SCIENCE. 



4i 



this end, and that it may fitly be described " as if" it had 

 been arranged " in order that " these things might hap- 

 pen. But this use of language is none the less an 

 acknowledgment of the truth that the facts of Nature 

 are best brought home and explained to the understand- 

 ing by stating them in terms of the relation which they 

 obviously bear to the familiar operations of our own 

 mind and spirit. 



And this is the invariable result of all physical inquiry. 

 In this sense Nature is essentialy anthropomorphic. Man 

 sees his own mind reflected in it — his own, not in quan- 

 tity but in quality — his own fundamental attributes of 

 intellect, and, to a wonderful and mysterious degree, 

 even his own methods of operation. 



It is really curious and instructive to observe how even 

 those who struggle hardest to avoid the language of an- 

 thropomorphism in the interpretations of Nature are com- 

 pelled to make use of the analogies of our own mental 

 operations as the only possible exponents of what we see. 

 Let us look, for example, at the definition of Life given 

 by Mr. Herbert Spencer. It is a very old endeavor to 

 construct such definitions, and not a very profitable one : 

 inasmuch as Life is only known to us as itself, and all at- 

 tempts to reduce it to other conceptions are generally 

 mere playing with empty words. But it is not without 

 instruction to observe that Mr. Spencer's laborious anal- 

 ysis comes to this : " Life is the continuous adjustment of 

 internal relations to external relations." Bare, abstract, 

 and evasive of characteristic facts as this formula is, it 

 does contain at least one definite idea as to how Life 

 comes to be. Life is an "adjustment." This is a 

 purely anthropomorphic conception, conveying the idea 

 of that kind of co-ordination between different powers or 

 elements which is the result of constructive purpose. I 

 have already pointed out in a former chapter that all 

 combinations are not adjustments. The whole force and 

 meaning of the word consists in its reference to'inten- 

 tional arrangement. No combination can properly be 

 called an adjustment if it be purely accidental. When, 

 therefore, Life is represented as an adjustment, this is the 

 mental image which is reproduced ; and in so far as it 

 does reproduce this idea, and does consciously express it, 

 the formula has at least some intelligible meaning. If, 

 indeed, it has any. plausibility or approach to truth at all, 

 this is the element in it from which this plausibility is 

 derived. 



We may take another case. Mr. Matthew Arnold has 

 invented a new phrase for that conception of a Divine Be- 

 ing which alone, he thinks, can be justified by such evi- 

 dence as we possess. And what is that phrase ? " The 

 Eternal, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." 

 Surely whatever meaning there may in this artificial and 

 cumbrous phrase is entirely derived from its anthropo- 

 morphism. An agency which " makes for " something 

 — that something, too, being in the future, and being also 

 in itself an abstract, moral, and intellectual conception — 

 what can such an agency be conceived to be ? ' " Making 

 for" an object of any kind is a purely human image — an 

 image, too, derived primarily not from the highest efforts 

 of human Will, but from those which are represented in 

 the exercises of the body, and the skill with which, in 

 athletic contentions, some distant goal may be reached 

 and won. Such is the attempt of a very eminent man to 

 instruct us how we are to think of God without seeing in 

 Him or in His word anything analogous to our own 

 thought and work. 



Nor is it wonderful that this attempt should fail, when 

 we consider what it is an attempt to do — to establish an 

 absolute separation between Man and Nature ; to set up 

 Man as something above Nature, and outside of it ; and 

 yet to affirm that there is no other Being, and no other 

 Intelligence in a like position. And if anything can 

 render this attempt more unreasonable, it must be the 

 urther attempt to reach this result through science — 



science, the very possibility of which depends upon and 

 consists in the possibility of reducing all natural phe- 

 nomena within the terms of human thought, so that its 

 highest generalizations are always the most abstract in- 

 tellectual conceptions'. Science is the systematic knowl- 

 edge of relations. But that which perceives relations 

 must be itself related. All explanations consist in noth- 

 ing else than in establishing the relation which some 

 order of external facts bears to some corresponding or- 

 der of thought ; and it follows from this truth, that the 

 highest explanations of phenomena must always be those 

 which establish such relations with the highest faculties 

 of our nature. Professor Tyndall, in another part of 

 his Belfast address, like many other writers of the present 

 day, goes the length of saying that the great test of 

 physical truth is what may be called its " representa- 

 bility," — that is to say, the degree in which a given 

 physical conception can, from the analogies of experi- 

 ence, be represented in thought. But if our power ot 

 picturing a physical fact distinctly be indeed an indica- 

 tion of a true physical analogy, how much more dis- 

 tinctly than any physical fact can we picture the charac- 

 teristic workings of our own mental constitution. Yet 

 these are the conceptions which, we are told, we are not 

 to cherish, because they are anthropomorphic — or, in 

 other words, because of the very fact that they are so 

 familiar to us, and their mental representability is so 

 complete. 



Some, indeed, of our physical teachers, conscious ot 

 this necessary and involuntary anthropomorphism of 

 human thought and speech, struggle hard to expel it by 

 inventing phrases which shall as far as possible avoid it. 

 But it is well worthy of observation that, in exact pro- 

 portion as these phrases do avoid it, they become in- 

 competent to describe fully the facts of science. For ex- 

 ample, take those incipient changes in the substance of 

 an egg by which the organs of the future animal are 

 successively laid down — changes which have all refer- 

 ence to a purely purposive adaptation of that substance 

 to the future discharge of separate and special functions. 

 I have already referred 2 to the fact that these changes 

 are now commonly described as " differentiations," an 

 abstract expression which simply means the establish- 

 ment of differences, without any reference to the peculiar 

 nature of those differences, or theirrelations to each other 

 and to the whole. But the inadequacy of this word to 

 express the facts is surely obvious. The process of dis- 

 solution and decay are processes of differentiation us 

 much as the process of growth and adaptation to living 

 functions. Blood is differentiated just as much when, 

 upon being spilt upon the ground, it separates into its in- 

 organic elements, as when, circulating in the vessels, it 

 bathes and feeds the various tissues of the living body. 

 But these two operations are not only different, but ab- 

 solutely opposite in kind, and there does not seem to be 

 much light in that philosophy which insists on using the 

 same formula of expression to describe them both. It is 

 a phrase which empties the facts, as we can see and know 

 them, of all that is special in our knowledge of them. It 

 is possible, no doubt, by this and other similar artifices of 

 language, so to deprive them — or at least to appear to 

 deprive them — of their highest mental characters. More 

 foolish than the fabled ostrich, we may try to shut our eyes 

 against our own perceptions, or refuse to register them in 

 our language — resorting, for the sake of evasion, to some 

 juggleries of speech. " Potential existence" is another of 

 those vague abstract conceptions which may be, and is, 

 employed for a like purpose. It may be applied indis- 

 criminately to a mere slumbering force, or to an unful- 

 filled intention, or to an undeveloped mental faculty, or to 

 an elaborate preparation of foresight and design. If we 

 desire to take refuge from the necessity of forming any 



» " Science," Vol, I„ p. 181. 



