THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
ON TRUTH 
 
n 
 O N TRUf H 
 
 r 
 
 A SYSTEMATIC INQUIRY 
 
 ST. GEORGE MIVART 
 
 n 
 Ph.D., M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1S89 
 
(The rights of triinslation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 

 TO HIS GRACE 
 
 THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND, K.G., 
 president of the royal institution. 
 
 My dear Lord Duke, 
 
 La dedicating, by kind permission, this work to 
 your Grace, I desire to give expression to feelings of both esteem 
 and gratitude. 
 
 I desire to express my esteem for one whose beneficent career 
 has long practically exemplified the precepts of sound philosophy, 
 and my gratitude for that kindness which has enabled me to 
 enjoy the charm of a retreat so considerately selected in harm.ony 
 with my tastes and wishes. 
 
 With much respect, I am. 
 My dear Lord Duke, 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 ST. GEORGE MIVART. 
 
 HURSTCOTE, ChILWORTH, 
 
 Whitsunday, May 20, 1888. 
 
 rvi375603 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the following pages the author has sought to place at 
 the disposal of his readers as brief and plain an account 
 as he could render of the results at which he has arrived 
 in a life's pursuit of truth. He has purposely avoided con- 
 troversy as much as possible ; not even having referred to 
 world-renowned philosophers, whose systems have, never- 
 theless, much occupied his thoughts, and even for a time 
 gained his assent. He has acted thus partly because con- 
 troversies which relate to the most important questions 
 treated of here have been dealt with by him in other 
 works, but mainly because he is convinced that it is not 
 by negative criticism, but by synthetic construction alone, 
 that the most useful scientific work can now be done. 
 The author presents this volume to the public partly in 
 the hope that his effort may make some slight contribution 
 towards such building up of a solid temple of truth, but 
 with a much stronger wish that it may impel other men, 
 better gifted or more advantageously circumstanced, to 
 further develop and more effectively express the truths 
 herein presented. 
 
PAGE 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL FACTS AND PRINCIPLES. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Evidence and Certainty .. .. ••• •■• 3 
 
 ^11. Self-knowledge... ... ... ••• ••• ^5 
 
 ^ III. Memory ... ... •. ■■■ ••• ••• ^9 
 
 IV. Home Truths. ... ... .■• ••• ••• 3^ 
 
 V. Reasoning ... ... ••• •■ ••• •• 53 
 
 VI. Assertions AND Beliefs ... ... ... ... 6o 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 IDEALISM. 
 
 VII. Idealism and Realism ... ... ■•. .•■ 7i 
 
 VIII. Idealism and Science ... ... ... ■• 79 
 
 IX. The Key of the Position ... ... ... ... 87 
 
 ^' X. Objections ... ... ... .. •• 97 
 
 XI. Idealism Old and New ... ... .. ... 130 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 Structure of the Body... ... ... ... i45 
 
 The Activities of the Body ... ... ... 154 
 
 Our Lower Mental Powers ... ... ... 178 
 
 Our Higher Mental Powers ... ... 203 
 
 Language ... ... ... .■• •■■ 224 
 
 Perceptions of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty ... 237 
 
 The Will ... ... ... ... ••• 262 
 
 Mankind ... ... ... ... ••• •■• 276 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXT. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 'XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 Inorganic Nature ... 
 
 Organic Nature— Plants and Animals.. 
 
 The Functions of Organisms 
 
 The Ani.mal Faculties .. 
 
 The External Relations of Organisms 
 
 FAGE 
 299 
 
 342 
 367 
 
 s^ 
 
 SECTION V. 
 ''//' SCIENCE. 
 
 XXV. Nature 
 N XXVI. A First Cause 
 X XXVII. Evolution ... 
 
 383 
 450 
 500 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL FACTS AND PRINCIPLES. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Evidence and Certainty ... ... ... 3 
 
 II. Self-knowledge... ... ... ... 15 
 
 III. Memory ... ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 IV. Home Truths ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 V. Reasoning ... ... ... ... ... '^53 
 
 VI. Assertions and Beliefs ... ... ... 60 
 
 >C. 
 

ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. 
 
 Certainty exists, and universal doubt is unreasonable. There must be 
 ultimate truths which do not need proof. The ground on which 
 we believe them is their self-evidence, and no better criterion is 
 . possible. 
 
 The pursuit of truth and of truths — Need of certainty — Two mental 
 associations — Certainty exists — Unhealthy and irrational scepti- 
 cism — Reflex mental acts — Some views as to what truths are 
 most indisputable — This inquiry refers to the grounds and criterion 
 of beliefs, not to their origins — Ultimate truths cannot be proved — 
 Self -evidence is the criteriott of truth — General, or abstract, neces- 
 sary truths — Three orders of fundamental certainty — Is a better 
 criterion tha7t evidetice possible ? — The task of the iriquirer after 
 truth. 
 
 Most of us are eager for truth. The popularity of 
 science and the spread of criticism show it. The spirit 
 of inquiry was possibly as keen three hundred years ago, 
 though, perhaps, mainly prompted by ideas of advantage 
 in this world or the next. Now, there are multitudes 
 who seek truth * for its own sake, apart from any advan- 
 tage it may bring with it. A passionate devotion to 
 truth is the well-founded boast of our scientific worthies, 
 who are above all things anxious not " to believe a lie." 
 
 * A special inquiry as to our perception of truth, will be made in our 
 seventeenth chapter. 
 
ox TRUTH. 
 
 Yet this popular pursuit of truth is mainly an indirect 
 pursuit of it. It is not, after all, so much a pursuit of 
 "truth" as a pursuit of "truths." It is not the endea- 
 vour to discover what is most certain and fundamental in 
 all knowledge, but an endeavour to become acquainted 
 with facts and laws of different branches of knowledge. 
 Tht^rtun There is one very important difference between these two 
 VtrJlkf^ quests : a student of any branch of science must, if he 
 would succeed, follow the footsteps of its masters and, at 
 least provisionally, abide by their dicta. It is true that no 
 bonds are imposed except such as originate from, and are 
 justifiable by, observation and deduction. It is true that 
 a questioning attitude is emphatically the scientific atti- 
 tude, and that in the bracing air of free inquiry physical 
 science has thriven wonderfully, and history has become a 
 pursuit very much more attractive and fruitful of results 
 than ever before. Nevertheless it is impossible for the 
 student of science to dispense with the observations and 
 reasonings of his contemporaries and predecessors, and he 
 will risk failure if he rashly refuses to allow them their 
 proper weight, or to accept some of them, at first, simply 
 
 (upon authority. In the pursuit of truth itself, it is other- 
 wise. The inquirer, in this case, can only appeal to, and 
 must abide by the declarations of, his own reason. He 
 must clearly see the truth attending every step he takes, 
 from the ver)- first. Such direct inquiry concerning truth, 
 though it is not and is not likely to become a popular pur- 
 suit, yet counts many more followers amongst us to-day 
 than it did half a century ago. One cause of this increase, 
 is the advance of physical science with its eager spirit of 
 inquiry. Questions more and more fundamental concerning 
 each branch of physical science naturally lead to questions 
 which underlie all physical science. This impulse has been 
 keenly felt by many of our own scientific leaders, who have 
 largely promoted inquiry of this fundamental kind. Now, 
 modesty, no less than caution, is a characteristic of the 
 true man of science. Naturall)^, then, our scientific leaders 
 have sought, and sought with success, to impress upon their 
 followers a modest estimate of their power of knowing, and 
 the fact that it has very definite limits. 
 
EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. 5 
 
 But every one is aware how apt men are, in trying to 
 
 avoid one extreme, to fall into an opposite one. Doubt 
 
 and scepticism, which are not only legitimate but necessary 
 
 ; in science, are indeed doubly so in the inquiry concern- 
 
 f ing truth itself. Therein we should assent to nothing 
 
 which is not clearly and evidently true to our minds. 
 
 \ Nevertheless there may be exaggeration in this as in 
 
 other things. It is possible to be so strongly impressed 
 
 by the existence and legitimacy of doubt, as to forget 
 
 the existence and legitimacy of certainty. Yet it is Needo/ 
 
 o ■> ■! certainty. 
 
 manifest that life could not be carried on as it is, if we 
 had not practical certainty as to its ordinary concerns. 
 We may say more than this ; for with regard to many 
 matters which are not of ordinary concern, we have now 
 greater certainty than our forefathers had. Side by side 1 
 with an increasing scepticism, there has run along an I 
 increasing certainty. Thus with respect to the world we/ 
 live in, most educated men are now certain as to its daily 
 and annual revolutions, as also that its crust is largely 
 composed of sedimentary rocks, containing remains of 
 animals and plants more or less different from those 
 which now live. No one, indeed, can deny that we may 
 rely with absolute confidence and entire certainty upon 
 a variety of such assertions. Science constantly advances, 
 but its advance would be impossible if we could not, by 
 observations and inferences, become so certain of facts pre- 
 viously doubtful, as to be able to make them starting-points 
 for fresh observations and inferences. Nevertheless the 
 certainty which most men feel about such matters cannot, 
 from the nature of the case, be due to their own observa- 
 tions, but must depend upon their confidence in the generally 
 received opinions of experts. The degree of their confi- 
 dence also, will vary according to circumstances, as is the 
 case with respect to their trust in human testimony gene- 
 rally. A reasonable man who has never been to Berlin 
 and who never saw Napoleon III., will yet be absolutely 
 certain as to the present existence of that city and the past 
 existence of that man. He may feel very differently, how- 
 ever, with respect to some remote antarctic land or ancient 
 Egyptian king. In spite, then, of increased and increasing 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 certainty as to matters scientifically established, it is none 
 the less true that, as a general rule, things which are very 
 distant, or which happened a long time ago, are known to 
 us only in round-about ways, and we feel more or less 
 uncertainty about them. On the other hand, our convic- 
 tions concerning the things about us at any given moment 
 can be tested by our senses, and we are practically certain 
 /^rtw «.«./* regarding them. Now, if we have had several times two 
 I '"*'*'"'' feelings or ideas in close conjunction, thenceforth when one 
 of these comes to be freshly experienced, the other tends 
 to arise spontaneously in the mind, which is said to have 
 Q "associated" the two together. Thus it comes about that 
 ff* we associate a feeling of " uncertainty " with statements 
 ^ / about what is remote, and a feeling of "certainty" with 
 f/ what concerns the present. The value of this mental 
 association we will consider later on. A second mental ] 
 associa tion which men commonly form is that between I 
 Y^ " what is especially true " and what is " demonstrable by i 
 ^V^ reasoning." This association is due to the fact that most \ 
 of our knowledge is gained indirectly and by inference. 
 No truths are brought more strikingly home to our minds 
 than those mathematical ones demonstrated by Euclid. 
 We commonly ask for the "proof" of any proposition we 
 are called on to believe, and we feel a special certainty 
 about statements which we know we can prove by un- 
 answerable reasoning. Thus it is many men have, rightly 
 or wrongly, a feeling that "to believe anything which j 
 cannot be proved," is "to believe blindly." 
 
 It is very important to note these two facts of asso- 
 ciation with respect to our feelings of certainty. As to 
 matters of everyday life, as distinguished from scientific 
 truths, though we therein generally act on reasonable 
 Certainty probabilities, yet certainty meets us at every turn. Thus 
 we are absolutely certain that a door must be either shut 
 or open ; that if having been open it is now shut, some 
 person or thing must have shut it; that we cannot both 
 spend our money and keep it ; that we feel warm or sad if 
 we have either of those feelings ; that we are the same 
 individuals in the afternoon as we were in the morning ; 
 that if every man of a company has a red coat, then each 
 
EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. 7 
 
 man must have one ; that half a loaf is better than no 
 bread ; that England is an island ; and that if we throw 
 down a quantity of printer's type it will not so fall as to 
 form a set of verses. Some readers may be impatient at 
 meeting with assertions seemingly as trivial as obviously 
 true. But it is needful to recall to mind the fact that abso- 
 lute and complete certainty does really exist with respect 
 to such obvious truths, however little we may be given to 
 advert to the fact. It is now especially needful to make these 
 simple truths clear, on account of the before-mentioned 
 / present danger of an exaggerated scepticism/^ Blind dis- 
 I belief is as fatal to science as blind belief, and it is possible 
 I for men to get themselves into a diseased condition of general Unhealthy 
 ' distrust and uncertainty. Experience proves that they h-rationai 
 may bring themselves to doubt or deny the plainest truths, '"^^"■'""■ 
 the evidence of their senses, the reality of truth or virtue, 
 or even their own existence. It is well, then, distinctly to 
 recognize that universal doubt is sceptjcism. riiji^,mad,>as the 
 following observations may serve to show. If a man doubts 
 whether there is such a thing as rational speech, or whether 
 words can be used twice over by any two people in the same 
 sense, then plainly we cannot profitably argue with him. 
 But if, on account of his very absurdity, we cannot refute ) 
 him, it is no less plain that he cannot defend his scepticism. / 
 Were he to attempt to do so, then he would show, by that 
 very attempt, that he really had confidence in reason and 
 in language, however he might verbally deny it. Universal 
 scepticism is foolish, because it refutes itself. If a sceptic 
 says, " Nothing is certain," he thereby asserts the certainty 
 of uncertainty. He makes an affirmation which, if true, 
 absolutely contradicts both him and his system. But a 
 man who affirms what the system he professes to adopt 
 forbids him to affirm, and who declares that he believes 
 what he also declares to be unbelievable, can hardly com- 
 plain if he is called foolish. No system can be true, and no 
 > reasoning can be valid, which inevitably ends in absurdity. 
 Such scepticism, then, cannot be the mark of an exception- 
 ally intellectual mind, but of an exceptionally foolish one. 
 It also follows that every position which necessarily leads 
 to such scepticism must itself be essentially unreasonable. 
 
8 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Rf/iex Having, then, recognized the existence of certainty and | 
 
 menta acts. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ things are certain, the next step in the | 
 
 pursuit of truth would seem to be an endeavour to discover 1 
 "what things are especially true," or "what are those 
 propositions the certainty of which is most indisputable, 
 and which are evidently and supremely true ? " In an 
 inquiry concerning what our mind tells us about its own 
 judgments, there is a special difficulty, arising from our 
 organization. For the mind applies itself easily enough to 
 external objects, but has much greater difficulty in directing 
 its gaze in upon itself. We are spontaneously impelled to 
 form judgments about external things, or "direct judg- 
 ments," but we are not so impelled to reflect on our 
 judgments, compare them one with another, and judge 
 about them. These reflections of the mind inwards on 
 itself are called "reflex mental acts," and the judgments 
 which the so reflecting mind makes about its own judg- 
 ments are "reflex judgments." Such difficulty as may be 
 experienced in making these reflections must, however, be 
 got over by any one who would successfully engage in the 
 quest for " truth ; " nor will there be much difficulty in 
 getting over it. For this faculty, like our other faculties, 
 may be strengthened by exercise, and all that is ordinarily 
 needed to perfect it is patie nt ^perseverance. 
 Some views Now, some Very estimable persons will tell us that the 
 Tru'ihsare cspccially truc and most indisputable propositions, are 
 putJu."' those which can be shown by reasoning to be necessarily 
 true. Others will declare them to be propositions the 
 truth of which has not been impressed upon us by habit 
 or by any association of ideas, but is what they call " a 
 genuine testimony of consciousness," spontaneously arising 
 in the mind of an infant as its intelligence dawns. Some 
 good persons are persuaded that we must select as the 
 truest propositions, those which are not gained by expe- 
 rience and are called a priori, or which have been 
 implanted in our nature by a benevolent and all-wise 
 Creator. There are, on the other hand, very able writers 
 who affirm that we cannot pick out any especially indis- 
 putable propositions at all, because the whole of our ideas 
 are simply due to mental association, and are the result 
 
EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. 9 
 
 \ of the experiences and prejudices not only of countless 
 'generations of mankind, but of an indefinite number of 
 non-human ancestors also. 
 
 But one and the same answer must be made to all 
 these different representations. The matters they refer to 
 are very interesting, but the problem we have to solve 
 is one entirely independent of them. It has nothing to do 
 with questions about the origin of our judgments, or with 1 
 reasonings about their truth. Indeed, no proposition capable / 
 of proof can possibly be one the certainty of which is 
 fundamental. For in order to prove anything by reason 
 ing, we must show that it necessarily follows as a conse- 
 quence from other truths on the truth of which its own 
 truth depends. Such other truths must therefore be 
 deemed more indisputable than the thing they are called 
 in to prove. Evidently we cannot prove everything. How-j 
 ever long may be our arguments, we must at last come to 
 ultimate statements which must be taken for granted, as 
 we must take for granted the validity of the process of 
 reasoning itself If we had to prove either the validity of 
 that process or such ultimate statements, then either we 
 must argue in a circle, or our process of proof must go on 
 for ever without coming to a conclusion. In other words, 
 there could be no such thing as proof at all. Similarly no 
 inquiries concerning the origin of ideas can suffice to point 
 out those which are the least disputable. Valuable and 
 useful as such inquiries are in other ways, they cannot 
 suffice. To be conclusive, they must depend on some 
 general affirmation such as, " No beliefs due to the associa- 
 tion of animal feelings, or of ideas, can be most certain 
 truths," or, " Whatever idea is a priori, or God-implanted, or 
 manifested in the dawning intelligence of an infant, must 
 be a most certain truth." But since the truth of these 
 propositions themselves is questioned by many persons, 
 whatever depends on them can have no pretensions to be 
 
 (evidently and supremely true. 
 And, indeed, it is by no means clear why a surpassing 
 .^ keenness of mental vision should be attributed to babies 
 i or why our earliest beliefs should be thought less fallible 
 ^ than the beliefs of our maturity. Again, if the outcome 
 
k 
 
 lO ON TRUTH. 
 
 of the first sensations and cognitions of infants are to be 
 taken as the appointed means for revealing to us ulti- 
 mate truths, why should judgments be necessarily dis- 
 credited if they come to us by the agency of the yet earlier 
 sensations and cognitions of animal ancestors ? Why, 
 again, are beliefs to be considered less certain and ultimate 
 if they be due to the association of sensations and ideas, 
 than if they be due to spontaneous, original impulses ? All 
 the phenomena of nature take place according to certain 
 laws, and it is difficult to see why, of the various laws regu- 
 lating our mental activity, we are to regard those w^hich 
 determine our mental associations as pernicious and mis- 
 leading in comparison with those which regulate our spon- 
 taneous, original beliefs — if any such we have. That a 
 5 judgment is " God-implanted," is a good reason for accept- 
 ing it with those who already believe in "an all-wise and 
 benevolent Creator." That it cannot claim universal 
 acceptance, however, is clear from the fact that so many 
 books have been written to refute persons who affirm that 
 we have no sufficient evidence of God's existence, or, at 
 least, of His goodness. 
 Thismguiry But, as bcforc obscrvcd, all inquiries into the origin and \ 
 
 rtfcrs to the , ,. . . 
 
 grounds and causcs of our belieis, valuable and mterestmg as they are for 
 
 criterion of ^ irii -i r \ • • • 
 
 btiie/s, not the study ot the human mmd, are out of place m an mquiry 
 
 to their / . , • i i , , . 
 
 origin. as to what judgments are evidently and supremely certain. 
 The latter inquiry refers to the grounds of belief which any 
 judgment may exhibit in and by itself — to a criterion of its 
 truth — and not at all to the causes which have produced it. 
 Yet there are philosophers who have been so busy in trying / 
 to find out how different propositions have come to be ' 
 believed, that they have neglected the more fundamental 
 inquiry why they should be believed — what grounds of cer- 
 tainty they exhibit. By the " grounds of certainty " which 
 any judgment can show, it is not, of course, meant any-'^ 
 thing external to it. Such a meaning would imply a proof' 
 of the judgment, and would involve us in an endless and 
 resultless scries of arguments, as already pointed out. The 
 ^ut'i!^^' ojlk-gtQUrici of cgrtainty which an ultimate and supremely 
 cannot be ccrtaiu judgmcut can possess, is its self-evidence — its own 
 manifestcertainty in and b ^ itself All proof, or reasoning, 
 
EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. I I 
 
 must ultimately rest upon truths which carry with them 
 
 their own evidence and do not, therefore, need proof., 
 
 Some persons on first meeting with this assertion may be 
 
 startled at the suggestion of believing anything whatever] 
 
 on "its own evidence," fancying that it is equivalent tof \l^) 
 
 a suggestion that they slj^\^d believe blindly. This is due\ 
 
 to the second of those teo mental associations to which > y 
 
 attention was called in the earlier part of this chapter, /' y 
 
 namely, that association which induces a feeling that to 
 
 believe anything without proof is to believe it blindly, but 
 
 that we do not believe blindly that which comes to us as 
 
 the result of a process of reasoning. And yet it is manifest, 
 
 on reflection, that if it is not blind credulity to believe what 
 
 is evident to us by means of something else, it must be 
 
 still less blind to believe that which is directly evident in 
 
 and by itself! No demonstration of Euclid can be more 
 
 than "evidently" true, and it is evidence, and q-mi^^vlzq. seif-evidenu 
 
 alone, which gives certainty to any proposition whatever. 'ti>tw« <7/ 
 
 But here once more an objection may occur to the reader, ^''"''^'' 
 
 for he may naturally object that multitudes of men take 
 
 as evidently true the most mistaken judgments — as, for 
 
 example, that a railway carriage in which they are seated 
 
 is in motion, instead of another really moving beside it ; , 
 
 or that it is the motion of the sun itself which causes it to 
 
 "rise" and "set." But no judgment is to be deemed an 
 
 evident one unless all readily available tests of its truth 
 
 have been made use of. We must examine whether it be \ 
 
 the opinion of our fellow-men, whether it is supported by j ., 
 
 the testimony of our senses, or whether the reasoning pro- ^^ 
 
 cesses which have been employed to prove it (if the evident F 
 
 judgment be the result of reasoning) are valid. Moreover, I 
 
 no judgment is to be considered as self-evident unless it \ 
 
 appears to be so not only at first, but also on reflection 
 
 afterwards. It must be seen, when we have maturely 
 
 reflected about it, to be certain without proof Instances 
 
 of familiar home truths have been already given, and it is 
 
 easy enough to give others, such, for example, as the truth 
 
 that " if we have had the misfortune to lose an eye, we cannot 
 
 still have the pair we had before such misfortune occurred," 
 
 or the truth that " a stick three feet long and one thirty-six 
 
 /:)' 
 
12 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 General, 
 or abstract, 
 necessary 
 truths. 
 
 inches long are of equal length, because each is a yard 
 long." Truths about any objects different in number— for 
 example, about groups of marbles ; as that five marbles 
 and five marbles make ten marbles — may be abstracted or 
 enlarged first into the arithmetical, and afterwards into the 
 algebraical "abstract" truths— five added to five make ten, 
 or 5^ + 5^ = 10^. Just so the above two judgments about 
 the two eyes and two sticks may be easily enlarged respec- 
 tively into the "yabstract^^jropiisitiofts : Nothing can, at 
 the same time, both " be and not be," and " things which are 
 equal to the same thing are equal to each other." These 
 two general propositions will, on reflection, be seen, like the 
 particular judgments from which they have been abstracted, 
 to be certain without proof ; they may, therefore, be said 
 to be necessarily true or " necessary truths." Reflection 
 will also show that we can have no certainty about any- 
 thing if those abstract judgments are not absolutely certain. 
 They are therefore truths which are necessary for our 
 intellectual activity. 
 
 But we have already seen that absolute certainty does 
 exist, and that, as a fact, we may validly argue in its defence. 
 At the root, then, of all certainty, there must lie perceptions 
 of three orders of truths all supremely certain and self- 
 evident, namely, (i) perceptions of a greater or less number 
 of general truths ; (2) perceptions of particular facts ; and 
 (3) perceptions of the force of some arguments. If we had 
 no certain knowledge of self-evident general truths, advance 
 in knowledge would be absolutely impossible, and we could 
 not argue ; for if anything could be and not be at the same 
 •time, then something proved might at the same time be un- 
 proven. If we had no certain knowledge of any fact — as, 
 for example, that we have some feeling or belief — all our 
 demonstrations would, as it were, remain suspended in the 
 air and have nothing to do with reality ; and if there were 
 no reality, there could be no real truth, and therefore no 
 certainty. Lastly, if the truth of some mode of reasoning 
 was not clearly self-evident, we could never arrive at any 
 conclusion, and all argument would be vain. But men of 
 all schools of thought, who argue, show that they do not 
 think all argument vain. The conclusion that any given 
 
EVIDENCE AND CERTAINTY. 12, 
 
 man will ultimately die if mortality is the sure lot of all 
 men, is a judgment the certainty of which is seen on 
 reflection as well as at first, and is admitted by the 
 common consent of mankinds 
 
 The most certain and indisputable judgments, then, are 
 those which require no proof, but are self-evident. If any, 
 reader is still dissatisfied with self-evidence as the one 
 criterion of ultimate truths, let him ask himself what other is abetter 
 better criterion, or ground of belief, ultimate truths could ThaZ'"" 
 possibly have. Any criterion provided as the test of a.np'oss^ifr 
 ultimate judgment must either reside in the judgment 
 itself, and so make it luminously self-evident, or in some- 
 thing external to it. Now", if some criterion external to it, 
 indefinitely more perfect than anything we can think of, 
 had been provided, we could only appreciate it through 
 our perception of it and our judgment about it, and such 
 judgment could not give us certainty unless it was self- 
 evidently true. In this way, instead of being better oft", 
 we should but have self-evidence after all — and that once 1 
 removed — as a criterion. It will be plain on reflection that ^j) 
 nothing external — no common consent of mankind, com- \y 
 mon sense, or testimony — could ever take the place of >/^~ 
 an ultimate criterion of knowledge, since some judgment j 
 of our own mind must always decide for us with respect | 
 to the existence and value of such criteria. The principle 
 of evidence, then, is one which is really ultimate, and must 
 be accepted under pain of complete intellectual paralysis. 
 It is incapable of demonstration, since it depends on nothing 
 else. It is constantly assumed unconsciously, and is acted 
 on confidently by every one who reasons. We conform to 
 it without thinking about it, but if we reflect on it we seelx 
 three good reasons for assenting to it : — (i) The spon-vT, 
 taneous and natural tendency of all men constantly to ^ 
 conform to it ; (2) the destruction of all our knowledge 
 and the impossibility of thinking logically at all, if we do 
 not admit the legitimacy of the criterion ; and (3) the fact 
 that, by admitting it, we gain a foundation for our know- 
 ledge (which can thus become a mental cosmos instead of 
 a chaos), and are enabled to progress in science. 
 
 Our task, then, in the pursuit of truth itself should be, The task of 
 
14 ON TRUTH. 
 
 the inquirer first, to discovcr wliat general principles, what particular i 
 ajurtmth. ^^^^^^ ^^^j ^^.j^,^^ mcthods of reasoning are clearly self- 
 evident, and therefore supremely true. When once these 
 have been as far as possible ascertained, we may next 
 proceed to elucidate by their help those truths, next in 
 rank, which underlie all science, following this up with an 
 examination of the teachings of science itself, in the supreme 
 or highest sense of that word. Having accomplished that 
 task, we shall have done all we can in the direct pursuit of 
 truth, and may leave to the followers of each separate, 
 subordinate science that indirect pursuit of it which con- 
 -sists in the investigation of the several orders of truths with 
 /which each separate science deals. All our knowledge 
 I must cither be self-evident, or must be legitimately deduced 
 C from what is self-evident. In our pursuit of truth, our 
 endeavour must be to proceed from the known to the 
 unknown, not, of course, with the expectation of being able 
 ever to know all things, but with a determination not to 
 renounce beforehand the investigation of any problem 
 which may seem to demand inquiry at our hands. 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 The primary fact of our own continuous existence is known to us | 
 with supreme certainty, though, like our feeUngs, not explicitly so | 
 without the aid of reflection. What we first and directly perceive ; 
 is our own momentary activity, but this perception implicitly j 
 contains the knowledge of both our existence and our feelings,/ 
 which respectively and equally need, for their explicit cognition,! 
 a reflex mental act. 
 
 First fundamental fact, self-knowledge — This comniotily supposed 
 certain — Need of considering arguments against its possibility — 
 What these mean — Some truth in them — Also a false assumption 
 and an error of fact — Mistake as to an implication — Self know- 
 ledge like our knowledge of others — Primary cognitions — Ati 
 objection — Met by a distinction— Explicit and implicit knowledge 
 — Feelings cannot be know?i xuithout self-knowledge — Feelings not 
 known prior to self^A fitndamental error and its conseqicefices. 
 
 I In the preceding chapter an endeavour has been made 
 
 1 to bring home to the mind of the reader the truth that the 
 
 I supreme and ultimate criterion of the certainty of any 
 
 I proposition is its own luminous self-evidence. The first 
 
 Uask of the inquirer after truth was also declared to be 
 
 a search for the most certain general principles, facts, and 
 
 methods of reasoning. The quest of truth, however, is the 
 
 quest of what is eminently real ; and so, to ensure reality, 
 
 we will begin, not with the consideration of any " abstract 
 
 principle," but of a " fact." 
 
 It is no unusual thing for a person to exclaim, with First/unda- 
 reference to something about which he is sure, " I am as se//-il!£!f'' 
 certain of it as I am of my own existence ; " and the '''"''^^' 
 
6/// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 This com- 
 ttionly sup- 
 posed 
 certain. 
 
 Kffri of 
 considering 
 arguments 
 against its 
 possibility. 
 
 <y 
 
 exclamation is generally understood to denote a very high 
 degree of certainty. The so often quoted Delphic precept, 
 ii.i^nn w ^^'^v'^^'^V ^ ^'=' been explained in different- senses "5>r 
 different writers ; but there is just one thing in which all 
 these writers agree, and that is that men m;^ know them- 
 selves. There are, of course, some unfortunate persons, in 
 a more or less diseased or idiotic state of mind, who, from 
 defect of memory or whatever cause, are unable to recognize 
 their own personal identity. But this book is addressed to 
 reasonable men of ordinary intelligence, and not to those 
 who are wholly or partially out of their minds ; and, indeed, 
 a plain man would very naturally consider any one to be 
 " out of his mind " who sincerely professed that he could not 
 know his own existence with entire certainty. It is, there- 
 fore, to be feared that some readers may be impatient at 
 meeting with an argument directed to show that we have the 
 fullest reason to be supremely certain of the fact of our 
 own existence. They may at first very naturally feel dis- 
 inclined to consider reasonings about a matter they have 
 never themselves felt it possible to doubt, even if they 
 have heard that other persons have been so " absurd " as 
 to profess to doubt about it. " To doubt one's existence," 
 they will say, " is even more absurd than to believe that 
 one's limbs are made of glass ! " And yet there are two 
 good reasons why no one who would earnestly inquire 
 after truth, should refuse to consider carefully the argu- 
 ments which follow. The first of th ese two rppgo nc; is that 
 the question concerning the^supreme certainty of the fact 
 of our self-knowledge is of fundamental importance for the 
 inquiry after truth. If that certainty cannot be established, 
 then the inquiry after truth may, for reasons hereafter 
 stated, be given up as one essentially insoluble. The 
 second reason is the circumstance that very eminent, 
 fJTglily Iniyllyctual men have denied, and do deny, the 
 supreme certainty of our self-knowledge. Now, it is not 
 for a moment to be supposed that such men are insincere, 
 or that they can adhere to a doctrine which does not con- 
 tain some truth. It will probably, then, be worth while to 
 try and find out what this truth is which they do hold, 
 and to examine whether they have not overlooked some 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. I J 
 
 Other truth which, if also taken into account, would serve 
 to explain their paradoxical denial of certainty to our self- 
 knowleds:e^ And indeed, as mi^jht be expected, these ^/^^^ ^/'"« 
 
 "=" > & JT ^ mean. 
 
 paradoxical assertions do not turn out, when carefully 
 1 examined, to be so glaringly absurd as they at first sight 
 1 seem to be. When the supreme certainty of our know- 
 i ledge of our own existence is denied, the certain existence 
 I of the feeling which any person may have at the moment A j , 
 I when he says, " I exist," is not thereby denied. What is 
 denied, is the possibility of our having any supreme cer- 
 tainty that one continuous, enduring being,. or " self," goes 
 on existing during the succession of what we call its 
 different "feelings." It is fully admitted that we are con- 
 iscious of our various feelings as they successively arise, 
 |but we are said not to be conscious of any continuously ex- 
 isting being which remains essentially unchanged through- 
 out the successive changes of its feelings. Such a being, 
 it is affirmed, we can never know apart from our various 
 " states of feeling ; " and, as we can never even know it, we 
 most certainly can never be " supremely certain " about its 
 existence. Supreme certainty, they say, we may indeed 
 have about our present feeling, whatever that may be, but ■ 
 about nothing else ; and they deny that we have, or can t 
 have, such certainty about our continuous, enduring " self," 
 or " ego ," as we have about our " feelings," or, as they are 
 generally termed, our "states of consciousness." A \\{X\q some truth 
 reflection will show that there is a certain truth in these 
 statements, strange and startling as they may at first sight 
 seem to be. Any one, even unaccustomed to such reflex 
 mental acts,* may easily perceive that he can be absolutely 
 certain about the existence of any feeling — such as, e.g., a 
 feeling of a sweet taste, or of warmth, or of cold — while he 
 is actually feeling it, A little further reflection will show 
 him that the present existence of such a feeling, or "state 
 of consciousness," is so certain that it is absolutely impos- 
 sible for even any supernatural power, however exalted, to 
 make him think that a feeling does not exist while he 
 himself is actually feeling it. 
 
 In maintaining, then, the absolute certainty of any 
 
 * See above, p. 8. 
 
 C 
 
1 8/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 present "feeling" or "state of consciousness" actually 
 present to the mind, the teaching here combated has right 
 and reason on its side. It has also right and reason on 
 its side when it goes on to affirm that we cannot know 
 ourselves apart from our various states of feeling and apart 
 from the different modifications we undergo. The reader 
 will readily enough perceive that he is reading or has 
 ceased to read, as the case may be, but he will never 
 obtain a distinct perception of any essential "self" which 
 is neither doing anything itself nor having anything done 
 to it. 
 
 In conceding so much it may appear that we have 
 
 conceded all, but such is by no means the case ; for a 
 
 also a false Httlc paticncc will enable us to disentangle, in the asser- 
 
 assuniption ^ _ 
 
 and an error \\QXi's. cHticiscd, onc Unwarranted assumption and one error 
 
 of/act. I ... 
 
 / of fact. The 1 1 n wa rj -/y;it£-.£L.. ^a aiMiia . p t tQ.Q^i.'^^ th at we can 
 
 i?\. I know nothHig with supreme certainty unless we know it 
 V/ I by itself, and apart from any other entit}'' with which it is 
 intimately connected, either temporarily or permanently. 
 he error of fact is, that we can be conscious of the feelings 
 w'^^liav^, kpdil: "fiuill any consciousness of the self which 
 has such feelings. As to the unwarranted presumption, it 
 is so far from being a truth that we can only know a thing 
 by itself, that the very contrary is the case. We can really 
 know no thing by itself. No thing can be known by us 
 except through our simultaneous knowledge of some other 
 I thing with which it stands in some relation or other. For 
 l. example, nothing can be known as large except we know 
 ? something smaller ; or as warm, or sweet, or dark, or rough, 
 except in contrast with things relatively cold, not-sweet, 
 light, or smooth. It would not, then, be by any means 
 wonderful if we only knew ourselves as related with our 
 simultaneously known feelings, or only knew our feelings 
 as related with our simultaneously known selves. As to 
 the error of fact, it is a truth (to the demonstration of which 
 this chapter will be devoted) that what we have just repre- 
 sented as being by no means wonderful, is certainly true. 
 We have not, and cannot have, any more knowledge or 
 perception of our feelings apart from our knowledge and 
 perception of ourselves, than we can have knowledge or 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. IQ 
 
 perception of ourselves apart from our knowledge or per- 
 ception of our feelings. 
 
 Indeed here, as in so many other instances, error exists Mistake as 
 
 \ c r 1 1 • to an ini- 
 
 m the form of a mistaken negation, which has been too z^''^^''^''^- 
 hastily supposed to be involved in a true affirmation. The 
 tr ue affirmation is, " We may he supremely and absolutely 
 certain of the existence of present feelings or states of con- 
 sciousness." The_jrnistaken negation, erroneously supposed 
 to be involved in that affirmation is^' We have no such 
 certainty of the existence of an enduring — i.e. substantial — 
 self, or ego, as zve have of those ' states of consciousness ' 
 which ive assume that ^self to experienced Another and 
 complementary truth, then, which the eminent men before 
 referred to have, we believe, overlooked, is the equal cer- \ 
 tainty which exists between our knowledge (i) of our- \ 
 selves, and (2) of our feelings, and the impossibility of our / 
 knowing either of these, apart and alone. 
 
 The erroneous nature of the negation just stated may, 
 we venture to think, be demonstrated as follows : It is 
 quite true — as has been above admitted — that we never 
 do know our own substantial being in its very essence 
 simply, alone and unmodified. From this truth, however, 
 it is not to be inferred (as the men here combated do infer) 
 that we cannot know our substantial, essential being — ouri 
 enduring "self" — with absolute and supreme certainty. 
 It is not indeed in the least degree wonderful that we 
 never know our own "self" in an entirely unmodified con- 
 dition because, during our whole lives, it never has been, 
 is, or will be, in such a condition. We never know it 
 except in some "state," but then it never exists or has 
 existed except in some state. In this respect our know- sei/- 
 ledge of ourselves is like our knowledge of anybody and uZZu/' 
 everybody else. Many readers may have seen, and some ofoT/Jrf.' 
 have known, the late Lord Beaconsfield. But however 
 intimate and prolonged any one's knowledge of him may 
 have been, it is certain that no one ever knew him except 
 in some " state " — as in the House of Commons or out of it, 
 as speaking or silent, as in motion or at rest, as at home or 
 abroad, as with his hat on or with his hat off — and this for 
 the very good, though obvious, reason that he never did 
 
^o^y 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Primary 
 cognitions. 
 
 or could for one moment exist except in some "state" or 
 other. This plain truth, however, in no way prevents any- 
 one having very truly and really known him, and known 
 him to be the very same person through various changing 
 states. That none of us have ever known a friend except 
 " in some state " is most true ; yet we may have known 
 a friend exceedingly well for all that, and it would not 
 be a little odd if we were to be told we could not really 
 know a friend unless we could know him in a mode in 
 which he never did, and never by any possibility could, 
 exist. Just so it is with the substantial, essential "self" or 
 " ego." Our never having known it except in some " state " 
 in no way prevents our having very really and truly known 
 it. But how do we know this "self" of ours, and what 
 fact about it do we seem to know most certainly and 
 directly ? Ordinarily our attention is (as said in the first 
 'chapter*) directed to external objects and events, and is 
 very rarely occupied in considering the operations of our 
 own minds. In the morning of life this is especially the 
 case, and young children are occupied exclusively with 
 things external. Nothing can well be more false than the 
 assertion that our knowledge of " states of consciousness " 
 is primary as regards time. It certainly is not primary in 
 chronological order. But is it primary in any order ? A 
 little careful consideration of our own feelings and percep- 
 tions will, we believe, show that our knowledge of our own_|[ 
 mental states — of our feelings — is in no way primary. _,!| 
 When our attention is roused to action — when we become ' ' 
 aware of anything — what we are primarily and directly 
 conscious of is neither "our mental state" nor yet our 
 own "continuous self" either. We are aware of some- 
 thing being done by us, or being done to us. We have 
 in every case a feeling, and in every case a sense of our 
 own self-existence, but what- we- know primarily, directly 
 and immediately, is neither the "feeling" nor the "self- 
 
 existence," but the concrete actual thing then being ex- 
 perienced. We can, indeed, become distinctly and explicitly 
 aware of either the " feeling " or the " self-existence " by 
 turning back our mind upon itself, and making a reflex 
 
 * See above, p. 8. 
 
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 21 
 
 mental act, and mentally saying, " I have such and such 
 a feeling," or, " I now exist." Any one can very readily 
 test the truth of this assertion. Let the reader lay down 
 this book. Having laid it down, let him consider what he 
 was directly conscious of in so doing, and he will see that 
 he was conscious of performing that act. While doing 
 it he will, of course, have remained "himself," and whilq 
 doing it will also have felt a variety of sensations of touchy' 
 effort, and pressure, and of colour, in addition, if he hai 
 looked at the book while he was putting it down. Of 
 these sensations and of his own existence he will have been 
 alike conscious, but his direct attention he will find has 
 been neither addressed to "the persistent existence of his 
 own being" nor to the "existence of the various sensations 
 of touch, effort, and pressure," but to the self-action of 
 " laying the book down." Nevertheless he can, if he likes, 
 turn back his mind on itself and note either the "feelings" 
 or the " perception of his own continuous existence " which 
 have, and has, accompanied his act of laying down the book. 
 Moreover, though these " feelings " or " states of conscious- 
 ness " are not the primary or direct objects of cognition, we 
 must nevertheless experience them in order to have the 
 direct cognition of our own activity. It is their unnoticed 
 presence which brings about that direct cognition, nor can 
 we conceive of any way of obtaining a knowledge of our 
 own being, save by the existence in us of " feelings " or 
 ^'states of consciousness" of some kind, the presence of 
 which serves to arouse that direct perception of ourselves 
 in action. 
 
 As another example, let us suppose that the reader 
 pexicei¥-es.~somje... sweet -violets. In perceiving them he is 
 implicitly aware both of his own existing self and also of 
 his feelings — the sight and smell of the violets. Neverthe- 
 less, his mind will be turned at first neither expressly on \ 
 his feelings nor expressly on himself, but upon the object 1 
 consciously perceived. At the same time he may, if he 
 pleases, direct his mind so as to perceive either that he has 
 " a feeling of violet- sweetness," or that it is he himself who 
 has that feeling ; in other words, he may direct his mind 
 so as to perceive his " feelings " or his " continuous self- 
 
 -X 
 
2 2^^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 An 
 objection. 
 
 i 
 
 /^> 
 
 /// 
 
 existence." Again, let us imagine a man in the act of_ 
 
 examininCT.hI§rc6nscieiice..as-4a.liis,-:tv.Qrthiness or>.i^ 
 
 nessr''What will such a man ask himself? Certainly not 
 afiything about his " feelings " as apart from himself, or 
 about "himself" as apart from his feelings or actions. He 
 will ask himself, " What have I done, said, or willed, of 
 this, that, or the other kind?" In such an examination 
 the existence of " states of consciousness " is of course 
 implied, as the existence of the "continuous self" is also 
 implied. Neither, however, is explicitly referred to prima- 
 rily. What is thus explicitly referred to is the " action 
 of the^seTfor actual "self-action." To attend either to 
 the "mental states " as such, or to the " enduring self" as 
 such, implies a further deliberate mental act. Neverthe- 
 less it is evident that we could not have any knowledge of 
 such past " action of the self," except through the presence 
 of those " mental states," the existence of which is not 
 directly adverted to by us/' 
 
 But some persons may be inclined to deny that there is 
 this distinction between being aware of any "self-action " 
 and being aware of the " feeling " which accompanies it. 
 They may say, " To know that we are conscious of any 
 feeling is nothing more than to attend to it, and is no 
 really fresh act of knowledge. To say first, 'I am hot,' 
 and then, ' I know that I am hot,' is not to make two 
 assertions, but only one. For we cannot feel at all with- 
 out being conscious of such feeling, and this knowledge 
 of the state of mind or feeling is an essential part of 
 having a feeling at all. To those who assert that in order 
 to know anything we must not only know, but also know 
 that we know, it may be objected that, according to their 
 view, in order to know that we know, we should need to 
 know that we know that we know, and so on for ever, and 
 thus we could never attain any real knowledge at all."' In \ 
 reply to this argument we might, in the first place, dispute » 
 the assertion that "we cannot feel without being conscious 1 
 
 sensa- 
 
 of such feeling," for though we cannot have true 
 tions without feeling them in some way, we may receive 
 sensitive impressions whereof we may remain unconscious. 
 Nevertheless as our express object here is to examine 
 
SEL F-KNO W LEDGE. 23^^ 
 
 feelings of which we do become aware, the question re- 
 specting unnoticed sensations may be allowed to stand 
 over for treatment in a subsequent chapter.* 
 
 The answer to be here given to the above objection is Methya 
 the following one : When any one says first, " I am hot," 
 and subsequently, " I know that I am hot," he does make 
 two assertions, each of which refers to a separate and dis- 
 tinct fact. The former refers to a direct fact of sensation, 
 the latter refers to a fact of reflex mental activity — the one 
 whereby the knowledge of that direct fact of sensation is 
 [recognized. It is by no means, however, here affirmed ^ 
 fthat such second reflex mental act is at all necessary for 
 real knowledge ; otherwise the objection above made — 
 namely, that such reflex acts must be repeated " for ever, 
 so that we can never attain any real knowledge " — would 
 be well founded. Such a second reflex mental act, how- 
 ever, though not necessary for real knowledge, is necessary 
 for a particular kind of real knowledge. We may know 
 indeed directly, and without reflection, that we are hot ; but 
 if we desire to have that reflex kind of real knowledge by 
 which we know as a fact that we have that first direct kind 
 of knowledge, then, in order to obtain it, we must of course 
 make such second act, and so on. If we were to make up 
 our minds to obtain a series of twenty such more and 
 more reflex kinds of knowledge, then, of course, we must 
 repeat such acts twenty times over. Certainty attends the 
 direct first act, but not that kind of certainty which one 
 has when one says, " This present state of consciousness 
 exists." After having the first conscious feeling, which by 
 itself is enough to impart knowledge and certainty, a man 
 may expressly advert by one reflex act, to himself as having 
 the feeling, or, by another, to the feeling itself as being felt. 
 These are both implied in the first direct act, though they can 
 only be explicitly recognized by the requisite turning back 
 of the mind in one or other direction. To the statement 
 that " we cannot consciously feel without knowing that we 
 feel," the answer is : we cannot, indeed, so feel without Expudtaitd 
 knowing _£^iiii<V<»W that we feel, though we can so feel ^vw^^^^. 
 without explicitly recognizing the fact. In the very same 
 
 * See below, ch. xiv. Memory. 
 
24/,, ON TRUTH. 
 
 way also we cannot consciously feel without knowing 
 implicitly that we exist and have the feeling, i.e. without 
 recognizing implicitly our enduring " self" or " ego," though 
 we can so feel without recognizing ourselves explicitly — 
 as is manifest from the contentions of those who deny the 
 supreme certainty of our self-knowledge. Indeed, our 
 " self-knowledge " and our " knowledge of a present state of 
 consciousness " are, as it were, parallel to each other, and 
 lie on either side of the direct act of consciousness which 
 contains them both implicitly, but neither of them expli- 
 citly. Our direct, simple, immediate perception is always, 
 as before said, one of self-modification — in doing, existing, 
 or being acted on — the simple apprehension of some expe- 
 rience of our living being. Not, of course, of the "doing" 
 as " something being done," or of the action as " being an 
 action," or of "one's self" as "one enduring, substantial 
 \l existence," but of our own concrete activity — of the fact 
 itself, and not of the fact as "being a fact." The "self" 
 — the substantial, continuous being — is indeed, we have 
 already fully admitted, only deliberately perceived and 
 explicitly recognized by reflection. But the " state of 
 consciousness " is itself in the very same case. It is, then, 
 to be positively denied that, in the primary direct mental 
 act, we know the existence of a " feeling " or " state of 
 consciousness " one bit more than we know the existence of 
 the being who has the state. Though both the " self 
 the " state " are implicitly contained in that direct act 
 consciousness (the "self" quite as vividly as the "state"), 
 yet neither the one nor the other is given explicitly in 
 that direct act, nor can be recognized without reflection 
 — without a secondary, separate, reflex act of mind^ 
 
 (Feeiinp But though wc need such a separate mental act for the 
 
 cannot be .. . 
 
 *««t.»tw7A. explicit recognition of either (i) "our endurinp- self" or 
 out iClf- , , ^ ^ " 
 
 i'»^'^-tcdet [2) our ' states of consciousness," yet that law by which 
 we can know nothing singly, prevents our being able to 
 explicitly recognize the one without, at the very same time, 
 implicitly recognizing the other. That we cannot fully 
 know "ourselves" save by a reflex act is true, but that very 
 reflex act which makes us explicitly conscious of our own 
 being, is accompanied by a consciousness of our feelings 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ice oi ^ 
 " an dp 
 ict of 
 
SELF-KNO W LEDGE. 2 5 ^ 
 
 also. That we cannot fully know our " feelings " save by 
 a reflex act is also true, but that very reflex act which 
 makes us explicitly conscious of our feelings, is accom- 
 panied by a consciousness of the self which has those 
 feelings. Indeed, the word " feeling " is absolutely mean- 
 \ ingless for us except with reference to a something which 
 'has " feeling ; " as the word "self" is meaningless except 
 \with reference to something which is " not-self," the notion 
 pf which is implicitly contained in the notion of self, as 
 Will be more fully pointed out in a subsequent chapter. 
 Thus we trust we have already made plain the fact, the 
 certainty of which is here contended for, namely, that we i 
 have equally certain knowledge of " ourselves " and of I 
 our " feelings," and that neither can be known apart from I 
 the other. If it were true, then, that we cannot know our- 
 selves with certainty because we cannot know ourselves 
 apart from our feelings, it would also be true that we cannot 
 know our feelings with certainty because we cannot know 
 those feelings apart from ourselves. But the fact of our 
 knowledge of our own feelings is conceded on all hands. 
 The fact of our knowledge of ourselves must then be 
 conceded also. 
 
 To make our contention still plainer, let us make a 
 further supposition. Let us suppose that a man of ordinary 
 susceptibility has received a slap on the face. What is 
 ■ his immediate, explicit perception? Not that a certain " state 
 of consciousness " exists, nor that there is an " enduring 
 self" which has become newly modified. His direct per- 
 ception is that he has been struck, and different " feelings " 
 will accompany that perception according to the circum- 
 stances of the case. He may then, if he pleases, explicitly 
 examine his "feelings" or explicitly consider " himself" as 
 affected by what has occurred ; and, in either case, he will, 
 by so doing, hold up, as it were, to his mind's eye, the 
 " feelings " or the " self," and regard them by that second 
 application of the intellect which we have before termed 
 " reflex." But he cannot so examine his " feelings " with- ^ 
 out a, perception that they are his, owri,..Jior examiiie i 
 
 "himself " without a perception of the more or less^ vivid I 
 
 feelings which JiaveJustbeen^o.^ggd.Jjy^i^ \ 
 
 a 
 
 Ak- 
 
26^.i, 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Ill 
 
 f 
 
 '/ 
 
 Feeling net 
 
 
 As a yet further illustration of what we mean, let us 
 imagine a man engaged in a fencing match. Such a man 
 will plainly have his attention directly engaged in the 
 carrying on of the contest. Nevertheless it is no less plain 
 that during all the time he is "parrying," "lunging," etc., 
 he is both conscious of his feelings — his states — and also 
 of himself carrjnng on the struggle. Yet it is neither 
 his "mental states" nor his "persistent self" which he 
 directly regards, but his concrete activity — what he is doing 
 and what is being done to him. He, indeed (like the man 
 whose face we have supposed to be slapped), may, if he 
 has a natural turn for self-examination, direct his attention 
 from these direct perceptions in order either to analyze 
 his feelings or note his underlying personality. Should 
 he do so, however, a hit from his adversary's foil will be 
 the pretty certain consequence, and may serve to make 
 him aware of the new direction his thoughts have taken. 
 
 Once more : To perceive anything we are in the act of 
 doing {i.e. to do it consciously, and not as in sleep-walking 
 or reverie) is one thing ; to think either about the feeling 
 which may accompany the doing, or about the self which 
 has the feeling, is another, second kind of act. In that 
 second kind of act we may explicitly attend either to the 
 feeling or to the self, both of which, as before insisted on, 
 are perceived implicitly, though not explicitly, in the first or 
 direct act. To say that the explicit recognition of the " feel- 
 ing" or "state of consciousness" is prior to, or has any 
 greater validity than, the explicit recognition of the " self," is 
 false in fact, and contradicts what our own consciousness tells 
 us about ourselves. We then altogether deny the assertion 
 referred to, and, on the contrary, affirm that our knowledge 
 of our own substantial, continued existence (the "self" or 
 ego) is as primary, as fundamental, as certain, as direct, and 
 as infallible, as is our knowledge of the existence of any 
 given "state of consciousness." Who, indeed, can know [ 
 his " state of consciousness " at any given moment, except 
 by analyzing his direct perception by a reflex act ? To 
 know that one " has a feeling," or " is in a state," or even 
 that " a feeling exists," is plainly an act by which no one 
 begins to think. It is evidently a secondary act— an " act 
 
 ^ 
 
SELF-KNO W LEDGE. 2 7^ 
 
 i ■ .. ^^ 
 
 I of reflection." No one begins by expressly perceiving his 
 f perception a bit more than he begins by expressly advert- 
 ing to the fact that it is he himself who perceives it. He 
 begins (as before said) by having some other direct per- 
 ception of acting or being acted on, in which perception 
 both the "self" and the "states of feeling" are implicitly 
 contained. To explicitly note that the " perception " or^ 
 "feeling" exists, is, at least, just as secondary, just as in- 
 direct, just as reflex, and just as posterior an act as it 
 is to explicitly note that the "self" exists which has the 
 perception. We say "at, least," but we believe that of |^ 
 the two perceptions — (i) " feelings," and (2) "self" — it is i*^""^ 
 Ihe self which is the more prominently given implicitly in « J/_ 
 lour primary cognitions. We believe that a more laboured 
 fact of mental digging is reqiilsite to bring explicitly to light 
 Ithe implicit "state," than to disclose the implicit "self" 
 %yhich has that state. Men are continually and promptly 
 adverting to the fact that thoughts, feelings, actions, and 
 sufferings are tJieir oivn, but do not by any means so con- 
 tinually and promptly advert to the fact that the feelings 
 which they experience are existing feelings. Therefore oneU/^nda- 
 of the greatest and most fundamental errors of our day ishrror andi] 
 the mistake of supposmg that we can know our states otjsesuences. y 
 feeling or their existence, more certainly, directly, and in-l /^j 
 
 fallibly than we can know the existence of the substantiall 
 continuous self which has those feelings. \ 
 
 This great and fundamental error has arisen from a 
 failure to note that though the existence of our feelings 
 i may be known with supreme certainty, yet their existence 
 ^ cannot be so known without a certain turning back of the 
 mind on itself, and that this very same process of reflection 
 suffices to give us supreme certainty of our own existence 
 also. A recognition of that existence is indeed a necessary 
 condition for our being able to affirm that there are such 
 things as feelings at all, and — as was said at the beginning 
 of this chapter — if we cannot be certain as to our own 
 existence, our inquiry after truth may be given up as one 
 essentially insoluble. We may give it up because if we 
 lean know nothing with certainty but the feeling of the 
 . fjissing moment, then most certainly we can have no 
 
\^ 
 
 / 
 
 28 ON TRUTH. 
 
 certainty as to arguments or even words which have been 
 used by ourselves or others, and so all reasoning must 
 come to an end. More than this, we can have no certainty 
 even with respect to our own past thoughts and we cannot 
 therefore even think with any profit concerning such a 
 matter as the pursuit of truth ; we can but amuse ourselves 
 with idle imaginings devoid alike of any certain aim or 
 any trustworthy guidance. Let us, however, once see 
 clearly — by the aid of such reflections as those offered in 
 the preceding chapter and in this one — that not only does 
 certainty exist, but that we may have complete certainty 
 as to at least one supremely important fact, namely, the 
 fact of our own existence, and most important conse- 
 quences will follow. The certainty of this fact affords us a 
 firm and solid foundation on which we may erect a temple 
 of truth, and it is on this account that we have with so 
 much — we hope pardonable — reiteration sought to make 
 evident its certainty. How it is that this primary mental 
 fact is so important, and how we may securely advance 
 from it to the acquisition of other certainties to assist us 
 in our quest, the following pages will show ; and our next 
 step will be to try and make clear the self-evident certainty 
 of another fact, the certainty of which can be shown to be 
 involved in the certainty we have of our own existence. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 The trustworthiness of our faculty of memory is a second fact which 
 is involved in the primary fact of our self-knowledge. That our 
 faculty of memory is veracious, is a truth which is self-evident, ', 
 incapable of proof, and cannot be denied without producing 1 
 absolute scepticism. I 
 
 Second fundamental fact^ the trustworthiness of memory — What the 
 word " memoryii'' denotes — Recollections and reminisce7ices — Cer- 
 tainty of memory involved in self-ktiotvledge — Truth of memory 
 cannot be proved — A curious fallacy — Absolute scepticism results 
 from the distrust of memory — The objective and subjective — 
 Consequences of memory'' s truthfulness. 
 
 j The two preceding chapters have brought us thus far : 
 I " There is such a thing as certainty, and amongst those 
 I things which are supremely certain is the fact of our own 
 lexistence." In our pursuit of truth, we may next consider second/un- 
 ^ second fact, the certainty of which is involved in \.\\dit /act^lkf 
 |of our own persistent and continuous being. This second ne'slT/"'''" 
 fact is the trustworthiness of our faculty of memory. But ""^'"°^' 
 many objections to the unqualified assertion of its trust- 
 worthiness will readily occur to the reader's mind. It is 
 obvious that not only may we sometimes fail to recollect 
 events in which we have borne a part, but that we may even 
 fancy some circumstances to have been the very reverse of 
 what in fact they were. We occasionally meet with people 
 in a state of doubt as to whether they had or had not some » 
 particular past experience, and with others who feel confi- 
 dent they were witnesses of something which they were 
 never near witnessing — as George the Fourth is said to 
 
30 ON TRUTH. 
 
 have made himself believe that he was present at the 
 battle of Waterloo, or as women have died for their con- 
 viction that they had actually ridden through the air on 
 broomsticks. It is plain that individuals may make mis- 
 takes as to what they remember, and defects of memory 
 which occasionally occur are very singular and surprising. 
 Thus some persons may lose the recollection of particular 
 parts of speech — as of all adjectives or all pronouns — and 
 others, who have sustained some injury of the head, may 
 find great gaps in their memory of the past, which gaps 
 will gradually close up as they recover from the effects of 
 the damage inflicted on them. But such exceptional 
 phenomena do not tell against the fact of the general 
 trustworthiness of memory. 
 
 In the last chapter it was shown that the existence of \ 
 idiots and of half demented persons unable to recognize ' 
 their own personal identity, did not tell against the cer- 
 tainty of our self-knowledge generally. It was also 
 declared that this work is addressed to persons of ordinary 
 capacity, and is not intended as a means for remedying 
 any exceptional intellectual deficiency ; and this, of course, 
 also applies to any abnormal deficiency in, or perversion 
 of, the power of memory. But an objection which seems 
 at first to have much force in it may be made to memory's 
 truthfulness. It may be said that our recollection as to 
 
 I anything whatever is less trustworthy than is our know- 
 ledge of what we are actually experiencing at the moment. 
 kj Now, it is of course true that our knowledge of many past 
 ^ Ij ' events is not so absolutely certain as is our knowledge 
 ^ of some present events ; but what we are concerned with 
 here is not the trustworthiness of particular facts of 
 memory, but thc_veracjty.j:if our faculty of memory. It is 
 to be freely conceded that individuals may make occa- 
 sional mistakes as to this or that past event, but the trust- 
 worthiness of our faculty of memory, as^a^ faculty, remains 
 absolutely certain notwithstanding. It informs us as to 
 some portions of the past as certainly as our consciousness -j^ 
 informs us concerning some portions of the present. Such 
 is the case, since we cannot have, even as to the present 
 that supreme certainty which accompanies our reflex con- 
 
^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 MEMORY. 31 
 
 sideration about anything we may be actually experiencing 
 — as when we say " Now I certainly am hot " — unless our 
 faculty of memory is supremely certain also — as will 
 shortly appear^'' 
 
 Let us first, however, see what the term "memory" whattiie CX^ 
 really denotes. Evidently we cannot be said to remem- ''""memory" ^' 
 ber anything unless we are conscious that the thing we "''°^^^' ** 
 
 so remember has been present to our mind on some 
 previous occasion. An image might recur to our imagi- 
 nation a hundred times ; but if at each recurrence it 
 seemed to us something altogether new and unconnected 
 with the past, we could not be said to remember it. It 
 would, in fact, be rather an example of extreme " forget- 
 fulness " than of " memory ; " though we, of course, should 
 not know that it was such, since we should not know that 
 it had any relation whatever to the past. In " rnemory," . 
 then, there are and must be two distinct elements. The 
 first element is the reproduction before the mind of what ; '.'■ 
 has been before it previously, and the second element 
 is the recognition of what is so reproduced as some- 
 thing actually connected with the past. There is yet 
 a further distinction which may be drawn between acts 
 of memory. Every now and then we direct our attention 
 to try and recall something which we know we have for 
 the moment forgotten, and which we instantly recognize 
 when we have managed to recall it to our recollection. 
 But besides this voluntary memory, we are sometimes Recollections 
 startled by the flashing into consciousness of something nLe>Z"s' 
 we had forgotten, and which we were so far from trying 
 to recollect, that we were, when it so flashed into conscious- 
 ness, thinking of something entirely different. A distinc- 
 tion, then, is to be drawn between those acts of memory 
 in which, by a conscious direction of the will, we search 
 for and find something wc desire to recollect, and those 
 acts of memory by which we have a spontaneous, unsought jj' 
 reminiscence in consciousness of some past experience. 
 The former class may be conveniently distinguished and 
 spoken of as "reco/lections^' and the latter as " renih iis- 
 "^^cen^^sll. It is obvious, however, that neither of these kinds 
 of memory can exist without consciousness. No repetition 
 
 V 
 
& 
 
 r^24'/ ON TRUTH. 
 
 of a feeling is an act of memory unless we are conscious of 
 it as, not only existing, but as also related to the past. 
 The 'significance and importance of these remarks will 
 appear later * , 
 
 ceriaintyof It was Said just uow that the supreme certamty of our 
 Sw faculty of memory, is a necessary condition for therecog- 
 '^:^ci,e nition even of our own present existence. We can, mdeed, 
 have that immediate perception of our own present activity 
 which was declared in the last chapter to be direct and 
 ^V Xrimary, but we cannot obviously have the reflex percep- 
 tion, either of our feelings or of ourselves, without trusting 
 jour power of memory as to the past. For, however rapid 
 'may be our mental processes, no mental act takes place 
 without occupying some period of time,t and when we turn 
 back the mind to consider the perception "self" or the 
 " feelings " involved in our direct perception of self-action, ; 
 that perception of self-action is and must be already past.' 
 tl /We cannot, therefore, know either a present feeling as 
 \ [ being a feeling, or the fact of our own existence as being a 
 •'''V persistent existence, without trusting our faculty of memory. 
 \ As, then, we are with reason most absolutely certain of our 
 " own existence " and of our " feelings," it cannot be with 
 less reason that we are also absolutely certain as to the 
 [fact of the trustworthiness of our faculty of memory, 
 [absolute certainty as to which is necessarily involved in 
 ;our absolute certainty as to the existence of ourselves and 
 ^our feelings. These observations are merely offered for 
 the purpose of clearing away any obscurity which may 
 temporarily exist in the reader's mind about a matter, the 
 truth of which will be clearly certain to him when he care- 
 Truiho/ fully considers what his own consciousness tells him. Our 
 7a7,^be observations are certainly not offered him as constituting 
 /r<nw. ^j^y p^Qf^f Qf ^.j^j^ veracity of memory, because its veracity 
 is a self-evident truth, and therefore requires no proof. 
 Proof of it is, indeed, impossible, as no process of argument 
 can be carried on except by trusting in memory's veracity. 
 
 * .See below, ch. xiv. 
 
 t No mental act lakes place in us without the aid of our nervous system, 
 and the rate at which an influence passes along our nervous system varies 
 according to circumstances, and is always very slow compared with the transit 
 of some physical forces, such as electricity, light, etc. 
 
 \i 
 
MEMORY. H 
 
 In fact, without trusting memory we could never be certain 
 that any one step taken in a hne of argument had been 
 taken, or that the meaning of a proposition, or even of a 
 word, as understood by us at the moment of using it, had 
 the same meaning as it had antecedently had. The trust- 
 worthiness of the faculty of memory is, then, one of those 
 things most evidently and supremely true, the search for 
 which was declared in the first chapter to be one of those 
 steps in the pursuit of truth to be taken next after the 
 recognition that such a thing as certainty exists. It is 
 also one of those fundamental facts upon which all our 
 future arguments must be based, and which were, in the 
 same chapter, represented as being at the root of all 
 certainty. 
 
 An objection has been made to this view of the self- a curious ) 
 evidence of memory's veracity, and it has been very strangely "' ^^' 
 declared that we may trust our faculty of memory, not y-f 
 because its certainty is self-evident, but because we learn ' // 
 its trustworthiness by experience. But any one maintain- 
 ing such a proposition as this, necessarily contradicts 
 himself flatly. Our past experience can have no value 
 whatever for us if we do not trust our memory, by which 
 alone we can possibly tell that we have had any such 
 experience at all. To doubt the veracity of our faculty I 
 of memory destroys the value of all experience whatever, . 
 and, therefore, he who would maintain that our certainty 
 as to memory is based on experience, must say in effectj 
 that " the faculty of memory being by itself untrustworthy,' 
 we learn its trustworthiness by what is untrustworthy also," 
 or, in other words, that " we can never have had that 
 thing (namely, ti'ii^stworthy experience) by having which 
 we have obtained our knowledge of memory's trustworthi- 
 ness." Surely never was a contradiction more patent, or a 
 fallacy more obvious ! What can be the possible value of 
 any experience which we cannot be certain that any one 
 ever had, and which we ourselves can never have had, since 
 we cannot, by the hypothesis, trust our faculty of memory ? 
 How can we ever gain experience if we do not trust 
 memory in gaining it ? Particular acts of memory may 
 of course be confirmed by experience if the faculty of 
 
 D 
 
34^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 memory be already confided in, but in every such instance 
 
 it must be confided in. Any person who would maintain 
 
 the above fallacy must profess to place confidence in his 
 
 present act of memory, because in past instances its truth 
 
 has been experimentally confirmed, and he can only know 
 
 that it has been so confirmed by trusting his present 
 
 I Absolute memory! Therefore, neither by experience nor in any 
 
 I ^resuUs'j^om othcr way can we prove the trustworthiness of our faculty 
 
 \menw^f of mcmory, which we know for certain without proof. For 
 
 ^ although our memory by no means vouches for the past 
 
 with the same force in all cases, yet there are some past 1 
 
 events of our lives which our present state of mind tells - 
 
 us we know with certainty. Some things we may know 
 
 we have forgotten, other things we may not feel clear 
 
 about, but as to some other things, memory makes them 
 
 evident to us, as it doubtless makes evident to the reader 
 
 of this passage that he did begin to read it, and that he 
 
 was doing something else before he began to read it. 
 
 Indeed, if we can be certain of nothing past, we cease 
 
 I thereby to be reasonable beings. If we cannot trust our 
 faculty of memory, then all history becomes a mere present 
 dream for us, as also does the whole of physical science. 
 What experiments, what inductions can prove anything if, 
 when we have made them, we cannot be sure such experi- 
 ments were ever carried on or such inductions drawn .■' As 
 has been pointed out a short time ago, even our reflex 
 knowledge of our own existence and our own feelings 
 must vanish, if we deny the trustworthiness of memory. 
 Our absolute certainties as to our own past and as to our 
 present experiences (beyond feelings actually being felt 
 at the moment) rest, indeed, upon the same basis, and if 
 we may trust, as we must trust, our reflective consciousness 
 at all, we must also trust our faculty of memory, upon the 
 veracity of which the very use of our reflective consciousness 
 depends. Therefore, to distrust the faculty of memory is 
 to fall necessarily into absolute scepticism, which was shown 
 in the first chapter * to be a very foolish state of mind, 
 and a system which so refutes itself, and is so absurd as j 
 to be incapable even of being rationally stated. We are ' 
 * .See above, p 7. 
 
 \^ 
 
 '/ 
 
MEMORY. 35 
 
 therefore compelled to trust, and to practically admit the 
 veracity of, our faculty of memory, even if disposed to 
 verbally deny it. We are compelled to do so by the very 
 constitution of our nature, and we are driven to do so 
 because otherwise all knowledge, all rational speech, all 
 reasoning, and, indeed, all consecutive thought, become im- 
 possible. But we do not accept and trust in our memory 
 on account of these reasons, but because it carries with it 
 its own evidence. With respect to the many matters about 
 which we are absolutely certain, we feel spontaneously and 
 without reflection the evident truth of our present know- 
 ledge of our own past, and reflection only serves to make 
 that past more clearly, distinctly, and explicitly evident ; 
 just as it serves to bring out more clearly, distinctly, and 
 explicitly that primary and direct knowledge of our own 
 feelings and existence, which is implicitly contained in 
 our perceptions. 
 
 As has been before pointed out, the natural, spontaneous/r/^^^i/^f- 
 tendency of the mind, especially in childhood and yo\x\^\\s7tbjective. 
 is not to look inwards upon the mind itself but outwards^ 
 upon surrounding objects, which objects make various im-l 
 pressions upon the mind of the person who regards them.| 
 That person himself is the subject of such actually present 
 impressions which he is directly conscious of as his own 
 present experience. All such direct, present feelings of 
 him who is the subject of them, are spoken of and dis- 
 tinguished as " subjective " — they are states of the subject 
 who feels. Everything which is not a present feeling or 
 state of consciousness is, on the other hand, spoken of and 
 distinguished as " objective." What is objective, then, is not 
 a state of the subject who feels, but is to be understood as 
 something external to his feelings. It is desirable that this conse- 
 distinction between what is " objective " and what is " sub- Vnlmor/s 
 jective " should be clearly comprehended, in order that we Ve'sf/^"''' 
 may be better able to appreciate certain consequences 
 which follow from a recognition of the trustworthiness of 
 our faculty of memory. Whatever we feel, we feel by the 
 help of our senses, and we can be directly conscious of no 
 feelings except those which are being felt at the time we 
 are conscious of them. Thus, all that is felt, and all that 
 
U; 
 
 36 ON TRUTH. 
 
 we are immediately and directly conscious of, belongs to 
 the category of what is subjective, and nothing is subjective 
 which we are not thus conscious of But our own con- 
 tinuous existence, though perceived with certainty, is not 
 felt, and neither it nor our feelings are perceived as such 
 with immediate, direct consciousness. They cannot be 
 so perceived. They cannot be perceived except reflexly, 
 because — as we saw in the last chapter — they need for their 
 distinct recognition the turning back of the mind upon 
 itself, which thus considers its " continuous being," or 
 "its feelings," or both, as the case may be, and holds them 
 up to the mind's eye as objects upon which it looks. They 
 thus belong to the category of what is objective. That 
 they are but states of the mind which regards them does 
 not prevent their being looked at as objects external to I 
 that mind, while it is in the act of regarding them, any| 
 more than the image seen by one looking at himself in a 
 glass is any the less a thing different from him who looks, 
 because all the time it is really but the reflection of himself 
 which he sees. The reflections of the mind as perceivedA A;(V. 
 in direct cognition are present and " subjective," but as j -^ 
 recognized by reflection they are things which are past, #-«' 
 however recently past. They are thus made objects of/ 
 contemplation by the mind, and are therefore " objective." 
 yjy >r ^^'^^ more, then, must the persistent, continuous self, or e^o^ 
 be " o\)\<^^^'v^L- sinre it never is, and never has been 
 (lirrclly pcrcci\cd, while a recognition of its duratiorf 
 diumg past time is an essential element of its being per- 
 ceived at all. We recognize and know these things, as 
 before said, only through memory, by the help of which 
 we are enabled to unite^he past with the present, and say, 
 ■^ J am ." Now, these two words signify a great deal ; they 
 signify that he who utters them recognizes past acts as his 
 own acts, and that a continuous unity (himself) has con- 
 tinued essentially unchanged through a greater or less 
 number of more or less varied experiences. By asserting 
 the trustworthiness of memory we affirm that our intellect 
 has the power of knowing a certain objective existence, 
 and an existence which is not, and cannot be, perceived by 
 our senses, because the senses can only feel what is present 
 
MEMORY. 37 
 
 and can never feel what is past. The very fact of feehng 
 anything shows, v/ith absolute certainty, that the thing felt 
 is present. But a very little thought about our faculty of j 
 memory shows that by its aid our intellect can perceive . 
 with certainty that which is not present — such as some past ! 
 event of our lives — and that which is not, and never could | 
 be felt — namely, our own continuous being. But some one ( 
 may say that our continuous being can be felt because our '• 
 
 I own body can be felt, and continuously felt for a consider- 
 able time, so that we are under no obligations to memory 
 [in recognizing our continuous existence. Our own body 
 lean, of course, be felt in different ways at once, and our 
 
 (experiences in feeling it can be indefinitely repeated or 
 prolonged. But each time we feel it, we can but have the 
 present feeling, and, apart from memory and reflex acts of 
 the mind, we cannot know its existence as continuous and 
 enduring. Our persistent body, once more, can easily be 
 felt, but it can never be "felt" as enduring, although it 
 can be "recognized" as enduring by the help of repeated 
 sensations, when these are accompanied by acts of memory 
 and of mental reflection. This power which memory pos- 
 sesses of lifting us, as it were, out of our present selves, and 
 showing us a wide field of things external to our own minds, 
 which things, but for memory, we could never recognize, is a 
 very wonderful power. It is so wonderful that some per- 
 sons feel tempted by its inexplicable character to doubt the 
 veracity of their faculty of memory, or even to verbally 
 deny it. But, as we have seen, they cannot do so without 
 contradicting themselves, and committing intellectual 
 suicide by falling into the fatuous system of general 
 scepticism. The self-evident truth that our memory is 
 trustworthy is a fact involved in, and absolutely necessary 
 to, the full recognition of the first and most certain of all 
 facts for us — the fact of our own existence. 
 
 The certainty of these two preliminary facts being 
 clearly seen, we may next proceed, in our quest for truth, 
 to inquire about those supremely certain general truths or 
 principles which were declared, towards the end of the 
 first chapter, to be so fundamental that, without them, all 
 advance in knowledge is absolutely impossible. 
 
38 ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOME TRUTHS. 
 
 The primary abstract general principle is the law of contradiction, 
 which is self-evident and cannot be denied without involving 
 absolute scepticism. Other self-evident abstract general prin- 
 ciples are the axiom about the equality of things equal to a third 
 thing, and the law of causation. 
 
 First general principle, the /azu of contradiction — Difficulties in its 
 acceptation — A mistaken principle proposed in place of it — Denial 
 of the law involves absolute scepticism — A?t objection — What\ 
 produces a feeli7ig of uncertainty about the law — Knowledge of^ 
 universal truths not exceptionally wonderful — Second general 
 principle, an axiom about equality — A fallacious objection — Third 
 general principle, the law of causation — The idea of ^'' power" or 
 '■'■force " — A?i objection and its answer. 
 
 We have now advanced two distinct preliminary steps 
 in our pursuit of truth ; for we have recognized the 
 certainty of two fundamental, self-evident facts, namely, 
 the facts of our own existence, and of memory's trust- 
 ^ worthiness. But in our first chapter it was pointed out* 
 that, besides self-evident facts, a perception of two other 
 orders of self-evident truths must lie at the root of all 
 certainty. One of these two orders of truths concerned the 
 force and validity of certain arguments. We shall consider 
 those arguments in the next chapter. The other order of 
 self-evident truths consisted of general, abstract principles 
 
 ior laws, and it is to the consideration of two or three of 
 such laws that we must now address ourselves. It is plain, 
 indeed, that we cannot build up a temple of truth with 
 
 * See above, p. 12, 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 39 
 
 nothing but "facts," however numerous and solid they 
 may be. To do that we also need the aid of kiminous 
 general principles to guide us in the arrangement of our 
 facts, and valid reasoning to connect them firmly together. 
 In our endeavour to show clearly that there is such a thing 
 as certainty, some very plain truths were cited,* as examples 
 of matters about which no sane person can doubt ; and 
 in explaining the nature of " abstract truths," or " general 
 laws," or " general principles," or " necessary truths," two 
 truths were selected,! which it will suit our purpose to 
 here somewhat dilate upon. The first of these two thus First 
 selected abstract truths is called " the law of contradiction," /t^w^/^-, 
 and may be thus expressed : "A thing cannot, at one and contrZuc-j 
 the same time, both be and not be." If we reflect upon 
 this truth we shall see that it is an absolute and necessary 
 one — that it must be true even to the remotest regions of 
 space, and that it must be true both for all the ages that have 
 past and for all the ages that are yet to come. But some 
 readers may here once more be tempted to impatience at 
 being asked to reflect about anything, the truth of which 
 is so manifestly undeniable. In deprecation of such im- 
 patience, we would again urge the same considerations as 
 we before urged % in deprecation of impatience respecting 
 our inquiry as to the possibility of self-knowledge. Other 
 readers may feel discouraged because they do not at once see 
 the universal necessity of the law of contradiction. It is 
 possible that some persons may doubt as to how things in this \ 
 respect now are in the Dog Star, or how they have been m 
 this part of space during some unimaginable abyss of past 
 time, ages before the beginning of our world's separate 
 existence. It does, indeed, at first seem not a little difficult 
 to believe that a creature of the very limited powers which 
 man possesses can know such a thing as absolute, 
 necessary, and universal truth. How, it may be asked, x>/^<r«///W 
 can a being who, for a few fleeting moments, dwells in an acceptation. 
 inconspicuous atom of a boundless universe, know that 
 anything whatever is and must be true for all ages, and 
 for every possible region of that universe, however eternally 
 inaccessible to him ? At first sight a reasonable modesty 
 
 * See above, pp. 6, 7, f See above, p. J 2. % .See above, p. 16, 
 
40 ON TRU'lH. 
 
 seems here to characterize the sceptic, and rash presump- 
 tion the dogmatist. Nevertheless, if instead of consider- 1 
 ing this truth in its abstract form, we examine it in one of 
 its concrete instances, its certainty will become clearly- 
 manifest. For example, let any one who doubts if some- 
 thing somewhere may not both "be" and "not be," con- 
 sidcr whether it is possible for him (according to the 
 illustration before given) both to possess his two eyes here 
 and now, and at the same time to have only one of them ; 
 let him also think whether he could do so any better in 
 any other place than the place where he is, or whether it 
 could have been possible for him at any other time which 
 he can conceive of Again, let him ask himself whether 
 he could both have lived in the reign of Edward III., and 
 yet have never lived at all till the reign of Queen Victoria. 
 He will, surely, then see clearly that this is impossible to 
 him, as also that what is thus impossible for him, is 
 impossible for other men also. But that abstract truth, the 
 law of contradiction just quoted, is but the summing-up in 
 one general expression of all concrete, separate cases of 
 this kind. 
 
 Here, however, another objection may occur to the 
 
 reader. He may say, " It is very true that I cannot 
 
 imagine having two eyes and only one eye at the same 
 
 //. time, and so I must practically acquiesce in the statement > 
 
 \yJ that we cannot simultaneously have both eyes and only 
 
 one, simply because I am compelled thereto by my 
 
 inability to imagine otherwise." But so to represent the 
 
 matter, is to represent it not only inadequately but in a 
 
 mistaken way, the error of which requires to be pointed 
 
 prhl'ipic"' °^^' ^"*^ ought to be clearly seen. It needs to be so seen 
 
 %ZVoju. because this mistaken representation is by some persons 
 
 considered to be a supreme and ultimate rule of truth, and, 
 
 in place of the law of contradiction, it has been laid down 
 
 that " we must accept as true, propositions we cannot help 
 
 thinking, because we cannot imagine the contrary." But 
 
 if the reader will reflect over what his mind tells him 
 
 when it unmistakably pronounces that he cannot, at the 
 
 same time, both have eyes in his head and not have them, 
 
 he will see that this perception of his is a clear positive 
 
HOME TRUTHS. ■ 4 1 
 
 perception of incompatibility and consequent positive im- 
 possibility. He will not find his mind become a blank, 
 and declare nothing but its own inability to answer, as 
 he will find it do if he asks himself, " What is the dis- 
 position of the surface of the invisible side of the moon ? "1 
 or, '* Is the number of the heavenly bodies odd or even ? "I 
 His mind has indeed been active, and not impotent ; it has! 
 not declared that it was unable to answer his question, but 
 has declared very clearly that he positively cannot have 
 two eyes and, at the same time, have none, or only one. 
 In other words, it has in this concrete instance, as in every 
 other such instance, implicitly affirmed the law of contra- 
 diction. There are many things which we cannot think, aA' 
 merely through an impotence — a negative, passive inability, ^ 
 — to think them ; as when we cannot think of all the units 
 one after another, which would make a million. But such 
 an impotence is a very different thing from positively seeing 
 that anything cannot be because it is positively impossible. 
 This truth will be further illustrated when we come to 
 speak of the distinction * between our powers of imagina- 
 tion and of intellectual conception. To say merely, " We 
 cannot conceive the contrary of such proposition," is to make 
 a mere assertion of inability, and is therefore a quite in- 
 adequate description of that active power of positive per- 
 ception which we all act upon when w^e have to choose 
 between two alternatives. A mere mental impotence will 
 not guide us in our actions, but our actions are constantly 
 guided by our implicit conviction of the truth expressed in 
 the law of contradiction, though we may never in our lives 
 have explicitly recognized it, or ever heard a word about • 
 it. The simplest rustic knows that if his wages have been 
 paid to him, they are no longer owing, and that if he 
 has put his cart horse in the stable, it is no longer between 
 the shafts. The most learned of mankind are, of course, 
 hkewise continually guided in like manner, and to such 
 guidance we owe every scientific deduction. If, then, per- 
 ceptions of the kind were due to a mere mental disability, 
 we might well exclaim, not " Oh, holy simplicity ! " but *' Oh, 
 most mighty impotence ! " 
 
 * See below, ch. x., " Imagination and Conception." 
 
42 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 /y® 
 
 y 
 
 Denial of 
 the law 
 im'olves 
 absolute 
 scepticism. 
 
 Tlie distinction here drawn between positive and nega- 
 tive perceptions as to possibility, we believe to be a most 
 important distinction, which deserves to be very carefully 
 noted. By the former perception we see clearly that 
 a thing is "positively impossible" — an expression often 
 familiarly used. By the latter perception we recognize 
 cither merely that a thing is unknown to us, or that it is 
 impossible for us to know it. The former perception refers 
 to the objective* reality of things ; the latter refers only to 
 our own actual ignorance, or to our inability to become the 
 subject of such knowledge. 
 
 If we deny or doubt about the law of contradiction, 
 we are thereby landed in absolute scepticism, which, 
 as we have seen, is absurd. We are so landed because, 
 if we do not admit the validity of that law, then we can 
 be certain of nothing. To have read or heard arguments 
 against that law, which arguments have convinced us of its 
 unsoundness, will then no longer suffice to disprove an asser- 
 tion that we have also never read and never heard any such 
 arguments at all, and that we are all the time convinced 
 of its soundness. If anything can, at the same time, both 
 be and not be, then nothing can be affirmed as true with- 
 out the possibility of its being simultaneously untrue, and 
 so we are reduced to a condition of utter intellectual 
 paralysis, whereby no word and no thought can have any 
 definite meaning for us. That nothing can both be and 
 not be at the same time is, then, a positive truth, known 
 to us by its own evidence. It is no mere law of our 
 own minds, but is also a law which applies to all things ; 
 for we have seen that it so declares, if it declares any- 
 thing, in those examples we selected for testing it, and we 
 cannot accept its declarations as both absolutely true and 
 partly f^ilsc, for to do so would really be to reject it alto- 
 gether. It plainly declares itself not to be a mere "form of 
 thought " imposed on our intellect, but objectively certain, 
 independently of our intellect. It declares itself to be ab- 
 solutely and positively true, both universally and necessarily. 
 \To regard it, then, as a mere " form of thought " is to fall 
 |nto utter scepticism, for it is to contradict that, the certainty 
 
 * As to the term "objective," see above, p. 35. 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 43. 
 
 i of which is most evident to us of all propositions. It is 
 ' thus a fundamental truth, upon which not only all reason- 
 ing depends, but which applies to everything which exists ; 
 since we see clearly that even a Supreme and Omnipotent 
 Being could not — however dift'erent the existence of such a 
 Being may be from our own — both be and be non-existent. 
 
 An objection has indeed been made against the truth ^w""^- 
 
 r 1 1 r 1 • • • jection. 
 
 ot the law of contradiction and against every neces- 
 sary and universal law of the kind, on the ground that | 
 such laws may be no more than truths for us — truths I 
 regulating our mental processes and controlling our thoughts, 1 , . 
 but not necessarily holding good for the universe external { 
 to us. But this objection is futile, because, as we have 
 seen, what our minds declare is, not that a law exists \ 
 and that we are passively unable to get beyond it, but I 
 that we actively and positively see that the law con- | 
 trols things external also. If anything whatever is de- | 
 clared to us, the real objective validity of the law is 
 declared to us. This objective validity is affirmed by our 
 consciousness as much as anything else is affirmed by it, 
 and if we are to accept the declarations of consciousness at 
 all — that is, if we are to rise out of utter and universal 
 scepticism — we must accept the whole of what each such 
 declaration tells us, and not gratuitously omit part of it 
 or transform it into something else. We have already \ 
 seen, in our study of memory,* that our mind unques- ■ 
 tionably has the power of knowing not only its own •' 
 states and laws, but also objective existences and condi-j • 
 tions, and has, further, the power of recognizing suchr" 
 existences and conditions as being actually objective exist- 
 ences and conditions. What our mind declares is, not that 
 we cannot think that a man's head has been really cut off, 
 and, at the same time, really remains on, but it declares 
 that, in a real world external to us, a man's head could 
 not at one and the same time be both cut off and not cut 
 off ; and it also affirms that every sane mind and every 
 being possessed of real intelligence must see that nowhere 
 and at no time could a man's head be both cut off and 
 not cut off at one and the same instant. 
 
 * See above, p. 36. 
 
^ 
 
 >: 
 
 J, ON TRUTH. 
 
 „„ ,^ I But if this truth is so self-evident and so supremely 
 
 IV hat pro- I >■ •' 
 
 dj'cesa certain, how is it that any one can have that vas^ue feeling 
 
 feeling of I ' -' _ & » 
 
 ««t«r/aj«/)'| of doubt concerning' it, to which we adverted in the becrin- 
 
 aoout the I . 
 
 laTv. j ning of this chapter ? There are, in fact, three reasons for 
 this feeling of uncertainty. In the first place, the feeling 
 arises frnjIL^Viint of rpflpf^t-joj i ; reflex mental activity being 
 ~uhTamiliar to most men, and practice being needed for its 
 ready use. In th e second place, the law i? expres sed i n 
 a^stxaLt-texms^nd it is not nearly so easy for the majority 
 // 1^ of men to see the truth of an abstract proposition as it is 
 ^ i ^ to see the truth of the concrete instances from which such 
 abstract proposition has been derived. There is, however, 
 a third and yet more important reason for the uncertainty 
 which may be felt by those who, for the first time, meet 
 with the abstract expression of the law. This third reason 
 is _due,_to,.JJiat.. natural tendency of the mind, which was 
 noticed in our first chapter,* namely, the mind's tendency 
 to associate "a feeling of uncertainty" with " stateiae nts 
 about what is remote." Now, nothing could be more 
 " remote " from us than " the most distant regions of 
 space," and " times anterior to the existence of the world." , 
 It is no wonder, then, if this feeling of uncertainty is ! 
 strongly called forth by a reference to such very remote ' 
 conditions in connection with a law expressed with the i 
 most absolute and universal certainty. But it has been 1 
 shown, in the first chapter, that we are to be guided in our 
 judgments, not by such things as associated feelings, but 
 by the " self-evidence " to our intellect of any proposition 
 it recognizes as a fundamental truth ; and that if a pro- 
 position is vouched for by that test, it can have no higher. 
 If we were to doubt such a proposition, we should thereby 
 cut the ground from under all certainty whatever. 
 
 (Knowledge It is iudccd a wonderful thing that we should be able to 
 
 o/ universal « , , 
 
 trMtin not kuow auy absolute, necessary and universal truths, but never- 
 exce/itton- i i i • r i • 
 
 ally won. thcless this faculty is not so exceptionally wonderful as it at 
 der/ul. r • \ t /- i 
 
 first sight may appear. In fact, our knowledge of universal 
 
 and necessary truth is not really more mysterious than is the 
 
 rest of our knowledge. How we get any knowledge at all, 
 
 how we see objects, how we feel anything, is most myste- 
 
 * See above, p. 6. 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 45 
 
 rlous, and all our knowledge, deeply considered, is very 
 wonderful. On the occurrence of certain changes in our 
 bodies, induced by surrounding agencies, we experience 
 "sensations." Through such sensations (actual and remem- 
 bered) " ideas " are aroused in us, and we perceive what 
 we know to be " external objects." Through our own 
 actions, and by things done to us, we recognize, as was 
 lately shown, both our "feelings" and our own "con- 
 tinuously existing self." Nothing can be more wonderful 
 than our faculty of memory, which gives us absolutely 
 certain knowledge of a continuously existing being — our 
 own personality — the continuousness of which it is im- 
 possible for our senses to perceive. Just as we have the 
 power of knowing that personality, so we have the power 
 of perceiving universal and necessary truths when the 
 occasions of knowing them are present. We learn them 
 through experience, as we learn other truths. As, when 
 a mental image arises in our memory, we may become 
 aware it represents a past experience, so, on a given truth 
 entering our minds, we may become aware that it is a 
 necessary one. There is really no more difficulty or 
 mystery in the mind's perceiving that nothing can both 
 be and not be, than there is in our knowing that we have 
 I been to Scotland if we have been there, or that a sensa- 
 , tion we have is one of warmth when such is the case. The 
 \ fact is so, and we perceive it to be so ; and the act by 
 \ which we do this is no more really marvellous in one case 
 ' than in another ; or, rather, every act of knowledge is 
 ; alike marvellous. We know things, and we know that we 
 know them. How we know them is a mystery indeed, 
 but one about which it is idle to speculate, as it is abso-. 
 lutely insoluble. The mystery of intellectual knowledge I 
 runs parallel to the mystery of sensation ; we feel things 
 savoury, or odorous, or brilliant, or melodious, as the case 
 may be ; and, with the aid of the scalpel and the micro- 
 scope, we may investigate the material conditions of such 
 sensations. But how such conditions can give rise to the 
 feelings themselves, is a mystery which defies our utmost 
 efforts to penetrate. Yet, because we cannot discover this, 
 we never doubt our sensations, and we have as little reason 
 
46 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Second 
 general 
 princifJe, an 
 a.xioi>i nlh'ul 
 equality. 
 
 / 
 
 to doubt our perceptions of necessary, self-evident truths. I 
 To doubt them is not to be exceptionally intellectual, but ■ 
 exceptionally foolish. It is to commit intellectual suicide, 
 and sink — as we have seen — into the proximately idiotic 
 condition of absolute scepticism. 
 
 Let us now turn to the second of the two abstract general 
 principles given as examples in the first chapter, which 
 was the axiom that "things which are equal to the same 
 thing are equal to each other." As with the former 
 principle (the law of contradiction), so here, if any one 
 has a vague feeling of doubt, his best course will be to 
 think of concrete instances of it. If, for example, two 
 pieces of wood are each found to be just equal in length 
 to a third piece, which is a yard measure, he cannot doubt 
 that the length of the two will be equal, as they will both 
 be just a yard long. Having thought of a variety of such 
 instances of different kinds of equality, let him again con- 
 sider the abstract law (which is the common expression 
 of the whole of them), and see if it is not evident to his 
 mind that this equality between the equals of a third 
 thing, must positively always and everywhere exist. In 
 our perception of the truth of this law, some other very 
 fundamental perceptions are necessarily involved, as will ; 
 become obvious at a slight glance of the mind inwards 
 upon itself Thus it is obvious that this law, as it concerns I 
 equality generally, must concern every kind of equality 
 — equality not only between "quantities," but between 
 " qualities " and " relations " also. Two children of the 
 same mother are equally her children, and if she feels an 
 equal love for the two, then each is beloved as much as 
 is the other. It may seem superfluous to state distinctly 
 such mere truisms, but in the pursuit of truth the inquirer 
 has nothing to guide him but his perception that a state- 
 ment is evidently true, and it is, therefore, necessary to 
 make very sure with respect to each and every step he 
 takes. Things which agree together in quantity, quality, 
 or relation, are so far alike, while they cannot be thought 
 of as " alike " unless they are also thought of as existino- 
 and yet distinct ; since nothing can really be said to be 
 like itself. Thus in this axiom we have involved the ideas 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 47^^ 
 
 "distinctness," "similarity," and "existence" — ideas which 
 will occupy us hereafter,* and which we shall come to see 
 are of the most fundamental character. 
 
 But the principle about the equality between things equal a fallacious 
 
 to something else, being an axiom of Euclid, leads us on to 
 
 consider an objection which has been made to our reposing 
 
 confidence in what our minds seem to tell us about the 
 
 necessary truths of geometrical laws. Creatures have been 
 
 imagined living on the surface of a sphere, and devoid of 
 
 thickness, so that they coincide with that surface, and are 
 
 able to have experience of length and breadth in curves, but 
 
 none of heights or depths, or of any straight lines. To such \ 
 
 creatures, it has been said, our geometrical necessary truths / 
 
 would not appear " truths " at all. To such creatures " a 
 
 straight line " could not be, as it is for us, the shortest of 
 
 all lines, and two parallel lines, if prolonged, would, for 
 
 them, enclose a space. Therefore the truths which appear 
 
 to us to be necessary geometrical truths, cannot really be 
 
 such. To this fanciful objection it may be replied that 
 
 beings so extraordinarily defective might likely enough 
 
 be unable to see geometrical truths plainly perceptible to 
 
 more perfect beings such as ourselves, but that if they 
 
 could conceive of such things as our "straight" and 
 
 " parallel " lines at all, then there is nothing to show that 
 
 they would not also perceive those very necessary truths 
 
 concerning them which are evident to us. Moreover, the 
 
 very men who make this fanciful objection, actually show, 
 
 by making it, that they themselves, in fact, perceive the 
 
 necessary truth of those geometrical relations the necessity 
 
 of which they would verbally deny. For how otherwise 
 
 could they affirm what would or would not be the necessary 
 
 results attending such imaginary conditions ? How could 
 
 they confidently declare what perceptions such conditions 
 
 would certainly produce, unless they were themselves 
 
 absolutely convinced of the validity of the laws regulating 
 
 the experiences of such beings, and of the certain truth 
 
 of their own perceptions concerning the actions of such 
 
 laws } If they affirm the absolute truth of their own 
 
 representations, they must think that they perceive (and 
 
 * See below, ch. x , "Perceptions, Ideas, and Sensations." 
 
48 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Third 
 general 
 principle, 
 the law of 
 causation. 
 
 they must therefore impHcitly assert the existence of) 
 absolute, necessary truth, or else their own argument itself 
 falls to the ground. 
 
 Amongst the most constantly recurring experiences 
 of everyday life are, in the first place, perceptions of effects 
 produced by one thing on another ; and, in the second 
 place, inquiries after the causes which may have brought 
 about some occurrence, or the consequences which may 
 follow from it. Somehow or other, whatever may be the 
 reason or origin of it, it is a fact that the notion of 
 "causes" which act, and "effects" which follow from their 
 action, is embedded in our minds, and ever ready to spring 
 up and show itself Now, this notion of " cause " has led 
 some persons to assert it to be a law of the universe that 
 " every existence must have a cause," and to further affirm 
 that our own minds tell us that such is and must be the 
 case. With good reason, however, it has been replied not 
 only that many persons, after the most careful scrutiny, 
 affirm that they have no internal witness of this kind, but 
 also that the assertion itself must be false, since if every 
 existence has a cause, then God, if he exists, must also 
 have a cause, and that cause must have another cause, and 
 so on for ever. Nevertheless, though our minds are far 
 from seeing the evident truth of the assertion, " everything 
 has a cause," yet we do perceive something or other about 
 causation. Now, if we examine our minds as to what this 
 something is — what they look out for in this respect — it 
 will, we believe, appear that when some change occurs, or 
 when anything strikes us as being a new thing, we always 
 spontaneously look out for its cause. What our minds really 
 seem to us to declare about causation, is in harmony with 
 this natural habit of mankind, and may be thus expressed : 
 " Every new existence is due to some cause." Such a law, 
 or principle, is of course incapable of proof, but its self- 
 evidence is made clear to us both spontaneously and on 
 reflection. It is made clear spontaneously by our very 
 habit of looking for, or recognizing the need of, some cause 
 with respect to any change in things already existing, and 
 for anything which we may recognize as having newly 
 come into being. It is also made clear to us by reflection | 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 49 
 
 as follows : It is manifest that what does not even exist, 1 
 cannot act. Every cause, then, must be something which | 
 exists, and whatever does not exist cannot be a cause./ 
 Therefore anything which comes newly into being cannotf 
 be caused by itself, because it could not have acted beforelj 
 it was. It must, then, have been brought into being by' 
 the agency of something else which was its cause. Every 
 change in a thing which already exists is also, to a certain 
 extent, itself a new existence, since it is a new mode of 
 existence. It cannot, therefore, have been produced by 
 itself, because it is a new mode, and it cannot be a cause 
 before it comes into being at all. It must, then, be due 
 either to some distinct existence, or to some other mode 
 of existence of a thing which already exists. Thus if a 
 door which was open is now shut, it must have been shut 
 by something else — a current of air or what not. If a cat 
 is now awake which was asleep, this must be due either 
 to something external which has awakened it, or to some 
 vital action of its own frame, which has aroused it from 
 its dormant state. 
 
 Again, all and every object made known to us by our \ 
 senses is seen to be necessarily the product of some cause / 
 or causes external to itself. This is, of course, most mani- / 
 festly the case with every product of human art ; but no 
 stone which we tread on, or no patch of sand or mud, can 
 have come to be as it is, without antecedent causes and con- 
 ditions which made it as it is and not otherwise. Not only 
 the more or less complex structure of any solid body, but 
 its size, position, divisibility, and its existence at the time 
 it does exist, are all due to antecedent actions of other 
 things which determined its various conditions of existence. 
 Even a portion of matter which, so far as we know, is not 
 made up of other material substances — such, e.g., as a 
 diamond or a piece of gold — demands a cause for its 
 relations to things around, and for its own size and internal 
 minute conditions ; and the latter two circumstances would 
 demand a cause for their being as they might happen to 
 be, even if such a body existed alone by itself in the 
 universe. Everything, then, which can be seen not to have 
 a sufficient cause of its own existence within itself, must 
 
50 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 be due to some cause or causes external to it. Only some- 
 thing which is absolutely simple, indivisible, and eternal,' 
 can escape from this law of universal causation. This 
 perception of the need of a cause, is not a mere negative 
 condition, due to an impotence on our part to imagine a 
 thing we have never experienced. It is a positive percep- 
 tion. Let the reader test this for himself Let him 
 examine his own mind and see whether, when he considers 
 the shape of a stone, he finds himself passively and blindly 
 compelled also to imagine something fashioning it, or 
 whether he does not actively and positively perceive that 
 its shape, etc., must have been due to some antecedent 
 cause or causes. 
 
 Idea of _ / It may be well here at once to direct attention to a very 
 
 or"/orce:\ fundamental notion which is implied in the foregomg 
 
 judgment, namely, the notion of "power" or "force." 
 
 That such a thing exists we know through the exercise 
 
 of our own bodily force, or power, and by our power of 
 
 will. The idea of power is a primary, ultimate idea, which 
 
 cannot by any mental dissection or self-examination be 
 
 reduced to more fundamental constituent ideas. Such is 
 
 the writer's conviction. If the reader thinks otherwise, let ) 
 
 him try and ascertain of what more fundamental ideas the 
 
 idea " power " consists. 
 
 An objection^ But thc objcctivc validity of our perception as to the 
 
 answer. junivcrsal truth of the law of causation has been denied on the 
 
 Aifollowing grounds : "We have often enough seen one thing 
 jor event follow another, but we have never once perceived 
 / I any inflow of influence of one thing into another ; and yet 
 y/| the law of causation implies the existence of such a thing. 
 I We have never really seen or felt ' causation,' but only 
 \ sequences of one kind or another. Therefore there is pro- 
 bably nothing but sequence, and our idea of the inflow of 
 influence in causation is a mere mistake derived from 
 foolishly transferring in imagination to external things, that 
 ' feeling of effort' which we experience in our own actions, 
 such mistake being then perpetuated by custom." But this 
 objection admits of a ready answer : It is quite true that 
 we never see or feel physical causation itself, for the very 
 good reason that it is invisible and intangible. But although 
 
HOME TRUTHS. 5 I 
 
 our senses cannot perceive it, our intellect may ; and there / 
 i? one instance at least wherein the inflow and action of 
 causation is distinctly perceptible to us. This is our per-., 
 ception of the inflow of the influence of motives.upoii.OiUL 
 will. When we resolve from some motive to perform 
 an act, we are conscious not merely of the existence of 
 that antecedent state of things, which is named "a 
 motive," and of that consequent which is our " resolve," 
 but also of the motive as something- urging us. We know 
 and feel that it is active, and exerting an influence upon 
 us; that it emits, as it were, a force stirring our will. We 
 have also an experience of the force of causation when 
 anything resists our will. In the latter case the influence 
 is antagonistic to an act of will already formed ; in the 
 former case, the influence excites towards the formation 
 of such an act of will. So much may be said here in 
 reply to this objection, but we might have adequately met 
 it by simply repeating what was stated so fully in the 
 first chapter concerning the pursuit of truth itself. It was 
 there pointed out, with respect to fundamental truths, that 
 what we have to ask is, not how we came to know them, f; 
 but whether they are evidently true ; not how their truth | ;" 
 can be proved, but whether they are self-evident and need I 
 no proof With respect to the " law of causation," we 
 I have seen that its truth is borne in upon us by its own 
 evidence, not only spontaneously in each instance of it 
 which comes under our notice, but on reflection also ; and 
 the more we reflect, the more we see the evident truth and 
 universal, objective * necessity of the law that every new 
 existence is due to some cause, which is as certain as is 
 the law of contradiction itself; for if that which has as 
 yet no existence could nevertheless be a cause, then it 
 would no longer be the case that nothing can at the same 
 time both be and not be. The declaration of our minds 
 (both spontaneously and on reflection) tells us little about 
 the nature of that cause to which every new existence 
 must be due, save that it must be, in each case, adequate 
 to produce the effects it has produced. Such a cause may 
 itself be some change or new existence, or it may be some- 
 
 * See above, p. 43, for a reply to a sceptical objection. 
 
 /. 
 
52 ON TRUTH. 
 
 thing of indefinite stability and duration ; as, e.g., a collision 
 between two sidereal bodies may be due to the past ex- 
 istence during an unimaginable time of two such bodies 
 proceeding along paths which ultimately coincide. 
 
 After this preliminary inquiry in quest of some self- 
 evident, fundamental truths, we may proceed to address 
 ourselves to the consideration of the self-evident force of 
 some argfuments. 
 
( S3 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REASONING. 
 
 Ratiocination can make things known to us which were before un- 
 known, by rendering knowledge actual and explicit, which was 
 before but latent and implied. Such processes of reasoning are 
 valid and absolutely trustworthy. 
 
 So/ne reasoning must be valid — Inference denied to (lie syllogism — 
 Shoivji to exist by examples — The syllogism makes implicit truth 
 explicit — Difference between implicit knozvledge a7id actual know- 
 ledge — A gerieral principle may be more evident than a concrete 
 example — Force of the word " tJierefore " — Logic — Inference i7n- 
 plies imperfection of the intellect. 
 
 As we remarked towards the end of the first chapter,* 
 no one who himself argues, or who listens to or reads, 
 with any serious intention, the arguments of other men, 
 can, without stultifying himself, profess to think that no 
 process of reasoning is valid. If the truth of no mode oi some 
 reasoning is certainly true, if we can make no valid ''nntsTle^ 
 inference, then all arguments must be useless, and to '^"^'"^' 
 proffer or to consider them, alike vain. A forced abstinence 
 from reasoning, due to such doubt, would, however, carry 
 with it yet more disastrous consequences ; for if we doubt j 
 about one self-evident truth, we may doubt about all, and ■ 
 we should thus be landed once more in that absolute seep- ( 
 ticism we have seen to be so self-destructive and irrational, i 
 But the truth of the " inference " that any given man will \ 
 die, provided it be true that mortality is the lot of all ^ 
 men, is a statement the truth of which is self-evident. No 
 one can possibly deny its truth, though some persons will 
 
 * See above, p. 12. 
 
54 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Inference 
 denied to 
 the syllo- 
 gism. 
 
 Shown to 
 exist ly 
 exa?!!jles. 
 
 deny that it contains any process of " inference." In order | 
 to see whether this is the case, let us draw out formally, ! 
 for examination, the old stock example of the syllogism — 
 with its major and minor premisses, and its conclusion — '; 
 thus : " All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore '■ 
 Socrates is mortal." Those who object to such reasoning 
 say, " Whoever has said that ' all men are mortal,' has 
 already said that ' Socrates is mortal ' also. The so- 
 called ' conclusion,' is therefore but a repetition of part 
 of the major premiss, ' all men are mortal.' Here, then, 
 we really have no inference at all, but merely a restate- 
 ment. We do not in truth ' conclude ' that Socrates is 
 mortal, but we only say over again, with the mention of 
 his name, what was said before without the mention of his 
 name." 
 
 / To test the force of this objection, let us see, by an 
 
 I example, what our meaning is when we declare that any 
 
 ! one object belongs to a certain class of objects. Persons 
 
 I ignorant of zoology may fancy that a whale is a fish, but a 
 
 ■ knowledge of these matters is now so general that few will 
 
 ; be surprised to read the statement that "a whale is a 
 
 ^Jhipa<;t " Now, when we make this statement, what do we 
 
 ; mean ? We mean that a whale, in spite of its shape and 
 
 *exclusivelv marine mode of life, is nevertheless more 
 
 closely allied in its nature to such creatures as cattle, beasts 
 
 of prey, etc., than it is to any fishes. Even if we are 
 
 zoological experts, we do not, in saying "A whale is a 
 
 beast," distinctly advert in our minds to all those various 
 
 anatomical conditions which characterize the class of 
 
 beasts, but only to the fact of the predominance in its 
 
 organization of the marks which distinguish that class of 
 
 animals. We can if we choose, however, turn back our 
 
 mind, and mentally, or verbally, refer to any one of such 
 
 marks, or characters, and recognize the fact that the whale, 
 
 inasmuch as it belongs to the class of beasts, must have that 
 
 particular character so referred to, out of those various 
 
 marks which are common to the whole class. Thus we / 
 
 may say to our.selves, or others, "The whale, being a beast,' 
 
 must have warm blood." In this manner we bring forward 
 
 into explicit recognition a character, the existence of which 
 
REASONING. 55 
 
 in the whale was implied in saying it was a beast, but 
 which, nevertheless, was not distinctly present to the mind, 
 may never have been even thought of before, and there- 
 fore never actually known — for we cannot be said to know 
 what is not anB never has been present to the mind. In Thesyiio- 
 i saying, then, "All beasts have warm blood, JThe^whale is a implicit 
 Jifiae+T+iTerefore the whale has warm blood," a new fact is expudt. 
 brought distinctly and explicitly iDefore consciousness 
 which previously was but latent, and so the conclusion of. 
 the syllogism does impart knowledge. Thus the syllogism \ 
 affords fresh knowledge to the mind by bringing about the \ 
 explicit recognition of a truth which before was implicitly \^ 
 contained in an assertion to the effect that a certain object \ 
 belongs to a class which has certain attributes. This / 
 process of bringing out into clear recognition a matter 
 which before was latent, is a process of " inference " the 
 whole force of which resides in, and is expressed by, the 
 word " th^ eiJQi'ej" as we shall shortly more clearly see. 
 Let us suppose a person to be looking at some very flexible 
 and soft kind of fish. He may perhaps say to himself, • 
 " This creature cannot have any spinal column in it." 
 Then it may strike him that naturalists have classed fishes, , 
 together with various other animals, in a great group, one 
 character of which is the possession of a spinal column. 
 He will then further say to himself, " Since it is a fish, 
 it must, however soft and flexible it may be, have a spinal \ 
 column." Thus he will really obtain by inference the ' 
 knowledge of a new truth. It may, however, be further 
 objected that by our explanation we have admitted the 
 major premiss to implicitly contain the conclusion. But 
 this further objection, to have any force, must be under- 
 stood as saying in effect that implicit and explicit know- 
 ledge are, at least practically, the same thing. For if Difference 
 
 1 ■ • 1 II))' 11 r betiuetn ijn- 
 
 "implicit knowledge is not actual knowledge, a IdiCt pi'dt know 
 
 , . . , . , ,, . . . . , iecige and 
 
 implicitly contained in a major premiss is none the more actual 
 "actually known" on account of its being so contained 
 therein ; and manifestly anything which makes " actually 
 known" what before was not actually known, must con- 
 vey fresh knowledge. There is, indeed, so great a differ- 
 ence between explicit and implicit knowledge that the 
 
V 
 
 56 ON TRUTH. 
 
 latter may not really deserve to be called " knowledge " at 
 all. A little consideration will, we think, make this clear 
 beyond all dispute. No one will venture to affirm that a 
 student merely learning the axioms and definitions of 
 Euclid, will, by having done so, have become at once 
 acquainted with all the geometrical truths the work con- 
 tains, so that he will have no need to study its various 
 propositions and theorems, all of which he will thus know 
 without having once read them. Yet all the propo- 
 sitions about circles, triangles, etc., in his " Euclid " 
 are implicitly contained in the definitions and axioms. , 
 Although, then, he knows that mass of geometric truths 
 implicitly, in knowing the definitions and axioms, he does 1 
 not, for all that, really and actually know them at all. In | 
 order that he may come actually to know them he must go 1 
 through those various processes of " inference " by which 1 
 the different truths implicitly contained in Euclid's defi- 
 nitions and axioms are brought to the student's knowledge 
 explicitly. There would be much more weight in the 
 assertion that the conclusion of a syllogism is contained in 
 1 the major premiss, if that premiss were a truth which had 
 i been arrived at by an examination of every single instance 
 ; of the kind referred to in it.' For example, if every tree in 
 ' a certain garden had been examined, and found to be a 
 conifer, then the assertion, "All the trees in that garden 
 are conifers," would be a truth of that kind. It would have . 
 been the result of an examination of every fact referred to — 
 or, in other words, it would have been arrived at by what 
 is called "a complete induction." In a syllogism with a 
 proposition of this kind for its major premiss — e.g. "All 
 the trees in the garden are conifers. This tree is a tree in 
 the garden, therefore this tree is a conifer " — the conclusion 
 is not contained in that premiss in a merely implicit 
 manner. It is, however, very rarely the case that the 
 major premiss expresses a truth arrived at by a complete 
 induction, and in some sciences, and these chiefly the exact 
 sciences, it is never so. In most cases we arrive at the 
 
 general principle of our argument — the major premiss 
 
 from a consideration of but a few, sometimes but one or 
 two, instances. Thus no one can pretend we know that 
 
REASONING. 57 
 
 " the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right 
 angles," by a complete induction — by an examination of 
 every existing triangle. The examination of a very few 
 triangles suffices to make us aware of that general law. If, 
 then, our attention is directed to a certain triangular figure, 
 and we are asked, "Are its angles equal to two right 
 angles ? " we shall not be able at once to answer the ques- 
 tion by any direct and immediate perception of the figure 
 as a figure. We can do so, however, indirectly and 
 mediately, through recognizing that it is a triangle, if \\q 
 already know that the angles of such a figure are always 
 together equal to two right angles. Here, then, we know 
 the conclusion by the help of a major premiss. 
 
 There is yet another consideration. As a general vu\e '^a general 
 J } the truth of abstract principles is best brought home to VLSimayutwre 
 
 li • ^ !• c i_*j_ • •j_i evident than 
 
 ' . by a consideration of some concrete instances in "^oxvA.^ a concrete 
 / ■ We have thus, for example, made use of various suclij'^"^'"'^'''' 
 '" instances to illustrate the truth of the principle of contra-j 
 diction and other abstract, fundamental principles, li 
 sometimes, liowever, happens, on the other hand, that aii 
 abstract general principle is more evident than is a con-^ 
 Crete example of it. Thus, let us suppose we are inquiring 
 whether some particular action will be a rightful action for 
 us to do, and that the circumstances connected with the 
 action are very involved and intricate. We may see 
 clearly that a variety of good results will follow from our 
 performing it, which will confer benefits on many people, 
 : and these results may so strike us that we may be dazzled 
 ; by them, and led at first to think it our duty to do it. On 
 \ further consideration, however, we may see that the action 
 \ would be essentially an ungrateful action, while we are 
 •quite clear that ungrateful actions are wrong actions; and 
 so, by this latter consideration, we shall be led to decide 
 against performing it. Here, then, it is our perception of 
 the relation existing between a particular action and a 
 general principle condemning ingratitude, that enables us 
 to form a clear judgment about the matter, and to decide 
 against performing the action. In such cases it is manifest 
 that the major premiss of a syllogism does bring know- 
 ledge to our minds. 
 
58 aV TRUTH. 
 
 Force ft/te\ The objectioiis to syllogistic reasoning which have been 
 fore:' "'"", now considered, appear, then, to be devoid of all solid 
 foundation, and to be mistaken and misleading. The 
 self-evidence of the proposition that some reasoning is 
 valid, on the other hand, plainly shows itself. It shows 
 itself in that idea of the mind which we express by the 
 word " therefore/ ' When we use the word " therefore," we 
 '^mean to express by it that there is a truth, the certainty 
 of which is shown through the help of different facts or 
 principles which themselves are known to be true. A 
 slight examination of our own mind will show us that 
 there are many things which become known to us as a 
 consequence of our knowing other things. Thus, from an 
 examination of the composition, content.s, and surroundings 
 of a piece of rock, we may come to know that ages ago 
 it formed part of the bed of the sea. The greater part,! 
 indeed, of the knowledge we acquire throughout our whole! 
 life, is acquired in this indirect way. This process of gain- 
 ing knowledge indirectly, is the process of " inference," or 
 "drawing conclusions," and the idea expressed by the word 
 " therefore " is contained, whether expressed or not, in 
 every such inference made and conclusion drawm. 
 
 Logic. We are here only concerned to make it clear to the 
 
 reader that some processes of inference are valid, and not 
 to point out to him what processes of inference are valid. 
 It is the task of logic to show what are the rules for draw- 
 ing such inferences — whether the inferences are (as in the 
 syllogism) "deductions" as to particular facts, which are 
 inferred from more general truths, or "inductions" as to 
 general laws, which are inferred from particular facts. 
 Logic points out the laws which govern legitimate deduc- 
 tion and induction, because deduction and induction are 
 V / two departments of human mental activity ; for logic may 
 'f be considered as being both the "science" of the laws of 
 thought, and the " art " directing the fit, practical application 
 of those laws. To obtain guidance, therefore, in the matter 
 of drawing inferences, the reader is referred to the various 
 
 Inference spccial works dcvotcd to the exposition of logic. But we 
 
 impliis im- . . , . , 
 
 perfection 0/ 2.XG. torccd, by our mental constitution, to obtain the greater 
 
 theinttUcct. - / , , , . ., . , ° , 
 
 part ot our knowledge — as before said — in this roundabout 
 
REASONLYG. 59 
 
 way, i.e. by processes of inference. Were our intellect of 
 a much higher order, it is conceivable that we might be 
 able to see equally well, and, at the same time, all those 
 truths which a proposition may contain implicitly as well 
 as explicitly, and all those general laws which particular 
 facts may signify. In that case there would be, of course, 
 no process of inference for us. All those truths we are 
 at present compelled to laboriously gather indirectly, by 
 inference, would then be directly evident to us, just as our 
 own activity and as self-evident fundamental truths are self- 
 evident to us now. Having, however, the relatively im- 
 perfect natures we have, we must be content with such 
 roundabout, though practically sufficient, methods as those 
 expressed by our valid processes of reasoning. We must 
 be content to change implicit truths into actual knowledge 
 by placing propositions side by side, so that by such juxta- 
 .position we may be able to see explicitly, truths, otherwise 
 jinvisible to us, which lie hidden beneath them. They are 
 f thus brought to the surface, and seen by us to be " therefore " 
 ' true. 
 
 Reasoning, then, is a process which is to be trusted in 
 
 confidently, when carried on logically according to the 
 
 laws of thought. It is not, however, and cannot be, 
 
 the highest kind of act of which our intellect is capable. 
 
 Such highest act is that by which it recognizes truth 
 
 directly, without adventitious aid — as when it perceives 
 
 self-evident facts, and those fundamental principles which 
 
 we have seen also carry with them their own evidence, and 
 
 need no proof 
 
 j Enough has, we trust, here been said in support of the 
 
 i conviction — so continually acted on by us without reflec- 
 
 \ tion — that some processes of reasoning are valid. We will 
 
 next proceed to pass in review certain other convictions 
 
 which are the common property of mankind. 
 
6o ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ASSERTIONS AND BELIEFS. 
 
 Human testimony and common sense may afford grounds for j 
 absolute certainty. -^ 
 
 Vulgar opinion may be very inistaken or absolutely true — Human 
 testimony — Common sense — Conditiotis necessary to its tnist- 
 ivorthiness — Grounds of certainty — Uniformity of Nature — Re- 
 capitulation of the section^ s contents. 
 
 Vulvar Amongst the convictions respecting matters of every- 
 
 opiuioti may , , . - . j. o 
 
 be very mis- day life vvhicli are common to men generally, are many 
 ahsoiutety which arc due to, and rest entirely upon, the assertions 
 of their fellows. Many other convictions seem also to 
 occur to them naturally, without their being able to give 
 any account of them or to defend them, except by saying 
 ^om rnon sense shows ^hey must be true." But that there 
 are a multitude of vulgar errors current amongst men, and 
 that egregious credulity is far from uncommon, are both 
 notorious facts. So it may, at first sight, seem reasonable 
 for him who would inquire after what things are the most 
 certain, to leave on one side matters of mere popular opinion 
 and vulgar common sense, as being of a nature too uncer- 
 tain to deserve his notice. But to be guilty of such neglect 
 would be to make a very great mistake ; for propositions 
 of the kind may be matters of complete and absolute 
 I certainty and therefore must receive some attention from 
 j,' the student of truth. Human testimony, and the spon- 
 /^ taneous judgments of uneducated men, may, under special 
 / circumstances, both carry with them evidence, to every 
 well-balanced mind, of their absolute veracity. 
 
 (^ 
 
ASSERTIONS AND BELIEFS. 6 1 
 
 Let us first consider hunian testimon}^ That an amount Human 
 
 c 1 I'l 1 ' -iriii testimony. 
 
 oi credence which, to us moderns, seems itseli hardly 
 credible, was given in uncritical ages to written and spoken 
 assertions respecting matters of the utmost moment, is a 
 fact with which we are all familiar. Persons who, in the 
 exercise of their profession, have been accustomed to weigh 
 evidence, generally agree that an absolutely correct narra- 
 tion by any witness of a series of events is extremely rare. 
 The untrustworthiness of statements about natural phe- 
 nomena made by ignorant persons, often becomes ludi- 
 crously evident to the man of science, and the main task 
 of our historians is, by careful^^iticism, to get rid of 
 prevalent delusions due to the mendacity, credulity, or 
 stupidity of their predecessors. In spite of this, no 
 reasonable and well-informed person will deny that he can 
 be forced to believe, with absolute certainty, many matters 
 about which he may have no evidence but that of human 
 testimony. Thus, such a person will not doubt that there 
 was, in 1870, a Franco-German war, or that a revolution 
 took place at Paris in 1848, or that the battle of Waterloo 
 was fought in 181 5, and so on. No such person, again, will 
 say he is uncertain whether Sicily is an island ; or whether 
 there is a country called Canada ; or whether Berlin is 
 the capital of Prussia. When a variety of witnesses of 
 different ages, classes, and interests, uniformly and per- 
 sistently agree in certtfying-to a fact not in itself incredible, 
 and one within their competence to testify to, it would be 
 unreasonable to doubt it. For though errors of observa- 
 tion are common enough, 3'et a number of people thus 
 differing from each other are not likely simultaneously to 
 fall into the very same error of observation ; and though 
 many men are liars, yet, in the absence of any common 
 interest, such a variety of people will not concur in tellin''" 
 the same lie. Individuals are liars, and conspiracies to lie 
 are too frequent ; but the majority of men do not habitually 
 lie. There is, therefore, a certain probability in favour of 
 the truth of any ordinary assertion, and this probability 
 ■ rapidly increases according to the number and condition 
 :i of the witnesses who may add their testimony to it. 
 
 It has been objected to this last assertion that the 
 
62 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Crtnmon 
 sense. 
 
 testimony of one witness can only be " probably " true, and 
 therefore the testimony of many witnesses can also be only 
 "probable," since no number of mere "probabilities" 
 added together can make a " certainty," which is a matter 
 of a different kind. But this objection is groundless, for 
 the following reason : the absence of certainty which we 
 may feel with respect to the evidence of one witness, is not 
 necessarily due to any defect on his part, but may spring 
 from our ignorance as to the possibilities of mistake and 
 unveracity, in any single case. These possibilities, how- 
 ever, rapidly diminish with the increase in number and 
 variety of the independent testimonies borne to any one 
 event, on account of the increasing improbability of a 
 general, simultaneous delusion or deceit. It is, therefore, 
 absolutely impossible for all men to unite in telling one 
 and the same lie — indeed, the idea is so absurd that it may 
 seem superfluous to refer to it ; but the reference has its 
 utility, as will appear later on.* 
 
 The amount and readiness of credence to be given to 
 assertions, varies with the nature of the assertions and the 
 circumstances of the witnesses, according to rules laid down 
 in special treatises devoted to that subject. What concerns 
 us here is, not any inquiry about what testimony we are to 
 accept, or how we are to test it, but simply the recognition 
 of the fact that human testimony may, under special cir- 
 cumstance, afford amply sufficient grounds for absolute 
 and complete certainty. 
 
 Let us next consider those convictions which are said 
 to be due to " common sense." Such judgments are not 
 the result of any conscious reasoning process. They are 
 not reflex mental acts,t and do not refer to abstractions, 
 but are clear, direct judgments about definite matters of 
 fact. They, to a certain extent, resemble the instinctive 
 perceptions of animals, and, as is the case with such per- 
 ceptions, are not peculiar to individuals, but are the common 
 property of the race. Any ordinary, uneducated men, if 
 asked whether the sun may not begin to ascend on some 
 afternoon instead of setting, or whether winter may not come 
 before Michaelmas Day instead of after, will probably think 
 * See below, ch. xvii., " Ideas of Existence," etc. f See above, p. 3. 
 
'/// 
 
 ASSERTIONS AND BELIEFS. 
 
 that their questioner is either joking or insane, but they 
 will not hesitate as to their own convictions about the sun 
 or the seasons. If pressed to say why they are so certain 
 about such things, they will be pretty sure to reply that 
 to doubt them would be against " common sense." It 
 does not follow that there are not very good reasons for 
 such common sense judgments — reasons which can be 
 logically drawn out — because the men who make the judg- 
 ments cannot so draw them out. For example, with respect / 
 to the sun and the seasons, they might, if better educated, 
 appeal to " the theory of probabilities," " the principle of 
 causality," and " the laws and conditions of the solar 
 system." Thus the judgments of "common sense " may be 
 well grounded and thoroughly scientific, although those 
 who judge do not see how they are so. It is, indeed, this 
 character of being well grounded, without any distinct, 
 conscious knowledge on the part of those who so judge 
 of the grounds of their judgment, which makes them judg- 
 ments of " common sense." Now, there is a consideration 
 due to recent advances in science, which greatly enhances 
 the value of "common sense," and should specially incline 
 evolutionists to rely on it. We refer to that theory, 
 according to which, the spontaneous tendencies of the 
 individual are the outcome of the past experience of the 
 race and of the various different ancestors of the race. 
 Thus considered, common sense will be seen to enshrine 
 something much greater than the opinion of the individual. 
 It may, then, justly demand respectful consideration (though 
 not slavish subjection), as being the expression of the judg- 
 ment '6r~many generations of men. Nevertheless, the 
 number of vulgar errors is so great that it is obvious we 
 i cannot feel any certain conviction about a "common sense " 
 I judgment, except under special circumstances, however 
 much we may be disposed — owing to the consideration just 
 mentioned — to accord it a respectful preliminary hearing. 
 Thus no such judgment can__be_jDf the least 
 relates to any matter about which ordinary 
 not at once agree. For an opinion cannot be " common 
 to mankind if the spontaneous judgments of a section of 
 the unreflecting decide against it. It would not invalidate 
 
 diy licciiuig. 
 
 ; value if it Conditions \ 
 , , necessary to I 
 
 men womd its trust- I 
 
 ,, ,, worthiness. / 
 
64// ON TRUTH. 
 
 such a judgment, however, if it should be opposed to the 
 views of some speculative philosopher, for such men, as we 
 have seen, have denied the possibility of self-knowledge, and 
 even the principle of contradiction. Secondly, the subject 
 of common assent must not be one of too special a nature 
 ^ to be a fit matter for the uneducated to judge about. 
 Jj^ Obviously if the subject is one not within the reach of un- 
 educated minds, and not such as plain men may judge of, 
 their judgments about it cannot merit confidence. But 
 though men may arrive at practically true judgments 
 without going through a conscious process of reasoning, 
 no judgment which is contrary to reason can be true, 
 however it may be arrived at. Therefore, in order that 
 any common sense judgment should be accepted as cer- 
 tainly true, it must be able to stand any test of reason, and 
 must overcome any attempt on our part by reflection to 
 resist or avoid it. Lastly , a common sense judgment, in 
 order to be regarded as certain, should concern some 
 matter of real importance, or be connected more or less 
 j closely with the conduct of life. It should be so connected 
 if we are to regard it as the product of the constant expe- 
 rience of antecedent races of mankind ; for no trifling or 
 unpractical matter could thus constantly impress itself 
 ^ forcibly and uniformly on human consciousness. If, how- 
 ever, all these conditions are fulfilled — if, that is to say, 
 a "common sense" judgment is (i) acquiesced in by 
 Ir\ all ordinary men, (2) refers to some simple matter, (3) 
 *^^ stands the test of reason, and (4) has to do with the conduct 
 /^ of life, then we think it affords one means of certainty. 
 Thus such judgments as, " If a dozen men fire at a target 
 with their eyes shut they will not all hit the centre," 
 or, " If a quantity of printer's type is thrown hap-hazard 
 on the ground, it will not so fall as to form a set of verses," 
 will, we think, be accepted by the reader as judgments 
 which are perfectly certain, and he will probably only 
 object to them on the ground of their triviality. The 
 bringing forward of " trivial examples " and " truisms " 
 seems to us, however, the best, if not the only way of 
 meeting absurd objections, which, if acquiesced in, must 
 lead to absolute scepticism, and so hopelessly block the 
 
ASSERTIONS AND BELIEFS. 65/ 
 
 .way of the inquirer after truth. The trustworthiness, in 
 i special circumstances, of " testimony " and of "common 
 i sense" are two more facts, perceptions of the truth of 
 which are amongst those lying at the root of all our 
 knowledge. But the disciple of a scepticism much less 
 than "absolute," may profess complete indifiference to both 
 " testimony " and judgments of " common sense." The 
 scepticism here referred to is that which would doubt 
 or deny the existence of any external world independent 
 of the individual mind. It is plain that a man Who doubts 
 or disbelieves in the existence of his fellow-men, cannot 
 attach any importance to what may delusively appear to 
 be either their judgments or their testimony. To the con- 
 sideration of this special form of scepticism, termed Ttvf ^/M- 
 ISM, the whole of the next section will be devoted, and it 
 is~^y way of anticipation of the conclusion to which we 
 believe that section will lead, that we venture here pro- 
 visionally to enumerate " testimony " and " common sense" 
 amongst our grounds of certainty. 
 
 These grounds or causes of fundamental certainty we (;>-^««</io/ 
 have seen to belong to three orders of perceptions — per- '^^'^ ""' '''■ 
 ceptions of particular facts, of general principles, and of t\ 
 the force of certain arguments. In considering these three VX 
 orders of perceptions, we have first treated of two particular v 
 facts, namely : (i) self-knowledge, and (2) memory. In the 
 next place we have considered abstract general principles, 
 whereof the most important is (3) the law of contradiction. 
 Then we endeavoured to show the validity of certain 
 processes of (4) reasoning, or inference. Lastly, we have 
 argued that if the independent existence of the world 
 around us be accepted as a truth, then we have two other 
 motives of certainty less fundamental in nature, and which 
 are therefore motives in a subordinate degree. These are : 
 (5) testimony, and (6) common sense, the trustworthiness 
 of which are two additional facts (much less fundamental 
 than those of self-knowledge and memory), our apprehen- 
 sions of the validity of which lie, as before said, at the root 
 of human knowledge. 
 
 One of the most important truths which men are con- unifonmty 
 sciously or unconsciously possessed of, is that of the^ 
 
 F 
 
 of Nature. 
 
66/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 1^ 
 
 " uniformity of Nature." It is manifest that in everyday 
 lif'e we feel perfect confidence that things will continue in 
 their wonted course. No one throwing up a ball fears that 
 it may never come down again, but spin away to the 
 moon or elsewhere. When we cannot perceive any change 
 in the circumstances attending some action which has often 
 taken place before, we feel sure that, the circumstances 
 remaining similar to what they were, the action will also be 
 like preceding actions of the same kind. This general 
 uniformity in the course of events is vouched for by the 
 common consent of mankind, and abundant testimony can 
 always be obtained that this uniformity has been ex- 
 perienced in the life of every person we may wish to con- 
 sult. Common sense does not say, and testimony cannot 
 affirm, that this uniformity is positively absolute, for we 
 cannot deny there may sometimes intervene unforeseen or 
 unknown powers or conditions. Nevertheless, the prac- 
 tical certainty that, given the same causes and conditions, 
 the same events will ensue, is universal and confident. 
 Moreover, a basis for this belief exists amongst those funda- 
 mental, necessary and universal truths which we have 
 already considered, namely, in the principle of causation.* 
 For any change demands a cause, and no change can 
 ensue without the occurrence of some adequate cause. If, 
 then, there is no difiference {i.e. no change of conditions) 
 between one set of antecedents and another, there can be 
 ry /no difference between the result in either case. Thus the 
 '' / fact of the uniformity of Nature, reposes both upon testimony 
 ' I and common sense, as also upon that principle of causation 
 V which we have seen to be a truth evident in itself. 
 
 It is now our task, by the harmonious use of these facts 
 and principles, to go forward in our quest for truth, first 
 by endeavouring to show the reasonableness of the convic- 
 tion that an external world does really exist (a conviction 
 which all men spontaneously accept and act upon), and after- \ 
 wards by examining what further leading truths we can f 
 elicit through the help of the study of those things we find I 
 to be revealed to us by the combined use of our senses,! 
 our imagination, and our intellect. I 
 
 * See above, p. 48. 
 
 / 
 
 fU 
 
ASSERTIONS AND BELIEFS. 67^ 
 
 AccorcHnfT to the argument carried on in this and the Rccapitu- 
 
 I , . . lation of ^/ie_^,^ 
 
 five preceding chapters, it is evident that certamty exists sections /^j 
 and can be justified to reason, while it is no less clear that " ^^^ 
 
 absolute scepticism is not only irrational but self-contra- "^^ 
 
 dictory. Since everything cannot be proved, while yet 
 ' some things are absolutely certain, it is manifest that there 
 must be truths which are self-evident and need no proof, 
 to believe which is the very reverse of blind belief, since 
 they are believed on the best evidence, namely, self-evidence, 
 than which no other or better test is even conceivably 
 possible for us. At the root of all certainty lie three orders 
 of truths supremely certain and self-evident — an order of j 
 facts, an order of principles, and an order of inferences.! 
 Tli£^primary fact is that of our own self-knowledge. We I f)-,^ 
 'Vrhave direct knowledge of our own being in its activity, f// • 
 whence, by a reflex act, we may observe either our feelings 1 
 or our continued existence, and we may become as clearly |^ 
 and certainly aware of one of these as of the other. Tlie.| 
 y second fact is that of the trustworthiness of the faculty of 
 V, memory, the denial of which would involve us in absolute^ 
 ■ scepticism, while its recognition shows us we can know 
 objective truth — namely, our own past. Amongst absolutely 
 ^ . certain general principles, the most fundamental is ^\\f law 
 \\ • of contradiction — a law so fundamental that it is impossible 
 •'"'"'^ for any one really to deny it without thereby also asserting it. 
 Geometrical axioms and the law of causation are also truths 
 which are absolute and self-evident. That we should know I 
 the self-evidence of these things is wonderful, but not more | 
 wonderful than is every kind of knowledge. There are valid ' 
 and absolutely certain processes of inference which make 
 latent truths manifest. It is plain that if we would reason, 
 or even think correctly, we must accept the practical ade- 
 quacy of speech to convey thought, and the validity of 
 inferences logically made. We must also admit the value, 
 under the requisite conditions, of human testimony, and 
 recognize the respect due to the common-sense judgments 
 I of mankind in ordinary, practical matters of everyday life, 
 t about which they may afford grounds for complete cer- 
 j tainty when submitted to various necessary, but easy and 
 I obvious tests. 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 IDEALISM, 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER ^i 
 
 VII. Idealism and Realism ...• ••• • > 
 
 VIII. Idealism and Science ••• ••• ^9 
 
 IX. The Key of the Position ••• ••• 7 
 
 97 
 X. Objections 
 
 XI. Idealism Old and New ... •■• ••• '3° 
 
( 71 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IDEALISM AND REALISM. 
 Explanation of these systems. 
 
 Need of studying " idealism " — What idealism is — Its attractiveness — 
 " Realism ''^—Method of procedure. 
 
 \ A DOUBT as to the real existence of the world about us ^^^^cdcf 
 
 \ must seem almost as startlingly unreasonable to him who '!f"^jl"fi, 
 
 '- hears of it for the first time, as the before considered doubt 
 
 ! respecting our knowledge of our own existence. That the 
 
 I mountains and rivers of the earth, the plants which clothe 
 
 '■ its surface, its varied animal population, the busy, teeming 
 
 world of human life and our own very bodies, the showers 
 
 and breezes which refresh, the tempests which destroy, and 
 
 the sun, moon, and stars which variously illum.ine, all have 
 
 a real existence in themselves, independently of a mind 
 
 observing them,, seems at first a matter too 'certain and 
 
 obvious"to admit of a moment's dispute ; so that any one 
 
 who professes to disbelieve it, must be like a man who 
 
 believes his limbs are made of glass, and more or less of a 
 
 I lunatic. Yet illustrious men of a very high order of intel- 
 
 I lect, some of them distinguished philosophers and others 
 
 \ masters in physical science, have not only professed to 
 
 doubt this, but have even positively denied either that any 
 
 independent world exists at all, or that its existence can, 
 
 by any possibility, be known to us. These leaders of 
 
 thought have also had a multitude of disciples and followers, 
 
 and however much masters or pupils may have disagreed 
 
 in the details of their several views, yet all have had this/ 
 
 in common — that they have followed what is called "thej 
 
M 
 
 p// 
 
 72y^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 ideaHst x^hilosophy," according to which nothing can exist 
 independently of its being perceived, and nothing can be 
 known to us save " fee Hngs " and "ideas" — that is,...".dif-., 
 ferent states of consciousness." IdeaHsm, then, however 
 
 unreasonable it may appear or may really be, demands 
 from the student of truth a very careful examination, in 
 deference to those who have adhered to it since it was first 
 propounded -by the estimable and ingenious Bishop Berke- 
 ley. Nevertheless, though so many men, and amongst 
 them so many distinguished men, have been idealists, we 
 must not forget that after all they form but a very small 
 fraction of mankind, when compared with the enormous 
 mass of human beings who have not been, and are not 
 " idealists." Moreover, the experience we have already 
 attained * in studying the question of " self-knowledge," 
 may help to give us courage in combating the views of 
 men, who if they form so exceedingly small a minority, are 
 yet so eminent and so deservedly respected. In studying 
 the question about " self-knowledge," we saw how it is I 
 possible for very superior men to be so dazzled by certain! 
 truths they clearly see, as to be led to overlook other com 
 plementary truths, a perception of which is necessary in 
 order to avoid most fundamental error. Bearing in mind 
 this experience of ours, we ought to look very carefully at 
 every positive assertion of idealism, in order to see whether, 
 if true, there is not a danger of that truth being so under- 
 stood as to imply the denial of some other complementary 
 truth. We cannot suppose that eminent thinkers can mis- 
 take mere fiction for truth ; but, from our former experience, 
 we may deem it very possible for them to take an incomplete 
 view of truth. Should it turn out that such an incomplete, 
 and therefore fallacious, view of some fundamental proposi- 
 tion has gained acceptance, it would be no wonder that an 
 elaborate, false system should have been built up by acute 
 minds reasoning logically from false premisses. Neverthe- 
 less, no elaborate system of the kind would have found so 
 many supporters as Berkeley's idealism has found, unless 
 it had had some very special attractions. And, in fact, 
 idealism, as originally propounded, had three very great 
 
 * See above, p. i6. 
 
IDEALISM AND REALISM. 
 
 7 
 
 attractions, while another special attraction attends a 
 modern modification of that system. The attractiveness 
 of idealism, and the fact that it concerns the whole universe 
 external to our own minds, thus combine to make it abso- 
 lutely necessary that it should be carefully and dispassion- 
 ately considered by us. 
 
 That system may be represented by a believer in it, as f^v^^t- 
 follows : " Everything known to us, except our own minds, — ■ 
 is known to us through our senses. If we examine any 
 object, such, for example, as an orange, we can only know 
 it through the ' impressions ' or ' sensations ' which we have, 
 and which we believe it excites in us. We see a definitely 
 shaped patch of colour, and that is a sensation we have. 
 If we take the orange in our hand, we feel a certain 
 smoothness and coldness ; these are two other sensations 
 of ours. We may grasp it and slightly squeeze it, and so 
 feel that it is more or less solid and rounded ; and these 
 feelings are nothing but certain sensations of muscular 
 tension and effort on our part. We may tap it with the 
 ends of our fingers, or throw it on the ground, and so 
 occasion sounds, which again are nothing but sensations 
 we feel ; and in the same way, if we smell it and taste it, 
 , we shall thereby have two other kinds of sensations — two . 
 other states of our own mental being. We cannot, by ex- 
 amining any so-called material object, arrive at anything 
 more than modifications of our own mental states — different 
 feelings. Other feelings we have, indeed, of a less vivid 
 kind. These, however, are nothing but faint revivals of sen- 
 sations previously experienced, or feelings of the modes in 
 which such previously experienced feelings have stood one 
 to another. Such 'faint revivals' and 'faint feelings of 
 modes of sensation ' we call ' ideas.' These vivid and faint 
 "Feelings are the only things which can be perceived by us, 
 and the whole of our knowledge consists of nothing else. 
 Therefore, as far as we know, nothing exists, or can exist, 
 except as something felt and perceived. We cannot con- 
 ceive anything otherwise existing, and therefore the very 
 lessence of 'existence' must consist in 'being perceived.' 
 
 ■ Evidently an 'idea' or a 'sensation' can be like nothing 
 
 ■ but an idea or a sensation. A colour, taste, smell, or 
 
 / 
 
74/, ON TRUTH. 
 
 shape, can be like nothing but a colour, taste, smell, or 
 shape. We can have no experience and no knowledge of 
 anything in any object, e.g. in an orange, which exists 
 underneath (so to speak) its extension, solidity, shape, 
 colour, smell, and taste, and which supports these qualities, 
 but which itself can never by any possibility be perceived. 
 ,)-\ \Vlial— idealism denies, therefore, is not the existence of 
 ]k . that which we really perceive and which we habitually call 
 V^ ' external things.' Itonly denies^the existence of a some4 
 thin g underlying what we call external things, and whicl 
 fancied something, cannot be felt or attained to by any o 
 o ur senses. If when ordinary people speak of ' a thing in 
 itself,' they mean to refer- to what they actually perceive, 
 and which is really nothing but a bundle of sensations, 
 then they are idealists all the time without knowing it, 
 as idealism fully accepts the existence of such things in 
 themselves. Idealism does not contest the existence of 
 any one thing that we can apprehend either by sensation 
 or reflection. That things which we see with our eyes 
 and touch with our hands do really exist, it professes in 
 no way to question. It professes only to deny the ex- 
 istence in things of an unknown and unknowable under- 
 lying * substance ' which supports the qualities which our 
 sensed perceive. In denying the existence of this unknow- 
 
 % 
 
 able ' substance,' it really deprives men of nothing which 
 they can even imagine, and therefore of nothing which 
 they will really miss. If the word ' substance ' be taken, 
 in the vulgar sense, for a combination of separable quali- 
 ties, such as extension, solidity, weight, etc., this ideal- 1 
 ism cannot be accused of taking away. But if it be taken,,!' 
 in the philosophic sense, for something external to the ! -^ 
 mind which supports those qualities, the existence of which i^ 
 are recognized by the mind ; then idealism may be accused | 
 of taking that away, if one may be said to take away \ 
 a thing which never had any existence even in the imagi- i 
 nation. Far from inculcating any disbelief in the senses ; 
 or in what the senses tell us, idealism attaches the highest 
 value to the senses and their teaching. It no more doubts 
 the existence of what is seen, heard, or felt, than it doubts 
 the existence of the mind which sees, hears, or feels. 
 
IDEALISM AND REALISM. 75^. 
 
 ■i 
 
 Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd than the criticisms 
 of those persons who say that idealists, to be consistent, 
 ought to run up against lamp-posts, fall into ditches, and 
 commit other absurdities of the kind. Idealism is not only 
 a thoroughly logical system, but also one quite in harmony 
 with everyday life, its perceptions, and its duties. It is 
 obvious that we can rLey.ei-g£^.-Qulaiiie_qurselv^^ 
 
 ^ly know our se:nsatiQiia..ami.Jdeas. The existence of 
 these sensations and ideas is sufficient to explain our whole 
 experience, and we are not idly to suppose that other 
 things exist when such ' other things ' are altogether super- 
 fluous for explaining any of the phenomena we are, or can | 
 become, acquainted with. As we cannot know anything 
 beyond our own ideas, why should we affirm that there is 
 anything beyond them } It is impossible for us to even 
 imagine anything existing unperceived. We cannot imagine 
 matter existing in the absence of mind, for in the very act 
 of imagining it we are compelled to imagine some one 
 perceiving it. It is, of course, easy enough to imagine trees 
 in a park or books in a library, and nobody by to perceive 
 them. But so to do, is only to form in the mind certain 
 ideas which we call books and trees and at the same time 
 to omit to form the idea of any one perceiving them. But 
 the person so imagining them must himself be thinking of 
 them all the while. To show, or even know, that anything 
 could exist independently of the mind, it would be necessary 
 to be able to perceive it while it remained unperceived, or 
 to think of it while at the same time it remained unthought 
 of, which would be a manifestly absurd contradiction and 
 
 i impossibility. Idealism thus does not contradict the asser- 
 tions of common sense, or cause any practical inconvenience 
 to him who holds to it, seeing that it only denies the 
 truth of what is, in fact, but a philosophical superstition — 
 a groundless and utterly superfluous belief in a necessarily 
 unknown and unimaginable substance, about which our 
 senses tell us absolutely nothing^ 
 
 Such is idealism, as advocated by its supporters, and itsattrac- 
 from such a representation of its asserted claims on our 
 acceptance, it is easy to see how attractive it must be to 
 many minds. For, in the first place, it can be very readily 
 
i 
 
 X" 
 
 y 
 
 <\\ 
 
 76. ON TRUTH. 
 
 understood. No difficult and sustained acts of mental 
 introspection are needed for its comprehension. For this 
 it suffices to understand the distinction, ordinarily supposed 
 to exist, between "things" and their "qualities ;" to recog- 
 nize that no "things" can become known to us except 
 through their "qualities," and, lastly, to recollect that we 
 can only know their "qualities" by experiencing "sensa- 
 tions." These conditions being borne in mind, it becomes '| 
 obvious that if any supernatural being could play at will 
 and indefinitely on our sensitive powers, such a being, by 
 exciting certain sensations, could induce in us a mistaken 
 belief that external bodies existed, which bodies possessed 
 certain qualities. Secondly, idealism is attractive because 
 correct reasoning is welcome to our intellectual nature, and 
 most of its reasoning is very correct and logical, and follows 
 necessarily from what we believe to be the defective pre- 
 misses, and therefore fallacious assumption, with which it 
 starts. Thirdly, idealism is attractive because it seems 
 to carry its adherent into an intellectual region greatly 
 above that of common men, while all the time it causes 
 him no practical inconvenience, for he fancies himself able 
 to breathe and move in that elevated atmosphere as freely 
 as do those who "^rnvpl " in the common belief of the 
 independent existence of things about them. It seems 
 to cause him no practical inconvenience because it boasts 
 (though not with truth) that " it does not contradict the 
 assertions of common sense, but only denies the truth of 
 a philosophical superstition." 
 
 According to the teaching of the original propounder 
 of idealism, all our sensations and ideas are due to the 
 direct action of God upon our minds, and the whole 
 phantasmagoria we call the universe around us, is the . 
 product of the energy of the Divine Mind acting upon our \ 
 minds. But Berkeley jsj^tem has not been adhered to in | 
 its purity, and^iTnovv hard'Iy'accepted by any one. Modi- j 
 fications of it which have of late become popular in 1 
 England, accept in one or other sense a sort of belief in 
 the independent existence of things about us, while denying 
 that we can have any true knowledge of them, and affirming 
 that we can know really nothing but variously grouped 
 
'46. 
 
 IDEALISM AND REALISM. 
 
 bundles of our own feelings. This special modification 
 of idealism is peculiarly attractive to many men, because 
 it supplies them with sceptical arguments ready to hand 
 against any view they may wish to oppose, without their 
 feeling forced to apply the same sceptical arguments 
 against any system of physical science which they may be 
 inclined to favour. The peculiarly illogical character of 
 this form of idealism it will be our endeavour clearly to 
 point out in the eleventh chapter. r\ 
 
 The opposite system to idealism — the truth of which Realism. ^^' 
 we will do our best to prove in the present section of this :^ 
 
 work — may be stated as follows: " All the different bo_(ii.es., . 
 and substances of the universe about us really exist inde- 
 pendently of the mind, and with equaireahty, whether they 
 be perceived or not. Our senses make us aware not merely' 
 of our sensations, but also, and more directly, of the real, 
 independent existence of such bodies, and acquaint us with 
 their objective qualities. Our sensations themselves, though, 
 of course, only subjective, yet serve to make known to us 
 the truth about objective existences — 'things. in themselves,' 
 Our perception of objects does not in any way essentially 
 , alter them. External material objects exist independently 
 1 of us, and are unlike the sensations they excite in u.s, while 
 such sensations none the less produce in us perceptions 
 1 which are like the objective properties of such material, 
 I external objects. Reason assures us that, in our pursuit of 
 truth, we may repose securely on that spontaneous trust in 
 the truthfulness of our natural faculties (when matured and 
 employed with due care and attention) which is natural 
 to us. We may also be absolutely certain that an external 
 world really exists independently of us, and that its various 
 parts really possess these very powers and properties which 
 our senses and our reason combine to assure us such 
 objects do, in fact, possess." This system is now commonly 
 spoken of as " reajiaoaj.'. * 
 
 Such are the two systems, standing in direct opposition Methodof 
 to each other, the truth of which we have now to examine, "^'^^"'^ "^'' 
 
 * The word " realism" had originally, and still often has, a very different 
 signification, as will be pointed out in the section on Science. See below. 
 Sect, v., chap. xxv. 
 
78 ON TRUTH. 
 
 and, if possible, arrive at a certain conclusion about. In 
 considering this great problem, we shall first examine the 
 relation it bears to physical science — which has made 
 such wonderful progress since the time when idealism was 
 propounded by Berkeley. The result of that examination 
 will, we believe, be to show that idealism cannot be held 
 by followers of physical science, except at the cost of their 
 mental consistency. Those physicists who believe they see 
 truth in idealism must, in fact, hold two sets of truths — 
 one set having to do with that system, and the other set 
 having to do with physical science. They must thus, if we 
 are right, maintain the truth of propositions which contra- 
 dict each other, and this without being able in any way to 
 reconcile them or remove the contradiction. 
 
 We shall next endeavour to show that all which ideal- 
 ists positively affirm is true, but that they fail to perceive 
 another complementary truth, the neglect of which vitiates 
 their system, and causes it not only to conflict with physical 
 science, but with common sense also. In this contention 
 we shall have to deal with what we believe to be the funda- 
 mental error of idealism and the fundamental truth of 
 realism. All that will afterwards remain for us to do will 
 be to consider, with as much care and thoroughness as 
 possible, the various objections which have been brought 
 against the validity of our natural and spontaneous per- 
 suasion that the external world has a real, independent 
 existence. While passing these various objections in re- 
 view, we shall find occasion to illustrate idealism more fully 
 than we have been able to do in the brief statement given 
 in this chapter, and, finally, we shall do our best to point 
 out some of the special faults and inconsistencies of those 
 modifications of idealism which have of late obtained a 
 greater or less degree of popularity amongst us. This will 
 conclude the second section of our book. Succeeding 
 sections will be devoted to a consideration of the leading 
 features of that world, the real and independent existence 
 of which we are now endeavouring to make evident. 
 
{ 79 ) 
 
 A^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IDEALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 A belief in idealism conflicts with the physical sciences in so far as I i 4 
 they are concerned with the causes of phenomena. ' I i 
 
 Idealism consistent ivith many simple perceptions — Physical science 
 concerns the causes of otir perceptions — Examples of scientific pre- 
 diction — Astronomy — Biology — Evolutioft — Common sense and 
 " idealism.'''' 
 
 Strange as it may at first sight appear to be, it is none ideaihm 
 the less true that very many of our ordinary, everyday uHthi^Ly 
 perceptions and experiences fully admit of being expressed percej>twns. 
 in idealist phraseology, according to the explanations given 
 of it * by its supposed advocate in the foregoing chapter. 
 I Stranger still, the idealist representation of these simple 
 I experiences of ours is not only easily expressed, but the 
 i actual truths of that representation cannot be successfully 
 ; contested if our perceptions really are, what idealists say 
 i they are, perceptions of our own ideas and sensations only. 
 Advocates of idealism mostly confine themselves, as did 
 Bishop Berkeley, to combating objections drawn from a 
 consideration of our ordinary simple perceptions. They 
 speak of perceptions such as our perceptions of an orange 
 with its various sensible properties, or they discuss our 
 imagination of such things as " a park with trees," or 
 " a library with books," and so on.f This mode of pro- 
 cedure was natural, because those who endeavoured to 
 refute idealism made use of objections drawn from a con- 
 sideration of such simple matters. If physical science was 
 * See above, p. 73. f See above, p. 75. 
 
8o ON TRUTH. 
 
 merely made up of catalogues of phenomena, simultaneous 
 and successive, of different kinds, the m.ere number and 
 complexity of those phenomena, however prodigious, would 
 not suffice to make idealist phraseology inapplicable to 
 such science. If an orange may be but a bundle of feel- 
 ings of different kinds, then the whole contents of a museum, 
 of a geographical region, or of the whole solar system, may] 
 Physical also bc of similar nature and composition. Pi^isical,^i.ence^ 
 cents the howcvcr, is Something very different from a collection of 
 
 causes of our r i t • .... 1 
 
 perceptions, catalogucs of phenomena. It is a systematic investigation 
 
 as to what are the causes of different phenomena, and it is 
 
 also its task to try and explain how such causes act. Lt 
 
 appeals, in justification of its declarations about causes, 
 
 ^o iFr'own^.successful predictions, and it is accepted just 
 
 Because its various predictions have again and again been\ 
 ' justified by the event. Physical science, therefore, not only 
 has to do with our perceptions, but with the causes of our 
 perceptions. It says not only that we shall have expe- 
 riences which we call "perceiving new bodies," or "new 
 conditions of bodies," but how and why we shall come to 
 have them. 
 Examples I A prediction like the famed one of Leverrier, affords 
 ^/5'Sv>« .- ! a striking example of scientific foresight, based on a belief 
 astro7ioiny. .^^ material bodies acting as causes and acting in a certain 
 manner. Leverrier, by his observations of the planet 
 Uranus — then thought to be the planet most distant from 
 ■ the centre of the solar system — felt sure that its movements 
 • must be influenced by the presence of another considerable, 
 but yet unobserved, planet, still more distant from the sun. 
 He also predicted, from a study of those movements, that 
 this as yet unseen planet would be found in a particular 
 place in the heavens at a particular time ; and upon the 
 telescope being made use of accordingly, that predicted 
 body was actually for the first time seen, which is now 
 known as the planet Neptune. 
 
 Astronomical science in this instance declared not only 
 that we should perceive, under certain conditions, a new 
 body, or, in idealist phraseology, " a new group of feelings," 
 but also how and why we should perceive it. Evidently it 
 really asserted what were the antecedent causes and the 
 
IDEALISM AND SCIENCE. 8 1 
 
 actions of such causes, independently altogether of their 
 being perceived or not perceived. Leverrier's anticipation 
 about Neptune reposed on a conviction of the existence 
 of really existing, independent, extended, material bodies 
 with certain powers, including a really existing force of 
 gravity exerted between Neptune and Uranus, modifying 
 their motions. Let us try to express this in idealist phrase- 
 ology : The presence of a certain group of feelings I call 
 " Uranus " is accompanied by certain other feelings I call 
 " its movements," and these are succeeded in me by a set 
 of faint feelings I name " an idea of the influence of an 
 external unknown body," together with " a feeling of 
 anticipation " and ideas I call " a particular direction," and 
 " at a particular time." These are again succeeded by 
 other groups of feelings which I call " looking through 
 a telescope at the time and in the direction thought of," 
 after which occurs a final group of feelings which I describe 
 as " seeing the new and predicted planet Neptune." 
 
 Over and above the grotesqueness of such modes of 
 expression, which no man of science will feel really and 
 truly portrays his own past mental experience, it is to be 
 1 remarked that they do not at all represent the facts of the 
 I case. The idealist phraseology puts before us only groups 
 ■ of feelings which co-exist or succeed arbitrarily and without 
 any rational order or any evident reason why they should 
 so co-exist or succeed. The idealist cannot say why the 
 group of feelings he calls " the movements of Uranus " 
 should be related to another set of feelings, distinguished 
 as " the influence of an external body," or why the feelings 
 known as " looking through the telescope " should be suc- 
 ceeded by those called " seeing the planet Neptune." If 
 nothing exists but feelings, and some unperceived first 
 cause or agent — whether God or some other existence — 
 which alone produces them, then everything must depend 
 on the action of that agent, and all secondary causes and 
 interactions, such as those by which one body is supposed 
 to act on another, can be nothing but deceitful, illusory 
 appearances. But since physical science largely consists ' 
 in a search after secondary causes and the laws of the inter- 
 action of bodies one on the other, a system which can take 
 
 G 
 
 t 
 
"^- 
 
 82 ON TRUTH. 
 
 no account of either, must be simply fatal to physical ; 
 science. It would seem, then, that though men of science | 
 may be idealists, they cannot be so as_ men of science. | 
 While advocating idealism, they must for a time ignore 
 their science ; and while pursuing physical science, they 
 must temporarily disregard their idealism, and make use of 
 the hypothesis of the real independent existence of bodies 
 which alone harmonizes with the teaching of astronomy as 
 exemplified by Leverrier's prediction about the planet 
 Neptune. 
 Biology. \ The study of living creatures also affords various instruc- 
 tive instances of scientific prediction. A memorable in- 
 stance of the kind occurred in the career of the great 
 French naturalist, George Cuvier. Amongst the many 
 fossil remains found by him in the vicinity of Paris, was 
 the fossil skeleton of a small beast, embedded for the most 
 part m rock, but with a certain portion of the lower jaw 
 (termed the " angle ") exposed. This was bent inwards in 
 a way common to almost all opossums * — animals which 
 also possess two bones imbedded in the flesh of the belly and 
 known to anatomists as " marsupial bones." From his know- 
 ledge that these two cRaractefs~"geiierally went together, 
 Cuvier predicted that a pair of marsupial bones would be 
 found, when that part of the stone which then enclosed the 
 abdominal region of the beast so found by him, should be 
 chiselled away. He invited some friends to be present at 
 the operation, and succeeded in laying bare before them the 
 two bones, the discovery of which he had predicted. But no 
 cause for this co-existence of parts could then or can even 
 now be assigned. A subsequent discovery, therefore, is ropre 
 germane to the present question. In former times some 
 beasts of vast bulk lived in South America (the megathe- 
 rium and the mylodon), which more resemble in structure 
 those small existing animals known as " sloths " than they 
 resemble any others. Now, sloths pass their lives hang- 
 ing, back downwards, from the branches of trees (to which 
 they cling by their four hook-like paws), and the leaves of 
 which they feed on. But the huge extinct animals allied to 
 sloths were evidently too bulky to hang from trees, yet their 
 
 * See below, chap. xxi. 
 
 \ 
 
IDEALISM AND SCIENCE. 
 
 V// 
 
 teeth showed they also fed upon leaves. How did they 
 obtain them ? Sir Richard Owen most sagaciously solved 
 this problem. Having duly regarded the rugged outline of 
 the bones of the hind limbs and tail, which indicated the 
 vast masses of muscle which once clothed them, he sug- 
 gested that these animals had been in the habit of rearing 
 themselves on their hind limbs and tail as on a tripod, and 
 then pulling trees down to feed on their leaves. It was 
 objected to this theory that with such habits these animals 
 would be very apt to get their heads broken by falling 
 trees. Sir Richard thereupon re-examined the head of the 
 mylodon which had been the subject of his investigations 
 and conjectures, and he found that its head had been 
 broken. He also found that the skull of the animal was 
 so constructed as to enable it to endure such fractures with 
 very little inconvenience. Is it possible to relate this cir- 
 cumstance in terms of idealism, without so transforming 
 its significance as to make it mean something altogether 
 different from what was meant by Sir Richard Owen when 
 expounding his views, and what was understood by his 
 hearers when listening to his exposition .-* Evidently the^ 
 " falling tree " referred to hypothetically may be thought 
 of as a " plexus of faint feelings," and the fractured skull 
 actually seen may be considered a "plexus of vivid feel- 
 ings ; " but in this way we lose the entire idea of the 
 causation of the fracture by the fall, and the whole point 
 and meaning of Sir Richard's sagacious inference would 
 be thereby missed. 
 
 Moreover, according to that inference, the actions of the 
 extinct mylodon and the risks it ran from falling trees, were 
 supposed to be quite independent of any mind perceiving 
 such actions, even if they did not exist at a period anterior ^. 
 to any possible human observation of them whatever. Ph};^ jf n^ 
 sical science declares to us not only what we shall perceive 
 
 under certain conditions, but also, as was just, now -..s.aid,.^ ^^^ 
 
 how it comes about that we shall perceive it, and what are 
 
 Tlie antecedent causes and their actions, independently - 
 
 JaTtogether of anybody ^r^ceivhlg liieia. It tells us, indeed. Evolution. 
 
 Tdiat"TTiere was a time when there were no minds to per- 
 ceive, and that, nevertheless, the interaction of physical 
 
84 ON TRUTH. 
 
 causes went on till, after an unimaginable series of ages, 
 the world became fit for animal life, and, ultimately, for 
 mind to find a place on its surface. According to that 
 view of nature which has now met with such general 
 acceptance, and which is known as " the theory of evolu- 
 tii>»r' this world was at first, for a prodigious period of 
 time, the theatre of physical forces only ; subsequently life 
 began to appear where before no life was, and as ages have 
 succeeded to ages, higher forms of life, both vegetable and 
 animal, came into being. After the land and waters had 
 teemed with life for a vast period of time, an age of reptiles, 
 it is declared, preceded the age of beasts. Then huge 
 marineL.j:eptilian forms occupied the place afterwards 
 filled by whales and porpoises ; the air vibrated with the 
 rapid strokes of the wings of flying reptiles, while others 
 TrroTE huge than the rhinoceroses of to-day, browsed on the 
 foliage of its trees or hunted down and slew the less agile 
 vegetable feeders. All this at last came to an end with the 
 deposition of what are now our familiar ch ,^ k downs , and 
 since that time a great variety of beasts have come into 
 being and perished without leaving a trace behind, although 
 a fraction of those which have become extinct are now known 
 to us as fossil forms. Genus succeeded to genus and 
 species to_ species ; the gigantic long-armed ape wandered 
 over the s o u t h "oTPr a n c e , and many kinds of monkey chat- 
 tered in the woods of what we now know as Greece. At 
 last the human form made its appearance on the scene, and 
 then came races destined to dwell for centuries in caves, 
 rudely chipping flints for weapons, but by degrees exhibit- 
 ing signs of an innate love for art. They had with diffi- 
 culty to hold their own against the cave bear, tiger, hyaena, 
 and other such formidable foes before they were succeeded 
 by other races, and these by others, till the dawn of history 
 appeared for us, the remote successors of those more primi- 
 tive races of mankind. Such is the teaching of evolution 
 and of science. How is it possible to state all these rela- 
 fV tions and conditions in the language of idealism ?" If 
 ^K^idealism were true, evolution would indeed be a mere 
 Common -^drcam, and the whole of physical science also.' 
 7delus",. But is the boast of idealism, that it in no way conflicts 
 
IDEALISM AND SCIENCE. 85 
 
 with "common sense," justifiable? Is it true that it only 
 deprives the ordinary man of what he will never miss, or 
 does the matter in dispute concern such ordinary man 
 more nearly than idealists would have us believe ? Would 
 the world, as understood by common people, be revolu- 
 tionized, if not destroyed altogether, should idealists be 
 right ? It is true that we can express simple perceptions, 
 whether simultaneous or successive, in idealistic phrase ; 
 ' but ordinary men, in the exercise of their "common sense," 
 have to do with something more than such simple percep- 
 tions. There is, in fact, no real_distinctio_n of kind between 
 i scientific knowledge and ordinary knowledge. The pursuit 
 I of science is but a pursuit of knowledge conducted with 
 especial care, and according to rules dictated by reason 
 and experience. In ordinary life, just as in science, we 
 seek to know causes and to understand as best we may 
 the ways in which they act. Conceptions of the causal 
 action of one thing on another, and of different modes of 
 such action, abound in ordinary speech and the mental 
 habits of everyday life. Every artisan or sportsman who 
 discusses the utility of tools or weapons or methods of 
 procedure, gives evidence of this fact. 
 /A / ^^ have drawn out at some length Uie inconsistenc^of 
 'H:\ ( id ealism with physical science in order to show more plainly 
 I its inconsistency wirii"tTie"dictates also of common sense, 
 I which are nothing essentially different from the dictates of 
 \ science. Let the reader judge for himself whether or not 
 idealism would or would not deprive him of an essential 
 element of his daily life, if it could deprive him of his per- 
 ceptions of the causal relations of bodies. Let him consider 
 whether a world, deprived of such relations, would not be 
 for him a world revolutionized, or rather, whether the world, 
 as he knows it^wouTcT^n'ot be thereby entirely destroyed. 
 Some persons may reply that v/e ought to be grateful to 
 idealism for doing away with this notion of the action of 
 causes, seeing that it is a mere delusion, since all we can see 
 is that one thing follows another, and not that it exercises 
 any real influence over it. This reply we have already 
 discussed,* and shall refer to again,! but a short answer 
 
 * See above, pp. 48-51. t See below, chap, xviii. 
 
86 ON TRUTH. 
 
 may here suffice. Our present object is not to justify the 
 conceptions either of common sense or of physical science, 
 but to see whether or not idealism accords with them. 
 Now, such a reply as that we are considering, would at 
 once annihilate the pretension of idealists that their 
 system does not conflict with common sense, and would 
 show idealism to be a system incapable of admitting an 
 idea of daily use amongst mankind, which is bound up 
 with our conception of the world, and is essential to 
 the progress of physical science. The beliefs of ordinary 
 men and the conceptions made use of by physical science 
 are thus bound up together, and "realism" justifies both 
 alike. But to justify the conceptions of science will not, 
 of course, help us to understand the conceptions of those 
 men of science who profess idealism. To try and explain 
 the contradiction which exists between their idealism and 
 their science is the task to which we have next to apply 
 ourselves. In the following chapter we shall endeavour to 
 reconcile the seemingly inconsistent truths thus simulta- 
 neously held, by the aid of what we believe to be a com- 
 plementary truth which has been too generally neglected. 
 
( 87 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 
 
 We have a direct and immediate knowledge of objects which are 
 made present to the intellect by the action of the senses, and we 
 can obtain a certain knowledge of matters of which the senses 
 can take no cognizance. 
 
 4 
 
 The truth in idealism — Complementary truth — Sensations the means, 
 not the object, of perception^Two elements in perception — True 
 ineaning of " represeftf^ — Perception 7iot i7tfere7ice — • What so-called 
 " uticonscious ittference " is — Perception certified by attention. 
 
 Idealists are perfectly right in saying that we can know The trtdh 
 nothing except through our sensations, and that a plexus"" '^'^""'•. 
 of our own feelings forms for us every external object 
 which we think we perceive or know. Moreover, not only 
 is it true that our knowledge of everything we perceive is 
 thus constituted, but it is also true that we can neither 
 imagine nor conceive of anything, however abstract or 
 elevated the object imagined or conceived of may seem to 
 us to be, except by the help of sensations, or of feelings 
 and imaginations which are the result of antecedently felt 
 sensations.* The truth of the first assertion is unquestion- 
 able ; for it is obvious that we can perceive no object 
 except by our means of perception ; that we have no means 
 of perception apart from our sense organs ; and that these 
 can act for us in no other way than by affording us sensa- 
 tions, either vivid or faint. The truth of the second asser-' 
 tion the reader should test for himself Let him examine 
 again and again the most refined or abstract idea he can 
 think of, and let him see whether he has not in his mind, 
 
 * See also below, chap. xv. 
 
Comple- 
 mentary 
 truth.. 
 
 ^^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 while thinking of it, the imagination of some object which I 
 has before been present to his senses — some feeling, or t 
 some group of feelings. If he tries to think of "heat," or! 
 " light," he will find that there arises in his imagination 
 more or less vague and transient remimscences of impres- 
 sions he has received from warm or lummous bodies. If 
 he tries to fix his mind on the conception, '' God," he will 
 see that some mental image accompanies the presence of 
 that idea ; it may be that of a venerable human figure, or 
 of light issuing from a cloud, or of a luminous triangle, or 
 of the letters G O D, or of the sound of the spoken word — 
 according as images of one or other kind may have become 
 associated in his past experience. If he dwells on such 
 abstract ideas as "being," or "contradiction," or even tries 
 to think of " nonentity," he will perceive, if he looks closely 
 into his own mind, that the presence of those ideas is 
 accompanied in the first case by transient images of bodies 
 he has perceived, in the second case by images of bodies 
 placed opposite each other, or in some way in conflict, 
 and in the third case by a shorter or longer series of things 
 thought of as existing, and then successively, as it were, 
 ejected from thought ; for to think, and yet think of 
 nothing, is an impossibility,.-- 
 
 Idealists are also right in saying that if we analyze our \ 
 perception, or idea, of any object, whatever it may be, we | 4^^ 
 shall find that we cannot imagine its constituent elements { 
 in any other terms than those of our own sensations, and - -^ 
 they are also right in affirming that it is no less impossible r ■'" 
 to imagine anything existing unperceived. Besides all this, i 
 their reasoning against even the possibility of anything 
 existing unperceived is perfectly logical and valid. For 
 things which are exclusively made up of " feelings " — as 
 they affirm all objects perceived by us to be — can have 
 no existence except as felt. Obviously "feelings" could 
 have no place in a universe which was entirely devoid of 
 feeling. In maintaining the truth of the foregoing proposi- 
 tions, idealists, then, have reason on their side. There is, 
 however, another most important fact of which they fail 
 altogether to take note, namely, that over and above acts 
 ofsensatii2iL.a4id.imaginatiDjni» the action of the intellect has 
 
THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 89 
 
 to be taken into account. It is quite true that we can If 
 neitnerreCT^^^^Rnagme 'anything except in terms of" 
 sensation, and that we can neither perceive nor think of 
 anything save through the aid of our feelings ; but it is 
 no less true that we can, with their help, both perceive and 
 conceive of things that never were and never can be either 
 felt or imagined. It is true that everything we perceive is 
 constituted by groups of our feelings, vivid and faint, but 
 it is no less true that what we perceive in perceiving any- 
 thing, is not merely a group of feelings vivid and faint, but 
 something altogether beyond feeling. In this respect our 
 perception of bodies around us is quite like, and runs 
 parallel to, our perception of our own being. 
 
 In the second chapter it was pointed out that what 
 we immediately and directly perceive,* with respect to 
 our own being, is our concrete activity — ourselves acting 
 or enduring — and not either our states of consciousness or 
 the continuous existence of the self which has those states. 
 Nevertheless we recognized the obvious fact that we can 
 at will turn back our minds and advert either to the 
 existence of "our states of consciousness," or to that of 
 "our self," as a persisting objective being. We also found f 
 that it was the unnoticed presence of those " states of 
 consciousness " which brought about our direct perception 
 of our own concrete activity, and were the necessary con- 
 ditions for the very existence in us of that perception. 
 Just in the same way our perception of any object — say 
 a tree — is an immediate and direct perception of the 
 concrete tree itself, and not of the sensations which it 
 occasions in us or of the persistent existence of the tree 
 which gives rise to the sensations. Just in the same way, 
 again, we can, if we please, turn back our minds and 
 advert either to the existence of the sensations we have 
 feTt~in perceiving the tree, or to that of the tree itself as 
 a persisting objective thing. Similarly it is the unnoticed 
 presence of " our sensations " which has brought about our 
 direct perception of the tree, and such "sensations" are the^ 
 necessary conditions for the existence in us of that percep- 
 tion. If the reader will consider for himself the action of hisl 
 
 * See above, p. 20. t See above, pp. 21, 22. 
 
90>^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 own mind, lie will, we are persuaded, see the truth of what 
 we now urge. Should he, for example, when reading this, 
 have lately met a carriage with some friends of his in it, let 
 him ask himself what was present to his mind at the time ? 
 We are sure he will say it was the presence of the carriage 
 and his friends which he directly perceived. No doubt, 
 in order to perceive them, he must have experienced certain 
 sensations, and no doubt his eyes saw various patches of 
 different colours, different in size and shape, and his ears 
 heard sounds produced by wheels and horses' hoofs and 
 by the vocal organs of his friends. But he never adverted 
 to these sensations at the time he felt them, though he can 
 turn his mind back and recognize that they were then 
 present to his sensitive faculty as they now may be to his 
 imagination. His intellect was not occupied about his 
 1 sensations when he perceived his friends, so that his sensa- 
 tions, though affecting his sensitive faculty, were not them- 
 s^iuatiojis I selves perceived. Such sensations, or subjective signs, 
 
 the iiuans, • ^ . •' O ' 
 
 ' /:.■ make bodies known to us without being directly known 
 /cfvc/'i/o/i. to US themselves. They are the means which enable us 
 1 |_to^_perceive objects, but they^are jnot themselves the object 
 
 jfof perception. They hide themselves from our notice in 
 giving rise to the perception they elicit, and can only be 
 detected by an express turning of the intellect upon them. 
 With practice and attention we can turn back the mind and 
 observe these subjective signs ; but ordinarily, though felt, 
 they remain unnoticed, and we only perceive the thing they 
 reveal. The subjective signs are only to be apprehended with 
 more or less labour and trouble, and never spontaneously 
 or naturally occupy our attention. It is the thing they 
 signify which is naturally, easily, and clearly appi'ehended 
 by all men. In seeing and touching things which we come 
 to know through seeing and touching, we have of course 
 such " subjective signs " — visual and tactual feelings, vivid 
 and faint — but these latter remain in themselves unnoticed 
 by the mind which is occupied in perceiving the objects 
 so signified and made known. We can with practice draw 
 out the perspective lines of a building we look at, but in 
 looking at it we do not naturally perceive them, but it. 
 When a solid cube is placed before us, we perceive that the 
 
THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 9 I 
 
 cube has square faces, although, from its position, the 
 surfaces it presents to our eyes may not appear to be squares 
 but lozenges. Our perception of an object remains quite 
 unchanged, for all that the subjective signs it occasions 
 may undergo a number of changes through its movements 
 or through our change of position. 
 
 If we walk through a colonnade, the aspects of its 
 
 \ columns continually change in our sight, but the colonnade 
 remains one unchanging reality to our apprehension. Thus 
 
 ■in every perception we have two elements : (1) a subjective ^^"^ , . 
 
 , j y X i ^ ^ ^j ^ J elejitents in 
 
 ;V.' (element made up of the various signs it gives rise to in our A"'w/''<'«' 
 ^/^. I sensitive faculty, and (2) an objective element which is the 
 I object itself made known to the intellect by those signs. 
 ■ It is the second or objective element which is directly, natu- 
 rally, and clearly apprehended, and it is the former which 
 , is to be distinctly detected only by an effort of reflex mental 
 activity. Idealists, indeed, tell us that " all we can receive 
 through the presence of external objects must consist of 
 impressions, images, or representations of such objects, 
 which can be no more like the objects themselves than 
 a picture is like the thing it represents." Ordinary men, 
 however, think that what they perceive about them is not 
 a collection of "impressions," "images," or "representa- 
 tions " of different bodies, but the very bodies themselves. 
 e are convinced that in so thinking ordinary men are 
 ight, and that the contrary belief constitutes the funda- 
 mental error of idealists of all schools. This fundamental 
 error we believe results partly from the ambiguit y of_the 
 Jixepresentation," partly from our knowing that an 
 /Image of our external surroundings is formed within our 
 A eyes. But an examination of our own mind shows us that True 
 i our faculties not only furnish us with images or impressions "represent." 
 I of things, but by means of those images and impressions 
 j they repx£&&iit a thing — that is, they make the thing present 
 ^ to the intellect. If we enter a library, we do not then see 
 Umages of books in rows — we see the very books themselves. 
 jThey are things made directly present to our mind by 
 fits faculties. We do not perceive any image or impres- 
 sion of them, though a variety of agents may concur in 
 eliciting our perception, and the number of these agents 
 
 « 
 
92 ON TRUTH. 
 
 differs in different perceptions. Thus in listening to the 
 stroke of a bell we may distinguish no less than seven 
 objects, powers, and actions: There is (i) the person who 
 perceives the bell's stroke ; (2) his sensitive power or 
 faculty as active, or actually hearing ; (3) his sensitive 
 power or faculty as passive, or as about to be affected by 
 the action of the bell ; (4) his organ of hearing, by means 
 of which his sensitive faculty is affected ; (5) the medium 
 by which the influence of the bell is transmitted to his 
 organ of hearing ; (6) the bell itself which sounds ; and 
 (7) the power or quality of the bell which causes the trans- 
 mission of the influence. But of all this it is only the 
 striking bell which the intellect directly apprehends. 
 
 Men have ordinarily little knowledge of such complex 
 distinctions and diversities of objects and operations. 
 They perceive things without knowing how they perceive 
 them, as they make articulate sounds without knowing 
 how they move their tongues and lips in order to utter 
 them, and they may end their days in perfect ignorance 
 of such things without being any the less able either to 
 articulate or to perceive. That people see things them- 
 selves, and not " images " or " representations " of them, is 
 a conviction so universally entertained as to make idealists 
 affirm that men are in this respect universally mistaken 
 and think they really perceive what, in fact, they only 
 infer by an unconscious or forgotten process of infer- 
 ence. But the word " inference " means, as we have seen,* 
 the perception by our mind of the fact that one truth is 
 implicitly contained in other truths antecedently known. 
 An unconscious inference must, then, be a contradiction 
 in terms, for we cannot bring a latent or implicit truth 
 explicitly before the mind without having it present to the 
 mind, nor can we recognize that what is now explicitly 
 known to us was implied in what we knew before, without 
 being aware of what we are about — that is, without being 
 Perception conscious. Ah inference, however, which takes place 
 'inference, cousciously may excite very little attention in our mind ; 
 may be unnoticed, or at least rapidly forgotten. Can it, 
 then, be contended that our perceptions are due to such 
 
 * See above, pp. 55-57- 
 
THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 93 
 
 hasty, little adverted to, unnoticed, and speedily forgotten 
 inferences ? Now, if inferences have been really drawn, 
 then, though they may have been unnoticed at the time 
 or forgotten, they can always be perceived or recalled 
 by reflection. Thus, if we have mistakenly thought we 
 saw a friend in the gloamin g, in a place where, and at a 
 time when we knew it was likely we should see him, we 
 can easily recognize that our mistake was due to our 
 having concluded it was he on account of such probabilities, 
 of which we were thus aware. We can recognize that our 
 mind had been in that state of consciousness which is 
 expressed by " seeing a consequence " — seeing the force 
 of a "therefore" — when we reflect and examine what the 
 state of our mind was. The presence of a conscious infer- 
 ence, unnoticed at the time of its recurrence or rapidly 
 forgotten, can be thus recognized after the event. But it 
 is impossible to recognize the presence of any act of infer- 
 ence in our ordinary perceptions of objects about us. 
 When, for example, we have perceived an orange, and look 
 back and examine that perception, we do not find that we 
 have mentally said to ourselves, " I see a certain roundish 
 patch of orange colour ; I feel a certain shape, firmness, 
 and size, and I smell a certain smell ; therefore I perceive 
 . an orange." Just so is it with the immense majority of 
 j our perceptions. Why, then, should we deem these to be 
 ■ " uncon scious inferen ces " when our own minds declare 
 5/ tfiey are nothing of the kind .'* Can it be supposed to be 
 I more wonderful or mysterious that we should perceive 
 i " objects," than that we should perceive " inferences " ? 
 ' An " inference " — a perception that one thing must be true 
 because its truth is implicitly contained in other truths — 
 is surely a much more complex and involved mental 
 : process than is the direct perception of an object. For 
 this reason, then, if even for no other, we should not con- 
 clude that we have made use of a process of " inference " 
 when nothing in our own minds tells us that we have 
 really done so^ 
 
 To explain this matter it will be necessary for us to 
 here introduce some statements about our faculties which 
 will be dwelt upon and justified in the next section of this 
 
'4/^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 What 
 so-called 
 " uncon- 
 scious in- 
 ference " is. 
 
 \ 
 
 book. Thus we affirm that we have three orders * of ' 
 faculties : one intellectual — by which we apprehend such , 
 ideas as " goodness," " truth," etc. ; another sensuous — , 
 by which we entertain feelings and associate them together | 
 in groups ; and, thirdly an unconscious vital power — by 1 
 which life is mainly sustained, and by which vital processes i 
 take place on the receipt of unfelt impressions, and may, ^ 
 by their accumulation or prolongation, come to excite our 
 "feelings." Indeed, the area of our consciousness is a very 
 restricted area compared with the area of our organic 
 vitality,. by which expression we mean the total sum of 
 the unfelt active processes and powers of our living body. 
 Every conscious act in us is the result of a greater or 
 less number of such unconscious vital processes, and if 
 this is the case, then the act of perception must be the 
 result of a number of such unconscious processes. We 
 not only admit this, but we affirm it. But so to affirm is a 
 very different thing from saying that a perception is an 
 unconscious inference. That process in us which has been | 
 mistaken for " unconscious inference," in reality consists \ \ 
 of such unconscious vital processes, together with then 
 association of images in the imagination. We may know? 
 this from the fact that a mere animal can so associate! 
 together the sight of changes of relative position between! 
 itself and another creature as practically to apprehend) 
 either that its prey is escaping or that an enemy is ap-1 
 proaching, as the case may be. Such merely sensuous' 
 associations of images exist in us as well as in the lower 
 animals, and underlie our intellectual perceptions and infer- 
 ences. Reflection enables us to apprehend these various, 
 at first unnoticed, mental elements, and thus to distinguish 
 between (i) an association of images, {2) a perception, 
 and (3) an inference. Thus signs of relative changes of 
 place impressed on our senses by objects, awaken in our 
 intellect the idea and perception of a moving body, though 
 they may not enable us to determine where the motion 
 is, without a further examination or even without a real 
 process of inference. We have a notable instance of the 
 employment of such a process, in the belief once enter- 
 * See below, chap. xiv. 
 
THE KEY OF THE POSITION. 95 
 
 tained about the motion of the sun. That behef makes 
 us aware of a process of inference which was and is often 
 overlooked, but which can be clearly seen on reflection 
 to have been an inference, as it is not " motion," but 
 " change in relative position," which our senses can alone 
 perceive.* 
 
 But it is the less necessary to accept the contradictory^ 
 notion that a "perception" is an "unconscious inference,",, 
 because' we rnay and we do obtain a reflective assurance of 
 the truth of our perceptions without employing inference. 
 No one can deny but that a distinction is to be drawn 
 between " attention " and " inference," and we may gain an 
 increased or absolute certainty for our perceptions by acts 
 of "attention," quite without the employment of" inference." 
 The reader will, we think, admit that he can perceive an 
 object — say a horse or a tree — consciously, but without any 
 particular attention, and that he is also capable of looking 
 at it attentively and making sure that it is a horse or 
 a tree, yet without using any process of inference. He can Perception 
 
 t 1 • 1 • • 1 • certified by 
 
 ] thus " make sure by merely tightennig, as it were, his attention. 
 sensuous grasp of the object, and carefully focussing his 
 
 \ sense perceptions. 
 
 Let the reader here call to mind how he has some- 
 times, if not often, thus made sure of some object by look- 
 ing at it attentively in a sudden and spontaneous manner, 
 and quite without any deliberate attention — without saying 
 to himself mentally, " I will look carefully and make sure." 
 This action, so common amongst men, is also common 
 amongst animals, which can evidently so associate images 
 as to seem to us, at first sight, to draw inferences — though 
 all such actions on their part are explicable (as are many 
 of our own) by the mental association of habitual co-ex- 
 istences and sequences of sense impressions. They also 
 may perceive an object indistinctly and inattentively, or 
 they may tighten their sensuous grasp of it and watch it. 
 We likewise have such merely sensuous perceptions, and 
 such sensuous associations simulating inference. But over 
 and above these, we have intellectual perceptions and true 
 inferences. Our intellect, then, can, as before said, perceive ' 
 
 * See below, chap. x. 
 
 
96^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 objects either directly and inattentively, or directly and 
 attentively, and no doubt our attentive perception is aided 
 by sensuous association. But since we have consciousness 
 _la^Q by^it would be absurd to call any action inferential, 
 which is neither consciously perceived to be inferential 
 when performed, nor seen, on subsequent reflection, to 
 have really had that character. In perception, then, we 
 both can and do gain an immediate assurance, and also 
 {i.e. by attention) gain an augmented assurance, that the 
 truth of any given perception needs no further proof, but 
 is quite certain, and this without using any process of 
 inference. Thus perception is not a process of inference 
 from known signs to a before unknown notion of an object, 
 but is a spontaneous, unconscious interpretation of signs 
 (which themselves are not distinctly adverted to), by a 
 natural activity and power of the mind — a power the action 
 of which is rapidly perfected by exercise. 
 
 A recognition of the fact that we have a direct and 
 immediate knowledge of objects which are made present 
 to the mind through our sensations, constitutes the key of 
 the position of that realistic system of belief which is 
 common to all men except the minute minority of idealistic 
 philosophers. The assertions of realism are assertions both 
 made to us spontaneously by our own minds, and also re- 
 affirmed by our minds when we carefully reflect on the 
 subject. They are assertions which justify the natural 
 beliefs of ordinary men, and are the indispensable supports 
 of the assumptions upon which the whole fabric of physical 
 science reposes. For these reasons realism has a strong 
 claim on our acceptance, provided that the opposite system 
 cannot bring forward any unanswerable objections to it. 
 
 It remains, then, for us to consider one after another 
 in the next chapter, the objections which idealists have 
 brought forward against those natural convictions of man- 
 kind, the validity of which we confidently affirm. 
 
( 97 ) 
 
 ^, 
 
 /// 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 
 
 An ajialysis of certain of our ideas refutes the fundamental idealist 
 objection. All the other objections of idealists are insufficient to 
 show that we cannot truly apprehend even the secondary quali- 
 ties of bodies, although how such knowledge, or how any know- 
 ledge is possible, is an inscrutable mystery. 
 
 T/ie fundamental objection — Primary and secondary qualities — The 
 common belief — Perceptions^ ideas, and sensations — The idea of 
 force — Simple attd compound feelings — Imagination and conception 
 — The intellect as a factor — Its declarations about qualities — Ob- 
 jections as to colours and sounds — Effects of bodily injuries on our 
 perceptions—So-called deceptions of the senses —Dreamitig and 
 waki/ig — The possible dcceitfulness of our faculties — Our percep- 
 tions even of secondary qualities cannot be proved mendacious — 
 The process of perceiving the unimaginable, inscrutable. 
 
 The objections brought by idealists against the common Yhe/unda- 
 belief in the existence of a world independently of the \bjcction. 
 mind, alWest on one fundamental assertion which may be 
 expressed as follows : " All knowledge consists of ' im- 
 pressions^ (or sensations) and ot taint reproductions of the 
 same, called ' ideas.' " Ideas are thus represented as being j 
 nothing but "faint revivals of sensations and of feelings of I 
 relation between sensations." Thus, do what we may, we ' 
 can — according to idealists — arrive at nothing but our own 
 subjective affections, together with, at the most, the in- 
 ference that there exists some unknown external cause 
 which gives rise to our feelings and ideas. 
 
 Now, this fundamental assertion we have encountered 
 point blank in the preceding chapter. We have done our 
 
 u 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 best to show that the things which men know directly and , 
 immediately, are not so many " bundles of feelings," but ex- 
 ternal objects themselves, made directly present to the mind ' 
 through the feelings they excite. If we have succeeded in 
 this endeavour, then, the one support upon which all the 
 objections raised by idealists rest having been shown to be 
 untenable, we might, perhaps, spare ourselves and our 
 readers any detailed consideration of the objections them- 
 selves. Nevertheless, we think it better to distinctly, if 
 briefly, review them, in order to remove, as completely as 
 we can, misunderstandings which might otherwise impede 
 us in our treatment of those questions concerning man and 
 the world he inhabits, which will occupy us in succeeding 
 sections of this book. 
 
 Now, idealist s, in support of their fundamental asser- 
 tions, appeal to what they deem the evident impossibility 
 of our having any real knowledge of what are called the 
 "^Z "secondary qualities "^""of bodies — ^^that is, their colours, 
 sounds, odours, and tastes — other than our own feelings 
 Primary . VQS^^cA^^JjLx&sci.- ■ lu SO far as people think otherwise, they 
 "secondary jarc dcclarcd to be demonstrably in error. But if they 
 qualities. 'j;j^anifestly err in this matter, and if secondary qualities 
 have no existence except in the feelings of those who feel 
 them, then, say they, we need not be surprised if the 
 "primary qualities" of bodies — that is, their extension, 
 solidity, shape, number, motion, force, etc. — turn out to be 
 in the same case, and are (as they say they are) also 
 reducible to groups of feelings variously combined. And 
 idealists are right in this, for if we could not directly know 
 things themselves, but only the impressions made upon us 
 by them, then it would also be true that what we call 
 " primary qualities " might be reduced to groups of feelings, 
 and that our ideas of extension, solidity, motion, etc., might 
 really be nothing more than ceisfeain groups of those 
 muscular feelings and feelings of effort and resistance, 
 which have been made use of by us in acquiring such ideas. 
 In spite, however, of this likeness between these two sets 
 of qualities as regards the validity of our beliefs concern- 
 ing them, men feel very differently in their regard. In the 
 first place, the colours which objects exhibit can only be 
 
OBJECTIONS. 99 
 
 appreciated by the eye, and the sounds they give rise to 
 can only be known through our sense of hearing. But in 
 examining the solidity, extension, figure, number, and 
 motion of the objects we perceive, we can bring more than 
 one sense into play, and we can test by our hands the 
 correctness of what we think the eye indicates, and confirm 
 the evidence of touch by vision. We have, therefore, a 
 naturally stronger persuasion of the objective reality of 
 the primary qualities of bodies than we have of the 
 accuracy of our knowledge with respect to their secondary 
 qualities. We can also much better dispense with our 
 belief in the reality of the latter than of the former. If 
 we were obliged to consider that the colours, sounds, 
 odours, and tastes of the objects around us were merely 
 subjective feelings, and that nothing in the remotest degree 
 like them existed in the objects themselves, the world would 
 indeed seem to be des pp iled of very much of its charm, but 
 would nevertheless still remain for us substantially what 
 we before deemed it to be. Flowers would have lost their / 
 tints as well as their fragrance, and the melody of birds, 
 no less than brilliance of plumage, would have disap- 
 peared. But such a transformation would be trifling indeed = 
 compared with the effects which would follow from the _ ^j 
 disappearance of the primary qualities. With their .dis- /l'^'^ 
 appearance the solid earth... would vanish from beneath ^ 
 our_i&et, the heavens from above us, and we should even ^ 
 lose the apparent fellowship of that most constant of all ! 
 our companions — our own body. It is not wonderful, then, \ 
 that men cling tenaciously to their belief in the reality of 
 primary qualities. And yet if our senses of sight, feeling, 
 hearing, smell, and taste may each and all severally 
 deceive us, it is difficult to see on what grounds we are to 
 repose confidence in the seeming declarations of any two 
 of them ! Yet we are told that if we think our perceptions 
 as to the colours, sounds, odours, and tastes of bodies, are 
 really like anything in them apart from our feelings, then 
 we are and must be grossly in error. The colour of any 
 object, it is said, is nothing but the result of the undulation 
 of certain waves of light reflected from its surface on our 
 eyes — waves of different lengths occasioning different im- 
 
belief. 
 
 lOO ON TRUTH. 
 
 pressions of colour — and we are asked how there can 
 possibly be any real resemblance between that condition 
 of a body which causes it to reflect these waves, and the 
 sensations of light and colour which we feel ? Again, they 
 say, sounds emitted by any object are merely the effects 
 "oTcertain minute vibrations of its substance ; how then can 
 there be any possible resemblance between such minute 
 oscillations of matter and a feeling of sound ? As well 
 might we consider a wound, or the pain of it, to be like 
 the knife which caused both ! 
 \ Now, it is most true that a feeling in us cannot, in itself, 
 j be like a quality of an external body. The sensation 
 "orange colour" cannot, of course, be in a real orange, nor 
 can that " ringing sound " which we experience when a bell 
 Thecommo, IS struck be really in the bell ; but the^plain m^l,DX-the 
 rustic is not so absurd as to suppose the contrary. He 
 ' knows well enough that his sensations of taste, sound, and 
 colour, are feelings which he has, and that those feelings 
 ,A: exist in himself, and not in external things. But he al^ 
 j\y/ kiiou:s-that Jjiere-Js- in. these external things somctliin g 
 / which corresponds wkh his feelings and gives rise to them. 
 If we question him intelligently, we shall find that he con- 
 siders he does get some sort of knowledge of the real quali- 
 ties of external things by the use of his senses, and that he 
 is indisposed to believe he could get a better knowledge of 
 those qualities in any other way. His feelings, he is sure, 
 are his own exclusively ; but he thinks, nevertheless, that ! 
 he does know, by means of his feelings, something of the \ 
 objective qualities of things as they really exist in them- ' 
 selves, independently of his perception of them. And herein 
 the " plain man " is right. His belief is the spontaneous and j 
 universal belief of mankind, apart from idealist philosophers, ■ 
 and a spontaneous and almost universal belief of mankind 
 should be accepted and acquiesced in, unless there are good 
 reasons against so doing. That such " good reasons " do 
 not exist it is the object of this section to show. Neverthe- 
 less, we would not be understood to maintain that either 
 rustics or philosophers are furnished with the means of 
 knowing e xJiansiive l^ either all the qualities of objects, or 
 what those objects and qualities are in themselves. It may 
 
OBJECTIONS. lOI 
 
 well be that, had we other senses or differently formed 
 organs of sense, we might be able to apprehend qualities 
 which we now cannot even imagine, or have a far more 
 complete knowledge of some of those we know already. 
 Our knowledge of the objects around us may be very im- 
 perfect compared with the knowledge of them which more 
 exalted intelligences might be able to attain to, and there 
 may be many objects in existence which we have no 
 means of perceiving. For all that, it is quite possible 
 that our knowledge of secondary qualities may at least be 
 true to such an extent, that the man who affirms these 
 qualities to exist objectively, as we apprehend them, is 
 indefinitely nearer the truth than he who simply denies 
 their objective existencey^ 
 
 But here we must direct the reader's attention to a very 
 important distinction. We have seen * that in our percep- 
 tion of any object, that object is made present to the mind by 
 sensations which are hardly, or not at all, adverted to by us. 
 The presence of the object in the mind is a presence in the 
 mind's perception, not in its sensations. When men affirm 
 that secondary qualities, as we know them, cannot possibly 
 exist objectively, what they really mean is the truth that " a 
 feeling " cannot exist except as felt — and this, of course, is 
 true. When they further say that a " secondary quality, as 
 we know it, cannot be like an objective quality of an ex- 
 ternal independent body," they mean "a feeling cannot be 
 like an objective quality " — and this, of course, is also true. 
 They forget, however, that there may be a correspondence 
 between our " perception " of an object and that object. Perceptions 
 although there can be no such correspondence between that 'feusations. 
 object and the " sensations " which give rise to our percep- 
 tion of it. For, as before said,t we have a power both of 
 \ perceiving and conceiving things which " never were and 
 never can be either felt or imagined," and we saw almost 
 at the outset of our inquiry % that a recognition of the trust- 
 worthiness of memory is enough to show us that our intel- 
 lect can know objective existences which are absolutely 
 imperceptible to the senses. We will do our best to 
 
 * See above, p. 91. 
 t See above, p. 89. % See above, p. 36. 
 
I02 ON TRUTH. 
 
 enable the reader to further test for himself the truth of 
 these assertions ; and if he should decide that there is in- 
 deed the great distinction between " feelings " and " ideas " 
 which we say there is, and if he should also be convinced 
 that he can truly perceive some of the objective qualities of 
 bodies, then he will no longer find it so strange that his 
 power of perception should enable him to apprehend the 
 secondary qualities of bodies also. 
 
 Before entering on this question, however, it may be 
 well to advert to the distinction drawn by idealists be- 
 tween : (i) sensations and perceptions, as being vivid 
 feelings, and (2) ideas, as being faint revivals of vivid 
 feelings formerly experienced. There is plainlya^^^reat i 
 
 _distinctipii. hetvveen perceptions "and ideas, but it by no { 
 means consists in the greater vividness of the former, but 
 in their permanence and their independence of the will 
 of him wlici^^.jDerceives. As to mere vividness, ideas and 
 
 ^emotions may be more vivid than many sensations. Ideas 
 will sometimes return again and again with a keenness 
 only too well known to those who have experienced mis- 
 fortune, and pleasurable ideas and anticipations will occa- 
 sionally produce an excitement almost beyond control. 
 But, apart from such extreme affections, how many of us 
 when listening to some melody familiar in early days, or 
 when seeing again, after a lapse of years, some spot dear 
 to memory, have not felt the force of ideas thereby recalled 
 far more vividly than the actual sensations of ear or eye 
 which have served to recall them ! 
 
 On the other hand, perceptions and ideas can be well 
 distinguished, by the relations they respectively bear to our 
 volition. Every one knows that he has no power to change 
 his perceptions of objects, though his ideas of objects can 
 be influenced by his will. While gazing at the National 
 Gallery, we cannot, try as we may, change our perception 
 of that building into a perception of the sea at Brighton, 
 or of the Jungfrau viewed from Interlaken. We cannot by 
 any merely mental effort banish either the objects visible 
 to our eyes, or the hum and rattle of the busy streets. But 
 if we are o\\\y thinking of the National Gallery, then we 
 can, at pleasure, divert our imagination from that vision, 
 
OBJ EC no xs. 
 
 lO 
 
 and call up a mental image of the sea at Brighton, or 
 of the Jungfrau bathed in sunshine. Wc can, therefore, j 3 
 clearly distinguish, quite apart from their greater or less ' -^ 
 vividness, two very different sets of mental phenomena. - — " 
 In the one set there is great facility of change, in the other — 
 there is permanence. In imagination our will has great 
 power, while in perception it is impotent. 
 
 But to return to the question whether any of our ideas 
 contain what was never felt, and are therefore more than 
 mere collections of faint, agglutinated, and modified sensa- 
 tions : It is sometimes represented that our ideas may be 
 analogous to those photographic portraits in which the 
 superposition of various different images results in the 
 formation of a generalized picture, somewhat like eachi 
 image, but absolutely like no one of them. Thus, it is/ 
 said, our idea of a horse is a similar spurious unity — a sortf 
 of amalgam of the images of all the liorses we have evef 
 seen. But if the reader will think what he really mean^ 
 when he says, " That is a horse," or " a pair of horses," he 
 will see that there is far more in his " perception " than was 
 ever contained in the sensations which gave rise to it. 
 The sensations most probably do unite to form a generalized 
 mental image, but not " an idea," which is something very 
 different, as will shortly more plainly appear.* When we /\} 
 say, "Those are two horses," our full meaning is, "those ^— 
 two objects which really exist independently of our per- -"^ 
 ceiving them, are two solid, material, living creatures of an 
 animal nature, belonging to that group of beings which we 
 distinguish from other animals by the name 'horse.'" 
 Even then, in so simple a perception as that here selected 
 as an example, the mind has within it a number of latent 
 conceptions such as those just drawn out, and besides these 
 it has a number of other yet more abstract ideas. For in 
 every such perception there are, and must be, latent the 
 ideas t of "existence," "distinction," "similarity," "unity," 
 and "truth." But the reader must not be surprised if he 
 I does not immediately recognize the presence of these ideas. 
 'Their presence is not explicitly recognized with ease, 
 
 * See below, chap. xiv. , " Sensuous Generalized Cognitions." 
 t See further chap, xvii., " Ideas of Existence, Essence," etc. 
 
^ 
 
 1 04, ON TRUTH. 
 
 except by the aid of reflection. Nevertheless, he will be able ^ 
 to detect their latent presence, by considering the results | 
 which follow from the denial of any one of them. Thus, / 
 if some one were to say, " What you call horses, only exist ( 
 in your imagination," our assertion, " I see two horses," ' 
 would be contradicted by the denial of the real existence , 
 of the animals, and thus we see th-e idea of their real exist-; 
 ence was implicitly contained in our assertion. If another'/ 
 person were to say, " You see double ; there is really only 
 one horse," our assertion would be then equally contradicted < 
 by this denial of that " distinction " between the two objects 
 which we thus find was implicitly present in it. If yet 
 another person remarked, " They are not two horses, for one 
 is a mule," such a remark would contradict our assertion , 
 by denying that " similarity " between the two objects which \ 
 is thus further shown to have been also implicitly asserted. \ 
 The latent idea of " unity " * would also thus be made 
 manifest, for they would not then be a true "pair" — not 
 two creatures of one nature ; for that unity of their nature, 
 which we thus see was implied in our assertion, " I see two 
 horses," would thereby be denied. Lastly, if one more 
 opponent simply said to us, " What you say is not true," 
 our assertion thereby would be most plainly contradicted, 
 and thus we see that the idea of " truth " formed an 
 integral part of our affirmation. The idea of " truth," 
 indeed, is latent in every affirmation. The essential part 
 of a judgment is the direct (not, of course, reflex) perception 
 of its truth. Leave that out, and it remains a mere play 
 of thought,! in which no judgment is passed. But most 
 certainly " truth " was never felt by any one, and the pre- 
 sence of that idea in any mental process shows, as does the 
 presence of the ideas "^stence," "distinction," and " simi- 
 larity," that such mental process contains more than could 
 exist in any collection of vivid and faint sensations. 
 
 Again, let us suppose that other ideas— such as those of I 
 " materiality," " life," and " animal nature of a certain kind " \ 
 — latent in the notion and affirmation, " That is a horse," / 
 be denied. Thus, let us suppose it to be said, "That horse/ 
 
 * As to the idea of number, see below, chap. xvii. 
 
 !• As pointed out by John Stuart Mill. See also below, chap. xvii. 
 
9- 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 105^ 
 
 1 which you think you see is not a material thing, but a mere 
 j spectral illusion produced by cleverly arranged looking- 
 { glasses," or, " It is not alive, but only a stuffed skin," or 
 j that the objection be again made, " It is not a horse, but 
 \, a mule ; " then by each of these denials one element of the 
 • original assertion will be seen to be contradicted, and in 
 1 each case the denial brings out clearly and makes distinctly 
 \ known to us, the latent presence of an idea which exceeds 
 'and differs from any and all our past sensations. The 
 multitudinous sensuous impressions we have had of dif- 
 ferent horses of various sizes and colours, have, of course, 
 had their effect upon our imagination, and reminiscences 
 of these concur with freshly received impressions to aid us 
 in eliciting the perception and idea of a horse by a direct 
 natural process, as before pointed out.* But that the idea 
 of a " horse " is not a mere amalgam of modified imagina- 
 tions, or a mere generalized mental image, is plain from 
 the fact that the imaginations which have helped to call it 
 forth, may persist in the mind side by side with it, which 
 they evidently could never do if the idea was made up of 
 such imaginations. Neither can our idea of a horse be an 
 imagination generated by antecedent impressions and 
 imaginations, for the notions implicitly contained within it, 
 show it to be something of an altogether different kind. 
 These notions — "existence," "similarity," "distinction," 
 i "unity," "truth," "materiality," "life," and "animal exist- 
 ence of a certain kind," are things beyond the domain of 
 
 /y A the senses, and cannot be contained in any mere images 
 
 / i or sense-impressions. To make such an affirmation, then, 
 
 t as " That is a horse," is to emit a judgment as to the 
 
 j essential nature of the thing perceived — or rather, to make 
 
 I a whole series of implicit judgments. If our mind, in every 
 
 distinct perception of the kind, has such conceptions really 
 
 latent within it, then our idea of any such object must be 
 
 a collection of latent judgments, with the perception that 
 
 they all relate to one thing, i.e. it must be a perception 
 
 of "unity." Thus every perception contains implicitly a 
 
 judgment, or rather, a group of judgments. 
 
 Let the reader examine what his own mind tells him 
 
 * See above, pp. 90, 91. 
 
 # 
 
 
io6 
 
 '^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 % 
 
 '/ 
 
 The idea 
 "force." 
 
 and we are persuaded that he will see that in perceiving 
 any body to be "solid," "extended," and "one body," he 
 has in each case a clear and simple idea, and not an amal- 
 gam of feelings of " effort," "motion," " pressure," "touch," 
 and " sight," however indispensable such feelings may have 
 been in order to call forth perceptions and ideas of solidity, 
 extension, and unity. Moreover, the idea of extension may 
 exist apart from sensations of sight, for it exists for the 
 blind. It can exist apart from sensations of touch or of 
 muscular effort, for it may be revealed by sight alone. 
 The idea can exist unchanged in our minds wdiilc the 
 extended object we happen to be observing changes from 
 solid to fluid, from hot to cold, from smooth to rough, from 
 a state of rest to that of motion, and so on. The idea is 
 a single idea, although it is aroused within us by a multi- 
 tude of sensuous experiences of different kinds.* That 
 such feelings are needed to give birth to our idea of "ex- 
 tension," does not show that such feelings are the idea of 
 extension. As well might we say that " gold " is " digging," 
 because acts of " digging" may have been needed to enable 
 us to acquire it. The nature of an idea is one thing ; its 
 mode of elicitation or acquisition is another and a very 
 different thing. Thus also our idea of " fo rce " _b ecomes \ 
 Jgiovvn tougby means of pur sense__of effort, of resistance, 
 ar]ii^j;esista_nce overcome, and sensations oT'tlTefMrr^fffe 
 the occasions through dSiST&y which our intellect conies to 
 perceive that surrounding bodies have powers corresponding' 
 to our o\vn. Some persons pretend that we thus commit the 
 absurd mistake of attributing to inanimate bodies around us, 
 activities absolutely like our own. But, in fact, we only 
 attribute to such bodies activities which have a certain 
 analogy with our own. If we try to pull a man up from 
 the ground, and fail because he is stronger than we, and if' 
 we try to raise a heavy trunk, and fail because it is too 
 heavy, we can indeed perceive a certain analogy between 
 the pulling action of the resisting man and the pulling 
 of gravity in the heavy trunk. But we also see that there 
 is a great difference between the two cases, not merely in 
 the concomitant circumstances only, but also in the essen- 
 
 * See also below, chap, xv., " Elements of Perception and Abstraction." 
 
OBJECTIONS. 107 
 
 tial natures of the two " pulls." Although in either case 
 we have more or less similar sensations, yet our intellect 
 arrives at a quite different result, perceiving in the one 
 case an active, living power, and in the other case a phy- 
 sical force. It is similar with respect to the ideas "exten- 
 sion," " figure," " number," etc. By means of our sensations 
 and the relations between them, we arrive at something 
 fundamentally different from either— namely, an apprehen- 
 sion of external, objective conditions of real independent 
 bodies, which conditions are utterly unlike the sensations 
 and relations between sensations that serve to make those 
 objective conditions known to us. By a comparison of our | 
 perceptions of "extension," "solidity," "force," "number," 
 etc., with the sensations and relations between sensations 
 which occasion them, we see that the latter are by no 
 means equivalent to the former, and that in a mere collec- 
 tion of such feelings we miss the main point, the very 
 essence, of each such perception which is essentially one 
 thing — a unity. The reader will, we think, feel the force of 
 this if he merely reflects how, in his perception of either the 
 shape, or the firmness, or the power of a cricket ball, he 
 apprehends one thing, and not a collection or assemblage 
 of " feelingsJ' 
 \ But here it may be further objected that our belief in simple a,id 
 
 \ •/ ■' coinpouna 
 
 \the unity of such ideas is a mistake, and that though theyT^'^-^'".^^- 
 Beem to us simple, they may yet be really compound. In 
 proof of the possibility of such a deception, our feeling of 
 fnusical sound has been brought forward as an instance 
 bf a mistake of the kind. It is true that we may first hear 
 a succession of distinct taps or beats, and that these may 
 get quicker and quicker, till they can no longer be identified 
 as separate " states of consciousness," while there arises, 
 instead of them, the sound of a musical tone. It is also 
 true that, as the beats get quicker and quicker, the tone 
 will go on rising in pitch till it again becomes inaudible, 
 while, if certain other beats take place simultaneously, we 
 then get that quality of sound called "■ timbre" These 
 facts may also be made more striking by holding a vibrat- 
 ing musical fork between the teeth, for thus we are enabled 
 to feel through the teeth the jarring sensation of the beats, 
 
^/'- 
 
 M' 
 
 ^z,/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 while at the same time we hear the musical tone. On 
 account of these facts it has been asserted that our sense 
 of hearing deceives us into the belief that our feelings of 
 " musical tone " and of " timbre " are simple feelings, while 
 all the time they are really compound, and made up of 
 transformed feelings of vibration. Hence it has been 
 further argued that as our senses may thus deceive us in 
 leading us to believe a sensation to be simple when it is 
 really compound, so also it may well be that an idea we 
 think to be one, may also be really compound and made up 
 of transformed sensations. 
 
 Now, granting in the first place, if only for argument's 
 sake, that a feeling of " a musical tone " or of " timbre " 
 is each really a unity and quite single, as supposed by 
 this objection, let us see whether even thus the argument 
 so brought forward will hold water. 
 
 A pure and simple " feeling of musical tone" and 
 ! nothing else, cannot be felt to be made up of " feelings of 
 ^ ra|)icl beats," though. it may succeed tkem,. for if it was felt 
 j to be thus compound, it could not at the same time — as 
 in the argument we are considering — be felt to be simple. 
 It must, therefore, be supposed to be made up of minute 
 feelings of throbs which are not felt. But an unfelt feeling 
 is impossible ; it is a contradiction in terms. To say that 
 the feelings thus felt to be different, are fundamentally the 
 ; same, because of the fundamental similarity of the cause 
 which calls them forth, is to confound the physical con- 
 ditions of feelings with the feelings themselves. We might 
 just as well say, if a certain number and velocity of taps 
 caused us a pleasant feeling, while an increase in their 
 rapidity caused us pain, that pleasure and pain are the 
 same thing, or that pain is made up of a number of small 
 unnoticed pleasures. Tlius_ this argument against the 
 Ji£lti:_an4..gijHn;Ieness .of dui" Ideas falls to the ground. But 
 though we have considered it on the assumption that a 
 feeling of musical tone or timbre is a perfectly simple 
 unity of feeling, we are by no means sure that such is in ^ 
 fact the case. We recollect well, when listening in the \ 
 Baptistery of Pisa to the reflected musical chord produced i 
 by the successive singing of four notes, that our sensation j 
 
OBJECTIONS. 109// 
 
 i seemed to us to be by no means a purely simple sensation. 
 ' Whether, however, such a feeling is or is not a simple 
 unity of sensation, we are quite certain that it is a perfect 
 and simple unity oi perception, and it was the unity of each 
 of our perceptions of the extension, shape, firmness, and 
 power of the cricket ball which we affirmed. We were 
 far indeed from denying the multiplicity of the feelings 
 underlying each such perception. 
 
 But to show yet more clearly that by the help of our 
 feelings we can perceive what is altogether beyond feeling, 
 we may consider the force and real meaning of a few 
 expressions in frequent use. Thus we often speak of our 
 " experience," and the idea is a familiar one to most people. 
 Yet the icfea cannot be a faint reproduction of past feelings, 
 for " experience " was never felt — not even as a mode in 
 which past feelings have stood to one another. By the 
 repetition over and over again of feelings of the same or 
 of different kinds, we may find it easier to feel them, or 
 they may become more pleasurable to us or less so. But 
 to undergo such changes in feeling, and to obtain the idea 
 " experience," are two very different things. Feelings of 
 ease, of pleasure, or of pain, may blend with the sensations 
 the repetition of which occasions them, but the ide a 'jf x p'^ - ^■r^ 
 rieac€,,lUs_the conception of something which, a^ it were, _z 
 stands beside and contemplates past feelings, or the objects 
 and circumstances which have given rise to them, in 
 • ^relation to some continuously existing being who is the 
 \ Subject of such experience. Let the reader ask himself 
 Whether in saying, " I have experienced something," or, 
 " Some one else has had an experience of a definite kind," 
 he does not mean to refer to some objective modification 
 induced in himself or in some one else, and not merely to 
 some change in feelings or in the relations of feelings to 
 one another. Again, we who see, can all form an idea of 
 our act of seeing, yet that act of seeing was never itself 
 felt, nor was it even a relation between feelings. We 
 ' may have a certain feeling in our eye-balls when looking, 
 but even if we could feel every most minute action of 
 every part of the eye's complex mechanism, such feelings 
 would no more be an " act of seeing," than opening 
 
T 10 
 
 /// ON TRUTH. 
 
 a shutter would be the same thing as seeing a landscape 
 which it, while unopened, hid from view. We have, of 
 course, seen very many sights, but our act of sight itself 
 was never one of them. Yet we all know very well what 
 it is, and we all constantly speak familiarly about it. 
 Amongst things seen, we continually see colours, and 
 have different feelings accordingly. We, however, never 
 feel or see " colour," though we know well enough what 
 the conception or idea " colour " is, and we frequently and \^ 
 familiarly use it. It is often remarked that time is felt 
 to pass more rapidly by the aged — that months to the old 
 man appear no longer than weeks to the young man. 
 This may be the case as regards feeling, but not as regards 
 the intellect. The old man does not intellectually recognize 
 months to be weeks. 
 
 We„iiave another example of apprehending what wa.s 
 never felt, in the idea we form of what we mean by the 
 term " nothing," or " nonentity." That evidently cannot 
 be a faint revival of past sensations or relations between 
 sensations, for we could never feel "nonentity," nor 
 could it ever be a mode of feeling, since every mode of 
 feeling or relation between feelings, must be some mode 
 or some relation, and therefore cannot be " nothing." 
 As we have already seen, it is impossible to imagine '. 
 " nonentity," though, by the help of transient images, | 
 our intellect can conceive of it.* We show by expressions ; 
 we constantly use that we can conceive of it and have a I 
 definite idea about it. How commonly we hear it said, I 
 " That is worth nothing," or, " It is empty ; there is | 
 nothing left in it " ! It may perhaps be said, in reply, that 
 the idea " nothing " is no idea at all, and that to apprehend 
 it is no conception of the mind, but simply the absence of 
 any conception — i.e. that not " to conceive " is the same 
 thing as " to not conceive." Such a reply, however, would 
 be a very erroneous one. " To not conceive " is a mere 
 expression of passivity, and the " absence of any con- 
 ception" in the mind leaves the mind a blank. But when 
 we say " nothing can make itself," or " nonentity cannot 
 act," the mind is not a blank, and it is also active, for we 
 
 * See above, p. 88. 
 
6>^ 
 
 OBJECTIONS. fl IlA/ 
 
 thereby make judgments. Such expressions the mind can 
 understand. They are very different from what they would 
 be if a mere blank took the place of the idea and word 
 
 " nothing," as is easily shown experimentally : " can 
 
 make itself," and " can act," are expressions without 
 
 meaning, but let the word and conception " nothing " be 
 
 substituted for the blanks, and their meaning becomes clear. 
 
 \ It is also plain that we understand the idea expressed 
 
 I by the words " nothing " or " nonentity," since we can 
 
 ! distinguish them clearly from all other ideas. But if our 
 
 : intellect has thus the power of apprehending, through 
 
 K sensation, things that never were, and never could be felt, 
 
 why should we distrust its assurance that it tells us truly 
 
 concerning at least some of the real objective qualities of 
 
 bodies ? That it can and does so tell us is, however, one 
 
 of those self-evident truths which need no proof, and which 
 
 cannot be denied without self-stul^jjfication. For if we see 
 
 that any two things are alike, we must know that they have 
 
 the real objective condition of " being deemed by us to be 
 
 alike," since otherwise they might at the same time be 
 
 deemed by us to be alike and not deemed by us to be alike, 
 
 which would violate the principle of contradiction, and so 
 
 land us in absolute, universal scepticism, which, as we have 
 
 seen, is mere absurdity. 
 
 It thus becomes evident that we can know some real 
 objective conditions^of bodies. Nor is this, after all, excep- 
 tionally wonderful, for we Kave seen in the third chapter * 
 that we know objective truth as regards our own continued 
 existence, and if we know truth about one such existence, it 
 becomes probable that we may know the same about other 
 existences also. It also becomes evident that ideas ^nd 
 sensations are very different, apart ftom.. their-^i^idness, 
 \ as also that ideas are n ot co llecjiJQi;^ jp£ i,mi9.filfef3. Ir,?^'"°^-'^t 
 and fliaf'we can know some real obj ectiv e conditions" oi 
 bodies. "~"* 
 
 We have, indeed, said more than once that " nothing can|/,„^^/„a- 
 be imag in ed which has not been experienced by our sensi- ^|,';,",^"^„. 
 tive faculty ;" but many things may be c onceiv ed of whicli^ 
 have never been thus experienced, for there is a"" great! 
 * See above, p. 36. 
 
I 12 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 u 
 
 \ 
 
 difference between our powers of imagination and of con- 
 K/jh ception. That which is unpicturable may be conceivable, 
 '» '• and the abstraction which is impossible to the imagination 
 may be easy to conception. That our power of conception 
 
 I is not tied down to experience, is shown by the fact that we 
 
 I can conceive of our possessing other senses than we have 
 
 ' — senses which should inform us, for example, about the 
 magnetic condition, crystalline construction, or chemical 
 composition of bodies, and we can conceive of our own 
 annihilation. But nothing can show more clearly that we 
 can conceive of what we have never felt and can never 
 imagine, than the fact that we can think and speak of a 
 world neither light nor dark, but in an utterly unimagin- 
 able condition, and of bodies entirely devoid of colour. 
 For it is certainly impossible for us to imagine a world 
 utterly devoid of light, and yet not dark, or to imagine 
 absolutely tmcoloiired objects, however neutral the tint or 
 transparent the appearance which they may seem to our 
 imagination to present. There are thus four very dis- 
 tinct kinds of propositions which may be proposed for our 
 acceptance — 
 
 \ (i) Those which can be both imagined and seen by our 
 
 I intellect to be true ; 
 
 (2) Those which can be imagined, but which are seen 
 not to be true (as that centaurs and mermaids are real 
 living beings) ; 
 ^ \ (3) Those which cannot be imagined, but which can be 
 
 I conceived of as true ; 
 
 \ (4) Those which cannot be imagined, and are also seen 
 
 \to be positively and absolutely impossible.* 
 '^, ■ , n ,^ Thus, over and above acts of sensation and imagination, 
 
 1 he intellect ' " 
 
 as ci factor. ^^ actiou of tlic intellect has not only, as before said,t 
 ever to be taken into account, but the highest place 
 must also be assigned to it. Though many men would 
 assign to our sensitive faculty the dignity of acting as our 
 supreme and ultimate test of reality and truth, we unhesi- 
 tatingly afifirm that it is the intellect alone which is supreme, 
 and this not only in judging about abstract matters, but 
 also in judging of matters of which the senses take cog- 
 * .See above, p. 41. t See above, pp. 88, 89. 
 
 I IIILC 
 
 y^ / not 
 ^\ livii 
 
 u 
 
OBJECTIONS. 
 
 I I 
 
 nizance. People who believe in the ordinary way about the 
 ■ mdependent existence of the "external world, must rely 
 j upon their intellect exclusively, with respect to all questions 
 j which cannot be submitted to the examination of the 
 : senses. But even with respect to all matters which can be 
 so submitted to the test of sense, the last word in all cases 
 of doubt rests with the intellect and not with the senses. 
 It might seem that in making experiments with different 
 bodies (as in chemistry) to see what their actions or the 
 result of their actions may be-it might seem, we say, in 
 such matters wherein we directly appeal to our senses for 
 information, that it is those senses which are our ultimate 
 criterion, and that their declarations must be supreme 
 \et such IS not in fact the case. The enormous value of 
 our sensations is not for one moment to be contested 
 and we have already admitted and asserted that it is by 
 and through our sensations that all our knowledge is ini- 
 tiated. Observation and experiment are always, of course 
 to be made use of when possible for verifying our deduc- 
 tive reasonings; nevertheless, in the last resource, when 
 we have done observing and experimenting, how do we 
 know that we have obtained such results as we may have 
 obtained through these processes, save by the intellect ? 
 How are we to judge between what may seem to be the 
 conflicting indications of different sense impressions ? 
 Nothing could be more foolish than to undervalue the 
 testimony of the senses, and the senses are truly a test 
 and cause of certainty, but they are not the test of it 
 Certainty is not in sensation, though sensatl^ is so con- 
 stantly our means of acquiring it. Certainty belongs to 
 thought, and to thought only. Self-conscious, reflective 
 thought, then, IS our ultimate and absolute criterion It is 
 by thought only-by the self-conscious intellect-that we 
 know we have " feelings " at all. Without that we mi-ht 
 indeed feel, but we could not know that we felt or knew 
 ourselves in feeling. Our ultimate court of appeal and\ 
 supreme criterion is the intellect, and not sense, and that \- 
 act of intellectual perception which is thus ultimate, we ] 
 may call " intellectual intuition." / 
 
 I Now, what does our intellect tell us about the primary 
 
 I 
 
ii4>/y 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 itsdedara- and sccondaiy qualities of bodies? Surely it tells us | 
 v!aiHi7s' that just as we apprehend the former by sensations ; 
 which are more or less different from the primary quali- j 
 ties they reveal, so sensations of colour, sound, etc., reveal 
 to us other objective qualities of bodies which are more 
 or less different from the sensations themselves which | 
 reveal them. Moreover, it tells us that the objects may 
 have similar objective secondary qualities, though the 
 sensations revealing them are different, or may have dif- 
 ferent objective secondary qualities while the sensations 
 which reveal them are similar. For colours are distin- 
 guishable by us as belonging to two different categories, 
 which may be called intrinsic and extrijisic respectively. 
 By intrinsic colours we mean those which are permanently 
 present in the bodies which show them, which are steady 
 and do not vary when looked at from different points of 
 view, and are not due to the colour of any transparent 
 medium through which they are seen, or the reflection of 
 any hue upon them. Such intrinsic colours are exhibited 
 by most natural objects when viewed near at hand. As 
 example.s,of.£xtrinsic colours, may be taken those due to a 
 coloured medium through which any object may be viewed, 
 or colours reflected upon objects or colours devoid of per- 
 manence which come and go with the motion of an object, 
 or according to the direction in which it may be viewed. 
 Now, the stable colours of objects, intrinsic colours, are 
 indeed naturally taken by ordinary persons to be the real 
 colours of the objects themselves. But when they see any 
 object which presents a mere play of iridescent colour and 
 changing opalescent tints varying with every movement, 
 a moment's thought suffices to show them that they have 
 therein something different from ordinary colour — some- 
 thing depending not only on the object's colour, but also on 
 other different conditions. A similar distinction may be 
 drawn between two categories of sounds, which may also 
 be named respectively, intrinsic and extrinsic sounds. By 
 irilri-nsic-S£muds,_\ve mean sounds, however initiated, which 
 are given forth by one body from its own substance for a 
 more or less appreciably prolonged duration. Such are 
 musical notes, the ringing sound of a bell, or the reverberat- 
 
 •fc" 
 
 t 
 
OBJECTIONS. 
 
 115 
 
 '^ 
 
 ing sonorousness of a gong. As examples of extrinsic 
 sounds maybe cited the sounds made by one body striking 
 upon another, as by the wheels of a cart rumbling along a 
 road, the ticking of a clock, or by reflected (that is, echoed) 
 sounds, through which a mere rock may seem to articulate 
 words or even sentences. Thus, in the illustration before 
 given * of the various elements required to co-operate in the 
 production of such a sound as the striking of a clock, it is the 
 ringing of the bell which is the intrinsic sound ; and this is 
 also necessarily accompanied by an extrinsic sound — namely, 
 the sound of the contact of the hammer and the bell, apart 
 from the ringing thereby induced. Though ordinarily 
 unnoticed, because drowned in the sound of the ringing, 
 this extrinsic sound must be present, since the blow of the 
 hammer on the bell must produce some sounds 
 
 Our intellect, then, seems to tell us that, through our 
 sensations, we perceive secondary as well as primary 
 qualities of different kinds and orders, which are different 
 from the sensations theniselves but }'et give us a prac- 
 tically serviceable and not mendacious knowledge of such 
 qualities. And the correctness of this belief is, as we 
 shall see, at least so far incontestable that the common 
 belief must be nearer the truth than the negation of it 
 can possibly be. Yet we are sometimes told that in the 
 absence of organs of sense, silence and darkness would 
 envelope the world. Now, our idea of " light " may pro- 
 bably be quite inadequate to make the essence of light 
 known to us as we may conceive of its being known by 
 some nature much higher than ours. But, nevertheless, our 
 idea of " light " is, at any rate, more like objective light 
 than is our idea of darkness. It is a great mistake, then, 
 to think that in the absence of sense-organs the world 
 would have neither light nor sound, and that continual 
 darkness would envelop such perfectly silent motions as 
 might still exist. For to speak of such an unseen world 
 as dark, is to express objective existence in merely sub- 
 jective terms after all. Such a world would be neither 
 light nor dark, but in a condition absolutely unimaginable 
 by us, and one which we may far more reasonably think 
 * See above, p. 92. 
 
 6- 
 
ii6 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 of as possessing light, than as plunged in darkness. For 
 since we suppose the sun, moon, and stars, meteors, 
 volcanoes, and phosphorescent organisms to exist in it as 
 now they do, all the objective conditions of light, save 
 sense-organs, would, by the hypothesis, be present, while 
 the objective conditions of what, to our senses, is darkness, 
 would not be present. Though all " sensations " would, 
 of course, vanish from an insentient universe, yet the 
 objective qualities those sensations make known to us 
 would continue to exist. Other persons think that they 
 get nearer to the absolute truth of things by considering 
 colours and sounds to be really " modes of motion " — 
 different orders and degrees of " vibrati.ojQ5." But, as we 
 have seen, the very same cavils may be brought against the 
 validity of our perceptions of primary qualities as against 
 our perceptions of secondary ones, and those who dispute 
 the truth of the latter may logically resolve our ideas of 
 vibration, extension, and motion, into groups of muscular 
 sensations and the relations between them. But " groups 
 of muscular sensations " must be at least as unlike the 
 objective causes of light, colour, and sound, as are those 
 conceptions of light, colour, and sound which ordinarily 
 prevail ! 
 
 Armed with the foregoing considerations, let us now 
 apply ourselves to the various objections which have been 
 made to the validity of the ordinary apprehensions of 
 mankind with respect to the secondary qualities of bodies, 
 especially as concerns colours and sounds, though 
 analogous considerations equally apply to all the other 
 secondary qualities. 
 Objections "^ The vcracity of our apprehensions of colours is in the 
 
 as to colours . 
 
 and sounds, first placc unpugued on the ground that the appearance 
 
 
 of bright coloration may be induced by merely engraving 
 minute furrows on the surface of a body, and by other 
 changes in the conditions of its surface structure only, or 
 in its shape and thickness, as in the well-known case of the 
 soap-bubble. But suchji-jiigsceat and opalescent hues are 
 forms of extrinsic colour, which, as we have seen, is b'y no 
 ' means apprehended by us as being the same thing as 
 intrinsic colour. Therefore our judgments are not misled 
 
 i 
 
OBJECTIONS. I I 7 
 
 by such sense-impressions which indicate to us the ex- 
 istence of some real objective difference between extrinsic 
 and intrinsic colours, even before the advance of optical 
 science enables us to detect some of the conditions which 
 determine the existence of the former. Such appearances 
 no more necessarily deceive us than those produced by 
 the reflection of coloured light on an object, or the inspec- 
 tion of it through stained glass or some other coloured 
 medium. No reasonable man considers that a landscape 
 has become really purple or orange because he happens to 
 see it through purple or orange glass, and our faculties are 
 not to be reckoned as mendacious because, through want 
 of ordinary knowledge or care, an extrinsic colour may 
 occasionally be mistaken for an intrinsic one. 
 
 An analogous objection concerning sound has been' 
 made as follows: "When vibrations become very rapid,, 
 our subjective impressions undergo a change of kind,/ 
 namely, a change from feelings of successive beats to a| 
 feeling of musical tone. But, objectively, there is no 
 corresponding change. There is objectively nothing but 
 a series of vibrations which become more and more rapid, 
 but v/hich always remain, what they were at first, namely, 
 vibrations. Therefore our feelings here intimate to us 
 the existence of a change which nevertheless has no real 
 existence in the things which affect our feelings." 
 j Now, in the first place, as we before observed, it is not 
 I clear to us that our feelings of musical tone are so purely 
 jsimple as this objection would represent them to be. But 
 the question of the veracity of our faculties does not 
 depend on the quality, multiplicity, or even on the distinct 
 recognition of our sensations, but upon the perceptions 
 they induce. Unfelt sensations (unheard sounds) cannot, 
 of course, exist, but they are not to be considered as "un- 
 felt," merely because the distinct limits which distinguish 
 each may not be perceptible to us. We feel the sensations 
 (feel the colours) of the rainbow, though we cannot see their 
 limits, as they seem to pass imperceptibly one into another 
 Truth, indeed,* is not felt, nor is it in sensations at all,' 
 but in the intellect which judges by the help of sensations.) 
 * Sec al)(ive, p. 104. 
 
ii8. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 If: 
 
 Effects of ' 
 bodily ill- 
 juries on 
 07ir percep- 
 tions. 
 
 0- 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
 Now, the sensations of successive beats, and of musical 
 tone, and of timbre, induced through different rates and 
 groups of vibrations, do not necessarily lead to false judg- 
 ments about the facts. We know that bodies may vibrate 
 so rapidly that our ears cannot hear the intrinsic sounds 
 they emit. Only some human ears can detect the shrill 
 notes of the bat. It is surely probable that at the other 
 end oTThe scale there may be musical notes emitted by 
 bodies which vibrate too slowly for our ears to detect their 
 intrinsic tones. But the sounds produced by beats and 
 taps are extrinsic sounds. We can, however, only hear 
 some extrinsic as well as some intrinsic sounds. Now, I 
 when we at first hear "beats" and afterwards hear a 
 " musical tone," this change in us does not necessarily 
 indicate an objective change. Our natural and spontaneous 
 judgment is that at first we hear sounds — beats — produced 
 by a vibrating body (extrinsic sounds), and that afterwards 
 we hear sounds /;/ a vibrating body (intrinsic sounds), and 
 such is in fact the case. There is an objective duality as 
 well as a subjective duality, although our ears can only 
 hear small portions of cither of the two series of objective 
 sonorous qualities. Let the reader ask himself, when after 
 hearing the vibrations of a body without a musical tone he 
 suddenly comes to hear its musical note, but not its vibra- 
 tions, whether this experience of his induces him to judge 
 that there is any objective change in the vibrating body 
 like the change which has suddenly taken place in his 
 sense of hearing. We are persuaded he will reply that it 
 does not, but only tells him that he has ceased to hear from 
 it sounds of one order, and has begun to hear from it sounds 
 of another order. If so, then his senses do not deceive him, 
 are not mendacious, and the objection is fallacious. 
 
 But it may be further objected that the effects of some 
 bodily injuries serve to show that the testimony of our 
 senses is not trustworthy. Men who have had a leg ampu- 
 tated may still sometimes have feelings as if the leg was 
 still on, and as if they had pains in toes no longer possessed 
 by them. Our perceptions, therefore, it may be argued, 
 are but the result of the conditions under which we live ; 
 and, were these fundamentally changed, then what at 
 
OBJECTIONS. 119. 
 
 i present seem to us to be the most certain of truths, might 
 appear to us to be absolute impossibilities. But no one is so 
 . foolish as to pretend that our perceptions are independent 
 : of our bodily organization, and if that organization be 
 I impaired, the action of our sensitive faculty, which depends 
 I upon our organization, will be impaired likewise. If our 
 organization ought to be such as to guide us truly under 
 the normal and ordinary conditions of life, it is impossible 
 for it to be simultaneously so organized as to guide us 
 truly under quite opposite conditions. And after all, even 
 though a man whose leg has been amputated may suffer 
 from, pain which feels to him like a painful affection of his 
 toes, yet he is not thereby led to perceive a leg as present, 
 which has been cut off. His eyesight and his sense of! 
 touch enable him perfectly well to control and direct hisj 
 judgment rightly, in spite of the abnormal feelings which 
 may accompany his abnormal condition. But can we 
 expect that our organization would act normally when 
 abnormally injured or distorted? A hydra is capable of 
 being turned inside out without apparently much incon- 
 v^enience. If we could so undergo a similar operation, no 
 doubt the world about us would bear a singularly modified 
 aspect ; but surely that man would be an unreasonable 
 grumbler who complained because his organization was not 
 so arranged as to give him accurate notions of things while 
 he was thus int rove rted. 
 
 In order to show that our perceptions and our con- 
 victions about the truth of things are simply due to the 
 conditions which surround us, and therefore cannot be 
 absolutely relied upon, the singular conception, already 
 considered by us,* was put forward which supposed the 
 existence of intelligent creatures inhabiting only two 
 \ dimensions of space. But, as we before pointed out, men 
 bringing forward such a supposition, and representing what 
 the perceptions of such creatures would necessarily be, 
 must at least think they know absolute geometric truth, 
 for otherwise their whole argument would be baseless. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be objected that nevertheless deceptions' ^dc('£L> 
 of the senses are of constant occurrence; that distant! i-f;„^l" 
 
 * See above, p. 47. ' 
 
% 
 
 I 20 ON TRUTH. 
 
 mountains look purple, and yet are not purple ; that objects 
 look different in size and shape as we change our place 
 with respect to them, while all the time, in reality, they 
 remain the same in size and shape ; that under the 
 influence of alcohol one object may appear as two objects ; \ 
 and that, even without this excitation, a pea held between 
 the adjacent sides of our crossed fingers will feel not like 
 one pea, but like two peas. But there is no real sense- 
 deception in all this, though it is possible that there may 
 occasionally be a mistaken inference. Distant mountains 
 look purple, and are purple as seen by us. That is to say, 
 such mountains, with a given thickness of atmosphere 
 under certain conditions, have together a purple aspect. 
 But who is so simple as to believe that the purple is in 
 the mountains themselves, or expects to find them purple 
 when he actually gets to them .^ A person might as well 
 impugn the accuracy of his senses because when he takes 
 up a piece of yellow glass, and looks at an object through 
 it, his senses do not, for his convenience, remove the yellow 
 from the glass, instead of his being left to his common 
 sense to perceive that the yellow belongs to the medium 
 he looks throuo^h , and not to the object he looks at The 
 fact that objects appear differently in different positions, 
 we not only admit, but have called attention to in the last 
 chapter.* Our purpose in so doing was to prove that in 
 Tception it is the object itself which is perceived, and not 
 the sensations, or subjective signs, it occasions in us ; since 
 while the latter change, the perception of the object remains 
 unchanged. Thus in such matters our senses in no way 
 deceive us. TJie same object looks differently to us when 
 from different points of view, but is perceived to be 
 Lally, in itself, not different. It looks differently because, 
 though not really dificrent in itself, it is really different in 
 its relation to us — that is, in its relative position with respect 
 to ourselves. The senses would be deceitful and not 
 veracious if they still showed us the south and west sides 
 of a tower after we had walked round from a position 
 opposite to its south-west angle, to a position opposite 
 to its north-east angle. If we first stand so that the spire 
 
 * See above, p. 91. 
 
 i, 
 
OBJECTIONS. I 2 I^ 
 
 of one church exactly hides from us that of another church, 
 only one spire being visible, and if we then move and so ^^ 
 come to see two spires, that does not show that we have 
 been deceived by our senses. If we had doubted, when 
 standing at our first point of view, as to whether two or 
 only one spire existed, and if, without trying by change 
 of place to test the fact, we judged at once that there 
 was but one spire, then we should have fallen into an 
 error of judgment richly deserved from our carelessness in 
 making it. Similarly, changes in the apparent distance or 
 proximity between the two spires, occasioned by change 
 of place on our part, are perfectly "veracious. Such 
 changes do, in fact, take place through our motion, which 
 does occasion change between the relative positions of the 
 two spires and ourselves. The senses would be deceitful 
 indeed if, while we walked round two objects, the sense- 
 impressions received from them underwent no change. 
 The objection with respect to the action of alcohol hardly 
 deserves reply. By the action of that sU-Bstance our se nse; 
 organs are apt to become functionally disordered. Now 
 die only action of a sense-organ is to excite feelings. That 
 a disordered sense-organ, then, should occasion disordered 
 feelings is only what might be expected, and is what 
 nothing but a miracle could avert. We might as well 
 expect to see perfectly through a telescope, some of the 
 lenses of which had been removed, as to see accurately 
 with eyes, the organization of which had been thus tempo-, 
 rarily impaired. The objection drawn from the feelingsl 
 occasioned by a pea held between two fingers which are\ 
 crossed, may be met as follows : no one would affirm that 
 the mere touch of a surface can occasion a knowledge 
 as to bulk and solidity ; for this there must be added 
 thereto the sense of resistance. If, then, with the fore and 
 middle fingers of the right hand we touch simultaneously 
 two opposite surfaces, and find we cannot bring our fingers 
 together, the feeling naturally arises (from long expe- 
 rienced associations of sensations) that an obstacle in 
 the form of a continuous, solid body lies between them — 
 an obstacle situated to the right of our forefinger and 
 to the left of our middle finder. If this feelin"; is adverted 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 

 12 2^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 to by consciousness and accepted, it is a true inference. 
 If it is a mere feeling not adverted to by consciousness, 
 then it is a practically inferential feeling brought about 
 by antecedent sensuous associations like those of animals 'i 
 
 noticed * in the foregoing chapter. If now we simul- 
 taneously touch an object with the same fingers crossed, 
 the resistance experienced will be on the left of our fore- 
 finger and on the right of our middle finger, and a sensuous, 
 practical inference thence arises that there is a solid body \ 
 
 / on the right of the middle finger and also on the left of the |- 
 
 forefinger, and so there is. But these are positions which, I 
 
 under ordinary circumstances, it is impossible for any single \. 
 
 body to hold, and so we may hastily and incorrectly infer 
 that there are two bodies — two peas — present, and such 
 is the practical and natural, sensuous inference which 
 results from long antecedent associations of sensations. 
 
 ' Therefore in such a phenomenon there is no real sense- 
 deception. Various ingenious instruments have been 
 invented which produce optical illusions, such, for example, 
 as that of the stereoscope. The human intellect being able 
 so to arrange objects as to invert the impressions ordinarily 
 made by them on our senses, we might be sure, a priori, 
 that such an inversion would also invert (so to speak) the 
 effects produced. The results of such arrangements are 
 all explicable on the same principle which we have made 
 use of to explain the difficulty about the pea which may 
 be made to feel as if it were two peas, and no such con- 
 trivances can ever show that our senses really deceive us. 
 
 " But," it may be further argued, "granting that our sense 
 
 perceptions may be trusted about a small object, with 
 
 respect to which we may bring more than one sense-organ 
 
 into play, they cannot be trusted where we can but employ 
 
 v^ / a single sense, as we learn with respect to the sun's motion, 
 
 ' about which men were grossly deceived for centuries by 
 their eyesight." But, in fact, they were not deceived at all 
 by their eyesight, they drew an inference! too hastily 
 /from true perceptions, as a little reflection will, w£^ JluukrX— -v. 
 
 / make obvious. Our sight gives us no information at all f 
 
 A 
 
 \t 
 
 ^ * See above, p. 94. 
 
 t As before said, p. 95. 
 
OBJECTIOXS. 123 
 
 j with respect to motion itself, but only with respect to 
 j changes of relative position between objects. Thus, when 
 we are in motion ourselves, we may be utterly unconscious 
 of it, save for jolts, jars, the feeling of the air, and other 
 bodily incidents which form no elements of motion, but are 
 only accidental accompaniments of it. When travellers in 
 a balloon ascend from the earth, they are said to have no 
 feeling whatever of motion. It is only by looking down 
 that they can discover any change; and then the earth's 
 surface appears to be sinking away from beneath themi 
 As to moving objects round us, we do not see motion in\ 
 them, but only a change of position relatively to each other, I 
 or relatively to ourselves. These phenomena of the senses! 
 give rise in us to our intellectual apprehension of motion^ 
 and of movement in things ; but that apprehension, reflec- 
 tion shows us, does not take place without inference. With /f^Jr^ 
 regard to the motion of the sun, there really is this relative j^ 
 change of position, a fact about which the senses give us 
 accurate information. Our perception of this relative change 
 of place does certainly awaken in our intellect the idea and 
 perception of motion, but it does not, for it cannot, tell us 
 where the motion is, without processes of examination and 
 inference. The supposed perception of the sun's motion is 
 an instance of an inference, not noted perhaps at the time 
 as an inference, but clearly seen on reflection to have been 
 an inference. It is impossible for any one to really see the 
 sun move. If we fix our eyes on it at sunset, we shall 
 indeed, from second to second, see that it has more and 
 more disappeared ; but we cannot see it move. As to the 
 motion of the sun, the mass of men never think about it ; 
 those that first did think about it inferred that it moved, 
 and their inference, imbedded ia language, has so affected 
 us, that to this day every one speaks of " the sun setting," 
 even though they may know quite well that it does not set, 
 and that" it is the revolving earth which gradually hides it 
 from our view. That which men's senses ever did, and do 
 make known, is " motion between the earth and the sun " 
 — changes in the sun's place with relation to the earth — 
 fand such changes do really take place. Therefore, in none 
 .of these instances do the senses deceive us. 
 
124/ 
 
 '1^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 'yreaming 
 
 "''/ 
 
 <■ 
 
 ^i 
 
 >^ 
 
 But the certainty of knowledge may be objected to on 
 the ground that we cannot be sure the whole of life is 
 not a dream. It may be said, " If a man passed half his 
 life in a sleep, in which he always dreamt a continuation of 
 the same dream, he would not know which was his true life 
 and which was his dream ; and, therefore, we cannot be 
 certain that our whole life is not some sort of dream." It is 
 certainly true that we may have prolonged dreams which are 
 very vivid and the parts of which form a continuous, con- 
 sistent series of representations. It is also true that during 
 them we may suffer distress or enjoy rapture as great as in 
 our waking moments, and this without the slightest doubt 
 or feeling of unreality with respect to what we seem to 
 experience in such dreams. For all that, however, so great 
 a difference exists between what we call " our dreaming " 
 and " our waking states" — considered merely as subjective 
 phenomena — that we have no difficulty in distinguishing 
 between them when we are in that state which we call 
 " being awake." Then we have a power of influencing the 
 current of our thoughts, and of dwelling at will in a state 
 of "contemplation of some object " in a way which we have 
 not, in that state we call "being asleep." Also, while we 
 are in what we call " our waking state," we can test our 
 perceptions by the use, for that purpose, of different senses. 
 If we think we see before us some object — for example, a 
 bunch of grapes — we may confirm the apparent testimony 
 of our eyesight by touching the grapes, or smelling them, 
 or tasting them. We may also have recourse to a special 
 class of feelings, which we may distinguish as " the testi- 
 mony of other people." We may ask bystanders whether 
 the object is or not a bunch of grapes, and, through their 
 reply, our sense of hearing may come to corroborate the 
 witness of our other senses. When we are what we call 
 "asleep," we cannot do these things. It is true that during 
 a disagreeable dream we may sometimes console ourselves 
 b}' an assurance that it is only a dream. It is true also 
 that occasionally we may rejoice or grieve because a dream 
 we are having is not a dream but the very truth, when all 
 the time we are mistaken, and it is nothing but a dream. 
 Still, even in such a case as this, when we do wake and find 
 
^ 
 
 OBJECTIONS. I 2 5^ 
 
 out that the dream we were so sure was real, is only a 
 dream, we can make ourselves certain about it in a very 
 different way from what we could when asleep. For never, 
 
 ' when thus mistaken during sleep, do we reflect that we are 
 making use simultaneously of different faculties to test the 
 reality of our persuasion ; whereas, while awake, we can 
 not only thus test the reality of our persuasion, but reflect 
 that we are so testing it. We can thus take note how 
 much more complete our assurance about the true nature 
 of our state is when awake, than is any assurance we can 
 obtain while dreaming. When awake, we may think over /^ 
 what we have done, what we are doing, and what we shall 
 do ; we may recollect past dreams, and compare them with 
 the objects around us, and compare the actions we seem , 
 to perform in sleep with the feelings experienced by us in i 
 what we deem our " real bodily activity." There are also } 
 other contrasts between "dreaming" and "waking." In I 
 " our dreaming state " we often have confused, inconsistent, \ 
 chaotic impressions and perceptions. Appearances may ^ 
 come suddenly to an end, and we may have a series of 
 
 , imaginations which have no continuity or felt connection. 
 We never seem to use a vigorous will ; and there is 
 generally present a sense, as it were, of passivity and of 
 being borne along independently of our volition. The 
 successive periods of what we call " our waking state," on 
 : the other hand, are clear, orderly, and distinctly connected, 
 i and they form a consistent series, without sudden and 
 abrupt transitions and inconsistent changes of scene, of 
 which we can give no account or explanation whatever, 
 while we can employ our will and recognize our own 
 activity. Thus, " dreaming" and " waking " can be clearly) 
 distinguished^*^ 
 
 Let us next consider the sweeping objection that our Tiu/'ossibu 
 
 ... , , , 1 . ,- 1 X di-reit/ulness 
 
 V faculties generally may be deceitful. In the very first of our 
 chapter of this work we saw * that the position of the 
 absolute sceptic is, from its unreasonableness, incapable 
 of refutation as well as of defence. If we granted, as 
 we have granted, that it is possible for a man to doubt 
 about his own existence, we may well grant that it is 
 
 * See above, p. 7. 
 
126 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 possible for him to doubt about the trustworthiness of 
 his mental faculties generally, and therefore about the 
 real and independent existence of the world, to which ex- 
 ( istence his faculties seem to testify. But we altogether 
 ! deny that such doubts are legitimate, while fully conceding 
 j that they are possible. It is, however, as impossible for 
 any one, without contradicting himself, to show that his 
 mental powers are untrustworthy as to uphold any other 
 absolutely sceptical position. For a man must implicitly 
 and_jTira£;ticany admltihe veracity of his faculties in order 
 to prove themjto be_felJacious,,since he can only prove they 
 lallacious by the exercise of those very faculties the 
 racity of which he would call in question. The accuracy 
 leceitfulness of the testimony of the senses, as appre- 
 hended by conscious reason, can only be tested by the ex- 
 ercise of the senses, as apprehended by conscious reason. 
 It is, therefore, incapable of either proof or disproof But 
 the fact that we are unable logically to prove their veracity 
 Idoes not afford us any ground for distrusting them. We 
 [have already seen that those things which are most certain 
 ire incapable of proof and need none, because they are self- 
 ^'ident. In this respect the declarations of consciousness as 
 to sense are similar to the declarations of consciousnes;^ as to 
 self-knowledge, the trustworthiness of memory, the principle 
 ^of contradiction, and the validity of the reasoning process. 
 Thus, he who upholds the trustworthiness of our sensitive 
 faculties, as of our other faculties, is consistent throughout, 
 and each part of the system he adheres to, gives strength 
 to every other part of it. But the impugner of the trust- 
 worthiness of the senses cuts the ground from under him- 
 self, since, as all knowledge is initiated by sense-perceptions, 
 he can only doubt his senses by trusting and accepting 
 what he professes to believe to be their testimony. Never- 
 theless, as we have asserted in the preceding chapter, 
 it is intellect and not sense which is the final judge 
 and criterion of our certainty ; and though the ultimate 
 facts of sensation are as certain and indisputable as 
 the other ultimate declarations of our faculties, yet they 
 are often misinterpreted. Though the facts of sensation 
 are self-evident, we may judge wrongly as to what they 
 
 f 
 
OBJECTIONS. I 2 / 
 
 point to. On the other hand, the harmony which exists 
 amongst the several senses, is ever giving us stronger and . 
 stronger grounds for trusting them. Every one knows how | 
 constantly his sense of touch or sight confirms a testimony! 
 previously given by his sight or his hearing ; nor will any ', 
 one, who has not some eccentric theory to maintain, deem 
 it probable that our senses thus harmoniously conspire to 
 lead us into one and the same error, since truth is one, 
 whilst error is manifold. 
 
 And it is certainly a vain attempt to prove that we are Onrperccp- 
 
 ., , , . , , tions ez'cn of 
 
 necessarily led mto error by our senses even as regards secondary 
 the secondary qualities of bodies. No one has ever shown, cannotlc 
 or can, we believe, show that it is impossible for our mendacious. 
 intellect to obtain, through our sensations of colour and 
 sound, smell and taste, the truest notions that it is possible 
 for us to have, of the objective causes of colour, sound, 
 odour, and savour. That objective cause must, in each case, 
 be admitted by every one to be occult and unknown to 
 us except as it may be made more or less known to us by 
 the sensations it occasions. Therefore it cannot be denied 
 that there may be such a conformity between objective 
 qualities and the subjective feelings they give rise to, that 
 those feelings may be the most fit means for bringing 
 such objective, occult qualities home to our understand- 
 ing. Though no dfouBt inadequate to tell us the whole \ 
 story, such sensations may nevertheless be the best, or the 
 only practicable, way of enabling us to know as much as 
 
 iwe can know about such occult qualities. Thus our faculties 
 of sensation, though they may be imperfect, are not men- 
 dacious faculties. 
 And, indeed, if our intellect has, as we know it has, 
 the power of making external objects present to it, it is 
 not wonderful that it should also have the power of making 
 the qualities of objects present to it — i.e. to the intellect. 
 Nor is it a bit more wonderful that, not the sensations, 
 but the apprehensions they give rise to, should have a 
 certain real likeness to the objective qualities themselves, 
 than that our apprehensions of the objects which have the 
 qualities should be like the objects themselves. 
 
 We may be asked, " How is such knowledge possible ? \/pc 
 
 process 
 rceiving 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 the un- I " How can the 
 !/iscriaaMc.\ external thinq's 
 
 intellect make present to itself either 
 or their qualities ? " The same answer 
 must here be given to these questions, as was before 
 given * to a similar question about our perception of 
 absolute and universal truth. We know, as a fact, that 
 we do perceive things themselves, and not mere images 
 of them, and we know that our perception of them makes 
 us certain that they can and do exist quite independently 
 of our perception of them ; but how it is such knowledge 
 is possible is as insoluble a mystery as how sensation is 
 possible, or how life or even existence itself is possible. 
 There are many things about which we know "facts" 
 without knowing " how they come to be facts." But our 
 ignorance of such " modes " in no way tempts us to 
 doubt as to the " facts " themselves. Thus, we know that 
 bodies attract each other according to the law of gravity ; 
 we know that water, though contracting in bulk towards 
 the freezing point, yet expands in freezing ; and we know 
 that many monkeys of the New World have prehensile 
 tails, but that none such exist in the Old World. The cer- 
 tainty of men of science as to these facts, however, is not 
 in the least impaired by their inability as yet to explain 
 how they have come about. Neither should it be so im- 
 paired. In t he pursuit of truth we should always advance 
 _fVorji_ihe- known, to the unknown, and jieyer.. oiye upi the_ 
 substance of truths already ascertained, for the shadow of j 
 prnblp"^^/^f<^7^^j^^^"^ "^ In spite, then, of our" 
 
 inability to explain how il is we exist, or live, or feel, or 
 know either objects made present to our minds by our 
 senses or absolute universal truths, we need be none the 
 less certain as to the fact that we do exist, live, feel, and 
 know. Because we cannot tell how our intellect acts, is that 
 any reason for doubting that it does act, or for doubting 
 
 I any of its declarations when they are self-evident? ''[J^gjig- 
 rantia modi non tollit certitudinem facti J " We cannot, 
 indeed, tell how our intellect apprehends external realities 
 by means of sense-organs, but neither can we understancl 
 how our sensitive faculty feels the sensations they occasion 
 in and by those same sense-organs. Yet no one doubts 
 * See above, pp. 44, 45, 
 
OBJECTIONS. 129 
 
 his sensations because he does not know how he is enabled 
 to obtain them ; neither should he doubt his perceptions 
 because he does not know how he is enabled to obtain 
 them. Nor can he seriously doubt them, as already- 
 shown,* without involving himself in complete scepticism, 
 which is the suicide of reason and the abandonment of the 
 / pursuit of truth. It is we, who know objects, and not our 
 I ears or our eyes or our other organs of sensation ; and 
 V those organs and our sensitive faculty cannot be shown to 
 lead us into error (when acting normally and made use of 
 with ordinary care and attention) by any of the idealist 
 arguments here combated. 
 
 If we have succeeded in convincing the reader of this, 
 and if he considers that we have successfully disposed of 
 all the various idealist objections we have passed in review, 
 then a not unimportant aid has been thereby given to ; 
 those assertions which constitute realism, and the object 
 aimed at in this chapter has been attained. It only remains 
 now for us to consider certain forms of idealism which 
 have gained more or less popularity in our own time and 
 country, before passing on to review the leading charac- 
 teristics of that external world, a conviction of the real 
 and independent existence of which it is the object of this 
 section to maintain. 
 
 * See above, p. 126. 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
I.^O ON TRUTH. 
 
 At 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ^ 
 
 IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Modern idealism is no improvement on that of Berkeley. Existence 
 does not depend on perception, but perception on existence. 
 
 The idealism of Berkeley — The idealism of Mill — 01 her popular 
 forms of idealism — Perccplion an accident of bodies — Objective 
 concepts — Materialistic idealism — Monism. 
 
 We have already admitted it to be conceivable * that 
 a supernatural being might, if sufficiently powerful and 
 skilful, and if there were no external world, so work upon 
 our sensitive faculties as to produce those very same effects 
 1 which external bodies actually produce upon us, and might 
 \ thus give rise, on our part, to what would then be a mis- 
 
 I taken belief in the independent existence of such bodies, 
 and in the various properties and qualities which we sup- 
 
 \ pose them to possess. This possibility cannot be denied ; 
 but any being so acting must possess not only unimagin- 
 able powers, but also a very high degree of intelligence. 
 Evidently no unknown cause acting blindly and without 
 understanding, could produce in us all those effects which 
 constitute our experience, and which so largely consist of 
 what we call " the conversation and rational conduct of our 
 fellow-men." We cannot conceive such effects to be due 
 to any mere force, unintelligent or blind, or in any way 
 comparable with " gravity," " heat," or " motion." Such 
 effects positively demand an intelligent cause as the only 
 
 ,i_ Ipossible explanation of their existence. Bishop Berkeley 
 'taught that the supernatural being so acting on our sen- 
 
 * See abo\c, p. 76. -"""*^'"~ 
 
IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. I 3 I/^ 
 
 J sitiy e powers was God, and that the phenomena of njit.uxe^_^^. 
 
 "-'' were ideas thus communicated by Him to inferior intellj-^^ 
 'V gen£es^ The science of Berkeley's day, however, was not 
 as is ours, and a belief in the evolution of our world and 
 its contents formed no part thereof But is it possible for 
 ' us now to believe that a supernatural being, of inconceiv- 
 able goodness, called human intelligences into being, and 
 then caused them all to agree in possessing the conviction 
 that bodies exist by and in themselves, and independently 
 of a mind perceiving them, which bodies do not exist by and 
 in themselves, and independently of a mind perceiving them? 
 Can we really think that a God, as ages went on, caused 
 men to elaborate a vast, coherent, and verifiable system of 
 physical science, with its complex invariable laws, its suc- 
 cessful predictions and unceasing utility to human life, 
 while all the time that system was based upon conceptions 
 absolutely false ? If, then, we were forced to think that 
 our feelings were due to the direct action of any super- 
 natural being, that being could not be good, but must be 
 _a-jd£a ler in fak ebood. It would, however, be surely a much 
 simpler and more reasonable course to accept as true those 
 convictions which are common to ordinary men and to 
 scientific experts (convictions which constitute realism), 
 than to adopt the grotesque conceptjon. that we are always 
 and everywhere the victims of supernatural deceits, especi- 
 ally as the latter hypothesis is a purely gratuitous hypothesis, 
 and has not a leg to stand on as regards any positive 
 evidence of its truth. 
 
 The idealism of Berkeley has become obsolete. No tiu 
 
 public teacher or private philosopher of repute now openly 'fl/tniL 
 
 I advocates his system as he understood it. Nevertheless, 
 
 a modified form of idealism has obtained great popularity 
 
 '' in England through the teachings of that distinguished 
 
 Uogicia n, John Stuart^^Mj]]. He professed to believe m 
 
 a universe consisting of nothing but " sensations," and 
 
 what he called "permanent possibilities of sensation." Any 
 
 • ordinary person, of course, believes that the various objects 
 
 which constitute the world around him exist independently 
 
 of his feelings. He therefore believes that when he has 
 
 ceased for a time to perceive any objects — e.g. objects in 
 
132/^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 a room he has quitted — such objects persist all the same in 
 his absence ; and when he perceives them again — as on 
 returning to the room he had quitted — he believes they are 
 the very same real external objects which have gone on 
 persisting during his absence just as they were before, save 
 as regards the accidental fact of their being perceived by 
 : him. Idealists like Berkeley, who affirm that the essence \ \ 
 \ of an object is its being perceived, must of course affirm I i 
 i that objects, when ceasing to be perceived, cease to exist, « | 
 f and come newly back again into existence when they 
 i become once more perceived. Mill appears to have felt 
 the absurdity of this opinion ; and being, of course, aware, 
 like every one else, that beings do thus somehow continue 
 on during the intervals of their being perceived, he desired 
 distinctly to recognize that fact. As, however, he could 
 not, as an idealist, say they continued actually to exist 
 while unperceived, he attributed to them what he called 
 " a possibility " of existence, during the intervals when 
 they" were not actually perceived. An ordinary man re- 
 gards objects perceived — such as a horse, a sofa, the moon, 
 etc. — as independent external bodies affecting his senses 
 and power of perception, and regards such objects while 
 unperceived as being essentially the same, though tem- 
 porarily not affecting his senses and powers of perception. 
 Instead of this. Mill professed to regard the former (per- 
 ceived objects) as each consisting of a bundle of sensations 
 actually felt, and the latter (objects temporarily unper- 
 ceived) as bundles of sensations which, though not actually \ 
 felt, yet might be felt — i.e. as " permanent possibilities ^' 
 of sensation." Can this modification of idealism be \ 
 regarded as an improvement on the old Berkeleyanism .'' / 
 We not only think that it cannot justly be so regarded, 
 but that by this change Mill virtually abandoned idealism 
 altogether, while yet attempting verbally to continue to 
 adhere to it. He never explained what he meant by a 
 " poss ibility of sensation." Yet the word " possibility " is 
 absolutely unmeaning "unless it refers to something else 
 besides that which is conceived of as possibly becoming 
 actual. The very use of that word, implies a belief in some- ; 
 thing which makes the " possible " become " actual." The 
 
ft' 
 
 y 
 
 IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. 1 33 4f^y 
 
 merely "possible," as long as it remains only " possible," 
 can have no real existence, and is therefore nothing. But 
 " nothing " cannot make itself something — cannot make 
 itself actual. We have, then, according to Mill, " sensa- 
 tions actual " and " sensations possible." But he could not 
 mean that actual sensations themselves were capable of 
 bringing into existence other, as yet only possible, sensa- 
 tions. Neither could these other " possible " sensations 
 bring themselves into existence, since, by the very hypo- 
 thesis, they do not yet exist. Therefore, if his words are 
 not unmeaning (which cannot be supposed of so accom- 
 plished a writer), there must be, according to his teaching, 
 some third entity in addition to "sensations actual" and 
 " sensations possible." There must, in fact, be some en- 
 during entity which has the power of, and is the agent for, 
 transforming merely possible sensations into actual ones. 
 But an "enduring entity" is a substance, and this substance 
 is something which can exist unperceived, since nothing 
 can act which does not exist, and this enduring entity must 
 be supposed to act in making sensations felt which, when it 
 begins to act, are, by Mill's hypothesis, not yet felt. If, 
 however, we are to believe in enduring substances which 
 exist and act quite independently of being perceived, and 
 certainly (according to Mill) act when they are not per- 
 ceived, then it is difficult indeed to see why we should not j 
 adopt the ordinary realistic belief about bodies — which is \ 
 just that. In__pilain--lan-guage^ Mill's " permanent possibili- ' ff^ 
 ties of . sensation " are, in fact, nothing more than so many _^ ' 
 real ^substances capable of exciting sensation s, de corated J^ 
 with a new, misleading, and really contradictory name. | 
 lie really believed, just as we do, in feelings and in a 1 
 number of enduring bodies which are capable of modifying 
 our feelings, and which can undergo changes, act as causes, 
 and exist without being perceived. In other words. Mill's 
 system virtually abandons idealism while verbally adhering 
 to it. 
 
 Another view, which has obtained a certain popularity, o^/ier 
 professes to combat idealism, and to support what it de-/or„iso/ 
 nominates "transfigured realism;" and yet it ought to be " 
 reckoned as one form of that system which it professes to 
 
134 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 oppose, for all its fundamental principles are those of ideal- 
 ism, and its conclusions only differ from those of ordinary- 
 idealists in being still more unreasonable. This system! 
 contends that " all we are conscious of as properties oft 
 matter, even down to weight and resistance, are but sub-* 
 jective affections produced by an unknown and unknowable 
 objective agency, besides the existence of which we can 
 know nothing but states of consciousness. Even such 
 words as ' truth ' and ' fact ' are but names for certain 
 states of consciousness, and although there is a definite 
 relation between every change in consciousness and some 
 energy of the unknowable, yet no relation in consciousness 
 can resemble, or be in any way akin to its source be- 
 yond consciousness." Such " realism " as this, may well be 
 called "transfigured." By it, quite as much as by idealism 
 pure and ^simple, the world, as we know it, disappears 
 even from our thoughts. Not merely sounds and sights, 
 but the whole universe, including our own material frame, 
 appears dissolved by it, leaving us vaguely floating in an 
 unimaginable abyss ofunlaiowable possibilities. To oppose 
 idealism and then to offer us such realism as this, is like 
 inviting hungry men to a feast, discoursing to them about 
 meats and sauces, digestion and nutrition, and then taking 
 them to a room furnished with nothing but diagrams of 
 the chemical formulse of different kinds of food ! 
 
 But, in the pursuit of truth, we need not linger over the 
 consideration of a system which denies that truth is any- 
 thing more than a state of feeling, or that we can know 
 absolute truth, since any system of the kind, inasmuch as 
 it thereby denies the principle of contradiction,* must 
 result in absolute scepticism, which, as we have seen, is 
 folly. Any one who propounds such a system may be 
 compared with a man seated on the branch of a tree, sawing 
 it across between himself and the tree's trunk. The success 
 of his efforts can but accomplish his own downfall... 
 
 But far more common and popular is a third view which 
 is singularly inconsistent with itself. Professing to know 
 nothing but sensations and faint revivals of sensations, those 
 who adopt this third view yet believe — as a sort of faith — 
 
 * See above, y>- 39- 
 
 
IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. I 35 
 
 in the existence of an independent material world, unlike / 
 our sensations, yet the cause of them. The men of this \^ff 
 school do really believe in " material objects " and " physical / ^ 
 states," as realities independent of their minds and of every |^- 
 one else's ; but on their system of knowledge they can (sincef 
 they say they can know nothing but states of conscious-! 
 ness) only get this belief of theirs by an act of blind andll 
 unreasoning credulity. Their idealism is a mere piece of v 
 JntelieGtual thimble-rigging, a game by which the unwary 
 onlooker is only too liable to be cheated out of his most 
 valuable mental possession — his rational certainty. Men 
 oTlTiis school sometimes, as did the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, 
 represent every feeling or perception we have, as some- 
 thing unlike both what is external and what is internal, i 
 They regard it as a tertium quid resulting from the com- \ 
 bined activity andniiteraction of both the subject and 
 object, but resembling neither, just as water resembles 
 neither the oxygen nor the hydrogen from the combina- 
 
 (tion of both of which it results. But, in fact, our intel- 
 lect has the power of subtracting its own subjective 
 elements from the result. Let the perception be conceded 
 to be made up oi x -\- y \ x being the ego, or self, and y 
 the object. The mind has the power of supplying its own 
 —x^ and so we get (through the imagination of the mind 
 and the object) x -{- y — x, or y pure and simple. The 
 reader can easily convince himself that he really has this 
 power. Let him consider how by looking at, touching, and 
 handling two apples, he can obtain the assurance that they 
 are really two ; that as to this fact of number, his intellect 
 guards him from self-deception occasioned by the activity 
 of his own being. Let him further consider how, after 
 having perceived them, he is absolutely certain he has done 
 so, since he cannot believe he has at the same time both 
 " perceived them " and " not perceived them " without 
 violating the principle of contradiction, and so falling 
 into utter scepticism and absurdity. Therefore, external 
 objects and the mind itself, do not by their combined 
 activity, produce a perception divergent from objective 
 truth, and therefore the mind itself must either, as before 
 said, have the power of subtracting from the resulting per- 
 

 136 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ception every subjective element of its own which might 
 mislead, or else must be what may by analogy be called 
 perfectly transparent, transmitting to us a knowledge of 
 facts and principles as they really and objectively exist. 
 Grounding all our assertions upon the positive dicta of our 
 intellect, we may affirm that we are conscious that in know- 
 ing things, we are enabled to really know the things them- 
 selves and not a mere amalgam made up of a mixture of 
 things with ourselves, and neither really like us nor the 
 world about us. 
 erception With rcspcct to the contention of idealists that the 
 
 'bodies" essence of all " existence " is " being perceived," it may be I /^ 
 contended that nothing which is perceived can exist in 
 absolutely the same condition when unperceived as it does 
 when perceived ; for in the former case it is " a thing per- 
 ceived," and in the latter case it is " a thing unperceived." 
 It may also be said, since every existence we know of 
 must be " an existence known by us," the existence of 
 anything unknown to us cannot be quite the same as that 
 of anything known to us. This contention must, of course, 
 be allowed, but it is utterly trivial. Of course, things 
 unknown cannot be known, while they exist as unknown 
 objects, and, of course, a thing perceived by me does not 
 jexist in a state of " being perceived by me" when I do 
 'not perceive it. Bu t my perceiving or not perceiving it 
 is a mere accident of its existence, which existence con- 
 tinues^ on essentially the same, whether perceived ojr.jiAt,.. 
 I The impressions, sensations, and ideas derived from things, 
 'do not, of course, exist independently of the mind which 
 has them, but the things which excite the sensations can 
 and do exist externally to, and independently of the mind, 
 as unthinking substances — things in themselves. The mere 
 accident of "being perceived" is one which may even be 
 absent indefinitely. Who has perceived, or will perceive, 
 the mountains on the other side of the moon ? Who per- 
 ceived for untold ages the many fossil remains which have 
 only of late years been disentombed ? Does want of being 
 perceived, impair the real existence of the millions of fossils \ 
 yet undiscovered ? ' 
 
 ^tncepu. But if it is truc that there is (as here urged, and as all 
 
IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. I 37 
 
 men but idealists believe) a real external world of varied 
 substances which exist independently of the mind, it is 
 evident that a relation of conformity exists between that 
 external world and our own minds. It is evident that our 
 own reason participates in a reason which must be admitted 
 to exist, in some sense, in the world around us. That two 
 and two make four ; that the whole is greater than its part ; 
 that two parallel lines cannot enclose a space ; that nothing 
 can at the same time both be and not be ; and that if all 
 members of any class of existences have a certain quality, 
 then anything which can be shown to belong to that class 
 must also have that quality, — all these are truths, not only 
 for our own minds, but for the objects about us also. This 
 we can clearly see when we apprehend any such truths 
 as, for example, that "two sides of a triangle are greater 
 than the third," etc., we also apprehend that the cause of 
 such truths does not lie in our understanding, but in 
 external nature. As these truths exist in "our mind," or 
 subjectively, they are so many " conceptions," or " con- 
 cepts" of that mind; but they manifestly exist also as 
 so many real relations between real things — that is, they 
 also exist objectively. These^ external real jcciaJJons, thus 
 perceived, may be called " objective concepts " — a term 
 which forcibly expresses their correspondence with our_ 
 ££Ecep.t-ions, or "subjective concepts." Correspondences 
 of the kind are implied in every assertion we make about 
 external objects. Thus, if we say, " A negro is black," we 
 affirm not only the existence of a correspondence and con- 
 formity between our subjective conceptions of "a negro" 
 and " blackness," and the objective realities — the real negro 
 and his dark colour — but also a correspondence between 
 our subjective judgment in the matter, and the objective 
 co-existence of the negro and the quality we term " black." 
 " Objective concepts," then, are those really exMing-th ings„ 
 and conditions in the external world, to which our corre- 
 sponding "subjective concepts" answen Thc\' are that real 
 
 ^./existence or condition in any object, which corresponds to 
 ;an abstract idea. If there were not objective concepts 
 I thus corresponding with our subjective concepts, not only 
 jail physical science, but all reasoning and intellectual inter- 
 
laterial- 
 
 itic 
 
 iealism. 
 
 9 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 course between men must come to an end. Without them 
 we could not converse together intelligibly, or convey to 
 each other any information whatever. There are, therefore, 
 many relations in external nature which our intellect has 
 the power of directly apprehending (on the recurrence of 
 certain sense-impressions) as true — that is, as alike existing 
 in the mind and in external reality. These relations do 
 not merely exist in our subjective impressions, or merely 
 in the things which produce those impressions, i.e. 
 objectively, but in both simultaneously. They exist in our 
 perceived impressions as forming part of a universe in 
 which such necessary relations reign. Thus, the reason of 
 the individual may be seen to have a participation in that 
 universal reason which finds mute expression in the 
 irrational universe, and express recognition in the human 
 mind. 
 
 That "extremes jneet," is a familiar saying, and some 
 of the modifications of idealism constitute a striking illus- 
 ^tration of its truth. That all existence is but a modifica- 
 ftion pf,iaind^is-±he.prQfJession-£»f orthodox idealism. That 
 |mind_is but a passing, temporary product of what we know 
 as matter, is the teaching of what is known as " materialism," 
 and "would seem to be the direct contrary of idealism.^ Yet 
 a_jDractical_ijiatexialisni .is- often the- outcome and result 
 of a professed idealism. A profession of absolute mate- 
 trialism is rare with us now, but that popular form of 
 idealism last noticed* is, in fact, more to be reckoned as a 
 singularly illogical form of materialism, based upon the 
 persuasion (rather implied than avowed) that our idea of 
 material substance is more satisfactory and trustworthy 
 than any idea we can have of an immaterial substance 
 underlying and supporting our successive states of feeling. 
 
 Our certainty, however, as to the existence of our 
 substantial and enduring self, is, as we have seen,t funda- 
 mental and self-evident. Whatever may be said as to the 
 existence of the body — and its independent existence is 
 denied by idealists — the existence of the mind, it is abso- 
 lutely impossible logically to doubt ; for the very act of 
 consciously denying it implicitly affirms both its existence 
 * See above, pp. 134, 135. t See above, pp. 17-28. 
 
 »J- 
 
IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. 1 39 
 
 and our knowledge of its existence. We cannot say, 
 " The mind does not exist," without knowing that we 
 affirm and understand something, and whatever affirms 
 and understands, must at least exist ; while the only intelli- 
 gent existence we directly and immediately know, is our 
 own — our own mind. It is possible, without self-contra- 
 diction, to deny that there is an unintelligent, material 
 substance — the body — co-existing with that which thinks 
 and understands ; but manifestly we cannot, without the 
 utmost absurdity, think that our own being does not think. 
 All, then, that any denial of the mind's existence can really 
 mean, is a denial that there is any fundamental distinction/ 
 between mind and matter. This latter denial is equivalentp/^«/.v 
 to an assertion that mind and matter are but two modes,| ^ 
 forms, or modifications of something else which is different^ «// 
 from both, and more fundamental. This latter assertion MV 
 characterizes that way of regarding the universe which isj ^ 
 known as " i^onisiXL!l--.Acc£iDiLiig-to this^system, '.'.thought " 
 and "extension" are two attributes of one eternal sub 
 Ttance which is^cUfferent^from , JDoth. This strange con 
 "ceptiorTconflicts with the direct teaching of our intimate 
 experience, which tells us that in our own being we may 
 be aware both of that which thinks and gives us no sign of 
 " extension " — the intellect — and that which does not think, 
 but which is extended — such as various parts of our body — 
 while we have no particle of evidence that there is anything 
 in our being which is neither mind nor body, but which under- 
 lies both. Certainly a power of thinking is no attribute of 
 our hands or feet, or of many other portions of our frame. 
 We know also, if the independent existence of the external 
 world be admitted, that we have on all sides of us a multi- 
 tude of things — the air, the clouds, the water, and the soil 
 — which do not in any sense think. Any one who affirms 
 that in all this we are mistaken, and that these apparently 
 unintelligent bodies have really some form of intelligence 
 which escapes our ken, are at least bound to bring for- 
 ward some very convincing evidence of the fact asserted. 
 No such evidence, however, has been brought forward. 
 To deny the distinction between what is intelligent and 
 what is not intelligent is to deny a fact, the truth of which 
 
fi 
 
 140 ON TRUTH. 
 
 our experience continually assures us of ; while to deny it, | 
 and at the same time to affirm that the only thing which 
 really exists is something which is neither the one nor the 
 other, is at the same time to deny what seems to us to be 
 the plainest truth, and to affirm gratuitously a paradox 
 which has no shadow of evidence in its favour. The theory 
 of monism, however, will have to be further considered 
 under the head of pantheism.* Yet__ anpthex way -jof 
 
 /^.^ .reconciling idealism and materialism has been proposed^ 
 {According to this last mode, mind, in some rudimentary 
 
 /Oi form, is everywhere diffi.ised through the universe, each 
 j particle of matter possessing its share of a hypotheti- 
 cal substance, which has been called " mind-stuff." Such 
 I a belief, however, can be entertained only by those who 
 for some reason desire to entertain it, or who neglect to 
 note the differences between the objects they perceive, 
 attending only to resemblances, or rather to the analogies, v 
 which they may happen to exhibit. We cannot, of course, 
 prove that a table is not intelligent, any more than we can 
 prove any other negative. But the common sense of man- 
 kind clearly apprehends that a table is not intelligent, and 
 if a calculating machine be called " intelligent," it can only 
 be so because it gives evidence of the intelligence which 
 has been exercised in its construction. Common sense, 
 however, judges that so to speak is to misuse words, and 
 pervert their true meaning. As, however, we are here 
 somewhat anticipating what has to be more fully stated 
 in our twenty-sixth chapter, we desire to say no more than 
 seems to us necessary in order briefly to bring to the notice 
 of readers certain different modifications of idealism to 
 which we think their attention ought to be called. 
 
 Such, then, is idealism in its oldest form and in some 
 of its more recent popular manifestations in this country. 
 We claim to have shown that it [is not consistent with 
 reason on two accounts: (i) it contradicts that conception 
 
 , of the universe which the advance of science makes more 
 
 y\ and more convincing and secure ; and (2) it asserts that 
 we have not that direct knowledge of the world about us 
 \ Avhich our own minds assure us we certainly have. 
 
 * See below, chapter xxvi. 
 
 -^ 
 
IDEALISM OLD AND NEW. I41 
 
 ! Reviewing our progress thus far, we may, it seems, 
 
 afifirm — if the reasons here urged are v^aHd — that by build- 
 ing upon the direct declarations of consciousness as a 
 foundation, we can be certain that we really know an 
 external world, and many qualities of independently ex- 
 isting things, and not merely our own feelings, or a mere 
 amalgam made up from ourselves and from external bodies. 
 In this way the teachings of science can be seen to har- 
 monize absolutely with the dictates of reason, while on the 
 idealist hypothesis they can only be accepted through an 
 act of blind, unreasoning credulity. 
 
 According to the arguments hitherto advanced, we may 
 
 repose securely in our spontaneous trust in the truthfulness 
 
 of our faculties, when matured and employed with attention 
 
 and care in the quest of real and objective truth. We may 
 
 be absolutely certain that an external world really exists 
 
 independently of us, and that its various parts really 
 
 possess those very powers and properties which our senses 
 
 and our reason combine to assure us such objects do in 
 
 fact possess. The proof of realism gives validity * to 
 
 I human testimony and the dictates of common sense, and 
 
 I supplies us with the means of apprehending a countless 
 
 \ multitude of clearly evident facts of the greatest use to us 
 
 1 in the investigation of our own nature and of the world 
 
 I about us, to which we may now proceed successively to 
 
 I address ourselves^ 
 
 * See above, p. 65. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XIX. Mankind 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XII. Structure of the Body ... ... j^c 
 
 XIII. The Activities of the Body ... 154 
 
 XIV. Our Lower Mental Powers ... ... 178 
 
 XV. Our Higher Mental Powers ... 203 
 
 XVI. Language ... ... ... 224 
 
 XVII. Perceptions of Truth, Goodness, and 
 
 Beauty ... ... ... ... 237 
 
 XVin. The Will ... ... ... ... 262 
 
 276 
 
I 
 
us ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 STRUCTURE OF TflE BODY. 
 
 Some study of the structure and activities of the body — which is an 
 organism— is necessary for a full comprehension of our mental 
 powers. Its structure must be considered first, and especially 
 that of the nervous system, which, like all the other bodily 
 systems, is composed of organs, tissues, and cells. Our body 
 exhibits certain rudimentary structures and various noteworthy 
 conditions as to symmetry, also different orders of resemblance 
 and contrast between its various parts. 
 
 A knoivledge of the body necessary to a full kjwiuledge of the mind— 
 Its structure to be studied before its functions — Systems, organs, 
 tissues, and cells — Organs of sense — The nervous axis — Rudimen- 
 tary structures — Symmetrical relations and Jiomologies. 
 
 Having, in the last section, justified our natural confidence 
 in the testimony of the senses and understanding about 
 the external world, we may now securely proceed to the 
 investigation of our own nature and the world about us, 
 commencing with the former. 
 
 The object of this work being an inquiry after truth, it a kno-.u- 
 must, of course, always be more or less directly concerned tLbody 
 
 -1-1 1 1 • le 1)) • • necessary 
 
 with human thought, smce truth consists in an accurate toa/uii 
 correspondence between thought and things external* In o/ the mind. 
 the present section it is proposed to apply ourselves 
 especially and directly to the examination of thought and 
 of all human mental activity. But " thought," as we know 
 it, is only carried on by the help of a living body and 
 depends for its continuance on that body's life, and therefore 
 on the due performance of those bodily activities without 
 
 * See below, chap, xvii., "Objectivity of Truth." 
 
 L 
 
146 ON TRUTH. 
 
 which life cannot be maintained. To have anything like 
 a full comprehension of our powers of thinking, then, we 
 should be acquainted not only with the inferior forms of 
 our mental activity, but also with those bodily activities 
 which are thus indispensable for their performance. But 
 it is impossible to understand how any structure or me- 
 chanism acts, unless we also know something of the order and 
 arrangement of its parts. Therefore, we cannot adequately 
 understand the human mind, unless we are somewhat 
 acquainted with the structure of the human body, and with 
 the different kinds of activity it displays. The human 
 body is obviously a complex structure, consisting of 
 different parts, which act in different ways and reciprocally 
 minister to one another. Thus, for example, the actions 
 of the organs of sense, and of the limbs, serve to convey 
 food into the interior of the body, where it is converted by 
 the digestive organs into nutriment, which is distributed 
 throughout our frame by an elaborate system of canals, or 
 " vessels," and by this means those vessels themselves, as 
 well as the digestive organs, limbs, and organs of sense, 
 are all nourished and maintained in due working order. 
 Thus the body is a complex whole, whereof the various 
 '%\ parts are reciprocally ends and means, and such a body is 
 called an ^^ organism P 
 
 Accordingly, our body requires to be considered, for 
 our present purpose, from two points of view, and its study 
 needs to be followed up along two different lines of inquiry. 
 One of these refers to its structure, and the other to the 
 actions which it performs — that is, its " functions." As 
 before said, a knowledge of structures must precede a 
 knowledge of functions ; and, accordingly, this chapter will 
 be devoted to a brief statement of those main facts re- 
 specting man's bodily organization which seem most 
 needful for the comprehension of such of its functions as 
 we are concerned with. 
 
 Nothing is, of course, more familiar to us than the 
 general external form of the human body. The leading 
 facts as to its internal structure arc also matters of com- 
 mon knowledge. Thus it is almost superfluous to say 
 that beneath the skin lies the " flesh " of the body, which 
 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE BODY. 14^ 
 
 more or less completely wraps round the bones of the 
 head and trunk — that is, the skull, backbone, and ribs — 
 and those of the limbs. Within the trunk is a cavity, 
 wherein lie a variety of parts, known as the heart, lungs, 
 kidneys, stomach, intestine, liver, etc. Within the skull \ 
 and backbone is enclosed a mass of white substance — the 1 
 brain and spinal marrow. Delicate threads of similar sub- 1 
 stance (nerves) and tubes of various sizes (vessels) traverse// 
 the body in all directions. 
 
 Each of the considerable parts of the body, such, e.(^., as systems 
 
 '■ "^ ' <D ■' organs, 
 
 the heart, stomach, lungs, eyes, ears, etc., is termed an "organ," tissues 
 
 ' ) t> ) y ) ' ' ^. aitd cells. 
 
 and different organs are arranged together in groups, into 
 ♦ "sets" or "systems" of organs. Thus there is the "ali- 
 mentary system " made up of mouth, oesopha ^s_^or gul let), 
 stomach, intestinal tube — together forming the alimentary 
 canal — with the liver and pancreas thereto annexed. The 
 circulating system, again, consists of the heart and all the 
 various vessels directly or indirectly connected with it. 
 But just as "systems" are made up of "organs," so each 
 " organ " is made up of several different substances, vari- 
 ously blended, and differing in their minute, microscopic, 
 characters. Eacli such distinct substance is called a I 
 " tissue." Thus "fat " is "adipose tissue " ; " flesh " is V, 
 muscular " tissue " ; the outermost layer of the skin is / 
 made of " epithelial tissue," and its deeper layer of "con- | 
 nective tissue." Bone is " osseous tissue," and the brain J 
 and nerves are formed of " nervous tissue." Finally, eachf 
 tissue is either made up of certain very small structural 
 ! elements, termed " cells," or of parts which have been 
 derived from and represent cells — a cell being a minute 
 particle of a soft substance called " protoplasm." These 
 ' cells, or parts derived from cells, compose the ultimate 
 substance, or " par en chyma " of the body, so far as our 
 powers of observation at present extend ; but these by no 
 means enable us really to understand the absolutely ulti- 
 mate composition of our bodies. Chemistry enables us 
 to resolve the bodily tissues into certain inorganic sub- 
 stances, which are called " elements," because they have 
 not yet been shown to be of composite nature ; and " proto- 
 plasm " can always be reduced to four such elements, 
 

 148 ON TRUTH. 
 
 namely, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. A very 
 large part of the human frame is made up of water, the 
 brain containing about seventy per cent, of that fluid. 
 
 The component substances of the body are grouped in 
 two classes, according as they can or cannot be shown to 1 
 contain a gaseous element known as nitrogen. To the/ 
 former, or nitrogenous group of substances, belong our 
 flesh, our blood, nervous tissue, and most of the constituents 
 of our frame ; but fat is an example of a non-nitrogenous 
 substance. The body may first be reduced to what are 
 called its " proximate elements," such as albumen (the sub- 
 stance of the white of Qgg) and gelatine (the substance of 
 jelly), both nitrogenous. The body is ultimately reducible 
 to the before-mentioned elements, oxygen, hydrogen, 
 carbon, and the nitrogen, and to certain other elements 
 .which are present in much smaller quantity.* 
 
 The whole structure of the body is bounded externally 
 [by the skin, and is internally supported by that solid 
 framework of bones and cartilages known as the skeleton, 
 [ts parts are mostly capable of being moved one upon 
 mother ; and, to facilitate these motions, the contiguous 
 surfaces of such movable bones are so shaped as to form 
 what are known as "joints." The most important part 
 of the skeleton is the skull and backbone (or vertebral 
 column), which contains an elongated cavity continuous 
 with the cavity of the skull. From either side of the back- 
 bone the ribs proceed forward towards the breast-bone. 
 Each limb contains long bones, which support the arm or 
 the leg, the short bones of the wrist or the ankle, the five 
 bones of the palm of the hand or sole of the foot, and 
 the bones of the fingers or toes. The limb-bones are. 
 attached to the back and breastbones by two bony girdles.; 
 The arm-bone girdle is formed of the collar-bones and blade- j 
 bones. The girdle to which the thigh-bones are articulated 
 is more complete and solid, and is known as the pelvis. 
 The flesh which invests the skeleton consists of a multitude 
 of most delicate threads, called " muscular fibres," which 
 
 * If the whole body lie supposed to consist of lOO parts, there will be 72 of 
 oxygen; g'l hydrogen; I3'5 carbon; 2 '5 nitrogen; lime and phosphorus 
 a fraction above I, and other substances the remaining fraction. 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE BODY. 1 49 
 
 are variously aggregated in masses to form " muscles " of 
 different shapes and sizes — muscles of the limbs, muscles 
 of the trunk, muscles of the head and jaws, etc. — which 
 are generally attached by one or by both ends to different 
 bones. Muscular fibres are present in large numbers in the 
 walls of the alimentary canal. The alimentary system has 
 , been already mentioned. The circulating system has also 
 , been briefly adverted to. It consists of a muscular, four- 
 chambered structure — the heart — which is the centre of 
 ■ two sets of tubes progressively decreasing in diameter, and 
 •known as arteries and veins, which have muscular fibres in 
 their membranous walls. Minute vessels, termed capilla- 
 ries, connect the extremities of the arteries with the veins, 
 while another set of vessels, known as lyiTiphatics, proceed- 
 ing from all parts of the body, converge and unite with 
 two large veins. The arteries, veins, and heart are full of] 
 a fluid " tissue " — the blood — and the lymphatics of a fluid/ 
 called l;^ph. These fluids contain a multitude of minute 
 bodies, termed " blood corpuscles," which may be white or 
 / red. Only white corpuscles are contained in the lymph, but 
 j the immense majority of those in the blood are red, and its 
 I colour is due to them. The lungs are two very complexly 
 ^formed air-bags, while a tube, known as the windpipe, and 
 which is connected above with the back of the mouth, bifur- 
 cates below, each bifurcation further dividing and sub- 
 dividing within the lung into which it enters. These 
 together constitute the respiratory system of organs. The 
 kidneys are two rounded masses of minute tubes, which 
 converge to open into a cavity, whence two very much larger 
 tubes — one to each kidney — pass down to the bladder, 
 and thence a single tube extends to an external aperture. I 
 Various parts of the body — such, e.g., as the back of the '| 
 i mouth, the middle passage of the nose, the windpipe, etc. — • 
 1 are lined with epitjialium. which is coated with very minute 
 \ hair-like processes, termed (for a reason which will here- 
 \ after appear) "yibratile dlia." The sexual, or generative 
 system, essentially consists, in the male, of very minute 
 tubes, containing what are called sperm-cells, and peculiar 
 filamentary portions of cells. In the female, it consists of 
 an apparently non-tubular parenchyma, containing certain 
 
rgans of 
 nse. 
 
 :rvous 
 it's. 
 
 150 ON TJ^U 77/. 
 
 modified cells, termed " ova." The nervous system is the 
 assemblage of bodily organs which the most concerns us 
 here. It consists, in the first place, of the brain and spinal 
 marrow (or spinal cord), which together constitute what is ; 
 called the central part of the nervous system, or the ner- j 
 vous axis. Besides this, the nervous system consists of an i 
 immense multitude of cords and threads of nervous tissue ' 
 — the " nerves " — which proceed out from the axis of the 
 nervous system to all parts of the body. Certain special 
 nerves proceed from the brain to the eye, the ear, the 
 nose, and the tongue, and are there distributed. 
 
 The eye essentially consists of a very delicate expan- 
 sion of nervous tissue, called the retina — which is directly 
 continuous with the brain by means of the optic nerve — 
 and which has in front of it three transparent media of 
 different densities enclosed within the skin of the eyeball, 
 which is transparent anteriorly. The organ of hearing, or 
 internal ear, is a complexly-shaped, delicate membranous 
 bag, called the " labyrinth," containing fluid, and floating 
 in another fluid enclosed within a dense bone of the skull. 
 The auditory nerve, passing outwards from the brain, dis- 
 tributes its ultimate ramifications on the walls of the 
 membranous bag. The nasal organ is composed of minute 
 branches of the nerves of smell (olfactory nerves), which 
 proceed, from a prolongation of the brain, outwards to the 
 moist membrane lining the uppermost part of the cavity of 
 the nostrils. The organ of taste consists of the tongue and 
 hinder portion of the palate. These parts are supplied 
 /with branches of two gustatory nerves from the brain, 
 1 named trigeminal and glosso-pharyngeal respectively. The 
 Vorgan of touch is the skin, including the very delicate 
 nerve fibres which are supplied to it from the nervous 
 axis. 
 y,c The spinal cord consists of two lateral halves, and nerves, 
 
 called spinal nerves, are given forth symmetrically in pairs 
 (one right and one left) from each lateral half of it. Each 
 spinal nerve of every pair, arises by two roots, one anterior 
 in position and the other posterior, and each root is made 
 up of a number of small bundles of nerve fibres. The 
 fibres from the hinder and from the anterior part of each 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE BODY. 151 
 
 lateral half of the spinal cord, are mixed, and run together 
 in the nerves, but those from its anterior half go especially 
 to the muscles, and those from its posterior half to the 
 skin. 
 
 The brain, or the enlarged summit of the nervous axis, 
 consists mainly of two very unequal parts, termed respectively 
 the large brain, ox ccrebrwn, and the little brain, or cerebelhini. 
 The cerebrum is divided by a deep median groove into 
 two lateral halves, called the hemispheres of the brain, of 
 which they form the whole very much convoluted upper 
 surface. The cerebellum lies beneath their hindermost 
 parts. The spinal cord is continuous with the brain at 
 what is called the medulla, whence the axis mounts upwards 
 and diverges to form the hemispheres, having the cere- 
 bellum behind it. A minute longitudinal cavity traverses 
 the spinal cord, and is called the "central canal." It 
 expands within the brain into four continuous, complexly 
 formed cavities, termed " veiitricles." The greater number 
 of the nerves which proceed from the brain have their 
 origin in the medulla, and this is notably the case with i^''^^^- 
 those which go to the lungs, stomach, and heart. structure 
 
 From the anterior and posterior surfaces of the cerebral 
 part of the nervous axis project two small rounded bodies, 
 termed respectively the " pituitary body" and the "pineal 
 gland." They are examples of certain parts distinguished, 
 for reasons which will hereafter appear,* as " rudimentary 
 structures." Another rudimentary structure, formed in 
 connection with the intestine, is known as the vermiform 
 appendix ; and other such structures exist in connection 
 with the organs of generation. 
 
 We have described the body as consisting of different 
 systems of organs, composed of tissues and cells ; but by 
 this all that has been meant is that it can be more or less 
 readily divided into such parts. In reality, the body forms 
 one continuous whole, which assumes different appearances 
 and possesses different properties in different parts. Even J 
 the blood is directly continuous with the other constituents jf 
 of the body in all actively growing parts. Thus the / 
 body of each adult human being may be said to be one/ 
 
 * See telow, chap. xxii. ] 
 
152 ON TRUTH. 
 
 enormously large cell, the contents of which have become I 
 very complex and diversely conditioned. / 
 
 ■y,n7m-iri- Jt {3 dcslrable to note the existence of certain sym- 
 
 11 relations ■' 
 
 "^ , . metrical relations and contrasts between different parts 
 
 ojHologies. 
 
 of our frame. Thus there is an obvious contrast between 
 the dorsal (or posterior) and the ventral (or anterior) aspects 
 of the body, and this contrast extends along each limb to 
 the ends of the fingers and toes respectively. 
 
 Again, there is a resemblance, 'or homology (and at the 
 same time a contrast), between the right and left sides, 
 which correspond with tolerable exactitude one to the 
 other. This kind of harmony is termed bilateral symmetry, 
 or homology. Though obvious externally, it does not 
 prevail in all the internal organs (or viscera), some of 
 which are more or less unsymmetrically disposed. 
 \ There is a third order of resemblance, or correspondence, 
 namely, that which exists between parts placed in serial 
 succession. We may find an example of this in the cor- 
 respondence which exists between the parts of the upper 
 limbs and those of the lower extremities, which may be 
 said to succeed the former inferiorly. Thus there is 2l serial 
 symmetry, or hornology, of the upper arm with the thigh, 
 of the elbow with the knee, of the lower part of the arm 
 with the leg, of the wrist with the ankle, of the palm 
 of the hand with the sole of the foot, and of the fingers 
 with the toes — the thumb agreeing with the great toe in 
 having only two bones within it, while each of the fingers 
 and other toes has three. This serial symmetry which is 
 thus visible externally, becomes much more evident when 
 the interior of the body is examined. Thus we find that 
 the backbone is made up of a number of osseous pieces 
 which obviously resemble each other very closely, and so 
 bear a common name. Each such bone is called a "verte- 
 bra," on which account the backbone is often called the 
 vertebral column. The same is the case as regards the 
 " ribs," which also follow one another in " a series," and 
 thus have a serial resemblance, or " homology," as it is often 
 termed. Parts which possess a serial homology are often 
 distinguished as " serial homologues," or " hpmotypes." 
 
 The term "homology" refers only to structural relations //i 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE BODY. 1 53 
 
 / and resemblances as to relative position, and has nothing- 
 
 whatever to do with the use to which parts may or may 
 not be put. 
 
 There are certain very curious facts which point to some 
 deep and hidden cause of serial homology, of a more pro- 
 found nature than any similarity in the use to which serially 
 homologous parts may be applied. Thus certain diseases 
 will attack the palms and soles of one individual and the 
 backs of the hands and feet of another individual. Similar 
 deformities also are often to be found simultaneously in 
 the thumbs and great toes of the same persons, or between 
 their little fingers and little toes. These curious conditions, 
 and serial homology as it exists in us, will be further illus- 
 trated when we come to consider the structure of the lower 
 animals,* where also we shall find that some of them have 
 the body built up symmetrically according to a third and 
 quite different kind f of symmetry. 
 
 * See below, chap, xxi., " Arthropoda." 
 t See below, chap, xxi., " Ccclentera." 
 
154 ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 
 
 The functions of the body vary with its structure, a classification of 
 "functions" corresponding with a classification of its parts. 
 There is a close analogy between the main functions of whole 
 systems of organs and the vital powers possessed by the minute 
 portions of protoplasm which build them up. 
 
 Muscular activity— Co-orditiated motions — Non-Jiiuscular motility — 
 The aliinetitary functiott — Activities of the circulating system — 
 The respiratory function — -The /u?iction of secretion — The genera- 
 tive function— Functions of the nervous system — Repair ofitijuries 
 — DevelopDient — Heredity and variation — Habit — Instinctive 
 actions — Death atid life. 
 
 Having briefly reviewed those facts which most concern 
 us here, respecting man's bodily structure, we have next to 
 consider the actions, or functions, of the body and of its 
 various parts. The body is, as we have seen, made up of 
 " systems " of parts, each system consisting of certain 
 aggregated " organs," each organ being made up of different 
 "tissues," and each tissue being composed of "cells," or 
 parts representing cells. Obviously, therefore, we may 
 expect to find activities of corresponding orders — namely, 
 of cells, of tissues, of organs, and of systems, in addition to 
 such activities as belong to the entire living body, regarded 
 as one whole. But none of the functions of the body can 
 be performed except under certain physical conditions. 
 There must be a sufficient, but not an excessive, degree of 
 heat, a certain amount of moisture, and a certain supply 
 of gaseous material. The existence of certain amounts of 
 such forces and conditions are obviously necessary for life. 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 155 
 
 We may bemn our examination of the functions of bodily Musadar 
 
 •' o activity. 
 
 life by considering bodily activity /rt;r excellence— xViOVQw^^rW.?, 
 of the limbs and other parts, and of the body as a whole. 
 Walking, running, jumping, and the various movements of 
 the larger and smaller parts of our frame, are all effected 
 by the action of muscles of different kinds, shapes, and 
 sizes. The muscles act by " contracting," and their con- ^ 
 traction is due to a power which the fibres that compose | 
 them severally possess of simultaneously decreasing in/ 
 length and increasing in diameter, on the occurrence of 
 certain conditions and excitations. This power possessed, 
 by muscular tissue is a special form of ir/j^ability, which iS;; 
 called "contractility." By" their contractTons, muscles^ 
 move the'^ones'^'6 which they are attached,* causing 
 them to act like levers of different orders, and so to pro- 
 duce conspicuous bodily movements, such as those of our 
 limbs, our head, our lower jaw, etc. The contracted state 
 of any muscle can only endure for a limited time, and 
 cannot be repeated without an interval of rest, which must 
 be greater according to the exhaustion induced by fre- 
 / quently repeated contractions. There, is one muscle,^ 
 IhoweYer,. which acts throughout the whole life, its con- >^ 
 jTractjons^bemg .continually reiterated— a short interval of ^W^ 
 Trest taking place after each contraction. X^is muscle is :r 
 X-t ^^ e" hear t, , an d it is an example of muscles which contract 
 1 automatically without ©ur kriawiedge and independently 
 rof__(2jjir__.a3^ill. Such activities are to be carefully dis- 
 tinguished as " involuntary" activities, from our " voluntary 
 movements. There are some motions, such as those of 
 respiration, which ordinarily take place independently of 
 our will, but which can be performed voluntarily, and for 
 a time be voluntarily suspended. Soon, however, the 
 power of voluntarily restraining them ceases, and they take 
 place in spite of all our efforts to the contrary. 
 
 The agent which induces muscular contraction is called 1 
 a " stimulus," and there are various kinds of stinuili. Thus, l 
 there may be a direct stimulus, such as the application to 
 the muscular fibres of a sharp-pointed body, or of an acid, 
 or some acrid substance, or of sudden heat or cold, or 
 * See above, p. 149. 
 
Co-ordi- 
 
 jiatcd 
 
 ^notions. 
 
 156 ON TRUTH. 
 
 a shock of electricity. There may also be an indirect 
 stimulus, i.e. when the excitation is supplied not directly 
 to the muscular tissue of a muscle, but to the nerves which 
 are distributed to it ; or there may be a mental stimulus 
 due to emotional excitement, or to the influence of an act 
 of our will. It is a noteworthy fact that stimuli, physically 
 equal, have a more powerful effect when acting on a muscle 
 through a nerve, than when acting directly on the muscle 
 itself. 
 
 A certain moderate, involuntary contraction of the 
 muscles (called their " tonicity ") is habitual. Were it not 
 for this we could not stand w-ithout a great voluntary effort, 
 on account of the flexibility of our joints. We maintain 
 our upright posture as easily as we do, because the muscles 
 placed on opposite sides of our body and legs are contracted 
 to this normal degree. They thus antagonize each other, 
 and so prevent the joints from giving way and allowing 
 the body to fall to the ground, as it infallibly does when 
 their action is suddenly arrested — as by a bullet through 
 the heart. During waking life, and in sleep-walking, 
 changes of posture which tend to cause the centre of 
 gravity to fall beyond the basis of support, are instinctively 
 followed by compensating motions which have the effect 
 of retaining it within such basis. Thus, if the left leg be 
 extended outwards, the body instinctively and simul- 
 taneously leans over to the right. Motions begun with 
 a voluntary effort may be subsequently carried on auto- 
 matically, as we constantly find when we set out for a walk. 
 Such motions may be carried on much better automatically 
 than with attention ; as is easily seen if we begin to con- 
 sider what our movements should be while we are running 
 up stairs. Attention impedes the rapidity and accuracy \ 
 of such movements. 
 
 Thus not only do muscular motions take place without 
 our adverting to them (as well as in response to a direct 
 act of our^will), but they take place in appropriate groups 
 of co-ordinated movements and groups of groups of such 
 movements, which not only we do not will, but which we 
 do not even know. How wonderful, when we carefully 
 consider it, is the trivial act of a lad throwing a stone at 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. I 57 
 
 a mark ! How complex must be the co-ordinated move- 
 ments between different parts of the body in order to 
 produce even such a result ! The lad's mind has little to 
 do with it beyond the one impulse to hit the mark. He 
 knows nothing of anatomy, but simply sets going the 
 wonderful mechanism of his body, and this works out the 
 desired effect for him, just as if it were only an elaborate 
 machine. In the first place, the various movable parts of 
 his eyes must be so adjusted that he may see the mark 
 distinctly. Then his body must be held in a proper 
 position, the stone be grasped with fit strength (that is, 
 certain muscles must be contracted to a given amount), 
 the arm must be thrown back to the due extent, and its 
 muscles contracted, in co-ordination with the movements 
 of the eyes, and with just that degree of vigour which, 
 as his fingers are relaxed, will carry the stone as desired. 
 Thus movements may be synthesized without our will and 
 without our knowledge — so as to result in the production 
 of one complex general action. 
 
 Various other motions may also take place uncon- 
 sciously. The movements of the heart and those of 
 respiration have been already adverted to, but, besides 
 these, there are continual movements in the walls of the 
 stomach and intestine, which are constantly renewed during 
 life, and movements of contraction and relaxation in the 
 walls of the blood-vessels — movements which serve to 
 regulate the amount of the life-giving stream which differ- 
 ent conditions induce them to transmit to different parts 
 of the body. 
 
 But besides these movements of muscular tissue, the -v>'«-w«i- 
 
 cittar 
 
 minute protoplasmic constituents of the body have also ""■■•tiiiiy- 
 a certain power of motion. Thus the white corpuscles of 
 the blood have a power not only of simple expansion and 
 contraction, but also of protruding and withdrawing por- 
 tions of their substance, and thus changing their shape in 
 the most various ways. This kind of motion is termed 
 " am oebi form," because it is quite like the motions which 
 certain microscopic organisms, termed AinccbcB* perform. 
 The cilia, also, which have been already spoken off in 
 * Sec below, chap. xxi. t See above, p. 149. 
 
158 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 reference to the air passages of the body, have a peculiar 
 
 ■J'hc all- 
 Ill cut a >y 
 function. 
 
 power of motion — whence they get their name of " vibratile I 
 ciHa." They perform repeated lashing movements, each 
 cilium bending itself with great rapidity, and then becoming 
 more slowly straightened. All the adjacent cilia move in 
 the same direction, thus together producing a wave-like 
 motion similar to that exhibited by a field of corn under 
 a strong wind. The result of these constantly repeated 
 movements is to propel small particles along the ciliated 
 surface of the body.* 
 \ If a minute portion (a cell) of £iJialexL..9£ithelium be 
 detached, so as to float freely in some suitable fluid, then 
 the effect of the lashings of its cilia is to move above the 
 cell itself as by a sort of locomotion, like that of some very 
 lowly animals and plants. No muscular tissue or nerve 
 exists in any of these minute motile particles, and the 
 cause of the motions is as yet quite unexplained and 
 mysterious, like that of the contractile power of muscular 
 tissue. 
 
 The activities of the organs which together constitute 
 the alimentary system, combine to effect the nutrition of 
 the body and siiicli""growth of its various parts as may be 
 needed to compensate the wear and tear of adult life, or, 
 in the ioiniature individual, to minister to that development 
 by which the human frame is built up. The process of 
 nutrition effected by food is, in early life, greatly in excess 
 of waste, and hence the body is said to "grow," and visibly 
 increases in size with rapidity. Growth, however, takes 
 place during the whole of life, though, at maturity, an 
 equilibrium is established between growth and waste, so 
 that the body ceases visibly to grow. With the advance 
 of age, the balance at first existing is reversed, and waste 
 becomes more and more in excess. The growth of the 
 whole body takes place by the growth of its component 
 tissues, and the growth of each tissue is brought about 
 by the multiplication of the cell-elements which compose 
 it. These, through nutrition, augment in size, and then 
 subdivide themselves ; and it is by this reproduction of 
 
 * This resembles the action of certain lowly animals known as Flagellata, 
 see below, chap. xxi. 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 159 
 
 cell-elements that the tissues grow. The taking into our 
 
 frame of the materials necessary for such reparative and 
 
 nutritive growth, is called alivientation, and is finally effected 1 
 
 by the reception of new elements into the very ultimate j 
 
 substance, or parenchyma, of the body. This final process 
 
 of reception itself is termed assimilation, and consists in 
 
 I the transformation of what is immediately external to the 
 
 ; most intimate substance, or parenchyma, of the body into 
 
 the parenchyma itself — the change of the food we eat into 
 
 ; our own flesh and blood. As to this process, science, as 
 
 yet, can only say that it is performed, and enumerate the 
 parts and processes which aid its performance. How it , 
 is performed, after all the preliminary actions are gone | 
 through, is at present an entirely unsolved problem. ^ 
 
 Nevertheless, certain physical conditions help us to 
 
 understand the processes which serve and lead up to the 
 
 final act of assimilation. Assimilation is always effected 
 
 from a fluid medium derived from the food ; but in order 
 
 that the food should be able to supply the body with such 
 
 a medium, it must, sooner or later after its reception, 
 
 undergo a certain process of preparation. Thus the whole 
 
 process of nourishing the body by food — the process of 
 
 alimentation — is made up of four subordinate processes : 
 
 ■ (i) the reception of the food ; (2) its preparation by 
 
 I mechanical division and solution ; (3) the action upon it 
 
 I of the digestive juices * — such as the saliva, gastric juice, 
 
 f and the fluids formed by the intestine, liver, and pancreas • 
 
 and (4) its assimilation. 
 
 A supply of nutriment is, however, by no means all that •! 
 is requisite to maintain life. It is also necessary that a cer- I 
 tain temperature should be kept up by a constant process \ 
 of oxygenation.! of the body's substance, and so we need \ 
 food for the production of heat as well as for nutrition. | 
 
 But nutrition could not be effected were not fresh 
 nutritive material conveyed all over the body to replace 
 wear and tear ; and it is so conveyed by the circulating 
 * These juices so act on the food as to change many of its component 
 parts from an insoluble to an easily soluble state. To change them, that is, 
 from " colloids " into " crystalloids." See below, chap. xx. p. 304. 
 
 t " Oxygenation " is union with oxygen, as when iron ' ' rusts," and chemical 
 action is a cause of warmth (see below, chap. xx.). 
 
^ Vwy/ jV.. 
 
 1 60 ON TRUTH. 
 
 system — the system of blood-vessels or vascular canals. 
 Yet, however copious and persistent may be this supply of 
 nutriment, nutrition could not take place had not the 
 various substances of the body the power to extract nutri- 
 tive material from the blood and build it up, each into 
 its own kind of substance — whether it be nervous tissue, 
 muscular tissue, epithelial tissue, or what not. These 
 various substances do not, of course, exist as such in the 
 blood ; it is the different tissues which have the power of 
 changing some of the nutriment contained within it into 
 their own tissue. Thus the living particles which form the 
 ultimate substance of the body, exercise a certain power of 
 choice with respect to the contents of the fluids which come 
 in contact with them. Such particles are not passive 
 bodies, they are active living agents. But, in fact, it is 
 not the blood alone which is in all cases the direct agent 
 of nutrition, since the blood has the power of replenishing 
 itself and repairing its own losses, out of the fluids obtained 
 from the food. Xlie -intimate way in which assimilation 
 ^z/^. takes place is called intussusception, to distinguish it from 
 any growth whTcl^may taTce place by mere external addi- 
 tion — as when a crystal grows,* while suspended in a 
 suitable medium, by the deposition of fresh matter on its 
 surface. Thus the ultimate protoplasmic elements of the 
 body have a power of converting other adjacent substances 
 into material like themselves — into their own substance. 
 Inasmuch also as the heat of the body is produced and 
 maintained by the oxygenation of such ultimate elements, 
 they must, besides this, also possess a power of executing 
 chemical changes, and so evolving heat more gently and 
 continuously than in the combustion of inorganic bodies^ 
 Activities 0/ The activities of the circulating system of parts,! con- \ 
 iligTyst'em. sist in the conveyance of the nutritive fluid — the blood — ■ 
 to and from every part of our frame. That it should be , 
 so conveyed is a manifest necessity of life, for since the I 
 process of nutrition takes place in the very innermost sub- ' 
 stance of the body, there must be channels by which every 
 part of the body may be supplied with its needed nutriment. 
 It also requires to be driven from space to space, that it 
 
 * See below, cliap. xx. p. 304. t See above, p. 149, 
 
 1^. 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. j6i 
 
 may go wherever it is wanted ; and, to effect this, active 
 " organs of circulation " are needed, whereof the heart — the 
 great propeller— is the chief. The blood exudes from the 
 finest ultimate ramifications of the blood-vessels in order 
 to reach the parenchyma of the body, and to supply it 
 with its rich nutritive material for assimilation, repair of 
 waste, and growth. 
 
 But the blood, in and by the very act of nourishing the 
 various organs, must part with its nutritive material, and 
 this, therefore, requires to be replenished if life is to be 
 sustained. The needful gaseous matters are obtained, as 
 will shortly be pointed out, by respiration ; but the other 
 matters have to be gathered by the blood from the materials 
 prepared for it within the alimentary canal, whence they 
 pass into the blood channels by the intervention of the 
 lymphatic vessels, which, as before said,* ultimately open 
 into the large veins. The arteries are vessels which carry 
 the blood from the heart all over the body, whence it re- 
 turns b}' the veins to that central organ. 
 
 Besides the circulation of the blood throughout the body, 
 a minute internal circulation, or movement of parts of its 
 substance, must also take place within each protoplasmic 
 particle of the body, similar to that which takes place in 
 certain minute living organisms, whose whole bodies consist 
 each of a minute particle of protoplasm only^- 
 
 . Of all the functions of the body, that of respiration is The respi- 
 tha^most conspicuously necessary for the. maintenance oCflTcLn. 
 2i^i^.The life of each separate individual begins with an 
 act of inspiration, and with an act of expiration it ceases. 
 Let the function of respiration be interrupted for a very 
 short time, and death is the necessary result. In breath- i 
 ing, the air is taken down the windpipe into the lungs, / 
 and is thence again expelled much poorer in oxygen/ 
 gas, but much richer in carbonic acid. It is this absorp-\ 
 tion of oxygen by the body and discharge from it of V 
 carbonic acid instead — this interchange of gases between i 
 the living animal and the surrounding air — which con- I 
 stitutes "breathing," or respiration. But in carrying on / 
 this function we really perform two processes of respiration 
 
 • See above, p. 149. 
 
 M 
 
l62 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 The /unc- 
 tion of 
 secretion. 
 
 — one "internal," the other relatively "external." Such 
 is the case, because the oxygen received into the blood 
 does not remain there, but is carried by the circulation 
 to the remotest recesses of our body, to unite with its 
 innermost parenchyma. Similarly, the carbonic acid which 
 the blood sets free, does not originate in the blood, but 
 is given forth into the blood from all the ultimate particles 
 of the same parenchyma. Thence the blood gathers it, 
 and conveys it outwards for discharge in the lungs. The 
 blood thus both gives out and takes in oxygen and carbonic 
 acid at either end of its course to and fro between the 
 lungs and all parts of the body. It goes from all parts 
 of the body to the heart, and is thence propelled to the 
 lungs, where it gives out its excess of carbonic acid into 
 the air contained within them, and takes thence oxygen in 
 exchange. Int£iJi£^jrespiratio7i, therefore, is the absorption 
 of oxygen and elimination oFcarbonic acid by the ultimate 
 parenchyma of the body's substance. External respiration 
 is the absorption of oxygen and the elimination of carbonic 
 acid by the blood, on what is essentially the surface of the 
 body ; for the always moist lining of the lungs is but, as it 
 were, a very deep and complex inbending and infolding of 
 the body's external surface. 
 
 Thus we may here again note, as we before noted 
 with respect to other activities of the body, that the proto- 
 plasmic elements of the body have themselves a power of 
 respiration — of effecting that very gaseous interchange 
 just described. 
 
 But, closely connected with respiration and nutrition, 
 there is yet another bodily activity to be described, namely, 
 secz^iion. We have, in fact, already noted that the process 
 of respiration is in part a process of elimination and 
 removal from the body of a portion of the waste products 
 of its vital activities. This now requires more careful 
 consideration. Bodily life is carried on by a series of 
 compositions and decompositions, and, in order that assimi- 
 lation may take place, a process of disassimilation must 
 accompany it. With the addition of new and unused 
 material, there must go on a subtraction of old and effete 
 material. It has already been observed that the digestion 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 1 6 
 
 J 
 
 of our food is aided by juices, such as the sahva, gastric 
 juice, etc. Now, these juices do not exist as such in the \ 
 blood, but are formed from it by a mysterious power | 
 which certain cells possess thus to build up new products. \ 
 The exercise of this power is called " secretion," and it is a | 
 power analogous to that by which the various tissues are 
 enabled to add to their own substance from the life-stream 
 which bathes them, though their substance does not exist, 
 as siich, in that stream. Thus " assimilation " itself is a 
 sort of " secretion." Nevertheless, it cannot be said that 
 I* " secretion " is a sort of "assimilation." "Assimilation" is 
 a process of forming products and adding them to the 
 body; but "secretion" is a process of forming products 
 which are either to be got rid of, or else are destined to aid 
 in other life-processes. Thus secretion is a special function, 
 and as such has a special organ — a gland. Two most im- 
 portant glands of our body are the kidneys, which secrete 
 and remove from the blood certain effete and deleterious 
 nitrogenous substances, which they discharge and pass on 
 into the bladder. But we are also compelled to recognize 
 that a power of " secretion " is possessed by the ultimate 
 protoplasmic elements of the body, just as we have seen 
 them to possess other before described functions. For it 
 is they which ultimately do the actual work of " secretion." 
 Therefore such particles have the power of forming from 
 their own substance other substances of a different nature. 
 This power, possessed by particles of protoplasm, is espe- 
 cially conspicuous in the process of " development." * Thus 
 we see how close is the analogy between the main functions 
 of whole systems of organs, and the vital powers possessed 
 by the minute particles of protoplasm which go to build up 
 the body. 
 
 The generative function is a special modification and 
 form of " growth." Nutrition is a sort of self-generation ; 
 and this is especially striking in certain cases of bodily 
 repair after injury.f In ordinary growth there is, as we' 
 have seen, a sort of reproduction ; for it is by the repro- 
 duction, or multiplication, of the component cells of the 
 various tissues that their growth is effected. There is, then, 
 
 * See below, p. 171. t See below, p. 169. 
 
 The gene- 
 fa th>e 
 OtnctioH. 
 
164 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 nothing very wonderful in an organ forming cells which, | 
 instead of remaining part of the tissue which formed them, | 
 and so causing it to grow, become detached from it. 
 Nevertheless, though generation may be said to be a kind 
 of growth, yet it is a very special and peculiar kind of 
 growth. For it is effected, in us, by the formation of two 
 kinds of cell-elements, which have a reciprocal relation one 
 to the other, and each kind is in its separate way very 
 remarkable. T he male or sperm cell, gives rise to the 
 before-mentioned actively locomotive filamentary particles, 
 whereof each one which attains the end of its being, merges 
 itself in a cell of the other kind. This second kind of 
 cell, thfi^male generative cell, or ovum, is one not only 
 capable of self-division and multiplication, but of growing 
 I up, after the merging process just mentioned, not into a 
 ' single organ only, but into a perfect human being. Thus 
 is brought about (the requisite conditions being supplied) 
 nothing less than a cycle of changes — the cycle of life — 
 i.e. a series of changes returning to the point from which 
 that series set out. We have (i) the generative cell; (2) 
 its upgrowth into the form of a fully developed embryo ; 
 (3) the birth of an infant ; (4) childhood ; (5) adolescence ; 
 and (6) maturity, where we have the formation of the 
 generative cell once more. This cycle of changes, like 
 every other process of bodily life, needs for its due occur- 
 rence certain fixed conditions, such as a certain tempera- 
 ture, a due supply of oxygen, a sufficient amount of food, 
 the presence of a requisite degree of moisture, and, of 
 course, protection from directly destructive agencies, 
 animate or inanimate. The general features of this won- 
 derful kind of growth from the ovum, constitute what is 
 called the process of development, and its consideration, 
 with that of the process of repair after injury, will occupy 
 us at the end of this chapter. 
 Functions oA It will bc wcll licrc to consider the activities of the 
 
 the nervous I , t i_ • L^ t • • l- i 
 
 syshm. nervous system, and certam other activities more or less 
 analogous thereto, or connected therewith. It is by the 
 living agency of the nervous system that all the other 
 organic activities of our body are carried on. Without its 
 aid all nutrition, growth, circulation, respiration, secretion, 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 1 65 
 
 (generation, or muscular motion would be impossible for us. 
 But besides these organic activities — activities which, 
 muscular motion apart, we share, not only with animals, 
 but also with plants — -the nervous system also ministers 
 to, and is necessary for, sensation, and, therefore, for all our 
 cognition, since, as we have seen,* knowledge is impossible 
 for us except as following upon sensation. The nervous 
 system is thus an intermediary between us and the world 
 about us. It receives various influences from the latter 
 which give rise to corresponding sensations in us, and to 
 bodily movements, which react on the world about us. 
 But besides these actions, it also serves as an intermediary 
 without the intervention of sensation, since, when it is 
 acted upon by external influences, it may, and constantly 
 does, excite corresponding activities in our body without 
 giving rise to any feeling of which we are conscious. 
 
 Sensation is incapable of definition, since to be under- 
 stood it needs to be experienced ; and every man must know 
 what it is to have a feeling who knows anything whatever 
 — as " sensations " are with us the indispensable antece- 
 dents of ideas, and, therefore, of knowledge. All considera- 
 tion of sensation, as recognized by consciousness, must be 
 deferred till we come to speak of the faculties of the mind, 
 and to consider it subjectively. Here we may, however, 
 at once describe it as a special and altogether peculiar 
 vital organic activity, which accompanies certain actions of 
 the nervous system occurring under definite conditions. 
 Thus the temperature of the body must be moderate| 
 (certainly not less than 72°, or more than about 120°) ;| 
 the nervous tissue must be adequately supplied with 
 oxygen, and free from deleterious substances, and the more 
 important nervous structures themselves must not have 
 their continuity interrupted by any injury. 
 
 Difterent parts of the nervous system have different 
 functions, and the special functions of different nerves, are 
 partly learned by the study of their distribution and partly 
 by the very simplest observations. Thus irritation of the 
 nerves which go to the eye (to the retina) or to the internal 
 I ear, does not produce pain, but only certain sensations 
 
 * See above, p. 87. 
 
1 66/^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 either of light or of noise. There is a great nerve, called 
 the pneumogastric, which passes down on either side from 
 the bram* to the heart, lungs, and stomach. If it be 
 divided the stomach ceases to move, its power of secretion 
 is impaired, the lungs become paralyzed, and suffocation 
 ensues ; but the beating of the heart is accelerated, so that 
 we conclude its normal function is, in part, to moderate 
 the heart's action. The nerves which come forth in pairs * 
 from the spinal cord minister either to sensation or to 
 motion, according to their distributions and connections. 
 If one of these nerves be divided, and the part cut off from 
 the spinal cord be irritated, then motion ensues in the 
 muscles to which such nerve is distributed, but no pain 
 accompanies such irritation. If the part which remains 
 attached to the spinal cord be irritated, then pain is caused, 
 but not motion. If the posterior root f of a spinal nerve 
 be alone severed, the parts supplied with twigs from such 
 nerve only, lose their sensibility, but their power of motion 
 remains. If the anterior root of such a nerve be alone 
 divided, then the parts supplied by such nerve are paralyzed 
 as to motion, but, nevertheless, retain their sensibility. If 
 the spinal cord itself be cut or broken through, it is impos- 
 sible for a man thus injured to feel any irritation which 
 
 J may be applied to the parts of his body which are supplied 
 with nerves coming forth from the spinal cord below the 
 point of injury. Neither can he voluntarily move such 
 parts. Nevertheless, movements of those parts may be 
 produced by stimuli applied to them, without the occur- 
 rence of either conscious sensation or voluntary effort. A 
 man so injured, though he may have entirely lost the 
 power of feeling any pricking, cutting, or burning, applied 
 to such parts, will none the less execute movements, often 
 in an exaggerated manner, in response to such stimuli, 
 just as if he did feel them. He will withdraw his foot if 
 tickled with a feather, just as if he felt the tickling which 
 he is incapable of feeling. Siicli unconscious movernerjt 
 in rpspnnt^f^ fo s timuli wliich are not felt, is called reflex 
 nciion. frir flip followmg-~ rea son ..; Under ordinary circuni- 
 
 I stances, stimulations of the surface of the body convey an 
 
 * See above, p. 150. f See /. c. 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. f^^ljL- 
 
 - influence inwards which produces sensation and gives rise 
 ; to an outwardly proceeding influence passing to the muscles, 
 : and resulting in definite appropriate motions. The in- 
 fluence inwards appears to travel upwards through the 
 spinal cord to the brain, which is ordinarily the organ of 
 both sensation and motion, and so produces feeling, while 
 the influence outwards appears to travel downwards from 
 the brain, through the spinal cord to the muscles, so 
 producing motion. When the spinal cord is divided, it is 
 no longer possible for these influences to ascend to the 
 brain (and, therefore, there is no feeling), or to descend 
 from the brain (and, therefore, there is no voluntary motion). - 
 But the unfelt influence travelling inwards is supposed, on 
 reaching the spinal cord, to be thence automatically reflected 
 outwards — as evidenced by the appropriate, responsive, but 
 /unfelt movements just described. These actions are there^ 
 Jfbresaid to b e "reflex/ ' * But the action of the stimulus 
 applied is evrciently not the cause of the action which 
 results, but only its occasion. The force emitted by the 
 organism is due to powers and energies latent within it, 
 which this stimulus makes active and manifest. There is 
 thus an evident spontaneity even in reflex action, though 
 it is nothing to that which our higher faculties make 
 , known to us. 
 
 But reflex action may take place in the uninjured con- 
 dition, as during sleep, or under the influence of chloro- 
 form, etc. Thus a medical friend of ours while removing 
 the finger of a lady who was under the influence of an 
 anaesthetic, heard her exclaim several times, " Oh, my poor 
 finger ! " Yet on recovering consciousness she had not, at 
 first, the slightest knowledge that the operation had been 
 performed. 
 
 Actions may occur which are so far analogous to reflex | 
 action that they take place independently of, or against, 
 the will though they are accompanied by sensations.! 
 Thus if an object not too large be placed very far back in 
 the mouth, it must be swallowed ; and, as before observed,t 
 the movements of respiration, though they can be for a 
 time voluntarily suspended, cannot be long so interrupted, 
 
 * See also below, chap, xxiii. t See above, p. 155. 
 
fr 
 yl 
 
 f. 
 
 { 
 
 I 68 ON TRUTH. 
 
 but will take place in spite of the will, and automatically. 
 Such actions are distinguished by the term sensori-iiiotor^ 
 Certain other actions may take place in an automatic 
 manner, as a consequence of sensations experienced. We 
 refer to those which are commonly called instinctive, and 
 which will be briefly noticed at the end of this chapter.* 
 
 Different parts of the brain are variously connected 
 with different movements and different sensations ; but, for 
 our purpose, these need not here be particularized. 
 
 A few words, however, must be said with respect to a 
 network of delicate nerves, which go to such organs as the 
 heart, arteries, intestines, liver, kidneys, generative organs, 
 etc., and which are spoken of as the " s\mi£athetic,sysi£i|j,'' 
 Normally their activities do not give rise to sensation, 
 though in unhealthy conditions pain may accompany them. 
 Amongst these nerves are to be found numerous small, 
 rounded masses of nervous tissue, termed " ganglia ," which 
 both receive and give forth nerve fibres. It is in the 
 highest degree probable that these ganglia act with the 
 nerves in a mode analogous to the reflex action of the spinal 
 cord. It is the presence of such a system... of gangliated 
 nerves in the substance of the heart which is supposecTTo 
 give to that organ its power of persistent contraction and 
 expansion — actions which will take place for a brief period p 
 even after its sudden removal from the body. Both secre- 
 tion and nutrition are largely influenced through the 
 sympathetic nerves which extend along the arteries and 
 regulate their contraction or expansion, and so the amount 
 of blood supplied to each part by them. 
 
 Thus, as before said, the nervous system is the great 
 co-ordinating system of the body which harmonizes and 
 regulates its activities generally. Nevertheless, the action 
 of the nervous system itself requires to be regulated and 
 to be adjusted to the actions of the other systems ; yet it 
 cannot regulate itself Moreover, those properties and powers 
 of motion, nutrition, circulation, chemical change, respira- 
 tion, and secretion, which we have found to be possessed 
 by the ultimate protoplasmic particles of the body's paren- 
 chyma, must be independent of the nervous system, since 
 * See below, p. 175. 
 
 ■i0^ 
 
 ^ 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 1 69 
 
 they are too minute to be supplied with nerves. In the 
 process of development again, as we shall see, the germ of the 
 body is at first devoid of nervous tissue, and its primary 
 orderly changes cannot, therefore, be due to regulating and 
 co-ordinating nervous action. There is thus no one point 
 whence all the activities of the body proceed. There are 
 minute nervous structures, injury to which will stop the 
 movements of respiration, and so cause death very quickly 
 There are multitudes of organs and parts of organs indis- 
 pensable for the life of the whole, but there is no one 
 , organ or part of an organ which can be said to be the 
 organ of the whole body's life. It is the whole body itself 
 which is the organ of the individual's life. 
 
 Moreover, our body has, within limits, a power of adapt- 
 ing itself to new conditions, which power cannot be due to 
 the particular arrangement of the nervous system, since 
 that arrangement is constant and universal in all men, while 
 the conditions may be varied and only occasional. Thus if 
 we are compelled to nourish oiu'selves with some unwonted 
 food, the due action of our digestive organs may be thereby 
 at first impeded. After a little time, however, the evil may 
 diminish, and our organism accommodate itself to its new 
 kind of nutriment. Such activities must be due to a power 
 possessed by the living body of persistently reproducing 
 some tissue change, caused by the reception of the new food, 
 as the change caused by a surface injury may result in a scar- 
 which will persist throughout life. This continuous repro- V 
 duction of a past affection of the organism may be figura- | 
 tively termed " orocanicr ein in iscencc. ' ' Again, the activities f 
 of our body will respond to other impressions in an orderly, | 
 appropriate, but unfelt manner. We may observe this in 
 the oarsman's hand, the blacksmith's arm, and the ballet- 
 dancer's leg. Such activities may be spoken of as an 
 '^organic correspondence^,' or ^' adaptatio)i" It is notorious 
 also that "practice makes perfect." As to injuries, an old Ref^aho/ 
 man may bear on his leg the mark of a kick received '"•^"""• 
 when a boy at school, this mark having been constantly 
 reproduced, for all that the tissues of his body may have 
 been again and again renewed in the course of a long life. 
 But processes of repair and healing take place more readily 
 
170 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 in the earlier stages of existence, though sometimes they are 
 very wonderful in adults. Thus after a wound, a perfectly 
 structureless fluid substance may be secreted and poured 
 forth from the parts about the wound. In this substance 
 cells will arise and become abundant, so that the substance, 
 at first structureless, becomes what is called " cellular tissue." 
 Then, by degrees, this structure transforms itself into 
 vessels, tendons, nerves, bone, and membrane — into some 
 or all of such parts^according to the circumstances of the 
 case. When a bone is broken its two broken edges soften, 
 the sharp edges thus disappearing ; then a soft substance 
 is secreted, and this becomes at first jelly-like, then gristle- 
 like, and at last bony. But not only do these different 
 kinds of substance — these distinct tissues — thus arise and 
 develop themselves in this at first neutral substance, but 
 very complex structures, appropriately formed and nicely 
 adjusted for the performance of complex functions, may 
 also be developed. We see this in the production of admi- 
 rably formed joints which are altogether new. Thus, a 
 railway guard met with so serious an accident that he was 
 compelled to have his elbow, including the elbow-joint, cut 
 out. Yet a new joint was afterwards formed almost as 
 good as the old one. Now, the arm contains one long bone 
 — the humerus — above the elbow-joint ; but there are two, 
 side by side, below it. The outer of these two bones, the 
 radius, ends above in a smooth-surfaced cup, which plays 
 against part of the lower end of the humerus, while below 
 the elbow, its side plays against the other bone — the ulna — 
 a cartilaginous surface being in each case interposed. The 
 radius and ulna are naturally united to the humerus by 
 dense and strong membranes, or ligaments, which pass 
 between it and them anteriorly, posteriorly, and laterally, 
 and are attached to bony prominences which project from 
 either side of the lower end of the humerus. Such was 
 the condition of the parts when the operation referred to 
 took place. Nine years after it the patient died, and the 
 arm was examined, which in the mean time had served 
 the poor man perfectly well, he having been in the habit of 
 swinging himself by it from one carriage to another, while 
 the train was in motion, quite as easily and securely as 
 
•jitents. 
 
 THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. lj\ 
 
 I with the other arm. It was found that the radius had 
 
 ■ formed a fresh polished surface, and played once more both 
 
 I on the humerus and the ulna, a cartilage-like material 
 
 1 being interposed. The ends of the two lower bones were 
 
 1 again locked in between new processes of the humerus, and 
 
 bound to it by freshly formed lateral, anterior, and posterior 
 
 ligaments.* It would be easy to bring forward a number 
 
 of more or less similar cases. 
 
 These processes of growth take place in perfect nncox\-\Devein/>- 
 sciousness, and the will has no direct control over them. 
 Yet they are directed to a useful end, and are carried on 
 by vital processes which are practically full of purpose and 
 intention, though their end is altogether unforeseen, because; 
 quite unknown, to the patient who benefits by themj 
 The study of the mode in which lost parts are reproduced: 
 naturally lead us to the consideration of the process of 
 reproduction, or development, of the whole body. This 
 latter development is brought about by changes and pro- 
 cesses of growth which are most utterly unconscious, while 
 they are as full of purpose, and as entirely directed to a 
 predetermined, though unforeseen, end, as it is possible for 
 any bodily changes to be. No one can for a moment 
 pretend that the developing embryo knows the processes 
 of growth by which it is formed, or directs them by any 
 effort of its will. >. 
 
 By the " development " of the individual man, is sig- \ 
 nified the sum of those rapidly succeeding changes of form j 
 which commence the life-history of every human being. 
 It should, indeed, properly mean the entire sum of changes 
 undergone from the junction of the sexual elements till 
 the complete maturity of the thence resulting organism. 
 Practically, however, the term has come to mean (as 
 above said) that early part of the process which takes 
 place up to, and shortly after, birth. Thenceforward the 
 I changes which ensue are less changes in the forms and 
 [ relations of parts of the body than in their dimensions, and 
 I such later part of the process of development is generally 
 I spoken of as " growth." 
 
 * See Mr. Timothy Holmes's " System of Surgery,'' 3rd edit., vol. iii, 
 p. 746. 
 
172/^/ ON TRUTH. 
 
 The first germ of the future human body appears in the 
 shape of a minute rounded mass of protoplasm, from 
 which, by degrees, all the varied tissues and all the com- 
 plex parts which constitute the adult man are derived — 
 and thus every tissue of every kind is formed or " secreted " 
 by protoplasm. This simple protoplasmic particle, or cell, 
 divides and subdivides itself again and again, till three 
 layers of cells are gradually but rapidly formed. Thus 
 there is a close analogy between that process of growth 
 which constitutes the development of the individual, and 
 the growth (as before explained) of the several tissues of 
 the body. 
 
 Soon a gtgove appears on the surface of the embryo, 
 wherein is laid the foundation of the brain and spinal 
 cord, and, beneath the latter, that of the backbone. Then, 
 after certain other foldings, a heart shows itself and beats, 
 and blood is formed and circulates. Limbs also grow forth, 
 and jaws and sense-organs form themselves and, little by 
 little, the at first shapeless mass, more and more approxi- 
 mates to the human form. But the body is only built up 
 in a very roundabout way. Its earlier structural arrange- 
 ments are very different from those of the adult man. The 
 brain, at first, is not a minute model of the future brain, 
 for all that is most conspicuous in the adult brain is not 
 represented in it. The heart also is primitively even more 
 dift"erent from that of the full-grown man in form than 
 it is in size. It is a simple tube, which subsequently 
 becomes bent on itself and subdivided into chambers, 
 which, nevertheless, are not like those of the adult. Simi- 
 larly the blood-vessels which go to and from it are at 
 first very different from the full-grown man's in the course 
 they take. These arteries at first simply arch up on either 
 side of the throat and meet together dorsally to form the 
 great artery of the body — the aorta. The lungs, of course, 
 are functionless till birth changes the embryo breathing 
 through the blood of its mother, into the infant breathing 
 by its own aerial respiration. The first kidneys are not 
 those of adult life, in which they persist but as minute 
 functionless rudiments. There is also, to begin with, a long 
 tail ; but this does not continue to grow as do the adjacent 
 
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. 173^. 
 
 parts, and so it becomes entirely hidden beneath the skin. I 
 
 The Hmbs are of very different relative lengths at different * 
 
 periods of the process of development, and the great toe, 
 
 before birth, stands out widely from the others. Certain 
 
 clefts — termed visceral clefts — also exist for a timiC on 
 
 either side of the throat, and between them are solid 
 
 structures called "visceral arches," along which extend 
 
 those arteries which have been already said to arch up on 
 
 either side of the throat. The sex of the embryo is at 
 
 first indistinguishable, while the organs of generation of 
 
 both sexes at first appear alike, and only become different 
 
 through diversities of growth in the two sexes. The skeleton 
 
 is primarily represented by membranes, afterwards by 
 
 these and by cartilages, and only finally by bones. Instead 
 
 of the series of bones, each of which is called a " vertebra,"* 
 
 \ and which make up the back-bone, there is at first only 
 
 la continuous gelatinous rod, called the " notochord," or 
 
 J " chorda dorsalis." The bones are at first much more 
 
 numerous than those which are found distinct later in life, 
 
 as they grow together in various ways and at different 
 
 / rates, in different parts, as life advances. Finally, before 
 
 birth, the whole body is clothed with a delicate coat of 
 
 ^, hair, called the " lanugo," which subsequently falls off. 
 
 It is a notorious fact that children resemble ihe.].vU^<:>-edity 
 parents. It is not, however, their parents alone whosQ\a.riatio^^ 
 form, disposition, or tendencies to disease are reproduced. | ^y^ 
 Occasionally some characteristic of a grandparent, or more 
 remote ancestor, or even of some collateral relative, will 
 reappear. The transmission of parental char.acte£iaUfi: 
 |called "heredity," and is evidently a property not of the 
 foffspring, but of the parents who transmit their likeness. 
 ^I'lt may be considered the primary or fundamental law of 
 fdevelopment. 
 
 But every man has had both a father and a mother, 
 and comes of a line of ancestors, every one of whom was 
 in the very same case. This fact modifies the great law 
 of heredity, so far as to produce a more or less complex 
 compound of hereditary tendencies, varying according 
 to (i) the amount of force springing from each ancestral 
 * See above, p. 152. 
 
174 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ 
 
 strain, and (2) the compatibility or incompatibility of 
 the prevailing tendencies — resulting in an intensification, 
 per£etuation^,jmQdificatioiV-QJC,Ji£iitralizati of ancestral 
 characters,, as the .case may be. All such action is but 
 " heredity," acting in one or other mode ; nevertheless 
 it results in what are practically "variations" of offspring 
 from the parent form. The reproduction of ancestral 
 characters, as distinguished from parental, is termed 
 " ata vism." But another and fundamentally different 
 kind' of ~ action from that of either heredity or atavism 
 also causes variation. Such are changes in the surround- 
 ing circumstances of parents or of the embryo during 
 its development, which may result in variations of form j 
 that may be inherited. Thus certain affections of the I 
 skin, or of the nervous system, or of the generative organs, ; 
 or of the hands and feet (supernumerary fingers and toes), 
 are very apt to be inherited. Amongst variations of 
 the generative organs, an entire absence of the uterus, or 
 womb, is sometimes inherited, and this is especially 
 interesting, because such a variation can only be propa- 
 gated indirectly. 
 
 There is another bodily activity we possess about which 
 a word or two should here be said. It is related to that 
 power of ours whereby actions are performed, that have 
 ^been already distinguished * as " analogous to reflex 
 action." This is the power we have of forming habits, 
 which is itself the sign of our possession of a special in- 
 ternal spontaneity by which our organism tends, within 
 limits, to " react " v/hen acted on. For what is a " habit " .'' 
 A " habit " is not formed by repeated actions, though it 
 may be strengthened and confirmed by them. If an act 
 performed once only t had not in it some power of genera- 
 ting a " habit," then a thousand repetitions of that act 
 would not generate it. Habit is the determination in one 1 
 jdixection of a previously vague tendency Xq action. We I 
 ^ave a natural tendency to activity. Action is not only 1 
 natural to us, it is a positiv^e want. Our powers and 
 energies also tend to increase with activity and exercise 
 (up to a certain limit), while they diminish, and finally 
 
 See above, p. 167. 
 
 t See further below, chap, xxiii. 
 
■ actions. 
 
 THE ACTIVITIES OF THE BODY. I 75 
 
 perish, through a too prolonged repose. Thus a power 
 of generating "habit" lies hid in all, and in the very first 
 of those actions which facilitate and increase the general 
 activity and power of our body, and facilitate and increase 
 the exercise of that power in definite modes and directions.^ 
 
 This tendency to bodily activity which wndQxViQsl instinctive 
 "habit," naturally leads us on to consider the kind of action- 
 we before referred to* as "instinctive." Instinct, as a'" 
 " feeling," belongs to the next chapter,! but a mention of ' 
 the bodily movements to which it gives rise must not here 
 be omitted. Instinctive movements differ from reflex 
 actions in that they are not merely responsive to a stimulus 
 felt, but are so responsive to it as to serve a future unfore- 
 seen purpose. Such an action is that of the infant which, 
 in response to a feeling produced on its lips, first sucks J 
 the nipple, and then swallows the thence extracted nourish- 
 ment with which its mouth is filled. It is an action neces- 
 sary for the nutrition and life of the infant ; it is also an 
 action done directly after birth, when there has been as 
 yet no time for learning to perform it. It is a definite and 
 precise action, and one performed in a similar manner by 
 all infants, though it is effected by a very complex mechan- 
 ism, and is performed at once, prior to all experience. But 
 not only sucking and deglutition, but also the movements 
 by which the products of excretion are removed from the 
 body of the infant, are instinctive. In later life, various 
 other instinctive actions minister indirectly or directly to 
 reproduction. It is an instinct which prompts the little 
 girl, with unconscious coquetry, to decorate herself, and 
 not only to fondle her doll, but to press it to that region 
 whence her future offspring will draw its nourishment. 
 Later on, when come the days of love and courtship, instinct 
 leads youths and maidens to seek each other's society, and 
 tends naturally to induce affectionate feelings and ulti- 
 mately caresses, each of which acts as a further stimulus, 
 ultimately leading on towards actions indispensable to 
 the race. 
 
 * See above, p. 168. t See below, p. 184. 
 
 X As to this, the celebrated anatomist, Bichat, says, " It is instinct, which 
 I do not understand, and of which I can give no account, which makes the 
 infant, at the time of birth, draw together its lips to commence the action of 
 sucking;. " 
 
176 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Death and 
 UJe. 
 
 Hierarchy 
 of functions. 
 
 During the earlier stages of life the vital activities 
 which build up the body are manifestly in excess. Life 
 ever reacts upon obstacles and increases in vigour from the 
 need, which obstacles create, for increased activity on the 
 part of the organism. During middle life there is, roughly 
 speaking, a balance between the reparative and the destruc- 
 tive processes ; but as age advances, the processes of repair 
 relatively and absolutely decrease, and life is maintained 
 in a more and more unstable equilibrium, till the fatal end 
 inevitably arrives, and death reduces what was an " organ- 
 ism " (all the parts of which were reciprocally ends and 
 means) to a mass of organic matter of different kinds, 
 devoid of that intrinsic activity which pertained to it 
 through the whole of life. Normally, however, life does not 
 cease with the individual, but persists in that individual's 
 offspring. Generative activity accompanies the period of 
 life's greatest vigour, and but a relatively feeble vitality 
 characterises, as a rule, those declining years which remain 
 to us after the processes of reproduction have come finally 
 to an end. 
 
 During healthy life the actions of the various cells,^ 
 tissues, organs, and systems of organs of the body, con- 
 stitute a hierarchy of activities which results in the supreme 
 activity which each of us knows as his own life. The 
 "cells" which constitute each several tissue of the body, 
 though they have a sort of life of their own, yet have their 
 ( juasi in dividual lives merged, as it were, in the life and 
 activity of the tissue of which they form a part — just as 
 the various activities of the different minute fragments or 
 varieties of protoplasm which form a " cell " are merged in 
 the life of that cell. In the same way the properties of 
 the various tissues are merged in the function of the organ 
 of which they form a part. The stomach digests food, 
 and does it by means of the properties of its component 
 tissues, but it is the stomach as a whole which carries on 
 the function of such digestion, part of which is due to 
 muscular action (the contraction of the muscular fibres in 
 its walls), and part to solution. So, also, the functions of 
 each separate organ are merged in a higher unity, namely, 
 the function of the system of organs whereof they form a 
 
THE ACTIVITY OF THE BODY. I 77 
 
 part. Thus the retina at the back of the eye has its own 
 activity, but it can only exercise it usefully, in conjunction 
 with the humours and structures in front of the retina ; 
 nor can all these together effect sight, without the brain ; 
 nor will even this conjunction suffice, except when a due 
 supply of vivifying blood circulates through the whole. 
 The heart, again, is the main organ of circulation ; yet cir- 
 culation is not a function of the heart apart from the vessels, 
 but of it and all the vessels likewise. In a similar way the 
 functions of all the systems of organs which together com- 
 pose the body, unite and merge into a higher unity of^ 
 activity — the life of the whole body. This " life " is the 
 function of man's body considered as one whole, just as 
 the subordinate functions are those of the body's several 
 sets of organs. 
 
 Having thus briefly passed in review our essentially 
 bodily activities — those known to us by external observa- 
 tion — we must next proceed to consider those other bodily 
 activities with which we are made acquainted by conscious- 
 ness, — through introspection — and, ultimately, those higher 
 mental powers with which the activities of the body seem 
 to be least concerned. 
 
 N 
 
■^w 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 We have a multitude of mere feelings severally related to the various 
 orders of our intellectual perceptions, emotions, and volitions. 
 These sensitive faculties, which are of the greatest practical 
 importance to life, exist beside the intellect, and not unfrequently 
 practically supply its place in simple matters when intellect is 
 permanently or temporarily absent. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A recapitidatio7i — T%vo o}'dcrs of mental powers — Pleasure and pain 
 — Defi7iite sensations — Consenticnce — Instinctive feelings — Mental 
 images — Their association — • Emotions — Sensuous memory — 
 Knowledge and sensuous ktiowledge — Feeliftgs of activity, pas- 
 sivity, power, self, not-self and difference — Sensuous generalized 
 cognitions — Feelings rclati7ig to succession, extension, positio7t, 
 shape, size, nu77iber, a7id 77iotio7i — Feeli7igs relati7ig to su7prise, doubt, 
 agreeme7tt a/id disagree77ient, a/id of pleasurable satisfactio7i fro7/i 
 c07idjict — Sc7tsuous i7ifere7ice a/id feeli7tg of causatio/t — Appetites 
 and desires— Te7ide7icy to i7/iitatio7i — E//iotio7ial la7iguagc^Feel- 
 ing for beauty — Co-ordi/iate feelings — 07ga/iic volitio7i — Se7isuous 
 atte7itio7i — Feeli7igs of 77iea7is a7id e/id. 
 
 The full significance of this chapter will probably not be 
 obvious to the reader at first. Its great importance and \ 
 the utility of its contents will, however, appear more plainly j 
 in the fifth section of this work — that on science. In I 
 the mean time the student of truth is earnestly entreated 
 to pay particular attention to its contents, for we believe 
 the distinctions it treats of are amongst the most important 
 and the least noted in the whole study of the mind. 
 A recapitu- I^ thc foregoing chapter it has been shown that we 
 
 have three kinds of bodily activi ties :Xj.) th ose accompanied 
 by feeling and consciousness ; (2) those which can never be 
 
 lalion. 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 1 79 
 
 mentally perceived by us ; and (X ^ -those which may be 
 accompanied by sensation and consciousness at one time 
 and not at another. Thus the intimate processes of growth, 
 reproduction, and development, can never be felt, and we 
 can never be conscious of them. Even the details of our 
 voluntary motions are generally imperceptible to us. Yet, 
 of course, we know full well when our body performs those 
 actions which we expressly desire it to perform. Certain 
 vital processes (such, e.g., as the act of breathing) usually 
 pass unnoticed, but can be observed and attended to at 
 will ; others, again (like the beating of the heart and the 
 contractions of the intestine), go on normally without being 
 felt, but, under certain circumstances, may be felt distinctly 
 and even painfully. 
 
 We have also seen that most important vital processes 
 — the ultimate processes of assimilation, respiration, and 
 secretion — take place beyond the direct and immediate 
 action of the nervous system on the minute parts which 
 perform them ; as, of course, does the first formation, in the 
 embryo, of the nervous system itself. We have also noted 
 that though feeling is a main function of the nervous system, 
 the same system, nevertheless, ministers both to motion 
 and secretion, and also plays its intermediate part in bring- 
 ing about those intimate life-processes before mentioned, 
 which are not felt. Thus the alimentary movements and 
 those of the heart, though normally unfelt, depend on the 
 integrity of those parts of the nervous system which are 
 distributed to them. 
 
 We have further noted how the nervous system may 
 act in a reflex manner * and, without the accompaniment 
 of any sensations, give rise to appropriate co-ordinated 
 bodily movements, just like those which would naturally 
 result from sensations. 
 
 Finally, we have seen how the occurrence of certain 
 sensations (such as those produced by a small object very 
 far back in the mouth) may give rise to motions (such as 
 those of the action of swallowing) which, though felt and 
 perceived, are utterly beyond the power of the will to 
 control. 
 
 * See above, p. 166. 
 
.^ 
 
 I 80 ON TRUTH. 
 
 There is thus a gradual transition in us from vital pro- 
 cesses performed altogether without the intervention of 
 the nervous system, through unfelt nervous acts, to acts 
 distinctly felt and voluntarily performed by the help and '''^'^ 
 intervention of the nervous system. 
 
 Thus, as before pointed out,* we have, besides our in- 
 tellectual faculty and our sensitivity, also an unconscious 
 vital power by which life is mainly sustained, and by which 
 vital processes take place on the receipt of impressions 
 which remain unfelt and unknown to consciousness at the 
 time they occur. 
 Two orders Tumlug now OUT mental eye inwards and considering / 
 
 of mental . _ . . i 
 
 powers. our experiences by a process 01 mtrospection, we may note, f 
 in the first place, the elementary fact that we do expe- \ 
 rience " sensations " of different kinds, and that we have also % 
 "perceptions" which are very different from "sensations." \ 
 Indeed, we saw in the last section t that "sensations," | 
 i.e. " feelings," are the means and not the object of percep- 
 tion — unless, of course, our intellectual activity be directed 
 to them and so make them the objects of our attention. 
 Thus it is plain that there are two kinds of mental activity 
 — one typified by these, ordinarily disregarded, " feelings " 
 just referred to ; the other typified by the intellectual per- 
 ceptions to which they minister. 
 
 A great number of very different mental processes 
 
 naturally group themselves about one or other of these 
 
 two activities — " feeling " and " perception." Thus all the 
 
 acts of our mental activity can be arranged in two great 
 
 groups, which may be distinguished respectively as our 
 
 " higher " and " lower " mental faculties. For no one can 
 
 i question the higher and nobler quality of a process of 
 
 reasoning, or of a perception of moral merit or of demerit, 
 
 . compared with mere feelings of sourness or sweetness, 
 
 (' warmth or cold, hunger or repletion. 
 
 Now, distinct, conscious, intellectual activity accom-[ 
 panics all those mental acts by which we examine any- 1 
 thing with attention, and therefore those acts by which we | 
 examine our mental acts themselves. Nevertheless, we 
 have, through memory, the power of looking back and 
 
 * See above, p. 94. t See above, p. 90. 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. l8r 
 
 recognizing that some of our mental acts have not been 
 so accompanied. Thus we every now and then recollect 
 something we have recently seen or heard, but which we 
 were not conscious of at the time we saw or heard it, and 
 we constantly remember to have seen some object, and 
 therefore know we must have had the sensations neces- 
 sary to that perception, though we cannot even by any 
 effort recollect the sensations themselves, which we thus 
 know we must have felt. Such unconscious acts are 
 amongst those we reckon as belonging to the lower cate- 
 gory of our mental powers, and we shall meet with other 
 
 \ examples of the kind when we come to consider the lower 
 
 I forms of memory and knowledge. 
 
 1 Accompanying the exercise of our mental faculties of Piea$u,e 
 
 T -T ^ P ^ and pain. 
 
 [both the higher and the lower kinds, we may have either a 
 I feeling of pkasm'e or_.pjC_.paiiij or we may be, so far as we 
 I can determine, in a neutral condition, and not distinctly feel 
 either the one or the other. These pleasures and pains may 
 be very different in kind and degree. The pleasure expe- 
 rienced on solving an intricate problem, or the pain attend- 
 ing the discovery of tjie_unfaithfujness of a..beloved friendj 
 are different enough from the pleasure felt in drinking an 
 agreeably flavoured wine, or the pain of a burn. It is to 
 the pleasures and pains of the lower order to which we 
 would now advert — pleasures of the senses, of exercise 
 after prolonged repose, of agreeable imaginations and 
 emotions, and those attained in the gratification of the | 
 passions and desires. Now, unless diverted by some special 
 cause, we have each of us not only such pleasurable and 
 painful feelings, but we have an innate, twofold tendency 
 in their regard. On the one hand, this spontaneous 
 tendency inclines us to pursue, persist in, or plunge deeper 
 into whatever is pleasurable, and on the other, to avoid 
 whatever is painful. 
 / What we here especially desire to call attention to is 
 the fact, not that we consciously and deliberately pursue yj ^ 
 pleasure and avoid pain — for very often we do nothing of ( P^ 
 the kind, and sometimes we consciously do the very reverse ,.■■ 
 — but that we have an unconscious, spontaneous tendency 
 so to do, and that we automatically and instinctively act 
 
1 82 ON TRUTH. 
 
 in this way when we do not advert to what we are about, 
 unless by so doing we act against any habit we may have 
 previously formed. 
 
 j It is one of the elementary facts of our mental life that 
 we have feelings of very different kinds — some of them so 
 distinct that we are unable even to conceive of any gradual 
 transition between them. Thus all but the blind and the 
 deaf, know how distinct is a sensation of colour from one 
 of sound. We cannot even conceive of a sensation inter- 
 mediate between blue and a given musical tone, or between 
 the smell of musk and the feeling of hot iron. It is true 
 that a blind man is said to have declared that he com- 
 pared scarlet (which he had never seen) to the sound of a 
 trumpet. But this may have been due to an association 
 of ideas between the red coats of English soldiers and the 
 military musical instrument. Anyhow, he did not pretend 
 that he could conceive of anything intermediate between 
 colour and sound, but only of an analogy between two 
 sensations of different orders. These definite sensations 
 are due to our organization. The eye translates all stimuli 
 applied to it in terms of light — as a blow is said to 
 make the eye " flash fire." Similarly the auditory nerve, 
 however stimulated, makes but one response — sensations 
 of sound — and the same is true of the other organs 
 of special sense. Obviously, for all we know, we might, 
 had we additional sense organs, become acquainted 
 with other properties of bodies now unknown to us. Our 
 sense-knowledge is also conditioned by our organs, and ■. 
 limited to what they can tell us. Besides special sensa- 
 tions of colours, sounds, smells, tastes, and those we call 
 feelings of contact, or of heat and cold, we have a great 
 variety of sensations due to the different characters of the 
 surfaces of objects — smooth, rough, soft, hard, etc. We 
 have a variety of feelings of pressure (active and passive) 
 and others due to effort and the relative positions of parts 
 of our body, as in grasping objects of different sizes or 
 weights, or at different distances ; objects either at rest, 
 or slowly, quickly, feebly, or powerfully in motion. All 
 these various feelings, moreover, can not only be so felt 
 as to be consciously perceived, but also, as before observed, 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. I 8 3., 
 
 may occasion unnoticed feelings, and so give rise to cor- 
 responding actions without our being conscious of them, 
 as will shortly be more fully pointed out. 
 i Now, the unfelt influences, before adverted to, which Consen- 1 
 
 ' 1 • 1 n • • 1 tzence. I 
 
 ; brmg about our reflex actiions and those unconsciously 
 
 ; felt sensations which produce involuntary responsive 
 
 \ actions, instinctive or otherwise, all agree in this — that they 
 
 1 aflect our bodily organism ; and all those that are felt affect 
 
 ; our sensitivity. Whether they are feelings of colour, light, 
 
 darkness, loud or gentle sounds, pungent odours, heat, 
 
 cold, contact, or what not, they must be received by one. . 
 
 ^common ultimate sensorium, or they would not produce 
 
 the effects they do. A sudden half-blinding light, a sudden 
 
 half-deafening sound, a sudden sensation of burning, will 
 
 all produce a similar result in the form of an involuntary 
 
 start. And when we interrogate our own experience, we 1 
 
 find that ajl our varied sensations, as we consciously know 1 
 
 them, do meet, as it were^ln ou? "Being^ and all become so\ 
 
 many modifications of our consciousness. As, however, ' 
 
 TlTese sensations may (as' we have seen already, and shall 
 
 I see more clearly later) * be felt without consciousness, we 
 
 require a term to express the faculty we have of receiving 
 
 I them all, in one unity of our being (one sensorium) apart 
 
 f from consciousness. The best term to denote this faculty, 
 
 ' seems to be " consentience." When our mind is entirely 
 
 directed upon some external object, or when we are almost 
 
 in a state of somnolent unconsciousness, we have but a 
 
 vague feeling of our existence — a feeling resulting from the 
 
 unobserved synthesis of our sensations of all orders and 
 
 degrees. Such unintellectual sense of "self" is a form of 
 
 "consentience." It is by this faculty of "consentience" 
 
 that the unconscious sleep-walker receives and accurately 
 
 responds to the varied impressions which surrounding 
 
 objects make upon his organs. It is by the same faculty, 
 
 again, that the idiot makes such responses as he can 
 
 make to similar impressions ; and this shows us how 
 
 (by the help of his rational fellow-creatures) a man may 
 
 for years unconsciously receive sensations and so unite 
 
 them, as to be able to continuously respond to them 
 
 * See below, p. 187. 
 
Instinctive ' 
 feelings. \ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 without ever having had one scintilla of self-conscious 
 intellect. 
 
 Instinctive actions have already been referred to.* Of 
 the feelings which accompany such actions we are either 
 
 I altogether unconscious, or they exist independently of 
 consciousness, with which they can entirely dispense. Thus 
 the action of the infant when it first sucks the nipple and 
 swallows the nutriment thence extracted, must be done 
 unconsciously, and has no more been learned, than it is 
 performed by the infant with a deliberate intention to 
 
 , nourish its body. ^"The feeling of instinct is more than a ^ 
 want, and less than a desire,' H.^is- a certain felt , ^ b u^t 
 
 " not perceived (fel t by " consentience," but not per ceiv ed 
 by " rnimrinii.cine.sg; "),f internal .stimulus-ta definite act;i9ns> 
 which stimulus has its foundation in a certain feeling_of 
 want, but is not a definite feeling of want of the particular 
 end to be attained*>^.W.e.i'e that recognized, it would_^not 
 be " instinct," ^butJijd-esiiJe^ It is but a vague craving, or 
 a mere tendency, to exercise certain activities on the 
 of certain sensations, which activities ,CQn- 
 
 Instinctive feeling 
 
 r 
 
 occurrence 
 luce €o use 
 
 certain sensations, 
 
 seen e nds. 
 often sets in action organs quite different from those 
 which feel the prick of want, and which do not (ex- 
 perience apart) seem to have relation with it. The 
 feeling of hunger does not stimulate to action the organs 
 of digestion which suffer from it, but excites the limbs and 
 jaws to perform acts by which food may be obtained and 
 eaten. The infant's first act of sucking is not only due 
 to sensation, but consentience accompanies it. It is not, 
 therefore, a mere reflex act. The instinctive feelings which 
 minister to reproduction are most remarkable and powerful. 
 They constitute a rigorously determined and precise want, 
 partly painful, partly pleasurable. If any one would deny 
 that the actions they lead to are instinctive and indepen- 
 dent of the conscious intellect, let him study the sad 
 phenomena connected therewith which may be observed 
 in our asylums for the idiotic and insane. The first activ£ 
 exercises of the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, 
 
 * See above, p. 175. As to instinct in animals, see below, chap, xxiii, 
 t This distinction will appear more clearly in chap, xv., " Consciousness," 
 
1> 
 
 OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 1 85 
 
 and feeling (the first "looking," the first "listening," 
 etc.) which the child performs at the very beginning of 
 its learning to perform them, may also be regarded as 
 " instinctive." 
 : It is a notorious fact, and the experience of the reader Mental 
 \ will at once assure him of its truth, that " feelings which 
 ' have been e.xpm£ii££d.^iaaj>^-agairL.recjaj:^i^,.w we call 
 j^OiF'^^^^agmation," Mental images (or " phantasmata," as ' 
 ' they were called of old) are faint reproductions of before 
 felt sensations and groups of sensations, and we cannot 
 doubt but that some, at least, of those parts of the nervous 
 system which are strongly stimulated in experiencing 
 actual sensation, are also faintly (or it may be, strongly) 
 re-excited during the imagination of such sensation. Here, f 
 again, we have abundant evidence that mental powers of[ 
 this kind can and do exist apart from the action of our 1 
 conscious intellect. How common is the experience of i; 
 melodies which seem to haunt us, and not only rise un- • 
 bidden, but cannot easily be got rid of; and the same 
 thing occurs with the mental reappearance of harrowing, 
 or dispiriting, or very fascinating objects we may have 
 witnessed^^ 
 
 In the opening of the first chapter of this work it was Their 
 
 1 * 1 r 1 • 1-11 • 11 association. 
 
 pomted out that teehncrg^ \uLufth.43^ve befip .■e^:per.ien.Q^r!. hy, 
 _us^ s uccessive! \\ come to be associated together. We also 
 naturally associate imaginations one with another, and 
 imaginations with sensations, and both of these with emo- , 
 tions. It is very important, for our present purpose, to note ^r'^i 
 I this power which we have of associating together, feelings V- 
 (sensations) and imaginations in, groups, and in groups of 
 groups, so that when one or more of the feelings associated 
 in the imagination is again freshly experienced, all the 
 feelings which have been associated with it in the past 
 tend to be aroused also. Examples of the exercise of these 
 powers of association and consequent revival often occur. 
 Thus the sound of a dinner-bell, or the sight of an ex- 
 panded umbrella, may instantly arouse in our minds 
 associated images of food or of rain. It is not only that 
 we intellectually know that the bell may be a call to 
 
 * See above, p. 6. 
 
I 86 ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ dinner, or that the umbrella is probably expanded on 
 I account of rain, but associated images may arise before the 
 thoughts with which they are connected, and such images 
 may persist for a time in spite of our efforts to expel 
 them. On hearing, after perhaps an interval of many 
 I 3;ears, the notes of some melody familiar in early days, 
 images may be aroused which will kindle long dormant 
 ions, emotions. The old man may momentarily become, in 
 imagination, a youth once more, and seem to feel his half- 
 f paralyzed limbs again treading the rhythmical measures of 
 the waltz, and his feeble arm supporting a form dear to 
 '•^-memory. Even so simple a sensation as that of some 
 odour will often recall a whole train of vivid images which 
 have been therewith associated in the past. These com- 
 plex associations of feelings, accompanied with more or 
 less pleasure or pain, constitute the emotions of our lower 
 mental nature. Such lower emotions may be aroused in 
 us apart from the exercise of our reason. Thus the emo- 
 tion of fear may sometimes be suddenly excited before 
 there is time for any speculation about, or comprehension 
 of, the cause which has excited it. Emotions connected 
 with hunger and the instinctive feelings relating to repro- 
 duction, may be aroused unconsciously and may exist in 
 idiots. Other sensuous emotions are, feelings of sympathy 
 and companionship — apart from the intellectual recog- 
 nition of the existence of claims on our sympathy, or of 
 the presence of others with us. We may also note the j 
 feeling aroused by evidences of hostility or disapproval! 
 on the part of our fellows, and the peculiarly painful and 'i 
 regretful feeling of " sham.ej' following upon our sense of' 
 having done something likely to call forth such hostility 
 or disapproval. I refer here only to the feelings which 
 may follow such actions, and not at all to any intellectual 
 judgment we may make concerning them. 
 Hous \ In our chapter on memory we observed* that no 
 T^' ! repetition of a feeling constitutes an act of memory unless 
 b^ ! we are conscious of it not only as existing, but as relating 
 ^/^ to the past. But the facts of unconscious imagination 
 ; and association show manifestly that we have, neverthe- 
 
 * See above, pp. 31, 32. 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. ^'^1^/j 
 
 ' less, a certain power of retention with respect to sensations 
 and emotions, and a power through which we can not only 
 preserve, but re-excite them. This retentive faculty liesj 
 at the base of our wonderful powers of recollection ands 
 reminiscence,* but is something radically different, andj 
 exists apart from consciousness. Nevertheless it may, hy\, 
 analogy, be distinguished as " sensuous memory," or the 1 
 'JjS£sa.ory of the imagination." It is by the help of this 
 faculty that we perform unconsciously a multitude of 
 familiar actions — as introspection shows us. Of course, 
 whenever we think, we are necessarily conscious ; but, 
 nevertheless, memory enables us to detect the past ex- 
 istence in us of sensuous memory based not upon con- 
 
 . sciousness but consentience. Thus we may detect ourselves 
 as having performed such acts as the following, and as, 
 
 \ therefore, having unconsciously possessed and exercised 
 in doing thejij that uncoiiscious meniojryjDf the irnagina- 
 tfon with out which they„cQuld never-hasie. be^a-^pne : We 
 
 may find, for example, that wg,jSet out on a walk to some 
 
 i place in a_d istant part of the city, and on the way became 
 immersed in speculations about business or politics, so 
 that the sounds and sights about us were either lost to con- 
 sciousness or only aroused it feebly and instantaneously. 
 We were what is called " lost in thought." Yet we did not 
 miss our way along the familiar road ; each turning, each 
 crossing, was accurately effected, and it may be we were only 
 roused from our reverie by the sight of the place we 
 set out to reach. Here, then, although we had no con- 
 scious memory or reminiscence of the several objects wliich 
 passed before our eyes in reverie, yet we must have had 
 an unconscious or sensuous memory of the imagination 
 "concerning them, or they could not have served to rightly 
 guide us along our path. Again, let us suppose the case 
 of a lady playing with perfect facility on the piano a 
 difficult piece of music, which it has cost her much 
 I labour and attention to learn. While she is playing it, 
 I she talks to a gentleman who she thinks will very likely 
 I make her an offer. Her consciousness is absorbed in 
 I attending to his words, his tone and manner, with mental 
 
 * As to this distinction, see above, p. 31. 
 
I 88 ON TRUTH. 
 
 side-glances as to fortune, temper, and other matters. Yet 
 she may never falter in her playing, nor in the long-prac- 
 tised delicate distinctions as to the force and prolongation \ 
 of pressure with which the different keys should be struck. \ 
 But her consciousness all the while may be so far from j 
 being directed to the actions of her fingers that, were she 1 
 so to direct it, the probability is that her execution would \ 
 be thereby impaired. Almost every one who plays the i 
 piano knows how often a melody once learned, but now in 
 part forgotten, can be best recalled by studiously turning 
 the mind away from what is being done, while an effort is 
 
 ■ made to play it automatically. In other words, the melody 
 is recalled by avoiding the use of intellectual memory, and 
 
 1 by trusting entirely to that sensuous memory, which has 
 '-. become, as it were, embodied in the nerves and muscles — 
 
 ■ the retentive memory of the imagination. In a certain 
 vague and improper sense we may be said, having learned 
 to do such things, to " recollect " how to do them ; but 
 unless the mind recognizes the past in the present while 
 performing them, they are not instances of intellectual 
 memory, but merely instances of that retentive faculty 
 which we have distinguished as sensuous memory. 
 
 Knoiviedge By the aid of sensuous memory and the power of 
 
 and sen- ^ _ •' ^ 
 
 suousknow associating the retained impressions, or images, of past 
 
 ledge. . ■^ 1 
 
 sensations and imaginations, united in groups and groups 
 of groups, we come to possess a power recognizing objects 
 and practically knowing them in a merely sensuous way, 
 apart from a real intellectual knowledge of them. Here, 
 again, being the rational animals we are, we cannot know 
 them except intellectually when we think about them. 
 We cannot, of course, so know them except consciously. 
 But memory enables us to recognize the fact that we must 
 have occasionally known objects in the past in a merely 
 sensuous manner ; and since everything must be a possible 
 thing which has actually occurred, we may be sure we can 
 have merely sensuous knowledge since we may thus assure 
 ourselves that we have had it. Now, in the instances t 
 before given of the piano-playing and the walk into the ? 
 city, the notes of the instrument and the places traversed { 
 in the walk must have been practically recognized, and \ 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. ^^9 Ay 
 
 therefore known in a certain sense, or they could not have 
 been made use of as supposed. 
 
 In fact, great ambi guity exists as_ to tlxe. -use of .the 
 word "know ." Just as before with the term "memory," 
 so also here, certain distinctions must be drawn if we 
 would think coherently. 
 
 (a) To " know," in the highest sense which we give to 
 the word, is to be aware (by a reflex act) that we really > 
 have a certain given perception. It is a voluntary, intelli- 
 gent, fully self-conscious act, parallel to that kind of 
 memory which was before distinguished* as "recollection " 
 and contrasted with " reminiscence." 
 
 (d) We also say we " know " when we do not perform 
 a reflex act, but yet have a true intellectual perception — jj^ 
 a perception accompanied by consciousness — as in most of 
 our ordinary intellectual acts, e.^: in giving orders, or learn- 
 ing, or teaching, or pointing out any facts. 
 
 (c) But when we so " know " a thing that it can be' 
 done unconsciously, we cannot be said to " know " it intel-f 
 lectually, although in doing that thing the nervous an^ .^f 
 motor mechanism of our body acts (in response to th^ jjj^ 
 stimulus of sensations) as perfectly as, or even more per-j 
 fectly than, in our fully conscious actions. The "know-l 
 ledge " which accompanies such " unconscious action " is 
 improperly so called, except in so far as we may be able 
 to direct our minds to its perception, and so render it 
 worthy of the name — just as we may direct our attention 
 to acts of sensuous memory, so as to make them conscious 
 acts. In^the same way, then, in which we have already 
 distinguished from acts of true memory, those unconscious 
 . reminiscences we have termed acts of sensuous memory, ^^. 
 ; SO we may distinguish from true intellectual cognition, that A' ' 
 power of unconscious apprehension which may by analogy _«- ^ 
 be termed "sensuous cognition ; "and as vye haye a true 
 intclltctiial perception . of objects, so also we «iay..Ji2Lve"'' 
 mere]}' a sensuous per.ception of them, which may akQ-.b.e 
 called a '' seiise-pevceptionr 
 
 Amongst our various feelings there are two which SLre^ctlvify,"'^ 
 of constant occurrence and have great significance. When- TowZ%)/, 
 
 not-self, and 
 * See above, p. 31. difference. 
 
IQO ON TRUTH. 
 
 ever we act, we have a certain vague feeling of our self- 
 nctivity and exertion of power or force, and when we are 
 acted on, a feeling of passivity. These feelings are quite 
 apart from the intellectual consciousness we have of our 
 existence, and of the action of bodies on us. Thus we may 
 be walking (as before supposed), so deeply immersed in 
 thought as to be quite unconscious of our movements. 
 Let this be the case, and then let the wind (blowing in the 
 same direction as that in which we are walking) so increase 
 as to make us go on faster than we were spontaneously 
 going. We shall thus come to have a feeling — " force 
 exercised upon us " — of being acted on by a power external 
 to us ; a feeling different from that which corresponded 
 with our activity acting alone and without the external 
 propulsion. Thus it is plain that we can have not only a 
 feeling of our activity, and another of our passivity, but 
 also a feeling corresponding with the difference between 
 these states, apart from our intellectual recognition of that 
 difference.* So, again, in feeling one hand with the other, 
 we have a double feeling of self-activity, and a double 
 feeling of resistance and passivity, and in each hand we 
 have combined feelings of both activity and passivity, and 
 the passivity of the one is felt in correspondence with the 
 self-activity of the other. Thus, by the aid of consentience 
 and without consciousness, we may have a distinct feeling 
 or sense of self — apart from an intellectual perception of it 
 — and also a feeling or sense of " otherness," or " not-self," 
 with respect to things external to us. Thus, if we consider 
 the mere feelings which accompany the action of drawing 
 our hand over a foreign body, or of grasping that body, we 
 shall find that we have there, again, the combined feelings 
 of activity and passivity in the hand ; but its passivity is 
 
 * An amusing instance of such feelings, together with strong emotions 
 with much apparent rationality, but without consciousness, is given by the 
 late Dr. Carpenter, in his " Mental Physiology " (1874), p. 605. Speaking of 
 two somnambulists who were being experimented upon when he was present, he 
 tells us, " A violent blow was struck, which chanced to alight upon the second 
 somnambulist ; his combativeness being thereby excited, the two closed and 
 began to belabour one another with such energy that they were with difficulty 
 separated. Although their passions were at the moment so strongly excited 
 that, even when separated, they continued to utter furious denunciations 
 against each other, yet a little discreet manipulation of their muscles soon 
 calmed them and put them into perfect good humour." 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 thus no longer felt (as when it grasped the other hand) in 
 conjunction and correspondence with a feeling of self- 
 activity in the object (here a foreign body) which gives rise 
 to its feeling of passivity. In this case we come to have a 
 feeling of our own action, and a feeling of the action on us 
 of something external to us — that is, a practical, sensuous 
 feeling of self and of other objects, without any intellectual 
 recognition of our own existence, or of the fact that the 
 external objects are objects. In order to have these 
 feelings, it is necessary also to have a certain feeling of 
 difference ; for feelings can neither be different in kind, or 
 even succeed each other in time, without giving rise to 
 some feeling corresponding with the difference which 
 makes these feelings unlike each other and, in this way, 
 distinguishable and practically contrasted in our sensorium. 
 _ _ But as feelings and imaginations become associated .s"f«j!«(7«j > ^ 
 through bein^ ..e^4:>fefieneed in-^ticcession, so 2k^!0-^Q -%QVi- ^cognitions'! ^ 
 suous cognitions become associated by their resemblances, 
 so as to give rise to a generalized, sensuous cognition. As 
 before pointed out,* a successive series of slightly different 
 images may generate another mental image of a generalized 
 kind — an image which is different from each of the separate 
 engendering images, though partaking of the nature of all 
 — like those universal photographs, wherein, by the super- 
 position of slightly different images, we actually get such 
 a kind of generalized photograph.f When the sleep- 
 walker or the man in a reverie sees objects in his path 
 which he avoids, we cannot doubt but that he feels them 
 not only as individual objects, but as objects of one or 
 another kind — a door, a step, a curtain, or whatever it 
 may be,^ , 
 
 It may be well here next to note certain other feelings Feelings re- 
 \ which relate to the succession, extension, position, shape, sVZision, 
 '• size, number, and motion of objects. %Mion!' 
 
 In feeling something in motion (as on feeling the links 'number!and 
 of a chain drawn across the hand), we have a feeling corre- ^"°^"'"- 
 spending with the succes^imi-oi the parts as they pass, and 
 
 * See above, pp. 103, 105. 
 
 t Such generalized mental images will be spoken of as " sensuous univer- 
 sals " in the next chapter. See below, p. 206. 
 
192 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 a feeling of the tcnnination of the succession, when the 
 motion has come to an end. 
 I It is the same as regards the serial nature of the feeling 
 we have when we hear a succession of sounds, or see a 
 series of similar objects in a line ; and if there is a physical 
 resemblance between the series of succeeding things, there 
 is a corresponding resemblance between the feelings they 
 induce, and which, of course, also succeed each other in a 
 series. We have no feeling of succession itself. Succession, ,. 
 as apprehended by us, is a purely intellectual apprehension../ 
 Nevertheless, we have feelings which correspond with 
 succession, and also feelings which correspond with the 
 termination of any succeeding series of feelings. Similarly, 
 in exploring any solid object with our hands, we have the 
 intellectual perception of its three dimensions — length, 
 breadth, and thickness. But we also have, at the same 
 time, a number of feelings of touch, pressure, the motion of 
 our hand and fingers, etc., and thus we come to have one 
 group of feelings corresponding with the extension of the 
 object felt, together with feelings corresponding with its 
 limits, or the felt terminations of its extension in different 
 directions. In this way we come to have certain bundles 
 or groups of feelings corresponding with the shapes of 
 bodies, and also (as by the need of more or less widely 
 extending our arms or fingers to embrace them, or of 
 moving our head or eyes to survey them) other bundles or 
 groups of feelings corresponding with the magnitudes of 
 bodies. We have also other groups of feelings correspond- 
 ing with the unity or multiplicity oi bodies — as when we 
 are affected by a single object {e.g. in running against a 
 tree's trunk), or by many objects, as when out in a sharp 
 hailstorm. 
 
 By drawing a chain over the hand we may obtain, as 
 has just been said, feelings of succession ; but these feelings ; 
 are also accompanied by a feeling of its motion, as we feel 
 the succession of its points of contact over the breadth of 
 the hand. A very distinct difference of feeling also takes 
 place when this motion is brought to an end, while the 
 chain is still held and felt in the grasp. In this latter case 
 we experience a feeling corresponding with its rest, as 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL ROWERS. 1 93 
 
 distinguished from that corresponding with its motion. 
 The feeling of motion is the feehng most constantly called 
 into play, for it is only by some change — that is, some form 
 of motion — that feelings are excited at all. Thus motion 
 is one of the first of such complex feelings which we 
 experience, and by its very reiteration and the consequent 
 familiarity of our organization with it, it is and must be 
 one of the easiest and most readily felt and imagined 
 throughout life. . 
 
 These feelings of ours are not ordinarily noticed or • 
 attended to by us, because our minds are habitually occu- ! /Ir"^ 
 pied with the perceptions to which such feelings minister, 
 and not at all with the sensations themselves, which, as t" 
 before pointed out, are but the meang^and, not the objects^fl 
 perception.. N evertheless, a little careful examination otl 
 our mental experiences in daily life will soon show that j 
 / these feelings do exist in us. Their existence amply serves 
 to accolTnTTor the occurrence, in a state of unconsciousness, 
 of a variety of actions which seem to imply the presence of 
 conscious intellectual apprehensions which we know from 
 the circumstances — as in cases of sleep-walking and reverie 
 — cannot really be present. We have, however, been 
 prepared for such occurrences by the phenomena of reflex 
 action. Single impressions which are not felt may, we 
 have seen, induce responsive reflex actions, like those which 
 would be made if the said impressions were felt. It is not 
 wonderful then that groups of unconsciously experienced 
 feelings should be sometimes able to induce responsive 
 actions, like those which would have resulted, if the groups 
 of feelings in question had aroused consciousness, instead 
 of having merely affected consentience.* 
 \ W e experience a c ertain feelin g^ ^ ^ of shock ...\yhsXL^M:^o^ f"'^'"^' ;_ 
 fthe occurrence of j:erta[n_ sensations^,, other. ,s.easations^^^^^/^'>. 
 Idrff crcht from those which have _beco^ne^s^ociated_^^^ 
 Ithe former, come unexpectedly upon us^ Let us suppose nnnt and 
 we grasp an artificial orange so well made as not only /action. 
 to look like, but to feel like an orange, and that then 
 we cut it open and find its interior very different from 
 what we were thus led to imagine. Thereupon we have, 
 
 * As to " consentience," see above, p. 183. 
 
 O 
 
194/^/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 of course, our intellectual perception of the fact, but we 
 also have a certain feeling of shock accompanying our 
 surprise on making the discovery. Similarly, if the nature 
 of an object seems to us doubtful, we have a feeling of 
 suspended action accompanying our state of intellectual 
 doubt. If we find out that the object is in truth what 
 we anticipated it to be, we have, on the instant of finding 
 this out, a feeling, as it were, of smooth and easy transi- 
 tion which accompanies our perception of its agreement 
 with our anticipations or its congruity with them. If, on the 
 other hand, it turns out not to be what we anticipated 
 that it was, then a feeling somewhat like that of arrested 
 motion accompanies our perception of its disagreement, 
 or its incongruity, with our anticipations. Similarly, 
 when any one behaves to us kindly, we have a feeling 
 of satisfaction, and a similar feeling very often attends the 
 performance by ourselves of kindly actions to others. I 
 refer here to the mere vague emotion, or feeling, which 
 attends such actions, not, of course, to any perception of 
 their kindness. This kind of feeling is to be distinguished 
 as a feeling of pleasurable satisfaction froin conduct, and 
 forms, as it were, the material basis of a higher emotion.* 
 
 It thus comes about that, by the exercise, combinatipp,, 
 
 and association of all these different kimis,.ef feelings — 
 
 I by the association of sensations, imaginations, feelings of 
 
 '^-'pTeasufe and pain, feelings of activity and passivity, and 
 
 feelings corresponding with the succession, extension, 
 
 V'l figure, magnitude, unity, multiplicity, motion, and rest of 
 
 bodies ; \ve come to possess groups of feelings of the most 
 
 varied kinds, which feelings correspond with the different 
 
 states of a multitude of external objects which have given 
 
 ■I rise to them. These groups, and groups of groups of / 1 
 
 I feelings, underlie and accompany our intellectual percep- I 
 
 tions of material things, and therefore these groups of 
 
 fjeeljjigs may not improperly be termed, as before s^id,t 
 
 " sensuous cognitions " or " sense-perceptions." 
 
 Sensuous j The cousidcration of this power and habit of association 
 
 'andfeeLz ; amottgst fcclings which we have now recognized, leads on 
 
 o/causation.',. ^^^ another consequence worthy of note. Whc 
 
 * See below, p. 221. f See above, p. 191. 
 
 <L . .^ < ■ — — ' 
 
 and 
 
'^^ 
 
 OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 V group of sensations has become intimately associat ed ^with. '' '-' 
 certain other sensations, then, upon the recurrence of that 
 |grou£j^an imagination of the sensations previously asso- 
 ciated therewith, spontaneously arises in the mind, and we 
 "J^i^"?^ 'expectant feeling of tlieir proximate—actual recur- 
 j^ejiae. Thus the sensation of a vivid flash of lightning 
 has come, by association, to lead to an expectant feeling 
 of the thunder-clap to follow, and the sight of what looks 
 like an orange, may lead, in a thirsty man, to an expectant 
 feeling of sweeLj-uiriness, quite apart from an intellectual 
 recognition of the properties of an orange in the latter 
 case, or of the relation between lightning and thunder, in 
 the former case. This expectant imagination of sensations") 
 yet to come, brought about by the presence of a definite V 
 group of feelings freshly experienced, has a certain analogy £ ■ 
 with reasoning or inference, although altogether distinct \^ 
 from it^^essentially. VVe may, then, distinguish this kind \ 
 of feelino^jas sensuous infereiice. Closely allied to it is that ) 
 feeling of wondering expectation which sometimes arises — 
 as, for example, when we hear some strange sound or 
 see some unexpected movement — together v/ith the satisfied 
 feeling which ensues when the wondering feeling is calmed 
 through some new experience — as, for example, the sight 
 of some bird which has caused the sound or motion. We 
 refer, of course, to mere feelings which may spontaneously 
 arise, apart from the intellect ; and such feelings are the 
 sensuous antecedent or accompaniment, of the intellectual 
 apprehension of causation.* 
 
 We have already referred to our emotions, and it can appetites 
 
 and desire 
 
 hardly be necessary to point out that we have also feelings 
 of appetite and desire which exist independently of the in- 
 tellect, though the intellect can, by reflexion, recognize their 
 ■existence. That they have this fundamental independence 
 — that, however they maybe controlled by reason, they are 
 in no way due to reason — is proved by the fact that even 
 idiots and new-born babes possess them. We do not need 
 intellect in order to feel hungry or that we may make a 
 hearty meal. 
 
 As to " causation," see above, p. 
 
 Appetites, emotions, and desires are the ac^encies \\\{\Qm'^e»de>uy to 
 
196 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Eviotional 
 language. 
 
 W-. 
 
 set going the greater part of our bodily activity, not dis- 
 tinctly due to the intellect. We have also a curious, active 
 tendency which can hardly be said to be due to any dis- 
 tinct desire or emotion, and this is our tendency to imi- 
 tation — often so remarkably developed in childhood. Of 
 course, we may be inclined intentionally to imitate, but 
 this is not at all a manifestation of the tendency here 
 referred to. The latteil -i^.welLexemplified by that spon- 
 taneous, automatic yawn, which we often find follows when 
 we have seen another person yawn. Such spontaneous 
 and unintentional imitation is often carried much further, 
 notably by some idiots, who will accurately imitate almost 
 any actions which may be performed before them. This 
 tendency may seem at first very surprising. When, how- \ 
 ever, we reflect that the sight of any movement tends \ 
 slightly to stimulate those very nerves in the observer 
 which correspond with those by which the action observed 
 has been produced, it becomes easily explicable. For, let 
 this stimulation be sufficiently augmented, and actual move- 
 ment on the part of the observer almost necessarily follows. 
 In the same way, manifestations of emotion of any 
 kind on the part of one person, tend to arouse the same 
 emotion in other persons — sometimes giving rise thus to 
 a widespread panic. 
 
 Now, it is an important fact for us to note that our 
 i feelings, and especially our emotions, may be expressed 
 ! by external sig^tis, which are so far from being rational a4id_-^ 
 i intentional, that we may be unaware of them, or, if,4:5Ka£e^_ 
 j of~nTe"m7'unable to suppress them. Thus the emotion of 
 ■ terror shows itself by. tremblings of Hp and limb, a drop- 
 ping of the jaw, suppressed breathing, a deadly pallor of 
 the face, and staring eyes. With the emotion of anger, T 
 the eyes glare, the haniTs" are often clenched and raised, / 
 and the lips compressed or possibly distorted in a fierce I 
 grin. Such signs and accompanying cries, produce sym- 
 pathetic effects on the beholders ; who are often, at times 
 of intense excitement, led to respond by similar signs and 
 cries which express feelings instead of, or rather than, ideas ; 
 and thus we have a language of emotion* This emotional, 
 
 * See below, chap. xvi. , " Kinds of Language." 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 197 
 
 un intellectual language may either consist of (jj. inarticu- 
 late sounds, such as cries of joy, pain, or surprise, or the 1 
 murmur of a mother to her infant ; (2) articulate sounds, | 
 such as the talk of certain idiots who will repeat, without 
 understanding, every phrase they hear, or words uttered 
 by rational persons during emotional excitement, without ; 
 advertence, and without the intention of affirming or deny- I 
 ing or asking anything ; and (3) gestures which do not ' 
 answer to rational conceptions, but are merely the mani- 
 festations of emotions and feelings. We have but to 
 recollect the articulate sounds which compose the unmean- 
 ing oaths so often uttered in every European language, 
 in order to feel quite sure that words may be spoken 
 under strong emotional excitement which denote feelings 
 only, and not intellectual conceptions. 
 
 The sympathy which emotion will beget, may also FeeUn^for 
 notoriously be excited by certain appearances and sounds. ^"'" ^' 
 Persons are often strongly, sometimes overpoweringly, 
 attracted by the aspect of the form or features of other 
 persons, mostly of the opposite sex. Similarly, the charm , 
 jpf^the timbre in some human voices is extremely great. ' | 
 These feelings of taste vary greatly in different individuals, 
 and no divergence is more proverbial than that which exists 
 in matters of the kind. Nevertheless, however much the 
 modes of this feeling may differ, it exists more or less in all 
 men, and is so far from being due to our rational nature 
 that our reason may have no direct influence over it. 
 
 We have already noticed* those co-ordinations o{co-ordi- 
 
 1 1-1 1 1 • 1 rr Hated 
 
 bodny movement by which we effect spontaneous actions, >^^'>'^jf. 
 such as the act of throwing a stone at a mark, which we 
 gave as an example. The different feelings of activity, 
 passivity, etc., which have been described in this chapter, 
 accompany the co-ordinated actions described in the 
 former chapter ; and these feelings guide the action of the 
 body as if it were a sort of automatic, sensitive machine. 
 
 That such co-ordinated actions may take place through 
 the intervention of merely sensuous influences — apart from | 
 the conscious intellect — is made plain by the fact that } 
 many idiots and sleep-walkers perform them. Even the ' 
 * See above, pp. 156, 157. 
 
:98/>y 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 most intellectual of mankind may voluntarily set their 
 bodily mechanism going in a certain mode and direction, 
 and then, withdrawing the mind entirely from its actions, 
 leave it to work, as it were, by itself. An example of such 
 action we have already given when we supposed a man 
 walking to his destination " lost In thpugjht." Evidently 
 we may so walk, till we are surprised at finding we have 
 arrived at, or possibly overshot, our destination, and this 
 without having at all thought about our journey while on 
 the road. But the remarkable power which we have of 
 co-ordinating sensFtions an(:!7"tlTrough them, co-ordinating 
 motions, is still better exemplified by the, before given, 
 example of the piano-player. In playing " by heart," 
 the actions of the hands follow each other in orderly 
 series in connection with felt touches of the keys and 
 "and heard sounds of the notes. Let a key stick or a note 
 be dumb, and the automatic action ceases — through a 
 failure of co-ordination in the associated sensations — and 
 intellectual attention is at once aroused. 
 Organic Thc rcsult of all the foregoing powers of feeling and 
 
 ■ohtwn. co-ordination is, that we have an automatic power of 
 co-ordinating and uniting our various pleasurable tenden- 
 cies into now one and now another dominant impulse, quite 
 apart from any act of conscious will. Here, again, the 
 acts of idiots, sleep-walkers, and persons in a state of 
 reverie, will amply bear out our assertion. This power of k 
 synthesizing our various pleasurable tendencies into^ome'i 
 dppiinant impulse is parallel to that power of similarly | 
 synthesizing our movements into one complex general 
 ^ action which was before described.* 
 
 One of the plainest and. most notorious facts of our 
 , mental life is that power which we have; Qi'„. voluntarily.^ 
 (^/. f dtrecting our attention upon something which solicits our 
 
 notice. But, apart from_ this conscious, distinctly iut2U«»« 
 Icctual act, an increased .energy in the action of our.orgaiii?,-. 
 j_of special sense, naay be excited, altogether apart from oux 
 liniellcjct ^nd-CQnscir^isgyJill. Thus the feeling of "shock," 
 I before adverted to.f will of itself lead to the increased 
 application of our senses to an object in quite an automatic 
 * See above, p. 157. t See above, p. 193. 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 199 
 
 way. Such a phenomenon has often been observed in 
 a sleep-walker who, missing some object from its wonted 
 place, will begin to look or feel for it. We may also 
 observe in ourselves, when startled by some new and dis- 
 turbing object, how our senses automatically direct them- 
 selves to it without waiting for the bidding of our conscious 
 will. Such action may be conveniently distinguished as 
 " sensuous attent ion." 
 
 Lastly, we have, through the action of associated feel- Feelings of 
 ings and co-ordinated motions, the power to spontaneously, and "end." 
 but unconsciously and automatically, employ what are prac- /, - 
 tically " means to an end," quite apart from an intellectual 
 I recognition of either " means " or " end " as such. This 
 ! kind of action is brought about mainly by the association 
 I of feelings, but partly by that fnnate tendency to imitation 
 before noticed. It is by the habitual association of feelings 
 that, without a moment's thought, we take- the simplest 
 means to obtain ends— sucti, for example, as tlie quicken- 
 ing of our pace to overtake..a.iilen.d walking in front of us^^ " 
 or jumping up a bank to pluck a flovYer .otherwise above 
 [^itisas;ll- The sight of some simple means employed by 
 [their seniors, may lead children, by mere imitation and 
 without reflection, to employ the same means themselves ; 
 and such actions may readily become automatically 
 habitual if the result attained is agreeable and capable 
 of frequent repetition. The employment of means for 
 ends, apart from the exercise of the intellect, is sometimes 
 exhibited by somnambulists. Thus, a sleep-walker may 
 open a drawer to take out of it some desired object therein 
 contained, or may turn a key to unlock a door, and so 
 obtain entrance into some locality sought after. Such 
 actions are easily explicable through the habitual asso- 
 ciations of sensations with co-ordinated movements. For 
 the sensorium of the sleep-walker has presented to it 
 various groups of sensations, such as those produced by 
 the walls and furniture of the room the sleep-walker is 
 traversing on his way to the desired locality, the door of 
 which is locked. The sensations thus excited arouse his 
 imagination of the inside of the desired locality, this in j 
 turn excites the nervous channels habitually stimulated 
 
/200^y ON TRUTH. 
 
 . in overcoming the intervening obstruction ; the hand auto- 
 matically seeks the key ; the feelings produced by its 
 '. touch stimulates the muscles of the arm ; the key is turned, 
 
 Iand the door opened ! Very complex movements of the 
 kind are sometimes automatically performed in order to 
 complete a hannony wJiich the imagination craves. It craves 
 for fresh, completing sensations, and is thus led to perform 
 appropriate movements, when certain initial sensations 
 have been afresh excited, after which the completing 
 sensations have (in past experience) habitually followed. 
 
 (This, then, is the practical imagination of means to effect 
 a desired end, without any intellectual apprehension of 
 either end or means. Let a certain set of initial sensa- 
 tions {a, b, c) have been habitually followed in past expe- 
 rience by certain other sensations (/, m, n), which latter are 
 intimately connected with certain movements (A, /u, v). 
 Then upon the actual recurrence of the sensations a, b, c, 
 the imagination of the associated sensations /, in, n, will 
 give rise to such a craving for the repetition of the latter, 
 that the movements requisite to effect it (namely, A, fi, v) 
 will be performed automatically, so as to bring about the 
 repetition craved, and complete the sensational harmony 
 thus vaguely and unconsciously desired. 
 
 Such are the wonderful felt and unfelt various vital 
 powers and lower mental powers with which our nature | 
 *■'. i is endowed — powers beside, and more or less apart from, ' 
 y4- i the intellect, for they may be exhibited by persons who 
 y ^. are either permanently devoid of intellect, or in whom it is 
 temporarily dormant. 
 
 They may be enumerated as follows : — 
 
 (i) Powers of growth, repair, and reproduction. 
 
 (2) A power of motion. 
 
 (3) A power of being impressed by unfelt stimuli. 
 
 (4) A power of responding to such impressions by 
 appropriate movements — -refiuw tiwhrni. 
 
 (5) A power of persistently reproducing a modification 
 once induced by the environment — orgaiiicj'eniJiii^^gjijij^ 
 
 (6) A power of correspondence with new conditions — 
 adaptation.^ 
 
 * See above, p. 169. " t See above, loc. cit. 
 
 
OUR LOWER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 'OIv^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 (7) A power oi feeling. 
 
 (8) A power of special sensation in appropriate sense 
 organs. 
 
 '- ''/-^Sl. -^ power of synthesizing feelings — consentience. 
 
 ' (10) A power of responding automatically to felt 
 
 stimuli — excito-niotor actions. 
 
 (11) A power of forming habits. 
 
 (12) A power of performing i n^f.inr.tive actions . 
 
 (13) A power oi e^'gevxo.ncxng pleasure and pain. 
 (14J A power oi sensuous memory. 
 
 (15) A power of reproducing past feelings, and so (orva- 
 ing p/iantasmata or mental images. 
 
 (16) A power of associating such mental images in 
 groups, and groups of groups — imagination. 
 
 ( 1 7) Passions and desires. 
 
 (18) Sensuous emotions. 
 
 (19) A power of associating past feelings, imaginations,) 
 and emotions — sensuous association. 
 
 (20) A power of grouping clusters of present sensations 
 and associating imaginations therewith — sense perceptions 
 or sensuous knozuledge, and automatic classification. 
 
 8 (21) A power, with an expectant feeling, of reviving 
 I past imaginations on the occurrence of sense perceptions 
 Xz—prmiiic. inference. ""*" 
 
 ' (22) Feelings relating to causation. } 
 
 (23) Feelings of activity and passivity, of self and 
 not-self, and of difference. 
 
 (24) Feelings related to succession, extension, position, 
 shape, size, number, and motions. 
 
 (25) Feelings relating to surprise, doubt, agreement 
 and disagreement, pleasurable satisfaction from conduct. 
 
 (26) A tendency to imitation. 
 
 (27) A feeling oi preferential taste. 
 
 (28) Emotional language. 
 
 (29) Sensuous attention. 
 
 (30) Feelings of means and ends. 
 
 (31) A power of synthesizing impulses into one 
 [dominant impulse — organic volition. 
 
 (32) A power of synthesizing motions into one complex 
 general action to carry out an organic volition.* 
 
 * See above, p. 157. 
 
202 ON TRUTH. 
 
 We shall in the next chapter proceed to consider our 
 higher mental powers or faculties ; but a few remarks 
 
 ; may here be made in anticipation. It is the common 
 
 usage to speak of our distinct " faculties," and, to a certain 
 
 extent, the practice is a good one, though it may mislead. 
 
 ; It is manifest that the mind performs a multitude of acts 
 
 fV ; which more or less differ from and resemble one another ; 
 
 iJ^ I and these acts may be grouped together according to the 
 
 •. 'i A likenesses and differences which exist between them. 
 
 f Thus, for example, acts of "-jjidgiiig ' may be grouped 
 
 [ together in one class, and acts of " willing " in another. 
 
 I Now, as the mind which performs these acts has, of course, 
 the power of performing them, we may reasonably speak 
 of these different aspects of its power as the faculty {i.e. the 
 power) of judging and the faculty (/.^. the power) of willing. 
 At the same time, these terms may mislead on account of 
 the necessity we are constantly under of having recourse 
 to material images to express such things as acts of mind. 
 It thus comes about that, being familiar wath the different 
 parts of the body which perform the different bodily acts, 
 the illusion may be produced that there are analogous 
 " parts " in our intellect which perform the different mental 
 acts. But not only have we no evidence whatever of this, 
 but memory affords us at least prima facie evidence that 
 it is, on the contrary, an absolute unity which feels, thinks, 
 and wills now, and which felt, thought, and willed at 
 various antecedent times^ 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 The currect appreciation of the value of the higher mental powers is 
 a matter of great importance. Through intellectual perception, 
 with its power of abstraction, we gain the highest universal ideas, 
 the relations between which are either directly seen by intuition 
 or gained indirectly by ratiocination. A higher order of mental 
 affections — intellectual emotions, or sentiments — may be excited 
 within us, in addition to our sensuous emotions. 
 
 Importance of the distt7iction between our higher and our lower 
 mental faculties — Perception — The idea of'-'' being" — Universals — 
 _Td^as contrasted with feeliitps — hidp;ment — A bs traction — A bs trac- 
 tion and judgtnent — ETei'nents of perception and abstraction — 
 Ideas further contrasted with feelings— Consciousness — Reflection 
 and attentio7i — Intellectual memory — Intellectual intuitioii — 
 Reaso7iing, deductive and inductive — Higher emotions or senti- 
 mejits — Catalogue of higher mental powers. 
 
 The last chapter was occupied with a review of our lower importance 
 
 r 1 • ofthedis- 
 
 mcntal powers; our higher mental faculties next demand /"'c^^vw^v- 
 
 , tiveefi OH 7' 
 
 our attention. When we have duly considered the \ditttr, higher an u 
 
 1111- • • • • 11 ""^ lower 
 
 we shall be m a position to appreciate at its true value the 7nentai 
 fundamental difference which exists between these two 
 classes of our mental activities — the distinction between 
 our higher, reflective, self-conscious mental acts (the acts 
 of our intellectual faculty) and our lower, direct, merely 
 felt acts (those of our sensitive faculty). 
 
 This is probably the most fundamental and the most / 
 important of all the distinctions to be made in the study f 
 of mind. It has been most strangely ignored from the time | 
 of Locke * to our own ; but when its truth becomes gene- 1 
 
 * 1632-1704. 
 
2 04 ON TRUTH. 
 
 rally recognized, that recognition will occasion nothing less 
 than a revolution in mental science. The failure to appre- 
 ciate this distinction is not so much due to an exaggeration of 
 i our lower faculties, as to a want of apprehension of what is 
 j really implied in our higher mental powers. Perhaps the 
 I most remarkable circumstance connected with popular 
 ; modern writers on this subject, is the conspicuous absence in 
 ; them of any manifest comprehension of those very intel- 
 / lectual powers they continually exercise, and their apparent 
 : non-appreciation of that reason to which they so often 
 appeal. At the beginning of the last chapter it was stated 
 that the fact of our possessing both " sensations " and " per- 
 ceptions " was one of the elementary facts of our mental 
 experience ; as also that these two kinds of mental activity, 
 typified * the two distinct orders into which our mental 
 faculties are divisible./ 
 Perception. jj-^ q^^. perception of any external object — such, e.g.., as 
 
 a horse — we shall find, if we examine our own minds, that 
 we acquire, in having that perception, two distinct experi- 
 ences — (i) the intellectual apprehension of the object per- 
 ceived, and (2) the sensations, ordinarily unnoticed, which 
 serve to make the object known to us. This has been 
 already, perhaps, sufficiently pointed out in the last section, f 
 where we called attention to the " objective " (or, intellectual) 
 and the "subjective" (or, sensuous) elements of our know- 
 ledge,! and to the fact that sensations are only the " means," 
 and not the " objects " of perception. In the last chapter also 
 we endeavoured to make clear the difference between " intel- 
 lectual" and "sensuous" perception. § Nevertheless, to guard 
 to the best of our power against the possibility of misunder- 
 standing, it may be well here once more to review the act 
 j of perception. When we perceive anything — for example, 
 a white handkerchief — how do we perceive it ? Through a 
 ' number of impressions which it makes on our senses — such 
 as the feeling of a white colour, of a certain apparent 
 shape and size, a certain softness and pliability, a certain 
 smoothness, and other feelings like those described in the 
 last chapter as culminating in a " sense-perception." || 
 
 * See above, p. 189. t See above, pp. 89-91. 
 
 + See above, p. 91. § See above, p. 188. 1| See above, p. 189. 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 205 
 
 Through and by these various feelings (which serve us as 
 means) we come directly to apprehend the object itself, 
 i.e. the handkerchief, with all its properties. If a solid 
 cube, suspended by a string, be turned round in front of us, 
 we can never see the whole of it at once, and its square 
 faces, as we see them in perspective, do not look square but 
 lozenge-shaped. Nevertheless, these imperfect sensible 
 signs serve perfectly well to give us a true and adequate intel- 
 I lectual perception of the whole cube as it is in itself. It is 
 
 I also most noteworthy that the very act of turning the 
 cube round, and so changing our successive sensations, not 
 only does not change our intellectual pereeption (which 
 remains the same throughout), but our intellectual percep- 
 tion of the cube as one whole, as it is in itself, is actually 
 
 * made clearer and more steady by these very sensuous 
 
 \ changes. We evidently more easily perceive its true 
 character by seeing it all round (owing to its revolving) 
 than if it were at rest, when we could only see it from one 
 point of view. 
 
 Intellectual perception, then, is a natural and sponta- 
 neous, unconsciously-made, interpretation of sensible signs 
 by a special power of our intelligence. But into what does '' * 
 this natural power interpret the signs given through our 
 sense-organs by external things? Into some object dis- 
 tinct from and independent of us — some " thing in itself" In 
 every such perception we perceive an object of some kind. 
 It may be we know it as "a horse," or if not that, as "a 
 quadruped " or as " a living creature " only, or merely as 
 " a solid body," and if we cannot be sure even of that, 
 then at least we perceive it to be something. 
 
 . / The word " something" is a most f a m i 1 i a r^ ,g,y,p r e.'j.si on , The idi-a 
 but the idea it enshrines Is a" very wonderful on£_^It is ""^' 
 Uh e idea of e.vistenee, the idea o f bjijig- " Being" is an idea 
 which, familiar as it is and however much its latent impli- 
 cations may be unfolded, is itself utterly inexplicable ; for 
 no one can even ask what "being" or "existence" is, or 
 what that conception means, without showing, by his very 
 question, that he himself already both possesses and (to a 
 certain extent at least) understands it.* The idea of 
 * See also below, p. 226. 
 
2o6 ON TRUTH. 
 
 "being," or "existence," is one which is applicable to every- 
 thing which can be conceived of by the mind as having any 
 reality. The other restricted apprehensions or ideas of ob- 
 jects, just above referred to — "solid body," " living creature," 
 " quadruped," " horse " — are all ideas applicable to a greater 
 or less number of distinct things. Each such conception, 
 though applicable to a multitude of individuals of the same 
 kind, is a conception which, considered in itself, is one. It 
 is a single notion, not of any one subsisting thing, but of a 
 kind or class of things real or possible. It refers to a 
 whole group of objects, to each one of which the notion is ■ 
 applicable. It is therefore a general or "■ nniversaV idea. 1 
 All such ideas are formed by a process of " abstraction^' 
 which will be noticed a little further on.* An idea of this 
 latter kind, directly derived, by a natural activity of the 
 mind, from the contemplation of objects, may be distin- 
 Univcrsah. guishcd as a "■direct universal^' It is an idea abstracted 
 from the objects which are included within it — as the idea 
 " horse " contains and refers to the essential characters 
 common to all horses. But the consideration of any direct 
 universal — e.g. the idea "horse " — may give rise to the mental 
 abstraction of some quality or condition pertaining to the 
 class of objects denoted by it — as, for example, the idea 
 " utility " or " domestication," and the idea produced by 
 this further mental process may be distinguished as a 
 " true universal!' Our " direct universals " are, no doubt, 
 gained through the help of those groups of feelings noticed 
 in the last chapter j as mental images of a generalized 
 jkind. Such images are doubtless generated in our or- 
 ?ganism., and each such is a unity of its own sort, and may 
 (by analogy with the above intellectual universals, the 
 formation of which it facilitates) be distinguished as a 
 " sensno7is nnivci^sal." But even a direct universal (such, e.g., 
 as the idea " horse ") is not a mere collection of sensuous 
 impressions and feelings such as is a_^^nsupu^ .UBiversalj'^ 
 but is a single intellectual perception of an object, as bein^ 
 of a certain kind, or nature, revealed to us by our power of 
 abstraction. By it we gain those intellectual ideas to whiclt 
 certain groups of feelings have, in the last chapter, been 
 
 * See below, p. 2H. t See above, p. 191. 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 shown to correspond,* such as feelings of activity, passivity, 
 self, not- self, extension, position, shape, size, number, etc. By 
 the help of these feelings, our intellect obtains a number of 
 highly abstract ideas, such as the ideas of being, substance, 
 activity, passivity, self, not-self, difference, succession, ex- 
 tension, position, shape, size, number, motion, novelty, 
 dubiousness, agreement, disagreement, etc., as also those of 
 cause and effect, truth, goodness, and beauty. The idea of 
 "being" is the most universal of all universals and the 
 most abstract of all abstractions, and it serves particularly 
 well to show the profound difference between an idea — 
 that is, an intellectual perception, or perception of our 
 higher mental nature — and a mere sense perception. 
 
 The_contrast, the difference of kind, which exists be- AiU^. 
 tween an idea and all those varieties of feelings and groups /.''vV/vi 
 V-'' I of feelings which we have successively passed in review in 
 the last chapter, is very great. " Feelings," whether single 
 ; or in groups of groups, are all modifications of our sensi- 
 tivity, and cannot be reflected upon, or recognized as exist- 
 ing, by the faculty (sensitivity) which elicits them. But 
 ideas can be reflected upon, and recognized, by the faculty 
 (the intellect) which elicits them, as existing now ; as having, 
 ■ or not having, existed in the past ; and as possibly or cer- 
 tainly existing, or not existing, in the future. " Feelings " 
 may associate to form " sensuous universals," serving to ff 
 guide our consentience automatically. But " ideas " are "^ 
 direct or true universals, serving to guide us not blindly, 
 but consciously and intelligently. " Sense perceptions " 
 are groups of associated feelings, but "ideas" are appre- ^r. 
 hensions of objective qualities grouped round an objective \^ 
 \ uhrty about which various judgments may be formed. The 
 1 former are but reinstatements of sense, the latter are unities 
 1 abstracted from sense. There are, indeed, as we have said, 
 ! feelings of self-activity and passivity, of power exerted by 
 us and upon us, etc., but we have no feeling of the active 
 nature of our activity, or that our passivity is passive, or of 
 power neither exerted by us nor upon us, etc. Similarly as 
 to those of our feelings which relate to succession, exten- 
 sion, position, shape, size, number, motion, etc., we have 
 
 * See above, pp. 1 89- 193. 
 
Q^, 
 
 hoSL. ON TRUTH. 
 
 those feelings indeed, but no feeling of our having such 
 
 I feelings ; recognition of that kind is an intellectual act, an 
 act of knowledge, and no mere feeling. It is quite other- 
 wise with our ideas, each of which may be perceived and 
 recognized as being the sort of idea it is. It has been 
 affirmed, indeed, that the only real difference between 
 feelings of passivity, motion, resistance, etc., and ideas of 
 passivity, motion, resistance, etc., is due to our mental use 
 of words in the case of our ideas and to their non-use in 
 our feelings. This objection will be met in the next \ 
 chapter, and shown to be untenable,* because intellectual I 
 perceptions and ideas precede the use of words, and there- '■ 
 fore cannot possibly be due to the latter. « 
 
 In all those states of our unconscious and merely^on- 
 
 ^ssniient .^activity — habitual actions, sleep-walking, g,tc.:=^- 
 
 which were notedTfiTlie' last chapter, there is no recognition 
 
 of external objects as being external objects. Each object 
 
 "excites its own impressions on us, and these impressions 
 
 elicit corresponding appropriate actions on our part, and 
 
 similar causes (similar excitations) produce in us similar 
 
 effects (similar actions). But the mind, in this condition, 
 
 in spite of its effective action on our motor powers, does not 
 
 apprehend that the objects thus practically recognized by 
 
 our organism as alike, really belong to one kind or class of 
 
 existences. It automatically and, as it were, mechanically 
 
 sorts them, but is not aware of the nature of the groups of ^ 
 
 objects thus sorted.f They are not what is called "for-| 
 
 mally " sorted and recognized, but only " materially " so.J I 
 
 The profound and essential difference between (i) an 
 
 ^^ idea and (2) a feeling or group of feelings is, as we just 
 
 ^y X observed, particularly conspicuous with respect to o uride ai 
 
 j'/ of " being" or "existence." That idea is so fundamental^ 
 
 \/ I • • ' I T i I i ffl 1.1, « j . , i I I 1 ii—ii < tirn iii ) i m, t^, I 
 
 ip that it is applicable to everything, while, if we have it not, ) 
 
 nothing can be apprehended or understood. It is applic- / 
 able both to the subject {i.e. the mind which thinks) and to 
 the object thought about ; for it is clear that both of these 
 are and must be " beings " of some kind. Yet no sensation 
 
 * See below, " Roots and the Origin of Language," p. 232. 
 t See above, p. 192. 
 
 X For another example of the use of these terms, see chap, xvii., "Objec- 
 tivity of Truth." 
 
 w 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 209/^ 
 
 or group of feelings, however complex, could give us a 
 
 feeling of " being," because though there are special groups 
 
 of feelings corresponding with our self-activity, and special 
 
 groups of feelings corresponding with our passivity and the 
 
 I action of external things on us, there neither is nor can be 
 
 ' any kind of feeling embracing all other feelings, as the idea 
 
 ; of " being " embraces all other ideas. There neither is nor 
 
 can be any one feeling common to all other feelings ; and 
 
 yet if there was a feeling of " being " at all, it must be of 
 
 this universality of nature, while at the same time it must 
 
 ■ be a distinguishable feeling. Nevertheless, though we have 
 
 ^_no_^£//;/^ of " being," the idea~^'^(t\x\^" lies at the very 
 
 ^_roqt__o£all our conceptions. As long as we think at all, 
 
 we must possess it ; while if exists at the very beginning 
 
 I of our intellectual life. This supreme and most abstract 
 
 I idea arises spontaneously in the mind of the little child 
 
 I who lisps, " What is that thing, mother ? " It may, indeed, 
 
 often be clearly perceived to have so arisen even before a 
 
 child has acquired the power to speak. 
 
 It is nevertheless quite true, as was before pointed out,* 
 that we cannot have any of the ideas or notions which 
 perception or reflection give us, without first having 
 corresponding sense-impressions, imaginations, or sense- 
 perceptions to act as their basis and support. That such 
 antecedents are necessary, is a simple fact of observation. 
 They are amongst the results which spring from our bodily 
 organization. Our minds are first of all aroused to activity 
 by the action of surrounding bodies on our sense-organs and 
 sensitivity, and afterwards by the play of our imagination ; 
 and throughout life some play of the imagination is a 
 necessary accompaniment of all our intellectual activity. 
 But to suppose that an idea is an imagination, because it 
 cannot exist in ourmirtd" vvifTiout the presence of one or 
 more imaginations which may serve to support it, would }JS) 
 be as absurd as to suppose that wine and the bottle which i ^ 
 contains it are the same, because the fluid cannot be kept 
 together except by means of some vessel, which may serve 
 to hold it. One wonderful difl"erencc between our sensitive 
 power and our intellectual faculty is, that the latter has by 
 
 * See above, pp. 87, 8S. 
 
i 
 
 i2IO^- ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ its exercise the power of acquiring an enormous multitude 
 I of new ideas, while the number of possible sensations and 
 I new groups of sensations remains very limited in compari- 
 f son. In every perception which we experience, there are. 
 
 - we must once rhore insist, two constituent factors : r^^he 
 \ sensuous, 'luhj'^'^ti'i'y fjiirtCLC^v^i'^h is a product of our lower 
 mental faculty of sensitivity, and which is made up of the 
 feelings excited by an object, together with the various 
 groups of reminiscences and emotions connected therewith ; 
 (o^ fi-if. ijlj-^]]p^;;|-^]^i^j^vj^f;w/^ factor, which is a product of 
 our higher mental facuTty*of*inteTI^tual intuition,* and is 
 an apprehension of the object as it really exists in itself, 
 apart from those sensations, reminiscences, and emotions 
 which have enabled us to elicit that apprehension. 
 
 With respect to the fundamental distinctness which exists 
 between ideas and mere groups of feelings, it has been, further, 
 before pointed out f that through feelings we can " both per- 
 ceive and conceive things that never were and never can be 
 imagined ;" that such feelings serve to make objects "directly 
 present to our intellect ; " % that perception is neither a 
 process of conscious nor unconscious inference,§ and that 
 it is certified for us by attention.! It has also been shown 
 that every perception, far from being a mere plexus, or 
 amalgam o f feelings, contains implicitly the idjpas of .", exist- 
 ence," " distinctjgll,',^j^silJli,lar^ty/'-."-JUJQrtY^^^^^ truth ; " ^ 
 and that the fact of the feelings, which give rise to a percep- 
 tion being able to persist side by side with the perception 
 they have elicited, shows that the latter {i.e. the perception) 
 must be something new and different from the former , 
 {i.e. the feelings).** The distinctness in nature of intellec- 
 tual perceptions, or ideas, has been illustrated ff by the 
 ideas " experience," " seeing," and " nonentity." The fun- 
 damental distinction which exists between our powers of 
 imagination and conception has also been insisted onX% 
 and the necessary supremacy of thought over feelings, 
 as an ultimate court of appeal and supreme criterion 
 pointed out.§§ Finally, it has been demonstrated |||| that a 
 
 * See above, p. 113. t See p. 89. % See p. 91. 
 
 § See p. 92. II See p. 95. f See p. 103. 
 
 ** Seep. 105. ft See pp. 109, no. jj Seep. in. 
 
 §§ Seep. 113. nil Seep. 102. 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 211 
 
 greater degree of vividness is by no means (as it has so 
 often been asserted to be) the distinguishing character 
 between sensations and ideas. 
 
 But the intellectual, objective constituent factor of our 
 perceptions is itself twofold.* We may distinguish two 
 i distinct notions, or modes of apprehension, in it. On the X 
 \ one hand, it apprehends what kind of thing the object 
 r perceived may be — its " thatness," so to speak. On the v^ 
 other hand, it apprehends the actual subsistence of the 
 thing perceived. Perception, then, is the apprehension of 
 the subsistence of a thing the nature of which is revealed to 
 us through the feelings we experience in connection with 
 it, and is an implicit act of judgment that the thing 
 perceived is of some definite kind. From this we may 
 rapidly pass to an explicit and formal, dtWh&rdiie j?idg)ue]it /ud^nent. 
 that such is really the case, and the examination of this 
 second act will serve to bring out yet more plainly the 
 difference of kind which exists between "feelings" and 
 " ideas," and therefore between our lower and our higher 
 mental powers. A judgment is a mental affirmation which 
 follows upon, and is the consequence of, antecedent per- 
 ceptions. 
 
 Every object which we perceive, possesses a number 
 of different qualities — shape, size, colour, hardness, etc. — 
 and acts on our sensitivity accordingly. Its qualities (at 
 least, some of them) affect us simultaneously with our per- 
 ception of the object which possesses them. But the act by 
 which we perceive them is different from that by which we 
 perceive the object as one whole. Perception is the 
 acquisition of one idea through a multitude of sensations ; 
 but an explicit judgment involves, first, the ideal separation, 
 and then the ideal union of the qualities of the object 1 
 about which we judge, as will directly appear. Our \ 
 attention may be directed to various qualities according 
 to the different circumstances of each case, and then these 
 qualities may be distinctly and expressly recognized as 
 really being qualities of the object observed. 
 
 The power by which we thus ideally separate qualities. Abstraction. 
 
 { 
 
 I desire here to call attention to M. de Broglie's excellent work, " Lc 
 Positivism et la science experimentale," to which I am greatly indebted. 
 
/# 
 
 212 ON TRUTH. 
 
 is the power of abstraction, and by it our mind isolates (in 
 order to apprehend them distinctly) the various qualities 
 and conditions which really exist in the concrete object 
 perceived and can, of course, be only separated from that 
 object ideally. No sooner has any object — such, for 
 example, as an oak-tree — been perceived by us as a distinct 
 subsisting reality, than it undergoes this singular transfor- 
 mation in our minds. The various qualities which, in 
 truth, are intimately united in and with the real, substantial 
 •/f i oak-tree, are ideally detached from it, and isolated in our 
 minds, and regarded in themselves — not, of course, that we 
 make the absurd mistake of thinking they can exist by 
 themselves. Thus, in the initial stage of a judgment, such 
 as, " That is an oak" its various qualities, such as " solidity," 
 " branching shape," " vegetable nature," etc., are abstracted 
 by our minds, and so the abstract idea, " an oak," is dis- 
 tinctly apprehended by the help of a number of subordi- 
 nate abstract ideas. They are called " abstract " because 
 they are thus "abstracted" by the mind — in which they 
 only exist ideally — from the object, in which alone they 
 exist really. What are the various qualities of any object 
 — its shape, size, colour, etc. ? They are in reality so many / 
 states or conditions of one actual, really-subsisting, material 
 thing. But they also have an ideal existence, as so many 1 
 i abstract ideas, in the mind which apprehends them. Let_u§ 
 Jioj:.a._moment cpxisider.the ■" branching shape" of the oak, 
 as it exists in reality, apart from any mental act of abstrac- 
 tion, and as it exists ideally after the act of abstraction. In 
 reality, it exists as one of the qualities and aspects of tJiat 
 one'y-farticnlar, individual oak, a quality actually united 
 indissolu bly with it, and not existing at all except in that 
 one particular oak-tree. Ideally, as an_ abslr act \ <^e.j^ „ it \ ^ 
 eneralcoii£e£tion, applicable not only to all oaks, but 
 er branching things also — it is a " true universal." * 
 ne very important, primary, and fundamental abstrac- 
 tion is that which we have already glanced at. In order 
 to be able to think, " That object is an oak-tree," we must 
 (as before said) have the conception of the kind of thing 
 
 the object is — " what " it is, or the idea of its " whatness." 
 
 • • • ■»■■ «■ «^ 
 
 * See above, p. 206. 
 
 Ill 
 
 y 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 213 
 
 At the same time our intention is not to mentally affirm 
 that a kind exists, but that a real concrete tiling of a certain 
 kind exists ; and this is a uniting together of the idea of a 
 " whatness " with the idea of a " real existence." We must, 
 therefore, have mentally separated the idea of the oak-tree 
 as an oak-tree, from that of the concrete existence, or 
 subsistence, of that concrete material thing — for obviously 
 we could not mentally unite together in the mind what did 
 not exist separately therein. 
 
 This process of mental abstraction is a necessary result 
 of our nature. In the presence of any object apprehended 
 by us, it is actually impossible for us not to apprehend 
 some or other of its qualities. As soon as we begin to 
 use our reason, as soon as we ask ourselves what anything 
 is, and try to have any clear and distinct notion about it, 
 we are compelled thus to ideally, or mentally, separate 
 its qualities by abstraction. But we cannot, by mere 
 abstraction, form any judgment. In order to do that, ; 
 there must be a second and reverse process — a putting \ 
 ideally together again what has just been ideally separated. \ 
 For during our process of abstraction we do not cease * 
 to feel the object acting on our sensitivity — or we remem- 
 ber it in our imagination — and our mind has never lost 
 sight of the real unity — the concrete identity — of the oak- 
 tree, the qualities of which we have mentally (ideally) 
 abstracted. For the intellect (which, being conscious, 
 knows what it does), when it has analyzed the oak it has 
 perceived, into its ideal elements, immediately recognizes 
 the real unity and concrete identity existing between the 
 qualities it has ideally abstracted and the object whence it 
 has abstracted them. It is the expression of this percep- ) 
 tion of unity, together with abstraction, which constitutes / 
 the explicit judgments 
 
 Thus a judgment completes by union, or sy nthq sis,^ a 
 process which it began by separation, or analysis. The 
 ^intellect, by its judgment, " That is an oak," tte^ares, 
 virtually, that its abstraction has only been ideal, and that 
 the elements Avhich it has ideally separated exist, in fact, 
 united in the really subsisting concrete oak-tree. Thus Abstraction 
 for every judgment, expressing even the very simplest Vncn't! ^' 
 
214/y ON TRUTH. 
 
 affirmation, three mental acts are necessary: (i) a percep- 
 tion, or the apprehension of some object througli a union, 
 or synthesis of feelings, produced by the qualities of that 
 object ; (2') .a mental analysis, or ideal separation by ab- 
 straction, of the qualities of the object ; and (3) a mental 
 synthesis of these abstracted qualities with tlie object. 
 Judgments are amongst the elementary acts of the human 
 intelligence, which cannot exist without them. The human \ 
 intellect, therefore, is an intelligence which necessarily j 
 proceeds by an alternate process of union or " synthesis," 
 and of separation or " analysis." It is an active principle . 
 which operates by alternately uniting and dividing. This I 
 complicated process is necessary because, in order that ' 
 we may understand any object, it needs to be, as it were, 
 first digested by our mind, in order that it may be assimi- 
 lated — just as our bodily food cannot be assimilated without 
 first being digested. In this process it is abstraction which 
 plays the part of a mental gastric juice, ideally separating 
 the qualities of every object, and so making them clear 
 and luminous to us. A moment's consideration will suffice 
 to show how much better such qualities as " solidity," 
 " branching shape," etc., can be apprehended after they 
 have been thus abstracted and distinctly regarded, than 
 when they were apprehended confusedly and indistinctly 
 in one lump, in our first act of perception of the object 
 whence they were afterwards abstracted. This complex 
 process, which it takes so long to describe, is performed by 
 the mind with unimaginable rapidity — the rapidity of 
 thought ! It is all done while we form the conception, 
 " That is an oak." 
 
 That we should do all this without being aware of it may 
 seem strange. Yet it need not appear so. How many 
 persons say '' b" without ever thinking, or even knowing, 
 that in order to utter it they must, if the mouth be open, 
 first close and then reopen the lips ! But how inexpressibly 
 more subtle and imperceptible is a mental act, than are 
 such conspicuous muscular movements as those of the lips ! 
 It may be well here to say a {q.^^ words to guard 
 f!:""cpuo,f against a by no means impossible error. In perception, a 
 
 /Xl"'^''"'''^" variety of elements are united, and elicit the'idea of a dis- 
 
 w 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 tinct object. In abstraction, we resolve the notion of a 
 
 perceived object into a number of elements. It might, 
 
 * "then, be supposed that the elements into which any notion 
 
 lis resolved by abstraction are those very same elements 
 
 /through which that notion had previously been gained. 
 
 / In other words, it might be supposed that " abstraction " 
 
 / was some sort of return towards the condition which 
 
 I existed in us the moment before " perception." But to 
 
 suppose this would be to make a great mistake. Tji^ 
 
 element^, wJiichL.jiiJnister to perception ^j:3_seiisible elemen ts 
 
 -feelings of various kinds excited in us by the object 
 
 perceived.,, .Xhey-^.i'e-.n'iqdifications oFbur or gans of 
 
 and affections of our scnsitivit)'. ^"h^^ i]inriiiifif'^^^-"^'^^V 
 individual and subjective. TJic elements ..-v^liich^are sepa-. 
 Xated by abstractipii d^&Jdcal elements..-— Xi^.^y ^ ^5:,^1??J:£.^5,^ 
 
 ___^eneral ideas, and are essentially universal and nhj ec^iiy g.^ 
 That we may see this clearl)-, let us consider an example 
 in point, e.g. the elements of either kind related to our per 
 aepU©«-a£..t]l£^05Lk;;i£ge^ We experience in its presence, 
 feelings of colour, of limitation of coloured surfaces, perhaps 
 a feeling of rustling sound, with corresponding feelings of 
 moving patches of colour, as the twigs and leaves sway to 
 and fro in the wind. If we go close, we may have also 
 feelings of rough contact and pressure, and of muscular 
 movements and inter-relations of our bodily parts corre- 
 sponding with groups of branches and twigs. Each such 
 feeling is an individual feeling then and there present, which 
 may be accompanied with revivals in the imagination of 
 kindred feelings formerly experienced. Such are the 
 elements which elicit the perception. That perception 
 itself once attained, the idea of the oak may then be 
 analyzed by abstraction into the abstract ideas — solidity, 
 vitality, branching shape, vegetable nature, oak nature, 
 acorn-producing organism, ship-building substance, past aid 
 to the greatness of our nation, etc. Every one of these 
 ideas is a universal notion, and is applicable to a multitude 
 of individual objects besides the one perceived, and is seen 
 to be applicable to objects of the kind which have existed 
 in the past, or which may exist in the future. 
 
 Moreover, in many instances, abstract ideas by no / 
 
Ideas 
 further 
 contrasted 
 ■with feel- 
 ings. 
 
 k 
 
 v. 
 
 \ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 means correspond with the sensible signs which have 
 served to eHcit them. ThuSj for example, the one abstract 
 idea, "jciLO.ticui^Lina^_be apprehended through a number of 
 ver^ d iijjci'en t-, sensible signs, such as (i) the travelling of 
 the image of an object over our field of vision; (2) a 
 feeling of anything slipping over the skin ; (3) by muscular 
 feelings and feelings of tension in our eyeballs as we follow 
 with our eyes an object in motion ; (4) by sensations of 
 touch which we may receive from a moving object while 
 we grasp it, etc. Yet the resulting idea, " motion," is one 
 and the same idea, however differently it may be called 
 forth.* But not only may a multitude of different sensible 
 signs minister to and serve to elicit one and the same idea, 
 but also the very same set of sensible signs may minister 
 to and serve to elicit a variety of very different ideas. 
 Thus the sight of a single photograph of the Queen may 
 give rise (i) to the idea of her Majesty herself; (2) to 
 the idea of royal rank ; (3) to the idea of a woman ; (4) 
 to the idea of a human being ; (5) to the idea of likeness ; 
 (6) to the idea of chemical action ; (7) to the idea of the 
 sun's actinic power ; (8) to the idea of the effect of light 
 and shade ; (9) to the idea of paper ; (10) to the idea of 
 an inanimate object; (11) to the idea of substance; and 
 finally (12) to the idea of "being" or "existence." 
 
 Again, feelings, as before said, can never be reflective. 
 They can never reflect on feelings. We may have, as has 
 been pointed out, feelings of self-activity, passivity, etc. ; 
 but not of any one feeling being of the kind it is. It is 
 quite otherwise with our ideas ; not only may an .ideal 
 a bstr act quality be made a direct object of thought, and 
 be, as it w^ere, held up opposite the mind for examination ; 
 ^uj;.]^e Jdif?*!, i-Uel£,,,inay^ be ^ P-erceived. and^ recognized as 
 being whatever sort of idea it may happen to be. More- 
 over, the very intensity of the action of sensation (as with 
 a very dazzling light or deafening sound) may make sensc- 
 perception impossible ; but no amount of intensity of the 
 iction of the understanding, no amount of vividness in an 
 idea, will mar intellectzial perception. IjMs„jm.possible„J[i2l' 
 ideas t o be tQO_9 ^,e, ar ^ and distinc t^ 
 
 * See also above, p. 106. 
 
 / 
 
ll 
 
 OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. f 2 I 7^ , 
 
 No efforts of our imagination, moreover, can ever exceed | 
 sensuous experience. We can never imagine what we have 
 not felt in itself or in its elements ; but it is quite otherwise 
 with ideas, as we have before seen with respect to " experi- 
 ence," " seeing," * etc. We can not only conceive of, but 
 we know perfectly well, both our power and our act of sight. 
 Yet that act itself was never felt, and cannot therefore be 
 imagined. 
 I Feelings become associated according as they have 
 
 I been before felt most frequently in succession ; but ideas 
 I may become associated together according to their rational 
 I relations — their logical dependence one on another. Thus 
 \tl^ thought of "Ireland" or of "disunion," may be asso- 
 »ciated in our minds with the ideas of the humour of 
 Daniel O'Connell, or of the timbre of Mr. Gladstone's 
 voice. 
 
 There is yet another contrast between feeling and 
 thought. All ifeelings are the direct result of the engrgy y 
 of organs of sense, and are necessarily limited by the J L 
 nature and capacities of those organs. But the intellect 
 not only has no known organ, but, for reasons wKicTTwHl 
 appear later on,t cannot have one. Nevertheless, some 
 action of the organism is necessary for thought — namely, 
 such action as is required to elicit those mental images 
 without which thought, as we experience it, cannot exist. 
 Therefore such action is indirectly necessary for the highest 
 acts of our intellect. But this action is not necessary for 
 the action of the intellect as intellect, but only for those 
 material concomitants (words, images, or other symbols) 
 which the mind needs for its activity here and now. 
 The. action of the organism is, however, necessary for 
 feeling, rtJi- feeling. It is no wonder, then, that the relatively 
 defective nature of "feeling" and its impotence to make 
 any declaration about truth, does not occasion a similar 
 inadequacy and impotence with respect to " thought ; " 
 since " feeling " is itself the energy of a material organ, 
 which " thought," in itself, is not. The intellect declares 1 
 that its own declarations as to universal, necessary, and | 
 self-evident truths, are absolutely true declarations ; but I 
 
 * See above, p. 109. t See below, chap. xxv. 
 
71CSS. 
 
 2l8yj, ON TRUTH. 
 
 sense is altogether silent about truth and about the value 
 of its own deliverances. 
 
 feSuch, then, is the fuiidamental difference of kind 
 ;ween our "feelings" and our "ideas" — between our 
 /or and our higher mental faculties. This distinction, 
 * which is really one of the most important in the whole 
 study of mind and of man, is almost always entirely passed 
 over and ignored. It is on this account that we have 
 insisted on its characteristics with much, we hope pardon- 
 able, reiterations 
 Conscious- Having now finally considered this fundamental differ- 
 
 ence between " feelings " and " ideas," w^e may proceed 
 to advert to "consciousness," which is at the foundation 
 of our whole intellectual life, as the parallel affection of 
 our lower mental nature, " consentience/' * is at the 
 foundation of our whole sensuous life. 
 
 ^Consciousness is, for each of us, both an ultimate fact 
 and an ultimate. abstract truth^_.^As_an_uUirrmte_Ja£ 
 I that actual concrete knowledge of our present_exi£t^"*^*^ 
 i (in whatever state it may be) which we all have in our 
 \ waking life, and our certain knowledge and perception 
 of which no sceptic ever ventures to dispute — as was 
 //^ pointed out in the beginning of the work.f It is a fact 
 which, like all ultimate facts, is necessarily quite inex- 
 plicable. We know that we are conscious as a fact, but 
 how that fact comes about, is as inexplicable as is our 
 knowledge of primary universal truths % or of external 
 things and their qualities. § 
 
 ^^^. As an abstract,, trytlj, consciousness is the ideal per- 
 ception the mind gains and abstracts from that intimately 
 known concrete fact, its own actual present existence. 
 Abstract consciousness is, of course, only an idea, and has 
 no real existence except in the actual, concrete, living 
 consciousness of an individual, conscious being. 
 
 Consciousness^ though existing at each instant, is in^^ |V/ 
 its very essence continuous, and conscious of its . Q\vj3iJ- Y^ 
 persistence. We each of us know and are conscious notf 
 "onT}' that we are doing what we are doing {e.g. the reader, 
 
 * As to this, see above, p. 183. + See above, p. 17. 
 
 X See p. 44. § See p. 89. 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 219 
 
 reading this page), but also that we began to do it, and 
 were doing something else before we so began. The ! 
 _sup,p[flsitio4i that consciousness could be cp;3jpQsed.oil.3a!*._^. 
 aggregate of separate " states 'l,,oL,S2SI.Si£':l?J^^s^' ^^ ^'^ ' - 
 abjujaiky. Such separate " states," if each be aware only of \ 
 itself, could not constitute that kind of consciousness which 1 
 we know we have ; and which is aware of itself as a unity, | 
 and also of the successive series of states through which it : 
 has passed. But if any separate " state " be supposed to be 
 aware of other states of consciousness, then there is just as 
 much mystery and difficulty in understanding that "state," 
 as in understanding a persistent consciousness ; so that the 
 hypothesis of consciousness, being nothing but an aggregate 
 of " states," becomes not only an absurdity, but an utterly 
 /y' gratuitous absurdity. Consciousness,. tlien, is essentially a 
 ""' persistent intelligence which, as a fixed point, reviews the 
 1y\ procession of events, and recognizes them as severally 
 belonging either to the order of ideas or to that of actual, 
 real existences. We can now have no difficulty in recog- 
 nizing the certainty that we may be conscious, not only 
 that we can think of an ideal horse, but also that we 
 can perceive a real one ; if, that is, we have, in Section II., 
 successfully disposed of the delusions of idealism. 
 ; Consentience, like all the other feehngs, cannot reflect 
 T on itself ; but this, of course, consciousness most frequently 
 i [does, and it can and does recognize itself for what it is. 
 ^~'i-jCons_ciousness_.also cannot,.. . like.- .s.ensitivity, be paralyzed 
 '^ \hy its _owQ_gflg,rgy. We do not cease to be conscious 
 Y through the clearness and distinctness of our perception of 
 Aour own being. 
 
 We have more than once pointed out how feelings ^fejiection 
 
 ... .- , tiud atten- 
 
 Cdinnot reflect upon themselves, though it is manifest that Wv^. 
 
 we can direct our attention upon both our feelings and our I 
 
 thoughts, and reflect about them. This power of reflection | 
 
 (which was specially noticed in the first chapter *) is, then, ' 
 
 one of our higher mental powers, as also is that of voluntary 
 
 attention — as distinguished from that merely sensuous 
 
 attention to which we adverted in the last chapter.f 
 
 Conscious reflection and attention also accompany and 
 
 * See above, p. S. t See above, p. 19S. 
 
2 20 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Intellectual scrvc the ncxt higher mental power we would here call 
 
 memory. ^ i • 17 7 t-'I • 
 
 the reader's attention to, namely, intellectual meinory. 1 his 
 faculty we have already treated of in the second chapter,* 
 where we showed the distinction between its two forms, 
 which were distinguished respectively as f " recollections " 
 and " reminiscences," while the distinctness of merely 
 sensuous, memory was pointed out in the last chapter. \ 
 Although we are said, in popular parlance, to " recollect " 
 anything we have so long been in the habit of doing that 
 we can do it automatically, yet unless the mind recognizes 
 the past as past, it cannot be said to be a true act of 
 memory. 
 intciuctna^ Ncxt amougst our higher mental faculties may be 
 enumerated that by which we apprehend absolute, uni- 
 versal, necessary truths, such as those treated of in the 
 fourtli' chapter, § namely, the "law of contradiction," || the 
 \ axiom about equality, 1[ the idea of cause and the law 
 \ of causation,** the conception of the highly abstract idea, 
 " Power or force," ft etc. It is this faculty which, in its 
 ^ form of consciousness, recognizes the certainty of our own 
 U , existence, and is the ultimate criterion ^t of ^11 truth and 
 ' 'f/ certainty, and of the evidence of what is evidently true — 
 whether it be a general truth, a particular fact, or the 
 force of a logical argument. Our sense-knowledge, as 
 we have seen,§§ is limited by our organization. Not so 
 our intellectual intuition, which tells us, if it tells us 
 anything, that the law of contradiction must be absolutely 
 and universally true.|||| To doubt, then, that our intel- 
 lectual intuition can give us certain and absolute know- 
 ledge, logically entails the mental paralysis of complete 
 scepticism. 
 Reasonmg, I Two Other of our higher faculties are two powers of 
 
 deductive \ , ° ■*■ 
 
 a72af/«flr?<c- [ reasoning, or of true, that is, intellectual, inference. One 
 
 tive. I . . 
 
 I of these is the faculty of intellectual analysis, deduction, 
 
 land ratiocination, which formed the subject of our fifth 
 
 ' chapter. 1[*T1 It is the faculty by which we apprehend the 
 
 force of the idea expressed by the word " tjiergfore " — 
 
 * See p. 29. t See p. 31. % See p. 1S6. 
 
 § See p. 38. II See p. 39. \ See p. 46. 
 
 ** See p. 48. tt See p. 50. W See p. 113. 
 
 §§ See p. 182. 1111 See p. 42. It See p. 53. 
 
OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 22 1 
 
 a term we use to denote the certainty which we feel about 
 an)'thing in and because its certainty is involved in that 
 of some facts or principles previously known. It is also 
 the faculty by which we dissect ideas and find within 
 them, and explicitly recognize, what before was therein 
 latent and only implicitly contained* — as when we analyze 
 the word "merit," and find that it contains and implies 
 the idea of something well done, and the idea of an 
 action not done under compulsion ; for no such action can 
 
 I have " merit." The second reasoning faculty is that of 
 inteilectiial synthesis or indiiction, by which we unite ideas 
 gained from different perceptions, and so give rise to the 
 'perception of a new truth — as when, by the study of many 
 fossils and geological formations, we recognize the truth 
 that the earth was inhabited by different animals at 
 different periods of its history. This, further developed, is 
 that speculative process of reason which starts hypotheses 
 and predicts. 
 
 We have recognized the existence in ourselves of 
 appetites and desires,! feelings of pleasure and pain,| and 
 feelings of^a taste for certain attractions, § some or all of 
 which may co-operate in exciting our merely sensuous 
 emotions, ij 
 
 When our spontaneous feelings of taste are acted upon. Higher 
 
 ; , , . . . . emotions 
 
 \ and the object attractmg us is recognized as really pos- orscnti- 
 \ sessing claims on our admiration, such mere feeling has 
 I then elicited an intellectual perception of "beauty" of some 
 I kind — a matter which will engage our attention later 
 I on 1[ — together with our perceptions of " goodness " and 
 I "truth." 
 
 Apart, however, from such perceptions, we would here 
 advert to the pleasurable or painful feelings which may 
 accompany them, and also accompany other actions of 
 the higher mental faculties. Feelings thus called forth \ 
 constitute our higher, or truly intellectual, emotions, which j 
 are of the greatest value and importance in human life, 
 as powerful aids to good conduct and often to just 
 
 * See p. 23. t See p. 195. J See p. 181. 
 
 § See p. 197. II See p. 1S6. 
 
 1[ See below, chap. xvii. 
 
/# 
 
 :M 
 
 222 > Oy TRUTH. 
 
 judgment* We may find an example of such higher 
 emotion in the pleasure we sometimes experience on at 
 last seeing the solution of some difficult problem, and 
 a pleasurable sentiment often attends the attainment of 
 truth. Emotions produced by the perception of musical 
 harmony of the highest kind, by beautiful scenery, or some 
 ruin full of historic memories, and the reverence which 
 may be excited in us by seeing a person whose character 
 we hold in the highest esteem, are all examples of affec- 
 tions of our higher mental faculties — \\\\.QW.Q.cX.\X2i\ sentiments . 
 One very important higher emotion is that which is called 
 forth by our perception of the moral worth of any action 
 we may contemplate or perform (as on witnessing some 
 act of exemplary kindness or of heroically generous self- 
 denial), and which sentiment is to be distinguished as the 
 I moral sense. It has for its material basiji that feeling of 
 ' p!easurat)le satisfaction from~conduct before referred to.f 
 How little these higher sentiments have to do with our 
 lower, merely sensuous, feelings, a very slight introspection 
 may suffice to assure us. We have carefully pointed out | 
 in the last chapter that our feelings spontaneously express ( 
 themselves by a language of the emotions ; but we have \ 
 also, as everybody knows, a power of speech whereby we ': 
 express our ideas. It is a fundamentally difTerent power, f 
 but the question requires to be treated separately, and its \ 
 consideration will occupy our next chapter. | 
 
 (Finally, we have a power of will, fundamentally different 
 from that organic, volition before described ; % although 
 a certain exercise of will attends every act of perception 
 and judgment, as does also some feeling or sentiment, and 
 some feeling or sentiment as well as some intellectual 
 perception attends every act of volition. § This power of 
 volition, however, needs a chapter to itself. Nevertheless 
 f we will, by anticipation, include it (with the other higher 
 
 1^ faculties which have just been declared to need separate 
 J treatment) in the following list of our higher mental powers. 
 ^ These powers may be said to be — 
 
 * This will be further explained in Sect. V. chap. xxvi. 
 t See above, p. 194. J See above, p. 198. 
 
 § This fact will be more fully pointed out in chap. xxvi. 
 
I 
 
 OUR HIGHER MENTAL POWERS. 
 
 \^- (i) As the foundation of all, a power of apprehending Cai-n/r^^K^: 
 
 objects as they are in themselves, through the impressions maual 
 they make on us — intellectual Jierception. 
 
 (2) A power ofUii'ectly perceiving our own activity — 
 self -consciousness. 
 
 (3) A power of turning the mind back upon what has 
 before been directly apprehended — reflection. 
 
 (4) A power of actively seeking to recall things to 
 mind, or of recognizing spontaneously arising reminiscences 
 as pertaining to the past — intellectualjneniory. 
 
 (5) A power of forming abstract ideas, on. "-trae,,uni- 
 versals," such as those of being, substance, cause, activity, 
 passivity, self, not-self, difference, succession, extension, 
 
 i position, shape, size, number, motion, novelty, dubiousness, 
 I agreement, disagreement, truth, goodness, beauty, etc. — 
 I abstraction. 
 
 (6) A power of uniting our intellectual apprehensions 
 into an explicit affirmation or Vi&gdXxoxi— judgment. 
 
 (7) A power of combining ideas and observations, and 
 so giving rise to the perception of new truths — intellectual 
 syntJiesisjiii^iiuiucii^U.. ~ 
 
 (8) A power of dissecting i^eas, and so gaining new 
 truths, apprehending truths as being necessarily involved 
 in judgments previously made — intellectual analysis and 
 
 I deduction, or ratiocination. »-— ~— - 
 
 sssg^ji— '■■■ — " 
 
 I ■ (9) A power which, though mentioned almost last, is A Tt^ 
 I indeed primary by nature — namely, a^pwer^of appreiieiid- ^ 
 I ing self-eyident truths as such^and as absolutely, positively, 
 l~and universally necessary — intellectual intuition. 
 
 (10) A power of pleasurable or painful excitement on \ 
 the occurrence of certain intellectual apprehensions — higher' 
 (intellectual) emotions or sentiments. 
 
 (11) A power of apprehending highly abstract ideas, 
 such as being, power, beauty, goodness, and truth. 
 
 (12) A power of giving expression to our ideas by 
 external bodily signs — rationaljgjjguage. 
 
 (T1) A ^ trr^ P =^ ''^'' ^^ '** "^^ ; that is a power of, on certain 
 occasions, deliberately electing to act (or to abstain from 
 acting) either with, or in opposition to, the resultant of 
 involuntary attractions and repulsions — rati onal vj) liiion. 
 
 ?- 
 
2 24 ^^' TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 Intelle ctual J ^'ignagf ''^ a product of thought. It can exist without . 
 speech, and could never have arisen as a product of articulate i 
 sounds which did not express abstract ideas. / 
 
 The imagination of words or bodily movements necessary for thotight 
 — Examples of emotional and intellectual language contrasted — 
 Abstract ideas must coexist with speech — May exist without 
 speech — Deaf-mtttes — La7iguage a consequence of thought — A 
 tendency towards language seems innate — Roots, and the question 
 of the origin of language — Kinds of language — The mental and 
 the spoken word. 
 
 We have already seen * that bodily signs or gestures, 
 and also both inarticulate and articulate sounds, may be , 
 employed to give expression to our feelings or emotions, 
 apart from our intellectual perceptions, and apart from all 1 
 intention of affirming, denying, or asking anything. We ' 
 have now to consider language in the ordinary sense of 
 that word — as a medium for expressing ideas and inten- 
 tions, asking questions, stating facts, and carrying on 
 conversation. 
 
 In the first place, an examination of our own minds \ 
 shows us, not only that we cannot make known our thoughts / 
 to others save by the help of bodily signs, but also that we | 
 ourselves cannot even think without their aid. I do not, \ 
 of course, mean that we cannot think without either speak- | 
 ing or making gestures, but that we cannot think without \ 
 some imagination, either of words as spoken, heard, or *. 
 read, or of gestures as seen in reality, or in pictures, or as 
 
 * See above, p. 196. 
 
LANGUAGE. 
 
 •25^/ 
 
 felt. It is by the help of imagined words, that we mostly 
 do our thinking ; we almost always think in words. Never- 
 theless, we may also think by merely imagining certain 
 bodily activities, without adverting to the articulate sounds 
 by which we denote such actions. We may think by the 
 help of the imagination of such actions as we have actually 
 seen performed, or as we have felt the performance of, 
 when we ourselves have been performing them. Never-! 
 theless, these thoughts of ours, though thus helped by the \ 
 use of imagination, are themselves no mere imaginations. 
 The idea, for example, of " moving," when thought by the 
 aid of the imagined motions of ourselves or others, is as 
 truly an intellectual conception — as abstract, as universal, 
 as implicitly replete with the ideas of unity, being, and 
 truth, and the other characters we have before pointed out* 
 which distinguish ideas from feelings and imaginations — • 
 as is the same idea when thought out by the help of the 
 imagined articulate sound conventionally employed to 
 denote that action. 
 
 Nevertheless, since we ordinarily mean, by " language," 
 spoken articulate sounds, serving for intellectual intercourse 
 we will begin by examining some such sounds, selecting 
 certain concrete examples of very simple intellectual 
 language, which can be conveniently contrasted with the 
 mere language of emotion. Let us, then, suppose that two 4i2i2^!ii_\ 
 men are standmg under an oak tree, and that this tree andintd- 
 
 h-f 7 
 
 begins suddenly to show signs of falling. They will fly tanglage 
 from the danger, and they may utter cries of alarm, and by -"- '" '•■■'• ' •■- / '■ 
 their cries and gestures give rise to sxmpathetic feelings 
 of^^aiaefoin persons who may happen to be near the spot. 
 Tn so far as they do no more than this, their language, 
 whether of voice or gesture, is but that language of emotion 
 we have already adverted to.f They may, however, cry 
 out, "That oak is fallincrj " What is the nature of these 
 sounds ? The words are examples of intellectual language. 
 They are the embodiment and expression of no mere feel- 
 ings, but of universal, abstract ideas. 
 
 (i) The word oak is, of course, a conventional sign for 
 the idea " oak," anH is a universal abstract term, applicable, 
 
 * See aljove, pp. 207, 216. f See above, p. 196. 
 
2 26/^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 over and above the particular oak which is about to fall, to 
 every other actual or possible oak. It denotes no single 
 subsisting thing, but a kind or whole class of things. 
 
 (2) The word that, is a term which divides and separates 
 off the one particular falling oak referred to from all others, 
 and limits and determines the application of the universal 
 abstract term " oak " to a single concrete example. It 
 implies an idea of a unity of a different sort from the unity 
 implied by the word " oak." The latter implies a unity 
 of nature or kind, which may be present in an indefinite 
 number of individuals ; but the word '' that," conveys the 
 idea of an absolutely individual unity which can be present 
 in nothing but itself. 
 
 (3) The word is, denotes the most wonderful, important, 
 and most abstract of all abstract ideas — the idea of " exist- 
 ence" or "being." It is an idea* which we must have in 
 order to perform any intellectual act. It is an idea which, 
 though not itself at first adverted to, makes all other ideas 
 intelligible to us, as light, though itself unseen, renders 
 everything else visible to us. 
 
 (4) The word falling, is a term denoting another abstrac- 
 tion — an abstract " quality " or " state." The idea is one 
 which is evidently capable of very wide application, namely, 
 to everything which may fall. Yet the idea itself is one 
 single idea. 
 
 Abstract What is true of this simple sentence is true of all 
 
 ^o^xilTwith sentences. AlMijuman language (apart from mere emo- 1 
 speech. tional manifestations) necessarily implies and gives exprcs-; 
 sion to a number of abstract ideas. It is impossible even^ 
 for the most brutal savage to speak the simplest sentence 
 without having first formed for himself highly abstract 
 ideas. Wherever, therefore, language exists, there also 
 must exist the power and exercise of abstraction. All 
 our words, except proper names, pronouns, and certain 
 determinating adjectives and participles, express abstract 
 ideas. Universal abs"tract terms are made use of sponta- 
 neously by children as soon as they begin to speak, and 
 ; " quack-quack " and " ^<t&-^Q.& " are just as good abstract 
 ' universal terms as are " duck " and " horse." Children 
 
 * See above, p. 205. 
 
LANGUAGE. 227 
 
 begin by giving terms very wide meanings, which they 
 I subsequently learn to restrict. Not uncommonly children 
 1 call all men " papa " at first, and the child of a friend of 
 j mine thus gave the word "quack" so wide a meaning 
 that he included under it not only all birds and insects, 
 but also liquids, and money which had the French eagle on 
 one side of it. Professor Preyer, of Jena, tells us of a child 
 ten months old who used one term to denote both " above " 
 and " below," and another single word to signify both 
 " hot " and " cold." He also gives an instance of a girl 
 fourteen months old who used the term " apple " to denote 
 / not only " apple," but every kind of food — food in the 
 ; abstract. He also relates * that a boy thirty-one months 
 old, when vexed with his plaything, would say, " dummes 
 di?ig,'^ thus rising at once to the highest of all abstractions 
 — the idea of " being." 
 L The faculty of abstraction,- then, na-ust 4>e-._Dosse ssed bv ^ ^^^y ^-^"^ 
 [everyone who speaks. But it is also possessed by mQii^A'^c/i. 
 iwho do not speak. Various kinds and degrees of dumb- 
 ness may arise from different forms of defective memory 
 as to words, due to different physical defects of brain-struc- 
 ture — such defects impairing those powers of feeling and 
 imagination on the integrity of which the exercise of our 
 intellectual faculties depends. In such cases intellectual ' 
 action is impaired by defects in parts of the bodily organi- i 
 zation, the healthy activity of which is a condition prece- \ 
 dent to such intellectual action. But it may be the case 1 
 that the physical defect is not in such parts, but in others | 
 the healthy activity of which is requisite for the external 
 manifestation of conceptions duly formed in the mind. 
 Persons afflicted with defects in such parts of the brain 
 (such central part of the speaking apparatus) may have 
 perfectly clear ideas, but be quite unable to frame and utter 
 /corresponding expressions. The absence of words does 
 I not necessarily imply the absence of ideas. Young children 
 ^often plainly indicate that they have meanings, a know- 
 ledge of which they seek to convey before they can speak. 
 A friend of mine was much alarmed about his son (who is 
 now a very clever young man), because he was long unable 
 
 * " L'Ame de I'Enfant," pp. 355, 367, 431. Paris : 1SS7. 
 
2 28 ON TRUTH. 
 
 to speak, though he showed clearly, by an elaborate lan- 
 guage of gestures, that he had very distinct intellectual 
 conceptions. Preyer mentions * having shown a son of his, 
 unable to speak a word and less than a year old, a stuffed 
 goose, saying, "bird," upon which the child looked across at 
 a stuffed owl on the opposite side of the room, thus evidently 
 connecting the two objects in his mind. 
 Deaf-mutcs.\ But that idcas may, without the use of speech, be not 
 .w^ I only conceived, but also distinctly enunciated and freely 
 '^iJ<^ communicated, is made evident to us by deaf-mutes. They 
 can and do express " ideas " by their gestures. At an 
 institution for the dumb in Edinburgh, the Lord's Prayer 
 is acted by mutes in an elaborate manner. The idea 
 " Father" is expressed by an action indicating " old man ;" 
 the idea " Name" by touching the forehead and indicating 
 the action of spelling on the fingers ; the idea " done '' 
 by the hands working ; the conception " on earth as it is 
 in heaven," by the two signs for " heaven " and " earth," and 
 by putting the two forefingers side by side to express 
 " equality ; " and so on. But the satisfactory nature to ; 
 mutes themselves of their own gesture-language, is shown 
 by the protests made by some of them in the newspapers a 
 few years ago in its favour, and against the practice of 
 teaching them to utter articulate sounds through a study 
 of the lip-motions of normally speaking people. The great 
 expressiveness of such gesture-language is also demon- 
 strated to us by the performance of whole plays by gesture, 
 without the utterance of a single word, as in various ballets.f 
 It is also demonstrated to us by the carrying out of Church 
 services % by gesture only — services attentively followed 
 by the deaf congregations which assemble to profit by 
 them. 
 
 As to the thorough intellectuality and power of com- 
 municating their ideas which deaf-mutes possess, Herr 
 Oehlvein, who was director of the Institution for the Educa- 
 tion of the Deaf and Dumb at Jena, has made the following 
 
 * Loc. cit., p. 355. 
 
 t The elaborate ballet called " La Jolie Fille de Gaud," which is a serious 
 play in several acts, may be specially referred to. 
 
 X A very interesting service of this kind is to be seen at the chu rch for the 
 deaf in Oxford Street. 
 
LANGUAGE. 
 
 229 
 
 statements : * " The deaf-mute represents objects which I 
 have become known to him through his senses of sight and ' 
 touch, by corresponding signs. For this purpose he makes . 
 use of the means with which nature has furnished him, i 
 namely, movements of the muscles of his eyeballs and of 
 his limbs. Though so much bodily movement seems at 
 first to lend more vivacity to his expressions, yet it is much 
 more difficult for him thus to express general ideas than 
 it is for other men to express such ideas by words. The 
 deaf-mute who wishes to express the general idea ' red 
 colour,' does so by gently touching his lips ; and he will 
 make use of this gesture to denote the redness of the sky, 
 or of painted objects, or red stuffs or flowers. But how- 
 ever numerous may be the objects thus designated, the 
 idea ' red ' is for him a unity, and before thus expressing 
 it he must also have acquired the general ideas ' lips,' ' sky,' 
 'stuffs,' 'flowers,' etc. Thus the deaf-mute, when he invents 
 a sign for anything, applies it to all other things of the same 
 class according to his conception of that class. He has 
 clearly abstract ideas, for he knows that there is a quality 
 as to which his lips, red flowers, and the sky at sunset 
 agree. He can also understand and express propositions, 
 and he can reason in a simple fashion. The language of 
 deaf-mutes not only includes a play of feature and move- 
 ments of the hands, but also the attitudes and movements 
 of the whole body, and he can express himself by means 
 of them spontaneously without education. His modes of 
 expression by gestures follow a different order from that 
 of spoken languages. Instead of saying, ' Do you go or 
 stay ? ' the deaf-mute expresses himself, * Stay, go, you .-• ' 
 Instead of saying, ' I go,' he makes the signs, ' Go, I.' 
 For 'The man's arm is strong,' he substitutes, 'Arm, man, 
 is, strong.' " He also tells us that deaf-and-dumb children 
 of seven years of age, who have not been taught, use 
 amongst themselves an astonishing quantity of rapid ges- 
 tures, and they easily understand each other's meaning. It 
 is, then, abundantly evident that a society of dumb men 
 would soon elaborate a gesture-language of great com- 
 plexity. A deaf-mute told Mr. G. J. Romanes that he 
 
 * In 1867. See Preyer, lo(. cit., p. 306. 
 
Language a 
 consequence 
 of thought. 
 
 iN^- 
 
 230I, ON TRUTH. 
 
 always thought by means of mental images of hand-and- 
 feature movements. 
 
 It is plain, then, that rational conceptions, " abstract 
 ideas," can exist without spoken words ; but there is no 
 evidence that they can continue to exist without some em- 
 bodiment, some form of language, some corporeal expres- 
 sion, either by voice or by gesture. Language, therefore, 
 1 is a consequence of thought, and abstract ideas are indis- 
 i pensable preliminaries of language. We see this in our 
 common experience. When, in the cultivation of any 
 science or art, newly observed facts or newly devised pro- 
 cesses give rise to new conceptions, new terms are invented 
 to give expression to such conceptions. Thus new words 
 arise 2js, 2, consequent, and not as an antecedent, of such intel^ 
 loctual action. New terms are always fitted to fresh ideas, 
 and not fresh ideas to new terms. Whoever attentively 
 follows the mental development of a child, will see that in 
 it also notions are formed spontaneously ; that they do not 
 follow the acquisition of words, but, on the contrary, often 
 give rise to them. 
 
 That language is dependent on thought, not thought 
 on language, is demonstrated for us by the lightning-like 
 rapidity — a rapidity far too great for words — -with which 
 our minds may detect a fallacy in an argument. This 
 instantaneousness is not the mere mental ejaculation of the 
 word " No ; " for the mental act is not a blind one, but is 
 uttered for a distinct reason, and is due to our instantly 
 seeing the nature of a fallacy, it may be a whole chain of 
 argument with its logical relations and consequences. 
 The most rapid cry or gesture of negation is often, then, 
 the sign of intellectual perceptions which would require 
 more than one sentence fully to express, but which are 
 perceived too rapidly for even the mental repetition of the 
 words of such sentences. 
 
 Nevertheless, these intellectual perceptions show them- 
 selves by bodily signs — sounds or gestures — and even all 
 our silent thought is carried on by the aid of some im- 
 agined bodily signs, without which, as we observed in the 
 beginning of this chapter, we cannot think. Human 
 language seems quite unable to grow, or even to endure, 
 
LANGUAGE. 23 1 
 
 without some embodiment, without corporeal expressions 
 of some kind. Thus language, of word or gesture, is the 
 ; necessary means of human thought, as well as its necessary- 
 consequence. The mental and bodily signs of language 
 are so intimately united that, though the mental side is 
 anterior, it at once seeks, as it were, to incarnate itself, and 
 under normal conditions does incarnate itself, in corporeal 
 expression. We have seen how deaf-mutes spontaneously 
 evolve a gesture-language through which they can under- 
 stand each other and communicate their ideas. Dr. W. 
 W. Ireland,* cites an instance of a boy who could not 
 speak ordinary words, and yet had invented a few of his a tendency 
 own, to which he attached fixed meanings. Thus he said \''anglJge 
 I " Weep-00 " for night or black, " burly " for wood or for a tl'late. 
 I carpenter, " tatteras " for soldiers, " hatts " for big or large, 
 * and so on, I myself knew an old lady of weak intellect who 
 lived under the care of my deceased friend the naturalist, 
 Charles Linnaeus Martin. She also had invented an imper- 
 fect language of her own, coining strange words with very 
 definite meanings, which she used frequently and adhered 
 to with pertinacity. Dr. Bastian has recorded f a case 
 (from his own experience) which seems to show that the 
 faculty of rational speech is so implanted in us, potentially,: 
 from the first, that it tends to manifest itself spontaneously, j 
 and may do so very unexpectedly. He tells us that in the ' 
 year 1877 he was consulted concerning the health of a boy 
 twelve years old, and subject to fits at intervals. When 
 five years old he had never spoken a word, and physicians 
 ' were consulted about his " dumbness." Before the expira- 
 ; tion of another twelve months, however, on the occasion of 
 \ an accident happening to one of his favourite toys, he sud- 
 \ denly exclaimed, " What a pity ! " though he had never 
 previously spoken a single word. He was then again silent 
 for two weeks, but thereafter speedily became most talk- 
 ative. A more wonderful case was that of Laura^ Bi'Ldg- 
 man.$ She was blind as well a^s deaf, and had half lost the 
 power of smell, and yet learned to read and write and also 
 
 * See his work on " Idiocy and Imbecility," p. 276. Churchill : 1S77. 
 t " The Brain as an Or^an of Mind," p. 606. Keiran Paul, Trench & Co. : 
 1S80. " . F =, . 
 
 + " Idiocy and Imbecility," p. 225. 
 
 sf' 
 
2^2 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 /* 
 
 to apprehend abstract relations and quantities, and this 
 though she lost her senses of sight and hearing, through 
 scarlet fever, so early that she had no recollection of having 
 had them. When Dr. Ireland first saw her she was six 
 
 (years old. The case of Meystre,* at Lausanne, born deaf 
 and dumb, and who became blind through an accident when 
 I six years old, is even more remarkable. He learned to 
 '/f speak audibly, and acquired many ideas. His idea of God 
 i was that of " thought enthroned somewhere." Such cases as 
 r these seem to demonstrate the existence of wonderful innate 
 \ intellectual capacities in the human mind. The facts of the 
 growth and development of language show us that thought 
 must be deeper, wider-reaching, and more perfect than its 
 bodily signs, and therefore that language can only give 
 imperfect expression to it. But for this, and for the facts 
 that thought is anterior to speech, and that mental language 
 has a greater range and perception than its bodily expres- 
 sion, the growth and development of language would be 
 impossible. But if thought cannot continue to exist in us 
 without some embodiment, much less can speech (apart 
 from mere emotional language) exist without thought and 
 without those complex intellectual actions of abstraction 
 and the recognition of abstract ideas, which are its very 
 life. 
 Roots, and Language has been shown to be reducible^ tcj,^. certain 
 
 ifthelri'sin nunibcr .aC43UnTiiiiLeJ££ms, which have been distinguished 
 "■^'"'■^''^■'as^" roots." A large number of these denote different 
 kinds of bodily activity. In consequence of this, a sug- 
 j^estign has been put forward that, in certain sounds 
 accompanying such actions — sounds such as seamen and 
 others often utter in common when working together — we 
 have the first origin of all language. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands that spoken language could 
 
 not arise except by the utterance of sounds, the meaning 
 
 of which was simultaneously understood both by those 
 
 ; who uttered them and by those who heard them. Speech 
 
 (\ , requires an apprehending intelligence on the part of the 
 
 '/ hearer as well as on the part of the speaker, if it is to be 
 
 •• more than a monologue ; and we may consider it certain 
 
 * Loc. cif., p. 231. 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
LANGUAGE. 
 
 233 
 
 that speech would never have arisen had not two persons 
 possessed the same idea at the same time. Now, it is true 
 that a person performing, in the presence of others, any 
 action (such, for example, as pounding with a stone) would 
 know by consciousness what he was doing, and those 
 around him would know through their senses what he was 
 doing, and so a sound repeated by him in their presence 
 while so acting might, it has been contended, generate a 
 term to denote such action, which term would thus come 
 to be understood both by him and by those about him. 
 
 But if any emitted sounds really constituted the origin 
 of language by having existed before it, such sounds must 
 have been at first devoid of any accompaniment of abstract 
 conceptions. They must have afforded and constituted the 
 occasion for the conjunction of thoughts with sounds. , 
 Words, however, are never now intelligently uttered ex- ; 
 cept when the mind is already furnished with the mental 
 abstraction to which such words refer. It would seem, i 
 therefore, that no man could ever have voluntarily and 
 intentionally uttered a sound to denote an action unless he A 
 already possessed a mental conception, that is, an abstract 
 idea, of that action ; nor could bystanders have accepted 
 and understood such demonstration unless they also already 
 had the idea. Again, even if the man performing the 
 supposed action be imagined to have at first uttered the 
 sound accidentally, without will or intention, and then re- 
 peated it only by automatic habit, it is evident he could 
 not come to understand or apply it subsequently except 
 by first acquiring the idea or conception itself. A sound, 
 articulate or not, and an abstract idea, are things utterly 
 distinct in kind; and to suppose that the former could ever 
 by itself generate the latter, is as absurd as to suppose 
 that the waves of the sea could generate the vessels which 
 float upon their surface. 
 
 The spoken word is most important and influential 
 when once it has been introduced, but its introduction 
 needs that reason should be already present. The doctrine ,; i^ 
 that s^cch bc^at reason cannot be maintained, for speech j 
 cannot exist without the existence with it of that intel- L^ 
 lectual activity of which it is the outward expression. As | 
 
234 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ^ ] well might the coincavities of a curved line be supposed to 
 exist without its convexities, as the spoken word be sup- 
 posed to have arisen prior to the idea which it represents, 
 j Experience shows us, as before observed, that, as a fact, 
 I words do not generate thoughts, but the very reverse. It 
 V is, of course, true that infants learn to speak words the 
 meanings of which they do not understand ; but, in the 
 ^rst place, they learn them from those who do understand 
 them, and who make known to them by degrees their 
 meaning ; and, in Jhe second place, we do not know how 
 soon they annex meanings of some kind to the words they 
 learn, while they often plainly indicate that they have 
 meanings and knowledge of which they seek to convey, 
 before they can speak. They exhibit, as we have seen, 
 unmistakable signs of the spontaneous activity of the 
 germinating intellect, as every father knows. Every father 
 who cares to observe, may note with what facility his child 
 forms "universals," often making use of words to indicate 
 (as we have already pointed out) far more extensive classes 
 of objects than they properly serve to denote. Such terms 
 are certainly at first neither explicit universals nor explicit 
 singulars, for the child has at first no such explicit notions. 
 But it does not use infantine general terms to denote 
 some individual objects, before it has in its mind a vague 
 conception of a universal, and it soon employs the greatest 
 of all universals when it speaks of a " thing." \ 
 
 '** We have seen that the mind of man is not depen- 
 r\) . dent on speech for language, but, when it is necessary, can 
 /y^ 1 design and use a language of gesture — language as truly 
 abstract and intellectual in its essence as that of the spoken 
 word. Rational conceptions, therefore, can evidently exist 
 without w;ords, but ration aI:JAaij:ds--jGaaaoJLX?^^^ without 
 i,^jiccptioiis QiLabatcact -Ideas, The intellect is the common 
 i^oot from which both thought and language (whether of 
 speech or gesture) spring, and thenceforth continue and , 
 develop in inseparable union. It is therefore manifest that I 
 language and reason could never have originated from a I 
 practice of drawing the figures or outlines of objects. For i 
 such drawings are the equivalents of words, if not of pro- 
 positions, and must have been preceded by abstract con- 
 
LANGUAGE. 
 
 '"i^ 
 
 ceptions. No one could draw a horse who had not even Kinds of 
 
 , . , r 1 language 
 
 the idea of a horse. 
 
 Language, then — using that term in its widest possible /^ 
 
 >* 
 
 % 
 
 >- 
 
 sense — consists of two radically distinct kinds — the lan- 
 guage of feeling,* and the language of the intellect. And 
 ■TKe"re are three subdivisions of either tindf' 0£jthe. i»er€ 
 ^Janguage of the emotions and of feeling we may have — \ 
 
 (i) Sounds which are neither articulate nor rational, 
 such as cries of pain, or the murmur of a mother to her 
 infant. 
 
 (2) Sounds which are articulate but not rational, such 
 as many oaths and exclamations, and the words of certain 
 idiots who will repeat, without comprehending, every phrase 
 they hear. 
 
 (3) Gestures which do not answer to rational concep- 
 tions, but are the bodily signs of pain or pleasure, of 
 passion or emotion. 
 
 Of the la ,nguage of the jntellect we may have — 
 (i) Sounds which are rational but not articulate, such 
 as the inarticulate ejaculations by which we sometimes 
 express assent to or dissent from, given propositions. 
 
 (2) Sounds which are both rational and articulate, con- 
 stituting true " speech." 
 
 (3) Gestures which give expression to rational concep- 
 tions, and are therefore " external " but not " oral " mani- 
 festations of abstract thought. Such are many of the 
 gestures of deaf-mutes, who, being incapable of articulating 
 words, have invented or acquired a true gesture-language. 
 
 Thus the essence of true, or intellectual, language is The mental 
 
 and the 
 
 mental, and is intellectual activity — the verbuin vientale or st-okcnword. 
 the " mental word " — while the external expression of 
 thought may be distinguished as the verbum oris, or "spoken 
 word ; " and the latter ever follows the former, as is evident 
 by the constant process of inventing fresh terms — which 
 goes on in every science — in order to denote new or more 
 \ complete and better-defined conceptions. 
 
 It is evident that a paralyzed man might have essen- 
 tially the power of language (the " mental word "), though 
 accidentally hindered from externally manifesting that 
 
 * See above, p. 196. 
 
236 ON TRUTH. 
 
 inner power by means of the " spoken word," or even by 
 gestures. Normally, the external and internal powers 
 exist inseparably. Once that the intellectual activity 
 exists, it seeks external expression by symbols — verbal, 
 manual, or what not — the voice or gesture-language. 
 Some form of symbolic expression is, therefore, the neces- 
 sary consequence in man of the possession of reason, while 
 it is impossible that true speech can for a moment exist 
 without the coexistence with it of that intellectual activity 
 of which it is the outward expression. 
 
 We are now in a position to appreciate the force of the 
 remark before made,* that a study of language proves that 
 there is a most important fundamental difference between 
 those various forms of feeling — activity, passivity, relation, 
 etc. — described in our fourteenth chapter, and the corre- 
 sponding intellectual perceptions. It has been asserted that 
 the only real difference between such feelings and the 
 corresponding ideas is due to the introduction of language, 
 and is a mere affair of words being added to antecedent 
 feelings. But it is now clear that no addition of mere 
 words could effect such a transubstantiation as would be 
 the change of feelings into ideas. This is clear because 
 we have here seen that intellectual conceptions — abstract 
 ideas — must be already possessed by and present in the 
 mind before language can have any meaning. The exist- 
 ence of the mental word must ever precede that of the 
 spoken word. The existence, therefore, of the former can 
 never be due to the presence of the latter ; and the various 
 complex and wonderful varieties of feeling before described,! 
 though they form the natural basis and sensuous supports 
 of reason, are not and never can become reason itself. 
 Logical in their essential relations they may be, but the 
 logic of the intellect is of altogether another nature. The 
 so-called " logic of feeling " is not truly logic, and is only 
 so named by a remote analogy with the laws of thought, 
 in which alone true logic really and formally exists.-^ 
 
 * See above, p. 20S. t See above, pp. 189-201. 
 
( 237 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVII, 
 
 PERCEPTIONS OF TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 
 
 We apprehend truth, goodness, and beauty as objective attributes of 
 ; things, which attributes answer to three corresponding ideas, most 
 
 ' closely allied, but each ultimate and incapable of analysis. 
 
 These perceptions accompanied by corresponditig feelings — Objectivity 
 of truth — Material and formal truth — Truth a universal relation 
 of conformity — Idea of number — Ideas of existence, essettce, reality, 
 possibility, necessity, and catisation — Perception of goodness — 
 Goodness an ultimate idea — Good?iess universal j implies a relation 
 — Material and formal goodness — Objectivity of goodness — Dis- 
 tinctitess of moral perceptions from sentimeiits — TJie moral se?tse 
 a higher instinct — Feeling for and perception of beauty — Beauty 
 is perfection — Objectivity of beauty — Everything has beauty. 
 
 Our perceptions of being and of power have been, per- Thcscpcr- 
 haps, sufficiently adverted to ; but our faculty of appre- ^coml'aM 
 bending truth, goodness^ and- beauty is a faculty the study spondhig 
 of which seems to us to be of such importance as to need '^^^ 
 \ separate treatment. These three distinct apprehensions 
 I are usually accompanied by corresponding sentiments or 
 [ h]gher_ emotions,* which in turn repose respectively upon 
 ' three of our sensuous faculties or lower mental powers.f 
 As it is impossible for us to have any idea, however lofty, 
 without the support of some sensuous imagination — a fact 
 which introspection has shown us % — so also our higher 
 sentiments repose on and are sustained by corresponding 
 lower feelings, which again are, in turn sustained, and 
 ministered to by the nervous structures of our body.§ 
 
 * See above, p. 221. t See above, pp. 193, 197. 
 
 X See above, p. 88. 
 
 § As to the nervous system, see above, p. 150. 
 
2^8 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Objcciivity 
 
 Our apprehension of truth has been sometimes said to 
 be a mere subjective individual feeHng — truth for each 
 man being just what each man trovveth, and no more. But 
 the reader's common sense will, we are convinced, soon show 
 him that truth really exists, at least as a quality of state- 
 ments and beliefs. This is a fact which no man can really 
 deny. For any sceptic who honestly affirms that truth has 
 a merely subjective value, must, at the same time, thereby 
 deny and refute his own affirmation. For if the statement, 
 "Truth is merely an individual feeling," were, in fact^ true, 
 then that very statement itself — being " a fact " — would 
 itself be an objective truth, and more than an individual 
 feeling ; so, at least in this instance, the sceptic must affirm 
 that " Truth is not merely an individual feeling," i.e. he 
 must refute himself. But, as before pointed out,* and 
 as John Stuart Mill has affirmed,! the recognition of the 
 truth of any judgment we make is not only an essential 
 part, but the essential part, of it as a judgment. Leave 
 that out, and it remains a mere play of thought, in which 
 no judgment is passed. No follower of any branch of 
 physical science, at any rate, can reasonably doubt that 
 truth is more than a mere quality recognized as belonging 
 to a judgment by him who emits it, and has a real relation 
 to external things. Otherwise, it is plain that science could 
 make no progress. We do not base scientific inductions 
 and deductions on our knowledge of beliefs, but of facts ; 
 and, without a foundation of facts, beliefs are worthless. 
 The independence and objectivity of truth should be 
 especially manifest at a period in which the unconditional 
 pursuit of truth is perhaps more eagerly engaged in than at 
 any previous time, and when a profound reverence for truth 
 is ardently professed by the leading men in each depart- 
 ment of physical science, and is certainly in their lips no 
 idle boast. The truth of physical science consists in the 
 agreement of "thought" with "things;" of the world of 
 " beliefs " with the world of " external \ existences." Truth, 
 then, cannot be only " what each man troweth," but must 
 
 * See above, p. 104, 
 
 t In his " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," p. 346. 
 
 X The reader may here recur to the illustration before given, p. 137. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 
 
 !9^>J^ 
 
 be what a man troweth when he troweth in conformity 
 with real external coexistences and sequences, and with 
 the causes and conditions of the world about him. Truth, 
 therefore, is and must be both sttbjeGtiv^-.aad_objective. 
 ■*rri"§ subjective, regarded as a quality of his thought byTmn 
 ' wBo thinks it. It is objective, regarded as a quality of 
 j • the thought of any one else. There is another form of 
 truth called moral truth, which consists in a conformity 
 between the words or gestures of a man, and the judg- 
 ments and convictions of his mind. To make an assertion 
 which is opposed to facts is, of course, to say what is not 
 true ; but such an assertion may be innocently made by 
 mistake, and, if so made, it does not violate moral truth, 
 and only constitutes what is called material untruth. To Material 
 speak deliberately and intentionally in opposition to facts ""uek.'''""' 
 known to be such constitutes what we may distinguish 
 as formal untruth. 
 
 But can " truth " be attributed to things themselves ' ^ 
 apart from any assertions made or beliefs entertained about ■ J 
 them ? We often speak of " making a false note " in 1 
 music, and of ''false drawing " in a picture, or of a statue \ 
 being " true to nature ; " and we may praise a man for acting 
 as " a true friend." These expressions refer to the exist- 
 ence or non-existence of a conformity between some object 
 or action and the idea of such object or the intention which 
 should accompany such action. Here, then, truth is also Tmth a 
 a relation of conformity between external realities and the Veiationo/ 
 mind. But, once more, can truth be attributed to things '^''"-^'"^"'''• 
 themselves apart from and independently of all and eveiy 
 -^ ■ human mind ? The answer which a man will make to 
 this question must depend upon his conviction respecting 
 ■ a first cause.* All those persons who are convinced of 
 the reasonableness of Theism must affirm that truth cani 
 be so_attributQdv For if we may conceive what, for lackl 
 of a better name, we may call "intelligent purpose" as 
 underlying nature, then each object, in so far as it corre- 
 sponds with such intention, may with justice be spoken 
 of as true. It is another, though widely different, con- 
 formity between thought and things — namely, their con- 
 
 * As to this question, see Sect. V. chap. xxvi. 
 
240 ON TRUTH. 
 
 formity with the thought which is Divine. " Truth," then, 
 essentially expresses a relation of agreement between two 
 distinct things. Nothing is or can be true in itself, but 
 only in relation to something else with which it conforms. 
 Truthis _thus one kind of conformity, and the essence of ^ 
 all truth is likeness. If it be further asked, " What is con- 
 formity or agreement or likeness ?" the only reply possible 
 is that such words express an ultimate idea. The terms 
 " likeness " and " unlikeness " are incapable of explanation. 
 They express an idea as impossible to explain as to define 
 because it is so simple. For to say, two things are alike 
 when they are " at one," or " identical in some respect or 
 other," does not deserve to be called an explanation. Any 
 mind, then, which cannot understand the term " likeness," 
 may regard the task of understanding any branch of know- 
 ledge, however elementary it may be, as altogether beyond 
 its power. It is as evident that everything cannot be 
 explained or defined, as that everything, as we pointed out 
 in the beginning of this work,* cannot be proved. If 
 nothing was ultimate, nothing could ever be explained 
 or defined, but those processes would have to go on for 
 ever. 
 
 A little reflection will also show the reader that a full 
 apprehension of the idea " truth " involves that of some 
 other highly abstract ideas. We have seen that certain 
 objects are true when they so exist as to correspond with 
 the essential idea they embody. Moreover, truth is one, 
 while _error,is manifold. We may, for example, have maTiy 
 false descriptions of the law relating to the enfranchise- 
 ment of copyholds, but there is only one account which 
 can possibly correspond with the facts of the case. If, 
 then, truth is really and essentially one, to understand the 
 full meaning of that word we must more or less compre- 
 hend the meaning of the ideas " unity " (and therefore 
 "plurality" and "number"), "existence," "essence,"' 
 " reality," " necessity," and " possibilitys^ 
 
 First, as to the ideas " unity " and " number " : The idea 
 of unity is one of the most simple of our ideas. It can be 
 applied to all things, whether they are or are not perceptible 
 
 * See above, p. 9, 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 24 1 
 
 to the senses. It may be applied equally well to the bed 
 we last slept in, and to the first thought we had on waking 
 within it. Similarly, the idea of number can be applied /-/^^ "/ 
 universally to thoughts, contradictions, negations, and 
 fictions, as well as to more positive things, and things 
 which can be seen and handled. 
 
 The idea of number applies to the simultaneous as well 
 as the successive. We may be able to say with equal truth 
 that we have five sovereigns in our purse and that we have 
 walked five miles. Nevertheless, a perception of number 
 does not ordinarily arise except as a consequence of " suc- 
 cession " — of our perceiving things successively. For the 
 recognition of two things as being of that number requires 
 something more than their simple perception or imagina- 
 tion. They must be susceptible of comparison, and be 
 recognized — at least implicitly — as belonging to some one 
 class, so that they can be united under one common idea 
 as a consequence of intellectual abstraction and comparison. 
 No one, for example, could say that his kitchen chimney 
 and Scott's conception of the character of Effie Deans 
 were " two," unless he spoke of them as two things 
 " thought of by him." By so doing he would unite them 
 under a common idea, and could then say truly they were 
 " two," namely, two thoughts of his. As it is with " two," 
 so of course is it with all other numbers. They exist reallyX 'S^ 
 in things as well as in the mind, which, we find by expe- \ 
 rience, has the power of recognizing objective conditions 1 , . 
 of number, unity and plurality in objects, and of forming / ■«»• 
 corresponding subjective conceptions. The idea of any / 
 number, e.g. " five," is not the idea of the word (vocal sign) 
 " five," since it corresponds not only equally well with the 
 word whether spoken or written, but also with correspond- 
 ing conventional gestures. But the idea itself is /wt con- 
 ventional. It is the sign (oral or manual) adopted to 
 express that idea, which is conventional. Of course, the 
 same object maybe "one," regarded from one point of 
 view, and " many," regarded from another point of view ; 
 as in the familiar example of a regiment of soldiers. 
 
 But the idea of truth also necessarily implies the Idea ii/eas 0/ 
 of '' existence," since whatever is true must in some sense IfJenc"''^' 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 necessity, 
 and causa- 
 tion. 
 
 "be." * But we apprehend not only the truth of positively, 
 subsisting things,t but the truth of propositions, and dis- 
 tinguish between things which are actually and really truej 
 (as that Vesuvius is in Italy), and things which are real! 
 at the same time that they are ideal — as, for example, 
 the beauty of Cordelia's character, or the image of the 
 earth which would be formed in our eyes could we view 
 it from the moon's surface. We sometimes recognize, also, 
 that a given consequence may or iimst follow from some 
 antecedent' — as that sunset must occasion some degree of 
 darkness, but may be accompanied with a glowing western 
 sky. Of course, the truth of any proposition depends 
 essentially on the agreement between the statement it 
 conveys and the matter, actual or ideal, to which it relates. 
 As, then, the " essence " of truth exists in this conformity, 
 to fully understand truth, is to have some conception of 
 " essence!' " Essence " may thus be seen to signify " that, 
 in the absence of which, a thing cannot be what it should 
 be or is." The preceding examples of ideal truths may I 
 serve to show that the idea of reality does not necessarily 
 imply actual existence ; for, though nothing which actually i 
 exists can be " unreal," yet whatever may so exist, though \ 
 as yet it does not, has a certain reality; that is to say, it is | 
 not purely imaginary. That men believe in the " reality " 1 
 of the summer which has yet to come, is shown by their 
 preparations for the crops it is expected to bring to perfec- 
 tion ; as attention to warm clothing, shows how the reality 
 of next winter is. believed in by furriers, hosiers, and house- 
 wives. 
 
 The idea of possibility is included in the full meaning 
 of " truth," because, if anything is "true," it cannot, by the 
 law of contradiction, at the same time be " untrue. The 
 law of contradiction we see to be " necessarily " true. But 
 we cannot apprehend that anything is " necessary " without 
 also comprehending the meaning of the opposite term 
 "not necess"ary " — that is, " possible." We have a fourfold nl 
 idea of possibility — intrinsic and extrinsic, physical and m 
 
 * The idea of " being " has been already noticed (see above, p. 205). 
 
 t We have already observed how, in our intellectual perception of any 
 object, there is contained an apprehension of its subsistence, as well as of its 
 nature (see above, p. 211). 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. '^M //j 
 
 moral. A thing may be understood to be " possible " 
 
 tntrin^jj^ly , that is, in so far as there is no contradiction 
 contained within it. It is thus intrinsically possible for 
 a bird or beast to differ more or less in colour from its 
 congeners ; but it is not possible for a bird or beast to have 
 gills instead of lungs. It is possible for a seemingly unkind 
 act to be a proper return for a really kind one ; but it is 
 impossible for ingratitude to be a virtue. But a thing may 
 be intrinsically, though not extrinsically, possible, that is to 
 say, an object or action may be possible in itself, while 
 there are no means and appliances to bring it about — as, 
 for example, to throw a projectile from London to New 
 York. A thing may be possible physically but not 
 morally. Thus it is physically but not morally possible 
 for all men to unite in telling the same lie.* 
 
 As to the idea of " necessity," we have long ago t recog- 
 nized our apprehension of " necessary truth," and how a 
 perception of the law of contradiction, that is of " absolute 
 J impossibility," is at the root of all our intellectual activity. 
 Of course, an apprehension of " necessity " is, as it were, 
 but the other side of our apprehension of " absolute impos- 
 sibility " — since whatever cannot possibly fail to be, must 
 of necessity exist. In these ideas of possibility and neces- 
 sity, the idea of causation is involved. Of that intellectual 
 conception we have already spoken. % as well as of those 
 sensuous perceptions and feelings which are closely related 
 to it. § 
 
 (Next after the perception of " truth," we may consider PcrcefiHon 
 r 7 1 • 1 • 1 of goodness. 
 
 our perception of "■goodness — our ethical judgments as to 
 "right" and "wrong." This higher faculty of ours must 
 be carefully distinguished from mere feelings of sympathy, 
 companionship, regretful emotions of a painful character, 
 and feelings of shame. Such feelings we have already 
 recognized |1 as pertaining to the lower side of our nature, 
 that is to say, as being distinct from — however frequently 
 they may accompany — our intellectual perception of cir- 
 cumstances, either meriting our sympathy or properly 
 exciting in us a feeling of shame. Perceptions of such 
 
 * See above, p. 6i. t See above, chap. iv. p. 39. 
 
 X See above, p. 48. § See above, p. 195. |1 See above, p. 186. 
 
244 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 fS 
 
 N 
 
 facts, and the feelings which may attend those perceptions, 
 are evidently very different things. 
 
 Xhe idea of " goodness " is, moreover, quite distinct from 
 
 '^y \ the ideas of " utility " or " pleasure." Not, of course, but 
 
 that what is pleasurable may in one sense be called " good," 
 as also things which are useful. But, as we shall see 
 directly, the " goodness " of such things is not either in 
 their pleasurableness or their utility. It resides in another 
 property which is common both to things pleasurable 
 or useful, and also to things " good," in the highest sense 
 of that term. 
 
 When we call either a knife, a gun, a horse, or a coat, 
 " good," we mean that it is well adapted to serve the 
 purposes for which it was intended. We may use it 
 similarly with respect to a race-horse, a baker, a judge, or 
 a bishop. Nevertheless, a little consideration serves to 
 show that this use of the term does not bring us to the 
 foundation of the idea " goodness," and the same objection 
 applies to the use of that term to denote anything which 
 must give us pleasure. The "goodness" referred to in 
 both these cases is " goodness of a certain order " — a relative 
 goodness of a limited kind, and not " goodness " simply 
 and absolutely. A useful thing is " good " because it has 
 the " virtue " of " serving, or conforming to, some end or 
 ? intention," and a pleasant thing is " good " because it has 
 the virtue of occasioning pleasure, as will shortly be more, 
 distinctly pointed out. But neither " conformity to an 
 end " nor the " elicitation of pleasure " is good absolutely,^ 
 unless the end aimed at and the pleasure enjoyed are alsoj 
 " good." The tool of a housebreaker will be good, as made 
 of good materials, well put together, etc., and also as apt 
 for its end ; but it cannot be absolutely " good " regarded 
 in the latter aspect — owing to its relation to the defective 
 intention of the thief who is to use it. Neither can the 
 pleasure which may be elicited by some act of cruelty be 
 good. No object or action, pleasurable or otherwise, can be 
 good simply, unless it tends to what is in itself good and 
 "agreeable to duty" — unless through that object or action, 
 we "follow the right order." To be "good," it must 
 
 * See below, p. 251. 
 
/ 
 
 TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 245 >^ 
 
 somehow conduce to such a following of the right order. 
 The action must be one whereby we follow that order, and , 
 the object must be something by the contemplation or \ 
 other use of which, the right order tends to be followed. \ 
 We may ask, " Why should we conform to duty ? Why I 
 should we follow the right order } " To these questions 
 the only possible answer is, " It is right so to do." It may, 
 perhaps, be replied, " The right order should be followed 
 because it is our interest to follow it." But any one so 
 replying must mean either that it is always right to follow 
 our interest because it is our " interest," — and so abandon 
 the idea of duty altogether ; or else that " we should follow 
 our interest, not because it is our interest, but because it is 
 rigJit',' — and so affirm the very ethical principle which he 
 I set out with the intention of denying. Evidently it is not coodmss 
 a man's absolute duty always to follow his own interest, w^ /i^^. 
 regardless of his fellow-men, and whatever the circum- 
 stances of the case may be. But if any one really followed 
 his interest on that ground, i.e. because he thought it was 
 his duty so to do, then he would follow it, not because it 
 was his interest, but because he thought it was right/ 
 
 Every one will admit that " gratitude is a good thing," 
 and gratitude certainly gives pleasure, promotes happi- 
 ness, and conduces to prosperity. But the idea of its 
 "goodness "^is something different from the ideas "plea- 
 sure," " happiness," and " prosperity." The idea of a being | 
 who sacrifices all these excellent things in order to perform j 
 what he deems an act of duty, is the idea of a very good - 
 being, but not necessarily of a happy one. 
 
 The radical distinctness which exists between our idea 
 " goodness," and every other conception, can be shown by 
 the analysis of any ethical precept we may wish to select. 
 Let us suppose, for example, that any one is told he 
 "should pay his tailor," and the truth of the saying is 
 disputed : how should we set about trying to convince him 
 of its truth .'' Obviously, by putting forward some more 
 elementary and general moral precept, which we anticipate 
 will be assented to at once — such as " Every man is bound 
 to pay his debts." If this is again disputed, we might 
 further urge, " A man is bound to satisfy obligations he has 
 
 €l 
 
h\(iJljM ON TRUTH. 
 
 voluntarily incurred," and so on. In every step we make 
 to explain why a duty should be performed, there must 
 always be a further and more elementary declaration of 
 duty, until we come to some assertion of the kind the 
 truth of which is admitted as self-evident. In. other words, ^, 
 we cannot^ grove any truths concerning duty by appealing ■ 
 'to__ considerations mto which the idea of duty does not | 
 entej:. All our knowledge, as we have seen,* is either self- 1 
 evident or is legitimately deduced from what is self-evi- 
 dent ; and this, of course, applies to our idea of right and 
 wrong, as well as to all the rest of our knowledge. Now, 
 if we see that some definite line of action is certainly 
 "right," the proposition which declares it to be right 
 must either be self-evident or must be deduced from other 
 propositions as to what is right, one of which at least must 
 / be self-evident ; or else we can have no basis whatever for 
 I our knowledge as to what is right or wrong. In other 
 fjl words, the general propositions which lie at the root of any 
 ethical system must themselves be ethical. f This truth 
 cuts the ground from under — renders simply impossible — 
 the view that a judgment as to moral obligation can ever 
 be, or could ever have been, developed from mere likings 
 or dislikings, or from feelings of sympathy, companion- 
 ship, and those pleasurable and painful feelings which may 
 be occasioned by the goodwill or hostility of our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Those persons who, while affirming moral precepts, 
 deny the essential distinctness of our idea of goodness, 
 can always be refuted by an analysis of the precepts they 
 maintain. Such an analysis will suffice to show how they 
 implicitly contradict themselves. We are not likely, 
 however, again to meet with so amusing and inslruclive an 
 example of such contradiction as tlie one which the late 
 Jo hn Stuart Mi ll has supplied us with. That eminent 
 denier of the essential distinctness of virtue and upholder / 
 of utilitarian principles, once wrote as follows :% " If I am 
 informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes 
 are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what 
 
 * See above, p. 14. 
 
 j: As pointed out by Mr. Arthur Balfour. 
 
 \ See his " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," p. 103. 
 
 

 TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 
 
 6^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 are the principles of his government, except that 'the 
 highest human morality which we are capable of conceiv- 
 ing' does not sanction them ; convince me of it, and I will 
 bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must 
 believe this, and at the same time call this being by the 
 names which express and affirm the highest human morality, 
 I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such 
 a being may have over me, there is one thing which he 
 shall not do — he shall not compel me to worship him. I 
 will call no being good who is not what I mean when I 
 apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures ; and if such a 
 being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to 
 hell I will go." 
 
 In saying this. Mill only says what every right-minded 
 man should say. Admirable, however, as is his declaration, '■ 
 it is singularly inconsistent in the mouth of a professed ' 
 utilitarian. For if actions are " good " or " bad " merely 
 according to the pleasure or pain which may follow them, ■ 
 then, if by flattering a bad god we could all secure a 
 maximum of pleasure while otherwise we should all incur 
 endless torment, then certainly, on utilitarian principles 
 (not, of course, on the principles we defend), such flattery 
 would be good. Mill's position is indeed a curious one ; 
 I for he must mean that, in the matter in question, all men 
 • would do well to act with him. He, in effect, then, affirms 
 that to attain the greatest possible happiness for all, is the 
 aim men should pursue, and also that in its pursuit they 
 may accept the greatest possible amount of final, universal 
 misery ! Malebranche has expressed * himself to the same ) 
 effect as Mill, except as regards its inconsistency. 
 I Our perception of the character of goodness, ia the per- 
 f ccption of something ultimate and not dependent even oii. 
 ^^^the will of any Diviue Being. There have been persons 
 yrrwho maintained the contrary of this, and who have said, 
 inot only : " that is right which God commands," but also 
 V' it is right because He commands it." But in our percep- , 
 tions of duty and moral obligation, we recognize the | 
 fact that it addresses conscience with an essentially abso- 
 lute and unconditional imperativeness. No good man 
 
 * Sec below, chap. xxvi. 
 
 ^ 
 
^ 
 
 < 
 
 y 
 
 248, ON TRUTH. 
 
 could consent to perform a really ungrateful or cruel action, 
 seen by him to be such, even in obedience to the behests 
 of an Omnipotent Being. We must, therefore, approve 
 and admire Mill's declaration, above cited, however much 
 we may distrust our own powers of even enduring a tem- 
 poral martyrdom. But if " goodness " cannot be dependent 
 even on the will of God ; if the commands of conscience 
 are absolute and supreme ; if it is impossible even to con- 
 ceive of a lawful evasion of its universal and unconditional 
 authority ; then the ethical principle must be rooted, as it 
 i were, within the inmost heart, the very foundation, so to 
 I speak, of the great whole of existence it pervades. The 
 '' principles of the moral law must be at least as extensive 
 jand enduring' as are"those starry heavens which shared 
 I with it the profound reverence of Kant. Moral truth is 
 universal, necessary, self-evident, ultimate, and primary, 
 and belongs to the category of necessary truth, which we 
 examined in our first and fourth chapters.* It exis_ts,^|/ 
 therefore, objectively, and is not dependent upon the humani// 
 mind. / 
 
 Moreover, as we saw before f that all persons who- 
 believe that a Divine intention is expressed in nature must 
 affirm everything to be " true " in so far as it corresponds 
 with that intention, so it must also be with respect to 
 " goodness." Every object or action, in so far as it exists ■ 
 and so follows the law of its being, must be more or less 
 " good." If by defect it deviates from a higher good, it 
 thereby becomes a more or less good thing of an inferior 
 order — as a marble statue broken into fragments ceases to 
 be good as a statue, and becomes so many pieces of marble, 
 " good " in their degree and apt for various inferior ends. 
 
 Thus the idea of "goodness," like that of "truth," essen-'^ 
 tially implies a relation. As nothing can be true save by / 
 its conformity or likeness to something else, so nothing 
 within our powers of observation and imagination can be 
 " good " save by its harmony with an eternal, absolute law, 
 by concordance with which it " follows the right order," 
 Evil, therefore, cannot be perceived by us to have any abso- 
 lute, positive existence, but appears to be merely negative 
 
 * See above, pp. 12, 38. t See abov.e, p. 239. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 249^^ 
 
 — only a certain degree of relative deficiency of existence 
 or deficiency of correspondence with ideal goodness, on 
 the part of some existing thing. 
 
 The goodness of actions is manifestly twofold — they Material 
 may be "good" in themselves, or " good " as he'n\g don& ZZdneTsl'^ 
 with a good intention by those who perform them. These 
 two meanings of the term may be distinguished in the 
 same way as we have already * distinguished the analogous 
 distinction between the two meanings of the word " truth," 
 namely, as material and forvial. True goodness — that 
 which contains the essence of the idea — is what \?> foiU2i£dl^ ""l^y^ 
 (or absolutel}') good ; i.e. good in intention as well as in its 
 consequences. The other kind — goodness which is only 
 material — regards the effects of an action, "and not the in- 
 tention with which it is performed. Thus, let us suppose 
 that a certain man, Smith, who has an attractive daughter, 
 asks Brown, whom he has greatly obliged, to introduce 
 his daughter to a career he thinks will be greatly for her 
 advantage. Let us suppose, further, that Brown, being a very 
 malicious man, mistakenly supposes the introduction will 
 injure the girl, and therefore complies with the request, but 
 in so doing really benefits her. Brown's action is, then, 
 "materially" good, because of its actually good effects, but' 
 " formally " it is a very wicked action. Had Brown's inten- 
 tion been really benevolent, his action would then have 
 been both materially and formally good. Neither the 
 giving of pleasure to Smith, or to his daughter, or to him- 
 self, will make Brown's malevolent action a good one ; nor 
 would the giving pain to Smith, to his daughter, or to him- 
 self, have prevented a refusal on Brown's part from being 
 formally good, when he thought the desired introduction 
 would be really injurious to the girl. Thus acts may be 
 materially moral or immoral in a very high degree, without 
 being in the \q.2,'s>\. formally so. A sick man may be nursed 
 with scrupulous care and exactness by some one who there- 
 by greatly benefits him, but who all the time is animated 
 by the hope and expectation of a good legacy. A man 
 may, in the dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be 
 an assassin, and so commit what is " materially " an act of 
 
 * See above, p. 239. 
 
2 50...-y ON TRUTH. 
 
 parricide, though " formally " it is only an act of self-defence, 
 perhaps done with blameworthy rashness. A woman may 
 innocently marry a man who, unknown to her, has a wife 
 already, and so commit a " material " act of adultery. She 
 may discover the facts, and persist in living with him, and 
 so make her act a " formal " one. 
 
 It has been objected to this distinction that by it we 
 exaggerate the importance of consciousness, seeing that 
 " the most beautiful character to which a man can attain 
 // is that of doing good immediately and spontaneously, 
 without thinking about it ; not that of balancing and weigh- 
 ing and only acting after more or less doubt and hesita- 
 [ tion." According to this distinction, it is urged, a covetous 
 man, almost a thief, but who manages reluctantly just to 
 escape actual dishonesty, is superior to a man who feels 
 no temptation, but acts justly without a thought. The 
 question of ethical " feeling " we will consider further on ; 
 but we would now point out that the essence of the objec- 
 tion just stated is a denial of the supreme merit of a good 
 " intention," which, of course, cannot exist without conscious I 
 thought. But it cannot be really meant that it is the / 
 ^absence of thought " which causes the beauty of a spon- / 
 ta.iieous moral action. Otherwise, were we to perform i 
 beneficial actions in our sleep we should thereby attain \ 
 [ this climax of moral beauty. The " not thinking about it," | 
 
 y~ \ therefore, is not that which makes the supposed action 
 ^1 beautiful. Its. beauty consists in its being the outcome 
 .' and result of a habit of mind which has been acquired and^ 
 .' strengthened by, many antecedent good actions. A man 
 T~ could not get himself into such a condition of habitual 
 readiness to do what is right, without previous voluntary 
 acts in which he has discriminated right from wrong. A j 
 man cannot love justice without being able to distinguish 
 it from injustice, and to love "moral beauty" he must ! 
 know it. The idea of good which the man has in the past » 
 apprehended, must be influencing him at the time of his sup- I 
 posed action, whether he adverts to it or not ; otherwise the | 
 action is not a virtuous one. The merit of the virtue which 
 shows itself in even the spontaneous, indeliberate action of a 
 good man, results from the fact of previous acts of his having 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 251^ 
 
 / been consciously directed to goodness, and a habit having 
 been thus formed. The more thoroughly a man is pos- 
 sessed by the idea of duty, the more his whole being is 
 saturated with that idea, the more will goodness show itself 
 in all his even spontaneous actions, which thus will have 
 additional merit from their very spontaneity^- 
 
 Thus " goodness," like " truth," is both subjective and objcctiinty 
 
 , . . T • 1 • • 1 11 1-.. of goodness. 
 
 objective, It is subjective when regarded as a quality ot -f 
 the mind of any one conscious of a good intention. It is " 
 o bjective , regarded as that quality of an object, action, or '^ 
 intention, whereby it conforms in its degree to that eternal ^ 
 laiv of-,rigJit which manifests itself to our intellect as in- 
 herent in the universe as we know it by observation, reason- 
 ing, and consciousness, our consciousness showing it to be 
 inherent in our very selves. 
 
 Reverting to the distinction, which we before briefly 
 considered,* between our ideas of things " good " and things ;/ 
 " useful," it may be further observed that "j^irtil£..!l-aild4- #» 
 " utility "j.re ideas no± only fundamentally distinct, but so ?^ 
 far in natural opposition that the existence of utility in an j 
 action^^i^_jiQW- . .and again detract from its virtue. So \ 
 essential is the distinction that not only does the idea of 
 " benefit " not enter into the idea of " duty," but we even see 
 that the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us may 
 make it the more praiseworthy. Its merit is increased by 
 any self-denial which may be necessary to its performance, 
 while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. It is 
 not that the absence of gain or pleasure, benefits our neigh- 
 bour more ; it is that any diminution of pleasure which 
 circumstances may occasion, irre spec tive of any advantage 
 thereby occasioned to our neighbour, in itself heightens the 
 value of the action. That, therefore, cannot be the substance 
 of *' duty " which increases " dutifulness " by its absence. 
 
 The conception of duty is the conception of something 
 supreme and absolutely incumbent upon us without appeal, 
 apart from any question of pleasures or pains, rewards or 
 punishments. Cicero has well characterized it as " Quod 
 tale est nt detracta oiiiiii iitilitate sive idlis prccmiis fnicti- 
 bttsque perseipsmn possit jure landari." 
 
 * See above, p. 244. 
 
252 OiY TRUTH. 
 
 We rarely advert to abstract conceptions of right and 
 wrong, but we apprehend very frequently that of two modes 
 of action, one is higher, nobler, and superior morally to the 
 j other. We appreciate the good, bad, or indifferent cha- 
 iracter of actions taking place under given circumstances. 
 We do not say, however, that men always coincide in their 
 views as to the moral character of any given action, or that 
 the same man will estimate its ethical value in the same 
 way at different periods of his life. What is here contended 
 for is the absolutely distinct nature and character of that 
 quality which we attribute to any action when we call it 
 " good." Varieties of view as to the ethical character of 
 different particular acts will come under our notice in our 
 nineteenth chapter,* which will be devoted to a considera- 
 tion of mankind, and, amongst other matters, to their 
 Distinctness ethical judgments. There is one fact which it is most 
 
 / of moral 1 • 1 1 • 11 1 • 1 1 • • 
 
 perceptions desu'ablc to rccognizc clearly — that is, the distmctness 
 ' ments. which cxists bctwcen our ethical judgments and any sen- 
 i\/tf J timents we may feel respecting our own actions or those of 
 V\ /yV other people. Feelings, emotions, and sentiments, plea- 
 / surable or painful, frequently do and always should accom- 
 pany our perceptions of, or judgments about, good or bad 
 actions. That such feelings, however, are very different 
 from the perceptions or judgments themselves, a very little 
 consideration will suffice to show. Thus our own con- 
 sciousness and the observation of other men, will suffice to 
 assure us that some pleasurable or painful sentiments of 
 the kind may be felt about matters which we see clearly 
 ; have nothing to do with right or wrong. Some trifling 
 ! breach of etiquette or some innocent violation of social 
 usage may call up a blush and feeling of shame far more 
 vivid and distressing than what may attend some consider- 
 able moral delinquency. Keen remorse also may be felt 
 for the neglect of some happy occasion for augrnenting, by 
 a polite attention, the goodwill of an influential acquaint- 
 ance. Indeed, it is only too possible that such remorse may 
 be felt for having neglected the opportunity of committing 
 a very pleasurable but very wicked act. A French wr]t£ri 
 has said that no regret is so keen as the regret which may be' 
 
 * See Ijelow, p. 282. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 253 
 
 felt for the non-commission of pleasant sins which might 
 have been enjoyed. It has been said that " conscience " is 
 that feeling of regretful dissatisfaction which is induced in 
 a man who looks back and judges a past action with disap- 
 proval. Now, " conscience " certainly " looks back and 
 judges," but not all that " looks back and judges " is " con- 
 science." A judgment of conscience is one of a particular 
 kind, namely, a judgment according to the standard of 
 moral worth. But for this, a gourmand suffering after 
 dinner from dyspepsia, might exercise his conscience in 
 looking back and judging with "regretful dissatisfaction"! 
 that he had eaten the wrong sauce ! A regretful sentiment! 
 of dissatisfaction thus can clearly exist when we make no 
 moral judgment. Such a sentiment may exist in the mind 
 of a vegetarian who has broken his rule, and who may 
 reasonably feel vexation at his own infirmity of purpose ; 
 but such a feeling is quite different from the perception 
 that he has done an act morally wrong, as in the case of 
 a man who felt bound in conscience by the religion he 
 followed to abstain from animal food. 
 
 The painful feeling of having incurred the dislike or 
 disapprobation of our fellow-men, may also exist apart from 
 a belief that we have committed any wrong. If this were 
 not the case, how could we ask, as we may and sometimes ' 
 do ask, whether society in certain cases is " right " or // ' 
 " wrong " } How could we ask, as we do, why we should \ J? 
 obey society at all.'' We demand, and rightly demand, a J*' 
 rational basis for social claims. Those claims, then, or! 
 a feeling of deference to public opinion, cannot be the basis 
 of morality. If it were that basis, then courage must have 
 come to be regarded as supremely good, and cowardice as 
 deserving of the deepest moral condemnation. And yet 
 what is the fact ? A coward probably feels self-contempt, 
 and also that he has incurred the contempt of his associates, 
 but he does not judge that he is "wicked." We despise, 
 avoid, or hate a coward ; but we know that his cowardice 
 may be due to defective organization, and we can clearly 
 understand that it is possible for a coward to be more 
 virtuous than some other man who is conspicuous for 
 courage. Feelings induced by recollections or anticipations 
 
254 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 The mora! 
 sense a 
 higlicr 
 institict. 
 
 of punishment are also very different from moral judgments, 
 as is abundantly evident from the many men, of very dif- 
 ferent views, who have nevertheless agreed in willingness 
 /to undergo suffering for conscience' sake. Many men also 
 / see clearly the moral turpitude of their habitual acts with- 
 ; out any dislike of, or disposition to punish, the companions 
 \ of their vices ; rather the contrary. 
 
 Pleasurable or painful feelings having a certain resem- 
 blance to moral sentiments, may accompany perceptions 
 which plainly have nothing to do with "right " and "wrong ;" 
 while distinct ethical perceptions may not be accompanied 
 I by appropriate feelings. The case is stronger even than 
 I this : the apprehension, through ear or eye, of very evil 
 I actions, may give rise to keenly pleasurable feelings, while 
 \ moral truths may be both clearly seen and hated. To a 
 ''. trifling degree this is by no means rare. It is unfortu- 
 nately common enough to feel that some duty is irksome 
 and distasteful. Nevertheless, the idea of goodness is 
 generally accompanied by a feeling of complacency.* In, 
 a perfect nature, what is virtuous is pleasurable ; but in an 
 "imperfect nature it may be more or less painful. " Marali 
 "Teeirng "—the " jpiQx^l^sense " — ^i§,,a.sort of rational instinct.! 
 It is an instinct of our higher nature, parallel with,"HuF 
 entirely distinct from, the instinct of our lower mental 
 powers before noticed. f Its existence is necessary to form 
 a perfect man. To be ethically complete, our sympathies 
 and aversions, our pleasurable satisfaction and our regretful 
 dissatisfation, should respectively accompany our ethical 
 perceptions of right and wrong — our judgments of moral 
 approbation and the reverse. The reader can judge by 
 this, on examining his own feelings, how far he approxi- 
 mates to or departs from this standard of moral perfection. 
 Our reason judging as to right and wrong is " conscience," 
 which often plainly tells which of two alternative actions is 
 the higher, and which we ought therefore to follow. But in- 
 trospection does not show us that we possess any other 
 I ethical faculties than those of (i) reason so judging, and (2) 
 J that moral sentiment which may or may not accompany such 
 f judgments. The subject will be further adverted to in the 
 * See above, p. 222. f See above, p. 184. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 255 
 
 final chapter of this section, when we come to speak of the 
 moral phenomena which are common to mankind. 
 
 The third and last perception we have now to consider FccUns/or 
 is that of beauty. 7eptionqf 
 
 We have already seen, when considering our lower ''"'"^'' 
 mental powers,* that we possess feelings of liking for 
 certain sights, sounds, etc. — feelings of "taste," which vary 
 greatly in different individuals. We also, in addition to 
 these feelings, make distinct judgments about the beauty 
 of objects which are to our taste or the reverse. That tastes 
 differ is a proverbial truth, as also that it is useless to dis- 
 pute about them. What we have a liking for, we do like, how- 
 ever much we may be blamed, despised, or envied for likincr 
 it. If a man really prefers Etty to Raphael, or Rigoletto 
 to Lohengrin, no amount of reasoning or animadversion 
 can do more than make him feign the contrary. Tastes 
 also not only differ from individual to individual, but our 
 own taste in early life is often not the same as that of 
 later years. May it not be said, then, that beauty is but » /.■ 
 a matter of individual fancy and purely subjective, and 
 the existence of any positive, absolute, objective beauty, 
 a mere dream of more or less poetical minds ? Whatever 
 may be the true answer to this question, we must at least 
 concede that we have somehow or other got the idea of 
 beauty. However obtained, we have come to possess that 
 /abstract idea which, like all ideas, is profoundly distinct 
 from any corresponding feeling. To feel attracted towards 
 objects is one thing ; to have a conception of their beauty 
 is another and very different thing, and is an act of our 
 higher or intellectual mental power. The faculty of appre- 
 hending beauty is also a power which may be greatly in- 
 creased by culture. For the beauty of a Nocturne by 
 Chopin, or of a landscape by Turner, the average boor has, 
 i as we say, " no _ ears, px.q.y£5." If the reader has, by chance, 
 studied architecture, he can recognize that the knowledge 
 so obtained has opened up to him perceptions of beauty 
 which would otherwise have escaped him. Similarly, if 
 he has studied zoology, he may have become awakened 
 to the beauty of animals — serpents or what not — to the 
 charms of which he was previously insensible. 
 * See above, p. 197. 
 
256 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Beauty is 
 f>cr/cctioii. 
 
 A'. 
 
 '// 
 
 If we recall to mind the conclusions at which we arrived 
 with respect to our ideas of " truth " and " goodness," we 
 shall thereby be greatly helped in arriving at a conclusion 
 with respect to the objective nature of " beauty." As just 
 said, we do actually possess the ideas " beauty " and " the 
 beautiful," whatever may be the mode in which we have 
 come by them. Let us, then, briefly consider some of those 
 objects which are generally regarded as possessing some 
 beauty and charm. Taking visible beauty as a starting- 
 point, the objects which manifest it to us are sea, land, 
 and sky, as viewed by night and by day, the animal and 
 vegetable products of the earth, man and his works. The 
 aspects of these objects change for us according to circum- 
 stances, amongst which must be reckoned the emotions 
 or ideas which may happen to be the most vivid at different 
 times. Nevertheless, whatever strikes us as pre-eminently 
 beautiful is generally regarded by us as approacHing per- 
 fection of its kind. No object which conveys to our minds 
 a conception of discord, deficiency, or redundance amongst 
 its parts or attributes, is considered by us to be supremely 
 beautiful. Beauty, as apprehended by our ear, is eminently 
 a harmony, and is the more beautiful according as that 
 harmony approaches perfection. The beauty of even 
 single musical notes is, we now know, due to tinib?^, which 
 is a special and, as it were, minute kind of harmony. The 
 same thing may be said of the charm of certain human 
 voices, though they may possess the additional charm of j 
 perfectly expressing some shade of character or some j 
 dominant emotion. The senses of taste and smell may ! 
 give us very pleasant impressions, which so far may be said 
 to possess a certain kind of beauty ; but it is only when 
 objects convey to us the notion of a more or less har- 
 monious and perfect blending of savours and odours, or 
 of these combined, that they can ordinarily give rise to 
 any idea of the kind. The sense of touch, combined with 
 feelings of muscular effort and tension, may inform us of 
 various beauties which are ordinarily apprehended by the 
 eye ; and this is emphatically the case with the blind. 
 Feelings such as those of a most excellently polished 
 surface, or of a perfection of delicate softness like that 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 257 
 
 y.- 
 
 of the fur of the chinchilla, may give rise to qualitative 
 perceptions which we express by the terms " beautifully 
 smooth" or "beautifully soft." But, apart from sensuous 
 perceptions, our intellect can keenly apprehend " moral 
 beauty" — the beauty of some human characters and 
 actions. The characters and actions in which such beauty 
 is most apparent to us, are just those which are deemed 
 by us as most nearly approaching our notions of perfection. 
 The same may be said of the intellectual beauty of a dis- 
 course, a poem, or a problem. Whichever of such things 
 may strike us as being most beautiful, is that which most 
 nearly agrees with our idea of perfection according to its 
 kind. It would seem, then, that our intellectual appre- 
 hension of beauty, is a perception of ideal perfection realized 
 to a greater or less extent. For, however great our admi- 
 ration of anything may be, we can mostly conceive of an 
 ideal beauty still greater. Thus the idea of " beauty," 
 like the idea of " truth " and " goodness," though aroused 
 within us through the impressions made on our senses by 
 external objects, is not limited to or by them. Like the 
 rest of the apprehensions of our higher mental powers, 
 our perception of beauty, though attained through our sen- 
 sitivity, is altogether beyond sensitivity — like the ideas of 
 being, possibility, necessity, and cause. Now, just as we 
 saw that objectors might ask us, " What is agreement or 
 likeness } " * or " What is the good of following the right 
 order .'' " so another inquirer may ask, " What is the beauty 1 
 of perfection ? " But here, as in the former instances, no 
 reply can be given but that perfection is beautiful. If 1 
 any one does not see the beauty of perfection, he is like a 
 man who does not see the good of goodness, or who cannot 
 understand the ideas "likeness" or "agreement." The 
 idea of " perfect beauty," like the ideas " goodness " and 
 " truth," is an ultimate idea, which is capable of apprehen- 
 sion, but not of analysis, 
 i ^Beauty also, like goodness and truth, exists, not only objectivity 
 I in the mind, but in the things the mind perceives. It is "-v"'""^-^" 
 i Jjgth^subjective and objective. It is subjective regarded ^ 
 as a quality perceived by our mind ; and objective regarded ■-' 
 
 * See above, p. 240. 
 
 S 
 
^// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Beauty 
 absolute, not \ 
 relative. 
 
 ^ 
 
 as an intrinsic quality of an object whereby that object 
 approximates to perfection according to the kind and sort 
 of thing it is. 
 
 But there is one great difference whereby "beauty^" 
 j_d.iffers_^irpm both "truth" and "^oodjiess^__jrhe latter 
 ; qualities are, as we have seen, attributed to objects .ex- 
 pressly on account of the relations such objects bear to some- 
 thing else ; but " beauty " is essentially intrinsic, and relates, 
 at least primarily, to a thing considered in and by itself. 
 Nevertheless, the beauty of any object consists in a 
 harmony of at least its internal relations. Nothing which 
 was absolutely a unity, without either internal or ex- 
 ternal relations (if such an existence could be conceived of), 
 could be said to possess beauty. As to external relations, 
 when anything is said to be beautiful on account of its 
 fitness to serve some end, the word is used analogically, 
 since what is really meant is that it is admirable for its 
 utility. It is a parallel case to the analogical use of the 
 term " goodness " * to denote that a thing is good in a 
 certain way — as " good " to eat. 
 
 Different kinds of beauty are often related to utility, 
 but it is not the utility, but the perfection with which an 
 object corresponds with a certain ideal wherein the idea 
 i of utility enters, which makes them beautiful. Nevertheless, 
 an object may be said to have a relative beauty in so far 
 as it augments, or is augmented by, the beauty of some 
 other object. Thus a picturesque castle may derive addi- 
 tional beauty from its situation on some mountain side 
 i or top ; or a mountain may derive an added beauty from 
 \ a castle which clings to its steep sides or is artistically 
 Lgerched upon its summit. This relativity of beauty is an 
 it,CCidentaL,relativity, since beauty does not, like truth and 
 : goodness, essentially imply relations, save internal relatjons.^ 
 ' Can we form any conception of objective beauty altogether 
 apart from human perceptions? If the beauty of any- 
 thing consists in its perfection, then evidently — as we saw 
 before with respect to truth f and goodness % — those who are 
 theists, who are convinced that there is an Eternal Cause, 
 the Author of all things, with their powers and perfections, 
 
 * See above, p. 244. f See above, p. 239. J See above, p. 248. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 
 
 259... 
 
 must be able so to do. They cannot regard the Author 
 of all perfection as Himself imperfect. Thus the^ideaa, 
 mth^Jlgoodness," and "beauty" are closely interrelate^.. 
 
 M 
 
 though^ot identical. For that which is most good must, 
 we see, be perfect of its kind, and therefore true ; that 
 which is perfect must be good and must also be true, as '- 
 responding to the end of its being ; and that which is true 
 
 Imust be perfect in the way just mentioned, and therefore 
 good. 
 
 Since everything which exists more or less approaches ^F-veyytkmg 
 a perfection of some kind or order of existence, everything j 
 must not only be more or less good and true, but also; 
 have a beauty of its kind and in its degree. But if every- 
 thing is thus more or less beautiful, wherein does ugliness 
 consist ? Evidently it can have no positive existence, and 
 can, like evil, be but a defect and negation, as " coldness " 
 is but a deficiency of " warmth." Therefore nothing can < 
 be simply ugly in itself, but only in relation to something 
 else. For as one thing may, as we have seen, gain beauty 
 by augmenting the beauty of another thing, so a thing 
 which is even perfect of its kind, and therefore beautiful 
 in its degree, may be relatively ugly through the injury 
 it inflicts or the destruction it occasions to the beauty 
 of something of a nobler and higher kind which it, by its 
 existence, deforms from perfection and tends to destroy. 
 There are objects which develop themselves perfectly 
 ' according to their own laws, but which, by their develop- 
 ment, destroy human life. A biologist and a pathologist 
 may appreciate the inferior perfection of this kind possessed 
 by an object (some diseased growth), which is none the less 
 relatively hideous as marring the beauty of a human body 
 or even occasioning the moral deterioration of a mind. 
 
 It is impossible to avoid sentiments of distaste or horror 
 at many objects, owing to our feelings as men ; but our 
 reason ought, at the same time, to teach us to make a due 
 allowance, in our attempts to estimate the objective beauty 
 of objects, for the prejudices which may result from our 
 tendency to regard objects from an exclusively human 
 point of view. Many such prejudices are induced from \ 
 what we have been taught as children, and others are j 
 
26o ON TRUTH. 
 
 probably inherited or at least attend us from our earliest J 
 years. There are persons whose reason, though they are ] 
 perfectly sane, is quite unable to overcome a strong feeling 
 of aversion to some harmless object, such as a cat or a 
 mouse. Prejudices of the kind are also sometimes due 
 to an association of painful feelings with the idea of any ; 
 object which may have occasioned us severe loss or acute 
 suffering. The perception of beauty is an intellec,tua.l 
 ■ ; exercise of one of our higher mental powers, but, as we 
 !^ ' have seen, even the most abstract conceptions cannot be 
 ^/A present to our minds without being accompanied by some 
 i sensuous feeling or some imagination, while — since it is the 
 1 same man who both thinks and feels — a dim intellectual 
 \ consciousness of self-existence and of such ideas as " being," 
 1" truth," and " causation," accompanies mere sense-percep- 
 ftions and the commonest bodily actions. These considera- 
 tions will go far to account for differences of taste. They 
 will similarly account for the mixing up with our intellectual 
 perceptions of beauty, sensuous likings which may be 
 keenly or slightly felt, but which mar the distinctness of 
 the intellectual character of those perceptions. The same 
 intimate connection between our higher and lower mental 
 faculties seems to account for our tendency to admire, 
 more than they merit, some things which please our senses, 
 however little we may allow them to be of any high order 
 of beauty when our judgment is fully exercised in their 
 regard. 
 
 Those persons who may be inclined to wonder that 
 so many men should admire things of very inferior beauty, 
 and feel an attraction for objects and actions repulsive to 
 more refined minds, should recollect that ever}^thing;^^has^ 
 p a certain amjQ UJit.of beauty. As these men always seek 
 I a good, since everything has some goodness,* though not 
 by any means the highest good, so whatever attracts them 
 attracts them by a beauty of some kind, even though, by 
 yielding to its attraction, they may be diverted from seek- 
 ing a far nobler and higher beauty. As it is impossible 
 to deny that even the lowest " goods" are " good " in their 
 degree, so the lowest forms of beauty are beautiful after 
 
 * See above, p. 248. 
 
TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY. 26 1 
 
 all, and must exercise their charm on those who happen 
 to be blind to beauties more objectively attractive. 
 
 The question how it is that men should be able to turn 
 away from their very chosen ideal, to follow what even 
 in their eyes is immeasurably less lovely, is the same as 
 that which demands the reason why they should so often 
 diverge from what they clearly perceive to be " the right 
 order." This question is the question of our power of wiJi, 
 to a consideration of which the next chapter is devoted/ 
 
262 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Conscious 
 attetiiion. 
 
 THE WILL, 
 
 Our power of deliberate attention is closely connected with our power \ 
 of will, and our conscious experience assures us that we are not \ 
 automata, but have an occasional power of free volition, the ' 
 existence of which is implied in our ethical perceptions. 
 
 A^ 
 
 Conscious attention — The faculty of will is the Self willing — Hypo- 
 thesis of automatism — // cotiflicts with our experietice — Conscious 
 volition — Motives — Two verbal ambiguities — What consciousness 
 does and does not declare as to our free-will — An objection — Free- 
 will and morality. 
 
 In the last chapter we recognized the fact that we have 
 the power of perceiving that some acts are right and 
 others wrong, and to distinguish between duty, utility, and 
 pleasure. Another most important and significant fact, of 
 which we may become assured by looking into our own j 
 minds, is the fact that we have a power of fixing our] 
 attention for a longer or shorter time on some object we' 
 have determined to examine. 
 \ "Ry thifi " nttrntinn " is meant an intentional, deliberate..^ 
 self- conscious act, and not that merely sensuous, automatic 
 /^j '" attentionT^which was before noticed * in connection with 
 f our other lower mental powers. The distinction here re- 
 ferred to has been well drawn out by the late Dr. 
 Carpenter,! as follows: "Active as compared \Y\\h passive 
 recipiency — attention as compared with mere insouciance 
 — may be either volitional ox autojnatic ; that is, it may be 
 either intentionally induced by an act of the will, or it 
 
 * See above, p. 198. + "Mental Physiology," p. 132. 
 
THE WILL. 263 
 
 I may be produced unvitentionally by the powerful attraction 
 I which the object (whether external or internal) has for 
 the eye. Hence, when we fix our attention on a particular 
 object by a determinate act of our own, the strength of the 
 effort required to do so is greater in proportion to the 
 attraction of some other object. Thus the student who is 
 earnestly endeavouring to comprehend a passage in ' Pro- 
 metheus,' or to solve a mathematical problem, may have 
 his attention grievously distracted by the sound of a neigh- 
 bouring piano, which will make him think of the fair one 
 who is playing it, or of the beloved object with whom he 
 last waltzed to the same measure. Here the will may do i 
 its very utmost to keep the attention fixed, and may yet 
 be overmastered by an involuntary attraction too potent 
 for it ; just as if a powerful electro-magnet were to snatch 
 from our hands a piece of iron which we do our very 
 utmost to retain within our grasp." 
 
 _l iZllosely connected with this fact of active " attention " 
 
 \ is the faculty of choice and volition, of which we are all 
 Tconscious. Here it may be well to remind* the reader A "j 
 that, in speaking of our " faculty " of will, it is not, of - 
 course, meant to imply that the intellect has distinct parts 
 or regions, but only that its power and energy may be 
 turned in different directions. Much difficulty is some- 
 times occasioned by speaking of one's " will " as if it was 
 something distinct from one's self — as if one could not 
 act directly one's self, but that a sort of machine, " the will," 
 was required, by means of which one acted. But our con- The/actdty 
 sciousness does not tell us that we have a " will m this theSd/, 
 sense ; it simply tells us of our doing as we will. The i 
 term "mental faculty" is, then, but a convenient mode of| 
 denoting one set of actions. If memory is nothing more 
 than the intellectual self, remembering ; the understanding 
 is the same intellectual self, in the act of comprehending ; 
 and the will is the same self, willing ; it is one of our 
 many mental powers, and nothing more. It is no wonder, 
 then, that we cannot perceive our free-will in itself directly, 
 because, as we have already recognized,! we cannot directly 
 perceive our own substantial and continuous being in itself 
 * See above, p. 202. t See above, p. 19. 
 
264/y ON TRUTH. 
 
 and apart from its acts or states, or our acts or states in 
 themselves apart from our substantial being. Just as we 
 cannot exist except in some active or passive state, so our 
 will cannot exist except in activity or in a state ready to 
 act. No wonder, then, that it cannot be otherwise known. 
 But because we cannot see the will down to its root acting 
 as a cause, it no more follows that its existence is doubtful, 
 than the fact of our not seeing our own substantial and 
 .continuous self apart from its states, affords us a reason for 
 Idoubting our own existence. Now, just as our own con- 
 sciousness tells us that we are continuously existing beings, 
 so our own consciousness tells us not only that we exer- 
 cise a power of choice, but also that we occasionally so 
 / exercise it as to follow a course which tempts us less 
 
 y, strongly than some other causes of conduct tempts us. 
 
 -''^ We are conscious of acts of will of two different kinds — 
 
 < (f)^acts of will in which we simply follow — consciously, but 
 without any election or deliberate choice — the result of the 
 attractions and repulsions acting on us, and (2) acts of 
 will by which, after full deliberation, we elect to follow a 
 
 f\ course opposed to that to which the balance of the attrac- 
 tions and repulsions acting on us would naturally lead 
 us, and so make an anti-impulsive effort. It is an un- 
 questionable fact that men believe they have this double 
 power of will, for all languages express such belief by 
 terms of moral reprobation or approval. When a man has 
 notoriously lost his power of self-control and become a; 
 mere automaton, dominated by external and internal at-j 
 tractions and repulsions, we say that he is not " an account-| 
 able being." 
 Hypothesis Thcrc are some people, however, who contend that we 
 
 oj autoina- 1 1 ' ? 
 
 iisni. are all of us automata, and have no real power whatever 
 
 i . of initiation or control, however the consciousness which 
 
 Y . attends most of our actions may delude us into the belief 
 
 /y that we really have, at least occasionally, a power of will 
 
 and free initiation, undominated by the action upon us of 
 
 environing circumstances and agencies. They say, and very 
 
 truly, that some physical cause precedes all our bodily 
 
 motions, and that our every motion produces in turn physical 
 
 effects ; that some of these actions are attended by sensa- 
 
THE WILL. h6^ 
 
 tion, and that a smaller number are accompanied by con- j 
 sciousness ; but they go on to add that all our feelings 
 and thoughts are nothing more than accompaniments of vO^ 
 such actions, and never themselves intervene in the circle 
 of physical activities. They compare our thought and feel- 
 ing to the luminosity which may manifest itself in a wire 
 heated by the passage of electricity through it. As such ? 
 luminosity accompanies the electric current, but forms no 
 part of it, so, they say, feeling and thought may be aroused. 
 by certain conditions of a physical circuit of motion with- 
 out affecting any part of that circuit. They deny that we 
 ever originate anything or can do so, and affirm themselves 
 (and us) to be the mere helpless spectators of a play of 
 energies, some of which we are foolish enough to allow 
 ourselves to be cheated into taking for our own spontaneous 
 activity. "It would be incompatible," they urge, "with 
 , , ,• everything we know of brain-action to suppose that the 
 / "" '; physical chain of events ends abruptly in a physical void, 
 •'•, occupied by something immaterial, which works alone and 
 
 /so affects the other edge of the physical break — two shores 
 
 I of the material bounding the immaterial." 
 
 Now, in considering this question, our supreme criterion 
 must (as in other cases) be what consciousness tells us 
 about ourselves, checked by observations and reasonings 
 concerning the world around us. Our ultimate appeal 
 must be made to our consciousness thus informed. But 
 m_tiie first place, does reason tell us that even mere feel- 
 ings — our lower mental powers only — do not act as causes 1 
 in the circle of physical causation } No doubt in reverie 
 and sleep-walking the body is so far like a machine that 
 it acts mechanically and necessarily ; its actions being 
 necessarily determined by the arrangements and adjust- 
 ments of its various parts and organs. Yet its actions on 
 
 I these occasions do not take place without feelings, and 
 these feelings are not the mere accompaniments of bodily 
 actions, but are themselves guides and directing agencies 
 which affect and operate upon, though they do not break 
 through, the circle of bodily actions. The feeling of the 
 handle of a door or the sight of a flight of stairs may 
 change the course of action which the somnambulist was 
 
 ^ 
 
An 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 pursuing. But the movements of the sleep-walker are also 
 determined by a multitude of organic influences which are 
 not felt (though they operate through the nervous system), 
 but which nevertheless form part of a chain of immaterial 
 changes or activities which accompanies the chain of ; 
 physical modifications enduring throughout life. As we 
 have seen,* our nervous system ministers to a vast number 
 of bodily actions which are unfelt, as well as to felt actions, 
 while other actions, which the nervous system does not 
 and cannot control, form part of the great total of our 
 bodily activity. Such are the actions within the nervous 
 system itself, and the changes which take place in the 
 ultimate substance or parenchyma of the body, beyond 
 the reach of the most delicate nerves. Some of these 
 actions, we know by our own conscious experience, are felt 
 actions — the subjective and immaterial phenomenon (feel- 
 ing) taking place simultaneously with the physical (bodily) 
 changes. 
 
 Now, it is simply undeniable that the other nerve- i j 
 actions, which are not felt, may have their immaterial and .^f 1 
 quasi-subjective sides also. It seems to us probable that i ' \ 
 such is the case, and we may hereafter find, when consi- 
 dering the matter from the scientific point of view, that 
 this probability rises to certainty. Indeed, we may so far 
 anticipate what we shall have to say later on, as at once to 
 make the following observation with regard to the motions 
 or actions of any body whatever : The matter of that body 
 is one thing, and is, of course, material, but its activities are 
 another thing, and are, of course, immaterial. Let water 
 which was still, begin to move. The motion itself is not a 
 new form of matter added to what was there before, but is 
 a new state of the old matter. Whatever the motion in 
 itself may be, it is at any rate not matter ; and the same 
 consideration applies to every form of activity. Thus in \ 
 _ j^lir. Jiving body we have a chain of physical phenomena, 
 accompanied by a chain of immaterial energies, some parts ^ 
 of which we know in. ourselves as conscious feeling and ' 
 J though t. If it would be unreasonable to imagine a gap in 
 If the physical chain bridged over by something immaterial, 
 
 * See above, p. i6S. 
 
 ^ 
 
THE WILL. 
 
 26 
 
 5$^ 
 
 /^ 
 
 .^' 
 
 it would be just as unreasonable to imagine a break in this 
 immaterial chain bridged over by something material. The 
 
 _bod^thear-undergoes changes partly physical and material^ 
 part ly psychical and immaterial; and it is these last 
 (whether felt or unfelt) which control atld,direct the actionsT 
 of the^body, though they, in their turn, are influenced by.1 
 physical modificatioiis. We may compare this reciprocal i 
 influence, to alterations caused by heat in the shape of 
 a ring formed of two inseparably united metals which 
 contract unequally at the same temperatures — alteration 
 in either constituent aff"ecting the compound whole, and 
 therefore affecting the other constituent which also forms 
 
 I part of that whole. Physical changes afl"ect our thoughts and 
 feelings, but our thoughts and feelings also produce physical 
 chajig£§.. This accords perfectly with our own experience. 
 We can by our own consciousness discriminate between itcmfiuu 
 feelings which are a mere accompaniment of physical experience. 
 
 I actions, and feelings which cause physical actions. In 
 sneezing and iri swallowing an object placed very far back 
 "in tKe'mouth, we have examples of feelings which accom- 
 pany automatic actions but do not occasion them. In 
 spitting_and scratching we have examples of actions which 
 we" know are done Hy us on account of certain feelings 
 we experience, however true it may be that such actions 
 are sometimes induced reflexly* without such feelings. 
 The argument which arises from the latter fact is not that 
 the feelings do not produce spitting and scratching, but 
 rather that the occurrence of such actions, under abnormal 
 circumstances, without our feeling their performance, argues 
 the presence, in that case also, of some other immaterial 
 energy analogous to sensation, though unfelt. Conscious- 1 
 ness tells us that our feelings and thoughts do produce ^ 
 actions^ but it cannot possibly say what agency operates 
 when consciousness and consgiitience are absent. It says 
 nothing, therefore, against or in favour of the existence 
 of an unfelt immaterial energy, analogous to sensation, 
 accompanying reflex actions^^ 
 
 As to our_fdt ^conscious actions, certainly nothing can 
 well be more contrary to experience than the assertion 
 
 * As to rcjlex action, see above, p. i66. 
 
l68//. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 A' 
 
 \ that our thoughts and desires never do or can intervene 
 1 as causes in the events of our lives. WhaLis.„ihg^fact ? 
 I Suppose a servant comes and tells us that an expected 
 "] guest has arrived. Is it not certain that the actions we 
 thereupon perform are due to our understanding of what 
 had been said, and would be quite different if the servant 
 had said the very same words to us but we had not under- 
 stood them ? The actual mental act, the " understanding," ) 
 is here plainl}' the cause. If we do not know this {e.g. if I do 
 not know that it is my intention to have this work published, 
 which makes me now write ; if the reader does not know that 
 it was an intention or wish of some kind on his part which 
 made him refer to these pages) we know nothing. To deny 
 such things would be to deny what is most evident in favour 
 of what is not at all so — some speculative hypothesis, or 
 rather an accumulation of hypotheses on hypotheses. The 
 truth that we every now and then act in a new way 
 because we have acquired some fresh knowledge, is one 
 of those primary truths which are self-evident.* 
 
 Having thu s clearly seen that the intellect can act 
 .i I as a cause, we have thereby cleared- away one prelkninaty 
 V^ * difhculty which has been supposed to attend a belief in 
 '■y the action of our will — its iuterveatiDn as a free cause_ 
 \\n thaf great system. of physical causation which surrouads 
 Consciotts 'us ou all sides. We have now to deal with the action 
 of the will as one of the highest of our higher conscious 
 mental powers, as distinguished from that merely uncon- 
 scious organic volition we have already f considered — 
 namely, our power of automatically uniting and co- 
 ordinating our pleasurable tendencies into some dominant 
 impulse. Such organic volition leads to the unconscious 
 following of the dominant impulse ; but intellectual volition 
 may either result in the conscious following or refusal 
 to follow such an impulse. The freedom of the will is the 
 JVeedom we have occasionally to do anything, however 
 small, in opposition to our strongest desire or motive. It 
 Is" not, of course, here maintained that we can always thus 
 act. We may sometimes be so paralyzed by emotion 
 
 volition. 
 
 * For some further remarks, see below, eh. xxv. 
 t See above, p. 198. 
 
 'Animal Automatism." 
 
THE WILL. f26g 
 
 L 
 
 or by some physical injury as to be unable to act at all. 
 But consciousness tells us that we can, at least sometimes, 
 make an internal, mental determination as to some act. 
 It is only for this sort of determination that freedom is 
 here asserted ; not for the subsequent act, nor for the 
 feelings and desires which may precede or accompany such 
 act. The reader, if he will reflect, will doubtless be able 
 to recall to mind some occasion when he has made up his 
 mind to act in a certain way which was opposed to what 
 he felt most to like and seemed most to tempt him. In 
 considering this matter, it is necessary to guard against 
 some very common ambiguities of language, and to dis- 
 tinguish clearly between two mental experiences for both 
 of which our consciousness vouches. 
 
 A very little introspection will suffice to show us that Jiuiives. 
 we can clearly distinguish between jj^ motives which act 
 upon us and incline us for or against some course of action, 
 and (2}^the mental act of will by which we determine 1 
 either to perform that action or not to perform it. 
 
 A motive, and the influence which it may exert to 
 urge us to an act of determination (an act of will), is due 
 to some cause over which we have no control. However 
 it may be ours as a feeling, it is not ours in the sense 
 jof originating or springing from us. A volition or deter- 
 'mination, however, is the exercise of a new force entirely 
 distinct from the force of the motive. It is ours in the 
 highest degree, in that it originates and springs from us. 
 With respect to motives, our own mind can tell us two 
 things — it can often make us awar£ _of the actual effects of. 
 motives, but it can always make us aware of their tenden- \ A ^7 
 cies. Even when no act of volition results, we are still ' - 
 conscious of the influence of motives upon us, and can, in 
 many cases at least, compare their relative strengths. We 
 are directly aware of their tendencies and of the ways and 
 degrees in which they incline us to act. But to tend to 
 produce action, and to produce it, are two different things. 
 Our consciousness informs us that certain motives are 
 impelling us to form certain determinations ; it often dis- 
 tinguishes also between the relative force of these several 
 motives, and it proclaims that no one of these motives 
 
 W 
 
"JO Ml ON TRUTH. 
 
 produces or necessitates the determination itself, which it 
 affirms to be one's own act and, as before said, a force 
 distinct from them. The reader is no doubt as able as 
 is the writer, to compare the relative attractions of some 
 competing pleasures, and to be sure that he has resolved 
 to act in opposition to the motive which seemed to promise 
 the fullest gratification. It is, no doubt, often difficult to 
 compare and weigh the attractiveness of two attractions, 
 but we can sometimes do so very easily. Nothing can be 
 easier, for example, than to compare the comfortableness 
 of two arm-chairs, or the sweetness of two kinds of cham- 
 pagne, and the exercise of a real power of choice in the 
 very smallest matter is sufficient to vindicate the existence 
 of such a power. The question as to its existence, and the 
 question as to its extent, are very different questions. 
 Two verbal Thcrc are two ambigmties of language which often puzzle 
 
 ambiguities. . . , """■; , _ mi t i /- ^ 
 
 persons with respect to the Ireedom oi our will. In the nrst 
 ^ place, " motives " are often spoken of as having been the 
 stronger because they have in certain cases been followed. 
 But of course, if the "strongest motive" is defined as "that 
 which the will follows," it becomes idle to profess to con- 
 sider whether or not the will always follows the strongest 
 motive : it practically becomes an inquiry whether the will 
 lalways follows that which actually drags it along ! Persons \ 
 ■n vho cornmjt this absurdity forget that the strength of motives 
 f^. qan be estimated, not only by their effects, but' also, as we 
 lave seen, by their tendencies and attractiveness as directly 
 )erceived by our own m.inds. Another ambiguity some- 
 "times attends the expressions " wish " andj' prefer." Thus 
 it has been said to be incredible " that any human creature, 
 under any conceivable circumstances, ever acted otherwise 
 than in obedience to that which for the time being was his 
 strongest wish " — the term " strongest " being used in the 
 ambiguous way above pointed out. It has also been 
 affirmed that "we can feel we might have chosen some 
 other course than a course we chose, if we had preferred 
 it ; but not that we could have chosen one course while we 
 preferred the other." Now, if the terms " preference " and 1 
 "wish," JLS here used, really mean "will," or "determina-f 
 tion," then such assertions arc mere truisms, since it isl 
 
 .J^y 
 
THE WILL. 271 
 
 manifest, by the principle of contradiction, that " no one 
 can will what he does not will." But if they do not mean 
 this, they must mean that we cannot determine in oppo- 
 sition to what we feel to be most attractive to us ; and this 
 our consciousness clearly denies. The fundamental dis- 
 tinction which exists between inclinations, desires, wishes, 
 likings, etc., on the one hand, and the act of determining 
 (or making a resolution to act in some definite way) on 
 the other, is a distinction which requires to be carefully 
 borne in mind. Moreover, the distinction is plain, since 
 we may at the same time be acted on by two contradictory 
 inclinations with reference to one and the same act. But I 
 no one can determine at the same time in two contra- 
 dictory ways. We must either determine or remain unde- 
 cided ; and if we determine, we must determine in one 
 way or in another. Yet people often say that they 
 \ " desire " or " wish " to do a thing when what they in 
 reality mean is that they ivill it. They also say every 
 now and then that they " prefer to act in a certain way," 
 I without distinguishing whether they thereby mean that it 
 lis more agreeable to their feelings or that they elect so 
 Ito act, and have therefore made a preliminary act of will 
 Ito perform it. 
 I When under the influence of contrary motives, we have what con- 
 
 sciousness 
 
 I certamly, as a rule, no consciousness 01 bemg forced to does and 
 \act one way or another. When inclined to perform soxno. declare as 
 action — for example, to give sixpence to a beggar or to/rec-wiu. 
 eat a cutlet — we feel we can either do it or let it alone, 
 though, of course, we may every now and then be over- 
 powered by some violent desire or aversion. We know, 
 in most cases, that we are not, in our volitions, compelled 
 by some mysterious constraint to obey some particular 
 motive. Nevertheless, the will cannot act without any 
 motive. And if we could suppose that in any given case i 
 there was but a single motive acting, then we should be 1 
 sure to follow that motive. If a motive led us to get out ' 
 of bed, and no motive of any kind — no bodily or mental 
 feeling, and no caprice even — induced us to lie still, we 
 should certainly arise. As there is some goodness in 
 everything which exists, we always, when we act con- 
 
2 72 . ON TRUTH. 
 
 sciously or unconsciously, seek some " good," though it 
 may be one of a very inferior order, as before remarked.* 
 
 As to the declarations of consciousness with respect to 
 volition, it may in one way be truly said that we cannot 
 iV be conscious of freedom as of something positive, because 
 
 "freedom" means "the absence of necessity or compul- 
 sion," and is therefore a negation or nothingness, and we 
 cannot, of course, be conscious of nothing or of a mere 
 absence. But, nevertheless, we may be conscious we are 
 not compelled. Similarly, as to our being conscious of 
 having a power to determine or not to determine, it may 
 be said that we cannot be conscious of such a thing, 
 because there is no such thing as dormant or inactive 
 power, activity being the very essence of power, so that 
 it ceases to exist as soon as it ceases to act. Waiving this 
 question, which is one suitable only for the section on 
 science, the objection tells in no way against that con- 
 sciousness of our freedom which is here affirmed, namely, 
 our consciousness that we have no perception of being 
 compelled, in all our volitions, to determine in one way or j 
 another. It may, however, be further urged that we cannot 
 be conscious, when two courses of action are proposed, that 
 we are able to choose which we will, since it is obvious we 
 can only be conscious of what actually exists, and not of 
 that which is as yet future, or what " might " be. 
 
 Nevertheless, these objections do not in the least show 
 that consciousness, properly analyzed, does not inform us 
 of our freedom. 
 
 For no one will deny that our consciousness can inform 
 us that we are being dragged along, or otherwise com- 
 pelled to go in some definite direction, if we are so dragged 
 and compelled. Therefore consciousness must be able to 
 inform us when we are not being dragged along or other- 
 wise compelled. Now, let us suppose that a man is con- 
 scious of determining to take a walk. In the first place, 
 he is conscious that it is he himself who determines ; and, 
 secondly, that he has no feeling of being forced or com- 
 pelled in so determining. But to make a man's act of 
 determination a free act, what more is necessary than to 
 
 * See above, p. 260, 
 
THE WILL. 
 
 I know that the act is emphatically his act, and that he was 
 / exempt from compulsion in making it ? Again, though it 
 is better not to afifirm that we are conscious of having the 
 power to choose which we will of two alternatives, yet our 
 consciousness may tell us that, when we have determined 
 upon anything, such act of determination is ours, and that 
 before determining on it we stood in the same relation to 
 two alternatives, e.^. to walk out or to stop at home. It tells 
 us, further, that we have chosen one alternative, and, at 
 the very same time, w^e may be conscious of a conviction 
 that w^e might have chosen the other ; just as, when we 
 have drawn one of two balls out of a bag, w^e know by 
 experience that we have drawn one, and have a conviction, 
 founded on our experience, that w^e might have drawn the 
 other. In one word, I am perfectly sure that, when I will 
 , anything, I am conscious that I myself perform the act, 
 j and I am qviite unconscious of any necessity compelling 
 1 me to perform it. This certainty of consciousness enables / 
 us to deny point-blank the assertion that consciousnessf 
 does not inform us that the acts of our will are free. ButAnoSjec- 
 yet another objection may here be made. It may ber""" 
 urged that our consciousness of freedom does~~not"~prdve \ ',; 
 ^^anythmg, because, if the will were not free, we might, none ] 
 the less, have precisely the same consciousness as we have.7 
 It has been urged by Bayle that in the same way as oui[ 
 consciousness of existence^does not inform us whether we' 
 exist of ourselves or whether we are indebted for our 
 existence to another, so our consciousness of our acts of 
 will cannot inform us whether we have produced them our- 
 \ selves or whether we receive them from the same cause 
 j which gave us our existence. He has compared man to 
 \ a conscious weathercock, impressed, at one and the same 
 time, both with a movement to the east and also an internal 
 inclination to turn to the east. Evidently such a weather- 
 cock might be under the delusion that it turned itself to 
 the east in accordance with its own inclination to go that 
 way. Now, in the first case, the assertion that the con- 
 sciousness w^e have of our existence does not inform us 
 whether we exist of ourselves, may be questioned ; and, 
 secondly, it may be objected to the illustration that the 
 
 T 
 
2 74/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 hypothesis of the mind (like the supposed weathercock) 
 being simultaneously impressed — in a sort of miraculous 
 manner — with a similar desire and compulsion, is a purely 
 e^ratuitous hypothesis. But the case is not even fairly 
 stated. For granting that our consciousness of our exist- 
 ence tells us nothing of how we began to exist or where 
 we came from, our consciousness of willing does tell us 
 ,' when it began and whence it proceeded. It cannot_be 
 _said with any truth, then, that -w^. are., conscious" of will- 
 ing in the same way as we are conscious of existing. 
 PThe true statement of what consciousness tells us when 
 i we will anything, is not that we are in a state of willing, 
 i but that we are in the act of willing. Indeed, our con- 
 sciousness tells us that no other act we perform — whether 
 of imagining, believing, thinking, or anything else — is 
 even nearly so much our own act as is our act of willing. 
 But besides all this, Bayle's weathercock actually points 
 against the truth of what lie has urged. He supposed 
 lE~t6 be at the same time both in the act of willing to 
 turn to the east, and also actually blown in the very 
 same direction. This is parallel with the coexistence of 
 a desire on the part of the reader to go to Edinburgh, 
 together with his being at the same time seized, carried, 
 to the railway station, and sent to Edinburgh by force. 
 In that case his volition and the direction of his journey' 
 would coincide ; but, nevertheless, his common sense would' 
 tell him plainly enough that this coincidence was due to 
 his having both desired to go to Edinburgh, and to his 
 having also been forcibly sent there. What would be true 
 in his case must — accepting, for argument's sake, Bayle's 
 illustration — be true also of the weathercock ; and so it 
 would know, clearly enough, that it both wished to turn 
 to the east, and was also carried there, " willy-nilly," by 
 the wind. ~ 
 
 Free-iuiii Although, then, the great majority of our actions are 
 
 "'morality, either acts of merely organic volition or conscious acts 
 of will performed without deliberation, our consciousness 
 plainly tells us that we have, at^the least occasionally, a 
 .power of voluntarily fixing our attention, and that we can, 
 I and more or less often do, make a distinct act of will in 
 
THE WILL. 275 
 
 / opposition to a dominant impulse — an action the direction 
 of which is due to our own absolute and positive origina- 
 tion. This is free-will, and its existence within us is~l 
 vouched for by other facts besides the direct facts of con- [ 
 sciousness. For, as we have seen in the last chapter, we \ 
 have a distinct perception of right and wrong — of the merit J 
 and demerit of actions — as of something essentially different / 
 from either pleasure or utility. This perception is one off 
 the ultimate and primary facts of our intellectual nature. 
 But if there is no such thing as free-will, then all idea of 
 merit or demerit is a dream and a delusion. Our reason^ 
 abundantly assures us that the common sense of mankind 
 is right in affirming that no moral blame can possibly be 
 attached to even the most injurious actions, if they are 
 performed by persons who have no power of choice, but 
 are compelled to perform them. We may shoot a criminal 
 lunatic when, owing to the circumstances of the case, we 
 have no other means of saving our lives ; but, though we 
 kill him, we are so far from thinking him morally culpable, 
 that we may feel sincere sympathy and pity for him. No 
 moral character can possibly attach to actions which are 
 not free, and if no such actions existed, then there could 
 be no such thing as either virtue or demerit in mankind. 
 The declarations of our own conscience, however, plainly 
 inform us that there are such things as culpability and acts 
 deserving moral approbation ; and the voice of this internal 
 monitor is, as we shall see in the next chapter, supported 
 and reinforced by the general judgment of mankind as 
 evidenced by human language. The action of will causing / 
 various good or bad actions to be frequently repeated, 
 occasions the development of good or bad habits, since, as 
 we have seen,* our powers and energies are increased by 
 I exercise. To a certain extent, there is an analogy between 
 our habits of life and the instinctive actions of animals, 
 and thus we may be said ourselves to make, or at least to 
 develop, some of our own moral instincts. 
 
 * See above, pp. 174, 175. 
 
276 ON TRUTH, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MANKIND. 
 All men have essentially the same intellectual nature. 
 
 Anthropology a transitiotial study ^ partly subjective, partly objec- 
 tive — Bodily uttity — A ntiquity of man — A rt — Latiguage — Count- 
 ing — Truth and beauty — Ethics — Religion — Unity of man's 
 nature — Degradation — Human creations — Infancy. 
 
 Anthro- Hitherto we have been almost exclusively occupied with 
 transitional thc study clthcr of our minds directly, or of ourselves as 
 ^^arti'ysub- iudividuals, possessed of powers and faculties the nature 
 ^pariifob- of which we have examined by introspection. In the next 
 jective. section we shall enter upon a brief survey of the world 
 around us, for the comprehension of which we have mainly. 
 to rely upon testimony and common sense. 
 1 The present chapter, devoted to the study of mankind, 
 I or anthropology, forms a transition from the investigation 
 (of matters mainly subjective, to objective studies. For, in 
 the study of mankind, we are still occupied with ourselves 
 in so far as we are investigating that human nature in 
 which we participate, while at the same time we enter upon 
 matters which can only become known to us by external 
 observation, reasoning, and testimony. In the latter aspect j 
 man forms for us a part of that external world which on I 
 every side surrounds us ; in the former, we have still con- 1 
 stantly to refer back to the phenomena revealed to us by| 
 introspection. * 
 
 Mankind at the present moment consists of a great 
 diversity of tribes and races, aggregated partly into larger 
 natural groups, and partly into political aggregations — 
 
MANKIND. 277 
 
 states or nations. Each tribe, each race and group of 
 races, each state or nation, has, of course, its separate 
 history and its greater or less antiquity, its customs, senti- , 
 ments, ideas, and language. But the questions which con- ! 
 cern us here are questions which regard human beings as 1 
 one whole. Our object in the present chapter is to ascertain 
 what, in these respects, can be affirmed with the greatest 
 certainty of mankind generally , and it is only with this 
 end in view that attention will be directed to particular 
 facts respecting this or that people at the present time or 
 at antecedent periods. 
 
 / All men agree in possessing a nearly identical bodily Boduy 
 \ structure ; that is to say, the differences in this respect 
 which exist between different races are so small that 
 naturalists generally regard mankind as consisting of a 
 single species only ; although a few men of science prefer 
 to consider men as constituting a genus made up of a few 
 species. The divergences which are found are slight 
 differences in average size ; in relative length of limb ; in 
 shape of head and prominence of jaws ; in the colour of the 
 skin ; in the form and distribution of the hair ; injiip shape I 
 
 of certain bones, notably those of the pelvis, shin, and 
 jieel ; in the development of the nose, and in the form of 
 the eyes ; and in the relative size of the brain, and in the 
 complexity of the foldings on its surface. No races of men 
 exist as to the human nature of which (estimated by their 
 external form) it is possible to entertain a moment's doubt, 
 nor has it been satisfactorily demonstrated that the off- 
 spring of cross-breeds between the more varied races tend 
 to become sterile hiter se. As to the past history of our 
 kind, we have been as yet unable to find remains which are 
 probably human, yet so widely different from those of 
 existing man as to occupy a place midway between him 
 and some other kind of known creature, although, of 
 course, this fact affords us no grounds for affirming that 
 such an intermediate form may not be at any moment 
 discovered. The antiquity of man is certainly great as \ntiqtiity 
 measured by the time of which we have certain historical T "'*"' 
 knowledge. The civilizations of Egypt and China extend i 
 back for more than six thousand years, but they were prob- I 
 
278 ON TRUTH. 
 
 iably preceded by tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of 
 thousands, of years of unrecorded human existence. Never- 
 theless, no naturalist supposes man to have preceded the 
 ages during which the Tertiary strata * were deposited, and 
 those most disposed to credit him with a great antiquity 
 regard him as a product of Miocene times. Some natu- 
 ralists (as, for example, the late Professor Paul Gervais 
 and Mr. George Busk) have deemed the Esquimaux to be 
 survivors of such very ancient races. Everywhere man 
 exists, and, so far as we know, has existed, in a more or less 
 social state, at the least in the form of small tribes or 
 families, sometimes habitually wandering from place to 
 place in search of food. Cannibalism has been a wide-1 
 spread, perhaps once almost universal, custom. No men I 
 are known to exist who are ignorant of the use of fire,f • 
 and ancient remains prove that its knowledge is so old that 
 we are yet unable to affirm the certain past existence of 
 men unacquainted with its use, though such there in all 
 probability once were. All existing men supplement their 
 \ natural bodily powers by the use of tools and weapons, 
 : and this is so universal a characteristic of our kind that 
 it was the discovery of rude flint implements which first 
 V /, clearly proved the antiquity of man to have been so very 
 ' ' I much greater than was previously supposed, and such 
 ■ implements are still the only evidences of man's ancient \ 
 existence over wide tracts of the earth's surface. The 1 
 weapons of very rude savages are commonly ornamented, i 
 and art in a rudimentary form may be said to be universally I 
 diffused. Even the unknown manufacturers of the rude, | 
 unpolished flint implements, made drawings in outline of 
 / various animals. We owe to them the only authentic 
 \ representation of the mammoth, or extinct elephant, 
 \ scratched on one of that animal's bones. The rudest men 
 can distinguish between the natural and the artificial ; they 
 know well enough the difference between the implements 
 
 * As to these and other strata, see below, ch. xx., "The Earth's Crust." 
 + In ilhistration of the ease with which errors arise from hasty observations 
 and inferences, may be cited Wilkes's " Narrative of the United States Ex- 
 ploring Expedition" (1838-42). Therein the natives of one of the islands 
 visited are said to have been ignorant of fire, though, as Mr. Tyler remarks, 
 "curiously enough," particulars are given in the same work which show that 
 in the same island " fire was in reality a/a»ii7iar thing.''^ 
 
MANKIND. 279 
 
 they make and objects made by nature independently of 
 them. 
 AIL -tribes of mankind, without exception, possess the Language. 
 
 faculty of rational speech. " Although," says Sir John 
 LubSoclc^* "it has been at various times noted that certain 
 savages are entirely without language, none of these ac- 
 counts appear to be well authenticated." The recklessness 
 with which assertions are made to the detriment of savage 
 tribes is so great, that no account ought to be received 
 without a knowledge of the bias of the relater, and a care- 
 ful criticism of his statements. Mr. Tylor makes some 
 excellent remarks on this subject. A Mr. Mercer having 
 said of the Veddah tribes of Ceylon that their communica- \ 
 tions have little resemblance to distinct sounds or syste- / 
 matized language, Mr. Tylor observes,! " Mr. Mercer seems | 
 to have adopted the common view of foreigners about the! 
 Veddahs ; but it has happened here, as in many other ac-| 
 counts of savage tribes, that closer acquaintance has shown? 
 them to have been wrongly accused. Mr. Bailey, who has' 
 had good opportunities of studying them, . . . contradicts 
 their supposed deficiency in language with the remark, ' I 
 never knew one of them at a loss for words sufficiently 
 intelligible to convey his meaning, not to his fellows only, 
 but to the Singhalese of the neighbourhood, who are all 
 more or less acquainted with the Veddah patois.' " As to 
 another well-known traveller he remarks,| *' It is extremely 
 likely that Madame Pfeiffer's savages suffered the penalty 
 of being set down as wanting in language, for no worse 
 fault than using a combination of words and signs in order 
 to make what they meant as clear as possible to her com- 
 prehension." He adds also the following very important \ 
 words, " As the gesture-language is substantially the same \ ^ 
 among savage tribes all over. thMg^^vorld, and also among /' 
 children who cannot speak, so the picture-writings of 'r^- 
 Ravage s are not only similar to one another, but are like 
 what children make untaught, even in civilized countries. 
 Like the universal language of gestures, the art of picti 
 writing tends to prove that the mind of the uncul 
 
 * See his " Origin of Civilization," p. 275. 
 
 t See his " Researches into the Early History of Mankind," p. 78. 
 
 + Loc. cit., pp. 79, 80. 
 
 mtries. \ 
 icture- I 
 iltured \. 
 
2 8o ON TRUTH. 
 
 man works in much the same way at all times and every- 
 
 / where, . . . Man is essentially, what the derivation of his 
 
 i name amon^ our Aryan race imports, not ' the speaker,' 
 
 \ but he who thinks, he who means T That is to say, the 
 
 substantial agreement amongst men lies in the common 
 
 possession of that internal, rational, mental word,* of which 
 
 the mere spoken word is the external manifestation. All 
 
 men have rational language ; that is to say, they can express, 
 
 by sounds or gestures, universal, objective, highly abstract j 
 
 ideas, in addition to the sounds or gestures by which they 
 
 give expression to their feelings and emotions. Indeed, 
 
 no tribe exists which cannot count two, say " I," "woman," 
 
 I "dead," "food," etc. In other words, there is no tribe 
 
 Iwhich does not express general conceptions and abstract 
 
 [ideas by articulate sounds.-^ 
 
 ^ ,. A great deal has sometimes been made of the alleged 
 
 Counting. o ° 
 
 inability of some savages to count more than five, or even 
 three ; but here again we have to thank Mr. Tylor for some 
 apposite observations.! He says, " Of course it no more 
 follows, among savages than among ourselves, that because 
 a man counts on his fingers his language must be wanting 
 in words to express the number he wishes to reckon. For 
 example, it was noticed that when ^atives of Kamskatka 
 were set to count, they would reckon all their fingers, and 
 then all their toes, getting up to twenty, and then would 
 ask, ' What are we to do next } ' Yet it was found on 
 examination that numbers up to a hundred existed in their 
 language." But no one even pretends that there are 
 i savages who cannot count two or three, and we have 
 \ already seen :|: what intellectual perceptions and powers are 
 ' involved in the doing of even that. 
 Tfuthaiid That many savages are frequent or habitual liars is an \ 
 
 "*"^' assertion which has been often made by travellers, while ■ 
 individuals or exceptional tribes have sometimes been ' 
 praised for truthfulness. There can be no question, how- 
 ever, but that all men understand what stratagems, deceits, 
 and lying are, and this they cannot have without possessing 
 a comprehension of " truth." Similarly the idea of beauty ; 
 is one common to mankind, although there is great \ 
 
 * See above, p. 235. t See his "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 322. 
 
 J See above, p. 241. 
 
MANKIND. 281 
 
 divergence of opinion as to what is beautiful. Greek art 
 seems to have supplied us with eternal juadels- of. human 
 beaut}- ; but they are not types of beauty to the Mongol or 
 tlTe '"Hottentot, who would also be displeased by the lip- 
 distortion of the Botocudos, or the head-flattening of other 
 tribes. Indeed, as we lately observed, it is a well-known 
 proverb that tastes are not matters to dispute about. 
 Nevertheless, men not only feel the charm of beauty, 
 but have that abstract, idea, as is shown by the elaborate, 
 however grotesque, adornments with which the lowest 
 savages decorate themselves, the adoption of ornaments 
 oPsome kind being far more universal than the adoption 
 of clothes. They are, then, not only attracted by what 
 charms their senses, but practically recognize the fact 
 and know the qualities which charm them. The diver- 
 sities of taste of different ages and different climes 
 in no way conflicts, then, with the assertion that an idea 
 of "beauty," as well as an idea of "truth," is an attri- 
 bute of humanity. Nevertheless, the action upon us of 
 QU£__aurroundings, the association of ideas, the popular 
 feeling about us, and the probably inherited taste of our 
 family, tribe, or nation, give rise to likes and dislikes, and 
 may blind us to many beauties, but never to all beauties. 
 They may modify, but can never destroy our apprehension 
 of the beautiful. Thus may be explained the horror often j 
 felt at the sight of certain objects, such as serpents, and ' 
 the various strange fashions and deformities of different 
 „wild tribes ; as also the liking for deformed feet amongst 
 I the Chinese, and for certain bodily distortions fashionable 
 Vamongst ourselves. Such things are the effects of custom, 
 land are welcome and agreeable, through a possibly un- 
 conscious association of ideas ; as the sight of a tall hat 
 and correctly cut coat may be agreeable to certain persons 
 as harmonizing with their expectations and their sense of 
 fitness, though they would not assert that it is their per- 
 ception of ideal beauty in such things which pleases them. 
 Thus the attractiveness of objects, or our liking for them 
 under certain circumstances, is to be clearly distinguished, 
 as before pointed out,* from an intellectual apprehension 
 * See above, p. 255. 
 
282,^/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Ethics. 
 
 v.. 
 
 y 
 
 M 
 
 of objective beauty, although the presence of that idea in 
 mankind generally is evidenced by their love of ornamenta- 
 tion, and by their adornment of themselves and of the 
 objects they live amongst and make use of The faculty 
 of apprehending beauty is one which, as a rule, may be 
 greatly increased by culture. Education produces more 
 and more agreement as to such perceptions. This we can 
 plainly see as regards poetry, architecture, painting, sculp- 
 ture, and it is especially manifest in the study of nature, 
 which gradually reveals to us new fields of beauty that 
 ignorance had previously hidden from our gaze. 
 
 As it is certain that sections of mankind differ in 
 matters of taste, so also it is notorious that men differ as 
 to their estimate of the moral character of certain actions. 
 Does or does not this show that there may be tribes of men 
 so low as to be devoid of all moral perceptions ? The 
 existence of kindly social customs cannot be taken as 
 necessarily proving the existence of moral apprehensions 
 in the absence of some intimation by word or gesture of 
 a judgment of the kind. Certainly no preference of the f 
 interests of the tribe over self, or anger at the absence of 
 such preference, is moral, unless there is a judgment that 
 such preference is right. Similarly, no amount of gross or 
 atrocious habits in any given tribe can be taken to prove 
 its entire absence. The prevalence in any tribe of practices 
 which shock us, will never suffice to prove the absence of 
 moral perception in such tribe. Men are not necessarily 
 devoid of morality because they draw their ethical lines in 
 different places from what we do. The most horrible 
 actions, such, e.g., as the deliberate slaying of aged parents, 
 may really be the result of true moral judgments under 
 peculiar conditions. It is said to be done by some savages 
 in obedience to the wish of their fathers and mothers, who 
 think thereby to escape further suffering in life, and to 
 secure prolonged happiness after death. Their parricidal 
 ildren draw correct inferences from Irue'-pfiticiples, but 
 re_^jTiista]vcn as to.iacJts*^ Men do not always a^ree 
 ^about _the,.. application --of jnoral principles ; what--.4liejL^ 
 fagree about is the principles Uiemse.lyeSu-,.Tiusying may 
 have been here and there encouraged and advocated, yet 
 
MANKIND. p83 
 
 V 
 
 dishonesty is nowhere erected into a principle, but is 
 reprobated in the very maxim " honour amongst thieves." 
 Frightful cruelty towards prisoners was practised by the 
 North American Indians, but it was io\v3.rds prisoners, and 
 cruelty was never inculcated as an ideal to be always 
 aimed at, so that remorse of conscience should be felt by 
 any man who happened to have let slip a possible oppor- p^ 
 
 tunity of inflicting torture. Men have often thought it i '■■ 
 "right" t o do unjust .^things, but have never thought \ 
 actions "right" because they were "unjust," or "wrong" 1 
 ^dccanse they were "just." One of the clearest ethical | 
 "judgments is that as to "justice" and "injustice;" and \ 
 by common consent the native Australians are admitted 
 to be at about the lowest level of existing social develop- 
 \ ment, whilst the Esquimaux are, as has been said, deemed 
 \ by some men of science to be surviving representatives 
 • of about the oldest known races of mankind. Now, 
 \ concerning the Australians, Sir John Lubbock tells us * 
 I they consider "crimes- may be compounded for by the 
 \ criminal appearing and submitting himself to the ordeal 
 i of having spears thrown at him by all such persons as 
 \ conceive themselves to have been aggrieved, or by per- 
 I mitting spears to be thrust through certain parts of his 
 • body, such as through the thigh, or the calf of the leg, or 
 under the arm. The part which is to be pierced by a spear 
 is fixed for all common crimes, and a native who has 
 incurred this penalty sometimes quietly holds out his leg 
 for the injured party to thrust his spear through! So| 
 strictly is the amount of punishment limited, that if, in \ 
 inflicting such spear-wounds, a man, either through care- •■ 
 lessness or from any other cause, exceeded the recognized 
 limits — if, for instance, he wounded the fernoral artery — 
 he would in turn become liable to punishment." A yet 
 stronger example of savage moral perception is also 
 furnished us by the Greenlanders. Should a seal escape 
 in Greenland with a hunter's javelin in it, and be killed by 
 another Greenlander afterwards, it belongs to the former. 
 But if, after the seal is struck with a harpoon and bladder, '. 
 the string breaks, the hunter loses his right. If a man 1 
 
 * See his "Origin of Civilization," p. 31S. 
 
284 ON TRUTH. 
 
 finds a seal dead with a harpoon in it, he keeps the seal / 
 but returns the harpoon. Any man who finds a piece of/ 
 driftwood can appropriate it by placing a stone on it, asj 
 a sign that some one has taken possession of it. No other! 
 Greenlander will then touch it. 
 
 The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego are, if possible, 
 Imore wretched savages than the Australians. Yet it is 
 very interesting to note that, even with regard to these, 
 I Mr. Darwin informs us that when a certain Mr. Bynoe 
 mp' shot some very young ducklings as specimens, a Fuegian 
 ^/ ^^cl^^'^<^ i" the most solemn manner, " Oh, Mr. Bynoe ! 
 ■ much rain, snow, blow much ! " And as to this declaration, 
 Mr. Darwin tells us that the anticipated bad weather " was 
 evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human 
 food," i.e. for a transgression of the rudimentary moral 
 code recognized by the Fuegians. That the language of 
 savage tribes is capable of expressing moral conceptions, . 
 will probably be contested by no one. Similarly, no one i 
 will deny that when a savage emphatically calls " bad," 
 an act of treachery done to himself by one to whom 
 he has been kind, his mind recognizes, at least in a rudi- ; 
 mentary way, an element of " ingratitude " in such an 
 action. But, in fact, the identity of intellectual nature 
 which we have already recognized as existing in men, 
 since they have all the power of language, establishes 
 a very strong a priori probability in favour of a similar 
 universality as to the power of apprehending good and 
 evil. The evidence a posteriori to the same end is also 
 abundant in the eyes of the most unprejudiced witnesses., 
 * Thus Mr. Tylor observes, " Glancing down the moral '; 
 
 ^f^.. scale amongst mankind at large, we find j^^tribe standing ; 
 at or near zero. The asserted existence of savages so \ 
 low as to have no moral standard is too groundless to be ' 
 discussed.'" 
 
 It would be a great mistake to suppose that very bar- 
 ' barous people cannot be moral. Instances are easily to be 
 ; found of the coexistence of moral excellence, accompanied 
 1 by the rudest conditions of life with respect to the mere 
 ' appliances of physical well-being. Mr. Tylor tells us* that 
 
 * See his " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 45. 
 
MANKIND. 285 
 
 the wild Veddahs of Ceylon, though extremely barbarous 
 as to their dwellings, clothing, etc., " are most truthful and 
 honest," and "their moriiigainy and conjugal fidelity con- 
 trast strongly with the opposite habits ofthe more civilized 
 Singhalese." Sir John Lubbock quotes the subjoined 
 particulars respecting the social state of the Esquimaux : * 
 " Captain Parry gives us the following pictures of an 
 Esquimaux hut : ' In the few opportunities we had of 
 putting their hospitality to the test, we had every reason 
 to be pleased with them. Both as to food and accommo- 
 dation, the best they had was always at our service ; and 
 their attention, both in kind and degree, was everything 
 that hospitality and even good breeding could dictate. . . . 
 I can safely afhrm that, while thus lodged beneath their 
 roof, I know no people whom I would more confidently 
 trust, as respects either my person or my property, than 
 the Esquimaux.' Dr. Rae, who had ample means of judg- 
 ing, tells us, ' The more I saw ofthe Esquimaux, the higher 
 ; was the opinion I formed of them.'" That, on the other 
 hand, many tribes and races are bloodthirsty, cruel, and 
 I ; vindictive, or given over to gross licentiousness, is no doubt 
 ? I true ; but such facts tell no more against their power of 
 ? I perceiving and distinguishing right from wrong than does 
 i ' the wrong conduct of many a civilized man amongst 
 •: ourselves. 
 
 Mr, Tylor, speaking of the various social conditions in 
 which men have existed, has said,t " Their various grades 
 of culture had each, according to its lights, its standard of 
 right and wrong, and they are to be judged on the criterion 
 whether they did well or ill according to that standard." 
 Although there may be tribes of savages, as there are too 
 many Europeans, who seem devoid of moral feelings or 
 ideas, yet, so far as we have been able to ascertain, no 
 evidence whatever has yet been obtained either of the 
 existence of races of men really without any moral per- 
 ceptions, or of tribes possessing an inverted code of ethical 
 principles. A power of occasionally distinguishing an 
 element of right and wrong in actions, is a power possessed 
 
 * "The Origin of Civilization," p. 343. 
 
 t In the Contemporary Kevietv for June, 1878, p. 72. 
 
 ^' 
 
 J 
 
286 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 by all human beings who are not out of their minds, and 
 even by very many of those who are in that sad condition. 
 
 Closely akin to this subject are those acts of respect 
 whereby men express their reverence for certain of their 
 fellows. Sometimes men prostrate themselves, or strike 
 the ground with their heads, or, having touched the ground 
 with their hand, they then touch their own heads with it. 
 Sometimes, also, more or less clothing may be removed, as 
 from the feet on entering a mosque, or from the head as 
 in the ordinary salute of Europeans. No doubt these 
 actions often denote a feeling of more or less apprehension, 
 but they may be the expression of the intellectual judg- 
 ment — " that man deserves reverence from me." We know i 
 this by our own minds, and therefore it is but reasonable \ 
 to suppose that when other men perform the same action, ; 
 they may often express thereby that which we ourselves \ 
 intend to express, and which is one form of giving expres- ' 
 sion to a judgment of moral approbation. 
 
 Man seems everywhere and at all times, so far as our 
 means of observation and valid inference extend, to have 
 rrferTaihed ideas of religion. That is to say, man has 
 ad the notion that some kind of personal relations existed, 
 or could exist, between himself and some invisible being 
 or beings, malevolent or benevolent, possessing super- 
 natural powers, and either essentially similar to him in 
 iiature, or at least with powers bearing a more or less 
 distant analogy to human intelligence and will. Rel 
 may be thus defined as "a_sociolpgy of in.telligejic£a 
 — embracing the relations which should exist both 
 amongst men, and also between men and all non-human 
 intelligences. 
 
 The universal tendency of even the most degraded 
 tribes to practices which clearly show their belief in pre- 
 ternatural agencies, is too notorious to admit of serious 
 discussion ; while the widespread, and probably all but; 
 universal, practice of some kind of funeral ceremony 
 speaks plainly of as widespread a notion that the dead in 
 some sense yet live. 
 
 Mt\lj^r^ has on this subject observed,* " The savage | 
 
 * " Primitive Culture,"' vol. ii. p. i8. 
 
MANKIND. 287 
 
 who declares that the dead liv^e no more, may merely mean / 
 to say that they are dead. When the East African is ' 
 asked what becomes of his buried ancestors, the ' old 
 people,' he can reply that * they are ended,' yet at the 
 same time he fully admits that their ghosts survive. These 
 ghosts, however, were often associated with dreams which \ 
 seem to have been not unfrequently imperfectly dis- 
 tinguished from waking perceptions." Concerning the ex- 
 istence of savages without any form of religion, he further 
 •. says,* " The case is in some degree similar to that of the 
 1 tribes asserted to exist without language or without the 
 I use of fire. . . . As a matter of fact, the tribes are not 
 I found." 
 
 It is not, of course, meant to affirm that all savage men, ] 
 any more than all civilized men, believe in a future life, or | 
 in one or many gods ; what is here affirmed is the fact that \ 
 the reality or possibility of some quasi-social relations 
 between men and invisible intelligences, is so widespread 
 as to be a common attribute of mankind, while every now 
 "atrd^ th eff ' id eaFoF'f el i g i o n of a more developed kind than \ 
 might have been expected, come under our observation. / 
 In a prayer used by the Khon ds of Orissa we find the 
 following words : " We are ignorant of what it is good to 
 ask for. You know what is good for us ; give it us." 
 Some form of religious worship has been almost universal, 
 and, as every one knows, very generally idols have been 
 worshipped, sometimes with grossly licentious rites, and 
 sometimes with human sacrifices, followed, as in Mexico, 
 by a solemn act of religious cannibalism. Not unfrequently 
 children were sacrificed as a propitiatory offering of what 
 was nearest and dearest. The fact that sacrifice was very , 
 generally connected with, if not evolved by, a wish to feed 
 the ghosts of the departed, is unquestionable ; but the idea 
 may have originally been, and it certainly subsequently 
 became, a mixed one. If food in the earliest days of man's 
 existence was the thing to sacrifice which, constituted 
 the greatest self-denial easily practised, its sacrifice might 
 have been partly due to this higher conception. As 
 Mr. Tylor justly says,t " We do not find it easy to 
 
 * " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 378. f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 360. 
 
288 ON TRUTH. 
 
 analyze the impression which a gift makes on our own 
 
 feelings, or to separate the actual value of the object from 
 
 the sense of gratification in the giver's goodwill, and thus 
 
 we may well scruple to define closely how uncultured men 
 
 work out this very same distinction in their dealings with 
 
 their deities." In a Zujuprayer we find the expression, 
 
 y \ " If you ask food of me which you have given me, is it not 
 
 i iiroper that I should give it to you ? " Here the later and 
 
 I flill idea of sacrifice seems to exist in germ. That the 
 
 Australians can be made to understand our religious ideas 
 
 has been abundantly demonstrated by Bishop Salvado,* 
 
 who has long had under his care a flourishing community 
 
 of reclaimed savages at his Benedictine Abbey, near Perth, 
 
 in Western Australian 
 
 Unity of From the foregoing observations it seems clear that all 
 
 "nauire. mcu posscss au intellectual and bodily nature, which is , 
 
 essentially one, however it may vary in minor details. We 
 
 are very apt to be misled in this respect by small matters 
 
 1 which affect the imagination, but which the judgment, on 
 
 I reflection, must own to be trivial. Even in our intercourse 
 
 • with our own fellow-countrymen, we are sometimes tempted 
 
 I to despise an intellect which manifests itself by uncouth 
 
 Q I gestures and coarse speech, wherein the rules of grammar 
 ^i-and correct pronunciation are violated ; and.yetjhayntel- 
 i'lect may be quite a^^ood as our own. I have been myself 
 more than once surprised, when talking with peasants, to 
 find how correct was their appreciation even of questions 
 of philosophy, when once I had got over the difficulties 
 arising simply from our difierent modes of expressing 
 essentially similar ideas. 
 
 Here again we may profitably refer to Mr. Tylor, who 
 writes as follows : f " The languages of the world repre- 
 sent substantially the same intellectual art, the higher 
 nations, indeed, gaining more expressive power than the 
 lowest tribes, yet doing this, not by introducing new and 
 more effective central principles, but by mere addition 
 and improvement in detail." Speaking of the natives of 
 
 * See " Memoires Historiques sur I'Australie," par Mgr. Rudesimo 
 Salvado. 1854. 
 
 t "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 216. 
 
MANKIND. 
 
 289 
 
 Fernando Po, he tells us,* " There are hundreds at about 
 as high an intellectual level as those of Europe," and he 
 cites examples. " Man's craving to know the causes at 
 work in each event he witnesses, the reasons why each state 
 of things he surveys is such as it is and no other, is no 
 product of high civilization, but a characteristic of his race 
 down to its lowest stage. Among rude savages it is still 
 an intellectual appetite whose satisfaction claims many of 
 \ the moments not engrossed by war, sport, food, or sleep." f 
 What can more plainly indicate the presence of true 
 intellect than the apprehension of those very abstract 
 ideas, " the ivliat, the hoiv, and the wJiy " f The investi- 
 gation of such questions constitutes, as we shall see, the 
 highest form of science. Mr. Darwin tells us % about the 
 Fuegians, who rank amongst the lowest barbarians : " I 
 was continually struck with surprise how closely the three 
 natives on board Yi.yiS. jBmgl£, who had lived some years 
 in England and could talk a little English, resembled us 
 in disposition and in most of our mental qualities. The 
 American aborigines, negroes and Europeans, differ as 
 much from each other in mind as any three races that 
 can be named ; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living 
 with the Fuegians § on board the Beagle, with the many 
 little traits of character, showing how similar their minds 
 were to ours ; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with 
 whom I happened once to be intimate." The before- 
 mentioned Bishop Salvado has experimentally demonstrated 
 that, by careful and persevering treatment, the Australians i 
 can be made to understand some of our highest abstract \ 
 ideas. Nevertheless, just as brain disease or deformity ' 
 may be a bar to all intellectual manifestations, so it is 
 conceivable that very unfavourable conditions may render 
 some families of men incapable of exhibiting their essen- 
 tially intellectual nature. Still none such have yet been 
 discovered, and the world is now pretty well known. 
 
 * " Primitive Culture, " vol. i. p. 80. -f Ibid., p. 332. 
 
 J " Voyage of the Beagle," vol. i. pp. 34, 232. < 
 
 § In the " Life and Letters of C. Darwin," vol. iii. pp. 127, 128, it is stated 
 that the Fuegians showed intellectual capacities for which Mr. Darwin was 
 quite unprepared. He is also quoted as saying, with respect to some 
 missionary efforts, "The progress of the Fuegians is wonderful, and had it 
 not occurred would have been to me quite incredible." 
 
 U 
 
290 //,. ON TRUTH. 
 
 Degrada- But Hot Only IS the evidence that men are essentially 
 
 one in intellect overwhelming, but there is also much 
 evidence to show that very many of the lower races of 
 mankind are degraded, and have fallen from some higher 
 antecedent condition. 
 
 Social progress is an exceedingly complex phenomenon, 
 
 the result of many factors. No one will probably contest 
 
 the inferiority, in many respects, of the Greece of our 
 
 day to that which listened to the voices of Plato and 
 
 >y?) Pericles. " Even granting," says Mr. Tylor,* " that intel- 
 
 /V ' ,'lectual, moral, and political life may, on a broad view, 
 
 / J be seen to progress together, it is obvious that they are 
 
 ' far from advancing with equal steps. It may be taken as 
 
 I a man's rule of duty in the world, that he shall strive to 
 
 f know as well as he can find out, and do as well as he 
 
 \ knows how. But the parting asunder of these two great 
 
 principles, that separation of intelligence from virtue which 
 
 accounts for so much of the wrong-doing of mankind, is 
 
 continually seen to happen in the great movements of 
 
 civilization. As one conspicuous instance of what all 
 
 Ka^ history stands to prove, if we study the early ages of 
 
 ^ Christianity, we may see men with minds pervaded by the 
 
 -^- , new religion of duty, holiness, and love, yet at the same 
 
 ^ i time actually falling away in intellectual life, thus at 
 
 I once vigorously grasping one half of civilization and con- 
 
 I temptuously casting off the other." 
 
 This aspect of the question has an important bearing 
 upon our mode of regarding the earliest families of man. 
 It is plain that some moral standard might have existed 
 with a most rudimentary state of art and the scantiest 
 appliances of material civilization. Mr. Tylor also says, 
 " EthiiPgraphers who seek in modern savages types of the 
 remotely ancient human race at large, are bound by such 
 examples to consider the rude life of primaeyal_man under 
 favourable conditions to have been, in its measure, a good 
 and happy life." 
 
 It is difficult for us, surrounded by the abundant aids / 
 afforded by international communication, to realize the J 
 different effects which would probably result from an \ 
 
 * (( 
 
 Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 25. 
 
MANKIND. 291 ■/^• 
 
 absence of such assistance and stimulus. This is also 
 perceived by Mr. Tylo r, who remarks,* "In striking a 
 balance between the effects of forward and backward move- 
 ments in civilization, it must be borne in mind how power- 
 fully the diffusion of culture acts in preserving the results 
 of progress from the attacks of degeneration." Therefore 
 in early periods, when there was little diffusion and no 
 intercommunication between groups which had become 
 isolated, degeneration might very easily have taken place, 
 and these isolated groups may have become the parents 
 of tribes now widely spread. Indeed, it is quite true that 
 " degeneration probably operates even more actively in the 
 lower than in the higher culture. Barbarous nations and 
 savage hordes, with their less knowledge and scantier 
 appliances, would seem peculiarly exposed to degrading 
 influences." 
 
 After giving an instance from West Africa, Mr. Tylor 
 continues, " In South-East Africa, also, a comparatively 
 high barbaric culture, which we especially associate with 
 the old descriptions of the kingdom of Monomotapa, seems 
 to have fallen away, and the remarkable ruins of buildings 
 of hewn stone, fitted without mortar, indicate a former 
 ' civilization above that of the native population." But 
 actual degradation is a fact which is cfirectly attested, 
 and which the ruins of Central America demonstrate, 
 i" Father Charlevire has related how the Iroquois^ having 
 \had Their villages burnt, did not take tTie trouble to 
 restore them to their old condition. . . . ^The^j^ggradatioii 
 of__t]ie -Cheyenne Indians is matter of J iistory. and Lord 
 Milton and Dr. Cheadle came upon an outlying fragment 
 of the Shushway_ r ace, without horses or dogs, sheltering 
 themselves under rude temporary slants of bark or matting, 
 falling year by year into lower misery." 
 
 Thus we may be certain that some savages have been 
 degraded from a higher level, and this establishes an « ^ 
 priori probability that many have been so. Such degra- 
 dation in some regions would not, however, be inconsistent 
 with the existence of a considerable amount- of prjQgress in 
 others. The New Zealanders show evidence of a possible 
 
 * "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 39. 
 
292 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 /. 
 
 V 
 
 degradation through changed conditions, as they doubtless 
 at one time inhabited a more favourable clime. They show ■ 
 this by their use of the well-known Polynesian word " niu " / 
 (cocoa-nut) for different kinds of divination, thus keeping | 
 " up a trace of the time when their ancestors in the tropical | 
 islands had them and divined by them." 
 
 How soon the use even of stone implements may be 
 forgotten was proved by Erman in Kamskatka,* who got 
 there a fluted prism of obsidian j " but though one would 
 have thought that the comparatively recent use of stone 
 instruments in the country would have been still fresh in 
 the memory of the people, the natives who dug it up had 
 no idea what it was." Again, "The Fuegiansj have for 
 centuries used a higher method " of making fires than have | 
 the Patagonians. This looks very much like the survival | 
 of a higher culture as to this practice in the midst of a wide- j 
 spread degeneracy. Such an explanation is strengthened 
 by the following remarks % about the Fuegians : " This act 
 of striking fire, instead of laboriously producing it with the | 
 drill, is not, indeed, the only thing in which the culture of? 
 this race stands above that of their Northern neighbours," \ 
 their canoes also being of a superior quality. Mr. Tylor 
 thinks that the South Australians may have learnt their 
 art of making polished instruments of green jade from 
 " some Malay or Polynesian source," insteaH^oTits having 
 survived the wreck of a higher culture, as the fire-making 
 act of the Fuegians has probably done. But this is a 
 mere possibility, and experience shows us how often such 
 acts are j/££. learnt even when we know for certain that the 
 opportunity of learning them has been offered. Thus our 
 author himself remarks § that the North Americans never 
 learnt the art of metal-work, etc., from the Europeans of 
 the tenth century. That the belief in the persistence after 
 death of the same social conditions as have existed during 
 life may sometimes also be a result of degradation, is 
 shown by the spread of modern " spiritualism," which has 
 widely propagated that belief amongst people whose 
 ancestral creed taught a much more elevated doctrine. 
 
 * " Researches into the Early History of Mankind," p. 207. 
 
 t Ibid., pp. 24s, 246. X Ibid., p. 259. § Ibid., p. 205. 
 
MANKIND. 293 /^f 
 
 A curious proof of degradation of one or another kind I 
 is exemplified by the ceremonial purifications practised by • 
 the^jCafits, Respecting these Mr. Tylor remarks,* " It is | 
 to be noticed that these ceremonial practices have come I 
 to mean something distinct from mere cleanliness. Kafirs 
 who will purify themselves from ceremonial uncleanness 
 by washing, are not in the habit of washing themselves or * 
 their vessels for ordinary purposes, and the dogs and the vT 
 cockroaches divide between them the duty of cleaning out C 
 the milk-baskets." Therefore here one of two things must 
 be conceded. We have either a case of degradation and 
 degeneration from earlier cleanliness, or else there must 
 have been an original spiritual meaning in certain primitive 
 washings, pointing to a higher religious condition than that 
 at present existing amongst those who practise the cere- 
 monies in question. 
 
 Degradation may have its origin either in moral and 
 intellectual changes, or in changes in the material conditions.,,.. 
 of_life. No error can be greater or more fatal than that of \ 
 supposing that philosophical, speculative. vigw^jlQ^nstJ ^ '^ 
 carry with them far-reaching and inevitable practical con-, 
 sequences^ A generation of men, nurtured in the noble -^ 
 traditions which have descended to us from the days of ■ 
 Athenian culture, has tastes and sympathies due to that 
 nurture, which we are too apt to suppose must be permanent 
 acquisitions such as no subsequent intellectual changes 
 :an possibly destroy or degrade. But the history of man- 
 kind teaches us a very different lesson. The \yorld is sown 
 broadcast with the tracesjDf civilizations-whieh liave passed-. 
 away, and bears many a scar due to the triumph of igno- 
 rance and brutality over relative refinement and culture. 
 
 While adverting both to what has thus been lost and ^Hu,„an 
 what has been gained during the various national advances^ 
 which history records, we wish the reader to note howl 
 great has been the creative faculty of man, above all, in 
 the domain of art. In our survey of the lower worlds of 
 life, we shall see that every living organism is, in a sense, 
 a creiaiprj in so far as it builds up its own body, trans- 
 forming surrounding substances into its own substance. 
 
 * " Primitive Culture," vol. ii. p. 393. 
 
 i 
 
 J 
 
294 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 If even the very lowest creatures are thus marvellously 
 endowed, how much more so are such creatures as nest- 
 building insects and birds ? Man, however, has a power 
 of creation out of all proportion to that possessed by any 
 inferior organism. The ideal conceptions of the painter, 
 the sculptor, the musician, and the architect, are universally/ 
 recognized, by those best able to appreciate them, as veri-i > 
 table creations of genius which their most painstakingr' 
 successors may vainly attempt to rival. The great signifi4 
 cance of this remark will become manifest in the fifth! 
 and last section of this work. \ 
 
 We seem, then, if the arguments here stated are valid, 
 to have full assurance that allmen, apart from pathological 
 conditions , have that same essentially intellectual nature 
 which self-consciousness reveals to us as existing in our- 
 selves. It may, however, be objected that all human 
 beings are not rational, because infants are not so ; they 
 at first show less signs of intelligence than most mere 
 animals do when adult, and only slowly grow to manifest 
 the distinctive mental powers of human beings. To this I 
 it may be replied that the true, though temporarily hidden, j 
 nature of any germinating organism — egg or seed — is plainly | 
 shown us if we are able to watch the outcome of its deve-| 
 lopment. Judged by this rule, the infant must be deemed I 
 to possess a nature so far essentially rational that it is sure 
 soon to make that rationality quite plain on the occurrence 
 of constantly recurring and very simple conditions, as 
 is a matter of daily experience. We have already seen * 
 ^at how early an age the human intellect manifests itself — 
 long before the infant is able to speak. We cannot, of 
 fcourse, know by direct knowledge the state of our own 
 minds when we were so young, because no efforts enable 
 us to recall such early experiences. But we know by con- 
 sciousness the meanings of our own gestures now, and we 
 can compare them with those of other adults and of chil- 
 dren of all ages, and the only rational way to judge of the 
 mental nature of the very young is by such observations, 
 and not by vague speculations as to what might have been 
 our condition at a time about which we can know nothing. 
 * See above, p. 227. 
 
 />< 
 
MANKIND. 295 
 
 (Thus judged, mfants must be allowed to be potentially: 
 Lriitional. Children can not only be easily taught, but they 
 soon spontaneously exhibit signs of possessing that intel- 
 lectual nature which is unquestionably the common pro- 
 perty of full-grown men and women. The significance of 
 these preliminary remarks will appear later on, when, 
 having briefly reviewed, in our next section, the world 
 about us, we pass on to the consideration of those pro- 
 blems which it is the task of science to elucidate. In 
 treating of the world, as we now proceed to do, we can, of 
 course, only touch upon points which more or less closely 
 relate to the purpose of the present work, and afford data 
 for determining those questions to which the attention of 
 the reader will be directed in our final section/ 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX. Inorganic Nature ... ... ... ... 299 
 
 XXI. Organic Nature— Plants and Animals .. 315 
 XXII. The Functions of Organisms ... ... 324 
 
 XXIII. The Animal Faculties ... ... ... 342 
 
 XXIV. The External Relations of Organisms ... 367 
 

( 299 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 INORGANIC NATURE. 
 
 Our world is a planet attendant on a star, and is a theatre of physical I 
 activities. It possesses a chemical composition which it shares | 
 with the surrounding universe, while its crust is composed of j 
 materials the arrangement of each part of which is intimately -, 
 related to antecedent material conditions. 
 
 /\^^ 
 
 T/i£ earth as a cosniical body — Physical activities — Chemical substances 
 — Crystals— Air and water — Aqueous action — Ocean currents — 
 The ear til's crust — Fossils. 
 
 \ 
 A CERTAIN general knowledge of the conditions, powers, \ 
 
 and properties of the world about us has now become the 
 
 common property of all moderately educated people, and ; -■ 
 
 it is not our intention to do more here than remind the l^ 
 
 reader of certain facts included in such general know- I 
 
 ledge. So much, however, it seems requisite to do in 
 
 order that there may be the needful data ready to hand 
 
 for reference, when we come to consider certain scientific 
 
 problems which will be spoken of in the last section. The 
 
 _eartJ i, as every one now knows, is_a sphere, revolving on 
 its axis daily and accomplishing an annual revolution, and 
 it ys a p Tanef, i.g. one of those spheres revolving round 
 y, y the sun, which, together with their satellites, certain 
 
 *comets and clouds of metcoroids, constitute our planetary 
 
 ior solar system — itself one of the many systems of suns 
 (with or without attendant planets) which make up the 
 visible stellar universe. The various bodies of this universe, TheeaHh 
 which vary immensely as to size, are continually changing "^/(Z,^^"'"" 
 their relative positions according to the laws of mechanical 
 
3oo> 
 
 y 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 motion together with the force of gravity, the result being 
 that the members of such planetary systems as ours, 
 revolve round their suns, or central bodies, in ellipses, 
 variously attended by satellites revolving in turn, in ellipses, 
 around their respective planets. In some distant systems 
 there may be more than one sun. Our solar system itself \^ 
 is rushing at t he rate of ten thousand miles every half- ^ 
 houji io-lhe direction of the star tt, in that apparent group : 
 of stellar bodies which is named the constellation Hercules. \ 
 The known universe, or cosmos, is made up of bodies 
 variously composed of solid, fluid, and gaseous matter, 
 which bodies differ greatly in density, some of them being 
 much more dense than our earth, while others are com- 
 posed of nothing but gases and vapours oj ^reat t enuity — 
 those stellar aggregations of matter known as " neBuTfe." 
 The cosmical bodies shine by self-emitted light, as does 
 our sun and the variously distant stars ; or by reflected 
 light, as do the planets and satellites of our solar system ; 
 and doubtless multitudes of planets of other systems, 
 
 ithough some planetary bodies themselves are more or 
 less self-luminous. Light travels at enormous speed (over 
 186,300 miles in a second) through whatever intervenes 
 
 "BeFween, and connects together all the planetary and 
 
 'stellar bodies. A universally diffused highly elastic sub- 
 stance of extreme tenuity, termed " ether ." is commonly 
 said to be thus interposed, and we are taught by physicists 
 that minute waves of a certain kind traversing this ethereal 
 medium constitute light — waves of different lengths giving 
 rise to our perceptions of different colours.* According., 
 to this view, wherever light can travel there must be ethef,-; . p 
 and it can travel through every known interval of every J |\L* 
 ,^ other substance, even including the most perfect so-called ; ^ 
 p- vacuum which we can make. It follows, therefore, that /^ 
 P»y^we have no evidence of the existence of a real vacuum 
 
 "anywherej but rather that there is and can be none. The | 
 distance from us of the stellar bodies, the so-called 
 " fixed stars," being enormous — that of the nearest star 
 being about 200,000 times more distant from us than 
 the sun — the time which light must take in passing from 
 
 * See above, p. 99. 
 
INORGANIC NATURE. 30I 
 
 them to our eyes is to be measured by years — three years I 
 from the nearest star. Even the light of the sun takesj yy^^' 
 more than eight minutes to cross the ninety-two thousand 
 "seven hundred miUions of miles of ether which are inter-\ 
 posed-.-li£tween it and us. The surface and atmosphere of ' 
 the sun is a region ofThtense heat and activity. Amidst 
 ^ames of hydrogen thousands of miles high, metallic vapours 
 jpre continually ascending, to be condensed and then fall 
 down in showers of red-hot metal. The sun is 852,900 
 miles in diameter, and is 1,252,700 times the volume of the 
 earth ; while the largest of the planets, Jupiter, is but 1233 
 kimes the earth's volume. 
 
 The planets of our system, with their satellites, move 
 round the sun in one direction ; but there is an exception in 
 the case of the satellites of Uranus, which move in a retro- 
 grade direction, and in planes nearly perpendicular to the 
 ecliptic. The planets all revolve on their axes during their 
 revolution round the sun, and generally their attendant 
 satellites revolve round the planets they attend more slowly 
 than such planets revolve on their own axes. An excep- 
 tion, however, occurs in the case of the planet Mars, one of 
 the satellites of which circulates round it in less than one- 
 third of the time that planet takes to revolve on its own 
 axis. 
 
 The descent of meteorites upon the surface of this physkai 
 planeT give us the plainest proof that the same chemical '"'*''"'^'''- 
 substances exist in the solar system external to this earth 
 as~e'xist in the earth itself But that careful dissection of 
 light which is known as " spectrum analysis " shows us that 
 a similar identity of materials exists between the substances j 
 hich compose our earth, and those which enter into the j 
 composition of even the most distant stellar bodies yet dis- ( 
 covered. Thus the action of gravity and the energies known 
 as light, heat, mechanical motion, and chemical action, as 
 also, doubtless, those activities spoken of as electric and 
 magnetic, seem to be diffused throughout the visible 
 universe. These physical activities are spoken of as the 
 " physical forces," and brilliant modern discoveries have 
 shown that there is a quantitative equivalence between the 
 different successive activities of the same or of different 
 
302 ON TRUTH. 
 
 bodies. Thus the disappearance of a definite amount of 
 motion is followed by the appearance of a definite amount 
 of heat, and so on ; and the works of our most distin- 
 guished physicists are replete with wonderful examples of 
 this quantitative equivalence between many of the activi- 
 ties which bodies of all kinds exhibit. 
 
 As might be expected, though some of the planets of 
 our solar system differ greatly from the earth in density 
 and other physical conditions, there is a substantial re- 
 semblance between them which is sometimes carried very 
 /2 \ far. Thus our near neighbour, the planet Mars, appears to 
 Ar i be so like our earth as to have its tracts of land and sea 
 
 ^i*'^\ and its caps of polar ice comparable with those of our own 
 \ globe. The cosmical body nearest us (only 238,818 miles 
 I distant) — our own satellite the moon — is, however, singu- 
 I larly different from the eartTT, in that it appears to be 
 . devoid bothof w.atar-9.nd air; or if such substances exist in 
 ' it at all, they seem to have retreated into the interior of 
 ; our satellite, and to give no signs of their presence on its 
 much-scarred surface. The moon revolves only once on her 
 own axis while revolving round us. Our own world's annual 
 path round the sun varies slightly in two directions ; alter- 
 nately approximating more nearly to, and diverging further 
 from, a truly circular path. The direction also of the earth's 
 axis slightly varies, each pole thus describing a small circle 
 in a very long period of time ; that is to say, in nearly 
 twenty-six thousand years. This movement is spoken of 
 as the " precession " of the earth's axis or of the 
 " equinoxes." The combined result of these two alter- 
 nating changes is to expose each pole of the earth in turn 
 to a maximum of the solar heat which it can receive, and 
 then in turn to the greatest cold of which it is susceptible. 
 Chemical Thc earth itself is a sphere, slightly flattened at the 
 
 , poles, made up of a number of substances which, with rare 
 I exceptions — such as gold, carbon, sulphur, and a few more 
 • — can be resolved into other apparently component 
 materials, and these into others, and so on, till we come to 
 certain substances known as "chemical elements," because 
 as yet they cannot be * further reduced, and seem to be 
 
 * See above, p. 147. 
 
 . oui 
 / ow 
 
 stibstances. 
 
INORGANIC NATURE. 303 
 
 • ultimate substances. The few substances which may be 
 \ met with in a pure and unalloyed condition — such as 
 gold, sulphur, etc. — are examples of such " elements." Our 
 atmosphere consists of a mixture of the gaseous elements 
 oxygen and nitrogen, with some carbonic acid gas 
 (resolvable into the elements oxygen and carbon), a cer- 
 tain amount of ammonia (resolvable into the elements 
 nitrogen and hydrogen), and the vapour of water. Water ' 
 itself, when pure, is entirely resolvable into the two - 
 elements oxygen and hydrogen ; but it also ordinarily ■ 
 contains some carbonic acid, ammonia, carbonate of lime, H' 
 flint in solution, and sundry salts. Carbonate of lime is I 
 resolvable into lime and carbonic acid, and lime itself is 
 further resolvable into oxygen and the metallic element 
 called calcium, Flint can be resolved into oxygen, and a 
 metal called silicon, as the rust of iron can be resolved 
 I into oxygen and iron. Thus_fljnt may be sai^..lQ ^Jjiea 
 I "rust" of sili co n^ a n d_ H m g. .a-i^r us t,' L jo f , calcium . 
 ^^""^ ^he s olid earth, with its envelopes of water and air, 
 constrt^es \\h;it we niean by "jtTie inorganic w^orld,'' while.4 V^- 
 " the organic world " comprises the totality of plants and 
 animals. The inorganic world, therefore, includes all rocks, 
 metal, and softer solid substances which compose the 
 earth ; water (both as it exists in seas and rivers, and in 
 the form of minute particles floating in the air) ; and the 
 gases and vapours of our atmosphere. 
 
 The process of resolution of substances into their 
 elements (analysis) shows us that the elements which 
 , compose each kind of substance are combined in one exactly 
 1 definite manner, as estimated by weight. Certain substances 
 I when placed in close proximity to certain other substances 
 j undergo a spontaneous transformation, as if the elements 
 !of one had an overpowering attraction towards the other. 
 In this way there takes place either a reciprocal inter- 
 change of elements,* or one substance is deprived of one of 
 its elements, so that only a single element remains in the 
 
 * Thus, if we place together nitrate of silver (AgNOj) and hydrochloric 
 acid (CIH), the chlorine will leave the latter to unite with the silver of the 
 former and produce chloride of silver (AgCl), while the hydrogen of the hydro- 
 chloric acid will unite with the nitrogen and oxygen of the nitrate of silver, so 
 forming nitric acid (HNOJ— a process of reciprocal exchange. 
 
Cryitals. 
 
 304 ON TRUTH. 
 
 place of the substance decomposed. These chemical 
 changes not only occasion warmth,* but may be greatly 
 facilitated by warmth, and apparently also by the presence 
 of other substances which are themselves undergoing 
 analogous processes of change. This process of inducing 
 chemical change by the mere proximity of substances un- 
 dergoing some other chemical change, is called " catalysis." 
 
 Very many substances, to say the least, can exist in 
 three states — solid, fluid, or aeriform ; as in the familiar 
 instance of water, which may be in the form of ice, fluid 
 water, and vapour. Even the gases oxygen and nitrogen 
 have been liquefied by cold and great pressure ; and car- 
 bonic acid gas has also been both liquefied and solidified. 
 
 Solid substances may or may not be in the form of 
 crystals. A " crystal " is a solid mineral substance of _a 
 definite geometrical figure, being bounded by surfaces, or 
 I/aces'^ which meet so as to form sharp edges and ^Dgks. 
 fThe angles formed by these faces are constant in each 
 crystalline substance, though there is no constancy as to 
 the size of the crystals, or the proportionate size of their 
 several faces. Snow is one very familiar example of a 
 crystal. If a crystal be suspended in water which holds 
 in solution as much as it can hold of the same material 
 as the crystal, then if the fluid be evaporated, fresh solid 
 material may be deposited from the fluid on the surface of 
 the crystal, which will thus increase in size. If a crystal 
 so suspended be mutilated by having one of its solid angles 
 removed, then such injury will be repaired by the deposi- 
 tion of fresh material from the fluid. Crystals may be so 
 formed as to adhere together, shooting out into an arbores- 
 cent manjier resembling some vegetable growth — the frgjQjds 
 of fe rns, or ^yhatzii^ — as in the familiar example of "frost" 
 upon a window-pane. Some masses of mineral are formed 
 of minute aggregated crystals, as is the case with marble. 
 Another mineral may be of similar chemical composition 
 but not crystalline, as chalk. But the same chemical sub- 
 stance may exhibit another diversity. It may exist in one 
 of two conditions called "crystalloid" and "collo[d" 
 respectively. Some substances (as, for example, " peroxide 
 * See above, p. 159. 
 

 INORGANIC NATURE. 2>^S f^y 
 
 of iron ") may be either in the form of a jelly and insoluble 
 in water, or they may be in a state in which they are quite 
 soluble in water. Moreover, they may be made to pass from 
 the latter state to the jelly-like state by adding a minute 
 
 , quantity of certain substances.* It ji^s in the insoluble 
 
 land jelly-like condition that these substances are called 
 " colloids," and their condition spoken of as " colloidal." 
 It is in their other condition that they are spoken of as 
 " crystalloids." Now, " colloids " are not only jelly-like I 
 and insoluble in water, but they absorb and transmit water 
 readily through their substance. Crystalloids are the 
 reverse of all this, and not only so, but are specially 
 remarkable for their diffusibility ; while colloids can hardly 
 at all diffuse themselves through the substance of other 
 
 ■f colloids. Colloids, once more, not only readily absorb 
 
 I water and swell, but they also readily yield it up again by 
 
 I evaporation. 
 
 There is also a peculiar interaction of fluids which is tol 
 be noted. If two fluids of different densities are so placed' 
 within a vessel that they are separated by a median porous 
 partition, then some of both fluids will pass through the 
 partition, but more of the less dense fluid will pass through 
 it than of the other. The consequence is, that if the level 
 of the two fluids be at first the same on each side of the 
 partition, then the level of the denser fluid will rise, while' 
 that of the less dense fluid will sink. This process of fluid 
 
 .' transference is called " osmosis," and it is facilitated if the 
 
 i partition be a colloidal substance. 
 
 \ As to the nature of the ultimate components of the Air and 
 
 1 1 r 11 • water. 
 
 aeriform and watery envelopes of our earth, the tollowmg 
 points may be noted : 0.xy gcu...\s a colourless gas, which 
 has a remarkable tendency to unite itself with many other Jr 
 substances ; and every combustion (attended with the 
 evolution of light and heat) which takes place in the air is 
 an energetic act of such union, while a gentle union of the 
 kind (such as takes place when iron rusts) may be called 
 
 I a slow combustion. Oxygen, however, though thus the 
 great burner and aider of combustion, is itself incombustible. 
 
 * E.g. of an alkaline carbonate. This resembles the action on food of j 
 digestive fluids (see above, p. 159). 
 
 X 
 
;o6 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 f 
 
 Aqueous 
 action. 
 
 /// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 f 
 
 Nitrogen, though indistinguishable from oxygen in appear- 
 ance, has the very opposite properties. It is extrenaely • 
 indisposed to unite with other elements, and, so far from | 
 promoting combustion, it stops it — extinguishing a flame i 
 plunged into it. It is remarkable also for the extreme in- \ 
 stability of the compounds of which it forms a part — such as - 
 gunpowder, gun-cotton, nitroglycerine, and iodide, sulphide, 
 and chloride of nitrogen, which form a series of substances 
 successively exploding with greater and greater violence and 
 readiness. Nitrogen, nevertheless, is itself incombustible.! 
 Carbon is a substance which remains solid even at the 
 highest temperatures yet applied to it, and thus differs 
 extremely from oxygen and nitrogen. It is very abundant 
 as an aeriform rust — i.e. united with oxygen or " carbonic 
 acid gas " — but it is rarely found as an element. In that 
 state, nevertheless, it may exist in no less than three con- \ 
 ditions. One of tlvese is a crystalline condition known as j 
 tKe^iamond. In another condition it is known as black- « 
 lead or graphite. Its third condition is what we call I 
 c harc oal. Sidphur also may exist in two conditions — \ 
 crystalline and non-crystalline — and may be made to pass 
 alternately backwards and forwards from one condition 
 to the other by means of slight changes of temperature. 
 Another e\&men\., phosphorus, can also exist in two distinct 
 states. One of these is waxy or crystalline, the other is 
 what is called its aniorphous condition. Substances which 
 can exist in two or more solid forms are said to be " dimor- 
 phic " or "polymorphic." H^'dvageji, is a gas which is in-; 
 flammable and burns, but does not support combustion. It(i 
 js the lightest substailge kjI9^"' ^^^ forms a long series of | 
 compounds with carbon. They are substances which have 
 for the most part weak affinities, readily disuniting into 
 their constituents when heated by themselves. Hydrogen 
 is very widely diffused, since any given quantity of water 
 can be resolved into twice as much of this gas, by volume, 
 as of that other constituent of water, oxygen. It exists 
 enormous quantities in the sun, and is known to exist 
 distant stellar regions^ 
 
 The vapour of zvater is excessively abundant in our 
 atmosphere, especially at a high temperature. Fluid water 
 
 in/ 
 
I\' 
 
 LYORGAXIC NATURE. 307 
 
 has been the great agent in foniiing the surface of the 
 earth as we see it, and by its unceasing circulation over 
 that surface renders the land a habitable abode for animals 
 and plants. Almost alone amongst inorganic matters in 
 its retention of its fluid form under such wide differences of 
 temperature, it may, considering all the functions it per- 
 forms, be called the blood of the earth. Water, whether 
 salt or fresh, is ever resolvable into the same relative quan- 
 tities of its two constituent gases. These are not m.erely 
 mixed together (as are the oxygen and nitrogen of the air), 
 but are so chemically fused as to constitute a new sub- 
 stance, distinct from either, which may be called the rust of 
 hydrogen. It always contains a greater or less quantity of 
 other substances, and amongst them a considerable quantity 
 of air mixed up within it, and rain-water gathers in its 
 descent some of the air's soluble constituents, including 
 carbonic acid and ammonia. The water of each river con- 
 tains, of course, the salts of the springs which feed it, and 
 it also contains the matters which it has dissolved out from 
 the soluble materials which it has met with in its course. 
 One of the noteworthy ingredients it thus acquires are, as 
 before said, carbonate of lime * and flint in a state of solu- 
 tion. Sea-water notoriously contains much salt with other ^ 
 chlorides and sulphates, with some ammonia and, an 
 element not hereinbefore mentioned, iodine. The earth's 
 surface is being continually modified, and its elevated parts 
 destroyed, by water in the form of rain, streams, or sea- 
 waves, and by the disintegrating action of ice, which ex- 
 pands as it freezes within the cracks and fissures into which 
 it may have made its way. By these means land is being 
 continually torn down and carried ofl" to be deposited either 
 in estuaries, or at the mouths of rivers, or in the bed of the 
 ocean. The mass of matter thus carried to the sea by 
 some of the largest rivers is enormous. It has been calcu- 
 \ lated that the Ganges carries down every year as much 
 \mud as could be carried down by 730,000 ships, each of 
 
 * The Thames can-ies past Kingston daily not less than 15 14 tons of solid 
 substance, mainly derived from the oolites and chalk of Berkshire, Oxford- 
 shire, and Gloucestershire. Two-thirds of this mass consists of carbonate of 
 lime, and thus 140 tons of that substance are on an average annually removed 
 from each square mile of the Thames basin above the town referred to. 
 
308 ON TRUTH. 
 
 , , 1400 tons burthen. The deposit carried down by the 
 {\| ■ Mississippi has formed a delta * extending over an area of 
 ' 'h 30,000 square miles, and is known to be, at least in some 
 parts, several hundred feet in thickness. Deposits of the 
 same kind are, of course, carried down by rivers into fresh- 
 water lakes, where deltas are also similarly formed. Evi- 
 dently solid objects, which may fall into such a river, will 
 some of them be carried towards its mouth and then buried 
 beneath successive layers of mud. Should the deposits 
 become hardened into rock, we might expect to some- 
 times find such objects therein enclosed. Experience abun- 
 dantly justifies such an expectation. Even impressions 
 made on the once yielding surface by hailstorms, have been 
 preserved by subsequent delicate layers of deposit which 
 have become hardened, the shape of the impressions 
 showing us to-day the direction in which the wind blew 
 A at some unimaginably distant period of time. It has been 
 kJ^ calculated that it must have taken 13,500 years (at the 
 » // present rate of deposit) to accumulate the thirty-nine feet 
 of Nile sediment beneath the statue of Rameses, and 
 17,000 years for the corresponding portion of the Nile 
 delta. The eroding action of water is notorious. When 
 the gradient of a river is considerable (as is commonly the 
 case in the upper courses of rivers), its excavating action 
 tends to be considerable also, and if such a gradient be 
 maintained to the coast, the river will excavate a deep 
 channel bordered by heights to its mouth — as in the Tyne 
 and the Tweed. The excavation by a river of its own 
 valley may leave here and there, high up in sheltered posi- 
 tions, accumulations of drifted materials, marking the levels 
 at which the river flowed at successive periods. 
 >icoi,s The lowering of the earth's surface by the wear and 
 
 tear of water, is more or less counterbalanced by a slow 
 or rapid upheaval of other parts of its surface through 
 volcanic action. The number of active volcanoes in the 
 world may be estimated at above three hundred, and somj 
 or~these give forth vast quantities of lava. For example, 
 in the island of Hawaii a burning deluge of lava broke 
 
 !* A triangular accumulation of land at the mouth of a river is called a 
 "delta," from its resemblance in shape to the Greek letter so named. 
 
INORGANIC NATURE. 309 
 
 forth, in 1840, from below the crater of Kilauea. It spread ' 
 from one to four miles wide, and reached the sea in three ; 
 days, at a distance of thirty miles, and for fourteen days it ■ 
 plunged in a vast fiery cataract, a mile wide, over a precipice \ 
 fifty feet high. The slow upheaval and depression of dif- ; 
 ferent tracts of the earth's surface has been proved by direct ' 
 observations. The Andes have been rising century after 
 century at the rate of several feet, and the Pampas, on the 
 ; east, a few inches only.* The land of Scandinavia, towards 
 j North Cape, rises at about five feet in a century, and very 
 I many other instances could easily be adduced of slow secular 
 i elevation. Soundings often give good reason to suppose 
 both that some rather distant islands once formed part of 
 an adjacent continent, and that other islands which by their 
 proximity might be supposed to have been previously 
 united, have not really been so, but have grown nearer 
 tocjether through some recent elevation of coastx 
 
 But however considerable here and there such changes o^gg^ 
 may have been, it appears that the great ocean and conti- "'-T^ 
 nental areas have been, on the whole, permanent. From 
 the two extremely cold regions of the globe — the greater 
 ice-cap of the south pole and the much smaller one of the 
 north pole — -ocean currents extend in variously modified 
 ways towards the equator, while warm currents diverge 
 from the equatorial region towards the poles. The finer 
 debris of the land, carried incessantly down into the seas 
 by all the rivers of the world, is, when the action of the 
 river water ceases, caught up by these ^reat marine currents, 
 and swept to places far beyond the more apparent tidal 
 action. It is only when the seas are enclosed, or when 
 the ocean currents are weak, that the transported materials 
 are quickly precipitated and form deltas. The interest 
 of these ocean currents consists not only in their trans- 
 porting action, but also in their influence on land climates. 
 Thus, while the cold currents sweeping down from the 
 Greenland seas carry ice and cold water southward 
 along the east coast of America, to lat, 40'^ N.. the Gulf 
 Stream and equatorial current carry warmth with their \ 
 waters northward to western Europe, even to North Cape. \ 
 * Sir Charles Lyell, " Principles of Geology." 
 
 / 
 
lO 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 rhe cartlis 
 
 '/. 
 
 Did a belt of land extend between Britain and Green- 
 land, so as to intercept the passage of this warm stream 
 (as the land bounding Behring's Straits stays the passage 
 northwards of the warm currents of the Pacific Ocean), 
 we should then see the mountains of Scandinavia (like 
 those of the coast of Greenland in nearly parallel latitudes) 
 permanently invested with ice and snow. With respect 
 to the volujiiaxif..the DG£an compared with that of thejand 
 above its level, it would seem that the fornier is more than 
 forty;_idm^_in_e,xcess of the latter. 
 
 T]ie earth's crust is made up of superimposed masses. 
 of s ^ tmta . which are various, more or less horizontal, layers 
 of different materials, and consist generally of consolidated 
 mud which has been deposited (in the way described) in 
 fresh or salt water lakes, or in deep or shallow seas. But 
 not all rocks are due to the agency of water. Many masses 
 have been ejected in a molten state from volcanoes, and 
 solidified either on the land's surface or beneath the sea, 
 and, therefore, under great pressure. These rocks, which 
 are thus due to volcanic agency, are called igneous rocks. 
 Those formed under sea pressure are termed plutonic ; 
 otherwise, they are called volcanic. Igneous rocks are not 
 generally stratified, and they may be of all ages. Some, 
 like those which form parts of Snowdon and Cader Idris, 
 are very old. Others, like those of Etna and those which 
 cover Herculaneum, are relatively quite recent. Deposits 
 may have undergone five kinds of change. They may 
 have undergone a mere process of drying (as with sand) ; 
 or drying and pressure (as with sandst one") ; or heating and 
 pressure (as with so me lim eston es) ; or with chemical action 
 in addition (as witHthe higHIy'cryst alline rocks, such as 
 gneiss) ; or a change may have been produced by infiltration. 
 Thus rocks may be infiltrated by iron, lime, or silica, pro- 
 ducing ferruginous, calcareous, or silicious sandstones and 
 conglomerates. 
 
 The strata thus forming the crust of the earth are 
 supposed to be from sixteen to eighteen miles thick ; but 
 iTS" boring has yet extended even one mile in depth, 
 and, indeed, has scarcely exceeded three thousand feet. 
 The total depth, therefore, is purely a matter of inference 
 
 iY 
 
 8^ 
 
INORGANIC NA TURE. 3 I 1 
 
 from the arrangement, superposition, and inclination of 
 the different strata, as seen at or near the surface. The 
 various strata were, of course, deposited at successive 
 times, and the time of the deposition of each is called its 
 "_period_^or'' epoch." But for subsequent disturbance, the 
 most ancient strata would always be deepest, and super- 
 position would, in all cases, plainly indicate relative novelty. 
 As it is, we have often to examine carefully in order to 
 discover the real order of deposition, but this once dis- 
 covered, the depth is equivalent to age, and vice versa. . 
 The uppermost and most recent accumulations of sands,! 
 clays, and gravels, form what is called the "recent deposits ;" '^ 
 and these are not counted as forming any part of the ; 
 proper geological jtrata, and are not represented in ordinary . 
 geological maps, but are there disregarded. The st rata 1 | ^1 
 beneath these deposits are_classified in three great groupsTT 
 belonging respectively to three great e£Ochs. The deepest \ ^ 
 and most ancient group comprises the strata called prim ary, ^ 
 o r pcilcsgz oic^ The second or middle group of strata is ^ 
 called secondary, or virsor.oic. The uppermost and least f 
 ancient group consists of strata called tertiary, or caj jwF'"^'^ / 
 The " recent deposits " really belong to this last-mentioned / 
 group, and we may be said to be still living in the tertiary 1 
 period, which has succeeded the only two earlier periods I 
 of which as yet we have evidence — the secondary and the I 
 primary periods or epochs. 
 
 Each of these three great groups of rocks is made up 
 of a certain number of subordinate groups of strata, or 
 " formations." Thus the Palceozoic, or primary rocks, are 
 made up of the Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian, Devoman, 
 old red sandstone. Carboniferous, and Permian formations. 
 The Laurentian rocks are very largely developed in Canada, 
 and are some 30,000 feet in thickness. The Cambrian rocks 
 are from 15,000 to 20,000 feet thick, and are well seen in 
 the Longmynds of Shropshire, and near Bangor, Harlech, 
 and St. Davids, in Wales. The Silurian strata (sandstones, 
 sl-iales, clays, limestones, and igneona, ..ro^ks) are of very 
 great thickness, and form a large part of Wales, tlie lake 
 district of England, southern Scotland, and some parts of 
 Ireland. The Devonian formation is exemplified in Devon 
 
312 ON TRUTH. 
 
 and Cornwall, and the old red sandstone rocks of Ireland, 
 Scotland, and Wales. The Carboniferous formation in- 
 cludes the carboniferous limestone and the coal measures 
 the latter consisting of seams of coal, sandstone, and shale 
 such alternations indicating oscillations of level. TTie 
 Permian formation is of moderate thickness, and mainly 
 consists of magnesian limestone associated with marly 
 slates and beds of conglomerate. In England, it is chiefly 
 , found skirting the coal-fields from Durham to Derbyshire. 
 The Mesozoic, or secondaj ^y iP^r»Viiii are made up of the 
 
 Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous formations. The first 
 (Trias) — which includes strata known as the " new red sand- 
 stone" — extends in England from Devon to Yorkshire, and 
 is largely developed in Cheshire. The Jurassic rocks con- 
 tain what are known as the Lias, the Oolite, and the Purbeck 
 beds. The Lias extends from Lyme Regis to Whitby. 
 The Oolite also extends between the north-east and south- 
 west of England. To the upper portion of the Jurassic 
 rocks belong the Solenhofen slates of Bavaria. The Cre- 
 taceous formation includes the wealden, the lower and 
 upper greensand, the gault, and the chalk. It is well seen 
 in the south-east of England, where it is considered to 
 represent the delta of a large ancient river, in Kent, Surrey, 
 Sussex, and the Isle of Wight. The v/ell-known chalk, 
 ranges from Lyme Regis to Flamborough Head, and forms 
 both our i^£2rJ"^l ft""^ ^'^lltll ^(? W"! The chalk terminates 
 the series of Mesozoic formations, and a great break exists 
 between it and the tertiary formations which follow. This 
 break, however, seems to be partially bridged over, in 
 North-Western America, by certain beds known as the 
 " Lignite series. " The Cainosoic, or tertiary rocks, consist 
 of three formations — W\q Eocene, the Miocene, and the Plio- 
 cene. Eocene rocks underlie both Paris and London, and 
 form very important deposits in North America. Thej 
 Miocene formation is widely distributed in Europe and the I 
 North American continent, but is very slightly represented | 
 in Britain. The igneous rocks which form the .Giant's \ 
 Causeway, the islands of StafTa and Mull, and others, 
 belong, however, to this group. The Pliocene formation 
 is extensively distributed in Europe, Asia, and the United 
 
INORGAXIC NATURE. 313 
 
 States. In England, it is represented by the Norfolk and 
 Suffolk "crag." The later Phiocene rocks — the so-called 
 Quaternary strata — include the deposits found in the an- 
 cient caves of Europe, and those thrown down during what 
 is known as the Glacial epoch. That a period of intense 
 cold prevailed, in geologically recent times, over northern 
 and central Europe and the greater part of North America, 
 is shown by the evidences of prodigious glaciers, which 
 have scooped out valleys and ground and scored the surface 
 of hill and dale in those regions. Blocks of stone, called 
 " boulders," are often found there scattered about, and 
 seem to have been transported by ice, sometimes from very 
 great distances. 
 
 The various strata which thus form the crust of the fossUs. 
 earth contain, in different degrees of rarity or abundance, 
 certain objects which are known as " fossils." Amongst 
 the mass of materials carried down by rivers and de- 
 posited in their course, or in deltas, or at the sea bottom, 
 are numerous relics of organisms which once lived. Therein 
 have been preserved fragments, or the entire frames, of 
 animals and plants, which have generally been transported 
 for a greater or less distance, and have rarely been entombed 
 in the spots where they lived or died. The plant-remains ! 
 consist generally of detached leaves, or branches, or fruits, 1 
 or seeds. Sometimes they consist of tree trunks which | 
 have sunk as they became water-logged. Sometimes they I 
 consist of parts of tree trunks which have been buried /// 1 
 situ. When some organic relic thus becomes entombed, it| 
 often happens that particle by particle of the vegetable or! 
 animal substance, as it is transformed by chemical changes, ' 
 is replaced, particle by particle, by mineral matter (ferru- 
 ginous, calcareous, or silicious), till we have a complete 
 representation — technically called a "pse udom orph" — of the 
 original in the new material. Sometimes, however, we find 
 that plants or even animals have been so enclosed by the 
 mud investing them, that their original chemical elements 
 have been wholly, or in part, preserved, though changed in 
 their arrangement. Altugctlicr, five forms of " fossils " may_ 
 be discovered : i. Objects per .se, i.e. objects which are little 
 changed, or wherein change is subordinate to retention, as 
 
314 ON TRUTH. 
 
 in bones which retain the greater part of their own mineral 
 matter and some of their animal matter also ; 2. Substitutes, 
 i.e. objects the substance of which has been changed by a pro- 
 cess of replacement, as in the minerajization just described ; 
 3 __ Mr/pld sJi.G. deposits which present the impressions made 
 by beings, all other evidences as to which have disappeared 
 — as in preserved footprints, and in moulds of shells or bones 
 which have themselves vanished ; 4. Casjs of moul ds, i.e . 
 solid matter which has taken the place of the organic crea- 
 tures which first made the " moulds " and then disappeared. 
 These " casts of moulds " must have the very shape of the 
 living beings (or parts of living beings) which themselves 
 made the moulds ; 5. Casts of hollow strtictures^x.^. mineral 
 masses which have been found within, and have filled the 
 interior of some shell, some hollow bone, some brain cavity, 
 or similar natural hollow of which they are interior casts, 
 as " moulds " are exterior casts of different organisms or 
 parts of organisms. 
 
 From this statement as to the evidence of the past 
 existence of living creatures which are found imbedded in 
 portions of inorganic nature, we may pass on to the con- 
 sideration of the organic world of animals and plants now 
 living on the surface of this planet. 
 
3^5 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ORGANIC NATURE — PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 
 
 All organisms, save the very simplest, are constructed on one of two 
 distinct types — one animal, the other vegetal. Man is formed on 
 one type of one small order of animals, from certain species of 
 which he differs much less than those species do from others of 
 the same order. 
 
 /# 
 
 Biological classification — Vert eh rata — Tunicata^ Arthropoda, and Mol- 
 lusca — Worms, Echinoderms, Ca'lenterates, and Sponges — Protozoa 
 — The lo7iiest plants — Phanerogams — Animal, vegetal, and human 
 structure — Common structure of organic nature. 
 
 The study of organic nature — the world of animals and 
 plants — constitutes the subject-matter. q£ "the. science .'orT 
 living organisms," or " biology." It is a vast field of in- L^ 
 "quiry, }-et one which here need but be lightly touched \ 
 upon, since our inquiry is only concerned with it so far as 
 it may serve to elucidate our own nature and our powers 
 of apprehending truth. On account of the great number Bhiopcai 
 of kmds of livmg organisms, it has been tound necessary tion. 
 to classify them in an orderly series of subordinate groups 
 successively contained one within the other. Animals and 
 plants are respectively classed in two supreme groups, to 
 each of which the term " kingdom " is fancifully applied, 
 and the arrangement of the sub-divisions of the animal 
 kingdom constitutes one of the very best types of all classi- 
 fication. It is divided into certain very large groups, called 
 siib-ki)igdoms, each of them being again divided into classes. 
 Each class is further sub-divided into more subordinate 
 groups, called orders, each order into families, and each 
 
J 
 
 t6 on truth. 
 
 family into genera ,- while each genus consists of one or 
 more species.* The classification of plants is essentially 
 similar to that of animals. Every animal and plant has a 
 scientific name consisting of two words ; the first denoting 
 the genus to which it belongs, the second pointing out 
 which species of that genus it may be. Thus, e.g., the 
 "Wood Anemone" is called Anemone sylvestris, which 
 signifies that it is that species of the genus " Anemone " 
 which is to be distinguished as " sylvestris." 
 
 Vertebrata.] -pj^g highcst sub-kirigd.om of animals ( Vertebratd), con- 
 
 , tains those which have a spinal column throughout life,-f- and 
 
 consists of the five classes, beasts, birds, reptiles, batcaphians 
 ^(frogs, efts, etc.), and fishes. The class of beasts {Alaninialia) 
 Ms made up of a number of orders, amongst which those of 
 man and the apes, the lemurs, the bats, the whales, the 
 edentates,^ the pouched beasts,§ and the monotremes,|| may 
 be here mentioned. The facts stated, in Chapter XII., 
 concerning the structure of the human body, may serve to 
 dispense us from giving any detailed anatomical descrip- 
 tions here, seeing that the various characters by which 
 the different groups of Vertebrates diff"er, are to be found in 
 all works on comparative anatomy. IF The order Primates, 
 which contains man and the apes so like man in bodily 
 structure, is made up of three families. The first includes 
 man only ; the second comprises the apes of the old world ; 
 and the third family, those which are confined to America. 
 Amongst the old world monkeys are the specially man-like, 
 or "anthropoid" apes, namely, the chimpanzee, gorilla, 
 orang, and the long-armed apes. These animals difter 
 I less from man in structure than they differ from the 
 lowest kinds of monkeys. Of the order of lemurs may be 
 
 * The question as to the real existence and nature of species, genera, 
 families, orders, etc., will be considered in Section V. chap. xxv. 
 
 t Thus differing from the Tiinicata. See below, p. 318. 
 
 % These are the sloths, ant-eaters, arniatlillos, pangolins, and the aard-vark, 
 or orycterupus, as well as the extinct My/odon, iMegatlicrium, and Glyptodon. 
 
 § Or marsupials. They include the true opossums of America {Didelphys) 
 and almost all the mammals of Australia. 
 
 II Monotremes (the order Alonotrciiiata) include only the duck-billed platy- 
 pus or Ornithorhynchus of Australia, and the echidna of Australia and Ne\v 
 Guinea. These two animals differ greatly from all other beasts. Even the 
 nature of their milk-glands has been tound to be exceptional. 
 
 T[ See, amongst others, the author's book on " The Cat " (John Murray). 
 
ORGANIC NATURE — PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 
 
 jJ / 
 
 mentioned the aye-aye, the slow lemur {Njciiccbiis), and 
 the potto {Perodicticiis), which last has the index finger 
 f quite rudimentary. Of birds there are upwards of ten 
 thousand known kinds, the more exceptional of which are the 
 . ostrich and its allies, including the Apteryx of New Zea- 
 j land. The class of reptiles is divided into four well marked 
 I orders oF existing species, namely (i) crocodiles, (2) lizards, 
 (3) serp ents, and (4) tortoises. In the class Batrachia (frogs, 
 toads, efts, and ophiomorpha),* we meet with animals 
 which in some respects differ notably from the creatures of 
 all the before-mentioned classes. Certain kinds of efts, 
 such as the Siren and MeiwbrancJius of North America, 
 and the proteus of the caves of Istria and Carniola, not 
 only possess lungs, but also other organs known as "gills " 
 or " branchise." These are delicate processes of skin 
 attached on either side of the throat to certain solid arches, 
 called " branchial arches," separated by clefts, and which 
 correspond with the " visceral arches and clefts " before 
 noted t as existing for a time in the human embryo. As 
 in that embryo, so in these batrachians, the arteries which 
 proceed from the heart take their course along these arches. 
 1 There they branch out and richly supply the gills with 
 I blood, and then pass on to the main artery of the body 
 5 which runs backwards beneath the spinal column. In the 
 half-developed frog, or tadpole, the conditions are for a 
 time similar, though at first it has no lungs, while, as it 
 I becomes fully formed, it ceases to have gills. Amongst 
 1 fishes we find no lung, save in one or two very exceptional 
 1 forms (CenrtodnsSi-nd Lepid-osu'ej}),^^^ there are always gills 
 ■ attached to branchial arches along which the blood vessels 
 are distributed in essentially the same way as in the gilled 
 efts. In beasts, birds, reptiles and batrachians, the skeleton 
 is formed of bone and the backbone of vertebra;, as in man ; 
 but in many fishes — sharks, rays, lamprey, etc. — the skele- 
 ton is cartilaginous. In some — as eg. the sturgeon — a 
 continuous soft structure takes the place of vertebrae, re- 
 calling to mind the notochord % of the human embryo. 
 
 * Limbless creatures, in external shape like earthworms, found in the 
 warmer regions of the globe. 
 
 t See above, p. 1 73. % See above, loc. cit. 
 
3i8 O.V TRUTH. 
 
 This is especially the case in the l ancele t {^AmpJiioxus), 
 which is by far the most exceptional of all fishes with respect | 
 to the simplicity of its structure, and differs from all other I 
 Vertebrates in having no distinct head, and only a tubular 
 heart. 
 
 We may next pass to a small sjib-kingdom, TUNICATA, 
 jviiidx-ift€-l«4es. .certain marine -organisms, of very simple 
 l^tT' T itl ^ rf j kn.g} £I) ^^.,^'^'^^•.'^^"''".^'^1 "*" ^-'^^^-'tiiaixs. Some kinds 
 Tare noteworthy because, when young, they are provided 
 with a long tail in which there is a kind of temporar}' 
 spinal column or notochprd,* having on its dorsal side (as 
 in vertebrates) the central part of the nervous system. The 
 sub-kingdom which is by far the richest^in species isji.amed 
 Arthropoda, and includes^aU^insects, scorpions, spiders, 
 and tics, centipedes, shrimp'like creatures, barnacles, and 
 "ver}- peculiar parasites called RJiizocephala. Arthropods 
 general!}' have the body formed of a longitudinal series of 
 more or less similar segments, many of which are provided 
 with a pair of " lateral appendages," which may be nearl}- 
 all alike, as in the centipede, or may, as in the lobster, be 
 variously modified in different regions of the body to form 
 feeling-organs, jaws,t legs, or paddles. Thus we find in this 
 sub-kingdom the best examples of "serial symmetry." 
 None of these creatures have an internal skeleton. The 
 sub-kingdom Arthropoda, and all the rest of the lower 
 animals are formed on quite different types of structure 
 from that which chaj^acterizes the Vertebrata. On this 
 account all these lower animals are often spoken of as 
 Iiivcrtebrata, although some groups of them may differ as 
 much or more from others, than they differ from Vertebrates. 
 lAjoathef^Ai'ge' assemblage of animals, constitutes, the sub - 
 lkinsdiittLjld.PLLU.SCA. It contains the class of _cuttlg,i^ 
 [fishes,, the rnaiy5jO^^I.j£ta, or Cephalopods, together with 
 [snails, whelks, limpets, the oyster^jiyas^, and a multitude 
 of allied forms. They are animals the bodies of which 
 are not segmented. They present hardly a trace of serial 
 symmetry, and even lateral symmetry is often wanting. 
 
 * See above, p. 17J. 
 
 t The jaws of an Arthropod do not bite vertically (as do those of a Verte- 
 l)rate), but laterally. There may be three succes.sive pairs of true jaw.-^, 
 followed by others which are partly like feet, as in the lobster. 
 
ORGANIC NA TURE^PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 3 1 9 
 
 Though generally possessed of a shell, there is no internal 
 skeleton, save that in a few forms — e.g. the cuttle-fish — there 
 is an internal shell, and a cartilaginous case partly protects 
 what maybe called the brain, and so far simulates a" skull." 
 Another group of animals the position of which is not yet 
 certainly determined, are the Brachiopods, called "lamp- 
 shells " because they bear a fanciful resemblance to an 
 ancient lamp. 
 
 A great variety of classes (including man)' kinds of '':''?"■;'• 
 worms'), the arrangement of some of which is also far from derms.Ca- 
 finally settled, need here be referred to but in the very «««' •''/''»^"- 
 briefest manner. Such are the Annelida (earthworms, 
 leeches, etc.), the Bryozoa (or Polyzoa) — minute animals 
 living in compound aggregations, such as the well-known 
 sea-mat {Flustra) of our coasts, a number of internal 
 parasites and some allied forms which are not parasitic, 
 and, lastly, the wheel-animalcules which form the class 
 • Rot if era. 
 
 One sub-kingdom of animals is termed EcHl NOpE RMAA 
 and includes all star-fishes^ sea-urchins, brittle-stars, seaj^, 
 cucumbers, and crinoids. Although essentially simple in 
 structure as regards systems of organs, Echinoderms may, 
 nevertheless, consist of a prodigious number of juxtaposed 
 ; parts — as e.g. does the sea-urchin. The well-known animal 
 i called the sea-anemone {Actinia) is a type of the sub- 
 's kingdom Cgelentera, in which are classed all the coral 
 I animals and other zoophytes, including the Hydra. The 
 |last-named animal consists of a sack containing but one 
 cavity, with one aperture — the mouth — surrounded b}- 
 tentacles. The body wall consists of two layers, each 
 cornposed of a multitude of cells, those of the outer layer 
 sending prolongations inwards which appear to consist of 
 nervous and muscular tissue in a most simple condition. 
 Coelenterates and many adult Echinoderms have the 
 parts of the body so arranged as to diverge in different 
 directions from a centre ; thus affording us an example of 
 a new kind of symmetry, which may be distinguished as 
 radial symmetry. Th^ gpQ^^^^^J-OATiIX?,^},have the bod}' 
 (which contains many silicious, calcareous, or horny parts) 
 also formed of two layers of cells, amongst which some 
 
■X20 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 contractile fibres and nervous cells have been asserted to 
 exist. Sponges are very exceptional, in that they generally ! 
 possess a greater or less number of inhalent and exhalent ' 
 apertures. In a certain anomalous parasitic animal called ; 
 Dicyenia, the body consists of an outer layer of cells sur- i 
 rounding one large central cell extending the whole length '• 
 of the body, 
 i^ The lowest sub-kingdoni of reputed animals, the PRO- 
 TOZOA, is made up of the animalcules known as Infusoria, 
 minute parasites termed Gregarinida, and a multitude of 
 forms known as the Rldzopoda, which have the power of 
 projecting and retracting portions of their body called 
 pseudopodia or " falj^J^eet." In all the Protozoa the body 
 I is most simple. Very many of them consist of but a single 
 cell. In those even which are multicellular there is but a 
 simple aggregation of cells, and no definite arrangement of 
 them in two layers, still less is there any formation of dis- 
 tinct "tissues." The most beautiful of the Rhizopods are 
 the marine Radiolaria. Another group, the Flagellatci, con- 
 sists of minute creatures which swim about by means of one 
 or two whip-like processes (whence the name of the group) 
 which resemble the vibratile cilia before spoken of* in 
 describing the human body. Last of all comes the group \ 
 of the ^]ORAmNIFjlKA,^so called because most of them ! 
 protrude their pseudopodia through minute holes, or " fora- 
 mina," in the calcareous shells which enclose them, and 
 which they secrete and build up, although they otherwise 
 consist of nothing but a minute particle of apparently 
 structureless jelly or protoplasm.f Some species, however, 
 are naked. Amongst these is the Amcvba, which so singu- 
 larly resembles a white corpuscle of human blood. J None 
 of the Protozoa can have organs answering to those of any 
 higher animals, because the organs of such higher animals 
 are formed of distinct tissues. Nevertheless these uni- 
 cellular organisms sometimes possess parts which simulate 
 the organs of their betters — cavities with pulsating walls, 
 and parts which can suddenly contract as if formed of 
 muscular tissue. If these creatures are truly animals, they 
 are the lowest members of the animal kingdom, and lead 
 * See above, p. 158. f See above, p. 147. + See above, p. 157. 
 

 plants. 
 
 ORGANIC NATURE — PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 32 I 
 
 us by narrow steps to the lowest members of the kingdom 
 of plants. 
 
 The lowest plants constitute the two great groups oine lowest 
 I wa_ter_wee_ds^(y^4'''^) and of moulds iFujigi). Amongst the' 
 I latter are those minute organisms, Bacteria. Very many 
 I of the lowest plants are unicellular, like Protococms, which 
 moves about by means of vibratile cilia, while Volvox, a 
 spheroidal aggregation of cells, swims by the action of the 
 cilia which extend outwards from its component particles. 
 
 The seaweed Caulerpa, which abounds on some coasts, j 
 and whereon turtles browse, consists but of a single cell, 
 though its shape is so complex that it simulates in outline 
 the fern called BlccJinuin. The microscopic plants known 
 as Diatoms and Desmids are Algse, as also are those 
 thread-like organisms which, on account of their remark- 
 able and as yet unexplained movements, are called Oscilla- 
 torice. Many of the lowest plants closely resemble some of 
 the Protozoa. This is especially the case with Myxomycetes 
 during a portion of its cycle * of life. 
 
 Lichens, liverworts, scale-mosses, CJiara and Nitella, 
 true mosses, lycopods, horsetails, and ferns, together con- 
 stitute the rest of the lower primary division of plants — 
 the Cryptogams, or flowerless plants. The other primary 
 . division — Phanerogams — is subdivided into the Gyiiino- Phanero- 
 I sperms, a small section to which all firs, pines, yews, and *'^""' 
 k cycads belong ; and the Angiospervis, a group including all 
 I the plants which possess conspicuous flowers. Two plants > 
 I are, for our purpose, specially worthy of note. These are 'frp 
 I the sun-dew (B/vsera) and Venus's fly-trap (Dioium). The ^■ 
 former grows on bogs, and has the upper surface of its 
 foliage leaves furnished with long glandular hairs which 
 can discharge a tenacious fluid. The latter has foliage 
 leaves which terminate in two rounded plates joined by a 
 median hinge. Very strong bristles project from the 
 margin of each of the rounded plates just mentioned. The 
 actions of these structures will be considered further on. 
 
 At the base of the organic world are a auraheiLQX,§im£le\ Q^ 
 or^amgiiis,. alike devoid of nervous or muscular tissue and | -j: 
 of any permanent mternat digestive cavity. These lowest V- 
 
 * See above, p. 164, and below, chap, xxii., "The Cycle of Life," 
 
 Y 
 
132 
 
 z// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 S 
 
 fi 
 
 A nhna.1, 
 vegetal, atSli 
 human \ 
 structure 
 
 Common 
 structure 
 of organU 
 natu7-e. 
 
 t he kin^f jp"^ ^f r]f^"^° Thence, as it were from a common | 
 
 starting point, the two kingdoms of organic life may be said ', 
 to diverge. Xhe-animal .kingdom .advances in complexity 1 
 from a structure resembling a double-walled sack with a :. 
 permanent digestive cavity, and possessing nervous and f' 
 muscular tissue. The_vegjgtable kingdom advances in com- | 
 plexity in a quite diverse mode, building up a variously ■ 
 branching axis with foliar organs (modified leaves), but 1 
 always devoid of any alimentary cavity or any form of! 
 muscular or nervous tissue. \ 
 
 Man, vastly as we shall find him to differ from every 
 other organism with respect to his higher faculties, is 
 nevertheless, when considered exclusively as regards his 
 bodily structure, only a genus of one of the three families 
 which constitute the order Primates. 
 
 We have now, as a conclusion to this chapter, to note 
 those characters of form and structure which distinguish 
 l(the living, organic world of nature — all plants and animals 
 considered as one great whole — from that inorganic nature 
 to a consideration of which the preceding chapter was 
 devoted. 
 
 Multitudinous and varied as are the creatures which 
 compose the organic world, they nevertheless exhibit a 
 very remarkable uniformity of composition and essential 
 structure. Creatures the most various, from man to the 
 smallest fungus which may attack his crops, exhibit a 
 fundamental* uniformity in their physical composition. 
 Every living creature has a body which, however soft it 
 may be, however much fluid it may contain, or however 
 hard and dry it may appear, is never entirely fluid, and is 
 always partly so.f Every living creature consists in part 
 (and that part is the most actively living part) of that soft, 
 viscid, transparent, colourless, nitrogenous substance, " pro- 
 toplasm ." X of which every living creature is, at first, entirely 
 composed. Herein we have a first difference between the 
 organic and the inorganic world, and this involves a second 
 
 * Not absolutely similar, however, as is proved by differences of activity — 
 notably of development. 
 
 t In the body of a jelly-fish, no less than ninety-nine parts of a hundred 
 are composed of water. 
 
 \ See above, p, 147. 
 
ORGANIC NATURE — PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 323 ^ 
 
 difference. For we thus see that a great uniformity of I 
 chemical composition runs through all organic nature, since j 
 every organism is mainly resolvable into the protoplasmic ; 
 elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, whereas 
 inorganic bodies may consist of the most diverse elements 
 from those which compose organic bodies, and of a greater 
 or less number of them — often of but two, and sometimes 
 of but one. There is also a yet further chemical differ- 
 ence. This consists in the diversity of the proportions in 
 which the constituent elements appear to be combined 
 in organic and inorganic bodies ; being very much more 
 complex in the former. 
 
 Again, crystals are bounded, by plane surfaces, or 
 
 Maces," which meet at definite angles, which respectively 
 
 f characterize different mineral species ; while with one or 
 
 two exceptions (such as spathic and haematite iron, and 
 
 dolomite) mineral bodies are not boundedHBy curved lines 
 
 i and surfaces. On the other hand, curved lines and surfaces 
 
 1 are the characteristic boundaries of all anixoai and. vegetable 
 
 jbodies. Again, if a crystal be cut through, its internal 
 
 (structure will be seen to be similar throughout. But if the 
 
 body of any living creature be divided, its interior almost 
 
 always exhibits definite structures made up of different 
 
 substances ; while even the very simplest living creature 
 
 shows, when thus divided, a variety of minute, distinct 
 
 particles, called granules, variously distributed throughout 
 
 its interior. Othe? still more important distinctions which 
 
 characterize the organic and inorganic worlds respectively, 
 
 consist in differences in actions and active powers, and will 
 
 come under our consideration in the next chapter on the 
 
 'JjiliaiQQS," that is th^ aGti¥ities,.oi:^£g*baisa4S,, 
 
 In every separate organism, whether animal or vege- 
 tal, there is a continuity of structure comparable to that 
 which we have seen * exists in the human body. Similarly, 
 also, each such organism may be considered, like the body 
 of man, to consist of one more or less large and internally 
 complex and differentiated cell, which has arisen, by multi- 
 form processes of cell-division, from those primitive cells, 
 or portions of cells, which constitute the starting points of 
 both asexual and sexual__generatiqn. 
 See above, p. 151- 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 i 
 
 The functions of sustentation and reproduction are common lo all 
 organisms, but differ widely in plants and animals. Those of 
 muscular motion and feeling are specially animal faculties. Man 
 is functionally, no less than structurally, a true animal, pre- 
 dominantly resembling the other members of his order of the 
 class Mammalia. 
 
 Properties of protoplasm — The cycle of life — Income and outcome — 
 Spontafteons generation — Structure and function — Distinctions 
 be twee ft animals a?id plants — Formation of organic matter — 
 Plants do not feel — Alimentation — Circulation, respiration., secre- 
 tion, and reproduction — Development — Heredity — Matt and other 
 organisms. 
 
 We have just seen (in the last chapter) that the whole 
 organic world of plants and animals differs from the 
 inorganic world by certain structural characters. It is of 
 course, however, by their active powers that organisms 
 mainly differ from inorganic bodies. The powers exercised 
 by — in other words, the functions common to — all organisms 
 will, then, here first be shortly passed in review, and after- 
 wards the more special activities possessed by organisms 
 of different grades will be briefly adverted to. It may be 
 well for the reader, before applying himself to the present 
 chapter, to reperuse what has been said* about "the activi- 
 ties of the human body," since the active powers possessed 
 by all organisms and those peculiar to the higher animals, 
 have necessarily been already noticed in what has been 
 said about man. We have already seen f that the human 
 
 * See above, chap, xiii., p. 154. f See above, p. 147. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 325 j 
 
 body is made up of systems of organs, of separate organs, 
 of tissues, and of cellular elements ; the latter being those 
 protoplasmic units forming the ultimate parenchyma of 
 the body, and many of them resembling not a little those 
 lowly organisms known as Ama:b<2 and Flagellata* We 
 have also seen, in our thirteenth chapter, that certain acti- | 
 vities, or functions, must be possessed by our body's proto- ? 
 plasmic elements, since otherwise assimilation, respiration, " 
 secretion, and motion, as carried on by the human body, 
 could not there be carried on. Evidently our body could 
 not live and grow had not its ultimate constituents also a 
 power of augmenting in size and spontaneously dividing, 
 whereby the augmentation of the whole mass of the body 
 is effected. t 
 
 These facts being premised, the gpw_e.rs exd4i§ivejy^£9s-|/'r<vs^r//Vi^y- 
 .sessed by the organic world, and commoiy to-aJ4--€>r gaiiisi»sy ""''''^ '^""' 
 AvitKoirrexceptioni may next^i),e .statedv As has been said] 
 more than once, all organisms contain or consist of proto- 
 plasm, and it is noteworthy that this very unstable sub- 
 stance always contains the explosive element J nitrogen. 
 The di fferences, then, which exist between the properties of '■: 
 l\ living protoplasm and all inorganic matter are as follows : — I 
 ^ y "*" "i. Currents are commonly established in inorganic \ 
 ' mixtures by differences of temperature, but in a portion 
 of protoplasm, an internal circulation of currents ma}" 
 continue in definite lines (as indicated by particles within 
 it), without altering the external figure of the organic 
 particle in which they occur. 
 
 2. Inorganic bodies expand with heat, or through im- 
 bibing moisture ; but living protoplasm has an apparently 
 spontaneous power of contraction and expansion under 
 certain external conditions which do not occasion such 
 movements in inorganic matter. 
 I 3. Under favouring conditions, protoplasm has, and 
 
 therefore organisms have, a power of performing chemical 
 changes, which result in producing heat far more gently^ 
 and continuously than it is produced by the combustion 
 of inorganic bodies. 
 
 4. Protoplasm has also the power of converting certain 
 
 * See above, p. 322. t See above, p. 163. % See above, p. 306. 
 
^6/// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 adjacent substances into material like itself — into its own 
 substance — and so, in a sense, creating a new substance, 
 as in nutrition.* 
 
 5. It has thus the power of growing, not by a mere 
 external increment — as a crystal so grows when suspended 
 in a suitable medium — but, as before pointed out, by a special 
 process of internal increment known as " intussusception." t 
 
 6. Protoplasm, after thus augmenting its mass, has a 
 further power of spontaneous division whereby is augmented 
 the mass of the entire organism of which such protoplasm 
 forms a part — whereby, that is, it grows. 
 
 7. It has also a power of freeing from its own sub- 
 stance, substances both different from its own and from 
 substances adjacent to it — that is, a power of secretion.^ 
 Thus it is that, since every living creature consists at first 
 entirely § of protoplasm, every other kind of substance 
 found in every animal or plant comes, and must come, 
 from protoplasm, and is formed, and must be formed, by 
 its agency. 
 
 8. Living protoplasm has, further, a power of exchang- 
 ing gases with its environment — notably of absorbing 
 oxygen and giving out carbonic acid, as in respiration. || 
 
 9. No particle of protoplasm can persist unchanged like 
 many inorganic substances. In order that it may continue 
 to subsist, it needs to be supplied with material which it 
 can assimilate — in other words, it must feed. 
 
 10. Lastly, protoplasm has a natural power of motion 
 under stimuli,1[ and is capable of altering its external con- 
 figuration by alternate protrusions and retractions called 
 " amcebiform " motions.** Similarly it may so move its 
 parts as to produce a flowing motion of its whole mass ; 
 as in the movement of Myxomycetes,\^ and as in that of the 
 protoplasm contained within the cells of the plants Chara 
 and NitellaXX which flows round the interior of such cells 
 with a movement sometimes called "rotation " and some- 
 times "cyclosis." 
 
 * See above, p. 159. t See above, p. 160. 
 
 X See above, p. 162. § See above, p. 322. 
 
 II See above, p. 161. \ On a stimuli, see above, p. 155. 
 
 ** See above, p. 157. tt See above, p. 321. 
 
 XX See above, loc. cit. 
 
I- 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 327 
 
 / 
 
 These exclusively vital powers of living particles of pro- 
 toplasm are also, of course, possessed by thej^ery simplest 
 umcel^l^lar^^^jantsand anirnais. More complex organisms 
 likewise, of course, possess them, and they possess other 
 powers in addition, by which they also differ from the whole 
 inorganic world. 
 
 Their most important difference...oC.X40ctionj consists in The cycle 
 the innate tendency they possess to^ undergo a definite ''-'^^'"'^^" 
 
 :le of change. The inorganic world is commonly, and 
 indeed truly, spoken of as a world of dead, relatively inert 
 matter ; and yet it is a world of active and incessant 
 change. For, apart from oceanic waves and currents, the 
 flow of rivers, and the circulation of winds ; apart from 
 volcanic action and changes in the shape and elevation 
 of parts of the earth's solid crust, terrestrial matter con- 
 tinually thrills with electric, magnetic, thermal, and chemical 
 changes, as well as probably with many others, which 
 ■ neither the senses nor wit of man have yet enabled him 
 to detect. But however vast or complex the changes 
 which take place may be, they never take place in any 
 non-living body in a regular and recurring order. They 
 never form a series returning upon itself and reproducing 
 any state which we may have selected to regard as the 
 initial state in a "cj^cle" (or reciirrjn^ series) of changes. 
 
 Very different is the behaviour of living bodies. Thus, 
 a bird's egg will in due time give rise to a bird, which 
 may again produce an egg ; or a silkworm will become 
 a chrysalis, which will disclose itself as a moth, the moth 
 will lay eggs, and these, when hatched, will once more pre- 
 sent us with the form of the silkworm — our starting point 
 in the second case. It is the same with a fruit, the seed 
 of which may be sown, producing in its turn a plant which 
 grows and flowers, the flower maturing into the fruit once 
 more. The changes, then, which take place in living bodies 
 tend to form a^cjt'cle. In order, however, that they should 
 thus recur, certain conditions are necessary. Thus, as every 
 one knows, a bird's egg will not be hatched without heat, 
 nor, if duly heated, will it be hatched if it be kept in an 
 atmosphere of nitrogen or of carbonic acid, or in any atmo- 
 sphere which is deprived of either oxygen or moisture. It 
 
J-' 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 will not be hatched even in a suitable atmosphere, if its i 
 shell be coated over with grease or any other material I 
 capable of cutting off its contents from the action of the! 
 air external to it. The cycle of changes will also be in-f 
 terrupted if the hatched bird be deprived of needful nourish- 
 ment or warmth, and analogous adverse circumstances will 
 interrupt the series of changes in all cases. Thus the cycle 
 of changes which take place in living bodies can take place 
 only under certain fixed conditions — such as a certain 
 temperature, the access of requisite gases, a certain 
 degree of moisture, and enough nutrition. But let such 
 conditions continue to be supplied, and the cycle of changes 
 appears capable of indefinite recurrence. If, however, per- 
 fectly similar conditions be supplied to organic bodies 
 which have ceased to live, a regular series of changes also 
 takes place ; but such changes do not form a cycle — they 
 never return to the point from which they set out. They 
 are the changes of decomposition, and ultimately result 
 in the formation of inorganic substances, such as water, 
 ammonia, carbonic acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, various 
 earthy salts, etc. Thus, the existence of an innate tendency ' 
 to go through a definite cycle of changes when exposed 
 to certain fixed conditions, forms a distinction, not only 
 between mineral substances and living organic bodies, but 
 also between the latter and organic bodies which are dead. 
 Inorganic substances tend simply to persist as they are, 
 and have no definite relations either to the past or to the 
 future. What a mineral may have been, or what it may 
 come to be, is nothing to its present being — which is its 
 only being. But every living creature, at every stage of jV^" 
 its life, regards both the past and the future, and thus lives ''^• 
 continually in a definite relation to both of these, as well 
 as to the present. Every stage of its cycle of life, just 
 because it is a cycle, is conditioned by the anterior states 
 which alone have made its existence possible, and refers 
 to future states for which it is in active preparation. Thus, 
 the life of all organisms — as will more fully appear in our 
 twenty-fourth chapter — is ever in close relation with external 
 circumstances ; and, in order to live, must be able to 
 actively respond in an adequate degree to the influences 
 
 K\~ 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 
 
 and circumstances of its environment. A crystal or 
 nugget of gold may lie passive for ages and yet preserve . 
 its existence unimpaired. Not so an organism. With it, 
 to cease to change is to cease to live, and if changes are 
 made by it which are out of harmony with the surrounding 
 circumstances (if, e.g., an antelope runs toward a lion instead ' 
 of away from it) it will also cease to live. Similarly, when 
 an organism takes in food, there must go on, in order that 
 it may live and grow, a due adjustment of its internal 
 relations to the new influence brought to bear upon it. 
 Thus, every living creature has a unity, as shown by its 
 active powers, of a very different kind to that of any in- 
 organic body. It has an immanent spontaneity of action 
 on the occurrence of stimuli under due conditions. An_ 
 inorganic body may be on^Jkind of substance, _but only^ 
 a livine ors^anism can merit to be called an individual. . 
 
 In order, then, that s-wy living organism may preserve its incuiuLami 
 
 ..... , outcome. 
 
 mtegnty, there must also go on withm it smiultaneous-— — ""^ 
 changes of composition and decomposition, definite in 
 character and properly combined for the proposed end — 
 the preservation of its life. There must be a definite and 
 ■conservative combination of simultaneous and successive 
 changes. The active processes of life which relate to the 
 ,\'<y preservation of the individual, may be shortly described 
 ^•as a double process of absorption and elimination — of 
 ncome and outcome. These words denote the extreme 
 I terms oTtHe^Hot!^!^ series of intermediate changes which 
 are necessary for the conservation of each individual or- 
 ganism's life. But all living creatures, normally consti- 
 tuted, have not only a faculty of maintaining their own 
 existence for a longer or shorter time, but they have also 
 a faculty for providing for the perpetuation of their kind, 
 and thus the fundamental powers of all organisms without j. 
 exceptiniv'rn.ay..Ja£-..said„to .^bg of two kinds— a power_of, 
 self-maintenance, and a power of reproduction. Moreover, V^ 
 air living beings not only agree in that they (from man 
 down to the lowest fungus or alga) start i n life as a minute 
 spher oidal mass of protoplasrn, but they also further agree 
 as to the general process by which they attain a complex, 
 adult condition, with distinct parts and organs — if they attain 
 
y/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 such a condition at all. The process is one of budding 
 repeated in various ways, the buds themselves developing 
 and becoming metamorphosed. Whether the creature be 
 an oak-tree or a butterfly, the mature form is gradually 
 attained by minute outgrowths and separations, about 
 which more will shortly be said. Sooner or later the 
 double series of conservative changes which take place in 
 every living being cease to be carried on in perfect adjust- 
 ment ; and this inevitable defect also, in every case, sooner 
 or later culminates, and the death of the individual ensues — 
 such death being the natural end fatally predetermined 
 
 in the life-conditions of each kind of organism. 
 I . . . 
 
 ^oHtaneom But sccing that every living being ceases sooner or 
 
 Water to live, and that every organic structure is latea to 
 
 
 become mere inorganic matter, ha\'c wo. any evidence. 
 
 ofthe existence of the contrary change-— the change, from 
 morganic, not-living substances into organic, living beings^ 
 Now, as we shall shortly see, certain organisms — the great 
 majority of plants — have the power of building up living 
 organic matter directly from the inorganic world, but they 
 effect this by means of matter which is itself living and j 
 organic. The question, therefore, which remains is, ^qj^ 
 1 iving b^in^^^anse_ without the help and interyention^ofj 
 creatures v/hich already live ? Three hundred years ago it ■ 
 was the universally received opinion, that many of the 
 lower animals (such as certain flies, worms, and internal 
 parasites) arose without the intervention of a parent organ- 
 ism of any kind. But the discoveries which have one after 
 another been made concerning the life-history of such crea- 
 tures, have successively reduced the number of organisms 
 which might be supposed so to originate to a few of the 
 very simplest and minutest kinds. Even as regards these, 
 the patient and appare ntly exha ustive experiments of 
 Pasteur and others seem to have successfully refuted every 
 assertion of " spontaneous generation." Men of science 
 7\re- nnw ^rpnpfa11y agreed * that there is no trustworthy 
 
 (r ■ 
 
 evidence oL _livIng. . creatures coming into existence save 
 Ibv the int ervention of parental organisms. The spon- 
 
 * This agreement has largely been brought about by the invaluable labours 
 of M. Pasteur. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ] 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 
 
 V/ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 taneous evolution of living things from things devoid of 
 life, is contrary to all our experience. This constitutes 
 a final and decisive limitation between the two realms 
 of organic and inorganic nature so far as our knowledge 
 at present extends. 
 
 As was stated in the last chapter, all living creatures 
 save the unic ellula r ones, consist of aggregations of particles 
 of protoplasm, or cells, and such aggregations have powers 
 which exceed those of the several particles of protoplasm 
 which build them up. Thus z.ygl2imi^ by means of the 
 cilia of its component cells, has a more developed and 
 complex power of motion than has any one of the particles 
 which compose it. As we have seen to be the case with 
 man,t so the other multicellular organisms are formed of 
 tissues — that is, of aggregations of aggregations of particles 
 or " cells." In an earth-worm, an oyster, or a flowering plant, 
 the body is so composed. But just as a Volvox has powers 
 which exceed the properties of its component particles, 
 so each aggregate of particles, or cells, forming a " tissue," 
 has powers which exceed the properties of its component 
 particles. \ 
 
 Now, scientific experience. justices, -US- in affirming it , ^.o^rwturj 
 be an absolute law, that every structural difference which p/?' 
 
 iJUMC- 
 
 may exist between any two parts of a living being, is 
 
 (accompanied by some difference betweerj. the^v motdes .of 
 
 /actiY lty:. Cfuactions) of such two parts ; and every difference 
 
 ^ between the modes of activity of different parts is also 
 
 accompanied by some corresponding difference in their 
 
 structure. Thus " structure " and " function " vary together, ilj 
 
 It follows that each tissue, having its own peculiar' 
 structure, has also its own special and peculiar function, 
 different from the functions of the other tissues. The 
 same consideration applies to each organ and each system 
 of organs wherever such distinctions exist— as we have 
 already found them to exist with respect to tissues, organs, 
 and system of organs of the human body. 
 
 I In the last chapter we have seen that there is a great Distinctions 
 difference between the structure of all animals above the anima/s 
 Protozoa and the immense majority of plants. We may 
 * See above, p. 321. + See above, p. 147. 
 
 and plants. 
 

 332 ^V ON TRUTH. 
 
 therefore expect to find that there are corresponding 
 functional differences. 
 
 The distinctions which exist between all the larger 
 and better known forms of plants and animals are, indeed, 
 so obvious that (in spite of the characters common to both, 
 which have been pointed out) the reader may think it 
 to be very easy to divide them as to their functions in 
 an absolute manner. For the activity of the animal 
 creation forces itself constantly upon our attention ; while 
 |plants, for the most part rooted to the soil, are obviously 
 ■incapable of voluntary motion. Yet many plants, like the 
 sensitive plant, do make certain movements, in order to 
 disseminate their seed or their pollen, or under different 
 conditions of light — as tlie_J|ower_ of ...a,piia£ernel will shut , 
 up under a clouded sky. Every one knows that different ^ 
 flowers close at different hours, and thus Linnteus was able ^ 
 
 "HI I iiii.m «nnM., .. V 
 
 to constru ct what was called "a floral clock." The move- 
 ments of tendrils are also well known. Again, many of 
 the lowest plants, such as Protococcus and various allied 
 forms, are actively locomotive — at least in certain stages 
 of their life-history, and the curious alga, Oscillatoria* is 
 in almost constant motion. On the other hand, many 
 Tunicates f are very inert, and the Sponges are apparently 
 motionless. The plants the motions of which are, for 
 several reasons, the most noteworthy, are the^j^n-dew 
 \JJJiZ£se7'a) and Venus's fly-trap {Dionaa^. The hairs of 
 the leavSTIj^'Or tRe'^rr^ew not only secrete a sticky fluid 
 by which an insect accidentally alighting is caught, but 
 they will gradually bend over such a captured insect, so 
 imprisoning it more effectually while bathing it in the fluid 
 the^distii When an insect alights on the leaf of Venus's 
 fly-trap, its contact causes the two plates of the leaf § to snap 
 sharply together and so imprison it, and the more the insect 
 struggles to escape, the more tightly the plates close upon 
 it till it is killed. The insect being dead, the blades of the 
 leaf again open and prepare to receive another victim. If, 
 however, the insect seized be very small (so that it is not 
 
 * See above, p. 321. It performs a series of alternate contractions pro- 
 ducing more or less rapid inflexions of the whole structure, like the bendings 
 of a worm or eel, and these inflexions may continue for days uninterruptedly. 
 t See above, pp. 318. \ See above, p. 321. § See above, loc. cit. 
 
/ 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. y^^^ 
 
 worth the effort of holding and killing), the plant's grasp 
 is quickly relaxed, and its prey allowed to escape. There 
 is a very curious imitation of voluntary motion in the fruit J 
 stalks of the " mother-of-a-thousand " (J^inm-ia), which will 
 move about over a rock or wall till it comes to a suitable 
 depression or hollow, when it will plunge its fruit (capsule) 
 within it and there deposit its seed. We have, however, j 
 already seen that mere isolated particles of living protoplasm 
 have a certain power of motion when stimulated, and it is, 
 therefore, not so very surprising tnat a certain kind of 
 motility should exist in plants. But the special form of 
 motility which results from muscular contraction is only 
 found in the animal kingdom, for in no plant is there such 
 a thing as muscular tissue, and therefore the movements 
 of these vegetable organisms are essentially unlike the 
 movements, whether voluntary or involuntary, which we 
 observe in animals. 
 
 A more obvious functional distinction .is supplied us /V'r»?«/?w 
 
 , - . . _ • 1 1 1-1 of organic 
 
 on the ma.tter ot nutrition. Let any animal be supplied, matter. 
 
 "liowever abundantly, with all the constituent chemical 
 elements which go to form its body (either separately or 
 ^ji^ arranged in whatever artificial combinations), such animal 
 must inevitably die of starvation, for it cannot build up 
 its own substance — cannot compensate for the wear and 
 tear of life — by any amount of inorganic matters alone. 
 It can only nourish itself when supplied with food con- 
 sisting of matter which forms or has formed part of a living j 
 creature. Therefore, no an imal can l ive without feedii 
 
 _direct ly_ or indirectly^ upon gTanfsj, which do possess the 
 power of building up organic matter directly from the 
 inorganic world. They do this by means of their green 
 leaves, which, furnished with a substance termed c1\1oj:q- 
 phyll, have the power, jnsjun]igli.t^..oXa3.is.SiQlviag ..caxbQiTij c 
 
 3cid', retaining its carbon, and letting its oxygen...go free. 
 This is the opposite process to that already described as 
 respiration* — a process which takes place in all organisms, 
 whether plants or animals. Certain worms (some of those 
 known as Planarice) and some other animal organisms 
 more or less green in colour, can also dissolve carbonic 
 
 * See p. i6i. 
 
334^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 il 
 
 acid as plants do, but this is by no means their exclusive 
 or chief mode of nutrition and growth. On the other hand, 
 the great group of Fungi, as well as certain parasitic plants 
 — such as the Dodder and Rafflesia * — are devoid of this 
 power, and need, as animals do, organic matter for their sus- 
 tentation. With these trifling exceptions, however, the 
 whole vegetable world, forests, grassy plains, sea-weeds 
 and mosses, and the green threads of every pond and 
 rivulet, are one and all continually engaged, during the . ^ 
 hours of daylight, in tearing from the atmosphere its car- 
 bon and in absorbing moisture, in order to build up new ^ 
 masses of organic substance from these purely inorganic \ 
 materials. ■■ 
 
 Again, plants do not receive solid nutriment into an 
 internal cavity, as almost all animals do. But there are 
 undoubted animals {e.g. the tape-worms) which have no 
 such cavity, but imbibe their nourishment directly through 
 the external surface of the body ; while there are un- 
 doubted plants — Drosera and DioncBa — which not only 
 catch insects but digest them (by means of a digestive 
 product they secrete) in a sort of temporary quasi-cavity. 
 In the case, also, of the pitcher plant {Nepenthes) insects 
 are caught and decomposed in its " pitchers," which are 
 permanent sacks, though they do not answer to the 
 digestive cavity of any animal^ 
 Plants ^0 } X be last and most impoxtaut JaocJtigJml. di ' gt i j ict jj Ofi. Jas.;:^ 
 'lot feel. ^^ t'Accn plauts and all undoubted anirnals relates to the faculty / 
 nf feeling. Animals, down_to and including, it is said,! 
 sponges, ha\'e some form of jnervQUS, tissue^ and, as we shall/ 
 > sec, very commonly some organs of special sense. Animals 
 ; are creatures which get their living by the help of their 
 senses, while plants are senseless ; and an animal may be 
 said to be an arrangement for carrying about, and for a time 
 perpetuating a plexus, or bundle, of sensations. Not only 
 will a worm or sTug shrink from any irritating object, but ' 
 will by its contortions give signs of feeling pain which 
 (its nervous centres being uninjured) we have no reason 
 for otherwise interpreting. Most animals also can perceive 
 
 * A parasite of the Indian Archipelago, devoid of foliage leaves, but with a/)|< 
 flower~nme feet in circumference and we'ghing fifteen pounds. ||f 
 
< 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 335 
 
 objects more or less distant, and can appreciate sounds 
 and sights (if not also odours), as well as touches, by- 
 special sense-organs formed for such ends. There are 
 animals, indeed, which seem hardly to show any signs of 
 feeling, such as Hydatids.* They, however, are but crea- 
 tures in an imperfect stage of development, and no animals, 
 however high, exhibit evidences of sensitivity at a very 
 early period of their existence. Sponges also give little I 
 sign of possessing such a faculty, but then any nervous / 
 tissue they may have is of a most rudimentary and imperfect I 
 kind. On the other hand, there are plants the actions off 
 which might lead some persons to believe they had not j ^$^ 
 only sensation, but even reason and will also. Amongst ! 
 them may be enumerated Di'osera and Diojicea, especially 
 as regards the action by which the latter plant affords 
 to its useless and insignificant prey, a means of escape 
 by opening its leaf blades. Very curious also are the 1 
 methods by which the roots of plants seem to " feel," as 
 it were, after moisture,t and those by which tlie tendrils 
 of certain climbers seem to search for some fitting support 
 and, having found it, to cling to it by what might seem 
 a voluntary clasping, while they will avoid the stem of the 
 plant from which they spring, by actually raising themselves, 
 if need be, upright, to pass over it.| We may here again j 
 refer to the action of Linaria, which has the appearance I 
 of feeling for a cavity wherein to deposit its seeds.§^' ' 
 
 * * Certain immature internal parasites. 
 
 / t A sycamore tree at Penn, near Wolverhampton, sent down into a well 
 J to reach the water, a root forty-four feet long and about a quarter of an inch 
 ^n diameter. 
 
 X The tendril of a passion-flower may sometimes be made to bend by the 
 pressure on it of a thread weighing no more than -jV of a grain, or by merely 
 touching it for a time with a twig. If, however, the twig be taken away 
 again at once, the tendril will then soon straighten itself. Yet neither the 
 contact of other tendrils of the same plant, nor the falling of raindrops, will 
 produce such bendings. The mistletoe as it germinates does not send its root- 
 like outgrowths downwards, but inwards into the supporting plant upon which it 
 is to live. Dutrochet showed that this special direction of growth was not due 
 to any merely physical attraction. He mounted the seed of a mistletoe upon 
 one extremity of a very delicately balanced needle, which would turn with the 
 slightest force, and he placed it at the distance of half a line from the surface 
 of a large cannon-ball. In germination the root-like outgrowth made directly 
 towards the ball, and soon came in contact with its surface. Nevertheless, 
 the end of the needle to which the seed was attached had not moved in the 
 slightest degree towards the ball, as it would have done if the action had been 
 due to an attraction such as that of gravity. 
 § .See above, p. 333. 
 
336 ON TRUTH. 
 
 In the case of feeling, however, as in the case of motion, \ 
 whatever impressibiHty may exist, must be of a different/ 
 kind from the sensitivity of animals, because it is thel 
 function of an essentially different kind of tissue. It is| 
 not an activity due to any form of nervous tissue, for none 
 exists in any plant. It is, therefore, only the outcome of 
 combinations of cellular and other vegetable tissues. 
 
 The functions, then, which minister to self-preservation 
 
 . W^ and reproduction are functions common to all organisms 
 
 yi \ — to plants as well as to animals — and they are therefore 
 
 /. \ino\^n diS, the vegetative fu7i£tio7is. The functions of muscular 
 
 motility and oFTenyitivity on the other hand, are functions 
 
 which pertain only to organisms which are undoubtedly 
 
 animals. 
 
 The consideration of all that concerns these animal 
 functions will be deferred to the next chapter, and what 
 remains of the present one will be devoted to a brief 
 notice of the functions common to all organisms, and 
 especially to reproduction and development. 
 AUmenia- The great function of nutrition (alimentation), as it is 
 
 carried on in man, has been already described.* It is 
 essentially the same in all undoubted animals, with the 
 exception of those parasites which imbibe their nourish- 
 ment through their external surface. In the Protozoa — as, 
 'for example, in Amoeba — particles of solid food are treated 
 as follows : the spot at which the animal touches such 
 a particle becomes depressed, the substance of the body 
 ; around such depression then grows round it, meets, and 
 \ encloses it ; and the undigested residue is subsequently 
 
 i expelled at some temporary opening formed for the occa- 
 sion. The long and delicate pseud^podia t of many Protozoa 
 close round some particle of food, coalesce, draw it inwards, 
 and so engulph it in the creature's body. The nutrition 
 of plants is effected in a manner very different from that 
 of animals, but space cannot here be afforded for its 
 description. 
 Circulation, The great functions of circulation, respiration, and 
 Zfr%tou"' secretion are essentially the same in all organisms as in 
 "iufjionf' man, though the various modes in which those functions 
 * See above, p. 158. t See above, p. 320. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 
 
 Ov5 
 
 7 ^// 
 
 I / \ 
 
 are efifected vary extremely, in harmony with the great 
 divergences as to structure which exist between different 
 groups of organisms. As to the function of reproduction, 
 a {q\n more words must be said. 
 
 We have ah"eady seen how in our own species not only 
 ordinary growth, but a reproduction of lost parts,* may 
 take place, involving remarkable organic adaptations and 
 noteworthy instances of correspondence between one part 
 and another. But the amount of reproduction of lost 
 parts which may take place in many of the lower animals 
 is far greater. Thus if the tail of a lizard be broken off it 
 will grow again. If it be longitudinally divided without 
 being removed, each divided half will complete itself, and 
 this process has been repeated till a lizard has been made 
 to carry sixteen such tails. The limbs of efts will also be 
 reproduced with their bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and 
 nerves. Even the eye and lower jaw have been seen to be 
 reproduced in the last-named animals, and one from which 
 the greater part of the head had been cut, was in the act of 
 rapidly reproducing it when the animal was accidentally 
 killed. The legs and claws of lobsters will similarly grow 
 again if torn off at their joints, though not if divided else- 
 where. If certain worms be cut in two, each half will 
 become a perf££t._^nimal^the_ head j)rpducing,.-a.ja^^ 
 and th e tail a new head, and a worm of the genus Nais 
 has been cut into as many as twenty^lBA^T^aFfr\^lTira*rike 
 result, tn higher animals, artificially separated parts often 
 continue for a time to exhibit a certain vitality. A tadpole's 
 tail cut off will for a short period continue its process of 
 development. A lizard's tail will move rapidly after being 
 separated. Frogs' amputated legs long continue to respond 
 to stimuli. The heart taken out also continues for a time 
 to beat, and after death different tissues continue for 
 different extents of time to show signs of vitality. But the 
 animalwhich. is.jperhaps the most remarkable for it s power 
 of repairing injuries is the Hydra, almost any fra gment^ / 
 whicE win, under la vouraBTe" ctr'CTi'ffi'sTari'c es, gr ow into a 
 np^Y an^ entlTfi . J.llHTinl. This process, which excites our 
 surprise and admiration in the case of animals, is so familiar 
 
 * See above, p. 170. 
 
 b 
 
 ^ 
 
338^// ON TRUTH. 
 
 to us in plants that no one thinks the formation of fresh 
 individuals by "c utting s " a matter of wonder, any more 
 than the expansion of buds into shoots, branches, or even 
 trees, like the ban yan tre e, capa ble of s hel ter^ j:: j^ ^j;e^giment 
 of soldiers^ 
 
 But the buds of some plants become spontaneously 
 detached from the organism — as in tiger-lilies — and such 
 buds under favourable circumstances will grow and develop 
 into plants like those which bore them, and some of the 
 lower animals {e.g. the C(£lentera) also form outgrowths, or 
 "buds," which similarly become detached and grow up into 
 organisms like those from which they arose. Often these 
 outgrowths spontaneously detach themselves from their 
 source, as we see is the case in those plants that grow out 
 into branches called " suckers," which take root and then 
 separate, thus forming altogether new plants. The common 
 bramble will attach itself to the ground by the end of a 
 " shoot ; " rootlets coming to take the place of the incipient 
 leaves of the terminal bud of the shoot, and so give rise to 
 a fresh stem. 
 
 Thus reproduction may clearly be but a certain mode ; 
 of growth, as growth, of course, takes place by a reproduc- 
 tion of the component elements of the part which grows, j 
 "Growth " is. ".cflatiimoLis.xe^roduction," and " reproduction " I 
 is a form of growth which may thus be either " continuous " 
 or "discontinuous." Continuous reproduction occurs in 
 animals as well as plants, and thus it is that many coralj 
 auixBAk- grow up as arborescent structures or into large 
 masses leading to the formation of reefs and islands. Dis- 
 continuous growth may occur in many worms {e.g. Scyllis 
 and Catemila) which habitually divide themselves and so 
 multiply. Also in those green flies, Ap/iides, so common 
 on our pelargoniums and roses, a process of internal budding 
 will give rise continually to new individuals, without any 
 sexual process, as long as warmth and food are supplied. 
 Many Infusoria * habitually multiply by self-made sections, 
 that is, by spontaneous division or fission. But buds are 
 frequently formed so simple in structure as to each consist 
 of only a few, or even of a single cell, which buds, becoming 
 
 * See above, p. 320. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 339 
 
 detached, can grow and develop by themselves into large 
 structures or even into the parent form. Such are " spores " 
 which are given ofif in such multitudes from ferns, fungi, 
 algae, etc. A Grcgariiia will contract itself into a sphere 
 and then break up into a number of small bodies, each 
 of which gives rise to another Gregarina. Indeed, so 
 numerous and varied are such modes of reproduction, that 
 we may well wonder that any sexual process should be 
 ever necessary. There is a very curious reproductive pro- 
 cess, termed " rejuvenescence," in various lowly organisms. 
 In some Infusoria also two individuals will actually meet, 
 blend together, and become one. In plants, we are familiar 
 with the practice of "grafting," by which two plants also 
 become one. Parts of one animal may likewise be im- 
 planted in the body of another, and there live and grow, 
 becoming a part of its body. In the great majority of 
 animals and plants, however, reproduction is frequently or 
 invariably effected, not by mere discontinuous growth, or 
 by some internal change in the contents of a single cell, 
 but through the junction of certain distinct protoplasmic 
 particles, from the union of which a new individual arises in 
 a mode essentially similar to that already briefly described.* 
 
 The circuitous course pursued in the development of the Develop- 
 human embryo has been previously indicated,! and a more 
 or less similarly circuitous route is followed in the develop- 
 ment of almost all animals. We have also noted how the 
 course first taken by the great arteries in the human em- 
 bryo resembles their permanent course in fishes, as also 
 how the vi-sceral clefts transitorily present in it, resemble 
 the branchial openings permanently present in them. 
 These are but two instances of a multitude of analogous 
 facts ; for the embryos of higher animals for the most part 
 transitorily resemble, in their general features, the structure 
 of other animals lower in the scale. The series of forms 
 also through which the embryo of a higher animal passes 
 in its development (or ontogeny), successively resembles, 
 in a general way, a series of adult forms of other animals — 
 a series increasing in complexity of structure, and in resem- 
 blance to the adult condition of such higher animal. Thus I 
 
 * See above, p. 164. t See above, p. 171. 
 
340 /y/ ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ the heart of a man is a t first a sing le tube, as it is perma- 
 r\^ nently in A^ j^^t ^ians. His brain consists in its earh est stages 
 
 |N of a series of simple vesicles, roughly like the brain of a 
 
 ^ lamprey. In a more advanced stage the human embryo is 
 
 . plainly the embryo of a mammal — being generally like the 
 \ embryos of all other mammals. Later on the embryos of I 
 men and apes are exceedingly alike, but differ from the / 
 embryos of other mammals ; and still later there can be / 
 no doubt but that the embryos of man and of anthropoid I 
 apes bear a very close resemblance to each other. Even ' 
 at birth the infant's great toe is more widely separated 
 from"!^ others than in the adult man, and the body is 
 clothed with a hairy coating, the lanugo, as before noticed.* , 
 These conditions exemplify a general law ; for it may be 
 said that the embryos of animals resemble each other the 
 more and the longer, according as their adult conditions are 
 the more alike. Before birth all mammals above marsu- 
 pials, are nourished in the uterus by the blood of the 
 mother through a structure termed a p lacenta^ formed in 
 essentially the same way, though in this respect the apes 
 /are the most like man. A placenta of a different type is 
 ifound in marsupials, but not in any other vertebrates save 
 i jlpertain sharks. After birth, ajQ_^mamraals are nourished 
 ||llike the human infant by milk. Such a provision is found 
 l|pn no other group of animals whatever. 
 Heredity: In our thirteenth chapter we have already called atten- 
 
 tion to the familiar fact of the hereditary resemblance 
 which shows itself in successive human beings. This 
 heredity is common to all organisms, which always resemble 
 i more or less closely the organisms which begot them. 
 \ This is evidently a property not of the new individuals — the 
 I offspring — but of the parental forms. If any living creature 
 ■ was self-impregnating, and the outcome of a long line of 
 self-impregnating predecessors, all existing in the midst of 
 one uniform and continuously unvarying environment, then 
 such a creature would evidently produce offspring completely 
 like itself The action of this law is modified by the diverse ' 
 influences of parents and ancestors, as before pointed out in 
 the case of man.f As a rule, modifications accidentally or 
 
 * See above, p. 173. t See above, loc. cit. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. 34 1 
 
 artificially induced in parents are not transmitted to their 
 offspring, as is well shown by the need of the repetition of 
 circumcision, and of pressure in Indian children's heads 
 and Chinese girls' feet in each generation. Yet there is 
 good evidence that such changes are occasionally inherited. 
 Guinea pigs which have become epileptic through a certain 
 mode of vivisection, have been known to have offspring 
 with a marked epileptic tendency. A female cat, the tail 
 of which had been injured, produced stump-tailed kittens 
 in two litters,* and a bull which had lost its tail by an 
 accident, has been said, by ^JX^'^'^^^-'H^- ^^^^^- of Jen a, to 
 have begotten tailless calves. Characters which depart 
 from the normal typT'oTa species or breed of animals, but 
 which are congenital, are far more likely to be inherited 
 than are those artificially induced. Such variations have 
 already been noted with respect to man ; f their occurrence 
 in other animals, together with the circumstances which may 
 be supposed to induce them, are matters the consideration 
 of which must be relegated to the last chapter of the present 
 section of this work. 
 
 ___^ So^far it is clear that, not only by his bodily structure, Man and 
 but also b>' the functions of his body, man is a true 'c/r^amSms. 
 
 _ajnijTQa^. All the vegetative functions — -all the activities by 
 which the life of each human body is maintained (the func- 
 tions of outcome and income), and his species reproduced 
 (the function of generation) — are essentially the same as 
 those of other organisms, especially of other animals. It is 
 particularly to one group of animals — the group of apes — 
 that, by these bodily functions as well as b}^ his bodily 
 structure, he shows a marjvedly.P.tfi-'i'^fi^iii^'^t resemblance. 
 It remains to consider his relation to animals as regards 
 their higher functions or faculties. 
 
 * Sec " The Cat " (John Murray), p, 7. f See above, p. 173. 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 A 
 
 a 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 The highest faculties of animals are different in kind from those of \ 
 man. One distinct faculty (Insti nct) which is but very slightly i 
 developed in him is very highly developed in many animals. 
 
 
 Movement andfeeling — Reflex action — Practical intelligence of animals 
 — Animal language — Animal stupidity — Animal ethics and taste 
 — Habit and instinct — histinct a separate faculty — A reflex 
 action of the individual. 
 
 ^^faUng. The functions which are peculiar to the higher organisms 
 and are exhibited by all living creatures which possess 
 1 nervous and muscular tissue, are (as has been before said) 
 |those of movement and feeling. These two functions are 
 Idistinguislied as those of animal life, in contradistinction 
 'to the functions of nutrition and reproduction, which, being 
 possessed by all plants as well as animals^ are termed 
 jthe vegetative functions. That the animals with which 
 we are most familiar have feelings and emotions, and that 
 we can, to a considerable extent, tell what they are, 
 hardly any one will be disposed to deny. No reasonable 
 man who sees a dog frisk about with wagging tail and 
 cheerful bark, upon his master putting on his hat, can 
 doubt but that the dog has also seen the hat put on, and 
 is on that account excited by pleasurable, expectant feel- 
 ings. Strictly speaking, of course, no one can directly \ 
 and with exactness know any feelings but his own, though 
 speech enables us to know that our fellow-men feel and 
 have the same faculties and the same endowments, sensitive 
 and intellectual, that we have. Animals cannot tell us in - 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 34; 
 
 
 words that they feel. Nevertheless, their mute expressions 
 are amply sufficient to assure the common sense of man- 
 kind that many animals — e.g. a dog, a monkey, a parrot, 
 or a frog — not only have feelings, but also, to a considerable 
 extent, what those feelings are — certainly that they can 
 see and hear. 
 
 But we have further grounds for believing thataaimals 
 feel and possess sensitive faculties, similar to our own ; 
 Tor ^ve have seen tliatTunction goes \vith structure, and 
 we know by consciousness and observation that while our 
 nervous system remains uninjured, diverse feelings attend 
 the application of diverse stimuli to it. Now, seeing that 
 birds, beasts, and other vertebrates have a nervous system 
 more or less closely resembling our ov\m, we may reasonably 
 conclude that, as long as their organization is unimpaired, 
 feelings more or less like ours will follow the application 
 to them of stimuli like those applied to our own bodies. 
 As to lower creatures, we find as we descend through the 
 series of animals, an increasing divergence, in the form of 
 their nervous system, and, on the wdiole, a decreasing 
 complexity and perfection in its structure. Nevertheless, 
 wherever we find eyes, we may conclude the creatures pos- 
 sessing them have some power of vision — if only a power 
 of distinguishing between light and darkness — and wherever 
 we find tactile organs, or appropriate movements (in un- 
 injured organisms) in response to various forms of contact, 
 we may conclude that there is also sensitivity. It is im- ■ 
 possible to doubt, when watching a bee rifl e a flowe r of itsj^ 
 nectaTj^ that the insect not only sees the^'^ower but also 
 feels those parts of it which it so dext erously explores. 
 But we have already seen that, though other functions 
 are ministered to by the nervous system * besides sensation, 
 yet sensation is its especial function. We may therefore 
 safely conclude, wherever w^e find any living animal which 
 performs actions seeming to indicate the presence of sensa- 
 tion, and which has a nervous system intact and uninjured, 
 that such an animal really feels. Wt i ^a y " "^ '^^i n^ _ ^.l*^ 
 uniniured.''_|;)^9 caus e the p'hep9rnfpa of fpflg?f artinn,f which /?cf« 
 
 * See above, p. 16S. t See above, p. 167. 
 
 4^ 
 
 •ex 
 action. 
 
344 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 '^ 
 
 gravely mjured,.show that we might, without such reserva- 
 tion, fal l into error. But, indeed, our judgment that similar 
 stimuli prr)clucc in men and animals similar normal results, 
 is confirmed by the fact that essentially similar abnormal 
 results occur as a consequence of analogous injuries. In 
 animals the nervous centres of which have been injured, 
 reflex movements of the limbs will take place,similar to those 
 which will take place in human beings in like case. Many 
 animals, indeed, display reflex action in a much more sur- 
 prising manner — notably the,.irjOg, which deserves to be 
 called the animaj-martyr of science, from the constant 
 recourse which is had to it for physiological experimenta- 
 tion. Here it is evident that the stimulus is not the cause 
 of the reflex action, but only serves to elicit it from an 
 organism possessing a certain vitality and spontaneity. 
 The real cause is imrnanent in the mutilated organism 
 acted on. A frog which not only has had its nervous 
 "cenLreis 'injured, but has had its head cut off, will yet make 
 with its hind legs the most appropriate movements to 
 remove an object applied to the hinder part of its body. 
 If its skin be touched with some caustic fluid, a leg will be 
 quickly advanced and applied to the irritated part, and if 
 that leg be held, then the other leg will be moved and 
 similarly applied. But this is not all ; at the breeding 
 season the male frog tightly grasps the female behind her 
 arms, and, to enable him the more securely to maintain 
 his hold, a warty prominence is then developed on the 
 inner side of each of his hands. Now, if such a male frog 
 be taken, and not only decapitated, but the whole hinder 
 part of the body also removed, so that nothing remains 
 but the fragment of the trunk from which the two arms 
 with their nerves proceed, and if under these circumstances 
 the warty prominences be touched, the two arms will imme- 
 diately close together like a spring. Evidently, then, we 
 can arrive at no trustworthy conclusions except by obser- 
 vations with respect to animals the organization of which 
 is intact. 
 Practical That a nlmals h a ve not only special senses and general/ 
 
 'o/a,ifvmh. sensitivity, but also much practical intelligence, is a facti 
 
 which no sane mind can doubt. 
 
 They show plainly enough i 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 545 
 
 that they;_ca.n thus appreciate (/.^. practically) very abstract__ 
 matters^ such as motion, number, cause, solidity, etc., and 
 can attend to * and classify objects in various appropriate 
 categories according to their several properties. As to 
 motion, a cat which runs after a mouse, or even a pike 
 which overtakes and catches a small fish, shows by its 
 actions that it possesses a practical knowledge of what 
 motion is ; as does a dog which sciiiiies»k«i#tUy-©ut of the 
 reach of a stone thrown after it. A dog may also show 
 that it practically recognizes " number," when two friends 
 simultaneously call it in two different directions. 
 
 Not merely such a very highly-organized animal, how- 
 ever, but even an insect will discriminate between objects 
 which differ in number — between an attack by one enemy 
 on one side of it, and a simultaneous attack by two enemies, 
 one on either side of it ; between one object of pursuit and 
 several objects of pursuit — and will regulate its responsive 
 movements accordingly. A dog, startled at the agitation 
 by the wind of an expanded parasol lying near it on a 
 grass-plot, may, by its angry growl, show its apprehension 
 of some hidden, possibly hostile, cause of such motion ; and 
 it may show not only its appreciation of a cause, but of 
 causes of different orders, when the raising of a latch 
 may lead it first to display an excitement of expectation, 
 to be followed by discriminating gestures, according as he 
 who raises the latch may prove to be the dog's master, a 
 known visitor, or a suspicious-looking stranger. 
 
 An elephant will hesitate to cross a bridge it seems 
 to feel insecure, thus showing in one way that it has a 
 distinct and practical apprehension of the abstract quality, 
 " solidity^" as a hyaena making an extra effort to crush 
 a very hard bon'e, shows it in another way. Animals, 
 again, readily vary their conduct according to the pro- 
 perties of objects presented to their senses, i.e. they recog- 
 nize, draw practical inferences,t and, as before said, classify. 
 A cat will make use of visible characters as a basis of its 
 system of classification. A dog divides the material uni- 
 verse, organic and inorganic, into groups and sub-groups 
 according to a finely graduated series of smells. 
 
 * See above, pp. 95, 191, 192. f See above, pp. 94, 194, 195. 
 
I 
 
 i 
 
 h\^// ON TRUTH. 
 
 Animals of the most varied kinds, from insects to apes, 
 will, as their actions prove, anticipate, from signs which 
 they recognize, the presence in objects of characters 
 and tendencies to action as yet unperceived. A monkey 
 will show a practical dread of the hurtful properties of 
 a viper, and a wasp, a similar appreciation of the luscious 
 sweetness hidden beneath the skin of the ripe fruit it 
 attacks. Insects, indeed, present us with wonderful pheno-i 
 mena ^f an Intelligent nature. Anis displav a complete' 
 and complex political organization, classes of beings socially i 
 distinct, war resulting in the capture' of slaves, and the! 
 ^appropriation and maintenance of domestic animals (^///z'^^j-) j 
 analogous to our milk-giving cattle. Moreover, animals • 
 practically apprehend universals,* for a sheep does not 
 l^dread a particular wolf, but any wolf — "wolf in general." 
 
 Qaowe, then, attribute^to^ anmTals^ ^J^^\g^QSS,'S^i^^^, 
 as our own. But inferior in amou^t-T:7-aJikeJUi~kiiid,.aud,4iffer^^^ 
 ing onlyln degree ? Before seeking a reply to this ques- 
 Tfon~rtlTTay*^''\A^ Tor the reader to carefully repe ruse the 
 fomte,g,Ql^h,,(j:tftp,tf:r_of tJl)'i'\WQrJ ^ in order to realize _ ho-W.ric ;k 
 are the sensitive faculties, and how numg 
 are the practical cogiiitions possibleeven 
 the_exercise of intelJccL All those varied sensitive powers, 
 with the c()n-cs[jontling bodily activities, are unquestionably 
 possessed by the higher animals as well as by man ; and if 
 those animals do not possess the higher faculty of intellect, 
 then it may well be that, such sensitive faculties (having 
 the whole field of life, as it were, to themselves), may 
 energize more vividly and perfectly in animals than they 
 ican do in us where they are so commonly inter fered with 
 yb3{_theaction oftheJj;it£lkj^. But some readers may be 
 'inclined to nnpatiently protest that animals are without 
 question highly intelligent, that many of them know their 
 homes, their friends, and their enemies ; that, therefore, 
 animals " know " % many things which we know, and that 
 though they have not the use of words, they must, at least, 
 have "ideas," and therefore a true intelligence. Now, most 
 certainly animals have " intelligence," "understanding," and 
 
 Ln man. without 
 
 * .See above, p. 206. + See above, p. 178. 
 
 J As to the various meanings of the word " know," see above, p. iS 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 fe^> 
 
 " knowledge," in the loose sense in which those terms are 
 popularly used. We should be very sorry to deny the 
 admirable and lovable endowments of the animal w^orld. 
 A man must have a very defective nature who does not 
 love his faithful brute companions. But we ought not to 
 allow affection, any more than hatred, to blind us and so 
 mislead our judgment, and, in considering the higher 
 faculties of such creatures as dogs and monkeys, there are i 
 _fouL rules which sjbiould be borne carefully in mind. These (v 
 are : — ^ 
 
 1. To guard against the misleading tendency of our 
 emotions. The owners of pet animals are frequently 
 
 \^ ternpted to read in their actions meanings for which 
 thei-e is no real evidence, and to mistake imperfect infer- 
 ences, due to partiality, for real observations. 
 
 2. To guard against our besetting tendency to judge 
 ^ everything_ by pur ^ownstaiidard, and without reason to 
 
 _^' imagine the existence of human qualities in beings which 
 
 are not human. This is the error of antJiroponiorpJiisui. I 
 
 3. Not to suppose that unknown causes are acting, 
 j^jw^hen known causes suffice to explain all the phenomena 
 .^•^observed. This is the old, well-known rule, called Occam's 
 
 R.^^Qj';." Rutia^uau^ljjit umltiplicanda pr(2te}' nccessitatemP 
 y" 4. To bear in mind thariT"any'cause7^i'3~Tre??t§t7^vTO 
 \V^ produce certain effects, we must not suppose the existence 
 of that cause when such effects are not to be discovered. 
 
 Now, we do not hesitate to affirm that there is no known 
 action of any brute animal which cannot be fully explained 
 by its possession of those merely sensitive faculties which t 
 have been enumerated under the head of " ourlower, 
 powers," * and the exercise of those co-ordinate actions 
 directed to avoid pain and follow up pleasure, which we 
 ourselves also possess, and which we know may act with- 
 out the co-operation of rational intelligence, because they 
 may so operate in our own case. For such action, it is 
 necessary, indeed, that the animal should sensibly cognize 
 external thiiigs, but it is not necessary that it shouT(31n- 
 tellectualTy perceive their being ; that it should feel itself 
 existing, but not recognize its existence; tliat it should 
 
 * See above, pp. 200, 201. 
 
348/// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 fr\ 
 
 V 
 
 .\ 
 
 feel relations.,hetiy.eeii- objects, -but not that it should appre- 
 hend them as relations ; that it should have reminiscence, 
 but not recollection ; that it should feel and express emo- 
 tions, but not itself advert to them ; that it should seek 
 t he pleasurable, but not make the pleasurable its deliberate 
 ann, ^-. True, or intellectual, intelligence, therefore, is not 
 (according to the third of the above rules) to be asserted 
 of animals, because their actions can be explained without 
 it, by the help of that sensitivity which the combined study 
 of anatomy and physiology shows us they do possess, and 
 which we also possess. Thus, the so-called " universals " of^ 
 animals are not true universals, or intellectual ideas, but 
 answer only to our own sensuouSj generalized cognitions.^ 
 But our fourth rule absolutely compels us to deny real 
 intelligence to brutes. For if they had capacities similar 
 to our higher mental powers, they would very soon make 
 us unmistakably aware that such was the case. If animals 
 could inform one another of facts they had observed, 
 and then act together truly in concert, very unpleasant 
 phenomena would soon make it impossible for us to deny 
 them true intelligence. A careful consideration, on the 
 other hand, of what the processes of mental abstraction 
 and judgment really are,t will, we think, make it impossible 
 for him who so considers those faculties, to attribute them 
 to brutes even of the highest order of mammals. The 
 movements and gesticulations of apes have a misleading 
 appearance, simply due to the fact that they can only move 
 their limbs and features according to the laws of their 
 construction ; and these are very like our own. Moreover, 
 not only does the form of their body and limbs induce 
 a resemblance of the kind, but the probable resemblance 
 which also exists between the minute structure of their 
 nervous centres and our own, renders it likely that they 
 exceptionally resemble us, not alone in their motions, but 
 in their feelings and in some of their emotions also. Such 
 resemblances, however, do not imply a resemblance as to 
 intellect. 
 
 The besetting tendency of many persons to exaggerate 
 the higher faculties of animals (their pets) has just been 
 
 * See above, p. IQI. f See above, from p. 211, to p. 215. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 349 
 
 referred to, but a still stronger tendency to such exaggera- 
 tion besets many modern writers on account of a philoso- 
 phical prejudice. Because they do not see how man can 
 have come to have a faculty different in kind from that of 
 animals, they strain every point — exaggerate some facts 
 and ignore others — to show that he has no such different 
 faculty. But in science the first question is not how any- 
 thing exists or becomes, but whether it does exist or not, 
 as a fact. Mr. Chambers, Professor Bain, and the late 
 Mr. G. H. Lewes agree as to this tendency to exaggera- 
 tion, declaring it to be " nearly as impossible to acquire a \ 
 knowledge of animals from anecdotes, as it would be \.o\\^h 
 obtain a knowledge of human nature from the narratives I " 
 of parental fondness and friendly partiality," and affirming; 
 that the researches of various eminent writers on animal 1 
 intelligence have been " biassed * by a secret desire to 
 [establish the identity of animal and human nature." All 
 
 [the actio ns of the most intelligent animal can be under- , 
 
 [stood as results of powers like our lower mental faculties, 
 
 dthout. deliberation, px,GQ^.,S£iousness.^ For such action it 
 
 \i necessary, indeed, that the animal should (as before said) 
 
 sensibly cognize things, but not that it should intellectually 
 
 perceive their being ; that it should feel itself as existing, 
 
 but not recognize its existence ; that it should feel relations 
 
 between objects, but not that it should apprehend them ; 
 
 that it should remember, but not seek to recollect, or 
 
 know that what it remembers is passed ; that it should 
 
 feel and express emotions, but not recognize them ; that 
 
 it should seek what pleases it, but not that it should aim 
 
 at pleasure, or know that the pleasure which it feels is 
 
 pleasurable. By the exercise of such merely sensitive 
 
 faculties brutes can pursue an escaping prey, jump up 
 
 * To show the justice of such observations, two quotations may be given. 
 The first is from Dr. Bastian's work, "The Brain as an Organ of Mind," 
 where, at p. 328, we read the following citation : "When Dr. Hermes left the 
 gorilla, on the previous Sunday, the latter showed the doctor his tongue, 
 clasped his hands, and squeezed the hand of the doctor as an indication, the 
 latter believtd, of his recovery." In the recently translated work of Professor 
 Biichner, entitled "Mind in Animals," we are gravely told (p. 249) of two 
 bees performing a sort of funeral ceremony. They are represented as flying 
 out of the hive, " carrying between them the corpse of a dead comrade," and 
 then, having found a suitable hole, they "carefully pushed in the dead body, 
 head foremost, and placed above it two small stones (!). They then watched 
 for about a minute before they flew away. ' 
 
\5o/f/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 <> 
 
 banks or rocks, or climb to attain what is otherwise out of 
 reach, pre pare, ...stakes for a dam .as.dQ^S— the beaver, or 
 employ a stone to cracic a hard nut as does the common 
 1 American ape, the sa2ai,2iJ, Actions such as these are 
 I performed to complete a harmony* which the imagination 
 I craves, owing to associations, previously effected, between 
 I groups of feelings and emotions, and groups of groups of 
 I such. A cat does not need to entertain any intellectual 
 knowledge or belief that the sound of clattering plates 
 means possible food, to obtain which it must make certain 
 movements. Quite independently of such belief, and by 
 virtue of mere sensuous association, the sound of the plates 
 is alone enough to give rise to such movements on the part 
 of the cat as have previously become associated with 
 pleasant sensations of taste. Let certain sensations, emo- 
 tions, and movements become associated, and then the 
 former need not be noted ; they only need to exist for 
 the association formed to produce its effects. When the 
 circumstances of any present case differ from those of some 
 previous experiences, but imperfectly resemble those of 
 many past experiences, parts of these and consequent 
 actions are irregularly suggested by the laws of re- 
 semblance, until some action is hit on which relieves pain 
 I or gives pleasure. ForJpsj;^£^.,iei.sdog be,.lQsi.ijjLi^ 
 I mistress in a field in wiiich he has never been before. The 
 Ipresence of the group of sensations which we know to 
 J indicate his mistress is associated with pleasure and its 
 absence with pain. By past experience an association 
 has been formed between this feeling of pain and such 
 movements of the head as tend to recover some part of 
 that group, its recovery being again associated with move- 
 ments which, de facto, diminish the distance between the 
 dog and his mistress. The dog, therefore, pricks up his 
 ears, raises his head, and looks round. His mistress is 
 nowhere to be seen ; but at the corner of the field there is 
 visible a gate at the end of a lane which resembles a lane 
 in which she has been used to walk. An image of that 
 other lane, and of his mistress walking there, presents itself 
 to the imagination of the dog ; he runs to the present lane, 
 
 * See above, p. 200, 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 (P^/ 
 
 a 
 
 but on getting into it she is not there. From the lane, 
 however, he can see a tree at the other side of which she 
 was wont to sit ; the same process is repeated, but she is 
 not to be found. Having arrived at the tree, he thence 
 finds his way home. ^Bj^,tli£^.actiQil^X_such..£e.eii,ogs, injagi; 
 V^iLQPJi^iiild ,9-ssociations, which we knovv, by, what, takes 
 place in m an^jio exist, and „are ^try.e.. causes^ -alL. the. ap- „ 
 ^ arentlyj ntelligent actjong -of .aiii.mals may be explained 
 Avithout the need of calling in the help of a power (intellect),! ^ 
 .the existence of which Jn animals is inconsistent with the I 
 phenomena they, as a whola, exhibi t. Th e^'exprrise of thej 
 ighest faculties in animals may perhaps be -besi compared , 
 witli"""S"reaming in man. The comparison is, however, 
 ecessarily inexact, because our intellect, acting in an 
 involuntary manner, so modifies our dreams that they 
 always must be different from any state of a being which 
 has no intellect at all. Nevertheless, our dreaming con- 
 dition may serve as an approximative, though inexact, 
 representation of the highest activity which exists in the 
 highest animals. 
 
 . There is one plain and obvious difference by which all. ^«//«a/ 
 • kin ds of animals differ from all races of men. Men speak^, ""^""^"' 
 1 but aiTrrTfaIs^'"are'dnmibr^'1§^ffi'e" readers, however, may be 
 inclined to reply that there are such things as dumb men, 
 and that many animals are eloquent with a language of 
 their own. The songs and calls of birds have meanings 
 which are practically understood by their fellows. Some 
 dogs will make certain facts — the presence of a rabbit or a 
 thief — known to their masters, and also indicate which of 
 the two it is by the kind of sound they make. Pointers 
 and setters, by their gestures, will make known other facts, 
 while parrots and jackda ws can j£arn actu ajly J:q j'lpe^k 
 whole sentences. All this is very true, but it is nothing to 
 the point. " We have in ou r sixteenth chapt er * ab unda ntly - > 
 jfwe^elie:y£)- ^^^^ wn .the d ilT p'rpnff'ft i 'l I ft£¥wgp|- i^^ ]g^^ 
 intellectual language. We have also there pointed out 
 
 TT^nrrates 
 
 lave a truly intellectual language of gesture, 
 and that a mere inability to utter sounds through some 
 structural defect, no more proves a man not to be an essen- 
 * See above, p. 224. 
 
352 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 tially " speaking animal," than does the fact that another 
 \ individual cannot speak because he is gagged. No reason- 
 able man can deny the expressiveness of brute language, 
 but it is nevertheless fundamentally different in kind from 
 human language.^ Following up ah illustration before 
 given,* let us suppose that a brute and a man are standitig 
 under an oak-tree which begins to fall. The falling tree 
 will produce similar effects upon the senses of both man 
 and brute. Both will instinctively fly from the danger. 
 ^- Both may cry out from alarm, and both, by their cries and 
 gestures, may give rise to similar feelings of alarm in other 
 men and brutes. In so doing both give expression to tl^fi. 
 lowe r kind of language — the, Lajiguage of emotion. It is 
 true that some brutes can articulate, and it is quite con- 
 ceivable that brutes might (though, as a fact, they do not) 
 so associate certain sensations and gratifications with 
 certain articulate sounds, as, in a certain sense, to speak. 
 That is to say, it is conceivable that a parrot might learn 
 to utter certain words which he has come to associate with 
 some gratification, just as a dog who " begs " has associated 
 that gesture with the imagination, "sugar to follow. ' This, 
 however, would in no way even tend to bridge over the 
 chasm which exists between intellectual speech and the 
 language of emotion. Similarly, if a dog could be trained 
 (as a pig has been trained) to select, from a number of 
 cards with letters on them, cards with the letters C, A, K, E, 
 which act he has associated with " eating cake," it would 
 be no argument that the dog had a comprehension of the 
 word thus spelt.f In order to comprehend that, he must 
 possess that lofty power of abstraction before described, and 
 which every'savage possesses \v^o*'Says^"^''*M5^"*^ear is 
 broken," or, " I am hurt." All tribes of men possess this 
 power,! but no animal presents us with an indication that 
 he shares it with us. Did he share it — had he the verbuvi 
 
 * See above, p. 225. 
 
 J t Thus, were an animal to be discovered more tiian-l-i-k* in form than the, 
 trnrilla ^^nrl did it, after being trained, advance towards us saying, "Please 
 give me cake," at the same time presenting us with cards on which those words 
 were written, such actions would not form the slightest argument in favour of 
 its rationality, did it in other respects show no more power of forming abstract 
 
 1 ideas than other animals do. 
 
 ' J See above, chap, xi.x., p. 279. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 353 
 
 inoitale* — he would at once tell us so in language;! 
 not necessarily with the language of the tongue, but that 
 of gesture. 
 
 To convince us that they possess this power, they need 
 merely use an intellectual gesture language, like that 
 employed by the deaf and dumb in reciting the Lord's 
 Prayer,! or like that which is used in ballets. Could they 
 do that, it would be enough to show us that animals are 
 rational — that they really possess abstract ideas. The 
 absence of any such manifestation, in spite of the many 
 needs and the many exciting causes likely to elicit its dis- 
 play, eloquently proclaims their essentially unintellectual 
 condition. Animals have all the bodily powers needed for 
 expressing ideas b}' gestures, but they, do, not do it. Their 
 senses are keen enough to give them ideas about things felt, 
 but they have them not ; evidently because a higher faculty 
 / is wanting. A dog's world is, as before said, a world of 
 I smells ; but he has no idea of a smell, as such, or of the 
 i difference between a smell and a sight. 
 
 Anim_als__ate astonished, b.ut they have no recollection 
 of being astonished, or knowledge that they are astonished^, 
 They recognize objects both natural and artificial, but they 
 have no idea of the artificial, for they have no true ideas 
 
 (whatever. A dog may fear another dog which is stronger 
 and fiercer, but it will have no idea of courage and fierce- 
 ness. Many animals, even insects, will distinguish clearly 
 
 * See above, p. 235. 
 
 t 'Olilt..,acute, well-informed writer, Mr. G. H. Le^veSj has said on this 
 subject that animals " communicate Only feelings . . . they cannot com- 
 municate knowledge of objects, having no ideas of objects. . . . When a dog 
 is shut in a room and wants to get out, he whines and scratches at the door ; 
 these are reflex expressions of his feelings, and having learnt that whining is 
 often followed by the door opening, he expects that if he whines the door will 
 open. It is the same when he desires food. This rudimentary stage of the 
 use of vocal sounds as signs of communication between him and his master 
 remains, however, so rudimentary that he never generalizes it beyond his 
 actual experiences — he does not whine to his fellows, nor does he whine to 
 escape punishment, etc. And the communication is never other than that of 
 desire. Objects, except as motives, do not exist for him. He has no power 
 of abstraction capable of constructing ideas of objects ; he has only sensations 
 and imaginations representing sensibles. But ideas expressed in words are not 
 sensible objects ; they are mental constructions, in which relations abstracted 
 from things are woven afresh into a web of sensibles and extra-sensibles, and 
 concrete particulars become concrete generals" (" J'roblems of Life and 
 Mind," p. 159). 
 
 X See above, p. 22S. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 ON TRUTH. 
 
 between differently coloured objects — the white from the 
 blue, the red from the yellow ; but no animal knows " white- 
 ness " or " blueness," and still less does it know the higher 
 abstraction " colour." Yet every savage who rewards a 
 youth of his tribe for an act of courage, or who ornaments his 
 body with pigment, shows thereby that these abstract ideas . 
 are familiar to him. As we have seen, animals practically \^ 
 classify, but no animal knows " kinds," or " classes," or ; 
 " properties," or " qualities," as stick, though these abstrac- 
 tions are conceived of by men who are deprived of the gift 
 > . ■ f of oral utterance.* Tliu^ tjie so^caUed^'/^^ in^^^ und^fe, ,. 
 
 \S'/^ standing, and knowled ge " of animals are not really true 
 Pi mtelljo;: fiace^JA>t^d£rstandincr, and knowledge. They are the, 
 \ sensuous simulation of such intellectual faculties. That 
 the distinction is not a mere question of the presence or 
 absence of words, we have already shown : f it consists 
 in the presence or absence of abstract ideas. Animals are 
 incapable of making signs or emitting sounds (articulate or 
 inarticulate) which answer to such ideas, though they may 
 eloquently express their feelings and emotions by cries and 
 gestures, and can sometimes distinctly articulate words.J 
 
 Since animals have not abstract ideas, they cannot have 
 thgjiighly abstract idea " I," which can only be obtained 
 by a reflex act.§ But animals do not reflect ; sathey cannot 
 be conscious, Yet no animal mistakes himself for another, 
 and doubtless the higher animals have a sense of the con- 
 tinuity of their existence, like our mere feelings of self and 
 
 knot-self II Though they have not consciousness, they pos- 
 sess consenttence,*!! and we cannot doubt (for there is no 
 structural or functional evidence to induce us to doubt) 
 that in them, as in us, sensitive influences of different kinds 
 
 /are received in one common sensorium. Considerations 
 like those before brought forward with respect to human 
 idiots and sleep-walkers** apply to animals also. A tiger 
 not only hears the plaintive cries of its victim, but at the 
 same time can see and feel its writhing limbs, and taste and 
 smell its blood. Such sensations also, no doubt, call up 
 
 * See above, p. 229. t See above, p. 233. 
 
 % See above, p. 235. § See above, pp. 20, 21. 
 
 II See above, pp. 189, 190. 1 See above, p. 183. 
 
 ** See above, p. 199. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 355 
 
 ^ ' f / 
 within it more or less distinct reminiscences of similar feel- 
 ings previously experienced, and give rise to vivid emotions 
 and to appropriate actions. With this basis of consentience 
 and with the aid of sensuous memory, animals can associate 
 groups and groups of feelings and emotions, and so come 
 to have those sensuous cognitions and feelings related to 
 succession, extension, number, motion, etc., which have 
 been enumerated, in the fourj£enilL_dia,^r, amongst our 
 own lower mental powers. These, with the phenomena of 
 habit and instinct which have yet to be considered, are, we 
 believe, amply sufficient to account for all the apparently 
 rational acts of animals, without attributing to them that 
 higher kind of facult)' which we distinguish as trjueu-^w 
 " formal'^ intelligence in ourselves. 
 
 Indeed, if all or nearly all the facts easily observed with -^wV/^/ 
 respect to the actions 01 animals were taken into account, "■■'■^■~ 
 we should have to say that if they possess our intellectual 
 faculty, they are often wonderfully deficient in the exercise 
 of it. Many persons eagerly note and are prone to ex- 
 aggerate any action of animals which show, as they think, 
 true intelligence, but, as a rule, they fail altogether to observe 
 phenomena which bespeak a want of intelligence. On this 
 . account a book requires to be written on " the s tupidity of 
 j animal s." Acts which would be reckoned as signs of ex- 
 |treme obtuseness and stupidity in us, are common enough 
 amongst animals usually reckoned as the most intelligent. 
 Dogs are generally praised, and very justly so, for their 
 fidelity ^nd for the energy with which they will often seek /Vt/p 
 to defend their master against an enemy, real or supposed. ^ 
 But, in a sudden scuffle, it is by no means an unprecedented 
 thing for a dog to fly at his own master. What dog that ^^ 
 has seen fuel put upon fires again and again, ever puts on 
 any himself to maintain the heat he so greatly enjoys ? 
 Apes have been said to warm themselves at deserted fireay i 
 yet no one asserts that they have made them up. It is 
 wonderful if they do not, for such an act seems to come 
 well within the scope of our lower, non-intellectual faculties. 
 Some readers may have had a pet cat which has now and 
 again got a fish-bone or chicken-bone fixed between its 
 back-teeth. The useless motions the animal, when so cir- 
 
;56 
 
 V 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Animal 
 ithics and 
 tash: 
 
 cumstanced, will make with its paw are sufficiently irrational ; 
 but although the action may have occurred to it several 
 times, it will act in the same way again and again, and will 
 sometimes stupidly struggle against its master while he 
 removes the object which distresses it ; and, as soon as it 
 is removed, the animal will go off licking its jaws, without 
 a sign of gratitude for the relief afforded. Swallows will 
 continue to build on a house which they can see is being 
 demolished. The higher faculties of bees have been (as 
 Sir John Lubbock has shown) absurdly misrepresented ; 
 and flies will deposit their eggs on a carrion plant instead 
 of on animal matter, which is absolutely needful for their 
 young. But even the animal often reputed the wisest, the 
 elephant, not long ago, in our Z lological Gardens, gave 
 proof of extreme stupidity by actually pulling off the 
 terminal portion of its own trunk (which had got caught 
 I in a cord) instead of calling for help and waiting till its 
 \keeper came. It would be an easy task to multiply 
 instances of actions in animals which must be called stupid 
 if they have the use of an intellect similar in kind to our 
 own. In fact, however, they merit no such reproach, but, 
 as a rule, make an excellent use of the admirable but non- 
 ' intellectual faculties with which they are actually endowed 
 The mistakes which have arisen in this matter are very 
 often due not so much to an exaggeration of animal intel- 
 ligence as to a want of appreciation of the intelligence of 
 man — especially to ignorance of what is meant by abstrac- 
 tion, and of the absolute need of a high degree of it for all 
 our intellectual acts, including those of gesture, language, 
 and of speech. 
 
 • One of the strangest misapprehensions connected with 
 this subject is that which has led some persons to attribute 
 
 • to animals the possession of a rudimentary morality. We 
 have seen in our seventeenth chapter * what is the real 
 
 |,uatuf£ofmorality, and how its e x e r else "depen 3T o rT ttie' 
 possession or'tne nighly abstract idea, goodness. Mere 
 feelings of sympathy, companionship, regretful feelings, 
 and feelings of shame, are phenomena of our lower or 
 merely sensuous faculties, f and doubtless exist in some of 
 * See above, p. 243. t See above, p. 186. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 357 
 
 the higher animals to a greater or less extent. It may be, 
 as has been suggested, that a swallow which has migrated, 
 and left a young brood behind to starve, will feel agony at 
 the reminiscence of its neglected offspring ; but such agony 
 would not be ethical unless she looked back and judged 
 that she ojight not to have left them. Moral actions, to 
 b^^_moral, must spring from present or habitual judg-, 
 "jnp uu^ o f a 'ippf igMcind *" Animals will sometimes per-I 
 form actions beneficial" to other animals, and this may 
 be even due to kindly sympathy. Such actions would, 
 I I of course, be " good " actions, in a certain sense ; they 
 1 1 would be materiall}' good ; but to be really ethical, they 
 I I must possess formal goodness t — they must be due to 
 ^ a perception of what is right. In the same way animals 
 can have no true perceptions of either truth or beauty. 
 But this in no way prevents their having those feelings of 
 " smooth and easy transition " which accompany our per- 
 ceptions of agreement and truth, J or pleasurable feelings, 
 to a certain degree like those which we have on contem- 
 plating anything we find beautiful and the beauty of which 
 delights us. It is very probable that some animajs^Jtake.,,^ 
 keen j)leasure in seeing bright-coloured oBjects, as may ; 
 be inferred^ frojm the actions of the b^jwcr-bird alone, which *., 
 collects such objects and places them at the entrance of its \ 
 Bmver ; and doubtless the aspect of the brilliant plumage '• 
 of one bird may strongly excite the feelings of another : 
 /"but this is a very different thing from a perception of the 
 beautiful. It is not to such a perception that the^^^Chulos 
 trust when with their cloaks they attract a bull from a 
 .Jallen horseman during a b yjl-fjcr hi-. Thus the higher animals 
 may share in many human emotions, as well as in our 
 sensations and desires. Affection, the feeling of fidelity,/ 
 fear, anger, shame, pleasurable anticipations and painful { '^<JI^5 
 reminiscences, exist in them as well as in us, but they 
 cannot and do not reflect upon their feelings, or know that 
 they possess them. It is on this account that the- s: 
 _of_a2ii^ftai5^re^ so immeasurably Jess tha n are our own. No 
 ideal reproduction of the past projected intoanideaTTuture, 
 
 * See above, p. 252. t As to this distinction, see above, p. 249. 
 
 X See above, p. 194. 
 
158/// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 adds to their torment as it does to ours. Animals suffer, 
 and may suffer keenly, but happily they do not know they 
 suffer, and in the absence of consciousness, the pangs of 
 mere consentience may, for all we know, be as nothing 
 compared with any real pain known to manj*^ 
 u^ j One interesting and important characteristic of animals 
 js their power of formings ligj^its — a power somewhat similar 
 y A.O that which occasions in us those involuntary but felt actions 
 ' // (sensori-motor actions) to which attention has been already 
 called,! as being analogous to reflex action. The nature 
 of habit, as it exists in man, has been already pointed 
 out,J and it is in other animals, as it is in him, " the sign 
 of a special internal spontaneity, whereby they both tend 
 to act and to react when acted on." All that has been 
 said of habit as it exists in ourselves, applies likewise to 
 other animals. 
 
 — I IPiitir^^ ^^'^ also been noticed as it exists in man,§ and 
 all that has been said of it as it exists in him may also be 
 affirmed of it as it exists in animals. In them, however, it 
 is much more conspicuous than in human beings. Thus 
 birds plainly show their instinctive powers. Chickens, two 
 minutes after they have left the egg, will follow with their 
 eyes the movements of crawling insects and peck at them, 
 judging distance and direction with almost infallible accu- 
 racy. They will instinctively appreciate sounds, readily 
 running towards a hen hidden in a box when they hear 
 her "call." Some young birds, also, have an innate, in- 
 stinctive horror of the sight of a hawk and of the sound 
 of its voice. A young turkey which Mr. Spalding had 
 taken under his care, was, on the tenth morning of its 
 life, eating its breakfast from his hand, when a young hawk 
 in an adjacent cupboard uttered its shrill cry. " Like an 
 arrow the poor turkey shot to the other end of the room, 
 and stood there motionless with fear, until the hawk gave 
 a second cry, when it darted out at the open door to the 
 extreme end of the passage, where it crouched down in a 
 corner." Swallows, titmice, tomtits, and wrens, after having 
 been confined from birth, were found by Mr. Spalding to 
 
 f^ 
 
 * As to this, see further, chap, xxvi., "The Evils of Life." 
 
 t See above, p. i68. % See above, p. 174. § See above, pp. 175, 1S4. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. (359 
 
 '// 
 
 uigtiy-: 
 
 
 be capable of flying successfully at once when liberated, 
 on their wings having attained the growth necessary to 
 render flight possible. 
 
 Birds will feign lameness or some other injury to draw 
 off attention from their eggs or young. The Duke of 
 Argyll has related* some very interesting particulars about 
 the instincts of birds, especially of the water-ousel, the 
 merganser, and the wild duck. Birds of the first year 
 migrate readily to avoid a cold of which they can have no 
 knowledge. Beasts also display instinct. Some young 
 puppies, M. Gratiolet tells us, which had never seen a wolf, 
 were thrown into convulsions by the smell of a small 
 portion of wolf-skin. But it is insects which display 
 iaatiuct the most remarkably. Indeed, their faculty in 
 this respect is so wonderful, and notorious, that it will 
 probably suffice to refer to one or two examples o£ it. 
 (^jjjg female carpenter-bee, in order to protect her eggs, 
 excavates in some piece of wood a series of chambers, one 
 above another, separated by partitions, the lowest chamber 
 communicating with the exterior. She lays an egg in each 
 chamber, beginning with the lowest. From that lowest the 
 offspring escapes by the passage left for it. The inhabitant 
 of the chamber next above gnaws through the floor of its 
 dwelling, and makes its way out by the same path as did 
 its predecessor. The inhabitants of the superior chambers 
 then act similarly in succession. Evidently this complex 
 nest has been constructed with a view to the future actions 
 of the progeny, but just as evidently the young mother could 
 have no knowledge of the series of actions which were to 
 ensue after she had made it. Again, the female of the wasp . 
 { Sphex ) will hunt about till she finds some suitable cater- ' ^^ 
 pillar, grasshopper, or spider, which she adroitly stings at 
 the spot which induces, or in the several spots which 
 induce, complete paralysis, so as to deprive it of all power of j 
 motion without killing it. This done, she stows away the 
 helpless victim along with her eggs, and she does this 
 because, when her eggs are hatched, the grubs which issue 
 from them will require living, animal food, while they will 
 be utterly unable to catch, retain, or prey upon any active, 
 
 * In his " Unity of NaUire," chap. ill. 
 
 T 
 
J. 
 
 <' 
 
 360 //^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 struggling insect. The species of sphex which preys on 
 the grasshopper, first stings it and then throws it on its 
 back, so as to get at the dehcate membrane which unites 
 the pieces of its hard armour at their joints. This it bites 
 through, and a special nervous ganglion (there concealed) 
 is reached and mutilated, and so the end to be attained 
 is effected. A certain resemblance to this habit has been 
 I noticed even in beasts. In a polecat's nest, where five 
 v young were comfortably embedded in dry grass, there were 
 found * forty frogs and two toads stowed away in a side 
 hole serving as a sort of larder. All these frogs and toads 
 were alive, yet only capable of sprawling a little. On 
 examination, the whole number proved to have been dex- 
 terously bitten through the brain, and thus the young pole- 
 cats had food which would keep quite fresh, because alive, 
 and yet vvould be as safe from running away as if it was 
 dead food. There is a kind of wasp which feeds her young 
 from time to time with fresh food, visiting her nest for 
 that purpose at suitable irbtervals. She covers her nest so 
 carefully with sand that human eyes cannot distinguish it, 
 and this covering she removes and carefully replaces at 
 each visit. While it remains thus hidden, she is always 
 able herself easily to find her carefully concealed nest ; but 
 if the way in.to it be opened and made ready for her 
 entrance, this, instead of helping her to get at her young, 
 altogether puzzles her — she becomes quite at a loss, and | 
 does not even seem to recognize her offspring. As every I 
 one knows, moths and butterflies habitually lay their eggs | 
 on the leaves of such plants as will nourish their young, \ 
 although the parents do not feed upon or make any other 1 
 use of them. It may even be that the parents do not feed \ 
 at all, and it would be a strong thing to say that they 
 
 . recollect what they did before they entered into the 
 chrysalis condition, and that they consciously foresee that 
 their eggs will give birth to creatures such as they them- 
 selves once were. 5tinjoaQi-£.i^ncr.e.dib].e is jtj^ how^ that 
 
 • a grub should foresee the shape of that body into which 
 it i s destined to^be transformed, especialjj when. iJusZi^.^, 
 f widely d ifferent J.n^etwo^_sexes. Yet UTie_gTub _of the 
 
 ' * See Magazine of Naiural History, vol. vi., p. 206. 
 
THE AXIMAL FACULTIES. (^1^ 
 
 /j£Iiia!5L_§i'^ik^^t]e) when she digs the hole wherein she will 
 
 1 undergo her metamorphosis, digs it no bigger than her 
 
 I own body ; whereas the grub of the male s tag-beetle makes 
 
 I a hole twice as large as his own body, in oTdeFlo leave 
 
 I room for the enormous jaws- (the so-called "horns") which 
 
 f he will have to grow. 
 
 I — -~-_The larva of the em.peror-moth,. when about to become 
 
 a chrysalis, spins for itself a donhlg cncnon, but leaves an 
 
 opening fortified with elastic bristles which point outwards, 
 
 so arranged that while they readily yield to pressure from 
 
 within (allowing the moth easily to make its way out), the 
 
 .bristles firmly resist pressure from without. But most 
 
 / wonderful, perhaps, of all are the instincts of social insects, 
 
 / such as bees, where there are not only males and females, 
 
 I but a large population of practically neuter insects, the 
 
 \ special instincts and peculiarities of which have, ot course, 
 
 \been transmitted to them, not by another neuter insect but 
 
 by a female, the instincts and peculiarities of which are 
 
 very different from those of the neutral portion of her 
 
 progeny. Some insects also v/hen in danger become 
 
 perfectly quiescent, and so escape observation — ^an action 
 
 often spoken of as " shammjng death." 
 
 Montaigne sought to explain instinct as but a form 
 /VA)^ o£_i ntelli gence ; but it must be something distinct from fi^P^ 
 intelligence, even such as by analogy m.ay be said to exist 
 in animals. This is shown by the actions of the birds 
 above mentioned, which have just left the ^^'g ; and it 
 would be but waste of time to argue against the view that 
 the human infant is guided by intelligent purpose and 
 conscious foresight in its very first acts of sucking, swallow- 
 ing,* and defecation. It is impossible also to suppose that 
 any form of knowledge guides the actions just described 
 of the grubs of the emperor-moth and stag-beetle. Intelli-\ 
 gence, therefore, is a radically insufficient explanation, as I 
 also, for the very same reasons, is^ondjjlac's hypothesis, that ' 
 instinct is the result of, an animal's individuak.expcrience. / 
 It is manifest that experience could not lead a creature* 
 to perform acts with reference to conditions quite different 
 rom all those it had as yet had any experience of Yet such 
 
 * See above, p. 175. 
 
Gik 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 are the acts of the insects referred to, and the human infant 
 I has had no experience whatever. Lamarck considered 
 ' I instinc t to be '-habit which liad become hereditary." This 
 ■ jhypothesis is one much more worthy of careful considera- 
 tion than the two others just considered. For it may be 
 admitted at once that habits are sometimes inherited. 
 There are many instances of such inheritance in human 
 beings. As regards animals, the barking of dogs may be 
 taken as an instance of a habit thus perpetuated. In fact, 
 " habit," when inherited, so simulates instinct, that their 
 . confusion is far from surprising. There is^Jigwevej;, t his 
 
 ^ ^ radical difference between them: "habit" enables an 
 agent to repeat with facility and precision an act which_ 
 jQTira:s;been_dpne before, but " instinct " determines with prc- 
 vTcision the first performance oF the^ct. To try to explain 
 ^'nstinct by habit is but putting the difficulty with respect 
 to instinct (if there is one) a step back. It is impossible 
 to believe that any of the progenitors of an infant of to-day 
 first acquired, during his or her lifetime, the habit of suck- 
 ing, or that the habits of neuter insects {e.g. working bees) 
 thus arose. But after all, if we could explain " instinct " by 
 "habit," should we thereby make the phenomena less 
 I mysterious? "Habit" is due to an internal spontaneity 
 \ of livin giJjbmgfet-- A living thing, no doubt, requires some 
 definite impulse in order that it should move, but when 
 it does move that movement is its own. All living 
 organisms tend to act. With them, as with us, there is 
 a natural yearning for action, and, within limits, their 
 powers and energies increase with action, and diminish and 
 finally perish through repose. The power of generating 
 any " habit " lies in the very first act of the kind an 
 organism performs,* and it is only the first act which owes 
 nothing to habit. If such were not the case, an act — as 
 before said — might be performed a thousand times and yet . 
 not generate a habit. Moreover, the attempt to explain 1 
 " instinct " through " inheritance " is a contradiction, since • 
 "inheritance" supposes something already obtained, other- . 
 wise it could not be transmitted. 
 
 But another attempt has been made to deny the exist- 
 
 ' As in mnn, see al.iove, p. 174. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 
 
 ence of inst inct-as a distinct faculty, by explaining it_as_ 
 a result of past intelligence. According to this hypo- 
 thesis such actions as arc called instinctive, and which are 
 performed automatically, are actions which were originally 
 performed intelligently and of set purpose — just as people 
 may come to play a tune without attention or consciousness 
 which nothing but laborious, conscious attention could ever 
 have enabled them to learn. This view assumes that a 
 conscious, deliberate, discriminating faculty must have once 
 been exercised by wasps, bees, and ants, and other much 
 lower animals, in the performance of all those actions of 
 theirs which are now classed as instinctive. Here the same 
 objections, arguments, and considerations apply, which 
 were before urged against Montaigne's supposition that 
 instinct is but a form of intelligence. We may again ask, 
 Could an adult female insect be supposed to foresee the 
 future needs of her first progeny, often so totally different 
 from her own wants ; or recollect her past experiences, as 
 a chrysalis and as a grub, from the moment she first 
 quitted the ^^^"^ Still more absurd would be the belief 
 that the grub of a male_stag-J3j£e,tIe- ever deliberately 
 reasoned out the need of making his chrysalis-bed twice 
 his own size on account of jaws he is destined to grow, but 
 which he not only has not, but has never seen in adult 
 individuals of his own species. The same consideration 
 applies to the cocoon of the emperor-moth, and to an 
 immense number of similar facts, including the actions of 
 the human infant. Nevertheless, though the idea of 
 "lapsed intelligence" will not explain "instinct" generally, 
 we should be the last to deny that certain apparently 
 instinctive actions may be so explained, and we fully admit 
 that intelligent action in ourselves does tend to become 
 practically instinctive. It is, moreover, very fortunate for 
 us that such is the case, as thereby we are saved great 
 mental friction. Our intellect has first to be laboriously 
 applied to learn what afterwards becomes almost automatic 
 — as is the case with reading and writing. Sensations and 
 bodily actions having been duly kneaded together, the 
 intellect becomes free to withdraw and apply itself to other 
 work, leaving the organism to carry on automatically, and 
 with little effort, the new powers thus acquired by a great 
 
 /U 
 
664. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 effort.* Were it not for this power which we have of with- 
 drawing our attention, our intellect would be absorbed and 
 wasted on the merest routine work, instead of being set free 
 to appropriate and render practically instinctive, a con- 
 tinually wider and more important range of deliberate, 
 purposive actions. 
 A reflf.v I ^ttonpts havc also been made to explain " instinct " as 
 "in'MvidvaiVdi form of " reflex action," or rather of that automatic 
 A ■'■■ I i"csponse..to_felt stimuli called " saisori-i uofor action." t In 
 ^ a certain very wide sense of these terms that explanation 
 may pass, but such is not the sense in which the term 
 " reflex action," or '^ sensori-motor action," has (so far as 
 
 I we know) hitherto been used. The attempt to explain 
 instinct by such actions, in the ordinary sense of those 
 terms, is an attempt to explain a phenomenon by omit- 
 ting its most striking characteristic. In reflex action 
 and sensori-motor action, we have a sudden response tp 
 ■ "aTn:mfek'-or"S"Telt stimulus, which response ismore or less 
 \ appropriate at the time of its occurrence, but has certainl}' 
 f no reference whatever to future events which are to occur 
 
 long after the faintest waves of the stimulating action ; 
 [^have died out. Tli£-j ^r . v - € s&eii££^f instinct, however, is to . 
 provide for a more or less distant future, often, as we have^ 
 seen,.tlig.,JjjJ4im--j0l.a.aa.^^^ It is essentially j 
 
 telic {i.e. is directed to a defi.nite end), and refers to circum- 
 "^ tail ces future and unforeseen, at'tlie time the instinctive 
 action takes place. This explanation, then, is fundamen- 
 tally and necessarily inadequate. It is like an explanation 
 of the building of a house by " bricks, mortar, bricklayers, 
 and hodmen," with the omission of all reference to an}- 
 influence governing their motions,, and directing them 
 towards a common and predetermined end which is not 
 theirs. But though we cannot explain "instinct " by these 
 automatic responses to unfelt or felt stimuli, there is none 
 , the less a certain obvious affinity between them and 
 I instinct. In fact, all animal action is "jeflejCj^'„_i!},_i^'^^ 
 widest sense of that ferm ; for all sucli actions result, and 
 "are a reaction^' from stimuli (internal or external) which 
 are either felt or not felt. The effects of stimuli, moreover, 
 differ according to what it is they stimulate. The ultimate 
 * * See above, p. 185. t See above, p. 16S. 
 
THE ANIMAL FACULTIES. 365 •^ , 
 
 protoplasmic particles of the innermost parenchyma of the 
 body of man, and the naked isolated particles of protoplasm 
 which compose the minutest and lowest organisms, react 
 upon the stimulus of a certain degree of heat, of moisture, 
 or chemical action. The various different tissues of which 
 the bodies of organisms are composed severally react, upon 
 stimulation, in different ways, the study of which constitutes 
 the s cience of the physiology of the tissues. The organs 
 and systems of organs of the body have also their various 
 modes of definite reaction, the consideration of which con- 
 stitutes physiology as ordinarily understood. But this is ( 
 not all. The entire body of a living creature reacts as one / 
 whole, in response to influences brought to bear upon it.-; 
 This_we-S£g^njtlie hibernation, or winter sleep^ o f bats and 
 hedgelujgs ; in the effects of violent emotions of fear and 
 anger, and in the results of sexual and reproductive in- 
 fluences upon the whole organism. The activities and 
 reactions of the whole body of an animal — including the 
 process of its individual development — form a separate 
 department of the study of function, and may be called 
 " the physiology of tJie individual^ * 
 
 Now, inasmuch as function ^'""^^^f"''^"'''" ^^"^Y ^^^W^^^\l\. 
 
 and as the various actions of the organs of animals depend 
 upon the various properties of the parts which act ; so also 
 the activities of each animal as a whole, its habits and 
 instincts, are closely related to its structure. Were it 
 possible for us to artificially construct an animal completely 
 and then animate it, no doubt we should find we had 
 endowed it with all the instincts pertaining to that par- 
 ticular kind of structure. They may, therefore, be said to 
 be the sensori-motor actions of each animal as a whole, and 
 may thus be explained as a form of reflex action in the 
 highest and widest sense of that term. But the sense in 
 which that term is used must be a very wide one, for 
 instincts are not absolutely invariable. They are modifiable 
 to a certain extent by circumstances, and by the powers of 
 sensuous cognition an animal may possess. The absence 
 of accustomed objects of sense, with the presence of others 
 in their place, will (under the stimulus of hunger, or the felt 
 
 * Or part of its pyschology, in the proper sense of that term (see below, 
 chap. XXV., " Psychology and Physiology "). 
 
u 
 
 366 /// ON TRUTH. 
 
 needs of the reproductive processes) lead birds in abnormal 
 conditions to build their nests in unwonted ways. Similar 
 abnormal influences will lead many creatures to seek their 
 food (whether on land, in water, in the branches of trees, 
 or beneath the surface of the earth) in modes other 
 than those which up to that time have been adopted 
 by creatures of their kind. Nevei^heless^ if we may call 
 mstinct " the reflex activity of a whole living organism," 
 C^ rVhat function remains one clearly distinct from all the 
 \ other forms of vital activity which wc have yet con- 
 f sidcrcd. Something, however, yet remains to be said 
 I about " instinct," considered as an outcome of the struggle 
 for life which all organisms have to undergo. But that 
 question cannot here be entered upon, because it must be 
 preceded by some considerations concerning the relatiQ."s 
 wliich--Iivii3ig. creatures bear to theXC, ?.0,yy'?S®-£0-t;^^^^tb.eir 
 external relations — considerations to which the next 
 chapter will be devoted. The question must be relegated 
 to the twenty-seventh, and last, chapter, which will treat 
 of " evolution^*' 
 
( z^l ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 
 
 Groups of organisms differ greatly as to their relations to past time 
 and their geographical distribution, while the life of individual 
 organisms depends to a large extent upon other organisms living 
 at the same time ; and not only are individual organisms affected 
 by their environment, but such affections may be inherited. 
 
 Relations to time and space — Inter-relations of organisms — Effects 
 produced on organisms by their environment. 
 
 Some of the external relations of organisms have been 
 incidentally noticed * in our last chapter. Without such 
 notice, the functions of organisms could not have been 
 considered ; for respiration t and the formation of organic 
 matter,^ take place through interactions between living 
 organisms and their inorganic environment. The processes 
 which are necessary to effect the nutrition of organisms § 
 which feed upon other organisms, and the phenomena of 
 parasitism,!! also involve external relations between living 
 creatures of different kinds. But these matters need now 
 to be considered somewhat more at length. As the rela- 
 tions which exist between organisms and the inorganic 
 world have been already sufficiently explained for the 
 
 I purpose of the present work, the other external relations 
 of organisms may be treated of under three heads — (i) their 
 
 I relations to time ; (2) to space ; and (3) to one another. 
 
 * For an exhaustive notice of the influence upon organisms of their en- 
 vironment, together with a complete list of books and memoirs bearing on the 
 subject, see a paper by J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., in the " Pro- 
 ceedings of the Royal l^hysical Society of Edinburgh," vol. ix., part 3, 1S88. 
 
 t See above, p. 161. + See above, p. 333. 
 
 § See above, p. 336. || See above, \>. 334. 
 
o 
 
 68 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ' '// 
 
 Riiations It is generally known that different kinds of animals 
 
 andlj-ace. and plants have successively inhabited the surface of this 
 planet. The order of that succession has been far from 
 regular ; the past duration of different groups of organisms 
 having varied greatly. Many kinds of animals have be- 
 come extinct in certain resjions in historic times, and some 
 < have become also absolutely and universally extinct. Thus 
 . wolves have disappeared from England since the time of 
 [ Henry VIII., while only seventy years ago the^.g^gat 
 I bustar d^ wandered over the South Downs and Salisbury 
 j Plain. The dodo, the rhytina, the great auk, and the 
 J, dinornis have, more or less recently, become absolutely 
 I extinct. 
 
 The only evidences we possess of past life, is afforded 
 us by the five kinds of fossils before described.* This 
 record is an exceedingly imperfect one; remains of animals 
 and plants having been only here and there exceptionally 
 preserved by some favouring accidents, and often in a very 
 fragmentary manner. In most cases such remains seem to 
 have been transported by water for greater or less dis- 
 tances, and buried in mud ; and creatures which live 
 habitually in or near water, form a very large proportion 
 of those the hard parts of which have been thus preserved. 
 
 We have no space for even the briefest catalogue of 
 the most generally interesting fossils. One or two, how- 
 ever, must be mentioned which bear upon problems of 
 special interest treated of in this work. 
 
 The Laurentian rocks, in spite of their enormous thick- 
 ness, have as yet afforded little evidence of life, and that 
 only of very lowly organisms ; but when even the lower 
 Cambrian rocks were deposited, many Echinoderms and 
 Brachiopods, Mollusks and Arthi'opods, were already in 
 existence, while sharks and sturgeons are Devonian, and 
 huge Batrachians, called Labyrinthodonts, characterize the 
 coal measures. In the secondary epoch there existed a 
 multitude of large reptiles, such as the marine Ichthyosauri 
 and Plesiosattri, the terrestrial Dinosaiiria, and the aerial 
 Pterosauria, which then flew as bats do now\ The tertiary 
 strata introduce us to the remains of creatures belonging 
 * See above, pp. 313, 314. 
 
THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 369 
 
 to various orders of beasts which exist at present, and, 
 during a portion of it, a very man-like, long-armed ape 
 {Dryopitheais) dwelt in Europe. Organisms have evidently- 
 inhabited this planet through untold ages. It is possible, 
 indeed, that even the Laurentian deposits may not lead 
 us more than a minute step towards the commencement 
 of life on the earth, although they seem to indicate a very 
 considerable one towards that commencement. /K 
 
 It would be rash to deny that our own species may /l^ 
 have appeared in Miocene times ; * and many naturalists ^ 
 date man's origin approximately from somewhat before 
 the Glacial epoch. But it is certain that man has wit- 
 nessed great geographical changes, and the extinction of 
 a considerable number of beasts, such as the mammoth, 
 the woolly rhinoceros, cave bears, lions and hyaenas, and 
 other forms. 
 
 Plants and animals have very definite relations to space 
 s well as to time. Each large portion of the earth's 1 ■ | 
 surface has its special plant-populatiori^ or "^Q.ra," as it has 1' I 
 j its special animal population, or " fauna." This is not the ' 
 place to set out the details of organic geography ; it will 
 be enough to note that (i) South America, (2) Africa south 
 of the Sahara, (3) Australia, and (4) India with its Archi- 
 pelago, have each an interesting peculiar fauna, and that 
 (5) North America on the one hand, and (6) Europe, with 
 North Africa and Asia, on the other, are similarly, though 
 less strikingly, characterized. Various species which now 
 inhabit one or other of these areas, closely resemble certain 
 tertiary fossils also found therein. 
 
 We may next consider the inter-relations of organisms. intcr-7eia. 
 . Qne_^xeat.. organic inter-relation, aJready iroticed,! \xx\6.qx- organisms. 
 
 flies all others, for animals cannot subsist without feeding 
 directly or indirectly upon plants, while plants are nour- 
 ished by the carbonic acid which the animal world gives 
 forth in breathing. Every animal which lives on other ' 
 animals is therefore restricted in its range, not only by the 
 supply of animals fit for its food, but also by the supply of 
 vegetal life fit for the nourishment of the animals on which 
 it lives. The drainage of our fens kills plants on which the 
 
 * See above, p. 312. t See above, p. 333 
 
370 ON TRUTH. 
 
 grubs of the swallow-tailed butterfly feeds, and that insect 
 I is therefore rapidly becoming extinct. Its extinction would 
 I necessarily carry with it the extinction of any animal which 
 1 absolutely needed that insect for its subsistence. Certain 
 plants are benefited by ants, which are not only inimical to 
 caterpillars and slugs, but serve even to protect such plants 
 from cattle or from man himself. Thus the bull's-horn 1 
 acacia maintains a standing army of these insects, providing 
 them with lodging in certain special cavities, and with 
 rations in the form of special nutritive outgrowths ; and | 
 plants of the genus Triplaris are also similarly protected 
 ; by ants, which lodge within its cavities and rush out in 
 multitudes if the tree be touched or shaken, and bite 
 II furiously. Orie_organism may bene-fit-another 43y destroy- 
 |l in gj:he indirect ejiemies, or rivals, of such^Qjtlierj^ It is thus 
 that around herdmen's huts in the Alps we find species of 
 aconi te, dock, chenopodium, and different plants which have 
 gained an extensive footing through the destruction of other 
 vegetation by the grazing herds which find the aconite, etc., 
 unpalatable, and so, by constantly sparing them, uninten- 
 tionally extend their range, Aniiaa.ls-....bfifl£fifc. ■Olh^>f«'vJn 
 j very cu rious, wax§.v Thus barnacles which fix themselves to 
 ;; and are carried about by whales are provided thereby with 
 a larger supply of food, and lobsters, in the midst of the 
 ; eggs which load their abdomen at certain seasons of the 
 I year, often carry about with them a sort of leech which 
 / feeds on such eggs as may die. A small fish has also been 
 ' found to live within the interior of a sea-anemone, feeding 
 on portions of the latter's food. Some ants are benefited 
 by ants of a difi"erent species, which the former take captive 
 when young, and which when full grown, turn to and do 
 the domestic work of their captors, and even feed the latter 
 and carry them about. Some organisms, again, benefit 
 others by involuntarily disseminating their eggs or seeds. 
 Thus birds notoriously disseminate seeds which they have 
 swallowed, and sometimes do so by carrying them — or the 
 eggs of small animals — in the mud which may adhere to •. 
 their feet. Every one now knows how important, or in- 1 
 dispensable, may be the aid given by the visits of insects to ] 
 the fertilization of the flowers they visit. We find also 
 
 * V 
 
s> 
 
 THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 371 
 
 very many curious arrangements by which the visits of 
 useful insects at favourable times are facilitated — by the 
 opening, shutting, colours, or odours of flowers — or those 
 of noxious creatures, or of any at unfavourable times, are 
 avoided. Thus snails, slugs, and caterpillars niay be_ ke:ptJ. 
 from flowers merely by means oFa group of prickles placed-., 
 on those parts of the plant which have to be traversed to 
 reach the flower. Insects visit a flower to eat the nectar it 
 secretes, aiul its nectaries are often so placed as to make 
 it certain that the insects which obtain the nectar should 
 either fertilize the flower, or should go away with pollen 
 grains so adhering to them as to cause them to involun- 
 tarily fertilize the next flower they visit. For it is often 
 advantageous that a flower should not be fertilized by its 
 own pollen, and many flowers are so constructed as to ^ 
 favour their fertilization by the pollen of other flowers. In \ /\^A 
 no plants are the arrangements to ensure insect fertilization 1 C 
 so curious and complex as in o rchids. In their flowers the * 
 nectar is so stored that insects, in order to reach it, must 
 carry away the pollen on their heads, so that they are 
 forced to apply it to the stigma of the next flower they 
 visit, which is thus fertilized. Plants the pollen of which is 
 only carried accidentally by the wind, have sometimes each 
 pollen grain furnished with a membranous expansion which 
 greatly facilitates its carriage. Some islands where insects 
 are rare, as Tahiti and the Galapagos Islands, have few 
 flowering plants with conspicuous flowers. Yet in Juan 
 Fernandez, where insects are very scarce, showy flowers 
 are by no means deficient. Honey-eating birds with brush- 
 like tongues, act much as insects do in fertilizing flowers. 
 
 In spite, however, of the manifest inter-relations be- 
 tween the forms of insects and the shapes and colours 
 of flowers, a number of instances are to be found in 
 which their shapes and colours do not answer any pur- 
 pose of this kind. That a very prejudicial influence ; 
 must be exercised by some kinds of animals on other i 
 animals and plants is obvious, since they feed on them. 1 
 The Pacific Islands are exceptionail^..j'ich_ in pigeons, I 
 .^nd--this may be due to the absmc-e i^rom those islands > 
 of monkeys and all other arboreal mammals which devour^ 
 
s 
 
 r 
 
 
 372 ON TRUTH. 
 
 eggs. In Burchell's time, the district near the Cape called 
 " Midlands," was covered by a luxurious greensward, with i 
 a few trees and bushes, with acacias, along the sides of/ 
 the streams. The introduction of sheep first destroyed the 
 grass, and then most of the shrubs and trees — a change 
 which affected the rainfall, so that this region has been 
 invaded by the hardy plants of the adjacent Karroo desert, 
 and is, in fact, becoming an extension of the"~3esert Itself. 
 St. Helena, when discovered in 1502, was entirely covered 
 with forests (the trees drooping over its precipitous cliffs) 
 with a rich flora of absolutely peculiar plants. In 1513 
 some goats (those enemies of the human race) were intro- 
 duced, and in fifty years had multiplied into thousands. In 
 1810 the forests had been destroyed, and the goats were 
 destroyed also, in the hope that the rich soil would repro- 
 duce its forest growth. Unhappily, however, the island 
 . was then planted with trees and shrubs from other coun- 
 tries, and these have so spread that now the indigenous 
 flora is almost confined to a few patches on the central 
 ridge of the island. Such is the rivalry, such the struggle j 
 for existence,, continually going on between all kinds ofn\ 
 animab aiid..-,jila4ii&^ ..The inter-relations which take place ^ * * 
 TtTthis struggle may be most complex. Thus the destruc- 
 tion of cats may bring about the destruction of a clover 
 which needs for its fertilization the visits of a certain wild 
 bee, the nests of which are destroyed by mice. Therefore, 
 destroying the cats helps the mice which injure the bees 
 required by the clover. Similarly whatever tends to extir- / 
 pate an insect, must tend to favour plants which are rivals [ 
 of those which need that insect for their fertilization. This 
 struggle is often so severe that an apparently very trifling 
 advantage may lead to the enormous preponderance of one 
 form and the extermination of others. \ 
 
 Next may be mentioned the curious phenomena col- 
 lectively spoken of as jmimicry. " Mimicry " is a close 
 and striking, yet superficial, resemblance b)orne by some 
 I animal or plant to some different, pei^iaps very different, ^ 
 '. object. A familiar example of mimiciy..„may: be. JJOOind 
 iin the bee and spider orchis, and in clear-winged moths, 
 I which may be mist aken for bees. One of the most per- 
 
THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 373 
 
 feet examples of mimicry is displayed by the insect c a lled \ 
 the " walking leaf," which in form and colour so closely 
 resembles a leaf that it is difficult to find it when amongst 
 real leaves, and so escapes its enemies. Other creatures, 
 called " bamboo-insects," resemble a stick of bamboo, and 
 the more so^Taecause' they hang with their legs stretched 
 out unsymmetrically. Many butterflies which belong to 
 one group, mimic butterflies which belong to quite another 
 group. Besides insects, various fishes, reptiles, birds, and 
 even some beasts, appear to be unconscious mimics. Thus 
 a kind of pipe-fish {Phylloptetyx eqiies) bears long, cutaneous 
 appendages which imitate the forms of the seaweed amidst 
 which the fish habitually lives. There is also a large kind 
 of bat which mimics the leaves of the tree on the fruits of 
 which it feeds ; while another kind has, when at rest, the 
 appearance of a large ripe fruit. Mimicr)^ is generally 
 protective^ but., ^ not always so. Thus amongst plants, 
 certain Euphorbias which grow in Africa so greatly re- 
 sembil^ -cacti that it is difficult to believe, when ouP'of 
 flower, that they are not really the plants they so resemble. 
 Another close resemblance exists between Eucalypti and 
 Mimos(B in Australia, and a certain fern {^Stangerda para- 
 doxa) closely imitates a cy.cad. The winged fruits of no 
 less than four genera of Brazilian plants, belonging to three 
 distinct natural orders, are alike, not only in the form of 
 the wing, but in the very texture and arrangement of the 
 veins, so that dissection is needed to detect the essentially 
 different structures which exist beneath this great external 
 similarity. 
 
 The facts of mimicry seem akin to those of the re- 
 semblance so frequently obtaining between the colour of an 
 animal and that of adjacent objects — resemblances which 
 many animals either permanently possess or temporarily 
 assume. Of these instances there are legion — such as the ' 
 sand-coloured snakes and lizards of deserts, and the green 
 snakes of trees. Actual changes of colour in harmony with 
 surroundings are shown by the ptarraigaivthc-variablc hare, 
 the ermine, and the atctici^x, and, aiost_ilotabI\- <»! all, by 
 /y\ tfie^ cham l 1 c < 1 n . Mr. Leslie enclosed certain calci ;)illars of 
 one kind in two boxes, one black, the other white, and he 
 
374 0^^ TRUTH. 
 
 found that the colour of the chrysalis in each case har- 
 monized with the colour of the box. Mr. R. Holland also 
 found the cocoons of the emperor-moth to be either white 
 or brown, according as they were spun on paper, or amid 
 dead grass, or on soil. Mr. E. B. Poulton has ascertained 
 that in a large number of larvae of ajvanessa butterfly, sur- 
 rounded by variously coloured papers, the colour of nearly 
 all the pupae were like, or related to, that of the paper about 
 them. He has also found * that in five species of Lepidop- 
 tera the colour of the pupae was influenced by the colour 
 of their environment which surrounded them after they 
 ceased to feed, and this even if they were blinded. Mr. 
 Stebbing has also found that the ^hameleon-shrimp has 
 the power of changing from a dark purple colour to glassy 
 transparency. The protective effect of many of these 
 changes is evident, but their action in some cases is pro- 
 blematical. 
 
 Modifications of colour and sometimes of form attend 
 the advent of the breeding season. Then the colours 
 not only of the plumage, but also of the cutaneous append- 
 ages, of various birds, become intensified, as does the 
 brilliant coloration which exists locally in certain beasts. 
 f Then we hear the melodies of our songsters, the croakings 
 of frogs, and the roar of rutting stags. Strange are thejj 
 antics some creatures display to gain a mate. Exceptional 
 beauty or vocal power may aid them in this, also strength 
 or agility, for the rival males of many species fight fiercely. 
 We have already more than once referred to animal 
 and vegetable parasites, and the inter-relations which exist 
 between them and their hosts are obvious, as are those 
 of such creatures as the wasp {Spkex) f and its victims. 
 The number of animal parasites_.is immense, and vegetable 
 parasites are also numerous. Our most familiar ones 
 are, perhaps, the broom-rape {Orobanche), the tooth-wort 
 {LatJircBO), and the dodder {Qtscuta) ; but the most wonder- 
 ful one is t jie i mmense Rafflcsia of Sumatra.^ No flowering 
 plants are parasitic upon animals, but the great group of 
 fungi, so many of which are parasitic upon plants, include 
 
 * See "Phil. Trans.," vol. clxxviii., 1887, B. 
 
 t See above, p. 359. \ See above, p. 334. 
 
 I 
 
THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 375 . 
 
 also kinds which are true parasites on animals. One\ 
 common species grows in the bodies of flies, and another | 
 well-known form inhabits a New Zealand caterpillar. But f 
 the niost wonderful and most important of all parasites are | ,-l~ 
 probably those most microscopic creatures forming countless ' V-^ 
 ■ SWRrjus of bacteria, and minute organisms, such as the yeast- 1 ^' 
 plant. It is to the changes which these creatures effect in \ 
 organic matter submitted to their activity that we owe all I 
 our wines, vinegars, and beers, and all our cheese, and the^^l 
 appear to aid digestion even directly. To them we are 1 
 also indebted for the changes of putrefaction and the 
 removal of the countless dead animals and plants which 
 would otherwise so accumulate as to encumber the earth 
 and to stifle the world's organic life. We have long been 
 accustomed to praise the beneficial action of hyaenas and 
 vultures and other animal scavengers. But the action of 
 all such large organisms in this respect is utterly insigni- 
 ficant and inappreciable in comparison with that of bacteria. 
 They are constantly tearing down the complex chemical 
 compounds of which organic matter is composed * and 
 restoring to the inorganic world, those various constituent 
 elements which, as we have seen, t are everywhere seized 
 upon by the vegetable world to build up into their own 
 organic substance. But not only do these bacteria thus 
 decompose dead organic matter ; many of them attack 
 the living body, and are the cause of various terrible 
 , diseases. Certain bacteria are distinguishable not by their 
 forms but their functions. Some cannot live in air, but 
 I obtain oxygen from the tissues of their host ; others cannot 
 I live unless supplied with oxygen by the atmosphere ; some 
 lean sustain a high temperature, others perish at a much 
 •lower one. The most remarkable fact, however, concern- 1 
 ing them is one which has been ascertained by M. Pasteur." 
 He has found that the properties of different kinds of bacteria 
 are modifiable by treatment ; that some which are highly l'^ 
 virulent, upon being made to live and propagate in a new K' 
 environment, produce descendants which are but very | 
 slightly injurious. As the rapidity with which these or- I 
 ganisms increase is enormous, we can easily in their case 
 * See above, p. 323. t See above, p. 334. 
 
 m 
 
Z1^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Effects pro 
 duced on 
 organisms 
 by their 
 environ- 
 ment. 
 
 ^., 
 
 observe the transm ission of efifects through many genera- 
 tions. The physiological properties of bacteria have been 
 thus ascertained to be modifiable, and permanently so, 
 when the same conditions which produce the modification 
 are persisted in. Nevertheless, M. Pasteur has found that! 
 by other treatment the virulence of normally virulent* 
 kinds can be restored to them. There are few amongst ♦ 
 the external relations of organisms which are more im- 
 portant to man than the external relations of the micro- 
 scopic and seemingly insignificant bacteria. 
 
 That the circumstances under which organisms live have 
 a modifying effect on both their structure, and their func- 
 tions, there is abundant evidence to show. Thus, in the 
 Tirst place, increased or diminished use of parts augments 
 or diminishes their development and facility in their use. 
 We see this with the blacksmith's arm and the ballet-girrs 
 leg, as also in the dexterity acquired by those who frequently 
 exercise themselves in any art, — as we find, for example, 
 with musicians and vocalists. The use of soft, cooked 
 food has diminished the size of the jaws both of civilized 
 races of mankind and various breeds of dogs. The size 
 of the bones and muscles which aid flight is greatly re- 
 duced in domestic ducks, and a wild species of water-hen 
 from Tristan d'Acunha also has them of reduced size. 
 The lungs and livers of domestic cattle are likewise of 
 smaller size than in those of wild races. 
 
 But curious effects of the environment on organisms, 
 independent of use and disuse of parts, are also to be 
 noted. Thus, Mr. Wallace has pointed out that in the 
 small island of Amboina, the butterflies (twelve species of 
 nine different genera) are larger than those of any of the 
 more considerable islands about it, and that this difference 
 is an effect probably due to some local influence. In 
 Celebes, a whole series of butterflies are not only of a 
 larger size, but have a peculiarly modified form of wing. 
 The Duke of York's Island seems, he tells us, to have a 
 tendency to make birds and insects white, or at least pale, 
 and the Philippines to develop metallic colours ; while the 
 Moluccas and New Guinea seem to favour blackness and 
 redness in parrots and pigeons. Mr. Seebohm also informs 
 
THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 377 
 
 us that Kamskatka seems to exercise upon the colour of 
 birds an influence similar to that of the Duke of York's 
 Island. Species of butterflies which in India are provided 
 with a tail to the wing, begin to lose that appendage in 
 the islands, and retain no trace of it on the borders of the 
 Pacific. The ^Eneas group of Papilios never have tails 
 in the equatorial region of the Amazon Valley, but gradu- 
 ally acquire tails, in many cases, as they range towards 
 : the northern and southern tropics. Mr. Gou ld h as said 
 tlirit birds are more highly coloured uncTer a clear atmo- \ i 
 sphere than in islands or on coasts — a condition which also 
 I seems to affect insects — while it is notorious that many 
 j shore plants have fleshy leaves. Ficus Stipiilata, grown 
 on a wall, has small, thin leaves, and clings to the surface 
 like a large moss or a miniature ivy. Planted out, it forms 
 a shrub, with large, coarse, leathery leaves. Several kinds 
 of maize brought from the hotter parts of America to 
 Germany became changed in form in a few generations, 
 while twenty different kinds of American trees, belonging 
 /to various orders, all differ from their nearest European 
 Jallies in a similar manner — leaves less toothed, buds and 
 /seeds smaller, fewer branchlets, etc. English oysters 
 I transported to the Mediterranean, grow rapidly like the 
 I true Mediterranean oyster, altering their manner of growth 
 \and forming prominent diverging rays. 
 
 Setters bred at Delhi from carefully paired parents, had \ 
 young with nostrils more contracted, noses more pointed I 
 size inferior, and limbs more slender than well-bred setters / 
 should have. Cats at Mombas, on the coast of Africa, f 
 have short stiff hairs instead"6rTur7 and a cat from Algoa . 
 Bay, when left only eight weeks at Mombas, underwent 
 a complete metamorphosis — having parted with its sandy- 
 coloured fur. Pony breeds of horses have also indepen- 
 dently arisen in different parts of the world possessing a 
 marked similarity in their physical conditions. English 
 greyhounds in Mexico, which could not support the fatigues 
 of a long chase in the atmosphere of that country, had 
 \vhelps which experienced no inconvenience of the kind. 
 Nathusius states that pigs fed in youth with rich and 
 abundant food, acquired shorter and broader heads. Mr. 
 
378 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Blyth has described the turkey in India as being much 
 degenerated in size, utterly incapable of rising on the wing, 
 of a black colour, and with enormously developed, long, 
 pendulous appendages over the beak. Mr. Darwin, who 
 has collected and published many of the cases above given 
 came to consider * that he had by no means attributed 
 effect enough to the direct action of the environment on 
 organisms. But no cases of the action of the environment 
 can well be imagined more remarkable than those already 
 given t of the effect of surrounding colours on the colours 
 of organisms themselves. Evidently external agencies act,^ 
 in some cases with rapidity, on some organisms. Thus 
 pressure soon thickens the skin of the human hand. A 
 mucuous surface continually exposed, rapidly assumes the 
 character of the external skin, and the roots of trees which 
 are laid bare acquire the aspect of branches. Dr. Dallinger 
 has found it possible, by persevering efforts, to enormously 
 increase the power of endurance of heat possessed by some 
 of the lowest and most minute organisms. This power 
 of endurance increased suddenly at long intervals, thus 
 affording an example of wonderfully marked organic func- 
 tional changes. Very striking morphological changes have 
 also been recorded | as follows : Certain Arthropods § of 
 the group Branchiopoda, when introduced in large numbers 
 into very salt water, were changed from the form charac- 
 teristic of one genus {Artemid) into that of quite another 
 genus {Branchipus), which latter is not only larger, but 
 has also an additional abdominal segment and a differently 
 formed tail. 
 
 * See his " Life and Letters," 1887, vol. iii. p. 158. In a letter to Moritzl 
 Wagner he says: "In my opinion the greatest error I have committed, has! 
 been not allowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the environment, i.e. \ 
 food, climate, etc. . . . When I wrote my ' Origin,' and for some \ears after- 1 
 wards, I could find little good evidence of the direct action of the environ-! 
 ment ; now there is a large body of evidence, and your case of the Saturnia is| 
 one of the most remarkable of which I have heard." This was a case in ^ 
 which a number of pnpre were brought, in 1870, to Switzerland (Aargau) 
 from Texas of a species of Saturnia widely different from European species. 
 In May, 1871, the moths developed cut of the cocoons (which had passed the 
 winter in Switzerland), and resembled entirely the Texan species. Their 
 \ young were fed on leaves of Jiis^/ans rcgia (the Texan form feeding on Juglajis 
 I nigra)., and they changed into moths so different, not only in colour, but also 
 \ in form from their parents that they were reckoned by entomologists as a 
 I distinct species. t See above, p. "374. 
 
 \ % See Nature, Jan. 8, 1876, p. 133. § See above, p. 318. 
 
THE EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS. 110) 
 
 The same amounts of light, heat, moisture, etc., pro- 
 { duce very different effects on different species, some being 
 much less modifiable than others. Such, for example, is 
 the case with the ass, the guinea-fowl, and the goose, as 
 compared with the dog, the horse, the domestic fowl, and 
 the pigeon. As has already been remarked, * processes of 
 ^ repair will take place the more readily in young subjects. 
 Similarly it is probable that the action of the environment 
 generally acts more promptly and intensely on the embryo 
 than on the young after birth. The modifications which 
 may result from the action of animal agencies on the embryo 
 have been well shown by M. C. Dareste through his ex- 
 periments on eggs.f There is a well-known case of a 
 thorough-bred brood-mare, belonging to Lord Zetland, 
 which had a foal by a qua^ga, and which, though subse- 
 quently united only with thorough-bred horses, continued 
 to throw foals with quagga marks. Analogous effects are 
 often produced when a thorough-bred bitch has been once 
 lined by a mongrel. These cases show that certain in- 
 fluences brought to bear upon a female parent, change the 
 environment of subsequent progeny, and so induce modi- 
 fication. We have already cited % various instances of the 
 inheritance of modifications accidentally or artificially in- 
 duced. Such cases are, however, very rare. 
 / The re is evidence that certain variations are more apt 
 
 jtobe^inherited than others. Amongst those very apt to 
 \ be Tnherited are skin affections, affections of the nervous 
 T~systern and of the generative organs, e.g. hypospadias and 
 rabsence of the uterus. The last case is one, as before 
 * pointed out,§ which is especially interesting. It is often 
 affirmed that modifications are never inherited unless they 
 arise spontaneously, and are not produced by such influences 
 as use, disuse, etc., there being little good evidence of the 
 inheritance of the latter kind of modifications. But such 
 modifications, depending as they often do on changes in deep- 
 
 ^' 
 
 5) 
 
 * See above, p. 170. 
 
 t See "Archiv. de Zool. Exper.," vol. ii. p. 4I4; vol. v. p. 179; vol. vi. 
 p. 31; also " Ann. des Sc. Nat.," 4th series, "Zoologie," vol. iii. p. 119; 
 vol. XV. p. i; vol. xvii. p. 243 ; and his work entitled, " Recherches sur la 
 Production Artificielle des Monstrosites." 
 
 \ See above, p. 341. ^ § See above, p. 174. 
 
i8o, 
 
 '// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 1^ 
 
 lying structures, are not easily to be noticed, and there has 
 hitherto been no motive for seeking out and attending to 
 them. Some evidence, as we have just seen, moreover, 
 there absolutely is. But such objectors may well be asked, 
 What are " spontaneous variations " } No effect can be 
 produced without some cause, and the objectors referred to 
 would never affirm that the cause of variation was an 
 absolutely internal one. It must, then, in some way be 
 due to the environment and to reaction between the envi- 
 ronment and the organism (nascent or adult). We must 
 attribute the special formation of the water-hen of Tristan 
 d'Acunha, to inherited modifications of the kind. Thus, 
 to a greater or less extent, not only single individuals, but 
 whole races are modifiable by the direct action of the 
 environment, such modification being in some cases most 
 certainly inherited. The facts mentioned in this chapter, 
 show that the geographical and geological relations of 
 organisms harmonize with the view that a blood-relation- 
 ship has existed between successive species of different 
 strata, and co-existing forms of different regions. It also 
 appears that in the struggle for existence, small differences 
 of colour, form, or strength, may not only prolong the lives 
 of individual animals, but also enable them to mate and 
 breed. At the same time it is evident that surrounding 
 conditions operate directly, and may even occasion a non- 
 protective mimicry.* Many species of animals are defined f 
 by the possession of apparently indifferent or even slightly 
 disadvantageous characters. The bearings of these facts 
 will occupy us in the last chapter. 
 
 With the statements of fact made in this and the preceding 
 
 section, we terminate our rapid survey of the world and 
 
 its inhabitants. We must next endeavour to ascertain what 
 
 are the most general and ultimate scientific truths which 
 
 the facts of nature, ascertained by the physical sciences, 
 
 may be able to disclose to our intellect enlightened by those 
 
 fundamental principles which we have seen to be absolutely 
 
 j and necessarily true. So we may hope to ascertain what 
 
 I things are evidently and what most probably true, and to 
 
 I learn " wha t is tru th " as regards the nature and principles 
 
 I of action of the material universe and our own being/- 
 
 * See above, p. 373. t E.g. the Potto (see p. 317). 
 
 ^ 
 
 O 
 
SECTION V. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXV, Nature ... ... ... ... ... 383 
 
 XXVI. A First Cause ... ... ... ... 45° 
 
 XXVII. Evolution ... ... ... ... ... 500 
 
( 3^3 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 mechanical conception of nature, though useful as a working ; 
 
 hypothesis, is in reality an irrational conception. Reason indi- j /J/J^'i 
 
 cates that the world is made up of bodies, each of which is a ■ 
 
 co mpositjiin c onsisting of both matter and an active, immaterial ! 
 
 prmciple ; the two forming a substantial unity. I 
 
 P. 
 
 What science is — What we are — The sotil — The correlation of forces — 
 The niei^li^yiiii;iilJiJd l£!sop]iy -— The tindulatory theory of light — The 
 natnre of gases — The atomic theory — The iiebiilar theory — Space 
 — Time — Motion — Energy — Matter — Motion attd thought — 'J'he 
 inorganic world — The organic world — Animal automatism — 
 What aft orga?iisni is — Psychology and physiology — Organic 
 symmetry — Vitalism — Five orders of immaterial principles — 
 Generation — Interinediate temporary forms — Cosmical hypotheses 
 — Existences^ real and ideal — Reason in nature. 
 
 Our pursuit of truth has now carried us through a brief 
 survey of the world about us, and w^e have noticed many 
 of the leading phenomena which form the subject-matter 
 of various sciences. We have next to advance from the 
 sciences, to_th£_sciciTj££,i?I^QiejXQ£s^,oj science par excellence. 
 Our endeavour must now be to obtain wiiat knowledge we 
 may of the highest truth which appears to us attainable 
 by man's natural faculties. And here it may be well to 
 ) repeat what was said at the outset of this work,* namely, 
 ^ that the inquirer after truth must trust only to the dictates 
 of his own reason, and be careful to accept nothing as cer- 
 tain, except what his intellect, ajterpatient_and perseyerirjg 
 t hough t, shows him to be evidently true. That in such an 
 
 * See above, p. 4. 
 
384y,// ON TRUTH. 
 
 inquiry considerable patience and perseverance may some- 
 times be necessary for persons not well versed in observa- 
 tions and reflections of the kind, should occasion no surprise, 
 considering what a call there is for the exercise of the 
 same virtues in the acquisition of any merely physical 
 science. The object of the present section is to obtain the , 
 jpn^i- rom pTete ' Icnowledge we can of the nature of the 
 universe about us : what it seems to be composed of, and 
 "wKat are the interactions of its various parts ? what was 
 its origin, if origin it had ? what purposes, if any, seem 
 to be proclaimed by it ? what may be the history of its 
 life, if life it has ; and what may be anticipated in the 
 future respecting it? In other words, the inquiry pursued 
 in this section may be shortly expressed by the questions, 
 Wha t things really are ? Why things are ? and hoiv 
 things have become what they are ? It is to the considera- 
 tion of the first of these questions exclusively that the 
 present chapter is devoted. 
 
 ^^ Felix qui potidt reriuii cognosccre causas." No know- 
 
 science is. ledgc of mcrc phenomena, together with their successions 
 
 ^^ and co-existences, suffice to constitute " science ; " which 
 
 '^' must investigate the essential natures and causal actions of 
 
 '^ the objects of its study, even if it has to end by declaring 
 
 that its investigations have led to no certain or positive 
 
 result. The essence of "science" is a knowledge of^ 
 
 " causes," and only when these have been investigated to 
 
 the fullest extent which our powers and opportunities 
 
 permit, will our knowledge merit such a name. Science 
 
 / has to do with self-evident, necessary truths — first principles 
 
 i which underlie and maintain every department of " physical 
 
 \ science." The latter, therefore, great and noble as it is, is 
 
 necessarily a subordinate science which must submit to be 
 
 ruled and judged by that upon which its very existence 
 
 depends ; namely, the science of sciences or " philosophy." 
 
 Two opposite temptations beset the inquirer at his 
 
 outset in pursuit of such supreme science. During the last 
 
 two centuries physical knowledge has been so wonderfully 
 
 augmented as to lead some persons to suppose that the 
 
 further advance of our knowledge is absolutely unlimited — 
 
 a supposition tending to much rashness of speculation and 
 
NATURE. 385 
 
 [much hasty and unjustifiable dogmatism. Other persons 
 are much more impressed with the hmitations to our 
 knowledge, and the amount of previous error which the 
 same progress has also seemed to reveal — an impression 
 
 j tending to intellectual paralysis and much hasty and 
 
 ' unjustifiable scepticism. In our inquiry we must do our 
 very best to avoid both these temptations. We must never 
 shrink from declaring that to be true, the certainty of which 
 is evident to our minds, however wonderful it may be. 
 We must also be most careful not to declare anything to 
 be certain which is not, after mature meditation, seen to be 
 clearly evident and indubitably true. It may be well for 
 any reader who feels tempted to doubt about his power 
 of knowing, with absolute certainty, anything beyond 
 phenomena and physical science, to reflect a moment on 
 the fact that he himself knows that he knows, with absolute 
 certainty, the very truth about what Omnipotence could or 
 could not do ; and this concerning matters which not only 
 do not exist, but may be regarded as only hypothetically 
 possible. Thus, let him suppose that Omnipotence might 
 have made our world such as it is, save that jz// its birds 
 Avere water-birds — like ducks, geese, etc. Then let him 
 suppose that Omnipotence might have made our world such | ^ 
 as it is, save that none of its birds were water-birds. He | /^^ 
 will then see that it is, and must eternally be and have : 
 been, absolutely impossible even for Omnipotence to have * 
 made both these possible states of our world simultaneously 
 actual. Having reflected on this simple but evident truth, 
 the reader, disposed to doubt his powers of perception, may 
 proceed with more confidence to consider truths of a lower 
 and more ordinary kind. 
 
 i In setting out, then, to investigate as best we may the 
 inature of the unrverse — " isihat it '^ " — let us first examine 
 
 !' he tools with which we have to work, and the nature of 
 he objects they have to work upon. In so doing we 
 Shall find that we have already been forced, in preceding 
 sections, somewhat to anticipate certain questions of the 
 highest science. Our " tools " are those active powers of 
 mind which we know we possess^ Tlie "objects they 
 have to wor k upo n " include everything thinkable, even 
 
 2 C 
 
 ^ 
 
386 ON TRUTH. 
 
 the very thought itself \>Jiich_thmks. We have already 
 seen in what certainty consists ; * that we have supreme 
 certainty of our own existence,! and also that there are 
 absolute, primary, fundamental truths % which are self- 
 evident and need no proof. We have made sure § that 
 there are valid processes of inference, and that what is 
 thus inferred from true premisses, must itself be absolutely 
 true. We have recognized the distinction |1 between what 
 is objective and what is subjective, and we have seen that 
 objective conditions (objective concepts) must correspond 
 with our subjective perceptions of certainty, IT or else we 
 are plunged in hopeless scepticism, the utter folly of which 
 has ** been fully recognized by us. Manifestly, if we can 
 know nothing, all inquiry must be useless. We have also 
 recognized the fact that we have two sets of faculties ; ft 
 one pertaining to the senses and bound down within the 
 scope of the imagination, the other pertaining to the in- 
 tellect and capable of conceiving truths to which the 
 imagination could never attain. Of these two, we have j 
 further seen %% that intellect, and intellect alone, w^A«i4ie j 
 our supreme and ultimate criterion. 
 
 In the second section of this work we endeavoured to 
 make it clear that we have certain evidence of the existence 
 I / of a world, external to and independent of us. Trusting to 
 I the validity of the considerations therein put forward, it 
 will here be assumed that we have a real and true know- 
 ledge of the existence of an external world — that we truly 
 perceive about us a variety of real existences of various 
 kinds, and a multitude of extended bodies. Amongst 
 these extended objects is to be included that material 
 frame which each of us knows as his own body. What 
 each man knows as his really existing and persisting mind, 
 he also knows in conjunction with that same body, the 
 two somehow constituting a certain unity which he per- 
 ceives and calls " himself" 
 whatit-'c Thus, in setting out to consider the world about us, 
 
 as to what it really is, we may best begin with that which 
 is obviously the best and most intimately known to us of 
 
 * See above, pp. ii, 13. t See above, pp. 15-28. % See above, p. 12. 
 § See above, p. 53. || See above, p. 35. 1 See above, p. 137. 
 
 ** See above, p. 7. tt See above, pp. 180, 203. %% See above, p. 113. 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 o^7y>y 
 
 all, namely, our own self. In our own being, then, we 
 perceive a most- remarkable diversit}^ in unity.* Of the 
 continuous existence of thought it is impossible to doubt : 
 thought which can reflect on itself, and recognize its own 
 past and its distinctness from things external to it — so 
 marking off the subjective from the objective. But reflec- 
 
 JtiQH shows us that thought is action, or active en ergy^ an d 
 that no action can exist by itself, but must evid£ntly.,be 
 t he ac tion of something. Therefore the permanence, or 
 substantiality, must belong, not to the thought, but to that 
 \vKlcK thinks, or the thinking principle. In this permanent 
 principle of our being, past and present meet and unite 
 I with anticipations of the future, in one continuous, conscious 
 I " fiiffilC.' Indeed, as Lotze has well said, our perception of 
 the continuous or substantial unity of this principle reposes, 
 not so much on our appearing to ourselves to be such a 
 unity, as to our appearing to ourselves in consciousness at 
 all. We know ourselves, hy;, introapecljon, to possess the 
 power of passing in consciousness from one thing to 
 another, being aware all the time of our own persistence, 
 as also of our occasional reflection upon our own conscious 
 intellectual activity. Such a peculiar entit}', or principle, 
 aware of the kinds and directions of its intellectual activities, 
 consciously present to them all, so that it is aware of the 
 series of its states as a series, and capable of reviewing 
 them in various orders, clearly cannot be itself multitudinous, 
 but must be as much a unity as we can conceive any 
 existence to be — that is, a simple unity/ 
 / At the very same time, with this enduring intellectual 
 being of ours, we are aware that we also possess an ex- 
 
 i tended, material bod}', made up of various parts and 
 possessing various powers. This body is directly evident 
 I to all our senses. We most frequently see it, and we con- 
 stantly feel it. We observe that it possesses the characters 
 which pertain to all other material substances, and that 
 it is subject to the action of gravity and of the various 
 physical forces which affect all other bodies also. Its 
 nature is thus widely different from that of the intellectual 
 principle of our being. That principle must be an im- 
 
 * As to the unity of our faculties, see above, p. 263. 
 
388 ON TRUTH. 
 
 material principle, or else it would not exert its influence 
 over the whole body, but would exist within it, as one kind 
 of matter beside another kind of matter. As John Stuart 
 Mill has said,* "thought" and "matter" are "not merely 
 different, but are at the opposite poles of existence," and 
 the opposite of material existence, is " immaterial being." 
 Our thinking principle, or intellect, can, therefore, have no 
 Kpy'; corporeal organ. Tlie brain can be no " organ of mind," 
 except in so far as it serves to elicit those mental images 
 jwJiidtLare. necessary f to the action of our intellect during life. 
 The very words we have used in setting forth the subject 
 of this chapter, serve to illustrate this profound antithesis 
 between our body and our immaterial intelligence. We 
 spoke I of the powers of our mind as our "tools," and said 
 that the objects they had to work upon included " every- 
 thing thinkable, even the very thought itself which thinks." 
 A tool which works upon itself, a knife which cuts its ,Q.\yn 
 blade, is, however, an entity utterly remote from, and con- 
 trary to, everything material. But we not only feel our 
 body, but we know, and can reflect on the feelings we 
 have when we feel it. We can look at it, and know 
 that we see it ; and not only are the feelings of our 
 body united and unified in one sensuous faculty of "con-j 
 serTtience," § but we can know that they are so. We can! 
 also turn back our mind on itself and recognize the con- 
 sentience we experience. Thus, in spite of the profound 
 diversity of power which exists between our thinking 
 principle and our material body with its attendant sensa- 
 tions, they are diversities of what is one substantial unity. 
 This substantial unity of nature is spontaneously appre- 
 hended by our common sense, and reflection only makes 
 that apprehension clearer, while it also shows us the 
 marvellous character which attaches to it. If I hurt my 
 leg, it is as much " I " who suffer as it is I who think when 
 I am thinking. " I " act as truly when I wash myself as 
 when I reason about philosophy. The reciprocal action || 
 of these two sides of our being, soul and body, is notorious. 
 
 * See his three " Essays on Religion," p. 202. 
 
 t See above, pp. 88, 209. J See above, p. 385. 
 
 § See above, p. 183. II See above, p. 267. 
 
NATURE. 389 
 
 We all know how the receipt of distressing news may dis- 
 turb the body's functions, and how a seemingly trifling 
 ^j. 1 bodily injury, or the consumption of a small quantity of 
 pi/. \ alcohol, may effect the action of the mind. Can we, then, 
 think that it is one immaterial principle which " thinks," 
 and that there is another second immaterial principle 
 which is the active agent in "feeling"? Such a supposi- 
 tion may be seen to be not only needless, but in conflict 
 with evidence, when we reflect that we both know our feel- 
 ings and also actually feel in thinking. But if feeling and 
 thought are due to the energy of one immaterial, unifying 
 principle, need we assert the existence of another to ex- 
 plain any one of our activities ? We have already seen * 
 how actions performed with sensation shade off" into reflex 
 actions and into organic activities in which sensation has 
 no share, while these again graduate into active bodily 
 processes in which even the nervous system itself may 
 have no part. Yet all the organic activities, from the first 
 development of the germ, to maturity and the production 
 by generation of another human being, are unified in one 
 life, which is the life of the whole organism in which, as we 
 have seen,t the activities of all its various parts and organs 
 are merged, sustained, and unified in one dominant activity. 
 This immaterial principle, then, which is not distinct from 
 our body, but forms one unity with it, governs all our acts. 
 It directs our merely organic life-processes, our sensuous 
 activities, and our most abstract thought. Its existence is 
 needed to account for the regulation of our nervous 
 system % (which is itself a regulator of other systems) ; for 
 processes of adaptation to new conditions ; for processes of 
 repair § and development, as well as for those instinctive j| 
 and other activities or reactions of the whole body, which 
 have been distinguished as constituting the " physiology of_ 
 the itidiy idual." T 
 
 A little further reflection may make this fact yet clearer : 
 We know that a whole multitude of actions which are at 
 first performed with attention and full consciousness, come 
 at last to be performed unconsciously. We know that 
 
 * See above, pp. 167-169. t See above, p. 176. X See above, p. 168. 
 § See above, p. 169. || See above, p. 175. 1i See above, p. 365. 
 
^ 
 
 'The sonL 
 
 (39°/// NATURE. — -~-^„^^ ' 
 
 effective impressions may be made on our organs of sense 
 without our knowledge — our attention happening to be 
 diverted at the time of their occurrence. We know that 
 countless organic activities take place in us under the 
 influence and control of the nervous system, which either 
 never rise into consciousness at all, or only do so under 
 abnormal conditions. Yet we see that those activities have 
 the same essential nature, whether we feel and attend to 
 them or not. The fact of our attention or inattention 
 cannot alter that nature.* The immaterial principle of our 
 being, then, evidently acts with intelligence in some actions, 
 with sentience in many actions, but constantly in an un- 
 perceived and unfelt manner. Moreover, we have noted f 
 that this s ame principle of ours undeniably intervenes as a 
 cause in the chain of physical causation/^ 
 
 This unifying principle thus regulating (while it per-j, H 
 
 i 
 
 forms) all the processes of life, is what we mean by " the^ 
 soul" By it we are far indeed from meaning some ; 
 'numerically distinguishable entity, such as was supposed ' 
 by Descartes to exist in man distinct from the life of his 
 body, inhabiting the pineal gland or some other region 
 of the brain, and devoted exclusively to thought. This 
 fanciful notion, so common since the time of the just- 
 mentioned writer, has been gradually expelled by physio- 
 logical science (returning unknowingly to an older and a 
 saner philosophy), which can find no evidence for the 
 existence of any energy in man distinct from the living 
 body itself. It is this figment which physiologists really 
 deny when they object to the term " soul." But the ex- 
 istence of the soul in the sense here given to that term 
 (which is the sense in which it was used by Aristotle) they 
 cannot deny. The existence of the body may be denied 
 (as we saw in our second section), and is denied by idealists ; 
 \y but the existence of the soul it is absolutely impossible to 
 -^ /^ , deny, since the act of denying it implicitly affirms its ex- 
 j istence. It does so because, without the presence of some 
 ipimaterial principle of individuation, our different mental 
 
 |>: 
 
 * The direction of our minds to various bodily functions (digestion, etc.) 
 may more or less impair the perfection with which they are carried on ; but 
 this is, of course, an altogether different thing from altering their nature. 
 
 t See above, pp. 264-268. 
 
NA TURK. 
 
 59'//. 
 
 acts (such as those we call sensations, imaginations, asso- 
 ciations, apprehensions, and inferences) could not be united 
 so as to constitute an act of judgment. But without an 
 explicit judgment the existence of the soul cannot be • 
 denied, even in thought. Our^ being is _thus a two-sided _. 
 unity, which pers ists during life — a chain of immaterial^ 
 activities accompanj-ing a series of physical changes.* 
 ^iterdeath we have, of course, inanimate matter only. 
 We know very well that the dead body of our friend is 
 not our friend himself, and that something (necessarily un- 
 imaginable by us, as it is something our senses cannot 
 perceive) is wanting, which existed during life. This, re- >/y<2 
 flection shows us to be that immaterial, enduring priiieiple ^ 
 _ Qi Lindiyid i^at[on__Avith which we have the most intimate 
 acquaintance in our own consciousness, and which makes 
 our body (change as it may) our body, and makes our 
 mind (change as it may) our mind. And our body 
 notoriously does change, and has not that substantial per- 
 sistence which we are conscious of in our intellectual life. 
 Our body has been entirely renewed since we performed 
 those earliest actions which we remember to have been our 
 actions. Day by day the food we take becomes part of 
 our body, and day by day our body divests itself of 
 portions of its substance ; yet zuc persist through all these 
 I mutations. It has sometimes been objected that this >»->, 
 I apparently persistent unity of ours, is no more .th4,Q^_^Jlie_|b'**' 
 lunity of a fountain, of which the variously directed jets of -/ 
 water, while they continue to be emitted, seem to con- ^ 
 stitute a persistent unity without being so in reality. But, 
 in a certain sense, such a fountain is a persistent unity ; so 
 long, that is, as its various component substances continue 
 to be disposed in such a way as to maintain the effect its 
 construction was intended to produce. But^jts, uaLtji-is 
 ahpg ether extrin sic. It poss esses n o interjj gl p o ffifics of 
 jnaiatenance, growth^nd_ regair ''"^^ J'g P"*" l^'^tng.hn^y^^ 
 possesses... If it had these, it would be truly a unity, and 
 then the very evanescence of its material particles as they 
 flow, would only serve to make more plain the presence of 
 a permanent internal principle of individuation effecting 
 
 * Sec above, p. 266. 
 
392 y// ON TRUTH. 
 
 f \in 
 
 A 
 
 those processes. But this principle of individuation of ours 
 which is revealed to us by consciousness and reflection, is 
 (as we shortly before observed) not only the opposite of 
 matter — that is, immaterial and simple — but it also has an 
 immaterial nature altogether sni_,^£M^yis, inasmuch as the 
 Whole material universe shows us nothing else like it. Being 
 able, as we lately observed,* to recognize the past as past, 
 the future as future, and to reflect on its own successive ex- 
 periences, it must be different in kind from the active prin- 
 ciple of every other known organism. Mqr^overjLj$re_cajD_ 
 jdirectly perceive no being but man who is able to determine 
 Jiis acts freely, and of his own will to interpose and change 
 _the whole course of subsequent physical causation. Such 
 an active principle, capable of acting freely under the 
 guidance of its own intelligence, evidently requires to be 
 distinguished from the existences of a lower nature, by some 
 term which may distinctly mark its radical distinctness 
 from every kind of active principle and every power or 
 ,/ faculty not thus endowed. The principle animating every 
 ( ^ . human being may, then, be distinguished as " spirit " from 
 V^ every power, principle, or form of energy not thus gifted, 
 while every human being, as a being endowed with true 
 intelligence and free-will, may be termed a " person " in 
 contradistinction to all lower beings which have not such 
 powers. 
 
 From the time of Thales \ certainly, and probably from 
 a period much more remote, the highest minds have occu- 
 pied themselves with speculations and reasonings concern- ' 
 ing the nature of the universe. There is no space here for \ 
 even the briefest sketch of the history of philosophy. % \ 
 Such a subject would also be altogether foreign to our 
 aim, which is the investigation of truth itself, and not 
 of the ways in which it has been sought. It suffices for 
 our purpose to advert briefly to one or two philosophical 
 systems which have, or have had, wide popularity, and 
 whose principles, consciously or unconsciously imbibed, 
 may tend to obscure the reader's apprehension of views 
 
 * See above, p. 387. t Born 640 B.C.. 
 
 X The reader may consult Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg's " History of Philo- 
 sophy," translated by G. S. Morris, M.A. (London : Hodder and Stoughton, 
 1872). 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 393/.^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 here to be put forward as certainly, probably, or possibly 
 true, as the case may be. 
 
 • One of the most strikinsr and fruitful discoveries oi Thf,.im^i>^ 
 modern times has been the discovery that the physical/";'^- 
 forces (light, heat, motion, chemical activity, electricity, 
 etc.) have exact relations of quantitative equivalence,* in- 
 stead of being, as previously supposed, independent of any 
 such definite correlation. This discovery led to the con- 
 
 \ ception of the physical forces being actually transformable 
 one into the other, and thus rather different manifestations 
 of one force than radically different forces. This concep- 
 tion has been vividly expressed by calling "heatjla.„l'jliad£ 
 
 .of motion. " and the tendency has arisen to consider all 
 other forces as motion in some or other form or con-, 
 dition. Of late, physicists have more or less discarded ; 
 the term " force " in favour of the word " energy," the 
 latter being used to denote phenomena which can be \ 
 measured, and the facts of correlation are now differently 
 expressed. It is rather said, for instance, that motive 
 energy is changed into heat energy, and the reverse, than 
 that "forces " are transformed. The fundamental conception, 
 however, is not really changed by this more guarded form 
 of expression, for however much it may be desired to refer 
 only to the actual phenomena observed, and not to any 
 "force" as the cause of them, the intellectual necessity of 
 the idea of causation and a physical or mechanical cause, 
 will always be, consciously or unconsciously, assumed when 
 no other is postulated. Another force, however, was postu- 
 lated to explain the phenomena of living beings, and spoken 
 of as " vitaliJQiX£^" and so the universe came to be regarded 
 
 J as an assemblage of material bodies — solid, fluid, and 
 
 I gaseous — with two kinds of force, one (physical force) 
 acting in all of them, the other (vital force) only acting in 
 organized bodies.t This_bLypQthesis is knowa^asJlyitalisai-" 
 For reasons, however, which will be enumerated later on, 
 the idea of a distinct vital force fell into greater and 
 greater discredit, and it was sought to explain all the 
 phenomena of life by the idea of motiony 
 
 Long before the discovery of the quantitative equivalence 
 * See above, p. 301. t See below, p. 430. 
 
94//> 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 N/ 
 
 _ The 
 Ml&CllAtu'a 
 
 of the physical energies, a great many substances had been 
 analyzed and resolved into various chemical elements, and 
 exact quantitative relations * as to weight, had been found 
 to exist between such elements. This has led to the con- 
 ception and general adoption of what is known as the 
 " Mtnnnjr..t"hi?nr^' according to which thejyarious jslementary 
 substances -Goiisist of . "atojcns^'^while, the more complex 
 substances consist of " molecules," each molecule consTsITng" 
 of groups of definitely combined atoms. A further step 
 was taken when the energy of the various physical forces 
 acting in any substance came to be considered as being 
 actually, but different " modes of motion " of the molecules 
 composing such substance. On " vital force " being dis- 
 carded, in favour of merely physicaI~Tofce, as an explana- 
 tion of the phenomena of life, all the actions of living 
 beings came also to be explained as forms of motion, either 
 motions of large parts (as in the movement of limbs), called 
 " molar motion" ; or motions of minute parts — minute waves 
 or oscillations (as e.g. supposed to exist in the action of 
 nervous tissue t), called " molecular motion." Ultimately, 
 ven " feeling " and " thought " were imagined as being either 
 actually different " molecular motions " or as the mysterious, 
 inexplicable accompaniments of one kind of molecular 
 motion — namely, the minute motions of the particles 
 I for ming certain tracts of nervous tissue in the brain, 
 prhus, according to this material^ jor raechaiiica.Ii_con^cep- 
 / tion of _the _uniyerse, nothing exists but unimaginably 
 I minute, distinct, separate particles distributed throughout 
 V space, grouped in the most varied and complex systems, 
 //] and systems of groups of groups of groups of groups (to 
 any extent needed for the theory), every ultimate atom, 
 and each set of atoms forming a molecule, and each group 
 and series of molecules having each and all their own set 
 \ of minute motions. In a word, the universe is thus 
 'Supposed to consist of myriads of myriads of particles 
 incessantly performing all sorts of minute gyrations, through- 
 out a time without beginning and without end, unless when 
 that form of motion, termed heat, becomes everywhere 
 equally diffused. Then the whole process will either end by 
 * See above, p. 303. t See above, pp. 147, 150, 164. 
 
NATURE. 395 
 
 producing an universal balance or "equi libra tion " in an in- 
 finitely extended nebula of atoms — equivalent to universal 
 death — or will begin again (as a system of perpetual motion), 
 through collisions and concentrations, to redistribute heat 
 and motion unequally. Thus we should have an eternal 
 rhythm of change from atoms in a nebula, to worlds of 
 atoms ; and from worlds to nebula again, and so on without 
 end. Such is the ultimate synthesis and system of causes 
 which constitutes a very popular philosophy of our day, 
 much as it did in the old days of Democritus.* The^ 
 essence of every body^liyincr^or^n_orgajiic^is_.CQnceived of as, 
 a plexus of solid particles in certain states of active motion. 
 The readei" new to such speculations may deem it all 
 but incredible that such a conception can really be enter- 
 tained by eminent and distinguished men. Nevertheless, 
 I a passion for considering nature a*^. a mprp mp ^ham's m— c>.f 
 ^matter and motj on, and all its actions as merely mechani- 
 g^ / cal, is a tendency of our day. It is the scientific ideal 
 N.^ I of a very large and very influential school of thinkers, f 
 /j L and is the goal towards which they strive ; and in so striving 
 they only follow the lead of the earliest of modern philo- 
 sophers, Descartes. % 
 
 The convenience of mechanical hypotheses for the 
 purposes of calculation is indisputable ; but from the 
 practical use of such hypotheses to their real acceptance 
 as truths, is a very long step. The former mode of pro- 
 ceeding no prudent physicist will neglect ; the latter no 
 
 * Born about 460 B.C. 
 
 t Thus Kirchenotif has said (" Protectoratsrede. " Heidelberg, 1S65) : 
 " The highest objects at which the natural sciences are constrained to aim is 
 the reduction of all the phenomena of nature to mechanics ;" and Ilelmholtz 
 has declared ("Populaer Wissenschafthche Vortrage," 1S69), "The aim of 
 the natural sciences is to resolve themselves into mechanics." Wundt observes 
 (" Lehrbuch der Physiologic des Menschen "), " The problem of physiology is 
 a reduction of vital phenomena to general physical laws, and ultimately to the 
 fundamental laws of mechanics ; " while Haeckel tells us (" Freie Wissenschaft 
 und freie Lehre ") that "all natural phenomena, without exception, from the 
 motions of the celestial bodies to the growth of plants and the consciousness 
 of men ... are ultimately to be reduced to atomic mechanics." Professor 
 Hu.xley also speaks of "that purely mechanical view toward which modern 
 physiology is striving," and has said " if there be one thing clear about the 
 progress of modern science, it is the tendency to reduce all scientific pro- 
 blems, except those which are purely mathematical, to questions of molecular 
 physics ; that is to say, to the attractions, repulsions, motions, and co- 
 ordinations of the idtimate particles of matter " (" Lay Sermons," p. 1S3). 
 
 X Born A. D. 1594J diedA.D. 1650. 
 
 L 
 
 '\ 
 
396^/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ^ 
 
 really rational man, sufficiently informed and unenslaved I 
 by prejudice, will be guilty of. The use of mechanical ) 
 conceptions, even with respect to the science of living 
 beings, is not only blameless but natural and useful, as 
 will be shortly pointed out ; but its absolute acceptance 
 leads to downright absurdity. To call "pains" and 
 " pleasures," " modes of motion," is not to explain them, 
 but simply to apply words wrongly and to mislead the 
 unwary. For the sake of going to the very root and 
 origin of such a mistaken conception, it may be well first 
 to test-tlie-_value of the preyalent mechank theory on 
 "^ what may be considered its own special ground — -the 
 ^ 'JifelesSj inorganic world. If we find that even in the 
 domain of pure physics, widely accepted mechanical 
 views have little chance of being able to maintain their 
 hold, we shall be able to investigate with more profit the 
 mechanical view of the phenomena of life. We will, then, 
 briefly pass in review one or two of the most widely 
 accepted mechanical theories of the physical world, not 
 with the intention of denying all truth to them, but to 
 show that much may be reasonably urged against an entire 
 and unreserved acceptance of any one of them. j 
 
 jji^juidM^- One of these modern conceptions which has met with | 
 "Sffi^L^ general acceptance is that of thejindulatory theory of light, i 
 According to it, that mysterious entity is but an unimagin- j 
 able multitude of unequal waves * of a universally diffused ■ 
 lumeniferous ether ; the prismatic colours of the spectrum 
 being^due to the separation of waves of different lengths, 
 unequally retarded in their passage thrO'Ugh some refracting 
 body. Now, it has often been objected to the undulatory.- 
 K theory, that if different colours are, like different musical. 
 
 vJ , \ notes, but differences of wave-lengths^ then no dispersion 
 '/ ■: such as that which is produced by the spectrum, ought to 
 I take place with respect to light, since it does not do so with 
 t respect to^ound. This objection, always recognized as 
 a formidable one, has been met by the hypothesis that the 
 velocities of the several coloured rays may vary according 
 to the wave-lengths if it be assumed that the ethereal 
 -medium of propagation, instead of being continuous, con- 
 
 * See above, p. 300. 
 
NA TURK. 
 
 397 
 
 
 sists of particles separated by sensible distances. But are 
 these coloured rays propagated with different velocities ? 
 This is a question, as has been recently pointed out,* 
 which astronomy seems able to test ; and, so far, its de- 
 cision is adverse to the undulatory theory. We experi- 
 ence the sensation of white light when all the chromatic 
 rays of which it is composed strike the eye simultaneously. 
 The light proceeding from a luminous body will appear 
 colourless, even if the component rays move with unequal 
 velocities, provided all the rays, which together make up 
 white light, concur in their action on the retina at a 
 given moment ; in ordinary cases it is immaterial whether 
 these rays have left the luminous body successively or 
 together. But it is otherwise when a luminous body 
 becomes visible suddenly, as in the case of the satellites 
 of Jupiter or Saturn, after their eclipses. At certain periods 
 more than forty-nine minutes are requisite for the trans- 
 mission of light from Jupiter to the earth. Now, at the 
 moment when one of Jupiter's satellites, which has been 
 eclipsed by the planet, emerges from the shadow, the red 
 rays, if their velocity were the greatest, would evidently 
 reach the eye first, the orange next, and so on through 
 the chromatic scale, until, finally, the complement of 
 colours would h& filled up by the arrival of the violet ray, 
 the velocity of which is supposed to be the least. The 
 satellite immediately after its emergence would appear 
 red, and gradually, in proportion to the arrival of other 
 rays, pass into white. Conversely, at the beginning of the 
 eclipse, the violet rays would continue to arrive after the 
 red and other intervening rays ; and the satellite, up to 
 the moment of its total disappearance, would gradually 
 shade into violet. But the most careful observation of the 
 eclipses in question have so far failed to reveal any such 
 variations of colour, either before or after emersion, the 
 transition between light and darkness taking place without 
 chromatic gradations. 
 
 Astronomy points to several other phenomena which 
 
 * See "The Concepts of Modern Physics," by J. B. Stallo (Kegan Paul, 
 Trench & Co.), p. 95. The criticisms of this book have been warmly praised 
 by some of the first physical experts, though its author (like ourselves) makes 
 no claim to be considered an expert in physics. 
 
i98 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 
 are equally at war with the doctrine of unequal velocities 
 in the movements of the chromatic undulations. Fixed 
 stars beyond the parallactic limit, the light of which must ' 
 travel more than three years before it reaches us, are subject 
 to great periodical variations of splendour ; and yet these 
 variations may be unaccompanied by variations of colour. 
 Again, the assumption of differen-t v€-locities-£cur-th,e-iiiiferent 
 cHromatic rays is discountenanced by the theory of aberra- 
 tion. Aberration is due to the fact^that in all cases where 
 tHF^orbit of the planet on wliich the observer is stationed 
 forms an angle with the luminous ray, a composition takes 
 place between the motion of the light and the motion 
 of the planet, so that the direction in which the light meets 
 the eye is a resultant of the two component directions — 
 the direction of the ray, and that of the observer's motion. 
 If the several rays of colour moved with different velocities 
 there would evidently be several resultants, and each star 
 would appear as a coloured spectrum longitudinally parallel 
 to the direction of the earth's motion. 
 
 The allegation of a dependence of the velocity of the \ 
 undulatory movements, which correspond to or produce 
 the different colours, upon the length of the waves, is thus 
 at variance with observed fact. The hypothesis of " finite 
 intervals" is unavailable as a supplement to the undulatory 
 theory ; other methods will have to be resorted to in order 
 to free this theory from its difficulties. 
 
 We readily acknowledge that the hypothesis has the 
 merit of accounting for the phenomena of optics up to 
 the time of its promulgation. We readily acknowledge 
 also that through it a number of facts were predicted which 
 have been subsequently discovered. But as right con- 
 clusions are often drawn from wrong premisses, successful 
 I predictions by no means suffice to prove an hypothesis to 
 \ be true, though they justly serve to accredit it. When an 
 hypothesis successfully explains a number of phenomena 
 with reference to which it was constructed, it is not strange 
 that it should also explain others connected with them that 
 are subsequently discovered. There are few discarded 
 physical theories — e.g. the one-fluid theory of electricit}^ 
 and the corpuscular theory of light — that could not boast 
 
NATURE. 399 
 
 the prevision of some phenomena to which they pointed, 
 and which were afterwards actually observed. 
 
 We may, indeed, be ready to accede to the demands \ 
 of the theorist when he asks us to grant that all space j 
 is pervaded, and all sensible matter is penetrated, by I 
 an adamantine solid exerting at each point in space an i 
 elastic force of 1,148,000,000,000 times that of air at the i 
 earth's surface, and a pressure upon the square inch of i 
 . 17,000,000,000,000 pounds. We may be ready to grant \ 
 I the existence of such a solid as this, startled as we must 
 i be at the fact that it is one which wholly eludes our senses, 
 \ and offers no resistance to the movements of ordinary 
 \bodies. But w^e cannot but be appalled and staggered 
 w^hen we are told not only that the alleged existence of 
 this adamantine medium — the ethe r — does not, after all, :^ 
 explain the observed irregularities in the periods of the -^ 
 comets, and that it is unavailable for explaining electrical 
 phenomena, unless a distinct electriferous ether must be 
 assumed ; * as also that it is very questionable whether 
 all the now known facts in optics t can be explained without 
 assuming that the luminiferous ether consists of two dis- 
 tinct media. % In spite, then, of its convenience as a 
 working hypothesis, we must at least meet the zealous 
 advocates of this undulatory theory of light with the 
 prudent Scotch verdict, " npt.pi'Qyen." 
 
 Another modern but very minor physical hypothesis Thenatnye 
 is one concerning the nature of gases, first advanced by " ''^'"'^' 
 Kr6nig.§ The assumptions of this theory are that a 
 ■- gaseous body consists of a great number of minute solid 
 particles in perpetual rectilinear motion, which, as a whole, 
 
 * W. A. Norton, on " Molecular Physics," riiil. Mag., 4th series, vol. xxii. 
 
 P- 193- 
 
 t As, for instance, the non-interference of two rays originally polarized in 
 different planes when they have been brought to the same plane of polarization, 
 and certain phenomena of double refraction, in view of which it is necessary 
 to suppose that the rigidity of the medium varies with the direction of the 
 strain — a supposition discountenanced by the facts relating to the intensities 
 of reflected light. 
 
 X Two media, each possessed of equal and enormous self-repulsion or 
 elasticity, and both existing in equal quantities throughout space, whose vibra- 
 tions take place in perpendicular planes, the two media being mutually in- 
 different, neither attracting nor repelling. See Hudson on " Wave Theories of 
 Light, Heat, and Electricity," Phil. Mag., 4th series, vol. xliv. p. 210. 
 
 § And since elaborated by Clausius, Maxwell, Boltzmann. Stefan, 
 Pfaundler, and other physicists of the highest note. 
 
^^// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 is conserved by reason of the absolute elasticity of the 
 moving particles, while the directions of the movements 
 of the individual particles are incessantly changed by their 
 mutual encounters or collisions. The colliding particles 
 are supposed to act upon each other only within very 
 small distances, and for very short times before and after 
 collision ; their motion being free, and consequently recti- 
 linear, in the intervals between such distances and times. 
 The durations of the rectilinear motions in free paths are, 
 moreover, assumed to be indefinitely large as compared 
 with the durations of the encounters and of the mutual 
 actions. 
 
 But how and why is the elasticity of an atom one bit 
 less in need of explanation than the elasticity of a bulky 
 body '^ What argument from analogy can experience show 
 (and to abandon experience is to abandon the very ground- 
 work of physical science) in favour of the existence of 
 bodies such as the atoms supposed ? For these atoms are 
 supposed to move, except on the very verge of immediate 
 contact, independently, without mutual attraction or repul- 
 sion, or any sort of mutual action. Where else in the 
 whole of nature can we find bodies such as those supposed 
 — bodies which have a violent mutual action just before 
 and after their collisions, and yet are totally free from 
 such action during the comparatively long periods of their 
 rectilinear motion along " free paths " ? Not only, there- 
 fore, does this hypothesis conflict with experience, but it 
 assumes the existence of properties it is intended to 
 explain^ 
 Theatomi c Lct US ncxt tum to the great atomic theory itselfj_,.The_^ 
 doct rine that an exhaustive analysis of matter into its real 
 eleme nts, if it could be practically effected, would yield an 
 aggregate of indivisible and indestructible particles, is one 
 _oF the earliest products of human speculation. All its 
 modern supporters, however they may disagree in details, 
 agree in holding that the atomic theory involves three 
 such propositions as the following — 
 
 1. Atoms are persistent, indestructible, and indivisible, 
 md they are unchangeable both in weight and volume. 
 
 2. Atoms are separated by void jn t^ersti tial spaces, and 
 
 tiieory. 
 
 ^.^ 
 
 i 
 
NATURE. 401/^ 
 
 such atoms constitute matter ; the expansion or contrac- 
 ition of a body being simply the increase or decrease of the 
 intervals between the atoms. 
 
 3. The atoms of chemical elements are of determinate 
 specific gravities. 
 
 Let us consider these three propositions, by the truth ! 
 or falsehood of which the atomic theory itself must stand 
 or fall. The first is valued as accounting for the inde- ,. 
 ■structibility of m attfijen^ WiI4--it do "so ? As Mr._ Stallo 
 remarks : * " Surely the hypothetical recurrence of a fact 
 in an atom is no explanation of the actual occurrence of 
 the same fact in the conglomerate mass. Whatever mystery 
 Js invQJb^ed^-in.. .the .fih€aQm£iK«a>-is...a& great in • t-he -casiraT* 
 the a tom,a3.iQ- that of a solar or planctar)- sphere. Break- 
 ing a magnet into fragments, and showing that each 
 fragment is endowed with the magnetic polarity of the 
 integer magnet, is no explanation of the phenomena of 
 magnetism. A phenomenon is not explained by being 
 dwarfed, and theory is not transformed into a fact by being 
 looked at through an inverted telescope." 
 
 Th e second proposition is valued as serying_tp _explam 
 
 i 
 
 such phy sical phenomena as the dispersion, and polayiza- 
 ■±,^n nf li.crhi-. "Will it do so ? In our review of the undula- 
 tory theory of light, we have already seen that sOme 
 observed phenomena do not accord with it, and thus 
 this second proposition is denied that positive support 
 which it has been too hastily supposed that optics give it. 
 But as Mr. Stallo observes : f " This negative evidence is 
 reinforced by positive evidence derived from a branch of 
 the atomic theory itself — the modern science of thermo- 
 djjiamifs. Maxwell has remarked, with obvious truth, 
 that such ' a light-bearing " medium " as the undulatory 
 theory supposes ' (whose atoms or molecules are supposed 
 to penetrate the intermolecular spaces of ordinary sub- 
 stances) would be nothing more nor less than a gas, though 
 a gas of great t enui ty, and that every so-called vacuum \ 
 would in fact be full of this rare gas at the observed ' 
 temperature and at the enormous pressure which the ether, i 
 in view of the functions assigned to it by the undulatory ' 
 
 * Loc, cit., p. 88. t Loc. cit., p. 97. 
 
 2 D 
 
 
^- 
 
 402 y--^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 theories, must be assumed to exert. Such a gas, therefore, 
 must have a correspondingly enormous specific heat, equal 
 to that of any other gas at the same temperature and pres- 
 sure, so that the specific heat of every vacuum would be 
 incomparably greater than that of the same space filled 
 with any other known gas. This remarkable consequence 
 is not only without experimental warrants, but — inasmuch 
 as it would apply to all vacua, including the intermolecular 
 spaces of ordinary bodies, of whatever state of aggregation 
 — is in effect a fatal aggravation of a peculiar difficulty of 
 the molecular theory, which is in itself formidable to the 
 highest degree." 
 
 ,JIJiaihixjd4ii;Q|Wsitiea-r.the deter m i na^^^ 
 of th e, atoms— is deemed \.o }ap/^^^^^,^'^\?Lnd^^xi ...c^SOi^ 
 henomena of chemical composition and .decampasitjon. 
 Will it serve as such ? Now, the phenomena may be con- 
 veniently arranged in three classes : (i) the persistence of 
 weight and the combination in definite proportions ; (2) the 
 changes of volume and the evolution or involution of 
 energy ; and (3) the emergence of a wholly new set of 
 chemical properties — as in the composition of oxygen and 
 hydrogen to form water, or the decomposition of rust 
 into iron and oxygen. 
 
 Mr. Stallo continues : " Obviously the atomic hj^othesis 
 is in no sense an explanation of the phenomena of the 
 second class, It_i^_ clearly, aiid confessedly incompet ent to 
 account_iaiL,changes of^ volume, temperature, and latent 
 energy,. And with the phenomena of the third class it is 
 apparently incompatible ; for in the light of the atomic 
 hypothesis, chemical compositions and decompositions are 
 in their nature nothing more than aggregations and segr^- _ 
 gations of masses whose integrity remains inviolate. But 
 the radical change of chemical properties, which is the 
 result of all true chemical action, and serves to distinguish 
 it from mere mechanical mixture and separation, evinces a 
 thorough distruction of that integrity. At best, then, the 
 hypothesis of atoms of definite and different weights can 
 be offered as an explanation of the phenomena of the first 
 class. Does it explain them in the sense of generalizing 
 them, of reducing many facts to one ? Not at all ; it 
 
NA TURK. 403 
 
 accounts for them, as it professed to account for the inde- 
 structibihty and impenetrability of matter, by simply 
 iterating the observed fact in the form of an hypothesis. 
 It is another case of illustrating idem per idem. It says, 
 ' The large masses combine in definitely proportionate 
 weights because the small masses, the atoms of which they 
 are multiples, are of definitely proportionate weight' It 
 j)ulv-eriz£SJLh.e- fact, and claims thereby to have sublimated 
 it into a theory. " 
 
 In the words of Sir William Thomson, " The assumption V^y^-^^ 
 of atoms can explain no property of a body which has not / 
 j previously been attributed to the atoms themselves." 
 
 Of course, by the foregoing contention we are far from 
 meaning to deny that the atomic theory has done very 
 great service to the cause of chemical science, and that it 
 may do much more. Still, there are now not wanting dis- 
 tinguished men of science who are disposed to agree with 
 Cournot * in declaring that " the belief in atomsJ§.jatJb,er 
 a hindrance than^^a^iig]^^.'' anH the late Sir Benjamin 
 BrodTe (Professor of Chemistry at Oxford) did not hesitate 
 to declare that " the atomic doctrine has proved itself inade- 
 quate to deal with the complicated system of chemical facts 
 which has been brought to light by the efforts of modern 
 chemists," or to express his belief that the atomic theory 
 has not "succeeded in constructing an adequate, a worthy, 
 or even a useful representation " of chemical facts. 
 
 One of the most strenuous advocates of the atgmo- 
 mechanical theory, and a persistent stickler for its dominant 
 features, has expressly declared that " the scientific imagi- 
 nation which is authoritative demands, as the origin and 
 cause of a series of ether waves, a particle of vibrating 
 matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively 
 minute, as that which gives origin to a musical sound. 
 Such a particle we name an atom. I think the seeking 
 intellect, when focussed so as to give definition without 
 penumbra l haze^^is sure to realize this image at the last." 
 Yet, as to this, Mr. Stallo observes : f "It requires but little 
 reflection to see that the realization of definite atoms or 
 molecules susceptible of, but pre-existing to, motion, in the 
 
 * " Traite de I'Enchainement des Idees," i. 264. f P- 156. 
 
(404/ 
 
 V 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 focus of this writer's ' seeking:,di Ltall£ct' is sheer delusion. 
 
 Let us fQ n-a..JXiQmeJ34-GO«temt»lat€ aft ultimate particle of 
 
 matter iji. its - state^^f &xlste4^ee ia advance of all its motion. 
 
 I t is w ithout colour, and neither light nor dark ; for colour i 
 
 and lightness are, according to the theory of which he is a ! 
 
 distinguished champion, simply modes of motion. It is, 
 
 similarly^ without temperature, neither hot nor cold, since 
 
 heat, also, is a mode of rriotioii. For the same reason i t^ is 
 
 without electric, magnetic, and chemical properties : in 
 
 short, it is destitute of all those qualities in virtue of which, 
 
 irrespective of its magnitude, it could be an appreciable 
 
 ^object of sense, unless we except the properties of weight 
 
 and extension. But weight, is a ,mej.e. pJay-Qf- attcagtive 
 
 forces; and^e:.xten.sion,..tQQ^js known to us only as resist- 
 
 ^ancCj which, in turrij is a manifestation of force, a phase of 
 
 ,.Xhus the difficulty of grasping these primordial, 
 
 /• jthiii gs lie s^ not in their excessive minuteness, but in their 
 
 ^ Ttotardesiil ution of quality. The solid, tangible ^reality 
 
 'craved by such 'scientific imagination' is ' nee quid, nee _ 
 
 luantnm, nee q2eale,'^nd wholly vanishes from the 'seeking 
 
 i nteHeH^^Tl^e^ m o m c n t this intellect attempts to seize it 
 
 apart, f rom -tlie motion which is said to presuppose it auiits 
 necess ary substratum." IMorcover, if we allow even solidity 
 to these atoms, then also, according to this 
 
 mechanical 
 
 theory. 
 
 philosophy, nothing exists, or can exist, but perfectly dry, 
 hard, solid particles ; and there can be no such thing what- 
 ever as either a real fluid or a real vapour in the whole , 
 universe ! 
 The ncSuiaJ Passiug from the infinitely small to the largest bodies 
 I known to us, we will lastly advert to that ingenious and 
 I widely popular conception, the " nebular theory." The 
 ,__^ebular theD):y^-QxigillaJly-du£,to Kant,* is a prominent 
 feature of the general mechanical coiiception of the universe. 
 It is an attempt to deduce that universe from matter and 
 motroi i onty", by the application exclusively of mechanical 
 LprincTples. * The theory may be shortly stated as follows : 
 " Primordially, the materials which now form all the com- 
 plex bodies of our planet, the solar system, and the whole 
 sidereal universe, were uniformly dispersed throughout 
 
 * " Naturgeschichte des Himmels." 1755. 
 
NA TURE. 405 
 
 space. By the action of physical forces (above all by that ^ 
 of attraction, or gravity) this uniform mass of attenuated 
 matter began to rotate and divide into vast nebular spheres. 
 These spheres, as they gradually cooled, contracted, and 
 also revolved the more rapidly the more they contracted, 
 With the increase of the velocity of rotation, the centri- 
 fugal force in the equatorial regions of each rotating sphere 
 also increased, causing it to become flattened at the poles, 
 and eventually to detach successive equatorial zones, which 
 at first circulated round the residual mass — in the case of 
 our own system round the sun — in the direction of its 
 original rotation. These rings broke up into a greater or 
 less number of smaller spheroids owing to various irregu- 
 larities in their form or composition, thus giving rise to 
 the planets. Each thus formed planet began to revolve 
 and condense, again throwing off one or more portions, 
 thus constituting our moon and the various other satel- 
 \ lites. Many interesting astronomical, and some terrestrial, 
 I facts harmonize with this hypothesis ; but others seem to 
 I be fatal to it. 
 
 In the first place, there are enormous discrepancies 
 between the actuaTorSital periods of the planets and the 
 corresponding periods found by calculation according to 
 the nebular hypothesis, as was pointed out twenty years 
 ago by M. Babinet. Moreover, several of those confirma- 
 tions of the theory which were formerly supposed to exist, 
 have been disproved by the progress of astronomical 
 discovery. Thus the planet Uranus * supplies us with an 
 exception to the uniformity in direction of the axial and 
 orbital motions of the planets and their satellites ; the 
 orbital planes of its satellites being nearly perpendicular 
 to the ecliptic, and their paths round their planet being 
 retrograde. More serious still, one of tlip twn r.fii^£>nt1y,_^ 
 .discQveixd satellites of Mars rcxohes ab,aut.thjat-.^anet 
 in less than on e-third of the time required for the planet's"' 
 , avia] rnfafinn Yct, if the ncbular theory is true, l:He' 
 lorbitSLl motions of a satellite are but continuations of the 
 laxial motions of the materials out of which such satellite 
 (was formed ! Its orbital period, therefore, ought to be at 
 
 * See above, p. 301. 
 
406 ON TRUTH. 
 
 least nearly equal to the planet's own rotation at the time 
 when it cast off that satellite. But its period of rotation 
 must have been greater than its present period, owing to 
 the acceleration which must have taken place through the 
 planet's subsequent contraction. Yet this satellite of Mars 
 revolves more quickly than does its now contracted parent ! 
 The radical inconsistency of this fact with the nebular 
 hypothesis is undeniable. 
 
 Two subsidiary hypotheses, however, have been put 
 
 forward to help the distressed nebular theory out of its 
 
 \ straits. The first of these is (i) that the planet's period of 
 
 \ rotation has been retarded by tidal action. The second is 
 
 \ (2) that the orbits of the satellites have been contracted, 
 
 \ and their orbital periods accelerated, by the resistance of 
 
 i an ethereal medium. As to the first of these subsidiary 
 
 hypotheses, tidal retardation could only at the very most 
 
 produce a coi)icidence of the period of a satellite's orbital 
 
 revolution with that of its planet's rotation round its own 
 
 axis. As to the second subsidiary hypothesis, we have 
 
 already pointed out the difficulties respecting the ethereal 
 
 media imagined by physicists ; and the effect of such a 
 
 resisting medium would surely be to retard the motion 
 
 of revolution itself, as well as to contract the satellite's 
 
 orbit. 
 
 But if the nebular hypothesis, the atomic theory, the ki- 
 netic theory of gases, and the undulatory theory of light, are 
 to be regarded as but imperfect hypotheses, useful in their 
 season and for certain purposes, but with no pretensions 
 to be absolute truths, what are we to think of the great 
 mechanical conception of the universe as a whole ? And 
 when from the inorganic world we pass to the domain of 
 life, what sane man can doubt but that the wonderful and 
 various qualities of colour, odour, and the beautiful variety 
 of leaf and frond, are due to deeper agencies than the 
 incidence of light or heat with the co-operation of other 
 physical influences ? 
 
 i Still more marked in animal sensations and the com- 
 plex varieties of instincts, is the agency of something more 
 than groups of physical forces. Even if mere mechanism 
 would explain all the phenomena of the inorganic world. 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 I such an explanation is inadequate indeed to elucidate the 
 activities of living creatures. 
 
 Before, however, attempting to grapple with the pro- j \ 
 blems presented to us by the living world, we must first 5 | 
 consider more deeply those conceptions upon which this J 
 ^hole mechanical philosophy is based. Tt is"Base3' uponP 
 the conception of matter with its physical forces variously 
 moving with a mechanical necessity, during countless ages yi 
 , of past time and throughout unfathomable abysses of 
 /// space. Let us therefore consider- .with .a , little care the 
 l> t-ideasJ.Upace," " time," " rnotion," "force," aacj '! ma.tter^ 
 
 All the corporeal bodies we can see or think of, ds €\sj>ace.'^ 
 commonly spoken of as occupying a certain limited portion! \^ 
 ^ of "space." Is "space," then, a^e.ahty of which we havej JT 
 ■ an intuitive j)erception ; is It a form of thought into which 
 J> our mental nature compels us to throw_^^every one of our , 
 jl^TS'rcepVions or, irha'ginatiohs of corporeal things ; is it no 
 ■^"TearTdea at ail,-but a mere amalgam of certain sensations,- 
 jV or__is it a true abstract idea gained b^^ from experience? ''^ 
 ■^ Ift is not a thing intuitively perceived ; for many persons 
 who have deeply pondered over the question deny that 
 they have any such perception at all, and certainly the ^,^^^^ 
 present writer has none such. Any one who asserts that he { r'^^vM 
 himself has such a perception should be asked to describe > V— -^ 
 what it is he perceives. No one pretends that space has i 
 _an^ character^except_a.powex of..receivii;g extended bodies I yl^^ 
 within^t. ^f, thea» .,tt:&,^i^mag;ine all extended bodies per- T ^ 
 ceDtible ,,{;^ y„ll >e, senses to be annihilated, there would |^ "^» 
 remain a mere empty po\\ er or potentiality, the' ^i^Mehce \s -^ 
 0? "vv1Sc]S°^^-itseljr the mind sees to be posTtrvely'lm'- \ 
 possible. If it is urged that there may be something in- 
 " tonceTv^able by us which possesses this power, we may reply 
 thus : Of course, we cannot reasonably affirm that there 
 are no things merely passively inconceivable * by us which 
 may not be true, yet it would be in the highest degree un- 
 reasonable to assert the existence of any such thing when 
 the facts upon the strength of which its existence is 
 asserted can perfectly well be explained without it. When 
 ordinary and known causes suffice to explain anything, we 
 * See above, p. 41. 
 
n 
 
 1^, 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 must never idly have recourse to an assertion of extra- 
 ordinary and inconceivable causes. The second _su^£osi- 
 tiojQ,_jiamely, that space is a mental form or mould into 
 which our organizations compel us to throw our concep- 
 tions of extended things,* is less unreasonable than a belief 
 in the objective reality of an inconceivable entity, space. 
 But this second supposition is a form of idealism (since it 
 denies we have any valid perception of real extended 
 bodies), and idealism has, we trust, been already sufficiently 
 refuted in our second section. The third^^jiypjothesis 
 supposes that our idea of space is nothing more than an 
 amalgam of feelings of motion and tactual and visual sense- 
 impressions of all kinds, the structure of the retina 
 especially enabling us to note different objects simulta- 
 neously, and so giving us the feeling of unoccupied place. 
 It is urged that, since each set of motions and sense-im- 
 pressions experienced, tends to call up, indistinctly, past 
 trains of similar feelings ; the simultaneous presentation of 
 an indefinite multitude of such relations will give rise to a 
 sense of- freedom of, Kusti^on, together with the feeling of 
 ^unoccupied place.,. ...Xiiiis^-.it,is said, is the same thing as 
 our .idea.,.of„space. But however we may feel different 
 " positions " and " motions," we cannot thi)ik them with- 
 out hayJJi§:-the idea ".extension"! already present to our 
 minds. The sensations due to the positions and motions 
 ~ot bodies may, and doubtless do, serve to elicit the idea 
 extension ; they are the means by which our minds are 
 aroused to the perception of the extension of objects, and 
 may account for the actions and spatial sense-cognitions of 
 brutes. Our organization is formed, like that of animals, 
 to obtain by the senses a sense-cognition of extended 
 . bodies. So far, then, these sense-experiences serve us ; but 
 I we have an intellect which is able to apprehend that bodies 
 jhave an extended quality, and to conceive the abstract 
 lidea "extension." Once elicited, we see that this idea 
 lis most inadequately represented by " positions " and 
 
 * This, as every one knows, was the hypothesis of Kant, who sought to dis- 
 prove the validity of human reason by reason ; to show certainty by what is 
 uncertain, and to arrive at infallible truth by means professedly fallacious. 
 
 t The relation of our bodily sensations to our feeling of extension as dis- 
 tinguished from the idea has been already pointed out (see above, p. 191). 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 409, 
 
 V 
 
 \ " motions." It is, indeed, a primary, fundamental idea /, 
 incapable of analysis. "_SjDace" is-jiertaiuly^ex,plicable as y^,^ 
 an abstract idea, gained, like_,our^.ctttLet^abslra.ct-J.deas, bjj_ 
 
 V experience^ It is a more abstract idea than__extensi_on^ 
 
 The id(^a " ex tcnsiun " is itself an abstract idea gained by 
 
 ojjjL.£as^^ejri£ilQg,,pf extended things, but when-Vve.think:^of^ 
 
 exterisioiir we always vaguely think of some extended body. 
 
 TV'hen we spealv of " space," hQuresi££^\\^_^do not_joi£ut^ 
 
 / .^£^5^ ^° any extetuied-bady ; what we^really mean is the^ 
 
 '[ ■ quality of extension as completely abstracted from alil^-- 
 
 l bodies, whatever^ and JtiiQUglit o£ purely by . itself. " Ex -J 
 
 I tension " has, of course, no existence in itself, as extension ; 
 
 'though it is real and objective as a quality of real, extended 
 
 objects. ,.5^cg_ij^altqgetliej;,ade«U^',an^ abstraction from \ 
 
 abstractions, and when we speak of bodies "occupying" 1 
 
 " space," we really refer to the exclusion of one extended | 
 
 body by another. Spacje^^ then, though there is iio^^SMch.^ 7 
 
 _thing as space, is a true idea, as denoting the extension of ./ f 
 _aLL£xt£nded things- -ai^stcactedly^ considered. This truth ' 
 does away with and explains the question which puzzles i 
 so many — -the question as to whether space is or is not^ 
 infin ite.. For we certainly do not "perceive any positive 
 necessity for an infinite series of extended bodies in the 
 universe ; and though it is true we cannot imagine a 
 boundary to space, such impotence on our part is no 
 matter for wonder, since we have no experience of the 
 kind, and we cannot imagine that of which we have no 
 I experience whatever. Space cannot extend further than 
 tdo extended bodies, since it is nothin? but^ the. abstract^ 
 idea of their cpminaU-extensiojo. and mutual exclusion^ 
 ^" Similarly "jtim£." is not, and cannot be, a really existing Wime^ 
 thing in itself, nor a mere form of thought devoid of 
 objective reality (for we are certain of our own continuous 
 existence), nor an amalgam of feelings, for it is a distinct 
 
 _Jdea;^ Time, like space, is an abstraction ■ ii--oPft-abs"t't-aG«'J^ \ 
 
 perception of the real 
 
 K 
 
 
 / . tjons — -an abstraction - from our 
 
 >^jucces^ipns of .things-which succeed- -oiie another. In the 
 idea of " success ion " some two or more succeeding things! 
 are always thought of; but when we speak of " time," we 
 mean "succession" as completely abstracted from all; 
 
I 
 
 Motion. 
 
 .410/^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 objects and events, and thought of purely by itself. 
 "Succession" is real and objective as a quality .of real, 
 succeeding things. " Time " is altogether ideal ; and when 
 we speak of events as occurring in time, it is a mere mode 
 of speaking, denoting the exclusion of one succeeding 
 thing by another. For persons who believe in God, the idea 
 of " time " may receive a derived reality from the idea of the 
 Divine duration. Thus considered, objective "time" may 
 be regarded as jnoreTtEan the abstract succession of all 
 succeeBing things, because it also implies the '^ctUTtttiWf 
 of the mutual exclusion of all succeeding things. Where, 
 therefore, there is no succession, tl^ere can be no "time ;" 
 and time is no more necessarily infinite than " space " is, for 
 it is quite conceivable that " succession " may come to an 
 end. Duration without succession, on the other hand (which 
 may be conceived of, but cannot be imagined, since we have 
 no experience of an absence of succession), is seen, by any 
 theist, to .. be necessarily infinite as an attribute, of God. The 
 idea of duration, may also add to our perception of the ob- 
 jective reality of that whence our abstract idea "space" is 
 derived ; for it brings before our minds the duration of the 
 mutual exclusion of all extended things. But space, time, j 
 or duration can have no existence in themselves as space,;' 
 time, or duration, save as ideas in some mind. They exist, \"> 
 of course, objectively as the qualities of substances whence *^ 
 they have been ideally abstracted, but not independently 
 and apart from such substances/'' 
 
 Just as our intellectual perception and conception (or 
 idea) of extension is called forth and sustained by those 
 bodily experiences which have antecedently given to us 
 (as they give to brutes) a feeling of extension, so other 
 bodily feelings give to us, and brutes, z. feeling oi motion,* 
 which feeling,calls forth and sustain^jour intellectual con- 
 ception (or idea) ofjnotioiir'l'hat idea is primary and funda- 
 mental, and can be re,§^Y £dun.tD.".noth [ng else. .It is an ^ 
 jidea conveyed to our minds both by our experiences of ex- ,^ 
 ten ded Jth in g_s _a^d. by our experiences of succeeding things, 
 forth^bywhat isjmmaterial as well as by 
 what is matyj aJy>»sk>ee' wer' caTy;-se to speak, turn our._. 
 
 * As already described (see above, p. 192), 
 
NATURE. ^^V// 
 
 thoughts from one thing to another, and we are conscious 
 of the passage"'tTirough oiir minds of a series of intellectual 
 conceptions, no less than of visions of objects seen by our 
 bodily eyes. Thus the idea of motion., js^ the mos^t 
 Ja neous an .H iiniypi-'^al of nnr iHeas It Is one of the first/ 
 called forth and the most frequently brought into play. I 
 Being so universally and constantly evoked, we can readilyl 
 see how it is and must be the easiest of our imaginations 
 and conceptions, and one which the mind most readily 
 takes to and feels most at home in, especially on account 
 of the extreme ease with which the sustaining feeling of 
 : motion is called forth and experienced.* Here it is above 
 I all necessary that we should be on our guard against 
 I delusions of the imagination, and carefully distinguish 
 I between that which is evident to our intellect, and that 
 I which we are merely unable to expel from our imagination ; 
 though reflection shows that we are not, on that account, 
 to regard it as representing objective truth. It has been 
 objected against certain conceptions that they cannot be 
 "mentally visualized;" but so far is this condition from 
 being a proof of delusion, that we may rather say, whatever 
 in these abstract studies can be " mentally visualized " is 
 necessarily untrue, and it is often the more untrue the 
 better it can be so " visualized J^' 
 
 We have abundant experience indeed of things in 
 motion, and nothing is easier to imagine. The abstract ■ 
 idea " motion " also comes most readily into the mind, and j 
 at first nothing seems easier than to understand objects | 
 in movement and what we mean by their " motion." But | 
 when we come to examine into the idea, various difficulties '• 
 and problems present themselves for solution. An object 
 in motion (such as e.g. a feather blown by the wind) is the 
 same thing essentially, whether in motion or at rest ; and 
 yet it is not altogether the same thing — it is in a diiTerent 
 state. What, theii,. do w^e^really rriaan J^y its." 
 I tis, of course, an abstract idea. to which a cer tam-state jof 
 ^me object corresponds.. But when we try to think of 
 ^hat there may be objective in this "state," an image 
 of an object in motion always rises before the mind. It is, 
 
 * See above, p. 193. 
 
/ 
 
 
 
 f4i 
 
 7 
 
 CA^ TRUTH. 
 
 
 Energy. 
 
 of course, simply impossible for us to imagine "motion" 
 
 apart from some object moving, and indeed we imagine 
 
 more than this without noting it. For whatever moves or 
 
 has moved within our whole experience, has always done 
 
 so by moving away from the place or direction of one 
 
 ^bject and towards the place or direction of another 
 
 object. When we reflect upon this consideration, we see 
 
 that it [s impossible, .for. .anything to move except.„tl)ere 
 
 l£_£ome^Jig£^Qjy^^J[Qll,^^^^ approach or recede from. 
 
 Xherefore motion is, or includes, whatever else it maybe, 
 
 I ^ ^l .^^g-9.^ relation of .ope bp.dy towards another or others.,, 
 
 l_It_fol]ow§ that the jiniverse^ 
 
 I lutely ijicapable of motion, .saye internally,, because, being 
 jtl^e ^niyerse, .there can be nothing beside it to approach 
 f^^_^cede from. But because the motion of an object 
 canno't exist apart from, the object which moves, do we 
 see that there is nothing objective in a moving object save 
 the object itself in a certain state? That can hardly be 
 the opinion of those who speak of "heat" as a "mode of 
 motion," or who believe in the transformation of " forces " 
 or " energies." Moreover, it is often said that bodies may, 
 by impact, communicate motion ; as when one suspended 
 ball, falling against others, ceases itself to move, while 
 another begins to be in motion, to which latter the 
 " motion " is said to have been transferred. The language \ 
 used s.how,s the existence of a tendency to regard " motion " I 
 as itself a substantial entity which can actually pass out | 
 of one^ bq3y_in to another^ Yet, it may be asked, if f 
 motion " were such an entity, how could its passage | 
 between the two balls be effected ? How is it to get from 
 one into the other, and what is to make it go from one 
 to the other? Here we seem to tj-ench upon the .confines 
 of human knowledge. We are in a region where evidence 
 is diffictrk-to't5l5fain, and where the effect of the imagination 
 is exceedingly powerful and tyrannous. 
 / It is impossible to think of force, energy, or motion 
 
 j except in material terms. We may speak sometimes of 
 4--aJXXu:.e.gaj._of " energy," or a whirlwind of " force." and with 
 I respect to both terms we cannot help imagining the action 
 \ of solid, fluid, or aeriform substances. But our intellect 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 4i3<^ 
 
 tells us that this is erroneous and misleading. It tells 
 us that if there is anything objective corresponding to 
 our ideas " motion " or " heat," it cannot be a form of 
 material substance coexisting beside or within a moving 
 or hot body, but that it mjist be,. imm aterial ,* and some- 
 thing necessarily quite unimaginable by us, however evident 
 its actual existence may be to us. Those facts of Quj ntiii j 
 tative equivaleuce between the different kinds of activities 
 bodies possess, which facts have given rise to the concep- 
 tion of " transform ations_ofJorce," do point to the existence 
 of something objective in bodies corresponding with our, 
 ideas of "force" or "energy." The circumstance of thati'^^^,^ 
 objective existence being by its nature necessarily quite! '^^T 
 unimaginable (being immaterial), no more affords a reason] 
 for our not believing in its existence, than does the fact of| 
 our own thinking principle being necessarily quite un- i^ 
 imaginable afford a reason for our not believing in the 
 existence of that principle. We have evidence, then, that 
 there does exist in nature either one unimaginable, im- 
 material energy which manifests itself according to cir- 
 cumstances as motion, heat, light, etc., or else that there 
 are fundamentally different forms of energy which have 
 between them relations of quantitative equivalence as they 
 exist and energize in the inorganic world about us. But 
 even if the physical forces (light, heat, motion, etc.) are dif- 
 ferent embodiments of one fundamental form of energy, that 
 does not make the forces themselves less truly and really 
 different and inconvertible. " Motion," as experienced by 
 us, _is.n,ot. an energy, but is a state of sorne extended body. 
 It is a form of energy embociied in a certain way. So 
 also heat, light, etc., as we know them, are also energies 
 definitely embodied and producing effects which are states 
 or modes of (hot or luminous) bodies. The immaterial, 
 objective entities are, then, not " motion," " heat," " light," 
 etc. (which are states of bodies known to us by experience), 
 
 I but may be distinguished as the energy of motion, the 
 energy f of heat, the energy of light, etc. It is not, then, 
 
 * See above, p. 266. 
 
 t The word "energy" is here used for a special purpose, and not in 
 the sense it is so often used — that is, as denoting phenomena which can be 
 measured. 
 
f4l4y/ ^^ TRUTH. 
 
 clearly evident that these various utterly unimaginable 
 energies, which are so diverse in their effects, may not be 
 different forms or modes of one energy variously modified 
 by the matter and conditions of the bodies wherein they 
 energize. But this is a very different thing from the trans- 
 formations taking place between the physical forces which 
 are, as just pointed out, embodied energies which cannot 
 be transformed. We may call "light" or "heat" a "mode 
 of motion," but "motion," "light," and "heat" remain 
 absolutely distinct to all our experience and to our reason, 
 although, as has been said, it is not evident that the imma- 
 terial energies which underlie these manifestations may 
 not be transformed one into another. The subject will 
 need some further treatment after we have considered the 
 conception represented by the term " matter." 
 tur^. The idea of substance— that is to say^Jthe idea of some- 
 
 thing which endures and persists — is known to us (as we 
 1\ 1 ha ve just seen) in our perception of our own continuous 
 VT' tTntellectual being. But that is not by any means the way 
 •wTinT^which we find that idea to have been actually elicited 
 5 in our own life-history and in that of other men. The 
 f mind first looks out upon the world external to it, and only 
 I subsequently reflects upon its own mental experiences and 
 mental life; which may, indeed, never be reflected on at all. 
 The idea of something persisting and enduring, and the I 
 abstract ideas " persistence " and " endurance," are, in fact, j 
 called forth in our minds by the various material bodies \ 
 about us of which our senses take cognizance. Through \ 
 these sense-perceptions, the mind directly acquires by-intui g.^ 
 tion — or " intuesj' — intellectual perceptions of extended / 
 materiaTbodies, and of the material substance^, or " matter," _^ 
 ^of which they are, at least in part, composed. This j)erce^^ ^' 
 ^ion is gained by our external sense-experiences, just asj 
 mjTpefception of "force" is gained by our internal' sense-} 
 Experiences. But though "matter" is thus constantly and 
 imiliarly known to us as existing in material bodies, pure 
 id simple matter, in and by itself, has never yet been 
 [■evealed to us by any observations. We always perceive 
 ^matter of one or another kind, and, to say the very least, 
 no existing matter has been discovered with so few powers 
 
} 
 
 NA TURE. ( 4 1 syy 
 
 and properties as to permit us to believe that in it we have 
 before us matter of no definite kind but what is the 
 common constituent of every material body and substance 
 whatever. 
 
 Every material body and substance known to us is 
 made known to us through some power, attribute, or 
 quality which we perceive it to possess, whereby we dis- 
 \ tinguish it from other bodies. The active powers which 
 " thus pervade any material substance evidently are not 
 other material substances existing within it, but whatever 
 existence they have must be immaterial.* 
 
 Thus every_jxiatefiaL- body or substance yet known to 
 us would seem to consist both of something corresponding i '^ 
 wjth_our_idea of ''matter,'' and something immaterial-— lYtP 
 some energy existing with the mat^r, whereby that body 
 or substance comes to exercise those active powers which 
 Iriake it known to us as being whatever kind of body or^ 
 substance it maj^ happen to be. Not only, then, is there 
 "no " space," but only extended bodies ; no " time," but 
 only succeeding events ; and not only are " those objective 
 entities which correspond with the forces of bodies con- 
 sidered in themselves," unimaginable, immaterial existences 
 which we distinguish as multitudinous energies or a multi- 
 form energy, but also there is no such thing known to us 
 as "matter" in and by itself. We know only concrete 
 [material bodies, everyone of which is of a definite peculiar 
 ; kind, possessing its own definite immaterial activities. So 
 far as physical science has yet advanced, it finds _every 
 substance to be either an _dement or resolvable ultimately 
 into certaTri' definite elements, and every elementary sub- 
 stance has its own special' and characteristic active powers. f 
 Therefore every material, inorganic body, and substance 
 known to us, we have so far reason to regard as consisting 
 of matter together with an immaterial constituent, the 
 latter being the active, directing, dominant principle of the 
 material substance ; which thus consists of a material and 
 an immaterial existence, neither of which is perceptible to! ^v 
 the senses or picturable to the imagination, though both j 
 
 * See above, p. 266. 
 
 t The a ljotrop ic and isomeric states of the same and different substances 
 I are here taVcen into account."'"^ 
 
 »^ 
 
4t6 on truth. 
 
 can be conceived of by the active human intellect. We 
 must not venture, however, dogmatically to affirm it to be 
 evident that pure matter, the common constituent of all 
 material things, can never at any future time be obtained. 
 The present writer does not think that it will, and is in- 
 A clined to believe not only that pure matter will never be 
 n/^ obtained, but also that its actual nature, together with the 
 \ -Vreal ultimate constitution of all material substances, will 
 for ever remain inscrutable to our present faculties. Should, 
 however, such pure material substance be ever discovered, 
 it is evident that it must be discovered by our sense- 
 perceptions, and therefore must possess certain characters 
 whereby we can apprehend it to be what (on the hypothesis 
 of its existence) it is. It then must have its own active 
 powers, and there will, therefore, be the same reason with 
 respect to it, as with respect to multitudinous elements, to 
 regard it as a substance of twofold nature — as having its] 
 material and immaterial sides or principles, whereof the! 
 latter is the dominant one. Up to the present time, 
 however, physical science brings before our observation 
 no pure matter, but only a countless multitude of bodies 
 of most varied kinds, each consisting of either one kind 
 of substance i^e.g. gold and diamond), or of two, several, or 
 many substances variously combined together. 
 
 Similarly, the active powers of bodies as we experience 
 them do (as common sense assures us) also exist. We 
 have the plainest evidence of their calorific, luminous, 
 chemical, and motor activities. As we have seen, it is not 
 evident that these activities may not be divers forms of 
 one unimaginable energy, but it is still less evident that 
 they are so. 
 
 Phrases denoting a transformation of energies have, not 
 unnaturally, come into fashion as a consequence of the 
 recognition of that quantitative equivalence between the 
 fvarious physical activities of inorganic bodies which can 
 jbe most conveniently expressed in that fashion. But 
 though it is thus convenient to express such changes 
 (especially experimental changes accurately measured) in 
 terms of a persistent energy, yet the physical phenomena 
 are capable of expression as different bodies endowed with 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 \^1///r 
 
 various active powers. The conception of the same and 
 different bodies being successively affected, and acting 
 successively in different, definite manners (with a quanti- 
 tative equivalence between the modes of their affection and 
 activity), is a conception as consonant with the facts pre- 
 sented by a working steam-engine, an electrical machine, 
 or a galvanic battery inducing chemical changes, as is the 
 conception of one energy variously transformed^ 
 
 A short time back it was stated * that the idea o\ Mot.uut.a^uL 
 motion is called forth in us by the play of our thoughts, a^ 
 well as by the movements of material, extended objects] 
 The assertion is true, but needs to be guarded by somes 
 further explanation. As has been said again and again,! 
 ou r .imaginatioix-is tied down to our sensuous faculties.^ 
 We can imagine nothing of which wc have not had some 
 sensuous experience, and we can conceive of nothing save 
 by the aid of the imagination, of which our intellect has 
 
 i to avail itself as of a crutcli, being careful to advert to the 
 ^fact that its crutch is a crutch and nothing more. Our 
 
 intellect, in recognizing the movements of thought, per- ^- 
 
 ceives their succession, but it cannot have the idea " sue- y 
 cession " without the aid of the imagination of succeeding 
 material things, and material things cannot succeed except 
 
 ''by motion. Succession — and therefore force and energy, ^^ 
 which _occasion"~or7result in succession — are seen, on re- 
 flection by the intellect, not necessarily to involve anything 
 material and extended. But " motion " is seen neces- 
 sanly to involve bodies which are material and extended. 
 " IVTotion," therefore, is here suggested to us (by our intel- 
 lectual experiences of succession) not directly by the 
 intellect itself, for succession does not (as we have just 
 seen) necessarily imply " motion." "Motion " is suggested 
 to us by our " imagination," as without the help of that 
 faculty we cannot think at all, and we cannot think of 
 motion save by the aid of mental images of moving things. 
 Thus, though the idea of " motion " may be suggested by 
 a consideration of the mental succession of succeeding 
 thoughts, nevertheless it is not called forth by the succes- 
 sion of the thoughts themselves, but by the sensuous sub- 
 
 * See above, pp. 410, 411. 
 
 2 E 
 
4i8</^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 
 The in- 
 organic 
 ■world. 
 
 i 
 
 fc^ 
 
 stratum of imagination, without which we cannot consider 
 that mental succession. But in the movement of thought, 
 as in the movement of billiard-balls, there is true " succes- 
 sion ; " and this element, common to both, is the basis of a 
 certain true analogy which exists between mental and 
 material activities. It is this analogy which justifies such 
 expressions as " movement of thought," " turns of thought," 
 " progress of mind," etc. " Force " or " energy " can be 
 conceived of as so existing both in material bodies and also 
 immaterially in any immaterial substance of the existence 
 of which we may have evidence. But neither force nor 
 energy can be conceived of as existing, except as existing 
 in something, although this something need not be mate- 
 rial and extended. "Motion," however, cannot be con- 
 ceived of (let the reader try if it can) as existing except 
 f in something material, and needs to be sustained and 
 / accompanied by the feelings and ideas of both extension 
 V and succession. 
 
 Moreover, as before said, when we reflect on the motion 
 of bodies we see that our idea of such motion is a purely 
 abstract idea, and that the motion of any moving body can- 
 not exist objectively save as a state of the body which 
 moves. The idea is obtained by imagining a moving body, 
 and then ideally, or subjectively, separating its movement 
 from itself, which is, of course, objectively impossible. 
 But, as we have seen, the phenomena of nature seem 
 clearly to indicate to our minds, the existence of some- 
 thing utterly unimaginable in a moving body besides the 
 body itself, which utterly unimaginable existence we have' 
 distinguished as " the energy of motion." 
 
 The inorganic world about us, then, as seen, thus far, 
 in the light of science, agrees with its aspect as regarded 
 by common sense. The unsophisticated mind regards the 
 inanimate universe as consistiD^ .of .ajuimher of separate 
 substances, ^ach being a substance .of some HeHnite kind 
 "possessing certain powers and properties. If the common- 
 sense man is asT<ed"\vh"eTher"eacli body is an actual, material 
 substance, he will reply, " Of course it is." If he is asked 
 what gives it its special powers and properties, he will 
 answer he does not know, and he may not improbably add 
 that he does not believe that any one else knows either. 
 
NA TURE. / 4 1 9y^ 
 
 Science also shows us a world consisting of a number 
 of separate, inorganic substances, each being a substance 
 of some definite kind with special powers and properties. 
 It also tells us that each is an actual, material substance, 
 informed by an immaterial energy which is utterly un- 
 imaginable and inscrutable in its nature. Each material 
 object is thus regarded as a unity having its material and ^ 
 its immaterial side — a " coin^osituni " of matter and of some «„ 
 form of" energy, the latter principle giving the substance ^ 
 n tlRose powers and properties which make it what it is. 
 
 \ " The immaterial principles of these multitudinous sub- 
 stances may be absolutely and eternally different in nature, 
 but it is not evident that they may not be the results of 
 the interaction of different aggregations of one primitive 
 matter informed by one primitive immaterial principle. 
 If so, however, we must be on our guard against allowing i 
 our intellect to be so enslaved by our imagination as to | 
 regard the multitudinous immaterial principles, thus result- I 
 ing from such interactions, as so many separate " parts " of - 
 some " ocean of energy," parts substantially like the ocean ? 
 whence they were derived. The image of an " ocean " is, \ 
 of course, an utterly misleading image. The primitive | 
 energy and the multitudinous resulting energies are all | 
 alike necessarily unimaginable. Whatever their process of 
 production, however brief their duration, and however com- 
 plete their possible lapse into other forms and their return 
 to their condition of primitive energy may be, every one 
 of them, while it energizes, must be regarded as actually . 
 distinct and substantial, so long as the substance it informs 
 continues to exist as a distinct kind of substance. The£&i. 
 fore, once more, there can be no such thingas a trans- 
 formation oi physical force, or of any embodied energies. 
 The physical forces, though possessing a quantitative 
 
 ^ -equivalence, and alternately appearing and disappearing, 
 '>i' j'are each only that which we know them to be, though the 
 
 y'^ I inscrutable, unimaginable entity underlying each of them 
 I may or may not be the same as that which underlies the 
 I others. Diverse manifestations, as before said,* of one 
 energy may possibly take place, but not of any force which 
 
 * See above, p. 413. 
 
^o). 
 
 42(y// ON TRUTH. 
 
 makes itself evident to our senses by the actions of the 
 various bodies which we experience as hot, or himinous, or 
 in motion, or what not. There are yet other conceptions 
 which cannot be put aside as evidently false ones. One is 
 the conception of the material, inorganic universe, as con- 'y^ 
 sisting only of different aggregations of one matter with 
 intrinsic motion. Another conception is that the inorganic 
 universe may consist of an unimaginable substance which r^ 
 is neither extended matter nor what we conceive of as 
 force. Matter per se is unimaginable, and so is force 
 per se ; the universe may therefore, it is urged, consist ulti- 
 
 mately of something which is neither one nor the other, 
 but which is a unity whereof extension and force are 
 attributes. 
 
 These conceptions do not by any means commend 
 themselves to the mind of the present writer, but we must 
 be most careful to avoid all narrow dogmatism, and not to 
 declare anything to be certainly false, however apparently 
 improbable, which is not necessarily and evidently untrue, 
 on account of the necessary and evident positive truth of 
 something which contradicts it. 
 
 As yet, in this chapter, we have, besides our own nature, 
 only taken the inorganic world into account. The above 
 speculative conceptions may be more fruitfully considered 
 when the whole cosmos has been surveyed. 
 
 If we may not even then be able to affirm with certainty 
 what is the very truth as to the constitution of nature, we 
 shall, at any rate, be in a better position to examine as to 
 which hypothesis best accords with and explains the whole 
 of nature, organic and inorganic, living and dead/ 
 jiJuLMt^anic^ Glancing back over the world of organic life, which we 
 I have endeavoured to convey a general notion of in the pre- 
 [ ceding section of this work,* we see a vast multitude of 
 Hiving creatures most diverse in their forms, and having 
 ^^ery different faculties, yet all agreeing in the possession 
 of certain powers and a certain fundamental unity in struc- 
 ture. The lowest of these organisms, consisting of simple 
 cells with slightly differentiated contents, have the powers 
 of merely vegetative life only, whilst all undoubted animals 
 
 * See chs. xxi. to xxiv. 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 421 
 
 h 
 
 share with us a faculty of sensation, and the highest (because 
 most like us bodily), the apes, closely resemble us in their 
 sensitive, e mot ive, and imaginative faculties. 
 
 We have recognized that our own nature possesses * 
 both distinctly intellectual faculties and also sensitive 
 powers which can act apart from our intellect. Study and 
 observation serve further to convince us that we have j^ 
 jrurnb^r of vital powers — organic memory, organic response, 
 etc. — by which a multitudinous series of merely organic 
 
 actions are performed without sensation, and that others 
 \(as in the early embryo) are carried on without even the 
 presid ing influence of a nervous system. Finally, we have 
 rnoted that actions and reactions take place in our being 
 such as take place in the merely inorganic world devoid of 
 life. Such actions are the merely mechanical actions of the 
 joints of the skeleton, the influence of gravity, and various 
 chemical changes — though these, like all the other actions 
 of our being, take place under the presiding influence of 
 that immanent, immaterial entity, our soul, which dominates 
 and unifies all the various activities of our being. When, 
 having been thus informed by reflection, we turn our gaze 
 from ourselves upon the world around us, we recognize the 
 existence of a multitude of bodies which seem to share, in 
 very different degrees, those powers and properties of our 
 own nature. Common sense now suffices to assure us that 
 there must be in animals (which resemble us in so many of 
 our powers) a certain resemblance likewise in the source of 
 those powers. We have seen that we are each of us a dual 
 unity, and that the dominant and directive side of our 
 being is an immaterial principle (which together with the . 
 matter of the body forms absolutely one thing) we have ^ 
 called the soul. Common sense, then, also suffices to 
 assure us that every living creature must be also a two- 
 sided unity, with an immaterial principle as the formative, 
 sustaining, dominant aspect of its one being. Who can 
 doubt but that a tiger has the power, as before said.t to 
 exercise all its five senses simultaneously while in the act 
 of tearing its living prey ? More than this ; such sensations 
 call up in it more or less distinct reminiscences of similar 
 
 * See above, p. 203. t See above, p. 354. 
 
 Q 
 
l\22//y ON TRUTH. 
 
 I feelings and emotions previously experienced, and these 
 ^ will occasion fit and suitable actions, so that past and 
 present sensations, of very varied kinds, are united with 
 various emotions and appropriate actions in one psychical 
 activity/ Such a tiger would seem then also to be the seatA 
 of a unifying power, uniting and synthesising its various I '^y 
 activities, and acting as a principle of individuation./ 
 Such a principle must, however, altogether escape, as does 
 our own soul, the cognizance of the senses, though reflec- 
 tive, reason and commpj!i._5£nse may combine to assure us 
 / that it is by it that an animal concentrates into one mental 
 
 centre the multitude of impressions made simultaneously 
 and successively on its organs of sense. For what common | 
 sense affirms is that each living organism can move itself; j 
 in other words, that it is, by its own essence, a centre off 
 immanent activity or internal force. We cannot get rid 
 of the perception that there must be such a thing as interjisJi. 
 force. To conceive of the universe as consisting of atoms' 
 actecf on by external forces, but having in themselves no 1 
 power of response to such actions, is a manifest absurdity. 1 
 No one thing can possibly act upon any other unless that 
 other has an innate capacity to be acted on. As to living 
 organisms, we may analyze the activities of any animal or 
 plant, and, by consideration of such activities separately, 
 find resemblances between them and mere physical forces,. 
 jVj^ /as we have above pointed out. But \h.Q._jyntJxesis-Qi-.s>Vii:h \ 
 ^- -^ £^££S«3^^ ^*^ '^^^ ^^^ ^ liviiigxrea,tu,re,i3.__qertainJy.,n^owhei:^^ 
 to be met with in the inorganic world,- -To -deny this would \ 
 be to deny the plainest evidence of our senses. The pre- \ 
 sence of a special internal force is perhaps most evi3ent in .a 
 that wonderful process of development which each organism I 
 g^oes through,* especially in its earlier stages, after the fer- i 
 tnization of the germ-.- -This view, at once popular and ;| 
 philosophic, has of late years received a remarkable adhe- " 
 sion from a writer who at one time was amongst the fore- 
 most advocates of a mechanical conception of nature. We 
 refer to the Gexiaa«-philQsp_pher, Hermann Lotze^ before 
 mentioned — a man quite free from'^TeotS^TcaTor other pre- 
 judices and prepossessions. Influenced only by a profound 
 * See above, p. 339. 
 
NATURE. ^3iX 
 
 if and patient exercise of his reason, he has come to enunciate,* 
 in the most uncompromising way, t he '"^''^^'"ncf - in each a 
 animal of a soul, or "psyche" — an entity which, though i/jb 
 . cT^rly to be perceived by our reason, is, he tells us, as im- ' "^ 
 \ possible to imagine as it is to imagine " how things look in 
 the dark." Th.us every,_ammal_is a unity with its material 
 and its immaterial side. We find in" each organism a chairTi -. 
 ^ of physical changes accompanied by a chain of immaterial \.\ i 
 energies, some part of which we know in ourselves in con- 
 sciousness and sensation,! but the rest of which in ourselves 
 , and in all other living creatures we can only know by rational 
 I inference. The chain of physical phenomena consists of 
 the actions of that side of the one living whole which we 
 call its visible body. The chain of immaterial energies con- 
 sists of that side of the one living whole which is the prin- 
 ciple of individuation, psyche, or soul. The more complex' 
 the structure of an animal, the more multifold are its func- 
 Itions and the more elaborate is the process of unificatiorw 
 J_ Bujt the principle of individuation is itself not only one | 
 f and indivisible, but (as before said) forms with the material V 
 fbody one indivisible unity. It and the body are one, as the ^ 
 impress on stamped wax and the wax itself are one, though 
 we can ideally distinguish between the two. It is not an 
 extra-organic force within the body, yet numerically distinct 
 from it, and acting by and through it ; but it is an intra- 
 organic force, making, with the matter of the body, one reaL 
 substantial, and individual whole. There is one livingV 
 unity which may be considered either dynamically when we ; 
 consider its principle of individuation, or statically when \ 
 we regard the parts and matter of the body. We have ' 
 seen % that structure and function vary together, as the 
 convexities and concavities of the same curved line do and 
 must vary together. Similarly the dynamic principle and 
 the structure it informs must disappear together, unless 
 some special character leads us to consider any such 
 principle to be exceptional in its nature, and the soul of 
 man (as possessing intellect and free-will) is most excep- 
 tional. 
 
 * In his " Microcosmus." A translation was published by T. and T. Clark 
 of Edinburgh in 1885. 
 
 t See above, p. 266. % See above, p. 331. 
 
\2\/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 This principle of individuation, psyche, or soul animates ! 
 the whole body, which is its "organ," and the function of ; 
 such an organ (the whole body) is the "soul's action," or ; 
 " life " of the organism. Not to accept this is to be driven ; y 
 to the absurdity of conceiving the living body, not as a i 
 unity, but as made up of an indefinite quantity of minute 1 
 independent organisms, each having its own principle of \ 
 individuation,* its own soul. 
 
 This conception only multiplies difficulties, since the 
 same arguments can be brought against the existence of 
 each of these souls as against the one soul, while to affirm 
 their existence and to deny functional unity — to deny that a 
 living organism (or our own living self) is each respectively 
 one thing — is to contradict the direct evidence of our senses 
 as regards other organisms, and of our consciousness itself 
 as regards our own being, since our own perceptions tell 
 us that we each are one whole being, a living unity in 
 multiplicity. 
 
 Animal \ But soiTic writcTs, as wc earlier pointed out,t who fully 
 recognize The fact of the two coexisting cycles of change in 
 ieach animal (the physical and the immaterial), have regarded 
 the latter (the immaterial) as the mere effect of the former 
 'the physical), and have denied to the feelings of animals, 
 j&rjQ the thoughts of men, any power to act as causes on " 
 s the^events of life, both animals and men being regarded as 
 lere auJ:onm^ifl,,.,,^«t lh,e..notion that an animal is m^ .a 
 [ machine is an absurdity^ for a machine is a complex struc- 
 [ture the actions of which are fully to be accounted for by 
 [the physical properties of its component parts and the action 
 of merely physical forces, without the intervention of sensa- 
 tion, or of any of the influences like those which induce 
 nutrition and reproduction in living creatures. A clock, to . 
 
 autoinatisi)! 
 
 N(i> 
 
 be really comparable with an animal, must be capable of 
 winding Itself up, gathering oil to replace that which is con- 
 sumed in its movements, repairing any trifling injuries which 
 may result from the friction of its wheels, and, finally, of 
 giving forth from time to time miniature reproductions of 
 itself, destined ultimately to attain the size of the parent 1 
 timepiece. I 
 
 * As has been affirmed by Professor Haeckel. t t See above, p. 265. 
 
NATURE. 0:1^^'^ 
 
 j Now, an animal — as, for example^ a_^22:^is, as we have ^^ 
 
 seen, a complex structure which has all its powers and 
 parts so mutually adjusted as to serve one another, that --■ 
 it rnay be said to be a mechanism, the parts of which are 
 / . reciprocally ends and means. But though its actions, like 
 1 1 those of a machine, mechanically and necessarily follow 
 1 I the adjustments of its various parts, yet its actions do 
 \ \ \ not take place without sen satio ns which are not t he mere 
 \ \ Yi£compan imcii ts of bodily actions, but are themselves guides 
 
 I w 
 
 •and directing agencies which intervene and operat e up on, 
 tRough they do not break through, the circle of its b odily 
 actions. The feeling of the blow of a stick, or the sight 
 
 pf a threatened blow, will change the course of action 
 \vhich a dog would otherwise have pursued. That it is 
 the " feeling " or the " sight " of the stick, together with 
 the various past feelings and imaginations which such 
 fresh experience calls up, which causes the change, will I 
 be disputed by no one who has not some eccenjtric_-tb£.si5. 
 to maintain. But the movements of the animal are also 
 determined (as we have seen * our own movements to be) 
 by a multitude of organic influences which are not felt, 
 and form part of the immaterial chain of activities which 
 accompanies the chain of physical modifications which take 
 place during its life. Thus the animal is a creature of 
 activities which are partly physical and material, partly 
 psychical and immaterial, of which the latter — both the 
 *felt and the unfelt — are directive, though they are in turn 
 influenced by physical modifications. 
 
 The notion that an animal is a mere automaton in 
 which physical actions alone enter into the chain of 
 causation, has been supported by comparing its ps}xhical 
 activities to mere collateral products of the working of a 
 machine, such as the sound of the steam-engine's whistle. 
 Against this Mr. Lewes has urged t as follows : — " The 
 feeling which accompanies or follows a particular move- 
 ment cannot, indeed, modify tJiat movement, since that is 
 already set a-going, or has passed ; but the analogy fails 
 in the subsequent history. No movements whatever of the 
 steam-engine are modified by the whistle which accom- 
 
 * See p. 266. t See his "Physical Basis of Mind," p. 407. 
 
 A 
 
-26 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 panie's the working of that engine ; yet how the reflected 
 impulse modifies the working of the organism ! If the 
 hand be passing over a surface, there is, accompanying 
 this movement, a succession of muscular and tactile feel- 
 ings which may be said to be collateral products. But the 
 feeling which accompanies one muscular contraction is itself 
 the stimtdus of the next contraction ; if anywhere during 
 the passage the hand comes upon a part of that surface 
 which is wet or rough, the change in feeling thus produced, 
 although a collateral product of the movement, instantly 
 I changes the direction of the hand, suspends or alters its 
 course — that is to say, the coUoUeig^i^pxaducLMfjim.MPA'^- 
 ment^becoyics a directing facto}" in the succeeding movement!^ 
 .This is what no automaton could effect. Sensation is of 
 _the essence of the process, and -i^-gyidenUy a "cause." 
 What our own consciousness tells us about the operation 
 of our own thoughts and will on physical events, we have 
 already seen,* and the bearing of this knowledge upon 
 the question of animal automatism is evident. But the 
 principle of individuation of a dog, like that of man, governs 
 the lower merely organic processes of life as well as ener- 
 gizes in the highest it is capable of. It constantly acts, 
 as does his, t with animal intelligence in some actions, with 
 sentience in many actions, but constantly in an unper- 
 ceived and unfelt manner. 
 1 An organism, then, may be conceived of as being the 
 rvisible expression and maiiifestation of an immanent prin- 
 |ci£le;r^5.it-Immaterial reality, the psyche, or soul. Thus 
 iunderstood, it must be the soul which makes the living 
 organism what it is, though it has no actual existence apart 
 from the matter it vivifies. Its action includes every vital 
 action of the organism, and especially those activities of 
 jdeyelopment and instinct % which constitute the physiiilog^i 
 _of the individual, As the German 'phiTo'sopTier, Wundt — 
 though no believer in God— tells us, "the psychical life is 
 ' not a product of the bodily organism, but the bodily 
 organism is rather a psychical creation in all that, by its 
 £urp9si:i:e-^pow.eji.£),f ..self-regulation, gives it precedence over 
 inorganic bodies." We say "oi'g'anism," and not "animal," 
 * See above, pp. 264-268. f See above, p. 390. % See above, pp. 358-365. 
 
 \ 
 
NA TURE. (432>iSf' 
 
 because a principle of individuation, or " psyche," must, we 
 think, be admitted to exist in plants if it exists in animals. 
 In every plant there are innate harmonious growth, sus- 
 tentation, and reproduction, while in some, such as Dioncea, * 
 Drosera,\ and Linaria \ we meet with a susceptibility 
 to impressions, followed by appropriate actions which 
 
 jtran^ely simulate the actions of animals, and the actions 
 \ of roots and tendrils § are very noteworthy. If we grant 
 a principle of individuation to animals, we cannot refuse 
 one to such plants ; if not to such plants, then not to 
 others generally like them, and so on. The action of the 
 soul, or psyche, includes every action of the organism, 
 whether plant or animal, of which it is the immaterial 
 constituent, and each action of the kind is a " psychosis " |1 
 
 /of one kind or another — there being, of course, vegetal £jsihaiogy 
 
 \ and animal psychoses. The science of gsvchoses must, oi'l'L^y. ' ^ 
 
 [course, be termed " psydhoiogy." That term has, however, "^ 
 
 unfortunately been applied to the study of mental pheno- 
 mena exclusively. It should certainly include not only 
 such phenomena, but also all those activities of an organism, 
 considered as one whole, which we have said 1[ form a 
 section of study which may be distinguished as the 
 " physiology of the individual." One most important de- 
 partment of such psychology is the study of instinct.** 
 Instinct has been defined as a " special internal impulse, 
 urging animals to the performance of certain actions which ^s^ 
 are useful to them or to their kind, but the use of which -^ 
 they do not themselves perceive, and their performance 
 of which is a necessary consequence of their being placed 
 
 jin certain circumstances." It is hardly necessary to point: 
 
 ^^ out that the existence of such a power in nature is abso-l ^ | 
 
 1^^^/' lutejy fatal to a merely mechanical conception of the um-| 
 
 ' ^ Ji^P^^^' ^"^ ^^'^^^ the phenomena of instinct are, as Schellingf 
 
 -'ilong ago declared, amongst the most impprtaiit Qi".aU-pilieiia4- 
 
 Imena, as tests oTatrUe philosophy,.. We have seenff that this! 
 
 r faculty must be allowed to have a real existence and a dis-* 
 
 * See above, p. 321. t See above, p. 332. 
 
 X See above, p. 333. § See above, p. 335. 
 
 !l See "The Cat," p. 3S6 (John Murray: 1881). t See al)ove, p. 365. 
 ,- ** ^afcAljOyCj ch. xiii. p. 175, aadjji j. xxiii. p. 361. 
 tt oee aboyg».. ctiw xi'n. a«4-jiiijii^ 
 
428 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Organic 
 syiiunctry. 
 
 tinct nature, provided we do not find (in our last chapter) 
 that a system of evolution is able to explain it away. 
 Assuming for the moment that it cannot be explained away, 
 it is a faculty which harmonizes perfectly with, and is ex- 
 plicable by, the existence in each animal of a distinct, 
 immanent principle of individuation such as we have en- 
 deavoured to describe. Certain special anatomical and- 
 patho logical facts, well worthy of note, seem to afford us' 
 yet further evidence for the existence in each animal of 
 such an internal, immanent, and immaterial principle. 
 
 We have already seen * that there is a marked serial 
 ^Jliimology between the arms and legs and the hands and 
 
 ifeet of man. But much more curious instances of homo- 
 logy are found amongst various other vertebrates. Thus, 
 in the slow lemur {Nycticebus) and the potto [Perodicticus) f 
 we find instances of exceptional serial homology. In the 
 potto there is an extra bone in the ligament which encloses 
 the tendons which bend the fingers, and a similar structure 
 is also developed in the animal's foot. In the slow lemur 
 we have an exceptional arrangement of the muscles and 
 tendons of the hand, and we also find a very similar 
 arrangement in those of the foot. % 
 
 In the tortoise {Chelydrd) the fore and hind limbs assume 
 a marvellous similarity, which is carried still further in the 
 mud-fish {Ceratodus) § and in those great extinct marine 
 reptiles, the Plesiosaiiri\ But perhaps the most curious 
 and instructive instances are those in which the feet of 
 trumpeter pigeons and bantam fowls are unusually feathered, 
 or, as it is termed, furnished with " boots." These extra 
 feathers are developed along the very parts of the foot 
 which correspond {i.e. are serially homologous with) those 
 parts of the bird's hand which bear the wing-feathers, 
 so that these boots are plainly a serial repetition of the 
 true wing-feathers. These foot-feathers have, indeed, been 
 sometimes known to exceed the wing-feathers in length. 
 Moreover, these foot-feathers resemble the true wing-feathers 
 in structure, and are quite unlike the down which ordinarily 
 
 * See above, p. 152. 
 
 X See " Proc. Zool. Soc.," 1865, p. 255. 
 
 § See above, p. 317. 
 
 f See above, p. 317. 
 II See above, p. 318. 
 
NATURE. 429 
 
 clothes the legs of such birds as grouse or owls. But there 
 is a more striking correspondence still, for in pigeons which 
 are thus " booted " the two outer-digits (toes) become more 
 or less connected by skin, as are also the digits of the 
 pigeon's hand. 
 
 We have already spoken * of certain instances of this 
 tendency to serial similarity in abnormal human structures. 
 Professor Burt Wilder has recorded t no less than twenty- 
 four cases wherein abnormalities coexisted in both little 
 fingers ; six in which both little fingers and little toes were 
 similarly affected ; and twenty-two cases more or less the 
 same, but in which the details were not accurately to be 
 obtained. M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Plilaire has remarked % 
 concerning monstrosities, " L'anomalie se repete d'un 
 membre thoracique au membre abdominal du meme cote," 
 and quotes a case in which certain corresponding parts of 
 each division of the hand and foot were simultaneously 
 absent. Sir James Paget, in treating § of symmetrical 
 diseases, mentions a lion's pelvis which was marked, 
 through a sort of rheumatic affection, by a pattern more 
 complex and irregular than the spots upon a map, yet so 
 symmetrically disposed that all spots or lines on one side 
 of the pelvis were exactly repeated by those on the other 
 side. He also observes that diseases very often affect 
 simultaneously such homologous parts as the backs of the 
 hands and feet, the palms of the hands and soles of the 
 feet, the elbows and knees, and the corresponding parts of 
 the upper arms and thighs. Very marvellous is the radial 
 symmetry displayed by many echinoderms || in the arrange- 
 ments of the singularly complex variety of their component 
 parts ; but most admirable of all, perhaps, is the extreme 
 complexity and beauty of the marvellously symmetrical 
 siliceous skeletons of many Radiolaria^ especially of the 
 kinds known as Acanthometra and Doraiaspis. Facts such 
 as those here briefly related, seem to make evident the 
 existence in each such animal, which as a whole is a visible 
 
 * See above, p. 153. 
 
 t Massachusetts Medical Society, vol. ii. No. 3, June 2, 1868. 
 
 X " Histoire Generale des Anomalies," tome i. p. 228. Bruxelles : 1837. 
 
 § "Lectures on Surgical Pathology," 1853, vol. i. p. 18. 
 
 II See above, p. 319. *! See above, p. 320. 
 
^. 
 
 y\ 
 
 U30 A , ON TRUTH. 
 
 unity, of an innate force tending to carry out develop- 
 ment in a definitely symmetrical manner, but liable to 
 have its effects modified by the action of surrounding cir- 
 cumstances. That such circumstances do often operate in 
 a very marked manner we saw in the concluding portion 
 of the last chapter of the last section of this work. 
 
 As has been before remarked,* the_objection of physio- 
 I }^^^\'\ \<? ^^^iT?ft^ifia"^ f .l^^j^J^ man, has"been "^due to 
 the mistaken way in which its existence has been asserted 
 — a way which justified and even necessitated objections 
 and denials. Physiologists had very good reason for deny- 
 ing the existence, even in man, of an immaterial principle 
 numerically distinct from the living body, and a fortiori 
 they had and have very good reason for denying the 
 existence of any such distinct entity in lower organisms. 
 The conception here advocated, however — that of an im- 
 material principle and a material substance, as much " one 
 thing" as " heat " and "iron" in a red-hot poker are one 
 thing — is open to no such objection Every form of energy 
 is absolutely and necessarily unimaginable by us save | 
 in terms of extended bodies — fluid, gaseous, or what not — | 
 or of our own activities as revealed in reflex consciousness ; I 
 and therefore the individuating, immaterial psyche^^^^jO- 
 each creature must be absolutely unimaginable. But we * 
 may be none the less sure of its existence ; as we are sure 
 of the existence of heat, though we can never imagine it 
 — except as a quality of some extended body or of our 
 own sensitive faculty. We are quite sure that there really 
 is such a thing as the objective energy " heat," whatever 
 that unimaginable entity may really bex^ 
 Vitalism. Thcrc is another objection, however, which may possibly 
 
 r, be urged against the view here advocated — the objection, 
 vK namely, that it only amounts to a reassertion of the now 
 •'^ discarded hypothesis already spoken of as vitalism.f That 
 hypothesis has been abandoned, partly on account of the 
 impossibility of demonstrating the existence of such a 
 " force," and partly on account of the small utility of the 
 hypothesis in scientific investigations. The wonderful 
 physiological discoveries which modern research has made, 
 * See above, p. 390. t See above, p. 393. 
 
NATURE, 431 
 
 have been made, not by investigating the ebb and flow of 
 an imaginary " vital force," but by the application of the 
 ascertained laws of chemistry and physics to the study of 
 living nature. No doubt the true philosophical conception 
 of what a living organism really is, will hereafter prove of 
 practical utility, especially in the treatment of mental 
 disease ; but the conception of a " vital force " cannot serve 
 this purpose. 
 
 The connection between the actions of organisms and 1 
 the Tofces of their environment is most intimate.'" XtvTng ' 
 Beings are notoriously affected by and "react upon the 
 physical forces of nature, and are far indeed from being" 
 isolated ; for the life of each largely consists of an jnterplajc- • 
 between what we consider its own body and environing 
 , nature. So intimate is the connection between each of 
 / us and his environment, that it is even difficult to deter- 
 :' mine, in minute detail, the line of separation between the 
 two. Food, some time after being swallowed, is not yet 
 ? 'the "tissue." When digested and entering the absorbents 
 I '^which convey it to the blood-vessels destined to carry it 
 ^ ^to the tissues for diffusion in the ultimate parenchyma of 
 the body, who can say exactly how soon this foreign body 
 becomes the living being, or precisely when and where it 
 is transformed into our very substance ? It is the same 
 \ with the streams of air carrying inwards the life-sustainino-' 
 ^oxygen and outwards the deleterious vapoury. By such 
 
 11 
 
 /agencies tlic outer world blends with us and we with it. 
 
 \^ Far from finding any such indubitable evidence of the 
 
 I existence of a " vital force," as we have of those phenomena 
 
 fwe speak of as "heat," "motion," and "light," each living 
 
 |organism, thus viewed purely from the standpoint of physical 
 
 science, seems, in the words of the German philosopher 
 
 Lotze, only as a place where the matter and the energies 
 
 4/ of nature meet in relations favourable for the production 
 
 of vital phenomena. Yet the phenomena of the focus are 
 
 not explained by any peculiar force common to all foci — 
 
 a "focal force" comparable with the supposed "vital force" 
 
 — but are scientifically accounted for by light and the 
 
 agencies and media of different densities through which 
 
 it is said to be transmitted. The life of an organism 
 
 -w«t<w'p'p»^>0'«*'*<— *<wn> piinwij Mi^-'i :*w*\>e<*: 
 
 may! 
 
(Al^/// ^^ TRUTH. 
 
 be compared (at least, from the physical science point of 
 view) to the quiet light of a wax candJer-whiGh &eeias.,tp 
 the uninstnictcd observe r to l ;;>g the simple action of what 
 he calls "fire" and nothing else, wliik^to the , ma,n _ of 
 physical science it is a most complicated series of changes, 
 chemical and physical — oxj^nation, decomposition, the 
 formation of water, capillary attraction, etc., all of which 
 must be taken together to explain by their diverse simul- 
 taneous activities, an effect which has not only an apparent 
 but a practically real unity, as we see every day from its 
 action and effects. Fire has, from time immemorial, been 
 taken as a symbol for life, and the multiplication of its 
 manifestations (as when many candles are lit from one) is 
 an apt symbol of the process of generation. The separate 
 flames are not manifestations of one universally diffused 
 force, but are separate entities temporarily existing, pos- 
 sessing a certain unity, and energizing with very marked 
 effects. Similarly, the conception of the existence in every 
 living organism of an active principle of individuation is ! 
 utterly different from " vitalism," It postulates no diff'used | 
 "vital force," but affirms the calling forth into active 
 existence of separate and substantial (though but tem- 
 porarily existing) entities, each of which has an actual 
 separate existence of its own, in and with the material | 
 body it forms, informs, and sustains. Indeed, common i 
 sense combines with philosophy to assure us that a living 
 animal is not a mere complex piece of matter played upon I 
 either by physical forces from without, which transform ; 
 themselves in passing through it, or by a diffused vital \ (^ 
 force. A living organism is regarded by the unsophisticated 
 mind as the manifestation. oX a .pejculiar^ immanent, imma- .- 
 teriar^Tnciple jAdiich for a time manifests its existence by 
 the activities of the body with which it is entirely one. . 
 It may, indeed, be much more truly said " to be " the living \ 
 ^y organism, than the lump of matter of which it is also 
 \ composed can be said " to be " that organism. As before 
 observed, this principle can, of course, no more be imagined 
 than we can imagine the energy of motion, the energy of 
 light, or the energy of heat. Yet reason tells us that all these 
 do and must exist. The fact that physical science cannot/ 
 
NA TURE. 
 
 (433^ 
 
 possibly show us such a " principle of individuation " is no - 
 argument against its existence. We saw in the very first j 
 section of this work that our intellect reveals to us absolute, 
 necessary, and universal truths. Such truths underlie all 
 physical science, and we must once more remind the 
 reader that philosophy is the judge of physical, science ; 
 thajt^J'J^lToughf,'^ and not "imagination/' is pur supreme 
 ^|and u ltimate criteiion \ and that many things can be con- 
 "ceived of which can never be imagined, but only sym- 
 bolically expressed by words or other external signs. 
 The poverty of our i mag ination, then, should constitute 
 no ^af to our acceptance of a truth which is verified for 
 us by our reason — and such a truth is the existence, the 
 necessary existence, of some principle of individuation in 
 every organism which lives to go through that cycle of K 
 definite changes which it has somehow been conditioned 
 /to go through. This conception is, moreover, facilitated 
 by the reflection that we may (as we have seen),..j:egaf<i 
 even each inorganic kind of material substance as a com- 
 )osition of matter and energy^ 
 
 Amongst creatures which make up the world and its Five orders 
 
 • -ii- -in 1 i-rri of imma,- 
 
 mhabitants, we see, rnjjif; hr.^t. plsr.S^.^ multitude 01 human termifrin- 
 beings substantially like ourselves. SegondTy, we re- ' ' ' 
 cognize a world of animals which, according to their kind, 
 share in our various psychical powers except those higher 
 faculties * which pertain to intellect. Next, we observe a 
 whole world of plants, the members ol whicTi give us no 
 evidence of any faculty of sensitivity ,t but seem only to 
 have active powers which answer to those organic faculties 
 of ours which operate without sensation. Lastly, we 
 observe an ijjfitgaoic.^world of lifeless nature, every sub- 
 stance and body of which is full indeed of active powers 
 and capacities.^ but yet altogether different in their nature 
 from the active powers and capacities of living things. 
 Now, we have seen that the actjy^ ^"^'T'.^terial sidj 
 
 viduating principle, or psyche, of each living organism is 
 
 'Ehe^o'inTnant'and directmg side which constitutes \t,par 
 
 excellence, that which it is. The immaterial agency, then, 
 
 of each of all these creatures of such different grades of 
 
 * See ab ove, p. 223. t See above, p. 334. + See above, pp. 301-309. 
 
 2 F 
 
^4^/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 h 
 
 being and such diverse powers must be just as different. 
 
 ^^ There must be, therefore, different grades and orders of 
 
 immaterial unifying principles^ corresponding jvvith^thg. 
 
 dtiTerent grades of power and activity manifested. There 
 
 must be an order of intellectual principles such as we iind 
 
 \ exemplified in man. There must be an order of merely 
 
 -^J sensitive principles such as we find exemplified in animals. 
 
 ; There must be an order of merely vegetative, organic prin- 
 
 I ciples such as we find exemplified in plants ; and there 
 
 I must be orders of merely physical, active principles, organic 
 
 sand inorganic, such as we find respectively exemplified in 
 
 the many kinds of bodies which constitute the non-living 
 
 [world. But the greatest difference between these five 
 
 rders of principles of individuation is the difference be- 
 
 ween the merely animal and the rational soul. For, as 
 
 we have seen, man is able not only to reflect on his own 
 
 being, and on the phenomena, substances, and causes about 
 
 him, but also to apprehend universal and necessary truth, 
 
 and to intervene by his free-will in the otherwise strictly 
 
 .necessary chain of physical causation. He thus differs 
 
 from all the rest of the visible universe by a distinction so 
 
 profound, that none of those which, separate other visible 
 
 beings is comparable with it. The gulf which lies between 
 
 his being as a whole and that of the highest brute, marks 
 
 off vastly more than a mere kingdom of material beings ; 
 
 and man, so considered, differs far more from an elephant 
 
 or a gorilla, than do these from the dust of the earth on 
 
 which they tread. We have, of course, no experience of a 
 
 human soul without the body, and therefore it is utterly 
 
 impossible to imagine in any adequate or accurate way 
 
 that distinction between the soul of a brute and the soul of 
 
 man which our reason assures us exists. Nevertheless,/ 
 
 we may form a practically useful image as follows: The! 
 
 soul of a brute may be imagined as a subtle force entirely 
 
 immersed in matter, and conterminous with the body, 
 
 while the soul of man may be imagined as a, in many 
 
 respects, similar force, which is (although strictly amal- 
 
 gamated with all the matter of the body, so that the body 
 and it form one unity) not entirely immersed in matter, but 
 exceeding the matter it informs. Thus we may imagine the 
 
NATURE. 435 /^y 
 
 soul of man as acting on, and being affected by, the 
 material body (as is the soul of a brute) ; but, in virtue of 
 its excess, as acting on and directing that body in ways 
 and degrees which the soul of the mere animal cannot 
 compass. Of course, this comparison is a mere makeshift, 
 and necessarily inaccurate, because the soul is immaterial, 
 and we cannot imagine anything immaterial. Still, in the 
 absence of something better, it may bring home to our 
 minds, to a serviceable extent, a condition of existence 
 easily conceivable, though necessarily unimaginable. The 
 real difference of nature which exists between man's soul 
 and that of every other organism is, however, in no way 
 dependent on the mere imagination, but is made clear and 
 indisputable by those considerations of our self-conscious 
 knowledge of our own continuous being and our power of 
 free-will. This difference of nature warrants a belief in a 
 corresponding difference as to duration and destiny, and 
 affords grounds for believing that that simple, substantial, 
 immaterial energy— the human soul — may survive the 
 destruction of the body, and not, like the soul of a brute, 
 necessarily disappear with the dissolution of that material 
 organism with which during life it is, both in man and 
 brute, so intimately united that body and soul form but 
 a single entity. 
 
 The foregoing considerations may be shortly sum- 
 marized as follows : — 
 
 We have seen that every individual organism, and every j 
 organic substance, seems to be a unity made up of two I 
 separately imperceptible and unimaginable entities — (i)/ 
 extended matter, and (2) an immaterial principle of energy.! 
 
 The immaterial principles of all bodies known to us 
 may be grouped in five categories : 
 
 1. Principles of substances inapt for life, each of which 
 so informs a portion of matter as to constitute one kind of 
 inorganic substance, but no " individual." 
 
 2. Principles of substances apt for life, each of which so 
 informs a portion of matter as to constitute it one kind of 
 organic substance, but no " individual." 
 
 3. Principles of individuation pertaining to insentient 
 organisms — vegetal, ^jprif^l-g'i—parh of which so informs a 
 
 ■« 
 
436 /// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 Generation. 
 
 portion of organic and inorganic substance as to constitute 
 an " individual " organism, which may or may not be 
 physically separate. 
 
 4, Principles of individuation pertaining to sentient 
 organisms — animal principles — each of which so informs a 
 portion of organic substance as to constitute an almost 
 always physically separate " individual " organism. 
 
 5. Principles of individuation pertaining to rational 
 organisms — rational principles — each of which so informs a 
 portion of organic, animal substance as to constitute an 
 individual human being or " person." 
 
 Between the objects to be classed in each of these five 
 categories there is a more or less considerable break 
 at present existing. In spite of the advance of organic 
 chemistry, there is still a marked interval between all in- 
 orgamc 'rnatter and that of the tissues of bodies recently 
 deprived of life. Between living and non-living bodies a 
 wide gulf now exists, which no efforts have succeeded in 
 bridging over,* or seem likely to be able to bridge over 
 without a large accession to our knowledge. Between 
 sentient and insentient living organisms the break is in- 
 conspicuous, but reason shows that such an interval f does 
 and must exist. Between man and all other creatures known 
 to us,| organic or inorganic, there is an enormous interval, 
 the existence of which is shown by the existence in man of 
 free-will and of that active intellect made evident to our 
 senses and reason by language embodying abstract thought. 
 
 Each individuating principle in each case must be one 
 with the body it informs, and therefore, as the active, 
 dominant, and directive aspect of the organism, it must be 
 present in the freshly fertilized ovum . or ovule, and act in 
 and direct all those processes by which the body is built up, 
 and which, therefore, it, in a sense, may be said to create. § 
 Its activity constructs all the organs and initiates all the 
 functions of the body. In the plant it creates living matter 
 from the inorganic world, and in the animal it transmutes 
 food into the substance of its own living body. It informs 
 each organism when in the condition of a simple cell as well 
 
 * See above, p. 330. 
 
 X See above, pp. 346-357- 
 
 t See above, p. 336. 
 § See above, p. 326. 
 
NA TURK. 
 
 37 
 
 Y/ 
 
 as in later life, when its relatively large and much differ- 
 entiated but still continous body, may be said to constitute 
 an enormous and very complex cell.* When any organism 
 has produced a portion of its substance, apt to serve as the 
 starting-point of a new individual,, a. xiew...pjmcipie,..,Qr 
 psyche, may be conceived of as being at the very same 
 time originated within it. U is not.. .thu§,^^lie parental 
 pi^iiciple which has bee.a divided (for.liQW can _we xegard 
 what is immaterial and unextended as divisible T)^ but a new. 
 lone which has been produced.! The same thing occurs in 
 ontaneo us fission arid m processes of budding which end 
 n the detachment of the buds. Also in cases such as that 
 f the hydra,:J: where an animal can be artificially divided 
 nd ea^intStf"fvill become a perfect creature, like the whole 
 om which it was cut off; and in cases like the reproduc- 
 |ve stage of various lowly organisms, where its whole 
 contents § will break up into a swarm of spores or other 
 germinal forms — in each and all these cases, every naturally 
 or artificially separated portion which possesses this power 
 of development, and every spore of a swarm, gains in the 
 instant of its separation, if not just before, its own separate 
 psyche. 
 
 But, as we before saw, portions may be removed from 
 a living creature which for a time show various signs of 
 life. A lizard's tail broken off || will move vigorously ; a 
 frog's hind legs If will long respond by vital actions to ap- 
 propriate stimuli ; the heart ** taken from the body will for 
 a time continue its rhythmical contractions ; and a whole 
 body, dead beyond all hope of resuscitation, slowly loses its 
 vital energies, which persist much longer in certain tissues 
 and organs than in others.ft We may take, in connection 
 with these phenomena, various imperfect attempts at gene- 
 ration, such as the laying by fowls of eggs which have not 
 been impregnated, the formation of acephalous __fcetuses, 
 and other such abortiv e reproductive j)roducts as are neces- 
 sarily unable, from their o\vn 3^efects, to carry on the normal 
 processes of individual development. 
 
 Inisxme- 
 
 rary Jortns, 
 
 * See above, p. 151. t This process will be further noticed in ch. xxvii. 
 + See above, p. 337. § See above, p. 339. || See above, p. 337. 
 
 \ Loc. cit. ** Loc. cit. ft -^<'^- <^^^- 
 
-\'^/// ^^ TRUTH. 
 
 Now, we have seen there are hnms^terial priijciples, or, I 
 as it were, concentrated forms of energy, of very different .' 
 orders. We have those which manifest themselves in the | 
 gravitative, cohesive, and capillary properties of bodies, asl 
 well as those which show themselves in light, heat, chemical | 
 action, electricity, magnetism, and motion ; we have those 
 which show themselves in the concentrated energies, or 
 psyches, of living organisms, and which principles may be 
 merely vegetative, or animal, or rational. Jt_js__readiiy_ 
 conceivable, . t.hereforei_that there may be intermediate 
 orders and degrees of concentrated energy which manifest_ 
 themselves in organic matter, too imperfectly formed for 
 nnr rp a] ] j {e^ — th at is, for the^elic '^ serie s of cy clical_cU3.ao;es~" 
 \ which are characteristic of alTHuly organized living bodies. 
 fSuch forms of energy may be perceived in the action of 
 I those_parts or tissues of organisms which maintain a certain 
 \ kind of vitality after the organisms themselves are dead 
 past hQpe-jof..re§ii4Ci,!UJtio-U, Such forms, again, are active 
 in temporarily living, imperfect, reproductive products; and, 
 lastly, also in those portions of organisms separated arti- 
 ficially, and for a time manifesting activities akin to 
 those normally performed by them when unsevered. 
 Here, then, the artificial division of an organism does not 
 generate fresh individuating principles like those of the 
 organism yet unsevered, as we saw to be the case in spon- 
 taneous fission, spore-production^ and the artificial sections 
 of such creatures as the hydra. Instead of such a multi- 
 </yc plication of like principles, these mutilations give rise to 
 "^^ principles of an inferior order, such as might be expected 
 to inform bodies the organizations of which are in various i 
 ways abnormal or imperfect. As the dead body of a dog \ 
 is no longer a dog, or a single organism at all, but is a mere 
 mass of various material substances of different kinds ; so 
 with the disappearance of what is the dog par excellence 
 (namely, the md]vid_uatin^j)rmc,ipJjej,YMcJi,bun 
 from the germ and maintained it during, life) there simul- 
 taneously come into being the various separate principles or 
 energies which constitute and still inform its various parts 
 and ultimately its various material substances, till these 
 
 * I.C. directed towards a definite end. 
 
 muut.ijm ' 
 
K 
 
 NA TURE. 
 
 (439 
 
 39^^ 
 
 are resolved into their ultimate chemical elements, each 
 
 element having, besides its own material substance, its own 
 
 characteristic energy which causes it to be that which in 
 
 fact it is. Surely this is the teaching of. .-Cjorajtaoil^gnse 
 
 ^o less than of philosophy ! Thus we come to have 
 
 ; during TiFe "a~ii'6rmal multiplication and generation of 
 
 tcomplete psyches and principles with powers of further 
 
 fVgeneration of their like, and at death, or as a consequence 
 of mutilation or disease, we have a multiplication and gene- 
 rafion of incomplete principles of energy. whicli^have not 
 Xthe power of further generation in their own likeness. 
 
 There is another much smaller series of similar facts \ 
 which the same conceptions serve to co-ordinate and explain, i 
 It is possible not only to graft * one tree upon another, r 
 but to engraft a part of one animal within another. Thus j 
 the tail of a young rat may be cut off and planted under ; 
 the skin of a fully grown one, and not only will it live j 
 there, but it will complete its normal and natural growth, | ^^ 
 its imperfectly formed, immature bones growing into thej/«i^ 
 full degree of ossification they should attain to in the adult. I 
 How, it may be ^asked, can such things be, if each livingj 
 body has its own absolutely single, immaterial, unifying] 
 principle? Must not the rat with the additionaT tailor^ 
 th6"""graflted tree have two such principles informing it, 
 or, if not, which has given place to the other ? Now, {p 
 the first.pP^lac e. we have seen f and are all familiar with the 
 reciprocal action of soul and body, and this unquestionable 
 \ fact helps us to solve such enigmas. A se parated portion 
 \ of an animal — such as the young rat's tail — informed by a 
 I temporary individuating principle of a very inferior kind to 
 [that of the body whence it was removed, may be well 
 _£unders.tood to lose it, and become animated by the principle 
 £Qhe. energetically. living organism into which it has been 
 engrafted. ])\- degrees it ceases to be a separate structure, 
 and bc cjQJiiu:^.iudissolubly one with the body of the adult' 
 r ^t. Simultaneously with this^change, the temporan- form 
 of ene rgy of the fragmentary structure will recede and give 
 
 f/ 
 
 f 
 
 lace_to the full action of the entire organism's dominating 
 principle which is expelling the other. But the triumphant 
 
 See above, p. 339. t ■'^ee above, p. 389. 
 
Cosmical 
 hypotheses. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 !!iduring principle may nevertheless receive modification 
 from the subordinate energy thus brought to play upon it, 
 and result in diseased conditions, and possibly in modifica- 
 tions subsequently transmitted by generation. 
 
 In various lower organisms, as we have seen,* two bodies, 
 each with its own principle of individuation, will meet and; 
 blend, growing into a single organism, and w^e cannot doubt" 
 (since the psyche is one unity with the body) that their 
 respective principles have also disappeared, to give place i 
 to another with slightly different activities and greater ^^^^ 
 powers. ShnUarlx..with jrespect to the graftin^^ of plants ^^ 
 as the two vegetable organisms grow together and become 
 one, so with absolute simultaneity may their principles of 
 individuation give place to a new one different from either 
 and informing and directing the life-processes of the whole 
 complex structure. 
 
 Thus we see that not only the vital actions of maturity, 
 but generation and all the processes of the individual 
 development of every organism may be explained as being 
 initiated, carried on, and perfected by the action of its one 
 immaterial principle of individuation, or psyche — that is to 
 say, it is a process oi psycho^enesis^^''^ 
 
 Having now considered, to_tIi£..Jjest„of our ability, the 
 apparently fundamental nature of living bodies as well as 
 of the inorganic world, we may return to consider once 
 more (in the light thus gained) that philosophic -conception 
 [ which is called the "mechanical theory of the, universe," 
 and cosmical hypotheses commonly taken as being akin 
 j^ to it. 
 
 Can we now say it is evident that everything we 
 know, save ^ the huaian soul, cannot possibly consist of 
 various aggregations of one form of matter and one kind of 
 energy — whiclT__ energy might be called " the soul of the 
 world," or that the univeFse cannot consist of some one 
 utterly unimaginable entity whereof material extension 
 and immaterial energy may be two intrinsic attributes? 
 In reply, it must be affirmed that not even now does it 
 appear to the present writer to be evident that either of 
 these hypotheses is necessarily impossible, though it does 
 
 * See above, p. 339. 
 
 f^ 
 
 / 
 
NATURE. 
 
 djiy 
 
 i- 
 
 SS- 
 
 in. . I 
 
 he/ 
 
 seem evident that they accord with the facts of observa- 
 ition indefinitely less well than does the hypothesis which 
 is advocated in this chapter — namely, that the universe ^\ 
 ^/^"t) . consists of a multitude of bqdie:s..eack-a..caiiipo_siturm '^9^ 
 .-'; matter and energy, the kinds, of eaergy..j3.elnCT_^funda- ^J 
 
 Vnen taTl^,.multIt).id in nils, a«4^-i ver.se. This better accor3^ 
 ance with fact seems evident from the phenomena of 
 life already noted ; but when we come to consider evolu- 
 tion,* its better accordance will be still more evidently 
 apparent. But with respect to the hypotheses that there "^ 
 is fundamentalIynbuF~one kind ;or matter and energy^ or | j^ 
 that there is fundamentally but^one^jdiid of inconceivable i ^^ 
 entity whereof extension and energy are attributes, neither i / 
 one nor the other really accords with what is popularly 
 understood as the mechanical conception of the universe — 
 a conception which is fundamentally irrational and neces- 
 sarily false. _j43i;^mechanical theory of the universe sup;__ 
 poses that all its phenomena are really reducible to, and 
 fact_con.sist.o£. matter _and motion^ It affirms that all the 
 [activities of which we have experience, from the earth's 
 [revolution on its axis to the thought of the reader in read- 
 ling this sentence, are but different forms and modes_of 
 [motion, molar or molecula r, of solid material particles. ,■ 
 ^The supreme absurdity of this conception as applied to 
 thought, and therefore to the soul of man, we have, it 
 is hoped, fully seen ; nor does the admission that the 
 above-referred-to cosmical hypotheses are not evidently 
 false in the least do away with the before-stated f objection, 
 that to call "pains and pleasures" "modes of motion" 
 is not to explain them, but simply to apply words in a 
 misleading manner. 
 
 Let the supposed single unknown and unimaginable 
 energy to be called " the soul of the world " be what 
 it may, it remains not one bit less a substantially and 
 altogether distinct thing when (forming one entity with a 
 metal bar) it vibrates as a pendulum, from its existence 
 when (while forming one entity with a living organism) 
 it energizes in sensation. Similarly, let there be one 
 unimaginable entity with the two attributes, extension 
 * See the last chapter. t See above, p. 396. 
 
h 
 
 442 ON TRUTH. 
 
 and energy, yet the aggregations, conditions, and forms 
 of the portions (so to speak) of this entity must be 
 conceived of as substantially and really, however tem- 
 porarily, distinct, while remaining in two conditions the 
 properties of which are so divergent as are those of a 
 piece of metal and a greyhound. The temporary character \ 
 of such distinctions is no bar to their substantial reality, \ 
 as is evident from the fact that on no hypothesis have 
 the various distinct material substances more than a i 
 temporary distinctness. These hypotheses, then, do not \ 
 really accord with the popular mechanical philosophy. 
 But a mechanical theory of nature — however unsupported 
 and unreasonable — is a conception which is very tempting 
 to many men ; it is a theory which has been thus tempting 
 for thousands of years, and which will probably be so for 
 thousands of years to come. Short cuts to knowledge are 
 always tempting, but the special attractiveness of this 
 THeoryis due, in the first place, to our besetting tendency 
 to accept what is most easily imagined as probably true, 
 and to be especially gratified by images of tactual and 
 visual groups of sensations. There is generally a special 
 ii quality of distinctness, or vividness, in our sense-impressions 
 \ of sight and touch compared with our other sense-im- 
 i pressions. How vague, for example, is our imagination 
 \ of a perfume compared with our imagination of a coloured 
 triangle or cube, or of a ball held in the hand ! Vague 
 internal sensations are always described by us in terms of 
 sight or touch. We speak of a "gnawing" pain or a 
 " sharp " pain " like a knife." We say a " rough taste," and 
 we even speak of a " light " character or a " bright " intellect 
 and a "hard" heart, and say that ill tidings have given 
 some one a " heavy blow." Moreover, it is these very 
 sensations of touch and sight which occasion in us our 
 feelings and perceptions of "motion." 
 
 Now, as before said, the really scientific explanation .^,. 
 __of -a»y phenomenon should be a refei'ence ■ try the catises ; , 
 which_4ijxidjj£ejt, but very often what passes for its expla- j 
 nation is nothing more than its reference to a group of I 
 objects with which we are already familiar. Our minds, ^ 
 indeed, are so formed that most of us have a decided feeling | 
 
[&> 
 
 NATURE. 443 
 
 of satisfaction when some object or action hard to imagine, 
 is referred to some class of objects or actions easy to 
 imagine ; and this feeling of satisfaction is sure to arise at 
 first, even though such reference, when closely examined, 
 turns out to be unsatisfactory. But, as we have seen,* 
 there is nothing so easy for us to imagine as the motions 
 of bodies. They are phenomena which appeal both to 
 X/yi sight and touch, while the idea of motion is the most 
 X ' primary, spontaneous, universal, and constantly elicited 
 I of all our ideas. Small wonder, then^ that theL-miud sliauld 
 i feel an unconscious (or jconsciou_s),.dfisire-.t&--'' explain '' 
 everything by " motion," and should repose with a feeling: 
 of satisfaction in the" reference of any other activity to 
 that categxDry. The functions of nerves and brain-cells, 
 no less than heat, light, and chemical phenomena, must be 
 easier to imagine as " modes of motion " — waves, oscillations 
 of particles, or what not — than in any other way, how- 
 ever unsatisfactory that representation may ultimately 
 prove to be. But, as we have seen,t motion is and 
 must be motion and nothing else, and, though it is 
 conceivable that one unknown and unimaginable energy 
 may alike underlie motion and every other physical 
 manifestation of force, that conception in no way justifies 
 or gives the slightest validity to a real belief in all the 
 activities of nature being " modes of motion," Such 
 an explanation would be like a description of all the 
 poems which have been ever printed as feelings of 
 colour, because we cannot become acquainted with any 
 one of them but by the aid of visual sensations in ourselves 
 or in those who may read them to us. Moreover, the 
 incongruity of explaining the feelings and cognitions of 
 animals by the mere idea of motion, is enormously greater 
 than that of explaining heat and light as modes of 
 motion. To say that the fidelity and affection of a dog,^ 
 the care of a nesting bird, or the acts of an insect which 
 prepares food it cannot eat for a progeny it will never 
 behold — to say that such things are but minute motions 
 to be explained by mechanics, is to mock us with unmean- 
 ing or delusive phrases. / 
 
 * See above, p. 411. t See above, p. 413. 
 
444//' ON TRUTH. 
 
 I But if the explanation of the phenomena of nature by 
 
 \ " motion " and a belief in the transformations of physical 
 |\^i ■• forces known to us is unreasonable, no less so is the 
 hypothesis of the universal diffusion throughout the uni- 
 ^^ verse, in every particle of matter, of something which the 
 late Professor Clifford called " mind-stuff." * Of course, by 
 making use of inadequate and misleading terms, and by 
 disregarding points of unlikeness, all diversities may easily 
 appear to be reduced to identity. Against such abuse 
 the man of science should energetically protest. The 
 word " life," refers to definite phenomena which are only ■■ 
 found in living organisms. .„A_cr^stal is not really alive, ; 
 ^S.we see by the circumstance that it does not even tend \ 
 to undergo the cycle of changes t which are characteristic f 
 of life. It does not sustain_itSjel£by~a^-proc€s&.Qf mternal \ 
 growth, nor does it reproduce- its, kind and die. Any J, 
 one choosing to stretch terms may say that particles 
 of inorganic matter " live " because they " exist." But 
 so to speak would be to make the terms "life" and 
 " existence" synonymous, and in that case we should have 
 to devise a new term to denote what we now call " life." 
 We might as well say a post " feels " because we can make 
 an impression on it, or that crystals " calculate " because 
 of their geometrical proportions, or that oxygen "lusts" 
 after that which it unites with and so " rusts." X As the 
 late Mr. G. H. Lewes has said, "We deny that a crystal 
 has sensibility ; we deny it on the ground that crystals 
 exhibit no more signs of sensibility than plants exhibit 
 signs of civilization, and we deny it on the ground that 
 among the conditions of sensibility there are some positively 
 known to us, and these are demonstrably absent from the 
 crystal. We have full evidence that it is only special 
 kinds of molecular change that exhibit the special signs 
 called sentient ; we have as good evidence that only special 
 aggregations of matter are vital, and that sensibility never 
 appears except in a living organism, disappearing with the 
 vital activities, as we know that banks and trades unions 
 jare specifically human institutions." Moreover, ihe—terxu^. 
 r m irid=sUi.ff-"^ind' rat e s a^ronfusinn of thought, not only 
 
 * See above, p. 140 t See above, p. 327. % See above, p. 303. 
 
NA TURK. 
 
 44 
 
 
 if irnTTl /Cr 
 
 between the material and immaterial, but also between 
 thought and feeling. But we have seen in the beginning 
 of this chapter the absolute distinctness between " spirit " 
 and every lower existence known to us — a distinctness 
 which shows the absurdity of the term " mind-stuff." The 
 question, however, will have again to be noticed in the 
 next chapter, under the head of Pantheism. We venture, \ 
 \t1hpi;3,„;tQ- affirm wifh confidence that the conception of nature" 
 Iwhich accords by far most easily with those facts whichj 
 |the stu3}' of ph}'sics and biology make known to 
 |the conception of the coexistence of the five orders of irn^l ^ 
 i material principles which, immanent in matter, constitute*^ 
 [all Ihe different substances and organisms of the. -warldi. 
 laround us, each of which is thus a " compositum ".of jnaitfiX 
 land of some form of immaterial energy. 
 
 In all organisms there is, moreover, a real and an ideal Existences, 
 element. Every group of such objects of a definite kind — Tdtii""^ 
 every kingdom, sub-kingdom, class, order, family, genus, and 
 species — is made up of actual existences, each of which 
 has its material and its immaterial side ; but each group, 
 as such group, has but an ideal existence. An order or 
 species, as such, has no actual existence in nature, though 
 each exists truly and really as congeries of characters 
 actually present in numerically distinct individual animals 
 and plants. They have this kind of existence not only 
 in our own minds, but also as " objective concepts " * in ex- 
 ternal nature, corresponding with our ideas or " subjective 
 concepts." If also any Divine Intelligence exists, they must 
 also correspond with the ideas of such an Intelligence, 
 since a Divine Intelligence, if one there be, must at least 
 possess such ideas as even our intelligence can attain to. 
 It was a difference between the conceptions entertained /i 
 respecting the mode of existence of classes, of such general \fy 
 ideas or " universiils," t which distinguished ancient Realism, '^ 
 Idealism, and Nominalism. The difference between the 
 Realists and Idealists of old days was thus very different 
 from that between modern Idealism and Realism. The 
 ^Itra-realists. of old days held that there was really such 
 a thing as " man in general " or " horse in general," par- 
 
 * See above, p. 136. f See above, p. 206. 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 nat7<re. 
 
 
 ticipation in the nature of which made the various men 
 and horses the men and horses they were. The old Idealists 
 (or Conceptual ists) held the view above explained — namely, 
 That the groups were ideal ov\y jis^^roiips , but were actual 
 existences as regards the characters in which the indi- 
 viduals of each group agreed. The Nomi nalists asserted 
 that such general terms were mere names and nothing 
 more — a belief which the existence of objective concepts 
 absolutely negatives. 
 
 T his world .pX.. ours, though the existence of diffused 
 "mind-stuff " is a fiction, thus contains its ideal element, 
 
 I and is, moreover, r eplet e witn anThteTTigence which de- 
 -mands from us aii adequate explanation, if nature is to 
 Lbe understood in any satisfactory anci satisfying manner. 
 [The_j3henomena of crystallization, the repair in due form 
 jof the broken angle of a crystal and the inherent tenden- 
 icies'oT^HTffereTTt chemical substances to combine in definite 
 proportions, seem to indicate that something remotely like \ 
 intelligence and volition, though unconscious and insentient, 
 is therein latent. When we recall to mind, moreover, how 
 the subjective conceptions of our own minds correspond 
 with objective relations which exist between external 
 things, the reason of the individual seems to be a par- 
 ticipation of that universal reason which finds mute expres- 
 sion in the irrational universe and express recognition^ 
 
 in the human mind. When wg->-<^<a«^»t<^^H^-tb£..xDArvqllQij5 
 
 processes of the development of the individual organism 
 Iro m its fi rst germ upwardSj and how during its w"KoTe"Tife"' 
 it bears a relation both to the past and the future ; when 
 also we consider the processes of repair of injuries and the 
 striking phenomena ol' m^tlWC't^ — it is impossible to deny 
 that there" is a profound rationality in nature. Neverthe- 
 less, it is evident that rationality is not truly the attribute 
 even of brute animals, and still less of stocks and stones. 
 It_jnustj,_then, be the rationality__pf,spiiiejthing really ex- 
 ternal to-feb€4» (however completely if may pervade them), 
 ^ting as a cause. There is, indeed, a kind of logic 
 in the phenomena of the merely sentient nature of the 
 dog and the nesting bird, the bee and the climbing plant ; 
 there is such logic even in the activities of insentient 
 
 ^ 
 
 'y 
 
 s 
 

 V 
 
 NATURE. (447^- 
 
 nature (since we have seen how they correspond with our 
 reason in "objective concepts") ; but that logic is not the 
 logic of the crystal nor of the brute ; its true position must 
 besought elsewhere. \t\S'. in them, but it., is not of t heni^j a} 
 \Xiaare cannot be such a thing as "unconscious intelligence," | ■^' 
 for ^theJJpllawi;ig~. reaso ns : No intelligence could exist so' 
 as to^a4i^sLJl.jii£ajtiS,'.'.,tp..''ends/' except b\- the aid of 
 merr^ pxy. But we have already seen that, though actions^" 
 may be repeated by " organic reminiscence," * nevertheless 
 " memory " is essentially intellectual,! it cannot be predi- 
 cated, except by an absurd abuse of language, of the lower 
 forms of life, and therefore it can be no rational intelligence 
 which is immanent in living organisms, and presides over 
 their processes of nutrition, repair, reproduction, and 
 [ instinct. 
 
 Nevertheless, Hartmann % and his followers do not on \ - 
 this account hesitate to ascribe true intellig-ence to uncon- '• 
 scious nature ; and though such ascription may seem too : . 
 absurd to deserve serious consideration, it would neverthe- f**' 
 less be a mistake to altogether despise such opinions. For ■ 
 just as there are truths which cease to be appreciated 
 because they are not disputed, so there are many errors 
 which are best exposed by allowing them to run to a head. 
 I Mr. Butler, who carries this hypothesis of unconscious 
 1 intelligence to its last consequences, asks,§ " What is to 
 I know how to do a thing?" His answer is, "Surely, 
 fto do it." And he represents how, when many things 
 fhave been perfectly learnt, they may be performed uncon- 
 fsciously. Also in a very amusing chapter on "Conscious 
 and Unconscious Knowers," he says,| "We say of the 
 chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it is 
 hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was 
 hatched ? It grew eyes, feathers, and bones, yet we say 
 it knew nothing about all this. . . . What, then, does it 
 know ? Whatever it knows so well as to be unconscious 
 of knowing it." The author here quoted altogether ignores 
 the great ambiguity which exists in the term "to know." 
 
 * See above, p. 169. t See above, pp. 31, 186, 220. 
 
 X See his work on " The Unconscious," a translation of which has been 
 published by Messrs. Triibner and Co. 
 
 § See his " Life and Habit," p. 55. || Page 30. 
 
A 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 his ambiguity we have already* fully explained, and 
 that explanation deprives such paradoxical remarks as 
 
 ,|those just quoted of all the force they might seem to have. 
 
 fThat the inorganic world, as wcH as the organic, is instinct 
 with reason, and that we find in it objective conditions 
 which correspond with our subjective conceptions, is, as we 
 have several times said, perfectly true ; but when once 
 the profound difference between these organic habits and 
 intellectual memory is apprehended, there will be little 
 difficulty in recognizing the yet greater difference between 
 any kind of real knowledge on the one hand, and that 
 unconscious '' organic_^correspondence,'' before described,! 
 on the other. That the ^^^^oTconsciousness in actions 
 which are perfectly performed does not make such actions 
 acts of " perfect knowledge," is demonstrated by every 
 calculating machine. No sane person can say that such\ 
 a machine " possesses " knowledge, though it is true that I 
 it "exhibits" it. Similarly, we must refuse to apply the/ 
 terms "memory" and "intelligence " to the merely organic 
 activity of animals and plants. The assertion that in the' 
 vegetable and lowest animal forms of life there is an innate, 
 immanent, but unconscious intelligence, is an assertion 
 which is self- contradictory, and is therefore fundamentally 
 
 j irrational. For any one who says that blind actions (in 
 which no end is perceived or intended) are truly intelligent 
 
 lones, abuses language. The meaning of words is due to 
 iconvention ; and any one who calls such actions truly 
 intelligent, thereby separates himself from the rest of 
 fmankind by refusing to use their language. What expe- 
 rience have we which can justify such a conception as that 
 of " uncon^^us^ intelligence " ? Consciousness is the ac- ■, 
 companiment of all those actions which we krioiv to bejlj^ 
 intellectual and rational, and of none others ; all the actions j --^ 
 of animals being, as we have seen,.;^ explicable by, cot.:. |^ 
 sentience andjtheir^lUed ,merely_sensitive jacultjes. Thus ^ 
 " unconscious intelligence " is for us an unmeaning and 
 self-contradictory expression, like " a square pentagon," or 
 " a pitch-dark illumination." Nevertheless our experience 
 is in favour of the existence of an intelligence which can 
 
 * See above, p. 189. t See above, p. 169. % See above, p. 355. 
 
NATURE. 449^ 
 
 implant in and elicit from unconscious bodies activities 
 which are intelligent in appearance and result. Thus we 
 can construct calculating machines and train animals to 
 perform many actions which have a delusive semblance of\ 
 rationality. "Truly intelligent action" we know as being 
 intelligent and rational in its foresight^ and therefore as 
 necessarily conscious in the very' principle of its being. 
 " Unconscious, appropriate xte-t-i-on," improperly called " in 
 nlr""^!" "wise," is that which is intelligent and wis 
 only in its results, and not in the innermost principle of 
 the creatures (whether living or mere machines) which 
 )erfo rm. ,. such action. To speak technically, we have 
 formal " and " material " * intelligence, as we have 
 " formal " and " material " vice and virtue. It is the failure 
 "Apprehend this distinction which is at the root of a vast 
 i number of current philosophical errors, and the error which 
 I consists in asserting the existence of " unconscious intelli- 
 ■ gence " is one of them. " Intelligence " exists, indeed, 
 very truly in the admirably directed actions blindly per- 
 formed by living beings, as also in processes of repair 1 1 
 and reproduction.^ It only exists in them, however^f 
 " materially," and not " formally." It exists " formally " (^ 
 Trr~sQnre," cause external to them, which has implanted in 
 t^liem tlie powers they exercise in such admirable modes. 
 The human mind, when developed to a certain extent 
 spontaneously seeks the explanation of these phenomena 
 in something external to them, which can be regarded as 
 their primordial c ause. To the investigation of this ques- ; 
 tion, the supreme question of science, the next chapter | 
 will be devoted*^ 
 
 * As to these terms, see above, pp. 239, 249. 
 
 t See above, p. 170. J See above p. 171. 
 
 2 G 
 
4, 
 
 P' 
 
 450^ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 The existence of the universe as we know it, shows that it must have I 
 had God for its First Cause, and makes known to us at least! 
 some portion of the Divine purpose in creating it. | 
 
 Law of causation and the universe — Needs an adequate First Cause, 
 God — Pafttheisnt — God and the intellect — Motion and causation — 
 Creation — Nature's prodigality — The evils of life — Possibility of 
 inscrutable ptirposes — Seemingly unworthy creations — Anthropo- 
 morphism — God's existence and creating action — Difficulty from 
 tardi?iess — A future life and theism — Recapitulation — Fifial 
 causes — Hierarchy of jninistrations — Highest purposes. 
 
 Having completed the brief survey we have been able to 
 take of the universe about us, and sought for the best 
 answer we could find to the question "what things are^'^ 
 we have next to inquire into their causes, and learn as far 
 as we may, " ^iliy-th4ftgft..aj;g/' 
 
 The world was represented in the last chapter as con- 
 taining two fundamentally different kinds of entities — ■ 
 entities capable of thought (spiritual entities), and entities 
 not so capable. In the latter category we placed every 
 known body, every kind of substance, and every non- 
 rational living thing ; each being regarded as a com- 
 positum of matter and some form of immaterial energy, 
 and yet as being each one true, substantial unity. All these 
 members of the universe, possessing very diverse powers, 
 were further stated to constitute an orderly whole, replete 
 with a logic and reason not formally present therein, save 
 1o_ those, spiritual entities — the souls of men — in whicji. 
 reason and logic were present, both materially and formally. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 451 
 
 ^ 
 
 We saw in the fourth chapter of the first section* oi Lawo/ 
 this work that the law of causatioa^ia-^.. pcimary,, universal, w?i^^^^ 
 and ^elf-evident objective truth, declaring that every '""^'"'^^' 
 change, or new existence, and every existence which has 
 not within itself a sufficient reason for its being as it is, 
 must be due to some cause. We also saw, in our second 
 section,! that science, even physical, is continually occupied 
 with investigations concerning causes, and we terminated 
 our last chapter by declaring that the time had come to 
 apply ourselves to the investigation of the supreme ques- 
 tion of all science, namely, that which treats of the existence 
 and nature of a primordial Cause of the universe — the 
 fountain whence all its powers and properties have sprung, 
 and spring. 
 
 Now, incessant change is the condition of the world 
 about us, and new existences are continually arising within 
 it. That each and every one of those changes and new 
 existences must have had its cause, or group of causes, is 
 w^hat no sane person will deny. A multitude of such 
 causes are discoverable by physical science ; but our 
 present object is to consider those causes and existences,^ 
 not as isolated or in groups, but as forming one great,; 
 unimiaginably complex whole. Does science unequivo-j 
 cally point to any beginning of such a whole ? That its 
 points both to a beginning and to an end of the world we 
 actually behold, and to that of our solar system, is hardly \^^ 
 to be questioned ; but, com pared_ \vith the whole material fn 
 universe, our planet is but an atom of cosmTc'H^ust","~atl^^^Y -y 
 _sol.ar system is, as it were, but the gj^ratigiis of a. few such 
 particles out of a vast simoon of a stel far Sahara. It cannot 
 be positively affirmed as an evident datum of science that 
 the whole cosmos, considered as one vast unity, ever had a 
 beginning, or will ever have an end. It is conceivable that 
 the cosmos may be a real system of perpetual motion in 
 one of two forms. It may be conceived of as eternally <^ 
 passing, as one whole, from a state of nebula to that of 
 worlds and suns, and back from a state of worlds and suns 
 to a state of nebula ; or it may be conceived of as under- 
 going such changes locally — now here and now there 
 
 * See above j i gp. 48- jQ.^ t See above, pp. So-83. 
 
 \> 
 
V 
 
 452 ON TRUTH. 
 
 According to the former conception, the stellar universe 
 unceasingly pulsates to and from a state of nebula ; ac- 
 cording to the second conception, such a change may 
 eternally creep over the cosmos of suns and worlds, so that 
 each part in its turn, but never the whole simultaneously, 
 may undergo such a transformation. Reason and science 
 do not positively affirm that such changes may not have 
 proceeded in cycles for a past eternity, owing to an eternal 
 arrangement, or collocation, of causal agencies and con- 
 ditions. As we saw in our first section,* our reason does 
 not tell us that everything must have a cause, but only 
 that some existences must be caused, and that some cause' 
 must certainly precede any change or new condition of 
 existence. Now, a little reflection shows us that the ; 
 cosmos could never have grown into the state in which we 
 now know it to be, from one single universally diffused and 
 similar substance, unless that substance was acted on by 
 something external to itself. It has been absurdly repre- 
 sented by Herbert Spencer, that if a homogeneous universe 
 were only unstable, this instability would account for the 
 world's development. But, as Dr. Gasquet has well said, 
 " instability " is no principle of action, but merely means a 
 state in which, equilibrium being very delicate, a very slight 
 external force is enough to disturb it. But evidently no I 
 internal change could take place in a homogeneous universe! 
 : without some external action. Such a change would con- 
 tradict the principle of causation, and also the first law of 
 I motion. It is impossible^to obtaia-the category of ..quality. 
 \from that of quantity; and one substance everywhere 
 Tldentical in the mode of its being and activity, and with 
 jnothing whatever external to it, or everywhere pervading 
 it but distinct from it, could never alter at all. Whether it 
 was large or small could make no difference, even if it 
 could be supposed to have dimensions, since, by the hypo- 
 thesis, it would always have existed absolutely by itself, 
 and therefore could neither be large nor small, those being 
 essentially relative conditions. The universe, therefore, if 
 it existed from all eternity must, as a whole, have existed 
 from all eternity in the multiform complexity we know it 
 * See above, p. 48. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. ^^'^ Jjf 
 
 to exist in now. Moreover, such a universe, as one whole, 
 could never itself have been evolved by any process of 
 natural selection. An eternal universe could never have 
 _be,en naturally selected — that is, have proved itself, through i 
 competition, to have been a universe able to survive others |. 
 — because, by the hypothesis, it must have eternally ^ 
 existed by itself, and could, therefore, have had no com- * 
 petitors. But the universe we know, is a universe of most 
 
 complex composition, replete with order, beauty, and har- 
 mony, governed by general laws with most admirable 
 correlations, and the abode of at least one race of beings 
 (men) possessing intellect, capable of understanding and 
 I appreciating truth, goodness, and beauty, and endowed 
 
 ! with a wonderful power of voluntarily intervening in the 
 chain of physical phenomena, and so changing (to however 
 relatively minute an extent) the whole subsequent course 
 of events. Moreover, these human beings did somehow 
 come into existence in a world previously devoid of organ- 
 isms endowed with any such marvellous faculties. 
 
 Now, if the universe be conceded to have had a he- Needs an C\ 
 ginning, then it is simply evident that such a beginning Firs" Cause V^ 
 must have been due to a First Cause ; and if the universe 
 never had a beginning, then a First Cause is equally re- 
 quired to account for those special orderly arrangements 
 of secondary causes, and those collocations of condi- 
 tions which have eternally existed in their mazy com-J 
 plexiJt^,_from all eternity, or, indeed, for its existence at^ 
 
 "all, or for the existence of any part of it not containing 
 a sufficient cause for its existence within itself. An eternal, 
 most complex mixture of different substances, with very 
 different powers, all harmoniously co-ordinated, and which 
 were never otherwise than harmoniously co-ordinated, could 
 not evidently contain within itself the sufficient cause for 
 its own existence ; and the greater the number of the natural 
 laws which physical science reveals to us, thus acting in har- 
 mony, so much the more does reason make evident to us 
 the necessity of one integrating First Cause, sustaining that 
 harmony unchanged from all eternity. But a First Cause 
 necessarily acting from all eternity must be eternally neces- 
 sary as long as its effects endure. Hence, an ever-present 
 
^ 
 
 ^J. 
 
 454 ON TRUTH. 
 
 and constantly causing or sustaining principle, must endure 
 and energize now and ever as long as that universe, which it 
 has from all eternity sustained and caused, continues to 
 exist. We know already that any and every existence 
 which can be seen not to have a sufficient reason for its , 
 existence within itself, must have had a cause,* and the \ 
 Cause of such a universe must be a First Cause. That First |/\ 
 Cause itself, however, can be conceived of as having within f 
 itself the sufficient reason for its own existence. There | 
 is also no incongruity in supposing a perfectly simple sub- ■ 
 stance existing eternally uncaused along with the complex \ 
 universe which it unceasingly causes. 
 
 / The nature of that First Ca use is also in some resj3ectg. 
 Tevealed to us by t he Vfl |J[u r iF7iQtiiii^'^ /^^^'^t^i, since .a-Cause. 
 must always b e at least adequate to produce the effects 
 It causes. To this assertion it is sometimes objected that 
 saying a cause is adequate to produce some given effect 
 really means no more than saying that it can produce it, I 
 and we are asked how we could know, a priori, the " ade- | 
 quacy " of a piece of steel to produce a wound, or of a f 
 flame to produce a burn .'' To these questions it may be 
 replied that the " adequacy " is not in the steel or in 
 the flame, but in these as affecting a sensitive organism 
 which they may injure. The organism and the agents 
 are together adequate to produce the effects cited, and 
 can be seen by the mind to be adequate thereto. We 
 cannot, of course, always know a priori what the effects 
 of any change will be ; but we can sooner or later know 
 a posteriori not only that certain effects have followed from 
 certain causes, but also how it is that these causes have 
 been able to produce such effects ; and the number of 
 instances in which we can see this, enables us to judge that 
 (had we sufficient means of knowledge) we might know 
 how they do it in all cases, i.e. we should apprehend their 
 adequacy. But apart from this, we may take experience I 
 as our guide, and we certainly have no experience of life I 
 being produced by the lifeless, or of sensibility and intellect | 
 appearing without their pre-existence in the agents which I 
 caused their appearance. No scientific treatise has ever I 
 
 * See above, pp. 49, 50. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. l455#// 
 
 been produced by the uncultured ; only a strong man can 
 lift a heavy weight ; and no mere donkey-engine can drag 
 a long and heavy train. In short, me m o dat quod nqn JiqbeL 
 Now, amongst the effects produced qjaite-receBtly (geolo- 
 gically speaking) in this planet there are three which are 
 notably distinct from all the others ; namely (ij, intellect . <- 
 which can perceive truth ; (2) intellect as perceptive of 
 moral worth ; and (V), free-will. Therefore the First Cause, 
 as able to produce such effects as these, must possess 
 eminently corresponding attributes, namely, an intellect, 
 goodness, and will, of which our own is, as it were, a most 
 faint reflection. In other words, the Fir st CaiiS£^jmi|t,Jb£ ,. 
 I ^personal — a pers_on beift^.t-.tkat.3,^ducJ3.,.pQSsesses bothJrj.- 
 I teiligence and will— and as the First Cause of a universe 
 • full of active powers which have resulted in creatures 
 capable of perceiving and following goodness, that First 
 Cause, as absolute Power, Intelligence, Goodness, and Will, 
 is, and must be God. 
 
 If it be granted, however, that there must be such a Pantheism. 
 First Cause, may it not form essentially one substance — as 
 nionifijTi t trffHT^s — with the universe which it causes, so :, 
 that the latter is but a mode or emanation from that which \ 0^ 
 in this sense causes it ? Could matter, it may be asked, | 
 have been produced from mind any more than mind from ' 
 matter } and may not the great whole consist of an eternal 
 substance possessing the two attributes % " thought and 
 extension," so that the First Cause, or God, is everything, 
 and everything is God ? 
 
 Now, in one sense, the First Cause may be truly said 
 to have these two attributes. For an absolute First Cause 
 must have, eminently, every positive perfection of every 
 extended thing, as well as of every intelligent being, so 
 that even stocks and stones may be said to participate, 
 in their degree, in that correspondence or resemblance 
 which must exist between every effect and its cause. But 
 extension, though a perfection as existing in the material 
 
 * See above, p. 139. t-Sce-allftve, p. 392. 
 
 X This is, of course, a fundamentally different concepTiOTl'tfCm that pro- 
 nounced not evidently impossible in the last chapter (p. 440). That hypothesis 
 was the supposition that every entity, except thought, might be one substance, 
 of which extension and immaterial energy were attributes. 
 
(aS^O on truth. 
 
 bodies we know, is but a relative perfection, and not an abso- j 
 lute one like e.g. intellect or goodness. We see intuitively s 
 by our intellect that a bad volition can never be a perfec- 
 tion, but it does not show us that there may not be some- 
 j thing better than extension. Extension is a perfection in 
 I the bpdies which possess it, but wouT3"'Be anything but a 
 r perfection in higher natures to which it would be repugnant. 
 VTlTere could be no perfection in an attribute which would 
 bind its possessor to one corner of the universe, as . the 
 possession of extension woul,d do. To say that because 
 Tliere is a relation of affinity and likeness between an artist's 
 conception and the painted canvas which has embodied 
 ; it, therefore it would be a gain to the artist himself if he 
 I also were painted canvas, would be a most absurd state- 
 ment. Its absurdity, however, is as nothing to the absurdity 
 1 of supposing that God suffers defect by not having the 
 actually existing limitations and conditions of the creatures 
 which owe their very existence to Him. A certainly know- 
 able, but yet inscrutable First Cause, which is essentially 
 active, must, it is evident, be out of all _ proportion better 
 symbolized by energy than by matter, and far best of all \ 
 by that form of activity which. we know as intelligent voli- 1 
 tion^,aiid perfectly intelligent volition must be good. Ag^X \ \ 
 to thg p^JxiductlQix.-Qf mind from matter being as possible \ 
 as tha t,.flX, mattef from mind, the very essential activity \ 
 of the First Cause negatives the proposition. The reader's ' 
 common sense will, no doubt, recognize at once that an 
 intelligence infinitely transcending imagination, may far 
 more easily be conceived of as the cause of the universe 
 with its physical and vital powers, than that intellect, 
 moral perception and will, should have been produced by 
 the mere play of unintelligent energies upon matter. With 
 respect to the conception of everything being God, which 
 is Pantheism, every sane mind may be trusted to declare 
 that whatever it may be, it certainly is not itself the Divine 
 First Cause ; unless it is so not only without knowing 
 the fact, but against its own conviction. Such a mistake : 
 would not be an instance of a mere negative^^xxox: about 
 a matter beyond our power to conceive, and therefore to 
 inquire into. It would be a positive errpr about a matter 
 
fc 
 
 •J. 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 00 
 
 within our power to conceive, and one about which we 
 can inquire and form a definite judgment. To attribute 
 not only ignorance but such an absurd mistake to the 
 fountain of all the reason, goodness, and truth of the 
 universe, would be to attribute to the First Cause a cha- 
 racter which would make it altogether inadequate to pro- 
 duce those very effects which we know are produced, since 
 we are conscious of them in our own minds, when we cer- 
 tainly know we can perceive some truths with certainty — as 
 when we perceive the truth that we have any thought or feel- 
 ing which we know we at that time actually have. If we do 
 not know this, we fall (as we saw at the very commence- 
 ment of this work) into utter scepticism, and all further 
 discussion becomes idle and purposeless. It is true that 
 very celebrated thinkers have held that as everything that 
 exists must have existence or " being," therefore everything 
 must be fundamentally one and the same existence. Tliis^ 
 hmypver, is to rnnfoiind the most abstract of all abstract 
 " ideas " — the " zV/^a.-OjC-Jseing " — with the most concrete 
 of all concrete " facts " — the ''fact of being." This^most, 
 absurd confusion between the world of ideas and the world 
 oTTeal, actual existences, is what underlies that celebrated 
 Jaying of the German philosopher_ _Hegel, " Bein g, and 
 non-bei ng are_identical." Of course, the idea of " being," 
 since it applies to everything, " can have no distinctive 
 characters or attributes," for if it had such, it would no longer 
 apply to everything. Similarly, also, the idea of " non- 
 being," or nothing, " can have no distinctive characters or 
 attributes," and so far Uics£_twQad?.as are negatively alike ;^ 
 just as a plum-pudding and a line of Shakespeare are nega- 
 tively " alike," in that neither of them is made of brass. But 
 none the less, actual existence (not the idea of it) differs 
 t nfn nrl.n from actual non-existence, as is evident both to 
 common sense and the most profound philosophy. But 
 other objectors say truly, as we have ourselves said,* 
 " Subjective concepts must have objective entities corre- 
 sponding to them," and therefore, since we plainly have 
 the subjective concept " being-in-general," there must also 
 be a corresponding objective entity, or objective " being- 
 
 * See above, pp. 136, 137. 
 
458 " ON TRUTH. 
 
 ) in-general," which entity is the same in all existing things. 
 A'- ■ We must, however, carefully distinguish not only between 
 r oral expressions and their corresponding concepts, but 
 
 also between those concepts which are partially, and those 
 which are wholly alike. We must distinguish between con- 
 cepts which are alike in so far only as they refer to one 
 or more characters which the things conceived of have 
 in common, and concepts which are alike because they 
 refer to things which we see to be positively identical, 
 or absolutely alike in their totality. The same verbal 
 expression may refer to conceptions which are very diverse 
 — as is notoriously the case, in English, with the word 
 / "box." There is no wonder, then, if the word "being" 
 \ denotes more than the two concepts already distin- 
 guished, namely, " actual being " and " ideal being." Such 
 is indeed the case. We say not only that a thing has actual 
 " being " or existence, but also that a thing has a reality, 
 or "being," not yet actual, but which will be made actual 
 on the occurrence of the requisite conditions — such as 
 the existence of a chicken in a new-laid &gg. Here the 
 word " being," has plainly two significations — according as 
 it refers to what is actual or what is only possible, or 
 " potential." There is evidently a great difference between 
 possible being, and mere non-existence — e.g. between the 
 universe which has actually come into existence and another 
 universe, differently constituted, which we may suppose 
 to have been possible. Next, as to concepts : We apply 
 the conception of " actually existing being " to all things - 
 which in fact exist, however diverse they may be ; and aj [j 
 corresponding objective quality is to be found in the actual j ^ 
 existence of the things thus conceived of But that sub-l 
 jective conception of ours by no means implies that all thesej 
 things have a real substantial something in common, but 1 
 i only that they agree in a mode of being. They agree in i 
 I that they are existing, and not ideal, entities, and also \ 
 i in being actual and not merely possible. There is thus 
 a correspondence between these highly-abstract concep- 
 tions and the objective existences they refer to, similar 
 to the correspondence which exists between very ordinary 
 conceptions and the things they refer to. We have the 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 459 y^^ 
 
 subjective concept "cayj^^- with which corresponds thej 
 objective characters of certain animals. The objective con-' 
 cept really answers to the subjective one ; but there is no 
 objective "cattleish" substance which exists and is vari- 
 ously modified in every ox, sheep, and horse. Similarly, 
 for everything which has either actual or possible " being," 
 there is a real corresponding objective reality — its state 
 of existence. But there is not, and need not be, any objec- 
 tive substantial being which is variously modified in every- 
 thing which exists. Other dreamers tell us that, do what 
 f) I we may, we cannot know that there is anything objective 
 
 at all, but that the universe and ourselves may be explained . ^ 
 as modifications of a self which never can get beyond or ^'^^ 
 outside itself, or know anything whatever which is objec- 
 tive. To this absurdity it is a sufficient answer to say that 
 such an objector must at least allow that if he knew any- 
 thing outside himself it would be objective. But to allow 
 this, is to allow a knowledge of a hypothetical objectivity. 
 Yet to know what anything would be if it zvere objective, is 
 to know certain conditions attending objectivity, and that 
 is to know something objective after all, and so the absurd 
 objection referred to falls to the ground. A very different but / 
 not less decisive refutation of this notion of the substantial 
 identity of all things may be drawn from our power of j ^^ 
 ethical perception and the supreme certainty we have that ^-^ 
 there are actions which are right and others which are / 
 wrong. For if all things are God and every action is a 
 Divine action, then every action must be good, not only in 
 its elements, but in those circumstances under which it may 
 [occur. If acts prompted by the most self-denying devo- 
 tion to duty are to be reverently recognized as one mode 
 of that which alone Js^not one bit less is the traffic of the 
 _courtesan another such mode ; and if the chastisement of 
 the assassin may claim Its sanction, so the assassin may 
 also equally claim it for the act on account of which he 
 is chastised — which is absurd. 
 
 But, rising above these idle dreams and the madness 
 of idealism, we know that we have on all sides of us a 
 multitude of things, animate and inanimate, that do not 
 think and yet are replete with a logic which is in them 
 
a6oJO on truth. 
 
 but not of them. Wliajt^tlien, is this, rationality of thfi-' 
 irrational ? It is a rationality which is very really, though, 
 but materially, present in the irrational world, while it isj 
 formally present in that world's Cause and Origin. Wei 
 see the most amazing operations of an intelligence which 
 is not that of the animate or inanimate creatures which 
 perform them, and which, if there is no Intelligent First 
 Cause, may well be called the " miracles of unreason." To 
 the theist alone is a satisfactor)- explanation of such 
 , phenomena possible. Reason (and to pure rea son is our ..^ 
 j only appeal), candidly applied to the consideration of that v 
 univers e of which man is a part, teaches a plain lesson — .V ' 
 the existence of a constant, pervading, sustaining, directing,;' f,, 
 and all-controlling but unfathomable Intelligence, which] ^ 
 is not the intelligence of irrational creatures themselves t^'" 
 n or ye t our own. Such is the supreme truth which natureJL 
 eloquently proclaims to him who, with an unprejudiced ' 
 reason, will carefully consider her way.s. He can hardly 
 fail to discover, pervading the material universe, an action, 
 the results of which harmonize with man's reason; an action 
 which is orderly, and disaccords with blind chance, or a 
 fortuitous concurrence of atoms ; but which ever eludes 
 his grasp, and which acts in different modes from those 
 by which he would attempt to accomplish similar ends. 
 We are convinced that the more nature, including man, 
 is carefully studied, the more it will be plain that in the 
 action of this all-pervading, but inscrutable and unimagin- 
 able Intelligence (of which self-conscious human rationality 
 is the utterly inadequate image, though the only image 
 attainable by us) is to be sought the sole possible explana- 
 tion of the mysterious but undeniable presence throughout 
 nature of a rationality in that which is itself irrational. 
 
 Let us now glance at another consideration which may 
 
 serve in its way to bring home to us the necessary ex- 
 istence of a Divine Primordial Cause. 
 
 rn~!TTe'1irst''p!ace7'ret us consider the nature of primary 
 truths, such as that the whole is greater than its part, or 
 the principle of contradiction. The special character of 
 such truths is, as we have seen, that they need no proof 
 (being themselves self-evident), while they are at the same 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 A^i/y^ 
 
 III 
 
 time themselves indispensable in order that anything else 
 may be proved. Their clearness and certainty necessarily 
 exclude all doubt from the mind of any man who under- , 
 stands them ; but though they affirm themselves indis- J 
 putably, they do not explain themselves. They tell us f 
 categorically and unquestionably that they exist, but not 
 ow they exist. The rays of light they bring to the intel- 
 ect are most luminous, but nevertheless they are rays, and 
 their '^niirrf; — the lumijiary whencc they radi ate — remains 
 hidden from our direct mental gaze, and can only be in- 
 directly known through meditation and reflection. Truth, _ 
 as we h ave seen, is a correspondence of thought with things. ;| 
 What, then, is and must be that with which these at once ' 
 highest yet most fundamental of all truths correspond ? , 
 Upon them all the most certain deductions and inductions, 
 of science and all the most practical rules of art ultimately; 
 repose. The progress of the sciences and the successful 
 practice of the arts absolutely demonstrate to us that truth 
 is, as has been said, a correspondence between our per- 
 ceptions and real, external existences, and the degree of 
 perfection of each science and art depends directly upon, 
 and varies with that degree of correspondence. Can it, 
 then, be reasonably supposed that the dicta of the science 
 of sciences — the most supreme and certainly evident of all 
 our perceptions — do not also correspond with some real 
 external existence? But with what objective reality can 
 those truths correspond which.are absolute, universal, and 
 necessary, as we have seen them to be,* extending to the 
 ul t i r n 'cTte iimits of'alt'eilduring or extended things — with 
 what reality can they correspond except an absolute and * 
 infinite First Cause.''' They must reflect upon us rays of. 
 truth from an inconceivable source of all light and all* 
 truth — zhgr^ God. To deny that any real objective existence " 
 corresponds with the ultimate basis of such subjective 
 thought, is to deny that there is any such correspondence 
 between internal thought and external reality as is implied 
 in all our knowledge of external nature, from that needed 
 for the pursuit of the highest science down to what is 
 indispensable for the exercise of the lowest mechanical art. 
 * See above, p. 38. 
 
462 
 
 /// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ivr ^^.«A. i __Anr.i-Vipr argument for God's existence is a truth which 
 
 c ansa^. ^^ underlies the mechanical conception of the universe, and so 
 
 jY/V/ seems to afford it a certain amount of support. This truth 
 
 to afford it a certain amount of support, 
 e dictum that the universe cannot be essentially s^t^ 
 oving, and therefore must ha\c received (since it is now 
 of motion) an impulse from without. We say "essen- 
 tially " self-moving, because it is conceivable that matter 
 may have been endowed with intrinsic motion from all 
 eternity. But if such were the case, it must none the less 
 have been eternally endowed with this intrinsic motion by 
 an extrinsic First Cause, on the same principle * as that 
 which we have lately seen makes it evident to us that a 
 complex universe, like that we see about us to-day, must, 
 if eternal, have had from all eternity a First Cause possess- 
 ing within itself a sufficient reason for its own existence, as 
 a sufficient reason for the existence of such an eternally 
 complex, orderly universe. The argument, moreover, 
 which thus applies to the universe considered as one whole, 
 applies no less to every constituent portion of it, every cell 
 of every organism, and every molecule and atom (assum- 
 ing, for argument's sake, the existence of such constituents) 
 of it, considered as one whole, though a most minute and 
 subordinate "whole." 
 
 God, then, as the First Cause and ultimate principle of 
 the universe and of all which it contains, must be regarded 
 as its Creator, whether its Creator from all eternity or its 
 Creator at the commencement of all time. Of eternity and 
 of everything out of, or antecedent to, time, we are, of 
 course, utterly without experience, and such things are 
 consequently as utterly beyond our powers of imagination. 
 This is not all ; when we even attempt to conceive of such 
 things, images of succeeding events and objects necessarily 
 enter the mind to attend upon and sustain such concep- 
 tions. We are thus apt to be misled in our judgments 
 which tend to be enslaved by such images of things in, 
 time. This it is which makes the idea of absolute crea-:|i 
 tion or absolute annihilation seem inconceivable to us. 'j 
 Such creation and such annihilation are not only quite 
 conceivable, but can be (since they are) actually believed 
 
 * See above, p. 453. 
 
it 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. 463 
 
 Sin as facts of the past and future respectively. When, 
 however, we try to conceive of the creation of tlie universe 
 I we cannot help imagining a space and time anterior to its 
 
 !8 appearance ; and when we try to conceive of the annihila- 
 tion of the universe we cannot help imagining the duration 
 of an empty space after it has disappeared. These are, of 
 course, mere deceptive mental images, and when their 
 fictitious nature is recognized the difficulty which attends J^'^Jj 
 the conception of creation and annihilation disappears. 
 But though creation is, of course, tiuiniaginable (being, as 
 before said, a thing utterly beyond all our experience), yet 
 e ven the late Mr. G. H. Lewes has admitted the truth of 
 what is here asserted. He says, "When it is argued that 
 the creation of Something from Nothing, or its reduction 
 to Nothing is unthinkable, and is, therefore, peremptorily to 
 . be rejected, the argument is defective. The process is 
 I thinkable, but not imaginable." We cannot, as before 
 pointed out,*__jnigcrj;-ie a limit to the universe or existence 
 apart from time ; but that does not even tend to show that 
 space is infinite or time eternal. Physical science, being 
 devoted to the investigation of the co-existences and 
 successions of phenomena, can express no valid judgment 
 as to creation one way or another. It is absolutely beyond 
 its competence, and it can have no right to say anything 
 either for or against it. 
 
 Sgm£„v,ery silly persons bring as an objection against 
 the idea of absolute creation the dictum, " Ex nihilo nihil 
 fit" " Nothing can come of nothing." The saying is, of j 
 course, absolutely true, but in no way to the point. The' 
 hypothesis of creation does not suppose " nothing " acting, 
 but " God " — who is represented with utter inadequacy by 
 everything we know. Again, the idea of creation does not 
 imply the formation of things by God out of nothing, as if 
 nothing were a sort of substance out of which God drew 
 them, or from which He fashioned them. It implies that, 
 God caused that to be which absolutely was not before ; 
 but as to the " how," it is, of course, utterly without any 
 implication. The "how" is quite inconceivable. 
 
 But though creation is quite unimaginable, and only 
 
 * See above, p. 409. 
 
464 ON TRUTH. 
 
 with difficulty conceivable, there are nevertheless in nature 
 various natural processes more or less indirectly imagin- 
 able which may help our conception of Divine creation. 
 The substances of the inorganic world, possessed of physical 
 forces only, persist unchanged and unchanging, save in so 
 far as they may be acted on from without. Even the 
 lowest forms of verdant vegetable life are, as we have seen, 
 wonderfully different from this. They need, indeed, the 
 stimulus of external physical forces, but under that stimulus 
 they possess the marvellous power * of forming and pre- 
 senting to our observation organic products, and by an 
 immanent internal activity of creating for us, in the lowest 
 sense of that term, from mere inorganic nature, matters 
 (notably their reproductive elements) which, before their 
 activity energized, absolutely did not exist. The lower 
 animals exhibit a more marked internal spontaneity, 
 whereby they create a profusion of objects which before 
 were also absolutely non-existent. As we ascend in the \ 
 scale of animated nature spontaneity increases, and melo- ' 
 dious or discordant sounds, marvellous reflex and instinctive 
 actions, and, ultimately, sensuous cognitions, are produced. 
 Finally, in man these powers attain their apogee, and he, ; 
 "by his- marvellous faculty of free volition, truly creates. He] Vi 
 actually brings existences into being, things which other- ^ 
 wise never could have been (namely, definite actions, each 
 with a certain character), and changes by his will the whole 
 subsequent course of nature, so far as it may be connected 
 with actions he, by his free-will, determines to perform. 
 But we have also experiences in the arts which may help 
 us greatly to understand the idea of creation. The painter 
 who images forth conceptions replete with beauty and 
 significance, truly creates. He does not, of course, create / 
 his canvas or his pigments, but the picture (abstracting / 
 from God's universal sustaining activity) is actually his; 
 creation, and his creation only. The thought of the poet 
 and the harmonious conceptions of the musician need, of 
 course, matter and motion for their manifestation to us, 
 but that in no way detracts from the fact that the won- 
 derful combinations formed by them arise in the world 
 
 * See above, p. 333. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 46 
 
 ^^ 
 
 as new facts and marvellous creations. Let us imagine 
 all the artistic creations of men suddenly destroyed. Would 
 the fact that the quantity of matter and of motion remained 
 unchanged, though otherwise distributed, make such de- 
 struction any the less a real, absolute annihilation of the 
 artistic manifestations themselves ? If the destruction of 
 such things would, then, be a true annihilation, their pro- 
 duction must also have been a true creation. 
 
 A careful meditation over the phenomena thus mani- 
 fested to us in a wonderful ascending chain of spontaneous 
 creations of different orders and degrees, will greatly serve 
 to facilitate the conception of that creation which is Divine. 
 We must, however, of course, always recognize the fact 
 that no actions of any creatures, however even superhuman 
 they may be considered to be, can do more than shadow 
 forth with utter inadequacy, though for us with great prac- 
 tical efficiency, any action of any kind performed by God 
 Himself/ 
 
 It may be well now to consider certain objections which, 
 on various grounds, have been urged against belief in a 
 Divine First Cause, at once the Creator and Sustainer of a 
 universe which is everywhere pervaded by His incessant 
 activity. 
 
 These objections are said to be based upon ^(jj. nature's 
 prodigality ; (2}, nature's cruelty ; (3) unworthy natural 
 phenomena ; (4) the anthropomorphic nature of our ideas 
 about God ; and (5) difficulties which follow upon an 
 assertion that the world has been created. 
 
 The first objection affirms that nature's prodigality is 
 such that it cannot be due to a First Cause possessing both 
 perfect wisdom and unlimited power. 
 
 The Divine First Cause, whose necessary existence is 
 thus inferentially evident to our intellect, is revealed to us 
 qualitatively in diverse degrees, according as we direct our 
 attention to one or other of the various orders of existences 
 known to us. Thus if we confine our attention to the in- 
 organic world alone, strongly as we may be impressed with 
 the power and wisdom displayed therein, the Divine bene- 
 ficence remains hidden from our gaze. The living world 
 affords us a very different and far less incomplete revela- 
 
 2 H 
 
 /T^ 
 
 rodigality. 
 
466 ' ON TRUTH. 
 
 tion, yet it is only through the contemplation of the highest 
 human faculties that the conception of God becomes dis- 
 tinctly manifested to our minds. It has been said, " Nature 
 conceals God and man reveals Him." This is too unquali- 
 . ,fied a statement. It should rather be said that nature 
 I I i (apart from man) reveals to us one aspect of the Deity, 
 I I /while the moral world makes known to us another, and 
 i i \ seemingly at first a very different one. This apparent 
 f difference, however, is only due to a d efective flexibility of 
 thp ijfl ^ , trLatia n — a defect very common amongst persons 
 who have been long exclusively occupied with only one 
 kind of study, whether ^pjiysical or psychical. The theist 
 who has arrived at his theistic convictions from quite other 
 sources than a consideration of zoological or botanical 
 phenomena, may nevertheless very reasonably make use of 
 such phenomena as tests of the reasonableness of convic- 
 tions which have been otherwise gained. Let us, then, 
 now apply ourselves with fearlessness and complete candour 
 to the consideration of the first of the just-enumerated 
 objections. 
 1 \ Tt \^ ^^\<^\\\i^^ \h^ fnoli^h wa-^tp and blind proHicrality of 
 
 1l ..-H^I^'^* whfU " nf.a it.lipy.°='"^ seeds she often brinsfs but 
 r //. nnr jxi baa r" rnnftf r f wil l 
 
 4s»«^i«tk,.jaui:,..iconceptions of " wisdom " 
 " an^^ILpur-pose^l .as attributes of the First Cause, and we 
 are asked whether we should consider that man wise who 
 spilt a gallon of wine in order to fill a wine-glass ? 
 
 But surely it may without any difficulty be supposed , 
 that any natural process which has a purpose apparent to / 
 us may have a multitude of other purposes also, and that | 
 the one purpose we apprehend may be but an exceedingly 
 subordinate purpose amongst the many present to the 
 Divine mind but hidden from our own. It has been sug- 
 gested that if the big-bellied, small-brained Labyrinthodonts, 
 which existed amidst the rank vegetation of the Carboni- 
 ferous period could have had any thoughts at all, they' 
 .might have deemed that the constant rain of countless 
 Wiinu te fern s.porgs around them was a process of sheer 
 \ \ ^aste. But we who know the numberless purposes which 
 \ coal serves, and the multitude of ends it enables steam- 
 engines to fulfil, know that such Labyrinthodonts would 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 4^7' 
 
 have judged wrongly. We know also that their error 
 would have been owing to their inability to foresee events 
 of what was, to them, an incalculably remote future, and 
 of a nature which no experience of theirs could have 
 by any possibility enabled them to imagine. Suppose^ a 
 brood of young birds to die before they are fledged, is thei'.e^ ^^ 
 necessarily any waste occasioned-Uiefeby ? Wy no mean 
 
 Their bodies serve to nourish various other creatures, \ i 
 and these a multitude of others, till ultimately swarms of 
 bacteria reduce the various organic substances to their 
 proximate or ultimate elements, thus serving to nourish 
 vegetation — the food of animals — and ultimately minister- 
 ing to the service of human beings. The man who spills 
 a gallon of wine in order to fill a wine-glass is not wise, 
 unless the wine he so spills answers some other purpose 
 he has in view, and which he desires as much as the filling 
 of the glass. In the latter case he is not unwise in spilling 
 it. But the idea of God implies a Being who is at once the 
 one ultimate Cause oiM^jMe processes of nature. Since 
 He wills and intends them all^ it is impossible but that 
 whatever results must fulfil His intention. 
 / Nature is so arranged that the purpose of its First l.i 
 \Cause can never be defeated, happen what may. The ; \ i 
 failure of one end is but the fulfilling of other and different s 
 ends. When the matter of the artist's or philosopher's 
 brain becomes the prey of lowly organisms, it fulfils one 
 Divine purpose, and another when its living activities aid 
 in producing creations of beauty and wisdom. It is as 
 impossible for any accident to defeat the purpose of Him 
 whose will ordained every process, as it is for any man, by 
 acting in opposition to what his conscience tells him is 
 God's will, to do otherwise than stultify himself by hasten- 
 ing on the fulfilment of God's purposes in some other way. 
 / j j_JK^rf^ jg trrly no such thing as real failure, no s.ufih-thing, 
 
 ff) [ as absolute waste, in the whole universe of being. 
 
 M t 'rjj'e ';proni ij?bJ£5<'''"i"' affirms that the pains and evils r^ssdii^/ 
 •^ J of life, endured even "By animals, show that the world^U,;. 
 ^ \ cannot be the creation of a being absolute in goodness and 
 i infinite in power. But this objection, the difficulties of which 
 must in no way be blinked, is, in truth, no less easily dis- 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 'posed of, though it has at first a very formidable look. We 
 .are asked what we can say in explanation of the petty 
 1*^/. jcares, the tedious weariness, the cruel sufferings from 
 .'gnawing pain, or, worse, from inconsolable grief and from 
 Iterrible moral evil .'' The world not only suffers, but has 
 suffered for millions of years ere man was. For untold 
 ages bloodthirsty rapine has raged and reigned, and cries 
 of pain, due to cruel wounds and to limbs crushed in 
 blood-stained jaws, have continually resounded in the only 
 one of God's worlds we are able to know and understand. 
 The very existence of many creatures is bound up with 
 the sufferings of others, and parasites, external and in- 
 ternal, torture their helpless and involuntary hosts by 
 means of implements carefully contrived for securing their 
 hold and aiding their progress. 
 
 The reply to this objection needs to be divided under r 
 two heads. Under the first we will consider the evils of , 
 life as far as regards man, and subsequently we will con- / 
 sider them as affecting all other sentient organisms. 
 
 First, with respect to the world and man, we may ask 
 our dissatisfied opponents what they would have. Would 
 ^ they have (i) a system of things in which there were no 
 X', painful or destructive agencies, or^^gJt;,Jt system in which 
 pain and suffering should be dealt out to each man with 
 full justice, exactly according to his deserts? 
 I To those who might choose the former alternative it 
 may be replied, in the first place, that the whole course of 
 nature would have to be altered to effect it. The storms 
 and other violent commotions of air and ocean have their 
 beneficent as well as their destructive effects, and the 
 circulation of these elements is closely connected with the 
 maintenance of vegetation and animal life, and therefore 
 with the life of man. No one pretends that God can do / 
 what is absurd or contradictory, and the rang e of objective / 
 contradiction may be much, more extensive than is com- / 
 moiily. supposed. God cannot make a circular triangle or/ 
 cause an event now passed, never to have happened ; for/ 
 ^chthjngs-are -contradictions, and therefore nonentities 
 which can have no relation to Omnipotence. But how' 
 many objective contradictions which are beyond our know- 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 (4^^ 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 // 
 
 ledge may render really irrational, and therefore impossible 
 to God, actions which to us may seem likely to open out 
 I / short cuts and easy roads to perfection ? We have already 
 I seen that God cannot make all things which are separately * 
 I possible to be actual simultaneously — not all things which 
 I are possible can possibly co-exist. There may tlui&--fe^- 
 inherent absurdity and contradiction in the notion that 
 all that"makes life best worth living could have exist 
 in a material universe devoid of any kind of hurtful 
 destructive activity — in a world in which water should "not 
 drown, or any action of the sun's rays or any climatic 
 conditions tend to injure health or destroy life. What 
 would be the social, intellectual, and moral condition of 
 a population, no member of which, whatever he did, could 
 possibly hurt himself.^ What progress in the arts of life 
 /would be made were hunger and thirst either never felt 
 or always to be assuaged without any inconvenient effort ; 
 were shelter from bad weather never needed, and were 
 no sanitary conditions required for long and healthy life .'' 
 But the loss we should suffer from the absence of all life's 
 trials would be inexpressibly worse than a mere depriva- 
 tion of some material goods ; our moral loss would be in- /i 
 calculable. Is it not the very difificulties_and.d.ailgei:s_of_ ^• 
 Ithe world which call forth noble efforts and raise the moral 
 standard of whole populations ? As has been well said by 
 Dr. Henry Hayrrran,*' If there was no natural theatre of peril, 
 there could be no natural school of hardihood and courage. 
 To whatever extent, then, these virtues are prized, we 
 must exempt from censure any machinery needed to pro- 
 uce them." Indeed, if all pain and evil disappeared from 
 uman life, all that is most lovely would disappear with it. 
 hen there would be no opportunities or occasions for 
 generous self-denial, loving pity, tender compassion, or 
 ardent philanthropic effort. Thus a morality which would 
 begin by abolishing all the physical evils of life would find 
 in the end that it had stultified itself by having thereby 
 abolished that by which its own being was nourished and 
 sustained. Could we, then, afford to lose pain and suffering \ 
 altogether t ^ 
 
 * See above, p. 385. 
 
 40- 
 
^473 
 
 ON TRUTH, 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 Let us now consider the other alternative offered by j 
 jus to the objectors to God's goodness — -a system in which i 
 [full justice, exactly according to his deserts, should be i 
 dealt out to each man in this life. 
 
 In such a world all pain, suffering, loss, or disaster, 
 would always and everywhere be infallibly withheld from 
 each man according to the degree of his uprightness and 
 virtue. A condition of things more likely to be fatal to 
 all uprightness and virtue it is, we believe, impossible to 
 conceive. As Dr. Hayman has again said, " Human actions / 
 being moralized by their motives, the ascendant motive, I 
 especially amidst a race so far tainted with selfishness as g 
 mankind, would tend to become a selfish craving for | 
 personal exemption frorn Joss^la m age,. disaster, and. violoiO^ 
 death ; this working everywhere, in generation after genera- | 
 tToTr~Df men, must inevitably result in stamping out all | 
 virtuous/r/z/r//?? among them. . . . Every one would know ' 
 Tiis own motives and his neighbour's, and each would -ag; 
 i praise the others as all working for wages punctually paid 
 
 )'tn"'a"pfemium of insurance against all danger or disadvan- 
 tage." If in every stage of universal societv^frqi^,|];^g,jg,^^dle 
 to th e grave, nature had stood over us like a hundred - 
 i h andecj B rjargi;,c^ yii!ll..^ t)ribe in every hand, ostf^T^^'^^ 
 yirtyCj.virtue would thereby h ave been pois oned. 
 How, under such circumstances, could any act of generosity 
 or^self-sacrifice have been possible ? No ; it is far better 
 that the crew of a lifeboat should now" arid" tKeh be 
 drov/ned, than the noble sentiments which make the man- 
 ning of such a boat so common should be made absolutely 
 ;. impossible to mankind. Fatal to all true nobility of 
 
 f char acter would such a condition of things indeed be — 
 far more deadly than even the preceding alternative. In"\ vJ 
 a world in which pain and suffering were unknown, there | \ 
 would be no stimulus to virtue, but in one constructed on j '^ 
 a system of universal rewards, virtue would be strangled in.L^ 
 its birth. ^ 
 
 But what need is there that we should wish to abolish 
 all the trials of life, seeing that we have good evidence 
 for the immortality of the soul ? * Once grant the ex- i 
 
 * See below, p. 4S7. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. f^yi 
 
 Iisteiice of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-just God, and 
 justice demands a future life. Therewith it becomes readily 
 
 ' conceivable that present sufferings may be hereafter seen 
 by us to have been truly blessings in disguise. 
 
 We will now proceed to ■ the second portion _of our 
 reply — that which relates to the sufferings of animals. It |/\ -' 
 
 'is"~rndeed quite true tlTat for ages, perhaps for hundreds ! 
 of millions of years, millions of millions of individual 
 animals have been in a state of unceasing battle, and that 
 teeth, claws, hooks, and_suckej:;s_have been devoted to the 
 
 ~sptttiTrg"li)f Llood. Yet that very slaughter has had its 
 effects in diminishing the sufferings due to want, disease, 
 and senile decay. The exclamation, " Sharp be the brand 
 and swift the blow, and~sR6rf the "pain to undergo," was 
 no expression of malignity. Moreover, the essence of our 
 suffering is mental, and much of the pain we feel at-^-- 
 coriTefnpTating animal sufferings is really uncalled for, 
 
 j and due to our tendency to attribute our own feelings 
 "land'experiences to creatures more or less . lilce " us."" "" "It" iS^"' 
 ToVTKe sensation pure and simple that so distresses lis, ^.^ 
 )ut such sensation accompanied by intellectual conscious- 0^ 
 ness and refl ection. Only during consciousness does it -.n*^ 
 
 'exist at alV,'~ancr"on'ly in the most highly organized men-** ,^ 
 
 ~ and Women does it attain its acme. Savages seem to 
 h'dvc often fcir less scnsit'TveiTess'to pain than haVS^cuTti- ~ 
 vated and ^ refined people.. Tlie..direness of our pain de- 1 V 
 pends on our knowledge of it— the- .agony of recollecting^] • -f 
 past m oiaeiits- J3£„5ufiied4a@.. ■ami--.^iiti,gip.atin^ ones_. i ^ 
 
 ' Such agony can only exist in a being possessed of a 
 nature like ours, capable of " lookincr before and after." 
 Moreover our nature, being an intellectual one, enters into 
 and mingles with all the feelings we are conscious of, and 
 
 [therefore we cannot argue with any exactness from our 
 
 [feelings to those of brutes, because we cannot imagine 
 
 'what feelings felt but not consciously perceived can really 
 be. And though, of course, animals /(?6'/, the^xio not /Cv/tiZt/ 
 that they feel, nor can they reflect uppyi any of the pains^ 
 SiTeiidured in the . past , or - WJiUiav^^tft endure in 
 ^^Associations of sensations they of course have, 
 
 'and sights or sounds associated with previous suff'erings 
 
472 ON TRUTH. 
 
 excite fears and prompt to actions which may help them 
 to escape their recurrence. But this is a very different 
 thing from our conscious perceptions and actions, and 
 may be attended with no real suffering whatever. Even 
 as regards physical pain, if the lowest races of men feel 
 it less than we do, how much less may be the physical 
 suffering of even the highest brutes than that of the lowest 
 men ? Tears, cries, writhings of body, and contortions of 
 limb, such as are normally in us expressions of suffering, 
 are not necessarily such even in ourselves.* They may 
 be, and often are, the mere accompaniments of reflex 
 nervous action, and may in brutes accompany feelings 
 widely different from our own. Who that has seen how 
 a daddy-long-legs returns again and again to a lighted 
 candle, after first one leg and then another has been 
 burnt in the flame, can think that the creature really 
 suffers ? And if this spectacle does not suffice to console 
 
 f the compassionate observer, let him reflect that if a wasp, 
 when enjoying a meal of honey, has its slender waist 
 suddenly severed and its whole abdomen cut away, it 
 does not allow such a trifle to interrupt for a moment its 
 pleasurable repast, but it continues to rapidly devour the 
 luscious food, the pleasure of consuming which is prolonged 
 by the fact that there can be no satiety, the honey escaping 
 
 ^ at the aperture made as fast as it is consumed. 
 
 But there is a strong disposition amongst ourselves 
 ungratefully to overlook the unobtrusive pleasures which 
 continually attend our normal conditions of life. Unim- 
 peded, healthy respiration and digestion, and the quiet 
 sensations of easy bodily repose, are all pleasurable in their ; 
 way. Still more so, after due rest, are various exercises | 
 voluntarily undertaken, often for the mere sake of the 
 pleasurable feelings they impart (as, for example, all forms 
 of sport) ; and highly pleasurable is the consumption of 
 food when due activity has produced a keen, healthy 
 appetite for it. Pleasures of this nature fall constantly to 
 the lot of the overwhelming majority of animals. Pleasur- 
 able also to us is the voluntary exercise of our intellectual 
 faculties, and especially pleasurable are the emotions of 
 
 * See above, p. 167. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 473 ^^> 
 \ 
 
 friendship and family affection. Even snriall pains and 
 impediments generally give rise to pleasurable feelings 
 
 of successful effort and obstacles overcome, and very ,_ 
 
 commonly pain ful experiences.._are— benev-oleat..AVAC.mncrs_^ 
 tending to save us from more serious evils. Death is 
 
 inevitable, but it is very often painless, and the majority 
 even of mankind leave life as unconsciously as they enter 
 ,upon it. Deducting from these experiences such as are 
 ,due to the presence of intellect, the rest are in various 
 jdegrees the common property of the whole of sentient 
 inature, which is thus the theatre of constantly and uni- 
 Ijversally exercised pleasurable activities. 
 
 But the very force of the objection we are considering 
 lies in the fact of our faculties telling us that goodness is 
 the highest aim conceivable by us — an aim to the pro- 
 motion of which we have to make every other considera- 
 tion subordinate. Moral action also can, so far as our own 
 experience goes, be exerted by no being visible to us but 
 ourselves. The moral activity. and advance of mankind is, 
 _then, the highest object of attainment perceptible to us.. 
 Now, the world is so ordered * as to serve most what is 
 highest, while the lower exists for the sake of what is 
 superior to it — man receiving incalculably more service from 
 the world about him than any other organism receives. 
 But man's moi;;al development is impossible without the 
 discipline of suffering, and being, as he is, a creature made 
 Up'oFa'spTrTfuaraiVd a material nature absolutely blended 
 in one unity, his mental suffering could not be altogether 
 disassociated from physical pain. Therefore, without the yi^.,,— j 
 latter, he could not experience a condition absolutely' ' <J^ 
 necessary, in the world as we know it, for the attainmentfa ^ 
 of the highest product of which we can conceive this planet " 
 to be the theatre. But man is an animal intimately related 
 physically to his merely sentient fellow-creatures whose 
 mode of life his organism fully shares in, even if his body 
 has not a genetic relation with theirs. It could not, then, 
 well be anticipated that physical pain should be exclusively 
 his, and entirely absent from the lives of all other animals 
 whatever, even if it would be (and, to say the least, it is 
 
 * See below, pp. 493, 494. 
 
 r 
 
474 ON TRUTH. 
 
 by no means clear it would be) a real advantage to them. 
 On the other hand, could we expect not to be exposed to 
 accidents which may happen to other organisms ? Some ak 
 
 persons find it difficult to understand how a good God 
 could allow that children should be born malformed, or 
 otherwise physically defective. But such things are but 9 
 
 accidents which happen before birth, and what reason is 
 there why accidents should not take place before birth 
 as well as after ? That pregnancy sho uld ensure a mira- 
 cujous averting of evils, would be a very anomalous arrange- 
 ment. of events. Only in a world constituted as is the" ""^ 
 Avorld we know, could a nature such as we know man's 
 to be, find suitable conditions for its moral advance. So 
 to modify nature so as to meet the wishes of those persons 
 who complain that nature as it is is immoral, would destroy 
 the only real morality of which we know the world to be „ 
 capable. To " moralize " (in tlieir-sejise) nature — to abolish__AL- 
 §iiffering, or to ma.ke it only fall on evildoers — would be — ^ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 to necessarily demoralize man ; and thus the only adequate ' ^ ^ 
 final end perceptible by us in nature would thereby be 
 .utterly- defeated* • ' , 
 
 J But were we to grant, for argument's sake, that the 
 / phenomena of the world are difficult to reconcile with 
 / the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, does ■ 
 
 I it for a moment follow that they are irreconcilable in fact .-' 
 \ How minute a fragment of the universe is o pen to our 
 \keii, and how imperfect is our apprehension of even that! 
 May it not well be that pure benevolence, and nothing 
 else, has dictated the laws of the inorganic and organic 
 worlds, and may there not be beneficent ends we do not 
 see, which may be attained in ways we do not under- 
 stand } Surely it requires no great amount of humility to 
 admit this,*'*-' 
 PMsiMiUii^ We may, however, go further. We know that human ; 
 
 inscrutable . . n , • n 1.11 1 
 
 ^i'M^J; eyes and ears cannot perceive all that is really audible and 
 perceptible, and that there are rays of light and waves of I 
 sound which are invisible and inaudible to us, though j 
 they may be, and probably are, appreciated by some other! 
 organisms. Beyond this knowledge, we may reasonably 
 suspect that material objects have some qualities which 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 475^ 
 
 we have not the requisite organs to cognize ; we may 
 suspect, that is, that there may be other senses which, 
 though conceivable, are unimaginable to us. We might, 
 for example, have sense-organs revealing to us the chemical 
 or magnetic states of bodies, and probably other states of 
 which we know no more as yet than was known of magnetism 
 when the first settlers took up their abode on the banks of 
 the freshly-discovered Nile. There may be whole orders 
 of existence of which we have no cognizance ; and our 
 world, and what is called interstellar space, may be full of 
 entities of various kinds, which are related to the material 
 world our senses reveal to us, just as lines of cleavage are 
 related to lines of stratification. It has been suggested 
 that to electricity, a metal rod might seem to be a hole, or 
 rather, an empty channel, down which it could pour itself; 
 and, similarly, in what seem to us all but emptiness, there 
 may be abundance of different kinds of existences. The 
 reader must not for a moment imagine that we confound 
 what is merely possible with what we know to be actual, or 
 that we would seek to ground upon such a mere " may be " 
 a belief that such things really " are." These ideas are 
 but suggestions thrown out for the purpose of showing how 
 little need there is to doubt of the validity of the argu- 
 ments which prove to us the existence of Almighty God. 
 But there is }'et another very important consideratlon7 
 If nature can but be so very imperfectly apprehended' 
 by us, and if such generally undreamed-of possibilities A 
 ^Tie7^iiidd.en_\yithin it, how infinitely inscrutable must be| 
 the purposes of tlie. Autlior of Nature I We see clearly,, 
 indeed, that necessary truths are necessary even to Omni-A 
 potence, and that to do what is contradictory is impossible \ 
 to Him — otherwise we know nothing, and fall into utter \ 
 and absolute scepticism. We see, therefore, that what is ' 
 good, is good, and that He could neither enjoin or do any- 
 thing which is not absolutely moral. But can we be sure, 
 when we reflect how imperfectly we know the possibilities 
 of even sense-perception, that there may not be categories 
 of being absolutely inconceivable to us, but in view of which 
 God acts ? We know that goodness is our highest aim, 
 theone^great object of our existence ; we are enabled to 
 
 y. 
 
476 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 perceive and conceive all that is necessary to enable us to 
 attain that end; but just as we are not enabled to experience 
 sensations which are not needed for our bodily life, and 
 which, therefore, remain hidden from us, so we may not be 
 furnished with conceptions which are not needed for our 
 mental and moral life, and which therefore remain hidden 
 from us. But because goodness is our highest aim and 
 the great object of our existence, it is not evidently im- 
 possible that God may not have aims and objects — utterly 
 inconceivable to us — as much above and beyond " good- 
 ness " as " goodness " is above and beyond " pleasurable- 
 ness." But this possibility in no way involves any 
 scepticism as to the objectivity of goodness and its supre- 
 macy for us. "\AyiaJ;eyer. inconceivable aims and objects 
 God may have in view, they cannot contradict-ihe jdiclate^ 
 of mofalTty, otheTwise goodness would not be goodness. 
 Such aims can in no way conflict with or really defeat 
 morality, but only go immeasurably beyond it, and this 
 may cause moral ends to be wrought out in ways which 
 are puzzling to us. Any inconceivably great end pursued by 
 Him, might cause minor ends (which are to us supreme ones) 
 not to be fulfilled in the same way as they would be if such 
 minor ends had been His main end. When these ultimate 
 considerations are added to those before presented for the 
 reader's consideration, there would seem to be absolutely 
 no need to doubt about the goodness of the First Cause 
 on account of the evils present in the world. We may 
 compare the discords of life to the jarring sounds of an 
 orchestra when tuningj before the performance of some 
 masterpiece which is to follow. The discords are discords, 
 but they have their utility and their explanation in the 
 after-harmony to which they minister. With respect to 
 us, the instruments need to be set in order now, and life 
 may be compared with a brief time allowed us for catching 
 the leader's key-note, and setting every string entrusted to 
 us in harmony therewith. Our perception of the facts that 
 an immortal future is in store for us, and that morality, and 
 therefore justice, governs that future, should be ample con- 
 solation for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Not only will 
 there be compensation for every evil, but, proper endurance 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 (g?// 
 
 I 
 
 of evil being found to be the cause of a much greater good, 
 every one, when all is known, will be thankful for having 
 had to endure such trials as fell to his lot, and past suffer- 
 ing will be better than undone. 
 
 We m ay next consider the objection drawn from the Secmhjsiy 
 e xistence i n nature of created objects which seem unwortliy^v^/^«I^ 
 
 of an all-perfect Creator or Fiist Cause^ How, it is asked, | \ 
 
 can th ere be such instincts as those which prompt work-j \ ' 
 ing-b ees to kill drones, some kinds of ants to enslave} 
 other s, and cuckoos to lay their eggs as they do— their! 
 young when hatched brutally throwing out, to die miserably,! 
 the ricrh.tfvLl-teii4Uts of the nest? How can some animals 
 be led to perform filthy actions, and how can it be that 
 some plants present Qba.ce.ne images to our eyes ? How. 
 again, can some creatures have parts which are utterly 
 useless — rudimentary organs — such as the minute, function- 
 less wings of the New Zealand Apteryx, and the foetal 
 teeth of whalebone whales, which teeth are never destined 
 to cut the gum ? 
 
 Now, the answer to this objection is essentially the 
 same as the answer before given * to those who would 
 deny objective beauty to things which are disgusting to 
 us men. We reply by pointing out how utterly unreason- 
 able it is to appl}- the standard of human feeling to matters 
 beyond its scope. By this it is not meant to object 
 against our judging all things by human reason, for of 
 course we can judge in no other way. It is only meant 
 to affirm what is undeniably true, namely, that men are 
 apt to judge without allowing for, and trying to abstract 
 from, our specially human sympathies and our merely 
 animal feelings, as distinguished from the judgments of 
 pure reason. We have already considered how actions 
 may be materially moral yet formally! immoral (as an 
 act of kindness done for a base end), or materially immoral 
 yet formally moral (as when an act really wrong is done 
 under a mistaken belief that it is right). Creatures which 
 have not a moral nature at all, can, of course, do nothing 
 either " moral " or " imrgioral " — their actions are simply 
 " unmoral." Thus ants that make slaves, drone-killing 
 * See above, p. 259. t See above, p. 249. 
 
478 ON TRUTH. 
 
 bees, cuckoos, and insects which lay their eggs inside other 
 insects, do nothing lurong. Nor is there anything really 
 cruel in the bloodthirstiness of a tiger, or really impure 
 in the apparent lasciviousness of an ape. Looking at such 
 actions, as we must, with human eyes and imaginations, 
 we cannot help contemplating them with horror or disgust, 
 because of their unconscious association by us with analo- 
 gous imaginary Jiiiman actions which, did they take place, 
 would be the expression of the last degree of vileness) 
 filthiness, or cruelty. In the brutes themselves, however, 
 they cannot be either vile, filthy, or cruel, seeing they are 
 performed necessarily, and all actions are blameless which 
 are performed without freedom of volition. Nothing can 
 rC*/ ibe really immoral which is not done against the light of 
 reason and with the consent of the will. 
 
 It is this which causes a difficulty to exist in some 
 persons' minds in believing certain productions to be ex- 
 pressly willed by the First Cause, because such persons 
 unconsciously attribute to that Cause the human point of 
 view. The structure of certain parts of some of the apes, 
 both of the old and the new world, and the forms assumed 
 by certain fungi of the genus Ph allus, may serve as ex- 
 amples. But the feelings which arise in us when we I 
 behold such objects are essentially human, and human only. ' 
 In themselves such objects are absolutely indifferent, save 
 in so far as they duly carry out the functions of life, and 
 possess an intrinsic harmony and beauty to which prejudice 
 may blind our eyes. An unprejudiced intellect has no 
 difficulty in perceiving that what is disgusting to us may 
 really be most admirable. Thus, if vohtion rightly directed 
 is— - as our moral intuitions tell us it is — the most admirable 
 thing in man, then a filthy mendicant, loathsome with 
 cutaneous disease and as intolerable to smell as to sight, 
 may be one of the noblest and most glorious objects pre- 
 sented by the whole world to its Divine Author, and pure 
 intelligences might turn away with indifference from what 
 men most admire, in order to contemplate so admirable 
 a spectacle. As to r u d i m e n t a ry s t r u ctursSj. w e may content 
 ourselves with asking, in the words of Bijfifbll, " Why is it 
 to be considered so necessary that every part in an indi- ' 
 
inor^hiiili. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. '479 y^y 
 
 vidual should be useful to the other parts, and to the whole 
 animal? Should it not be enough that they do not injure 
 each other, nor stand in the way of each other's fair de- 
 velopment ? " Moreover, such-xuduncntaxy- structures.. xaay- 
 have, ^ certain utility, may aid the physiological balance 
 of the_o rganism after all ! It cannot yet be shown to be 
 so, but neither can it be shown that it is not so. They are 
 parts of a great whole which, to be adequately understood, 
 must be surveyed in its entirety. But any one of us_can 
 as little judge the scope of the whofe universe, as a fly 
 perched on a pinnacle of York Minster can perceive the 
 plan, pressures, and bearings of the stones of that glorious 
 
 The answer we have made to this objection leads us^diii 
 to, and at first may seem to justify, the next one — namely, 
 Jbhe,.jQhJ£Ction ,oftcn made .to the conception of the First 
 Ca use as a_personal God, on account of what is called its. 
 "anthropomorphism." Such an idea is said to be really! 
 the idea of a great ghost — a Brockcnspcctre which, in fact, 
 is only our own shadow magnified on the clouds of the 
 imagination and taken for a reality. Man, it is said, 
 always worships an imagined reflection of himself 
 
 In estimating the value of this objection, let the reader\ 
 ask himself the following questions : (i ) Can we think at \ 
 all except in human terms ? Can any man think of any- 1 
 
 I N 11 III i n iiiii J ii M i m III M III I III inM ii winii ■iiniM III I' fT"*" ^ ^ \ 
 
 thing in any other way i (2) If we are to think of a First 
 Cause at all, is it to be thought of as more, or lesst\\-\\'\ man t \ 
 Evidently we cannot think that the First Cause is actually • A ' 
 man. (3) If the First Cause is to be conceived of as being • ^ 
 more than man (as superhuman), must not human per- \ 
 fecticn be taken as our one symbol of it — since we have 
 no other ? (4) Can it be reasonably affirmed that so to : 
 act is to mislead ourselves or others, when it is expressly, 
 declared that such symbols ^.x&jittcrly inadeqitate. and only I 
 used because we can get no better ? I 
 
 ^^ _The necessity of our niiture requires us to use some 
 terais,juikercby to denote any object of our thought. If 
 we use the highest we have, we thereby include all we can 
 include, while at the same time we do not exclude higher, 
 unimaginable attributes, since we expressly deny the suffi- 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 f^iency of the only terms we can attain to. If we refuse to 
 I think of the First Cause in human terms, then we have but 
 \the animal, vegetal, and inorganic worlds from which to 
 / Tnake our choice. We are thus reduced to think of it in 
 lower terms, and at the best we are reduced to zoomorphism 
 in place of anthropomorphism, which is manifestly alto- 
 gether absurd. Surely the rational method is to employ 
 |the highest conceptions we can, while freely acknowledging 
 Ltheir ut ter inadequacy. After exhausting ingenuity in 
 ^seeking to find the loftiest possible conceptions, we must 
 regard them as being only accommodations to Jiuman 
 infi rmity . We may own that they are in a sense objec- 
 'trveiy "false — because of their inadequacy — though sub- 
 jectively and very practically true. We must, of course, 
 be careful to remove from our conception, all the imperfec- 
 tions we can remove from it, and to regard whatever is 
 positive in our conceptions about the First Cause as being 
 in reality infinitely greater and higher than anything we 
 can ourselves in thought attain to — as far above mind as 
 mind is above matter. And thus, in spite of the necessary 
 limitations of human thought, our highest conceptiojis do 
 , , indeed rather merit to be called thconiorphic than anthro- 
 I I pomorphic^ For reason . shows us, as w? haLye„,seen, that 
 I t a reason,._not our own, pervades the whole of nature. It 
 \ ■ duis shows us that our reason is but an image or fragment 
 (so to speak) of that universal reason impressed on nature, 
 and whence our own reason must be itself derived. Our 
 reason has, therefore, been created in the image and like- 
 ness of that reason which is divine, and thus a profound 
 contemplation of the universe in its immeasurable abysses 
 of extension and duration should lead us reverently to 
 exclaim, " Signatum est super nos lumen vultits tuiDomine ! " 
 >- Those men of science who object to what they call 
 
 %^ anthropomorphism, forget that physical science itself is 
 yj^ full of the very same thing. We must always remain men 
 ^ and have human conceptions of all the things which we 
 conceive of 
 
 1 Reason, then, shows us that inadequate as must be all 
 our ideas of God, they are not on that account deceitful. 
 Reason compels us to affirm as existing in God, attributes 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. /481 A 
 
 analogous to the highest quahties we know to exist in 
 man. Inadequate as such affirmations must necessarily 
 be, it is none the less certain that they are truth itself as 
 compared with the absolute negation of such attributes. 
 The term " good " as applied to God is immeasurably in- 
 adequate, but it is infinitely truer than its opposite. There- 
 fore to call Him " good " is neither false nor unmeaning. 
 Nevertheless, the disparity being infinite, no term whatever, 
 not even " existence," can be applied in the very same sense 
 to God and to any creature ; " existence " in God and crea- 
 tures being indescribably and incomprehensibly different. 
 Yet there is a true analogy, and the feeble dependent being 
 of the very lowest creature is an inconceivably distant 
 shadow of His absolute and necessary existence — a fortiori, 
 such is that of a creature like man, capable in a manner of 
 knowing God, and of recognizing and obeying His ethical 
 behests. Thus to call God " good," is to say what is ) 
 most true, though quite inadequate. Instead, then, oPj 
 vainly striving to think and express thoughts which are! 
 absolutely above our capacity, the only reasonable course 
 for us is (as before said) to use our utmost ingenuity in 
 striving to arrive at the very highest conceptions and 
 terms we can, and then recognize at once both their . 
 truth and their inadequacy. They are onl)^, in any sense, I 
 objectively false, because, as compared with their object, 
 they are utterly inadequate, being infinitely below the 
 truth, while in another sense they are perfectly true, being 
 the most complete representations of the truth possible 
 to us. There is a vast difference, indeed, between this 
 view and a simple denial that God possesses attributes 
 which are analogous to human qualities. That denial is 
 practically atheism. But the assertion here made only 
 maintains that our conceptions err in not being true enoiizh , 
 i.e. in their necessary impotence to attain to the compre- 
 hension of an inconceivable reality which, nevertheless, 
 really is all that can be conceived, plus an inconceivable 
 infinity beyond. 
 
 We can thus see how well the universe about us corre- 
 sponds with what we might expect to find in the produc- 
 tion of an Infinite Being thus partly known, while yet 
 
 2 I 
 
\%2/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 remaining incomprehensible and altogether shrouded from 
 our direct gaze. The ways of such a Being cannot evidently 
 be as our ways, or His works such as we might imagine 
 ours would be were we God. And we find everywhere 
 j .'immanent in nature an activity which harmonizes with this 
 I I iview and may be rationally accepted as being from God. 
 ' *In the universe, as we before said, we everywhere find an 
 faction the results of which, as a whole, harmonize with 
 man's reason — an action which is orderly and not fortuitous, 
 while at the same time it is unlike human action. 
 ' Another consideration is of great importance to us. 
 ^ \This is that we need no longer scruple to freely use and 
 vV \ apply our human phraseology in speaking of the First 
 *" i Cause, provided we constantly keep its infinite inade- 
 Vquacy in view. Our answer to the objection againt anthro- 
 pomorphism has done us this great service. Thus, in the 
 first place, with respect to the term " personality," seeing 
 that all which is positive in it absolutely applies to God, 
 we may freely use it, recognizing at the same time that it 
 is infinitely beneath Him. It was this recognition- of its 
 inadequacy which gave rise to the^ term HyperJiypostasis to , 
 denote this supreme Personality, and there6y distinguish it '. 
 from every personality which Js subordinate and dependent I 
 ^.^pon His*-- And as we may, with this proviso, speak of the 
 First Cause as personal, so we may similarly speak of His 
 intelligence, attention, volition, complacency, and love. 
 But we must, of course, remember that the inadequacy of 
 every assertion made with respect to God is so great, and 
 the difference, for example, between God's so-called " atten- 
 tion " and anything we can conceive is so infinite, that it 
 would be correct to deny such " attention," were not the 
 denial an inconceivably greater error than is that involved 
 in its assertion. God attends to everything in a super- 
 eminent way — because He really co-operates in every action 
 in nature, the whole of which is constantly sustained, as it 
 is pervaded, by Him in whom we live and move and are. 
 God is thus neither withdrawn from, nor identified with, 
 His material creation, and no part of it is left devoid of 
 meaning or of purpose. 
 
 \ The poet's complaint about the flower, " born to blush 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 483/// 
 
 unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air," is thus 
 manifestly quite a mistaken one, since every creature of 
 each order of existence is ever, while its existence is sus- 
 tained, so complacently contemplated by God that the 
 intense and concentrated attention of all men of science 
 together upon it could form but an utterly inadequate 
 image of the intensity of such Divine contemplation. It is,^ 
 in fact, an invet^ate anthropoi»eFf>^hism. adhering to thosel /j^- 
 very melT^'ho loudly object to anthropomorphism whichj ^^^ 
 makes them blind to such evident inferences as these.j 
 They have a sort of feeling that a First Cause must get] 
 tired, or weary, or sick of such continued incessant atten- 
 tion to every detail of every form of activity throughout 
 the universe. But because it is a necessary consequence 
 of our anatomical structure that our nerves should be un- 
 able to feel even the most pleasurable sensations beyond a 
 limited time, and that our brain cells should be inadequate 
 to continue indefinitely the supp1y™of images needful for 
 thought without the intervention of periods of rest, it by no 
 means follows that even a created immaterial intelligence 
 could not continue incessantly active, and a moment's 
 thought shows the utter absurdity of such imaginations 
 with respect to the First Cause. That Cause concurs and 
 must concur by His action in every natural phenomenon, 
 and has an infinite complacency in each. But there is a 
 due, because rational, order in such complacency ; and 
 since we see clearly that " goodness " is the highest of all 
 qualities conceivable by us, an important consequence 
 follows. Let us endeavour to bring home to our minds 
 the fact that the existence of a countless multitude of 
 actions and interactions is rev^ealed to us in every depart- 
 ment of science. Let us consider the series of such in the 
 physical, chemical, and biological sciences, in the economical 
 and political progress of mankind, the manifestations of art 
 in all its branches, the struggles and migrations of tribes 
 and nations, and the rise and fall of states. Let us con- 
 template the physical possibilities of existences of different 
 kinds in the vast fields of interstellar space, receding from 
 us on all sides into unfathomable abysses and for incalcu- 
 lable ages, and then try to realize the thought that the 
 
4 
 
 God's exist- 
 ence anTl 
 creating 
 power. 
 
 <. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 ivine complacency in all such physical phenomena is as 
 nothing compared with that complacency with which He 
 regards one single act of man's free-will directed in harmony 
 with a moral perception, even though it be a mistaken one. 
 If, then, this reasoning is valid, the last and highest lesson 
 which nature (considered as a whole, i.e. as both rational 
 and sentient) teaches us, is that the great First Cause has 
 attributes of such a kind that the terms " power," " know- 
 ledge," " goodness," " purpose," and " will," are those least 
 . ^ inadequate to convey to our minds a practically true con- 
 ^/ ception and belief concerning them. Of suc h a Cause the 
 word " personality," in a similarly analogous sense, can 
 not on!)' be fitly used, but must be positively affirmed, 
 since not to affirm it is in fact ( i) to deny to the First 
 Cause the necessary adequacy for producing the effects we 
 see, and (2) to endeavour to degrade Him to an order of 
 existence lower than that of man himself In a word, then, 
 this objection of those who profess to object to all antlii:©- 
 ^omorphism only serves to bring out into more distinct 
 recognition the fact that we (and all we see around us) have 
 for our origin, our sustentation, and our end, one only Being 
 possessed of Personality in the highest conceivable degree 
 —God. 
 
 The next and last objection which it seems needful to 
 consider is that made to certain consequences attending a 
 belief in an act of creation, both as to the idea and as to 
 the mode in which it has, if at all, been effected. It is 
 affirmed (O^hat the conception of a past eternity when 
 God alone existed, is repugnant to the mind, and that 
 were creation conceived to have taken place, we should 
 thereby destroy our very idea of God, both by (2^ividing 
 His existence into that before and that after creation and 
 (^) Jjv limiting Him by the conception of a universe 
 existing in addition to Him. Lastly (Ahh is objected 
 that a slow process of formation, such as science exhibits 
 to us, is a process unworthy of the providence of God. 
 
 With respect to any repugnance which may be felt at 
 the idea of God existing for an eternity by Himself, our 
 utter impotence to conceive in the faintest way what He 
 is in His own Essence is enough to show that the objection 
 
 \ 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. -A^Sy^yy 
 
 \ [ i has nothing positive in it. Judging even by that remote 
 J i \ analogy through which we can, as we have seen, to a certain 
 I I \ extent know God, it is a trivial objection. For any man 
 \ \ living in the possession, to his utmost capacity, of what- 
 , ever was most desirable for him and whatever he could 
 himself desire, must have a perfect existence. But God 
 possesses, and must possess, this in and by His Own i; . 
 Eternal Being. The thought of God's existence by Him- j|| 
 self is necessarily accompanied by an imagination of a||| 
 " time " when nothing existed but God ; but such " time " 
 never was nor could be. There never was a time when 
 / God was thus in solitary Being, for time is, as we have 
 / seen,* _but_an abs^a(Qtisil_o£^r^ drawn^ {^P^V- 
 
 { succeeding tilings, and ti ll snr>| thinp^s were created ther&- 
 \ could have been no "time." 
 
 The same consideration will also serve to do away withj 
 the supposition that the idea of creation conflicts with ouH . .V 
 idea of God's nature, by dividing His unchanging, eternalU ' • 
 existence into two eternities, one before and one after! 
 creation. ThisjoiJ^t+t^n reposes upon a similar fallacy cSX- 
 the imaginatioji, — Iime^_being merely an abatractiQij ,from 
 created things which succeed one another, does^-aol^. and 
 cannot, apply to God, with whom there is no past or future, 
 I and two eternities are no more than one. We cannot, of 
 I course, think of the Divine duration without the presence 
 in the mind of a misleading image of succession ; but our 
 intellect can perceive, by^_ reflection, that such duration 
 signifies the most complete positive existence, accompanied 
 by an entire absence of all succession or change. The idea 
 of such an existence we can give expression to, and there- 
 fore, evidently, we can conceive of it, though, of course, we 
 can never imagine it. We can express it by a simultaneous 
 affirmation of existence and negation of change. 
 
 The next objcctioiLJi") n de_ ia.-lke..a.ssfirtk)ii ;,, God^_coii 1 dl 
 never have created the universe, for if He had He wouTdTT 
 thereby have ceased to be God, since God would then have 
 become limited by what He had^ Himself created. This 
 'objection also reposes on a misleading trick of the imagina- 
 tion, parallel to its misleading action with respect to 
 Sec above, p, 409. 
 
/486/^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ " time," which was at the root of the objection last noticed. 
 God's existence is not only uniniaginahle^JiUt.-^a,oiiltdy.^. 
 inconceivable to us, as it is. Nevertheless, our intellect 
 ■> can, by reflection, apprehend it to a certain extent, and 
 can to such extent express it. We can express it by a ' 
 simultaneous affirmation of ubiquity and negation of limi- | 
 tation. God's existence we can recognize as being absolute | 
 and necessary ; every other existence being necessarily ■ 
 relative and contingent. But these two orders of existence 
 are absolutely different, and one can infinitely less limit 
 the other than the quality of the paper on which_ajay,5i£ai^ 
 
 [scor e is printed can limit the resonance of the brass instru- 
 ments engaged in its performance. We have recently 
 spoken of the creations of art.* It is evident thal.thgUEoet 
 
 ,OTjyb£--SCulptQ.r_,.does_ not^ her.oni e_J i m i ted _,hyji j's crea tjon .'^, 
 
 or the more limited the more. they. are copied and repro- 
 
 diiceH^ All such considerations, however, are, of course, 
 
 uTt'efly unable to convey to our minds any adequate 
 
 otion of the absence from God of any approach to limita- 
 
 ion by the creatures He has produced. 
 
 The last objectign to be here noticed is that which has 
 been sometimes made to the process of creation, and is the 
 \y ^most trivial of all. It affirms that the slowness of the 
 /yM)rocess is unworthy of the Providence of God. It is truly 
 enough said that the evils of a temporary condition of things 
 do not cease to be evils because they gradually improve, and 
 improved conditions can be no good to beings which came 
 into existence before such ameliorations occurred — while 
 thg^gxa^s.^rows the steed starves. But this objection really 
 amounts to the implied assertion that God was bound to have 
 created, with absolute instantaneousness, what might seem 
 to us to be " the best of all possible worlds," since, if God 
 could be reasonably blamed for not acting in a way which 
 seems to us "quick" and "uninterrupted," He could be 
 blamed for any delay at all, however small. But we have V 
 already seen that pain and evil could not well be spared I 
 in a world which was to be the theatre of moral energies, I 4 
 and we have also recognized our utter inability to com- I 
 prehend the ultimate purpose of creation, which, in spite 
 * See above, p. 464. 
 
 from tardl 
 ness- '" 
 
y 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. ^'^1 // 
 
 of its apparent imperfections, may (as God sees it, and with 
 
 His ultimate aims, which are necessarily unfathomable by 
 
 us) be really a creation which in all its parts is constructed 
 
 as is truly best, and if so, then we may be no less sure that 
 
 i the rate of its progress is the rate which is also that which 
 
 \ is really best. If changes which are instantaneous or sudden 
 
 \ seem an adumbration of God's power, the secular evolu- 
 
 ition of the universe through unimaginable ages may equally 
 shadow forth His eternity. 
 
 Another question now demands consideration in termi-Lj/w^wrf 
 nating this review of difficulties. The objection to a course "/Am;//, 
 of events producing a gradual amelioration in the con- 
 ditions of life would be a valid objection if the generations 
 of men which pass away before such ameliorations arise,l 
 could not count upon abundant compensations in a futurel 
 life. That a belief in such a continued existence for human] 
 beings is demanded to vindicate God's goodness, has! 
 already been not only admitted, but asserted,* and our im- 
 mortality is really implied in our moral intuitions, which 
 "also coristitute one of our strongest arguments for the 
 ■Tieces^sity of God's existence. Our ethical perceptions are 
 as absolute and certain as any we have, and the very 
 existence of a moral law for us supposes the existence 
 also of some power on our parts of doing something in 
 /obedience thereto. Now, duty is a command which is 
 / supremely authoritative, without being arbitrary. It is 
 \ recognized by our intellect as being reasonable and worthy 
 of our respect and obedience. We see clearly that no 
 human ordinance can possibly dispense us from it. It 
 remains inviolable and immutable in itself, however much 
 it may be outraged or neglected. We see clearly that it is 
 at once both necessary and universal, and applicable to all 
 times as well as to all places. But this law which thus 
 I imposes itself on our intellect with the authority of an 
 eternal truth, and which commands our will with the most 
 supreme authority, and which no human act can change, 
 cann ot ha ve man for its origin or principle. , Supi"em ely 
 
 ^ reasonable itself, it supposes a supremely reasonableness; 
 abs olute fy good, it supposes an absolutcl}- good Cause ; 
 * See above, p. 471. 
 
488 /// ON TRUTH. 
 
 At: 
 
 ^invincible in its power of command, it supposes an in-^ 
 Vincible Cause. It supposes, then, a Cause which can be 
 
 Bi 
 
 no other than God^ supreme in power, wisdom, and good- 
 V J ness, wliose goodness does not-iiepend on Hi swill. but , is 
 ■ I of His es sence. God is a moral Being, or He is God only 
 "*" in name. 'A^iVfalebranche has well said,* " He who should 
 prefer that there should be no God, rather than a God who 
 pleased Himself by rendering eternally miserable those 
 who truly love order, reason, and justice, is a just man. 
 For a God who is capricious, unjust, or cruel, is not a 
 being to be loved, but a frightful spectre." 
 r. Thus these three truths (our moral freedom, the moral/ 1^ 
 
 ^ laAvJan3 the existence of a Divine First Cause) are con^J 
 '♦- nected together by thie closest and most solid bonds^] 
 They are also closely bound- up-.w-itk, a belief in our 
 con^iiued existence after death. Men, as moral agents, 
 are free, and arc also provided with an authoritative moral 
 code derived from the essential nature of an absolutely 
 good God ; its behests being shown to them in concrete 
 cases by their reason. Such agents must differ in cha- 
 racter according as they obey or disobey the code for 
 the observance of which they are (in most varied de- 
 grees) responsible. But every responsible person may 
 1 be called to account — has an account to give — concerning 
 that for which he is responsible. If he has acted well, he 
 must have acquired merit, and has a claim to approbation. 
 If he has acted ill, he must have acquired demerit, and 
 deserves disapprobation. The agent who has employed 
 his freedom in doing what is right has manifestly gained in 
 value, in dignity, and in excellence ; and he who has done 
 the reverse has manifestly lost in value, dignity, and excel- 
 lence. Now, justice demands that each man should be 
 treated exactly according to his deserts — that happiness 
 should, at least ultimately, attend on virtue, and unhappi- 
 ness on vice. The practice of virtue often necessitates 
 cruel sacrifices ; yet justice imperatively demands that 
 Ji5.ppi-H€ss-should iiot be finally divorced from virtue. Hence 
 ^ follows^he moraJ[^jie(^si^ty_for j.is_ future ex is teiice^. 
 
 ■^ since perfect justice is not accorded to men in the presenti 
 
 * See also Mill, as quoted above, p. 246. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 489 
 
 life. As John Stuart Mill has said * with respect to this 
 matter, and referring to an ideal world where justice was 
 accurately carried out, " No one is able to blind himself 
 to the fact that the world we live in is totally different 
 from this." 
 
 Ancient literature, sacred and profane, teems with pro- 
 tests against the successful evil-doer, and history affords 
 .a multitude of instances of the imperfect distribution of 
 I justice here, although roughly and on the whole honesty 
 is no doubt the best policy. Let it be granted that Louis 
 the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the faults 
 attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians ; 
 let all the excuses possible be made for Louis the Fifteenth 
 and Madame de Pompadour — will any one affirm that the 
 vices of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter 
 that their respective fates were according to their respective j 
 merits and demerits .^ What, also, could be said with re- | 
 spect to Louis the Sixteenth's unfortunate son, who perished 
 so miserably in his afflicted childhood .'' 
 
 Jt_ is duty which should rule our present life ; but that 
 very duty gives rise to hope — the hope of a future life 
 where justice will be fully satisfied, and, together with jus- 
 tice, the deepest and most vivid aspirations of our better 
 nature. At the same time it gives us to understand that 
 the only recompense worthy of virtue is the possession 
 of what is most truly good, just as the only punishment 
 worthy of vice is the loss of that same good. But who 
 can fulfil that expectation of the enlightened conscience 
 or discern our true merits and demerits, but an infallible 
 iudee of conscience, one who has boundless wisdom, and who 
 is both absolutely just and irresistible in powder? It must | 
 be He whose possession can be for the soul its supreme 
 good, and whose loss must therefore be its supreme ill. 
 [t must be a First Cause who, being the Author of human, 
 nature, alone absolutely understands it. It must be God, I 
 the supreme legislator, judge, rewarder, and chastiser. ^ 
 
 Tiie-^nTth'thatijod exists is thus evideut_tQ \vhoever 
 really. -uad^rstands the Tdea' ofyduty, and will be the more 
 evident the more that idea, together with the circumstances 
 
 * In his " Three Essays on Religion," and edit., 1S74, p. 3S. 
 
490 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 of human life, arc understood. It is the very fundamental 
 truth of the whole moral order, the one which sustains 
 ?■ all the others, while they in turn serve to make clear to 
 ^ us the existence of the great truth which supports them. 
 Our perception of our own freedom and of the moral law 
 indicate to us their own foundation and the principle of 
 their being — God ; and these together demand a recogni- 
 tion of the fact that death, whiphputs. ^n. .eftd^^^to^pur 
 apparent existence, is riot really a temiination to our ,con-_^ 
 scijQus_being. We have already seen * that the nature of 
 our intelligence, which is capable of reflecting on itself, and 
 can unite past, present, and future in one thought, and 
 can intervene in the chain of physical causation by its 
 free volition, affords a reason for concluding that, as a 
 simple substance, it will persist and survive. Considera- 
 tions of justice and the proofs of the existence of God, 
 complete the proof of the soul's immortality, and there are 
 no serious reasons whatever against its possible survival. 
 The last refinements of physical science do not add one iota 
 I to the arguments urged of old against our immortality. 
 /It was known centuries ago that " whjSH-llie brain was out 
 / _the man would die ^nd there ajruead,.'.' as regards the life 
 in the body ; and we absolutely know no more now. We 
 cannot iina-gine \}i\& soul's existeuce after death, but im- 
 agi nation is not_j;eason ; and our inability to picture a 
 
 thing to the mind is no reason whatever for our not be- 
 lieving anything which positive arguments render credible. 
 Because acts of intellect as we experience them, will cease 
 at death, it does not follow that they will not persist in any 
 form at all. We have thus no real argument whatever 
 against a belief which has evidence in its favour so strong, 
 that to disbelieve it logically involves a disbelief in God, 
 free-will, and morality, and thus involves absolute scepticism 
 andLxgmplete intellectual paralysis, which those who deny 
 It only escape tKrouglV a voluntary or involuntary neglect 
 to follow out principles to their rational and ultimate con- 
 clusions. 
 
 That the fact of the soul's immortality is not more 
 obtrusively evident is of enormous advantage to morality 
 
 See above, p. 3S7. 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 (^/yy 
 
 I m; 
 
 and to us men. If, instead of dwelling in what may be 
 termed an intellectual twilight, it was as evident to us 
 as are the faces of our friends, generous devotion and all 
 self-denial would be almost impossible to us on account 
 of the certainty we should have about future rewards and 
 punishments. The same consideration applies also to our 
 practical apprehension of God's existence. If His Being 
 and Majesty could not be ignored by us, the most selfish 
 motives would conspire with better ones to prompt us to 
 actions materially virtuous but sadly deficient in formal 
 goodness. Only by ignorance in these respects can we 
 become worthy to participate in the greatest good. 
 
 God has been more gracious and merciful to us than to iQ 
 make the evidence of His existence so plain that its non-re- \Ty^ 
 cognition is a mark of intellectual incapacity. Certain and 
 irr^fjjj;able as are the proofs of His Being, yet conviction 
 on the subject is not actually forced upon men as is the 
 conviction of the existence of the sun at noonday. Go^ 
 |win not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of aiiy. 
 man's crucible, and He is too benevolent to yield Himself 
 to the experiments of ill-intentioned or irreverent inquirers, 
 who would only draw down additional misery on them- 
 selves by a revelation which they were permitted to extort 
 at will, without any regard to their state of preparedness 
 for its reception. 
 
 It may be well now briefly to relate the conclusion at Recantuia' 
 which, in this chapter, we seem so far to have arrived. TT^ 
 
 The universe, with its complex constitution, not con- WW 
 taining w^ithin itself a sufficient reason for its existence -^ 
 (which cannot be the result of selection), demands a distinct 
 external most pote nt First Cause, and one acfequate to~ 
 produce all the ett'ects which we know to exist, and there- 
 fore itself possessing intelligence, goodness, and volition. 
 From a consideration of the powers of the human soul, 
 combined with the conditions of human life and the exist- 
 ence of a Divine First Cause, reasons have been advanced 
 1 to show that death cannot be held to terminate our exist- 
 ence — that the mortality of the body does not terminate the 
 life of a soul possessing reflective, conscious intelligence 
 and free-will. But we sec about us a multitude of livinsj 
 
causes 
 
 ^92/y/ ON TRUTH. 
 
 organic bodies (animals) which are devoid of such an intel- 
 ligence, while in ourselves we know bodies which possess , 
 this intelligence. From the conviction that a future life | 
 attends us after the death of the body, there follows a j 
 necessary conviction that conscious intelligence can exist ! 
 without bodies, and therefore, since we know there are such * 
 multitudes of living bodies which never had a conscious 
 intelligence, we must admit it to be possible that there may 
 be multitudes of intelligences which never had a body. 
 &'I^[ / The existence of a First Cause having amongst its attri- 
 
 ^ butes a power, intelligence, goodness, and volition, such as \ \ 
 
 ^ find their faint and inadequate types in our own faculties, i| 
 
 y necessarily involves a second kind of causation. It must, as | U 
 
 '^wiiyj h ave an intensity of purpose such that no human 
 
 purpose can be comgarable with it. Hence follows the 
 
 second kind of causation referred to, n amply, ilnnlrmi'^n^inii 
 
 (/An examination into iiual cau.iSS- may supply us with the 
 last answer possible to the initial question of this chapter 
 — " "^Jiy things a re ? " Such a causation and the existence 
 of an end and purpose in the Divine mind have been neces- 
 sarily adverted to already — especially in our consideration 
 of the objection which has been made to theism on the 
 ground of the evils which exist everywhere in irrational 
 nature and in human life. Our task now must be to seek ^ J 
 out, in the first place, indications of final causation in the T| 
 phenomena of the material universe itself Subsequent! 
 we must consider how far we may venture to affirm and 
 define the purposes of the Creator on the strength of prin- 
 ciples intuitively seen, and evident to that human intellect 
 which (as possessed of the knowledge of some universal 
 and necessary truths) declares itself to have been made a 
 partaker, in however remote and fragmentary a degree, in 
 the light of that Divine Intelligence it has been formed 
 obscurely to reflect. 
 
 Turning our eyes once more downward upon oaJUwe, it 
 is impossible to refuse to recognize the fact that it is.Jpepiete 
 wjth. ftHj- i po se. In the world of organic life each organism 
 lainly declares that its individual existence is directed to 
 an end, or rather to ends ; one being limited to the purposes 
 of its own existence, the other extending to ends beyond 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 (^j^/X 
 
 itself. An or ganism is (as before said) a living whole, theparts-^ 
 of which are each reciprocally ends and means, and all are L.,^ 
 means to the conservation of that whole. In our survey ; 
 of tlie"' structures and activities of animals and plants, 
 some examples have been given of complex, correlated 
 structures working harmoniously in the performance of 
 functions which prepare the way for future conditions. 
 The_vv;hole organism is instinct ivil±L.arLimmanent finality 
 and teleology not fts own, which penetrates and regulates 
 the inmost recesses of the p arejichyma of its struc ture. 
 
 nly every syste'm oTbrgans and every organ, but every ce 
 and the constituent parts of every cell, in fulfilling the evolu- 
 tion of its own being and perfection, contributes its quota 
 to the predetermined perfection of the one organic whole. 
 We have seen also that every organism bears essential 
 relations both to the past and to the future, its whole exist- 
 ence being made up of a series of modifications tending to 
 the completion of a cycle of changes. The phenomena 
 which attend the development of the adult from the germ, 
 most plainly announce their teleological character. As? 
 Claude Bernard has said, m. every living germ there is a 
 directing idea which develops and manifests itself in and: ./Y 
 by that germ's gradual organization. But the phenomena'^ 
 of instinct are perhaps the most noteworthy of all, and 
 these will be shown in the next chapter to be quite inex- 
 plicable by accidental variations, naturally selected. 
 / Many of the more noteworthy instincts lead us from 
 manifestations of purpose directed to the maintenance of 
 the individual, to no less plain manifestations of a purpose 
 ' directed to the preservation of the race. But a careful 
 study of the interrelations and interdependencics which A/Ci 
 exist between the \arious "Orders' oPcretltttres inhabiting 
 this planet, shows us a yet more noteworthy teleology — the ""^ 
 mexistence of whole orders of such creatures being directed 
 Ito the service of other orders in various degrees of sub- 
 ordination and augmentation respectively. This study HUrairchv 
 reveals to us, as a fact, the enchainment of all the various ^^'" * 
 orders of creatures in a hierarchy of activities, in harmony 
 with what we might expect to find in a world the outcome 
 of a First Cause possessed of intelligence and will, since it 
 
^94 
 
 j^/ 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 A 
 
 
 exhibits, at the same time, both " continuity " and " purpose." 
 It shows us, indeed, that a successively increasing fulElmeat 
 of " purpose " runs through the irrational creation up to 
 man. And thus the stud^^; of final causes reveals to us how. 
 ■i^y great is our mgmljand consequently our responsibility^ 
 
 Geology'and paleontology show us that a great process 
 of evolution has taken place in the past and is taking place 
 now. In examining the creatures around us we see varying 
 degrees of perfection expressed by the terms " organic " and 
 " inorganic," " animal " and *' vegetable existence." Science 
 gives us good grounds for believing that before the world 
 was the theatre of organic life-processes, it had existed as 
 an inorganic mass of highly complex materials, each with 
 its special properties, and that animal life (at least, in all 
 ■ but its lowest forms) was preceded in existence by the 
 kingdom of plants. Certainly we may affirm that all these 
 forms of life — the merely inorganic, the vital, and the 
 sentient — existed for untold ages before the introduction 
 into the world of the self-conscious life of man. 
 i The inorganic world long existed, and could so have 
 jpersisted indefinitely. It had, and has, no need of living 
 I organisms for its being. The_y£g£iaJbLl£L.world, which feeds 
 I upon inorganic matter, could not exist unless that had 
 preceded it, but might for untold ages, or for ever, have 
 lived and flourished, nourished but by showers and breezes, 
 fertilized but by the wind, with no hum of insects about 
 its inconspicuous flowers, and with no songsters amidst its 
 groves. 
 
 The. anjiiial^world^^ necessitated ever, directly or in- 
 
 ' ■"Erectly, to feed upon the vegetable world, could not exist 
 
 without the earth's green, vital, but insentient vesture ; yet 
 
 might for untold ages, or for ever, have lived undominated 
 
 by the hunter, and with no experience of domestication or 
 
 any other form of servitude. 
 
 _,,.^ Maa, though capable of sustaining life on vegetable 
 
 J food alone, could never have attained his high civilization 
 
 "^i^l without the aid of his dogs and horses, his flocks and herds. 
 
 \The animal world has been necessary to him, as he is. 
 
 Thus an increase of service and a consequently in- 
 creased dependence are manifest as we ascend through 
 
 <^ 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. f 495 
 
 y/ 
 
 these degrees of existence. Cosmical entities and their 
 
 I laws serve organic being more than inorganic, sentient 
 
 I being more than insentient, rational being more than 
 
 I sentient. Therefore, as theists, we are logically compelled 
 
 to affirm that God has evidently willed most service to 
 
 man of all His earthly creatures. Thus also, as we have 
 
 ^just said, 'a successively increasing purpose runs thrQ,ugJi 
 
 : _^the irrational creation up to man. 'AH the lower creatures 
 
 Tiave ministered to him, andhave, as a fact, prepared the 
 
 way for his existence. Therefore, whatever ends they also 
 
 serve, they exist especially for him. 
 
 And what is the end of human life ? What final cause |z 
 may we assign to the existence"©? a universe of \vTiich manj 
 form s a part ? ln"Ihe~^rst pTaceTwTiat is the end which 
 natureTBy^our intellectual intuitions, reveals to us as our yA/i}% 
 proper aim ? The rational aim and end of life is that __^ 
 which should be its end, i.e. which ought to be its end ; and "^ 
 
 "ought" is meaningless without the conception of duty. , 
 The end of human life, then, is the exercise of will accord- If 
 ing to the dictates of right reason. 
 
 When we consider the facts of human historical pro- 
 gress, we see that it has been a progress from direct and 
 simple apprehensions, to more and more reflex, self-con- 
 scious and complex comprehensions — the development of 
 the race repeating that of the individual. The course of 
 human existence, then, has been and is a course tending 
 to afford a constantly increasing field for more and more 
 intelligent and deliberate right volitions, performed by 
 individuals presenting the greatest variety of increasing 
 individual excellencies, and grouped in aggregations tend- 
 ing to manifest higher and higher degrees of beauty, truth, 
 and goodness. When, then, in the unfathomable abyss of 
 past time, the first film of protoplasmic matt er appeared in 
 I the hot mud of some primeval pool, and when the most 
 ^ndifferentiated-att4-Jiascent organisms_first moved on the 
 waters of some dismal silent morass, preparing Tlie Tvay for 
 the earliest fungoid or ajgoid existence, one true end of 
 existence for such lowly forms of incipient life, was the ful- 
 filment of the moral law — a fulfilment to be brought about 
 after what seems an eternity to the imagination, but which 
 
W// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 i 
 reason cannot doubt to have been but in its due time and! 
 
 season. ' 
 
 When we recall to mind what reasons we have for the 
 
 conviction that this life is not our final life, yet-aaethet 
 
 |J(^ LxeasiiiLappears why God has made a world which He has 
 
 ' so ordered as to serve us above all other creatures. This \\ \ 
 ^reason_Js that the world should serve as a probationary «| 
 
 |theatre for the activities of immortal human souls. 
 
 ^ Goodness being our supreme law and our Highest aim, 
 it is impossible to doubt but that goodness has been also 
 the aim of that First Cause in whose image we are made. 
 But we have already seen * that there may possibly be 
 other ends and purposes utterly inscrutable to us. As to 
 such ends it is useless to speculate, especially as we may 
 rest perfectly contented in the assurance that no such ends 
 can reaUy conflict with goodness. But even to our mental 
 vision there are other ends which are dimly conceivable. 
 They are distinct from that end set before us by our ethical 
 intuitions, but though distinct from, they harmonize with, 
 those intuitions — especially the last of those which will be 
 next adverted to. 
 
 Since all which exists comes from and is sustained by 
 God, as everything is, so to speak, the work of His hands, 
 
 lit is also, so to speak, the outcome of His intelligence. We 
 
 'recognize in the multitudinous forms of organic and inor- 
 ganic nature, objective existences which give rise in us to 
 ideal conceptions whereby we may imperfectly comprehend 
 or apprehend them. Sidereal relations, orbital paths, secular 
 refrigerations, depositions of strata, cleavage and metamor- ; 
 phism, physical forces, chemical transformations, afford I 
 mental food for many minds which find a special happiness | 
 in their study and contemplation. Other persons take more 
 delight in the organic world, and species, families, orders, ■ 
 and classes are for them ideal conceptions full of interest 
 for their minds ; but species, genera, etc., have (as have the 
 previously referred to conceptions) another ideal existence 
 also. Every theist must admit that the intellect of God 
 contains all that exists in the human mind, and infinitely 
 more. It is therefore a simple truism to say that human 
 
 * See above, p. 474. 
 
a 
 
 A FIRST CAUSE. (49 Tv^ 
 
 general conceptions, gathered from nature, must be ideas 
 
 in the Divine Intellect also — such human conceptions being. /V^ 
 
 . but faint and obscure aduiiibrations of corresponding ideas ^ 
 
 which must exist in their perfection and fulness in the 
 
 ""fiTmd of God. But our ideas are ideas derived from 
 material things, while the Divine ideas are ideas whence 
 material things have been themselves derived. Human 
 ideas are true in so far as they correspond with really exist- 
 ing things external to the human mind. But really existing 
 things are themselves " true " in so far as they correspond 
 with the eternal, archetypal, or^rotpiypalideas of God which 
 are their sxeui^larcause. Thus, all the facts of nature, from 
 inorganic substances and the lowest vege tal and animal 
 forms up to the most complex organizations of human 
 society, have a reason for their existence in that they are 
 ex terna l rnanifestations and embodiments of Divine ideas, 
 and therefore objects of complacent regard to that DTvfne 
 Bering who is tlicir source and life. There may be, as wcj 
 
 Tiave just recalled to the reader's mind, also other ends and 
 aims known to God but hidden from us, as different from 
 what we have known as truth, beauty, and goodness, as 
 these are from mechanical motion or chemical affinity. 
 We ca.n but, recpg^nize__this possibility in silent awe. All 
 speculation is useless, though we may recognize with 
 certainty that such ends cannot contradict the rule of right, 
 or right would cease to be that which it is seen "Gy^^lr 
 intellect evidently to be. We may, however, before con- 
 cluding, venture to ask whether there is not o ne more aim 
 
 . flj^'-'ftbic^iit ■^l!^^lX! £?"^^P-^-^ ^ ^° "^ ^^ ^ relation between 
 God and His creation apart from our supreme rule of right. 
 God has gradually revealed to man, man's own dignity. 
 Savages hold their liumanity in low esteem, and many of 
 them, like some modern sophists, deem the brutes nearly 
 or quite as good as themselves, or even as more highly 
 gifted and meriting worship. It is a question whether ^\ 
 the irrational gods of Egypt were not originally, or for a ••'I 
 time, much more than symbols. Even Greece and Rome 
 had far less perception of man's dignity than arose in 
 subsequent ages. Modern philosophy (which, as we have 
 seen, brings home to us the altogether distinctive nature 
 
 2 K 
 
9; 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 of our powers of intellect and will, compared with the 
 A powers of all other organisms) enables us more perfectly 
 lif/ than ever before to recognize our dignity and responsibility,. 
 ■<^. while more and more increasiing't1ie~perception of our utter 
 n o th 1 n gn esjUcaiaapajcfi^J^^^ryi God. At the very same time 
 iF^sIiows us how true, though remote, is the analogy be- 
 tween that relat ive nothingness of ours and God Himself 
 Animated with this reflection, we may look within and ven- 
 ture to apprehend yet another cause and motive — another 
 reason " why " — for the existence of the world through 
 
 i God's creative action. It is a conception which seems to 
 bring to us a ray from God's essence more profound in 
 its source than even the conception of " right." Whatjs^ 
 that energy in ourselves which makes actual all that is 
 
 " no'Blest, most self-sacrificing, most tender, yet most energetic 
 and unflinching ? What is it which attracts the will towards 
 all that is moir beautiful in nature and in art, all that is 
 most admirable in character and conduct ? It is that 
 which_is.^xp.ressed by the sweetest yet sublimest^'or'airj 
 wwdSj,.^£.jifcQr.d>> wJiLdi . denotes energy in its highest and 
 £ure§t-Xorm conceivable by us, namely, " lox^e." It is the 
 " love " whence all love proceeds; which is at once the 
 source as it is the only absolutely fitting object of a love 
 without limits on the part of man ; which seems to us to 
 be— though perhaps not the absolutely highest — the highest 
 Divine motive conceivable by us, and, as such, the ultimate 
 reason or "why" of creation, so far as motives and purposes 
 of the Divine First Cause are perceptible to us by meansj 
 of those certain and evident intuitions through which He| 
 has deigned to illuminate the humauaatellect. 
 
 Thus the study of nature in all its forms, inorganic, 
 organic, and rational, is shown by scie»cCr-Q£ the...sii idv of 
 causes, to clearly point to a great First Cause not only 
 adequate to the production of all that It has caused, but 
 inconceivably exceeding all our powers of thought as well 
 as of imagination. Interesting as are the studies of the 
 zoologist, the physiologist, the geographer, the geologist, 
 
 i the astronomer, and the psychologist, they are most inter- 
 esting to theman of sciQwce J)ar excellettce, that is, the 
 philosopher. The true philosopher will never rest satisfied 
 
 t 
 
 ^^ 
 
A FIRST CAUSE. (A^2j^ 
 
 O. 
 
 with a knowledge of the coexistences and sequences of 
 phenomena, but will ever seek to obtain what glimpses he 
 can of all degrees and orders of causation. Only at last 
 will he rest satisfied, when, having traced as far as he may 
 the series of secondary causes, he is able confidently to 
 refer them to the evident though hidden action of the 
 jP-reat Ai^^hor of nature. Reason exhibits to us the whole 
 
 cosmos as proceeding from Him, and only when the study 
 of His creatures ends by leading the student back to Him 
 from whom they proceeded, can that study be said to be 
 " rational " in the highest sense of that word. Then only 
 is it truly worthy of that admirable human intellect which 
 sees in the concordance between subjective reason and the 
 rational laws of the objective universe, evidence that the 
 human intellect itself bears a real analogy to, and has been 
 created in the likeness of the intellect of God. 
 
 Having thus completed such an examination as we 
 have been able to make of the Cause and reasons for the 
 existence of the universe, we must next proceed to study 
 the mode and process by which the creation has been 
 develo ped. or,£yolve d. to that degree oi harmony and per- 
 t^CTfofl witli which it offers itself to our investigations now. 
 Having _j£QOsidered zvhat things are and zv/iy they are, vje^ 
 must next examine /loiv they have become what th 
 now ar^i*<^ 
 
500 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 -^ CHAPTER XXVII. ^ 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 The analog)' of individual development points to the evolution of 
 species according to definite, preordained laws. The ev olution 
 of the world has been brought about by the interaction of im- 
 ~material principles, in accordance with. Divine appointment, Tor 7 
 an _end beyond itself and in relation to the moral powers of v 
 m anki n d, "^ ' *'"'"""~" "^ 
 
 Meaning 
 the "word. 
 
 ^. 
 
 Meaning of the word — Ontogeny and phyllogeny — A familiar example 
 of ontogeny — Other processes — Explanatory cosmical hypotheses — 
 Psychogenesis of the individual — Phyllogenetic hypotheses — Here- 
 dity and environment — Action of natitral selectioti — Independent 
 origin of similar structures — Psychogenesis of species — Origin of 
 man — Co7iclusion as to evolution — Religion and philosophy. 
 
 We may now, in conclusion, consider the question, " How- 
 things have become what they are ; " * but it has been 
 already recognized t that the physical sciences show the 
 of process to have been a gradual one. The word " evolution " 
 . has been employed in various senses, but is now gene- 
 rally used to denote that process by which the universe in 
 general, and our world with its inhabitants in particular, 
 are supposed to have grown to be such as now they are. 
 Amongst the facts which point in that direction are, the 
 intimate connection which exists between the physical 
 forces and also the similarity in the chemical composition 
 of cosmical bodies.^ 
 
 It is very generally believed that the earth, with its 
 moon and the whole solar system, have been gradually 
 formed either in a manner more or less similar to what 
 
 * See above, p. 384. t See above, p. 494. J See above, p. 301. 
 
EVOLUTION. 501 
 
 we have noticed as the nebular theory,* or by some other 
 operation of ordinary physical laws. The general harmony 
 in the movements of our planetary system seem to indicate 
 this.t The world having assumed the form of a separate 
 planet, is further supposed to have gradually cooled, till at 
 last agu,eQ,U§_,.Ya£Oiitj:ould become water, and till the various 
 seas, oceans, and rivers, with their waves and currents, could 
 begin their eroding and.xedefiflisiiia^ action, after which 
 with further cooling and various atmospheric changes, the 
 earth became a possible dwelling-place for organic life. 
 The slow evolution of the present state of our globe is 
 show by its successive strata.| Although every experi- 
 ment which has been made to originate life from non- 
 living matter — even though organic matter — has utterly 
 failed, § yet it is very generally assumed (and with probable 
 truth) that in some early physical condition of the world, 
 which has not yet been reproduced by experiment, living 
 organisms did spontaneously come into being. The uni- 
 formity of nature || compels us to believe, if life ever arose 
 spontaneously through the formation of certain non-living 
 compounds under certain primordial conditions, and if such 
 compounds are formed by us hereafter under conditions suffi- 
 ciently similar to such primordial conditions, that then life 
 will again spontaneously appear. The hypothesis of spon- 
 taneous generation is slightly favoured by the fact that a 
 inumber of highly complex substances are now produced 
 [in our laboratories, which substances long resisted all our 
 ^attempts at their artificial production, and were therefore 
 supposed to be the products of living beings only. Such 
 substances are e.g. lactic acid, indigo, ..alcohol, and urea. . 
 THeT cTose~'c6'rinecttorf bet«'een the living and non-living 
 worlds is shown by the process of osmosis, and the presence 
 of crystalloids and colloids ^[ in both, and the instability 
 of their nitrogenous compounds.** 
 
 If we may conclude that in some earlier stage of the 
 earth's history living creatures appeared spontaneously, we 
 may also conclude that such creatures must have been 
 
 * See above, p. 404. + See above, p. 301. J See p. 310. 
 § See above, p. 330. || See above, p. 65. f See pp. 159, 305. 
 ** See pp. 306 and 325. 
 
 ,* 
 
502 ON TRUTH. 
 
 of the simplest kinds. Such earliest organisms are often 
 supposed not to have possessed the power of reproduction, 
 and to have been therefore but imperfect, transitory organ- 
 isms, which subsequently came to multiply by segmenta- 
 |ion, and ultimately gave rise to creatures endowed with 
 a tendency to perform a cycle of changes with true gene- ' 
 ration. It is certainly true that while the earth's early 
 condition favoured (if so it did) the spontaneous evolution 
 of life, such earliest beings had no need of reproductive I 
 power beyond that implanted in the non-living matter | 
 whence they sprung. If, however, they were thus defec- 
 tive, it is plain that with the fading away of the terrestrial 
 conditions favourable to the spontaneous production of life, 
 either new forms must have arisen possessing reproductive 
 capacity, or life must have come entirely to an end. The 
 earliest complete organisms having been once evolved, they 
 continued to be succeeded by living creatures, most, if not 
 all of which were of increasing complexity of structure 
 and possessing more and more varied powers. We have 
 abundant evidence * that new species of animals and plants 
 
 (have from time to time arisen on the surface of this planet, 
 and we have already noted some off the leading modifi- 
 ' cations of form and function which the different division 
 Ontogeny \of the vcgctal and animal kingdoms present. Amongst the 
 geny. Jluuctions ot orgauisms, we have considered that oi repro- 
 
 duction, and we have recognized the fact that each animal 
 and plant goes through a special series of changes of form 
 from its first condition as a fertilized germ till it attains 
 maturity. This process of change is called jthe " deveLo£^ 
 ment " andJ-'-e-volution " of " the individual " % or " ontogeny .^ 
 Until the middle of this century it was generally supposed 1 
 that each kind of animal and plant had a distinct and 
 sudden origin, each kind being independent of every other 
 at its first creation. Now, however, it has come to be 
 mostly believed by naturalists that new species — new 
 ki)ids of animals and plants — have from time to time 
 arisen from antecedent kinds, which were different, by a 
 
 * See above, pp. 368, 369. 
 
 + See above, ch. xxi. 
 
 + See above, pp. 171, 173, and pp. 339, 340. 
 
EVOLUTION. 503 
 
 process of natural generation. This process is also a pro- ! 
 cess of development or evolution, and such change is \ 
 called thai' evolution of species," or " phyllogeny." That 
 all kinds of animals and plants have been evolved, and ^ ^ 
 have some, however remote, genetic connection, is indicated ' ^ ^ 
 by the general similarity of their chemical composition,* and "" 
 
 the common properties of protoplasm.f It is also indi- 
 cated by the gradual development of higher forms of life, 
 as evidenced by fossils, J and by the affinity which exists 
 between the organisms inhabiting the earth's six zoological 
 r egio ns now§ and those of tertiary times, which may have 
 beentTTe"" ancestors of the former. The existence of such 
 genetic affinity is further confirmed by the resemblance 
 which obtains between the embryos of higher animals and 
 the adults of inferior species. || Again, rudimentary struc- 
 tures IT seem to point to the descent of creatures possessing 
 them from others in which such structures were of func- 
 tional importance. The way in which animals are classi- 
 fied ** also lends itself to the construction of hypothetical 
 genealogical trees. The increasing complexity we find in 
 active power, as we ascend from the Protozoa to Mam- 
 mals, again points to descent with modifications. That the 
 body of man himself has similar genetic relations, seems 
 indicated by the fact that amongst the last animals to 
 appear upon the scene, are man and apes ; jf by his em- 
 bryonic condition as regards the notochord, %% the visceral 
 clefts and arches,§§ the great blood-vessels |||| and the 
 heart,1[1[ the brain *** and the lanugo.ftt His structural 
 affinity to the apes is shown not only by his adult 
 anatomy, but by his exceptional embryonic resemblance 
 to them,n+ even as regards the great toe of the infant.§§§ 
 And the same may be said with respect to various functional 
 characters.il JIJI 
 
 iAU these seem to indicate that the living inhabitants 
 of our globe have become what we see them to be now, by 
 
 * See p. 303. t See p. 325. \ See pp. 313, 368. 
 
 § See p. 369. II See p. 340. 
 
 11 See pp. 151, 317, and below, p. 477. ** See p. 315. 
 
 tt See p. 369. XX See pp. 173, 317. §§ See pp. 173, 339. 
 
 nil See pp. 172, 339. 11 See p. 172. *** .See p. 340. 
 
 ttt See pp. 173, 340. XXX See p. 340. §§§ See p. 173. |||||| See p. 341. 
 
6?- 
 
 >/ ON TRUTH. 
 
 some process of gradual evolution which includes genetic 
 affinity, 
 Ajamiiiar We mav, perhaps, best begin our investigration of 
 
 exajttple of \ y ' jr i ) s> t> 
 
 ontogeny, i evolution, botli spccific and individual, by considering a 
 
 1 simple__and familiar_jnst-a4^-c€-xi£_t he proc ess of ontogeny. 
 
 yThe new-laid egg contains, as every housewife knows, 
 
 . /a iemifluid, seemingly lifeless mass of two more or less 
 
 Ijl I homogeneous substances (tlie white and the yelk), and no 
 
 V V/? ^^o^'S- Yet let such an &%^ be submitted for a time to 
 
 ' ', certain definite physical conditions — such as a due supply 
 
 . of air, a certain amount of moisture, a certain degree of 
 
 \heat, etc. — and gradually that apparently passive mass of 
 
 Jsemifluid matter takes on an organic form. After a certain 
 
 ■formation of superficial layers, and certain infoldings and 
 
 swellings of a minute portion of its surface, a heart appears, 
 
 and blood is formed and circulates. Gradually body and 
 
 limbs, with all their organs, become defined, and ultimately 
 
 i' a living chicken, clothed with downy feathers, chips the 
 shell, comes forth, walks about, and quickly manifests the 
 sharpness of its senses by pecking at grains or other small 
 ^ objects which it may find in its vicinity. The hatching 
 
 of eggs being an everyday matter, our very familiarity 
 with it tends to blind our eyes to its many marvels. Really, 
 however, the process is a very wonderful one. The more 
 it is pondered over and studied, the more wonderful it will 
 be seen to be ; and the most recent labours of biologists, 
 who have made great progress in investigating such pro- 
 cesses, have supplied us with additional motives for wonder 
 and admiration. 
 
 Almost all living creatures, whether plants or animals, 
 attain their adult condition by going through some essen- 
 tially similar process * — some process of individual evolu- 
 tion. The process is sometimes a very short, rapid, and 
 uninterrupted one ; sometimes it is a very long process, 
 which appears to be interrupted at certain stages, as in the 
 evolution of the butterfly from the tg%, in which the grub 
 and chrysalis stages of existence last long enough to seem 
 to be interruptions in what is really a continuous series 
 of changes. 
 
 * See above, p. 339. 
 
EVOLUTION. 505 
 
 '^Evolution " should, according to its etymology, mean a-. 
 a process of unfolding, such as we see in the expansion tX 
 of a bud, whereby its minute, close-packed leaves become 
 by degrees freely expanded. But evidently no minute 
 organs exist folded up in the glairy fluid of the new-laid 
 ^g^\ and microscopic examination, instead of revealing 
 any such enfolded rudiments, actually demonstrates their 
 non-existence. It is none the less certain that they are 
 not introduced from without. The gases of the atmosphere . 
 and its watery vapour find their way in through the pores 
 of the egg-shell ; but such matters, together with the phy- 
 sical influence of heat, are obviously quite insufficient to 
 explain the formation of the blood, the heart, the eyes, 
 the limbs, etc. It is evident that there must be something 
 which no microscope can detect, present in the normal new- 
 laid tg^, which something is the real cause of the appear- 
 ance of the different organs. This is demonstrated for us 
 'by the fact that if an unimpregnated Q.gg, or one which has 
 been allowed to die, be submitted to all those external con- 
 ditions and processes which suffice to hatch a live impreg- 
 nated 0.^0^ no chicken will ever be produced in either case. 
 
 The process of individual evolution or unfolding must, 
 therefore, be a process of the gradual development of 
 organs which pre-existed only in the sense that the living 
 ^g'g was endowed with an invisible, intangible, immaterial, 
 internal force or power, capable of producing them all on 
 the occurrence of the requisite external conditions. 
 
 Maturity once attained, the wonderful process of gene- other firo- 
 ration ensues — a process in some respects the reverse 
 of ontogeny. The parent form develops, from a portion 
 of its substance, detachable organic matter (the sexual 
 elements), with an intermediate, subordinate, temporary 
 life of its own. It is a form of life plainly inferior to that 
 of the parent, unable by itself to propagate its kind, and 
 only capable by junction with another complementary 
 body, similarly possessing a temporary life, to give rise to 
 an organism like that from which it sprang. Still more 
 contrasted with ontogeny are the post-mortem changes of 
 the dead body. As we have already seen,* it becomes 
 
 * See above, pp. 438, 439. 
 
 cesses. 
 
oUfj 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 transformed into various distinct substances and such 
 substances may either be restored as food to the hving 
 organic world or dissipated into those ultimate substances 
 which chemistry is as yet compelled to regard as " ele- 
 ments." 
 
 Before we consider the relations which may exist 
 
 between these changes and any external conditions, it may 
 
 be well to examine with what theory of the composition 
 
 of the universe they will best harmonize. 
 
 Expiana- ...With respcct both to the doctri-fte. _that the universe 
 
 tory cosmicaX~ ■ . , /- ,, ..... ', • i .1 
 
 hypotheses. ? consists Only 01 matter with mtrmsic motion, and the 
 
 A I doctrine that it consists of some unimaginable constituent, 
 
 ^ly? Jwhich is neither matter nor force, but of which exten- 
 
 \^///|sion and energy are modes or attributes, it has already 
 
 ' / \ been observed * that neither the one nor the other is 
 
 '; evidently and nece'ssarily false. Neither can be declared 
 
 I to be absolutely impossible, however improbable either 
 
 \ may be. 
 
 Let us, then, assume, for argument's sake, that every 
 seemingly distinct kind of material substance and every 
 organism, really consists of different aggregations or forms 
 of one substance, which is thus not a unity composed of 
 separable constituents, but an absolute unity. On this 
 hypothesis it is exceedingly difficult to understand how 
 one form can ever generate another — as in generation 
 and decay — without some miraculous interposition. To 
 suppose such an interposition, however, would be equiva- 
 lent to abandoning every theory of evolution. Yet if any;_ 
 i one body is an absolute unity in its nature, it can. never be ^ 
 changed into something else by the action alone upon it 
 of other absolute uiiities of the. same nature with itself.^ 
 There must be something distinct from them to act upon 
 them, either externally from without or internally from 
 within. In order that any kind of transformation should 
 take place without the action in this way of " something 
 else," either internally or externally, we should need to be 
 abb absolutely to extract the category of quality from that 
 of quantity, which is absurd. "~~ 
 
 HThe hypothesis, however, which affirms that every distinct 
 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 ■. kind of material substance and every living body is a unity 
 
 ,, I composed of two separable constituents — (i) the "matter," 
 
 ivCf;/ and (2) an immaterial " principle " — accords exceedingly 
 
 ' I well with all the phenomena made known to us by physical, 
 
 chemical, and biological science, and plainly with the 
 
 phenomena of generation and decay. 
 
 For, in the first place, according to this view, matter 
 never exists or has existed, except as some definite kind of 
 matter, which can indeed be transformed, but, which as long ,- 
 as it exists, is informed by one definite immaterial energy, V 
 that is its dynamic side, and makes it what it is. When 
 dissolved into other substances, the matter which enters 
 into its composition never ceases to be informed with some 
 definite energy, or immaterial principle, one receding and 
 disappearing pari passu with the advance of the other. 
 This also is the teaching of common sense and harmonizes 
 with what we see plainly before our eyes.-^ 
 
 Secondly, according to this view, no immaterial principle 
 (inferioVlrTTiature to the human soul) ever" ej cfsls except 
 as a principle of one definite kind embodied iff^ffiatteV. 
 It Ts~further supposed that the informing principles ofi ^, 
 different substances can, by mutual action, freely give rise I *^ 
 to altogether new kinds of principles freshly embodied ; notj 
 that apixnciplej^?/^? principle alone, generates or destroys? 
 _anptlier^iil~Qnly . as ///<?<^(?(,^7^. T reader new to sucli|^ 
 considerations as these may naturally ask. Where doesj|^7- 
 a principle which thus disappears altogether go to .'' He? ^ 
 may also ask. Whence comes the newly arising principle 
 which manifests itself for the first time come from ? The 
 ,: ; answer to these questions is, There is no " whence " and 
 : i I no "where" for such immaterial principles save as em- 
 \ I I bodied, and these questions only suggest themselves on 
 ' account of our utter impotence to imagine anything what- 
 ever absolutely immaterial. If the reader, after taking 
 care to guard himself against the delusions of his^hu- 
 agination. will consult only the dictates of his reason, and 
 ponder over this question, lie"uaTl then sec that there can 
 be no "whence" and no "where" for entities which are 
 at once both absolutely unextended and immaterial, save 
 when they come to be embodied in, or before they have 
 
(g>// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 \ 
 
 cu 
 w 
 
 receded from, some definite quantity of matter. This con- 
 ception once mastered, it becomes comparatively easy to 
 understand how, in generation,* an embodied principle of 
 a high order — that of the parent organism — may produce 
 bodies animated by principles of an inferior order — sexual 
 elements ; and it is also easy to see how these, by their 
 junction, may occasion the retreat of their own two in-i' 
 ferior principles with the absolutely simultaneous elicitationjj 
 or evolution, of a principle of a superior kind, like that 
 which occasioned their formation. It also becomes easy 
 to understand generation by spontaneous fission, or by 
 division (such as may be performed with the Hydra) and 
 how intermediate, temporary, immaterial principles! can be 
 evoked by mutilations such as those for a time energizing 
 in the freshly excised heart or separated limb. It may, 
 again, by means of this conception be understood how 
 deviations from the normal course of development may 
 result in malformed embryos which cannot continue to live, 
 and how, in dissolution, with the retreat of the individuating 
 principle of the body as a whole, there come to be formed 
 those inferior temporary principles which manifest their 
 energies in the temporarily continuing activities of the 
 different organs and tissues of the recent corpse. Thus 
 also can be easily explained the phenomena of " grafting " 
 in both the animal world and the world of plants,^ as well 
 as that curious coalescence which we meet with amongst 
 the Infusoria. The very same supposition which serves to 
 explain these phenomena, serves also to explain the, at first 
 apparently more simple, phenomena of nutrition. The 
 various substances which serve as food, each an embodi- 
 ment of a definite kind of immaterial energy, undergo the 
 various transformations which may be needed (being in 
 each case informed by one of those transitory principles 
 w^hich have successively to inform it), in order that it 
 may be brought into the proximate condition for the 
 performance of the final process of intussusception § before 
 described. Then its last temporary informing principle 
 retreats and disappears, as it becomes simultaneously in- 
 
 * See above, p. 436. 
 X See above, p. 439. 
 
 t See above, p. 437. 
 § See above, p. 160. 
 
EVOLUTION. 6°9>w 
 
 formed by the individuating principle of the creature to be 
 
 f nourished. At the very same instant the matter composing 
 it has become part of the actual matter of that creature's 
 body. This view accords well with the facts of biology. 
 
 The nutrition of the body by food is a necessary con-' 
 dition for growth, and growth of the body, as we have long 
 ago seen,* is a sort of generation. Closely connected with 
 growth, also, are those processes of repair after injury,! 
 to which attention was before directed ; to the balanced 
 harmonies of such processes of repair the phenomena of 
 lateral and serial homology,:|: normal and teratological,§ 
 are evidently akin, together with the symmetrical bodily 
 modifications which occur in various diseased conditions. 
 All these various processes can be well accounted for by 
 the activity of the principle of individuation animating 
 each individual organism, and they can be satisfactorily 
 accounted for in no other way. 
 
 ^ _Qf-all these processes ^Tothing js ^niQr£-wandej:£ul..than ^s^_ge- 
 
 the development of the individual. In all animals above individual. 
 
 I the Frotozo a II we find that a single cell gives rise first 
 T to others like it, which arrange themselves in a definitely 
 symmetrical manner, and afterwards give rise to others 
 which are unlike their predecessors. Ih.US«a... Yaxk.t^- -©f . 
 different, kinds of cells — different tissue-elements : connec- 
 tive, cartilaginous, osseous, sanguineous, muscular, nervous, 
 etc. — are generated in definite order, according to an in- ^ 
 natc preordained law, and tliesc aL;\iia divide and coalesce 
 in diverse ways, and so by degrees build up the different 
 organs of the developing body in each of which these 
 tissues enter in various definite degrees and proportions. 
 About the whole process there is nothing which appears \ li 
 haphazard or fortuitous^ but all proceeds with order and ' ^'^^ 
 
 "precise regularity. Thc^ process of developme nt of each 
 ot^g anism is thus the embodiment of a directing idea_ of 
 "whic h it ha s no perception itself. But no mere idea can 
 by itself direct anything or even exist. It must pertain to 
 some active principle which possesses it, and which may, if 
 conscious, be guided by it, and if unconscious may make 
 
 * See above, p. 163. t See above, p. 169. J See above, p. 152. 
 § See above, p. 429. || See above, p. 320. 
 
e 
 
 ^loi// ON TRUTH. 
 
 manifest the idea, pertaining to a higher intelligence, which 
 
 it unconsciously embodies. Such is the principle which 
 
 animates and individualizes every organism. Th e presenc^ 
 
 of su ch an innate, direcdiicr^ojistitutive element is, indeed, 
 
 especially eviHeht in the development of the embryo, 
 
 where all thai: takes place is manifestly controlled and 
 
 directed to the effecting of one definite end — even more 
 
 plainly, perhaps, than in the healing of a wound or the 
 
 reproduction of a lost limb. It is manifestly a p rocess 
 
 .(carried out ill fulfilment of a predetermined end, and is 
 
 farf'' instance of "final causation." Any one who would 
 
 'pretend thatTKenmere conflict of independent efficient 
 
 1 causes can produce and co-ordinate whole series of effects, 
 
 j resulting in the attainment of a definite end which they 
 
 I have all concurred to produce, would certainly go against 
 
 \all our experience. Any one, also, who should pretend 
 
 ithat we cannot affirm a "purpose" to exist in different 
 
 natural processes {i.e. who denies that we can assert a 
 
 ;" final cause" for any phenomenon) because we may be 
 
 I unable to state the final cause of the whole series of 
 
 [physical phenomena, would be like a soldier who, because 
 
 |he was ignorant of the plan of campaign of his com- 
 
 fmander-in-chief, should pretend that therefore he could 
 
 &, 
 
 not infer that commander's purpose in sending medical 
 stores to the military hospital. Ontogeny is, there fore, L t y 
 I a teleological process, and it is one carried out through jjl-^ 
 fhT action of the directing and innate energy of the 
 developing animal — its principle of individuation, or psyche, 
 by which, as before said,* the living organism builds up 
 its being. It is thus a process of ps)ichogenesis.\ 
 phyiiogcnc- Haviug thus pondered over the life-processes of the 
 thefct' individual organism, and armed ourselves with the fore- 
 going conception of the nature of each, let us turn to 
 consider the question of the genesis of new species. 
 
 We may conceive the evolution of new specific forms^ .\ 
 
 six '' = \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 to have been brought about in one or other of the 
 following ways : — 
 
 I. Entirely by the action of surrounding agencies on 
 organisms" having a merely passive capacity for being 
 
 * See above, p. 436. t See above, p. 440. 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 (Qo 
 
 indefinitely varied in all directions, and with no positive 
 inherent tendency to vary, whether definitely or indefinitely. 
 
 2. Entirely by innate tendencies in each organism to 
 vary in certain definite directions. 
 
 3. Partly by an innate tendency to vary indefinitely 
 \ in all directions, and partly by the limiting; actions of 
 
 surrounding agencies checking all variations save those 
 which happen accidentally to be favourable to the organisms 
 which vary. 
 
 4. Partly by an innate tendency to vary indefinitely in 
 all directions, and partly to external influences which not 
 only limit, but stimulate and promote variation. 
 
 5. Partly by an innate tendenty in organisms to vary 
 definitely in certain directions, and partly to external 
 influences acting on variation only in the way of restric- 
 tion and limitation. 
 
 f f 6. Partly by an innate tendency to vary definitely in 
 jact as a stimulus to variation. y 
 
 T' I Icertain directions, and partly to external influences which, 
 y.] ii^ some respects, act restr[ctively, and in other respects 
 
 The best known and most popular explanation is that | 
 given by Mr. Darwin in his " Origin of Species." Ac- 
 cording to this view new species have been brought about 
 by the action of what he called " natural selection ;" that 
 is, by the accidental preservation, through the chance action 
 of the destructive powers of nature upon minute fortuitous 
 variatio ns,__oj£CurrJi3g in rD .'^''''TriJO'^'^* /^f '^"'^^ variations | 
 ashap,pened to be tlie most favourable. His hypothesis,"" 
 therefore, accords with the third of those above suggested 
 as possible explanations. So many more living creatures 
 being generated than could live, he deemed such chance 
 destructive agencies to be sufficient reason for the for- 
 mation of new species, since only those which presented 
 favourable variations could possibly survive such destruc- 
 tive action. He thus sought to account for all the forms 
 and powers present in nature, including the mind of man 
 with all its perceptions of truth, goodness, and beauty. 
 We have been careful to provide the reader with references 
 to those facts which favour Mr. Darwin's hypothesis. 
 Such are the various interrelations which exist between 
 
512/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 organisms * and the phenomena of mimicry.f We have 
 also pointed out % how favourable variations in voice, 
 colour, other ornamentation, or strength, may enable an 
 animal to survive, and to transmit such characters to off- 
 spring by obtaining a mate. 
 Heredity Let US uovv look a little closely into the nature of the 
 
 Vne7it!'""''^'' possible factors directly aSecTmg"the evolution of species 
 'by natural generation. The first and most potent of these 
 ri lis the action of h^edity.§ Heredity is obviously a 
 ^ / property, not of new individuals, not of offspring, but of 
 parental^ forms. It is the innate tendency which eactT"' 
 j organism poss^iS^^o reproduce its like. If, as we have 
 THefore pointed out,|l it acted alone, each parent organism _ 
 would produce offspring completely like itself. This 
 fundamental biological law of reproduction may be com- 
 pared, as it has been compared by Dr. Gasquet, with 
 the physical first law of motion, according to which any : 
 body in motion will conthuie to move on uniformly at the \ 
 same rate and in the same direction until some other force or \ 
 motion is impressed upon it. The fact that new individual ■ 
 organisms arise from both a paternal and a maternal in- 
 fluence, and from a line of ancestors, every one of which 
 had a similar twofold origin, modifies this first law of 
 heredity only so far as to produce a more or less com- 
 plex compound of hereditary tendencies If in every indi- 
 vidual, the effect of which must be analogous to the 
 mechanical law of tJie composition of forces. All such 
 action is but " heredity " acting in one or other mode ; 
 but there is another and fundamentally different action 
 j which has to be considered, and that is the action of the 
 I environment upon nascent organisms — an action exercised 
 directly upon them, or indirectly upon them through its 
 direct action upon their parents. The action of external 
 conditions in many instances we have already noted.** 
 It is, however, obvious that the very same external in- 
 fluences will produce different effects on different species, 
 as also that the nature of some species is more stubborn 
 
 * See pp. 369-371. t See pp. 372, 373. % See p. 374. 
 
 § See above, p. 173. || See above, p. 440. \ See above, pp. 172, I74' 
 ** See above, p. 376. 
 
E VOL UTION. 5 I 3 /_y 
 
 and less prone to variation than that of others. Such, 
 for example, is the case with the ass, the Guinea-fowl, 
 and the goose, as compared with the dog, the horse, the 
 domestic fowl, and the pigeon. Thus both the amount 
 and the kind of variability differ in different races, and 
 such constitutional capacities, or incapacities, tend to be 
 inherited by their derivative forms, and so every kind of 
 animal must have its own inherent powers of modifiability 
 or resistance. Therefore no organism or race of organisms 
 caji vary in an absolutely indefinite manner ; and if so, /' 
 then unlimited variability must be a thing absolutely im- 
 possible. The Jbregoing coixsidera.tJQns te^T^dJo^^^ that' 
 _exSf^ variation is a function of "heredity" and "external 
 ^influence " — i.e. is the result of the reaction of the special 
 nature of each organism upon the stimuli of its environ- 
 ments ! 
 
 In addition to the action of heredity and the action of 
 the environment, we have also recognized another kind of 
 
 (action manifesting the existence of an internal force to 
 which are due so many interesting cases of serial and 
 lateraHiomology to which we have just Feferred, and which 
 cannot be ^lie to descent. If we not only assume that 
 vertebrate animals are descendants of a common ancestor, . 
 but also make the extravagant (and, as we believe, untrue I 
 and unwarrantable) assumption that they are the descend- 
 ants of a creature formed by the coalescence in a linear 
 series of independent, separate, lowly animals,* it only 
 makes the remarkable facts of lateral homology still more 
 mysterious. On this assumption, the genetic relationship 
 between a man's arm and a bird's wing must be almost 
 infinitely closer than that between a man's arm and his 
 leg, and this again much more recent than that between 
 his right and his left arm. According to such an hypo- 
 
 * It has been suggested that all kinds of worms have arisen from ancestors 
 each of which was like one of the segments only of the much segmented worm 
 which has descended from it. Such simple ancestor has been supposed to have 
 had the habit of multiplying by spontaneous fission, and some of its descend- 
 ants to have been benefited (and therefore preserved) by having divided only 
 imperfectly, and so given rise to creatures (such as the Annelids and Arthropods) 
 the bodies of which consist each of a longitudinal series of segments. Vertebrate 
 animals being also supposed to have descended from some kind of worm, the 
 successive portions of the body would thus originally have had separate ances- 
 tors, the descendants of which had found iheir profit in not dividing completely, 
 
 2 L 
 
 
 
(■ 
 
 fSldZ-V ON TRUTH. 
 
 thesis the arm and wing inherit their homology from the 
 anterior Hmb of the common ancestors of birds and 
 mammals ; but man's arm and leg would have no common 
 ancestor more recent than the parent of the imaginary 
 separate creatures which, by their junction, gave origin to 
 the ancestor of the vertebrates. Thus also the common 
 ancestor of the right and left arms must have been still 
 more remote. Yet when we compare man's arm with his 
 leg, we find that they agree in having striking resemblances 
 (homologous features), which must not only be more recent 
 than the time when man's ancestors diverged from the 
 ancestors of birds, but more recent even than the separa- 
 tion of the anthropoid apes from the general Simian stem. 
 For man's hand and foot resemble each other in the 
 texture of the skin and the shape of the nails ; and these 
 resemblances exist, not on account of similarity in external 
 conditions, but in spite of them ; and we meet with count- 
 less similar resemblances all through the animal kingdom.* 
 It seems, then, to be undeniable that the characters and 
 the variations of species are due to the combined action of 
 internal and external agencies acting in a direct, positive, 
 and constructive manner. 
 
 ArUnn of ( - Now, it is perfectly evident to the meanest under- 
 
 s^/eciioL \ sta nding that no character very prej^uHictal" to a species" 
 7^ jcoul3"ever be established, for such a species would be 
 
 f/^ [destroyed by the action of its environment So much 
 . "^^-^ .^ truth, of course, there is in the hypothesis of "natural 
 
 1 selection." But its action can only be destructive and 
 negative. The evolution of new species, however, is as 
 necessarily a constructive and positive process, and must 
 be due to those changes upon which natural selection acts. 
 Spontaneous positive change, which thus must lie at the 
 origin of every neV species, is (as we have seen) the reaction 
 of the nature of the varying animal upon all the multi- 
 tudinous agencies which environ it. Thus, the "nature of k" 
 . iX the animal " must be taken as t/ie cause, "the environment " Al 
 r /f ^ being the stimulus which sets that cause in action, and __ 
 / '*natura]^selection '' the agency which restrains it within^ 
 
 * See a remarkable paper on Homologies by W. K. Brooks, in the " Phil. 
 Trans." for 1882. 
 
h 
 
 EVOLUTION. k!J/^ 
 
 Ithe bounds of physiological propriety. The influence to 
 \ which Darvvirr^cfTbed the origin of species could never 
 by any possibility have been the cause of their origin. 
 Natural selection," instead of guiding and determining 
 the raini fications of the """tree of life," can do no more than 
 apply tne pruning-kniKe to them. W^ m^y r^^mpnre^Jiii^ 
 roduction of a ne w species to the production of a statue. J^ 
 "^e have QQ^e marble material — representing the matter "" 
 f_ _the o rganism ; (2^ he intelligent active force of the 
 sculptor, directing his arm — representing tlic psychic 
 natur e _of the organism, which reacts on stimuli accordmg 
 to definite laws, as surely as in the case of reflex action, ^^^ 
 repair of injuries, or any other vital activities ; (j)J.he various rsJ 
 conceptions of the artist, which stimulate him to and in his ^^ 
 work— representing the.£iudjroning agengies which provoke 
 on organisms variations ; and (^ the blows of the smiting 
 chisel, which represent the action of natural selection. No 
 one would call the mere blows of the chisel — apart from 
 both the active force of the artist and the- ideal conceptio|;^S- , 
 which direct that force^ — ///^ cause' of the produ ction of the, , 
 statueu>-~"They arc a cau^a ; they, help to prod uce it ^^ai 
 /are absolutely necessary for it-s productJouL^, The y are ^j^i [ 
 instrumental cause, but not the primary and ,ef(££tii/:&.«ay«eri 
 'This distinction runs through all spheres of activity, and 
 ithus " natural selection " is as inadequate to explain the 
 jorigin of an instinct as the origin of a species. Darwin 
 
 as soug ht to explain i n s tinct as partly the result ot acci^ 
 ental variations of activity naturally selected, an d parti 
 as the result of intelligent, purposive action which has 
 become habitual and inherited. But this explanation is 
 evidently no explanation of the_^/7>/// of instinct, but only 
 of the changes and transformations of instincts already 
 acquired. But putting back the date or modifying the 
 form of the original instinct in no way alters the essential 
 nature of instinct or diminishes its mystery. Let us look 
 at one or two noteworthy instincts and see if it is credible 
 that they should be due to mere accidental, haphazard, 
 minute changes in habits already acquired. 
 
 In the first £lace^h£r-C ''' thr^oodgrful instinct of the i a/ 
 duck wT jTrb fr'il.'"'j' to have an injured wing in order to I 
 
 t 
 
516.^/ 
 
 ^'- - ON TRUTH. 
 
 entice a dog away from her ducklings. Is it conceivable 
 that such an act was first done by pure accident, and that 
 the descendants of her who so acted, having inherited the 
 tendency, have been alone selected and preserved ? _A^_ain, 
 there in the case of the wasp (^Sphex) which stings spiders, 
 caterpillars, and grasshoppers in the spots where their 
 nervous ganglia respectively lie, and so paralyzes them. 
 According to the doctrine of natuxaJ .sfJef^ipn, either an 
 ancestral wasp 'must have accidentally stung them each in 
 the right place, and so our sphe x of to-day is the naturally 
 selected descendant of a line of insects which inherited this 
 lucky tendency to sting different insects differently, but 
 always in the exact situation of their nervous ganglia ; or 
 else the young of the ancestral sphex originally fed on 
 dead food, but the offspring of some individuals which 
 happened to sting their prey so as to paralyze but not kill 
 them were better nourished, and thus the habit grew. But 
 the incredible supposition that the ancestor should acci- 
 dentally have acquired the habit of stinging different 
 insects differently, but in each case in the right spot, is not 
 eliminated by the latter hypothesis. There is, again, the 
 case of neuter insects and the highly complex instincts of 
 those insects which live in communities, such as bees, ants, 
 and termites. The Darwinian theory has the great advan- 
 tage of only needing for its support the suggestion of some 
 possible utility in each case to existing organisms, or to 
 some of their hypothetical ancestors who may be called up 
 in imagination for this very purpose. As all structures and 
 functions have some utility, the task is not a difficult one 
 for an ingenious, patient, and accomplished thinker. Yet 
 Mr. Darwin, with all his ingenuity, patience, and accom- 
 plishments, has been unable to suggest a rational explana^_ 
 tion for the accidental origin of these insect communities, 
 with their marvellously complex instincts. The instinct of 
 tlie Emperor-moth and the stag-beetle alSo'seem inexplic- 
 j able by natural selection, and the reader will do well to 
 i consider the other cases of instinct hereinbefore men- 
 
 ttioncd.* I will here confine myself to one more instan,cg,__^ 
 of a highly noteworthy instinct which no one has in an^^ 
 * See above, pp. 358, 361 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 Cl><C^ 
 
 way succeeded in explamiiig. The instance I refer to is 
 that by whicTi all animal, when an enemy approaches, lies 
 guite quiescent and apparently helpless, an action often 
 spoken of as "shamming death." To evade the force of 
 this remarkable case of instinct, it has been objected that 
 the disposition of the limbs adopted by insects which thus 
 act, is not the same as that which the limbs assume when 
 such insects are really dead, and that all species are not, 
 when thus acting, equally quiescent. The first observation, 
 however, does not concern the matter really at issue. The 
 remarkable thing is, not that a helpless insect should 
 assume the position of its own dead, but that such a 
 creature, instead of trying to escape, should adopt a mode 
 of procedure utterly hopeless unless the enemy's attention 
 is thereby effectually eluded. It is impossible that the 
 instinct could have been gradually gained by minute steps, 
 for if the quiescence, whether absolutely complete or not, 
 were not sufficient at once to make the creature elude 
 observation, its destruction would be only the more fully 
 insured by such ineffectual quiescence. 
 
 The same argumentapj3llea, to- birds .which .^eggk-tQ.j 
 feign l am£ii£a»..»^Qj:^~athef injuiY. Yet, even if we could: 
 account for these cases, which, as a fact, are as yet entirely | 
 unaccounted for, it would not do away with the need of ', 
 recognizing the real existence and peculiar nature of in- ': 
 stinct. It would not do so on account both of man's 
 highest and of his lowest instinctive powers. To speak 
 first of the former : As instinct, such as we have hitherto ^/ ^ 
 considered, i.s the appointed bridge between merely organic y , 
 andanimal lifr, so there is in man a further development 
 
 of instinct peculiar to him, and serving to bridge over the 
 gulf between merely animal faculties and distinctively 
 human, reflective, intellectual power. Such a special in- 
 tellectual instinct is that which impels man to the ex- 
 ernal manifestation by voice or gesture of the mental 
 bstractions which his intellect spontaneously forms, and 
 hich (as we have seen) are not formed by animals. 
 'Analogous considerations apply to the first beginnings of 
 what cannot be reckoned as mere instinctive activities, but 
 the origins of which must have been akin to instincts — such 
 
 4^ 
 
%\ 
 
 a 
 
 y 
 
 ^ 
 
 '5l8^V^ ON TRUTH. 
 
 as the beginnings of literature, art, science, and politics. 
 But a consideration of man's lowest powers alone suffices 
 to show that they cannot be due to "natural selection," 
 , even when aided by " lapsed intelligence." Can it be for 
 ' a moment seriously maintained that such actions of the 
 infant as those of sucking, deglutition, and defecation, or 
 the sexual instincts of later life, ever arose through the 
 accidental conservation of haphazard variations of habit in 
 ancestral animals .-• If not, then it is impossible success- 
 fully to evade the difficulty of the existence of instinct. 
 However far we may put back the beginnings of instinct, 
 I the question as to its origin (with its subsequent modifica- 
 I tions) ever returns, and, indeed, with increased importunity. 
 
 )How did the first sentient creatures obtain and-^vallow 
 their food ? How did they first come to fecundate their 
 ova or suitably to deposit them ? How did they first effect 
 such movements as might be necessary for their respiratory 
 processes ? Wherever such phenomena first manifested 
 themselves in sentient organisms, we are compelled therein 
 . to recognize the manifest presence oHnsynct^i^T^tlTe^aggointed 
 ll ^^means (as before said) of bridging over the inteival, between 
 ! _jLhe_purely vegetative functions and the complex activities 
 olS'm^k^t.miiSS^LMSi^^. Thus, natural selection again can- 
 \ not be the cause of specific origin, and to say that it takes 
 place through it is an evident mistake. The formal dis- 
 coverer of a new fossil is the naturalist who first sees it 
 with an instructed eye, appreciates and describes it ; not 
 the labourer who accidentally uncovers but ignores it, and 
 who cannot, any more than the spade he handles, be other 
 jthan a mere instrumental cause of its discovery. So we 
 I must regard the sum of the destructive agencies of nature 
 as an instrumental cause of the origin of new species, their 
 formal cause being the reaction of the nature of their/ 
 
 &: 
 
 parent __organisms^pon the sum ^ qf^ the_ muUitudinousj | 
 actions of th eir_env ironment. ^ -^^ , \\ 
 
 What lesson ooest^e'^f^elop m en t of the individual ' 
 teach us } Mr. Alfred Wallace himself has said, " No 
 thoughtful person can contemplate without amazement 
 
 '/ the phenomena presented by the development of animals. 
 <^' We see the most diverse forms — a mollusk, a frog, and a 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 &i 
 
 1> 
 
 mammal — arising from apparently identical primitive cells, 
 j and progressing for a time by very similar initial changes, 
 but thereafter each pursuing its highly complex and often 
 circuitous course of development with unerring certainty, 
 by means of laws and forces of which we are totally f^ 
 ignorant. It is surely a not improbable supposition that '^- 
 the unkn own power which determines and regulates this '^ 
 marvellous process may also determine the initiation of 
 those more important changes of structure, and those 
 developments of new parts and organs which characterise 
 the successive changes of the evolutions of animal forms." 
 
 In truth, a study of the earliest stages of individual 
 evolution serves both to support the doctrine of evolution 
 against those who would deny it and to refute the notion 
 that it^ takes place fortuitously by " natural selection,"- 
 instead of telcologically along definite lineSj,.iLCCQr.ding.JtQj 
 innate preordained law._ For the primitive cell of the ovum 
 generates other cells which evolve yet others, of different , 
 natures — namely, those which form all the various tissues oft*^ 
 the adult animal. Therefore, if there is a parity between! 
 nature's genetic processes, organisms (like such primitive} 
 cells) may be expected to generate other organisms of 
 different kinds — like the diverse kinds of cells generated 
 from the primitive ones. Similarly, also, such generated 
 organisms should — like the generated cells— be formed 
 definitely, according to innate laws and teleologically, or 
 for a predestined end. If the development of the individual 
 presents "iff with a sketch (as Darwinians say it does) of 
 the past phyljogeny of the race, then the earliest stages 
 of such ph_xyo2eny_jw?/j;^ have been due to the action of 
 definite innate laws. But if the earlier species were thus 
 evolved, why are we, in imagination, to make a break in 
 the process, and where I — ^ 
 
 Thff belief tK3.t",.gp^'^/;i'^^ are thus definitely c\olvcd as independent 
 individ uals are, is supported by the fact that similar struc- Z'miiar 
 tures are often formed independently, and that various 
 groups of organisms may thus have had a dual genetic 
 origin. There is some reason to suspect * that the rudi- 
 mentary calcareous teeth of the young Ornithorhynchus 
 
 • See Proc, Royal Soc, February, i8S8, vol. xliii. p. 372. 
 
520 ON TRUTH. 
 
 and the teeth of ordinary mammals may have grown alike 
 from different origins. The same also may be said of the 
 eggs of the Ophiomorpha * and of birds aud reptiles, and is 
 certainly the case with some of the teeth of the marsupials 
 (pouched beasts),! Perameles, Macropns, and Thjlacinus, on 
 the one hand, and of the non-marsupials, UrotricJms, Macro- 
 scclides, and Canis on the other. Most striking of all is the 
 extraordinary, even microscopic, resemblance between the 
 teeth of the Aard-vark {Orjcteropits)X and of the Elasmo- 
 branch fish {Myliobatis). Again, it would be difficult to find 
 a more curiously resembling structure of certainly indepen- 
 dent origin than the hinge-teeth of the Angler-fish {Lophius), 
 those of the pike, and those of certain fishes brought home 
 in H.M.S. Challenger. The poison fangs of different kinds 
 of serpents have also arisen independently, and quite inde- 
 pendently have also arisen the poison-teeth of the only 
 known poisonous lizard, Heloderma. The scrotum of 
 placentals and the singularly placed scrotum of marsupials 
 (so difficult to explain by " natural selection ") must likewise 
 have had a dual origin, as also has the prehensile feet 
 of the opossums and the apes. I have long urged the 
 probability of the diverse origin of the apes of the old 
 and new worlds, § and now Professor Cope brings forward || 
 various reasons for believing that the ancient horse of 
 America and the horse of Europe have had a widely 
 distinct ancestry, and have grown alike through two dis- 
 tinct lines of descent. The Axolotl, a European ^itiTriton 
 Alpestris), the Proteus, MenobrancJms, and Siren, have all 
 independently acquired a permanent state of existence 
 such as must have been but a temporary state in the lives 
 of their several genetic predecessors. The definite action 
 of climatic conditions upon organisms has been shown in 
 a preceding chapter,1[ as also has the curious direct action 
 of environing colours on the chrysalids of moths.* * Thus,; 
 _ ^ altogether, there seems to be much evidence a posteriori to 
 y< reinforce the a priori presumption that nature follows a 
 ^ parallel course in both ontogeny and phyllogeny, and that 
 
 * See above, p. 317. t See above, p. 316. 
 
 I See above, p. 316. § See above, p. 316. 
 
 See the American Naturalist for December, 1SS7. 
 IT See above, p. 377. ** See above, p. 374. 
 
 6^ 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 /// 
 
 nutrition, growth, repair, reflex action, sensori-motor action, 
 _tlie._ei^olutLon of the-iaidiyiduaU and tlie. .eyplution of Jli^.. 
 ^ ___§peGi#s, are -all processes carried on according to definite 
 Innate laws. But if changes occur along preordained lines, 
 ^ and not fortuitously and in all directions, then the action 
 of natural selection becomes an altogether subordinate 
 action, and it would be manifestly absurd to attribute to 
 U, the origin of new species.* All nutrition, growth, and 
 reprodLK;_tion3i;e^_as^weJiave_seeiT^ controlled and ultimately 
 effected _b^..Uiat.acjti\'ej dynamic sicfe of an organism which 
 we have named its principle of individuation, or psyche. 
 Therefore, it is also by it that those physical changes are 
 eff"e£ted which result in the evolution of a new species. 
 The genesis of a species then takes place (as before said) 
 , b^.the action of the nature of the parent organism — that is, 
 ^ through its psychical activity ; and thus its mode of origin 
 may- — as opposed to the hypothesis of natural selection- 
 be fitly termed ^is^choge-Heu,s/ 
 
 We have above referred, most briefly, to man's higher 
 faculties with reference to the action of natural selection, 
 and before concluding this subject it seems necessary to 
 say a few more words on a theme so important and so well 
 calculated to serve as a__decisive touchstone with respect 
 to the adequacy of the Darwinian doctrine. We have 
 
 Psychof^e- 
 ncsis of 
 species. 
 
 man. 
 
 * In a recent obituary notice of Mr. Darwin {Proc. Roy. Soc, No. 269) it is 
 stated that an upholder of natural selection may affirm species to have arisen by 
 sudden, considerable variations of definite kinds due to any cause, and that 
 indifferent or even slightly disadvantageous characters can be evolved ; whil'e 
 he must deny natural selection could even evolve the incipient stages of 
 characters subsequently useful. But indifferent or slightly disadvantageous 
 characters are just those which constitute many species {e.g. the Potto, see 
 above, p. 317). Therefore no one species so characterized could arise through 
 natural selection. Similarly, useless structures which are constantly inherited 
 are specific characters, and whatever produces a race with such characters 
 produces the species. Therefore, by the admission of this writer, such species 
 were never originated by natural selection. The statement of this obituary 
 notice is equivalent to a tacit abandonment of natural selection, the term being 
 all the time retained and applied to something directly contrary to what 
 Darwin intemled by it, the action of natural selection being reduced to that 
 merely subordinate role which every one allows that it does and must play. 
 Such a use of the term "natural selection" comes to little more than this: 
 " Some species succeed, others fail ; therefore the former may be said, meta- 
 phorically, to be 'selected.' Those which succeed do so on account of some 
 causes or other, and since every cause is a natural cause, all species must arise 
 from 'natural selection.'" In other words, " Nature is so constituted as to 
 produce the results it does produce ; " a statement which is very true, but 
 neither very new nor very instructive. 
 
ON TRUTH. 
 
 ' I 
 
 already abundantly seen* that thejdea of right is an 
 absolute and peculiar idea which could never have been 
 fJ^ \ generated by any amount of pleasurabkan^.^^iDfulsenSiU--- -| 
 I \ /j "^Tioris. ~We have recognized that at the root of every ethical^ } 
 " judgment which is not self-evident there must lie another 
 T jud gme nt whir.li..i.s .. ^hhicgj and nothing else. . Social pros- , 
 \sure to enforce conformity to useful social rules could 
 not gciiierate-itr— Jiio stream can rise aboye,.^ its source, 
 jriy How, then, could a habit "oT'unquestionably obeying his 
 \J society lead a man to despise and defy his society in 
 /y obedience to an ethical perception ? We are far indeed 
 / from denying the frequent utility of social action for the 
 cultivation of ethics. Of course, the influence of parents, ; 
 friends, and society, is the appointed means for develop- ^ j 
 ing, but not for creating, the idea of "duty;" just as feel- | ' 
 ings of motion, pressure, and the muscular sense, are the! 
 appointed means for developing the idea of "extension."! 
 It is the same with our perceptions of truth and beauty, 
 which we have seen,t are /<?/(? ^^/^ different from the feelings 
 , which serve to elicit them in a mind capable of forming ab- 
 / stract ideas. Even with regard to the arts, one may see the 
 I impotence of natural selection to account for their origin. 
 A keen sense of hearing has doubtless often aided the 
 preservation of individuals, and possibly of tribes, and a 
 power of emitting musical notes may have been useful in 
 courtship, and have been so perpetuated in offspring. But 
 how could such causes have ever occasioned the perception 
 and cultivation of musical harmony — an art that dates, as 
 it were, but from yesterday, but which is the characteristic 
 art of our age, as sculpture was of Greece or architecture ^ 
 of mediaeval Europe ? 
 I'v / The fundamental error of Darwinism, as regards the 
 Q^- /origin of man, is its want of comprehension of what 
 ^^ " thought " and " knowledge " really are, and the confound- 
 Jng of associated feelings (sensations, feelings oCrelation,"' 
 and emotions) with the perceptions of objective facts, ana 
 the apprehension of supersensuous ideas^_and„ti:utJbLS. A 
 correct appreciation of the fundamental distinction which 
 exists between our higher and our lower faculties shows 
 
 * See ab ove, p. 243. f See above, pp. 252-254. 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 D-'i 
 
 i 
 
 (US that reason could never have been evolved from faculties 
 such as those of even the highest brutes. It further shows 
 I us that wit|i.the..advent of man a aew:.entityjvas. introduced 
 '^ ^ into the^w orjd — an entity different in kind from any that 
 had before existed, because possessing faculties different in 
 
 (kind and not in degree, from those possessed by any merely 
 animal predecessors. 
 
 An objection has been made to such a fundamental 
 difference between man and other animals as is here asserted 
 to exist, on the ground that as an infant he is no better off, 
 jnen tally, than they. His mental powers are, at first, appa- 
 rently inferior to the psychical faculties of many animals, 
 and only very slowly does he learn to use rational language. 
 This objection has been already replied to,* but a few 
 words may here be added. The resemb lance of the, un- 
 CQiiSdxjiiainfant (whose instincts are less developed than 
 those of many new-born beasts) to a mere animal is but a 
 superfic ial^one, and results only from the imperfection of our^ 
 powers of observation. TjinLfrnm the firist tho whole differ-]- 
 *^ encejs^latent is what the event proves. It is like the super- ; 
 'ficial resemblance of an embryonic reptile^ to an embryonic . 
 bird, or even of an emlDryonic mammal to an embryonic fish. ■ 
 "/The reptile never is a Jaird nor the beast a fish, though 
 / the immature stages of their development are superficially 
 y alike. Similarly, an embryo man is never an animal of 
 \any other kind. But it does not follow that in the earlier 
 stages of development, the incipient body may not be in- | 
 formed by successive temporary, incomplete principles of | 
 individuation, for such, we have seen reason to believe, | 
 inform the very sexual elements ; but as soon as ever the ' 
 body is truly a human body, so soon we have every reason 
 to believe it is informed by a distinctively human soul. 
 To believe otherwise without evidence would surely be a 
 piece of gratuitous credulity. Man, therefore, differing' 
 thus profounHTy Trom other organisms, must similarly havei,', 
 been introduced into the world by some action correspond-^ 
 ingly different — that is, different in kind — from thosej 
 agencies whereby all anteriorly existing organisms hadl 
 been produced. A calm and careful consideration of the I 
 
^A 
 
 524 ON TRUTH. 
 
 facts of the world about us and in us, suffices to afford I 
 abundant evidence that the Darwinian view is one due 
 to incoherent thought and superficial inductions, made. i» 1 
 the teeth of contrary/ evidence./ It reposes, indeed, not on 
 evidence, but on ignorance and a deplorable confusion of 
 ideas. It will be effectually put an end to by a wide dif- 
 fusion of knowledge as to what hiiiaan speech and human 
 intellect really are. As VVilhelm von Humboldt long ago 
 most truly said, "J^_an is man only through speech, but in 
 ordenJLo invent it he must be already man." Man's distinc- 
 tive prerogative— the power of rational speech — is the sign, 
 I evident to our senses, of the supreme dignity of that admir- 
 ■ able human intellect which well merits to be the object 
 of our continuous admiration, and Vv'hich refuses to come 
 within the power and scope of any merely physical and 
 organic process of evolution. But the doctrine of the 
 bestiality of man " is an essential and integral part of the 
 Darwinian system. The value of that part of the hypo- 
 thesis, then, is a fair test of the value of the whole. Some 
 readers may be inclined to ask how so many men, eminent 
 in physical science, can be blind to the absurdity of the 
 Darwinian doctrine about man ? The answer to this 
 question is, that the inquiry as to man's origin is one not 
 of physical science but of philosophy, and that these two i 
 fields of mental activity are hardly ever cultivated by \ 
 the same persons with anything like the same care and \ 
 attention. One or the other is neglected, avowedly or \ 
 otherwise. Thus it comes about that men may be very 
 distinguished for their knowledge of physical science, and 
 yet be ignorant about the operations of their own minds 
 and the nature of the intellectual acts they daily and 
 hourly perform. Such is conspicuously the case in the 
 : present instance. The Darwinian doctrine is supported 
 . by men, and only by men, who are victims to the funda- 
 mental error which confounds " ideas " with " faint revivals 
 of past feelings," and " the association of imaginations " with 
 " rational inference." It is owing to this that no Darwinian 
 has ever yet ventured to grapple with the essence of the 
 question. 
 
 Apart, however, from the questions of man's nature/ 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 s^^y// 
 
 land origin, natural selection could never have formed the 
 species of the animal and vegetal worlds, since, as we have 
 seen, it can only act on structural and other characters 
 which it finds ready to its hand. These characters, how- 
 ever, must be due either to " heredity " or the conditions of 
 existence which have provoked and elicited change. But 
 what of those " conditions of existence " ? They, at least, | 
 are not the result of any process of " natural selection," nor ' 
 are its component factors {e.g. the force of gravitation and 
 the activities of light and heat) themselves subject to any '. 
 process of evolution, or the universe would soon come to 
 an end. But it is impossible to ascribe to these active 
 but inanimate " factors of existence " either intelligence or 
 will ; they can be but the agents of an intelligence and 
 will extrinsic and superior to themselves. The Darwinian 
 theory is alike inapplicable to the lowest and to the highest, 
 the simplest and the most complex phenomena of the 
 universe. 
 
 It is said that Mr. Darwin has been unfairly accused of 
 assigning the origin of species to the action of chance, and 
 enthroning Unreason as lord of the universe. What, then, 
 is " chance " } No man of science uses it to denote the 
 occurrence of any phenomena without some cause. The 
 word "chance" is used in two senses — (i) as opposed to 
 design, and (2)__to denote things the causes of which are 
 too complex to be. unravelled. 
 
 ' Now, the phenomena of the universe must be due to a 
 causation which is either intelligent or not-intelligent, and 
 the whole te ndency and_ teaching of Darwinism. is against 
 the action of intelligent causation. Before Darwin's time, the 
 evidence of design in the phenomena of organic life was 
 regarded as obtrusively evident. His teaching (though 
 the phenomena of nature do not really justify it) made it 
 possible for those who desired to deny design in the organic 
 world to deny it, and relegate its phenomena to the cate- 
 gory of mechanical activity. In this sense he is justly 
 i accused of deiiyiug,. Unreason. """ 
 
 If, however, he had really succeeded in proving that 
 all the activities of animals and plants were merely me- 
 chanical, his labour would have been in vain as regards 
 
 &. 
 
526 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 the establishment of a rue.chanJpal philosophy. For, as it 
 has been the object of this book to show, the most certain 
 of all certainties are our certainties about our own existence 
 and powers, and about universal necessary truths, including 
 that of causation. These amply suffice to demonstrate-that 
 the causation of the universe is intelligent, since otherwise 
 the First Cause would not have been adequate to produce 
 that intelligence which we know to exist in ourselves. 
 As w e ha\'c seen,* that universe could never have been 
 submitted to the action of natural selection, noT could the 
 law of uniformity which pervades it be due to natural 
 selec tion either. Neither could the primary laws, properties, 
 and powers of the other primary materials of the universe 
 have been due to it ; nor the incipient stages of the first 
 living organisms, nor even those indifferent or even slightly 
 disadvantageous characters f which form the definition of 
 so many species. The action of " natural selection " itself 
 could never have been educed by " natural selection." It 
 was, therefore, preordained, and it follows that everything 
 the evolution of which its action helps on, must have been 
 preordained likewise. Evolution, therefore, is, and must 
 be, a process full of j)urpos£ andj'epjete with design which 
 exists, not only at its root and originj but .accompanies it 
 at every step of its progress. When, having recognized the 
 guidance of a Divine reason, we reconsider the play of 
 nature's destructive forces, we must recognize therein also 
 an orderly and providential action to which is due, not 
 the creation of species alone, but of animal communities, 
 human families, tribes, and nations, the destructive and 
 constructive powers of nature alike concurring in their 
 formation, '^'^The primary elements and minutest ultimate 
 constituents of the great whole, and our own highest 
 faculties, cannot have been due to " Natural Selection." 
 
 But if i^iiisearding chance) we are compelled to hold 
 that these primary conditions of existence and the facul- 
 ties of moral and intellectual activity in man are both 
 due to a supreme conditioning and creative will, why is it 
 less credible that the same power has called into being, by 
 the means of ordained secondary causes, all the varied 
 
 See above, p. 453. t See above, p. 380. 
 
 \ 
 
 ii 
 
 (9 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 species of animals and plants which form an essential part 
 of the great whole, and for which the inorganic cosmos has 
 been formed, as they in turn have been formed for our 
 who alone of organic beings are capable of appre- 
 g, employing, and admiring them, and who, as msx*^. 
 ason sufficiently assures us, have been formed in the like- 
 ness and image (however inconceivably minute) of that 
 Divin e Intelligence in whom we live and .move and have 
 our be ing ? But such an evolution of species as this is a 
 form of^creation " — derivative creation. It is supremely 
 teleological, and final causation accompanies the whole 
 process from its beginning to its end. 
 
 Space does not allow more to be said here upon this 
 fruitful theme, and it is the less necessary as I have dis- 
 cussed it in detail elsewhere.* 
 
 1 Q^ur- vexdict, then, is that new species are evolved in 
 
 the l ast of the six modes hereinbefore t suggested as pos- 
 siblej in other words, they are evolved by the "nature," 
 that is, the "principle of individuation " of organisms, which 
 ^^%'cicfiuitc tendencies to variation, and the.actioa.Qf._wliich' 
 Fs'^ "parti)- stimulated and partly restrained by the. action 
 fbf surrounding agencies. 
 
 The origin of the human species must, however, belong 
 to a different category, since, as we have seen, in spite 
 of the exceedingly close resemblance of the human frame 
 to the structure of apes,} the soul of man possesses powers 
 so utterly distinct in kind from those possessed by any 
 other known existence in the material universe, that it 
 merits to be distinguished by a radically distinct denomi- 
 nation — that of " spiut." § 
 
 As to the mode of its formation, reason tells us abso- 
 lutely nothing save that it is through some Divine action 
 different in kind from that by which every other organism 
 has been called into being. Neither is it possible to decide 
 whether man's soul and body were simultaneously created 
 as they now arc, or whether a rational soul was infused 
 within an organism that had been psychogenetically evolved 
 
 )) 
 
 * See the " Genesis of Species " (Macmillan) and " Les.sons from Nature" 
 (John Murray). 
 
 t See above, p. 511. X ^^^ above, p. 503. § See above, p. 392. 
 
k 
 
 Qoitchision 
 asTS I'Vfftfl- 
 
 h 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 from some pre-existing irrational creature. Analogy is 
 against both these modes of formation, and yet we have 
 here no natural guide but analogy. 
 
 Let us assume, for argument's sake, that man was sud- 
 denly created in his entirety, body and soul, as we see him 
 now. If a rational animal was destined to exist at all, he 
 must have been made to resemble souie other animal, and 
 he must have been provided with means for expressing 
 his thoughts by external signs with great rapidity. Such 
 a being could hardly have been formed on the type of any 
 of the inferior sub-kingdoms or classes of the animated 
 world, and thus he must have accorded with mammalian 
 structure as he does accord. But surely the members of 
 no order of that class have a body nearly so well organized 
 to^,S£rve J:he purposes and pejform the actions demanded 
 by a rational nature as have the apes. It would seem, 
 then, that almost as soon as ever an animal form had been 
 evolved, well adapted to serve as the corporeal frame of a 
 truly intellectual being, man suddenly — as it were, abruptly 
 — appeared. 
 
 Such would seem to have been the fact, because the 
 difference which we find between the human form and that 
 of his nearest corporeal allies amongst brutes, is quite trifling 
 to that which exists between the latter and creatures of 
 other orders of the class mammalia to which we and all 
 beasts belong. Nevertheless, the instantaneous, absolute 
 creation of man's body is the more startling hypothesis, 
 though the difficulty of accepting it is greatly due to the 
 tyranny jQ;£_the imagination. Such a process must, oT 
 course, be absolutely imperceptible to our senses. Were 
 a man like ourselves freshly created beside us at this 
 moment, all we could perceive would be that there was 
 a man where before we saw no one, and all we could do 
 would be to wonder or inquire, whence he might have 
 come. Speculation, therefore, as to this enigma is useless. 
 The universe, then, may be conceived, pf as ly vin_g b_ejjx. 
 evolved .thcough the implanted powexs-X)£, ,the ^multitude 
 of immaterial -4>rinciples existing potentially witliin it,.and 
 becoming actual existences in matter — as ao many. inoTT 
 ganic and organic substances and individual^ cirganisms- 
 
r 
 
 EVOLUTION. (52§^ 
 
 freely generated and evolved in and out of existence under a -. 
 the pervading influence of an omnipresent -Divine Energy- --/KO 
 AiJtiich, at the commencement of all time, created and im- 
 j)elled along its course the, to us, vast whole to fulfil ends^ 
 in part certainly perceptible to us — amongst them a mani-i 
 festation of Divine ideas *— but probably also for othersj 
 which we have no power to conceive of. We have already' 
 seen t \\o\\ the various orders of material existences which 
 people this globe constitute a hierarchy of ministration 
 leadjng up to man, and that, whatever ulterior purposes 
 it may also serve, the earth has been destined as an arena 
 for the exercise of good volitions and the ethical develop- 
 ment of mankind. We have seen also % that goodness 
 necessarily demands not only recognition but the reward f(\, 
 of happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the best ^ ^ 
 of mankind can be nothing else than the most complete 
 knowledge of, and union with, God, of which our being may 
 be capable. This world, the n, points to , s omething beyond^ 
 itself, not only unimagiiiable.]3uyrXconceivable, and to wJiicli / 
 its being- is suh.'^gpien t. May we not, then, deem it pro- 
 bable that the whole universe, like our earth, constitutes 
 a series of ministrations, only on an infinitely greater scale, (1 
 and that the soul of man is but one of a vast series of V 
 orders of created spirits of which our senses can take no 
 cognizance, but the existence of which our active intellect 
 may divine ? So also as this world of oiurs is but~~an arena 
 for the perfecting of an order of being infinitely more 
 glorious, because spiritual, than anything the realms of 
 irrational nature offer to our senses, may we not anticipate .-X 
 that the whole universe exists for a purpose and end be- | 
 yond itself, in the fulfilment of which will be its perfection \ 
 and its glory ? 
 
 Whatever may be the truth with respect to these 
 matters — so remote from experience and so incapable of 
 being certainly ascertained by our natural powers — one . 
 thing is not only ascertainable but certain. It is the fact\w^ 
 that for us men the one supreme end is the fulfilment of duty, I ^ 
 and that the most important thing of all for us is not "knovv^^-r 
 ledge "buL-^" conduct." 
 
 * See above, pp.496, 407. + ^L■^ alnnc. pp. 493, 494 . J See above, p. 488. 
 
 " 2 M 
 
y- 
 
 530/// ON TRUTH. 
 
 The most important of all knowledge for us is, and 1 
 must be, the knowledge of God and of the true relationship f 
 in which we stand to Him and to all other spiritual exist- \ 
 ences. But this is the science of " the sociojogy^of^Intelli- 
 gencgs^l or religion. And thus the" most important agent 
 in the highest form of evolution is religion in action * as 
 our instructor and guide. 
 Rciigionani ; With the Consideration of the supreme question of 
 
 philosophy. [,.. , 111 !•• • r 
 
 religion, we have reached the culminating point 01 our 
 prolonged inquiry as to truth. In recognizing the nature 
 and scope o f_ that h ighest form of sociology — that of all 
 ' 'intelli^enc|^s=r -we can clearly foresee that 7t rnifsTTiave close 
 'and imperative relations with human conduct. We recognize 
 that the object of our intellect and affection is an adequate 
 and fitting object. Mere abstract truths and intellectual 
 ideas are not sufficient — are not the natural objects of human 
 affection and devotion. Rational man can truly revere and ; 
 j£ve_riotliin^ which Jt^as ng.t .pej:5Piiality4l.jiQthing which 
 jc^Qjiot understand, accep.t,_and respond to his reverence ^ 
 and de\'otion. God, as the source of all truth, and an 
 Almight}- Being from whose Essence all goodness, all 
 beauty, and all love proceed, is at once the one and 
 only possible object which can satisfy the intellect, the 
 emotions, and the will of man. His J3iyiiie,EiXis.t&ng2js at 
 the same time both the highest revelation and the. deepest 
 foundation of all those truths which have occupied our 
 
 * We are sometimes told that religion is a matter of "feeling," not of 
 "reason;" that it concerns not "the intellect," but "the emotions," 
 especially those of awe and reverence, and that it is independent of all cate- 
 gorical statements as to questions of fact concerning matters which are super- 
 human. Evidently, however, we cannot feel "awe" and "reverence" for 
 anything except we believe that it exists. Denial or doubt as to its existence 
 must induce the destruction or paralysis of emotions respecting it. The 
 emotion may survive for a time, but no reasonable man could continue in a 
 state of rapture over mere dreams, and still less over recognized nonentities. 
 But religion refers, essentially, to intelligences such as our own, or to higher 
 intelligences. We cannot experience "religion" with respect to merely un- 
 intelligent or inanimate objects. To feel "awe" and "reverence" for a 
 volcano, a whirlwind, or the rising sun, may be expected of a savage, because 
 he may (with reverence and fear), more or less distinctly, apprehend in such 
 phenomena, the action of some mysterious, superhuman personality. But 
 let a man be convinced that such phenomena are merely physical, that they 
 are in no way related to an intelligence higher than his own, and then, however 
 much he may admire, dread, or wonder at them, any real reverence on his 
 part is impossible. 
 
 t I.e. has intelligence and will (see above, pp. 392, 436). 
 
fv. 
 
 E VOL UTION. { 5 3 \Jly 
 
 V attention in this systematic inquiry. That inquiry thus 
 cuhninates in the justification of the spontaneous affirma- 
 tions of common sense, through a careful analysis of the 
 highest declarations of the intellect, and it has also shown 
 the harmony which exists between the various powers of 
 our nature and between our own thoughts and things 
 external. 
 
 The philosophy which this systematic inquiry con- 
 cerning truths has been directed to make clear to minds \ il 
 unpractised in studies of the kind, has the following! -*^' 
 
 characteristics : — J * 
 
 j 
 
 1. It justifies by reflective reason our spontaneous con-| 
 viction as to our own existence and that of the world* 
 about us, 
 
 2. It accepts the declarations of our intellect as to 
 ultimate and necessary truths, and shows how they mutually 
 support each other. 
 
 3. It asserts that power of choice and will which our 
 reason and the perception of our moral responsibility 
 assure us we possess. 
 
 4. It accords with the teaching of common sense without 
 being bound down within its limits. 
 
 5. It establishes the distinction between a higher and 
 a lower set of mental faculties, and shows how they both 
 exist and co-operate in us. 
 
 6. It takes due cognizance of our highest perceptions, 
 including those of truth, goodness, and beauty. 
 
 7. It supports and enforces the dictates of morality. 
 
 8. It shows the essential and necessary reasonableness 
 of religion. 
 
 9. It establishes its own truth by showing the necessary 
 validity of our primary intuitions, which can only be denied 
 by an act of intellectual suicide. 
 
 The answer to our inquiry as to truth may, then, be 
 most briefly expressed as follows : — 
 
 JiiiiJtllJs.^a^ilSl^.l'^Jo" between our thoughts and things 
 pYtprnal, which relation reposes on the correspondence pf A/J-^' 
 created things to the Intellect of their Creator, in whose ' " "^ 
 iin,'iL;c and likeness reason sliows us that our own intelli- 
 gence has been made, and by whose overruling providence 
 
dii>// 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 the whole material universe was originally created, and 
 has since been gradually and harmoniously evolved. 
 
 Thus we have naturally revealed to us the supreme 
 fact of God's existence and a hierarchy of duties, the right 
 fulfilment of which should be the aim of every human 
 iJj? \ existence. The ultimate judgment and precept of an 
 I ' y, I intellect devoted both to science and to goodness is well 
 ^ I expressed by those solemn words with which, for so 
 I many centuries, the noblest edifices ever raised by man 
 I have annually resounded : " Spiritus Domini replevit orbem 
 Ssterniriun. Venite adoreuiusi^^ 
 
I NDEX. 
 
 Abdomen of wasp cut off, 472 
 
 Aberration, theory of, 3g8 
 
 Abnormal fingers and toes, 429 
 
 Abortions, 437 
 
 Absence of suffering, its consequences, 469 
 
 of uterus inherited, 380 
 
 Absolute and necessary truth, 39 
 
 and relative goodness, 244 
 
 being alone uncaused, 49, 50 
 
 character of our intelligence, 219 
 
 confidence may be reposed in science, 
 
 5 
 creation and annihilation conceivable, 
 
 462 
 
 nature of beauty, 257 
 
 of conscience, 248 
 
 necessary universal truth, 39 
 
 scepticism follows memory's false- 
 hood, 34 
 involved in denial of law of con- 
 tradiction, 42 
 
 refutes itself, 7 
 
 unity cannot l)e beautiful, 258 
 
 Absoluteness of ethics, 248 
 Abstract ideas involved in that of tralh, 
 240 
 
 may exist without speech, 227 
 
 necessary for speech, 227 
 
 not in animals, 354 
 
 repose on imagination, 87 
 
 , what corresponds to them in 
 
 reality, 137 
 
 necessary truths, 12 
 
 objective motion is energy of motion, 
 
 413 
 
 terms, 225, 226 
 
 truths about being and not-being, 39 
 
 about causation, 48 
 
 about equality, 46 
 
 Abstraction, 12, 21 1, 213 
 
 and perception, elements of, 214 
 
 Abstraction of abstractions is space, 409 
 
 is time, 409 
 
 seemingly present in animals, 345 
 
 Absurd attribution of fatigue to God, 483 
 
 results of disregarding differences, 443 
 
 Abuses of language, 447, 448 
 
 Acacia (Bull's horn) and ants, 370 
 
 Acanthometra, 429 
 
 Acceptance of hell by Mill, 247 
 
 Accident of bodies, their perception is no 
 more than, 136 
 
 Accidental relativity of beauty, 258 
 
 Account of difference of taste, 260 
 
 to be given by responsible (free) 
 
 persons, 488 
 
 Acephalous fcetus, 437 
 
 Acid, lactic, 502 
 
 Acquired beliefs, 10 
 
 Acquisition of new ideas and feelings, dis- 
 proportion between, 209, 210 
 
 Act of seeing, idea of, 109 
 
 Actinia, 319 
 
 Action and automatism, 267 
 
 , aqueous, 306 
 
 , igneous, 308 
 
 guided by sensations, 265, 266 
 
 , merit of, increased by self-denial, 251 
 
 must be action of something, 3S7 
 
 of a mechanism not to be understood 
 
 alone, 146 
 
 of body not altered in nature by atten- 
 tion, 390 
 
 of an organism's soul, is its life, 424 
 
 of chlorophyll, 333 
 
 of external conditions, 513 
 
 of intellect as a cause, 268 
 
 of natural selection, 514 
 
 of sucking infant, 1S4 
 
 , reflex, 166, 267, 343 
 
 Actions, appropriate hut unconscious, 449 
 
 , blind, are not intelligent, 448 
 
 , determination, and feelings distin- 
 guished, 269-271 
 
534 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Actions of insectivorous plants, 332 
 
 of nerves, 166 
 
 of separated parts of bodies, 337, 338 
 
 , reflex, in animals, 343, 344 
 
 , sensori-motor, 16S 
 
 • , unfelt nervous ones, 266 
 
 , vital, 154 
 
 Active exercise of the senses for first time, 
 
 185 
 
 powers of bodies, not themselves ma- 
 terial, 415 
 
 Activities, material and immaterial, 267 
 
 of alimentary system, 158 
 
 of body, form, a hierarchy, 176 
 
 of our being, immaterial, 267 
 
 of the body, 1 54 
 
 of the circulating system, 160 
 
 physical, 301 
 
 unified, 389 
 
 Activity, feelings of, 189 
 
 immanent in each organism, 422 
 
 of muscle, 155 
 
 of self, primarily known, 20 
 
 of the heart, 155 
 
 Acts of determination, mental, 269 
 
 of intellect and death, 490 
 
 of reverence, 286 
 
 of will of two kinds, 264 
 
 Actual and possible sensations, 133 
 
 knowledge very different from im- 
 plicit, 55 
 
 Acts and faculty of memory distinguished, 
 
 3° 
 
 Actually existing Being, 458 
 
 Adaptability of body to new conditions, 
 
 169 
 Adaptation, 169, 200 
 
 of conduct to circumstances by ani- 
 mals, 345 
 
 Adequacy, 454 
 
 Adequate first cause needed, 453 
 
 Adjustment of life's changes, 330 
 
 Admission of evidence our source of know- 
 ledge, 13 
 
 Adultery, illustration from, 250 
 
 Advance in morality, highest aim percept- 
 ible to us, 473 
 
 Advantage of intelligent action becoming 
 automatic, 363 
 
 yEneas papilios, 377 
 
 Aeriform, solid and fluid states, 304 
 
 Affirmation as to feelings, infallible, 19 
 
 by our minds of objectivity of neces- 
 sary truth, 43 
 
 A First Cause, 450 
 
 Africa, 369 
 
 African customs, 291 
 
 Age of man, geological, 277, 369 
 
 Aggregate of mental states not a conscious- 
 ness, 219 
 
 Agreement, 240 
 
 Agreement, feelings of, 193 
 
 of thought with things, 239, 531 
 
 Aim, attainment of our highest, depends on 
 suffering, 473 
 
 — — , highest perceptible to us, moral ad- 
 vance, 473 
 
 Aims above goodness possible to God, 476 
 
 Air and water, 305 
 
 Albumen, 148 
 
 Alcohol, 501 
 
 Alfred Wallace, 518 
 
 Alga;, 321 
 
 Alimentary canal, movements of, 157 
 
 function, 158 
 
 system, 147 
 
 Alimentation, human, 158, 159 
 
 in organisms, 336 
 
 All animal action is reflex, 343 
 
 ends willed by God, 467 
 
 new existence has a cause, 48 
 
 — '— our knowledge, its sources, 13 
 
 reasoning depends on law of contra- 
 diction, 43 
 
 Alleged deceptions of the senses, 117 
 
 Alpine plants and herds, 370 
 
 Amalgam of imaginations, not an idea, 105 
 
 Amazon Valley, butterflies of, 377 
 
 Ambiguities of language respecting will, 
 270 
 
 Ambiguity of term "strongest motive," 270 
 
 of the terms " preference " and " will," 
 
 270, 271 
 
 of the word '^represent," 91 
 
 Amboina, butterflies of, 376 
 
 Ameliorations, their tardiness and Theism, 
 486 
 
 America, 369 
 
 American Indians, 283 
 
 trees and European ones, 377 
 
 Ammonia, 303 
 
 Amoeba, 320 
 
 Amoeba's mode of feeding, 336 
 
 Amrebiform movements, 158 
 
 Amphioxus, 318 
 
 An idea cannot itself direct, 509 
 
 Analogical use of terms "beauty" and 
 " goodness," 258 
 
 Analogy between Divine and human reason, 
 460 
 
 between man and God, 480, 481 
 
 ■ justif}ing expression "movement of 
 
 thought," 418 
 
 Analysis, 303 
 
 of ideas, 221 
 
 of spectrum, 301 
 
 Anatomical symmetry, 428 
 
 Anatomy of man, 147 
 
 Ancestral fears, 287 
 
 influences, 512 
 
 Ancient realism and idealism, 445, 446 
 
 Andes, 309 
 
INDEX. 
 
 C^ 
 
 Anecdote of bees, given by Biichner, 349 
 
 of gorilla and Dr. Hermes, 349 
 
 Anemone, sea, 319 
 
 , sylvestris, 316 
 
 Anger, its external signs, 196 
 Angiosperms. 321 
 Angler-fish and evolution, 523 
 Animal action, all reflex, 359 
 automatism, 424 
 
 cognition like our dreaming. 351 
 
 illustrated, 350 
 
 ethics and taste, 356 
 
 faculties, 342 
 
 , rules for estimating them, 347 
 
 grafting, 339, 439 
 
 language, 351 
 
 and Mx. G. H. Lewes, 353 
 
 5 vegetal, and human structure, 322 
 
 Animals adapt themselves to circumstances, 
 
 345 
 
 and plants, 315 
 
 , distinction between, 331-335 
 
 cannot speak, 351 
 
 • , consentience in, 354 
 
 do not reflect, 354 
 
 essentially sensitive, 334 
 
 have no abstract ideas, 354 
 
 — — if intelligent would soon prove it, 348 
 
 , interrelations of their embryos, 339 
 
 know not their sufferings, 358 
 
 living together, 370 
 
 not machines, 424 
 
 , reflex action in, 343, 364 
 
 • supposed artificially constructed and 
 
 result, 365 
 
 , their apparent intelligence, how ex- 
 plained, 347 
 
 , their associations of feelings, 352 
 
 , their dilTerent constitutions, 374 
 
 ■ , their emotions, 357 
 
 , their faculty of feeling, 342 
 
 , their kindly actions, 357 
 
 , their knowledge, 346, 347 
 
 , their pleasures, 472 
 
 , their powers of special sensation, 343 
 
 , their practical intelHgence, 344 
 
 • , their so-called intelligence, 346, 347 
 
 , their stupidity, 355^ 
 
 , their sufferings, 358, 471 
 
 , unicellular, 320 
 
 , unmoral, 477, 478 
 
 , worship of, 497 
 
 Animals' apprehension of univcrsals, 346, 
 
 348 
 
 instincts and habits, 358 
 
 pain much less than man's, 35S 
 
 sensitivity, grounds for believing it 
 
 exists, 342 
 
 Annelida, 319 
 
 Annihilation conceivable, 462 
 
 and art, 465 
 
 Answer, ultimate, as to what is truth, 531 
 Anthropoid apes, 316 
 
 and man, 340 
 
 Anthropology, 276 
 Anthropomorphism, 347 
 
 , objection concerning, 479 
 
 Antics of coui'tship, 374 
 Anti-impulsive efforts, 264 
 Antiquity of man, 277, 369 
 Ants and trees, 370 
 
 , their slaves, 370 
 
 Apes, 316 
 
 and evolution, 520 
 
 and man, 316, 340, 528 
 
 Aphides, 346 
 
 Apparent intelligence of animals, how ex- 
 plained, 347 
 
 superiority of idealism, 76 
 
 Appeal, ultimate, is to the intellect, not 
 
 sense, 1 13 
 A]"ipearance and position, 120 
 and retreat of immaterial principles, 
 
 Appetites and desires, 195 
 Apprehension of beauty increased by cul- 
 ture, 255 
 of truth, 238 
 
 of truth, beauty, and goodness, its 
 
 physical basis, 237 
 
 -; of universals by animals, 346, 348 
 
 A priori ideas, 9 
 
 Apteryx, 317, 477 
 
 Aqueous action, 306 
 
 Arches and clefts, visceral, 173, 317, 503 
 
 Archetypal ideas, 497 
 
 Architecture and beauty, 255 
 
 Argument for self-knowledge, 16 
 
 Arguments, perception of their force, 12 
 
 to be considered against self-know- 
 ledge, 16 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, and instinct, 359 
 Aristotle and the soul, 390 
 Arrested motion, feeling of, 194 
 Art and evolution, 518 
 
 and savages, 281 
 
 , creation and annihilation, 293, 464 
 
 , universal amongst men, 278 
 
 Artemia, 378 
 Arteries, 149, 161 
 
 of embryo, 172, 317, 339 
 
 Arthropoda, 318, 368 
 Artificial construction of an animal sup- 
 posed, 365 
 
 injuries, reproduction of, 169 
 
 formation of organic substances, 333, 
 
 501 
 Artificially separated parts, 438 
 Artist and his canvas, illustration from, 456 
 Ascidians, 318 
 
 Asia, Northern, and Europe, 369, 501 
 Ass, constitution of, 374 
 
536 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Asserted deceptive nature of colour and 
 sound, 99 
 
 diffusion of "mind-stuff," 128 
 
 illusions of the senses, 121, 122 
 
 Assertions and beliefs, 60 
 Assimilation, 1 58-163 
 Association in animals, 352 
 
 of ideas, 217 
 
 of ideas and feelings, 6 
 
 of images, 185 
 
 of remote things with uncertainty, 6, 44 
 
 of the unproved with blindness, 6 
 
 Associations which are mental, 6, 10 
 Assumption unwarranted as to knowledge, 
 18 
 
 Astronomic prediction, 80 
 
 Atavism, 174 
 
 Atomic theory, 394, 400 
 
 Atoms, 394, 400 
 
 , elasticity of, 400 
 
 of gas, 400 
 
 , Thompson and Brodie on, 403 
 
 Attention and bodily functions, 390 
 
 and Dr. Carpenter, 262 
 
 • and reflection, 219 
 
 and volition, 263 
 
 certifies perception, 95 
 
 impedes some movements, 156 
 
 , intellectual, 262, 263 
 
 of God, 482 
 
 or inattention do not change the 
 
 nature of bodily acts, 390 
 
 , sensuous, 198 
 
 Attractiveness of inferior beauties, 260 
 
 of idealism, 75 
 
 Attributes of an unknown substance may 
 be force and extension, 420 
 
 of energy and extension, 440 
 
 of First Cause, 455 
 
 of substance said to be thought and 
 
 extension, 139 
 
 Audible beauty, 256 
 
 Auditory nerve, 150 
 
 Auk, Great, 368 
 
 Australia, 369 
 
 Australians, 283 
 
 and Bishop Salvado, 288 
 
 Author of human nature alone can under- 
 stand it, 489 
 
 Automata, 264, 424 
 
 deemed unaccountable, 264 
 
 Automatic balancing movements, 156 
 
 Automatism, 264, 424 
 
 and consciousness, 268 
 
 and reflex action, 267 
 
 , hypothesis of, refuted by conscious 
 
 experience, 267 
 
 Avoidance of pain, 181 
 
 Awe and reverence, 530 
 
 Axiom about equality, second general 
 principle, 46 
 
 Axiom of equality, fallacious objection to, 
 
 47 
 
 Axis, nervous, 150 
 
 of earth and precession of the equi- 
 noxes, 302 
 
 Axolotl and evolution, 520 
 
 Aye-aye, 317 
 
 B 
 
 B, pronunciation of, illustration from, 214 
 Babies, early faculties of, 9, 294, 523 
 Babinet, 405 
 Backbone, 148, 152, 316 
 Bacteria, 321, 375 
 
 , their modifiable virulence, 375 
 
 transmit acquired modifications, 375 
 
 Bad God, the flattering of, 247 
 
 men often successful, 488, 489 
 
 Bag of balls, illustration from, 273 
 
 Baily, Mr., and the Veddahs, 279 
 
 Bain, Professor, and animal intelligence, 
 
 349 
 Balance, final, of universe as suggested, 
 
 394, 395 
 Balancing automatic movements, 156 
 Balloon, illustration from, 123 
 Balls in a bag, illustration from, 273 
 Bamboo insect, 373 
 Banks and trade unions, illustration from, 
 
 444 
 
 Bantams and trumpeter pigeons, 428 
 
 Banyan tree, 338 
 
 Baptistry of Pisa and harmony, 108 
 
 Barnacles, 318 
 
 Bases of mechanical philosophy, 407 
 
 Bastian, Dr., and gorilla and bees anec- 
 dotes, 349 
 
 , his evidence about speech, 231 
 
 Batrachians, 316, 317 
 
 Bats, 316 
 
 Bayle, his objection against free will, 273 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, illustration from, 19 
 
 Beagle, H.M.S., 289 
 
 Beats and tones, musical, 107 
 
 Beauties, inferior ones, may attract in ex- 
 cess, 260 
 
 Beauty, absolute not relative, 257 
 
 , an ultimate idea, 257 
 
 and pathology, 259 
 
 and theism, 259 
 
 and truth not really apprehended 
 
 by animals, 357 
 
 apart from human perceptions, 258 
 
 , as connected vviih both our lower 
 
 and higher faculties, 260 
 
 does not primarily imply external 
 
 relations, 258 
 
 , etlucation increases apprehension of, 
 
 255 
 
INDEX. 
 
 537 
 
 Beauty, feeling for, 197 
 
 , feelings for and perceptions of, 255 
 
 , human prejudices concerning it, 259 
 
 in everything, 259 
 
 is perfection, 256 
 
 , its objectivity, 257 
 
 , moral, 250 
 
 necessarily implies internal relations, 
 
 258 
 
 of fitness, 258 
 
 of universe, 453 
 
 , perceived by all men, 280, 281 
 
 , physical basis of perception of, 237 
 
 , truth, and goodness, interrelations 
 
 between, 259 
 
 , , , perception of, 237 
 
 Bees and Professor Biichner, 349 
 
 , clover, cats, and mice, 372 
 
 , instincts of, 359 
 
 Behests of God, not root of moral oliliga- 
 
 tion, 247 
 Behring's Straits, 310 
 Being and non-being not identical, 457 
 
 , simultaneously impossible, 39, 
 
 42 
 
 , idea of in a child, 209, 227, 234 
 
 , in fact and in idea, 457 
 
 in general," not objective, 458 
 
 meanings of the term, 458 
 
 , not to be felt, 208, 209 
 
 , our own, a two-sided unity, 391 
 
 , possible and existing, 458 
 
 •, supernatural, and our senses, 130 
 
 , Supreme, His will not the root of 
 
 ethics, 247 
 
 , the idea of, 205, 224 
 
 , uncaused, must have intrinsic suffi- 
 cient cause, 49, 50 
 Beings, automatic ones, unaccountable, 264 
 Belief, common, as to secondary qualities, 
 100 
 
 , deemed blind, 6, 1 1 
 
 in a future life, 287, 487-491 
 
 in reality of coming seasons, 242 
 
 Beliefs and assertions, 60 
 
 , grounds and criteria of, 10 
 
 , spontaneous and acquired, 10 
 
 Bell of clock, illustration from, 92, 1 15 
 Benefactor's daugiiter, illustration bdm, 
 
 249 
 Benetit of possible doubts as to immor- 
 tality, 490, 491 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 72, 79, 130 
 Berkeley's idealism, 130 
 Bernard, Claude, 493 
 Bestiality of man, doctrine of, 524 
 Better criterion than "evidence" impos- 
 sible, 13 
 Bichat and instinctive sucking of infant, 
 
 175 
 Bigamy, illustration from, 250 
 
 Bilateral homology and symmetry, 152, 
 
 513. 
 Biological classification, 315 
 
 nomenclature, 316 
 
 Biologists and beauty, 259 
 
 Biology and idealism, 82 
 
 Birds, 317 
 
 and insects of Duke o.f York's Island, 
 
 and seeds, 370 
 
 , boots of, 428 
 
 may somewhat vary their nest-build- 
 ing, 366 
 
 of Kamskatka's colours, 377 
 
 , their calls and songs, 351 
 
 , their instincts, 358 
 
 , young brood, illustration from, 467 
 
 Birth of malformed children, 474 
 Bishop Berkeley, 72, 79, 130 
 
 Salvado, 2S8, 289 
 
 Blacksmith's arm, illustration from, 169, 
 
 376 
 Bladder, 149, 163 
 Blending of organisms, 339, 439 
 Blind actions not intelligent, 448 
 
 belief, 6, 11 
 
 disbeliel as bad as blind belief, 7 
 
 Blindness associated with the unproved, 6 
 Blood corpuscles, red, 149 
 
 , white, 149, 320 
 
 Blood's self-repair, 160 
 
 nutritive action, 160, 161 
 
 Bloodshed of nature, 468 
 Blyth, Mr., and Indian turkeys, 378 
 Bodies, inorganic, their persistence, 328 
 , their oi)jective conditions knowalile, 
 
 III 
 , their perception is an accident of 
 
 them, 136 
 undergoing cycle of changes, 164, 327, 
 
 502 
 Bodily action, circle of, 265 
 
 acts, their nature not altered liy 
 
 attention, 390 
 
 heat, 159 
 
 injuries and perception, 1 18 
 
 ■ motions, imagination of, sufficient 
 
 for thought, 224, 225 
 
 unity of man, 277 
 
 Body after death, 391 
 and mind, 386 
 
 and soul, their reciprocal actiun, 
 
 388 
 
 as one whole, the organ of the inili- 
 
 vidual's life, 169 
 
 can be felt only in the present, 37 
 
 evident to our senses, 388 
 
 formed by the soul, 389 
 
 , its activities, 154 
 
 , its ultimate chemical elements, i jS 
 
 , its various forms of symmetry, 152 
 
5:^8 
 
 10' 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Body, knowledge of, necessary for lliat of 
 
 mind, 146 
 
 of man, a continuous whole, 151 
 
 of man, its necessary form, 528 
 
 of man, its structure, 145 
 
 Body's activities form a hierarchy, 176 
 adaptability to new conditions, 169, 
 
 376 
 Bones and muscles of ducks, 376 
 
 of limbs, 148 
 
 Book laid down, illustration from, 21 
 
 " Boots " of birds, 428 
 
 Botocudos, 281 
 
 Boulders, 313 
 
 " Box," its many meanings, 458 
 
 Brachiopods, 319, 368 
 
 Brain, 150, 151 
 
 out, man would die, 490 
 
 not an organ of the intellect, 388 
 
 ■ of a philosopher, illustration from, 
 
 467 . . 
 
 , water in its composition, 148 
 
 Bramble branch rooting, 338 
 
 Branchite, 317 
 
 Branchipus, 378 
 
 Branch of bramble rooting, 338 
 
 ■ of tree sawed, illustration from, 134 
 
 Breach of decorum and moral perceptions, 
 252 
 
 Breaks in nature, 436 
 
 Breathing, 161 
 
 Breeding season, sounds and colours, 374 
 
 Briareus, 470 
 
 Bridge and elephants, 345 
 
 Bridgeman, Laura, case of, 231, 232 
 
 Brittle-stars, 319 
 
 Brocken spectre, 479 
 
 Brodie, Sir B., antl atoms, 403 
 
 Broken statue, illustration from, 248 
 
 Brood-mare of Lord Zetland, 379 
 
 Brood of young birds, illustration from, 
 467 
 
 Broomrape, 374 
 
 Brute's soul and man's, illustration con- 
 cerning them, 434 
 
 Bryozoa, 319 
 
 Biichner's burying-bees, 349 
 
 Budding, 338, 437 
 
 Buds of tiger-lilies, 338 
 
 Buffon and utility of structures, 478 
 
 Building a house, illustration from, 364 
 
 Bull spoken of by Ilaeckel, 379 
 
 Bull-fight, illustration from, 357 
 
 Bull's horn acacia and ants, 370 
 
 Burt-Wilder, Professor, 429 
 
 Burying-bees and Prof. Biichner, 349 
 
 Busk, Mr. George, 278 
 
 Bustard found in England, 368 
 
 Butler, Mr., and unconscious intelligence, 
 
 447 
 Butterflies of Amboina and Celebes, 376 
 
 Butterflies' tails and wings, 377 
 Butterfly, swallow-tailed, 370 
 Bynoe, Mr., and Fuegians, 284 
 
 Cacti mimicked by euphorbias, 373 
 
 Cainozoic strata, 312 
 
 Calcium, 303 
 
 Calculating machines, illustration from, 
 
 448 
 Calls and songs of birds, 351 
 Cambrian rocks, 311, 368 
 Candle and daddy-long-legs, 472 
 , illustration from, for idea of life, 431, 
 
 432 
 Canis, and evolution, 520 
 Cannibalism, 278, 287 
 Cannon ball and seed of mistletoe, 335 
 Carbon, 148, 303, 306, 333 
 fixation, chlorophyll and daylight, 
 
 333 
 
 fixed by some worms, 333 
 
 Carbonate of chalk in Thames, 307 
 
 of lime, 303 
 
 Carbonic acid gas, 303, 306 
 
 Carboniferous rocks, 312 
 
 Carniola, 317 
 
 Carpenter bee, instinct of, 359 
 
 , Dr., and fighting somnambulists, 
 
 190 
 
 , , on attention, 262 
 
 Carriage with friends, illustration from, 90 
 
 Cart-horse, illustration from, 41 
 
 Cases of Laura Bridgeman and Meystre, 
 
 231, 232 
 Castle and beauty, illustration from, 258 
 Casts, 314 
 Catalysis, 304 
 Cat and plates, illustration from, 350 
 
 waking, illustration from, 491 
 
 Catalogue of higher mental powers, 223 
 
 of lower mental powers, 200 
 
 Categories of quantity and quality, 452 
 Category of necessary truths includes 
 
 morals, 248 
 Catenula, 338 
 
 Caterpillars, 361, 371, 373, 374 
 Cats at Mombas, 377 
 
 , mice, bees, and clover, 372 
 
 Cat's tail, injured, and heredity, 341 
 Cattle, as a concept, 459 
 
 , domestic, lungs and livers of, 376 
 
 Cattleish-substance, non-existent, 459 
 
 Caulerpa, 321 
 
 Causation and chance, 525 
 
 and motion, 462 
 
 and resistance to our will, 51 
 
 and sequence, 50 
 
INDEX. 
 
 539 
 
 Causation and universe, 451 
 
 applies to all new existence, 48 
 
 by the intellect, 268 
 
 , feelings of, 195 
 
 , idea of, as involved in our idea of 
 
 truth, 242, 243 
 
 , inflow of influence in it, 50, 51 
 
 is never seen or felt, 50 
 
 , physical, circle of, 265, 423 
 
 , the law of, an objection, 50 
 
 , , does not declare nature of 
 
 causes, 51 
 , , evident both spontaneously and 
 
 on reflection, 48, 49 
 
 , , the third general principle, 48 
 
 , what our minds declare about it, 
 
 48 
 Cause, a First, 450 
 
 , First, and intellect, 455 
 
 , , is not man, 456 
 
 , , its nature known by its efi'ects, 
 
 454 
 
 , , must be " adequate," 453 
 
 of anything's origin cannot be itself, 
 
 49 
 
 of nature, formally intelligent, 449 
 
 of universe, manifestation of Divine 
 
 Ideas is one, 497 
 
 , sufficient, must be intrinsic in un- 
 caused being, 49 
 
 Causes, a knowledge of is true science, 3S4 
 
 , exemplar, 497 
 
 , final, 492 
 
 • in nature, spontaneously sought, 48, 
 
 449. 
 
 , instrumental, 515 
 
 , intelligent or unintelligent, 525 
 
 , notion of in our minds, 48 
 
 of a feeling of uncertainty about the 
 
 law of contradiction, 44 
 
 of conditions of existence, 526 
 
 postulated by science, 80, 83 
 
 by common sense, 85 
 
 Cell, each organism may be spoken of as 
 
 one, 323, 437 
 
 elements, 163, 164 
 
 , man's body may be called one great, 
 
 151 
 
 Cells, 147, 164 
 
 , reaction of, 365 
 
 , sexual, 164 
 
 , their multiplication, 158 
 
 , their power augmented by union, 331 
 
 Cellular tissue, 170 
 
 Centipedes, 318 
 
 Central America, ruins in, 291 
 
 canal, 151 
 
 Cephalopods, 318 
 Ceratodus, 317 
 
 limbs, 42S 
 
 Cerebellum, 15 1 
 
 Cerebral hemispheres, 151 
 
 Cerebrum, 15 1 
 
 Ceremonial purification of Kafirs, 293 
 
 Certainties of everyday life, 6, 7 
 
 Certainty as to present knowledge abso- 
 lute, 17 
 
 exists, 6 
 
 even regarding hypothetical pos- 
 sibilities, 385 
 
 , grounds of, 65 
 
 has increased with increase of scepti- 
 cism, 5 
 
 has three orders of truths at its root, 
 
 12 
 
 in the intellect, not in sensation, 113 
 
 necessar}', 5 
 
 of geometrical truths, 47, 48 
 
 of knowledge of self and of feelings 
 
 equal, 19, 26, 27 
 
 of memory involved in self-know- 
 ledge, 32 
 
 Certification of perception by attention, 
 
 95 
 Cessation of acts of intellect and death, 
 
 490 
 Chalk, 312 
 Chambers, Mr., and animal intelligence, 
 
 349 
 Chameleon's colour, 373 
 Chance, 525 
 Change of state is a sort of new existence, 
 
 49 
 Changes after death, 505, 506 
 
 , cycle of, 164, 327 
 
 , functional, and Dr. Dallinger, 37S 
 
 , immaterial, circle of in us, 265, 2G6 
 
 in earth's orbit, 302 
 
 of life, their adjustment, 330 
 
 of living bodies, 327, 391 
 
 , physical, cycle of, 265, 266 
 
 Chain, illustration from, 191, 192 
 
 of immaterial energies in us, 265, 266 
 
 Chains of physical and immaterial changes, 
 
 423 
 
 Chara, 321 
 
 Characters indifferent or disadvantageous, 
 521 
 
 inherited, 512 
 
 Charm of certain appearances and sounds, 
 197 
 
 Chastisements should follow demerits, 4SS 
 
 Chastiscr and rewarder, judge and legisla- 
 tor, must be God, 4S9 
 
 Ciieadle, Dr., and Indians, 291 
 
 Chelydra tortoise, 428 
 
 Chemical and structural difterence between 
 organic and inorganic worlds, 323 
 
 change, 303 
 
 composition, its definite nature, y>j 
 
 of stars, 301 
 
 elements of man's body, 148 
 
540 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cliemical relations quantitative, 303, 394 
 
 substances, 302 
 
 Cheyenne Indians, degraded, 291 
 Children and mother, iUustration from, 46 
 
 learning to speak, 234 
 
 malformed at birth, 474 
 
 , sacrifice of, 2S7 
 
 Children's terms have wide meanings, 226, 
 
 234 . . 
 
 Child's idea of being, 207, 227, 234 
 
 Chimpanzee, 316 
 
 China, civilization of, 277 
 
 Chinchilla and beauty, 257 
 
 Chinese girls' feet, 341, 379 
 
 Chlorophyll action, 333 
 
 Choosing, power of, and consciousness, 
 272 
 
 Chopin and Turner, illustration from, 255 
 
 Chorda dorsalis, of embryo, I73! 3I7) 503 
 
 Chromatic undulations, 398 . 
 
 Chrysalids and colour, 374 
 
 and environment, 520 
 
 Chulos and bull-fight, illustration from, 357 
 
 Cicero and duty, 251 
 
 Cilia, vibratile, 158, 320 
 
 Circle of bodily actions, 265, 266 
 
 of immaterial energies, 265, 266 
 
 of physical causation, 265, 266 
 
 Circulating system, 149, 160 
 
 Circulation, 336, 379 
 
 in particles of protoplasm, 161 
 
 Circumcision, 341 
 
 Civilization of China and Egypt, 277 
 
 Civilized man's jaws, 376 
 
 Classes, 315 
 
 Classification, biological, 315 
 
 Classifications of dog and cat, 345 
 
 Claude Bernard, 493 
 
 Claws of lobsters, 337 
 
 Cleavage and stratification, lines of, illustra- 
 tion from, 475 
 
 Clefts and arches, visceral, 173, 317, 503 
 
 Clifford, Professor, 4^14 
 
 Climate and colour, 376, 377 
 
 and food, effects on moths, 378 
 
 Climbing plants, tendrils of, 335 
 
 Clock bell, striking of, 92, 115 
 
 , illustration from, 424 
 
 Clover, bees, cats, and mice, 372 
 
 Coalescence of organisms, 440 
 
 , philosophy of, 508 
 
 Cocoon of emperor-moth, 361 
 
 Coelenterates, 319 
 
 Cognition of animals illustrated, 350 
 
 like our dreaming, 351 
 
 Cognitions, generalized sensuous ones, 191 
 
 ■ , primary, 20 
 
 Collar-bone, 148 
 
 Collision of two sidereal bodies, illustration 
 from, 52 
 
 Colloitis and crystalloids, 159, 304, 501 
 
 Colour and immature insects, 374 
 
 , effects of climate on, 376 
 
 , intrinsic and extrinsic, 114, 116 
 
 of chrysalids and environment, 374, 
 
 520 
 
 , sound, etc., asserted deceptive nature 
 
 of, 99 
 
 , the idea of, is no feeling, no 
 
 Coloured media, 117 
 
 rays and undulatory theory, 397 
 
 , their velocities, 396 
 
 triangle, 442 
 
 Colours and breeding season, 374 
 
 and sounds, objections to their appre- 
 hensibility, 116 
 
 of Kamskatka birds, 376 
 
 Column, vertebral, 152 
 
 Combats for mates, 374 
 
 Combustion, organic and inorganic, 325 
 
 Commands of God, not root of moral obli- 
 gation, 247, 248 
 
 of conscience, absolute, 248 
 
 Common belief as to secondary qualities, 
 100 
 
 convictions, 60 
 
 life of animals, 370 
 
 sense, 62 
 
 and evolution, 63 
 
 and idealism, 84 
 
 and organic nature, 432 
 
 postulates causes, 85 
 
 and science view inorganic 
 
 matter alike, 418 
 
 and testimony validated by 
 
 reason, 141 
 
 , conditions of its validity, 63 
 
 , judgments of, 62 
 
 structure of organic nature, 322 
 
 Coming season, illustration from, 242 
 
 Commonly supposed certainty of self-know- 
 ledge, 16 
 
 Companionship, feeling of, 1S6 
 
 Complementary truths ignored by idealists, 
 88, 89 
 
 Complete and incomplete immaterial prin- 
 ciples, 439 
 
 inductions) 56 
 
 Composition, chemical, always definite, 
 
 303 
 
 common to all organisms, 323 
 
 of forces, law of, and heredity, 512 
 
 of stellar universe, 300 
 
 • of the earth, 302 
 
 of water, 303 
 
 Compositum, 419 
 
 Compound and simple feelings, 107 
 Comprehensibility of idealism easy, 75, 76 
 Compulsion and consciousness, 272 
 Conceivability of creation and annihilation, 
 
 462 
 of new senses, 112 
 
INDEX. 
 
 541 
 
 Conceivability of unimaginable things, 89, 
 
 112 
 Conception and imagination, ill, 112 
 , impotence of, no test of truth, 41 
 
 of bodies variously acting, as con- 
 cordant with experience as that of trans- 
 formed energies, 417 
 
 of creation, ideas helping it, 464 
 
 of duty, conception of something 
 
 supreme for us, 251 
 
 of nature, that most concordant with 
 
 facts, 445 
 Concepts, objective and subjective, 136, 
 
 137, 386, 445 
 
 of modern physics, 397 
 
 Conceptualists, 446 
 Conclusion as to evolution, 528 
 Concrete self-activity first known, 20 
 
 examples may be less evident than 
 
 some general principles, 57 
 
 Condillac's hypothesis as to instinct, 361 
 Conditions and forces necessary for life, 1 54 
 ■ , external, their action on organisms, 
 
 376, 513 
 
 justifying common sense judgments, 
 
 63, 64 
 
 necessary for cycle of life, 164 
 
 for nervous activity, 165 
 
 needful for nutrition and alimenta- 
 tion, 159 
 
 — , objective, of bodies are knowable, 
 
 III 
 
 of existence, their causes, 526 
 
 of heredity, 173 
 
 of life necessitate death, 330 
 
 Conduct as related to truth, 529 
 Confines of human knowledge, 412 
 Conflict of consciousness with hypothesis of 
 
 automatism, 267, 268 
 Conformity, truth is a relation of, 239 
 Confusion between the idea, and the fact, 
 
 of " being," 457 
 Connection between our lower and higher 
 
 faculties as regards beauty, 260 
 Conscience, 254 
 
 and vegetarianism, 253 
 
 , its commands absolute, 251 
 
 Conscious attention, 262 
 
 automatism, 264, 265 
 
 volition, 268 
 
 Consciousness, 94, 218, 447 
 
 and compulsion, 272 
 
 and intellectual activity, 180, 187, 264, 
 
 448 
 
 and lummosity, 265 
 
 and power of choosing, 272 
 
 conflicts with automatism, 267, 268 
 
 indispensable to memory, 30 
 
 , its declarations as to free-will, 271 
 
 of acts of will, 264 
 
 of existence and volition, 274 
 
 Consciousness of present feelings, 17, 18 
 
 of self-action, and volition, 273 
 
 perceives tendencies of motives, 269 
 
 Consentience, 183, 219 
 
 in animals, 354 
 
 Consequences of absence of suffering, 469 
 
 of denying God's personality, 480-484 
 
 of memory's truthfulness, 35 
 
 of minute justice in this life, 468, 470 
 
 , practical, of speculative views, 293 
 
 Conspiracies to lie, 61 
 
 Constant elicitation of idea of motion, 443 
 
 Constellation Hercules, 300 
 
 Constitution of different animals different, 
 
 379 
 
 , ultimate, of bodies, probably inscru- 
 table, 416 
 
 Contemplation of creatures by God, 483 
 
 Continuity of human body, 151 
 
 Contractility, 155 
 
 Contraction of metal ring, illustration from, 
 267 
 
 Contradiction, difficulties concerning the 
 law of, 39, 40 
 
 of explaining instinct by habit, 363 
 
 , principle of, and volition, 270, 271 
 
 , , objection to, 43 
 
 , the law of, 39 
 
 , , a fundamental truth, 43 
 
 j , applies to everything, 43 
 
 , , causes of a feeling of uncer- 
 tainty about it, 44 
 
 , , its denial involves absolute 
 
 scepticism, 42 
 
 , , mistaken principle in its place, 
 
 , , the foundation of all reasoning, 
 
 43 
 
 Contradictions of reason in puimlar ideal- 
 ism, 140, 141 
 
 Contrast between feelings and ideas, 207- 
 210, 216 
 
 intellectual and emotional lan- 
 guage, 225 
 
 Convenience of mechanical hypotheses, 
 
 395 
 
 Convictions, commonly entertained, 60 
 
 of common sense, 62 
 
 Co-ordinated feelings, 197 
 
 movements, 156 
 
 Co-ordinating action of nerv'ous system, 
 164-168 
 
 Co-ordination through nervous system, its 
 limitations, .168, 169 
 
 Cope, Professor, and the horse, 520 
 
 Coral formations, 309 
 
 Cord, spinal, 150 
 
 Cordelia's character, illustration from, 242 
 
 Corpuscles, white, of blood, their move- 
 ments, 157 
 
 Correlation of forces, 393 
 
542 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Correspondence and response, organic, 169 
 
 between function and structure, 331 
 
 Cosmical hypotheses, 440 
 
 and evolution, 506 
 
 relations of the earth, 299 
 
 Cosmos considered as one whole, 45 j 
 
 , the, 299 
 
 Courtship and instinct, 175 
 
 Counting common to mankind, 280 
 
 Cournot and atoms, 403 
 
 Course of arteries in embryo, 172, 317, 339 
 
 Court of appeal, ultimate, 1 13 
 
 Coward, iUustration from one, 253 
 
 Cowardice and virtue, 253 
 
 Craving for a felt harmony, 200 
 
 Creating action and existence of God, 
 
 objections, 4S4 
 Creation, 462 
 
 and art, 293, 464, 465 
 
 and God's anterior existence, 484 
 
 and God's love, 498 
 
 and physical science, 463 
 
 by man, 293 
 
 • by organisms, 326, 333 
 
 , deceptions of the imagination respect- 
 ing it, 463 
 
 , derivative, 527 
 
 does not change God's nature, 485 
 
 does not limit God, 486 
 
 , helps towards our conception of it, 
 
 464 
 
 , its "how," inconceivable, 463 
 
 Creations seemingly unworthy, objections 
 respecting them, 477 
 
 Creatures in a space of only two dimen- 
 sions, 47 
 
 Credibility, 61 
 
 Credible, imaginable propositions and the 
 reverse, 112 
 
 Credulity, unwarrantable degree of, 141 
 
 Cretaceous rocks, 312 
 
 Criminal lunatic, illustration from, 275 
 
 Crinoids, 319 
 
 Criteria of truths, value of, 13 
 
 Criterion of beliefs, 10 
 
 of truths is self-evidence, 1 1 
 
 Criterion, supreme, the intellect, 1 13 
 
 Crocodiles, 317 
 
 Crucible, illustration from, 491 
 
 Cruel sacrifices often demanded by virtue, 
 4S8 
 
 Cruelty to prisoners, 283 
 
 Cruelty in nature, 468 
 
 Crust of the earth, 310 
 
 Crustaceans changed by salt water, 378 
 
 Cryptogams, 321 
 
 Crystalloids and colloids, 159, 304, 501 
 
 Crystals, 304, 323 
 
 . "calculatmg," illustration from, 444 
 
 , their mode of growth, 160, 304 
 
 Cube in the hand, 442 
 
 Cuckoos, and morality, 477 
 
 Culture enhances our perception of beauty, 
 
 255 
 Currents of the ocean, 309 
 Customs and ethics, 282 
 
 of Africa, 291 
 
 Cuttings of plants and animals, 337, 338 
 
 Cuttle-fishes, 318 
 
 Cuvier, 82 
 
 Cycads, 321 
 
 Cycle o( immaterial changes, 266 
 
 of life, 164, 327, 502 
 
 of physical changes, 265 
 
 Cyclical changes, telic, 438 
 Cyclosis, 326 
 
 D 
 
 Daddy-long-legs and candle, 472 
 Dallinger, Dr., and functional changes, 378 
 Daniel O'Connell, illustration from, 217 
 Dareste, M. C, and egg malformations, 
 
 379 
 Darwin and effects of environment, 378 
 
 and Fuegians, 284, 289 
 
 , chance and unreason, 525 
 
 on instinct, 515 
 
 Darwinism and man, 522 
 
 , its protean character, 516 
 
 Daughter of benefactor, illustration from, 
 
 249 
 Daylight and carbon fixation, t^t^t^ 
 Dead body, 391 
 Deaf mutes, 228 
 Death and intellect, 490 
 
 and life, 176 
 
 , body after, 391 
 
 , changes after, 438, 505 
 
 mostly painless, 473 
 
 , necessitated by life's conditions, 330 
 
 not simultaneous in all parts ot the 
 
 body, 337, 437 
 
 , universal, 395 
 
 Deceitfulness of our faculties, 125 
 Deception of the imagination respecting 
 
 creation, 463 
 on God's part implied by Berkeley, 
 
 131 
 
 Deceptions of the senses, 119 
 
 Deceptive nature asserted of colour, sound, 
 etc., 99, 100 
 
 Declaration of consciousness as to free-will, 
 
 271 
 ■ of intellect as to its own truth, 217 
 
 Declarations of intellect about qualities, 1 14 
 
 Deductions, 58, 220 
 
 Defect of God's purpose in nature impos- 
 sible, 467 
 
 of higher good is a lesser good, 248 
 
 Deficiency and beauty, 256 
 
INDEX. 
 
 543 
 
 Definite nature of chemical composition, 
 
 303 
 
 sensations, 182 
 
 Definition of instinct, 184, 427 
 
 of religion, 2S6 
 
 Deformities of savages, 281 
 
 Degradation and progress side by side, 291 
 
 and spiritualism, 292 
 
 , moral and intellectual, 293 
 
 of Iroquois, 291 
 
 Degrees of spontaneity in nature, 464 
 
 Dellii, its climate and setter dogs, 377 
 
 Deliberate attention, 262 
 
 Delphic precept, 16 
 
 Deltas, formation of, 30S 
 
 Delusions of the imagination, 411, 462 
 
 Demand of rewards and punishments by 
 justice, 4S8 
 
 Demerit demands chastisement, 488 
 
 Democritus, 395 
 
 Demonstration of evidence, impossible, 13 
 
 Demoralization must result from the exist- 
 ence of minute justice in this life, 470 
 
 ■ of man would result from nature's 
 
 moralization, 474 
 
 Denial of inference in the syllogism, 54 
 
 of knowledge of secondary qualities, 
 
 its meaning, loi 
 
 of law of contradiction involves 
 
 absolute scepticism, 42 
 
 of personality of God, its conse- 
 quences, 480-484 
 
 of self-knowledge, 16 
 
 of self-knowledge contains some truth, 
 
 17 
 
 Dependence, increase of, according to rank 
 of organism, 494 
 
 Derivation of ethics from feeling, impos- 
 sible, 246 
 
 Derivative creation, 527 
 
 Descartes and the soul, 390 
 
 Design, chance and natural selection, 525 
 
 Desire or wish, as words to denote " will," 
 270 
 
 Desires and appetites, 195 
 
 and motives which are strongest, 268 
 
 Destruction of knowledge, if evidence be 
 not accepted, 13 
 
 Determination, actions and feelings distin- 
 guished, 269 
 
 and inclination, plain distinction be- 
 tween, 271 
 
 and motives, 269 
 
 , internal act of, 269 
 
 Development, 164, 171, 339, 502, 504, 
 510, 518 
 
 shows latent nature of germs, 294, 523 
 
 Devonian rocks, 311, 368 
 
 Diameter of the sun, 301 
 Dicyema, 320 
 Didelphys, 316 
 
 Difference between explicit and implicit 
 
 knowledge, 55 
 the nature and evocation cjf an 
 
 idea, 106 
 
 , feelings of, 189, 191 
 
 in number between sensations and 
 
 ideas, 210 
 
 of sensitivity in men, 471 
 
 Differences, chemical and structural, l)c- 
 
 tween organic and inorganic bodies, 322 
 
 in ethical judgment, 252 
 
 of taste, how accounted for, 260 
 
 , structural, between organisms and 
 
 anorganisms, 322 
 , vast, between man and other organ- 
 isms, 434 
 Different constitution of different animals, 
 
 379 
 Difficulties of theism, 465 
 
 respecting the law of contradiction, 39 
 
 Difficulty of reflex mental acts, 8 
 Diftusion of " mind-stuff" asserted, 140 
 Digestion and attention, 390 
 Dignity increased by virtue, 48S 
 
 of man gradually revealed, 497 
 
 Dimensions of space, creatures supposed in 
 
 only two, 47 
 Diminution of jaws with soft food, 376 
 Dimorphic and polymorphic bodies, 306 
 Dinner-bell, illustration from, 185 
 Dinornis, 368 
 Dinosauria, 368 
 Diom-ea, 321, 332, 334, 437 
 Direct and reflex apprehensions distin- 
 guished, 23 
 
 judgments, 8 
 
 knowledge, what, 20 
 
 perception, illustration of, 21 
 
 of tendencies of motives, 269 
 
 universals, 206 
 
 Direction of planetary motions, 301 
 
 of solar system's motion, 300 
 
 Directions of nervous influence, 167 
 Disagreement, feelings of, 193 
 Disappearance and emergence of jirin- 
 
 ciples of individuation, 438, 507 
 Disassimilation, 162 
 Disbelief in immortality involves disliclief 
 
 in morality, 490 
 
 which is blind as bad as blind belief, 7 
 
 Discord and beauty, 256 
 Discords, utility of, 476 
 Discrimination in consciousness as to 
 
 guidance of sensation, 267 
 Diseased mental condition of one who 
 
 doubts generally, 7 
 Diseases inherited, 174 
 
 , symmetry of, 429 
 
 Dispersion of light, 401 
 
 Disproportion between the acquisition of 
 
 new ideas and new feelings, 209 
 
544 
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 Distance of nearest fixed star, 300 
 
 of the moon, 302 
 
 of the sun, 301 
 
 Distinction between acts and faculty of 
 
 memory, 30 
 determination and inclination, 
 
 271 
 • direct and reflex apprehension, 
 
 23 
 
 organic and intellectual volition, 
 
 268 
 
 what is necessary to the intel- 
 lect and what is indispensable to the 
 imagination, 41 1 
 
 , existence, similarity, unity, and 
 
 truth, ideas of, 103 
 
 Distinctions between animals and plants, 
 
 331 
 
 ■ which are substantial though tem- 
 porary, 442 
 
 Distinctness and vividness of sight and 
 touch, 442 
 
 of feelings, actions, and determina- 
 tions, 268 
 
 of instinct from habit, 362 
 
 of kind in and possible survival of 
 
 human soul, 435 
 
 of mental faculties an illusion, 202 
 
 of moral sentiments from perceptions, 
 
 252 
 
 Distrust, of a general nature, 7 
 
 of memory involves absolute scepti- 
 cism, 34 
 
 really impossible, 35 
 
 Divine and human reason analogous, 460 
 
 Being, the will of, not the root of 
 
 ethics, 247 
 
 • deception implied by Berkeley, 131 
 
 ideas, their manifestation one cause 
 
 of the universe, 497 
 intelligence and our ideas, 445 
 
 intention in nature, 239, 248, 492, 
 
 497 
 
 thought, 239, 240 
 
 Divisibility demands a cause, 49 
 Division of parts of nerves, 166 
 
 • , spontaneous, of organisms, 338 
 
 Doctrine of bestiality of man, 524 
 
 Dodo, 368 
 
 Dog and cat's classifications of objects, 
 
 345 
 
 and lost mistress, illustration from, 
 
 350 
 
 and parasol, 345 
 
 , constitution of, 379 
 
 , its principle of individuation, 426 
 
 Dog-star, illustration from, 39 
 Dogs and climate of Delhi, 377 
 
 , apes, and fires, 355 
 
 Dog's apprehension of motion, 345 
 of number, 345 
 
 Dog's declarations as to facts, 345 
 
 Doing good in sleep, 250 
 
 Domestic cattle, their lungs and livers, 
 376 
 
 fowl, constitution of, 379 
 
 Dominant impulse, 198 
 
 Donkey-engine, illustration from, 455 
 
 Door, handle of, and illustration of som- 
 nambulism, 265 
 
 Dorataspis, 429 
 
 Dormant, or inactive power and volition, 
 272 
 
 Doubt about knowledge as unreasonable 
 as about sensations, 45 
 
 our own existence, 16 
 
 as to knowledge, met by an example, 
 
 385 
 
 , feelings of, 193 
 
 of immortality relatively beneficial, 
 
 490, 491 
 
 may be exaggerated, 5 
 
 necessary, 4 
 
 , of a general nature, 7 
 
 Doubtful simplicity of feeling of tone, 108 
 Dr. Carpenter and somnambulists, 190 
 
 , on attention. 262 
 
 Cheadle and Indians, 291 
 
 Gasquet, 452 
 
 Hayman, 469, 470 
 
 Drawing, early, of mammoth, 278 
 Drawings could not have generated reason, 
 
 234 . 
 Dreaming and waking, 124 
 
 like animal cognition, 351 
 
 Dreams, 287 
 
 Drosera, 321, 332, 334, 427 
 
 Dryopithecus, 369 
 
 Dual origin of groups, 519 
 
 of horses, 520 
 
 Duck and evolution, 515 
 
 Ducks and geese, illustration from, 385 
 
 , tame, their bones and muscles, 376 
 
 Duke of Argyll and instinct, 359 
 
 of York's Island, 376 
 
 Dumb persons, 227 
 Dummes ding, 227 
 Duration, 410 
 
 Dutrochet and growth of mistletoe seed, 335 
 Duty and Cicero, 251 
 
 and self-gratification, 251 
 
 , conceived of as supreme, 251 
 
 implies God's existence, 489 
 
 , interest, and happiness, 245 
 
 of the true philosopher, 498, 499 
 
 Dynamical aspect of organisms, 423 
 
 E 
 
 Each man has an account to give, 488 
 material object is a compositum, 419 
 
INDEX. 
 
 545 
 
 Each material substance has its immaterial 
 
 principle, 419 
 organism may be called a single cell, 
 
 323, 437 
 Ear, 150 
 
 Earliest beliefs, 9, 10 
 Earth, its chemical composition, 302 
 
 , the, as a cosmical body, 299 
 
 Earth's axis, preces.sion of, 303 
 
 orbit, changes in, 303 
 
 , the, crust, 310 
 
 Earthworms, 319 
 
 Ease of conception of idea of motion, 410, 
 
 4", 443 
 with which the feeling of motion is 
 
 felt, 193 
 Easy comprehensibility of idealism, 75, 76 
 Eating and almsgiving, illustration from, 
 
 271 
 Echidna, 316 
 Echinoderms, 319, 368 
 
 , symmetry of, 429 
 
 Eclipses of Saturn, 397 
 
 Economy of intelligent action becoming 
 
 automatic, 363, 364 
 Edentates, 316 
 Edinburgh, journey to, illustration from, 
 
 274 
 Effects and tendencies of motives, 269 
 
 of environment and Mr. Darwin, 378 
 
 on organisms, 376 
 
 of exercise and repose, 174, 175 
 
 of First Cause show its nature, 454 
 
 of injury to spinal cord, 166 
 
 of use and disuse, 376 
 
 , sympathetic, of emotional signs, 196 
 
 Effete materials, elimination of, 162 
 
 Efifie Deans, illustration from, 241 
 
 Efforts, anti-impulsive, 264 
 
 Efts, 317 
 
 Efts' limbs, 337 
 
 Egg-hatching and evolution, 504 
 
 Ego, an object to the mind, 36 
 
 and the will equally known and un- 
 
 perceived directly, 263, 264 
 
 , our knowledge of, 19 
 
 Egypt, civilization of, 277 
 
 Egyptian gods, 497 
 
 Elasticity of ether, 399 
 
 Electricity acts as if a metal wire was a 
 
 hollow tube, 475 
 
 of atoms, 400 
 
 Elements, chemical, 147, 303 
 
 of our perception of a clock striking, 
 
 92 
 
 ■ of perception and abstraction, 214 
 
 , sexual, their reciprocal relations, 164, 
 
 508 
 
 , two, in perception, 91 
 
 Elephant and bridge, 245 
 , gorilla, and man, 434 
 
 Elephant tearing off his own trunk, 356 
 
 Elevation of land, 308 
 
 Embryo, 171 
 
 and environment, 379 
 
 Embryonic arteries, 172, 317, 339 
 
 development, 171 
 
 Embryos malformed, 379 
 
 of animals, their interrelations, 339 
 
 Emergence and disappearance of principles 
 of individuation, 438, 507 
 
 Emotion and religion, 530 
 
 Emotional and intellectual language con- 
 trasted, 225 
 
 language, 196 
 
 signs, their sympathetic effects, 196, 
 
 352 
 
 Emotions, 186 
 
 , higher, 221 
 
 of animals, 357 
 
 of sympathy, companionship, regret 
 
 and shame, 186 
 
 Emperor-moth and evolution, 516 
 
 , cocoon of, 361 
 
 End of man, 529 
 
 Endless, and therefore futile, reasoning, 9 
 
 Ends and xneans, feelings of, 199 
 
 , in intelligence, 447 
 
 Energy, 412 
 
 and extension as attributes, 440 
 
 and force, as terms, 393 
 
 , their transformations, 393, 413, 
 
 419 
 and matter unite to form a composi- 
 
 tum, 419 
 
 must exist in something, whether 
 
 material or immaterial, 418 
 
 of motion, modes of conceiving it, 418 
 
 , one or more, 413, 414 
 
 Enquirer after truth, the task of, 13, 14 
 
 Entia non sunt multiplicanda prceter ne- 
 cessitatem, 347 
 
 Enumeration of possible modes of evolu- 
 tion, 510, 511 
 
 Environment and chrysalids, 374, 520 
 
 and heredity, 512 
 
 and ourselves, 431 
 
 , its effects, and iVlr. Darwin, 378 
 
 , its effects on organisms, 376 
 
 Eocene strata, 312 
 
 Epileptic guinea-pigs, 379 
 
 Epitheliaum, ciliated, 158 
 
 Equal certainty of our knowledge of self 
 and feelings, 19 
 
 Equality, axiom about, second general 
 principle, 46 
 
 , , fallacious objection to, 47 
 
 , , involves certain fundamental 
 
 principles, 46 
 
 Equatorial current, 309 
 
 Equilibration, 395 
 
 Equinoxes, precession of, 302 
 
 2 N 
 
546 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Equivalence, quantitative, of physical 
 
 iorces, 301, 393 
 Erman in Kamskatka, 292 
 Error as to our knowledge of self and 
 feelings, 27 
 
 ■ of fact as to our knowledge of feelings, 
 
 18 
 Errors in simultaneous observations un- 
 common, 61 
 
 ■ , vulgar, 60 
 
 Esquimaux, 278, 283, 285 
 Essence, 240-242 
 
 ■ ol bodies is not their being perceived, 
 
 136 
 Essential absoluteness of ethics, 247 
 perception of truth in every judg- 
 ment, 104, 238 
 Eternal Being alone uncaused, 50 
 
 , prototypal ideas, 497 
 
 rhythm of worlds, 395 
 
 Eternity of universe (?), 451 
 Ether, 300, 396, 399, 401 
 
 and Professor Maxwell, 401 
 
 Ethical judgment is conscience, 254 
 
 judgments, differences in, 252 
 
 , shame and remorse, 252, 253 
 
 propositions must be at the base of 
 
 ethics, 246 
 Ethics absolute and unconditional, 247 
 
 and Kant, 248 
 
 and mankind, 2S2 
 
 and Pantheism, 459 
 
 ■ and taste in animals, 356 
 
 • cannot have been developed from 
 
 feelings, 246 
 
 in the foundation of the universe, 248 
 
 must be based on ethical propositions, 
 
 246 
 
 not dependent on God's will, 247, 248 
 
 Etiquette and morality, 252 
 
 Etty and Raphael, illustration from, 255 
 
 Etymology of evolution, 505 
 
 Eucalypti and mimosa;, 373 
 
 Euclid, illustrntion from, 56 
 
 Euphorbias mimicking cacti, 373 
 
 Europe and North Asia, 369 
 
 Europeans of tenth century and Americans, 
 
 292 
 Every body a compositum of matter and 
 energy, 419 
 
 human being is a person, 392 
 
 known body is matter and energy, 
 
 living creature a two-sided unity, 421 
 
 new existence has a cause, 48 
 
 responsible person has an account to 
 
 give, 488 
 
 separate organism's body may be 
 
 called a cell, 323 
 Everyday life, certainties of, 6, 7 
 , convictions concerning, 60 
 
 Everything cannot be proved, 9 
 
 embraced by law of contradiction, 42 
 
 has a cause, not true, 48 
 
 has beauty, 259 
 
 is more or less good, 248 
 
 thinkable is material for scientific 
 
 work, 385 
 
 Evidence as to deaf mutes of Herr Oechl- 
 wein, 22S 
 
 as to transformation of energy, 413, 
 
 414 
 
 cannot be demonstrated, and must be 
 
 acce|ited, 13 
 
 , is there a better possible criterion? 13 
 
 of general principles scnetimes greater 
 
 than that of particular cases, 57 
 
 of science and immortality, 490 
 
 of the senses may be doubted, 7 
 
 , self, of intellectual causation, 268 
 
 , spontaneous and reflex, of law of 
 
 causation, 48 
 
 the only test in philosophy, 383 
 
 to the senses of the body's existence, 
 
 387 
 Evident judgments must be taken on then- 
 own evidence, 1 1 
 
 must be seen to be evident by 
 
 reflection, II 
 
 truth of reasoning. 54, 58 
 
 Evil consequences of absence of evil, 468, 
 469 
 
 is negative, 248 
 
 often successful in this life, 488, 489 
 
 Evils of life and Theism, 467 
 
 Evocation and nature of an idea very dif- 
 ferent, 104 
 
 Evolution, 500 
 
 and Alfred Wallace, 518 
 
 and art, 517, 518 
 
 and common sense, 63 
 
 and first cause, 526 
 
 and idealism, 84 
 
 and infancy, 294, 523 
 
 and instinct, 515 
 
 and language, 232, 524 
 
 and man's faculties, 517 
 
 and morality, 246, 522 
 
 and music, 522 
 
 and natural selection, 514, 526 
 
 and spirit, 527 
 
 , conclusion as to, 528 
 
 of the individual, 440, 502 
 
 points to glorification of the universe, 
 
 529 
 
 possible modes of, 510, 511 
 
 Ex nihilo nihil fit, 463 
 
 Exaggerated doubt, 5 
 
 Examination of conscience, illustration 
 from, 22 
 
 Example of possibility of certain know- 
 ledge, 385 
 
INDEX. 
 
 547 
 
 Examples of sylloq;isms, 54 
 
 Excellence increased by virtue, 488 
 
 Exchange of gases, 161 
 
 Exemplar cause, 497 
 
 Exercise, first, of the senses, 184, 185 
 
 , its stimulating effect, 174 
 
 Exhaustive knowledge of qualities, not for 
 
 us, 100 
 Existence, 240, 241 
 and creative action of God, objections 
 
 concerning, 4S4 
 and volition, our consciousness about, 
 
 274 
 , distinction, similarity, etc., ideas of, 
 
 103 
 
 , every new one has a cause, 48 
 
 immodified, impossible, 20 
 
 , necessary belief with respect to any 
 
 object of veneration, 530 
 
 not univocal in God and creatures, 
 
 481 
 
 of certainty, 6 
 
 of God before creation, 484, 485 
 
 of God, implied by the moral law, 
 
 490 
 
 of God, its possible doubt a mercy, 
 
 491 
 of imaginations beside perceptions, 
 
 105 
 
 of mind cannot be doubted, 138 
 
 of self and of feelings objects to the 
 
 mind, 36 
 
 of soul after death unimaginable, 490 
 
 undeniable, 390 
 
 of unknown orders of being possible, 
 
 474 
 
 • pervaded by goodness, 148 
 
 , simultaneously, of all possible things 
 
 impossible, 469 
 
 , uncaused, must have an intrinsic suffi- 
 cient reason for its being, 49 
 
 Existences, real and ideal, 445 
 
 Existing and possible being, 458 
 
 Expectant feeling, 195 
 
 Experience, idea of, 109 
 
 ■ impossible if memory untrustworthy, 
 
 33 . , . , 
 
 refutes hypothesis of automatism, 267 
 
 shows us universal truths, 45 
 
 Explanation of apparent intelligence in 
 animals, 347 
 
 of the rationality of the irrational, 
 
 460 
 
 Explanatory cosmical hypotheses, 420, 440, 
 506 
 
 Explicit and implicit knowledge, the differ- 
 ence between, 55 
 
 perceptions of self and feelings, 
 
 22-24 
 
 Exposure of roots of trees produces changed 
 structure, 378 
 
 Extension a primary quality, 98 
 
 and energy as attributes, 440 
 
 and force as attributes of an unknown 
 
 substance, 420 
 
 and God, 456 
 
 and goodness compared, 45S1 45^ 
 
 and space as abstractions, 407, 409 
 
 and thought as attributes of sub- 
 stance, 139, 392 
 
 , feelings of, 191 
 
 , idea of, and accompanying feelings, 
 
 106 
 
 only a relative perfection, 456 
 
 External conditions, action of, 512, 513 
 evidence no avail for ultimate truths, 
 
 13 
 
 relations demand a cause, 49 
 
 of organisms, 377 
 
 respiration, 162 
 
 signs of the emotions, 196 
 
 Extreme ease of conception of idea of 
 
 motion, 41 1 
 Extrinsic and intrinsic colours, 114, 116 
 
 sounds, 114, 118 
 
 possibility, 242, 243 
 
 unity, 391 
 
 Eye, 40, 150, 343 
 
 Facility of conception of motion, 41 1 
 
 Fact and idea of being, 457 
 
 Facts as made known by dogs, 345 
 
 , perceptions of, 12 
 
 Faculties, moral, 254 
 
 of animals, 342 
 
 , rules for estimating them, 347 
 
 of babes, 9 
 
 of man and evolution, 517 
 
 of mind not really distinct, 202 
 
 , ours, deceitful, 225 
 
 Faculty and acts of memory distinguished, 
 
 30 
 
 of instinct, a separate one, 362 
 
 of retention in the imagination, 186 
 
 of will, 262 
 
 Failure of memory, illustrations of, 29 
 
 of one end in nature is fulfilment of 
 
 others, 467 
 
 Faint and vivid feelings, 102 
 
 Fallacies, objection to axiom about equa- 
 lity, 47 
 
 Fallacy about niemoiy, 33 
 
 Falling oak, illustration from, 225, 352 
 
 , meaning of the term, 226 
 
 False notes and drawing, illustration from, 
 
 239 
 Familiar example of ontogeny, 504 
 
 home-truths, 6, 11, 38 
 
 Families, evolution of, 526 
 
548 
 
 I.\DEX. 
 
 Families, in biological classification, 315 
 
 Fat, 147 
 
 Father shot, illustration from, 249 
 
 Faunas, 369 
 
 Feeding of amoeba, 336 
 
 the ghosts, 287 
 
 Feeling and religion, 530 
 
 , asserted logic of, 236 
 
 cannot reflect, 216 
 
 ■ for beauty, 197 
 
 ■ for truth, 193, 194 
 
 in animals, 342 
 
 of arrested motion, 194 
 
 of being, impossible, 20S, 209 
 
 of force, 190, 207 
 
 ■ of motion, its extreme facility, 193 
 of pleasurable satisfaction from con- 
 duct, 194 
 
 of shock, 193, 198 
 
 of smooth and easy transition, 194 
 
 of suspended action, 194 
 
 of uncertainty about law of contra 
 
 diction, cause of this, 44 
 
 the body cannot teach us the past, 37 
 
 Feelings absolutely certain, 17 
 
 accompanying the idea "extension," 
 
 106, 191, 192 
 
 , action, and determination distin- 
 guished, 269 
 
 and existence of self, objects to the 
 
 mind, 36 
 
 and ideas, associations between, 6 
 
 , enormous difference in their 
 
 relative number, 209 
 
 and moral judgments harmonize in 
 
 the perfect, 254 
 
 • and perceptions of beauty, 254 
 
 and reproduction, 184 
 
 and self, as explicitly and implicitly 
 
 apprehended, 22-24 
 , error as to our knowledge of, 
 
 27 . 
 
 and sentiments, their relations to 
 
 highest ideas, 237 
 ■ cannot be known without self-know- 
 ledge, 24 
 
 cannot have developed into ethics, 
 
 246 
 
 • contrasted with ideas, 207-210, 216 
 
 , co-ordinated ones, 197 
 
 , different, as regards primary and 
 
 secondary qualities, 99 
 
 due to grasping, 190, 19 1 
 
 , error of fact concerning our know- 
 ledge of them, 18 
 
 , expectant, 195 
 
 from contact of our hands, 190 
 
 habitually unnoticed, 193 
 
 initiate ideas, 209 
 
 , instinctive ones, 184 
 
 known by reflex mental act, 20, 21 
 
 Feelings not known apart from self-know- 
 ledge, 18 
 prior to self, 26 
 
 of activity, passivity, self, not-self, 
 
 and difference, 189 
 
 of lapse of time in old and young, 1 10 
 
 of means and end, 199 
 
 of reverence, 530 
 
 of surprise, doubt, agreement, and 
 
 disagreement, 193 
 
 of sympathy, companionship, regret, 
 
 and shame, 186 
 
 of taste, 197 
 
 of tone of doubtful simplicity, 108 
 
 related to perception of goodness, 243 
 
 relating to causation, 195 
 
 to succession, extension, posi- 
 tion, shape, size, number, and motion, 
 191 
 
 , simple and compound, 107 
 
 , synthesis of, 198 
 
 , vivid and faint, 102 
 
 Feet of Chinese girls, 379 
 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 
 384 
 Female cell, 164 
 Fencing, illustration from, 26 
 Fernando Po, natives of, 288, 2S9 
 Ferns, 321 
 
 Fertilization of flowers by insects, 370 
 Fibres, muscular, 148, 155 
 Ficus stipulata, 377 
 Fight between somnambidists, 190 
 Final answer as to what is truth, 531 
 causes, 492 
 
 equilibration of the universe, 394, 
 
 .395 
 Finality immanent, 493 
 Fingers and toes, abnormal, 429 
 
 holding a pea, 121, 122 
 
 Fire, good symbol of life, 432 
 
 , knowledge of, 278, 292 
 
 Fires, dogs, and apes, 355 
 
 Firs, 321 
 
 First active exercise of the senses, 184, 
 
 185 
 
 Cause, 450 
 
 alone can judge us, 489 
 
 , an adequate one needed, 453 
 
 and evolution, 526 
 
 and intellect, 455 
 
 its nature known by its effects, 
 
 454 
 
 has purpose, 492 
 
 is not man, 456 
 
 fundamental fact, self-knowledge, 16 
 
 general principle, 39 
 
 law of motion and heredity, 512 
 
 sucking action of infant, 184 
 
 Fishes, 317 
 
 Fission, spontaneous, 338, 437 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 549 
 
 Five orders of immaterial principles, 433 
 
 Fixation of carbon, chlorophyll, and day- 
 light, 333 
 
 Fixed stars, 300 
 
 , light of, 398 
 
 Flagellata, 320, 325 
 
 Flame and wound caused by it, illustration 
 from, 454 
 
 , its unity and substantiality, 432 
 
 Flattening of the head, 281 
 
 Flattering a bad God, 247 
 
 Fleshy leaves of plants, 377 
 
 Flies and carrion plant, 356 
 
 Flint, 303 
 
 implements, 278 
 
 Flora of St. Helena, 372 
 Floras, 369 
 
 Flower fertilization and insects, 370, 371 
 Flowers of Tahiti, Juan Fernandez, and 
 Galapagos, 371 
 
 protected by and from organisms, 
 
 371 
 Fluid, solid and aeriform states, 304 
 Fluidity and atoms, 404 
 Fly on York Minster, illustration from, 
 
 479 
 Focal force, illustration from idea of, 431 
 Following right order, is goodness, 244, 
 
 245 
 Food, 158, 159 
 
 and specific change, 377 
 
 , soft, effects of on jaws, 376 
 
 Foolishness of universal scepticism, 7 
 Foot and wing feathers, 428 
 Foraminifera, 320 
 Force and energy as terms, 393 
 , their transformation, 393, 413, 
 
 419 
 
 and extension as attributes of one 
 
 unknown substance, 420 
 
 as a quality, 98 
 
 ■ , feeling of, 190, 207 
 
 , internal, 422 
 
 of some arguments, perception of, 12. 
 
 13 „ o 
 
 of the word " therefore, 58 
 
 , or power, the idea of, 50, 106, 220 
 
 , vital, 393 
 
 Forces and conditions necessary for life, 
 
 154 
 
 extra and intra organic, 423 
 
 inconvertible, if forms of one energy, 
 
 413 
 
 , physical, 301 
 
 , their composition, and heredity, 512 
 
 , their correlation, 393 
 
 Foresight pertains to true intelligent 
 
 action, 449 
 Formal and material goodness, 249 
 
 and material intelligence, 449, 460 
 
 and material truth, 239 
 
 Formal, example of use of that term, 249 
 goodness not in actions of animals, 
 
 intelligence not in irrational nature, 
 
 449. 460 
 
 ■ , not in nature but in its cause, 
 
 449 
 
 Formation, artificially, of organic sub- 
 stance, 501 
 
 of deltas, 308 
 
 of organic matter, 333 
 
 Formations, geological, 311 
 
 Forms common to all organisms, 323 
 
 , intermediate and temporary, 438 
 
 Fortuitous, nothing such in individual de- 
 velopment, 509 
 
 Fossilization, 313 
 
 Fossils, 313 
 
 rarely preserved, 368 
 
 Fountain, illustration from, 391 
 
 Fowls and pigeons' "boots," 428 
 
 " Freedom," a negative term, 272 
 
 indicates God, 4S9 
 
 of the will, 274 
 
 Free-will a declaration of consciousness, 
 271 
 
 and morality, 274 
 
 , Bayle's objection to, 273 
 
 , its disbelief involved in denial of 
 
 future life, 490 
 
 Frogs, 317 
 
 Frog's leg amputated, and growth, 337, 437 
 
 reflex actions, 343, 344 
 
 Frost on window panes, 304 
 
 Fuegians, 282, 288, 292 
 
 Fulfilment of moral law, purpose of nature, 
 
 495 
 Fulstra, 319 
 Function, alimentary, 158 
 
 of circulating system, 160 
 
 of generation, 164 
 
 of muscular tissue, 155 
 
 of respiratory system, 161 
 
 of secretion, 162 
 
 , vegetative, 336 
 
 Functional changes and Dr. Dallinger, 
 
 378 
 Functions and structures correspond, 331 
 
 , hierarchy of, 176 
 
 of bacteria, 375 
 
 of nervous system, 164-168 
 
 of the body, 154 
 
 of tissues, organs, and systems, 1 76, 
 
 331 
 , their study must be preceded by that 
 
 of structure, 146 
 
 , trustworthy, 141 
 
 Fundamental certainty contains three 
 
 orders of truths, 12 
 distinction between inclinations and 
 
 volitions, 270, 271 
 
550 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fundamental error as to knowledge of self 
 
 and feelings, 27 
 
 fact (first one), self-knowledge, 16 
 
 (second one), memory's truth, 29 
 
 objection of realism, 97 
 
 perceptions involved in axiom about 
 
 equality, 46 
 
 truth of law of contradiction, 42 
 
 Fungi, 321 
 
 and parasite plants do not fix carbon, 
 
 334 
 
 , as parasitic, 374 
 
 Future glorification of the universe indi- 
 cated, 529 
 
 — life and Theism, 487 
 
 and justice, 4S8, 489 
 
 , belief in, 286, 287 
 
 Galapagos islands, flora of, 371 
 
 Ganges, mud of, 307 
 
 Gas, carbonic acid, 303, 306 
 
 Gaseous exchange, 161 
 
 Gases, nature of, 399 
 
 Gasquet, Dr., 512 
 
 Gastric juice, 159 
 
 "Gee-gee" and "quack-quack" as intel- 
 lectual signs, 226 
 
 Genera, 316 
 
 General distrust and scepticism, 7 
 
 ideas, 5, 206 
 
 necessary truths, 12, 39 
 
 • principle, second, an axiom about 
 
 equality, 46 
 
 , the first, 39 
 
 , third, law of causation, 48 
 
 principles may be more evident than 
 
 concrete examples, 57 
 
 propositions at the root of ethics, 246 
 
 Generalized sensuous cognitions, 191 
 
 Generation, 163, 339, 436 
 
 and life in lower organisms, 339 
 
 philosophy of, 507 
 
 , spontaneous, 330 
 
 , , primordial, 501 
 
 Generative function, 164 
 
 system, 149 
 
 Genesis of new species, possible modes of, 
 510,511 
 
 Geography, illustrations from, 61 
 
 , organic, 369 
 
 Geological age of man, 369 
 
 formations, 31 1 
 
 Geometrical truth, certainty of, 47 
 
 Germ, idea in, 493 
 
 , nature of, shown by its develop- 
 ment, 294 
 
 Gervais, M. Paul, 278 
 
 Gesture language, 227, 231, 235 
 
 Gesture in animals, 351 
 
 Ghosts, 227 
 
 Gills, 317 
 
 Glacial epoch, 313, 369 
 
 Glands, 163 
 
 Glorification of the universe indicated, 529 
 
 Glossopharyngeal nerve, 150 
 
 Goats in St. Helena, 372 
 
 God, a bad one, the flattering of, 247 
 
 , absurd imagination of fatigue in Him, 
 
 483 
 
 , according to Berkeley, 13 1 
 
 and evolution, 526 
 
 and extension, 456 
 
 and man, analogy between, 480, 481 
 
 and purpose, 492 
 
 and the intellect, 460 
 
 • , as First Cause, 453 
 
 can alone justly reward and punish, 
 
 489 
 
 cannot make all possible things simul- 
 taneously actual, 469 
 
 could not make anything both be and 
 
 not be, 43 
 
 has revealed man's dignity gradually, 
 
 497 
 
 implied in our moral intuitions and 
 
 duty, 487 
 
 , man's only true satisfaction, 4S9, 530 
 
 may have aims above goodness, 476 
 
 may have utterly inconceivable pur- 
 poses in view, 474 
 
 not limited by His creation, 4S5, 486 
 
 , source of necessary truths, 460 
 
 too merciful to manifest Himself in- 
 disputably, 491 
 
 wills all ends attained, 467 
 
 wills most service to man, 495 
 
 God-implanted judgments, 10 
 Gods of Egypt, 497 
 God's attention, 482 
 
 existence a creating action, objections 
 
 to, 484 
 
 implied by the moral law, 490 
 
 goodness implies a future life, 4S7 
 
 love and creation, 498 
 
 nature, and Malebranche, 4S8 
 
 unchanged by creation, 485 
 
 personality, consequence of its denial, 
 
 484 
 
 purposes in nature cannot be de- 
 feated, 467 
 
 solitary existence before creation, 484 
 
 will not the foundation of ethics, 
 
 247, 248 
 
 Good done in sleep, supposition of, 250 
 
 habits and spontaneous good acts, 
 
 250 
 
 must be "good," 475 
 
 things may be hateti, 254 
 
 Goodness, absolute and relative, 244 
 
INDEX. 
 
 551 
 
 Goodness an ultimate idea, 245 
 
 and extension, 455, 456 
 
 and unconsciousness, 250 
 
 • , beauty, and truth, perceptions of, 
 
 237 
 
 , distinct from utility and pleasure, 
 
 244, 245, 251 
 
 , idea of and related feelings, 243 
 
 idea of, not dependent on Ciotl's will, 
 
 247, 248 
 
 implies a relation, 248 
 
 is " following the right order,'' 245 
 
 , material and formal, 249 
 
 - — — may not be highest end of God, 476 
 
 objective and subjective, 251 
 
 of God and Malebranche, 488 
 
 of God implies a future life, 487 
 
 pervades existence, 248 
 
 , physical, basis of perception of, 237 
 
 , truth, and beauty, interrelations be- 
 tween, 259 
 
 universal, 248 
 
 Goose, constitution of, 379 
 Gorilla, 316 
 
 and Dr. Hermes, anecdote, 349 
 
 , elephant, and man, 434 
 
 Gould, Air., and birds' colours, 377 
 Gourmand, illustration from, 253 
 Gradual revelation of man's dignity, 497 
 Grafting, 339, 439 
 
 , philosophy of, 508 
 
 Grasping, feelings of, 190, 265 
 Gratification of self, is it a duty ? 251 
 Gratiolet on instinct, 359 
 Gravities, specific, of atoms, 402 
 Clreat auk, 368 
 
 bustard, when existing in England, 
 
 368 
 
 toe and thumb, 152 
 
 Greek art and savages, 2S1 
 
 Greenland, 310 
 
 CJreenlanders, 283, 284 
 
 Greenness and carbon fixation, 333 
 
 (ircensand, 312 
 
 Gregarinida,320 
 
 Grounds for believing that animals feel, 343 
 
 of belief, 10 
 
 of certainty, 65 
 
 Groups, natural, may have a dual origin, 
 519. 520 
 
 of co-ordinate movements, 156, 157 
 
 Growth, 158 
 
 , and force of reproduction, 163, 338 
 
 of crystals, 160, 304 
 
 Grub of stag-beetle, instinct of, 360, 361 
 
 Guides of action, are sensations, 265, 267 
 
 Guinea fowl, constitution of, 379 
 
 Guinea-pigs and epilepsy, 341 
 
 Gulf Stream, 309 
 
 Gymnosperms, 321 
 
 Gyrations of particles and philosophy, 394 
 
 H 
 
 Habit, 174 
 
 and instinct in animals, relations be- 
 tween, 358, 362 
 
 organic, and memory, 169, 447 
 
 Habits of goodness and spontaneous good 
 
 acts, 250 
 - — - of man analogous to instincts of 
 
 animals, 275 
 Haeckel and bull's tail, 341 
 
 and many souls in one organism, 424 
 
 and mechanical philosophy, 395 
 
 Hair of cats and climate, 377 
 Hand contact, feelings from, 190 
 Handkerchief, illustration from, 204 
 Handle of door, illustration from, 265 
 Happiness and duty, 245 
 
 should attend merits, 488 
 
 Hard heart as a metaphor, 442 
 Harmony and Baptistery of Pisa, 108 
 
 and beauty, 256 
 
 and evolution, 522 
 
 of feeling craved by imagination, 200 
 
 of the feelings with moral judgments 
 
 in the perfect, 254 
 
 of universe, 453 
 
 Harpooning and ethics, 283, 284 
 Hartmann and unconscious intelligence 
 
 447 
 Hat and coat, illustration from, 281 
 Hatching of egg and evolution, 504 
 Hatred of good things, 254 
 Hawai, Island of, 308 
 Hayman, Dr., 469, 470 
 Head flattening, 28 1 
 Healing of a wound, 169 
 Heart, 149, 155, 168 
 beating after its removal from body, 
 
 337, 437 
 
 , its nervous system, 168 
 
 Heart's activity, 155 
 
 Heat and light, energies of, 413 
 
 and mode of motion, 393, 412 
 
 of body, 159 
 
 Heavens and Kant, 248 
 
 Hegel and identity of being and not-being, 
 
 Helena, St., its flora, 372 
 Hell and John Stuart Mill, 247 
 Helmholtz and mechanical philosophy, 395 
 Helps towards the conception of creation, 
 
 464 
 Hemispheres, cerebral, 151 
 Herbert Spencer and the universe, 452 
 Herculaneum, 310 
 Hercules, the constellation, 300 
 Herds and Alpine plants, 370 
 Heredity, 173, 340 
 
 and first law of motion, 512 
 
 Hermes, Dr., and the gorilla, 349 
 
552 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hibernation, 365 
 Hierarchy of functions, 176 
 
 of ministrations, 493 
 
 Higher emotions, 221 
 
 instinct, the moral sense is one, 254 
 
 mental powers, 203, 223 
 
 Highest aim perceptible for us is advance 
 in morality, 473 
 
 aims depend on suffering, 473 
 
 and lowest faculties of man and evolu- 
 tion, 517 
 
 ideas ministered to by feelings and 
 
 sentiments, 237 
 
 purposes, 495 
 
 science, 14, 383 
 
 " History of Philosophy, Ueberweg's," 392 
 
 Holland, Mr. R., and cocoons of moths, 
 
 374 
 Home-truths, 38 
 Homologies, 152, 319, 422, 428, 429, 513, 
 
 514 
 
 , remote, and hypothetical, 513, 514 
 
 Homology, 152 
 
 bilateral, 152, 429, 513 
 
 , serial, 152, 318, 428, 513 
 
 radial, 319 
 
 Homotypes, 152 
 
 Horse, idea of, illustration from, 103, 206 
 Horses, bony breeds of, 377 
 
 , constitution of, 379 
 
 Horse's origin, and Professor Cope, 520 
 Horsetails, 321 
 Hottentots and art, 281 
 Housebreaker's tool, illustration from, 244 
 Housebuilding, illustration from, 364 
 How little we know, 474 
 
 of creation, inconceivable, 463 
 
 we know self, 20 
 
 we know things, a mystery, 45 
 
 Human aspirations, their only adequate 
 
 object, 480, 530 
 
 beings are persons, 392 
 
 habits analogous to animal instincts, 
 
 275 
 
 intellect, the study worthy of it, 
 
 499. 
 
 life and teleology, 529 
 
 mind spontaneously seeks causes, 48, 
 
 449 
 nature can only be understood fully by 
 
 its author, 489 
 
 reason analogous to God's, 460 
 
 soul and spirit, 392 
 
 soul, its distinctness and possible 
 
 survival, 435 
 
 testimony, 61 
 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm, and speech, 524 
 
 Hunger, 184 
 
 Huxley and mechanical philosophy, 395 
 
 Hydra, 119, 319, 337, 437, 438 
 
 illustration from, 119 
 
 Hydrochloric acid, 303 
 Hydrogen, 148, 301, 306, 323 
 
 in the sun, 301 
 
 Hyperhypostasis, 482 
 
 Hypospadias, 379 
 
 Hypotheses as to organisms, 506 
 
 cosmical, 440 
 
 cosmical, and evolution, 506 
 
 phyllogenetic, 510, 511 
 
 subsidiary to nebular theory, 406 
 
 Hypothesis of automatism, 264, 267 
 
 of Berkeley untenable, 130, 13 1 
 
 of generation, 436, 506 
 
 of lapsed intelligence, 363 
 
 Hypothetical ether, 399 
 
 genetic homologies, 513, 514 
 
 objectivity and Pantheism, 459 
 
 possibilities certainly knowable, 385 
 
 "I am," signification of the expression, 36 
 
 Ichthyosauri, 368 
 
 Idea, an, cannot itself direct, 509 
 
 , an, its nature and evocation different, 
 
 106 
 , an, not an amalgam of imaginations, 
 
 105 
 
 and fact of being, 457 
 
 in germ, 493 
 
 of a horse, 103, 206 
 
 of act of seeing, 109 
 
 of being, 205, 209 
 
 of being in a child, 209, 227, 234 
 
 of cause, 48, 243 
 
 of colour very distinct from a feeling, 
 
 no 
 
 of experience, 109 
 
 of extension and accompanying feel- 
 ings, 106 
 
 of force, 50, 106 
 
 of goodness not dependent on God's 
 
 will, 247, 248 
 
 of goodness, ultimate, 245 
 
 of light probably inadequate, 1 15 
 
 of motion, how evoked, 216 
 
 of motion, most common, primary, 
 
 etc., 443 
 
 of motion most frequent and easiest, 
 
 410, 411 
 
 of nonentity, no 
 
 of power, 50, 106 
 
 of reality and coming seasons, 242 
 
 of space more than an amalgam of 
 
 feelings, 408 
 
 of substance, 414 
 
 of the not necessary, 242 
 
 of two, 241 
 
 Ideal and real existences, 445 
 beauty never realized, 257 
 
INDEX. 
 
 553 
 
 Idealism, 69 
 
 — • — , a popular form of, 134 
 
 , ancient, 445 
 
 • and biolog}', 82 
 
 and common sense, 84 
 
 and evolution, 83 
 
 and science, 79 
 
 and simple perceptions, 79 
 
 , its apparent superiority, 76 
 
 , its attractiveness, 75 
 
 , its comprehension easy, 75, 76 
 
 , J. S. Mill's, 131 
 
 , logical on its premisses, 76 
 
 , need of studying it, 71 
 
 of Berkeley, 130 
 
 of Mr. G. H. Lewes, 135 
 
 old and new, 130 
 
 , popular, contradicts reason, 140 
 
 sometimes really materialistic, 138 
 
 , truths in it, 87 
 
 , what it is, 73 
 
 Idealist phraseology inadequate for science, 
 
 81,83 
 Idealists ignore an important truth, 88, 89 
 Ideas, a priori, 8, 9 
 , abstract, may exist without speech, 
 
 227 
 
 , , necessary for speech, 226, 227 
 
 and feelings, associations between, 6 
 
 and feelings, enormous difference in 
 
 their relative number, 210 
 
 , association of, 217 
 
 contrasted with feelings, 207-210, 216 
 
 , even the highest, ministered to by 
 
 feelings, 88, 237 
 
 , general or universal, 206 
 
 , human and divine, 445, 497 
 
 impossible without imaginations, 88, 
 
 of existence, distinction, similarity, 
 
 unity, and truth, 103, 104 
 
 of materiality, life, and animal nature, 
 
 104, 105 
 of number, unity, existence, essence, 
 
 etc., 240, 241 
 
 of truth and beauty universal, 2S0, 
 
 281 
 
 , perception, and sensations, 10 1 
 
 prototypal, 497 
 
 , the most abstract, need the help of 
 
 imaginations, 88, 237 
 Identity of bodily structure in different 
 
 races of men, 277 
 Idiots, 183, 186, 196, 197 
 Idols, 2S7 
 Igneous action, 308 
 
 rocks, 310 
 
 Ignorantia modi non tollit certitudinem 
 
 facti, 128 
 Illusions (asserted) of the senses, 121, 122 
 Illustration from a balloon, 123 
 
 Illustration from abenefactor's daughter, 249 
 
 from a blow, 25 
 
 from a bull-fight, 357 
 
 from a chain, 191, 192 
 
 from a clock, 424 
 
 from a coming carriage, 90 
 
 from a coward, 253 
 
 from a crucible, 491 
 
 from a familiar melody, 1S6 
 
 from a fountain, 391 
 
 from a gourmand and the wrong 
 
 sauce, 253 
 
 from a handkerchief, 204 
 
 from a housebreaker's tool, 244 
 
 from a hurt leg, 3SS 
 
 from a hydra, 119 
 
 from a journey to Edinburgh, 274 
 
 from a knife cutting itself, 388 
 
 from a man sitting on and sawing a 
 
 tree's branch, 134 
 
 from a mendicant, 478 
 
 from a negro, 137 
 
 from a railway guard, 170 
 
 from a ring of different metals, 267 
 
 from a soap-bubble, 1 16 
 
 from a somnambulist, 199 
 
 from a statue, 515 
 
 from a tiger, 354, 421 
 
 from a weather-cock, 273 
 
 from a yard measure, 46 
 
 from action of pruning-knife, 51S 
 
 from an oak, 212, 215, 225, 252 
 
 from an orange, 93, 193-195 
 
 from armchairs and champagne, 270 
 
 from arrival of expected guest, 268 
 
 from artist and his canvas, 456 
 
 from balls in a bag, 273 
 
 from banks and trades unions, 444 
 
 from bigamy, 250 
 
 from blacksmith's arm, 169, 376 
 
 from broken marble statue, 24S 
 
 from brood of young birds, 467 
 
 from calculating machines, 448 
 
 from cart-horse, 41 
 
 from cat's movements, 49, 350 
 
 from collision of two sidereal bodies, 
 
 52 
 
 seasons and ideas of 
 
 from coming 
 
 reality, 242 
 
 from Cordelia's character, 242 
 
 from courtesan and assassin, 459 
 
 from criminal lunatic, 275 
 
 from dinner-bell, 1S5 
 
 from dog and parasol, 345 
 
 from dog which has lost its mistress, 
 
 350 
 
 from donkey-engine, 455 
 
 from door-handle and stairs, 265 
 
 from eating and almsgiving, 271 
 
 from Effie Deans, 241 
 
 from Etty and Lohengrin, 255 
 
554 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Illustration from Euclid, 56 
 
 from evolution, 84 
 
 ■ from examination of conscience, 22 
 
 • from eyes, 40 
 
 from falling oak, 225, 352 
 
 from false musical notes, 239 
 
 • from fencing, 26 
 
 • from flame, steel, and a wound, 454 
 
 from fly on York Minster, 479 
 
 from form of hats and coats, 281 
 
 from geography, 61 
 
 from house-building, 364 
 
 from idea of a local force, 431 
 
 • ■ from injunction to pay a debt, 245 
 
 from Ireland, Gladstone, and O'Con- 
 
 nell, 217 
 
 from lady's finger, 167 
 
 from laying a book down, 21 
 
 from lightning, 195 
 
 from lines of cleavage and stratifica- 
 
 lion, 475 
 
 ■ from Lord Beaconsfield, 19 
 
 from Lord's Prayer, 228 
 
 from Marie Antoinette, 489 
 
 • from megatherium, 82 
 
 • from mother and children, 46 
 
 • from parricidal act, 249, 250, 2S2 
 
 from perspective drawing, 90 
 
 from photograph of the queen, 216 
 
 ■ from piano-playing, 187, 198 
 
 ■ from planet Neptune, 80 
 
 ' from posts feeling and crystals calcu- 
 lating, 444 
 
 • from pronunciation of B, 214 
 
 from propulsion by the wind, 190 
 
 • from running upstairs, 156 
 
 from sick man well-nursed, 249 
 
 from sneezing and spitting, 267 
 
 from square pentagon and dark lumi- 
 nosity, 448 
 
 • from stone-throwing, 156, 157 
 
 • from sunset, 123, 242 
 
 • from the author and his reader. 268 
 
 from the brain of a philosopher, 467 
 
 from the dog-star, 39 
 
 ■ from the striking of a clock-bell, 92, 
 
 115 
 
 ■ from the sun's motion, 95, 123 
 
 ■ from thoughts of a labyrinthondont, 
 
 466 
 
 from triangles, 57 
 
 from tuning of orchestra, 476 
 
 from umbrella, 185 
 
 r from universal photographs, 191 
 
 ■ from vegetarianism, 253 
 
 from Vesuvius, 242 
 
 from violets perceived, 21 
 
 from wages, 41 
 
 from walking in reverie, 187, 198 
 
 ' from water beginning to move, 267 
 
 from water-birtls, 385 
 
 Illustration from wine spilt, 466, 467 
 
 of causation, by a stone, 50 
 
 of direct perception, 21 
 
 of failure of memory, 29, 30 
 
 of inference, 53-59, 92, 123 
 
 of soul of man and brutes, 434 
 
 Illustrations of animal cognition, 350, 351 
 Illustrious men idealists, 71 
 
 Image of God, man created in, 480 
 
 Images, mental, 185 
 
 , , their association, 185 
 
 of things not perceived, but things 
 
 themselves, 93 
 
 Imaginable, credible proposition and the 
 
 reverse, ill, 112 
 Imagination, 185 
 
 and conception, iii, 112 
 
 craving a harmony, 200 
 
 , its deceptions respecting creation, 
 
 462 
 
 necessary for ideas, 88, 237 
 
 of perfume, etc., 442 
 
 , the, its delusions, 41 1 
 
 , the language of, 196, 197 
 
 , the, suggests motion when we think 
 
 of thought succession, 417 
 
 , tyranny of, 412 
 
 Imaginations, an amalgam of, does not 
 
 constitute an idea, 105 
 
 exist beside perceptions, 105 
 
 of words or movements necessary for 
 
 thought, 224 
 Imitation, tendency to, 195, 196 
 Immanent activity, an, in each organism, 
 
 422, 432 
 
 finality, 493 
 
 Immaterial and material activities, 267 
 
 chain of energies and actions in us, 
 
 267 
 principle, the, is the organism, 432 
 
 principles, embodiment and disap- 
 pearance, 507 
 
 , form five orders, 433, 435 
 
 Immateriality of thinking principle, 388 
 
 Immortality and science, 490 
 
 , belief in, 286, 490 
 
 , benefit of possible doubts about, 490, 
 
 491 
 
 involved in morality, 490 
 
 of the soul and justice, 470, 490 
 
 Impediments, physical, to thought or 
 speech, 227 
 
 Imperceptible tones, 118 
 
 Imperfection of the intellect implied in in- 
 ference, 58, 59 
 
 Implanting part of one animal in another, 
 
 339, 439 
 Implements, use of, 278 
 Implication, a mistake as to one respecting 
 
 certainty of feelings, 19 
 of a relation in goodness, 24S 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 555 
 
 Implicit and explicit knowledge, difference 
 
 between, 55 
 and explicit perception of self and 
 
 feelings, 21-24 
 
 knowledge not actual knowledge, 55 
 
 ■ truths made explicit by the syllogism, 
 
 55 
 Importance of the distinction between 
 
 our lower and higher mental faculties, 
 
 203 
 Important truths ignored by idealists, 88 
 Impossibilities even of God both being and 
 
 not being, 43 
 
 for Omnipotence, 385, 469 
 
 Impossibility of action with nothing acting, 
 
 386 
 
 of an organ of thought, 388 
 
 of anything causing its own origin, 49 
 
 of defeating God's purpose in nature, 
 
 467 
 of denying the soul's existence, 390, 
 
 391 
 
 • of derivation of ethics from feelings, 
 
 246 
 
 of doubting a present feeling, 17 
 
 of doubting the mind's existence, 138, 
 
 139 
 ■ of drawings generating reason and 
 
 language, 234, 235 
 
 of feeling what is past, 36, 37 
 
 of good without suffering, 469 
 
 of having a feeling of being, 208, 209 
 
 of having ideas without imaginations, 
 
 88, 237 
 
 of imagining motion and only one 
 
 body, 411, 412 
 
 ■ of imagining the soul's existence, 490 
 
 of unmodified existence, 19 
 
 ■ of knowing feelings without knowing 
 
 self, 24, 25 
 
 of knowing one thing by itself, 18 
 
 of motion for a solitary body, 412 
 
 of motion for the universe as a whole, 
 
 412 
 
 of motiveless volition, 271 
 
 of proving perceptions of secondary 
 
 qualities mendacious, 127 
 of proving truth of faculty of memory, 
 
 of proving ultimate truths, 10 
 
 of really distrusting the faculty of 
 
 memory, 34 
 
 of reverencing nonentity, 530 
 
 of simultaneous actuality of all 
 
 possibles, 3S5, 469 
 
 of speech producing reason, 233, 234 
 
 of thought for us without imagination, 
 
 224 
 
 of unconscious intelligence, 447 
 
 , perceptions regarding, 41 
 
 that a thing can both be and not be, 39 
 
 Impotence of conception, no test of trulli, 
 
 41 
 Improvements, their tardiness and theism, 
 
 486 
 Impulse, dominant, 198 
 Impulses, spontaneous and original, lO 
 Inadequacy of idealism for physical science, 
 
 81, 83 
 
 , probable, of our idea of light, 115 
 
 Incipient structures and natural selection, 
 
 521 . 
 
 Inclination and volition, plain distinction 
 
 between, 271 
 Income and outcome, 329 
 Incomplete and complete principles, 439 
 Inconceivability of the "how " of creation. 
 
 Inconsistency between science and ideal- 
 ism, 81, 83 
 
 Increase of service and dependence, 494 
 
 Increasing number of witnesses lessens 
 chance of error, 61 
 
 Independent origin of similar structures, 
 
 519 
 India, 369 
 Indian butterflies, 377 
 
 turkeys, 378 
 
 Indians, American, 283 
 
 , Cheyenne ones, degraded, 291 
 
 Indigo, 501 
 
 Individual and universal reason, 138 
 
 , development of, 51^2 
 
 must be an organism, 329 
 
 , physiology ot", 3S9 
 
 , psychogenesis of, 509, 510 
 
 reason participates in universal reason, 
 
 138, 446 
 
 , the, reactions of, 365 
 
 Individual's life has the whole body for its 
 
 organ, 169 
 Individuation, principle of in organisms, 
 
 422 
 
 , princi]iles of, their orders, 433, 435 
 
 Indivisible being alone uncaused, 50 
 Induction, 58, 220 
 Inductions, complete ones, 56 
 Infallible perception of a present feeling, i 7 
 Infancy and evolution, 294, 523 
 Infant's first sucking action, 184 
 Infants potentially rational, 294, 523 
 
 think before they speak, 234 
 
 Inference, a valid process, 53-58 
 
 as to sun's motion, 123 
 
 implies imperfection of the intellect, 
 
 58 
 might not exist in a higher nature than 
 
 ours, 59 
 
 no less wonderful than perception, 93 
 
 not contained in perception, 92, 93, 96 
 
 present in syllogisms, 54 
 
 , sensi.ous, 194, 195 
 
556 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Inference, unconscious, is impossible, 92 
 
 , , so-callecl, what it is, 94 
 
 Inferior beauty may attract more, 260 
 principles formed from superior ones, 
 
 438 
 Inferred mistake as to self-knowledge, 19 
 Intiltration, 310 
 Influence of motives felt when we do not 
 
 act, 269 
 Infusoria, 320, 339 
 Inheritance, by bacteria, of modifications, 
 
 375. 376 
 
 of absence of uterus, 379 
 
 of characters, 512 
 
 of diseases, 379 
 
 Inherited remote homologies, 513, 514 
 Injunctions of God not root of moral obli- 
 gation, 247, 248 
 Injunction to pay a debt, illustration from, 
 
 245, 246 
 Injuries, artificial, reproduction of, 341 
 
 , bodily, and perception, 118 
 
 ■, repair of, 169 
 
 • repaired in animals, 337 
 
 Injustice, perception of universal, 283 
 Innate tendency to language, 231 
 Inorganic and organic chemical worlds, and 
 
 structural differences between, 323 
 
 and organic world, what they are, 303 
 
 bodies, their persistence, 328 
 
 • nature, 299 
 
 • substances viewed alike by science 
 
 and common sense, 418 
 Inscrutability of our perceptions of the 
 
 unimaginable, 128 
 
 of ultimate constitution of bodies, 416 
 
 Inscrutable purposes possibly exist in God, 
 
 474,. 475 
 Insectivorous plants, their actions, 332 
 Insects, 318 
 ■ and birds of Duke of York's Island, 
 
 376 
 
 ■ and colour, 374 
 
 ■ and flower fertilization, 370, 371 
 
 and orchids, 371 
 
 , their wonderful powers, 346 
 
 Insects' apprehension of number, 345 
 Insoluble nature of mystery of knowledge, 
 
 45 
 Instability and Mr. Herbert Spencer, 452 
 Instance of inflow of influence in causation, 
 
 51 
 Instances of repair of injuries, 337 
 Instinct, a high one is moral sense, 254 
 
 , a reflex action of the individual, 364 
 
 and courtship, 175 
 
 and evolution, 515, 516 
 
 and habit distinct, 362 
 
 • and habit in animals, 358, 362 
 
 and lapsed intelligence, 363, 518 
 
 and separate faculty, 361 
 
 Instinct, Condillac's hypothesis about, 361 
 
 , Darwin's hypothesis about, 515 
 
 , definition of, 427 
 
 Instinctive feelings, 184 
 Instincts and Bichat, 175 \ 
 
 in birds, 358, 359 
 
 in wasps, 359 
 
 , its artificial evocation supposed, 365 
 
 , Lamarck's hypothesis about, 362 
 
 , Montaigne's hypothesis about, 361 
 
 , moral ones, can be formed by man, 
 
 275 
 
 not invariable, 365, 366 
 
 of carpenter bee, 359 
 
 of Emperor moths' larva, 361, 516 
 
 of grub of stag-beetle, 361, 362 
 
 of shamming death, 361, 517 
 
 of sphex, 359 
 
 Instrumental cause, 515 
 Intellect acts as a cause, 268 
 and death, 490 
 
 and First Cause, 455 
 
 and God, 460 
 
 as acting in perception, 112 
 
 has no organ, 388 
 
 , inference implies its im]5erfection, 58 
 
 , its declarations about c|ualities, 114 
 
 , its declarations as to its own truth, 
 
 217 
 , not sensation, contains certainty, 113 
 
 of man needs sensations, 88, 237 
 
 of man, study worthy of it, 499 
 
 , one higher than ours need not infer, 
 
 59 
 
 supreme over sense, 112, 113 
 
 , the, can have no organ, 388 
 
 the root of thought and language, 234 
 
 Intellect's presence not proved by tricks of 
 
 reading or speaking, 352 
 Intellectual activity and consciousness, 
 
 180, 187, 264, 448 
 
 and emotional language contrasted, 
 
 225 
 
 attention, 262 
 
 cognition and feeling accompany the 
 
 exercise of the will, 222 
 
 degradation, 292, 293 
 
 intuition, 220 
 
 knowledge and sense cognition dis- 
 tinguished, 207, 220 
 
 , mystery of, parallel with that of 
 
 sensation, 45 
 
 memory, 220 
 
 perception, 204, 207, 208 
 
 thimble-rigging, 135 
 
 volition distinguished from organic, 
 
 268 
 
 Intelligence, a term as misused, 140 
 
 , formal and material, 449, 460 
 
 in nature, material, not formal, 449, 
 
 460 
 
INDEX. 
 
 :do/ 
 
 Intelligence, lapsed, 363, 518 
 
 of nature's Cause, formal, 449, 460 
 
 — ■ — , practical, of animals, 344, 346, 347 
 
 , unconscious, impossible. 447, 448 
 
 Intelligences, the sociology of, is religion, 
 286, 530 
 
 which never had a body, may exist, 
 
 492 
 
 Intelligent action becomes practically in- 
 stinctive in us, 363, 364 
 
 actions, not blind, 44S 
 
 Intensity of perception induces no paraly- 
 sis of the facult)', 216 
 
 Intention, Divine, in nature, 248 
 
 Intentional attention, 262 
 
 Interchange of gases, 161 
 
 Interest and duty, 245 
 
 Intermediate principles, 508 
 
 temporary forms, 438 
 
 Intermediation of the nervous system, 165 
 
 Internal acts of determination, 269 
 
 ■ evidence, necessary for ultimate truths, 
 
 force, 422 
 
 relations demand a cause, 49 
 
 respiration, 161, 336 
 
 spontaneity and habit, 174 
 
 Interrelation of organisms, 369 
 
 Interrelations between truth, beauty, and 
 goodness, 259 
 
 of embryos of animals, 339, 340 
 
 Intervention of the immaterial on the phy- 
 sical, 26S 
 
 Intestine, juices of, 159 
 
 Intra-organic force, 423 
 
 Intrinsic and extrinsic colours, 114, 116 
 
 and extrinsic sounds, 1 14, n8 
 
 motion of matter not self-contradic- 
 tory, 420 
 
 possibility, 243 
 
 sufficiency of causation needful in an 
 
 uncaused being, 49, 50 
 
 Introspection and self, 387 
 
 Intuition, intellectual, 220 
 
 ■ , intellectual, and sense knowledge, 
 
 207, 220 
 
 Intuitions, moral, imply God, 4S7, 488 
 
 Intussusception, 160, 326, 508 
 
 Involuntary and voluntary movements, 155 
 
 Ireland and O'Connell, illustration from, 
 217 
 
 Iridescent hues, 116 
 
 ItIs, the, 150 
 
 Iron, a hole to electricity, 475 
 
 Iroquois and degradation, 291 
 
 Irrational world shows logic, 446 
 
 Irreverent inquirers, 491 
 
 Irritability, muscular, 155 
 
 Is a better criterion than evidence possible ? 
 
 " Is, the word. Us meanmg, 226 
 
 Isidore Geoffroy St. Tlilaire, 429 
 Island of Hawaii, 308 
 Istria, 317 
 
 J. S. Mill and justice in this life, 489 
 
 on hell and virtue, 246, 247 
 
 Jackdaws and parrots, articulation of, 351 
 
 Jade, 292 
 
 Jaws diminished by soft food, 376 
 
 John Stuart Mill, 104, 131, 238, 246, 3S8, 
 
 489 
 Joints, 148 
 Journey to Edinburgh, illustration from, 
 
 274 
 Juan Fernandez, flora of, 371 
 Judge, legislator, rewarder, and chastiscr, 
 
 must be God, 489 
 Judgment, 211, 213, 214 
 
 , ethical, is conscience, 254 
 
 Judgments which are reflex, 8 
 
 about judgments, 8 
 
 deemed evident need testing by reflec- 
 tion, 1 1 
 
 , ethical, and shame, 252 
 
 , , difference in, 252 
 
 , God-implanted, 10 
 
 latent in every perception, 105 
 
 , mistaken, may be thought evident, 
 
 II 
 ; moral, and feelings harmonize in the 
 
 perfect, 254 
 , necessarily, contain an assertion of 
 
 truth, 104, 23S 
 
 of common sense, 62, 63 
 
 which are direct, 8 
 
 Juices, nutritive, 159 
 Jumping, 155, 199 
 Jupiter, satellites of, 397 
 
 , volume of, 301 
 
 Jurassic rocks, 312 
 
 Justice and.the immortality of the soul, 470, 
 
 471 
 demands rewards and punishments 
 
 hereafter, 488 
 
 in this life, and J. S. Mill, 4S9 
 
 , minute, in this life, consequences of, 
 
 469, 470 
 , perception of universal, 283 
 
 K 
 
 Kafirs, their ceremonial purification, 293 
 Kamskatka and birds' colours, 376, 377 
 
 and Erman, 292 
 
 Kant and ethics, 248 
 
 and nebular hypothesis, 404 
 
 and space, 408 
 
558 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Karoo desert plants, 372 
 Key of the Realist position, 87 
 Khonds of Orissa, prayer of, 2S7 
 Kidney, 149, 163 
 Kilanea volcano, 309 
 
 Kind of cause not given in law of causa- 
 tion, 51 
 Kindly action of animals, 357 
 Kinds of acts of will, 264 
 
 of emotional language, 197 
 
 of goodness, 244 
 
 of language, 235 
 
 Kinetic theory of gases, 399, 400 
 
 Kingdoms, organic, 315 
 
 Kingston, Thames at, 307 
 
 Kirchenoff, 395 
 
 Kittens of cat with mutilated tail, 379 
 
 Knife cutting itself, an illustration, 3S8 
 
 " Know," three meanings of the word, 189 
 
 thyself, 16 
 
 KnowalDle nature of objective condition of 
 
 bodies, III 
 Knowledge, explicit and implicit, 21-24, 55 
 , greater with other possible senses, 
 
 182 
 
 ■ imperfect, not mendacious, loi 
 
 ■ in animals, 344-351 
 
 ■ intellectual, is absolute, unlike sense 
 
 knowledge, 220 
 ■ , , its mystery parallel to that of 
 
 sensation, 45 
 ■ , like sensation, an inscrutable mystery, 
 
 45 
 
 • not possessed by machines, 448 
 
 of anything by itself, impossible, 18 
 
 of body, necessary to that of mind, 
 
 146 
 
 of causes is true science, 3S4 
 
 of feelings, error of fact concerning, 
 
 18 
 
 of fire, 278 
 
 of intellectual causation, self-evident, 
 
 268 
 of mind, needs a knowledge of body, 
 
 146 
 
 ■ of our substantial self, 19 
 
 of ourselves of others alike, 19 
 
 of pain, not in animals, 471 
 
 of secondary qualities possible, lO! 
 
 of self and feelings, equally certain, 19 
 
 , an objection to, staled, 22 
 
 ■ implies veracity of memory, 32 
 
 , mistaken inference concerning, 
 
 '9 
 
 ■ of the senses limited by the organiza- 
 tion, 182 
 
 of universal truths not exceptionally 
 
 wonderful, 44, 45 
 
 , ours, its source, 14 
 
 , , of qualities of bodies, not ex- 
 haustive, 100, 1 01 
 
 Knowledge, sensuous, 188 
 
 , short cuts to, 422 
 
 shown to be possible by an example, 
 
 385 
 
 so small and incomplete, 474 
 
 , unwarranted assumptions about, 18 
 
 Kronig, 399 
 
 Labyrinth, 150 
 
 Labyrinthodonts, 368 
 
 Labyrinthodont's thoughts, illustration 
 
 from, 466 
 Lactic acid, 501 
 
 Lady's finger, illustration from, 167 
 Lamarck and instinct, 362 
 Lamprey, 317 
 Lampshells, 319 
 Lancelet, 318 
 Land, elevation of, 309 
 Language, 224 
 
 , a consequence of thought, 230 
 
 , abuse of, 447, 448 
 
 , ambiguities of, respecting will, 269, 
 
 270 
 
 and evolution, 517, 524 
 
 and reason, never generated by draw- 
 ings, 234 
 
 and thought spring from intellect, 234 
 
 , animal, and Mr. G. H. Lewes, 353 
 
 , conventional, 448 
 
 , emotional and intellectual contrasted, 
 
 225 
 
 , or imaginative, 196 
 
 in animals, 351 
 
 , innate tendency to, 231 
 
 , its roots, 232 
 
 of deaf mutes, 229, 231 
 
 of gesture, 227-230 
 
 , origin of, 232, 233 
 
 , six kinds of, 235 
 
 universal amongst mankind, 279 
 
 Lanugo, 173, 340, 503 
 
 Lapse of time as felt and perceived by young 
 
 and old, no 
 Lapsed intelligence and instinct, 363, 518 
 Latent truth and the syllogism, 55 
 Lathroea, 374 
 Laura Bridgeman and Meystre, cases of, 
 
 231,232 
 Laurentian rocks, 211, 368 
 Lava, 308, 309 
 
 Law of causation and the universe, 451 
 does not give nature of acting 
 
 cause, 51 
 
 , the general principle, 48 
 
 of contradiction, 39 
 
 , an objection to, 50 
 
 , , and creation, 463 
 
INDE.W 
 
 559 
 
 Law of contradiction, causes of uncertain 
 feeling about, 44 
 
 , evident spontaneously and on 
 
 reflection, 48 
 
 , its denial involves scepticism, 
 
 42 
 
 , mistaken principle in its place, 
 
 40 
 Laws of thought, 58 
 Leeches, 319 
 
 Leg hurt, illustration from, 3S8 
 Lemurs, 316, 317 
 Lens of eye, 150 
 Lepidosiren, 317 
 Leslie, Mr., and caterpillars, 373 
 Lesser goods and delect of higher good, 
 
 248 
 Leverrier, 81 
 Lewes, Mr. G. H., 135, 349, 353, 425, 444 
 
 , , and automatism, 425 
 
 ■ , , and emotional intelligence, 349 
 
 , , and universal identity, 444 
 
 Lias, 312 
 
 Lichens, 321 
 
 Lies not commonly told without distinct 
 
 motive, 61 
 Life, a future one and theism, 487 
 
 after death, belief in, 2S6, 287 
 
 and death, 176 
 
 and habit, Mr. Butler's book, 447 
 
 -, cycle of, 164, 327, 502 
 
 , dogmaof perfect justice in our present 
 
 one, 489 
 
 , its evils, objection from, 467 
 
 , its needful forces and conditions, 154 
 
 , its simple pleasures, 472 
 
 , its teleology, 495, 496, 529 
 
 , materiality, and animal nature, ideas 
 
 of, 104 
 
 of an organism is its soul's action, 424 
 
 of an organism like a burning candle, 
 
 432 
 of individual has the whole body for 
 
 its organ, 169 
 
 , struggle for, 372 
 
 , well symbolized by flame, 432 
 
 Life's changes, their adjustment, 329 
 
 conditions lead to death, 330 
 
 Liquification, 304 
 
 Light, and heat, energies of, 413 
 
 , its polarization and dispersion, 401 
 
 of fixed stars, 398 
 
 or bright ciiaraclers, 442 
 
 , probable inadequacy of our idea of, 
 
 115 
 
 undulatory theory of, 396 
 
 , velocity of, 300 
 
 Lightning, illustration from, 195 
 
 Lignite series, 312 
 
 Likeness, 240 
 
 , as objectively existing, knowable, 1 1 1 
 
 Likeness between Divine and human reason, 
 
 460 
 Likenesses between our self-knowledge 
 
 and other knowledge, 19, 89 
 Limb homologies, 152, 428, 429, 513 
 Limbs, bones of, 148 
 
 of newts, T,y] 
 
 Lime, carbonate of, 303 
 
 Limitation of our sense-knowledge, 182 
 
 Limitations of nervous co-ordination, 168, 
 
 169 
 Limited kinds of goodness, 244 
 Limpets, 318 
 Linaria, 333, 335, 427 
 Lines, straight and parallel, 47 
 Lines of cleavage and stratilication, illus- 
 tration from, 475 
 Lion's pelvis, 429 
 List of objections to theism, 465 
 
 of our higher mental powers, 223 
 
 of our vital and lower mental powers, 
 
 200, 201 
 Listening and looking, 1S5 
 Literature and evolution, 518 
 Little is known by us, 474 
 Liver, juices of, 159 
 
 of domestic and wild cattle, 376 
 
 Liverworts, 321 
 
 Living bodies, their cyclical changes, 164, 
 
 327, 502 
 
 creatures, each a two-sided unity, 421 
 
 world, 315, 420 
 
 Lizards, 317 
 Lizards' tails, 337, 437 
 Lobster, 318 
 Lobster's claws, 337 
 Locomotion, 155 
 Logic, 58 
 
 in irrational world, 446 
 
 of feeling, 236 
 
 Logical basis of common sense judainents. 
 
 63 
 
 reasoning of idealism, 76 
 
 Lohengrin and Rigoletto, illustration from, 
 
 255 
 Long-armed apes, 316 
 Looking and listening, 1S5 
 Lord Beaconsfield, illustration from, 19 
 
 Milton and Indians, 291 
 
 Zetland's brood mare, 379 
 
 Lord's Prayer, illustration from, 22S 
 
 Lotze, 387, 422, 431 
 
 Louis XVI., illustration from, 4S9 
 
 Love and creation, 498 
 
 Lower mental pt)wcrs, 178, 200 
 
 Lowest plants, 321 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, 279, 2S3, 285, 356 
 
 Luminosity and consciousness, 265 
 
 Luna tic, a criminal one, illustration from, 27 5 
 
 Lungs, 149, 161, 162, 317 
 
 of domestic and wild cattle, 376 
 
=;6o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lycopods, 321 
 
 Lying, conspiracies for, 61 
 
 Lymphatics, 149, 161 
 
 M 
 
 Machine, calculating one, illustration from, 
 
 448 
 Machines, how differing from organisms, 
 
 424, 448 
 Macropus, teeth of, and evolution, 520 
 Macroscelides, teeth of, and evolution, 520 
 Madame de Pompadour, illustration from. 
 
 ■ 489 • 
 
 Maize brought to Germany, 377 
 Male cell, 149, 164 
 Malebranche and God's goodness, 488 
 Malformed embryos, 379 
 
 • children, 474 
 
 Mammalia, 316 
 Mammoth, drawing of, 278 
 Man and apes, 316, 340, 528 
 
 and Darwinism, 521-528 
 
 and God, analogy between, 4S0, 481 
 
 and organisms, 341 
 
 and other organisms differ vastly, 434 
 
 , antiquity of, 277, 369 
 
 can only love and reverence persons, 
 
 530 
 
 , elephant, and gorilla, 434 
 
 everywhere counts, 280 
 
 • everywhere speaks, 279 
 
 formed in God's image, 4S0 
 
 ■ , his anatomy, 146, 147 
 
 , his bestiality, doctrine of, 524 
 
 , his body's necessary form, 528 
 
 • , his geological age, 278, 369 
 
 , his highest and lowest faculties, and 
 
 evolution, 517 
 
 — : — , his position as an animal, 322 
 
 ■ , his soul and brutes', illustration con- 
 cerning, 434, 435 
 
 is "he who means," 280 
 
 is responsible, and can acquire merit 
 
 or demerit, 488 
 
 ■ , miocene, 278, 369 
 
 not older than tertiary deposits, 278 
 
 not the First Cause, 456 
 
 of science, his duty, 498, 499 
 
 one species, 277 
 
 , origin of, 521 
 
 , primeval, 290 
 
 ■ sitting on branch he saws across, 134 
 
 • ■, study of, 276 
 
 , the study of, 143 
 
 Manifestation of Divine ideas one cause of 
 the universe, 497 
 
 Mankind, 276 
 
 and ethics, 282 
 
 artistic, 278 
 
 Man's bodily unity, 277 
 
 body may be called a single cell, 
 
 creations, 293, 465 
 
 demoralization would result from 
 
 nature's moralization, 474 
 
 dignity has been gradually revealed, 
 
 497 
 
 nature, unity of, 288, 388, 390 
 
 Marble statue, illustration from, 248 
 Mare of Lord Zetland, 379 
 Marie Antoinette, illustration from, 489 
 Mars, 301 , 
 
 , satellites of, 301, 405 
 
 Marsupial bones, 82 
 
 Marsupials, 316 
 
 Material and formal goodness, 249 
 
 and formal truth and untruth, 239 
 
 and immaterial activities, 267 
 
 changes, cycle of, 265 
 
 ^, example of use of the term, 249 
 
 intelligence in nature, 449, 460 
 
 Materialism, real, of some apparent ideal- 
 ism, 138 
 Materiality, life, and animal nature, ideas 
 
 of, 103, 104 
 Materially good acts of animals, 357 
 Matter, 414 
 , always of some definite kind, 414, 
 
 and energy unite to form a composi- 
 
 tum, 419 
 
 and thought, 388 
 
 does not exist alone, 506, 507 
 
 , organic, its formation, 333 
 
 , pure, not evidently impossible, 416 
 
 with intrinsic motion not evidently 
 
 impossible, 420 
 
 Matters of daily life, convictions concern- 
 ing them, 60 
 
 Maxwell, Prof., and ether, 401 
 
 Meaning of denial of knowledge of second- 
 ary qualities, loi 
 
 of evolution, 500 
 
 of terms such as "oak," "that," 
 
 "is," " falling," 225, 226 
 
 of the word "chance," 525 
 
 of the word " memory," 31 
 
 Meanings, three, of "to know," 189 
 Means and end, feelings of, 199 
 
 and ends in intelligence, 447 
 
 Mechanical explanations, passion for, 395 
 
 philosophy, 394, 441 
 
 , its tempting nature, 442 
 
 Media, coloured, 117 
 
 Mediterranean oyster, 377 
 
 Medulla, 15 1 
 
 Megatherium, 82, 316 
 
 Melody, illustration from, 186 
 
 Memory, 29 
 
 and organic habit, 169, 447 
 
INDEX. 
 
 561 
 
 Memory, as a faculty distinguished from 
 its act, 30 
 
 cannot, as a faculty, be really dis- 
 trusted, 34, 35 
 
 cannot exist without consciousness, 31 
 
 , fallacy about, 33 
 
 , if false, involves absolute scepticism, 
 
 34 
 
 , illustrations of its failure, 29, 30 
 
 , intellectual, 220 
 
 , its certainty involved in self-know- 
 ledge, 32 
 
 , its trustworthiness, 29 
 
 ' , its truth cannot be proved, 32 
 
 , its truthfulness, the consequences 
 
 which follow from it, 35 
 
 , its truths self-evident, 32 
 
 , its veracity necessary for experience, 
 
 33 
 
 , meaning of the word, 31 
 
 not always equal, 34 
 
 , sensuous, 186 
 
 Men, all perceive truth and beauty, 2S0, 
 281 
 
 can make their moral instincts, 275 
 
 differ in sensitivity, 471 
 
 who are perfect have feelings and 
 
 moral judgments in harmony, 254 
 
 working together and emitting sounds, 
 
 not origin of language, 232 
 
 Mendacity not usually concerted, 61 
 
 of our perceptions of secondary quali- 
 ties cannot be proved, 126 
 
 Mendicant, illustration from, 47S 
 
 Mental acts of determination, 269 
 
 which are reflex, 8 
 
 and spoken word, 235 
 
 and vital powers, list of, 200, 201 
 
 images, 185 
 
 powers, higher ones, list of, 223 
 
 , our higher ones, 203 
 
 ■ ■ , our lower ones. 178 
 
 , two orders ol them, 180 
 
 processes of a tiger, 422 
 
 require time 32 
 
 states aggregated do not form a con- 
 sciousness, 219 
 
 , associations between, 6, 10 
 
 tools, 385, 388 
 
 word possessed by all men, 280 
 
 Mentale, verbum, and verhum oris, 235 
 
 Mentally diseased condition of general 
 doubt, 7 
 
 visualized conceptions often most mis- 
 leading, 411 
 
 Meno ranchus, 317 
 
 and evolution, 520 
 
 Mercer, Mr., 279 
 
 Mercy of God shown in His not manifest- 
 ing Himself indisputably, 491 I 
 
 Merit demands reward, 408 j 
 
 Merit increased by self-denial, 251 
 
 Mesozoic strata, 311, 312 
 
 Metals, a ring of, illustration from, 267 
 
 Meteorites, 301 
 
 Method of examining idealism, 78 
 
 Meystre and Laura Bridgman, cases of, 
 231, 232 
 
 Mice, bees, clover, and ants, 372 
 
 Migration of young birds, 359 
 
 Mill, J. S., and hell, 246, 247 
 
 , , and truth, 104, 238 
 
 , , as to thought and matter, 3S8 
 
 , , his idealism, 131 
 
 , , on justice in this life, 489 
 
 Milton, Lord, and Indians, 291 
 
 Mimicry, 372 
 
 Mind and body, 386 
 
 can make its existence and its states 
 
 objects, 36 
 
 has a notion of causation, 48 
 
 has no organ, 388 
 
 , our, affirms objective validity of 
 
 truths, 43 
 
 , , tells us tendencies of motives, 
 
 269 
 
 reflecting on itself, 8 
 
 spontaneously seeks for causes of 
 
 nature, 449 
 
 , the knowledge of needs a knowledge 
 
 of the body, 46 
 Mind's existence cannot be doubted, 138, 
 
 139 
 Mind-stuff", 444 
 
 supposed diffused universally, I40 
 
 Minimizing a puzzle no explanation of it, 
 
 401, 424 
 Ministrations, hierarchy of, 493 
 Minute circulation in ])rotoplasm, 161 
 
 justice in this world, its consequences, 
 
 469, 470 
 Miocene deposits, 312 
 
 man, 278, 369 
 
 Miracles of unreason, 460 
 Misleading influence of the imagination 
 respecting apparently unworthy crea- 
 tions, 478 
 
 nature of term " mental faculties," 202 
 
 Mississippi, mud deposit from, 30S 
 Mistake as to what is implied in certainty 
 
 as to feelings, 19 
 Mistaken appreciation of the uncultured, 
 288 
 
 inference as to self-knowledge, 19 
 
 jutlgmcnts may be thought evident, 1 1 
 
 neg.ition as to self-consciousness, 19 
 
 principle in place of law of contra- 
 diction, 40 
 Mistakes of witnesses, 61 
 
 , vulgar, 60 
 
 Mistress lost bv her dog, illustration from, 
 350 
 
 2 O 
 
562 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Misuse of words, 140 
 
 Mobility wliich is non-muscular, 157 
 
 Mode of conceiving of energy of motion, 
 
 418 
 
 of feeding of amoeba, 336 
 
 of thinking nonentity, no 
 
 Modern wars, illustrations from, 61 
 Modes of motion and secondary qualities, 
 
 116 
 , possible ones, of specific evolution, 
 
 510, 511 
 Modifiability of virulence of bacteria, 375 
 Molar motion, 394 
 Molecular motion, 394 
 Molecules, 394 
 Moluccas and colour, 376 
 Mollusca, 318, 368 
 Mombas, climate of and cats, 377 
 Mongols and Greek art, 2S1 
 Mongrel and thoroughbred bitch, 379 
 Monism, 139, 441, 444 
 Monkeys, 316 
 
 Monomotopa, degenerate kingdom of, 291 
 Monstremes, 316 
 Monstrosities, 429 
 
 Montaigne's hypothesis as to instinct, 361 
 Months and weeks to old and young, 
 
 no 
 Moon, distance of, 302 
 
 , revolution of, 302 
 
 Moons of Mars, 301, 405 
 
 Moral advance is highest aim perceptible 
 
 to us, 473 
 
 beauty, 250, 257 
 
 blame cannot be attributed to those 
 
 who have no power of choice, 275 
 
 • degradation, 293 
 
 faculties, 254 
 
 feelings and judgments harmonize in 
 
 perfect persons, 254 
 
 instincts can be made by men, 275 
 
 intuitions imply God, 487, 488 
 
 law indicates God's existence, 490 
 
 , its fulfilment the purpose of 
 
 nature, 495 
 
 obligation, not dependent on God's 
 
 will, 247, 248 
 
 principles possible in rude peoples, 
 
 290 
 
 , universal, 282-285 
 
 sense, 194, 221, 254 
 
 , a higher instinct, 254 
 
 truth, 239 
 
 , universal, necessary, and self- 
 evident, 248 
 
 Morality and etiquette, 252 
 
 and free-will, 274 
 
 rooted in essence of things, 248 
 
 Moralization of nature would be the de- 
 moralization of man, 474 
 
 Morals and society, 253 
 
 Morals, judgment and fear of punishment 
 
 distinct, 254 
 Mosses, 321 
 
 Mother of a thousand, 333 
 Moths' chrysalids and environment, 374, 
 
 520 
 Motion, 410 
 
 , an embodied energy, 413 
 
 and causation, 462 
 
 and sight, 122, 123 
 
 and succession distinguished, 417 
 
 and thought, 417 
 
 , arrested, feeling of, 192, 194 
 
 as a quality, 98 
 
 as apprehended in animals, 345 
 
 existing must exist iu something 
 
 material, 412, 413 
 
 , feeling of, its extreme ease, 193 
 
 , feelings of, 191, 192 
 
 , first law of and heredity, 512 
 
 , idea of, 216, 410 
 
 , idea of most common, primary, etc., 
 
 443 
 
 , immaterial, 266 
 
 , impossible for the universe as a whole, 
 
 412 
 
 includes a relation, 412 
 
 , its energy, mode of conceiving this, 
 
 418 
 
 , modes of and secondary qualities, 116 
 
 , molar and molecular, 394 
 
 of light, 300, 301 
 
 of solar system, 300 
 
 -of sun, and inference, 123 
 
 ", per se, immaterial and unimaginable, 
 
 suggested by the imagination when 
 
 we conceive of thought-succession, 417 
 
 taken as a substance, 412 
 
 , transference of, 412 
 
 Motive, an instance of inflow of in causa- 
 tion, 51 
 
 Motiveless volition impossible, 271 
 
 Motives and desires which are strongest, 
 268 
 
 and volitions, 269 
 
 called strongest, ambiguity of that 
 
 adjective, 270 
 
 , their tendencies directly perceived, 
 
 269 
 Moulds, 314 
 Mountains looking purple, objection drawn 
 
 from, 120 
 Movement in animals, 342 
 
 of balancing automatic, 156 
 
 of thought, analogy embodied in the 
 
 expression, 418 
 Movements, amoebiform, 157 
 
 co-ordinated in groups, 156 
 
 may be impeded by attention, 156 
 
 of white corpuscles, 157 
 
INDEX. 
 
 56: 
 
 Movements, protoplasmic, 157, 326 
 
 , synthesized, 157 
 
 , voluntary and involuntary, 155 
 
 Moving water, illustration Irom, 266 
 Mowing, idea of, illustration from, 225 
 Mucous membrane exposed changes aspect, 
 
 378 
 Multiplication of cell elements, 158 
 Multitudinous souls and Haeckel, 424 
 Murder of parents and ethics, 282 
 Muscle, 149 
 Muscular activity, 155 
 
 tissue not found in plants, 333 
 
 Music and evolution, 522 
 
 Musical notes and harmony, 256, 522 
 
 tones and beats, 107 
 
 Musicians, 376 
 
 Mussels, 318 
 
 Mutilation of spinal cord, 166 
 
 Myliobatis and evolution, 520 
 
 Mylodon, 82, 316 
 
 Mystery of intellectual knowledge parallel 
 
 to that of sensation, 45 
 Myxomycetes, 321 
 
 N 
 
 Nais, 337 
 
 Nasal organ, 150 
 
 Nathusius and pigs, 377 
 
 Nations, evolution of, 526 
 
 Natives of Fernando Po, 288, 2S9 
 
 Natural groups may have a dual origin, 
 
 519 
 
 selection, 511, 514 
 
 and indifferent and disadvan- 
 tageous structures, 521 
 
 and the universe, 453 
 
 , its rank and position, 518 
 
 tendency to accept evidence, 13 
 
 Nature, 383 
 
 and Divine intention, 239, 24S, 496, 
 
 498 
 
 and evocation of the same idea are 
 
 very different, 106 
 
 , animal life, and materiality, 104 
 
 ■ , cause of, spontaneously sought by 
 
 the mind, 449 
 
 conceals God, man reveals Him, 466 
 
 contains material ancl not formal in- 
 telligence, 449 
 
 , cruelty in, 468 
 
 , if moralized, would demoralize man, 
 
 474 
 
 , inorganic, 299 
 
 , its purpose is the fulfdinent of the 
 
 moral law, 495 
 , its various degrees of spontaneity, 
 
 464 
 uf an organism as a cause, 514 
 
 Nature of causes not given in law of cau- 
 sation, 51 
 • of First Cause known by its effects, 
 
 454 
 
 of gases, 399 
 
 of germ, shown by its development, 
 
 294 
 
 of God unchanged by creation, 485 
 
 of man, his unity, 288, 383, 390 
 
 , organic, 315, 420 
 
 , our own, and unity, 388 
 
 , reason in, 446 
 
 , the supreme truth it teaches, 460 
 
 , uniformity of, 66 
 
 Nature's prodigality, objection from, 465 
 
 Nautilus, 318 
 
 Nebula, universal as supposed, 395 
 
 Nebular theory, 404 
 
 Necessary conditions for cycle of life, 164 
 
 • for nervous activity, 165 
 
 of any criterion of ultimate 
 
 truth, 13 
 
 existence of an unimaginable energy 
 
 of motion, 418 
 
 form of man's body, 528 
 
 truths, 39 
 
 manifest God, 460, 461 
 
 , our perceptions of, not more 
 
 to be doubted than sensations, 45, 46 
 
 Necessities of human thought about a First 
 
 Cause, 479 
 Necessity, 240, 243 
 of a body for thought as we know it, 
 
 145 
 of certitude, 5 
 
 of cessation of intellectual acts at 
 
 death, 490 
 
 of doubt and scepticism, 4 
 
 • of intrinsic sufficiency of being in 
 
 anything uncaused, 49, 50 
 
 of past good action for unconscious. 
 
 goodness, 250 
 
 of reason's validity, 53 
 
 — — of thought for language, 230 
 of time for mental processes, 32 
 
 of understanding structures before 
 
 functions, 146 
 
 , universality, and self-evidence of 
 
 moral truth, 248 
 Nectaries, 371 
 Need and necessity of guarding against 
 
 imagination, 41 1 
 
 of abstract ideas for speech, 226 
 
 of an adequate First Cause, 453 
 
 of considering arguments against 
 
 self-knowlciigc, 16 
 
 of imaginations of words or move- 
 ments for I bought, 224 
 
 of studying idealism, 71 
 
 Negation, a mistaken one, as to self-know- 
 ledge, 19 
 
564 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Negative and positive perceptions as to 
 
 impossibility, 41 
 
 • nature of evil, 248 
 
 of term "freedom," 272 
 
 Neglected opportunities for sinning may 
 
 cause remorse, 252, 253 
 Negro, illustration Irom, 137 
 Nemo dat quod non habet, 455 
 Neptune and Leverrier, 81 
 Nerve action, 165, 166 
 
 ■ called pneumogastric, 166 
 
 Nerves, spinal, and of special sense, 150, 
 
 Nervous affections inherited, 380 
 
 axis, 150 
 
 co-ordination, its limitations, 168, 
 
 169 
 
 influence, its course, 167 
 
 ■ system, 150 
 
 and unfelt actions, 266 
 
 ■ , functions of, 164 
 
 , its co-ordinating action, 164-168 
 
 of heart, 168 
 
 tissue and motion, 394 
 
 not found in plants, 336 
 
 Nest-building may vary somewhat in same 
 species, 366 
 
 Neuter insects, 361, 516 
 
 New and old idealism, 130 
 
 existence needs a cause, 48 
 
 Guinea and colour, 376 
 
 ideas and feelings, disproportion be- 
 tween the amounts of their possible 
 acquisition,. 209 
 
 senses conceivable, 112 
 
 . species, decision as to origin of, 
 
 527 
 
 , possible modes of their origin, 
 
 510, 5" 
 • Zealanders probably degraded, 291, 
 
 292 
 Newts' limbs, 337 
 Nile, mud of, 308 
 Nitella, 321 
 Nitrate of silver, 303 
 Nitrogen, 148, 306 
 Nitrogenous substances, 148 
 No evidence of a vacuum anywhere, 300 
 
 mere idea can by itself direct, 509 
 
 organ of intellect possible, 388 
 
 ■ of thought, 217, 3S8 
 
 unconscious intelligence, 448 
 
 Nomenclature, biological, 316 
 Nominalism, 445 
 
 Non-being and being not identical, 457 
 Nonentity cannot be reverenced, 530 
 
 , mode of conceiving of it, 1 10 
 
 , the idea of, no, ill 
 
 Non-muscular mobility, 157 
 North American Indians, 283 
 Nose, 150 
 
 Not evident that pure matter cannot exist, 
 
 416 
 that matter cannot possess in- 
 trinsic motion, 420 
 Not-being and being, simultaneously im- 
 possible, 39-44 
 Not-self, feelings concerning, 189 
 Nothing can be known alone, 18 
 
 can cause its own origin, 48, 49 
 
 fortuitous in development of the in- 
 dividual, 509 
 
 is no substance to create from, 463 
 
 which has not intrinsic sufficiency of 
 
 being in itself can be uncaused, 49, 50 
 Notion of " cause " in our minds, 48 
 Notochord of embryo, 173, 317, 503 
 Number, 241 
 
 and primary quality, 98 
 
 , as apprehended by animals, 345 
 
 , feelings concerning, 191, 192 
 
 Nursing a sick man, illustration from, 249 
 
 Nutrition, 15S, 336 
 
 Nutritive juices, 159 
 
 Nycticebus and Perodicticus, 317, 428 
 
 O 
 
 Oak-tree, illustration from, 212, 215, 225, 
 
 252 
 
 , meaning of the term, 225, 226 
 
 Object of perception, not the sensations 
 
 which evoke it, 90 
 Objection against self-knowledge stated, 
 
 22 
 
 against the syllogism, 54 
 
 • against truth of memory, 30 
 
 , an, to law of causation, 50 
 
 as to infancy, 523 
 
 as to sounds and colours, 1 16 
 
 , fallacious one, to axiom of equality, 
 
 46 
 
 from evils of life, 467 
 
 from nature's prodigality, 465 
 
 from seemingly unworthy creations, 
 
 477 . 
 
 from tardiness of ameliorations, 4S6 
 
 , list of those against theism, 465 
 
 of Bayle to free-will, 273 
 
 on account of anthropomorphism, 479 
 
 to God's creating action, 484 
 
 to principle of contradiction, 43 
 
 Objections against realism, 97 
 Objective and subjective being, 35 
 
 concepts, 136, 137, 386,445 
 
 conditions of bodies knowable, 1 1 1 
 
 validity of universal truths affirmed 
 
 by the mind, 43 
 Objectivity, consequence of admitting its 
 
 hypothetical existence, 459 
 of beauty, 257, 258 
 
INDEX. 
 
 565 
 
 Objectivity of feelings and self-existence, 36 
 
 of goodness, 251 
 
 of motion, 412 
 
 of truth, 238 
 
 Objects now unknown, possibly knowable, 
 had we other senses, loi 
 
 Obligation, moral, not dependent on God's 
 will, 247, 248 
 
 Ocean currents, 309 
 
 of energy, 412 
 
 Odours and beauty, 256 
 
 Oehlwein and deaf mutes, 228 
 
 Old and new idealism, 1 30 
 
 and young persons, their feelings as to 
 
 lapse of time, 1 10 
 
 red sandstone rocks, 311 
 
 Olfactory nerves, 150 
 
 Omitted sins may cause remorse, 252, 253 
 
 Omnipotence, what it cannot do, 385 
 
 Omnipotent Being, the will of, not tlic 
 root of ethics, 247, 248 
 
 One fundamental energy, question con- 
 cerning, 440, 441 
 
 highest aim's attainment depends on 
 
 suffering, 473 
 
 matter common to all bodies has not 
 
 yet been found, 415 
 
 Only organisms are individuals, 329 
 
 Ontogeny and phyllogeny, 502 
 
 Oolite, 312 
 
 Ophiomorpha, 317 
 
 Opinion, vulgar, 60 
 
 Opossum, 316 
 
 and Cuvier, 82 
 
 Optic nerve, 150 
 
 Oral and mental word, 235 
 
 Orange, illustration from, 92, 193-195 
 
 Orbit of the earth, changes in, 303 
 
 Orchestra tuning, illustration from, 476 
 
 Orchids and insects, 371 
 
 Order of universe, 453 
 
 , the right, goodness consists in fol- 
 lowing it, 245 
 
 Orders, 315 
 
 , five, of immaterial principles, 433 
 
 of existence tjuite unknown may 
 
 exist, 474 
 
 of mental powers, two in number, 
 
 180 
 
 Ordinary people, their judgments, 62, 63 
 Organ of hearing, 150 
 
 of individual life, the whole body, 
 
 169 
 
 of sight, 150 
 
 ■ of smell, 150 
 
 of taste, 150 
 
 of thought, none, 217, 3S8 
 
 of touch, 150 
 
 Organic and inorganic worlds, chemical 
 
 differences between, 323 
 combustion, 325 
 
 Organic geography, 369 
 
 habit and memory, 169, 447 
 
 hypotheses, 506 
 
 living bodies, their cycle of changes, 
 
 81, 164, 327, 502 
 
 matter, its formation, 333 
 
 nature, its common structure, 322 
 
 reminiscence, 169, 200 
 
 response and correspondence, 169 
 
 substances, some, formed artificially, 
 
 502 
 
 ■ symmetry, 428 
 
 volition, 198, 268 
 
 world, 315, 420 
 
 Organism, an, is its soul's action, 424 
 
 , an, what it is, 146, 426, 493 
 
 , coalescing with another, 440 
 
 , each, a two-sided unity, 423 
 
 , its life like a candle, 432 
 
 Organisms affected by their environment, 
 
 376 
 
 alone are individuals, 329 
 
 and man functionally considered, 341 
 
 , body of each may be called one cell, 
 
 323. 437 
 create, 326, 333 
 
 formed by psychogensis, 426, 440, 
 
 510 
 
 , heredity in, 340 
 
 , primordial, may not have been gene- 
 rative, 502 
 
 , their external relations, 367 
 
 , their interrelations, 369 
 
 , their relations to space, 36S 
 
 , their relations to time, 36S 
 
 Organization limits sensuous knowledge, 
 182 
 
 , our, renders reflection difficult, 8 
 
 Organs, 147 
 
 of embryo, 172 
 
 of sense, 148 
 
 , reaction of, 365 
 
 , systems, and tissues, their func- 
 tions, 331 
 
 Origin, dual, of groups, 519 
 
 independent of similar structures, 519 
 
 of idea of substance, its mode, 414 
 
 of judgments does not determine 
 
 their truth, 9 
 
 of language, 232 
 
 of man, 521 
 
 of species, 5 1 1 
 
 Ornaments ol savages, 281 
 
 Ornithorj'nchus, 316 
 
 Orubanche, 374 
 
 Orycteropus, 316, 520 
 
 Oscillations and nervous action, 394 
 
 Oscillatoria, 321 
 
 Osmosis, 305 
 
 Ostrich, 317 
 
 Other senses possible, 182, 475 
 
566 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Our being is a two-sided unity, 391 
 
 end, 529 
 
 freedom indicates God's existence, 
 
 489, 490 
 
 higher mental powers, 203 
 
 knowledge, its source, 14 
 
 of universal truth not excep- 
 tionally wonderful, 44 
 
 lower mental powers, 178 
 
 mental powers, distinction between 
 
 important, 203 
 • merits and demerits demand rewards 
 
 and chastisements, 488 
 
 mind afifirms objective validity of 
 
 truth, 43 
 
 moral intuitions imply God, 4S7, 
 
 488 
 
 nature and substantial unity, 388 
 
 organization limits our sensuous 
 
 knowledge, 182 
 own being, 386 
 
 perceptions of ourselves and other 
 
 things, are like, 89 
 
 senses and supernatural being, 130 
 
 soul is a spirit, 392 
 
 ■ tools in scientific inquiry, 385, 388 
 
 Ourselves and our environment, 431 
 
 , what we are, 386 
 
 Outcome and income, 329 
 
 of development shows nature of 
 
 germ, 294 
 
 Ova, 150 
 
 Ovum, the, 164 
 
 Owen, Sir Richard, 83 
 
 Oxygen, 148, 305 
 
 Oxygenation of tissue, 159 
 
 Oyster, 318 
 
 Oysters of the Mediterranean Sea, 377 
 
 Pacific islands and pigeons, 371 
 
 Paget, Sir James, and lion's pelvis, 429 
 
 Pain and pleasure, 1 81 
 
 , consequences of its absence, 468-470 
 
 in animals, 358, 471, 472 
 
 Painter and creation, 464 
 Palaeozoic strata, 311 
 Palm and sole, 153, 429 
 Pampas, 309 
 Pancreas, 147, 159 
 Pantheism, 455 
 
 and ethics, 459 
 
 Parallel between our knowledge of the 
 will and of the ego, 263, 264 
 
 • lines, 47 
 
 Paralysis, occasional, of volition, 268, 269 
 Parenchyma, 159, 161, 162 
 Parricide and ethics, 249, 250, 266, 282 
 Parrots and jackdaws articulate, 351 
 
 Parry, Captain, and Esquimaux, 285 
 Particular facts, perception of, 12 
 Parts artificially separated, 438 
 
 of body die differently, 337 
 
 Passion for a mechanical explanation of 
 
 nature, 395 
 Passivity, feelings of, 189 
 Past events cannot be felt, 36, 37 
 Pasteur's labours, 330, 375 
 Patagonians and fire-makmg, 292 
 Pathologists and beauty, 259 
 Pathology, 429 
 Patience and perseverance needed for 
 
 philosophy, 383, 384 
 Paul Gervais, 278 
 
 Payment of tailor, illustration from, 245 
 Pea and twisted fingers, an illusion, 121, 
 
 122 
 Peasants often misunderstood, 288 
 Pelvis, 148 
 
 • of lion, 429 
 
 Perameles and evolution, 520 
 Perceptibility of unimaginable things, 182, 
 
 475 ... 
 
 Perception, always accompanied by imagi- 
 nations but more, 105 
 
 , a mere accident of bodies, 136 
 
 and abstraction, elements of, 214 
 
 and bodily injuries, 118 
 
 and feeling of beauty, 255 
 
 and feelings of goodness, 243 
 
 and feelings of lapse of time, I lO 
 
 and moral sentiment, their difference, 
 
 252 
 
 and space of two dimensions, 1 19 
 
 and spontaneous interpretation ol 
 
 signs, 96 
 
 certified by attention, 95 
 
 contains latent judgments, 105 
 
 , direct, illustration of, 21 
 
 , explicit and implicit, of self and feel- 
 ings, 23, 24 
 
 , fundamental, involved in axiom 
 
 about equality, 46 
 
 , intellectual, 112, 204, 207 
 
 , not inference, 92, 96 
 
 of beauty increased by culture, 255 
 
 of force of arguments, 12 
 
 of justice universal, 283 
 
 of necessary truth no more to be 
 
 doubted than sensations, 45, 46 
 
 of particular facts, 12 
 
 of right and wrong not dependent on 
 
 God's will, 247, 248 
 
 of the unfelt and unimaginable, 89, 
 
 lOI 
 
 of the unimaginable, inscrutable, 127, 
 
 128 
 of truth essential to a judgment, 104, 
 
 238 
 ' of truth, goodness, and beauty, 237 
 
INDEX. 
 
 567 
 
 Perception, our, of secondary qualities 
 cannot be proved mendacious, 127 
 
 respecting possibility and impos- 
 sibility, 41 
 
 Perceptions, ideas, and sensations, loi 
 
 need not change with their signs, 91 
 
 , sensuous, 188, 190, 194 
 
 , simple, and idealism, 79 
 
 , the elements in each one, 91 
 
 , their object, not the sensations which 
 
 evoke them, 90 
 Perfect certainty may exist about science, 5 
 
 men have feelings and moral judg- 
 ments in harmony, 254 
 
 Perfection and beauty, 256 
 
 Perfumes, 442 
 
 Pericles and degradation, 290 
 
 Permanence of thinking principle, 387 
 
 Permanent possibilities of sensation, 131 
 
 Permian rocks, 312 
 
 Perodicticus and Nycticebus, 317, 428 
 
 Persistence of inorganic bodies, 328 
 
 Person, a, what it is, 392 
 
 Personality essential to religion, 530 
 
 of God, consequence of its denial, 4S4 
 
 Persons, responsible, have an account to 
 give, 488 
 
 Perspective drawing, illustration from, 90 
 
 Perth, Australians of, 288 
 
 Pfeififer, Madame, 279 
 
 Phallus fungus, 478 
 
 Phanerogams, 321 
 
 Phantasmata, 185 
 
 Philosopher, his duty, 490 
 
 Philosopher's brain, illustration from, 467 
 
 Philosophy has the best evidence, 383 
 
 • , mechanical, 394 
 
 of generation, 507 
 
 of grafting and coalescence, 508 
 
 of peasants, 288 
 
 of spontaneous fission, 508 
 
 ■ , true, characteristics of, 531 
 
 , Ueberweg's History of, 392 
 
 Phosphorus, 306 
 
 Photographs, universal ones, illustration 
 from, 191 
 
 Phyllogeiietic hypotheses, 510, 511 
 
 Phyllogcny and ontogeny, 502 
 
 Phyllopteiyx eques, 373 
 
 Physical activities, or forces, their equiva- 
 lence, 301, 302 
 
 basis of perceptions of truth, good- 
 ness, and beauty, 237 
 
 changes, cycle of, 265, 423 
 
 forces, 301, 393 
 
 impediments to thought and speech, 
 
 227 
 
 science and creation, 463 
 
 and immortality, 490 
 
 has not found one common 
 
 matter, 415 
 
 Physical science postulates causes, 80, 83 
 
 subordinate, 384 
 
 Physiological properties of bacteria, 375 
 Physiologist's objection to "soul," 430 
 Physiology and psychology, 427 
 
 of the individual, 365, 389 
 
 of the tissues, 365 
 
 Piano, illustration from, 187, 198 
 Pigeons' and fowls' " boots," 428 
 
 , constitution of, 379 
 
 of Pacific islands, 371 
 
 Pigs according to Nathusius, 377 
 
 Pike and evolution, 520 
 
 Pike's apprehension of motion, 345 
 
 Pineal gland, 151, 390 
 
 Pines, 321 
 
 Pisa, its Baptistery and harmony, 108 
 
 Pitch-dark luminosity, 448 
 
 Pituitary body, 15 1 
 
 Plain distinction between inclination and 
 
 volition, 271 
 Plainest truths may be doubted, 7 
 Planaria;, 333 
 
 Planet Iseptune, its prediction, 81 
 Planets, their paths, 301 
 Plant mimicry, 373 
 Plants and animals, 315 
 
 and animals, distinctions between, 
 
 331 
 
 and voluntary motion, 332 
 
 do not feel, 334 
 
 have no muscular tissue, 333 
 
 have no nervous tissue, 336 
 
 , insectivorous ones, 332 
 
 , the lowest, 321 
 
 , their souls, 427 
 
 Plato and degradation, 290 
 
 Platypus, 316 
 
 Play of thought, analogy embodied in the 
 expression, 418 
 
 Pleasurable feeling of satisfaction from con- 
 duct, 194 
 
 Pleasure and pain, 181 
 
 and utility distinct from goodness, 
 
 244, 251 
 
 of life, human and animal, 472 
 
 Pleasures, unobtrusive, overlooked, 473 
 Plesiosauri, 36S 
 
 , limb homologies, 428 
 
 Pliocene formation, 312 
 
 Plurality, idea of, 240 
 
 Plutonic rocks, 310 
 
 Pneumogastric nerve, 166 
 
 Poet and creation, 464 
 
 Pointers' gestures, 310 
 
 Points of unlikeness, absurd results of 
 
 neglecting them, 444 
 Polar ice caps, 302, 309 
 Polarization of light, 401 
 Pole of the earth changes its direction, 302 
 Polecat and toads, 360 
 
568 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Politics and evolution, 518 
 
 Polymorphic and dimorphic bodies, 306 
 
 Polyzoa, 319 
 
 Pompadour, Madame de, illustration from, 
 489 
 
 Pony breeds of horses, 377 
 
 Popular idealism, 134 
 
 opinion, 60 
 
 Position and appearances, 120 
 
 , feelings of, 191 
 
 of man as an animal, 322 
 
 of realism, key to it, 87 
 
 Positive and negative perceptions as to im- 
 possibility, 41 
 
 Possible and actual sensations, 132, 133 
 
 and existing being, 45 S 
 
 existence of unknown orders of exist- 
 ence, 475 
 
 modes of specific evolution, 510, 511 
 
 Possibles, not all simultaneously possible, 
 
 46? . . . 
 Possibilities, even hypothetical, certainly 
 knowable, 385 
 
 of absolutely inscrutable purposes in 
 
 God, 474 
 
 of an eternal universe, 452 
 
 , permanent, of sensation, 131 
 
 simultaneously impossible, 385 
 
 Possibility, 240, 242 
 
 intrinsic and extrinsic, 242, 243 
 
 , meaning of the term, 132 
 
 of doubt as to God's existence and 
 
 mercy, 491 
 
 of inscrutable purposes in God, 474 
 
 of knowledge of secondary qualines, 
 
 100, lOI 
 of knowledge shown by an example, 
 
 385 
 
 of other senses than we have, 182, 475 
 
 , perceptions regarding, 41 
 
 Post, "feeling," illustration fiom, 444 
 
 Post-mortem changes, 438, 505 
 
 Potential being, 458 
 
 Potto, 317, 428, 521 
 
 Poulton and colour of chrysalids, 374 
 
 Power and force, idea of, 50, 106, 220 
 
 , feeling of, 190, 207 
 
 of cells, augmented by union, 331 
 
 of choice in protoplasmic particles, 160 
 
 of choice needful for merit or de- 
 merit, 275 
 
 of choosing and consciousness, 272 
 
 of perceiving the unfelt and unimagin- 
 able, 89, lOI 
 Powers, list of our higher mental ones, 223 
 
 , list of our vital and lower mental 
 
 ones, 200, 201 
 , mental, distinction between impor- 
 tant, 203 
 
 , mental, our higher ones, 203 
 
 , , two orders of them, 180 
 
 Powers of mind really a unity, 202 
 
 of motion and nervous system, 166 
 
 , our lower mental ones, 178 
 
 , supernatural, 286 
 
 Practical consequences of speculative views, 
 
 293 
 
 intelligence of animals, 344 
 
 Practice of virtue often requires great sacri- 
 fices, 488 
 Prayer of Khonds of Orissa, 287 
 
 of Zulus, 288 
 
 Precession of earth's axis and equinoxes, 
 
 302 
 Prediction as a test of truth, 398 
 Predictions, scientific ones. So, 82 
 " Preference " and "will," ambiguity of 
 
 these terms, 270 
 Prehensile feet and evolution, 520 
 Prejudices of humanity as regards beauty, 
 
 259 
 Presence of intellect not proved by tricks 
 
 of apparent reading and speaking, 352 
 Present existences can alone be felt, 36, 
 
 37 
 
 feelings absolutely certain, 17 
 
 Preservation of fossils rare, 368 
 
 Pressure and thickened skin, 37S 
 
 of ether, 399 
 
 Preyer on speech, 228 
 
 Primary and secondary qualities, 98 
 
 and self-evident is our knowledge of 
 
 mental causation, 268 
 
 cognitions, 20 
 
 strata, 311 
 
 truths, rays from God, 461 
 
 Primates, 316 
 
 Primeval man, 290 
 
 Primordial organisms may have been non- 
 generating, 502 
 
 spontaneous generation, 501 
 
 Principle, a mistaken one, in place of law 
 of contradiction, 40 
 
 of contradiction and volition, 271 
 
 of contradiction, objection to, 43 
 
 of individuation in each organism, 422, 
 
 423 
 
 of thought, its immateriality, 3S8 
 
 , first general one, 39 
 
 , second general one, 46 
 
 , third general one, 48 
 
 Principles, complete and incomplete, 439 
 , general ones, may be more evident 
 
 than concrete examples, 57 
 
 , immaterial, form five orders, 433 
 
 , intermediate and temporary, 508 
 
 , moral ones, universal, 282 
 
 of individuation, their emergence and 
 
 disappearance, 438, 507 
 
 of the sexual elements, 508 
 
 only exist embodied, 507 
 
 Prisoners, torture of, 2S3 
 
INDEX. 
 
 569 
 
 Probable inadequacy of our idea of light, 
 
 "S 
 
 inscrutability of ultimate constitution 
 
 of bodies, 416 
 Probability in favour of testimony, 61 
 of lies and errors diminishes with in- 
 crease in number of witnesses, 61 
 Process of development, 164, 171, 339, 
 502, 504, 510, 518 
 
 of repair after injury, 169 
 
 Prodigality of nature, objection from, 465 
 Production of reason by speech impossible, 
 
 233> 234 
 Professor Burt Wilder, 429 
 
 Cope and the horse, 520 
 
 Progress and degradation found side by 
 
 side, 291 
 
 of mind, how an analogical expres- 
 sion, 418 
 
 , social, complexity of, 290 
 
 Proof, idea of, associated with that of 
 truth, 6 
 
 must stop somewhere, 9 
 
 of memory's trutli impossible, 32 
 
 of ultimate truths, impossible, 10 
 
 Properties of protoplasm, 325, 326 
 Proportion between acquisition of new ideas 
 
 and new feelings, 209, 210 
 Proposition at root of ethics must be ethi- 
 cal, 246 
 Propositions imaginable, credible, and the 
 
 reverse, 1 12 
 proved, cannot be ultimate, 9 
 
 sometimes thought most indisput- 
 able, 8 
 
 Prostrations and gestures, 286 
 
 Protean character of Darwinism, 516 
 
 Protection of llowers, 371 
 
 Proteus and evolution, 520 
 
 Protococcus, 321 
 
 Protoplasm, 147, 322, 325 
 
 , its properties, 32;, 326 
 
 Protoplasmic circulation, l6i 
 
 movements, 157, 326 
 
 Prototypal ideas, 497 
 
 Protozoa, 320 
 
 Proved propositions cannot be fundamen- 
 tal, 9 
 
 Pruning-knife, illustration from, 515 
 
 Pseudomorjjhs, 313 
 
 Psyche, 423-427, 440 
 
 Psychogenesis of the individual, 440, 509, 
 510 
 
 of species, 521 
 
 Psychology and phyisology, 427 
 
 Psychosis, 427 
 
 Ptarmigan, 373 
 
 Pterosauria, 36S 
 
 Punishment, fear of, distinct from moral 
 perception, 253, 254 
 
 Punishments should follow demerits, 488 
 
 Puppies' instinctive dread of wolf-skin, 
 
 359 
 Purbeck beds, 312 
 
 Purilication, ceremonial, of Kafirs, 293 
 Purifying action of bacteria, 375 
 Purpose and God, 492 
 
 in the world, 492 
 
 of nature is fulfilment of the moral 
 
 law, 495 
 Purposes absolutely inscrutable may exist 
 
 in God, 474 
 
 , higliest, 495 
 
 ot God in nature, cannot be defeated, 
 
 467 
 Pursuit of pleasure, iSi 
 of truth dependent on self-knowledge, 
 
 27 
 
 Q 
 
 Quagga and brood-mare, 379 
 Qualities and relations included in axiom 
 about equality, 46 
 
 , knowledge of, not exhaustive, lOO 
 
 , perception of, 206, 213 
 
 , primary and secondary, 98 
 
 , secondary, common belief concern- 
 ing, 100 
 
 , , and motion, 116 
 
 , , meaning of denial of know- 
 ledge of, lOI 
 
 , , our perception of cannot be 
 
 proved mendacious, 127 
 
 , , possibly knowable, loi 
 
 , the intellect's declarations about, 114 
 
 Quality and quantity, categories of, 452 
 Quantitative chemical relation, 303, 394 
 equivalence of physical forces, 301, 
 
 393 
 Quantity and quality, categories of, 452 
 Quaternary strata, 313 
 Queen's photograph, illustration from, 216 
 
 Races of men, 276 
 
 Radial symmetry, 429 
 
 Radiolaria, 320 
 
 Radiolarian symmetry, 429 
 
 Rae, Dr., and Esquimaux, 2S5 
 
 Rallle'^ia, 374 
 
 Railway guard, illustration from, 170 
 
 Rameses, statue of, 30S 
 
 Rank of natural selection, 518 
 
 Rapine in nature, 468 
 
 Rarity of preservation of fossils, 368 
 
 Ratiocination, 220 
 
 Rational use of inevitable anthrojiomorph- 
 
 ism, 4S0 
 Rationality of the irrational, 460 
 
57 o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Rationality, human and Divine, 460 
 
 potential in infants, 295, 523 
 
 Rat's tail grafted, illustration from, 439 
 Rays (fishes), 317 
 
 of light, their velocities, 397 
 
 Reactions of cells, tissues, and organs, 365 
 Reading and speaking, apparent tricks of 
 
 no proof of intellect, 352 
 Real and ideal existences, 445 
 Realism, 77, 445 
 
 , objections to, 97 
 
 , transfigured, 133 
 
 validates common sense and testimony, 
 
 141 
 Realities corresponding to abstract ideas, 
 
 137 
 Reality, 240-242 
 of truth and virtue may be doubted, 
 
 7 
 Reason and language never generated by 
 
 drawings, 234 
 
 , as universal and individual, 138 
 
 • contradicted by popular idealism, 140 
 
 could not be begot by speech, 232 
 
 does not directly control taste, 197 
 
 in nature, 446 
 
 , sufficient, and the universe, 451, 453 
 
 , universal, 446 
 
 why some men of science support 
 
 Darwinism, 524 
 
 Reasoners must accept reasoning, 53 
 
 Reasoning, 53 
 
 • is grounded on law of contradiction, 
 
 43 
 
 , some self-evidently true, 53, 57 
 
 Reasons why idealism is attractive, 75 
 Reciprocal action of organs, 146 
 
 action of soul and bodv, 267, 388 
 
 ■ relation of the sexual elements, 164 
 
 Recollections and reminiscences, 31 
 Recompense should follow virtue's sacri- 
 fices, 488 
 Reflection and attention, 219 
 
 distinguishes between perception and 
 
 inference, 94 
 
 does not take place in animals, 354 
 
 must justify the seeming self-evidence 
 
 of judgments, 1 1 
 
 not applicable to feelings, 216 
 
 • of the mind inwards, 8 
 
 Reflex action, 166, 267, 343 
 and automatism, 267 
 
 of a whole individual is in- 
 stinct, 364, 365 
 
 • varies with circumstances, 365 
 
 actions are telic, 3 14 
 
 in animals, 343, 344 
 
 which are felt, 167 
 
 acts reveal both self and feelings, 20 
 
 and direct apprehensions distin- 
 guished, 23 
 
 Reflex and spontaneous evidence of law of 
 
 causation, 48 
 
 judgments, 8 
 
 Refutati<jn of a fundamental objection 
 
 against the objectivity of necessary truth, 
 
 43 
 of absolute scepticism by itself, 7 
 
 of hypothesis of automatism by 
 
 experience, 267 
 
 Regret, feeling of, 186 
 
 for sins not committed, 252 
 
 Regretful sentiments and ethics, 253 
 Relations and qualities included in axiom 
 
 of equality, 46 
 
 , chemical, quantitative, 303, 394 
 
 -, external, of organisms, 377 
 
 , internal and external, demand a 
 
 cause, 49 
 of feelings and sentiments to highest 
 
 ideas, 237 
 
 of organism to space, 369 
 
 to time, 368 
 
 , quantitative, of chemical substances, 
 
 303. 394 
 Relative and absolute goodness, 244 
 Relativity and negative character of ugli- 
 ness, 259 
 
 in beauty different from that in truth 
 
 and goodness, 258 
 Religion, 286, 530 
 
 , definition of, 286 
 
 refers to persons, 530 
 
 , universal, 2S6, 287 
 
 Reminiscence, organic, 169, 200 
 Reminiscences and recollections, 31 
 Remorse and ethical judgment, 252 
 Remote inherited homologies, 513 
 
 things become mentally associated 
 
 with uncertainty, 6, 44 
 
 Repair of a crystal, 304 
 
 of injuries, 169 
 
 of injuries m animals, 337 
 
 • of the blood, 160 
 
 Repeated actions not needed to generate 
 
 habit, 174 
 Repose, if prolonged, paralyzing effect of, 
 
 17s 
 " Represent," ambiguity of the term, 91 
 Reproduction, 163, 337 
 
 a form of growth, 338 
 
 , feelings related to, 184 
 
 of artificial injuries, 169, 341 
 
 Reptiles, 317 
 
 Resistance to our will and causation, 51 
 
 Resolution of ammonia, 303 
 
 of flint and carbonate of lime, 303 
 
 Respect due to common-sense judgments, 
 
 63. 
 Respiration, 1 61, 336 
 
 • and the will, 155, 167 
 
 Response and correspondence, organic, 169 
 
INDEX. 
 
 571 
 
 Responsible persons have an account to 
 give, 488 
 
 Retardation, tidal, 406 
 
 Retentive faculty of the imagination, 187 
 
 Retreat and appearance of immaterial 
 principles, 507 
 
 Reverence and awe, 530 
 
 , manifestations of, 286 
 
 Reverie and automatism, 265 
 
 Revolution of satellites round their planets, 
 301 
 
 of the moon, 302 
 
 Revolutions of Mars and Uranus, 301, 405 
 
 Rewarder, Chastiser, Judge, and Legis- 
 lator must be God, 489 
 
 Rewards should follow merits, 48S 
 
 Rhizocephala, 318 
 
 Rhizopoda, 320 
 
 Rhythm of worlds, 395 
 
 Rhytina, 368 
 
 Right and wrong not dependent on God's 
 will, 247,248 
 
 order, the following it constitutes 
 
 goodness, 245 
 
 Ring of metals, illustration from, 267 
 
 Rotifera, 319 
 
 Root of a sycamore, curious fact, 335 
 
 of certainty contains three orders of 
 
 truths, 12 
 
 Rooting of a bramble branch, 338 
 Roots of language, 232 
 
 of spinal nerves, 150 
 
 of trees, aspect changed by exposure, 
 
 378 
 Rudimentary structures, 1 51, 47 7> 479 
 Ruins of Central America, 291 
 Rules for estimating animal faculties, 347 
 
 for judging common sense, 63, 64 
 
 Running, 155 
 
 upstairs, illustration from, 156 
 
 Rust of hydrogen, 307 
 
 of iron, calcium, and silicon, 303 
 
 Sacrifices often required by virtue, 48S 
 Salt water and crustaceans, 378 
 Salutations, 286 
 Salvado, Hishop, 288, 289 
 Satellites of Jupiter and light, 397 
 
 of Mars and Uranus, 301, 405, 406 
 
 Satisfaction only possible through God, 
 
 530 
 Saturn's and Jupiter's satellites, eclipses of, 
 
 397 
 Saturnia Bolli and Wagner, 378 
 Savages and Greek art, 281 
 
 , deformities and ornaments of, 2S1 
 
 Scale mosses, 321 
 Scandmavia, elevation of, 309 
 
 Sceptical consequences of distrust of 
 
 memory, 34 
 Scepticism, absolute, involved in denial of 
 
 law of contradiction, 42 
 as to knowledge met by an example, 
 
 , general, involved in denial of 
 
 memory's truth, 34 
 necessary, but may be exaggerated, 
 
 4, 5 
 
 , universal, self-refuting and very 
 
 foolish, 7 
 
 which is general, 7 
 
 Science and common sense view the world 
 similarly, 418, 432 
 
 and idealism, 79 
 
 deals with everything thinkable, 385, 
 
 3S6 
 
 , man of, his duty, 49S, 499 
 
 , necessity of certainty for its ad- 
 vance, 5 
 
 of sciences, or supreme and subor- 
 dinate sciences, 14, 383 
 
 , physical, ar»d creation, 463 
 
 , , immortality, 490 
 
 , , subordinate, 384 
 
 postulates causes, 80, 83 
 
 , what it is, 384 
 
 Scientific certainty, 5 
 
 predictions, 80, 82 
 
 Scorpions, 318 
 
 Scyllis, 338 
 
 Sea-anemone, 319 
 
 Sea-mat, 319 
 
 Sea-squirts, 318 
 
 Sea-urchins, 319 
 
 Sea-water, 307 
 
 Seal and stamped wax, illust*-ation from, 
 
 423 
 Second fundamental fact, memory's truth, 
 
 29 
 
 general principle, axiom about 
 
 equality, 46 
 
 Secondary qualities, a knowledge of pos- 
 sible, lOI 
 
 and motion, 1 16 
 
 , common helit- f concerning, 100 
 
 , meaning of denial of knowledge 
 
 of, loi 
 
 , our perception, cannot be 
 
 proved to be mendacious, 127 
 
 strata, 311, 312, 36S 
 
 Secretion, 162, 336 
 Sediment of rivers, 307, 308 
 Secbohm, Mr., and Kaniskatka birds, 376 
 Seed of mistletoe, 335 
 Seeds and birils, 370 
 Seeing, the idea of, 109 
 Seeming innate tendency to language, 231 
 Seemingly unworthy creations, objection 
 from, 477 
 
572 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Self and feelings as explicitly and implicitly 
 apprehended, 22-24 
 
 ■ and feelings, error as to our know- 
 ledge ol, 27 
 
 and introspection, 387 
 
 and will equally unknown directly in 
 
 themselves, 263, 264 
 
 , how known, 20 
 
 • , known as primarily as feelings, 26 
 
 ■ , unmodified, not to be known, 19 
 
 Self-action and conscious volition, 273 
 , arguments to be considered against 
 
 its perception, 16 
 
 perceived immediately, 22 
 
 Self-conscious attention, 262 
 
 Self-defence impossible for a general 
 
 sceptic, 7 
 Selt-denial impossible without suffering, 469 
 
 increases merit of actions, 251 
 
 Self-evidence is the criterion of truth, 11 
 
 of memory's truth, 32 
 
 ■ of reasoning, 53-58 
 
 , universality and necessity of moral 
 
 truth, 248 
 Self-evident and primary is our knowledge 
 
 of intellectual causation, 268 
 gratification as a duty, 251 
 
 truths, the source of all our know- 
 ledge, 13 
 
 Self-existence, sense of, 20 
 Self-knowledge, 2)?> 
 
 , an objection to, stated, 22 
 
 commonly supposed certain, 15, 16 
 
 ■ implies certainty of memory, 32 
 
 impossible without knowledge of 
 
 feelings, 18, 19 
 
 inseparable from pursuit of truth, 27 
 
 like our knowledge of others, 19 
 
 • , mistaken inference concerning, 19 
 
 Self-refutation of absolute scepticism, 7 
 
 of some modern systems, 134 
 
 Sensation, 165 
 
 does not contain certainty, but intel- 
 lect does, 113 
 
 indispensable to our inteUect, 87 
 
 • , its guiding action vouched for by 
 
 consciousness, 265, 266 
 
 not in plants, 334 
 
 , permanent, possibilities of, 131 
 
 Sensations actual and possible, 133 
 
 • are the means, not the objects of 
 
 perception, 90 
 
 , definite ones, 182 
 
 , ideas, and perceptions, loi 
 
 , unnoticed ones, 23, 89, 181, 187 
 
 Sense, common, 62 
 
 may be the keener for absence of 
 
 intellect, 346 
 
 ■ , moral, 222, 254 
 
 • of self-existence, 20 
 
 , organs of, 150 
 
 Sense-knowledge, its possibilities, 182 
 Senses, alleged deception of, 117, 121, 122 
 
 can only feel what is present, 36, 
 
 37 
 
 , new, conceivable, 112 
 
 , others possible, 182, 475 
 
 , our, and a supernatural being, 130 
 
 perceive the body, 388 
 
 , their first active exercise, 185 
 
 Sensibility, 165 
 
 differs in mankind, 471 
 
 Sensitive plant, 332 
 Sensori-motor actions, 168 
 Sensuous attention, 198 
 
 generalized cognitions, 191 
 
 inference, 194, 195 
 
 knowledge, 188 
 
 memory, 186 
 
 universals, 191, 206 
 
 Sentiments, 221 
 
 and feelings, their relation to highest 
 
 ideas, 237 
 
 and perceptions, moral, their differ- 
 ence, 252 
 
 Sequence and causation, 50 
 
 Serial homology, 152,. 318, 428, 513 
 
 Serpents, 255, 317 
 
 Service, increase of, in ascending scale of 
 
 nature, 494, 495 
 Setters' and pointers' gestures, 351 
 
 at Delhi, 377 
 
 Sexual combats and antics, 374 
 
 elements, 149, 164 
 
 • , their principles, 508 
 
 Shame and morality, 252 
 
 , feeling of, 186 
 
 Shamming death, instinct of, 361, 517 
 
 Sharks, 317, 368 
 
 Shock, feeling of, 193, 198 
 
 Shrimp, chameleon one, 374 
 
 Shrimps, 318 
 
 Sick man well nursed, illustration from, 
 
 249 
 Sight and motion, 122 
 
 and touch, their exceptional vivid- 
 ness, 442 
 
 Significance of the words " I am," 36 
 
 Silicon, 303 
 
 Silurian rocks, 311 
 
 Similar structures may arise independently, 
 
 .519 . 
 Similarity, existence, distinction, unity, 
 
 and truth, ideas of, 103 
 Simple and compound feelings, 107 
 
 being, alone uncaused, 50 
 
 perceptions and idealism, 79 
 
 truths, 6, 7 
 
 unity of thinking principle, 388 
 
 Simplicity of feeling of tone doubtful, 108 
 Simultaneity in act of all possibles is im- 
 possible, 385, 469 
 
INDEX. 
 
 573 
 
 Simultaneous action of feeling, cognition, 
 
 and will, 222 
 
 errors and lies uncommon, 61 
 
 Single cell, organic bodies generally may 
 
 be so spoken of, 1 51, 323, 437 
 Sins omitted may be regretted, 252 
 Sir James Paget and lion's pelvis, 429 
 
 Richard Owen, 83 
 
 William Thomson and atoms, 403 
 
 Siren, 317, 520 
 
 Six kinds of language, 235 
 
 Size, feelings of, 19 1 
 
 Skeleton, 148 
 
 Skin affections inherited, 380 
 
 thickened by pressure, 378 
 
 Slap, or blow, illustration from, 25 
 
 Slave-making ants, 370, 477 
 
 Sleep, supposed virtuous acts done in, 250 
 
 Sleep-walking, 156, 199, 265 
 
 Slightly disadvantageous characters, 521 
 
 Sloths, 82, 316 
 
 Slow-lemur, 317,428 
 
 , hand and foot homologies, 428 
 
 Smooth and easy transition, feeling of, 194 
 
 Snails, 318 
 
 Sneezing, illustration from, 267 
 
 Snow and crystal, 304 
 
 Social feelings and ethical judgments, 253 
 
 • progress, complexity of, 290 
 
 Society and morals, 253 
 
 Sociology of all intelligences, 286, 530 
 
 ■ of intelligence is religion, 286 
 
 Solar system, 299 
 
 Solenhofen slates, 312 
 
 Solid, fluid, and aeriform states, 304 
 
 Solitary existence of God before creation, 
 
 484 
 Some modern systems self-refuting, 134 
 
 reasoning must be valid, 53 
 
 Somnambulists, 190, 199 
 Songs and calls of birds, 351 
 Soul, 390-392 
 
 and body, their reciprocal action, 267, 
 
 388 
 ■ , its immortality and justice, 470, 
 
 490 , . , 
 of man, its distmctness and survival, 
 
 435 
 
 of organisms, 422 
 
 of plants, 427 
 
 • of the world, 440 
 
 , physiologist's objection to, 430 
 
 Soul's action in life or organisms, 424 
 
 existence after deaih unimaginable, 
 
 490 
 
 Souls, many in one organism according to 
 Haeckel, 424 
 
 • of man and brute, illustration con- 
 cerning, 434 
 
 Sound and colour, objections concerning, 
 116, 117 
 
 Sound emitted by men working together, 
 
 232 
 
 , intrinsic and extrinsic, 1 14, 118 
 
 of breeding season, 374 
 
 of trumpet anil scarlet, i 82 
 
 Source of all our knowledge, 13 
 Space, 407 
 
 of two dimensions and perception, 47 
 
 Spalding, Mr., his notes on instincts, 358 
 Speaking and reading, apparent tricks of, 
 
 no proof of intellect, 352 
 Spear-thrusts and ethics, 283 
 Special senses in animals, 343 
 Species, new, verdict as to, 527 
 
 ot men but one, 277 
 
 , possible modes of their evolution, 
 
 5io> 5" 
 
 , their psychogenesis, 521 
 
 Specific characters and useless structures. 
 521 
 
 gravities of atoms, 402 
 
 Spectrum analysis, 301 • 
 
 Speculative views have practical conse- 
 quences, 293 
 
 Speech could not beget reason, 232 
 
 impossible to animals, 351 
 
 , its spontaneous manifestation, 231 
 
 needs abstract ideas, 227 
 
 preceded by thought in infants, 234 
 
 universal in mankind, 279 
 
 Speed of light, 300 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, and the universe, 452 
 
 Sperm cells, 149, 164 
 
 Sphere, creatures supposed coinciding with 
 its surface, 47 
 
 Sphex and evolution, 516 
 
 , instincts of, 359 
 
 Spiders, 318 
 
 Spinal cord and nerves, 150, 166 
 
 Spirit, 392, 445 
 
 and evolution, 527 
 
 Spiritualism and degradation, 292 
 
 Sponge, 319 
 
 Spontaneity and universality of idea of 
 motion, 4II 
 
 in nature, 362, 464 
 
 , internal, and habit, 174 
 
 Sjionlaneous anil reflex evidence of law of 
 causation, 48, 49 
 
 divi^ion or fission, 338 
 
 , philosoplry of, 507, 50S 
 
 generation, 330 
 
 , primordial, 501 
 
 good actions and good habits, 250 
 
 manifestation of speech, 231 
 
 variations, 380 
 
 Spores, 339 
 
 , swarms of, 437 
 
 St. Helena and its flora, 372 
 
 St. Hilaire, Isidore (leofTrey, 429 
 
 Stag-beetle and evolution, 3O1, 516 
 
574 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stamped wax and seal, illustration from, 
 
 423 
 Standard, moral, possible in rude people, 
 
 290 
 Standing, conditions of, 156 
 Stangerda paradoxa, 373 
 Stallo, J. B., 397 
 Star-fishes, 319 
 Starry heavens ^nd Kant, 248 
 Stars, fixed, and light, 398 
 
 , ones, 300 
 
 Startling character of idealism, 71 
 Statical aspect of organisms, 423 
 Statue, broken, illustration from, 248 
 
 , carved, illustration from, 515 
 
 ■ ■ of Rameses, 308 
 
 Stebbing, Mr., and chameleon shrimp, 374 
 
 Stellar universe, 299 
 
 Stimuli, 155 
 
 , not the causes of reflex actions, 167, 
 
 344 
 
 Stomach, 147, 159 
 
 Stone-throwing, illustration from, 156, 157 
 
 Strata, 310 
 
 Stratification and cleavage, illustration 
 from, 475 . . 
 
 Strengths of different motives can be felt, 
 269 
 
 Striking of a clock, 92, 115, 424 
 
 Strongest desires and motives, 268 
 
 motive, ambiguity of that term, 270 
 
 Structural and chemical difference between 
 the organic and inorganic worlds, 323 
 
 ■ dilTerences of organism and anor- 
 
 ganisms, 322 
 
 Structure and function correspond, 331 
 
 • common to all organisms, 322 
 
 , human, animal, and vegetal, 322 
 
 of man's body, 145 
 
 to be understood before function, 146 
 
 , useless, incipient, and disadvan- 
 tageous, 521 
 
 Structures, similar, may arise indepen- 
 dently, 519 
 
 Struggle for life, 372 
 
 Stuart Mill and justice in this life, 489 
 
 as to thought and matter, 38S 
 
 Study of idealism necessary, 71 
 
 of man, 143, 276 
 
 of structure must precede that of 
 
 function, 146 
 
 worthy of human intellect, 499 
 
 Stupidity of animals, 355 
 
 Sturgeon, 317, 368 
 
 Subjective and objective being, 35 
 
 and objective studies, transition be- 
 tween, 276 
 
 quality in beauty, 257 
 
 signs of perceptions may change 
 
 without the perceptions themselves 
 changing, 91 
 
 Subjective signs spontaneously interpreted 
 
 in perception, 96 
 Subjectivity of truth, impossible, 238 
 Subordination of physical science, 384 
 Subsidiary hypotheses and nebular theory, 
 
 406 
 Subsistence, perception of, 211 
 Substance, idea of, 414 
 , thought and extension as its alleged 
 
 attributes, 139, 392 
 Substances, chemical, 302 
 , chemical, their quantitative relations, 
 
 303, 394 . . 
 , inorganic viewed similarly by science 
 
 and common sense, 418 
 
 , organic, formed artificially, 333, 501 
 
 Substantial self, knowledge of, 19 
 
 , temporary distinctions, 442 
 
 unity of our nature, 3S8 
 
 Substantiality of thinking principle, 387 
 Subtraction of effete material, 162 
 Successful evil-doers, 488, 489 
 Succession and motion distinguished, 417 
 common to movement of thought and 
 
 of bodies, 418 
 
 , feelings of, 191, 192 
 
 , real and ideal, /\ 10 
 
 Successive death of tissues, 337, 437 
 
 Suckers, 338 
 
 Sucking action of infant, 184 
 
 and Bichat, 1 75 
 
 Suffering, absence of, its consequences, 469 
 needed for attainment of our highest 
 
 aim, 473 
 Sufferings of animals, 358, 471 
 
 of animals not known to them, 358 
 
 Sufficient Cause, a, must be intrinsic in 
 
 uncaused being, 49 
 
 reason, 49 
 
 and the universe, 453 
 
 Suicide of some modern systems, 134 
 
 Sulphur, 306 
 
 Sun, distance, diameter, surface, and volume 
 
 of, 301 
 Sundew, 321 
 
 Sun's motion, illustration from, 95, 123 
 Sunset, illustration from, 123, 242 
 Superiority, apparent, of idealism, 76 
 Supernatural being, a, and our senses, 130 
 could not deceive us as to our 
 
 present feeling, 17 
 
 powers, 286 
 
 Supernumerary fingers and toes, 153, 429 
 Supposition of good done in sleep, 250 
 that an instinct would be found with 
 
 an animal artificially formed, 365 
 Supremacy of intellect over sense, 112, 113 
 Supreme being could not both be and not 
 
 he, 43 
 , will of, not root of ethics, 247, 
 
 248 
 
INDEX. 
 
 575 
 
 Supreme legislative judge, rewarder, and 
 
 chastiser, 489 
 
 science of sciences, 14, 383 
 
 truth which is taugiit by nature, 
 
 460 
 
 value of conception of duty, 251 
 
 Surprise, feelings of, 193 
 Survival of soul of man, 435 
 Suspended action, feeling of, 194 
 Swallows and house- huikling, 356 
 
 , possible remorse, 357 
 
 Swallow-tailed butterfly, 370 
 Sycamore, curious fact about root of, 335 
 Syllogism, example of, 54 
 
 , said not to contain an inference, 54 
 
 Symmetry, 152, 428 
 
 of disease, 429 
 
 of echinoderms, 429 
 
 of radiolaria, 429 
 
 of the body, 152 
 
 , serial, 152, 318, 428, 513 
 
 Sympathetic effect of emotional signs, 196, 
 
 352 
 
 system, 168 
 
 Sympathy, feelings of, 186 
 Synthesis of feelings, 198 
 
 of forces in organisms, 422 
 
 of ideas, 221 
 
 ■ of movements, 157 
 
 System, circulating, 149, 160 
 
 , generative, 149 
 
 , nervous, 150, 1 64 , 
 
 Systems, modern, some self-refuting, 134 
 
 of organs, 147 
 
 , organs, and tissues, their functions, 
 
 331 
 
 Tadpoles, 317 
 Tahiti, flora of, 371 
 Tail of rat grafted, 439 
 Tails of cat and bull, 341 
 
 of lizards, 337, 437 
 
 to wings ol butierflies, 377 
 
 Tardiness of ameliorations and Theism, 4S6 
 .Task of inquirer after truth, 13, 14 
 Taste and ethics in animals, 356 
 
 , feeling of various, 197, 255 
 
 Tastes, diflerences as lo, accounted for, 
 
 260 
 Tears, etc., need not mean pain, 167, 472 
 Teleology, 492 
 Telic cyclical changes, 438 
 
 nature of reflex action, 364 
 
 Temporary principles, 508 
 
 substantial distinctions, 442 
 
 Temptation of mechanical hypothesis, 442 
 Tendencies and effects of motives, 269 
 Tendency of persons to exaggerate the 
 
 mental faculties of animals, 348 
 to imitation, 195, 196 
 
 Tendency to language seems innate, 231 
 
 to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, 
 
 181, 182 
 
 Teratology, 429 
 
 Terms *' force " and " energy," 393 
 
 "preference" and "wish," their 
 
 ambiguity, 270, 271 
 
 Terror, its external signs, 196 
 Tertiary man, 278, 369 
 
 strata, 312, 368 
 
 Test of truth, not impotence of conception, 
 
 Testimony, 61 
 
 and common sense validated by 
 
 realism, 141 
 
 Tests of evident judgments, 1 1 
 Thales, 392 
 
 Thames, erosive action of, 307 
 "That," meaning of the term, 226 
 Theism and a future life, 487 
 
 and beauty, 259 
 
 and truth, 239 
 
 , list of objections to, 465 
 
 Theomorphism, 480 
 Theory, atomic, 394, 400 
 
 , nebular, 404 
 
 of aberration of light, 398 
 
 thai instinct is hereditary habit, 362 
 
 , undulaiory, of light, 396 
 
 " Therefore," force of the word, 58 
 
 Thimble-rigging, intellectual, 135 
 
 " Thing," as a term used by children, 227, 
 
 234 
 
 Things and thought agree when truth 
 exists, 239,531 
 
 cannot both be and not be, 39, 42 
 
 , good, may be hated, 254 
 
 , imaginable, conceivable, and per- 
 ceptible, 89 
 
 not imaginable, conceivable, 89, 112 
 
 remote, associated with uncertainty, 
 
 6, 44 
 
 themselves seen, not their images, 93 
 
 Thinkable things, all, subjects of science, 
 3^5. 3'^6 
 
 Thinking principle has no organ, 388 
 
 , its immateriality, 38S 
 
 , substantial, 387 
 
 Third general principle, law of causation, 
 48 
 
 This life and justice, 489 
 
 world is an arena of probation, 496 
 
 Thomson, Sir Williant, 403 
 
 Thought and extension as attributes of 
 substance, 139 
 
 and language both spring from intel- 
 lect, 234 
 
 and matter, 388 
 
 and motion, 417 
 
 and things agree when truth exists, 
 
 238, S3» 
 
5 76 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Thought, as we know it, needs a body, 145 
 
 , Divine, 239, 240 
 
 has no organ, 388 
 
 , its play and movement, analogical 
 
 expressions, 418 
 
 needed for language, 230 
 
 needs the imagination of words and 
 
 gestures, 224 
 
 not dependent on the imagination of 
 
 words only, 225 
 
 precedes speech in infants, 234 
 
 Threats of God not root of moral obliga- 
 tion, 247, 248 
 
 Three meanings of the term "Icnow," 189 
 
 orders of truths at the root of cer- 
 tainty, 12 
 
 Thylacinus and evolution, 520 
 
 Tidal retardation, 406 
 Tierra del Fuego, men of, 284 
 Tiger, illustration from, 354, 421 
 Timbre, 107 
 
 and beauty, 256 
 
 , its charm, 197 
 
 Time, 409 
 
 needed for mental processes, 32 
 
 • , relation of organisms to, 368 
 
 Tissue, cellular, 170 
 
 , muscular, not in plants, 333 
 
 , nervous, not in plants, 336 
 
 Tissues, 147 
 
 die successively, 337, 437 
 
 , reaction of, 365 
 
 "To know,'' what it is to do so, 447 
 
 — — -represent should mean "to make a 
 thing present," 91 
 
 Toads, 317 
 
 paralyzed by polecat, 360 
 
 Tone, musical, and beats, 107 
 
 Tones, imperceptible ones, 1 18 
 
 Tonicity of muscles, 156 
 
 Tools of philosophic inquiry, 385, 388 
 
 , use of, 278 
 
 Tortoise, chelydra, 428 
 
 Tortoises, 317 
 
 Torture of prisoners, 283 
 
 Touch and beauty, 256 
 
 sight, their exceptional vivid- 
 ness, 442 
 
 Touchstone of Darwinism, 521 
 
 Transfigured realism, 133 
 
 Transformation of forces or energy, 393, 
 
 413. 419 . 
 
 of motion, 412 
 
 of substance in alimentation, 159 
 
 Transition from subjective to objective 
 
 studies, 276 
 Transmission of parental character, 173, 
 
 Tree's branch sawn across, illustration 
 
 from, 134 
 Trees of America and Europe, 377 
 
 Trees with roots exposed, 378 
 
 Triangle, illustration from, 57 
 
 Triassic rocks, 312 
 
 Tribes, evolution of, 526 
 
 Tricks of reading and speaking, apparent, 
 
 no proof of intellect, 352 
 Trigeminal nerve, 150 
 Triplaris and ants, 370 
 Tristan d'Acunha, water-hen of, 376, 3S0 
 Trowing ami truth, 238, 239 
 True affirmation as to certainty of feelings, 
 
 philosopher, his duty, 498, 499 
 
 philosophy, characteristics of, 531 
 
 universals, 206 
 
 Truly intelligent action far-seeing, 449 
 Trumpet, sound of, and scarlet, 182 
 Trumpeter pigeon and Bantam fowls, 428 
 Trunk of elephant, end of, torn off byi 
 
 itself, 356 
 Trustworthiness of common sense, 63 
 
 of memory, 29 
 
 Truth, a perception of, essential to a jud 
 
 ment, 104, 238 
 
 , a relation of conformity, 239 
 
 , absolute, necessary, and universal, 39 
 
 , an agreement of thought with things, 
 
 239. 531 
 and beauty not really known by 
 
 animals, 357 
 
 and theism, 239 
 
 and what men trow, 238, 239 
 
 apart from any human mind, 239 
 
 , apprehension of, 238 
 
 as related to conduct, 529 
 
 associated with proximity and proof, 6 
 
 contained in denial of self-knowledge, 
 
 17 
 , complementary, ignored by idealists, 
 
 88, 89 
 
 , feeling for, 197 
 
 , goodness, and beauty, perception 
 
 of, 237 
 , , beauty, interrelations be- 
 tween, 259 
 
 in idealism, 87 
 
 , its criterion is self-evidence, II 
 
 , its idea involves other abstract ones, 
 
 240 
 
 , its objectivity, 238 
 
 , its pursuit needs self-knowledge, 27 
 
 , John Stuart Mill on, 104, 238 
 
 , material and formal, 239 
 
 , moral, 239 
 
 of intellect's causation a self-evident 
 
 one, 268 
 of judgments not determined by their 
 
 origin, 9 
 
 of memory, objection against, 30 
 
 , self-evident, cannot be proved, 
 
 32 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S17 
 
 Truth of testimony, probability in favour 
 
 of, 6 1 
 
 perceived by all men, 280 
 
 , physical basis of perception of, 237 
 
 , task of inquirer after, 13, 14 
 
 , the supreme one, taught by nature, 
 
 460 
 , unity, existence, distinction, and 
 
 similarity, idea of, 103 
 
 , what it is, 238, 531 
 
 Truthfulness of memory, what it involves, 
 
 35 
 
 of our faculties, 141 
 
 Truths, general, abstract, and necessary, 12 
 
 , geometrical, certainty of, 47, 48 
 
 , home ones, 38 
 
 , necessary, 38 
 
 , , not more to be doubted than 
 
 sensations, 45 
 
 , primary necessary ones, rays from 
 
 God, 460, 461 
 
 , reality of, may be doubted, 7 
 
 , self-evident, the source of all our 
 
 knowledge, 13 
 
 , ultimate, cannot be proved, 10 
 
 , , must contain internal evi- 
 dence, 13 
 
 , universal, learnt by experience, 45 
 
 , , our knowledge of them not 
 
 exceptionally wonderful, 44, 45 
 
 Tunicata, 318 
 
 Turkeys in India, 378 
 
 Tiwo dimensions of space, and perception, 
 
 47. "9 
 
 , creatures supposed in, 47 
 
 elements in perception, 91 
 
 kinds of acts of will, 264 
 
 mental associations, 6 
 
 orders of mental powers, 180 
 
 , the idea of, 241 
 
 Two-sided nature of our being, 391 
 Tylor, Mr., 279, 280, 284-2S6, 290, 291, 
 
 293 
 Tyranny of the imagination, 412 
 
 U 
 
 Ueberweg, 392 
 Ugliness merely negative, 259 
 Ultimate constitution of bodies probably 
 inscrutable, 416 
 
 court of appeal the intellect, 113 
 
 elements of the body, 148 
 
 mechanical explanation of universe, 
 
 394 
 
 nature of idea of beauty, 257 
 
 of idea of goodness, 245 
 
 of likeness and unlikeness, 240 
 
 propositions and truths cannot be 
 
 proved, 9- 11 
 
 Ultra-realists, 445 
 Umbrella, illustration from, 185 
 Unaccountability of automata, 264 
 Uncaused being must have an intrinsic 
 
 sufiicient cause, 49, 50 
 Uncertain feeling about law of contradic- 
 tion, cause of this, 44 
 Uncertainty associated with remoteness, 6, 
 
 44 
 
 which is general, 7 
 
 Unchanged existence of God after creation, 
 
 Unconditional nature of ethics, 247 
 Unconscious, appropriate actions, 449 
 
 inference, a contradiction in terms, 92 
 
 intelligence, impossible, 447, 448 
 
 , what the term really denotes, 
 
 94 
 Unconsciousness and goodness, 250 
 Uncultured persons, often unduly dis- 
 
 esteemed, 288 
 Understanding, the, acts as a cause, 268 
 Undulations, chromatic ones, 398 
 Undulatory theory of light, 369 
 Unfelt action and nervous system, 266 
 and unimaginable things may be per- 
 ceptible, 89, lOI 
 Unicellular animals, 320 
 
 plants, 321 
 
 Unification of activities, 389 
 
 Uniformity of nature, 66 
 
 Unifying principle, its energy may be 
 
 thought or feeling, 389 
 Unimaginable existence of the soul after 
 death, 490 
 
 perceptions inscrutable, 127, 128 
 
 things conceivable, 89, 112 
 
 Union augments power of cells, 331 
 Unity, 240 
 
 , absolute, cannot be beautiful, 258 
 
 , bodily, of man, 277 
 
 of a flame, 432 
 
 of a fountain is an extrinsic one, 391 
 
 of organisms, two-sided, 423 
 
 of our nature, 288, 3S8, 390 
 
 of powers or faculties of mind, 202 
 
 of thinking principle is a simple one, 
 
 387 
 
 , our, two-sided, 390 
 
 , truth, existence, distinction, and 
 
 similarity, ideas of, 103 
 
 Universal and individual reason, 138 
 
 death, 395 
 
 ideas, 206 
 
 nebula, 395 
 
 , necessary truths, 39 
 
 photographs, illustration from, 191 
 
 reason, 446 
 
 scepticism foolish, 7 
 
 truth, our knowledge not exception- 
 ally won<lcrful, 44, 45 
 
 2 P 
 
578 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Universal truths learned by experience, 45 
 must contain internal evidence, 
 
 Universality of art, 278 
 
 of goodness, 248 
 
 of language, 279 
 
 of morality, 282, 285 
 
 of perceptions of justice, 283 
 
 of various kinds, 206 
 
 , self-evidence, and necessity of moral 
 
 truths, 248 
 
 Universals, how far apprehended by ani- 
 mals, 346, 348 
 
 , sensuous ones, 206 
 
 Universe, according to the mechanical 
 philosophy, 394, 441 
 
 and law of causation, 451 
 
 and sufficient reason, 453 
 
 can never have been naturally se- 
 lected, 453 
 
 contains ethics in its inmost core, 248 
 
 incapable of motion as a whole, 412 
 
 , its final equilibration, 395 
 
 , its harmony and beauty, 453 
 
 may be eternal, 451 
 
 , one cause of its existence is a 
 
 manifestation of Divine ideas, 497 
 
 points to something beyond itself, 529 
 
 , stellar, 299 
 
 Unknown orders of existence may exist, 
 
 474 
 Unlikeness, 240 
 , absurd result of disregarding points 
 
 , of, 44.3 
 
 Unmodified existence not to be known 
 because non-existent, 20 
 
 Unmorality of animals, 448, 477 
 
 Unnoticed sensations, 22, 89, 180, 187 
 
 Unobtrusive pleasures too much over- 
 looked, 472 
 
 Unproved things associated with blind 
 belief, 6 
 
 Unreason and Darwin, 525 
 
 , miracles of, 460 
 
 Unreasonable nature of doubt about neces- 
 sary truths, 45 
 
 Untruths, material and formal, 239 
 
 Unwarranted assumption as to knowledge, 
 18 
 
 Unworthy, seemingly, creations, objection 
 from, 477 
 
 Uranus, 405 
 
 , satellites of, 301 
 
 Urea, 501 
 
 Urotrichus and evolution, 520 
 
 Use and disuse, effects of, 376 
 
 of tools universal amongst men, 278 
 
 Useless structures, 477, 521 
 
 structures and specific characters, 521 
 
 Uterus, absence of, inherited, 380 
 
 Utilitarianism, Mill and hell, 246, 247 
 
 Utility and beauty, 258 
 
 of discords, 476 
 
 or pleasure, distinct from goodness, 
 
 244, 245, 251 
 
 Y 
 
 Vacuum, a, seems impossible, 300 
 
 Validity of reasoning, 53 
 
 Valley of the Thames, erosion of, 307 
 
 Value increased by virtue, 488 
 
 of natural selection, 518 
 
 Values of criteria of truth, 13 
 
 Vapour and atoms, 404 
 
 of water, 303, 306 
 
 Variability of instincts, 365, 366 
 
 Variable hare, 373 
 
 Variation and heredity, 173 
 
 Variations, spontaneous ones, 380 
 
 Vascular canals, 149, 160, 161 
 
 Vast difference existing between man and 
 the rest of creation, 434 
 
 Veddahs, their language, 279 
 
 , their virtues, 285 
 
 Vegetal soul, the, 427 
 
 Vegetarianism and conscience, 253 
 
 Vegetative functions, 336 
 
 Veins, 149, 161 
 
 Velocities of coloured rays of light, 396 
 
 Velocity of light, 300 
 
 Venous blood, 161 
 
 Ventricles of the brain, 151 
 
 Venus's fly-trap, 321, 332 
 
 Veracity of memory necessary for any ex- 
 perience, 33 
 
 of witnesses, 61 
 
 Verbum mentale and verbum oris, 235, 
 
 352, 353 
 Verdict as to new species, 527 
 Vermiform appendix, 151 
 Vertebra, 152 
 Vertebrata, 316 
 Vessels, 149, 160, 161 
 Vesuvius', illustration from, 242 
 Vibratile cilia, 158, 320 
 Vice demands chastisement, 488 
 
 often successful in this life, 489 
 
 Views as to most indisputable propositions, 
 
 8 ... 
 
 Violets perceived, illustration from, 21 
 Virtue and cowardice, 253 
 
 demands recognition and reward, 4S8 
 
 impossible for us without sutTering, 
 
 often necessitates cruel sacrifices, 4SS 
 
 , reality of, may be doubted, 7 
 
 Visceral clefts and arches, 173, 317, 5^3 
 
 Visible beauty, 255 
 
 Vital action, 154 
 
 Vitalism and vital force, 393, 430 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S79 
 
 Vitality of separated parts of bodies, 337, 
 338 
 
 Vivid and faint feelings, 102 
 
 Vocalists, 376 
 
 Volcanic rocks, 310 
 
 Volcanoes, 30S 
 
 Volition and attention, 263 
 
 ■ and dormant power, 272 
 
 and existence, our consciousness con- 
 cerning them, 274 
 
 and inclination, plain distinction be- 
 tween, 271 
 
 and motives, 269 
 
 and principle of contradiction, 270, 
 
 271 
 
 and respiration, 155 
 
 cannot be motiveless, 271 
 
 , conscious, 268 
 
 declared by consciousness to be a 
 
 self-action, 273 
 
 , free, and morality, 274 
 
 , , Bayle's objection against, 273 
 
 , intellectual and organic dis'.inguished, 
 
 268 
 
 , organic, 198 
 
 Volume of sun, 301 
 
 Voluntary and involuntary movements, 155 
 
 motion and plants, 332 
 
 Volvox, 321 
 
 Voucher of consciousness for guiding action 
 of sensation, 267 
 
 Vulgar opinion, mistaken or true, 60 
 
 W 
 
 Wages, illustration from, 41 
 Wagner and the moth Saturnia, 378 
 Waking and dreaming, 124 
 Walking, 155 
 
 in reverie, illustration from, 1S7, 19S 
 
 leaf, 373 
 
 Wallace, Mr., and butterflies, 376 
 
 , , and evolution, 518, 519 
 
 Wasp, instinct of, 359 
 
 with cut abdomen, 472 
 
 Water and air, 305 
 
 , composition of, 303 
 
 , its three states, 304 
 
 , moving, illustration from, 266 
 
 , salt, and Crustacea, 378 
 
 , vapour of, 303, 306 
 
 Water-birds, illustration from, 385 
 
 Water-hen of Tristan d'Acunha, 376, 3S0 
 
 Waves and nervous tissue, 394 
 
 We, what we are, 3S6 
 
 Wealden strata, 312 
 
 Wear and tear, 1 59 
 
 Weathercock, illustration from, 273 
 
 Weeks and months to old and young, 1 10 
 
 What an animal may be said to be, 334 
 
 What an organism is, 426, 493 
 
 becomes of immaterial principles, 507 
 
 consciousness declares as to free-will, 
 
 271 
 
 feeling the body can teach, 2)7 
 
 idealism is, 73 
 
 is agreement ? 240 
 
 is most directly known, 20 
 
 is the beauty of perfection ? 257 
 
 is the motion of an oiijeci ? 411 
 
 is truth? ultimate reply, 531 
 
 it is to know, 189, 447 
 
 men trow, and truth, 238, 239 
 
 our mind says about causation, 48 
 
 science is, 3S4 
 
 so-called "unconscious inference" 
 
 is, 94 
 
 the expressions "organic" and " in- 
 organic " denote, 303 
 
 truth is, 239, 531 
 
 we are, 386 
 
 Whatever is divisible demands a cause, 49 
 
 is is good, 248 
 
 Wheel animalcules, 319 
 
 Whelks, 318 
 
 When the brain was cut the man would 
 
 die, 490 
 Whence immaterial principles come from, 
 
 . 507 . 
 Whore immaterial principles go to, 507 
 While the grass grows the steed starves, 
 
 486 
 White blood-corpuscles, 149, 320 
 Whole body is organ of the individual's 
 
 life, 169 
 Why idealism is attractive, 75 
 Wide meanings of children's terms, 226, 
 
 234 
 
 Wilhelm von Humboldt, 524 
 
 Will, ambiguities of language respecting 
 it, 270 
 
 and a first cause, 455 
 
 and inclination, plain distinction be- 
 tween, 271 
 
 and "]5reference," ambiguity of these 
 
 terms, 270, 271 
 
 and self cijually unknown directly, in 
 
 themselves, 263, 264 
 
 , as a faculty, 263 
 
 , as distinguished from organic voli- 
 tion, 26S 
 
 , its exercise accompanied i)y both 
 
 intellectual activity and feeling, 222 
 
 of God, not root of moral obligation, 
 
 247, 248 
 
 , our, resistance to and causation, 51 
 
 , the, 262 
 
 , two kinds of acts of, 264 
 
 Wind, illustration from, 190 
 
 Windpipe, 161 
 
 Wine spilt, illustration from, 466, 467 
 
58o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Winged fruits, 373 
 
 Wings, tailed, of butterflies, 377 
 
 Witnesses, veracity of, 61 
 
 Wolves, when extinct in England, 368 
 
 Woman and bigamy, illustration from, 250 
 
 Wonder of our knowledge of universal 
 
 truth not exceptional, 44 
 Wonderful powers of insects, 346 
 Word "memory," what it means, 31 
 
 "represent," its ambiguity, 91 
 
 , the mental and spoken, 235 
 
 Words misused, 140 
 
 of children have wide meanings, 226, 
 
 234 
 
 or movements, imagination of, neces- 
 sary for thought, 224 
 
 World, a, without sense-organs, 115 
 
 , evils of, 467 
 
 , irrational, shows logic, 446 
 
 of belief and existence, their agree- 
 ment, 239, 531 
 
 the, 297 
 
 -, the, an arena of probation, 496 
 
 , the living or organic one, 315, 407, 
 
 420 
 , the non-living or inorganic one, 299, 
 
 418 
 
 Worlds, an eternal rhythm of, 395 
 
 , organic and inorganic, what tlicy 
 
 are, 303 
 Worms, 319 
 
 which fix carbon, 333 
 
 Worship, 287 
 
 Wounds, the healing of, 170 
 
 Wrong and right not dependent on God's 
 
 will, 247, 248 
 
 ■ sauce eaten, illustration from, 253 
 
 Wundt, 395, 426 
 
 Yard measure, illustration from, 46 
 Yawning, 196 
 
 Young and old persons, feelings as to 
 lapse of time, no 
 
 Zetland, Lord, his brood-mare, 379 
 Zoophytes, 319 
 Zulu prayer, 288 
 
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