C:R:EATION
B3Y A. WINCtIIELL,
PracE~sor of Geology and Natural History in the University of Michigan.








VO iCO3ES FR:O  IXTATTJRE..
CREATION
THE
AND NOT THE
PRODUCT OF PHYSICAL FORCES
BEING THE
C1- LOSI)ST(G LECTUtE
OF A COURSE UPON GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY, DELIVERED BEFOREi
THE YOUNG MEN'E LITERARY ASSOCIATION OF ANN ARBOR,
BY A. WINCHELL,
PROF. OF GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MIOHIGAN.
_  _, 
Prona cutr spectent animalia ccetera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit: coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
While other animals, with aspect prone, look toward the earth, he (God)
gave to man a face sublime, and bade him look toward heaven, and raise hia
countenance erect to the stars.
OVID, 1900 years ago.
ANN ARBOR,
PUBLISHEDI BY REQUEST OF THE ASSOCIATION.
E. B. POND, PRINTER,..
1858,








THE WORK OF ONE INTELLIGENCE,
AND NOT THE
PRODUCT OF PHYSICAL FORCES.*
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
Human inquiry has for ages been directed toward almost every
subject of investigation, except the one which lies most directly
before us, and presents at the same time, the most inviting field.
M]athematics, metaphysics rhetoric, criticism, history, art, have
all been. duly cultivated since the days of Pythagoras, Aristotle,
Longinus, Thucydides and Praxitiles; but the wide domain of
Nature, with its infinite problems of life and organization, has
been suffered to remain almost unexplored until within a comparatively recent period.  In our own day, we have seen the history
of the earth and. its successive races of inhabitants, rising to the
rank and dignity of philosophy.  We have seen the most philosophic minds of the age, engaging earnestly in the work of expounding the great laws and principles of organic nature.  Extinct
races have been summoned from the dust of ages, and marshaled
by the side of existing forms.  Remotest antiquity has been linked
to the present, andr we'have learned to regard the entire geological
history of our globe-the past and the present,-as one.  The
grandest results of future investigation lie in this direction.  We
behold the long barred. doors of nature, opening to admit us to
her inmost shrines.  WVe enter her sacred temple, and every object
breathes the presence of the Infinite iMind.  Every stone is inscribed with a word of revelation; and as we ponder the meaning
*The present lecture was simply an effort to render in a style popularly
intelligible, some of those great principles of Natral  History which, however
familiar they mTay be to to modern investigators, are only beginning to produce their legitima.te effects upon the general mind. The author gladly bears
testimony to the eagerness with which large audiences have listened to an
exposition of the facts and teachings of Natural History, which has thus
again proved itself so well adapted to popular entertainment and instruction,




4
of these divine records, we feel thrilled with the conviction, that
we have possessed ourselves of thoughts that were conceived in
the mind of the Omniscient.  We go forth from our communings,
purified and exalted in soul; and instead of banishing Deity from
the universe, we delight to know that he exists on every side of us.
What can be more appropriate then, than a review  of those
great principles of Natural History, which tend to establish the
doctrine, that CREATION IS THE WORK or O E INTELLIGENCE, AND
NOT THE PRODUCT OF PHYSICAL FORlCES?
It has often been alleged that science, and particularly natural science, tends to skepticism.  On the other hand, we hear
it daily asserted, that nature bespeaks the wisdom, goodness
and power of a Creator.  It will be interesting for us to consider
in what manner the results of the investigation of nature thus far,
bear upon this question. These results it will be convenient for us
to present in the form of several distinct propositions.  Commencing with a review of inorganic nature we shall find the following
proposition established:.  The development of the present aspects of Material Nature
has proceeded upon a Plan announced in the earliest periods of Geological History.
The present arrangements, forms and features of our oceans,
continents, islands, mountains, valleys, plains, rivers, lakes, forests,
and everything whichkconstitutes the physical geography, and the
geological structure of a country, have been wrought out by a
series of stupendous operations, all tending toward the same grand
result, and all controlled by the same natural laws. The study of
the rocks exhibiting an igneous origin, leads our minds back to a
molten condition of the entire globe; and even to a prior period,
when it may have existed in the form of igneous vapor. Gradually cooling from this condition a molten nucleus resulted, which was
surrounded by an atmosphere, composed of those elements which
most readily volatize under the influence of heat.  Even after the
process of refrigeration had proceeded so far, as to allow the formation of a rigid crust over the exterior of the melted mass, the
transmitted caloric must have rendered that crust too intensely hot
to permit the condensation from  their gaseous condition, of such
substances as sulphur carbon and chlorine. These would exist,
consequently, at a high temperature in contact with the elements
of atmospheric air, and an excess of oxygen.  Every chemist
knows what, by the immutable laws of his science, would be the




result of sudh concurrent conditions. All of the scarbon'in'the
world, would exist in the form of carbonic acid. All'which now enters into the constitution of plants, limestones, coal, &c., would be:a noxious acid vapor. All of the sulphur in the world, would be!in the form of gaseous sulphurous acid; and all the chlorine in
the world, in the form  of hydrochloric acid.  These three acids
then, in connexion with smaller amounts of other volatile substances, hung suspended in the circumambient air. But the ocean too
was vapor.  The waters which now encompass the globe had never
yet been condensed; and they bore themselves by their elastic
force, above the heated crust, and extended far out into surrounding space.
When the cooling of the regions of space, permitted these
aqueous vapors to be condensed into clouds, a pall of murky darkness impenetrable shut out thelight of the sun; and soon torrents'of rain descended upon the still glowing crust. The rapid reconversion of these rains to vapor, w:ouldc unite with the friction of
descending torrents, to disturb the electricity of the elements; and
there would follow a measureless period of tempests and lightnings,
which no human eye beheld, and no human imagination can now
picture. When the cooliag crust permitted the acid waters to remain upon it, consider what powerful corrosive action would take
place upon the exposed surface of the underlying rock.  The material of an immense thickness of sediment was thus obtained.
But it must be remembered that the shrinking of the central
nucleus and the consequent production of wrinkles in the enveloping crust, would initiate a process which has resulted in the birth
of mountain ridges, and continental areas.  The greater weight of
waters, reposing in the deeper valleys between the first-formed
ridges, would ever afterwards tend to sink deeper these original
depressions.  As the shrinking of the molten nucleus progressed,
the concentration of the oceanic waters in the deeper furrows of
the thickening crust, would necessarily protrude higher and higher,
the nascent, though still sub-aqueous, mountains. Finally, the
continued operation of the same causes, would elevate some of the
highest ridges, covered with the accumulated sediments of ages,
above the level of the universal ocean.  in the development history of the American continent, the geologist contemplates with
exalting interest, one of these great primeval ridges, extending
from the region north of the great lakes, far off toward the coast
of Labrador; and another, commencing in the same region, and




extending north-west-ward through the centre of British America
far toward the Arctic Sea.  Note the parallelism of these ridges,
with the trend of the nearest sea coasts.  Does it not show that
the center of the lateral pressures which raised these great wrinkles,
was even in that early day, in the direction of the present Atlantic
and Pacific?  May we not regard these ancient ridges as the germ
of the American continent?  And may we not look upon the  directions in which they stretch, as propl)hetic indications of the
coast lines of our day?  Do we not learn that the great ocean basins already existed, and that definite areas h-ad been diesignated
as the seat of future continents.  And when we consider that this
phase of things had been assumed, before the first plcant or animal
had found an existence uponl thc earth, and aunnumbeClred aes before the creation of man, we become imprnessed wi th a viewn of the
persistence and unity of a plan, which found its first expression in
periods so inconceivably remote.
Succeeding the appearance of these germinlsal ridges,'we trace
the introduction  of successive races of animals and plants.  As
change after change passed over the continent, successive races
were swept out of existeince; and these were followed by others
possessing renewed adaptations to the varied circumstalces around
the-nm.
Down to the period  of the Coal Form.ation, scareely any terres —
trial plants or animals had a being.  The.Am ericarn continent was,
undergoilng its destinec  development, but neither -the Alleghoaniesy
nor the Rochy Mountains, nor the broad ilntervening b)Csin, hlad
made their appearance above the almost unbroi en siurface of the
sea.  The Atlantic met the nacific in the valley of the Mfississippi.
The V-shaped ridge lyTing noi'toh of the greai t lal es,  was almost
the sole indication of land, durigiil the long txwilig'lt of time.  But
though thle American  mounta-mi      s l-ad not apipeared above the
waves, Iwe learn that the solid mrasconry of tllci founidations had
been laid deep iin the bed. of ite sea   A s:-tbmri ie:ridu'te was undergoing its gr'adual d.evelopJnme:,t along  t-he line of the present
Appalachians; and, in the ifr west, thee n      ie mnassive Pacific was
crowding up folds, -wxhich were det;ined to gmrow into the more elevated ranges of the Bocky Ifountltains.  Between the'se coast-wise
reefs, stretched our gr eat con'tinetal b asin,  alwayr  shal lower than
the deep sea withJnout,,        but  et, ti  this tilme, o-vset      waves
which1 formed no great lbarrier from thle Atl altic t        o the Pacific.
The two enormous pressures, continuing fron  t-he east and fromr




the west, protruded the bed of the sea to the surface of the great
continental lagoon.  Tbe regions now covered by the western and
southwestern States, as vwell a1s vast areas west of the Mississippi.and east of Ohio and KientLucky, became marshes, standing nearly
-at the level of the sea. Deep, rich soils accumulated upon them,
A tropical climate prevlailed. Humid breezes swept over them.
The atmosphere was rich in carbon, the food of plants, but no
plant waved in the breeze.  No such opportunity for the growth
of vegetation had before existed. Just at this juncture-never
before occurring, never possible afterwards, terrestrial vegetation
makes its appearance in incredible luxuriance.  Immense masses
of fallen trees and herbs are accumulated-a slight subsidence of
the land admits anew the ocean's waters with their sediments, and
the carbonaceous beds are buried beyond the reach of destruction.
Again the re-appearance of the land, is followed by crops of vegetation, which, in turn, are packed away beneath the  sediments of
the re-invadaing waters.  Thus, layer after laer of codl is stowed
away, and the armosphere becomes purified of its excess of carbohn
Now, by the continued operation of those great mnountain making
forces which have been active from the beginning, the Appalachians rise from the i waters in great folds of the earth's crust, extending frorm New England to Alabama.  At the same epoch, some, at
least, of the ridges of the Rocky  aount'ains, are raised.  Now
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and
parts of other states rose dripping friom the sea.  Other long periods of time followed, during which thlose portions of our country
still submerged, received further accurmulations of sediment.  The
history of these periods is full of interest and instruction.  We
find the samne order pursued.  Lateral pressure, at intervals protrudes still hig'her, the continent.  8 uecessive Floras and Faunas
flourish with unimpeded. luxuriance; and when their period is past,
we find. them swept fromL existence, to give place to the new creations ot a new order of things.
Finally, the completed outline of the continent was traced,
The brute creation, with all its orders and families had taken possession of it.  Bees hummed through the summer.air, and the
groves were vocal with the voices of birds.  Great rivers whose
channels are now obsolete, drained the surplus waters of the continent.  The landscape was decked with all the forms arnd hues of
a flowering vegetation and it seemed to need but man, to complete
the work of creation.  But man was yet in the far cominga fture.




One more scene of violence'must sweep over the land, before Omniscience could consider the preparation complete.
Now that the Atlantic and Pacific had elevated their respective
mountain ranges to a fixed and permanent altitude, the smaller
ocean that surrounds the poles, was left to wrinkle up the remaining surplusage in the size of the crust that enveloped the ever
shrinking nucleus. Now followed the development of the northern
margin of the continent. The appearance of a vast elevated tract,
in high northern latitudes, brought arctic winter to all the middle
regions. Immense glaciers accumulated on the slopes, which extended as far south as the Ohio river,  The slow grinding movements of their expansion and contraction, gnawed away incredible
accumulations from the underlying rocks. Next commenced a
subsidence. The rigors of the climate abated. The icy accumulations of ages dissolved before the approach of another geological
spring time.  The inundation of an entire continent followed.
The once forbidden ocean was readmitted to career in triumph
over States that had been long ago reclaimed from its dominion,
Michigan disappeared beneath the waves-and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and New York, and Canada. The entire northern and
middle regions of the continent, sank down to a level, lower than
they had occupied since before the deposition of the coal.
A  finite intelligence would have proclaimed a fatal disaster to
the work of creation. The Infinite Intelligence had selected this,
as the most efficient means for carrying it on, and completing it.
By degrees, the continent emerged from its deep sea-burial, and
arose in its final victory over the waning waters. Around the
flanks of the higher summits, which had not been submerged, the
retreating waves lingered, and sported for ages with the pebbles
upon the beach. As the waters reluctantly receded to their ancient
bed, they laved in succession every inch of the emerging land.
Thus the rubbish left from the glacier epoch was thoroughly assorted, and the finer materials were left upon the surface. These
became our subsoils. During the period which followed, many of
the inland lakes, left in depressions which the sea had deserted,
became filled with accumulations of marl and peat.  Larger remnants of the sea, left in basins having no outlet, have remained to
the present day and' constitute ojar salt lakes. As the sea receded,
the copious drainage of the continent, marked out the valleys of
the future rivers. Now were accumulated: our alluvial bottoms;
Now our Huron river began to plow its way through our hills of




sand and pebbles. Now the vast delta of the Mississippi began'
to receive the fluviatilo sediments of alf that region included between the Appalachians, the' Rocky I   ountains, and the V-shaped
ridge of northern America.- T][ow the Niagara, probably, first be-'
gan to excavate the' stupelndoul.  gorge below the great cataract.
Unknown ages passed7, aInd man, the last and; greatest work of
creation, took possession of the finished earth.
Such is a brief resumae of the geological history of our planet,
with special reference to the American continent. It may appear
surprising-indeed it is to me surprising, that such exact details
of periods so inconceivably remote, have ever beenobtained. But
I have presented you with an outline only of the great facts upon
which all geologists are agreed. How  immense a field for the
imagination to sweep over!   Wh'at amazing intervals of time to
contemplate!  What gigantic operations to trace! And yet we
behold from the begsinning, the- action of the same identical physical forces as are in action to-day.  The immutableand omnipresent
forces of chemistry first held the elements under sway.  Affinity,
gravitation, caloric, electricity, in their varying operations have
wrought out the diveirse phases of the modern earth. The plan of
their operations has been equally uniform. Igneous forces pressing upward-oceanic waters bearing downward, and laterally.  An,
incipient wrinkle-a growing ridge —an upheaved cordillera.The deep ocean bed has ever been the deep ocean bed.  Theo
place of the continents' was marked out in earliest time, and each
successive convulsion raised them  nearer their destined level. —
Even their outlines were foreshadowed in the trend of those primeval ridges, which made a mockery of dry land, before a living
thing had appeared upon the earth. And when the finishing touch
was to pass over the globe, we find it affected by the same general
agency as piled up miles of strata, and raised granite summits to"
the clouds. An upheaval, a submergence and another upheaval,
constitute the last three- chapters of the history. Who can con-'
template this identity of agencies, identity of means, persistence:
of plan and perfection of results, without being impressed with
the conviction that One Intelligence has planned the scheme, and 
guided the blind forces from the beginning, to' the accomplishment
of the long' anticipated end?
In connexion with the development of the present material ar~rangemelnts of nature we pass for a momlent to the second prop —
osition.




il' Te rc/ations of tlhe U)rs,/itu  ifne'rais to tie  Eartth's Crust
onistitute a provisitonoJr the comi- ng' oJ 2'l/anl
What if coal, iron, lead, ccplpe - ci, ild and silver had been left
buried ten or fifteen miles   ithii'l  th e solid1  crust of the earth?
What if they had beeni left even, promiscuously distributed through
the mass of rocks?  AW'e sholul d then lhave seen no special adapta-'tion to the wants of tman.  A piscuot  stri bution mightt have
been the res-ualt of chance'.  is it t nota marrvelouts exhibition of
beneficent purposes thoen, w n-:,  we fi l( all. hese useful products
~collected toogether, and. soLxre  in the most accessible situations.
There has been butr oneo ju-ncur:. e i- the earth's history, when, in
accordance  with the exisilint laws of nature, such vast stores of
vegetable  matter could boe accmt:ulted as constitute our coal
formation.  The opportunity to p-rovide this boon for the future
race, was not left un-improved.  [- ather, should we say, the opportunity was created-it was -proviclddc fromr  the begining, when
the affinity between carbon and oxygeln was established, and the
heated condition of the elelments caused -'he two to rush into union.
Further than this, thoug'h. -imeasurable ages have elapsed
since the coal was deposited; andc mowany thousand feet of sediments
have been collected, over areas where the sea still lingered, man's
great fuel house has never been buried.  Baised  above the encroachllents of the sea a           s soo l as the sea could be no longer useful in the work, these stlors of coal have never been agaiin submerged, except one, on the eve of min's appearance, and then,
apparently, to spread the surface with a soil for his reception, that
in conminlg oges he migihnt  possess a fam  and an inexhautible mine
of coal upon the self samie acres,
The relations of the other minerals are equally remarkable,
rFrom the depths ofi the earth's molten interior, the specular and
mnagnetic oxyds of iron have been poured'up in masses that enrich
nations.  One of the miost splendid exanmpies in the world, occurs
within our own State-another in the Ir-on M:vountain and Pilot
Knob of BMlissouri-another in northern i              ojew Yo rk.  A  different.
ore is found associated with mineral cou: l.  P:lrticle by particle the
iron has been assorted from  the clayey imrta   in which we find it
imbedded, and we take it out in nod lIes of sufficient abundance'
to render the coal measures som-leticIes, as vainable for their iron
as for their fuel.  Note the association of these two minerals; and
observe in the same associaldio. O: he litl:stoile, which is to answer




1 1
as a flux in th-e reduction of thle ores,   le, ichigan is- also enriched
with this ltiple entdoxwmen t of minleral'wealth.
Considor in the nest place, the'ao]o.icic.,3 ] relations of gold,
Throuogh the lo-no lapse of ime  wo hich prm eceded the final preparation for man, gold remin    eserved   the stor e    house of naturelocked up in fire proof safes, wshich te nmeltin  of mountains could
not destroy.  Hcad it been brouglht to the vsurface, there was no
rational being to unlderstand. its uses.  I-ad it  been left there, the
wearing away of the roccs in w —chl it occurred, would have
strewed it ov    e ov ces bed to be'oburied,  be bi neath after accumulations of sediment.  ALccordinoly, we find the veins of auriferous
quartz injected into the older rocks;c, at the commencement of the
last epoch of geological history.   he denuding glaciers and the
final inundation,  crushed the  quartz in a style which man feebly
imitates, and strewed the firanoments over ithe contiguous slopes,
where man at his leisure, mioght sepiarate the gold from the rubbish..
We offer these onlay as exat    m  ples fr'om. a world full of illustrations
of the studious ad.aptation of ti.e -natertial arrangements of nature
to the comforts and utilities of- man.   id.ad tve time to consider the
special relations of all the use-fll micnerals,-the metallic ores, marbles, building stines, salt andy gypsima; materials for earthen ware,;
pottery, bricks, and paints; lthe sources and the causes of springs,
common and artesian wells; diversity of landscape scenery; the relation of great navigable rivers andc lakes to vast inland areas; the
accumulation of peat and marl; aind the various other physical
facts which would enter into an account of the economical history
of the earth's crust; and then could wTe impress your minds with
the importance of the fact, that all these humanly adapted relations'
were brought about ages before the first man had an existence, it
seems to me that you could never afterwards doubt, that a far
seeing and beneficent Intelligence has always superintended and
controled the complex evolutions of material nature.
We pass now to the contemplation of organic nature, and we
shall remark, in the next place, that
II1.  The  Yundamental Plans of  Organic lature were announced with the appearance of the earliest Plants and Animnals.
We shall illustrate this proposition by references to the natural
history of animals.
It has never, perhaps, occurred to the casual observer, that all
the diversified forms and capabilities and adaptations of the ani




12
mal creation, when investigated with reference to *their plan of;structure, may be reduced to four fundamental types. Yet such
is so obviously the case, that since the fact wras first pointed out
by one of the most eminent naturalists of the last generation, its
reality has scarcely been questioned by any respectable authority.
Instead then, of endless variety of plan, or combinations of different plans, we are astonished to discover four central ideas propounded as the starting points of four series of organized existen-.ces. Here is intelligence-here is thought, premeditation, fore-,sight. We have then four totally distinct series of existing animals,
called VERTEBRATED, ARTICULATED, IVOLLUSCOUS and RADIATED.
There is no serial connexion of these four types, so that by arranging them in a column we express the relative grades of the animals
belonging to them. Neither are they four parallel series, so that
the highest forms of each occupy the same level, and the lowest
the same. If we ascend from the lowest to the highest of the Radiates, we have reached a rank from which we must descend by a
considerable step, to connect with the lowest of the Mollusks.
Rising thence to the highest of the Mollusks, we must again descend
nearly to the level of the bottom of this type, to connect with the
lowest of the Articulates. Thence, ascending to the highest of
the Articulates, we find ourselves some distance above the humblest
of the Vertebrates.  From this latter point, we ascend through the
Vertebrated series, and find man at its head.  If we regard the
aggregate rank of the individuals composing the four series, or if
we compare the fundamental ideas which characterize the structure
of the four series, we shall be led to arrange them in descending
order thus:-VERTEBRATED, ARTICULATED, MOLLUSCOUS, RADIATED.
Now the idea which we wish to set forth in the present connexion is this,  Each of these four fundamental types of animal structure, was introduced upon the earth during the first great period
of animated existence. Three, at least, of these, are known to
have made their appearance in the very first group of animal forms,
that sporte'd in the waters of the protozoic sea. Through all the
vicissitudes of animal existence which followed —the extinction of
entire Faunas, the creation of new ones, the total disappearance
from the earth, of many family types, and the repeated introduction
of families previously unknown —as well as in the almost infinite
multiplication of species and individuals in the latter periods of
geological history, we find nowhere the evidences of a fifth type
of structure. The plan of the animal creation was marked out




13
from thlebeginning. It was matured  d and perfeeted when the first
living being came from the hands;of its Maker.  It reached far,
far on into the remote future, and:comprehended the structure of
Birds and Quadrupeds and even of man himself.  Such antiquity,of plan, such unity of plan, such flexibilityl and comprehension of
plan, such providence and wisdom of plan, impress our minds as
most conclusive evidences of a.superintending and eternal Intl-'ligence.
We proceed next to notice, that
IV.  The same identical Succcssion of Ideas ispresented to us in.Nature in three ways, lst, in the Gradatzons of existing animal
forms, 2nd, zn the successive phases of the E4mbryonic Development
of animals, 3rd, in the Order of Appearance of subordinate zoological types upon the earth.
We have already alluded to gradations existing within the limits
of each great Branch of the Animal Kingdom.  Each of the four:great series of animals is divided into Classes, which exhibit with
respect to each other an imperfect graduation in rank.  Each Class
is divided into Orders, a.mong which we find the idea of a serial
arrangement perfectly carried out.  Beginning with the lower
forms, then, and passing upwards to the intermediate, and higher,
we find expressed a certain succession of ideas.  Thus, in the class
to which man belongs we have the whale, the hippopotamus, the
deer, the lion, the orang outang and man, as the expressions of so
-A,' —ront ideas in a graduated series constituting a Classo
InI another class, we have Crabs, Crawfishes, Barnacles, Trilobites,
Waterfeas," Lernaesans ad" Wheel-animalcules " assthe graduated representatives of so many ideas expressed under the crustaceous type of animlals. Thus we are presented in nature, with.several series of progressive and closely related forms.
Turning now to the embryonic development of individuals, we
shall find the same successions of ideas repeated. in the history of
single animals.   A few examples will illustrate this point. Within
the limits of the same class, those orders which breathe by gills
are lower in rank than those which breathe by lungs; and in general, aquatic respiration marks inferiority of rank.  Thus the
aquatic fishes stand below  the terrestrial vertebrates and the
aquatic amphibians are inferior to those which, at maturity, breathe
by lungs. Now we are astonished to find that at an early period.of development all vertebrates are equally endowed with gills.




14.
Reptiles, Birds and even man himself, are, at one period, fish-likm.
in the structure of their breafthing apparatus.  From this low modification, their subsequenlt developml ent carries them through the
intermediate grades, until each rises to, its destined rank. The.
tadpole is the embryo of the frog. But the tadpole has the low
organization of the fish, while the frog breathes air, and exhibits,
a very different exterrnal form  and internal structure.  Again
worms are lower in rank than insects. The grub which cuts off
your young corn, and which you call a worm is but the embryo.
of an insect.'ou see then, in this case, that the embryo of a
higher form resembles the permanent state of a lower one.  Numerous examples of this kind might be adduced; but -we wish
only to illustrate the principle, and not to undertake a presentation
of the facts by which it has been established.  It is now quite satisfactorily settled, that the embryos, or immature conditions of
animals, correspond to the mature conditions of other animals
lower in rank; and. that, as an embryo proceeds in its development, it puts on the features of successively higher forms, until
it reaches the level of its parent.  Tracing its embryonic development therefore, we are presented with the same succession of ideas,
as in tracing the gradation of an entire series of adult forms.
If now  we turn our attention to the order of appearance upon
the earth of the different types of animals, in past geological ages,
we shall trace again the same successions of ideas. It has already
been stated that the four fundamental types or Branches of the
animal kingdom, existed simultaneously in the first great period
of animalisation.  These fundamental types were not, however,
brought out in all their class modifications.  Of the classes which
did make their appearance, many ranLked comparatively high, and
some, the Jigh'est in their respective Branches in the Animal Kingdom.  If we confine our attention however to the single classes,
we shall find that it was generally the lowest forms of these which
had the earliest existence. Successively higher forms made their
appearance during succeeding ages; and when the period of man
arrived, he took his position at the head of the class of mammals,
and entered upon the possession of the earth, in company with the
heads of the other classes.  A review of the facts upon which this
generalization is based, would be highly interesting but we must
content ourselves with the grand result.
From what has just been said, it appears that a certain succession of organic forms is an order established in nature. We find




:15
this identical succession repeatedly brought oat.  it is not a singl
line of stIcce3ssion runi:lino over the whole Ani-lnal:i. ingdom, but
it is an extensivie group  of series  of c  secultive ideas; and each
series of idea  has beeni repeated in'tree dl-ierent ways.  This is
1to relmarlable coiliclidelnce.  A  ni m iad chances are against it.
The development of these ogrand  -'orreltionS begoan thousands oV'ages a go, aLd has been carried oni  to   e pe      t time.  We trace
it in the history of the butterfly,'which- spre.-a-s it: colors to the
suimmer sunl —i-i tihat of the s-tar fish, which goes tlhrougt h its wonderful evolutions iti tihe hicdden an md mys-terious' recesses of the sea
-and in that of rman himself, whose anim'tl nature unites him to
these lower forms, and whose intellectual- endowl ments  ally him  to
that n-telolijence whose thoughts we dlelight to trace throughout
creation.
One cautioni is needed in connexion w ith this subject.  The sucesive aipearanee of ighcliler a lnd higi-her types in past geological
epochs, led, at first, to the error of supposin,'i     that the history  of
animalisation upon the globe, w —olld present us with one continued
series from  the lowest polyp to man.l   Thlis hasty and erroneous
assumption opened the way to the equally erronlous, but vastly
nmore baneful hypothesis, of a genetic or parental connexion between higher and lower forrmls,  It ended in that famrous theorythat every grade of aninmal existence has been developed from the
next lower, instead of beilg a distinct arnd origoinal creation-that
the lowest form ot the entire series was but an eleetrified molecule,
and that man himself, at the other extreme, is buat an improvement
tpon thte apes just beneathl him.  W\e have not time to enter upon
~the refutation of this theory, soo grossly anid f        ft aliy  alse.  Suffice
it to say that a morei correct, and m-ore comnprlehensive understancd
ing of the very facts u1pon -wich it professed to be based, has
swept it like a cobweb from the doorway of the temple of nature.
This weapon of skepticism has been wrested froim her grasp; andc
she lies now pierced by the iblade  txwhich  sihe once brandished in
the face of the Christ'inn Re'liion   To science Christianity is indebted for this overthrowv.
Flowing naturially from  the ioregoing' considerations, we have
next, the follow'ing p0roposition:
Y.  The succession,  iin geological tuime, o  distinct Fatun.as, is aA'evidence of successive C eaitive Acts.
If, as has been established, there is no genealogical connexioni
between the successive race   of animals t.hat hav e aIpeaied up'o1




16
the earth, and'of which geology furnishes us the most abundanti
and most remarkable evidence, how  shall we account for the oft
repeated appearance of entire new'aunas.  If we find a difficulty in accounting, on physical grounds, for the appearance of a
single assemblage of animal forms, how greatly do we find that
difficulty enhanced, in attempting to assign a score of such assemblages to the same material or spontaneous origin. Htuman reason
forbids it.  Geology presents us wiSth perhaps twenty extinctions
of all, or nearly all existing species;  and as many times do we
find the earth repeopled with species totally distinct from the preceding, but yet so connected by higher rellations, that we find them
carrying out the same identical successions of ideas, as had been
commenced in preceding epochs, though subsequently interrupted
by frequently recurring catastropheso  Nature seems to have proceeded everywhere upon grand and' far-seeing plans'; but she has
taken infinite pains to exclude friom our minds the idea of a causal connexion between the results obtained, and the mechanism of
the plan, or the agencies through which it is executed.
In the same connexion we present another striking feature in the
past history of the animal creation.
VI.  The occurrence of " Prophetic Types " is anc evidence of
the Foresight of Ihe Creator, and the ExCtent and Prospective,character of his plans;
It has already been stated that in tracing the order of introduction of organized beings upon the earth, we find a general progression from  lower to higher. In the Branch of Vertebrates,
this progression exists among the several classes; though in the
other Branches it is discoverable only among the orders of a class.
Thus we find Fishes introduced before Amphibians, Amphibians
before Reptiles, reptiles before Birds, and Birds before Mammals.
Now what we mean by " Prophetic Types " is, the occurrence of
certain features of higher forml  in connection with, a general
structure of inferior grade.  To illustrate, the class of Fishes hiad
a long existen'ce upon the earth before the class of Reptiles- appeared.  Now' what strikes us as most note-worthy is the fact, that
during the period immediately precediug the appearance of Reptiles, most of the- Fishes' assumed distinct reptilian characters.
This is what wo-e regardl as a prophecy of coming types.  In a
similar manner the' approach of Birds was heralded by a flying
xreptile (Pterodactyl) and. that of mammals by a whale-like aquiatic




17
reptile (lch'lyoau'erus).   There has recently  bee'n brIought fo light
by an American nat'uralist a very instructive example of this kind,
Among Amphibiosus animals, such as fros, sal:amncdiers and "fishlizards " or "'hell benders," we notice a gradation of rank from
the frog' down to the hell-bender.  Every one is famniliar iwith the
great contrast in the outlines of a frog and'a salamander.  Their
skeletons are also strikilngoly dilflerent.  Nowx  before frogs had any
existence, salamanaders werle alreiady abundaint..     N. ewberry
however, has recently discovered in the (o al'[easures of Ohio
the remains of an alnim.adl which hiad the tail and limbs of a sala,
mander, and the head and ribless trunk of a frog   Its lower jaw
was divided between frog-s and salamanders,. Another saliamander
discovered in the same formation possessed the ribs of a serpent,
In such remarkable cases vwe find the thoughts which appertain
to coming existences intersperse'd. afmolng the forms of the passing
period; as if the Creator were engaeged in the contemplation of
future races, while his hands were occupied with the organisms of
to-day.  The least that we can learn fiomi these prophetic types, is
the prescience of the Creator, and the comprehensive nature of his
plans.
We turn noW for a moment, from this contemplation of the most
general relations existing among organized beings, to the' notice of
some isolated facts.
VIi.  1t;e find in Na ure num',rous special instannces of the Bonds
of  Urnion ct'hnnecti:m  the remoJtest xtr'cmes of time.
WNe have already seen how the generall scheme of nature renders
the history of the past and of the present a unit.  Some remarkable, isolated facts that have been mergedl in the general account,
deserve particular mention.  We find imbedded -in many of the
oldest limestones, innumerable stems of little star-like animals
called Encrinites.  In the twilight of the earth's history, these
little animated lilies bloomed in submarine plantations all over these
western states.  They are found likew ise, in all parts of the world,
They yield an, imRportant character to the' periods in which they
flourished.  Countless ages before the creation of man, they had
attained their maximum  development, and had far advanced in
their decline.  In our' own day we have but a single species remain,
ing.  Thus the type is not totally extinct,  N-ature has taken care
to preserve a solitary specimen fbr comparison   and with this as
the key, we attain to a knowledge' of those' multitudinous extince
0




18
orins, whose very ruins, like those of Riome or Nineveh, attest the
impotltnce of their former position.
Associated with the flowerli'Ke Encrinite in life, and not dissevered from  companionship with it in their rocky sepulchre, we find
the Trilobite-companion of the first existences upon which the
sunlight ever feil —nonarch for a lono period of the teeming waters in which he dwelt. The nation of Trilobites is totally extinct.
The thought is almost a melancholy one, to him  who has contetnplated the evidences of the power and. dominion and populousness
of this long forgotten race.  Far back in the dawn of creation
the Trilobites had their rise, their culmination and their deline,
But though not a Trilobite exists at the present day, we find far
away in the Antarctic, a group of forms in which some of the
features of the Trilobites  are reproduced. This we may call a
retrospective type,  Thus are the extremes of time linked together,
It is a curious fact that while scarcely a genus of those animals
which made their appearance in the earlier periods of the earth's
history, prolonged their existence into the later periods, two genera L;ngaa and Orbiczla,. which  began their career with the
Adams of the animal creation, have continued to exist through all
the vicissitudes of time, and are found still living in modern seas,
It is not less singular that the chemical constitution of the shells
of the ancient species of these genera, possessed a peculiarity
which belongs equally to the most recent species of the same gene
era. Their shells are composed of phosphate, insteadeof carbonate
of lime;-they are bone like, instead of stone like in their consti
tution.  What stern and immutable law presides over the existence
of these humble beings, that, throughout all time, they should de.
viate from the nature of other molluscs, in the material selected
for their shells?
You are familiar with the gar-pike or  "bill fish " of the lakes.
This pest of the fisherman is the idol of the geologist, He looks
upon it with reverence and awe.  Clad in its enameled coat of
mail, and armed with its long and pointed teeth it carties his imagination back to the infancy of the earth, when the land sustained
no living thing, and the kindred of the gar pike were the monarchs
of the deep.  The race has since been doomed, and a few lingering representatives only, now survive, like exiles wearing still the
helmet and the buckler, consecrated by the prowess of their ancestors, but strangers among the scenes which they have survived
to witness.




19
The sturgeon is another living example of a type almost extinct.
With his cartilaginous skeleton, his scalpless scull, and his skin
protected by broad bony plates instead of scales, he carries the
mind back to a period more ancient even than that of the " gar
pike;" when the waning trilobites of the sil,rian seas, had been
succeeded by  the trilobite-suggesting  Cephlalaspis and  other
bucklered fishes so graphically described by the lamented Hugh
Miller.
Perhaps not less instructive are the few surviving representatives
of those gigantic ferns and clubmosses which probably contributed
so much to the material of the coal deposites. It seems remarkable that in so many instances, an entire group of animals or plants
once numerous, should have become almost extinct, but yet not
completely so. It appears as if nature had taken the pains to
preserve the type, ages after the race may be said to have become
extinct.
Without dwelling longer on this class of isolated facts we proceed cursorily to another.
VIII.  Wre find in nature many special instances of corresponding or identical structure uniting dissimilar forms, both among plants
and animals.
As illustrations of this proposition we would refer firstly to the
well known fact that all plants are constituted chemically of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; and all animals of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen and nitrogen-an identity of chemical constitution, which,
when we consider the endless variety of vegetable and animal forms
and natures, seems to indicate at least, a definite and fixed purpose,
executed by an intelligence of boundless resources.
We would refer secondly to that wonderful generalization of
modern science, which has shown that all animals and plants originate from simple cells and that all organic tissues are built up
from cellular elements.  Every animal, trom the slug up to man;
and every plant, from the slimy sea weed to the kingly oak, is
is composed of tissues or parts that are made up of infinitudes of
little cells. When we see the same plan —the same method —the
Bame ideas interposed un-der such endless modifications, we trace
in it a purpose —a guiding intelligence and a wealth of resoucces.
In the same connexion we may refer to the universality, among
plants and animals, of the exercise of those vital functions which
we call Nutrition, Respiration and Circulation.  Circulation may




be defined, in the most gencer:al terms, as thel convey-ance of a fluid
correspond'ingc to blood,l tlhroughout eil piarts of the organized
fabric —everywhere  e-ositii-;:g particiles to repair the wastes of the
system, and ca: rryinol oif the rubbish of hourly decay.  The modifications of this f:mdamental idea are endless.  Sometimes the
blood is propelled in its circLlit by the contractions of a single
muscular organ eallld the Iheat —and executes moreover, two
complete and distilnc circulations — one to the lungs and another
to the surface of the body.  Sometimes we find the double circulation incomplete.  Sometimes several hearts are found distributed
along the course of the blood.  Sometimes the blood flows uninterruptedly through closed vessels called veins and arteries, and
sometimes it empties from  an artery into one or more pools, in
which the liver and other organs float, and fiom  which it is gathered up to be returned to the heart.  In other cases we find no
blood vessels whatever, and  the sanguineous fluid is diffused
throughout the entire internal cavity and bathes all the organs.  In
still other cases the blood is not even separated from the food, and
the general mass undergoes a slow rotation in the simple cavity of
the body, which corresponds to circulation, respiration and digestion, all in one.
Corresponding mnodifications exist in the respiratory function of
animals,  Respiration may be defined as the contact of atmospheric air with the circulating, fluid.  The object of this contact
is the purification of the blood.  In the higher animals it is effected by the flow of blood and atmospheric air to a common place
of meeting called the lungs.  In some aquatic animals the blood
flows to the gills where it comes in contact with air contained in
the water.  In insects, which scarcely have any true bloodvessels,
the air is conveyed in tubes through all parts of the body to which
the blood is diffused.  In polyps or coral builders there are neither
blood-vessels nor air-vessels nor alimentary vessels.  Water is admitted directly to the same general cavity with the food and the
blood, and the function of respiration is there imperfectly effected.
Nutrition may be defined as the elimination of appropriate particles of matter from the food, and the incorporation of them into
the living tissues of the being.  No animal or plant can exist without this source of repair for the wastes of the system.  But as
some animals exist in the air, some in the earth and some in the
water;-as some feed upon flesh, others upon grass, others upon
roots, others upon fruits, and others strain their food from  the




21
-water —as one aiimal is developed upon one fundamental plan oT
~structure, another upon anolther-    o we fid  lan lmost encless va~riety of modes of effecting toe ellnd  of nitrititionl; extenlding from
the more mechlanical'process of seizino acnd masticating the food,'to the assimilation of the nutritive partieles in the organized labric.'What can the universatl presence of the iundamental ideas of
Circulation, iRespiration and  Nultrition mean?  Unnder an endless
diversity of circ1 rit:Vsr: s t'ad l;'r-.: of b3i, tA h   same th le tought
everywhere presents itself.  uSurely, there must be a commnon Intelligence whose world-thoughts run through every department of
nature.
Notice, in addition to this, that the limiting surfaces of the different organs and parts of animals and plants are always covered
with a skin-like investment.  Why not left lik-e the naked surface
a stone or a board?  This might have been the result of chance,
but the presence everywhere, of an epiderImal tissue, shows it to
be part of a fixed and intelligent plan.
Look again at the universal reproducition of animals by means
of egcs.  It is not long since this wonderful discovery was made.
It is now however well kno\wn tha't every animal, from man down
to an animalcule, is' developed from an ovum.  This ovum exhibits
everywhere such  an identity of structure, and is so characteristically different, from every other cell, that the naturalist often determines, from the discovery of an e(?gg cell, that an object wlhi'h
he is examining belongs to the animal, rather than the vegetable
kingdom.  The habit amiong birds and many other animals, of
depositing their eggs in nests or elsewhere previous to their incubation, is a m3rev circul'x',n4t'3, which doe:s,l)t in the least effect
the great law of ovulation imposed upon all animals.
It has already been stated that we find four fundamental types
of structure in the anim:ll kingdom.  The study of the modifications which each  of these types undergoes, in the production of
animals suited to the endless diversity of conditions existing upon
the earth, is one of the most wvonderful and instructive branches
of Natural H-istory.  It is the (pinion of many naturalists, that
the entire structure of a vertebrated animal, may be reduced to
the simple idea of a vertebra.  This typical vertebra  consists of
certain essential elements, which are rarely found wanting.  Certain ones of these elements or parts mray be more or less developed-may be expanded into enormous plates or reduced to a
latent or insensible existence.  According to thin view, the entire




22
frame work of the animal, from the nose to the extremity of the
spinal column, consists of a series of segments, and each segment
is a vertebra, and a mere repetition of every other segment, with a
greater or less change in the relative proportion of the different
parts. The skull consists of four of these segments, certain
parts of which are enormously expanded to enclose the brain, of
which the spinal marrow  is a mere prolongation, and is enclosed
in a similar manner, by corresponding parts of the trunk-vertebrae.
The anterior and posterior extremities are appendages,-parts
which exist in a latent state in nost of the segments of the body,
while in some animals the limbs are entirely wanting.  The
locomotive and manipulating appendages of vertebrated animals
however, exhibit the most wonderful identity of structure. The
arm and hand of man, for instance, consist of a certain number
of bones joined in a particular way. The leg and foot are composed of the same elements. The fore leg of a dog or any other
quadruped, is but a modification of the arm of man.  The modification is always of such a character, as to adapt the limb to the
wants of the animal, more perfectly than the hurnan hand would
be adapted to them, but, at the same time, to increase its simplicity, and reduce it a grade lower in the scale of organization.
But we go further than this. The anterior extremities of all
vertebrated animals are constructed upon exactly the same plan.
The arm of a man, the foreleg of a bear, or a horse, or a deer, or
a mole, or a turtle or salamander, is but an expression of the same
combination of ideas as we find in the paddle of a whale, the wing
of a bird, or the fin of a fish. The bird could not fly with the
legs of a sheep, nor the squirrel climb with the feet of a horse,
nor the mole burrow with the fins of the fish, nor man write with
the wings of a bird.  Each being, in its peculiar element, with its
peculiar habits, with its peculiar instincts, and capacities, and
wants, required locomotive appendages with the most special endowments.  This being the case, how  would a finite intelligence
have proceeded to effect the endless adaptations.  After having
constructed the fin of a fish, would he have built the leg of a lizard according to the same plan?  Would he have adhered still to
the same idea in the production of the leg of the deer, the arm of
the sloth, and the wing of a bird?  And when the chief work of
creation was reached, and fingers were to be produced which might
wield an axe, manipulate a knitting needle, or run over the keys
of a piano, would the type of a fishes fin or a bird's wing have
suggested a suitable foundation to work upon?




Nature on the other hand has everywhere made use of the most
comprehensive, and fi-uitf'ul, and unvarying plans.  A fundamental
idea once introduced, has never been dropped.  Foreseen from
the beg'inning, to be perfect, and capable of the most varied conceivabie development; it hats been adhered to throughout all time,
and throughout the diversified phrses of aninal existence.
Equal simplicity is seen in the fundamental plan of the organs
of vegetables.  The elernentarv idea of an ordinary plant is expressed in a lea, as that of l vertebra-ted! animal is, in a vertebra,
The flower-bud is but a modification    f a le f.bud.  A leaf bud is
tlie prospective history of the. plant.  It-s (lement is a leaf.  The
petal is a mmodified lelafthe stm s  n   ii are moiieleaves,
and the valves or pieces of the seed vessel are but leaves still further modified.
After citing these remarkable instances of the intelligence ex*
pressed in the plans and methods of nature, we would next call to
mind a remarkable coincidence of a different character.
IX.  The Nivmfrical Relations of the Organic  ~rforld extend
even to Planecar$y Si.fteenms.
Every one has observed that the leaves of some plants stand in
pairs opposite each other, on opposite sides of the stem.  In other
plants, the leaves are scattered over the stem; but in these cases
also, we find them arranged in the most regular manner.  ComImencing with any given leaf, for instance, wve shall fnd the next
leaf above this, one third of the way around the ster; the next anm
other third, and the next, another third  so as to stand exactly over
the first  The series is therefore arrang-ed in a spiral, which may be
designated by the friation, ~         Taking another plant, we shall find
the next leaf aIbove any given one, two fifths of the distance around
the stem.  The next will be four-fifths-the next six fifths, and so on,
-each leaf moving two fifths of the circumference, further around
the stem.  Here is a spiral therefore, which may be expressed by
the fraction two-fifths.  In precisely the same way, we discover in'ther pilants, spirals which may be expressed by the fractions 3-8,
5 -13, 21  &c   If, in the case of opposite leaves, first mentioned,
we consider each leaf as separatedi from t he preceding by one half
the interval around the stem, we sha1ll obtamin the series of fractions
1-2, 1-3, 2-5, 3-8, 5-13, 8-21, &c.  It rust  e kept in mind that
these fractions are ascertained by actual observation.  But notice
t         relatio  whih bb. existS between  them,.  rach  numerator is




24
equal to the sum of the two preceding nurrerators;' nnd each de-,
lominator, to the sum of the two preceding denominators.  Know"ing this law, we may continue tle series to any extent-and it has
been so continued, and fractions obt-aCined, to Nwhich plants havesubsequently been found to correspond.  is all ttlis the result of
chance?  Is it not rather mathematircs? Ilaw? intelligence?
But the most wonderful coincidence is yet to'ie noticed. Neptune, the rermotest pl)lnet, irevilves froalt tie sun in 60,000 days;
Urranus, the net.t, in 30,000 drays, lwhich is one half the preceding'
number, Saturn, the next, in  10,000 day, whiich is one third of
the period of TJranus; Jupite-r revoives in' 4,000 days which is'
two-fifths of the period of S:aturn,  And so- ie go on through:
the system, and find a law reguilating the'-evolutions of the planets, which is identical with that which determllnes the arrangement
of leaves upon the h-umble stema. of  a plainti   This' wonderful law
is so exact and uniform in its amplication, that, befol e the discovery
of the planet Neptune, the botarist in his garden, could have predicted its existence and its place in the havelns, with greater precision than the French  astronomerin his observatory.  M[oreover,
an examination of this series of fractions renders it impossible'
that any planet should exist exterior to Nept'm-e, though more
may exist within the orbit of Miterculry.  Astr cnonmers will therefore please take notice, and not be found planet-hunting' in the"
deserts of spa(ce beyond the orbit of Neptune,
We have but two more grand generalizations to present, which
we shall do in a very brief manner.
X.  T/e Zoolffioicc characteristics of the several continents wera
traced out in rermote gk ological periods.'We al- know that the Hippopotamus and the Giraffe come from
Africa, the Kangaroo from New  Holland, and that the Buffalo:is
peculiar to North  America.  If we take a survey of the entire
Faunas of the different continents we find theml to a great extent
distinct from each other.  Not only are the species distinct-which
might be expectedd-but eptire iFamilies which characterize one
continent are totally wantin-g, in another.  An examination of the
records of the rocks shows us that these distinctive characteristics.
wvere assumed, before any of the existing species ca-ne into being.'We find thus, the record of an aannouncement made'in the remote
Iistory of the past, of certain zoological peculiaritiea, which were
to characterize the several contiBnents during the human era.




uln immediate connexion with this thought, we notice finally)
that
X.  The earlier development of higher forms of anrmals on the
Oriental Continent was a foreshadowing of the advent of Man in
hkat quarter of the globe.
Net only are the Faunas of the different continents distinct fromn
each other, but we find them as a whole, differing in point of rank,
Lowest in the scale is New  Holland, next South America, next;
North America and highest in the scale, the Oriental continent.
Now in accordance with what has already been shown, this order
was establishe I, ages belore the dawn of the modern epoch.  The
Oriental continent took the lead in the development of successively higher groups of anilmal forms.  The gar pike which dwells to"
day in the lakes of Michigan, ran its race upon European shores
before the close of the first great geological period.  Marsupial
mammals like the Kangaroo and Opossom existed in Europe ages
ago, and have become extinct.  These are now the characteristic
forms of New  Holland, and one marsupial, the opossom  is even
found in the United States, keeping company with that " ancient
mariner  the gar pike.  The present stage of development of
America and New Holland, was reached and passed ages ago by
the Oriental continent.  We find there a hastening onward and
upward in the order of animal development.  The epoch of higher
animals is attained, long before it is reached in other parts of the
world.  Is not all this a foreshadowing of the advent of man, the
highest of all animals, in that quarter of the globe?  And is not
this a grand result of scientific investigation, which, viewed only
in its bearing upon the testimony of Revelation, will repay us for
the labor it has cost.
Such are some of the great principles which we draw from a
comprehensive review of the wide field of nature.  Law, method,
plan, is everywhere conspicuous.  We find man at the head of a
series of existences, all constructed in accordance with the same
central idea, and which have made their appearance upon the earth
successively in the order of their rank-first the Fish, then the
Reptile, then the Quadrupeds and lastly Mtan.  Should the question be asked how we know that the last term  of the series has
been reached? we reply that two considerations exclude the idea
of any further progress.  When the fish appeared, the vertebral
column was placed in a horizontal position, and the head was in a
line with the body.  When reptiles, birds and quadrupeds made




26
their appearance, the head became elevated and inclined at an
angle with horizon.  Lastly, in man, we find the vertebral column
erect.  No further advance therefore is possible in this direction.
In the next place, no species but man has been distributed over
the whole earth.  The families which existed in the earlier geological periods, enjoyed a comparatively wide distribution.  As
higher families appeared and the peculiar characteristics which
distinguis3h differet regions on the earth became more definitely
marked, we find species and families confined within narrower limits.  The animal forms which immediately preceded man in the
possession of the earth, enjoyed the least geographical range.
But when mamn appeared, and the different zoological districts of
the earth had become most completely specialized and distinct,
we find him, in spite of the law which restricts other animals within definite limits, spreading himself over the whole earth, and leaving no room  for other coequal or superior creations.  No other
animal has enjoyed so wide a range; and we find man enjoying
it, when we should have expected him confined within narrower limits even than the American eagle or the African giraffe.
aWe hence infer that no higher creation is to follow man, and
that the only further development possible, is in the exaltation of
his spiritual nature.
We cannot close without alluding to the philosophical nature
of these investigations.  When Le Verrier sat down and proved
by calculation the existence and the position of an unknown planet,
it was thought by all the world a prodigy of science.  Not less
sublime is the spectacle of Cuvier, studying a fossil bone exhumed
from the rocks about Paris, and looking so profoundly into the
essential relations of the different parts of an animal as to reconstruct, and endow with form and features, a quadruped which had
been extinct a million of years, and which no human intelligence
had ever looked upon.  Such was the achievement of our own
great adopted natural philosopher, when from the fossil scale of a
fish, he restored the entire animal, and delineated the form  of its
tail, the length of its muzzle, the position of its eyes and fins, the
form of its teeth, its habits, its food, its entire character.  Equally
instructive, though less striking, are the results of that profound
philosophical research, which has discovered bonds of relationship
running through all the departments of nature, and reaching far
back into the twilight of time, and connecting together the past
and the present, the near and remote, the similar and dissimilar,
nto one compact, harmonious and intelligible whole.




















THOUGHTS ON CAUSALITY,
WITH REFERENCES TO
PHASES OF RECENT SCIENCE,
A
PAPER READ BEFORE THE ALBANY INSTITUTE,
FEBRUARY 2, 18T5.
ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL.D.,
PltOFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY IN THE SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.








THOUGHTS ON CAUSALITY,
WITH REFERENCES TO
PHASES OF RECENT SCIENCE
A
PAPER READ BEFORE THE ALBANY INSTITUTE,
IEBRU1ARY 2, iST56
ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL.D.,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY'IN THEE.f AGW'C  IISWESITY.
ALBANY:
J. MUNSELL, 82 STATE STREET.
1875.








THOUGHTS ON CAUSALITY.
When I was in London, last July, I received an invitation to participate in the approaching Belfast meeting of
the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Had I known that the occasion was to be signalized by
some of the most notable utterances of the century, I might
have resisted the strong pressure which was urging me to
the continent. As it was, I went from London to the Alps
while Tyndall proceeded from the Alps to London. The
latter, as president of the British Association, delivered an
address, the noise of which reached me at Chamonix. It
is only since my return to America, however, that I have
had the opportunity to learn precisely what the great physicist uttered, and how considerable a commotion it occasioned in the newspapers of this country.
The gathering to which I refer was the scene of other
notable utterances from a scientist no less distinguished
and no less worthy of distinction.  The two addresses, of
Tyndall and Huxley, exemplify well a characteristic of
recent science which, by many, has been deplored as a
tendency to positivism and consequential materialism. To
these two productions I might add two recent and powerful
works by Haeckel of Jena, the latest of which has also fallen
into my hands since my return to America. I refer to
Haeckel's lVatural History of Creation1 and his Anthropogeny.2
1Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte, 4te Verbesserte Auflage, Berlin, 1873.
8vo, pp. 688.
2 Anthropogenie.  Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen. Leipzig,
1874. 8vo, pp. 732.




4                Thoughts on Causality.
In studying these latest emanations from the evolutionist
school of science, I have been deeply impressed by four observations. 1. The great learning and scientific acumen of
their authors. 2. Their strict adherence to the study of
material phenomena, and their customary reticence upon
questions which receive no direct light from physical observations.  3. The wide spread popular misapprehension of
these men in respect to the subjects of their reticence, and
of the bearing of their scientific opinions upon those subjects. 4. The existence of latent fallacies affecting in common, to some extent, many of their fundamental positions.
With the view of eliciting into prominence the common
fundamental principles of such writers, and applying to
them what I believe to be correct philosophic criteria of
universal thinking, I begin by presenting the line of reasoning embodied in the address of Professor Tyndall.
This address is a panoramic survey of the history of
thought and speculation on the origin and substratum of
phenomena, and concludes that, so far as the inquiries of
science are concerned, there has always been manifest a
tendency, in leading minds, to rest, as an ultimate datum,
upon the proposition that atoms and molecules exist, and
their interaction is the cause of all material and mental
phenomena, yet the author repeatedly recognizes the necessity of admitting the existence of some inscrutable
energy farther back than the remotest cause attainable by
human research.
The first efforts at reasoning traced events to superhuman
agency exerted by numerous beings called gods, but the
conception of whom was strictly anthropomorphic. Science
was born in the desire to find fixed and orderly energies
with which to replace the capricious wills of the primitive
gods. While yet in its cradle, science manifested a consciousness of its mission, in attacking and destroying the
contemporany religious faiths and pretensions. In seeking
the causes of phenomena, from below, instead of above,




Thoughts on Causality.              5
ancient Greek speculation struck into the fundamental
idea that atoms and molecules are the ultimate constituents
of the cosmos. Democritus, who is pronounced a philosopher superior to Plato or Aristotle, first gave precision
and form to this idea. He held to the eternity of the
atoms, the materiality of the soul, and denied chance. He
first advanced the idea of vortices in the genesis of worlds.
Empedocles suggested  that those combinations which
were suited to their ends, maintain themselvesfrom their very
nature, and thus launched the thought which has taken
form, in our own time, as the doctrine of the " survival of
the fittest." Epicurus, while actuated by an equal desire
to discover law and order in the phenomena of the universe,
and thus dispel the superstitions of the existing religions,
did not reject the belief in divine existence; and was himself a worshipper of the gods. Lucretius, if he admitted
divine existence, maintained that the world shows no proof
of intelligent design, and that all things have been caused
by the shock of the atoms, while the fittest combinations
have persisted. He is thought to have suggested the nebular hypothesis to Kant. As to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, they imposed a yoke on the human mind which remains, to some extent, unbroken to the present day.
This auspicious inauguration of the advance of science
was arrested by the quickening of the religious feeling
through the introduction of Christianity, which made the
mistake of adopting biblical interpretation as the criterion
of all truth. The philosophy of Aristotle sanctioned and
aided the a priori methods of the schoolmen; and, though
science made positive advances in Arabia, the bond of tradition was not seriously wrenched in Europe, till the time
of Copernicus and Bruno. Bacon strengthened the incipient bias toward inductive methods; and Descartes, though
setting out from a first principle, unconsciously abandoned
it, to present the cosmos as a pure mechanism. The full
establishment of monotheism  was favorable to the con



6                 Thoughts on Causality,
ception of the universe which presents it as a system of
physical effects; and Gassendi signalized the possible
compatibility of theology with a revived Epicureanism.
The doctrine of atoms, which started with Democritus,'
has since grown into general acceptance. But while Democritus conceived the atoms dead, Gassendi, and more
recently, Clerk-Maxwell, have looked upon them as "' prepared materials," thus suggesting either the postulate or the
inference of an antecedent preparer.  Tyndall agrees with
Kant in denying the power of reason to bridge the chasm
which separates the atoms from their maker.
In an imaginary discussion between Bishop Butler and
a disciple of Lucretius, the close correlation between states
of mind and conditions of the brain is pointed out; but it is
admitted that the impinging of dead atoms upon dead
atoms can never result in sensation or any other phenomenon of consciousness.  This admission does not appear in
the address as originally published, but there is no reason
to infer that the author's position has been changed.  Professor Tyndall, proceeding to the phenomena and the
problem of the succession of organic forms in geological
time, iterates his belief in the genealogical continuity of
the series, and follows with a sketch of the origin of the
doctrine of transmutation or derivation of species, and of
the grounds on which the Darwinian phase of the doctrine
reposes.  Mr. Darwin and Professor Huxley receive high
encomiums. Repetitions here would be irksome.  It is asserted that variations occur under domestication and in a
state of nature; that infinitesimal variations transmitted
through generations become greatly accumulated and augmented; that the external conditions which are concomitant with these variations are' true causes;" that Darwin
rejects teleology, even while bringing forward some of the
Democritus in fact was a pupil of Leucippus, a disciple of the Eleatics.
Leucippus seems to be the real originator of the atomic philosophy. Ueberweg: list. Phil., I, p. 67.




Thoughts on Causality.                 7
most striking examples of apparent design; that instincts
are only inherited and accumulated experiences; and finally
that Darwinism  has become firmly rooted in the convictions of thinking minds.
In the recent progress of scientific research, the doctrine
of the conservation of energy has become established; and
this principle is held to embrace organic nature as truly
as inorganic.  Next, the origin of mind itself has come
specially under review, and Spencer is maintained to have
established for it a developmental history parallel with that
established by Darwin for the physical organism. Eyes
and other organs of the senses are but portions of a primitively homogeneous mass, differentiated by the influence
of light and other external agents. The tactual sense is
observed to possess a development correlative with the intelligence of animals; and the inference is that it determines such intelligence. Instincts and intuitions are but
the accumulated experience of races, transmitted from generation to generation.  Space and time are "elements of
thought" or, as Kant phrases it, " forms of intuition" instead of objective realities.'
The author now approaches the critical point of his discussion. Having admitted that the scientist often feels
himself impelled to pass beyond  the field of physical
phenomena, and from  phenomena to induce an abstract
generalization under which an entire category of phenomena may be ranged — as in the case of the force of
gravitation - it is not strange that Lucretius should have
reached the generalization that his atoms were endowed
with life; or that Darwin should have permitted himself
to be understood as abstracting creative power, exercised
1 The phrase " elements of thought" as here used is too loose for philosophy.
Space and time are not the "elements" but the concomitants, and probably
the conditions of thought. "Forms of intuition" is more exact; but still,
" conditions of intuition" or "conditions of the possibility of intuition and
thought" would be better.




8                Thoughts on Causality.
in a limited number of initial cases, as the antecedent and
cause of the series of organized beings. Darwin, our author
thinks, should speak with clearness at this juncture, and
assume the responsibility of carrying derivative development back, not only to one primitive stock, but to unorganized matter itself. At the same time, he admits that
the doctrine of spontaneous generation is not yet proven;
though he seems to regard that achievement as not very
remote.
We stand now in the presence of that matter so uniformly defined as dead. We have traced life from its
highest manifestations, through all its gradations to granulated, vivified protoplasm. Life is everywhere associated
with matter. We know nothing of life save as associated
with matter. Is there any terrestrial life which does not
depend for its maintenance and its origin, upon matter?
"' Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements
the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity," he says,
"' I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and
discern in that matter which we, in our ignorance of its
latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence
for its creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium,
the promise and potency of all terrestrial life."
Here then, he reaches the goal toward which recent
theories in science seemed to impel him. This, indeed, is a
sort of materialism; but we must have the candor to permit the distinguished physicist to explain the sense in
which he embraces materialism. In harmony with Spencer,
and in opposition to Mill, Fichte, Berkeley and Hume,
Professor Tyndall entertains no question as to the existence
of an external world; though we have no evidence that
it is as it seems to be.  " Our states of consciousness," he
says, " are symbols of an outside entity which produces
them and determines the order of their succession, but the
real nature of which we can never know. In fact, the
whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a power




Thoughts on Causality.                9
absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man *  *  *
Considered fundamentally, then, it is by the operation of an
insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differentiated and mind unfolded from their prepotent elements
in the immeasurable past" (p. 91).
The facts of the religious consciousness of man are repeatedly recognized.  "The facts of religious feeling are
to me as certain as the facts of consciousness" (p. 24, Appleton & Co's edition). "' Physical science cannot cover all
the demands of man's nature" (p. 42). Speaking offacts of
consciousness which have prescriptive rights quite as strong
as those of the understanding, he says: " 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 into the high and dry light
of the intellect, may deride them; but in so doing, you
deride accidents of form merely and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of
man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is
the problem of problems at the present hour " (p. 93). It
will be noticed that he relegates religion to the realm of
emotion.  This force is something " capable of being
guided to noble issues in the region of emotion, which is
its proper and elevated sphere " (p. 93). Finally, while
claiming for science a rightful and complete exemption
from the restraints of all religious theories, schemes or
systems, he asserts an equal right of the ethical nature to
free exercise.  " The advance of man's understanding in
the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of
his moral and emotional nature which the understanding
can never satisfy, are here equally set forth" (p. 97). In an
address delivered two months subsequently to his Belfast
manifesto, Professor Tyndall, raising the question whether
there are not in nature manifestations of knowledge and skill
superior to man's, replies, " My friends, the profession of
2




10               Thoughts on Causality.
that atheism with which I am sometimes so lightly charged,
would in my case be an impossible answer to this question"
(p. 102).
The ethical bearing of scientific materalism is found further set forth in an address delivered by the same speakerin
1868. After explaining the invariable relation of physics
to consciousness, and alleging that, "given the state of the
brain, the corresponding thought or feeling might be
inferred; or given the thought or feeling, the corresponding
state of the brain might be inferred," he asks,' How
inferred? It would be at the bottom not a case of logical
inference at all, but of empirical association * * * The
passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding
facts of consciousness is unthinkable (p. 117).*  *  *  In
affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that
thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics
of the brain, I think the position of the materialist is stated
as far as that position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able, finally, to maintain this position against all
attacks; but I do not think, in the present condition of
the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position.
I do not think he is entitled to say that his molecular
groupings and his molecular motions explain everything.
In reality, they explain nothing. The utmost he can affirm
is the association of two classes of phenomena, of whose real
bond of union he is in absolute ignorance" (p. 118).
The foregoing digest indicates that the celebrated Belfast
address is an attempt to show that the most penetrating
minds of all ages have felt themselves borne toward the
conviction that the ultimate datum of scientific and philosophic investigation must be matter. It asserts that this
is the general, or at least the forming,'conviction of men
of science at the present day; that all activities in the realm
of life and mind, as well as in that of organization, spring
out of the interactions of the atoms, and that back of this
basis of phenomena, whatever we may feel impelled to




Thoughts on Causality.              11
believe, there is nothing which can be reached by real
knowledge; though we are compelled to recognize a profound and mysterious reality to which our ethical feelings
are coordinated. It is unfair to hurl at Professor Tyndall
the charge of atheism in the philosophic sense. He distinctly repels the imputation. It is uncandid, after his
careful qualifications, to charge him with materialism in
that ordinary sense which excludes the notion of Deity
back of matter.  When he avows materialism, he means
that within the region of the data of science, he discovers
everything originating from antecedents under the recognized laws of matter and force. There certainly is something, he says, behind matter and force; but he follows
Spencer in refusing to subscribe to any predicates respecting
it.  He is hardly a material Pantheist, for he distinctly
declares that sensation and thought cannot come from dead
matter; and implies that though existence emerges from
matter, its ground is further back. He certainly belongs
to the nescience school of theists, in which Hamilton and
Mansel are older masters than Spencer; and there seems
little propriety and less occasion for his assumingthe burden
of a confession so opprobious as materialism.
I desire to make the analysis of this address the occasion
for shaping a statement of fundamental principles which
ought to regulate the procedures of scientist, philosopher
and theologian alike.  We are all equally attempting to
cleave through the dense darkness which environs us, to
reach the truth of things. That we live in a universe of
phenomena is generally admitted.  We are therefore realities, and we all act on the assumption that there are other
realities shadowed forth in the realm of appearances. No
reasoning, nevertheless, can prove the existence of an external world; and the history of thought shows that it is
possible, in individual cases, to stifle the universal belief
that it exists. But if these phenomena represent realities




12               Thoughts on Causality.
we are still uncertain that they represent realities as they
are. Universal belief again affirms that they do; and yet
there is room for doubt.
If we trust the indications of the shifting phenomena,
the world of realities is the theatre of perpetual movement,
change and transformation.  We find rooted in universal
belief a conviction that all these changes are severally the
results of appropriate causes; and that the realities themselves are equally effects of adequate causation. It is a
law of mind to look upon every phenomenon as an effect,
and to couple effect with cause. Itis the province of science
to catalogue phenomena, to classify them, to note their relations of antecedence and sequence and formulate laws;
and from observed uniformities of sequence, to lift the
veil from the future and the past. It is the province of
philosophy to pass beyond the phenomenon and inquire,
not what is its antecedent, but what is its cause; to pass
from immediate and accessible causes to remote ones, and
from these to ultimate, efficient causation. Philosophy,
when it has attained this limit, becomes theology. Theology is the granary in which the fruitage of science and
philosophy is garnered. Religion is the activity of that
department of our nature which feels its.ground and sanction in the supreme Reality in which the successes of
science, philosophy and theology converge.
Though searchers after truth may be ranged as scientists,
philosophers and theologians, it is seldom the case that
either shuts himself closely in his own field. The scientist, from phenomena induces laws; and from the postulates of his own mind deduces causes, such as gravitation,
affinity, electricity. The modern philosopher combines
the data furnished in reason with the conclusions yielded
by science; and the theologian pursues all paths and all
methods which seem to tend toward a last solution of the
mystery of being and events.




Thoughts on Causality.             13
It is a misfortune, as it seems to me, for either to restrict
his investigations to a single field. The practice begets
indifference to certain classes of data, and ends in bigotry,
misunderstandings and hostility. Our common nature covers, in each individual, the whole ground, and it seems
to me narrow and pernicious for the truth-seeker to tie
himself up to a single method.
Science, in its modern acceptation, does not lead to
causes -still less, to primordial cause. The search for
these is the legitimate object of philosophy. Science, strictly
speaking, knows only phenomena, with their groupings
and orders of sequence. It talks much of forces; but these
are only hypotheses, verbal symbols of unknown quantities
which may be one thing or another. Moreover, when the
scientist steps into the realm of abstract realities, he is
playing the role of philosopher.
I have said the bond between effect and cause is a universal datum of reason. I think no modern philosopher
will maintain that existence or phenomenon can be the
product of chance. In ruling chance, however, from the
throne of the universe, it may be well to offer an explanation and a discrmination.  We must recognize such a
thing as chance; and we ought to understand what it is
and what it is not. If I throw down a couple of dice, it is
impossible to calculate what will turn up. We say the result
is wholly a matter of chance. I may chance to turn up one
ace, it may be two. But the contingency of the result is
not the cause of it. The two aces concur by chance; but
chance did not put forth the efficiency which moved each
die precisely so far and no farther. The movement of the
dice is as absolutely the effect of the forces exerted by my
hand, by gravity and by elasticity, as if I had deliberately
laid each one down with the ace up. I have not the ability
so to measure and adjust the force and direction of my
muscular effort as to produce a preappointed movement
and lodgment of the dice; and there is, consequently,




14               Thoughts on Causality.
some range of possible movement and possible place of
rest for the dice. But whatever movement transpires, and
whatever may result in the position of the dice, ordinary
physical forces were the cause —the proximate cause, of
all. Chance, in this case, is simply a field of possibility. It
is a range of values of an unknown quantity, within certain
limits. It is a name for our inability to gauge precisely the
forces which act- our ignorance of the precise result which
they will produce.
The case is not fundamentally altered when, for the dice,
we substitute the atoms of a universe. The field of possible results is inconceivably enlarged; but we must feel
equally certain that, whatever adjustment the atoms assume,
there has been some adequate cause or set of causes to
move them  to their places. We say that any particular
adjustment is the result of chance; but it is absolutely
certain that, whatever the adjustment, there were forces
moving the atoms in such directions and with such velocities as to produce precisely that adjustment. The chance
of which we speak is no more a cause in this case than in
that of the dice.
Chance is essentially a negation of cause. The moment
I assert that a result is caused, the idea of chance is necessarily excluded.  Were there no cause but chance in the
universe - even supposing the atoms of matter to existeverything would rest in a state of immobility, stagnation.
There would be no further effect than the birth of matter.
But suppose the existence of matter and orderly acting
forces to be granted, there is much more in the collocations
of the atoms of the universe than can be attributed to
causes acting without discernment.  We are not authorized to assert that the disposition of the atoms is the result
even of blind attractions and repulsions; since, as can be
shown, there are numberless adjustments in which harmony, beauty, fitness and utility have been the directiv




Thoughts on Causality.             15
force; and these are qualities sustaining relations only to
intelligence.
Whatever character, then, philosophy may authorize
chance to assume, she cannot concede to it the character
of cause. Existence cannot be the result of chance. No
mode of existence can be the result of chance.
It is one of the results of science to prove that that which
had been regarded as a cause is only an effect. The more
we know, the longer the chain of intermediate causation
seems to be. Primitive man recognizes no interval between
cause and first cause. Every event in the natural world is
looked upon as the direct product of supernatural causation. This is not a theoretical opinion, but a historical
fact, which I have ascertained after abundant research.
The relics of this habit perpetuated themselves amongst the
Greeks until the dawn of Greek philosophy; and we are
assured by Draper and Tyndall, and the professions of the
philosophers themselves, that the aim of philosophy, in
which, in ancient times, all science was merged, was, to
demonstrate that events do not transpire through the direct
intervention of the gods, but according to the orderly
methods of physical law. With such gods as ruled in the
Greek pantheon, there must have been much to stimulate
philosophy and forward its aims.
Advancing from the lowest stage of barbarism, the first
step in reflection discloses the law of invariable antecedence
and sequence amongst physical phenomena; and the mind
attaches its ineradicable notion of cause to the invariable
antecedent. Here arises the notion of physical causation.
But the invariable antecedent is now regarded the effect of
first cause, acting in the guise of a supernatural power.
Here is one term interposed between first cause and ultimate phenomenon.
The next step in reflection discloses the same fact in
regard to the observed physical cause as had been noted
at first in regard to the last phenomenon.  This is also




16                Thoughts on Causality.
the effect of a physical cause; and the mind now finds
two terms of intermediate causation interposed between
assumed first cause and  ultimate phenomenon.  The
opportunity presents itself, at this stage, for another observation which, in the development of science, becomes extremely significant. The recognized intermediate causes
of two separate phenomena appear, in many cases, as the
effects of the same cause.  The number of assumed first
causes is therefore much less than the number of intermediate causes.
With the further advance of reflection, it is ascertained
that the assumed first cause is again the effect of remoter
causation; and so its aspect changes to that of an intermediate cause, and we find three terms interposedbetween phenomenon and newly assumed first cause. At the same
time, it is observed that, in many cases, two of the previously assumed first causes are, in common, the effect of
one first cause, thus removed by three terms from phenom enon.
Thus continues, through the instrumentality of researches
of the scientific kin'd, the process of interpolating new
terms of intermediate or secondary causation; and parallel
with the retreat of primary causation into the ever dimmer
distance, is a diminution in the number of assumed first
causes. The tendency of lines of causation, or series of
effects, to converge, has been noted by every thinker.
This zone of secondary causes is the peculiar field of science.
Before proceeding further, one suggestive fact should
be conspicuously held up to view.  The human mind all
along holds fast to its notion of primary causation.  Disappointed and deceived a hundred times, its faith in the
reality is not one whit abated. Reluctantly and sorrowfully driven from post to post, it moves on into the unexplored darkness, full of confidence that the object of its
trust will be found at last. Look, further, at the notion




Thoughts on Causality.             17
which it always frames of the character of its primary cause.
True it is, that the hue of humanity is reflected over it.
The first cause does assume human attributes. In the rude
conditions of society, they are bodily as well as spiritual;
but afterwards, purely spiritual. Man is conscious of the
exercise of a power of causation on his own part, and he
knows nothing of any other mode of essential causation.
As long as all that he sees and investigates in the universe
is found coordinated to the powers and methods of his own
intellect, it would be an impossible philosophy to assume
that primary cause, when discovered, should not exert its
efficiency in a manner harmonious with the indications of
all the rest of the universe. The mind of humanity, therefore, invests its primary cause with volition and intelligence.
It may be said that humanity's conceptions in this and many
other things are destitute of demonstrable foundation. I
do not wish to meet the objection now, but would suggest
that sound reasoning demands that we proceed from grounds
which are strongly probable, rather than from  the total
negation of them, because not demonstrated. The fallacy
of asserting that a given position cannot be demonstrated
true, and then proceeding to reason as if it were demonstrated untrue, is a somewhat fashionable one, and has
served as the basis of a great deal of bulky and ostentatious,
if not very substantial philosophizing.
Another observation to be made at this point, has reference to the relative influence of polytheistic and monotheistic conceptions upon the body and the march of science.
It is the characteristic of polytheism to stand ready to
recognize an indefinite number of first causes; thus necessarily retarding, instead of stimulating, the search for
intermediate causes. Monotheism, while recognizing but
one absolutely first cause, must either favor the tendency
of lines of causation to converge at a point by the continual
interpolation of secondary causes or else must yield to the
anthropopathic instinct of uncultured mind, in assuming
3




18               Thoughts on Causality.
an indefinite number of points of application of causal
efficiency. This latter alternative would evidently be the
resort of a monotheism not yet sufficiently exalted in scientific knowledge to be able to appreciate the full meaning
of that convergence toward a unity which is disclosed in
the genealogical lines of phenomena. To the first alternative it would be driven by a clearer understanding of the
significance of the history of opinion; and when once fully
entrenched in that position, it would contemplate with
satisfaction rather than alarm, the progress of science in
breaking through the unexplored barriers which separate
the last found causes from the one Universal Cause.
We turn back, now, to scrutinize the field of secondary
causation, in which physical science occupies itself. It is
purely a phenomenal world. The data of physical science,
strictly speaking, do not consist of causes made manifest
in sensible phenomena, but of sensible phenomena themselves, certain ones of which sustain to each other the
relation of invariable antecedence and sequence. The
body of positive science is restricted to these. When, in
obedience to a law of our minds, we connect the necessary
notion of causation with a given invariable antecedence,
we perform a legitimate act of philosophic thinking; but
we neither know the modus operandi of the causation, nor
whether the causation inheres in the antecedent or acts
through it, nor whether such causation is primary or separated by an indefinite number of terms from primary cause.
It is only an accommodated and symbolical form of expression when I say, for instance, that friction causes electrical
phenomena. I only know that electrical phenomena follow
friction. Friction may be the cause proximate or it may
not be. That it is the first cause no one will pretend; but
how many removes separate it from first cause, no one can
conjecture.
Physical science may conveniently and harmlessly assume
that causation inheres in the antecedent; but the habit




Thoughts on Causality.             19
of so doing must not generate a belief that the assumption
represents a verity. Science may forbear to inquire - nay,
in its own character it cannot inquire, whether efficient
causation inheres in the material substance back of the
phenomenon which stands as invariable antecedent; or
whether the remotest phenomenal antecedent reached by
science represents substantial first cause. Should the
scientist refrain from instituting such inquiries, he should
neither be reproached, on the one hand, with the charge
of apathy touching questions of primary causation, nor
himself commit the mistake, on the other, of assuming
that inquiries in his actual field have led him to real causes.
Still less should he dogmatically deny that real causation
is posited outside of the phenomenal world in which his
labors are conducted - beyond the last term which he has
discovered with his microscope, or dissolved in his alembic,
or discerned with the Vorstellungskraft of his imagination.
The method of science, I repeat, is chiefly inductive;
that of philosophy, chiefly deductive. The science of antiquity and of the middle ages was essentially a body of
conclusions derived deductively; and the inevitable and
glaring absurdities of the method and its results, contrasted
with the brilliant successes of the inductive method of
modern times, have caused many scientists to look upon
deductive processes with an unmerited degree of distrust,
or even disdain. This has led them, since scientific induction cannot be carried into the field of first principles, to
reject as unsafe and unworthy of consideration, the result
of a priori reasoning. Hence has sprung up the miscalled
"positive philosophy."  This tendency has gone too far,
and it is quite time to return to the natural method, which
appreciates and weighs with impartiality the evidence
afforded both by reason and the senses; and does not refuse to search for causes in the realm of immaterial things
because there they would elude the verification of the
crucible and the balance. Deduction, dealing with neces



20               Thoughts on Causality.
sary truths and admitted principles, is a permissible and
safe procedure, and so natural and available, that, not unfrequently, the scientist himself falls into the use of it, at the
same time that he professes to observe rigorously the
canons of scientific induction.
The test of a physical truth, that it must be capable of
mental presentation, is legitimate; but a moment's reflection will convince any one that it is an impossible test in
the whole field of abstract ideas. By what sort of process,
for instance, would Professor Tyndall bring before his
mind's eye a vorstellung of cheapness, or ambition, or despair, or even the generalization induced from a body of
phenomena?
In this phenomenal world, science disposes its data according to their resemblances, concomitances and sequences.
An observed invariable sequence is styled a law. In the
generalized faith that a certain sequence will remain invariable, science forecasts terms which lie in the future; and,
in a similar faith that it has always been invariable, science
retraces the pathway of phenomena into the inaccessible
past. But it is of the utmost importance to refrain from
endowing the word law with the notion of efficiency. We
say loosely that the law of chemical affinities causes the
disengagement of carbonic acid when chalk and sulphuric
acid are brought together; that it is a law of life that the
stomach should not be dissolved by its own juices; that it
is the law of the " survival of the fittest" which causes the
progressive improvement either assumed or proven in the
successive generations of a species in the state of nature.
We are apt to think that when we have ranged a phenomenon under its appropriate order of sequence, we have
pointed out its cause; whereas, laws are only uniformities
ofjuxtaposition of phenomena.  There is no efficacy in law.
It is not a force, but only the method of activity of force
or the order of its effects. The law which expresses the
relations subsisting between the intensity of gravity and




Thoughts on Causality.             21
the masses and distances of bodies, when applied to a certain
assemblage of phenomena, renders them intelligible in a
certain sense; it discloses the consummate harmony subsisting amongst them, and reveals correlations which seem
to be the work of intelligence; but we deceive ourselves
when we imagine that the law produces a single result.
The law itself is a result — an induction from the order
of the phenomena which a mistaken science summons it
to explain. If a progressive improvement of race is an
outcome of the continuous " survival of the fittest," then
this order of sequence is a law; and in accordance with it,
we shall expect every race left to itself to undergo a gradual improvement; but such order of sequence is no more
a cause in this case than in any other. The immediate
causes of this result are the agencies which destroy the
individuals not " fitted to survive" - or more accurately,
the forces concerned in the continuance of the species,
under the conditions (extermination of the weakest),
through the surviving individuals.
Still employing the term cause in the symbolical sense customary with science, there is another set of circumstances
which ought not to escape notice in scrutinizing the principles of causality. I refer to conditions of causation-sometimes called conditioning causes. There are conditions
indeed to the efficiency of every cause - conditions of its operativeness in any degree; and there are others which merely
modify its operation; and, not unfrequently, the two characters are united in one condition.  There is danger of confounding conditions with causes. I agree to write a book,
for instance, on the condition that my publishers will put it
in print. It will not be written with that condition left out.
But the publisher does not thereby become the author of
my book. The dilute acid in the battery will attack the
zinc only on condition that you connect the zinc and
platinum externally by means of a conductor; but this does
not render the conductor the agent which dissolves the zinc.




22                Thoughts on Causality.
I build a wall behind my grape-trellis, and I find theripening
of the fruit accelerated; but it is not the wall which does
the work; it is still, as before, the sun. The amount of
light emitted by my lamp is determined, within certain
limits, by the height of the wick; but this does not render
the wick the cause of the light. The varying wick is only
a varying condition of a varying result of a varying activity
of a constant physical cause - chemical action between oil
and oxygen. Similarly, the amount of thought which I can
evolve is conditioned by all the various affections and conditions of the brain. My poetry and my philosophy are
indeed correlated to brain and blood and oxygen and
beef-steak; but only in the same way that my boots are
correlated to calf-skin and tan-bark and black-wax.  These
condition the exercise of the bootmaker's skill; beef-steak
conditions the exercise of mine. It is quite true that the
activity in both cases. has other conditions; but it is also
true that none of the conditions can be elevated to the
dignity of causes.  The physical scientist is sometimes
hoodwinked by the exact graduation of mental activity
to the condition of the brain, and commits the mistake of
clothing condition with the character of cause. As well
assert that the wick secretes the light.
A similar departure from correct reasoning is the assignment of the "environment " as the cause of organic modifications. I shall not deny that organic modifications are
generally correlated to the environment, and vary with the
environment, and as a sequence of its variations. Though
I have observed that organism bears no fixed, and therefore necessary, relation to environment, and even sometimes ignores it, I will assume that the correspondence is
always as uniform  as a certain school of derivationists
picture it. What then? This is, after all, but a conditioning cause. It seems to me to imply a lack of close discrimination to assert, for instance, that increased cold
causes an animal's fur to grow longer. If it grow longer




Thoughts on Causality.              23
with increase of cold, and as a sequence of it, the immediate cause is evidently the increased amount of assimilation at the growing points of the hairs.  That cold is the
cause of this, there is no ground for asserting. But if it
were the cause, cold itself is the effect of a remoter causethe diminution of heat-vibrations; and this is the result of
a decrease of energy in the cause of heat-vibrations - whatever that may be. When the common potato is grown
in a dry and sterile soil, it deteriorates in size and quality;
and the Darwinist would assert that these changes are
caused by the change in the environment; while in fact,
they are only conditioned by it. The change in the soil is
the condition of the assimilation of less material; it is the
condition of the less energetic action of the vital forces.
Whatever result ensues, it is these forces which cause it.
The crane's long legs and the duck's broad bill are coordinated to their environment, and have been fashioned as
they are by some cause. It is evident that the environment
has been the condition with reference to which the conformation was produced. But there is no particle of proof
that the environment produced them. It would be interesting to contemplate Professor Tyndall in the effort to
represent to his mind's eye the process by which pond-water
wove the web of a duck's foot; or that by which the consumption of clover-heads fashioned a persistent pulp in
the molar of the rabbit, while forest fruits determined a
limited growth in the molar of its fellow rodent, the squir.
rel. The whole doctrine of organic transformations, or
formations, through the influence of external conditions,
is infected with this fallacy of reasoning. I am not denying the coordinations alleged, but I choose to trace them
to intelligible and real causes.
The scientist in pronouncing  upon causal relations
amongst his phenomena, is in danger of committing the
logical error of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The fundamental
conception of the doctrine of the derivation of species, under




24               Thoughts on Causality.
any of its aspects, is a case ofpost hoc ergo propter hoc. While
there is not a known instance of the derivation of a species,
its possibility is a mere hypothesis; and the assertion that
all species are derivative is a stupendous assumption. What
knowledge we have of the serial relations of species discloses the existence of obstacles which have never been
surmounted during the period of human observations. The
fossil treasures of our continent furnish us, in successive
ages, a series of equine quadrupeds with a progressively
diminishing development of toes, ending with the solidungulate horse. Derivation assumes that these belong to one
genealogical line; while every item of positive knowledge
respecting the stability of species, proclaims their transformation impossible. The gigantic basal inconsequence
of Darwinism and every other form of derivation, is nevertheless greatly palliated by its harmony and parallelism
with the phenomena of embryonic development; and I do
not think any man better authorized to deny than to affirm
dogmatically that specific derivation may yet be established
as a fact.
Equally unfounded in reason or science is Mr. Spencer's
arbitrary assumption that instincts are inherited and accumulated experiences "registered in the organism;" and
that our intuitive ideas are " organically remembered "
experiences. No glimmer of evidence exists of any such
connection between instinct or intuition and ancestry;
while all attainable evidence shows that, besides the absolute lack of qualitative resemblance between instinct or
intuition and its alleged cause, the instincts and intuitions
are the most absolutely fixed and secularly invariable elements in the system of life.
Not unfrequently the phenomena which challenge our
investigation sustain relations of simple concomitance or
parallelism; and when such relations appear tolerably uniform, it is natural to suspect some intercausal connection
between them, while in truth nothing of the kind may




Thoughts on Causality.              25
exist; and their parallelism may result from a common
relation to some higher cause. The improvement of the
tactual sense in the ascending series of animal forms, proceeds pari passu with improving intelligence; and Mr.
Spencer has assumed, accordingly, that intelligence is developed by improved tactual organs. Now, there is much
better reason for affirming that improved intelligence causes
improved organs; for it is obvious, from considerations
already presented, that external conditions are not causes
at all, but at best, only conditions; and still less could they
become the cause of a result qualitatively diverse; while
intelligence, as we are conscious, is gifted with the power
of causation. But, in truth, neither is the cause of the
other; though superior intelligence is the condition of improved coordinate faculties in the organism which is its
instrument.  The whole catalogue of needs and accompanying instruments for their gratification.belongs to this
category; as well as the parallel phenomena of mind and
brain, from which Dr. Carpenter has illogically generalized
his strange doctrine of " unconscious cerebration," while
others have been led to conceive of thought as a "' secretion
of the brain."
The assignment of an uncertified antecedent for cause, is
but one degree worse than the assignment of an inadequate
cause. As no stream can flow higher than its source, so
no cause can produce an effect greater than itself. This
recognized necessity of things is disregarded in that phase
of the derivative theory which contemplates organic traits
augmented by inheritance. Inheritance transmits what it
receives - no more. If, in the course of generations, a
character become more and more developed, we discover
the action of a constant force, loading more and more into
the vehicle of inheritance.
We must now endeavor to approach more closely to the
real objective ground of phenomena. We have assumed
that an external world is a reality. We all know that its
4




26                Thoughts on Causality.
phenomena have been investigated by science until the
chain of causation has been traced back to portions of
matter which elude observation; and, by a leap, she has
concluded that divisibility extends to those inconceivably
smaller portions called molecules and atoms. These supposed atoms are, then, the ultimate realities of science;
and all other forms and conditions of material substance
result from their mutual interactions.:  The interactions
of atoms and their resnlting; aggregates are admitted to
be the effects of causes. The universal and individual
reason would rebel, against the converse hypothesis.  Now
those causes lying out upon the utmost verge of, intellectual exploration, have been designated forces.  Their modes
of activity are their "laws," and produce, severally; those
correlate orders of phenomenal sequence called the " laws"
of phenomena.  Now force, it must be perceived, is the
name of an entity unknown to science. It is another
symbolical term employed for convenience, the symbolism
of which, as in other cases, long usage is liable to disguise.
We are absolutely certain, nevertheless, that the cause
called force is a reality.
Where, now, does this reality reside? I do not inquire
where it acts, but where, in reference to matter, is its own
subjective essence? Here opinion bifurcates. A few maintain that matter itself is the subjective ground of force,
while others believe that force is external to matter. Suppose we assume matter itself to be the author of energy.
The supposition involves the absurdity of confounding
subject and object. Moreover, as matter must be either
intelligent or unintelligent, we may suppose, at first, that
it is unintelligent. If unintelligent, then the interaction of
dead atoms gives rise to a universe of phenomena among
which are life, volition and thought. I am willing to consider as final, the admissions of Tyndall and Dubois-Reymond on this point, both of whom explicitly assert the impossibility of eliciting intellectual fire from the collision of




Thoughts on Causality.                27
dead atoms. 1 If the force-atom is not unintelligent, it is
intelligent, and we have a universe with an infinitude of
atomic intelligences, acting, nevertheless, in infinite and
eternal harmony amongst themselves; or else the universe
as a whole is one intelligence, and objectivity in respect to
it, is totally annihilated. Everything which is, is not a
manifestation of the Supreme, but a part of it.  Of these
two alternatives, the first is a more startling hypothesis
than that of the living monads of Leibnitz; since these
were not the lodgment of ultimate cause, but subsisted
under it. It may be pronounced infinitely improbable, and
dismissed from  consideration.  The second alternative,
which identifies nature with one supreme intelligence, is
pantheism, the credibility of which I have no space, at present, to discuss, beyond the suggestion already laid down. 2
The other supposition which may bemade in reference
to the ultimate seat of energy, views it as external to
matter - that is, an entity of which matter is neither a part
nor the whole.  This entity may be considered as intelligent or unintelligent.  If unintelligent, we have no cause
for life, volition arnd intelligence, more promising than
when we sought it from unintelligent atoms. If we suppose
the ultimate ground of force to be intelligent, we have an
adequate explanation of vital and mental phenomena in
the world, and an immediate and all-sufficient explanation
of the rational method which knits creation into a web of
relationships.
This conception of supreme intelligent power, enthroned
at the fountain head of phenomena, and displaying its activity in force acting upon atoms and aggregates of matter,
Tyndall: Belfast Address, pp. 68 and 87.
Dubois-Reymond: Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, pp. 20 and 29.
2 Helmholtz considers matter resting and inactive in itself, but yet, in
some strange way as animated with varying forces. The definition implies
that the ultimate cause - that is, the cause of the atomic forces with which
matter is endowed, is something external to matter.




28               Thoughts on Causality.
does not differ, so far as this qualification goes, from the
conceptions set forth by Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall and
Dubois-Reymoid. Organization, like crystallization, flows
from an impulse imparted to material atoms.
Now, let us look at the significance of this position.
The whole range of molecular activities proceeds from the
exertion of intelligent activity from  without.  That is,
wherever and whenever those activities exist, there such
energy is exerted. If molecular attraction and repulsion,
which number organization amongst their results, are but
force exerted from without by supreme, intelligent cause,
then such cause has been active, not alone at the beginning
of existence, but through the whole tale of molecular activities since the world began; and continues to act in the
myriad phenomena of daily observation. The only alternative to this sweeping conclusion is that which contemplates supreme cause as exerting only an initial energy,
the currents of which sweep through infinite years and
infinite existence.  This would imply that the molecular
forces of the present are either exerted by dead matter or
are not original, but simply transmitted forces. The first
supposition is contrary to the premise. The second is the
view commonly entertained; and it resolves the universe
into a dead mechanism. There are grave difficulties which
oppose it. First, the molecular activities of today are universally believed to be identical in nature with those which
have always been manifest in matter; and hence, if the
first motions were imparted by intelligent being, all are.
Secondly, we have no knowledge or room to conjecture that
molecular force has undergone any change since the morning of material existence.  Thirdly, it is out of harmony
with the facts of the moral consciousness to posit supreme
causation at a point so remote from the present.  Fourthly,
the molecular forces are probably one; this is the demand
of philosophy and the foreshadowed verdict of science.
The atoms also, by the general admission of physicists, are




Thoughts on Causality.              29
of one kind.  Now, it is unreasonable to affirm that one
identical unintelligent involuntary force or impulse, acting
upon one unintelligent, involuntary set of atoms, can give
rise to the varied classes of material phenomena. It seems
to me a far more rational resort to abandon the hypothesis
of blind impulse running on in pursuance of an initial
energy, and recognize, as Sir William Thompson has himself suggested, the immediate presence of first cause in all
the passing activities of the material world.
This, of course, is a restoration of the very power which,
according to Tyndall, antiquity invoked science to overthrow. But science herself has brought us to a situation
which suggests and commends this alternative. It does
not follow, however, that the universe must be again subjected to the dominion of capricious will. It is demonstrable that the universe is not so ruled; and, in view of the
conclusion reached, it appears that supreme spontaneity
wills to act according to fixed methods. It is surely as
easy to refer the regularity of phenomena to discerning
mind, as to blind mechanism.
It is a common phraseology of science to speak of heat,
light and other forms of energy as " modes of motion."
This form of expression is inexact, and opens the way to
logical subreptions and other fallacious procedures. A
mode of motion is some kind of motion, and, as such, implies a thing moved and a mover. The thing moved is an
atom or molecule; the mover is the real energy to which
thought is habitually directed when we speak of molecular
force. Motion, instead of being an ultimate physical cause,
is merely an effect. Now it is true that the real cause may
produce - does produce, various modes of motion, one of
which may be styled heat; another, light, and so on; and
these motions, in accordance with the law of " continuity
of motion " or " persistence of force," may be propagated
indefinitely along the lines which characterize respectively,
the several species of energy so named.  Used in this




30                 Thoughts on Causality.
sense, however, heat and light are no longer energies; and
exact science should desist from discoursing about them as
such.
Now, it seems to me that, by a defensible process of reasoning, the conclusion has been reached that the ultimate
ground of physical force is voluntary intelligence.  This
ground may be reached from  another datum., The only,
mode of causation of which we have any knowledge is that
of which we are conscious — the exercise of free will suggested by motive, prompted by desire and directed by
intelligence.  By a compulsion of the reason, we feel ourselves under the necessity, when thinking of cause, to, think
of it as we know it.  This mandate' of the universal reason
possesses the same authority as any other; and, if we recognize, at all, the validity of our necessary intuitions, or
the authority ot the common consent of humanity, we are
bound to recognize the truth of this indication of the nature
of causation.
Again, it is a datum of the universal consciousness that
relations of order, fitness, adaptation, utility, imply intelligence.  Now, the universe abounds in relations which,
within the sphere of human affairs, would be pronounced
such relations; and hence, by a necessary law of reason,
we affirm that the cause of the universe is intelligent; and
this attribute, by the necessary law of substance, we posit
in real being. 1
If then a voluntary Intelligence is the ultimate ground
of all causation, and this Intelligence chooses to act according to methods so uniform that, as in the movements of a
piece of mechanism, sequences can be predicated on given
relations of things, it only remains to make two further
1 It may be observed that Kant's opinion of the insufficiency of the cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of God is determined
by his neglect of the " law of substance " or the ontological'intuition which
carries the reason across the chasm which separates the world of phenomena
from the realm of real being.




Thoughts on Causality.               31
important points.  The first is, that we discern more than
a single mode of activity; in other words, the forces of
nature are not all mutually convertible.  Some of the
molecular forces seem  to be so.  Heat may perhaps be
transformed into electricity; electricity into heat, and so
on. And yet, even amongst these, we note a want of similarity.  Magnetism  and electricity are polar forces; but
it is not pretended that heat, light and affinity are such.
Though light and heat are both molecular vibrations, and
hence congeneric, they can hardly be regarded as conspecific,
equivalent and intertransmutable, since they are vibrations
of different intensities.  Electricity, magnetism, chemical
and cohesive attractions, though sustaining undoubted
correlations with heat and light, are not known or believed
to be vibrations or modes of motion; and it seems like a
stretch of evidence to pronounce them  conspecific with
phenomena which are such.  Repulsion, moreover, is a
molecular force looming distinctly above the  horizon
of discovery; and there are indications that its intensity
is inversely as the fifth power of the distance, while chemical affinity varies as the cube of the distance. Gravity
is a: orce varying inversely as the square of the distance;
and it is, moreover, a force which has never, to our knowledge, resulted from the transformation of any other force;
nor does it sustain quantitative or any other correlations
with any other force., Here, then, in the field of inorganic
nature, we find forces producing three classes of phenomena — attractions, repulsions and vibrations. Of the
attractions, certain ones affect aggregates, and  others,
molecules; the former are again differentiated into non polar
(gravitation) and polar (magnetism  and electricity) while
the later embrace cohesion and affinity.  The vibrations,
moreover, are different intensities as before stated. We have,
therefore, three different genera of inorganic force, and at




32                 Thoughts on Causality.
least five species.l Within a few years we confidently expect
to find their respective lines of sequence converging at the
farther limit of the phenomenal world; but here we are,
at that limit, and we find five separate threads of causation
emerging from the realm beyond that boundary.
In addition to this, we have the phenomena of life, back
of which we discern a force which, so far as we know, is
not a transformation of any other energy. True it is, that
the vehicle, and instrument, and sensible expression of life
is a material organism, whose building up is chiefly the
work of molecular forces. True it is, that the mode of expression and manifestation of life is and must be, coordinated to this sole and material medium of expression.  But
that which we call life plays the part of a force which conditions the activity of the molecular forces; has never
been produced by the transmutation of any of them; cannot be approached by any of the methods of physics, nor
brought, like a physical force, within the grasp of numerical formulation.
The other point to be noted is, that the supreme intelligent spontaneity, as we are thus led by science and reason
to think it, is revealed to us in our own mental constitution,
whose laws afford us the only attainable ground of certainty; whose delegated spontaneity is a picture of the
absolute will; whose intelligence takes hold on the thoughts
expressed in the cosmos, and finds them  comprehensible,
admirable and satisfying; and, whose conscience, while it
finds among men the fitting theatre for its activities, disNon-polar               1   Gravitation
[Aggregates Polar      In magnets  dpow. Magnetism
Attractions.             aor  In electrics  Electricity
Attt    Moleculs    Like molecules         1   Cohesion
Unlike molecules     3d pow. Affinity
Repulsions                                  5th     Repulsion
Vibrations  { Low intensity                        Heat
High intensity                         Light
Mechanical force and motion, so far as I can see, are always effects of one
or more of the above forms of force.




Thoughts on Causality.                 33
covers in the supreme entity which we have disclosed, the
sufficient ground for its authority and basis for its hopes.
Let me now  attempt, in a concise manner, by way of
recapitulation, to draw out in historical order, the steps
and circumstances in the genesis and constitution of our
notion of causation in the existing universe.
1.  We dismiss the consideration of all secondary causation.  The phrase is a misnomer.  There is no real cause
which can be disclosed as an effect  first cause is only cause.
That must be an intelligent spontaneity and must act without intermediation or " instrumental causationo "
2.  The notion of causation implies correlative subjectivity
and objectivity-  a thing acting and a thing acted upona causative spontaneity and a possibility of its action otherwise than in and upon itselfo  In all causation, except a
primordial creative act, objectivity is a reality  - in primordial creation it is a potentiality.  This dual necessity of
subjective agent and objective possibility of effect, implies,
in every case of actual causative efort, a differentiation of
active and passive existence; and hence renders irrational
the theory of G monism 9 and its corollary " pantheism 
under all its aspects.
3   The subject must be self conscious - conscious of its
own existence and power of determination.  This necessity
is the ground of " personality;" andit  implies'that the
subject is a " free agent."
4.  The subject must form a concept of     e an effect   a thing
not yet existing or an event not yet enacted.
5, The subject must be conscious of the relation between
efect and cause  the intuition of causality must arise in
the consciousness. This intuition certainly embraces the
notion of efficiency and adequacy; and, in all cases of in
termediate causation, it implies also, that the effect must
be congeneric with its cause.  In intermediate causation
we have merely a given  energy transmitted- no new
5




34                 Thoughts on Causality.
energy put forth.  This must retain through an indefinite
series of ternms, the same quality and quantity as belonged
to the initial and only logically causative act.  Original
causation, on the contrary, is not bound by any qualitative
relation between cause and effect -  though, in the finite
sphere, subject to other conditions which may variously
restrict the field of effects,
6o  The subject must be conscious of motive prompting to
produce the effect conceived.  There must always be a reason
why an intelligence  acts one way rather than another.
This necessary  reason why" is often styled the 6 final
cause"
7o  The subject may cognize a contingency existing -that
is, a fact constant or varying which sustains some established relation to the effect contemplated.  Such fact, if it
exist, becomres a;" condition " or " conditioning cause"'
8o  The subject must become conscious of the influence of
the contingency (if it exist) upon the conscious motive -  adding
to or taking from it,
9.  The subject must next be conscious of a desire to
produce the efect conceived,  This desire would be modified
in a manner coordinated with the contingently modified
motive.
10o The subject must next be conscious of a, formed
intention to produce    e efct    ee Intentionalityg  whose genesis arises at this point, incloses all the mental acts which
precede - self-consciousness, intuition of causal relation,
motivity, perception of conditionality (if existing) and desire (conditionally modified).
o1. The subject must finally will the effect, modified by
the contingent fact, if it exist.
This is the whole process of original causation as represented in individual consciousness, which, anless the harmonies of the universe be fatally misleading, is the finite
reflection of the method of infinite causation.




Thoughts on Causality.               35
In the case, however, of finite causality, as in the human
will, every effect external to the mind itself must be
reached through instrumentalitieso In most cases, the
final determination does not reach immediately the external result toward which volition is ultimately directed. It
reaches, nevertheless, another result which, however it
may escape observation, is the effect which figures in the
foregoing account. This effect is a muscular movement
adapted to serve as the first term  in the series of intermediate causes. After this, the whole history of causal efficiency, as above laid down, must necessarily be repeated
for each separate term in the series of intermediate causes.
In the mean time, complications arise.  The instruments
employed become effective on condition that the forces of
nature prove regularly operative  and thus supreme causation may be summoned to conspire with human volition in
the accomplishment of the most trivial result.
Syracuse, 1 Feb., 1875.
















God ir the Wo ld.
A REVIEW OF
COCKER'S
"THEISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD."
BY
ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
EXTRACTED FROM THE "M ETiFq)WT QUAERXLY REVIEW" FOR JULY, 1876.








1876.]                   God  in  the   Forld.                        511
ART. VI.-GOD IN THE WORLD.
1Te Tleistic Conception of thle W;orld. An Essay in Opposition to certain Tendencies of Modern Thought.  By B. F. COCKER, D.D., LL.D.. Professor of Mental
and Moral Philosophy in tlhe University of Michigan. Author of "Christian
ity and Greck Pililosophy."  New York: Harper & Brothers. 1875.
"I am not oblivious of what is babbled by some who, in their ignorance, are frightened at every
noise, and say that we ought to occupy ourselves with what is most necessary, and which contains
the faith; and that we should pass over what is beyond ad  superfluous, which wears out and
detains us to no purpose in things which conduce nothing to the great end."-CLrmMENS ALEX.,
Stromz., Book I, chap. i.
"It is of much more importance to give our assent to doctrines upon grounds of reason and
wisdom than on that of fiith merely."-ORIGEN, Contra Celascm, Book I, cliap. xiii.
PEOPLE still live who sincerely believe that Mr. Moody's method
is the only one requisite to convince the world of religions truth.
They have heard of the loudly-proclaimed'L conflict between
Science and Religion," but they maintain that the only way to
a pacification is through " evangelical teaching."   They have
seen the young, in the formative stage of opinion, yielding
with an irresistible deference to the evidences which science
arrays before the humtan understanding;  but they still suspect tlat modern  scientific conclusions are  unreliable.'We
wish only to define a position which we think wholly mistaken
and indefensible.  We shall be the last to utter a word of depreciation of evangelical efforts.  By  all means let themr  be assiduously  promoted.  We sincerely honor Mr. MIoody and his
fellow-evangelists.   We only maintain  that a large and increasing class of persons exists who cannot be reached by such
efforts as long as certain  antecedent and  fundamental questions of evidence remain  unsettled in their minds.  We will
briefly explain our position.
The work of Dr. Cocker assumes that a conviction of religious truth may be legitimately grounded on data disclosed as
the ultimate results of analytical inquiry.  The existence of
the work implies that though the belief of the multitude may
be prompted by their feelings-reverence for teachers, hope of
future happiness, devotional susceptibilities-there is a considerable number who demand the p'oqofs of the realities which
must stand as correlates to the religious feelings.
Belief  is a  conviction  of the truth  of some  proposition.
Conviction always rests on some ground; there is some reason
why we believe.   Sometimes its ground is testimony to a fact




512              iethodist Quarterly Reviewzo            [July,
observed.  Sometimes it is simply authority.  A entertains a
certain belief, and B, presuming A's belief to represent truth,
adopts it, and can give no other reason for his faith.  Sometimes belief, sincere belief, is generated or biased by our interests; intellectual discernment becomes perverted, and the
grounds of belief are not revealed to us in their true light.
Sometimes belief is based on the results of a personalc scrutiny
of evidence.  George Smith, who has seen and deciphered the
Chaldean inscriptions, may feel a confidence in the veracity of
our ancient Scriptures no stronger —-perhaps even less unreserved-than that of the servant girl who acquires it from her
faithful pastor; but his belief rests on a basis of evidence
not traditionary.   We who have not deciphered these inscriptions may still accept without reserve the testimony of
the antiquary, and, with a knowledge of the nature of the
evidence, may build a faith as firm and as logical as that of
the original decipherer.   Similarly, the chemist notes the
transformations which take place in the test-tube, and acquires
an original belief' in the principle of chemical affinities.  He
measures and weighs the products of these reactions, and,
finding that the comlpounds present him with definite multiples of the simples, lie attains to a belief in the doctrine of
" chemical equivalents," and the doctrine of the atomic constitution of matter.  The philosopher, irtroverting his scrutiny,
notes the flacts of consciousness, and grounds on direct observation his belief in the reality of his conscious states. Here belief becomes knowledge; there is no normal contingency which
can invalidate or qualify this intuitive knowledge that he. thinks
and feels.  He finds existent, also, a belief that the something
to which consciousness refers its states, is a reality, and such a
reality as is represented in this reference.  This belief respecting the existence of an objective reality, and its nature, is
accepted by all men as knowledge.  It is knowledge exalted
above all contingency.  These ultimate data disclose an absolute identification of knowledge and belief. Once more, the
philosopher discovers reflected in consciousness certain other
primary truths which exclude the possibility of all conditionality-such as the principle of causality, the principle of substance, and the principle of intentionality.  These he feels to
be more indestructible even than matter itself.  All knowledge,




1 8'6.                 God in the -FWorld.                    513
all science, is but a superstructure built of these ultimate atoins
of truth.  The oronnd of a primary belief is neither testimony;
nor authority, nor sensuous observation, Ilorinldnctive inference,
nor deductive consequence.  It is a ground more unassailable
than any of these.  it is a directness and singleness of intuition
of one transcendental and eternal truth.  A religious belief is
not secure froln the attacks of doubt till, by a process of reflection. it has been resolved into these ultimate and adamantine elements.
Now, a  iotmenlt's reflection suffices to show that men's beliefs
possess various degrees of validity.  Nor is the ardor of belief
graduated to its validity-unless it be in  an  inverse ratio.
One m-an rests belief on grounds which would not be satisfactory to another.  Some persons, like children, willingly adopt
beiiefs; while others must themselves bring the grounds of
belief under the careful inspection of the intellect.  Some
persons with warm feelings may be easily possessed by beliefs
which, in others of cooler natures, must be built on evidence
comprehended and weighed; and in persons of similar emotional characteristics, proneness to take advice of the feelings
is inversely as the control of intellect.
Tlle reliyiouts feelings hold the first place in respect to influence over the lives of men.  They are not the product of
occasional concurrences of circumstances; their existence does
not depend on conditions of poverty or wealth, power or subjection, sickness or health, age or sex; they sway the actions
of men through the presentation of interests which range not
alone over the entire period of mortal existence, but through
the dimly glimpsed vistas of an eternal life.  All other interests,
all other motives, are limited by circumstance, and transitory
in duration, save as they condition the religious feelings, which,
like the dome of the sky, cover and embrace all that there is
in human life.
Yet men differ no less in the intensity and dominance of religious feeling than in intellect, or amiability, or phAysiqgt. Differences which exist absolutely may be counteracted or exaggerated
by the other differences which exist-differences in intellect, in
education, in fortune, in personal associations.  Tlhe final resultant of all the forces which influence human actions may be, in
one case, an irrepressible religious predisposition; in another,




514              M1fethodist Quarterly Review.            July,
an emotionless questioning, religious circumspection. The first
individual will possess an exuberance of religious faith, though
he may be unable to give a reason for it, but will remain
legitimately cheerful and happy.  The second may deny all
religion, though equally unable to give a reason for his denial,
but remain unsettled and anxious.  Tertullian could believe
even because a doctrine is incredible; * Pyrrho would not believe even when doubt became absurd.  Between Tertullian
and Pyrrho stand all gradations.
There is a class of individuals richly gifted with religious
susceptibilities, but yet subject to the strong  influence of
habits of intellectual inquiry.  In their ordinary moods, belief can only exist under the previous sanction of intellect;
but, in a roused condition of the religious nature, belief bursts
into being at the biddlig (qf the higher intuition8, and ratiocinative intellect comes afterward merely to sanction its existence.
The intelligent reader cannot hesitate to give indorsement
to these propositions.  Can there be any difficulty in applying
them to the work of convincing men of religious truth b   The
religlious predisposition exists in all men; in most mren it is
strong.  The great mass of people, then, need no arguments;
they  need only persuasion;  they need arrested attention,
aroused religious emotions, quickened  religious perceptions.
To accomplish this must be always the chief work of the religious teacher.  It is legitilate; for we nmaintain not only that
the essential propositions of the religion of Jesus are capable
of authentication by the most vigorous logic, but that there is
a higher apperception of their truth which is glimpsed most
clearly by those who attain to the sublimest conditions of religious exaltation.  To convince thlrough the enotions —emotions
profound and pervading enough to be calm  and clear-is to
open the intuitional eye, and anticipate the affirmation of
reflective intellect.
True it is that the religious teacher whose own belief rests
on authority or religious predisposition, may throw the sanctity
of religion over tenets which are purely secular or even baseless; and he may thus become the propagator of a volume of
crude, if not failse and damaging "thleology."   How sadly is
this danger illustrated in the history of even the modern
* "Credo quia absvrdwum est."-TERTULLIAN.




1876.1                  God in the World.                     515
Church 1  True it is, too, that the subject of religious exaltation
is sometimes simultaneously the subject of a nervous exaltation
which quickens the inmagination and the whole range of sensibilities; and, in consequence of tlis, the religious intuition becomes fogged, or even confounded with ilnagination and pliysiological impulses.   These extravagances of both  religious
teachlle  and religious pupil are to be diligently corrected by
invoking the calm influences of intellect.
But a different phenomenon, and a different demand, are
presented by that respectable minority of persons in whom the
religious predisposition cannot be evoked.  Though they do
not by any means embrace all the thinkers, they constitute,
on the whole, a thinking class.  The ideas which elevate our
civilization, and the enterprises which advance the happiness
of the race, originate with them.  They unite with strong
motive, executive power.   They are accessible to argument
as well as persuasion.  Their attitude toward the tenets and
institLutions of Christiality will be determined by the claims
and pretensions of professing Christians; by the results of a
study of Christian evidences; by the awakening power whici
is blrought to bear uponl tleln; by education, example, friendships, or other accidents.
It is the effort to show that Christian faith sounds no dissonance with the universal scheme of truth, which occupies the
anthor of the work before us.  He does not look unmoved upon
tie wide paralysis of faith and hope caused by thle ierficious
influence of this uneducated crusade against science, and this
sullen contempt for religion.  He presents us a conception of
the world, as framned and s t.tained by profoundc8es scient'ifi
investiyation,, and shows us thatt i implies God.  Here is tle
text-book for the wavering, and for those who would counsel
tile wavering.  Here is the resolvent for their scientific doubts
-doubts which cannot be dissipated by the fervor of a llymn,
nor exorcised by the authority of a sermon-the nost stubborn
andl invincible of all the obstacles to religiols life.
Let us examine this work.  It is not a theory framed by the
autholr. It shows a thorough familiarity witll all recent authorities in plysical science; and his copious array of citations,
connected together, would  almost constitute  a manual of
science in the words of the masters themselves.  Indeed, we




516             jiethodist Quarterly Review.                [Jul yS\
feel moved to express our wonder, in liminc, that an author so
thoroughly familiar with the questions discussed should feel it
necessary to fortify his statements by quoting so Iargely the
dicta of scientists and philosophers.  Dr. Cocker, philosopher
as he is, is also a scientist, and lie possesses the prerogative of
speaking by authority; yet he seetms reluctant to rest his own
logical convictions on their merits.  One feels sometimes disappointed that he does not leave a well-reasoned and well-put
truth to rest without the bolster of authoriity.  One is led to
suspect he may be deficient in the dogmatic spirit.  He seems
distrustful, at times, of his judgiments in matters of physical
science; but no person can read the work without feeling that
the author's information and clearness of head make him  the
equal of those whom he cites for confirmation; and thlis all the
more when it is remembered that the disputed points in physical science lie rather within the territory of philosophy than
of physics. The explanation of this exuberance of literature is
undoubtedly to be found in the antlor's purpose to put the
representatives of science themselves upon the stand to testify
in their own words, and thus forestall all charges of misinterpretation.  This purpose is judiious', and hastens the finality
of the existing controversy.  But, aside froim such object, thet
reader will thank the author for opening so many avenues of
collateral reading and study.
Viewed as a whole-in its conception, method, and argnment-tle work is a finished product of broad philosophical
reflection, and sheds a genuine luster upon American authorship. It is a high and pure cosmic philosophy. It supplies the
co-hemnisphere of his former work,> and rounds out with coimpleteness a sphere of co3motheistic reflection.  He has given us
the relations of Christianity to ancient thought, and the relations of Christianity to modern thought.  In the former, he hasa
not developed as great detail as Cudwortl, in " The Intellectual System of The Universe;" in the latter, his details of science  occupy  the physical, rather than the organic, field, as
in M'Cosh's " Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation."
Cudworth and M'Cosh  have diverged to great distances in
certain directions-and so, indeed, have Paley, and Butler, and
Chalmers, and the " Bridgewater Treatises;" but Dr. Cocker
l " Christianity and Greek Philosophy."




1876.]                 God in the World.                      517
has described a. complete circumference by keeping himself
constantly near the central and fundamental position.  He has
given a, greater range of proof; others have adduced a greater
variety of illustrations.  Spencer* and Fisk,t as far as comparisons may be made, have furnished each an admirable and
masterly organ(,n. and Mahan T has given a inore ostentatious
metaphysic; but we think the reader of these authors has
need to exercise a degree of discrimination between sound and
unsound, which is not required in the study of Dr. Cocker.
Starting with the fundamental inquiries which have exercised
the thinking world in all ages, the author leads us, by steps of
reasoning as lucid as logical, through the realms of philosophy,
science, and revelation, to the necessary and vivid conception
of a personal Intelligent Will, as the originator, conservator,
and governor of the world.
Four answers, he tells us, have been given to the question,
What is the First Principle of all things'.  "In the beginning
was MATTER;  " In the beginning was FORCE;" "' In the beginning was THOUGHT;" "In the beginning was WILL."  The
first and second answers coalesce with Atheism; the third with
Pantheism; the fourth is the creed of Theism; and this's the
answer which is rendered alike by our sacred Scriptures, and
by the testimony of recent science.
The idea. of God is a colmmon phenomenon of the universal
intelligence of our race.  An inquiry into the essential nature
of the divine originative existence thus revealed, discloses it as' an unconditioned will, or self-directive power, seeing its own
wav, and having the reason and law of its action in itself
alone."  Will is conceived as iImp)lyilng r-as^lo, qffection, and
efficiency.  This determination of the nature of the first principle is sanctioned by both philosophy and science.  Grove,
Sir Jolhn Herschel, Carpenter, Wallace, the Duke of Argyle,
Layc(,(k, Murphy, Challis, and even Conite, unite in affirmling
that intellienit will is the only rational explanation of the existenee and order of the universe.  All our acquired conceptions of God tall into harmlony with this idea.  Whether contellnplated under the category of Being, Attribute, or Relation;
whether in the light of reason or of Revelation, our total con* Spencer: " A System of Pllilosophy.". f Fisk:: Cosmic Philosophy."
M Malian: " Natural Theology."
FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVIII.-33




518            Miethodist Quarterly Review.             [July,
ception of the Supreme Cause finds its synthetic expression in
WILL.
In discussing the question, What conception are we to form
of the nature and work of the first origination? the anthor
first considers ic in its hermeneutical and metaphysical aspects,
arriving at the conclusion that it is the purpose of Scripture to
teach the absolute origination of all existence by the power of
God, and that the same conclusion is the outcome of the most
defensible line of philosophic reasoning in respect to the existende of space and time, matter and force.  The absolute
ideas of imnmensity and eternity he finds imbedded in the
depths of consciousness, and he is led by a subtle process of
reasoning to regard immensity and eternity as attributes of
God; while space and time are relations between co-existing
things and successive events, and apart from things and events
have no reality.  Matter, also, derives its existence from  the
divine will-produced, not out of nothing, but out of the eternal potentialities of the divine nature.  The establishment of
the conditionality of the existence of time, space and matter
relieves natural theology of those fatal embarrassments involved
in the admissions of Chalmers, Martineau, Mahan and others.'The creative act was not conditioned by time, or space, or
matter."
The conclusion we freely indorse; but it seems to us the
discussion of the question, What are space and time? is not
yet closed.  The affirmation that space and time have no reality apart from things and events is not thoroughly satisfying.
It is difficult to apprehend how the existence of body (we use
the term for any entity possessing extension) can condition the
existence of space.  If space, as we agree with our author in
maintaining, is the condition of the existence of body, then
the existence of space is the logical antecedent of the existence
of body, and it must be possible to contemplate spatial existence abstracted from bodily existence —that is, with body nonexistent.  Let the attempt be made; think all material exist.
ence annihilated except two atoms of matter.  Space, as our
author admits, still exists.  The space once occupied by matter
annihilated, it seems to us, also exists, as before. Now think
the last two atoms annihilated, and space, our author says,
exists no longer; nothing but the immensity of God remains'




1876.]                 God in the World.                      51.
as before creation began.  But for us, the space still existst
The fallacy in Dr. Cocker's reasoning, if we may venture the
opinion, is a fallacy in cdefnition; it consists in adopting an
arbitrary definition, and one which does not answer to the universal ide(a of space,  Space," he says, " is the relation of coexisting material tilings; that is, the relation of position, distance, direction, hereness, thereness."  Accordingly he says,'Let orne atoml of matter be created and we have extension."
That we grant, for extension is an essential property of miatter.
" Let a second atom be created, and there is now a relation of
distance, position, direction-that is, there is spae."  The existence of the relation alleged is obvious; but we appeal to the
comllnon consciousness for the verdict that such relations are
not space.  Having assigned such a definition to space. the
conclusion is self-evident, that space was created in the creation of lmatter, for the conclusion is embraced in the definition;
and (as similar reasoning may be employed in reference to
time) that time was created in the creation of matter; and
that, as a corollary, space and time have no eternal and necessary existence; and creative efficiency was in no way conditioned by them.  These propositions are all but different
formls of the definition.  The last is a most important conclusion for natural theology; nay, we agree with the author that
a system of natural theology is baseless which does not rest on
this corner-stone.  But we feel fully persuaded of our title to
this corner-stone even if not derived from the authority alleged; we possess a more valid titfe than one resting on an
erroneous definition.
Wliat is that title? it will be asked.  Our first and highest
title is based on the necessary intuition of First Cause.  The
universal intelligence entertains the idea of First Cause, accepts its reality, cannot be driven from a belief in it.  There
must be one cause which does not exist as an effect.  No existence can be prior to that which has the sole capacity to confer existence.  Neither space, time, matter, or material force
can assert possession of that capacity.  It is only when we attempt to reconcile this spontaneous concept of the necessary
limitation of the existence of space, time, matter, and force,
with the formulated processes and products of reflective thought)
that difficulty is discovered, and doubt arises.  But sluppose the




520             Methodist Quarterly Review.             [Julyq
method of this harmony undiscoverable; we are not bound to
point it out.  Our difficulty is disclosed in a deductive inference several removes, perhaps, from  the first troths from
which we argue. Every step opens a possibility of fallacy.
Our belief in absolute creation is primary; it possesses higher
authority than any deduction, still more a deduction which
conflicts with it.
But we may endeavor to deduce conclusions which shall
quadrate with that highest law of belief. The existence of
body implies the existence of space; for there can be no extension —not even an atom's extension —without space.  It also
implies the existence of time; for we cannot separate existence from duration; a thing whose existence has no duration
has no actual existence.  Space and time, then, are concapacities of body —the conditions of the possibility of body. Time
is the sole capacity of unextended being. But time and space
have no dependence on body or succession.  Time exists logically before succession, and space before body; and we may
think them as so actually existing.  Neither time nor space is
the capacity or condition of absolute existence.  As to absolute being, we cannot affirm that it exists in time or space —
in eternity or immensity.  God exists-here and there, prior
and subsequent, have no meaning in relation to the Absolute.
Space and time, immensity and eternity, are not needed for the
existence of God; nor are they attributes of God; they were
created to serve as the capacities of other existence, or the conditions of the potentialities of other existence.  Of the nonexistence of space and time we can. indeed, form no conception or idea; our reason knows no denomination in which to
formulate that negative; we are part of the same system  as
space and time, and our intelligence is made the measure of
the system to which we belong, and not of another unimraginable system which may be possible with God.  Nor is it necessary to form  the concept of divine existence manifest, cognizable in all space and time, past and future, and yet characterized by activity not transitive through time and space.
There are few things which may be confidently predicated of
the Absolute by finite intelligence; and we may be certain
that of the legitimate predicates of the Absolute, nearly all
must transcend  the grasp of human reason to  the same




1876.1                 Grod in the TWorl(/.                   521
extent as his causality existing out of relation to space and
time.
We proceed with our resume.  A survey of the phenomena
of the actual world soon transports thought backward to a,tieinnng.  That the existing order had a beginning, is a
thesis less debatable than the creation of matter.  The leadincl
representatives of science are in accord with each other and
with the showing of sacred Scripture on this point.  Little
less contrariety of conviction now  obtains in reference to the
limitation  of cosinical existence in  the opposite direction.
Science and revelation, with one voice, prophesy an end.  If
science conduct us backward to a condition of matter which,
for her, must be regarded as a beginning, what has she to testify in reference to the nature of matter, and thence, by inference, in reference to the origin  of matter?  This question
affords the author the opportunity to bring science to the witness-box, and the verdict made up from its testimony is alternative: either matter is simply a ph         enomenon of force, and,
therefoe, referable to an original creative entity as its ground,
or else it is to be regarded, in each of its atoms, as a   m' manufactured article and a subordinate agent,"'precluding the
idea of its being eternal ald self-existent."  This, let it be understood, is the verdict of recent science. Here, let the person
troubled about the atheistical tendencies of modern science
take hope again, and trust to the voice of God which he hears,
as Socrates heard it, perpetually uttered in his own consciousness.  Science-physical science-affirms that all its data —its
ultimate data-are things created.
Holding thus to the creation of time, space, and matter, and
to the finiteness of the existent order, what was the method of
its beginning?  That soni-e  otive or sufficient reason for cre-.tino   was necessary to condition the divine will to activity, is
maintained both on purely metaphysical grounds, and on the
adclissions of philosophers and scientists.   The doctrine of
Final Clause, then, instead of being exploded, is acquiring new
strenlgt, under the sanction of such names as Laycock, Sir
Williaml  Thomson, Bacon, Miiler, and even J. S. Mill.' The
highilest law of the universe," concludes our author, " must be
a teleological idea, to which all nature-forces and all causal
connections are subordinated.  This nltinallte purpose forms.




522             Methodlisi  Quarte'tly Review.                [July.
as it were, a complete net-work of higher teleological connections above the web of mere aiteological connections which pel'vades the universe."  As to the nature of the supretne teleolo?ical law of the universe, finite intellect may judge inadequately
or erroneously; but our Christian Scripture reveals its character as a purpose to "communicate of the divine blessedness to
intelligent, personal being."   Reasoning  from  this tfundamental principle, it must be inferred that the self-manifestation.
of God in creation would be gradual, cumulative, conservative,
and harmonious.  A critical examination of the sacred narrative
in reference to its general purpose and its literary character
shows that this a priori inference is sustained; and an inquisition of the facts and conclusions of science demonstrates a complete consonance with the meaning educed from the sacred text.
In drawing  out the parallel chronologies of Genesis and
geology, we notice but one point which is open to adverse
criticism.  With Lange and many others, Dr. Cocker recognizes only the first verse of Genesis as belonging to the "exordium;' we feel quite confident the real exordium embraces
the first and second verses.  What is the subject of the statement in the opening of the second verse?  The EARTH.  " And
the earth was formless and empty."  Now, according to the
author, this was before the creation of light —the liminosity
of the matter out of which the earth was to be fashioned.  Is
such  an  interpretation  reasonable?  Next, the  succeeding
clauses depict events in relation to the earth.  "And darkness
was upon the face of the abyss; and the spirit of God brooded
upon the face of the waters." *  Now, this was an " abyss "
revealed in the condition of the earth just mentioned, and these
" waters " belonged to the earth and not to outer space.  It is
only in the third verse that the, primordial fact in creation is
enunciated; this is the beginning of the narrative.   The statenlents of the second verse are to  be regarded as detached
glimpses —foreshadowings —of some of the mighty events whlich
* Our author says "vapors," and quotes Lange: "The waters of verse two is
quite another thing than the water proper of the third creative day; it is the
fllid (or gaseous) form of the earth in its first condition." Now, its first condition was not liquid-if that is what is meant by "fluid " —and an incandescent
gaseous fluid would be a singular condition of matter to which to apply a term
immediately afterward applied to waters. This is a virtual arraignment of the
good discrimination, and, so far, the authority of the narrative.




18 T76.3             God in the World.                     523
are to pass before us in the hymn; as when in the proemial
passage of " Paradise Lost  Milton sings: —
"Of mau's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbiddei tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden," etc.
Here, as is universal with the epic poets, some salient facts
of' the narrative are preannounced.  We always picture the
sacred writer as gazing upon an inspired vision.  The first
and highest fact of all is the disclosure of God as absolute
originator. Next, as the panorama of creation passes rapidly
before him, his attention is particularly arrested, 1. By the
formless and empty condition of the arid, scorching surface of
the primeval crust; 2. By the chaos —the disorder of, and the
absence of correlations in, the features of that surface, and the
promiscuity of the aerial envelope; 3. The darkness which
hid the earth when the gathered mantle of aqueous vapors excluded the ancient sunlight; 4. The ocean precipitated, and
nmyriad forms of life hatching from the waters vivified by the' brooding" "Spirit of God."  Of these conspicuous features
of the divine work he makes a memorandum  and then returns
to the beginning, to recount the series of events in its completeness and order.  And thus he begins:   God said,'Let
light be;' and light was."
No difficulty arises from the use of the word evening, on the
theory that the first day began with the creation of light.' Evening" and " morning" are not here equivalent to darkness and light; they are practically expressive of the " beginning" and "end" of a demiurgic day.  If the "evening" of
the first day means the darkness which preceded the creation
of light, what means the "evening   of the second day, which
followed the creation of light? We think the interpretation
here suggested to be demanded equally by critical exegesis
and by science.
The next question which arises concerns the present relation
of the Creator to the creation. The key-note of the discussion
respecting the conservation of the world is struck in the copious citations from sacred Scripture and the authorities of the
Church, which represent God as continuously exerting a con-.
serving efficiency, without which creation would sink immedi



524            iMLetho(ldst Quarterly Revzea.            [July?
ately into non-existence.  Divergent from  such a recognition
of immanent divine power are the views of "certain advanced
thinkers," which our author now proceeds to examline.  The
first school, represented by such writers as Professor Tyndall,
Dr. H. Bence Jones, and Dr. Bastian, hold to "the absolute
inseparability of matter and force." While subscribing to the
doctrine of primordial creation, tley mIaintain that the phenomena of the universe are perpetuated through the inherent
and unwasted energy imparted to matter in the beginning.
The second school, represented by such men as Professors
Owen, Huxlev, and Baden Powell, "deny tle ultimate distinction between matter and force, and regard both as phenomenal manifestations of some'unknown substratum'-a supramaterial _physi.c (0vftg) which is identical with the divine
substance."  This is a phase of thought which verges toward
Pantheism.'A  third and intermediate school assuines the
existence  of a plastic nature (vis formativa) intermediate between the Creator and his work, by which the phlenomena of
nature are produced."  This hypothesis was propounded by
Cudworth, and probably possesses a close affinity with the old
theory of the anmim,,a?mundi; but it may be doubted whether
the " animating principle" of Flarvey, the materice vita of Hunter, or the "' organic force' of Miiller, or the " plastic force "
of the schoolinen, are similarly intended to imply the existence
of any separate intelligence.  Tlle theory las been lately reproduced by Dr. Laycock and Mr. Murphy, under the name
of " unconscious organizing, intelligence."  To what, it may
be asked, does this intelligence pertain?  If to matter, the
theory means Atheism; if to spirit, it mueans Pantheism.
Now, every conception of the world which makes it selfsupporting, self-evolving, with I)eity standing merely as a renmote unapproachable prefix, however sanctioned by any theology which styles itself orthodox, is essentially atheistic, and in
conflict with Scripture; but halppily, also, a conception which
is incompatible with the deductions which we are compelled
to draw from  tle data of reason and science.  In the defense
of tllis thesis our author displays an admirable familiarity with
the theories and speculations of physical science, and gives us,
we think, the two most charming chapters of his work.  Our
limits do not permit eve n anbstract of his method, and we




1876.]                God in the World.                       525
can only commend this masterly discussion to the studious attention of those who desire to acquaint themselves with the
real positions of the scientists named, and the relations which
their science sustains to the biblical doctrine of immanent
divine efficiency.
The forms under which Dr. Cocker discusses the leading
theories which he opposes are-1. The hypothesis of natural
law; 2. The hypothesis of active force communicated to matter
at its creation; 3. The hypothesis of a plastic nature. His own
views may be summiarized as follows: 1. Matter is not a mere
phenomenon of force, but is an entity of a purely passive charaeter, serving as the recipient and vehicle of force; 2. It consists of ultimate continuous atoms or molecules; 3. Force cannot be a property of matter; it is an attribute of spirit alone;
and spirit-force is the only force in the universe; 4. All the
forms of energy manifested in the universe are only transformlationst  of the one omnipotent force issuing from  the one
fountain-head of power-the Divine Will; 5. All the phenomena of molecular life (bioplasmic phenomena) are the result of
the immediate presence and direct agency of God.
Thus the final conclusion is, that "God is not the transitive,
but the immanent, cause of the universe.... His ceaseless
energy produces all the phenomena of nature."  Is not this
identification of the dynamical life of tle universe with God,
Pantheisml?  To this question lie replies: " The theory which
represents the Deity as the transitive cause of the universe-a
Ayzptovpyog mechanically faslioning the materials supplied to
lii, hands, and then leaving it to the working of its own inheretlt ftrees-is rank Deism.  The hypothesis wlich regards the
Deity as no more than the dynamical life of the universe —an
informing and organizing soul associated with matter-is naked
Hfylozoisim.  The theory tllat reduces all existence, material
and mental, to phenomenal manifestations of,one eternal, selfexistent substance, which evolves itself accordigi to an inward
law of necessity, and which is elusively called God, is Pantheislm. But the doctrine which embraces the two conceptions of
transcendence and im.nanence, and, while it tealches the immna* On the theory of immanent divine agency, the " different forms of energy " are
not "transformations " o' one divine will-force; they are the divine will-force in
its various self-imposed modes of activity.




526            MJetAodist Quarterly Jlevew.            [July,
nence of God in matter, proclaims the infinite distinctness in
essence between matter and God, and the infinite omnipresence
of a personal God above and beyond the limitations of nmtter,
is Christian Theism."
If we recognize the world as created and sutstained by divine
power, and accept the testimrony of revelation that the free and
loving impartation of happiness to other conscious being was
the final cause of creation, we reach the inquiry, What has been
the method of God in the treatment of his rational creatures 
What are the phenomena and laws of the providence of God
in human history? The conclusion developed from the discussion of this question sets man as an objective point in the geological transioirmations of the earth, and its successive faunas
and florasC and in the final configuration of the terrestrial surface, and establishes a parallelism  between the educational
development of the race and that of the individual; transferring the work of human education, in each successive stage, to
a new theater, until at length, the stages of Oriental, Hebrew,
Greek, and Ronan civilization being passed, the Christian civilization seems destined to be fully unlfoldec and perfected upon
a continent presenting, physically and politically, the freest
scope for the activity of the appointed agencies of human perfection and happiness.
Descending t6 a discussion of the question of special providence and prayer, the author strikes what he announces as
the most sharply-defined issue between Science and Religion
— in fact, the only real issue at the present time."  We are inclined to think this statement quite correct.  The old issues of
Atheism, Materialism, and Pantheism have vanished in smoke,
since we discover it to be impossible to settle upon any wellaccepted doctrine of science, from which a simple deductive
inference does not usher us into the presence of a personal and
adorable Divinity.  The discussion of prayer considered from
the stand-point of science, is conducted? with characteristic
learning and conclusiveness; and we think any clergyman,
placed under the necessity of vindicating  prayer fiom  the
aspersions of Professor Tyndall, may find here a mine of pertinent suggestions.  "In prayer," concludes the author, "the
intelligent believer does not invoke a different power from that
which is manifested in all the forms of physical energy which




L876.]               God in the World.                     527
are manifested in nature; he does but invoke the same power,
and the only power which is the source of all causation, and
produces all the processions of phenomena."
The last two chapters are devoted to a discussion of the
moral government of the world-its ground, its nature, conditions, method, and end. The Jirst subjective condition of moral
government is intelligence.  In discussing this condition, the
author is led to place a definition upon conscience.  He does
not view it as a distinct faculty of the mind, but rather as the
"common field in which is revealed the operation of all our
faculties in their especial relation to moral law."  It is thus:
(1.) "Tlhe reason, intuitively apprehending moral ideas and
laws."... (2.) "The undcrstanding, apprehending the relation
in which we stand to God, to our fellow-beings, and to self as a
moral personality endowed with reason and freedom. (3.) The
judgment, comparing the acts of a voluntary agent... with
the immutable ideas and laws of the reason, and affirming this
is right and worthy of praise and reward, or that is wrong and
deserving of blame and punishment.  (4.) A particular state
of the sensibility-the painful or pleasurable emotions which
spontaneously arise in the presence of right or wrong in our
actions, or in the actions of our fellow-men."
In reference to this analysis, we cannot avoid raising the
query, In what do the intelligential elements differ from
reason, understanding, and judgment, in their exercise upon
non-ethical data?  Is there any adequate ground for dissociating the moral intuitions of the reason from  intuitions concerniiln  modality or quantity-except with the view to a classification of the intuitions?  And does the understanding, in
seizing upon relations which may constitute the data of an
etlical decision, becolne a differelnt faculty from that exercised
upon relations of utility, efficiency, or congruity?  Or does
judgm-rent, in rendering its decisions?  In every case we respond negatively.  There is only a difference in the subjects
upon which these faculties are exercised.  In the analysis of
the author, the sensibility is the only power which is saigen.ris, and this he does not view as subjectively distinct from
tlhe general sensibility.  Ilis conception of conscience is neat
and intelligible, and we quite agiree with him  tliat such a
conscience is not a separate faculty of the soul; it is only a




528                 ifethocdist Quarterly JBeview.                [Julyv
certain co-ordination of activities upon  ethical data; it is a
dethroning of conscience as an autonomy, and a diluting and
weakening of it to a mere complex of functions.  IIn all this,
the theory is a violation of the universal convictiolns on this subject.  We think, in respectful disagreement with him, that the
composite activity which he views as a function of a convelitional conscience, does involve an  element which constitutes
the natural conscience, and one for wlich we have no nalme
unless we call it conscience.   There is no sensibility bnt this
ethical element which constitutes the feeling that " I ought"
or " ought not," and  which  becomes pleasurable or painful
according as act agrees or disagrees with that which judgment
has pronounced right.   Conscience proper, we think, is not a
discerning  faculty, and  pronounces no judgments; but when
once the  discernments have  been  made and  the judgments
pronounced by the intellect, conscience, as a feeling * of a peculiar kind, prompts to actions conformable to the judgments
pronounced, and accompanies the contemplation of an act with
pleasure or pain, according to its conformity or non-conformity
with the prompting.
The second subjective condition of moral government leads
to  a discussion  of the freedom  of the will, the outcome  of
which (would that space permitted a complete outline of these
two chapters) is as follows  Will is original, uncaused cause'
it is not caused by motive; "  motives may  be reason for action, conditions under which it acts, but they are not causes
of action;" or, in the language of Dr. Whedon, " for its own
effect, will or the willing agent is a complete cause;, as complete a cause as any cause whatever; and every complete cause
produces its effect uncausedly."   These enunciations, it seems
* Religion may be defined as the feeling of the existence of the All- Cause, and of his
inevitable grasp upon us, and paternal interest in us. The " feeling " is primarily,
intuitive knowledge; it is strengthened and sanctioned by ratiocinative knowledge. The "grasp " felt inspires reverence, awe, fear, desire to please, supplication. The "paternal interest" prompts to gratitude, love, praise, and prayer.
The fear of God, in the ethnic religious scale, must necessarily precede the love
of God. The latter is based on a knowledge of what God has done and proposes
to do for us. Hence lowest savages know only a malevolent deity. All the
powers of the soul are made ministers to the demands of the religious feelings.
Hence religious systems, rites, creeds, institutions. enterprises-all inspired by
the unvarying religious feeling, but all reasoned out and executed by finite and
erring intelligence.




1S76.1               0odCl ia the l rWl-.                 529
to us, cut to the marrow of the subject, antd lharmlnize the
fact of universal motivity with the faet of conscious freedom.
One cannot complete the thoughtful perusal of this work
without a feeling of high admiration and profouind satisfaction.
There has passed before his mind a vision of heavenly beauty.
The grand conclusion shines in upon him like a divine illumination, and he feels absorbed in an atmosphere of supernal
radiance and tender love. It is a vision of God, of his own free
will resolving to create a world and populate it with beings
physically adapted to it, but yet in his own spiritual imagebeings to be made happy; a vision of God in the world, maintaining it, communing with it, admitting himself into the consciousness of his beloved intelligences; speaking to them  in
the voiceless whispers of reason, in the radiant beauties of the
field and the sky, or in the awful voices of the storm and the
earthquake, and the collapse of planetary systems; God wit/h
u&s-Immanuel strengthening and cheering, lifting us up and
pitying us in our distresses, watching for the whispered prayer,
responsive to the hymn of adoration, enfolding us with his love
through all the journey of mortal life, and then, when the light
of the cerulean heaven fades in our glazing eyes, revealing us
to ourselves in the midst of a light which mortal eyes cannot
behold, and which floods with ineffable glories that other world
from which we are now shut-not by distance, but by life.
An author who can bequeath his readers an impression like
this has earned a title to gratitude, to fame, to an eternal
reward.
















II IX                5 -'/         ____
T H E
THE
UNITY OF THE PHYSICAL WORID.
II. FACTS OF SUCCESSION.
BY ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
[Extracted from the "METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW" for January, 1874.]
PlJ~- 4-1~~~I       L --  -  9  - ~I     -,.s     ~- 








ART. V.-  THE UNITY OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD.
II. FACTS OF SUCCESSION.
IN a late number of this Journal, in an article on "The
Unity of the Physical World," we grouped together the leading
Facts of Co-existence, as revealed in the blended light of the
modern sciences, for the purpose of illustrating the uniformities and mutual relationships which pervade the entire system
of the visible universe.  We remarked that there is another
group of phenomena sustaining to each other the relations of
antecedence and sequence, which bring to light the existence
of a historical unity stretching back from the co-existent phenomena of to-day, across intervals of time which are utterly
measureless and incomprehensible.  While the revelations of
such a web of co-existent relationships demonstrate the unity
of the entire system  of matter in reference to space, those
which we now propose to bring to view are calculated to convince every intelligence of the unity of that system in reference
to time.
I. Primordial History of the Solar System.
The common physical conditions under which subsist the
various bodies which constitute the solar system could not but




Unity of the iPhysical World.
remind us, as we passed, of the probability that they have all
had a common origin, and, to a great extent, a common history.
This probability was recognized by physicists and philosophers
long before our knowledge of these uniformities had become as
complete and suggestive as it now is.  The idea occurred to
Leibnitz,* Kant,t and Lambert; 4 and Bode ~ reproduced some
of the conjectures of Kant.  The subject was also pondered by
Sir William  Herschel 11 in the light of his stellar and nebular
discoveries, and he propounded the theory of the gradual condensation of nebule into stars.  This was at once taken up, if
not independently originated, by Laplace, who was then fiesh
from his profound studies of the harmonies of the solar system, and was by him  developed  into the famous "Nebular
Hypothesis." ~
The leading object of the hypothesis was to trace the action
of known material forces, from an assumed beginning or state
of existence, through the various stages of the formation of the
solar system.  The theory assumes the primordial condition
of matter to be that of an incandescent vapor.  This condition
granted, and granted also the action of such physical forces as
science has revealed, and all the astronomical phenomena of
the solar system-at least, of the planetary bodies-are at once
explicable on so-called natural grounds.  Later developmlnents
of geological science have shown a large body of terrestrial
phenomena which are most readily explained, as we shall see,
by reference to such an antecedent state of things as the nebular hypothesis necessitates.
The publication  of this sublime hypotlesis precipitated a
profound agitation in the thinking world.  Among physicists
it found, at first, a somewhat cordial welcome, but when more
* Leibnitz: Protogcea, sive de prima facie Telluis, etc., 1683. Buffon: La Theorie de la Terre, and Epoques de la Nature.
Kant: Allgemneine Natgurgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, 1751. HeIlmholz:
"Interaction of Natural Forces," (Youmans' edition,) p. 230.: Lambert:' Cosmological Letters."
0 Bode: KLentniss des Himmels.
Lencippus of Miletus held that the earth was disengaged from a chaos of matter which spontaneously assumed a vortical movement in a vast vacuum.-Diog.
Laer., Lives, (Bohn's edition,) p. 389.
I Sir William Herschel: " Philosophical Transactions," 1811.
~ Laplace: Exposition dul Systime du MIonde, ad fin.




Met/odist Quarterly Review.
powerful telescopes effected the resolution of nebula after nelula, it began to be believed that all nebulm would eventually
prove resolvable, and that thus the evidence would disappear
that such matter exists  in the universe as the nebular hypothesis begins by postulating.  The hypothesis, therefore, for
a third of a century, rested in a state of disrepute. There
were always some, however, who could not divest themselves
of the conviction that it represented real history.  For our own
part, we have not wavered in our confidence for nearly thirty
years; and, since 1847, have publicly taught the principles of
the hypothesis.  Recently, the revelations of the spectroscope,
establishing the vaporous condition of many of the nebule,
have given a firm support to the theory; and these evidences,
coupled with others, have secured the adhesion  of probably
a large majority of living astronomers, physicists, and geologists.
In the theological world the hypothesis has earned but a
cautious reception.  It seemed to many exactly adapted to
forward the end for which it was assumed it had been framed.
" Sire," said Laplace, when Napoleon expressed his surprise
that the astronomers could refrain from mentioning the name
of God, "Sire, we have no need of that hypothesis."  And so
the Nebular Hypothesis was understood to be a substitute for
the theistic one.  The patronage bestowed upon the hypothesis
by the author of the " Vestiges of Creation," has also disparaged
it in the estimation of the theologian, since it seemed the aim
of that writer, as has been alleged, to dispense with a providence, if not with a Deity.  Mr. Spencer's more recent adoption of the hypothesis as part of a scheme of universal evolution
involving spiritual effects as well as material, has exerted a like
influence.
It will be, however, most religious, as well as most reasonable, to estimate the hypothesis on its scientific merits, regardless of any irreverent uses which may have been made of it.
If it represents a ~real history, it reveals God's activity and
God's thought, and no man can be actuated by  a higher
ambition than  to  make himself familiar with the thought
of God.*
* Many learned adversaries have recorded their opinions in opposition to this'lypothesis. Whewell says, We must leave it to the future to furnish the facts on




Unity of the Physical World.
Let us now  glance  at the  scientific grounds of this famous
hypothesis.   We  have  already  seen   (in  our former article)
what reasons exist for believing that matter in a state of
vaporous incandescence  is a  wide-spread  phenomenon in  tlle
universe.   The  telescope, by its failure to resolve  a large proportion of the  nebulle, opened  the  way  for the  opinion  that
their substance is really  continuous, and this was the view  entertained by the elder Herschel.  It was his opinion, also, entertained from  Wilson, that the envelope of the sun is of a cloudy
character.   In our own times, the spectroscope may be said to
which its claims can be rested.-Indications of a Creator, pp. 27, 52, and Plurality
of Worlds.  Undoubtedly, if now  living, lie would recognize the irresistible cogency of the " facts."  Buchanan, (" Modern Atheism," chap. ii); Brewster, (" More
Worlds than One," and " North British Review," No. 3, p. 476,) and the author of
the article on the Nebular Hypothesis, in "Appleton's Cyclopmdia," have used arguments in opposition.  See also Sedgwick, "Discourse; " Miller, "Footprints of
the Creator."  It will be remarked, however, that none of the weightier opponents
(unless Proctor be one) belong to the present, and that their objections rest on
premises rendered untenable by recent progress in science.
Those who accept the hypothesis are legion; among them may be named Helmholz, (" Interaction  of Natural Forces: ") Dana, (' Manual of Geology," p. 741
and elsewhere;) Dawson, ("Archaia," and "Story of the Earth and Man;") T. S.
Hunt, ("Lowell Institute Lectures," "Canadian Naturalist," new series, vol. v,
p. 446, et pcassim;) Thomson and Tait, (" Treatise on Natural Philosophy," App.
D), also "Trans. Royal Soc.," Edinburgh, 1862, etc.;) Arago, (Astronoznie poplulaire; Meunier (Le Ciel geologique, p. 147, et seq.;) Delaunay (Cours elementaire d' Astronomie, pp. 638-646;) Flourens, ("Human Longevity; ") J. S. Mill,
(" System of Logic; ") Smmann, (Bull. de la Soc. geol. de France, Feb., 1861;) Spencer, ("First Principles," pp. 149, 179, 181, etc.;) Comte, (Philos.pos., ii, 363, 376;)
Schellen, (Die Spectralanalyse, pp. 511, 512;) Secchi, (Le Soleil.)  Father Secchi
says: "Les savants sont de nos jours unanimes a admettre que notre systeme solaire est dA a la condensation d'une nebuleuse qui s'6tendait autrefois an delodes limites occupees actuellement par les planetes les plus lointaines, (p. 332.)
La theorie.... a et6 bien confirme et, pour ainsi dire demontr6 par la decouverte
des nebuleuses gazeuses," (p. 401.)  Delaunay says: "Laplace a ete plus heureux.
En adoptant l'idee d'Herschel sur la condensation progressive des nebuleuses, et
sur transformation en etoiles, et appliant ces idees a notre systeme planetaire, ii
est parvenu A en expliquer la formation de la matiere la plus satisfaisante.  Aucune des particularits que l'observation a manifesto relativement aux planetes et
i leur satellites n'echappe a l'ingenieuse explication qu'il a develloppe," (Op. cit.,
p. 639.)  Schellen says: "Das  herrliche Gebaiide welches schon von Kant in
1755... in seinem Grundlinien aufgezeichnet, und von Laplace 41 Jahre spiter
aufgebaut wurde, hat gegenwlirtig durch die Spectralanalyse seinen Schlusstein
erhalten." (Op. cit., pp. 511, 512.)  On the subject of cosmogony see also Ennis,
"The Origin of the Stars, and the Causes of their Motion and Light," and "Proc.
Am. Assoc., Troy Meeting," pp. 27-47. Proctor has propounded what may be styled
a meteoric theory of planetary origin.  See " Other Worlds than Ours," pp. 220-229.




Jethodist Quarterly Review.
have demonstrated the correctness of these views.  All those
celestial bodies which furnish spectra with bright lines are incandescent vapors.   These  include  the  nebulous stars, the
planetary nebule, (small circular nebulae with  large  bright
nuclei,) the ring nebulae, the irregular nebulae, and some of the
spiral nebula.*   Bright-line spectra indicative of a gaseity are
also given by the, comets, (as far as examined,t) the zodiacal
light, and the aurora borealis.
Mor eover, every  dark-line spectrum  demonstrates also the
existence of vapors or gases surrounding a luminous body of a
solid or liquid character.  Thus igneous vapor exists about the
sun and nearly all of the fixed stars.
Lastly. matter in a state of liquid incandescence presents a
condition not very far removed fromn gaseity; and this condition is demonstrated (since solid incandescence in the midst of
glowing vapors seems eminently imlproballe) in all cases of
dark-line spectra.  Thus, we must have a molten nucleus for
the sun and for most of the fixed stars.  Besides this, many
celestial objects furnish  continuous spectra indicative of incandescence in the liquid or solid state. This is the case with
many of the resolved and probably resolvable nebulae, and also
a few apparently irresolvable.  The continuous spectrum, as before rernarked,  may be caused by the equal emissive  and absorptive  properties  of vapors  enveloping  an  incandescent
nucleus, and hence the continuous spectrum  is not conclusive
as to the solid or liquid condition of those celestial objects
which produce it.  When, however, it becomes a rule with an
entire class of objects to produce a continuous spectrum, it
seems probable that such objects exhibit the liquid condition.
We seem  to  have  satisfactory  evidence, therefore, of the
presence  in  space  of three  modes (probably  solid  incan* It does not seem necessary to presume, as suggested by Herschel, and taught
by Nichol and many others, that all irresolvable masses of nebulous matter lie far
beyond the limits of the fixed stars. Some of these masses may be, as Herschel
supposed, remote external firmaments, or firmament-stuff; but it seems likely that
some irresolvable masses lie within the distances of the remotest stars. This is
even indicated by certain astronomical observations on their changes.
f Hugginss: "Philosophical Transactions," 1868; Young: "American Journal
Science," [3,] iii, p. 81.
t The statements and conclusions of our former article are presumed to be in
possession of the reader.




Unity of Ite Physical World.
descence is a fourth) of material existence, all incandescent,
namely:
Gaseous.  Irresolvable nebulae,
Comets, etc.
Gaseous.              i Irresolvable nebul',
Incandescent Matter. -  { (Enveloped in vapor. { Suns.'LiquidNot enveloped.  Certain star-groups and
{~ Not enveloped.   ^clusters.
The first postulate of the nebular hypothesis is therefore
sustained by the latest developments of astronomy.
In the next place it may be regarded as demonstrated by
the revelations of the spectroscope that the sun, planets, stars
of all orders, and nebulae of all conditions, abound in the same
material substances as our earth.  The hypothesis demands
this. The evidences need not be repeated here, as we have
briefly cited them in our former article, (pp. 201-205,) and they
may also be studied in numerous accessible works.
In the third place, there is a chain of geological evidences
tending to prove that our earth has come down from such a
state of primitive incandescence as the nebular hypothesis
confers upon it.  Here, first of all, are the phenomena of volcanoes throwing out smoke, ashes, flames, cinders, and molten
lava from some deep reservoir of heat. Next, are the indications of thermal springs, equally evincing some deep-seated
source of warmth.  Then the regular elevation of temperature
experienced in boring artesian wells and sinking deep mines
becomes a warning that the fires of which the volcano and
the boiling spring furnish us the tidings are realities widespread underneath the solid surface of our globe. And, lest
these warnings pass unheeded, the earthquake shakes, fiom
time to time, the rocky foundations of the land, convincing us
that after all the mountains are not those types of endurance
and solidity which we had supposed.
We now lift up our eyes and discover that innumerable
mountain cones and humble hillocks present all the characteristics of active volcanoes, except the presence of issuing flames
and lavas.* They are, in fact, extinct volcanoes. The titne
was when they added their emphatic testimony to the proofs
* As, for instance, the district of the Auvergne, in France, and extensive regions
of our own country, in New Mexico, Nevada, California, and Oregon.




Methodist Quarterly Review.
of deep internal fires. But they are still witnesses.  They
have left their depositions on record in the shape, not only of
volcanic craters, but of lavas, scorig, and ashes. Thousands
of square miles of our fair earth are covered with s.uch evidences of the former reign of fire.
But here are other rocks whicl look only like another order
of lavas-dolerites, basalts, porphyries.  These, when we inspect them, declare themselves but more ancient lavas, which
have come up, also, from the deep reservoir of fire, in an age
when the whole world seems to have been shaken by volcanic
throes and rent by earthquake fissures. The ancient surface,
now mostly concealed, reminds us forcibly of the map of the
moon.  Other rocks, underlying thousands of square miles,
though not appearing like ancient lavas, present, nevertheless,
the evidences of the action of heat.  Baked, vitrified, reddened, they proclaim  as intelligibly as the overburned brick
the story of the ordeal of fire.
This, then, is the tenor of these geologic testimonies.  A
great heat has been here upon the surface-a fusing, glowing
heat.  That heat has disappeared mostly from the surface, but
remains perpetuated at some unknown depth beneath.  There
are some data, nevertheless, for the calculation of the depth.
Knowing the rate of increase of heat in artesian wells and deep
excavations, we can easily figure out the depth at which the
temperature would be sufficient to boil water or melt iron or
granite. It results from these data that the solid crust cannot
be over two hundred miles in thickness.  Until recently the
majority of geologists maintained that beneath this depth the
entire interior of the globe still subsists in a molten state.
Some considerations have been brought forward, however,
within a few years, which tend strongly to establish the conclusion that a large part of the interior of the earth has
already assumed  a solidified condition.  That solidification
took place at the surface, and possibly began at the surface, is
generally admitted; for though substances, as a rule, are denser
when solid than when liquid, the molecular condition assumed
in the act of solidification seems to render them, within a certain range of temperature, less dense than the liquid.  Thus
solid water (ice) floats upon liquid water; solid iron (notwithstanding subsequent shrinkage of one per cent.) floats upon




UJnity  of the Physical World.
molten  iron;* solid type-metal upon liquid  type-metal; cold
lava  upon  molten  lava.t   At the  same time the  enormous
pressure experienced at the center of the earth has led a number of geologists to suggest the probability that solidification
also began there, in spite of the great elevation  of temperature
which must hlave existed throughout the earth's interior dur-'ng the earlier ages of the liquified  condition.   Prof. William
Hopkins and Poulett Scrope contend that solidification began
at the center, and, at a later period, at the periphery. Prof.
Shaler  maintains  a  similar opinion.   Dr. T. S. Hutnt holds
(like Keferstein, Hopkins, and Scrope) that only a thin belt of
molten  material exists, lying between  the solidified  exterior
and the solidified core, but argues  (with  Sir John Herschel)
that this layer is but tlhe  under portion  of the sedimentary
beds encroached upon by the internal heat of the globe, aided
by chemistry.  Prof. Hall denies  that we have  any  positive
evidence  of a former molten  condition  of any  considerable
portion of the earth, but denies it (absurdly) on the lack of
the visible exposure of any  large part of the primitive crust.
Sir William  Thomson  argues that the phenomena of precession and  nutation demand  greater rigidity  of the earth than
would  be possible  with  a  comparatively  thin  crust.   This
opinion is opposed by Delaunay, but again recently defended
by Thornson.,
* Certified personally by several observers.  Also, "Coil. Cour.," 1872, p. 173.
f Kaemtz:' Meteorology," English edition, p. 152. This seems almost like the
experimentum crucis.
t The reader interested in the discussions respecting the condition of the earth's
interior may make tlhe following references:
Keferstein: Naturgeschichte des Erdklrpers, (1834,) vol. I, p. 109; Bulletin Soc.
geologique de France, [1,] viii, p. 197.
W. Hopkins: " Phil. Trans.," 1836, p. 382; 1839-40-42; "Quarterly Report
British Association for 1847," p. 33; "Jour. Geol. Soc. London," viii, 56.
Babbage (Charles:) "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," note G, pp. 209-220.
Sir John  Herschel: "Proc. Geol. Soc., London," (1836,) II, 548; Babbage's' Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," note I, pp. 225-247.
HIlnt (T. S.:) "Canadian Journal," May, 1858; "Quarterly Journal Geol.
Society, London," November, 1859, xv, 594; "American Journal Science," July,
1860, xxx, 133; Ib., May, 1861, xxxi, 406-414; Ib., March, 1864, xxxvii, 25;
lb., September, 1864, xxxviii, 182; "Geology of Canada." 1863, pp. 643, 669;
"Report Geol., Canada," 1866, p. 230; "On the Probable Seat of Volcanic
Action," May, 1869, ("American Journal Science," [3,] II, 121; "Geol. Mag.,"
February.) 1868; "Canadian Naturalist," December, 1869.




Methodist Quarterly  Review.
It is clear that igneous activity has been  diminishing upon
the earth.   The globe has been growing cooler than formerly.
Why is it not probable  that the  cooling is still in progress 
Opportunely, the physicists of France and England have demonstrated  that such is the case.  They  lhave   measured instruinentallv the amount of heat which  comles to the earth from
all sources, and also the rate of escape fromn the earth.   They
find less received than lost.  We know, consequently, not only
that the world has been  cooling  for some ages past, but that
the process is still continued.
The earth itself, then, is in  the  midst of a long process of
cooling.  May we conjecture the commenemlent of that process?   It is fair to  argue  that it did  not begin just at that
juncture when the heat was such as to  produce those ancient
igneous phenomena which we see in extinct volcanic vents and
ancient lavas.  Their record carries us back to the time  when
there was barely sufficient solid material at the surface to retain
the impression of events then transpiring.   The records of older
tines and  higher temperatures have  not been  stereotypedcould not be stereotyped; but have we, no authority to  assert
that there were  older times and  higher temperatures?  Yes,
the  line. of events which we have  traced  backward gives us
the proper clew; it determines a fixed direction, and, though
it lose itself in the  distant fog of geologic  antiquity, we may
Hall (J.): "Palmontology of New York," Vol. III, Introd.; Hunt's review
in " American Journal Science," [2.] May, 1861;: American Institute Lecture,"
New York, 1869.
Thomson (Sir William): "Proc. Roy. Soc.," May 16, 1862; lb., November
27, 1862; Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philos.," ~~ 832, 833, 834, 847, 848;
"Nature,' January 18, 1872; also, "On Secular Cooling of the Earth," Trans.
Roy. Soc., Edinburgh, xxiii, Section 1.
Shaler (N.): "Proceedings Boston Society Natural History," x, 237; xi, 8;
"Geolog. Mag.," November, 1868, v, 511; "Atlantic Monthly."
Scrope: " Geolog. Mag.," December, 1868; "Volcanoes." Second Edition.
Delaunay:  Comtes Rendus, July 13, 1868; Cours Jnementaire d'Astronomie,
pp. 643, 644.'
Whitney (J. D.): "North American Review," April, 1869.
Meunier (S.): Le Ciel geologique, 1871, p. 223.
Le Conte (Joseph): "American Journal Science," [3,] iv, 345, 460.
Dana (J. D.): "American Journal Science," [3.] v, 423; vi, 6, 104, 161; also
lb., [2,] ii, 385; iii, 94, 176, 380; iv, 88; xxii, 305, 335.
All this discussion, it will be borne in mind, is not whether the earth has been
molten or even gaseous, but whether its interior is still wholly molten.




Unity of the Physical World.
feel sure that it continues onward through the fog. We can
travel no longer by sight, like the mariner, from  headland to
headland, but we can go by "dead reckoning," like the mariner hinself in the fog, or the engineer in the deep tunnel.
Our mathematics is deduction.  As we figure our pathway up
to the remotest antiquity of the world, we see it in a condition completely molten.  As we find here no necessary beginning of the course of cooling, we follow backward to that
incandescent vapor which is the ultimate form assumed by all
matter when heated to the highest temperature with which
we are acquainted.*  If heat can vaporize a world, we
have good ground for assuming that the world was once a
vapor.
Here geology joins hands with astronomy. Here, in an incandescent vapor, we find the starting-point equally of nebule,
stars, and earth.
That which has been the history of our earth has been the
history of other worlds. We have shown enough of the uniformities of the solar system to entitle us to assume that if the
matter of earth was primordially an igneous vapor, so was that
of Mars and Jupiter and the other bodies of our system. The
sun is still largely an incandescent vapor, and it is easy to
admit that it was once completely so. The masses of these
heavenly bodies expanded to vapor would fill such a volume
of space that the planets would be blended with the sun in one
common mass.  An immense globe of incandescent gas, filling
more than the orbit of Neptune-such is the picture which we
are to form of the material of the solar system in the remotest
condition of which science affords us any intimations.
This incandescent gas was not a flame in the strict sense;
there was no combustion; it was merely the elements of things
-discorclic semina rerrum-at a temperature elevated inconceivably high. A mass of matter thus heated and suspended
in space m.ust immediately begin a rapid radiation of caloric.
With the loss of caloric the vapor began to diminish in volume.
The mutual repulsions of the particles being weakened, the
particles gradually settled toward the center of gravity of the
mass.
It has been demonstrated that a shrinking sphere of fire* Iron has recently been vaporized by Dr. Elsner of Berlin.




Methodist Quarterly  Review.
mist'thus situated  must almost inevitably inaugurate a rotation  upon  its axis.  Two  simple considerations  tending  that
way can  be readily appreciated.   First. In the simultaneous
movement of so many particles and portions of the substance
toward the center of gravity, it must happen that some particles or portions would become jostled  into a direction more or
less to one side of the center of gravity.  The resultant momenta of such movements would pass to one side of the center
of gravity, and would  become a tangential force, which, like
the hand laid upon a wheel, would tend to produce rotation.
Second. Disturbing attractions must have been felt from  various quarters of the heavens.   Other systems were then building or built, and their silent influences, reaching to our cooling
sphere of fiery vapor, changed, from  time to time, its form, and,
accordingly, the place of its center of gravity.   The point of
convergence of the descending particles would, indeed, follow
the center of gravity, but it would follow a little behind. The
converging particles would give a resultant which would inevitably act as a tangential force, and  a slow  rotation would
be generated.
* The distinctions among the forms and phases of matter existing at a temperature above the state of liquefaction have not, so far as we know, been studied in
their bearing upon the present account, (Compare, however, Secchi: Le Soleil,
pp. 243, 244, etc.)  Water, we know, besides its solid and liquid states, exists as
follows: 1. Vapor [water] united with the atmosphere, [or other gas,] invisible,
absorbed by the air and constituting its humidity; 2. Vesicular vapor, cloud or
fog, which is really but minute drops of liquid water (once supposed hollow) floating in the air or other gas; 3. Watery gas —invisible steam, heated above 212~
Fah.  Are these three conditions possible to substances in general?  We are inclined to think they are; and these distinctions ought to be recognized in treating
cosmological questions.  We can certainly conceive of any matter so heated as to
assume the condition corresponding to watery gas. This might be transparent,
like watery gas or oxygen, or colored, like chlorine. We can conceive of a mixture of such gases at such a temperature as to maintain even the most liquefiable
substances in the aeriform condition.  Then we may conceive the temperature to
be so reduced that the most liquefiable substance condenses in fine particles which
may float, like fog, in an atmosphere composed of the other substances. In this condition it would probably become more visible; it would glow with a white light.
This would be a real "fire-mist," and ought, by itself; to give a continuous spectrum; but if the fire-mist were relatively very tenuous, the gases proper in which
it should be suspended might establish a bright-line spectrum; and, on the contrary, the excess of luminosity of the liquid mist might be such as to give, through
the absorbent influence of an immersing gas, a spectrum of dark lines. Some portion of the fire-mist might become combined with the remaining gases, like aque



Unity of the Physical World.
A rotation once initiated, progressive shrinkage would be
accompanied by progressive acceleration.  The sphere of fiery
vapor would assume the form of an oblate spheroid, a greatly
flattened spheroid, and, ultimately, that of a rotating disc.
Eventually  the centrifugal tendency  of portions upon  the
periphery would exactly counterpoise their gravitating tendency, and no further movement of these parts toward the center
would take place.  A  peripheral ring would thus be held in
equipoise.  The remaining mass, continuing to contract, would
separate itself from the outer ring. The latter would remain
temporarily balanced in space, and rotating with the velocity
with which it parted from the main mass.  But its equilibrium
would be one of instability.  Perturbating attractions from
without would beget an unsymmetrical movement.  Undulations of the ring would begin, and become gradually exaggerated to such an extent that the ring would be rent asunder,
when its whole mass, having perhaps previously  assumed a
granulated condition, would gather itself together in the form
of a globe rotating on its axis and revolving about the general
mass of vapor in the same direction as before.  Thus was isolated the matter of the oldest planet of the solar system.
It is obvious, without further detail, that the residual mass,
continuing to cool and shrink and accelerate its rotation indefinitely, would continue, in the progress of countless aeons,
to throw off a succession of rings like the first, which would
become the materials for the entire series of planets.  In reference to the asteroids, it remains uncertain whether each corresponds to a distinct ring, or all together represent a single
original planet, shattered to atoms by a convulsion of nature.
The mass of a planet physically suited to occupy the gap between Mars and Jupiter is such that some thousands of asteroids. would be required to equal it.  If the group of asteroids
existed originally as a single ring, it is a physical possibility
that it should have been rent into many fragments by the
passage of a coret or other body through its substance.  It is
ous humidity. But we may conceive the cooling and condensation to proceed so
far that this fire-mist would descend in rain, and other gases would condense to
fire-mist. In our discussion, no attempt is made to determine the particular condition of the aeriform substances at that juncture when rotation began, or at any
subsequent stage of the evolution.




Methodist Quarterly Review.
also appropriate to suggest that a ring of matter circumstanced
as described would experience a tendency to stratification and
ultimate segregation into several rings, as we see taking place
in the rings of Saturn before our eyes. These separate rings,
severally broken up, might form a group of small planetoids.*
We can form  no adequate conception of the time requisite
for the consummation of these results.  No doubt the timeintervals involved in the history of creation are entirely correspondent with the space-intervals which we have seen to be
so vast.  Time is an element entirely eliminated from  the
study of events united in the relation of cause and effect.
When we can discern such a relation, it is immaterial whether
the cause act through years or chiliads of years.  Besides,
time is a factor which only sustains relations to finite existence,
and not to an existence adequate to the production and sustentation of a universe.  We must undoubtedly accustom  ourselves to the contemplation of the vastest values of time and
space, and cultivate the full assurance that the figures which
we employ represent realities; and that, in short, the full
realities transcend even the power of our calculus to express
them.
The fact should be duly borne in mind that our hypothesis
requires a general diminution in mass among the planets, in
proportion as the circumference of the parent fire-mist grew
less through loss of matter and shrinkage.  We accordingly
find the "giant planets" are all exterior to the earth.  Moreover, the remoter planets should have least density, since, if
the peripheral portions of the fire-mist were composed of its
most volatile constituents, the earlier rings would take off matter more volatile than that of the later.  Accordingly, while
the density of Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter is only one fourth
or one fifth that of' the earth, and the density of Saturn still
less, the density of Mars and Venus is about the same as that
of the earth, and the density of Mercury is one half greater.
We have seen a series of planetary bodies disengaged from
* M. Delaunay thinks that each planetary ring passed through a stage of accumulation around many local nuclei, and that ordinarily these were afterward
drawn into one mass; but in the case of the ring between Mars and Jupiter a
large number of distinct nuclear portions continued to rotate separately, (Cours
Elmentaire d'Astronomie, p. 642.)




Unity of the Physical WVorld.
the general mass of fiery vapor, and entered, each for itself,
upon a career of axial and orbital movements.  We are to
contemplate each planetary mass as constituting, at first, another sphere of incandescent material destined to go through
the same history as the parent mass.  Neptune, beginning his
career as a rotating orb of flame, in due time detached a ring
which became a satellite.  Other rings were probably detached
from a mass so large, and cooling therefore so slowly, but if so,
the resulting satellites have thus far eluded the search of astronomy, hidden as they are in the depths of space.  The
planet Uranus, in like manner, detached, in process of time,
a satellite, followed, in the progress of the cosmic ages, by
seven others.  A  slow disturbing influence, supposed also to
be recognized in the Neptunian system, has manifested itself
in the Uranian, in an excessive obliquity of the plane of the
Uranian satellites-an obliquity which considerably exceeds a
right angle, and upon which we have already offered some
considerations.  What cause or causes operated to effect a
partial overthrow  of these two systems we can, at present,
only conjecture.  The cause seems to have been connected
with the peripheral location in the primordial spheroid of firemist. Possibly, in those remote regions, somewhat approximating  the empire of starry  influences and control, our
spheroid had not yet settled into that steady and symmetrical
movement requisite to impart to its planetary offspring axial
rotations in the same general plane as itself; and the plane of
the planet's rotation departing from that of the original mass,
its satellites' orbital rotations must depart equally from it.  The
fact that they do is a circumstance confirmatory of the nebular
hypothesis.  Possibly, instead of this cause; these obliquities
are due to the proximity, in remote time, of some mass of
matter since removed, which, acting upon the equatorial protuberances, increased the inclination of their axes to an extraordinary degree.  Such mass of matter might have been
one of those fixed stars whose proper motions we have before
indicated.  A  star may be as likely to travel through the
region occupied by our system  as to travel elsewhere.  Or,
again, such mass of matter may have been a comletary body of
such magnitude as has not been seen durilng the annals of our
race.  Meantime, we see no absurdity or improbability in the




AMethodist Quarrterly Review.
supposition that the Neptunian and Uranian systems were originally conformed to the norm of planetary motions, and were
thus a realization of the results demanded by the nebular
hypothesis.
Saturn similarly disengaged his eight satellites. But here,
again, we encounter a peculiarity. Saturn remains, to our day,
surrounded by rings.  This circumstance, instead of being an
anomaly, seems an  instructive  comfirtnation  of the grand
hypothesis.  The physical constitution  of the rings is not
known.  Professor Pierce has shown, from  an analytical discussion, that they  cannot be  solid and cannot be liquid.
Three rings are now permanently present, but the inner one
has only been observed since 1850. This is known as the dark
ring, and the body of the planet can be seen through it.  The
middle one is the bright ring.  The inner ring seems to be
slowly increasing in brightness.  The other rings have been
seen to resolve themselves into several; and even the dark one
has been seen in two.  The ring system  is also increasing in
width at the rate of twenty-nine miles annually.  Such observations seem  to confirm  Prof. Pierce's conclusions, and it becomes thus a question of deep interest to learn what is the
constitution of the rings.  Proctor* has recently suggested
that they are composed of countless small satellites, and this
hypothesis is thought to account for all the phenomena which
they present.  In the present state of our knowledge, therefore, while the rings of Saturn exhibit as to form, they do not
exhibit as to constitution, a phenomenon which should be a,
necessary incident of the nebular hypothesis.t
Jupiter, in the progress of Iris shrinkage, detached rings
which became four satellites.  If the asteroidal mass were ever
accompanied by one or more satellites, their movements and
their very existence have become confounded with the asteroidal bodies.  This would be the necessary result of the disruption of a large planet in the midst of its satellites.  Mars
is clearly unaccompanied by a satellite; but Venus, which is
about the size of the earth, has many times been pronounced
thus attended; though the astronomers of the present century
* Proctor: " Satlurn and his System," p. 118.
1 "II est entur de cce merveilleux anneau qui subsiste la comme pour temoigner de l'origine de tout le systeme solaire." Secehi: Le Soleil. p. 352.




Unity of the Physical TWrld.
have not been able to confirm  the statement.  Mercury, even,
has been thought to have a satellite, but the opinion has not
been entertained by any recent observer.  This deficiency of
satellites on the part of the smaller planets is rendered probable by the requirements of the hypothesis, since the smaller
masses would soonest chill to the liquid state, and by undergoing
a less prolonged and less excessive shrinkage would experience
less tendency to differentiate the peripheral and sub-peripheral
velocities of rotation.
In accordance with this view of the origin of the solar system, the sun is to be regarded as the residual mass, still in the
progress of change.  Its present condition is one through which
every planet and satellite has passed in tle history of its cooling.  It is still maintained  at an incandescent temperature,
simply because time sufficient has not yet elapsed for a body
so vast to have cooled to a darkened state.  All the opportunities for organic life on any of the planets are limited to the
finite period of solar cooling.*
The smaller of the planetary masses, primary and secondary,
whether disengaged in earlier or later times, seem  to have attained such a condition of refrigeration as to cease to shine by
their own light.  This is certainly  the case with Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Moon, and probably all the satellites.
Our own moon, indeed, presents evidence of total refrigeration;
while its surface retains the marks of ancient volcanic and
earthquake activity, the absence of water and an atmosphere
seem probably attributable to the absorption of these elements
in the pores of the rocky substances of that body.
Mfars and our own planet happen to be, at present, in that
period of their history when the thermal conditions favor the
presence of organic life.  The mass of Jupiter is so vast
that, though a much older planet, it seems to remain, in our
times, in a state of partial incandescence.  This condition is in* Mayer suggested that the sun's heat is maintained by the impact of countless
numbers of meteoric bodies circulating through space, and gradually drawn into
the solar vortex, (Mayer: "Celestial Dynamics," Youmans' ed., p. 276, et seq.;)
"American-Journal Science," [2,] xxxvii, p. 192.) Professor Newton computed
the approximate number of meteors in tile August ring alone at more than three
hundred millions of millions, (' American Journal Science," [2,] xxii, 451.) This
cause, however, is not regarded, at the present day, as an adequate explanation of
the sun's heat.




Methodist Quarterly Remew.
dicated, first, by the remarkable changes cabserved in his form.
At various times he has been seen to present what is known as
the " square-shouldered   aspect, being greatly flattened at the
poles and also about the equator. The semi-incandescent condition is indicated, also, by his remarkable brilliancy. While
our moon reflects but one fifth the light received, and Mars but
one fourth, Jupiter reflects three fifths of the light which falls
upon his surface. This indicates a reflective capacity equal to
white paper.  Professor Bond, of Cambridge, even estimated
his brilliancy greater than would be due to a total reflection of
the light.  Under these circumstances, the suggestion of
Proctor seems plausible, that this planet still retains some portion of his inherent light. The third indication of a high
thermal condition is the perpetual presence of a cloudy envelop.  Nothing has ever been seen of the geography of
Jupiter.  Now, the intensity of the solar rays at Jupiter being
but one twenty-fifth their intensity at the earth, it is incredible
that this influence should suffice to maintain such a vaporous
condition. Jupiter must be now in that stage of planetary
cooling when aqueous vapor is first condensing and precipitating primeval rains upon the body of the planet-a condition
the records of which are still perpetuated upon our own planet.
Still another indication of a highly heated state is the low
specific gravity of Jupiter. This is only one third greater than
water, and one fourth the density of the earth. Besides the
rarefaction produced by heat, it may be suggested that the
apparent density is diminished by the exaggerated bulk of
the planet, caused by the suspension of an envelope of clouds in
the atmosphere, at an unknown height above the planet's
surface.
The planet Saturn, though not exhibiting changes of form to
the same extent as Jupiter, cannot be regarded as existing in a
settled condition analogous to that of Mars and the earth, since
important changes have been observed in his rings.  This
planet, moreover, is similarly concealed in a permanent envelope of vapors, and shines, also, with a degree of brilliancy
exceeding the probable capacity of a dark planetary body for
reflecting the solar rays. Saturn reflects one half the light
which falls upon his surface, and, though aqueous vapors upon
this planet and Jupiter must be expected to exhibit a greater




UJnity of the Phiysical World.
brilliancy than continental and marine surfaces, it seems probable that the brilliancy of both these planets is greater than
could be without the addition of some inherent luminosity.
Of the  phllysical condition of Uranus and Neptune we
know very little, except that their density is only about one
fourth that of the earth, and the light which they emit is greater
than ought to proceed from  the reflective capacity of dark
bodies.  The indistinct contour of Neptune is thought to suggest a nebulous condition.*
The facts and considerations thus presented all argue for the
nebular hypothesis; and, in doing this, confirm our conviction
of the unity of the solar system in reference to time, and the
identity and persistenc  of a plan stretching through cycles of
time whose vastness is commensurate with the abysses of space
which thought must sweep over to reach the outer limits of
co-existent worlds.
II. Physical History of the Earth.
The history of terrestrial matter subsequently to its differentiation from the general mass, presents, at the same time, a
series of events sustaining a concatenated relation to each
other, and an unbroken prolongation of the line of planetary
evolution.  It is, at once, a unit in itself and a unit with all
the remoter past.
Directing our thoughts again to the condition of the earth
after the disengagement of her satellite, we trace a succession
of changes which' may reasonably be regarded as the type of
planetary changes in general.  The incandescent vapor, in the
progress ot cooling, attained such a temperature that some of
the most refractory elements began to condense and hang suspended as a mist in the heterogeneous medium formed of the
other substances.  As in the case of watery mist, particle
coalesced with particle, and the heavier drops descended toward the common center of gravity.  Thus a molten nucleus
was formed, surrounded by clouds of fire-mist suspended in incandescent gases.  The. nucleus grew  as the fiery rains de* Le vif 6clat dent brille cette planete (Neptune) malgri l'enorme distance du
soleil, pourrait m6me faire croire qu'elle est un pen lumineuse. Nous n'avons
jamais vu son contour bien nettement terrline, ce qui s'accorderait parfaitement
avec l'hypothese d'un etat n6buleux." Secchi: Le Soleil, p. 355.




fiethodist Quarterly Review.
scended, and the world attained a condition supposed to be
illustrated  in human  times by the constitution  of the sun.
According to the reasoning of Hopkins and others, solidification may have begun at the center, even at this early period,
the enormous pressure.elevating the solidifying point of the
materials to the temperature now subsisting.*
The earth was itself a luminous sun, visible in the heavens
of the astronome rs of any other orbs already cooled to a habitable condition.  There are grounds for supposing that during
this condition of the earth the moon lhad attained to a habitable state. and served as the abode of corporeal intelligences.
But the axial rotation of the moon had not yet'been strained
by terrestrial attraction into coincidenee with its orbital revolution, and hence its alternations of light and darkness were better suited than at present to the requirements of intelligences
akin to man.
In tile further progress of its cooling, the time arrived wheu
the fire-mist would  mostly  have descended  to  the growing
nucleus of mnolten material, and a heated, heterogeneous atmosphere of more volatile substances would still envelop the
world.  In the outer and thinner regions of this atmosphere
the temperature would become sufficiently reduced to cause the
condensation of aqueous vapor, while yet the lower regions
probably remained in an intensely heated state. Oxygen and
hydrogen, which had combined to form  invisible steam  at the
highest temperature at which watery vapor can remain undecomposed, now furnished an abundant supply of cloud material.
A vail of haze began to overspread the sky, which, in the course
of ages, thickened to a pall of clouds which totally excluded
the light of the sun.  Rains began immediately to descend from
such an accumulation of vapor, but the heated lower strata of
* The reader will bear in mind that central solidification is not supposed to have
resulted from the sinking of dense solidified material cooled at the surface. The
melting points of bodies given in tables are under the standard pressure of one atmosphere. It is supposed, however, that as the pressure diminishes, the melting
point is lower; as it increases, the melting point is higher. Now, at a given time
before solidification began at the center, the temperature was at a certain figure,
and the solidifying point was at a certain lower figure. But the temperature descended; and with the increase of pressure, by the enlargement of the liquid globe,
the solidifying point ascended. The actual temperature and the solidifying point
mutually approached each other. They finally coincided, and solidification beglin.




Unity of the Physical  World.
the atmosphere prevented  their reaching the glowing earth.
Reconverted to vapors, they re-ascended to the clouds, to be
again sent forth as rains and again returned as vapors. But
every ascent of the vapors carried away additional portions of
caloric from the atmosphere and the earth, and by degrees the'-llition which raged for a geologic cycle in mid-air settled
ward the fervid crust.  The excitation of the electricities developed lightnings and thunders, and the disturbances of the
thermal equilibria awakened gusts and whirlwinds, and tempests, which rent the vapors on every hand.*
The zone which witnessed the struggle between the powers
of Water and the powers of fire settled at length to actual contact with the terrestrial surface. Before this, probably, the
surface had  been encrusted by a film  of frozen lava.  Now,
the forces of fire must have seemed to make a new and more
determined "stand, but the waters at length began to prevail,
and the germs of a seething ocean began to gather themselves
in the lowest depressions of the terrestrial surface.
This stage of evolution we suppose to be represented in human times by the planet Jupiter.
The bed of the primeval ocean having cooled sufficiently to
permit the waters to assume a state of repose, the supplies of
vapor were diminished, and the clouds began to experience
exhaustion.  After an epoch of twilight, day broke full through
the partings of the clouds, and a changed world was exposed to
the genial beams of the ancient sun.
The  ocean did not, at this time, cover the whole earth.
The  germs of continents  protruded  through  the  gathered
waters.  These germs were destined to undergo a systematic
development.  The earth now  consisted of the nuclear mass,
* Years ago the writer reasoned out the probable circumstances attending the
slow refrigeration of the earth. See "Theologico-Geology," a lecture published
March, 1857, pp. 11-13;'"Creation the Work of One Intelligence," a lecture published March, 1858, p. 5: "Michigan Journal of Education," May, 1858, p. 136;
"Ladies' Repository," August, 1862, p. 490; "Sketches of Creation," 1870, p. 54.
His views, though at first published with some anxiety, are the same as now promulgated by Figuier, Meunier, Dawson, and others. It appears, however, that some
of his speculations were anticipated by Babbage, "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise,"
pp. 206, 207. The present writer generalized the law of terrestrial cooling and
made it cosmical, applying it to the sun, several years before such views had been
current in America.




Mfethodist Quarterly Review.
still more or less molten, the forming crust and the enveloping
waters  The process of cooling removed equal quantities of
heat from  the intensely heated interior and the cooler crust.
But equal reductions of temperature cause greater contractions
in more highly heated bodies.  The nucleus, consequently,
shrank nmore rapidly than the crust.  The latter became, by
degrees, too large for the nucleus, and a vacuum  must be
formed or the crust mustwrinkle to adapt itself to the shrunken
nucleus.  Wrinkles were formed, and these became the fist
lancd-the germs of the continents of later times.
It may not be possible to assign the causes which determined
the location of these wrinkles.  It is, however, a circumstance
of the utmost interest that the foundations thus early laid
have served as the bases of the completed and inhabited continents.  Thus, in North America, the germ  of the land was
a V-shaped ridge located in the region north of the St. Lawrence river and the great lakes.  One branch stretched northeastward to the coast of Labrador, and the other north-westward between Hudson's Bay and MI'Kenzie's River to the
Arctic Ocean.  The original continent has become worn down,
in later times, to a mere stump, but the stump testifies intelligibly and instructively.  The materials worn from that primeval
land were transported and deposited, on the east, in the bed of
the ocean, along a region which was destined to become the
Appalachian.  There are evidences that a similar work was
performed along the region destined to become the Pacific
slope of the continent.
From epoch to epoch successive collapses of the crust raised
higher and higher the once-formed wrinkles.  The uprising of
the Laurentian ridge widened, from  age to age, the basis of
the continent.  The land grew, according to a method, by successive annexations on the south-east and south-west.  Already
there existed other wrinkles still covered by the waters of tile
ocean.  They were the germs of the Appalachian folds of the
crust, upon the east, and of the folds of the Rocky Mountains,
on the west.  By degrees these systems of ridges rose toward
the surface of the ocean. The wide expanse of the continent
was swung between these limiting barriers on either hand-a
slhallow lagoon, in which the forces of life were enacting a marvalous history. At an opportune juncture, after some ages of




Unity of the Physical IWorld.
premonitory tremblings, one grand  series of paroxysms upheaved the  ponderous masses of the Alleghanies, and with
them brought to light the entire Atlantic slope of the continent, as far westward as Kansas and Nebraska.  A similar upheaval, at a later period, brought up the masses of the Rocky
Mountains, and some contiguous portions of the sea-bottom,
though on that side of the continent the new land was not yet
united to the older area. A broad channel was left, stretching
from  the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.
The eastern portion of the continent was now completed
to the region which has since become the lowland border of
the Atlantic and  Gulf of Mexico.  Another collapse of the
terrestrial crust, and a part of this border was annexed to the
land, while the long midland channel was parted in the middle
-one branch retreating to the coast border of Texas, and the
other toward the far north.  The eastern and western branches
of the continent were now  welded  together.  Still another
collapse, and the continent was complete in all its outlines.
But one more revolution  remained, and the land so long
preparing would be fitted for the reception of its long-destined
occupant.  This consummation was effected by means of vertical movements of the solid crust.  There was an uplift of the
northern regions and a consequent reign of ice, a depression of
the entire continent and a dissolution of the ice, a further depression and re-submergence of the land-then a slow uprising
to the existing levels, and the work was completed.*
It is impossible to contemplate the history of continental
growth without a profound conviction of the unity of method
pursued.
1. The simple law of cooling matter determined and regulated the entire evolution.  The terrestrial history was thus
* The continental history so hastily summarized embodies the results of the
labors of a long list of American geologists. For our first comprehensive generalizations from the accumulated facts we are chiefly indebted to Professor James D.
Dana. See his "Address before the American Association," at Providence, 1855,
and his paper in the " Proceedings American Association " at Albany, 1856, both
republished in " American Journal Science," [2,] xxii, 335; see also ii, 335, 352;
iii, 94, 176, 381; iv, 88; also, "U. S. Explor. Exped.," 1849, pp. 11, 419, 429;
also " Manual of Geology."  Compare also Guyot: "Earth and Man," Lect. iv;
Hitchcock: " Religion of Geology," p. 259; Dawson: "Story of the Earth and
Man." For further details see also the writer's " Sketches of Creation."




ileethodist Quarterly leview.
a continuance of the cosmical.  The dissipation of heat
resulted in liquefaction, incrustation, gathered clouds, and
precipitated oceans.  The dissipation  of heat, and consequent shrinkage of nucleus and crust, resulted in wrinkles
which grew  to mountain ridges with continents stretched
between.
2. Vertical movements, as the immediate results of shrinkage, have evolved the lands; transposed, sometimes, land and
water areas; made fitting narshes for the growth of coal
plants, and sunk them, in turn, to the ocean bottom, and restored them again to the dry land; upturned the broken edges
of the rocks to expose them and their contents at the surface;
brought into existence a continental glacier to renovate the
wasted lands, and re-admitted the ocean to assort the glacier
debris and leave the surface as it is.
3. All the great topographical and hydrographical features
of the continent were prefigured in earliest time.  The primordial angulated ridge which some unknown cause located in
the Canadian region was, in its trends, a prophecy of the existing shores and completed form.  MSark the conformity of
the Appalachiah ridges and the Atlantic coast to the trend
of the eastern branch of the primordial ridge. Mark the conformity of the Sierra Nevadas, the Rocky Mountains, and the
Pacific coast, to the trend of the western branch of the priinordial ridge.  The great relief features of the land have determined the position of the great lake region and the great
drainage valleys.  The St. Lawrence flows along the foot of
the primordial ridge on one side and the M'Kenzie's on the
other.  H:udson's Bay lies in the angle between them, as the
Gulf of Mexico occupies the angle between the later Appalachian and Rocky Mountain ridges.  The Mississippi Valley
and River were necessitated by the incidents of earliest terrestrial history.
Such has been the general method of continent-building;
for it is as true of the other continents as of our own. The
latest results of terrestrial configuration have been but the
unfolding of germs planted in the remote ages. The present
is literally but a fulfillment of the prophecies of the past.
It flows out of the past as a continuous and  unbroken
stream.




Unity of the Physical World.
That stream  took its rise in the utterance of the mandate
which called the matter of our system into being. From that
source we have traced it downward through all the ages, and
witness the same stream rushing past us and losing itself in
the future. What the future may reveal, borne on the stream
of events, becomes a most suggestive subject for inquiry; but
our object is simply to cite and collate the facts which sustain
the grand generalization of the historical unity of the solar
system, rather than deduce the ultimate consequences of the
persistence of the current of events.
Grand as is the sweep of the mind's eye when we look forth
from the altitude of thought thus attained, we have not reached
yet the loftiest pinnacle of contemplation.  We have appealed
to the gaseous condition of some of the nebula, but have not
suggested the obvious inference that their history furnishes as
strict a parallel as-their substance and condition to the case of
our own system.  The truth is, if we rightly read these wonderful wisps of cosmical light, that they are illustrating before
our very eyes the actual processes of world-formation.  Some
present the appearance of a continuous, dimly luminous
gas or fire-mist; some show the nebulous matter in a coagulating process; some manifest an unmistakable movement of
gyration; some are approximating the stage of ring-formation.  The conviction is urged upon us that the Creator is
carrying forward in the distant heavens, in various stages of
development, the same work which, in our own system, has
reached a stage so advanced.  And then the stars as they
shine with their varied light are reading to us the chapters of
the history of sun-life. That they are suns the spectroscope
no longer leaves room to doubt.  There are those which still
exist in aii early stage of formation, glowing with the intensest
heat-the white stars, like Sirius and Vega. There are others
more advanced, whose light has attained the yellow stage, like
Aldebaran and Pollux.  And then, as Secchi suggests, the
variable stars reproduce the actual condition of our own sun,
with light at intervals dimmed by an excess of maculations
upon their discs. And there are yet others, the red stars, older
than our sun, beginning to glow with a hue which distinctly
betokens their waning heat. We think there is still another
chapter of sun-life related in the heavens.  There are the




lJlethodist Quarterly Review.
tenporary stars which from time to time burst forth, like those
in the Whale (in Tycho Brahe's time) and in the Northern
Crown, (in our own time,) in the dark intervals of space, and
glow with a proper starry light for months or years, slowly to
fade and disappear. What are these but still older suns which
have reached the eruptive stage which supervenes on incrustation and unavoidable collapses of the wrinkling crust?  Shall
we call them old, decrepit suns, or youthful planets? They are
both.  The old age of a sun is the infancy of a planet.  As
suns they utter a prophecy for our solar orb. As planets they
rehearse a reminiscence of our home-world.  The sky is all
one vast arena of world-production.  We had thought, in our
narrowness and ignorance, that creation was complete and
finished, but Nature is as busy to-day as she ever was; and
here are the evidences that she has never ceased to elaborate.
Lift our eyes high enough, and we see the universe like a
forest, in which the history of the century-old tree is recited in
the hundred stages of growth which we trace downward from
the veteran to the sapling and the succulent twig-a panorama of history as well as a network of mutual relationships.*
Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, as already intimated,
though older in years, are younger in development, than our
world.  Mars is possibly already  senescent.  The moon is
dead and fossilized and desiccated.  And yet the cemetery in
which she lies is the bourne toward which the whole procescession of cosmical bodies is steadily marching.
We cannot stand upon this pinnacle of thought and contemplate the scene without emotion.  In one horizon we behold nebular mists springing into being. They roll on through
ages, rising in the firmament as glowing suns in successive
stages of incandescence; they rush past us as planetary bodies
clad in verdure and animated by the multifarious scenes of
animal life; they recede from  the present with the wrinkles
of old age written upon their brows, and descend beneath the
opposite horizon, numb and chill and unconscious, to the
burial-place of effete worlds.  All there is of the present
world-its heats and snows, its waves and earthquakes, its upspringing and decaying vegetation, its births and its deaths —
* The writer takes the liberty to refer to his little brochure entitled " The Geology of the Stars," in which these ideas are more fully wrouglt out.




Unity of the Physical World.
all are but incidents in an unfaltering progress. The phases
of to-day-nay, of a generation, a century, the life-time of a
race-are but transient, following other scenes that are past,
and making place for the new conditions which roll on in the
plan of the, All-wise and the All-powerful.  Before our eyes
the great current of events surges on-unhasting, unrestinglike the, mighty, ceaseless sweep of suns and systems through
the boundless abysses of space.
So we view things present, things past, and things to come.
Every age is the unfolding of a previous age, and itself conditions the events of the following one.  That this is evolution
we most frankly admit and most solemnly affirm. If we could
not detect this relation of genesis between the antecedent and
the sequent, we should miss the clearest revelation of thought
in the physical world, and the strongest argument for Godone God, infinite in wisdom and in power. If the changes of
the universe are now in progress, after the lapse of the past
eternity; if they tend toward a finality instead of moving in
a circle, as all the evidence shows that they do, then this movement of events had its origin in finite time; for, otherwise,
every possible issue would have been reached an eternity
since. We trace the material evolution back to the condition
of a fire-mist, and for all that we can render probable this
was its first condition. The lapse of time since then, however
vast, is not eternity.  The evolution of the universe belongs
in finite time.  But how  of the matter of the universe?
Finite, we reply; for if of infinite age, then it existed dead
and motionless through an eternity before that evolution began
which we behold in progress; and no cause short of omnipotence can be assigned forthe vivification of matter an eternity
without life. Dead an eternity, dead for all eternity.
It is an evolution, indeed, over which science leads us to
this commencement. But she can lead us no further.  This
beginning was not evolved. Demand the antecedent condition, and she has no response to give. Demand the origin of
matter, and the forces which animated it, and she is dumb.
Sometimes, because she cannot climb quite to God, she refuses
to have anything to say about God. Philosophy, however,
bridges the awfull chasm which separates that which is primordial to science from that which is primordial to thought.  She




iMethodist Quarterly Review.
is the beautiful, heavenly guide which takes us by the hand
and leads us into a clear light, where we read lines of truth
not revealed to the eye of science.  The cosnical evolution
had a beginning; therefore, some adequate cause began it.
Matter and force exist; therefore, they have been caused to
exist. The method of the evolution in progress in the unliverse is framed in strict accordance with the laws of thought;
it is, therefore, the product of intelligence.  The worlds of
space, like the individual inhabitants of any world, are bursting into birth with the succession of the ages; therefore, creative and formative activity has never slept. There is a Being
revealed in the depths of human consciousness who stands
forth clothed in all the attributes of the Being thus revealed
in the cosmos; therefore, the God of Nature and the God of
the soul are one.
Gladly and devoutly do we take a further step. We have
spoken of the forces of matter, and have viewed them  as
evolving worlds. What do we know of the nature of these
forces   We know  that, while in their essence inscrutable,
they tend more and more to reveal themselves as but forms of
one force. What is this one force?  Sir William  Thomson
uttered the suggestion of the common intelligence when lie
said, in substance, that the controversy between materialism
and Christian faith was likely to be reconciled in the mutual
recognition of immediate Divine agency in the one force which
manifests itself in Nature under so many guises, working out
such an infinitude of results.  This, while an old suggestion
of philosophy, is a new confession for science. It commends
itself equally to the thinking and the religious nature of man;
and neither science nor philosophy can bring one witness
against it. We are comforted to feel that the forces of Nature
are but the immediate exertions of Divine will. The laws of
Nature are but God's uniform  methods of acting. The more
demonstrable the evolution of a system of events, the clearer
the revelation of the antecedent and accompanying exercise of
Divine thought and power. The whole universe is radiant with
the presence of God and vocal with the thoughts of God;
and we rise, at last, to that awe-inspiring conception of the relation of Deity to his works which seems to have been almost
a national inspiration in the Hebrew mind.  "Who layeth the




beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds
his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind." "He
looketh on the earth and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills
and they smoke."




























THE
CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHY
QUARTERLY
EDITED B Y y OHN A. PAINE
EXTRA NUMBER
THE
SPECULATIVE  CONSEOUENCES OF EVOLUTION
BY
ALEXANDER. WINCHELL, LL.D., PROF. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
"anb fear not tjeir fear, neitjer be troubtleb; bttt sanctify in outr Dearts vts ist
as Lortr: being 3teab! altuas to gibe ansWter to ebery man ttat astetb Nou a 3reason
concerning tiDe ope tDat is in out, yet tuitD meekness anr fear.1" — Peter, iii, 14, 15
NEW YORK
HE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY
No. 4 WINTHROP PLACE
Two Dollars and a half a Volume   Seventy-five Cents a Number
Entered at the Post Office, New York, as Second Class Matter








THE SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF
EVOLUTION.
tA Lecture delivered before the Summer School of Christian Philosophy,
i8th July, I88I.]
BY ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL.D.,
Professor of Geology and Palaeontology in the University of Michigan.
ANALYSIS.
A. Preliminary Statements.
Vagueness of popular apprehensions concerning evolution.
i. That any individual interpretation of the facts is authoritative.
2. That high authorities hold all the opinions attributed to
them.
3. That evolution means materialism, or atheism.
Injury inflicted on truth by some professed friends.
Definition and exposition of evolution-Limitations of its purview-Does not preclude creation.
Illustrations of evolution, in brief.
Statement of four classes of proof.
B.  Speculative Deductions.
I. Phylogenetic Consequences.
Derivative relations and unity in the cosmos.
Derivative relations and unity in the organic realm.
I. Past history and present affiliations of animals represented by a genealogical tree.
2. First advents more remote than have been observed.
3. Dispersion of organic types from centres.
4. Man's genetic continuity not settled.
5. All races of men of one blood.
6. High antiquity of lower races.
7. Nothing implied respecting abiogenesis.
p




2      SPECULATIVE CONSEQ UENCES OF E VOLUTION..
II. LEtiological Consequences.
Essential discriminations to be made in evolution.
I. Conditions, or permissive concomitances.
2. Intermedia, or transmissive concomitances.
3. Essential cause, or source of efficiency.
Intermedia often misnamed causes.
Conditions often misnamed causes.
Analysis of the concept of Cause in Action.
Eight constitutive factors.
Application of these principles to derivation of organic forms.
All modified growth the result of modified vital action.
No external coexistence can be regarded causal.
The physiological actions not causal, but instrumental.
Predications concerning the real cause.
i. It is an Immaterial cause.
(I) Shown by living germs.
(2) Shown from the inertia of matter.
(a) The action of force implies psychic attributes.
(b) Causation  implies presence in  time  and
space.
(3) Shown from the nature of nervous irritability.
2. It is an Intelligent cause.
(I) Composition of the material fabric.
(2) Correlations of structures to each other and to
functional ends.
(3) Correlations to ideal concepts.
Answer to objections.
Conclusion concerning the cause in evolution.
III. Theological Consequences.
What is meant here by theology.
I. There must be a first cause.
2. The immaterial cause acts constantly, not periodically,,
3. The cause possesses indefinite power and intelligence.
4. The cause of evolution is infinite in attributes.
(I) Infinite space and time imply infinite cause.
(2) Ontological necessities of thought.
5. The Infinite Cause is a Personality.




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    3
SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
Admitting that all natural events take place according to
a method of evolution, what inferences emerge in the field of
speculative thought? The discussion of the question possesses
both theoretical interest and practical importance.  Popular
apprehensions on this subject are generally vague, undiscriminating, and misleading. Even theological teachers are sometimes
heard uttering judgments and pronouncing condemnations
which imply very inexact methods of analysis. When authorized teachers of sacred truth denounce a belief which commands the sanction of those in whose domain the subject-matter
is located, and one whose evidences awaken ready conviction in
most thoughtful minds, we are forced to the conclusion that
adequate knowledge and due discrimination are lacking; and
we feel that the sacred cause of truth is injured by hands appointed for its defence.
Some of the misapprehensions resulting from  an unphilosophic view of the subject of evolution ought to be briefly
pointed out by me iz limnine.
First, the particular exposition of the subject offered by
some high scientific authority is assumed as a just and adequate
delineation of evolution and its implications. The danger of
misguidance and error arises here not in the domain of the
facts, and. only to a limited extent in the inductive use made of
them; it arises in the philosophic interpretation and application
of facts and generalized principles. An inept philosophizer may
leap to deductive inferences as unfounded as detrimental to the
interests of theological truth. The implications of evolution are
not necessarily what any particular expositor may rashly affirm;
stillless are they all which a layman may feel inclined to infer
from the silence or reserve of any teacher of science. We may
justly look to scientific authority for the establishment of facts
of observation and their orders of sequence. In the further
interpretation of these results we must not suffer our belief to
be controlled by the idiosyncrasies of individuals however learned
in science, nor by hasty inferences from the silence of such individuals; nor by the prepossessions and prejudices of persons
who are constitutionally incapable of assuming a judicial attiD




4      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
tude; nor, least of all, by the denunciations of those who are
both ignorant and impassioned.
Secondly, a very wide-spread practice of misrepresentation of
some of the great authorities has been indulged. They are
accused of many unavowed beliefs and disbeliefs simply because
the disavowal of them has not held a prominent place in their
writings. When we come -to a close and candid scrutiny of
things actually said, we find no real ground for most of the
calumnies in circulation.  The charges to which I refer are
simply the inferences of accusers, drawn illogically from the
scientific positions held by certain men of science.
Thirdly, it is extensively maintained that a method of evolution in the world constrains us to a mechanical and necessitarian view of natural events, and tends to exclude spiritual
and divine agency. All this I claim to be widely erroneous and
sadly pernicious; and I shall soon proceed to set forth reasons
for the opinion.
The persons who launch these condemnations against evolution and its implications are those who believe it to be the
teaching of "science falsely so called." They profess to love
all truth, but dare to usurp the authority of trained judges in
determining what is truth. Their mode of adjusting science to
their creeds is the counterpart of that erudition which quotes
garbled phrases of sacred Scripture to sanction every iniquity.
Each takes simply what fits his purpose, and rejects the remainder.  But what if the method of nature shall finally be
found a method of evolution?  What will be the predicament
of those who have staked all religious truth on an allegation of
the untruth of evolution? These are questions for the wise to
ponder. But at this moment the well-nigh unanimous verdict
of the scientific world sustains the doctrine of evolution. This
verdict is one of the criteria of truth. Repudiation of it is a
risk which only rashness and ignorance will incur. To stake
all religious belief on such repudiation is to throw all of man's
spiritual interests upon the hazard of a die.
It is my present object to show that the recognition of a
method of evolution in nature's operations does not involve
consequences deleterious to a spiritual faith, but is a means, on
D




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION. 
the contrary, for approaching into closer relations with the immaterial forces of the divine government of the world.
We must first establish a clear conception of the meaning of
evolution. Multitudes of men imagine evolution and Darwinism to be synonymous terms, if they do not evenbelieve them
synonymous with materialism, as is so often charged. I shall
not shape a definition to suit my ends; but shall formulate my
apprehension of that great truth in nature to which my ends
have been shaped. I conceive the evolution which I discover
in nature to be the progressive differentiation of ani identical existeznce. It proceeds from the more general to the more special
-from  the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.  It involves
and exemplifies the Leibnitzian prizcipze of continuity. It means
that new forms of existence are only older existences transformed, and not new beginnings of existence. All the aspects
of the natural world are derived.  Every department of the
cosmos has had a history, and every present is the outcome of
a past. It takes no cognizance of special originations, but only
of the history which follows.
Evolution, I say, knows nothing of creation. This is not
because it contravenes creation, but simply because creation is
an event which does not come within its purview.. Evolution
is the name of a mode of continuance, not of a mode of beginning. As it concerns only the mode of continuance, it can
neither affirm nor deny any mode of origin. It traces the genealogy of events as far back as possible, and may leave us to
presume with reason that the remotest discovered term in any
case is itself' really derivative.  But the doctrine can never
justify the absolute assertion that a given term is not primordial. If we have other grounds for predicating absolute commencements of existence, evolution can dispute the proposition
only so far as it can demonstrate derivative relations. When
this cannot be done, we can only judge the allegation on the
basis of analogy or of pure reason. On the basis of analogy we
may discover a strong presumption of the derivative origin of a
term which to observation is ultimate. On the basis of pure
reason we have the right to affirm that every succession of
D




6      SPECULA TIVE CONSEQUENCES OF E VOLUTION.
events must proceed from some beginning; and that even if a
genetic relation runs through the universe of existence, there
was at least one primordial term which originated by creation.
The method of evolution is well exemplified in the developing embryo of the domestic fowl, or other animal. The essential structures in the beginning are simply the germinative dot,
the germinative vesicle, and the yolk. The latter undergoes a
process of segmentation. The cells arrange themselves in the
form  of a sac with a single wall; then with a double wall.
Traces of the vertebral axis appear; vertebrae, heart, arteries,
and other organs are at first faintly and crudely outlined, and
gradually approach their perfect condition by a process of wider
and more numerous differentiations; while other details of
structure continue to rise into existence until the creature is
complete.  Here is continuity of existence diversified and
evolved through progressive differentiations.
So a continent first emerges from the sea as a rude, central
nucleus. In the progress of geologic ages, it rises higher,
widens successively its borders, assumes a diversified surface,
and therefore diversified climates, floras, and faunas. Meantime
its widening bounds have extended over every inch of its surface. Its most extreme conditions have been re-ached by unbroken transition through all intermediate conditions. Its total
history is wrought out through a material continuity. So, as
geology teaches us, the entire planet has assumed its present
phase through absolute continuity of existence between the
present and older phases; and comparative geology traces continuity of existence backward from the planetary to the stellar
and even the nebular phase of cosmical life.
The proofs of the universality of a method of evolution in
nature it is not my purpose to present. We assume the fact of
evolution, and inquire what follows. It may be stated in passing, however, that, as I have contemplated the phenomena of
the world which reveal an evolutionary course of events, they
may be grouped in five classes of evidence: I. The cosmical
evidence —which concerns inorganic existence; 2. The morphological evidence; 3. The paleontological evidence; 4. The
variational evidence; 5. The embryological evidence.  The
cosmos, if we interpret it correctly, proclaims an absolute conD




SPECULA TIVE CONSEQ UENCES OF EVOLUTION.            7
tinuity of world-life through every phase of cosmical existence.
If we turn to organic existence, morphological affinities carry
the indications of genetic relationship beyond the narrow limits
in which observation demonstrates it, and find kinship running
through all the ranks of the organic series.  Paleontology
traces lines of kinship backward through time to beginnings as
humble as the lowest grades of living animals and plants.
Variability shows that it falls within the plan of nature to admit
specific divergences as wide as those which separate consecutive
representatives of an organic type in palaeontological history,
and thus renders possible a genetic relation in the grades of extinct beings. Embryology offers a succession of phases in the
development of an individual, which faithfully reproduces the
succession expressed in the history of extinct animals, and
again in the taxonomic arrangement of living animals.
Morphology exemplifies the nature and phenomena of genetic
relationship. Paleontology suggests as a probability a genetic
relationship between forms which have passed away and forms
which still live. Variability points out a tendency to divergence
and a method of derivation; while embryology epitomizes in
the individual, and as a real continuity, the succession enacted
in the history of the animal kingdom, and constrains us to admit
a real continuity in the larger history as well as in the epitome.
Now, if we find the facts of the natural world such as to
convince us that nature brings out complex results through a
method of evolution, the speculative consequences, or logical
inferences from the principle, may be ranged along three lines
of thought: i. Phylogenetic, or scientific; 2. AEtiological, or
inferences concerning causation; 3. Theological, or conclusions
touching the relation of God to the world.
I. PHYLOGENETIC CONSEQUENCES.-If all present forms and
phases of material existence have arisen through continuity
with the past, every present form must constitute the momentary termination of a line of derivation which it may be conceived possible to trace backward toward its source. The doctrine of derivative origins expresses the grandest possible conception of the unity of nature. In the realm of world-life it
substitutes for an array of objects having distinct and merely
D




8      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
casual origins, without reference to a universal plan of cosmic
existence, a grand scheme of consecutive growths, where each
aspect pictures a definite phase in the common career of mundane ontogenies. Like the trees of a forest, the worlds of the
firmament present to our contemplation worlds in the formative
or nebular stage; worlds in the intense development of solar
life in all its progressive phases; worlds waning into planetary
dimness; worlds in all the advanced and productive preparations for the sustentation of organic beings; worlds in the stage
of planetary senescence; worlds fossilized, tenantless, silent,
awaiting some final crisis which shall remand them  to a resurrection and a new life. Knit together in a web of relationships,
the vast realm of starry existence proclaims one beginning and
one end; one common career of change; one system of forces,
one system of agencies, one empire, one controlling intelligence.
Turning from the inorganic to the organic realm, our contemplations are restricted to the surface of a single world-except so far as analogies of cosmic conditions may authorize us to
predicate analogies in the correlated modes of existence upon
other worlds. Dismissing such possibilities and probabilities,
the disclosure of a method of evolution by material continuity
presents us in the endless diversifications of life upon our planet,.
as spread before us in the simultaneous panorama of the present
and in the moving panorama of the geological past, a network
of relationships and affinities which constitutes a unity scarcely
less amazing and suggestive than that revealed in the evolutions of the firmament. On this basis organic types the most
divergent come down from a common ancestry. Specific types.
grouped by systematists in single families have blood - relationship for their ground of organic resemblance. The lines
of genetic descent of specific types ought to converge as we
trace them into the past. When we uncover the records of that
past by geological research, we discover fragments of those genetic lines, and find them everywhere pointing toward remote.
centres of divergence. In several cases the genetic lines have
been reproduced with marvellous continuity and completeness..
Palaeontological successions, in many cases, have been traced so.
uninterruptedly backward through the aeons of geology, that
we may truthfully say the archaic pedigree of several of the




SPECULA TIVE CONSEQ UENCES OF EVOLUTION.           9
best known animal types has been pretty completely written
down in the pages of science.
The phylogenetic consequences of evolution may therefore
be concisely summed up in the following propositions:
I. The past history and present affiliations of organic types
may be represented by a genealogical tree. We may construct
first a general tree of the animal kingdom. There are two great
lights to guide us in the attempt. Ist. The recognized affiliations existing among living animals; 2d. The scattered links of
paleontological history. To these guides may be added the
hints afforded by embryology, in which, as I have said, the history of the animal kingdom is epitomized in the history of an
individual. All attempts of this kind are obviously recent, and
all, for obvious reasons, are merely tentative and preliminary.
But, on the basis of evolution, the animal kingdom has had a
genealogical history, and the effort to reproduce it upon the
pages of science is legitimate and useful.
Similarly, each sub-kingdom of animals has had a history
which constitutes a main branch of the great trunk; and each
family group is only the assemblage of blossoms borne at the
terminations of a branchlet of the great tree. It falls within the
province of science to reproduce these genealogical schemes,.
and thus perfect its classification of organic nature.
2. The first advents of organic types must have occurred, g-enerally, in periods more remote than the formations in zwvhich their
remains are at present knowzn. This results from two independent circumstances: (I) The formation in which an organic
type first appears to observation may include other affiliated
types which show a degree of divergence pointing back to a
common origin. in some remoter epoch; or (2) The organic
type appears with a degree of abruptness and fulness of development and differentiation which, on the basis of evolution,
imply a long previous history and unfolding, of which the records remain unknown. Guided by the principle of evolution,
we may proceed to complete the scheme of derivative origins,
and thus eliminate those sudden advents which, in the hands of
those who assume our palaeonotological knowledge complete,
have done such good service in obstructing the progress of
evolution-philosophy.
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10    SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
3. The doctrine of derivation implies that the various species
of animals and plantss have been dispersed over the earth from one
or more centres.  A  starting point must have a location. If
all animals, not to say organic beings, are descended from one
ancestral form, then it is perfectly legitimate to inquire what
part of the earth witnessed its advent. That it was aquatic
results from the aquatic nature of the lowest known forms of
organization. That it was marine must be inferred from the
universality of the ocean at the epoch of oldest organic life.
Being extremely humble in its organization, it must have been
characterized by exuberant reproductiveness; and the movements of the ocean's waters must have rapidly given the type a
very wide dispersion. Variative descent from these new startingpoints must have followed slightly divergent lines for many
ages.  The stocks of fundamental types of animal structure
may once have been much more numerous than we have actual
knowledge of at the present day-all representatives of them
having died out without fossilization.  What region of the
primitive ocean witnessed this advent and this dispersion we
have absolutely no means for determining.
But when the first land animal appeared, we are certain it
must have found a home in some region which was then land.
The present land areas which have survived from the epoch of
earliest land animals are comparatively limited in extent. The
first land animals did not appear in Central or Southern Europe;
nor in Central and Southern Asia; nor in South America; nor,
speaking generally, in North America south of the forty-second
parallel, or west of the Mississippi River.  In the Northern
United States and Eastern Canada, in Wales, Scotland, Ireland,
Scandinavia, and Eastern Russia, are-regions which may have
been the home of the first land animals. There are old continental regions which have disappeared, and the circumstance
itself creates a probability that they were in existence at the
advent of land animals, and were even among the most fully
developed land areas at that epoch. The balance of probabilities points to one of these obliterated areas as the first home and
centre of dispersion of all land animals.
Unless man is a case of interrupted continuity with the animal kingdom, his remote pedigree as an animal must be traced
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SPECULATI VE CON'SE Q UENCES OF EVOLUTION.             I
to such centre. That region of the world pointed out by the
evidences as the most probable centre of dispersion for land
animals is also indicated by many considerations as the primitive centre of dispersion of the human species. It is on the
Eastern Hemisphere, somewhere between Asia Minor and Ceylon, and between the plateau of Pamir and Madagascar.  More
precisely than this I am unable to speak without entering into
scientific details which would not suit the occasion and the end
which is my principal aim.
4. Man's genetic continuity with the animal kingdom is ca question still under consideration. It is a question not yet decided
with the same unanimity as that which confirms the general
doctrine of specific descent   Among existing species man
stands apart structurally and psychically, by a wider interval
than intervenes in any other case. Among fossil forms the links
are wanting which connect living man with the world of extinct
life. For these reasons it may be fairly urged, as Wallace and
Mivart have urged, that judgment on man's historical relation
to the animal kingdom  should be held in abeyance. At the
same time, man's structural affinities with other mammals are
so close that a real genetic continuity seems probable.
5. It follows from  derivative doctrine that all the races of
men are of one blood, and are possessed of one mental and moral
nature.
6. The antiquity of the hunman species is mu'ch greater than the
antiquity of the Mediterranean race. This follows from the superiority of the Mediterranean race over certain other races, and
the consequently later date of its advent into existence. The
origin of this race is comparatively not remote, but it has produced the materials of history at a rapid and ever-augmenting
rate. When we shall have fixed the era of Menes or of Asshur,
we must add many thousand years to express the antiquity of
Hottentots and Australians.
7. The origzin of life by abiogenesis is neither implied nor denied by the principle of evolution.  I have said that evolution is a
mode of continuance, not a mode of origin.  The addition of
life to matter previously lifeless is abiogenesis, but it is not continuance; it is a new beginning. That which has life is not an
evolution of something without life. Life and death are as
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12     SPECULATIVE CONSEQ UENCES OF E VO LUIOV.
wide apart as affirmation and negation. It is often charged that
evolution proposes to trace all organization back, not only to
some primordial germ, but, as is flippantly stated, to dead matter. This is a gross misconception.  Not only does no evolutionist claim this, but the assumption would be a rational absurdity. That life has been at some time added to dead matter
is a dictate of reason; for the chain of percipient being must
have a first link. That organic forms may frequently arise from
germless and inanimate matter may be a fact; but it can never
be an inference from  the principle of evolution. Whenever it
takes place we behold an act of creation.
II. LETIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES. - I leave the further
development of phylogenetic consequences to the hands of scientific philosophy. The mention of them has served as a stepping-stone to discussions more germane to the present occasion.
I wish now to suggest and emphasize certain discriminations
which must be clearly apprehended by every person who desires
to arrive at philosophic judgments concerning the implications
of evolution. I have already intimated that evolution is a mode,
a method, a relation in the succession of terms. It raises a question of fact which is to be determined by observation. As a
question of fact, it belongs to science.  I wish my hearers to
feel convinced that evolution is only a question of fact, which
can no more be determined by argument or by authority than
cal the reaction between chalk and aquafortis.  Evolution is,
not a question of causes or of consequences.  It leaves the search
for causes exactly where it was before investigation disclosed
this method in nature. But, as I shall show, it inducts us more.
nearly into the sacred presence of Ultimate Cause than ever has
been done by science, philosophy, or religion, since the days of
the man of Uz and the psalmist of Israel.  It leaves the search
for consequences to us who wish to know how to adjust our
conception of the world to the manifested order and method of
the world.
Now, in contemplating the emergence of an event into the
field of observation, we must make respecting it the following;
discriminations: (I) There are certain conditions under which it
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SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    13
takes place. Some conditions may be esscetial; their presence
is permissive, their absence is inhibitive. Other conditions may
be only modifyizg. The presence of material possessing susceptibility of the observed change is always a condition sine qua
0zon.  In the organic world certain physical concomitants of
temperature, moisture, light, and atmospheric air constitute
conditions sine qua non, while a diminution or excess in the
quantity of these agents constitutes a modifying condition.
(2) There may be certain instrumenetalities or intermedia employed for effectuating the phenomenon under the conditions.
I write a sentence; the pen is my instrument, the ink and paper
are conditions. I inhale chloroform and become unconscious;
my unconscious state arises only on the condition of inhalation,
and on the condition that blood in my lungs finds its way to the
brain. The heart is an instrument for creating one of the conditions; it is therefore an instrument in the production of the
result. The movement of the blood is in a circuit in which the
special action of valves and capillaries is involved; valves and
capillaries are therefore other instruments.  The chloroform
enters the blood by exosmose through thin membranous tissues; these, therefore, are other instruments. All the physiological actions concerned in the result sustain an instrumental
relation.
(3) There is a source of efficiency which constitutes the essential cause of the phenomenon. It employs the instrumentalities, under the conditions, to effectuate the result. Through
looseness of thinking conditions and instruments are often denominated causes. I see an ink-mark on a book, and some one
says it was caused by a pen. So unconsciousness is said to be
caused by chloroform; but chloroform is only the condition of
the altered action of that efficiency which employs the vital organs in maintaining the normal state of the body. When I
write, my volition is the origin of all efficiency involved; paper
and ink are conditions, and the pen and hand, with all its muscles, are instruments, and so are the brain, and the nerves, and
the circulatory system which supplies the wastage resulting from
thought and effort. Efficiency is transmitted through the instrument, but this does not make the instrument the efficient
cause. Back of one instrument may be discovered another, or
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14    SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTTOMr.
an indefinite number of instruments or mere media for trans.
mission of efficiency; but the real efficient agent or cause is
reached only when we discover the primitive source of the efficiency.  Any intermedium  is often denominated a physical
cause. Every effect arises as the sequence of a certain antecedence. The same sequence always implies the same antecedence..
This is the uniform order of succession which some of our scientists denominate causation. Properly speaking, it is a law of
nature, destitute of efficiency, incapable of causation, and only
the symbol of intelligential causative activity. Law is a mode
of efficiency.
I said that conditions have been erroneously denominated
causes. Whatever may be meant, they certainly are not efficient causes. They are simply uniform  concomitants to the
action of efficiency or real cause. Two men are exposed to the
same temperature; one takes a cold and the other does not..
The skin of the first was moist with perspiration; that of the:
other was dry. Now, some philosophers would say the temperature of the air was the cause of the cold taken, and a moist
skin the condition. Some would regard the moistened skin the
cause, and the temperature the condition. Both have been necessary to the effect; but both are mere conditions. If we consider more closely the nature of the effect, we perceive that on
the concurrence of these two conditions certain physiological:
actions took place which were abnormal, and were followed by
those symptoms which we call a cold. The exhalant pores of
the skin spasmodically contracted; the current of peripheral
excretions was arrested, and turned from the dermal to the mucous surfaces, and this determination was attended by congestion, turgidity, and inflammation. It seems to me these physiological actions lie much nearer the appropriate seat of cause
than those external concomitants, temperature and a moist skin.
They are in immediate local relation to the seat of the sanitary
effect. But these physiological actions are not efficient cause;
I have already pointed out their instrumental relation. What
made the exhalant pores close?  What made the excretory
current turn in another direction?  What maintained the excretory current in any direction? What arrested the flow of
blood through the capillaries of the mucous surfaces?  These
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SPECULA TIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    I1
movements or changes in the organism are themselves an effect
of the action of some true efficiency. If you say they are the
sequents of some physical action, then I demand the origin of
the physical action.  Retreat as far as we will, we shall be
compelled to recognize at last a starting-point in the line of
sequences. That initial term is the source of the efficiency revealed in the physiological action which, under the concurrent
conditions, was attended by the sanitary symptoms of a cold.
To sum  up, then, the emergence of a phenomenon into the
field of observation elicits a discrimination of the concomitants
into three classes, efficient cause, intermedia, and conditions. Effi>
cient cause supplies the power, the intermedia transmit it, the
conditions are concomitants to which the action of the power
is correlated. Cause is emissive of efficiency; intermedium is,
transmissive, and condition is permissive.
I am quite aware that some philosophers hold, like J. S. Mill,
that " the statement of the cause is incomplete unless in some
shape or other we introduce all the conditions."' Karslake says,
" The cause of a thing is that antecedent, or aggregate of antecedents, which is seen to have an intimate connection with the effect." 2 So a distinguished recent writer assures us: " The word
cause..should be reserved for the combination of agencies producing the result;" 3 and of " condition" he says it is often vaguely
and illegitimately used; "in order to be rid of an agent, or to
drive it into a corner, they say it is simply a condition." 4 Aris.
totle is the father of this complex conception of cause, for he
says, "A cause is that without which another thing called the
effect cannot be."  Now, such a definition of the word cause is
intelligible, and, if philosophers agree to it, admissible. But at
the same time it is no definition at all; since by confession it
comprehends concurrences which are either imperfectly known
or wholly elude enumeration, and defy all attempts at definition.
Moreover, the discriminations which must be made drive us
back on an obsolete, Aristotelian diversification of causes. We
I J. S. Mill, "Logic," bk. iv. ch. v.
2 Karslake, " Aids to the Study of Logic," ii. 43.
3 James McCosh, Princeton Review, May, I88i, p. 371.
4 Ib. p. 373.
5 Aristotle, "Metaphysics," lib. v. cap. 2.
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16     SPE.CULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
must call one concomitant "material cause," another "formal
cause," another "efficient cause," another "final cause;" and,
if we were to analyze more exhaustively, we should have "instrumental cause," "exemplary cause," and as many other forms
of' cause" as the possible modes of conditioning or transmitting the action of the efficiency which terminates in the effect.
This would burden us with a crude and cumbrous nomenclature, and would ignore a real and logical discrimination, which
throws efficient cause in one class and all the others together
into another class. As a mere matter of nomenclature-supposing the discriminations to be kept clearly and faithfully in
mind-we might, with greater convenience and propriety, denominate all conditions concauses, because they concur with the
efficient cause in the determination of the effect; and all instrumentalities and other intermedia might be denominated
subcauses, since their relation to effect is secondary and not primary, and intervenes between efficiency and effect.
But such a use of terms is not unobjectionable. Our intuitive idea of causality is the simple idea of efficiency. It is this
universal idea in human reason which necessitated the term, and
which is expressed by the term. What though in any case of
efficient action a system of concomitances must be recognized;
they are only concomitancy, not cause. The conception of concomitants simply clings to the idea of cause through association,
and inattention to a proper analysis. What though efficiency
act only in the presence of one or more concomitants. The
concomitants sustain only a restrictive or permissive relation;
they are not even determinative; still less are they efficient.
The president appoints; the senate only consents. The concomitants by their presence or absence do establish limitations
and modes for the activity of efficiency; but efficiency is sole
cause, not concause or subcause, and demands the sole use of
the term as a right, not a usurpation.
The foregoing critique is preparatory to the deductions
which I shall presently offer; but I beg indulgence for a few
more prolegomena.
While our intuition of causality presents only efficiency, our
concept of cause in action is complex, and ought to be clearly
analyzed.  Efficiency as an abstraction  is only a potential
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SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENACES OF EVOLUTION.    I P
cause; it is efficiency set in action which becomes objectively
and cognizably causal. In contemplating effects, it is efficiency
in action which engages attention. Now, I wish to inquire,
What is the constitution of that conception of causal activity
which springs up spontaneously in the presence of any change
which falls under our cognizance? I have reflected much upon
this subject, and have heretofore elaborated views' which at
present I shall only take the time to enunciate without exposition.
i. Cause in action implies real beings Action is a phenomenon of power; and power is an attribute of being.  There
must be a being or substance which brings power into causal
action.
2. It implies duality of being-correlative subjectivity and
objectivity-the being acting and other being or possibility of
being toward which the action is directed, and in which the
effect is revealed. This differentiates otherness from  the subject, and contravenes pantheism and all forms of monism.
3. It implies consciousness in the causal being-consciousness
of self, to rouse it from eternal slumber; consciousness of something objective toward which efficiency may be aimed; consciousness of a possible effect which may be wrought in the
objectivity; consciousness of the principle of causality to suggest the possibility of attaining a contemplated effect; consciousness of freedom to act, for without this the causal being
would be merely the instrument of the being which constrains,
and its causality would be only transmitted, not original. It
does not imply that attention must be directed to all these objects of consciousness; but a careful analysis will convince any
one that all these attributes of intellect must come into exercise in any act of original causation.
4. Causal action implies miotive. Efficiency must discern a
reason why it should act, or it would sleep forever in potentiality.
5. Causal action implies desire. Without a feeling of desire
for the end conceived, motive would appeal vainly to efficiency
to exert itself. Desire is directed toward an end; there can be
i " Reconciliation of Science and Religion," ch. iv., v., and vi.
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18    SPECULATIVE CONVSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
no original causation without a reason why, and an inclination
of the sensibility.
6. Causal action implies intention to direct efficiency toward
the contemplated effect.  Intention should be discriminated
from volition. Intention looks to the future; it is a purpose to
exert a particular volition. Volition is present and immediate.
An intention to act in a particular way implies and encloses all
the constitutive factors previously enumerated; it therefore
implies intelligence and motive. I desire to emphasize the fact
that the intelligence and motive enclosed in intention are involved simply in the production of an effect as such.  They do
not imply any particular kind of effect, whether good or bad,
useful or useless, comprehensible or incomprehensible, achieved
by one set of instrumentalities or by another, proceeding from a
human cause or a natural cause, from a finite cause or an infinite one. Original causation is unthinkable without the implication of final cause.
7. The consummation of the causal act implies the exertion
of will. Will is merely the name of force guided by intelligence and prompted by motive. The notion of force arises in
consciousness in the presence of a volition. Will furnishes the
only explanation of force. Mankind have attributed force to
unconscious and involuntary things simply because the will
which acts in nature is transmitted through so many intermedia,
and is itself something incorporeal and hidden from sense.
8. Active cause is apersonality; it possesses intellect, sensi.
bility, and will, and these are the momenta of personal being.
These eight implications lie concealed in our conception of
an act of original causation-I only say original causation to
forestall habits of thought which attribute causation to mere
unconscious portions of matter.  I do not believe any meta.
physical manipulation can set these constitutive factors in a
light materially different. I cannot admit any real causation
which is not original; I cannot admit that any original causation is not volitional; I cannot admit that any volitional causation is unintelligent. This outcome possesses the utmost significance in the present discussion, as we shall see.
Let us now apply these principles to the derivation of or.
ganic forms. The historical continuity of animal life implies
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SPECULA TIVE CONSEQUENCES OP EVOLUTION.      9
that animal types as a rule are in process of change and transformation. Assuming that specific types are not permanent,
but only momentary phases in the lifetime of a more fundamental type, we have to inquire, (I) What are the conditions under
which a given organic transformation takes place? (2) What
are the instrumentalities employed in effecting the transformation?  (3) What is the efficient cause of the transformation?
These questions embody different conceptions, and must be held
steadily apart.  Now, it is obvious that all deviations from
the ancestral type are the direct result of some divergence
in the action of the forces of organic growth. In some directions organic growth is accelerated, in others retarded.  Increased size or strength of the animal or of any of its members implies accelerated growth. Diminished size or strength,
or partial' obsolescence, implies retarded growth-diminished
action of the organs which supply the elements of growth.
Whatever change of structure arises results from  the altered
action of the agencies of animal-building. Such alteration, it
may be said in passing, must be somewhat operative at all periods of life; for the nutritive and reparative processes continue
as long as life continues. But alterations in the processes of
animal-building must be much more effective in producing
changes of structure if they take place while the animal is in
the growing period. They must be most effective during embryonic life, when the very foundations of all the structures
are coming into existence.
From our present standpoint these simple statements embody most important biological truth. They show that in the
progress of any structural change whatever, only the physiological agencies or animal-building activities are immediately concerned in the organic result. We do not care about the reasons
why the growing forces exert a modified action-in other words,
what are the conditions under which their action is modified.
All causal action is in the organism. It must be in the organism,
for cause is efficient only when present as to time and place.
No external coexistences can, with any propriety, be denominated
causes. I emphasize the statement.  The environment may
present a system  of concomitances under which the growing
forces may be accelerated or retarded, either in one organ or in
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20     SPECULA TIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
many organs; but the environment does not thus become a
cause. Diminished moisture may be accompanied by a diminished action of the forces which make cellular tissue, and an increased action of those which form ligneous tissue; but diminished moisture is not the cause of the increased ligneous tissue.
Moisture absent or wanting cannot be the cause of an effect
here and now. Scant supply of calcareous matter may condition slender and unhealthy bone-building; but whatever is done,
be it more or less, is not done by scant supply of lime, but by
the bone-making forces. Abundant lime may condition the accelerated action of bone-making forces, and huge skeletons may
result; but whatever bone-structure results is made by the organic forces, and not by the lime. The struggle for existence
may diminish supplies of food, water, air, or rest, and may thus
condition the stinted activity of the growing forces generally or
partially.  The outcome may be lean, dwarfed, or feeble individuals, which will give parentage to their like, or more probably be crushed out of existence by their physical superiors.
The superior individuals will more frequently survive, and perpetuate the stronger and improved condition of the species. It
is not the struggle for existence, so often denominated a' true
cause," which really cazses the improvement of the type. It is
only the condition of two modes of action of the animal-building forces: (I) A retarded action, which does not suffice to maintain life; (2) An accelerated action, or at least a conserved
normal action, which suffices to maintain a condition of vigor,
or even of improvement.  Natural selection is only the outcome of the action of the internal forces as modified to suit
external conditions. Natural selection is a result, not a cause.
Least of all is natural selection the cause of race improvement,
since it is only race improvement under another name.
A similar conclusion must be reached concerning all external
concomitances which may have been cited as causes of the deri..
vation of species.
I said that which is true cause must act in the organism.
There is action in the tissues and organs which separates nutritive particles from the food, oxygenizes effete particles, conveys the nutritive fluid to all the structures, builds it into cells
and membranes, excretes refuse, and does all the work which I
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SPECULA TIVE CONSEQ UENCES OF EVOLUTION,.    21
have denominated animal-building.  Some of this action is
what we call physical; there are capillarity, exosmose, imbibition,
exhalation, solution, filtration, and chemism. These activities
go on in immediate contact with the structures built; they are
at the very seat of causation. Tissue-building efficiency emanates from them. But it does zot orizinate in them,; they are not
the true causes of animal growth. The physical actions in the
organism are only instrumenztal.  If there be any physiological
activities which are not purely physical, so far as they are so
they retire into still closer relation to true cause. The real cause
of animal-building is that which institutes and maintains the
physiological actions in the organism. These actions are effects;
they are not self-sustaining original efficiencies, but we have to
search behind them for such efficiency.
Now, a critical examination of the nature of the true cause
which employs the physiological activities in modified ways, according to conditions external to their seat of action, so as to
produce modified organic results, authorizes us to make concerning it the following predications:
I. The ultimate cause in all organZic growzth is imzmaterial.
The minutest material parts of which we have any knowledge
are only parts of the machine-they act only because they are
acted on by something which eludes our observation.
(I) Let us take two living germs.  They are two cells so
nearly alike that the utmost power of the microscope is unable
to distinguish them as two structures, and the nicest manipulations of chemistry fail to distinguish them as two substances.
We may thus feel a scientific conviction that those two cells are
materially identical. When, therefore, we find one of them to
develop into a frog and the other into an ox, we need no further
proof that these two cells were widely distinct in essence, however alike in substance.  We also decide promptly that this
mysterious and inscrutable principle of distinction is incomparably more important than the substantial identity. It is something which, in spite of apparent identity, controls the whole
development of the two cells along lines widely divergent. In
short, that which constitutes the essential character of the cell
is a potency beyond the realm of nmatter. A force supramaterial
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22     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
pertains to the little material structure, acts in -it, and impels
it onward in a predetermined career of development.
(2) In further proof of the immaterial ground of the force
acting in derivation-that is, in the physiological activities which
result in derivation-it is allowable to allege the inert nature of
the matter of organization. Such an allegation is justified by
two considerations: (a) The exertion of any force is causal action, whichz, as I have shown, implies the coiynunction of psychic
attributes. These we are not prepared to ascribe to matter, because our own consciousness and experience show that such
attributes pertain to a nature which is supramaterial; and because the change from a psychic to an inert organism-that is,
from a living body to a dead one-is not a change in the material, but in something which eludes all the tests of matter. (b).
A cause can act, only whzen it is present in time and space. By an
accommodation of language we often say two masses of matter
attract each other; but it was the opinion of Sir Isaac Newton,
who never used the expression, that no physical influence can
be transmitted from one body to another without the intervention of a continuous medium  between them. There are few
thoughtful physicists in our day who believe that matter exerts
force across intervals of empty space.  But if matter has a
molecular constitution, every portion of it is characterized by
intermolecular discontinuity, and these empty spaces between
the molecules or atoms have been compared to the interplanetary spaces in respect to relative magnitude.  There must be,
therefore, something existent and efficient beyond the ultimate
limits which even imagination can assign for the presence of
matter. This conclusion is even more strongly enforced by the
vortical theory of molecules. If matter has not a molecular
constitution, but is continuous, we are presented with problems
at which the most gifted physicists stand appalled, insomuch
that the continuity of matter is a hypothesis no longer entertained. If, finally, matter is to be regarded merely as a dynamical phenomenon, the very phrase implies its non-substantial
nature, and sends us on the search for the subject or ground of
the dynamical attribute which originates the phenomenon. On
any view of the ultimate constitution of matter we are thus
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SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    23
driven to the recognition of some immaterial entity as the
source of the efficiency revealed in physiological activity.
(3) The efficiency manifest along the nervous tracts cannot have
a material ground. The prick of a pin at the tip of the finger
thrills along the neural highways to the brain with a velocity which
makes the change at the two extremities of the nerve practically
simultaneous. An item of sad intelligence is announced through
the material organs of sight or hearing, and the particular tremor imparted to these organs is followed by a particular state
of feeling. Efficiency passes from that which is material into
that which is immaterial. A vibration cannot be transformed into
a sentiment.  How does the material movement pass its efficiency over into the realm of mind? Evidently the force which
moves mind as well as matter is only a spiritual force. But
further, my saddened state of mind deprives me of my appetite.
Here is a retral progress. The cause gets back again into the
realm of matter, and is felt in action along the neural tracts to
the ramifications of the gastric nerves, and their action becomes
responsively abnormal; the stomach becomes unfitted to receive
food. What is this force which moves the feelings and agitates
at the same time all the nervous matter of my system? I can
only reply that it cannot be matter or an attribute of matter.
From every point of view it appears, finally, that the forces
active in the organism  must be grounded in something deeper
than the matter of the organism.
2. Physiological force acts with intelligence.  This is manifested in foresight, conception, pre-determination, selection.
All these modes of intelligence are revealed in the processes of
organic growth. We may consider, first, the putting together
of the material structure.  From crude aliment certain suitable
elements are selected.  These are chemically combined-sometimes not according to the order of affinities-and the molecules
are arranged in cells, fibres, and membranes. Then the cells are
built up in definite organic structures.  Sometimes they are
heaped together in a mass to form  a pulp of cellular tissue.
-Sometimes multiplication of cells is restricted to one plane, and
a cellular membrane results. Sometimes it is restricted to one
line, and the cells becomes linearly arranged, as in the fibrillae
D




24    SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
of muscles. The fibres are built in to form an interlacement
among the organs, and the membranes line, enwrap, enclose, and
protect. When we look through the structure of a dwellinghouse in process of erection, we discover the analogies of all
these organic structures. The bricks, the compounded mortar,
the floors and partitions, the pipes, the rods and braces, the
doorways, the roof, the external sheeting-these are all analogues of parts in the organic fabric. Who would venture to
suggest that the power which built these walls and reared this.
edifice, the discernment and tact which guided the disposition
of the matter, resided in the wood and stone and clay?
We may consider, secondly, the correlations of the separate
structures to each other, and to their functional ends in the fabric. Tooth-tissue is formed in the jaws, and not in the liver.
Feathers grow from the skin, and not from the walls of the
heart. The lungs communicate with the trachea, and not with
the stomach. The salivary glands are located at the commencementoof the alimentary tract, and not under the arch of the foot.
The fibrillated muscular tissue is formed in the places where muscles are needed to contract and dilate. Blood-vessels are built
along the great natural tracts of outflow from the heart and return to the same. Calcified tissue is all reserved for the bony
framework, and not deposited in the spleen or the heart. The
whole fabric is a system  of mutual correlations, and of fitness
to the functional activities which constitute organic life.
We may consider, thirdly, the correlations of the total structure to ideal concepts. Comparative anatomy has shown that
all animals are constituted in accordance with a few fundamental plans. One of these, to illustrate, is the vertebrated plan.
This plan has characteristics which are as distinct, intelligible, and
definable as those of the Gothic or Byzantine styles in architecture. Now when, in the embryo, the first stages of upbuilding
are entered upon, every disposition of cells, every outline of an
organ, is determined by the requirements of the plan to which
the organism in its completeness is to conform.  Here we see
that an archetype is apprehended, and a completed structure
conforming thereto is preconceived, and all the work is guided
by a comparison between it and a plan which, real as it is, exists only in thought. Are these the activities of an unintelli~D




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    25
gent agent? Manifestly the forces which build the organic fa.
bric are guided by intelligence.
There is a grand and all-underlying plan which determines
the order and method not only of inorganic but of all organic
changes, whatever the structural plan of the fabric. This deep
and universal plan is the method of evolution. If the conformity of one branch of the animal kingdom to its special archetype
implies the exercise of intelligential functions, then, a fortiori,
the conformity of all the branches of the animal and vegetal
kingdoms, and of all the systems of the cosmic universe, to one
and the same archetypal method of production and life implies.
the exercise of intelligence.
I am fully aware of objections made to these conclusions,
but I consider them undiscriminating and invalid. It is said
that correlations of structure are caused by environment.  As.
each structure in the organism may be regarded a part of the
environment of every other, I may generalize the whole question
under the relation of environment. Now, I have attempted to
show that nothing in the nature of environment can be causal.
The true cause, acting in the organism, selects and builds according to the nature of the environment. That is, something
which exerts no causal efficiency is, nevertheless, a rule of action
for something which puts forth efficiency. The observance of a.
rule, the conformity to a coexistence, is an intelligential act.
But the case is stronger. The conformity, many times, is in
relation to an environment yet future-it is anticipatory; as
when the lungs of the tadpole develop while yet the environ.
ment demands gills, and therefore exerts an opposing influence, if any. This, it is often said, is the result of heredity;
the parents possessed lungs, and so must the offspring. But
then the parents did not possess gills; and if it is said their
former possession of gills entailed a hereditary predisposition
to gills, then it seems to me admitted that something which
exists only as a reminiscence, an obliterated organ, of which
only the idea persists, has directed the physiological forces in
the production of gills. But suppose the development of lungs,
in the tadpole is in obedience to the impulse of heredity.
This means only that the offspring reproduces what was in
the parent. But if we trace the lineage of an air-breathing
D




26     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
frog backward, we reach an ancestry which only developed gills.
Somewhere between the gill-using ancestor and the lung-using frog
a great addition has been made, which could not have occurred
under the law of heredity, since this transmits only identity.
This great addition has sole relations to an atmosphere. If it
did not begin to exist until an atmosphere necessitated lungs, it
was not, as before argued, an atmosphere which produced them,
but a new action of the physiological forces constituting a correlation to the atmosphere, and thus revealing that discernment
which is an attribute of intelligence. If it is said the addition
was acquired by differential increments extending through a
long series of generations, the case is not altered to the least
extent, for it is the sum of the increments which has to be accounted for; and besides, each infinitesimal increment is as truly
a task beyond the powers of heredity as the total integral is.
Each increment is something to be explained; and if the problem is not increased in difficulty, it can only be resolved, as
before, by the recognition of causal activity in some immaterial
subject.
I believe, therefore, we may rationally conclude that the causal agent acting in all those physiological processes which build
up the organic fabric in correlation with the environment and in
correlation with ideal plans is an immaterial agent, metaphysically objective to the minutest constituent of the material organism. It thus appears that the whole work of the derivation
of species originates in a mysterious iinmaterially groundedforce,
which acts in the organism, and employs the physiological processes as instrumentalities in building up the fabric according
to the nature of the concomitant conditions, and in conformity
with archetypal conceptions which can only be formed, apprehended, and followed through the exercise of the powers of a
psychic nature. In other words, the method and the doctrine
of evolution, instead of implying materialistic monism or mechanical necessity, guide us inevitably beyond the domain of
matter, and into the' realm  of intelligence and supramaterial
being.
III. THEOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES.-It is scarcely necessary
to say that I make here no allusion to so-called "dogmatic
D




SPECULA TIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTIOV.    27
theology."  I take the opportunity, however, to remind my
hearers that several writers who have treated more or less
directly the relations of science and theology, or science and
religion, have assumed, apparently, that these two terms signify
only a body of ecclesiastical beliefs and practices including, with
those founded in reason, a mass of formulae and rites which
have no higher sanction than the authority of creeds, confessions, decrees, and the utterances of fathers, bishops, popes,
councils, synods, and other mouthpieces of fallible human opinion. I have nothing to say here against the theology of tradition; but it may be proper to remind my audience that any
supposed conflict between science and traditional theology must
not be accounted a conflict between science and fundamental
theology. As fundamental theology is the common basis of all
shades of ecclesiastical belief, I consider it a service to religious
truth to strengthen the claims of the science of divine existence
upon the intelligent respect and reverence of my fellow-men.
i. There must be a First Cause. Evolution is a certain transformation of a succession of terms. There is no conceivable
succession of terms which is not finite. Our earth, which is the
only theatre of organic life known to us, is approaching a finality through various courses of change. Its surface is wearing
out, and its lands becoming sea-sediments. Its progressive refrigeration will result in the complete absorption of atmosphere
and water. Tidal action will slacken the rate of rotation until
each side is turned alternately two weeks toward the scorching
sun, and two weeks toward the cold regions of space. If this
is not enough, the sun is destined to be extinguished, and the
earth to be precipitated upon the central funeral pile of our
system. Any one of these contingencies demonstrates that the
duration of the habitable globe is limited. Equally clear are
the evidences that the habitable condition has not continued
from an indefinite past. Necessarily, then, the organic series is
limited at both extremities. The world had a beginning, and
therefore a first causation.
If this world has descended by continuity from any previous
condition, however remote, the same mode of reasoning makes
it evident that the absolute commencement of the evolution
cannot be infinitely removed in time. As the same must be
D




28     SPECULA T VE CONSEQUIENCES OF EVOLUTION.
predicated of every cosmical evolution, it follows that the material universe had a beginning and a First Cause. That beginning may be indefinitely remote, and to all finite apprehension
infinitely remote, yet on the grounds of a deduction from scientific data we are authorized to affirm that primal causation was
logically antecedent to all cosmical existence.
This conclusion, it may be added, accords with that datum
of pure reason which predicates antecedent causality for all conditioned existence.
2. Th/e immnaterial cause of derivation acts constantly, not
periodically. If new species are not, created suddenly, but have
been developed slowly, then the creative efficiency acts continu —
ously; and creation of species is the same act as sustentation
of species. In other words, derivation implies continual creation, instead of occasional creation.  Derivation contemplates
Supreme Efficiency as now and here, in every organism  in action; not as exerted at some remote unknown epoch, and ever
since withdrawn from  activity.  This view brings the divine
presence into close and intimate relations with the actual world,
and interprets all the phenomena of organization as revelations
of the supreme mind and will.
3. The cause of derivation possesses indefinite power and intellifzgcnce. Power is revealed in the  physical movements and
changes of the universe; intelligence, in the presence of plans
and correlations, both in the world at large and in the physiological activities already discussed.  Intelligence, moreover, is
involved in every act of original causation-that is, in all the
causation which maintains the order of the natural world. But
intelligence and power thus revealed are bounded by the limits
of the theatre in which they are displayed. They are mundane
and not infinite. The being possessing such power and intelligence is a demiurge, and not an unconditioned Creator.
4. The cause of derivation is infinite in attributes.  (I) As
we cannot rationally admit the uncreated existence of space and
duration-I speak only for myself-and as we are compelled to
think them absolutely unlimited in extension and protension,
the First Cause of immensity and eternity must be infinite and
absolute. (2) There are certain ontological necessities of thought
which guide us to the same conclusion.  We find in existence
D




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    29
in our minds certain necessary ideas of infinity, eternity, ultimate unity, and the absolute. These, certainly, are not definable ideas, and, as our cognition of them must fall immeasurably
short of the reality, the attributes thus named cannot be perfectly known, and in such sense may be admitted "unknorwable."  But we have necessarily some notion of them; we are
certain that such attributes are true predicates. We also find
in consciousness the necessary idea of substance or reality, or
ground of attributes.  By authority of the principle of substance, we affirm that if infinity is a true predicate, it is a predicate of something. There is some being who is infinite. So,
without ratiocination we discover existent in our minds the idea
of an infinite being, and the assumption that an Infinite Being
exists. These are rational data of thought which we find associated with the other rational data which enter into all our
thinking and life. We. cannot reject them  as invalid on any
ground which would not reject all our intuitions and reduce all
existence to nihility.
5. The infinite cause of the world, revealed in evolution, is a
personality. We reach the conclusion in several ways. (I) The
necessary idea of personality combined with the necessary idea
of substance furnishes us personality as an attribute of the Infinite Being. (2) Personality is the product of three factors,
intellect, sensibility, and will. These three factors are present
in every act of original causation, as I have shown. The Infinite Cause is, therefore, an infinite personality.  (3) Every
causal act implies, as before said, the subject acting, and real or
potential objectivity, or capacity for other existence, toward
which the action is directed.  The world, therefore, is not to be
confounded with the cause of the world.
If some of these deductions are not based strictly on the
doctrine of evolution, my hearers will understand that they
legitimately supplement that doctrine.
I hope I have shown, as I promised, that evolution does not
imply materialism, nor a pure mechanism, nor any form  of
monism, nor any grim and godless system which robs half our
nature of its meaning and right of exercise. I hope I have made
it appear that all irreligious interpretations are illogical and inD




30    SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
defensible, as well as repulsive to our religious instincts.  I
hope, finally, I may have convinced you that evolution presents
the sublimest views of the unity of the world, the most impressive conceptions of the relation of Supreme Cause to the
world, and the tenderest and most awe-inspiring consciousness
of our nearness to God in all the activities of that glorious system of things in which we have the honor to be a part and to
act apart.




















UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
filos opiiG; Ij l'                                 rEs
SECOND SERIES, Nuo  2,
SPECULATIVE  CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION,
— BY
AL.LE  ANTDER -' "VINCHEI:LL, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND PAL/EONTOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
E1lteiedl at thile Post-Offie att Ann. Arbor, Mi(ch., as Second-class matter.
ANN AiRBOR (
AN 1DRE) WS & o  P.CPANY, PUBLISHE iRS,
1888.




Do Not Buy a Type=XVriter lJltil YoIA  Have
Seein and Tested
PRICE  $12.00.
It has been remodeled and greatly improved, and is
now the most perfect machine, both for ease of manipulation and excellence of work. (Weight, 7 pounds, packed. 
If you think it is too cheap to be good, order one to be
sent C. O. D. with privilege of examination, so that, in
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merely paying express charges both ways.
Thn i  TyiJ-WnlPtr Co,           i t. 319 Broalway, New York.
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--   -----------------------------------------  --::: ------— ~- ~_ _ __~ _




SPEClULATIVbE  CON'SEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
BY ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
I opean my lips with cliffidence for the discussion of a
theme before a society styled Philosophical.  Untrained
in the current phrases of philosophical diction, I can aim
only to present in plain style, some of the results of my
most attentive thinking, on a subject which rests with one
corner on science and one on metaphysics.  Evolution is
a method exemplified in the processes of nature, and certified to our understanding through the avenues of scientific observation.  As a question of fact, it lies wholly
within the domain of science.  As a doctrine or principle
of belief, it is a vast and all-embracing generalization
from natural phenomena.  The interpretation of the fact,
so as to bring out its implications in reference to the
principles of causation, oiigins, intelligence, intenticnality and supersensible being is a task for the speculative
powers.  It is a task, I fear, larger than my ability; but
as for years, the theme has been in large occupancy of my
thoughts, I shall be rash enough to indicate what has been
the outcome.
We must first acquire a clear apprehension of the
meaning of the fact of evolution.  It is a process through
which the heterogeneous and complex arise from  transformations of the homogeneous and simple.   It is the
arising of structure from  potencies inclosed in the structureless.  It is a method of law under which each phase




2       SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
in a historical succession grows out of the preceding
phase.  It makes each term  in the series an epitome of
all the past.  It is a perpetual reworking of results attained, proceeding through continuity which cemenuts the
diversifications of a series into an absolute fundamental
unity.
In the realm of matter, evolution consists in the transformations of an initial mass, succeeding eachi other in
the same matter until the most complicati3d mcaterial system comes into existence.  The method is exaeplifiedboth
in inorganic and organic existence.  In the former, it
means that all the coexistent aspects and conditions of the
cosmos-planetary, stellar and terrestrial-have  grown
into existence through successions of transformations of
the same matter as is presented to actual contemplation.
Each cosmic system  has therefore a genealogy, and the
genealogical lines may run parallel, or converge in the
remote past, toward a primordial, common condition. But
that condition, nevertheless, must not be contemplated as
an absolute beginning of the existence of matter, either
in its essence or its forms.
In the realm of organic existence, the law of evolution
means, similarly, that each actual form  has descended
genealogically through a series of ancestral forms reaching back to one or more simple beginnings.  Of the descent of individuals from such beginnings we have certain
cognizance; but the similar descent of specific and higher
types by continuity from remote simple beginnings, one or
more, is one of the clearest scientific implications of the
phenomena of evolution which fall under our daily observation and scrutiny; and it is an induction almost universally accepted.  The facts bearing on the question  lie
within the domain of paleontology.




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.             3
In the realm  of history, evolution means that each
social, civic, ethical or ethnic phase of man is an outgrowth  from  something preceding-a progress always
acquiring Inew expansion, diversification and complexity
of relations, and hence trac3able in thought toward simplest conditions.  In the realm of language, it means that
language is a growth from  simple vocal utterances, and
not an invention or a gift.  In the realm of ideas, it means
that ideas of to-day-scientific or philosophic- are an innheritance of the past, with successive enlargements and
accessions contributed by each generation.  In the realm
of religions systems, it means that the. systems of to-day
are the unifolding and perfection of older systems germinating within the precints of the separate ethnic groups of
nan.
In the whole breadth of the immeaterial progress of
humanity, we find present in the intelligence of mnan certain intuitive principles which are not the outconme of evolution, and are not augmented or strengthened by hereditary transmission, and serve as ultimate cognitions, guides
and impulses in man's dealing with the conditions which
surround him, and his advancement from  lower to higher
stages of life. Evolution begins with these principles in
existence and activity, and evolution proceeds under their
constant guidance.
Assuming these statements a sufficient explication of
what evolution is, a few words seem  necessary to make it
entirely clear what evolution is not.  It will be noticed
that evolution is not a doctrine of causation nor of modes
of causation.  It deals not with or)igins; of being, but with
modes of conft;)^oti)ce of being.  It throws no light on the
causal origin of anything. Evolution permits an existence
to have endured from eternity, in some eternal succession




4      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
of phases following each other with any conceivable degree of slowness. It permits it to have originated in finite
time, through some mechanical concurrence of conditions. Evolution permits it to have been originated in
eternity or in time, by some mind-guided volition, through
immediate fiat, or mediate and gradual creation. Nlor does
evolution  supply any particular mode or kind of conditioning or instrumental agency in the attainment of results
bound together in a continuity.  The intermedia transmitting or originating efficiency may be mechanical, physical,
chemical or what we call vital. Or the intermediate effi 
ciency may be intelligential and volitional. Evolution
only implies a certain mode of succession in the terms of
the series.
It is proper to pause and remark that all the opprobrium
which has been cast on the so-called doctrine of evolution
has been based on ignorance of what evolution is and i/
not. Many have thought it a doctrine of causation without a Creator, while, as appears, it admits any reasonable
mode of causation. M1any have imagined that it substitutes material forces for divine agency in the progress of
an evolution.  But from the explanation given, it has no
more to do with perpetuative efficiency than with originative efficiency. I shall make it appear in the sequel, that
facts of observation, in the light of philosophic analysis,
imply and demand the perpetual presence of intelligent
efficiency.. —FINAL CONSEQUENCES.-Does the nature of things
permit the belief that series of existences succeeding'
according to the method of evolution will run on indefinitely toward greater complication and greater perfection?
I am ready to answer that many series must attain arrestof improvement and many must terminate. The cosmos,




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.             5
is an  niiitely intricate web of interldependcencies and
cross-influences.  The movement of every series is conditioned by the movemsents of many others.  While all
move consentaneouisly in one direction, each continues in
that direction.  But if one is finally perturbed by a cross
influence, that in turn perturbs the other series connected
with it.  If one series suffers a pause or relapse, all connected series are thrown out of harmony; their coexistences are now out of relation to the environment, and must
suffer, and may perish.  So serial lines of existence will
be found to iterminate.
If for a period, the conditions of the enviroment retrograde, the correlated organism  will no longer advance.
But some of the parts elicited into great development during a period of improving environment,by falling into disuse will become inapt, dwarfed, or even atrophied. These
inferences are verified in the history of life on the earth.
Organic berigs sustain a relation of absolute dependence
on their material environmenit. Such, in the nature of terrestrial organization, has always been the case.  But the
material environment has grown out of the successive
states of the world as a coolig bodyc/. As a whole, these
have been progressive; but in particular epochs or particular regions, the terrestrial environment has become stationary or retrogressive.  We find accordingly, that coexistent organic types have sometimes ceased to advance,
and sometimes have marked the termination of their lineage; while under the changed  conditions, some other
type better suited to the changed surroundings, relieved
also of old competitors in the life-struggle, succeed to the
situation and begin a conspicuous career lasting for ages.
Parallel with type extinctions are the membral degenorations which constitute a large part of the rudimental




6      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
structures which form  so curious a study. Many vertebrates, like the whale, seal, dugong and some serpents,
possess rudimental, sometimes almost atrophied, limbs,
which in distant ages, were probably effective Amemwbers;
but changed conditions have thrown them into disuse or
modified use, and they have accordingly undergone strange
modifications, or ceased partially to exist. It is thought
that the rudimentary structures belonging to the human
organism are vestiges of once functional parts, which became disused as the organism  attained to conditions in
which  its ends were better secured by other means.
Evolution therefore, does not, in all cases, mean progress.
Degeneration is but evolution inverted.
In accordance with the principle of harmony or inharmony in the direction of movements of interdependent
series, we may draw some inferences bearing upon the
future of the human species. Man's developmental history has been the history of two consentaneous developments-that of the organism and that of the mind. This
may be stated provisionally even before mental existence as a separate entity has been established in this discussion. In the eye of evolution, man's animal framework is the outcome of advances made in the vast interval
of time since life appeared on the earth. But it is apparent that the acme of organic advance was nearly attained
many ages since. Organically, many of the mammals of
the Miocene Tertiary were nearly as complicated and perfect as the body of man at the present day. Some would
even argue that Tertiary Carnivores and other digitigrades
were superior to man, as having a more differentiated locomotive apparatus. I do not admit this; but it is still
apparent that the ratio of advance of the organism since
Tertiary time is astonishingly less than that of the psych



SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.          7
ic endowment.  If we compare the histories of the
mind and body of man since the epoch of the advent of
the Mediterranean race, we perceive that the organism has
made no perceptible advance, while the psychic nature
has acquired all which makes modern civilization superior
to primitive barbarism. To state the fact in other words,
the psychic advance has fallen out of coordination with
the organic. The body is no longer correlated with the
highest type of psychic development.  Civilized man as
as animal has therefore begun to retrograde.  The culminative function of the animal is reproduction, and it is
at this point that the decadence of civilized mmn.:'s
revealed. The fact is notorious and needs no amplification.
The first consequence of this decadence is the gradual
extinction of the most intellectual families, and their replacement by families in which the corporeal powers have
b-en lass distanced by the psychic powers. This replacemont will retard the intellectual advancement of the race,
but it will prolong the existence of the race. The time is
inconceivably remote when the blood of lower races will
no longer be at hand to recruit the over intellectualized
and decadent superior race.
Man's development, however, as an incorporeal being is
not limited by organic conditions. If the psychic nature
ever becom3 emancipated from the material, I see no
remaining impediment to an endless advance.
II —PHYLOGENETIC CONSEQUENCES-These affect chiefly
scientific doctrine.  The fact of evolution establishes a
world-wide system of derivative relations. Nothing of
which we have cognizance enjoys an isolated and original
existence. In the inorganic realm, we learn that all the
forms of the terrestrial surface are but transformations of




8       SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
a surface which existed yesterday, and in the ages before.
Geology has traced the history of these transformations
backward to an epoch in which we see our globe emerging
from a state of molten vapor.  Cosmogony has ventured
deeper into the mysteries of planetary history.  It pictures a sisterhood of planets springing from the bosom of
a common solar mother, and passing lives entirely parallel
with that of the earth.  Relative mass, relative age and
relative distance from  the sun, are all that prevent the
planetary lives from  being identical.  1n a higher inference still, the sun is but a planet in its first condition; and
other suns are centres of other planetary systems within
which are lived careers which differ from the earth's only
under the same conditions as render the planetary lives
within our system  divergent.  We are led to picture a
firmamental history as controlled by a method and conditioned by interactions whose outworking creates the spectacle nearer our eyes.  Thus a thought dawns upon us
whose vastness is startling.  The planetary worlds within
the circuit of Neptune, and the blazing suns of the firmament which hide their circling planets in the depths of
inmmensity, are held in the all-embracing grasp of one system of laws.  The fires of Sirius and the sediment of the
summer torrent are equally held by the laws of a common
empire.  Man's growth and decay are a fulfillment of the
mandates which order the growth and decay of worlds,
and make him an interlocking constituent of the universal
nexus of matter.
More obviously phylogenetic are the relations of living
animals and plants to others long extinct.   Two  distinguishable conceptions here present themselves to thought.
All coexistent forms sustain relations of kinship to each
other; and living forms stand at the end of genealogical




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
lines which extend back through paleontological ages, and
converge toward a distant organic initium.  The forms
of the actual world, consequently, present wider divergences than those of remoter times. Each individual type
presents a wider differentiation of organs than its remote
ancestors.  Geological antiquity therefore, witnessed a
population of organic types more comprehensive than
those of to-day. There must have arisen a long succession
of unresolved types, in each age undergoing a completer
resolution. These statements are made as inferences a
pr'or.', but paleontological history affords abundant verifications.  The missing links which that history reveals
may fairly be set down simply as imperfections in our
knowledge.
In the exploration of the oldest sedimentary rocks accumulated on our planet, we find indications of a somewhat abrupt and populous advent of organic forms.  The
universal tenor of the world's history leads us to doubt
that these are the relics of actual beginnings of life. It
is.a -priori improbable that the populous fauna of the
Cambrian represents absolutely first forms. It is probable
rather, that these were preceded by many generations of
types progressively lower in rank as we recede toward the
actual beginning.  This beginning-all traces of which
must be obliterated  by  metamorphism-was posited,
probably, as far back as the age of the fundamental
gneisses.
Another deductive inference from the law of evolution
makes it apparent that the world was populated from
probably one organic centre, and that in the progress of
dispersion, subordinate centres sent forth the progeny of
various healthy types well adapted to the concomitant
environment.




10     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
Man's genetic continuity with the lower creatures is
an inference from the general law, and is suggested by a
multitude of inductive data. Meantime, however, there
exists an insufficiency of facts to prove such continuity,
and the possibility remains that maln is not an outcome of
evolution, but has received his origin in another way.
Finding man since his advent to be under the law of
evolution, we are led to infer that all the races of men are
descended from some primitive stock. Hence all men are
possessed of one blood and one psychic nature. Hence
also, there have not been distinct centres of origin for the
different race-types, as was once argued by the elder
Agassiz and many others. Evolution comes to the support
of those who have so sturdily maintained the unity of the
human family.
But while it does this, it offends those who advocate
the brief life-history of man upon the earth. The wide
divergences among the races, in view of the extreme slowness of organic changes, make it apparent that many
thousands of years have elapsed since the rudest form of
reasoning man rested foot on our planet.  We may readily grant that Adamic man made his appearance some six
to ten thousand years ago; but the humble stock from
which Adamic man had descended, must have been separated from him by graduations and by intervals of time
vastly greater than those which separate him from us.
The phylogenetic relationship which evolution finds
binding all organic things in one, forbids the assumption
of abiogenetic origins.  "Life from Life " is only the organic application of the law of evolution.  But even if
abiogenetic origins have occurred, the law of evolution
could take no cognizance of such fact. It concerns mode
of continuance, not mode of origin. Its only bearing on




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENEt  S OF1 EVOLUTION.      11
the question of abiogenesis is adverse; since evolution
implies a certain mode of continuance.
III. — AETIOLOGICAL CoNSEQUENCES.-The inferences
which evolution suggests within the field of causation
seem to me to possess great importance.  Preliminary to
the examination of the evolution process in relation to the
principle of causation, I wish to remind you of certain discriminations.  A moment's reflection makes it apparent
that in any case of causal action, there must be: (1) Certain conditions under which the action may take place and
in the absence of which the action will not be followed by
the effect. These may be termed permissive concomitances. (2) The action, instead of terminating directly in
the effect, may employ certain existences as the instruments or intermedia, which transmit and modify and apply the action to those modes of existence from which the
effect emerges.  These may be termed transmissive concomnitances.  (3) Apart from  all essential concomitants,
we may contemplate the efficiency which, under whatever
conditions permissive or adjuvant, and through whatever
concomitances instrumental or transmissive, finds its way
toward, and results in, effect.
The concurrence of active efficiency and conditions
constitutes the act or process of causation.  The whole
complex has often been defined as cause; but such a definition seems to me to leave an analysis desirable. In Aristotelian phrase, each class of concomitances is dignified
with the name of cause; but I think there are philosophic
reasons for reserving that designation  for "efficient
cause;" nothing else is truly causal.
Next, let us contemplate cause in acction. No effect
arises except with cause in action. It signifies nothing to
contemplate cause as a mere sleeping potency.  The




12     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
world has resulted from potency exerted and active. Now,
when original-not transmitted, efficiency goes into act
and terminates in effect, there appear to be, in any world
ruled by law or method, several distinguishable concepts
presented to the mind.  First, there is the concept of a
particular effect residing in potentiality. The causal
agent must possess cognition of this, or the efficiency
to be put forth would be misdirected and come short of the
effect. Second, the causal agent must have cognition of
the effect as something objective to itself; that is, duality
of existence is implied-the subjective cause and the objective effect.  In other words, absolute monism is a hallucination. Third, there must be a reason why the effect
is produced; it is the object of desire; there is some motive for its production.  Fourth, the causal agent must be
conscious of the possession of efficiency adequate to the
production of the effect.  Fifth, volition must then set
efficiency in action in the preconceived direction.  Sixth,
the  concomitances, permissive  and  transmissive, must
exist. Seventh, cognition of effect, consciousness of motive and of efficiency, are conditions of intelligence.  The
causal agent therefore, is intelligent.  Eighth, motive is a
condition existing in relation to a sensibility.  It implies
desire.  The causal agent therefore, possesses a susceptibility of desire.  Finally, the revelation of intelligence,
sensibility and will discloses the causal agent in possession
of the attributes of a personality. All original causation,
as distinguished from mechanical or transmitted causation
— which indeed is not causation at all-proceeds Yfom soume
volbEttar/, intelligent personality.  I have elsewhere elaborated this reasoning more fully; but in this place, it is only
necessary to remind you of the results of the analysis.
We are ready then, to apply the analysis to the pro



SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.    18
cesses which result in the derivation of organic forms.
You already understand that evolution in the organic
world presents graduated series of types genetically related to each other. The relationships of existing types
are the outcome of ancestral relationships. These present
long lineages descending through the past in ever divergent lines, to the present. Along each line the successive
generations of forms present an infinitely graduated series. Every form has risen into existence through changes
wrought in the next preceding form. We have then to
inquire how those changes have been wrought.
It is manifest that all modified structure must be the
result of modified vital actions. Even if we could conceive some external fashioning hand directly applied, no
structural modification would result until the vital actions
had reconstructed what they first fashioned. The attempt
to mould the organism by mechanical efforts would be
simply the presentation of certain conditions under which
the vital forces would begin to act in a modified way. It
has been asserted to weariness, that the organism undergoes modifications under the action of the environment —heat, cold, shelter, food, fear and the like —but I cannot
contemplate any environment as more than conditions permissive under which the forces at work within the organism fashion the best suited fabric.
It has been widely, but I think unphilosophically
maintained, that the advance of organic types is caused by
the struggle for existence, out of which the fittest survive.
The struggle for existence may result in the survival of
the best; but no such struggle made them  the best.
Whatever they are, the vital activities going on within,
made them; but among external conditions to which
those activities were correlated, may have been health



14     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
giving struggles.  So far, the struggle for existenca may
condition a modified action of the organic forces.  But the
struggle for existence results in the continued extermination of the unfittest and perpetual survival of the fittest.
Undoubtedly, the outcome of such occurrences would be
the prevalence of the fittest, or what is tantamount, the
improvement of the type.  But exterminations and survivals cannot causally modify the physiological actions in
the bodies of those surviving.  They cannot, as such, even
stand in the relation of conditions of modified action.
The struggle for existence is neither cause nor condition
of any of the modified internal actions which build and
rebuild the organism.  The distinguishing principle cr
dogma of Darwinism, therefore, is neither the assignment
of the cautse of evolution nor an explanation of the co2?ditions of modified causal action, but merely the utterance
of a truism, many times uttered in the history of the
world, that in case of a conflict, the weakest go under, and
the strongest acquire control of affairs. High as I hold
the author of Darwinism  in esteem, and greatly as the
survival of the fittest may promote organic advances, I
cannot but think the much vaunted dogma of Darwinism
utterly destitute of character, either philosophic or novel.
We must attend a little more closely to the nature of
those actions taking place within the organism which terminate in the organic structure as effect. If we consider
for example the animal organism, we find among accessory
and cooiperative organs, stomach, liver, lymphatics, heart,
blood-vessels, lungs, nerves motor and sensory, and probably nervous substance of other functions.  It would be
wearisome to enumerate the various and wonderful actions-principal and subsidiary-which work togetheir in
the creation of the fabric and the making o. repairs. per



SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.         15
petually demanded.  I join the chorus of anatomists
from  Lactantius and Galen to Paley, in praising the
beauty and harmony and complexity of the mechanism
through which we live and move. But I remind you, it is
only a mechanism.  We find pumps and valves, and solvents and solutions, and ducts and strainers, and tubes
and tissues for capillarity and exosmose. All these structures and appliances are familiar in the workshop and
the laboratory; but it is worthy of note that they never
act spontaneously. Even when an unseen agent like steam
or electricity or magnetism animates them, we never deceive ourselves with the belief that they are the authors
and directors of their own movements.  No more can the
enginery within the animal maintain its activities without
the guidance and presence of an engineer. It is the volition of the engineer which finds expression in the action
of the mechanism  which he controls, and possibly first
conceived and constructed.  The organic mechanism can
be no more than a mind-directed instrumentality, operated
for the production of those results, some of which, under
suitable conditions, become improvements of the organism
and constitute advance.
We must still search for the efficient cause of these
activities and these results. We may confess at once that
the cause is intangible and inscrutable.  We have ransacked the material mechanism of the animal without discovering anything which commends itself to us as possessing the attributes which must be possessed by the cause
which certainly acts within.   Our intuitions forbid us to
assume that the organism exists and acts without a cause.
The assumption, with a blow, annihilates all knowledge
and all thinking.  To assert that real cause does not still
remain to be discovered is to ascribe to pumps and tubes




16     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
and solutions all those attributes which we have seen revealed by original cause in action. We have never discovered that pumps and tubes and solutions possess any
such attributes; but we have often seen them the instruments for the exercise of such attributes. We cannot
stultify ourselves by any denial that the real cause of the
physiological activities which fashion the organism remains as yet to be defined.
We may approach the definition by eliminating some
predications of the cause, revealed by its modes of activity. First, it is can in.mater9ial ccause. It eludes all our criteria of the presence of matter. We dissect, we apply the
microscope, we analyze, but discover no form of matter
not presenting itself to us as a portion of the mechanism.
We gaze upon the organism in process of growth, and we
witness arrangements, assortments, augmentations coming
into visibility without the intervention of a visible agency.
We plant the seed in the ground and something causes it
to acquire increase of bulk and change of form.  We
know that moisture and warmth have been accessory; but
as before, we discern mentally an agent within, unseen
visually, which directed the currents of moisture through
the vessels, appropriated the aliment and gorged the tissues, and extended the borders of the organism until the
germ became a plant. We take two seeds so similar that
the eye is unable to distinguish them. Dissection reveals
no structural difference. The microscope but confirms
the judgment; and chemical analysis proves the two constituted of the same material elements. Materialy these
germs are absolutely identical. But, germinated and cultivated, the one develops into a mustard plant and the
other into a horse-radish plant. There must have been,
consequently, something not material, which exerted abso



SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.               17
lute control over the evolution of the matter.  It was
something to which  matter is subservient; it was that
something which, though overshadowed and concealed by
matter, was the essential and characteristic thing in the
living germ.  A man stands before me in whom the miracle of vital actions is in full operation.  The cause of the
activity  is evidently present and  exercising  its causal
functions.  A powerful current of electricity is now permitted to flash through the organism, and lo, all motions
cease.  An inhibitive condition has been introduced, and
the powers cease to work.  The man lies an organism  unimpaired, but something has departed  something which
was no part of the organism, but something which, as in
the germ, was superior to the organism, and imparted to
the man his characteristic attributes —something which
was the real man.  That impalpable and inscrutable thing
which acts as cause in the organism i ilimmaterial.
Next, it is;an intellie,gntl cause.  The nature of the work
which  it performs demands intelligence.  Discernment
and selection are functions of intellect; but note the discernment and  selection employed  by the cause which
operates the organic apparatus.  The food which enters
the stomach is a mixture of nutritive and innutritive
parts.  Only a small portion is suited. to enter into the
formation of blood.  The intelligence superintending this
factory sel-ect-s the nutritive particles and rejects the unavailable.'More than this —much more.  We find in the
fabric a great variety of tissues and elaborated products
bone, muscle, fat, albuminous fluids, blood corpuscles,
tendons, cartilage, gray and white nervous matter, and so
onI.  Some of these have chemical constitutions so distinct
that reagents readily recognize them.  Bone is characterized by calcium  carbonate; brain-matter, by phosphorus;




18      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
muscle, by nitrogen.  These ingredients were mingled in
the nutritive matter selected from the food.  Now, some
knowing and discriminating agent has selected the lime
and set it apart; has selected the more phosphatic matter
and assigned it to a different use; has eliminated the
nitrogenous molecules, and reserved them for still other
ends.  Do you say it is the property of the organism  to
perform these works?  Such statements are loose and undiscriminating.  The work truly is done  i: the organism;
but we cannot now fall back on a proposition already seen
to be unthinkable and absurd.  The work is not done by
the organism.
The nature of the -work commands still higher admiration as a demonstration of intelligence.  The organism
embodies structures built on various different models, and
each model is suited to a particular function. If we group
and contemplate the bone-making processes, we find within
the group, discriminations made with reference to the
duties which the different bones are to perform.  In the
limbs, the adaptive  agent constructs long, cylindrical
bones. In the spine, the bones are short and massive and
numerous; in the shoulder-blade and the cranium  they
are flat, and in the latter, concave, and locked by their
edges to form  a brain-box.  We do not find leg-bones
produced in the spine or skull, nor cranial bones occupying a position in the feet.  In each situation that form of
bone is developed which the situation requires.  If -we
group and contemplate the muscle-making processes, we
find structures formed according to quite a different plan.
The muscle is composed of bundles of fibres, and each
fibre is a bundle of fibrils.  Each fibril is a series of cells
linearly arranged, capable of such changes of form as to
shorten or.lengthen the fibril.  The muscle terminates in




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.           19
tendons which are attached to hard parts in such situations that the expansion and contraction of the muscle
produces the appropriate motion of the part.  In other
situations, the cells, instead of linear arrangement, are
spread in a plane, and a membrane results, for wrapping
a muscular fibre or other structure.  In still other situations, they are gathered in masses of cellular tissue. The
point to be noted is that everywhere the work done implies the selection of appropriate material for the structure, selection of the appropriate form for the structure,
selection of appropriate correlation with other structures.
This work cannot be cone without discernment and selection.  Even if it could be made to appear that no agent
exists behind the organic mechanism, it would be necessary to affirm that it is intelligent work. The evidence is
cumulative. WVere this the place we might enter into a
full description of the structures and adaptations making
up the organic body, and discover everywhere what we
see in a few examples-coordination of elemental substances and elemental parts to each other and to the functions which have to be performed; and the impression
made upon us would ever deepen.  But the evidence from
a single case is demonstrative; the multiplication of cases
adds nothing to a demonstration, but deepens emotional
interest.
In a still higher relation is the presence of active intelligence in the organism made to appear.  Everything is
done in conformity with an ideal concept.  Sir Richard
Owen has delineated in masterly detail the structure of the
vertebrate archetype; and has shown that every part of
all vertebrates is moulded in conformity with the plan of
the archetype.  The archetype is not a material part to
which some other part must be correlated.  It is not a




20      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
function whose habitual performance might sometimes be
conceived as reacting on the organ performing it, and constantly improving its fitness.  The archetype of the vertebrate is an ideal thing-a model existing in thought.
When now  we learn that the activities of the organic
parts are so directed as to accomplish not alone what I have
described, but also build the organism  according to a
plan absolutely ideal, we cannot entertain the denial that
anything intelligential is revealed in the wonderful working of the organic mechanism.
Of all these revelations of intelligence I hear it flippantly stated that they are illusory.  The plan is not ideal,
but is the slow outcome of the influence of external conditions exerted through many generations, and transmitted,
with accumulations, by heredity.  In what I said about
the non-causal character of external conditions, I have
forestalled any  such  assertion.  It may be added that
heredity transmits only what it receives; and that which
arrives through  heredity alone, requires still to be explained in its commencement; and that wvhich arises as an
augmentation arises only through such actions of the organism  as we find impossible to  be conducted without
choice, selection and volition.
I am led after much candid reflection, to the firm conviction that the essential cause in evolution is immaterial,
intelligent, immanent, omnipresent an(I[ all-enduring.
IV.-THEOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES. —We are therefore
led directly to a consideration of the bearing of evolution
within the field of theology.  By theology I mean only
philosophic theology —not dogmatic, except so far as it is
amenable to the processes of philosophic reasoning.
It seems to me that the first and grandest and simplest
inference is that sustained by the existence of a v, a   all



SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.         21
embracing plan of existence.  The plan of evolution
reaches beyond material forms, into the realm of conceptions, ideas and relations. If plan implies intelligence, as
our intuitions assure us, then there can be no higher and
no broader, and therefore no surer, demonstration of intelligence than the plan of evolution. That intelligence
must be supramundane.
If everything, according to evolution, is in a relation
of progress, the course of events is tending away from
some commencement toward some finality. I have shown
how finalities may be reached in the history of life. That
which traced retrally, assumes conditions more and more
simple, must finally reach a condition elemental. If the
elemental condition existed changeless from eternity, the
law of evolution had not yet been ordained; but of the
non-effectiveness of the law, under the actual organization
of the universe, we have no knowledge or ground of inference. The elemental condition marks, therefore, the beginning of the existence of the series.  There was a first
term; it sprang into existence through the agency of
cause. To that series it was first cause. The cosmos is a
grand series made of the aggregate of an indefinite number of subordinate series.  The cosmos then, had a beginning, and the cosmos sprang from the efficiency of a first
The immaterial and intelligent cause operative in evolution acts constantly, not periodically. Our view does
not admit a Creator in some remote epoch, withdrawn during eons of cosmic history from immediate causal relation
with the world, intervening in emergencies or at set times,
and under certain contingencies.  The cosmic cause revealed by evolution is immatnet. That cause is present
perpetually in every organism, from birth to death.  It is




22      SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
present in me, whether I sleep or wake, whether I feel a
clld   consciousness of the fact or not.  Present in  me,
silently, most wisely and beneficiently working, I feel awed.
by its presence, and I am  prompted to soberness  and
honesty.
The immaterial and intelligent cause which evolution
discloses, possesses attributes commensurate with the cosmos which its activity pervades.  Its duration has run
parallel with  the 80onic histories of worlds.  We think
back to the primordial fire-mist of one planeet, and are prone
to conceive its unfolding history as merely the history of
dead matter.  But when we reflect -that sorme conscious
existence has b3en always presentI -always subordinatinog
the cosmic outcomu  to a preord-:ln3ld method, and bringing out after eternities, issues which were enfolded in the
germ, then we feel that the existence of the cosmic cause
is possessed of indebfJiite (ltrcitio-n.
So of spatial relations.  We have often trained the
figures of speech to express to us some adequate apprehension of the vastness of tihe st1llar realm.  But whatever its vastn3ss, the intelligent cause operative in the
evolutions of the empire of the stars is equally vast in its
presence.  Such presence possesses indzlefi/itn'-e etent.
So of int3lligential relations.  The human species has
strained its intellect for thousands of years in efforts to
penetrate the intelligible relations of the cosmos.  But
ever deepler penetration has only revealed a wider and a
deeper realm  of relations over which the cosmic intelligence presides, and in which it is causative and creative.
That cosmic inztelligef/xce must possess vatstness idzcelfilite.
Thus the agency revealed in evolution is in possession
of attributes as vast as the realm of time and space which
is the theatre of their revelation.  To a finite intelligence




SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.              23
such vastness is practically infinite; but in a critical view,
they are the attributes only of a demiurge.  With all its
vastness, the sensible world does not demonstrate an infin.ite being-a Supreme and Eternal God.  But our own
reason carries us irresistibly across the chasm which separates a demiurge from the Infinite God.  We do not need
to survey  infinite  space before  receiving  the  conviction that space is infinite.  The concept of space indefinite
is seized upon by our intuition of infinity, and lo, we
have knowledge of space infinite.  The concept of time
inldfinitely vast is seized upon by our innate notion of
infinity, and lo, by an irresistible illation, the notion of
infin-it3 time is borne in upon conviction.  So our cosmic
conception of a causal attribute of vastness indefinite is
united with our idla of infinity, and lo, the cosmic causal
attribute is accepted as infinitely causal.
Now through the necessity of our ontological intuition,
we are compelled to accept every attribute as an attribute
of real being.  We attain, then, through necessities of
thought, to the notion and belief of a reedi Bhcig, possessed
of ilffldite atttribttes.
Lastly, the infinite attributes to which we rise by an
intuitive and necessary illation, sustain in all our reasoning, the relation of subjective existence to every thing
created.  By an infinite stroke, that which creates stands
differentiated from  that which is created.  The infinite
intelligence and infinite will are not attributes of a finite
world.   Pantheism  vanishes from  view.  Finally, the
very concept of cause in action necessitates the ascription
of intelligence, sensibility and will; and these are the
mnomelnts of intelligent personality.  Infinite intelligence,
infinite sensibility and. infinite will are, therefore, the attributes of an  Infin ite Personality.




24     SPECULATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION.
Arriving by a logical and deliberative process at this
conclusion, we find it identical with the direct intuition of
God which already existed in consciousness; and exists
without reflection and without culture, in the consciousness
of every human being.




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ANTHROPOMORPHISM.
BY
PROF. ALEXANDER WINCHELL,
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.
[From  the Methodist Review, July, 1885.]








510                    Methodist Review.                    [July,
ART. II.-ANTHROPOMORPHISM.
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith
the Lord."-Isa. lv, 8.
llavTv r Xpyuad rw pov avOp'TrOCf, r7Sv j#v 6v0O eSV 6 rt, rvv clVr o T V   OvVTV 6g S
ovKc eartv.-Protagoras, in Diogenes Laertius, ix, 51.
"Fools, to dream that man can escape fiom himself, that human reason can
draw aught but a human portrait of God." - MANSEL, "Limits of Religious
Thought," p. 12.
ST. SPIRIDION may be characterized as the patron and tutelar
saint of the Corfiotes.  His body is believed to rest in the
church dedicated to his name.  His devotees entertain quite a
superstitious respect for the saint, and a veneration for his reputed remains which is strikingly fetichistic.  Spiridion was a
bishop of the island of Cyprus.  He was a member of the Council of Nice in A. D. 325, and of the Council of Sardis in 347,
where he was one of the chief defenders of Athanasius.  According to the legend, his body was exempt from decay, and its
presence was found capable of exerting miraculous powers.  For
this reason it was retained in Constantinople until the capture
of that city by the Turks, in 1453, when it was secretly conveyed by a poor man to Corfu.  Here its miraculous powers
were immediately manifest; a rude chapel was erected over
the remains, and their owner ultimately accumulated riches
from  the offerings of devotees at the shrine.  This singular
piece of property remains in possession of the family to this
day, but the rude chapel has become one of the finest churches
in Corfu.
The body is borne in festive processions around the public
square and through the city three times a year.  Woe to the unfortunate foreigner who shows levity at the adoration of the
crowd. Several English soldiers and officers were assassinated
for so doing, and a Lord High Commissioner had to retire from
office, owing to the insecurity of his life, on account of his making sport of the superstitious adoration of the people.
When witnesses are believed to be swearing falsely in court,
usually a threat to bring them to this body will make them testify to the truth.  Obdurate witnesses have held out until brought
to the sarcophagus itself, even till the lid was opened. But, as they
have been forced to lay a hand upon the feet of the body, cold,
clammy sweat would break out, and, trembling from head to foot,
or falling to the floor in terror, they would reverse their testimony




1885.]               AnthlropomorrpA2 sm.                  511
and tell the truth, though they had previously sworn to opposite
statements with the most solemn oaths, in the name of God and
the Holy Trinity.*
The veneration of the body of St. Spiridion is cited as a forcible illustration of the superior influence of the concrete and
comprehensible in shaping the motives and actions of men; and
the comparatively feeble hold secured by abstract principles
and intangible existences.  That which is absent, or simply
ideal, fails to make vivid impressions on the generality of mankind; and when our best efforts to present it to thought or imagination leave but a vague and inadequate result in the mind,
the object loses its grip upon thought and motive, and men yield
themselves to the more lively impressions received from  tangible and familiar modes of existence.
The whole realm of infinite and eternal truth, which stretches
on every hand beyond the narrow circle of human experience,
is comparatively little known save in tlhe necessary intuition of
its existence; and every attempt to formulate in thought any
truth lying within the realm of the infinite and unconditioned
must employ the symbols afforded by the finite.  Our only
measure of being is human intellect.  The unknown can only
be brought within reach of apprehension so far as it admits of
comparison with the known; and our apprehension of attainable truth will be vivid and impressive only in proportion as it
may be symbolized by our cognitions of familiar and concrete
objects. St. Spiridion as a power in the realm of departed
spirits is to common apprehension remote and comparatively
unreal; but St. Spiridion as a material form is something which
can be seen and touched.  No matter, though consciousness
may have departed centuries ago, the clear and familiar cognition of a once percipient and venerated form brings the reality of the intangible spirit into such lively association that the
spirit itself seems more real, and moves more effectually the
feelings and the motives.
We have elsewhere adverted to the fact that all human efforts
to comprehend God must necessarily be anthropomorphic.t
While we admit that the finite measure of infinite being must
leave infinite beingas a whole forever unknown, yet the human
* Prof: G. F. Comfort, in "Northern Christian Advocate," Aug. 8, 1878.'; Reconciliation of Science and Religion," pp. 38, 39.




512                     Mlethodist Review.                      [July,
character of our means of knowing God renders it inevitable
that such theistic knowledge as is attainable should exist under
the forms and limitations of thought imposed by human nature.
Every human affirmation concerning God must, from the nature
of human and divine relations, be, as Schleiermacher has already said, merely figurative and anthropomorphic. This immanent and constitutional impossibility of conveying the complete being  of  God  into human  apprehension, makes God,
for us, not only in a certain  sense the Unknowable, but the
Non-existent, since it is easy to challenge our right to affirm
existence of that whose existence infinitely transcends the
knowledge which must be the basis and justification  of the
affirmation. This view, which discloses the logical ground of
both agnostic theology and  philosophic atheism, is, however,
incomplete, as may be shown, since we have a faculty transcending the logical, which reports to us testimony concerning  the
being and attributes of God, and which  we cannot challenge
without self-stultification.  Hence Buddhism, which recognizes
God as not only inconceivable but philosophically non-existent,
nevertheless reveals the irrepressible God-consciousness in man
by confessing its failure to formulate a conception of God.  So
in the soul's unconscious striving to give cognizable shape to
the divine consciousness which it feels, the inevitableness of
anthropomorphism  is shown in the personified ideas of Buddhism  and the deified ancestors of Confucianism.  We feel the
being of God, but the feeling only becomes recognized knowledge when we discover the uniform  concomitancy of symbols
yielded by the cognition of the finite.  All possible knowledge
of God is, therefore, not only finite, and thus inadequate, but,
by the necessity of our constitution, it is anthropomorphic. 
* It will be noticed in the progress of this discussion, that our conception of anthropomorphism recognizes limitations ignored by the Spencerian phase of evolution-philosophy. This maintains that all affirmations whatever respecting the
being and activity of God are unauthorized, because they are determined by our
finite faculties. Thus we are not at liberty to affirm  that divine activity is
prompted or guided by motive, or that any ends may be recognized in the system
of things. We are not at liberty to say that God is good or volitional, or even wise,
because we cover in the predication only an infinitely small portion of the predicable. Thus the doctrine of final causes is disallowed, as being simply an anthropomorphic conception. (See especially Fisk, "Cosmic Philosophy," part ii, chap. ii.)
On the contrary, we maintain that the admission of end as the correlative of intelligible action is a necessity of thought, not alone a human necessity, and is hence




1885.]                Anthiropomorphism.                      513
This necessity affords no just ground for a denial of the
validity of our theistic knowledge.   It is no disparagement
to our theology to discover that it is anthropomorphic; the
more so because theology is not the only realm  in which the
shadow of man is cast over all that is held to be known.  We
furnish in ourselves the sole conditions of all knowledge, and
the sole sanctions of all belief.  We do not deny the existence
of infinite space because the unattainable apprehension of it is
sought by a struggle through concepts of square miles and cubic leagues. We admit the reality and the endlessness of duration, notwithstanding our only reflective knowledge of infinite
time is through cognitions of hours and weeks and years.  We
do not deny the infinite extension of the material universe, notwithstanding either the impossibility of cognizing it or thinking
it, or the fact that all which we seem  to know  of it is under
the forms of finite things, cognized by human faculties, under
the limitations imposed by human nature, and with all the inadequacy and incompleteness which qualify all possible knowledge of the infinite. The essence of matter is something as
mysterious and elusive as the being of God; yet the most exacting caution freely admits the reality of something which
yields the phenomena universally ascribed to matter. If we
attempt to give definition and clearness to our idea of matter,
we think, perhaps, of ultimate atoms, having shape-round,
ellipsoidal, polyhedral, or otherwise-and these are concepts
transferred from the realm of molar existence, and hence purely
symbolical, and imposed upon us by the limitations and endowments of human intelligence.  Perhaps we endeavor to think of
matter as dynamical; but the word awakens no apprehension
more definite or clear or certain than does the name of God, unless we symbolically visualize centers or lines of force.  This is
a relapse to the other method of contemplating matter, and discloses not only our intellectual impotence, but the necessity of
clothing our knowledge in a guise familiar to our faculties.  In
other words, all our knowledge of matter, or time, or space, is
infinitely as well as finitely true. Necessities of intelligence are not anthropomorphic; necessities special to humanity are. So the correlation of pre-existent wisdom with a scheme whose contemplation awakens human thought, or the predication of volition in the causation of such a scheme, is an intelligential necessity,
not merely a human necessity.




514                 l-ethodist Review.               [July,
anthropomorphic in the same sense as our knowledge of God
is anthropomorphic.  All that we know or can know must be
anthropomorphically known.
It follows that all possible theistic conceptions must be pervaded and limited by anthropomorphism.  We speak of God
as the Creator of the world; but it is difficult to exalt the
Creator above the conception of the demiurge. Few minds
rise higher than the thought of a being reduced within limitations, and active upon a universe equally reduced within limitations. God and the universe reduced within limitations are
not only no longer themselves, but become represented by
something which receives the measure supplied by human faculties. This is the best which we can do. If we enlarge our
apprehension of either God or of the universe, we do not pass
from the order of finite existences to the order of infinite existences in which God and the universe dwell, but only enlarge
something which still remains finite, and is grasped under the
forms of human thought.
We are accustomed to say that God is omnipresent, and
we feel an ineradicable assurance that the word stands for a
truth. But the comprehension of this attribute is involved in
the impossibility of comprehending the infinitude of space and
time. We cannot avoid saying that God is here or God is
there; that God anticipates and God reflects. It is impossible
to conceive being which fills all space, and exists yesterday and
to-morrow in the same sense as to-day. Yet we have the feeling-that intuitive feeling which is the simplest element of
cognition-that such is the prerogative of divine existence. It
is anthropomorphism which impels us to contemplate God as
" anticipating the end from the beginning."  End and beginning are terms having no meaning in the vocabulary of absolute
theology. All ends and all beginnings are simultaneous.
Succession of states of consciousness must be, humanly speaking, an impossibility with an omnipresent intelligence. Yet
in our mental co-adjustment to a certain constitution of things,
we can form no conception of the annihilation of history-successions of events and successions in the cognition of them.
We speak of God as omnipotent, but we cannot divest ourselves of the notion that the divine activity involves effort.
We speak of the " work " of God. We speak of " great works "




1885.]               Anthropomorphism.                      515
worthy of the majesty of God, and small works too insignificant
to be worthy of his notice. Hence has arisen the conception
of a demiurge which should relieve the Supreme Ruler of the
details of his administration.  Hence the doctrine of demigods,
divine messengers, and servitors.  Hence the "plastic force"
of Cudworth, the anima mnundi of Stahl, the principiumb hylarchicum of More, and the archceus of Agrippa.  Hence the
ascription of unconscious intelligence in matter or the forms of
matter, whereby the exigences of the world should be met by
a self-inhering discernment and will.  Hence the conception
of the world as a mechanism, self-operating from the epoch of
its divine institution. Hence the conception of natural forces
which are thought to inhere in matter, and, strangely enough,
to act with discernment without possessing any faculty of discernment. All such conceptions are purely anthropomorphic,
and incompatible with an exalted apprehension of the meaning
of omnipotence.*  With omnipotence there is nothing great or
small. The creation of a planet is a work no greater than the
development of a blade of grass, or the circulation of the fluid
through the veins of a gnat's wing.  Weariness, effort, exhaustion, care, watchfulness, are, with the Divine Being, terms
which have no more significance than location, here, there, past,
future, and the like. But the conditions of our being compel
us to contemplate the divine character under the forms of
thought expressed by these terms.
So of the divine omniscience.  At the same time that we
maintain the unlimited knowledge of God, we revolt from  the
idea that every hair of our heads, and every leaf in the forest,
and every molecule of every form of matter must be the object
of divine cognition. Yet this revolt arises from our human
inability to comprehend the meaning and implications of omniscience.  We are compelled to think of God as knowing according to our method of knowing. Any other method of knowing
transcends our comprehension; but this does not prompt us to
doubt the absolute omniscience of the Divine Being.
* It is not denied that intelligences exist intermediate between man and God; we
maintain the high probability of their existence. But, being finite, the disparity
between their powers and those of the Supreme Being is infinite, so that the highest created intelligence sinks simply into the same category with man in incompetency to render such service as to lessen the infinitude of God's work.




516                  Methodist Review.                 [July,
We maintain that personality is one of the attributes of God;
and our inability to think a personality unlimited by time or
space imposes upon us a conception of God within limitations of
time and space.  Person, to us, implies figure and locality.  It
is probable that there is present, more or less vaguely, in the
imagination of every one an apprehension of God which sets
forth a human outline with spatial limitations and local determinations. This is evinced by the representations left us by
the great painters and poets.*  The Patagonian conceives God
as "a big black man" living in the woods; the Greek ideal
was the most exquisite of human forms.  " If the soul of
nan," says Maximus Tyrius, in his defense of Greek anthropomorphism, " is the nearest and most like to God, God would
not have inclosed in an unworthy tabernacle that which bears
the closest resemblance to himself." t  But we are certain that
the Divine Person is not thus conditioned.  The image of the
only type of personality known to us is projected God-ward,
and interposes its contour between us and the divine reality;
but we have to admit the existence of a Being whose personality
consists in the differentiation between infinite subject and infinite object-a Being whose essence pervades the world and
outpours the substance of the world, but whose self-consciousness does not belong to the world.
The inability to form  an adequate conception of God is an
infirmity which characterizes not man alone, but every created
intelligence.  God can be comprehended only by himself.
Whatever may be our future exaltation of being, we shall
never see God in any other sense than that in which it is our
privilege to see him in the mortal state. We shall never hear
his voice save as the Hebrew heard it in the thunder, and the
"poor Indian " in the spirit-like murmur of the wind.  There
will be no throne on which the Creator of heaven and earth
will be seated, while countless millions prostrate themselves in
his presence.  We shall approach-we shall begin to approachtoward the sight of God and converse with God through more
exalted symbols and human adaptations of a worthier kind.
We shall enjoy a more vivid and impressive, and, therefore,
* Milton, in "Paradise Lost;" Pollock, in "The Course of Time;" Rubens, Kaulbach, and others, in' The Last Judgment."
t Maximus Tyrius, Dissertation xxxviii.




1885.]               Anthropomorphism.                      517
a more satisfying, consciousness of closer relations with the
Unseen.  We may even, like Moses, in deference to our infirmities, be favored with revelations of form  and figure and
glory, through which special avenues may be cleared up for
the nearer approach of our finite apprehension to the infinite
Being.  But, whatever clearness of vision we may have for the
symbol to finite senses revealed, we must rise higher than the
anthropomorphism which imagines the whole being of God is
there revealed, under conditions of time and space.
We instinctively believe man, in some way, however feebly,
reflects the image of God.   The world surrounds us with
forms and adjustments which, to a certain extent, are cognizable and interpretable by human intelligence.  Its construction
and operation have been thought out and determined by mind
cognate with that which reviews and interprets the cosmic
result.  The Ordainer of the world thinks as man thinks,* and
therefore his nature is not totally alien from that of man.  As
far as we feel authorized to interpret nature as the expression
of beneficence, we discover a further affiliation between man
and the Author of nature.  The effort to interpret nature is
spontaneous, legitimate, and successful.  It follows from  this
that man's conviction of kinship between himself and his Creator is spontaneous and valid.  But man's apprehension of the
nature and extent of the resemblance must be determined by
the largeness of his apprehension of the world.  The spiritual
resemblance of man to God seerns to be deeply and universally
felt.  It does not occur to man, till he has developed to the
reflective stage, that the attributes of the Divine Being can
furnish no parallel with those human endowments which correlate man to the exigences of terrestrial existence; and therefore the conviction, more or less definite, obtains, in all rude
conditions of society, that the instincts, passions, resentments,
and even the bodily form  of man, reflect also the image of
God.  The belief, therefore, undergoes a progressive development parallel with man's intellectual development.
* It is not meant to assume that the mind of Deity is conscious of successions
of states; we must deny it. But the relations of things, which we style intelligential, are apprehended by the Divine Mind in the same sense in which we apprehend them, yet with higher and deeper knowledges rising and enlarging in endless
spheres of comprehension to infinity.




518                 Methodist Review.                 [July,
In a rude social condition, the Supreme Being is accommodated to apprehension simply as a great and terrible man
possessing not only the intellectual and moral attributes of
humanity, but also its passions and weaknesses, and even the
bodily form  and limitations of man.  Such a God possesses
neither omnipotence, nor omniscience, nor ubiquity. He may
be contended with, defrauded, and even vanquished in a conflict.
In a stage of society somewhat in advance of this, the supremacy of the Divine Being is acknowledged, but he is conceived
as affected by all the foibles and caprices of humanity, governing the world according to human methods, through the
ministrations of vicegerents, deputies, and messengers, listening
to the pleading of causes, arguing with his subjects, and
administering rewards and punishments of a purely material
kind.  The brightest and most spiritual conception of man's
participation in the divine nature sets aside, in the first place,
every human quality and gift conferred on humanity to adapt
it to a provisional and temporary relation. God cannot be conceived as exercising any powers assumed through dependence
on matter or material existence. Man is supplied with organs
of sense, to give him the power of utilizing and controlling
tlIe forms of matter, and reducing them to subserviency to the
ends of a material life.  God and spiritual beings must be
conceived as ungenerated, while man, under the provisional
economy of organic nature, is not only limited by the conditions of material existence, but also by the varied powers,
affections, and activities which belong to the reproductive economy.  Hence, not only the perpetual struggle for aliment, but
the more absorbing and coercive motives which center in the
perpetuating of the organic type.  Every human attribute of
mind or body which is merely auxiliary to this provisional
status of the human soul, must be conceived as infinitely alien
to natures dwelling in the spiritual realm. This conception
seems never to have entered into the popular mythology of the
ancients.  It appears, then, that the divine in man cannot
extend even to all the forms of his sensitive and percipient
activity. The image of God, real as it is, can only be sought
in the fundamental nature of mind-in its reason, its capacity
for knowing, comparing, and concluding, its moral affections,
its susceptibility to motive, and its power of self-determination.




1885.]              tAnthropomorphism.                    519
Above this, the nature of God expands beyond the likeness and
even the comprehension of man, to the awful infinitudes of
being " clothed in eternity."
It is the impotence of the human intellect which leads into
anthropomorphic  conceptions of Deity.  "The essence of
tllings," says Erigena, " must be conceived of under local and
temporal forms, and God, when he is spoken of, must be presented under such forms and under such conditions."*   These
conceptions are the symbols which the mind employs to vivify
and define the apprehension of a supreme incorporeal Presence
which is immanent in the reason of all men, and which, in the
form of henotheisln, may be recognized in the breast of the
meanest savage, though he can command, perhaps, no other
mode of expressing his feeling of divine existence than to name
a man quite like himself, but possessing extraordinary knowledge, power, and terror.  They are the intermediaries or scaffolding by the aid of which the feeble intellect climbs as far
as possible toward the comprehension of the felt Supreme.
Though they come infinitely short of expressing the cognized
reality, like all good similes and symbols they vivify the notion
typified, and give it that substance which the religious sentiment needs for its sustenance, authentication, and satisfaction.
No nation ever existed which surpassed the Hebrew in sensitiveness of religious conviction, in the purity of its monotheism, and, we may probably add, the spirituality of its theology.
The Hebrew was the only nation of antiquity which recognized
the will of God as the supreme principle of national government and private conduct, and the active cause in all the
phenomena of the natural world. Yet the theology of the
ancient  Hebrews was strikingly anthropomorphic.  Jahveh
was a being conceived as standing in special relations to a single
nation; he was " the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." te
sustained but feeble relations to surrounding nations, save wlwn
he led the Hebrews to conquest and destruction.  "With the
king of Assyria," said Hezekiah, "is an arm of flesh, but with
us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles."
2 Chron. xxxii, 78.  So again, " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods."  Psa.
lxxxii, 1.  "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exod
* Maurice, " History of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy," i, 481.




520                  Methodist Review.                 [July,
xx, 3. This whole conception of " other gods," and " strange
gods," so prominent in the history of the Hebrews, if it is not
even polytheistic, betrays at least the weakness of thinking the
Supreme Being personified in the Ruler of an insignificant
fragment of humanity, without recognition among the nations
who were not the "chosen people," and apparently without
concern for them.
Jahveh is very often represented, in the Hebrew histories, as
actuated by motives which are purely human, and sometimes as
cherishing sentiments which we regard even as weaknesses in
human character. In enjoining the commandment against "other
gods," he is recorded as saying, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Exod. xx, 5. On another occasion he said, " My
wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword." Exod.
xxii, 24. When the people, during the prolonged sojourn of
their leader in Mount Sinai, grew impatient, and began to bow
down before the molten calf prepared by Aaron, after the command to consecrate him to the priesthood, the Lord said, "Let
me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I
may consume them." Exod. xxxii, 10; also 27, 28.  When the
Israelites began to serve Baal and Ashtaroth, " the anger of the
Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of
Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia. Judg. iii, 8; also ii,
14; comp. Psa. xl, 12. Change of purpose and regret for the
past are repeatedly attributed to Jahveh. When the early wickedness of mankind had become great, " it repented the Lord that
he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart." Gen. vi, 6.
On occasion of the worship of the "golden calf," the Lord repeatedly recurred to the grievance, and seemed half-disposed
to reduce Israel to an equality with other nations in regard to
divine favor. " I will send an angel before thee," he says, " for
I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked
people: lest I consume thee in the way."  In this connection
the record informs us that "the Lord had said unto Moses, Say
unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff-necked people: I will
come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume
thee."  Exod. xxxiii, 5; comp. Exod. xxxii, 14; Judg. x, 16.
The Hebrew histories represent Jahveh as the personal counselor of the leaders of the people, the high chancellor of the
reanl, directing its generals to conquests, slaughters, and pillage,




SS85.]              Antlropomnorpltism.                  521
which in tills age would be denounced as blood-thirsty and barbarous, quite in contravention of the recognized laws of nations.
As soon as the host of Pharaoh had been destroyed, Moses, in a
set form of thanlksgiving, declared, "The Lord is a man of war."
Exod. xv, 3. In this spirit the Mlidianites were warred against,
and "' all the males " were slain, while the women and clildren
were taken captive.  At this Moses "was wroth," and conmanded the slaughter of all the male children and the married
women, and the division of the enormous booty equally between
the soldiers and the people at large.  This consisted of 32,000
unmarried  women, 808,000  sheep, beeves, and asses, and
16,750 shekels of gold, equivalent to about $67,000.  Num.
xxxi, 1-52. Under the lead of Moses, the Amorites on the east
of the Jordan were exterminated.  Under the lead of Joshua,
the extermination on the west side of the Jordan was almost
complete.  In reference to Jericho, the record informs us that
" they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the
edge of the sword."  Josh. vi, 21. " And the Lord said unto
Joshua,... Thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst
unto Jericho and her king." Josh. viii, 1, 2. So a stratagem
was planned, the city was occupied and burned, and twelve
thousand of the inhabitants put to death,' and the king of Ai
he hanged on a tree until even-tide." Josh. viii, 24, 25, 29. " So
Joshua," as this chapter of the history concludes, "smote all
the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and
of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but
utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel
commanded."  Josh. x, 40. After this, the remaining tribes
confederated more extensively to repel the invaders from their
homes, " and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel,
who smote tlhem... until they left them none remaining." Josh.
xi, 8; see also Psa. lxxxviii; cxxxv, 10-12; cxxxvi, 17-22;
compare further, Num. xxv, 6-17; xxxi, 1-47. Joshua pursued
his course, under command of the Lord, until the whole population was exterminated; "neither left they any to breathe,"
save "the Hittites, the inhabitants of Gibeon."  Nor was the
blood-thirsty character of the " chosen of the Lord" soon
ameliorated by a more settled political state. Ehud assassinated
the king of Moab treacherously, and the Israelites " slew of
33-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. I.




522                  Methodist Review.                [July,
Moab... ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valor;
and there escaped not a man."  Judg. iii, 29.  Not only in
the extermination of their national enemies was the cruelty of
the Hebrew theocracy demonstrated.  In a feud which arose
between the tribe of Benjamin and the other tribes, Israel,
by command of the Lord, made three successive attacks upon
Gibeah, losing on the first two occasions forty thousand men
who drew the sword, but on the third attack slaughtering twenty-five thousand of the Benjamites. Judg. xx, 21, 25, 46. So
again Achan, who had personally offended, was, according to
our conceptions, a subject of just punishment; but, under the
theocracy, not only Achan, who had sinned, but his sons and
his daughters, who were innocent, were stoned to death at the
command of Joshua.  Josh. vii, 25. So also David, at a later
period, delivered up the two unoffending sons and five grandsons of Saul to be " hanged up unto the Lord in Gibeah."  One
can never read without a moral revulsion the account of the
bloody sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter in fulfillment of a rash
and unrighteous vow. Judg. xi, 30-40. See also Saul's promised sacrifice of Jonathan. 1 Sam. xiv, 24, 27, 28, 45.
Jahveh was habitually conceived under limitations of space
and time.  Fear not," he is recorded as saying to Jacob, "to
go down into Egypt.... I will go down with thee into Egypt,
and I will also surely bring thee up again." Gen. xlvi, 3, 4.
So, also, it is said, "The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai,
on the top of the mount." Exod. xix, 20. " And the Lord
called unto him  out of the mountain." Exod. xix, 36. "And
the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount."
Exod. xxix, 12.  Moses held a six days' interview with the
Lord, and thereafter " the Lord spake unto Moses face to face,
as a man speaketh unto his friend." Exod. xxxiii, 11.  Conpare the frequent phrase, " And the Lord spake unto Moses."
In a similar way "the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind" (Job xxxviii, 1), and "Job answered the Lord." Job
xlii, 1. So the psalmist continually clothes the Lord in the
attributes of humanity: "From the place of his habitation he
looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth."*
The method by which the Lord selected three hundred men
* Psa. xxxiii, 14. So Aristotle, says, God acts directly on the firmament of the
fixed stars, which he touches without being touched by it.




1885.]               Anthropomorphism.                      523
to give battle under Gideon to the Midianites seems frivolous and
inconsequential. After dismissing twenty thousand, who confessed timidity, ten thousand were taken down to the water
and made to drink. Those who got on their knees to reach the
water were rejected, and only those were taken who dipped the
water in their hands, and lapped it " as a dog lappeth." Judges
vii, 3-6.  The anthropomorphic  adjuncts of Jewish theism
are even more striking than these.  Adam and Eve " heard the
voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the
day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord." Gen. iii, 8. Then followed a conversation between Adam  and the Lord.  On a subsequent occasion, the
Lord met Cain and upbraided him for the murder of his brother;
and Cain argued with the Lord for a mitigation of the punishment inflicted. Gen. iv, 9-15. So David, thousands' of years
afterward, asks, "Why standest thou afar off....Arise, 0
Lord; O God, lift up thine hand." Psa. x, 1, 12. Again he
says: " The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the
Lord is full of majesty:" Psa. xxix, 4.  And still again: "Bow
down thine ear, O Lord, hear me." Psa. lxxxvi, 1. With a sublime conception of the divine personality, he says: " Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled.... He looketh on the earth,
and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills, and they smoke."
Psa. civ, 29, 32.  " Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down;
touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.... Send thy hand
from  above." Psa. cxliv, 5, 7. Eliphaz asks, "Is not God in
the height of heaven? " Job xxii, 12.
There can be no doubt that such conceptions are to be regarded as bold and brilliant figures of speech, compatible with
the most spiritualized apprehensions of Deity; but they embody anthropomorphic adaptations which, like all other anthropomorphism, testify the mental limitations and habitudes of a
human and finite being.
It must not be supposed that the forms of thought and
speech of which we have quoted examples concealed from
the ancient Hebrews all higher apprehensions of Deity.*  The
* Tertullian says:'"When God is spoken of as jealous, angry, etc., we must not
liken these emotions to the same emotions in men." Moses Maimonides, a Jew
of the twelfth century, maintained that the Jewish law, when deeply interpreted,
was a revelation of the highest truths. (Ueberweg, " History of Philosophy," i, 427.)
We hold this to be a profound truth.




524                 2Methodist Review.                [July,
God of Abraham, Moses, and David was not only powerful
and wise, but he was almighty. "In the beginning Elohim
created the heavens and the earth," is the first announcement
of Scripture.  Job, in the remotest age, confessed, "I know
that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be
withholden from  thee." Job xlii, 2; comp. Job xxvi, xxvii,
xxxvii, 2-23; xxxviii. So David, in the nation's meridian of
existence, often adverted to God's omnipotence.  "By the
word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of
them by the breath of his month." Psa. xxxiii, 6; conmp. Psa.
civ, 1-32; cxxxvi, 5-9; clvi, 6, 10; Isa. xliii, 13; Jer. xxxii,
17. The Lord even possessed power over death: "God will
redeem my soul from the power of the grave." Psa. xliv, 15.
The Psalms repeatedly testify a knowledge of the eternity of
God: "Of old thou hast laid the foundations of the earth.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure...  Thy years
shall have no end." Psa. cii, 25-27.  "A thousand years in thy
sight are t a as yesterday when it is past." Psa. xc, 4.  " Thy
throne is established of old; thou art from  everlasting." Psa.
xciii, 2; comp. also Psa. xc, 2; cii, 27; Exod. iii, 14; Deut.
xxxii, 40; xxxiii, 27; Jer. x, 10; Isa. lvii, 15; Hab. i, 12.
The omniscience and the omnipresence of God were also well
understood, notwithstanding the Lord was vaunted as " a man
of war."  "Thou understandest my thought afar off," says David,... " There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord,
thou knowest it altogether... Whither shall I go from thy
Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? " etc. Psa.
cxxxix, 2, 4, 7; comp. 1 Sam. xvi, 7; 1 Kings viii, 39;
1 Chron. xxviii, 9; Prov. v, 21; xv, 3; Isa. xl, 28; xlvi, 9;
Ezek. xi, 5.
The infinitude of the divine attributes is recognized as unsearchable: " Canst thou  by  searching  find  out God?"
" Touching the Almighty, I cannot find him out." Job xi, 7;
xxxvi, 23; comp. Psa. cxlv, 3; Isa. xl, 17. The compassion of
the Lord is again and again dwelt upon in the Psalms:   The
Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart."  " The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Psa. xxxiv, 18; li, 17;
comp. Psa. xxv, 6; xxxvi, 7; lxix, 16; lxxviii, 38; lxxxvi, 15;
ciii, 13; cxlv, 8; Lam. iii, 22, 32, 33; Hosea xi, 8.




1885.]               Anthropomorphi1sm.                       525
As to the color of polytheism detected in many passages of
the Hebrew Scriptures, it disappears entirely on a better understanding of the sense in which the gods of the other nations
are mentioned.  The Hebrew does not accord them supremacy,
or even divinity; and he asserts the dominion of the Hebrew
LoRD over the recognized divinities of all other nations in every
part of the world. " Confounded be all they that serve graven
images, that boast themselves of idols: worship Him, all ye
gods." Psa. xcvii, 7; comp. Psa. cxxxvi, 2.  " For the gods of
all the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens."
Psa. xcvi, 5; comp. Psa. cxv, 4-8. " God is the king of all
the earth."  Psa. xlviii, 7.  "He cometh to judge the earth:
he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people
with his truth." Psa. xcvi, 13.
To us the meaning of the worship of " strange gods " among
the heathen is, simply, that they knew the one Supreme Ruler
under Gentile names.  In fact, the Deity which they worshiped
was the sole Deity whom  also the Hebrews adored.  This
grand fact in the philosophy of the ethnic religions the Hebrews had not discerned. They presumed that the Gentiles,'in
having no knowledge of the Hebrew  LORD (JEHOVAH), were
ignorant of the Supreme God altogether, and were given over
to simple and meaningless idolatries.
As to the cruelties practiced by the Hebrews in the name of
the Lord, they certainly indicate a low  anthropomorphic apprehension of the character and government of the Divine
Being, though without disguising altogether, as we have shown,
the immanent sense of the divine spirituality and infinity.
But such an apprehension belonged to the ages of the world
through which their history extended, and is one of the numerous disclosures of the amount of truth disguised in the
well-known, but somewhat profane, paradox that " every man
makes his own God." *  The cognition of the Supreme Deity
is present in every soul alike; but each individual embodies
* "Each state of social culture," says Milman,  has its characteristic theology,
self-adapted to the intellectual and moral condition of the people, and colored, in
some degree, by the habits of life." " It may be laid down as a principle, that
the nearer the nation approaches to barbarism, the childhood of the human race,
the more earthly are the conceptions of the Deity. The moral aspect of the divine
nature seems gradually to develop itself with the development of the human
mind."-See Milman's " History of Christianity," i, 27, 30.




26                      fethkodist Review.                  [July,
the divine intuition in such form as his intellectual status determines. So the crude anthropomorphism of the Jewish Scriptures, as Philo Judeeus long ago pointed out, was only an accommodation to the wants of finite and sensuous man.
We have thus, by citations from  the history of the most
religious people who ever lived, and the people who had the
truest and purest apprehension of the spirituality, unity, and
infinity of the Supreme Being, furnished striking illustrations
of our main thesis, that man's limitations condition his theistic and religious conceptions; and that no degree of crudeness
or error should be allowed to dull our discernment of the
deep-lying and essential identity of the theistic consciousness
among all peoples, and under all religious forms.
Christianity was introduced with the explicit enunciation that
"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth." John iv, 24; comp. John i, 18; Col. i, 14;
I Tim.vi, 16; Heb. xi, 27. Well established apprehensions of the
divine supremacy and divine unity had now long been current,
not only among the Jews, but among the more thoughtful pagans as well.*  But the limitations of the human intellect had
not been removed, and the tendency to lean upon material and
anthropomorphic conceptions and forms did not cease to be manifest.  In Rome, where the moral center of Christianity settled
itself, and whence authority dictated to Alexandria and Constantinople, paganism, as it faded out, exhibited a partial blending with the new religion.  Many an attempt was made to commend Christianity to heathen minds by partially paganizing it.
It is said that not a few of the observances which grew up in
the early Church were merely the disguised rites of the Roman
religion.  Thus, it is said the " Ferie Augusti were continued
in the Church as the Festival St. Petri ad vincula; that even
to our own times an image of the Virgin was carried to the
river in the same manner as in the old times was that of Cybele." t  In the course of events, Mary came to be declared the
* For an ample discussion of the subject see Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i, chap. iv; and for a condensed view, Cocker's "Christianity and
Greek Philosophy," pp. 151-164, also chap. v, etc. (reviewed by the writer in
"Methodist Quarterly Review," July, 1872):Pressense's " Religion before Christ;"
and Clemens Alexandrinus's "Stromata," especially Bk. I.
~ Draper, "Intellectual Development of Europe," p. 196. John Toland, in his
"Nazarenus" (1718), sharply arraigns the Gentile Christians for the introduction




1885.]               Anthropomorphism.                     52T
"Mother of God," as the Phrygian Cybele had long before
been venerated as the "Mother of the gods;" and she was
subsequently endued with omnipresence and omniscience, and
prayers were offered to her, as they still are, from  all places
indiscriminately.
The extent of this conformity to pagan antecedents is impressively set forth in the following passages adapted from the
second volume of the " Homilies " of the Church of England:
The Catholics form  the same opinions of the saints whose
images they worship as the heathens did of their gods, and employ the same outward rites in honoring their images as the
heathens did in the religious veneration of their statues. Thus,
as the heathens had their tutelar gods, such as were Belus to the
Babylonians and Assyrians, Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians, and
Vulcan to the Lemnians, so, also, the Catholics attribute the
defense of certain countries to certain saints.  Have not the
saints, also, to whom the safeguard of particular cities is committed, the same office as the diiprcesides of the heathens? Such
as were at Delphi, Apollo; at Athens, Minerva; at Carthage,
Juno; and at Rome, Quirinus.  And do not the saints to whom
churches are built and altars erected correspond to the dii patroni
of the heathens? Such as were in the Capitol, Jupiter; in the
temple at Paphos, Venus; in the temple of Ephesus, Diana. Are
not, likewise, our Lady of Walsingham, our Lady of Ipswich, our
Lady of Wilsdon, and the like, imitations of Diana Agrotera, Diana
Coryphea, Diana Ephesia, Venus Cypria, Venus Paphia, Venus
Gnidia, and the like. The Catholics, too, have substituted for
the marine deities, Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux,
Venus, etc., St. Christopher, St. Clement, and others, and especially Our Lady, as she is called by them, to whom seamen sing
Ave fMaris stella. Neither has the fire escaped their imitation of
the pagans. For instead of Vulcan and Vesta, the inspective
guardians of fire according to the heathens, the Catholics have
substituted St. Agatha, on the day of whose nativity they make
letters for the purpose of extinguishing fire.  Every artificer
likewise, and profession, has a special saint in the place of a presiding god. Thus, scholars have St. Nicholas and St. Gregory;
painters, St. Luke; nor are soldiers in want of a saint corresponding to Mars; nor lovers, of one who is a substitute for
Venus. All diseases, too, have their special saints instead of
gods, who are invoked as possessing a healing power. Thus,
the venereal disease has St. Roche; the falling sickness, St. Cornelius; the tooth-ache, St. Apollin, etc.  Beasts and cattle,
of heathenish superstitions in their religion. The startling similarity between the
rites and symbolism of the Church of Rome and those of oriental Buddhism is
something quite notorious.




528                 Methodist Review.                 [July,
also, have their presiding saints, for St. Loy (says the " Homily")
is the -horse-leech, and St. Anthony the swine-herd, etc.... The
rites and ceremonies of the papists in honoring and worshiping
their images or saints are the same with the rites of the pagans.
This is evident in their pilgrimages to visit images which had
more holiness and virtue in them than others. In their candlereligion, burning incense, offering up gold to images, hanging
up crutches, chains, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and
women of war, before images, as though by them, or saints (as
they say) they were delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity
or shipwreck. In spreading abroad, after the manner of the heathens, the miracles that have accompanied images, such an image
was sent from heaven, like the Palladium, or Diana of the Ephesians. Such an image was brought by angels-such a one came
itself from the east to the west, as Dame Fortune fled to Rome.
Some images, though they were hard and stony, yet, for tender
heart and pity, wept. Some spake more monstrously than ever
did Balaam's ass, who had life and breath in him. Such a cripple
came and saluted the saint of oak, and by and by he was made
whole, and here hangeth his crutch. Such a one in a tempest
vowed to St. Christopher, and'scaped, and behold here is his
ship of war.  Such a one by St. Leonard's help brake out of
prison, and see where his fetters hang. And infinite thousands
more miracles by like, or more shameless, lies were reported.*
In the early Christian Church, as in all times, the mind of
man struggled perpetually to establish some intelligible means
of ascent from humanity to the invisible and incomprehensible
Deity. Hence the veneration of the Virgin as an intermedium
between man and God. Hence the eons and the demiurges
in that dreamy heresy known as Gnosticism.  Hence, also, the
eons and demons in that Parseeized offshoot of Christianity
known as Manicheism.  Hence cherubim, seraphim, and
angels under the Jewish system.  Hence vicegerents, saints,
and confessors in the Church of modern Rome, as in Asiatic
Buddhism. To say that such intermediaries have been used as
aid to the infirmities of the human intellect is not to affirm
the unreality of intermediate beings; since, whether real or
unreal, it is obvious that the mind leans on them for relief
from the oppressiveness of formless, unconcrete divinity.
There can be no doubt that the significance of paintings,
images, crucifixes, censers, and beads is entirely analogous.
They represent to the material sense, or at least vividly suggest, the spiritual reality which it is so hard for the finite mind
* Thomas Taylor, "Translation of Proclus," vol. i, intro., xli-xliii. Loud., 1816.




1885.]              Anthropormorphism.                   529
to grasp. Such is the meaning of accessories of attire, surplice
and stole, miter and coronet. Withdrawn from  common use
and consecrated to religious associations, they bear the attention and the thoughts toward the thing signified; they are aids
to human infirmity.  Such, in short, is the bearing of fasts,
feasts, penances, pilgrimages, rites and ordinances, dedications,
consecrations and baptisms, in the spiritual and truthful worship
of a Being who is himself a Spirit. None of this symbolism is
to be denounced as essentially bad. Allegorical art has lent
itself, in all ages, to the assistance of the common imagination
in its efforts to attain clear conceptions of divine realities.
There are few intellects so spiritualized as to be entirely independent of material forms and anthropomorphic conceptions as
adjuncts to devotion. The struggle for such superiority over
material conditions is the highest exercise of the oriental enthusiast; and the extent of the attainment in certain cases
would seem an interesting subject of philosophic and physiological (psychological?) inquiry.
While anthropomorphic and material aids may become helpful to all, it is manifest that they are most essential with the
uncultured and the ignorant.  Such persons especially ought,
therefore, to be allowed the benefit of these aids. Children
and savage people under religious instruction should be freely
supplied with the adjuncts of material symbolism.  There
always exists the liability (and here is the danger) of forgetting that such aids are merely intermediary, and that the reality
is something which lies beyond, and should always be striven
after with all the powers of the mind and soul. To lose sight
of the spiritual meaning of these adjuncts is to degenerate into
formalism, Mariolatry, picture-worship, and fetichism.
These considerations remind us of the philosophic interpretation of polytheism and idolatries among the heathen. Polytheism, as may be shown, does not exclude as pure a primacy as
has been recognized by monotheistic Jew  or Christian.  The
multitude of subordinate and intermediate beings belonging to
the most populous pantheon is merely an exaggeration of accessories of the same essential kind as have been employed in all
monotheistic religions.  No religion ever existed which interposed a vacuum of being all the way from  the Infinite to man.
To say nothing of the a priori improbability of such a vacuum,




530                   2ethodist Review.                    [July,
the religious nature revolts against the conception; it will not
be walled away from the object of its longing by any such inpassable gulf.  Besides angels and archangels, other beings having the rank of gods were admitted by many distinguished representatives of early Christianity.  Syncellus, the Platonic Bishop
of Ptolemais in the fifth century, in his third hymn says:
Thee, Father of the worlds, Father of the eons, Artificer of the
gods, it is holy to praise.  Thee, 0 King! the intellectual gods
sing; thee, O Blessed God, the cosmcagi [ioopayot, world-rulers],
those fulgid eyes and starry intellects celebrate, round which the
illustrious body [of the world] dances. All the race of the blessed
sing thy praise, those that are about, and those that are in the
world, the zonic gods [4ovtot, from the Chaldean theology], and
also the azonic, who govern the parts of the world.
In another part of the same hymn he says: "I have supplicated the ministrant gods that possess the Thracian soil, and
also those that, in an opposite direction, govern the Chalcedonian land."  That the heavenly bodies were divine intelligences was believed by Jerome,* Origen,t Eusebius,: and Augustine, ~ as well as many mediaeval theologians, and Kepler the
astronomer.  What St. Paul means by "principality and power
and might and dominion" above which Christ is set " in the
heavenly places" (Eph. i, 21; comp. Rom. viii, 38), is somewhat
uncertain. St. Augustine ]1 remarks that these words seem to
"comprehend all the celestial society;" and Ignatius ~ speaks
of " the angelic orders, the diversities of archangels and armies,
the differences of the orders characterized by might and dominion, of thrones and powers, the magnificence of the eons, and
the transcendency of cherubim and seraphim." Paul himself
asserts the existence of other gods: " Though there be that are
called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods
many, and lords many)."  1 Cor. viii, 5.  It is not clear from
this, however, that Paul intended to express his own opinion
concerning the reality of other divinities."
If man is not in connection with the Infinite Being through
* Jerome, "Exposition of Ecclesiastes," i, 6.    f Origen, "De Principiis.": Eusebius, " Theol. Solutions."     ~ Algustine, "Enchiridion."
II Augustine, "Ad Laurentium," ch. lviii.  ~ Ignatius, " Epistola ad Trallianos."
** Further on intermediate beings, see the writings of Proclus, Plotinus, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Syrianus, Ammonius, Damascius, Olympiodorus, Simplicius,
and numerous mediaeval and modern writers.




1885.]               Anthropomorphism.                    531
a pleroma of intelligences, he demands, at least, some form
and degree of mediation. Further than this, man's inability
to comprehend the attributes of an Infinite Being has prompted
him to recognize the various departments of the divine empire
as apportioned to subordinate divinities; and these, the nearer
in nature they approach to man, awaken the warmer and livelier sympathy between man and the power which controls his
destiny. The culprit fears the hangman more than the king.
It seems certain that idols, images, and portraits of divinities
among the heathen possess a significance entirely analogous.
They are mere stepping-stones from man to the idea of Godall the more essential in primitive times and among uncultured
peoples. They are things which can be comprehended. They
obtrude themselves upon man's perceptions; they awaken his
imagination, they stimulate his thoughts and elicit his religious
sentiments.  "Statues and altars," says the Emperor Julian,
and the preservation of unextinguished fire, and, in short, all
such particulars, have been established by our fathers as symbols of the presence of the gods; not that we should believe
that these symbols are gods, but that through these we should
worship the gods. For, since we are connected with body, it is
also necessary that our worship of the gods should be performed in a corporeal manner; but they are incorporeal "-and
much more to the same effect.*  Much of similar purport
might be cited from  Sallust. the Neoplatonist,t Maximus
Tyrius,s Plutarch,~ and others.  Says Dr. Stillingfleet:
Dio Chrysostom at large debates the case about images in his
Olympic Oration, wherein he first shows that all men have a
natural apprehension of one supreme God, the father of all
things, and that this God was represented by the statue made
by Phidias of Jupiter Olympius, for so he said, 7rap' a vivv eqev,
before whom we now are; and then describes him to be the king,
ruler, and father of all, both gods and men. This image he calls
the most blessed, the most excellent, the most beautiful, the most
beloved image of God.... After this he supposes Phidias to
be called to account for making such an image of God, as unworthy of him; when Iphitus, Lycurgus, and the old Eleans
made none at all of him, as being out of the power of man to
express his nature. To this Phidias replies that no man can
* Julian, in a fragment " On the Duties of a Priest."
t Sallust, " De Diis et Mundo."  ~ Tyrius, Dissertatio xxxviii.
~ Plutarch, " De Iside et Osiride."




532                    Mlethodist Review.                   [July,
express mind and understanding by figures or colors, and, therefore, they are forced to fly to that in which the soul inhabits,
and from thence they attribute the seat of wisdom and reason to
God, having nothing better to represent him by. And by that
means, joining power and art together, they endeavor, by something which may be seen and painted, to represent that which is
invisible and inexpressible. But, it may be said, we had better
then have no image or representation of him at all. No, says
he; for mankind doth not love to worship God at a distance, but
to come near and feel him, and with assurance to sacrifice to him
and crown him. Like children newly weaned from their parents,
who put out their hands toward them in their dreams, as if they
were still present, so do men, out of the sense of God's goodness and their relation to him, love to have him represented as
present with them, and so to converse with him.  Hence have
come all the representations of God among the barbarous nations, in mountains, and trees, and stones.*
As to the views with which modern idolaters of intelligence
perform  their acts of worship in the  presence of inanimate
images, a few citations will prove instructive.  Erskine says:
The learned Brahmins adore one God, without form or quality,
eternal, unchangeable, and occupying all space; but they carefully confine these doctrines to their own schools as dangerous;
and teach in public a religion in which, in supposed compliance
with the infirmities and passions of human nature, the deity is
brought more to a level with our prejudices and wants. The
incomprehensible attributes ascribed to him are invested with
sensible and even human forms. The mind, lost in meditation,
and fatigued in the pursuit of something which, being divested
of all sensible qualities, suffers the thoughts to wander without
finding a resting-place, is happy, they tell us, to have an object
on which human feelings and human senses may again find repose.  To give a metaphysical Deity to ignorant and sensual men,
absorbed in the cares of supporting animal existence, and entangled in the impediments of matter, would be to condemn them
to atheism.  Such is the mode in which the Brahmins excuse the
gross idolatry of their religion.f
* Stillingfleet, answer to a book entitled "Catholics no Idolaters," page 414.
Similarly, Jamblichus thought the statues of the gods endued with power derived from the divine presence, as many Platonists and Neoplatonists, down to
modern times, have conceived the heavenly bodies to be animated by the presence of divinities dwelling in them.
t William Erskine, "Bombay Transactions," i, 199.  Compare Colebrooke,
" Asiatic Researches," viii, 279, 396, and quotations in Bohlen, "Das alte Indien,"
i, 153; Max Miller, "Chips from a German Workshop," i, 27-39, etc., and "History of Sanskrit Literature;" Lassen, "Indische Alterthumskunde;" J. Muir,
"Sanskrit Texts; " W. W. Hunter, " nnals of Rural Bengal," 116.




1885.]              Anthropomorphism.                   533
From  M. Bernier we learn that when at the University of
Benares he reproached one of the learned men with idolatry,
and asked an explanation. His respondent said:
"We have, indeed, in our temples many different statues, etc.,. But we do not believe these statues to be Brahma, etc.,
themselves, but only their images and representations, and we
only give them that honor on account of the beings they represent. They are in our temples, because it is necessary, in order
to pray well, to have something before our eyes that may fix the
mind. And when we pray, it is not the statue we pray to, but
he that is represented by it." "
Of similar purport we find the testimony of another modern
Hindu, "a gentleman of high caste," protesting concerning the
idols employed in his worship.  Babu Amrita Lal Roy, speaking of the Hindu family worship, says:
Many families, longing for some visible object to represent the
Deity, bring from the river-side a small black stone and lay it on
the sacred stool. The weight of this stone expresses to them
strength and solidity. It helps them to think of the substantial
force and power of the Infinite. This may stand for what among
the white races is known as an Indian idol. Every Hindu knows
that the various images we use to represent the supernatural are
not God, but each thing represents some quality of the Supreme
Being. Christians think with reverence of their Bible, though
they know it is made of paper which was rags. Just so a Hindu
treats with reverence one of his idols. He knows it is clay, or
stone, or wood, and no more God than paper rags; but, like the
Bible, his piece of clay or stone helps him to think of God. t
Heathenism, indeed, has sometimes forgotten that these ancillaries to devotion are but symbols. The poor Hottentot may
venerate his fetich with the most devout belief that the Supreme
Spirit, whose presence he feels, is embodied in the worthless
stick before which he trembles.  The ignorant Buddhist may
bow in the presence of his idol as unmindful as the Jew before
his shekinah that metal and wood have no power to control
human destiny. So the ignorant Greek, undoubtedly, sometimes fell before the image of Athene with devotion as unreserved as that experienced by the ignorant papist in kneeling
before the image of Mary.
The views here set forth enable us to contemplate in the
proper light the constantly manifested tendency of certain
* Bernier, "Memoires," tome iii, 171.  f "Dio Lewis's Monthly," 1883.




534                 Methodist Review.                [July,
schools of Protestantism to hold on to the symbolism of abandoned papacy, or even to revert into the mother Church.
Visible forms and imposing ceremonies invented or adapted
from paganism, as aids to devotion, when European civilization
was in its infancy, are still as agreeable and as necessary as ever
to minds in an infantile or sensualistic stage of culture, or in
which the religious sentiments bear a large ratio to the intellectual powers. These terms are not employed in a reproachful sense. Viewing human condition as it is, it may be the
part of wisdom to condescend to capacities impervious to abstractions, and keep alive the sense of immanent divinity and
inexorable duty by an impressive amount of pomp and sensible
symbolism. In the lowest stratum of popular politics the same
principle is strikingly exemplified, especially in America. An
eloquent or argumentative presentation of political doctrine may
convince a hundred; but a political log-cabin or a rustic railsplitter in a procession will settle the convictions of a thousand.
All these symbols and acts prompted by the religious nature
of man are worthy of our profound respect and most philosophic study. Undoubtedly, when properly analyzed and interpreted, they will be found witnesses of the universality of a
profound spiritual monotheism ingrained in the constitution of
the human soul, and will teach us charity and justice in contemplating the contrast between our own religion and that of
the less fortunate representatives of our species. They will
show us, at least, that anthropomorphism is a necessary element
in every human system, not less in religion than in government, philosophy, and science; and that it is no reproach to
the religion of a people to discover it anthropomorphic unless
there can be shown a degree of anthropomorphism which is incongruous with the intellectual.grade and cultus of the people.
Every degree of anthropomorphism is a falling short of adequate and worthy apprehension of divine relations. It is,
therefore, determined by limitations of intelligence.  These
may be either constitutional and irremediable, or cultural and
remediable. If the former, we must be content with a religion
permanently adjusted to the limitations. If the latter, we may
address ourselves to the culture of the intelligence and the enlargement of its comprehension of the natural world. The
processes of religious education must not, then, be, under all




1885.]              Anthropomorphism.                    535
circumstances, the same. We must condescend to the intelligence of the child and the childlike intelligence of the savage.
The mind of the child will expand with age and education,
that of the savage, in spite of a low receptivity for culture,
will remain permanently childish, and any religious doctrine
suited to his condition must be permanently anthropomorphic.
On the contrary, the intelligent heathen and the uneducated
member of Christianized society lack culture. In the effort to
impart improved religious conceptions the intellect requires
expansion and furniture.  The heathen Hindu or Chinaman is
not to be approached in the same way as the degraded Dyak or
the Kroo.
If, then, the adequacy of our conception of divine things is
conditioned by cultural as well as constitutional intelligence, we
see how intimately connected are education and an exalted
type of religion, and how inseparable are ignorance and superstition, bigotry, idolatries, fetichism, and other forms of anthropomorphism, and how  deeply interested are the higher
interests of religion in the progress of ideas which furnish and
enlarge the intelligence.




































f >  t;::,
F^P
tience and the State
By Prof ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
Reprinted from the New Magazine, The Forum.








The Forum.
MARCH, 1886.
SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
IT is proposed to enunciate a few fundamental propositions
touching the relations between public prosperity and the progress of scientific ideas, and to deduce therefrom the duty of the
state toward science. The motive for this attempt is what seems
to be an increasing forgetfulness of these relations, and the consequent advent of causes of national deterioration. I do not expect to utter new truths. I only hope to recall some trite generalizations with such clearness and point as to stir attention and
impress a clear and living conviction.
With the great recent advance in scientific knowledge we
notice increasing dissatisfaction with the appropriation of public
funds to the promotion of the ends and means sought by highest
intelligence. The feeling is directed against the endowment of
pure research, against the application of scientific methods to
the development of public resources, and against the maintenance
at public cost of grades of education which aim at the dissemination of knowledge of the higher principles of science. It is
maintained that these ends are not of public importance, but
rather of individual interest, suited only to the gratification of a
small class, and of little benefit to the masses who represent business and labor.
The popular prejudice against the endowment of pure research is disclosed in the absence of such endowment, and in the
1




2                SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
fact that all pure research undertaken in our country is under
cover of a "practical" purpose.  The professor in his laboratory
must first do full duty as the servant of education-mostly
very elementary education-and then steal from hours claimed
by rest, sleep and social concernments, the opportunity to enter
upon his efforts to evolve new principles in science which invention may apply and industry may appropriate.  If the explorer of the national domain succeed in publishing to the world
some complete details and comprehensive conceptions respecting
the natural history and general geology of remote regions, the
work must be done as an accessory to the survey of some " military road " or transcontinental railway route, or supposed valuable "mineral region."  Though  important scientific results
have by such means been reached, the method is indirect, surreptitious, and embarrassing.  It has been necessitated by the
unwillingness of public authorities to devote public means to
research of a purely scientific character. Have we ever heard
of any public provision made, within thirty years, directly for
the encouragement of pure science?  The Coast Survey is for
the benefit of harbors, commerce, and national defense. The
National Observatory is for the benefit of navigation. The Geological Survey is for the advantage of the mining and land interests.  The Weather Bureau is for agriculture and inland
navigation.  Our deep-sea studies are in the interest of the fisheries.  Even our " transit of Venus " and polar expeditions are
justified to the popular and the legislative mind by characterizing
them as undertaken in the interests of navigation, industry, and
humanity.  Expenditures on the scientific work of the Smithsonian Institution are in fulfillment of obligations incurred in
the acceptance of the Smithson trust.
Much, it is pleasant to admit, has been done for pure science
by this method of indirection and subordination of the best interests of science both to the restraints of a commercial purpose and
the directorship of an unappreciating, sometimes an embarrassing personality.  But science thus subordinated marches with a
crippled step, and is slower than she might be in evolving the
hidden truths of nature. Even of this method short-sighted
utilitarianism is manifesting jealousy which daily increases.




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                     3
The growing apathy of our public authorities toward the
application of scientific methods to the exploration of the public
domain, is manifested in the increasing reluctance to provide for
scientific methods of research in making such surveys, and the
tendency to limit them to simple empirical processes. It is seen
in inability to appreciate the value of scientific results when
produced, and refusal to provide for their publication. Masses
of precious material are thus lying in mildew and neglect, simply because too scientific for direct application to the purposes
of lode-discovery, mineral working, or some similar utility.
Men of recognized scientific capacity have been displaced from
position to gratify the clamor for some empiricist or tool of an
empirical spirit, or perhaps even to suit the political change in
a State administration.
The popular lack of appreciation of the importance of the
dissemination of scientific ideas is shown in the growing reluctance of the people-more correctly the political leaders who
assume to represent the people-to continue provision for local
high schools and State universities.  In numerous cities the
issue has been brought during a few years past, whether the
high school is an institution which all the people should unite
to maintain.  At this moment the city of Detroit is about to
bring the interests of education to confront this alternative; and
a Board of Education elected largely in saloons by majorities of
misled voters, ignorant of their real interests in any of the higher
questions of government, is said to be equally divided on the
question of the continuance of the high school in the metropolitan city of the State which enjoys the fame of supporting the
University of Michigan.  Undoubtedly the high school will be
saved, but the present apprehension is painfully prophetic. In
the great " Empire State" a Regent of the University has put
on record the opinion that higher education is " a mere personal
adornment" of the individual, and not a need of the state.
Such, in part, are the indications of what seems to me an
inadequate popular and official estimate of the value of science
to the state. In all the particulars referred to, public indifference and public prejudice are plainly on the increase.  The
present generation is proposing to reverse policies once con



4                SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
sidered wise, and to undo beneficent work which the wisdom of
our predecessors planned and executed.
With adeep conviction that these tendencies are detrimental
to our common interests, feeling that much personal observation
and prolonged study of the scientific and political principles
involved in the question authorize me to express opinions, I here
appeal to my countrymen, and especially to public men and the
representatives of our business interests, to listen to a concise
statement of principles and conclusions.
In the first place, the prosperity of the State and the happiness of individuals are conditioned on the grade and character
of our civilization. Lower our plane of civilization, and national
and individual prosperity must be diminished.  This proposition
is sustained by the comparison of our own prosperity with that
of other nations admittedly on a lower plane of civilization. I
beg the reader to make the comparisons and reflect on their teaching. It is sustained, also, by an analysis of the meaning of
prosperity and of the forces of civilization.  What do we understand byprosperity?  Comprehensively, the possession of enlarging opportunities to secure the gratification of our material,
intellectual, social, and spiritual wants.  We are happy in proportion to the fullness and range of our gratifications. I think
this position will not be questioned by any reader.  No person
can claim that the happiness of the Indian or the HEottentot, with
his limited facilities for securing gratifications, is a sum equal to
that of the civilized man. If so, then all our praise of civilization is irony.  Nor will it be claimed that provision for material
wants, alone or chiefly, supplies the maximum  of happiness.
Luxuries used and not abused are means of happiness, but social
relations are a higher source of happiness. To these must be
added the pleasures of the intellect and the esthetic faculties to
secure -us against ennui and satiety.  Then, whatever may be
pretended or believed by a: few, the exercise of the moral and
religious nature is to all a source of happiness, and to most a
necessity.  The religious nature imperiously demands gratification; and those who would organize society or any of its in
stitutions in denial of the rights of the religious nature, plan
only despair and misery. The purpose is not that of a normal
and well-balanced mind.




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                   5
Now let us consider by what instrumentalities of civilization
these gratifications are secured. Among material gratifications
are those provided through rapid transit. In a few hours the passenger finds himself in a remote city. The irksomeness of travel
without steam is avoided; much time is saved for other occupation; the individual's efforts become more productive; life is
lengthened. All these ends are desirable. Further, rapid transit
renders possible a great range of delicacies for the palate. All
the foods of the tropics are accessible to the dweller in another
zone; all the foods of the temperate zone may find their way to
the tropics. Rapid transit has created an enormous mail service
between distant points.  Men who cannot meet may yet hold
intercourse and transact important business. Rapid and cheap
transit has rendered available in one region or country any of
the products of other and distant regions. The cattle reared in
the grassy valleys of Texas, Colorado, or Montana are marketed
in New York and London.  The corn-fed pork of Illinois is sold
in New York or Hamburg.  The wheat fields of Dakota feed
the hungry in Paris. Thus the food of distant communities is
cheapened, and more means are left for other gratifications.
These are commonplace suggestions; but there is a neglected
inference to be drawn from them.
The telegraph and telephone ought to be reckoned among
instrumentalities for material gratification; since all that is accomplished through written correspondence is often better, and
also more expeditiously, accomplished by these inventions. The
multiplied inventions for facilitating the operations of agriculture
and mining; the machines which produce numberless modifications of iron, brass and wood; the cheapness of pins and matches
and needles; the perfection of thread, yarn and twine; the sewing and knitting machines; the use of mucilage in place of
wafers; drills of various sorts; numberless tools, engines, lathes,
grinding and polishing appliances-these, in brief, suggest the
diversified means by which business is promoted and material
gratifications secured. The material comforts of home, hotel and
shop are enhanced by sundry mechanical and engineering devices.  Drainage, water, gas, steam, elevators, are names which
connote many of our most esteemed sources of convenience and




6                SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
bodily comfort.  These, certainly, are all products of high civilization.
Social gratifications have also undergone great enhancement
through the service of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, and
household engineering. Parted friends may easily meet again.
While separated, the actual presence is wonderfully simulated
by written correspondence and telegraphic, or especially telephonic, communication.  Mail and express provide for easy exchange of tokens of love and remembrance.  Within a lifetime
the removal of a member of a family from eastern New York to
the " Genesee Valley " or the " Western Reserve " was the next
thing to separation by death itself; how is all this changed within
the memory of a generation! And how much happiness is thus
added to the lot of separated families. Even the Atlantic is a less
formidable barrier to intercourse than the breadth of a State in
the days before the means of rapid transmission of passengers,
commodities and intelligence.
The means of intellectual gratification have been signally
augmented by the agencies already mentioned.  Intelligence is
stimulated by the easy opportunity to visit other regions, other
communities, other industrial processes and products. Provincial narrowness is prevented; the knowledge of each becomes the
knowledge of all; the language remains a unity.  The intelligence enlarged by travel feels impulses to original effort; it becomes productive, and perchance contributes to the common
fund of ideas.  The steam-press has made books cheap and
numerous; every reader's mind impinges upon the broad current
of thoughts sped through the world through the agency of types
and presses.  All that learning is and accomplishes; all that
ready information concerning world-wide contemporary history
is doing to quicken mental activity-to expedite conclusions, to
make the experience of each nation profitable to all nations, to
supplement the unfinished thought of one by the happy suggestion of another, to make the rich soil of European ideas bear the
golden fruit of American invention-becomes not only the intellectual gratification of a few, but a stimulus and a pleasure to
the universal intelligence.  I hope the reader will pause over
this suggestion, and enter into a fuller realization of the sources




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                    7
of the happiness which he derives from the quickened intelligence awakened by the agencies of our high civilization.
I need not enlarge on this branch of our reflections.  It is
easy for the reader to discern the instrumentalities which promote and widen and rationalize and render more efficient the
activities of man's religious and moral nature.  I desire only to
say enough to direct attention distinctly to the agencies which
augment human gratifications and constitute public and private
prosperity; and to show that these agencies are the product of
what we call civilization, and increase with the advance of civilization. I wish to show, in the second place, that these elements
and forces of civilization have been contributed by science. It is
impossible to contemplate the array of inventions and mechanical adaptations which constitute the recognized agencies of civilization, without noting at once that they are the products of
mind. Every one who reflects at all will observe this.  But at
this point many persons fall under a misapprehension.  The last
exercise of intelligence is invention, and unless we analyze the
sources and grounds of invention we are inclined to ascribe the
sole credit for it to the inventor.
It is notorious that many inventors are mere empiricists, going according to the method of "cut and try."  Of scientific
knowledge they possess little. Sometimes they are ignorant even
of the principles which they attempt to utilize.  But the inventor hands over to civilization the piece of mechanism which supplies a conspicuous want, and civilization bestows on him its
eulogies and its emoluments.
Beyond all question the usage of civilization in this respect
involves an oversight and an injustice.  Nearly every invention is an application of one or more abstract principles in pure
science. There are machines, indeed, which consist exclusively
of combinations of mechanical powers, but many, even of these,
must be operated by the steam engine.  Undoubtedly the discoverer of the application deserves honor and reward, but, undoubtedly, so does the discoverer of the principle. Very seldom
is the inventor the discoverer of a new truth. The truth has
been brought to light by some devotee of science, actuated only
by the love of truth, and, like Faraday, unwilling to take the




8                SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
time for money-making.  How much nobler a motive than the
love of gain which many times (not always) is the sole incentive
of the inventor.  To the credit of invention be it said, that in
some instances the discoverer of the principle is also the discoverer of the application, and his incentive is the welfare of his
fellow-beings. Davy, who discovered that flame would not pass
through a narrow tube, conceived the meshes of wire gauze to
be an assemblage of such tubes, and invented the safety lamp
and gave it for the protection of the coal miner. Similarly with
Franklin and the lightning-rod.
But the history of some of our most notable inventions exhibits first, a solitary student of the hidden truth of nature, struggling with inadequate means  often poverty itself-bringing to
light a new principle, leaving it a legacy to the world, and bequeathing his family dependence and material want; while,
secondly, some contemporary or successor, perhaps equally devoted and self-sacrificing, appropriates the principle, applies it
to use, takes out a patent and rolls in wealth. However, the
relative deserts of him who discovers a principle and him who
applies it are not a chief aim in this discussion. I wish only to
show the intelligent reader that for the agencies of our beneficent
civilization we are indebted to intelligence which lies back of invention, and by its activity created conditions which rendered
invention possible.
It would be easy to specify cases; but a little reflection will
direct every reader's thought to the underlying principle of any
specific invention; and space at present command does not suffice for adequate presentation of particulars.  But I offer a few
condensed statements. The whole industry in colors and dyeing
has been revolutionized by the isolation of alizarin, in 1868, by
Graebe and Liebermann, who found it derivable from anthracene.
Gun-cotton which, in collodion, so long played an essential part
in wet-plate photography, was a result of the laboratory studies
of Sch6nbein in 1845.   Nitro-glycerin resulted from  the researches prosecuted by Sobrero in 1846 on the interactions of
nitric acid and glycerin. After improvements in the preparation
by Railton and De Vri, the inventor Nobel produced dynamite
by causing nitro-glycerin to be absorbed by charcoal, infusorial




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                 9
earth, or magnesia alba. The importance of dynamite and similar
adaptations of nitro-glycerin is apparent when we remember that
the improvements of Hell Gate depended on its agency, and
that the Sutro Tunnel was beset with insurmountable difficulties until dynamite was introduced. The Sutro Tunnel rendered
possible the deep exploitation of mines on the Comstock Lode.
Blasting gelatin, more recently introduced, while more manageable, is proving still more efficient. The essential principle in
all modern clocks is the isochronous vibration of the pendulum.
The clock enters as a factor of utmost importance in the life of
our civilization; but its central principle was brought to light
by scientific observation generally ascribed to Galileo in 1639.
The application of the principle to the measurement of the progress of a "train" was a later invention, claims to which have
been set up by several persons living in the early part of the
seventeenth century.
Electricity in our times plays a part which has given civilization a marked impulse. Annihilate the electric telegraph, the
telephone, the processes of electro-plating, the electrotype and
electric lighting, and we should feel ourselves set back for ages.
But note the progressive evolution of the scientific principles
on which these inventions are based. Frictional electricity had
been known for centuries, when Galvani in 1790, and Volta in
1800, showed that electricity could be excited by chemical action
upon certain metals disposed in a particular way. It has since
been shown that galvanic electricity is identical with frictional
electricity. But its chemical effects far transcend those of ordinary electricity. Water, earths, and alkalis were decomposed
as early as 1807. Later, the "battery" has been so improved
by Wollaston, Hare, Sturgeon, Smee, Grove, Daniell, Bunsen,
Leclanche and others, that prolonged and efficient currents
could be produced. Thus the art of electro-plating sprang up,
the first patents for which were taken out in 1840 by Elkington
in England and Ruolz in France. Thus also the very important
art of electrotype, invented by Jacobi in 1839, and now extensively employed in the production of copies of wood-engravings.
In 1820, the mutual relations of electricity and magnetism
were discovered by Oersted, and the physicists of Europe occu



10                SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
pied themselves in investigating the phenomena. Arago first
observed the power of a current of electricity to induce magnetism in a bar of soft iron, and the loss of the magnetism on the
breaking of the current, though the process might be repeated indefinitely.  Thus arose the "temporary magnet," which was
turned to account so happily in the electric telegraph, the culmination of a succession of contributions of accessory principles,
by Weber and Gauss, Steinheil, who discovered the earth current,
Wheatstone, and others.  Morse, at length, in 1835, after devising his ingenious alphabet, and contributing the "relay" for the
reinforcement of the current, succeeded in the invention of the
working electric telegraph; and in 1844 brought it into practical operation. To this time, the scientific principles worked out
by a long series of distinguished names, remained comparatively
unfruitful; and the sons of science labored without the encouragement of pecuniary reward, or even of popular appreciation.
Yet the contributions of this long line of devotees of pure science
were the essential prerequisites to the invention of Morse. To
whom then belongs the world's homage for the bestowment of
this inestimable agency of intelligence, society, business and
civilization.
The telephone is fundamentally another outcome of the same
body of ideas, with the additional principle, called "nicrophonic action," supplied through a'"transmitter," by Reiss in 1860;
improved in application by Yates in 1866; and further improved
by Gray and by Bell in 1876. To whom is the world indebted
in homage and recompense for the indispensable telephone?
We enumerate not less than six scientific principles combined
in its production: current or Voltaic electricity; interaction of
magnetism and electricity; the temporary magnet; the earth
current; microphonic action; the working adaptation of carbon.
Who, then, produced the telephone?
Another outcome of the investigations of Oersted, in 1820,
was the discovery of a tangential force between an electric current and a magnetic pole.  The phenomenon was investigated
by Wollaston and Ampere, and the latter subjected it to a beautiful mathematical study, which was productive of further developments.  In 1821 Faraday showed that this tangential force




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                11
was capable of developing rotary motion, and thus serving as a
motive power.  One of the first machines in which this principle
was applied was the invention of Ritchie in 1833. Practical
engines have been invented by Bourbouze, Froment and Daft.
Electro-magnetic engines have found use in scientific workshops, in driving telegraphic apparatus, on electric railways, and
for other purposes.
In 1824 Arago discovered the magnetism of rotation-or influence of a rotating copper plate on the direction of a magnetic
needle suspended over it-a mere isolated phenomenon of no
practical value; but when thought out and evolved by skillful
experimentation, a principle which led to results of the greatest
importance. In 1831 Faraday discovered the principle of induction of electric currents-something which cannot be here
explained, but a truth which constituted an essential link in the
series of conceptions which led to the construction of magnetoelectric machines for the development of great supplies of electricity. The first was invented in 1833 by Pixii. Successive
improvements have been suggested by Siemens, Wilde, Wheatstone, Paccinotti, who invented the circular magnet, and Gramme.
The principle of the convertibility of electricity into heat and
light led to the application of these prolonged currents to the
lighting of buildings and streets.
The perfection of telegraphy, duplex and quadruplex, aside
from the improvement of batteries, has been achieved in later
times through the contribution of new conceptions by Faraday,
Kirchhof, Wheatstone, Thomson, Guillemin, Varley, Jenkins,
Edison and others.  Sir William Thomson and Wheatstone have
contributed especially to improve the sensitiveness of galvanometers, and thus to increase their usefulness for the feeble currents of ocean cables. By such means these wonderful bonds of
union between the continents have become more manageable
and efficient, and especially has the ability been acquired to
locate ruptures and effect their prompt repair.
It would require a volume to furnish any adequate exposition of the indebtedness of the great modern inventions to pure
science., Without a broad survey, the reader will not be in a
position to appreciate the full force of the consideration here pre



12              SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
sented. I trust, however, that the few specifications made may
throw sufficient light on the genesis of inventions to enable the
intelligent reader to understand that an unbroken continuity
of dependence reaches from the prosperity and happiness of our
daily experience back to inventions which have multiplied a
thousand-fold the productiveness of human effort and the sources
of human enjoyment, and back still through lines of unostentatious and generally uncompensated investigators who, through
terms of years, have contributed to the body of scientific principles which have found their final applications in these splendid
and beneficent results.
If this is true, every individual is deeply concerned in the
history of scientific ideas; and every one is personally interested
in the promotion of discovery in the field of abstract truth.
Every newly discovered truth is necessarily, at first, unapplied;
but any abstract truth may sooner or later find its application
in some human utility. Moreover, in estimating the value of
abstract truths, I ought not to fail of mentioning the influence
exerted by them on the mind and heart of those who attain to a
knowledge and comprehension of them. The ennobling expansion and cultural influence of the contemplation of the truths of
nature is, in reality, a greater service rendered by science to
mankind than the supply of ideas which fructify in inventions.
And this service is rendered equally by those scientific conceptions which develop utility and those which do not.
These thoughts are offered in all seriousness and all earnestness to the prosperous business men of our country. If you are
prosperous, what are the conditions which have made you prosperous? Aside from the exercise of your own personal sagacity,
is it not true that the basis of your prosperity rests in the scientific principles that underlie the inventions which have placed
in your hands the most amazing opportunities for multiplying
the efficiency of your personal efforts? You go from your wellfurnished home and its "modern improvements," at a convenient hour. You speed by steam, in a few minutes, over the
dozen miles, more or less, which separate you from your office.
You seat yourself at your table and read the business messages
which mail and telegraph have brought you. In response to




SCIENCE AND THE STATE.                 13
one, you ring a little bell and talk with a business house in a
distant part of the city, or even in another city. In response to
another, you place your thumb on the button communicating
with an electric bell, and instantly an attendant is present to receive and transmit your orders.  Another button summons a
clerk in charge of another branch of your business, and he attends; he receives and, in due time, executes your commands.
He writes your letters on chemically prepared paper which
makes them manifold. If you deal in stocks or grain or other
great market commodities, the telegraph keeps you informed.
every instant respecting the state of the market in all the great
centers of trade. You know what has been done and is doing at
this hour in New York, Chicago, London, and Hamburg. You
are endowed with a species of omnipresence and omniscience.
You decide with a promptness and intelligence which vastly expedite your business and augment your profits. In three or
four hours your day's work is accomplished. You have done
more than a month's work under the slow regime which preceded the epoch of modern inventions. You now steam home
to your family, your friends, your pictures, and your books.
You take your dinner from decorated porcelain or china and
electro-plated ware. Your streets and your neighborhood are
illuminated at night by the intense electric light; and you sleep
peacefully and soundly under the protection of the electric burglar alarm.
Seriously now, have you considered that all this comfort, all
this celerity, all this prosperity had its foundations laid years
ago in the unnoticed, patient, prolonged, uncompensated investigations of the man of science in his ill-equipped, or perchance
well-equipped laboratory? That is a thing worthy of your consideration. Your own material interests suggest it. If science
sowed the seeds of this present prosperity, then science is worthy
of remembrance, thanks, reward. Then science is still sowing
the seeds of prosperity-who can tell in what form they will
germinate and mature? There is reason for fostering the efforts
of science to-day, as well as for acknowledgment of indebtedness to the past. Representatives of science as worthy as those
who laid the foundations on which we have built, are now at




14              SCIENCE AND THE STATE.
work. They are laying other foundations; on these augmented
prosperity will be reared.
Unless these be idle reasonings, every consideration prompts
to the sedulous promotion of the interests of science. This can
be done through considerate appreciation, through the general
dissemination of the knowledge of science by means of schools,
lectures, and books, by the abolition of the onerous and odious
tax on imported scientific works, and most directly by the provision of adequate means for the prosecution of purely scientific
4nquiries. These may be carried on, as has often been done, in
connection with direct practical aims, or through the endowment of pure research by the general or State government,
or by the large-minded and philanthropic munificence of individuals.
To choke the fountains of science is to dry the sources of
our prosperity.  Only the thoughtless will strike at the foundation of that civilization on which they prosper and fatten.  Only
the ignorant and undiscerning can declare that the acquisition
of science is a "mere personal adornment."' It is selfishness too
blinded for self-preservation which declares that science must
take care of itself. It is narrow statesmanship which refuses to
provide means for nourishing the sources of the state's prosperity.  The man who sneers at science perpetrates a more
stupid indignity than he who heaps contempt on his mother.
ALEXANDER WINCHELL.












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Press of J. J. Little &'Co,. Astor Place, New York




THIOTUGHITS
ON
SCIENCE TEACHING
BY ALEXANDER WINCHELL.
[From the FORTNIGHTLY INDEX, July 12, 1884.]
The so-called   inductive sciences'
are by no means exclusively inductive.  Nor can all science-teaching
be conducted exclusively by observational methods.  On these two
points much erroneous doctrine has
been inculcated. Aside from certain
rational principles which regulate all
intelligential processes, it may be
said that the  so-called inductive
sciences begin by induction, and are
founded on facts of observation. The
knowledge of the facts is the condition of the existence of the science.
The facts, while not constitutive of
science, are the data of science; and
in a process of education they must
be acquired.  A real portion of the




science consists of the body of generalizations based on the facts. Any
real knowledge of the science must
grasp these principles. But the body
of propositions generalized from the
data of science may next be employed
as grounds of deductive inference.
Only thus does science attain to a
knowledge of facts inaccessible to
observation.  Thus science becomes
a seer, and her vision penetrates beyond the limited range which bounds
the ken of the human race.  It is
only by deduction from generalized
principles that geology, for instance,
can  venture any affirmation concerning the history of the world in
the ages before human observation,
or can predict vicissitudes impending
in the remote future. Those portions
of a science reasoned out from general principles often constitute its
most important domain.  They generally afford the most entertaining
and inspiring themes for contemplation, and this is evidently because
the method carries us through time




and space and causation to distances
most remote from  the little circle
which limits the sphere of facts
merely observed.
We are thus reminded that the
subject matter of a science, aside
from  the transcendental concepts
and cognitions which are always implied, consists of: 1. Facts of observation.  2. Principles generalized
from  the facts.  3. Other facts deduced from those principles.
Here are three different kinds of
knowable materials to be dealt with
by the teacher of science. As to the
facts, it scarcely needs to be said
that the most effective method of
imparting a knowledge of them  to
others is the observational.  If the
facts of science are to be learned, the
best way is to bring the facts and the
learner together. The method of the
Kindergarten, the laboratory and the
field is truly the most efficient and
the most agreeable. Too much cannot be said of the importance of giving full exercise to the percipient




4
faculties, within all the range where
their activity is possible. But next,
if direct observation is impossible,
the pictoricd method is the best substitute, provided the pictures are intelligible and correct. Poor pictures
are misleading and a weariness. But
if these are not available in imparting a cognition of the facts, we must
employ the descriptive method. Here
everything depends on the clearness
of the describerls conception of the
thing, and the power of the learner
to picture mentally the thing described.  These are powers of the
imagination. Their exercise by the
teacher gives vividness, reality and
clearness to the fact set forth. Their
exercise by the learner gives vividness of conception which is the next
thing to visual perception.  In the
description of objects of natural history, some describers, with the object
before them, cannot phrase a description out of which a picture could be
formed.  Some who read the most
accurate and vivid descriptions have




5
no power to render them  in a clear
mental picture.  Hence the descriptive method as a dernier resort, is
neither to be employed undiscriminatingly, nor condemned unconditionally.
Next, as to the generalizations, the
ratiocinative process of acquisition
should be promoted in all cases; but
where the powers of the learner are
incapable of seizing the generalization, it must be enunciated doymatically.  The generalization  is the
first attainable constituent of the
science. It is of preeminent importance, and is imagined by some to be
the only genuine scientific material,
It is well if the pupil can view the
facts under such a presentation as to
draw the inference for himself. But
the inference must come into  his
possession, if only received on the
authority of the teacher.
As to the deductive materials of
science, they presume the existence
of generalized principles, and their
aequisition by onee of the two methods




just indicated. The deductive inferences from  them  should be drawn
by the unaided action of the learner's
intelligence, where the process is not
too recondite. More frequently, however, the learner can do no better
than to listen to the detail of inferences drawn by a teacher of adequate
knowledge, reflection and power of
statement.  The teaching is either
ratiocinative or dogmatic.
The data and principles of science
and  of teaching, thus recalled to
mind, reveal, manifestly, a certain
range of scientific knowledge which
may be approached by the observational method, and  should  be so
approached. The acquisition of all
which remains must be left to the
action of the learner's ratiocinative
powers, or, more frequently, to the
dogmatic enunciations of the teacher.
This discrimination cannot possibly
be ignored.  To insist that all scientific acquisition shall be by the observational method, is to betray ignorance of thea material of science. The




7
most important, the most real and
the only fundamental part of science
is accessible only to rational perception, not to sensible perception.  To
denounce the didactic or descriptive
presentation of facts is to assume
that all facts can be brought before
the sense of the learner, and this is
a baseless assumption. To denounce
all dogmatic statement of general
principles, is to assume that the tottering intellect of the young learner
is capable of drawing the same generalizations as have been framed by
the sturdiest efforts of experts, and
this is a baseless assumption.  To
denounce all dogmatic statement of
deductive inferences is to confess
inability to perceive the cogency of
of a priori evidence, and thus abdicate the privilege of passing judgment on it; or, if the validity of deductive science is admitted, it is to
assume that the learner is already
capable of taking, unsupported, the
loftiest flights of scientific speculation-a consequence, the very men



8
tion of which annihilates the assumption.  There must be sometimes a
descriptive statement of facts. There
must be a dogmatic delivery of inductive doctrines.  There must be,
unless we would have our teaching
grossly defective, a frequent dogmatic exposition of the necessary
consequences of established principles.
Finally, as to the times and circumstances under which these various
methods of teaching  may be employed, we have a few words to offer.
Let us first consider the learner of
tender years. It requires no argument to make it appear that the generalized and deductive principles of
science are not appropriate, or, in
any event, are less appropriate, than
the facts, to the active percipient
powers and the late-awakened reflective powers of the young. It seems,
however, to require argument to establish the belief in the minds of educators, that the learning of the facts
of science is positively suitable to




9
the faculties and aptitudes of the
young.  If the proposition were ac
cepted, we should not see children
and youths shut up for years to the
abstractions of arithmetic and grammar, the soporific and comparatively
unproductive details of  historical
names and dates, or the meaningless
and profitless lists of capes and headlands along some remote barbaric
shore. We are not denying the usefulness of these things, nor even
their comparative usefulness.  We
strongly feel, however, that during
the stage of childish perceptivity,
there is greater appropriateness and
productiveness in the exercise of the
faculties upon facts of present interest, and which actually enter into
the organization of sciences of transcendent influence and importance.
But, whatever finally may be agreed
as to the propriety of introducing the
natural sciences to the attention of
the child, it can hardly be denied
that the most rational method of doing this is to bring the child into con



10
tact with the facts, and leave his own
mind, as far as it is able, to draw the
general inferences to which the facts
point. It follows that books and
teachers which aim at a systematic,
synthetic presentation of one of the
natural sciences, forget the order of
development of mental faculties, and
prepare to leave a sense of weariness
and disgust where there might be a
feeling of interest and delight. The
only rational procedure with the
child, in the study of rudimentary
geology, for instance, is, therefore, to
take him into the field and permit
his faculties  of observation  and
thought  to  lead  him,  by  the
natural processes of investigation and
discovery, to the apprehension  of
those principles which constitute the
inductive department of the science.
His own faculties then are active,
and to some extent, in all cases, the
principles reached are principles discovered; the child feels a consciousness of success-a pride in it, an ex



11
hilaration over it, and the whole exercise is a delight.
If the case be that of a person entering on a thorough course of scientific study, then equally, an examination of the facts which constitute the
data of the science is the first thing in
natural order. This is the nature of
the study in an elementary course,
whether the pupil be a child in the
grammar school or a senior in college.
But the style of the presentation will
vary with the maturity of the learner,
and so will the prompting needed in
drawing the appropriate lessons from
the facts. It is a needlessly prosaic,
heavy and deadening process to start
a course in science with the conning
and memorizing of abstract general
statements which rest on no evidence
visible to the learner, and sustain no
recognized relation to any body of
knowledge which interests and inspires, and lifts up the mind. With
all the inspiration which belongs to
science, it is easy to give it a cold and
soporific presentation to the beginner.




12
The order of ideas in the historic
development of a science is nature's
order in the development of the same
ideas in the individual mind. What
is most natural is most pleasant and
most profitable.
As the study of the science proceeds, the student's mind is prepared
for the reception of the higher generalizations, and the far-reaching results of deductive reasoning.  The
skillful teacher will cause the data to
pass before the learner's mind in such
order as to prompt the mind, through
its own energy, to reach these inferences as original discoveries. That is
the best teaching, and those are the
best text-books, which  secure the
most of this productive spontaneity.
But, as before stated, much must always be enunciated by authority.
Especially, while the person continues in the relation of pupil rather
than independent investigator, will
it remain appropriate and best for
the teacher in his own language and
way, to enlarge upon the far-reach



13
ing consequences of those modes of
being and action which are expressed
in the higher generalizations of science. To trace those consequences
leads the learner's thoughts and imagination into realms so remote from
present experience that novelty and
wonder lend new incentives to attention and add exalted interest to the
conceptions of the science. These
higher generalizations and loftier deductions are a grand sequel to the
earlier details of facts and the later
formulation of doctrines, and they
may advantageously be reserved for
formal lecture presentation.
There are still other circumstances
in which every teacher of science is
liable to find himself  sometimes
placed.  Multitudes of persons who
cannot or will not pursue any thorough course of scientific study, still
desire a knowledge of the grand results of science.  This, indeed, is all
which the world at large cares for. It
is in trnth all which enters into the
cultural influence which science exerts upon the intelligence of the
masses.  Now, as has been shown,




14
this class of scientific knowledge, to
those who have not reasoned up to
it from the facts, must necessarily
be imparted by means of dogmatic
statements, and the learner must
rest content with the results, ignorant, largely, of the data from which
they have been reached.  This may
be half-knowledge, but beyond question, it may be very interesting and
very valuable knowledge.  This is
the department of scientific knowledge best suited  for impartation
through popular lectures.  It is the
aspect of science to which the popular intelligence always turns with
eagerness. Still, it is not to be supposed that the highest appreciation
requires the exclusion of all statements of fact. The mind-even the
popular mind-takes delight in its
own activity.  It likes to trace the
relations of causality by means inductive and deductive. The lecturer,
for instance, may direct the attention
of his hearers to the familiar phenomena of erosion, occurring within
the narrow sphere of his own observation.  The hearer will easily follow the generalization of this action
into a universal phenomenon; and
then, by a mental process equally




15
agreeable, he will accompany the
lecturer in  a delineation of the
ulterior consequences of such geological action. The experimental sciences afford superior opportunities
for conducting the hearer over the
steps of fact, generalization and deduction.  But, to assume that no
popular instruction in science is
legitimate which does not accompany every conclusion by its appropriate proof, is the affectation of a
mind which has been running in a
rut. To summarize results,we may say
that instruction in natural science
intended for youthful learners, should
deal chiefly with the concrete data,
giving occasional glimpses of the
ratiocinative procedures to be based
on them.  Definitions and general
enunciations should come at the end
instead of the beginning. This work
compasses the  rudiments of  the
science. For all persons entering on
a thorough course, a similar method
should be pursued, extending the
range of logical inferences as knowledge accumulates, or the maturity
of the learner is more advanced.
The inductive method may well be
supplemented by formal, descriptive,
didactic and dogmatic presentations.




16
This instruction may cover the fund
amental facts and doctrines, and the
prominent theories in the science.
It embraces the elements of the subject, and ought always to be acquired
during the preparation for college.
The third phase of scientific teaching,
which may be noted as collegiate,
should combine  the same method
with a larger supplement of lectures
designed to gather into a unity, with
a clearer coordination of parts, the
somewhat disjointed results of observational and inductive study, and to
lead the learner's mind over the lofty
ranges of remoter generalization, and
ulterior results of the causes in
action.  A fourth form of presentation is -the popular, in which the
interest and profit of the learner require a minimum  of facts and a
maximum  of general conceptions.
Thus the method of instruction in
natural science is not one and uniform. It must vary with the subject
matter and with the age and aims of
the learner. It may be rudimentary,
prepararory, collegiate or popular,
and in each case a different proportion of the concrete and reflective
constituents of science must be presentedto the mind.




Advantages of Scientific Education.
By ALEXANDER  WINCHELL.
Reprirlted fromrr MVethodist Review, VMarch, 1889.
I~~~~~~~~~~I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..............................~~~~~~l~~~d~~~~.~~~~~




1889.]     The New Education: A Symposium.               201
ART. III.-THE NEW  EDUCATION: A SYMPOSIUM.
ADVANTAGES OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.
To set forth with effective intelligibility the special advantages of scientific education would require many times the
amount of space here at command; but I will endeavor, in a
few pages, to outline the treatment.  Education is provided by
legislators and sought by learners for the value which it brings
the learner in ids own person, and in the power acquired to
exert a beneficial influence over others. The personal result
is culture, in the proper use of the term; and the power
acquired proceeds from  a more effective use of the faculties
gained through culture, and from increased knowledge placed
at the command of the faculties.  Education must be contemplated in its cultural aspect and in its practical aspect. Neither
should exclude the other.  Theories of education exclusively
cultural are an affectation. Theories of an education exclusively
practical are illiberal.
The cultural result of education may be physical, intellectual, or moral. Certain mnodes of activity produce chiefly plysical culture; others, chiefly intellectual; and others, chiefly
ethical.  Training deliberately physical in its aims is excluded
from this discussion.  But it is evident that those kinds of
activity which incidentally involve physical culture possess
thereby increased value; and I shall claim  such an incidental
result for certain forms of science.  The form of culture most
conspicuous among the results of scientific study is intellectual; and it is this which I will first consider.  But almost
equally important is the ethical culture which is received as an
incident of scientific study. This I will explain in the sequel.
Intellectual culture consists in the culture of the various
powers of the intellect.  Viewing the acquisition of knowledge
as the means of culture, the powers exercised will vary with the
kind of knowledge sought.  If we seek a knowledge of facts
of observation, the percipient faculties will be brought foremost into activity.  If we seek a knowledge of history, the
mnemory will bear the brunt of the effort.  If we seek a knowledge of Latin, the verbal memory is most severely tasked.
13 —FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.




o902                 Methodist Review.                [March,
A knowledge of the principles of geology or biology exercises
first the observing powers, and then those of inductive inference.
Mathematics brings into requisition the powers of abstraction
and deductive reasoning.  Polite literature awakens especially
the sentiments and the imagination. For purposes of culture,
those studies are of most worth which bring into exercise the
widest range of powers, and thus tend to preserve the symmetry
of intellectual development.
Studies must also be considered in their relation to the stage
of the mind's development.  The early aptitudes of the mind
are toward observation and circumstantial memory.  An abstract study is misplaced in the primary school. The powers of
inductive inference begin to dawn in childhood, and thus inductive sciences are indicated as a field for their exercise. These
powers strengthen through life.  A  study which, like Latin,
supplies no material for their exercise, affords but a defective
culture.  It is only in maturer years that the deductive reason
ripens.  For this, languages, literature, and history supply no
material; but the sciences are affluent in incitements to activity.
Generally, I find the broad statement justified, that the sciences as a whole and as separate yield the most diversified culture. Each of the natural sciences elicits into activity, sooner
or later, every power of the humcan mind, and thus confers a
culture which is symmetrical and complete.  No such statement can be made of the studies by tradition called "humanistic."
Let me now  be more specific.  I confine myself to the
group of natural sciences, and, as an illustration of these, I
will speak of geology.  It is a science consisting of facts, doctrines, and theories.  Facts are the initial point in all geological
cognition.  The facts of geology are data of observation by
the senses.  This department of geology, therefore, is suited
to early years.  The facts are familiar.  They throng our
foot-paths and our travels.  They are therefore easy of access.
For both reasons they supply a more natural, and therefore a
more profitable, culture than the conning of the abstractions of
grammar or the memorizing of passages of history.  The
facts must be sought in the fields and mountains-in the open
air, with pleasant walks and genial exercise of body. This is
better than saddening the soul and wearying the flesh in the




1889.]      The New.Education: A Symposium.              203
confinement of a school-room. The field of geologic facts is so
varied that the child's nmihd discovers the needed variety.  It
discovers for itself, and gains that peculiar delight which accompanies all discovery of new truth. This is better than consignmnent to penal servitude on a hard bench.  This testimony
will be found unanimous.
Next, the doctrines of geology are chiefly the generalizations
induced from  the facts observed.  Some of the doctrines are
these: The age of tile world is very great.  The action of
terrestrial forces has been the same in nature in all the world's
history. All the lands have lain under the sea.  The stratified
rocks are formed from sea-sediments.  The earliest forms of
life were simple in organization. A gradual advance in the
rank of the earth's inhabitants has accompanied the progress of
the earth's preparation.  The history of the world has been a
history of cooling.  Such generalizations are induced from the
facts of observation. The child does little at inductive reasoning, but he begins, and he does more with advance of years, and
more under the suggestions of the facts.  Geology, like the
other inductive sciences, brings training to the inductive faculties. These are pre-eminently the faculties of modern science,
which has created modern civilization.  A citizen is not broadly
and liberally educated until he has prepared himself to appreciate the nature of the forces of that civilization which nourishes him, and also to take part in its activities.  Few early
studies in the conventional literary or linguistic curriculum
stimulate to any extent the inductive powers. As pursued in
early life, Latin and Greek supply no training for these powers.  History, geography, and arithmetic afford none.  Unless
the boy takes up geology or some of the kindred studies, he
goes through the first ten years of schooling without any of
that training which modern life demands. The schools do not
fit him, in culture or knowledge, to participate in the characteristic activities of the age.  They who conduct those activities have been fitted without thanks to the schools.
While thus the acquisition of the facts trains the observing
powers and the sense-memory, the principles induced from them
train the inductive powers and the thought-memory, and the
mental pictures by which the inductive truth is rendered clear
and vivid afford a training for the imagination. These results




204                   Methodist Review.               LMarch,
must be fully weighed, t         though te words which embody them
are few. None of these results come fromn linguistic and literary study.
Geology and, to some extent, the other inductive sciences
go much further. The great induced principles of the science
serve as starting-points for processes of a deductive character.
In geology, for example, all we know  or believe in reference
to future vicissitudes of the world is known through deduction as strict as that which fixes the fact and.the date of an
eclipse.  It is by deduction from  the inductive principle of a
cooling world that we are able to reason back to primordial
conditions; to trace them out in their historic development; to
detect in those conditions the common data of all world-life,
and thus to rise to the grand conception of the unity of the
world's career; the unity of all world-life; the unity of the
empire of nature; the unity of the histories past with the unenacted histories future-and thus the unity of the power and
wisdom which govern in all time and all space.  The activity
of the mind in such reasonings is of the kind which mathematics and logic awaken.  The power of unfolding a principle
in the details of fact which it involves is a high and a noble
power, and confers majesty and  weight upon intelligence.
But for such mental training languages and literatures afford
no facilities in early education. The reflective pursuit of these
forms of learning is collegiate and post-collegiate.
Collaterally, such pursuit of trains of deductive reflection
diciplines the thougyt-memnory; and the effort to grasp deductive results and apprehend them  with vividness calls for the
noblest and boldest picturing power of the imagination.
Thus, in its successive stages and departments, the study of
geology elicits every mlental power into earnest exercise; and
the order of its demands coincides with the order of development of the faculties.  It is therefore a means of complete and
symmetrical culture.  I insist upon this conclusion. Do the
languages and literatures afford training for the whole range
of faculties? No person will affirm it.  I also insist upon this
conclusion. Viewed, then, as means of intellectual culture the
natural sciences possess indisputable pre-eminence.
But we must view the sciences also as a' means of ethical
culture.  The ethical influence is direct, incidental, and refex.




1889.].The New Education; A Symposium.               205
No person of broad intelligence and warm  imagination can
follow the trains of deductive thought which I lhave indicated
without receiving a profound  moral impression. The native
intuitions of the mind stand ready ever to interpret the conceptions which deduction unfolds and imagination depicts.
Unity throughout space; unity through all tine —past and
present; unity of plan, purpose; vastness which by an intuitive illation becomes infinity; intelligence as the correlative of
plan; boundless, infinite intelligence, and co-ordinated powerGod before all, in all, changeless and infinite-this is the climax
of the unuttered but impressive reasonings signaled in the soul,
as thought sweeps over the grand conceptions reasoned out by
science. These are ends not attained within the narrow limits
of truth humanly and finitely originated.  These are only the
fruitage of the study of God's activities, not man's. These are
the rewards of science, not of literature.
Incidentally, the absorbing interest of scientific pursuits displaces the desire for ignoble gratifications. The boy who has
become fascinated with the pursuit of nature's realities experiences ever new delight in air and sunlight and exercise; in the
incessant observation of something new; and in the inference
which comes to his intelligence with all the freshness and stimulus of a discovery.  All these concomitants of scientific study
inspire enthusiasm, devotion, and exclude the desire for those
gratifications gained by loitering about street-corners, and listening to the depraved gossip of those who have not learned to
put mind into their enjoyments.  This form of ethical resultgood by displacement of evil-does not belong to science as
such; it belongs to every absorbing mental occupation. But
the point which I make is, the great superiority of the natural
sciences, especially as pursued in the open air, in the inspiration of that interest and enthusiasm  which insure virtue by
exclusion of the temptations to vice-the higher motive becoming strong enough to supersede the lower one.
ieflexively, the ethical influence of scientific discipline is
seen in the scientific spirit begotten and the scientific habit of
mind established. There may be people who imagine such a
result would render life prosy and mechanical.  What is the
scientific spiritS  It is the spirit which characterizes the successful pursuit of the modern sciences out of which our modern




206                  Mlethodist Review.               [March,
civilization has grown.  It is the sincere love of truth.  It is
willing to renounce any error, however venerable; to dispel
any illusion, however fascinating; to reverse any belief, when
proven wrong; to decide against a friend, in the interest of
truth; to sacrifice even a self-interest, if grounded only in misapprehension or error. It searches for the truth with patience,
with assiduity, with long watching and unwearying caution.
Its facts it seeks to verify by closest scrutiny; its inferences it
seeks to validate by untiring repetitions.  Never so firmly
intrenched in an opinion as to become apathetic to new evidence, it cannot be persecuted from  a belief sanctioned by
honest proof. Humble as a child and firm as a rock, a whisper
of evidence startles attention, a word impresses belief, but a
storm of public disapproval is borne as calmly and as sternly as
Mont Blanc faces the storm which whitens its summit.
Can it be imagined that supreme devotion to truth is not a high
moral quality?  Is the scientific spirit not one to be cultivated?
Can it be acquired by activity of mind on themes outside of
the scientific field?  Does Latin grammar cultivate the love of
truth and reality, in distinction from  shams and surmises?
The usefulness of scientific education-lowest in esteem of
one school of pedagogical philosophers, highest in that of another school, as well as that also of the great public, holds, in
an eclectic view, a position collateral with its agency for culture.  The value of the applications of science in our civilization, too vast and varied to be argued here, may be considered
adequately proven by the numerous and costly enterprises in
engineering, in architecture, in mining, in geological surveys
undertaken at public as well as private cost.  Every public
geological survey is a verdict of statemanship in support of the
claim which I here make.
On these four broad grounds-best for bodily training, best
for intellectual culture, best for ethical culture, and best for
supplying useful knowledge-we must place the natural sciences far above literature and dead languages in supplying the
young learner with an education such as symmetrical manhood
and American citizenship pre-eminently demand.
La 14








HIGIER' WANTS OF OUR PRIMARY SCHOOLS:
OE
WHAT MAKES THE SUCCESSFUL TEACHER:
An Address Belivcred at Pontiac, August 18, 1839,
BEFORE
lihe     irl iga   itate        ma'er   osncviigatn,
BY A. WINCHELL,
RETIRING PRESIDENT OF TIIE ASSOCIATION; PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN
THE UNIVERSITXY; AND GEOLOGIST TO THE. STATE OF MICHIGAN..
[Frorn the "Transactions of the Association" for 1859.]
ANN ARBOR:
IPIRIINTED) BY{ E. 13.e POiNDI
1%Sr9_








TI-IE
HIGHER WANTS OF OUR PRIMARY SCHOOLS:
on
WHAT MAKES THE SUCCESSFUL TEACHER?
An Address Delivered at Pontiac, August 18, 1859,
BEFORE
hlte  Airigaan  Sate Ut        \eatierm'   [l adntalix
BY A. WINCHELL,
RETIRING PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION; PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN
THE UNIVERSITY; AND GEOLOGIST TO THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.
[From  the "6 Transactions of the Association" for 1859,]
ANN ARBOR:
PR1l'NTTED BY E. B3. POND
18159.








WHAT MAKES THE SUCCESSFUL TEACHER?
FELLOW  TEACHERS:
I come before you on the occasion of this educational anniversary, wearied in body and mind from the triple labors of the year, but
strong and fresh in heart, as on the day when I deliberately resolved
to enter your ranks.  From close and daily communion with naturefrom intercourse with rocks and forests and streams -  from intimate
acquaintance with mother earth at night, and fierce contests with
father sol by day - from deep mines. where though the sunbeam has
never been seen by human eye to penetrate, creations fashioned under
the magic influence of the solar ray, have left their tracery all over
the acres of rocky ceiling that impended above me —-from contact
with every phase of civilized society -- from the pity, or scorn, or
envy of ignorance, and the genial hospitalities of education - from
wandering up and down the valleys and plains of our beautiful peninsula, I come, Fellow Teachers, to greet you cordially, and assert my
identity with you.
I have few sentences to utter.  I had thought that on this occasion
I should say much. The year that has passed, has crammed its suggestions day by day into my head, until the very multitude of things
I was prepared to offer, has almost deterred me from the attempt to
offer any.  Who that devotes himself to the business of instruction,
and studies his business in a philosophical spirit, will not acquire
much experience which he will desire to communicate to his fellows?
Who that closely attends to the successes and failures of others, will
not receive many a hint which he will desire to transmit to his brother
teacher?  Who that undertakes to edit and publish a teacher's Journl will not have certain practical lessons driven home with the force
of a pile driver? - lessons which he will of course, desire to teach
his many thousand subscribers and friends.
Appalled thus by the multitude of things which I had desired to
say, I shall content myself with winning the praise which is always
accorded to brevity in public speeches.  As I cannot write a book, I
ShiaJ present you with a brief chapter in which I shall discuss the
uestionQ  ":What tmakes thea sucessfult te teer?




4
It may be deemed preposterous in me to undertake to dispatch in
a single address, a topic which has constituted the burden of many a
volume -  a problem which it is supposed the Normal School of the
nineteenth century has practically solved.  Perhaps I shall not succeed in vindicating the selection; still a few of the leading elements
in the character of the successful teacher, I shall venture to bring to
your notice.
The contemplation of the character of any teacher who has distinguished himself for success in his profession, will at once present
to view two classes of qualifications to which he is indebted for his
eminence.  By the exercise of the one class of qualifications, he places
himself in direct relation to the learner's intellect, and establishes a
correspondence between it and the world of truth.  By the exercise
of the other class of qualifications, he adds motive and momentum to
the intellectual movements of both himself and his pupil, and clothes
the whole theater of their mutual operations with a light and an atmosphere that charm both teacher and learner and constitute the end
of all intellectual effort.  The first class of qualifications I shall speak
of as the Intellectual-  the second as the 7lor~al.
If we consider separately the Intellectual qualifications of the teacher, we perceive at once that a portion -  and that the fundamental
portion -  are a natural endowment; another portion is a subsequent
acquisition — the result of education or art.
I. Of the natural endowments, the first in logical order, and the
first in importance, is the possession of a genius for teaching.  By this
I do not mean simply that general preparation for this work, which
grows out of the possession of the requisite mental powers, furnished
with the requisite cultivation.  I mean rather a spirit which pervades
the whole mental character, a quick prophetic insight into the mind
and heart of the pupil which, like an inspiration, moves and actuates
the teacher almost without his cognition or will.  I mean that which
constitutes the leading distinction between the living teacher and the
dead, stereotyped text-book.  I mean that which makes oral, extempore instruction, superior to written lectures - that which dictates one
style and one phrase, on one occasion, another, on another-that
which causes the instructor to feel as the learner while he speaks as
the teacher.
While this is the first and most important qualification of the teacher, it is evident that it is rather an instinct than an art.  It may also
be possessed independently of all other qualifications - the extent to




6
which other qualifications are added, determining the grade of teaching for which the individual is adapted.  Practice can neither create
nor strengthen this endowment.  It often shows itself as admirably in
the girl of sixteen, as in the master of forty years.  If you can ever
entertain a pupil, you can do it to-day.  The subject you undertake to
teach is of no import, provided it comes within the sphere of your information.  For myself, allow  me to say that I believe I taught as
successfully in the year 1840 as in 1859.  The quick perception of
the wants of the learner is a faculty which cannot be engrafted upon
tlle mind.  lHe who does not, on the first attempt, place himself in
the position of his pupil, so as to divine the working of his thoughts
and feelings, and the attitude of his mind while a question is pending
before the class, or a subject is under discussion, will not, I venture
to say, after an experience of ten years, enter any deeper into sympathy with him.  This function of the true teacher is an inspiration,
not an art to be acquired, and renders it as true of the teacher as of
the poet -  nascitur, nonfit.
This is one of those accomplishments which can neither be philosophised upon, nor defined.  As the artist selects the colors which he
blends upon the canvas, and by the magic of certain touches which
can neither be imitated nor inculcated, produces the most charming
and natural effect, so the artist teacher, with an insight into the
heart and mind of his pupil, of which he is scarcely conscious himself, discovers the thought, the word, the tone, the expression of
countenance, the gesture, which exactly meets the want of the instant,
delights the pupil with an idea gained, and inspires a fresh relish for
the beautiful and the true.  As the poet discriminates spontaneously
the finest shades of appropriateness or beauty in the use of words,
or phrases, or figures of speech, while the keenest criticism utterly fails
to state the grounds of the poet's preferences in such a manner as to
enable another to acquire the poet's skill -  so the teacher selects his
language and performs his work, in a manner which all can appreciate
and admire, but which none can define or communicate by rules.
II.  Without dwelling longer upon this characteristic, I would next
remark that a warim iz)zgif atlon contributes essentially to the success
of the teacher.  Imagination is the light and warmth of the mind.
It is the sun of the mental firmament.   It irradiates the countenance-it glows in the thoughts-it flashes upon the tongue of
the speaker.  It communicates its fire to the soul of the learner, and
the whole array of his faculties is stirred into action.  There  are no




sleepy scholars when imagination glows in the discourse of the teasher,
There is no subject which may not be garnished by its peneilings,
Dull Syntax affords a world of comparisons and illustrations; Etymology and Arithmetic call for their diagrams; Geography absolute
ly forces imagination forth, to thread the meanderings of the town,
ship streams, to bend the rigid lines of longitude around the globe,
or chase the shadows of declining day from  meridian to meridian;
the formidable formula of Algebra or Trigonometry is to be vividly  and permanently painted before Imagination's eye, and, soon
as the pupil can get a ftint conception of the thought, he must
learn that a few letters, linked together by a few arbitrary signs, possess a significance that grasps the universe;  in Astronomy or Geology, no progress can be made until the learner's imagination has
traveled thraugh space-worlds and time-worlds, and material nature,
hangs like a diagram  before his mind's eye; and in those sublime
generalizations which trace the bond of union between the functions
of an animal and those of a plant, and connect the remotest extremes
of time and space by a chain of interdependence which makes a unit
of nature,- here towering reason itself leans upon the staff of imagination, and balances itself with cautious care, while she sends her
telescopic glances over the field. -  In all these sciences-  in all these
fields of thought, how constant and extensive the demands upon the
imagination!
Do not tell me that there are subjects and scenes which neither de.
mend nor admit of it.  You cannot teach mathematics without imagination.  "Greek roots" are bitter herbs without its savoring,
Your intellectual arithmetic brings imatination into constant exercise, and if the coloring which it admits is not sufficiently vivid, you
can force in other material.  At any rate, never let the fire burn out,
Even in your primary alphabet teaching, the natural teacher will
keep the little imagination alive.  If there is not material enough in
a, b, c, he will kindle a little fire of other matter, and then forward
the a, b, c business in the glow of that while it lasts.
We are all acquainted with the teacher who poessesse  no imagination.  He is a well educated gentleman, having graduated at an eastern college some years ago.  He has been  teaching for upwards
of twenty years.  He has a sound mind-  is logical, is critical,
maintains  good order, enforces the obligations of morality  and
religion.  He is truly a worthy man  and a good citizen.  But
his instructions are " dry."  He always expresses himself in direct




and literal terms.  lie has no great fondness for diagranms, and is not
aware that a whole subject may be embodied at once before both the
mental and material eye.  Iis pupils learn propositions -  can give
definitions - can answer questions -  but they have no realizing sense
of the breadth, and grasp, and sublime import of the propositions
they  enunciate.  They have never gained any  affecting views of
truth-  they have never been astounded -  their eyes are yet to be
opened.  Hence it is they show no particular passion for scientific
truth -  they fail to imbibe an enthusiasm for anything -  the period
of their school-days is a monotonous plain, which, in after life they
look back upon with a kind of cold delight.
Do not aspire to be a teacher of this staid, mechanical stamp.
Cultivate the imaginative faculty as your most efficient auxiliary in
impressing vividly and permanently the minds of those you  teach.
By imagination I do not mean the susceptibility of those dreamy,
half-formed visions, bred by the tales of romance, love and crime -
nor that humming-bird fancy fed by the mellifluous verses of Mioore,
Burns, or Lover; but a bold, adventurous, creative power, such as Byron wielded in his Dream of Darkness, M3ilton in his Paradise Lost, Laplace in his Mecaniruse Coelese, and Columbus in his search of a Nlew
World.  It is a power which annihilates all space, a light which dissipates all darkness, a realization which  abolishes all time, and
concentrates all that is, and has been, or may be, into a focus before
the gaze of the beholder.  It is a magic power.  I marvel that the
Creator did not retain it among his superhuman attributes.
III. The third intellectual qualification which I shall mention,
though a complex one, is a passionate love of tiruth for its own. sake.
What is it to teach but to communicate to the learner the possession of truth?  If the teacher does not himself appreciate the value
and the desirableness of truth, how shall he impress the sentiment
upon his pupil?  How shall he cause him to desire it and love it?
Without this high appreciation of the dignity and sacredness of teaching, his work is but a drudgery to him -  a mercenary  resort, for
which he deserves the scorn of all truth-loving persons.  I can conceive of no reward to the teacher, higher than the meagre pecuniary
results of his labors, if he fails to secure the noble satisfaction of imparting to others, gifts of knowledge which he prizes, on his own part,
above all material riches.  If he himself comes short of this exalted
6;tifate of God's truth, he can never eiter     into his work aS a work
of love -  a. WoIk  hii brinigs its owni rxeward -and one in whidh




8
the material recompense hangs not so much upon the consideration of
services performed, as upon the obligation  of gratitude from  those
who are the recipients of good; and upon the right of every useful
activity to the material aliment which sustains it.  For I do not look
upon teaching as a trade or a useful art, in which the benefit conferred
is to be reciprocated by the benefit returned-  imeasure for measurebut as a high professional art, the execution of a noble, a sacred
mission, in which the duty must he discharged-speaking in general,independently of the material surroundings or prospects, and in obedience to a motive emaiatin.g from the work itself.  Like the labors
of the poet, the orator, the painter, those of the teacher can be estimated by no commercial standard.  The money which he receives
will be determined by accident, by the intelligence  of those among
whom he labors, by their general sense of gratitude for good received,
or by the intellectual stand-point of the country or the age.
This conception  of the character of the teacher's work, does
not absolve him  from  the obligations of that stern law  of  our
physical being which requires us to earn a material support.  When
we descend to particular cases, we find few  teachers so circumstanced as to feel independent of pecuniary results; and as self protection is the highest law of our being, we frequently find the most
accomplished of teachers driven by the stolidity or the ingratitude of
those for whose good they labor, to seek a more remunerative position,
or even occasionally to abandon the profession. Frequently, also, a
change of location arises from the necessity of adjusting the grade of
a teacher's qualifications to ahligher or lower level of pupilary intelligence.  Such a transfer is naturally attended by a corresponding
rise or fall in the material receipts.
Still further, if the exalted character of the teacher's work does
not absolve him from the operation of the laws of his physical being,
neither does it abrogate the obligation of gratitude on the part of
those benefited by his labors.  It is a mark of the most intelligent
and unmanlike smallness of both mind  and heart, to attempt to
withhold from the teacher a living allowance -  an allowance graduated to the grade of the duties performed.
After having thus forestalled the fears of the ill-paid teacher, and
the excuses of the parsimonious recipients of the benefits which
he confers, let us proceed to inquire what fruits a passionate love of
truth for its own sake, will bear in the teacher's character.




i. The first fruit is'arnestncss,   L] have allready stlated  that lthe
teacher, possessed of this love of truth, will feel a delight in expatiating upon it, and transmitting it into the mind of the learner,
That which delights, incites to action.  The more earnest the action,
the more exquisite the delight.  The very exercise of his gift therefore, leads him on by action and. reaction, to the highest possible degree of earnestness in its exercise.  His earnestness strikes the attention of all -it arouses the mind of the listener, and opens the ears
and eyes of his faculties.  He is thus placed in the best possible attitude to catch the evanescent thought, even though flitting past in an
obscurity of language.  A  teacher without earnestness is a waterpower without a dam -  steam without confinement -  a beanm of light
not brought to its focal intensity.
2. The second effect of a passionate love of truth for its own sa0ke,
will be the creation of a catholic taste in science and literature.  All original truth is equally attractive and equally divine.  The mind that
loves truth in the abstract, will love all truth -  will admit the equal
claims of all truth.  Whether he finds the true or the beautiful embodied and set forth in the sublime movements of the heavenly bodies,
in the mighty revolutions of the earth, in  the mysterious life of an
animal or plant, in the marvelous relations of geometrical magnitudes,
in the subtle operations of the human mind, in the laws of social congregation, in the movements of nations and races, in  the history  of
languages and dialects, in the progress of popular sentiments, in conmmon law and in the laws of nations, in ecclesiastical and divine law,
it awakens everywhere a feeling of respect and a thrill of delight.
The jealousy occasionally manifest between the votaries of different departments of knowledge, arises from  an inadequate view  of
the nature of truth; which may itself be the result of a partial and.
defective education, obtained from teachers of equal narrowness of
view.  A teacher, and especially a head of a school, who fosters one
department of learning at the expense of another, or fails to appreciate and encourage all departments alike, betrays the grossest and
most injurious incapacity for his position.  Mr. A. is an excellent
mathematician; but but his contempt for everything but the exact
sciences disqualifies him for securing a symmetrical and  desirable
development to the minds of his pupils, or for doing justice to the
other branches of knowledge.  Mr B. is a fine classical scholar, but
as to the natural sciences he knows so little, that he could not inform
a pupil whether his respiration is supported by oxygen or sulphuratted




10
hydrogen.  Mr. C. is'a gentleman who betook himself to Natural
History, designing to leave the dead languages and the mathematics
to " old fogies."  He is consequently destitute of the general scholastic training so essential to the accomplished naturalist, though he
now occupies the chair of Natural History in a college of respectability.  His knowledge of mathematics is so limited, that with the
requisite data given, he would not be able to calculate the quantity
of sediments in a delta — still less appreciate the reasonings on
the laws of Phyllotaxy, or the rate of cooling of the earth's crust.
Miss. D. is an enthusiastic Botanist, and is reported to be able to call
every weed by name from one end of the county to the other; but
she does not know the meaning of a single term she uses, and as to
history, you can make her believe that Confucius is the Pope of Madagascar.
The evil effects of such a biased, or unsymmetrical taste, it is
scarcely necessary to allude to farther.  A  one-sided development of
the mind is a deformity as deplorable as any that can afflict the body.
It is scarcely possible for the teacher to avoid this result if he undervalues any branch of knowledge.
I do not mean to assert the unfitness of every one to give instruction in any branch, who is not thoroughly versed in all the departments of learning.  He who superintends a school, or interests himself in the general cause of education, or controls the training of a
child, should possess some such catholicity of endowments. He who
is confined to a single department, may teach very acceptably the
strict principles of that branch of knowledge, without being able to
impress his pupil with any just sense of the importance of anything
else; but he certainly cannot give instruction in any branch of knowledge in all its breadth of relationships, unless he himself can appreciate the bearing of his favorite subject upon all the contiguous region
of truth.
3. In the third place, such a, love of truth for its own sake, as I
have been considering, will necessarily create a disposition to become an
original investigator in some department of inquiry.  He who delights
in the contemplation of pure truth, will soon begin to discern the
dusky outlines of new ideas, lying in the twilight regions outside the
circle of admitted knowledge.  From that moment his instructions
will begin to possess new freshness and earnestness.  From  being a
retailer of other people's wares, he becomes the dispenser qf his own




commodities, and commends them with the zest dictated by all the
feelings and interests of proprietorship.
If he does not go so far as to strike out new paths of his own, he
at least follows intelligently in the footsteps of others, and enforces
established truth by original methods, and with the weight of an
original authority.  He utters what he knows and clearly comprehends.  He never refers to his text-book to fortify his conviction, or
secure the credence of his class.  He selects his books without referonce to the questions at the bottom of the page, and can stand an examination from Robinson's Arithmetic as well as Davies'.  His instructions possess a copiousness, a clearness, and an aptness, attainable only by those who are accustomed to conducting independent
trains of thought, and of knowing for themselves, rather than accepting statements on the testimony of others.
4. The fourth effect of a passionate love of truth for its own sake
will be the ability to distnsti sh between truth itself, anda the means and
instruments for acquiring truth.  The teacher whose characteristics I
am  attempting to portray, regards the substance rather than the
form.  The art of executing an algebraic operation is not the end at
which he rests.  Like the alphabet of a language, this must be acquired as a means of unfolding the treasures of truth.  The particular method in which an author has been pleased to present a subject,
is with him a matter of no import- that is perhaps an accident, or
the dictate of human caprice.  I was once present at a recitation
where a pupil offered a demonstration of a theorem different from the
one contained in the text-book. The demonstration was really correct and ingenious.  The teacher listened to the pupil with uneasiness, often casting an eye on the text-book. At the end, the pupil
had the mortification of being informed by his counterfeit teacher,
that the work was wrong — there "' was no such thing in the lesson."
A similar weak-headedness is exposed by those who insist upon the
use of the precise language of an author in recitation. I have frequently attended  examinations of classes in female schools, where
page after page has been recited with the most marvelous glibness and
precision.  The most ponderous reasoning of the fifth, seventh, or
eighth books of Legendre, has glided between fairy lips with  the
facility and lightness of a song.  Shade of Euclid! how  I have
shrunk from the presence of such supernal genius, and such superhuman acquirements! Whole chapters of that acute and philosophical work, Kane's Elements of Criticism, have I heard reproduced,




12
Verbatiml el lilerauim, within the period of one hour, by a charming
little class of six!
The propriety of this mnemoriter style of recitation is vindicated by
some very intelligent teachers, on the plea that the author's language
generally expresses the idea in the best possible unanner, and  it is
best that the learner should treasure up the thoughts in the choicest
casket of words.  There is so much speciousness in the plea, that I
have at various tinmes been induced to consider its merits.  The result
has been a firm conviction that the practice of memnoriter recitation as
a rule, results in mischief to both teacher and pupil.  If you allege
that the commitment to memory of the exact words of an author is
calculated to develop the power of language in a pupil, I assert just
the reverse to be the case.  I speak of the uniform practice of committing to memory.  To my mind, the true way to develop the power
of language is by the exercise of such power as the pupil possesses.
If you urge that the pupil will fail to express adequately the idea
unless he uses the language of his author, I reply that the object of a recitation is not solely to reproduce the thoughts of an
author, buttfirs to ascertain what the pupil knows of the subject-and
this end cannot be attained if he quotes literally the words of any other
person; secondly, to remove difficulties, and to add to his ideas upon
the subject and its connexions -  an object which will be sought at
random, unless the pupil is required to state what he, and not some
other person, knows and understands; and the third object of a recitation is, to develop the power of expression, an end which obviously
can no more be secured by neglecting appropriate exercise, than the
development of the flexor and extensor muscles of the arm  can be
secured by employing a blacksmith to wield a sledge-hammer for you.
There are however inducements if not reasons for employing the,nemoriter method.  I merely state them: First, the labor of the
teacher is very much diminished, by not being required to attend
closely to a dozen different statements of the same train of thought,
and pass an original judgment upon each.  Secondly, the pupil appears to a superficial visitor, vastly better in recitation or examination.
I must here pause to file another caveat.  I am making no sweeping
charges.  Itis sometimes the case that pupils reciting memoriter, understand their lessons well. Some teachers, I will also admit, encourage this methed, who are themselves sound, and perhaps are not aware
that its greater ease dictates their preference.  Do not bring up such
cases to rebut my general statements.,  Neither again have I selected




13
examples ifom female schools because we find there a greater tendency
to superficiality, but because the admirable faculty of memorizing
found in perfection there, has given rise to more splendid examples of
the evil which I arni censuring, than can be found among the foibles
of the other sex.
The train of thought in which I have been indulging, leads me next
to a class of errors in which our sex are rather more likely to sin.
than the other.  I allude to the mistake of laying too much stress
upon the discipline of a school.  Discipline we must by all means
have.  Quiet must be maintained, and an order of business observed;
but I have seen certain drills and military evolutions executed in the
school-room, which, though admirable in themselves, are nothing but
clap-trap in a place of instruction.  Such things look pleasant to the
casual visitor, and the teacher generally acquires renown for his superior energy and discipline in school. Another set of teachers will insist upon the most death-like stillness in the school-room, putting
every scholar under a degree of constraint and inconvenience, which
is entirely imcompatible with a comfortable and successful prosecution of his studies.  I look upon such an excess of machinery as a
mistaking of the means for the end.  The discipline is made for the
school, not the school for the discipline.  When I see a teacher giving such prominence to the subsidiaries of education, I think that his
fort lies here, and I feel like advising him  to enlist as a drill-officer
in some of the frontier barracks.
The school-room, however, is a highly appropriate place for the inculcation of the spirit and even the forms of politeness, and I would
that the good old days would return, when every boy on leaving the
room, must make his best bow, and every miss her prettiest courtesy.
5. Another effect of a broad and admiring apprehension of the
nature of general truth, will be the inspiration of correct ideas of the
practical.  How sickening the prating we commonly hear about what
is practical and what is not practical  As if there could be any
utility which is not the result of an application of some laws or principles.  As if man could come into possession of those laws or principles without first evolving them by study from the areana of nature.
He who makes the direct application of a principle to the production
of an economical result, is, in the world's estimation, " a practical
man;" but he who made the world acquainted with the principle,
is only " theoretical"-" a visionary" of no practical use to the
world, Abomination of ignorance!  You honor Morse with the




14
gratitude of nations, and the emoluments of princes, while you  are
content to remain in ignorance of even the names of Oersted, Ampere, Davy, Faraday, and Henry, who laid the deep foundations, and
even completed the superstructure, and only left it to Morse to say,
to what uses to consecrate an edifice whose beauty had  attracted
his attention.  The genuine ideal of this practicalism is the attempt to
secure an end without the means. It results from a short-sighted
view of the connexions of things.  It is the folly of him  who contracted for the establishment of a mill, and who, while he  willingly
paid for the machinery whose immediate action  ground the wheat,
stubbornly  refused  to  make  the requisite  disbursements for the
race-way" and "flume" which bore the current of power that gave
utility to the machinery.
Do not think these suggestions foreign to the occasion.  This narrow view of what is " practical" is a common fault of teachers.  It
shows itself in their too frequent depreciation of abstract truth  as
the resource upon which "practical"  men are obliged to draw; and
in their judgment of what kind of efforts are most effective in the
elevation of tlhe teachers' profession.  I find the following paragraph
in one of the Journals of Education in our country:
" I am told (for I never saw him, and it was a mere matter of accident that I saw one of his leports,) that we have a man employed
to traverse the State, to improve the agriculture, and to bring to light
thie mineral treasures of the State, now hidden beneath  the ground,
at an expense of about $5,000 per annum.-Now, how  important
soever it may be to do this, it is much more so to develop the mental
treasures now bound in the chains of ignorance," &c.
Now here is an  invidious contra.st drawn between a man devoted
to creating the materials of knowledge, and one engaged in  retailing
those materials to a class of pupils.  As if the  school teacher were
already in possession of all possible knowledge.'  The writer is advocating the employment of persons to drill teachers. in the mechanical
operations of their art    to go into the schools, and take the ferule in
their model hands, and show the incompetent there and elsewhere, by
what particular methods to give instruction in geography, grammar,
and arithmetic -  or as another writer has it -  to teach the " Art of
Education," that is, " a system of rules for communicating ideas and
* By an instructive coincidence, which ought to rebuke certain classes of educators, the very
geologist sneered at in the above extract, has given to the schools of our country the best textbook that has ever yet been written on the subject of Geology. Would that the teachers of his
state, and of all other states, were better qualified' to make use of this book,




15
ibrinig habits."  Many teachers regard it as the highest object to be
aimed at, to secure conventions to perfect the machinery of the
school-room.  They write essays on teaching geography-  on the
importance of punctuality-  on neatness -on dress — on order -  on
classification of pupils, and all the other details and minutiae of the
actual work, and about which the properly qualified teacher will always be his own judge, and his own law.  I do not despise these
things, but I consider such laborers at work in  the wrong place.
They are doctoring the skin when the disease is deeply seated in the
organism.  If a teacher needs to be told where and how to put his
hands to his work, what sort of manipulations to execute, how  to
behave at his boarding place, how important to be punctually at his
d.uties in the morning, then I say we must begin further back with
him.  His mind is not half developed.  All our efforts to tinker him
up, will be like the attempt to charge the channel of a river, after it
has gone a hundred miles on its way.  You may crowd upon it with
props and embankments.  It will continually break away from  your
restraints and resume its wonted channel.  Go back to the fountain
head.  Give the river its proper direction by working at a suitable
elevation, and it will go on forever by virtue of laws inherent in
itself, and without any forcing or coaxing to keep it on its proper
course.
The high and appreciative taste for general truth, of which I have
been speaking, will operate in the life of the teacher, in a hundred
directions which I have not the time to trace.  The breadth of mind
which it implies, constitutes the basis of the character of a man or
woman of solidity, of good judgment, of common sense; and will
itself dictate to the adoption of those methods and expedients whose
aggregate secures success.  I have turned your minds towards the primary bifurcations of a great principle, and can do no more than leave
each thinker to trace them to their ultimate ramifications.
I desire now to bring all of these specific characteristics of the
successful teacher under one general proposition.
I have said that the intellectual qualifications of the successful
teacher, consist of personal characteristics, and of acquired accomplishments.  Aside from that genius for teaching, which I have regarded rather as an instinct than an attribute of the intellect, it
will be observed that all the qualifications thus far alluded to, are
nothing more than particular features of A SYMMETRICAL AND WELTI
BEYELOPED INTELLECTUALITY.  Here I strike the foundation stone of




the whole edifice. This is the fundamental equite of an acco
the whole edifice.  This is the fundamental requisite of an accomplished teacher. I hold that if you begin here, and continue here,
and send him out with this broad basis of a character, you will never
have to run after him  to tell him how to explain the distinction between personal tend relative pronouns, or why the lines of latitude and
longitude are curved, upon the map of the world, or how he can
while away the time of.a long winter evening or summer morning.
Possessing this fundamental personal qualification, all the minor maxims of school-teaching become but the corollaries of the teacher's mental constitution.  Without this, he is an automaton, acting as he is
bidden, going where he is driven, copying from others, and teaching
according to arbitrary rules.
It will further appear that the breadth and strength of mind which
alone I am willing to admit as the basis of successful teaching, must
inevitably lead the way to those accomplishments of education which
constitute the depository of material, upon which the teacher must
constantly draw.  As the po8ssesion of a thorough and extensive education,
is a qualification quite as essential as any of the results already
named, of a high order of mental endowments, allow me to devote a
few sentences to this point.  That catholic taste in science and literature which results from a high love of truth for its own sake, will
certainly seek its gratification in the pursuit of knowledge; and will
not be satisfied until the whole domain of truth has been surveyed.
Not till this work has been accomplished, is the student qualified to
becomne a professional teacher.  The mind of the teacher should be
stored full of the treasures of every variety of truth.  When such a
teacher opens his mouth, the pupil feels there is something to listen
to.  Some line of knowledge can be added on every subject.  A
hundred new suggestions and queries all more or less intimately related to the topic in hand, will pour out in succession from his lips.
On the special subject which he undertakes to teach, he himself
slould be full to overflowing.  He will be so, if he has become an independent thinker, and has pushed his inquiries into the domain of
unwritten truth.  Oh, how disheartening and patience trying the
thought, that there are hundreds of persons in our State who are presumptuously attempting to teach things about which they themselves
have no adequate ideas! They are endeavoring to crowd themselves
into the teacher's profession.  They call themselves teachers.  They
spend their time and their feeble energies for almost nothing, and depress to a lamentable extent thel  marketable value of the true teach.




1if7,r's services.  Anld there arc thousalnds of employers who think thatl
because such persons profess to teach, they must necessarily be qualified to teach -  because they teach cheaY the ty are desirable teachers.
Do I need to tell you where the root of this evil can be found?  It;
is ignorance -  ignorance of those pretending to teach, and ignorance
of those who employ.  How will you proceed to correct the evil?
Do you say that such teachers are in the field and we must make the
best of them? -  we must train them and show them how to do their
work?  The best thing would be to drive them in a herd out of the
field.  And this could be done if the doors of the profession could be
sufficiently guarded.  But as long as the dispensation of licenses is
liable to be placed in the hands of jailers, and blacksmiths, and dry
goods clerks, and sawyers, instead  of those professionally qualified
-or the business -  so long we shall find the intellectually maimed and
the halt; the deaf, the dumb and the blind, among the recruits of the
most difficult and the most learned of all professions.  We are obliged,
it may be true, to make the best of them  for the present.  But according to the principles which I have laid down, let us work at the
generals and not at the particulars.  Let us endeavor to give them
that breadth of mind and education, which comprehends the thousand
maxims of the practical work.
I have struck a vein which might )be pursued for an hour, but I
desire rather to make suggestions than to exhaust topics.  There is
only one more acquired characteristic of the successful teacher which
I will allude to.  Jfe should be well-stocked with ourrent infornation.
The minds of the masses always have been, and always will be, mostly occupied with current events.  They are the principal staple of
conversation, and hold a place high in esteem,  These topics, moreover,
are always presenting themselves for notice and remark.  The pupil
in the school-room brings them up -  the honest  farmer at the break=
fast table -  the Miss to whon you proffer your attentions.  You will
be set down as a stupid ignoramus if you betray an inability to carry
on conversation upon topics in which all the world are interested,
You may not have been bred a farmerl, but you must watch the condition of the crops, and form  opinions of your own, based upon observation and inquiry.  Though you are not a tanner by trade, you
ought to know the industrial history of your boots,  Though not a
politician, you are culpably delinquent if you do not keep your information abreast with the progress of public even ts.  An educator,
howeve)r proficient in a.ny One or:more branch~es of knowledge,  iho is
t otially. i^aorrantn of t-;he  conmmon  art'ts, and prominent, t opics of the day,




18
is an unfinished. man.:le does not possess all the elements which
command general respect and deference, and cannot become eminently
successful as a teacher.
After listening to the views which I have rapidly sketched, it will
be understood that the fundamental requirement of the successful
i;eacher is conceived to be a cuGltivated  i2nteleclualiy, possessing breadth
and strength.  On this foundation rest all the otner endowments of
mind and education,  The making of competent teachers is a work
which must be directed to this point.  The literary exercises of our
educational meetings are of no interest or attractiveness to the hudreds, and perhaps I may say, thousands of that class before referred
to, who scarcely know enough to deceive their pupils.  The exercises
of our institutes fail to call them forth, for they are too ignorant to
know their wants.  Of our Journal of Education they know nothing,
either from  examination or the reading of newspapers.  If it has
ever come into their hands, its literary articles are beyond their limitec ken, while the reading of its practical ones would be too much
of an effort.  In fact they possess no taste for reading.  They pass
their six hours a day in repeating questions from the text-books, and
waste their mornings, noons and evenings, in lounging about the stores,
in telling stories, in running through foolish romances, or perhaps in
wasting nerves and muscles in that pretty but terribly  destructive
employment of women- ornamental needlework.  Sound  reading
or hard study, they will not engage in.  How many of our primary
school teachers have prosecuted an independent course of study during  their term  of teaching?  How  many have improved  from
year to year?  How many have risen to distinc tion, either as primary or academical teachers?  If they have not the capacity  or taste
for intellectual labor and intellectual improvement, they had  better
be set at something else.  You can  never manufacture a teacher
from such materials.  Good  citizens -- valuable citizens  they may
make, if they cease to call themselves teachers.  All the Normal
Schools, all the Institutes which you can get the State to pay for,
will not make them fit to teach primary geography,
On the other hand, those persons who possess the requisite capacity but who have gone prematurely to the work, may be attended  to
with a prospect of success.  With these, adopt any course which is
calculated to enlarge their vie\ws and arouse their energies,  I would
not undertake to teach the art of teaching.  Thi is a- flbulous art.
It is a phantom which  rises up before our eyes and  hut'ls 0Tit f'om
sight the remoter obje:t which we ought to Hix our a lttent ion uponL.




19
Teach anything else,  If you would develop the art of teaching, cultivate the art of acquiring.  You will find no difficulty in communieating that with which your head is full of. Fill the heads of our
teachers, and they will become successful teachers.  They will thirst
for still more knowledge.  They will invent, each for himself, the
best modes of teaching. They will inform themselves of the educational movements of the day. They will inquire for journals of education, and then a state like Michigan will give such a journal a
respectable support.
I have said that the gift of teaching is inborn, not acquired, that
skill in teaching is the outgrowth of natural endowments, and not an
art to be learned from rules; in short, that a successful teacher is a,
commodity by no means to be manufactured, however excellent the
Normal School where that business is said to be carried on. I am
perhaps advancing heretical sentiments, and have said many things
which I ought to take the trouble better to substantiate. I imagine
that I hear from more than one the inquiry —" Are not those teachers sent out from our Normal Schools admitted to be successful?"
"; Will not scores of teachers confess that they have been greatly
benefited at Normal Schools?"  To all which I reply with much
satisfaction that such is the case. And now let nme inquire, how
much of the benefit received, do they attribute to the technical drfillnq
which they received in those schools? To what extent is their suesess not attributable to the general mental discipline and largeness of
view, obtained at the school?  And then let me ask, what is there
peculiarly "normal" in the communication of the elements of a general education?  In this sense every institution of learning is a normal sohool.  In this sense every institution of learning is an effcient
normal school.  Whatever agency makes a perfect and  well developed man or woman, or contributes to this end, makes a good and
successful teacher. The University is a normal school; our Union
Schools are normal; and I apprehend the Agricultural College itself,
unless its course is further specialized, will make as good teachers as
farmers. A good curriculum of general study is pursued there, independent of the course of agricultural technology; breadth  and
strength of mind will be acquired there; men will be made; and a
well made man or woman is fit for a teacher.
What leading teacher among us binds himself to any rules ever
taught in the best normal schools?  Who thinks about the   art of
teaching?"  When you have a class to instruct, do you not plunge
into the subject with all your faenlties in a state of activity, alnd deal




out facts and principles as your quick judgment sees to be appropriL
ate to the class and the occasion?  If you thus place methods and
rules at defiance, what enables you to do so?  The learning of those
very rules?  I appeal to you, if it is not your own intellectual and,educational independence.
But I must not pursue this thought further.  There yet remains,
I apprehend, one little task to discharge.  I do not by any means
intend to abolish Normal Schools and Teachers' Institutes;  and it
remains for me to show what work I have left for them  to perform.
There are certain legitimate functions of these institutions which
they may very profitably exercise.; and I shall take the liberty to
state my views in the premises, however my general positions may be
held in question.  I a a aware that I do this, with those before me
who are capable of being my teachers, and whose voice in this Asso-iation, should always have more weight than mine.
What then are the peculiar functions of a Normal School?
1. It is the first function of a normal school to refuse admission
to such as do not possess sufficient mental endowments to do honor
to the profession.
2. It is the second function of a normal school to secure and promote a symmetrical development of the mind.
This may be done by directing the attention of the pupil to fields
of thought which he has heretofore neglected; and by restraining
the abnormal. growth and predominance of any one faculty of the
mind -as the love of fiction or of abstract science.
3. Another function of a normal school is the impression of a
sense of the high qualifications recluired of a successful teacher.
4. A normal school should also afford the opportunity for actual
trial. to a limited extent, under the eye of the Principal.  This calls
into existence the Model School.
5. Some hints may also be advantageously given, with respect to
the difficulties apt to be encountered by pupils in the study of different branches of science; and some suggestions may probably be made
with reference to the best way of overcoming them.
6. It is the appropriate oeffie of the normal school also, to give
instruction in the various systems of teaching which have been in
vogue from time to time; to elucidate the educational systems of
different foreign countries and different states of our Union; and especially to impart a thorough knowledge of the machinery and genius
of our own educational system,




'21
~7   A normal school may also very appropriately prescribe courses
~of study to the primary schools, and determine the natural order o'
~succession of different branches of knowledge.
8. A normal school should by all. means rigidly refuse certificates
to all except those eminently qualified to enter upon the high profession of teaching with a prospect of doing it honor.
9. And as to the certificates of teachers in general,'I think it
might be well for the Normal School to be entrusted with the exclusive power of conferring them.  I think this measure would secure a.
higher order of teachers, and would elevate the calling  to the rank
of an acknowledged profession.
I forbear to press further the primary nmportance of high intellectual qualifications in the teacher.  I look forward to the time when,
through some possible legislation, the organization of our profession
will be thrown into such hands, that the most exalted  talent will
seek its highest usefulness, and the objects of a high and honora.
ble ambition, in the ranks of the instructors of youth; when  the
strongest and most versatile intellects will seek employment, not only
in communion with truth, but in the gratifying a nd ennobling work
of introducing other souls into the same communion, and pointing
them onward to a state of love and. fellowship with the " Spirit of
the Universe."
Nothing has yet been said  of the MOuArL  UALIFCATIONS of the sue'
cessful teacher.  Though equally indispensable with the IN::rTLLECTUAL,
I cannot enter upon this branch of the subject filrth;er than to say,
ihat no teacher can become eminently stccessful, who fa.ils  to engage
in his work, witha con, ientintious and devout spilrit,   1e should. feel
-that he is discharging duties which belong to a mission almost sacred, —that he is called upon to take truths, ideas, thoughts, which ermnaate
from the Omniscient minnd and transfer them whole, unwarped, untar.
nished and clear, into other minds, -nade by the Omniacient in his
own image -  a means which the Father of all has appointed, to expand the young mind into a comprehension of himself, and  of our
common relations to him and to the universe.  As teachers then we
are his ministers.  How trermendous the fall when  we descend  into
the region of mercenary motives! or engage in. our work  without
solemn convictions of the responsibilities we incur t
I leave these interesting topics to your future reflections, and if so
be, to your animadversions.  I have conformed  to  the custom  of
mly predecessors, as they have been upon the point of ta0 king leave of




this chlair.  I have regarded it al appropriate occasion to offer som, e'practical suggestions - deeming that most truly practical, which lies
at the foundation of all detailed practice, and embraces the greatest
possible breadth of actual applications.  I fully sympathize with you
as a professional body, and as individuals.  If I entertain any heretical views, I am still ready to co-operate with you in your own way,
I must think as an individual; I shall act as a member of this Association.  My strongest desire is that we may possess more of manhood and more of womanhood —that each may become a greater
power in society — in the full possession of all those qualifications
which command the respect and deference of society.  Let us look
upward.  Stoop to occupy no subordinate level.  Stand erect as the
ministers of truth to the world.  Grow strong in mind and no less
in body, by the faithful exercise of all those powers which  make a
perfect man or woman.
My greetings go with you as you  disperse again to the scenes
of your several labors.  If you have listened during the session of
this convention to the utterance of any important truths, may  they
dwell in your hearts, and cheer you in the labors of another year.
If I have said aught to which your minds and consciences can give
a warm and earnest sanction, I am thankful.  I have said the best,
ltlhat I could say.' Would it were worthier,"




















INAUGURATION
OF.l.exardei WirChell,
AS
Chancellor of the Syracuse University,
I873.








ADDRESSES
AND
OTHER EXERCISES
AT THE
INAUGURATION OF!lexbtrdef Wirdhell,
A S
CHANCELLOR OF THE SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY,
THURSDAY, FEB. 13, 1873.
SYRACUSE:
Daily Journal Book and Job Printing House,
1873.








The Syracuse University went into operation on the
thirty-first day of August, I87i.  Its By-Laws provide for
the appointment of a Chancellor; but during the first year,
no appointment was made.  The duties of the office were
performed by Rev. Daniel Steele, D. D., Vice-President of
the College of Liberal Arts, who, at the close of the year,
resigned his connection with the University. On the ninth
of August, 1872, the Board of Trustees, duly assembled,
elected. as Chancellor of the University and President of the
College of Liberal Arts, Alexander Winchell, LL. D., then,
and for nineteen years previous, the Professor of Geology,
Zoology and Botany in the University of Michigan.
Dr. Winchell entered upon the active discharge of his
duties on the 17th of January, I873, Professor J. R. French,
LL. D., having officiated as chief executive during  the
earlier portion of the collegiate year.
The arrangements for the inauguration were completed
under the direction of the Executive Committee of the
Board of Trustees.   The following announcement and invitation were embodied in a circular, which was extensively
distributed to the friends of the University, and persons
interested in the cause of'education throughout the State.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, Jan 31, 1873.
You are respectfully invited to be present at the inauguration of Alexander
Winchell, LL. D., as Chancellor of the University, which will take place at Wieting Opera House, in Syracuse, on Thursday, February I 3th, at half-past two o'clock
in the afternoon.




4
A reception will be given by Chancellor Winchell, in Convention Hall, on the
evening of the same day, between the hours of seven and eleven, at which all
the friends of the University are cordially invited to be present.
JESSE T. PECK,
President of the Board of Trustees.
OTIS L. GIBSON,
President of the Alumni Association.
On the appointed day, the friends and well-wishers of the
University had assembled  in  large  numbers from  all parts
of the  State.   The  large  Opera  House was  filled with a
select and appreciative audience. The stage was occupied
by the Faculties, the Trustees, the Speakers and representatives of other collegiate institutions. The following was
the order of exercises for the occasion:PROGRAMME..-MUSIC..-READING  OF SCRIPTURE, by Rev. J. B. Wentworth, D. D., of Buffalo.
3,-PRAYER, by Rev. George Lansing Taylor, A. M., of Hempstead, L. I.
4.-MUSIC.
5.-CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS, on behalf of the Students, by George
W. Elliott, of the Senior Class of the College of Liberal Arts.
6. -ADDRESS on behalf the Alumni, by Rev. Otis L. Gibson, of Towanda, Pa.,
President of the Alumni Association.
7. —MUSIC.
8.-ADDRESS, on behalf of the Faculties of the University, by Prcfessor Hervey
B. Wilbur, M. D., of the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
9.-ADDRESS OF WELCOME, on behalf of the Colleges and Universities of
the State, by Rev. S. Gilman Brown, D. D., LL. D., President of Hamilton College.
Io.-MUSIC.
II.-INDUCTION  OF THE CHANCELLOR-ELECT INTO  OFFICE, with
an Address by Bishop Jesse T. Peck, D. D., President of the Board of
Trustees.
I2.-INAUGURAL ADDRESS, by Chancellor Winchell.
I3.-MUSIC.. — BENEDICTION, by Rev. Dallas D. Lore, D. D., of Syracuse.
The music of the occasion was rendered by the Opera
House Orchestra.   The  citizens of Syracuse  manifested  a
great degree of interest in the proceedings; of which the
daily papers  of the following  day  contained  extended  accounts.   The  evening  reception  was attended  by a very
large concourse of the friends of the University.




I0    gmottIlatIrg rL   iuIt ~c,s
ON BEHALF OF THE STUDENTS,
BY
GEORGE W. ELLIOTT,
OF THE
SENIOR CLASS OF rTHE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS.








RESPECTED SIR:We assemble to-day to do honor to an occasion, the like
of which has never before transpired within this goodly city.
Syracuse, with all its praiseworthy characteristics, has, until
quite recently, lacked a crowning glory of its varied excellencies-an educational institution of advanced grade.
The ancients in their estimate of the relative omniscience and omnipotence of their divinities placed Minerva
second only to Jove, Wisdom next in importance to Religion;
and these principles, personified to them, abstract to us,
sustain the same relation to-day. The latter had long held
sovereignty in this community; but the former-what dominion was hers? Conscientiously and zealously the people responded.  Here will we erect a throne in her honor, here
consecrate a fane to her worship; and Wisdom  has been
exalted.
The timbers are being hewn, the stones prepared, and
without noise of ax or of chisel, the shrine of Minerva on
yonder hill is steadily, silently growing to fuller proportions.
And if it shall be constructed with as consummate a skill,
and shall be subservient of as divine a purpose, shall it be
less the admiration of the world, less a benefit to the race
than was that other temple which crowned the summit of
Moriah?  But an important stage of the work has been
reached.  Proud of the progress which has been made,
devoted to the principle on which this institution is based,
we come together to-day to honor him who has been chosen
to preside over its ministrations.




8
To you, Sir, the Chancellor of the University, on behalf
of my fellow students, I extend most cordial WELCOME!
It is not to be supposed that we are less concerned for the
prosperity of the University than are its Trustees, its
Alumni, or its friends.  Sharing with these a common interest in this auspicious occasion, no less heartily do we
congratulate the institution upon having secured so able
and distinguished an Executive; no less willingly do we
accord to that executive our unreserved good-will.
Coming from a University which is thoroughly established, and quite complete in all the paraphernalia of endow
ments, cabinets, libraries, etc., to one which exists as yet, in
its entirety, chiefly in theory, you assume a great and critical
responsibility.  Your duties will be arduous.  Discordant
opinions must be harmonized; financial embarrassments
avoided; the interests of sound education conserved, and
the University established in undoubted permanency and
unquestioned excellence. Called to the Chancellorship of
an institution which is yet in the precarious period of infancy, to you is committed its care; by you is to be formed
its character; through you is to be determined its reputation; and for you it is to be a monument of glory or a
tumulus of reproach.
So seldom  are College Presidents successful in their
sphere, that we are inclined to say of them, as of poets,
"They are born, not made."  Nevertheless, born or made,
no success commensurate with their, efforts can possibly be
attained, unless they have the sympathy and co-operation of
their coadjutors, the Trustees, the Alumni, and the Undergraduates. As a representative of the latter body, then, it
affords me supreme pleasure to pledge to you their willing
support in all your efforts for the upbuilding of the University, and a cheerful acquiescence in whatever you shall
deem conducive to the common-weal; and you will permit
me, Sir, to express the hope that the relations this day




9
established between the Chancellor and the undergraduates,
may ever be of the most intimate and amicable character.
In you we shall expect all that is implied in a counsellor and
friend.  In us you will look for manliness and principle,
A counsellor in those days, when, to young- people, advice is
most necessary; a friend when the trials of life are first experienced and most oppressive.  Manliness in our respect
for authority; principle in a firm  adherence to all just requirements.  We have every reason to believe that there
will be established between us this day a reciprocity of
interest and esteem.
That period is rapidly approaching, if it be not already
present, when the evolution of an idea, and not a conquest
of arms, is to be considered the grandest triumph of human
genius.  Already Cmsar'sglory pales before Newton's; Alexander's grows dim in the presence of Fraunhofer's.  Athens,
the learned, excels Rome, the warlike; Syracuse, with its
Archimedes, surpasses Carthage, with its Hannibal.  Republicanism, the product of the political thought of nearly
sixty centuries, is an idea, and it feeds on that which gave
it being.  Thought is its bulwark, the educated classes its
defenders, the universities its Delphic oracles. A learned
writer affirms that "legislators should, as a rule, follow in
the wake of popular thought."  True: but the universities
should keep abreast of popular thought, and furnish sound
ideas to the masses.  The great Napoleon once said: —
"When bayonets think, thrones tremble," and we may add,
when the people reflect, republics are safe.
In view of the fact then, that the stability of republican
institutions is lodged in the intelligence of the masses, may
we not assume that liberty enjoins upon the university what
Rome did upon the Consul: " Videret, ze quid i-cs pzblica
detrimnenti caperet!"  We expect as a nation to inscribe our
name high on the scroll of fame, in fact, to occupy the very
first place in the catalogue of great peoples.  If this be our
"manifest destiny," and it be fully realized, it will not be be



IO0
cause of our business energy, nor of our public enterprise,
nor of our martial triumphs, but rather because we shall
have fostered C/hristizan learning and the dissemination of
immortal ideas.
But the name of the University over which you are to
preside is a classical one-one recalling to mind the prototype of this generous city. Although situated on an island
which rested like an emerald on the bosom of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by blazing hills and fertile vales, enjoying a goodly degree of prosperity with respect to commerce and trade, of no secondary importance in the politics
of the times, noted in her later days for the purity of her
democracy and the integrity of her public men, distinguished
for many a martial triumph, yet to none of these things is
Sicilian Syracuse indebted for the honored place which she
occupies in history. But, rather, if her name be linked with
anything of glory, if it be among the illustrious of the past,
it is because she gave birth to and fostered the genius of
one of the greatest scientists of antiquity. To him who
preferred the retirement of his study with square and compass   to the. highest offices in the land; to him, who, by his
consummate scientific skill, defended his native city against
the combined attacks of foreign powers; to him who may
be regarded as the father of the science of Mechanics;
to him who made many valuable discoveries in the realm
of Hydrostatics; to him who enriched the accumulations of
Mathematics, and to him, finally, who, inspired with the
greatness of science, exclaimed, "Give me a place on which
to stand and I will move the world"-to Archimedes and
to the fame which he acquired, is Syracuse, the ancient, indebted for the resplendent glory which encircles her name.
Likewise with the modern; although located in the heart
of the Empire State-this later "garden of the Hesperides"
-and abounding in wealth; the center of many commercial
enterprises; possessing a powerful political influence; an
important factor in the prosperity of the State; yet from




II
none of these things can she expect an especial and an enduring fame.  But if her name shall live in history at all,
it will be because, by giving birth to and fostering a University of advanced grade, she will have contributed a modicum toward a higher civilization, and have bequeathed that
richest of benefactions, a legacy of ideas to the world.
Comparatively, the work has just begun.  The foundations are scarcely above ground.  The cap-stone has not
yet felt the quarryman's steel.  " Quaznts equis, qualzftus
adest viris Sudor!"  Our faith in the ultimate establishment
of this institution is strong, but unless the plan of the Great
Architect be consulted, and the Master Builder himself
direct the work, that faith is utterly vain.
The task before you, Sir, is a noble one, yea, in its broadest
sense, patriotic. As undergraduates, our affections twine
about our Alma zater. I-Her prosperity is our joy; her acdversity, our sorrow; and toward you, as the guardian of her
interests, we entertain none but the kindliest of sentiments.
May He who inspired Solomon for his work, impart to
you infinite foresight and discretior.  May the bases of this
temple be Christian learning, the columns disciplined mind,
the capitals consecrated intellect-the whole sustaining the
entablature of Eternal Truth.  Then will it be a monument
of glory to its builders, the pride of the city, an honor to the
State, a Palladium of the Republic.  Then will it be an
instrument in the enlightenment of mankind more potent
even than the lever of Archimedes. Again, sir, I bid you
welcome to Syracuse University.








ON 3BEiALF OF TIlE ALUMNI,
BY
REV. OTIS L. GIBSON, A. M.,
IPRESIDENT OF THIE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION.








MR. PRESIDENT OF THE.BOARD OF TRUSTEES:When a noble ship of the line, damaged and leaky from
a tempestuous voyage, having been put upon the stocks,
thoroughly overhauled, re-rigged and re-named, is launched
again, and now, at last, stronger than ever, weighing a heavier
anchor and spreading ampler sails fora grander cruise, ships
her new and gallant commander, it is time for the crew to
man the yards and join with all on board and all on shore
in the hearty cheering.  And I congratulate myself that I
am permitted to toss my tarpaulin and lead the cheers of
those who mostly got their sea legs on board the old shipwhich is now the new ship.
Now, sir, for fear my stock of sea terms might not hold
out, I desire just here to change the figure, and also to relieve myself from a little embarrassment which the situation places me in as a representative of your Alumni.
The cold idea prevails, more or less, among outsiders and
new men, that we, the old Alumni, are only adopted children; that our own dear mother is dead, and that we little
shivering orphans were picked up out of sheer benevolence,
and allowed a sort of stepmotherish protection here at
Syracuse.  Now, at all this I utterly demur, and I am prepared to maintain the claim that we were all born of this
mother, and that this is none other than our dear old Genesee herself, just a little changed on the outside and smarted
up and sporting a new title-all out of compliment, no doubt,
to the brave little city which she honors with her presence.




16
This story, sir, is all in a nutshell.  Our Alma Mater was
leading an honorable and dignified but rather retired life in
a little country village called Lima.
I am bound to admit that as her income was somewhat
limited, she had to practice the strictest economy to live at
all, and even then fell behind.  By and by there came an
invitation from your ambitious little city to remove hither,
accompanied with generous promises of wider patronage and
abundant material aid.  She was inclined to listen.  She
called together her sons, counsellors and patrons from far
and near, and with one voice they bade her go and prosper
So she consented; but just as she was picking up her duds
to go, a difficulty arose. Some of the inhabitants of the little
village she had honored so long with her presence preferred
a singular claim  for debt.  It was truly Falstaffian in its
character.  Falstaff, you remember, had bragged that the
Prince of Wales owed him a thousand pounds.  The Prince
hearing it, confronts him savagely with"Sirrah! do I owe you a thousand pounds?"
"A  thousand pound!  Hal, thou owest me a izillioiz!
My love is worth a inillion pound-thou owest me thy
love!"
So the departure of the blameless, debtless Genesee was
blocked by a claim upon the light and blessing of her perpetual presence-a claim  so unjust that it could not be allowed, and so extravagant that its payment would have cost
her both life and honor.  So pending endless technicalities
of law, she quietly slipped away with almost every child and
chick she had. and every real friend, Faculty, Students,
Alumni, Trustees, Patrons and Conferences, and accepting
the new name and title that you gave her, and the ampler
field for her work, she sits a queen among your palace
crowned hills; and every Alumnus, sir, recognizes in hers
the well-known voice and features of the dear old Alma
Mater that nursed him  in her maternal arms and ushered
him into literary life.




17
It needed not the harmless form, I had almost said farce,
of a vote of adoption by your trustees to make us at home in
the presence of one who knew us almost before she knew you.
The idea that Genesee College is dead, is a very stupid
delusion.
Genesee College lives to-day in SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY.
The noble men who planned and labored and sacrificed to
establish her, and the equally noble men who toiled and
sacrificed within her walls, have never been called to bewail
the failure of their work. Their hearts and hopes and prayers
have followed her hither.  The sweat of her tzwen;y-fiveyears
struggle is the;-'-ihestpazt of your endowment.
And now let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the children have
never ceased to feel proud of their mother.  Her record
in the past, though humble, is highly honorable. She faithfully nourished and brought up her sons and daughters.
She held the standard of scholarship high. She never sent
out a child of hers with a lie upon his parchment. And if
she has occasionally dubbed an ambitious aspirant after
" semi-lunar fardels," whose qualifications for the honor were
more patent in the persistence of influential friends than
in his books or brains, she may be pardoned a weakness
which, I am sorry to say, is a too common one and which, I
hope, she will set a good example by avoiding in the future.
Now, these older children and those our dear Alma Mater has borne in this place, not our half-brothers, Mr. Chairman, not foster-brothers, but dear little realbrothers and
sisters, desire me on their behalf to utter words of congratulation and welcome on the occasion of the formal induction into office of our honored Chancellor.  And in doing
this, I believe I speak what is in the heart of every
Alumnus and Alumna, when I say, we are glad that you, Mr.
Chancellor, were the choice of the trustees for the Chancellorship, and we heartily welcome you to your place at the head
of this young University —our honored Alma Mater.
You were chosen, not because you occupied an honor



I8
able and prominent position elsewhere, but because you
have nobly filled and greatly honored that position. And
we hail your advent among us to-day, not only believing
that your past record will shed lustre upon our University,
but that you will make a record here also that will bring
honor at once to yourself and her.
In placing a layman at the head of this University, whose
grandest thought and motive is a religious one, we but
do honor to the advancing sentiment of the age which
puts the laity side by side with the ministry in all Christian enterprises and labors. And in selecting to represent
our educational idea, a Christian Scientist, we have recognized the fact that the department of Physical Science is
to-day the precise ground where Christian learning is called
to repel the most determined assaults of A theistic mzaterialism.
In investing you, therefore, with the duties and dignities that appertain to the high office to which you have been
chosen, so far from having the slightest wish to interfere
with your investigations and inquiries in your favorite department, permit us to hope that Physical Science may still
profit by your labors and studies, and that Syracuse University may not only share the distinction which you may yet
further deserve for your services in this field; but that in
your lifetime you may send many a young man and woman
out from its walls prepared to do distinguished battle with
these wholly earth-born titans.
The Christianity of this age does not distrust anything
that science really says.
With a devout faith in the Written Word, there is a faith
scarcely less sublime in the utterances of nazture; because
we believe that the same God that made the Word made also
the World, and that the words and works of the true God
can never conflict.  Religion, therefore, knows no oppositions of science but those that are falsely so called.
It has seemed to me that the great fault of skeptical
scentists has been that they generalize too fast.  Not con



19
tent with recording faithfully each step of progress in investigation, waiting for each supposed discovery to ripen
into an established fact, and ascertaining with deliberate
faithfulness its true place in the system of universal truth,
they seem in eager haste to compel each crude and uncertain novelty of science to figure prominently in the interest
of their dogmatic atheism.  Of course these triumphs are
short-lived, as the triumphs of the wicked must always be.
But it is one of the trusts committed to the Christian Scientist to make them harmless, also, by a swift and thorough
exposure of the falsity of such conclusions.
It can never be said truthfully that Christian Science is
hostile to facts. It hails their advent with delight, from
whatever source.  It rejoices to lead the van in the constantly enlarging field of discovery. But it does not feel
called upon to adopt the hasty and prejudiced philosophy
which men hostile to the faith stand always ready to append
to their discoveries.  While it gives to all well ascertained
facts, the largest liberty, it subjects questionable discoveries
to the most rigid tests.  It looks with reverent eye upon
each new word of nature's revelation, and listens with reverent ear to each new utterance of God by nature's voice,
and then only is it prepared to say whether these revelations
from  material sources be not in harmony with the hitherto
uzinmpeached zword.  Thus it is that true science which is also
Christian science, renders innocuous the intermixed falsehoods of infidel scientists. And it is because of its wide
prevalence and eminence and discriminating thoroughness
that the labors and discoveries of such magnificent skeptics as Darwin and Tyndall are made to yield a harvest of
invaluable contributions to the treasures of sound Christian
philosophy. Let us rejoice, then, at the outlook which we
are permitted to take from the standpoint of the present hour
The cause of Christian learning had never before so unobstructed a field and so grand a leverage under the human
mind, to lift it up, as it has to-day.




20
The light of Christian science has a steady increase.  Its
eclipse is not now to be feared or even thought of. With
Christ all the facts of the material universe are in eternal
harmony, for without Him was not anything made that was
made. It is in this faith that the Alumni of Syracuse University welcome you and your new  associates to-day, and
bid you a hearty Godspeed.  We pledge to you our humble
but hearty co-operation by word, and deed, and prayer.
Let me now, in conclusion, congratulate our rising University on its rare prospects-a central position, a large and
continually increasing endowment, an able Faculty, a numelous andprodigiously distinguished body of Alumni; a beautiful, thriving city, proud of its possession; a religious denomination, the largest in the State, and just waking up grandly
to its educational responsibilities, wholly pledged to its support. And last, but not least, in the judgment of this deponent, the choice of men for Chancellor,




ON BEHALF OF THE FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY,
BY
PROFESSOR HERVEY B. WILBUR, M. D.,
OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS.








MR. CHANCELLOR:Through the kindness of the Faculty of the College of
Liberal Arts of the Syracuse University, I have been requested in their behalf and in behalf of my colleagues of
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, to speak a word of
greeting to you at this time; and, aside from the distrust
I naturally feel, lest what I say may fall short, in thought
or manner, of the demands of the occasion, I frankly confess that duty and inclination run kindly together.
There is a welcome, born of a general feeling of good
fellowship, that, on occasions like these, wells up impulsively
from every heart, towards a stranger, who comes with an
open face, a manly bearing and a courteous manner.
But, there is a deeper source, from which the greeting
flows, to which I would now give utterance. For, under the
present circumstances, any welcome worthy of the nameany welcome that will bear continual fruit, through coming years, in a spontaneous and hearty co-operation in all
your plans and efforts, in a warm and ready sympathy in
your purposes and hopes, in short, in that genuine loyalty
which the members of any faculty should bear their corporate head, must be based upon reason, and judgment
and interest, as well as upon kindly feeling.
In a sense, you come among us no stranger. We know
somewhat of the personal history, of the character and the
attainments, as well as the peculiar experience that led to




24
your selection as our head; and by that knowledge, we
have the warrant that you yourself know what, for a start
in life, a liberal education gives one who fitly improves such
opportunities.  You must have known, by experience and
observation, that the foundation thus laid is broad enough
for any superstructure of knowledge, that time and health
and opportunity permit, if industry and enthusiasm but
guide and inspire; and that the Humanities and  the
Sciences, blended in the daily work of the undergraduate,
combine and mingle in ever new and unfolding relations,
in the continued after-pursuits of the life-scholar.
You can measure the personal influence that the several
members of a faculty, whether collegiate or professional,
can exert in moulding the character and pointing the tastes
and ambition of the student. For you know, by a varied
experience as a teacher, what a quickening of the faculties,
what earnestness of purpose and what energy, the work of
instruction in any department of knowledge gives a manand for the same reason, you can sympathize with and pardon one who in such a calling may exalt his specialty and
magnify its relations.
Besides, we know  your faith in humanity, in all its
breadth, and unconditioned by race or sex; with all the
motives, hopes and aspirations that belief in immortality
gives; and so, the necessity of a union of culture with religion in any scheme of education.  For I take it, Mr.
Chancellor, that the history of civilization shows, that when
these have been divorced, when the temple and the altar
are only the resort of female votaries, and men monopolize
the fruits of education, the highest reach is but barbarism
glossed over.
With such assurance of your principles and aims, the
welcome we bear is deep and heartfelt.  It is based upon
harmony of views, upon esteem and confidence.
To you, then, we owe an allegiance, in which we believe
and which we cheerfully give. Your efforts we mean to




25
second; your hands to strengthen by a sincere good will
and a hearty co-operation.
In the several and special fields of science that now exist
in the two departments for which I speak, and in such
others as from time to time may be created, you may be
sure that, so far as in us lies, the work assigned shall be
done with fidelity and singleness of aim.  And then, to its
possessor and the public, a diploma of the University shall
stand for mental discipline and scholarship, for true culture
and refinement.
It is not the number of buildings, nor wealth of endowment, nor multitude of professors, nor costly apparatus, nor
heaps of books, (desirable as all these are) that will make
this or any other institution of learning a success; but the
fact that it meets the highest educational needs of the
country and the times.  What is wanted here and now is
breadth and thoroughness of instruction; a liberalizing
knowledge, diffused and brought within the reach of any
young man or woman, who yearns for it, be they rich or
poor. After this, the true power of an institution lies in the
wisdom and ability, in the industry, tact and spirit, of those
who fill its chairs and manage its concerns.
To an unthinking observer, the foundations laid here, but
a short time since, may seem small, and the resources quite
inadequate.  But we remember, (and the memory gives us
faith) that human needs for human knowledge never fail;
that institutions of learning almost never die. Their widening influence and their increasing resources are ever mutually reactive for stability and growth; and the degree of
these is measured by the wisdom  and forecast of the
founders.
Take Oxford and Cambridge, in the Old Country, with
almost nothing left to wish for in the way of endowment,
appointments and prestige; and yet prescription and mortmain, literally, the dead hands, of most old English benefactions, have fettered and will forever fetter the scope and




26
use of all their resources.  Quadrangle and cloister, and
the varied forms of mediaeval architecture, and more than
ail, the traditions of the place, have become as rigid moulds
to perpetuate the very means by which  their ends are
sought.  They were established for the education of the
few  a privileged class; designed to pass the torch of learning from century to century; not to diffuse its light.
For myself, as I look upon yonder hill, with its beauty of
outline and breadth of view, in the center of a populous and
wealthy State, a thriving city at its feet, where so many
avenues of commerce and travel centre; when I see a massive " Hall of Languages," the earnest of future structures
that may adorn that hill in coming years; when I note the
large denomination from whose thought and zeal it had its
origin; the comprehensive, flexible and liberal charter from
which it takes its life and is to get its growth; I see the
germ of an institution which in its possible development may
leave no room for envy of Oxford or Cambridge or any Old
World seat of learning.
Mr. Chancellor, we of the Colleges of Liberal Arts and
of Medicine; we, who bear the ark, now resting in tents,
look forward hopefully to the temple that is to'be.  With
prophetic vision we seem to view its fair proportions, the
richness of its materials and the joy of its worship.  With
you, our leader, then; our motto, "a broad and liberal culture for the many;" looking reverently toward the pillar
of cloud and fire, ever before us; we will not loiter in our
camps, but boldly march, onward and onward.




ON BEHALF OF THE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
OF THE STATE,
BY
REV. S. GILMAN BROWN, D. D., LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF HAMILTON COLLEGE.








MR. CHANCELLOR AND GENTLEMEN:
It gives me much pleasure to be allowed some share in
the interesting ceremonies of this day.  Although not
formally authorized to speak for the older Universities and
Colleges of the State, I am sure I misrepresent no one of
them in heartily welcoming you, Mr. Chancellor, to the fellowship of the scholars and educators of this opulent and
powerful commonwealth.
Let us congratulate you, sir, on having been brought to
this field of congenial labor, where the duties will be so full
of pleasure, where the responsibilities, though great, will be
shared by able colleagues, where the hopes of a life of dignity and of eminent usefulness can hardly be disappointed.
I congratulate the friends of the University on the distinguished favor it has met with; on the cordial marks of
good-will manifested by deeds as well as by words, which it
has received from this flourishing and enterprising city; on
the good promises which it holds forth in its faculties of instruction; on the hearty support which it receives from all
those by whose energy and labor it has been founded and
thus far carried forward.
I might well be surprised, if in this age of the world it
were quite prudent to confess surprise at anything, to see
how much has been accomplished in so short a time.  Why,
sir, it was only yesterday, as it seems to me, that the enterprise was suggested, and to-day, buildings have been erected




30
or purchased. I had the pleasure this morning of inspecting your convenient and ample Hall of Languages, so far as
it is accessible, and I came away with a feeling, I am afraid,
too nearly resembling envy. Faculties gathered and organized, students attending recitations and lectures, and all the
complicated wheels of a great Institution are already moving
almost as easily and noiselessly as if they had been moving a thousand years.
But I do not forget that this institution stands under the
special auspices of a body which knows no such thing as
failure, with whom a consecrated life has ever been the first
of duties, and self-devotion has ranked far above mere
knowledge; a body whose beneficent mission it has been to
carry joy and hope to the poor and sad-hearted everywhere,
and which yet has not forgotten that the sincerest faith is
quite consistent with the most profound attainments, and
that now, more than ever before, the best fruits of letters
and science will be found none too ample for him whose life
may be given to works of benevolence and charity; a body
whose name and history are an assurance that that which is
highest in our nature, and ought to be the highest in our
life, shall have the first honor in the University which it controls, which will give to science what-belongs to science, and to
faith what belongs to faith.
To all the responsibilities and joys of this important position, let me once more, sir, tender you a hearty welcome.
If your experience should be like that of others occupying
similar position, you will not be without your hours of anxiety; you may meet with many disappointments; many
plans may prove less successful than you had every reason
to expect; you may find annoyances harder to be borne
than some more serious difficulties; you may be subjected
to much weariness of body and of soul.  The problems of
education are not all solved. On some of them it may be
your province to throw much light.  For it becomes a wise
educator, not carelessly to cast aside the old methods which




31
have stood the test of experience, nor hastily to accept new
ones, often crude and harsh, but rather to assign to every
scheme, if he can, its real value, to pick even from  the
bushel of chaff, its grain of precious wheat; from the mountain of rubbish, its one glittering gem.
It is encouraging to remember that, in labors like ours,
there are pleasant surprises and unusual delights.  We are
working, not with gross matter, but with ethereal elements.
Success sometimes meets us when we had thought only of
failure.  What pleasure can be purer and more unalloyed
than to see minds shaping themselves gradually under your
plastic hand into forms of comeliness and strength, or, as it
were, visibly opening on the instant into full activity and
force, as the bud sometimes suddenly expands into the full
blown flower, or the sun bursts with full effulgence from the
cloud. Beside this, you will always be cheered by the sense
of important duties well done; by the grateful recollection
of the many who will carry your principles and your lessons
with them into the world; the many who at these fountains
first tasted the sweet waters of intellectual and spiritual
life.








OF
BISHOP JESSE T. PECK, D. D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,
WITH THE REPLY OF
CHANCELLOR WINCHELL,








Bishop Peck then addressed Dr. Winchell, as follows:HONORED SI11:It is with no ordinary pleasure that I address you to-day
as the Chancellor-elect of Syracuse University and President-elect of the College of Liberal Arts.
You have been selected from a small number of most
worthy and distinguished educators, as in our judgment,
best suited to the high functions of these responsible offices.
Your fame as a scientist and scholar of distinguished breadth
and progress, has passed beyond the great country of your
birth and  heroic  efforts, and has become conspicuous
amongst the savans and hard-working men of Europe. But
even this, you will allow us to say, would not alone have
given you the representative position into which you are
this day to be inaugurated.  You are to be the chief executive officer of a University established " for the promotion
of Christian learning."  Under the auspices of the church of
God, by the sacrifices and struggles of Christian citizens and
other philanthropic people, who revere the government of
the Infinite One, this University has been founded, with the
distinct idea of offering to the young people of the land the
highest advantages of education, under the genial and vitalizing influence of our holy Christianity, hoping to add
something to the forces which are to produce a class of
scholars, imbued with the "wisdom  which cometh down
from above,"  and strong in the consciousness of God's




36
sustaining and directing grace.  If, therefore, in the pursuit
of the highest science, you had taken your position with
Compte and Fichte and Darwin, in "the worship of the
creature more than the Creator," instead of with Newton,
Hugh Miller and Hitchcock, rising "through nature up to
nature's God," we should have passed you mournfully by
and sought our representative man in some truer, more
logical mind, whose teachings and life would have been
faithful to the noble and really divine ideas in which our
University had its origin.
Let it, therefore, be known, here and elsewhere, that one
of America's distinguished naturalists and most thoroughly
progressive thinkers takes his position this day at the head of
one of the most powerful educational movements of the age,
because he has found reasons in science, both pure and applied, for lofty Christian faith, and a distinctly pronounced
loyalty to the teachings of Divine Revelation.
You have noticed, my honored brother, that a chair is
ordained, naturally furnishing one of the lecture fields of the
Chancellorship, entitled the "Professorship of Evangelical
Christianity," the true meaning of which is that Syracuse
University steps out boldly in response to the challenge of
" Philosophy falsely so called," and a system of education
distinctly ignoring religion, and asserts the humble dependence of all learning upon God and his blessing, and the discipleship of students to the wisdom of the great Teacher.
It will take its place in the broad, deep currents of the
Chris ian life, as "Evangelical," in distinction from sectarian
bigotry, naturalistic Deism, rationalistic Pantheism, and a
dead formalism; and, using the word " Evangelical " in a
rational sense, it will bring out distinctly the religion of
the Evangelists in the power of its own divinely energized
propagandism, moving out through all the learned professions into all the world, to fulfill the scholar's mission of
enlightenment to men, and redemption from  sin to the
highest power of love on earth and eternal life in heaven,




37
Then let it be understood, as the meaning of this new professorship, that we intend to deny that educalion is the final
cause of educationz, and to exalt all learning to the highest,
purest working philanthrophy known amongst men.
You will have noticed the name of another chair which
will hereafter direct your attention to one of the advanced
ideas governing the formation of this University.  Some
one of your colleagues will in due time give instruction in
"the laws of civil liberty and the duties and rights of citizens;" for the Syracuse University will recognize the disorders of civil and political activities, which in all lands
struggling for liberty, corrupt the body politic, rob the people of their rights and property, and demoralize whole
nations by the power of private and public immorality.
Young men  are to be here taught to understand, and
vindicate, and use the high franchises of a free citizenship
in a way to reach the disorders of society, defeat the
schemes of demagogues and enforce the rights of all men.
You have, no doubt, noticed that it is intended here
to give due rank and consideration to the old classic learning of historical scholarship, and to what has been termed
the new education.  Syracuse University means firmzess in
holding on to all that is valuable in the grand old past, and
progress in all that is new and vigorous in adjustment to
this and the coming age.  I deem it, therefore, singularly
fortunate that we inaugurate to-day a man who distinctly
represents the old learning and the new, and who is known
to be with the boldest advance of modern thought, and
broad enough to take in the past as well as the future.
I may also remind you, honored sir, that the plan of this
organization is peculiar, in the fact that it does not ask you
and your colleagues to make a University of a College.  On
the contrary, it requires the University to make Colleges,
It proposes a natural, complete and easy division of labor,
The College of the Liberal Arts, already begins the realization of our plans.  It is to be, and is, a sub-graduate




38
college of the highest order and widest range. The College
of Physicians and Surgeons has just graduated its first class,
and has a good field and high prospects for the future.
The organization of the Faculty of the University will
now  devolve upon you-a Faculty which will, as soon as
may be, officially determine the curricula of the several Colleges, heretofore necessarily provisional. You will then be
in position to receive the recommendations for degrees
which will come up from the Colleges, and otherwise supervise interests belonging to the whole University.
May I say in conclusion, you have not been called to preside over an institution already made and endowed.  If I
judge rightly, such an institution would have called to you
in vain.  You are a young man.  It is now exactly the right
time for you to enter upon your great life mission.  God
has furnished you well for it. An enterprise to engage your
intellect and heart, must have its great future to make.  If
its heroic struggles were over, and its days of ease had come,
it would be no place for you or your noble colleagues.  Its
fresh and flexible youth, its demands for millions of money,
with the great public to educate up to the required standard
of munificent giving, the certainty of heavy and almost
crushing burdens to bear-these are the facts which have
found a response in your noblest manhood, and brought
you here.  While I mourn the order given me to depart to
a distant field, which must deprive me of the coveted
honor of standing by your side, in these successive struggles, it gives me the strongest satisfaction to feel that the
great office which has been waiting for its man, is to be
filled by a spirit vigorous, brave and true, which will gather
heroism from the trials, and exactions of office, and strength
from the pressure of burdens too heavy for any man of rash
self-confidence, or timid, unsteady purpose.
It now only remains for me in accordance with instructions received from my colleagues in the Board of Trustees,
formally to invest you with the high office to which you




39
have been called. The symbols of this office I now present
to you.
First, the Holy Bible, which contains the exact definitions of the trize and the rzight which are to produce the
spirit and control the labor of your administration.
Next, I give you the keys, which will place all the buildings and property of the University under your charge, and
symbolize the authority vested in you and your colleagues
to determine the conditions upon which students of all
grades may enjoy its privileges.
Finally, I present you this seal, which will authorize you,
in accordance with the laws, to send out into the world those
who have met the required conditions, with the official endorsement of the University.
By the authority of the Board of Trustees, I hereby declare you, ALEXANDER WINICHELL, to be duly inaugurated
Chancellor of Syracuse University and President of the
College of Liberal Arts. May the blessing of God sustain
and direct you!
To this address Chancellor Winchell responded as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT, AND HONORED AND BELOVED BISHOP:I accept the responsibility which you have formally entrusted to my keeping.  I do it, however, with diffidence
and a distrust of my personal ability to acquit myself according to your high ideal.
I shall have frequent occasion to seek the counsel of him
whose ideas permeate every ramification of the University
organization.
I shall need to depend upon the wisdom and forbearance
of my greatly esteemed colleagues, whose earnestness and
unselfishness in the service of the University, have amounted to a personal consecration.




40
I shall need the respect and affection of the students,whose
voices of cheer I have heard to-day, mingling with the
other congratulations.
I shall need the approbation and co-operation of the
Alumni, who have accorded me, already, their words of welcome and support.
I shall need the sympathy and fraternization of the
laborers in the cause of Education throughout the State;
and I count it an omen of much significance, that I am
permitted to-day to listen to phrases of welcome from one of
their most distinguished representatives.
I shall need the forbearance of the Board of Trustees, the
courtesies and confidence of the public, and the sympathy
and material support of the generous friends of higher
learning everywhere.
More than all these aids I shall need the wisdom  which
comes 1ot of manu.
I have studied the organic features of the University; I
have admired its breadth and depth and symmetry; I have
remarked the broad seal of Christianity, so deeply enstamped
upon its front; I have noted the earnest utterances of the
Christian scholars who have heretofore spoken for the University.  Upon the strong foundations which you and your
associates have laid, I shall labor to rear a structure which
will attain as nearly as possible, to the beauty, the grandeur
and the beneficence of the ideal you have so fondly
cherished.
And may God be my helper,




OF
CHANCELLOR WINCHELL.








THE MODERN UNIVERSITY.
A wise custom devolves upon the newly-installed executive of a College or University, the duty of presenting an
exposition of the general views and principles which may
be expected to influence his administration. In conforming to this custom, I propose to set forth my conception of
the Modern University, and to indicate in a general way, the
things requisite to the realization of the ideal, in the character of the Syracuse University.
I. THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Considered in its historical development, the Idea of the
University has not attained fully to the requirements of
modern thought and civilization.  This is but saying that
supply waits on demand; accomplished fact lags behind
originative concept.  It may be profitable, nevertheless, to
glance, at the outset, at the historical idea of the University.
In its fundamental sense, the University is a system of appliances for teaching and advancing all learning.  Institutions have existed for more than three thousand years,
which fulfilled these general requisites; though the name
appears to have been first applied to the University of
Paris, in the year I206. The varying factors in the historical university, have been the quantity of learning extant,
and the nature of the appliances for disseminating it.




44
No doubt exists, that the light of learning arose, like the
sun, in the east.  In ancient Persia, Chaldea and China,
were institutions of learning of no mean importance, as the
astronomical records, inscriptions and architectural remains
of those countries testify. Their learned men, however,
were sacred men. Professor and priest were one. In Egypt,
as is better understood, the priests established schools in the
temples, and, in their esoteric teaching, expounded the
science of the times to the favored few.  Among these,
were pilgrims from  Asia Minor and the islands and peninsula of Greece. Egyptian learning was incorporated with
the results of sturdy Grecian speculation; and, in the
cities of Greece, distinguished scholars gathered around
them pupils from many lands.  The great problems of the
Universe confronted the Greek thinker, as they confront the
philosopher of to-day, and eager pupils flocked to hear his
exposition of the "first principle" and "ground " of all existence.   Thales, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus,
Anaximander, Leucippus, Democritus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, are the honored names of great
schoolmasters of the pre-Socratic ages, who grappled with
the highest problems of nature, and strove to lead their
pupils, through an interpretation of the phenomena of nature, to an apprehension of that intelligent unity and First
Cause from which all existence springs.  Pythagoras, with
his circle of disciples around him, has been called by the
historian Dahlmann, "the oldest university."
I need but to advert to Socrates, the quizzing pedagogue
of Athens; Plato, the eloquent lecturer of the Academy
which he founded; Aristotle, the encyclopedic master of
the Lyceum, to remind my hearers that real universities existed in the palmy days of Greece, in which master-spirits
expounded the higher learning of their times.
At Alexandria arose the first High School founded by the
patronage of the State.  The " Museum" was planted by
Ptolemy Soter, and grew, under successive kings, to the




45
magnitude and worth of a real university.   Here was
gathered a library rich in the sciences and literatures of
Greece, Rome, Persia, India, Babylonia, Phoenecia and
Etlliopia; and its numerous professors gave instruction in
the philosophy of all the schools, in mathematics, astronomy,
geography, medicine, anatomy, natural history, grammar,
criticism, poetry, history, and both Jewish and Christian
theology.  Here flourished Pantaenus, the first professor of
scientific theology; here, the authors of the Septuagint
version of our Sacred Scriptures; here, Philo, Josephus,
the evangelist Mark, Athenagoras, Clement and Origen.
At Rome, the "Athenaeum," founded by Hadrian, on the
Capitoline Hill, became both the university of the Latin
race, and the mother of the "Imperial Schools" established
in all the chief cities of the Roman dominion. Constantine
founded a university at Constantinople; and schools less
celebrated sprang up in all the principal cities of the east.
The downfall of the Western  Empire signalized the
eclipse of learning.   The schools that had flourished
throughout the Roman realm, languished or became extinct;
and science and literature withdrew to cloisters and cathedrals. Now, schools of the ecclesiastical sort sprang up
from the ruins of the Imperial Schools of the Roman period;
and the monasteries became the conservatories of the learning of antiquity. The Benedictines, in the sixth, seventh and
eighth centuries, were the chief custodians of the interests of
education. Through their enlightened aid and co-operation,
Charlemagne organized that system of monastic, cathedral
and foundation schools, out of which have grown, in process
of time, the great schools and universities of Germany and
France.  But the sad decline of learning is apparent when
we contrast the curricula of these schools with the range of
science taught in the Museum at Alexandria, in the first
three centuries of our era. The instruction in the lower
schools was confined to reading, singing, reckoning and
writing.  The studies of the higher schools were divided




46
into the Trivium and Quadrivimum.  In the former, the student pursued grammar, logic and rhetoric; in the latter,
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The studies of
the Trivium  and Quadrivium  were styled "the seven free
arts."
The "Palace School," organized by the Emperor, became
the forerunner, if it was not the germ, of the University of
Paris, the oldest educational institution which has been perpetuated to our times in the character of a university. The
first of the modern universities was developed, therefore,
from  an ecclesiastical school; and its range of instruction
was, accordingly, limited, at first, to philosophy and theology.  Subsequently, medicine and the canon law were added.
The classification, which had originally been according to
the nations represented among its students, was now (I260)
based upon the nature of the subjects taught; and about
this time, the Faculties of Theology, Medicine and Canon
Law assumed a distinct existence.
The University of Bologna, which, in order of time, stands
next, seems to have grown out of a school of jurisprudence,
instead of an ecclesiastical institution.  Properly speaking,
this "university" was a college of law, or rather two separate
colleges distinguished solely by the nativity of their pupils.
Subsequently, however, a "University of Arts" was established; and still later, (1362) a "University of Theology."
About the same time-the end of the eleventh centurya school at Oxford, England, whose history, it is thought, may
be traced back to the reign of Alfred, began to expand into
the proportions of a university. About a century later, the
University of Cambridge took form from another scholastic
institution. In these universities, the co-ordinate bodies, or
colleges, were not the "nations," as in the University of Bologna and the early history of the University of Paris;
nor the several Faculties, as in the later history of the University of Paris and all the German universities, but the
bodies of teachers and students gathered in the several




47
halls or buildings. Nor was the English university-idea as
broad and truthful as that of the French and Germans; for,
while in the Continental institutions, the university embodied
and consolidated all the "nations" and all the "faculties,"
the English held, and still hold, that the university is founded
in the arts, and that the faculty and students in arts constitute the university.
The first of the  German  Universities, founded  at
Prague, in 1348, and the second, at Vienna, 1365, discarded,
at the outset, the accidental distinctions of nations and lodgings, and adopted a classification according to sciences and
faculties; giving the university, in its body and soul, the
completer solidarity demanded by their deeper insight into
the unity of truth.
The oldest American universities have grown out of colleges founded as schools for the clergy. They were modeled, in their origin, after the English colleges of Oxford
and Cambridge; but they never followed their prototypes
in the multiplication of Faculties of Arts; and the broad
university idea has been present in sufficient force to affiliate
and assimilate the subsequently added faculties of Medicine,
Theology and Law as well as higher faculties of science
and the arts.
The historical idea of the University in respect to its control, is that of a close, independent corporation, electing its
own chief and subordinate officers, and determining the laws
and conditions of its own being. Universities were not preordained nor preconceived by either secular or ecclesiastical
authority. They grew, as language has grown.  Strong
intellects gathered pupils about them by a sort of concretionary attraction, and the body was permitted by the State
to regulate its own existence. In the University of Paris,
the teachers constituted the corporate body, which exercised
control of the pupils. In the University of Bologna, the
students were the corporate body, and elected their own
presiding officers and professors.  It is worthy of note that




48
the ancient idea of the University recognized no authority
outside of the teachers and their pupils; and, in the European
universities, these traditional franchises have been largely,
and, I believe, wisely, respected, even to the present day.
In those universities where classification according to
nations prevailed, a head or "Proctor" was elected by each
"nation," and a "Rector" of the university was chosen either
by the proctors or by "electors" designated for that purpose.
Where classification according to "faculties" existed, the
head of the faculty was styled the "Dean." In the English
universities, the general officer was styled the "Chancellor."
In the universities of America, the head of a faculty is
generally styled the "Dean," if the co-ordinate faculties
have come into existence; if not, he is generally known as
"President."  The chief executive of a university organization is styled "President," "Chancellor" or "Rector."
In the German universities, the assembly of all the faculties was styled the "great council."  In some American
universities, it is known as the "academic council," or the
"senate."  The "lesser council," among the Germans, was
constituted by the deans of the four faculties, and with these,
in some of the universities, "assessors" from all the faculties, or from the Faculty of Law alone.
The other variable factor in the historical idea of the University, is the sphere of human knowledge, and the appreciation of it by the learned.
We remark, first of all, however, certain fundamental
judgments which have found expression in all ages.  First,
the DivinZe has always been made the object of search and
research. In the Oriental and Egyptian schools, theology
embraced all learning.  With the Greek philosopher, the
attempt to reach the ultimate cause of all things, gave birth
to the sciences.  Thales thought he had found the ultimate principle in wvater; Anaximenes sought it in air; Heraclitus of Ephesus, in fire: Anaximander, in tze infinite
(to a'rezpov); Leucippus, in atoms and space; Democritus,




49
in atoms and the vacuum; Pythagoras, in the principle symbolized by numbers; Anaxagoras,in nminzd; while Socrates
and Plato distinctly recognized a Supreme Intelligence as the'first cause of all things, and made his being and attributes,
and the consequent relations of human agents, the themes
of all their discourses. Plato philosophizing is Plato preaching. Whether in the Academy or the Lyceum at Athens, the
Athenaeum  at Rome, or the Museum  at Alexandria, the
philosopher aimed to penetrate to that ultimate datum which
he felt must underlie all the changeful phenomena of sense,
and which the soul of man spontaneously relegates to primordial, diviLc energy.  When the phenomena which reveal the
outworking of first principles, had been so studied and
classified, in search of their cause, as to constitute a series
of systems of facts, they began to be studiedfor their ovnz
sakes, as material of the sciences; and the formal study of
divinity remained simply a co-ordinate science. Thus appeared, at Alexandria, a well-defined theological college.
During the dark ages, while the sciences of nature fell into
neglect, the soul of man held fast to the science of God;
and out of this sprang, as before, a new ramification of the
secular sciences.  The historical idea of the University,
therefore, recognizes God, and recognizes Him as an object of
study.
Secondly, the science of Mathenzatics has always found
place in the teachings of the University and the lower
schools.  I scarcely need make citations in proof of this.
Thirdly, aesthetic Art has always found a generous recognition.  Music had a place in the systems of Pythagoras,
Plato and most of the ancient philosophers and schools.
Singing was taught in the lower schools of the Middle Ages,
and music in the quadrivium of the higher schools.  The
science of music still retains its prestige in the universities
of the Old World. Similar statements may be made in respect to the art of poetry.
Fourthly, Gramzinar, or the science and art of languages,




50
has had a place since very early times; while Logic and Metaphysics, since the epoch of Plato and Aristotle, have commanded the full consideration of the conservators and expounders of learning.
These few subjects, however, with slight variations and
additions, have afforded the traditional staple of instruction
in all colleges of the liberal arts, since the decay of the Alexandrian schools. To whatever extent the university curriculum has been expanded, it has, until very recent times, exposed marked deficiencies in the sciences, arts and professions which especially characterize, and, to a great extent,
create our modern civilization.  I shall proceed, therefore,
after this glance at the past, to set forth the idea of the university considered as the outgrowvzth and product of modern
t   is a trite remark that the achievemets  of the itelect
It is a trite remark that the achievements of the intellect
of modern times, have so extended the field of human
knowledge and activity that the learning of ancient and
mediaeval times seems almost insignificant.  Systems of
truth capable of evolution from the data of consciousnesslike the principles of psychology, ethics, metaphysics, mathematics, poetry, music, were wrought out in a great degree
of perfection, even by the ancients; but systems of truth
based upon an observation of externalphenomena, are almost
wholly of modern birth. Such, especially, are the sciences
of chemistry, zoology, botany, geology, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology. This means that a university cast in the
mould of the Middle Ages, is no longer a university, if it does
not expand with this expanse of human learning.
Another pre-eminent contrast between the mediaeval and
the modern ages is in the ministration of knowledge to the
material wants of the race. In this work the modern sciences have revealed capabilities to which the old subjective
sciences could lay no claim.  Even the science of medicine,
until modern times, was little more than a system of empirical formulae, founded on a very inadequate knowledge of




51
human anatomy and physiology, of the nature of disease, the
action of medicines, or of the essential principles of the
medicines themselves.  Modern research has laid a scientific foundation underneath this profession, and rendered it
doubly worthy to stand as one of the learned professions.
In the meantime, it has added to the list of the learned professions.  The science and art of civil engineering constitute a profession as truly learned, as indispensably useful,
and almost as extensively patronized as either of the learned
professions of the medieval universities.  Something similar may be said of military engineering, of mechanical and
of mining engineering. The science and art of chemical
analysis constitute another learned profession, which finds
liberal employment in answering the demands of modern industries.  The science and art of pedagogy have become a
learned profession, which has already called into existence
its appropriate colleges in the form  of normal schools.
These citations serve to illustrate my meaning when I
state that the greater portion of the sciences, arts and industries which characterize our modern civilization, have
come into existence since the historical mould of the University was cast.  The soul of the University retains its
identity, and should do so; but its body needs to be renewed
with "the progress of the suns."  It should continue to expand itself sufficiently to take in the enlarged mass of human knowledge, so that he who is a pirt of the University
need not separate himself to become an expert in the principles of any science, art or profession.
These remarks, as will be understood, involve some stricture upon the older universities of Europe and America, and
a reminder of the opportunities which lie before the new
ones. Tradition seeks to make us all its slaves. What our
ancestors planned and adopted at Oxford and Cambridge,
our pilgrim  fathers deemed worthy to be transplanted in
New England.  What the pilgrim fathers organized and set
in motion, their descendants find it revereit to perpetuate.




52
Be the cry of the living age ever so loud, they are still listening to the cry of the ages of Charlemagne and Frederick
the Great.  Precedent makes law; but changed circumstances can unmake it.  An enterprising and independent people will sometimes shake off the shackles of tradition. So
we have done in the founding of new universities.  Iow
much of American progress is traceable to the results of the
spirit of emigration, few have considered. In all communities are men progressive and men conservative.  The conservative majority perpetuate outgrown institutions; the progressive minority are selected out by the spirit of emigration to constitute majorities in new states.  These men reverence antiquity, but they reverence more, truth, harmony,
utility. Without throwing the old away, they are ready to
assimilate the new.  So we must not be surprised to find
the noblest features of an advanced civilization in regions
which, a few years ago, were upon "the frontier."  New
England need feel no chagrin if some of the newer schools,
colleges and universities of New York and the Great West
demonstrate a more facile adaptation to the demands of the
age.  I feel fully justified in the assertion that the University of Michigan stands pre-eminent in its methods of rejecting the effete and selecting the useful in the educational systems of all ages and countries, and assimilating with this, all
the new ideas suggested by the cautious radicalism of healthy
progress.  I hope, with you, sir, we shall be alive to the noble opportunity to apply this selective, appreciative and
adaptive policy, in the organic shaping of our University.
The solidarity of the sciences, the Modern University recognizes as an all-underlying principle. No science or profession can be properly studied, in its violation. Each, pursued
in its relations, affiliates itself with all the others, giving and
receiving sympathy, and converging ever toward the simplicity of unity. There is no specialist but can pass better
judgments in his specialty by a knowledge of its relations
to cognate learning. The physicist only knows how to ap



53
preciate moral and intuitive evidence, when he has gone beyond his sphere as a specialist, and studied the grounds of
all belief-the grounds of knowledge and belief even in the
physical world. The physician will select his remedies with
most discretion and safety, who understands the natural affinities which group the products of the materia medica,
and the modes of action of their essential principles. This
knowledge is drawn from botany, chemistry and physiology.
That legislator or judge will arrive at the wisest and most
enduring decisions, who has the most extensive knowledge
of history and political science, and the deepest insight into
the ethical intuitions of man. All the sciences, arts and professions cluster around the heart of the University.
The catholicity of learning binds the University to the
schools below. They work for and with each other.  The
University furnishes brains for the High School; the High
School supplies blood to the University. This unity has been
sagaciously, but somewhat feebly and inadequately grasped
by that loose organization known as the "University of the
State of New York"-a piece of machinery which betrays
an inspiration which may some day be realized-the strict
concatenation, and mutual adaptation, and serial adjustment
of the various educational institutions of the State.
While the University extends its hospitality to every science and the theory of every art and profession, it is not pretended that every College of the Liberal Arts is bound to
occupy as broad a field as the University-even with the
"three learned professions" left out. A college consists of
a faculty for giving instruction in a system of closely cognate subjects, all clustering around a central idea. The
University is the complete circle of colleges. Ten colleges
of one kind do not constitute a university. But, if a college
-say of the Liberal Arts-determines to limit itself to a
single faculty, it has as good a right to existence and the exercise of its functions as if it were a university. The very
attempt to make it a university might greatly impair its use



54
fulness. But the moment it introduces into its curriculum,
studies in jurisprudence, engineering or any other profession, it begins to assume the university character. What
constitutes the proper curriculum of this college, is one of
the mooted questions of the day.  I have no reserve in
stating my own opinions.  Culture is the central idea of the
College of Liberal Arts. It teaches those subjects whose
study and acquisition will be useful to all alike. Formerly,
the range of those subjects embraced only the ancient classics, mathematics, logic, rhetoric and metaphysics, with the
addition, perhaps of music and poetry. While conservative
educators are disposed to retain these as the chief means of
modern culture, in my own opinion, the range of "liberal
arts," viewed merely as a means of culztre, might be considerably extended. The modern languages, especially the
German, afford a species of culture similar to that obtained
from the Latin and Greek.  I do not'assert that they possess equal value. The Natural Sciences afford a species of
culture not yielded by any of the liberal arts of antiquity,
Moreover, it is the very culture which fits the mind to seize
and carry forward the movements of modern society. I record the opinion, therefore, that modern languages and the
leading natural sciences ought to stand side by side with the
liberal arts of antiquity, viewed merely as means of mental
culture,
But culture does not complete the modern idea of the
College of Liberal Arts.  Its object is both culture and
knozvledge.  There is a certain round of knowledge as essential to every educated man, as the traditional round of culture.  Men whose education is concluded with the curriculum for the bachelor's degree, stand in urgent need of a certain complement of information as well as discipline, to fit
them for winning success.  Because the College of Liberal
Arts has expended its best efforts in teaching the arts which
were liberal in the fifteenth century, instead of the nineteenth, it has lost much of its ancient prestige.  Young




55
men have turned away from the institution where they got
only culture, to the college of engineering or technology or
agriculture, where, if the institution were trueto its name,
they got only knowledge, and little or no culture. I make
no choice between the alternatives. I have long maintained
that the College of Liberal Arts, in an age whose progress
consists so largely in the subjection of the material world,
ought to furnish the pupil with the knowledge requisite for
non-professional life, as well as the culture.
The range of studies affording culture to all, and knowledge to those who seek it, is so wide that we have considerable room for selection.  After the student has attained a
certain degree of advancement in his course, he might be
permitted to elect his studies with a reference to his own
tastes and endowments, and so as to answer rather the ends
of culture or knowledge, according as either is uppermost in
his aims. But there is danger of carrying the optional system too far. Immature youths should not be left to their
own caprices. With discretion in this direction, the curriculum of the College of Liberal Arts, it seems to me, ought
to be so enlarged and liberalized that every young person
seeking only a liberal education, should be permitted, in the
advanced stages of his course, to make elections suited to
graduate him with such an outfit of discipline and information, as should qualify him to pursue any non-professional
calling of his choice.
It is a fundamental demand of the modern University,
that the data of science be studied in their integrity.  One
class of phenomena constitutes as valid a basis for generalization as another. The importance of the generalization
may be greater or less. We are as solemnly bound to collate and study the phenomena of consciousness as the' phenomena of matter; as solemnly bound to regard the religious and ethical phenomena of consciousness, as the intellectual. The facts of the moral and religious history of
mankind, constitute material for a philosophy as "positive'




56
as the record of battles and sieges and dynasties, or the reactions of substances in the test-tube of the chemist. The
data upon which a metaphysical inquiry proceeds, must be
treated with the same respect as the data of a physical investigation. However impossible it may be for the physicist
to apprehend the metaphysics of his physics, the University
is bound to protect the metaphysician who does apprehend
it and assert it. The university takes no part in the controversy respecting the relative value of the sciences and
the classics, as sources of knowledge and culture. It opens
its hospitable doors to both, and permits each person to decide for himself between the two.
The University tolerates no exclusive dogmatic teaching,
Its chosen end is absolute truth;, its chosen method is free
discussion.  It fears nothing which can be proven true.  It
holds no cherished doctrine that it will not have searched
and scrutinized through and through-tested by every ordeal-exposed to the light of every science.  Least of all,
will it permit unreasoning religious dogma to disrespect the
autonomy of personal conviction. Truth does not take its
color from sect. Sect may assume the hue of truth. Truth
is one to Greek or barbarian, Christian or infidel; and he
who weaves in his creed the greatest amount of truth and
the least amount of error, will be the champion in the final
conflict.
The modern University knows no disilzcticio  of persons.
This, indeed, is the historical idea.  From the very dawn of
university life, the great teachers have been waited upon by
the disciples of various nations. Nor was race, or color, or
caste, or sex a bar to the most generous privileges. Our
age can never make it a boast that it first opened the doors
of its universities to women. Not only did the schools of antiquity, and the colleges of the middle ages admit women as pupils, but, by recognizing the natural sequel of this, they
elected women to professors' chairs. The wife and daughter
of Pythagoras were teachers in his school of philosophy in




57
Italy.  Hypatia filled the chair of philosophy in the Platonic
school at Alexandria. In the University of Bologna, chairs
were filled by Helena Cornaro, Maria Agnesi, Clotilda Tambroni and others.
The ideal of the modern University yields answer to the
question, "who holds the natural right tofound a university."
This right rests wherever the want and the ability co-exist
-be it in the solitary philosopher, like Plato, or Epicurus,
or Abelard, shining as a beacon in the midst of.darkness,
and compelling the world to pay homage to his genius; or
an emperor like Ptolemy, or Hadrian or Gustavus Adolphus;
or a doctor of jurisprudence, like Irnerius'of Bologna; or a
munificent patron of learning from the walks of private life,
like Vassar; or a republican state, like Michigan; or a patron
of learning joining hands with the state, like Cornell; or a
dozen clergymen bringing their armfulls of books to consecrate to the foundation, as at Yale; or a great ecclesiastical body, as at Trinity, Rochester or Syracuse.
Learning and religion have always manifested a marked
and ineradicable spirit of affiliation. Viewed in its subjective character, philosophy is a seeking after the first cause
-the final explanation-of things-that is, God.  Science
gives us intermediate causes-explanations which still demand deeper explanation; and he who thinks that science,
as such, leads us to real causes, may scorn philosophy and
ignore God.  But deeper thinking-the mastery of the
philosophy which underlies science, discloses the ultimate
cause of causes-intelligent, infinite, eternal. This was the
faith of the philosophers of antiquity-all save Socrates,
who pronounced the search for the first cause vain, and
turned his attention to the field of practical ethics.  With
the ancients, all philosophy was theology; and so intimately
was divine existence connected with the phenomena of the
universe that, with the early Greeks, cosmogony was theogony.  History and ethnology show that the thoughtful
men of all nations and ages have been the theologians of




58
their times.  I wish, in passing, to emphasize the thought.
A knowledge of any truth is a knowledge of God's truthGod's thought; and a search for truth is a feeling after the
mind and will of Deity.  All science infallibly leads us toward God.  As I have just said, it is not the office of science
to lead to God; and when the devotee of science stops
short of finding God, you pronounce his science "infidel."
Ah, good friend, that is blasphemy unconsciously uttered.
There is no infidel science. God made science. Infidelity
grows out of the spirit and method of the pursuit of science,
and the perversity of the human heart. If the physicist is
not led through his science to God, it is the fault of the individual.  Let him  learn that he has not yet reached the
bourne of ultimate inquiry; then he will recognize matter
and force generated, pervaded, energized and controlled by
omnipresent mind.
This spirit of affiliation marks also the whole history of
learning. Religion has been studied in the schools of the
world; and even when secular learning died out from  the
memories of men, Christianity clung to it in the cloisters
and abbeys, and nursed its life, and sent it forth again, under
better auspices, to enlighten and bless the world. And thus
it has happened that our grand modern civilization, which
is but the outcome of the sciences propagated and fostered
under Christian care, is, historically and pre-eminently, as
you have intimated, sir, a Christian civilization. This fostering care has never been intermitted.  Our New  England
fathers cherished learning for Christianity's sake; and from
the dawn of collegelife in Massachusetts, Christian bodies
have been busy planting the germs of colleges and universities in every State of the New World.  Christianity seems
almost to hold an ancient prescriptive right to ally itself
with the initiation of educational enterprises of every
grade.
As between the prospects of a university founded under
distinctly religious auspices and one founded or sustained by




59
the State, I feel inclined to the opinion that the former has
most to expect.  Not that the State possesses less ability,
but that the religious body possesses more intelligence and
a better will.  A  State-university is at the mercy of the
caprices of a legislature.  A  university planted under the
auspices of a powerful religious body, rests in the affections,
the intelligence and the enterprise of its representatives.
These representatives are the clergy and select laity. Now,
when I place a body thus constituted by the side of an
average State legislature, and ask myself from which body I
can most reasonably expect a reverence for learning, large
views and incorrupt legislation, I do not hesitate to bestow
my confidence upon the Christian body. Add to this consideration, the closer interest which unites the members of
a religious body with the enterprises which they have espoused, and the pride which it is natural to feel in the enlargement and success of such enterprises, and it seems to
me that good reasons are found for building better hopes on
a university which a powerful ecclesiastical body has planted
and become sponsor for, than can be entertained of one
launched forth upon the languid sympathy of the great
public, with no great humanitarian interest warming around
it, to cherish it and rear it.
But all this does not imply that a university or college
thus planted and nurtured must be maintained in the direct
and exclusive interest of the ecclesiastical body which controls it. The honor and prestige which grow out of its worthy
and successful administration, no doubt, belong to that body.
No doubt, also, a predisposition may be felt, on the part of
pupils and the public, toward a Christian denomination doing
efficient work for education and science.  But the spirit of
the University demands absolute freedom  from  all direct
teaching or influence of a partisan character.  If such
teaching be tolerated, free opportunity must be given to
antagonize it. On controverted topics, discussion eliminates
the truth.  It must be expected, however, that any teacher




60
will feel free to entertain inflexibly the tenets of the body
which determines his appointment-as every teacher is free
to entertain different opinions-and it must be expected
that every teacher in his unofficial capacity, shall be at
liberty to teach his tenets to such persons, inclusive of
students, as may be pleased to listen to him.  But this
liberty could not extend to a tolerance of teaching calculated to subvert the fundamental principles of a Christian
institution.  The law of self-preservation forbids.  Christianity is our fundamental postulate.  There is one department of the University, however, in which the religious
body controlling it must have full liberty to teach -and expound its distinctive theological and ecclesiastical opinions.
That is the College of Theology.
Freedom from sectarian bias in the common teaching of
the University is not only demanded by the catholic spirit
of true learning, but by considerations of expediency, candor and fair dealing, in any case where people holding
diverse ecclesiastical views, have co-operated, in the interests
of education, with those who assume control. In the Syracuse University, every consideration dictates the laying of
a broadly Christian foundation, and the inauguration of a
manly, ingenuous administration.  While I shall hold to
my own and defend it, and shall claim for my church the
chief honor which may be earned by a successful management, I earnestly hope that our successes may be of such a
character as shall bring unfeigned satisfaction to the heart
of every Christian citizen of the commonwealth, whatever
be his creed.
II. INTERNAL ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
In descending from the fundamental idea of the University, whether considered as an inheritance of the past, or a
sequence of modern civilization, we encounter certain considerations of secondary importance, relating to the economies of the University.




The constitution of the legislative body of the University
has been various, and continues so. In America, the lodgement of the function of legislation in the hands of the
faculties has not been considered expedient, chiefly, I judge,
because the complicated and sometimes large, pecuniary
operations of the institution, are supposed to demand peculiar business qualifications; but partly, I also judge, because
it was supposed the legislation of the Faculties might be
warped by a selfish bias, which would conflict with the
interests of the college or the university.  The body of
students has not been vested with any amount of legislative
control, evidently, because, in this country, our colleges and
so-styled universities have been rather gymnasia, in which the
requisite maturity has been lacking. Accordingly, the supreme authority has always been vested in an external corporation, in which the Faculties have generally been represented
simply by their chief executive officer.  In the case of State
institutions, the legislative body has been appointed by the
governor, with or without the consent of the senate, or has
been elected directly by the votes of the people-a system
which is attended by grave dangers. In the denominational
institutions, the legislative board, once constituted from
representatives of the controlling denomination, has generally been made self-perpetuating.  Recently, however,
the Alumni have been permitted, in some cases, to elect
representatives to the collegiate or university legislature;
and this policy shows a tendency to revert to the original
methods. The government of the Syracuse University embodies the representation of five separate interests.  These
are:-~Ist. The controlling denomination, whose several
"Conferences," within the State, send their representatives
to sit on the Board of Trustees; 2d. The co-operating
denominations, which may send from six to nine representatives to sit upon the Board; 3d. The Alumni, who send
three trustees; 4th. The State at large, represented by the




62
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Chief Judge of the Court
of Appeals, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction;
5th. The Faculties, represented by the Chancellor of the
University. It would seem that such a representation of
the various classes of persons interested in the success of
the University, should secure the adoption of measures at
once broad, well considered and permanently useful.
Further, in respect to internal economy, the question
arises whether the interests of higher education are likely
to be promoted by the introduction of a system of compulsory, compensated manual labor.  I am fully prepared, by
observation and experience, to render a negative opinion.
As to compulsory military drill, my judgment is the same.
Boys, who still need to acquire habits of order, punctuality
and subordination, will undoubtedly be benefited by the
discipline of systematic manual labor, or a quasi-military
life; and all will add symmetry and vigor to the bodily
physique by the use of such means. But, when students
have attained to the stages of a higher education, they ought
to be left free to choose, with the advice of parents and
teachers, their own method of physical and mental development.
Other questions arise, having reference to the methods
of instruction.  Originally, the exclusive method of the
teacher, in the school or university, was by conversation
and lectures. The lectures were, often, highly controversial
in their character; and dialectics, as taught and exemplified
in the schools, was a leading subject of study by the pupils.
But, in those times, books were either wanting or extremely
rare, and the principles of learning had not been digested
into elementary treatises.
Bringing ourselves, at once, to the condition and demands
of modern teaching, we recognize but two fundamental
methods-that by lectures, and that by means of laboratories. In all the sciences and professions whose principles




63
are grounded in the facts of nature, the laboratory is indispensable. The laboratory is nature in minature, where the
operations of her forces can be carefully studied under
known and even predetermined conditions.  The method
in the laboratory is that of investigation,. in which the collector of facts rises from generalization to broader generalization, indefinitely approximating the all-embracing unity
of ultimate truth. The lecture appropriately reverses the
process.  It seizes upon the conclusions of the sciences, and,
by an analysis, evolves the subordinated and included principles, gradually approximating the facts of immediate
observation. The lecture serves as a review and panoramic
reproduction of the generalizations of the laboratory.  It
may even be accompanied by a reproduction of the experiments of the laboratory. This is the favorite method when
the lecture is addressed to an audience that has not worked
in the laboratory. As to text-books, they are but written
memoranda, made by investigators and lecturers for convent
ience of pupils in reviewing the subjects presented in the
lecture, or illustrated in the laboratory; while quizzes, or
" recitations" are but conversational lectures intended as
reviews, or for the disclosure and removal of the difficulties
which beset the pupil.
Now, as to the relative value of these four forms of the
two fundamental methods of education, little needs to be
said.  They must all be resorted to. A  system which
restricts itself to either one, or either two, is insufficient.
Exclusive laboratory-work supplies a vivid knowledge of
facts; but they do not assume a systematized and digested
form. They are the crude material rather than the symmetrical organism of science. Exclusive lectures may lodge in
the memory the generalized principles and their proximate
demonstrations, but they do not generally satisfy the mind's
demand for the ultimate data.  The method, moreover,
needs to be supplemented by the quiz, to focalize the floating
rays of knowledge in the pupil's mind, and give definiteness




64
and sharpness to his ideas and mental perceptions. The exclusive quiz leaves the pupil without that breadth and massiveness of view, that knowledge of the correlations of the
different systems of truth, and those most recent developments of science, which ought to be afforded by the lecture.
The text-book and quiz associated, form a method very extensively pursued, supplemented, according to the qualities of
the teacher, by familiar lectures. But a text-book, of whatever
excellence, is especially useful only in three ways:-Ist. To
facilitate a review of the subject; 2d. To supply cumulative
facts and bulky details-; 3d. To furnish references to other
sources of information. Its use can never be a substitute
for the living teacher full of his subject; himself both textbook and authority, adapting his utterances to the infinitely
various circumstances of pupil, occasion and theme.
These general remarks on methods in teaching, are intended to apply to every species of higher scientific education. I doubt whether the study of the languages, rhetoric,
mathematics or philosophy, needs to be excepted.  In all
these, is something which answers to the laboratory-be it
merely the composition of sentences, as in the Ollendorffian
system; a mathematical problem to be solved, or a metaphysical question to be investigated.  In medicine, the
pharmaceutical workshop, the dissecting room, the clinic
and companionship with an established practitioner, are
forms of the laboratory. In law, the moot court and mockparliament are the laboratory; and in theology, the set
sermon or the real pastoral work.
In accordance with the views just presented concerning
the co-ordinate importance of the four methods of teaching,
it appears that our schools of medicine and law have generally placed undue reliance upon the lecture.  Quizzes
have the same function and the same rights here as in the
College of Liberal Arts. The same may be said of the use
of text-books and of quizzes upon them.  I feel peculiar
satisfaction in observing that the College of Physicians and




65
Surgeons in this University, has been organized upon a
comprehensive and original basis, embracing both these
educational methods.
It may be stated, in conclusion of this topic, that the
method by lectures may be more extensively employed with
maturer minds, the method by quiz and recitation, with the
younger  that the lecture-method is most employed in the
universities of the continent; the recitation and text-book,
most used in the English universities, and those American
colleges and universities which adhere most closely to the
English models; while other American colleges and universities, notably the University of Michigan, have been free
to combine and adapt the two methods.
As a corollary of the foregoing positions, term and final
examinations of students should be most rigorous with those
instructed by lecture. They are but a form, where the student has undergone a daily quiz, and can possess little real
utility.
The uses and abuses of tutors have given rise to much
comment and serious discussion. There is no sound reason
why tutors should be discontinued, or their presence disguised under other designations. Some of the most efficient,
and much of the most laborious work is done by them. The
raillery of students is no criterion of their usefulness. The
quizzing and examination of pupils, and the hearing of recitations, may be largely committed to their hands.  No
professor should be required to sacrifice the interests of
higher labors, in work which another can more economically
perform.
As to the principle ofprises, involving also the mizarking
system, much difference of opinion has been expressed. We
detect a strong modern tendency to renounce it, in its usual
scholastic aspects. I have never been able to sympathize
fully with this tendency. We cannot divest human life of
its prizes; nor of the struggles and sacrifices, exultation
and dejection incident to the stimulus of competition for




66
life's prizes. The struggle for the highest good is a law of
nature, through all the ranks of life up to man. The post
of honor or responsibility in the state, the church, or any
profession; appointment to office with or without competitive examinations; the praises, even, of our fellow menthese all are prizes which awaken the same rivalries as
competition for standing in college.  Honest, earnest effort
loves to be recognized-loves to be awarded distinction.
This is an innate sentiment of humanity, and does not exist
without a meaning.
It is hoped, however, that these remarks will not be construed into an unqualified endorsement of the methods of
prize-offering, still less the forms and applications of the
marking system, which have given such just offense in
many instances, and have brought a good principle into
disrepute.
The question of dormitories and collegeecommons possesses
a rapidly waning interest for the newer collegiate organizations. The dormitory and the commons are a bequest of
Old and New England, which we gladly exchange for the
more natural and humanizing domestic life of real family
relations. Every university-city or town will be found ready
to offer family comforts to all its students. Some inroad is
made, by this arrangement, upon the traditional esprit of
student-life; but the ends of good order, sobriety, industry
and true manliness are vastly better subserved by it.
Such a distribution of the body of students through the
city, affords the government of the university most important relief. The student becomes a citizen of the place,
amenable for his conduct to the same civil authority as the
other citizens. This fact throws him upon his best moral
principles, securing them a healthy gymnastic, and tending
to develop a sturdy manhood and a noble maturity.  The
self-regulative powers of the individual, it should be the
object of the University, in all its discipline, to develop. My
ideal of university government is one in which the body of




67
students is controlled by a high public sentiment of its own.
Crime, trickery, meanness, dishonesty, shirking, dread more
the frown of the student-community than all the punishments a faculty may be empowered to inflict.
A university located in a city of over fifty thousand inhabitants, must be surrounded by a considerable variety of
educational institutions. These and the university have a
common aim.  The chain of public schools should be linked
as closely as possible to the university. The university is
bound to present a character which will render it honorable
and advantageous for the city-schools to affiliate themselves
with it. And so of other educational enterprises.  If they
are worthy, the university regards them with interest and
fraternal sympathy, and pledges them its countenance and
support.  Some of them may yet develop the true character
cf colleges, and may even come under the university organization, with reciprocal benefits to all.
The spirit of the modern university is watchful, progressive and adaptive.  It is broad and liberal.  It guarantees
to all, intellectual freedom.  Every professor is free in his
own department; every student is exempt from subscription
to any article of faith.  It is conservative of all that is good
in the past; it is progressive toward all that is good in the
future. It aims to be abreast of humanity in its onward
march; quick to see and appreciate every new development
of thought; afraid of no truth; still less afraid of untruth;
ready to battle with every error, and vindicate every position, even its own religious faith (since faith is reasonable)
at the bar of reason; devout toward God and reverent tcward Christ the Redeemer and divine exemplar of mankind.
These general propositions respecting the internal economy of the modern university, require, for their practical
application, a more detailed development, and, perhaps, in
some cases, a more argumentative presentation.  But neither the development nor the argument is demanded by
he present occasion,




68
III. THE MATERIAL CONSTITUENTS OF TIlE UNIVERSITY.
What we have said is a glance at the soul of the University, and the method of its activity. But, now, the University is an organism.  It has a body, furnished with the
various organs requisite for the fulfillment of the mandates
of the soul. First of all, stands the phalanx of professors.
These are the brain and heart of the university. The typical professor is a man who has given up all for learning's
sake.  With a broad apprehension of the kinship of all
systems of truth, he has committed himself to the exploration of a chosen field.  While preserving faith toward his
specialty, he never runs into a rut from which he cannot at
will escape. He glances over the achievements of his fellow-laborers in the field of thought, and his sympathies
warm toward every new development of truth.  His heart
responds to the throbs of the heart of humanity, and he
does not cease to be a man, or a member of society, because
he has become a scholar.
He is more than this. The professor is both a scholar
and a teacher. Too often, in the German universities, have
the requirements of the teacher been overlooked.  Our
typical professor is apt in communicating his ideas.  He
has a soul to be fired by the revelations of truth which come
to him.  The spirit of eloquence warms in his breast, and
it finds a fitting vehicle for utterance in beautiful phrase.
But he never dogmatizes, for the republic of letters tolerates
no autocrat.  He respects the intellectual freedom  of his
pupils, and cultivates it; for what else is education but cultivated spontaneity? Clear in his convictions of the known,
he is humbled by the magnitude and mystery of the unknown.  Conscious of the dignity and worth of intellectual
strength, he worships devoutly before the throne of the
Supreme Intelligence and Power.
But while our ideal professor has renounced all things for
the truth's sake-to gain and dispense God's truth as revealed to man in consciousness, in nature and in Scripture




69
-he has not been vouchsafed exemption from  the contingencies of mortal existence.  The body must be fed and
clothed. The family must be maintained and placed within
the reach of that culture which fills the ideal of Christian
civilization. The professor owes these debts to himself and
his family.  The University owes the nmeans to him; and
should graduate its allowances to the comparative usefulness
of his gifts, a just perception of the requisites to individual
and family culture, and the relative value of the currency at
the time and place.  No person occupying a professor's
chair can possibly render his best energies to the cause of
learning, as long as he is tormented and distracted by a
study of the ways and means of material existence.
In the next place, the sltudenls are a constituent part of
the University; for there can be no teachers without somebody to teach.  Now, while the learning, ability and reputation of the professors give character to a university, the
body of students gives tone.  On them  devolves a high
responsibility in initiating and perpetuating that sort of
esprit dzu corps whose fruits are order, without visible authority; harmony, without the loss of individuality; courtesy, without servility; sobriety, without staidness; temperance, without asceticism; industry, without loss of social
amenities; gentleness, without effeminacy; manliness,
without rudeness; ambition, without unscrupulousness;
mental independence, without dogmatism; piety, without
cant; spirituality, without superstition; orthodoxy, without ostentation.
The student remains a constituent of the University in
becoming an alumnazte. The alumnates-or body of alumni
and alumnaemare the great depository of the learning and
amenities of university life, from which we invite the public
to draw, and from which the world will test the quality of
the knowledge and culture which we impart. They are the
delegates of the University, duly commissioned to represent
the interests of learning wherever go. Each alumnate is,




70
in a certain sense, a branch of the University, toward which
its eyes are constanty turned, for whose acts it will be held
to a certain responsibility, and toward which it seeks to
maintain an advisory and parental relation. Your literary
mother, gentlemen and ladies, whether your natural or your
stepmother, craves your confidence, your love, and your
fidelity.
Accessory to the labors of the faculties and the progress
of the students, are those ample means of demonsstratioz
which the modern sciences and modern methods of education have rendered absolutely indispensable to complete
success.  The University demands apparatus, laboratories,
observatories and museums.  I will not enlarge upon the
special utilities of these different orders of adjuncts. The
physical sciences demand, especially, outfits of apparatus to
illustrate their principles and their methods of investigation.
They demand laboratories-especially chemical, physical,
geological, zoological and botanical, in which the student
may manipulate and experiment for himself, repeating the
operations of the discoverer, or even originating operations
for himself. The professors demand these laboratories, both
as aids to education and aids to research. Original research
is one of the first duties of the professor. Nothing inspires
the pupil with a more potent enthusiasm for science than
association with one who brings out new results before his
eyes.  But how shall the professor experiment-how  shall
he make additions to the sphere of knowledge-how shall
he fulfill this highest function of the educator, if compelled
to mourn the lack of means which his compeers in their
various callings are employing, to build up a fame for
themselves and the institutions which they honor? I could
speak with warmth upon this subject, for here is perpetrated,
too often, a towering wrong upon the man who, full of the
ardor of science, and blessed with the gifts to further its
ends, consents to assume the responsibilities of the professor's chair, but to find himself in a jacket, in which he may




71
struggle and aspire and grieve in vain, while his soul's best
gifts wither and waste in their unnatural and enforced confinement. If you demand men, make place for them.
Museums subserve, also, a double end: ist. To illustrate
to the student the facts, the principles and the history of
science and art; 2d. To afford material for professional
study and the advancement of learning.  For these ends,
the University demands  collections illustrating geology,
zoology, botany, history, aesthetics, numismatics, ethnology,
archaeology, anatomy, materia medica and the industrial arts
and sciences.
Libraries constitute another class of auxiliaries in the
work of education.  I would not urge upon the student a
range of reading much beyond that indicated by the advice
of his instructors. Still less would I recommend the devotion of any considerable share of time to the perusal of
periodicals-especially of newspapers.  One or two good
dailies may be followed up from day to day, with profit, and
select articles from a larger range of magazines and reviews.
The selection, however, should be adapted to the reader,
and not made, once for all, by some publishing house. Still,
an extended range of periodicals should be accessible, to
meet the varied tastes and wants of different students and
professors. Especially should the reading room be rich in
periodicals worth binding-reports of the newest thoughts
of the brightest minds in every department of literature, art
and science.
But the chief service of a library is as an auxiliary to the
labors of the professors. A library is a depository of the
best results of human thought in all ages and countries.
To such a depository the investigator much have accessfirst, To inform his own mind, and possess himself of the
data worked out by the patience of his predecessors;
secondly, To prevent a waste of his time and energies in
elaborating results already reached, and to warn him from




72
lines of research which have been shown to lead to no
useful ends; thirdly, To place him in possession of a magazine of information vastly beyond the compass of the textbooks, from which he can draw, according to necessity or
opportunity, and dispense to his pupils. This information
may relate largely to the history and biography of his
special subject of instruction; and must, naturally, contain
also, a large element of the very newest results, which may
require years to find their way into the text-books.
In suggesting, perhaps to the surprise of some, that university libraries should be adapted rather to the wants of
professors than to those of students, it is not meant to deny
that the students have the chief and ultimate interest in the
libraries.  There are three ways in which the student secures their advantages: Ist. In the perusal of current works
of literature, art and science, selected especially to meet the
demand for popular reading, felt by every person; 2d. In
the careful reading and study of those special treatises to
which the student may be recommended by his professors;
3dly, and pre-eminently, in the condensed reproduction of
the choicest contents of the library in the lectures of his
professors.  In an hour's space, the student will thus make
acquisitions which it may have cost the professor days or
years, nay, a life-time, to provide.
Now, how  shall the student acquire such instruction
without such professors?  And how shall such professors
arise without the opportunities which create them? To
assert that the professor has the text-book for his guidance,
is to betray a contemptible conception of the function of a
higher teacher.  To assert that he must come to his work
fully furnished with all requisite knowledge, is either to
confess ignorance of the extent of knowledge requisite, and
of its incessant expansion, or to demand a professor who has
already spent a life-time in storing his memory and his
note-books with the select contents of libraries provided
under more liberal auspices; and such a demand would be




73
preposterous.  Such professors the interests of learning
never permit to abide in the waste and desert places.
Now, it may as well be stated at this moment, as at any
time hereafter, that there is no successful university possible
without extensive libraries.  You can "run an institution "
without them; and, in America, there is no law to prevent
your styling it a university; but I can assure you, Mr.
President of the Board of Trustees, that the best of men will
never retain your chairs if they must know that office here
means banishment from  communion with books, many
books, and books in all languages.  I can assure you that
the cry for learned men, many learned men, original men
in the walks of literature and science within the precincts of
the colleges and universities of your own denomination, will
never be hushed, until your brightest men are released from
the doom of mental starvation. I can assure you that any
professor worthy to occupy a chair in the university which
fills the noble ideal you have pictured, is either a man who
has spent an invaluable part of his life in the hopes and
disappointments incident to connection with some poor college, and now comes here, at your invitation, to realize the
fulfillment of the promises of a fairer enterprize, or else he
is a man who, with years of the genial influences of libraries
storing his head and pervading his heart, comes to cast head
and heart and hands into the grandest and most auspicious
educational enterprise which has yet been initiated by the
great religious body which you and I represent. Neither
class of men will bow their heads to sentence of perpetual
exclusion from those conclaves where the spirits of the good
and great of all ages are gathered together, and speak to us
from the living page.
These, sir, are emphatic words, but they are uttered not
in the extremity of despair, but in the strength of conviction
and the prophecy of faith. I wish the impression to go
forth throughout the length and breadth of this commonwealth that there is not a man in authority here who will




74
ever content himself with the conclusion that this University
is not to be greater and more beneficent than has yet arisen
under the auspices of our religious denomination.  We
have no vanity in this, sir; we have only profound convictions respecting the best interests of learning, and the vastness of our wealth, and the grandeur of our purposes.
I have thus spoken in reference to the material accessories of the work of education. To complete the enumeration, I should add the buildings. I heartily congratulate
the University on the possession of an edifice so elegant, so
wisely planned, so substantial and so eligibly located as the
one now approaching completion.  This, to some American
eyes, will be the University. It is a noble exponent of the
University's noble ideal. Other edifices, I doubt not, will
rise, as the pressing needs of the University demand them.
I have said the University is visibly represented by the
instructors and students, and the material accessories to
their work. It remains to mention the third constituent of
the body of the university —lte legal coiporation.  This is
the University, in the eye of the law. It stands for the
University and acts for the University in all legal proceedings.  It stands under the University, governs the University, and determines the conditions of its existence, growth,
and usefulness; and is, inzfact, a constituent of the University, I am tempted to pause and comment on the constitution of the corporation of the University, but I feel that I
must forbear. I content myself with saying that I think it
well considered-broad, liberal, justly balanced, and in every
way, eminently judicious. I see in this a cheering ground
to hope that this body fully appreciates the weight of responsibility which has been placed upon its shoulders.
IV. FINANCIAL BASIS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
After what has been said of the scope and magnitude of
a university, its great fizanzcial demanzds must follow as a
corollary. Once, brains were the sole requisite. The stu



75
dents and professor, or professors, constituted the university; they assembled in inexpensive quarters and became a
law  unto  themselves.   With  the  multiplication  of the
sciences, arts and professions, and the diversification and
improvement of human civilization, have grown up the needs
of more professors, more books and more material for illustration and demonstration.  The sum  of money demanded
for the creation of a modern university is simply enormous.
The University of Berlin was founded in I809, with an annual allowance of 50,00ooo thalers, which represented a productive capital of about six million thalers. The English
Parliament, during the year I872, appropriated  $2,400,000
to the British Museum, and $2,900,000 to the South Kensington " Department of Science and Art." According to a
recent report of President Eliot, the gross amount of funds
held by  the Corporation  of Harvard  University  is over
$2, 90,000.  Of this amount, $730,000 is the income-yielding capital devoted to the purposes designated " University,"
" College" and " Library, exclusive of books"-the Divinity,
Law, Medical, and Scientific Schools, the Observatory, the
Bussey Institution, the Dental School and the increase of
the Library being maintained from other sources of income.*
Such  sums, I say, are enormous; yet, taking  another
standpoint, they are but a small percentage of the debt
which money owes to mind. Science has originated-what,
among the great and legitimate agencies of money-making
has science not originated?  Here is your Central Railroad
rolling through your city fifteen hundred freight cars daily,
and rolling the wealth of the west-the wealth of the east*It may be instructive to extend statements of this sort. For instance, the annual
incomes of certain strictly scientific institutions and departments of institutions are
stated to be as follows:-Natural History Department of the British Museum,
$ioo,ooo; Zoological Society of London, $ioo,ooo to $25,oo000  Zoological
Society of Amsterdam, $50,ooo00; Zoological Garden at Hamburg, 30,000oo  Kew
Garden at London, $ioo,ooo; Berlin Aquarium, $5o,ooo; Jardin des Plantes,
$200000oo    Museum  in Edinburgh, $45,ooo00; College of Surgery in London,
55,ooo00  Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna, $4oooo. The annual income
of the University of Michigan is now 84,0ooo00.




76
the wealth of the world, into the coffers of its stockholders.
Who invented the railroad, the locomotive, the  steamengine, through which this enormous traffic is carried on?
Was it the men into whose pockets the profits are gathered?
Or was it men nurtured in the schools of science and art?
Where originated the idea of the electric telegraph, whose
ceaseless clicks mean countless dollars to American citizens?
In a dingy laboratory in the Old World.  In the night
watches of a poor professor of the New World. But the fact
is patent, and the thought is trite. Money can never repay
the debt it owes to mind. But let it, at least, acknowledge
its obligation. Let it, at least, make confession to the world
that learning sustains most intimate relations to the sources
of wealth, and to the conditions of society which confer upon
wealth its value-protecting it, and making it the means of
human happiness.  Theie is only one way in which money
can practically make this confession.  It must bestow unstinted patronage upon the institutions of learning.
Thanks to the humanitarian culture which the American
civil polity has conferred upon American citizenship. The
nation may not found and rear its universities; but the
citizens of the nation will do it. States may seldom devote
the public resources to such ends, but individuals reared by
the state will consecrate their millions.  Kings and princes
we have not, to draw from their magnificent revenues the
means to establish schools of science and art; but princely,
royal civilians we have, who are tenderir.g resources with
more than imperial generosity. Thanks to the conservatism
of the state, it has left the field of higher education clear for
the development and exercise of the grandest private munificence the world has ever witnessed.
With grateful heart, with exultant hope, we record the
fact that our own University has been the recipient of a
generous share of this munificence.  There are -ames already mentioned in her history, which will be handed down
to the latest generations, gathering increasing veneration




77
with the rolling years.  The University shall be their
monument; and unlike the pyramids, destitute of the forgotten names of their ambitious builders, the University
will inscribe the names of its founders and benefactors imperishably upon the pages of its history, and engrave them
ineffaceably upon all its walls.
With peculiar pleasure, I acknowledge, in behalf of the
University, a generous contribution just received for the
Museum of Geology, from one of our adopted alumni, himself at once an ornament to science, a successful author and
a patron of learning.  It consists of copies of three of the
giants of the extinct world-the Megatheriumz, the Glyptodon
and the Colossochelys. These, in due time, you will see
mounted, and preaching their lessons, in our temporary
museum, inscribed with the name of J. Dorman Steele.
I desire to add an especial word of grateful acknowledgment to the corporation and citizens of Syracuse for the
ready monetary sympathy with which they have responded
to the demands of this great educational enterprise domiciled in their midst. I should do violence, to my own feelings not to acknowledge, also, the cheering cordiality with
which I, as a representative of the University, have been
welcomed to their city, and the universal interest which has
been manifested in my prospective work.
I embrace the occasion, however, to remind our citizens
that they will be the largest sharers in the intellectual, social and material results which the University will create.
A city like this, should furnish at least a hundred persons
annually, desirous of opportunities for higher education. We
aspire to build here an institution which will enable them to
fulfill their desires without foregoing the privileges of the
parental roof.  Viewed only in  its influence upon  the
material prosperity of the city, a new university, founded
under such auspices, is not to be regarded merely with the
same interest with which you welcome the advent of some
new manufacturing or commercial enterprise. You, citizens




78
of Syracuse, have lacked nothing which ordinary business
energy could win.  You have not lacked even the best
system  of public schools in the State.  The University
brings within your reach a new class of agencies. Its affiliations will not only ramify through your city, but will reach
out to every city and hamlet and school-room in the State,
weaving the wide interests of education in a common web
of sympathy with it, and turning all eyes-nay, I hope soon,
the world's eyes-toward the Central City.
The city, therefore, can afford to be generous toward the
University.  The city might even afford to sustain the
University, and monopolize the munificence of creating
such an endowment as would satisfy the needs of the University demanded by modern science, modern culture and
modern industry, upon the American soil.
Ample opportunities still exist for individual benevolence.
Libraries, departments of libraries, cabinets, laboratories
and observatories are yet to be founded and endowed; and
buildings are to be erected for their uses.  Lectureships
and professorships remain to be endowed.  Here is room
for a wide range of tastes and sympathies.  Chairs of
physical science, languages ancient or modern, mathematics, aesthetics, history and philosophy, suggest noble
means to perpetuate the memory of worthy names. I hope
the time is not distant when some far-seeing patron of
learning may be moved to endow a chair which might be
styled the chair of the " Philosophy of the Sciences."
I enter upon this field of labor with cheerful hope, and
assuring faith. I am here only because I have faith in the
mind and heart and will of this people to honor Christian
beneficence in creating here a genuine-a grand University. The strength of the bonds I have broken in identifying myself with this enterprise, few can appreciate. But,
like Cortez, I have burned my ships behind me, and must
conquer success or perish. I rely first, and always, upon
Divine aid to guide and second my best endeavor; and I




79
trust next, to the enlarged intelligence and wise munificence
of the men of Syracuse, and those other noble men and
women throughout the State, who may yet feel moved to
consecrate some portion of their wealth to the cause of Christian Learning.