Si8 



NA TURE 



\Atig. 20, 1874 



have liitherto covered with opprobrium, the'promise and potency 

 of everv form and quality of life. 



The "materialism" here enunciated maybe different from 

 whnt you ^uppo^e, and T therefore crave your fjracious patience 

 tn the end " The question of an external world," says Mr. J- !^. 

 Mi'l, " is the great battle-ground of metaphysirs." * Mr. Mill 

 himself reduces external phenomena to " possibilities of sensa- 

 tion." Kant, as we have seen, made time and space "forms" 

 of our own intuitions. Fichte, havint; first by the inexorable 

 logic of his understanding proved himself to be a mere link in 

 that chain of eternal causation which holds so rigidly in nature, 

 violently broke the chain by making nature, and all that it in- 

 herits, an apparition of his own mind.t And it is by no means 

 easy to combat such notions. For when I say I see you, and 

 that T have not the least doubt about it, the reply is, that what 

 I am really conscious of is an affection of my own retina. And 

 if T urge that I can check my sicht of you by touching you, the 

 retort would be that I am equallv trangressing the limits of fact ; 

 for what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but 

 that the nerves of my hand have undergone a change. All we 

 hear, and see, and touch, and taste, and sme'l, are,' it would be 

 urged, mere variations of our own condition, beyond which, even 

 to the extent of a hair's breadth, we cannot go. That anything 

 answering to our impressions exists outside of ourselves is not a 

 fact, but an infiTcnce, to which all validity would be denied by 

 an idealist like Berkelev, orbv a sceptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer 

 takes another line. With him, as with the uneducated man, 

 there is no doubt or question as to the existence of an external 

 world. But he differs from the uneducated, who think that the 

 world really is what consciousness represents it to be. Our 

 states of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside entity 

 which produces them and determines the order of their succes- 

 sion, but the real nature of which we can never know. J In fact 

 the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a Power 

 absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man. As little in our 

 day as in the days of fob can man by searching find this Power 

 out. Considered fundamentally, it is by the operation of an in- 

 soluble mystery that life is evolved, species differentiated, and 

 mind unfolded from their prepotent elements in the immeasur- 

 alile past. There is, you will observe, no very rank materialism 

 here. 



The strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an 

 experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible 

 to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with the method 

 of nature as hitherto known. From contrast, moreover, it derives 

 enormous relative strength. On the one side we have a theory 

 (if it could with any propriety be so called) derived, as were the 

 theories referred to at the beginning of this address, not from 

 the study of nature, but from the observation of men— a theory 

 which converts the Power whose garment is seen in the visible 

 universe into .in Artificer, fashioned after the human model, and 

 acting by broken efforts as man is seen to act. On the other 

 side we have the conception that all we see around us, and all 

 we feel within us — the phenomena of physical nature as well as 

 those of the human mind— have their unsearchable roots in a 

 cosmical life, if I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal span of 

 which only is offered to the investigation of man. And even 

 this span is only knowable in part. We can trace the develop- 

 ment of a nervous system, and correlate with it the ]jarallel phe- 

 nomena of sensation and thought. We see with undoubting 

 certainty that they go hand in hand. But we try to soar in a 

 vacuum the moment we seek to comprehend the connection 

 between them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here required which 

 the human mind cannot command ; and tlie effort to solve the 

 problem, to borrow an illustration from an illustrious friend of 

 mine, is like the effort of a man trying to lift himself by his own 



* *' F.xaniination of Hamilton," p. 154. 



+ " Bestimmung des Menschen." 

 . ^ i? " P-'^Psr, at once popular and profound, entitled " Recent Progress in 

 the Tlieory of Vision," contained in ttie volume of lectures by Helmholtz 

 published by Longmans, this symbolism of our states of consciousness is also 

 dwelt upon. The impressions of sense are the mere si^ns ol external things. 

 In this paper Helmholtz contends strongly against the view that the con- 

 sciousness of space is inborn : and he evidently doubts the power of the chick 

 1 3 pick lip grains of corn without some preliminary lessons. On this point, 

 he says, furllicr expcnnients are needed. Such experiments have been since 

 made bv Mr. Spalding, aided, I believe, in some of his observations by the 

 .accomplished and deeply lamented Lady Amberley: and they seem to prove 

 conclusively that the chick does not need a single moment's tuition to te.ich 

 It to stand, run, govern the muscles of its eyes, and peck. Helmholtz, how- 

 evtr, IS contending against the notion of pre-established harmony ; and I 

 am not aware of his views as to the organisation of experiences of race or 

 breed. 



waistband. AH "that has been here said is to be taken in con- 

 nection with this fundamental truth. When "nascent senses" 

 are spoken of, when " the differentiation of a tissue at first 

 vaguely sensitive all over " is spoken of, and when these processes 

 are associated with "the modification of an organism by its en- 

 vironment," the same parallelism, without contact, or even 

 approach to contact, is implied. There is no fusion possible 

 between the two classes of facts — no motor energy in the intellect 

 of man to carry it without logical rupture from the one to the 

 other. 



Further, the doctrine of evolution derives man, in his totality, 

 from the interaction of organism and environment through count- 

 less ages past. The human understanding, for example — the 

 faculty which Mr. Spencer has turned so skilfully round upon 

 its own antecedents — is itself a result of the pl.iy between or- 

 ganism and environment through cosmic ranges of time. Never 

 surely did prescription plead so irresis'ihle a claim. But then it 

 comes to pass that, over and above his understanding, there are 

 many other things appertaining to man whose prescriptive rights 

 are quite as strong as that of Ae understanding itself. It is a 

 result, for example, of the play of organism and environment 

 that sugar is sweet and that aloes are bitter, that the smell of 

 henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such facts of con- 

 sciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate reason has ever 

 yet been rendered) are quite as old as the understanding itself ; 

 and many other things can boast an equally ancient origin. Mr. 

 Spencer at one place refers to that most powerful of passions — 

 the amatory passion — as one which, when it first occurs, is ante- 

 cedent to all relative experience whatever ; and we may pass its 

 claim as being at least as ancient and as valid as that of the 

 understanding itself Then there are such things woven into the 

 textuj'e of man as the feeling of awe, reverence, wonder — and 

 not alone the sexual love just referred to, but the love of the 

 beautiful, physical and moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There 

 is also that deep-set feeling which, since the earliest dawn of 

 history, and probably for ages prior to all history, incorporated 

 itself in the religions of the world. You who have escaped from 

 these religions in the high-and-dry light of the understanding 

 may deride them ; Init in so doing you deride accidents of form 

 merely, and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious 

 sentiment in the emotional nature of man. To yield this senti- 

 ment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems at the 

 present hour. And grotesque in relation to scientific culture as 

 many of the religions of the world have been and are — dangerous, 

 nay, destructive, to the dearest privileges of freemen as some ol 

 them undoubtedly have been, and would, if they could, be again 

 — it will be wise to recognise them as the forms of force, mis- 

 chievous, if permitted to intrude on the region of kiumileiixi; 

 over which it holds no command, but capable of being guided 

 by liberal thought to noble issues in the region of emotion, which 

 is its proper sphere. It is vain to oppose this force with a view 

 to its extirpation. What we should oppose, to the death if 

 necessary, is every attempt to found upon this elemental bias of 

 man's nature a system which should exercise despotic sway over 

 his intellect. I do not fear any such consummation. Science has 

 already to some extent leavened the world, and it will leaven it 

 more and more. I should look upon the mild light of science 

 breaking in upon the minds of^ the youth of Ireland, and 

 strengthening gradually to the perfect d.iy, as a surer check to any 

 intellectual or spiritual tyranny which might threaten this island, 

 than the laws of princes or the swords of emperors. Where is 

 the cause of fear ? We fought and won our battle even in the 

 Middle Ages : why should we doubt the issue of a conllict now? 



The impregnable position of science may be described in a few 

 words. All religious theories, schemes, and systems, which 

 embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into 

 its domain, must, in so far as they do this, submit to the control 

 of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting 

 otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous 

 to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of an or- 

 ganism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment, must be 

 plastic to the extent that the giowth of knowledge demands. 

 Wlien this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be re- 

 laxed, exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will 

 be dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimilated. The 

 lifting of the life is the es.senti.al point ; and as long as dogmatism, 

 fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of lever- 

 age may be employed to raise life to a higher level. Science itself 

 not unfrequently derives motive power from an ultra-scientific 

 source. Whcwell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a bin- 



