♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Jblt 10,1885. 



regno" — when things wore wholly different. Giyen that man 

 started from a savage state, how can this be accounted for, if hia 

 conditions were the same as with savages now J 



3. When the present state of things were about, the earth would 

 be found less fertile, and life harder. The clond-c.-ip gone, and the 

 easy Paradise gone, for the first time men saw the sun. It must 

 have no donbt hurt their eyes very much at first. What more 

 likely explanation than this' for the flaming sword which turned 

 every u-ay — as the solar beams do — and was at the cost end of the 

 garden — where the sun rises ? The record seems a strange one, 

 if it cannot be explained naturally; for it would have seemed 

 more natural to a primitive narrator to set lions or other beasts 

 to guard the forbidden ground ; which we know is not on earth at 

 aU. 



Space forbids to pursue this theme further ; but I suggest that 

 physicists, if they keep it in mind, may perchance find it explain 

 facts in natural history hitherto obscure. Hallyaeds. 



THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 

 : [1800]—" Commentator," in referring to my theory of evolution, 

 has unfortunately quoted a misprint from the brief extract given of 

 it, under the above heading (p. '180) — proposition should have been 

 printed proportion. The editor will therefore perhaps kindly 

 allow me to restate the several positions, and to allow the 

 printer to use capital letters and italics where I have used them : — 



1. — Adaptation to PiLrpose,Fitnesi, resolves itself into Adaptation 

 of Proportion to Purpr>se. 



2.— Evolution, Deceloprnent/mto The Becoming f/ the Proportioned 

 in All Thinqs. 



S.— Polities, into The Proportioned Adjustment of Material 

 Interests, and of Social Relations. 



4,.— Ethics, into The Science of Proportioned Cojiduct. 



5. — Hygiene, into The Science of Proportioned. Living. 



6.— Education, into The Science of Training and Developing a 

 Proportioned or Beautiful Race. 



7.—JEsthetics, into The Science of Proportioned Taste. 



8. — Fine Art, into Proportioiied Art. 



Pending the publication of my work I cannot enlarge upon the 

 subject, but I may say that the Mathematical Theory of Evolution 



THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 



[1801]— C. N.'s ideas (1761) are gradually becoming clearer- 

 Her former admission that " something exists independent of con" 

 Bciousness," carries with it, of course, the fact of this " some- 

 thing's" externality, and her present admission that " every valid 

 concept must certainly be correspondent with a thing," defines 

 exactly what that "something" is, and therefore completes her 

 surrender. My " vulgar realism of tripe and onions" will thus hare 

 had the effect of leading her from the refined philosophic tom- 

 fooleries of Lewinsianism to a higher, a nobler, and a wider con- 

 ception of the relationship that subsists between herself and her 

 surroundings. 



If she will ponder carefully the subjoined extracts from G. H. 

 Lewes, it will help her to overcome the misgivings she still 

 evidently feels, as shown by her use of the terms " valid concept " 

 and " group or synthesis of sensation"; as if a concept could be 

 non-valid, or a group of sensations could in some way fail to fully 

 represent the things so grouped. 



In his " Problems of Life and Mind," Vol. II., pages 43-45, 

 G. H. Lewes writes :— 



When " an insight irto psychological processes teaches us that 

 knowledge is a process of two factors, the organism and the 

 medium, the knowing mind and the object known, we come round 

 to the Btarting-point, and still say that to knew a thing as it 

 appears, is to know it as it is, under the objective and subjective 

 conditions of its appearence. 



" A thing being a group of relations, varies under varying con- 

 ditions. Obviously this changing group will not be the same 

 throughout the changes, but it is here and there precisely what it 

 appears here and there — the manifestation changes with the 



" The famous distinction, therefore, between is and appears is 

 either a logical artifice or a speculative illusion. The logical artifice 

 points to the distinction between general relations and particular 

 relations. The speculative illusion assumes that the knowledge of 

 things being only of appearances, can never be a knowledge of 

 things as they are in their inmost nature. 



" Our utter inability to form a conception of the aspects which 

 known objects would form to a new sense, ought long ago to have 

 shown the inanity of speculating about the aspects of things in 



relations not sensible, and ought to have closed for ever the dis- 

 putes about the enpra-sensible. The logical distinction between 

 the inward essence and the outward appearance is simply this : — 

 The Thing considered outwardly— i.f., in its presentation to sense, 

 is the Thing in definite relations ; but, besides this, we conceive the 

 Thing as capable of other relations which are not definitely 

 specified, or as existing in indeterminately fluctuating relations — 

 a mere possilility of appearance," which possibility of appearance 

 has— as is proved above — to ns, no possibility whatever." 



J. S. 



VITAL FORCE. 



[1802]— "Meter"' (Letter 1759) almost piteously appeals to 

 ns not to seek to destroy people's reverence, not to rob the world 

 of hope, &c., which alone affords any valid reason against a man 

 doing just as he chooses. I would briefly console him. Men can- 

 not " do just what they choose." If there was no reverence, no 

 hope, no fear in the world, there would BtiU be "necessity : " the 

 inexorable laws of cause and effect, actions, and inevitable conse- 

 quences. The first law of nature is "self preservation;" from it 

 spring all notions of right and wrong, the golden rule. Do ye unto 

 others as ye would be done by, for what you consider it wrong for 

 others to do to yon, it must be wrong for you to do to theoL 



F. W. H. 



P.S. — I would further impress on " Meter" that knowledge is 

 superior and, in fact, supersedes " belief." Teach people that. As 

 thou sowest, so shalt thou reap ; that evil actions produce evil con- 

 seqnenoes; that " sins " cannot be forgiven; that wrong done to 

 ourselves or to others must be suffered for; that .the laws of 

 nature cannot be transgressed with impunity ; that experience 

 proves to demonstration, that on oar "actions," not on our 

 " beUefs," hopes, or fears, depends whether we shall be happy^, 

 contented, and prosperous in our present life, here and now. up 



MIND AND MATTER. 

 [1803]—" F. W. H." really does not seem to understand the diffi- 

 cultv some of ns find in accepting, just as thev stand, the axioms 

 of the Haeckel philosophy. The difficulty I, for one, find is this : I 

 grant all the premises. Every atom has a soul. Every combina- 

 tion of atoms has a composite soul, whether the combination is 

 organic or inorganic. Every molecule of carbonic acid has its com- 

 posite soul. When the carbonic acid is split up, each atom of 

 carbon and oxygen can call its soul its own again. So each plant 

 has its composite sonl, and each animal too. So far, all is plain 

 sailing ; but now comes the difficulty. Man has a composite soul 

 exactly similar to the composite sonl of carbonic acid, a plant, 

 or a dumb animal. Two of the attributes of a man's soul 

 are said to be consciousness and volition. Therefore, the souls of 



possesses them, just as he is the only animal that can speak. There 

 seems to me no escape from one of the horns of this dilemma. One 

 of Darwin's main propositions to which " F. W. H." refers in- 

 directly — namely, that the life of the individual is a type of the 

 life of the species — is perfectly untenable on the theory of gradual 

 evolution. Where in the life of the species, according to the theory 

 of gradual evolution, is the jump the individual makes on his first 

 appearance into the light. If there is a corresponding jump in the 

 history of every species of placental mammals, what becomes of 

 the theory of gradual evolution ? 



Again, admitting all Haeckel's premises about matter having 

 a soul, what is there to prevent the composite soul of the solar 

 system having the same control over the matter of the system that 

 a man's has over his body ? Suppose the sun uses the force of 

 gravity towards the planets because he likes them, and so cannot 

 help using it towards comets (just as when a man beckons to 

 three people he attracts them all when he only wants one), never- 

 theless, lets the comets know he does not want them by blowing 

 them all to pieces. What a delightful solution to the much-con- 

 tested problem of the cause of comets' tails ! On the other hand, 

 why should man, if Haeckel's doctrine of universal law be correct, 

 be the only combination of matter which is able to change its mind ? 



Of course, it is more satisfactory to explain phenomena in a 

 simple natural way than to have recourse to a supernatural 

 miraculous way. But, when Sir Charles Lyell wrote hia "Principles 

 of Geology," the book that made Darwinism possible, it was the 

 custom to explain every geological phenomenon by a cataclysm, or 

 an earthquake, or a flood; nevertheless. Sir Charles himself pointed 

 out that when the crust of the earth was thinner, earthquakes and 

 volcanic eruptions produced very different effects to what they do 

 now. Each philosopher in turn calls his the simple natm^l way. 

 None ever dreams there is more in heaven and earth than in his 

 philosophy. Jos. W. AiKiiMDEB. 



