38 



THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



retain the term for an attribute. It is a very 

 common process in the history of thought. Elec- 

 tricity, life, heat, were once supposed to be sub- 

 stances. We now very usefully retain these 

 words for a set of observed conditions or quali- 

 ties. 



I agree with Mr. Spencer that the unity of the 

 social organism is quite as complete as that of 

 the individual organism. I do not contuse the 

 two kinds of unity ; but I say that man is in no 

 important sense a unit that society is not also a 

 unit. 



With regard to the " percipient " and the 

 "perceptible" I cannot follow Lord Blachford. 

 He speaks a tongue that I do not understand. 

 I have no means of dividing the universe into 

 " percipients " and " perceptibles." I know no 

 reason why a " percipient " should not be a " per- 

 ceptible," none why I should not be " percepti- 

 ble," and none why beings about me should not 

 be " perceptible." I think we are all perfectly 

 " perceptible " — indeed, some of us are more 

 " perceptible " than " percipient " — though I can- 

 not say that Lord Blachford is always " percepti- 

 ble " to me. And how does my being " percepti- 

 ble," or not being "perceptible," prove that I 

 have an immortal soul ? Is a dog " perceptible," 

 is he " percipient ? " Has he not some of the 

 qualities of a " percipient," and, if so, has he an 

 immortal soul ? Is an ant, a tree, a bacterium, 

 " percipient," and has any of these an immortal 

 soul : for I find Lord Blachford declaring there 

 is an " ineradicable difference between the mo- 

 tions of a material and the sensations of a living 

 being," as if the animal world were " percipient," 

 and the inorganic " perceptible ? " But surely in 

 the sensations of a living being the animal world 

 must be included. Where does the vegetable 

 world come in ? 



I used the word " organism " advisedly, when 

 I s:.id that will, thought, and affection, are func- 

 tions of a living organism. I decline exactly to 

 localize the organ of any function of mind or will. 

 When I am asked, What are we? I reply we are 

 men. When I am asked, Are ice our bodies ? I 

 say no, nor are we our minds. Have we no sense 

 of personality, of unity ? I am asked. I say cer- 

 tainly ; it is an acquired result of our nervous or- 

 ganization, liable to be interrupted by derange- 

 ments of that nervous organization. What is it 

 that makes us think and feel ? The facts of our 

 human nature ; I cannot get behind this, and I 

 need no further explanation. We are men, and 

 can do what men can do. I say the tangible col- 

 lection of organs known as a " man " (not the 



consensus or the condition, but the man) thinks, 

 wills, and feels, just as much as that visible or- 

 ganism lives and grows. We do not say that this 

 or that ganglion in particular lives and grows ; 

 we say the man grows. It is as easy to me to 

 imagine that we shall grow fifteen feet high, when 

 we have no body, as that we shall grow in knowl- 

 edge, goodness, activity, etc., etc., etc., when we 

 have no organs. And the absence of all molecu- 

 lar attributes would be, I should think, particu- 

 larly awkward in that life of cometary motion in 

 the interstellar spaces with which Lord Blachford 

 threatens us. But, as the poet says : 



" Trasumanar significar per verba 

 Non si porria " — 



"If" says he, " practical duties are necessary for 

 the perfection of life," we can take a little inter- 

 stellar exercise. Why, practical duties are the 

 sum and substance of life ; and life which does 

 not centre in practical duties is not life, but a 

 trance. 



Lord Blachford, who is somewhat punctilious 

 in terms, asks me what I consider myself to un- 

 derstand "by the incorporation of a consensus 

 of faculties with a glorious future." Well, it so 

 happens that I did not use that phrase. I have 

 never spoken of an immortal soul anywhere, nor 

 do I use the word soul of any but the living man. 

 I said a man might look forward to incorporation 

 with the future of his race, explaining that to 

 mean his " posthumous activity." And I think 

 at any rate the phrase is quite as reasonable as 

 to say that I look forward, as Mr. Hutton does, 

 to a " union with God." What does Mr. Hntton, 

 or Lord Blachford, understand himself to mean 

 by that ? 



Surely Lord Blachford's epigram about the fid- 

 dle and the tune is hardly fortunate. Indeed, that 

 exactly expresses what I find faulty in the view of 

 himself and the theologians. He thinks the tune 

 will go on playing when the fiddle is broken up 

 and burned. I say nothing of the kind. I do not 

 say the man will continue to exist after death. I 

 simply say that his influence will ; that other men 

 will do and think what he taught them to do or 

 to think. Just so, a general would be said to 

 win a battle which he planned and directed, even 

 if he had been killed in an early part of it. 

 What is there of fiddle and tune about this ? I 

 certainly think that when Mozart and Beethoven 

 have left us great pieces of music, it signifies lit- 

 tle to art if the actual fiddle or even the actual 

 composer continue to exist or not. I never said 

 the tune would exist. I said that men would 

 remember it and repeat it. I must thank Lord 



