A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



35 



that what I urged has been in substance dis- 

 placed; though much criticism (and some of it 

 of a verbal kind) has been directed at the lan- 

 guage which I used of others. My object was to 

 try if this life could not be made richer ; not to 

 destroy the dreams of another. But has the 

 old doctrine of a future life been in any way 

 strengthened ? Mr. Hutton, it is true, has a 

 "personal wish" for a perpetuity of volition. 

 Lord Blachford "believes because he is told." 

 And Prof. Huxley knows of no evidence that 

 "such a soul and a future life exist;" aud he 

 seems not to believe in thtm at all. 



Philosophical discussion must languish a lit- 

 tle, if, when we ask for the philosophical grounds 

 for a certain belief, we find one philosopher be- 

 lieving because he has a " personal wish" for it, 

 and another " believing because he is told." Mr. 

 Hutton says that, as far as he knows, "the 

 thoughts, affections, and volitions, are not likely 

 to perish with his body." Prof. Huxley seems 

 to think it just as likely that they should. Argu- 

 ments are called for to enable us to decide be- 

 tween these two authorities. And the only argu- 

 ment we have hitherto got is Mr. Hutton's " per- 

 sonal wish," and Lord Blachford's ila scriptum 

 est. I confess myself unable to continue an argu- 

 ment which runs into believing " because I am 

 told." It is for this reason that the lazzarone at 

 Naples believes in the blood of St. Januarius. 



My original proposftions may be stated thus : 



1. Philosophy as a whole (I do not say spe- 

 cially biological science) has established a func- 

 tional relation to exist between every fact of 

 thinking, willing, or feeling, on the one side, and 

 some molecular change in the body on the other 

 side. 



2. This relation is simply one of correspond- 

 ence between moral and physical facts, not one 

 of assimilation. The moral fact does not become 

 a physical fact, is not adequately explained by it, 

 and must be mainly studied as a moral fact, by 

 methods applicable to morals — not as a physical 

 fact, by methods applicable to physics. 



3. The moral facts of human life, the laws of 

 man's mental, moral, and affective nature, must 

 consequently be studied, as they have always 

 been studied, by direct observation of these 

 facts ; yet the correspondences, specially discov- 

 ered by biological science, between man's mind 

 and his body, must always be kept in view. 

 They are an indispensable, inseparable, but sub- 

 ordinate part of moral philosophy. 



4. We do not diminish the supreme place of 

 the spiritual facts in life and in philosophy by 



admitting these spiritual facts to have a relation 

 with molecular and organic facts in the human 

 organism — provided that we never forget how 

 small and dependent is the part which the study 

 of the molecular and organic phenomena must 

 play in moral and social science. 



5. Those whose minds have been trained in 

 the modern philosophy of law cannot understand 

 what is meant by sensation, thought, and energy, 

 existing without any basis of molecular change ; 

 and to talk to them of sensation, thought, and 

 energy, continuing in the absence of any mole- 

 cules whatever, is precisely such a contradiction 

 in terms as to suppose that civilization will con- 

 tinue in the absence of any men whatever. 



6. Yet man is so constituted as a social be- 

 ing that the energies which he puts out in life 

 mould the minds, characters, and habits, of his 

 fellow-men ; so that each man's life is, in effect, 

 indefinitely prolonged in human society. This is 

 a phenomenon quite peculiar to man and to hu- 

 man society, and of course depends on there be- 

 ing men in active association with each other. 

 Physics and biology can teach us nothing about 

 it ; and physicists and biologists may very easily 

 forget its importance. It can be learned only by 

 long and refined observations in moral and men- 

 tal philosophy as a whole, and in the history of 

 civilization as a whole. 



V. Lastly, as a corollary, it may be useful to 

 retain the words soul and future life for their as- 

 sociations ; provided we make it clear that we 

 mean by soul the combined faculties of the liv- 

 ing organism, and by future life the subjective 

 effect of each man's objective life on the actual 

 lives of his fellow-men. 



I. Now, I find in Mr. Hutton's paper hardly 

 any attempt to disprove the first six of these 

 propositions. He is employed for the most part 

 in asserting that his hypothesis of a future state 

 is a more agreeable one than mine, and in ear- 

 nest complaints that I should call his view of a fu- 

 ture state a selfish or personal hope. As to the 

 first, I will only remark that it is scarcely a ques- 

 tion whether his notion of immortality is beauti- 

 ful or not, but whether it is true. If there is no 

 rational ground for expecting such immortality 

 to be a solid fact, it is to little purpose to show 

 us what a sublime idea it would be if there were 

 anything in it. As to the second, I will only say 

 that I do not call his notion of a future existence 

 a selfish or personal hope. In the last paragraph 

 of my second paper I speak with respect of the 

 opinion of those who look forward to a future of 

 moral development instead of to an idle eternity 



