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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30709-8.txt b/30709-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be95782 --- /dev/null +++ b/30709-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3131 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of God and the World, by Arthur W. Robinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God and the World + A Survey of Thought + +Author: Arthur W. Robinson + +Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30709] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + This is one of a series of evidential books drawn up at the + instance of the _Christian Evidence Society_. + + + + + + +GOD AND THE WORLD + +A SURVEY OF THOUGHT + + +BY + +ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D., + + +Warden of the College of Allhallows Barking + + + +With a Prefatory Note by SIR OLIVER LODGE + + + + +LONDON: + +SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE + +NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C., 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. + +BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET + +NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM + +1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + PREFATORY NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 + INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 + I. THE OLDER ORTHODOXY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 + II. THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 + III. THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 + IV. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 + V. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 46 + VI. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 53 + VII. LATER SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 + VIII. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 + IX. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 + CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 + + + + +{5} + +PREFATORY NOTE + +I have read what Dr. Arthur Robinson has written, and find it a most +interesting, singularly fair, and I may add, within its limits, able +and comprehensive survey of the thoughts of the past and passing age. +I commend it to the coming generation as a useful means of acquiring +some notion of the main puzzles and controversies of the strenuous time +through which their fathers have lived. Fossil remains of these +occasionally fierce discussions they will find embedded in literature; +and although we are emerging from that conflict, it can only be to find +fresh opportunities for discovery, fresh fields of interest, in the +newer age. Towards a wise reception of these discoveries, as they are +gradually arrived at in the future, this little book will give some +help. + +OLIVER LODGE. + + + + +{7} + +GOD AND THE WORLD + + + +INTRODUCTION + +A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath +him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man +is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A +man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small +questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; +of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon +the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of +life, of man, of history, of God. + +So again, the size of an age can be determined by the size of its +questions. It has been claimed that the age through which we have +passed was a great age, and tried by this test we need not hesitate to +admit the claim. It was full of questions, and they were great +questions. As never before, the eyes of men strained upwards and +backwards into the dim {8} recesses of the past to discover something, +if it might be, of the beginnings of things: of matter and life; of the +earth and its contents; of the solar system and the universe. We know +with what interest inquiries of this sort were regarded, and how ready +the people were to read the books that dealt with them; to attend +lectures and discussions about them, and to give their money for the +purposes of such research. It was a great age that could devote itself +so eagerly to questions of this importance and magnitude. + +But as men cannot live upon appetite, so neither can they be for ever +satisfied with questions. Hence it follows that a period of +questioning is ordinarily followed by another, in which the accumulated +information is sorted and digested and turned to practical account; a +time in which constructive work is attempted, and some understanding is +arrived at as to the relation that exists between the old knowledge and +the new. It looks as if we were nearing such a time, when, for a while +at all events, there will be a pause for reconsideration and +reconstruction, and the human spirit will gather strength and +confidence before again setting out upon its quest of the Infinite. +Already we are asked to give attention to statements that are intended +to review the whole situation and to summarise, provisionally at {9} +all events, the results that have been attained. Each of these +attempts will, in its turn, be superseded by something that is wider in +its outlook and wiser in its verdicts. This little book is an effort +of this nature, and it is offered in the hope that it may serve some +such useful and temporary purpose. + +Much more competent writers than its author might well apologise for +consenting to enter upon the task which he has been invited to +undertake. All that he can say, by way of excuse for his boldness in +complying, is that for many years he has endeavoured to follow the +trend of modern thinking, and that the growing interest with which he +has done this encourages him to hope that he may be able to make what +he has to tell about it both intelligible and interesting to others. +He does not imagine that he can escape mistakes, and he will most +gladly submit himself to the correction of others who know better and +see more clearly than he does. He only begs that those who disagree +with his judgments will try to give him credit for a sincere desire to +be true to facts, and to welcome the light, from whatever quarter it +may have come. + +When we speak of the age that is passing, we shall have in mind what +may roughly be reckoned as the last hundred years. That space +includes, for those of us who are not in our first youth, the time of +our {10} parents, and even, it may be, of our grandparents. The period +has a certain distinctiveness of character in spite of superficial +diversities. It was marked, as we have said, by the intelligence and +vigour of its questionings. It was a time of intellectual movement and +turmoil. It witnessed a succession of wonderful discoveries leading on +to ever bolder investigations. Rapid generalisations were advanced, to +be often as quickly abandoned. Only by degrees was it possible to see +the new facts in their proper proportion and significance. Nor was it +at all easy for men to keep their discussions free from heat and +bitterness, when the most deeply-rooted convictions appeared to be +assailed, and the most sacred associations to be regarded as of little +account. Looking back, as we can, it is possible to see that in spite +of the eddies and backwaters a steady progress was made. And it is of +that progress that it will now be our endeavour to speak. + +We know how it has happened to us over and over again in our own +individual experiences to have been made conscious of a gradual +modification of our opinions as new evidence has reached us, and we +have had time to relate it to our previous understanding and knowledge. +We have had our first thoughts, and our second thoughts, and then there +have come third thoughts, which were the ripest {11} and soundest of +all. Just such a process of which we can mark the stages in ourselves +is to be seen on a larger scale--in bigger print, as it were--in the +thought movements of an age. In the case of the period which we are to +review, the three stages have been more than commonly clear, as we +shall aim to shew in the survey we are to make. + +We shall begin with the First thoughts, which were those of what may be +termed the older orthodoxy. These were very generally accepted; +indeed, they were regarded as for the most part beyond the reach of +serious contradiction. Then we shall pass to the Second thoughts, +which were forced upon an astonished and bewildered generation by the +onslaughts upon traditional views that were made from the side of +physical science. For fifty years or more the debate went on, with +challenge and counter-challenge, and much noise and dust of +controversy. They were great days, and in them great men fought with +great courage in great issues. We shall seek to do justice to both +sides, to those who dared to proclaim and suffer for the new, and to +those who shewed an equal courage in their resolute determination to be +loyal to what they held to be the truth of the old. + +Then, finally, it will be our difficult task to discriminate between +the surging thoughts of that {12} second period and those of the Third +stage, through which we are advancing, and to shew what can already be +made out of a common ground of agreement and co-operation, now much +more likely to be reached than could at one time have been foreseen by +the most optimistic imagination. + + + + +{13} + +CHAPTER I + +THE OLDER ORTHODOXY + +Never had there been greater unanimity of opinion in England in regard +to the religious interpretation of the world than that which prevailed +at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The excesses on the +Continent which had accompanied the advocacy of free thought had +disposed men's mind to fall back upon authority, and most of all in +matters that affected the basis on which the continuance of social +order and moral conduct depended. The general position was clearly +apprehended, and was accepted as if beyond dispute. Men spoke and +thought of the Order of Nature. The world was a Cosmos, a regulated +system. Order implied an Orderer. It was regarded by them as obvious +that there must have been a First Cause, a great Architect and Maker of +the Universe. They agreed with Aquinas that "things which have no +perception can only tend toward an end if directed by a conscious and +intelligent being. Therefore there is an {14} Intelligence by which +all natural things are ordered to an end."[1] They were fully prepared +to endorse the indignant protest of Bacon: "I had rather believe all +the folly of the 'Legend,' and the 'Talmud,' and the 'Alcoran,' than +that this universal frame is without a mind."[2] In fact no other +hypothesis seemed to them thinkable. + +If at any time they felt a need for a more elaborate justification of +their conviction, they had it ready to their hand in the familiar +argument from design. Paley, when he set this out in his famous +_Natural Theology_ (1802), was only expressing with conspicuous ability +the view that was then accepted in all circles from the highest to the +lowest. He was preaching to those who were already in the fullest +accord with his doctrine. They followed with eager approbation his +reasoning about the watch that he supposed himself to have found on the +heath. According to his assumption he had never seen a watch made, nor +known of anyone capable of making such a thing. He concludes, +nevertheless, that it must have been made by someone. "There must have +existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or +artificers who formed it for {15} the purpose which we find it actually +to answer; who comprehended its structure, and designed its use." +"Neither would it invalidate our conclusion that the watch sometimes +went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the +machinery, the design and the designer, might be evident in whatever +way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we +could account for it at all." "Nor would it bring any uncertainty into +the argument if there were a few parts of the watch concerning which we +could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they +conducted to the general effect; or even some parts concerning which we +could not ascertain whether they conducted to that effect in any manner +whatever." Least of all could it be sufficient to explain that the +watch was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic +nature." "It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the +efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, +for it is only the mode according to which our agent proceeds: it +implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power +acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct +from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing." + +From the watch we are led on to the eye, which exhibits a skill of +design not less, but far greater, {16} than that of the man who gave us +the telescope. Then follows a detailed examination of the use of the +various bodily organs, the contrivances to be met with in vegetables +and animals, the marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the +provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; +with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions--the long +neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, +the sting of the bee--all furnishing an ever accumulating body of +irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an +intelligent Author of Nature. + +That these arrangements had been expressly intended to meet the +circumstances of each particular case was assumed as necessarily +involved in the acceptance of any design at all. It is interesting to +observe that Paley did not think it improbable that the Deity may have +committed to another being--"nay, there may be many such agents and +many ranks of them"--the task of "drawing forth" special creations out +of the materials He had made and in subordination to His rules. This, +he thought, might in some degree account for the fact that contrivances +are not always perfected at once, and that many instruments and methods +are employed. + +{17} + +Of the goodness of the Creator no manner of doubt was entertained. For +proof of it attention was called to the fact that "in a vast plurality +of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the +contrivance is beneficial," and to the further fact that "the Deity has +superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for +any other purposes or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, +might have been effected by the function of pain." Venomous animals +there were, no doubt, but the fang and the sting "may be no less +merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer"; and it was to +be noted "that whilst only a few species possess the venomous property, +that property guards the whole tribe." Then again, before we condemn +the ordering whereby animals devour one another we must consider what +would happen if they did not. "Is it to see the world filled with +drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, +that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?" "A hare, +notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as +playful an animal as any other." "It is a happy world after all. The +air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring +noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of +happy beings crowd upon my {18} view. 'The insect youth are on the +wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. +Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, +their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their +joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered +faculties.... The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are +equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety +of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the +offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them." Where +it might have been imagined that there were to be seen miscarriages of +the Creator's intentions, these were to be attributed to the presence +and influence of mysterious forces of evil. Such attempts to hinder or +frustrate the workings of good might be part of a purpose of good +because they only afforded fresh opportunities for a display of the +Divine wisdom, whose ordinary interventions were accepted as +Providences, whilst Miracles supplied the rarer exhibitions of its +power. + +For the rest, it was our duty to remember that such difficulties as +might still be felt must be largely the result of our ignorance. With +patience we should learn to know more. A day was coming when much that +is now hidden would be made clear, and when the greatness and wisdom +and justice {19} of the Almighty Ruler would be wonderfully and +fearfully revealed. + +It is not intended to suggest that there were no dissentients ready to +bring forward objections to these almost unanimously accepted +doctrines. We know that there were such, if only because it was deemed +worth while to argue against them. Kepler and Newton had stirred men's +minds by their account of the prodigious scale upon which the mechanism +of the Universe was constructed, and Laplace had already enunciated the +theory according to which the cosmic bodies were originally formed in +obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating +nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of +astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention +would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this +planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken +persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew that it +had no beginning and could have no end. + +Against both these objectors the irony and the oratory of a Chalmers +was directed with what was held to be overwhelming effect. If the +telescope had shewn us wonderful things, there was another instrument, +he said, which had been given to us {20} about the same time. If by +the telescope we had been led to see "a system in every star," it was +no less true that the microscope had disclosed "a world in every atom," +thus proving to us that "no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice +of the human eye, is beneath the notice of His regard." + +So again, in an oration upon "The constancy of Nature," the thesis is +most eloquently defended that "the strict order of the goodly universe +which we inhabit" is nothing else than "a noble attestation to the +wisdom and beneficence of its great Architect."[3] + +Little did men dream at that time of the wealth of other discoveries +that was soon to increase enormously the complexity of their problems; +or of the inferences that would be drawn from them with an ingenuity +and an assurance that would task to the utmost the ability and the +patience of the defenders of the old beliefs. + +It is of the new facts disclosed and of the further thoughts suggested +by them that we must next proceed to tell. + + + +[1] _Summa_, I., ii. 3. + +[2] Essay on "Atheism and Superstition." + +[3] _Astronomical Discourses_ (1817), pp. 80, 211. + + + + +{21} + +CHAPTER II + +THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY + +We find it hard to realise that not so very long ago the steam-engine +and the electric telegraph were unknown; and we are right when we say +that life must have worn a very different aspect in those days. It is +scarcely less difficult for us to realise the change that has been +wrought in men's thoughts since the time when the biological cell was +unrecognised, and the theory of evolution had not yet been formulated. +The rapidity with which advances of knowledge were made in the physical +sphere was astonishing, and it was only to be expected that they should +have seemed not a little bewildering. We must try to note the main +steps of the movement, giving the names of some of the representative +workers and thinkers. + +It is generally agreed that the foundations of modern chemistry were +laid by Dalton (1808). He it was who revived the old atomic theory, +and determined the weights of the atoms and the {22} proportions in +which they are combined into molecules--the smallest particles which +could exist in a free condition. By so doing he prepared the way for +the subsequent researches of Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell into the +properties of electricity and magnetism, and for the investigations by +Helmholtz and others into the connexion between electric attraction and +chemical affinities. + +The forerunner of the wonderful advances of modern biology was the +French naturalist Lamarck (1809), who, in opposition to the accepted +doctrine of separate creations, suggested that all the species of +living creatures, not excepting the human, have arisen from older +species in the course of long periods of time. The common parent forms +he held to have been simple and lowly organisms, and he accounted for +the gradual differentiation of types by the hypothesis that they were +the results of the inheritance of characteristics which had been +acquired by continued use--as, for example, in the case of the giraffe +who was supposed to have owed the length of its neck to the efforts of +its ancestors to browse upon trees that were just beyond their reach. +He maintained that the changes produced in the parents by temperature, +nutrition, repeated use or disuse, were inherited so that they +reappeared in their offspring. But the evidence adduced was {23} +judged to be insufficient, and the balance of scientific opinion was +decidedly against his views. + +Lyell (1830) gave a new direction to the science of geology by +accumulating evidence to prove the certainty of a natural and +continuous development in the formation of the crust of the earth, thus +opposing the catastrophic idea which had previously prevailed. One +outcome of his researches was to make it plain that the history of this +development must have extended over enormous tracts of time. + +More revolutionary still in its effects was the epoch-making discovery +of the protoplasmic cell as the common element of life in the plant and +animal world, made by the Germans Schleiden and Schwann (1838). It was +this that first bridged over what were held to be the fundamental +distinctions of animate nature, and made possible the conception of a +vital physical continuity which has since been accepted as an axiom of +biological science. + +By Joule's great discovery (1840) that the same amount of work, whether +mechanical or electrical, and however expended, always produced exactly +the same amount of heat--that, in effect, heat and work were equivalent +and interchangeable--the way was opened to the conclusion that the +total energy of the material universe is constant in amount through all +its changes. + +{24} + +A theory to account for the black lines crossing the coloured band of +light, or spectrum, which is obtained by passing sunlight through a +glass prism, originally suggested by Sir George Stokes, and +subsequently reintroduced and verified by the German chemists, Bunsen +and Kirchhoff, led to the important discovery that the sun and the +stars are constituted of the very same elements as those of the earth +beneath our feet. Spectrum analysis, moreover, soon detected new +elements, _e.g._, helium, so-called because first observed as existing +in the sun. + +But great and stimulating as these discoveries were, their effect upon +the thought of the age was not to be compared with that which was to be +exercised by a theory which, starting in the domain of biological +science, soon passed on to far more extended applications. The theory +took its rise from a suggestion made in two papers, by Charles Darwin +and Alfred Russel Wallace, which were read before the Linnean Society +on July 1st, 1858. + +The Darwinian theory--for so it was soon named--undertook to explain +the formation of species by the principle of natural selection through +the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life.[1] {25} Darwin +started from the admitted achievements of artificial selection; from +the results attained by nurserymen and cattle breeders, who, by +selecting the kinds they wished to perpetuate, had been able to vary +and improve their stocks. He conceived that a like process had been +carried on by Nature through vast spaces of time, and that it was this +picking, choosing, continuing and abandoning of traits and qualities +which had resulted in the preservation of the types which it had been +best to retain--the reason in all cases being the fitness to correspond +effectively to the conditions prescribed by environment. + +It is important to remember that Darwin never claimed that his doctrine +of evolution could account for the occurrence of variations. That it +could do so he expressly denied. "Some," he said, in his great work, +_The Origin of Species_ (1859) "have, even imagined that natural +selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation +of such variations as arise.... Unless such occur, natural selection +can do nothing." What he saw, and proved by an amazing wealth of +illustrative facts, was that any variation in structure or character +which gave to an organism ever so slight an advantage might determine +whether or not it would survive amid the fierce competition around it, +and whether {26} it would obtain a mate and produce offspring. He +shewed that all innate variations (which are to be distinguished from +the acquired characteristics upon the inheritance of which Lamarck had +depended) tend to be transmitted, so that in this manner a favourable +variation might be perpetuated, and in time a new species be developed. + +Simple as this account of the matter sounds when once it has been +clearly stated, the discovery--for such it was--opened an entirely new +chapter in the history of science, inasmuch as it completely +revolutionised the conceptions which had previously been entertained +with regard to the relationships and the progress of all living things. + +It was Darwinism, accordingly, that provided the principal subject of +the controversy which was waged between the upholders and the +assailants of the older opinions during the latter half of the +nineteenth century. + + + +[1] The actual phrase "Survival of the fittest" was Herbert Spencer's. +Darwin had spoken of "The preservation of favoured races." + + + + +{27} + +CHAPTER III + +THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES + +We shall not exaggerate if we say that the chief interest aroused by +these discoveries was a theological interest. Of course the men of +science were keenly concerned to understand the new facts and the new +interpretations, and among them there were divided camps and serious +contentions. Sir Richard Owen, for instance, was a vigorous opponent +of Darwin's views. But we cannot think it surprising that the men of +religion should feel that their positions were not only being attacked, +but undermined; and that issues were being raised which were more vital +for them than for any other students of the problems of existence. + +When we thus speak of men of science and men of religion we do not mean +to imply that there were two distinct classes which could be sharply +divided. By no means. It was not so much that there were two camps as +that there were two positions, with much passing to and fro between +them, and the {28} keenest interest and anxiety felt on both sides as +to what the future might have to bring of widening divergence or +ultimate reconciliation. + +There could be no doubt at all that most formidable questions had to be +faced and answered. These were the chief of them:-- + +Is it any longer necessary, or even possible, to insist upon a First +Cause for all that exists? Can the argument from Design be said to +retain its validity as a proof of the working of a controlling Mind? +If we admit the evidence for the existence of a Creator, can we know +anything about Him? Can we, in particular, still assert with any +confidence that He is good? + +Let us take the questions in order and give the replies that were made +to them from the different sides. And, first of all, from the side of +negation. + +The number of those who directly denied that there must have been a +First Cause were very few. But there were many who did their utmost to +discredit the idea as due to what they held to be an illegitimate +deduction from our limited human experiences. Others were disposed to +quarrel with the word "Cause" altogether, and to dispute the propriety +of its employment. + +They wished to banish it altogether from the scientific vocabulary, and +to substitute for the terms {29} cause and effect, antecedent and +consequent, reducing causation to conjunction. But it was generally +admitted that, where we have to deal with an invariable antecedent +followed by an invariable consequent, nothing was to be gained by a +change in the common phraseology. John Stuart Mill refused to abandon +the word. Speaking of one who had done so, he said, "I consider him to +be entirely wrong." "The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a +Cause."[1] There were, he allowed, "permanent causes," but, he added, +"we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes"--which +was virtually to abandon the subject as being beyond the domain of +science. + +In regard to the second question, it very soon became evident that the +old views of Design would be subjected to the most incisive criticism. +To many it appeared as if the new doctrine of evolution had supplied an +explanation which left no room for the recognition of the particular +contrivances upon which Paley had constructed his argument. No one +asserted this more strongly than Haeckel, the German biologist. To +quote his words, "The development of the universe is a monistic +mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose {30} +whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special result +of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the heavenly +bodies, nor in that of the crust of our earth, do we find any trace of +controlling purpose." "Nowhere in the evolution of animals and plants +do we find any trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of +the struggle for existence, the blind controller." "All is the result +of chance." We ought to add that he somewhat qualified this last +statement by explaining that "chance" itself must be considered as +coming under "the universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law."[2] + +It is not to be supposed that anyone was to be found who denied the +general intelligibility of Nature. To have done this would have been +to reduce science to an absurdity. Science is bound to proceed upon +the assumption that there are "reasons" for things. Moreover, there is +mind in man, who is part of the order of Nature. It follows that what +is in the part cannot be denied to the whole. All this could be freely +admitted. But then the question arose, Is mind the originating source +of the movements of matter, or is it not rather itself the product of +them? + +{31} + +There were those who did not shrink from affirming that matter produces +thought, even as the liver secretes bile. Others preferred to take +what seemed to be an intermediate course. They were not prepared to +give priority to either mind or matter. Thus Haeckel maintained that +matter and thought are only two different aspects, or two fundamental +attributes of an underlying something which he defined as "substance." +It was to the action of this universal substance that he imagined the +"monistic mechanical process" to be due. He went so far as to state +his conviction that not even the atom is without "a rudimentary form of +sensation and will."[3] + +In like manner Tyndall had claimed a two-sidedness for matter, and +traced all higher developments back to the side which held in it the +element of spirit and thought; while admitting that "the production of +consciousness by molecular action is quite as inconceivable on +mechanical principles as the production of molecular action by +consciousness."[4] + +The bearing of all this upon the question of Design was plain, for, if +thought and intention are the outcome and result of the mechanical +operations of Nature, it might well seem to follow that mind {32} had +been removed from its high place as the dominant and directing power. + +But these difficulties with which the theologian was thus confronted in +respect of a First Cause and the recognition of Design, were even less +formidable than those which were arrayed under the other heads that we +have enumerated. It was Huxley who invented the term Agnosticism to +describe the position of such of his contemporaries as were not +inclined to deny that there was a great Power at work behind the +phenomena of the Universe, but were not prepared to admit that this +Power could be any degree comprehensible by us. The most systematic +exponent of this view was Herbert Spencer. He allowed that we are +obliged to refer the phenomenal world and its law and order to a First +Cause. "And the First Cause," he said, "must be in every sense +perfect, complete, total--including within itself all power, and +transcending all law." But he insisted that, "it cannot in any manner +or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing."[5] Elsewhere he +suggested that it may belong to "a mode of being as much transcending +intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion." "Our only +conception of what we know as Mind in ourselves is the {33} conception +of a series of states of consciousness." "How," he asked, "is the +'originating Mind' to be thought of as having states produced by things +objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing +them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to +another."[6] It was by a similar line of reasoning that Romanes +reached the like conclusions.[7] "In my opinion," he said, "no +explanation of natural order can either be conceived or named other +than that of intelligence as the supreme directing cause." But "this +cause must be widely different from anything that we know of Mind in +ourselves." "If such a Mind exists, it is not conceivable as existing, +and we are precluded from assigning to it any attributes." + +It was obvious that, if no satisfactory reply were forthcoming to such +a contention, the very word Theology must be discarded, since there +would be no longer any need for it, or justification of its use. + +But there was yet a further criticism that was supposed by not a few to +complete the discomfiture of those who still clung to the traditional +beliefs. We can find it forcibly expressed in one of the earlier +writings of Romanes, who in this case was endorsing the verdict of +Mill. "Supposing the Deity to be {34} omnipotent, there can be no +inference more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for +whatever ends designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of +beneficence in the divine character than that which we know in any, the +very worst, of human characters. For let us pause for one moment to +think of what suffering in Nature means. Some hundreds of millions of +years ago, some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to +have become sentient. Since that time till the present there must have +been millions and millions of generations of millions and millions of +individuals. And throughout all this period of incalculable duration, +this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have been in a state of +unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find +that more than one-half of the species which have survived the +ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient +forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and +talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for +torment--everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, sickness, with oozing +blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence +that dimly close in deaths of cruel torture!"[8] + +{35} + +Huxley, arguing to the same effect, concluded that "since thousands of +times a minute, were our ears sharp enough, we should hear sighs and +groans of pain like those heard by Dante at the gate of hell, the world +cannot be governed by what we call benevolence."[9] + +Haeckel went so far as to propose to describe by the term +"dysteleology" that part of the science of Biology which collected the +facts that gave direct contradiction to the idea of beneficial +"purposive arrangement." + +Such were the difficulties which loomed largest before the minds of +vast numbers of thinking men and women, and did much to shake the +general confidence in religion, in the years that followed the +discoveries which culminated in the Darwinian theory of evolution. It +must not be supposed that these thoughts were lightly entertained, nor +may we imagine that they gave no distress to those who sincerely +believed that they were bound to accept what seemed to be their +inevitable consequences. To quote again from the _Candid Examination_ +of Romanes, we may take it that he was speaking for many others when he +said, "Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who +affirm {36} that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a desirable +substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to +confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has +lost its soul of loveliness; and although, from henceforth the precept +'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force +from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 'that the night +cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at +times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of +that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as +now I find it--at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid +the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible." + + + +[1] _Logic_, Chap. V. + +[2] _The Riddle of the Universe_, Chaps. XIV, XV. + +[3] Chap. XII. + +[4] _Fragments of Science_, p. 222. + +[5] _First Principles_, i., pp. 33-39. + +[6] _Essays_, Vol. III., pp. 246, f. + +[7] In an essay written before 1889. + +[8] _A Candid Examination of Theism_ (1876), pp. 171, f. + +[9] _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1888. + + + + +{37} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS + +It must not be imagined that all the arguments were on one side. Far +from it. The defenders of the old faith were many, and not the least +able of them were drawn from the ranks of the men of science. The list +of scientific leaders who avowedly ranged themselves on the Christian +side, if it were made out, would be a long one. It would include +distinguished names such as those of Faraday, Joule, the Duke of +Argyll, Lord Kelvin, Stokes, Tait, Adams, Clerk Maxwell, Salmon, +Cayley, and Pasteur. And others would have to be added who, after +contending for a while as materialists or agnostics, ultimately changed +their attitude and joined the supporters of Theism. Haeckel frankly +admitted that there were such defaulters from his cause in Germany, +giving the names of "two of the most famous of living scientists, R. +Virchow and E. Du Bois Raymond," amongst others. On the other hand he +recommended his readers to study "the profound work of Romanes," {38} +without, it would seem, being aware of the transformation that took +place in that thinker's opinions towards the end of his life. + +We have now to indicate the nature of the replies that were made to the +difficulties of which we spoke in our last chapter. Let us follow the +order in which they were presented. + +About the necessity for a First Cause not much had to be said. Even if +the whole course of organic development could be proved to have been +continuous without a break from the first movements of matter, through +all the changes of physical life, up to the highest exhibition of human +powers--and no one ventured to say that this had been proved--there +would still be the necessity for an initial impulse to set the process +in action. Spencer, as we have seen, declared that there must have +been a First Cause, and Tyndall agreed that "the hypothesis" of +Evolution "does nothing more than transport the conception of life's +origin to an indefinitely distant past."[1] + +Darwin himself never hesitated on this point. "The theory of +evolution," he insisted, "is quite compatible with the belief in +God."[2] The words which he expressly added to the conclusion of the +{39} _Origin of Species_ are well known. After describing once again +the production of the innumerable forms of being as the result of +natural selection, he said: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, +with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator +into a few forms or into one." + +It is well also to keep on record the striking dictum of Lord Kelvin, +addressed to the students of University College.[3] "Science," he told +them, "positively affirmed creative power." + +It will be remembered that we quoted Mill as speaking of "permanent +causes." We may be grateful to him for the suggestion. We could not +readily think of a better term than the great "Permanent Cause" by +which to describe, in modern language, the "I AM" of the Biblical +Theology.[4] + +But, if on this point there was no serious conflict of opinion, it was +otherwise in regard to the next. Here it did look as if the new +discoveries might have {40} changed the whole situation. Huxley +acknowledged that what struck him most forcibly on his first perusal of +the Origin of Species, was that "teleology, as commonly understood, had +received its death-blow at Mr. Darwin's hands."[5] But Huxley was a +born fighter, and he could turn his weapons with facility and effect +against his friends when he thought they had overstated their case. It +is interesting to find him, in 1867, criticising Haeckel for his +repudiation of the principle of Design. + +"The Doctrine of Evolution," he says, "is the most formidable opponent +of the commoner and coarser forms of teleology." + +"The teleology which supposes that the eye such as we see it in man, or +one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure it +exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to +see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless, it is +necessary to remember that there is a wider teleology which is not +touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the +fundamental proposition of evolution." Then, referring to the appeal +which had been made to the existence of rudimentary organs as +discrediting teleology, he says in his {41} characteristic way: "Either +these rudiments are of no use to the animals, in which case they ought +to have disappeared; or they are of some use to the animal, in which +case they are of no use as an argument against teleology."[6] + +Darwin himself felt the grave difficulty in which the ordinary +arguments had become involved; but he was most unwilling to abandon his +belief in Design. + +"The old argument from design in nature as given by Paley," he wrote, +"which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails now that the law of +natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, +for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been +made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by a man." On +the other hand, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there are +"endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere meet with,"[7] and +to the further fact that "the mind refuses to look at this universe, +being what it is, without having been designed."[8] + +A few years later, when Dr. Asa Gray had sent him from America a review +in which he had written of "Mr. Darwin's great service to natural +science {42} in bringing back teleology," on the ground that in +Darwinism usefulness and purpose come to the front again as working +principles of the first order, Darwin replied, "What you say about +teleology pleases me especially."[9] Later still, in 1878, Romanes +sent him a copy of his _Candid Examination_. Darwin in his letter of +acknowledgment wrote more than half seriously, in the person as it were +of an imaginary correspondent, to this effect: + +"I should like to hear what you would say if a theologian addressed you +as follows: + +"'I grant you the attraction of gravity, persistence of force (or +conservation of energy), and one kind of matter, though the latter is +an immense addition, but I maintain that God must have given such +attributes to this force, independently of its persistence, that under +certain conditions it develops or changes into light, heat, +electricity, galvanism, perhaps into life. + +"'You cannot prove that force (which physicists define as that which +causes motion) would invariably thus change its character under the +above conditions. Again, I maintain that matter, though it may be in +the future eternal, was created by God with the most marvellous +affinities, leading to {43} complex definite compounds, and with +polarities leading to beautiful crystals, etc., etc. You cannot prove +that matter would necessarily possess these attributes. Therefore you +have no right to say that you have "demonstrated" that all natural laws +necessarily follow from gravity, the persistence of force, and +existence of matter. If you say that nebulous matter existed +aboriginally and from eternity, with all its present complex powers in +a potential state, you seem to me to beg the whole question.' + +"Please observe it is not I, but a theologian, who has thus addressed +you, but I could not answer him."[10] + +The alternatives to Design, _i.e._, to the recognition of directive +activity, would be Necessity or Chance. From both of these the deepest +instincts of humanity--which in such matters are as fully to be relied +on as its logical faculty--strongly recoil. No one has spoken out more +strongly about the first than Huxley did. + +"What is the dire necessity and 'iron' law under which you groan?" he +asks. "Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there +be an 'iron' law, it is that of gravitation; and if {44} there be a +physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the +ground.... But when, as commonly happens, we change _will_ into +_must_, we introduce an idea of necessity which most assuredly does not +lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover. +For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematise the intruder.... The +notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the +perfectly legitimate conception of law; the materialistic position that +there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as +utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological +dogmas."[11] + +But a dogma of Necessity would be more tolerable than a doctrine of +Chance. In Lord Kelvin's address, to which reference has been made, he +declared his conviction that "directive power" was "an article of +belief which science compelled him to accept." + +There was nothing, he said, between such a belief and the acceptance of +the theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. And, in a letter to the +_Times_ justifying this assertion, he told how forty years before he +had asked Liebig, when walking with him in the country, whether he +believed that the grass {45} and flowers they saw around them "grew by +mere chemical forces." "No," he answered, "no more than I could +believe that a book of botany describing them could grow by mere +chemical forces." + +Discussions may continue as to whether what Huxley called "the wider +teleology," or some other form of the doctrine of Design is to be +preferred; but thoughtful men are likely to agree with the judgment +given by Sir George Stokes--that recognised master of masters--when he +said: "We meet with such overwhelming evidence of design, of purpose, +especially in the study of living things, that we are compelled to +think of mind as being involved in the constitution of the +universe."[12] + + + +[1] _Fragments of Science_, p. 166. + +[2] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 307. + +[3] May 2nd, 1903. + +[4] The debate as to the accuracy of the Mosaic account of Creation +does not come directly within the scope of our survey; but, +nevertheless, it may be worth while to recall the following statement +in view of the very confident assertions that have often been made, by +no less an authority than Romanes. "The order in which the flora and +fauna are said by the Mosaic account to have appeared upon the earth +corresponds with that which the theory of evolution requires and the +evidence of geology proves."--(_Nature_, August 11th, 1881.) + +[5] _Lay Sermons_. + +[6] _Critiques and Addresses_, pp. 305, 308. + +[7] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 309. + +[8] I., p. 314. + +[9] _Life and Letters_, III., p. 189. + +[10] _Life and Letters_ of Romanes, pp. 88. + +[11] Essay on "The Physical Basis of Life" (1868). + +[12] _Gifford Lectures_ (1891), p. 196. + + + + +{46} + +CHAPTER V + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) + +But though Materialism had to go, there was a time when it seemed to +many by no means unlikely that Agnosticism might have to be accepted as +its substitute. And if that had been so the case would have been +scarcely less desperate. We might have been left with a philosophy of +a kind, but we should have been deprived of any object which could +evoke within our hearts the trust and affection that are needed to +sustain a religion. However, as it proved, there was no great cause +for fear. Agnosticism was subjected in its turn to the ordeal of +criticism, and the result proved that it had not in it the substance +and force that could give it any permanent hold upon the best +intelligence of the age. + +If Agnosticism could have been content to confine itself to positive +assertions, there might have been less cause to find fault with it. +But its name stood for negation, and its temper was in accord with its +name. The exponents of Agnosticism were not {47} satisfied with +affirming that the Power behind phenomena is beyond all thought +mysterious. They insisted that it is unknowable, and that not merely +in the sense that it is incomprehensible, not to be fully grasped, but +unknowable in the sense that nothing at all can be known about it. And +then, having laid down this as their fundamental principle, they +proceeded at once, with a strange inconsistency, to assert that we can +know what it is _not_. This above all else, they said, it is not: it +is not personal. True, Herbert Spencer maintained that it is as far +raised above personality as personality is raised above +unconsciousness; but the stress was laid not upon the affirmation of +super-personality, but upon the denial and rejection of anything like +personality as we understand it. + +The position was really untenable. Possibly, if we could detect no +more in Nature than power, we might be content, intellectually, to stop +at the affirmation of inscrutable force. But if there is also design, +then we are bound to go a step further. Bishop Harvey Goodwin +expressed this exactly when he said: "Purpose means person." No doubt +personality in the Creator must be something far higher and fuller than +personality in the creature. The German philosopher Lotze was speaking +the truth when he declared that "to all finite minds {48} there is +allotted but a pale copy" of personality; "the finiteness of the +finite," being "not a producing condition of personality," as has often +been maintained, "but a limit and hindrance of its development." +"Perfect personality," he said, "is in God alone."[1] + +To most of us it may sound paradoxical to urge that the full Christian +doctrine of the Three Persons in the Godhead is really less difficult +intellectually than the doctrine that the Divine Being consists of an +isolated unit. + +This was the contention of the Greek Fathers of the Church, whose acute +and subtle minds anticipated not a few of the objections which we have +had to encounter in our days. We cannot elaborate the statement +here,[2] but it is to the point to observe that the doctrine of the +Trinity in Unity removes from the Christian believer that which to +Spencer was one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the acceptance +of the idea of a Divine Personality; for it relieves him from the +necessity of imagining a subject without an object, since in the +Christian view the highest life in the universe is a social life, {49} +in which thought is for ever communicated with unbroken harmony of +feeling and will. + +But the inadequacy of Agnosticism was to be seen not only on the +intellectual side. Its practical effects were necessarily determined +by its negations. Since we could know nothing of the ultimate power, +it was plainly our wisdom to turn our attention elsewhere. It followed +that, if morality was to be upheld, it must be based upon other than +the familiar sanctions. For awhile it was enthusiastically promised +that this could and should be done. But the event proved otherwise. +Towards the end of his life, Herbert Spencer was constrained to admit +this. "Now that ... I have succeeded in completing the second volume +of _The Principles of Ethics_ ... my satisfaction is somewhat dashed by +the thought that these new parts fall short of expectation. The +doctrine of Evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent that I +had hoped."[3] + +And this moral failure of the system pointed yet deeper to its +essential weakness. It deliberately ignored the profoundest needs and +capacities of our nature. The need is the need for God, and for One +who, though greatly above us, is yet within our reach, and ready to +give us His friendship. "Thou {50} hast made us for Thyself, and our +heart is restless until it rests in Thee." That cry of St. Augustine +has found its echo in unnumbered souls, and our humanity will never be +satisfied while it is offered no more than an impalpable abstraction +for the contentment of its craving. + +Allusion has been made to the fact that Romanes in his latter days was +led to abandon the negative attitude which he had taken in his earlier +life. The story of the change is to be found as told by himself in the +volume of _Life and Letters_ edited by his widow, and in the _Notes_ +which he left behind him. These he had written in preparation for a +book which was to have been entitled: _A Candid Examination of +Religion_.[4] It is evident that no consideration weighed more with +him than this witness of the deeper needs of the soul. We have seen +with what sorrow he had accepted as a young man the conclusions to +which he had found himself driven when Theism seemed no longer a +possible belief. After his change he admitted that he had failed to +recognise an important element in his treatment of the problem. "When +I wrote the preceding treatise I {51} did not sufficiently appreciate +the immense importance of _human_ nature in any enquiry touching +Theism. But since then I have seriously studied anthropology +(including the science of comparative religions), psychology, and +metaphysics, with the result of clearly seeing that human nature is the +most important part of nature as a whole whereby to investigate the +theory of Theism."[5] + +The outcome of his study was to convince him of two things. The first +was that, "if the religious instincts of the human race point to no +reality as their object, they are out of analogy with all other +instinctive endowments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we never meet +with such a thing as an instinct pointing aimlessly."[6] And this +first conviction was only the preparation for a second. Speaking again +of his _Candid Examination of Theism_, he says: "In that treatise I +have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the +basal argument for my negative conclusion ... Reason is not the only +attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty which he habitually +employs for the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties +are of no less importance in their respective spheres, even of everyday +life; faith, trust, taste, etc., are {52} as needful in ascertaining +truth as to character, beauty, etc., as is reason."[7] + +He put the same thing with even more of the note of personal experience +when he wrote to Dean Paget of Christ Church within three months of his +death: "Strangely enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover +the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the +only means of research in regions transcendental."[8] In all this he +was following, as he knew, in the steps of Pascal, who had devoted the +whole of the first part of his treatise to the argument from the +condition of man's nature without God, and then had appealed to that +nature for its positive testimony to the reality of the spiritual. +"The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know." + +Agnosticism appeared dressed in the garb of an exceeding reverence, +but, on closer acquaintance, it became evident that its acceptance +would mean the cheapening of life by banishing from it the Divine +personality, and robbing the human of the qualities that give it its +greatest worth. Happily the disaster has been averted, and there are +not many now who would seriously undertake its defence. + + + +[1] _Microcosmus_ (E.T.), II., p. 688. + +[2] Those who may desire to see the matter clearly and ably handled +would do well to read the Essay on "The Being of God," in _Lux Mundi_, +by Aubrey Moore. + +[3] Preface, Vol. II. (1893). + +[4] These notes were sent by Mr. Romanes' desire after his death, in +1894, to Bishop Gore, and have been published by him in a sixpenny +volume under the title of _Thoughts on Religion_. + +[5] P. 154. + +[6] P. 82. + +[7] Pp. 111, f. + +[8] Life and Letters, p. 375. + + + + +{53} + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) + +We have still to see how the last of the difficulties of which we have +spoken was treated. It was a difficulty which could not be regarded +with indifference. For what would it avail to shew that men had a +right to cherish the belief in Power, and Purpose, and Personality, +unless they could also be assured that the Orderer of the world is +good? Nay, might they not feel, if there were no such assurance, that +it would be better to be altogether without His presence and influence? +On a matter so vital to happiness and well-being the mere possibility +of a doubt was torment enough. What was there to be said to bring +relief to the mind and heart when charges were made against the +benevolence and beneficence of Nature's ways? What satisfactory +account could be given of the waste and cruelty which were seen to +abound on every hand? The more clear the certainty that there is +design in the Universe, the more urgent became {54} the question as to +the character of that design, and of the motives that prompt it. + +So long as the difficulty remained unrelieved, the thoughts of many of +the most sensitive minds in regard to Theism were held in suspense. +The shadow of misgiving was felt to be creeping over the mind of the +age, like the gloom of an approaching eclipse, even before the arrival +of the Darwinian hypothesis. In words too well known to need +repeating, Tennyson had given utterance to the half-realised anxiety of +his contemporaries in the stanzas of his _In Memoriam_, published in +1850. + +What the finer spirits were already beginning to feel was soon to be +proclaimed, in terms which could not fail to be understood by the +multitude, as an inevitable truth brought to light by scientific +enquiry. We have seen how it was stated with the passion of eloquence +by Huxley and Romanes. And Darwin, with all his detachment and +philosophic calm, was at times deeply affected by the seriousness of +the problem which he had done so much to bring into prominence. It is +plain that he did his very utmost to retain the hopeful view, and to +put the most consoling interpretation he could upon the disquieting +facts. + +He had no difficulty in shewing that the wholesale destruction of +living organisms was imperatively {55} necessary. "There is no +exception to the rule," he said, "that every organic being naturally +increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would +soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair."[1] + +The truth of this has been demonstrated again and again. A pair of +rabbits, for example, would in the most favourable circumstances +increase in four or five years to a million. The roe of a cod may +contain eight or nine millions of eggs. More appalling still, the +female of the common flesh fly will at one time deposit 20,000 eggs. +At this rate of increase it has been calculated that, in less than a +year, a single pair would produce enough flies, if these were not +devoured by their natural foes, to cover the whole surface of the globe +to the depth of a mile and a quarter! But all this does not, of +course, make it clear why in a beneficently ordered world such a +necessity of slaughter should ever have been allowed to arise. + +Darwin, as we have said, tried hard to take the most favourable view of +the whole process. He thus concluded his chapter on the struggle for +existence; "When we reflect on the struggle, we may console ourselves +with the full belief that {56} the war of nature is not incessant, that +no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, +the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." And these are the +words with which he concluded the _Origin of Species_: "Thus from the +war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are +capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, +directly follows." + +But a year or two later he shewed that his mind was by no means at rest +on the matter, by writing in this strain to his friend Asa Gray: + +"I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish +to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There +seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself +that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the +Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the +living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.... +I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, +with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what +we may call chance. Not that this notion _at all_ satisfies me.... +Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you +that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical."[2] + +{57} + +Happily there were others who were able to see their way somewhat +further than this. Romanes, in a paper which he read before the +Aristotelian Society in 1889, shewed that he was reconsidering his +position. He questioned whether the assertion, made by a speaker in a +previous discussion, that "the fair order of Nature is only acquired by +a wholesale waste and sacrifice," could be accepted as strictly true, +for "how can it be said that, in point of fact, there _has_ been a +waste, or _has_ been a sacrifice? Clearly such things can only be said +when our point of view is restricted to the means (_i.e._, the +wholesale destruction of the less fit); not when we extend our view to +what, even within the limits of human observation, is unquestionably +the _end_ (_i.e._, the causal result in an ever improving world of +types)."[3] + +He had intended to write more fully on the subject, but did not live to +do so. We only know that on the Sunday before his death he did express +to Bishop Gore his entire agreement with a statement that had been made +a short time before by Professor Knight, in his _Aspects of Theism_, to +the effect that "A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process +by which physical nature casts its weaker products {58} aside, etc."[4] +We cannot suppose that, if he had lived, he would have been content to +have left the argument thus. That the end justifies the means, is +scarcely a doctrine which can be accepted as the last word of an +ethical defence of the constitution of the world. + +No doubt there were further pleas to be put in, and we shall do well to +give them their full value. There is the contention that the pleasures +of life as a whole outweigh the sum of its evils. This was maintained, +and we need not hesitate to say successfully maintained, by Lord +Avebury, and not by him alone. Indeed Darwin had emphatically said, +"According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails."[5] Then there +has always been urged the undoubted fact that pain, if an evil, is yet +the minister of good. Browning's optimism may have carried him too far +when he laid it down that "when pain ends gain ends," but it is not to +be questioned that men have profited by sufferings, and that they have +had to thank their pains, if only because these have served to protect +them from yet greater misfortunes. There is a true wisdom in the moral +of the old fable of the blacksmith, who prayed to heaven that the fire +might not burn his fingers, to discover that as {59} a result it had +charred his hand to the bone. Medical science has had much to say with +regard to the salutary office of pain. It has gone so far as to assert +that, "the symptoms of disease are marked by purpose, and the purpose +is beneficent." Nay more, "the processes of disease aim not at the +destruction of life, but at the saving of it."[6] None the less, with +what might seem a splendid inconsistency, the medical profession +devotes itself untiringly to the alleviation of the symptoms and to the +eradication of disease. + +Again, we may be thankful to be assured that, whatever be the case with +man, the lower organisms feel pain less than he does, and much less +than he is often wont to imagine that they feel it. This has been +argued again and again by the veteran naturalist Wallace, whose right +to speak on the subject no one is likely to dispute. In his recently +published book, _The World of Life_, he has devoted a whole chapter to +answering the question, "Is Nature cruel?" and it is due to him, as +well as to the importance of the problem, that we should carefully note +what he has said. The following quotations may be taken as +sufficiently indicating his position. + +"The widespread idea of the cruelty of Nature is {60} almost wholly +imaginary."[7] "Our whole tendency to transfer _our_ sensations of +pain to the other animals is grossly misleading."[8] + +"No other animal _needs_ the pain-sensations that we need; it is +therefore absolutely certain--on principles of evolution--that no other +possesses such sensations in more than a fractional degree of ours."[9] + +"In the category of painless or almost painless animals, I think we may +place almost all aquatic animals up to fishes, all the vast hordes of +insects, probably all mollusca and worms; thus reducing the sphere of +pain to a minimum throughout all the earlier geological ages, and very +largely even now."[10] + +"The purpose and use of all parasitic diseases is to seize upon the +less adapted and less healthy individuals--those which are slowly dying +and no longer of value in the preservation of the species, and +therefore to a certain extent injurious to the race by requiring food +and occupying space needed by the more fit."[11] + +Speaking of "the vicious-looking teeth and claws of the cat tribe, the +hooked beak and prehensile talons of birds of prey, the poison fangs of +serpents, the stings of wasps and many others," Dr. Wallace {61} +writes; "The idea that all these weapons exist for the _purpose_ of +shedding blood or giving pain is wholly illusory. As a matter of fact, +their effect is wholly beneficent even to the sufferers, inasmuch as +they tend to the diminution of pain. Their actual purpose is always to +prevent the escape of captured food--of a wounded animal, which would +then, indeed, suffer _useless_ pain, since it would certainly very soon +be captured again and be devoured." "All conclusions derived from the +house-fed cat and mouse are fallacious."[12] Finally he concludes by +inveighing against "the ludicrously exaggerated view adopted by men of +such eminence and usually of such calm judgment as Huxley--a view +almost as far removed from fact or science as the purely imaginary and +humanitarian dogma of the poet: + + 'The poor beetle, that we tread upon, + In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great + As when a giant dies.' + + +Whatever the giant may feel, if the theory of Evolution is true, the +'poor beetle' certainly {62} feels an almost irreducible minimum of +pain, probably none at all."[13] + +We may add to all these considerations the further fact that we are +constantly finding out that things have their use which had been too +hastily assumed to be mere blots upon Nature. The desert and the +volcano, for instance, have often been regarded in that light. But we +have lately been assured that both are needed for the supply of +atmospheric dust, which is a necessary condition of the rain-fall; so +that they are really essential to life upon the planet. Beyond +question, then, there is very much to be said in mitigation of the +terrible difficulty occasioned by what appear to be the havoc and the +prodigality of Nature. + +And yet--when all has been said--a residuum does remain of inexplicable +misery and distress, and there are times when we are all of us +constrained to cry out with Darwin that it is "too much," and to ask +whether there is not some further clue to the mystery. And then it may +well be that there comes to our mind an answer that has been given from +the very first moment at which human beings have thought at all. It is +an answer which has seemed inevitable alike to the simplest and the +wisest. + +{63} + +Carlyle once told of two Scottish peasants who found themselves for the +first time at Ailsa Crag. They stared in astonishment at the great +sea-precipices. At last one said to the other: "Eh, Jock, Nature's +deevilish!"[14] That was the view taken by the primitive races of the +world, as their worships and incantations bore witness. It is a view +which cannot be lightly dismissed as having nothing at all in its +support. We may minimise the evil that is at work around and within us +as we will, but, when we have done our utmost, we shall be unlike the +vast majority of our race if we are not compelled to admit that there +is that in the world which it is quite impossible to ascribe to the +immediate action of an entirely good and beneficent God. + +Is it then to be thought incredible that the order of the world should +have been interfered with, at an early stage in its development, in +such a way that the disarrangement was left to work out its fatal +mischief by means of the very constancy of the great system of laws +which make for a regular development? How this might conceivably have +occurred has been set out by an anonymous writer in a remarkable book +which ought to be better known than it is. {64} It was published some +years ago,[15] and bears the suggestive title of _Evil and Evolution_. +The author maintains that the original motive in all living things was +self-preservation for self-realisation; and that this elementary law +was in itself necessary and good, the essential condition of progress. +But just as we to-day know well how hard it is to draw the line which +distinguishes a right self-seeking from the wrong, so it has been from +the outset. The distinction is a fine one, and the balance is easily +upset. We have but to suppose that this perversion of the right and +lawful happened at an early stage, to see that nothing more would have +been required to account for the subsequent heritage of woe.[16] After +speaking of the innocent "kind of comparative strife that we see in the +fields and forests around us," in which "there may be nothing that we +cannot reconcile with the perfect beneficence of the Great {65} +Designer and Creator," this writer goes on to say: "But the moment that +evolution has attained that point at which the struggle begins to +involve pain and unhappiness, it becomes quite another matter. The +moment that rudimentary but happy and congenial life begins to be +overshadowed by fear, or debased by conscious cruelty, the moment that +process of evolution begins to evolve not only cruel selfishness in its +most odious forms, but deceit and artifice and treacherous cunning in +the warfare which one animal wages with another, then I think you may +be certain of one of two things--either the Creator is not +all-benevolent, or that that scheme is somehow working out as He never +intended it should: there must have been some disturbing and hostile +influence."[17] + +This is well put, but the interest of the book chiefly consists in its +attempts to show in detailed instances how things that are evil may +have been made so. The author boldly argues that, if the normal course +had been followed, "birds and beasts of prey and venomous reptiles +would never have been evolved." "Evolutionists," he says, "are agreed +that it is just the fierce struggle of created things that has produced +these birds and beasts of prey, and that there can be {66} little doubt +that it is the malignity of the struggle that has produced the venom of +so many reptiles."[18] Instances are given in which such venom may now +be developed as the result of rage or terror in an otherwise harmless +animal. + +"A few years ago it was reported that the late M. Pasteur 'cultivated' +the poison of human saliva to such a point that he was able to produce +with it many of the effects of the most virulent snake poisons."[19] +Had they not been inflamed by the terror of the struggle for existence, +"tigers and hyaenas, vultures and sharks, ferrets and polecats, wasps +and spiders, puff-adders and skunks" might have turned their undoubted +abilities in other more desirable directions.[20] Again, "it is the +perpetual effort, generation after generation, through long ages, to +repair the mischief inflicted by enemies," that accounts for "the +fecundity of the codfish and other creatures. The more prolific it +becomes, the more enemies it can feed; and the more they multiply, the +more prolific it grows." A vicious circle indeed! Even "earthquakes, +storms, droughts, deluges," are explained as due to a certain want of +balance and failure in adjustment.[21] + +Certainly, if we had to choose between the idea {67} of a careless or +indifferent God, and the belief in a God who has given us ample proofs +of a generally beneficent purpose, but who has, for reasons of the +meaning of which we as yet can have only the vaguest conceptions, +allowed Himself to be hindered and thwarted on the way to His goal, +with results of suffering to Himself even greater than those endured by +His creatures; if these were the alternatives before us, there can +scarcely be one of us who would hesitate to say towards which of them +his reason and conscience would confidently point him. + + + +[1] _Origin of Species_, Chap. III. + +[2] _Life and Letters_. + +[3] _Thoughts on Religion_, pp. 92, f. + +[4] p. 94. + +[5] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 309. + +[6] Address by Sir Frederick Treves at the Edinburgh Philosophical +Institution, October, 1905. + +[7] p. 380. + +[8] p. 377. + +[9] p. 381. + +[10] p. 375. + +[11] p. 383. + +[12] p. 377. Among the illustrations that have been adduced of the +insensibility of the lower organisms, none perhaps is more +extraordinary than this: "A crab will continue to eat, and apparently +relish, a smaller crab while being itself slowly devoured by a larger +one!"--(Transactions of Victoria Institute, Vol. XXV., p. 257). + +[13] p. 384. + +[14] William Allingham's _Diary_, p. 226. + +[15] In 1896, by Messrs. Macmillan. + +[16] In one instance, at least, Darwin had pictured in his imagination +the steps by which a "strange and odious instinct" may have been +developed from comparatively innocent beginnings. He was referring to +the ejection by the young cuckoo of its companions from the nest. "I +can see no special difficulty in its having gradually acquired, during +successive generations, the blind desire, the strength and structure +necessary for the work of ejection." "The first step towards the +acquisition of the proper instinct might have been mere unintentional +restlessness on the part of the young bird."--_Origin of Species_, p. +200. + +[17] Pp. 135, f. + +[18] P. 142. + +[19] P. 143. + +[20] P. 144. + +[21] P. 232. + + + + +{68} + +CHAPTER VII + +LATER SCIENCE + +The position, as we have described it, was that which may be said to +have existed up to about twenty years ago. Since then much new light +has come. Indeed, Lord Kelvin, speaking at Clerkenwell on February +26th, 1904, is reported in _The Times_ to have said, referring to the +extraordinary progress of scientific research, that it "had, perhaps, +been even more remarkable and striking at the beginning of the +twentieth century than during the whole of the nineteenth." + +Let us take first that which he had more particularly in mind, the +advance in the knowledge of the constitution of Matter. + +In an address delivered before the British Association at Bradford in +1873, Clerk Maxwell had stated the conclusions to which science had, up +to that time, been led in its investigations of matter. Throughout the +natural universe it had been shewn, by Spectrum Analysis, that matter +is built up of {69} molecules. These molecules, according to the most +competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of +substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule +of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes +its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts +and movements of the planetary systems may and do change, but "the +molecules--the foundation-stones of the natural universe--remain +unbroken and unworn." + +As a result of this, it was maintained that "the exact equality of each +molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel +has well said, the essential character of being a manufactured article, +and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent." "Not +that science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a +molecule which she cannot take to pieces ... but, in tracing back the +history of matter, science is arrested when she assures herself, on the +one hand, that the molecule has been made, and on the other that it has +not been made by any of the processes we call natural." + +So the case had stood for some while until science, through its +indefatigable inquirers, shewed that it was in very deed "not debarred +from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule," nor, perhaps, from +taking it to pieces. In 1895 came the {70} discovery of the X-rays by +Röntgen in Germany, to be followed in a year by Becquerel's discovery +of spontaneous radio-activity, and in a couple of years by the +remarkable further discovery, made by Madame Curie, of what was termed +"radium," a substance that went on producing heat _de novo_, keeping +itself permanently at a higher temperature than its surroundings, and +spontaneously producing electricity. + +This in itself was a new fact of extraordinary interest. For long, +discussion had been waged between two departments of scientific +inquirers. The geologists and biologists had demanded hundreds, and +perhaps thousands, of millions of years to allow for the developments +with which they were concerned. The physicists, led by Lord Kelvin, +refused to admit the demand, claiming that it could be proved +mathematically that it was impossible that the sun could have been +giving out heat at its present rate for more than a hundred million +years, at the very outside. The appearance of radium robbed this +argument of its cogency. It is true that an examination of the sun's +spectrum has not, as yet, revealed any radium lines, but it is well +known that helium, a transformation product of radium, is present in it. + +And this modification of our views as to the {71} probable age of our +solar system was far from being the only result of this latest +discovery. Investigations which followed into radio-activity led the +Cambridge professors, Larmor and Thomson, to conclude that electricity +existed in small particles, which were called "electrons."[1] These +seem to be the ingredients of which atoms are made. A molecule is +composed of two or more atoms. That of hydrogen, for example, has two; +that of water three; and so on up to a thousand or more. + +Molecules are very small. If a drop of water were magnified to the +size of the globe, the molecules would be seen to be less than the size +of a cricket ball! + +Atoms are much smaller. "The atoms in a drop of water outnumber the +drops in an Atlantic Ocean." Electrons are much smaller still--about +"a thousand-million-million times smaller than atoms."[2] + +Within the atom thousands or tens of thousands of these electrons are +moving in orderly arrangement, at terrific speed, round and about one +another. The amount of energy required to build up a molecule of any +degree of complexity is very great, and it is {72} by the breaking down +of complex molecules into simple ones that all our mechanical work is +done. And this is not all, for not only can the molecule be thus +broken in pieces, but the atom itself is capable of disintegration. +"Although we do not know how to break atoms up, they are liable every +now and then themselves to explode, and so resolve themselves into +simpler forms." "Atoms of matter are not the indestructible and +immutable things they were once thought."[3] The idea of the amount of +energy thus revealed as available for all kinds of active work is so +vast as to baffle calculation and even imagination. It has been said +that there is energy enough in fifteen grains of radium, if it could +all be set free at once, to blow the whole British Navy a mile high +into the air. The thought that we are thus encompassed on every side +by pent up potentialities of force, which if uncontrolled might at any +moment work our destruction, may well deepen in us the sense of the +need, not only for an originating, but for a continually directing mind +to superintend the conduct of the universe. + +We have referred to more than one change of view to which the new +discoveries have led. We shall doubtless find that there are other +scientific theories {73} which will have ere long to be modified. +Already it is recognised that the arguments of Lord Kelvin (he was then +Sir William Thomson) and of Clerk Maxwell, which were based upon +calculations as to the "dissipation of energy," can scarcely remain +unaffected by what we now know, and suspect, of the crumbling and +re-forming of atoms. + +And there are hints abroad of even more revolutionary suggestions. If +there has been one principle more imperatively and unanimously insisted +upon than another, it has been the uniformity of Nature's laws. What +then are we to make of a remark like the following, made by Professor +J. J. Thomson, perhaps only half-seriously, to the British Association +at Cambridge, in 1904? "There was one law," he said, "which he felt +convinced nobody who had worked on this question"--the radio-activity +of matter--"would ever suggest, and that was the constancy of Nature." + +Not less startling is it to be told that a question may yet be raised +which will challenge "the conception of a luminiferous aether, which +for half a century has dominated physical science. It is possible," so +we are informed, "that the field of electro-magnetic energy surrounding +an electric charge in motion moves with it, and that the vibrations of +light travel through this moving {74} field, instead of through an +ocean of stagnant aether."[4] + +One further quotation of singular interest may be added. It is taken +from an address to students by the President of the Institution of +Mining and Metallurgy.[5] + +"Twenty years ago," he said, "the idea held that inorganic chemistry +was almost a dead science--dead in the sense of being apparently +completed in many of its aspects, and that its records could be safely +confided to the encyclopaedia.... A modified conception of life is now +becoming co-extensive with the whole range of our experience. Even a +simple inorganic crystal does not spring ready formed from its solvent, +but first passes through phases of granulation and striation comparable +with those which characterise the beginnings of vital growth. Metals +exhibit in some respects phenomena similar to those possessed by +organised beings. Thus, they show fatigue under long continued stress, +and they recover their strength with rest. They are also susceptible +to certain of the poisons which destroy organic life. Matter, broadly, +is no longer merely dead masonry from which the edifice to shelter life +{75} is constructed, but also appears to be the reservoir of that +energy which is developed, altered and drawn into vitality itself.... +The indestructibility of matter bids fair to become relegated to the +museum of outworn theories; and with it will probably go our present +conceptions as to the conservation of energy." + +It is clear, then, that the tasks awaiting the students of physical +science are likely to be as arduous, and we may hope as full of reward, +as they have been at any time in the past. Meanwhile, it does look as +if there were truth in Mr. Balfour's remark that "Matter is not merely +explained, but is explained away."[6] + + + +[1] The weighing and measuring of the electron were first announced by +Professor Thomson to the British Association meeting at Dover, in 1899. + +[2] Sir Oliver Lodge. + +[3] Sir Oliver Lodge. _Life and Matter_, p. 28. + +[4] Whetham. _The Foundations of Science_, p. 50. + +[5] H. L. Sulman, at the Sir John Cass Institute, November 29th, 1911. + +[6] Presidential Address to British Association, 1904. + + + + +{76} + +CHAPTER VIII + +LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) + +We have spoken of what science has recently been doing in the +investigation of the constitution of matter; we have now to talk of its +researches into the nature of Life. + +The discovery that all plant and animal life is developed from living +cells was made, as we have already stated, more than seventy years ago. +Since then our knowledge of the formation and history of these cells +has been continually growing. The size of cells varies, but as a rule +they are very minute. They consist of what is termed protoplasm. At +one time it was supposed that protoplasm was structureless. Now it is +known that the protoplasmic cell contains a nucleus and a surrounding +body. Moreover, the nucleus, or small spot in the centre, has within +it a spiral structure of a very complicated kind. Every cell is +derived from a pre-existing cell by a process of division, the two +resulting cells being apparently identical with the parent cell. {77} +The cells possess the power of assimilating other cells or fragments of +cells. As they grow they move and go in search of food and light and +air and moisture. They exhibit feeling, and shrink as if in pain. +Spots specially sensitive to vibrations become eyes and ears; and thus +the various organs and faculties are evolved under the stimulating +influence of environment. The progress, so far as it is physical, can +be traced from the lowest blue-green algae right up to man. And all +throughout, in so far as their chemical composition is concerned, the +constituent elements of the living structure are the same. It is said +to be practically impossible to distinguish between the cells of a +toadstool and those of a human being. + +But when all this has been explained, we have still left one great +question unanswered. How is the protoplasm made? Is there any +connexion of development to be traced whereby life can be shewn to have +arisen from inorganic matter? Protoplasm, under analysis, is found to +consist of some of the commonest elements on the earth's surface, such +as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Apart from its +very complicated structure, its contents are not hard to provide. And +we know that there was a time when it must of necessity have been +formed out of that which was not living, {78} for there was a time when +our globe was in a state of incandescent heat in which no life that we +know could possibly have existed. More than this we cannot say. Sir +William Thomson, as President of the British Association in 1871, +suggested that a germ of life might have been wafted to our world on a +meteorite; but to say that is obviously only to banish the problem to a +greater distance.[1] + +Huxley had, in 1868, invented the name "Bathybius" to describe the +deep-sea slime which he held to be the progenitor of life on the +planet. But later on he frankly confessed that his suggestion was +fruitless, acknowledging that the present state of our knowledge +furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living. + +And so the problem remains. Sir Edward Schäfer, indeed, has laid it +down that "we are compelled to believe that living matter must have +owed its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been +instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the universe; in +other words, to {79} a process of gradual evolution,"[2] but he can +throw no further light on the process and its stages. + +Sir Oliver Lodge is but speaking the admitted truth when he says that +"Science, in chagrin, has to confess that hitherto in this direction it +has failed. It has not yet witnessed the origin of the smallest trace +of life from dead matter."[3] + +No doubt there are many who are hopeful that it may yet be possible to +discover a way by which a cell, discharging all the essential functions +of life, can be constructed out of inorganic material; or, at least, +that it may be possible to frame an intelligible hypothesis as to how +this might have been done under conditions which long ago may have been +more favourable than our own. But, on the other hand, there are not a +few who have quite deliberately abandoned any expectation of the kind. +This was made plain by some of the expressions of adverse opinion which +were elicited by Sir Edward Schäfer's address. Of these the following +may be given as specimens: "The more they saw of the lower forms of +life, the more remote seemed to become the possibility of conceiving +how life arose."[4] + +{80} + +"He could not imagine anything happening in the laboratory, according +to our present knowledge, which would bring us any nearer to life."[5] + +"Living protoplasm has never been chemically produced. The assertion +that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes alone is quite +unjustified. Neither the probability of such an origin, nor even its +possibility, has been supported by anything which can be termed +scientific fact or logical reasoning."[6] + +"The phenomena of life are of a character wholly different from those +which are presented by matter viewed under any other aspect, +mechanical, electrical, chemical, or what not. It is beside the +question to point to the fact that in Nature 'new elements are making +their appearance and old elements disappearing,' for though we may +speculate as to the manner of formation of uranium and thorium, and +though the production of radio-active matters in Nature at the present +time and always seems to be a well-established fact, such phenomena +have not even an analogy with those of a living being, however +humble."[7] + +It cannot be surprising that those who believe {81} the door to be +shut, so to speak, in the direction of any theory of development +through mechanical and chemical agencies alone, should look elsewhere +for the solution of a problem which science is bound to do its very +utmost to solve. This is what, as a matter of fact, is happening; and +it is of the very deepest interest to observe the nature of the +suggested explanation. It is no other than a revived form of the +ancient doctrine of a "vital force," which we had imagined to have been +finally discarded. There is this difference, however, and it is +all-important. The force is not, as formerly supposed, some unique +kind of energy; is not, indeed, energy at all. But we shall do best to +state the new doctrine in the words of its leading exponents. + +Professor Anton Kerner, one of the most distinguished German writers on +Botany, in his _Natural History of Plants_, speaking of the chemical +explanation, says: "It does not explain the purposeful sequence of +different operations in the same protoplasm without any change in the +external stimuli; the thorough use made of external advantages; the +resistance to injurious influences; the avoidance or encompassing of +insuperable obstacles; the punctuality with which all the functions are +performed; the periodicity which occurs with the greatest regularity +under constant conditions of environment; {82} nor, above all, the fact +that the power of discharging all the operations requisite for growth, +nutrition, renovation and multiplication is liable to be lost." + +And then he gives his opinion thus: "I do not hesitate again to +designate as vital force this natural agency, not to be identified with +any other, whose immediate instrument is the protoplasm, and whose +peculiar effects we call life." + +Sir Oliver Lodge is, perhaps, the most uncompromising advocate of the +newer vitalism in England. The following striking quotations will set +forth his views: + +Life, he maintains, is no more a function of matter "than the wind is a +function of the leaves which dance under its influence."[8] + +"If it were true that vital energy turned into, or was anyhow +convertible into, inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body +had more inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that 'these +inorganic energies' always, or ever, 'reappear on the dissolution of +life,' then, undoubtedly, _cadit quaestio_, life would immediately be +proved to be a form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of +physics. But, inasmuch as all this is untrue--the direct contrary of +the truth--I maintain that life is not a form of {83} energy, that it +is not included in our present physical categories, that its +explanation is still to seek." + +"It appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which +interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts +guidance and control on the energy which already exists."[9] + +"Life does not add to the stock of any human form of energy, nor does +death affect the sum of energy in any known way."[10] + +"Life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide its +transmutations."[11] + +"My contention then is--and in this contention I am practically +speaking for my brother physicists--that whereas life or mind can +neither generate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause +matter to exercise force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and +control; it can so prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the +position of existing material, and timing the liberation of existing +energy, as to produce results concordant with an idea or scheme or +intention; it can, in short, 'aim' and 'fire.'"[12] + +"It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws of mechanics +alone."[13] + +"On a stagnant and inactive world life would be {84} powerless: it +could only make dry bones stir in such a world if it were itself a form +of energy. It is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically +'available'--to use Lord Kelvin's term--that is to say, is either +potentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In +other words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide +its transformation."[14] + +"Life possesses the power of vitalising the complex material aggregates +which exist on this planet, and of utilising their energies for a time +to display itself amid terrestrial surroundings; and then it seems to +disappear or evaporate whence it came."[15] + +To these voices from Germany or England we can add that of M. Bergson +from France. In many respects, as he says, he is at one with Sir +Oliver Lodge. If he goes beyond him, it is mainly in these ways. He +emphasises the element of Freedom, the power of choice as shewn by +every living thing. It appears, he says, "from the top to the bottom +of the animal scale," "although the lower we go, the more vaguely it is +seen." "In very truth, I believe no living organism is absolutely +without the faculty of performing actions and moving spontaneously; for +we see that even in the vegetable world, where {85} the organism is for +the most part fixed to the ground, the faculty of motion is asleep +rather than absent altogether. Sometimes it wakes up, just when it is +likely to be useful." + +And this is not all. What is specially characteristic of M. Bergson is +the insistence that this power of choice is an evidence of +Consciousness. "Life," he declares, "is nothing but consciousness +using matter for its purposes." "There is behind life an impulse, an +immense impulse to climb higher and higher, to run greater and greater +risks in order to arrive at greater and greater efficiency." +"Obviously there is a vital impulse."[16] + +"Life appears in its entirety as an immense wave which, starting from a +centre, speeds outwards, and which on almost the whole of its +circumference is stopped"--that is, as he explains, by matter--"and +converted into oscillation; at one point the obstacle has been forced, +the impulsion has poured freely. It is this freedom that the human +form registers. Everywhere but in man consciousness has had to come to +a stand; in man alone it has kept on its way. Man continues the vital +movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all +that life carries in itself. On other {86} lines of evolution there +have travelled other tendencies which life implied"--the reference is +more especially to powers of instinct as distinguished from those of +intelligence--"and of which, since everything interpenetrates, man has +doubtless kept something, but of which he has kept only a little."[17] + +Perhaps the most astonishing thing about M. Bergson's philosophy is his +unreadiness to allow that the consciousness, which he says is +everywhere at work, has any deliberate purpose in its working. Mr. +Balfour has called attention to the unsatisfactoriness of what he +described as "too hesitating and uncertain a treatment."[18] + +But, in spite of so serious an omission, we may be glad to believe, +with our acute statesman-critic, that "there is permanent value in his +theories." If they indicate at all the direction in which scientific +thinking is to move, we shall soon have travelled a very long distance +from the days in which it was imagined that all vital phenomena might +be accounted for on merely materialistic and mechanical lines. + + + +[1] "To this 'meteorite' theory the apparently fatal objection was +raised that it would take some sixty million years for a meteorite to +travel from the nearest stellar system to our earth, and it is +inconceivable that any kind of life could be maintained during such a +period."--Schäfer. + +[2] Presidential Address to British Association, at Edinburgh (1912). + +[3] _Man and the Universe_, p. 24. + +[4] Prof. Wager. + +[5] Dr. J. S. Haldane. + +[6] Dr. A. R. Wallace. Article in _Everyman_, October 18th, 1912. + +[7] Sir William Tilden. Letter to _The Times_, September 9th,1912. + +[8] _Life and Matter_, p. 106. + +[9] Pp. 132, f. + +[10] P. 158. + +[11] P. 160. + +[12] Pp. 164, f. + +[13] P. 166. + +[14] P. 160. + +[15] P. 198. + +[16] Lecture at Birmingham, May, 1911. + +[17] _Creative Evolution_, p. 280. + +[18] _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1911. + + + + +{87} + +CHAPTER IX + +LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) + +The leaders of the scientific thought of last century would have been +vastly surprised if they could have foreseen the results of the +investigations which were to be made into the constitution of matter +and the nature of life; but not even these would have amazed them so +much as would other investigations that were to be carried out in a yet +deeper and more mysterious region of experience. Perhaps it was +because science had been so busy about the more external things, that +it had seemed to have no time to spare for the thorough consideration +of that which is more truly vital to man than the matter which obeys or +opposes him, or even than the physical life which enables him to act, +in so far as he can, as its master. It was strange that the last thing +to be thought of should be his own personality, himself; the innermost +workings of his soul. + +But if this profoundest problem has been neglected, it is to be +neglected no longer. Psychology has {88} already made good its claim +to be respectfully regarded as one of the sciences. It is too early to +speak with any great certainty of the results that it has achieved, +though these are probably more substantial than is commonly supposed. + +Anyhow, it will be best that, as before, we should give some +characteristic statements of the investigators themselves, rather than +attempt to make unauthorised summaries of our own. + +And, first of all, Sir Oliver Lodge shall tell us what he understands +by the Soul. "The soul is that controlling and guiding principle which +is responsible for our personal expression and for the construction of +the body, under the restrictions of physical condition and ancestry. +In its higher developments it includes also feeling and intelligence +and will, and is the storehouse of mental experience. The body is its +instrument and organ, enabling it to receive and to convey physical +impressions, and to affect and be affected by matter and energy."[1] + +How the soul acts by means of the body is thus explained. + +"The brain is the link between the psychical and the physical, which in +themselves belong to different orders of being."[2] + +{89} + +"A portion of brain substance is consumed in every act of +mentation."[3] "Destroy certain parts of brain completely, and +connexion between the psychic and the material regions is for us +severed. True; but cutting off or damaging communication is not the +same as destroying or damaging the communicator; nor is smashing an +organ equivalent to killing the organist."[4] + +M. Bergson does not differ from this when he says that, "the +soul--essentially action, will, liberty--is the creative force _par +excellence_, the productive agent of novelty in the world." He goes on +to speak of the way by which souls have been differentiated and raised +to self-conscious existence. "The history of this great effort is the +very history of the evolution of life on our planet. Certain lines of +evolution seem to have failed. But on the line of evolution which +leads to man the liberation has been accomplished and thus +personalities have been able to constitute themselves."[5] Like many +another, M. Bergson cannot bring himself to believe that death is to be +the end of all that has been thus painfully achieved during this +process of attainment. "When we see that consciousness is also memory, +{90} that one of its essential functions is to accumulate and preserve +the past, that very probably the brain is an instrument of +forgetfulness as much as one of remembrance, and that in pure +consciousness nothing of the past is lost, the whole life of a +conscious personality being an indivisible continuity; are we not led +to suppose that the effect continues beyond, and that in this passage +of consciousness through matter (the passage which at the tunnel's exit +gives distinct personalities) consciousness is tempered like steel, and +tests itself by clearly constituting personalities and preparing them, +by the very effort which each of them is called upon to make, for a +higher form of existence?"[6] + +But the psychologist has yet more to tell us about the nature of +personality. Although helped to distinctiveness of self-conscious +expression by means of its experience of the struggle under present +material conditions, it is not the whole of it that can be thus +expressed. In fact its present physical embodiment is but partially +adequate to the task. In other words, "cerebral life represents only a +small part of the mental life." "One of the rôles of the brain is to +limit the vision of the mind, to render {91} its action more +efficacious"[7]--more efficacious, that is to say, for such uses as are +of value for survival and success under our existing conditions. + +It is to Frederick Myers that we have chiefly owed the conception of +the subliminal or subconscious mind. The full report of his researches +is given in the two volumes of his work on "Human Personality and its +Survival of Bodily Death" (1901). He it was who invented the word +"telepathy" to express the fact that mental action can be exerted at a +distance. And it was he who brought for the first time the phenomena +of clairvoyance and apparitions under thorough examination by the +employment of the most exacting tests. Along such lines he was led to +the conclusion, now largely accepted, that the conscious self is only a +fraction of the entire personality, the fraction being greater or less +according to the magnitude of the individual. + +By means of this subconscious part of our being we are, he held, +brought into touch with one another and are capable of attaining a +knowledge which may greatly transcend that which comes to us through +our ordinary channels of communication. In the case of genius we watch +the emergence of exceptional {92} potentialities, which may serve as +the promise and pledge of what the future has in store for us all. One +day like some winged insect we shall pass to a condition beyond that of +the life we now know, and then we may hope that what we "can regard as +larval characters of special service in the present stage of +existence," will prove to have been "destined to be discarded, or +modified almost out of recognition, in proportion as a higher state is +attained."[8] + +This recognition of the existence within human nature of such +capacities and powers, however imperfectly developed and understood, +would greatly help us to deal with many mysteries of experience that +have hitherto seemed completely beyond the purview of a strict +scientific research. The American psychologist, William James, has +done good service to this highest department of critical inquiry in his +well-known work on "Varieties of Religious Experience." A single +extract may suffice to illustrate his position, and to shew what may +yet lie before those who are prepared to press on in the direction in +which he was able to point. + +"The further limits of our being plunge ... into an altogether other +dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 'understandable' +{93} world.... So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region +(and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in +a way for which we cannot articulately account) we belong to it in a +more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible +world... When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our +finite personality, for we are turned into new men... I call this +higher part of the universe by the name of God."[9] + + + +[1] _Man and the Universe_, p. 78. + +[2] P. 91. + +[3] _Life and Matter_, p. 107. + +[4] _Man and the Universe_, p. 93. + +[5] Lecture at University College, October, 1911. + +[6] Birmingham Lecture, May, 1911. + +[7] Bergson. Presidential Address to Society for Psychical Research, +May, 1913. + +[8] _Op. cit._, I., p. 97. + +[9] Pp. 515, f. + + + + +{94} + +NOTE + +Since the preceding chapters were written, the meeting of the British +Association has been held at Birmingham (September, 1913). Its +interest was unusually great inasmuch as the President's address and +the principal discussions were occupied with the most critical and +debatable scientific questions of the present moment. The following +extracts will give a general idea of the line taken at the outset by +the President, Sir Oliver Lodge. + +"Theological controversy is practically in abeyance just now." "It is +the scientific allies, now, who are waging a more or less invigorating +conflict among themselves, with philosophers joining in." "Ancient +postulates are being pulled up by the roots." "The modern tendency is +to emphasise the discontinuous or atomic character of everything." +"The physical discovery of the twentieth century, so far, is the +electrical theory of matter." "So far from Nature not making jumps, it +becomes doubtful if she does anything else." "The corpuscular theory +of radiation is by no means so dead as in my youth we thought it was." +"But I myself am an upholder of _ultimate_ continuity, and a fervent +believer in the aether of space." + +{95} + +"I have been called a vitalist, and in a sense I am; but I am not a +vitalist if vitalism means an appeal to an undefined 'vital force' (an +objectionable term I have never thought of using) as against the laws +of chemistry and physics." "There is plenty of physics and chemistry +and mechanics about every vital action, but for a complete +understanding of it something beyond physics and chemistry is needed." +"No mathematics could calculate the orbit of a common house-fly." "I +will risk the assertion that life introduces something incalculable and +purposeful amid the laws of physics; it thus distinctly supplements +those laws, though it leaves them otherwise precisely as they were and +obeys them all." + +"The Loom of Time is complicated by a multitude of free agents who can +modify the web, making the product more beautiful or more ugly +according as they are in harmony or disharmony with the general scheme. +I venture to maintain that manifest imperfections are thus accounted +for, and that freedom could be given on no other terms, nor at any less +cost." + +"I will not shrink from a personal note summarising the result on my +own mind of thirty years of experience of psychical research, begun +without predilection--indeed, with the usual hostile prejudice." "The +facts so examined have convinced me that memory and affection are not +limited to that association with matter by which alone they can +manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond +bodily death." + +{96} + +Of the debates on the subsequent days those on "Radiation" and "The +Origin of Life" were, perhaps, the most remarkable. At the former the +point at issue was the amount of truth contained in Planck's "famous +hypothesis that energy was transferred by jumps instead of in a +continuous stream." Sir Joseph Larmor evidently expressed the +prevailing opinion when he said that "some advance in that direction +had become necessary, and old-fashioned physicists like himself had +either to take part in it or run the risk of becoming obsolete." + +For the discussion about "Life," the three sections of Physiology, +Zoology, and Botany were combined. Professor Moore stood stoutly for +the older views, and "believed that he could demonstrate a step which +connected inorganic with organic creation." Then he gave an abstruse +and highly technical account of a process by which in "solutions of +colloidal ferric hydroxide, exposed to strong sunlight," compounds +could be formed similar to those to be found in the green plant. With +a proper grouping of molecules it might be imagined how "colloidal +aggregates appeared," and eventually "organic colloids" which "acquired +the property of transforming light energy into chemical activity." The +speakers who followed seemed to be agreed that, even were such +"potentially living matter" to be produced, we should have reached, not +the discovery of the secret of life, but only the construction of "its +physical vehicle." Professor Hartog strongly protested against the +notion that there was "a consensus {97} of opinion among biologists +that life was only one form of chemical and physical actions which +could be reduced in the laboratory." He wished it to be understood +that "the preponderance of weight among scientific men" was opposed to +such a position. + + + + +{98} + +CONCLUSION + +It is dangerous to generalise; and, when as in this survey we are +attempting to indicate broadly the trend of the thought of an age, we +have more than ordinary need to be on our guard lest we should +sacrifice truth to the desire for a seeming completeness of logical +presentation. For fear, then, of misunderstanding, let it be clearly +remembered that in what has been said we have had no wish to suggest +that all minds have moved at the same pace, or even in the same +direction; but only that certain strong tendencies were observable, +which gave colour and character to the mental stream at the particular +stages in its course. It is with a full sense of the possibility of +exaggeration, and of the necessity of holding the balance even, that we +shall now make our final attempt to sum up as concisely as possible +what we have been able to gather in regard to the thought-movement of +the period we have had under review. There can be no danger of +misstatement in saying that, all throughout, the chief thoughts of the +time were intensely occupied with {99} the greatest of all questions, +those about GOD AND THE WORLD. And, further, it has not been difficult +to perceive that there have been three distinct stages in the sequence +of these thoughts. + +In the _first stage_ we can see, as we look back, that the Religious +feeling was dominant, while the scientific temper could scarcely have +been said to exist; certainly it did not exist upon any extended scale. +But, though the desire to be reverent was widespread, we are bound to +allow that the ideas about God were somewhat crudely conceived. As a +legacy, no doubt, from the Deistic controversies of the preceding +century, the general thought did not rise above the notion of a Supreme +Mechanist and all-powerful Ruler of all things. The Divine Being was +regarded as having originated the universe by a fiat of His will, +fashioning its several contents one after another as He pleased, and +appointing that each and all should be subjected to the laws He had +ordained; always reserving to Himself the right to intervene by some +signal display of wisdom and power, when such intervention was +required, either to remedy a defect, or yet further to set forth His +glory. Men were very ready to admit the idea of the Supernatural, but +it was in the merely superficial and popular sense of _power working +without means_, rather than what we now {100} feel to be the far truer +sense of _superhuman knowledge of means, and power to use them_.[1] It +followed, and this was the weakest point in the Paleyan system of +Natural Theology, that God's action was looked for not in the normal, +but in the exceptional processes of Nature. The need of the Divine was +only felt when no other explanation was forthcoming; with the result, +of course, that as other explanations were found, the necessity for +recognising its operation grew ever less and less. And, even apart +from such a consequence, the effects of the conception could not be +otherwise than injurious to religious faith; for, as it has been truly +and reverently observed, "a theory of occasional intervention implies +as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence."[2] + +As to knowledge of the World, there was scarcely any at all, according +in our present understanding of such knowledge. Not everybody, of +course, accounted for the existence of fossils by supposing that they +were the casts from which the Almighty had designed His creatures, or +possibly the Devil's {101} attempts to imitate His works; but the +prevailing ideas were of the most primitive kind. Even Paley could +give us no better explanation of certain rudimentary anatomical organs, +than by suggesting that the creature in whom they were found had been +so far constructed before it was decided what its sex should be! We +can see that if any real progress in knowledge was to be made, a change +of a very radical order had to come. And it did come. + +The _second stage_ was Scientific rather than religious. The thought +of God occupied a less prominent place in proportion as men's minds +were yielded to the attraction of the new studies. This was partly +due, as we have already explained, to the fact that causes were found +to account for the phenomena which had previously, for the lack of the +understanding of such causes, been attributed to the immediate exercise +of supernatural power. Partly, also, it was due to a growing distrust +of human ability, which resulted from the belief that this was nothing +more than a recent development from a lower animal ancestry. A mind +thus originated was supposed to be debarred from forming any +trustworthy notion of the nature of a First Cause which had operated, +if at all, at some point infinitely distant in the long succession of +ages. + +The main work of this stage was to prosecute {102} research into the +elaborated mechanism, or as men soon came to prefer to think of it, the +developing growth of the world. And wonderful, beyond all +anticipation, was the success which rewarded the pains that were +lavishly bestowed upon the inquiry. Small marvel was it that some +men's heads were well-nigh turned, and that to many it seemed little +less than certain that science had dispensed with the supernatural +altogether; and that it only required time, and no great length of +time, to secure universal acceptance for the materialistic explanations +which were destined, as they supposed, to leave no mysteries of life +unsolved. But such persons had reckoned with a too hasty and +superficial knowledge of the data involved. Little by little the +counter-criticisms produced their effect. The idea of a First and +Permanent Cause was shewn to be as indispensable as ever; not, indeed, +as an influence to be pushed far back, and to be thought of as acting +either once or occasionally. A truer reading of the meaning of what +had been discovered led to the grateful acknowledgment that "Darwinism +has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit by +shewing us that we must choose between two alternatives: either God is +everywhere present in Nature, or He is nowhere."[3] {103} So, again, +with Design. The earlier notion of the separate manufacture of species +and of special adaptations to particular ends had to give way to a +larger conception of the growth and gradual correlation of the parts +and functions of a stupendous whole. But for the attainment of this +mighty result direction and superintendence are even more imperatively +needed. As it was often urged with good reason, to make a world right +off would not have been so marvellous an achievement as to make that +world make itself. + +The problem of Beneficence had, as we saw, come to be so entangled with +difficulties as to render it the most serious of all the problems which +pressed upon the minds and hearts of the men of this second stage of +thinking. But here, also, the fears which were at first aroused were +found to have been exaggerated; and perhaps it is true to say that +before the end of the century there was a general disposition to +conclude that with larger knowledge we should get to understand the +utility of much that to uninstructed eyes appears to be lavish waste +and needless suffering. The obvious fact that science could not go +forward without a loyal belief in the rational intelligibility of +nature gave justification to a corresponding belief in its ethical +intelligibility, even though in this case, as in the other, the {104} +complete proofs might not be immediately forthcoming. And there was, +further, the possibility--to some it was more than a possibility--that +much in the world which looks contrary to goodness is really to be +accounted for as the result of a misuse of liberty on the part of +powers and forces whose action has most mysteriously been allowed to +thwart and to complicate the task of the beneficent Maker of all. + +About the _third stage_ it is fitting that we should speak with more +hesitation. We are living in it, and are as yet only at its beginning. +But we may hazard the prognostication that it will be both Religious +and Scientific; and that, "as knowledge grows from more to more," there +will be found the "more of reverence" of which our modern poet sings. +There is reason to hope that the bitterness of old controversies will +not be revived, and that we have before us a time in which Theology and +Science will co-operate and no longer conflict. With deepening insight +it is becoming plainer than ever that the phenomena of life, and even +of matter, are the expressions of a more than physical force. +Evolution is a law under which a forward process is moving on, and +moving up. There is an impulse of consciousness working from within, +and there is a spiritual, as well as a material, environment inviting +{105} to correspondence with itself. Freedom and power of choice are +admitted to be present in regions where their existence was for long +most strenuously denied. Even matter may have its own power of +insistence and resistance--how much more mind and will. This +consideration may give us a yet clearer clue to the mysteries of +failure, miscarriage, and waste. A world that was to produce +self-conscious, self-determining personalities needed to have freedom +through the whole of its development; and the consequent risk and +possible cost were inevitable. Shall we not be led to admire and +revere increasingly the wonder of it all, as there grows upon us the +sense of the quietness and gentleness, the foresight, and the infinite +patience of the Being of beings, who will never obtrude His presence +and action upon us, just because He would help us to be our own, not +dead but living, selves, and would have us rise with Him to the highest +things? + +We are far from the end of our learning. There are many enigmas yet to +be made plain. We could not wish it otherwise. It has ever been +through the narrow gate of difficulty that we have passed into the +wider court of truth. We have good cause to be humble, but we have +full right to be hopeful. We must not be afraid to face the problems +that await {106} us, whatever they may be. We may be confident that we +are not to be deceived; but that, under a Guidance that has never +failed, we shall at length be brought to see the dawning of the +longed-for day, + + "When that in us which thinks with that which feels + Shall everlastingly be reconciled, + And that which questioneth with that which kneels." + + + +[1] This important distinction was carefully drawn by the Duke of +Argyll in his _Reign of Law_ (pp. 14, 25), published in 1866. + +[2] Aubrey Moore, in one of a series of remarkable articles contributed +to the _Guardian_ (January 18th, 25th, February 1st, 1888). + +[3] Aubrey Moore, _Lux Mundi_. + + + + +{107} + +INDEX + + +AETHER, 73, 94. + +Agnosticism, 32, 46-52. + +Aquinas, St. Thomas, 13. + +Argyle, George Douglas, Duke of, 37, 100. + +Atoms, 21, 71, 72. + +Augustine, St., 50. + +Avebury, Lord, 58. + + +BACON, LORD, 14. + +Balfour, A. J., 75, 86. + +"Bathybius," 78. + +Becquerel, A. C., 70. + +Beneficence, Divine, 17, 18, 53-67, 103. + +Bergson, Henri, 84-86, 89, 90. + +Brain, 88, 89, 90. + +Bunsen, R. W., 24. + + +CARLYLE, THOMAS, 63. + +Cause, 29. + +Cells, The growth of, 77. + +Chalmers, Thomas, 19, 20. + +Chance, 30, 44, 56. + +Consciousness, 85, 89, 90. + +Creation, Mosaic account of 39. + +Creative power, affirmed by Science, 39. + +Cruelty in Nature, 34, 35, 54-67. + +Curie, Mme., 70. + + +DALTON, JOHN, 21. + +Darwin, Charles, 24-26, 41-43, 54, 58, 64. + +Deserts, Use of, 62. + +Design, Argument from, 14-16, 29, 40-45, 103. + +Directive power, 44, 83, 106. + +Du Bois Raymond, E., 37. + +Dysteleology, 35. + + +EARTHQUAKES, 66. + +Electrons, 71. + +Energy: + Conservation of, 23, 42, 75. + Dissipation of, 73. + +_Evil and Evolution_, 64-66. + +Evil in Nature, 18, 63-67. + +Evolution, Doctrine of, 24, 25, 40, 104. + + +FARADAY, MICHAEL, 22, 37. + +"First Cause," 13, 28, 32, 38, 39, 101, 102. + +Freedom, 84, 95, 104, 105. + +Future life, 89-92, 95. + + +GEOLOGY, 23, 39, 70. + +Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 47. + +Gore, Bishop, 50, 57. + +Gray, Asa, 41, 56. + + +HAECKEL, E., 29, 30, 31, 35, 40. + +Haldane, J. S., 80. + +Hartog, Professor, 96. + +Heat, Mechanical equivalent of, 23. + +Helium, 70. + +Helmholtz, H. von, 22. + +Herschel, Sir John, 69. + +Huxley, T. H., 32, 35, 40, 43, 61, 78. + + +ICHNEUMONIDAE, 56. + +Insensibility of animals, 60, 61. + + +JAMES, WILLIAM, 92, 93. + +Joule, J. P., 23, 37. + + +KELVIN, LORD, 37, 39, 44, 68, 70, 78. + +Kepler, J., 19. + +Kerner, Anton, 81, 82. + +Kirchhoff, Professor, 24. + +Knight, Professor W., 57. + + +LAMARCK, J. B., 22, 26. + +Laplace, P. S., 19. + +Larmor, Sir J., 71, 96. + +Liebig, J. F. von, 44. + +Life: + failure to produce out of matter, 79, 80, 96, 97. + Meteorite theory of, 78, + not a form of energy, 82, 83. + +Lodge, Sir Oliver, 71, 79, 82-85, 88, 89, 94, 95. + +Lotze, Hermann, 47. + +Lyell, Sir Charles, 23. + + +MATERIALISM, 44, 46. + +Matter, Disintegration of, 72. + +Maxwell, James Clerk, 22, 37, 68. + +Metals, 74. + +Mill, J. Stuart, 29, 33, 39. + +Molecules, 69, 71, 72. + +Monism, 31. + +Moore, Aubrey, 48, 100, 102. + +Moore, Professor B., 96. + +Myers, Frederick W. H., 91. + + +NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, 19. + +Necessity, 43. + +Newton, Sir Isaac, 19. + + +ORGANS, RUDIMENTARY, 40, 41, 101. + +_Origin of Species_, 25, 39, 40, 55, 56. + +Owen, Sir Richard, 27. + + +PAGET, BISHOP FRANCIS, 52. + +Pain, Use of, 58, 59. + +Paley, William, 14-19, 100, 101. + +Pascal, Blaise, 52. + +Pasteur, Louis, 37, 66. + +Personality: + Divine, 48, 52. + Human, 87, 90. + +Protoplasm, 23, 76, 77. + +Psychical Research, 91, 95. + +Psychology, 87, 90-92. + + +RADIUM, 70, 72. + +Religious instinct, 51. + +Romanes, G. J., 33-36, 37. 39, 42, 50-52, 57. + +Röntgen rays, 70. + + +SCHAFER, SIR EDWARD, 78. + +Schleiden, M. J., 23. + +Schwann, T., 23. + +Snake poison, 60, 66. + +Soul, 87, 88, 89. + +Spectrum analysis, 24, 68. + +Spencer, Herbert, 32, 33, 47, 49. + +Spiritual environment, 93, 104. + +Stokes, Sir G. G., 24, 37, 45. + +Subconsciousness, 91, 92. + +Suffering, Divinely shared, 67, 105. + +Sulman, H. L., 74, 75. + +Supernatural, The, 99, 100. + +Survival: + after death, 89-92, 95. + of the fittest, 24, 25. + + +TELEOLOGY, THE WIDER, 40, 45. + +Telepathy, 91. + +Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 54. + +Thomson, Sir J. J., 71, 73. + +Tilden, Sir William, 80. + +Treves, Sir Frederick, 59. + +Tyndall, John, 31, 38. + + +UNBELIEF, DISTRESS CAUSED BY, 35, 36, 50. + + +VARIATIONS, 25, 26. + +Venomous animals, 17, 65, 66. + +Virchow, R., 37. + +Vitalism, 81-85, 95. + +Volcanoes, Use of, 62. + + +WAGER, PROFESSOR, 79. + +Wallace, Alfred Russel, 59-61, 80. + +Whetham, W. C. D., 74. + + + + +_Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._ + + + + +Publications of the + +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. + + +Modern Substitutes for Traditional Christianity. By the Rev. Canon E. +MCCLURE. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards. 2s. net. + +Modern Rationalism. As seen at work in its Biographies. 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Robinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God and the World + A Survey of Thought + +Author: Arthur W. Robinson + +Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30709] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="30%"> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +This is one of a series of evidential books drawn up at the<BR> +instance of the <I>Christian Evidence Society</I>. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="30%"> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +GOD AND THE WORLD +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A SURVEY OF THOUGHT +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D., +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Warden of the College of Allhallows Barking +</H5> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +With a Prefatory Note by SIR OLIVER LODGE +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LONDON: +<BR> +SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE +<BR> +NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C., 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. +<BR> +BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET +<BR> +NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM +<BR> +1913 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">PAGE</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#prefatory">PREFATORY NOTE</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 5 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#intro">INTRODUCTION</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 7 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE OLDER ORTHODOXY</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 13 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 21 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 27 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 37 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS</A> (<I>continued</I>) +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 46 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS</A> (<I>continued</I>) +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 53 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">LATER SCIENCE</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 68 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">LATER SCIENCE</A> (<I>continued</I>) +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 76 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">LATER SCIENCE</A> (<I>continued</I>) +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 87 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#note">NOTE</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 94 +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#conclusion">CONCLUSION</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top"> + 98 +</TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P5"></A>5}</SPAN> + +<A NAME="prefatory"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFATORY NOTE +</H3> + +<P> +I have read what Dr. Arthur Robinson has written, and find it a most +interesting, singularly fair, and I may add, within its limits, able +and comprehensive survey of the thoughts of the past and passing age. +I commend it to the coming generation as a useful means of acquiring +some notion of the main puzzles and controversies of the strenuous time +through which their fathers have lived. Fossil remains of these +occasionally fierce discussions they will find embedded in literature; +and although we are emerging from that conflict, it can only be to find +fresh opportunities for discovery, fresh fields of interest, in the +newer age. Towards a wise reception of these discoveries, as they are +gradually arrived at in the future, this little book will give some +help. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +OLIVER LODGE. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="intro"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P7"></A>7}</SPAN> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +GOD AND THE WORLD +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INTRODUCTION +</H3> + +<P> +A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath +him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man +is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A +man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small +questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; +of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon +the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of +life, of man, of history, of God. +</P> + +<P> +So again, the size of an age can be determined by the size of its +questions. It has been claimed that the age through which we have +passed was a great age, and tried by this test we need not hesitate to +admit the claim. It was full of questions, and they were great +questions. As never before, the eyes of men strained upwards and +backwards into the dim +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P8"></A>8}</SPAN> +recesses of the past to discover something, +if it might be, of the beginnings of things: of matter and life; of the +earth and its contents; of the solar system and the universe. We know +with what interest inquiries of this sort were regarded, and how ready +the people were to read the books that dealt with them; to attend +lectures and discussions about them, and to give their money for the +purposes of such research. It was a great age that could devote itself +so eagerly to questions of this importance and magnitude. +</P> + +<P> +But as men cannot live upon appetite, so neither can they be for ever +satisfied with questions. Hence it follows that a period of +questioning is ordinarily followed by another, in which the accumulated +information is sorted and digested and turned to practical account; a +time in which constructive work is attempted, and some understanding is +arrived at as to the relation that exists between the old knowledge and +the new. It looks as if we were nearing such a time, when, for a while +at all events, there will be a pause for reconsideration and +reconstruction, and the human spirit will gather strength and +confidence before again setting out upon its quest of the Infinite. +Already we are asked to give attention to statements that are intended +to review the whole situation and to summarise, provisionally at +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P9"></A>9}</SPAN> +all events, the results that have been attained. Each of these +attempts will, in its turn, be superseded by something that is wider in +its outlook and wiser in its verdicts. This little book is an effort +of this nature, and it is offered in the hope that it may serve some +such useful and temporary purpose. +</P> + +<P> +Much more competent writers than its author might well apologise for +consenting to enter upon the task which he has been invited to +undertake. All that he can say, by way of excuse for his boldness in +complying, is that for many years he has endeavoured to follow the +trend of modern thinking, and that the growing interest with which he +has done this encourages him to hope that he may be able to make what +he has to tell about it both intelligible and interesting to others. +He does not imagine that he can escape mistakes, and he will most +gladly submit himself to the correction of others who know better and +see more clearly than he does. He only begs that those who disagree +with his judgments will try to give him credit for a sincere desire to +be true to facts, and to welcome the light, from whatever quarter it +may have come. +</P> + +<P> +When we speak of the age that is passing, we shall have in mind what +may roughly be reckoned as the last hundred years. That space +includes, for those of us who are not in our first youth, the time of +our +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P10"></A>10}</SPAN> +parents, and even, it may be, of our grandparents. The period +has a certain distinctiveness of character in spite of superficial +diversities. It was marked, as we have said, by the intelligence and +vigour of its questionings. It was a time of intellectual movement and +turmoil. It witnessed a succession of wonderful discoveries leading on +to ever bolder investigations. Rapid generalisations were advanced, to +be often as quickly abandoned. Only by degrees was it possible to see +the new facts in their proper proportion and significance. Nor was it +at all easy for men to keep their discussions free from heat and +bitterness, when the most deeply-rooted convictions appeared to be +assailed, and the most sacred associations to be regarded as of little +account. Looking back, as we can, it is possible to see that in spite +of the eddies and backwaters a steady progress was made. And it is of +that progress that it will now be our endeavour to speak. +</P> + +<P> +We know how it has happened to us over and over again in our own +individual experiences to have been made conscious of a gradual +modification of our opinions as new evidence has reached us, and we +have had time to relate it to our previous understanding and knowledge. +We have had our first thoughts, and our second thoughts, and then there +have come third thoughts, which were the ripest +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P11"></A>11}</SPAN> +and soundest of +all. Just such a process of which we can mark the stages in ourselves +is to be seen on a larger scale—in bigger print, as it were—in the +thought movements of an age. In the case of the period which we are to +review, the three stages have been more than commonly clear, as we +shall aim to shew in the survey we are to make. +</P> + +<P> +We shall begin with the First thoughts, which were those of what may be +termed the older orthodoxy. These were very generally accepted; +indeed, they were regarded as for the most part beyond the reach of +serious contradiction. Then we shall pass to the Second thoughts, +which were forced upon an astonished and bewildered generation by the +onslaughts upon traditional views that were made from the side of +physical science. For fifty years or more the debate went on, with +challenge and counter-challenge, and much noise and dust of +controversy. They were great days, and in them great men fought with +great courage in great issues. We shall seek to do justice to both +sides, to those who dared to proclaim and suffer for the new, and to +those who shewed an equal courage in their resolute determination to be +loyal to what they held to be the truth of the old. +</P> + +<P> +Then, finally, it will be our difficult task to discriminate between +the surging thoughts of that +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P12"></A>12}</SPAN> +second period and those of the Third +stage, through which we are advancing, and to shew what can already be +made out of a common ground of agreement and co-operation, now much +more likely to be reached than could at one time have been foreseen by +the most optimistic imagination. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P13"></A>13}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE OLDER ORTHODOXY +</H4> + +<P> +Never had there been greater unanimity of opinion in England in regard +to the religious interpretation of the world than that which prevailed +at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The excesses on the +Continent which had accompanied the advocacy of free thought had +disposed men's mind to fall back upon authority, and most of all in +matters that affected the basis on which the continuance of social +order and moral conduct depended. The general position was clearly +apprehended, and was accepted as if beyond dispute. Men spoke and +thought of the Order of Nature. The world was a Cosmos, a regulated +system. Order implied an Orderer. It was regarded by them as obvious +that there must have been a First Cause, a great Architect and Maker of +the Universe. They agreed with Aquinas that "things which have no +perception can only tend toward an end if directed by a conscious and +intelligent being. Therefore there is an +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P14"></A>14}</SPAN> +Intelligence by which +all natural things are ordered to an end."[<A NAME="chap01fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn1">1</A>] They were fully prepared +to endorse the indignant protest of Bacon: "I had rather believe all +the folly of the 'Legend,' and the 'Talmud,' and the 'Alcoran,' than +that this universal frame is without a mind."[<A NAME="chap01fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn2">2</A>] In fact no other +hypothesis seemed to them thinkable. +</P> + +<P> +If at any time they felt a need for a more elaborate justification of +their conviction, they had it ready to their hand in the familiar +argument from design. Paley, when he set this out in his famous +<I>Natural Theology</I> (1802), was only expressing with conspicuous ability +the view that was then accepted in all circles from the highest to the +lowest. He was preaching to those who were already in the fullest +accord with his doctrine. They followed with eager approbation his +reasoning about the watch that he supposed himself to have found on the +heath. According to his assumption he had never seen a watch made, nor +known of anyone capable of making such a thing. He concludes, +nevertheless, that it must have been made by someone. "There must have +existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or +artificers who formed it for +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P15"></A>15}</SPAN> +the purpose which we find it actually +to answer; who comprehended its structure, and designed its use." +"Neither would it invalidate our conclusion that the watch sometimes +went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the +machinery, the design and the designer, might be evident in whatever +way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we +could account for it at all." "Nor would it bring any uncertainty into +the argument if there were a few parts of the watch concerning which we +could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they +conducted to the general effect; or even some parts concerning which we +could not ascertain whether they conducted to that effect in any manner +whatever." Least of all could it be sufficient to explain that the +watch was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic +nature." "It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the +efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, +for it is only the mode according to which our agent proceeds: it +implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power +acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct +from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing." +</P> + +<P> +From the watch we are led on to the eye, which exhibits a skill of +design not less, but far greater, +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P16"></A>16}</SPAN> +than that of the man who gave us +the telescope. Then follows a detailed examination of the use of the +various bodily organs, the contrivances to be met with in vegetables +and animals, the marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the +provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; +with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions—the long +neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, +the sting of the bee—all furnishing an ever accumulating body of +irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an +intelligent Author of Nature. +</P> + +<P> +That these arrangements had been expressly intended to meet the +circumstances of each particular case was assumed as necessarily +involved in the acceptance of any design at all. It is interesting to +observe that Paley did not think it improbable that the Deity may have +committed to another being—"nay, there may be many such agents and +many ranks of them"—the task of "drawing forth" special creations out +of the materials He had made and in subordination to His rules. This, +he thought, might in some degree account for the fact that contrivances +are not always perfected at once, and that many instruments and methods +are employed. +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P17"></A>17}</SPAN> + +<P> +Of the goodness of the Creator no manner of doubt was entertained. For +proof of it attention was called to the fact that "in a vast plurality +of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the +contrivance is beneficial," and to the further fact that "the Deity has +superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for +any other purposes or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, +might have been effected by the function of pain." Venomous animals +there were, no doubt, but the fang and the sting "may be no less +merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer"; and it was to +be noted "that whilst only a few species possess the venomous property, +that property guards the whole tribe." Then again, before we condemn +the ordering whereby animals devour one another we must consider what +would happen if they did not. "Is it to see the world filled with +drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, +that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?" "A hare, +notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as +playful an animal as any other." "It is a happy world after all. The +air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring +noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of +happy beings crowd upon my +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P18"></A>18}</SPAN> +view. 'The insect youth are on the +wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. +Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, +their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their +joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered +faculties.... The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are +equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety +of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the +offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them." Where +it might have been imagined that there were to be seen miscarriages of +the Creator's intentions, these were to be attributed to the presence +and influence of mysterious forces of evil. Such attempts to hinder or +frustrate the workings of good might be part of a purpose of good +because they only afforded fresh opportunities for a display of the +Divine wisdom, whose ordinary interventions were accepted as +Providences, whilst Miracles supplied the rarer exhibitions of its +power. +</P> + +<P> +For the rest, it was our duty to remember that such difficulties as +might still be felt must be largely the result of our ignorance. With +patience we should learn to know more. A day was coming when much that +is now hidden would be made clear, and when the greatness and wisdom +and justice +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P19"></A>19}</SPAN> +of the Almighty Ruler would be wonderfully and +fearfully revealed. +</P> + +<P> +It is not intended to suggest that there were no dissentients ready to +bring forward objections to these almost unanimously accepted +doctrines. We know that there were such, if only because it was deemed +worth while to argue against them. Kepler and Newton had stirred men's +minds by their account of the prodigious scale upon which the mechanism +of the Universe was constructed, and Laplace had already enunciated the +theory according to which the cosmic bodies were originally formed in +obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating +nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of +astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention +would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this +planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken +persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew that it +had no beginning and could have no end. +</P> + +<P> +Against both these objectors the irony and the oratory of a Chalmers +was directed with what was held to be overwhelming effect. If the +telescope had shewn us wonderful things, there was another instrument, +he said, which had been given to us +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P20"></A>20}</SPAN> +about the same time. If by +the telescope we had been led to see "a system in every star," it was +no less true that the microscope had disclosed "a world in every atom," +thus proving to us that "no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice +of the human eye, is beneath the notice of His regard." +</P> + +<P> +So again, in an oration upon "The constancy of Nature," the thesis is +most eloquently defended that "the strict order of the goodly universe +which we inhabit" is nothing else than "a noble attestation to the +wisdom and beneficence of its great Architect."[<A NAME="chap01fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn3">3</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Little did men dream at that time of the wealth of other discoveries +that was soon to increase enormously the complexity of their problems; +or of the inferences that would be drawn from them with an ingenuity +and an assurance that would task to the utmost the ability and the +patience of the defenders of the old beliefs. +</P> + +<P> +It is of the new facts disclosed and of the further thoughts suggested +by them that we must next proceed to tell. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap01fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap01fn3"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap01fn1text">1</A>] <I>Summa</I>, I., ii. 3. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap01fn2text">2</A>] Essay on "Atheism and Superstition." +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap01fn3text">3</A>] <I>Astronomical Discourses</I> (1817), pp. 80, 211. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P21"></A>21}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY +</H4> + +<P> +We find it hard to realise that not so very long ago the steam-engine +and the electric telegraph were unknown; and we are right when we say +that life must have worn a very different aspect in those days. It is +scarcely less difficult for us to realise the change that has been +wrought in men's thoughts since the time when the biological cell was +unrecognised, and the theory of evolution had not yet been formulated. +The rapidity with which advances of knowledge were made in the physical +sphere was astonishing, and it was only to be expected that they should +have seemed not a little bewildering. We must try to note the main +steps of the movement, giving the names of some of the representative +workers and thinkers. +</P> + +<P> +It is generally agreed that the foundations of modern chemistry were +laid by Dalton (1808). He it was who revived the old atomic theory, +and determined the weights of the atoms and the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P22"></A>22}</SPAN> +proportions in +which they are combined into molecules—the smallest particles which +could exist in a free condition. By so doing he prepared the way for +the subsequent researches of Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell into the +properties of electricity and magnetism, and for the investigations by +Helmholtz and others into the connexion between electric attraction and +chemical affinities. +</P> + +<P> +The forerunner of the wonderful advances of modern biology was the +French naturalist Lamarck (1809), who, in opposition to the accepted +doctrine of separate creations, suggested that all the species of +living creatures, not excepting the human, have arisen from older +species in the course of long periods of time. The common parent forms +he held to have been simple and lowly organisms, and he accounted for +the gradual differentiation of types by the hypothesis that they were +the results of the inheritance of characteristics which had been +acquired by continued use—as, for example, in the case of the giraffe +who was supposed to have owed the length of its neck to the efforts of +its ancestors to browse upon trees that were just beyond their reach. +He maintained that the changes produced in the parents by temperature, +nutrition, repeated use or disuse, were inherited so that they +reappeared in their offspring. But the evidence adduced was +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P23"></A>23}</SPAN> +judged to be insufficient, and the balance of scientific opinion was +decidedly against his views. +</P> + +<P> +Lyell (1830) gave a new direction to the science of geology by +accumulating evidence to prove the certainty of a natural and +continuous development in the formation of the crust of the earth, thus +opposing the catastrophic idea which had previously prevailed. One +outcome of his researches was to make it plain that the history of this +development must have extended over enormous tracts of time. +</P> + +<P> +More revolutionary still in its effects was the epoch-making discovery +of the protoplasmic cell as the common element of life in the plant and +animal world, made by the Germans Schleiden and Schwann (1838). It was +this that first bridged over what were held to be the fundamental +distinctions of animate nature, and made possible the conception of a +vital physical continuity which has since been accepted as an axiom of +biological science. +</P> + +<P> +By Joule's great discovery (1840) that the same amount of work, whether +mechanical or electrical, and however expended, always produced exactly +the same amount of heat—that, in effect, heat and work were equivalent +and interchangeable—the way was opened to the conclusion that the +total energy of the material universe is constant in amount through all +its changes. +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P24"></A>24}</SPAN> + +<P> +A theory to account for the black lines crossing the coloured band of +light, or spectrum, which is obtained by passing sunlight through a +glass prism, originally suggested by Sir George Stokes, and +subsequently reintroduced and verified by the German chemists, Bunsen +and Kirchhoff, led to the important discovery that the sun and the +stars are constituted of the very same elements as those of the earth +beneath our feet. Spectrum analysis, moreover, soon detected new +elements, <I>e.g.</I>, helium, so-called because first observed as existing +in the sun. +</P> + +<P> +But great and stimulating as these discoveries were, their effect upon +the thought of the age was not to be compared with that which was to be +exercised by a theory which, starting in the domain of biological +science, soon passed on to far more extended applications. The theory +took its rise from a suggestion made in two papers, by Charles Darwin +and Alfred Russel Wallace, which were read before the Linnean Society +on July 1st, 1858. +</P> + +<P> +The Darwinian theory—for so it was soon named—undertook to explain +the formation of species by the principle of natural selection through +the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life.[<A NAME="chap02fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn1">1</A>] +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P25"></A>25}</SPAN> +Darwin +started from the admitted achievements of artificial selection; from +the results attained by nurserymen and cattle breeders, who, by +selecting the kinds they wished to perpetuate, had been able to vary +and improve their stocks. He conceived that a like process had been +carried on by Nature through vast spaces of time, and that it was this +picking, choosing, continuing and abandoning of traits and qualities +which had resulted in the preservation of the types which it had been +best to retain—the reason in all cases being the fitness to correspond +effectively to the conditions prescribed by environment. +</P> + +<P> +It is important to remember that Darwin never claimed that his doctrine +of evolution could account for the occurrence of variations. That it +could do so he expressly denied. "Some," he said, in his great work, +<I>The Origin of Species</I> (1859) "have, even imagined that natural +selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation +of such variations as arise.... Unless such occur, natural selection +can do nothing." What he saw, and proved by an amazing wealth of +illustrative facts, was that any variation in structure or character +which gave to an organism ever so slight an advantage might determine +whether or not it would survive amid the fierce competition around it, +and whether +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P26"></A>26}</SPAN> +it would obtain a mate and produce offspring. He +shewed that all innate variations (which are to be distinguished from +the acquired characteristics upon the inheritance of which Lamarck had +depended) tend to be transmitted, so that in this manner a favourable +variation might be perpetuated, and in time a new species be developed. +</P> + +<P> +Simple as this account of the matter sounds when once it has been +clearly stated, the discovery—for such it was—opened an entirely new +chapter in the history of science, inasmuch as it completely +revolutionised the conceptions which had previously been entertained +with regard to the relationships and the progress of all living things. +</P> + +<P> +It was Darwinism, accordingly, that provided the principal subject of +the controversy which was waged between the upholders and the +assailants of the older opinions during the latter half of the +nineteenth century. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02fn1"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap02fn1text">1</A>] The actual phrase "Survival of the fittest" was Herbert Spencer's. +Darwin had spoken of "The preservation of favoured races." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P27"></A>27}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES +</H4> + +<P> +We shall not exaggerate if we say that the chief interest aroused by +these discoveries was a theological interest. Of course the men of +science were keenly concerned to understand the new facts and the new +interpretations, and among them there were divided camps and serious +contentions. Sir Richard Owen, for instance, was a vigorous opponent +of Darwin's views. But we cannot think it surprising that the men of +religion should feel that their positions were not only being attacked, +but undermined; and that issues were being raised which were more vital +for them than for any other students of the problems of existence. +</P> + +<P> +When we thus speak of men of science and men of religion we do not mean +to imply that there were two distinct classes which could be sharply +divided. By no means. It was not so much that there were two camps as +that there were two positions, with much passing to and fro between +them, and the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P28"></A>28}</SPAN> +keenest interest and anxiety felt on both sides as +to what the future might have to bring of widening divergence or +ultimate reconciliation. +</P> + +<P> +There could be no doubt at all that most formidable questions had to be +faced and answered. These were the chief of them:— +</P> + +<P> +Is it any longer necessary, or even possible, to insist upon a First +Cause for all that exists? Can the argument from Design be said to +retain its validity as a proof of the working of a controlling Mind? +If we admit the evidence for the existence of a Creator, can we know +anything about Him? Can we, in particular, still assert with any +confidence that He is good? +</P> + +<P> +Let us take the questions in order and give the replies that were made +to them from the different sides. And, first of all, from the side of +negation. +</P> + +<P> +The number of those who directly denied that there must have been a +First Cause were very few. But there were many who did their utmost to +discredit the idea as due to what they held to be an illegitimate +deduction from our limited human experiences. Others were disposed to +quarrel with the word "Cause" altogether, and to dispute the propriety +of its employment. +</P> + +<P> +They wished to banish it altogether from the scientific vocabulary, and +to substitute for the terms +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P29"></A>29}</SPAN> +cause and effect, antecedent and +consequent, reducing causation to conjunction. But it was generally +admitted that, where we have to deal with an invariable antecedent +followed by an invariable consequent, nothing was to be gained by a +change in the common phraseology. John Stuart Mill refused to abandon +the word. Speaking of one who had done so, he said, "I consider him to +be entirely wrong." "The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a +Cause."[<A NAME="chap03fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn1">1</A>] There were, he allowed, "permanent causes," but, he added, +"we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes"—which +was virtually to abandon the subject as being beyond the domain of +science. +</P> + +<P> +In regard to the second question, it very soon became evident that the +old views of Design would be subjected to the most incisive criticism. +To many it appeared as if the new doctrine of evolution had supplied an +explanation which left no room for the recognition of the particular +contrivances upon which Paley had constructed his argument. No one +asserted this more strongly than Haeckel, the German biologist. To +quote his words, "The development of the universe is a monistic +mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P30"></A>30}</SPAN> +whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special result +of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the heavenly +bodies, nor in that of the crust of our earth, do we find any trace of +controlling purpose." "Nowhere in the evolution of animals and plants +do we find any trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of +the struggle for existence, the blind controller." "All is the result +of chance." We ought to add that he somewhat qualified this last +statement by explaining that "chance" itself must be considered as +coming under "the universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law."[<A NAME="chap03fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<P> +It is not to be supposed that anyone was to be found who denied the +general intelligibility of Nature. To have done this would have been +to reduce science to an absurdity. Science is bound to proceed upon +the assumption that there are "reasons" for things. Moreover, there is +mind in man, who is part of the order of Nature. It follows that what +is in the part cannot be denied to the whole. All this could be freely +admitted. But then the question arose, Is mind the originating source +of the movements of matter, or is it not rather itself the product of +them? +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P31"></A>31}</SPAN> + +<P> +There were those who did not shrink from affirming that matter produces +thought, even as the liver secretes bile. Others preferred to take +what seemed to be an intermediate course. They were not prepared to +give priority to either mind or matter. Thus Haeckel maintained that +matter and thought are only two different aspects, or two fundamental +attributes of an underlying something which he defined as "substance." +It was to the action of this universal substance that he imagined the +"monistic mechanical process" to be due. He went so far as to state +his conviction that not even the atom is without "a rudimentary form of +sensation and will."[<A NAME="chap03fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn3">3</A>] +</P> + +<P> +In like manner Tyndall had claimed a two-sidedness for matter, and +traced all higher developments back to the side which held in it the +element of spirit and thought; while admitting that "the production of +consciousness by molecular action is quite as inconceivable on +mechanical principles as the production of molecular action by +consciousness."[<A NAME="chap03fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn4">4</A>] +</P> + +<P> +The bearing of all this upon the question of Design was plain, for, if +thought and intention are the outcome and result of the mechanical +operations of Nature, it might well seem to follow that mind +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P32"></A>32}</SPAN> +had +been removed from its high place as the dominant and directing power. +</P> + +<P> +But these difficulties with which the theologian was thus confronted in +respect of a First Cause and the recognition of Design, were even less +formidable than those which were arrayed under the other heads that we +have enumerated. It was Huxley who invented the term Agnosticism to +describe the position of such of his contemporaries as were not +inclined to deny that there was a great Power at work behind the +phenomena of the Universe, but were not prepared to admit that this +Power could be any degree comprehensible by us. The most systematic +exponent of this view was Herbert Spencer. He allowed that we are +obliged to refer the phenomenal world and its law and order to a First +Cause. "And the First Cause," he said, "must be in every sense +perfect, complete, total—including within itself all power, and +transcending all law." But he insisted that, "it cannot in any manner +or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing."[<A NAME="chap03fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn5">5</A>] Elsewhere he +suggested that it may belong to "a mode of being as much transcending +intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion." "Our only +conception of what we know as Mind in ourselves is the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P33"></A>33}</SPAN> +conception +of a series of states of consciousness." "How," he asked, "is the +'originating Mind' to be thought of as having states produced by things +objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing +them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to +another."[<A NAME="chap03fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn6">6</A>] It was by a similar line of reasoning that Romanes +reached the like conclusions.[<A NAME="chap03fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn7">7</A>] "In my opinion," he said, "no +explanation of natural order can either be conceived or named other +than that of intelligence as the supreme directing cause." But "this +cause must be widely different from anything that we know of Mind in +ourselves." "If such a Mind exists, it is not conceivable as existing, +and we are precluded from assigning to it any attributes." +</P> + +<P> +It was obvious that, if no satisfactory reply were forthcoming to such +a contention, the very word Theology must be discarded, since there +would be no longer any need for it, or justification of its use. +</P> + +<P> +But there was yet a further criticism that was supposed by not a few to +complete the discomfiture of those who still clung to the traditional +beliefs. We can find it forcibly expressed in one of the earlier +writings of Romanes, who in this case was endorsing the verdict of +Mill. "Supposing the Deity to be +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P34"></A>34}</SPAN> +omnipotent, there can be no +inference more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for +whatever ends designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of +beneficence in the divine character than that which we know in any, the +very worst, of human characters. For let us pause for one moment to +think of what suffering in Nature means. Some hundreds of millions of +years ago, some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to +have become sentient. Since that time till the present there must have +been millions and millions of generations of millions and millions of +individuals. And throughout all this period of incalculable duration, +this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have been in a state of +unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find +that more than one-half of the species which have survived the +ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient +forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and +talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for +torment—everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, sickness, with oozing +blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence +that dimly close in deaths of cruel torture!"[<A NAME="chap03fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn8">8</A>] +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P35"></A>35}</SPAN> + +<P> +Huxley, arguing to the same effect, concluded that "since thousands of +times a minute, were our ears sharp enough, we should hear sighs and +groans of pain like those heard by Dante at the gate of hell, the world +cannot be governed by what we call benevolence."[<A NAME="chap03fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn9">9</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Haeckel went so far as to propose to describe by the term +"dysteleology" that part of the science of Biology which collected the +facts that gave direct contradiction to the idea of beneficial +"purposive arrangement." +</P> + +<P> +Such were the difficulties which loomed largest before the minds of +vast numbers of thinking men and women, and did much to shake the +general confidence in religion, in the years that followed the +discoveries which culminated in the Darwinian theory of evolution. It +must not be supposed that these thoughts were lightly entertained, nor +may we imagine that they gave no distress to those who sincerely +believed that they were bound to accept what seemed to be their +inevitable consequences. To quote again from the <I>Candid Examination</I> +of Romanes, we may take it that he was speaking for many others when he +said, "Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who +affirm +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P36"></A>36}</SPAN> +that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a desirable +substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to +confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has +lost its soul of loveliness; and although, from henceforth the precept +'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force +from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 'that the night +cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at +times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of +that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as +now I find it—at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid +the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn4"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn5"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn1text">1</A>] <I>Logic</I>, Chap. V. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn2text">2</A>] <I>The Riddle of the Universe</I>, Chaps. XIV, XV. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn3text">3</A>] Chap. XII. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn4text">4</A>] <I>Fragments of Science</I>, p. 222. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn5text">5</A>] <I>First Principles</I>, i., pp. 33-39. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap03fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn8"></A> +<A NAME="chap03fn9"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn6text">6</A>] <I>Essays</I>, Vol. III., pp. 246, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn7text">7</A>] In an essay written before 1889. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn8text">8</A>] <I>A Candid Examination of Theism</I> (1876), pp. 171, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap03fn9text">9</A>] <I>Nineteenth Century</I>, February, 1888. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P37"></A>37}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS +</H4> + +<P> +It must not be imagined that all the arguments were on one side. Far +from it. The defenders of the old faith were many, and not the least +able of them were drawn from the ranks of the men of science. The list +of scientific leaders who avowedly ranged themselves on the Christian +side, if it were made out, would be a long one. It would include +distinguished names such as those of Faraday, Joule, the Duke of +Argyll, Lord Kelvin, Stokes, Tait, Adams, Clerk Maxwell, Salmon, +Cayley, and Pasteur. And others would have to be added who, after +contending for a while as materialists or agnostics, ultimately changed +their attitude and joined the supporters of Theism. Haeckel frankly +admitted that there were such defaulters from his cause in Germany, +giving the names of "two of the most famous of living scientists, R. +Virchow and E. Du Bois Raymond," amongst others. On the other hand he +recommended his readers to study "the profound work of Romanes," +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P38"></A>38}</SPAN> +without, it would seem, being aware of the transformation that took +place in that thinker's opinions towards the end of his life. +</P> + +<P> +We have now to indicate the nature of the replies that were made to the +difficulties of which we spoke in our last chapter. Let us follow the +order in which they were presented. +</P> + +<P> +About the necessity for a First Cause not much had to be said. Even if +the whole course of organic development could be proved to have been +continuous without a break from the first movements of matter, through +all the changes of physical life, up to the highest exhibition of human +powers—and no one ventured to say that this had been proved—there +would still be the necessity for an initial impulse to set the process +in action. Spencer, as we have seen, declared that there must have +been a First Cause, and Tyndall agreed that "the hypothesis" of +Evolution "does nothing more than transport the conception of life's +origin to an indefinitely distant past."[<A NAME="chap04fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Darwin himself never hesitated on this point. "The theory of +evolution," he insisted, "is quite compatible with the belief in +God."[<A NAME="chap04fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn2">2</A>] The words which he expressly added to the conclusion of the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P39"></A>39}</SPAN> +<I>Origin of Species</I> are well known. After describing once again +the production of the innumerable forms of being as the result of +natural selection, he said: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, +with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator +into a few forms or into one." +</P> + +<P> +It is well also to keep on record the striking dictum of Lord Kelvin, +addressed to the students of University College.[<A NAME="chap04fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn3">3</A>] "Science," he told +them, "positively affirmed creative power." +</P> + +<P> +It will be remembered that we quoted Mill as speaking of "permanent +causes." We may be grateful to him for the suggestion. We could not +readily think of a better term than the great "Permanent Cause" by +which to describe, in modern language, the "I AM" of the Biblical +Theology.[<A NAME="chap04fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn4">4</A>] +</P> + +<P> +But, if on this point there was no serious conflict of opinion, it was +otherwise in regard to the next. Here it did look as if the new +discoveries might have +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P40"></A>40}</SPAN> +changed the whole situation. Huxley +acknowledged that what struck him most forcibly on his first perusal of +the Origin of Species, was that "teleology, as commonly understood, had +received its death-blow at Mr. Darwin's hands."[<A NAME="chap04fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn5">5</A>] But Huxley was a +born fighter, and he could turn his weapons with facility and effect +against his friends when he thought they had overstated their case. It +is interesting to find him, in 1867, criticising Haeckel for his +repudiation of the principle of Design. +</P> + +<P> +"The Doctrine of Evolution," he says, "is the most formidable opponent +of the commoner and coarser forms of teleology." +</P> + +<P> +"The teleology which supposes that the eye such as we see it in man, or +one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure it +exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to +see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless, it is +necessary to remember that there is a wider teleology which is not +touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the +fundamental proposition of evolution." Then, referring to the appeal +which had been made to the existence of rudimentary organs as +discrediting teleology, he says in his +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P41"></A>41}</SPAN> +characteristic way: "Either +these rudiments are of no use to the animals, in which case they ought +to have disappeared; or they are of some use to the animal, in which +case they are of no use as an argument against teleology."[<A NAME="chap04fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn6">6</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Darwin himself felt the grave difficulty in which the ordinary +arguments had become involved; but he was most unwilling to abandon his +belief in Design. +</P> + +<P> +"The old argument from design in nature as given by Paley," he wrote, +"which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails now that the law of +natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, +for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been +made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by a man." On +the other hand, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there are +"endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere meet with,"[<A NAME="chap04fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn7">7</A>] and +to the further fact that "the mind refuses to look at this universe, +being what it is, without having been designed."[<A NAME="chap04fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn8">8</A>] +</P> + +<P> +A few years later, when Dr. Asa Gray had sent him from America a review +in which he had written of "Mr. Darwin's great service to natural +science +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P42"></A>42}</SPAN> +in bringing back teleology," on the ground that in +Darwinism usefulness and purpose come to the front again as working +principles of the first order, Darwin replied, "What you say about +teleology pleases me especially."[<A NAME="chap04fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn9">9</A>] Later still, in 1878, Romanes +sent him a copy of his <I>Candid Examination</I>. Darwin in his letter of +acknowledgment wrote more than half seriously, in the person as it were +of an imaginary correspondent, to this effect: +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to hear what you would say if a theologian addressed you +as follows: +</P> + +<P> +"'I grant you the attraction of gravity, persistence of force (or +conservation of energy), and one kind of matter, though the latter is +an immense addition, but I maintain that God must have given such +attributes to this force, independently of its persistence, that under +certain conditions it develops or changes into light, heat, +electricity, galvanism, perhaps into life. +</P> + +<P> +"'You cannot prove that force (which physicists define as that which +causes motion) would invariably thus change its character under the +above conditions. Again, I maintain that matter, though it may be in +the future eternal, was created by God with the most marvellous +affinities, leading to +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P43"></A>43}</SPAN> +complex definite compounds, and with +polarities leading to beautiful crystals, etc., etc. You cannot prove +that matter would necessarily possess these attributes. Therefore you +have no right to say that you have "demonstrated" that all natural laws +necessarily follow from gravity, the persistence of force, and +existence of matter. If you say that nebulous matter existed +aboriginally and from eternity, with all its present complex powers in +a potential state, you seem to me to beg the whole question.' +</P> + +<P> +"Please observe it is not I, but a theologian, who has thus addressed +you, but I could not answer him."[<A NAME="chap04fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn10">10</A>] +</P> + +<P> +The alternatives to Design, <I>i.e.</I>, to the recognition of directive +activity, would be Necessity or Chance. From both of these the deepest +instincts of humanity—which in such matters are as fully to be relied +on as its logical faculty—strongly recoil. No one has spoken out more +strongly about the first than Huxley did. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the dire necessity and 'iron' law under which you groan?" he +asks. "Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there +be an 'iron' law, it is that of gravitation; and if +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P44"></A>44}</SPAN> +there be a +physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the +ground.... But when, as commonly happens, we change <I>will</I> into +<I>must</I>, we introduce an idea of necessity which most assuredly does not +lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover. +For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematise the intruder.... The +notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the +perfectly legitimate conception of law; the materialistic position that +there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as +utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological +dogmas."[<A NAME="chap04fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn11">11</A>] +</P> + +<P> +But a dogma of Necessity would be more tolerable than a doctrine of +Chance. In Lord Kelvin's address, to which reference has been made, he +declared his conviction that "directive power" was "an article of +belief which science compelled him to accept." +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing, he said, between such a belief and the acceptance of +the theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. And, in a letter to the +<I>Times</I> justifying this assertion, he told how forty years before he +had asked Liebig, when walking with him in the country, whether he +believed that the grass +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P45"></A>45}</SPAN> +and flowers they saw around them "grew by +mere chemical forces." "No," he answered, "no more than I could +believe that a book of botany describing them could grow by mere +chemical forces." +</P> + +<P> +Discussions may continue as to whether what Huxley called "the wider +teleology," or some other form of the doctrine of Design is to be +preferred; but thoughtful men are likely to agree with the judgment +given by Sir George Stokes—that recognised master of masters—when he +said: "We meet with such overwhelming evidence of design, of purpose, +especially in the study of living things, that we are compelled to +think of mind as being involved in the constitution of the +universe."[<A NAME="chap04fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn12">12</A>] +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn3"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn1text">1</A>] <I>Fragments of Science</I>, p. 166. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn2text">2</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I>, I., p. 307. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn3text">3</A>] May 2nd, 1903. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap04fn4"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn4text">4</A>] The debate as to the accuracy of the Mosaic account of Creation +does not come directly within the scope of our survey; but, +nevertheless, it may be worth while to recall the following statement +in view of the very confident assertions that have often been made, by +no less an authority than Romanes. "The order in which the flora and +fauna are said by the Mosaic account to have appeared upon the earth +corresponds with that which the theory of evolution requires and the +evidence of geology proves."—(<I>Nature</I>, August 11th, 1881.) +</P> + +<A NAME="chap04fn5"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn8"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn5text">5</A>] <I>Lay Sermons</I>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn6text">6</A>] <I>Critiques and Addresses</I>, pp. 305, 308. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn7text">7</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I>, I., p. 309. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn8text">8</A>] I., p. 314. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap04fn9"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn10"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn11"></A> +<A NAME="chap04fn12"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn9text">9</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I>, III., p. 189. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn10text">10</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I> of Romanes, pp. 88. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn11text">11</A>] Essay on "The Physical Basis of Life" (1868). +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap04fn12text">12</A>] <I>Gifford Lectures</I> (1891), p. 196. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P46"></A>46}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (<I>continued</I>) +</H4> + +<P> +But though Materialism had to go, there was a time when it seemed to +many by no means unlikely that Agnosticism might have to be accepted as +its substitute. And if that had been so the case would have been +scarcely less desperate. We might have been left with a philosophy of +a kind, but we should have been deprived of any object which could +evoke within our hearts the trust and affection that are needed to +sustain a religion. However, as it proved, there was no great cause +for fear. Agnosticism was subjected in its turn to the ordeal of +criticism, and the result proved that it had not in it the substance +and force that could give it any permanent hold upon the best +intelligence of the age. +</P> + +<P> +If Agnosticism could have been content to confine itself to positive +assertions, there might have been less cause to find fault with it. +But its name stood for negation, and its temper was in accord with its +name. The exponents of Agnosticism were not +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P47"></A>47}</SPAN> +satisfied with +affirming that the Power behind phenomena is beyond all thought +mysterious. They insisted that it is unknowable, and that not merely +in the sense that it is incomprehensible, not to be fully grasped, but +unknowable in the sense that nothing at all can be known about it. And +then, having laid down this as their fundamental principle, they +proceeded at once, with a strange inconsistency, to assert that we can +know what it is <I>not</I>. This above all else, they said, it is not: it +is not personal. True, Herbert Spencer maintained that it is as far +raised above personality as personality is raised above +unconsciousness; but the stress was laid not upon the affirmation of +super-personality, but upon the denial and rejection of anything like +personality as we understand it. +</P> + +<P> +The position was really untenable. Possibly, if we could detect no +more in Nature than power, we might be content, intellectually, to stop +at the affirmation of inscrutable force. But if there is also design, +then we are bound to go a step further. Bishop Harvey Goodwin +expressed this exactly when he said: "Purpose means person." No doubt +personality in the Creator must be something far higher and fuller than +personality in the creature. The German philosopher Lotze was speaking +the truth when he declared that "to all finite minds +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P48"></A>48}</SPAN> +there is +allotted but a pale copy" of personality; "the finiteness of the +finite," being "not a producing condition of personality," as has often +been maintained, "but a limit and hindrance of its development." +"Perfect personality," he said, "is in God alone."[<A NAME="chap05fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<P> +To most of us it may sound paradoxical to urge that the full Christian +doctrine of the Three Persons in the Godhead is really less difficult +intellectually than the doctrine that the Divine Being consists of an +isolated unit. +</P> + +<P> +This was the contention of the Greek Fathers of the Church, whose acute +and subtle minds anticipated not a few of the objections which we have +had to encounter in our days. We cannot elaborate the statement +here,[<A NAME="chap05fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn2">2</A>] but it is to the point to observe that the doctrine of the +Trinity in Unity removes from the Christian believer that which to +Spencer was one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the acceptance +of the idea of a Divine Personality; for it relieves him from the +necessity of imagining a subject without an object, since in the +Christian view the highest life in the universe is a social life, +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P49"></A>49}</SPAN> + +in which thought is for ever communicated with unbroken harmony of +feeling and will. +</P> + +<P> +But the inadequacy of Agnosticism was to be seen not only on the +intellectual side. Its practical effects were necessarily determined +by its negations. Since we could know nothing of the ultimate power, +it was plainly our wisdom to turn our attention elsewhere. It followed +that, if morality was to be upheld, it must be based upon other than +the familiar sanctions. For awhile it was enthusiastically promised +that this could and should be done. But the event proved otherwise. +Towards the end of his life, Herbert Spencer was constrained to admit +this. "Now that ... I have succeeded in completing the second volume +of <I>The Principles of Ethics</I> ... my satisfaction is somewhat dashed by +the thought that these new parts fall short of expectation. The +doctrine of Evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent that I +had hoped."[<A NAME="chap05fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn3">3</A>] +</P> + +<P> +And this moral failure of the system pointed yet deeper to its +essential weakness. It deliberately ignored the profoundest needs and +capacities of our nature. The need is the need for God, and for One +who, though greatly above us, is yet within our reach, and ready to +give us His friendship. "Thou +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P50"></A>50}</SPAN> +hast made us for Thyself, and our +heart is restless until it rests in Thee." That cry of St. Augustine +has found its echo in unnumbered souls, and our humanity will never be +satisfied while it is offered no more than an impalpable abstraction +for the contentment of its craving. +</P> + +<P> +Allusion has been made to the fact that Romanes in his latter days was +led to abandon the negative attitude which he had taken in his earlier +life. The story of the change is to be found as told by himself in the +volume of <I>Life and Letters</I> edited by his widow, and in the <I>Notes</I> +which he left behind him. These he had written in preparation for a +book which was to have been entitled: <I>A Candid Examination of +Religion</I>.[<A NAME="chap05fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn4">4</A>] It is evident that no consideration weighed more with +him than this witness of the deeper needs of the soul. We have seen +with what sorrow he had accepted as a young man the conclusions to +which he had found himself driven when Theism seemed no longer a +possible belief. After his change he admitted that he had failed to +recognise an important element in his treatment of the problem. "When +I wrote the preceding treatise I +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P51"></A>51}</SPAN> +did not sufficiently appreciate +the immense importance of <I>human</I> nature in any enquiry touching +Theism. But since then I have seriously studied anthropology +(including the science of comparative religions), psychology, and +metaphysics, with the result of clearly seeing that human nature is the +most important part of nature as a whole whereby to investigate the +theory of Theism."[<A NAME="chap05fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn5">5</A>] +</P> + +<P> +The outcome of his study was to convince him of two things. The first +was that, "if the religious instincts of the human race point to no +reality as their object, they are out of analogy with all other +instinctive endowments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we never meet +with such a thing as an instinct pointing aimlessly."[<A NAME="chap05fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn6">6</A>] And this +first conviction was only the preparation for a second. Speaking again +of his <I>Candid Examination of Theism</I>, he says: "In that treatise I +have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the +basal argument for my negative conclusion ... Reason is not the only +attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty which he habitually +employs for the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties +are of no less importance in their respective spheres, even of everyday +life; faith, trust, taste, etc., are +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P52"></A>52}</SPAN> +as needful in ascertaining +truth as to character, beauty, etc., as is reason."[<A NAME="chap05fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn7">7</A>] +</P> + +<P> +He put the same thing with even more of the note of personal experience +when he wrote to Dean Paget of Christ Church within three months of his +death: "Strangely enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover +the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the +only means of research in regions transcendental."[<A NAME="chap05fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn8">8</A>] In all this he +was following, as he knew, in the steps of Pascal, who had devoted the +whole of the first part of his treatise to the argument from the +condition of man's nature without God, and then had appealed to that +nature for its positive testimony to the reality of the spiritual. +"The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know." +</P> + +<P> +Agnosticism appeared dressed in the garb of an exceeding reverence, +but, on closer acquaintance, it became evident that its acceptance +would mean the cheapening of life by banishing from it the Divine +personality, and robbing the human of the qualities that give it its +greatest worth. Happily the disaster has been averted, and there are +not many now who would seriously undertake its defence. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn4"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn1text">1</A>] <I>Microcosmus</I> (E.T.), II., p. 688. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn2text">2</A>] Those who may desire to see the matter clearly and ably handled +would do well to read the Essay on "The Being of God," in <I>Lux Mundi</I>, +by Aubrey Moore. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn3text">3</A>] Preface, Vol. II. (1893). +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn4text">4</A>] These notes were sent by Mr. Romanes' desire after his death, in +1894, to Bishop Gore, and have been published by him in a sixpenny +volume under the title of <I>Thoughts on Religion</I>. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap05fn5"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap05fn8"></A> + + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn5text">5</A>] P. 154. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn6text">6</A>] P. 82. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn7text">7</A>] Pp. 111, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap05fn8text">8</A>] Life and Letters, p. 375. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P53"></A>53}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI. +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (<I>continued</I>) +</H4> + +<P> +We have still to see how the last of the difficulties of which we have +spoken was treated. It was a difficulty which could not be regarded +with indifference. For what would it avail to shew that men had a +right to cherish the belief in Power, and Purpose, and Personality, +unless they could also be assured that the Orderer of the world is +good? Nay, might they not feel, if there were no such assurance, that +it would be better to be altogether without His presence and influence? +On a matter so vital to happiness and well-being the mere possibility +of a doubt was torment enough. What was there to be said to bring +relief to the mind and heart when charges were made against the +benevolence and beneficence of Nature's ways? What satisfactory +account could be given of the waste and cruelty which were seen to +abound on every hand? The more clear the certainty that there is +design in the Universe, the more urgent became +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P54"></A>54}</SPAN> +the question as to +the character of that design, and of the motives that prompt it. +</P> + +<P> +So long as the difficulty remained unrelieved, the thoughts of many of +the most sensitive minds in regard to Theism were held in suspense. +The shadow of misgiving was felt to be creeping over the mind of the +age, like the gloom of an approaching eclipse, even before the arrival +of the Darwinian hypothesis. In words too well known to need +repeating, Tennyson had given utterance to the half-realised anxiety of +his contemporaries in the stanzas of his <I>In Memoriam</I>, published in +1850. +</P> + +<P> +What the finer spirits were already beginning to feel was soon to be +proclaimed, in terms which could not fail to be understood by the +multitude, as an inevitable truth brought to light by scientific +enquiry. We have seen how it was stated with the passion of eloquence +by Huxley and Romanes. And Darwin, with all his detachment and +philosophic calm, was at times deeply affected by the seriousness of +the problem which he had done so much to bring into prominence. It is +plain that he did his very utmost to retain the hopeful view, and to +put the most consoling interpretation he could upon the disquieting +facts. +</P> + +<P> +He had no difficulty in shewing that the wholesale destruction of +living organisms was imperatively +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P55"></A>55}</SPAN> +necessary. "There is no +exception to the rule," he said, "that every organic being naturally +increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would +soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair."[<A NAME="chap06fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<P> +The truth of this has been demonstrated again and again. A pair of +rabbits, for example, would in the most favourable circumstances +increase in four or five years to a million. The roe of a cod may +contain eight or nine millions of eggs. More appalling still, the +female of the common flesh fly will at one time deposit 20,000 eggs. +At this rate of increase it has been calculated that, in less than a +year, a single pair would produce enough flies, if these were not +devoured by their natural foes, to cover the whole surface of the globe +to the depth of a mile and a quarter! But all this does not, of +course, make it clear why in a beneficently ordered world such a +necessity of slaughter should ever have been allowed to arise. +</P> + +<P> +Darwin, as we have said, tried hard to take the most favourable view of +the whole process. He thus concluded his chapter on the struggle for +existence; "When we reflect on the struggle, we may console ourselves +with the full belief that +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P56"></A>56}</SPAN> +the war of nature is not incessant, that +no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, +the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." And these are the +words with which he concluded the <I>Origin of Species</I>: "Thus from the +war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are +capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, +directly follows." +</P> + +<P> +But a year or two later he shewed that his mind was by no means at rest +on the matter, by writing in this strain to his friend Asa Gray: +</P> + +<P> +"I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish +to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There +seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself +that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the +Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the +living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.... +I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, +with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what +we may call chance. Not that this notion <I>at all</I> satisfies me.... +Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you +that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical."[<A NAME="chap06fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P57"></A>57}</SPAN> + +<P> +Happily there were others who were able to see their way somewhat +further than this. Romanes, in a paper which he read before the +Aristotelian Society in 1889, shewed that he was reconsidering his +position. He questioned whether the assertion, made by a speaker in a +previous discussion, that "the fair order of Nature is only acquired by +a wholesale waste and sacrifice," could be accepted as strictly true, +for "how can it be said that, in point of fact, there <I>has</I> been a +waste, or <I>has</I> been a sacrifice? Clearly such things can only be said +when our point of view is restricted to the means (<I>i.e.</I>, the +wholesale destruction of the less fit); not when we extend our view to +what, even within the limits of human observation, is unquestionably +the <I>end</I> (<I>i.e.</I>, the causal result in an ever improving world of +types)."[<A NAME="chap06fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn3">3</A>] +</P> + +<P> +He had intended to write more fully on the subject, but did not live to +do so. We only know that on the Sunday before his death he did express +to Bishop Gore his entire agreement with a statement that had been made +a short time before by Professor Knight, in his <I>Aspects of Theism</I>, to +the effect that "A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process +by which physical nature casts its weaker products +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P58"></A>58}</SPAN> +aside, etc."[<A NAME="chap06fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn4">4</A>] +We cannot suppose that, if he had lived, he would have been content to +have left the argument thus. That the end justifies the means, is +scarcely a doctrine which can be accepted as the last word of an +ethical defence of the constitution of the world. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt there were further pleas to be put in, and we shall do well to +give them their full value. There is the contention that the pleasures +of life as a whole outweigh the sum of its evils. This was maintained, +and we need not hesitate to say successfully maintained, by Lord +Avebury, and not by him alone. Indeed Darwin had emphatically said, +"According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails."[<A NAME="chap06fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn5">5</A>] Then there +has always been urged the undoubted fact that pain, if an evil, is yet +the minister of good. Browning's optimism may have carried him too far +when he laid it down that "when pain ends gain ends," but it is not to +be questioned that men have profited by sufferings, and that they have +had to thank their pains, if only because these have served to protect +them from yet greater misfortunes. There is a true wisdom in the moral +of the old fable of the blacksmith, who prayed to heaven that the fire +might not burn his fingers, to discover that as +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P59"></A>59}</SPAN> +a result it had +charred his hand to the bone. Medical science has had much to say with +regard to the salutary office of pain. It has gone so far as to assert +that, "the symptoms of disease are marked by purpose, and the purpose +is beneficent." Nay more, "the processes of disease aim not at the +destruction of life, but at the saving of it."[<A NAME="chap06fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn6">6</A>] None the less, with +what might seem a splendid inconsistency, the medical profession +devotes itself untiringly to the alleviation of the symptoms and to the +eradication of disease. +</P> + +<P> +Again, we may be thankful to be assured that, whatever be the case with +man, the lower organisms feel pain less than he does, and much less +than he is often wont to imagine that they feel it. This has been +argued again and again by the veteran naturalist Wallace, whose right +to speak on the subject no one is likely to dispute. In his recently +published book, <I>The World of Life</I>, he has devoted a whole chapter to +answering the question, "Is Nature cruel?" and it is due to him, as +well as to the importance of the problem, that we should carefully note +what he has said. The following quotations may be taken as +sufficiently indicating his position. +</P> + +<P> +"The widespread idea of the cruelty of Nature is +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P60"></A>60}</SPAN> +almost wholly +imaginary."[<A NAME="chap06fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn7">7</A>] "Our whole tendency to transfer <I>our</I> sensations of +pain to the other animals is grossly misleading."[<A NAME="chap06fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn8">8</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"No other animal <I>needs</I> the pain-sensations that we need; it is +therefore absolutely certain—on principles of evolution—that no other +possesses such sensations in more than a fractional degree of ours."[<A NAME="chap06fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn9">9</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"In the category of painless or almost painless animals, I think we may +place almost all aquatic animals up to fishes, all the vast hordes of +insects, probably all mollusca and worms; thus reducing the sphere of +pain to a minimum throughout all the earlier geological ages, and very +largely even now."[<A NAME="chap06fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn10">10</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"The purpose and use of all parasitic diseases is to seize upon the +less adapted and less healthy individuals—those which are slowly dying +and no longer of value in the preservation of the species, and +therefore to a certain extent injurious to the race by requiring food +and occupying space needed by the more fit."[<A NAME="chap06fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn11">11</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Speaking of "the vicious-looking teeth and claws of the cat tribe, the +hooked beak and prehensile talons of birds of prey, the poison fangs of +serpents, the stings of wasps and many others," Dr. Wallace +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P61"></A>61}</SPAN> +writes; "The idea that all these weapons exist for the <I>purpose</I> of +shedding blood or giving pain is wholly illusory. As a matter of fact, +their effect is wholly beneficent even to the sufferers, inasmuch as +they tend to the diminution of pain. Their actual purpose is always to +prevent the escape of captured food—of a wounded animal, which would +then, indeed, suffer <I>useless</I> pain, since it would certainly very soon +be captured again and be devoured." "All conclusions derived from the +house-fed cat and mouse are fallacious."[<A NAME="chap06fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn12">12</A>] Finally he concludes by +inveighing against "the ludicrously exaggerated view adopted by men of +such eminence and usually of such calm judgment as Huxley—a view +almost as far removed from fact or science as the purely imaginary and +humanitarian dogma of the poet: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'The poor beetle, that we tread upon,<BR> +In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great<BR> +As when a giant dies.'<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Whatever the giant may feel, if the theory of Evolution is true, the +'poor beetle' certainly +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P62"></A>62}</SPAN> +feels an almost irreducible minimum of +pain, probably none at all."[<A NAME="chap06fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn13">13</A>] +</P> + +<P> +We may add to all these considerations the further fact that we are +constantly finding out that things have their use which had been too +hastily assumed to be mere blots upon Nature. The desert and the +volcano, for instance, have often been regarded in that light. But we +have lately been assured that both are needed for the supply of +atmospheric dust, which is a necessary condition of the rain-fall; so +that they are really essential to life upon the planet. Beyond +question, then, there is very much to be said in mitigation of the +terrible difficulty occasioned by what appear to be the havoc and the +prodigality of Nature. +</P> + +<P> +And yet—when all has been said—a residuum does remain of inexplicable +misery and distress, and there are times when we are all of us +constrained to cry out with Darwin that it is "too much," and to ask +whether there is not some further clue to the mystery. And then it may +well be that there comes to our mind an answer that has been given from +the very first moment at which human beings have thought at all. It is +an answer which has seemed inevitable alike to the simplest and the +wisest. +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P63"></A>63}</SPAN> + +<P> +Carlyle once told of two Scottish peasants who found themselves for the +first time at Ailsa Crag. They stared in astonishment at the great +sea-precipices. At last one said to the other: "Eh, Jock, Nature's +deevilish!"[<A NAME="chap06fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn14">14</A>] That was the view taken by the primitive races of the +world, as their worships and incantations bore witness. It is a view +which cannot be lightly dismissed as having nothing at all in its +support. We may minimise the evil that is at work around and within us +as we will, but, when we have done our utmost, we shall be unlike the +vast majority of our race if we are not compelled to admit that there +is that in the world which it is quite impossible to ascribe to the +immediate action of an entirely good and beneficent God. +</P> + +<P> +Is it then to be thought incredible that the order of the world should +have been interfered with, at an early stage in its development, in +such a way that the disarrangement was left to work out its fatal +mischief by means of the very constancy of the great system of laws +which make for a regular development? How this might conceivably have +occurred has been set out by an anonymous writer in a remarkable book +which ought to be better known than it is. +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P64"></A>64}</SPAN> +It was published some +years ago,[<A NAME="chap06fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn15">15</A>] and bears the suggestive title of <I>Evil and Evolution</I>. +The author maintains that the original motive in all living things was +self-preservation for self-realisation; and that this elementary law +was in itself necessary and good, the essential condition of progress. +But just as we to-day know well how hard it is to draw the line which +distinguishes a right self-seeking from the wrong, so it has been from +the outset. The distinction is a fine one, and the balance is easily +upset. We have but to suppose that this perversion of the right and +lawful happened at an early stage, to see that nothing more would have +been required to account for the subsequent heritage of woe.[<A NAME="chap06fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn16">16</A>] After +speaking of the innocent "kind of comparative strife that we see in the +fields and forests around us," in which "there may be nothing that we +cannot reconcile with the perfect beneficence of the Great +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P65"></A>65}</SPAN> +Designer and Creator," this writer goes on to say: "But the moment that +evolution has attained that point at which the struggle begins to +involve pain and unhappiness, it becomes quite another matter. The +moment that rudimentary but happy and congenial life begins to be +overshadowed by fear, or debased by conscious cruelty, the moment that +process of evolution begins to evolve not only cruel selfishness in its +most odious forms, but deceit and artifice and treacherous cunning in +the warfare which one animal wages with another, then I think you may +be certain of one of two things—either the Creator is not +all-benevolent, or that that scheme is somehow working out as He never +intended it should: there must have been some disturbing and hostile +influence."[<A NAME="chap06fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn17">17</A>] +</P> + +<P> +This is well put, but the interest of the book chiefly consists in its +attempts to show in detailed instances how things that are evil may +have been made so. The author boldly argues that, if the normal course +had been followed, "birds and beasts of prey and venomous reptiles +would never have been evolved." "Evolutionists," he says, "are agreed +that it is just the fierce struggle of created things that has produced +these birds and beasts of prey, and that there can be +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P66"></A>66}</SPAN> +little doubt +that it is the malignity of the struggle that has produced the venom of +so many reptiles."[<A NAME="chap06fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn18">18</A>] Instances are given in which such venom may now +be developed as the result of rage or terror in an otherwise harmless +animal. +</P> + +<P> +"A few years ago it was reported that the late M. Pasteur 'cultivated' +the poison of human saliva to such a point that he was able to produce +with it many of the effects of the most virulent snake poisons."[<A NAME="chap06fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn19">19</A>] +Had they not been inflamed by the terror of the struggle for existence, +"tigers and hyaenas, vultures and sharks, ferrets and polecats, wasps +and spiders, puff-adders and skunks" might have turned their undoubted +abilities in other more desirable directions.[<A NAME="chap06fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn20">20</A>] Again, "it is the +perpetual effort, generation after generation, through long ages, to +repair the mischief inflicted by enemies," that accounts for "the +fecundity of the codfish and other creatures. The more prolific it +becomes, the more enemies it can feed; and the more they multiply, the +more prolific it grows." A vicious circle indeed! Even "earthquakes, +storms, droughts, deluges," are explained as due to a certain want of +balance and failure in adjustment.[<A NAME="chap06fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn21">21</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Certainly, if we had to choose between the idea +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P67"></A>67}</SPAN> +of a careless or +indifferent God, and the belief in a God who has given us ample proofs +of a generally beneficent purpose, but who has, for reasons of the +meaning of which we as yet can have only the vaguest conceptions, +allowed Himself to be hindered and thwarted on the way to His goal, +with results of suffering to Himself even greater than those endured by +His creatures; if these were the alternatives before us, there can +scarcely be one of us who would hesitate to say towards which of them +his reason and conscience would confidently point him. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn4"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn5"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn1text">1</A>] <I>Origin of Species</I>, Chap. III. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn2text">2</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn3text">3</A>] <I>Thoughts on Religion</I>, pp. 92, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn4text">4</A>] p. 94. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn5text">5</A>] <I>Life and Letters</I>, I., p. 309. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap06fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn8"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn9"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn10"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn6text">6</A>] Address by Sir Frederick Treves at the Edinburgh Philosophical +Institution, October, 1905. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn7text">7</A>] p. 380. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn8text">8</A>] p. 377. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn9text">9</A>] p. 381. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn10text">10</A>] p. 375. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap06fn11"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn12"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn13"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn14"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn15"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn11text">11</A>] p. 383. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn12text">12</A>] p. 377. Among the illustrations that have been adduced of the +insensibility of the lower organisms, none perhaps is more +extraordinary than this: "A crab will continue to eat, and apparently +relish, a smaller crab while being itself slowly devoured by a larger +one!"—(Transactions of Victoria Institute, Vol. XXV., p. 257). +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn13text">13</A>] p. 384. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn14text">14</A>] William Allingham's <I>Diary</I>, p. 226. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn15text">15</A>] In 1896, by Messrs. Macmillan. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap06fn16"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn16text">16</A>] In one instance, at least, Darwin had pictured in his imagination +the steps by which a "strange and odious instinct" may have been +developed from comparatively innocent beginnings. He was referring to +the ejection by the young cuckoo of its companions from the nest. "I +can see no special difficulty in its having gradually acquired, during +successive generations, the blind desire, the strength and structure +necessary for the work of ejection." "The first step towards the +acquisition of the proper instinct might have been mere unintentional +restlessness on the part of the young bird."—<I>Origin of Species</I>, p. +200. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap06fn17"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn18"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn19"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn20"></A> +<A NAME="chap06fn21"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn17text">17</A>] Pp. 135, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn18text">18</A>] P. 142. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn19text">19</A>] P. 143. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn20text">20</A>] P. 144. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap06fn21text">21</A>] P. 232. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P68"></A>68}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LATER SCIENCE +</H4> + +<P> +The position, as we have described it, was that which may be said to +have existed up to about twenty years ago. Since then much new light +has come. Indeed, Lord Kelvin, speaking at Clerkenwell on February +26th, 1904, is reported in <I>The Times</I> to have said, referring to the +extraordinary progress of scientific research, that it "had, perhaps, +been even more remarkable and striking at the beginning of the +twentieth century than during the whole of the nineteenth." +</P> + +<P> +Let us take first that which he had more particularly in mind, the +advance in the knowledge of the constitution of Matter. +</P> + +<P> +In an address delivered before the British Association at Bradford in +1873, Clerk Maxwell had stated the conclusions to which science had, up +to that time, been led in its investigations of matter. Throughout the +natural universe it had been shewn, by Spectrum Analysis, that matter +is built up of +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P69"></A>69}</SPAN> +molecules. These molecules, according to the most +competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of +substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule +of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes +its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts +and movements of the planetary systems may and do change, but "the +molecules—the foundation-stones of the natural universe—remain +unbroken and unworn." +</P> + +<P> +As a result of this, it was maintained that "the exact equality of each +molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel +has well said, the essential character of being a manufactured article, +and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent." "Not +that science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a +molecule which she cannot take to pieces ... but, in tracing back the +history of matter, science is arrested when she assures herself, on the +one hand, that the molecule has been made, and on the other that it has +not been made by any of the processes we call natural." +</P> + +<P> +So the case had stood for some while until science, through its +indefatigable inquirers, shewed that it was in very deed "not debarred +from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule," nor, perhaps, from +taking it to pieces. In 1895 came the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P70"></A>70}</SPAN> +discovery of the X-rays by +Röntgen in Germany, to be followed in a year by Becquerel's discovery +of spontaneous radio-activity, and in a couple of years by the +remarkable further discovery, made by Madame Curie, of what was termed +"radium," a substance that went on producing heat <I>de novo</I>, keeping +itself permanently at a higher temperature than its surroundings, and +spontaneously producing electricity. +</P> + +<P> +This in itself was a new fact of extraordinary interest. For long, +discussion had been waged between two departments of scientific +inquirers. The geologists and biologists had demanded hundreds, and +perhaps thousands, of millions of years to allow for the developments +with which they were concerned. The physicists, led by Lord Kelvin, +refused to admit the demand, claiming that it could be proved +mathematically that it was impossible that the sun could have been +giving out heat at its present rate for more than a hundred million +years, at the very outside. The appearance of radium robbed this +argument of its cogency. It is true that an examination of the sun's +spectrum has not, as yet, revealed any radium lines, but it is well +known that helium, a transformation product of radium, is present in it. +</P> + +<P> +And this modification of our views as to the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P71"></A>71}</SPAN> +probable age of our +solar system was far from being the only result of this latest +discovery. Investigations which followed into radio-activity led the +Cambridge professors, Larmor and Thomson, to conclude that electricity +existed in small particles, which were called "electrons."[<A NAME="chap07fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn1">1</A>] These +seem to be the ingredients of which atoms are made. A molecule is +composed of two or more atoms. That of hydrogen, for example, has two; +that of water three; and so on up to a thousand or more. +</P> + +<P> +Molecules are very small. If a drop of water were magnified to the +size of the globe, the molecules would be seen to be less than the size +of a cricket ball! +</P> + +<P> +Atoms are much smaller. "The atoms in a drop of water outnumber the +drops in an Atlantic Ocean." Electrons are much smaller still—about +"a thousand-million-million times smaller than atoms."[<A NAME="chap07fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Within the atom thousands or tens of thousands of these electrons are +moving in orderly arrangement, at terrific speed, round and about one +another. The amount of energy required to build up a molecule of any +degree of complexity is very great, and it is +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P72"></A>72}</SPAN> +by the breaking down +of complex molecules into simple ones that all our mechanical work is +done. And this is not all, for not only can the molecule be thus +broken in pieces, but the atom itself is capable of disintegration. +"Although we do not know how to break atoms up, they are liable every +now and then themselves to explode, and so resolve themselves into +simpler forms." "Atoms of matter are not the indestructible and +immutable things they were once thought."[<A NAME="chap07fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn3">3</A>] The idea of the amount of +energy thus revealed as available for all kinds of active work is so +vast as to baffle calculation and even imagination. It has been said +that there is energy enough in fifteen grains of radium, if it could +all be set free at once, to blow the whole British Navy a mile high +into the air. The thought that we are thus encompassed on every side +by pent up potentialities of force, which if uncontrolled might at any +moment work our destruction, may well deepen in us the sense of the +need, not only for an originating, but for a continually directing mind +to superintend the conduct of the universe. +</P> + +<P> +We have referred to more than one change of view to which the new +discoveries have led. We shall doubtless find that there are other +scientific theories +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P73"></A>73}</SPAN> +which will have ere long to be modified. +Already it is recognised that the arguments of Lord Kelvin (he was then +Sir William Thomson) and of Clerk Maxwell, which were based upon +calculations as to the "dissipation of energy," can scarcely remain +unaffected by what we now know, and suspect, of the crumbling and +re-forming of atoms. +</P> + +<P> +And there are hints abroad of even more revolutionary suggestions. If +there has been one principle more imperatively and unanimously insisted +upon than another, it has been the uniformity of Nature's laws. What +then are we to make of a remark like the following, made by Professor +J. J. Thomson, perhaps only half-seriously, to the British Association +at Cambridge, in 1904? "There was one law," he said, "which he felt +convinced nobody who had worked on this question"—the radio-activity +of matter—"would ever suggest, and that was the constancy of Nature." +</P> + +<P> +Not less startling is it to be told that a question may yet be raised +which will challenge "the conception of a luminiferous aether, which +for half a century has dominated physical science. It is possible," so +we are informed, "that the field of electro-magnetic energy surrounding +an electric charge in motion moves with it, and that the vibrations of +light travel through this moving +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P74"></A>74}</SPAN> +field, instead of through an +ocean of stagnant aether."[<A NAME="chap07fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn4">4</A>] +</P> + +<P> +One further quotation of singular interest may be added. It is taken +from an address to students by the President of the Institution of +Mining and Metallurgy.[<A NAME="chap07fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn5">5</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty years ago," he said, "the idea held that inorganic chemistry +was almost a dead science—dead in the sense of being apparently +completed in many of its aspects, and that its records could be safely +confided to the encyclopaedia.... A modified conception of life is now +becoming co-extensive with the whole range of our experience. Even a +simple inorganic crystal does not spring ready formed from its solvent, +but first passes through phases of granulation and striation comparable +with those which characterise the beginnings of vital growth. Metals +exhibit in some respects phenomena similar to those possessed by +organised beings. Thus, they show fatigue under long continued stress, +and they recover their strength with rest. They are also susceptible +to certain of the poisons which destroy organic life. Matter, broadly, +is no longer merely dead masonry from which the edifice to shelter life +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P75"></A>75}</SPAN> +is constructed, but also appears to be the reservoir of that +energy which is developed, altered and drawn into vitality itself.... +The indestructibility of matter bids fair to become relegated to the +museum of outworn theories; and with it will probably go our present +conceptions as to the conservation of energy." +</P> + +<P> +It is clear, then, that the tasks awaiting the students of physical +science are likely to be as arduous, and we may hope as full of reward, +as they have been at any time in the past. Meanwhile, it does look as +if there were truth in Mr. Balfour's remark that "Matter is not merely +explained, but is explained away."[<A NAME="chap07fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn6">6</A>] +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap07fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap07fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap07fn4"></A> +<A NAME="chap07fn5"></A> +<A NAME="chap07fn6"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn1text">1</A>] The weighing and measuring of the electron were first announced by +Professor Thomson to the British Association meeting at Dover, in 1899. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn2text">2</A>] Sir Oliver Lodge. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn3text">3</A>] Sir Oliver Lodge. <I>Life and Matter</I>, p. 28. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn4text">4</A>] Whetham. <I>The Foundations of Science</I>, p. 50. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn5text">5</A>] H. L. Sulman, at the Sir John Cass Institute, November 29th, 1911. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap07fn6text">6</A>] Presidential Address to British Association, 1904. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P76"></A>76}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LATER SCIENCE (<I>continued</I>) +</H4> + +<P> +We have spoken of what science has recently been doing in the +investigation of the constitution of matter; we have now to talk of its +researches into the nature of Life. +</P> + +<P> +The discovery that all plant and animal life is developed from living +cells was made, as we have already stated, more than seventy years ago. +Since then our knowledge of the formation and history of these cells +has been continually growing. The size of cells varies, but as a rule +they are very minute. They consist of what is termed protoplasm. At +one time it was supposed that protoplasm was structureless. Now it is +known that the protoplasmic cell contains a nucleus and a surrounding +body. Moreover, the nucleus, or small spot in the centre, has within +it a spiral structure of a very complicated kind. Every cell is +derived from a pre-existing cell by a process of division, the two +resulting cells being apparently identical with the parent cell. +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P77"></A>77}</SPAN> +The cells possess the power of assimilating other cells or fragments of +cells. As they grow they move and go in search of food and light and +air and moisture. They exhibit feeling, and shrink as if in pain. +Spots specially sensitive to vibrations become eyes and ears; and thus +the various organs and faculties are evolved under the stimulating +influence of environment. The progress, so far as it is physical, can +be traced from the lowest blue-green algae right up to man. And all +throughout, in so far as their chemical composition is concerned, the +constituent elements of the living structure are the same. It is said +to be practically impossible to distinguish between the cells of a +toadstool and those of a human being. +</P> + +<P> +But when all this has been explained, we have still left one great +question unanswered. How is the protoplasm made? Is there any +connexion of development to be traced whereby life can be shewn to have +arisen from inorganic matter? Protoplasm, under analysis, is found to +consist of some of the commonest elements on the earth's surface, such +as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Apart from its +very complicated structure, its contents are not hard to provide. And +we know that there was a time when it must of necessity have been +formed out of that which was not living, +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P78"></A>78}</SPAN> +for there was a time when +our globe was in a state of incandescent heat in which no life that we +know could possibly have existed. More than this we cannot say. Sir +William Thomson, as President of the British Association in 1871, +suggested that a germ of life might have been wafted to our world on a +meteorite; but to say that is obviously only to banish the problem to a +greater distance.[<A NAME="chap08fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Huxley had, in 1868, invented the name "Bathybius" to describe the +deep-sea slime which he held to be the progenitor of life on the +planet. But later on he frankly confessed that his suggestion was +fruitless, acknowledging that the present state of our knowledge +furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living. +</P> + +<P> +And so the problem remains. Sir Edward Schäfer, indeed, has laid it +down that "we are compelled to believe that living matter must have +owed its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been +instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the universe; in +other words, to +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P79"></A>79}</SPAN> +a process of gradual evolution,"[<A NAME="chap08fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn2">2</A>] but he can +throw no further light on the process and its stages. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Oliver Lodge is but speaking the admitted truth when he says that +"Science, in chagrin, has to confess that hitherto in this direction it +has failed. It has not yet witnessed the origin of the smallest trace +of life from dead matter."[<A NAME="chap08fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn3">3</A>] +</P> + +<P> +No doubt there are many who are hopeful that it may yet be possible to +discover a way by which a cell, discharging all the essential functions +of life, can be constructed out of inorganic material; or, at least, +that it may be possible to frame an intelligible hypothesis as to how +this might have been done under conditions which long ago may have been +more favourable than our own. But, on the other hand, there are not a +few who have quite deliberately abandoned any expectation of the kind. +This was made plain by some of the expressions of adverse opinion which +were elicited by Sir Edward Schäfer's address. Of these the following +may be given as specimens: "The more they saw of the lower forms of +life, the more remote seemed to become the possibility of conceiving +how life arose."[<A NAME="chap08fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn4">4</A>] +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P80"></A>80}</SPAN> + +<P> +"He could not imagine anything happening in the laboratory, according +to our present knowledge, which would bring us any nearer to life."[<A NAME="chap08fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn5">5</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Living protoplasm has never been chemically produced. The assertion +that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes alone is quite +unjustified. Neither the probability of such an origin, nor even its +possibility, has been supported by anything which can be termed +scientific fact or logical reasoning."[<A NAME="chap08fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn6">6</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"The phenomena of life are of a character wholly different from those +which are presented by matter viewed under any other aspect, +mechanical, electrical, chemical, or what not. It is beside the +question to point to the fact that in Nature 'new elements are making +their appearance and old elements disappearing,' for though we may +speculate as to the manner of formation of uranium and thorium, and +though the production of radio-active matters in Nature at the present +time and always seems to be a well-established fact, such phenomena +have not even an analogy with those of a living being, however +humble."[<A NAME="chap08fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn7">7</A>] +</P> + +<P> +It cannot be surprising that those who believe +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P81"></A>81}</SPAN> +the door to be +shut, so to speak, in the direction of any theory of development +through mechanical and chemical agencies alone, should look elsewhere +for the solution of a problem which science is bound to do its very +utmost to solve. This is what, as a matter of fact, is happening; and +it is of the very deepest interest to observe the nature of the +suggested explanation. It is no other than a revived form of the +ancient doctrine of a "vital force," which we had imagined to have been +finally discarded. There is this difference, however, and it is +all-important. The force is not, as formerly supposed, some unique +kind of energy; is not, indeed, energy at all. But we shall do best to +state the new doctrine in the words of its leading exponents. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Anton Kerner, one of the most distinguished German writers on +Botany, in his <I>Natural History of Plants</I>, speaking of the chemical +explanation, says: "It does not explain the purposeful sequence of +different operations in the same protoplasm without any change in the +external stimuli; the thorough use made of external advantages; the +resistance to injurious influences; the avoidance or encompassing of +insuperable obstacles; the punctuality with which all the functions are +performed; the periodicity which occurs with the greatest regularity +under constant conditions of environment; +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P82"></A>82}</SPAN> +nor, above all, the fact +that the power of discharging all the operations requisite for growth, +nutrition, renovation and multiplication is liable to be lost." +</P> + +<P> +And then he gives his opinion thus: "I do not hesitate again to +designate as vital force this natural agency, not to be identified with +any other, whose immediate instrument is the protoplasm, and whose +peculiar effects we call life." +</P> + +<P> +Sir Oliver Lodge is, perhaps, the most uncompromising advocate of the +newer vitalism in England. The following striking quotations will set +forth his views: +</P> + +<P> +Life, he maintains, is no more a function of matter "than the wind is a +function of the leaves which dance under its influence."[<A NAME="chap08fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn8">8</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"If it were true that vital energy turned into, or was anyhow +convertible into, inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body +had more inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that 'these +inorganic energies' always, or ever, 'reappear on the dissolution of +life,' then, undoubtedly, <I>cadit quaestio</I>, life would immediately be +proved to be a form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of +physics. But, inasmuch as all this is untrue—the direct contrary of +the truth—I maintain that life is not a form of +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P83"></A>83}</SPAN> +energy, that it +is not included in our present physical categories, that its +explanation is still to seek." +</P> + +<P> +"It appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which +interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts +guidance and control on the energy which already exists."[<A NAME="chap08fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn9">9</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Life does not add to the stock of any human form of energy, nor does +death affect the sum of energy in any known way."[<A NAME="chap08fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn10">10</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide its +transmutations."[<A NAME="chap08fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn11">11</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"My contention then is—and in this contention I am practically +speaking for my brother physicists—that whereas life or mind can +neither generate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause +matter to exercise force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and +control; it can so prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the +position of existing material, and timing the liberation of existing +energy, as to produce results concordant with an idea or scheme or +intention; it can, in short, 'aim' and 'fire.'"[<A NAME="chap08fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn12">12</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws of mechanics +alone."[<A NAME="chap08fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn13">13</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"On a stagnant and inactive world life would be +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P84"></A>84}</SPAN> +powerless: it +could only make dry bones stir in such a world if it were itself a form +of energy. It is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically +'available'—to use Lord Kelvin's term—that is to say, is either +potentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In +other words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide +its transformation."[<A NAME="chap08fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn14">14</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Life possesses the power of vitalising the complex material aggregates +which exist on this planet, and of utilising their energies for a time +to display itself amid terrestrial surroundings; and then it seems to +disappear or evaporate whence it came."[<A NAME="chap08fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn15">15</A>] +</P> + +<P> +To these voices from Germany or England we can add that of M. Bergson +from France. In many respects, as he says, he is at one with Sir +Oliver Lodge. If he goes beyond him, it is mainly in these ways. He +emphasises the element of Freedom, the power of choice as shewn by +every living thing. It appears, he says, "from the top to the bottom +of the animal scale," "although the lower we go, the more vaguely it is +seen." "In very truth, I believe no living organism is absolutely +without the faculty of performing actions and moving spontaneously; for +we see that even in the vegetable world, where +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P85"></A>85}</SPAN> +the organism is for +the most part fixed to the ground, the faculty of motion is asleep +rather than absent altogether. Sometimes it wakes up, just when it is +likely to be useful." +</P> + +<P> +And this is not all. What is specially characteristic of M. Bergson is +the insistence that this power of choice is an evidence of +Consciousness. "Life," he declares, "is nothing but consciousness +using matter for its purposes." "There is behind life an impulse, an +immense impulse to climb higher and higher, to run greater and greater +risks in order to arrive at greater and greater efficiency." +"Obviously there is a vital impulse."[<A NAME="chap08fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn16">16</A>] +</P> + +<P> +"Life appears in its entirety as an immense wave which, starting from a +centre, speeds outwards, and which on almost the whole of its +circumference is stopped"—that is, as he explains, by matter—"and +converted into oscillation; at one point the obstacle has been forced, +the impulsion has poured freely. It is this freedom that the human +form registers. Everywhere but in man consciousness has had to come to +a stand; in man alone it has kept on its way. Man continues the vital +movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all +that life carries in itself. On other +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P86"></A>86}</SPAN> +lines of evolution there +have travelled other tendencies which life implied"—the reference is +more especially to powers of instinct as distinguished from those of +intelligence—"and of which, since everything interpenetrates, man has +doubtless kept something, but of which he has kept only a little."[<A NAME="chap08fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn17">17</A>] +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the most astonishing thing about M. Bergson's philosophy is his +unreadiness to allow that the consciousness, which he says is +everywhere at work, has any deliberate purpose in its working. Mr. +Balfour has called attention to the unsatisfactoriness of what he +described as "too hesitating and uncertain a treatment."[<A NAME="chap08fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn18">18</A>] +</P> + +<P> +But, in spite of so serious an omission, we may be glad to believe, +with our acute statesman-critic, that "there is permanent value in his +theories." If they indicate at all the direction in which scientific +thinking is to move, we shall soon have travelled a very long distance +from the days in which it was imagined that all vital phenomena might +be accounted for on merely materialistic and mechanical lines. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn4"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn5"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn1text">1</A>] "To this 'meteorite' theory the apparently fatal objection was +raised that it would take some sixty million years for a meteorite to +travel from the nearest stellar system to our earth, and it is +inconceivable that any kind of life could be maintained during such a +period."—Schäfer. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn2text">2</A>] Presidential Address to British Association, at Edinburgh (1912). +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn3text">3</A>] <I>Man and the Universe</I>, p. 24. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn4text">4</A>] Prof. Wager. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn5text">5</A>] Dr. J. S. Haldane. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap08fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn8"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn9"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn10"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn6text">6</A>] Dr. A. R. Wallace. Article in <I>Everyman</I>, October 18th, 1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn7text">7</A>] Sir William Tilden. Letter to <I>The Times</I>, September 9th,1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn8text">8</A>] <I>Life and Matter</I>, p. 106. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn9text">9</A>] Pp. 132, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn10text">10</A>] P. 158. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap08fn11"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn12"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn13"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn14"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn11text">11</A>] P. 160. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn12text">12</A>] Pp. 164, f. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn13text">13</A>] P. 166. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn14text">14</A>] P. 160. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap08fn15"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn16"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn17"></A> +<A NAME="chap08fn18"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn15text">15</A>] P. 198. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn16text">16</A>] Lecture at Birmingham, May, 1911. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn17text">17</A>] <I>Creative Evolution</I>, p. 280. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap08fn18text">18</A>] <I>Hibbert Journal</I>, October, 1911. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P87"></A>87}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LATER SCIENCE (<I>continued</I>) +</H4> + +<P> +The leaders of the scientific thought of last century would have been +vastly surprised if they could have foreseen the results of the +investigations which were to be made into the constitution of matter +and the nature of life; but not even these would have amazed them so +much as would other investigations that were to be carried out in a yet +deeper and more mysterious region of experience. Perhaps it was +because science had been so busy about the more external things, that +it had seemed to have no time to spare for the thorough consideration +of that which is more truly vital to man than the matter which obeys or +opposes him, or even than the physical life which enables him to act, +in so far as he can, as its master. It was strange that the last thing +to be thought of should be his own personality, himself; the innermost +workings of his soul. +</P> + +<P> +But if this profoundest problem has been neglected, it is to be +neglected no longer. Psychology has +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P88"></A>88}</SPAN> +already made good its claim +to be respectfully regarded as one of the sciences. It is too early to +speak with any great certainty of the results that it has achieved, +though these are probably more substantial than is commonly supposed. +</P> + +<P> +Anyhow, it will be best that, as before, we should give some +characteristic statements of the investigators themselves, rather than +attempt to make unauthorised summaries of our own. +</P> + +<P> +And, first of all, Sir Oliver Lodge shall tell us what he understands +by the Soul. "The soul is that controlling and guiding principle which +is responsible for our personal expression and for the construction of +the body, under the restrictions of physical condition and ancestry. +In its higher developments it includes also feeling and intelligence +and will, and is the storehouse of mental experience. The body is its +instrument and organ, enabling it to receive and to convey physical +impressions, and to affect and be affected by matter and energy."[<A NAME="chap09fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn1">1</A>] +</P> + +<P> +How the soul acts by means of the body is thus explained. +</P> + +<P> +"The brain is the link between the psychical and the physical, which in +themselves belong to different orders of being."[<A NAME="chap09fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P89"></A>89}</SPAN> + +<P> +"A portion of brain substance is consumed in every act of +mentation."[<A NAME="chap09fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn3">3</A>] "Destroy certain parts of brain completely, and +connexion between the psychic and the material regions is for us +severed. True; but cutting off or damaging communication is not the +same as destroying or damaging the communicator; nor is smashing an +organ equivalent to killing the organist."[<A NAME="chap09fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn4">4</A>] +</P> + +<P> +M. Bergson does not differ from this when he says that, "the +soul—essentially action, will, liberty—is the creative force <I>par +excellence</I>, the productive agent of novelty in the world." He goes on +to speak of the way by which souls have been differentiated and raised +to self-conscious existence. "The history of this great effort is the +very history of the evolution of life on our planet. Certain lines of +evolution seem to have failed. But on the line of evolution which +leads to man the liberation has been accomplished and thus +personalities have been able to constitute themselves."[<A NAME="chap09fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn5">5</A>] Like many +another, M. Bergson cannot bring himself to believe that death is to be +the end of all that has been thus painfully achieved during this +process of attainment. "When we see that consciousness is also memory, +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P90"></A>90}</SPAN> +that one of its essential functions is to accumulate and preserve +the past, that very probably the brain is an instrument of +forgetfulness as much as one of remembrance, and that in pure +consciousness nothing of the past is lost, the whole life of a +conscious personality being an indivisible continuity; are we not led +to suppose that the effect continues beyond, and that in this passage +of consciousness through matter (the passage which at the tunnel's exit +gives distinct personalities) consciousness is tempered like steel, and +tests itself by clearly constituting personalities and preparing them, +by the very effort which each of them is called upon to make, for a +higher form of existence?"[<A NAME="chap09fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn6">6</A>] +</P> + +<P> +But the psychologist has yet more to tell us about the nature of +personality. Although helped to distinctiveness of self-conscious +expression by means of its experience of the struggle under present +material conditions, it is not the whole of it that can be thus +expressed. In fact its present physical embodiment is but partially +adequate to the task. In other words, "cerebral life represents only a +small part of the mental life." "One of the rôles of the brain is to +limit the vision of the mind, to render +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P91"></A>91}</SPAN> +its action more +efficacious"[<A NAME="chap09fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn7">7</A>]—more efficacious, that is to say, for such uses as are +of value for survival and success under our existing conditions. +</P> + +<P> +It is to Frederick Myers that we have chiefly owed the conception of +the subliminal or subconscious mind. The full report of his researches +is given in the two volumes of his work on "Human Personality and its +Survival of Bodily Death" (1901). He it was who invented the word +"telepathy" to express the fact that mental action can be exerted at a +distance. And it was he who brought for the first time the phenomena +of clairvoyance and apparitions under thorough examination by the +employment of the most exacting tests. Along such lines he was led to +the conclusion, now largely accepted, that the conscious self is only a +fraction of the entire personality, the fraction being greater or less +according to the magnitude of the individual. +</P> + +<P> +By means of this subconscious part of our being we are, he held, +brought into touch with one another and are capable of attaining a +knowledge which may greatly transcend that which comes to us through +our ordinary channels of communication. In the case of genius we watch +the emergence of exceptional +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P92"></A>92}</SPAN> +potentialities, which may serve as +the promise and pledge of what the future has in store for us all. One +day like some winged insect we shall pass to a condition beyond that of +the life we now know, and then we may hope that what we "can regard as +larval characters of special service in the present stage of +existence," will prove to have been "destined to be discarded, or +modified almost out of recognition, in proportion as a higher state is +attained."[<A NAME="chap09fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn8">8</A>] +</P> + +<P> +This recognition of the existence within human nature of such +capacities and powers, however imperfectly developed and understood, +would greatly help us to deal with many mysteries of experience that +have hitherto seemed completely beyond the purview of a strict +scientific research. The American psychologist, William James, has +done good service to this highest department of critical inquiry in his +well-known work on "Varieties of Religious Experience." A single +extract may suffice to illustrate his position, and to shew what may +yet lie before those who are prepared to press on in the direction in +which he was able to point. +</P> + +<P> +"The further limits of our being plunge ... into an altogether other +dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 'understandable' +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P93"></A>93}</SPAN> +world.... So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region +(and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in +a way for which we cannot articulately account) we belong to it in a +more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible +world... When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our +finite personality, for we are turned into new men... I call this +higher part of the universe by the name of God."[<A NAME="chap09fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn9">9</A>] +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn3"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn4"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn5"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn1text">1</A>] <I>Man and the Universe</I>, p. 78. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn2text">2</A>] P. 91. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn3text">3</A>] <I>Life and Matter</I>, p. 107. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn4text">4</A>] <I>Man and the Universe</I>, p. 93. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn5text">5</A>] Lecture at University College, October, 1911. +</P> + +<A NAME="chap09fn6"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn7"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn8"></A> +<A NAME="chap09fn9"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn6text">6</A>] Birmingham Lecture, May, 1911. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn7text">7</A>] Bergson. Presidential Address to Society for Psychical Research, +May, 1913. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn8text">8</A>] <I>Op. cit.</I>, I., p. 97. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap09fn9text">9</A>] Pp. 515, f. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="note"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P94"></A>94}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NOTE +</H3> + +<P> +Since the preceding chapters were written, the meeting of the British +Association has been held at Birmingham (September, 1913). Its +interest was unusually great inasmuch as the President's address and +the principal discussions were occupied with the most critical and +debatable scientific questions of the present moment. The following +extracts will give a general idea of the line taken at the outset by +the President, Sir Oliver Lodge. +</P> + +<P> +"Theological controversy is practically in abeyance just now." "It is +the scientific allies, now, who are waging a more or less invigorating +conflict among themselves, with philosophers joining in." "Ancient +postulates are being pulled up by the roots." "The modern tendency is +to emphasise the discontinuous or atomic character of everything." +"The physical discovery of the twentieth century, so far, is the +electrical theory of matter." "So far from Nature not making jumps, it +becomes doubtful if she does anything else." "The corpuscular theory +of radiation is by no means so dead as in my youth we thought it was." +"But I myself am an upholder of <I>ultimate</I> continuity, and a fervent +believer in the aether of space." +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P95"></A>95}</SPAN> + +<P> +"I have been called a vitalist, and in a sense I am; but I am not a +vitalist if vitalism means an appeal to an undefined 'vital force' (an +objectionable term I have never thought of using) as against the laws +of chemistry and physics." "There is plenty of physics and chemistry +and mechanics about every vital action, but for a complete +understanding of it something beyond physics and chemistry is needed." +"No mathematics could calculate the orbit of a common house-fly." "I +will risk the assertion that life introduces something incalculable and +purposeful amid the laws of physics; it thus distinctly supplements +those laws, though it leaves them otherwise precisely as they were and +obeys them all." +</P> + +<P> +"The Loom of Time is complicated by a multitude of free agents who can +modify the web, making the product more beautiful or more ugly +according as they are in harmony or disharmony with the general scheme. +I venture to maintain that manifest imperfections are thus accounted +for, and that freedom could be given on no other terms, nor at any less +cost." +</P> + +<P> +"I will not shrink from a personal note summarising the result on my +own mind of thirty years of experience of psychical research, begun +without predilection—indeed, with the usual hostile prejudice." "The +facts so examined have convinced me that memory and affection are not +limited to that association with matter by which alone they can +manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond +bodily death." +</P> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P96"></A>96}</SPAN> + +<P> +Of the debates on the subsequent days those on "Radiation" and "The +Origin of Life" were, perhaps, the most remarkable. At the former the +point at issue was the amount of truth contained in Planck's "famous +hypothesis that energy was transferred by jumps instead of in a +continuous stream." Sir Joseph Larmor evidently expressed the +prevailing opinion when he said that "some advance in that direction +had become necessary, and old-fashioned physicists like himself had +either to take part in it or run the risk of becoming obsolete." +</P> + +<P> +For the discussion about "Life," the three sections of Physiology, +Zoology, and Botany were combined. Professor Moore stood stoutly for +the older views, and "believed that he could demonstrate a step which +connected inorganic with organic creation." Then he gave an abstruse +and highly technical account of a process by which in "solutions of +colloidal ferric hydroxide, exposed to strong sunlight," compounds +could be formed similar to those to be found in the green plant. With +a proper grouping of molecules it might be imagined how "colloidal +aggregates appeared," and eventually "organic colloids" which "acquired +the property of transforming light energy into chemical activity." The +speakers who followed seemed to be agreed that, even were such +"potentially living matter" to be produced, we should have reached, not +the discovery of the secret of life, but only the construction of "its +physical vehicle." Professor Hartog strongly protested against the +notion that there was "a consensus +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P97"></A>97}</SPAN> +of opinion among biologists +that life was only one form of chemical and physical actions which +could be reduced in the laboratory." He wished it to be understood +that "the preponderance of weight among scientific men" was opposed to +such a position. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="conclusion"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P98"></A>98}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CONCLUSION +</H3> + +<P> +It is dangerous to generalise; and, when as in this survey we are +attempting to indicate broadly the trend of the thought of an age, we +have more than ordinary need to be on our guard lest we should +sacrifice truth to the desire for a seeming completeness of logical +presentation. For fear, then, of misunderstanding, let it be clearly +remembered that in what has been said we have had no wish to suggest +that all minds have moved at the same pace, or even in the same +direction; but only that certain strong tendencies were observable, +which gave colour and character to the mental stream at the particular +stages in its course. It is with a full sense of the possibility of +exaggeration, and of the necessity of holding the balance even, that we +shall now make our final attempt to sum up as concisely as possible +what we have been able to gather in regard to the thought-movement of +the period we have had under review. There can be no danger of +misstatement in saying that, all throughout, the chief thoughts of the +time were intensely occupied with +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P99"></A>99}</SPAN> +the greatest of all questions, +those about GOD AND THE WORLD. And, further, it has not been difficult +to perceive that there have been three distinct stages in the sequence +of these thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +In the <I>first stage</I> we can see, as we look back, that the Religious +feeling was dominant, while the scientific temper could scarcely have +been said to exist; certainly it did not exist upon any extended scale. +But, though the desire to be reverent was widespread, we are bound to +allow that the ideas about God were somewhat crudely conceived. As a +legacy, no doubt, from the Deistic controversies of the preceding +century, the general thought did not rise above the notion of a Supreme +Mechanist and all-powerful Ruler of all things. The Divine Being was +regarded as having originated the universe by a fiat of His will, +fashioning its several contents one after another as He pleased, and +appointing that each and all should be subjected to the laws He had +ordained; always reserving to Himself the right to intervene by some +signal display of wisdom and power, when such intervention was +required, either to remedy a defect, or yet further to set forth His +glory. Men were very ready to admit the idea of the Supernatural, but +it was in the merely superficial and popular sense of <I>power working +without means</I>, rather than what we now +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P100"></A>100}</SPAN> +feel to be the far truer +sense of <I>superhuman knowledge of means, and power to use them</I>.[<A NAME="chap11fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap11fn1">1</A>] It +followed, and this was the weakest point in the Paleyan system of +Natural Theology, that God's action was looked for not in the normal, +but in the exceptional processes of Nature. The need of the Divine was +only felt when no other explanation was forthcoming; with the result, +of course, that as other explanations were found, the necessity for +recognising its operation grew ever less and less. And, even apart +from such a consequence, the effects of the conception could not be +otherwise than injurious to religious faith; for, as it has been truly +and reverently observed, "a theory of occasional intervention implies +as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence."[<A NAME="chap11fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap11fn2">2</A>] +</P> + +<P> +As to knowledge of the World, there was scarcely any at all, according +in our present understanding of such knowledge. Not everybody, of +course, accounted for the existence of fossils by supposing that they +were the casts from which the Almighty had designed His creatures, or +possibly the Devil's +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P101"></A>101}</SPAN> +attempts to imitate His works; but the +prevailing ideas were of the most primitive kind. Even Paley could +give us no better explanation of certain rudimentary anatomical organs, +than by suggesting that the creature in whom they were found had been +so far constructed before it was decided what its sex should be! We +can see that if any real progress in knowledge was to be made, a change +of a very radical order had to come. And it did come. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>second stage</I> was Scientific rather than religious. The thought +of God occupied a less prominent place in proportion as men's minds +were yielded to the attraction of the new studies. This was partly +due, as we have already explained, to the fact that causes were found +to account for the phenomena which had previously, for the lack of the +understanding of such causes, been attributed to the immediate exercise +of supernatural power. Partly, also, it was due to a growing distrust +of human ability, which resulted from the belief that this was nothing +more than a recent development from a lower animal ancestry. A mind +thus originated was supposed to be debarred from forming any +trustworthy notion of the nature of a First Cause which had operated, +if at all, at some point infinitely distant in the long succession of +ages. +</P> + +<P> +The main work of this stage was to prosecute +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P102"></A>102}</SPAN> +research into the +elaborated mechanism, or as men soon came to prefer to think of it, the +developing growth of the world. And wonderful, beyond all +anticipation, was the success which rewarded the pains that were +lavishly bestowed upon the inquiry. Small marvel was it that some +men's heads were well-nigh turned, and that to many it seemed little +less than certain that science had dispensed with the supernatural +altogether; and that it only required time, and no great length of +time, to secure universal acceptance for the materialistic explanations +which were destined, as they supposed, to leave no mysteries of life +unsolved. But such persons had reckoned with a too hasty and +superficial knowledge of the data involved. Little by little the +counter-criticisms produced their effect. The idea of a First and +Permanent Cause was shewn to be as indispensable as ever; not, indeed, +as an influence to be pushed far back, and to be thought of as acting +either once or occasionally. A truer reading of the meaning of what +had been discovered led to the grateful acknowledgment that "Darwinism +has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit by +shewing us that we must choose between two alternatives: either God is +everywhere present in Nature, or He is nowhere."[<A NAME="chap11fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap11fn3">3</A>] +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P103"></A>103}</SPAN> +So, again, +with Design. The earlier notion of the separate manufacture of species +and of special adaptations to particular ends had to give way to a +larger conception of the growth and gradual correlation of the parts +and functions of a stupendous whole. But for the attainment of this +mighty result direction and superintendence are even more imperatively +needed. As it was often urged with good reason, to make a world right +off would not have been so marvellous an achievement as to make that +world make itself. +</P> + +<P> +The problem of Beneficence had, as we saw, come to be so entangled with +difficulties as to render it the most serious of all the problems which +pressed upon the minds and hearts of the men of this second stage of +thinking. But here, also, the fears which were at first aroused were +found to have been exaggerated; and perhaps it is true to say that +before the end of the century there was a general disposition to +conclude that with larger knowledge we should get to understand the +utility of much that to uninstructed eyes appears to be lavish waste +and needless suffering. The obvious fact that science could not go +forward without a loyal belief in the rational intelligibility of +nature gave justification to a corresponding belief in its ethical +intelligibility, even though in this case, as in the other, the +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P104"></A>104}</SPAN> +complete proofs might not be immediately forthcoming. And there was, +further, the possibility—to some it was more than a possibility—that +much in the world which looks contrary to goodness is really to be +accounted for as the result of a misuse of liberty on the part of +powers and forces whose action has most mysteriously been allowed to +thwart and to complicate the task of the beneficent Maker of all. +</P> + +<P> +About the <I>third stage</I> it is fitting that we should speak with more +hesitation. We are living in it, and are as yet only at its beginning. +But we may hazard the prognostication that it will be both Religious +and Scientific; and that, "as knowledge grows from more to more," there +will be found the "more of reverence" of which our modern poet sings. +There is reason to hope that the bitterness of old controversies will +not be revived, and that we have before us a time in which Theology and +Science will co-operate and no longer conflict. With deepening insight +it is becoming plainer than ever that the phenomena of life, and even +of matter, are the expressions of a more than physical force. +Evolution is a law under which a forward process is moving on, and +moving up. There is an impulse of consciousness working from within, +and there is a spiritual, as well as a material, environment inviting +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P105"></A>105}</SPAN> +to correspondence with itself. Freedom and power of choice are +admitted to be present in regions where their existence was for long +most strenuously denied. Even matter may have its own power of +insistence and resistance—how much more mind and will. This +consideration may give us a yet clearer clue to the mysteries of +failure, miscarriage, and waste. A world that was to produce +self-conscious, self-determining personalities needed to have freedom +through the whole of its development; and the consequent risk and +possible cost were inevitable. Shall we not be led to admire and +revere increasingly the wonder of it all, as there grows upon us the +sense of the quietness and gentleness, the foresight, and the infinite +patience of the Being of beings, who will never obtrude His presence +and action upon us, just because He would help us to be our own, not +dead but living, selves, and would have us rise with Him to the highest +things? +</P> + +<P> +We are far from the end of our learning. There are many enigmas yet to +be made plain. We could not wish it otherwise. It has ever been +through the narrow gate of difficulty that we have passed into the +wider court of truth. We have good cause to be humble, but we have +full right to be hopeful. We must not be afraid to face the problems +that await +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P106"></A>106}</SPAN> +us, whatever they may be. We may be confident that we +are not to be deceived; but that, under a Guidance that has never +failed, we shall at length be brought to see the dawning of the +longed-for day, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"When that in us which thinks with that which feels<BR> +Shall everlastingly be reconciled,<BR> +And that which questioneth with that which kneels."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11fn1"></A> +<A NAME="chap11fn2"></A> +<A NAME="chap11fn3"></A> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap11fn1text">1</A>] This important distinction was carefully drawn by the Duke of +Argyll in his <I>Reign of Law</I> (pp. 14, 25), published in 1866. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap11fn2text">2</A>] Aubrey Moore, in one of a series of remarkable articles contributed +to the <I>Guardian</I> (January 18th, 25th, February 1st, 1888). +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[<A HREF="#chap11fn3text">3</A>] Aubrey Moore, <I>Lux Mundi</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P107"></A>107}</SPAN> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INDEX +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +AETHER, <A HREF="#P73">73</A>, <A HREF="#P94">94</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Agnosticism, <A HREF="#P32">32</A>, <A HREF="#P46">46-52</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Aquinas, St. Thomas, <A HREF="#P13">13</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Argyle, George Douglas, Duke of, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>, <A HREF="#P100">100</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Atoms, <A HREF="#P21">21</A>, <A HREF="#P71">71</A>, <A HREF="#P72">72</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Augustine, St., <A HREF="#P50">50</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Avebury, Lord, <A HREF="#P58">58</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +BACON, LORD, <A HREF="#P14">14</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Balfour, A. J., <A HREF="#P75">75</A>, <A HREF="#P86">86</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +"Bathybius," <A HREF="#P78">78</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Becquerel, A. C., <A HREF="#P70">70</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Beneficence, Divine, <A HREF="#P17">17</A>, <A HREF="#P18">18</A>, <A HREF="#P53">53-67</A>, <A HREF="#P103">103</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Bergson, Henri, <A HREF="#P84">84-86</A>, <A HREF="#P89">89</A>, <A HREF="#P90">90</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Brain, <A HREF="#P88">88</A>, <A HREF="#P89">89</A>, <A HREF="#P90">90</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Bunsen, R. W., <A HREF="#P24">24</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +CARLYLE, THOMAS, <A HREF="#P63">63</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Cause, <A HREF="#P29">29</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Cells, The growth of, <A HREF="#P77">77</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Chalmers, Thomas, <A HREF="#P19">19</A>, <A HREF="#P20">20</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Chance, <A HREF="#P30">30</A>, <A HREF="#P44">44</A>, <A HREF="#P56">56</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Consciousness, <A HREF="#P85">85</A>, <A HREF="#P89">89</A>, <A HREF="#P90">90</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Creation, Mosaic account of <A HREF="#P39">39</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Creative power, affirmed by Science, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Cruelty in Nature, <A HREF="#P34">34</A>, <A HREF="#P35">35</A>, <A HREF="#P54">54-67</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Curie, Mme., <A HREF="#P70">70</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +DALTON, JOHN, <A HREF="#P21">21</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Darwin, Charles, <A HREF="#P24">24-26</A>, <A HREF="#P41">41-43</A>, <A HREF="#P54">54</A>, <A HREF="#P58">58</A>, <A HREF="#P64">64</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Deserts, Use of, <A HREF="#P62">62</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Design, Argument from, <A HREF="#P14">14-16</A>, <A HREF="#P29">29</A>, <A HREF="#P40">40-45</A>, <A HREF="#P103">103</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Directive power, <A HREF="#P44">44</A>, <A HREF="#P83">83</A>, <A HREF="#P106">106</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Du Bois Raymond, E., <A HREF="#P37">37</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Dysteleology, <A HREF="#P35">35</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +EARTHQUAKES, <A HREF="#P66">66</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Electrons, <A HREF="#P71">71</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Energy: +<BR> + Conservation of, <A HREF="#P23">23</A>, <A HREF="#P42">42</A>, <A HREF="#P75">75</A>. +<BR> + Dissipation of, <A HREF="#P73">73</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +<I>Evil and Evolution</I>, <A HREF="#P64">64-66</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Evil in Nature, <A HREF="#P18">18</A>, <A HREF="#P63">63-67</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Evolution, Doctrine of, <A HREF="#P24">24</A>, <A HREF="#P25">25</A>, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>, <A HREF="#P104">104</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +FARADAY, MICHAEL, <A HREF="#P22">22</A>, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +"First Cause," <A HREF="#P13">13</A>, <A HREF="#P28">28</A>, <A HREF="#P32">32</A>, <A HREF="#P38">38</A>, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>, <A HREF="#P101">101</A>, <A HREF="#P102">102</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Freedom, <A HREF="#P84">84</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>, <A HREF="#P104">104</A>, <A HREF="#P105">105</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Future life, <A HREF="#P89">89-92</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +GEOLOGY, <A HREF="#P23">23</A>, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>, <A HREF="#P70">70</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, <A HREF="#P47">47</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Gore, Bishop, <A HREF="#P50">50</A>, <A HREF="#P57">57</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Gray, Asa, <A HREF="#P41">41</A>, <A HREF="#P56">56</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +HAECKEL, E., <A HREF="#P29">29</A>, <A HREF="#P30">30</A>, <A HREF="#P31">31</A>, <A HREF="#P35">35</A>, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Haldane, J. S., <A HREF="#P80">80</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Hartog, Professor, <A HREF="#P96">96</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Heat, Mechanical equivalent of, <A HREF="#P23">23</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Helium, <A HREF="#P70">70</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Helmholtz, H. von, <A HREF="#P22">22</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Herschel, Sir John, <A HREF="#P69">69</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Huxley, T. H., <A HREF="#P32">32</A>, <A HREF="#P35">35</A>, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>, <A HREF="#P43">43</A>, <A HREF="#P61">61</A>, <A HREF="#P78">78</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +ICHNEUMONIDAE, <A HREF="#P56">56</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Insensibility of animals, <A HREF="#P60">60</A>, <A HREF="#P61">61</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +JAMES, WILLIAM, <A HREF="#P92">92</A>, <A HREF="#P93">93</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Joule, J. P., <A HREF="#P23">23</A>, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +KELVIN, LORD, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>, <A HREF="#P44">44</A>, <A HREF="#P68">68</A>, <A HREF="#P70">70</A>, <A HREF="#P78">78</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Kepler, J., <A HREF="#P19">19</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Kerner, Anton, <A HREF="#P81">81</A>, <A HREF="#P82">82</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Kirchhoff, Professor, <A HREF="#P24">24</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Knight, Professor W., <A HREF="#P57">57</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +LAMARCK, J. B., <A HREF="#P22">22</A>, <A HREF="#P26">26</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Laplace, P. S., <A HREF="#P19">19</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Larmor, Sir J., <A HREF="#P71">71</A>, <A HREF="#P96">96</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Liebig, J. F. von, <A HREF="#P44">44</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Life: +<BR> + failure to produce out of matter, <A HREF="#P79">79</A>, <A HREF="#P80">80</A>, <A HREF="#P96">96</A>, <A HREF="#P97">97</A>. +<BR> + Meteorite theory of, <A HREF="#P78">78</A>, +<BR> + not a form of energy, <A HREF="#P82">82</A>, <A HREF="#P83">83</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Lodge, Sir Oliver, <A HREF="#P71">71</A>, <A HREF="#P79">79</A>, <A HREF="#P82">82-85</A>, <A HREF="#P88">88</A>, <A HREF="#P89">89</A>, <A HREF="#P94">94</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Lotze, Hermann, <A HREF="#P47">47</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Lyell, Sir Charles, <A HREF="#P23">23</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +MATERIALISM, <A HREF="#P44">44</A>, <A HREF="#P46">46</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Matter, Disintegration of, <A HREF="#P72">72</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Maxwell, James Clerk, <A HREF="#P22">22</A>, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>, <A HREF="#P68">68</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Metals, <A HREF="#P74">74</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Mill, J. Stuart, <A HREF="#P29">29</A>, <A HREF="#P33">33</A>, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Molecules, <A HREF="#P69">69</A>, <A HREF="#P71">71</A>, <A HREF="#P72">72</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Monism, <A HREF="#P31">31</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Moore, Aubrey, <A HREF="#P48">48</A>, <A HREF="#P100">100</A>, <A HREF="#P102">102</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Moore, Professor B., <A HREF="#P96">96</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Myers, Frederick W. H., <A HREF="#P91">91</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, <A HREF="#P19">19</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Necessity, <A HREF="#P43">43</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Newton, Sir Isaac, <A HREF="#P19">19</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +ORGANS, RUDIMENTARY, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>, <A HREF="#P41">41</A>, <A HREF="#P101">101</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +<I>Origin of Species</I>, <A HREF="#P25">25</A>, <A HREF="#P39">39</A>, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>, <A HREF="#P55">55</A>, <A HREF="#P56">56</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Owen, Sir Richard, <A HREF="#P27">27</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +PAGET, BISHOP FRANCIS, <A HREF="#P52">52</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Pain, Use of, <A HREF="#P58">58</A>, <A HREF="#P59">59</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Paley, William, <A HREF="#P14">14-19</A>, <A HREF="#P100">100</A>, <A HREF="#P101">101</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Pascal, Blaise, <A HREF="#P52">52</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Pasteur, Louis, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>, <A HREF="#P66">66</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Personality: +<BR> + Divine, <A HREF="#P48">48</A>, <A HREF="#P52">52</A>. +<BR> + Human, <A HREF="#P87">87</A>, <A HREF="#P90">90</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Protoplasm, <A HREF="#P23">23</A>, <A HREF="#P76">76</A>, <A HREF="#P77">77</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Psychical Research, <A HREF="#P91">91</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Psychology, <A HREF="#P87">87</A>, <A HREF="#P90">90-92</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +RADIUM, <A HREF="#P70">70</A>, <A HREF="#P72">72</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Religious instinct, <A HREF="#P51">51</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Romanes, G. J., <A HREF="#P33">33-36</A>, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>. <A HREF="#P39">39</A>, <A HREF="#P42">42</A>, <A HREF="#P50">50-52</A>, <A HREF="#P57">57</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Röntgen rays, <A HREF="#P70">70</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +SCHAFER, SIR EDWARD, <A HREF="#P78">78</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Schleiden, M. J., <A HREF="#P23">23</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Schwann, T., <A HREF="#P23">23</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Snake poison, <A HREF="#P60">60</A>, <A HREF="#P66">66</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Soul, <A HREF="#P87">87</A>, <A HREF="#P88">88</A>, <A HREF="#P89">89</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Spectrum analysis, <A HREF="#P24">24</A>, <A HREF="#P68">68</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Spencer, Herbert, <A HREF="#P32">32</A>, <A HREF="#P33">33</A>, <A HREF="#P47">47</A>, <A HREF="#P49">49</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Spiritual environment, <A HREF="#P93">93</A>, <A HREF="#P104">104</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Stokes, Sir G. G., <A HREF="#P24">24</A>, <A HREF="#P37">37</A>, <A HREF="#P45">45</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Subconsciousness, <A HREF="#P91">91</A>, <A HREF="#P92">92</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Suffering, Divinely shared, <A HREF="#P67">67</A>, <A HREF="#P105">105</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Sulman, H. L., <A HREF="#P74">74</A>, <A HREF="#P75">75</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Supernatural, The, <A HREF="#P99">99</A>, <A HREF="#P100">100</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Survival: +<BR> + after death, <A HREF="#P89">89-92</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>. +<BR> + of the fittest, <A HREF="#P24">24</A>, <A HREF="#P25">25</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +TELEOLOGY, THE WIDER, <A HREF="#P40">40</A>, <A HREF="#P45">45</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Telepathy, <A HREF="#P91">91</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, <A HREF="#P54">54</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Thomson, Sir J. J., <A HREF="#P71">71</A>, <A HREF="#P73">73</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Tilden, Sir William, <A HREF="#P80">80</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Treves, Sir Frederick, <A HREF="#P59">59</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Tyndall, John, <A HREF="#P31">31</A>, <A HREF="#P38">38</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +UNBELIEF, DISTRESS CAUSED BY, <A HREF="#P35">35</A>, <A HREF="#P36">36</A>, <A HREF="#P50">50</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +VARIATIONS, <A HREF="#P25">25</A>, <A HREF="#P26">26</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Venomous animals, <A HREF="#P17">17</A>, <A HREF="#P65">65</A>, <A HREF="#P66">66</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Virchow, R., <A HREF="#P37">37</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Vitalism, <A HREF="#P81">81-85</A>, <A HREF="#P95">95</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Volcanoes, Use of, <A HREF="#P62">62</A>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="index"> +WAGER, PROFESSOR, <A HREF="#P79">79</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Wallace, Alfred Russel, <A HREF="#P59">59-61</A>, <A HREF="#P80">80</A>. +</P> + +<P CLASS="index"> +Whetham, W. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God and the World + A Survey of Thought + +Author: Arthur W. Robinson + +Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30709] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD AND THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + This is one of a series of evidential books drawn up at the + instance of the _Christian Evidence Society_. + + + + + + +GOD AND THE WORLD + +A SURVEY OF THOUGHT + + +BY + +ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D., + + +Warden of the College of Allhallows Barking + + + +With a Prefatory Note by SIR OLIVER LODGE + + + + +LONDON: + +SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE + +NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C., 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. + +BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET + +NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM + +1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + PREFATORY NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 + INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 + I. THE OLDER ORTHODOXY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 + II. THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 + III. THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 + IV. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 + V. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 46 + VI. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 53 + VII. LATER SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 + VIII. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 + IX. LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 + CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 + + + + +{5} + +PREFATORY NOTE + +I have read what Dr. Arthur Robinson has written, and find it a most +interesting, singularly fair, and I may add, within its limits, able +and comprehensive survey of the thoughts of the past and passing age. +I commend it to the coming generation as a useful means of acquiring +some notion of the main puzzles and controversies of the strenuous time +through which their fathers have lived. Fossil remains of these +occasionally fierce discussions they will find embedded in literature; +and although we are emerging from that conflict, it can only be to find +fresh opportunities for discovery, fresh fields of interest, in the +newer age. Towards a wise reception of these discoveries, as they are +gradually arrived at in the future, this little book will give some +help. + +OLIVER LODGE. + + + + +{7} + +GOD AND THE WORLD + + + +INTRODUCTION + +A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath +him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man +is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A +man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small +questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; +of how they may quickest fill their pockets, or gain another step upon +the social ladder. Great men are concerned with great questions: of +life, of man, of history, of God. + +So again, the size of an age can be determined by the size of its +questions. It has been claimed that the age through which we have +passed was a great age, and tried by this test we need not hesitate to +admit the claim. It was full of questions, and they were great +questions. As never before, the eyes of men strained upwards and +backwards into the dim {8} recesses of the past to discover something, +if it might be, of the beginnings of things: of matter and life; of the +earth and its contents; of the solar system and the universe. We know +with what interest inquiries of this sort were regarded, and how ready +the people were to read the books that dealt with them; to attend +lectures and discussions about them, and to give their money for the +purposes of such research. It was a great age that could devote itself +so eagerly to questions of this importance and magnitude. + +But as men cannot live upon appetite, so neither can they be for ever +satisfied with questions. Hence it follows that a period of +questioning is ordinarily followed by another, in which the accumulated +information is sorted and digested and turned to practical account; a +time in which constructive work is attempted, and some understanding is +arrived at as to the relation that exists between the old knowledge and +the new. It looks as if we were nearing such a time, when, for a while +at all events, there will be a pause for reconsideration and +reconstruction, and the human spirit will gather strength and +confidence before again setting out upon its quest of the Infinite. +Already we are asked to give attention to statements that are intended +to review the whole situation and to summarise, provisionally at {9} +all events, the results that have been attained. Each of these +attempts will, in its turn, be superseded by something that is wider in +its outlook and wiser in its verdicts. This little book is an effort +of this nature, and it is offered in the hope that it may serve some +such useful and temporary purpose. + +Much more competent writers than its author might well apologise for +consenting to enter upon the task which he has been invited to +undertake. All that he can say, by way of excuse for his boldness in +complying, is that for many years he has endeavoured to follow the +trend of modern thinking, and that the growing interest with which he +has done this encourages him to hope that he may be able to make what +he has to tell about it both intelligible and interesting to others. +He does not imagine that he can escape mistakes, and he will most +gladly submit himself to the correction of others who know better and +see more clearly than he does. He only begs that those who disagree +with his judgments will try to give him credit for a sincere desire to +be true to facts, and to welcome the light, from whatever quarter it +may have come. + +When we speak of the age that is passing, we shall have in mind what +may roughly be reckoned as the last hundred years. That space +includes, for those of us who are not in our first youth, the time of +our {10} parents, and even, it may be, of our grandparents. The period +has a certain distinctiveness of character in spite of superficial +diversities. It was marked, as we have said, by the intelligence and +vigour of its questionings. It was a time of intellectual movement and +turmoil. It witnessed a succession of wonderful discoveries leading on +to ever bolder investigations. Rapid generalisations were advanced, to +be often as quickly abandoned. Only by degrees was it possible to see +the new facts in their proper proportion and significance. Nor was it +at all easy for men to keep their discussions free from heat and +bitterness, when the most deeply-rooted convictions appeared to be +assailed, and the most sacred associations to be regarded as of little +account. Looking back, as we can, it is possible to see that in spite +of the eddies and backwaters a steady progress was made. And it is of +that progress that it will now be our endeavour to speak. + +We know how it has happened to us over and over again in our own +individual experiences to have been made conscious of a gradual +modification of our opinions as new evidence has reached us, and we +have had time to relate it to our previous understanding and knowledge. +We have had our first thoughts, and our second thoughts, and then there +have come third thoughts, which were the ripest {11} and soundest of +all. Just such a process of which we can mark the stages in ourselves +is to be seen on a larger scale--in bigger print, as it were--in the +thought movements of an age. In the case of the period which we are to +review, the three stages have been more than commonly clear, as we +shall aim to shew in the survey we are to make. + +We shall begin with the First thoughts, which were those of what may be +termed the older orthodoxy. These were very generally accepted; +indeed, they were regarded as for the most part beyond the reach of +serious contradiction. Then we shall pass to the Second thoughts, +which were forced upon an astonished and bewildered generation by the +onslaughts upon traditional views that were made from the side of +physical science. For fifty years or more the debate went on, with +challenge and counter-challenge, and much noise and dust of +controversy. They were great days, and in them great men fought with +great courage in great issues. We shall seek to do justice to both +sides, to those who dared to proclaim and suffer for the new, and to +those who shewed an equal courage in their resolute determination to be +loyal to what they held to be the truth of the old. + +Then, finally, it will be our difficult task to discriminate between +the surging thoughts of that {12} second period and those of the Third +stage, through which we are advancing, and to shew what can already be +made out of a common ground of agreement and co-operation, now much +more likely to be reached than could at one time have been foreseen by +the most optimistic imagination. + + + + +{13} + +CHAPTER I + +THE OLDER ORTHODOXY + +Never had there been greater unanimity of opinion in England in regard +to the religious interpretation of the world than that which prevailed +at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The excesses on the +Continent which had accompanied the advocacy of free thought had +disposed men's mind to fall back upon authority, and most of all in +matters that affected the basis on which the continuance of social +order and moral conduct depended. The general position was clearly +apprehended, and was accepted as if beyond dispute. Men spoke and +thought of the Order of Nature. The world was a Cosmos, a regulated +system. Order implied an Orderer. It was regarded by them as obvious +that there must have been a First Cause, a great Architect and Maker of +the Universe. They agreed with Aquinas that "things which have no +perception can only tend toward an end if directed by a conscious and +intelligent being. Therefore there is an {14} Intelligence by which +all natural things are ordered to an end."[1] They were fully prepared +to endorse the indignant protest of Bacon: "I had rather believe all +the folly of the 'Legend,' and the 'Talmud,' and the 'Alcoran,' than +that this universal frame is without a mind."[2] In fact no other +hypothesis seemed to them thinkable. + +If at any time they felt a need for a more elaborate justification of +their conviction, they had it ready to their hand in the familiar +argument from design. Paley, when he set this out in his famous +_Natural Theology_ (1802), was only expressing with conspicuous ability +the view that was then accepted in all circles from the highest to the +lowest. He was preaching to those who were already in the fullest +accord with his doctrine. They followed with eager approbation his +reasoning about the watch that he supposed himself to have found on the +heath. According to his assumption he had never seen a watch made, nor +known of anyone capable of making such a thing. He concludes, +nevertheless, that it must have been made by someone. "There must have +existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or +artificers who formed it for {15} the purpose which we find it actually +to answer; who comprehended its structure, and designed its use." +"Neither would it invalidate our conclusion that the watch sometimes +went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the +machinery, the design and the designer, might be evident in whatever +way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we +could account for it at all." "Nor would it bring any uncertainty into +the argument if there were a few parts of the watch concerning which we +could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they +conducted to the general effect; or even some parts concerning which we +could not ascertain whether they conducted to that effect in any manner +whatever." Least of all could it be sufficient to explain that the +watch was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic +nature." "It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the +efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, +for it is only the mode according to which our agent proceeds: it +implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power +acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct +from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing." + +From the watch we are led on to the eye, which exhibits a skill of +design not less, but far greater, {16} than that of the man who gave us +the telescope. Then follows a detailed examination of the use of the +various bodily organs, the contrivances to be met with in vegetables +and animals, the marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the +provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; +with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions--the long +neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, +the sting of the bee--all furnishing an ever accumulating body of +irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an +intelligent Author of Nature. + +That these arrangements had been expressly intended to meet the +circumstances of each particular case was assumed as necessarily +involved in the acceptance of any design at all. It is interesting to +observe that Paley did not think it improbable that the Deity may have +committed to another being--"nay, there may be many such agents and +many ranks of them"--the task of "drawing forth" special creations out +of the materials He had made and in subordination to His rules. This, +he thought, might in some degree account for the fact that contrivances +are not always perfected at once, and that many instruments and methods +are employed. + +{17} + +Of the goodness of the Creator no manner of doubt was entertained. For +proof of it attention was called to the fact that "in a vast plurality +of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the +contrivance is beneficial," and to the further fact that "the Deity has +superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for +any other purposes or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, +might have been effected by the function of pain." Venomous animals +there were, no doubt, but the fang and the sting "may be no less +merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer"; and it was to +be noted "that whilst only a few species possess the venomous property, +that property guards the whole tribe." Then again, before we condemn +the ordering whereby animals devour one another we must consider what +would happen if they did not. "Is it to see the world filled with +drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, +that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?" "A hare, +notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as +playful an animal as any other." "It is a happy world after all. The +air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring +noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of +happy beings crowd upon my {18} view. 'The insect youth are on the +wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. +Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, +their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their +joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered +faculties.... The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are +equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety +of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the +offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them." Where +it might have been imagined that there were to be seen miscarriages of +the Creator's intentions, these were to be attributed to the presence +and influence of mysterious forces of evil. Such attempts to hinder or +frustrate the workings of good might be part of a purpose of good +because they only afforded fresh opportunities for a display of the +Divine wisdom, whose ordinary interventions were accepted as +Providences, whilst Miracles supplied the rarer exhibitions of its +power. + +For the rest, it was our duty to remember that such difficulties as +might still be felt must be largely the result of our ignorance. With +patience we should learn to know more. A day was coming when much that +is now hidden would be made clear, and when the greatness and wisdom +and justice {19} of the Almighty Ruler would be wonderfully and +fearfully revealed. + +It is not intended to suggest that there were no dissentients ready to +bring forward objections to these almost unanimously accepted +doctrines. We know that there were such, if only because it was deemed +worth while to argue against them. Kepler and Newton had stirred men's +minds by their account of the prodigious scale upon which the mechanism +of the Universe was constructed, and Laplace had already enunciated the +theory according to which the cosmic bodies were originally formed in +obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating +nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of +astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention +would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this +planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken +persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew that it +had no beginning and could have no end. + +Against both these objectors the irony and the oratory of a Chalmers +was directed with what was held to be overwhelming effect. If the +telescope had shewn us wonderful things, there was another instrument, +he said, which had been given to us {20} about the same time. If by +the telescope we had been led to see "a system in every star," it was +no less true that the microscope had disclosed "a world in every atom," +thus proving to us that "no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice +of the human eye, is beneath the notice of His regard." + +So again, in an oration upon "The constancy of Nature," the thesis is +most eloquently defended that "the strict order of the goodly universe +which we inhabit" is nothing else than "a noble attestation to the +wisdom and beneficence of its great Architect."[3] + +Little did men dream at that time of the wealth of other discoveries +that was soon to increase enormously the complexity of their problems; +or of the inferences that would be drawn from them with an ingenuity +and an assurance that would task to the utmost the ability and the +patience of the defenders of the old beliefs. + +It is of the new facts disclosed and of the further thoughts suggested +by them that we must next proceed to tell. + + + +[1] _Summa_, I., ii. 3. + +[2] Essay on "Atheism and Superstition." + +[3] _Astronomical Discourses_ (1817), pp. 80, 211. + + + + +{21} + +CHAPTER II + +THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY + +We find it hard to realise that not so very long ago the steam-engine +and the electric telegraph were unknown; and we are right when we say +that life must have worn a very different aspect in those days. It is +scarcely less difficult for us to realise the change that has been +wrought in men's thoughts since the time when the biological cell was +unrecognised, and the theory of evolution had not yet been formulated. +The rapidity with which advances of knowledge were made in the physical +sphere was astonishing, and it was only to be expected that they should +have seemed not a little bewildering. We must try to note the main +steps of the movement, giving the names of some of the representative +workers and thinkers. + +It is generally agreed that the foundations of modern chemistry were +laid by Dalton (1808). He it was who revived the old atomic theory, +and determined the weights of the atoms and the {22} proportions in +which they are combined into molecules--the smallest particles which +could exist in a free condition. By so doing he prepared the way for +the subsequent researches of Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell into the +properties of electricity and magnetism, and for the investigations by +Helmholtz and others into the connexion between electric attraction and +chemical affinities. + +The forerunner of the wonderful advances of modern biology was the +French naturalist Lamarck (1809), who, in opposition to the accepted +doctrine of separate creations, suggested that all the species of +living creatures, not excepting the human, have arisen from older +species in the course of long periods of time. The common parent forms +he held to have been simple and lowly organisms, and he accounted for +the gradual differentiation of types by the hypothesis that they were +the results of the inheritance of characteristics which had been +acquired by continued use--as, for example, in the case of the giraffe +who was supposed to have owed the length of its neck to the efforts of +its ancestors to browse upon trees that were just beyond their reach. +He maintained that the changes produced in the parents by temperature, +nutrition, repeated use or disuse, were inherited so that they +reappeared in their offspring. But the evidence adduced was {23} +judged to be insufficient, and the balance of scientific opinion was +decidedly against his views. + +Lyell (1830) gave a new direction to the science of geology by +accumulating evidence to prove the certainty of a natural and +continuous development in the formation of the crust of the earth, thus +opposing the catastrophic idea which had previously prevailed. One +outcome of his researches was to make it plain that the history of this +development must have extended over enormous tracts of time. + +More revolutionary still in its effects was the epoch-making discovery +of the protoplasmic cell as the common element of life in the plant and +animal world, made by the Germans Schleiden and Schwann (1838). It was +this that first bridged over what were held to be the fundamental +distinctions of animate nature, and made possible the conception of a +vital physical continuity which has since been accepted as an axiom of +biological science. + +By Joule's great discovery (1840) that the same amount of work, whether +mechanical or electrical, and however expended, always produced exactly +the same amount of heat--that, in effect, heat and work were equivalent +and interchangeable--the way was opened to the conclusion that the +total energy of the material universe is constant in amount through all +its changes. + +{24} + +A theory to account for the black lines crossing the coloured band of +light, or spectrum, which is obtained by passing sunlight through a +glass prism, originally suggested by Sir George Stokes, and +subsequently reintroduced and verified by the German chemists, Bunsen +and Kirchhoff, led to the important discovery that the sun and the +stars are constituted of the very same elements as those of the earth +beneath our feet. Spectrum analysis, moreover, soon detected new +elements, _e.g._, helium, so-called because first observed as existing +in the sun. + +But great and stimulating as these discoveries were, their effect upon +the thought of the age was not to be compared with that which was to be +exercised by a theory which, starting in the domain of biological +science, soon passed on to far more extended applications. The theory +took its rise from a suggestion made in two papers, by Charles Darwin +and Alfred Russel Wallace, which were read before the Linnean Society +on July 1st, 1858. + +The Darwinian theory--for so it was soon named--undertook to explain +the formation of species by the principle of natural selection through +the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life.[1] {25} Darwin +started from the admitted achievements of artificial selection; from +the results attained by nurserymen and cattle breeders, who, by +selecting the kinds they wished to perpetuate, had been able to vary +and improve their stocks. He conceived that a like process had been +carried on by Nature through vast spaces of time, and that it was this +picking, choosing, continuing and abandoning of traits and qualities +which had resulted in the preservation of the types which it had been +best to retain--the reason in all cases being the fitness to correspond +effectively to the conditions prescribed by environment. + +It is important to remember that Darwin never claimed that his doctrine +of evolution could account for the occurrence of variations. That it +could do so he expressly denied. "Some," he said, in his great work, +_The Origin of Species_ (1859) "have, even imagined that natural +selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation +of such variations as arise.... Unless such occur, natural selection +can do nothing." What he saw, and proved by an amazing wealth of +illustrative facts, was that any variation in structure or character +which gave to an organism ever so slight an advantage might determine +whether or not it would survive amid the fierce competition around it, +and whether {26} it would obtain a mate and produce offspring. He +shewed that all innate variations (which are to be distinguished from +the acquired characteristics upon the inheritance of which Lamarck had +depended) tend to be transmitted, so that in this manner a favourable +variation might be perpetuated, and in time a new species be developed. + +Simple as this account of the matter sounds when once it has been +clearly stated, the discovery--for such it was--opened an entirely new +chapter in the history of science, inasmuch as it completely +revolutionised the conceptions which had previously been entertained +with regard to the relationships and the progress of all living things. + +It was Darwinism, accordingly, that provided the principal subject of +the controversy which was waged between the upholders and the +assailants of the older opinions during the latter half of the +nineteenth century. + + + +[1] The actual phrase "Survival of the fittest" was Herbert Spencer's. +Darwin had spoken of "The preservation of favoured races." + + + + +{27} + +CHAPTER III + +THEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES + +We shall not exaggerate if we say that the chief interest aroused by +these discoveries was a theological interest. Of course the men of +science were keenly concerned to understand the new facts and the new +interpretations, and among them there were divided camps and serious +contentions. Sir Richard Owen, for instance, was a vigorous opponent +of Darwin's views. But we cannot think it surprising that the men of +religion should feel that their positions were not only being attacked, +but undermined; and that issues were being raised which were more vital +for them than for any other students of the problems of existence. + +When we thus speak of men of science and men of religion we do not mean +to imply that there were two distinct classes which could be sharply +divided. By no means. It was not so much that there were two camps as +that there were two positions, with much passing to and fro between +them, and the {28} keenest interest and anxiety felt on both sides as +to what the future might have to bring of widening divergence or +ultimate reconciliation. + +There could be no doubt at all that most formidable questions had to be +faced and answered. These were the chief of them:-- + +Is it any longer necessary, or even possible, to insist upon a First +Cause for all that exists? Can the argument from Design be said to +retain its validity as a proof of the working of a controlling Mind? +If we admit the evidence for the existence of a Creator, can we know +anything about Him? Can we, in particular, still assert with any +confidence that He is good? + +Let us take the questions in order and give the replies that were made +to them from the different sides. And, first of all, from the side of +negation. + +The number of those who directly denied that there must have been a +First Cause were very few. But there were many who did their utmost to +discredit the idea as due to what they held to be an illegitimate +deduction from our limited human experiences. Others were disposed to +quarrel with the word "Cause" altogether, and to dispute the propriety +of its employment. + +They wished to banish it altogether from the scientific vocabulary, and +to substitute for the terms {29} cause and effect, antecedent and +consequent, reducing causation to conjunction. But it was generally +admitted that, where we have to deal with an invariable antecedent +followed by an invariable consequent, nothing was to be gained by a +change in the common phraseology. John Stuart Mill refused to abandon +the word. Speaking of one who had done so, he said, "I consider him to +be entirely wrong." "The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a +Cause."[1] There were, he allowed, "permanent causes," but, he added, +"we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes"--which +was virtually to abandon the subject as being beyond the domain of +science. + +In regard to the second question, it very soon became evident that the +old views of Design would be subjected to the most incisive criticism. +To many it appeared as if the new doctrine of evolution had supplied an +explanation which left no room for the recognition of the particular +contrivances upon which Paley had constructed his argument. No one +asserted this more strongly than Haeckel, the German biologist. To +quote his words, "The development of the universe is a monistic +mechanical process, in which we discover no aim or purpose {30} +whatever; what we call design in the organic world is a special result +of biological agencies; neither in the evolution of the heavenly +bodies, nor in that of the crust of our earth, do we find any trace of +controlling purpose." "Nowhere in the evolution of animals and plants +do we find any trace of design, but merely the inevitable outcome of +the struggle for existence, the blind controller." "All is the result +of chance." We ought to add that he somewhat qualified this last +statement by explaining that "chance" itself must be considered as +coming under "the universal sovereignty of nature's supreme law."[2] + +It is not to be supposed that anyone was to be found who denied the +general intelligibility of Nature. To have done this would have been +to reduce science to an absurdity. Science is bound to proceed upon +the assumption that there are "reasons" for things. Moreover, there is +mind in man, who is part of the order of Nature. It follows that what +is in the part cannot be denied to the whole. All this could be freely +admitted. But then the question arose, Is mind the originating source +of the movements of matter, or is it not rather itself the product of +them? + +{31} + +There were those who did not shrink from affirming that matter produces +thought, even as the liver secretes bile. Others preferred to take +what seemed to be an intermediate course. They were not prepared to +give priority to either mind or matter. Thus Haeckel maintained that +matter and thought are only two different aspects, or two fundamental +attributes of an underlying something which he defined as "substance." +It was to the action of this universal substance that he imagined the +"monistic mechanical process" to be due. He went so far as to state +his conviction that not even the atom is without "a rudimentary form of +sensation and will."[3] + +In like manner Tyndall had claimed a two-sidedness for matter, and +traced all higher developments back to the side which held in it the +element of spirit and thought; while admitting that "the production of +consciousness by molecular action is quite as inconceivable on +mechanical principles as the production of molecular action by +consciousness."[4] + +The bearing of all this upon the question of Design was plain, for, if +thought and intention are the outcome and result of the mechanical +operations of Nature, it might well seem to follow that mind {32} had +been removed from its high place as the dominant and directing power. + +But these difficulties with which the theologian was thus confronted in +respect of a First Cause and the recognition of Design, were even less +formidable than those which were arrayed under the other heads that we +have enumerated. It was Huxley who invented the term Agnosticism to +describe the position of such of his contemporaries as were not +inclined to deny that there was a great Power at work behind the +phenomena of the Universe, but were not prepared to admit that this +Power could be any degree comprehensible by us. The most systematic +exponent of this view was Herbert Spencer. He allowed that we are +obliged to refer the phenomenal world and its law and order to a First +Cause. "And the First Cause," he said, "must be in every sense +perfect, complete, total--including within itself all power, and +transcending all law." But he insisted that, "it cannot in any manner +or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing."[5] Elsewhere he +suggested that it may belong to "a mode of being as much transcending +intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion." "Our only +conception of what we know as Mind in ourselves is the {33} conception +of a series of states of consciousness." "How," he asked, "is the +'originating Mind' to be thought of as having states produced by things +objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing +them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to +another."[6] It was by a similar line of reasoning that Romanes +reached the like conclusions.[7] "In my opinion," he said, "no +explanation of natural order can either be conceived or named other +than that of intelligence as the supreme directing cause." But "this +cause must be widely different from anything that we know of Mind in +ourselves." "If such a Mind exists, it is not conceivable as existing, +and we are precluded from assigning to it any attributes." + +It was obvious that, if no satisfactory reply were forthcoming to such +a contention, the very word Theology must be discarded, since there +would be no longer any need for it, or justification of its use. + +But there was yet a further criticism that was supposed by not a few to +complete the discomfiture of those who still clung to the traditional +beliefs. We can find it forcibly expressed in one of the earlier +writings of Romanes, who in this case was endorsing the verdict of +Mill. "Supposing the Deity to be {34} omnipotent, there can be no +inference more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for +whatever ends designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of +beneficence in the divine character than that which we know in any, the +very worst, of human characters. For let us pause for one moment to +think of what suffering in Nature means. Some hundreds of millions of +years ago, some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to +have become sentient. Since that time till the present there must have +been millions and millions of generations of millions and millions of +individuals. And throughout all this period of incalculable duration, +this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have been in a state of +unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find +that more than one-half of the species which have survived the +ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient +forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and +talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for +torment--everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, sickness, with oozing +blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence +that dimly close in deaths of cruel torture!"[8] + +{35} + +Huxley, arguing to the same effect, concluded that "since thousands of +times a minute, were our ears sharp enough, we should hear sighs and +groans of pain like those heard by Dante at the gate of hell, the world +cannot be governed by what we call benevolence."[9] + +Haeckel went so far as to propose to describe by the term +"dysteleology" that part of the science of Biology which collected the +facts that gave direct contradiction to the idea of beneficial +"purposive arrangement." + +Such were the difficulties which loomed largest before the minds of +vast numbers of thinking men and women, and did much to shake the +general confidence in religion, in the years that followed the +discoveries which culminated in the Darwinian theory of evolution. It +must not be supposed that these thoughts were lightly entertained, nor +may we imagine that they gave no distress to those who sincerely +believed that they were bound to accept what seemed to be their +inevitable consequences. To quote again from the _Candid Examination_ +of Romanes, we may take it that he was speaking for many others when he +said, "Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who +affirm {36} that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a desirable +substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to +confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has +lost its soul of loveliness; and although, from henceforth the precept +'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force +from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 'that the night +cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at +times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of +that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as +now I find it--at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid +the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible." + + + +[1] _Logic_, Chap. V. + +[2] _The Riddle of the Universe_, Chaps. XIV, XV. + +[3] Chap. XII. + +[4] _Fragments of Science_, p. 222. + +[5] _First Principles_, i., pp. 33-39. + +[6] _Essays_, Vol. III., pp. 246, f. + +[7] In an essay written before 1889. + +[8] _A Candid Examination of Theism_ (1876), pp. 171, f. + +[9] _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1888. + + + + +{37} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS + +It must not be imagined that all the arguments were on one side. Far +from it. The defenders of the old faith were many, and not the least +able of them were drawn from the ranks of the men of science. The list +of scientific leaders who avowedly ranged themselves on the Christian +side, if it were made out, would be a long one. It would include +distinguished names such as those of Faraday, Joule, the Duke of +Argyll, Lord Kelvin, Stokes, Tait, Adams, Clerk Maxwell, Salmon, +Cayley, and Pasteur. And others would have to be added who, after +contending for a while as materialists or agnostics, ultimately changed +their attitude and joined the supporters of Theism. Haeckel frankly +admitted that there were such defaulters from his cause in Germany, +giving the names of "two of the most famous of living scientists, R. +Virchow and E. Du Bois Raymond," amongst others. On the other hand he +recommended his readers to study "the profound work of Romanes," {38} +without, it would seem, being aware of the transformation that took +place in that thinker's opinions towards the end of his life. + +We have now to indicate the nature of the replies that were made to the +difficulties of which we spoke in our last chapter. Let us follow the +order in which they were presented. + +About the necessity for a First Cause not much had to be said. Even if +the whole course of organic development could be proved to have been +continuous without a break from the first movements of matter, through +all the changes of physical life, up to the highest exhibition of human +powers--and no one ventured to say that this had been proved--there +would still be the necessity for an initial impulse to set the process +in action. Spencer, as we have seen, declared that there must have +been a First Cause, and Tyndall agreed that "the hypothesis" of +Evolution "does nothing more than transport the conception of life's +origin to an indefinitely distant past."[1] + +Darwin himself never hesitated on this point. "The theory of +evolution," he insisted, "is quite compatible with the belief in +God."[2] The words which he expressly added to the conclusion of the +{39} _Origin of Species_ are well known. After describing once again +the production of the innumerable forms of being as the result of +natural selection, he said: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, +with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator +into a few forms or into one." + +It is well also to keep on record the striking dictum of Lord Kelvin, +addressed to the students of University College.[3] "Science," he told +them, "positively affirmed creative power." + +It will be remembered that we quoted Mill as speaking of "permanent +causes." We may be grateful to him for the suggestion. We could not +readily think of a better term than the great "Permanent Cause" by +which to describe, in modern language, the "I AM" of the Biblical +Theology.[4] + +But, if on this point there was no serious conflict of opinion, it was +otherwise in regard to the next. Here it did look as if the new +discoveries might have {40} changed the whole situation. Huxley +acknowledged that what struck him most forcibly on his first perusal of +the Origin of Species, was that "teleology, as commonly understood, had +received its death-blow at Mr. Darwin's hands."[5] But Huxley was a +born fighter, and he could turn his weapons with facility and effect +against his friends when he thought they had overstated their case. It +is interesting to find him, in 1867, criticising Haeckel for his +repudiation of the principle of Design. + +"The Doctrine of Evolution," he says, "is the most formidable opponent +of the commoner and coarser forms of teleology." + +"The teleology which supposes that the eye such as we see it in man, or +one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise structure it +exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to +see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless, it is +necessary to remember that there is a wider teleology which is not +touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the +fundamental proposition of evolution." Then, referring to the appeal +which had been made to the existence of rudimentary organs as +discrediting teleology, he says in his {41} characteristic way: "Either +these rudiments are of no use to the animals, in which case they ought +to have disappeared; or they are of some use to the animal, in which +case they are of no use as an argument against teleology."[6] + +Darwin himself felt the grave difficulty in which the ordinary +arguments had become involved; but he was most unwilling to abandon his +belief in Design. + +"The old argument from design in nature as given by Paley," he wrote, +"which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails now that the law of +natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, +for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been +made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by a man." On +the other hand, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there are +"endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere meet with,"[7] and +to the further fact that "the mind refuses to look at this universe, +being what it is, without having been designed."[8] + +A few years later, when Dr. Asa Gray had sent him from America a review +in which he had written of "Mr. Darwin's great service to natural +science {42} in bringing back teleology," on the ground that in +Darwinism usefulness and purpose come to the front again as working +principles of the first order, Darwin replied, "What you say about +teleology pleases me especially."[9] Later still, in 1878, Romanes +sent him a copy of his _Candid Examination_. Darwin in his letter of +acknowledgment wrote more than half seriously, in the person as it were +of an imaginary correspondent, to this effect: + +"I should like to hear what you would say if a theologian addressed you +as follows: + +"'I grant you the attraction of gravity, persistence of force (or +conservation of energy), and one kind of matter, though the latter is +an immense addition, but I maintain that God must have given such +attributes to this force, independently of its persistence, that under +certain conditions it develops or changes into light, heat, +electricity, galvanism, perhaps into life. + +"'You cannot prove that force (which physicists define as that which +causes motion) would invariably thus change its character under the +above conditions. Again, I maintain that matter, though it may be in +the future eternal, was created by God with the most marvellous +affinities, leading to {43} complex definite compounds, and with +polarities leading to beautiful crystals, etc., etc. You cannot prove +that matter would necessarily possess these attributes. Therefore you +have no right to say that you have "demonstrated" that all natural laws +necessarily follow from gravity, the persistence of force, and +existence of matter. If you say that nebulous matter existed +aboriginally and from eternity, with all its present complex powers in +a potential state, you seem to me to beg the whole question.' + +"Please observe it is not I, but a theologian, who has thus addressed +you, but I could not answer him."[10] + +The alternatives to Design, _i.e._, to the recognition of directive +activity, would be Necessity or Chance. From both of these the deepest +instincts of humanity--which in such matters are as fully to be relied +on as its logical faculty--strongly recoil. No one has spoken out more +strongly about the first than Huxley did. + +"What is the dire necessity and 'iron' law under which you groan?" he +asks. "Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there +be an 'iron' law, it is that of gravitation; and if {44} there be a +physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the +ground.... But when, as commonly happens, we change _will_ into +_must_, we introduce an idea of necessity which most assuredly does not +lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover. +For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematise the intruder.... The +notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the +perfectly legitimate conception of law; the materialistic position that +there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as +utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological +dogmas."[11] + +But a dogma of Necessity would be more tolerable than a doctrine of +Chance. In Lord Kelvin's address, to which reference has been made, he +declared his conviction that "directive power" was "an article of +belief which science compelled him to accept." + +There was nothing, he said, between such a belief and the acceptance of +the theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. And, in a letter to the +_Times_ justifying this assertion, he told how forty years before he +had asked Liebig, when walking with him in the country, whether he +believed that the grass {45} and flowers they saw around them "grew by +mere chemical forces." "No," he answered, "no more than I could +believe that a book of botany describing them could grow by mere +chemical forces." + +Discussions may continue as to whether what Huxley called "the wider +teleology," or some other form of the doctrine of Design is to be +preferred; but thoughtful men are likely to agree with the judgment +given by Sir George Stokes--that recognised master of masters--when he +said: "We meet with such overwhelming evidence of design, of purpose, +especially in the study of living things, that we are compelled to +think of mind as being involved in the constitution of the +universe."[12] + + + +[1] _Fragments of Science_, p. 166. + +[2] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 307. + +[3] May 2nd, 1903. + +[4] The debate as to the accuracy of the Mosaic account of Creation +does not come directly within the scope of our survey; but, +nevertheless, it may be worth while to recall the following statement +in view of the very confident assertions that have often been made, by +no less an authority than Romanes. "The order in which the flora and +fauna are said by the Mosaic account to have appeared upon the earth +corresponds with that which the theory of evolution requires and the +evidence of geology proves."--(_Nature_, August 11th, 1881.) + +[5] _Lay Sermons_. + +[6] _Critiques and Addresses_, pp. 305, 308. + +[7] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 309. + +[8] I., p. 314. + +[9] _Life and Letters_, III., p. 189. + +[10] _Life and Letters_ of Romanes, pp. 88. + +[11] Essay on "The Physical Basis of Life" (1868). + +[12] _Gifford Lectures_ (1891), p. 196. + + + + +{46} + +CHAPTER V + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) + +But though Materialism had to go, there was a time when it seemed to +many by no means unlikely that Agnosticism might have to be accepted as +its substitute. And if that had been so the case would have been +scarcely less desperate. We might have been left with a philosophy of +a kind, but we should have been deprived of any object which could +evoke within our hearts the trust and affection that are needed to +sustain a religion. However, as it proved, there was no great cause +for fear. Agnosticism was subjected in its turn to the ordeal of +criticism, and the result proved that it had not in it the substance +and force that could give it any permanent hold upon the best +intelligence of the age. + +If Agnosticism could have been content to confine itself to positive +assertions, there might have been less cause to find fault with it. +But its name stood for negation, and its temper was in accord with its +name. The exponents of Agnosticism were not {47} satisfied with +affirming that the Power behind phenomena is beyond all thought +mysterious. They insisted that it is unknowable, and that not merely +in the sense that it is incomprehensible, not to be fully grasped, but +unknowable in the sense that nothing at all can be known about it. And +then, having laid down this as their fundamental principle, they +proceeded at once, with a strange inconsistency, to assert that we can +know what it is _not_. This above all else, they said, it is not: it +is not personal. True, Herbert Spencer maintained that it is as far +raised above personality as personality is raised above +unconsciousness; but the stress was laid not upon the affirmation of +super-personality, but upon the denial and rejection of anything like +personality as we understand it. + +The position was really untenable. Possibly, if we could detect no +more in Nature than power, we might be content, intellectually, to stop +at the affirmation of inscrutable force. But if there is also design, +then we are bound to go a step further. Bishop Harvey Goodwin +expressed this exactly when he said: "Purpose means person." No doubt +personality in the Creator must be something far higher and fuller than +personality in the creature. The German philosopher Lotze was speaking +the truth when he declared that "to all finite minds {48} there is +allotted but a pale copy" of personality; "the finiteness of the +finite," being "not a producing condition of personality," as has often +been maintained, "but a limit and hindrance of its development." +"Perfect personality," he said, "is in God alone."[1] + +To most of us it may sound paradoxical to urge that the full Christian +doctrine of the Three Persons in the Godhead is really less difficult +intellectually than the doctrine that the Divine Being consists of an +isolated unit. + +This was the contention of the Greek Fathers of the Church, whose acute +and subtle minds anticipated not a few of the objections which we have +had to encounter in our days. We cannot elaborate the statement +here,[2] but it is to the point to observe that the doctrine of the +Trinity in Unity removes from the Christian believer that which to +Spencer was one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the acceptance +of the idea of a Divine Personality; for it relieves him from the +necessity of imagining a subject without an object, since in the +Christian view the highest life in the universe is a social life, {49} +in which thought is for ever communicated with unbroken harmony of +feeling and will. + +But the inadequacy of Agnosticism was to be seen not only on the +intellectual side. Its practical effects were necessarily determined +by its negations. Since we could know nothing of the ultimate power, +it was plainly our wisdom to turn our attention elsewhere. It followed +that, if morality was to be upheld, it must be based upon other than +the familiar sanctions. For awhile it was enthusiastically promised +that this could and should be done. But the event proved otherwise. +Towards the end of his life, Herbert Spencer was constrained to admit +this. "Now that ... I have succeeded in completing the second volume +of _The Principles of Ethics_ ... my satisfaction is somewhat dashed by +the thought that these new parts fall short of expectation. The +doctrine of Evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent that I +had hoped."[3] + +And this moral failure of the system pointed yet deeper to its +essential weakness. It deliberately ignored the profoundest needs and +capacities of our nature. The need is the need for God, and for One +who, though greatly above us, is yet within our reach, and ready to +give us His friendship. "Thou {50} hast made us for Thyself, and our +heart is restless until it rests in Thee." That cry of St. Augustine +has found its echo in unnumbered souls, and our humanity will never be +satisfied while it is offered no more than an impalpable abstraction +for the contentment of its craving. + +Allusion has been made to the fact that Romanes in his latter days was +led to abandon the negative attitude which he had taken in his earlier +life. The story of the change is to be found as told by himself in the +volume of _Life and Letters_ edited by his widow, and in the _Notes_ +which he left behind him. These he had written in preparation for a +book which was to have been entitled: _A Candid Examination of +Religion_.[4] It is evident that no consideration weighed more with +him than this witness of the deeper needs of the soul. We have seen +with what sorrow he had accepted as a young man the conclusions to +which he had found himself driven when Theism seemed no longer a +possible belief. After his change he admitted that he had failed to +recognise an important element in his treatment of the problem. "When +I wrote the preceding treatise I {51} did not sufficiently appreciate +the immense importance of _human_ nature in any enquiry touching +Theism. But since then I have seriously studied anthropology +(including the science of comparative religions), psychology, and +metaphysics, with the result of clearly seeing that human nature is the +most important part of nature as a whole whereby to investigate the +theory of Theism."[5] + +The outcome of his study was to convince him of two things. The first +was that, "if the religious instincts of the human race point to no +reality as their object, they are out of analogy with all other +instinctive endowments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we never meet +with such a thing as an instinct pointing aimlessly."[6] And this +first conviction was only the preparation for a second. Speaking again +of his _Candid Examination of Theism_, he says: "In that treatise I +have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the +basal argument for my negative conclusion ... Reason is not the only +attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty which he habitually +employs for the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties +are of no less importance in their respective spheres, even of everyday +life; faith, trust, taste, etc., are {52} as needful in ascertaining +truth as to character, beauty, etc., as is reason."[7] + +He put the same thing with even more of the note of personal experience +when he wrote to Dean Paget of Christ Church within three months of his +death: "Strangely enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover +the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the +only means of research in regions transcendental."[8] In all this he +was following, as he knew, in the steps of Pascal, who had devoted the +whole of the first part of his treatise to the argument from the +condition of man's nature without God, and then had appealed to that +nature for its positive testimony to the reality of the spiritual. +"The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know." + +Agnosticism appeared dressed in the garb of an exceeding reverence, +but, on closer acquaintance, it became evident that its acceptance +would mean the cheapening of life by banishing from it the Divine +personality, and robbing the human of the qualities that give it its +greatest worth. Happily the disaster has been averted, and there are +not many now who would seriously undertake its defence. + + + +[1] _Microcosmus_ (E.T.), II., p. 688. + +[2] Those who may desire to see the matter clearly and ably handled +would do well to read the Essay on "The Being of God," in _Lux Mundi_, +by Aubrey Moore. + +[3] Preface, Vol. II. (1893). + +[4] These notes were sent by Mr. Romanes' desire after his death, in +1894, to Bishop Gore, and have been published by him in a sixpenny +volume under the title of _Thoughts on Religion_. + +[5] P. 154. + +[6] P. 82. + +[7] Pp. 111, f. + +[8] Life and Letters, p. 375. + + + + +{53} + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_) + +We have still to see how the last of the difficulties of which we have +spoken was treated. It was a difficulty which could not be regarded +with indifference. For what would it avail to shew that men had a +right to cherish the belief in Power, and Purpose, and Personality, +unless they could also be assured that the Orderer of the world is +good? Nay, might they not feel, if there were no such assurance, that +it would be better to be altogether without His presence and influence? +On a matter so vital to happiness and well-being the mere possibility +of a doubt was torment enough. What was there to be said to bring +relief to the mind and heart when charges were made against the +benevolence and beneficence of Nature's ways? What satisfactory +account could be given of the waste and cruelty which were seen to +abound on every hand? The more clear the certainty that there is +design in the Universe, the more urgent became {54} the question as to +the character of that design, and of the motives that prompt it. + +So long as the difficulty remained unrelieved, the thoughts of many of +the most sensitive minds in regard to Theism were held in suspense. +The shadow of misgiving was felt to be creeping over the mind of the +age, like the gloom of an approaching eclipse, even before the arrival +of the Darwinian hypothesis. In words too well known to need +repeating, Tennyson had given utterance to the half-realised anxiety of +his contemporaries in the stanzas of his _In Memoriam_, published in +1850. + +What the finer spirits were already beginning to feel was soon to be +proclaimed, in terms which could not fail to be understood by the +multitude, as an inevitable truth brought to light by scientific +enquiry. We have seen how it was stated with the passion of eloquence +by Huxley and Romanes. And Darwin, with all his detachment and +philosophic calm, was at times deeply affected by the seriousness of +the problem which he had done so much to bring into prominence. It is +plain that he did his very utmost to retain the hopeful view, and to +put the most consoling interpretation he could upon the disquieting +facts. + +He had no difficulty in shewing that the wholesale destruction of +living organisms was imperatively {55} necessary. "There is no +exception to the rule," he said, "that every organic being naturally +increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would +soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair."[1] + +The truth of this has been demonstrated again and again. A pair of +rabbits, for example, would in the most favourable circumstances +increase in four or five years to a million. The roe of a cod may +contain eight or nine millions of eggs. More appalling still, the +female of the common flesh fly will at one time deposit 20,000 eggs. +At this rate of increase it has been calculated that, in less than a +year, a single pair would produce enough flies, if these were not +devoured by their natural foes, to cover the whole surface of the globe +to the depth of a mile and a quarter! But all this does not, of +course, make it clear why in a beneficently ordered world such a +necessity of slaughter should ever have been allowed to arise. + +Darwin, as we have said, tried hard to take the most favourable view of +the whole process. He thus concluded his chapter on the struggle for +existence; "When we reflect on the struggle, we may console ourselves +with the full belief that {56} the war of nature is not incessant, that +no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, +the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." And these are the +words with which he concluded the _Origin of Species_: "Thus from the +war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are +capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, +directly follows." + +But a year or two later he shewed that his mind was by no means at rest +on the matter, by writing in this strain to his friend Asa Gray: + +"I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish +to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There +seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself +that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the +Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the +living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.... +I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, +with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what +we may call chance. Not that this notion _at all_ satisfies me.... +Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you +that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical."[2] + +{57} + +Happily there were others who were able to see their way somewhat +further than this. Romanes, in a paper which he read before the +Aristotelian Society in 1889, shewed that he was reconsidering his +position. He questioned whether the assertion, made by a speaker in a +previous discussion, that "the fair order of Nature is only acquired by +a wholesale waste and sacrifice," could be accepted as strictly true, +for "how can it be said that, in point of fact, there _has_ been a +waste, or _has_ been a sacrifice? Clearly such things can only be said +when our point of view is restricted to the means (_i.e._, the +wholesale destruction of the less fit); not when we extend our view to +what, even within the limits of human observation, is unquestionably +the _end_ (_i.e._, the causal result in an ever improving world of +types)."[3] + +He had intended to write more fully on the subject, but did not live to +do so. We only know that on the Sunday before his death he did express +to Bishop Gore his entire agreement with a statement that had been made +a short time before by Professor Knight, in his _Aspects of Theism_, to +the effect that "A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process +by which physical nature casts its weaker products {58} aside, etc."[4] +We cannot suppose that, if he had lived, he would have been content to +have left the argument thus. That the end justifies the means, is +scarcely a doctrine which can be accepted as the last word of an +ethical defence of the constitution of the world. + +No doubt there were further pleas to be put in, and we shall do well to +give them their full value. There is the contention that the pleasures +of life as a whole outweigh the sum of its evils. This was maintained, +and we need not hesitate to say successfully maintained, by Lord +Avebury, and not by him alone. Indeed Darwin had emphatically said, +"According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails."[5] Then there +has always been urged the undoubted fact that pain, if an evil, is yet +the minister of good. Browning's optimism may have carried him too far +when he laid it down that "when pain ends gain ends," but it is not to +be questioned that men have profited by sufferings, and that they have +had to thank their pains, if only because these have served to protect +them from yet greater misfortunes. There is a true wisdom in the moral +of the old fable of the blacksmith, who prayed to heaven that the fire +might not burn his fingers, to discover that as {59} a result it had +charred his hand to the bone. Medical science has had much to say with +regard to the salutary office of pain. It has gone so far as to assert +that, "the symptoms of disease are marked by purpose, and the purpose +is beneficent." Nay more, "the processes of disease aim not at the +destruction of life, but at the saving of it."[6] None the less, with +what might seem a splendid inconsistency, the medical profession +devotes itself untiringly to the alleviation of the symptoms and to the +eradication of disease. + +Again, we may be thankful to be assured that, whatever be the case with +man, the lower organisms feel pain less than he does, and much less +than he is often wont to imagine that they feel it. This has been +argued again and again by the veteran naturalist Wallace, whose right +to speak on the subject no one is likely to dispute. In his recently +published book, _The World of Life_, he has devoted a whole chapter to +answering the question, "Is Nature cruel?" and it is due to him, as +well as to the importance of the problem, that we should carefully note +what he has said. The following quotations may be taken as +sufficiently indicating his position. + +"The widespread idea of the cruelty of Nature is {60} almost wholly +imaginary."[7] "Our whole tendency to transfer _our_ sensations of +pain to the other animals is grossly misleading."[8] + +"No other animal _needs_ the pain-sensations that we need; it is +therefore absolutely certain--on principles of evolution--that no other +possesses such sensations in more than a fractional degree of ours."[9] + +"In the category of painless or almost painless animals, I think we may +place almost all aquatic animals up to fishes, all the vast hordes of +insects, probably all mollusca and worms; thus reducing the sphere of +pain to a minimum throughout all the earlier geological ages, and very +largely even now."[10] + +"The purpose and use of all parasitic diseases is to seize upon the +less adapted and less healthy individuals--those which are slowly dying +and no longer of value in the preservation of the species, and +therefore to a certain extent injurious to the race by requiring food +and occupying space needed by the more fit."[11] + +Speaking of "the vicious-looking teeth and claws of the cat tribe, the +hooked beak and prehensile talons of birds of prey, the poison fangs of +serpents, the stings of wasps and many others," Dr. Wallace {61} +writes; "The idea that all these weapons exist for the _purpose_ of +shedding blood or giving pain is wholly illusory. As a matter of fact, +their effect is wholly beneficent even to the sufferers, inasmuch as +they tend to the diminution of pain. Their actual purpose is always to +prevent the escape of captured food--of a wounded animal, which would +then, indeed, suffer _useless_ pain, since it would certainly very soon +be captured again and be devoured." "All conclusions derived from the +house-fed cat and mouse are fallacious."[12] Finally he concludes by +inveighing against "the ludicrously exaggerated view adopted by men of +such eminence and usually of such calm judgment as Huxley--a view +almost as far removed from fact or science as the purely imaginary and +humanitarian dogma of the poet: + + 'The poor beetle, that we tread upon, + In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great + As when a giant dies.' + + +Whatever the giant may feel, if the theory of Evolution is true, the +'poor beetle' certainly {62} feels an almost irreducible minimum of +pain, probably none at all."[13] + +We may add to all these considerations the further fact that we are +constantly finding out that things have their use which had been too +hastily assumed to be mere blots upon Nature. The desert and the +volcano, for instance, have often been regarded in that light. But we +have lately been assured that both are needed for the supply of +atmospheric dust, which is a necessary condition of the rain-fall; so +that they are really essential to life upon the planet. Beyond +question, then, there is very much to be said in mitigation of the +terrible difficulty occasioned by what appear to be the havoc and the +prodigality of Nature. + +And yet--when all has been said--a residuum does remain of inexplicable +misery and distress, and there are times when we are all of us +constrained to cry out with Darwin that it is "too much," and to ask +whether there is not some further clue to the mystery. And then it may +well be that there comes to our mind an answer that has been given from +the very first moment at which human beings have thought at all. It is +an answer which has seemed inevitable alike to the simplest and the +wisest. + +{63} + +Carlyle once told of two Scottish peasants who found themselves for the +first time at Ailsa Crag. They stared in astonishment at the great +sea-precipices. At last one said to the other: "Eh, Jock, Nature's +deevilish!"[14] That was the view taken by the primitive races of the +world, as their worships and incantations bore witness. It is a view +which cannot be lightly dismissed as having nothing at all in its +support. We may minimise the evil that is at work around and within us +as we will, but, when we have done our utmost, we shall be unlike the +vast majority of our race if we are not compelled to admit that there +is that in the world which it is quite impossible to ascribe to the +immediate action of an entirely good and beneficent God. + +Is it then to be thought incredible that the order of the world should +have been interfered with, at an early stage in its development, in +such a way that the disarrangement was left to work out its fatal +mischief by means of the very constancy of the great system of laws +which make for a regular development? How this might conceivably have +occurred has been set out by an anonymous writer in a remarkable book +which ought to be better known than it is. {64} It was published some +years ago,[15] and bears the suggestive title of _Evil and Evolution_. +The author maintains that the original motive in all living things was +self-preservation for self-realisation; and that this elementary law +was in itself necessary and good, the essential condition of progress. +But just as we to-day know well how hard it is to draw the line which +distinguishes a right self-seeking from the wrong, so it has been from +the outset. The distinction is a fine one, and the balance is easily +upset. We have but to suppose that this perversion of the right and +lawful happened at an early stage, to see that nothing more would have +been required to account for the subsequent heritage of woe.[16] After +speaking of the innocent "kind of comparative strife that we see in the +fields and forests around us," in which "there may be nothing that we +cannot reconcile with the perfect beneficence of the Great {65} +Designer and Creator," this writer goes on to say: "But the moment that +evolution has attained that point at which the struggle begins to +involve pain and unhappiness, it becomes quite another matter. The +moment that rudimentary but happy and congenial life begins to be +overshadowed by fear, or debased by conscious cruelty, the moment that +process of evolution begins to evolve not only cruel selfishness in its +most odious forms, but deceit and artifice and treacherous cunning in +the warfare which one animal wages with another, then I think you may +be certain of one of two things--either the Creator is not +all-benevolent, or that that scheme is somehow working out as He never +intended it should: there must have been some disturbing and hostile +influence."[17] + +This is well put, but the interest of the book chiefly consists in its +attempts to show in detailed instances how things that are evil may +have been made so. The author boldly argues that, if the normal course +had been followed, "birds and beasts of prey and venomous reptiles +would never have been evolved." "Evolutionists," he says, "are agreed +that it is just the fierce struggle of created things that has produced +these birds and beasts of prey, and that there can be {66} little doubt +that it is the malignity of the struggle that has produced the venom of +so many reptiles."[18] Instances are given in which such venom may now +be developed as the result of rage or terror in an otherwise harmless +animal. + +"A few years ago it was reported that the late M. Pasteur 'cultivated' +the poison of human saliva to such a point that he was able to produce +with it many of the effects of the most virulent snake poisons."[19] +Had they not been inflamed by the terror of the struggle for existence, +"tigers and hyaenas, vultures and sharks, ferrets and polecats, wasps +and spiders, puff-adders and skunks" might have turned their undoubted +abilities in other more desirable directions.[20] Again, "it is the +perpetual effort, generation after generation, through long ages, to +repair the mischief inflicted by enemies," that accounts for "the +fecundity of the codfish and other creatures. The more prolific it +becomes, the more enemies it can feed; and the more they multiply, the +more prolific it grows." A vicious circle indeed! Even "earthquakes, +storms, droughts, deluges," are explained as due to a certain want of +balance and failure in adjustment.[21] + +Certainly, if we had to choose between the idea {67} of a careless or +indifferent God, and the belief in a God who has given us ample proofs +of a generally beneficent purpose, but who has, for reasons of the +meaning of which we as yet can have only the vaguest conceptions, +allowed Himself to be hindered and thwarted on the way to His goal, +with results of suffering to Himself even greater than those endured by +His creatures; if these were the alternatives before us, there can +scarcely be one of us who would hesitate to say towards which of them +his reason and conscience would confidently point him. + + + +[1] _Origin of Species_, Chap. III. + +[2] _Life and Letters_. + +[3] _Thoughts on Religion_, pp. 92, f. + +[4] p. 94. + +[5] _Life and Letters_, I., p. 309. + +[6] Address by Sir Frederick Treves at the Edinburgh Philosophical +Institution, October, 1905. + +[7] p. 380. + +[8] p. 377. + +[9] p. 381. + +[10] p. 375. + +[11] p. 383. + +[12] p. 377. Among the illustrations that have been adduced of the +insensibility of the lower organisms, none perhaps is more +extraordinary than this: "A crab will continue to eat, and apparently +relish, a smaller crab while being itself slowly devoured by a larger +one!"--(Transactions of Victoria Institute, Vol. XXV., p. 257). + +[13] p. 384. + +[14] William Allingham's _Diary_, p. 226. + +[15] In 1896, by Messrs. Macmillan. + +[16] In one instance, at least, Darwin had pictured in his imagination +the steps by which a "strange and odious instinct" may have been +developed from comparatively innocent beginnings. He was referring to +the ejection by the young cuckoo of its companions from the nest. "I +can see no special difficulty in its having gradually acquired, during +successive generations, the blind desire, the strength and structure +necessary for the work of ejection." "The first step towards the +acquisition of the proper instinct might have been mere unintentional +restlessness on the part of the young bird."--_Origin of Species_, p. +200. + +[17] Pp. 135, f. + +[18] P. 142. + +[19] P. 143. + +[20] P. 144. + +[21] P. 232. + + + + +{68} + +CHAPTER VII + +LATER SCIENCE + +The position, as we have described it, was that which may be said to +have existed up to about twenty years ago. Since then much new light +has come. Indeed, Lord Kelvin, speaking at Clerkenwell on February +26th, 1904, is reported in _The Times_ to have said, referring to the +extraordinary progress of scientific research, that it "had, perhaps, +been even more remarkable and striking at the beginning of the +twentieth century than during the whole of the nineteenth." + +Let us take first that which he had more particularly in mind, the +advance in the knowledge of the constitution of Matter. + +In an address delivered before the British Association at Bradford in +1873, Clerk Maxwell had stated the conclusions to which science had, up +to that time, been led in its investigations of matter. Throughout the +natural universe it had been shewn, by Spectrum Analysis, that matter +is built up of {69} molecules. These molecules, according to the most +competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of +substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule +of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes +its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts +and movements of the planetary systems may and do change, but "the +molecules--the foundation-stones of the natural universe--remain +unbroken and unworn." + +As a result of this, it was maintained that "the exact equality of each +molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel +has well said, the essential character of being a manufactured article, +and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent." "Not +that science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a +molecule which she cannot take to pieces ... but, in tracing back the +history of matter, science is arrested when she assures herself, on the +one hand, that the molecule has been made, and on the other that it has +not been made by any of the processes we call natural." + +So the case had stood for some while until science, through its +indefatigable inquirers, shewed that it was in very deed "not debarred +from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule," nor, perhaps, from +taking it to pieces. In 1895 came the {70} discovery of the X-rays by +Roentgen in Germany, to be followed in a year by Becquerel's discovery +of spontaneous radio-activity, and in a couple of years by the +remarkable further discovery, made by Madame Curie, of what was termed +"radium," a substance that went on producing heat _de novo_, keeping +itself permanently at a higher temperature than its surroundings, and +spontaneously producing electricity. + +This in itself was a new fact of extraordinary interest. For long, +discussion had been waged between two departments of scientific +inquirers. The geologists and biologists had demanded hundreds, and +perhaps thousands, of millions of years to allow for the developments +with which they were concerned. The physicists, led by Lord Kelvin, +refused to admit the demand, claiming that it could be proved +mathematically that it was impossible that the sun could have been +giving out heat at its present rate for more than a hundred million +years, at the very outside. The appearance of radium robbed this +argument of its cogency. It is true that an examination of the sun's +spectrum has not, as yet, revealed any radium lines, but it is well +known that helium, a transformation product of radium, is present in it. + +And this modification of our views as to the {71} probable age of our +solar system was far from being the only result of this latest +discovery. Investigations which followed into radio-activity led the +Cambridge professors, Larmor and Thomson, to conclude that electricity +existed in small particles, which were called "electrons."[1] These +seem to be the ingredients of which atoms are made. A molecule is +composed of two or more atoms. That of hydrogen, for example, has two; +that of water three; and so on up to a thousand or more. + +Molecules are very small. If a drop of water were magnified to the +size of the globe, the molecules would be seen to be less than the size +of a cricket ball! + +Atoms are much smaller. "The atoms in a drop of water outnumber the +drops in an Atlantic Ocean." Electrons are much smaller still--about +"a thousand-million-million times smaller than atoms."[2] + +Within the atom thousands or tens of thousands of these electrons are +moving in orderly arrangement, at terrific speed, round and about one +another. The amount of energy required to build up a molecule of any +degree of complexity is very great, and it is {72} by the breaking down +of complex molecules into simple ones that all our mechanical work is +done. And this is not all, for not only can the molecule be thus +broken in pieces, but the atom itself is capable of disintegration. +"Although we do not know how to break atoms up, they are liable every +now and then themselves to explode, and so resolve themselves into +simpler forms." "Atoms of matter are not the indestructible and +immutable things they were once thought."[3] The idea of the amount of +energy thus revealed as available for all kinds of active work is so +vast as to baffle calculation and even imagination. It has been said +that there is energy enough in fifteen grains of radium, if it could +all be set free at once, to blow the whole British Navy a mile high +into the air. The thought that we are thus encompassed on every side +by pent up potentialities of force, which if uncontrolled might at any +moment work our destruction, may well deepen in us the sense of the +need, not only for an originating, but for a continually directing mind +to superintend the conduct of the universe. + +We have referred to more than one change of view to which the new +discoveries have led. We shall doubtless find that there are other +scientific theories {73} which will have ere long to be modified. +Already it is recognised that the arguments of Lord Kelvin (he was then +Sir William Thomson) and of Clerk Maxwell, which were based upon +calculations as to the "dissipation of energy," can scarcely remain +unaffected by what we now know, and suspect, of the crumbling and +re-forming of atoms. + +And there are hints abroad of even more revolutionary suggestions. If +there has been one principle more imperatively and unanimously insisted +upon than another, it has been the uniformity of Nature's laws. What +then are we to make of a remark like the following, made by Professor +J. J. Thomson, perhaps only half-seriously, to the British Association +at Cambridge, in 1904? "There was one law," he said, "which he felt +convinced nobody who had worked on this question"--the radio-activity +of matter--"would ever suggest, and that was the constancy of Nature." + +Not less startling is it to be told that a question may yet be raised +which will challenge "the conception of a luminiferous aether, which +for half a century has dominated physical science. It is possible," so +we are informed, "that the field of electro-magnetic energy surrounding +an electric charge in motion moves with it, and that the vibrations of +light travel through this moving {74} field, instead of through an +ocean of stagnant aether."[4] + +One further quotation of singular interest may be added. It is taken +from an address to students by the President of the Institution of +Mining and Metallurgy.[5] + +"Twenty years ago," he said, "the idea held that inorganic chemistry +was almost a dead science--dead in the sense of being apparently +completed in many of its aspects, and that its records could be safely +confided to the encyclopaedia.... A modified conception of life is now +becoming co-extensive with the whole range of our experience. Even a +simple inorganic crystal does not spring ready formed from its solvent, +but first passes through phases of granulation and striation comparable +with those which characterise the beginnings of vital growth. Metals +exhibit in some respects phenomena similar to those possessed by +organised beings. Thus, they show fatigue under long continued stress, +and they recover their strength with rest. They are also susceptible +to certain of the poisons which destroy organic life. Matter, broadly, +is no longer merely dead masonry from which the edifice to shelter life +{75} is constructed, but also appears to be the reservoir of that +energy which is developed, altered and drawn into vitality itself.... +The indestructibility of matter bids fair to become relegated to the +museum of outworn theories; and with it will probably go our present +conceptions as to the conservation of energy." + +It is clear, then, that the tasks awaiting the students of physical +science are likely to be as arduous, and we may hope as full of reward, +as they have been at any time in the past. Meanwhile, it does look as +if there were truth in Mr. Balfour's remark that "Matter is not merely +explained, but is explained away."[6] + + + +[1] The weighing and measuring of the electron were first announced by +Professor Thomson to the British Association meeting at Dover, in 1899. + +[2] Sir Oliver Lodge. + +[3] Sir Oliver Lodge. _Life and Matter_, p. 28. + +[4] Whetham. _The Foundations of Science_, p. 50. + +[5] H. L. Sulman, at the Sir John Cass Institute, November 29th, 1911. + +[6] Presidential Address to British Association, 1904. + + + + +{76} + +CHAPTER VIII + +LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) + +We have spoken of what science has recently been doing in the +investigation of the constitution of matter; we have now to talk of its +researches into the nature of Life. + +The discovery that all plant and animal life is developed from living +cells was made, as we have already stated, more than seventy years ago. +Since then our knowledge of the formation and history of these cells +has been continually growing. The size of cells varies, but as a rule +they are very minute. They consist of what is termed protoplasm. At +one time it was supposed that protoplasm was structureless. Now it is +known that the protoplasmic cell contains a nucleus and a surrounding +body. Moreover, the nucleus, or small spot in the centre, has within +it a spiral structure of a very complicated kind. Every cell is +derived from a pre-existing cell by a process of division, the two +resulting cells being apparently identical with the parent cell. {77} +The cells possess the power of assimilating other cells or fragments of +cells. As they grow they move and go in search of food and light and +air and moisture. They exhibit feeling, and shrink as if in pain. +Spots specially sensitive to vibrations become eyes and ears; and thus +the various organs and faculties are evolved under the stimulating +influence of environment. The progress, so far as it is physical, can +be traced from the lowest blue-green algae right up to man. And all +throughout, in so far as their chemical composition is concerned, the +constituent elements of the living structure are the same. It is said +to be practically impossible to distinguish between the cells of a +toadstool and those of a human being. + +But when all this has been explained, we have still left one great +question unanswered. How is the protoplasm made? Is there any +connexion of development to be traced whereby life can be shewn to have +arisen from inorganic matter? Protoplasm, under analysis, is found to +consist of some of the commonest elements on the earth's surface, such +as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Apart from its +very complicated structure, its contents are not hard to provide. And +we know that there was a time when it must of necessity have been +formed out of that which was not living, {78} for there was a time when +our globe was in a state of incandescent heat in which no life that we +know could possibly have existed. More than this we cannot say. Sir +William Thomson, as President of the British Association in 1871, +suggested that a germ of life might have been wafted to our world on a +meteorite; but to say that is obviously only to banish the problem to a +greater distance.[1] + +Huxley had, in 1868, invented the name "Bathybius" to describe the +deep-sea slime which he held to be the progenitor of life on the +planet. But later on he frankly confessed that his suggestion was +fruitless, acknowledging that the present state of our knowledge +furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living. + +And so the problem remains. Sir Edward Schaefer, indeed, has laid it +down that "we are compelled to believe that living matter must have +owed its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been +instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the universe; in +other words, to {79} a process of gradual evolution,"[2] but he can +throw no further light on the process and its stages. + +Sir Oliver Lodge is but speaking the admitted truth when he says that +"Science, in chagrin, has to confess that hitherto in this direction it +has failed. It has not yet witnessed the origin of the smallest trace +of life from dead matter."[3] + +No doubt there are many who are hopeful that it may yet be possible to +discover a way by which a cell, discharging all the essential functions +of life, can be constructed out of inorganic material; or, at least, +that it may be possible to frame an intelligible hypothesis as to how +this might have been done under conditions which long ago may have been +more favourable than our own. But, on the other hand, there are not a +few who have quite deliberately abandoned any expectation of the kind. +This was made plain by some of the expressions of adverse opinion which +were elicited by Sir Edward Schaefer's address. Of these the following +may be given as specimens: "The more they saw of the lower forms of +life, the more remote seemed to become the possibility of conceiving +how life arose."[4] + +{80} + +"He could not imagine anything happening in the laboratory, according +to our present knowledge, which would bring us any nearer to life."[5] + +"Living protoplasm has never been chemically produced. The assertion +that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes alone is quite +unjustified. Neither the probability of such an origin, nor even its +possibility, has been supported by anything which can be termed +scientific fact or logical reasoning."[6] + +"The phenomena of life are of a character wholly different from those +which are presented by matter viewed under any other aspect, +mechanical, electrical, chemical, or what not. It is beside the +question to point to the fact that in Nature 'new elements are making +their appearance and old elements disappearing,' for though we may +speculate as to the manner of formation of uranium and thorium, and +though the production of radio-active matters in Nature at the present +time and always seems to be a well-established fact, such phenomena +have not even an analogy with those of a living being, however +humble."[7] + +It cannot be surprising that those who believe {81} the door to be +shut, so to speak, in the direction of any theory of development +through mechanical and chemical agencies alone, should look elsewhere +for the solution of a problem which science is bound to do its very +utmost to solve. This is what, as a matter of fact, is happening; and +it is of the very deepest interest to observe the nature of the +suggested explanation. It is no other than a revived form of the +ancient doctrine of a "vital force," which we had imagined to have been +finally discarded. There is this difference, however, and it is +all-important. The force is not, as formerly supposed, some unique +kind of energy; is not, indeed, energy at all. But we shall do best to +state the new doctrine in the words of its leading exponents. + +Professor Anton Kerner, one of the most distinguished German writers on +Botany, in his _Natural History of Plants_, speaking of the chemical +explanation, says: "It does not explain the purposeful sequence of +different operations in the same protoplasm without any change in the +external stimuli; the thorough use made of external advantages; the +resistance to injurious influences; the avoidance or encompassing of +insuperable obstacles; the punctuality with which all the functions are +performed; the periodicity which occurs with the greatest regularity +under constant conditions of environment; {82} nor, above all, the fact +that the power of discharging all the operations requisite for growth, +nutrition, renovation and multiplication is liable to be lost." + +And then he gives his opinion thus: "I do not hesitate again to +designate as vital force this natural agency, not to be identified with +any other, whose immediate instrument is the protoplasm, and whose +peculiar effects we call life." + +Sir Oliver Lodge is, perhaps, the most uncompromising advocate of the +newer vitalism in England. The following striking quotations will set +forth his views: + +Life, he maintains, is no more a function of matter "than the wind is a +function of the leaves which dance under its influence."[8] + +"If it were true that vital energy turned into, or was anyhow +convertible into, inorganic energy, if it were true that a dead body +had more inorganic energy than a live one, if it were true that 'these +inorganic energies' always, or ever, 'reappear on the dissolution of +life,' then, undoubtedly, _cadit quaestio_, life would immediately be +proved to be a form of energy, and would enter into the scheme of +physics. But, inasmuch as all this is untrue--the direct contrary of +the truth--I maintain that life is not a form of {83} energy, that it +is not included in our present physical categories, that its +explanation is still to seek." + +"It appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which +interacts with this material frame of things, and, while there, exerts +guidance and control on the energy which already exists."[9] + +"Life does not add to the stock of any human form of energy, nor does +death affect the sum of energy in any known way."[10] + +"Life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide its +transmutations."[11] + +"My contention then is--and in this contention I am practically +speaking for my brother physicists--that whereas life or mind can +neither generate energy nor directly exert force, yet it can cause +matter to exercise force on matter, and so can exercise guidance and +control; it can so prepare any scene of activity, by arranging the +position of existing material, and timing the liberation of existing +energy, as to produce results concordant with an idea or scheme or +intention; it can, in short, 'aim' and 'fire.'"[12] + +"It is impossible to explain all this fully by the laws of mechanics +alone."[13] + +"On a stagnant and inactive world life would be {84} powerless: it +could only make dry bones stir in such a world if it were itself a form +of energy. It is only potent where inorganic energy is mechanically +'available'--to use Lord Kelvin's term--that is to say, is either +potentially or actually in process of transfer and transformation. In +other words, life can generate no trace of energy, it can only guide +its transformation."[14] + +"Life possesses the power of vitalising the complex material aggregates +which exist on this planet, and of utilising their energies for a time +to display itself amid terrestrial surroundings; and then it seems to +disappear or evaporate whence it came."[15] + +To these voices from Germany or England we can add that of M. Bergson +from France. In many respects, as he says, he is at one with Sir +Oliver Lodge. If he goes beyond him, it is mainly in these ways. He +emphasises the element of Freedom, the power of choice as shewn by +every living thing. It appears, he says, "from the top to the bottom +of the animal scale," "although the lower we go, the more vaguely it is +seen." "In very truth, I believe no living organism is absolutely +without the faculty of performing actions and moving spontaneously; for +we see that even in the vegetable world, where {85} the organism is for +the most part fixed to the ground, the faculty of motion is asleep +rather than absent altogether. Sometimes it wakes up, just when it is +likely to be useful." + +And this is not all. What is specially characteristic of M. Bergson is +the insistence that this power of choice is an evidence of +Consciousness. "Life," he declares, "is nothing but consciousness +using matter for its purposes." "There is behind life an impulse, an +immense impulse to climb higher and higher, to run greater and greater +risks in order to arrive at greater and greater efficiency." +"Obviously there is a vital impulse."[16] + +"Life appears in its entirety as an immense wave which, starting from a +centre, speeds outwards, and which on almost the whole of its +circumference is stopped"--that is, as he explains, by matter--"and +converted into oscillation; at one point the obstacle has been forced, +the impulsion has poured freely. It is this freedom that the human +form registers. Everywhere but in man consciousness has had to come to +a stand; in man alone it has kept on its way. Man continues the vital +movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all +that life carries in itself. On other {86} lines of evolution there +have travelled other tendencies which life implied"--the reference is +more especially to powers of instinct as distinguished from those of +intelligence--"and of which, since everything interpenetrates, man has +doubtless kept something, but of which he has kept only a little."[17] + +Perhaps the most astonishing thing about M. Bergson's philosophy is his +unreadiness to allow that the consciousness, which he says is +everywhere at work, has any deliberate purpose in its working. Mr. +Balfour has called attention to the unsatisfactoriness of what he +described as "too hesitating and uncertain a treatment."[18] + +But, in spite of so serious an omission, we may be glad to believe, +with our acute statesman-critic, that "there is permanent value in his +theories." If they indicate at all the direction in which scientific +thinking is to move, we shall soon have travelled a very long distance +from the days in which it was imagined that all vital phenomena might +be accounted for on merely materialistic and mechanical lines. + + + +[1] "To this 'meteorite' theory the apparently fatal objection was +raised that it would take some sixty million years for a meteorite to +travel from the nearest stellar system to our earth, and it is +inconceivable that any kind of life could be maintained during such a +period."--Schaefer. + +[2] Presidential Address to British Association, at Edinburgh (1912). + +[3] _Man and the Universe_, p. 24. + +[4] Prof. Wager. + +[5] Dr. J. S. Haldane. + +[6] Dr. A. R. Wallace. Article in _Everyman_, October 18th, 1912. + +[7] Sir William Tilden. Letter to _The Times_, September 9th,1912. + +[8] _Life and Matter_, p. 106. + +[9] Pp. 132, f. + +[10] P. 158. + +[11] P. 160. + +[12] Pp. 164, f. + +[13] P. 166. + +[14] P. 160. + +[15] P. 198. + +[16] Lecture at Birmingham, May, 1911. + +[17] _Creative Evolution_, p. 280. + +[18] _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1911. + + + + +{87} + +CHAPTER IX + +LATER SCIENCE (_continued_) + +The leaders of the scientific thought of last century would have been +vastly surprised if they could have foreseen the results of the +investigations which were to be made into the constitution of matter +and the nature of life; but not even these would have amazed them so +much as would other investigations that were to be carried out in a yet +deeper and more mysterious region of experience. Perhaps it was +because science had been so busy about the more external things, that +it had seemed to have no time to spare for the thorough consideration +of that which is more truly vital to man than the matter which obeys or +opposes him, or even than the physical life which enables him to act, +in so far as he can, as its master. It was strange that the last thing +to be thought of should be his own personality, himself; the innermost +workings of his soul. + +But if this profoundest problem has been neglected, it is to be +neglected no longer. Psychology has {88} already made good its claim +to be respectfully regarded as one of the sciences. It is too early to +speak with any great certainty of the results that it has achieved, +though these are probably more substantial than is commonly supposed. + +Anyhow, it will be best that, as before, we should give some +characteristic statements of the investigators themselves, rather than +attempt to make unauthorised summaries of our own. + +And, first of all, Sir Oliver Lodge shall tell us what he understands +by the Soul. "The soul is that controlling and guiding principle which +is responsible for our personal expression and for the construction of +the body, under the restrictions of physical condition and ancestry. +In its higher developments it includes also feeling and intelligence +and will, and is the storehouse of mental experience. The body is its +instrument and organ, enabling it to receive and to convey physical +impressions, and to affect and be affected by matter and energy."[1] + +How the soul acts by means of the body is thus explained. + +"The brain is the link between the psychical and the physical, which in +themselves belong to different orders of being."[2] + +{89} + +"A portion of brain substance is consumed in every act of +mentation."[3] "Destroy certain parts of brain completely, and +connexion between the psychic and the material regions is for us +severed. True; but cutting off or damaging communication is not the +same as destroying or damaging the communicator; nor is smashing an +organ equivalent to killing the organist."[4] + +M. Bergson does not differ from this when he says that, "the +soul--essentially action, will, liberty--is the creative force _par +excellence_, the productive agent of novelty in the world." He goes on +to speak of the way by which souls have been differentiated and raised +to self-conscious existence. "The history of this great effort is the +very history of the evolution of life on our planet. Certain lines of +evolution seem to have failed. But on the line of evolution which +leads to man the liberation has been accomplished and thus +personalities have been able to constitute themselves."[5] Like many +another, M. Bergson cannot bring himself to believe that death is to be +the end of all that has been thus painfully achieved during this +process of attainment. "When we see that consciousness is also memory, +{90} that one of its essential functions is to accumulate and preserve +the past, that very probably the brain is an instrument of +forgetfulness as much as one of remembrance, and that in pure +consciousness nothing of the past is lost, the whole life of a +conscious personality being an indivisible continuity; are we not led +to suppose that the effect continues beyond, and that in this passage +of consciousness through matter (the passage which at the tunnel's exit +gives distinct personalities) consciousness is tempered like steel, and +tests itself by clearly constituting personalities and preparing them, +by the very effort which each of them is called upon to make, for a +higher form of existence?"[6] + +But the psychologist has yet more to tell us about the nature of +personality. Although helped to distinctiveness of self-conscious +expression by means of its experience of the struggle under present +material conditions, it is not the whole of it that can be thus +expressed. In fact its present physical embodiment is but partially +adequate to the task. In other words, "cerebral life represents only a +small part of the mental life." "One of the roles of the brain is to +limit the vision of the mind, to render {91} its action more +efficacious"[7]--more efficacious, that is to say, for such uses as are +of value for survival and success under our existing conditions. + +It is to Frederick Myers that we have chiefly owed the conception of +the subliminal or subconscious mind. The full report of his researches +is given in the two volumes of his work on "Human Personality and its +Survival of Bodily Death" (1901). He it was who invented the word +"telepathy" to express the fact that mental action can be exerted at a +distance. And it was he who brought for the first time the phenomena +of clairvoyance and apparitions under thorough examination by the +employment of the most exacting tests. Along such lines he was led to +the conclusion, now largely accepted, that the conscious self is only a +fraction of the entire personality, the fraction being greater or less +according to the magnitude of the individual. + +By means of this subconscious part of our being we are, he held, +brought into touch with one another and are capable of attaining a +knowledge which may greatly transcend that which comes to us through +our ordinary channels of communication. In the case of genius we watch +the emergence of exceptional {92} potentialities, which may serve as +the promise and pledge of what the future has in store for us all. One +day like some winged insect we shall pass to a condition beyond that of +the life we now know, and then we may hope that what we "can regard as +larval characters of special service in the present stage of +existence," will prove to have been "destined to be discarded, or +modified almost out of recognition, in proportion as a higher state is +attained."[8] + +This recognition of the existence within human nature of such +capacities and powers, however imperfectly developed and understood, +would greatly help us to deal with many mysteries of experience that +have hitherto seemed completely beyond the purview of a strict +scientific research. The American psychologist, William James, has +done good service to this highest department of critical inquiry in his +well-known work on "Varieties of Religious Experience." A single +extract may suffice to illustrate his position, and to shew what may +yet lie before those who are prepared to press on in the direction in +which he was able to point. + +"The further limits of our being plunge ... into an altogether other +dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 'understandable' +{93} world.... So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region +(and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in +a way for which we cannot articulately account) we belong to it in a +more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible +world... When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our +finite personality, for we are turned into new men... I call this +higher part of the universe by the name of God."[9] + + + +[1] _Man and the Universe_, p. 78. + +[2] P. 91. + +[3] _Life and Matter_, p. 107. + +[4] _Man and the Universe_, p. 93. + +[5] Lecture at University College, October, 1911. + +[6] Birmingham Lecture, May, 1911. + +[7] Bergson. Presidential Address to Society for Psychical Research, +May, 1913. + +[8] _Op. cit._, I., p. 97. + +[9] Pp. 515, f. + + + + +{94} + +NOTE + +Since the preceding chapters were written, the meeting of the British +Association has been held at Birmingham (September, 1913). Its +interest was unusually great inasmuch as the President's address and +the principal discussions were occupied with the most critical and +debatable scientific questions of the present moment. The following +extracts will give a general idea of the line taken at the outset by +the President, Sir Oliver Lodge. + +"Theological controversy is practically in abeyance just now." "It is +the scientific allies, now, who are waging a more or less invigorating +conflict among themselves, with philosophers joining in." "Ancient +postulates are being pulled up by the roots." "The modern tendency is +to emphasise the discontinuous or atomic character of everything." +"The physical discovery of the twentieth century, so far, is the +electrical theory of matter." "So far from Nature not making jumps, it +becomes doubtful if she does anything else." "The corpuscular theory +of radiation is by no means so dead as in my youth we thought it was." +"But I myself am an upholder of _ultimate_ continuity, and a fervent +believer in the aether of space." + +{95} + +"I have been called a vitalist, and in a sense I am; but I am not a +vitalist if vitalism means an appeal to an undefined 'vital force' (an +objectionable term I have never thought of using) as against the laws +of chemistry and physics." "There is plenty of physics and chemistry +and mechanics about every vital action, but for a complete +understanding of it something beyond physics and chemistry is needed." +"No mathematics could calculate the orbit of a common house-fly." "I +will risk the assertion that life introduces something incalculable and +purposeful amid the laws of physics; it thus distinctly supplements +those laws, though it leaves them otherwise precisely as they were and +obeys them all." + +"The Loom of Time is complicated by a multitude of free agents who can +modify the web, making the product more beautiful or more ugly +according as they are in harmony or disharmony with the general scheme. +I venture to maintain that manifest imperfections are thus accounted +for, and that freedom could be given on no other terms, nor at any less +cost." + +"I will not shrink from a personal note summarising the result on my +own mind of thirty years of experience of psychical research, begun +without predilection--indeed, with the usual hostile prejudice." "The +facts so examined have convinced me that memory and affection are not +limited to that association with matter by which alone they can +manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond +bodily death." + +{96} + +Of the debates on the subsequent days those on "Radiation" and "The +Origin of Life" were, perhaps, the most remarkable. At the former the +point at issue was the amount of truth contained in Planck's "famous +hypothesis that energy was transferred by jumps instead of in a +continuous stream." Sir Joseph Larmor evidently expressed the +prevailing opinion when he said that "some advance in that direction +had become necessary, and old-fashioned physicists like himself had +either to take part in it or run the risk of becoming obsolete." + +For the discussion about "Life," the three sections of Physiology, +Zoology, and Botany were combined. Professor Moore stood stoutly for +the older views, and "believed that he could demonstrate a step which +connected inorganic with organic creation." Then he gave an abstruse +and highly technical account of a process by which in "solutions of +colloidal ferric hydroxide, exposed to strong sunlight," compounds +could be formed similar to those to be found in the green plant. With +a proper grouping of molecules it might be imagined how "colloidal +aggregates appeared," and eventually "organic colloids" which "acquired +the property of transforming light energy into chemical activity." The +speakers who followed seemed to be agreed that, even were such +"potentially living matter" to be produced, we should have reached, not +the discovery of the secret of life, but only the construction of "its +physical vehicle." Professor Hartog strongly protested against the +notion that there was "a consensus {97} of opinion among biologists +that life was only one form of chemical and physical actions which +could be reduced in the laboratory." He wished it to be understood +that "the preponderance of weight among scientific men" was opposed to +such a position. + + + + +{98} + +CONCLUSION + +It is dangerous to generalise; and, when as in this survey we are +attempting to indicate broadly the trend of the thought of an age, we +have more than ordinary need to be on our guard lest we should +sacrifice truth to the desire for a seeming completeness of logical +presentation. For fear, then, of misunderstanding, let it be clearly +remembered that in what has been said we have had no wish to suggest +that all minds have moved at the same pace, or even in the same +direction; but only that certain strong tendencies were observable, +which gave colour and character to the mental stream at the particular +stages in its course. It is with a full sense of the possibility of +exaggeration, and of the necessity of holding the balance even, that we +shall now make our final attempt to sum up as concisely as possible +what we have been able to gather in regard to the thought-movement of +the period we have had under review. There can be no danger of +misstatement in saying that, all throughout, the chief thoughts of the +time were intensely occupied with {99} the greatest of all questions, +those about GOD AND THE WORLD. And, further, it has not been difficult +to perceive that there have been three distinct stages in the sequence +of these thoughts. + +In the _first stage_ we can see, as we look back, that the Religious +feeling was dominant, while the scientific temper could scarcely have +been said to exist; certainly it did not exist upon any extended scale. +But, though the desire to be reverent was widespread, we are bound to +allow that the ideas about God were somewhat crudely conceived. As a +legacy, no doubt, from the Deistic controversies of the preceding +century, the general thought did not rise above the notion of a Supreme +Mechanist and all-powerful Ruler of all things. The Divine Being was +regarded as having originated the universe by a fiat of His will, +fashioning its several contents one after another as He pleased, and +appointing that each and all should be subjected to the laws He had +ordained; always reserving to Himself the right to intervene by some +signal display of wisdom and power, when such intervention was +required, either to remedy a defect, or yet further to set forth His +glory. Men were very ready to admit the idea of the Supernatural, but +it was in the merely superficial and popular sense of _power working +without means_, rather than what we now {100} feel to be the far truer +sense of _superhuman knowledge of means, and power to use them_.[1] It +followed, and this was the weakest point in the Paleyan system of +Natural Theology, that God's action was looked for not in the normal, +but in the exceptional processes of Nature. The need of the Divine was +only felt when no other explanation was forthcoming; with the result, +of course, that as other explanations were found, the necessity for +recognising its operation grew ever less and less. And, even apart +from such a consequence, the effects of the conception could not be +otherwise than injurious to religious faith; for, as it has been truly +and reverently observed, "a theory of occasional intervention implies +as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence."[2] + +As to knowledge of the World, there was scarcely any at all, according +in our present understanding of such knowledge. Not everybody, of +course, accounted for the existence of fossils by supposing that they +were the casts from which the Almighty had designed His creatures, or +possibly the Devil's {101} attempts to imitate His works; but the +prevailing ideas were of the most primitive kind. Even Paley could +give us no better explanation of certain rudimentary anatomical organs, +than by suggesting that the creature in whom they were found had been +so far constructed before it was decided what its sex should be! We +can see that if any real progress in knowledge was to be made, a change +of a very radical order had to come. And it did come. + +The _second stage_ was Scientific rather than religious. The thought +of God occupied a less prominent place in proportion as men's minds +were yielded to the attraction of the new studies. This was partly +due, as we have already explained, to the fact that causes were found +to account for the phenomena which had previously, for the lack of the +understanding of such causes, been attributed to the immediate exercise +of supernatural power. Partly, also, it was due to a growing distrust +of human ability, which resulted from the belief that this was nothing +more than a recent development from a lower animal ancestry. A mind +thus originated was supposed to be debarred from forming any +trustworthy notion of the nature of a First Cause which had operated, +if at all, at some point infinitely distant in the long succession of +ages. + +The main work of this stage was to prosecute {102} research into the +elaborated mechanism, or as men soon came to prefer to think of it, the +developing growth of the world. And wonderful, beyond all +anticipation, was the success which rewarded the pains that were +lavishly bestowed upon the inquiry. Small marvel was it that some +men's heads were well-nigh turned, and that to many it seemed little +less than certain that science had dispensed with the supernatural +altogether; and that it only required time, and no great length of +time, to secure universal acceptance for the materialistic explanations +which were destined, as they supposed, to leave no mysteries of life +unsolved. But such persons had reckoned with a too hasty and +superficial knowledge of the data involved. Little by little the +counter-criticisms produced their effect. The idea of a First and +Permanent Cause was shewn to be as indispensable as ever; not, indeed, +as an influence to be pushed far back, and to be thought of as acting +either once or occasionally. A truer reading of the meaning of what +had been discovered led to the grateful acknowledgment that "Darwinism +has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit by +shewing us that we must choose between two alternatives: either God is +everywhere present in Nature, or He is nowhere."[3] {103} So, again, +with Design. The earlier notion of the separate manufacture of species +and of special adaptations to particular ends had to give way to a +larger conception of the growth and gradual correlation of the parts +and functions of a stupendous whole. But for the attainment of this +mighty result direction and superintendence are even more imperatively +needed. As it was often urged with good reason, to make a world right +off would not have been so marvellous an achievement as to make that +world make itself. + +The problem of Beneficence had, as we saw, come to be so entangled with +difficulties as to render it the most serious of all the problems which +pressed upon the minds and hearts of the men of this second stage of +thinking. But here, also, the fears which were at first aroused were +found to have been exaggerated; and perhaps it is true to say that +before the end of the century there was a general disposition to +conclude that with larger knowledge we should get to understand the +utility of much that to uninstructed eyes appears to be lavish waste +and needless suffering. The obvious fact that science could not go +forward without a loyal belief in the rational intelligibility of +nature gave justification to a corresponding belief in its ethical +intelligibility, even though in this case, as in the other, the {104} +complete proofs might not be immediately forthcoming. And there was, +further, the possibility--to some it was more than a possibility--that +much in the world which looks contrary to goodness is really to be +accounted for as the result of a misuse of liberty on the part of +powers and forces whose action has most mysteriously been allowed to +thwart and to complicate the task of the beneficent Maker of all. + +About the _third stage_ it is fitting that we should speak with more +hesitation. We are living in it, and are as yet only at its beginning. +But we may hazard the prognostication that it will be both Religious +and Scientific; and that, "as knowledge grows from more to more," there +will be found the "more of reverence" of which our modern poet sings. +There is reason to hope that the bitterness of old controversies will +not be revived, and that we have before us a time in which Theology and +Science will co-operate and no longer conflict. With deepening insight +it is becoming plainer than ever that the phenomena of life, and even +of matter, are the expressions of a more than physical force. +Evolution is a law under which a forward process is moving on, and +moving up. There is an impulse of consciousness working from within, +and there is a spiritual, as well as a material, environment inviting +{105} to correspondence with itself. Freedom and power of choice are +admitted to be present in regions where their existence was for long +most strenuously denied. Even matter may have its own power of +insistence and resistance--how much more mind and will. This +consideration may give us a yet clearer clue to the mysteries of +failure, miscarriage, and waste. A world that was to produce +self-conscious, self-determining personalities needed to have freedom +through the whole of its development; and the consequent risk and +possible cost were inevitable. Shall we not be led to admire and +revere increasingly the wonder of it all, as there grows upon us the +sense of the quietness and gentleness, the foresight, and the infinite +patience of the Being of beings, who will never obtrude His presence +and action upon us, just because He would help us to be our own, not +dead but living, selves, and would have us rise with Him to the highest +things? + +We are far from the end of our learning. There are many enigmas yet to +be made plain. We could not wish it otherwise. It has ever been +through the narrow gate of difficulty that we have passed into the +wider court of truth. We have good cause to be humble, but we have +full right to be hopeful. We must not be afraid to face the problems +that await {106} us, whatever they may be. We may be confident that we +are not to be deceived; but that, under a Guidance that has never +failed, we shall at length be brought to see the dawning of the +longed-for day, + + "When that in us which thinks with that which feels + Shall everlastingly be reconciled, + And that which questioneth with that which kneels." + + + +[1] This important distinction was carefully drawn by the Duke of +Argyll in his _Reign of Law_ (pp. 14, 25), published in 1866. + +[2] Aubrey Moore, in one of a series of remarkable articles contributed +to the _Guardian_ (January 18th, 25th, February 1st, 1888). + +[3] Aubrey Moore, _Lux Mundi_. + + + + +{107} + +INDEX + + +AETHER, 73, 94. + +Agnosticism, 32, 46-52. + +Aquinas, St. Thomas, 13. + +Argyle, George Douglas, Duke of, 37, 100. + +Atoms, 21, 71, 72. + +Augustine, St., 50. + +Avebury, Lord, 58. + + +BACON, LORD, 14. + +Balfour, A. J., 75, 86. + +"Bathybius," 78. + +Becquerel, A. C., 70. + +Beneficence, Divine, 17, 18, 53-67, 103. + +Bergson, Henri, 84-86, 89, 90. + +Brain, 88, 89, 90. + +Bunsen, R. W., 24. + + +CARLYLE, THOMAS, 63. + +Cause, 29. + +Cells, The growth of, 77. + +Chalmers, Thomas, 19, 20. + +Chance, 30, 44, 56. + +Consciousness, 85, 89, 90. + +Creation, Mosaic account of 39. + +Creative power, affirmed by Science, 39. + +Cruelty in Nature, 34, 35, 54-67. + +Curie, Mme., 70. + + +DALTON, JOHN, 21. + +Darwin, Charles, 24-26, 41-43, 54, 58, 64. + +Deserts, Use of, 62. + +Design, Argument from, 14-16, 29, 40-45, 103. + +Directive power, 44, 83, 106. + +Du Bois Raymond, E., 37. + +Dysteleology, 35. + + +EARTHQUAKES, 66. + +Electrons, 71. + +Energy: + Conservation of, 23, 42, 75. + Dissipation of, 73. + +_Evil and Evolution_, 64-66. + +Evil in Nature, 18, 63-67. + +Evolution, Doctrine of, 24, 25, 40, 104. + + +FARADAY, MICHAEL, 22, 37. + +"First Cause," 13, 28, 32, 38, 39, 101, 102. + +Freedom, 84, 95, 104, 105. + +Future life, 89-92, 95. + + +GEOLOGY, 23, 39, 70. + +Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 47. + +Gore, Bishop, 50, 57. + +Gray, Asa, 41, 56. + + +HAECKEL, E., 29, 30, 31, 35, 40. + +Haldane, J. S., 80. + +Hartog, Professor, 96. + +Heat, Mechanical equivalent of, 23. + +Helium, 70. + +Helmholtz, H. von, 22. + +Herschel, Sir John, 69. + +Huxley, T. H., 32, 35, 40, 43, 61, 78. + + +ICHNEUMONIDAE, 56. + +Insensibility of animals, 60, 61. + + +JAMES, WILLIAM, 92, 93. + +Joule, J. P., 23, 37. + + +KELVIN, LORD, 37, 39, 44, 68, 70, 78. + +Kepler, J., 19. + +Kerner, Anton, 81, 82. + +Kirchhoff, Professor, 24. + +Knight, Professor W., 57. + + +LAMARCK, J. B., 22, 26. + +Laplace, P. S., 19. + +Larmor, Sir J., 71, 96. + +Liebig, J. F. von, 44. + +Life: + failure to produce out of matter, 79, 80, 96, 97. + Meteorite theory of, 78, + not a form of energy, 82, 83. + +Lodge, Sir Oliver, 71, 79, 82-85, 88, 89, 94, 95. + +Lotze, Hermann, 47. + +Lyell, Sir Charles, 23. + + +MATERIALISM, 44, 46. + +Matter, Disintegration of, 72. + +Maxwell, James Clerk, 22, 37, 68. + +Metals, 74. + +Mill, J. Stuart, 29, 33, 39. + +Molecules, 69, 71, 72. + +Monism, 31. + +Moore, Aubrey, 48, 100, 102. + +Moore, Professor B., 96. + +Myers, Frederick W. H., 91. + + +NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS, 19. + +Necessity, 43. + +Newton, Sir Isaac, 19. + + +ORGANS, RUDIMENTARY, 40, 41, 101. + +_Origin of Species_, 25, 39, 40, 55, 56. + +Owen, Sir Richard, 27. + + +PAGET, BISHOP FRANCIS, 52. + +Pain, Use of, 58, 59. + +Paley, William, 14-19, 100, 101. + +Pascal, Blaise, 52. + +Pasteur, Louis, 37, 66. + +Personality: + Divine, 48, 52. + Human, 87, 90. + +Protoplasm, 23, 76, 77. + +Psychical Research, 91, 95. + +Psychology, 87, 90-92. + + +RADIUM, 70, 72. + +Religious instinct, 51. + +Romanes, G. J., 33-36, 37. 39, 42, 50-52, 57. + +Roentgen rays, 70. + + +SCHAFER, SIR EDWARD, 78. + +Schleiden, M. J., 23. + +Schwann, T., 23. + +Snake poison, 60, 66. + +Soul, 87, 88, 89. + +Spectrum analysis, 24, 68. + +Spencer, Herbert, 32, 33, 47, 49. + +Spiritual environment, 93, 104. + +Stokes, Sir G. G., 24, 37, 45. + +Subconsciousness, 91, 92. + +Suffering, Divinely shared, 67, 105. + +Sulman, H. L., 74, 75. + +Supernatural, The, 99, 100. + +Survival: + after death, 89-92, 95. + of the fittest, 24, 25. + + +TELEOLOGY, THE WIDER, 40, 45. + +Telepathy, 91. + +Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 54. + +Thomson, Sir J. J., 71, 73. + +Tilden, Sir William, 80. + +Treves, Sir Frederick, 59. + +Tyndall, John, 31, 38. + + +UNBELIEF, DISTRESS CAUSED BY, 35, 36, 50. + + +VARIATIONS, 25, 26. + +Venomous animals, 17, 65, 66. + +Virchow, R., 37. + +Vitalism, 81-85, 95. + +Volcanoes, Use of, 62. + + +WAGER, PROFESSOR, 79. + +Wallace, Alfred Russel, 59-61, 80. + +Whetham, W. C. D., 74. + + + + +_Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._ + + + + +Publications of the + +Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. + + +Modern Substitutes for Traditional Christianity. By the Rev. Canon E. +MCCLURE. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards. 2s. net. + +Modern Rationalism. As seen at work in its Biographies. 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