42 



SCIENCE. 



distinct conceptions, such phrases are eminently conve- 

 nient for the purpose, whilst under cover of them we may 

 cheat ourselves into the belief that we have got hold of | 

 some definite idea, and perhaps even of an ^important 

 truth. 



All who are puzzled and perplexed by the prevalent 

 teaching on these high matters should subject the lan- 

 guage in which it is conveyed to a careful, systematic, 

 and close analysis. It will be found to fall within one or 

 another of these three classes : — First, there is the 

 phraseology of those who, without any thought either of 

 theological dogma or of philosophical speculation, are, 

 above all things, observers, and who describe the facts 

 they see in whatever language appears most fully and 

 most naturally to convey what they see to others. The 

 language of such men is what Mr. Darwin's language 

 almost always is — eminently teleological and anthrc- I 

 pomorphic. Next, there is the language of those who 

 purposely shut out this element of thought, and con- ' 

 demn it as unscientific. The language of this class is 

 full of the vague abstract phrases to which I have re- 

 ferred — " differentiation " — " molecular change " — " har- 

 mony with environment," and others of a like kind — 

 phrases which, in exact proportion to their abstract 

 character, are evasive, and fall short of describing what 

 is really seen. Lastly we have the language of those 

 who habitually ascribe to Matter the properties of Mind ; 

 using this language not metaphorically, like the old 

 Aristotelians whom they despise, but literally— declaring i 

 that Mind, as we know it, must be considered as having 

 been contained " potentially " in Matter ; and was once 

 nothing but a cosmic vapor or a fiery cloud. Well may 

 Professor Tyndall call upon us " radically to change our f 

 notions of Matter," if this be a true view of it ; for in 

 this view it becomes equivalent to "Nature" in that 

 largest and widest interpretation to which 1 referred at 

 the close of the last chapter — viz., that in which Nature 

 is understood as the " Sum of all Existence." But if 

 this philosophy be true, let us at least cease to condemn, 

 as the type of all absurdity, the old mediaeval explana- | 

 tions of material phenomena, which ascribe to them 

 affections of the mind. If Matter be so widened in 

 meaning as to be the mother and source of Mind, it 

 must surely be right and safe enough to see in it those 

 dispositions and phenomena which are nothing but its 

 product in ourselves. 



The truth is, that this conception of Matter and of 

 Nature, which is associated with vehement denunciations ! 

 of anthropomorphism, is itself founded cn nothing else 

 but anthropomorphism pushed to its very farthest limit. | 

 It is entirely derived from and founded on the fact that 

 mind, as we see it in ourselves, is in this world insepar- 

 ably connected with a material organism, and on the 

 further assumption that Mind is inconceivable or cannot 

 be inferred except in the same connection. This would 

 be a very unsafe conclusion, even if the connection be- 

 tween our bodies and our minds were of such a nature 

 that we could not conceive the separation of the two. 

 But so far is this trom being the case, that, as Professor 

 Tyndall most truly says, " it is a connection which we 

 know only as an inexplicable fact, and we try to soar in a 

 vacuum when we seek to comprehend it." The universal 

 testimony of human speech — that sure record of the 

 deepest metaphysical truths — prove that we cannot but 

 think of the body and the mind as separate — of the mind 

 as our proper selves, and of the body as indeed external 

 to it. Let us never forget that Life, as we know it here 

 below, is the antecedent or the cause of organization, and 

 not its product; that the peculiar combinations of matter 

 which are the homes and abodes of Life are prepared and 

 shaped under the control and guidance of that mysterious 

 power which we know as vitality ; and that no discovery 

 of science has ever been able to reduce it to a lower level, 

 or to identify it with any purely material force. And, 



lastly, we must remember, that even if it be true that Life 

 ar.d Mind have seme inseparable connection with the 

 forces which are known to us as material, this would not 

 make ihe supreme agencies in Nature, cr Nature as a 

 w : hole, less anthropomorphic, but greatly mere; so that it 

 wculd, if possible, be even more unreasonable than it is 

 now to condemn man when he sees in Nature a Mind 

 having real analogies with his own. 



And now what is the result of this argument — what is 

 its scope and bearing ? Truly it is a very wide scope in- 

 deed — nothing less than this: that nothing in philosophy, 

 in theology, in belief, can be reascnably rejected or con- 

 demned on the sole ground that it is anthropomorphic. 

 That is to say, no advense presumption can arise against 

 any conception, or any idea, or any doctrine on the mere 

 ground that it rests on the analogies of human thought. 

 This is a position — purely negative and defensive though it 

 be — frcm which we cannot be dislodged, and which holds 

 under its destructive fire a thousand d'fferent avenues of 

 attack. 



But this is not all. Another result of the same argu- 

 ment is to establish a presumption the other way. All 

 the analogies of human thought are in themselves anal- 

 ogies of Nature, and in proportion as they are built up or 

 are perceived by Mind in its higher attributes and work, 

 they are pait and parcel of natural truth. Man — he 

 whom the Greeks called Anthropos, because, as it has 

 been supposed, he is the only Being whose look is up- 

 wards — Man is a part of Nature, and no artificial defini- 

 tions can separate him from it. And yet in another sense 

 it is true that Man is above Nature — outside of it ; and 

 in this aspect he is the very type and image of the 

 "Supernatural." The instinct which sees this image in 

 him is a true instinct, and the consequent desine of 

 atheistic philosophy to banish anthropomorphism from 

 our conceptions is dictated by an obvious logical necessi- 

 ty. But in this necessity the system is self-condemned. 

 Every advance cf science is a new testimony to the 

 supremacy of Mind, and to the correspendence between the 

 mind of Man and the mind which is supreme in Nature. 

 Nor yet will it be possible, in the face of science, to re- 

 vive that Nature-worship which breathes in so many of 

 the old religions of mankind. For in exalting Mind, 

 science is ever making plainer and plainer the inferior 

 position of the purely physical aspects of Nature — the 

 vague character of what we know as Matter and material 

 force. Has not science, for example, even in these last 

 few years, rendered forever impossible one of the oldest 

 and most natural of the idolatries of the world ? It has 

 disclosed to us the physical constitution of the Sun — that 

 great heavenly body which is one of the chief proximate 

 causes of all that we see and enjoy on earth, and which 

 has seemed most naturally the very image of the God- 

 head to millions of the human nace. We now know the 

 sun to be simply a veny lange globe of solid and of gas- 

 eous matter, in a state of fierce and flaming incandesc- 

 ence. No man can worship a ball of fire, however big; 

 nor can he feel grateful to it, nor love it, nor 

 adore it, even though its beams be to him the very light 

 of life. Neither in it nor in the mere physical forces of 

 which it is the centre, can we see anything approaching to 

 the rank and dignity of even the humblest human heart. 

 "What know we greater than the soul ?" It is only when 

 we come to think of the co-ordination and adjustment of 

 these physical forces as part of the mechanism of the 

 heavens— it is only, in short, when we recognize the 

 mental — that is, the anthropomorphic — element, that the 

 Universe becomes glorious and intelligible, as indeed a 

 Cosmos ; a system of order and beauty adapted to the 

 various ends which we see actually attained, and to a 

 thousand others which we can only guess. No phil- 

 osophy can be true which allows that we see in Nature 

 the most intimate relations with our intellectual concep- 

 tions of Space and Time and Force, but denies that we 



