, or so long as it remains the same species. He is enti¬ tled, it is true, to challenge the theory of natural selection for proofs of its assumption, that “fixity” is not an essential feature of natural species; for, in fact, so far as direct evidence is con¬ cerned, this is an open question. Its decision must depend chiefly on the preponderance of indirect and. probable evi¬ dences in the interpretation of the “ geological record,” a sub¬ ject to which much space is devoted, in accordance with its importance, in the “ Origin of Species.” Technical questions in the classification and description of species afford other evi¬ dences, and it is asserted by naturalists that a very large num¬ ber of specimens, say ten thousand, is sufficient, in some de¬ partments of natural history, to break down any definition or discrimination even of living species. Other evidences are afforded by the phenomena of variation under domestication. Mr. Mivart had the right, and may still have it, to resist all EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. lS 3 this evidence, as not conclusive; but he is not entitled to call upon the theory of natural selection for an explanation of a feature in organic structures which the theory denies in its ver) elements, the fixity of species. This is what he has done,— implicitly, as it now appears, in his book, and explicitly in his later writings. The question of zoological philosophy, “Whether species have a real existence in nature,” in the decision of which nat¬ uralists have so generally agreed with Linnaeus, refers directly and explicitly to this question or the fixity of essential charac¬ ters, and to the assumption that species must remain unaltered .in these respects so long as they continue to exist, or until they give birth to new species; or, as was formerly believed, give place in perishing to new independent creations. The distinc¬ tion involved in this question in the word real should not be confounded, as it might easily be, with the distinction in Logic of “real kinds” from other class-names. Logic recognizes a principal division in class-names, according as these are the names of objects which agree with each other and differ from other objects in a very large and indefinite number of particulars or attributes, or are the names of objects which agree only in a few and a definite number of attributes. The former are the names of “real kinds,” and include the names of natural species, as man, horse, etc., and of natural genera, as whale, oak, etc. These classes are “real kinds,” not because the innumerable particulars in which the individual members of them agree with each other and differ from the members of other classes, are themselves fixed or invariable in time, but because this sort of agreement and difference is fixed or continues to appear. An individual hipparion resembled its immediate parents and the other offspring of them as closely as, or, at least, in the same in¬ timate manner in which one horse resembles another, namely, in innumerable details. But this is not opposed to the concep¬ tion that the horse is descended from the hipparion by insensi¬ ble steps of gradation or continuously. For examples of names that are not the names of “real kinds,” we may instance such as denominate objects that are an inch in length, or in breadth, or are colored black, or are square, or (combining these particu- 184 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . lars) that are as black square inches. These objects may be made of paper, or wood, or ivory, or differ in all other respects except the enumerated and definite particulars. They are not “real” or natural “kinds,” but factitious ones. The confusion which, as we have said, might arise between the “real kinds” of Logic, and the real species of biological speculation, would depend on a vagueness in the significance of the word “ real,” which in common usage combines in un¬ certain proportions two elementary and more precise ideas, that of fixedness and that of breadth of relationship. Both these marks of reality are applied habitually as tests of it. Thus if an object attests its existence to several of my senses, is seen, heard, touched, and is varied in its relations to these senses, and moreover is.similarly related to the senses of an¬ other person, as evinced by his testimony, then I know that the object is real, and not a mere hallucination or invention of my fantasy; though it may disappear immediately afterwards in an unexplained manner, or be removed by some unknown but supposable agency. Here the judgment of reality de¬ pends on breadth of relationship to my experience and sources of knowledge. Or again I may only see the object, and con¬ sult no other eyes than my own; but seeing it often, day after day, in the same place, I shall judge it to be areal object, pro¬ vided its existence is conformable to the general possibilities of experience, or to the test of “ breadth.” Here the test of real¬ ity is “fixity” or continuance in time. That natural species are real in one of these senses, that individuals of a species are alike in an indefinite number of particulars, and resemble each other intimately, is unquestionable as a fact, and is not an invention of the understanding or classifying faculty, and is moreover the direct natural consequence of the principles of inheritance. In this sense species are equivalent to large nat¬ ural stocks or races existing for a limited but indeterminate number of generations. That they are real in the other sense, or fixed in time absolutely in respect to any of the particulars of their resemblance, whether these are essential (that is, useful for discrimination and classification) or are not, is far from be¬ ing the axiom it has seemed to be. It is, on the contrary, highly 1 EVOLUTION BY NA TUBAL SELECTION. 185 improbable that they are so, though this is tacitly assumed, as we have seen, in criticisms of the theory of natural selection, and in the significance often attached to the word “species” in which the notions of fixedness and distinctiveness have coa¬ lesced. It is true that without this significance in the word “ species ” the names and descriptions of organic forms could not be permanently applicable. No system of classification, however natural or real, could be final. Classification would, indeed, be wholly inadequate as a representation of the organic world on the whole, or as a sketch of the “plan of creation,” and would be falsely conceived as revealing the categories and thoughts of creative intelligence,—a consequence by no means welcome to the devout naturalist, since it seems to degrade the value of his work. But this may bq because he has miscon¬ ceived its true value, and dedicated to the science of divinity what is really the rightful inheritance of natural or physical science. If instead of implicitly assuming the principle of specific stability in the earlier chapters of his book, and deferring the explicit consideration of it to a later chapter and as a special topic, Mr. Mivart had undertaken the establishment of it as the essential basis of his theory (as indeed it really is), he would have attacked the theory of natural selection in a most vital point; and if he had succeeded, all further criticism of the theory would have been superfluous. But with¬ out success in establishing this essential basis, he leaves his own theory, and his general difficulties concerning the theory of natural selection, without adequate foundation. The impor¬ tance of natural selection in the evolution of organic species (its predominant influence) depends entirely on the truth of the opposite assumption, the instability of species. The evidences for and against this position are various, and are not adequate¬ ly considered in the author’s chapter on this subject. More¬ over, some of the evidences may be expected to be greatly affected by what will doubtless be the discoveries of the imme¬ diate future. Already the difficulties of discrimination and classification in dealing with large collections have become very great in some departments of natural history, and even in i86 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. paleontology the gradations of fossil forms are becoming finer and finer with almost every new discovery; and this in spite of the fact that nothing at all approaching to evidence of continuity can rationally be expected from the fragment¬ ary geological record. To this evidence must be added the pi enomena of variation under domestication. The ap¬ parent limits of the changes which can be effected by artificial selection are not, as they have been thought, proofs of the doc¬ trine of “specific stability,” or of the opinion of Linnaeus, but only indications of the dependence of variation on physiolog¬ ical causes, and on laws of inheritance; and also of the fact that the laws of variation and the action of natural selection are not suspended by domestication, but may oppose the aims and efforts of artificial selection. The real point of the proof afforded by these phenomena is that permanent changes may be effected in species by insensible degrees. They are perma¬ nent, however, only in the sense that no tendency to reversion will restore the original form, except by the action of similar causes. Against the conclusions of such inductive evidences the vague analogies of the organic to the inorganic world would avail little or nothing, even if they were true. They avail little or nothing, consequently, in confirmation of them in being proved false; as we showed one analogy to be in the illustra¬ tion given by our author, namely, the supposed analogy of specific characters in crystals to those of organisms; and his inference of abrupt changes in organic species, corresponding by this analogy to changes in the mode or species of crystalli¬ zation, which the same substance undergoes in some cases with a change of surrounding conditions, such as certain other sub¬ stances may introduce by their presence. A complete illustra¬ tion of the chemical phenomenon is afforded by the crystals of sulphur. Crystals produced in the wet way, or from solution in the bisulphide of carbon, are of a species entirely distinct from those formed in the dry way ? or from the fused mineral; and there are many other cases of these phenomena of dimor¬ phism and polymorphism , as they are called. We recur to this topic, not on account of its importance to the discussion, E VOL UTION B Y NA TURAL SELL CT/OAT. z 8 y but because Mr. Mivart accuses us of changing a quotation from Mr. J. J. Murphy, so that he “is unlucky enough to be blamed for what he never said, or apparently thought of say¬ ing.” We have looked with true solicitude for the evidences of the truth of this charge, and find them to be as follows: We transcribed from Mr. Mivart’s book these sentences, as quoted by him (p. 185), from Mr. Murphy: “It needs no proof that in the case of spheres and crystals, the forms and the structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the formative principle.?. Attraction, whether gravitative or capillary, pro¬ duces the spherical form; the spherical form does not produce attraction. And crystalline polarities produce crystalline struct¬ ure and form; crystalline structure and form do not produce crystalline polarities.” The superfluous letter and words, which we have put in italics, were omitted in the printing, we do not know how, but it looks like an unwarrantable attempt in a final revision of proofs to improve the English of the quotation. Certainly the changes were of no advantage to our criticism, especially as they only have the effect to render the antithesis, which was the object of the criticism, slightly weaker. It is impossible to see how these changes have exposed Mr. Murphy to undeserved censure. We blamed him and Mr. Mivart, not for the use of abstractions as causes,—a use, which, as Mr. Mivart says, we ourselves make whenever it is convenient, but for asserting the antithesis of cause and effect between abstrac¬ tions both of which are descriptive of effects, namely, the character of the attractions, gravitative and capillary, which produce spherical forms vs. the spherical form itself; and the polar character of the forces that produce crystals vs. the crys¬ talline form and structure. Each of these effects (both in the case of the sphere and of the crystal) is doubtless a concause or condition that goes to the determination of the other. The spherical form arranges and determines the resultants of the elementary forces, and thus indirectly determines itself, or de¬ termines that action of the elementary forces thus combined, which results in the maintenance or stable equilibrium of the spherical form. Again, in crystallization the already formed bodies, with the particular directions of their faces and axes, i88 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . determine in part how the resultants of elementary polar forces will act in the further growth of the crystal, or in the repair of a broken one; and the elementary forces, thus de¬ termined and combined, result in the crystalline form, and structure. Thus both of the effects which are put in the antith¬ esis of cause and effect in the above quotation are also partial agents. They act and react on each other in the production of actual crystals. But this point was of importance to the discussion only as exhibiting a kind of “ realism ” by which scientific discussion is very liable to be confused. In this case, the wordy profun¬ dity was not quite so bald and conspicuous as the ordinary put¬ ting of a single-worded abstract description of an effect for its cause, since it consisted in putting one of two such abstractions as the cause of the other. More important, as affecting the truth of the supposed analogy of species in crystals to those of organisms, was our statement which Mr. Mivart confesses is ut¬ terly beyond him, and which, as he certainly has misinterpreted it, we may be pardoned for repeating and explaining. We said, “ Moreover, in the case of crystals, neither these forces [the* elementary] nor the abstract law of their action in producing definite angles reside in the finished bodies, but in the proper¬ ties of the surrounding media, portions of whose constituents are changed into crystals, according to these properties and other conditioning circumstances.” Our author has made us say “crystals” where we said “angles,” though the unintelli¬ gible character of the sentence ought to have made him the more cautious in copying it. We said “angles” because these are prominent marks of the species of the crystal; and this spe¬ cies we referred to the nature of the fluid material out of which the crystal is formed, and to the modifying influences of the presence of other substances, when the crystallization takes place from solutions, or in the wet way. The fact that the determination of the species of a crystal is not in any germ or nucleus or anything belonging in a special way to the partic¬ ular crystal itself, but is in the molecular forces of the fluid so¬ lution, makes the analogy of species in crystals to those of or¬ ganisms not only vague but false. What is really effected by EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. 189 the introduction of a foreign substance, acid or alkali, in the solution, is a change, not in such accidents as the surrounding conditions are to an organism, but is a change of the essential forces, which ought to change the character or species of the crystal suddenly, discretely, or discontinuously; and it has not, therefore, the remotest likeness to such suppositions as that a duck might be hatched from a goose’s egg, or a goose from a duck’s; or that a horse might have been the foal of an hip- parion. Notwithstanding that our statement was “utterly beyond” our author, he has ventured the following confident comments (p. 460): “If this is so,” he says, “then when a broken crystal completes itself, the determining forces reside exclusively in the media, and not at all in the crystal with its broken surface! The first atoms of a crystal deposited arrange themselves en¬ tirely according to the forces of the surrounding media, and their own properties are utterly without influence or effect in the result!” The marks of exclamation appended to these statements ought to have been ours, since nothing in the state¬ ments themselves has the remotest dependence on anything we said; but on the contrary these statements are directly opposed to the objections we made to Mr. Murphy’s antitheses. They might be deducible, perhaps, from our proposition, in the form to which it was altered through the substitution of the word “crystals” for “angles,” by supposing the concrete actual crys¬ tals to be referred to, instead of their species , of which these angles are prominent marks. But we had insisted that neither the resulting form, nor the resultants of elementary forces, are exclusively effects, or exclusively causes in the formation or in the mending of actual crystals; yet the species of the crystal is fully determined by what is outside of it, or by causes that may be abruptly changed by a change in the medium. Hence the phenomena of dimorphism and polymorphism , and similar chemical phenomena, have nothing in common with the hy¬ pothesis of “specific genesis.” Several similar misunderstandings of more special criticisms in our review tempt us (chiefly from personal considerations) to undertake their rectification; but our object in this article 190 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. is only to further the discussion, so far as it can be done under the inconvenient form of polemical discussion, by removing confusions and misunderstandings in essential matters. Hence we shall not dwell upon the discussion of what may be called hypotheses of the second degree, or hypothetical illustrations of the action of natural selection. It was a part of Mr. Mi- vart’s plan, in attacking the hypothesis of the predominant agency of natural selection in the origination of species, to dis¬ credit a number of subordinate hypotheses, as well as to chal¬ lenge the theory to offer any adequate ones for the explanation of certain extraordinary structures. We considered in detail several objections of this sort, though we might have been content with simply pointing out a sufficient answer in the log¬ ical weakness of such a mode of attack. The illustrations of the theory which have been proposed have not in general at all the force of arguments; they have it only where the utility of a structure is simple and obvious and can be shown by direct evidence to be effective in developing the structure out of acci¬ dental beginnings, and even in perfecting it, as in cases of the mimicry of certain insects, for the sake of a protection, which is thus really acquired. In general, the illustrations serve only to show the mode of action supposed in the theory, without pretending to reconstruct the past history of an animal, even by the roughest sketch;, or to determine all the uses of any structure, or their relative importance. To discredit these particular secondary hypotheses has no more weight as an argument against the theory than the hy¬ potheses themselves have in confirmation of it. To be con¬ vinced on general grounds that such a structure as that of the giraffe’s neck was developed by insensible steps from a more common form of the neck in Ungulates, through the oscil¬ lations of individual differences, and by the special utilities of the variations which have made the neck longer in some indi¬ viduals than in others, or through the utilities of these to the animals under the special conditions of their past existence, is very different from believing that this or that particular use in the structure was the utility (to adopt our author’s favorite form of definiteness) which governed the selection or deter* EVOLUTION BY NA TUBAL SELECTION. I 9 I mined the survival of the fittest. The use which may be pre¬ sumed in general to govern selection is a combination, with various degrees of importance, of all the actual uses in a struct¬ ure. There can be no more propriety in demanding of the theory of natural selection that it should assign a special use, or trace out the history hypothetically of any particular structure in its relations to past conditions of existence, than there would be in demanding of political economy that it should justify the correctness of its general principles by success in explaining the record of past prices in detail, or accounting in particular for a given financial anomaly. In either case, the proper evi¬ dence is wanting. Any instance, however, of a structure which could be conclusively shown (a very difficult kind of proof) to exist, or to be developed in any way, without reference in the process of development to any utility whatever, past or present, or to any past forms of the structure, would, indeed, go far towards qualifying the evidence, otherwise mostly affirmative, of the predominant agency of natural selection. We may remark by the way that Mr. Mivart’s definite thesis, “that natural selection is not the origin of species,” is really not the question. No more was ever claimed for it than that it is the most influential of the agencies through which species * have been modified. Lamarck’s principle of the direct effect of habit, or actual use and disuse, has never been abandoned by later evolutionists; and Mr. Darwin has given much more attention to its proof and illustration in his work on “Variation under Domestication” than any other writer. Moreover, the physiological causes which produce reversions and correlations of growth, and which, so far as they are known, are quite inde¬ pendent of natural selection, are also recognized as causes of change. But all these are subordinated in the theory to the advantage and consequent survival of the fittest in the struggle for life, or to natural selection. Upon this point we must refer our readers to the “Additions and Corrections” in the lately published sixth edition of the “Origin of Species”; in which also all the objections brought forward by Mr. Mivart, which had not previously been examined in the work, are fully con¬ sidered; and, we need hardly add, far more thoroughly and i9 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. adequately than could be possible for us, or in the pages of this Review.. \Y T e will, nevertheless, give, in sheer self-defense, the correc¬ tion of one perversion of our criticism. Mr. Mivart had argued in his book that the use of the giraffe’s long neck for browsing on the foliage of trees, and the advantage of it in times of drought, could not be the cause of its gradual increase by se¬ lection ; since this advantage, if a real one, would be equally an advantage to all Ungulates inhabiting the country of the giraffe, or similar regions; and that the other Ungulates, at least in such regions, ought to have been similarly modified. We allowed that there was force in the objection, but we were mistaken. The very conditions of the selection must have been a competition which would have soon put a large major¬ ity of the competitors out of the lists, and have narrowed the contest to a few races, and finally to the individuals of a single race. All the rest must have early given up the struggle for life in this direction; since a slight increase in the length of the neck could have been of no advantage if the reach of it still fell far short of the unconsumed foliage. The success of the survivors among them must have been won in some other direction, like the power of rapid and wide ranging, or organs better adapted to close grazing. For a fuller development and illustration of this reply we must refer to Chapter VII. in the new edition of the “ Origin of Species,” in which most of Mr. Mivart’s objections are considered. We attempted a reply to this objection in a direction in which his own remarks led us. Granting that the advantage of a long neck would have been equally an advantage to all Ungulates in South Africa; that there was no alternative or substitute for it; and that the use . of the neck for high reaching in times of drought could not therefo7'e have been the efficient cause of its preservation and increase through selection; still there were other and very im¬ portant uses in such a neck, to which these objections do not apply, and through which there would be advantages in the struggle for life, that would determine competition only among the individuals of a single race; while those of other races would compete with each other on other grounds. Mr. Mivart EVOLUTION B Y NA TURAL SELECTION. 193 admitted that there might be several lines of advantage in means of protection or defense; and cited instances from Mr. Wallace, showing, for example, that a dull color, useful for con¬ cealing an animal, would not be an advantage to those animals which are otherwise sufficiently protected, and do not need concealment. The use of the giraffe’s neck, then, as a means of defense and offense, for which there was ample evidence, its use as a watch-tower and as a weapon of offense, would be raised by Mr. Mivart’s objection to greater prominence, and might be the principal ground of advantage and competition between giraffe and giraffe, or one herd of them and another, with reference to protection from the larger beasts of prey; an advantage which would be incessant instead of occasional, like the high-reaching advantage in times of drought. The use, as we have said, means, with reference to the advantage in the struggle for life, the combination of all the uses that are of importance to the preservation of life. Accordingly we de¬ manded whether Mr. Mivart, having made a special objection to the importance of one use, as affording advantages and grounds for selection (an objection which we allowed, though unwarrantably), we demanded whether he could possibly sup¬ pose that this exhausted the matter, or that the supposed small importance of this use precluded the existence of uses more important which would afford grounds of advantage and com¬ petition in the struggle for life. As would be the case with one having the true “philosophical habit of mind,” to be distinguished from the “scientific,” Mr. Mivart’s notice was attracted to the form in which we made this inquiry, rather than to the material import of it, and “as we might a priori expect to be the case,” he showed “ that breadth of view, freedom of handling, and flexibility of mind” which he believes to characterize the true philosopher, as contrasted with the mere physicist; but in a manner which appears to us to characterize rather the mere dialectician. With great fer¬ tility of invention he attempts the interpretation of our inquiry (which we grant was not sufficiently explicit for the “philo¬ sophical habit of mind ”). The first interpretation is playful, and too delicate a jest to be transplanted to our pages. The 9 i 9 4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. next is, on the other hand, altogether too serious. He asks in return (p. 463), whether we can suppose “that he ever dreamed that the structures of animals are not useful to them, or that his position is an altogether anti-teleological one.” No, we certainly do not. We only suppose that his position is not sufficiently teleological to interest him in the inquiry, and that he has overlooked many uses in the structures of animals, to which his special objections do not apply, and has vainly im¬ agined, that by making those he felt called upon to examine as few and as faint as possible (except for the purpose of inspiring the agreeable emotion of admiration), he has re¬ duced them to mere luxuries, having little or no value as. grounds of advantage in the actual, incessant, and severe struggle to which all life is subject. “Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult”—even Mr. Darwin finds it so—“than con¬ stantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of na¬ ture, with every fact in distribution, rarity, abundance, extinc¬ tion, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood.” Supposing us possessed by some such idea as that his “posi¬ tion is an altogether anti-teleological one,” Mr. Mivart observes that we proceed “ to exhibit the giraffe’s neck in the character of a ‘watch-tower.’ But,” he adds, “this leaves the question just where it was before. Of course I concede most readily and fully that it is a most admirable watch-tower, as it also is a most admirable high-reaching organ, but this tells us nothing of its origin. In both cases the long neck is most useful when you have got it; but the question is how it arose , and in this species alone. And similar and as convincing arguments could be brought against the watch-tower theory of origin as against the high-reaching theory, and not only this, but also against every other theory which could possibly be adduced.” It appears that Mr. Mivart is prepared, a priori , to meet any number of foes of this sort that may present themselves singly. But the use, that is, all the essential uses of a structure, do not thus present themselves to our consideration and criticism. To deal adequately with the problem, we need the power to con- EVOLUTION BY NA TURAL SELECTION. J 95 ceive how closely the uses lie to the actual necessities of life; how, while we may be admiring in imagination the almost su¬ perfluous bounties of nature, this admirable watch-tower and high-reaching organ may just be failing to save the poor ani¬ mal, so highly endowed, from a miserable death. A lion, whose stealthy approach it would have detected, if a few inches more in the length of its neck, or in those of its companions, had enabled it, or them, to see a few rods further, or over some intervening obstacle, has meantime sprung upon the wretched beast, and is drawing its life-blood. This, if we were aware of it, would be the proper occasion to turn our admiration upon the fine endowments of the lion. Or, continuing our contem¬ plation of the giraffe, it may be that its admirable high-reach¬ ing organ has just failed to reach the few remaining leaves near the tops of trees, which might have served to keep up its strength against the attacks of its enemies, or enabled it to deal more effective blows with its short horns, so admirably placed as weapons of offense; or might have served to sustain it through the famine and drought, till the returning rains would have given it more cause for gratitude (and us more occasion for admiration), for a few additional inches of its neck than for all the rest. Meantime, for the lack of these inches, our giraffe may have sickened and perished miserably, failing in the competition and struggle for life. This need not stagger the optimist. The bounty of nature is not exhausted in giraffes. We can still admire the providential structure of the tree, which \b y its high-reaching branches has preserved some of its foliage from destruction by these beasts, and per¬ haps thereby saved not only its own life, but that of its kind. The occasions of destruction, even in the best guarded, most highly endowed lives, are all of the nature of accidents, and are generally as slight as the individual advantages are, for which so much influence is claimed in the theory of natural selection. Even death from old age is not a termination pre¬ ordained in the original powers of any life, but is the effect of accumulated causes of this sort. Much of the destruction to which life is subject* is strictly fortuitous so far as either the * The fortuity or chance is here, as in all other cases, a relative fact. The strictest use of the word applies to events which could not be anticipated except by omnis- PHILOSOPHICAL DLSCUSSIONS. 196 general powers or individual advantages in structures and habits are concerned; and is, therefore, quite independent of the effects of these advantages. Hence these effects are not thereby limited; for though a form of life presses, and is pressed upon, in all directions, yet it presses forward no less in the directions of its advantages. The “philosophical habit of mind,” which Mr. Mivart admires for its “breadth of view, freedom of handling, and flexibility of mind,” is sometimes optimistic, sometimes pessimistic in its views of providence in nature, according as this flexible mind has its attention bent by a genial or morose disposition to a bright or dark aspect in things. But, whichever it is, it is generally extreme or absolute in its judgments. The “scien¬ tific” mind, which Mr. Mivart contrasts with it, and believes to be characterized by “a certain rigidity and narrowness,” is held rigidly to the truth of things, whether good or bad, agree¬ able or disagreeable, admirable or despicable, and is narrowed to the closest, most uncompromising study of facts, and to a training which enables it to render in imagination the truest account of nature as it actually exists. The “ scientific ” imagi¬ nation is fashioned by physical studies after the patterns of nature itself. The “philosophical habit of mind,” trained in the school of human life, is the habit of viewing and interpret¬ ing nature according to its own dispositions, and defending its interpretations and attacking others with the skill and weapons of forensic and dialectical discussions. The earlier physical philosophers, the “ physicists ” of the ancient school, were “philosophers” in our author’s sense of the term. They had not the “scientific” mind, since to them nature was a chaos cience. To speak, therefore, of an event as strictly accidental is not equivalent to regard¬ ing it as undetermined, but only as determined in a manner which cannot be anticipated by a finite intelligence (see Mr. Mivart’s Reply, p. 458). There are degrees in the in¬ telligibility of things, according to human means and standards. Events like eclipses which are the most normal and predictable of all events to the astronomer, are to the savage pure accidents; and with still lower forms of intelligence events are unforeseen which are familiar anticipations in the intelligence of the savage. To believe events to be designed or not, according as they are or are not predictable by us, is to assume for ourselves a complete and absolute knowledge of nature which we do not possess. Hence faith in a designing intelligence, supreme in nature, is not the result of any capacity in our own intelligence to comprehend the design, and is quite independent of any dis¬ tinctions we may make, relative to our own powers of prediction, between orderly and accidental events. E VOLUTION BY NA TUBAL SELECTION. 197 hardly less confused than human affairs, and was studied with the same “ breadth of view, freedom of handling, and flexibility of mind” which are fitted for and disciplined by such affairs. They were wise rather than well informed. Their observation was guided by tact and subtilty, or fine powers of discrimination, instead of by that machinery of knowledge and the arts which now fashions and guides the “scientific” mind. Thus the the¬ ory of atoms of Democritus has little resemblance to the chem¬ ical theory of atoms, since “the modern theory is the law of definite proportions; the ancient theory is merely the affirma¬ tion of indefinite combinations.” Indefinite, or at least inexpli¬ cable, combinations meet the modern student of science, both physical and social, at every step of his researches, and in all the sciences with which we have compared the theory of natu¬ ral selection. He does not stop to lay hold upon these a priori , with the loose though flexible grasp of the “philosophical habit of mind,” but studies the intimate and elementary orders in them, and presumes them to be made up of such or¬ ders, though woven in infinite and inexplicable complexity of pattern. The division which Mr. Mivart makes in kinds of intellectual ability, the “ philosophical ” and “ scientific,” and regards as a more real distinction than the threefold division we proposed,* is really determined by a broad distinction in the object-matter of thought and study, and is not in any way inconsistent with what we still regard as an equally real but more elementary one, which is equivalent in fact to the logical division of “hy¬ pothesis,” “simple induction,” and “deduction.” These are not, indeed, co-ordinate as logical elements, since induction and deduction exhaust the simple elements of understanding when unaided by trained powers of perception and imagination. But practically, as habits of thought and disciplined skill in the study of nature and human affairs, they are distinct and diver¬ gent modes of investigation, partly determined by the character of the problem,—whether it be to explain a fact, or to properly name and classify it, or to prove it from assumed or admitted premises. Skill in the formation and verification of hypothesis, * See ante p. 141 198 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. dependent on a power of imagination, which physical studies discipline peculiarly, belongs peculiarly to the student of phys¬ ical science; and though, perhaps, “ a poor monster,” as Mr. Mivart says, when without an adequate basis in more strictly inductive studies, yet in that division of labors and abilities, on which the economy and efficiency of scientific investigation so largely depends, there is no propriety in thus regarding him, so long as co-operation in the pursuit of truth produces a sym¬ metrical whole; not, indeed, complete in a single mind, except so far as it is erudite or instructed beyond the range of its special abilities, but in that solid general progress of science which such co-operation promotes. EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. It has come to be understood, and very generally allowed, that the conception of the origin of man as an animal race, as well as the origin of individual men within it, in accordance with the continuity of organic development maintained in the theory of evolution, does not involve any very seriops difficul¬ ties, or difficulties so great as are presented by any other hy¬ pothesis of this origin, not excepting that of “special creation ”; —if that can be properly called a hypothesis, which is, in fact, a resumption of all the difficulties of natural explanation, as¬ suming them to be insuperable and summarizing them under a single positive name. Yet in this evolution, the birth of self- consciousness is still thought by many to be a step not follow¬ ing from antecedent conditions in “nature,” except in an in¬ cidental manner, or in so far only as “natural” antecedents have prepared the way for the “supernatural” advent of the self-conscious soul. Independently of the form of expression, and of the false sentiment which is the motive of the antithesis in this familiar conception, or independently of its mystical interest, which has given to the words “natural” and “supernatural” their com¬ monly accepted meanings, there is a foundation of scientific truth in the conception. For the word “evolution” conveys a false impression to the imagination, not really intended in the scientific use of it. It misleads by suggesting a continuity in the kinds of powers and functions in living beings, that is, by suggesting transition by insensible steps from one kind to an other, as well as in the degrees of their importance and exercise at different stages of development. The truth is, on the con¬ trary, that according to the theory of evolution, new uses of old * From the North American Review, April, 1873. 200 PHIL 0S0PHICAL DISCUSSIONS. powers arise discontinuously both in the bodily and mental nat¬ ures of the animal, and in its individual developments, as well as in the development of its race, although, at their rise, these uses are small and of the smallest importance to life. They seem merged in the powers to which they are incident, and seem also merged in the special purposes or functions in which, however, they really have no part, and which are no parts of them. Their services or functions in life, though realized only incidentally at first, and in the feeblest degree, are just as distinct as they afterwards come to appear in their fullest development. The new uses are related to older powers only as accidents} so far as the special services of the older powers are concerned, although, from the more general point of view of natural law, their rela¬ tions to older uses have not the character of accidents, since these relations are, for the most part, determined by universal properties and laws, which are not specially related to the needs and conditions of living beings. Thus the uses of limbs for swimming, crawling, walking, leaping, climbing, and flying are distinct uses, and are related to each other only through the general mechanical principles of locomotion, through which some one use, in its first exercise, may be incident to some other, though, in its full exercise and perfection of special service, it is independent of the other, or has only a common dependence with the otherfoiymore general conditions. Many mental as well as bodily powers thus have mixed natures, or independent uses; as, for example, the powers of the voice to call and allure, to warn and repel, and its uses in music and language; or the numerous uses of the human hand in services of strength and dexterity. And, on the contrary, the same uses are, in some cases, realized by independent or¬ gans as, for example, respiration ip water and in the air by gills and lungs, or flight by means of fins, feathers, and webs. The appearance of a really new power in nature (using this word in the wide meaning attached to it in science), the power of flight in the first birds, for example, is only involved potentially in previous phenomena. In the same way, no act of self-con¬ sciousness, however elementary, may have been realized before man’s first self-conscious act in the animal world; yet the act E VOL UTION OF SELF - CONS CIO USNESS. 201 may have been involved potentially in pre-existing powers or causes. The derivation of this power, supposing it to have been observed by a finite angelic (not animal) intelligence, could not have been foreseen to be involved in the mental causes, on the conjunction of which it might, nevertheless, have been seen to depend. The angelic observation would have been a purely empirical one. The possibility of a subse¬ quent analysis of these causes by the. self-conscious animal himself, which would afford an explanation of their agency, by referring it to a rational combination of simpler elements in them, would not alter the case to the angelic intelligence, just as a rational explanation of flight could not be reached by such an intelligence as a consequence of known mechanical laws; since these laws are also animal conditions, or rather are more general and material ones, of which our angelic, spher¬ ical # intelligence is not supposed to have had any experience. Its observation of the conditions of animal flight would thus also be empirical; for an unembodied spirit cannot be supposed to analyze out of its general experiences the mechanical con¬ ditions of movement in animal bodies, nor, on the other hand, to be any more able than the mystic appears to be to analyze the conditions of its own intelligence out of its experiences of animal minds. The forces and laws of molecular physics are similarly re¬ lated to actual human intelligence. Sub-sensible properties and powers can only be empirically known, though they are “visualized” in the hypotheses of molecular movements and forces. Experimental science, as in chemistry, is full of ex¬ amples of the discovery of new properties or new powers, which, so far as the conditions of their appearance were pre¬ viously known, did not follow from antecedent conditions, ex¬ cept in an incidental manner,—that is, in a manner not then foreseen to be involved in them; and these effects became afterwards predictable from what had become known to be their antecedent conditions only by the empirical laws or rules which inductive experimentation had established. Neverthe- * For an intellect complete without appendages of sense or locomotion, see Plato’s Timseus, 33, 34. 202 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. less, the phenomena of the physical or chemical laboratory, however new or unprecedented, are very far from having the character of miracles, in the sense of supernatural events. They are still natural events; for, to the scientific imagination, nature means more than the continuance or actual repetition of the properties and productions involved in the course of ordinary events, or more than the inheritance and reappearance of that which appears in consequence of powers which have made it appear before. It means, in general, those kinds of effects which, though they may have appeared but once in the whole history of the world, yet appear dependent on conjunc¬ tions of causes which would always be followed by them. One experiment is sometimes, in some branches of science, (as a wide induction has found it to be in chemistry, for example,) sufficient to determine such a dependence, though the particu¬ lar law so determined is a wholly empirical one; and the his¬ tory of science has examples of such single experiments, or short series of experiments, made on general principles of ex¬ perimentation, for the purpose of ascertaining empirical facts or laws, qualities, or relations, which are, nevertheless, gener¬ alized as universal ones. Certain “physical constants,” so called, were so determined, and are applied in scientific inference with the same unhesitating confidence as that inspired by the familiarly exemplified and more elementary “ laws of nature,” or even by axioms. Scientific research implies the potential existence of the natures, classes, or kinds of effects which experiment brings to light through instances, and for which it also determines, in accordance with inductive meth¬ ods, the previously unknown conditions of their appearance. This research implies the latent kinds or natures which mystical research contemplates (erroneously, in some, at least, of its meditations) under the name of “the supernatural.” To make any event or power supernatural in the mystic’s re¬ gard requires, however, not merely that it shall be isolated and unparalleled in nature, but that it shall have more than an or¬ dinary, or merely scientific, interest to the mystic’s or to the human mind. The distinctively human or self-conscious in¬ terest, or sentiment, of self-consciousness gives an emphasis tc E VOL UTION OF SELF- CO NS CIO USNESS. 203 the contrast named “natural and supernatural,” through which mysticism is led to its speculations or assumptions of corre¬ spondingly emphatic contrasts in real existences. For mysti¬ cism is a speculation interpreting as matters of fact, or real ex¬ istences outside of consciousness, impressions which are only determined within it by emphasis of attention or feeling. It is for the purpose of deepening still more, or to the utmost that its interest suggests, the really profound distinction between hu¬ man and animal consciousness, or for the purpose of making the distinction absolute , of deepening this gulf into an unfath¬ omable and impassable one, that mysticism appears to be moved to its speculations, and has imbued most philosophy and polite learning with its conceptions. Mental philosophy, or metaphysics, has, consequently, come down to us from ancient times least affected by the speculative interests and methods of modern science. Mysticism still reigns over the science of the mind, though its theory in general, or what is common to all theories called mystical, is very vague, and obscure even in the exclusively religious applications of the term. This vagueness has given rise to the more extended use and understanding of the term as it is here employed, which indicates little else than the generally apprehended motive of its speculations, or the feelings allied to all its forms of conception. These centre in the feeling of abso¬ lute worthiness in self-consciousness, as the source, and at the same time the perfection of existence and power. The natu¬ ralist’s observations on the minds of men and animals are im¬ pertinences of the least possible interest to this sense of worth, very much as the geologist’s observations are generally to the speculator who seeks in the earth for hidden mineral treasures. Mysticism in mental philosophy has apparently gained, so' far as it has been materially affected by such observations, a relative external strength, dependent on the real feebleness of the opposition it has generally met with from lovers of ani¬ mals and from empirical observers and thinkers, in whom a generous sympathy with the manifestations of mind in animals and a* disposition to do justice to them have been more con¬ spicuous than the qualities of clearness or consistency. For, 204 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. in the comparisons which they have attempted they have gen¬ erally sought to break down the really well-founded distinctions of human and animal intelligence, and have sought to discredit the theory of them in this way, rather than by substituting for it a rational, scientific account of what is real in them. The ultimate metaphysical mystery which denies all comparison, and pronounces man a paragon in the kinds, as well the de¬ grees, of his mental faculties, is, as a solution, certainly simpler , whatever other scientific excellence it may lack, than any so¬ lution that the difficulties of a true scientific comparison are likely to receive. It is not in a strictly empirical way that this comparison can be clearly and effectively made, but rather by’a critical re-examination of the phenomena of self-consciousness in themselves, with reference to their possible evolution from powers obviously common to all animal intelligences, or with reference to their potential, though not less natural, exist¬ ence in mental causes, which could not have been known to involve them before their actual manifestation, but may, nev¬ ertheless, be found to do so by an analysis of these causes into the more general conditions of mental phenomena. Mystical metaphysics should be met by scientific inquiries on its own ground, that is, dogmatically, or by theory, since it despises the facts of empirical observation, or attributes them to shal¬ lowness, misinterpretation, or errors of observation, and con¬ tents itself with its strength as a system, and its impregnable self-consistency. Only an explanation of the phenomena of human consciousness, equally clear and self-consistent with its own, and one which, though not so simple, is yet more in ac¬ cordance with the facts of a wider induction, could equal it in strength. But this might still be expected as the result of an examination of mental phenomena from the point of view of true science; since many modern sciences afford examples of similar triumphs over equally ancient, simple, and apparently impregnable doctrines. The history of science is full, indeed, of illustrations of the impotence, on one hand, of exceptional and isolated facts against established theory, and of the power, on the other hand, of their organization in new theories to rev- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 20c; w olutionize beliefs. The physical doctrine of a plenum , the doc¬ trine of epicycles and vortices in astronomy, the corpuscular theory of optics, that of cataclysms in geology, and that of special creations in biology, each gave way, not absolutely through its intrinsic weakness, but through the greater success of a rival theory which superseded it. A sketch only is at¬ tempted in this essay of some of the results of such an exam¬ ination into the psychological conditions, or antecedents, of •the phenomena of self-consciousness; an examination which does not aim at diminishing, on the one hand, the real contrasts of mental powers in men and animals, nor at avoiding difficul¬ ties, on the other, by magnifying them beyond the reach of comparison. The terms “science” and “scientific” have come, in modern times, to have so wide a range of application, and so vague a meaning, that (like many other terms, not only in common speech, but also in philosophy and in various branches of learning, which have come down to us through varying usages) they would oppose great difficulties to any attempts at de¬ fining them by genus and difference, or otherwise than by enumerating the branches of knowledge and, the facts, or rela¬ tions of the facts, to which usage has affixed them as names. Precision in proper definition being then impossible, it is yet possible to give to these terms so general a meaning as to cover all the knowledge to which they are usually applied, and still to exclude much besides. As the terms thus defined coincide with what I propose to show as the character of the knowledge peculiar to men, or which distinguishes the minds of men from those of other animals, I will begin with this definition. In sci¬ ence and in scientific facts there is implied a conscious purpose of including particular facts under general facts, and the less general under the more general ones. Science, in the modern use of the term, consists, essentially, of a knowledge of things and events either as effects of general causes, or as instances of general classes, rules, or laws; or even as isolated facts of which the class, law, rule, or cause is sought. The conscious purpose of arriving at general facts and at an adequate state¬ ment of them in language, or of bringing particular facts under 20 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. explicit general ones, determines for any knowledge a scientific character. Many of our knowledges and judgments from experience in practical matters are not so reduced, or sought to be reduced, to explicit principles, or have not a theoretical form, since the major premises, or general principles, of our judgments are not consciously generalized by us in forms of speech. Even mat¬ ters not strictly practical, or which would be merely theoretical in their bearing on conduct, if reduced to a scientific form, like many of the judgments of common-sense, for example, are not consciously referred by us to explicit principles, though derived, like science, from experience, and even from special kinds of experience, like that of a man of business, or that of a profes¬ sional adept. We are often led by being conscious of a sign of anything to believe in the existence of the thing itself, either past, present, or prospective, without having any distinct and general apprehension of the connection of the sign and thing, or any recognition of the sign under the general character of a sign. Not only are the judgments of common-sense in men, both the inherited and acquired ones, devoid of heads, or major premises (such as “All men are mortal”), in deductive infer¬ ence, and devoid also of distinctly remembered details of ex¬ perience in the inferences of induction, but it is highly probable that this is all but exclusively the character of the knowledges and judgments of the lower animals. Language, strictly so called, which some of these animals also have, or signs pur¬ posely used for communication, is not only required for scientific knowledge, but a second step of generalization is needed, and is made through reflection, by which this use of a sign is itself made an object of attention, and the sign is recognized in its general relation? to what it signifies, and to what it has signified in the past, and will signify in the future. It is highly improba¬ ble that such a knowledge of knowledge, or such a recognition, belongs in any considerable, or effective, degree to even the most intelligent of the lower animals, or even to the lowest of the human race. This is what is properly meant by being “ra¬ tional,” or being a “ rational animal.” It is what I have preferred to call “scientific ” knowledge; since the growing vagueness and EVOLUTIOiV OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . 207 breadth of application common to all ill-comprehended words (like “Positivism” in recent times) have given to “scientific” the meaning probably attached at first to “rational.” This knowledge comes from reflecting on what we know in the com¬ mon-sense, or semi-instinctive form, or making what we know a field of renewed research, observation, and analysis in the gen¬ eralization of major premises. The line of distinction between such results of reflection, or between scientific knowledge and the common-sense form of knowledge, is not simply the divid¬ ing line between the minds of men and those of other animals; but is that which divides the knowledge produced by outward attention from that which is further produced by reflective at¬ tention. The former, throughout a considerable range of the higher intelligent animals, involves veritable judgments of a complex sort. It involves combinations of minor premises leading to conclusions through implicit major premises in the enthymematic reasonings, commonly employed in inferences from signs and likelihoods, as in prognostications of the weather, or in orientations with many animals. This knowl¬ edge belongs both to men and to the animals next to men in intelligence, though in unequal degrees. So far as logicians are correct in regarding an enthymeme as a reasoning, independently of its statement in words; or in regarding as a rational process the passing from such a sign as the human nature of Socrates to the inference that he will die, through the data of experience concerning the mortality of other men,—data which are neither distinctly remembered in detail nor generalized explicitly in the formula, “ all men are mortal,” but are effective only in making mortality a more or less clearly understood part of the human nature, that is, in making it one of the attributes suggested by the name “ man,” yet not separated from the essential attributes by the contrasts of subject and attributes in real predication,—so far, I say, as this can be regarded as a reasoning, or a rational process, so far observation shows that the more intelligent dumb animals reason, or are rational. But this involves great vagueness or want of that precision in the use of signs which »the antitheses of essential and accidental attributes and that of proper pred- / 208 philosophical discussions. ication secure. There is little, or no, evidence to show that # the animals which learn, to some extent, to comprehend hu¬ man speech have an analytical comprehension of real general propositions, or of propositions in which both subject and pred¬ icate are general terms and differ in meaning. A merely ver¬ bal general proposition, declaring only the equivalence of two general names, might be comprehended by such minds, if it could be made of sufficient interest to attract their attention. But this is extremely doubtful, and it would not be as a propo¬ sition, with its contrasts of essential and added elements of con¬ ception that it would be comprehended. It would be, in effect, only repeating in succession two general names of the same class of objects. Such minds could, doubtless, compre¬ hend a single class of objects, or an indefinite number of re¬ sembling things by several names; that is, several signs of such a class would recall it to their thoughts, or revive a represen¬ tative image of it; and they would thus be aware of the equiv¬ alence of these signs; but they would not attach precision of meaning and different degrees of generality to them, or regard one name as the name or sign of another name; as when we define a triangle to be a rectilinear figure, and a figure of three r sides. Only one degree of generality is, however, essential to infer¬ ence from signs, or in enthymematic reasoning. Moreover, language in its relation to thought does not consist exclusively of spoken, or written, or imagined words, but of signs in gen¬ eral, and, essentially, of internal images or successions of ima¬ ges, which are the representative imaginations of objects and their relations; imaginations which severally stand for each and all of the particular objects or relations of a kind. Such are the visual imaginations called up by spoken or written con¬ crete general names of visible objects, as “dog” or “tree”; which are vague and feeble as images, but effective as notative, directive, or guiding elements in thought. These are the in¬ ternal signs of things and events, and are instruments of thought in judgment and reasoning, not only with dumb animals but also with men, in whom they are supplemented, rather than supplanted, by names. But being of feeble intensity, and little EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 209 under the influence of distinct attention or control of the will, compared to actual perceptions and to the voluntary move¬ ments of utterance and gesture, their nature has been but dimly understood even by metaphysicians, who are still divided into two schools in logic,—the conceptualists and the nominalists. The “concepts” of the former are really composed of these vague and feeble notative images, or groups of images, to which clearness and distinctness of attention are given by their associations with outward (usually vocal) signs. Hence a sec¬ ond degree of observation and generalization upon these im¬ ages, as objects in reflective thought, cannot be readily realized, independently of what would be the results of such observa¬ tions, namely, their associations with outward signs. Even in the most intelligent dumb animal they are probably so feeble that they cannot be associated with outward signs in such a manner as to make these distinctly appear as substitutes, or signs equivalent to them. So far as images act in governing trains of thought and reason¬ ing, they act as signs; but, with reference to the more vivid out¬ ward signs, they are, in the animal mind, merged in the things signified, like stars in the light of the sun. Hence, language, in its narrower sense, as the instrument of reflective thought, appears to depend directly on the intensity of significant, or representative, images; since the power to attend to these and intensify them still further, at the same time that an equivalent outward sign is an object of attention, would appear to depend solely on the relative intensities of the two states, or on the relations of intensity in perception and imagination, or in original and revived impressions. The direct power of atten¬ tion to intensify a revived impression in imagination does not appear to be different in kind from the power of attention in perception, or in outward impressions generally. But this direct power would be obviously aided by the indirect action of attention when fixed by an outward sign, provided attention could be directed to both at the same time; as a single glance may comprehend in one field of view the moon or the brighter planets and the sun, since the moon or planet is not hidden like :he stars, by the glare of day. f 210 PHIL OS OPHICA L DISC USSIONS. As soon, then, as the progress of animal intelligence through an extension of the range in its powers of memory, or in re¬ vived impressions, together with a corresponding increase in the vividness of these impressions, has reached a certain point (a progress in itself useful, and therefore likely to be secured in some part of nature, as one among its numerous grounds of selection, or lines of advantage), it becomes possible for such an intelligence to fix its attention on a vivid outward sign, without losing sight of, or dropping out of distinct attention, an image or revived impression; which latter would only serve, in case of its spontaneous revival in imagination, as a sign of the 'same thing, or the same event. Whether the vivid outward sign be a real object or event, of which the revived image is the counterpart, or whether it be a sign in a stricter meaning of the term,—that is, some action, figure, or utterance, associa¬ ted either naturally or artificially with all similar objects or events, and, consequently, with the revived and representative image of them,—whatever the character of this outward sign may be, provided the representative image, or inward sign, still retains, in distinct consciousness, its power as such, then the outward sign may be consciously recognized as a substi¬ tute for the inward one, and a consciousness of simultaneous internal and external suggestion, or significance, might be re¬ alized; and the contrast of thoughts and things, at least in their power of suggesting that of which they may be coinci¬ dent signs, could, for the first time, be perceptible. This would plant the germ of the distinctively human form of self-conscious¬ ness. Previously to such a simultaneous consciousness of move¬ ments in imagination and movements in the same direction arising from perception, realized through the comparative vivid¬ ness of the former, all separate and distinct consciousness of the inward sign would be eclipsed, and attention would pass on to the thought suggested by the outward sign. A similar phe¬ nomenon is frequently observed with us in successions of in¬ ward suggestions, or trains of thought. The attention often skips intermediate steps in a train, or appears to do so. At least, the memory of steps, which appear essential to its rational ccher- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 2 11 ency, has ceased when we revive the train or repeat it volun¬ tarily. This happens even when only a few moments have elapsed between the train and its repetition. Some writers assert that the omitted steps are immediately forgotten in such cases, on account of their feebleness,—as we forget im¬ mediately the details of a view which we have just seen, and remember only its salient points; while others maintain that the missing steps are absent from consciousness, even in the origi¬ nal and spontaneous movements of the train; or are present only through an unconscious agency, both in the train and its revival. This being a question of memory, reference cannot be made to memory itself for the decision of it. To decide whether a thing is completely forgotten, or has never been ex¬ perienced, we have no other resource than rational analogy, which, in the present case, appears to favor the theory of oblivion, rather than that of latent mental ties and actions; since oblivion is a vera causa sufficient to account for the dif¬ ference between such revived trains and those in which no steps are missed, or could be rationally supposed to have been pres¬ ent. The theory of “ latent mental agency ” appears to con¬ found the original spontaneous movement of the train with what appears as its representative in its voluntary revival. This revival, in some cases, really involves new conditions, and is not, therefore, to be rationally interpreted as a pre¬ cisely true recollection. If repeated often, it will establish direct and strong associations of contiguity between salient steps in the train which were connected at first by feebler though still conscious steps. The complete obliteration of these is analogous, as I have said, to the loss, in primary forms of memory, of details which are present to conscious¬ ness in actual first perceptions. If, as more frequently happens, the whole train, with all. its steps of suggestion, is recalled in the voluntary revival of- it (without any sense of missing steps), the feebler interme¬ diate links, that in other cases are obliterated, would corre^ spond to the feebler, though (in the more advanced animal intelligences) comparatively vivid, mental signs which have in- them the germ, as I have said, of the human form of self-con- 212 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. sciousness. The growth of this consciousness, its development from this germ, is a more direct process than the production of the germ itself, which is only incidental to previous utilities in the power c r memory. Thought, henceforward, may be an object to thought in its distinct contrast, as an inward sign, with the outward and more vivid sign of that which they both suggest, or revive from memory. This contrast is heightened if the outward one is more strictly a sign; that is, is not the per¬ ception of an object or event, of which the inward and repre¬ sentative image is a counterpart, but is of a different nature, for instance some movement or gesture or vocal utterance, or some graphic sign, associated by contiguity with the object or event, or, more properly, with its representative image. The “con¬ cept” so formed is not a thing complete in itself, but is essen¬ tially a cause, or step, in mental trains. The outward sign, the image, or inward sign, and the suggested thought, or image, form a train, like a train which might be wholly within the imagi¬ nation. This train is present, in all its three constituents, to the first, or immediate, consciousness, in all degrees of intelligence; but in the revival of it, in the inferior degrees of intelligence, the middle term is obliterated, as in the trains of thought above considered. The animal has in mind only an image of the sign, previously present in perception, followed now imme- diately by an image of what was suggested through the oblit¬ erated mental image. But the latter, in the higher degrees of intelligence, is distinctly recalled as a middle term. In the revival of past trains, which were first produced through out¬ ward signs, the dumb animal has no consciousness of there having been present more than one of the two successive signs, which, together with the suggested image, formed the actual train in its first occurrence. The remembered outward sign is now a thought, or image, immediately suggesting or recalling that which was originally suggested by a feebler intermediate step. In pure imaginations, not arising by actual connections through memory, the two terms are just the same with animals as in real memory; except that they are not felt to be the representatives of a former real connection. The contrast of EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 213 the real and true with the imaginary and false is, then, the only general one of which such a mind could be aware in the phe- nomena of thought. The contrast of thought itself with per¬ ception, or with the actual outward sign and suggestion of the thought, is realized only by the revival in memory of the feeble^ connecting link. This effects a contrast not only between what is real and what is merely imaginary, but also between what is out of the mind and what is within it. The minute difference in the force of memory, on which this link in the chain of atten¬ tion at first depended, was one of immense consequence to man. This feeble link is the dividing region, interval, or cleft be¬ tween the two more vivid images; one being more vivid as a* direct recollection of an actual outward impression, and the other being more vivid, or salient, from the interest or the mo¬ tives which gave it the prominence of a thought demanding attention; either as a memory of a past object or event of in¬ terest, or the image of something in the immediate future. The disappearance altogether of this feeble link would, as I have said, take from the images connected by it all contrast 1 with any pair of steps in a train, except a consciousness of re¬ ality in the connection of these images in a previous expe¬ rience.* * It appears, at first sight, a rash hypothesis to imagine so extensive an action of illu¬ sion as I have supposed in the revivals of memory,—a self-vouching faculty of which, in general, the testimony cannot be questioned,—since each recall asserts for itself an identity with what is recalled by it, either in past outward experiences or in previous re¬ vivals of them. But the hypothesis of uniform, or frequent, illusions in individual judg¬ ments of memory is not made in contradiction of experiences in general, includ¬ ing those remembered, when reduced to rational consistency. The familiar fact that no memory, even of an immediately past experience, is an adequate reproduction of every¬ thing that must have been present in it in actual consciousness, and must have received more or less attention, is familiarly verified by repeating the remembered experiences. Memory itself thus testifies to its own fallibility. But this is not all. Illusion in an op¬ posite direction, the more than adequate revival of some experiences, so far as vividness and apparently remembered details are concerned, affects our memories of dreams, de¬ monstrably in some, presumably in many. What is commonly called a dream is not what is present to the imagination in sleep, but what is believed, often illusively, to have been present; and is, doubtless, in general, more vivid in memory and furnished with more numerous details, owing to the livelier action of imagination in waking moments. The liveliness of an actual dream is rather in its dominant feeling or interest than in its Images. The order of internal events, or the order of suggestion in actual dreams, is often re¬ versed in the waking memories of them. A dream very long and full of details, as it appears in memory, and taking many words to relate, is sometimes recalled from the 214 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. To exemplify this somewhat abstruse analysis, let us examine what, according to it, would be the mental movements in a suggestions and trains of thought in sleep which are comprised in the impressions of a few moments. Such a dream usually ends in some startling or interesting event, which was a misinterpretation in sleep of some real outward impression, as a loud or unusua noise, or some inward sensation, like one of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, or numbness, which really stood in sleep at the beginning of the misremembered train of thought, in¬ stead of constituting its denouement in a remembered series of real incidents. The re¬ membered dream seems to have been an isolated series of such incidents, succeeding each other in the natural order of experience; but this appearance may well arise from the absence of any remembered indications of a contrary order; or from the absence, on one hand, of a consciousness in sleep of anything more vivid than the actual dream, and the real feebleness, on the other hand, of the dream itself in respect to everything in it except the salient incident, or the dominant interest, which caused it to be remem¬ bered along with the feeble sketch of suggested incidents. Surprise at incongruities in parts of trains often constitutes this interest. If the waking imagination really fills out this sketch, and avouches the whole without check from anything really remembered, the phenomenon would be perfectly accordant with what is known of the dealings of imagination with real experiences, and with what is to be presumed of the comparative feebleness of its powers in sleep. A remembered dream would thus be, in some cases, a twofold illusion,—an illusion in sleep arising from misinterpreted sensations, and an illusion in memory concerning what was actually the train of thoughts excited by the mistake, the train being in fact often inverted in such an apparent recollection. Savages and the insane believe their dreams to be real expe¬ riences. The civilized and sane man believes them to be true memories of illusions in sleep. A step farther in the application of the general tests of true experience would reduce some dreams to illusive memories of the illusions of sleep. There does not appear on analysis, made in conformity to the reality of experiences in general, that there is any intrinsic difference between a memory and an imagination, the reality of the former being dependent on extrinsic relations, and the outward checks of other memories. Memory, as a whole, vouches for itself, and for all its mutually con¬ sistent details, and banishes mere imaginations from its province, not as foreigners, but on account of their lawlessness, or incoherence with the rest of its subjects, and it does so through the exercise of what is called the judgments of experience, which are in fact mnemonic summaries of experiences (including instinctive tendencies). The imagina¬ tions of the insane are in insurrection against this authority of memory in general ex¬ perience, or against what is familiarly called “reason.” When sufficiently vivid, 01 powerful, and numerous, they usurp the powers of state, or the authority of memory and free intelligent volition. “Reason” is then said to be “dethroned.”.- The unreality of some dreams would thus appear to be more complete than they are in general discovered to be by mature, sane, and reflective thought, and by indirect ob¬ servations upon their conditions and phenomena. The supposition of a similar illusion in the phenomena of reflection on the immediately past, or passing, impressions of the mind affords an explanation of a curious phenomenon, not uncommon in waking mo¬ ments, which is referred to by many writers on psychology, namely, the phenomenon of experiencing in minute detail what appears also to be recalled as a past experience. Some writers have attempted to explain this as a veritable revival, by a passing experi¬ ence, of a really past and very remote one, either in our progenitors, as some evolution¬ ists suppose; or in a previous life, or in some state of individual existence, otherwise unremembered, as the mystic prefers to believe; a revival affected by an actual co¬ incidence, in many minute particulars, of a present real experience with a really past one. But if a passing real experience could be supposed to be divided, so to speak, or to make a double impression in memory,—one the ordinary impression of what is imme- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 2IC man,—let him be a sportsman,—and a domestic animal,—let it be his dog,—on hearing a name,—let it be the name of some game, as “ fox.” The general character of the phenom¬ ena in both would be the same on the actual first hearing of this word. The word would suggest a mental image of the fox, then its movements of escape from its hunters, and the thought would pass on and dwell, through the absorbing in* terest of it, on the hunter’s movements of pursuit, or pass on even to the capture and destruction of the game. This would, doubtless, recall to the minds of the hunter and his hound one or more real and distinctly remembered incidents of the sort. Now if we suppose this train of thought to be revived (as un¬ doubtedly it is capable of being, both in the man and the dog), it will be the same in the man’s mind as on its first production ; except that the name “fox” will be thought of as an auditory, or else a vocal image, instead of being heard; and the visual image of the fox will be recalled by it with all the succeeding parts of the repeated train. But in the dog, either the audi¬ tory image of the name will not be recalled, since the vocal image does not exist in his mind to aid the recall (his volun¬ tary vocal powers not being capable of forming it even in the first instance); or if such an auditory image arises, the repre¬ sentative visual or olfactory # one will not appear in distinct consciousness. His attention will pass at once from either of these signs, but from one only to the more intense and inter¬ esting parts of the train,—to the pursuit and capture of the game, or to actually remembered incidents of the kind. Ei¬ ther the first or the immediate sign will remain in oblivion. Hence the dog’s dreams, or trains of thought, when they are revivals of previous trains, or when they rise into prominent consciousness in consequence of having been passed through diately past, and the other a dream-like impression filled out on its immediate revival in reflection with the same details,—the supposition would be in accordance with what is really known of some dreams, and would, therefore, be more probable than the above explanations. It is possible to trust individual memories too far, even in respect to what is immediately past, as it is to trust too far a single sense in respect to what is imme diately present. Rational consistency, in all experiences, or in experience on the whole is the ultimate test of reality or truth in our judgments, whether these are “intuitive,’ or consciously derived. * Images in dogs are supposed to depend largely on the sense of smell. i 216 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. before, omit or skip over the steps which at first served only as suggesting and connecting signs, following now only the associations of contiguity, established in the first occurrence of the train between its more prominent parts. The suggested thought eclipses by its glare the suggesting one. The interest of an image, or its pow r er to attract attention and increased force, depends in the dog only on its vividness as a memory, or as a future purpose or event, and very little, if at all, on its relations and agency as a sign. Images, as well as outward signs, serve, as I have said, in the dumb animals as well as in man in this capacity; but this is not recognized by the animal, since those parts of a train which serve only as signs are too feeble to be revived in the repeated train; and new associa¬ tions of mere contiguity in the prominent parts of it take their places. All that would be recognized in the animal mind by reflection on thought as thought, or independently of its reality as a memory, an anticipation, or a purpose, would be its un¬ reality, or merely imaginary character. If, on the contrary, a greater intensity, arising from a greater power of simple memory, should revive the feebler parts in re¬ peated trains of thought, to the degree of attracting attention to them, and thus bringing them into a more distinct and vivid consciousness, there might arise an interest as to what they are, as to w T hat are their relations, and where they belong, which would be able to inspire and guide an act of distinct reflection. A thought might thus be determined as a representative mental image; and such acts of reflection, inspired also by other mo¬ tives more powerful than mere inquisitiveness, would by ob¬ servation, analysis, and generalization (the counterparts of such outward processes in the merely animal mind) bring all such representative images, together with real memories and anticipations, into a single group, or subjective connection 4 The recognition of them in this connection is the knowledge of them as my thoughts, or our thoughts, or as phenomena of the mind. When a thought, or an outward expression, acts in an ani*- mal’s mind or in a man’s, in the capacity of a sign, it carries forward the movements of a train, and directs attention away E VOL UTION OF SELF- CO NS CIO US NESS. 217 from itself to what it signifies or suggests; and consciousness is concentrated on the latter. But being sufficiently vivid in itself to engage distinct attention, it determines a new kind of action, and a new faculty of observation, of which the cerebral hemispheres appear to be the organs. From the action of these, in their more essential powers in memory and imagi¬ nation, the objects or materials of reflection are also derived. Reflection would thus be, not what most metaphysicians ap¬ pear to regard it, a fundamentally new faculty in man, as elementary and primordial as memory itself, or the power of abstractive attention, or the function of signs and represen tative images in generalization; but it would be determined in its contrasts with other mental faculties by the nature of its object 0 . On its subjective side it would be composed of the same mental faculties—namely, memory, attention, abstraction —as those which are employed in the primary use of the senses. It would be engaged upon what these senses have furnished to memory; but would act as independently of any orders of grouping and succession presented by them, as the several senses themselves do of one another. To this extent, reflec¬ tion is a distinct faculty, and though, perhaps, not peculiar to man, is in him so prominent and marked in its effects on the development of the individual mind, that it may be regarded as his most essential and elementary mental distinction in kind. For differences of degrees in causes may make differ¬ ences of kinds in effects. Motives more powerful than mere inquisitiveness about the feebler steps or mere thoughts of a revived train, and more efficient in concentrating attention upon them, and upon their functions as signs, or suggesting images, would spring from the social nature of the animal, from the uses of mental com¬ munication between the members of a'community, and from the desire to communicate, which these uses would create. And just as an outward sign associated with a mental im¬ age aids by its intensity in fixing attention upon the latter, so the uses of such outward signs and the motives connected with their employment would add exte?isive force, or interest, to the energy of attention in the cognition of this inward sign; 10 \ 2 l8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. and hence would aid in the reference of it and its sort to the subject ego ,—a being already known, or distinguished from other beings, as that which wills, desires, and feels. That which wills, desires, and feels is, in the more intelligent do¬ mestic animal, known by the proper name, which the animal recognizes and answers to by its actions, and is a conscious¬ ness of its individuality. It is not known or recognized by that most generic name “I”; since phenomena common to this individual and to others, or capable of being made com¬ mon through the communications of language, are not dis¬ tinctly referred to the individual self by that degree of abstract¬ ive attention and precision which an habitual exercise of the faculty of reflection is required to produce. But, in the same manner, the word “ world,” which includes the conscious sub¬ ject in its meaning, would fail to suggest anything more to such an intelligence than more concrete terms do,—such as what is around, within, near, or distant from conscious¬ ness; or it would fail to suggest the whole of that which phi¬ losophers divide into ego and non-ego , the outward and inward worlds. A contrast of this whole to its parts, however divided in predication, or the antithesis of subject and attributes, in a divisible unity and its component particulars, would not be suggested to an animal mind by the word “ world.” The “categories,” or forms and conditions of human understanding, though doubtless innate in the naturalist’s sense of the term, that is inherited, are only the ways and facilities of the higher exercise of the faculty of reflection. They are, doubtless, ways and facilities that are founded on the ultimate nature of mind; yet, on this very account, are universal, though only potential in the animahmind generally; just as the forms and conditions of locomotion are generally in the bodies of plants; forms and conditions founded on the ultimate natures or laws of motion, which would be exemplified in plants, if they also had the power of changing their positions, and are indeed exemplified in those forms of vegetable life that are transported, such as seeds, or can move and plant themselves, like certain spores. The world of self-conscious intellectual activity,—the world of mind,—has, doubtless, its ultimate unconditional laws, every- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 219 where exemplified in the actual phenomena of abstractive and reflective thought, and capable of being generalized in the re¬ flective observations of the philosopher, and applied by him to the explanation of the phenomena of thought wherever mani¬ fested in outward expressions, whether in his fellow-men, or in the more intelligent dumb animals. Memory, in the effects of its more powerful and vivid revivals in the more intelli¬ gent animals, and especially in the case of large-brained man, presents this new world, in which the same faculties of observa¬ tion, analysis, and generalization as those employed by intelli¬ gent beings in general, ascertain the marks and classes of phenomena strictly mental, and divide them, as a whole class, or summum ge?ius , from those of the outward world. The dis¬ tinction of subject and object becomes thus a classification through observation and analysis, instead of the intuitive dis¬ tinction it is supposed to be by most metaphysicians. Intui¬ tive to some extent, in one sense of the word, it doubtless is; that is, facilities and predispositions to associations, which are as effective as repeated experiences and observations would be, and which are inherited in the form of instincts, doubtless have much to do in bringing to pass this cognition, as well as many others, which appear to be innate, not only in the lower ani¬ mals but also in man. The very different aim of the evolutionist from that of his opponents—the latter seeking to account for the resemblances of mental actions in beings supposed to be radically different in their mental constitutions, while the former seeks to account for the differences of manifestation in fundamentally similar mental constitutions—gives, in the theory of evolution, a philo¬ sophical role to the word “ instinct,” and to its contrast with in¬ telligence, much inferior to that which this contrast has had in the discussions of the mental faculties of animals. For the distinction of instinct and intelligence, though not less real and important in the classification of actions in psycho-zoology, and as important even as that of animal and vegetable is in general zoology, or the distinctions of organic and inorganic, living and dead, in the general science of life, is yet, like these, in its ap¬ plications a vague and ill-defined distinction, and is most profit- 220 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. ably studied in the subordinate classes of actions, and in the special contrasts which are summarized by it. Under the nat¬ uralist’s point of view, the contrasts of dead and living matters, inorganic and organic products, vegetable and animal forms and functions, automatic and sentient movements, instinctive and intelligent motives and actions, are severally rough divi¬ sions of series , which are clearly enough contrasted in their ex¬ tremities, but ill defined at their points of division. Thus, we have the long series beginning with the processes of growth, nutrition, and waste, and in movements independent of nervous connections, and continued in processes in which sensations are involved, first vaguely, as in the processes of digestion, cir¬ culation, and the general stimulative action of the nervous sys¬ tem; then distinctly, as in the stimulative sensations of respi¬ ration, winking, swallowing, coughing, and sneezing, more or less under general control or the action of the will. This series is continued, again, into those sensations, impulses, and conse¬ quent actions which are wholly controllable, though spontane¬ ously arising; and thence into the motives to action which are wholly dependent on, or involved in, the immediate controlling powers of the will,—a series in which the several marks of dis¬ tinction are clearly enough designated in the abstract, as the colors of the spectrum are by their names, but are not clearly separated in the concrete applications of them. Again, we have the series of voluntary actions, beginning at the connections between perceptions, emotions, and consequent actions, which are strictly instinctive. These, though inherited, are independent of the effects of higher, and more properly voluntary, actions in the individual’s progenitors, as well as in himself. When they are not simple ultimate and universal laws of mental natures, or elementary mental connections, they are combinations produced through their serviceableness to life, or by natural selection and exercise, that is in the same general manner in which bodily organs, posvers, and functions are produced or altered. Such connections between percep¬ tions, emotions, and consequent actions, derived through nat¬ ural selection, or even those that are ultimate laws, and determine, in a manner not peculiar to any species, the con- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 221 ditions and uses of serviceable actions,—are instinctive con¬ nections, or powers of instinct , in a restricted but perfectly definite use of the word. But following immediately in the series of voluntary actions are, first, the inherited effects of habits, and next, habits properly so called, or effects produced by higher voluntary actions in the individual. Habits prop¬ erly so called, and dispositions , which are the inherited effects of habits, are not different in their practical character or modes of action from true instincts; but differ only in their origin and capacity of alteration through the higher forms of voli¬ tion. The latter, or proper, volitions are connections between the occasions, or external means and conditions of an action, and the production of the action itself through the motive of the end , and not through emotions or by any other ties instinct¬ ively uniting them. They are joined by the foreseen ulterior effect of the action, or else through a union produced by its influence. The desirableness of what is effected by an action connects its occasions, or present means and conditions, with the action itself, and causes its production through the end felt in imagination. The influence of the end, or ulterior motive in volition, may not be a consciously recognized part of the action, or a distinctly separated step in it, and will actually cease to be the real tie when a series of repeated volitions has established a habit, or a fixed association between them and their occasions, or external conditions. This connection in habits is, as we have said, closely similar to strictly instinctive connections, and is indistinguishable from them independently of questions of origin and means of alterations. Independently of these questions, the series of voluntary ac¬ tions starting from the strictly instinctive joins to them natural dispositions, or the inherited effects of habit, and passes on to habits properly so called, thence into those in which the ulterior motives of true volitions are still operative, though not as sepa¬ rate parts of consciousness, and thence on to mere faculties of action, or to those actions in which such a motive is still the sole effective link, though quite faded out of distinct attention, or attended to with a feeble and intermittent consciousness. Thence it comes finally to the distinct recognition in reflective 222 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. thought of an ulterior motive to an action. The ulterior mo¬ tive, the end or good to be effected by an action, anticipated in imagination, joins the action to its present means and con¬ ditions in actual volitions, or else joins it in imagination with some future occurrence of them in an intention , or a predeter¬ mination of the will. These ulterior motives, ends, or determi¬ nations of an action through foreseen consequences of it, may be within the will, in the common and proper meaning of the word, when it is spoken of as free, or unconstrained by an out¬ ward force, or necessity; or they may be without it, like in¬ stinctive tendencies to which the will is said to co?isent ox yield, as well as in other cases to be opposed. The motives within the will, either distinctly or vaguely operative, or completely superseded by forces of habit, constitute the individual’s char¬ acter. To summarize all the steps and contrasts of these series un¬ der the general heads of intelligence and instinct would be, from the evolutionist’s and naturalist’s point of view, only a rough classification, like that of living beings into animals and plants; and any attempts at investigating the distinctions and classes of mental natures by framing elaborate definitions of this summary contrast would be like concentrating all the energies of scientific pursuit in biography, and staking its success on the question whether the sponge be an animal or a plant. This is, in fact, the scholastic method, from which modern sci¬ ence is comparatively, and fortunately, set free; being con¬ tented with finding out more and more about beings that are unmistakably animals or plants, and willing to study the nature of the sponge by itself, and defer the classification of it to the end. The more ambitious scholastic method is followed in the science of psycho-zoology by those who seek, in an ultimate defi¬ nition of this sort, to establish an impassable barrier between the minds of men and those of the lower animals,—being actuated apparently by the naive, though generous, motive of rendering the former more respectable, or else of defending a worth in them supposed to be dependent on such a barrier. This aim would be confusing at least, if not a false one, in a strictly sci¬ entific inquiry. EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 223 Although the definition of the subject world through the dis¬ tinction in memory of the phenomena of signification from those of outward perception, would be a classification spon¬ taneously arising through inherited facilities and predispositions to associations, which are as effective as repeated experiences would be, it must still be largely aided by the voluntary char¬ acter of outward signs,—vocal, gestural, and graphic,—by which all signs are brought under the control of the will, or of that most central, active personality, which is thus connected externally and actively, as well as through the memory, with the inward signs or the representative mental images. These images are brought by this association under stronger and steadier attention; their character, as representative images or signs, is more distinctly seen in reflection, and they are not any longer merely guides in thought, blindly followed. They form, by this association, a little representative world arising to thought at will. Command of language is an important con¬ dition of the effective cognition of a sign as such. It is highly probable that the dog not only cannot utter the sound “fox,” but cannot revive the sound as heard by him. The word can¬ not, therefore, be of aid to him in fixing his attention in reflec¬ tion on the mental image of the fox as seen or smelt by him. But the latter, spontaneously arising, would be sufficient to produce a lively train of thoughts, or a vivid dream. It by no means follows from his deficiencies of vocal and auditory im¬ agination that the dog has not, in some directions, aid from outward signs, and some small degree of reflective power, though this, probably, falls far short of the clear division of the two worlds realized in the cognition of “ cogito .” Thus, he has at command the outward sign of the chase, incipient movements of his limbs, such as he makes in his dreams; and this may make the mental image of the chase, with its common obsta¬ cles and incidents, distinct in his imagination, in spite of the greater interest which carries the thoughts of his dream forward to the end of the pursuit, the capture of the game. He may even make use of this sign, as he in fact does when he indicates to his master by his movements his eagerness for a walk or for the chase. 224 PHIL 0SOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. Command of signs, and, indeed, all the volitional or active powers of an animal, including attention in perception, place it in relation to outward things in marked contrast with its pas¬ sive relations of sensation and inattentive or passive perception. The distinctness, or prominence, in consciousness given by an animal’s attention to its perceptions, and the greater energy given by its intentions or purposes to its outward movements, cannot fail to afford a ground of discrimination between these as causes, both of inward and outward events, and those out¬ ward causes which are not directly under such control, but form an independent system, or several distinct systems, of causes. This would give rise to a form of self-consciousness more immediate and simple than the intellectual one, and is apparently realized in dumb animals. They, probably, do not have, or have only in an indistinct and ineffective form, the intellectual cognitions of cogito and sum; but having reached the cognition of a contrast in subject and object as causes both in inward and outward events, they have already acquired a form of subjective consciousness, or a knowledge of the ego. That they do not, and cannot, name it, at least by a general name, or understand it by the general name of “ I ” or ego, comes from the absence of the attributes of ego which con¬ stitute the intellectual self-consciousness. A dog can, never¬ theless, understand the application of his own proper name to himself, both in the direct and the indirect reference of our language to his conduct or his wants; and can also understand the application to himself of the general name,—“ dog.” He cannot say, “I am a dog,” and probably has but the faintest, if any, understanding of what the proposition would mean if he could utter it; though he probably has as much understanding, at least, as the parrot has in saying, “I am Poll.” For there are, in these propositions, two words expressing the abstractest ideas that the human mind can reach. One of them, “I,” is the name of one of the two suvima ge?iera , ego and non-ego , into which human consciousness is divisible. “I am a dog,” and “Camp is a dog,” would mean much the same to Camp; just as “I am a child,” and “John is a child” are not clearly dis¬ tinguished by John even after he has acquired considerable EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 225 command of language. The other word, “am," is a form of the substantive verb expressing existence in general, but further determined to express the present existence of the speaker or subject. These further determinations, in tense, number, and persons, are, however, the most important parts of meaning in the various forms of the substantive verb to the common and barbarous minds, from which we and the philosophical gram¬ marian have received them. The substantive verb is, accord¬ ingly, irregular in most languages under the form of a gram¬ matical paradigm. In this form the philosophical grammarian subordinates to the infinitive meaning of a word those deter¬ minations which, in the invention of words, were apparently regarded as leading ideas in many other cases as well as in the substantive verb, and were expressed by words with distinct etymologies. Not only the dog and other intelligent dumb animals, but some of the least advanced among human beings, also, are unable to arrive at a distinct abstraction of what is expressed by “to be,” or “To exist.” Being is concreted, or determined, to such minds down, at least, to the conception of living or acting; to a conception scarcely above what is implied in the actions of the more intelligent animals, namely, their appre¬ hension of themselves as agents or patients with wills and feel¬ ings distinct from those of other animals, and from the forces and interests of outward nature generally. “Your dog is here, or is coming, and at your service,” is a familiar expression in the actions of dogs not remarkable for intelligence. A higher degree of abstraction and generalization than the simple steps, which are sufficient, as we have seen, for inference in enthy- mematic reasonings to particular conclusions, would be required ill reflection; and a more extensive and persistent exercise of the faculty of reflection, aided by» voluntary signs or by lan¬ guage, than any dumb animal attains to, would be needed to arrive at the cognition of cogito and sum. This is a late acqui¬ sition with children; and it would, indeed, be surprising if the mind of a dumb animal should attain to it. But there is little ground in this for believing, with most metaphysicians, that the cognition is absolutely sui generis, or an ultimate and underived 226 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. form of knowledge; or that it is not approached gradually, as well as realized with different degrees of clearness and pre¬ cision, as the faculty of reflection becomes more and more ex¬ ercised. That a dumb animal should not know itself to be a thinking being, is hardly more surprising than that it should not be aware of the circulation of its blood and other physiological functions; or that it should not know the anatomy of its frame or that of its nervous system, or the seat of its mental facul¬ ties, or the fact that the brain is much smaller in it, in propor¬ tion to the size of its body, than in man. Its reflective obser¬ vation may be as limited in respect to the phenomena of thought as the outward observation of most men is in respect to these results of scientific research. And, on the other hand, the boasted intellectual self-consciousness of man is a knowl¬ edge of a subject, not through all its attributes and phenome¬ na, but only through enough of them in general t© determine and distinguish it from outward objects, and make it serve as the subject of further attributions or predications, as reflective observation makes them known. The abstract forms of this knowledge, the laws of logic and grammar, and the categories of the understanding, which are forms of all scientific knowl¬ edge, are all referable to the action of a purpose to know, and to fix knowledge by precise generalization; just as the me¬ chanical conditions of flight are referable to the purpose to fly and to secure the requisite means. Generalization already ex¬ ists, however, with particular acts of inquisitiveness in the animal mind; and there is required only the proper degree of attention to signs in order to make it act in accordance with laws which, if they are universal and necessary laws of the mind , are equally laws of the animal intelligence, though r^ot actually exemplified in it; just as the laws of locomotion are not actually exemplified in the bodies of plants, but are still potential in them. The inferior and savage races of men, whose languages do not include any abstract terms like truth, goodness, and sweet¬ ness, but only concrete ones, like true, good, and sweet, would hardly be able to form a conception, even a vague and ob- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 227 scure one, of the mystic’s research of omniscience in the pro¬ fundities of self-consciousness. They ought on this account, perhaps, to be regarded as races distinct from that of these philosophers, at least mentally, and to be classed, in spite of their powers of speech and limited vocabularies, with the dumb, but still intelligent, animals. If, however, the theory above propounded be true, this greatest of human qualities, intelligent self-consciousness, understood in its actual and proper limits, would follow as a consequence of a greater brain, a greater, or more powerful and vivid, memory and imagina¬ tion, bringing to light, as it were, and into distinct conscious¬ ness, phenomena of thought which reflective observation refers to the subject, already known in the dumb animal, or distin¬ guished as an active cause from the forces of outward nature, and from the wills of other animals. The degrees of abstrac¬ tion and the successively higher and higher steps of generali¬ zation, the process which, in scientific knowledge, brings not only the particulars of experience under general designations, but, with a conscious purpose, brings the less general under the more general, or gives common names not only to each and all resembling objects and relations, but also more general com¬ mon names to what is denoted by these names, thus grouping them under higher categories,—this process brings together the several forms of self-consciousness. Willing, desiring, feeling, and lastly thinking, also, are seen in thought to belong together, or to the same subject; and by thinking they are brought under a common view and receive a common name, or several common names, to wit, “my mind,” “me,” “I,” “my mental states.” By still further observation, comparison, and analysis on the part of philosophers, this step is seen to be the highest degree of abstraction, since nothing appears to be common to all my mental states, except their belonging together and. acting on one another, along with their common independence of other existences in this mutual action. The word “ I ” is discovered by philosophers to be a word without meaning or determina¬ tion, or to be as meaningless as the words “thing,” “being,” “ existence,” which are subjects stripped of all attributes. “ I ” 228 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. is the bare subject of mental phenomena. The word points them out, but does not declare anything of their nature by its meaning, essence, or implied attribution, which is, in fact, no meaning at all. Hence philosophers have placed this term, or name, over against that which is not, or in contrast with all other existences. Common language has no name for the lat¬ ter, and so philosophers were compelled to call it the non-ego, in order to contrast these two highest categories, or summa gen¬ era, into which they divide all of which we are, or may be, conscious. Grammatical science, however, furnished con¬ venient substitutes for these words. Ego and no?i-ego were named “subject” and “object.” Yet these terms so applied do not retain any meanings. “ Subject ” is applicable to denote the ego, rather than the no?i-ego, only because it is the positive or more prominent term of the antithesis in its grammatical ap-. plication, like “active and passive.” Sir William Hamilton undertakes, however, to assign them meanings in psychology by representing the object as that which is thought about , and the subject as that which thinks, or acts, or that in which the thought or action inheres. But this definition is given from the active subject’s point of view, and not from the whole , scope of the subject-attributes. We act, indeed, in volition and attentive perception on the outer world or non-ego ; but in sensatipn and passive perception we are the objects influenced, governed, or acted on by this outer world. Moreover, from the point of view of the effects of thinking, both the object and subject are the subjects of attribution. We attribute qualities to external objects, and, at the same time, to their mental images, which, in their capacity as representative images, or internal signs of objects and relations, are called up and separately attended to in the human consciousness, and are, in turn, referred or at¬ tributed to the conscious subject, or to its memory and under¬ standing. These images, in their individual capacity, are not to be dis¬ tinguished, even in human consciousness, from the object of per¬ ception. It is in their specific, or notative, function as signs, and as referring back to memories of like experiences, which they summarize, that they are separately and subjectively cog- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 229 nized. Individually they are divisible only into real and unreal, or into remembered and imagined combinations of particular impressions. As inward and mine they are “concepts,” or thoughts directing the processes of thought, and are specially related to my will and its motives. The classification of events as inward and outward does not necessarily imply that the sci¬ entific process depends on each man’s experiences of their con¬ nections alone; for the forms of language, and what is indirectly taught in learning a language, guide observation in this matter largely; and so, also, very probably, do inherited aptitudes, ties, or tendencies to combination, which have the same effect in associating the particulars of the individual’s experiences as the frequent repetitions of them in himself would have, and are, indeed, by the theory of evolution, the consequences of such re¬ peated experiences in the individual’s progenitors. Such a reference of the distinction of subject and object to instinctive tendencies in our minds is not equivalent to the metaphysical doctrine that this distinction is intuitive.- For this implies more than is meant by the word “ instinctive ” from the natural¬ ist’s point of view. It implies that the cognition is absolute: independent not only of the individual’s experiences, but of all possible previous experience, and has a certainty, reality, and cogency that no amount of experience could give to an em¬ pirical classification. The metaphysical dogmas, for which this formula is given, deserve but a passing scientific consideration. Truths inde¬ pendent of all experience are not known to exist, unless we exclude from what we mean by “experience” that experience which we have in learning the meanings of words and in agree¬ ing to definitions and the conventions of language, on the ground that they depend solely, or may be considered as de¬ pending solely, on a lexical authority, from which a kind of necessity proceeds, independent of reality in the relations and connections of the facts denoted by the words. It is possible that laws exist absolutely universal, binding fate and infinite power as well as speech and the intelligible use of words; but it is not possible that the analytical processes of any finite intellect should discover what particular laws these are. Such 230 PHIL 0S0PHICA L DISC US SI OHS. an intellect may legislate with absolute freedom in the realm of definition and word-making, provided it limits itself to its autonomy, and does not demand of other intellects that they shall be governed by such laws as if they were of universal application in the world of common experience. It is also possible that beliefs, or convictions, exist, supposed by the mystic to be independent of all ordinary forms of particular experience, “which no amount of experience could produce”; but it is not true that there are any universal or scientific beliefs of this kind. The effects of inherited aptitudes, and of early, long-continued, and constantly repeated experiences in the in¬ dividual, together with the implications of language itself, in fixing and in giving force and certainty to an idea or a belief, have, probably, not been sufficiently considered by those meta¬ physicians who claim a preternatural and absolute origin for certain of our cognitions; and also, perhaps, the more dogmatic among these thinkers over-estimate the force and certainty of the beliefs, or mistake the kind of necessity they have. The essential importance, the necessity and universality in language, of pronominal words or signs, should not be mistaken for a real a priori necessity in the relations expressed by them, j Meta¬ physicians should consider that ego and non-ego, as real ex¬ istences, are not individual phenomena, but groups with demonstrative names the least possible determined in meaning, or are the most abstract subjects of the phenomena of experi¬ ence, though determined, doubtless, in their applications partly by spontaneous, instinctive, or natural and inherited tendencies to their formation. This view of the origin of the cognition of cogito is equally opposed to the schemes of “ idealism ” and “ natural realism,” which divide modern schools of philosophy. According to the “idealists,” the conscious subject is immediately known, at least in its phenomena, and the phenomena are intuitively known to belong to it; while the existence of anything external to the mind is an inference from the phenomena of self, or a reference of some of them to external causes. Objects are only known mediately “by their effects on us.” Against this view the “natural realist” appeals effectively to the common-sense, or I E VOL UTION OF SELF- CO NS CIO US NESS. 2 31 natural judgment of unsophisticated minds, and is warranted by this judgment in declaring that the object of consciousness is just as immediately known as the subject is. But natural realism goes beyond this judgment and holds that both the subject and object are absolutely, immediately, and equally known through their essential attributes in perception. This is more than an unlearned jury are competent to say. For if oy immediacy we mean the relation which a particular unat¬ tributed phenomenon has to consciousness in general, we are warranted in saying that immediately, or without the step of attribution, subject and object are undistinguished in conscious¬ ness. Thus, the sensations of sound and color and taste and pleasure and pain, and the emotions of hope and fear and love and hate, if not yet referred to their causes , or even classified as sensations and emotions , belong to neither world exclusively. But so far as any man can remember, no such unattributed or unclassified states of consciousness are experienced. He can¬ not say, however, that they cannot exist, or (what is worse for the theory) that a state of consciousness cannot be wrongly attributed or classified. All states of consciousness are, it is true, referred to one or the other, or partly to each of the two worlds; and this attribution is, in part at least, instinctive, yet not independent of all experience, since it comes either from the direct observation of our progenitors, or, possibly, through the natural selection of them; that is, possibly through the survival of those who rightly divided the worlds, and did not often mistake a real danger for a dream or for an imagined peril, nor often mistake a dream of security for real safety. If, however, we mean by immediacy such an instinctive attribu¬ tion, independent of repeated connections of attributes in their subject through the individual’s own experiences, then “natural realism ” is most in accordance with our view, with such ex¬ ceptions as the mistakes and corrections of dreams and hallu¬ cinations imply, and excepting the ontological or metaphysical positions that are assumed in it. If the natural realist is not also an evolutionist (and usually he is not), then his meaning of intuitions must be that they are absolute and underived universal facts of connection in I 232 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. phenomena. He must suppose that distinct phenomena have stamped upon them indelible marks of their ultimate high¬ est class, equivalents for “I” and “not-I,” as the individuals of a herd of cattle are branded with the mark of their owner. Such an immutable mark would, however, render the mistakes of insanity, hallucinations, and dreams impossible, or else would refer them (as has actually been supposed*) to the mystery of the existence of evil,—a convenient disposition of philosophical puzzles. In the doctrine of evolution the mean¬ ing of the word “ intuition ” does not imply immutability in the connections of instinctively combined phenomena, except where such connection is an ultimate law of nature, or is the simplest causal connection, like the laws of motion, or the laws of logic, regarding logic as a science and not merely as an art. The intuition of space in the blind might be, from this point of view, a different combination of sensibilities from that in other men; and the interpretation of sensations of hearing or sight in hallu¬ cinations as being caused by outward objects, when, in reality, they arise from disturbances or abnormal conditions of the nervous system, would not be an interpretation involving vio¬ lations of ultimate laws, or suspensions in rebellious Nature of relations between cause and effect. Variations in intuitions • and instinctive judgments would be as natural and explicable as errors of judgment are in the experiences of the individual man. But the doctrine of natural realism, independently of that of evolution and the implied mutability of instincts, has insurmountable difficulties. Idealism, on the other hand, appears to contradict not the abnormal, so much as the common, phenomena of conscious¬ ness. It seems to be related to the modern sciences of phys¬ ics and physiology very nearly as natural realism is to scho¬ lastic logic and ontology. Dating from the time of Descartes, it appears, in all its forms, to depend on a more exact knowl¬ edge of the bodily apparatus and outward physical causes of perception than the ancients possessed. This knowledge made it evident that perception, and even sensation, are fully deter¬ mined or realized in the brain only through other parts of the * Dr. McCosh, On the Intuitions of the Mind, etc. EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 2 33 bodily apparatus, and through outward forces and movements like diose of pressure and vibration. That the perception, or sensation, is experienced, or is seated, in the brain, was a nat¬ ural and proper conclusion. That the apparent object of perception is not only distant from what thus appeared to be the seat of the perception, but that a long series of usually unknown, or unnoticed, movements intervenes between it and this apparent seat,—these facts gave great plausibility to a confused interpretation of the phenomena, namely, that the perception is first realized as a state of the conscious ego, and, afterwards, is referred to the outward world through the associations of general experience, as an effect produced upon us by an otherwise unknown outward cause. On simi¬ lar grounds a similar misinterpretation was made of the phe¬ nomena of volition, namely, that a movement in ourselves, originally and intuitively known to be ours , produces an effect in the outward world at a distance from us, through the inter¬ vention of a series of usually unknown (or only indirectly known) agencies. Remote effects of the outer world on us, and our actions in producing remote effects on it, appeared to be the first or intuitive elements in our knowledge of these phenomena, all the rest being derived or inferential. This was to confound the seat of sensation or perception in the brain with its proper subjectivity, or the reference of it to the subject. The position in the brain where the last physical condition for the production of a sensation is situated is, no doubt, prop¬ erly called the place or seat of the sensation, especially as it is through the movements of the brain with other special nervous tracts, and independently of any movements out of the nervous system, that like sensations are, or can be, revived, though these revived ones are generally feebler than those that are set in movement by outward forces. Nevertheless, this physiological seat of a sensation is no part of our direct knowledge of it. A priori we cannot assign it any glace, nor decide that it has, or has not, a place. The place which we do assign it, in case it is outward, is the place determined by a great variety of sen¬ sations and active forms of consciousness experienced in the 234 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. localization of the object to which it is referred. It is only by the association (either spontaneous and instinctive, or acquired) of this sensation with those sensations and actions that are involved in the localization of the object, that we arrive at any notion of its locality. If we do not form any such asso¬ ciations of it with otherwise determined localities, and if it and its kind remain after much experience unlocalized, or only vaguely localized in our bodies, it is then, but not till then , re¬ ferred co the conscious self as a subjective phenomenon. There remains the alternative, of course, in the theory of evolution^ that the negative experiences, which would thus determine the subjective character of a phenomenon, may be the experiences of our progenitors, and that our judgment of this character may be, in many cases, an instinctive one, arising from the in¬ herited effects of these former experiences. Otherwise this judgment in the individual mind, and from its own experiences, would appear to be posterior, in point of time, to its acquaint¬ ance with the object world, since this judgment would be de¬ termined by the absence of any uniform connection in the phe¬ nomenon with the phenomena of locality. Instead of being, as the theories of idealism hold, first known as a phenomenon of the subject ego, or as an effect upon us of an hypothetical outward world, its first unattributed condition would be, by our view, one of neutrality between the two worlds. In dissenting, therefore, from both extremes,—the theory of idealism and that of natural realism, or assenting to the lat¬ ter only as qualified by the theory of evolution,—I have sup¬ posed both theories to be dealing with the two worlds only as worlds of phenomena,, without considering the metaphysical bearings and varieties of them with respect to the question of the cognition of non-phenomenal existences, on the grounds of belief in an inconceivable and metaphysical matter or spirit; for, according to the view proposed as a substitute for these extremes, subject and object are only names of the highest classes, and are not the names of inconceivable substrata of phenomena. Ontology or metaphysics would not be likely to throw much original light on the scientific evolution of self- consciousness; but it becomes itself an interesting object of EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 235 study as a phase of this evolution seen in the light of science. When one comes to examine in detail the supposed cognitions of super-sensible existences, and the faculty of necessary truth which is called “ the reason,” or else is described in its sup¬ posed results as the source Of necessary beliefs or convictions, or of natural and valid hypotheses of inconceivable realities, great difficulty is experienced, on account of the abstract char¬ acter of the beliefs, in distinguishing what is likely to be strictly inherited from what is early and uniformly acquired in the de¬ velopment of the faculty of reflection, and especially from what is imbibed through language, the principal philosophical instrument of this faculty. The languages employed by phi¬ losophers are themselves lessons in ontology, and have, in their grammatical structures, implied conceptions and beliefs com¬ mon to the philosopher and to the barbarian inventors of lan¬ guage, as well as other implications which the former takes pains to avoid. How much besides he ought to avoid, in the correction of conceptions erroneously derived from the forms of language, is a question always important to be considered in metaphysical inquiries. The conception of substance , as a nature not fully involved in the contrast of essential and accidental attributes, and the con¬ nection, or co-existence, of them in our experiences; or the con¬ ception of substance as also implying the real, though latent, co¬ existence of all attributes in an existence unknown to us, or known only in a non-phenomenal and inconceivable way,—this conception needs to be tested by an examination of the possi¬ ble causes of it as an effect of the forms of language and other familiar associations, which, however natural, may still be mis¬ leading. To the minds of the barbarian inventors of language, words had not precise meanings, for definition is not a bar¬ barian accomplishment. Hence, to such minds, definite and precise attributions, as of sweetness to honey and sugar, or light to the day, to the heavenly bodies, or to fire, are strongly in contrast with the vagueness which appears to them inherent in substantive names,—inherent not as vagueness, however, but as somethmg else. Such names did not clearly distinguish persons and things, for the day and the heavenly bodies were 2 3 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. personal, and fire apparently was an animal or a spirit. Re¬ moving as much as possible of mere crudeness from such concep¬ tions, predication would yet appear to be a reference of some¬ thing distinctly known to something essentially unknown, oi known only by one or a few attributes needed to distinguish it by a name, as proper names distinguish persons. The meaning of this name, and the conception of it as meaning much more, and as actually referring to unapparent powers of bringing to light attributes previously unknown,—powers manifested in an actual effect when a new attribute is added in predication,— this vague, ill-defined, and essentially hidden meaning is assimi¬ lated in grammar, and thence in philosophy, to an agent put¬ ting forth a new manifestation of itself in a real self-assertion. The contrast of “active and passive” in the forms of verbs illustrates how the barbaric mind mounted into the higher regions of abstraction in language through concrete imaginations. The subject of a proposition, instead of being thought of as that vaguely determined group of phenomena with which the predicate is found to be connected, was thought either to perform an action on an object as expressed through the transitive verb, or to be acted on by the object as ex¬ pressed through the passive form, or to put forth an action absolute, expressed by the neuter verb, or to assert its past, present, or future existence absolutely, and its possession of certain properties as expressed by the substantive verb, and by the copula and predicate. This personification of the subject of a proposition, which is still manifested in the forms and terminology of grammar, is an assimilation of things to an active, or at least demonstrative, self-consciousness or personality. It had hardly reached the degree of abstrac¬ tion needed for the clear intellectual self-consciousness of cogito . It rather implied that things also think. The inven¬ tion of substantive names for attributes, that is, abstract names, like goodness or truth,—an invention fraught with most im- % portant consequences to human knowledge,—brought at first more prominently forward the realistic tendencies which phi¬ losophers have inherited from the barbarian inventors of lan¬ guage. Abstract names do not seem to have been meant at EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 2 37 first to be the direct names of attributes, or collections of attri¬ butes, as “ goodness ” and “ humanity,” but to be the names of powers (such as make things good, or make men what they are), names which appear to be results of the earliest conscious or sci¬ entific analysis in the progress of the human mind, but which are strongly tainted still by the barbaric conception of words as the names of active beings. Abstract words were not, however, as active or demonstrative as their savage progenitors, the concrete general substantives. They appear rather as artifi¬ cers, or the agents which build up things, or make them what they are. But, by means of them, concrete general names were deprived of their powers and reduced to subjection. To have direct general names, and to have general powers, seem to be synonymous to savage and semi-barbarous mind. I have spoken as if all this were a matter of past history, instead of being an actually present state of philosophical thought, and a present condition of some words in the minds of many modern thinkers. The misleading metaphors are, it is true, now recognized as metaphors; but their misleading character is not clearly seen to its full extent. The subjects of propositions are still made to do the work, to bear the im¬ positions, to make known the properties and accidents ex¬ pressed by their predicates, or to assert their own existence and autonomy, just so far as they are supposed to be the names of anything but the assemblages of known essential qualities or phenomena actually co-existent in our experiences, that is of the qualities which their definitions involve, and to which other attributes are added (but from which they are not evolved) in real predication; or just so far as they are supposed to be the names of unknown and imperceptible entities. Names are directly the designations of things, not of hidden powers, or wills, in things. But it is not necessary to regard them as pre¬ cisely definable, or as connoting definite groups of qualities or the essential attributes of things, in order that they may fulfill the true functions of words; for they are still only the names of things, not of wills in things, on the one hand, nor of “con¬ cepts” or thoughts in us, on the other hand. They are syno¬ nyms of “concepts,” if we please to extend synonymy so as PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 23S to incLide the whole range of the signs of things; but both the “concept” and its verbal synonym may be, and generally are, vague . For just as in the major premises of syllogisms the sub¬ ject is, in general, a co-designation of two undivided parts of a class of objects, one known directly to have, or lack, the attri¬ butes affirmed or denied in this premise, and the other part, judged by induction to be also possessed, or not possessed of them,—a co-designation in which the conclusion of the syllogism is virtually contained, so as to make the syllogism appear to be a petitioprincipii (as it would be but for this implied induction*),— so in the simple naming of objects the names may be properly re¬ garded as the names of groups of qualities, in which groups the qualities are partly known and partly unknown, predication in real (not verbal) propositions being the conversion of the latter into the former. But in this view of the functions of words, it is necessary, at least, to suppose enough of the known attributes of objects to be involved in the meanings of their names to make the applications of the names distinct and defi¬ nite. Names, with the capacity they would thus acquire, or have actually had, in spite of metaphysics, of having their meanings modified or changed, are best adapted to the functions of words in promoting the progress of knowledge. From this use of words their essences, both the apparent and the inscrutable, have disappeared altogether, except so far as the actual exist¬ ence and co-existence of the known attributes of objects are im- . plied by names, or so far as the co-existence of these with pre¬ viously unknown ones is also implied by the use of names as the subjects of propositions. No inscrutable powers in words or things, nor any immutable connections among the attributes called essential, are thus imposed upon the use of words in science. Metaphysicians, on the other hand, in nearly all that is left to the peculiar domain of their inquiries, possess their problems and solutions in certain words, such as “substance,” “cause,” “matter,” “mind,” which still retain, at least in metaphysical usage, the barbaric characters we have examined. Matter and mind, for example, still remain, not only with meta- * See Mill’s Logic, Book II., chapter iii. EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 239 physicians, but also with the vulgar, designations of unknown inscrutable powers in the outward and inward worlds, 01 powers which, according to some, are known only to a higher form of intuition through the faculty of “Reason”; or, being really inscrutable and inconceivable by any human faculty, as others hold, are, nevertheless, regarded as certainly ex¬ istent, and attested by irresistible natural beliefs. That beliefs in beings, unknown and unknowable, are real beliefs, and are natural (though more so to some minds than to others), seems a priori probable on the theory of evolution, without resorting to the effects of early training and the influence of * associations in language itself, by which the existence of such beliefs is accounted for by some scientific philosophers. But the authority which the theory of evolution would assign to these beliefs is that of the conceptions which barbarous and vulgar minds have formed of the functions of words, and of the natures which they designate. Inheritance of these conceptions, that is, of aptitudes or tendencies to their formation, and the continued action of the causes so admirably analyzed by Mr. Mill,* through which he proposes to account for these beliefs directly, and which have retained, especially in the metaphysical conception of “matter,” the barbarian’s feelings and notions about real existence as a power to produce phenomena, are sufficient to account for the existence of these beliefs and their cogency, without assigning them any force as authorities. That some minds have inherited these beliefs, or the tendency to form them, more completely than others, accords with a dis¬ tinction in the mental characters of philosophers which Pro¬ fessor Masson makes in his work on Recent British Philosophy, and illustrates by the philosophies of Mr. Carlyle, Sir W. Ham¬ ilton, and Mr. Mill, namely, the differences arising from the degrees in which the several thinkers were actuated by an “ontological faith,” or an “ontological feeling or passion,” which, according to Professor Masson, has in the history of the world amounted to “ a rage of ontology,” and has been the motive of wars and martyrdoms. This passion would appear, * See Mill’s Examination of Hamilton, chapter xi. 4 2 4 o PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION’S. according to the theory of evolution, to be a survival of the bar¬ barian’s feelings and notions of phenomena as the outward show of hidden powers in things, analogous to his own expressions in language and gesture of his will or interior activity. As he assigned his own name, or else the name “I,” to this act¬ ive inward personality, and not to the group of external charac¬ ters by which he was known to his fellow-barbarians; and as he also named and addressed them as indwelling spirits, so he seemed to apply his general designations of things. The traces of this way of regarding names and things, surviving in the grammatical inventions and forms of speech, which the barba¬ rian has transmitted to us, include even the sexes of things. The metaphysical meanings of the terms “substance,” “mat¬ ter,” “mind,” “spirit,” and “cause” are other traces. The metaphysical realism of abstract terms appears, in like manner, to be a trace of an original analysis of motives in the powers of things to produce their phenomena, analogous to the bar¬ barian’s analysis of motives in his own will or those of his fel¬ lows. According to Professor Masson, Sir W. Hamilton was strongly actuated by “the ontological passion.” This would mean, according to our interpretation of it, that he had inher¬ ited, or had partly, perhaps, imbibed from his philosophical studies, the barbarian’s mode of thought. And it appeared in the metaphysical extension which he gave to the doctrine of natural realism, which, with him, was not merely the doctrine of the equal immediacy and the instinctive attribution of sub¬ jective and objective phenomena, but included also natural beliefs in the equal and independent, though hidden, existences of the metaphysical substrata of matter and mind. He was, nevertheless, so far influenced by modern scientific modes of thought that he did not claim for these natural beliefs at all the character of cognitions, nor did he claim determinate concep¬ tion of these existences except as to their mutual independence. He rejected the metaphysician’s invention of a faculty of “reason,” cognizant of supersensible realities; and really con¬ tradicted himself in claiming, with most modern thinkers, that knowledge of phenomena is the only possible knowledge, EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, 24 I while he held that belief in what could not thus be known had the certainty of knowledge, and was in effect knowledge, though he did not call it knowledge.* Another point in Sir W. Hamilton’s philosophy illustrates our theory on a different side. While contending for the equal immediacy of our knowledge of subject and object, he, never¬ theless, held that the phenomena of the subject had a superior certainty to those of the object, on the ground that the latter could be doubted (as they were by certain idealists) without logical contradiction, while the former could not be, since to doubt the existence of the subject would be to doubt the doubt, and thus neutralize it. To say nothing of other objections to this as a criterion of subjective certainty, it is obvious that it has no cogency as applied to the metaphysical, or non-phe- nomenal, existence of the subject. To doubt that a doubt in¬ heres in a non-phenomenal subject, is not*to doubt the existence of the doubt itself as a phenomenon, or even as a phenomenon referable to the subject group of phenomena. In regard to the impossibility of doubting the existence of this subject group, which, as including the doubt itself, would thus neutralize it, we ought to distinguish between a doubt of a doubt as a mere phenomenon of consciousness generally, that is as unattributed either to subject or object, and the doubt of the validity of the attribution of it to the subject. There can be logical con¬ tradiction only in respect to attribution, either explicit or im¬ plicit, and so far as the doubt is merely a phenomenon of which nothing is judged or known but its actual existence in conscious¬ ness, a doubt of it, though impossible, is yet not so on grounds of logical contradiction. Its actual presence would be the only proof of its presence, its actual absence the only proof of its absence. But this is equally true of all phenomena in con¬ sciousness, generally. If in reflection we examine whether a color of any sort is present, we have inquired, not merely about the bare existence of a phenomenon of which the phenomenon ' itself could alone assure us, but about its classes, whether it is a color or not, and what sort of a color; and we should attrib¬ ute it, if present, to the object world, or the object group of * See Mill’s Examination of Hamilton, chapter v. II 242 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. phenomena, by the very same sort, if not with the same degree, of necessity which determines the attribution of a doubt to the subject-consciousness. If now, having attributed the color or the doubt to its proper world, we should call in question the existence of this world, we should contradict ourselves; and this would be the case equally whether the attribution was made to the outward world, as of the color, or to the inward world, as of the doubt. There may be different kinds of reflective doubt about either phenomenon. We should not ordinarily be able to question seriously whether the doubt belonged to the class “ doubts,” its resemblance to others of the class being a relation of phe¬ nomena universal and too clear to be dismissed from attention; and the color would call up its class with equal cogency, as well as the class of surfaces or spaces in which it appears al¬ ways inherent. But we might doubt, nevertheless, seriously and rationally, whether a doubt had arisen from rational con¬ siderations in our minds, or from a disease of the nervous sys¬ tem, from hypochondriasis, or low spirits. So also in regard to the color and the forms in which it appears embodied, we may reasonably question whether the appearence has arisen from causes really external, or from disease, as in hallucinations. There remains one other source of misunderstanding about the comparative certainty of “I think,” and of that which I think about. The attributions contained in the latter may be particular, empirical, and unfamiliar, or based on a very limited experience and on this account maybe uncertain; while the very general and highest attribution of the thought to myself will be most certain. The superior certainty of the clause “ I think” over that which I think about disappears, however, as soon as the latter is made an attribution of equal simplicity, generality, and breadth in my experience; as when I say, “I think that there is an outer world,” or, “ I think that beings beside me exist.” “To think that I think,” is not more prop¬ erly the formula of consciousness in general than “To think that a being not-I is thought about.” It is not even the com¬ plete formula of jvq^-consciousness, which, as we have seen, has several forms not necessarily coeval. To think that I will, EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 243 that I desire, that I feel, is, as we have seen, to refer these several forms of consciousness to the thinking subject; or, more properly, to refer willing, desiring, feeling, and thinking all to the same subject I” ; which is related to the lattei attribute more especially, merely because the name “I” is given only in and through the recognition of this attribute in the cognition of cogito. To infer the existence of the subject from the single attribute of thinking would be to unfold only in part its existence and nature; though it would note that at¬ tribute of the subject through the recognition of which in re¬ flection its name was determined and connected with its other attributes. The latter, namely, our volitions, desires, and feelings, are in general so obscure in respect to the particular causes which precede them and are anterior to their immediate determination or production, that introspective observation in reflection can penetrate only a little way, and is commonly quite unable to trace them back to remote causes in our characters, organiza¬ tions, and circumstances. Hence, the conception of the causes of our own inward volitions, or our desires and intentions, as being of an inscrutable, non-phenomenal nature, would nat¬ urally arise. But this conception would probably be made much more prominent in the unreflective barbarian’s mind, by his association of it with the obscurity to him of the inward, or personal, causes of outward actions and expressions in others. Darkness is seen where light is looked for and does not appear. Causes are missed where research is made without success. We are conscious of minds in other men and in other animals only through their outward expressions. The inward causes are not apparent or directly known to us as phenomena; and though the inference of their existence is not in all cases, even with men, made through analogy, or from an observation of their connections with similar outward actions and expressions in ourselves, but is grounded, doubtless, in many cases on an instinctive connection between these expressions in others and feelings , at least, in ourselves, yet we do not think of them as really inscrutable in their natures, but only as imperceptible to our outward senses. They have their representatives in the pbe- 244 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. nomena of our imaginations. These would be but vaguely conceived, however, in many cases. Even reverence in the barbarian’s mind might prevent him, as an obedient subject, from attempting to. fathom or reproduce in his own imagina¬ tion the thoughts and intentions of his majesty the king. Rev¬ erence is not, however, in any case, an unreflective or thought¬ less feeling. It would not be like the feelings of the sheep, which, not being able to comprehend through its own experi¬ ence the savage feelings of the wolf, would only interpret his threatening movements as something fearful, or would con¬ nect in an instinctive judgment these outward movements only with anticipated painful consequences. Reverence in the loyal barbarian subject would not go so far as to make his king ap¬ pear a mere automaton, as the wolf might seem to the sheep. The commands of his king, or of his deity, would be to him rather the voice of a wisdom and authority inscrutable, the outward manifestation of mysterious power , the type of meta¬ physical causation. Accordingly, we find that a capacity for strong, unappropriated feelings of loyalty and reverence, de¬ manding an object for their satisfaction, have also descended to those thinkers who have inherited “ the ontological passion.” It would, therefore, appear most probable, that the meta¬ physician’s invincible belief in the conception of the will as a mysterious power behind the inward phenomena of volition, and as incapable of analysis into the determinations of char¬ acter, organization, and circumstances, arises also from in¬ herited feelings about the wills of other men rather than from attentive observation of the phenomena of his own. Science and scientific studies have led a portion of the hu¬ man race a long way aside from the guidance of these inherited intellectual instincts, and have also appeared able to conquer them in many minds to which in youth they seemed invinci¬ ble. Positivists, unlike poets, become—are not born—such thinkers. The conception of the causes of phenomena, with which these studies render them familiar, had small beginnings in the least noble occupations and necessities of life, and in the need of knowing the future and judging of it from present signs. From this grew up gradually a knowledge of natural EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 245 phenomena, and phenomena of mind also, both in their out¬ ward and combined orders or laws and in their intimate and elementary successions, or the “laws of nature.” The latter are involved in the relation of effects to their “physical” qauses, so called because metaphysicians have discovered that they are not the same sort of powers as those which the in¬ vincible instincts look for as ultimate and absolute in nature. But this is not a new or modern meaning of the word “cause.” It was always its practical, common-sense, every-day mean¬ ing;—in the relations of means to ends; in rational explana¬ tions and anticipations of natural events; in the familiar proc¬ esses and observations of common human life ; in short, in the relations of phenomena to phenomena, as apparent causes and effects. This meaning was not well defined, it is true; nor is it now easily made clear, save by examples; yet it is by ex¬ amples, rather than by a distinct abstraction of what is com¬ mon to them, that the use of many other words, capable of clear definition, is determined in common language. The re¬ lations of invariable succession in phenomena do not, except in ultimate laws where the phenomena are simple or element¬ ary, define the relation of phenomenal cause and effect; for, as it has been observed, night follows day, and day follows night invariably, yet neither is the cause of the other. These relations belong to the genus of natural successions. The re¬ lation of cause and effect is a species of this genus. It means an unconditional, invariable succession; independence of other orders of succession, or of all orders not involved in it. The day illuminates objects; the night obscures them; the sun and fires warm them; the clouds shed rain upon them; the savage animal attacks and hurts others: these facts in¬ volve natural orders, in which relations of cause and effect are apparent, and are indicated in the antitheses of their terms as the subjects and objects of transitive propositions. But these relations are only indicated; they are not explicitly set forth. Metaphysics undertakes their explication by referring the il¬ lumination, obscurity, warmth, rain and hurt to powers in the day, the sun and fires, the clouds, and the animal. Modern metaphysics would not go so far as to maintain, in the light 246 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of science, that the powers in these examples are inscrutable, or incapable of further analysis. Nevertheless, when the analysis is made, and the vision of objects, for example, is understood to arise from the incidence of the light of the sun on the air and on objects, and thence from reflections on all surfaces of objects, and thence again from diffused reflections falling partly on our eyes, and so on to the full realization of vision in the brain, all according to determinate laws of suc¬ cession,—an analysis which sets forth those elementary invari¬ able orders, or ultimate and independent laws of succession in phenomena, to which, in their independent combinations, science refers the relations of cause and effect;—when this analysis has been made, then metaphysics interposes, and, from its ancient habits of thought, ascribes to the elementary antecedent a power to produce the elementary consequent. Or when the effect, as in vision, follows from the ultimate proper¬ ties and elementary laws of great numbers of beings and arrangements,—the sun, the medium of light, the air, the illuminated objects, the eye, its nerves and the brain,—and follows through a long series of steps, however rapid, from the earliest to the latest essential antecedent, metaphysics still regards the whole process, with the elementary powers in¬ volved, as explicated only in its outward features. There is still the mystery inherent in the being of each elementary antecedent, of its power to produce its elementary consequent; and these mysterious powers, combined and referred to the most conspicuous essential conditions of the effect (like the existence of the sun and the eye), make in the whole a mys¬ tery as great as if science had never inquired into the process. Metaphysics demands, in the interest of mystery, why an elementary antecedent is followed by its elementary conse¬ quent. But this question does not arise froqi that inquisi¬ tiveness which inspires scientific research. It is asked to show that it cannot be answered, and hence that all science rests on mystery. It is asked from the feelings that in the barbarian or the child forbid or check inquiry. But, being a question, it is open to answer; or it makes legitimate, at least, the counter-question, When can a question be properly EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 247 asked ? or, What is the purpose of asking a question ? Is it not to discover the causes, classes, laws, or rules that determine the existence, properties, or production of a thing or event? And when these aie discovered^ is there any further occasion for inquiry, except in the interest of feelings which would have checked inquiry at the outset? The feelings of loyalty and reverence, instinctive in our natures, and of the utmost value in the history of our race, as the mediums of co-operation, dis¬ cipline, and instruction, are instincts more powerful in some minds than in others, and, like all instincts, demand their proper satisfaction. From the will, or our active powers, they demand devotion; from the intellect, submission to authority and mystery. But, like all instincts, they may demand too much; too much for their proper satisfaction, and even for their most energetic and useful service to the race, or to the individual man. Whether it is possible for any one to have too much loyalty, reverence, love, or devotion, is, therefore, a question which the metaphysical spirit and mode of thought suggest. For in the mystic’s mind these feelings have set themselves up as absolute excellencies, as money sets itself up in the mind of the miser. And it is clear that, under these absolute forms, it is difficult to deny the demand. It is only in respect to what is reverenced, loved, or worshiped, or what claims our allegiance, that questions of how much of them is due can be rationally asked. To demand the submission of the intellect to the mystery of the simplest and most elementary relations of cause and ef¬ fect in phenomena, or the restraint of its inquisitiveness on reaching an ultimate law of nature, is asking too much, in that it is a superfluous demand. The intellect in itself has no dis¬ position to go any further, and, on the other hand, no impulse to kneel before its completed triumph. The highest generality, or universality, in the elements or connections of elements in phenomena, is the utmost reach both in the power and the de¬ sire of the scientific intellect. Explanation cannot go, and does not rationally seek to go, beyond such facts. The inven¬ tion of noumena to account for ultimate and universal proper¬ ties and relations in phenomena arises from no other necessity 248 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. than the action of a desire urged beyond the normal prompt¬ ings of its power. To demand of the scientific intellect that it shall pause in the interest of mystery at the movements of a falling body or at the laws of these movements, is a misappro¬ priation of the quality of mystery. For mystery still has its uses; and, in its useful action, is an ally of inquisitiveness, in¬ citing and guiding it, giving it steadiness and seriousness, op¬ posing only its waywardness and idleness. It fixes attention, even inquisitive attention, on its objects, and in its active form .of wonder “is a highly philosophical affection.” So also de¬ votion, independently of its intrinsic worth in the mystic’s re¬ gard, has its uses; and these determine its rational measure, or how much of it is due to any object. In its active forms of usefulness and duty, it is an ally of freedom in action, op¬ posing this freedom only in respect to what would limit it still more, or injuriously and on the whole. The metaphysical modes of thought and feeling foster, on the other hand, the sentiments of mystery and devotion in their passive forms, and as attitudes of the intellect and will, rather than as their inciting and guiding motives. These attitudes, which are symbolized in the forms of religious worship, were no doubt needed to fix the attention of the barbarian, as they are still required to fix the attention of the child upon serious contemplations and purposes. Obedience and absolute sub¬ mission are, at one stage of intellectual and moral development, both in a race and in the individual, required as the conditions of discipline for effecting the more directly serviceable and freer action of the mind and character under the guidance of rational loyalty and reverence. The metaphysical modes of thought and feeling retain these early habits in relations in which they have ceased to be serviceable to the race, or to the useful development of the individual, especially when in the mystic’s regard obedience has acquired an intrinsic worth, and submission has become a beatitude. The scientific habit of thought, though emancipated from any such outward supports and constraints, is yet not wanting in earnestness of purpose and serious interests, and is not without the motives of devotion and mystery, or their active guidance in the directions of use- EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 249 fulness and duty, and in the investigations of truth. It does not stand in awe before the unknown, as if life itself depended on a mysterious and capricious will in that unknown; for awe is habitual only with the barbarian, and is a useful motive only in that severe instruction which is exacted by the wants, in¬ securities, and necessities of his life, while among the partially civilized it often constrains the thoughtless by a present fear to avoid or resist evils really greater than what is feared, though less obvious to the imagination. Nevertheless, the whole nature of the modern civilized man includes both these opposing tendencies in speculation, the metaphysical and scientific; the disposition to regard the phe¬ nomena of nature as they appeared naturally and serviceably in the primitive use of language and reflection, and the dispo¬ sition of the Positivist to a wholly different interpretation of them. A conflict between them arises, however, only where either disposition invades the proper province of the other; where both strive for supremacy in the search for a clearer knowledge of these phenomena, or where both aim to satisfy the more primitive and instinctive tendencies of the mind. In the forms of ontological and phenomenological, or metaphysical and positive philosophies, this conflict is unavoidable and endless. Deathless warriors, irreconcilable and alternately victorious, according to the nature of the ground, or to advantages of posi¬ tion, continually renew their struggles along the line of develop¬ ment in each individual mind and character. A contrast of tend¬ encies analogous to this, which involves, however, no necessary conflict, is shown in the opposition of science and poetry; the oflie contemplating in understanding and in fixed positive beliefs the phenomena which the other contemplates through firmly established and instinctive tendencies, and through interests, which for want of a better name to note their motive power, or influence in the will, are also sometimes called beliefs. Dis¬ putes about the nature of what is called “belief/’ as to what it is, as well as to what are the true grounds or causes of it, would, if the meanings of the word were better discriminated in common usage, be settled by the lexicographer; for it is really an ambiguous term. Convictions of half-truths, or inti- 250 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. mations of truth, coupled with deep feeling, and impressed by the rhythms and alliterations of words, are obviously different from those connections which logic and evidence are calcu¬ lated to establish in the mind. The poet inherits in his mental and moral nature, or organic memory, and in his dispositions of feeling and imagination, the instinctive thoughts and feelings which we have supposed habit¬ ual and useful in the outward life of the barbarian. In the mel¬ ody of his verses he revives the habits which were acquired, it is believed, in the development of his race, long before any words were spoken, or were needed to express its imag¬ inations, and when its emotions found utterance in the music of inarticulate tones. The poet’s productions are thus, in part, reproductions, refined or combined in the attractive forms of art, of what was felt and thought before language and science existed; or they are restorations of language to a primeval use, and to periods in the history of his race in which his progeni¬ tors uttered their feelings, as of gallantry, defiance, joy, grief, exultation, sorrow, fear, anger, or love, and gave expression to their light, serious, or violent moods, in modulated tones, harsh or musical; or later, in unconscious figures of speech, expressed without reflection or intention of communicating truth. For, as it has been said, it is essential to eloquence to be heard, but poetry is expression to be only overheard. In supposing this noble savage ancestry for the poet, and for those who overhear in him, with a strange delight and interest, a charm of natural¬ ness and of novelty combined by the magic of his art, it is not necessary to conclude that all savage natures are noble, or have in them the germs of the poet’s inspiration. It is more probable that most of the races which have remained in a savage state have retained a more primitive condition, in many respects, than that of civilized men, because they lacked some qualities possessed by the noble savage which have advanced him to the civilized state, and because they have been isolated from the effects of such qualities either to improve or exterminate them. The noble savage is not, at any rate, now to be found. Weed¬ ing out the more stupid and brutal varieties has, doubtless, been the effective method of nature in the culture of the nobler qualfi EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . 25 1 ties of men, at least in that state of nature which was one of warfare. % It is a common misconception of the theory of evolution to suppose that any one of contemporary races, or species de¬ rived from a common origin, fully represents the characters of its progenitors, or that they are not all more or less diver¬ gent forms of an original race; the ape, for example^ as well as the man, from a more remote stock, or the present savage man, as well as the civilized one, from a more recent common origin. Original differences within a race are, indeed, the con¬ ditions of such divergences, or separations of a race into several; and original superiorities, though slight at first and accidental, were thus the conditions of the survival of those who possessed them, and of the extinction of others from their struggles in warfare, in gallantry, and for subsistence. The secondary distinctions of sex, or contrasts in the personal attractions, in the forms, movements, aspects, voices, and even in some mental dispositions of men and women, are, on the whole, greatest in the races which have accomplished most, not merely in science and the useful arts, but more especially in the arts of sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. And this in the theory of evolution is not an accidental conjunction, but a connection through a common origin. Love is still the theme of poets, and his words are measured by laws of rhythm, which in a primeval race served in vocal music, with other charms, to allure in the contests of gallantry. There would, doubtless, have arisen from these rivalries a sort of self-attention,* or an outward self-consciousness, which, together with the conscious¬ ness of themselves as causes distinct from the wills or agencies of other beings, and as having feelings, or passive powers, and desires, or latent volitions, not shared by others, served in the case of the primitive men as bases of reference in their first at¬ tention to the phenomena of thought in their minds, when these became sufficiently vivid to engage attention in the revival of trains of images through acts of reflection. The consummate self-consciousness, expressed by “ I think,” needed for its gen- * See Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals, Theory of Blushing, chapter xiii. 252 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. esis only the power of attending to the phenomena of thought as signs of other thoughts, or of images revived from memory, with a reference of them to a subject; that is, to a something possessing other attributes, or to a group of co-existent phe¬ nomena. The most distinct attention to this being, or subject, of volitions, desires, feelings, outward expressions, and thoughts required a name for the subject, as other names were required for the most distinct attention to the several phenomena them¬ selves. This view of the origin of self-consciousness is by no means necessarily involved in the much more certain and clearly ap¬ parent agency of natural selection in the process of develop¬ ment. For natural selection is not essentially concerned in the fii'st production of any form, structure, power, or habit, but only in perpetuating and improving those which have arisen from any cause whatever. Its agency is the same in preserving and increasing a serviceable and heritable feature in any form of life, whether this service be incidental to some other already existing and useful poAver which is turned to account in some new direction, or be the unique and isolated service of some newly and arbitrarily implanted nature. Whether the poAvers of memory and abstractive attention, already existing and useful in outAvard perceptions common to men and others of the more intelligent animals, Avere capable in their higher degrees and under favorable circumstances (such as the gestural and vocal powers of primeval man afforded them) of being turned to a new service in the poAver of reflection, aided by language, or Avere supplemented by a really new, unique, and inexplicable poAver, in either case, the agency of natural selection would have been the same in preserving, and also in improving, the new faculty, provided this faculty Avas capable of improvement by degrees, and Avas not perfect from the first.’ The origin of that which through service to life has been preserved, is to this process arbitrary, indifferent, accidental (in the logical sense of this Avord), or non-essential. This origin has no part in the process, and is of importance Avith reference to it only in de¬ termining hoAv much it has to do to complete the Avork of cre¬ ation. For if a faculty has small beginnings, and rises to great / E VOL UTION OF SELF- CONS CIO US NESS. 253 importance in the development of a race through natural selec¬ tion, then the process becomes an essential one. But if men were put in possession of the faculties which so pre-eminently distinguish them by a sudden, discontinuous, arbitrary cause or action, or without reference to what they were before, ex¬ cept so far as their former faculties were adapted to the service of the new ones, then selection might only act to preserve or maintain at their highest level faculties so implanted. Even the effects of constant, direct use, habit, or long-continued ex¬ ercise might be sufficient to account for all improvements in a faculty. The latter means of improvement must, indeed, on either hypothesis, have been very influential in increasing the range of the old powers of memory, attention, and vocal utter¬ ance through their new use. The outward physical aids of reflective thought, in the artic¬ ulating powers of the voice, do not appear to have been firmly implanted, with the new faculty of self-consciousness, among the instincts of human nature; and this, at first sight, might seem to afford an argument against the acquisition by a natu¬ ral process of any form of instinct, since vocal language has probably existed as long as any useful or effective exercise of reflection in men. That the faculty which uses the voice in language should be inherited, while its chief instrument is still the result of external training in an art, or that language should be “ half instinct and half art,” would, indeed, on sec¬ ond thought, be a paradox on any other hypothesis but that of natural selection. But this is an economical process, and effects no more than what is needed. If the instinctive part in language is sufficient to prompt the invention and the exercise of the art,* then the inheritance of instinctive powers of articu¬ lation would be superfluous, and would not be effected by se¬ lection; but would only come in the form of inherited effects of habit,—the form in which the different degrees of aptitude for the education of the voice appear to exist in different races of men. Natural selection would not effect anything, indeed, * In the origin of the languages of civilized peoples, the distinction between powers of tradition, or external inheritance, and proper invention in art becomes a very important one, as will be shown farther on. 254 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISC US SION'S. for men which art and intelligence could, and really do, effect, —such as clothing their backs in cold climates with hair or fur, —since this would be quite superfluous under the furs of other animals with which art has already clothed them. The more instinctive language of gestures appears also to have only in¬ direct relations to real serviceableness, or to the grounds of natural selection, and to depend on the inherited effects of habit, and on universal principles of mental and physiological action.* The language of gestures may, however, have been sufficient for the realization of the faculty of self-consciousness in all that the metaphysician regards as essential to it. The primitive man might, by pointing to himself in a meditative attitude, have expressed in effect to himself and others the “ I think,” which was to be, in the regard of many of his remote descendants, the distinguishing mark, the outward emblem, of his essential separation from his nearest kindred and progenitors, of his met¬ aphysical distinction from all other animals. This conscious¬ ness and expression would more naturally have been a source of proud satisfaction to the primitive men themselves, just as children among us glory most in their first imperfect command , of their unfolding powers, or even in accomplishments of a unique and individual character when first acquired. To the civilized man of the present time, there is more to be proud of in the immeasurable consequences of this faculty, and in what was .evolved through the continued subsequent exercise of it, especially through its outward artificial instruments in language,—consequences not involved in the bare faculty it¬ self. As being the pre-requisite condition of these uses and in¬ ventions, it would, if of an ultimate and underived nature, be worthy the distinction, which, in case it is referable to latent natures in pre-existing faculties, must be accorded to them in their higher degrees. And if these faculties are common to all the more intelligent animals, and are, by superior degrees only, made capable of higher functions, or effects of a new and different kind (as longer fins enable a fish to fly), then the main qualitative distinction of the human race is to be sought for in * See Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. EVOLUTION OF SELF CONSCLOUSNESS. 255 these effects, and chiefly in the invention and use of artificial language. This invention was, doubtless, at first made by men from social motives, for the purpose of making known to one another, by means of arbitrarily associated and voluntary signs, the wishes, thoughts, or intentions clearly determined upon in their imaginations. Even now, children invent words, or, rather, at¬ tribute meanings to the sounds they can command, when they are unable to enunciate the words of the mother tongue which they desire for the purposes of communication. It is, perhaps, improper to speak of this stage of language as determined by conscious invention through a recognized motive, and for a purpose in the subjective sense of this word. It is enough for a purpose (in its objective sense) to be served, or for a ser¬ vice to be done, by such arbitrary associations between internal and external language, or thought and speech, however these ties may, in the first instance, be brought about. The inten¬ tion and the invention become, however, conscious acts in re¬ flection when the secondary motives to the use of language begin to exert influence, and perhaps before the latter have begun to be reflectively known, or recognized, and while they are still acting as they would in a merely animal mind. These mo¬ tives are the needs and desires (or, rather, the use and impor¬ tance), of making our thoughts clearer to ourselves, and not merely of communicating them to others. Uncertainty, or per¬ plexity from failures of memory or understanding, render the mnemonic uses of vivid external and voluntary signs the agents of important services to reflective thought, when these signs are already possessed, to some extent, for the purposes of com¬ munication. These two uses of language,—the social, and the meditative or mnemonic,—carried to only a slight develop¬ ment, would afford the means of recognizing their own values, as well as the character of the inventions of which languages would be seen to consist. Invention in its true sense, as a re¬ flective process, would then act with more energy in extending the range of language. Command of language is a much more efficient command of thought in reflective processes than that which is implied in 256 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. the simplest form of self-consciousness. It involves a command of memory to a certain degree. Already a mental power, usually accounted a simple one, and certainly not involved in “ I think,” or only in its outward consequences, has been de¬ veloped in the power of the will over thought. Voluntary memory, or reminiscence, is especially aided by command/of language. This is a tentative process, essentially similar to that of a search for a lost or missing external object. Trials are made in it to revive a missing mental image, or train of images, by means of words; and, on the other hand, to revive a missing name by means of mental images, or even by other words. It is not certain that this power is an exclusively hu¬ man one, as is generally believed, except in respect to the high degree of proficiency attained by men in its use. It does not appear impossible that an intelligent dog may be aided by its attention, purposely directed to spontaneous memories, in recalling a missing fact, such as the locality of a buried bone. In the earlier developments of language, and while it is still most subject to the caprices and facilities of individual wills (as in the nursery), the character of it as an invention, or system of inventions, is, doubtless, more clearly apparent than it after¬ wards becomes, when a third function of language rises into prominence. Traditions, by means of language, and customs, fixed by its conservative power, tend, in turn, to give fixity to the conventions of speech; and the customs and associations of language itself begin to prescribe rules for its inventions, or to set limits to their arbitrary adoption. Individual wills lose their power to decree changes in language; and, indeed, at no time are individual wills unlimited agents in this process. Consent given on grounds not always consciously determining it, but common to the many minds which adopt proposals or obey decrees in the inventions of words, is always essential to the establishment or alteration of a language. But as soon as a language has become too extensive to be the possible invention of any single mind, and is mainly a tradition, it must appear to the barbarian’s imagination to have a will of its own; or, rather, sounds and meanings must appear naturally bound together, £ VOL UTION OF SELF- CO NSC 10 US NESS. 2 57 and to be the fixed names and expressions of wills in things. And later, when complex grammatical forms and abstract sub¬ stantive names have found their way into languages, they must appear like the very laws and properties of nature itself, which nothing but magical powers could alter; though magic, with its power over the will, might still be equal to the miracle. With¬ out this power not even a sovereign’s will could oppose the au¬ thority of language in its own domain. Even magic had failed when an emperor could not alter the gender of a noun. Edu¬ cation had become the imperial power, and schoolmasters were its prime ministers. From this point in the development of language, its separa¬ tions into the varieties of dialects, the divergences of these into species , or distinct languages, and the affinities of them as grouped by the glossologist into genera of languages, present precise parallels to the developments and relations in the or¬ ganic world which the theory of natural selection supposes. It has been objected* to the completeness of these parallels that the process of development in languages is still under the control of men’s wills. Though an individual will may have but little influence on it, yet the general consent to a proposed change is still a voluntary action, or is composed of voluntary actions on the part of the many, and hence is essentially dif¬ ferent from the choice in natural selection, when acting within its proper province. To this objection it may be replied, that a general consent to a change, or even an assent to the reasons for it, does not really constitute a voluntary act in respect to the whole language itself; since it does not involve in itself any intention on the part of the many to change the language. Moreover, the conscious intention of effecting a change on the part of the individual author, or speaker, is not the agent by which the change is effected; or is only an incidental cause, no more essential to the process than the causes which produce variations are to the process of natural selection in species. Let the causes of variation be what they may,—miracles even,— yet all the conditions of selection are fulfilled, provided the va- * See article on Schleicher and the Physical Theory of Language, in Professor W. D. Whitney’s Oriental and Linguistic Studies. 2 5 8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. nations can be developed by selection, or will more readily oc¬ cur in the selected successors of the forms in which they first appear in useful degrees. These conditions do not include the prime causes of variations, but only the causes which facilitate their action through inheritance, and ultimately make it nor¬ mal or regular. So, also, the reasons or motives which in general are not consciously perceived, recognized, or assented to, but none the less determine the consent of the many to changes in language, are the real causes of the selection, or the choice of usages in words. Let the cause of a proposed change in language be what it may—an act of free will, a caprice, or inspiration even —provided there is something in the proposition calculated to gain the consent of the many,—such as ease of enunciation, the authority of an influential speaker or writer, distinctness from other words already appropriated to other meanings, the influence of vague analogies in relations of sound and sense (accidental at first, but tending to establish fixed roots in etymology, or even to create instinctive connections of sound and sense),—such motives or reasons, common to the many, and not their consenting wills, are the causes of choice and change in the usages of speech. Moreover, these motives are not usually recognized by the many, but act instinctively. Hence, there is no intention in the many, either individually or collectively, to change even a single usage,—much less a whole language. The laws or constitution of the language, as it exists, appear, even to the reflecting few, to be unchanged; and the proposed change appears to be justified by these laws, as corrections or extensions of previous usages. The case is parallel to the developments of legal usages, or principles of judicial decisions. The judge cannot rightfully change the laws that govern his judgments; and the just judge does not consciously do so. Nevertheless, legal usages change from age to age. Laws, in their practical effects, are amelio¬ rated by courts as well as by legislatures. No new principles are consciously introduced; but interpretations of old ones, and combinations, under more precise and qualified state¬ ments, are made, which disregard old decisions,, seemingly by EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 2 59 new and better definitions of that which in its nature is unal¬ terable, but really, in their practical effects, by alterations, at least in the proximate grounds of decision ; so that nothing is really unalterable in law, except the intention to do justice un¬ der universally applicable principles of decision, and the in¬ stinctive judgments of so-called natural law. In like manner, there is nothing unalterable in the traditions of a language, except the instinctive motives to its acquisition and use, and some instinctive connections of sense and sound. Intention —so far as it is operative in the many who determine what a language is, or what is proper to any language—is chiefly concerned in not changing it; that is, in conforming to what is regarded by them as established usage. That usages come in under the form of good and established ones, while in fact they are new though good inventions, is not due to the intention of the speakers who adopt them. The intention of those who consciously adopt new forms or meanings in words is to conform to what appears legitimate; or it is to fill out or improve usages in accordance with existing analogies, and not to alter the essential features in a language. But unconsciously they are also governed by tendencies in themselves and others, —vague feelings of fitness and other grounds of choice which are outside of the actual traditions of speech; and, though a choice may be made in their minds between an old and a really new usage, it is commonly meant as a truly conservative choice, and from the intention of not altering the language in its essence, or not following what is regarded as a deviation from correct usage. The actual and continuous changes, completely transforming languages, which their history shows, are not, then, due to the intentions of those who speak, or have spoken, them, and cannot, in any sense, be attributed to the agency of their wills, if, as is commonly the case, their intentions are just the reverse. For the same wills cannot act from contra¬ dictory intentions, both to conserve and to change a language on the whole. It becomes an interesting question, therefore, when in general anything can be properly said to be effected by the will of man. Man is an agent in producing many effects, both in nature and 2 Go PHIL O SOPH ICA L DISC US S10NS. in himself, which appear to have no different general character from that of effects produced by other animals, even the low¬ est in the animal series, or by plants, or even by inorganic forces. Man, by transporting and depositing materials, in making, for example, the shell-mounds of the stone age, or the works of modern architecture and engineering, or in commerce and agriculture, is a geological agent; like the polyps which build the coral reefs, and lay the foundations of islands, or make extensions to mainlands; or like the vegetation from which the coal-beds were deposited; or like winds, rains, rivers, and the currents of the ocean; and his agency is not in any way differ¬ ent in its general character, and with reference to its geological effects from that of unconscious beings. In relation to these effects his agency is, in fact, unconscious, or at least unintended. Moreover, in regard to internal effects, the modification of his own mind and character by influences external to himself, under which he comes accidentally, and without intention; many effects upon his emotions and sentiments from impressive incidents, or the general surroundings of the life with which he has become associated through his own agency,—these, as unintended effects, are the same in general character, as if his own agency had not been concerned in them,—as if he had been without choice in his pursuits and surroundings. Mingled with these unintended effects upon himself, there are, of course, others, either actually or virtually intended, and, therefore, his own effects. If, for example, in conformity with surrounding fashions of dress, he should choose to clothe him¬ self, and should select some one from the existing varieties in these fashions, or should even add, consciously , a new feature to them from his individual taste in dress, in each case he would be acting from intention, and the choice would be his own. But so far as he has thus affected the proportions among these varieties, or tends further to affect them by his example, the action is not-his own volition, unless we include within the will’s agency what is properly said to act either through or upo?i the will; namely, that which, by an undistinguished influence, guides taste and choice in himself and the others who follow unconsciously his example. Those influences of example and EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 261 instinctive, or even educated, tastes, which are not raised by distinct attention into conscious motives, would not be allowed by the metaphysician to be parts in the will’s action. It would not be within but through its action that these influences would produce their unintended effects. According to the less definite and precise physical theory of the will’s action, these effects might be regarded as voluntary; but then the choice would not be different in its character from that effected through other kinds of physical agency. On neither theory, therefore, can unintended effects, or the effects of unrecognized causes acting through the will, be regarded as different in their character from the general results of selection in nature. On the phys¬ ical theory of the will, man’s agency is merged in that of nature generally; but according to the metaphysician’s more definite understanding of voluntary actions, which is also that of common usage, intention would appear to be the mark by which to determine whether anything is the effect of the will of man, except in an accidental or non-essential manner. An apparently serious objection to this test arises, however, in reference to another mark of voluntary action, and of the efficacy of the will. The mark of 1'esponsibility (the subject of moral or legal discipline, the liability to blame or punish¬ ment) is justly regarded as the mark of free human agency. But the limits set by this mark are beyond what is actually intended in our actions. We are often held responsible, and properly, for more than we intend, or for what we ought to have intended. The absence of intention (namely, of the inten¬ tion of doing differently) renders us liable to blame, when it is involved in the absence of the more general intention of doing right, or of doing what the discipline of responsibility has commanded or implied in its commands. Carelessness, or want of forethought, cannot be said to involve intention in any case, but in many cases it is blameworthy or punishable; since in such cases moral discipline presupposes or presumes inten¬ tion, or else seeks, as in the case of children, by punishment to turn attention upon moral principles, and upon what is implied in them, whether set forth in instincts, examples, precepts, or commandments. But this extension of the sphere of personal 262 PHIL 0 SO PHI CA L DISCUSSIONS. agency and accountability to relations in which effects i.pon will and character are sought to be produced by moral and legal discipline, its extension beyond what the will itself pro¬ duces in its direct action, has nothing to do with strictly scien¬ tific or theoretical inquiries concerning effects, in which neither the foreseeing nor the obedient will can be an agent or factor, but of which the intellect is rather the recorder, or mere ac¬ countant. If the question concerning the origin of languages were, Who are responsible for their existence and progressive changes, or ought to be credited for improvements, or blamed for defi- ciences in them ? or if the question were, How men might or should be made better inventors, or apter followers of the best inventions,—there would then be some pertinency in insisting on the agency of man in their developments,—an agency which, in fact, like his agency in geology, is incidental to his real volitions, and is neither involved in what he in¬ tends nor in what he could be made to intend by discipline. So far as human intentions have had anything to do with changes in the traditions of language, they have, as we have said, been exerted in resisting them. Hence the traditions of language, with all the knowledge, histories, arts, and sciences involved and embodied in them, are developments incidental, it is true, to the existence and exercise of self-consciousness, and of free or intelligent wills, yet are developments around and outside of them, so to speak, and were added to them rather than evolved from them. These developments were added through their exercise and serviceableness as powers which stand to. the more primitive ones of self-conscious thought and volition in relations similar to those we have seen to exist between the latter and the still more primitive powers of mind in memory and attention. These relations come, first, from turning an old power to a new account; or making a new use of it, when the power, de¬ veloped for other uses, acquires the requisite energy (as when the fins of a fish become fitted for flying); or when the re¬ vivals of memory become vivid enough to make connecting thoughts in a train distinct and apparent as mere signs to a EVOLUTION OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 263 reflective attention. Secondly, the new use increases the old power by its exercise and serviceableness (as flying and its value to life make the fins of the fish still longer), or as the exercise and importance to life of reflective thought make the revivals of memory still more vivid, and enlarge its organ, the brain. Traditions of language, or established artifices of ex¬ pression, are related to new uses in a power, now in turn be¬ come sufficiently energetic, which at first was only the power of associating the sounds of words with thoughts, and thence with their objects, and which was incidental to the distinct recog¬ nition of thoughts as signs, or suggestions, of other thoughts. • Developed by exercise and its serviceableness to life to the point, not only of making readily and employing temporarily such arbitrary associations, but also of fixing them and trans¬ mitting them as a more or less permanent language, or system of signs, this power acquired, or was turned to, a use involving immeasurable consequences and values. To choose arbitrarily for preservation and transmission one out of many arbitrary associations of sounds with a meaning could not have been a rational or intelligent act of free will, but ought rather to be attributed to chance, lot, or fate; or to will , in the narrower sense of the word in which one man is said to have more than another, or to be more willful, that is, persistent in his caprices. To make by decree any action per¬ manent and regular which in itself is transient or accidental requires will , it is true, in one sense, or sticking to a point, merely because it has bee?i assumed ; as some children do in imposing their inventions upon their associates. This degree of arbitrariness appears necessary to the step in the use of signs which made them traditions of language, permanent enough to be the roots of a continued growth in it,—a growth which must, however, have determined more and more the selections of new words, and new uses in old ones, through motives common to the many speakers of a language; such as common fancies, instinctive tendencies, facilities, allegiance to authority, and associations in general—the vague as well as distinct ones—which were common to many speakers. These causes would act instinctively, or unconsciously, as well / ( 264 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . as by design. Tyranny in the growth of language, or the agency of arbitrary wills, persisting in their caprices, must have disappeared at an early date, or must have become insig¬ nificant in its effects upon the whole of any established lan¬ guage. Intentional choice would henceforward have the design generally of conserving or restoring a supposed good usage; though along with unintended preferences, instinctively fol¬ lowed, it would, doubtless, have the effect of slowly changing the usages of language on the whole. A happy suggestion of change would be adopted, if adopted consciously, with refer¬ ence to its supposed conformity to the genius of the language, or to its will, rather than to the will of an individual dictator; and the influence of a speaker would depend on the supposi¬ tion that he knew best how to use the language correctly, or was intimate with its genius. But suggestions of change would be more likely to be adopted unconsciously. History can trace languages back only, of course, to the earliest times of their representations in phonetic writings or inscriptions; as palaeontology can trace organic species back only to the earliest preservation of them as fossils in the rocks. In neither case do we probably go back to periods in which forms were subject to sudden or capricious variations. Natural selection would, therefore, define the most prominent action of the causes of change in both of them. But just as govern¬ ments in all their forms depend on the fixedness and force of traditions, and as traditions gained this force through the wills of those in the past who established them by arbitrary decrees, and induced in others those habits of respect and obedience which now preserve them, so in language there was, doubtless, a time when will was the chief agent in its formation and pres¬ ervation. But it was Will in its narrower sense, which does not include all that is commonly meant by volitional action. The latter involves, it is true, persistence in some elements,— a persistence in memory and thought of consciously recognized motives, principles, purposes, or intentions. Volition is an action through memory, and not merely from a present stimu¬ lus, and is accompanied, when free or rational, by the recogni¬ tion in thought of the motive, the proximate cause of the action, E VOL UTION OF SELF- CO NSC 10 US NESS. 265 the reasons for it, or the immediate and present tendency to it, which is referred back in turn, but is not analyzed, nor usually capable of being analyzed introspectively into still more remote antecedents in our histories, inherited disposition, characters, and present circumstances. Those causes which are even too feeble to be introspectively recognized are not, of course, the source whence the force or energy of will is derived; but inde¬ pendently of their directive agency, this force is indistinguisha¬ ble from that of pure spontaneity or vital energy. In like manner, the force of water in a system of river-courses is not determined by its beds and banks, but is none the less guided by them. This water-force in the first instance, and from time to time, alters its courses, but normally flows within predeter¬ mined courses; as the energy of will flows normally within the directive, but alterable, courses of character and circumstances. The really recognized motives in ordinary volition generally include more than the impulse or satisfaction of adhering to an assumed position, or to a purpose, for the will’s sake, as in mere will, or willfulness which is an overflow, so to speak, of energy, directed only by its own inertia, though often useful in altering character, or the courses of volition, both in the will itself and the wills of others. The habit of conscious per¬ sistence, involved in will, but most conspicuous in self-will, was, together with its correlatives, respect and obedience, doubtless serviceable to the rulers of primeval men, the authors of human government; and was, doubtless, developed through this serviceableness before it was turned to new uses in the institution of arbitrary customs and traditions. It thus illustrates anew the general principle shown in the several previous steps of this progress, namely, the turning of an old power to a new account, or making a new use of it, when the power has acquired the requisite energy; and the subse¬ quent further increase of the power through serviceableness and exercise in its new function. This power in the wills of the political, military, and relig¬ ious leaders of men must soon, after producing the apotheosis of the more influential among them, have been converted into the sacred force of tradition; that is, into the fas or commands 12 266 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of languages themselves, and of other arbitrary customs. Hence¬ forth and throughout all the periods included in the researches of comparative philology in which written remains of lan¬ guages are to be found, it is probable that no man has con¬ sciously committed, or had the power to commit, the sin of intentionally altering their traditions, except for reasons com¬ mon to many speakers and afforded by the traditions them¬ selves. / THE CONFLICT OF STUDIES* Among the most advanced nations, in this age of sceptical inquiry,—an age sceptical in the old and good sense of the word (noting that close examination of a subject which orthodox philosophers and divines have for so many centuries stamped with a black mark),—in this age nothing seems likely to escape a radical re-examination by discussion and experiment. Those matters for which a genuine loyalty might still be counted on to conserve past usages, the.means, influences, and appliances to which scholars and men of cult¬ ure acknowledge their deepest indebtedness, have not proved exceptions. That there should, if possible, be a science of education, founded on something more than the traditions of the art or the success of past usages, appears to be the present demand of reformers. The wide-spread and growing conviction, that universities have not advanced their knowledge of their duties to mankind or to their several nations at the same pace as other useful institutions, and that legislative interference ought to undertake what the incumbents of university places have neglected, has given so great alarm to the latter, that they have turned a most energetic and earnest attention 'to the sub¬ ject. The discussion, so far, has developed little more than the many-sidedness and extreme difficulties in practice of the problems of education. This, together with the zeal exhibited by the best university men, to bring all the light they possess or can command to bear on the discussion, will doubtless serve the purpose about which they seem most solicitous,—the * From the North American Review, July, 1875. 5 > 8 > 13 » a ~ 3. b "7 > A’ A’ & c - a = 4 . h b b < ^ c - The first series is not usually given, since they are the com¬ plements of the fractions of the second series, and express the same arrangements, but in an opposite direction around the circumference; or by supposing that the spiral line connecting the leaves is drawn from leaf to leaf the longer way round. Omitting then the first series, we shall still have in the others, as they stand, developed to five terms, many more fractions 3°4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. than have actually been observed, or could be observed in actual plants. I propose in what follows to subject the mathematical in¬ duction expressed by these series to careful critical exam¬ ination, to distinguish what is matter of actual observation from what is deduced from theory, and to ascertain with pre¬ cision the amount of inductive evidence on which the theory of the typical angle rests. Pursuing the subject afterwards by a strictly inductive investigation, I shall estimate what there is of truth in the theory. This will lead, I think, to the rejection of the theory as it stands, or under the form of the typical angle, but will not render the observation on which it depends wholly nugatory. On the contrary, it will show that this ob¬ servation really leads to the true explanation of the occurrence of only certain fractions in the spiral arrangements, and the more frequent occurrence of some of them than of others. It is a well-known property of the fractions of these series, that after the first two in each, the others can be deduced from the preceding ones, and continued indefinitely, by a very simple process. The numerator of each after the first two is equal to the sum of the numerators of the two preceding, and its de¬ nominator to the sum of their denominators. This law,, as a matter of observation, was actually discovered only in the first four fractions of the first or second series, which are by far the commonest of actually observed arrangements in nature. Other less frequently occurring fractions were arranged on the same principle, and extended so as to give the last two series. The four series, or the three lower ones, contain, therefore, more than all the fractions that are known to belong to natural arrangements. This will be sufficiently evident when we ob serve that the fractions f and in the first series, or theix complements, f and ^3, in the second series, would be indis¬ tinguishable in actual measurement; since they differ from each other-by or by less than a hundredth, which is much less than can be observed, or than stems are often twisted by irreg¬ ular growth. For the same reason we must reject all but the first three terms of the third and fourth series as being distin¬ guishable only in theory. We are thus left with a very slight ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3°5 basis of facts on which to erect the superstructure of theory. We shall see further on a still more cogent reason for calling in question the validity of this induction; namely, that limiting the evidence as we are thus obliged to do, we have still left so large a number of actually observed arrangements, that they include almost all that are possible among equally simple and distinguishable fractions within the observed limits of natural arrangements; all, in fact, but two; namely, the fractions ^ and The range is not a narrow one, but extends from ^ to •§-, or from -J- to J-, since the fractions above J are complements of those below, and express the same arrangements, but in an opposite direction around the circumference. The problem of Phyllotaxy, therefore, seems at first sight to be reduced to this; not why the other fractions do occur in nature, but why these two do not? But to answer the latter question is really also to answer the former, though it will go but very little way towards justifying the theory of the typical or unique angle. It will go much further if we exclude from this list of fractions those which are of very infrequent occurrence, namely, those peculiar to the third and fourth series; or, in other words, take account of the relative frequency in nature of the several arrangements. This, indeed, entirely changes the aspects of the question, for we find that, instead of two, there are six frac¬ tions of the simpler denominations (or within the limits of distinguishable values), which either do not occur in nature at all, or occur very rarely; while those that are common are four in number, or less than half of all. But we shall find that those of the six which occur rarely differ from the two really unique ones among them, and agree with the common ones in respect to the law on which the answer to our question really depends. This answer will be found to depend on the law which was observed in the first four fractions of the first or second series, and was extended in the continuation of these and the formation of the others. This law, or the dependence of these fractions on each other, was seen to be a simple case of the relations of dependence in the successive approxima¬ tions of continued fractions, and thus led to the induction of these fractions; namely, the continued fraction 3 ° 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. i 7 + _i 1 + 1 _ i -f- &c. f° r the first series, or i 2 -f 1 1 +_L i + &c. for the second. The ultimate values of these continued frac¬ tions extended infinitely are complements of each other, as their successive approximations are, and are in effect the same fraction; namely, the irrational or incommensurate interval which is supposed to be the perfect form of the spiral arrange¬ ment. This does, in fact, possess in a higher degree than any rational fraction the property common to those which have been observed in nature; though practically, or so far as observation can go, this higher degree is a mere refinement of theory. For, as we shall find, the typical irrational interval differs from that of the fraction -| (and its complement differs from -|) by almost exactly f 0 7 Q 0 - , a quantity much less than can be observed in the actual angles of leaf-arrangements. The conception of such a typical angle as an actual value in nature, and as a point of departure for more specialized ones, existing either among the normal patterns, or formative principles of vegeta¬ ble life, as the theory of types supposes, or in some unknown law of development or physiological necessity,—such a con¬ ception is a very attractive one. And as exhibiting in the abstract and in its most perfect form a property peculiar, as we shall see, to natural arrangements, but belonging to them in inferior and in various degrees,—as exhibiting this separated from the property which such arrangements also have, by which they are divisible into limited systems or cycles,—from this point of view the conception acquires a valid scientific utility. But we should be on our guard against a misconstruc¬ tion of it. There is no evidence whatever, and there could be none from observation, that any such separation of properties actually occurs in nature, or that one is superposed on the other in successive stages of development in the bud, or that this typical arrangement is first produced and subsequent!) ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 307 modified into the more special ones.—into the limited systems or cycles represented by simple rational fractions. To suppose this is to confound abstractions with concrete existences, and would be an instance of the so-called “ realism ” in science, against which it is always so necessary to be on our guard. There is no reason to suppose that one rather than the other of these properties appears first in the incipient parts of the bud, or that either exists in any degree of perfection before the development of these parts has made considerable advance. [The memoir proceeds to show by “a strictly inductive investigation,” and to exemplify graphically by a large diagram, ‘ 4 what this property is which the typical or unique angle has in the abstract and in perfection, and to show what its utility is in the economy of vegetable life.” The details are too technical and the investigation too mathematical to be reproduced here. It explains how this spiral arrangement] would effect the most thorough and rapid distribution of the leaves around the stem, each new or higher leaf falling over the angular space between the two older ones which are nearest in direction so as to subdivide it in the same ratio, k , in which the first two, or any two successive ones, divide the circumference. But according to such an arrangement there could be no limited systems or cycles, or no leaf would ever fall exactly over any other; and, as I have said, we have no evidence, and could have none, that this arrangement actually exists in nature. To realize simply and purely the property of the most thorough distribu¬ tion, the most complete exposure of the leaves to light and air around the stem, and the most ample elbow-room or space for expansion in the bud, is to realize a property that exists sepa¬ rately only in abstraction, like a line without breadth. Never¬ theless practically, and so far as observation can go, we find that the last two fractions, ■§• and -^3, and all further ones of the first series, like ^-f-, etc., which are all indistinguishable as measured values in the plant, do actually realize this property with all needful accuracy. Thus |-=o.625; ^3=0.615; and 1^=0.619; and differ from k by 0.007, °- ooi j 0.003, respect¬ ively; or they all differ by inappreciable values from the quantity which might therefore be made to stand for all of them. But in putting k for all the values of the first series after the first three, it should be with the understanding that it 3°8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. is not so employed in its capacity as the grand type, or the source of the distributive character which they have; in its capacity as an irrational fraction,—but simply as being indis¬ tinguishable practically from these rational ones, and as being entirely consistent practically with the property that rational proper fractions also have of forming limited systems or cycles. Much mystification has come from the irrational character of this fraction; scepticism on the part of non-mathematical botanists, and mysticism on the part of mathematicians. The simpler or the first three fractions of this series have also in a less degree the same distributive quality, and so in a still less degree have the fractions of the two lower series. But all the fractions left among possible ones, within the limits considered, that are sufficiently simple to be readily identified, are the fractions j and or their complements and -J; and these exceptions, as I have said, are all the grounds of fact which at first sight give any plausibility to the theory of Phyllotaxy, or make its laws anything other apparently than the necessary consequences of purely numerical properties in the simpler fractions. Yet beside the fact that these two have not the dis¬ tributive character of the others, the fact should be taken account of, that by confining ourselves to the limits ^ to ^ we have neglected several other simple fractions, that are even worse adapted for the purpose which the great majority appear to serve. These fractions are -J-, and -§-, or their comple¬ ments. Moreover, we should consider that as the fractions peculiar to the two lower series are much less fitted for this purpose than those of the first series, so they are much less frequently found in nature. Taking account of all these facts, we find the hypothesis that nature has chosen certain intervals in the spiral arrangements of leaves, and for the purpose I have indicated, to be sufficiently probable to justify a mor; careful consideration of it. Wide, divergences from the most perfect realization of this purpose, such as we have among the more frequent forms in the fractions ^ and |-, or in the alternate and three-leaved systems, and also among the less frequent forms, indicate the existence of other conditions or purposes in these arrangements, which I propose ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3°9 to consider further on. I may remark here, however, that these two classes of exceptions form the most perfect realization of the distributive property, namely, those of the first series which belong to the most advanced forms of life, and those peculiar to the two other series, are probably due to widely different causes; the one having, in fact, a high degree of specialization, and the other falling short in respect to this distributive prop¬ erty on account of a low degree of specialization. This view, which is one of the consequences of theoretical considerations on the origin of these arrangements, that will be presented when we come to consider the origin of spiral arrangements in general, and of the whorl, is significantly in accordance with the observation that the forms peculiar to the two lower series are more frequent among fossil plants than among surviving ones. [After an examination “quite independently of theory, of the properties in the spiral arrangements of all the fractions between arid or rather between ^ and and of a less denomination than iqths,” the author pro¬ ceeds.] All the fractions of the actual arrangements of nature, as well as the less simple theoretical ones of Phyllotaxy, have the property, that after the first turn of the cycle, and also in this first turn for all the fractions of the first series, or for those most com¬ monly occurring in nature, each leaf of the cycle is so placed over the space between older leaves nearest in direction to it as always to fall near the middle, and never beyond the middle third of the space, or by more than one sixth of the space from the middle, until the cycle is completed, when the new leaf is placed exactly over an older one. This property depends mathemat¬ ically on the character of the continued fractions, of which these fractions are the approximations, according to the theory of Phyllotaxy. # # * # * * # The last denominators in these continued fractions represent the ratios of the contiguous intervals introduced in the second or third turns by the third or fourth leaves. Only the first two fractions in each of these series conform to the above law. The others, like 4 and -f, violate the law early in the 3 IQ PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. cycle; and this explains the absence of them from natural arrangements of the spiral type. The property common to the latter resembles what we have observed in the arrange¬ ments of whorls, namely, that the leaves of successive whorls are so placed that those of the upper one fall over the middle positions of the spaces between those of the lower one; 'but those of the next one above, or in the third whorl, are thus made to fall directly over the leaves of the first. Two whorls thus constitute a cycle, in the sense in which this name is applied to the spiral arrangements; and in respect to their distributive and cyclic characters, whorls are thus most closely related to the J, or alternate system. But there is, as I have said, no fundamental or genetic relationship between them and this particular form of the spiral arrangement. The relation¬ ship is rather an adaptive or analogical one. They are, so to speak, two distinct solutions of the same problem, two modes of realizing the same utilities, or securing the same advan¬ tages; like the wings of birds and bats. One of these utilities we have now sufficiently considered, namely, that which the theoretical angle k would realize most perfectly; by which the leaves would be distributed most thoroughly and rapidly around the stem, exposed most com¬ pletely to light and air, and provided with the greatest freedom for symmetrical expansion, together with' a compact arrange¬ ment in the bud. Neither this property, nor an exact cyclical arrangement, ought, as I have said, to be found, or expected, in the incipient parts at the centre of the bud, any more than the perfect proportions and adaptations of the mature animal could be expected, or are found, in the embryo. Both are fully determined, no doubt, in the vital forces of the individu¬ al’s growth. Our question is, what has determined such an action in these vital forces ? “ Their very nature, or an ulti¬ mate creative power,” is the answer which the theory of types gives to this question. “The necessities of their lives, both outward and inward, or the conditions past and present of their existence,” is the answer of the theory of adaptation. Science ought to be entirely neutral between these theories, and ready to receive any confirmation of either of them which can be ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3 11 adduced; though, from this point of view, the theory of adap¬ tation has a decided advantage; since the theory of types can have no confirmation from observation except of a negative sort, the failure of its rival to show conclusive proofs. But we have seen that whatever can be said in favor of the view, that there is a unity of type in the intervals of spiral arrangements, is directly convertible to the advantage of the theory of adap¬ tation; since this unity consists in the distributive property common to* those arrangements.* Natural Selection, however, or the indirect agency of utility in producing adaptations, can¬ not, so far as we have yet seen, be appealed to for the expla¬ nation of the spiral arrangements in general; nor for the explanation of the verticil arrangements; though the character in the latter, in which they resemble the alternate system, may come within the range of this explanation through the utility I have pointed out. The only ground for the action of Natural Selection which I have yet shown is in the choice there is among possible spiral arrangements with reference to this utility; and it appears that the principle is fully competent to account for the relative frequency of these, and the entire absence of some of them from the actual forms of nature. We now come to the special study of two other features which have appeared in these arrangements, namely, the spiral character itself and the simplicity of their cycles. The cyclic character is entirely wanting in the ideal arrangement of the * There is a remarkable analogy between this relation and that of the two theories of the structure of the honey-cell. The work of the bees suggests to the geometrician a perfectly definite and regular form, which he finds to be the most economical form of compartments into which space can be divided; or he finds that the honeycomb would be the lightest, or be composed of the least material for the same capacity and number of compartments, if partitioned into such figures as the typical cell. From the defini¬ tion of this figure he is able to compute its angles and proportions with a degree of pre¬ cision to which the bees’ work only roughly approximates at its best, and from which it often deviates widely. The theory of types regards this ideal figu r e as a determining cause of the structure, or as ihe pattern which guides the bees’ instinct towards an ideally perfect economy. But a plainer order of economy, a simple housewifely one, saving at every turn, together with the conveniences and utilities which govern the work of social nest-building insects in general, would result, if carried out to perfection, in the very same form. Hence the theory of adaptation regards the honey-cells as modifications of similar but rougher structures of the same sort, determined by the further utility of simple saving in working with a costly material; and whatever evidence there is that the bees’ instinct is determined toward the ideally perfect type of the honey-cell is directly convertible into proofs that it is so determined by these simple conveniences and utilities 3 12 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. interval k; but, as I have said, this interval cannot be proved to exist in nature; for even if it did, it would be indistinguish¬ able even from the simple fraction -§-. This very fact, however, makes the interval -§-, a sufficiently exact realization of the dis¬ tributive property, according to the degree of exactness with which actual plants are constructed. But |- is also a compar¬ atively simple cycle, though there would not be sufficient evidence that its cyclic character is an essential one, or other than incidental to the scale of exactness in the structure of plants, if there did not exist several distinguishable and simpler cycles, namely, £, -|, and The cyclic character of leaf arrangements is, indeed, a more noticeable feature in plants generally than the distributive one. It is obviously essential, and involves on the theory of adaptation some important utility. Whatever this may be, it is clear that it has to be gained by means directly opposed to those which secure dis¬ tribution; that is, its utility depends on leaves coming together in direction, or being brought nearer to each other than they would otherwise be; instead of their being dispersed as widely and as thoroughly as possible. This utility is obviously to be sought in the internal relations of leaves to each other, or their connections through the stem, and not in their outward relations, which require exposure, expansion, and elbow-room. The apparently inconsistent means of these two ends are both realized, however, without interference, in the actual cycles of natural arrangements. Through the simplicity of these cycles leaves, not very remote on the stem, are brought nearer to each other, and into more direct internal connection than they would have but for this simplicity; while, in the more prevalent natural forms of the cycle, leaves that are nearest to each other on the stem are separated as widely as is possible under this condition. That this prevalence is due,to selection, through the utility already considered, has been shown to be sufficiently probable. I propose now to connect the preva¬ lence of simplicity in these cycles with another utility. Leaves that are successive, or nearest each other on the stem, may be. regarded as rivals, and as rendering each other no service. Those that are more remote may come into relations ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3 r 3 of dependence, one on the other. Between the leaf and the stem the relations of nutrition are reciprocal. At first, and for the development of the leaf, the stem furnishes nutriment to it Afterwards the leaf furnishes nutriment for the further latera/ expansion of the stem. The development of the stem itself, first in length, while the leaves are expanding, and afterwards in breadth and firmness through the nutrition afforded by the developed leaves, has the effect, and, we may presume, the use or function, of a still more important distribution of the leaves than that we have considered. We have hitherto attended only to the distribution effected by the character of the diver¬ gences of leaves around the stem. Their distribution along the stem, or their separation by the internodes of the stem, is a still more direct and effective mode of accomplishing at least one of the uses of the property of distribution, namely, ex¬ posure to light and air. The special accomplishment of this important end in the higher plants is secured by two different means; by the firm fibrous structure and the breadth of stems, branches, and trunks in grasses, shrubs, and trees, and by the climbing powers and prehensile apparatus of climbing plants; and in the latter we find the highest degree of specialization or development in the vegetable world. The distribution effected by the separation of leaves along the stem in great measure supersedes the value of their distribution around it, so far as the ultimate functions of leaves are concerned, and independently of their relations in development or in the bud; and this gives freer play to the means of securing whatever advantage there may be in the simpler cyclic arrangements, like the £ and systems. Accordingly we find, in general, the simpler cycles on the stems of those plants that have the longest internodes; and, on the other hand, the more compli¬ cated cycles are found only in cases of very short internodes or in great condensations of leaves. There is no evidence, however, that in the condensed form in which undeveloped leaves exist in the bud the cycles are any more complicated than on the stem. Nor ought we to expect such evidence; for it is a false analogy that would lead us to seek for types in the early and rude forms of embryonic life; though, if the 14 3i4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. simpler cycles were really derived from the more complicated ones, rather than from the utility common to all, we ought, by the analogy of embryology, to find some traces of the process in the bud. No doubt the types exhibited by the mature forms of life exist in the embryo or bud, though not in a visibly embodied form; but rather in a predetermined mode of action in vital forces, embodied in gemmules rather than the visible germ. But while the distribution effected by the internodes of the stem thus allows the simpler cycles to occur, it does not account for their occurrence. This, moreover, must depend on relations in mature, or else in growing leaves, to those below them; and not on their earlier relations in the bud; since, as we have seen, the more complicated cycles are the best fitted for these relations, and in mature stems are only found in great condensations of leaves; such as the bud also presents; yet without any greater complication than the stem has. The simplicity of the cycles in stems with long inter¬ nodes has the effect that the absolute distance between two leaves standing one over the other is not so great as it other¬ wise would be. There is, no doubt, a disadvantage in long internodes, or in the separation of growing parts by long inter¬ vals from their source of nutrition; a disadvantage, which only a better exposure to light and air for their subsequent functions could compensate. On the theory of adaptation there would seem to be, then, some advantage to the younger leaf in standing directly over an older one, and not far above it; a greater advantage than in any other position at the same height; and this advantage could apparently be no other than an internal nutritive one, having reference to the sources or movements of sap and the nutrition conveyed by it. But sap 'culates with nearly equal facility around and along the st<_m; and if the lower leaf were really a special source of nutrition to the growing one above it, it could furnish nutrition almost as readily to any other position on the stem at the same height as to the point directly above it, or on the same side. The new leaf is not sensibly nearer the market on ac¬ count of this feature in the arrangement. But may there not be some advantage to the older leaf in standing directly under ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3*5 the younger? Next to the advantage of being near a market, or a source of supplies, is the advantage of being in the line of traffic. This, indeed, is in part what it is to be a market, rather than a mine. A leaf is not only a productive or indus¬ trial centre, but a commercial one. It effects exchanges, both giving and receiving supplies. When mature, or fully estab¬ lished in this capacity, it draws from the roots its raw material of water and mineral salts, and from the air its more costly material, and in exchange sends forth into the great commerce of the stem its wonderfully intricate fabrics of atoms, woven on the sunbeam, its soluble colloids. Now, although sap may flow with nearly equal facility in all directions in the stem, it probably does flow with greatest rapidity in the direct lines of the forces that impel it, the lines of osmotic force. Sap flows in the spring most freely from that side of a perforated tree which is immediately below the largest branch. This shows that even in the least active condition of the circulation, when the trunk is surcharged with sap, the forces of circulation are not simply diffusive or hydrostatic; and they must be much less so when definite outlets of this supply become established in the growing buds and leaves of the spring-time. The char¬ acter of the circulation is principally determined by the hydraulic action of osmotic forces. Water may flow with equal facility in any part of a river-bed, and across as well as along; but it actually does flow fastest along the middle. The growing leaf has different needs from those of the mature one; hence they are not rivals, or competitors in the market, but buyer and seller, or borrower and lender. The mature leaf needs from the stem water and mineral salts; the growing leaf needs the organic materials of new tissues. The mature leaf helps to prepare the latter by concentrating it, withdrawing the water, and adding its own contribution of organic material in return. But while aiding its younger fellow in this way, it is aided in return, or its efficiency is increased, by the increased circulation produced through the forces of movement above it. In place of a glut in the market we have an active exchange. There is, undoubtedly, a tendency in these physiological causes, however feeble, to that vertical allignment of not very 3 l6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION'S. distant leaves, which the cyclic character of the spiral arrange* ments exhibits, and most markedly in the J or alternate system. We have thus assigned more or less probable utilities to two prominent features in the particular forms of the spiral and verticil arrangements of leaves; their distributive and cyclic characters. We now come to a much more obscure problem, which connects the verticil and spiral arrangements in general with their probable utilities, and through these with their origin in lower forms of vegetable life. But before entering upon the study of this as an actual physical problem, it is necessary to consider what are the real meanings of the terms “ spiral ” and “whorl.” Are they only conventional modes of representing the phenomena of arrangement, or are they strictly descriptive of the facts in their physical connections ? About the whorl there can be no doubt. The actual physical connections and separations of leaves in this type of arrangement are directly indicated by the term; but the ideal geometrical line connect¬ ing successive leaves in the so-called spiral arrangements may be a purely formal element in the description of them, and of no material account,—a mode of reducing them to order in our conceptions of them, but implying no physical relation¬ ships. There are several ways in which we can so represent the features of these arrangements. Connecting by an ideal lin§ (which may have no physical significance) the leaves nearest to each other on the developed stem, and by the shorter way round, is one way,—the more common way of represent¬ ing their arrangements. The direction in which this should be drawn, whether to the right or the left, is quite arbitrary in the £ or alternate system. Connecting, for other cases, the leaves in the same succession, but by the longer way round is anothei way. These are distinctly different spiral paths, but not the only ones by which the parts of these arrangements might be represented geometrically. By connecting them alternately, as i with 3, and this with 5, etc., and 2 with 4, and this with 6, etc., we should connect the leaves of the various arrangements by two spiral paths, and these either by the longer or the shorter way round. Or again, by connecting the series 1, 4, 7, etc., and 2, 5, 8, etc., and 3, 6, 9, etc., we should include all the leaves in ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 317 three spiral paths; and so on. In some cases these lines would not be spiral, but the vertical allignments we have considered. For. example, in the last case they would be vertical for the cycle |q since in this the leaves 1 and 4, or 2 and 5, are the beginnings of distinct successive cycles. If the leaves 1, 2, 3, were in this case of the same age, or at the same height on the stem, and were succeeded at an interval on the stem by 4, 5, 6, also coeval, and so on, we should have the main feature of the verticil arrangement, but not the kind of alternation that belongs to natural whorls. Between 1, 2, and 3 in the natural whorl equal intervals exist, namely, -J; and also be¬ tween 4, 5, and 6, and so on; but between 3 and 4 the inter¬ val in natural three-leaved whorls is either -jf, or -J, according as we choose our spiral paths, or determine which member of the upper whorl shall be counted as the fourth leaf. We perceive, therefore, that there is no continuity or principle of connection between spiral arrangements and the whorls; and, moreover, that these spiral paths are purely ideal or geometrical lines, so far as we have yet seen. Is there any good reason for supposing that the simplest of these, which connects successive leaves on the stem the shorter way round, is any less formal or conventional than the others; or indicates a real connection of the leaves on this path, or any closer original real connection among them? There are two significant facts bearing on this question to which I have already adverted. The first is that the natural fractions of the lower group of our table, or those peculiar to the last two series of the theory of Phyllotaxy, represent the less frequent forms of spiral arrangements, and that if the successive members of these arrangements are con¬ nected in the usual mode by this simplest path, or the shorter way round, these members are seen to have less angles of divergence than those of the more common arrangements; or are much nearer each other on this line than the others are. We should thus have the fractions f, J, -§, 1, all of which indicate comparatively small divergences, smaller than any among the common ones. The second fact is the observation that these arrangements are relatively more common among fossil plants than among surviving ones. These facts agree 3 l8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. well with the supposition that this simplest spiral path is unlike the others, and is not a merely formal assumption for the rep¬ resentation of leaf-arrangements, but the trace of a former physical connection of the members, or even of a continuity of leafy expansion along this path; a leaf-like expansion resembling a spiral stairway. The leaves, according to this supposition, are the relics of segments made in such a spiral leaf-like expansion around the stem; remnants of it grown smaller and smaller, or more widely separated as they became more advantageously situated through the developments of the stem in length and firmness; and expanding, perhaps, in an opposite direction along the leaf-stems; or, losing their leaf- character and expansion altogether, as they became adapted to other uses in the economy of the higher vegetable life, namely, the use of the leaf-stem itself, as in the tendril, and the uses of leaf-like extensions, as in the reproductive organs of the flower. But are there any surviving instances of such continuous spiral leaf-like expansions on vegetable stems; or, in default of these, could there be any utility in such an arrangement itself to justify the supposition of it as the basis of the de¬ velopment of more special forms? Before considering this question, however, I will consider what other resources of explanation hypothesis can command. The spiral arrange¬ ment might be supposed to be the result of a physiological necessity among the laws of growth, through which single leaves would be produced at regular intervals or steps of de¬ velopment, and placed so as to compass the utilities we have already considered, namely, those of horizontal and longitudi¬ nal distribution in successive leaves, and vertical allignment in remoter ones. This would account for the spiral arrangements, and it may be a superior mode of growth, or involve some physiological utility; but that it is not a necessity, is proved by the arrangements of the whorl, in which all the members of a group of leaves are simultaneously produced. The existence of the whorl, then, sets this hypothesis aside. Again, we might suppose on the theory of types that these two great types of arrangement are two fundamental facts in the highei ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 319 vegetable life, parts of a supernatural plan; two aboriginal and absolute features in this plan. But this, as we have seen, is not to solve the problem, but to surrender it; or rather to de¬ mand its surrender, and forbid its solution. Again, the pro¬ duction of adventitious buds in plants, or in separated parts of plants, as in cuttings, dependent only, apparently, on a favora¬ ble situation for nutrition, is of common occurrence even in the higher plants. If we could suppose that the definite hori¬ zontal distributions of successive leaves were wholly sup¬ erseded in their utility by the distributions along the stem, or that the leaves could thus be sufficiently exposed to light and air; the power of the adventitious production of buds or leaves in favorable situations might have caused an arrangement without this feature of spiral regularity. But they would still be brought into vertical allignments, if the physiological ad¬ vantage of the simpler cycles, which has been pointed out, be a real and effective one; for even the so-called adventitious production of buds may reasonably be supposed to be gov¬ erned by supplies of nutriment. Moreover, these vertical lines would be placed at equal intervals around the stem, on account of the advantage there would be in such a-distribution, both for internal and external nutrition. But though leaves would thus be placed at convenient distances along equidistant verti¬ cal lines, there would be no consideration of utility to govern their relations to each other on different lines, so as to throw them into whorls, or into definite spiral arrangements. It might, however, be advantageous for leaves on a line between two others to be placed in intermediate positions with respect to the leaves of these two, and if the latter were placed at the same heights we should have a sector of three whorls; that is, two leaves of the highest and two of the lowest whorl, and one leaf of the intermediate whorl. But such an arrangement disregards or sacrifices in the structure of the whorl itself the advantage, if it be one, of such an alternation. It cannot be reasonable to suppose that a leaf on an intermediate line would seek distance and isolation, from those of the lines beside it, and, at the same time, seek close connection horizontally with those ot its own whorl. This would be directly opposed to 3 2 ° PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. the accommodation of uses in spiral arrangements. The structure of whorls, and the alternation in successive ones, appear, therefore, to be of distinct origins. Whatever advan¬ tage there is in the former appears to be sacrificed by this alternation, and by the spiral arrangements; or, if it be a dis¬ advantage, it is avoided by these. It is probably on the whole a disadvantage; since it is ill-fitted for great extensions and branchings in stems, for which the simpler spiral arrangements appear peculiarly fitted. This contrast, however, cannot be regarded as the origin of the contrasted types themselves, and the soundest conclusion appears to be, that, whatever adapta¬ tions they may have, these are only incidental, and are not concerned in their origination, either directly through physio¬ logical laws of growth, or indirectly by Natural Selection. They are properly genetic characters. This is confirmed by the fact that the particular arrangement for each plant is pro¬ vided for, or already completed in the bud; that is, it is not a result of laws of development in general, but of the special nature of the plant, or the predisposition of its vital forces. In regard to the causes which I have supposed to control the so-called adventitious production of buds or leaves, it should not be supposed that these exert in actual plants any consider¬ able influence; though the plant’s particular laws of growth are probably not in opposition to them. They should only be considered as modifying agencies reacting on the formative forces; but they fail, as we have seen, to account for the spiral and verticil arrangements, and their contrasts through any utility which could modify these forces. But in concluding therefore that these general types of arrangement ought to be regarded as only genetic characters in the higher plants, and as presenting no important advantage or disadvantage, inde¬ pendently of the special forms which they have acquired, or in present forms of life; we are not precluded by such a con¬ clusion from the further inquiry as to what former advantage there could have been in less specialized forms, before these genetic characters had lost their special significance (if any ever existed), and when they could have stood in more im¬ mediate and important relations to the conditions of the plant’s ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3 21 existence. In this inquiry our principal guide must be hy¬ pothesis, but it will be hypothesis under the check and control of the theory of adaptation. It will not be legitimate to assume any unknown form as a past form of life, and as a basis for these arrangements, without showing that such an hypothetical form would have been a useful modification of a still simpler one, which still exists and is known. In this way we may be able to bridge over the chasm that separates the higher and lower forms of vegetable life. Our problem then becomes, Whether, in the absence of any surviving instances of continuous spiral leaf-like expansions on vegetable stems, we can find any utility in such an arrange¬ ment that could act to modify simpler known forms, and con¬ vert them into this ? If we suppose our hypothetical spiral 4 eaf-blade to be untwisted, it becomes a single-blade frond, or a frond with one of its blades undeveloped. In considering what advantage there could be in the twist, we should revert to the general objects or functions of leaf-like expansions. They are obviously to expose a large surface to the action of light on its tissues, and to bring it into the most complete con¬ tact with the medium in which the plant lives,—with water, or, in more advanced plants, with the air. Secondly, to accomplish this with the least expenditure of material; not by an absolute, but a relative- economy, which has reference to the needs of other parts, like the stem or roots. In many of the higher plants the developments of the stem serve to dimin¬ ish to the utmost the amount of this material, and the needed expansion, by giving to them advantageous positions. The first of these objects is secured in the simplest and rudest man¬ ner in the a/gce, as represented by the sea-weeds. This is a simple expansion of cellular tissue. But even here we do not find perfectly plane surfaces, facing only two ways, and allow¬ ing the water to glide smoothly and unobstructed over them. The corrugated surfaces of many of them, and in the large leaves of some land-plants, are doubtless due to unequal growths in the cellular tissues; but such a physiological explan¬ ation of this feature does not preclude the supposition of its being a fixed character in a plant, or becoming such in conse- 3 22 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. quence of its utility. It certainly serves the purpose of opposing the leaf-surface to many directions, both with refer¬ ence to the incidence of light, and to the movement of the surrounding medium,—to water-currents, or to breezes. Seg¬ mentation, again, such as is seen in the fronds of brakes or ferns, is another way of bringing the moving medium to impinge on the leaf-surface; but the feasibility of this depends on the fibrous frame-work which the leaves of land-plants have acquired for the support of their softer tissues. Such a seg¬ mentation also appears among the higher plants in compound leaves and in whorls; and, indeed, the whole foliage of trees and shrubs may, from this point of view, be regarded as the reduced segments of the blades of branching fronds, turned in all directions in search of light, and inviting the movements of air through their expanded interstices. Such is the kind of utility that may be claimed for the structure of our hypothet¬ ical spiral frond. Another utility in this structure is obvious when we consider the transition of plant-life from aquatic con¬ ditions to those of the dry land and the air; as vegetation slowly crept from its watery cradle, or was left stranded by the retiring sea. In default of strength in its material, such as a slowly acquired fibrous structure or frame-work ultimately gave to it in this transition, the strongest form would be the most advantageous in sustaining the weight of the no longer buoyant plant. A spiral arrangement of the blade around a compara¬ tively firm, and, perhaps, already somewhat fibrous stem, would come nearer fulfilling this condition than any other conceivable modification of the frond. We have, so far, in conformity to the spiral arrangement in leaves, supposed this twisted frond to be a single-bladed one, or with only one blade developed. This would be a first step in that reduction of leaf-expansion which a more advantageous situation of it would allow; and might be required, even at this early stage of atmospheric plant-life, on account of the greatly increased importance of the roots and stem. But this hypothesis is not necessary in general for the ends we have considered. A two-bladed frond might be similarly twisted and give rise to a double spiral surface like a double spiral ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 323 stair-way, or like the blade of an auger; or such a surface as the two handles of the auger describe as they are revolved, and, at the same time, carried forward in the direction of the boring. The simplest segmentation of such a twisted frond, after the stem had acquired sufficient strength, and such a sub¬ sequent reduction of the segments as might be required for the nutrition of the stem, would give rise to parts, which, turned upwards to face the sky, and also separated, perhaps, by the growth of internodes in the lengthening stem, would result in what we may regard as the original form of whorls, namely, a continuous leaf-like expansion around the stem. The origin of the whorl arrangement itself would thus be distinct, as we have found that it ought to be, from the origin of the relations in the parts of whorls to one another, and to those of adjacent whorls. These would be results of a subsequent segmentation, and would be determined by the utilities which we have con¬ sidered in this and in the spiral arrangements. And so both this and the spiral arrangements as general types of structure, though originating, as I have supposed, in useful relations to former conditions of existence, may be regarded in relation to later developments as useless, and merely inherited or genetic types; the bases on which subsequent utilities had to erect existing adaptations of structure. The segmentation of the single spiral frond would at first have little or no relation to these more refined utilities of arrangement, but out of all the variable and possible arrangements so produced there would be a gradual selection, and a tendency toward the prevalence of those special forms, which are at present the most common ones. The typical or unique angle of the 'theory of Phyl- lotaxy would thus appear to be the goal toward which they tend, rather than the origin of the spiral arrangements. But since a simple cyclic arrangement appears to have also an im¬ portant value, we cannot concede to the typical angle the exclusive dignity of even this position. The segmentation I have supposed in this process should not be regarded as an hypothetical element in it, since it is ^ well-established law of development. Distinct organs are not separately produced from the beginnings of their growth, but 3 2 4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. make part of their progress in conjunction, or while incorpo¬ rated in forms, from which they become afterwards separated; and become then more and more special in their characters, or different from other parts. It is this differentiation and separation of parts out of already grown wholes which dis¬ tinguishes development from mere growth. The analogy of' the- phases of development in embryonic or germinal life to development in general is liable, however, to be carried too far; and the fact is liable to be overlooked, that these phases of growth are special acquisitions of the higher forms of life, which have features of adaptation peculiar to them. But the more general features of them, and the useless, or merely genetic phases, may safely be regarded as traces of past char¬ acters of adaptation, which a change in the mode and order of development has not obliterated; while new adaptations have been added, that have no relation to any past or simpler forms of life, but only to the advantages which embryonic or germinal modes of reproduction have secured. If we should follow out the phases of general development in the progress of the leaf along the line of its highest ascent in development, from the segmentations we have supposed in the twisted frond, we should soon arrive at the steps already familiar in the principles of vegetable morphology. In these we have the same law of segmentation or separation of parts, and the same successive relations of genetic and adaptive characters. What was produced for one purpose becomes serviceable to a new one; and in its capacity as a merely genetic character, or as an inherited feature, becomes the basis for the acquisition of new adaptations. Thus the fibrous structure, at first useful in sustaining the softer tissues of the leaf, becomes the means of a longitudinal development of it, and its more complete expos¬ ure to light and air by the growth of the foot-stalk. This stalk acquires next a new utility in climbing-plants to which it becomes exclusively adapted in the tendril. The adaptive characters of the tendril are its later acquisitions. Its genetic characters, such as its position on the stem, and its relations to the leaves, become useless or merely inherited characters. The contrast of genetic and adaptive characters appears thus ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 3 2 5 to have no absolute value in the structure and lives of organ¬ isms, but only a relative one. The first are related principally to past and generally unknown adaptations; the second to present and more obvious ones. In accordance with this law I have supposed that the gen¬ eral features of the two types of leaf-arrangement, for which no present utilities appear in the lives of the higher plants, were nevertheless useful features in former conditions of vege¬ table life. The more special features of these arrangements should not, from this point of view, be regarded as derived one from another, much less from the typical or unique form of the theory of Phyllotaxy. In one sense they may, indeed, be said to be derived from this form, at least some of them; yet not from it as an actually past form or progenitor, but rather from the utility which it represents in the abstract. I have, how¬ ever, pointed out that another utility, shown in the simpler cyclic arrangements, has an equal claim to this spiritual pater¬ nity. The actual forms of the spiral arrangements in leaves should, therefore, be regarded as forms independently se¬ lected, and as selected on the two principles of utility, which we have considered, out of a very large variety of original forms. We have seen that even those forms which survive include almost all possible ones that could be distinguished; though the more prevalent ones are at present in the minority. We have also seen that the later fact, and the more frequent occurrence of inferior forms among fossil plants, are almost the only grounds on which the inductive foundation of the theory of Phyllotaxy could be regarded as well established. On these grounds, and on this foundation, I have sought by hypothesis to reconstruct the continuity of higher and lower forms in vegetable life; and through this to find the origin of the prin¬ cipal types of arrangement in leaves. The speculation lies wholly within the limits prescribed for legitimate hypothesis in science. It does not assume utilities in themselves unknown, but assumes only unobserved or unknown applications of them, and raises to the rank of essential properties relations of use, which, at first sight, appear to be only accidental ones. At¬ tention may be claimed at the least for it as an illustration of 326 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. the method by which the principle of Natural Selection is to be applied as a working hypothesis in the investigations of general physiology or physical biology. Many features in the structure of leaves, not relating to their arrangements, fall beyond the proper province of this inquiry, but equally illustrate the relative nature of the dis¬ tinction between genetic and adaptive characters. The gen¬ eral character common to all leaves and leaf-like organs has an obvious utility with reference to the function of nutrition. Some special modifications have the purposes of defense, as in the thorn; of mechanical support, as in the tendril; and of reproduction, as in the parts of the flower. But the vast variety of forms which leaves and the parts of flowers present do not suggest any obvious uses. On the theory of adaptation they would naturally be referred to a combination of adaptive and inherited features. A fixed proportion between the two principal tissues in a plant due to some past utility may, with¬ out being changed, become adapted to new external relations, or to new physiological conditions, through various arrange¬ ments of them in the structure of the leaf; and this would give rise to a great variety of forms. The forms of notched and sinuated leaves are referable to that process of segmenta¬ tion and reduction in leaf-expansions, which we have seen to be so important a process in the derivation of the higher plants. But another principle of utility comes into play in the lives of the higher plants, similar to that which appears to be the origin of some of the more conspicuous external characters of animals, namely, what produces distinguishableness and individuation in an animal race. No doubt the laws of inher¬ itance and Natural Selection account for much of the charac¬ ter of individuality in races, or for the fact that variation has a very limited range compared to the differences between species, so far as it affects any useful quality or character. But varia¬ tion, not only in animals, but also in many of the higher plants, is much more limited than these causes seem capable of ac¬ counting for. It is, apparently, as limited in respect to useless though conspicuous features as in those that are of recognized value to life. Sexual Selection, through which the characters ARRANGEMENT OF LEA VES. 327 of animals are chosen by themselves, or brought into relation to their perceptive and other psychical powers, is the cause assigned for this fact in the case of animals; that is, forms are chosen for their appearance, or for the pleasure they give to the senses. But plants have no senses, except a sense of * touch; and they have no other known psychical powers. Nevertheless they present many conspicuous features of beauty to the eye, and many give forth agreeable and characteristic odors. And such characters are apparently as fixed in many of the higher plants as in animals. The theory of types and the doctrine of Final Causes regard this fixedness and individ¬ uality as ends in themselves, or else as existing for the service of some higher form of life, or ultimately even for the uses of human life. But the theory of the adaptation of every feature in a form of life to its own uses is not without resources for the explanation of these characters in plants; for though the plant has no sense to appreciate, or power to select, its own features of individuality and beauty, yet the lives of many of the higher plants are essentially dependent on such power in insects; so that whatever character renders them attractive to insects, or distinguishable by their sight, may be said to be of use to plants for the ends of reproduction, and tends in this way to become a fixed or only slightly variable character. That this cause may have acted not only to determine definite shapes, colors, and odors in flowers, but also definite features in the foliage of plants, as the marks or signs of these, and that the value of such signs may have determined a greater degree of fixedness or constancy in the arrangements, as well as in the shapes of leaves, is an hypothesis that may be added to those we have already considered, concerning the utilities of these arrangements. This cause would tend to give promi¬ nence to those features in arrangement which are most con¬ spicuous to the eye, namely, those of cyclic regularity and simplicity. Such an explanation of this cyclic character, or the simple and definite arrangements of leaves at short inter¬ vals in vertical lines on the stem, or the utility of this as a dis¬ tinguishing character of the plant, is not inconsistent with the physiological utility in these arrangements, which I have 3 28 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. pointed out; but the two, in co-operating to the production of the same forms, would illustrate a principle in the economy of life which has a wide application,—the principle of indirect utility or correlative acquisition, dependent on ultimate laws in physical and mental natures,—through which independent utilities are realized by the same means, or the same means are made serviceable to more than one distinct end. In such ulti¬ mate, underived relations' of adaptation in nature, we find principles of connection and a unity of plan which cannot be referred to any accidents of history or development. McCOSH ON INTUITIONS.* The philosophical and religious writings of Dr. McCosh have already secured for him a prominent position among living thinkers, and considerable influence both in Great Brit¬ ain and America. The present work f exhibits so much ability, good sense, and philosophical acumen that it will doubt¬ less increase his reputation and prove him a worthy successor of the distinguished metaphysicians who have rendered his native land famous in the contests of philosophy. Though in many respects original, professing to follow no school, and in reality independent in its spirit of all authority but that of the religious truths in behalf of which it is written, this work is nevertheless substantially a development from the Scottish school. The author regards in the same light with this school the range and province of metaphysical inquiry, and treats the doctrines of all other schools in the same spirit. He finds in the writings of Reid and Stewart, it is true, statements which would logically “land us in very serious consequences,” but with the essence of their doctrines, and especially with the natural realism of Sir William Hamilton, he strongly sympa¬ thizes, though he goes somewhat beyond Hamilton in his theory of immediate consciousness. His principal problem appears to have been to discover a theory of consciousness which shall assure us of as much as possible without carrying our assent on to the extremes to ‘which the statements of philosophers too often logically tend. He seeks, that is, for a theory which shall assure us of the *From The Nation, Nov. 16, 1865. t “ The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively Investigated. By the Rev. James Mc¬ Cosh, LL.D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen’s College, Belfast.” New and revised edition. 8vo pp. 444. 33° _ PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. reality and permanence of the external world without leading us into materialism, or into a belief of the absolute permanence of matter; which shall assure us of the reality of cause and effect and the existence of power in the world without bringing us to the “dismal consequences” to which Kant’s analysis of causation appears to lead; a theory which shall guarantee us a knowledge of substance or substantive reality, without upsetting our personality and landing us in pantheism; and which, at the same time, shall be free from the psychological objections that, since the time of Locke, have been urged against certain forms of the doctrine of intuitive universal truths. A fundamental principle of Dr. McCosh’s system is that the mind always begins with the concrete, the singular, and the individual in its acquisition of knowledge, and arrives at uni¬ versal truths—not, indeed, as the results of a process, but in the course of a process, in which the elements of universal judgments must be produced by particular experiences and special judgments. These particulars are, however, of such a nature that they warrant' the universal judgment, not by the cumulative force of experience, but by the inherent force of each particular conviction, which comes from a power in the mind, and only awaits the formation of the proper formula by generalization in order to pronounce a decision of a universal character. The author thus avoids the objections which have been so often urged against the doctrine of innate ideas. Universal judgments exist, he thinks, in the mind originally only as laws of our mental faculties, determining them to “look for” cer¬ tain facts which are really universal, but are only discovered in individual cases; and the individual decisions carry in them the truth of the universal. Having thus defined intuitive knowledge, our author pro¬ ceeds to show how such knowledge can be distinguished from* other kinds, and he lays down the tests which the philosophy of common sense has prescribed in the writings of the Scottish school, the tests, namely, of self-evidence, necessity, and cath¬ olicity or universality in human beliefs. He divides the cog- Me COSH ON INTUITIONS. 33* nitive acts of the mind into three species, and adopts as the generic name for them the theological term “convictions.” There are the cognitive convictions, which decide immediately that an object exists, not only in relation to our faculties, but independently of them. By our cognitions we know, through sense-perception and self-consciousness, that something in particular exists, has existed, and will continue to exist. In other words, that something has present existence and present permanence. Such cognitions also decide immediately that the thing exists in space or is extended; also that it has power, or is a cause and will produce an effect. All this the intuitive powers of cognition anticipate by their innate nature, and they “look for” and discover all this in special experiences. Such intuitions precede, both logically and chronologically, all other “convictions.” In this the author dissents from Hamilton’s doctrine, which supposes a faculty of faith to un¬ derlie all our cognitive acts. “ Intuitive beliefs ” form with him a derived class of “convictions”—not derived from our cognitions logically, but from them as furnishing the materials on which a new class of intuitive powers are brought to bear. Our faith-intuitions have no real objects presented to them. “I hold,” says the author, “that knowledge, psychologically considered, appears first, and then faith. But around our original cognitions there grows and clusters a body of primi¬ tive beliefs, which goes far beyond our personal knowledge.” Again he says : “ Faith collects round our observational knowl¬ edge and even around the conclusions reached by inference.” His examples of primitive faiths are our beliefs in the infinity of time and space, and in infinity as an attribute of the nature of the Deity. They are “beliefs gathering round space, time, and the infinite.” The third class of primitive convictions are called “primi¬ tive judgments,” and have for their objects the relations of the things with which our cognitions are conversant; and they arise from a power in the mind to anticipate, to the extent of looking for, certain necessary relations among objects, such as their necessary relations in space and time, the facts, for example, that the straight line is the shortest distance between 33 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. two points, and that two straight lines cannot inclose a space, and the like. Such are the author’s analysis and description of our primitive convictions, the tests of which are, first, their self¬ evidence; secondly, and dependent on this, their necessity; and thirdly, their catholicity. Self-evidence is the fact that the conviction exists in our own minds and exists independently of any other facts. Necessity of belief or the irresistible charac¬ ter of the conviction follows, according to the author, from this self-evidence. “ I would not,” he says, “ ground the evi¬ dence on the necessity of belief, but I would ascribe the irre¬ sistible nature of the conviction to the self-evidence. As the necessity flows from the self-evidence, so it may become a test of it, and a test not difficult of application.” Catholicity is also a derivative test, and, “when conjoined with necessity, may determine very readily and precisely whether a conviction be intuitive;” but all these tests “apply directly only to indi¬ vidual convictions. To the generalized expression of them the tests apply only mediately, and on the supposition and condition that the formulae are the proper expression of the spontaneous perceptions.” Originally these convictions are laws of the perceptive faculties guiding their action, though not determining their objects. Their objects are really discov¬ ered, and the conviction is primarily held, only in respect to particular perceptions or judgments. Generalizations are then made, but they are generalizations “ of convictions in our own minds, each of which carries necessity in it.” There are, therefore, according to the author, two fundamentally distinct kinds of generalization, and in this respect his doctrine is quite original. Laws or general facts may be derived from an expe¬ rience, necessarily limited, of facts which are either inferences more or less perfectly drawn from intuitive perceptions, or else facts at which no power of the mind “looks” intuitively, but which find their way into the mind by the force of repeat¬ ed experiences. These are laws which say nothing about the possible; they only testify of the actual. But the laws which are immediate generalizations from intuitive perceptions and judgments “are of a higher and deeper nature; they are gen- McCOSH ON INTUITIONS . 333 eralizations of convictions carrying necessity with them, and a consequent universality in their very nature.” This is briefly our author’s system, which he proceeds to apply to the various problems of metaphysics, such as the reality of cause and substance, and the self, and the external world. In ingenuity this theory appears to us to exceed any¬ thing which has come from the Scottish school, and in pliancy it exceeds, we think, any system which has ever been pro¬ pounded. The extremes of philosophy are avoided by it with surprising agility. If any proposition be laid down as uni¬ versally true from which logical consequences of a heterodox character are deducible, this system affords the means of mod¬ ifying the proposition without impairing in any measure the evidence of its universality, since the infallible powers do not testify to the truth of any formula immediately, but only in so far as the formula represents the particular decisions of the mind. If, on the other hand, the “sceptic” calls in question the universality of any truth on the ground that the mind is cognizant only of the particular, or doubts the necessity of a belief on the ground that all experience is of the contingent, our author admits his grounds but denies that his conclusions follow, since universality and necessity do not come from the particulars of contingent experience as such, but from the pow¬ ers of the mind looking through these into reality, and decid¬ ing absolutely only in regard to the particulars. It is to be regretted, however, that the author does not give us a more explicit account of what he means by such expres¬ sions as “primitive particular convictions carrying necessity with them, and a consequent universality in their very nature.” In all the definitions of necessity with which we are acquaint¬ ed, we have nowhere found it extended beyond the facts and the logical consequences of the facts in which it is supposed to exist primitively. That the universal does not follow log¬ ically from the particular or from any number of particulars, is what the author strenuously maintains. How, then, do the particulars carry in them the necessity of the universal ? for this is what we understand the author’s expressions to mean. How unless it be that the particulars are known simply as 334 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. instances of the universal, the truth of which we possess as an independent knowledge ? But such an independent knowl¬ edge of the universal the author as strenuously denies. The universal comes to consciousness, he thinks, only through the particulars, yet not by the way of suggestion or an awakening of a dormant truth, but rather as a fact which the particular contains in itself. It is not, according to the author, from the objects of intuition on one hand, nor from the powers of intu¬ ition on the other, that the truth of a universal proposition becomes known. This is obtained by the generalization of particular decisions of the mind. In the general maxim the mind ^-cognizes what it has previously cognized in each and every one of the particular cases. The underived necessity of the particular conviction is somehow translated into the universal truth of the general maxim. The author probably attaches to the word “necessity” a peculiar sense, as something more than mere cogency of be¬ lief, though he nowhere defines it in any other signification. There is a real and important logical distinction involved in this word, which renders the author’s theory intelligible enough, though quite a different doctrine from what he intends to set forth. There is a distinction in the logical use of the word necessity, as opposed to contingency, which relates not to the cogency of the belief with which a fact is held, but to the connection of the fact itself with other facts in our experience. When we say that “ anything must be or must be so and so,” we mean to express something different from the statement that “ this thing is or is so and so; ” yet this difference does not refer to the originality, simplicity, or cogency of our belief in the statement. The copulas must be and ccuinot be involve in them universal propositions, though they connect only indi¬ vidual or particular terms. They mean that the truth they predicate is unconditional—is independent of any other facts; that there exists nothing to prevent the thing from being, or being so and so; or that the particular fact does not de¬ pend on any conditions which we can suppose from the evi¬ dence of experience to be variable. From the particular proposition, “ These two straight lines cannot inclose a space,” McCOSH ON INTUITIONS. 335 may be deduced, through the universality implied in the cop¬ ula, the universal proposition, “No two straight lines can in¬ close a space.” For “cannot” here means that there are no conditions, or supposable variations of conditions, which will make a closed figure of these two lines. But the evidence on which such a fact rests will be equally good for any other two straight lines, since a change from these to another pair will not affect the conditions on which the truth of the particular case depends. Hence, “no pair of straight lines can inclose a space.” This follows from the unconditionalness of a particu¬ lar fact—not from the cogency of our belief in it. This co¬ gency is quite another affair. By overlooking the universal, which is implied in an un¬ conditional, particular proposition, our author has sought for the origin of the corresponding explicit universal in the char¬ acter of our particular convictions as mental acts; whereas this character of universality really depends on the relations of particular facts to our experiences generally. We, there¬ fore, come back to the difficulty, still unsolved, as to how we derive universality from a limited experience. Upon this Dr. McCosh lays down the usual dictum of his school. He says that “a very wide and uniform experience would justify a general expectation but not a necessary conviction; and this experience is liable to be disturbed at any time by a new occurrence inconsistent with what has been previously known to us.” But whence this liability ? On what evidence is it supposed ? Are we informed of it by an intuition or by experience ? If by the former, then we have intuitions about other generalizations than universal ones, which is contrary to our author’s theory. If by the latter, then our experience is not uniform, which is contrary to his special hypothesis. As he, therefore, shuts himself off from both these sources of in¬ formation on the subject, we are left no alternative but to con* elude that his statement about the liability of our uniform experiences to be disturbed is wholly gratuitous and a begging of the question. Or perhaps he means that propositions which we do not feel obliged to believe, though not contra¬ dicted in our experience, should yet, from their analogy with 33 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. others which are occasionally contradicted, be regarded as liable to exception. But again we demand, Whence is the force of this analogy ? What right have we to draw such a conclusion ? Is it not also a virtual begging of the question? For, suppose it true, what the opposite school of philosophy teach, that there exist certain universal facts, not born into the mind either as innate ideas or as laws of its faculties, )ut existing as the universal circumstances into which the nind is born. There could be no exceptions to the uniformity )f our experience of such facts, even if there were no ne¬ cessity in our convictions of them; and although, as our author’s school believe, we always do have necessary convic¬ tions of such facts and of no others, the doctrine must rest, after all, on the evidence of induction—on the observation that the mark, of necessity always does attend uncontradicted truths and no others. But the history of science as well as the discussions of philosophy contradict this induction. “There was a time,” says Mr. Mill, “when men of the most cultivated intellects and the most emancipated from the dominion of early prejudice, would not credit the existence of antipodes.” Our author, after quoting this example, ob¬ serves : “ I acknowledge that the tests of intuition have often been loosely stated, and that they have also been illegitimately applied, just as the laws of derivative logic have been. But they have seldom or never been put in the ambiguous form in which Mr. Mill understands them, and it is only in such a shape that they could ever be supposed to cover such beliefs as the rejection of the rotundity of the earth. ... It is not the power of conception, in the sense either of phantasm or notion, that should be used as a test, but it is self-evidence with necessity.” He then proceeds to understate the facts of the case thus: “There was a time when even educated men felt a difficulty in conceiving the antipodes, because it seemed contrary not to intuition but to their limited experi¬ ence; but surely no one knowing anything of philosophy or of what he was speaking would have maintained, at any time, that it was self-evident that the earth could not be round.” On this we have to observe, in the first place, that Me COSH ON INTUITIONS. 337 the difficulty of conceiving the antipodes was not, as the author appears to think, a difficulty of conceiving the ro¬ tundity of the earth, but a difficulty of conceiving men stand¬ ing on the opposite side of the round earth, without having their feet stuck on, like flies to a ceiling, and this difficulty was such that these philosophers could not be made to credit its possibility; in other words, they had one of Dr. McCosh’s intuitions on the matter. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who follows the Scottish school in positing belief as a valid and ultimate test of the truths of universals, attempts to explain away this historical example by limiting the test to what is simple and “ undecomposable,” and he supposes the conception of the antipodes to have been difficult or impossible to the ancients, and the fact to have been incredible, on account of the com¬ plexity of the conception. But we suspect the case to have been just the reverse of this. The antipodes were incredible to the ancients because they conceived the fact as a simple and unconditional one, and in contradiction of the equally simple and unconditional fact of their own standing on the earth. And it is because we in modern times are able to resolve both facts into the conditions on which they depend that they are seen not to be contradictory. So long as “down” was con¬ ceived as an absolute direction in the universe, dependent on nothing but its own nature, so long were the antipodes in¬ credible and stood in contradiction of as simple, original, and necessary a belief as “ that two straight lines cannot inclose a space.” In short, the ancients had in this case all the tests which the Scottish school apply as ultimate in the ascertain¬ ment of truth. But what can be more ultimate ? What other tests are there ? this school demand. Perhaps there are no tests of a general character, or of simple and easy application; but, without awaiting an answer, this s*chool describe all those who oppose them as “sceptics,” deniers of truth; whereas what the so-called “sceptics,” “idealists,” and “sensationalists” deny is only the validity of these tests as ultimate ones. What nobody doubts or calls in question, that, of course, nobody wants a test for, though it may be a useful and in- 15 33 8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. structive exercise in philosophy to generalize the conditions of ultimate credibility. But such conditions are illegitimately used as an appeal from the doubts or questions of philosophy. The Scottish school, half aware of this, commonly describe the opinions and doubts from which they appeal to intuition and common sense as either insincere or as positively wicked, and our author, in particular, regards all the errors and mis¬ takes of philosophers as coming from a perverse will, from their not yielding to their intuitive, heaven-born convictions. He describes his opponents as “opponents of intuitive truth,” whereas they only oppose the theory which regards our sim¬ plest and most certain convictions as derived from a different source from that which assures us of all else that we know, namely, our experience of the world and of our own thoughts. The “sceptic” does not deny that our knowledges are pro¬ duced according to laws which may be discovered in them by comparison and generalization, and his doubts and questions about metaphysical truths, such as the relation of cause and effect and the existence of the external world, are doubts and questions, not about the reality of these knowledges, but about the kind of reality they have, and this must be deter¬ mined, he thinks, by the nature of the evidence on which they rest. The “sceptic” does not deny that many of his beliefs are unconditional or necessary. He only denies that this quality is a proof of their simplicity or originality, and on this ac¬ count he doubtless holds to them somewhat less willfully. By necessity he means unconditionalness, or that the fact is inde¬ pendent of all other known facts and conditions. Whatever the word necessity means more than this, comes, he thinks, from a rhetorical fervor of assertion; as if one should say, “This must be so,” meaning that he is determined that it shall be so. This sort of self-determination in their convictions the Scottish school doubtless have, and they are probably correct in not ascribing it to the evidence of experience; but then they are wrong in thinking that it comes from the reason since, in fact, its real origin is in the will. The appeal from the “sceptic’s” questions to common sense McCOSH ON INTUITIONS. 339 is inept in two important particulars. In the first place, the appeal is an ignoratio elenchi , for the questions are not ques¬ tions of facts but questions of their philosophical explanations : questions of the origin and nature of the facts as knowledges. These have nothing to do with the cogency or simplicity of our beliefs, except to explain them. When the “sceptic” asks why some beliefs are so much more cogent than others, he is accused by this school of doubting whether they really are so, and he is referred for an explanation to the very facts which he seeks to explain. But, in the second place, no dis¬ cussion is legitimate which appeals to an oracle not acknowl¬ edged by both parties. The proper appeal in all disputes is to common principles explicitly announced and understood in the same sense by both disputants. It is common, indeed, in physical investigations to speak of an appeal to experiment or to observation; still, by this is meant, not an appeal from anybody’s decision or opinion, but from everybody’s ignorance of the facts of the case. The facts in philosophy are so noto¬ rious that this sort of appeal is not required. What is sought by the so-called “sceptic” is the nature of the fact, its ex¬ planation; and he is not deterred from the inquiry by the seeming simplicity of the fact, but proceeds, like the astron¬ omer, and the physicist, and the naturalist, by framing and verifying hypotheses to reduce the simple seeming to its sim¬ pler reality. In this the idealist does not deny that there is an existence properly enough called the external world, but he wishes to ascertain the nature of this reality by studying what the notion of externality really implies; what are the circumstances attending its rise in our thoughts, and its proba¬ ble growth in our experience. In this research he does not forget that all explanation ultimately rests on the inexplicable ; that “ there is no appeal from our faculties generally; ” he only denies that the present simplicity of a fact in our thoughts is a test of its primitive simplicity in the growth of the mind. For such a test would have deterred the as¬ tronomer from questioning the Ptolemaic system and the stability of the earth, or the physicist from calling in question nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum. 340 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. The oracular deliverances of consciousness, even when con * suited by the most approved maxims of interrogation, cannot present a fact in the isolated, untheoretical form which criti¬ cism and scientific investigation demand. Philosophers are not the only theorizers. The vulgar, and the philosophei himself as one of them, have certain theoretical prepossessions, natural explanations and classifications of the phenomena which are habitually brought to their notice—such as the apparent movements of the heavens, and the axioms of hourly experience. How are these natural theories to be eliminated ? How unless by criticism—by just such criticisms as those of-the great “sceptic” Hume? But while the criticisms of Hume awoke the philosopher of Konigsberg from his “dog¬ matic slumber,” and gave rise to the greatest philosophical movement of modern times, it appeared to affect the “scep¬ tic’s” own countrymen only to plunge them into a profound dogmatic coma. The “sceptic” seemed to these philosophers to deny truth itself, and to demand a proof for everything. “There are truths,” says our author, “above probation, but there are none above examination, and the truths above proof are those which bear inspection the best.” This is the key to the whole Scottish method. The inspection of truths as to their credibility seems to these thinkers to be the chief busi¬ ness of philosophy. As if truths were on trial for their lives! As if the “sceptic” desired worse of them than their better acquaintance! An appeal to an oracle silences but does not settle disputes. Principles to start from must be those for which no explana¬ tion is supposable. The existence of undisputed and indis¬ putable facts is denied by no philosopher, and every true philosopher seeks for such facts; the “idealists” and the “sensationalists” as well as the rest. But idealism was ever a stumbling-block to the Scottish school, so much so that their intuitions seem to spring directly from an innate inability in the thinkers of that nation to understand this doctrine. They appear unable to distinguish between questions concerning the origin of an idea and a doubt of its reality. It is much as if a Ptolemaic astronomer should accuse a Copernican Me COSH ON INTUITIONS. 341 of denying or ignoring the visible changes in the aspects of the heavens. The “sceptic” does not doubt peremptorily, but always for cause. He does not profess to doubt realities or principles, but only whether certain truths ar-e principles or simple cog¬ nitions, and whether they are cognitions having the kind of reality they are vulgarly supposed to have. There would be a sort of grim humor in our author’s discussion of “what are we to do to the sceptic ? ” and what we should and what we should not do for him, were it not that the discussion is too obviously a serious one. The author does not see that what we ought to do is to try to understand the “sceptic,” and what we ought not to do is to misrepresent him. “ Precipitate and incorrect as Hume’s conclusion was ” con¬ cerning the possibility of a science of metaphysics, “yet,” says Kant, “ it was at least founded on investigation, and this investigation was well worthy that all the best intellects of his time should have united successfully to solve the problem, and, if possible, in the temper in which he proposed it, for from this a total reform of the science must soon have arisen. Only the unpropitious fate of his metaphysic would have it that it should be understood by none. One cannot without a certain feeling of pain see how utterly his adversaries, Reid, Oswald, Beattie, and later Priestly also, missed the point of his problem. By continually taking for granted just what he doubted, but on the other hand proving with vehemence, and, what is more, with great indecorum, what it never came into his head to doubt, they so mistook his hint towards im¬ provement that everything remained in the old state, as though nothing had happened.”—[. Prolegomena to every Future Meta- physic which can he put forth as a science. Introduction.] We will only add that our author has not improved upon his predecessors. MASSON’S RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY.* With the true metaphysician the real motive of his pursuit is, of course, his belief in its success and in the value of the truths, as such, which he aims to establish. But, in addition to this motive, many minds discover a certain dignity and ab¬ solute worth in the pursuit itself—in the exercise of powers which, though they should fail of their end, are regarded as the noblest and the most distinctive of the tendencies native to the human mind. To this somewhat sentimental view of the value of metaphysical studies, Sir William Hamilton gave his powerful support, and his disciple, Mr. Masson, urges it in apology for his Review, t The “greatest and most character¬ istic merit of Sir William Hamilton among his contemporaries consisted,” according to Mr. Masson, “in his having been, while he lived, the most ardent and impassioned devotee of the useless within Great Britain.” Mr. Masson does not tell us whether Hamilton has since his death been surpassed in this excellence; but on no point in metaphysics does Mr. Mas¬ son himself take a more decided stand than on this its claim to be a very ennobling pursuit. Of a nation which should cease to care for metaphysics, he says that it “ has the mark of the beast upon it, and is going the way of all brutality.” On more specific points of metaphysical doctrine, Mr. Mas¬ son’s opinions are not so distinctly set forth. He manifests, however, a certain affection for transcendentalism, and a confi¬ dence that there is something in it. But his aim in this volume is not so much to set forth his own opinions as to sketch the relations of the different philosophical systems that have been * From The Nation, November 15, 1866. t “Recent British Philosophy: A Review, with criticisms; including some comments on Mr. Mill’s answer to Sir William Hamilton. By David Masson.” New York: 1866 MASSON’S RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY. 343 most influential in Great Britain during the past thirty years, with reference chiefly to the writings of Sir William Hamilton, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Carlyle. For this purpose he lays down, first, a scheme for the classi¬ fication of possible metaphysical opinions, following Sir Wil¬ liam Hamilton’s method, and, for the most part, adopting Hamilton’s divisions and nomenclature. An admiring imitator of Hamilton’s emphatic style, he divides and defines with a firmness, rather than a fineness, of discrimination. Starting with an a priori scheme of possible metaphysical opinions, he tries the doctrines of his three philosophers by it, and assigns them to their appropriate classes. A convenient original feature in his scheme enables him to accomplish this with considerable success. He distinguishes three forms of metaphysical belief, or three generic grounds of difference in philosophical opinion. A philosopher’s opinions may belong to his “psychological theory,” to his “cosmological conception,” or to his “ontolog¬ ical faith.” If his opinion is given in answer to the question, “ Is any portion of our knowledge of a different origin from the rest, and of a different degree of validity in consequence of that different origin ? ” or “ Are there any notions, princi¬ ples, or elements in our minds which could never have been fabricated out of any amount of experience, but must have been bedded in the very structure of the mind itself?”—then his opinion will be the philosopher’s “psychological theory,” and he will be an “empiricist” or a “transcendentalist,” accord¬ ing as he answers these questions in the negative or affirmative. The most curious and original part of Mr. Masson’s scheme is the doctrine that the philosopher’s “cosmological concep¬ tion” may be quite independent of his psychological theory;” that, in fact, any one may have a very distinct “cosmological conception” without any “psychological theory” at all. “A psychological theory” is a learned luxury, but every one has some sort of “ cosmological conception ” which is bodied forth in his sensuous image of the universe as a whole, and made up of his ideas of religion and history and the eternal verities of the world. Philosophers are fundamentally divided, as to their “ cosmo 344 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. logical conceptions,” into realists and idealists, and subdivided into “materialistic realists” and “dualistic realists;” or “nat¬ ural realists,” on one hand, and into “constructive idealists” and “pure idealists,” on the other. These four subdivisions are flanked by two extreme classes of opinion: nihilism or non-substantialism, on one hand, and pantheism or the “abso¬ lute identity” doctrine, on the other. These extreme classes involve, however, ontological considerations, and depend on the third generic ground of difference in philosophical opinion —on the philosopher’s “ontological faith.” Ontology means the science of the supernatural, of the non-phenomenal. Can there be such a science ? This ques¬ tion admits, according to Mr. Masson, of a division into two: “ Is there a supernatural, and can the supernatural be known ? ” By the great majority of philosophers these questions are answered in the order in which Mr. Masson puts them: the first in the affirmative and the second in the negative; though it is a puzzle to the sceptic to understand how men can con¬ fess a belief in anything of which they profess themselves utterly ignorant. But Mr. Masson offers an ingenious ex¬ planation. “ Ontological faith,” when it exists, depends not on evidence of any kind—the word faith connotes that—but on the existence in the philosopher of what Mr. Masson calls, euphemistically, “the ontological passion,” “the rage of on¬ tology,” or “the sentiment of ontology.” “What has genius been,” he exclaims, “what has religious propagandism been, but a metaphysical drunkenness ? ” In its manifestation this passion appears to us very nearly akin to what, in the modern sense of the word, is expressed by “dogmatism.” A dogma¬ tist is one who is fond of strong assertions, who concludes with his will, and reaches his conclusion by going to it when he finds no power, natural or supernatural, by which the mountain can be forced to come to him. But Mr. Masson appears innocently unconscious of this synonym. By the help of the “ontological passion” and his scheme of classification he discovers the relations between the opin¬ ions of his three philosophers, especially between those of Hamilton and Mill, “one of whom may be described as a MASSON'S RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY. 343 transcendental natural realist, forswearing speculative ontol¬ ogy, but with much of the ontological passion in his temper; and the other as an empirical idealist, also repudiating on¬ tology, but doing so with the ease of one in whom the on¬ tological feeling was at any rate suppressed or languid.” The earlier chapters of Mr. Masson’s book, which had gone to press before the publication of Mill’s “Examination of Hamilton,” anticipate two of Mr. Mill’s principal criticisms. The apparent discrepancy between Hamilton’s philosophy of the conditioned, or doctrine of relative knowledge, and his natural realism, or doctrine of the immediate perception of the primary qualities of matter, is explained by Mr. Masson by referring the former to Hamilton’s ontological doctrine, and the latter to his “cosmological conception;” and the apparent inconsistency of Hamilton’s philosophy of the con¬ ditioned with his theological positions is explained, as we have seen, by the degree to which he was possessed with the “on¬ tological passion.” “Transcendental natural realism in Hamilton, announcing itself as anti-ontological but with strong theological sympa¬ thies, and empirical, constructive idealism in Mill, also an¬ nouncing itself as anti-ontological, but consenting to leave the main theological questions open on pretty strict conditions— such,” it seems to Mr. Masson, “were the two philosophical angels that began to contend formally for the soul of Britain about thifty years ago, and that are still contending for as much of it as has not in the mean time transported itself beyond the reach of either.” Whether any of it has done so, and how much, and where it has gone, are matters which Mr. Masson proceeds to discuss in his chapter on “the effects of recent scientific conceptions on philosophy.” Having in this chapter got off the scaffolding of his classification, he appears to us to have fallen into the most bewildering confu¬ sion. That part of the soul of Britain which appears to him to have got beyond the reach of traditional differences in philosophy, has done so, it seems to us, by confounding them with the vaguer scientific speculations which, according to Mr. Masson, have wrought this great change. 34-6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. The idea that the world existed for innumerable ages with* out sentient life; that this life was gradually developed until it appeared in the full splendor of the human soul; that the earth and its history are but accidents in a grander cosmos, and that it and the cosmos are destined to an ultimate and universal collapse, to be refunded into a new homogeneous nebula, and to furnish elements to a new creation—this evolu¬ tion from nebula, and this dissolution into nebula, repeated without end, making sentient life, the animal nature, and the human mind only phases of a continuous evolution—such ideas, our author thinks, make metaphysics stand aghast. What becomes of a priori and a posteriori, of transcendental¬ ism and empiricism, when everything is a product and at the same time a factor; when nothing is primordial but nebula, and nebula neither matter nor mind, but the undifferentiated • root of both ? But Mr. Masson’s faith in transcendentalism, as he understands it, is proof against this new phase of thought. He thinks that under these new scientific concep¬ tions transcendentalism and empiricism go a neck-and-neck race back through the ages, but that transcendentalism will get ahead at the nebula. Now, in all this Mr. Masson has confused the philosophical dogma of an a priori determination of knowledge with the doctrine of heredity, the doctrine, to wit, that dispositions, tendencies to action, and perhaps, also, certain elements of knowledge, are derived by birth from the characters and mental powers of progenitors. He explicitly identifies the two by affirming that the doctrine of heredity is inconsistent with empiricism in philosophy. For this confusion he is probably indebted to Mr. Spencer, to whom the world owes the introduction in philosophy of these confounding scientific conceptions. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Masson do not appear to be aware that, by “an a priori ground of knowledge,” no reference is meant in philosophy to physical or physiological antecedency or causation, but only to the logical grounds of belief, or to the evidence of certain general propositions. The principal question of philosophy is, whether any general truth is known by any mind except in consequence—the MASSON'S RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY. 347 evidential consequence—of particular experiences, or else de¬ ductively. If it could be made out that certain general elements of knowledge are born in any mind in consequence of particular experiences in its progenitors, this would still be empiricism, and Mr. Spencer therefore professes empiricism, though he does not appear to know it. For transcendentalism maintains that certain so-called a priori elements of knowl¬ edge or general truths could not be vouched for by any amount of particular experience; and it is non-essential whether this experience be in the offspring or in its pro¬ genitors, even back to the nebula. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Masson have, therefore, got beyond the reach of “the two philosophical angels ” only by getting confused by their scien¬ tific conceptions. These nebulous conceptions have also dimmed Mr. Mas¬ son’s vision of another metaphysical doctrine, that of the cosmothetic idealists, as Hamilton called them, or, as Mr. Masson prefers to call them, the constructive idealists. Either he was misled by his own terminology, or for some other reason, he has assumed that the idealism of the majority of philosophers, including Mr. Mill, presupposed the existence of a perceiving mind to constitute a cosmos. To constitute a conceived cosmos, or the cosmos as known , it is undoubtedly necessary that a mind should exist to know it, or to be aware of its effects upon mind; but that the contemplation of such a mind is necessary to the absolute existence of a cosmos can be inferred from nothing in the doctrine of idealism; and it is only inferable, so far as we can see, from the connotation of the name which Mr. Masson gives to the more common form of the doctrine—from the name constructive idealism. He is puzzled to conceive how, on the idealist’s theory, the world could have had a progress and a history prior to its development of a perceiving mind, except, perhaps, in the mind of its Creator, who might be supposed to “ have con¬ tinued the necessary contemplation.” We had before supposed that the scientific conceptions, which appear to have befogged our author, had not attained to such a degree of nebulosity as to represent the universe at 34 ^ PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. any time as of a nature incompatible with the existence of a perceiving mind, however unfit it may have been for the sustenance of the animal body with its perceptive organs; and we imagined that the history of the progress contem¬ plated in these conceptions was one which w&s conceived as it would have appeared had it really existed and had minds existed to perceive it. But if the regress towards the nebula carry us back towards a state of things which would have been not only inhospitable but also incompatible with a dis¬ tinct mental existence, then we confess that either idealism or else these scientific conceptions are much at fault. But, inas¬ much as these are still conceptions, however indistinct, we cannot hesitate to give credit to idealism rather than to such self-annihilating thoughts. Thoughts of a state of things in which thought was impossible must be very transcendental indeed. Independently of the perturbing influence of modern sci¬ entific conceptions, Mr. Masson’s account of recent British philosophy is not free from confusion. In revising in his last chapter his classification of Mill’s opinions as set forth in the “Examination” of Hamilton’s doctrines, Mr. Masson ventures to maintain that Mr. Mill’s empiricism 1 is inconsistent with the position of the positivists, that the main theological questions should be open questions in the most advanced school of philosophy. He “can see no interpretation of Mr. Mill’s fundamental principle of empiricism, according to which those questions of a supernatural, which he would keep open, ought not to be, at once and forever, closed questions.” A question is closed when we have a knowledge precluding the possibility of evidence to the contrary, or where we are ignorant beyond the possibility of enlightenment. An on¬ tological knowledge of the supernatural, or even of the nat¬ ural—that is, a knowledge of anything existing by itself and independently of its effects on us—is, according to the ex¬ periential philosophy, a closed question. But a phenomenal knowledge of the supernatural is nevertheless a question still open until it be shown, beyond the possibility of rational or well-founded doubt, that the law of causation is, or is not, MASSON'S RECENT BRITISH PHILOSOPHY. 349 universal, and that absolute personal agency or free undeter¬ mined voluntary actions have, or have not, determined at any time the order or constitution of nature—difficult ques¬ tions, it is true, but still open ones. Mr. Masson implicitly identifies theology with ontology—the supernatural'with the non-phenomenal—and thus implicitly denies that anything can be known of the supernatural, unless it be known absolutely, or in itself. This is to stake all religious in¬ quiry on the truth of transcendental ontology, a position which Mr. Masson, as a liberal historian of philosophy, can¬ not affirm as the final conclusion of his inquiry, or as war¬ ranted by any reasons he has advanced. MANSEL’S REPLY TO MILL.* That the two great schools of philosophy will never be able to make much impression on one another by way of criticism seems pretty evident from the history of the long debate the last words of which reach us in Mr. Mansel’s restatement and defense of Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy.! The only real strength of either school appears to be in its ability to hold and fill the minds of its disciples to the exclusion of the other, not by logical refutations but by competitive rivalry in meeting the intellectual demands of the thinker. Few minds could be tempted, even were they competent to do so, to stand in fair judgment between these contestants, and the only feasible course of this sort ever recommended was that of Pyrrho, who advised his disciples to stand aside rather and to attend only to the practical questions of life. For, after all, the intellectual demands which these philosophies are calcu¬ lated to meet are creations of the philosophies themselves, and once created they find their food only in the parent thought. Thus, the main summary objection which the meta¬ physical spirit makes to the theories of the sceptical school is, that they fail to answer the questions which the metaphysical school has started. And the main objection of the sceptical spirit to metaphysics is, that these questions are gratuitous, idle, and foolish. A compromise between the two schools was nevertheless attempted by Sir William Hamilton in his “ Philosophy of the * From The Nation, January io, 1867. t “The Philosophy of the Conditioned; comprising some Remarks on Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy and on Mr. J. S. Mill’s Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel, B.D.” 1866. Pp. vii. and 189. Reprinted, with additions, from the “Contemporary Review.” MANSEL'S REEL V TO MILL. 35 1 Conditioned.” This philosophy allows the validity of meta¬ physical problems; allows that the terms and positions of the orthodox philosophy mean something possibly real; but main¬ tains at the same time that these refer to unattainable objects, and that the questions are unanswerable so far as human powers of comprehension can render the facts evident or even intelligible as such. This philosophy is in strict accordance with the teachings of Catholic theology from the earliest times, and it gives great prominence to an essential position of this theology—the antithesis of reason and faith, or the doctrine of a difference in kind between knowledge and belief. The kind of entertainment which, according to the “Phil¬ osophy of the Conditioned,” it is possible for the mind to have of the ideas of metaphysics, far from being a conviction resulting from direct or intuitive evidence, is not even a concep¬ tion of the facts as possibly true. A conception of the terms and of the propositions as such is, of course, not only allowed, but is an essential position of this philosophy. That which is regarded as inconceivable is the union of the terms of these propositions in reality as well as in form—in the facts which are supposed to be stated in the propositions. That such a fact can be entertained or assented to is the common ground of this philosophy and orthodox theology. “Faith” or “sim¬ ple belief” is the name of this assent. But inasmuch as this assent is entirely independent of knowledge or probable evi¬ dence, an independent ground for it is required among the native powers of the mind, and this is also called “faith” or “belief.” Knowledge and partial evidence may aid in fashion¬ ing our ideas of metaphysical facts, but are not regarded as the grounds of our assent to them. To this extent the “Philosophy of the Conditioned” is nothing more than the doctrine of orthodox theology. But its essential feature is this: The faith which is ultimate and independent of knowledge is not in this philosophy a senti¬ ment, the issue of the heart, or a conviction having its ground in aspiration, love, and devotion, but it subsists in the cold light of the intellect itself, where alone intellectual philosophy could profess to find it. It subsists as a logical necessity 35 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. of thinking something to exist which is unthinkable—not merely something which we have not yet thought of—not the unknown simply, but the unknowable. Sir William Hamilton professes to demonstrate this necessity in the passage so often quoted from his review of Cousin. “The conditioned is the mean between two extremes—two inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which can be conceived as possible , but of which, on the principles of con¬ tradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as nec¬ essary ,” etc. This application of the logical laws of contra¬ diction and excluded middle is the gist of the philosophy of the conditioned; and to this Mr. Mill, in his “Examina¬ tion” of Hamilton’s doctrines, has distinctly replied to the following effect: What is the evidence of the impossibility of a middle ground between contradictory propositions ? Simply this: that in all that we know, and in all which we can conceive as possible, there is no such middle ground. What, then, is the evidence in regard to that which we cannot know and cannot conceive as possible ? It is clear that on their proper evidence the laws of excluded middle and con¬ tradiction cannot be extended to such cases, and that such an extension of them is purely gratuitous. What hinders, either in the laws of thought or in our knowledge of things, that there should be an inconceivable middle ground between inconceivable contradictories ? What hinders that both of them or that neither of them should be true, or that truth should be wholly included in what can be understood as true ? To this refutation of the main position of the philosophy of the conditioned, Mr. Mansel makes no reference in his reply, except in a very remote manner, in a passage in which he sneers at Mr. Mill’s apparent ignorance of Hamilton’s doctrine of the reality of space. A favorite illustration with Hamilton of his laws of the conditioned is the equal incon¬ ceivability, as he asserts, of infinite space and space absolutely bounded, one of which, on the ground of their mutual repug¬ nance, must be admitted as real. The fitness of this illustra¬ tion, to say nothing of its truth, depends on its not being confined to space as we know it, but on its extension to the MANSEL'S REPLY TO MILL. 353 really existent space, or space independent of our knowledge, if any such space exists. If no such space exists, then the illustration is wholly inapt. Mr. Mill, therefore, very nat¬ urally attributes to Hamilton the only meaning which could fit his illustration to its use, and he supposes Hamilton to refer to a “noumenon space.” Mr. Mill says: “It is not merely space as cognizable by our sense, but space as it is in itself, which he [Hamilton] affirms must be ei¬ ther of unlimited or of limited extent.” “At this sentence,” exclaims Mr. Mansel, “we fairly stand aghast.” “Space as it is in itself! The noumenon space! Has Mr. Mill been all this while ‘ examining ’ Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy in utter ignorance that the object of that philosophy is the ‘con¬ ditioned in time and space that he accepts Kant’s analysis of time and space as formal necessities of thought, but pro¬ nounces no opinion whatever as to whether time and space can exist as noumena or not?” (p. 138). And so Mr. Man¬ sel runs off on an irrelevant issue from the nearest approach he makes to the gist of the matter. The first sixty pages of Mr. Mansel’s review are devoted to a positive exposition of the metaphysical doctrine of the “unconditioned,” that “highest link in the chain of thought,” that “absolutely first link in a chain of phenomena” about which metaphysicians have gratuitously confused themselves for so many ages. Mr. Mansel endeavors to clear up the matter by discussing the terms employed in the doctrine, and especially the meanings attached to them by Hamilton. He then comes to the trial of Mr. Mill’s “Examination,” and this is his indictment: “Not only is Mr. Mill’s attack on Hamil¬ ton’s philosophy, with the exception of some minor details, unsuccessful; but we are compelled to add that, with regard to the three fundamental doctrines of that philosophy—the relativity of knowledge, the incognizability of the absolute and infinite, and the distinction between reason and faith— Mr. Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether missed the meaning of the theories he is attempting to assail” (p. 63). More specifically he charges Mr. Mill with ignorance of the history of the questions discussed; with frequent perversions 354 PHILOSOPHICAL DLSCUSSIONS. and even inversions of the meanings of the terms employed by Hamilton and other metaphysicians, and with an unpar¬ donable want of familiarity with Plato and with the antiquity of the doctrines which he discovers as absurdities in Hamilton and our author. A scholastic display of subtle learning was probably not Mr. Mill’s object in entering into this debate with the meta¬ physicians. If metaphysical philosophy had been content to remain a purely theoretical philosophy, shut up in its own technicalities, and in the original Greek; if it had disdained to descend into the arena of practical life and to influence men’s conduct, no really earnest critic, like Mr. Mill, would have opposed its pretensions. If it had not translated itself into the vernacular, and wrested words of a familiar and practical application from their familiar and practical use, and thereby sought to enslave the souls of men to a scholastic and ecclesiastical authority, no criticisms like Mr. Mill’s would have disturbed its self-complacency. That Pyrrho was wrong in his advice to abstain from such disputations, is sufficiently evinced by the influence upon prac¬ tical life which the doctrines of Hamilton and Mansel were calculated to exert. “That a true psychology is the indispen¬ sable basis of morals, of politics, of the science and art of education; that the difficulties of metaphysics lie at the root of all science; that these difficulties can only be quieted by being resolved, and that until they are resolved—positively, if possible, but at any rate negatively—we are never assured that any human knowledge, even physical, stands on solid foundations;” these are reasons enough for examining the pretensions of the metaphysical philosophy; these are the sufficient grounds of the practical critic’s interest in those formidable words, the infinite and the absolute, the chevaux de bataille of metaphysics. For these words are also common and familiar ones, and are commonly and familiarly used, as Mr. Mansel himself admits, in senses different from those assigned to them by the metaphysicians; but the conclusions drawn from their definitions in metaphysics are inevitably interpreted into a practical accordance with the common- 355 MANSE VS REEL Y TO MILL. % sense meanings of the words, and hence lead to false judg¬ ments concerning the character of the evidences of religious and moral truths. Mr. Mill’s real end was, therefore, a practical one—to show that in the recognized common meanings of these words the doctrines of metaphysics make arrant nonsense, and that these words have a valid, useful, and intelligible application to the most serious practical relations of life, without any reference to their use in metaphysics. Mr. Mansel uses the word “ab¬ solute” in a sense different even from Hamilton’s, and com¬ plains that Mr. Mill has not given him the benefit of his phil¬ osophically clearer and correcter definition. But we imagine that Mr. Mill was more concerned to do justice to the com¬ mon-sense meaning of the word than to Mr. Mansel. That the words “infinite” and “absolute,” as defined in metaphysics, involve contradictions in their definitions, and not in the attempt to conceive the reality of the things de¬ fined, is the position which Mr. Mill maintains against the philosophy of the conditioned. “The contradictions which Mr. Mansel asserts to be involved in the notions do not follow,” says Mr. Mill, “from an imperfect mode of appre¬ hending the infinite and the absolute, but lie in the definitions of them, in the meanings of the words themselves.” This position Mr. Mansel flatly denies. He holds that these mean¬ ings are perfectly intelligible, and are exactly what are ex¬ pressed by the definitions of the words. To test this, let us take an example. “If we could realize in thought infinite space,” says an anonymous writer (a diligent student of Sir William Hamilton’s writings, whom Mr. Mansel quotes with approbation), “that conception would be a perfectly definite one.” The infinite, then, is not the indefinite. It is a unit, a whole. But it is without limits. It is, then, a whole without limits. But a whole implies limits. We know of no whole which has not limits. We can conceive of no whole which has not limits. Limits, in fact, belong to the essence of every whole of which we speak intelligibly. Does not the meta¬ physical idea or definition of infinity involve, therefore, a contradiction ? 35 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. Of the common idea of the infinite, as involved in the concrete example, “ infinite space,” Mr. Mill says : “ The neg¬ ative part of this conception is the absence of bounds. The positive is the idea of space, and of space greater than any finite space.” “This definition of infinite space is,” says Mr. Mansel, “exactly that which Descartes gives us of indefi?iite extension .” But an indefinite extension, according to Des¬ cartes, is that which is capable of unlimited increase, and we fail to see the identity of this with Mr. Mill’s definition. Moreover, according to the metaphysicians, the infinite and the finite, being contradictories, include all there is; and as the indefinite is not the infinite, it must be some finite. But Mr. Mill says that his infinite is greater than any finite. How, then, can it be the same as the indefinite ? “ Greater than any finite” excludes the finite as effectually as an absolute negation of it, but it has this positive peculiarity, that it excludes the finite in an essential and characteristic manner. “Greater than” is a much more specific form of denial than the “is not” by which the metaphysicians are content to distinguish the infinite from the finite. It is this specific and characteristic mode of exclusion which constitutes the positive part of the abstract conception of the infinite, and, according to Mr. Mansel, a positive conception, or the positive part of a conception, is that of which we can conceive the manna of its realization. It cannot be supposed that Mr. Mansel means by this that only those conceptions are positive of which we can have examples in intuition, for this would be to identify positive conceptions with adequate ones. No one asserts that the infinite can be adequately conceived ex¬ cept the “rationalists,” to whom Mr. Mill is as much op¬ posed as Hamilton or Mansel; but, as Mr. Mill observes, “between a conception which, though inadequate, is real and correct as far as it goes, and the impossibility of any concep¬ tion, there is a wide difference.” The common notion of infinity is not, then, a mere nega tion. It refers to and is related to positive experience, and to valid operations of the mind in drawing conclusions from experience. It is not the same as the indefinite; it is not that MANSELS REPLY TO MILL. 357 to which an unlimited addition is possible, since it is defined as the greatest possible, greater than any quantities which can be measured or compared by their differences.* The meta¬ physical idea or definition of infinity, on the contrary, in so far as it is not merely negative, involves a contradiction, since it is asserted to be a definite whole, and, at the same time, to be without limits. Mr. Mansel quotes Locke against Mr. Mill’s position, to the effect that the supposition of an actual idea of the infinite realized in the mind involves a contradiction. But Mr. Mill does not suppose the notion to be fully realized or to be capable of complete realization. It is important only that the notion be true so far as it goes, or that it should accord with the facts and the evidences which the mind is capable of comprehending. We must pass over other special points of criticism, and hasten to the chief practical ground of difference, which we conceive to have furnished the real motive of Mr. Mill’s “Examination” of Hamilton’s and Mansel’s doctrines. Our readers will remember the paragraph in the “ Examination,” p. 103: “If, instead of the ‘glad tidings’ that there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive exist in a * But such quantities may still be compared by their ratios when, as in the higher mathematics, they are “the greatest possible” under certain conditions which do not, however, determine or limit their values as numbers, or as definite sums of units. In a foot-note (p. 115), Mr. Mansel breaks a lance with Professor De Morgan, “one of the ablest mathematicians and the most persevering Hamiltono-mastix of the day.” De Morgan maintains the applicability of a valid notion of infinity to mathematical mag¬ nitudes ; but unfortunately assumes besides, or appears to assume, that such phrases as “points at an infinite distance,” “the extremities of infinite lines,” etc., are literally valid in mathematics. This assumption Mr. Mansel easily refutes. But the main po¬ sition remains untouched. With the mathematician such phrases are really technical abbreviated expressions of a complex conception. Having shown validly and con¬ sistently that lines of unlimited length tend to approach continually to a given state of things, or to a given relation to one another, but in a manner which makes it impos¬ sible for them as lines, continuously drawn, ever to reach this state of things, the mathematician then changes the object of his contemplation. He dismisses the in¬ finite line, and turns his attention to the state of things (the point of tangency, for example) to which his infinite lines, though always approaching, could never attain. Instead of spanning the infinite in his thought, he simply abbreviates in his language that substitution of one object for another which conducts him to the end of his re¬ search. 358 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite ; but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government, except that ‘the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving’ does not sanction them ; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and, at the same time, call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say, in plain terms, that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.” To this Mr. Mansel replies by discussing the meaning of the word “good.” He asks “whether Mr. Mill really sup¬ poses the word good to lose all community of meaning when it is applied, as it constantly is, to different persons among our ‘fellow-creatures,’ with express reference to their different du¬ ties and different qualifications for performing them ? ” and he proposes to “test Mr. Mill’s declamation by a parallel case”: “A wise and experienced father addresses a young and inexperienced son. ‘ My son,’ he says, ‘there may be some of my actions which do not seem to you to be wise or good, or such as you would do in my place. Remember, however, that your duties are different from mine, that your knowledge of my duties is very imperfect, and that there may be things which you cannot see to be wise and good, but which you may hereafter discover to be so.’ ‘Father,’ says the son, ‘your principles of action are not the same as mine; the highest morality which I can conceive at present does not sanction them; and as for believing that you are good in anything of which I do not plainly see the goodness’— We will not repeat Mr. Mill’s alternative; we will only ask whether it is not just possible that there may be as much difference between man and God as there is between a child and his father ? ” This “parallel case” is, in an important respect, a very happy one. It suggests the real practical issue of the debate, unencumbered by theological and metaphysical obscurities; but to make it perfect, the parallel should be more exact. The real question is as to the child’s obligation to respect his father’s wisdom and goodness independently of any experience of them, and solely on the ground of that parent’s word for them. If, from the wisdom and the goodness which the child has seen and understood, he infers uncomprehended higher MANSEL'S RE PL Y TO MILL. 359 degrees of these qualities, reasoning from the known to the unknown, just as he does in all other relations of life, and just as we all do, then the child bases his faith on the sure and only ground of knowledge; and his deference to the father’s judg¬ ment in all cases of doubt or conflict is the natural and direct consequence of a faith so grounded. But if, bewildered and oppressed by a metaphysical difficulty in trying to compre¬ hend the peculiar duties of a father, he should base his faith on his ignorance of them, and believe in the goodness which he cannot comprehend, believing because of his ignorance and not on account of the little knowledge he does possess; and if, in his blind devotion, he should abdicate his own intelligence, reject his own clear judgments of right, when they are brought into apparent conflict with the parent’s self¬ ishness, or with that of servants claiming to speak by author¬ ity, then the child’s devotion would not be that of an ingen¬ uous, filial piety; it would rather be an abject slavish sub¬ mission. Such we conceive to be the really parallel case, involving the real practical issue between the two philosophies. Faith is, in one, founded on knowledge by experience; in the other, it is independent of knowledge. LEWES’S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MINI).* t In one of the few passages of Aristotle’s voluminous writ¬ ings which contain a direct reference to himself he declares that in his logical discoveries and inventions he had no help and no precursors. He says : “ The syllogism as a system and theory, with precepts founded on that theory for demonstra¬ tion and dialectic, has originated with me. Mine is the first step, and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard labor; it must be looked at as a first step and judged with indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers of my lectures, if you think I have done as much as can fairly be required for an initiatory start, compared with other more advanced departments of theory, will acknowledge what I have achieved and pardon what I have left others to accom¬ plish.” “In such modest terms does Aristotle speak,” says Stuart Mill, “of what he had done for a theory which in the judgment even of so distant an age as the present, he did not as he himself says, merely commence, but completed,—^so far as completeness can be affirmed of a scientific doctrine.” Such unconsciousness of self as identified with a great work, such an estimate of the work accomplished as compared to what was undertaken or hoped for, is characteristic of the world’s greatest thinkers. Newton’s indifference to the world’s estimate of what had been to him merely a diversion on the shores of the great unexplored ocean of truth before him, did not rise from an underestimate of the value of his work com¬ pared to that of his precursors, since it was not with this that * The latter portion of this essay was published in The Nation, June n, 1874; the introductory part is now first printed from the author’s manuscript. T “Problems of Life and Mind. By George Henry Lewes. First series. The Foun dations of a Creed. Vol. I.” 1874. Svo, pp. 434. LEWES'S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND. 361 he habitually compared it. Self-assurance of ability in thought gained from such a comparison as a remedy to self-distrust is, however, apt to be eagerly sought by thinkers of an inferior rank. Hence, independently of any criticism of the work of these thinkers there is that in the mere personality of style which enables the world to estimate the rank of a thinker, and to recognize its greatest minds. If it were not for this quality in style wisdom could hardly be distinguished from orthodoxy by any but the wise themselves, that is, by the few ; or would be only a happy utterance of the opinions and expressed judgments of its admirers. Among the many problems, now outgrown, which engaged the speculation of the ancient world was one which this quality of wisdom thus manifested and recognized without being fully known, forced upon the attention of philosophers. Sophia was the name, perhaps for this.reason, given by Aris¬ totle to the science afterwards called his metaphysics, which treats of the most abstract relations, and the first principles of the special science or philosophy separated from them though derived, according to him, from their foundations in experience, and from their special object matters. His issue with Plato was that Sophia is not eternal in a world of ideas, and is not born in the man except as a greater power of observation, induction, and clear thought making the most of its means and opportunities. Though his first philosophy was also called ontology, since it dealt with the relations of things merely as things, or with what was common to all objects of scientific comprehension, yet he gave no warrant for the meanings which the terms ontology and metaphysics after¬ wards acquired, and which they now have in relation to sources of knowledge, supposed to be distinct from proper scientific evidences. These terms have become so far identi¬ fied with the doctrine of transcendentalism, the modern form of Platonism, that is, with supposed or supra-sensible grounds of valid belief, that they have been discarded by many modern thinkers as tending from their acquired meanings to associate in the mind falsely the objects of legitimate speculation in the most abstruse problems with that solution of them which is by nc 16 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISCUSSIONS. 362 means accepted or acceptable to the clearest thinkers. Comte not only rejected these terms with others like Cause and Sub¬ stance, from philosophy, because they had come to connote a false doctrine, but because, as he thought, they were hopelessly tainted with a disposition of the mind in the use of language to attach the notion of reality, or of being like a thing, to every familiar abstraction, and especially to such as show a marked contrast in their apparent simplicity in the famil¬ iar though merely symbolic employment of them with their really complex and ill-understood signification. As in the crudest forms of speculative imagination things and efficient causes are personified, or, more properly, are undistinguished from the more familiar natures of persons and volitions, so Comte regarded the tendency to “realize abstractions,” or to consider them divided, just as things are divided, as a crude mode of thought relative to the positive stage which some modern sciences have entered. And to hasten the progress of the scientific mode of thought he proposed to discard certain terms, or to substitute others for them less liable to this in¬ fection. Aristotle was not fully aware of this source of error, though he knew well enough what transcendentalism means. He rejected the latter error as a doctrine of evidence, though he was not free from the tendency to realize abstractions. Mr. Lewes, though for so many years a student and expounder of Comte, is much nearer to Aristotle than to his modern master in this respect. It must not be supposed, however, that this confusion of differences in the abstract with concrete divisions in our knowledge is one purposely committed by any modern thinker of note, or is done consciously and formally as it was by some of the realist schoolmen. Nevertheless the tendency is so strong in all who are not empiricists by practice as well as in doctrine, that writers in whom we should a priori least expect it still give most marked indications of the tendency. It is a vice more common with the disciples and commentators of philosophy than with great original thinkers. It is what naturally happens when we become familiar with a name and LEWES'S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND. 363 with fragments, as it were, of its meaning, long before the whole signification is set before us, or where there is no definite connotation,but rather a very vague and complex one, in the name itself, as in the words civilization, gentleman, or honor, which correspond to different notions, or complex sets of notions, in different minds according to the scope of their experience. Investigators in modern science not especially distinguished for philosophical acumen yet often have the skill to exert toward the objects of their pursuit the logical function of giving valid names, or tying things together in new bundles. This skill, so far as it goes, gives to the scientific empiricist in practice a power which is shown in the higher philosophy only by the most original thinkers. Every student of science is thus within his own province of practical empiricism a pos¬ itivist : though beyond this province he may be a believer in a priori or transcendental evidence, and will almost certainly be more or less of a realist unconsciously, if hot avowedly.* Realism as a vice of thought, and transcendentalism as a doctrine of evidence, things very distinct in meaning, are closely allied in fact. A distinction in existing terms is called an abstract one, and is often called, with a certain degree of propriety, a meta¬ physical distinction when it is considered in itself, and, though clearly defined, is not considered with reference to its classi- ficatory value, or in reference to its coincidence with other distinctions which together with it serve to mark out concrete objects or distinguish them as real classes or kinds. The classifications of natural history and chemistry afford more valuable principles of criticism on metaphysical systems * He may even be such with respect to the more abstruse portions of his own science or to portions in which he is a learner or disciple rather than an investigator. The dis¬ position to give a unity in thought to the meaning of a single name whose connotation is not fully known or is a vague and complex set of attributes or relations, is an always present temptation to speculate a priori or on transcendental grounds of naming: or to suppose that the empirical attributes connoted by the name are collected around a cen¬ tral and essential, but transcendental, condition of their co-existence, that brings them all together. The metaphysical effort is to “seize ” upon this condition ; but the definite¬ ness in thought thus gained is rather in the emphasis of the seizure than in the palpable nature of its object, and the metaphysical grasp, though often vigorous, is too often empty. Aristotle was, for instance, in Logic a positivist, and was opposed to transcend¬ entalism in philosophy, though not free, as we have said, from realism. PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 3 6 4 than any doctrines of method among metaphysicians them¬ selves, either ancient or modern. This modern addition to prin¬ ciples of method in philosophy is of the very greatest value. Ev¬ ery naturalist is now familiar with the fact that empirical choice is necessarily made between characters and distinctions with reference to their value in classification. A division of ani¬ mals into aqueous and terrestrial, for instance, or into air- breathing and water-breathing, is not faulty merely because there are amphibious animals. Indeed, in a restricted sense, when it refers to the co-existence of lungs and gills the term amphibious is a more useful one in natural history than any terms referring simply to the animal’s external relations. Such terms of distinction are not found to coincide with the nu¬ merous other and less conspicuous distinctions which together determine real kinds. A division of animals into vertebrates and invertebrates, or into warm-blooded and cold-blooded, is much more fundamental, and valuable in discriminating real kinds, yet no metaphysical insight ever excogitated this value in it. The absence of any canon of method in meta¬ physics for discovering the relative values of its numerous distinctions is th‘e one great vice of its systems, and is a more characteristic mark than either the doctrine of transcendental¬ ism in any of its forms, or the tendency to vagueness and the confusion of distinctions in abstractions with differences in things. These are indeed consequences of the fatal want of method in all ancient philosophy, and in the modern so far as it is a lineal descendant from the ancient. Though many modern writers like Mr. Herbert Spencer, M. Taine (on In¬ telligence) and Mr. Lewes condemn transcendentalism, their works are very properly regarded as metaphysical since they continue to pursue abstractions with as little reference to their empirically determined value in classification as ever the an¬ cients did. Analogical generalization rather than transcend¬ entalism is the characteristic method of the system-building modern English school of metaphysics.* The history of such * While a naturalist or a chemist would be ready in conformity to widening knowledge of facts to remodel or revolutionize his divisions or even his nomenclature, metaphysical systems aim at the same end by allowing unlimited expansions to the meanings of term& Vagueness in them is even claimed '.s a merit when it is perceived. LEWES'S PA OB LEMS OF LIFE A ND. MLND. 365 terms as “matter and form,” as, from Aristotle downwards, they gradually came to be applied more and more widely or with vaguer and vaguer meanings until they ceased to have any meaning at all in their universal application, except that the one meant all the other did not mean ; the endless dis¬ putes as to how studies should be arranged in the assumed division into arts and sciences; as to whether, for example, Logic was a science or an art; such cases illustrate the essen¬ tial character of metaphysical speculation. Mr. Lewes has, in overlooking this fact, illustrated it anew. Dissenting from Comte’s opinion that the term metaphysics is no longer of any use, and may be discarded along with the names of several allied subjects, and with terms that have a metaphysical taint and for which better terms may be sub¬ stituted : holding, on the contrary, that the latter have valid meanings in experiential or positive philosophy, and that not only logic and psychology, but even metaphysics deserve a distinct place in the classification of the sciences, he discards important features of Comtism by making in metaphysics a metaphysical distinction. He divides it into valid meta¬ physics, amenable to the methods of science, and a branch which he calls metempirics. As a move in the tactics of philosophical debate this invention might be good. Modern transcendentalism has given formal assent to the validity and importance of modern principles of scientific method, as it had before to various precepts in philosophical method; but for itself it openly repudiates allegiance to the special methods of scientific research, and takes refuge from criticism in as¬ sumed a priori grounds of knowledge, under the guidance of Kant. It has gone, it supposes, beyond the jurisdiction of the principles of method to which science is subjected. What has it to do with the rules and instruments of induction if its evidence is not inductive ? To dislodge metaphysics from this fortress by effecting a diversion and a division of its forces ; to claim for science all the rational problems of meta¬ physics ; to claim the name metaphysics for the rational solu¬ tions of them in which numbers can agree, and, for this purpose, to invent a name happily (or unhappily) adapted to 366 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. bear the odium of all the follies and errors for which meta¬ physics has been condemned; namely, the word metempirics— ill-fated at birth—such appears to be our author’s purpose. But in this he has. assumed that metaphysics is characterized by the doctrine of transcendentalism; that it is the doctrine of innate ideas. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to assign to the name metaphysics its meaning in modern usage, or to distinguish it from general philosophy and the abstruser parts of the sciences by proper definition; and especially, so far as its method is concerned, to distinguish it from the precepts of method com¬ mon to all well-conducted speculations. A lack of method, or of many well-grounded canons of research and criticism, ap¬ pears to be all that truly characterizes it, independently of an enumeration of the special topics and doctrines to which the name is usually given. Its method at any particular epoch in the history of philosophy appears to have been little else than the application of some principal doctrine in it to subsidiary topics, the defense of which against sceptical criticisms, or against other principles of method, has generally been the most distinctive part it has played in the history of philosophy. What is called the “method” of metaphysics is really an essen¬ tia] part of it, considered as a scientific doctrine. For exam¬ ple, the realism of Plato, and the forms of the doctrine held by the Scotist and Thomist schoolmen; Plato’s doctrine, that all real knowledge is a kind of reminiscence, with the modern doctrines of innate, transcendental, a priori , or intuitive ele¬ ments in knowledge; Descartes’s egoistic basis of philosophical demonstration, and the more recent developments of idealism, are at once parts of metaphysics and principles of method in its procedures. On the other hand, Plato’s contributions to the principles of method, in his doctrine of definition and his examples of dialectic art; Aristotle’s objections to Plato’s real¬ ism, which were the foundations of scholastic nominalism, and the ontological or universal axioms on which Aristotle based his theory and precepts of syllogism; his defense of induction as the basis of axioms and the ultimate ground of all truths; and the various precepts of philosophical procedure proposed LEIVES'S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND . by Descartes, Bacon, Leibnitz, and by Locke, Newton, and thew modern followers, all belong to the general doctrine of method, which, so far from being peculiar to what is now called metaphysics, is really more characteristic of the modem sciences and of the Positive philosophy. That vague and ill-defined body of doctrine which is none the less distinctly felt by all modern students of philosophy to be in a sort of antagonism to the spirit of the modern sciences and to the Positive philosophy, cannot, therefore, be clearly distinguished by a marked difference of method. Its distinc¬ tion is really more fundamental, and relates to original motives rather than to differences of method in research. Yet it is true that this distinction of motives affects method very materially and results in marked differences in modes of thought. Mod¬ ern metaphysics disregards many points of method deemed es¬ sential in the Positive philosophy, not because it is ignorant of them, but because they are seen or felt to be opposed to the vital interests of the main purposes for which metaphysics is studied. When schools of philosophy differ, as they do in the fundamental division of them, in respect to the motives of their questionings or the purposes of their researches, their differ¬ ences can be rationally accounted for only by recognizing their origins in differences of character in philosophers. Though it may not be strictly true that men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians, it is certain that those who take the most active part in the philosophical discussions of their day have enlisted early in life in one or the other of the two great schools, inspired predominately by one or the other of two distinct sets of phil¬ osophical motives, which we may characterize briefly as motives of defense in questioned sentiments, and motives of scientific or utilitarian inquisitiveness. The points of method or doctrine which suit either attitude of mind are those it adopts and pursues; and in modern times the notion has come in vogue, and received the sanction of metaphysics, that there are really two independent methods of equal generality, and applicable to two distinct departments of human thought. It would be futile to classify systems of thought by this dis¬ tinction in motives, since both sets of motives come into play 3 68 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. in every thinker whose doctrines are historical, or the out- growth of the mutual criticisms of contending sects in the past. Thinkers not uncommonly hold and even advocate, as Mr. Lewes has done, as a Positivist, for many years (in writings which therefore appear in marked contrast to his present work), doctrines derived from the school opposed to that in which they had become really enlisted, either by native character or early influences. This attitude having also the appearance of a judicial one, or manifesting a disposition to find the truth between extreme views, is often consciously assumed, though thinkers arrive at it from opposite positions, and unconsciously bring to it opposite motives of research. These motives would determine, therefore, grounds of division between thinkers who really differ less in fundamental positions, either of doctrine or method, than in modes of thought. Mr. Lewes, in his plea for the higher speculative studies, is so far a metaphysician, or so far retains the effects, in his mode of thought, of the early influences of the Scottish school, that he fails to distinguish the special causes or exigencies of meta¬ physics from what he generously calls its “method”; though he qualifies it as “irrational.” His account of this “method” is extremely vague. Comte had identified the doctrines of meta¬ physics with the once leading dogmas of realism; the assimila¬ tion of abstractions to things, or to self-existent and permanent beings, either material or spiritual, being the common point of de¬ parture in these scholastic speculations. But he did so because he believed these dogmas to take their rise from an erroneous but natural tendency of the mind in its earliest use of abstract terms and meanings, or from a vice of language, to which the mind is always prone, and against which the positive or scien¬ tific modes of thought and criticism are the only safeguards. With this understanding of the term he rejected metaphysics, both name and thing, from his system of rational studies; and with metaphysics he also condemned the allied studies of logic and psychology, choosing to connect what he valued in them with the general science of method, and with that of sociology. The English followers of Comte did not accept the latter reforms of positivism. Logic and psychology still hold their place in En- LEWES'S PROBLEMS OF LLFE AND ALLAN. 3 6 9 glish thought, though the decline of strictly logical studies (which began long before Comte) had made itself distinctly felt in the deterioration of British philosophy, and is still very noticeable, notwithstanding the wide and beneficial effect of the publica¬ tion of Mill’s “Logic” thirty years ago. The rehabilitation of metaphysics, both name and thing, now proposed by Mr. Lewes, appears to him a step in the same direction. He wishes to restore what is valuable and rational in the doctrines and problems of metaphysics to the rank of a distinct science, to which he would give its ancient and honored name. But, to do this in the interests of true science, it is necessary to exclude from metaphysics the doctrines and problems which are due to its “irrational method”; and he separates these, at least in name, by calling them “ metempirics.” All that we have to do, he says, is to exclude from the problems of meta¬ physics the.metempirical elements, the questions which in their very form demand more knowledge than experience can fur¬ nish—all questions of transcendental origins and conditions— in short, all arbitrary questionings, to which gratuitous assump¬ tions only can be given in answer, and we have left principles and problems that may be properly collected and studied un¬ der the name “metaphysics.” To these he gives the taking title of “ Problems of Life and Mind,” a title which tacitly ap¬ peals to both of the two sets of motives, scientific inquisitive¬ ness and the sentimental interests, which have hitherto divided the speculative world. “Speculative minds cannot,” he says, “resist the fascination of meta¬ physics, even when forced to admit that its inquiries are hopeless. This fact must be taken into account, since it makes refutation powerless. Indeed, one may say, generally, that no deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. . . . ' Contempt, ridicule, argument are all in vain against tendencies toward metaphysical speculation. There is but one effective mode of displacing an error, and that is to replace it by a conception which, while readily adjusting itself to conceptions firmly held on other points, is seen to explain the facts more completely.” We entirely agree with Mr. Lewes that it is idle to argue against “ tendencies,” even tendencies to error; for this would be to argue against human nature itself. It is .to specific errors that we ought to address our arguments; and we ought, by di- 37 ° PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. viding the tendencies—the erroneous or misdirected from the true, to expose the false ones in their consequences, and thus conquer them. The true and false, or the well and ill directed, are naturally mixed in the speculative tendencies of the mind. To condemn all that has been or is now called metaphysics would, therefore, be on the face of it a rash procedure. But to invent a new name merely as a name for the errors or the misdirections in speculation which are involved in its questions, and for the sake only of retaining metaphysics as the name of scientific principles and problems that have been or may here¬ after be included in the higher philosophy, is too much in ac¬ cordance with older metaphysical principles of nomenclature; or, rather, is too much like the older and crude practice of met¬ aphysicians, to be cordially received as a scientific reform. Botanists, zoologists, and chemists have made it evident that a distinction, however clearly defined, is not of value in classifi¬ cation unless it is something more than a distinction. It must coincide with and be of use as a sign of other distinctions— that is, be a mark of the things distinguished by it, in order to have real value in classification. Mr. Lewes is so far from recognizing, in the rules of philoso¬ phizing followed by him, this important modern addition to scientific method, the disregard of which is a chief cause of fu¬ tile hair-splittings and aberrations, both in science and meta¬ physics, that he shows in many parts of his book a noticeable lack of familiarity with it. We do not believe that metempirics will ever become a scientific name, and we are quite sure it will not be acceptable to metaphysicians. As a literary inven¬ tion it is not without merits; and, indeed, the literary merits of the whole book are by far its greatest. “Metempiric” is a good retort to the reproach of the term “empiric/’ and, as a ruse de guerre, not a bad device for dividing the enemy’s forces. Divide etimpera is good strategy; and there is practically much satisfaction in a name. It is upon the associations involved in the term “metaphysics” that the larger division of modern speculative thinkers mainly subsist. To deprive them of their name would, if practicable, take away the apparent defensible¬ ness of their last positions, namely, that their “method” is pecu- LEWES'S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND. 371 liar to their problems; and that the doctrines they maintain, or defend, are safely intrenched in the transcendental mystery of the mind’s birth, and are exempt from scientific criticism. “Experience,” however, has also come to be a name so much respected that these thinkers, anticipating the movements which would appropriate their title to respectability, have already for some time made a counter movement, and come to hold that the evidence they contend for as ultimate still lies within the province of experience, or is not known beforehand, at least in actual consciousness; and to hold that it is not gathered from any but the sources of particular experiences; but that intuitive universal truths are, nevertheless, not general¬ izations of experience, and are not even to be tested and ulti¬ mately evinced as such. Induction is allowed only a limited range. Intuition is held to be another and an independent form of experience. This adoption of the word “experience” is in accordance with the time-honored practice in metaphys¬ ics of annexing troublesome neighbors, giving a vague and metaphysical expansion to the meanings of hostile words, and thus destroying their critical powers. The sense in which induction was used by Aristotle and by the best of England’s thinkers in the past, as the basis both of the intuitive and the discursive operations of thought, or as be¬ ing involved in sensible perception and in reflective intuitions, or in rapid, habitual, and instinctive judgments generally, quite as essentially as in formal and consciously guarded or tested generalizations, is the sense in which these metaphysical think¬ ers reject induction as the real basis of all truths; and Mr. Lewes, as well as Mr. Spencer, M. Taine, and other late eclectics, weakly and confusedly go along with them—con¬ fusedly, on account of the present great deterioration of phil¬ osophical language in reference to the questions common to the present time and the old logicians, which the latter treated with a precision of philosophical language unfortunately want¬ ing in the conceptulastic terms and phraseology of the present day. We have grounds of hope, however, that the present phase of vague speculation will soon pass away, and that a generation of thinkers will succeed, trained in so much of the 37 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. refined and effective terminology and mode of thought of the nominalist logicians as Mill’s “Logic” has rescued from ob¬ livion; thinkers who will be able to understand without con¬ fusion the nature of axioms. The fact that axioms are capable of clear, distinct, and ade¬ quate statement in language, and are not consciously based on remembered or recorded particulars of experience, but are in¬ tuitive, or habitual and rapid, interpretations of valid meanings in terms; the fact that an axiom may at first be merely one among a thousand early and spontaneous generalizations of the mind; that of these the great majority are overthrown by subsequent experience, while the one which becomes an axiom, meeting with no counter experience, but, coinciding with all subsequent experience, survives, is strengthened, and becomes habitual; that it becomes so elementary and so fundamental a habit that no other habit or power of thought can oppose it; that it has thus determined our powers of conception as well as our beliefs through experience—these facts are in strict ac¬ cordance with the Aristotelian doctrine that axioms are based upon inductions, although they are not the results of a formal and consciously guarded procedure in accordance with the canons of inductive logic. In their primary signification and in this connection the terms “induction” and “inductive” refer directly to evidences, and not to any special means and proc¬ esses of collating and interpreting them. Writers of the sort we have characterized continually confound these two mean¬ ings. So, also, they confound the meanings, one valid and the other not so, in the terms “intuition” and “intuitive.” Mr. Lewes, after having distinctly contrasted (pp. 342-348) intui¬ tive and discursive judgments, and characterized the former as rapid or habitual inferences, adds shortly afterwards (p. 356) that he does “ not wish to be understood as adopting the view that axioms are founded on induction; on the contrary,” he says, “ I hold them to be founded on intuition. They are founded on experience, because intuition is empirical.” Intuition in its proper meaning of rapid, instinctive judgment, whether in the objective sensible perception of relatively con¬ crete matters, or in the most abstract, differs equally from in- / LEWES'S PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND . 373 ductive and deductive processes of conscious inference. But there is no contrast or alternative between intuition and induc¬ tion in reference to ultimate grounds of belief, except in the spurious metaphysical meaning of “intuition”; which Mr. Lewes has, it therefore appears, confusedly adopted, while seeming to hold his former positions as a positivist. Induction in one of its meanings, as a process of conscious generalization, and intuition, as another form of judgment, are only contrasted as judgments ‘ the one consciously and the other unconsciously determined, on the occasion of making the judgment, by past particulars of experience. If Mr. Lewes had been a purist in philosophy he might, perhaps, escape from this objection, on the ground that what is meant by the phrase, “ grounds of a belief,” is not the unconscious but the concious causes of it; the facts or reasons from which we infer it. What is properly meant, however, by affirming particulars of experience to be the ground of belief in axioms, is not that these particulars are present indi¬ vidually in memory on every occasion of making such a judg¬ ment; but only that they are the proper tests of validity in an ul¬ timate philosophical examination of axiomatic truths; and are, as they occur, the actual and conscious causes of the judgments, an\ ’ of their growing certitude, and of the growing precision of meaning in the terms by which they are expressed; though in¬ dividually they are not retained or recalled in memory. So far, however, are our author’s statements from being en¬ titled to careful consideration on the ground of precision in the use of philosophical terms, that by far the greater part of what we should have to say about his book, if we had space to say it, would relate to obscurities growing out of his inattention to ambiguities and vagueness in philosophical language. Thus, he follows a bad late use of the term a priori; which properly, and in Kant, means a logical ground or cause of knowledge; and he applies the term to inherited, organized, or instinct¬ ive tendencies to the association of particulars in experience, or to “ aptitudes for thought ”; to which Kant properly refuses the name a priori (p. 410). Again, from not seeing an am¬ biguity in the word knowledge, he discovers (p. 405 ) what ap¬ pears to him a contradiction in Kant’s doctrine; which seems 374 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. to assert that “all knowledge begins with experience” a pos¬ teriori , and yet asserts that “some knowledge is. anteced¬ ent to and independent of experience.” Our author surely cannot have failed to meet in his extensive studies with the distinction in metaphysics between the commencement or in¬ troduction, and the source ( exordium et origo ), of knowledge; as well as the distinction of actual or present knowledge and that which we are said to possess in memory, although we are not at the time thinking of it. Yet he seems to have forgotten these distinctions. All that Kant maintains is that a knowl- / edge like that of memory, a knowledge in posse , of which, as he thinks, experience cannot be the source , is involved, and may be recognized, in the actual judgments of experience; but is not recognized before experience; or except as a for??i given to the matter of experience—a doctrine vague enough, we ad¬ mit, in meaning, and doubtless gratuitous in fact, but not self¬ contradictory. In short, Mr. Lewes’s book is full of illus¬ trations of the importance of improving metaphysics, not as a positive science, but as a dialectic art; an art allied both to logic and to lexicography. There are, indeed, such treatises in existence, which are much less interesting than Mr. Lewes’s book. Such treatises are generally, and ought to be, as dry as a dictionary, but do not the less deserve attention, as correct¬ ives of the current loose thinking on the most abstract subjects. McCOSH ON TYNDALL* Among the natural consequences of the sin committed by Professor Tyndall in the hardihood of his late Belfast address,- is the revival by it of the inextinguishable flame of metaphysic¬ al controversy. That the address was not fit, in the nature of things—to say nothing of the conventions, the common or un¬ written laws of scientific societies, which the author violated— appears by the consequence that the most fitting reply to it comes from Dr. McCosh.f Such popular organizations as the British Association for the Advancement of Science were copied from the aims and disciplines of the elite among modern scien¬ tific societies. These societies are, in a word, schools of Ba- conism, designed to embody all that was of value in the thought and spirit of Bacon—namely, a protest against tradi¬ tional authority in science, with, of course, a recommendation of induction and of the inductive sciences for their value in the arts of life. As to method in induction, Bacon’s teaching was of comparatively little value. His really distinguishing service was in accomplishing a more or less complete and enduring severance, at least in British thought, of physical science from scholastic philosophy, and from all traditions of more ancient thought. One of the most interesting consequences of this movement is that the word “philosophy,” and even the name “natural philosophy,” have distinctly different meanings in En¬ glish and in the continental languages. The body of ancient traditional thought was so completely routed that its name, * From The Nation, April 22, 1875. t “Ideas in Nature overlooked by Dr. Tyndall: being an Examination of Dr. Tyndall’s Belfast Address. By James McCosh, D. D., LL. D.” 1875. “ The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton. By James McCosh, LL. D., D. D. ” 1875. 37 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSLONS. Philosophy, lost its meaning, and became appropriated to the knowledge and pursuits which in ancient times divine philos¬ ophy disdained. Socrates, it is said, brought down philosophy from the clouds; and Continental thinkers have reproached the English for having degraded her to the kitchen. This rec¬ ognition of the dignity of the useful and of the authority of induction, but still more the subtler perceptions of method in induction by later English thinkers, and especially in the Posi¬ tivism of Locke, Newton, Herschel, and J. S. Mill, have more than anything else given the English their eminence in modern science. The restraints of the speculative spirit in scientific pursuits, determined mainly by a desire for peace with Theol¬ ogy and Philosophy, and accomplished by a division of prov¬ inces, have been the chief cause of the easy triumphs of induct¬ ive evidences in the modern sciences of physics, astronomy, chemistry, and even geology and biology, over an opposition which, when roused, has carried with it the strength of a desper¬ ate self-defense and all the gigantic forces of tradition. The best British thinkers, therefore, from Newton to Darwin, have re¬ spected this peace; and Dr. Tyndall has put himself out of this category by the performance that relegates him to the ten¬ der mercies of Dr. McCosh. As spectators of the combat, we may, however, forget the rash occasion which brought our scientific hero into this arena, and extend a sympathy to him in this relation which we with¬ held from him as the retiring president of the British Associa¬ tion. In the prefaces to his published address, Tyndall charges some of his critics with “ a spirit of bitterness which desires, with a fervor inexpressible in words, my eternal ill.” Dr. Mc¬ Cosh “ happens to know of some of them, that they are pray¬ ing for him, in all humility and tenderness, that he and all oth¬ ers who have come under his influence may be kept from all evil, temporal and eternal.” Such belligerent magnanimity must be very consoling to its object. To be prayed for partic¬ ularly by fellow-mortals that we may be delivered from delib¬ erately cherished, or at least seriously considered, views on the nature of things, and not alone for what we ourselves recognize as evils, may be from a sympathy with a supposed unconscious. 377 McCOSH ON TYNDALL. undeveloped better-self in us; but to us, our conscious selves, it seems scarcely different, except in degree, from a sympathy and a wish for our eternal welfare which would burn us at the stake. Indeed, the attitude is not very unlike that of picking up the fagots for a spiritual cremation, of which the material symbol is now forbidden by civilized opinion and law. To use the language of kindliness and magnanimity when every page manifests an intense, though smothered, odium theolo- gicum , conceals nothing, and repels more effectively than the most open hostility. Expressions of petty spite, depreciatory epithets, intimations of ill-opinion, readiness to credit evil re¬ ports of those who hold unorthodox opinions in philosophy, and misinterpretations of every sign of weakness in them— these characterize Dr. McCosh’s treatment of those thinkers, included in his latest published biographies of Scottish philoso¬ phers, who differ from him in fundamental views. If his ob¬ ject—supposing him to have an object in this—were simply to frighten the faithful from any contact with the unholy, we can see how he might effectively keep them faithful through ignorance; but if he thinks in this way to win any one to his standard, we think he greatly mistakes the nature of the sceptic. He calls attention in his preface to the fact “ that in this paper, under none of its forms, have I charged Professor Tyndall with being an atheist”; and near the close of his paper he an¬ nounces that “ I make no inquiry into the personal beliefs of Dr. Tyndall,” though in the preface he had professed to believe that Tyndall’s feelings are not fixedly bad: “At present very wavering and uncertain— -feelings, rather than convictions found¬ ed on evidence.” Dr. McCosh here makes use of the “ extenuat¬ ing method,” the eiro?ieia of Aristotle’s rhetoric, though with ineffective art. His restraint from this fearful accusation is made up for by a zeal going greatly beyond due accuracy of thought and exposition, in his preparation of the case for whosoever may thereby be stimulated to prefer the charge. We have space only for the examination of one great con¬ fusion of thought which runs through not only this paper but much of the criticism in his biographical work on the “ Scottish Philosophy,” wherever he treats of the opinions of the “scep¬ tics” of his native land. 37 8 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. Lord Bacon is Dr. McCosh’s model in philosophizing, and ; however marked may be the differences, there is a striking sim¬ ilarity between their minds. The great point of sympathy is in Bacon’s demonstrative, aggressive, and rather effusive profes¬ sions of theism. This wins for Bacon the enthusiasm of such a disciple for “the comprehensiveness of his mighty mind”; and is likewise the measure with Dr. McCosh of the minds which he treats favorably in his biographies. Now, Bacon in his model inquiry which occupies so large a space in the “Novum Organum,”—the inquiry into the form of heat,— reaches the conclusion that heat is a kind of motion; meaning, of course, not the feeling of heat, but the conditions of the feeling. Dr. McCosh would be the last to charge Bacon with atheism for this verbal ellipsis. Nor do we suppose that he would be alarmed by the confusing ambiguities of the words light, sound, taste, touch, and the like, which are used by all modern philosophers to express two totally dissimilar natures, the tremors of ether and air, with the chemical and mechanical properties of bodies in contact with special organs of sense, and the sensations of light, sound, etc., of which these hom- onymical words are also the names; a part of the cause and its effect having the same names though wholly different in nature. Nor again do we suppose that he would take alarm at the inclusion, in such names, of the other physical conditions of a conscious product or sensation—namely, the movements cxr changes in living nervous tissues, which are the more imme¬ diate conditions of the production of a sensation. Mr. J. S. Mill, however, in his “ Logic,” takes to task a philosopher of his own school for defining an idea or notion as “a contraction, motion, or configuration of the fibres which constitute the im¬ mediate organ of sense.” “Our notions ,” Mill exclaims, “a configuration of fibres! What kind of philosopher must he be who thinks that a phenomenon is defined to be the conditions on which he supposes it to depend?” What sort of philoso¬ pher must this one be, we may add, who not only makes this confusion in his imputations of opinion to scientific philoso¬ phers, ancient and modern, but intimates that the gravest de¬ fects not only of mind but of character are implied by it ? McCOSH ON TYNDALL. 3 79 The poverty of philosophical language, rather than such fatuity, would have been the more charitable account of what is charged as materialism against these thinkers. No philoso¬ pher of note among them, we are sure, ever seriously thought that atoms by their collocations and movements explain (in the sense of unfolding the essential natures of) “sensation, judgment, reason; of love, passion, resolution.” None ever attempted, as Dr. McCosh intimates that Tyndall has done, to “ account in this way for the affection of a mother for her son, of a patriot for his country, of a Christian for his Saviour.” No one ever supposed that, “aggregate them [the atoms] as you choose, and let them dance as they will,” there is “ any power in‘them to generate [in the sense of producing their like] the fancies of Shakespeare—his Hamlet, his Lady Macbeth, his King Lear—the sublimities of Milton, the penetration of New¬ ton, or the moral grandeur of the death of Socrates.” Yet Dr. McCosh calls Tyndall to account for so doing in these grave terms: “What—to employ the very mildest form of rebuke— can be the use of devising hypotheses which have not even the semblance of explaining the phenomena? In the interest of science, not to speak of religion, it is of moment at this present time to lay an arrest on such rash speculations; and to insist on the scientific men refraining from what Bacon denounces as ‘anticipations of nature,’ and confining themselves to facts and the co-ordination of facts.” Dr. McCosh is not quite accurate here about what his model Bacon recommends. The past errors which Bacon opposed he called “the Anticipations of Nature” by the mind, and in place of this recommended “the Interpretation of Nature,” or “that which is properly deduced from things,” and (it is to be presumed) may include somewhat more than a bare co-ordina¬ tion of facts. But whatever Bacon meant to “ denounce,” it is certain that the physical sciences which have grown up since his time involved in their establishment a great deal more of “the picturing power of the mind,” which Tyndall justly es¬ teems, than Dr. McCosh is inclined to allow. But this is a comparatively trivial error. The gravamen of his charge is wholly mistaken. Tyndall publishes as an appendix to his ad- 3So PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS . dress a lecture previously delivered, in which the doctrine thus imputed to him is disavowed. 'Dr. McCosh refers to this fact, but regards it as either trivial or as inconsistent with the omi¬ nous meaning of that discovery in matter of “ the promise and potency of every quality of life” for the “confession” of which Tyndall “ abandons all disguise.” In spite of this lecture Dr. McCosh thinks that Tyndall “feels himself entitled to hold that matter, though we cannot say how, may give us all the op¬ erations of understanding and will.” It is important to un¬ derstand here in what sense “may give us” is to be taken. Cer¬ tainly Tyndall is no disciple of Lucretius, or of the great and sub¬ tle Greek physicists, if he holds that atoms, the primordia, the el¬ ements, the seeds, or first-beginnings of things have the natures of understanding and will. That these are not the properties, but only the accidents (in the logical sense), of the movements and collocations of the elements, is the Lucretian doctrine. Moreover, “ primordial elements ” does not refer to remoteness in time past, but to simplicity and unchangeableness in present, past, future, or the infinitely enduring causes of change. In other words, what these philosophers sought to explain by their theory of atoms is not the natures of the passing phenomena of sense, understanding, and will, but their occurrences, and the order (such as there is) in their occurrences as actualities or events. Such phenomena were not regarded as consisting of the proper¬ ties of atoms, of size, weight, movement; but only as depending for their actual manifestation on certain elemental collocations and movements. Modern physiology is in striking accordance with these vague speculations. It does not, neither did they, affirm that the properties of matter (that is, the permanent and universal natures of matter) define or determine anything ex¬ cept the events of phenomena. Neither were the gods exclud¬ ed by these speculations from existence, or from the moral interests and regards of men, in accordance with their reputed characters. They were only excluded from the arbitrary de¬ termination of the course of events, or from any other inter¬ ference than that of being in their consciousness and actions a part of this course. They, too, were dependent in their thoughts and volitions on material conditions. Whatever loss Me COSH ON TYNDALL . 381 of dignity or wound to pride in men might come from such subjection to material conditions was shared, according to this philosophy, by the gods. That the conditions of the nervous tissues which we vaguely describe as health, wakefulness, and vigor are a sum of material conditions, which occurring along with other material conditions around them determine partic¬ ular perceptions, thoughts, and volitions as mental events, is a modern form of the same doctrine. This does not involve, however, the kind of explanation that Dr. McCosh appears to suppose. There are two meanings of the word “ explanation,” or, rath¬ er, two kinds of explanation involved in philosophy, the con¬ founding of which, not by Dr. McCosh alone, but by nearly all the hostile critics of ancient and modern physical philosophy, has led to great confusion and injustice. To know the condi¬ tions of the occurrence of anything in such sort that we may predict this occurrence, whenever and wherever these conditions are given, though as phenomena these conditions may be in their natures wholly unlike the effects of them, is one mode of explanation. To presume this mode to be applicable to rela¬ tions of any nature in which the conditions and phenomena are too complicated to be fully known or used for prediction, is to make speculative employment of it. To be able to analyze or decompose a phenomenon or effect into its constituents is another mode; whether or not we are able by combining the two modes, as in the dynamical sciences, to explain an effect as the sum of the several effects of the constituents of its cause. This most perfect kind of explanation, this combination, is reached only in dynamical science, and was never pretended to by the clear-headed Greeks who speculated so widely on the nature of things. That mental events and their combinations are fully conditioned, as events, on material ones is all that they ever pretended to believe; and in this opinion most modern physiologists agree with them. These philosophers have fared hard at the hands of the aggressive theists, their expounders and critics. Thus Bacon, as quoted by Dr. McCosh, says: “ Even that school which is most accused of atheism doth the most demonstrate religion, that is, the school of Leucippus 382 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. and Democritus and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible that four mutable elements and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small portions or seeds unplaced should have produced this order and beauty without a divine marshal.” Bacon here implicitly attributes to the ancient physicists that conception of their opponent Anaxagoras, which may be said to be the foundation of the philosophical theism of all subse¬ quent times. It is common to speak of Anaxagoras as having introduced into the philosophy of nature the nous, or the inde¬ pendent agency of intelligence. It is not so commonly seen that he introduced along with this, and in anthesis to it, a still more characteristic idea, that of a primeval chaos. The anti- chaotic nous of Anaxagoras is not that of the physicists and the pantheists. The only chaos contemplated by the ancient atom- ists is the one they saw around them always existing; one which had always existed in the indeterminate confused actual order, at any time, of the universe as a whole. Its particular orders were regarded as accidents; that is, not permanent or inherent properties of the elements. This last conception, by the way, has been grossly abused, accident being interpreted to mean an absolutely undetermined event; an Anaxagorean accident, such as might have happened in that primeval chaos, which the atomists did not believe in, when “ all things were in a confused heap,” and before “ nous intervened to set them in order.” That “ things might all have been such that there was no fitness in them, and the most unfit might have survived,” is the reason Dr. McCosh gives for “ discovering an ordinance of intelligence and benevolence in the very circumstance that there is a fitness, and that the fit survive.” So deeply imbedded in his intelli¬ gence is this conception, this essential idea of theism, the pri¬ meval chaos, that because he can conceive an altogether unde- monstrable condition of things to have been possible, he postu¬ lates as actual a cause, or a mode of action in a cause, the nous, which would have defeated this possibility—a very common and almost unconscious kind of a priori argument. It thus appears that Dr. McCosh, not less than Professor Tyndall, “ crosses the boundary of the experimental evidence,” McCOSH ON TYNDALL. 3 8 3 and “ revels in hypotheses about world-making and world ending.” He “professes,” indeed, to found his convictions in a Baconian way on “ inductions,” the name he gives (with¬ out adequately explaining the process) to what most other modern thinkers call, and try to explain by the name, “ intui¬ tions a priori In this Dr. McCosh has doubtless confounded the effect of repeated assertions and professions of belief with the force in producing universal beliefs of invariably repeated particular experiences—an effect enforced by that modern factitious moral obligation, “the duty of belief”; a duty which though urged upon us by modern religious teachers with respect to certain ancient speculations, as of Anaxagoras, Socrates, and Plato, was far from being felt or admitted by these great teachers. Their service to us was in teaching how rather than what to think and believe. A singular mistake for one who has undertaken to classify modern thinkers is committed by Dr. McCosh when he makes Comte the founder of the school to which Tyndall, Spencer, Huxley, Bain, and even Mr. Darwin are assigned. Two of these thinkers—Spencer and Huxley—have publicly disavowed and disproved any obligations to Comte. It would be cruel, if it were not absurd, to make Comte and Mill responsible, as Dr. McCosh does, even in the slightest degree, for the free use of hypotheses in science made by these thinkers, and especially the use made by the cosmologists among them, by Spencer and Tyndall, of hypotheses for “ crossing the boundary of the exper¬ imental evidence.” Comte all his life, and Mill until late in life, resisted even the undulatory theory of light, as involving the unverifiable hypothesis of a medium, though most physicists, even in Comte’s lifetime, admitted the probability of the theory which is now universally adopted. It is strange to see the use of hypotheses in physical inquiries attributed to Mill’s recom¬ mendation, as it is by Dr. McCosh. As well might one attrib¬ ute the invention and recommendation of reasoning to Aris¬ totle ! Mill only systematized, in his “ Logic,” what physicists from Galileo had been constantly doing; and no one at all conversant with mathematical and experimental researches is ignorant of the fact that the use of hypotheses, as “ recommend- 3 8 4 PHIL 0 SO PHICA L DISC US SI O NS. ed by Mill,” is indispensable in that “ interpretation of nature ’ which Bacon recommends. But these hypotheses are, for the most part, trial-questions—interrogations of nature; they are scaffoldings which must be taken down, as they are succeeded by the tests, the verifications of observation and experiment; they form no part of the finished structure of experimental phi losophy. Comte and Mill, least of all among modern thinkers, recommend their use as bridges for “ crossing the boundary of the experimental evidence,” whether by the Lucretian road with Tyndall, or on the Anaxagorean highway with McCosh. r SPECULATIVE DYNAMICS.* t Whether when a body moves it is proper to say that it is in motion, or that the motion is in it, is a question often suggested by the language of even the most guarded writers on mathe¬ matical dynamics, f though the strictly mathematical definitions, formulas, theorems, and problems of the science are free from any ambiguity. With what meaning the preposition “ in ” is used in these expressions is a further and more pertinent ques¬ tion. If with that meaning which the unmathematical language of these writers seems to authorize, then they have really exposed themselves and their readers to the difficulty involved in Zeno’s famous paradox of motion, namely, that since a motion must be either in the place of the moving body or in some other place, and since the moving body does not move in its place, and does not move in any other place, motion is really a con¬ tradiction, and therefore, according to logic, an impossibility. The solution of the paradox, for which the science of logic had to establish a distinct principle, recognized that in such expres¬ sions the preposition “ in ” is not properly used in a locative sense, but only in the vaguer sense of appertaining to, or being predicable of, its object. That a body in motion has the attri¬ bute of motion (that is, the attribute of having a continuously- changing distance from some other body, or from some position which is regarded as at rest, or as not having this attribute); * From The Nation, June 3, 1875. t “ The Mechanism of the Universe and its Primary Effort-exerting Powers. By Au¬ gustus Fendler.” Wilmington, Del.: Printed by the “ Commercial Printing Company,” 18 74 . + We follow Professors Thomson and Tait in using “dynamics ” in a wide sense, in¬ cluding Statics, in place of “ mechanics,” which, though commonly used in this sense, is more properly the theory of machines and mechanical constructions than that of the ab¬ stract principles of motion and equilibrium. W 3 86 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. and the other form of the same fact, namely, that the motion in the body is an attribute of the body—are equivalent or en¬ tirely accordant expressions of what is signified by the preposi¬ tion “ in.” Zeno’s paradox is logically solved in such terms as these: motion transcends the “ sphere ” of the locative, or is distinct from both the positive and negative, or the contradictory locative, meanings of “ in.” It is neither here nor there as a phenomenon, and yet is not an excluded middle, since the con¬ tradiction of this and some other place is a contradiction in re¬ lations, both of which are distinct from the nature of motion. Nevertheless, judging by the current language (not mathemat¬ ical), and the past disputes of mathematicians on the definitions of force and motion—disputes which, after being settled with¬ in their own province, have been bequeathed to unmathematical speculators in dynamical philosophy—we should be inclined, at first sight, to allow that such speculators have the warrant of high authority for their attempts at revising the fundamental conceptions of this science. Whether consciously or not, the mathematicians of the seventeenth century and unmathematical sciolists of later times were impelled by this old paradox to a solution of its difficulty by a metaphysical or non-phenomenal conception of the “ force of motion,” so called, as something locatively in a moving body, constituting the substantive or sustaining cause of motion; seeing that the phenomenon itself of motion, being a continuous change of distance from a fixed position, could no more properly be in a body than this very distance could be locatively in it. Newton from the first, and all competent mathematicians of a later time, saw that the mathematical discussion of dynamical problems had no concern with any such metaphysical concep¬ tion. The supposed cause of the uniformity of motion in a fixed direction which a body has independently of external re¬ lations, or vires impresses , is not any part of dynamical science. Moreover, the causes of change in the velocities and directions of motion, or these vires impresses , were conceived in a purely phenomenal or descriptive way, and measured by actually vis¬ ible and tangible quantities. It was not on account of any speculative inability in Newton to conceive a possible ulterioj SPECULA TIVE D YNAM/CS. 3 8 7 cause of gravity that he excluded from mathematical dynamics the search for it, and remained contented with the descriptive quantitative law of its action; but simply because such a re¬ search departed in a direction just the opposite of that which led to rigorously-demonstrated explanations of the observed phenomena of nature. If any of these phenomena could have led, “ in a mathematical way,” to the law of action in gravita¬ tion, Newton’s genius would surely not have failed to deduce it from them. ' He took gravity with its law for an ultimate fact, simply because it did not follow as a consequence from % any other observed laws in the same manner of mathematical deduction in which he had shown that Kepler’s laws follow from it and from the three laws of motion. But even mathe¬ maticians, and especially those of Germany, whose men of science are even to this day more given to metaphysics than those of other nations, were for a long time haunted by the metaphysical spectre of a cause called the “force of motion,” and supposed to be needed to keep a body agoing as well as to set it in motion or bring it to rest. The mathematics of this science, however, deals only with the defined or measured quantitative phenomenal conditions of per¬ sistence and change in motion; and the metaphysical mathema¬ ticians were so far true to their science as to seek for a measure of this metaphysical cause of motion. A fierce dispute accord¬ ingly arose in the seventeenth century, and was continued into the eighteenth, in which the most illustrious men took part, as to whether the “ force of motion ” should be measured or defined by the velocity directly or by the square of the velocity. But after a bitter contention, prolonged by the rivalries of national honor among European scholars, the question was finally seen to resolve itself into whether the name vis viva , or “ force of motion,” ought properly to be given to one or to the other meas¬ ure. For all mathematical and experimental purposes, these measures were all in all, and were perfectly consistent as meas¬ ures of different phenomena or relations of motion, if only called by different names. And it was seen that dynamical science could get along perfectly well without any use of the confusing word “ force.” But the word continues still to have at least 3 88 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. v four distinct meanings in dynamical science—technical mean¬ ings related to the use of the word in mathematical reasonings, which are never, however, confounded by mathematicians. All that is really common to them is a vague reference to the pro¬ duction or persistence of states of motion or rest. The real gists of their meanings are in the qualifying terms annexed to them, as in the vis impressa of Newton or the vis mortna of Leibnitz, otherwise called vis acceleratrix , the vis insita or vis inertia , the vis viva , and the vis motrix. In place of these names, modern treatises often use, without the substantive word, the terms acceleration (retardation being a minus or algebraical¬ ly negative acceleration); secondly, mass (the coefficient of velocity, or of its square, in estimating either); thirdly, the momentum; and, fourthly, the energy of motion. But the term energy still has that metaphysical taint of vagueness, even with modem mathematical writers, which so long infected the word “ force.” It is still spoken of, both with reference to its actual and potential forms, as if it were something locatively in the moving body, or in a body capable of a defined motion; in¬ stead of being only predicably in the permanent internal and the special external conditions, which mathematically determine relative movements and their rates of change. It is not sur¬ prising that an unmathematical speculator in dynamics should be misled by such expressions as the following from the eminent authors, Professors Thomson and Tait, to which many parallel expressions in other authors might be added, namely, “A raised weight, a bent spring, compressed air, etc., are stores of energy which can be made use of at pleasure.” A mathematician, knowing in what terms these antecedent conditions of motion are expressed and measured, understands them to refer only to sensible properties in these “ stores,” together with the restrain¬ ing causes which also have sensible measures, namely, what makes them “ stores,” or holds the weight up, or the spring be?it, or the air compressed. It is in the being held up, or bent, or compressed —in these antecedent circumstances, as well as in what is locatively in the bodies, that the storing of energy con¬ sists ; and this energy is also dependent in the case of the raised weight on an equally sensible and measurable outward relation, namely, distance from the ground. SPECULATIVE DYNAMICS. 3 8 9 The word “force,” unqualified, but understood to be limited to the meaning and descriptive measure of “ accelerative force,” or in a strictly-defined and technical meaning, is still commonly employed in treatises on dynamics. Otherwise it is always qualified, as in the “force of inertia .” All its uses in mathe¬ matical language, or the equivalent terms, acceleration, mass, momentum, and energy, refer to precise, unambiguous defini¬ tions in the measures of the phenomena of motion, and do not refer to any other substantive or noumenal existence than the universal inductive fact that the phenomena of all actual move¬ ments in nature can be clearly, and definitely, or intelligently analyzed into phenomena, and conditions of phenomena, of which these terms denote the measures. In modern dynamics, the mathematical measures of actual phenomena are their real essences, as scientific facts. Even the much-derided Aristot¬ elian doctrine in explanation of the various phenomena of suc¬ tion—namely, “ nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum ”—might pass muster in science (though not now as an ultimate principle) if a determination of how much nature’s abhorrence amounts to under defined circumstances were attached to it. The real fault of the principle and its pretended explanations would be paralleled if we should seek to explain the movements of the planets and of falling bodies by “ nature’s abhorrence of divorce between bodies ”—which is about what the word “ attraction ” meant to the lively imaginations of Newton’s contemporaries, as with Huygens—without estimating, as the Newtonian law of gravity does, how much this abhorrence amounts to under given external relations. The fact that nature has an abhor¬ rence of a vacuum mathematically dependent on the weight of the liquid forced into it is not impugned by the fact, subsequent¬ ly discovered, that this weight is balanced by the weight and consequent pressure of the atmosphere, any more than Kepler’s three descriptive and quantitative laws were invalidated by the subsequent deduction of them from the laws of motion and of gravity. Kepler’s laws served, indeed, as the most effective inductive confirmations of these laws and their universality; and Newton’s law of gravity would still hold the honored place it has in science even if it should in future be shown to follow 39° PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. from independently demonstrated and simpler, more ultimate conditions of changes in motion. Merely speculative explan¬ ations of it have no honor at all; for its merits are in its being a precise quantitatively-descriptive law, and on this ground alone it holds its place in mathematical dynamics. We have said that the word “ force,” when used without qualification, has come to mean unambiguously what, for the sake of avoiding ambiguity, Newton called vis impressaj so that in recent treatises the first law of motion is expressed in such terms as these: “ A body under the action of no force, or of balanced forces, is either at rest or moves uniformly in a straight line.” Newton’s words were : “ Nisi quatenus a viribus impressis .” Now, our author, apparently ignorant of the his¬ tory of the science, and without any guidance from its mathe¬ matics, undertakes to criticise such a statement (Section VI.), simply on the ground that he has chosen, without giving any reasons for it, to give the unqualified word “ force ” a different meaning in what he is pleased to call an axiom (Axiom VIII., p. 12). He means by it the cause which keeps a body agoing when it moves. Of this cause modern dynamical science knows nothing, except the negative fact stated in the first law of mo¬ tion, which may be given with even greater clearness without using the word “ force ” at all—namely, that, independently of properties through which a body is related to other bodies, or independently of such relations, its state of rest or of uniform motion in a fixed direction is unchanged. Behind this fact, except so far as it serves to define the word “ force,” or vis im- pressa , dynamic science does not go; but it goes forward with this and other facts to most fruitful results in mathematical de¬ ductions, with which our author does not appear to be at all acquainted. Another fact, the second law of motion, which again may be fully expressed without the use of “ force,” is that the change in the component of a velocity in any direction may be measured in terms of a fixed property, namely, mass, and special outward relations, which in general are dependent simply on distances and directions. Mathematical dynamics knows of no bodies at rest in any absolute sense. All the motions known .or considered are rel- SPECULATIVE DYNAMICS. 39 1 ative motions—namely, continuous changes of distances be¬ tween bodies, or between these and positions defined by other bodies. It is not known that even the centre or average posi¬ tion of all the masses of the universe is at rest in any absolute sense; so that the absolute motion of no body is known, and the “force” of our author is without any definite measure or utility in mathematical dynamics. The principle of relative motion leaves all measures of motion considered as absolute quite out of the problems of this science, as indeed they are quite beyond our possible knowledge. One of the principles of mathematical dynamics which stag¬ gers the unmathematical sciolist more than any other, and was at first one of the greatest difficulties, even with mathematicians, in the Newtonian theory of gravity—a difficulty repeatedly urged, and brought out from apparently independent medita¬ tions by anti-Newtonian heretics—is the doctrine of “action at a distance.” This action, the metaphysicians say, is impos¬ sible, and they devote themselves to the invention of media through which force and motion may be communicated, or from which it may be collected (Axiom VII., p. n), thinking that thereby they are helping out the mathematical genius of Newton by a profounder effort of thought than he was capable of. But with metaphysical action dynamical science has noth¬ ing to do. The action at a distance, considered in this science, is simply a change in motion measurably or mathematically .de¬ pendent on (or a function of) distances from bodies, distances of which nothing is asserted but that they extend indefinitely beyond the masses or the visible and tangible limits of bodies. “ A body cannot act where it is not ”—“ With all my heart,” says Carlyle, “ only where is it ? ” If attractive force is an at¬ tribute of bodies (as it is whether or not this force depends on an intangible and invisible medium), then the presence of bodies at a distance from their visible limits must be assumed, so far at least as this attribute is concerned. The color of a body is familiarly known to be distinct from its solid extent, volume, or mass, and is not in the same place; nevertheless, as superficial, is still contiguous with its other sensible qualities. The metaphysical difficulty of believing that the attribute of 3 9 2 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. attraction may be still more displaced or removed than color, is a difficulty which disappears with its cause, namely, un¬ familiarity with the conception. Patient study of mathematical and experimental science has resolved many such difficulties, which are not really logical ones; for whether gravity will ever come in science to be a legitimately derived attribute or prop¬ erty of bodies acting through a medium, or will forever remain, as now, an ultimate phenomenal fact, there is nothing of con¬ tradiction or essential opposition to experience in its asserted action at a distance—at a distance, that is, not of course from where it acts, but from the places where other attributes of body are manifested; that is, beyond its visible and tangible limits. Most theories of a gravitative medium have been in fact atomic, and, by the interposition of voids between atoms which is thus made, have really introduced the very action at a distance which the theories were devised to do away with. Indeed, the essential principle of action at a distance is a necessary conse¬ quence of the metaphysical axiom (which we are not, however, obliged by positive evidence to accept), that pure continuous matter is incompressible, as in the supposed atoms; and though this action be only on a molecular scale, it is no more possible on this scale than on that larger one of gravitative action which mathematical dynamics is supposed to assume. But, as we have said, no such metaphysical assumption is made in this science. No student of mathematics, competent to pass an examina¬ tion in Newton’s “ Principia,” not only on its definitions, axioms, and philosophical scholiums, but on its mathematical theorems and problems, could read with any profit, or even with any pa¬ tience, Mr. Fendler’s speculations. Those parts of the “ Prin¬ cipia,” or of more modern treatises, which such thinkers as our author appear to have studied, present themselves to the student who has clearly seen their embodiment in the mathematical deductions and experimental verifications of dynamical science in a wholly different light from that in which such speculative thinkers take them up. The laws or axioms and the definitions of this science are apparently considered by these thinkers as constituting in themselves a complete body of doctrine, capable SPECULA TIVE D YNAMICS . 393 of being studied and criticised quite independently of any other mathematics than what they directly involve, whereas they are really integrant parts or elements of a systematic deductive science; and whether or not they are evident at a glance through familiar inductions, or by “intuitions a priori ” (as some thinkers will have it), they have their truest proof in the broadest possible tests of experience, through the experimental and observational verifications of their mathematical conse¬ quences. Of the nature and force of this kind of proof none but students of mathematical dynamics and experimental phys¬ ics can be supposed to have any adequate conception. To at¬ tempt to criticise the elementary conceptions and first principles of the science in any other way, and especially a priori, or with a simple reference to Vernunft , is really a display of the critic’s incompetency, which is not remedied by a reference of his con¬ victions to ancestral experience, or any other modification of the a priori doctrine, or any treatment of mathematical axioms as philosophical truths. Several modern writers, more distin¬ guished than our author, and especially of late Mr. G. H. Lewes and Mr. H. Spencer, have thus illustrated how a priori too oft¬ en means no more than ab ignorantia et indolentia. Such writers appear to think that the mathematical deductions of the science are of secondary importance from a philosophical point of view, or are merely illustrative applications of philosophical principles to the processes of nature. But instead of the mathematical body of the science being an appendage to these principles as to an independent body of doctrines, these are themselves chosen and framed, so to speak, or determined in their forms and meanings with reference to the mathematics of a systematic deductive science. 4 BOOKS RELATING TO THE THEORY OF EVO¬ LUTION.* A correspondent asks for information on books relating to the development or evolution theory, especially for the book “ which is not too partisan or too technical, but gives the facts and reasoning with reference to it on both sides.” From a literature which has in the past fifteen years grown into an ex¬ tensive department of bibliography, we ought to be able, if this were possible in any subjects of discussion, to select the book which fulfills these requisites. Yet it would be vain to seek, even in Germany, for one which surpasses in these qualities the foundation and first of the series, namely, Darwin’s “ Origin of Species,” in which, and especially in the last edition, 1872, all the scientific objections that have been urged against the theory, as it is held by Darwinians, are more clearly put and fairly con¬ sidered than in any treatise we could name. In no work on a subject of which the scientific evidence is essentially technical, is the fault of technicality less obtrusive; and in late editions this is still further remedied by a glossary of scientific terms. But before we can clearly characterize other books on this sub¬ ject, it is necessary to make a grand division of the department into books that are strictly (like Darwin’s), or predominantly, scientific and inductive; and those that treat their subject as a part, or as the foundation even (like Mr. Spencer’s series), of general speculative philosophy, and in connection with theology and religion. Darwin’s books have been improperly charac¬ terized as speculative. This is true of them only in the sense in which incompletely verified scientific hypotheses are called speculative; in the sense in which Newton’s astronomy was, * From the Nation, February 18, 1875. BOOKS RELATIVE TO EVOLUTION. 395 until completely, or very nearly, verified; or (by a fairer in¬ stance) Newton’s optics, which, in a main point, is not verified, but reversed.* It is to the subjects of Darwin’s books, and not to his opinions or treatment, that the term speculative is ap¬ plicable, if at all; and so far as it is applicable as a reproach, it applies equally, or even more, to the opinions of his opponents. His mode of treatment is strictly scientific, Newtonian, or “positive”; nowhere dealing with disputed axioms, or with deductions from axioms laid down as a p?iori valid and as if they were not disputed; nowhere considering scientific theses as either favorable or unfavorable to general philosophical or religious conclusions, except, of course, where religious teach¬ ing, in having prejudged these questions on other than scientific grounds, is presumed to have exceeded by obiter dicta its proper jurisdiction. With the great majority, however, of writers on this subject the names of Darwin and Spencer are closely as¬ sociated ; though to more than one Aristotelian master, and to many scientific students of the subjects, no two names are more widely separated by essential differences of method. Mr. Spen¬ cer has lately put forward the claim that his method is justified by Newton’s precepts and practice. But, according to the judgment of the more immediate followers of Newton, the lead¬ ing physicists of to-day, this claim is not substantiated. The dispute is, however, quite aside from the reality of the distinction which, for bibliographical purposes, we here lay down. One of the requisitions of our-correspondent is not ful¬ filled by any book of the properly speculative division. We venture to assert that in no department of speculative philoso¬ phy, either expository or historical, do treatises exist which fair¬ ly present the facts and arguments on both sides. This virtue is possible only within the limits which scientific, Newton¬ ian, or “ positive ” method imposes; and within his own proper department of natural science every expert authority is a pos¬ itivist, whether on other subjects he denies, or ignores, or only * Speculative philosophy is properly metaphysics, and proceeds deductively from axi¬ oms, like Plato’s or Kant’s, or Mr. Spencer’s later form of a priori philosophy, which he professes to found, in part, on the empirical facts of heredity, and thus give it a scientific basis. 39 6 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. waives the disputed axioms. The essential characteristic of properly speculative as distinguished from scientific method is, that the former seeks to expel doubt by the furcular force of the dilemma that unless one accepts as having universal valid¬ ity certain axioms, which it is true are only illustrated, not veri- fied by inductive evidences, one is not entitled to hold any beliefs at all with any certainty. Choice axioms are therefore presented, illustrated , and a universology is deduced from them. True scientific virtue, on the other hand, is to balance evidences, and to bring doubts to civil terms; to resist the enthusiasm of these aggressive axioms, and to be contented with the beliefs which are only the most probable, or most authentic on strictly inductive grounds. Now in the proper scientific theory of “ evolution ”—unhappily so called, as confounding it with a different mode of treatment, when any of the successive pre¬ ceding names, “ descent with modification,” “ derivation,” “ development,” or “ transmutation ” would on this score have been better, notwithstanding a temporary disrepute in the name—the scientific evidence is in great measure technical, and a considerable part of what has accumulated in the past fifteen years is buried from the general reader in mono¬ graphs of scientific publications. Essays and discourses in exposition of Darwinism or natural selection are far too numer¬ ous ; the majority being better calculated to make the author shudder than to illuminate what is best got from a careful read¬ ing of his original treatise. Among brief and good essays we may mention Professor Huxley’s little books on the “ Origin of Species,” and “ Man’s Place in Nature ”; Mr. Wallace’s collec¬ tion of essays with the title of “ Natural Selection” (though some of these are too speculative to come under the head of natural science); and Mr. Mivart’s “ Genesis of the Species,” which though learned in biological science, is in many parts too spec¬ ulative or un-Newtonian to be mentioned under this head. We may add a little book called the “ Philosophy of Evolution,” by B. T. Lowne, published in 1873, by Van Voorst, London, which received one of the Actonian prizes of the Royal Insti¬ tution for 1872. This is mainly scientific, though it touches on the general philosophical or speculative bearings of the subject. BOOKS RELATIVE TO EVOLUTION. 397 Of works more unequivocally of the speculative class, Mr. Spencer’s generally, but more especially his “ Biology,” deserve a first place. We should not, however, in this case, as we do in Mr. Darwin’s, recommend the original so much as a recent¬ ly published exposition, which, under the title of “ Cosmic Phil¬ osophy,” is given by Mr. John Fiske. In this book, the disciple far surpasses the master in readableness and skill of exposition. Of a large subdivision of the speculative class—-the books whose aim is practical and religious, and opposed to theories of evo¬ lution—no one has come to our notice which fairly presents the exact points or the scientific arguments of the theory as it is now generally held by naturalists, and few of them apparent¬ ly deem it essential to their aim to do so. Finally, we may add to the scientific division of books on the subject a recent edition of Darwin’s “ Descent of Man,” renewed by the fiery ordeal of criticism to which the first edition was subjected, and perfected, so far as scientific fairness and method can go, by the author’s unbounded patience of thought and research. GERMAN DARWINISM * A few months ago, in answer to the inquiries of a corre¬ spondent about books on evolution, we took occasion to point out and emphasize a division, very fundamental and important in our view, in books on this subject, namely, between those which treat of it as a theorem of natural history from a Bacon¬ ian or scientific point of view, either mainly or exclusively (con¬ fining themselves to scientific considerations of proof), and those which treat of evolution as a philosophical thesis deductively, and as a part of a system of metaphysics. Such a division separates the names of Darwin and Spencer (which are popu¬ larly so often pronounced together) as widely as any two names could be separated on real grounds of distinction. Two little books have lately been published which we may add to the short lists we gave of popular works on evolution— one to each list, f Professor Oscar Schmidt’s “ Descent and Darwinism ” is essentially a scientific treatise, though of a type which could hardly have been produced originally in the En¬ glish language, or from a Baconian stand-point, and for English students of science. Of its peculiarities we propose to speak further on. The second book belongs to the speculative or metaphysical branch of the subject, and consists of two essays: one, translated from the French of Dr. Cazelles, is an account of Mr. Spencer’s philosophy, and a comparison of it with M. Comte’s; the other essay is a lecture by Dr. Youmans, given * From the Nation, September 9, 1875. t “ The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism. By Oscar Schmidt, Professor in the University of Strasburg,” 1875. “Outline of the Evolution-Philosophy. By Dr. M. E. Cazelles. Translated from the French by the Rev. O. B. Frothingham. With an Appendix by E. L. Youmans, M D.,” 1875. GERMAN DARWINISM . 399 in defense of Mr. Spencer’s claims to the credit of establishing the doctrine of evolution. Dr. Cazelles’s essay is an interesting account of Mr. Spencer’s theories by a fair-minded disciple— by as fair-minded a disciple as one could well be who is at all disposed to yield not merely to claims on one’s assent for the sake of argument or system, but on one’s adhesion to undem¬ onstrated beliefs asserted to be axiomatic and irresistible. But a system like Mr. Spencer’s is obliged to stand on such positions. To us it is inconceivable (and therefore, according to one of Mr. Spencer’s criteria, opposed to truth) that any one should not resent at every step the asserted demonstrations which Mr. Spencer parades. Neither Dr. Cazelles nor Dr. Youmans be¬ gins, however, far enough back in their accounts of the origin and progress of Mr. Spencer’s thoughts. These were really theological in origin, and have never departed from the theo¬ logical stand-point. For it is one thing to arrive at solutions of problems different from those commonly held, or from the or¬ thodox, and quite another thing to outgrow or be drawn by legitimate studies aside from the problems themselves. Believ¬ ers in philosophies of the unknowable are very much in the state of mind towards the theological problems of their earlier years in which the converted savage is towards the powers and attributes of the idols, which his reason has come to pronounce no other in fact than common blocks or stones. Presenting evidence to this effect does not really diminish the savage’s practical belief that his idols are pre-eminently ugly or awful, and preternaturally, though unapparently, unphenomenally, great. To get rid of this belief he must destroy the really harm¬ less blocks. To have believed strongly without due evidence is a state of mind not easily convertible, when due evidence is seen to be wanting, into one to which the object is absolutely without existence, but is more commonly changed into one in which the old interest remains and the object still affects the believer as an unconditioned, unproved, undemonstrable, but not less pragmatically real existence; and this is the real start¬ ing-point of Mr. Spencer’s philosophy. Dr. Cazelles thinks that Mr. Spencer “ freed his theory from all metaphysical attachments ” when he came in the course of 400 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. his thought to dismiss the moral or teleological implication of the word “ progress,” and substituted the word “ evolution ” as the more appropriate name for the abstraction which he sought to define as the fundamental idea of the universe; and when he also substituted in his formula of definition the word “ inte¬ gration ” for the “ individuation ” which he first thought to be the true form or idea of progress. The theory was doubtless thus freed from attachment to any received form of speculation on the nature of life and being, but not at all freed from the scope and method of metaphysics—this scope being systematic omniscience, including even the unknowable. The method of metaphysics is to treat of detached abstractions—that is, ab¬ stractions without check in definition and precision, from the concrete examples and embodiments to which Plato, not less than Bacon, pointed as indispensable guides to clearness and truth. There is no profound difficulty in conceiving what prog¬ ress means, if we qualify the question by the consideration of the concretes in which progress is made; not even if we extend our inquiry to the vague ranking of organisms as higher and lower. The essential error of metaphysics, or “ realism,” is not merely in attributing to an abstraction a truly individual, thing- like existence, or making it a “realized abstraction,” but in treating it as if it had such an existence—in other words, as if it had a meaning independently of the things which ought to determine the true limits and precision of its meaning. Thus, to apply the mechanical law of the conservation of force, which, as a scientific truth, has no meaning beyond the nature and conditions of material movements (whether these are within or outside of an organism)—to apply this law analogically to all sorts of changes—to the “ movements ” of society, for example —is, in effect, metaphysics, and strips the law of all the merits of truth it has in the minds and judgments of physical philoso¬ phers, or of those through whose experimental and mathemat¬ ical researches it came to have the clear, distinct, precise, though technical meanings in science that constitute its only real mer¬ its. The daring ignorance which in this speculation undertook to change the name of the principle, to call it “ persistence of force,” supposing the word “ force ” to refer to an incognizable GERMAN DARWINISM. 401 substratum of causation, and not, as it really does in science, to various measurably interchangeable forms of material move¬ ment and antecedent conditions of movement (wholly phe¬ nomenal), gave the author’s use of the principle the character pre-eminently of metaphysics. We remember, as its most char¬ acteristic feature, this attempt in Mr. Spencer’s “ First Princi¬ ples ” to eke out his barren “system ” of abstractions by wresting and corrupting the very type of unmetaphysical scientific truth to the vagueness of a principle of the “ unknowable.” The prin¬ ciple of the “ conservation of force ” does refer, indeed, to what thus appeared to be hopelessly unknowable to such a mind— namely, to the experimental and mathematical measures which determine its real meaning and proof. The climax of the specu¬ lation was capped when this principle was declared to be an undemonstrable but irresistible axiom—what we cannot help believing when we have once conceived it! In the same way, “ evolution ” is, with Mr. Spencer, not a theorem of inductive science, but a necessary truth deduced from axioms; and nothing can be more mistaken, therefore, than Dr. Youmans’s defense of Spencer’s claim to credit for substantiating a doctrine also, unfortunately, called “ evolution ” —the doctrine of the origin of species by “ descent, with modi¬ fication,” which is wholly due to the labors of leading English and German naturalists—real workers in experimental science. Dr. Youmans, unfortunately for his defense, quotes (p. 125) Spencer’s acknowledgment that, though in 1852, or earlier, he had conceived of the principle of “ the survival of the fittest,” he had not conceived of it as producing the diversities of living beings, or conceived of the co-operation of natural selection with indefinite variations to produce species. But this last is the whole gist of the matter, so far as mere conception is con¬ cerned ; and the merit—though this is a small part of Darwin’s merit in the matter—of this conception belongs so completely to him and to Mr. AYallace that the half-glimpses of the con¬ ception by earlier writers are of small account. Even Aristotle had conceived of the cause now called natural selection, in one of its modes of action; and two English writers—Dr. Wells and Mr. Patrick Matthew — in 1813 and 1831, set forth the agency 402 PHILOSOPHICAL DLSCUSSLONS. of this cause in more extended but still limited forms, the latter coming very near to the views of Darwin and Wallace. So far as other elements of the doctrine of descent ought to go to any single thinker’s credit, they undoubtedly belong to Lamarck, to whom, at the beginning of this century, and not to Mr. Spen cer, the following introductory remark by Dr. Youmans is just ly applicable—namely, that while the idea of evolution “ was passing through what may be called its stage of execration, there was no hesitancy in according to him all the infamy of its paternity; but when infamy is to be changed to honor, by a kind of perverse consistency of injustice, there turns out to be a good deal less alacrity in making the revised award.” In applying this remark to Mr. Spencer, as to a long-tried martyr, Dr. Youmans is himself guilty of the very injustice towards Lamarck of which he complains in behalf of Spencer; for there is nothing in Spencer’s writing relating to what is really honor¬ ed by men of science (namely, the scientific explanation of the origin of species) that is not to be credited either to Lamarck or to Darwin. This honor is really awarded to the scientific proofs and arguments on the subject, to which many other nat¬ uralists besides these more eminent ones, and especially those of Germany, have materially added by their contributions of observation and criticism; so that the theory as it now stands, which the sketch by Professor Schmidt sets forth very lucidly, is really a scientific theory only, and bears no necessary relation to any “ system ” of philosophy. It is worth noticing here that this sketch, though treating the subject historically, and can¬ vassing the merits of various contributions to it in this century and the last, in Germany, France, and England, nowhere men¬ tions the name or fame of Mr. Herbert Spencer. But in Germany, where the theory first got the name of Dar¬ winism, it is much more of an “ ism,” or connects itself much more intimately with general philosophical views, than in En¬ gland or America, except where in these countries it has got confounded with Mr. Spencer’s speculations. It is to the sig¬ nificance of this fact—the character of Darwinism in Germany —that we wished especially in this review to call attention, as an interesting phenomenon in the history of modern speculation, GERM A N DA R W/NISM. 403 determining the true place and the essential influence of Bacon and the Baconian philosophy. German systematic historians of philosophy were never able to make out where to place Ba¬ con’s so-called philosophy, or indeed to discover that he had a philosophy, or, what has appeared to their minds as the same thing, a “system.” And indeed he had no system; but by marshaling the forces of criticism known to his time, and rein¬ forced by his own keen invention, against all systems, past and prospective, he aimed at establishing for science a position of neutrality, and at the same time of independent respectability, between the two hostile schools of the Dogmatics and the Em¬ piricists, though leaning towards the tenets of theology just so far as these had practical force and value. He thus secured the true status for the advancement of experimental science, or of experimental philosophy, as it came to be called. He had less need of doing, and deserves less credit for what is more commonly credited to him—namely, laying down the rules of scientific pursuit, which the progress of science has itself much more fully determined. But what could be more fit as a crit¬ icism of such a “ system ” as Mr. Spencer’s than these aphor¬ isms from the first book of the “ Novum Organum ” ? “Some men become attached to particular sciences and contemplations, either from supposing themselves the authors and inventors of them or from having bestowed the greatest pains upon such subjects, and thus become most habituated to them. If men of this description apply them¬ selves to philosophy and contemplations of a universal nature, they wrest and corrupt them by their preconceived fancies, of which Aristotle affords us a signal instance, who made his natural philosophy completely subservi¬ ent to his logic, and thus rendered it little more than useless and disputa¬ tious. The chemists, again [those of Bacon’s time], have formed a fan¬ ciful philosophy from a few experiments of the furnace. Gilbert, too [a contemporary of Bacon’s], having employed himself most assiduously in the consideration of the magnet, immediately established a system of philosophy to coincide with his favorite pursuit.” And again: “In general, men take for the groundwork of their philosophy either too much from a few topics or too little from many; in either case, their philosophy is founded on too narrow a basis of experiment and natural his¬ tory, and decides on too scanty grounds; for the theoretic philosopher seizes various common circumstances by experiment, without reducing I them to certainty or examining and frequently considering them, and re¬ lies for the rest upon meditation and the activity of his wit.” 4 o4 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. / Under the Baconian regime the physical sciences have flour¬ ished in Great Britain for more than two centuries; while “philosophy,” as it is known in Germany, both orthodox and heterodox, has dwindled, except so far as it has had practical holds and bearings on one side through theology in religious teachings, or has been reinforced from time to time on both sides from the Continent. In Germany the position of the experi¬ mental sciences was far otherwise until near the beginning of this century. The sun of Baconism has not even yet shone fully on the German mind, or except as reflected from the posi¬ tion which the sciences have so long held in Great Britain and France, as compared to the claims of any systems of philosophy. That such a system as Oken’s Naturphilosophie , with its vague and meaningless abstractions, was an influence at the beginning of the present century, is not, however, so surprising as perhaps it would be if Mr. Spencer’s system (bear¬ ing a much greater resemblance to it than to any theories-of Darwin), had not got such a footing with English-thinking readers as it appears to have. There is, however, at present in Germany an ascetic school of experimental and inductive science, which deprives itself of the aid and guidance of theo¬ retical and deductive considerations, in order the more effectu¬ ally to protect itself from their undue influence. These Ge- lehrte?i are not true Baconians; but their method might be ap¬ propriately named “ experimentalism.” Men of science in Germany have in general never considered themselves as in a respectable neutral position with reference to opposite systems of philosophy, and Professor Schmidt in his preface accord¬ ingly consents to theory from both sides in philosophy, “Avow your colors”; and proceeds in his introduction to define his stand-point sharply on severabsubjects which cultivated English liberal thinkers would consider as irrelevant to the theme of his book— e. g, against “dualism ” in vital phenomena, against miracles and other metaphysical positions. Nothing could be more in keeping, on the other hand, with the refinement of modern English Baconism than the manner in which Darwin presents the doctrine of descent in his “ Origin of Species”; and as his scientific inquiry did not touch upon GERMAN DARWINISM. 405 the origin of life itself—but only on the origin of its various forms and their relations to one another and to their surround¬ ings, he even took a pleasure—a poetical, not a dogmatic one, surely—in presenting in religious language his sense of the scientific mystery of life, speaking of “life with its several pow¬ ers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one,” etc. Upon this often-quoted passage our author prosily remarks that “ in this Darwin has certainly been untrue to himself, and it satisfies neither those who believe in the continuous work of creation by a personal God, nor the partisans of natural evolution.” We doubt if Darwin cared to satisfy any but those who are willing to mark the boundary by a slight difference of style in speaking of the two; between what is evident or probable on experimental grounds, and what as yet baffles all approaches of experimental inquiry. It is a little incongruous that one so pre-eminently cautious and painstaking, so little speculative or metaphysical in the range of his researches, should be hailed as chief by so large a con¬ stituency of what really amounts to a philosophical school; albeit they are the brightest minds of Germany, and pre-emi¬ nently men of science. Professor Schmidt’s book is in form, however, and in effect, a thorough and learned scientific treat¬ ise, though he takes grounds, as the earlier French disciples of Newton did, on matters extraneous to his scientific subject. A FRAGMENT ON CAUSE AND EFFECT. “ Thought is a secretion of the brain ” was the announcement of a distinguished naturalist and physiologist, which excited strong aversion to those studies and views of nature which could thus degrade, as it appeared to do, the dignity of so important a function of life. What was, probably, meant, however, by the saying, is the physiological truth that the brain is the organ of thought in a manner analogous to that in which a gland is the organ of secretions, or a muscle of contractions, or the heart and vascular system of circulations. Thought no more resembles a secretion, however, than this resembles a contrac tion, or than either of these resembles the movements and effects of circulation; not so much, indeed, as these three resemble each other; yet, like all these three kinds of action, it is dependent, as physiological investigations show, on the intimate structure and vital activity of a special tissue, and its living arrangements and special changes in the brain. It is altogether likely that this is what was meant, and all that was meant, by the somewhat sinis¬ ter and disagreeable observation that “ thought is a secretion of the brain.” Men of science sometimes resort to paradoxes, figures of speech, concrete ways of stating truths in science, which those who are ignorant of the science and its real ground of evidence, but imagine that they can judge of its conclu¬ sions, are almost sure to misunderstand. Irony is not a more dangerous figure than such a use of comparisons and illus¬ trative figures of speech. Men of science are supposed, ex¬ cept by other men of science, to be literal and exact, and unlike poets, in all their utterances, and when, as Professor Carl Vogt did in the present instance, they seek to impress the imagination by a comparison or figure which is made at the ex- A FRAGMENT ON CAUSE A AW EFFECT. 4 ° 7 pense of sentiment, their expositions are almost sure to be mis¬ conceived, not only by those who are ignorant of their science and its grounds of inference, but even by the more sentimental and unreflective student of the science. What these persons seem to have supposed to be meant is not that thought and its expression are allotted to the brain as a secretion is to a gland, but that thought is a function in life which, as function, is of no more worth or dignity than the functions of the kidneys or of a cutaneous gland. It is altogether probable, however, that a certain feeling of impatience or contempt for the sentimental shallowness which could so misinterpret a scientific comparison, and confound it with moral or practical considerations is a real motive prompting to the utterance of shocking paradoxes, in disregard alike of the practical effect and of scientific clearness and discrimination in the communications of truth. Native common sense is too apt to be coarse and barbarous in its man¬ ners, and too inconsiderate of weakness. We will not venture to say that this was the case with the distinguished biologist whose words have been the cause of so much scandal. The metaphysical doctrine of materialism so often charged against or imputed to such scientific thinkers, is, in fact, a doctrine quite foreign to science, quite out of its range. It belongs, so far as it is intelligible, to the sphere of sentiment, moral feeling and practical principles. A thinker is properly called a materialist when he concludes that his appetites and passions and actions, having material objects and results for their motives, are those most worthy of serious consideration. This does not imply that he believes that natures so different as thoughts, sensations, bodies liquid and solid and their move¬ ments, are all fundamentally of the same nature, or are natures some of which are derived from certain other more fundamental ones among them: the spiritual from the material ones. It does not imply the opinion that thought is constituted of mo¬ tions or liquids, does not even imply that the materialist thinker believes in, or knows anything about, the truth that actual thinking depends, phenomenally, on the tissues, structures and conditions of an organ, as intimately as the liquid secretions and the internal and external movements of a living body do. 408 PHIL 0 SOPHICA L DISC US SI O NS. Scientific doctrines and investigations are exclusively concerned with connections in phenomena which are susceptible of dem¬ onstration by inductive observation, and independent of di¬ versities or resemblances in their hidden natures, or of any ques¬ tion about their metaphysical derivation, or dependence. That like produces like, and that an effect must resemble its cause are shallow scholastic conceptions, hasty blunders of gen¬ eralization, which science repudiates: and with them it repu¬ diates the scholastic classification or distinction of material and spiritual which depended on these conceptions, or supposed that a cause conferred its nature on its effect, or that the con¬ ditions of a cause by the combination of their natures consti¬ tuted the nature of the effect. This, in a sense,—in an iden¬ tical or tautological sense—is indeed true; but from this true, though identical, sense a false and mischievous one was gener¬ alized, and still continues to corrupt and misinterpret the results of scientific observation. In discovering anything to be the cause of. something else we have added to our knowledge of the nature of the first thing. We, have included in our conception of this thing the attribute of its producing, or being the cause of, the second. If now this attribute of it be the most prominent quality of it in our regard, as it is in contemplating a cause qua cause, the effect may, in an identical sense, be said to be constituted by its cause. In this view all the other attributes of the cause are subordinated to the attribute of producing a defined effect, or are regarded as accidental or non-essential attributes, and this is the view of the elementary relations in geometry and mathematics generally which abstraction produces, and is the source of the semblance of demonstrative certainty, and objective necessity which math¬ ematical theorems have. But when science discovers, by in¬ duction or empirically, a new cause, the thing previously known by other attributes, to which is now added the attribute of pro¬ ducing a given or defined effect, has nothing in its essential or previously defining attributes at all resembling, implying or constituting its effect, and its newly discovered attribute of pro¬ ducing this effect remains among the added, subordinate or ac¬ cidental attributes of such a cause. In its essence it does not A FRAGMENT ON CAUSE AND EFFECT. 409 imply, suggest or resemble its effect, and in this case the assertion that the nature of the cause determines or defines the nature of its effect, is clearly seen, so far as it is true, to be an identical proposition, meaning only that the production of the defined effect is a part, and a subordinate part, of the nature of a thing. The definition of the effect is added to that of the thing which is its cause, at least while we are contemplating this as the cause of the defined effect, and it is only by refunding to the effect what we have thus borrowed from it that we arrive at the metaphysician’s mathematical conception of causation, the transference of the nature of one thing, that is, the cause, to another thing, its effect. In mathematics the elements of dem¬ onstration are so selected, by abstraction, and their definition so determined that this transference of nature is what is osten¬ sibly done; though it is no more really done than in inferring consequents from antecedents, or effects from causes in so-called empirical science. In all cases where this appears to be the character of the connection of antecedent and consequent, or cause and effect, the transference of the nature of the cause to its effect, is only a restoration to the effect of natures borrowed from it, or into which it is resolvable by analysis. This fact is observed especially in mathematical inference, since such infer¬ ence is always from a complex antecedent, or from the combi¬ nation of a number of conditions, of which the aggregate is not known, named or defined by any attributes other than those which by the analysis and recombinations of mathematical dem¬ onstrations are shown to depend on the most obvious and elementary truths of our experience of measured quantities. The protasis of a geometrical theorem by the aid of geometrical constructions previously shown, or, when ultimate, simply as¬ sumed to be legitimate, is resolved into conditions which, re¬ combined, are the apodosis or conclusion of the proposition. These conditions may be used to define the natures of both the antecedent or reason, and the consequent, and by this means their natures become identical. And both are analyzed ulti¬ mately in the course of a series of demonstrations into a few axioms, and these axiomatic truths implied in a few definitions. But not only in the mathematical, but also in the so-called em- 18 4io PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. pirical discovery of the connections of antecedent and conse¬ quent, or cause and effect, the antecedent or cause is almost always a combination of conditions, or a concurrence of things, relations and events, the definition of which in their aggregate, in merely logical consideration, may as well be the effect which follows, provided this is sufficient for defining it, as be anything else; since this aggregate of conditions is not usually denoted by a single name, the connotation of which would define its nature. Yet for practical and scientific purposes this aggregate is best defined by the enumeration of the conditions that com¬ pose it, to which observation adds the fact, or nature, that it will whenever it exists be followed by a given or defined effect. In this case the conditions which constitute the cause do not constitute the effect. They are simply followed by the effect, whose nature is wholly unlike that of its cause, or is like and is implied in its cause only so far as the capacity of producing it may be thought of identically as a part of the nature of its cause. Thus a stone, or any body denser (i) than the air, left unsupported (2) above (3) the surface of the earth, will fall (4) to it, is a proposition in so-called empirical science, in which the conditions (1) (2) (3) form an aggregate to which if we add as a part of its nature the result (4), that is, add the uncondi¬ tional tendency to fall inferred from facts of observation, then the fall is a necessary consequence of the nature of its anteced¬ ent conditions, and it is like or is implied in this nature, quite as truly as any mathematical consequence is necessary, or is implied in mathematical protases of causes or antecedents. But ordinarily physical philosophers are not so anxious to make a scholastic show of demonstration as to surreptitiously add (4) to the group of conditions (1) (2) and (3) so as to make out their proof on the maxims that like produces like, or that effects resemble or partake of the nature of their causes. These max¬ ims are really no more true of abstract reasonings in the ele¬ mentary demonstrations of geometry; but the aim of these elementary reasonings justifies the procedures which give ap¬ parent countenance to their maxims. Other and real illustrations vaguely related to these apparent ones are given in the organic world, in the phenomena of as- A FRAGMENT ON CAUSE AND EFFECT. 411 similation and reproduction. Tissues turn nutriment into substances of the same kind as their own. Offspring resemble their parents. These facts, together with the geometrical principle of Sufficient Reason appeared to be sufficient grounds with scholastic philosophers for generalizing the identity of natures in real causes and effects. But, in fact, the very oppo¬ site is true. Elementary relations of antecedence and conse¬ quence are always those of unlikeness. A simple nature or phenomenon A is invariably followed by, or joined with, an¬ other different one B. Weight in a body manifested to us primarily by pressure, or in the tension of our muscles through the statical muscular sense, is a simple nature not resembling or implying at all the downward movement which always follows it when isolated or freed from other forces or con¬ ditions that are of a nature to produce an opposite effect, namely, an elastic movement, or bearing upward, and are as unlike this effect as weight is unlike the movement of falling. So in the elements of geometry the quality straightness and that of minimum length—duration or effort in traversing a line —are antecedent and consequent, or else concomitant qualities which are essentially different in their natures, but so intimately joined in all experience and in our conceptive powers, that they seem to be different aspects of one and the same nature. Yet the fully adequate and constructive definition of straight lines as a sort, of which only one can be drawn between two given points, does not imply that this is the shortest that can be drawn, or the one soonest and easiest traversed. This con¬ structive definition joined to the meaning of the word inclosure gives what is often regarded as an axiom, the more complex proposition, that twp straight lines cannot inclose a space. Starting with these and other constructive definitions, with the most general axioms of quantity, and with postulates of con¬ struction, and combining them into more and more complex relations of magnitudes in extension, we arrive at geometrical theorems in which the protasis states the least possible that is essential as the cause, or reason, and the apodosis, or con¬ clusion, defines succinctly the consequent, or effect; theorems in which the connections of these two terms is far from obvious, 412 PHIL OS O PH/CA L DISC US SION'S. but is nevertheless necessary, at least in the abstract, or on the supposition of precise, real definition and construction. Reason and consequent imply one the other, or the nature of a cause determines that of its effect, because one is analyzed into rela¬ tions already determined from fundamental propositions, and these relations serve to define, or constitute the other. It is not true in general that the effect is like its cause, or has a nature determined by that of its cause, but it is true that like causes produce like effects. Parents may be said with tolera¬ ble correctness to be the causes of their offspring resembling them, and hence in this case causes produce effects like them¬ selves; yet it is more correct to say that the offspring resemble their parents, because both are products, though successive ones, of similar real causes and processes, some of which in no¬ wise resemble or transfer their natures to their effects. Some implements and agents of the useful arts likewise are used to make precisely similar implements and agents, as a black¬ smith’s hammer to produce a similar hammer, or fire to kindle another one, or to reproduce the easily ignited substances with which fires are kindled; yet in these cases the agent that pro¬ duces its like is not the whole of the cause of production. The blacksmith’s forge and anvil and his arm and sight are con- causes or conditions of this reproduction: and the nature of these does not re-appear in the effect, unless, as we have said, there is added to the conception of the aggregate of conditions, namely, to the conception of the iron, forge, welding-hammer, arm and sight combined, also the fact that these will produce an effect resembling one of its conditions. So in organic re¬ production, the plant produces seed similar not to itself but to the seed from which it grew, and the new seed grows into a similar plant: and in this alternation in which the immediate cause really produces effects unlike itself there are many sub¬ ordinate conditions and processes the similarity of which in the parent and offspring makes them similar through successive effects of similar causes, which are not of the same nature as their effect. It is only because one condition or element of the cause (the one which resembles its effect) is singled out and, in accordance with the practical usage of common language, A FRA GHENT ON CA USE AND EFFECT . 413 is called the cause, on account of its prominence or conspicu¬ ousness, that it is at all proper to speak of the parent organ¬ ism as the cause of the production of its offspring. The ex¬ istence of the parent organism is a condition sine qua non of the production of its offspring, but there are other conditions equally indispensable, the natures of which in themselves are in no wise reproduced in the effects.—[1873.] JOHN STUART MILL—A COMMEMORATIVE NOTICE.* The name of John Stuart Mill is so intimately associated with most of the principal topics of modern philosophical dis¬ cussion, and with the gravest of open questions, with so many of the weightiest subjects of unsettled theory and practice, that it would be difficult to say for which of his many works his fame is at present the greatest or is most likely to endure. Those subjects in the treatment of which the originality of his position was the least were those in which the qualities most characteristic of him, and for which his writings have been most esteemed, appear in clearest light. Unlike most other great thinkers and masters of dialectics, he did not seek to dis¬ play what his own invention had contributed to the arguments, or his observation to the premises, in his discussion of philo¬ sophical and practical questions. On the contrary, he seemed to be indifferent to the appearance and reputation of originality, and actuated by a singleness of purpose and a loyalty to the views of his teachers in philosophy and science which were in¬ consistent with motives of personal vanity. The exercise of his admirably trained dialectical powers doubtless afforded him in¬ trinsic delight, the joy of play, or of spontaneity of power; but it was none the less always subordinated to moral purposes which were clearly defined in his youth, and loyally pursued through an active intellectual life for nearly half a century. But his broad practical aims were never allowed, on the other hand, to pervert the integrity and honesty of his intellect. Though an advocate all his life, urging reasons for unpopular measures of reform, and defenses of an unpopular philosophy * From the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1873-74. JOHN STUART MILL. 415 or criticisms of the prevailing one, he was not led, as advocates too frequently are, to the indiscriminate invention and use of bad and good arguments. He weighed his arguments as dis¬ passionately as if his aim had been pure science. Rarely have strength of emotion and purpose and strength of intellect been combined in a thinker with such balance and harmony The strength of his moral emotions gave him insights or premises which had been overlooked by the previous thinkers whose views he expounded or defended. This advantage over his predecessors was conspicuous in the form he gave to the util¬ itarian theory of moral principles, and in what was strictly original in his “ Principles of Political Economy.” In the latter, the two chief points of originality were, first, his treatment of the subject as a matter of pure abstract science, like geometry; or as an account of the means which are req¬ uisite to attain given ends in economics, or the cost needed to procure a given value, without bringing into the discussion the irrelevant practical questions, whether this cost should be in¬ curred, or whether the end were on the whole desirable. These questions really belong to other branches of practical philosophy,—to the sciences of legislation, politics, and morals, to which the principles of political economy stand in the rela¬ tion of an abstract science to sciences of applied principles and concrete matters. But, secondly, while thus limiting the prov¬ ince of this science, he introduced into it premises from the moral nature of man, by the omission of which previous writers had been led to conclusions in the science of a character gloomy and forbidding. The theory of population of Malthus, as elaborated by Ricardo, seemed to subject the human race to a hopeless necessity of poverty in the masses. Whether the principle of population did really necessitate this conclusion would depend, Mill taught, on more than the capacity of a soil to support a maximum population with the least subsistence needed for the labor of production. The principle applies without qualification to the animal world in general and to savage men; but not to progressive communities of men, in which foresight and prudence, with moral and social aspira¬ tions, are forces of more or less influence in checking increase 4 ! 6 PHILOSOPHICA L DISC USSIONS. in population, and in improving the condition of the masses The poorest, the most wretched, are not in the same condition of want in all communities of men. The poorest savage is objectively in a worse condition than the poorest civilized man. Mill did not oppose the views of his predecessors nor their manner of treatment, as so many other writers had done: he carried out their mode of regarding the science as a physical one, but with a thoroughness which brought to light considera¬ tions materially modifying their conclusions. The prospects of mankind are not hopeless, so long as men are capable of as¬ pirations, foresight and hope; though they may be gloomy enough in view of the slow working of these forces. What these forces have to oppose, however, is not the resistance of an immovable necessity, but only the force of inveterate cus¬ toms. -To the sentimental objection that the laws of political economy are cruel, and therefore not true, Mill humorously replied that he knew of no law more cruel than that of gravity, which would put us all to death, were we not always and vigil¬ antly on our guard against it. With a full, perhaps a too extreme appreciation of moral forces, as elements in the problems of Political Economy, Mill still treated the science as an abstract one; as a science of con¬ ditional propositions, a science applicable to the practical prob¬ lems of morals and politics, but not in itself treating of them. For example, wars are expensive, and the establishment of a new industry is also an expense which the principles of political economy can estimate; but it does so without deciding wheth¬ er war or an industry ought under given circumstances to be undertaken. Moral forces are real agents affecting the future of the human race. As causes of effects, they are calculable forces, and as means to ends are proper subjects of the abstract science of political economy. It was because Mr. Mill believed in “ mor¬ al causation ” (the name he gave to what had indiscriminately been called the doctrine of ?iecessity in human volition), and be¬ cause he himself was powerfully and predominantly actuated throughout his life by high moral considerations, that he gave i JOHN ST HA AH MILL. 417 such emphasis to the moral elements in political economy, and made room for hope—for a sober, rational hope—respecting the practical conclusions and applications of the science; seeing that hope can subsist with the desire that inspires it, provided the desire is instrumental in effecting what is hoped for. It was because he believed in “ moral causation ” that he treated po¬ litical science, in general, in the manner and by the methods of physical philosophy, or as a science of causes and effects. He believed that he himself and his generation would effect much for the future of mankind. His faith was that we live in times in which broad principles of justice, persistently proclaimed, end in carrying the world with them. His hopefulness, generosity, and courage, and a chivalric, almost romantic disposition in him, seemed to those least ac¬ quainted with him inconsistent with the utilitarian philosophy of morals, which he not only professed, but earnestly and even zealously maintained. The “ greatest happiness principle ” was with him a religious principle, to which every impulse in his nature, high or low, was subordinated. It was for him not only a test of rational rules of conduct (which is all that could be, or was, claimed for it in his philosophy of morals), but it be¬ came for him a leading motive and sanction of conduct in his theory of life. That other minds differently constituted would be most effectively influenced to the nobility of right conduct by other sanctions and motives, to which the utilitarian princi¬ ple ought to be regarded as only a remote philosophical test or rational standard, was what he believed and taught. Unlike Bentham, his master in practical philosophy, he felt no con¬ tempt for the claims of sentiment, and made no intolerant de¬ mand for toleration. He sincerely welcomed intelligent and earnest opposition with a deference due to truth itself, and to a just regard for the diversities in men’s minds from differences of education and natural dispositions. These diversities even appeared to him essential to the completeness of the examina¬ tion which the evidences of truth demand. Opinions positive¬ ly erroneous, if intelligent and honest, are not without their value, since the progress of truth is a succession of mistakes and corrections. Truth itself, unassailed by erroneous opinion, PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. 41S would soon degenerate into narrowness and error. The errors incident to individuality of mind and character are means, in the attrition of discussion, of keeping the truth bright and un¬ tarnished, and even of bringing its purity to light. The human mind cannot afford to forget its past aberrations. These, as well as its true discoveries, aVe indispensable guides; nor can it ever afford to begin from the starting-point in its search for truth, in accordance with the too confident method of more ambitious philosophers. Such being his loyalty and generosity, it is not surprising that Mill obtained a much wider acceptance of utilitarian doctrines, and a more intelligent recognition of their real import, than previous thinkers of his school had secured. He redeemed the word “ utility ” from the ill-repute into which it had fallen, and connected noble conceptions and motives with its philosophical meaning. It is now no longer a synonym of the ignoble or base, or the name of that quality in conduct, or in anything which conduces to the satisfaction of desires common to all men. He made it mean clearly the quality in human customs and rules of conduct which conduces to realize conditions and dispositions which for men (though not for swine) are practica¬ ble, and are the most desirable; their desirableness being tested by the actual preference which those who possess them have for them as elements in their own happiness. This meaning of utility includes the highest motives in whose satisfaction an in¬ dividual’s happiness can consist, and not the baser ones alone; not even the base ones at all, so far as they obstruct the sources of a greater happiness than they can afford. It is now no longer a paradox to the intelligent student of Mill’s philosophy, that he should prefer, as he has avowed, the worst evil which could be inflicted on him against his will, to the pains of a vol¬ untary sophistication of his intellect in respect to the more se¬ rious concerns of life. His method led him to conceal or at least subordinate to his single purpose most of what was original in his discussions of the various philosophical subjects to which he gave his at¬ tention. Yet his studies in logic, ethics, psychology, political economy and politics, and even in poetry, are full of valuable JOHN STUART MILL. 419 and fertile contributions of original thought; and of that kind of service to philosophy which he most valued in such writers as Dr. Brown and Archbishop Whately,—a kind of service which he believed would survive the works of more learned and ambitious thinkers. A thorough preparation for his work, to which his education was directed by his father, realized what is rare in modern times,—a complete command of the art of dialectics; an art which he believed to be of the greatest service in the honest pursuit of truth, though liable to abuse at the hand of the dishonest advocate. His education was like that of an ancient Greek philosopher,—by personal intercourse with other superior thinkers. He felt keenly in his later work, as Plato had, “how much more is to be learned by discussing with a man who can question and answer, than with a book which cannot.” That he was not educated at a university, and through the influences of equals and coevals in intellectual and moral development, may account for one serious defect in his powers of observation,—a lack of sensibility to the differ¬ ences of character in men and between the sexes. So far as he did recognize these mental diversities, he prized them for the sake of truth, as he would have prized the addition of a new sense to the means of extending and testing knowledge. But he did not clearly discriminate what was really a reflection, as in a mirror, or a quick anticipation of his own thoughts in other minds, from true and original observations by them. This may be accounted for in part by his philosophical habit, as has been observed, “ of always keeping in view mind in the abstract, or men in the aggregate.” Though he mingled in the affairs of life with other men, taking part in debates and discussions, private and public, by speech and by writing, all his life, his disposition was still essentially that of a recluse. He remained remote in his intellectual life from the minds and characters of those with whom he contended, though always loyal to those from whom his main doctrines, his education, and inspiration were derived. A natural consequence of his private education by a philos¬ opher (his father), and by intercourse with superior adult minds, like Bentham and the political economist Say, was that he 420 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. soon arrived at maturity, and was in full possession of his remark¬ able powers in early youth, able and eager to exercise them upon the most abtruse and difficult subjects. Annotations to Bentham’s “Rationale of Judicial Evidence” was his first publicly acknowledged literary work, performed before he was yet of age; though contributions to the science of botany and other writings were labors of his youth. While still in his youth, before the age of thirty, he advocated reforms in an ar¬ ticle in the “Jurist” on “Corporation and Church Property,” features of which became acknowledged principles of legisla¬ tion in Parliament many years later. He lived to see many of the reforms proposed by Bentham enacted as public law, and to take part in Parliament in the furtherance of some of his own political ideas. His courage and hopefulness were not quixotic, but were sustained by real successes. These qualities in his character, though perhaps properly described as roman¬ tic, or as springing from an ardent, emotional temperament, were always tempered by his cooler reason and by facts. In more than one division of special study in science and philos¬ ophy he mastered facts and details at first hand, or by his own observation; thus training his judgment and powers of imag¬ ination to those habits of accuracy so essential in a true edu¬ cation, by which knowledge more extensive, more or less super¬ ficial, and necessarily at second hand, can alone be adequate¬ ly comprehended. He was prepared for writing an important part of his great work on Logic by the study of the principles, requisites, and purposes of a rational classification in the prac¬ tical pursuit of botany,—a favorite pastime with him through¬ out his life. The use to him of this kind of knowledge, as of all other kinds worthy to be called science, was in its bearings on other and wider branches of knowledge. He generalized the principles exhibited in the natural system of botanical clas¬ sification to their application “to all cases in which mankind are called upon to bring the various parts of any extensive subject into mental co-ordination. They are as much to the point,” he adds, “when objects are to be classed for purposes of art or business, as for those of science. The proper ar¬ rangement, for example, of a code of laws, depends on the JOHN STUART MILL. 421 same scientific conditions as the classifications of natural his¬ tory ; nor could there be a better preparatory discipline for that important function than the study of the principles of a natural arrangement, not only in the abstract, but in their actual ap¬ plications to the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated, and which are still the best school for learning their use.” To rightly divide and define is divine, said Plato; yet it is not an excellence by which the divine is distinguished from a human perfection. It is rather a perfection which is relative to human limits and weaknesses. The “mastery system” of studying a subject in its facts, and at first hand, was not liable with Mill to degenerate into the mere idiotic pursuit of facts, since the character of his mind was already determined by a strong philosophical bias. Even subjects like the fine arts, which are commonly and properly regarded as affording ends in themselves, or sufficient and worthy motives to study, interested Mill as affording broad principles and influences, extending beyond the immediate and present delight they inspire. In his readings of poetry he looked not merely for beauties or for sympathy, but for princi¬ ples, causes, and influences; for the relations of it to the times in which it appeared. So wide was the range of his studies and his intellectual sympathies, that no writer has given wiser advice on the much debated subject of education, or advice more satisfactory to all parties, even to the advocates of special studies. Mr. Mill was a thinker about whose personal character and circumstances of education the student naturally seeks to learn. In such a thinker, these elements of power are instinctively felt to be of prime importance. They explain Mill’s later influence at the universities, where, though not personally known, his effect upon the young men of the most active minds, through his principal works, his Political Economy and his System of Logic, became a powerful one, though purely spontaneous; for it did not come in by the normal channels of the curricu¬ lum. It was with men of the succeeding generation (as gen¬ erally happens with great innovators in science and philoso¬ phy) that his teachings were destined to be fully appreciated. 422 PHIL 0SOPHIC.A L DISC USS10NS. But his teachings were none of them fundamentally new; or what was new in them was, or appeared to be, subordinate to what he had avowedly borrowed from previous thinkers. H( was neither the author of a new system of philosophy, nor the discoverer of a new science. He can hardly be called, in strictness, the advocate even, of any previous doctrine in phi¬ losophy or science. It was one of his short-comings that he took for granted more than most of his readers knew. His starting-point was in advance of what most of them knew, and he was thus unintelligible to many of the best minds among his coevals. Starting from what many of them did not know, he completed, carried out, and put into a scientific form in his “System of Logic,” and in his “Principles of Political Econo¬ my,” the views he had adopted from his earlier teachers and from his later studies. It was through his masterly style of exposition and his skill in dialectics, and by other traits of a personal character to which active and original youth is especially alive, that he secured an unprejudiced hearing for doctrines in philosophy and practice which had almost ceased to have adherents. These doctrines had a century before, from the time of Locke (and before Hume had developed them with such alarming effect on existing beliefs), become an especially English philos¬ ophy; but had almost disappeared through the influence of the Scottish and German reactions against Hume. When his “ System of Logic” was published, he stood almost alone in his opinions. The work was not written in exposition or defense of this philosophy, but in accordance with its tenets, which were thus reduced to a proximate application, or to a more determinate or concrete form. A qualified nominalism, thor¬ oughly English, and descended from the English schoolman William of Ockham, was its philosophical basis. He welcomed and introduced to English readers the revival of this phi¬ losophy in France, by Auguste Comte, with whom he agreed in many positions,—more especially in those which were not original with Comte. His accordance with Comte can hardly be regarded as one of discipleship, since in most important practical matters Mill dissented from the views of the French JOHN STUART MILL. 423 philosopher. His real allegiance was to the once prevalent teachings of Locke, and to those of Berkeley, Hume, Brown, Hartley, and his father James Mill. No modern thinker has striven more faithfully to restore and build upon those speculations of the past, which appeared to him just and true, or more modestly to exhibit and acknowl¬ edge his indebtedness to previous thinkers; yet, by the excel¬ lence of his works, this past has fallen to the inheritance of his name and fame. To give scientific form or systematic coher¬ ency to views put forth unsystematically by others, was to give soul and life to doctrines which were thus made especially his own. The teachings of Sir John Herschel’s celebrated “Dis¬ course on the Study of Natural Philosophy” were generalized by Mill into what is his most original contribution to logic, his theory of induction and of the inductive basis of all real truth. From this theory, important consequences were drawn as to the nature and function of syllogistic inference,—consequences from which the philosophical student remounts to the philoso¬ phy of experience and the teachings of Hume. From Hume and Brown, again, he derives his theory of causation, which he connects with other elements in his system, and with illustra¬ tions in science in a manner which has made the theory pecu¬ liarly his own. But it would be out of place in this notice to attempt an analysis of Mill’s works. Our task is only to ac¬ count for his influence. In politics he belonged to what is called the school of “phil¬ osophical radicals,” who are, as he defined them, those who in politics follow the common manner of philosophers; who trust neither to tradition nor to intuition for the warrant of political rights and duties, but base the right to power in the State on the ability to govern wisely and justly, and, seeing their coun¬ try badly governed, seek for the cause of this evil, and for means to remedy it. This cause they found to be in “the * Aristocratical Principle,” since, in the present imperfect condi¬ tion of human nature, no governing class would attend to those interests of the many which were in conflict with their own, or could be expected to give to any interests not their own any but a secondary consideration. The remedy for this 424 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. evil they found in a modified democratic principle; namely, the better ability and disposition of the many to look aftei their own interests, than any dominant few could have, or would be likely to have,—provided the many, or their repre¬ sentatives, are enlightened enough to know their true interests and how to serve them. The motto of this radicalism was “Enmity to the Aristocratical Principle.” From this creed sprung Mill’s ardent hostility towards the South in their rebel¬ lion against our national government, and his hearty espousal of extreme anti-slavery views. But a democracy may be tyrannical towards minorities, and, if unchecked, is likely to become so; and, what is worse, is likely to become an unprincipled tyrant, less influenced by con¬ siderations of justice or prudence than a governing class would be. This fear made Mill distrust extreme forms of democracy and government by mere majorities. Accordingly, among his later works, his “ Considerations on Representative Govern¬ ment” undertakes to devise checks to the abuse of power by ma¬ jorities. But it is evident that Mill’s greatest trust was in those influences which have given to communities the ability, and thence the power and right, to govern themselves; namely, their intelligence and moral integrity, or that which reduces the necessity of government by force to the fewest functions and occasions. His famous essay on Liberty sought to estab¬ lish, on grounds of moral principle, restraints of governmental force, in whatever way it might be exercised, whether in the form of public law or of public opinion; neither of which in any form of government is likely to be wiser beyond its proper sphere of duty than those it seeks to control. Government in advanced communities, capable of self-government, should not be of the parental type or degree of power. Coercion, which in itself is an evil, becomes a wrong, where persuasion, rational discussion, and conviction are capable of effecting the same ends, especially when these ends are less urgent than the need of security and self-protection in a community, for which it is the proper duty of government by force to provide. To place government in the hands of those sufficiently intelligent, whose true interests are most affected by it, and to limit its province JOHN STUART MILL. 425 and its functions as much as possible, leaving as much as pos¬ sible to non-coercive agencies, was the simple abstract creed of Mill’s political philosophy. The essay on “Liberty” and his later essay on “The Sub¬ jection of Women” exhibit the ardent, emotional, enthusiastic, perhaps not the soundest, side of Mr. Mill’s mental character and observation of human nature. Yet he cannot be said to have been without much experience in the practical art of government. He was in immediate charge of the “ political department,” so called, of the East India House for more than twenty years. It was during this period, and in the midst of active employments, that his Logic and Political Economy were written. Both were thought out in the vigor of life and at the summit of his powers. His mind and pen were never idle. At about the age of fifty, he published selections from his occasional short writings for reviews. These had more than a passing interest, since in them, as in all his writings, great and often new principles of criticism are lucidly set forth. In all his writings, his judgments are valued by his readers, not as judgments on occasional matters by a current or conventional standard, but as tests and illustrations of new standards of criti¬ cism, which have a general and enduring interest, especially to the examining minds of youth. With a tact almost feminine, Mill avoided open war on ab¬ stract grounds. The principles of his philosophy were set forth in their applications, and were advocated by bringing them down in application to the common sense or instinctive, unan¬ alyzed judgments of his readers. His conclusions in psychol¬ ogy and on the fundamental principles of philosophy were nowhere systematically set forth. In his Logic, they were rather assumed, and made the setting of his views of the sci¬ ence, than defended on general grounds; though, from his criticisms of adverse views on the principles of Logic, it was sufficiently apparent what his philosophy and psychological doctrines were. English speaking and reading people had so completely for¬ gotten, or had so obscurely understood the arguments of their greatest thinkers, that the inroad of German speculation had 426 PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS. almost overwhelmed the protest of these thinkers against the a priori philosophy. English-speaking people are not n eta- physical, and Mill respected their prejudice. But when the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, professing to combine the Scottish and German reactions against Hume with what sci¬ ence had demonstrated as the necessary limits of human knowledge, was about to become the prevalent philosophy of England and America, it was not merely an opportunity, but almost a necessity, for the representative of the greatest En¬ glish thinkers (himself among the greatest), to re-examine the claims of the a priori philosophy, and either to acknowledge the failure of his own attempt to revive the doctrines of his predecessors, or to refute and overthrow their most powerful British antagonist. Accordingly Mill’s “Examination-of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy,” published in 1865, when he was nearly sixty years old, but in the full vigor and maturity of his powers, was his greatest effort in polemical writing. That the reputation of Sir William Hamilton as a thinker was greatly diminished by this examination cannot be doubted. Nor can it be doubted that the pendulum of philosophical opinion has begun, through Mill’s clear expositions and vigor¬ ous defense of the Experience philosophy, to move again to¬ wards what was a century and a half ago the prevalent English philosophy. That its future movements will be less extreme in either direction, and that the amplitude of its oscillations have continually diminished in the past through the progress of philosophical discussion, were beliefs with which his studies in philosophy and his generous hopefulness inspired him. Men are still born either Platonists or Aristotelians; but by their education through a more and more free and enlightened dis¬ cussion, and by progress in the sciences, they are restrained more and more from going to extremes in the directions of their native biases. In Mill’s Examination of Hamilton, and in his last great work, the annotated edition of his father’s “Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind,” many valuable subsidiary contributions are made to the sciences of logic and psychology. But in all his writings on these subjects his attention was di- JOHN STUART MILL. 427 rected to their bearings on the traditional problems and discus¬ sions of general philosophy. The modern developments of psychology, as a branch of experimental science, and in con¬ nection with physiology, deeply interested him; but they did not engage him in their pursuit, although they promise much towards the solution of unsettled questions. His mental pow¬ ers were trained for a different though equally important service to science,—the service of clear and distinct thought, the un¬ derstanding, first of all, of that for which closer observation and the aid of experiment are needed; the precise compre¬ hension and pertinent putting of questions. The progress of science has not yet outgrown the need of guidance by the in¬ tellectual arts of logic and method, which are still equal in im¬ portance to those of experiment. The imagination of the sci¬ entific inquisitor of nature, the fertility of his invention, his ability to frame hypotheses or put pertinent questions, though still generally dependent on his good sense, and his practical training in experimental science, are susceptible still of further¬ ance and improvement by the abstract studies of logic and method. Open questions on the psychological conditions of vision are to be settled, Mill thought, only when some one so unfortunate as to be born blind is fortunate enough to be born a philosopher. Mill has been aptly compared to Locke. Their philosophies were fundamentally the same. Both were “ philosophical rad¬ icals ” and political reformers. “ What Locke was to the liberal movements of the seventeenth century, Mr. Mill has more than been to the liberal movement of the nineteenth century.” He was born on the 20th of May, 1806, and died on the 8th of May, 1873 having nearly reached the age of sixty-seven. Pre¬ vious to the brief illness from which he died, he retained unimpaired his mental vigor and industry; and though it may not be said that he lived to see the hopes of his youth fully realized, yet his efforts have met with a degree of success in later years which he did not anticipate. His fol¬ lowers are still few both in politics and in philosophy. So far was he from restoring the doctrines of his school as the domi¬ nant philosophy of England, that, according to his own esti- 428 PHIL OSOPHICA L DISCUSSIONS. mate, “ we may still count in England twenty a priori or spir¬ itualist philosophers for every partisan of the doctrine of Expe¬ rience.” But it was for the practical applications of this doc¬ trine in politics and in morals, rather than for the theoretical recognition of it in general, that he most earnestly strove; and we should probably find in England and America to-day a much larger proportion, among those holding meditated and deliberate opinions on practical matters, who are in these the disciples of Mill, than can be found among the students of ab¬ stract philosophy. INDEX. Accident, meaning of, in science, 131 - Action at a distance, 391. voluntary, 220. Age, present, sceptical, 267. Agency, latent mental, 211. Alchemists, dreams of, 32. Algse, character of growth of, 321. Animals, do they reason ? 207. rational, 206. Antecedent and consequent, 410. A priori, meaning of the term, 373. Aristotle, cosmological doctrine of, 4. originator of syllogism, 360. Arrangement of leaves, spiral and whorl, 317 - 319 - Articulation, not caused by selec¬ tion, 253. Assimilation, phenomena of, 411. Asteroids, do they exist in space? 21. Atavism, 130. Bacon, separated physical science from scholastic philosophy, 375 - his distinguishing service, 375. Belief, disputes about the nature of, a matter for lexicographers, 249* three metaphysical forms of, 343 - Biology, physical, 135. Brain, savage, larger than is neces¬ sary, 109. size of, hi. Categories of human under¬ standing, 218. Causation, law of, universality of, 9 note, 131. limits of, 71. mathematical conception of, 409 - Cause, how related to its effect, 245. result of the discovery of a, 408. Cause, in science does not imply or suggest its effect, 408. Cause and effect, essay on, 406. Causes, final, how the doctrine of is supported in natural sci- . ence, 35. discussion of the doctrine of, 36, 161. from the point of view of the hypothesis of natural selec¬ tion, 101. Change, unchangeable laws of, 74. Classes, real kinds, 183. Comets, aphelia of, when most numerous, 12. two systems of, 13. Comte, on verification, 45. not the founder of the school of Tyndall, Huxley, Bain, and Darwin, 383. Concepts, 209. Conceptualists, 209. Consciousness, origin of, 115. Contradiction, of infinite and ab¬ solute, 355. Convictions, as used by Dr. McCosh, 331 - Cosmology, banished from scientific inquiry, 7. Counter-movements, principle of, 9. Cram, ability to, thought to be an element of success, 292. Cramming, what it is, 287. Curiosity, the cause of culture, 51. Cycle, a group of leaves, 302. denoted by fractions, 302. leaves of, how placed, 309. Darwin, extraordinary skill of, 97. effect of his work, 99. his Descent of Man, 138, 397. his Origin of Species, 126, 169. his Hypothesis of Pangenesis, ! 35 - most consummate speculative genius, 136. INDEX. 43 ° Darwin, his views concerning nat¬ ural selection, 138. Darwinism, German, 398. Democritus, why called an atheist, 176. Derivation, 127. Development, 127. Devotion, uses of, 248. Diagrams, geometrical, a language, 2 74 - Differences, original cause, diver¬ gences of race, 251. Dimorphism, 186-189. Discipline, kind of, needed in uni¬ versities, 292. Distinction, abstract or metaphys¬ ical, 363. when valuable in classifica¬ tions, 370. Divergence, angle of, how meas¬ ured in plants, 302. Education, a science of, de¬ manded, 267. claims of university writers on the subject, 268. experiments in, valuable from their failures, 274. tests of courses proper to a general education, 272. two general features of a liberal education, 280. Effect, how related to its cause, 245. Ego, discussion of the, 228. Empiricists, 45. Equilibration, Spencer’s theory of, 80. Euclid, good results of the study of, 270. Evolution, according to Spencer, 401. books relating to the theory of, 394. false conception conveyed by the term, 199. origin and value of the law of, 69 - prevalence of the doctrine not entirely due to Darwinism, 128. two schools of, 398. obstacles to acceptance of the theory of, 6. reconciled with religious dog¬ mas, 127. common misconception of, 251. Examinations, university, their suc¬ cesses and failures, 271. Examinations, abuses of, 289. should be tests of memory and invention in their various orders, 290. Explanation, limits of, 247. two meanings of, 381. Force, four meanings of, in dy¬ namical science, 388. meaning of, when unqualified, 389 . conservation of, 79. not a necessary law of the universe, 121. persistence of, 78. Friction, not always a loss of force, 2 7 \ Frond, spiral, two utilities of, 322. Gei^mules, 165. cannot be divided, 166. Generalization, exists in animals, 226. Geology, not a strictly positive science, 15. ‘“illogical,” 16. Geometry, modern, distinguished from ancient, 280. Gesture, language of, 254. Glands, mammary, Mivart on, 156. Gravitation, potential of, 19; fee¬ bleness of, 86. Gravity, universality of the law of, discovered by Newton, 73. Gray, Prof., his theory of variation, 161. Hamilton, Sir William, 38, 63, 240. 7 -Cl Heat, what becomes of it, 23. mechanical theory of, 87. the sun’s origin of, 82. two theories of, 82. . Herschel, Sir William, nebular hypothesis of, 1. History, written on dramatic prin¬ ciples, 71. Hypothesis, derivative, 8-16. development, 16. nebular, reason for its cordial reception, 2; discussion of, 3; explains facts otherwise unaccounted for, 4; lacks antecedent probability, 6; its assumption not arbitrary, 10; criticized in detail, 11; one of its successes, 13; how regarded by physicists, 83. INDEX. 4 31 Hypotheses in science, value of discussion of rival, 169. mostly trial-questions, 384. have no place in experimental philosophy, 136. verification of, 45. Hypotheses non Jingo , of Newton, 48, 136. Idealism, theory of, 232. Idealists, views of, with regard to the natural subject, 230. Ideas, how developed, 47. innate, 59. scientific and religious, 40. Images as signs, 209. Imagination, highest faculty of, in¬ volves reason, 290. various orders of, 290. trained by mental discipline, 290. pure, 211. Induction, as used by Aristotle, 371. scientific, work of, 71. Inquiries, ancient and modern, 48. Intelligence, animal, 210. Internodes, long, disadvantage in, . . 3 I 4 * Intuition, 232, 372. Dr. McCosh on, 330. Investigators, modern scientific, skill of, 363. Knowledge, founded on observa¬ tion, 43. Language, artificial, 255. command of, 256. traced back by history, 264. traditions of, 289. two uses of, 255. Laplace, theory of origin of plan¬ ets, 2. Laws, universal, not to be discov¬ ered by finite intellects, 229. Leaf, arrangements of, 300. uses of, 315. utilities of expansion of, 321. Lewes, George Henry, a meta¬ physician, 368. his Problems of Life and Mind, 360. Light, first forms of, 164. what becomes of it, 23. Mansel, Dr., reply to Mill, 350. Mass, nebulous, rotatory motion of, 2. Masson, David, aim of, 342. his three metaphysical forms of belief, 343. metaphysical motives of, 342. his Recent British philosophy, 342 . scheme of, 343. Mathematics, 273. dangers of the display of artistic skill in, 277. deficiency of, as a means of discipline, 280. remedies for the defects in examination, 284. its supposed value for develop¬ ing habits of accuracy delu¬ sive, 279. Mayer, Dr., theory of sun-heat, 82. McCosh, Dr., follower of Bacon, 378 - mistakes of, 383. on intuitions, 330. treatment of his opponents, 377 - on Tyndall, 375. system of, 330-333. Memory, discussion of, 288. in the more intelligent animals ; in man, 219. of various orders, 290. over-cultivated, 289. retentiveness of, 288. lower orders of, how improved, 294 - Metaphysics, demands of, 246. methods of, 366-400. term often discarded, 361. mystical, how met by scientific inquiries, 204. Metempirics, 366, 370. Meteors, 26. Method, no new discoveries in, 48. difference between ancient and modern, 40. objective and subjective, 46. Mill, John Stuart, notice of, 414. aim of, 355. education of, 419. essays of, on liberty and sub¬ jection of women, 425. examination of Hamilton’s philosophy, 426. experience in government, 425. faith of, 417. indifferent to a reputation for originality, 414. method of, 418. compared to Locke, 427. INDEX. 432 Mill, "John Stuart, political economy of, 415 - 417 - position of, in politics, 423. reasons for the anti-slavery views of, 424. theory of population of, 415* two points of originality of, 415. Mind, human, not a product of nat¬ ural selection, 104. Minds, eminent, superiority of, due to power of attention, 293. Mivart, St. George, misconceptions of, 141, 147. on the genesis of species, 129. opposes Darwin, 129. Modification, descent with, 168. Molecules, distinction in, 367. sizes of, 166. Motive, objective and subjective, 49. Motives, non-utilitarian, how use¬ ful, 282. Mystery, uses of, 248. Mysticism, nature of, 203. still prevails in mental philos¬ ophy, 203. Names, designations of things, 237. what they suggest, 212. abstract, 236. Nature, highest products of, not the results of the mere forces of inheritance, 159. knowledge of, how obtained, 47 -. meaning of, in science, 202. Nebulosity, distribution of, I. two grounds for belief in, 5. Newton, not the discoverer of the lazv of gravity, but of its uni- sality, 73. Nominalists, 209. Non ego, 228. Noumena, why invented, 247. Ontology, discussion and mean¬ ing of, 344. often discarded, 361. Organic types, theory of, 297. Orion, example of nebular hypoth¬ esis, I. Paley, 35. Pangenesis, hypothesis of, 135. why invented, 164. Perception, in the brain, 232. . object of, 233. Philosophers, fundamental division of, 343- Philosophy, classed with religions and the fine arts, 52. questions of, 50. three plans of, 53. experimental, 131. natural, constitution of, 132. object of, 161. Phyllotaxy, 300. problem of, 303. Physiology, general, 135. Planets, causes of mean distances of, 29. relation of, to meteoric system, 27 - Plants, cyclic character of, 327. leaves of, 296. Platonists, 45 - Poets, 250. Polymorphism, 186, 189. Power, definition of, 18. manifestations of, 19. Prevision, power of, best test of the truth of a theory, 102. Ptolemy, aim of his research, 47. Question, purpose of, 247. Race, human, distinction of, 254. Races, savage, why they remain so, 25a Radicals, philosophical, in politics, 423 - Realism, closely allied to ti'an- scendentalism, 363. Realists, natural, appeal to common sense, 230. not evolutionists, 231. Reality, tests of, 184. Repetition, two modes of, 288. Reproduction, phenomena of, illus¬ trations of cause and effect, 410. Research, modern scientific, supe¬ riority of, 45. Reversion, 130. Saturn, rings of, 30. Science, ancient and modern, 46. definition of, 205. every student of, a positivist, 3b3; experiments in, 273. modern, origin of, 50. no burdens of proof in, 170. objective value of, 281. progress of, 43. repudiates scholastic classifica¬ tions, 408. INDEX. 433 Science, utilitarian value of, 2S2. Segmentation, in plants, 322. Selection, natural, an economical process, 253. consistent with natural the¬ ology, 100. evolution by, 168. first example of, 149. insufficiency of, 153. limits of, 97. Mivart’s views of, 132. most important means of mod¬ ification, 171. not concerned in the first pro¬ duction of any form, 252. not limited to origin of species, 114. reception of, 98. what is claimed for it, 191. its value as a working hy¬ pothesis, 296. what it accounts for, 182. sexual, 157. Self-consciousness, evolution of, 199- theory of, 251. Sensation, seat of, 233. how determined, 234. Signs, mental, 211. Similarity, associations of, 291. Sophia, Aristotle’s idea of, 361. Species, how fixed, 182. genesis of, 126. Mivart’s proofs of, 133. stability of, 143. Speculations, cosmical, 19. motives of, 49. Spencer, Herbert, II. career and character of, 56. doctrine of the unknowable of, 9 1 - “Descriptive Geometry” of, 90. evolution, theory of, 67. inductions of, 72. not a materialist, 75- not a positivist, 55. philosophy of, 43. “Principles of Biology” of, 68. “Principles of Psychology” of, 57- “Social Statics” of, 56, 67. test of truth of, 58. incompetency of, 96. Spiral, meaning of, 316. Sports, athletic, value of, for men¬ tal training, 278. Studies, conflict of, 267. disciplinary, 277. Study, importance of, often con¬ founded with examination- value, 273. modes of, involve repetition, 288. motives to, 2S6. Structures, adaptive, 297. genetic, 297. independent similarities of, not accounted for by theory of natural selection, 159. Substance, conception of, 235. Sun spots, cause of, 31. Sun, energies of, how expended, 83. System, solar, constitution of, 9. a natural product, 17. Teaching, natural genius for, powerless to reproduce it¬ self, 271. Teleology, 70. Theology, natural, as positive sci¬ ence, 33. teachings of, superstitious, 40. Theory, physical, of the universe, 1. Thinkers, when materialists, 407. rank of, how determined, 361. Thought, action of, 210. Transmutation, 127. Truth, condition of the belief in, 3. Tyndall, Prof., on heat of sun, 20. McCosh on, 375. Types, theory of, adapted to theory of final causes, 299. cause of prevalence of, 299. opposition of, to scientific in¬ quiries, 299. Universities, failures and duties of, 267. obligations of, 283, reform required, 286. Utility, effect of, on life of a race, H3-. of bodily structures, 158. of knowledge, 282. Mill’s view of, 418. i5U i53» Value, Todhunter’s standard of, in university studies, 271. Values, examination, of modern studies, 272. Variation, as a phenomenon of or¬ ganization, 1S1. reversional, 132. unexplained facts of, 129. Veracity, not an original moral instinct, 113. 434 INDEX. Verification, principle of, 46. Volition, misinterpretation of, 233. an action through memory, 264. conscious phenomena of, 122. Wallace, A. R., his Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 98. Weather, cosmical, 10. Will, the, an absolute source of physical energy, 121. Will, not a measurable quantity of energy, but an incident force, 119. Words, as used by barbarians, 235. Wright, Chauncey, biographical sketch of, vii. attainments of, xxiii. genius of, xiii. in what sense a positivist, xviii. writings of, xx. 1 Zeno, paradox of motion of, 385. f THE END. y f? + »♦