THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
SCIENCE AND CULTURE
AND
OTHEE ESSAYS
SCIENCE AND CULTUKE
AND
OTHER ESSAYS
BY
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D., RR.S.
iLontron
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1888
All rights reserved
First Edition printed 1881
Reprinted 1882, 1888.
6 1
PREFACE.
THE Addresses, Lectures, and Essays gathered to-
gether in this volume have appeared at intervals
during the past seven years, and I can give no better
reason for republishing them in their present form,
than the fact that three earlier collections of a similar
nature have been received with favour, and, indeed,
have not yet ceased to be in request.
I beg leave to offer my best thanks to the Editors
and Publishers of the various publications in which
these pieces have appeared, for their kindly accorded
permission to reprint them.
LONDON. October 1881.
CONTENTS.
L
SCIENCE AND CULTURE.
An Address delivered at the Opening of Sir Josiah Mason's Science College,
at Birmingham, on the 1st of October 1880 . Pages 1 to 23
n.
UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL.
The Inaugural Address of the Lord Hector of the University of Aberdeen,
27th February 1874. Contemporary Review, 1874 . 24 to 64
m.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
An Address delivered to the Working Men's Club and Institute,
1st December 1877. Nineteenth Cmtury, 1878 . 65 to 85
IV.
ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY.
Read at the Meeting of the Domestic Economy Congress at Birming-
ham, 1877 . . . . - 86 to 93
VU1 CONTENTS.
V
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.
An Address delivered on the occasion of the Presentation of a Statue of
Priestley to the Town of Birmingham, on the 1st of August 1874.
Macmillan'a Magazine, 1874 . . Pages 94 to 127
VI.
ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG.
A Lecture delivered at the Working Men's College, Great Ormond Street,
1880. Nineteenth Century, 1880 . . 128 to 148
VII.
ON THE BORDER TERRITORY BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE
VEGETABLE KINGDOMS.
An Evening Lecture at the Koyal Institution, Friday, January 28,
1876. Macmillan's Magazine, 1874 . . 149 to 179
VIII.
ON CERTAIN ERRORS RESPECTING THE STRUCTURE OF THE HEART
ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE.
Nature, 6th November 1879 . . . - 180 to 198
IX.
ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ANIMALS ARE AUTOMATA, AND ITS
HISTORY.
An Address delivered at the Meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, at Belfast, 1874. Fortnightly Review,
1874 . 199 to 245
CONTEXTS. IX
ON SENSATION AND THE UNITY OF STRUCTURE OF THE
SENSIFEROUS ORGANS.
An Evening Lecture at the Royal Institution, Friday, March 7, 1879.
Nineteenth Century, 1879 . . Pages 246 to 273
XL
EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY.
The Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, vol. viii. 1878 274to309
XII.
THE COMING OF AGE OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES."
An evening Lecture at the Royal Institution, Friday, 9th April 1880.
Nature, 1880 , . . 310 to 324
XIIL
THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES WITH MEDICINE.
Aii Address delivered at the Meeting of the International Medical
Congress in London, 9th August 1881 . . 325 to 349
I.
SCIENCE AND CULTURE.
Six years ago, as some of my present hearers may
remember, I had the privilege of addressing a large
assemblage of the inhabitants of this city, who had
gathered together to do honour to the memory of
their famous townsman, Joseph Priestley; 1 and, if
any satisfaction attaches to posthumous glory, we
may hope that the manes of the burnt-out philosopher
were then finally appeased.
No man, however, who is endowed with a fair
share of common sense, and not more than a fair share
of vanity, will identify either contemporary or post-
humous fame with the highest good ; and Priestley's
life leaves no doubt that he, at any rate, set a much
higher value upon the advancement of knowledge,
and the promotion of that freedom of thought which
is at once the cause and the consequence of intel-
lectual progress.
Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley
could be amongst us to-day, the occasion of our
meeting would afford him even greater pleasure than
the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his
1 See Joseph Priestley, p. 94, infra.
S> B
2 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved,
the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, by
the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered
in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor scattered
with the careless charity which blesses neither him
that gives nor him that takes, but expended in the
execution of a well-considered plan for the aid of
present and future generations of those who are willing
to help themselves.
We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is
needful to share Priestley's keen interest in physical
science ; and to have learned, as he had learned, the
value of scientific training in fields of inquiry appa-
rently far remote from physical science ; in order to
appreciate, as he would have appreciated, the value
of the noble gift which Sir Josiah Mason has bestowed
upon the inhabitants of the Midland district.
For us children of the nineteenth century, however,
the establishment of a college under the conditions of
Sir Josiah Mason's Trust, has a significance apart from
any which it could have possessed a hundred years
ago. It appears to be an indication that we are reach-
ing the crisis of the battle, or rather of the long series
of battles, which have been fought over education in
a campaign which began long before Priestley's time,
and will probably not be finished just yet.
In the last century, the combatants were the
champions of ancient literature, on the one side, and
those of modern literature on the other; but, some
thirty years 1 ago, the contest became complicated by
1 The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into general
I.] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 3
the appearance of a third army, ranged round the
banner of Physical Science.
I am not aware that any one has authority to
speak in the name of this new host. For it must be
admitted to be somewhat of a guerilla force, composed
largely of irregulars, each of whom fights pretty much
for his own hand. But the impressions of a full pri-
vate, who has seen a good deal of service in the ranks,
respecting the present position of affairs and the con-
ditions of a permanent peaee, may not be devoid of
interest ; and I do not know that I could make a
better use of the present opportunity than by laying
them before you.
From the time that the first suggestion to intro-
duce physical science into ordinary education was
timidly whispered, until now, the advocates of scien-
tific education have met with opposition of two kinds.
On the one hand, they have been pooh-poohed by the
men of business who pride themselves on being the
representatives of practicality ; while, on the other
hand, they have been excommunicated by the classical
scholars, in their capacity of Levites in charge of the
ark of culture and monopolists of liberal education.
The practical men believed that the idol whom
they worship rule of thumb has been the source of
the past prosperity, and will suffice for the future
welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of
education by George Combe and others commenced a good deal
earlier ; but the movement had acquired hardly any practical force
before the time to which I refer.
4 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
opinion that science is speculative rubbish ; that
theory and practice have nothing to do with one
another ; and that the scientific habit of mind is an
impediment, rather than an aid, in the conduct of
ordinary affairs.
I have used the past tense in speaking of the
practical men for although they were very formid-
able thirty years ago, I am not sure that the pure
species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as
mere argument goes, they have been subjected to
such a feu d'enfer that it is a miracle if any have
escaped. But I have remarked that your typical
practical man has an unexpected resemblance to one
of Milton's angels. His spiritual wounds, such as are
inflicted by logical weapons, may be as deep as a well
and as wide as a church door, but beyond shedding a
few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no
whit the worse. So, if any of these opponents be left,
I will not waste time in vain repetition of the demon-
strative evidence of the practical value of science ; but
knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate
where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer
a story for their consideration.
Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend
upon but his own vigorous nature, was thrown into
the thick of the struggle for existence in the midst of
a great manufacturing population. He seems to have
had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was
thirty years of age, his total disposable funds amounted
to twenty pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found
him giving proof of his comprehension of the practical
L] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 5
problems he had been roughly called upon to solve,
by a career of remarkable prosperity.
Finally, having reached old age with its well-
earned surroundings of " honour, troops of friends,"
the hero of my story bethought himself of those who
were making a like start in life, and how he could
stretch out a helping hand to them.
After long and anxious reflection this successful
practical man of business could devise nothing better
than to provide them with the means of obtaining
(t sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge."
And he devoted a large part of his wealth and five
years of incessant work to this end.
I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the
solid and spacious fabric of the Scientific College
assures us, is no fable, nor can anything which I could
say intensify the force of this practical answer to
practical objections.
We may take it for granted then, that, in the
opinion of those best qualified to judge, the diffusion
of thorough scientific education is an absolutely
essential condition of industrial progress ; and that
the College which has been opened to-day will confer
an inestimable boon upon those whose livelihood is to
be gained by the practice of the arts and manufac-
tures of the district.
The only question worth discussion is, whether
the conditions, under which the work of the College
is to be carried out, are such as to give it the best
possible chance of achieving permanent success.
6 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LEOT.
Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has
left very large freedom of action to the trustees, to
whom he proposes ultimately to commit the adminis-
tration of the College, so that they may be able to
adjust its arrangements in accordance with the chang-
ing conditions of the future. But, with respect to
three points, he has laid most explicit injunctions
upon both administrators and teachers.
Party politics are forbidden to enter into the
minds of either, so far as the work of the College is
concerned ; theology is as sternly banished from its
precincts ; and finally, it is especially declared that
the College shall make no provision for " mere literary
instruction and education. "
It does not concern me at present to dwell upon
the first two injunctions any longer than may be
needful to express my full conviction of their wisdom.
But the third prohibition brings us face to face with
those other opponents of scientific education, who are
by no means in the moribund condition of the practi-
cal man, but alive, alert, and formidable.
It is not impossible that we shall hear this express
exclusion of "literary instruction and education"
from a College which, nevertheless, professes to give a
high and efficient education, sharply criticised. Cer-
tainly the time was that the Levites of culture would
have sounded their trumpets against its walls as
against an educational Jericho.
How often have we not been told that the study
of physical science is incompetent to confer culture ;
that it touches none of the higher problems of life ;
L] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 7
and, what is worse, that the continual devotion to
scientific studies tends to generate a narrow and
bigoted belief in the applicability of scientific methods
to the search after truth of all kinds. How frequently
one has reason to observe that no reply to a trouble-
some argument tells so well as calling its author a
" mere scientific specialist." And, as I am afraid it
is not permissible to speak of this form of opposition
to scientific education in the past tense ; may we not
expect to be told that this, not only omission, but
prohibition, of " mere literary instruction and educa-
tion" is a patent example of scientific narrow-
mindedness ?
I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's
reasons for the action which he has taken ; but if, as
I apprehend is the case, he refers to the ordinary class-
ical course of our schools and universities by the
name of "mere literary instruction and education,"
I venture to offer sundry reasons of my own in sup-
port of that action.
For I hold very strongly by two convictions
The first is, that neither the discipline nor the subject-
matter of classical education is of such direct value to
the student of physical science as to justify the ex-
penditure of valuable time upon either ; and the second
is, that for the purpose of attaining real culture, an
exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual
as an exclusively literary education.
I need hardly point out to you that these opinions,
especially the latter, are diametrically opposed to
those of the great majority of educated Englishmen,
8 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
influenced as they are by school and university tradi-
tions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a
liberal education ; and a liberal education is synony-
mous, not merely with education and instruction in
literature, but in one particular form of literature,
namely, that of Greek and Eoman antiquity. They
hold that the man who has learned Latin and Greek,
however little, is educated ; while he who is versed
in other branches of knowledge, however deeply,
is a more or less respectable specialist, not admissible
into the cultured caste. The stamp of the educated
man, the University degree, is not for him.
I am too well acquainted with the generous catho-
licity of spirit, the true sympathy with scientific
thought, which pervades the writings of our chief
apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions ;
and yet one may cull from one and another of those
epistles to the Philistines, which so much delight all
who do not answer to that name, sentences which
lend them some support.
Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is
" to know the best that has been thought and said in
the world." It is the criticism of life contained in
literature. That criticism regards " Europe as being,
for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great con-
federation, bound to a joint action and working to a
common result; and whose members have, for their
common outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and
Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local,
and temporary advantages being put out of account,
that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual
I.] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 9
sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly
carries out this programme. And what is that but
saying that we too, all of us, as individuals, the more
thoroughly we carry it out, shall make the more
progress ? " 1
We have here to deal with two distinct proposi-
tions. The first, that a criticism of life is the essence
of culture ; the second, that literature contains the
materials which suffice for the construction of such a
criticism.
I think that we must all assent to the first pro-
position. For culture certainly means something quite
different from learning or technical skill. It implies
the possession of an ideal, and the habit of critically
estimating the value of things by comparison
with a theoretic standard. Perfect culture should
supply a complete theory of life, based upon a clear
knowledge alike of its possibilities and of its limita-
tions.
But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly
dissent from the assumption that literature alone is
competent to supply this knowledge. After having
learnt all that Greek, Eoman, and Eastern antiquity
have thought and said, and all that modern literatures
have to tell us, it is not self-evident that we have laid
a sufficiently broad and deep foundation for that criti-
cism of life which constitutes culture.
Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of
physical science, it is not at all evident. Considering
progress only in the "intellectual and spiritual sphere,"
1 Essays in Criticism) p. 37.
10 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
I find myself wholly unable to admit that either
nations or individuals will really advance, if their
common outfit draws nothing from the stores of
physical science. I should say that an army, without
weapons of precision and with no particular base of
operations, might more hopefully enter upon a cam-
paign on the Ehine, than a man, devoid of a know-
ledge of what physical science has done in the last
century, upon a criticism of life,
When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he in-
stinctively turns to the study of development to clear
it up. The rationale of contradictory opinions may
with equal confidence be sought in history.
It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen
should employ their wealth in building and endowing
institutions for educational purposes. But, five or
six hundred years ago, deeds of foundation expressed
or implied conditions as nearly as possible contrary
to those which have been thought expedient by Sir
Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical science was
practically ignored, while a certain literary training
was enjoined as a means to the acquirement of know-
ledge which was essentially theological.
The reason of this singular contradiction between
the actions of men alike animated by a strong and
disinterested desire to promote the welfare of their
fellows, is easily discovered.
At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge
beyond such as could be obtained by his own observa-
tion, or by common conversation, his first necessity
t] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 11
was to learn the Latin language, inasmuch as all the
higher knowledge of the western world was contained
in works written in that language. Hence, Latin
grammar, with logic and rhetoric, studied through
Latin, were the fundamentals of education. With
respect to the substance of the knowledge imparted
through this channel, the Jewish and Christian Scrip-
tures, as interpreted and supplemented by the Komish
Church, were held to contain a complete and infallibly
true body of information.
Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those
days, that which the axioms and definitions of Euclid
are to the geometers of these. The business of the
philosophers of the middle ages was to deduce from
the data furnished by the theologians, conclusions in
accordance with ecclesiastical decrees. They were
allowed the high privilege of showing, by logical
process, how and why that which the Church said
was true, must be true. And if their demonstrations
fell short of or exceeded this limit, the Church was
maternally ready to check their aberrations, if need
be, by the help of the secular arm.
Between the two, our ancestors were furnished
with a compact and complete criticism of life. They
were told how the world began and how it would
end; they learned that all material existence was
but a base and insignificant blot upon the fair face
of the spiritual world, and that nature was, to all
intents and purposes, the playground of the devil;
they learned that the earth is the centre of the visible
universe, and that man is the cynosure of things
12 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
terrestrial ; and more especially was it inculcated that
the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it
could be, and constantly was, altered by the agency
of innumerable spiritual beings, good and bad, accord-
ing as they were moved by the deeds and prayers of
men. The sum and substance of the whole doctrine
was to produce the conviction that the only thing
really worth knowing in this world was how to secure
that place in a better which, under certain conditions,
the Church promised.
Our ancestors had a living belief in this theory of
life, and acted upon it in their dealings with educa-
tion, as in all other matters. Culture meant saintli-
ness after the fashion of the saints of tljose days ;
the education that led to it was, of necessity, theolo-
gical ; and the way to theology lay through Latin.
That the study of nature further than was requi-
site for the satisfaction of everyday wants should
have any bearing on human life was far from the
thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, as nature had
been cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious conclu-
sion that those who meddled with nature were likely
to come into pretty close contact with Satan. And,
if any born scientific investigator followed his instincts,
he might safely reckon upon earning the reputation,
and probably upon suffering the fate, of a sorcerer.
Had the western world been left to itself in
Chinese isolation, there is no saying how long this
state of things might have endured. But, happily,
it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the
thirteenth century, the development of Moorish civili-
I.] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 13
sation in Spain and the great movement of the
Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that
day to this, has never ceased to work. At first,
through the intermediation of Arabic translations,
afterwards, by the study of the originals, the western
nations of Europe became acquainted with the writ-
ings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, in
time, with the \\I )le of the vast literature of antiquity.
Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration
or dominant capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and
England, spent itself for centuries in taking possession
of the rich inheritance left by the dead civilisations
of Greece and Home. Marvellously aided by the
invention of printing, classical learning spread and
flourished. Those who possessed it prided themselves
on having attained the highest culture then within
the reach of mankind.
And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary
pinnacle, there was no figure in modern literature at
the time of the Renascence to compare with the men
of antiquity ; there was no art to compete with their
sculpture ; there was no physical science but that
which Greece had created. Above all, there was no
other example of perfect intellectual freedom of the
unhesitating acceptance of reason as the sole guide to
truth and the supreme arbiter of conduct.
The new learning necessarily soon exerted a pro-
found influence upon education. The language of
the monks and schoolmen seemed little better than
gibberish to scholars fresh from Virgil and Cicero,
and the study of Latin was placed upon a new
14 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
foundation. Moreover, Latin itself ceased to afford
the sole key to knowledge. The student who sought
the highest thought of antiquity, found only a second-
hand reflection of it in Eoman literature, and turned
his face to the full light of the Greeks. And after a
battle, not altogether dissimilar to that which is at
present being fought over the teaching of physical
science, the study of Greek was recognised as an
essential element of all higher education.
Thus the Humanists, as they were called, won the
day ; and the great reform which they effected was of
incalculable service to mankind. But the Nemesis of
all reformers is finality ; and the reformers of educa-
tion, like those of religion, fell into the profound,
however common, error of mistaking the beginning
for the end of the work of reformation.
The representatives of the Humanists, in the
nineteenth century, take their stand upon classical
education as the sole avenue to culture, as firmly as if
we were still in the age of Kenascence. Yet, surely,
the present intellectual relations of the modern and
the ancient worlds are profoundly different from
those which obtained three centuries ago. Leaving
aside the existence of a great and characteristically
modern literature, of modern painting, and, especially,
of modern music, there is one feature of the present
state of the civilised world which separates it more
widely from the Kenascence, than the Kenascence was
separated from the middle ages.
This distinctive character of our own times lies in
the vast and constantly increasing part which is
J .] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 15
played by natural knowledge. Not only is our daily
life shaped by it, not only does the prosperity of
millions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory of
life has long been influenced, consciously or uncon-
sciously, by the general conceptions of the universe,
which have been forced upon us by physical science.
In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with
the results of scientific investigation shows us that
they offer a broad and striking contradiction to the
opinions so implicitly credited and taught in the
middle ages.
The notions of the beginning and the end of the
world entertained by bur forefathers are no longer
credible. It is very certain that the earth is not the
chief body in the material universe, and that the world
is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more
certain that nature is the expression of a definite
order with which nothing interferes, and that the
chief business of mankind is to learn that order
and govern themselves accordingly. Moreover this
scientific " criticism of life " presents itself to us with
different credentials from any other. It appeals not
to authority, nor to what anybody may have thought
or said, but to nature. It admits that all our inter-
pretations of natural fact are more or less imperfect
and symbolic, and bids the learner seek for truth not
among words but among things. It warns us that
the assertion which outstrips evidence is not only a
blunder but a crime.
The purely classical education advocated by the
representatives of the Humanists in our day, gives no
16 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
inkling of all this. A man may be a better scholar
than Erasmus, and know no more of the chief causes
of the present intellectual fermentation than Erasmus
did. Scholarly and pious persons, worthy of all
respect, favour us with allocutions upon the sadness
of the antagonism of science to their mediaeval way
of thinking, which betray an ignorance of the first
principles of scientific investigation, an incapacity for
understanding what a man of science means by
veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of
established scientific truths, which is almost comical.
There is no great force in the tu quoque argument,
or else the advocates of scientific education might
fairly enough retort upon the modern Humanists that
they may be learned specialists, but that they possess
no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as
deserves the name of culture. And, indeed, if we
were disposed to be cruel, we might urge that the
Humanists have brought this reproach upon them-
selves, not because they are too full of the spirit of
the ancient Greek, but because they lack it.
The period of the Kenascence is commonly called
that of the " Kevival of Letters," as if the influences
then brought to bear upon the mind of Western Europe
had been wholly exhausted in the field of literature.
I think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival
of science, effected by the same agency, although less
conspicuous, was not less momentous.
In fact, the few and scattered students of nature
of that day picked up the clue to her secrets exactly
as it fell from the hands of the Greeks a thousand
L] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 17
years before. The foundations of mathematics were
so well laid by them, that our children learn their
geometry from a book written for the schools of Alex-
andria two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy
is the natural continuation and development of the
work of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy ; modern physics
of that of Democritus and of Archimedes ; it was long
before modern biological science outgrew the know-
ledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus,
and by Galen.
We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings
of the Greeks unless we know what they thought
about natural phenomena. We cannot fully appre-
hend their criticism of life unless we understand the
extent to which that criticism was affected by
scientific conceptions. We falsely pretend to be the
inheritors of their culture, unless we are penetrated,
as the best minds among them were, with an unhesi-
tating faith that the free employment of reason, in
accordance with scientific method, is the sole method
of reaching truth.
Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of
our modern Humanists to the possession of the
monopoly of culture and to the exclusive inheritance
of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not
abandoned. But I should be very sorry that any-
thing I have said should be taken to imply a desire
on my part to depreciate the value of classical educa-
tion, as it might be and as it sometimes is. The
native capacities of mankind vary no less than their
opportunities ; and while culture is one, the road by
c
18 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
which one man may best reach it is widely different
from that which is most advantageous to another.
Again, while scientific education is yet inchoate
and tentative, classical education is thoroughly well
organised upon the practical experience of generations
of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning
and destination for ordinary life, or for a literary
career, I do not think that a young Englishman in
search of culture can do better than follow the course
usually marked out for him, supplementing its de-
ficiencies by his own efforts.
But for those who mean to make science their
serious occupation; or who intend to follow the
profession of medicine; or who have to enter early
upon the business of life ; for all these, in my opinion,
classical education is a mistake ; and it is for this
reason that I am glad to see " mere literary education
and instruction " shut out from the curriculum of Sir
Josiah Mason's College, seeing that its inclusion would
probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary
smattering of Latin and Greek.
, Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the
importance of genuine literary education, or to sup-
pose that intellectual culture can be complete without
it. An exclusively scientific training will bring about
a mental twist as surely as an exclusively literary
training. The value of the cargo does not com-
pensate for a ship's being out of trim ; and I should
be very sorry to think that the Scientific College
would turn out none but lop-sided men.
There is no need, however, that such a catastrophe
L} SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 19
should happen. Instruction in English, French, and
German is provided, and thus the three greatest litera-
tures of the modern world are made accessible to the
student.
French and German, and especially the latter lan-
guage, are absolutely indispensable to those who desire
full knowledge in any department of science. But
even supposing that the knowledge of these languages
acquired is not more than sufficient for purely scien-
tific purposes, every Englishman has, in his native
tongue, an almost perfect instrument of literary ex-
pression ; and, in his own literature, models of every
kind of literary excellence. If an Englishman cannot
get literary culture out of his Bible, his Shakspeare,
his Milton, neither, in my belief, will the profoundest
study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace,
give it to him.
Thus, since the constitution of the College makes
sufficient provision for literary as well as for scientific
education, and since artistic instruction is also contem-
plated, it seems to me that a fairly complete culture is
offered to all who are willing to take advantage of it.
But I am not sure that at this point the " prac-
tical " man, scotched but not slain, may ask what all
this talk about culture has to do with an Institution,
the object of which is defined to be "to promote the
prosperity of the manufactures and the industry of
the country." He may suggest that what is wanted
for this end is not culture, nor even a purely scientific
discipline, but simply a knowledge of applied science.
20 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
I often wish that this phrase, " applied science,"
had never been invented. For it suggests that there
is a sort of scientific knowledge of direct practical
use, which can be studied apart from another sort of
scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility,
and which is termed "pure science." But there is
no more complete fallacy than this. What people
call applied science is nothing but the application of
pure science to particular classes of problems. It
consists of deductions from those general principles,
established by reasoning and observation, which con-
stitute pure science. No one can safely make these
deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles ;
and he can obtain that grasp only by personal experi-
ence of the operations of observation and of reasoning
on which they are founded.
Almost all the processes employed in the arts and
manufactures fall within the range either of physics
or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one
must thoroughly understand them ; and no one has a
chance of really understanding them, unless he has
obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of
dealing with facts, which is given by long-continued
and well-directed purely scientific training in the
physical and the chemical laboratory. So that there
really is no question as to the necessity of purely
scientific discipline, even if the work of the College
were limited by the narrowest interpretation of its
stated aims.
And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture
than that yielded by science alone, it is to be recol-
L] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 21
lected that the improvement of manufacturing pro-
cesses is only one of the conditions which contribute
to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means
and not an end ; and mankind work only to get
something which they want. What that something
is depends partly on their innate, and partly on their
acquired, desires.
If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry
is to be spent upon the gratification of unworthy
desires, if the increasing perfection of manufacturing
processes is to be accompanied by an increasing
debasement of those who carry them on, I do not
see the good of industry and prosperity.
Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what
is desirable depend upon their characters; and that
the innate proclivities to which we give that name
are not touched by any amount of instruction. But
it does not follow that even mere intellectual educa-
tion may not, to an indefinite extent, modify the
practical manifestation of the characters of men in
their actions, by supplying them with motives un-
known to the ignorant. A pleasure-loving character
will have pleasure of some sort ; but, if you give him
the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not
degrade him to those which do. And this choice is
offered to every man, who possesses in literary or
artistic culture a never -failing source of pleasures,
which are neither withered by age, nor staled by
custom, nor embittered in the recollection by the
pangs of self-reproach.
22 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. [LECT.
If the Institution opened to-day fulfils the in-
tention of its founder, the picked intelligences among
all classes of the population of this district will pass
through it. No child born in Birmingham, hence-
forward, if he have the capacity to profit by the
opportunities offered to him, first in the primary and
other schools, and afterwards in the Scientific College,
need fail to obtain, not merely the instruction, but
the culture most appropriate to the conditions of
his life.
Within these walls, the future employer and the
future artisan may sojourn together for a while, and
carry, through all their lives, the stamp of the in-
fluences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it
is not beside the mark to remind you, that the
prosperity of industry depends not merely upon the
improvement of manufacturing processes, not merely
upon the ennobling of the individual character, but
upon a third condition, namely, a clear understanding
of the conditions of social life on the part of both the
capitalist and the operative, and their agreement
upon common principles of social action. They must
learn that social phenomena are as much the expres-
sion of natural laws as any others ; that no social
arrangements can be permanent unless they har-
monise with the requirements of social statics and
dynamics ; and that, in the nature of things, there is
an arbiter whose decisions execute themselves.
But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the
application of the methods of investigation adopted
in physical researches to the investigation of the
L] SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 23
phenomena of society. Hence, I confess, I should
like to see one addition made to the excellent scheme
of education propounded for the College, in the shape
of provision . for the teaching of Sociology. For
though we are all agreed that party politics are to
have no place in the instruction of the College ; yet
in this country, practically governed as it is now by
universal suffrage, every man who does his duty must
exercise political functions. And, if the evils which
are inseparable from the good of political liberty are
to be checked, if the perpetual oscillation of nations
between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by
the steady march of self-restraining freedom ; it will
be because men will gradually bring themselves to
deal with political, as they now deal with scientific
questions ; to be as ashamed of undue haste and
partisan prejudice in the one case as in the other ;
and to believe that the machinery of society is at
least as delicate as that of a spinning-jenny, and as
little likely to be improved by the meddling of those
who have not taken the trouble to master the
principles of its action.
In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the
mouthpiece of all present in offering to the venerable
founder of the Institution, which now commences its
beneficent career, our congratulations on the comple-
tion of his work ; and in expressing the conviction,
that the remotest posterity will point to it as a
crucial instance of the wisdom which natural piety
leads all men to ascribe to their ancestors.
24 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
II.
UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL.
ELECTED by the suffrages of your four Nations, Rector
of the ancient University of which you are scholars, I
take the earliest opportunity which has presented
itself since my restoration to health, of delivering the
Address which, by long custom, is expected of the
holder of my office.
My first duty in opening that Address, is to offer
you my most hearty thanks for the signal honour you
have conferred upon me an honour of which, as a
man unconnected with you by personal or by national
ties, devoid of political distinction, and a plebeian
who stands by his order, I could not have dreamed.
And it was the more surprising to me, as the five-and-
twenty years which have passed over my head since I
reached intellectual manhood, have been largely spent
in no half-hearted advocacy of doctrines which have
not yet found favour in the eyes of Academic respect-
ability ; so that, when the proposal to nominate me for
your Rector came, I was almost as much astonished as
was Hal o' the Wynd, "who fought for his own
hand," by the Black Douglas's proffer of knighthood.
And I fear that my acceptance must be taken as evi-
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 25
dence that, less wise than the Armourer of Perth, I
have not yet done with soldiering.
In fact, if, for a moment, I imagined that your
intention was simply, in the kindness of your hearts,
to do me honour ; and that the Kector of your Uni-
versity, like that of some other Universities, was one
of those happy beings who sit in glory for three years,
with nothing to do for it save the making of a speech,
a conversation with my distinguished predecessor soon
dispelled the dream. I found that, by the constitu-
tion of the University of Aberdeen, the incumbent of
the Eectorate is, if not a power, at any rate a potential
energy; and that, whatever may be his chances of
success or failure, it is his duty to convert that
potential energy into a living force, directed towards
such ends as may seem to him conducive to the wel-
fare of the corporation of which he is the theoretical
head.
I need not tell you that your late Lord Kector
took this view of his position, and acted upon it with
the comprehensive, far-seeing insight into the actual
condition and tendencies, not merely of his own, but
of other countries, which is his honourable character-
istic among statesmen. I have already done my best,
and, as long as I hold my office, I shall continue my
endeavours, to follow in the path which he trod ; to do
what in me lies, to bring this University nearer to the
ideal alas, that I should be obliged to say ideal of
all Universities ; which, as I conceive, should be places
in which thought is free from all fetters ; and in which
all sources of knowledge, and all aids to learning,
26 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
should be accessible to all comers, without distinction
of creed or country, riches or poverty.
Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine
enough to expect much to come of any poor efforts of
mine. If your annals take any notice of my incum-
bency, I shall probably go down to posterity as the
Eector who was always beaten. But if they add, as I
think they will, that my defeats became victories in
the hands of my successors, I shall be well content.
The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the
world. The act which commenced with the Protestant
Eeformation is nearly played out, and a wider and a
deeper change than that effected three centuries ago
a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the
extremes of which are represented by the intellectual
heirs of John of Leyden and of Ignatius Loyola, rather
than by those of Luther and of Leo is waiting to
come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who
have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to
awake to the fact that matters of belief and of specu-
lation are of absolutely infinite practical importance ;
and are drawing off from that sunny country " where
it is always afternoon " the sleepy hollow of broad
indifferentism to range themselves under their
natural banners. Change is in the air. It is whirling
feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric orbits, and
filling the steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It
insists on reopening all questions and asking all insti-
tutions, however venerable, by what right they exist,
and whether they are, or are not, in harmony with the
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 27
real or supposed wants of mankind. And it is
remarkable that these searching inquiries are not so
much forced on institutions from without, as developed
from within. Consummate scholars question the
value of learning ; priests contemn dogma ; and
women turn their backs upon man's ideal of perfect
womanhood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic
visions of some, as yet unrealised, epicene reality.
If there be a type of stability in this world, one
would be inclined to look for it in the old Universities
of England. But it has been my business of late to
hear a good deal about what is going on in these
famous corporations ; and I have been filled with
astonishment by the evidences of internal fermentation
which they exhibit. If Gibbon could revisit the
ancient seat of learning of which he has written so
cavalierly, assuredly he would no longer speak of " the
monks of Oxford sunk in prejudice and port." There,
as elsewhere, port has gone out of fashion, and so has
prejudice at least that particular fine, old, crusted
sort of prejudice to which the great historian alludes.
Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and
Cambridge, that, for my part, I rejoiced when the
Koyal Commission, of which I am a member, had
finished and presented the Eeport which related to
these Universities ; for we should have looked like
mere plagiarists, if, in consequence of a little longer
delay in issuing it, all the measures of reform we pro-
posed had been anticipated by the spontaneous action
of the Universities themselves.
A month ago I should have gone on to say that
28 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
one might speedily expect changes of another kind in
Oxford and Cambridge. A Commission has been
inquiring into the revenues of the many wealthy
societies, in more or less direct connection with the
Universities, resident in those towns. It is said that
the Commission has reported, and that, for the first
time in recorded history, the nation, and perhaps the
Colleges themselves, will know what they are worth.
And it was announced that a statesman, who, what-
ever his other merits or defects, has aims above the
level of mere party fighting, and a clear vision into
the most complex practical problems, meant to deal
with these revenues.
But, Bos locutus est. That mysterious independent
variable of political calculation, Public Opinion which
some whisper is, in the present case, very much the
same thing as publican's opinion has willed otherwise.
The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers at
any rate for a space.
Is the spirit of change, which is working thus
vigorously in the South, likely to affect the Northern
Universities, and if so, to what extent ? The violence
of fermentation depends, not so much on the quantity
of the yeast, as on the composition of the wort, and
its richness in fermentable material ; and, as a prelimi-
nary to the discussion of this question, I venture to
call to your minds the essential and fundamental dif-
ferences between the Scottish and the English type of
University.
Do not charge me with anything worse than official
egotism, if I say that these differences appear to be
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 29
largely symbolised by my own existence. There is
no Eector in an English University. Now, the organi-
sation of the members of an University into Nations,
with their elective Eector, is the last relic of the
primitive constitution of Universities. The Kectorate
was the most important of all offices in that University
of Paris, upon the model of which the University of
Aberdeen was fashioned ; and which was certainly a
great and flourishing institution in the twelfth century.
Enthusiasts for the antiquity of one of the two
acknowledged parents of all Universities, indeed, do
not hesitate to trace the origin of the " Studium
Parisiense " up to that wonderful king of the Franks
and Lombards, Karl, surnamed the Great, whom we
all called Charlemagne, and believed to be a French-
man, until a learned historian, by beneficent iteration,
taught us better. Karl is said not to have been much
of a scholar himself, but he had the wisdom of which
knowledge is only the servitor. And that wisdom
enabled him to see that ignorance is one of the roots
of all evil.
In the Capitulary which enjoins the foundation of
monasterial and cathedral schools, he says : " Eight
action is better than knowledge; but in order to do
what is right, we must know what is right." 1 An.
irrefragable truth, I fancy. Acting upon it, the king
took pretty full compulsory powers, and carried into
1 " Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, prius tarnen
est nosse quam facere." " Karoli Magni Regis Constitutio de Scholis
per singula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis," addressed to the
Abbot of Fulda. Baluzius, " Capitularia Regum Francorum," T. i,
p. 202.
30 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
effect a really considerable and effectual scheme of
elementary education through the length and breadth
of his dominions.
No doubt the idolaters out by the Elbe, in what is
now part of Prussia, objected to the Frankish king's
measures ; no doubt the priests, who had never hesi-
tated about sacrificing all unbelievers in their fantastic
deities and futile conjurations, were the loudest in
chanting the virtues of toleration ; no doubt they de-
nounced as a cruel persecutor the man who would not
allow them, however sincere they might be, to go on
spreading delusions which debased the intellect, as
much as they deadened the moral sense, and under-
mined the bonds of civil allegiance ; no doubt, if they
had lived in these times, they would have been able
to show, with ease, that the king's proceedings were
totally contrary to the best liberal principles. But it
may be said, in justification of the Teutonic ruler,
first, that he was born before those principles, and
did not suspect that the best way of getting disorder
into order was to let it alone ; and, secondly, that his
rough and questionable proceedings did, more or less,
bring about the end he had in view. For, in a couple
of centuries, the schools he sowed broadcast produced
their crop of men, thirsting for knowledge and craving
for culture. Such men gravitating towards Paris, as
a light amidst the darkness of evil days, from Ger-
many, from Spain, from Britain, and from Scandinavia,
came together by natural affinity. By degrees they
banded themselves into a society, which, as its end
was the knowledge of all things knowable, called itself
IL] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 31
a "Studium Generale;" and when it had grown into
a recognised corporation, acquired the name of " Uni-
versitas Studii Generalis," which, mark you, means
not a " Useful Knowledge Society," but a " Knowledge-
of- things-in-general Society."
And thus the first "University," at any rate on
this side of the Alps, came into being. Originally it
had but one Faculty, that of Arts. Its aim was to
be a centre of knowledge and culture ; not to be, in
any sense, a technical school.
The scholars seem to have studied Grammar, Logic,
and Rhetoric; Arithmetic and Geometry; Astronomy;
Theology; and Music. Thus, their work, however
imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may
have been, brought them face to face with all the
leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man.
For these studies did really contain, at any rate in
embryo sometimes, it may be, in caricature what
we now call Philosophy, Mathematical and Physical
Science, and Art. And I doubt if the curriculum of
any modern University shows so clear and generous a
comprehension of what is meant by culture, as this
old Trivium and Quadrivium does.
The students who had passed through the Univer-
sity course, and had proved themselves competent to
teach, became masters and teachers of their younger
brethren. Whence the distinction of Masters and
Eegents on the one hand, and Scholars on the other.
Rapid growth necessitated organisation. The
Masters and Scholars of various tongues and coun-
tries grouped themselves into four Nations ; and the
32 UNIVEKSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
Nations, by their own votes at first, and subsequently
by those of their Procurators, or representatives,
elected their supreme head and governor, the Kector
at that time the sole representative of the Univer-
sity, and a very real power, who could defy Provosts
interfering from without ; or could inflict even cor-
poral punishment on disobedient members within the
University.
Such was the primitive constitution of the Uni-
versity of Paris. It is in reference to this original
state of things that I have spoken of the Eectorate,
and all that appertains to it, as the sole relic of that
constitution.
But this original organisation did not last long.
Society was not then, any more than it is now,
patient of culture, as such. It says to everything,
" Be useful to me, or away with you." And to the
learned, the unlearned man said then, as he does now,
" What is the use of all your learning, unless you can
tell me what I want to know ? I am here blindly
groping about, and constantly damaging myself by
collision with three mighty powers, the power of the
invisible God, the power of my fellow Man, and the
power of brute Nature. Let your learning be turned
to the study of these powers, that I may know how I
am to comport myself with regard to them." In
answer to this demand, some of the Masters of the
Faculty of Arts devoted themselves to the study of
Theology, some to that of Law, and some to that of
Medicine ; and they became Doctors men learned in
those technical, or, as we now call them, professional,
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 33
branches of knowledge. Like cleaving to like, the
Doctors formed schools, or Faculties, of Theology,
Law, and Medicine, which sometimes assumed airs
of superiority over their parent, the Faculty of Arts,
though the latter always asserted and maintained its
fundamental supremacy.
The Faculties arose by process of natural differen-
tiation out of the primitive University. Other con-
stituents, foreign to its nature, were speedily grafted
upon it. One of these extraneous elements was forced
into it by the Koman Church, which in those days
asserted with effect, that which it now asserts, happily
without any effect in these realms, its right of cen-
sorship and control over all teaching. The local
habitation of the University lay partly in the lands
attached to the monastery of S. Genevieve, partly in
the diocese of the Bishop of Paris ; and he who would
teach must have the licence of the Abbot, or of the
Bishop, as the nearest representative of the Pope, so
to do, which licence was granted by the Chancellors
of these Ecclesiastics.
Thus, if I am what archaeologists call a " survival"
of the primitive head and ruler of the University, your
Chancellor stands in the same relation to the Papacy ;
and, with all respect for his Grace, I think I may
say that we both look terribly shrunken when com-
pared with our great originals.
Not so is it with a second foreign element, which
silently dropped into the soil of Universities, like the
grain of mustard -seed in the parable; and, like that
grain, grew into a tree, in whose branches a whole
D
34 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
aviary of fowls took shelter. That element is the
element of Endowment. It differed from the preced-
ing, in its original design to serve as a prop to the
young plant, not to be a parasite upon it. The
charitable and the humane, blessed with wealth, were
very early penetrated by the misery of the poor
student. And the wise saw that intellectual ability
is not so common or so unimportant a gift that it
should be allowed to run to waste upon mere handi-
crafts and chares. The man who was a blessing to
his contemporaries, but who so often has been con-
verted into a curse, by the blind adherence of his
posterity to the letter, rather than to the spirit, of
his wishes I mean the "pious founder" gave
money and lands, that the student, who was rich in
brain and poor in all else, might be taken from the
plough or from the stithy, and enabled to devote
himself to the higher service of mankind ; and built
colleges and halls in which he might be not only
housed and fed, but taught.
The Colleges were very generally placed in strict
subordination to the University by their founders;
but, in many cases, their endowment, consisting of
land, has undergone an " unearned increment," which
has given these societies a continually increasing
weight and importance as against the unendowed, or
fixedly endowed, University. In Pharaoh's dream,
the seven lean kine eat up the seven fat ones. In
the reality of historical fact, the fat Colleges have
eaten up the lean Universities.
Even here in Aberdeen, though the causes at work
IL] TTNIVEBSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 35
may have been somewhat different, the effects have
been similar ; and you see how much more substantial
an entity is the Very Reverend the Principal, analogue,
if not homologue, of the Principals of King's College,
than the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient
monarchs of the University, though now, little more
than a " king of shreds and patches."
Do not suppose that, in thus briefly tracing the
process of University metamorphosis, I have had any
intention of quarrelling with its results. Practically,
it seems to me that the broad changes effected in 1858
have given the Scottish Universities a very liberal
constitution, with as much real approximation to the
primitive state of things as is at all desirable. If
your fat kine have eaten the lean, they have not lain
down to chew the cud ever since. The Scottish Uni-
versities, like the English, have diverged widely enough
from their primitive model ; but I cannot help think-
ing that the northern form has remained more faithful
to its original, not only in constitution, but, what is
more to the purpose, in view of the cry for change,
in the practical application of the endowments con-
nected with it.
In Aberdeen, these endowments are numerous, but
so small that, taken altogether, they are not equal to
the revenue of a single third-rate English college.
They are scholarships, not fellowships; aids to do
work not rewards for such work as it lies within the
reach of an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, young
man to do. You do not think that passing a respect-
able examination is a fair equivalent for an income,
36 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
such as many a gray-headed veteran, or clergyman,
would envy ; and which is larger than the endowment
of many Eegius chairs. You do not care to make
your University a school of manners for the rich ; of
sports for the athletic ; or a hot-bed of high-fed,
hypercritical refinement, more destructive to vigour
and originality than are starvation and oppression.
No ; your little Bursaries of ten and twenty (I believe
even fifty) pounds a year, enable any boy who has
shown ability in the course of his education in those
remarkable primary schools, which have made Scotland
the power she is, to obtain the highest culture the
country can give him ; and when he is armed and
equipped, his Spartan Alma Mater tells him that, so
far, he has had his wages for his work, and that he
may go and earn the rest.
When I think of the host of pleasant, monied, well-
bredyoung gentlemen, who do a little learning and much
boating by Cam and Isis, the vision is a pleasant one ;
and, as a patriot, I rejoice that the youth of the upper
and richer classes of the nation receive a wholesome and
a manly training, however small may be the modicum
of knowledge they gather, in the intervals of this, their
serious business. I admit, to the full, the social and
political value of that training. But, when I proceed
to consider that these young men may be said to
represent the great bulk of what the Colleges have to
show for their enormous wealth, plus, at least, a
hundred and fifty pounds a year apiece which each
undergraduate costs his parents or guardians, I feel
inclined to ask, whether the rate-in-aid of the educa-
IL] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 37
tion of the wealthy and professional classes, thus levied
on the resources of the community, is not, after all, a
little heavy? And, still further, I am tempted to
inquire what has become of the indigent scholars, the
sons of the masses of the people whose daily labour
just suffices to meet their daily wants, for whose
benefit these rich foundations were largely, if not
mainly, instituted ? It seems as if Pharaoh's dream
had been rigorously carried out, and that even the fat
scholar has eaten the lean one. And when I turn
from this picture to the no less real vision of many a
brave and frugal Scotch boy, spending his summer in
hard manual labour, that he may have the privilege
of wending his way in autumn to this University, with
a bag of oatmeal, ten pounds in his pocket, and his
own stout heart to depend upon through the northern
winter ; not bent on seeking
" The bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth,"
but determined to wring knowledge from the hard
hands of penury ; when I see him win through all such
outward obstacles to positions of wide usefulness and
well-earned fame ; I cannot but think that, in essence,
Aberdeen has departed but little from the primitive
intention of the founders of Universities, and that the
spirit of reform has so much to do on the other side
of the Border, that it may be long before he has leisure
to look this way.
As compared with other actual Universities, then,
Aberdeen, may, perhaps, be well satisfied with itself.
But do not think me an impracticable dreamer, if I
38 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
ask you not to rest and be thankful in this state of
satisfaction ; if I ask you to consider awhile, how this
actual good stands related to that ideal better, towards
which both men and institutions must progress, if they
would not retrograde.
In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man
should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of
knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods
by which knowledge is obtained. In such an University,
the force of living example should fire the student
with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of
learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the ex-
plorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air
he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm
for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater
possession than much learning ; a nobler gift than the
power of increasing knowledge ; by so much greater
and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is
greater than the intellectual ; for veracity is the heart
of morality.
But the man who is all morality and intellect,
although he may be good and even great, is, after all,
only half a man. There is beauty in the moral world
and in the intellectual world ; but there is also a
beauty which is neither moral nor intellectual the
beauty of the world of Art. There are men who are
devoid of the power of seeing it, as there are men who
are born deaf and blind, and the loss of those, as of
these, is simply infinite. There are others in whom it is
an overpowering passion ; happy men, born with the
productive, or at lowest, the appreciative, genius of the
IL] UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 39
Artist. But, in the mass of mankind, the ^Esthetic
faculty, like the reasoning power and the moral sense,
needs to be roused, directed, and cultivated ; and I
know not why the development of that side of his
nature, through which man has access to a perennial
spring of ennobling pleasure, should be omitted from
any comprehensive scheme of University education.
All Universities recognise Literature in the sense
of the old Khetoric, which is art incarnate in words.
Some, to their credit, recognise Art in its narrower
sense, to a certain extent, and confer degrees for pro-
ficiency in some of its branches. If there are Doctors
of Music, why should there be no Masters of Painting,
of Sculpture, of Architecture ? I should like to see
Professors of the Fine Arts in every University ; and
instruction in some branch of their work made a part
of the Arts curriculum.
I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal
University, a man should be able to obtain instruction
in all forms of knowledge. Now, by " forms of know-
ledge " I mean the great classes of things knowable ;
of which the first, in logical, though not in natural,
order is knowledge relating to the scope and limits of
the mental faculties of man; a form of knowledge
which, in its positive aspect, answers pretty much to
Logic and part of Psychology, while, on its negative
and critical side, it corresponds with Metaphysics.
A second class comprehends all that knowledge
which relates to man's welfare, so far as it is deter-
mined by his own acts, or what we call his conduct.
It answers to Moral and Religious philosophy. Prac-
40 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT
tically, it is the most directly valuable of all forms of
knowledge, but speculatively, it is limited and criti-
cised by that which precedes and by that which
follows it in my order of enumeration.
A third class embraces knowledge of the pheno-
mena of the Universe, as that which lies about the
individual man : and of the rules which those pheno-
mena are observed to follow in the order of their
occurrence, which we term the laws of Nature.
This is what ought to be called Natural Science,
or Physiology, though those terms are hopelessly
diverted from such a meaning ; and it includes all
exact knowledge of natural fact, whether Mathe-
matical, Physical, Biological, or Social.
Kant has said that the ultimate object of all
knowledge is to give replies to these three questions :
What can I do ? What ought I to do ? What may
I hope for \ The forms of knowledge which I have
enumerated, should furnish such replies as are within
human reach, to the first and second of these questions.
While to the third, perhaps the wisest answer is,
" Do what you can to do what you ought, and leave
hoping and fearing alone."
If this be a just and an exhaustive classification
of the forms of knowledge, no question as to their
relative importance, or as to the superiority of one to
the other, can be seriously raised.
On the face of the matter, it is absurd to ask
whether it is more important to know the limits of
one's powers ; or the ends for which they ought to be
exerted ; or the conditions under which they must be
ii.] UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 41
exerted. One may as well inquire which of the terms
of a Rule of Three sum one ought to know, in order to
get a trustworthy result. Practical life is such a sum,
in which your duty multiplied into your capacity, and
divided by your circumstances, gives you the fourth
term in the proportion, which is your deserts, with
great accuracy All agree, I take it, that men ought
to have these three kinds of knowledge. The so-
called " conflict of studies" turns upon the question of
how they may best be obtained.
The founders of Universities held the theory that
the Scriptures and Aristotle taken together, the latter
being limited by the former, contained all knowledge
worth having, and that the business of philosophy was
to interpret and co-ordinate these two. I imagine
that in the twelfth century this was a very fair con-
clusion from known facts. Nowhere in the world, in
those days, was there such an encyclopaedia of know-
ledge of all three classes, as is to be found in those
writings. The scholastic philosophy is a wonderful
monument of the patience and ingenuity with which
the human mind toiled to build up a logically con-
sistent theory of the Universe, out of such materials.
And that philosophy is by no means dead and buried,
as many vainly suppose. On the contrary, numbers
of men of no mean learning and accomplishment, and
sometimes of rare power and subtlety of thought,
hold by it as the best theory of things which has yet
been stated. And, what is still more remarkable,
men who speak the language of modern philosophy,
nevertheless think the thoughts of the schoolmen.
42 UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
" The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are
the hands of Esau." Every day I hear " Cause,"
"Law," "Force," " Vitality," spoken of as entities,
by people who can enjoy Swift's joke about the
meat-roasting quality of the smoke-jack, and comfort
themselves with the reflection that they are not even
as those benighted schoolmen.
Well, this great system had its day, and then it
was sapped and mined by two influences. The first
was the study of classical literature, which familiarised
men with methods of philosophising ; with concep-
tions of the highest Good; with ideas of the order
of Nature ; with notions of Literary and Historical
Criticism; and, above all, with visions of Art, of a
kind which not only would not fit into the scholastic
scheme, but showed them a pre-Christian, and indeed
altogether un-Christian world, of such grandeur and
beauty that they ceased to think of any other. They
were as men who had kissed the Fairy Queen, and
wandering with her in the dim loveliness of the under-
world, cared not to return to the familiar ways of
home and fatherland, though they lay, at arm's length,
overhead. Cardinals were more familiar with Virgil
than with Isaiah; and Popes laboured, with great
success, to re-paganise Eome.
The second influence was the slow, but sure,
growth of the physical sciences. It was discovered
that some results of speculative thought, of immense
practical and theoretical importance, can be verified
by observation ; and are always true, however severely
they may be tested. Here, at any rate, was know-
II.] UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 43
ledge, to the certainty of which no authority could
add, or take away, one jot or tittle, and to which the
tradition of a thousand years was as insignificant as
the hearsay of yesterday. To the scholastic system,
the study of classical literature might be inconvenient
and distracting, but it was possible to hope that it
could be kept within bounds. Physical science, on
the other hand, was an irreconcilable enemy, to be
excluded at all hazards. The College of Cardinals
has not distinguished itself in Physics or Physiology ;
and no Pope has, as yet, set up public laboratories in
the Vatican.
People do not always formulate the beliefs on
which they act. The instinct of fear and dislike is
quicker than the reasoning process; and I suspect
that, taken in conjunction with some other causes,
such instinctive aversion is at the bottom of the long
exclusion of any serious discipline in the physical
sciences from the general curriculum of Universities ;
while, on the other hand, classical literature has been
gradually made the backbone of the Arts course.
I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said
elsewhere, in season and out of season, respecting the
value of Science as knowledge and discipline. But
the other day I met with some passages in the
Address to another Scottish University, of a great
thinker, recently lost to us, which express so fully,
and yet so tersely, the truth in this matter, that I am
fain to quote them :
" To question all things ; never to turn away
from any difficulty ; to accept no doctrine either from
44 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
ourselves or from other people without a rigid scrutiny
by negative criticism ; letting no fallacy, or inco-
herence, or confusion of thought step by unperceived ;
above all, to insist upon having the meaning of a
word clearly understood before using it, and the
meaning of a proposition before assenting to it ;
these are the lessons we learn " from workers in
Science. " With all this vigorous management of
the negative element, they inspire no scepticism about
the reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. The
noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and
for applying it to its highest uses, pervades those
writers." " In cultivating, therefore/' science as an
essential ingredient in education, " we are all the
while laying an admirable foundation for ethical and
philosophical culture." l
The passages I have quoted were uttered by John
Stuart Mill ; but you cannot hear inverted commas,
and it is therefore right that I should add, without
delay, that I have taken the liberty of substituting
"workers in science" for " ancient dialecticians," and
" Science as an essential ingredient in education " for
" the ancient languages as our best literary education."
Mill did, in fact, deliver a noble panegyric upon
classical studies. I do not doubt its justice, nor
presume to question its wisdom. But I venture to
maintain that no wise or just judge, who has a know-
ledge of the facts, will hesitate to say that it applies
with equal force to scientific training.
1 Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrew
February 1, 1867, by J. S. Mill, Rector of the University (pp. 32, 33}.
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 45
But it is only fair to the Scottish Universities to
point out that they have long understood the value
of Science as a branch of general education. I observe,
with the greatest satisfaction, that candidates for the
degree of Master of Arts in this University are re-
quired to have a knowledge, not only of Mental and
Moral Philosophy, and of Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy, but of Natural History, in addition to
the ordinary Latin and Greek course ; and that a
candidate may take honours in these subjects and in
Chemistry.
I do not know what the requirements of your
examiners may be, but I sincerely trust they are not
satisfied with a mere book knowledge of these matters.
For my own part, I would not raise a finger, if I
could thereby introduce mere book work in science
into every Arts curriculum in the country. Let those
who want to study books devote themselves to Litera-
ture, in which we have the perfection of books, both
as to substance and as to form. If I may paraphrase
Hobbes's well-known aphorism, I would say that
"books are the money of Literature, but only the
counters of Science/' Science (in the sense in which I
now use the term) being the knowledge of fact, of
which every verbal description is but an incomplete
and symbolic expression. And be assured that no
teaching of science is worth anything, as a mental
discipline, which is not based upon direct perception
of the facts, and practical exercise of the observing
and logical faculties upon them. Even in such a
simple matter as the mere comprehension of form, ask
46 UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
the most practised and widely informed anatomist
what is the difference between his knowledge of a
structure which he has read about, and his knowledge
of the same structure when he has seen it for himself;
and he will tell you that the two things are not com-
parable the difference is infinite. Thus I am very
strongly inclined to agree with some learned school-
masters who say that, in their experience, the teach-
ing of science is all waste time. As they teach it, I
have no doubt it is. But to teach it otherwise, re-
quires an amount of personal labour and a develop-
ment of means and appliances, which must strike
horror and dismay into a man accustomed to mere
book work ; and who has been in the habit of teach-
ing a class of fifty without much strain upon his
energies. And this is one of the real difficulties in
the way of the introduction of physical science into
the ordinary University course, to which I have
alluded. It is a difficulty which will not be over-
come, until years of patient study have organised
scientific teaching as well as, or I hope better than,
classical teaching has been organised hitherto.
A little while ago, I ventured to hint a doubt
as to the perfection of some of the arrangements
in the ancient Universities of England; but, in
their provision for giving instruction in Science as
such, and without direct reference to any of its
practical applications, they have set a brilliant ex-
ample. Within the last twenty years, Oxford alone
has sunk more than a hundred and twenty thousand
pounds in building and furnishing Physical, Chemical,
IL] UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 47
and Physiological Laboratories, and a magnificent
Museum, arranged with an almost luxurious regard
for the needs of the student. Cambridge, less rich,
but aided by the munificence of her Chancellor, is
taking the same course ; and, in a few years, it will
be for no lack of the means and appliances of sound
teaching, if the mass of English University men re-
main in their present state of barbarous ignorance of
even the rudiments of scientific culture.
Yet another step needs to be made before Science
can be said to have taken its proper place in the
Universities. That is its recognition as a Faculty, or
branch of study demanding recognition and special
organisation, on account of its bearing on the wants
of mankind. The Faculties of Theology, Law, and
Medicine, are technical schools, intended to equip
men who have received general culture, with the
special knowledge which is needed for the proper per-
formance of the duties of clergymen, lawyers, and
medical practitioners.
When the material well-being of the country
depended upon rude pasture and agriculture, and still
ruder mining ; in the days when all the innumerable
applications of the principles of physical science to
practical purposes were non-existent even as dreams ;
days which men living may have heard their fathers
speak of; what little physical science could be seen
to bear directly upon human life, lay within the pro-
vince of Medicine. Medicine was the foster-mother
of Chemistry, because it has to do with the prepara-
tion of drugs and the detection of poisons ; of Botany,
48 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
because it enabled the physician to recognise medici-
nal herbs ; of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology,
because the man who studied Human Anatomy and
Physiology for purely medical purposes was led to
extend his studies to the rest of the animal world.
"Within my recollection, the only way in which a
student could obtain anything like a training in
Physical Science, was by attending the lectures of
the Professors of Physical and Natural Science at-
tached to the Medical Schools. But, in the course of
the last thirty years, both foster-mother and child
have grown so big, that they threaten not only to
crush one another, but to press the very life out of
the unhappy student who enters the nursery ; to the
great detriment of all three.
I speak in the presence of those who know prac-
tically what medical education is ; for I may assume
that a large proportion of my hearers are more or less
advanced students of medicine. I appeal to the most
industrious and conscientious among you, to those
who are most deeply penetrated with a sense of the
extremely serious responsibilities which attach to the
calling of a medical practitioner, when I ask whether,
out of the four years which you devote to your studies,
you ought to spare even so much as an hour for any
work which does not tend directly to fit you for your
duties ?
Consider what that work is. Its foundation is a
sound and practical acquaintance with the structure
of the human organism, and with the modes and con-
ditions of its action in health. I say a sound and
II.] UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 49
practical acquaintance, to guard against the supposi-
tion that my intention is to suggest that you ought
all to be minute anatomists and accomplished physi-
ologists. The devotion of your whole four years to
Anatomy and Physiology alone, would be totally
insufficient to attain that end. What I mean is, the
sort of practical, familiar, finger-end knowledge which
a watchmaker has of a watch, and which you expect
that craftsman, as an honest man, to have, when you
entrust a watch that goes badly, to him. It is a kind
of knowledge which is to be acquired, not in the
lecture-room, nor in the library, but in the dissecting-
room and the laboratory. It is to be had, not by
sharing your attention between these and sundry other
subjects, but by concentrating your minds, week after
week, and month after month, six or seven hours a
day, upon all the complexities of organ and function,
until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physi-
ology has become an organic part of your minds
until you would know them if you were roused and
questioned in the middle of the night, as a man knows
the geography of his native place and the daily life of
his home. That is the sort of knowledge which, once
obtained, is a life-long possession. Other occupations
may fill your minds it may grow dim, and seem to
be forgotten but there it is, like the inscription on a
battered and defaced coin, which comes out when you
warm it.
If I had the power to remodel Medical Education,
the first two years of the medical curriculum should
be devoted to nothing but such thorough study of Ana-
50 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
tomy and Physiology, with Physiological Chemistry
and Physics; the student should then pass a real,
practical examination in these subjects ; and, having
gone through that ordeal satisfactorily, he should be
troubled no more with them. His whole mind should
then be given with equal intentness, to Therapeutics,
in its broadest sense, to Practical Medicine and to
Surgery, with instruction in Hygiene and in Medical
Jurisprudence; and of these subjects only surely
there are enough of them should he be required to
show a knowledge in his final examination.
I cannot claim any special property in this theory
of what the medical curriculum should be, for I find
that views, more or less closely approximating these,
are held by all who have seriously considered the very
grave and pressing question of Medical Keform ; and
have, indeed, been carried into practice, to some extent,
by the most enlightened Examining Boards. I have
heard but two kinds of objections to them. There is,
first, the objection of vested interests, which I will not
deal with here, because I want to make myself as
pleasant as I can, and no discussions are so unpleasant
as those which turn on such points. And there is,
secondly, the much more respectable objection, which
takes the general form of the reproach that, in thus
limiting the curriculum, we are seeking to narrow it.
We are told that the medical man ought to be a person
of good education and general information, if his pro-
fession is to hold its own among other professions ; that
he ought to know Botany, or else, if he goes abroad, he
will not be able to tell poisonous fruits from edible
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 5 1
ones ; that he ought to know drugs, as a druggist
knows them, or he will not be able to tell sham bark
and senna from the real articles ; that he ought to
know Zoology, because well, I really have never
been able to learn exactly why he is to be expected
to know zoology. There is, indeed, a popular super-
stition, that doctors know all about things that are
queer or nasty to the general mind, and may, there-
fore, be reasonably expected to know the " barbarous
binomials " applicable to snakes, snails, and slugs ; an
amount of information with which the general mind
is usually completely satisfied. And there is a scien-
tific superstition that Physiology is largely aided by
Comparative Anatomy a superstition which, like
most superstitions, once had a grain of truth at bot-
tom; but the grain has become homosopathic, since
Physiology took its modern experimental develop-
ment, and became what it is now, the application of
the principles of Physics and Chemistry to the eluci-
dation of the phenomena of life.
I hold as strongly as any one can do, that the
medical practitioner ought to be a person of education
and good general culture ; but I also hold by the old
theory of a Faculty, that a man should have his general
culture before he devotes himself to the special studies
of that Faculty ; and I venture to maintain, that, if
the general culture obtained in the Faculty of Arts
were what it ought to be, the student would have
quite as much knowledge of the fundamental principles
of Physics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, as he needs,
before he commenced his special medical studies.
52 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
Moreover, I would urge, that a thorough study of
Human Physiology is, in itself, an education broader
and more comprehensive than much that passes under
that name. There is no side of the intellect which it
does not call into play, no region of human knowledge
into which either its roots, or its branches, do not
extend; like the Atlantic between the Old and the
New Worlds, its waves wash the shores of the two
worlds of matter and of mind ; its tributary streams
flow from both ; through its waters, as yet unfurrowed
by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if such
there be, from the one to the other ; far away from
that North-west Passage of mere speculation, in which
so many brave souls have been hopelessly frozen up.
But whether I am right or wrong about all this,
the patent fact of the limitation of time remains. As
the song runs :
" If a man could be sure
That his life would endure
For the space of a thousand long years '
he might do a number of things not practicable under
present conditions. Methuselah might, with much
propriety, have taken half a century to get his doctor's
degree; and might, very fairly, have been required
to pass a practical examination upon the contents
of the British Museum, before commencing practice
as a promising young fellow of two hundred, or there-
abouts. But you have four years to do your work
in, and are turned loose, to save or slay, at two or
three and twenty.
Now, I put it to you, whether you think that,
IL] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL ASD IDEAL. 53
when you come down to the realities of life when
you stand by the sick-bed, racking your brains for
the principles which shall furnish you with the means
of interpreting symptoms, and forming a rational
theory of the condition of your patient, it will be
satisfactory for you to find that those principles are
not there although, to use the examination slang
which is unfortunately too familiar to me, you can
quite easily " give an account of the leading pecu-
liarities of the Marsupialia" or " enumerate the
chief characters of the Compositce" or " state the class
and order of the animal from which Castoreum is
obtained."
I really do not think that state of things will be
satisfactory to you ; I am very sure it will not be so
to your patient. Indeed, I am so narrow-minded
myself, that if I had to choose between two physi-
cians one who did not know whether a whaJe is a
fish or not, and could not tell gentian from ginger,
but did understand the applications of the institutes
of medicine to his art ; while the other, like Talley-
rand's doctor, " knew everything, even a little physic "
with all my love for breadth of culture, I should
assuredly consult the former.
It is not pleasant to incur the suspicion of an in-
clination to injure or depreciate particular branches
of knowledge. But the fact that one of those which
I should have no hesitation in excluding from the
medical curriculum, is that to which my own life has
been specially devoted, should, at any rate, defend me
from the suspicion of being urged to this course by
54 UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
any but the very gravest considerations of the public
welfare.
And I should like, further, to call your attention
to the important circumstance that, in thus proposing
the exclusion of the study of such branches of know-
ledge as Zoology and Botany, from those compulsory
upon the medical student, I am not, for a moment,
suggesting their exclusion from the University. I
think that sound and practical instruction in the
elementary facts and broad principles of Biology
should form part of the Arts Curriculum : and here,
happily, my theory is in entire accordance with your
practice. Moreover, as I have already said, I have
no sort of doubt that, in view of the relation of
Physical Science to the practical life of the present
day, it has the same right as Theology, Law, and
Medicine, to a Faculty of its own in which men shall
be trained to be professional men of science. It may
be doubted whether Universities are the places for
technical schools of Engineering, or Applied Chemis-
try, or Agriculture. But there can surely be little
question, that instruction in the branches of Science
which lie at the foundation of these Arts, of a far
more advanced and special character than could, with
any propriety, be included in the ordinary Arts
Curriculum, ought to be obtainable by means of a
duly organised Faculty of Science in every Uni-
versity.
The establishment of such a Faculty would have
the additional advantage of providing, in some
measure, for one of the greatest wants of our time
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 55
and country. I mean the proper support and en-
couragement of original research.
The other day, an emphatic friend of mine com-
mitted himself to the opinion that, in England, it is
better for a man's worldly prospects to be a drunkard,
than to be smitten with the divine dipsomania of the
original investigator. I am inclined to think he was
not far wrong. And, be it observed, that the ques-
tion is not, whether such a man shall be able to make
as much out of his abilities as his brother, of like
ability, who goes into Law, or Engineering, or Com-
merce; it is not a question of "maintaining a due
number of saddle horses," as George Eliot somewhere
puts it it is a question of living or starving.
If a student of my own subject shows power and
originality, I dare not advise him to adopt a scientific
career ; for, supposing he is able to maintain himself
until he has attained distinction, I cannot give him
the assurance that any amount of proficiency in the
Biological Sciences will be convertible into, even the
most modest, bread and cheese. And I believe that
the case is as bad, or perhaps worse, with other
branches of Science. In this respect Britain, whose
immense wealth and prosperity hang upon the thread
of Applied Science, is far behind France, and infin-
itely behind Germany.
And the worst of it is, that it is very difficult to
see one's way to any immediate remedy for this state
of affairs which shall be free from a tendency to become
worse than the disease.
Great schemes for the Endowment of Kesearch
56 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
have been proposed. It has been suggested, that
Laboratories for all branches of Physical Science, pro-
vided with every apparatus needed by the investi-
gator, shall be established by the State : and shall be
accessible, under due conditions and regulations, to
all properly qualified persons. I see no objection to
the principle of such a proposal. If it be legitimate
to spend great sums of money on public Libraries and
public collections of Painting and Sculpture, in aid of
the man of letters, or the Artist, or for the mere sake
of affording pleasure to the general public, I apprehend
that it cannot be illegitimate to do as much for the
promotion of scientific investigation. To take the
lowest ground, as a mere investment of money, the
latter is likely to be much more immediately profitable.
To my mind, the difficulty in the way of such schemes
is not theoretical, but practical. Given the labora-
tories, how are the investigators to be maintained ?
What career is open to those who have been thus
encouraged to leave bread-winning pursuits ? If they
are to be provided for by endowment, we come back
to the College Fellowship system, the results of which,
for Literature, have not been so brilliant that one
would wish to see it extended to Science ; unless some
much better securities, than at present exist, can be
taken that it will foster real work. You know that
among the Bees, it depends on the kind of cell in
which the egg is deposited, and the quantity and
quality of food which is supplied to the grub, whether
it shall turn out a busy little worker or a big idle
queen. And, in the human hive, the cells of the
II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 57
endowed larvae are always tending to enlarge, and
their food to improve, until we get queens, beautiful
to behold, but which gather no honey and build no
comb.
I do not say that these difficulties may not be
overcome, but their gravity is not to be lightly esti-
mated.
In the meanwhile, there is one step in the direction
of the endowment of research which is free from such
objections. It is possible to place the scientific
inquirer in a position in which he shall have ample
leisure and opportunity for original work, and yet
shall give a fair and tangible equivalent for those
privileges. The establishment of a Faculty of Science
in every University, implies that of a corresponding
number of Professorial chairs, the incumbents of
which need not be so burdened with teaching as to
deprive them of ample leisure for original work. I
do not think that it is any impediment to an original
investigator to have to devote a moderate portion
of his time to lecturing, or superintending practical
instruction. On the contrary, I think it may be, and
often is, a benefit to be obliged to take a comprehen-
sive survey of your subject ; or to bring your results
to a point, and give them, as it were, a tangible
objective existence. The besetting sins of the investi-
gator are two : the one is the desire to put aside a
subject, the general bearings of which he has mastered
himself, and pass on to something which has the
attraction of novelty; and the other, the desire for
too much perfection, which leads him to
58 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
" Add and alter many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten ; "
to spend the energies which should be reserved for
action, in whitening the decks and polishing the guns.
The obligation to produce results for the instruc-
tion of others, seems to me to be a more effectual check
on these tendencies, than even the love of usefulness
or the ambition for fame.
But supposing the Professorial forces of our
University to be duly organised, there remains an
important question, relating to the teaching power, to
be considered. Is the Professorial system the sys-
tem, I mean, of teaching in the lecture -room alone,
and leaving the student to find his own way when he
is outside the lecture -room adequate to the wants
of learners ? In answering this question, I confine
myself to my own province, and I venture to reply
for Physical Science, assuredly and undoubtedly, No.
As I have already intimated, practical work in the
Laboratory is absolutely indispensable, and that prac-
tical work must be guided and superintended by a
sufficient staff of Demonstrators, who are for Science
what Tutors are for other branches of study. And
there must be a good supply of such Demonstrators.
I doubt if the practical work of more than twenty
students can be properly superintended by one
Demonstrator. If we take the working day at six
hours, that is less than twenty minutes apiece not a
very large allowance of time for helping a dull man,
for correcting an inaccurate one, or even for making
an intelligent student clearly apprehend what he is
IL] UNIVERSITIES I ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 59
about. And, no doubt, the supplying of a proper
amount of this tutorial, practical teaching, is a diffi-
culty in the way of giving proper instruction in
Physical Science in such Universities as that of Aber-
deen, which are devoid of endowments; and, unlike
the English Universities, have no moral claim on
the funds of richly endowed bodies to supply their
wants.
Examination thorough, searching examination
is an indispensable accompaniment of teaching ; but I
am almost inclined to commit myself to the very
heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am
a very old Examiner, having, for some twenty years
past, been occupied with examinations on a consider-
able scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and
women too, from the boys and girls of elementary
schools to the candidates for Honours and Fellowships
in the Universities. 1 will not say that, in this case
as in so many others, the adage, that familiarity
breeds contempt, holds good ; but my admiration for
the existing system of examination and its products,
does not wax warmer as I see more of it. Examina-
tion, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master;
and there seems to me to be some danger of its
becoming our master. I by no means stand alone in
this opinion. Experienced friends of mine do not
hesitate to say that students whose career they watch,
appear to them to become deteriorated by the constant
effort to pass this or that examination, just as we hear
of men's brains becoming affected by the daily
necessity of catching a train. They work to pass, not
60 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
to know; and outraged Science takes her revenge.
They do pass, and they don't know. I have passed
sundry examinations in my time, not without credit,
and I confess I am ashamed to think how very little
real knowledge underlay the torrent of stuff which I
was able to pour out on paper. In fact, that which
examination, as ordinarily conducted, tests, is simply
a man's power of work under stimulus, and his capacity
for rapidly and clearly producing that which, for the
time, he has got into his mind. Now, these faculties
are by no means to be despised. They are of great
value in practical life, and are the making of many an
advocate, and of many a so-called statesman. But in
the pursuit of truth, scientific or other, they count for
very little, unless they are supplemented by that long-
continued, patient "intending of the mind," as
Newton phrased it, which makes very little show in
Examinations. I imagine that an Examiner who
knows his students personally, must not unfrequently
have found himself in the position of finding A's paper
better than B's, though his own judgment tells him,
quite clearly, that B is the man who has the larger
share of genuine capacity.
Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It is
commonly supposed that any one who knows a subject
is competent to teach it ; and no one seems to doubt
that any one who knows a subject is competent to
examine in it. I believe both these opinions to be
serious mistakes : the latter, perhaps, the more serious
of the two. In the first place, I do not believe that
any one who is not, or has not been, a teacher is really
ii.] UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 61
qualified to examine advanced students. And in the
second place, Examination is an Art, and a difficult
one, which has to be learned like all other arts.
Beginners always set too difficult questions partly
because they are afraid of being suspected of ignorance
if they set easy ones, and partly from not understand-
ing their business. Suppose that you want to test
the relative physical strength of a score of young men.
You do not put a hundredweight down before them,
and tell each to swing it round. If you do, half of
them won't be able to lift it at all, and only one or
two will be able to perform the task. You must give
them half a hundredweight, and see how they man-
oeuvre that, if you want to form any estimate of the
muscular strength of each. So, a practised Examiner
will seek for information respecting the mental vigour
and training of candidates from the way in which
they deal with questions easy enough to let reason,
memory, and method have free play.
No doubt, a great deal is to be done by the careful
selection of Examiners, and by the copious introduc-
tion of practical work, to remove the evils inseparable
from examination; but, under the best of circum-
stances, I believe that examination will remain but
an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more im-
perfect test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing
about a man's power as an investigator.
There is much to be said in favour of restricting
the highest degrees in each Faculty, to those who
have shown evidence of such original power, by pro-
secuting a research under the eye of the Professor in
62 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
whose province it lies; or, at any rate, under con-
ditions which shall afford satisfactory proof that the
work is theirs. The notion may sound revolutionary,
but it is really very old ; for, I take it, that it lies at
the bottom of that presentation of a thesis by the
candidate for a doctorate, which has now, too often,
become little better than a matter of form.
Thus far, I have endeavoured to lay before you,
in a too brief and imperfect manner, my views respect-
ing the teaching half the Magistri and Kegentes
of the University of the Future. Now let me turn to
the learning half the Scholares.
If the Universities are to be the sanctuaries of the
highest culture of the country, those who would
enter that sanctuary, must not come with unwashed
hands. If the good seed is to yield its hundredfold
harvest, it must not be scattered amidst the stones of
ignorance, or the tares of undisciplined indolence and
wantonness. On the contrary, the soil must have
been carefully prepared, and the Professor should find
that the operations of clod -crushing, draining, and
weeding, and even a good deal of planting, have been
done by the Schoolmaster.
That is exactly what the Professor does not find
in any University in the three Kingdoms that I can
hear of the reason of which state of things lies in
the extremely faulty organisation of the majority of
secondary Schools. Students come to the Universities
ill-prepared in classics and mathematics, not at all
prepared in anything else; and half their time is
IL] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 63
spent in learning that which they ought to have
known when they came.
I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish Uni-
versities differ from the English, in being to a much
greater extent places of comparatively elementary
education for a younger class of students. But it
would seem doubtful if any great difference of this
kind really exists ; for a high authority, himself Head
of an English College, has solemnly affirmed that :
" Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now
the only function performed by the University ;" and
that Colleges are "boarding schools in which the
elements of the learned languages are taught to
youths." 1
This is not the first time that I have quoted those
remarkable assertions. I should like to engrave them
in public view, for they have not been refuted ; and
I am convinced that if their import is once clearly
apprehended, they will play no mean part when the
question of University reorganisation, with a view to
practical measures, comes on for discussion. You are
not responsible for this anomalous state of affairs
now; but, as you pass into active life and acquire the
political influence to which your education and your
position should entitle you, you will become respon-
sible for it, unless each in his sphere does his best to
alter it, by insisting on the improvement of secondary
Schools.
Your present responsibility is of another, though
1 " Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Refer-
ence to Oxford." By the Rector of Lincoln.
64 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT.
not less serious, kind. Institutions do not make men,
any more than organisation makes life ; and even the
ideal University we have been dreaming about will
be but a superior piece of mechanism, unless each
student strive after the ideal of the Scholar. And
that ideal, it seems to me, has never been better em-
bodied than by the great Poet, who, though lapped in
luxury, the favourite of a Court, and the idol of his
countrymen, remained through all the length of his
honoured years a Scholar in Art, in Science, and in
Life.
" Would'st shape a noble life 1 Then cast
No backward glances towards the past :
And though somewhat be lost and gone,
Yet do thou act as one new-born.
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask ;
Each day will set its proper task.
Give other's work just share of praise ;
Not of thine own the merits raise.
Beware no fellow man thou hate :
And so in God's hands leave thy fate." l
1 Goethe, Zahme Xenien, Vierte Abtluiluny. I should be glad to
take credit for the close and vigorous English version ; but it is my
wife's, and not mine.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 65
III.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
ANY candid observer of the phenomena of modern
society will readily admit that bores must be classed
among the enemies of the human race ; and a little
consideration will probably lead him to the further
admission, that no species of that extensive genus of
noxious creatures is more objectionable than the educa-
tional bore. Convinced as I am of the truth of this
great social generalisation, it is not without a certain
trepidation that I venture to address you on an educa-
tional topic. For, in the course of the last ten years,
to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I
have ventured to speak of education, from that given
in the primary schools to that which is to be had in
the universities and medical colleges ; indeed, the only
part of this wide region into which, as yet, I have not
adventured is that into which I propose to intrude
to-day.
Thus, I cannot but be aware that I am dangerously
near becoming the thing which all men fear and fly.
But I have deliberately elected to run the risk. For
when you did me the honour to ask me to address you,
an unexpected circumstance had led me to occupy
F
66 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
myself seriously with the question of technical educa-
tion ; and I had acquired the conviction that there are
few subjects respecting which it is more important for
all classes of the community to have clear and just
ideas than this ; while, certainly, there is none which
is more deserving of attention by the Working Men's
Club and Institute Union.
It is not for me to express an opinion whether the
considerations, which I am about to submit to you, will
be proved by experience to be just or not ; but I will
do my best to make them clear. Among the many
good things to be found in Lord Bacon's works, none
is more full of wisdom than the saying that " truth
more easily comes out of error than out of confusion."
Clear and consecutive wrong-thinking is the next best
thing to right-thinking ; so that, if I succeed in clear-
ing your ideas on this topic, I shall have wasted neither
your time nor my own.
" Technical education," in the sense in which the
term is ordinarily used, and in which I am now
employing it, means that sort of education which is
specially adapted to the needs of men whose business
in life it is to pursue some kind of handicraft ; it is,
in fact, a fine Greco-Latin equivalent for what in good
vernacular English would be called "the teaching of
handicrafts." And probably, at this stage of our pro-
gress, it may occur to many of you to think of the
story of the cobbler and his last, and to say to your-
selves, though you will be too polite to put the question
openly to me, What does the speaker know practically
about this matter ? What is his handicraft ? I think
III.] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 67
the question is a very proper one, and unless I were
prepared to answer it, I hope satisfactorily, I should
have chosen some other theme.
The fact is, I am, and have been, any time these
thirty years, a man who works with his hands a
handicraftsman. I do not say this in the broadly
metaphorical sense in which fine gentlemen, with all
the delicacy of Agag about them, trip to the hustings
about election time, and protest that they too are
working men. I really mean my words to be taken
in their direct, literal, and straightforward sense. In
fact, if the most nimble-fingered watchmaker among
you will come to my workshop, he may set me to put
a watch together, and I will set him to dissect, say, a
blackbeetle's nerves. I do not wish to vaunt, but I
am inclined to think that I shall manage my job to his
satisfaction sooner than he will do his piece of work
to mine.
In truth, anatomy, which is my handicraft, is one
of the most difficult kinds of mechanical labour, in-
volving, as it does, not only lightness and dexterity
of hand, but sharp eyes and endless patience. And
you must not suppose that my particular branch of
science is especially distinguished for the demand it
makes upon skill in manipulation. A similar require-
ment is made upon all students of physical science.
The astronomer, the electrician, the chemist, the miner-
alogist, the botanist, are constantly called upon to per-
form manual operations of exceeding delicacy. The
progress of all branches of physical science depends
upon observation, or on that artificial observation
68 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
which is termed experiment, of one kind or another ;
and, the farther we advance, the more practical diffi-
culties surround the investigation of the conditions of
the problems offered to us; so that mobile and yet
steady hands, guided by clear vision, are more and
more in request in the workshops of science.
Indeed, it has struck me that one of the grounds
of that sympathy between the handicraftsmen of this
country and the men of science, by which it has so
often been my good fortune to profit, may, perhaps,
lie here. You feel and we feel that, among the so-
called learned folks, we alone are brought into contact
with tangible facts in the way that you are. You
know well enough that it is one thing to write a
history of chairs in general, or to address a poem to
a throne, or to speculate about the occult powers of
the chair of St. Peter ; and quite another thing to
make with your own hands a veritable chair, that
will stand fair and square, and afford a safe and satis-
factory resting-place to a frame of sensitiveness and
solidity.
So it is with us, when we look out from our
scientific handicrafts upon the doings of our learned
brethren, whose work is untrammelled by anything
"base and mechanical," as handicrafts used to be
called when the world was younger, and, in some
respects, less wise than now. "We take the greatest
interest in their pursuits ; we are edified by their
histories and are charmed with their poems, which
sometimes illustrate so remarkably the powers of man's
imagination ; some of us admire and even humbly try
Ill] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 69
to follow them in their high philosophical excursions,
though we know the risk of being snubbed by the
inquiry whether grovelling dissectors of monkeys and
blackbeetles can hope to enter into the empyreal
kingdom of speculation. But still we feel that our
business is different ; humbler if you will, though the
diminution of dignity is, perhaps, compensated by the
increase of reality ; and that we, like you, have to get
our work done in a region where little avails, if the
power of dealing with practical tangible facts is want-
ing. You know that clever talk touching joinery will
not make a chair ; and I know that it is of about as
much value in the physical sciences. Mother Nature
is serenely obdurate to honeyed words ; only those
who understand the ways of things, and can silently
and effectually handle them, get any good out of
her.
And now, having, as I hope, justified my assump-
tion of a place among handicraftsmen, and put myself
right with you as to my qualification, from practical
knowledge, to speak about technical education, I will
proceed to lay before you the results of my experience
as a teacher of a handicraft, and tell you what sort of
education I should think best adapted for a boy whom
one wanted to make a professional anatomist.
I should say, in the first place, let him have a good
English elementary education. I do not mean that
he shall be able to pass in such and such a standard
that may or may not be an equivalent expression
but that his teaching shall have been such as to
70 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
have given him command of the common implements
of learning and to have created a desire for the things
of the understanding.
Further, I should like him to know the elements
of physical science, and especially of physics and
chemistry, and I should take care that this elementary
knowledge was real. I should like my aspirant to be
able to read a scientific treatise in Latin, French, or
German, because an enormous amount of anatomical
knowledge is locked up in those languages. And
especially, I should require some ability to draw I do
not mean artistically, for that is a gift which may be
cultivated but cannot be learned, but with fair accu-
racy. I will not say that everybody can learn even
this ; for the negative development of the faculty of
drawing in some people is almost miraculous. Still
everybody, or almost everybody, can learn to write ;
and, as writing is a kind of drawing, I suppose that
the majority of the people who say they cannot draw,
and give copious evidence of the accuracy of their
assertion, could draw, after a fashion, if they tried.
And that "after a fashion" would be better than
nothing for my purposes.
Above all things, let my imaginary pupil have
preserved the freshness and vigour of youth in his
mind as well as his body. The educational abomina-
tion of desolation of the present day is the stimu-
lation of young people to work at high pressure by
incessant competitive examinations. Some wise man
(who probably was not an early riser) has said of early
risers in general, that they are conceited all the fore-
IIL> TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 71
noon and stupid all the afternoon. Now whether this
is true of early risers in the common acceptation of
the word or not, I will not pretend to say ; but it is
too often true of the unhappy children who are forced
to rise too early in their classes. They are conceited
all the forenoon of life, and stupid all its afternoon.
The vigour and freshness, which should have been
stored up for the purposes of the hard struggle for
existence in practical life, have been washed out of
them by precocious mental debauchery by book
gluttony and lesson bibbing. Their faculties are
worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains,
and they are demoralised by worthless childish
triumphs before the real work of life begins. I have
no compassion for sloth, but youth has more need for
intellectual rest than age ; and the cheerfulness, the
tenacity of purpose, the power of work which make
many a successful man what he is, must often be
placed to the credit, not of his hours of industry, but
to that of his hours of idleness, in boyhood. Even
the hardest worker of us all, if he has to deal with
anything above mere details, will do well, now and
again, to let his brain lie fallow for a space. The
next crop of thought will certainly be all the fuller in
the ear and the weeds fewer.
This is the sort of education which I should like
any one who was going to devote himself to my handi-
craft to undergo. As to knowing anything about
anatomy itself, on the whole I would rather he left
that alone until he took it up seriously in my labora-
tory. It is hard work enough to teach, and I should
72 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. (>ECT.
not like to have superadded to that the possible
need of unteaching.
"Well, but, you will say, this is Hamlet with the
Prince of Denmark left out ; your " technical educa-
tion" is simply a good education, with more attention
to physical science, to drawing, and to modern lan-
guages, than is common, and there is nothing specially
technical about it.
Exactly so ; that remark takes us straight to the
heart of what I have to say ; which is, that, in my
judgment, the preparatory education of the handi-
craftsman ought to have nothing of what is ordinarily
understood by " technical " about it.
The workshop is the only real school for a handi-
craft. The education which precedes that of the
workshop should be entirely devoted to the strengthen-
ing of the body, the elevation of the moral faculties,
and the cultivation of the intelligence; and, especially,
to the imbuing the mind with a broad and clear view
of the laws of that natural world with the components
of which the handicraftsman will have to deal. And,
the earlier the period of life at which the handicrafts-
man has to enter into actual practice of his craft, the
more important is it that he should devote the precious
hours of preliminary education to things of the mind,
which have no direct and immediate bearing on his
branch of industry, though they lie at the foundation
of all realities.
Now let me apply the lessons I have learned from
my handicraft to yours. If any of you were obliged
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 73
to take an apprentice, I suppose you would like to
get a good healthy lad, ready and willing to learn,
handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as the
saying goes. You would like that he should read,
write, and cipher well ; and, if you were an intelligent
master, and your trade involved the application of
scientific principles, as so many trades do, you would
like him to know enough of the elementary principles
of science to understand what was going on. I sup-
pose that, in nine trades out of ten, it would be useful
if he could draw ; and many of you must have la-
mented your inability to find out for yourselves what
foreigners are doing or have done. So that some
knowledge of French and German might, in many
cases, be very desirable.
So it appears to me that what you want is pretty
much what I want ; and the practical question is,
How you are to get what you need, under the actual
limitations and conditions of life of handicraftsmen in
this country ?
I think I shall have the assent both of the em-
ployers of labour and of the employed as to one of
these limitations ; which is, that no scheme of tech-
nical education is likely to be seriously entertained
which will delay the entrance of boys into working
life, or prevent them from contributing towards their
own support, as early as they do at present. Not
only do I believe that any such scheme could not be
carried out, but I doubt its desirableness, even if it
were practicable.
The period between childhood and manhood is full
74 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
of difficulties and dangers, under the most favourable
circumstances ; and, even among the well-to-do, who
can afford to surround their children with the most
favourable conditions, examples of a career ruined,
before it has well begun, are but too frequent. More-
over, those who have to live by labour must be shaped
to labour early. The colt that is left at grass too
long makes but a sorry draught-horse, though his way
of life does not bring him within the reach of artificial
temptations. Perhaps the most valuable result of all
education is the ability to make yourself do the thing
you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether
you like it or not ; it is the first lesson that ought
to be learned ; and, however early a man's training
begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns
thoroughly.
There is another reason, to which I have already
adverted, and which I would reiterate, why any ex-
tension of the time devoted to ordinary school- work
is undesirable. In the newly awakened zeal for
education, we run some risk of forgetting the truth
that while under -instruction is a bad thing, over-
instruction may possibly be a worse.
Success in any kind of practical life is not depend-
ent solely, or indeed chiefly, upon knowledge. Even
in the learned professions, knowledge, alone, is of less
consequence than people are apt to suppose. And, if
much expenditure of bodily energy is involved in the
day's work, mere knowledge is of still less importance
when weighed against the probable cost of its acquire-
ment. To do a fair day's work with his hands, a
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 75
man needs, above all things, health, strength, and
the patience and cheerfulness which, if they do not
always accompany these blessings, can hardly in the
nature of things exist without them ; to which we
must add honesty of purpose and a pride in doing
what is done well.
A good handicraftsman can get on very well with-
out genius, but he will fare badly without a reasonable
share of that which is a more useful possession for
workaday life, namely, mother- wit ; and he will be all
the better for a real knowledge, however limited, of the
ordinary laws of nature, and especially of those which
apply to his own business.
Instruction carried so far as to help the scholar to
turn his store of mother- wit to account, to acquire a
fair amount of sound elementary knowledge, and to
use his hands and eyes; while leaving him fresh,
vigorous, and with a sense of the dignity of his own
calling, whatever it may be, if fairly and honestly
pursued, cannot fail to be of invaluable service to all
those who come under its influence.
But, on the other hand, if school instruction is
carried so far as to encourage bookishness ; if the
ambition of the scholar is directed, not to the gaining
of knowledge, but to the being able to pass examina-
tions successfully; especially if encouragement is
given to the mischievous delusion that brainwork is,
in itself, and apart from its quality, a nobler or more
respectable thing than handiwork such education
may be a deadly mischief to the workman, and lead to
the rapid ruin of the industries it is intended to serve.
76 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LEOT.
I know that I am expressing the opinion of some
of the largest as well as the most enlightened em-
ployers of labour, when I say that there is a real
danger that, from the extreme of no education, we
may run to the other . extreme of over- education of
handicraftsmen. And I apprehend that what is true
for the ordinary hand-worker is true for the foreman.
Activity, probity, knowledge of men, ready mother-
wit, supplemented by a good knowledge of the gen-
eral principles involved in his business, are the making
of a good foreman. If he possess these qualities,
no amount of learning will fit him better for his posi-
tion ; while the course of life and the habit of mind
required for the attainment of such learning may, in
various direct and indirect ways, act as direct dis-
qualifications for it.
Keeping in mind, then, that the two things to be
avoided are, the delay of the entrance of boys into
practical life, and the substitution of exhausted book-
worms for shrewd, handy men, in our works and fac-
tories, let us consider what may be wisely and safely
attempted in the way of improving the education of
the handicraftsman.
First, I look to the elementary schools now happily
established all over the country. I am not going to
criticise or find fault with them ; on the contrary,
their establishment seems to me to be the most im-
portant and the most beneficial result of the corporate
action of the people in our day. A great deal is said
of British interests just now, but, depend upon it,
that no Eastern difficulty needs our intervention as a
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 77
nation so seriously, as the putting down both the
Bashi-Bazouks of ignorance and the Cossacks of sec-
tarianism at home. What has already been achieved
in these directions is a great thing ; you must have
lived some time to know how great. An education,
better in its processes, better in its substance, than
that which was accessible to the great majority of
well-to-do Britons a quarter of a century ago, is now
obtainable by every child in the land. Let any man
of my age go into an ordinary elementary school, and,
unless he was unusually fortunate in his youth, he
will tell you that the educational method, the intelli-
gence, patience, and good temper on the teacher's
part, which are now at the disposal of the veriest
waifs and wastrels of society, are things of which he
had no experience in those costly middle-class schools,
which were so ingeniously contrived as to combine all
the evils and shortcomings of the great public schools
with none of their advantages. Many a man, whose
so-called education cost a good deal of valuable money
and occupied many a year of invaluable time, leaves
the inspection of a well-ordered elementary school
devoutly wishing that, in his young days, he had
had the chance of being as well taught as these boys
and girls are.
But while, in view of such an advance in general
education, I willingly obey the natural impulse to be
thankful, I am not willing altogether to rest. I want
to see instruction in elementary science and in art
more thoroughly incorporated in the educational sys-
tem. At present, it is being administered by driblets,
78 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. (>ECT.
as if it were a potent medicine, " a few drops to be
taken occasionally in a teaspoon." Every year I
notice that that earnest and untiring friend of yours
and of mine, Sir John Lubbock, stirs up the Govern-
ment of the day in the House of Commons on this
subject ; and also that, every year, he, and the few
members of the House of Commons, such as Mr.
Playfair, who sympathise with him, are met with
expressions of warm admiration for science in gen-
eral, and reasons at large for doing nothing in particu-
lar. But now that Mr. Forster, to whom the education
of the country owes so much, has announced his con-
version to the right faith, I begin to hope that, sooner
or later, things will mend.
I have given what I believe to be a good reason for
the assumption, that the keeping at school of boys, who
are to be handicraftsmen, beyond the age of thirteen or
fourteen is neither practicable nor desirable ; and, as it
is quite certain, that, with justice to other and no less
important branches of education, nothing more than
the rudiments of science and art teaching can be
introduced into elementary schools, we must seek
elsewhere for a supplementary training in these sub-
jects, and, if need be, in foreign languages, which may
go on after the workman's life has begun.
The means of acquiring the scientific and artistic
part of this training already exists in full working
order, in the first place, in the classes of the Science
and Art Department, which are, for the most part, held
in the evening, so as to be accessible to all who choose
to avail themselves of them after working hours. The
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 79
great advantage of these classes is that they bring the
means of instruction to the doors of the factories and
workshops ; that they are no artificial creations, but
by their very existence prove the desire of the people
for them ; and finally, that they admit of indefinite
development in proportion as they are wanted. I
have often expressed the opinion, and I repeat it here,
that, during the eighteen years they have been in
existence, these classes have done incalculable good ;
and I can say, of my own knowledge, that the Depart-
ment spares no pains and trouble in trying to increase
their usefulness and ensure the soundness of their
work.
No one knows better than my friend Colonel
Donnelly, to whose clear views and great administra-
tive abilities so much of the successful working of the
science classes is due, that there is much to be done
before the system can be said to be thoroughly satis-
factory. The instruction given needs to be made
more systematic and especially more practical ; the
teachers are of very unequal excellence, and not a few
stand much in need of instruction themselves, not
only in the subjects which they teach, but in the
objects for which they teach. I daresay you have
heard of that proceeding, reprobated by all true
sportsmen, which is called " shooting for the pot."
Well, there is such a thing as "teaching for the pot"
teaching, that is, not that your scholar may know,
but that he may count for payment among those who
pass the examination ; and there are some teachers,
happily not many, who have yet to learn that the
80 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
examiners of the Department regard them as poachers
of the worst description.
Without presuming in any way to speak in the
name of the Department, I think I may say, as a
matter which has come under my own observation,
that it is doing its best to meet all these difficulties.
It systematically promotes practical instruction in the
classes ; it affords facilities to teachers who desire to
learn their business thoroughly; and it is always
ready to aid in the suppression of pot-teaching.
All this is, as you may imagine, highly satisfactory
to me. I see that spread of scientific education, about
which I have so often permitted myself to worry the
public, become, for all practical purposes, an accom-
plished fact. Grateful as I am for all that is now
being done, in the same direction, 'in our higher
schools and universities, I have ceased to have any
anxiety about the wealthier classes. Scientific know-
ledge is spreading by what the alchemists called a
" distillatio per ascensum ; " and nothing now can
prevent it from continuing to distil upwards and per-
meate English society, until, in the remote future, there
shall be no member of the legislature who does not
know as much of science as an elementary school-boy;
and even the heads of houses in our venerable seats
of learning shall acknowledge that natural science is
not merely a sort of University back-door through
which inferior men may get at their degrees. Perhaps
this apocalyptic vision is a little wild ; and I feel I
ought to ask pardon for an outbreak of enthusiasm,
which, I assure you, is not my commonest failing.
III.] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 81
I have said that the Government is already doing
a great deal in aid of that kind of technical education
for handicraftsmen which, to my mind, is alone worth
seeking. Perhaps it is doing as much as it ought to
do, even in this direction. Certainly there is another
kind of help of the most important character, for which
we may look elsewhere than to the Government.
The great mass of mankind have neither the liking,
nor the aptitude, for either literary, or scientific, or
artistic pursuits; nor, indeed, for excellence of any
sort. Their ambition is to go through life with
moderate exertion and a fair share of ease, doing
common things in a common way. And a great
blessing and comfort it is that the majority of men
are of this mind; for the majority of things to be
done are common things, and are quite well enough
done when commonly done. The great end of life is
not knowledge but action. What men need is, as
much knowledge as they can assimilate and organise
into a basis for action ; give them more and it may
become injurious. One knows people who are as heavy
and stupid from undigested learning as others are from
over -fulness of meat and drink. But a small per-
centage of the population is born with that most
excellent quality, a desire for excellence, or with
special aptitudes of some sort or another ; Mr. Galton
tells us that not more than one in four thousand may
be expected to attain distinction, and not more than
one in a million some share of that intensity of in-
stinctive aptitude, that burning thirst for excellence,
which is called genius.
o
82 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LEOT.
Now, the most important object of all educational
schemes is to catch these exceptional people, and turn
them to account for the good of society. No man
can say where they will crop up ; like their opposites,
the fools and knaves, they appear sometimes in the
palace, and sometimes in the hovel ; but the great
thing to be aimed at, I was almost going to say the
most important end of all social arrangements, is to
keep these glorious sports of Nature from being either
corrupted by luxury or starved by poverty, and to
put them into the position in which they can do the
work for which they are specially fitted.
Thus, if a lad in an elementary school showed
signs of special capacity, I would try to provide him
with the means of continuing his education after his
daily working life had begun; if, in the evening
classes, he developed special capabilities in the direc-
tion of science or of drawing, I would try to secure
him an apprenticeship to some trade in which those
powers would have applicability. Or, if he chose
to become a teacher, he should have the chance of
so doing. Finally, to the lad of genius, the one in
a million, I would make accessible the highest and
most complete training the country could afford.
Whatever that might cost, depend upon it the invest-
ment would be a good one. I weigh my words when
I say that if the nation could purchase a potential
Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred
thousand pounds down, he would be dirt-cheap at the
money. It is a mere commonplace and everyday
piece of knowledge, that what these three men did
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 83
has produced untold millions of wealth, in the narrow-
est economical sense of the word.
Therefore, as the sum and crown of what is to be
done for technical education, I look to the provision
of a machinery for winnowing out the capacities and
giving them scope. When I was a member of the
London School Board, I said, in the course of a
speech, that our business was to provide a ladder,
reaching from the gutter to the university, along
which every child in the three kingdoms should have
the chance of climbing as far as he was fit to go.
This phrase was so much bandied about at the time,
that, to say truth, I am rather tired of it ; but I know
of no other which so fully expresses my belief, not
only about education in general, but about technical
education in particular.
The essential foundation of all the organisation
needed for the promotion of education among handi-
craftsmen will, I believe, exist in this country, when
every working lad can feel that society has done as
much as lies in its power to remove all needless and
artificial obstacles from his path; that there is no
barrier, except such as exists in the nature of things,
between himself and whatever place in the social or-
ganisation he is fitted to fill ; and, more than this,
that, if he has capacity and industry, a hand is held
out to help him along any path which is wisely and
honestly chosen.
I have endeavoured to point out to you that a
great deal of such an organisation already exists ; and
I am glad to be able to add that there is a good
84 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. [LECT.
prospect that what is wanting will, before long, be
supplemented.
Those powerful and wealthy societies, the livery
companies of the City of London, remembering that
they are the heirs and representatives of the trade
guilds of the Middle Ages, are interesting themselves
in the question. So far back as 1872 the Society of
Arts organised a system of instruction in the techno-
logy of arts and manufactures, for persons actually
employed in factories and workshops, who desired to
extend and improve their knowledge of the theory
and practice of their particular avocations ; 1 and a
considerable subsidy, in aid of the efforts of the
Society, was liberally granted by the Clothworkers'
Company. We have here the hopeful commencement of
a rational organisation for the promotion of excellence
among handicraftsmen. Quite recently, other of the
livery companies have determined upon giving their
powerful, and, indeed, almost boundless, aid to the
improvement of the teaching of handicrafts. They
have already gone so far as to appoint a committee to
act for them ; and I betray no confidence in adding
that, some time since, the committee sought the ad-
vice and assistance of several persons, myself among
the number.
Of course I cannot tell you what may be the result
of the deliberations of the committee ; but we may all
fairly hope that, before long, steps which will have a
weighty and a lasting influence on the growth and
1 See the "Programme" for 1878, issued by the Society of Arts,
p. 14.
IIL] TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 85
spread of sound and thorough teaching among the
handicraftsmen 1 of this country will be taken by the
livery companies of London.
[This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of
the Cowper Street Schools, and that of the Central Institution of
the City and Guilds of London Institute. September 1881.]
1 It is perhaps advisable to remark that the important question of
the professional education of managers of industrial works is not
touched in the foregoing remarks
86 ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. [LECT.
IV.
ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN
PHYSIOLOGY.
THE chief ground upon which I venture to recommend
that the teaching of elementary physiology should form
an essential part of any organised course of instruc-
tion in matters pertaining to domestic economy, is,
that a knowledge of even the elements of this subject
supplies those conceptions of the constitution and
mode of action of the living body, and of the nature
of health and disease, which prepare the mind to
receive instruction from sanitary science.
It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygien-
ist and the physician should find something in the
public mind to which they can appeal ; some little
stock of universally acknowledged truths, which may
serve as a foundation for their warnings, and pre-
dispose towards an intelligent obedience to their
recommendations.
Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease,
and death, one is often led to entertain a doubt whether
the speakers believe that the course of natural causa-
tion runs as smoothly in the human body as elsewhere.
Indications are too often obvious of a strong, though
IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 87
perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, under-
current of opinion that the phenomena of life are not
only widely different, in their superficial characters and
in their practical importance, from other natural events,
but that they do not follow in that definite order
which characterises the succession of all other occur-
rences, and the statement of which we call a law of
nature.
Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of
belief in the value of knowledge respecting the laws
of health and disease, and of the foresight and care to
which knowledge is the essential preliminary, which
is so often noticeable ; and a corresponding laxity and
carelessness in practice, the results of which are too
frequently lamentable.
It is said that among the many religious sects of
Eussia, there is one which holds that all disease is
brought about by the direct and special interference
of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repug-
nance upon both preventive and curative measures as
alike blasphemous interferences with the will of God.
Among ourselves, the "Peculiar People" are, I believe,
the only persons who hold the like doctrine in its
integrity, and carry it out with logical rigour. But
many of us are old enough to recollect that the
administration of chloroform in assuagement of the
pangs of childbirth was, at its introduction, strenuously
resisted upon similar grounds.
I am not sure that the feeling, of which the doctrine
to which I have referred is the full expression, does
not lie at the bottom of the minds of a great many
88 ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. [LECT.
people who yet would vigorously object to give a
verbal assent to the doctrine itself. However this
may be, the main point is that sufficient knowledge
has now been acquired of vital phenomena, to justify
the assertion, that the notion, that there is anything
exceptional about these phenomena, receives not a
particle of support from any known fact. On the
contrary, there is a vast and an increasing mass of
evidence that birth and death, health and disease, are
as much parts of the ordinary stream of events as the
rising and setting of the sun, or the changes of the
moon ; and that the living body is a mechanism, the
proper working of which we term health ; its disturb-
ance, disease ; its stoppage, death. The activity of
this mechanism is dependent upon many and compli-
cated conditions, some of which are hopelessly beyond
our control, while others are readily accessible, and
are capable of being indefinitely modified by our own
actions. The business of the hygienist and of the
physician is to know the range of these modifiable
conditions, and how to influence them towards the
maintenance of health and the prolongation of life ;
the business of the general public is to give an intelli-
gent assent, and a ready obedience based upon that
assent, to the rules laid down for their guidance by
such experts. But an intelligent assent is an assent
based upon knowledge, and the knowledge which is
here in question means an acquaintance with the
elements of physiology.
It is not difficult to acquire such knowledge.
What is true, to a certain extent, of all the physical
IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 89
sciences, is eminently characteristic of physiology
the difficulty of the subject begins beyond the stage
of elementary knowledge, and increases with every
stage of progress. While the most highly trained and
the best furnished intellect may find all its resources
insufficient, when it strives to reach the heights and
penetrate into the depths of the problems of physiology,
the elementary and fundamental truths can be made
clear to a child.
No one can have any difficulty in comprehending
the mechanism of circulation or respiration; or the
general mode of operation of the organ of vision ;
though the unravelling of all the minutiae of these
processes, may, for the present, baffle the conjoined
attacks of the most accomplished physicists, chemists,
and mathematicians. To know the anatomy of the
human body, with even an approximation to thorough-
ness, is the work of a life ; but as much as is needed
for a sound comprehension of elementary physiological
truths, may be learned in a week.
A knowledge of the elements of physiology is not
only easy of acquirement, but it may be made a real
and practical acquaintance with the facts, as far as it
goes. The subject of study is always at hand, in
oneself. The principal constituents of the skeleton,
and the changes of form of contracting muscles, may
be felt through one's own skin. The beating of one's
heart, and its connection with the pulse, may be noted;
the influence of the valves of one's own veins may be
shown; the movements of respiration may be observed;
while the wonderful phenomena of sensation afford an
90 ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. [LECT.
endless field for curious and interesting self -study.
The prick of a needle will yield, in a drop of one's
own blood, material for microscopic observation of
phenomena which lie at the foundation of all biological
conceptions ; and a cold, with its concomitant cough-
ing and sneezing, may prove the sweet uses of adversity
by helping one to a clear conception of what is meant
by " reflex action."
Of course there is a limit to this physiological
self-examination. But there is so close a solidarity
between ourselves and our poor relations of the animal
world, that our inaccessible inward parts may be
supplemented by theirs. A comparative anatomist
knows that a sheep's heart and lungs, or eye, must not
be confounded with those of a man ; but, so far as the
comprehension of the elementary facts of the physi-
ology of circulation, of respiration, and of vision goes,
the one furnishes the needful anatomical data as well
as the other.
Thus, it is quite possible to give instruction in
elementary physiology in such a manner as, not only
to confer knowledge, which, for the reason I have
mentioned, is useful in itself ; but to serve the purposes
of a training in accurate observation, and in the
methods of reasoning of physical science. But that
is an advantage which I mention only incidentally, as
the present Conference does not deal with education
in the ordinary sense of the word.
It will not be suspected that I wish to make
physiologists of all the world. It would be as reason-
able to accuse an advocate of the "three K's" of a
IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 91
desire to make an orator, an author, and a mathe-
matician of everybody. A stumbling reader, a pot-
hook writer, and an arithmetician who has not got
beyond the rule of three, is not a person of brilliant
acquirements ; but the difference between such a
member of society and one who can neither read,
write, nor cipher is almost inexpressible ; and no one
now-a-days doubts the value of instruction, even if it
goes no farther.
The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous
thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If
knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that
it is other than a very valuable possession, however
infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little
knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so
much as to be out of danger ?
If William Harvey's life-long labours had revealed
to him a tenth part of that which may be made
sound and real knowledge to our boys and girls, he
would not only have^ been what he was, the greatest
physiologist of his age, but he would have loomed
upon the seventeenth century as a sort of intellectual
portent. Our " little knowledge" would have been
to him a great, astounding, unlooked-for vision of
scientific truth.
I really see no harm which can come of giving our
children a little knowledge of physiology. But then,
as I have said, the instruction must be real, based
upon observation, eked out by good explanatory
diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher
whose own knowledge has been acquired by a study
92 ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. [LECT.
of the facts ; and not the mere catechismal parrot-
work which too often usurps the place of elementary
teaching.
It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal
contradiction to the silly fiction, which is assiduously
circulated by fanatics who not only ought to know,
but do know, that their assertions are untrue, that I
have advocated the introduction of that experimental
discipline which is absolutely indispensable to the pro-
fessed physiologist, into elementary teaching.
But while I should object to any experimentation
which can justly be called painful, for the purpose of
elementary instruction ; and, while, as a member of a
late Koyal Commission, I gladly did my best to prevent
the infliction of needless pain, for any purpose ; I think
it is my duty to take this opportunity of expressing
my regret at a condition of the law which permits a
boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frog bait,
for idle amusement ; and, at the same time, lays the
teacher of that boy open to the penalty of fine and
imprisonment, if he uses the same animal for the
purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful and
instructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation
in the web of the foot. No one could undertake to
affirm that a frog is not inconvenienced by being
wrapped up in a wet rag, and having his toes tied out;
and it cannot be denied that inconvenience is a sort
of pain. But you must not inflict the least pain on a
vertebrated animal for scientific purposes (though you
may do a good deal in that way for gain or for sport)
without due licence of the Secretary of State for the
IV.] ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 93
Home Department, granted under the authority of the
Vivisection Act.
So it comes about, that, in this present year of
grace 1877, two persons may be charged with cruelty
to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the
creature to writhe about in that condition for hours ;
the other has pained the animal no more than one of
us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers,
and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic
patient. The first offender says, " I did it because I
find fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids
him depart in peace ; nay, probably wishes him good
sport. The second pleads, " I wanted to impress a
scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no
other way, on the minds of my scholars," and the
magistrate fines him five pounds.
I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and
not wholly creditable state of things.
94 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
V.
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.
IF the man to perpetuate whose memory we have this
day raised a statue had been asked on what part of
his busy life's work he set the highest value, he would
undoubtedly have pointed to his voluminous contri-
butions to theology. In season and out of season, he
was the steadfast champion of that hypothesis respect-
ing the Divine nature which is termed Unitarianism
by its friends and Socinianism by its foes. Regard-
less of odds, he was ready to do battle with all comers
in that cause ; and if no adversaries entered the lists,
he would sally forth to seek them.
To this, his highest ideal of duty, Joseph Priestley
sacrificed the vulgar prizes of life, which, assuredly,
were within easy reach of a man of his singular
energy and varied abilities. For this object, he put
aside, as of secondary importance, those scientific in-
vestigations which he loved so well, and in which he
showed himself so competent to enlarge the boundaries
of natural knowledge and to win fame. In this cause,
he not only cheerfully suffered obloquy from the
bigoted and the unthinking, and came within sight of
martyrdom ; but bore with that which is much harder
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 95
to be borne than all these, the unfeigned astonishment
and hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society,
composed of men whose sympathy and esteem must
have been most dear to him, and to whom it was simply
incomprehensible that a philosopher should seriously
occupy himself with any form of Christianity.
It appears to me that the man who, setting before
himself such an ideal of life, acted up to it con-
sistently, is worthy of the deepest respect, whatever
opinion may be entertained as to the real value of
the tenets which he so zealously propagated and
defended.
But I am sure that I speak not only for myself,
but for all this assemblage, when I say that our pur-
pose to-day is to do honour, not to Priestley, the Uni-
tarian divine, but to Priestley, the fearless defender of
rational freedom in thought and in action : to Priestley,
the philosophic thinker ; to that Priestley who held a
foremost place among " the swift runners who hand
over the lamp of life," 1 and transmit from one genera-
tion to another the fire kindled, in the childhood of
the world, at the Promethean altar of Science.
The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well
known that I need dwell upon them at no great
length.
Born in 1*733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and
brought up among Calvinists of the straitest ortho-
doxy, the boy's striking natural ability led to his
1 " Quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt." LUCK. De Rerum
Nat. ii. 78.
06 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
being devoted to the profession of a minister of re-
ligion ; and, in 1752, he was sent to the Dissenting
Academy at Daventry an institution which authority
left undisturbed, though its existence contravened the
law. The teachers under whose instruction and in-
fluence the young man came at Daventry, carried out
to the letter the injunction to " try all things : hold
fast that which is good," and encouraged the discus-
sion of every imaginable proposition with complete
freedom, the leading professors taking opposite sides ;
a discipline which, admirable as it may be from a
purely scientific point of view, would seem to be
calculated to make acute, rather than sound, divines.
Priestley tells us, in his " Autobiography/' that he
generally found himself on the unorthodox side : and,
as he grew older, and his faculties attained their
maturity, this native tendency towards heterodoxy
grew with his growth and strengthened with his
strength. He passed from Calvinism to Arianism ;
and finally, in middle life, landed in that very
broad form of Unitarianism, by which his craving
after a credible and consistent theory of things was
satisfied.
On leaving Daventry, Priestley became minister of
a congregation, first at Needham Market, and secondly
at Nantwich ; but whether on account of his hetero-
dox opinions, or of the stuttering which impeded his
expression of them in the pulpit, little success attended
his efforts in this capacity. In 1761, a career much
more suited to his abilities became open to him. He
was appointed " tutor in the languages" in the Dis-
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 97
senting Academy at Warrington, in which capacity,
besides giving three courses of lectures, he taught
Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and read lectures
on the Theory of Language and Universal Grammar,
on Oratory, Philosophical Criticism, and Civil law.
And it is interesting to observe that, as a teacher,
he encouraged and cherished in those whom he in-
structed, the freedom which he had enjoyed, in his
own student days, at Daventry. One of his pupils tells
us that,
" At the conclusion of his lecture, he always encouraged his
students to express their sentiments relative to the subject of it,
and to urge any objections to what he had delivered, without
reserve. It pleased him when any one commenced such a con-
versation. In order to excite the freest discussion, he occasion-
ally invited the students to drink tea with him, in order to
canvass the subjects of his lectures. I do not recollect that he
ever showed the least displeasure at the strongest objections
that were made to what he delivered, but I distinctly remember
the smile of approbation with which he usually received them :
nor did he fail to point out, in a very encouraging manner, the
ingenuity or force of any remarks that were made, when they
merited these characters. His object, as well as Dr. Aikin's, was
to engage the students to examine and decide for themselves,
uninfluenced by the sentiments of any other persons." x
It would be difficult to give a better description of a
model teacher than that conveyed in these words.
From his earliest days, Priestley had shown a
strong bent towards the study of nature ; and his
brother Timothy tells us that the boy put spiders
into bottles, to see how long they would live in the
same air a curious anticipation of the investigations
1 " Life and Correspondence of Dr. Priestley," by J. T. Rutt. Vol.
i. p. 50.
H
98 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
of his later years. At Nantwich, where he set up a
school, Priestley informs us that he bought an air
pump, an electrical machine, and other instruments,
in the use of which he instructed his scholars. But
he does not seem to have devoted himself seriously to
physical science until 1766, when he had the great
good fortune to meet Benjamin Franklin, whose
friendship he ever afterwards enjoyed. Encouraged
by Franklin, he wrote a " History of Electricity,"
which was published in 1767, and appears to have
met with considerable success.
In the same year, Priestley left Warrington to
become the minister of a congregation at Leeds ;
and, here, happening to live next door to a public
brewery, as he says,
" I, at first, amused myself with making experiments on the
fixed air which I found ready-made in the process of fermenta-
tion. When I removed from that house I was under the necessity
of making fixed air for myself ; and one experiment leading to
another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various
publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient
apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.
"When I began these experiments I knew very little of
chemistry, and had, in a manner, no idea on the subject before I
attended a course of chemical lectures, delivered in the Academy
at Warrington, by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often
thought that, upon the whole, this circumstance was no dis-
advantage to me ; as, in this situation, I was led to devise an
apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar
views ; whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the
usual chemical processes, I should not have so easily thought of
any other, and without new modes of operation, I should hardly
have discovered anything materially new." l
1 "Autobiography," 100, 101.
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 99
The first outcome of Priestley's chemical work,
published in 1772, was of a very practical character.
He discovered the way of impregnating water with an
excess of "fixed air," or carbonic acid, and thereby
producing what we now know as "soda water"- a
service to naturally, and still more to artificially,
thirsty souls, which those whose parched throats and
hot heads are cooled by morning draughts of that
beverage, cannot too gratefully acknowledge. In the
same year, Priestley communicated the extensive
series of observations which his industry and ingenuity
had accumulated, in the course of four years, to the
Eoyal Society, under the title of " Observations on
Different Kinds of Air" a memoir which was justly
regarded of so much merit and importance, that the
Society at once conferred upon the author the highest
distinction in their power, by awarding him the Copley
Medal.
In 1771 a proposal was made to Priestley to ac-
company Captain Cook in his second voyage to the
South Seas. He accepted it, and his congregation
agreed to pay an assistant to supply his place during
his absence. But the appointment lay in the hands
of the Board of Longitude, of which certain clergymen
were members ; and whether these worthy ecclesiastics
feared that Priestley's presence among the ship's com-
pany might expose his Majesty's Sloop Resolution to
the fate which aforetime befell a certain ship that
went from Joppa to Tarshish ; or whether they were
alarmed lest a Socinian should undermine that piety
which, in the days of Commodore Trunnion, so
100 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
strikingly characterised sailors, does not appear ; but,
at any rate, they objected to Priestley " on account of
his religious principles," and appointed the two
Forsters, whose "religious principles," if they had
been known to these well-meaning but not far-sighted
persons, would probably have surprised them.
In 1772 another proposal was made to Priestley.
Lord Shelburne, desiring a " literary companion," had
been brought into communication with Priestley by
the good offices of a friend of both, Dr. Price ; and
offered him the nominal post of librarian, with a good
house and appointments, and an annuity in case of
the termination of the engagement. Priestley ac-
cepted the offer, and remained with Lord Shelburne
for seven years, sometimes residing at Calne, sometimes
travelling abroad with the Earl.
Why the connection terminated has never been
exactly known ; but it is certain that Lord Shelburne
behaved with the utmost consideration and kindness
towards Priestley ; that he fulfilled his engagements
to the letter ; and that, at a later period, he expressed
a desire that Priestley should return to his old
footing in his house. Probably enough, the politician,
aspiring to the highest offices in the state, may have
found the position of the protector of a man who was
being denounced all over the country as an infidel
and an atheist somewhat embarrassing. In fact, a
passage in Priestley's "Autobiography" on the oc-
casion of the publication of his " Disquisitions relating
to Matter and Spirit," which took place in 1777, indi-
cates pretty clearly the state of the case :
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 101
" (126) It being probable that this publication would be un-
popular, and might be the means of bringing odium on my
patron, several attempts were made by his friends, though none
by himself, to dissuade me from persisting in it. But being, as
I thought, engaged in the cause of important truth, I proceeded
without regard to any consequences, assuring them that this
publication should not be injurious to his lordship."
It is not unreasonable to suppose that his lordship,
as a keen, practical man of the world, did not derive
much satisfaction from this assurance. The " evident
marks of dissatisfaction " which Priestley says he first
perceived in his patron in 1778, may well have arisen
from the peer's not unnatural uneasiness as to what
his domesticated, but not tamed, philosopher might
write next, and what storm might thereby be brought
down on his own head ; and it speaks very highly for
Lord Shelburne's delicacy that, in the midst of such
perplexities, he made not the least attempt to interfere
with Priestley's freedom of action. In 1780, however,
he intimated to Dr. Price that he should be glad to
establish Priestley on his Irish estates : the suggestion
was interpreted, as Lord Shelburne probably intended
it should be, and Priestley left him, the annuity of
150 a year, which had been promised in view of such
a contingency, being punctually paid.
After leaving Calne, Priestley spent some little
time in London, and then, having settled in Birming-
ham at the desire of his brother-in-law, he was soon
invited to become the minister of a large congregation.
This settlement Priestley considered, at the time, to
be "the happiest event of his life." And well he
might think so ; for it gave him competence and
102 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT-
leisure ; placed him within reach of the best makers of
apparatus of the day ; made him a member of that
remarkable " Lunar Society," at whose meetings he
could exchange thoughts with such men as Watt,
Wedgewood, Darwin, and Boulton ; and threw open
to him the pleasant house of the Galtons of Barr,
where these men, and others of less note, formed a
society of exceptional charm and intelligence. 1
But these halcyon days were ended by a bitter
storm. The French Eevolution broke out. An
electric shock ran through the nations ; whatever
there was of corrupt and retrograde, and, at the same
time, a great deal of what there was of best and
noblest, in European society shuddered at the out-
burst of long-pent-up social fires. Men's feelings
were excited in a way that we, in this generation, can
hardly comprehend. Party wrath and virulence were
expressed in a manner unparalleled, and it is to be
1 See "The Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck." Mrs.
Schimmelpenninck (n& Galton) remembered Priestley very well, and
her description of him is worth quotation : " A man of admirable
simplicity, gentleness and kindness of heart, united with great acute-
ness of intellect. I can never forget the impression produced on me
by the serene expression of his countenance. He, indeed, seemed
present with God by recollection, and with man by cheerfulness. I
remember that, in the assembly of these distinguished men, amongst
whom Mr. Boulton, by his noble manner, his fine countenance (which
much resembled that of Louis XIV.), and princely munificence, stood
pre-eminently as the great Mecsenas ; even as a child, I used to feel,
when Dr. Priestley entered after him, that the glory of the one was
terrestrial, that of the other celestial ; and utterly far as I am re-
moved from a belief in the sufficiency of Dr. Priestley's theological
creed, I cannot but here record this evidence of the eternal power
of any portion of the truth held in its vitality."
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 103
hoped impossible, in our times ; and Priestley and his
friends were held up to public scorn, even in Parlia-
ment, as fomenters of sedition. A " Church -and-
King " cry was raised against the Liberal Dissenters ;
and, in Birmingham, it was intensified and specially
directed towards Priestley by a local controversy, in
which he had engaged with his usual vigour. In
1791, the celebration of the second anniversary of the
taking of the Bastille by a public dinner, with which
Priestley had nothing whatever to do, gave the signal
to the loyal and pious mob, who, unchecked, and
indeed to some extent encouraged, by those who
were responsible for order, had the town at their
mercy for three days. The chapels and houses of the
leading Dissenters were wrecked, and Priestley and his
family had to fly for their lives, leaving library, appa-
ratus, papers, and all their possessions, a prey to the
flames.
Priestley never returned to Birmingham. He bore
the outrages and losses inflicted upon him with ex-
treme patience and sweetness, 1 and betook himself to
London. But even his scientific colleagues gave him
a cold shoulder ; and though he was elected minister
of a congregation at Hackney, he felt his position to
be insecure, and finally determined on emigrating to
the United States. He landed in America in 1794;
lived quietly with his sons at Northumberland, in
1 Even Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding the
destroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, in
writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham people
" will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second time, to
make a bonfire of."
104 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
Pennsylvania, whjere his posterity still flourish ; and,
clear-headed and busy to the last, died on the 6th of
February 1804.
Such were the conditions under which Joseph
Priestley did the work which lay before him, and
then, as the Norse Sagas say, went out of the story.
The work itself was of the most varied kind. No
human interest was without its attraction for Priest-
ley, and few men have ever had so many irons in the
fire at once ; but, though he may have burned his
fingers a little, very few who have tried that opera-
tion have burned their fingers so little. He made
admirable discoveries in science ; his philosophical
treatises are still well worth reading ; his political
works are full of insight and replete with the spirit of
freedom ; and while all these sparks flew off from his
anvil, the controversial hammer rained a hail of blows
on orthodox priest and bishop. While thus engaged,
the kindly, cheerful doctor felt no more wrath or
uncharitableness towards his opponents than a smith
does towards his iron. But if the iron could only
speak ! and the priests and bishops took the point
of view of the iron.
No doubt what Priestley's friends repeatedly urged
upon him that he would have escaped the heavier
trials of his life and done more for the advancement
of knowledge, if he had confined himself to his
scientific pursuits and let his fellow-men go their way
was true. But it seems to have been Priestley's
feeling that he was a man and a citizen before he was
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 105
a philosopher, and that the duties of the two former
positions are at least as imperative as those of the
latter. Moreover, there are men (and I think Priest-
ley was one of them) to whom the satisfaction of
throwing down a triumphant fallacy is as great as
that which attends the discovery of a new truth ; who
feel better satisfied with the government of the world,
when they have been helping Providence by knocking
an imposture on the head ; and who care even more
for freedom of thought than for mere advance of
knowledge. These men are the Carnots who organise
victory for truth, and they are, at least, as important
as the generals who visibly fight her battles in the
field.
Priestley's reputation as a man of science rests
upon his numerous and important contributions to
the chemistry of gaseous bodies ; and to form a just
estimate of the value of his work of the extent to
which it advanced the knowledge of fact and the
development of sound theoretical views we must
reflect what chemistry was in the first half of the
eighteenth century.
The vast science which now passes under that
name had no existence. Air, water, and fire were
still counted among the elemental bodies ; and though
Van Helmont, a century before, had distinguished
different kinds of air as gas ventosum and gas syl-
vestre, and Boyle and Hales had experimentally
defined the physical properties of air, and discri-
minated some of the various kinds of aeriform bodies,
106 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LEGT-
no one suspected the existence of the numerous
totally distinct gaseous elements which are now
known, or dreamed that the air we breathe and the
water we drink are compounds of gaseous elements.
But, in 1754, a young Scotch physician, Dr.
Black, made the first clearing in this tangled back-
wood of knowledge. And it gives one a wonderful
impression of the juvenility of scientific chemistry to
think that Lord Brougham, whom so many of us
recollect, attended Black's lectures when he was a
student in Edinburgh. Black's researches gave the
world the novel and startling conception of a gas that
was a permanently elastic fluid like air, but that
differed from common air in being much heavier, very
poisonous, and in having the properties of an acid,
capable of neutralising the strongest alkalies ; and it
took the world some time to become accustomed to
the notion.
A dozen years later, one of the most sagacious
and accurate investigators who has adorned this, or
any other, country, Henry Cavendish, published a
memoir in the " Philosophical Transactions," in which
he deals not only with the " fixed air " (now called
carbonic acid or carbonic anhydride) of Black, but
with "inflammable air," or what we now term
hydrogen.
By the rigorous application of weight and measure
to all his processes, Cavendish implied the belief sub-
sequently formulated by Lavoisier, that, in chemical
processes, matter is neither created nor destroyed, and
indicated the path along which all future explorers
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 107
must travel. Nor did he himself halt until this path
led him, in 1784, to the brilliant and fundamental
discovery that water is composed of two gases united
in fixed and constant proportions.
It is a trying ordeal for any man to be compared
with Black and Cavendish, and Priestley cannot be
said to stand on their level. Nevertheless, his achieve-
ments are not only great in themselves, but truly
wonderful, if we consider the disadvantages under
which he laboured. Without the careful scientific
training of Black, without the leisure and appliances
secured by the wealth of Cavendish, he scaled the
walls of science as so many Englishmen have done
before and since his day ; and trusting to mother wit
to supply the place of training, and to ingenuity to
create apparatus out of washing tubs, he discovered
more new gases than all his predecessors put together
had done. He laid the foundations of gas analysis ;
he discovered the complementary actions of animal
and vegetable life upon the constituents of the atmo-
sphere; and, finally, he crowned his work, this day
one hundred years ago, by the discovery of that
" pure dephlogisticated air " to which the French
chemists subsequently gave the name of oxygen. Its
importance, as the constituent of the atmosphere which
disappears in the processes of respiration and com-
bustion, and is restored by green plants growing in
sunshine, was proved somewhat later. For these
brilliant discoveries, the Eoyal Society elected Priestley
a fellow and gave him their medal, while the Aca-
demies of Paris and St. Petersburg conferred their
108 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LEOT.
membership upon him. Edinburgh had made him
an honorary doctor of laws at an early period of his
career ; but, I need hardly add, that a man of Priest-
ley's opinions received no recognition from the uni-
versities of his own country.
That Priestley's contributions to the knowledge of
chemical fact were of the greatest importance, and
that they richly deserve all the praise that has been
awarded to them, is unquestionable ; but it must, at
the same time, be admitted that he had no compre-
hension of the deeper significance of his work ; and,
so far from contributing anything to the theory of the
facts which he discovered, or assisting in their rational
explanation, his influence to the end of his life was
warmly exerted in favour of error. From first to last,
he was a stiff adherent of the phlogiston doctrine
which was prevalent when his studies commenced;
and, by a curious irony of fate, the man who by the
discovery of what he called " dephlogisticated air"
furnished the essential datum for the true theory of
combustion, of respiration, and of the composition of
water, to the end of his days fought against the
inevitable corollaries from his own labours. His last
scientific work, published in 1800, bears the title,
"The Doctrine of Phlogiston established, and that
of the Composition of Water refuted."
When Priestley commenced his studies, the current
belief was, that atmospheric air, freed from accidental
impurities, is a simple elementary substance, inde-
structible and unalterable, as water was supposed to
be. When a combustible burned, or when an animal
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 109
breathed in air, it was supposed that a substance,
"phlogiston," the matter of heat and light, passed
from the burning or breathing body into it, and
destroyed its powers of supporting life and combus-
tion. Thus, air contained in a vessel in which a
lighted candle had gone out, or a living animal had
breathed until it could breathe no longer, was called
"phlogisticated." The same result was supposed to
be brought about by the addition of what Priestley
called " nitrous gas " to common air.
In the course of his researches, Priestley found
that the quantity of common air which can thus
become " phlogisticated," amounts to about one-fifth
the volume of the whole quantity submitted to experi-
ment. Hence it appeared that common air consists,
to the extent of four-fifths of its volume, of air which
is already "phlogisticated;" while the other fifth is
free from phlogiston, or " dephlogisticated." On the
other hand, Priestley found that air " phlogisticated "
by combustion or respiration could be " dephlogis-
ticated," or have the properties of pure common air
restored to it, by the action of green plants in sun-
shine. The question, therefore, would naturally arise
as common air can be wholly phlogisticated by
combustion, and converted into a substance which
will no longer support combustion, is it possible to
get air that shall be less phlogisticated than common
air, and consequently support combustion better than
common air does ?
Now, Priestley says that, in 1774, the possibility
of obtaining air less phlogisticated than common air
110 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LEOT.
had not occurred to him. 1 But in pursuing his
experiments on the evolution of air from various
bodies by means of heat, it happened that, on the 1st
of August 1 774, he threw the heat of the sun, by means
of a large burning glass which he had recently ob-
tained, upon a substance which was then called
mercurius calcinatus per se, and which is commonly
known as red precipitate.
" I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was
expelled from it very readily. Having got about three or four
times as much as the bulk of my materials, I admitted water to
it, and found that it was not imbibed by it. But what surprised
me more than I can well express, was that a candle burned in
this air with a remarkably vigorous flame, very much like that
enlarged flame with which a candle burns in nitrous air, exposed
to iron or lime of sulphur ; but as I had got nothing like this
remarkable appearance from any kind of air besides this par-
ticular modification of nitrous air, and I knew no nitrous acid
was used in the preparation of mercurius cahinatiis, I was utterly
at a loss how to account for it.
" In this case also, though I did not give sufficient attention
to the circumstance at that time, the flame of the candle, besides
being larger, burned with more splendour and heat than in that
species of nitrous air ; and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in
it, exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre, and it con-
sumed very fast an experiment which I had never thought of
trying with nitrous air." 2
Priestley obtained the same sort of air from red
lead, but, as he says himself, he remained in ignor-
ance of the properties of this new kind of air for
seven months, or until March 1775, when he found
1 " Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air," vol.
ii. p. 31. 2 Ibid. pp. 34, 35.
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. Ill
that the new air behaved with "nitrous gas" in the
same way as the dephlogisticated part of common air
does ; l but that, instead of being diminished to four-
fifths, it almost completely vanished, and, therefore,
showed itself to be "between five and six times as
good as the best common air I have ever met with." 2
As this new air thus appeared to be completely free
from phlogiston, Priestley called it " dephlogisticated
air/'
What was the nature of this air ? Priestley found
that the same kind of air was to be obtained by
moistening with the spirit of nitre (which he terms
nitrous acid) any kind of earth that is free from
phlogiston, and applying heat ; and consequently he
says : " There remained no doubt on my mind but
that the atmospherical air, or the thing that we
breathe, consists of the nitrous acid and earth, with
so much phlogiston as is necessary to its elasticity,
and likewise so much more as is required to bring it
from its state of perfect purity to the mean condition
in which we find it." 3
Priestley's view, in fact, is that atmospheric air is
a kind of saltpetre, in which the potash is replaced
by some unknown earth. And in speculating on the
manner in which saltpetre is formed, he enunciates
the hypothesis, " that nitre is formed by a real
decomposition of the air itself, the bases that are
presented to it having, in such circumstances, a nearer
1 " Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air," voL
ii. p. 40. 2 Ibid. p. 48. 3 Ibid. p. 55.
112 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
affinity with the spirit of nitre than that kind of earth
with which it is united in the atmosphere." :
It would have been hard for the most ingenious
person to have wandered farther from the truth
than Priestley does in this hypothesis ; and, though
Lavoisier undoubtedly treated Priestley very ill, and
pretended to have discovered dephlogisticated air, or
oxygen, as he called it, independently, we can almost
forgive him, when we reflect how different were the
ideas which the great French chemist attached to the
body which Priestley discovered.
They are like two navigators of whom the first
sees a new country, but takes clouds for mountains
and mirage for lowlands ; while the second deter-
mines its length and breadth, and lays down on a
chart its exact place, so that, thenceforth, it serves as
a guide to his successors, and becomes a secure out-
post whence new explorations may be pushed.
Nevertheless, as Priestley himself somewhere
remarks, the first object of physical science is to
ascertain facts, and the service which he rendered to
chemistry by the definite establishment of a large
number of new and fundamentally important facts, is
such as to entitle him to a very high place among the
fathers of chemical science.
It is difficult to say whether Priestley's philo-
sophical, political, or theological views were -most
responsible for the bitter hatred which was borne to
1 " Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air," vol.
ii. p. 60. The italics are Priestley's own.
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 113
him by a large body of his countrymen, 1 and which
found its expression in the malignant insinuations in
which Burke, to his everlasting shame, indulged in
the House of Commons.
Without containing much that will be new to
the readers of Hobbes, Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and
Hartley, and, indeed, while making no pretensions
to originality, Priestley's " Disquisitions relating to
Matter and Spirit/' and his " Doctrine of Philoso-
phical Necessity illustrated," are among the most
powerful, clear, and unflinching expositions of materi-
alism and necessarianism which exist in the English
language, and are still well worth reading.
Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the
sense of its self-determination ; he denied the exist-
ence of a soul distinct from the body ; and as a
natural consequence, he denied the natural immor-
tality of man.
In relation to these matters English opinion, a
century ago, was very much what it is now.
A man may be a necessarian without incurring
i " In all the newspapers and most of the periodical publications I
was represented as an unbeliever in Revelation, and no better than an
atheist." "Autobiography," Rutt. vol. i p. 124. "On the walls of
houses, etc., and especially where I usually went, were to be seen, in
large characters, ' MADAN FOR EVER ; DAMN PRIESTLEY ; NO PRESBY-
TERIANISM ; DAMN THE PRESBYTERIANS/ etc. etc.; and, at one time, I
was followed by a number of boys, who left their play, repeating what
they had seen on the walls, and shouting out, ' Damn Priestley ; damn
him, damn him, for ever, for ever,' etc. etc. This was no doubt a lesson
which they had been taught by their parents, and what they, I fear,
had learned from their superiors." " Appeal to the Public on the
Subject of the Riots at Birmingham."
114 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
graver reproach than that implied in being called a
gloomy fanatic, necessarianism, though very shocking,
having a note of Calvinistic orthodoxy ; but, if a man
is a materialist ; or, if good authorities say he is and
must be so, in spite of his assertion to the contrary ;
or, if he acknowledge himself unable to see good
reasons for believing in the natural immortality of
man, respectable folks look upon him as an unsafe
neighbour of a cash-box, as an actual or potential
sensualist, the more virtuous in outward seeming, the
more certainly loaded with secret " grave personal
sins."
Nevertheless, it is as certain as anything can be,
that Joseph Priestley was no gloomy fanatic, but
as cheerful and kindly a soul as ever breathed, the
idol of children ; a man who was hated only by those
who did not know him, and who charmed away the
bitterest prejudices in personal intercourse ; a man
who never lost a friend, and the best testimony to
whose worth is the generous and tender warmth with
which his many friends vied with one another in
rendering him substantial help, in all the crises of his
career.
The unspotted purity of Priestley's life, the strict-
ness of his performance of every duty, his transparent
sincerity, the unostentatious and deep-seated piety
which breathes through all his correspondence, are
in themselves a sufficient refutation of the hj^pothesis,
invented by bigots to cover uncharitableness, that
such opinions as his must arise from moral defects.
And his statue will do as good service as the brazen
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 115
image that was set upon a pole before the Israelites,
if those who have been bitten by the fiery serpents of
sectarian hatred, which still haunt this wilderness of
a world, are made whole by looking upon the image
of a heretic, who was yet a saint.
Though Priestley did not believe in the natural
immortality of man, he held with an almost naive
realism, that man would be raised from the dead by
a direct exertion of the power of God, and thence-
forward be immortal. And it may be as well for
those who may be shocked by this doctrine to know
that views, substantially identical with Priestley's,
have been advocated, since his time, by two prelates
of the Anglican Church : by Dr. Whately, Archbishop
of Dublin, in his well-known " Essays ;" * and by Dr.
Courtenay, Bishop of Kingston in Jamaica, the first
edition of whose remarkable book "On the Future
States," dedicated to Archbishop Whately, was pub-
lished in 1843 and the second in 1857. According
to Bishop Courtenay,
"The death of the body will cause a cessation of all the
activity of the mind by way of natural consequence ; to continue
for ever UNLESS the Creator should interfere."
And again :
"The natural end of human existence is the 'first death/
the dreamless slumber of the grave, wherein man lies spell-
bound, soul and body, under the dominion of sin and death
that whatever modes of conscious existence, whatever future
states of ' life ' or of ' torment ' beyond Hades are reserved for
1 First Series. "On Some of the Peculiarities of the Christian
Religion." Essay I. Revelation of a Future State.
116 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
man, are results of our blessed Lord's victory over sin and death ;
that the resurrection of the dead must be preliminary to their
entrance into either of the future states, and that the nature and
even existence of these states and even the mere fact that there
is a futurity of consciousness, can be known only through God's
revelation of Himself in the Person and the Gospel of His
Son." P. 389.
And now hear Priestley :
" Man, according to this system (of materialism), is no more
than we now see of him. His being commences at the time of
his conception, or perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal
and mental faculties, in being in the same substance, grow,
ripen, and decay together; and whenever the system is dis-
solved it continues in a state of dissolution till it shall please
that Almighty Being who called it into existence to restore it to
life again." "Matter and Spirit," p. 49.
And again :
"The doctrine of the Scripture is, that God made man of
the dust of the ground, and by simply animating this organised
matter, made man that living percipient and intelligent being
that he is. According to Revelation, death is a state of rest and
insensibility, and our only though sure hope of a future life is
founded on the doctrine of the resurrection of the whole man at
some distant period ; this assurance being sufficiently confirmed
to us both by the evident tokens of a Divine commission attend-
ing the persons who delivered the doctrine, and especially by
the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is more authentic-
ally attested than any other fact in history." Ibid., p. 247.
We all know that " a saint in crape is twice a
saint in lawn ;" but it is not yet admitted that the
views which are consistent with such saintliness in
lawn, become diabolical when held by a mere dis-
senter. 1
1 Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay in this
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 117
I am not here either to defend or to attack
Priestley's philosophical views, and I cannot say that
I am personally disposed to attach much value to
episcopal authority in philosophical questions ; but it
seems right to call attention to the fact, that those of
Priestley's opinions which have brought most odium
upon him., have been openly promulgated, without
challenge, by persons occupying the highest positions
in the State Church.
I must confess that what interests me most about
Priestley's materialism, is the evidence that he saw
dimly the seed of destruction which such materialism
carries within its own bosom. In the course of his
reading for his "History of Discoveries relating to
Vision, Light, and Colours," he had come upon the
speculations of Boscovich and Michell, and had been
led to admit the sufficiently obvious truth that our
knowledge of matter is a knowledge of its properties ;
and that of its substance if it have a substance we
know nothing. And this led to the further admission
that, so far as we can know, there may be no differ-
ence between the substance of matter and the sub-
stance of spirit ("Disquisitions/' p. 16). A step
matter, but with Hartley and Bonnet, both of them stout champions
of Christianity. Moreover, Archbishop Whately's essay is little better
than an expansion of the first paragraph of Hume's famous essay on
the Immortality of the Soul : " By the mere light of reason it seems
difficult to prove the immortality of the soul ; the arguments for it
are commonly derived either from metaphysical topics, or moral, or
physical. But it is in reality the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that
has brought life and immortality to light" It is impossible to imagine
that a man of Whately's tastes and acquirements had not read Hume
or Hartley, though he refers to neither.
118 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LEOT.
farther would nave shown Priestley that his material-
ism was, essentially, very little different from the
Idealism of his contemporary, the Bishop of Cloyne.
As Priestley's philosophy is mainly a clear state-
ment of the views of the deeper thinkers of his day,
so are his political conceptions based upon those of
Locke. Locke's aphorism that " the end of govern-
ment is the good of mankind," is thus expanded by
Priestley :
" It must necessarily be understood, therefore, whether it be
expressed or not, that all people live in society for their mutual
advantage; so that the good and happiness of the members,
that is, of the majority of the members, of any state, is the
great standard by which everything relating to that state must
finally be determined." ]
The little sentence here interpolated, " that is, of
the majority of the members of any state," appears to
be that passage which suggested to Bentham, accord-
ing to his own acknowledgment, the famous "greatest
happiness" formula, which by substituting "happi-
ness " for " good," has converted a noble into an
ignoble principle. But I do not call to mind that
there is any utterance in Locke quite so outspoken as
the following passage in the "Essay on the First
Principles of Government." After laying down as
"a fundamental maxim in all governments," the
proposition that "kings, senators, and nobles" are
"the servants of the public," Priestley goes on to
say:
1 " Essay on the First Principles of Government." Second edition,
1771, p. 13.
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 119
" But in the largest states, if the abuses of the government
should at any time be great and manifest ; if the servants of the
people, forgetting their masters and their masters' interest,
should pursue a separate one of their own ; if, instead of con-
sidering that they are made for the people, they should consider
the people as made for them ; if the oppressions and violation
of right should be great, flagrant, and universally resented ; if
the tyrannical governors should have no friends but a few
sycophants, who had long preyed upon the vitals of their fellow-
citizens, and who might be expected to desert a government
whenever their interests should be detached from it; if, in
consequence of these circumstances, it should become manifest
that the risk which would be run in attempting a revolution
would be trifling, and the evils which might be apprehended
from it were far less than those which were actually suffered
and which were daily increasing ; in the name of God, I ask,
what principles are those which ought to restrain an injured and
insulted people from asserting their natural rights, and from
changing or even punishing their governors that is, their ser-
vants who had abused their trust, or from altering the whole
form of their government, if it appeared to be of a structure so
liable to abuse?"
As a Dissenter, subject to the operation of the
Corporation and Test Acts, and as a Unitarian, ex-
cluded from the benefit of the Toleration Act, it is
not surprising to find that Priestley had very definite
opinions about Ecclesiastical Establishments; the
only wonder is that these opinions were so moderate
as the following passages show them to have been :
"Ecclesiastical authority may have been necessary in the
infant state of society, and, for the same reason, it may perhaps
continue to be, in some degree, necessary as long as society is
imperfect ; and therefore may not be entirely abolished till civil
governments have arrived at a much greater degree of perfection.
If, therefore, I were asked whether I should approve of the
immediate dissolution of all the ecclesiastical establishments in
120 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
Europe, I should answer, No. ... Let experiment be first
made of alterations, or, which is the same thing, of Utter establish-
ments than the present. Let them be reformed in many essential
articles, and then not thrown aside entirely till it be found by
experience that no good can be made of them."
Priestley goes on to suggest four such reforms of a
capital nature :
u 1. Let the Articles of Faith to be subscribed by candidates
for the ministry be greatly reduced. In the formulary of the
Church of England, might not thirty-eight out of the thirty-nine
be very well spared ? It is a reproach to any Christian establish-
ment if every man cannot claim the benefit of it who can say
that he believes in the religion of Jesus Christ as it is set forth
in the New Testament. You say the terms are so general that
even Deists would quibble and insinuate themselves. I answer
that all the articles which are subscribed at present, by no
means exclude Deists who will prevaricate ; and upon this
scheme you would at least exclude fewer honest men." 1
The second reform suggested is the equalisation,
in proportion to work done, of the stipends of the
clergy ; the third, the exclusion of the bishops from
Parliament ; and the fourth, complete toleration, so
that every man may enjoy the rights of a citizen, and
be qualified to serve his country, whether lie belong
to the Established Church or not.
Opinions such as those I have quoted, respecting
the duties and the responsibilities of governors, ^are
the commonplaces of modern Liberalism ; and Priest-
ley's views on Ecclesiastical Establishments would, I
fear, meet with but a cool reception, as altogether too
conservative, from a large proportion of the lineal
i "Utility of Establishments/' in "Essay on First Principles of
Government," p. 198, 1771.
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 121
descendants of the people who taught their children
to cry "Damn Priestley ;" and, with that love for the
practical application of science which is the source of
the greatness of Birmingham, tried to set fire to the
doctor's house with sparks from his own electrical
machine ; thereby giving the man they called an
incendiary and raiser of sedition against Church and
King, an appropriately experimental illustration of
the nature of arson and riot.
If I have succeeded in putting before you the
main features of Priestley's work, its value will
become apparent, when we compare the condition
of the English nation, as he knew it, with its present
state.
The fact that France has been for eighty-five years
trying, without much success, to right herself after
the great storm of the Eevolution, is not unfrequently
cited among us, as an indication of some inherent
incapacity for self-government among the French
people. I think, however, that Englishmen who
argue thus, forget that, from the meeting of the Long
Parliament in 1640, to the last Stuart rebellion in
1745, is a hundred and five years, and that, in the
middle of the last century, we had but just safely freed
ourselves from our Bourbons and all that they repre-
sented. The corruption of our state was as bad as
that of the Second Empire. Bribery was the instru-
ment of government, and peculation its reward.
Four-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons
were more or less openly dealt with as property. A
122 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
minister had to consider the state of the vote market,
and the sovereign secured a sufficiency of " king's
friends " by payments allotted with retail, rather than
royal, sagacity.
Barefaced and brutal immorality and intemperance
pervaded the land, from the highest to the lowest
classes of society. The Established Church was torpid,
so far as it was not a scandal; but those who dis-
sented from it came within the meshes of the Act of
Uniformity, the Test Act, and the Corporation Act.
By law, such a man as Priestley, being a Unitarian,
could neither teach nor preach, and was liable to ruin-
ous fines and long imprisonment. 1 In those days, the
guns that were pointed by the Church against the
Dissenters were shotted. The law was a cesspool of
iniquity and cruelty. Adam Smith was a new prophet
whom few regarded, and commerce was hampered by
idiotic impediments, and ruined by still more absurd
help, on the part of government.
Birmingham, though already the centre of a con-
siderable industry, was a mere village as compared
with its present extent. People who travelled went
about armed, by reason of the abundance of highway-
men and the paucity and inefficiency of the police.
Stage coaches had not reached Birmingham, and it
took three days to get to London. Even canals were
a recent and much opposed invention.
Newton had laid the foundation of a mechanical
conception of the physical universe : Hartley, putting a
1 In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without the Bishop's
leave, at Northampton.
V.j JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 123
modern face upon ancient materialism, had extended
that mechanical conception to psychology; Linnaeus
and Haller were beginning to introduce method and
order into the chaotic accumulation of biological facts.
But those parts of physical science which deal^with heat,
electricity, and magnetism, and above all, chemistry,
in the modern sense, can hardly be said to have had
an existence. No one knew that two of the old
elemental bodies, air and water, are compounds, and
that a third, fire, is not a substance but a motion.
The great industries that have grown out of the
applications of modern scientific discoveries had no
existence, and the man who should have foretold their
coming into being in the days of his son, would have
been regarded as a mad enthusiast.
In common with many other excellent persons,
Priestley believed that man is capable of reaching, and
will eventually attain, perfection. If the temperature
of space presented no obstacle, I should be glad to
entertain the same idea ; but judging from the past
progress of our species, I am afraid that the globe will
have cooled down so far, before the advent of this
natural millennium, that we shall be, at best, perfected
Esquimaux. For all practical purposes, however, it is
enough that man may visibly improve his condition
in the course of a century or so. And, if the picture
of the state of things in Priestley's time, which I have
just drawn, have any pretence to accuracy, I think it
must be admitted that there has been a considerable
change for the better.
I need not advert to the well-worn topic of material
124 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
advancement, in a place in which the very stones
testify to that progress in the town of Watt and of
Boulton. I will only remark, in passing, that material
advancement has its share in moral and intellectual
progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not
difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year, has its
application to nations ; and it is futile to expect a
hungry and squalid population to be anything but
violent and gross. But as regards other than material
welfare, although perfection is not yet in sight even
from the mast-head it is surely true that things are
much better than they were.
Take the upper and middle classes as a whole, and
it may be said that open immorality and gross in-
temperance have vanished. Four and six bottle men
are as extinct as the dodo. Women of good repute
do not gamble, and talk modelled upon Dean Swift's
"Art of Polite Conversation" would be tolerated in
no decent kitchen.
Members of the legislature are not to be bought ;
and constituents are awakening to the fact that votes
must not be sold even for such trifles as rabbits and
tea and cake. Political power has passed into the
hands of the masses of the people. Those whom
Priestley calls their servants have recognised their
position, and have requested the master to be so good
as to go to school and fit himself for the administration
of his property. No civil disability attaches to any
one on theological grounds, and the highest offices of
the state are open to Papist, Jew, or Secularist. 1
1 The recent proceedings of the House of Commons throw a doubt,
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 125
Whatever men's opinions as to the policy of Estab-
lishment, no one can hesitate to admit that the clergy
of the Church are men of pure life and conversation,
zealous in the discharge of their duties ; and, at pre-
sent, apparently, more bent on prosecuting one another
than on meddling with Dissenters. Theology itself
has broadened so much, that Anglican divines put
forward doctrines more liberal than those of Priestley ;
and, in our state-supported churches, one listener may
hear a sermon to which Bossuet might have given his
approbation, while another may hear a discourse in
which Socrates would find nothing new.
But great as these changes may be, they sink into
insignificance beside the progress of physical science,
whether we consider the improvement of methods of
investigation, or the increase in bulk of solid know-
ledge. Consider that the labours of Laplace, of
Young, of Davy, and of Faraday ; of Cuvier, of
Lamarck, and of Eobert Brown ; of Von Baer, and of
Schwann ; of Smith and of Hutton, have all been
carried on since Priestley discovered oxygen; and
consider that they are now things of the past, con-
cealed by the industry of those who have built upon
them, as the first founders of a coral reef are hidden
beneath the life's work of their successors ; consider
that the methods of physical science are slowly spread-
ing into all investigations, and that proofs as valid
as those required by her canons of investigation,
are being demanded of all doctrines which ask for
which it is to be hoped may speedily be removed, on the accuracy of
this statement. (September 1881.)
126 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. [LECT.
men's assent ; and you will have a faint image of the
astounding difference in this respect between the nine-
teenth century and the eighteenth.
If we ask what is the deeper meaning of all these
vast changes, I think there can be but one reply.
They mean that reason has asserted and exercised her
primacy over all provinces of human activity : that
ecclesiastical authority has been relegated to its proper
place ; that the good of the governed has been finally
recognised as the end of government, and the com-
plete responsibility of governors to the people as its
means; and that the dependence of natural pheno-
mena in general, on the laws of action of what we call
matter has become an axiom.
But it was to bring these things about, and to
enforce the recognition of these truths, that Joseph
Priestley laboured. If the nineteenth century is other
and better than the eighteenth, it is, in great measure,
to him and to such men as he, that we owe the change.
If the twentieth century is to be better than the nine-
teenth, it will be because there are among us men
who walk in Priestley's footsteps.
Such men are not those whom their own generation
delights to honour ; such men, in fact, rarely trouble
themselves about honour, but ask, in another spirit
than Falstaff's, " What is honour ? Who hath it ?
He that died o' Wednesday. " But whether Priestley's
lot be theirs, and a future generation, in justice and
in gratitude, set up their statues ; or whether their
names and fame are blotted out from remembrance,
their work will live as long as time endures. To all
V.] JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 127
eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been
increased by their means ; to all eternity, falsehood
and injustice will be the weaker because they have
lived.
130 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
But Zadig was fated to experience the vanity of such
expectations.
One day, walking near a little wood, ho saw, hastening that
way, one of the Queen's chief eunuchs, followed by a troop of
officials, who appeared to be in the greatest anxiety, running
hither and thither like men distraught, in search of some lost
treasure.
" Young man," cried the eunuch, "have you seen the Queen's
dog?" Zadig answered modestly, "A bitch, I think, not a dog."
"Quite right," replied the eunuch; and Zadig continued, "A very
small spaniel who has lately had puppies ; she limps with the
left foreleg, and has very long ears." " Ah ! you have seen her
then," said the breathless eunuch. " No," answered Zadig, " I
have not seen her ; and I really was not aware that the Queen
possessed a spaniel."
By an odd coincidence, at the very same time, the handsom-
est horse in the King's stables broke away from his groom in
the Babylonian plains. The grand huntsman and all his staff
were seeking the horse with as much anxiety as the eunuch and
his people the spaniel ; and the grand huntsman asked Zadig if
he had not seen the King's horse go that way.
" A first-rate galloper, small-hoofed, five feet high ; tail three
feet and a half long; cheek pieces of the bit of twenty-three
carat gold; shoes silver?" said Zadig.
"Which way did he go? Where is he?" cried the grand
huntsman.
" I have not seen anything of the horse, and I never heard
of him before," replied Zadig.
The grand huntsman and the chief eunuch made sure that
Zadig had stolen both the King's horse and the Queen's spaniel,
so they haled him before the High Court of Desterham, which
at once condemned him to the knout, and transportation for life
to Siberia. But the sentence was hardly pronounced when the
lost horse and spaniel were found. So the judges were under
the painful necessity of reconsidering their decision : but they
fined Zadig four hundred ounces of gold for saying he had seen
that which he had not seen.
The first thing was to pay the fine ; afterwards Zadig was
VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 131
permitted to open his defence to the court, which he did in the
following terms :
" Stars of justice, abysses of knowledge, mirrors of truth,
whose gravity is as that of lead, whose inflexibility is as that of
iron, who rival the diamond in clearness, and possess no little
affinity with gold ; since I am permitted to address your august
assembly, I swear by Ormuzd that I have never seen the respect-
able lady dog of the queen, nor beheld the sacrosanct horse of
the King of Kings.
" This is what happened. I was taking a walk towards the
little wood near which I subsequently had the honour to meet
the venerable chief eunuch and the most illustrious grand hunts-
man. I noticed the track of an animal in the sand, and it was
easy to see that it was that of a small dog. Long faint streaks
upon the little elevations of sand between the footmarks con-
vinced me that it was a she dog with pendent dugs, showing
that she must have had puppies not many days since. Other
scrapings of the sand, which always lay close to the marks of the
forepaws, indicated that she had very long ears ; and, as the im-
print of one foot was always fainter than those of the other
three, I judged that the lady dog of our august Queen was, if I
may venture to say so, a little lame.
" With respect to the horse of the King of Kings, permit me
to observe that, wandering through the paths which traverse the
wood, I noticed the marks of horse-shoes. They were all equi-
distant. 'Ah !' said I, ' this is a famous galloper.' In a narrow
alley, only seven feet wide, the dust upon the trunks of the trees
was a little disturbed at three feet and a half from the middle
of the path. * This horse/ said I to myself, ' had a tail three
feet and a half long, and, lashing it from one side to the other,
he has swept away the dust.' Branches of the trees met over-
head at the height of five feet, and under them I saw newly
fallen leaves ; so I knew that the horse had brushed some of the
branches, and was therefore five feet high. As to his bit, it
must have been made of twenty-three carat gold, for he had
rubbed it against a stone, which turned out to be a touchstone,
with the properties of which I am familiar by experiment.
Lastly, by the marks which his shoes left upon pebbles of another
kind, I was led to think that his shoes were of fine silver."
132 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
All the judges admired Zadig's profound and subtle discern-
ment ; and the fame of it reached even the King and the Queen.
From the ante-rooms to the presence-chamber, Zadig's name was
in everybody's mouth ; and, although many of the magi were of
opinion that he ought to be burnt as a sorcerer, the King com-
manded that the four hundred ounces of gold which he had
been fined should be restored to him. So the officers of the
court went in state with the four hundred ounces ; only they
retained three hundred and ninety-eight for legal expenses, and
their servants expected fees.
Those who are interested in learning more of the
fateful history of Zadig must turn to the original ;
we are dealing with him only as a philosopher, and
this brief excerpt suffices for the exemplification of
the nature of his conclusions and of the method by
which he arrived at them.
These conclusions may be said to be of the nature
of retrospective prophecies ; though it is perhaps a
little hazardous to employ phraseology which peril-
ously suggests a contradiction in terms the word
" prophecy " being so constantly in ordinary use re-
stricted to "foretelling." Strictly, however, the term
prophecy as much applies to outspeaking as to fore-
telling ; and, even in the restricted sense of " divina-
tion," it is obvious that the essence of the prophetic
operation does not lie in its backward or forward
relation to the course of time, but in the fact that it
is the apprehension of that which lies out of the sphere
of immediate knowledge ; the seeing of that which to
the natural sense of the seer is invisible.
The foreteller asserts that, at some future time, a
properly situated observer will witness certain events ;
VL] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 133
the clairvoyant declares that, at this present time,
certain things are to be witnessed a thousand miles
away; the retrospective prophet (would that there
were such a word as "backteller!") affirms that so
many hours or years ago, such and such things were
to be seen. In all these cases, it is only the relation
to time which alters the process of divination beyond
the limits of possible direct knowledge remains the
same.
No doubt it was their instinctive recognition of
the analogy between Zadig's results and those obtained
by authorised inspiration which inspired the Baby-
lonian magi with the desire to burn the philosopher.
Zadig admitted that he had never either seen or heard
of the horse of the king or of the spaniel of the queen ;
and yet he ventured to assert in the most positive
manner that animals answering to their description
did actually exist, and ran about the plains of Babylon.
If his method was good for the divination of the course
of events ten hours old, why should it not be good for
those of ten years or ten centuries past ; nay, might
it not extend to ten thousand years and justify the
impious in meddling with the traditions of Cannes
and the fish, and all the sacred foundations of Baby-
lonian cosmogony ?
But this was not the worst. There was another
consideration which obviously dictated to the more
thoughtful of the magi the propriety of burning Zadig
out of hand. His defence was worse than his offence.
It showed that his mode of divination was fraught
with danger to magianism in general. Swollen with
132 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
All the judges admired Zadig's profound and subtle discern-
ment ; and the fame of it reached even the King and the Queen.
From the ante-rooms to the presence-chamber, Zadig's name was
in everybody's mouth ; and, although many of the magi were of
opinion that he ought to be burnt as a sorcerer, the King com-
manded that the four hundred ounces of gold which he had
been fined should be restored to him. So the officers of the
court went in state with the four hundred ounces ; only they
retained three hundred and ninety-eight for legal expenses, and
their servants expected fees.
Those who are interested in learning more of the
fateful history of Zadig must turn to the original;
we are dealing with him only as a philosopher, and
this brief excerpt suffices for the exemplification of
the nature of his conclusions and of the method by
which he arrived at them.
These conclusions may be said to be of the nature
of retrospective prophecies ; though it is perhaps a
little hazardous to employ phraseology which peril-
ously suggests a contradiction in terms the word
" prophecy " being so constantly in ordinary use re-
stricted to "foretelling." Strictly, however, the term
prophecy as much applies to outspeaking as to fore-
telling ; and, even in the restricted sense of " divina-
tion," it is obvious that the essence of the prophetic
operation does not lie in its backward or forward
relation to the course of time, but in the fact that it
is the apprehension of that which lies out of the sphere
of immediate knowledge ; the seeing of that which to
the natural sense of the seer is invisible.
The foreteller asserts that, at some future time, a
properly situated observer will witness certain events ;
VL] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 133
the clairvoyant declares that, at this present time,
certain things are to be witnessed a thousand miles
away; the retrospective prophet (would that there
were such a word as "backteller!") affirms that so
many hours or years ago, such and such things were
to be seen. In all these cases, it is only the relation
to time which alters the process of divination beyond
the limits of possible direct knowledge remains the
same.
No doubt it was their instinctive recognition of
the analogy between Zadig's results and those obtained
by authorised inspiration which inspired the Baby-
lonian magi with the desire to burn the philosopher.
Zadig admitted that he had never either seen or heard
of the horse of the king or of the spaniel of the queen ;
and yet he ventured to assert in the most positive
manner that animals answering to their description
did actually exist, and ran about the plains of Babylon.
If his method was good for the divination of the course
of events ten hours old, why should it not be good for
those of ten years or ten centuries past ; nay, might
it not extend to ten thousand years and justify the
impious in meddling with the traditions of Cannes
and the fish, and all the sacred foundations of Baby-
lonian cosmogony ?
But this was not the worst. There was another
consideration which obviously dictated to the more
thoughtful of the magi the propriety of burning Zadig
out of hand. His defence was worse than his offence.
It showed that his mode of divination was fraught
with danger to magianism in general. Swollen with
134 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
the pride of human reason, he had ignored the
established canons of magian lore ; and, trusting to
what after all was mere carnal common sense, he pro-
fessed to lead men to a deeper insight into nature
than magian wisdom, with all its lofty antagonism to
everything common, had ever reached. What, in fact,
lay at the foundation of all Zadig's arguments but the
coarse commonplace assumption, upon which every
act of our daily lives is based, that we may conclude
from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent
to produce that effect ?
The tracks were exactly like those which dogs
and horses leave; therefore they were the effects of
such animals as causes. The marks at the sides of
the fore prints of the dog track were exactly such as
would be produced by long trailing ears ; therefore
the dog's long ears were the causes of these marks
and so on. Nothing can be more hopelessly vulgar,
more unlike the majestic development of a system of
grandly unintelligible conclusions from sublimely in-
conceivable premisses, such as delights the magian
heart. In fact, Zadig's method was nothing but the
method of all mankind. Ketrospective prophecies,
far more astonishing for their minute accuracy than
those of Zadig, are familiar to those who have watched
the daily life of nomadic people.
From freshly broken twigs, crushed leaves, dis-
turbed pebbles, and imprints hardly discernible by the
untrained eye, such graduates in the University of
Nature will divine, not only the fact that a party has
passed that way, but its strength, its composition, the
VL] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 135
course it took, and the number of hours or days which
have elapsed since it passed. But they are able to do
this because, like Zadig, they perceive endless minute
differences where untrained eyes discern nothing ; and
because the unconscious logic of common sense com-
pels them to account for these effects by the causes
which they know to be competent to produce them.
And such mere methodised savagery was to dis-
cover the hidden things of nature better than d priori
deductions from the nature of Ormuzd perhaps to
give a history of the past, in which Oannes would be
altogether ignored ! Decidedly it were better to burn
this man at once.
If instinct, or an unwonted use of reason, led
Moabdar's magi to this conclusion two or three thousand
years ago, all that can be said is that subsequent history
has fully justified them. For the rigorous application
of Zadig's logic to the results of accurate and long-
continued observation has founded all those sciences
which have been termed historical or palsetiological,
because they are retrospectively prophetic and strive
towards the reconstruction in human imagination of
events which have vanished and ceased to be.
History, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is
based upon the interpretation of documentary evidence;
and documents would have no evidential value unless
historians were justified in their assumption that they
have come into existence by the operation of causes
similar to those of which documents are, in our present
experience, the effects. If a written history can be pro-
duced otherwise than by human agency, or if the man
136 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
who wrote a given document was actuated by other
than ordinary human motives, such documents are of
no more evidential value than so many arabesques.
Archaeology, which takes up the thread of history
beyond the point at which documentary evidence fails
us, could have no existence, except for our well-
grounded confidence that monuments and works of
art or artifice, have never been produced by causes
different in kind from those to which they now owe
their origin. And geology, which traces back the
course of history beyond the limits of archaeology,
could tell us nothing except for the assumption that,
millions of years ago, water, heat, gravitation, friction,
animal and vegetable life, caused effects of the same
kind as they do now. Nay, even physical astronomy,
in so far as it takes us back to the uttermost point of
time which palaetiological science can reach, is founded
upon the same assumption. If the law of gravitation
ever failed to be true, even to the smallest extent, for
that period, the calculations of the astronomer have
no application.
The power of prediction, of prospective prophecy, is
that which is commonly regarded as the great preroga-
tive of physical science. And truly it is a wonderful
fact that one can go into a shop and buy for small
price a book, the "Nautical Almanac/' which will
foretell the exact position to be occupied by one of
Jupiter's moons six months hence; nay more, that,
if it were worth while, the Astronomer Koyal could
furnish us with as infallible a prediction applicable
to 1980 or 2980.
VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 137
But astronomy is not less remarkable for its power
of retrospective prophecy.
Thales, oldest of Greek philosophers, the dates of
whose birth and death are uncertain, but who flourished
about 600 B.C., is said to have foretold an eclipse of the
sun which took place in his time during a battle
between the Medes and the Lydians. Sir George Airy
has written a very learned and interesting memoir 1 in
which he proves that such an eclipse was visible in
Lydia on the afternoon of the 28th of May in the
year 585 B.C.
No one doubts that, on the day and at the hour
mentioned by the Astronomer Koyal, the people of
Asia Minor saw the face of the sun totally obscured.
But, though we implicitly believe this retrospective
prophecy, it is incapable of verification. In the
total absence of historical records, it is impossible
even to conceive any means of ascertaining directly
whether the eclipse of Thales happened or not. All
that can be said is, that the prospective prophecies
of the astronomer are always verified ; and that,
inasmuch as his retrospective prophecies are the re-
sult of following backwards, the very same method as
that which invariably leads to verified results, when
it is worked forwards, there is as much reason for
placing full confidence in the one as in the other.
.Retrospective prophecy is therefore a legitimate func-
tion of astronomical science ; and if it is legitimate for
one science it is legitimate for all ; the fundamental
1 " On the Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes," Philosophical
Transactions, vol. cxliii.
138 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT-
axiom on which it rests, the constancy of the order of
nature, being the common foundation of all scientific
thought. Indeed, if there can be grades in legitimacy,
certain branches of science have the advantage over
astronomy, in so far as their retrospective prophecies
are not only susceptible of verification, but are some-
times strikingly verified.
Such a science exists in that application of the
principles of biology to the interpretation of the animal
and vegetable remains imbedded in the rocks which
compose the surface of the globe, which is called
Palaeontology.
At no very distant time, the question whether
these so-called "fossils" were really the remains of
animals and plants was hotly disputed. Very learned
persons maintained that they were nothing of the
kind, but a sort of concretion, or crystallisation, which
had taken place within the stone in which they are
found ; and which simulated the forms of animal and
vegetable life, just as frost on a window-pane imitates
vegetation. At the present day, it would probably be
impossible to find any sane advocate of this opinion ;
and the fact is rather surprising, that among the people
from whom the circle -squarers, perpetual- mo tioners,
flat -earth men and the like, are recruited, to say
nothing of table-turners and spirit-rappers, somebody
has not perceived the easy avenue to nonsensical
notoriety open to any one who will take up the good
old doctrine, that fossils are all lusus iiaturce.
The position would be impregnable, inasmuch as it
is quite impossible to prove the contrary. If a man
VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 139
choose to maintain that a fossil oyster shell, in spite of
its correspondence, down to every minutest particular,
with that of an oyster fresh taken out of the sea, was
never tenanted by a living oyster, but is a mineral
concretion, there is no demonstrating his error. All
that can be done is to show him that, by a parity of
reasoning, he is bound to admit that a heap of oyster
shells outside a fishmonger's door may also be " sports
of nature," and that a mutton bone in a dust-bin may
have had the like origin. And when you cannot prove
that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd,
the best course is to let them alone.
The whole fabric of palaeontology, in fact, falls to
the ground unless we admit the validity of Zadig's
great principle, that like effects imply like causes ; and
that the process of reasoning from a shell, or a tooth,
or a bone, to the nature of the animal to which it
belonged, rests absolutely on the assumption that the
likeness of this shell, or tooth, or bone, to that of some
animal with which we are already acquainted, is such
that we are justified in inferring a corresponding
degree of likeness in the rest of the two organisms.
It is on this very simple principle, and not upon
imaginary laws of physiological correlation, about
which, in most cases, we know nothing whatever, that
the so-called restorations of the palaeontologist are
based.
Abundant illustrations of this truth will occur to
every one who is familiar with palaeontology ; none is
more suitable than the case of the so-called Belemnites.
In the early days of the study of fossils, this name was
140 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
given to certain elongated stony bodies, ending at
one extremity in a conical point, and truncated at the
other, which were commonly reputed to be thunder-
bolts, and as such to have descended from the sky.
They are common enough in some parts of England ;
and, in the condition in which they are ordinarily
found, it might be difficult to give satisfactory reasons
for denying them to be merely mineral bodies.
They appear, in fact, to consist of nothing but
concentric layers of carbonate of lime, disposed in
subcrystalline fibres, or prisms, perpendicular to the
layers. Among a great number of specimens of these
Belemnites, however, it was soon observed that some
showed a conical cavity at the blunt end ; and, in still
better preserved specimens, this cavity appeared to
be divided into chambers by delicate saucer-shaped
partitions, situated at regular intervals one above the
other. Now there is no mineral body which presents
any structure comparable to this, and the conclusion
suggested itself that the Belemnites must be the effects
of causes other than those which are at work in
inorganic nature. On close examination, the saucer-
shaped partitions were proved to be all perforated at
one point, and the perforations being situated exactly
in the same line, the chambers were seen to be
traversed by a canal, or siphuncle, which thus con-
nected the smallest or apical chamber with the largest.
There is nothing like this in the vegetable world ; but
an exactly corresponding structure is met with in the
shells of two kinds of existing animals, the pearly
Nautilus and the Spirula, and only in them. These
VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 141
animals belong to the same division the Cephalopoda
as the cuttle-fish, the squid, and the octopus. But
they are the only existing members of the group which
possess chambered, siphunculated shells; and it is
utterly impossible to trace any physiological connec-
tion between the very peculiar structural characters of
a cephalopod and the presence of a chambered shell.
In fact, the squid has, instead of any such shell, a
horny "pen," the cuttle-fish has the so-called "cuttle-
bone," and the octopus has no shell, or, at most, a mere
rudiment of one.
Nevertheless, seeing that there is nothing in nature
at all like the chambered shell of the Belemnite,
except the shells of the Nautilus and of the Spirula,
it was legitimate to prophesy that the animal from
which the fossil proceeded must have belonged to the
group of the Cephalopoda. Nautilus and Spirula are
both very rare animals, but the progress of investiga-
tion brought to light the singular fact, that, though
each has the characteristic cephalopodous organisation,
it is very different from the other. The shell of Nauti-
lus is external, that of Spirula internal ; Nautilus has
four gills, Spirula two ; Nautilus has multitudinous
tentacles, Spirula has only ten arms beset with horny
rimmed suckers ; Spirula, like the squids and cuttle-
fishes, which it closely resembles, has a bag of ink
which it squirts out to cover its retreat when alarmed ;
Nautilus has none.
No amount of physiological reasoning could enable
any one to say whether the animal which fabricated
the Belemnite was more like Nautilus, or more like
142 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG [LECT.
Spirula. But the accidental discovery of Belemnites
in due connection with black elongated masses which
were certainly fossilised ink-bags, inasmuch as the
ink could be ground up and used for painting as well
as if it were recent sepia, settled the question ; and it
became perfectly safe to prophesy that the creature
which fabricated the Belemnite was a two-gilled
cephalopod with suckers on its arms, and with all the
other essential features of our living squids, cuttle-
fishes, and Spirulce. The palaeontologist was, by this
time, able to speak as confidently about the animal of
the Belemnite, as Zadig was respecting the queen's
spaniel. He could give a very fair description of its
external appearance, and even enter pretty fully into
the details of its internal organisation, and yet could
declare that neither he, nor any one else, had ever
seen one. And as the queen's spaniel was found, so
happily has the animal of the Belemnite; a few
exceptionally preserved specimens having been dis-
covered, which completely verify the retrospective
prophecy of those who interpreted the facts of the case
by due application of the method of Zadig.
These Belemnites flourished in prodigious abun-
dance in the seas of the mesozoic or secondary age of
the world's geological history ; but no trace of them
has been found in any of the tertiary deposits, and
they appear to have died out towards the close of the
mesozoic epoch. The method of Zadig, therefore,
applies in full force to the events of a period which is
immeasurably remote, which long preceded the origin
of the most conspicuous mountain masses of the
VI.] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 143
present world, and the deposition, at the bottom of
the ocean, of the rocks which form the greater part of
the soil of our present continents. The Euphrates
itself, at the mouth of which Oannes landed, is a thing
of yesterday compared with a Belemnite ; and even
the liberal chronology of Magian cosmogony fixes the
beginning of the world only at a time when other
applications of Zadig's method afford convincing evi-
dence that, could we have been there to see, things
would have looked very much as they do now. Truly
the magi were wise in their generation ; they foresaw
rightly that this pestilent application of the principles
of common sense, inaugurated by Zadig, would be
their ruin.
But it may be said that the method of Zadig,
which is simple reasoning from analogy, does not
account for the most striking feats of modern palaeon-
tology the reconstruction of entire animals from a
tooth or perhaps a fragment of a bone ; and it may be
justly urged that Cuvier, the great master of this kind
of investigation, gave a very different account of the
process which yielded such remarkable results.
Cuvier is not the first man of ability who has failed
to make his own mental processes clear to himself,
and he will not be the last. The matter can be easily
tested. Search the eight volumes of the "Recherches
sur les Ossemens fossiles" from cover to cover, and
nothing but the application of the method of Zadig
will be found in the arguments by which a fragment
of a skeleton is made to reveal the characters of the
animal to which it belonged.
144 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
There is one well-known case which may represent
all. It is an excellent illustration of Cuvier's sagacity,
and he evidently takes some pride in telling his story
about it. A split slab of stone arrived from the
quarries of Montmartre, the two halves of which con-
tained the greater part of the skeleton of a small
animal. On careful examinations of the characters of
the teeth and of the lower jaw, which happened to be
exposed, Cuvier assured himself that they presented
such a very close resemblance to the corresponding
parts in the living opossums that he at once assigned
the fossil to that genus.
Now the opossums are unlike most mammals in
that they possess two bones attached to the fore part
of the pelvis, which are commonly called " marsupial
bones." The name is a misnomer, originally conferred
because it was thought that these bones have some-
thing to do with the support of the pouch, or mar-
supium, with which some, but not all, of the opossums
are provided. As a matter of fact, they have nothing
to do with the support of the pouch, and they exist
as much in those opossums which have no pouches as
in those which possess them. In truth, no one knows
what the use of these bones may be, nor has any valid
theory of their physiological import yet been suggested.
And if we have no knowledge of the physiological
importance of the bones themselves, it is obviously
absurd to pretend that we are able to give physiological
reasons why the presence of these bones is associated
with certain peculiarities of the teeth and of the jaws.
If any one knows why four molar teeth and an in-
VL] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. U5
fleeted angle of the jaw are very generally found along
with marsupial bones, he has not yet communicated
that knowledge to the world.
If, however, Zadig was right in concluding from
the likeness of the hoof -prints which he observed to a
horse's that the creature which made them had a tail
like that of a horse, Cuvier, seeing that the teeth and
jaw of his fossil were just like those of an opossum,
had the same right to conclude that the pelvis would
also be like an opossum's ; and so strong was his
conviction that this retrospective prophecy, about an
animal which he had never seen before, and which
had been dead and buried for millions of years, would
be verified, that he went to work upon the slab which
contained the pelvis in confident expectation of finding
and laying bare the " marsupial bones," to the satis-
faction of some persons whom he had invited to
witness their disintennent. As he says : " Cette
operation se fit en presence de quelques personnes
a qui j'en avais annonce* d'avance le r^sultat, dans
1'intention de leur prouver par le fait la justice de nos
theories zoologiques ; puisque le vrai cachet d'une
theorie est sans contredit la faculte qu'elle donne de
prevoir les phenomenes."
In the "Ossemens fossiles" Cuvier leaves his paper
just as it first appeared in the "Annales du Museum,"
as " a curious monument of the force of zoological laws
and of the use which may be made of them."
Zoological laws truly, but not physiological laws.
If one sees a live dog's head, it is extremely probable
that a dog's tail is not far off, though nobody can say
L
146 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
why that sort of head and that sort of tail go together ;
what physiological connection there is between the
two. So, in the case of the Montmartre fossil, Cuvier,
finding a thorough opossum's head, concluded that the
pelvis also would be like an opossum's. But, most
assuredly, the most advanced physiologist of the
present day could throw no light on the question why
these are associated, nor could pretend to affirm that
the existence of the one is necessarily connected with
that of the other. In fact, had it so happened that
the pelvis of the fossil had been originally exposed,
while the head lay hidden, the presence of the "mar-
supial bones," however like they might have been to
an opossum's, would by no means have warranted the
prediction that the skull would turn out to be that of
the opossum. It might just as well have been like
that of some other Marsupial ; or even like that of
the totally different group of Monotremes, of which
the only living representatives are the Echidna and
the Ornithorhynchus.
For all practical purposes, however, the empirical
laws of co-ordination of structures, which are embodied
in the generalisations of morphology, may be con-
fidently trusted, if employed with due caution, to lead
to a just interpretation of fossil remains ; or, in other
words, we may look for the verification of the retro-
spective prophecies which are based upon them.
And if this be the case, the late advances which
have been made in palseontological discovery open
out a new field for such prophecies. For it has been
ascertained with respect to many groups of animals,
VL] ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. 147
that, as we trace them back in time, their ancestors
gradually cease to exhibit those special modifications
which at present characterise the type, and more nearly
embody the general plan of the group to which they
belong.
Thus, in the well-known case of the horse, the
toes which are suppressed in the living horse are found
to be more and more complete in the older members
of the group, until, at the bottom of the Tertiary
series of America, we find an equine animal which has
four toes in front and three behind. No remains of
the horse tribe are at present known from any Mesozoic
deposit. Yet who can doubt that, whenever a suffi-
ciently extensive series of lacustrine and fluviatile
beds of that age becomes known, the lineage which
has been traced thus far will be continued by equine
quadrupeds with an increasing number of digits, until
the horse type merges in the five-toed form towards
which these gradations point ?
But the argument which holds good for the horse,
holds good, not only for all mammals, but for the
whole animal world. And as the study of the pedi-
grees, or lines of evolution, to which, at present, we
have access, brings to light, as it assuredly will do,
the laws of that process, we shall be able to reason
from the facts with which the geological record
furnishes us to those which have hitherto remained,
and many of which, perhaps, may for ever remain,
hidden. The same method of reasoning which enables
us, when furnished with a fragment of an extinct
animal, to prophesy the character which the whole
148 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG. [LECT.
organism exhibited, will, sooner or later, enable us,
when we know a few of the later terms of a genea-
logical series, to predict the nature of the earlier
terms.
In no very distant future, the method of Zadig,
applied to a greater body of facts than the present
generation is fortunate enough to handle, will enable
the biologist to reconstruct the scheme of life from its
beginning, and to speak as confidently of the character
of long extinct living beings, no trace of which has
been preserved, as Zadig did of the queen's spaniel
and the king's horse. Let us hope that they may be
better rewarded for their toil and their sagacity than
was the Babylonian philosopher ; for perhaps, by that
time, the Magi also may be reckoned among the
members of a forgotten Fauna, extinguished in the
struggle for existence against their great rival, common
sense.
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 149
VII.
ON THE BOEDER TERRITORY BETWEEN
THE ANIMAL AND THE VEGETABLE
KINGDOMS.
IN the whole history of science there is nothing more
remarkable than the rapidity of the growth of bio-
logical knowledge within the last half-century, and
the extent of the modification which has thereby been
effected in some of the fundamental conceptions of
the naturalist.
In the second edition of the " R&gne Animal,"
published in 1828, Cuvier devotes a special section to
the " Division of Organised Beings into Animals and
Vegetables," in which the question is treated with that
comprehensiveness of knowledge and clear critical
judgment which characterise his writings, and justify
us in regarding them as representative expressions of
the most extensive, if not the profoundest, knowledge
of his time. He tells us that living beings have
been subdivided from the earliest times into animated
beings, which possess sense and motion, and inani-
mated beings, which are devoid of these functions,
and simply vegetate.
Although the roots of plants direct themselves to-
150 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
wards moisture, and their leaves towards air and
light, although the parts of some plants exhibit
oscillating movements without any perceptible cause,
and the leaves of others retract when touched, yet
none of these movements justify the ascription to
plants of perception or of will. From the mobility of
animals, Cuvier, with his characteristic partiality for
teleological reasoning, deduces the necessity of the
existence in them of an alimentary cavity, or reservoir
of food, whence their nutrition may be drawn by the
vessels, which are a sort of internal roots ; and, in
the presence of this alimentary cavity, he naturally
sees the primary and the most important distinction
between animals and plants.
Following out his teleological argument, Cuvier
remarks that the organisation of this cavity and its
appurtenances must needs vary according to the nature
of the aliment, and the operations which it has to
undergo, before it can be converted into substances
fitted for absorption; while the atmosphere and the
earth supply plants with juices ready prepared, and
which can be absorbed immediately. As the animal
body required to be independent of heat and of the
atmosphere, there were no means by which the motion
of its fluids could be produced by internal causes.
Hence arose the second great distinctive character of
animals, or the circulatory system, which is less im-
portant than the digestive, since it was unnecessary,
and therefore is absent, in the more simple animals.
Animals further needed muscles for locomotion
and nerves for sensibility. Hence, says Cuvier, it
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 151
was necessary that the chemical composition of the .
animal body should be more complicated than that of
the plant ; and it is so, inasmuch as an additional
substance, nitrogen, enters into it as an essential
element ; while, in plants, nitrogen is only accidentally
joined with the three other fundamental constituents
of organic beings carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
Indeed, he afterwards affirms that nitrogen is peculiar
to animals ; and herein he places the third distinction
between the animal and the plant. The soil and the
atmosphere supply plants with water, composed of
hydrogen and oxygen ; air, consisting of nitrogen and
oxygen; and carbonic acid, containing carbon and
oxygen. They retain the hydrogen and the carbon,
exhale the superfluous oxygen, and absorb little or
no nitrogen. The essential character of vegetable
life is the exhalation of oxygen, which is effected
through the agency of light. Animals, on the con-
trary, derive their nourishment either directly or
indirectly from plants. They get rid of the super-
fluous hydrogen and carbon, and accumulate nitrogen.
The relations of plants and animals to the atmo-
sphere are therefore inverse. The plant withdraws
water and carbonic acid from the atmosphere, the
animal contributes both to it. Kespiration that is,
the absorption of oxygen and the exhalation of car-
bonic acid is the specially animal function of
animals, and constitutes their fourth distinctive
character.
Thus wrote Cuvier in 1828. But, in the fourth
and fifth decades of this century, the greatest and
152 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LEOT.
most rapid revolution which biological science has
ever undergone was effected by the application of the
modern microscope to the investigation of organic
structure ; by the introduction of exact and easily
manageable methods of conducting the chemical
analysis of organic compounds ; and finally, by the
employment of instruments of precision for the mea-
surement of the physical forces which are at work in
the living economy.
That the semi-fluid contents (which we now term
protoplasm) of the cells of certain plants, such as the
Cliarce, are in constant and regular motion, was made
out by Bonaventura Corti a century ago ; but the fact,
important as it was, fell into oblivion, and had to be
rediscovered by Treviranus in 1807. Kobert Brown
noted the more complex motions of the protoplasm in
the cells of Tradescantia in 1831 ; and now such
movements of the living substance of plants are well
known to be some of the most widely-prevalent pheno-
mena of vegetable life.
Agardh, and other of the botanists of Cuvier's
generation, who occupied themselves with the lower
plants, had observed that, under particular circum-
stances, the contents of the cells of certain water-weeds
were set free, and moved about with considerable
velocity, and with all the appearances of spontaneity,
as locomotive bodies, which, from their similarity to
animals of simple organisation, were called " zoo-
spores." Even as late as 1845, however, a botanist of
Schleiden's eminence dealt very sceptically with these
statements ; and his scepticism was the more justified,
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 153
since Ehrenberg, in his elaborate and comprehensive
work on the Infusoria, had declared the greater num-
ber of what are now recognised as locomotive plants
to be animals.
At the present day, innumerable plants and free
plant cells are known to pass the whole or part of
their lives in an actively locomotive condition, in no
wise distinguishable from that of one of the simpler
animals ; and, while in this condition, their move-
ments are, to all appearance, as spontaneous as
much the product of volition as those of such
animals.
Hence the teleological argument for Cuvier's first
diagnostic character the presence in animals of an
alimentary cavity, or internal pocket, in which they
can carry about their nutriment has broken down,
so far, at least, as his mode of stating it goes. And,
with the advance of microscopic anatomy, the univer-
sality of the fact itself among animals has ceased to
be predicable. Many animals of even complex struc-
ture, which live parasitically within others, are wholly
devoid of an alimentary cavity. Their food is pro-
vided for them, not only ready cooked, but ready
digested, and the alimentary canal, become super-
fluous, has disappeared. Again, the males of most
Eotifers have no digestive apparatus; as a German
naturalist has remarked, they devote themselves en-
tirely to the " Minnedienst," and are to be reckoned
among the few realisations of the Byronic ideal of a
lover. Finally, amidst the lowest forms of animal life,
the speck of gelatinous protoplasm, which constitutes
154 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
the whole body, has no permanent digestive cavity or
mouth, but takes in its food anywhere ; and digests,
so to speak, all over its body.
But although Cuvier's leading diagnosis of the
animal from the plant will not stand a strict test, it
remains one of the most constant of the distinctive
characters of animals. And, if we substitute for the
possession of an alimentary cavity, the power of tak-
ing solid nutriment into the body and there digesting
it, the definition so changed will cover all animals,
except certain parasites, and the few and exceptional
cases of non-parasitic animals which do not feed at
all. On the other hand, the definition thus amended
will exclude all ordinary vegetable organisms.
Cuvier himself practically gives up his second
distinctive mark when he admits that it is wanting in
the simpler animals.
The third distinction is based on a completely
erroneous conception of the chemical differences and
resemblances between the constituents of animal and
vegetable organisms, for which Cuvier is not re-
sponsible, as it was current among contemporary
chemists. It is now established that nitrogen is as
essential a constituent of vegetable as of animal living
matter ; and that the latter is, chemically speaking,
just as complicated as the former. Starchy substances,
cellulose and sugar, once supposed to be exclusively
confined to plants, are now known to be regular and
normal products of animals. Amylaceous and saccha-
rine substances are largely manufactured, even by
the highest animals ; cellulose is widespread as a con-
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 155
stituent of the skeletons of the lower animals ; and it
is probable that amyloid substances are universally
present in the animal organism, though not in the
precise form of starch.
Moreover, although it remains true that there is
an inverse relation between the green plant in sun-
shine and the animal, in so far as, under these circum-
stances, the green plant decomposes carbonic acid and
exhales oxygen, while the animal absorbs oxygen and
exhales carbonic acid ; yet, the exact researches of
the modern chemical investigators of the physiological
processes of plants have clearly demonstrated the
fallacy of attempting to draw any general distinction
between animals and vegetables on this ground. In
fact, the difference vanishes with the sunshine, even in
the case of the green plant ; which, in the dark,
absorbs oxygen and gives out carbonic acid like any
animal. 1 On the other hand, those plants, such as the
fungi, which contain no chlorophyll and are not green,
are always, so far as respiration is concerned, in the
exact position of animals. They absorb oxygen and
give out carbonic acid.
Thus, by the progress of knowledge, Cuvier's
fourth distinction between the animal and the plant
has been as completely invalidated as the third and
1 There is every reason to believe that living plants, like living
animals, always respire, and, in respiring, absorb oxygen and give off
carbonic acid ; but, that in green plants exposed to daylight or to the
electric light, the quantity of oxygen evolved in consequence of the
decomposition of carbonic acid by a special apparatus which green
plants possess exceeds that absorbed in the concurrent respiratory
process.
156 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
second ; and even the first can be retained only in a
modified form and subject to exceptions.
But has the advance of biology simply tended to
break down old distinctions, without establishing new
ones ?
With a qualification, to be considered presently, the
answer to this question is undoubtedly in the affirma-
tive. The famous researches of Schwann and Schlei-
den in 1837 and the following years, founded the
modern science of histology, or that branch of anatomy
which deals with the ultimate visible structure of
organisms, as revealed by the microscope ; and, from
that day to this, the rapid improvement of methods of
investigation, and the energy of a host of accurate
observers, have given greater and greater breadth and
firmness to Schwann's great generalisation, that a
fundamental unity of structure obtains in animals and
plants ; and that, however diverse may be the fabrics,
or tissues, of which their bodies are composed, all
these varied structures result from the metamorphosis
of morphological units (termed cells, in a more general
sense than that in which the word " cells " was at first
employed), which are not only similar in animals and
in plants respectively, but present a close resemblance,
when those of animals and those of plants are com-
pared together.
The contractility which is the fundamental con-
dition of locomotion, has not only been discovered to
exist far more widely among plants than was formerly
imagined ; but, in plants, the act of contraction has
been found to be accompanied, as Dr. Burdon Sander-
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 157
son's interesting investigations have shown, by a
disturbance of the electrical state of the contractile
substance, comparable to that which was found by Du
Bois Eeymond to be a concomitant of the activity of
ordinary muscle in animals.
Again, I know of no test by which the reaction
of the leaves of the Sundew and of other plants to
stimuli, so fully and carefully studied by Mr. Darwin,
can be distinguished from those acts of contraction
following upon stimuli, which are called " reflex " in
animals.
On each lobe of the bilobed leaf of Venus's fly trap
(Dioncea muscipula) are three delicate filaments which
stand out at right angle from the surface of the leaf.
Touch one of them with the end of a fine human hair
and the lobes of the leaf instantly close together * in
virtue of an act of contraction of part of their sub-
stance, just as the body of a snail contracts into its
shell when one of its " horns " is irritated.
The reflex action of the snail is the result of the
presence of a nervous system in the animal. A mole-
cular change takes place in the nerve of the tentacle,
is propagated to the muscles by which the body is
retracted, and causing them to contract, the act of
retraction is brought about. Of course the similarity
of the acts does not necessarily involve the conclusion
that the mechanism by which they are effected is the
same ; but it suggests a suspicion of their identity
which needs careful testing.
The results of recent inquiries into the structure of
1 Darwin, " Insectivorous Plants," p. 289,
158 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LEOT.
the nervous system of animals converge towards the
conclusion that the nerve fibres, which we have
hitherto regarded as ultimate elements of nervous
tissue, are not such, but are simply the visible aggrega-
tions of vastly more attenuated filaments, the diameter
of which dwindles down to the limits of our present
microscopic vision, greatly as these have been ex-
tended by modern improvements of the microscope ; and
that a nerve is, in its essence, nothing but a linear
tract of specially modified protoplasm between two
points of an organism one of which is able to affect
the other by means of the communication so estab-
lished. Hence, it is conceivable that even the simplest
living being may possess a nervous system. And the
question whether plants are provided with a nervous
system or not, thus acquires a new aspect, and
presents the histologist and physiologist with a
problem of extreme difficulty, which must be attacked
from a new point of view and by the aid of methods
which have yet to be invented.
Thus it must be admitted that plants may be
contractile and locomotive ; that, while locomotive,
their movements may have as much appearance of
spontaneity as those of the lowest animals ; and that
many exhibit actions, comparable to those which are
brought about by the agency of a nervous system in
animals. And it must be allowed to be possible that
further research may reveal the existence of something
comparable to a nervous system in plants. So that I
know not where we can hope to find any absolute
distinction between animals and plants, unless we
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 159
return to their mode of nutrition, and inquire whether
certain differences of a more occult character than
those imagined to exist by Cuvier, and which certainly
hold good for the vast majority of animals and plants,
are of universal application.
A bean may be supplied with water in which salts of
ammonia and certain other mineral salts are dissolved
in due proportion ; with atmospheric air containing its
ordinary minute dose of carbonic acid; and with
nothing else but sunlight and heat. Under these
circumstances, unnatural as they are, with proper
management, the bean will thrust forth its radicle
and its plumule ; the former will grow down into
roots, the latter grow up into the stem and leaves of
a vigorous bean plant ; and this plant will, in due
time, flower and produce its crop of beans, just as if it
were grown in the garden or in the field.
The weight of the nitrogenous protein compounds,
of the oily, starchy, saccharine and woody substances
contained in the full-grown plant and its seeds, will
be vastly greater than the weight of the same sub-
stances contained in the bean from which it sprang.
But nothing has been supplied to the bean save water,
carbonic acid, ammonia, potash, lime, iron, and the like,
in combination with phosphoric, sulphuric, and other
acids. Neither protein, nor fat, nor starch, nor sugar,
nor any substance in the slightest degree resembling
them, has formed part of the food of the bean. But
the weights of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
phosphorus, sulphur, and other elementary bodies
contained in the bean -plant, and in the seeds which
160 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
it produces, are exactly equivalent to the weights of
the same elements which have disappeared from the
materials supplied to the bean during its growth.
Whence it follows that the bean has taken in only the
raw materials of its fabric, and has manufactured them
into bean stuffs.
The bean has been able to perform this great
chemical feat by the help of its green colouring matter,
or chlorophyll ; for it is only the green parts of the
plant which, under the influence of sunlight, have
the marvellous power of decomposing carbonic acid,
setting free the oxygen and laying hold of the carbon
which it contains. In fact, the bean obtains two of the
absolutely indispensable elements of its substance from
two distinct sources ; the watery solution, in which
its roots are plunged, contains nitrogen but no carbon ;
the air, to which the leaves are exposed, contains
carbon, but its nitrogen is in the state of a free gas,
in which condition the bean can make no use of it; 1
and the chlorophyll 2 is the apparatus by which the
carbon is extracted from the atmospheric carbonic
acid the leaves being the chief laboratories in which
this operation is effected.
The great majority of conspicuous plants are, as
everybody knows, green ; and this arises from the
1 I purposely assume that the air with which the bean is supplied
in the case stated contains no ammoniacal salts.
2 The recent researches of Pringsheim have raised a host of ques-
tions as to the exact share taken by chlorophyll in the chemical opera-
tions which are effected by the green parts of plants. It may be that
the chlorophyll is only a constant concomitant of the actual deoxidising
apparatus.
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 161
abundance of their chlorophyll. The few which
contain no chlorophyll and are colourless, are unable
to extract the carbon which they require from atmo-
spheric carbonic acid, and lead a parasitic existence
upon other plants ; but it by no means follows, often
as the statement has been repeated, that the manu-
facturing power of plants depends on their chlorophyll,
and its interaction with the rays of the sun. On the
contrary, it is easily demonstrated, as Pasteur first
proved, that the lowest fungi, devoid of chlorophyll,
or of any substitute for it, as they are, nevertheless
possess the characteristic manufacturing powers of
plants in a very high degree. Only it is necessary
that hey should be supplied with a different kind of
raw material ; as they cannot extract carbon from
carbonic acid, they must be furnished with something
else that contains carbon. Tartaric acid is such a
substance ; and if a single spore of the commonest and
most troublesome of moulds Penicillium be sown
in a saucerful of water, in which tartrate of ammonia,
with a small percentage of phosphates and sulphates
is contained, and kept warm, whether in the dark or
exposed to light, it will, in a short time, give rise to a
thick crust of mould, which contains many million
times the weight of the original spore, in protein
compounds and cellulose. Thus we have a very wide
basis of fact for the generalisation that plants are
essentially characterised by their manufacturing capa-
city by their power of working up mere mineral
matters into complex organic compounds.
Contrariwise, there is a no less wide foundation
162 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
for the generalisation that animals, as Cuvier puts it,
depend directly or indirectly upon plants for the
materials of -their bodies ; that is, either they are
herbivorous, or they eat other animals which are
herbivorous.
But for what constituents of their bodies are
animals thus dependent upon plants ? Certainly not
for their horny matter ; nor for chondrin, the proxi-
mate chemical element of cartilage ; nor for gelatine ;
nor for syntonin, the constituent of. muscle; nor for
their nervous or biliary substances ; nor for their
amyloid matters ; nor, necessarily, for their fats.
It can be experimentally demonstrated that
animals can make these for themselves. But that
which they cannot make, but must, in all known
cases, obtain directly or indirectly from plants, is the
peculiar nitrogenous matter, protein. Thus the plant
is the ideal proUtaire of the living world, the worker
who produces ; the animal, the ideal aristocrat, who
mostly occupies himself in consuming, after the manner
of that noble representative of the line of Zahdarm,
whose epitaph is written in Sartor Resartus.
Here is our last hope of finding a sharp line of de-
marcation between plants and animals ; for, as I have
already hinted, there is a border territory between the
two kingdoms, a sort of no-man's-land, the inhabitants
of which certainly cannot be discriminated and brought
to their proper allegiance in any other way.
Some months ago, Professor Tyndall asked me to
examine a drop of infusion of hay, placed under an
excellent and powerful microscope, and to tell him
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 163
what I thought some organisms visible in it were. I
looked and observed, in the first place, multitudes of
Bacteria moving about with their ordinary intermit-
tent spasmodic wriggles. As to the vegetable nature
of these there is now no doubt. Not only does the
close resemblance of the Bacteria to unquestionable
plants, such as the Oscillatorice, and lower forms of
Fungi, justify this conclusion, but the manufacturing
test settles the question at once. It is only needful
to add a minute drop of fluid containing Bacteria, to
water in which tartrate, phosphate, and sulphate of
ammonia are dissolved ; and, in a very short space of
time, the clear fluid becomes milky by reason of their
prodigious multiplication, which, of course, implies the
manufacture of living Bacterium-stuff out of these
merely saline matters.
But other active organisms, very much larger than
the Bacteria, attaining in fact the comparatively
gigantic dimensions of 30 1 00 of an inch or more, in-
cessantly crossed the field of view. Each of these had
a body shaped like a pear, the small end being slightly
incurved and produced into a long curved filament, or
cilium, of extreme tenuity. Behind this, from the
concave side of the incurvation, proceeded another
long cilium, so delicate as to be discernible only by
the use of the highest powers and careful management
of the light. In the centre of the pear-shaped body a
clear round space could occasionally be discerned, but
not always ; and careful watching showed that this
clear vacuity appeared gradually, and then shut up
and disappeared suddenly, at regular intervals. Such
164 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
a structure is of common occurrence among the lowest
plants and animals, and is known as a contractile
vacuole.
The little creature thus described sometimes pro-
pelled itself with great activity, with a curious rolling
motion, by the lashing of the front cilium, while the
second cilium trailed behind ; sometimes it anchored
itself by the hinder cilium and was spun round by the
working of the other, its motions resembling those of
an anchor buoy in a heavy sea. Sometimes, when two
were in full career towards one another, each would
appear dexterously to get out of the other's way ;
sometimes a crowd would assemble and jostle one
another, with as much semblance of individual effort
as a spectator on the Grands Mulets might observe
with a telescope among the specks representing men
in the valley of Chamounix.
The spectacle, though always surprising, was not
new to me. So my reply to the question put to me
was, that these organisms were what biologists call
Monads, and though they might be animals, it was
also possible that they might, like the Bacteria, be
plants. My friend received my verdict with an
expression which showed a sad want of respect for
authority. He would as soon believe that a sheep was
a plant. Naturally piqued by this want of faith, I
have thought a good deal over the matter ; and as I
still rest in the lame conclusion I originally expressed,
and must even now confess that I cannot certainly say
whether this creature is an animal or a plant, I think
it may be well to state the grounds of my hesitation
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 165
at length. But, in the first place, in order that I may
conveniently distinguish this " Monad " from the
multitude of other things which go by the same
designation, I must give it a name of its own. I
think (though, for reasons which need not be stated at
present, I am not quite sure) that it is identical with
the species Monas lens, as defined by the eminent
French microscopist Dujardin, though his magnifying
power was probably insufficient to enable him to see
that it is curiously like a much larger form of monad
which he has named Heteromita. I shall, therefore,
call it not Monas, but Heteromita lens.
I have been unable to devote to my Heteromita
the prolonged study needful to work out its whole
history, which would involve weeks, or it may be
months, of unremitting attention. But I the less re-
gret this circumstance, as some remarkable observa-
tions recently published by Messrs. Dallinger and
Drysdale 1 on certain Monads, relate, in part, to a form
so similar to my Heteromita lens, that the history of
the one may be used to illustrate that of the other.
These most patient and painstaking observers, who
employed the highest attainable powers of the micro-
scope and, relieving one another, kept watch day and
night over the same individual monads, have been
enabled to trace out the whole history of their Heter-
omita ; which they found in infusions of the heads of
fishes of the Cod tribe.
1 " Researches in the Life -history of a Cercomonad : a Lesson in
Biogenesis ;" and " Further Researches in the Life -history of the
Monads." "Monthly Microscopical Journal," 1873.
166 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
Of the four monads described and figured by these
investigators, one, as I have said, very closely
resembles Heteromita lens in every particular, except
that it has a separately distinguishable central particle
or " nucleus," which is not certainly to be made out
in Heteromita lens; and that nothing is said by
Messrs. Dallinger and Drysdale of the existence of a
contractile vacuole in this monad, though they
describe it in another.
Their Heteromita, however, multiplied rapidly by
fission. Sometimes a transverse constriction ap-
peared ; the hinder half developed a new cilium, and
the hinder cilium gradually split from its base to its
free end, until it was divided into two ; a process
which, considering the fact that this fine filament
cannot be much more than xrmTJcJt) f an i ncn * n
diameter, is wonderful enough. The constriction of
the body extended inwards until the two portions
were united by a narrow isthmus ; finally, they separ-
ated and each swam away by itself, a complete Heter-
omita, provided with its two cilia. Sometimes the
constriction took a longitudinal direction, with the
same ultimate result. In each case the process occu-
pied not more than six or seven minutes. At this
rate, a single Heteromita would give rise to a
thousand like itself in the course of an hour, to about
a million in two hours, and to a number greater than
the generally assumed number of human beings now
living in the world in three hours ; or, if we give each
Heteromita an hour's enjoyment of individual exist-
ence, the same result will be obtained in about a day.
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 167
The apparent suddenness of the appearance of multi-
tudes of such organisms as these, in any nutritive fluid
to which one obtains access, is thus easily explained.
During these processes of multiplication by fission,
the Heteromita remains active ; but sometimes another
mode of fission occurs. The body becomes rounded
and quiescent, or nearly so ; and, while in this resting
state, divides into two portions, each of which is
rapidly converted into an active Heteromita.
A still more remarkable phenomenon is that kind
of multiplication which is preceded by the union of
two monads, by a process which is termed conjuga-
tion. Two active Heteromitce become applied to one
another, and then slowly and gradually coalesce into
one body. The two nuclei run into one ; and the
mass resulting from the conjugation of the two
Heteromitce, thus fused together, has a triangular
form. The two pairs of cilia are to be seen, for some
time, at two of the angles, which answer to the small
ends of the conjoined monads ; but they ultimately
vanish, and the twin organism, in which all visible
traces of organisation have disappeared, falls into a
state of rest. Sudden wave -like movements of its
substance next occur ; and, in a short time, the
apices of the triangular mass burst, and give exit to a
dense yellowish, glairy fluid, filled with minute gran-
ules. This process, which, it will be observed,
involves the actual confluence and mixture of the
substance of two distinct organisms, is effected in the
space of about two hours.
The authors whom I quote say that they "cannot
168 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LBCT.
express " the excessive minuteness of the granules in
question, and they estimate their diameter at less
than YTJCMXX) ^ an inch. Under the highest powers
of the microscope at present applicable such specks
are hardly discernible. Nevertheless, particles of this
size are massive when compared to physical molecules;
whence there is no reason to doubt that each, small as
it is, may have a molecular structure sufficiently com-
plex to give rise to the phenomena of life. And, as a
matter of fact, by patient watching of the place at
which these infinitesimal living particles were dis-
charged, our observers assured themselves of their
growth and development into new monads. These,
in about four hours from their being set free, had
attained a sixth of the length of the parent, with the
characteristic cilia, though at first they were quite
motionless ; and, in four hours more, they had attained
the dimensions and exhibited all the activity of the
adult. These inconceivably minute particles are
therefore the germs of the Heteromita ; and from the
dimensions of these germs it is easily shown that the
body formed by conjugation may, at a low estimate,
have given exit to thirty thousand of them ; a result
of a matrimonial process whereby the contracting
parties, without a metaphor, " become one flesh,"
enough to make a Malthusian despair of the future of
the Universe.
I am not aware that the investigators from whom
I have borrowed this history have endeavoured to
ascertain whether their monads take solid nutriment
or not ; so that though they help us very much to
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 169
fill up the blanks in the history of my Heteromita,
their observations throw no light on the problem we
are trying to solve Is it an animal or is it a plant ?
Undoubtedly it is possible to bring forward very
strong arguments in favour of regarding Heteromita
as a plant.
For example, there is a Fungus, an obscure and
almost microscopic mould, termed Peronospora in-
festans. Like many other Fungi, the Peronosporce
are parasitic upon other plants; and this particular
Peronospora happens to have attained much notoriety
and political importance, in a way not without a
parallel in the career of notorious politicians, namely,
by reason of the frightful mischief it has done to
mankind. For it is this Fungus which is the cause
of the potato disease ; and, therefore, Peronospora
infestans (doubtless of exclusively Saxon origin,
though not accurately known to be so) brought about
the Irish famine. The plants afflicted with the
malady are found to be infested by a mould, consist-
ing of fine tubular filaments, termed hyphce, which
burrow through the substance of the potato plant,
and appropriate to themselves the substance of their
host ; while, at the same time, directly or indirectly,
they set up chemical changes by which even its
woody framework becomes blackened, sodden, and
withered.
In structure, however, the Peronospora is as much
a mould as the common Penicillium; and just as the
Penicillium multiplies by the breaking up of its hyphae
into separate rounded bodies, the spores; so, in the
170 ANIMALS AND PLANTS.
Peronospora, certain of the hyphae grow out into the
air through the interstices of the superficial cells of
the potato plant, and develop spores. Each of these
hyphge usually gives off several branches. The ends
of the branches dilate and become closed sacs, which
eventually drop off as spores. The spores falling on
some part of the same potato plant, or carried by the
wind to another, may at once germinate, throwing
out tubular prolongations which become hyphse, and
burrow into the substance of the plant attacked.
But, more commonly, the contents of the spore divide
into six or eight separate portions. The coat of the
spore gives way, and each portion then emerges as an
independent organism, which has the shape of a bean,
rather narrower at one end than the other, convex on
one side, and depressed or concave on the opposite.
From the depression, two long and delicate cilia pro-
ceed, one shorter than the other, and directed forwards.
Close to the origin of these cilia, in the substance of
the body, is a regularly pulsating, contractile vacuole.
The shorter cilium vibrates actively, and effects the
locomotion of the organism, while the other trails
behind ; the whole body rolling on its axis with its
pointed end forwards.
The eminent botanist, De Bary, who was not
thinking of our problem, tells us, in describing the
movements of these " Zoospores," that, as they swim
about, " Foreign bodies are carefully avoided, and the
whole movement has a deceptive likeness to the
voluntary changes of place which are observed in
microscopic animals."
VIL] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 171
After swarming about in this way in the moisture
on the surface of a leaf or stem (which, film though
it may be, is an ocean to such a fish) for half an hour,
more or less, the movement of the zoospore becomes
slower, and is limited to a slow turning upon its
axis, without change of place. It then becomes quite
quiet, the cilia disappear, it assumes a spherical form,
and surrounds itself with a distinct, though delicate,
membranous coat. A protuberance then grows out
from one side of the sphere, and rapidly increasing
in length, assumes the character of a hypha. The
latter penetrates into the substance of the potato
plant, either by entering a stomate, or by boring
through the wall of an epidermic cell, and ramifies, as
a mycelium, in the substance of the plant, destroying
the tissues with which it comes in contact. As these
processes of multiplication take place very rapidly,
millions of spores are soon set free from a single
infested plant ; and, from their minuteness, they are
readily transported by the gentlest breeze. Since,
again, the zoospores set free from each spore, in virtue
of their powers of locomotion, swiftly disperse them-
selves over the surface, it is no wonder that the infec-
tion, once started, soon spreads from field to field, and
extends its ravages over a whole country.
However, it does not enter into my present plan
to treat of the potato disease, instructively as its
history bears upon that of other epidemics; and I have
selected the case of the Peronospora simply because
it affords an example of an organism, which, in one
stage of its existence, is truly a " Monad," indistin-
172 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
guishable by any important character from our Hetero-
mita, and extraordinarily like it in some respects.
And yet this " Monad " can be traced, step by step,
through the series of metamorphoses which I have
described, until it assumes the features of an organism,
which is as much a plant as is an oak or an elm.
Moreover, it would be possible to pursue the
analogy farther. Under certain circumstances, a pro-
cess of conjugation takes place in the Peronospora.
Two separate portions of its protoplasm become fused
together, surround themselves with a thick coat, and
give rise to a sort of vegetable egg called an oospore.
After a period of rest, the contents of the oospore
break up into a number of zoospores like those
already described, each of which, after a period of
activity, germinates in the ordinary way. This process
obviously corresponds with the conjugation and sub-
sequent setting free of germs in the Heteromita.
But it may be said that the Peronospora is, after
all, a questionable sort of plant ; that it seems to be
wanting in the manufacturing power, selected as the
main distinctive character of vegetable life ; or, at
any rate, that there is no proof that it does not get
its protein matter ready made from the potato plant.
Let us, therefore, take a case which is not open to
these objections.
There are some small plants known to botanists
as members of the genus Coleochcete, which, without
being truly parasitic, grow upon certain water-weeds,
as lichens grow upon trees. The little plant has the
form of an elegant green star, the branching arms of
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 173
which are divided into cells. Its greenness is due to
its chlorophyll, and it undoubtedly has the manufac-
turing power in full degree, decomposing carbonic
acid and setting oxygen free, under the influence of
sunlight. But the protoplasmic contents of some of the
cells of which the plant is made up occasionally divide,
by a method similar to that which effects the division
of the contents of the Peronospora spore; and the
severed portions are then set free as active monad-like
zoospores. Each is oval and is provided at one
extremity with two long active cilia. Propelled by
these, it swims about for a longer or shorter time, but
at length comes to a state of rest and gradually grows
into a Coleochcete. Moreover, as in the Peronospora,
conjugation may take place and result in an oospore ;
the contents of which divide and are set free as
monadiform germs.
If the whole history of the zoospores of Perono-
spora and of Coleochcete were unknown, they would
undoubtedly be classed among " Monads " with the
same right as Heteromita ; why then may not
Heteromita be a plant, even though the cycle of
forms through which it passes shows no terms quite
so complex as those which occur in Peronospora and
Coleochcete ? And, in fact, there are some green
organisms, in every respect characteristically plants,
such as Chlamydomonas, and the common Volvox, or
so-called " Globe animalcule," which run through a
cycle of forms of just the same simple character as
those of Heteromita.
The name of Chlamydomonas is applied to certain
174 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
microscopic green bodies, each of which consists of a
protoplasmic central substance invested by a struc-
tureless sac. The latter contains cellulose, as in ordi-
nary plants ; and the chlorophyll which gives the green
colour enables the Chlamydomonas to decompose car-
bonic acid and fix carbon as they do. Two long cilia
protrude through the cell-wall, and effect the rapid
locomotion of this "monad," which, in all respects
except its mobility, is characteristically a plant.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Chlamydomonas
multiplies by simple fission, each splitting into two or
into four parts, which separate and become independent
organisms. Sometimes, however, the Chlamydomonas
divides into eight parts, each of which is provided
with four instead of two cilia, These " zoospores "
conjugate in pairs, and give rise to quiescent bodies,
which multiply by division, and eventually pass into
the active state.
Thus, so far as outward form and the general
character of the cycle of modifications, through which
the organism passes in the course of its life, are con-
cerned, the resemblance between Chlamydomonas and
Heteromita is of the closest description. And on the
face of the matter there is no ground for refusing to
admit that Heteromita may be related to Chlamydo-
monas, as the colourless fungus is to the green alga.
Volvox may be compared to a hollow sphere, the
wall of which is made up of coherent Chlamydo-
monads ; and which progresses with a rotating motion
effected by the paddling of the multitudinous pairs of
cilia which project from its surface. Each Volvox-
VII. ] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 175
monad, moreover, possesses a red pigment spot, like
the simplest form of eye known among animals.
The methods of fissive multiplication and of con-
jugation observed in the monads of this locomotive
globe are essentially similar to those 'observed in
Chlamydomonas ; and, though a hard battle has been
fought over it, Volvox is now finally surrendered to
the Botanists.
Thus there is really no reason why Heteromita
may not be a plant ; and this conclusion would be
very satisfactory, if it were not equally easy to show
that there is really no reason why it should not be an
animal. For there are numerous organisms presenting
the closest resemblance to Heteromita, and, like it,
grouped under the general name of " Monads/' which,
nevertheless, can be observed to take in solid nutri-
ment, and which, therefore, have a virtual, if not an
actual, mouth and digestive cavity, and thus come
under Cuvier's definition of an animal. Numerous
forms of such animals have been described by Ehren-
berg, Dujardin, H. James Clark, and other writers on
the Infusoria. Indeed, in another infusion of hay
in which my Heteromita lens occurred, there were
innumerable infusorial animalcules belonging to the
well-known species Colpoda cucullus. 1
Full-sized specimens of this animalcule attain a
length of between ^^ or ^^ of an inch, so that it
may have ten times the length and a thousand times
the mass of a Heteromita. In shape, it is not alto-
1 Excellently described by Stein, almost all of whose statements I
have verified.
176 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
gether unlike Heteromita. The small end, however,
is not produced into one long cilium, but the general
surface of the body is covered with small actively
vibrating ciliary organs, which are only longest at the
small end. At the point which answers to that from
which the two cilia arise in Heteromita, there is a
conical depression, the mouth ; and, in young speci-
mens, a tapering filament, which reminds one of the
posterior cilium of Heteromita) projects from this
region.
The body consists of a soft granular protoplasmic
substance, the middle of which is occupied by a large
oval mass called the " nucleus ;" while, at its hinder
end, is "a " contractile vacuole," conspicuous by its
regular rhythmic appearances and disappearances.
Obviously, although the Colpoda is not a monad, it
differs from one only in subordinate details. More-
over, under certain conditions, it becomes quiescent,
incloses itself in a delicate case or cyst, and then divides
into two, four, or more portions, which are eventually
set free and swim about as active Colpodce.
But this creature is an unmistakable animal, and
full-sized Colpodce may be fed as easily as one feeds
chickens. It is only needful to diffuse very finely
ground carmine through the water in which they live,
and, in a very short time, the bodies of the Colpodce
are stuffed with the deeply-coloured granules of the
pigment.
And if this were not sufficient evidence of the
animality of Colpoda, there comes the fact that it is
even more similar to another well-known animalcule,
VII.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 177
Paramcecium, than it is to a monad. But Paramce-
cium is so huge a creature compared with those
hitherto discussed it reaches -j^j of an inch or more
in length that there is no difficulty in making out
its organisation in detail ; and in proving that it is
not only an animal, but that it is an animal which
possesses a somewhat complicated organisation. For
example, the surface layer of its body is different in
structure from the deeper parts. There are two con-
tractile vacuoles, from each of which radiates a system
of vessel-like canals ; and not only is there a conical
depression continuous with a tube, which serve as
mouth and gullet, but the food ingested takes a
definite course, and refuse is rejected from a definite
region. Nothing is easier than to feed these animals,
and to watch the particles of indigo or carmine accu-
mulate at the lower end of the gullet. From this
they gradually project, surrounded by a ball of water,
which at length passes with a jerk, oddly simulating
a gulp, into the pulpy central substance of the body,
there to circulate up one side and down the other,
until its contents are digested and assimilated. Never-
theless, this complex animal multiplies by division, as
the monad 'does, and, like the monad, undergoes con-
jugation. It stands in the same relation to Hetero-
mita on the animal side, as Coleochcete does on the
plant side. Start from either, and such an insensible
series of gradations leads to the monad that it is
impossible to say at any stage of the progress here
the line between the animal and the plant must be
drawn.
N
178 ANIMALS AND PLANTS. [LECT.
There is reason to think that certain organisms
which pass through a monad stage of existence, such
as the Myxomycetes, are, at one time of their lives,
dependent upon external sources for their protein
matter, or are animals ; and, at another period, manu-
facture it, or are plants. And seeing that the whole
progress of modern investigation is in favour of the
doctrine of continuity, it is a fair and probable
speculation though only a speculation that, as
there are some plants which can manufacture protein
out of such apparently intractable mineral matters as
carbonic acid, water, nitrate of ammonia, metallic and
earthy salts ; while others need to be supplied with
their carbon and nitrogen in the somewhat less raw
form of tartrate of ammonia and allied compounds ;
so there may be yet others, as is possibly the case with
the true parasitic plants, which can only manage to
put together materials still better prepared still more
nearly approximated to protein until we arrive at
such organisms as the Psorospermice and the Pan-
histophyton, which are as much animal as vegetable
in structure, but are animal in their dependence on
other organisms for their food.
The singular circumstance observed by Meyer,
that the Torula of yeast, though an indubitable
plant, still flourishes most vigorously when supplied
with the complex nitrogenous substance, pepsin ; the
probability that the Peronospora is nourished directly
by the protoplasm of the potato-plant ; and the won-
derful facts which have recently been brought to light
respecting insectivorous plants, all favour this view ;
VH.] ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 179
and tend to the conclusion that the difference between
animal and plant is one of degree rather than of kind ;
and that the problem whether, in a given case, an
organism is an animal or a plant, may be essentially
insoluble.
180 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT.
VIII.
ON CERTAIN ERRORS RESPECTING THE
STRUCTURE OF THE HEART ATTRI-
BUTED TO ARISTOTLE.
IN all the commentaries upon the " Historia Ani-
malium " which I have met with, Aristotle's express
and repeated statement, that the heart of man and
the largest animals contains only three cavities, is
noted as a remarkable error. Even Cuvier, who had
a great advantage over most of the commentators in
his familiarity with the subject of Aristotle's descrip-
tion, and whose habitual caution and moderation
seem to desert him when the opportunity of pane-
gyrising the philosopher presents itself, is betrayed
into something like a sneer on this topic.
" Du reste il n'attribue a cet organe que trois cavity's, erreur
qui prouve au moins qu'il en avait regard^ la structure." 1
To which remark, what follows will, I think,
justify the reply, that it " prouve au moins " that
Cuvier had not given ordinary attention, to say
nothing of the careful study which they deserve, to
sundry passages in the first and the third books of the
" Historia " which I proceed to lay before the reader.
: "Histoire des Sciences Naturelles," i. p. 152.
VIII.] ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 181
For convenience of reference these passages are
marked A, B, C, etc. 1
Book i. 17. (A) "The heart has three cavities, it lies above
the lung on the division of the windpipe, and has a fatty and
thick membrane where it is united with the great vein and the
aorta. It lies upon the aorta, with its point down the chest, in
all animals that have a chest. In all, alike in those that have a
chest and in those that have none, the foremost part of it is the
apex. This is often overlooked through the turning upside down
of the dissection. The rounded end of the heart is uppermost,
the pointed end of it is largely fleshy and thick, and in its
cavities there are tendons. In other animals which have a chest
the heart lies in the middle of the chest ; in men, more to the
left side, between the nipples, a little inclined to the left nipple
in the upper part of the chest. The heart is not large, and its
general form is not elongated but rounded, except that the apex
is produced into a point.
(B) " It has, as already stated, three cavities, the largest of
them is on the right, the smallest on the left, the middle-sized
one in the middle ; they have all, also the two small ones, pass-
ages (T6Tprjfjivaixrts) which unite
at an angle ; from the tubes passages (r/wj/zaTa) traverse the
whole of the lung ; they are continually given off, the smaller
from the larger." (Book i. 16.)
That Aristotle should speak of the lung as a single
organ divided into two halves, and should say that
the division is least marked in man, is puzzling at
first; but the statement becomes intelligible, if we
reflect upon the close union of the bronchi, the
pulmonary vessels and the mediastinal walls of the
VIII. ] ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 189
pleurae, in mammals; 1 and it is quite true that the
lungs are much more obviously distinct from one
another in birds.
Aubert and Wimmer translate the last paragraph
of the passage just cited as follows :
"Diese haben aber knorpelige Scheidewande, welche unter
spitzen Winkeln zusammentreten, und aus ihnen fiihren Oeff-
nungen durch die ganze Lunge, indem sie sich in immer kleine-
ren verzweigen."
But I cannot think that by Siaffrvaeis and
in this passage, Aristotle meant either " partitions " or
openings in the ordinary sense of the latter word.
For, in Book iii. Cap. 3, in describing the distribution
of the " vein which goes to the lung" (the pulmonary
artery), he says that it
"extends alongside each tube (rvpiyya) and each passage
(T/f>>j/m), the larger beside the larger, and the smaller beside the
smaller ; so that no part (of the lung) can be found from which
a passage (r/o^a) and a vein are absent."
Moreover, in Book i. 17, he says
" Canals (TTO/XH) from the heart pass to the lung and divide
in the same fashion as the windpipe does, closely accompanying
those from the windpipe through the whole lung."
And again in Book i. 17
" It (the lung) is entirely spongy, and alongside of each tube
run canals (iropoL) from the great vein."
On comparing the last three statements with the
facts of the case, it is plain that by crvpiyyes, or tubes,
Aristotle means the bronchi and so many of their
1 In modern works on Veterinary Anatomy the lungs are sometimes
described as two lobes of a single organ.
190 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT.
larger divisions as obviously contain cartilages ; and
that by Sia^vaew xov$pd>8ei,<} he denotes the same
things ; and, if this be so, then the rp^ara must be
the smaller bronchial canals, in which the cartilages
disappear.
This view of the structure of the lung is perfectly
correct so far as it extends ; and, bearing it in mind,
we shall be in a position to understand what Aristotle
thought about the passage of air from the lungs into
the heart. In every part of the lung, he says, in
effect, there is an air tube which is derived from the
trachea, and other tubes which are derived from the
Tropoi which connect the lung with the heart (suprd, C).
Their applied walls constitute the thin "synapses"
(rr)v vvvatyiv) through which the air passes out of the
air tubes into the ir6poi t or blood-vessels, by transuda-
tion or diffusion ; for there is no community between
the cavities of the air tubes and cavities of the canals ;
that is to say, no opening from one into the other
(suprd, D).
On the words " reowbs TTO/JO? " Aubert and Wimmer
remark (1. c. p. 239), "Da A. die Ansicht hat die
Lungenluft wtirde dem Herzen zugefuhrt, so postulirt
er statt vieler kleiner Verbindungen einen grossen
Verbindungsgang zwischen Lunge und Herz."
But does Aristotle make this assumption ? The
only evidence so far as I know in favour of the affir-
mative answer to this question is the following
passage :
Se KOU rj KapSia rfj dpTrjpia, 7ri//,eAwSe ov KaraS^Aov Trotet, Iv Sc TOIS
Ttol/ ^)0)V S^AoV OTt MT/3^Tat TO TTV.VfJLOt> CIS ttVT^V " (1. Cap. 16).
" The heart and the windpipe are connected by fatty and
cartilaginous and fibrous bands ; where they are connected it is
hollow. Blowing into the windpipe does not show clearly in
some animals, but in the larger animals it is clear that the air
goes into it."
Aubert and Wimmer give a somewhat different
rendering of this passage :
"Auch das Herz hangt mit der Luftrohre durch fettreiche,
knorpelige und faserige Bander zusammen ; und da, wo sie
zusammenhangen, ist eine Hohlung. Beim Aufblasen der Lunge
wird es bei manchen Thieren nicht wahrnehmbar, bei den
grosseren aber ist es offenbar, dass die Luft in das Herz gelangt."
The sense here turns upon the signification which
is to be ascribed to efc avrrjv. But if these words
refer to the heart, then Aristotle has distinctly pointed
out the road which the air, in his opinion, takes,
namely, through the " synapses" (D) ; and there is no
reason that I can discover to believe that he " postu-
lated " any other and more direct communication.
With respect to the meaning of KOI\,OV ea-Tw, Aubert
and Wimmer observe :
" Dies scheint wohl die kurze Lungenvene zu sein. Schneider
bezieht dies auf die Vorkammern, allein diese werden unten als
Hb'hlen des Herzens beschrieben."
I am disposed to think, on the contrary, that the
words refer simply to the cavity of the pericardium.
For a part of this cavity (sinus transversus pericardii)
lies between the aorta, on the one hand, and the
pulmonary vessels with the bifurcation of the trachea,
on the other hand, and is much more conspicuous in
192 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT.
some animals than in man. It is strictly correct,
therefore, in Aristotle's words, to say that where the
heart and the windpipe are connected " it is hollow."
If he had meant to speak of one of the pulmonary
veins, or of any of the cavities of the heart, he would
have used the terms iropoi or Koi\ias which he always
employs for these parts.
According to Aristotle, then, the air taken into
the lungs passes, from the final ramifications of the
bronchial tubes into the corresponding branches of
the pulmonary blood-vessels, not through openings,
but by transudation, or, as we should nowadays say,
diffusion, through the thin partitions formed by the
applied coats of the two sets of canals. But the
"pneuma" which thus reached the interior of the
blood-vessels was not, in Aristotle's opinion, exactly
the same thing as the air. It was " drfp TTO\V<; pecov KOI
aOpoos" ("De Mundo," iv. 9) subtilised and con-
densed air; and it is hard to make out whether
Aristotle considered it to possess the physical pro-
perties of an elastic fluid or those of a liquid. As he
affirms that all the cavities of the heart contain blood
(F), it is clear that he did not hold the erroneous view
propounded in the next generation by Erasistratus.
On the other hand, the fact that he supposes that the
spermatic arteries do not contain blood but only an
aifj,aTwSr)s vypov (" Hist. Ammalium," iii. 1), shows
that his notions respecting the contents of the arteries
were vague. Nor does he seem to have known that
the pulse is characteristic only of the arteries ; and as
he thought that the arteries end in solid fibrous bands,
VIIL] EKRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 193
he naturally could not have entertained the faintest
conception of the true motion of the blood. But,
without attempting to read into Aristotle modern
conceptions which never entered his mind, it is only
just to observe that his view of what becomes of the
air taken into the lungs is by no means worthy of
contempt as a gross error. On the contrary, here, as
in the case of his anatomy of the heart, what Aristotle
asserts is true as far as it goes. Something does actually
pass from the air contained in the lungs through the
coats of the vessels into the blood, and thence to the
heart ; to wit, oxygen. And I think that it speaks very
well for ancient Greek science that the investigator of so
difficult a physiological problem as that of respiration,
should have arrived at a conclusion, the statement of
which, after the lapse of more than two thousand
years, can be accepted as a thoroughly established
scientific truth.
I trust that the case in favour of removing the
statements about the heart, from the list of the " errors
of Aristotle" is now clear; and that the evidence
proves, on the contrary, that they justify us in forming
a very favourable estimate of the oldest anatomical
investigations among the Greeks of which any sufficient
record remains.
But is Aristotle to be credited with the merit of
having ascertained so much of the truth ? This
question will not appear superfluous to those who are
acquainted with the extraordinary history of Aristotle's
works, or who adopt the conclusion of Aubert and
Wimmer, that, of the ten books of the " Historia
o
194 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT.
Animalium " which have come down to us, three are
largely or entirely spurious, and that the others contain
many interpolations by later writers.
It so happens, however, that, apart from other
reasons, there are satisfactory internal grounds for
ascribing the account of the heart to a writer of the
time at which Aristotle lived. For, within thirty
years of his death, the anatomists of the Alexandrian
school had thoroughly investigated the structure and
the functions of the valves of the heart. During this
time, the manuscripts of Aristotle were in the posses-
sion of Theophrastus ; and no interpolator of later
date would have shown that he was ignorant of the
nature and significance of these important structures,
by the brief and obscure allusion " in its cavities
there are tendons" (A). On the other hand, Polybus,
whose account of the vascular system is quoted in the
" Historia Animalium " was an elder contemporary of
Aristotle. Hence, if any part of the work faithfully
represents that which Aristotle taught, we may safely
conclude that the description of the heart does so.
Having granted this much, however, it is another
question, whether Aristotle is to be regarded as the
first discoverer of the facts which he has so well stated,
or whether he, like other men, was the intellectual
child of his time and simply carried on a step or two
the work which had been commenced by others.
On the subject of Aristotle's significance as an
original worker in biology extraordinarily divergent
views have been put forward. If we are to adopt
Cuvier's estimate, Aristotle was simply a miracle :
VIII.] ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 195
" Avant Aristote la philosophic, enticement speculative, se
perdait dans les abstractions de"pourvues de fondement ; la science
n'existait pas. II semble qu'elle soit sortie toute faite du cerveau
d' Aristote comme Minerve, toute arme"e, du cerveau de Jupiter.
Seul, en effet, sans antecedents, sans rien emprunter aux siecles
qui 1'avaient pre"c6de", puisqu'ils n'avaient rien produit de solide,
le disciple de Platon decouvrit et d^montra plus de v6rite"s,
executa plus de travaux scientifiques en un vie de soixante-deux
ans, qu'apres lui vingt siecles n'en ont pu faire," 1 etc. etc.
"Aristote est le premier qui ait introduit la m^thode de
1'induction, de la comparaison des observations pour en faire
sortir des ide"es g6ne"rales, et celle de 1'experience pour multiplier
les faits dont ces id6es g6ne"rales peuvent 6tre d^duites." ii. p.
515.
The late Mr. G. H. Lewes, 2 on the contrary, tells
us " on a superficial examination, therefore, he
[Aristotle] will seem to have given tolerable de-
scriptions ; especially if approached with that dis-
position to discover marvels which unconsciously
determines us in our study of eminent writers.
But a more unbiassed and impartial criticism will
disclose that he has given no single anatomical
description of the least value. All that he knew
may have been known, and probably was known,
without dissection. ... I do not assert that he
never opened an animal ; on the contrary it seems
highly probable that he had opened many. . . . He
never followed the course of a vessel or a nerve;
never laid bare the origin and insertion of a muscle ;
never discriminated the component parts of organs ;
never made clear to himself the connection of organs
into systems." (pp. 156-7.)
1 " Histoire des Sciences Naturelles." t. i. p. 1 30.
2 " Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science."
196 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT.
In the face of the description of the heart and
lungs, just quoted, I think we may venture to say
that no one who has acquired even an elementary
practical acquaintance with anatomy, and knows of
his own knowledge that which Aristotle describes,
will agree with the opinion expressed by Mr. Lewes ;
and those who turn to the accounts of the structure
of the rock lobster and the common lobster, or to that
of the Cephalopods and other Mollusks, in the fourth
book of the " Historia Animalium " will probably feel
inclined to object to it still more strongly.
On the other hand, Cuvier's exaggerated panegyric
will as little bear the test of cool discussion. In
Greece, the century before Aristotle's birth was a
period of great intellectual activity, in the field of
physical science no less than elsewhere. The method
of induction has never been used to better effect than
by Hippocrates ; and the labours of such men as
Alkmeon, Demokritus, and Polybus, among Aristotle's
predecessors ; Diokles, and Praxagoras, among his con-
temporaries, laid a solid foundation for the scientific
study of anatomy and development, independently
of his labours. Aristotle himself informs us that the
dissection of animals was commonly practised ; that
the aorta had been distinguished from the great vein ;
and that the connection of both with the heart had
been observed by his predecessors. What they thought
about the structure of the heart itself or that of the
lungs, he does not tell us, and we have no means of
knowing. So far from arrogantly suggesting that he
owed nothing to his predecessors, Aristotle is carefu]
VTII.] ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 197
to refer to their observations, and to explain why,
in his judgment, they fell into the errors which he
corrects.
Aristotle's knowledge, in fact, appears to have
stood in the same relation to that of such men as
Polybus and Diogenes of Apollonia, as that of
Herophilus and Erasistratus did to his own, so far
as the heart is concerned. He carried science a step
beyond the point at which he found it ; a meritorious,
but not a miraculous, achievement. What he did,
required the possession of very good powers of
observation ; if they had been powers of the highest
class, he could hardly have left such conspicuous
objects as the valves of the heart to be discovered
by his successors.
And this leads me to make a final remark upon a
singular feature of the " Historia Animalium." As a
whole, it is a most notable production, full of accurate
information, and of extremely acute generalisations of
the observations accumulated by naturalists up to
that time. And yet, every here and there, one
stumbles upon assertions respecting matters which lie
within the scope of the commonest inspection, which
are not so much to be called errors, as stupidities.
What is to be made of the statement that the sutures
of women's skulls are different from those of men ;
that men and sundry male animals have more teeth
than their respective females ; that the back of the
skull is empty ; and so on ? It is simply incredible
to me, that the Aristotle who wrote the account of the
heart, also committed himself to absurdities which
198 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. [LECT
can be excused by no theoretical prepossession and
which are contradicted by the plainest observation.
What, after all, were the original manuscripts of
the " Historia Animalium " \ If they were notes of
Aristotle's lectures taken by some of his students, any
lecturer who has chanced to look through such notes,
would find the interspersion of a foundation of general
and sometimes minute accuracy, with patches of
transcendent blundering, perfectly intelligible. Some
competent Greek scholar may perhaps think it worth
while to tell us what may be said for or against
the hypothesis thus hinted. One obvious difficulty
in the way of adopting it is the fact that, in other
works, Aristotle refers to the " Historia Animalium "
as if it had already been made public by himself.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 199
IX.
ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ANIMALS AEE
AUTOMATA, AND ITS HISTOKY.
THE first half of the seventeenth century is one of the
great epochs of biological science. For though sug-
gestions and indications of the conceptions which
took definite shape, at that time, are to be met with
in works of earlier date, they are little more than the
shadows which coming truth casts forward ; men's
knowledge was neither extensive enough, nor exact
enough, to show them the solid body of fact which
threw these shadows.
But, in the seventeenth century, the idea that the
physical processes of life are capable of being ex-
plained in the same way as other physical phenomena,
and, therefore, that the living body is a mechanism,
was proved to be true for certain classes of vital
actions ; and, having thus taken firm root in irrefrag-
able fact, this conception has not only successfully
repelled every assault which has been made upon it,
but has steadily grown in force and extent of ap-
plication, until it is now the expressed or implied
fundamental proposition of the whole doctrine of
scientific Physiology.
200 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
If we ask to whom mankind are indebted for this
great service, the general voice will name William
Harvey. For, by his discovery of the circulation of the
blood in the higher animals, by his explanation of the
nature of the mechanism by which that circulation is
effected, and by his no less remarkable, though less
known, investigations of the process of development,
Harvey solidly laid the foundations of all those
physical explanations of the functions of sustentation
and reproduction which modern physiologists have
achieved.
But the living body is not only sustained and
reproduced : it adjusts itself to external and internal
changes ; it moves and feels. The attempt to reduce
the endless complexities of animal motion and feeling
to law and order is, at least, as important a part of
the task of the physiologist as the elucidation of what
are sometimes called the vegetative processes. Har-
vey did not make this attempt himself; but the
influence of his work upon the man who did make it
is patent and unquestionable. This man was Kene
Descartes, who, though by many years Harvey's
junior, died before him ; and yet, in his short span of
fifty-four years, took an undisputed place, not only
among the chiefs of philosophy, but amongst the
greatest and most original of mathematicians ; while,
in my belief, he is no less certainly entitled to the
rank of a great and original physiologist ; inasmuch as
he did for the physiology of motion and sensation
that which Harvey had done for the circulation of
the blood, and opened up that road to the mechanical
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 201
theory of these processes, which has been followed by
all his successors.
Descartes was no mere speculator, as some would
have us believe : but a man who knew of his own
knowledge what was to be known of the facts of
anatomy and physiology in his day. ' He was an
unwearied dissector and observer ; and it is said, that,
on a visitor once asking to see his library, Descartes
led him into a room set aside for dissections, and full
of specimens under examination. " There," said he, " is
my library."
I anticipate a smile of incredulity when I thus
champion Descartes' claim to be considered a
physiologist of the first rank. I expect to be told
that I have read into his works what I find there,
and to be asked, Why is it that we are left to dis-
cover Descartes' deserts at this time of day, more
than two centuries after his death? How is it
that Descartes is utterly ignored in some of the latest
works which treat expressly of the subject in which
he is said to have been so great ?
It is much easier to ask such questions than to
answer them, especially if one desires to be on good
terms with one's contemporaries ; but, if I must give
an answer, it is this : The growth of physical science
is now so prodigiously rapid, that those who are
actively engaged in keeping up with the present, have
much ado to find time to look at the past, and even
grow into the habit of neglecting it. But, natural as
this result may be, it is none the less detrimental.
The intellect loses, for there is assuredly no more
202 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM.
effectual method of clearing up one's own mind on
any subject than by talking it over, so to speak, with
men of real power and grasp, who have considered it
from a totally different point of view. The parallax
of time helps us to the true position of a conception,
as the parallax of space helps us to that of a star. And
the moral nature loses no less. It is well to turn
aside from the fretful stir of the present and to dwell
with gratitude and respect upon the services of those
"mighty men of old who have gone down to the
grave with their weapons of war," but who, while
they yet lived, won splendid victories over ignorance.
It is well, again, to reflect that the fame of Descartes
filled all Europe, and his authority overshadowed it,
for a century ; while now, most of those who know
his name think of him, either as a person who had
some preposterous notions about vortices and was
deservedly annihilated by the great Sir Isaac Newton ;
or as the apostle of an essentially vicious method of
deductive speculation ; and that, nevertheless, neither
the chatter of shifting opinion, nor the silence of per-
sonal oblivion, has in the slightest degree affected
the growth of the great ideas of which he was the
instrument and the mouthpiece.
It is a matter of fact that the greatest physiologist
of the eighteenth century, Haller, in treating of the
functions of nerve, does little more than reproduce
and enlarge upon the ideas of Descartes. It is a
matter of fact that David Hartley, in his remarkable
work the "Essay on Man/' expressly, though still
insufficiently, acknowledges the resemblance of his
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 203
fundamental conceptions to those of Descartes ; and I
shall now endeavour to show that a series of proposi-
tions, which constitute the foundation and essence of
the modern physiology of the nervous system, are
fully expressed and illustrated in the works of
Descartes.
I. The brain is the organ of sensation, thought,
and emotion ; that is to say, some change in
the condition of the matter of this organ is the
invariable antecedent of the state of conscious-
ness to which each of these terms is applied.
In the " Principes de la Philosophie" ( 169),
Descartes says : *
" Although the soul is united to the whole body, its principal
functions are, nevertheless, performed in the brain; it is here
that it not only understands and imagines, but also feels ; and
this is effected by the intermediation of the nerves, which extend
in the form of delicate threads from the brain to all parts of the
body, to which they are attached in such a manner, that we can
hardly touch any part of the body without setting the extremity
of some nerve in motion. This motion passes along the nerve to
that part of the brain which is the common sensorium, as I have
sufficiently explained in my Treatise on Dioptrics; and the
movements which thus travel along the nerves, as far as that
part of the brain with which the soul is closely joined and united,
cause it, by reason of their diverse characters, to have different
thoughts. And it is these different thoughts of the soul, which
arise immediately from the movements that are excited by the
nerves in the brain, which we properly term our feelings, or the
perceptions of our senses."
1 I quote, here and always, Cousin's edition of the works of
Descartes, as most convenient for reference. It is entitled " (Euvres
completes de Descartes," publiees par Victor Cousin. 1824.
204 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
Elsewhere, 1 Descartes, in arguing that the seat of
the passions is not (as many suppose) the heart, but
the brain, uses the following remarkable language :
" The opinion of those who think that the soul receives its
passions in the heart, is of no weight, for it is based upon the
fact that the passions cause a change to be felt in that organ ;
and it is easy to see that this change is felt, as if it were in the
heart, only by the intermediation of a little nerve which descends
from the brain to it ; Just as pain is felt, as if it were in the
foot, by the intermediation of the nerves of the foot. ; and the
stars are perceived, as if they were in the heavens, by the inter-
mediation of their light and of the optic nerves. So that it is no
more necessary for the soul to exert its functions immediately in
the heart, to feel its passions there, than it is necessary that it
should be in the heavens to see the stars there."
This definite allocation of all the phenomena of
consciousness to the brain as their organ, was a step
the value of which it is difficult for us to appraise, so
completely has Descartes' view incorporated itself with
every-day thought and common language. A lunatic
is said to be "crack-brained" or "touched in the
head," a confused thinker is " muddle-headed," while
a clever man is said to have " plenty of brains ;" but it
must be remembered that at the end of the last
century a considerable, though much over-estimated,
anatomist, Bichat, so far from having reached the
level of Descartes, could gravely argue that the appar-
atuses of organic life are the sole seat of the passions,
which in no way affect the brain, except so far as it is
the agent by which the influence of the passions is
transmitted to the muscles. 2
1 " Les Passions de 1'Ame," Article xxxiii.
2 " Kecherches physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort." Par Xav.
Bichat. Art. Sixieme.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 205
Modern physiology, aided by pathology, easily
demonstrates that the brain is the seat of all forms of
consciousness, and fully bears out Descartes' explana-
tion of the reference of those sensations in the viscera
which accompany intense emotion, to these organs.
It proves, directly, that those states of consciousness
which we call sensations are the immediate consequent
of a change in the brain excited by the sensory nerves;
and, on the well-known effects of injuries, of stim-
ulants, and of narcotics, it bases the conclusion that
thought and emotion are, in like manner, the conse-
quents of physical antecedents.
II. The movements of animals are due to the
change of form of muscles, which shorten
and become thicker ; and this change of form
in a muscle arises from a motion of the sub-
stance contained within the nerves which go
to the muscle.
In the " Passions de 1'Ame," Art. vii., Descartes
writes :
" Moreover, we know that all the movements of the limbs
depend on the muscles, and that these muscles are opposed to
one another in such a manner, that when one of them shortens,
it draws along the part of the body to which it is attached, and
so gives rise to a simultaneous elongation of the muscle which is
opposed to it. Then, if it happens, afterwards, that the latter
shortens, it causes the former to elongate, and draws towards
itself the part to which it is attached. Lastly, we know that all
these movements of the muscles, as all the senses, depend on the
nerves, which are like little threads or tubes, which all come from
the brain, and, like it, contain a certain very subtle air or wind,
termed the animal spirits."
206 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
The property of muscle mentioned by Descartes
now goes by the general name of contractility, but
his definition of it remains untouched. The long-
continued controversy whether contractile substance,
speaking generally, has an inherent power of contrac-
tion, or whether it contracts only in virtue of an
influence exerted by nerve, is now settled in Haller's
favour; but Descartes' statement of the dependence
of muscular contraction on nerve holds good for the
higher forms of muscle, under normal circumstances ;
so that, although the structure of the various modifi-
cations of contractile matter has been worked out
with astonishing minuteness although the delicate
physical and chemical changes which accompany mus-
cular contraction have been determined to an extent
of which Descartes could not have dreamed, and have
quite upset his hypothesis that the cause of the short-
ening and thickening of the muscle is the flow of
animal spirits into it from the nerves the important
and fundamental part of his statement remains per-
fectly true.
The like may be affirmed of what he says about
nerve. We know now that nerves are not exactly
tubes, and that " animal spirits" are myths ; but the
exquisitely refined methods of investigation of Dubois-
Keymond and of Helmholz have no less clearly proved
that the antecedent of ordinary muscular contraction
is a motion of the molecules of the nerve going to the
muscle; and that this motion is propagated with a
measurable, and by no means great, velocity, through
the substance of the nerve towards the muscle.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 207
With the progress of research, the term " animal
spirits" gave way to "nervous fluid," and "nervous
fluid" has now given way to " molecular motion of
nerve -substance/' Our conceptions of what takes
place in nerve have altered in the same way as our
conceptions of what takes place in a conducting wire
have altered, since electricity was shown to be not a
fluid, but a mode of molecular motion. The change
is of vast importance, but it does not affect Descartes 7
fundamental idea, that a change in the substance of a
motor nerve propagated towards a muscle is the ordi-
nary cause of muscular contraction.
III. The sensations of animals are due to a
motion of the substance of the nerves which
connect the sensory organs with the brain.
In La Dioptrique (Discours Quatrieme), Descartes
explains, more fully than in the passage cited above,
his hypothesis of the mode of action of sensory
nerves :
" It is the little threads of which the inner substance of the
nerves is composed which subserve sensation. You must con-
ceive that these little threads, being inclosed in tubes, which are
always distended and kept open by the animal spirits which they
contain, neither press upon nor interfere with one another, and
are extended from the brain to the extremities of all the mem-
bers which are sensitive in such a manner, that the slightest
touch which excites the part of one of the members to which a
thread is attached, gives rise to a motion of the part of the brain
whence it arises, just as by pulling one of the ends of a stretched
cord, the other end is instantaneously moved. . . . And we
must take care not to imagine that, in order to feel, the soul
needs to behold certain images sent by the objects of sense to
208 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
the brain, as our philosophers commonly suppose ; or, at least,
we must conceive these images to be something quite different
from what they suppose them to be. For, as all they suppose is
that these images ought to resemble the objects which they re-
present, it is impossible for them to show how they can be
formed by the objects received by the organs of the external
senses and transmitted to the brain. And they have had no
reason for supposing the existence of these images except this ;
seeing that the mind is readily excited by a picture to conceive
the object which is depicted, they have thought that it must be
excited in the same way to conceive those objects which affect
our senses by little pictures of them formed in the head ; instead
of which we ought to recollect that there are many things be-
sides images which may excite the mind, as, for example, signs
and words, which have not the least resemblance to the objects
which they signify." 1
Modern physiology amends Descartes' conception
of the mode of action of sensory nerves in detail, by
showing that their structure is the same as that of
motor nerves ; and that the changes which take place
in them, when the sensory organs with which they
are connected are excited, are of just the same nature
as those which occur in motor nerves, when the
muscles to which they are distributed are made to
contract: there is a molecular change which, in the case
of the sensory nerve, is propagated towards the brain.
But the great fact insisted upon by Descartes, that no
likeness of external things is, or can be, transmitted to
the mind by the sensory organs ; on the contrary, that,
1 Locke (Human Understanding, Book II., chap. viii. 37) uses Des-
cartes' illustration for the same purpose, and warns us that " most of
the ideas of sensation are no more the likeness of something existing
without us than the names that stand for them are the likeness of our
ideas, which yet, upon hearing, they are apt to excite in us," a declara-
tion which paved the way for Berkeley.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 209
between the external cause of a sensation and the
sensation, there is interposed a mode of motion of
nervous matter, of which the state of consciousness is
no likeness, but a mere symbol, is of the profoundest
importance. It is the physiological foundation of the
doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, and a more
or less complete idealism is a necessary consequence
of it.
For of two alternatives one must be true. Either
consciousness is the function of a something distinct
from the brain, which we call the soul, and a sensa-
tion is the mode in which this soul is affected by the
motion of a part of the brain ; or there is no soul, and
a sensation is something generated by the mode of
motion of a part of the brain. In the former case,
the phenomena of the senses are purely spiritual
affections ; in the latter, they are something manu-
factured by the mechanism of the body, and as unlike
the causes which set that mechanism in motion, as the
sound of a repeater is unlike the pushing of the spring
which gives rise to it.
The nervous system stands between consciousness
and the assumed external world, as an interpreter who
can talk with his fingers stands between a hidden
speaker and a man who is stone deaf and Eealism is
equivalent to a belief on the part of the deaf man,
that the speaker must also be talking with his fingers.
" Les extremes se touchent ;" the shibboleth of materi-
alists that " thought is a secretion of the brain," is the
Fichtean doctrine that "the phenomenal universe is
the creation of the Ego," expressed in other language.
p
210 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
IV. The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve
may be transmitted through the brain to
motor nerves, and thereby give rise to con-
traction of the muscles to which these motor
nerves are distributed; and this reflection
of motion from a sensory into a motor nerve
may take place without volition 9 or even con-
trary to it.
In stating these important truths, Descartes
denned that which we now term "reflex action."
Indeed he almost uses the term itself, as he talks of
the "animal spirits" as "reflechis," 1 from the sensory
into the motor nerves. And that this use of the
word " reflected " was no mere accident, but that the
importance and appropriateness of the idea it suggests
was fully understood by Descartes' contemporaries, is
apparent from a passage in "Willis's well-known essay,
"De Anima Brutorum," published in 1672, in which,
in giving an account of Descartes' views, he speaks of
the animal spirits being diverted into motor channels,
" velut undulatione reflexa." 2
Nothing can be clearer in statement, or in illus-
tration, than the view of reflex action which Descartes
gives in the " Passions de 1'Ame," Art. xiii.
1 " Passions de 1'Ame," Art. xxxvi.
2 " Quamcumque Bruti actionem, velut automati mechanic! motum
artificialem, in eo consistere quod se primo sensibile aliquod spiritus
animales afficiens, eosque introrsum convertens, sensionem excitat, a
qua mox iidem spiritus, velut undulatione reflexa* denuo retrorsum
commoti atque pro concinno ipsius fabricse organorum, et partium
ordine, in certos nervos musculosque determinati, respectivos membro-
rum motus perficiunt." WILLIS : "De Animsi Brutorum," p. 5, ed.
1763.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 211
After recapitulating the manner in which sensory
impressions transmitted by the sensory nerves to the
brain give rise to sensation, he proceeds :
" And in addition to the different feelings excited in the
soul by these different motions of the brain, the animal spirits,
without the intervention of the soul, may take their course
towards certain muscles, rather than towards others, and thus
move the limbs, as I shall prove by an example. If some one
moves his hand rapidly towards our eyes, as if he were going to
strike us, although we know that he is a friend, that he does it
only in jest, and that he will be very careful to do us no harm,
nevertheless it will be hard to keep from winking. And this
shows, that it is not by the agency of the soul that the eyes
shut, since this action is contrary to that volition which is the
only, or at least the chief, function of the soul ; but it is because
the mechanism of our body is so disposed, that the motion of
the hand towards our eyes excites another movement in our
brain, and this sends the animal spirits into those muscles which
cause the eyelids to close."
Since Descartes' time, experiment has eminently
enlarged our knowledge of the details of reflex action.,
The discovery of Bell has enabled us to follow the
tracks of the sensory and motor impulses, along dis-
tinct bundles of nerve fibres; and the spinal cord,
apart from the brain, has been proved to be a great
centre of reflex action ; but the fundamental concep-
tion remains as Descartes left it, and it is one of the
pillars of nerve physiology at the present day.
V. The motion of any given portion of the matter
of the brain excited by the motion of a sensw*y
nerve, leaves behind a readiness to be moved
in the same way, in that part. Anything
which resuscitates the motion gives rise to the
212 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
appropriate feeling. This is the physical
mechanism of memory.
Descartes imagined that the pineal body (a curious
appendage to the upper side of the brain, the function
of which, if it have any, is wholly unknown) was the
instrument through which the soul received impres-
sions from, and communicated them to, the brain.
And he thus endeavours to explain what happens
when one tries to recollect something :
"Thus when the soul wills to remember anything, this
volition, causing the [pineal] gland to incline itself in different
directions, drives the [animal] spirits towards different regions of
the brain, until they reach that part in which are the traces,
which the object which it desires to remember has left. These
traces are produced thus : those pores of the brain through
which the [animal] spirits have previously been driven, by reason
of the presence of the object, have thereby acquired a tendency
to be opened by the animal spirits which return towards them,
more easily than other pores, so that the animal spirits, imping-
ing on these pores, enter them more readily than others. By
this means they excite a particular movement in the pineal
gland, which represents the object to the soul, and causes it to
know what it is which it desired to recollect." 1
That memory is dependent upon some condition
of the brain is a fact established by many considera-
tions among the most important of which are the
remarkable phenomena of aphasia. And that the
condition of the brain on which memory depends, is
largely determined by the repeated occurrence of that
condition of its molecules, which gives rise to the
idea of the thing remembered, is no less certain.
1 " Les Passions de Time," xlii.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 213
Every boy who learns his lesson by repeating it
exemplifies the fact. Descartes, as we have seen,
supposes that the pores of a given part of the brain
are stretched by the animal spirits, on the occurrence
of a sensation, and that the part of the brain thus
stretched, being imperfectly elastic, does not return to
exactly its previous condition, but remains more dis-
tensible than it was before. Hartley supposes that
the vibrations, excited by a sensory, or other, impres-
sion, do not die away, but are represented by smaller
vibrations or " vibratiuncules," the permanency and
intensity of which are in relation with the frequency
of repetition of the primary vibrations. Haller has
substantially the same idea, but contents himself with
the general term " mutationes," to express the cerebral
change which is the cause of a state of consciousness.
These " mutationes " persist for a long time after the
cause which gives rise to them has ceased to operate,
and are arranged in the brain according to the order
of coexistence and succession of their causes. And he
gives these persistent " mutationes " the picturesque
name of vestigia rerum, " quae non in mente sed in
ipso corpore et in medulla quidem cerebri ineffabili
modo incredibiliter minutis notis et copia infinita,
inscriptsB sunt." 1 I do not know that any modern
theory of the physical conditions of memory differs
essentially from these, which are all children mutatis
mutandis of the Cartesian doctrine. Physiology is,
at present, incompetent to say anything positively
about the matter, or to go farther than the expression
1 Haller, u Prirnaj LinesD," ecL iii. " Sensus Intend," dlviil
214 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
of the high probability, that every molecular change
which gives rise to a state of consciousness, leaves a
more or less persistent structural modification, through
which the same molecular change may be regenerated
by other agencies than the cause which first pro-
duced it.
Thus far, the propositions respecting the physiology
of the nervous system which are stated by Descartes
have simply been more clearly defined, more fully
illustrated, and, for the most part, demonstrated, by
modern physiological research. But there remains a
doctrine to which Descartes attached great weight, so
that full acceptance of .it became a sort of note of a
thorough-going Cartesian, but which, nevertheless, is
so opposed to ordinary prepossessions that it attained
more general notoriety, and gave rise to more discus-
sion, than almost any other Cartesian hypothesis. It
is the doctrine, that brute animals are mere machines
or automata, devoid not only of reason, but of any
kind of consciousness, which is stated briefly in the
"Discours de la Methode," and more fully in the
"Keponses aux Quatriemes Objections," and in the
correspondence with Henry More. 1
The process of reasoning by which Descartes
arrived at this startling conclusion is well shown in
the folio wing passage of the " Keponses:"
" But as regards the souls of beasts, although this is not the
1 "Keponse de M. Descartes a M. Moras." 1649. " CEuvres,"
tome x. p. 204. " Mais le plus grand de tous les prejuges que nous
ayons retenus de notre enfance, est celui de croire que les betes
pensent," etc.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 215
place for considering them, and though, without a general
exposition of physics, I can say no more on this subject than I
have already said in the fifth part of my Treatise on Method ;
yet, I will further state, here, that it appears to me to be a very
remarkable circumstance that no movement can take place, either
in the bodies of beasts, or even in our own, if these bodies have
not in themselves all the organs and instruments by means of
which the very same movements would be accomplished in a
machine. So that, even in us, the spirit, or the soul, does not
directly move the limbs, but only determines the course of that
very subtle liquid which is called the animal spirits, which,
running continually from the heart by the brain into the muscles,
is the cause of all the movements of our limbs, and often may
cause many different motions, one as easily as the other.
"And it does not even always exert this determination; for
among the movements which take place in us, there are many
which do not depend on the mind at all, such as the beating of
the heart, the digestion of food, the nutrition, the respiration,
of those who sleep ; and, even in those who are awake, walking,
singing, and other similar actions, when they are performed
without the mind thinking about them. And, when one who
falls from a height throws his hands forwards to save his head,
it is in virtue of no ratiocination that he performs this action ;
it does not depend upon his mind, but takes place merely
because his senses being affected by the present danger, some
change arises in his brain which determines the animal spirits
to pass thence into the nerves, in such a manner as is required
to produce this motion, in the same way as in a machine, and
without the mind being able to hinder it Now since we observe
this in ourselves, why should we be so much astonished if the
light reflected from the body of a wolf into the eye of a sheep
has the same force to excite in it the motion of flight ?
" After having observed this, if we wish to learn by reasoning,
whether certain movements of beasts are comparable to those
which are effected in us by the operation of the mind, or, on the
contrary, to those which depend only on the animal spirits and
the disposition of the organs, it is necessary to consider the
difference between the two, which I have explained in the fifth
part of the Discourse on Method (for I do not think that any others
216 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
are discoverable), and then it will easily be seen, that all the actions
of beasts are similar only to those which we perform without the
help of our minds. For which reason we shall be forced to
conclude, that we know of the existence in them of no other
principle of motion than the disposition of their organs and the
continual affluence of animal spirits produced by the heat of the
heart, which attenuates and subtilises the blood ; and, at the
same time, we shall acknowledge that we have had no reason for
assuming any other principle, except that, not having distinguished
these two principles of motion, and seeing that the one, which
depends only on the animal spirits and the organs, exists in beasts
as well as in us, we have hastily concluded that the other, which
depends on mind and on thought, was also possessed by them."
Descartes' line of argument is perfectly clear. He
starts from reflex action in man, from the unquestion-
able fact that, in ourselves, co-ordinate, purposive,
actions may take place, without the intervention of
consciousness or volition, or even contrary to the
latter. As actions of a certain degree of complexity
are brought about by mere mechanism, why may not
actions of still greater complexity be the result of a
more refined mechanism ? What proof is there that
brutes are other than a superior race of marionettes,
which eat without pleasure, cry without pain, desire
nothing, know nothing, and only simulate intelligence
as a bee simulates a mathematician I 1
The Port Koyalists adopted the hypothesis that
brutes are machines, and are said to have carried its
1 Malebranche states the view taken by orthodox Cartesians in
1689 very forcibly : "Ainsi dans les chiens, les chats, et les autres
animaux, il n'y a ny intelligence, ny ame spirituelle comme on 1'entend
ordinairement. Us mangent sans plaisir ; ils orient sans douleur ; ils
croissent sans le savoir ; ils ne desirent rien ; ils ne connoissent rien ;
et s'ils agissent avec adresse et d'une maniere qui marque Intelligence,
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 217
practical applications so far, as to treat domestic
animals with neglect, if not with actual cruelty. As
late as the middle of the eighteenth century, the pro-
blem was discussed very fully and ably by Bouillier,
in his "Essai philosophique sur Time des Betes,"
while Condillac deals with it in his "Traite des
. Animaux ; " but since then it has received little
attention. Nevertheless, modern research has brought
to light a great multitude of facts, which not only
show that Descartes' view is defensible, but render it
far more defensible than it was in his day.
It must be premised, that it is wholly impossible
absolutely to prove the presence or absence of con-
sciousness in anything but one's own brain, though,
by analogy, we are justified in assuming its existence
in other men. Now if, by some accident, a man's
spinal cord is divided, his limbs are paralysed, so far
as his volition is concerned, below the point of injury;
and he is incapable of experiencing all those states of
consciousness, which, in his uninjured state, would be
excited by irritation of those nerves which come off
below the injury. If the spinal cord is divided in
the middle of the back, for example, the skin of the
feet may be cut, or pinched, or burned, or wetted
with vitriol, without any sensation of touch, or of
pain, arising in consciousness. So far as the man is
concerned, therefore, the part of the central nervous
c'est que Dieu les faisant pour les conserver, il a conforme leurs corps
de telle maniere, qu'ils evitent organiquement, sans le savoir, tout ce
qui peut les detruire et qu'ils semblent craindre." ("Feuillet de
Conches. Meditations Metaphysiques et Correspondance de N. Male-
branche. Neuvieme Meditation." 1841.)
218 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
system which lies beyond the injury is cut off from
consciousness. It must indeed be admitted, that, if
any one think fit to maintain that the spinal cord
below the injury is conscious, but that it is cut off
from any means of making its consciousness known
to the other consciousness in the brain, there is no
means of driving him from his position by logic.
But assuredly there is no way of proving it, and in
the matter of consciousness, if in anything, we may
hold by the rule, " De non apparentibus et de non
existentibus eadem esfc ratio." However near the
brain the spinal cord is injured, consciousness remains
intact, except that the irritation of parts below the
injury is no longer represented by sensation. On the
other hand, pressure upon the anterior division of the
brain, or extensive injuries to it, abolish conscious-
ness. Hence, it is a highly probable conclusion, that
consciousness in man depends upon the integrity of
the anterior division of the brain, while the middle
and hinder divisions of the brain, and the rest of the
nervous centres, have nothing to do with it. And it
is further highly probable, that what is true for man
is true for other vertebrated animals.
We may assume, then, that in a living vertebrated
animal, any segment of the cerebro-spinal axis (or
spinal cord and brain) separated from that anterior
division of the brain which is the organ of conscious-
ness, is as completely incapable of giving rise to
consciousness, as we know it to be incapable of carry-
ing out volitions. Nevertheless, this separated seg-
ment of the spinal cord is not passive and inert. On
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 219
the contrary, it is the seat of extremely remarkable
powers. In our imaginary case of injury, the man
would, as we have seen, be devoid of sensation in his
legs, and would have not the least power of moving
them. But, if the soles of his feet were tickled, the
legs would be drawn up, just as vigorously as they
would have been before the injury. We know
exactly what happens when the soles of the feet are
tickled ; a molecular change takes place in the sen-
sory nerves of the skin, and is propagated along them
and through the posterior roots of the spinal nerves,
which are constituted by them, to the grey matter
of the spinal cord. Through that grey matter, the
molecular motion is reflected into the anterior roots of
the same nerves, constituted by the filaments which
supply the muscles of the legs, and, travelling along
these motor filaments, reaches the muscles, which at
once contract, and cause the limbs to be drawn up.
In order to move the legs in this way, a definite
co-ordination of muscular contractions is necessary;
the muscles must contract in a certain order and with
duly proportioned force ; and moreover, as the feet
are drawn away from the source of irritation, it may
be said that the action has a final cause, or is
purposive.
Thus it follows, that the grey matter of the seg-
ment of the man's spinal cord, though it is devoid
of consciousness, nevertheless responds to a simple
stimulus by giving rise to a complex set of muscular
contractions, co-ordinated towards a definite end, and
serving an obvious purpose.
220 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
If the spinal cord of a frog is cut across, so as to
provide us with a segment separated from the brain,
we shall have a subject parallel to the injured man,
on which experiments can be made without remorse ;
as we have a right to conclude that a frog's spinal
cord is not likely to be conscious, when a man's
is not.
Now the frog behaves just as the man did. The
legs are utterly paralysed, so far as voluntary move-
ment is concerned ; but they are vigorously drawn up
to the body when any irritant is applied to the foot.
But let us study our frog a little farther. Touch the
skin of the side of the body with a little acetic acid,
which gives rise to all the signs of great pain in an
uninjured frog. In this case, there can be no pain,
because the application is made to a part of the skin
supplied with nerves which come off from the cord
below the point of section ; nevertheless, the frog
lifts up the limb of the same side, and applies the
foot to rub off the acetic acid ; and, what is still more
remarkable, if the limb be held so that the frog
cannot use it, it will, by-and-by, move the limb of
the other side, turn it across the body, and use it for
the same rubbing process. It is impossible that the
frog, if it were in its entirety and could reason,
should perform actions more purposive than these :
and yet we have most complete assurance that, in
this case, the frog is not acting from purpose, has no
consciousness, and is a mere insensible machine.
But now suppose that, instead of making a section
of the cord in the middle of the body, it had been
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 221
made in such a manner as to separate the hindermost
division of the brain from the rest of the organ,
and suppose the foremost two -thirds of the brain
entirely taken away. The frog is then absolutely
devoid of any spontaneity ; it sits upright in the
attitude which a frog habitually assumes ; and it will
not stir unless it is touched ; but it differs from the
frog which I have just described in this, that, if it be
thrown into the water, it begins to swim, and swims
just as well as the perfect frog does. But swimming
requires the combination and successive co-ordination
of a great number of muscular actions. And we are
forced to conclude, that the impression made upon
the sensory nerves of the skin of the frog by the con-
tact with the water into which it is thrown, causes the
transmission to the central nervous apparatus of an
impulse, which sets going a certain machinery by
which all the muscles of swimming are brought into
play in due co-ordination. If the frog be stimulated
by some irritating body, it jumps or walks as well
as the complete frog can do. The simple sensory
impression, acting through the machinery of the cord,
gives rise to these complex combined movements.
It is possible to go a step farther. Suppose that
only the anterior division of the brain so much of it
as lies in front of the " optic lobes " is removed. If
that operation is performed quickly and skilfully, the
frog may be kept in a state of full bodily vigour for
months, or it may be for years ; but it will sit un-
moved. It sees nothing; it hears nothing. It will
starve sooner than feed itself, although food put into
222 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
its mouth is swallowed. On irritation, it jumps or
walks ; if thrown into the water it swims. If it be
put on the hand, it sits there, crouched, perfectly
quiet, and would sit there for ever. If the hand be
inclined very gently and slowly, so that the frog
would naturally tend to slip off, the creature's fore
paws are shifted on to the edge of the hand, until he can
just prevent himself from falling. If the turning of
the hand be slowly continued, he mounts up with great
care and deliberation, putting first one leg forward
and then another, until he balances himself with
perfect precision upon the edge ; and, if the turning of
the hand is continued, over he goes through the
needful set of muscular operations, until he comes to
be seated in security, upon the back of the hand. The
doing of all this requires a delicacy of co-ordination,
and a precision of adjustment of the muscular apparatus
of the body, which are only comparable to those of a
rope-dancer. To the ordinary influences of light, the
frog, deprived of its cerebral hemispheres, appears to
be blind. Nevertheless, if the animal be put upon a
table, with a book at some little distance between it
and the light, and the skin of the hinder part of its
body is then irritated, it will jump forward, avoiding
the book by passing to the right or left of it.
Therefore, although the frog appears to have no
sensation of light, visible objects act through its brain
upon the motor mechanism of its body. 1
1 See the remarkable essay of Goltz, " Beitrage zur Lehre von den
Functionen der Nervencentren des Frosches," published in 1869. I
have repeated Goltz's experiments, and obtained the same results.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 223
It is obvious, that had Descartes been acquainted
with these remarkable results of modern research,
they would have furnished him with far more power-
ful arguments than he possessed in favour of his view
of the automatism of brutes. The habits of a frog,
leading its natural life, involve such simple adapta-
tions to surrounding conditions, that the machinery
which is competent to do so much without the inter-
vention of consciousness, might well do all. And this
argument is vastly strengthened by what has been
learned in recent times of the marvellously complex
operations which are performed mechanically, and to
all appearance without consciousness, by men, when,
in consequence of injury or disease, they are reduced
to a condition more or less comparable to that of a
frog, in which the anterior part of the brain has been
removed. A case has recently been published by an
eminent French physician, Dr. Mesnet, which illus-
trates this condition so remarkably, that I make no
apology for dwelling upon it at considerable length. 1
A sergeant of the French army, F , twenty-
seven years of age, was wounded during the battle of
Bazeilles, by a ball which fractured his left parietal
bone. He ran his bayonet through the Prussian
soldier who wounded him, but almost immediately
his right arm became paralysed ; after walking about
1 "De 1'Automatisme de la Memoire et du Souvenir, dans le
Somnambulisme pathologique." Par le Dr. E. Mesnet, Medecin de
I'Hopital Saint- Antoine. "L'Union Medicale," Juillet 21 et 23, 1874.
My attention was first called to a summary of this remarkable case,
which appeared in the " Journal des Debats " for the 7th of August
1874, by my friend General Straohey, F.E.S.
224 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
two hundred yards, his right leg became similarly
affected, and he lost his senses. When he recovered
them, three weeks afterwards, in hospital at Mayence,
the right half of the body was completely paralysed,
and remained in this condition for a year. At present,
the only trace of the paralysis which remains is a
slight weakness of the right half of the body. Three
or four months after the wound was inflicted, periodi-
cal disturbances of the functions of the brain made
their appearance, and have continued ever since. The
disturbances last from fifteen to thirty hours; the
intervals at which they occur being from fifteen to
thirty days.
For four years, therefore, the life of this man
has been divided into alternating phases short
abnormal states intervening between long normal
states.
In the periods of normal life, the ex-sergeant's
health is perfect; he is intelligent and kindly, and
performs, satisfactorily, the duties of a hospital
attendant. The commencement of the abnormal
state is ushered in by uneasiness and a sense of
weight about the forehead, which the patient com-
pares to the constriction of a circle of iron; and,
after its termination, he complains, for some hours,
of dulness and heaviness of the head. But the
transition from the normal to the abnormal state
takes place in a few minutes, without convulsions
or cries, and without anything to indicate the change
to a bystander. His movements remain free and his
expression calm, except for a contraction of the brow,
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 225
an incessant movement of the eyeballs, and a chewing
motion of the jaws. The eyes are wide open, and
their pupils dilated. If the man happens to be in a
place to which he is accustomed, he walks about as
usual ; but, if he is in a new place, or if obstacles are
intentionally placed in his way, he stumbles gently
against them, stops, and then, feeling over the objects
with his hands, passes on one side of them. He offers
no resistance to any change of direction which may
be impressed upon him, or to the forcible acceleration
or retardation of his movements. He eats, drinks,
smokes, walks about, dresses and undresses himself,
rises and goes to bed at the accustomed hours.
Nevertheless, pins may be run into his body, or
strong electric shocks sent through it, without causing
the least indication of pain ; no odorous substance,
pleasant or unpleasant, makes the least impression ;
he eats and drinks with avidity whatever is offered,
and takes asafoetida, or vinegar, or quinine, as readily
as water ; no noise affects him ; and light influences
him only under certain conditions. Dr. Mesnet re-
marks, that the sense of touch alone seems to persist,
and indeed to be more acute and delicate than in the
normal state ; and it is by means of the nerves
of touch, almost exclusively, that his organism is
brought into relation with the external world. Here
a difficulty arises. It is clear from the facts detailed,
that the nervous apparatus by which, in the normal
state, sensations of touch are excited, is that by
which external influences determine the movements
of the body, in the abnormal state. But does the
Q
226 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
state of consciousness, which we term a tactile sen-
sation, accompany the operation of this nervous
apparatus in the abnormal state ? or is consciousness
utterly absent, the man being reduced to an insensible
mechanism 1
It is impossible to obtain direct evidence in
favour of the one conclusion or the other ; all that
can be said is, that the case of the frog shows that
the man may be devoid of any kind of consciousness.
A further difficult problem is this. The man is
insensible to sensory impressions made through the
ear, the nose, the tongue, and, to a great extent, the
eye ; nor is he susceptible of pain from causes operat-
ing during his abnormal state. Nevertheless, it is
possible so to act upon his tactile apparatus, as to
give rise to those molecular changes in his sensorium,
which are ordinarily the causes of associated trains of
ideas. I give a striking example of this process in
Dr. Mesnet's words :
"II sepromenait dans le jardin, sous un massif d'arbres, on
lui remet a la main sa canne qu'il avait Iaiss6 tomber quelques
minutes avant. II la palpe, promene a plusieurs reprises la main
sur la poigne"e coudee de sa canne devient attentif semble
prater 1'oreille et, tout-a-coup, appelle * Henri! 7 Puis, 'Les
voila ! Us sont au moins une vingtaine ! a nous deux, nous en
viendrons a bout ! ' Et alors portant la main derriere son dos
comme pour prendre une cartouche, il fait le mouvement de
charger son arme, se couche dans 1'herbe a plat ventre, la tete
cache'e par un arbre, dans la position d'un tirailleur, et suit,
1'arme e"paulee, tous les mouvements de I'euuemi qu'il croit voir
a courte distance."
In a subsequent abnormal period, Dr. Mesnet
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 227
caused the patient to repeat this scene by placing
him in the same conditions. Now, in this case, the
question arises whether the series of actions constitut-
ing this singular pantomime was accompanied by
the ordinary states of consciousness, the appropriate
train of ideas, or not ? Did the man dream that he
was skirmishing ? or was he in the condition of one of
Vaucauson's automata a senseless mechanism worked
by molecular changes in his nervous system ? The
analogy of the frog shows that the latter assumption
is perfectly justifiable.
The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had, at one
time, been employed as a singer at a cafe. In one of
his abnormal states he was observed to begin hum-
ming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed
himself carefully, and took up some parts of a period-
ical novel, which lay on his bed, as if he were trying
to find something. Dr. Mesnet, suspecting that he
was seeking his music, made up one of these . into a
roll and put it into his hand. He appeared satisfied,
took up his cane and went down-stairs to the door.
Here Dr. Mesnet turned him round, and he walked
quite contentedly, in the opposite direction, towards
the room of the concierge. The light of the sun
shining through a window now happened to fall upon
him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage
on which he was accustomed to make his appear-
ance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary
music, put himself into the attitude of a singer, and
sang, with perfect execution, three songs, one after
the other. After which he wiped his face with his
228 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
handkerchief and drank, without a grimace, a tumbler
of strong vinegar and water which was put into his
hand.
An experiment which may be performed upon the
frog deprived of the fore part of its brain, well known
as Goltz's " Quak-versuch," affords a parallel to this
performance. If the skin of a certain part of the back
of such a frog is gently stroked with the finger, it
immediately croaks. It never croaks unless it is so
stroked, and the croak always follows the stroke, just
as the sound of a repeater follows the touching of the
spring. In the frog, this " song " is innate so to
speak d priori and depends upon a mechanism in
the brain governing the vocal apparatus, which is set
at work by the molecular change set up in the sen-
sory nerves of the skin of the back by the contact of
a foreign body.
In man there is also a vocal mechanism, and the
cry of an infant is in the same sense innate and d
priori, inasmuch as it depends on an organic relation
between its sensory nerves and the nervous mechanism
which governs the vocal apparatus. Learning to
speak, and learning to sing, are processes by which
the vocal mechanism is set to new tunes. A song
which has been learned has its molecular equivalent,
which potentially represents it in the brain, just as
a musical box wound up potentially represents an
overture. Touch the stop and the overture begins ;
send a molecular impulse along the proper afferent
nerve and the singer begins his song.
Again, the manner in which the frog, though
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 229
apparently insensible to light, is yet, under some
circumstances, influenced by visual images, finds a
singular parallel in the case of the ex-sergeant.
Sitting at a table, in one of his abnormal states,
he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began
to write a letter to his general, in which he recom-
mended himself for a medal, on account of his good
conduct and courage. It occurred to Dr. Mesnet to
ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned
in this act of writing. He therefore interposed a
screen between the man's eyes and his hands ; under
these circumstances he went on writing for a short
time, but the words became illegible, and he finally
stopped, without manifesting any discontent. On the
withdrawal of the screen he began to write again
where he had left off. The substitution of water for
ink in the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped,
looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it in
the water, and began again, with the same effect.
On one occasion, he began to write upon the top-
most of ten superimposed sheets of paper. After
he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly
drawn away. There was a slight expression of sur-
prise, but he continued his letter on the second sheet
exactly as if it had been the first. This operation
was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet con-
tained nothing but the writer's signature at the bottom
of the page. Nevertheless, when the signature was
finished, his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet,
and he went through the form of reading over what
he had written, a movement of the lips accompany-
230 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
ing each word; moreover, with his pen, he put in
such corrections as were needed, in that part of the
blank page which corresponded with the position of
the words which required correction, in the sheets
which had been taken away. If the five sheets had
been transparent, therefore, they would, when super-
posed, have formed a properly written and corrected
letter.
Immediately after he had written his letter, F
got up, walked down to the garden, made himself a
cigarette, lighted and smoked it. He was about to
prepare another, but sought in vain for his tobacco-
pouch, which had been purposely taken away. The
pouch was now thrust before his eyes and put under
his nose, but he neither saw nor smelt it ; but, when
it was placed in his hand, he at once seized it, made a
fresh cigarette, and ignited a match to light the latter.
The match was blown out, and another lighted match
placed close before his eyes, but he made no attempt
to take it ; and, if his cigarette was lighted for him,
he made no attempt to smoke. All this time the
eyes were vacant, and neither winked, nor exhibited
any contraction of the pupils. From these and other
experiments, Dr. Mesnet draws the conclusion that
his patient sees some things and not others ; that the
sense of sight is accessible to all things which are
brought into relation with him by the sense of touch,
and, on the contrary, insensible to things which lie
outside this relation. He sees the match he holds,
and does not see any other.
Just so the frog " sees " the book which is in the
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 231
way of his jump, at the same time that isolated visual
impressions take no effect upon him. 1
As I have pointed out, it is impossible to prove
that F is absolutely unconscious in his abnormal
state, but it is no less impossible to prove the con-
trary; and the case of the frog goes a long way to
justify the assumption that, in the abnormal state,
the man is a mere insensible machine.
If such facts as these had come under the know-
ledge of Descartes, would they not have formed an
1 Those who have had occasion to become acquainted with the
phenomena of somnambulism and of mesmerism, will be struck with
the close parallel which they present to the proceedings of F. in his
abnormal state. But the great value of Dr. Mesnet's observations lies
in the fact that the abnormal condition is traceable to a definite injury
to the brain, and that the circumstances are such as to keep us clear of
the cloud of voluntary and involuntary fictions in which the truth is
too often smothered in such cases. In the unfortunate subjects of
such abnormal conditions of the brain, the disturbance of the sensory
and intellectual faculties is not unfrequently accompanied by a perturb-
ation of the moral nature, which may manifest itself in a most
astonishing love of lying for its own sake. And, in this respect, also,
F.'s case is singularly instructive, for though, in his normal state, he is
a perfectly honest man, in his abnormal condition he is an inveterate
thief, stealing and hiding away whatever he can lay hands on, with
much dexterity, and with an absurd indifference as to whether the
property is his own or not. Hoffman's terrible conception of the
" Doppelt-ganger " is realised by men in this state who live two lives,
in the one of which they may be guilty of the most criminal acts,
while, in the other, they are eminently virtuous and respectable.
Neither life knows anything of the other. Dr. Mesnet states that he
has watched a man in his abnormal state elaborately prepare to hang
himself, and has let him go on until asphyxia set in, when he cut him
down. But on passing into the normal state the would-be suicide
was wholly ignorant of what had happened. The problem of respon-
sibility is here as complicated as that of the prince-bishop, who swore
as a prince and not as a bishop. " But, highness, if the prince is
damned, what will become of the bishop ? " said the peasant.
232 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
apt commentary upon that remarkable passage in the
"Traite* de THomme," which I have quoted elsewhere, 1
but which is worth repetition ?
" All the functions which I have attributed to this machine
(the body), as the digestion of food, the pulsation of the heart
and of the arteries ; the nutrition and the growth of the limbs ;
respiration, wakefulness, and sleep ; the reception of light, sounds,
odours, flavours, heat, and such like qualities, in the organs of
the external senses ; the impression of the ideas of these in the
organ of common sensation and in the imagination ; the retention
or the impression of. these ideas on the memory : the internal
movements of the appetites and the passions j and lastly the ex-
ternal movements of all the limbs, which follow so aptly, as well
the action of the objects which are presented to the senses, as the
impressions which meet in the memory, that they imitate as
nearly as possible those of a real man ; I desire, I say, that you
should consider that these functions in the machine naturally
proceed from the mere arrangement of its organs, neither more
nor less than do the movements of a clock, or other automaton,
from that of its weights and its wheels ; so that, so far as these are
concerned, it is not necessary to conceive any other vegetative or
sensitive soul, nor any other principle of motion or of life, than
the blood and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns con-
tinually in the heart, and which is no wise essentially different
from all the fires which exist in inanimate bodies."
And would Descartes not have been justified in asking
why we need deny that animals are machines, when
men, in a state of unconsciousness, perform, mechani-
cally, actions as complicated and as seemingly rational
as those of any animals ?
But though I do not think that Descartes'
hypothesis can be positively refuted, I am not dis-
posed to accept it. The doctrine of continuity is too
well established for it to be permissible to me to
1 " Lay Sermons, Essays and Reviews," p. 355.
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 233
suppose that any complex natural phenomenon comes
into existence suddenly, and without being preceded
by simpler modifications ; and very strong arguments
would be needed to prove that such complex pheno-
mena, as those of consciousness, first make their
appearance in man. We know, that, in the individual
man, consciousness grows from a dim glimmer to its
full light, whether we consider the infant advancing
in years, or the adult emerging from slumber and
swoon. We know, further, that the lower animals
possess, though less developed, that part of the brain
which we have every reason to believe to be the organ
of consciousness in man ; and as, in other cases, func-
tion and organ are proportional, so we have a right to
conclude it is with the brain ; and that the brutes,
though they may not possess our intensity of conscious-
ness, and though, from the absence of language, they
can have no trains of thoughts, but only trains of
feelings, yet have a consciousness which, more or less
distinctly, foreshadows our own.
I confess that, in view of the struggle for existence
which goes on in the animal world, and of the fright-
ful quantity of pain with which it must be accom-
panied, I should be glad if the probabilities were in
favour of Descartes' hypothesis; but, on the other
hand, considering the terrible practical consequences
to domestic animals which might ensue from any error
on our part, it is as well to err on the right side, if we
err at all, and deal with them as weaker brethren, who
are bound, like the rest of us, to pay their toll for
living, and suffer what is needful for the general good.
234 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
As Hartley finely says, " We seem to be in the place
of God to them ; " and we may justly follow the pre-
cedents He sets in nature in our dealings with them.
But though we may see reason to disagree with
Descartes' hypothesis that brutes are unconscious
machines, it does not follow that he was wrong in re-
garding them as automata. They may be more or
less conscious, sensitive, automata ; and the view that
they are such conscious machines is that which is
implicitly, or explicitly, adopted by most persons.
When we speak of the actions of the lower animals
being guided by instinct and not by reason, what we
really mean is that, though they feel as we do, yet
their actions are the results of their physical organisa-
tion. We believe, in short, that they are machines,
one part of which (the nervous system) not only sets
the rest in motion, and co-ordinates its movements in
relation with changes in surrounding bodies, but is
provided with special apparatus, the function of which
is the calling into existence of those states of con-
sciousness which are termed sensations, emotions, and
ideas. I believe that this generally accepted view is
the best expression of the facts at present known.
It is experimentally demonstrable any one who
cares to run a pin into himself may perform a suffi-
cient demonstration of the fact that a mode of
motion of the nervous system is the immediate ante-
cedent of a state of consciousness. All but the
adherents of "Occasionalism," or of the doctrine of
" Pre-established Harmony " (if any such now exist),
must admit that we have as much reason for regarding
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 235
the mode of motion of the nervous system as the cause
of the state of consciousness, as we have for regarding
any event as the cause of another. How the one
phenomenon causes the other we know, as much or as
little, as in any other case of causation ; but we have
as much right to believe that the sensation is an effect
of the molecular change, as we have to believe that
motion is an effect of impact ; and there is as much
propriety in saying that the brain evolves sensation,
as there is in saying that an iron rod, when hammered,
evolves heat.
As I have endeavoured to show, we are justified
in supposing that something analogous to what
happens in ourselves takes place in the brutes, and
that the affections of their sensory nerves give rise to
molecular changes in the brain, which again give rise
to, or evolve, the corresponding states of consciousness.
Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that the
emotions of brutes, and such ideas as they possess,
are similarly dependent upon molecular brain changes.
Each sensory impression leaves behind a record in the
structure of the brain an " ideagenous " molecule, so
to speak, which is competent, under certain conditions,
to reproduce, in a fainter condition, the state of con-
sciousness which corresponds with that sensory impres-
sion ; and it is these " ideagenous molecules " which
are the physical basis of memory.
It may be assumed, then, that molecular changes
in the brain are the causes of all the states of con-
sciousness of brutes. Is there any evidence that these
states of consciousness may, conversely, cause those
236 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
molecular changes which give rise to muscular motion ?
I see no such evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims,
and goes through his gymnastic performances quite as
well without consciousness, and consequently without
volition, as with it; and, if a frog, in his natural
state, possesses anything corresponding with what we
call volition, there is no reason to think that it is
anything but a concomitant of the molecular changes
in the brain which form part of the series involved in
the production of motion.
The consciousness of brutes would appear to be
related to the mechanism of their body simply as a
collateral product of its working, and to be as com-
pletely without any power of modifying that working
as the steam -whistle which accompanies the work of
a locomotive engine is without influence upon its
machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an
emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of
such changes.
This conception of the relations of states of con-
sciousness with molecular changes in the brain of
psychoses with neuroses does not prevent us from
ascribing free will to brutes. For an agent is free
when there is nothing to prevent him from doing that
which he desires to do. If a greyhound chases a
hare, he is a free agent, because his action is in entire
accordance with his strong desire to catch the hare ;
while so long as he is held back by the leash he is not
free, being prevented by external force from following
his inclination. And the ascription of freedom to the
greyhound under the former circumstances is by no
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 237
means inconsistent with the other aspect of the facts
of the case that he is a machine impelled to the
chase, and caused, at the same time, to have the desire
to catch the game by the impression which the rays of
light proceeding from the hare make upon his eyes,
and through them upon his brain.
Much ingenious argument has, at various times,
been bestowed upon the question : How is it possible
to imagine that volition, which is a state of conscious-
ness, and, as such, has not the slightest community of
nature with matter in motion, can act upon the
moving matter of which the body is composed, as it
is assumed to do in voluntary acts ? But if, as is
here suggested, the voluntary acts of brutes or, in
other words, the acts which they desire to perform
are as purely mechanical as the rest of their actions,
and are simply accompanied by the state of conscious-
ness called volition, the inquiry, so far as they are
concerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions do
not enter into the chain of causation of their actions
at all.
The hypothesis that brutes are conscious automata
is perfectly consistent with any view that may be
held respecting the often discussed and curious
question whether they have souls or not ; and, if they
have souls, whether those souls are immortal or not.
It is obviously harmonious with the most literal
adherence to the text of Scripture concerning "the
beast that perisheth ; " but it is not inconsistent with
the amiable conviction ascribed by Pope to his
"untutored savage," that when he passes to the
238 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
happy hunting-grounds in the sky, " his faithful dog
shall bear him company." If the brutes have con-
sciousness and no souls, then it is clear that, in them,
consciousness is a direct function of material changes ;
while, if they possess immaterial subjects of conscious-
ness, or souls, then, as consciousness is brought into
existence only as the consequence of molecular motion
of the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product
of material changes. The soul stands related to the
body as the bell of a clock to the works, and con-
sciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives
out when it is struck.
Thus far I have strictly confined myself to the
problem with which I proposed to deal at starting
the automatism of brutes. The question is, I believe,
a perfectly open one, and I feel happy in running no
risk of either Papal or Presbyterian condemnation for
the views which I have ventured to put forward.
And there are so very few interesting questions which
one is, at present, allowed to think out scientifically
to go as far as reason leads, and stop where evidence
comes to an end without speedily being deafened by
the tattoo of "the drum ecclesiastic" that I have
luxuriated in my rare freedom, and would now
willingly bring this disquisition to an end if I could
hope that other people would go no farther. Unfortu-
nately, past experience debars me from entertaining
any such hope, even if
" that drum's discordant sound
Parading round and round and round,"
were not, at present, as audible to me, as it was to the
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 239
mild poet who ventured to express his hatred of drums
in general, in that well-known couplet.
It will be said, that I mean that the conclusions
deduced from the study of the brutes are applicable
to man, and that the logical consequences of such
application are fatalism, materialism, and atheism
whereupon the drums will beat the pas de charge.
One does not do battle with drummers; but I
venture to offer a few remarks for the calm considera-
tion of thoughtful persons, untrammelled by foregone
conclusions, unpledged to shore-up tottering dogmas,
and anxious only to know the true bearings of the
case.
It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment,
the argumentation which applies to brutes holds
equally good of men ; and, therefore, that all states
of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately
caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance.
It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no
proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of
change in the motion of the matter of the organism.
If these positions are well based, it follows that our
mental conditions are simply the symbols in conscious-
ness of the changes which take place automatically in
the organism ; and that, to take an extreme illustration,
the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a
voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the
brain which is the immediate cause of that act. We
are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the
only intelligible sense of that much-abused term
inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we
'240 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
like but none the less parts of the great series of
causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity,
composes that which is, and has been, and shall be
the sum of existence.
As to the logical consequences of this conviction
of mine, I may be permitted to remark that logical
consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the
beacons of wise men. The only question which any
wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man
will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.
Consequences will take care of themselves ; at most
their importance can only justify us in testing with
extra care the reasoning process from which they
result.
So that if the view I have taken did really and
logically lead to fatalism, materialism, and atheism,
I should profess myself a fatalist, materialist, and
atheist; and I should look upon those who, while
they believed in my honesty of purpose and intel-
lectual competency, should raise a hue and cry against
me, as people who by their own admission preferred
lying to truth, and whose opinions therefore were
unworthy of the smallest attention.
But, as I have endeavoured to explain on other
occasions, I really have no claim to rank myself
among fatalistic, materialistic, or atheistic philoso-
phers. Not among fatalists, for I take the conception
of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical
foundation ; not among materialists, for I am utterly
incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there
is no mind in which to picture that existence ; not
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 241
among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause
of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly
out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the senseless
babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demon-
strations of these philosophers who undertake to tell
us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if
they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities
of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no
God.
And if this personal disclaimer should not be
enough, let me further point out that a great many
persons whose acuteness and learning will not be
contested, and whose Christian piety, and, in some
cases, strict orthodoxy, are above suspicion, have held
more or less definitely the view that man is a conscious
automaton.
It is held, for example, in substance, by the whole
school of predestinarian theologians, typified by St.
Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards the great
work of the latter on the will showing in this, as in
other cases, that the growth of physical science has
introduced no new difficulties of principle into theo-
logical problems, but has merely given visible body,
as it were, to those which already existed.
Among philosophers, the pious Geulincx and the
whole school of occasionalist Cartesians held this view ;
the orthodox Leibnitz invented the term " automate
spirituel," and applied it to man ; the fervent Christian,
Hartley, was one of the chief advocates and best
expositors of the doctrine ; while another zealous
apologist of Christianity in a sceptical age, and a con-
R
242 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
temporary of Hartley, Charles Bonnet, the Genevese
naturalist, has embodied the doctrine in language of
such precision and simplicity, that I will quote the
little-known passage of his " Essai de Psychologic "
at length :
" ANOTHER HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE MECHANISM
OF IDEAS. 1
" Philosophers accustomed to judge of things by that which
they are in themselves, and not by their relation to received
ideas, would not be shocked if they met with the proposition
that the soul is a mere spectator of the movements of its body :
that the latter performs of itself all that series of actions which
constitutes life : that it moves of itself : that it is the body alone
which reproduces ideas, compares and arranges them; which
forms reasonings, imagines and executes plans of all kinds, etc.
This hypothesis, though perhaps of an excessive boldness, never-
theless deserves some consideration.
" It is not to be denied that Supreme Power could create an
automaton which should exactly imitate all the external and
internal actions of man.
" I understand by external actions, all those movements which
pass under our eyes; I term internal actions, all the motions
which in the natural state cannot be observed because they take
place in the interior of the body such as the movements of
digestion, circulation, sensation, etc. Moreover, I include in this
category the movements which give rise to ideas, whatever be
their nature.
" In the automaton which we are considering everything would
be precisely determined. Everything would occur according to
the rules of the most admirable mechanism : one state would
succeed another state, one operation would lead to another
operation, according to invariable laws ; motion would become
alternately cause and effect, effect and cause; reaction would
answer to action, and reproduction to production.
1 " Essai de Psychologie," chap, xxvii
IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 243
" Constructed with definite relations to the activity of the
beings which compose the world, the automaton would receive
impressions from it, and, in faithful correspondence thereto, it
would execute a corresponding series of motions.
" Indifferent towards any determination, it would yield equally
to all, if the first impressions did not, so to speak, wind up the
machine and decide its operations and its coursa
" The series of movements which this automaton could execute
would distinguish it from all others formed on the same model,
but which, not having been placed in similar circumstances, would
not have experienced the same impressions, or would not have
experienced them in the same order.
" The senses of the automaton, set in motion by the objects
presented to it, would communicate their motion to the brain,
the chief motor apparatus of the machine. This would put in
action the muscles of the hands and feet, in virtue of their secret
connection with the senses. These muscles, alternately contracted
and dilated, would approximate or remove the automaton from
the objects, in the relation which they would bear to the con-
servation or the destruction of the machine.
" The motions of perception and sensation which the objects
would have impressed on the brain, would be preserved in it by
the energy of its mechanism. They would become more vivid
according to the actual condition of the automaton, considered in
itself and relatively to the objects.
" Words being only the motions impressed on the organ of
hearing and that of voice, the diversity of these movements,
their combination, the order in which they would succeed one
another, would represent judgments, reasoning, and all the oper-
ations of the mind.
" A close correspondence between the organs of the senses,
either by the opening into one another of their nervous ramifica-
tions, or by interposed springs (ressorts), would establish such a
connection in their working, that, on the occasion of the move-
ments impressed on one of these organs, other movements would
be excited, or would become more vivid in some of the other
senses.
"Give the automaton a soul which contemplates its movements,
which believes itself to be the author of them, which has different
244 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. [LECT.
volitions on the occasion of the different movements, and you
will on this hypothesis construct a man.
" But would this man be free ? Can the feeling of our liberty,
this feeling which is so clear and so distinct and so vivid as to
persuade us that we are the authors of our actions, be conciliated
with this hypothesis 1 If it removes the difficulty which attends
the conception of the action of the soul on the body, on the other
hand it leaves untouched that which meets us in endeavouring
to conceive the action of the body on the soul."
But if Leibnitz, Jonathan Edwards, and Hartley
men who rank among the giants of the world of
thought could see no antagonism between the doc-
trine under discussion and Christian orthodoxy, is it
not just possible that smaller folk may be wrong in
making such a coil about " logical consequences " ?
And, seeing how large a share of this clamour is raised
by the clergy of one denomination or another, may
I say, in conclusion, that it really would be well if
ecclesiastical persons would reflect that ordination,
whatever deep-seated graces it may confer, has never
been observed to be followed by any visible increase
in the learning or the logic of its subject. Making a
man a Bishop, or entrusting him with the office of
ministering to even the largest of Presbyterian
congregations, or setting him up to lecture to a
Church congress, really does not in the smallest
degree augment such title to respect as his opinions
may intrinsically possess. And, when such a man
presumes on an authority which was conferred upon
him for other purposes, to sit in judgment upon
matters his incompetence to deal with which is
patent, it is permissible to ignore his sacerdotal pre-
TX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 245
tensions, and to tell him, as one would tell a mere
common, unconsecrated, layman : that it is not neces-
sary for any man to occupy himself with problems of
this kind unless he so choose ; life is filled full
enough by the performance of its ordinary and
obvious duties. But that, if a man elect to become
a judge of these grave questions ; still more, if he
assume the responsibility of attaching praise or blame
to his fellow-men for the conclusions at which they
arrive touching them, he will commit a sin more
grievous than most breaches of the Decalogue, unless
he avoid a lazy reliance upon the information that is
gathered by prejudice and filtered through passion,
unless he go back to the prime sources of knowledge
the facts of nature, and the thoughts of those wise
men who for generations past have been her best
interpreters.
246 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEKOUS ORGANS. [LECT.
X.
ON SENSATION AND THE UNITY OF
STEUCTUEE OF SENSIFEEOUS OEGANS.
THE maxim that metaphysical inquiries are barren of
result, and that the serious occupation of the mind
with them is a mere waste of time and labour, finds
much favour in the eyes of the many persons who
pride themselves on the possession of sound common
sense ; and we sometimes hear it enunciated by
weighty authorities, as if its natural consequence,
the suppression of such studies, had the force of a
moral obligation.
In this case, however, as in some others, those
who lay down the law seem to forget that a wise
legislator will consider, not merely whether his pro-
posed enactment is desirable, but whether obedience
to it is possible. For, if the latter question is
answered negatively, the former is surely hardly
worth debate.
Here, in fact, lies the pith of the reply to those
who would make metaphysics contraband of intellect.
Whether it is desirable to place a prohibitory duty
upon philosophical speculations or not, it is utterly
impossible to prevent the importation of them into
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 247
the mind. And it is not a little curious to observe
that those who most loudly profess to abstain from
such commodities are, all the while, unconscious con-
sumers, on a great scale, of one or other of their mul-
titudinous disguises or adulterations. With mouths
full of the particular kind of heavily buttered toast
which they affect, they inveigh against the eating of
plain bread. In truth, the attempt to nourish the
human intellect upon a diet which contains no meta-
physics is about as hopeful as that of certain Eastern
sages to nourish their bodies without destroying life.
Everybody has heard the story of the pitiless micro-
scopist, who ruined the peace of mind of one of these
mild enthusiasts by showing him the animals moving
in a drop of the water with which, in the innocency
of his heart, he slaked his thirst ; and the unsuspect-
ing devotee of plain common sense may look for as
unexpected a shock when the magnifier of severe
logic reveals the germs, if not the full-grown shapes,
of lively metaphysical postulates rampant amidst his
most positive and matter-of-fact notions.
By way of escape from the metaphysical Will-o'-
the-wisps generated in the marshes of literature and
theology, the serious student is sometimes bidden to
betake himself to the solid ground of physical science.
But the fish of immortal memory, who threw himself
out of the frying-pan into the fire, was not more ill
advised than the man who seeks sanctuary from philo-
sophical persecution within the walls of the observa-
tory or of the laboratory. It is said that " metaphysics "
owe their name to the fact that, in Aristotle's works,
248 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
questions of pure philosophy are dealt with imme-
diately after those of physics. If so, the accident
is happily symbolical of the essential relations of
things ; for metaphysical speculation follows as closely
upon physical theory as black care upon the horse-
man.
One need but mention such fundamental, and
indeed indispensable, conceptions of the natural philo-
sopher as those of atoms and forces : or that of attrac-
tion considered as action at a distance ; or that of
potential energy ; or the antinomies of a vacuum and
a plenum; to call to mind the metaphysical back-
ground of physics and chemistry ; while, in the bio-
logical sciences, the case is still worse. What is an
individual among the lower plants and animals ? Are
genera and species realities or abstractions ? Is there
such a thing as Vital Force ? or does the name denote
a mere relic of metaphysical fetichisin ? Is the doc-
trine of final causes legitimate or illegitimate ? These
are a few of the metaphysical topics which are sug-
gested by the most elementary study of biological
facts. But, more than this, it may be truly said that
the roots of every system of philosophy lie deep
among the facts of physiology. No one can doubt
that the organs and the functions of sensation are as
much a part of the province of the physiologist, as are
the organs and functions of motion, or those of diges-
tion ; and yet it is impossible to gain an acquaintance
with even the rudiments of the physiology of sensation
without being led straight to one of the most funda-
mental of all metaphysical problems. In fact, the
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 249
sensory operations have been, from time immemorial,
the battle-ground of philosophers.
I have more than once taken occasion to point
out that we are indebted to Descartes, who happened
to be a physiologist as well as a philosopher, for the
first distinct enunciation of the essential elements of
the true theory of sensation. In later times, it is not
to the works of the philosophers, if Hartley and James
Mill are excepted, but to those of the physiologists,
that we must turn for an adequate account of the
sensory process. Haller's luminous, though summary,
account of sensation in his admirable " Primse Lineae,"
the first edition of which was printed in 1747, offers
a striking contrast to the prolixity and confusion of
thought which prevade Keid's " Inquiry," of seventeen
years' later date. 1 Even Sir William Hamilton,
learned historian and acute critic as he was, not only
failed to apprehend the philosophical bearing of long-
established physiological truths ; but, when he affirmed
that there is no reason to deny that the mind feels
at the finger points, and none to assert that the
brain is the sole organ of thought, 2 he showed that
1 In justice to Reid, however, it should be stated that the chapters
on sensation in the " Essays on the Intellectual Powers " (1785) exhibit
a great improvement. He is, in fact, in advance of his commentator, as
the note to Essay II. chap. ii. p. 248 of Hamilton's edition shows.
2 Haller, amplifying Descartes, writes in the " Primaa Lineae,"
CCCLXVI. "Non est adeo obscurum sensum omnem oriri a*b objecti
sensibilis impressione in nervum quemcumque corporis humani, et
eamdem per eum nervum ad cerebrum pervenientem tune demum re-
presentari animse, quando cerebrum adtigit. Ut etiam hoc falsum sit
animam inproximo per sensoria nervorumque ramos sentire." .'.,.
DLVII. " Dum ergo sentimus quinque diversissima entia conjunguntur :
250 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEKOUS ORGANS. [LECT,
he had not apprehended the significance of the revo-
lution commenced, two hundred years before his
time, by Descartes, and effectively followed up by
Haller, Hartley, and Bonnet, in the middle of the last
century.
In truth, the theory of sensation, except in one
point, is, at the present moment, very much where
Hartley, led by a hint of Sir Isaac Newton's, left it,
when, a hundred and twenty years since, the " Ob-
servations on Man : his Frame, his Duty, and his
Expectations," was laid before the world. The whole
matter is put in a nutshell in the following passages
of this notable book.
"External objects impressed upon the senses occasion, first
on the nerves on which they are impressed, and then on the
brain, vibrations of the small and, as we may say, infinitesimal
medullary particles.
" These vibrations are motions backwards and forwards of
the small particles ; of the same kind with the oscillations of
pendulums and the tremblings of the particles of sounding
bodies. They must be conceived to be exceedingly short and
small, so as not to have the least efficacy to disturb or move the
whole bodies of the nerves or brain." x
"The white medullary substance of the brain is also the
corpus quod sentimus : organi sensorii adfectio ab eo corpore : cerebri
adfectio a sensorii percussione nata : in anima nata mutatio : animse
denique conscientia et sensationis adperceptio." Nevertheless, Sir
William Hamilton gravely informs his hearers : " We have no more
right to deny that the mind feels at the finger points, as consciousness
assures us, than to assert that it thinks exclusively in the brain."
" Lecture on Metaphysics and Logic," ii. p. 128. " We have no reason
whatever to doubt the report of consciousness, that we actually perceive
at the external point of sensation, and that we perceive the material
reality." Ibid. p. 129.
1 "Observations on Man," vol. i. p. 11.
X] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 251
immediate instrument by which ideas are presented to the
mind j or, in other words, whatever changes are made in this
substance, corresponding changes are made in our ideas; and
Hartley, like Haller, had no conception of the
nature and functions of the grey matter of the brain.
But, if for " white medullary substance," in the latter
paragraph, we substitute "grey cellular substance,"
Hartley's propositions embody the most probable con-
clusions which are to be drawn from the latest
investigations of physiologists. In order to judge
how completely this is the case, it will be well to
study some simple case of sensation, and, following the
example of Keid and of James Mill, we may begin
with the sense of smell. Suppose that I become
aware of a musky scent, to which the name of
"muskiness" may be given. I call this an odour,
and I class it along with the feelings of light, colours,
sounds, tastes, and the like, among those phenomena
which are known as sensations. To say that I am
aware of this phenomenon, or that I have it, or that
it exists, are simply different modes of affirming the
same facts. If I am asked how I know that it
exists, I can only reply that its existence and my
knowledge of it are one and the same thing ; in short,
that my knowledge is immediate or intuitive, and, as
such, is possessed of the highest conceivable degree
of certainty.
1 Ibid. p. 8. The speculations of Bonnet are remarkably similar
to those of Hartley ; and they appear to have originated independently,
though the "Essai de Psychologie" (1754) is of five years' later date
than the "Observations on Man" (1749).
252 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
The pure sensation of muskiness is almost sure to
be followed by a mental state which is not a sensation,
but a belief, that there is somewhere close at hand a
something on which the existence of the sensation
depends. It may be a musk-deer, or a musk-rat, or a
musk -plant, or a grain of dry musk, or simply a
scented handkerchief; but former experience leads us
to believe that the sensation is due to the presence of
one or other of these objects, and that it will vanish
if the object is removed. In other words, -there
arises a belief in an external cause of the muskiness,
which, in common language, is termed an odorous
body.
But the manner in which this belief is usually put
into words is strangely misleading. If we are dealing
with a musk -plant, for example, we do not confine
ourselves to a simple statement of that which we be-
lieve, and say that the musk-plant is the cause of the
sensation called muskiness ; but we say that the plant
has a musky smell, and we speak of the odour as a
quality, or property, inherent in the plant. And the
inevitable reaction of words upon thought has in this
case become so complete, and has penetrated so deeply,
that when an accurate statement of the case namely,
that muskiness, inasmuch as the term denotes nothing
but a sensation, is a mental state, and has no exist-
ence except as a mental phenomenon is first brought
under the notice of common-sense folks, it is usually
regarded by them as what they are pleased to call a
mere metaphysical paradox and a patent example of
useless subtlety. Yet the slightest reflection must
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 253
suffice to convince any one possessed of sound reason-
ing faculties, that it is as absurd to suppose that
muskiness is a quality inherent in one plant, as it
would be to imagine that pain is a quality inherent
in another, because we feel pain when a thorn pricks
the finger.
Even the common -sense philosopher, par excel-
lence, says of smell : "It appears to be a simple and
original affection or feeling of the mind, altogether
inexplicable and unaccountable. It is indeed impos-
sible that it can be in any body : it is a sensation, and
a sensation can only be in a sentient thing." ]
That which is true of muskiness is true of every
other odour. Lavender -smell, clove-smell, garlic-
smell, are, like " muskiness," names of states of con-
sciousness, and have no existence except as such.
But, in ordinary language, we speak of all these
odours as if they were independent entities residing
in lavender, cloves, and garlic ; and it is not without
a certain struggle that the false metaphysic of so-
called common sense, thus ingrained in us, is expelled.
For the present purpose, it is unnecessary to in-
quire into the origin of our belief in external bodies,
1 " An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common
Sense," chap. ii. 2. Reid affirms that " it is genius, and not the want
of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false
theory ;" and no doubt his own lucubrations are free from the small-
est taint of the impurity to which he objects. But, for want of
something more than that sort of "common sense," which is very
common and a little dull, the contemner of genius did not notice that
the admission here made knocks so big a hole in the bottom of
" common sense philosophy," that nothing can save it from founder-
ing in the dreaded abyss of Idealism.
254 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
or into that of the notion of causation. Assuming
the existence of an external world, there is no diffi-
culty in obtaining experimental proof that, as a
general rule, olfactory sensations are caused by
odorous bodies ; and we may pass on to the next
step of the inquiry namely, how the odorous body
produces the effect attributed to it.
The first point to be noted here is another fact
revealed by experience; that the appearance of the
sensation is governed, not only by the presence of the
odorous substance, but by the condition of a certain
part of our corporeal structure, the nose. If the
nostrils are closed, the presence of the odorous sub-
stance does not give rise to the sensation ; while,
when they are open, the sensation is intensified by
the approximation of the odorous substance to them,
and by snuffing up the adjacent air in such a manner
as to draw it into the nose. On the other hand, look-
ing at an odorous substance, or rubbing it on the
skin, or holding it to the ear, does not awaken the
sensation. Thus, it can be readily established by
experiment that the perviousness of the nasal passages
is, in some way, essential to the sensory function ;
in fact, that the organ of that function is lodged
somewhere in the nasal passages. And, since odor-
ous bodies give rise to their effects at considerable
distances, the suggestion is obvious that something
must pass from them into the sense organ. What
is this " something," which plays the part of an in-
termediary between the odorous body and the sensory
organ ?
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 255
The oldest speculation about the matter dates
back to Democritus and the Epicurean School, and it
is to be found fully stated in the fourth book of
Lucretius. It comes to this : that the surfaces of
bodies are constantly throwing off excessively atten-
uated films of their own substance : and that these
films, reaching the mind, excite the appropriate sen-
sations in it.
Aristotle did not admit the existence of any such
material films, but conceived that it was the form of
the substance, and not its matter, which affected sense,
as a seal impresses wax, without losing anything in the
process. While many, if not the majority, of the
Schoolmen took up an intermediate position and
supposed that a something, which was not exactly
either material or immaterial, and which they called
an " intentional species," effected the needful com-
munication between the bodily cause of sensation and
the mind.
But all these notions, whatever may be said for
or against them in general, are fundamentally defect-
ive, by reason of an oversight which was inevitable,
in the state of knowledge at the time in which they
were promulgated. What the older philosophers did
not know, and could not know, before the anatomist and
the physiologist had done their work, is that, between
the external object and that mind in which they sup-
posed the sensation to inhere, there lies a physical
obstacle. The sense organ is not a mere passage by
which the "tenuia simulacra rerum," or the "inten-
tional species" cast off by objects, or the "forms "of
256 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS OEGANS. [LECT.
sensible things, pass straight to the mind ; on the
contrary, it stands as a firm and impervious barrier,
through which no material particle of the world with-
out can make its way to the world within.
Let us consider the olfactory sense organ more
nearly. Each of the nostrils leads into a passage
completely separated from the other by a partition,
and these two passages place the nostrils in free com-
munication with the back of the throat, so that they
freely transmit the air passing to the lungs when the
mouth is shut, as in ordinary breathing. The floor of
each passage is flat, but its roof is a high arch, the crown
of which is seated between the orbital cavities of the
skull, which serve for the lodgment and protection of
the eyes ; and it therefore lies behind the apparent
limits of that feature which, in ordinary language, is
called the nose. From the side walls of the upper
and back part of these arched chambers, certain deli-
cate plates of bone project, and these, as well as a
considerable part of the partition between the two
chambers, are covered by a fine, soft, moist membrane.
It is to this "Schneiderian," or olfactory, membrane
that odorous bodies must obtain direct access, if they
are to give rise to their appropriate sensations ; and it
is upon the relatively large surface, which the olfactory
membrane offers, that we must seek for the seat of the
organ of the olfactory sense. The only essential part
of that organ consists of a multitude of minute rod-
like bodies, set perpendicularly to the surface of the
membrane, and forming a part of the cellular coat, or
epithelium, which covers the olfactory membrane, as
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 257
the epidermis covers the skin. In the case of the olfac-
tory sense, there can be no doubt that the Democritic
hypothesis, at any rate for such odorous substances
as musk, has a good foundation. Infinitesimal par-
ticles of musk fly off from the surface of the odorous
body, and, becoming diffused through the air, are
carried into the nasal passages, and thence into the
olfactory chambers, where they come into contact with
the filamentous extremities of the delicate olfactory
epithelium.
But this is not all. The "mind" is not, so to
speak, upon the other side of the epithelium. On the
contrary, the inner ends of the olfactory cells are con-
nected with nerve fibres, and these nerve fibres, pass-
ing into the cavity of the skull, at length end in a
part of the brain, the olfactory sensorium. It is
certain that the integrity of each, and the physical
inter -connection of all these three structures, the
epithelium of the sensory organ, the nerve fibres,
and the sensorium, are essential conditions of ordinary
sensation. That is to say, the air in the olfactory
chambers may be charged with particles of musk ; but,
if either the epithelium, or the nerve fibres, or the sen-
sorium is injured, or if they are physically disconnected
from one another, sensation will not arise. Moreover,
the epithelium may be said to be receptive, the nerve
fibres transmissive, and the sensorium sensifacient.
For, in the act of smelling, the particles of the odorous
substance produce a molecular change (which Hartley
was in all probability right in terming a vibration) in
the epithelium, and this change being transmitted to
258 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
the nerve fibres, passes along them with a measurable
velocity, and, finally reaching the sensorium, is imme-
diately followed by the sensation.
Thus, modern investigation supplies a represent-
ative of the Epicurean simulacra in the volatile
particles of the musk ; but it also gives us the stamp
of the particles on the olfactory epithelium, without
any transmission of matter, as the equivalent of the
Aristotelian "form;" while, finally, the modes of
motion of the molecules of the olfactory cells, of the
nerve, and of the cerebral sensorium, which are
Hartley's vibrations, may stand very well for a double
of the " intentional species " of the Schoolmen. And
this last remark is not intended merely to suggest a
fanciful parallel ; for, if the cause of the sensation is,
as analogy suggests, to be sought in the mode of
motion of the object of sense, then it is quite possible
that the particular mode of motion of the object is re-
produced in the sensorium ; exactly as the diaphragm
of a telephone reproduces the mode of motion taken up
at its receiving end. In other words, the secondary
"intentional species" may be, as the Schoolmen thought
the primary one was, the last link between matter and
mind.
None the less, however, does it remain true that
no similarity exists, nor indeed is conceivable, between
the cause of the sensation and the sensation. Attend
as closely to the sensations of muskiness, or any other
odour, as we will, no trace of extension, resistance, or
motion is discernible in them. They have no attri-
bute in common with those which we ascribe to
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 259
matter ; they are, in the strictest sense of the words,
immaterial entities.
Thus, the most elementary study of sensation
justifies Descartes' position, that we know more of
mind than we do of body ; that the immaterial world
is a firmer reality than the material. For the sensa-
tion " muskiness " is known immediately. So long as
it persists, it is a part of what we call our thinking
selves, and its existence lies beyond the possibility of
doubt. The knowledge of an objective or material
cause of the sensation, on the other hand, is mediate ;
it is a belief as contradistinguished from an intuition ;
and it is a belief which, in any given instance of
sensation, may, by possibility, be devoid of foundation.
For odours, like other sensations, may arise from the
occurrence of the appropriate molecular changes in
the nerve or in the sensorium, by the operation of a
cause distinct from the affection of the sense organ by
an odorous body. Such "subjective" sensations are
as real existences as any others, and as distinctly
suggest an external odorous object as their cause ; but
the belief thus generated is a delusion. And, if
beliefs are properly termed " testimonies of conscious-
ness," then undoubtedly the testimony of consciousness
may be, and often is, untrustworthy.
Another very important consideration arises out of
the facts as they are now known. That which, in the
absence of a knowledge of the physiology of sensation,
we call the cause of the smell, and term the odorous
object, is only such, mediately, by reason of its emit-
ting particles which give rise to a mode of motion in
260 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
the sense organ. The sense organ, again, is only a
mediate cause by reason of its producing a molecular
change in the nerve fibre ; while this last change is
also only a mediate cause of sensation, depending, as
it does, upon the change which it excites in the
sensorium.
The sense organ, the nerve, and the sensorium,
taken together, constitute the sensiferous apparatus.
They make up the thickness of the wall between the
mind, as represented by the sensation "muskiness,"
and the object, as represented by the particle of musk
in contact with the olfactory epithelium.
It will be observed that the sensiferous wall and
the external world are of the same nature ; whatever
it is that constitutes them both is expressible in terms
of matter and motion. Whatever changes take place
in the sensiferous apparatus are continuous with, and
similar to, those which take place in the external
world. 1 But, with the sensorium, matter and motion
1 The following diagrammatic scheme may help to elucidate the
theory of sensation :
Mediate Knowledge
Sensiferous Apparatus Knowledge
Objects of Sense
Receptive Transmissive
(Sense Organ) (Nerve)
Sensificatory
(Sensorium)
Sensations and
other States of
Consciousness
Hypothetical
Substance of
Matter
Hypothetical
Substance of
Mind
Physical World
Mental World
Not Self
Self
Non-Ego or Object Ego or Subject
Immediate knowledge is confined to states of consciousness, or, in other
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 261
come to an end ; while phenomena of another order,
or immaterial states of consciousness, make their
appearance. How is the relation between the material
and the immaterial phenomena to be conceived?
This is the metaphysical problem of problems, and
the solutions which have been suggested have been
made the corner-stones of systems of philosophy.
Three mutually irreconcilable readings of the riddle
have been offered.
The first is, that an immaterial substance of mind
exists ; and that it is affected by the mode of motion
of the sensorium in such a way as to give rise to the
sensation.
The second is, that the sensation is a direct effect
of the mode of motion of the sensorium, brought
about without the intervention of any substance of
mind.
The third is, that the sensation is neither directly
nor indirectly an effect of the mode of motion of the
sensorium, but that it has an independent cause.
Properly speaking, therefore, it is not an effect of
the motion of the sensorium, but a concomitant of it.
As none of these hypotheses is capable of even
an approximation to demonstration, it is almost need-
less to remark that they have been severally held with
words, to the phenomena of mind. Knowledge of the physical world,
or of one's own body and of objects external to it, is a system of
beliefs or judgments based on the sensations. The term "self" is
applied not only to the series of mental phenomena which constitute
the ego, but to the fragment of the physical world which is their con-
stant concomitant. The corporeal self, therefore, is part of the non-
ego ; and is objective in relation to the ego as subject.
262 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
tenacity and advocated with passion. I do not think
it can be said of any of the three that it is inconceiv-
able, or that it can be assumed on d, priori grounds
to be impossible.
Consider the first, for example ; an immaterial
substance is perfectly conceivable. In fact, it is
obvious that, if we possessed no sensations but those
of smell and hearing, we should be unable to conceive
a material substance. We might have a conception
of time, but could have none of extension, or of resist-
ance, or of motion. And without the three latter
conceptions no idea of matter could be formed. Our
whole knowledge would be limited to that of a shift-
ing succession of immaterial phenomena. But, if an
immaterial substance may exist, it may have any
conceivable properties ; and sensation may be one of
them. All these propositions may be affirmed with
complete dialectic safety, inasmuch as they cannot
possibly be disproved ; but neither can a particle of
demonstrative evidence be offered in favour of the
existence of an immaterial substance.
As regards the second hypothesis, it certainly is
not inconceivable, and therefore it may be true, that
sensation is the direct effect of certain kinds of bodily
motion. It is just as easy to suppose this as to sup-
pose, on the former hypothesis, that bodily motion
affects an immaterial substance. But neither is it
susceptible of proof.
And, as to the third hypothesis, since the logic of
induction is in no case competent to prove that
events apparently standing in the relation of cause
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 263
and effect may not both be effects of a common cause
that also is as safe from refutation, if as incapable
of demonstration, as the other two.
In my own opinion, neither of these speculations
can be regarded seriously as anything but a more or
less convenient working hypothesis. But, if I must
choose among them, I take the " law of parcimony "
for my guide, and select the simplest namely, that
the sensation is the direct effect of the mode of
motion of the sensorium. It may justly be said that
this is not the slightest explanation of sensation ; but
then am I really any the wiser, if I say that a sensa-
tion is an activity (of which I know nothing) of a
substance of mind (of which also I know nothing) ?
Or, if I say that the Deity causes the sensation to
arise in my mind immediately after He has caused
the particles of the sensorium to move in a certain
way, is anything gained ? In truth, a sensation, as
we have already seen, is an intuition a part of
immediate knowledge. As such, it is an ultimate fact
and inexplicable ; and all that we can hope to find
out about it, and that indeed is worth finding out, is
its relation to other natural facts. That relation
appears to me to be sufficiently expressed, for all
practical purposes, by saying that sensation is the
invariable consequent of certain changes in the sen-
sorium or, in other words, that, so far as we know,
the change in the sensorium is the cause of the
sensation.
I permit myself to imagine that the untutored, if
noble, savage of " common sense " who has been misled
264 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
into reading thus far by the hope of getting positive
solid information about sensation, giving way to not
unnatural irritation, may here interpellate : " The
upshot of all this long disquisition is that we are
profoundly ignorant. We knew that to begin with,
and you have merely furnished another example of
the emptiness and uselessness of metaphysics." But
I venture to reply, Pardon me, you were ignorant, but
you did not know it. On the contrary, you thought
you knew a great deal, and were quite satisfied with
the particularly absurd metaphysical notions which
you were pleased to call the teachings of common
sense. You thought that your sensations were pro-
perties of external things, and had an existence
outside of yourself. You thought that you knew
more about material than you do about immaterial
existences. And if, as a wise man has assured us,
the knowledge of what we don't know is the next
best thing to the knowledge of what we do know,
this brief excursion into the province of philosophy
has been highly profitable.
Of all the dangerous mental habits, that which
schoolboys call " cocksureness " is probably the most
perilous ; and the inestimable value of metaphysical
discipline is that it furnishes an effectual counterpoise
to this evil proclivity. Whoso has mastered the
elements of philosophy knows that the attribute of
unquestionable certainty appertains only to the ex-
istence of a state of consciousness so long as it exists ;
all other beliefs are mere probabilities of a higher
or lower order. Sound metaphysic is an amulet
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 265
which renders its possessor proof alike against the
poison of superstition and the counter -poison of
nihilism ; by showing that the affirmations of the
former and the denials of the latter alike deal with
matters about which, for lack of evidence, nothing
can be either affirmed or denied.
I have dwelt at length upon the nature and origin
of our sensations of smell, on account of the compara-
tive freedom of the olfactory sense from the compli-
cations which are met with in most of the other
senses.
Sensations of taste, however, are generated in
almost as simple a fashion as those of smell. In this
case, the sense organ is the epithelium which covers
the tongue and the palate : and which sometimes,
becoming modified, gives rise to peculiar organs
termed " gustatory bulbs," in which the epithelial cells
elongate and assume a somewhat rod-like form. Nerve
fibres connect the sensory organ with the sensorium,
and tastes or flavours are states of consciousness
caused by the change of molecular state of the latter.
In the case of the sense of touch there is often no
sense organ distinct from the general epidermis. But
many fishes and amphibia exhibit local modifications
of the epidermic cells which are sometimes extra-
ordinarily like the gustatory bulbs ; more commonly,
both in lower and higher animals, the effect of the
contact of external bodies is intensified by the develop-
ment of hair-like filaments, or of true hairs, the bases
of which are in immediate relation with the ends of
266 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
the sensory nerves. Every one must have noticed
the extreme delicacy of the sensations produced by
the contact of bodies with the ends of the hairs of the
head ; and the " whiskers " of cats owe their functional
importance to the abundant supply of nerves to the
follicles in which their bases are lodged. What part,
if any, the so-called " tactile corpuscles," " end bulbs,"
and " Pacinian bodies," play in the mechanism of touch
is unknown. If they are sense organs, they are
exceptional in character, in so far as they do not
appear to be modifications of the epidermis. Nothing
is known respecting the organs of those sensations of
resistance which are grouped under the head of the
muscular sense ; nor of the sensations of warmth and
cold; nor of that very singular sensation which we
call tickling.
In the case of heat and cold, the organism not
only becomes affected by external bodies, far more
remote than those which affect the sense of smell ;
but the Democritic hypothesis is obviously no longer
permissible. When the direct rays of the sun fall
upon the skin, the sensation of heat is certainly not
caused by " attenuated films " thrown off from that
luminary, but is due to a mode of motion which is trans-
mitted to us. In Aristotelian phrase, it is the form
without the matter of the sun which stamps the sense
organ ; and this, translated into modern language,
means nearly the same thing as Hartley's vibrations.
Thus we are prepared for what happens in the case of
the auditory and the visual senses. For neither the
ear, nor the eye, receives anything but the impulses or
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 267
vibrations originated by sonorous or luminous bodies.
Nevertheless, the receptive apparatus still consists of
nothing but specially modified epithelial cells. In the
labyrinth of the ear of the higher animals, the free
ends of these cells terminate in excessively delicate
hair -like filaments ; while, in the lower forms of
auditory organ, its free surface is beset with delicate
hairs like those of the surface of the body, and the
transmissive nerves are connected with the bases of
these hairs. Thus there is an insensible gradation in
the forms of the receptive apparatus, from the organ
of touch, on the one hand, to those of taste and smell ;
and, on the other hand, to that of hearing. Even in
the case of the most refined of all the sense organs,
that of vision, the receptive apparatus departs but little
from the general type. The only essential constituent
of the visual sense organ is the retina, which forms so
small a part of the eyes of the higher animals ; and
the simplest eyes are nothing but portions of the
integument, in which the cells of the epidermis have
become converted into glassy rod-like retinal corpuscles.
The outer ends of these are turned towards the light ;
their sides are more or less extensively coated with
a dark pigment, and their inner ends are connected
with the transmissive nerve fibres. The light, imping-
ing on these visual rods, produces a change in them
which is communicated to the nerve fibres, and, being
transmitted to the sensorium, gives rise to the sensa-
tion if indeed all animals which possess eyes are
endowed with what we understand as sensation.
In the higher animals, a complicated apparatus of
268 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
lenses, arranged on the principle of a camera obscura,
serves at once to concentrate and to individualise the
pencils of light proceeding from external bodies. But
the essential part of the organ of vision is still a layer
of cells, which have the form of rods with truncated or
conical ends. By what seems a strange anomaly,
however, the glassy ends of these are turned not
towards, but away from, the light ; and the latter has
to traverse the layer of nervous tissues with which
their outer ends are connected, before it can affect
them. Moreover, the rods and cones of the vertebrate
retina are so deeply seated, and in many respects so
peculiar in character, that it appears impossible, at
first sight, that they can have anything to do with
that epidermis of which gustatory and tactile, and at
any rate the lower forms of auditory and visual,
organs are obvious modifications.
Whatever be the apparent diversities among the
sensiferous apparatuses, however, they share certain
common characters. Each consists of a receptive, a
transmissive, and a sensificatory portion. The essen-
tial part of the first is an epithelium, of the second,
nerve fibres, of the third, a part of the brain ; the sensa-
tion is always the consequence of the mode of motion
excited in the receptive, and sent along the trans-
missive, to the sensificatory part of the sensiferous
apparatus. And, in all the senses, there is no like-
ness whatever between the object of sense, which is
matter in motion, and the sensation, which is an
immaterial phenomenon.
On the hypothesis which appears to me to be the
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 269
most convenient, sensation is a product of the sensifer-
ous apparatus caused by certain modes of motion
which are set up in it by impulses from without.
The sensiferous apparatuses are, as it were, factories,
all of which at the one end receive raw materials
of a similar kind namely, modes of motion while,
at the other, each turns out a special product, the
feeling which constitutes the kind of sensation charac-
teristic of it.
Or, to make use of a closer comparison, each
sensiferous apparatus is comparable to a musical -box
wound up ; with as many tunes as there are separate
sensations. The object of a simple sensation is the
agent which presses down the stop of one of these
tunes, and the more feeble the agent, the more delicate
must be the mobility of the stop. 1
But, if this be true, if the recipient part of the
sensiferous apparatus is, in all cases, merely a mechan-
ism affected by coarser or finer kinds of material
motion, we might expect to find that all sense organs
are fundamentally alike, and result from the modifica-
tion of the same morphological elements. And this is
exactly what does result from all recent histological
and embryological investigations.
It has been seen that the receptive part of the
olfactory apparatus is a slightly modified epithelium,
which lines an olfactory chamber deeply seated between
the orbits in adult human beings. But, if we trace
back the nasal chambers to their origin in the embryo,
1 " Charlie fibre est une espece de touche ou de marteau destine a
rendre un certain ton." Bonnet, " Essai de Psychologic," chap. iv.
270 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
we find, that, to begin with, they are mere depressions
of the skin of the fore part of the head, lined by a
continuation of the general epidermis. These depres-
sions become pits, and the pits, by the growth of the
adjacent parts, gradually acquire the position which
they finally occupy. The olfactory organ, therefore,
is a specially modified part of the general integument
The human ear would seem to present greater
difficulties. For the essential part of the sense organ,
in this case, is the membranous labyrinth, a bag of
complicated form, which lies buried in the depths of
the floor of the skull, and is surrounded by dense and
solid bone. Here, however, recourse to the study of
development readily unravels the mystery. Shortly
after the time when the olfactory organ appears, as a
depression of the skin on the side of the fore part of
the head, the auditory organ appears as a similar de-
pression on the side of its back part. The depression,
rapidly deepening, becomes a small pouch ; and then,
the communication with the exterior becoming shut
off, the pouch is converted into a closed bag, the
epithelial lining of which is a part of the general
epidermis segregated from the rest. The adjacent
tissues, changing first into cartilage and then into
bone, enclose the auditory sac in a strong case, in
which it undergoes its further metamorphoses ; while
the drum, the ear bones, and the external ear, are
superadded by no less extraordinary modifications of
the adjacent parts. Still more marvellous is the
history of the development of the organ of vision.
In the place of the eye, as in that of the nose and
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEKOUS OKGANS. 271
that of the ear, the young embryo presents a depres-
sion of the general integument ; but, in man and the
higher animals, this does not give rise to the proper
sensory organ, but only to part of the accessory
structures concerned in vision. In fact, this depres-
sion, deepening and becoming converted into a shut
sac, produces only the cornea, the aqueous humour,
and the crystalline lens of the perfect eye.
The retina is added to this by the outgrowth of
the wall of a portion of the brain into a sort of bag, or
sac, with a narrow neck, the convex bottom of which
is turned outwards, or towards the crystalline lens.
As the development of the eye proceeds, the con-
vex bottom of the bag becomes pushed in, so that it
gradually obliterates the cavity of the sac, the pre-
viously convex wall of which becomes deeply concave.
The sac of the brain is now like a double nightcap
ready for the head, but the place which the head
would occupy is taken by the vitreous humour, while
the layer of nightcap next it becomes the retina. The
cells of this layer which lie farthest from the vitreous
humour, or, in other words, bound the original cavity
of the sac, are metamorphosed into the rods and cones.
Suppose now that the sac of the brain could be brought
back to its original form ; then the rods and cones
would form part of the lining of a side pouch of the
brain. But one of the most wonderful revelations of
embryology is the proof of the fact that the brain
itself is, at its first beginning, merely an infolding of
the epidermic layer of the general integument. Hence
it follows that the rods and cones of the vertebrate
272 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. [LECT.
eye are modified epidermic cells, as much as the
crystalline cones of the insect or crustacean eye are ;
and that the inversion of the position of the former in
relation to light arises simply from the roundabout
way in which the vertebrate retina is developed.
Thus all the higher sense organs start from one
foundation, and the receptive epithelium of the eye,
or of the ear, is as much modified epidermis as is that
of the nose. The structural unity of the sense organs
is the morphological parallel to their identity of
physiological function, which, as we have seen, is to
be impressed by certain modes of motion ; and they
are fine or coarse, in proportion to the delicacy or the
strength of the impulses by which they are to be
affected.
In ultimate analysis, then, it appears that a sensa-
tion is the equivalent in terms of consciousness for a
mode of motion of the matter of the sensorium. But,
if inquiry is pushed a stage farther, and the question
is asked, What then do we know about matter and
motion? there is but one reply possible. All that
we know about motion is that it is a name for certain
changes in the relations of our visual, tactile, and
muscular sensations; and all that we know about
matter is that it is the hypothetical substance of
physical phenomena the assumption of the existence
of which is as pure a piece of metaphysical speculation
as is that of the existence of the substance of mind.
Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, and the
relations of these, make up the sum total of the
X.] SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 273
elements of positive, unquestionable knowledge. We
call a large section of these sensations and their
relations matter and motion ; the rest we term mind
and thinking; and experience shows that there is a
certain constant order of succession between some of
the former and some of the latter.
This is all that just metaphysical criticism leaves
of the idols set up by the spurious metaphysics of
vulgar common sense. It is consistent either with
pure Materialism, or with pure Idealism, but it is
neither. For the Idealist, not content with declaring
the truth that our knowledge is limited to facts of
consciousness, affirms the wholly unprovable proposi-
tion that nothing exists beyond these and the substance
of mind. And, on the other hand, the Materialist,
holding by the truth that, for anything that appears
to the contrary, material phenomena are the causes of
mental phenomena, asserts his unprovable dogma, that
material phenomena and the substance of matter are
the sole primary existences.
Strike out the propositions about which neither
controversialist does or can know anything, and there
is nothing left for them to quarrel about. Make a
desert of the Unknowable, and the divine Astrsea of
philosophic peace will commence her blessed reign.
274 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
XI.
EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY.
IN the former half of the eighteenth century, the term
" evolution " was introduced into biological writings, in
order to denote the mode in which some of the most
eminent physiologists of that time conceived that
the generation of living things took place ; in opposi-
tion to the hypothesis advocated, in the preceding
century, by Harvey in that remarkable work l which
would give him a claim to rank among the founders
of biological science, even had he not been the dis-
coverer of the circulation of the blood.
One of Harvey's prime objects is to defend and
establish, on the basis of direct observation, the
opinion already held by Aristotle ; that, in the higher
animals at any rate, the formation of the new organism
by the process of generation takes place, not suddenly,
by simultaneous accretion of rudiments of all, or of the
most important, of the organs of the adult; nor by
sudden metamorphosis of a formative substance into a
miniature of the whole, which subsequently grows ;
but by epigenesis, or successive differentiation of a
1 The " Exercitationes de Generations Animalium," which Dr. George
Ent extracted from him and published in 1651.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 275
relatively homogeneous rudiment into the parts and
structures which are characteristic of the adult.
"Et primd, quidem, quoniam per epigenesin sive partium
superexorientium additamentum pullum fabricari certum est :
qusenam pars ante alias omnes exstruatur, et quid de ilia ejusque
generandi modo observandum veniat, dispiciemus. Ratum sane
est et in ovo manifesto apparet quod Aristoteles de perfectorum
animalium generatione enuntiat : nimirum, non omnes partes
simul fieri, sed ordine aliam post aliam; primumque existere
particulam genitalem, cujus virtute postea (tanquam ex principio
quodam) reliquse omnes partes prosiliant. Qualem in plantarum
seminibus (fabis, puta, aut glandibus) gemmam sive apicem pro-
tuberantem cernimus, totius futurse arboris principium. Estque
hcec particula velut filius emancipatus seorsumque collocatus, et prin-
cipium per se vivens; unde postea membrorum ordo describitur ; et
qucecunque ad dbsolvendum animal pertinent, disponuntur. 1 Quoniam
enim nulla pars se ipsam general; sed postquam generata est, se ipsam
jam auget ; ideo earn primum oriri necesse est, quce principium augendi
contineat (sive enim planla, sive animal est, ceque omnibus inest quod
vim habeat vegetandi, sive nutriendi), 2 simulque reh'quas omnes
partes suo quamque ordine distinguat et formet ; proindeque in
eadem primogenita particula anima primario inest, sensus, mo-
tusque, et totius vitae auctor et principium," (Exercitatio 51.)
Harvey proceeds to contrast this view with that of
the " Medici," or followers of Hippocrates and Galen,
who, " badly philosophising," imagined that the brain,
the heart, and the liver were simultaneously first
generated in the form of vesicles ; and, at the same
time, while expressing his agreement with Aristotle in
the principle of epigenesis, he maintains that it is the
blood which is the primal generative part, and not, as
Aristotle thought, the heart.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century, the
1 " De Generatione Animalium," lib ii. cap. x.
2 " De Generatione," lib. ii. cap. iv.
276 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
doctrine of epigenesis, thus advocated by Harvey, was
controverted, on the ground of direct observation, by
Malpighi, who affirmed that the body of the chick is
to be seen in the egg, before the punctum sanguineum
makes its appearance. But, from this perfectly correct
observation a conclusion which is by no means
warranted was drawn ; namely, that the chick, as a
whole, really exists in the egg antecedently to incuba-
tion ; and that what, happens in the course of the latter
process is no addition of new parts, " alias post alias
natas," as Harvey puts it, but a simple expansion, or
unfolding, of the organs which already exist, though
they are too small and inconspicuous to be discovered.
The weight of Malpighi's observations therefore fell
into the scale of that doctrine which Harvey terms
metamorphosis, in contradistinction to epigenesis.
The views of Malpighi were warmly welcomed, on
philosophical grounds, by Leibnitz, 1 who found in them
a support to his hypothesis of monads, and by Male-
1 "Cependant, pour revenir aux formes ordinaires ou aux ames
materielles, cette duree qu'il leur faut attribuer a la place de celle qu'on
avoit attribute aux atomes pourroit faire douter si elles ne vont pas de
corps en corps ; ce qui seroit la metempsychose, a peu pres comme
quelques philosophes ont cru la transmission du mouvement et celle'des
especes. Mais cette imagination est bien eloignee de la nature des
choses. 11 n'y a point de tel passage ; et c'est ici ou les transformations
de Messieurs Swammerdam, Malpighi, et Leewenhoek, qui sont des plus
excellens observateurs de notre terns, sont venues a mon secours, et
in' ont fait admettre plus aisement, que 1'animal, et toute autre substance
organisee ne commence point lorsque nous le croyons, et que sa genera-
tion apparente n'est qu'une developpement et une espece d'augmenta-
tion. Aussi ai je remarque que 1'auteur de la " Recherche de la Verite,"
M. Regis, M. Hartsoeker, et d'autres habiles hommes n'ont pas ete fort
eloignes de ce sentiment." Leibnitz, " Systeme nouveau de la Nature,"
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 277
branche; 1 while, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, not only speculative considerations, but a
great number of new and interesting observations on
the phenomena of generation, led the ingenious
Bonnet, and Haller, 2 the first physiologist of the age,
to adopt, advocate, and extend them.
Bonnet affirms that, before fecundation, the hen's
egg contains an excessively minute but complete chick ;
and that fecundation and incubation simply cause this
germ to absorb nutritious matters, which are deposited
in the interstices of the elementary structures of which
the miniature chick, or germ, is made up. The con-
sequence of this intussusceptive growth is the " de-
velopment" or "evolution" of the germ into the
visible bird. Thus an organised individual (tout
organise) "is a composite body consisting of the
original, or elementary, parts and of the matters
which have been associated with them by the aid of
nutrition ;" so that, if these matters could be extracted
from the individual (tout), it would, so to speak,
become concentrated in a point, and would thus be
1695. The doctrine of " Emboitement" is contained in the " Considera-
tions sur le principe de vie," 1705 ; the preface to the " Theodicee,"
1710 ; and the " Principes de la Nature et de la Grace" ( 6), 1718.
1 " II est vrai que la pensee la plus raisonnable et la plus conforme
a 1'experience sur cette question tres difficile de la formation du foetus ;
c'est que les enfans sont deja presque tout formes avant meme 1'action
par laquelle ils sont concus ; et que leurs meres DC font que leur donner
I'accroissement ordinaire dans le temps de la grossesse." "De la
Recherche de la Verite," livre ii. chap. vii. p. 334, 7th ed., 1721.
2 The writer is indebted to Dr. Allen Thomson for reference to the
evidence contained in a note to Bailer's edition of Boerhaave's " Prselec-
tiones Academicae," vol. v. pt. ii. p. 497, published in 1744, that Haller
originally advocated epigenesis.
278 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
restored to its primitive condition of a germ ; "just as
by extracting from a bone the calcareous substance
which is the source of its hardness, it is reduced to its
primitive state of gristle or membrane." 1
"Evolution" and "development" are, for Bonnet,
synonymous terms ; and since by " evolution " he
means simply the expansion of that which was invisible
into visibility, he was naturally led to the conclusion,
at which Leibnitz had arrived by a different line of
reasoning, that no such thing as generation, in the
proper sense of the word, exists in nature. The
growth of an organic being is simply a process of
enlargement, as a particle of dry gelatine may be
swelled up by the intussusception of water ; its death
is a shrinkage, such as the swelled jelly might under-
go on desiccation. Nothing really new is produced in
the living world, but the germs which develop have
existed since the beginning of things; and nothing
really dies, but, when what we call death takes place,
the living thing shrinks back into its germ state. 2
1 " Considerations sur les Corps organises," chap. x.
2 Bonnet had the courage of his opinions, and in the " Palingenesie
Philosophique," part vi. chap, iv., he develops a hypothesis which he
terms " evolution naturelle ;" and which, making allowance for his
peculiar views of the nature of generation, bears no small resemblance
to what is understood by " evolution " at the present day :
" Si la volonte divine a cree par un seul Acte rUniversalite" des
etres, d'ou venoient ces plantes et ces animaux dont Moyse nous decrit
la Production au troisieme et au cinquieme jour du renouvellement de
notre monde 1
" Abuserois-je de la liberte de conjectures si je disois, que les Plantes
et les Animaux qui existent aujourd'hui sont parvenus par une sorte
d'evolution naturelle des Etres organises qui peuplaient ce premier
Monde, sorti immediatement des MAINS du CREATEUR ? . . .
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 279
The two parts of Bonnet's hypothesis, namely, the
doctrine that all living things proceed from pre-exist-
ing germs, and that these contain, one inclosed within
the other, the germs of all future living things, which
is the hypothesis of " emboitement ;" and the doctrine
that every germ contains in miniature all the organs
of the adult, which is the hypothesis of evolution or
development, in the primary senses of these words,
must be carefully distinguished. In fact, while hold-
ing firmly by the former, Bonnet more or less modified
the latter in his later writings, and, at length, he
admits that a " germ " need not be an actual miniature
of the organism; but that it may be merely an
"original preform ation " capable of producing the
latter. 1
But, thus defined, the germ is neither more nor
less than the " particula genitalis " of Aristotle, or the
" primordium vegetale "or " ovum " of Harvey ; and
the " evolution " of such a germ would not be dis-
tinguishable from " epigenesis."
Supported by the great authority of Haller, the doc-
" Ne supposons que trois revolutions. La Terre vient de sortir des
MAINS du CREATEUR. Des causes preparees par sa SAGESSE font
developper de toutes parts les Germes. Les Etres organises commencent
a jbuir de 1'existence. Ils etoient probablement alors bien differens de
ce qu'ils sont aujourd'hui. Ils 1'etoient autant que ce premier Monde
differoit de celui que nous habitons. Nous manquons de moyens pour
juger de ces dissemblances, et peut-etre que le plus habile Naturaliste
qui auroit ete place dans ce premier Monde y auroit entitlement
meconnu nos Plantes et nos Animaux."
1 " Ce mot (germe) ne designera pas seulement un corps organise
re'duit en petit ; il designera encore toute espece de ^reformation originelle
dont un Tout organique pent resulter comme de son principe immediat."
" Palingenesie Philosophique," part x. chap. ii.
280 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
trine of evolution, or development, prevailed through-
out the whole of the eighteenth century, and Cuvier
appears to have substantially adopted Bonnet's later
views, though probably he would not have gone all
lengths in the direction of "emboltement." In a
well-known note to Laurillards' " filoge," prefixed to
the last edition of the "Ossemens fossiles," the "radical
de 1'etre" is much the same thing as Aristotle's
"partieula genitalis" and Harvey's " ovum." l
Bonnet's eminent contemporary, Buffon, held
nearly the same views with respect to the nature of
the germ, and expresses them even more confidently.
" Ceux qui ont cru que le coeur e"toit le premier forme, se
sont trompe's ; ceux qui disent que c'est le sang se trompent
aussi : tout est forme" en m&me temps. Si Ton ne consulte que
1'observation, le poulet se voit dans I'oeuf avant qui'il ait etc*
couve"."
" J'ai ouvert une grande quantite d'ceufs a difFerens temps
avant et apres I'incubation, et je me suis convaincu par mes yeux
que le poulet existe en entier dans le milieu de la cicatricule au
moment qu'il sort du corps de la poule." 3
The " moule interieur " of Bufibn is the aggregate
of elementary parts which constitute the individual,
1 u M. Cuvier considerant que tous les etres organises sont derives de
parens, et ne voyant dans la nature aucune force capable de produire
1'organisation, croyait a la pre-existence des germes ; non pas a la pre-
existence d'un etre tout forme, puisqu'il est bien evident que ce n'est
que par des developpemens successifs que 1'etre acquiert sa forme ; mais,
si 1'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, a la pre-existence du radical de I'etre,
radical qui existe avant que la serie des evolutions ne commence, et
qui remonte certainement, suivant la belle observation de Bonnet, a
plusieurs generations."- Laurillard, "!Eloge de Cuvier," note 12.
2 "Histoire Naturelle," torn. ii. ed. ii. 1750, p. 350.
3 Ibid. p. 351.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 281
and is thus the equivalent of Bonnet's germ, 1 as
defined in the passage cited above. But Buffon
further imagined that innumerable " molecules organ -
iques " are dispersed throughout the world, and that
alimentation consists in the appropriation by the
parts of an organism of those molecules which are
analogous to them. Growth, therefore, was, on this
hypothesis, a process partly of simple evolution, and
partly of what has been termed " syngenesis." Buffon's
opinion is, in fact, a sort of combination of views,
essentially similar to those of Bonnet, with others,
somewhat similar to those of the "Medici" whom
Harvey condemns. The " molecules organiques " are
physical equivalents of Leibnitz's " monads."
It is a striking example of the difficulty of get-
ting people to use their own powers of investigation
accurately, that this form of the doctrine of evolution
should have held its ground so long; for it was
thoroughly and completely exploded, not long after
its enunciation, by Caspar Friederich Wolff, who in
his "Theoria Generations, " published in 1759, placed
the opposite theory of epigenesis upon the secure
foundation of fact, from which it has never been
displaced. But Wolff had no immediate successors.
The school of Cuvier was lamentably deficient in
embryologists ; and it was only in the course of the
first thirty years of the present century, that Prevost
and Dumas in France, and, later on, Dollinger,
Pander, Von Bar, Kathke, and Remak in Germany,
founded modern embryology ; while, at the same time,
1 See particularly Buffon, l.o. p. 41.
282 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
they proved the utter incompatibility of the hypothesis
of evolution, as formulated by Bonnet and Haller, with
easily demonstrable facts.
Nevertheless, though the conceptions originally
denoted by "evolution" and "development" were
shown to be untenable, the words retained their
application to the process by which the embryos of
living beings gradually make their appearance; and
the terms "Development/' " Entwickelung," and
"Evolutio," are now indiscriminately used for the
series of genetic changes exhibited by living beings,
by writers who would emphatically deny that " De-
velopment" or "Entwickelung" or "Evolutio," in
the sense in which these words were usually em-
ployed by Bonnet or by Haller, ever occurs.
Evolution, or development, is, in fact, at present
employed in biology as a general name for the history
of the steps by which any living being has acquired
the morphological and the physiological characters
which distinguish it. As civil history may be divided
into biography, which is the history of individuals,
and universal history, which is the history of the
human race, so evolution falls naturally into two
categories, the evolution of the individual, and the
evolution of the sum of living beings. It will be
convenient to deal with the modern doctrine of evolu-
tion under these two heads.
I. The Evolution of the Individual.
No exception is, at this time, known to the
general law, established upon an immense multitude
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 283
of direct observations, that every living thing is
evolved from a particle of matter in which no trace of
the distinctive characters of the adult form of that
living thing is discernible. This particle is termed a
germ. Harvey 1 says
" Omnibus viventibus primordium insit, ex quo et a quo pro-
veniant. Liceat hoc nobis primordium vegetale nominare ; nempe
substaiitiam quandam corpoream vitam habentem potentiH, ; vel
quoddam per se existens, quod aptum sit, in vegetativam formam,
ab interno principio operante, mutarl Quale nempe primordium,
ovum est et plantarum semen ; tale etiam viviparorum conceptus,
et insectorum vermis ab Aristotele dictus : diversa scilicet diver-
sorum viventium primordia."
The definition of a germ as "matter potentially
alive, and having within itself the tendency to assume
a definite living form," appears to meet all the re-
quirements of modern science. For, notwithstanding
it might be justly questioned whether a germ is not
merely potentially, but rather actually, alive, though
its vital manifestations are reduced to a mini mum,
the term " potential " may fairly be used in a sense
broad enough to escape the objection. And the
qualification of "potential" has the advantage of
reminding us that the great characteristic of the germ
is not so much what it is, but what it may, under
suitable conditions, become. Harvey shared the be-
lief of Aristotle whose writings he so often quotes,
and of whom he speaks as his precursor and model,
with the generous respect with which one genuine
worker should regard another that such germs may
1 " Exercitationes de Generatione." Ex. 62, " Ovum esse primor-
dium commune omnibus animalibus."
284 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
arise by a process of " equivocal generation " out of
not-living matter; and the aphorism so commonly
ascribed to him, " omne vivum ex ovo" and which is
indeed a fair summary of his reiterated assertions,
though incessantly employed against the modern
advocates of spontaneous generation, can be honestly
so used only by those who have never read a score
of pages of the " Exercitationes." Harvey, in fact,
believed as implicitly as Aristotle did in the equivocal
generation of the lower animals. But, while the
course of modern investigation has only brought out
into greater prominence the accuracy of Harvey's
conception of the nature and mode of development of
germs, it has as distinctly tended to disprove the occur-
rence of equivocal generation, or abiogenesis, in the
present course of nature. In the immense majority
of both plants and animals, it is certain that the germ
is not merely a body in which life is dormant or
potential, but that it is itself simply a detached por-
tion of the substance of a pre-existing living body;
and the evidence has yet to be adduced which will
satisfy any cautious reasoner that "omne vivum ex
vivo " is not as well-established a law of the existing
course of nature as " omne vivum ex ovo."
In all instances which have yet been investi-
gated, the substance of this germ has a peculiar
chemical composition, consisting of at fewest four
elementary bodies, viz. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
and nitrogen, united into the ill-defined compound
known as protein, and associated with much water,
and very generally, if not always, with sulphur and
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 285
phosphorus in minute proportions. Moreover, up to
the present time, protein is known only as a product
and constituent of living matter. Again, a true germ
is either devoid of any structure discernible by optical
means, or, at most, it is a simple nucleated cell. 1
In all cases, the process of evolution consists in a
succession of changes of the form, structure, and
functions of the germ, by which it passes, step by
step, from an extreme simplicity, or relative homo-
geneity, of visible structure, to a greater or less degree
of complexity or heterogeneity ; and the course of
progressive differentiation is usually accompanied by
growth, which is effected by intussusception. This
intussusception, however, is a very different process
from that imagined either by Buffon, or by Bonnet.
The substance by the addition of which the germ is
enlarged is, in no case, simply absorbed ready-made
from the not-living world and packed between the
elementary constituents of the germ, as Bonnet im-
agined; still less does it consist of the "molecules
organiques " of Buffon. The new material is, in great
measure, not only absorbed but assimilated, so that it
becomes part and parcel of the molecular structure of
the living body into which it enters. And, so far
from the fully developed organism being simply the
germ plus the nutriment which it has absorbed, it is
probable that the adult contains neither in form, nor in
substance, more than an inappreciable fraction of the
1 In some cases of sexless multiplication the germ is a cell-aggre-
gate if we call germ only that which is already detached from the
parent organism.
286 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
constituents of the germ, and that it is almost, if not
wholly, made up of assimilated and metamorphosed
nutriment. In the great majority of cases, at any
rate, the full-grown organism becomes what it is by
the absorption of not-living matter, and its conversion
into living matter of a specific type. As Harvey says
(Ex. 45), all parts of the body are nourished " ab
eodem succo alibili, aliter aliterque cambiato," "ut
plantse omnes ex eodem communi nutrimento (sive
rore seu terrse humore)."
In all animals and plants, above the lowest, the
germ is a nucleated cell, using that term in its.
broadest sense ; and the first step in the process of
the evolution of the individual is the division of this
cell into two or more portions. The process of
division is repeated, until the organism, from being
unicellular, becomes multicellular. The single cell
becomes a cell- aggregate ; and it is to the growth and
metamorphosis of the cells of the cell-aggregate thus
produced, that all the organs and tissues of the adult
owe their origin.
In certain animals belonging to every one of the
chief groups into which the Metazoa are divisible, the
cells of the cell -aggregate which results from the
process of yelk-division, and which is termed a
morula, diverge from one another in such a manner
as to give rise to a central space, around which they
dispose themselves as a coat or envelope; and thus
the raorula becomes a vesicle filled with fluid, the
planula. The wall of the planula is next pushed in
on one side, or invaginated, whereby it is converted
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 287
into a double-walled sac with an opening, the blasto-
pore, which leads into the cavity lined by the inner
wall. This cavity is the primitive alimentary cavity
or archenteron; the inner, or invaginated, layer is
the hypoblast, the outer the epiblast ; and the
embryo, in this stage, is termed a gastrula. In all
the higher animals, a layer of cells makes its appear-
ance between the hypoblast and the epiblast, and is
termed the mesoblast. In the further course of
development, the epiblast becomes the ectoderm or
epidermic layer of the body ; the hypoblast becomes
the epithelium of the middle portion of the alimentary
canal ; and the mesoblast gives rise to all the other
tissues, except the central nervous system, which
originates from an ingrowth of the epiblast.
With more or less modification in detail, the
embryo has been observed to pass through these
successive evolutional stages in sundry Sponges,
Coelenterates, Worms, Echinoderms, Tunicates, Arth-
ropods, Mollusks, and Vertebrates ; and there are
valid reasons for the belief, that all animals of higher
organisation than the Protozoa agree in the general
character of the early stages of their individual evolu-
tion. Each, starting from the condition of a simple
nucleated cell, becomes a cell-aggregate; and this passes
through a condition which represents the gastrula
stage, before taking on the features distinctive of the
group to which it belongs. Stated in this form, the
" gasteea theory " of Haeckel appears to the present
writer to be one of the most important and best
founded of recent generalisations. So far as indi-
288 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
vidual plants and animals are concerned, therefore,
evolution is not a speculation but a fact ; and it
takes place by epigenesis.
"Animal . . . per epigenesin procreatur, materiam simul
attralrit, parat, concoquit, et eadem utitur; formatur simul et
augetur . . . primum futuri corporis concrementuin . . . prout
augetur, dividitur sensim et distinguitur in partes, non simul
omnes, sed alias post alias natas, et ordine quasque suo emer-
gentes." 1
In these words, by the divination of genius,
Harvey, in the seventeenth century, summed up the
outcome of the work of all those who, with appliances
he could not dream of, are continuing his labours in
the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, though the doctrine of epigenesis,
as understood by Harvey, has definitively triumphed
over the doctrine of evolution, as understood by his
opponents of the eighteenth century, it is not im-
possible that, when the analysis of the process of
development is carried still farther, and the origin of
the molecular components of the physically gross,
though sensibly minute, bodies which we term germs
is traced, the theory of development will approach
more nearly to metamorphosis than to epigenesis.
Harvey thought that impregnation influenced the
female organism as a contagion ; and that the blood,
which he conceived to be the first rudiment of the
germ, arose in the clear fluid of the "colliquamentum"
of the ovum by a process of concrescence, as a sort
1 Harvey, " Exercitationes de Generatione." Ex. 45, " Quaenam
sit pulli materia et quomodo fiat in Ovo."
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 289
of living precipitate. We now know, on the contrary,
that the female germ or ovum, in all the higher
animals and plants, is a body which possesses the
structure of a nucleated cell; that impregnation
consists in the fusion of the substance 1 of another
more or less modified nucleated cell, the male
germ, with the ovum ; and that the structural
components of the body of the embryo are all
derived, by a process of division, from the coalesced
male and female germs. Hence it is conceivable, and
indeed probable, that every part of the adult contains
molecules, derived both from the male and from the
female parent; and that, regarded as a mass of
molecules, the entire organism may be compared to a
web of which the warp is derived from the female
and the woof from the male. And each of these may
constitute one individuality, in the same sense as the
whole organism is one individual, although the matter
of the organism has been constantly changing. The
primitive male and female molecules may play the
part of Buffon's " moules organiques," and mould the
assimilated nutriment, each according to its own type,
into innumerable new molecules. From this point of
view the process, which, in its superficial aspect, is
epigenesis, appears in essence, to be evolution, in the
modified sense adopted in Bonnet's later writings;
and development is merely the expansion of a poten-
tial organism or " original preformation " according
to fixed laws.
1 Not yet actually demonstrated in the case of pha3nogamous plants.
U
290 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
II. The Evolution of the Sum of Living Beings.
The notion that all the kinds of animals and plants
may have come into existence by the growth and
modification of primordial germs is as old as speculative
thought ; but the modern scientific form of the doctrine
can be traced historically to the influence of several
converging lines of philosophical speculation and of
physical observation, none of which go farther back
than the seventeenth century. These are :
1. The enunciation by Descartes of the conception
that the physical universe, whether living or not living,
is a mechanism, and that, as such, it is explicable on
physical principles.
2. The observation of the gradations of structure,
from extreme simplicity to very great complexity,
presented by living things, and of the relation of these
graduated forms to one another.
3. The observation of the existence of an analogy
between the series of gradations presented by the
species which compose any great group of animals or
plants, and the series of embryonic conditions of the
highest members of that group.
4. The observation that large groups of species of
widely different habits present the same fundamental
plan of structure ; and that parts of the same animal
or plant, the functions of which are very different,
likewise exhibit modifications of a common plan.
5. The observation of the existence of structures,
in a rudimentary and apparently useless condition, in
one species of a group, which are fully developed and
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 291
have definite functions in other species of the same
group.
6. The observation of the effects of varying con-
ditions in modifying living organisms.
7. The observation of the facts of geographical
distribution.
8. The observation of the facts of the geological
succession of the forms of life.
1. Notwithstanding the elaborate disguise which
fear of the powers that were led Descartes to throw
over his real opinions, it is impossible to read the
" Principes de la Philosophic " without acquiring the
conviction that this great philosopher held that the
physical world and all things in it, whether living or
not living, have originated by a process of evolution,
due to the continuous operation of purely physical
causes, out of a primitive relatively formless matter. 1
The following passage is especially instructive :
" Et tant s'en faut que je veuille que Ton croie toutes les
choses que j'e"crirai, que meme je pretends en proposer ici quelques
unes que je crois absolument etre fausses ; a savoir, je ne doute
point que le monde n'ait etc" cre'e' au commencement avec autant
de perfection qu'il en a ; en sorte que le soleil, la terre, la lune,
et les 6toiles ont e"t6 des lors ; et que la terre n'a pas eu seulement
en soi les semences des plantes, mais que les plantes meme en
ont couvert une partie ; et qu' Adam et Eve n'ont pas e'te' cree"s
enfaiis mais en age d'hommes parfaits. La religion chre"tienne
veut que nous le croyons ainsi, et la raison naturelle nous persuade
entierement cette verite ; car si nous considerons la toute puissance
1 As Bnffon has well said : " L'idee de ramener Implication de
tons les phenomenes a des principes mecaniques est assurement grande
et belle, ce pas est le plus hardi qu'on pent faire en philosophic, et
c'est Descartes qni 1'a fait." le. p. 50.
292 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
de Dieu, nous devons juger que tout ce qu'il a fait a eu des le
commencement toute la perfection qu'il devoit avoir. Mais
ne"anmoins, comme on connditroit beaucoup mieux quelle a ete la
nature d'Adam et celle des arbres de Paradis si on avoit examine"
comment les enfants se forment peu & peu dans le ventre de leurs
meres et comment les plantes sortent de leurs semences, que si
on avoit seulement conside're' quels ils ont etc" quand Dieu les a
crees : tout de mme, nous ferons mieux entendre quelle est
g6ne"ralement la nature de toutes les choses qui sont au monde si
nous pouvons imaginer quelques principes qui soient fort intelli-
gibles et fort simples, desquels nous puissions voir clairement que
les astres et la terre et enfin tout ce monde visible auroit pu 6tre
produit ainsi que de quelques semences (bien que nous sachions
qu'il n'a pas etc" produit en cette fa9on) que si nous la decrivions
seulement comme il est, ou bien comme nous croyons qu'il a e"te"
cree. Et parceque je pense avoir trouv6 des principes qui sont
tels, je tacherai ici de les expliquer." 1
If we read between the lines of this singular ex-
hibition of force of one kind and weakness of another,
it is clear that Descartes believed that he had divined
the mode in which the physical universe had been
evolved ; and the " Traite de 1'homme," and the essay
" Sur les Passions" afford abundant additional evidence
that he sought for, and thought he had found, an
explanation of the phenomena of physical life by
deduction from purely physical laws.
Spinoza abounds in the same sense, and is as usual
perfectly candid
" Naturae leges et regulse, secundum quas omnia fiunt et ex
unis formis in alias rnutantur, sunt ubique et semper eadem." 2
Leibnitz's doctrine of continuity necessarily led
him in the same direction ; and, of the infinite multi-
1 " Principes de la Philosophic," Troisieme partie, 45.
2 " Ethices," Pars tertia, Preefatio.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 293
tude of monads with which he peopled the world,
each is supposed to be the focus of an endless process
of evolution and involution. In the " Protogsea,"
xxvi., Leibnitz distinctly suggests the mutability of
species
" Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe
cognito, vel saltern in vicinis locis frustra quaeras. Ita " Cornua
Ammonis," quae ex nautilorum numero habeantur, passim et forma
et magnitudine (nam et pedali diametro aliquando reperiuntur)
ab omnibus illis naturis discrepare dicunt, quas praebet mare. Sed
quis absconditos ejus recessus aut subterraneas abyssos pervesti-
gavif? quam multa nobis animalia antea ignota offert novus orbis 1
Et credibile est per magnas illas conversiones etiam animalium
species plurimum immutatas."
Thus, in the end of the seventeenth century, the
seed was sown which has, at intervals, brought forth
recurrent crops of evolutional hypotheses, based, more
or less completely, on general reasonings.
Among the earliest of these speculations is that
put forward by Benoit de Maillet in his " Telliamed,"
which, though printed in 1735, was not published
until twenty-three years later. Considering that this
book was written before the time of Haller, or Bonnet,
or Linnaeus, or Button, it surely deserves more respect-
ful consideration than it usually receives. For De
Maillet not only has a definite conception of the
plasticity of living things, and of the production of
existing species by the modification of their prede-
cessors ; but he clearly apprehends the cardinal maxim
of modern geological science, that the explanation of
the structure of the globe is to be sought in the
deductive application to geological phenomena of the
294 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LEOT.
principles established inductively by the study of the
present course of nature. Somewhat later, Maupertuis 1
suggested a curious hypothesis as to the causes of
variation, which he thinks may be sufficient to account
for the origin of all animals from a single pair.
Kobinet 2 followed out much the same line of thought
as De Maillet, but less soberly ; and Bonnet's specula-
tions in the " Palinge*nesie," which appeared in 1769,
have already been mentioned. Buffon (1753-1778),
at first a partisan of the absolute immutability of
species, subsequently appears to have believed that
larger or smaller groups of species have been pro-
duced by the modification of a primitive stock ; but
he contributed nothing to the general doctrine of
evolution.
Erasmus Darwin ("Zoonomia," 1794), though a
zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to have made
any real advance on his predecessors ; and, notwith-
standing that Goethe (1791-4) had the advantage of
a wide knowledge of morphological facts, and a true
insight into their signification, while he threw all the
power of a great poet into the expression of his
conceptions, it may be questioned whether he supplied
the doctrine of evolution with a firmer scientific basis
than it already possessed. Moreover, whatever the
value of Goethe's labours in that field, they were not
published before 1820, long after evolutionism had
1 " Systeme de la Nature." " Essai sur la Formation des Corps
Organises," 1751, xiv.
2 " Considerations Philosophiques sur la gradation naturelle des
formes de 1'etre ; ou les essak de la nature qui apprend a faire Phomme,"
1768.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 295
taken a new departure from the works of Treviranus
and Lamarck the first of its advocates who were
equipped for their task with the needful large and
accurate knowledge of the phenomena of life, as a
whole. It is remarkable that each of these writers
seems to have been led, independently and contem-
poraneously, to invent the same name of " Biology "
for the science of the phenomena of life; and thus,
following Buffon, to have recognised the essential
unity of these phenomena, and their contradistinction
from those of inanimate nature. And it is hard to
say whether Lamarck or Treviranus has the priority
in propounding the main thesis of the doctrine of
evolution ; for though the first volume of Treviranus's
"Biologie" appeared only in 1802, he says, in the preface
to his later work, the "Erscheinungen und Gesetze des
organischen Lebens," dated 1831, that he wrote the
first volume of the " Biologie" "nearly five-and-thirty
years ago/' or about 1796.
Now, in 1794, there is evidence that Lamarck held
doctrines which present a striking contrast to those
which are to be found in the " Philosophic Zoologique,"
as the following passages show :
"685. Quoique mon unique objet dans cet article n'ait ete que
de trailer de la cause physique de 1'entretien de la vie des e^res
organiques, malgre cela j'ai os6 avancer en debutant, que 1'existence
de ces etres etonnants n'appartiennent nullement a la nature ; que
tout ce qu'on peut entendre par le mot nature, ne pouvoit donner
la vie, c'est-a-dire, que toutes les qualites de la matiere, jointes a
toutes les circonstances possibles, et nieme a 1'activite repandue
dans Tunivers, ne pouvaient point produire un etre muni du
mouvement organique, capable de reproduire son semblable, et
sujet a la mort.
296 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
"686. Tous les individus de cette nature, qui existent, pro-
viennent d'individus semblables qui tous ensemble constituent
1'espece entiere. Or, je crois qu'il est aussi impossible a rhomme
de conn6itre la cause physique du premier individu de chaque
espece, que d'assigner aussi physiquement la cause de 1'existence
de la matiere ou de 1'univers entier. C'est au moins ce que le
re*sultat de mes connaissances et de mes reflexions me portent a
penser. S'il existe beaucoup de varie"te"s produites par 1'effet des
circonstances, ces varie"tes ne denaturent point les especes ; mais
on se trompe, sans doute souvent, en indiquant comme espece, ce
qui n'est que varie"t6 ; et alors je sens que cette erreur peut tirer
a consequence dans les raisonnements que Ton fait sur cette
matiere." 1
The first three volumes of Treviranus's " Biologie,"
which contain his general views of evolution, appeared
between 1802 and 1805. The " Eecherches sur 1'organ-
isation des corps vivants," in which the outlines of
Lamarck's doctrines are given, was published in 1802 ;
but the full development of his views, in the " Philo-
sophic Zoologique," did not take place until 1809.
The "Biologie" and the" Philosophic Zoologique" are
both very remarkable productions, and are still worthy
of attentive study, but they fell upon evil times.
The vast authority of Cuvier was employed in support
of the traditionally respectable hypotheses of special
creation and of catastrophism ; and the wild specula-
tions of the "Discours sur les Kevolutions de la Surface
1 " Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques," par J.
B. Lamarck. Paris. Seconde annee de la Republique. In the preface,
Lamarck says that the work was written in 1776, and presented to the
Academy in 1780 ; but it was not published before 1794, and, at that
time, it presumably expressed Lamarck's mature views. It would be
interesting to know what brought about the change of opinion mani-
fested in the " Recherches sur 1'organisation des corps vivants," published
only seven years later.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 297
du Globe " were held to be models of sound scientific
thinking, while the really much more sober and
philosophical hypotheses of the " Hydrogeologie " were
scouted. For many years it was the fashion to speak
of Lamarck with ridicule, while Treviranus was
altogether ignored.
Nevertheless, the work had been done. The con-
ception of evolution was henceforward irrepressible,
and it incessantly reappears, in one shape or another, 1
up to the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr.
Wallace published their " Theory of Natural Selection."
The " Origin of Species " appeared in 1859 ; and it is
within the knowledge of all whose memories go back
to that time, that, henceforward, the doctrine of evolu-
tion has assumed a position and acquired an import-
ance which it never before possessed. In the " Origin
of Species," and in his other numerous and important
contributions to the solution of the problem of bio-
logical evolution, Mr. Darwin confines himself to the
discussion of the causes which have brought about the
present condition of living matter, assuming such
matter to have once come into existence. On the
other hand, Mr. Spencer 2 and Professor Haeckel 3
have dealt with the whole problem of evolution. The
profound and vigorous writings of Mr. Spencer em-
body the spirit of Descartes in the knowledge of our
own day, and may be regarded as the " Principes de la
1 See the " Historical Sketch " prefixed to the last edition of the
" Origin of Species."
2 "First Principles" and "Principles of Biology," 1860-1864.
3 "Generelle Morphologic," 1866.
298 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT-
Philosophie " of the nineteenth century ; while, what-
ever hesitation may not unfrequently be felt by less
daring minds, in following Haeckel in many of his
speculations, his attempt to systematise the doctrine
of evolution and to exhibit its influence as the central
thought of modern biology, cannot fail to have a far-
reaching influence on the progress of science.
If we seek for the reason of the difference between
the scientific position of the doctrine of evolution a
century ago, and that which it occupies now, we shall
find it in the great accumulation of facts, the several
classes of which have been enumerated above, under
the second to the eighth heads. For those which are
grouped under the second to the seventh of these
classes, respectively, have a clear significance on the
hypothesis of evolution, while they are unintelligible
if that hypothesis be denied. And those of the eighth
group are not only unintelligible without the assump-
tion of evolution, but can be proved never to be dis-
cordant with that hypothesis, while, in some cases,
they are exactly such as the hypothesis requires. The
demonstration of these assertions would require a
volume, but the general nature of the evidence on
which they rest may be briefly indicated.
2. The accurate investigation of the lowest forms
of animal life, commenced by Leeuwenhoek and Swam-
merdam, and continued by the remarkable labours
of Eeaumur, Trembley, Bonnet, and a host of other
observers, in the latter part of the seventeenth and the
first half of the eighteenth centuries, drew the atten-
tion of biologists to the gradation in the complexity of
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 299
organisation which is presented by living beings, and
culminated in the doctrine of the " echelle des etres,"
so powerfully and clearly stated by Bonnet; and,
before him, adumbrated by Locke and by Leibnitz.
In the then state of knowledge, it appeared that all
the species of animals and plants could be arranged in
one series; in such a manner that, by insensible
gradations, the mineral passed into the plant, the
plant into the polype, the polype into the worm, and
so, through gradually higher forms of life, to man, at
the summit of the animated world.
But, as knowledge advanced, this conception ceased
to be tenable in the crude form in which it was first
put forward. Taking into account existing animals
and plants alone, it became obvious that they fell into
groups which were more or less sharply separated from
one another ; and, moreover, that even the species of
a genus can hardly ever be arranged in linear series.
Their natural resemblances and differences are only
to be expressed by disposing them as if they were
branches springing from a common hypothetical
centre.
Lamarck, while affirming the verbal proposition
that animals form a single series, was forced by his
vast acquaintance with the details of zoology to limit
the assertion to such a series as may be formed out of
the abstractions constituted by the common characters
of each group. 1
1 " II s'agit done de prouver que la serie qui constitute 1'echelle
animale reside essentiellement dans la distribution des masses princi-
pales qui la composent et non dans celle des especes ni meme tou-
jours dans celle des genres." " Phil. Zoologique," chap. v.
300 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
Cuvier on anatomical, and Von Baer on embryo-
logical grounds, made the further step of proving that,
even in this limited sense, animals cannot be arranged
in a single series, but that there are several distinct
plans of organisation to be observed among them, no
one of which, in its highest and most complicated
modification, leads to any of the others.
The conclusions enunciated by Cuvier and Von
Baer have been confirmed, in principle, by all subse-
quent research into the structure of animals and plants.
But the effect of the adoption of these conclusions has
been rather to substitute a new metaphor for that of
Bonnet than to abolish the conception expressed by
it. Instead of regarding living things as capable of
arrangement in one series like the steps of a ladder,
the results of modern investigation compel us to dis-
pose them as if they were the twigs and branches of a
tree. The ends of the twigs represent individuals, the
smallest groups of twigs species, larger groups genera,
and so on, until we arrive at the source of all these
ramifications of the main branch, which is represented
by a common plan of stru cture. At the present moment,
it is impossible to draw up any definition, based on
broad anatomical or developmental characters, by
which any one of Cuvier's great groups shall be
separated from all the rest. On the contrary, the
lower members of each tend to converge towards the
lower members of all the others. The same may be
said of the vegetable world. The apparently clear
distinction between flowering and flowerless plants
has been broken down by the series of gradations
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 301
between the two exhibited by the Lycopodiacece,
RhizocarpecBj and Gymnospermece. The groups of
Fungi, Lichenes, and Algce have completely run into
one another, and, when the lowest forms of each are
alone considered, even the animal and vegetable king-
doms cease to have a definite frontier.
If it is permissible to speak of the relations of
living forms to one another metaphorically, the simili-
tude chosen must undoubtedly be that of a common
root, whence two main trunks, one representing the
vegetable and one the animal world, spring ; and, each
dividing into a few main branches, these subdivide
into multitudes of branchlets and these into smaller
groups of twigs.
As Lamarck has well said *
" II n'y a que ceux qui se sont longtemps et fortement occupe*s
de la determination des especes, et qui ont consults* de riches
collections, qui peuvent savoir jusqu'a quel point les espkces, parmi
les corps vivants se fondent les unes dans les autres, et qui ont
pu se convaincre que, dans les parties ou nous voyons des espkces
isoles, cela n'est ainsi que parcequ'il nous en manque d'autres qui
en sont plus voisines et que nous n'avons pas encore recueillies.
" Je ne veux pas dire pour cela que les animaux qui existent
forment une se'rie tres- simple et partout egalement nuancee ;
mais je dis qu'ils forment une se'rie ramense, irre'gulierement
gradue"e et qui n'a point de discontinuity dans ses parties, ou qui,
du moins, n'en a toujours pas eu, s'il est vrai que, par suite de
quelques especes perdues, il s'en trouve quelque part. II en
resulte que les espkces qui terminent chaque rameau de la se'rie
gene"rale tiennent, au moins d'un cote, a d'autres especes voisines
qui se nuancent avec elles. Voila ce que Tetat bien connu des
choses me met maintenant k porte'e de demontrer. Je n'ai
1 Philosophic Zoologique, premiere partie, chap, iii
302 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT
besoin d'aucune hypothese ni d'aucune supposition pour cela: j'en
atteste tous les naturalistes observateurs."
3. In a remarkable essay * Meckel remarks
" There is no good physiologist who has not been struck by
the observation that the original form of all organisms is one
and the same, and that out of this one form, all, the lowest as well
as the highest, are developed in such a manner that the latter pass
through the permanent forms of the former as transitory stages.
Aristotle, Haller, Harvey, Kielmeyer, Autenrieth, and many
others, have either made this observation incidentally, or, espe-
cially the latter, have drawn particular attention to it, and
drawn therefrom results of permanent importance for physiology."
Meckel proceeds to exemplify the thesis, that the
lower forms of animals represent stages in the course
of the development of the higher, with a large series
of illustrations.
After comparing the Salamanders and the perenni-
branchiate Urodela with' the Tadpoles and the Frogs,
and enunciating the law that the more highly any
animal is organised the more quickly does it pass
through the lower stages, Meckel goes on to say
"From these lowest Vertebrata to the highest, and to the
highest forms among these, the comparison between the embry-
onic conditions of the higher animals and the adult states of the
lower can be more completely and thoroughly instituted than if
the survey is extended to the Invertebrata, inasmuch as the latter
are in many respects constructed upon an altogether too dis-
similar type j indeed they often differ from one another far
more than the lowest vertebrate does from the highest mammal;
yet the following pages will show that the comparison may also
1 " Entwurf einer Darstellung der zwischen dern Embryozustan.de
der hoheren Thiere und dem permanenten der niederen stattfindenden
Parallele," " Beytrage zur Vergleichenden Anatomie," Bd. ii. 1811.
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 303
be extended to them with interest. In fact, there is a period
when, as Aristotle long ago said, the embryo of the highest
animal has the form of a mere worm ; and, devoid of internal
and external organisation, is merely an almost structureless lump
of polype -substance. Notwithstanding the origin of organs,
it still for a certain time, by reason of its want of an internal
bony skeleton, remains worm and mollusk, and only later enters
into the series of the Vertebrata, although traces of the vertebral
column even in the earliest periods testify its claim to a place in
that series." Op. cit. pp. 4, 5.
If Meckel's proposition is so far qualified, that the
comparison of adult with embryonic forms is restricted
within the limits of one type of organisation ; and, if
it is further recollected that the resemblance between
the permanent lower form and the embryonic stage of
a higher form is not special but general, it is in entire
accordance with modern embryology ; although there
is no branch of biology which has grown so largely,
and improved its methods so much, since Meckel's
time, as this. In its original form, the doctrine of
"arrest of development," as advocated by Geoffrey
Saint-Hilaire and Serres, was no doubt an over-state-
ment of the case. It is not true, for example, that a
fish is a reptile arrested in its development, or that a
reptile was ever a fish : but it is true that the reptile
embryo, at one stage of its development, is an organism
which, if it had an independent existence, must be
classified among fishes; and all the organs of the
reptile pass, in the course of their development, through
conditions which are closely analogous to those which
are permanent in some fishes.
4. That branch of biology which is termed Mor-
304 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
phology is a commentary upon, and expansion of, the
proposition that widely different animals or plants,
and widely different parts of animals or plants, are
constructed upon the same plan. From the rough com-
parison of the skeleton of a bird with that of a man
by Belon, in the sixteenth century (to go no farther
back), down to the theory of the limbs and the theory
of the skull at the present day; or, from the first
demonstration of the homologies of the parts of a
flower by C. F. Wolff, to the present elaborate analysis
of the floral organs, morphology exhibits a continual
advance towards the demonstration of a fundamental
unity among the seeming diversities of living struc-
tures. And this demonstration has been completed
by the final establishment of the cell theory, which
involves the admission of a primitive conformity, not
only of all the elementary structures in animals and
plants respectively, but of those in the one of these
great divisions of living things with those in the other.
No d priori difficulty can be said to stand in the way
of evolution, when it can be shown that all animals
and all plants proceed by modes of development,
which are similar in principle, from a fundamental
protoplasmic material.
5. The innumerable cases of structures, which are
rudimentary and apparently useless, in species, the
close allies of which possess well developed and func-
tionally important homologous structures, are readily
intelligible on the theory of evolution, while it is hard
to conceive their raison d'etre on any other hypothesis.
However, a cautious reasoner will probably rather
XI ] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 305
explain such cases deductively from the doctrine of
evolution than endeavour to support the doctrine of
evolution by them. For it is almost impossible to
prove that any structure, however rudimentary, is
useless that is to say, that it plays no part whatever
in the economy ; and, if it is in the slightest degree
useful, there is no reason why, on the hypothesis of
direct creation, it should not have been created.
Nevertheless, double-edged as is the argument from
rudimentary organs, there is probably none which
has produced a greater effect in promoting the general
acceptance of the theory of evolution.
6. The older advocates of evolution sought for
the causes of the process exclusively in the influence
of varying conditions, such as climate and station, or
hybridisation, upon living forms. Even Treviranus
has got no farther than this point. Lamarck intro-
duced the conception of the action of an animal on
itself as a factor in producing modification. Starting
from the well-known fact that the habitual use of a
limb tends to develop the muscles of the limb, and to
produce a greater and greater facility in using it, he
made the general assumption that the effort of an
animal to exert an organ in a given direction tends to
develop the organ in that direction. But a little
consideration showed that, though Lamarck had seized
what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of modification,
it is a cause the actual effects of which are wholly
inadequate to account for any considerable modifica-
tion in animals, and which can have no influence at
all in the vegetable world ; and probably nothing con-
306 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
tributed so much to discredit evolution, in the early
part of this century, as the floods of easy ridicule
which were poured upon this part of Lamarck's specu-
lation. The theory of natural selection, or survival
of the fittest, was suggested by Wells in 1813,
and further elaborated by Matthew in 1831. But
the pregnant suggestions of these writers remained
practically unnoticed and forgotten, until the theory
was independently devised and promulgated by
Darwin and Wallace in 1858, and the effect of its
publication was immediate and profound.
Those who were unwilling to accept evolution,
without better grounds than such as are offered by
Lamarck, or the author of that particularly unsatis-
factory book, the " Vestiges of the Natural History of
the Creation," and who therefore preferred to suspend
their judgment on the question, found, in the principle
of selective breeding, pursued in all its applications
with marvellous knowledge and skill by Mr. Darwin,
a valid explanation of the occurrence of varieties and
races ; and they saw clearly that, if the explanation
would apply to species, it would not only solve the
problem of their evolution, but that it would account
for the facts of teleology, as well as for those of mor-
phology ; and for the persistence of some forms of life
unchanged through long epochs of time, while others
undergo comparatively rapid metamorphosis.
How far " natural selection" suffices for the pro-
duction of species remains to be seen. Few can doubt
that, if not the whole cause, it is a very important
factor in that operation ; and that it must play a
XI.] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 307
great part in the sorting out of varieties into those
which are transitory and those which are permanent.
But the causes and conditions of variation have
yet to be thoroughly explored ; and the importance of
natural selection will not be impaired, even if further
inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and
is determined in certain directions rather than in
others, by conditions inherent in that which varies.
It is quite conceivable that every species tends to
produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and
that the effect of natural selection is to favour the
development of some of these, while it opposes the
development of others along their predetermined lines
of modification.
7. No truths brought to light by biological invest-
igation were better calculated to inspire distrust of
the dogmas intruded upon science in the name of
theology, than those which relate to the distribution
of animals and plants on the surface of the earth.
Very skilful accommodation was needful, if the limita-
tion of sloths to South America, and of the ornitho-
rhynchus to Australia, was to be reconciled with the
literal interpretation of the history of the deluge ; and,
with the establishment of the existence of distinct
provinces of distribution, any serious belief in the
peopling of the world by migration from Mount Ararat
came to an end.
Under these circumstances, only one alternative
was left for those who denied the occurrence of evolu-
tion namely, the supposition that the characteristic
animals and plants of each great province were
308 EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. [LECT.
created, as such, within the limits in which we find
them. And as the hypothesis of " specific centres,"
thus formulated, was heterodox from the theological
point of view, and unintelligible under its scientific
aspect, it may be passed over without further notice,
as a phase of transition from the creational to the
evolutional hypothesis.
8. In fact, the strongest and most conclusive
arguments in favour of evolution are those which
are based upon the facts of geographical, taken in
conjunction with those of geological, distribution.
Both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace lay great stress
on the close relation which obtains between the exist-
ing fauna of any region and that of the immediately
antecedent geological epoch in the same region ; and
rightly, for it is in truth inconceivable that there
should be no genetic connection between the two. It
is possible to put into words the proposition that all
the animals and plants of each geological epoch were
annihilated, and that a new set of very similar forms
was created for the next epoch ; but it may be doubted
if any one who ever tried to form a distinct mental
image of this process of spontaneous generation on the
grandest scale, ever really succeeded in realising it.
Within the last twenty years, the attention of the
best palaeontologists has been withdrawn from the
hodman's work of making "new species" of fossils,
to the scientific task of completing our knowledge of
individual species, and tracing out the succession of
the forms presented by any given type in time.
Those who desire to inform themselves of the
XL] EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY. 309
nature and extent of the evidence bearing on these
questions may consult the works of Kiitimeyer,
Gaudry, Kowalewsky, Marsh, and the writer of the
present article. It must suffice, in this place, to say
that the successive forms of the Equine type have
been fully worked out ; while those of nearly all the
other existing types of Ungulate mammals and of
the Carnivora have been almost as closely followed
through the Tertiary deposits; the gradations be-
tween birds and reptiles have been traced; and the
modifications undergone by the Crocodilia, from the
Triassic epoch to the present day, have been demon-
strated. On the evidence of palaeontology, the evo-
lution of many existing forms of animal life from
their predecessors is no longer an hypothesis, but an
historical fact; it is only the nature of the physio-
logical factors to which that evolution is due which is
still open to discussion.
310 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
XII.
THE COMING OF AGE OF "THE OKIGIN
OF SPECIES."
MANY of you will be familiar with the aspect of this
small green-covered book. It is a copy of the first
edition of the " Origin of Species," and bears the date
of its production the 1st of October 1859. Only a
few months, therefore, are needed to complete the full
tale of twenty- one years since its birthday.
Those whose memories carry them back to this
time will remember that the infant was remarkably
lively, and that a great number of excellent persons
mistook its manifestations of a vigorous individuality
for mere naughtiness ; in fact there was a very pretty
turmoil about its cradle. My recollections of the
period are particularly vivid ; for, having conceived a
tender affection for a child of what appeared to me to
be such remarkable promise, I acted for some time in
the capacity of a sort of under-nurse, and thus came
in for my share of the storms which threatened the
very life of the young creature. For some years it
was undoubtedly warm work ; but considering how
exceedingly unpleasant the apparition of the new-
comer must have been to those who did not fall in
XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 311
love with him at first sight, I think it is to the credit
of our age that the war was not fiercer, and that the
more bitter and unscrupulous forms of opposition died
away as soon as they did.
I speak of this period as of something past and
gone, possessing merely an historical, I had almost
said an antiquarian interest. For, during the second
decade of the existence of the " Origin of Species,"
opposition, though by no means dead, assumed a
different aspect. On the part of all those who had
any reason to respect themselves, it assumed a thor-
oughly respectful character. By this time, the dullest
began to perceive that the child was not likely to
perish of any congenital weakness or infantile dis-
order, but was growing into a stalwart personage,
upon whom mere goody scoldings and threatenings
with the birch-rod were quite thrown away.
In fact, those who have watched the progress of
science within the last ten years will bear me out to
the full, when I assert that there is no field of bio-
logical inquiry in which the influence of the " Origin
of Species" is not traceable; the foremost men of
science in every country are either avowed champions
of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from
opposing them ; a host of young and ardent investi-
gators seek for and find inspiration and guidance in
Mr. Darwin's great work ; and the general doctrine
of evolution, to one side of which it gives expression,
obtains, in the phenomena of biology, a firm base of
operations whence it may conduct its conquest of the
whole realm of nature.
312 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
History warns us, however, that it is the cus-
tomary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to
end as superstitions ; and, as matters now stand, it is
hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty
years, the new generation, educated under the influ-
ences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting
the main doctrines of the " Origin of Species," with as
little reflection, and it may be with as little justifica-
tion, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years
ago, rejected them.
Against any such a consummation let us all
devoutly pray ; for the scientific spirit is of more
value than its products, and irrationally held truths
may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now the
essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us
that whenever a doctrine claims our assent we should
reply, Take it if you can compel it. The struggle for
existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the
physical world. A theory is a species of thinking,
and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of
resisting extinction by its rivals.
From this point of view, it appears to me that it
would be but a poor way of celebrating the Coming of
Age of the " Origin of Species/' were I merely to
dwell upon the facts, undoubted and remarkable as
they are, of its far-reaching influence and of the great
following of ardent disciples who are occupied in
spreading and developing its doctrines. Mere insani-
ties and inanities have before now swollen to por-
tentous size in the course of twenty years. Let us
rather ask this prodigious change in opinion to justify
XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 313
itself; let us inquire whether anything has happened
since 1859, which will explain, on rational grounds,
why so many are worshipping that which they burned,
and burning that which they worshipped. It is only
in this way that we shall acquire the means of judg-
ing whether the movement we have witnessed is a
mere eddy of fashion, or truly one with the irrevers-
ible current of intellectual progress, and, like it, safe
from retrogressive reaction.
Every belief is the product of two factors : the
first is the state of the mind to which the evidence in
favour of that belief is presented ; and the second is
the logical cogency of the evidence itself. In both
these respects, the history of biological science during
the last twenty years appears to me to afford an
ample explanation of the change which has taken
place ; and a brief consideration of the salient events
of that history will enable us to understand why, if
the " Origin of Species " appeared now, it would meet
with a very different reception from that which
greeted it in 1859.
One-and-twenty years ago, in spite of the work
commenced by Hutton and continued with rare skill
and patience by Lyell, the dominant view of the past
history of the earth was catastrophic. Great and
sudden physical revolutions, wholesale creations and
extinctions of living beings, were the ordinary machi-
nery of the geological epic brought into fashion by
the misapplied genius of Cuvier. It was gravely
maintained and taught that the end of every geo-
logical epoch was signalised by a cataclysm, by which
314 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
every living being on the globe was swept away,
to be replaced by a brand-new creation when the
world returned to quiescence. A scheme of nature
which appeared to be modelled on the likeness of a
succession of rubbers of whist, at the end of each of
which the players upset the table and called for a
new pack, did not seem to shock anybody.
I may be wrong, but I doubt if, at the present
time, there is a single responsible representative of
these opinions left. The progress of scientific geo-
logy has elevated the fundamental principle of uni-
formitarianism, that the explanation of the past is to
be sought in the study of the present, into the position
of an axiom; and the wild speculations of the catastro-
phists, to which we all listened with respect a quarter
of a century ago, would hardly find a single patient
hearer at the present day. No physical geologist
now dreams of seeking, outside the range of known
natural causes, for the explanation of anything that
happened millions of years ago, any more than he
would be guilty of the like absurdity in regard to
current events.
The effect of this change of opinion upon biological
speculation is obvious. For, if there have been no
periodical general physical catastrophes, what brought
about the assumed general extinctions and re-creations
of life which are the corresponding biological cata-
strophes? And, if no such interruptions of the
ordinary course of nature have taken place in the
organic, any more than in the inorganic, world, what
alternative is there to the admission of evolution ?
XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 315
The doctrine of evolution in biology is the neces-
sary result of the logical application of the principles
of uniformitarianism to the phenomena of life. Dar-
win is the natural successor of Button and Lyell, and
the "Origin of Species" the logical sequence of the
" Principles of Geology."
The fundamental doctrine of the "Origin of
Species," as of all forms of the theory of evolution
applied to biology, is " that the innumerable species,
genera, and families of organic beings with which the
world is peopled have all descended, each within its
own class or group, from common parents, and have
all been modified in the course of descent." l
And, in view of the facts of geology, it follows
that all living animals and plants " are the lineal
descendants of those which lived long before the
Silurian epoch." 2
It is an obvious consequence of this theory of
descent with modification, as it is sometimes called,
that all plants and animals, however different they
may now be, must, at one time or other, have been
connected by direct or indirect intermediate grada-
tions, and that the appearance of isolation presented
by various groups of organic beings must be unreal.
No part of Mr. Darwin's work ran more directly
counter to the prepossessions of naturalists twenty
years ago than this. And such prepossessions were
very excusable, for there was undoubtedly a great
deal to be said, at that time, in favour of the fixity of
1 " Origin of Species," ed. 1, p. 457.
2 Ibid. p. 458.
316 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
species and of the existence of great breaks, which
there was no obvious or probable means of filling up,
between various groups of organic beings.
For various reasons, scientific and unscientific, much
had been made of the hiatus between man and the
rest of the higher mammalia, and it is no wonder
that issue was first joined on this part of the con-
troversy. I have no wish to revive past and happily
forgotten controversies ; but I must state the simple
fact that the distinctions in the cerebral and other
characters, which were so hotly affirmed to separate
man from all other animals in 1860, have all been
demonstrated to be non-existent, and that the con-
trary doctrine is now universally accepted and taught.
But there were other cases in which the wide
structural gaps asserted to exist between one group
of animals and another. were by no means fictitious;
and, when such structural breaks were real, Mr.
Darwin could account for them only by supposing
that the intermediate forms which once existed had
become extinct. In a remarkable passage he says
" We may thus account even for the distinctness of
whole classes from each other for instance, of birds
from all other vertebrate animals by the belief that
many animal forms of life have been utterly lost,
through which the early progenitors of birds were
formerly connected with the early progenitors of the
other vertebrate classes." ]
Adverse criticism made merry over such sugges-
tions as these. Of course it was easy to get out of
1 "Origin of the Species," p. 431.
XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 317
the difficulty by supposing extinction ; but where was
the slightest evidence that such intermediate forms
between birds and reptiles as the hypothesis required
ever existed ? And then probably followed a tirade
upon this terrible forsaking of the paths of "Baconian
induction."
But the progress of knowledge has justified Mr.
Darwin to an extent which could hardly have been
anticipated. In 1862, the specimen of Archceopteryx,
which, until the last two or three years, has remained
unique, was discovered ; and it is an animal which, in
its feathers and the greater part of its organisation,
is a veritable bird, while, in other parts, it is as dis-
tinctly reptilian.
In 1868, 1 had the honour of bringing under your
notice, in this theatre, the results of investigations
made, up to that time, into the anatomical characters
of certain ancient reptiles, which showed the nature
of the modifications in virtue of which the type of
the quadrupedal reptile passed into that of a bipedal
bird ; and abundant confirmatory evidence of the
justice of the conclusions which I then laid before
you has since come to light.
In 1875, the discovery of the toothed birds of the
cretaceous formation in North America by Professor
Marsh completed the series of transitional forms
between birds and reptiles, and removed Mr. Darwin's
proposition that "many animal forms of life have
been utterly lost, through which the early progenitors
of birds were formerly connected with the early
progenitors of the other vertebrate classes," from
318 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
the region of hypothesis to that of demonstrable
fact.
In 1859, there appeared to be a very sharp and
clear hiatus between vertebrated and invertebrated
animals, not only in their structure, but, what was
more important, in their development. I do not
think that we even yet know the precise links of
connection between the two ; but the investigations
of Kowalewsky and others upon the development of
Amphioxus and of the Tunicata prove, beyond a
doubt, that the differences which were supposed to
constitute a barrier between the two are non-existent.
There is no longer any difficulty in understanding
how the vertebrate type may have arisen from the
invertebrate, though the full proof of the manner in
which the transition was actually effected may still
be lacking.
Again, in 1859, there appeared to be a no less
sharp separation between the two great groups of
flowering and flowerless plants. It is only subse-
quently that the series of remarkable investigations
inaugurated by Hofmeister has brought to light the
extraordinary and altogether unexpected modifications
of the reproductive apparatus in the Lycopodiacece, the
Rhizocarpece, and the Gymnospermece, by which the
ferns and the mosses are gradually connected with the
Phanerogamic division of the vegetable world.
So, again, it is only since 1859 that we have ac-
quired that wealth of knowledge of the lowest forms
of life which demonstrates the futility of any attempt
to separate the lowest plants from the lowest animals.
xn. ] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 319
and shows that the two kingdoms of living nature
have a common borderland which belongs to both or
to neither.
Thus it will be observed that the whole tendency
of biological investigation, since 1859, has been in the
direction of removing the difficulties which the appa-
rent breaks in the series created at that time ; and the
recognition of gradation is the first step towards the
acceptance of evolution.
As another great factor in bringing about the
change of opinion which has taken place among
naturalists, I count the astonishing progress which
has been made in the study of embryology. Twenty
years ago, not only were we devoid of any accurate
knowledge of the mode of development of many
groups of animals and plants, but the methods of in-
vestigation were rude and imperfect. At the present
time, there is no important group of organic beings
the development of which has not been carefully
studied ; and the modern methods of hardening and
section -making enable the embryologist to determine
the nature of the process, in each case, with a degree
of minuteness and accuracy which is truly astonishing
to those whose memories carry them back to the
beginnings of modern histology. And the results of
these embryological investigations are in complete
harmony with the requirements of the doctrine of
evolution. The first beginnings of all the higher
forms of animal life are similar, and however diverse
their adult conditions, they start from a common
foundation. Moreover, the process of development
320 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
of the animal or the plant from its primary egg or
germ is a true process of evolution a progress from
almost formless to more or less highly organised
matter, in virtue of the properties inherent in that
matter.
To those who are familiar with the process of
development, all d priori objections to the doctrine of
biological evolution appear childish. Any one who
has watched the gradual formation of a complicated
animal from the protoplasmic mass, which constitutes
the essential element of a frog's or a hen's egg, has
had under his eyes sufficient evidence that a similar
evolution of the whole animal world from the like
foundation is, at any rate, possible.
Yet another product of investigation has largely
contributed to the removal of the objections to the
doctrine of evolution current in 1859. It is the proof
afforded by successive discoveries that Mr. Darwin did
not over-estimate the imperfection of the geological
record. No more striking illustration of this is
needed than a comparison of our knowledge of the
mammalian fauna of the Tertiary epoch in 1859 with
its present condition. M. Gaudry's researches on the
fossils of Pikermi were published in 1868, those of
Messrs. Leidy, Marsh, and Cope, on the fossils of the
Western Territories of America, have appeared almost
wholly since 1870, those of M. Filhol on the phos-
phorites of Quercy in 1878. The general effect of
these investigations has been to introduce to us a
multitude of extinct animals, the existence of which
was previously hardly suspected ; just as if zoologists
"
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 321
were to become acquainted with a country, hitherto
unknown, as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil or
South Africa once were to Europeans. Indeed, the
fossil fauna of the Western Territories of America bids
fair to exceed in interest and importance all other
known Tertiary deposits put together ; and yet, with
the exception of the case of the American tertiaries,
these investigations have extended over very limited
areas ; and, at Pikermi, were confined to an extremely
small space.
Such appear to me to be the chief events in the
history of the progress of knowledge during the last
twenty years, which account for the changed feeling
with which the doctrine of evolution is at present
regarded by those who have followed the advance of
biological science, in respect of those problems which
bear indirectly upon that doctrine.
But all this remains mere secondary evidence. It
may remove dissent, but it does not compel assent.
Primary and direct evidence in favour of evolution
can be furnished only by palaeontology. The geologi-
cal record, so soon as it approaches completeness,
must, when properly questioned, yield either an
affirmative or a negative answer : if evolution has
taken place, there will its mark be left ; if it has not
taken place, there will lie its refutation.
What was the state of matters in 1859 ? Let us
hear Mr. Darwin, who may be trusted always to state
the case against himself as strongly as possible.
" On this doctrine of the extermination of an
Y
322 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT.
infinitude of connecting links between the living and
extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each succes-
sive period between the extinct and still older species,
why is not every geological formation charged with
such links \ Why does not every collection of fossil
remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and
mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no
such evidence, and this is the most obvious and
plausible of the many objections which may be urged
against my theory." *
Nothing could have been more useful to the
opposition than this characteristically candid avowal,
twisted as it immediately was into an admission that
the writer's views were contradicted by the facts of
palaeontology. But, in fact, Mr. Darwin made no
such admission. What he says in effect is, not that
palseontological evidence is against him, but that it is
not distinctly in his favour ; and, without attempting
to attenuate the fact, he accounts for it by the
scantiness and the imperfection of that evidence.
What is the state of the case now, when, as we
have seen, the amount of our knowledge respecting
the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch is increased
fifty-fold, and in some directions even approaches
completeness 1
Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution had
not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so
irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of
the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have
been brought to light since 1859.
1 " Origin of Species," ed. 1, p. 463.
XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 323
Among the fossils of Pikermi, Gaudry found the
successive stages by which the ancient civets passed
into the more modern hyaenas ; through the Tertiary
deposits of Western America, Marsh tracked the suc-
cessive forms by which the ancient stock of the horse
has passed into its present form ; and innumerable less
complete indications of the mode of evolution of other
groups of the higher mammalia have been obtained.
In the remarkable memoir on the phosphorites of
Quercy, to which I have referred, M. Filhol describes
no fewer than seventeen varieties of the genus Cyno-
dictis, which fill up all the interval between the
viverine animals and the bear-like dog Amphicyon ;
nor do I know any solid ground of objection to the
supposition that, in this Cynodictis- Amphicyon group,
we have the stock whence all the Viveridse, Felidae,
Hysenidse, Canidae, and perhaps the Procyonidaa and
Ursidae, of the present fauna have been evolved. On
the contrary, there is a great deal to be said in favour.
In the course of summing up his results, M. Filhol
observes :
" During the epoch of the phosphorites, great
changes took place in animal forms, and almost the
same types as those which now exist became defined
from one another.
"Under the influence of natural conditions of
which we have no exact knowledge, though traces of
them are discoverable, species have been modified in
a thousand ways : races have arisen which, becoming
fixed, have thus produced a corresponding number of
secondary species."
324 COMING OP AGE OF " ORIGIN OF SPECIES." [LECT.
ID 1859, language of which this is an unin-
tentional paraphrase, occurring in the " Origin of
Species," was scouted as wild speculation ; at present,
it is a sober statement of the conclusions to which an
acute and critically -minded investigator is led by
large and patient study of the facts of palaeontology.
I venture to repeat what I have said before, that, so
far as the animal world is concerned, evolution is no
longer a speculation, but a statement of historical
fact. It takes its place alongside of those accepted
truths which must be reckoned with by philosophers
of all schools.
Thus when, on the first day of October next, the
" Origin of Species " comes of age, the promise of its
youth will be amply fulfilled ; and we shall be pre-
pared to congratulate the venerated author of the
book, not only that the greatness of his achievement
and its enduring influence upon the progress of know-
ledge have won him a place beside our Harvey ; but,
still more, that, like Harvey, he has lived long enough
to outlast detraction and opposition, and to see the
stone that the builders rejected become the head-stone
of the corner.
XIIL] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 325
XIII.
THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL
SCIENCES WITH MEDICINE.
THE great body of theoretical and practical knowledge
which has been accumulated by the labours of some
eighty generations, since the dawn of scientific thought
in Europe, has no collective English name to which
an objection may not be raised ; and I use the term
1 'medicine" as that which is least likely to be mis-
understood ; though, as every one knows, the name is
commonly applied, in a narrower sense, to one of the
chief divisions of the totality of medical science.
Taken in this broad sense, " medicine " not merely
denotes a kind of knowledge, but it comprehends the
various applications of that knowledge to the allevia-
tion of the sufferings, the repair of the injuries, and
the conservation of the health, of living beings. In
fact, the practical aspect of medicine so far dominates
over every other, that the " Healing Art " is one of
its most widely-received synonyms. It is so difficult
to think of medicine otherwise than as something
which is necessarily connected with curative treat-
ment, that we are apt to forget that there must be,
326 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
and is, such a thing as a pure science of medicine
a "pathology" which has no more necessary sub-
servience to practical ends than has zoology or
botany.
The logical connection between this purely scientific
doctrine of disease, or pathology, and ordinary biology,
is easily traced. Living matter is characterised by its
innate tendency to exhibit a definite series of the
morphological and physiological phenomena which
constitute organisation and life. Given a certain
range of conditions, and these phenomena remain
the same, within narrow limits, for each kind of
living thing. They furnish the normal and typical
character of the species, and, as such, they are the
subject-matter of ordinary biology.
Outside the range of these conditions, the normal
course of the cycle of vital phenomena is disturbed ;
abnormal structure makes its appearance, or the pro-
per character and mutual adjustment of the functions
cease to be preserved. The extent and the importance
of these deviations from the typical life may vary in-
definitely. They may have no noticeable influence on
the general well-being of the economy, or they may
favour it. On the other hand, they may be of such a
nature as to impede the activities of the organism, or
even to involve its destruction.
In the first case, these perturbations are ranged
under the wide and somewhat vague category of
" variations ; " in the second, they are called lesions,
states of poisoning, or diseases ; and, as morbid states,
they lie within the province of pathology. No sharp
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 327
line of demarcation can be drawn between the two
classes of phenomena. No one can say where ana-
tomical variations end and tumours begin, nor where
modification of function, which may at first promote
health, passes into disease. All that can be said is,
that whatever change of structure or function is hurt-
ful belongs to pathology. Hence it is obvious that
pathology is a branch of biology; it is the morphology,
the physiology, the distribution, the aetiology of ab-
normal life.
However obvious this conclusion may be now, it
was nowise apparent in the infancy of medicine. For
it is a peculiarity of the physical sciences, that they
are independent in proportion as they are imperfect ;
and it is only as they advance that the bonds which
really unite them all become apparent. Astronomy
had no manifest connection with terrestrial physics
before the publication of the " Principia ; " that of
chemistry with physics is of still more modern revela-
tion ; that of physics and chemistry with physiology,
has been stoutly denied within the recollection of most
of us, and perhaps still may be.
Or, to take a case which affords a closer parallel
with that of medicine. Agriculture has been culti-
vated from the earliest times, and, from a remote
antiquity, men have attained considerable practical
skill in the cultivation of the useful plants, and have
empirically established many scientific truths concern-
ing the conditions under which they flourish. But, it
is within the memory of many of us, that chemistry
on the one hand, and vegetable physiology on the
328 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
other, attained a stage of development such that they
were able to furnish a sound basis for scientific agri-
culture. Similarly, medicine took its rise in the
practical needs of mankind. At first, studied without
reference to any other branch of knowledge, it long
maintained, indeed still to some extent maintains,
that independence. Historically, its connection with
the biological sciences has been slowly established,
and the full extent and intimacy of that connection
are only now beginning to be apparent. I trust I
have not been mistaken in supposing that an attempt
to give a brief sketch of the steps by which a philo-
sophical necessity has become an historical reality,
may not be devoid of interest, possibly of instruction,
to the members of this great Congress, profoundly
interested as all are in the scientific development of
medicine.
The history of medicine is more complete and
fuller than that of any other science, except, perhaps,
astronomy ; and, if we follow back the long record as
far as clear evidence lights us, we find ourselves taken
to the early stages of the civilisation of Greece. The
oldest hospitals were the temples of JSsculapius ; to
these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard
by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the
sick and the maimed resorted to seek the aid of the
god of health. Votive tablets or inscriptions recorded
the symptoms, no less than the gratitude, of those who
were healed; and, from these primitive clinical records,
the half-priestly, half -philosophic caste of the Ascle-
piads compiled the data upon which the earliest
XIII. ] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 329
generalisations of medicine, as an inductive science,
were based.
In this state, pathology, like all the inductive
sciences at their origin, was merely natural history ;
it registered the phenomena of disease, classified them,
and ventured upon a prognosis, wherever the observa-
tion of constant co-existences and sequences suggested
a rational expectation of the like recurrence under
similar circumstances.
Further than this it hardly went. In fact, in the
then state of knowledge, and in the condition of philo-
sophical speculation at that time, neither the causes
of the morbid state, nor the rationale of treatment,
were likely to be sought for as we seek for them now.
The anger of a god was a sufficient reason for the
existence of a malady, and a dream ample warranty
for therapeutic measures ; that a physical phenomenon
must needs have a physical cause was not the implied
or expressed axiom that it is to us moderns.
The great man whose name is inseparately con-
nected with the foundation of medicine, Hippocrates,
certainly knew very little, indeed practically nothing,
of anatomy or physiology ; and he would, probably,
have been perplexed, even to imagine the possibility
of a connection between the zoological studies of his
contemporary Democritus and medicine. Neverthe-
less, in so far as he, and those who worked before and
after him, in the same spirit, ascertained, as matters
of experience, that a wound, or a luxation, or a fever,
presented such and such symptoms, and that the
return of the patient to health was facilitated by such
330 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
and such measures, they established laws of nature,
and began the construction of the science of pathology.
All true science begins with empiricism though all
true science is such exactly, in so far as it strives to
pass out of the empirical stage into that of the deduc-
tion of empirical from more general truths. Thus, it
is not wonderful, that the early physicians had little
or nothing to do with the development of biological
science; and, on the other hand, that the early bio-
logists did not much concern themselves with medi-
cine. There is nothing to show that the Asclepiads
took any prominent share in the work of founding
anatomy, physiology, zoology, and botany. Eather
do these seem to have sprung from the early philo-
sophers, who were essentially natural philosophers,
animated by the characteristically Greek thirst for
knowledge as such. Pythagoras, Alcmeon, Democritus,
Diogenes of Apollonia, are all credited with anatomical
and physiological investigations ; and, though Aristotle
is said to have belonged to an Asclepiad family, and
not improbably owed his taste for anatomical and
zoological inquiries to the teachings of his father,
the physician Nicomachus, the " Historia Animalium,"
and the treatise " De Partibus Animalium," are as free
from any allusion to medicine as if they had issued
from a modern biological laboratory.
It may be added, that it is not easy to see in what
way it could have benefited a physician of Alexander's
time to know all that Aristotle knew on these subjects.
His human anatomy was too rough to avail much in
diagnosis ; his physiology was too erroneous to supply
XIIL] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 331
data for pathological reasoning. But when the Alex-
andrian school, with Erasistratus and Herophilus at
their head, turned to account the opportunities of
studying human structure, afforded to them by the
Ptolemies, the value of the large amount of accurate
knowledge thus obtained to the surgeon for his
operations, and to the physician for his diagnosis of
internal disorders, became obvious, and a connection
was established between anatomy and medicine, which
has ever become closer and closer. Since the revival
of learning, surgery, medical diagnosis, and anatomy
have gone hand in hand. Morgagni called his great
work, " De sedibus et causis morborum per anatomen
indagatis," and not only showed the way to search out
the localities and the causes of disease by anatomy,
but himself travelled wonderfully far upon the road.
Bichat, discriminating the grosser constituents of the
organs and parts of the body, one from another,
pointed out the direction which modern research
must take ; until, at length, histology, a science of
yesterday, as it seems to many of us, has carried the
work of Morgagni as far as the microscope can take
us, and has extended the realm of pathological anatomy
to the limits of the invisible world.
Thanks to the intimate alliance of morphology
with medicine, the natural history of disease has, at
the present day, attained a high degree of perfection.
Accurate regional anatomy has rendered practicable
the exploration of the most hidden parts of the
organism, and the determination, during life, of morbid
changes in them ; anatomical and histological post-
332 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
mortem investigations have supplied physicians with
a clear basis upon which to rest the classification of
diseases, and with unerring tests of the accuracy or
inaccuracy of their diagnoses.
If men could be satisfied with pure knowledge, the
extreme precision with which, in these days, a sufferer
may be told what is happening, and what is likely to
happen, even in the most recondite parts of his bodily
frame, should be as satisfactory to the patient as it is
to the scientific pathologist who gives him the infor-
mation. But I am afraid it is not; and even the
practising physician, while nowise underestimating
the regulative value of accurate diagnosis, must often
lament that so much of his knowledge rather prevents
him from doing wrong than helps him to do right.
A scorner of physic once said that nature and dis-
ease may be compared to two men fighting, the doctor
to a blind man with a club, who strikes into the melee,
sometimes hitting the disease, and sometimes hitting
nature. The matter is not mended if you suppose the
blind man's hearing to be so acute that he can register
every stage of the struggle, and pretty clearly predict
how it will end. He had better not meddle at all,
until his eyes are opened until he can see the exact
position of the antagonists, and make sure of the
effect of his blows. But that which it behoves the
physician to see, not, indeed, with his bodily eye, but
with clear, intellectual vision, is a process, and the
chain of causation involved in that process. Disease,
as we have seen, is a perturbation of the normal
activities of a living body, and it is, and must remain,
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 333
unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant of the nature
of these normal activities. In other words, there could
be no real science of pathology until the science of
physiology had reached a degree of perfection un-
attained, and indeed unattainable, until quite recent
times.
So far as medicine is concerned, I am not sure
that physiology, such as it was down to the time of
Harvey, might as well not have existed. Nay, it
is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, within the
memory of living men, justly renowned practitioners
of medicine and surgery knew less physiology than is
now to be learned from the most elementary text-book ;
and, beyond a few broad facts, regarded what they did
know as of extremely little practical importance.
Nor am I disposed to blame them for this conclusion ;
physiology must be useless, or worse than useless, to
pathology, so long as its fundamental conceptions are
erroneous.
Harvey is often said to be the founder of modern
physiology; and there can be no question that the
elucidations of the function of the heart, of the nature
of the pulse, and of the course of the blood, put forth
in the ever-memorable little essay, " De motu cordis,"
directly worked a revolution in men's views of the
nature and of the concatenation of some of the most
important physiological processes among the higher
animals ; while, indirectly, their influence was perhaps
even more remarkable.
But, though Harvey made this signal and peren-
nially important contribution to the physiology of the
334 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
moderns, his general conception of vital processes
was essentially identical with that of the ancients;
and, in the " Exercitationes de generatione," and
notably in the singular chapter " De calido innato,"
he shows himself a true son of Galen and of Aristotle.
For Harvey, the blood possesses powers superior
to those of the elements ; it is the seat of a soul which
is not only vegetative, but also sensitive and motor.
The blood maintains and fashions all parts of the
body, " idque summa cum providentia et intellectu in
finem certum agens, quasi ratiocinio quodam uteretur."
Here is the doctrine of the " pneuma," the product
of the philosophical mould into which the animism of
primitive men ran in Greece, in full force. Nor did its
strength abate for long after Harvey's time. The
same ingrained tendency of the human mind to sup-
pose that a process is explained when it is ascribed
to a power of which nothing is known except that it
is the hypothetical agent of the process, gave rise, in
the next century, to the animism of Stahl ; and, later,
to the doctrine of a vital principle, that "asylum
ignorantiae" of physiologists, which has so easily
accounted for everything and explained nothing,
down to our own times.
Now the essence of modern, as contrasted with
ancient, physiological science appears to me to lie in
its antagonism to animistic hypotheses and animistic
phraseology. It offers physical explanations of vital
phenomena, or frankly confesses that it has none to
offer. And, so far as I know, the first person who
gave expression to this modern view of physiology,
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 335
who was bold enough to enunciate the proposition
that vital phenomena, like all the other phenomena of
the physical world, are, in ultimate analysis, resolvable
into matter and motion, was Eene Descartes.
The fifty-four years of life of this most original
and powerful thinker are widely overlapped, on both
sides, by the eighty of Harvey, who survived his
younger contemporary by seven years, and takes
pleasure in acknowledging the French philosopher's
appreciation of his great discovery.
In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the
circulation as propounded by "Harvaeus medecin
d'Angleterre," and gave a full account of it in his first
work, the famous " Discours de la Methode," which was
published in 1637, only nine years after the exercita-
tion " De motu cordis ; " and, though differing from
Harvey on some important points (in which it may be
noted, in passing, Descartes was wrong and Harvey
right), he always speaks of him with great respect.
And so important does the subject seem to Descartes,
that he returns to it in the " Traite des Passions," and
in the "Traite de I'Homme."
It is easy to see that Harvey's work must have
had a peculiar significance for the subtle thinker, to
whom we owe both the spiritualistic and the material-
istic philosophies of modern times. It was in the
very year of its publication, 1628, that Descartes
withdrew into that life of solitary investigation and
meditation of which his philosophy was the fruit.
And, as the course of his speculations led him to
establish an absolute distinction of nature between
336 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
the material and the mental worlds, he was logically
compelled to seek for the explanation of the pheno-
mena of the material world within itself ; and having
allotted the realm of thought to the soul, to see nothing
but extension and motion in the rest of nature.
Descartes uses " thought " as the equivalent of our
modern term " consciousness." Thought is the func-
tion of the soul, and its only function. Our natural
heat and all the movements of the body, says he, do
not depend on the soul. Death does not take place
from any fault of the soul, but only because some of
the principal parts of the body become corrupted.
The body of a living man differs from that of a dead
man in the same way as a watch or other automaton
(that is to say, a machine which moves of itself) when
it is wound up and has, in itself, the physical principle
of the movements which the mechanism is adapted to
perform, differs from the same watch, or other machine,
when it is broken, and the physical principle of its
movement no longer exists. All the actions which
are common to us and the lower animals depend only
on the conformation of our organs, and the course
which the animal spirits take in the brain, the nerves,
and the muscles ; in the same way as the movement
of a watch is produced by nothing but the force of its
spring and the figure of its wheels and other parts.
Descartes' " Treatise on Man " is a sketch of human
physiology, in which a bold attempt is made to explain
all the phenomena of life, except those of conscious-
ness, by physical reasonings. To a mind turned in
this direction, Harvey's exposition of the heart and
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 337
vessels as a hydraulic mechanism must have been
supremely welcome.
Descartes was not a mere philosophical theorist,
but a hardworking dissector and experimenter, and he
held the strongest opinion respecting the practical
value of the new conception which he was introducing.
He speaks of the importance of preserving health, and
of the dependence of the mind on the body being so
close that, perhaps, the only way of making men
wiser and better than they are, is to be sought in
medical science. " It is true," says he, " that as medi-
cine is now practised, it contains little that is very
useful ; but without any desire to depreciate, I am
sure that there is no one, even among professional
men, who will not declare that all we know is very
little as compared with that which remains to be
known ; and that we might escape an infinity of
diseases of the mind, no less than of the body, and
even perhaps from the weakness of old age, if we had
sufficient knowledge of their causes, and of all the
remedies with which nature has provided us." * So
strongly impressed was Descartes with this, that he
resolved to spend the rest of his life in trying to
acquire such a knowledge of nature as would lead to
the construction of a better medical doctrine. 2 The
anti- Cartesians found material for cheap ridicule in
these aspirations of the philosopher ; and it is almost
needless to say that, in the thirteen years which
elapsed between the publication of the "Discours " and
i " Discours de la Methode," 6 e partie, Ed. Cousin, p. 193
2 Ibid. pp. 193 and 211.
z
338 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
the death of Descartes, he did not contribute much to
their realisation. But, for the next century, all pro-
gress in physiology took place along the lines which
Descartes laid down.
The greatest physiological and pathological work
of the seventeenth century, Borelli's treatise "De
Motu Animalium," is, to all intents and purposes, a
development of Descartes' fundamental conception ;
and the same may be said of the physiology and
pathology of Boerhaave, whose authority dominated
in the medical world of the first half of the eighteenth
century.
With the origin of modern chemistry, and of
electrical science, in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, aids in the analysis of the phenomena of life,
of which Descartes could not have dreamed, were
offered to the physiologist. And the greater part of
the gigantic progress which has been made in the
present century is a justification of the prevision of
Descartes. For it consists, essentially, in a more and
more complete resolution of the grosser organs of the
living body into physico-chemical mechanisms.
" I shall try to explain our whole bodily machinery
in such a way, that it will be no more necessary for
us to suppose that the soul produces such movements
as are not voluntary, than it is to think that there is
in a clock a soul which causes it to show the hours." 1
These words of Descartes might be appropriately taken
as a motto by the author of any modern treatise on
physiology.
1 " De la Formation du Foetus."
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 339
But though, as I think, there is no doubt that
Descartes was the first to propound the fundamental
conception of the living body as a physical mechanism,
which is the distinctive feature of modern, as con-
trasted with ancient physiology, he was misled by the
natural temptation to carry out, in all its details, a
parallel between the machines with which he was
familiar, such as clocks and pieces of hydraulic
apparatus, and the living machine. In all such
machines there is a central source of power, and the
parts of the machine are merely passive distributors of
that power. The Cartesian school conceived of the
living body as a machine of this kind; and herein
they might have learned from Galen, who, what-
ever ill use he may have made of the doctrine of
" natural faculties," nevertheless had the great merit
of perceiving that local forces play a great part in
physiology.
The same truth was recognised by Glisson, but it
was first prominently brought forward in the Hallerian
doctrine of the "vis insita" of muscles. If muscle
can contract without nerve, there is an end of the
Cartesian mechanical explanation of its contraction by
the influx of animal spirits.
The discoveries of Trembley tended in the same
direction. In the freshwater Hydra, no trace was to
be found of that complicated machinery upon which
the performance of the functions in the higher
animals was supposed to depend. And yet the hydra
moved, fed, grew, multiplied, and its fragments ex-
hibited all the powers of the whole. And, finally,
340 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
the work of Caspar F. Wolff, 1 by demonstrating the
fact that the growth and development of both plants
and animals take place antecedently to the existence
of their grosser organs, and are, in fact, the causes
and not the consequences of organisation (as then
understood), sapped the foundations of the Cartesian
physiology as a complete expression of vital pheno-
mena.
For Wolff, the physical basis of life is a fluid,
possessed of a " vis essentialis " and a " solidescibili-
tas," in virtue of which it gives rise to organisation ;
and, as he points out, this conclusion strikes at the
root of the whole iatro-mechanical system.
In this country, the great authority of John
Hunter exerted a similar influence ; though it must
be admitted that the too sibylline utterances which
are the outcome of Hunter's struggles to define his
conceptions are often susceptible of more than one
interpretation. Nevertheless, on some points Hunter
is clear enough. For example, he is of opinion that
" Spirit is only a property of matter" (" Introduction
to Natural History," p. 6), he is prepared to renounce
animism (I.e. p. 8), and his conception of life is so
completely physical that he thinks of it as something
which can exist in a state of combination in the food.
" The aliment we take in has in it, in a fixed state,
the real life ; and this does not become active until it
has got into the lungs ; for there it is freed from its
prison" ("Observations on Physiology," p. 113).
He also thinks that "It is more in accord with the
1 "Theoria Generationis," 1759.
XIII. ] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 341
general principles of the animal machine to suppose
that none of its effects are produced from any
mechanical principle whatever ; and that every effect
is produced from an action in the part ; which action
is produced by a stimulus upon the part which acts,
or upon some other part with which * this part
sympathises so as to take up the whole action"
(Lc. p. 152).
And Hunter is as clear as Wolff, with whose work
he was probably unacquainted, that "whatever life is,
it most certainly does not depend upon structure or
organisation" (I.e. p. 114).
Of course it is impossible that Hunter could have
intended to deny the existence of purely mechanical
operations in the animal body. But while, with
Borelli and Boerhaave, he looked upon absorption,
nutrition, and secretion as operations effected by
means of the small vessels, he differed from the
mechanical physiologists, who regarded these opera-
tions as the result of the mechanical properties of the
small vessels, such as the size, form, and disposition
of their canals and apertures. Hunter, on the con-
trary, considers them to be the effect of properties of
these vessels which are not mechanical but vital.
" The vessels," says he, " have more of the polypus in
them than any other part of the body," and he talks
of the " living and sensitive principles of the arteries,"
and even of the "dispositions or feelings of the arteries."
" When the blood is good and genuine the sensations
of the arteries, or the dispositions for sensation, are
agreeable. ... It is then they dispose of the blood
342 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
to the best advantage, increasing the growth of the
whole, supplying any losses, keeping up a due succes-
sion, etc." (I.e. p. 133).
If we follow Hunter's conceptions to their logical
issue, the life of one of the higher animals is essentially
the sum of the lives of all the vessels, each of which
is a sort of physiological unit, answering to a polype ;
and, as health is the result of the normal " action of
the vessels," so is disease an effect of their abnormal
action. Hunter thus stands in thought, as in time,
midway between Borelli on the one hand, and Bichat
on the other.
The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact,
outdoes Hunter in his desire to exclude physical
reasonings from the realm of life. Except in the
interpretation of the action of the sense organs, he
will not allow physics to have anything to do with
physiology.
" To apply the physical sciences to physiology is
to explain the phenomena of living bodies by the laws
of inert bodies. Now this is a false principle, hence
all its consequences are marked with the same stamp.
Let us leave to chemistry its affinity ; to physics, its
elasticity and its gravity. Let us invoke for physiology
only sensibility and contractility." 1
Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent
ability this seems one of the most unhappy, when we
think of what the application of the methods and
the data of physics and chemistry has done towards
bringing physiology into its present state. It is not
1 " Anatomie generate," i. p. liv.
xm.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 343
too much to say that one half of a modern text-book
of physiology consists of applied physics and chemistry;
and that it is exactly in the exploration of the pheno-
mena of sensibility and contractility that physics and
chemistry have exerted the most potent influence.
Nevertheless, Bichat rendered a solid service to
physiological progress by insisting upon the fact that
what we call life, in one of the higher animals, is not
an indivisible unitary archseus dominating, from its
central seat, the parts of the organism, but a com-
pound result of the synthesis of the separate lives of
those parts.
" All animals," says he, " are assemblages of dif-
ferent organs, each of which performs its function and
concurs, after its fashion, in the preservation of the
whole. They are so many special machines in the
general machine which constitutes the individual.
But each of these special machines is itself com-
pounded of many tissues of very different natures,
which in truth constitute the elements of those organs "
(I.e. Ixxix.) " The conception of a proper vitality is
applicable only to these simple tissues, and not to the
organs themselves " (I.e. Ixxxiv.)
And Bichat proceeds to make the obvious applica-
tion of this doctrine of synthetic life, if I may so call
it, to pathology. Since diseases are only alterations
of vital properties, and the properties of each tissue
are distinct" from those of the rest, it is evident that
the diseases of each tissue must be different from those
of the rest. Therefore, in any organ composed of
different tissues, one may be diseased and the other
344 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
remain healthy ; and this is what happens in most
cases (I.e. Ixxxv.)
In a spirit of true prophecy, Bichat says, " We have
arrived at an epoch, in which pathological anatomy
should start afresh." For, as the analysis of the organs
had led him to the tissues, as the physiological units
of the organism ; so, in a succeeding generation, the
analysis of the tissues led to the cell as the physio-
logical element of the tissues. The contemporaneous
study of development brought out the same result ;
and the zoologists and botanists, exploring the sim-
plest and the lowest forms of animated beings, con-
firmed the great induction of the cell theory. Thus
the apparently opposed views, which have been
battling with one another ever since the middle of the
last century, have proved to be each half the truth.
The proposition of Descartes that the body of a
living man is a machine, the actions of which are
explicable by the known laws of matter and motion,
is unquestionably largely true. But it is also true,
that the living body is a synthesis of innumerable
physiological elements, each of which may nearly be
described, in Wolff's words, as a fluid possessed of
a "vis essentialis," and a " solidescibilitas " ; or, in
modern phrase, as protoplasm susceptible of structural
metamorphosis and functional metabolism : and that
the only machinery, in the precise sense in which the
Cartesian school understood mechanism, is, that which
co-ordinates and regulates these physiological units
into an organic whole.
In fact, the body is a machine of the nature of an
XIII. ] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 345
army, not of that of a watch or of a hydraulic apparatus.
Of this army each cell is a soldier, an organ a brigade,
the central nervous system headquarters and field
telegraph, the alimentary and circulatory system the
commissariat. Losses are made good by recruits
born in camp, and the life of the individual is a
campaign, conducted successfully for a number of
years, but with certain defeat in the long run,
The efficacy of an army, at any given moment,
depends on the health of the individual soldier, and
on the perfection of the machinery by which he is led
and brought into action at the proper time; and,
therefore, if the analogy holds good, there can be
only two kinds of diseases, the one dependent on
abnormal states of the physiological units, the other
on perturbations of their co-ordinating and alimenta-
tive machinery.
Hence, the establishment of the cell theory, in
normal biology, was swiftly followed by a " cellular
pathology," as its logical counterpart. I need not
remind you how great an instrument of investigation
this doctrine has proved in the hands of the man of
genius to whom its development is due, and who
would probably be the last to forget that abnormal
conditions of the co - ordinative and distributive
machinery of the body are no less important factors
of disease.
Henceforward, as it appears to me, the connection
of medicine with the biological sciences is clearly
defined. Pure pathology is that branch of biology
which defines the particular perturbation of cell-life,
346 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
or of the co-ordinating machinery, or of both, on
which the phenomena of disease depend.
Those who are conversant with the present state
of biology will hardly hesitate to admit that the con-
ception of the life of one of the higher animals as the
summation of the lives of a cell aggregate, brought
into harmonious action by a co-ordinative machinery
formed by some of these cells, constitutes a permanent
acquisition of physiological science. But the last
form of the battle between the animistic and the
physical views of life is seen in the contention whether
the physical analysis of vital phenomena can be carried
beyond this point or not.
There are some to whom living protoplasm is a
substance, even such as Harvey conceived the blood
to be, " summ& cum providentia et intellectu in finem
certum agens, quasi ratiocinio quodam ; " and who
look with as little favour as Bichat did, upon any
attempt to apply the principles and the methods of
physics and chemistry to the investigation of the vital
processes of growth, metabolism, and contractility.
They stand upon the ancient ways ; only, in accord-
ance with that progress towards democracy, which a
great political writer has declared to be the fatal
characteristic of modern times, they substitute a
republic formed by a few billion of " animulse " for
the monarchy of the all-pervading " anima."
Others, on the contrary, supported by a robust
faith in the universal applicability of the principles
laid down by Descartes, and seeing that the actions
called " vital " are, so far as we have any means of
XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 347
knowing, nothing but changes of place of particles of
matter, look to molecular physics to achieve the
analysis of the living protoplasm itself into a mole-
cular mechanism. If there is any truth in the
received doctrines of physics, that contrast between
living and inert matter, on which Bichat lays so much
stress, does not exist. In nature, nothing is at rest,
nothing is amorphous; the simplest particle of that
which men in their blindness are pleased to call
"brute matter" is a vast aggregate of molecular
mechanisms performing complicated movements of
immense rapidity, and sensitively adjusting themselves
to every change in the surrounding world. Living
matter differs from other matter in degree and not in
kind; the microcosm repeats the macrocosm; and
one chain of causation connects the nebulous original
of suns and planetary systems with the protoplasmic
foundation of life and organisation.
From this point of view, pathology is the analogue
of the theory of perturbations in astronomy; and
therapeutics resolves itself into the discovery of the
means by which a system of forces competent to
eliminate any given perturbation may be introduced
into the economy. And, as pathology bases itself
upon normal physiology, so therapeutics rests upon
pharmacology ; which is, strictly speaking, a part of
the great biological topic of the influence of conditions
on the living organism, and has no scientific founda-
tion apart from physiology.
It appears to me that there is no more hopeful
indication of the progress of medicine towards the
348 THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. [LECT.
ideal of Descartes than is to be derived from a com-
parison of the state of pharmacology, at the present
day, with that which existed forty years ago. If we
consider the knowledge positively acquired, in this
short time, of the modus operandi of urari, of atropia,
of physostigmin, of veratria, of casca, of strychnia, of
bromide of potassium, of phosphorus, there can surely
be no ground for doubting that, sooner or later, the
pharmacologist will supply the physician with the
means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions
of any physiological element of the body. It will, in
short, become possible to introduce into the economy
a molecular mechanism which, like a very cunningly-
contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some particular
group of living elements, and cause an explosion
among them, leaving the rest untouched.
The search for the explanation of diseased states
in modified cell-life ; the discovery of the important
part played by parasitic organisms in the aetiology of
disease ; the elucidation of the action of medicaments
by the methods and the data of experimental physio-
logy ; appear to me to be the greatest steps which
have ever been made towards the establishment of
medicine on a scientific basis. I need hardly say they
could not have been made except for the advance of
normal biology.
There can be no question, then, as to the nature or
the value of the connection between medicine and the
biological sciences. There can be no doubt that the
future of pathology and of therapeutics, and, therefore,
that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent
XIII. ] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 349
to which those who occupy themselves with these
subjects are trained in the methods and impregnated
with the fundamental truths of biology.
And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the
collective sagacity of this Congress could occupy itself
with no more important question than with this : How
is medical education to be arranged, so that, without
entangling the student in those details of the system-
atist which are valueless to him, lie may be enabled
to obtain a firm grasp of the great truths respecting
animal and vegetable life, without which, notwith-
standing all the progress of scientific medicine, he will
still find himself an empiric ?
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