(X REESE LIBRARY OF THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Deceived APR 25 1895 > lgg . Accessions NosL//o5~D . C/^ss A^o. .... LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE, GLASGOW. MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. London Hamilton, Adams and Co. Cambridge, . . Macmillan and Co. Edinburgh^ . . Edmonston and Douglas. Dublin, . . . W. H. Smith and Son. MDCCCLXXV. LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY pp O-f- BY JOHN VEITCH, LL.D., PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. OF THE ^ :VERSIT*) OF s GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, ST. VINCENT STREE1 1 , PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY. '875- All rights reserved. GLASGOW PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY MACLKHOSE AND M ACUOl'GAM.. QC THIS ADDRESS 10 'gtbitnUti TO THE MEMBERS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, TO WHOM IT WAS READ, AND AT WHOSE REQUEST IT IS PUBLISHED, BY ONE WHO HAS MANY PLEASANT MEMORIES OF STUDENT DAYS PASSED IN THAT UNIVERSITY. OF THE UNIVERSITY LUCRETIUS THE ATOMIC THEORY. THERE is a somewhat popular impression that specu- lation, or abstract thought, and imagination are in- compatible. Perhaps they are rarely found together in remarkable exercise in the same individual ; and this, while no proof of their incompatibility, is quite sufficient to satisfy a popular logic. I should be very sorry, indeed, to think that they are incompatible ; i for I do not know any greater help to the speculative power, or better corrective of vagueness in speculation, than imagination. The more you can individualise thought, the more clear it becomes, the less verbal, the more real ; and all individualising, all embodi- ment of the abstract, is an imaginative effort, and often a very hard one. It is one certainly very unlike 3 LUCRETIUS that of the pseudo-artistic faculty, or rather tact, which is so common in these days, and which, animated by no true feeling either for nature or human character, looks at impressions as capable simply of being worked up into artistic shape, or made into images sensuously complete. This is the abandonment of thought, and the apotheosis of organism. Of course the artistic faculty may be truly and nobly inspired by impressions from without, and it may love that outward world around us with a great and pure love. Its exercise is then genuine, bene- ficial, and elevating. Although between this side of imagination and the speculative effort there is no essential connection, the free love and the free pictur- ing of the former are very helpful to the freshening of the latter, and in keeping us alive to the fact that there is a great impersonal side of things, over and above our individually constructed world of notions. So far from there being any incompatibility be- tween speculation, the search for the most general or universal element in our notions of things, and the play of imagination alongside of this, vivid as a real presence, there is, in every normal thinker, a true harmony. They are, in fact, lines of a corresponding AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. rhythm ; and we fail of the nearest and highest fruits of the speculative effort, if the glimpse we get into the ultimate meaning of things of Origin, Space and Time, Power, Moral Law and Liberty do not quicken the emotions through the imagination, and purify us by awe and reverence. The very indefinite- ness of the intellectual vision, even after long specu- lation, is an element in its imaginative power ; it is a suggestion of the limitless : and the emotions arising from it find their parallel in the grandest of those in- spired by the outward world, by glens whose depths are revealed to us by streaks of light that pierce their unfathomable shadows, or by long lines of gleaming waters that carry the eye upwards athwart the moun- tain height, and yet are finally folded in the mists that fill their urns. This impression of an incompatibility between the intellectual and the imaginative is shown to be groundless by many names in the course of abstract speculation. Plato, Pascal, and others at once occur to us ; but there is no more complete type in history of the fusion of the two qualities than the subject of this address I mean Lucretius. The poet is supposed to have been born B.C. 99, 10 LUCRETIUS and to have died B.C. 55, at the age of 44. The DC Rerum Natura of Lucretius was probably first pub- lished the year after his death, in 54 B.C. If we except the early and now fragmentary metrical treatises on Nature of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles whom Lucretius took for his model, it is the one poem of antiquity that has for its distinctive subject the phenomena of nature ; and it is the one classical poem which shows a greater direct interest in out- ward nature than in human feeling or action. Though dealing with nature, it is in no way di- dactic, in the sense of laying down rules for the earth's cultivation, for the practical subduing of nature, after the manner of the Works and Days of Hesiod, and the Georgics of Virgil. Its primary interest is a speculative one. By Nature Lucretius means, as did the Greeks by their * De'Rer. Nat. II., 1105, et $eq. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 41 real incompatibility between the doctrine of ultimate divisibility and that of the atomists. The notion that the ultimate elements of body are simply the abso- lutely impenetrable, what cannot be squeezed out of space or being, and that they are capable at the same time of infinite divisibility, at least in thought, is not necessarily antagonistic to the Lucretian or atomic, if we take in distinctly the conception of qualitative indivisibility. The ideal divisibility of any- thing occupying space is always possible, but this is not repugnant to the notion of the complete integrity of the quality or definite nature of the thing. In fact, the two notions must go together to constitute a total thought of the object. There is a further confusion of thought on this point. Two questions are mixed together. Whether we are able absolutely to isolate an atom from everything else, from its compounds, and make it an object of direct apprehension by itself, is one question ; whether we are compelled to infer its exist- ence from matter of observation and experience as an element of what now exists, is another question. We may be able to determine thejatter in the affir- mative ; we may be compelled to determine the former 42 LUCRETIUS in the negative. In thinking individuals, we think them as embodiments of general ideas, and therefore we think the general idea in and along with them ; but we cannot conceive either the individual or the general idea by itself, or as anything but the con- current element in a complex knowledge. Yet each is needed for the thought of the other. So may the thought of atomic elements be needed for the thought of the compound body, when we make progress in analysis of it. This really seems to be the proper inference from Dalton's Law of Combination in Multi- ple Proportions. Dalton found by experiment " That bodies are capable of combining with one another, in one proportion by weight, in twice that proportion, in three times that proportion, and so on, but in no inter- mediate proportion." The inferences from this were that there are atoms, that the atom of each ele- mentary body has a fixed weight, which differs from that of the atom of any other elementary body.* But these atoms are not by themselves objects of sense ; they are inferred as the constituents of the existing elementary bodies. We thus know them simply as terms of a relation. All that the law * See Professor Roscoe on The Atomic Theory, AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 43 establishes is that atomic elements, which cannot be transformed into others, yet form compounds with other heterogeneous atomic elements, according to certain definite conditions of combination ; and thus give results different from themselves taken separ- ately. But this does not render the atoms in any case themselves objects of sense or apprehension, much less does it throw any light on the mode of the sup- posed original combination of the elementary bodies. It gives the law according to which these combine in our experience, and according to which they will uni- versally combine, if brought together within certain limits. But as to how, supposing all atomic elements to have been originally separate, they acquired such collocation as to be able to combine even into the elementary molecular masses, it says nothing. Of course, I do not dispute the assumption that, under certain very high degrees of heat, it would be possible to reduce any hitherto unresolved elementary body into its atomic elements. We might thus go back to the molecule of a body, that is, to the least part that is homogeneous with the whole, and this molecule, if compound, might be further reduced into 44 LUCRETIUS its constituent heterogeneous atoms, as a molecule of sand into silicon and oxygen, which are supposed to be composed of ultimate elements or atoms. But in this analysis nothing, whether molecule or atom, would ever become an object of sense or direct obser- vation. Nor could we so isolate the atom as to learn absolutely its weight or properties. Our whole know- ledge of it would still be relative ; it would be re- garded as of this or that weight or property, when we conceived it as ideally combined with other hetero- geneous atoms.* The question of course may be raised, looking at the fact of the existence of atoms, as to whether there are any grounds for supposing anything beyond them. We are said to find them, or rather to be led back to them, as existing and in constant motion. They are, each of them, according to the modern conception, endowed with a force or forces, gravitat- ing, cohesive, chemical. They are, in their different kinds, identical in character, in weight, and in pro- perties. All over the universe this identity holds, whether we analyse back to them in air, on earth, * See a curious passage in Lucretius, De. Rer. Nat., I., 598, et seq., in which he seems to approximate to this view. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 45 or in the other bodies of the planetary system. They are definite quantities, capable of combination only in definite and ascertained numerical relations. Each, as it were, has been weighed and measured, ere it was set afloat on the vast inane. The question arises Are they eternal ? Or were they originated in time ? If so, what was before them ? Were they evolved out of prior atoms or elements ? Or are they the disin- tegrated elements of a former system, itself the last of an indefinite series ? Or were they called into being by a creative ^fo// It may be said, perhaps, that so far as science goes there is no answer to such a question. Science as observational, inductive, and inferential, deals with the actual and the unobserved phenomenal. But as the atoms are apparently the last things which it can reach, even by inference from the observed, it has no warrant to go further. Besides, these atoms seem to baffle the notions of antecedence and evolution. They are identical ; they are self-convertible. Analysed, nothing comes out of them save themselves. It is no help to suppose that they came from antecedent selves like them. For whence, it may be asked, came these ? And why do they arbitrarily change from 46 LUCRETIUS self in time to self in time ? Evolved they cannot be, for evolution supposes other elements not yet com- bined, which make the composite. But they are not plural in elements ; they are not composite at all. They are single, identical, absolute units, incapable of transformation. They seem not to fall under the conception of physical law. They have neither ante- cedents, nor are they evolved according to natural conditions. They are in truth the presuppositions of natural law itself. Are we here, then, face to face with the ultimate of things ? Is this, the last point for human analysis, also the ultimate resting-place of human thought? Is the Godhead of the universe finally resolved, not into a trinity of persons, but into a multiplicity of gods in the shape of the unre- solvable atomic elements ? In an able and instructive work, entitled The Un- seen Universe, which has been published since this address was delivered, and while it was passing through the press, an attempt is made to show, on principles of natural law, that the atom must have an antecedent physical condition, which connects it with a preceding invisible universe or sphere. This attempt seems to me to be unsuccessful. The con- AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 47 elusion aimed at may or may not be true ; but the process of proof is a bad one. The principle upon which the inferential or specu- lative theory of this work is founded is called by its authors the Law of Continuity. It would have been well had they taken pains both to define this law and to show the grounds of it. Instead of doing either of these things, they treat us to an " illustration " of the principle in the case of the history of Astronomy, in the course of which it is shown how sensible anomalies in regard to the heavenly bodies and the earth disappear before increasing science ; how apparent breaks in the regularity of their phaenomenal aspects are found not to be real ones, and how at length the whole planetary system is found to obey Kepler's laws of motion, in virtue of the great principle of gravity. A breach of Continuity would be exempli- fied if the sun, moon, and stars were to move about in strange and fantastic orbits during a day, and then return to their previous places. This, apart from physical disaster, would plunge the whole intelligent universe into irretrievable mental confusion. The production of such a state of mind is a true test of a breach of this law. " Continuity does not preclude 48 LUCRETIUS the occurrence of strange, abrupt, unforeseen events in the history of the universe, but only of such events as must finally and for ever put to confusion the intelligent beings who regard them." * We are further told that a single apparent exception to the usual procedure may be supposed to occur, if it be allowed that this may be made use of in order to deduce from it the great general law of working, which includes both the usual course and the apparent exception.-)- We might suppose from this account of the prin- ciple that it is another name for that of Physical Order, or the uniformity of antecedent and conse- quent in experience. It is, however, more than this. It implies continuous transformation of physical antecedent into consequent, through all time without break or direct interference by the creative power of Deity. And its application by the authors of The Unseen Universe involves a great deal more than this principle in any form can warrant. For not only does the Law of Continuity, as applied by them, imply an unbroken series of conditioned and conditioning in the visible or physical universe of our experience, which goes back probably to a first * The Unseen Universe, Art. 62-76. t Ibid., Art. 81. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 49 atom, or to a germ of life, and is marked by gradual evolution and development in time ; but it is said to warrant the position that the rise or first ap- pearance of this germ is itself to be referred not to an act of creation, but to a physical condition previously existing in an invisible universe or super- sensible sphere of being. An act of creation in time, an act, as they call it, of the Unconditioned, would be a break of continuity. The first atom, or first germ of life both apparent breaks of continuity arose out of a previous form of being, invisible it may be, out of this alone, or guided by some conditioned intelligence, but not from a direct act of the Unconditioned, or Deity. This prime creative act must be supposed to have taken place behind and beyond the invisible sphere, or spheres, out of which arose the primordium of the visible universe. It be- longs to Eternity, not to Time. " We think it," say they, " not so much the right or privilege as the bounden duty of the man of science to put back the direct interference of the Great First Cause the Un- conditioned as far as he possibly can in time."* The principle of continuity " asserts that we shall * Unseen Universe, p. 132. 50 LUCRETIUS never be carried on from the conditioned to the Un- conditioned, but only from one order of the fully conditioned to another." * Then, looking to the continuous course of the visible or experienced universe, apparent breaches of continuity, such as the events in the life of Christ, the first appearance of life on the globe, and the production of man, are not real ones. Their seem- ing to be so arises from our limited view of what the universe is, or in supposing the visible universe to be the whole. In the sphere of Matter and Energy, and in that of Life, the principle of continuity precludes separate creations, that is, passing from the con- ditioned to the unconditioned. There is an invisible universe bordering this visible, as there is an invisible universe grounding it, and miracle and life and mind are simply a passing of the energy of this invisible sphere into the visible. The law of continuity further demands that this visible universe shall not be de- stroyed or annihilated. It will, no doubt, perish in time. The whole planetary system will pass into one homogeneous effete mass, or, more probably, its energy will be dissipated amid the ether of space ; * Unseen Universe, p. 188. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. but this will not be annihilation, only a simple ab- sorption of the visible in the invisible or supersensible universe. Now, I think it is perfectly obvious that no experi- ence of ours can warrant a principle of such extensive application as this is supposed to be. We may find in our experience the most constant uniformity of antecedent and consequent, of condition and con- ditioned, and we may thus be entitled to infer for the future that this uniformity will subsist in time, as it has subsisted in time. We may even find in experience that condition means a material ante- cedent, using this phrase in the widest sense as a form either of mass or of energy, and that the con- ditioned is really always transformed energy, the potential energy passing into the actual, or the actual being transmuted in various ways. But any generalisation of this sort would apply only to appa- rent beginning and succession of things in time, that is, to phenomenal sequence. We can expect, with a high degree of probability, that, given antecedents or conditions similar to those which we have ob- served, we shall experience similar conditionates or 52 LUCRETIUS consequents in the as yet unobserved ; but this is simply the unobserved phenomenal world, the world of succession in time. In other words, if the world lasts, our experience will be so and so. That is all we are entitled to say. But as to whether and how the world began, whether and how atom arose, the most complete sense of continuity in our experience will never enlighten us. It cannot assure us that the atom arose out of a previous antecedent or condition in time, for the simple reason that it cannot, in the first case, tell us whether the atom had a beginning in time or not. If the atom has always been, if it has never been generated at all, there is no need of sup- posing an antecedent or condition of it in an invisible sphere. And the fact that we in our experience find antecedents uniformly passing into consequents, find things that apparently begin in time working in a uniform way, can never assure us that things or atoms about which we do not per se, or by direct experience, know whether they began to be or not, are related to a previous determining antecedent or condition. Besides, the principle of continuity supposes a transmutation of antecedent into conse- quent, or condition into conditioned. Can the atom, AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 53 which is incapable of being transformed into any- thing but itself, that is, of being transformed at all, be supposed as itself a stage in the process of con- tinuity, which means constant transmutation of ante- cedent into consequent ? Out of what sort of material antecedent could that come which cannot be trans- formed into a different material or consequent, which, in fact, defies in itself all possibility of change ? We are here obviously at the very ground of physical law, at a point where the conception of it disappears in conditions necessary to, yet alien from, itself. I do not, of course, maintain that the atom is eternal, but I do maintain that the so-called Principle of Con- tinuity, as thus grounded and applied, is utterly im- potent to tell us that it is not, or that it must have had its origin in a conditioned invisible universe, or, indeed, to tell us anything whatever about its origin. Nor is it manifest how the so-called Law of Con- tinuity can guarantee to us the continuance of the visible universe in some form of matter or transformed energy. The law only postulates that no break shall take place in physical development in time, in the transformation of one kind of force into another. But this, even if admitted, cannot guarantee that the 54 LUCRETIUS material, the matter or energy, of the world will subsist in a future sphere and under different circum- stances. The fact that this material observes a certain order of transmutation in our experience, does not guarantee anything regarding the indestructibility of the sum of it, after our experience has ceased after, in a word, the collapse of the present order of things. We are not able probably to conceive uncaused com- mencement, or absolute termination of being, but this inability assuredly does not arise from the so-called law of continuity. The true state of the case is that we have experi- ence of the transmutation in several instances of one form of energy into another, where none is lost, but is known to be re-transmutable. We have at the same time the transmutation of various forms of energy into another, viz., heat, where, in most, if not in all cases, a portion of the original is lost or dissipated, and is not re-transmutable. We thus do not know, and cannot affirm, from experience, that in this case no energy is absolutely lost. Apparently, or phae- nomenally, when energy takes the form of heat, some part of it disappears. We cannot of course say that this portion has absolutely passed out of being, be- AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 55 cause it is no longer sensible. But then we are no more entitled to assert, on the other hand, simply from our experience of the other forms of continuity, that it is not absolutely lost. We have continuity, or continuous transmutation of energies ; we are also ignorant of the ultimate fate of one of the most constant and persistent forms of it in fact, of the apparently ultimate form of all energy of motion. We, therefore, cannot positively or dogmatically assert, on an experience of this sort, the absolute continuance of the sum of energy in the universe. We can only say, the moment energy finally ceases to be sensible, that we do not know whether it perishes or not. The truth is that the Principle or Law of Con- tinuity has not been analysed by the writer or writers who employ it, and it is not properly grounded by them, either on experience or on any higher source of knowledge. As applied by them, it involves the notions of causality, physical order, and transforma- tion of energy. But until it is more definitely grasped, and more thoroughly based, it can yield no definite conclusion regarding the origin 'or end of things. With the wide extension they give it, it is at the best but an unproved hypothesis. And the facts, as stated 56 LUCRETIUS even by its upholders, are rather against than for it. They admit an apparent and unsolved break of con- tinuity in the rise of the visible world in time, in the first appearance of life on our globe, and in the pro- duction of man. If there be these, and possibly, as is admitted, other utterly insoluble breaks of continuity in the series of conditionings of the visible universe, in what sense and with what propriety can this so-called principle be laid down as a law of things ? The only reply we find to this is that the principle of continuity is saved by pushing back the action of the Unconditioned, as they term Deity, to a point or sphere above Time, named Eternity, and postulating a grounding and surrounding invisible universe related to this visible sphere. This invisible universe trans- fers peculiar forms of energy into the visible world, through the action of conditioned intelligence living in it In this way they would explain miraculous events in accordance with the law of continuity, and also the appearance of life and mind on the globe. It seems to me that these, as admittedly special effects, or effects that cannot be read as forms of transmuted energy, that is, energy transmuted in the line of phy- sical causation, equally constitute a breach of the Law AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 57 of Continuity, whether we refer them to the action of supersensible intelligence subordinate to Deity, or directly to Deity himself. The breach of con- tinuity in such cases consists in the fact, admitted by the writers, that neither miracle, life, nor mind can arise as a transformed state of energy, or be regarded as things occurring naturally in the flow of physical causality, be the cause matter or energy. We have seen that along with the existence of the atom there is assumed its motion, motion in space. And it is supposed that the atoms of bodies solid, liquid, gaseous are always in motion in varying degrees. Now, the question may be asked Whence is this motion of these atoms originally ? Each is a " potential force." Is this a force that may pass into motion, or is it a force that must pass into motion ? A potential force means, I suppose, a power or a capacity of exercising force say motion, or of being transformed into motion. Is a power of force a power that sua sponte passes into motion ? a motion self-originated ? tending from one point of space to another? Or is it a capacity of movement, so that when the atom comes within the sphere of the {TJNIVERSITY) x^ OF _s 58 LUCRETIUS attraction of another atom, these two atoms move towards each other ? Each atom occupies a definite point or part in space. Is it originally fixed there ? Or had it never at any time anything but a passing movement from point to point in space ? If so, was this movement because of primary self-deter- mining impulse, or did it arise either from the mutual attraction or mutual repulsion of a plurality, a crowd of existing atoms ? Before we can decide the question as to the absolutely primal character of atoms, we must decide these questions. For actual motion is no necessary part of our conception of indivisible points endowed with force existing in space. At any rate, as yet, with such suppositions, we have obviously the vaguest possible chances of the direction, and almost an absolute contingency in respect of definite ends or termination, of movements. How can definite form of blade of grass, or leaf of tree, or bloom of flower, be conceived of rationally as arising simply out of such indefinite contingencies ? We hear a good deal in these days of the phrases "potential energy" and "kinetic energy." They, no doubt, indicate an advance in precision of scien- tific conceptions ; and the departments of science AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 59 grounded on them are characterised by a correspond- ingly greater degree of clearness, distinctness, and symmetry. Energy is a power of doing work, either stored up, as in a body lifted from the ground, or in actual exercise, as in the motion of the ball sent from the cannon. "There are thus," we are told, "two forms of energy which change into one another, the one due to actual motion, and the other to position ; the former of these is generally called kinetic, and the latter potential energy." * Such a use of the phrase " potential energy," shows how far modern scientific nomenclature has departed from Greek, and from historical accuracy of expres- sion. The Aristotelic evepyeia is, as is well known, act, the realisation or manifestation of Swaps. It is only vulgar usage which has made it convertible with power or force. Strictly speaking, "potential energy" is a contradiction in terms. The power of doing act, work, or passing into motion, is of course a potence, potentiality or Swa/xis. To join the adjective potential to energy, is really to speak of what is done or doing as not yet done or doing. The Aristotelic ej/e/>yeia, energy, is, besides, a * The Unseen Universe, p. 76. 60 LUCRETIUS better word for what is now narrowly called kinetic energy. The use of this phrase seems to contem- plate power in motion motion in space, as from point to outer point, or from point to surrounding points. This motion may be visible or invisible. It may be of what has weight or is weightless. Still, there is always supposed the element of motion. But the act of stored power is greatly wider than motion in any form. The power of thought, or, if you choose, the brain-power, may be regarded as a power in store ; but it would be ex- ceedingly inaccurate to identify the outgoing or exercise of thought with the phrase " kinetic energy," for, though in thinking there is the transformation of power into act or work, the work is a form, not of motion, but of change or modification, which perfects the being of the mind or thinking power. The act of thought cannot be properly classed under any form of spatial motion, whether from point to point simply, or as radiating from a centre to surrounding points, whether rectilinear, oscillatory, or vibratory. Displacement of motion of the particles of the brain may accompany the act of thinking ; they are accom- paniments merely, such as might fall under the cog- AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 6 1 nizance of sight or touch. The act of thought belongs to a totally different sphere. Further, there is no change of the nature of the mind in the exercise of thought in the realisation of the power nothing equivalent to transmutation, as in physical causality. Aristotle saw this long ago. He allowed dAAo6Wis, transmutation, in physical sequences ; he properly denied that it extended to mind.* * The conceptions indicated by Swa/us and eve/oyeia ground the whole philosophy of Aristotle. He shows himself well aware of the difficulties connected with the very notion of primary organic development, and ascribes the impulse to a kind of indwelling soul or mind ; ifv\if ecrnv cvreAe^eta *rj TT/OWTJ; awpxTos va-LKov 8vvd(j,et forjv e'xoyros. (De Anima^ II.j i.) " The vital principle is the first form of a natural body having life in potence " that is, capable of realising life. His whole views on this point are immensely in advance of certain current physical conceptions. Trendelenburg, in his learned note on this chapter, fully explains Suva/us, evreAexeia, and e'vepyeta. Auva/us is " rei facultas, quatenus ipsis rei conditionibus continetur ; IvreAexeta has conditiones, hanc rei facultatem ad ipsius rei veritatem extollit, ut e Svva/zei nascatur et SvvajMV quasi con- summet et absolvat. Again, evTeAex*"* and eVe/oyeta are thus distinguished : "cvepyeia, magis ipsum rei actum, cvreAcxcia statum ex actu exortum significat : evepyeia in ipsa adhuc actione versatur, evreX^eua contra ex actione in statu quodam acquievit, ut evTeAex ia aliquanto ulterius processerit quam Ivepyeta." The transition from the Swa/us to the eve/oya is a species of motion, K/V^O-IS; and fuV^o-is with Aristotle is so wide as to embrace the transition from one notion to another that is, a kind of thought. The first entelechy of the universe would thus necessarily be thought or mind in some form. 62 LUCRETIUS But, apart from propriety of terminology, the dis- tinction of potential and kinetic energy has a definite bearing on the present discussion. Potential energy is, in plain words, power in store for use or work, as the unlit gunpowder in the loaded cannon, as the power in the bent bow, or in the wound-up watch. The atoms or ultimate elements of matter, if they are to be of any use at all in approaching combination, must at least be supposed to be endowed with po- tential energy of some sort. Whether originally this was simply the energy of gravitation-attraction, or * whether they possessed chemical affinity and other higher kinds of attraction is not made clear. If they had only gravitation-attraction, we have the diffi- culty of discovering how on this basis the other and higher attractive powers arose. But, be this as it may, the serious difficulties lie beyond these points. Do these elementary particles, supposed to be en- dowed with potential energy of some sort, pass into motion sua sponte? Then there is no reason why, from the first moment of their existence, or during all eternity, if they be eternal, they should not have been in motion. If the spring of motion be in the atom per se, it need not wait for a time and outward AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 63 circumstances to develope itself. But, in this case, the energy could never have been potential at all it would always be motion, visible or molecular. The whole notion of potential energy is swept away, and in its place we have a perpetual kinetic energy, in other words, we have the gratuitous supposition of eternal movement. But, to take the other alternative, Does the out- going of the potential energy depend, as the very conception of it requires, on conditions external to itself ? Is it a mutual attraction of particles endowed with potential energy ? Then, what are the outward circumstances which have brought them into such proximity that the mutual attraction takes place ? Where is the hand that set them in the sphere in which their possible energies came into play, or are made really available for work? The mere con- ception of the potential energy does not at all in- volve this actuality or realisation. There is wood and wood in the forest, and here the potential energy is such that rub them together and you will get heat and flame ; but the great want is the hand to produce the friction. Transformation of potential energy into actual is no doubt the law of this uni- 64 LUCRETIUS verse ; but the conditions of the transformation to say nothing meanwhile of the mode or direction form the difficulty for atomic development. Either these conditions are to be found in contingent circum- stances, which leaves the whole work to irrational chance, or they are to be sought in some form of intelligent power, which supersedes the exclusiveness of the atomic theory. This bears very directly on the strictly ontological question as to whether there "is anything in the sup- posed action of the crystalline and chemical laws, which seems to point to a contemporaneous or co- existing invisible power. In other words, are the atoms, with their supposed or real powers of mutual attraction and combination, sufficient of themselves to account for the synthesis of bodies, which we find has actually taken place in experience ? We know that cohesive and chemical combinations depend for their possibility on the relative nearness of the elements. Atoms are supposed to be endowed with polar forces one pole attractive, the other re- pulsive. But neither attraction nor repulsion acts beyond a certain point in space on other elements. The forces of Cohesion and Chemical Affinity, which AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 65 regulate the coming together of the particles that make up individual bodies, are pre-eminently forces that work only when the particles are near. Neither the cohesion of similar molecules in one body, nor the fusing power of chemical affinity which joins atoms of different kinds in a new form, as carbon and oxygen in carbonic acid, is possible unless the particles have acquired a position of proximity.* In order, therefore, to any synthesis of elements, these must co-exist within certain mutual limits of space. Is this possibility of co-existence to be taken as the new sphere of contingency in the atomic theory? Or is it to be regarded as a collocation imposed upon the atomic elements ab extra ? But, further, supposing force to produce or pass into motion and synthesis of elements, as in crystal- line structure, and supposing chemical forces to effect combination of atoms so as to form wholly new com- pounds, unlike either of the original elements, we have another important step before us ere we can get any complex structure, say plant or tree. For every * On this point see Mr. Balfour Stewart's treatise on The Conservation of Energy, Art. 68-71. It would be difficult to find a better specimen of lucid and well-developed exposition of physical conceptions than this volume. 66 LUCRETIUS definite form constructed depends only ultimately on the mere force or motion of its elements. It de- pends proximately and characteristically on the mode, direction, or determination of the molecular motions.* The absolute variety, as well as definite- ness of organic form, depends on the direction of the motion, and on direction limited and completed in a unity. Ere the plant arises in the symmetry of its perfect beauty, each molecule must take a definite direction and path, it must fall into fitness with its neighbour, and all must submit to a final limitation ; otherwise there would be no definitude of leaf or flower, no individuality of plant or tree. But this is not at all implied in the fact that there are molecules mutually attractive, or primary forces capable of passing into motion in any direction whatever, or as another force lies. This is force working in subordi- nation to an end, the possibly varying in space working steadily to a purpose, and if it be incapable of the purpose in itself, there is some power of idea animated by Intelligence, dominating in and regu- lating the process. The truth is that people have * See an able discussion on What Determines Molecular Motion ? by Mr. James Croll. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 67 supposed that they were constructing an atomic theory of the world, when they were really dealing only with atoms in the abstract, fixing their weight, quantity, shape, as things to be considered in certain mutual relations, without raising any question as to how they got combined. The chemist may do this in his laboratory, with great advantage. He may even go on artificially constructing inorganic bodies. But the difficulties of the atomic theory of the world are sub- sequent to all this ; they lie not in the question of the properties of atoms, but in their modes of motion, direction of motion, and mutually adjusted move- ments in a definite place and time. The difficulties of the atomic theory in this direc- tion are greatly increased, as we contemplate the very varied forms of structure, or organism, whether animated by life or sensation. It is stated with confidence by Mr. Huxley that the lifeless ele- ments of the protoplasm carbon, hydrogen, nitro- gen, oxygen are the same for all organisms, for the fungus, the oak, the worm, and the man. He has admitted that life has not yet in our experience been produced from the synthesis of these elements, while he inclines to the view that somehow in the 68 LUCRETIUS indefinite past it did so arise. But even suppose this preliminary difficulty to be got over, there are greater beyond for the theory of linear development. If the basis of life be absolutely uniform, whence the im- mense variety of structural form whence the abso- lute differentiation? Is this a thing we can conceive apart from idea embodied ? And where is the im- pellent power, or Swa/us? To point out the mode of differentiation is no answer to this question, any more than to describe the orbital movements of the planets is identical with a theory of the cause of gravitation. And so long as we keep merely by the absolute uniformity of material basis, we are utterly helpless to make the variety of development intelligible. The differentiation of form points undoubtedly to a concause, alongside, so to speak, of the* mere in- organic protoplastic material. It matters little how this concause is described ; it is at least proximately something in the shape of life superinduced upon the mere material basis. It is very difficult, if not im- possible, to expound the relation of life to the in- organic elements, and its mode of action upon them. This power has been described by a writer of note as AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 6 9 " that by which matter is set free from the dominion of its more primitive affinities, and lifted up above its former state of being," and " as the play of affinities which cannot act but to resist and subdue the in- organic affinities ; which cannot erect their own pecu- liar superstructures, according to their own specific economy, without overcoming and demolishing at every step the affinities and structures of mere mole- cular-force work." If this be so, we have an exem- plification of the great primal law of the universe the absorption and uplifting of a lower sphere of existence into a higher, through disintegration and death of its earlier being, in virtue of a power, a living power, which is unborn as it is undying, but not certainly in the purely sensuous mode of mere linear sequence. Mr. Tyndall has told us, speaking of current views on this point, that certain authorities "admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed save from demon- strable antecedent life. As already indicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through lower ones down to the lowest, and it is the prolonga- tion of this line by the intellect beyond the range of 70 LUCRETIUS the senses that leads them to the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated." * Bruno, we are told in a note, was a " Pantheist," not an " Atheist " or a " Materialist." Bruno's conclusion is that matter is not " that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb." " Believing, as I do," Mr. Tyndall goes on, " in the Continuity of Nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life." f " The whole process of evolution," says Mr. Tyndall, interpreting Mr. Herbert Spencer, "is the manifesta- tion of a power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man. . . . Considered fundamentally, it is by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differentiated, and mind unfolded * Address, p. 56. t Ibid., p. 55. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. from their pre-potent elements in the immeasurable past." * NoWj I say the two positions involved in these state- ments are not consistent. They can be held only by one who has not sufficiently realised the meaning of each. If there be an "intellectual necessity" which leads us back beyond the lowest organism to its source, to the rise of its life, the whole process should be perfectly clear. If the intellect can prolong contin- uity backwards into this region, the mystery of life is solved. It is because it cannot, that a mystery there is. It is quite impossible to hold intelligently along with this that the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man, or that, " considered fundamentally, it is by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved." Mr. Tyndall must make up his mind either to adopt the one position or the other. Both he cannot hold by. An intellectual necessity, however originated, is the clearest of truths. But what is the nature, may I ask, of " the prolon- gation of this line by the intellect beyond the range of the senses," that leads to the conclusion of the * Address, p. 57-58. X7NIVERSITY 72 LUCRETIUS potency of that thing called matter to evolve from itself life and mind ? It is called apparently in one place " the Continuity of Nature." But it is not merely an experienced continuity ; it is a continuity, if one at all, that stretches above and beyond ex- perience. It transcends the vision of the eye and the inspection of the microscope. It is by " an intel- lectual necessity" that the boundary of the experi- mental evidence is crossed, and we reach in matter the promise and the potency of all terrestrial life. Now, there is a lack of analysis here, and of clear and definite thinking. The continuity of nature, as given in our experience, is one thing, an intellectual necessity is another. At least, it is not necessarily identical with a generalisation from experience. We have intellectual necessities that ground the very possibility of our experience itself. Is the so-called necessity in the case before us of this sort, or is it simply a derivation from experience ? We should have some definite statement as to the character and origin of this necessity, and then we shall be able to know something of the extent of its application. Experience of the continuity of nature may, of course, be supposed, as by some thinkers, to generate AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 73 an intellectual necessity ; but, at the utmost, this necessity of knowledge or belief would not legiti- mately extend to a point before the commencement of the system whose continuity only we know. If the course of things now and here, as far as we observe and legitimately infer regarding the unob- served, be continuous, and if we are even necessitated by experience to think it so, it does not follow that there never was an origin or rise of the elements of the system, except out of other material or similar elements. This is simply an off-hand transfer of phaenomenal conceptions to noumenal reality, without any consciousness of the difficulties of the question. But even supposing that this continuity were proved independently and legitimately, all that follows really is that our system is linked on to preceding and pro- bably wholly indefinite lines of past systems. And this only shifts the real difficulty of the case further back. It in no way removes it for reflection. For it remains to be asked Whence the order, the laws, and the life of those systems, or even of those ele- ments, out of which ours has arisen, and whence it has derived these characteristics ? It is the nature of s f OF THE (UNIVERSITY V OF 74 LUCRETIUS the material of the system, so to speak, which causes the difficulty. We cannot get life or mind out of it now, out of anything but life or mind pre-existent Of what use, then, is it to prolong the existence of matter or energy backwards through millions of years, expecting in that way that an intellectual difficulty arising from the very quality or character of the thing, so to speak, should be thus solved by time ? Why, instead of helping us, all that we can thus get is an increased amount of perplexity. It is but fair to Mr. Tyndall to say that he seems by various expressions, to point to a conception of matter different from the ordinary one which is described loosely as that of a mere capacity. He possibly refers to the newly analysed element of force or energy, which in some of its forms is superior to gravitation, is weightless, as in heat, absorbed or radiant. But so long as the element of life is not interposed, neither mass nor energy, nor both combined, will help us in the evolution of life and sensation. What we have not found in experience is life being evolved out of any form of either matter or energy. We have no right, therefore, to suppose that in some time beyond experience it was so evolved. And if the element of AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 75 life be superadded to original mass and energy, either as actual or potential, the whole point at issue is begged. Mr. Tyndall has said very strongly that the whole process of evolution, which may be taken generally as meaning the development of the matter of our experience, is "the manifestation of a power abso- lutely inscrutable to the intellect of man. . . . Con- sidered fundamentally it is the operation of an insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved."* Now I venture to think that this is not only a strong but a rash statement. It supposes a power that operates in evolution, and it declares it to be absolutely inscrutable. In a sense and to a certain extent, no doubt this may be true. The how or mode of this power is inscrutable. We cannot in thought or imagination place ourselves at the point of this power, this potentiality, and therefrom con- ceive the evolution of things. But what is inscrutable as to mode or how of action is not necessarily abso- lutely inscrutable, nor does it involve "an insoluble mystery." We know this at least, that the line of operation of the power, supposing it to be and to act, * Address^ p. 57. 76 LUCRETIUS is in accordance with idea, that is, definite end. We cannot possibly express its action in any other way. It is idea varied to the utmost complexity of concep- tion. It is more, it is idea embodied as we conceive idea. Space, Time, Cause, Identity, Perdurance, and other notions, are the only forms in which the real appears to us, and in which we can conceive it. Is, then, the operation of this power so absolutely inscrutable as it is represented to be ? How it makes or moulds matter or atoms to its ends or ideas, we do not know, and perhaps cannot even conceive. But is there not some degree of intelligibility on the point in question ? Is it not something to know that we can describe the results of the working of this power only as we can describe the results of the working of intelligence in our experience ? That thus the highest, indeed the only way, we can con- ceive of this power, inscrutable in many ways, is as if it were embodying ideas, and the ideas essential to our own modes of conceiving things ? Does it not hence appear as if there were some sort of com- munity between the power at work in the great phaenomenal world around us, and the laws and pro- cesses of that intelligence of ours, through which the AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 77 very conception of the phaenomenal and all that it involves is possible for us ? If we find an analogue of human intelligence in the universe, surely we can- not pronounce the principle of things an insoluble mystery, or a pure unknowable. Comparatively, it is hardly a greater mystery than the working of our own thought, yet we do not regard this as thus either wholly incognisable, or as unreal. It seems to me to be an exceedingly narrow way of putting this whole question, to say, as is currently done, that you must have either a development throughout of the organic (vegetable and animal) from the inorganic, according to the laws of crystalline structure and chemical combination, or distinct suc- cessive acts of creative power, interpositions, as it were, at successive stages, of this otherwise progressive development. These are not the true alternatives, and the setting them up implies an illegitimate dual- ism. We have no right to put the unseen or divine power, supposing it to exist, in a sort of spatial ex- tremity to the developing world, and to imagine that this power must act only by interference, inter- position, and addition, at particular points. This is a grossly sensuous image of Deity. It is such 78 LUCRETIUS a dualistic conception as to set Deity in a limited sphere by himself, in fact, to abolish his true reality. In development, in crystalline structure, in chemical combination, there is a strictly reasonable, though invisible element, in virtue of which it is what it is. These sensuous manifestations seem to partake of, and to show forth a Reason at the root of things. But this Reason is not to be conceived of as that which existed once at the beginning, set things agoing, and then withdrew, again occasionally to interpose. It is a consecutive and contemporaneous Reason, a power co-existent with everything that exists and assumes orderly form. If we admit it all, it is necessarily always and everywhere. This conception entirely supersedes the need for imagining what are called " distinct creative acts," as if creation stopped and began again, or as if the creative were not the effi- cient and sustaining power all through time. And it is in no way incompatible with a theory of develop- ment, provided we keep in mind the true limits of such a theory viewed as a conception of the progress of inorganic elements. These would give, in suc- cessive periods, increasingly complex forms of struc- ture, inorganic and organic, vegetable and animal. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 79 We might go on from the lowest organisms upwards to man, considered as increasingly complex structural forms. This would be one side of the universe the sensuous, pictorial, or visible side. Here antecedent and consequent might be rigidly conjoined through the longest periods of time, uniformly, regularly, so as to give the utmost scope for scientific inquiry, and the firmest ground for scientific law. Yet it might be necessary all the while to consider as co-existing with this evolution, as co-operating with it, an invisible power of Reason, even of Will, which, however, never deviated from the original plan, never broke in upon it by distinct acts of interposition and creation, but silently showed itself all through in a harmonious and contemporaneous development of definite idea in crystalline structure and in chemical combination, of life in the germ, of sensation in the animal, of self- consciousness and personality in man. This divorce of Deity from the Universe holds true even of the view adopted by the authors of The Un- seen Universe. Deity, or the Unconditioned, as he is termed in the work, is put back so far in time as to be pushed out of it altogether. He does not act in time but in eternity, whatever that may mean. The 8o LUCRETIUS real agents are the Spirit and the Son the former the author of life, the latter of energy. It is quite unscientific and unwarrantable to rise at any point, even of apparent origin, to the Unconditioned himself. We must rest at the best in the delegation of his power to a conditioned invisible intelligence. And the action of the latter takes place only when the energy of the visible universe cannot afford an explanation of a definite effect as, for example, the first appear- ance of life, which cannot, in their view, be regarded as a form of energy transmuted in the ordinary line. If Deity ever had anything to do with the setting agoing of the machine of the visible universe, he has now at least left it solely to the transformation of condition into conditioned, and to the energies and intelli- gences of the invisible sphere, occasionally to help it to higher development, or over a hitch in its way. He is a mere abstraction, or an otiose Deity, who has retired from the scene, leaving the work to sub- ordinates. This is the patch-work of uncalled for hypothesis. The simple, the natural explanation of the difficulties of the insoluble breaks of con- tinuity the rise of the atom, the first appearance of life, of sensation, of mind, is the doctrine of the AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 8 1 manifestation of Divine Energy an energy which is in and through the whole ordinary, or con- tinuous energies. These are daily working to ends and according to idea ; and mere mass or energy, thus made effectual, does not ground, but presupposes, regulative thought. The main source of the difficulties on the subject of Supersensible or Divine Power lies in the narrow view of causality, already noticed, which has been long prevalent both in philosophy and in science. In accordance with this conception of causality, as essen- tially sequence in time, men have been led to suppose that the world must be developed all through in a straight line from antecedent to consequent, or from condition to conditioned. When this meagre con- ception was found inadequate to explain the whole development, when, for example, it was found im- possible to show the form of matter or energy which could be transformed into the rise of life, or the material condition of sensation and personality, recourse was had to the theory of special acts of supernatural intelligence. Physical forces and laws were supposed to go on for some time without inter- ference, and then, at different epochs, there was the 82 LUCRETIUS direct interposition of this intelligence to put life into the inorganic, and self-consciousness into man, or even to add new species to those already in being. But the difficulties of this theory of specialty of action are insuperable. How can the Highest Being be worthily supposed to cut off a part of His being, say physical elements and law, and let this go on, without and apart from Him for some time, and then come in with a new supernatural act across, as it were, the line of time, making an addition to the sum of things ? If we are to connect the notion of time with Divine action, is it not more reasonable to suppose that this invisible power is ever co-existing and co-operative in the course of development, ever living and ever radiant of the life which He possesses, as outcome of His being, as His end and joy? If this be so, invisible causality was in things from the first, is all through them ; the causal connection of natural phenomena is not a thing independent of this in- visible power ; physical antecedents are simply the conditions under which each successive development of this unseen causality, which has equally influenced all sequences from the first, is made manifest in the AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. order of evolution. According to this conception, we may quite well allow atomic combination, me- chanical and chemical in obedience to idea ; we may allow the apparent or phaenomenal passage, when proved, which has not yet been done, of the inorganic basis of life into the living germ ; the rise of sensation in the animal organism, and of personality in man ; and all these as keeping pace with increased structural development But we should err in isolating those successive stages of progress from the free power of their real causality, contemporaneous Life, Reason, and Will fused in a Unity. It would be easy to name this doctrine Pantheism. It is really not so. It is at once Pantheistic and Theistic. It is pan- theistic, inasmuch as it separates no power from Deity ; it is theistic, inasmuch as it represents the world-evolving power as regulated by idea, and, there- fore, grounded in Personality. I cannot now enter into the question as to whether or in what form the sensible world, or world of our experience, subsists apart from our perception of it, or apart from any percipient. But it is necessary to say that the question as to the supersensible reality of the outward world is not to be decided forthwith by 84 LUCRETIUS any view which we may take of its proper nature and reality while it is an object of perception or ex- perience. This world may appear to us as a resisting force, extended or space-filling, or it may be regarded as that which, in the form either of mass or energy, we are unable to add to or take from in any degree. These would be to us the tests of a sensible world really existing, and different from us the knowers, but still only of a world manifested and existing in relation to our power of conscious effort, or to the conscious limitation of our creative and annihilative power. It is obvious that we cannot transfer this wholly relative conception of sensible reality to an absolute sphere, or one in which we cease to be and to know. Much less can we set up the objective term of the relationship and regard that as the only and the generative one. Yet this is precisely what the atomic theory does, it is, in fact, what every theory of the sort must do, which professes to evolve sensation and thought out of organism, and ultimately out of atomic combination. The truth is we can never absolutely isolate any object, be it atom or molecule, in a proof or demonstration from definite thought, from a self-conscious subject or self which AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 85 deals with it, deals with it even as a basis of proof. Of absolute object we know nothing; as we know nothing of absolute subject, in the sense here required. These may be possible, but they are not intelligible, and therefore are useless in demonstration. No demon- stration can start from a point above human know- ledge. And if the very intelligible contemplation of the atom or molecular mass supposes a conscious personality, we can never show even the possibility of the derivation of personality from the mere ab- stract atom. The personality so derived would be not from the atom or molecule by itself, but from it in its co-existence with the personality which is the condition of its known existence. How can I, the thinker, be proved to be evolved out of an object, out of atoms, when the very definite or known exist- ence of these things supposes a thinker, supposes a me already there along with the atoms to preside over the demonstration of the evolution of self? The atomic position as put in ancient and in modern times seems to me to be simply the result of a vulgar or irreflective realism. Atoms are supposed with cer- tain definite properties ; they are supposed to exist and to act ; they are described in the language of the 86 LUCRETIUS known and conceived ; yet they are supposed to be before thought or mind is, to be in fact the generators of it. Things minus thought are, and they generate life, sensation, and thought. Now I can understand the philosophical doctrine which relegates all above or beyond a conscious subject, to the sphere either of the meaningless or the unknowable. But I cannot understand the consistency of a doctrine which first of all throws out an intelligent and still holds by an intelligible, which dispenses with a known and yet holds by a known. If there be no conceiving mind, neither atom nor anything with a definite known property can be set up as an absolute or first be- ginning ; if there be a conceiving mind, atom is not the first or absolute beginning of things and thought. I confess, indeed, that I am a good deal surprised that any one, who is at all acquainted with the requirements of a reflective solution of the problem of the ultimate reality of things, should take his stand on the ultimate basis of insentient atoms or forces. Men of abstract thought in these times are not unfrequently charged with ignorance of physical facts and science, and of setting up theories in this spirit. I am not prepared to say that the charge is AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 87 altogether unfounded. But may not the abstract man turn round and say to the physicist, How is it that you set up your atomic and other theories with- out knowing apparently or considering in the least what has virtually been said against all such arbitrary hypotheses by speculative thinkers ? I find in none of the scientific authorities who are now dealing with this question any indication that they are aware of what has been said on this very point during the last two hundred and fifty years, especially since the time of Hume. The attempt of Hume to construct a system of the universe was really founded on the atomic principle. Hume sought to carry out in re- flective philosophy the precepts of Bacon and the practice of Newton. His question was How can I show the genesis of human knowledge, of this world of consciousness, as we find it ? Gravity, the mutual attraction of particles, seems to explain the combina- tions of the sensible world. May there not be something analogous to this in what is called the intellectual or conscious world ? Can I get back to a singular which repeated, copied, or aggregated shall explain this consciousness of ours ? Hume thought this possible. The ultimate element in human know- 88 LUCRETIUS ledge was, according to his view, be it dogmatical or hypothetical, "the singular impression of sensation ;" and the principle which aggregated these impressions was the law of association, as with Newton the law of gravity bound together material elements and bodies. Hume sought thus to explain the intelligible world of our experience. And this seems to me to indicate a just view of the nature of the problem. To go back to a point millions of years ago, and to set up certain things called atoms, absolutely divorced from intelli- gence, and to say that in the course of an indefinite time these worked up to our consciousness, appears to me to be putting the possibility of solving the question at a most unnecessary disadvantage. It would be more natural and reasonable to ask, first of all, as with Hume, can we solve the problem of the intelligible world, by starting with singulars en- dowed with sentiency or sensation ? These are really atoms : they are really the last things we can possibly begin with to solve any question of this sort. We cannot get beyond sentient or sensational indivisibles, because we should then part company with definite consciousness of aught whatever. And if we cannot solve the questions of the origin of thought and con- AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 89 sciousness with these sensational atoms, so to speak, much less can we solve it by a hypothesis of insentient atoms, or atoms transcending consciousness. But no one now-a-days surely will say that Hume's solution of the question, regarded dogmatically, is a satisfactory one. Sensation cannot be abstracted from thought, and set up as its origin or genesis. Sensation cannot by any amount of abstraction which remains intelli- gible be separated from category or notion. Sensation must be one, one out of many, here and now, must in fact be taken up along with thought which takes it in, and something more ; which, in a word, is general or universal. And sensation cannot possibly generate thought, for the simple reason that a copy of it would be as much a singular as the original sensation itself. And it could very easily be shown that the theory of the aggregation of sensations through association sup- poses a continuous unity and identity of mind or con- sciousness, for which we have no original or equivalent in any sensation. It could be shown even that this very series or diversity of sensations implies as its correlate this grounding identity. In a word, Kant's position that category or thought is needed for the intelligibility and the existence of sensation, is. irre- ~ OF THE UNIVERSITT OF QO LUCRETIUS fragable. But if Hume fails to generate the in- telligible world of our consciousness our thought, personality, identity, or true conscious being from even sensational atoms or singulars, what are we to say of an attempt to generate all this sphere of reality from things called atoms, that have not yet worked up even to the position of isolated sensations ? All we can say is that the men who have started from such a beginning have not apprehended the true requirements of the question, and that their hypo- i thesis of atoms, above sensation and consciousness, cannot be the basis of any demonstration or rational theory of the universe. The question which I have but very imperfectly touched at this time is one of a class of questions in which the existence of a society such as this shows there is still here an unflagging interest. It is certainly most fitting and most gratifying to find an interest of this sort vital and powerful in the city where Hume speculated, and but recently Hamilton taught. As the years flow on, one is increasingly impressed with the rareness of a life such as that of Hamilton a life that rose grandly yet naturally above the seductions of the merely professional, to daity communion with AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. questions of ultimate principle and the reality of things. We may well prize the almost singular ex- ample, and cherish its priceless moral power. Apart from the immense amount of faculty absorbed in purely professional pursuits, men, who rise to an interest in truths or facts -in special departments of knowledge, think they have reached a very great height. But the lesson of speculative inquiry is that truth is higher than truths, that a comprehensive sense of the nature and conditions of truth is the most elevating thing of which a man can become conscious, and at the same time the greatest means of teaching true catholicity and toleration. I know nothing less worthy of a reflective man than a state of mind made up in regard to all the great questions of the nature and ultimate issues of things in our experience, made up too probably in the absence altogether of any distinct personal grappling with those questions. This is the traditional spirit, and it is throughout unworthy, and generally intolerant of difficulties it has never itself known. Its only re- commendation, and in these times it is a rare one, is that it sometimes implies an excess of reverence. We may have, and no doubt we have, difficulties 92 LUCRETIUS in determining the ultimate truth and reality of things. What is this but to say that we seek that which we know to be, and, as we fail to find it in experience, that the notion or ideal of the thing is higher than any experience which we reach ? Surely if we fail to reach truth in our experience, and we yet seek it, we must be led to the search by some latent ideal, which experience never gave us ? It is our nature going out of itself, and finding that it contains higher things than it can discover in that outward on which it ventures. A faith in this, even when we do not find truths, is ennobling ; it is a faith in the ultimate or supersensible reason of the universe, which is a far higher state of mind than the most confident belief in a compassing on our part of truths. How- ever great may be our doubt or disbelief regarding the actual truths presented to us, or reached by us, there is always hope for us if we hold by a faith in an ideal or possible truth. We shall thus have still a trust in our nature and in what is possible in reason, and this will animate us with hope, and hope will inspire exertion, and keep our hearts and minds open to impressions from the fulness of the Living Power that is above and around us, and in our own souls. AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 93 A belief in a true, a good, and a beautiful above forms of error, sin, and deformity, is fitted to freshen and broaden our nature, even when we suppose that we have actually reached truth; right, and beauty. For, however wide may appear to be our view or belief of actual truth, beauty, or goodness, we may be assured of this, that it is never equal to the ideal, to the possible for us to attain. The true is always wider than actual truth ; the good always purer than actual goodness ; the beautiful always higher than nature or art can give us ; and the thought that our best result is after all but a faint shadow of a higher ideal will lead us to hold the actual with tolerance, with humility, with reverence, as that which a purer light may some day show to be a very imperfect realisation of a fuller type. In doubt about actual truth and goodness, faith in our ideal will save us from despair and degradation ; in confidence regard- ing the truth which we think we have found, the same faith will keep us from exaggeration, self-confidence, intolerance, and an inhuman spirit OF THE UNIVERSITY GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. In One Vol., Small 8vo, Cloth, Price 55. HILLSIDE RHYMES. AMONG THE ROCKS HE WENT, AND STILL LOOKED UP TO SUN AND CLOUD AND LISTENED TO THE WIND. Scotsman. "Let anyone who cares for fine reflective poetry read for himself and judge. Besides the solid substance of thought which pervades it, he will find here and there those quick insights, those spontaneous felicities of language which distinguish the man of natural power from the man of mere cultivation. . . . Next to an autumn day among the hills themselves, commend us to poems like these, in which so much of the finer breath and spirit of those pathetic hills is instilled into melody." Glasgow Herald. " The author of Hillside Rhymes has lain on the hillsides, and felt the shadows of the clouds drift across his half-shut eyes. He knows the sough of the fir trees, the crooning of the burns, the solitary bleating of the moorland sheep, the quiet of a place where the casual curlew is his only companion, and a startled grouse cock the only creature that can regard him with enmity or suspicion. The silence of moorland nature has worked into his soul, and his verse helps a reader pent within a city to realize the breezy heights, the sunny knolls, the deepening glens, or the slopes aglow with those crackling flames with which the shepherds fire the heather." In One Volume, Small 8vo, Cloth, Price 6s. 6d. THE TWEED AND OTHER POEMS. PRISCI CONSCIUS AEVI. Scotsman. " Evidently the poem is the genuine outcome of a life the embodiment of the sights and sounds he has longest known and most loved of the thoughts most habitual to him, of the feelings that lie deepest within him. , . . The poet knows and loves Tweedside so well that no feature of the landscape, however minute, not a mist or wind that wanders over it, but is precious to his eye, invested with an importance which he can hardlv expect a stranger fully to appreciate. In this entire devotion to his subject lies the poet's strength. . . . Every hillside, and 'scaur,' and 'hope, 1 is de- scribed with the most reverential fidelity to the exact truth of things." Daily Review. "We have here a poem finely conceived, wrought out with a force and grace that, if not of the highest order, are certainly both admirable and uncommon. . . . Rich in picturesque descriptions, and instinct with a sentiment that appeals to the universal heart of humanity. . . . Several of the Ballads seem to us to be in their different veins as exquisite a reproduction of the genuine romantic ballads, native to the region from early times, as we have ever met."' GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, 61 ST. VINCENT STREET, Publisher to the University. LOND: MACMILLAN AND CO. EDIN : EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. POETRY, ALL IN SMALL 8vo, CLOTH. OLRIG GRANGE: A Poem in Six Books. Second Edition. Price, 6s. 6d. BORLAND HALL: A Poem in Six Books. By the author of Olrig Grange. Second Edition. Price, 75. SONGS AND FABLES. By the late PROFESSOR RANKINE. Second Edition. Price, 6s. HANNIBAL: A Historical Drama. By PROFESSOR NICHOL. Price, 73. 6d. THE POETICAL WORKS OF DAVID GRAY. New and Enlarged Edition. Edited by HENRY GLASSFORD BELL, late Sheriff of Lanarkshire. Price, 6s. LIGHT, SHADE, AND TOIL. Poems. By WILLIAM C. CAMERON. With an Introductory Notice by the Rev. W. C. SMITH, D.D. Price, 6s. . HILLSIDE RHYMES. By PROFESSOR VEITCH. Price, 55. THE TWEED AND OTHER POEMS. By PROFESSOR VEITCH. Price, 6s. 6d. GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, 61 ST. VINCENT STREET, Publisher to the University. LOND : MACMILLAN AND CO. EDIN : EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. '. OF THE UNIVERSITY 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. RENEWALS ONLY TEL. NO. 642-3405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. AUG14196953 RbC v D L_D LD21A-60m-6,'69 (J9096slO)476-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley ^ -