62 



♦ KNO^VLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 1, 1885. 



not to define for them what they should accept and 

 believe. 



Of the details of Dr. Carpenter's work we do not 

 profess here to speak. Already a full account has been 

 placed before the public. Our object (in the very 

 limited space which was available in these pages, when 

 the news of his death reached us) is to touch on the 

 general purport of his life-work. 



Dr. Carpenter took an important part in the researches 

 by which the doctrine of biological evolution was esta- 

 blished. If he maintained to the last that "natural 

 selection leaves untouched the evidence of design in the 

 original scheme of the organised creation," it does not 

 follow that his views were at all out of harmony with 

 those which the most advanced thinker of our age has 

 expressed when he says that our conception of the Ulti- 

 mate Energy of the Universe, being given through 

 phenomenal manifestations "can in no wise show us 

 what it is." 



Dr. Carpenter's treatise on " Comparative and Human 

 Physiology " will remain always on the same level with 

 such works as Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy" .ind 

 Sir Chas. Lyell's " Principles of Geology." His " Mental 

 Physiology," apart from its scientific value, is one of the 

 most interesting books in the English language. His 

 labours and inquiries in regard to the deep seas were very 

 fruitful, and although it has always seemed to us that he 

 viewed the mechanism of oceanic circulation from the 

 wrong end (regarding the melting of Arctic ice — an 

 effect — as the prime moving cause), there can be no doubt 

 that he did much to correct long-existent error.5 in that 

 matter. He honoured many societies by accepting 

 various " distinctions ' which they offer to the distin- 

 guished, and which the undistinguished anxiously seek. 

 As Registrar of the University of London, he contributed 

 greatly to the value of the University system, and widely 

 extended its influence. Born in 1813, Dr. W. B. 

 Carpenter died on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1885, 

 in his seventy third year. His death was the result of a 

 terrible accident — the only consoling feature being that 

 after the first fearful shock the power of suffering 

 was destroyed, insomuch that he passed the last hours of 

 his life in tranquil sleep. 



MR, FREDERIC HARRISON ON THE 

 RELIGION OF HUMANITY, 



T is pleasant after the noise and turmoil of 

 election struggles, after being forced to hear 

 so long the harsh discords of abuse and 

 recrimination, after being reminded yet 

 once more that poor humanity cannot 

 even try to advance its own cause without 

 the way being stopped by squabbling poli- 

 ticians (eagerly proclaiming themselves the only leaders, 

 their rivals impostors and worse), to turn to a quieter 

 atmosphere, and to remember the moral issues really 

 involved in political movements. 



In his address on " Politics and a Human Religion " at 

 the beginning of l;-,st month, Mr. Prederic Harrison dwelt 

 eloquently and earnestly on the light which political con- 

 tests throw upon the actual value of the religions, the 

 creeds, the ethical systems which contend for men's 

 allegiance. 



"A religion, or a moral system of any kind, ought," 

 he says, " to teach us how to live, how to do our duty in 



the sphere in which we find ourselves. And few kinds of 

 duty can be more real than to ask what shonld be the spirit 

 and aim that we should give to the government of our 

 country. ' How to make the best State ' wns the problem 

 presented to ancient philosophers. Tell ns, ye religions, 

 ye gods, ye gospels, ye new philosophies of ethic and of 

 evolution — in what spirit shall we vote — by what signs 

 shall we know the sound policy, the best statesmen V 



He answers, " They are dumb. Or, when they do 

 speak, our conscience ci-ies out — Would that they were 

 dumb ! " 



" I am as deeply convinced," Mr. Harrison goes on to 

 say, " as any follower of Christ can be. of the moral 

 beauty of much in the Gospel teachings ; of the personr.l 

 holiness that it can still inspire, especially in the home 

 and in the silent communing of the heart. But the 

 organic weakness of the Gospel is in the world, in public 

 life, in politics, and the higher righteousness of the wise 

 and brave citizen." 



Mr. Harrison is no less outspoken against what he 

 terms "the silent, unshaped, but widely prevailing belief 

 that all religion of any kind is no matter, that religion 

 has come to an end and has left the earth for e^'er." 

 " It is impossible," he says, " to argue with those in 

 whom cynicism and self-engrossment have dried up the 

 very fountains of human sympathy and ideal enthusiasm. 

 But to all who retain these sacred springs of moral eleva- 

 tion within their souls, to those who have ever known the 

 hallowed emotions of home, of parent, child, wife, sister; 

 of friendship, of kinship, of patriotism, to those who have 

 ever tried to hold up to their children a standard of right 

 and an object of reverence, to those who in anj- relation 

 of life have ever known the potency of a high motive and 

 a noble resolve in a social cause ; — to all of them we will 

 say ' can 3'ou doubt that man's political activity, like his 

 personal and family morality, like his social honour and 

 his good name in his daily work, must be stimulated and 

 guided by a genuine human enthusiasm ? ' " 



He turns next on those who should be his natural 

 allies, those who in trying to learn the laws according to 

 which humanity and the religion of humanity have been 

 evolved, show a thoroughly " genuine human enthu- 

 siasm," and indicate the only road along which the 

 advance which he desires can be hopefully at- 

 tempted. He indicates afresh his seemingly hopeless 

 inability to understand the real bearing of the 

 doctrine of evolution on the religion of humanity. 

 "Will every passion," he asks, "that is known to 

 politics, be exorcised by lectures on the laws of physical 

 development and the analogies which are found in the 

 embryonic morphology ? Will ambition be tamed by 

 appeals to the ' survival of the fittest ' ? Will ' Natural 

 Selection ' by itself make a prosperous commonwealth ; 

 or will a true patriot be bred by a course of study of 

 Protoplasm ? Why, you had far better, for the formation 

 of character and the dnty of a citizen, go to the ' Sermon 

 on the Mount ' as your guide,, with all its extravagance of 

 morbid quietism, than go for your guide to the ' Origin 

 of Species,' with all its wealth of scientific suggestion. 

 Nay, the transcendentalism of ' Cosmogony ' is even more 

 :;lien to the duties of active patriotism, than is the tran- 

 scendentalism of the ' Kingdom of Heaven.'" 



He fails to see that moral enthusiasm, resting on social 

 forces by which, as he truly says, human duty and human 

 character must be trained, is itself a jjroduct of evolution. 

 " The battle of justice and injustice, selfishness and self- 

 devotion, folly and wisdom, in the ordering of nations, 

 need the highest controlling powers to which men can 

 appeal. They compel us to resort to human enthusiasm 



