Materialism and Spiritualism

In passing still farther Into the critical and controversial region of this argument, we shall endeavour to understand the anti-spiritual theory as it has been expounded by its most prominent and fearless upholders. To the utmost of our ability we shall, by careful quotation, state that theory with as much precision and completeness as if we were about to defend it; at the same time we must guard ourselves so far as to say that in antichristian writino;-s we have often been embarrassed by ambiguities and qualifications fatal to perfect simplicity. In those writings there has been such a skilful use of parenthetic limitations that it is most difficult to bind down the writers to any specific meaning. A whole page of very definite and emphatic expression of anti-chrlstlan opinion may have a doubt thrown upon Its purpose by a solitary word at the close; or an apparent tendency towards Christian conclusions may be most ruthlessly inverted by an Infidel protest of unusual desperation. It Is the more needful to point this out In view of our determination to use the rod of criticism In a very personal manner; In the first Instance for strictly judicial purposes, and in the second by way of example to those who thinl that personal character and personal opinions have no connection. The reader is invited to note the consistency which marks the character of materiaUsts from the earhest times to the present day, and to consider whether that consistency does not deserve to carry with it much argumentative weight.

Unwilhng as we are to describe Epicurus as a materiahst in the modern sense of the term — a term, indeed, which everybody is anxious either to modify or disown — seeing that, as Cicero asserts, he spoke of the Supreme Being in terms the most subhme, and in his letter to Menecius he defended the gods from a vulgar misconception, yet he taught that all mental phenomena are due to the properties of matter, and boldly affirmed that the soul is material. By a very remarkable forecast he laid down a great principle which Hume adopted more than two thousand years later, and for which he secured a reputation for originality, that great principle being that sensation is the only source of human knowledge. Hobbes, who used his metaphysical powers to escape the persecution which honest men would have encountered, and whose egregious mathematical errors should have tempered his partizanship in philosophy, made sensation the basis of every mental operation. In his Leviathan declared it to be “the sole originator of our ideas, the sole medium and test of truth.”” The mind itself he viewed as wholly material, the phenomena of consciousness being the direct result of our

-• u orofanization.” Locke was far enoucrh from beinsf a materialist, yet his denunciation of the doctrine of “innate ideas” seems to point to the conclusion that he was a believer in the doctrine of sensation as understood by his predecessor; this, indeed, he avows, yet he adds the word “reflection” to the word “sensation,” and this is an instance of the ambiguity of which we have complained, — the term “reflection” being open to two very dissimilar uses. Hartley, a disciple of Locke, spoken of as an ingenuous and noble man, boldly struck off the term “reflection,” and resolved thought and feeling into vibrations of the brain. Priestley did the same thing. As for David Hume, he has been correctly described as a nihilist; “he denied everything andaffirmed nothing;” believing that such knowledge as we have comes from sensation, “he maintained that as we have no sensation of efficiency, we can have no idea of it, and no evidence of its reality. A cause is not that which produces an effect but simply that which uniformly precedes it. We are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement.” If we inquire into materialism as understood and taught by continental materialists, we shall find that Locke’s most brilliant disciple, Gondillac, pronounced all thoughts, feelings, and volitions, so many “transformed sensations,” though (for reasons presently to be stated) he maintained theistic principles, and, in direct contravention

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of his own philosophy, insisted on the necessity of a divine revelation. What Condillac was too time-serving to do was done by a bolder hand. Baron d’Holbach proclaimed that “matter and motion are eternal; thought is an agitation of the nerves; the soul is the result of our corporeal organisation; the will the strongest sensation; the (jround of morals a re’ard to our own hanpiness, — there is no freedom, no moraHty, no future existence, no God.” This is an instance in which there is no just occasion to complain of ambiguity.

The modern scientists of England who are supposed to favour these doctrines decline to be classed as materialists, their ground being that they do not degrade spirit but elevate matter. Mr. Herbert Spencer is very explicit upon this point: “Men who have not risen above that vulgar conception which unites with matter the contemptuous epithets ’ gross ’ and ’ brute,’ may naturally feel dismay at the. proposal to reduce the phenomena of life, of mind, and of society, to a level with those which they think so degraded..,. The course proposed does not imply a degradation of the so-called higher, but an elevation of the so-called lower.” Mr. Herbert Spencer teaches that physical forces can be transformed into chemical, and that chemical forces can be transformed into vital, whereupon he says, “Many will be alarmed by the assertion that the forces which Vve distinguish as mental come within the same generalisation. Yet there is no alternative but to make this concession.” Professor

Huxley avows himself a disciple of Hume, and gives it as his opinion that the following words of his master contain “most wise advice”: — “If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or schoolmetaphysics,* for instance, let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? No. Commit it, then, to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” We shall take occasion presently to examine this “most wise advice.” Before doing so, we wish to give Professor Huxley an opportunity of stating in his own words that all mental operations are due to physical forces. In his “Lay Sermons,” he says: “It may seem a small thing to admut that the dull vital actions of a fungus or a foraminifer are the properties of their protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature of the matter of which they are composed. But if, as I have endeavoured to prove to you, their protoplasm IS essentially identical with, and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting-place, between the admission that such is the case, and the further concession that all vital action may with equal propriety be said to be the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the same extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, are the expression of molecular changes in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena.“* In strict harmony with this view, the professor continues:” I- take it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, and that human logic is utterly incompetent to prove that any act is really spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one which, by the assumption, has no cause, and the attempt to prove such a negative as this is, on the face of the matter, absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical impossibility to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a material cause, any one who is acquainted with the history of science will admit that its progress has in all ages meant, and now more than ever means,” the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity.”t

The phrase “molecular changes,” reminds us that the materialistic philosophy maintains that all mental phenomena are to be accounted for by molecular motion and molecular grouping: the brain is composed of molecules, probably too minute for microscopic detection, whose motion, combination, and electrical discharges, account for all supposed spiritual phenomena: a definite thought and a definite molecular action of the brain occur

* “Lay Sermons,” p. 13S. + Id., pp. 141-2.

simultaneously: the growth of the. body is mechanical, and thought, as exercised by man, has its correlative in the physics of the brain. It was apparently supposed by Hartley that there were little shakings of the brain accompanying every act of thought or perception: the shakings are certain tlirobbings, vibrations, or stirrings in a whitish half fluid substance, and this motion is thought and feeling, and precisely the same thought and feeling -^#111 exist wherever a similar motion can be excited in a similar substance. In so many words Comte (whom so many English philosophers are now anxious to disown) says, “That the positive theory of the intellectual and affective functions is henceforth unchangeably regarded as consisting in the study, both rational and experimental, of the various phenomena of internal sensibility, which are proper to the cerebral ganglia, apart from their external apparatus. It is, therefore, simply a prolongation of animal physiology, properly so called, when this is extended so as to include the fundamental and ultimate attributes.” According to Stuart Mill, the mind may be a voltaic pile ofivincr shocks of thought

We have here, then, great names and bold statements arrayed against the Christian faith, and Christian men are bound, not only to recognise that fact, but to inquire fearlessly into the intellectual and practical value of the antagonism which such names and statements represent. From the beginning, Christianity has had a distinctly controversial side; opposition is nothing new as applied to Christian faith; it would therefore be unbecoming on the part of the Church to turn aside when its very life is threatened by culture and science. For personal and general reasons we decline the leadership of the great names which have just passed in review, and this ground we now attempt to make good. We must bespeak candid attention to the personal attack which we are about to make, because, as a general rule, personality ought to have no place in controversy. Exceptional circumstances, however, may justify a suspension of that rule. Such circumstances we now plead, and we must await the sequel for a complete justification of this course. Personality when used in argument merely for its own sake, and specially when used for the express purpose of wounding the feelings of an antagonist, is the unpardonable sin of controversy; but when, as in this case, we can only interpret the abstract by the concrete, and determine the value of n argument by its effect as seen in the life of its upholder, personality becomes doctrinal, and criticism of character is the counterpart of criticism of logic. In this sense alone we beg to be understood. We are quite willing that the Christian argument should be subjected to precisely the same tests as we are about to employ in the case of opposing creeds, so that if we give no quarter -we certainly claim none.

I. Personal Reasons.

It is of course difficult to collect much information respecting an ancient Greek philosopher the most of whose works have been destroyed, but it is quite certain, in the judgment of critics, whose literary authority is undisputed by sceptics themselves, that Epicurus held opinions which, if known in the right quarter, would have secured him the honours of persecution, but which he kept so well in concealment that next to nothing was known of them until after his death. Even Cicero, whose friendly opinion we have quoted, points out, in the third book of his “Offices,” that Epicurus does not always consult consistency in the maintenance of his arguments, and warns Marcus that” We are not to regard what Epicurus says, but what it is consistent in him to say T showing that the crafty Greek was not unskilled in verbal manipulation. As we have pointed out, Epicurus made the belief of a god one of the fundamental dogmas of his philosophy, but in reality denied him when Anaxagoras was put to death for atheism in the city of Athens.* Epicurus had a god in his creed, yet with a controversial skill which speaks more for his cunning than his honour he so expressed his opinions respecting the functions of the gods as to render this primary dogma utterly useless; so that though for prudential motives he found it

* Augustine: De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii., cap. 41.

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convenient to have a god, yet for philosophical reasons he had no rclioion. We should gladly give Epicurus the benefit of any doubt upon the subject if his case, as the representative of a school, stood alone; but if we find as we proceed that this subtle and selhsh prudence always accompanies doctrines of the same class, we fear that a strongly presumptive case will be made out against Epicurus.

Condillac, Diderot, and D’Alembert took theistic ground in accounting for the origin of the world, but this was well known to be more a matter of prudence than conviction. A writer in the Encyclopedia Britannica, commenting upon Condillac, uses language remarkably suggestive: “His curious saving clause will not vindicate his opinions among the philosophers of this country, however convenient it mioht be found amonof the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, that the dependence of die soul on the senses is one of the effects of the fall of man, and the proof of his present state of degradation.” This is the man who pronounced all thoughts, feelings, and volitions, only so many “transformed sensations.” What if, finding it impossible to secure immunity from trouble by a straightforward avowal and impartial application of his doctrines, he took counsel with prudence, and used the hands of Esau to pluck the blessing of personal protection from a church whose theology he contemned in his heart? If his case stood alone we might give him the benefit of a blindly charitable construction of his timidity, but we have seen that in the case of Epicurus at least he has congenial thouch ignoble companionship.

Hobbes presents a curious mixture of boldness, cunning-, and cowardice. His vanity would not allow him to be silent upon his dogmas, but when persecution on account of them came near him, he discnnobled himself by recourse to the most unmanly subterfuges. His political system was avowedly one of expediency, and so little did he care for precision and constancy of meaning in the ue of words, that he actually defended himself for writing ambiguously under circumstances which exposed him to peril. He boasted, too, that his metaphysical intellect was more than a match for those who sought to expose his inconsistencies, and bring upon him penalty and disgrace. As for his power of self-contradiction, it is, we trust, unrivalled. He said that the Scriptures are the voice of God, but that their only authority is derived from the civil magistrate; he said that inspiration is the immediate gift of God, and yet he pronounced every man mad that claimed it; he said that worship was due to God, and in the next breath he declared that all religion is ridiculous. So much in proof of our introductory impeachment. This same Hobbes, quoted with applause by modern materialists, says:” It is lawful to make use of illinstruments to do ourselves good. If I were cast into a deep pit, and the devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take hold of it to be drawn

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out by it.” And when this valorous man came — with pitiful reluctance and dismay — to face the inevitable, he said: “I shall be ijlad to find a hole to creep out of the world at.”

As to David Hume it will be found, on reference to his works, that he actually advised a sceptical friend to accept church preferment, and preach what he did not believe, affirming that to pique oneself on sincerity in such matters is to put too great a respect on the vulgar and their superstitions! This is the man who, in what Professor Huxley calls “most wise advice,” recommends the fire as the proper place for sundry books of divinity. We shall recur to Hume in a few pages,

We come now to John Stuart Mill, who conjectured that the brain may be a voltaic pile, giving shocks of thought. In his Autobiography (the most melancholy book of modern days) Mr. Mill says: “was brought up from the first without any religious belief in the ordinary sense of the term “: ‘’It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father’s ideas of duty to alloiu me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and feelings respecting religion.” (These are the men who are supposed to be unsectarian and liberal!) What follows is remarkable: “In giving me an opinion contrary to that of the world, my father thought it necessary to give it as one which could not be prudently avowed to the world.” The reader will observe the word “prudently.” What follows is still more remarkable. Mr. Mill having thus acted on a principle of prudence himself, and enjoyed any social advantages which might arise from its exercise, leaves a book to be published after his death in which he says: “On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known, at least if they are amongst those whose station or reputation gives their opinion a chance of being attended to.“* A “voltaic battery” that could withhold this “shock “until Mr. Mill himself was secured against all personal consequences must, have been a valuable property. It appears, too, to have been faithful in all its generations, in proof whereof it could summon Epicurus, Condillac, D’Alembert, Voltaire, Hobbes, Hume, and Stuart Mill, to show its wily prudence and its consummate skill in making other people its catspaw. Bollnglrgke, too, could be called, for with characteristic valour he left a book which was not to be published until after his decease, in which he avowed his anti-christian sentiments in the plainest terms; a chivalrous act which drew from Dr. Johnson’s “voltaic battery” the following shock:” Bolingbroke, sir, was a scoundrel ind a coward; he loaded a blunderbuss against Christianity which he had not the courage to fire during his lifetime, but left

Autobiography, p. 45.

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half a crown to a hungry Scotsman* to draw the trlg-ger after he was dead.”t A voltaic battery not to be trided with! Mr. John Stuart Mill accepted his atheism from his father, and then sneered at other people for holding fast by a traditional faith.

For these personal reasons we are not disposed to accept the doctrines of the materialistic school. We know the ground that will be taken, and are quite prepared to follow our opponents to it. First of all, we shall be asked. Whether Christianity itself has not had its unworthy professors; and, secondly, Whether a doctrine may not be true whatever may have been the personal character of its teachers. These inquiries follow naturally upon our criticism, and we shall therefore take care not to evade them.

Christianity has undoubtedly had its unworthy

* David Mallet.

f In his “Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,” Mr. Lecky thus describes the moral character of Lord Bolingbroke: — “The so’n of a worthless and dissipated character who had fallen in a duel, St. John had been early thrown upon the world, s’^rrounded by all the associations of vice, and endowed by natLire with gifts almost as splendid as have ever been united in a single man.... He plunged with reckless impetuosity into the life of dissipation that opened before him, and, in an age of libertines, was conspicuous as a libertine.... The chief cause of his failure was his own character. It was the restless spirit of intrigue which led him to plot against his colleague, and to enter into relations with the Pretender. It was the notorious dissipation of his private life and the laxity of his opinions, which deprived him of the confidence of his own party, and of that of the great majority of the English people.”

professors, whose hypocrisies and crimes ought hi no degree to be palHated or concealed. But — and let this point be noted as carrying with it the substance of the whole answer — what they have done is in direct and shameful contravention of their professed beliefs, and is condemned with infinite displeasure by Christianity itself: this is the vital difference between them, and the skilful ambidexters whose morals we have traced. Wicked deeds have been done in the name of patriotism, but no one would think of quoting them as arguments against the love of country or the oath of loyaky. The name of truth itself has been pressed into the service of falsehood, yet the integrity of truth remains unimpaired, and the spirit of truth insists on vengeance. So with Christian profession: it has unquestionably been used for the worst of purposes, but always -agninst its own vehement protest, and probably always with some measure of self-reproach on the part of .the criminal himself. Now the exact contrary, as to morals, may logically and consistently be the case with a thorough believer in what is commonly known as materialism. Given a man who rejects all the ideas which Christians attach to such words as “God” and “Spirit”; who believes that so far as his own existence is concerned there is no world but the present; that there is neither life nor judgment after physical dissolution; that our relation to the universe is exhausted by our present sensation and consciousness; let him believe these things

Materialis77i and Spirihtalism. 303

v.’ithout a doubt, and commit himself to them without a fear, and the difficulty which other men would feel under certain moral conditions vanishes, and it is easy to see that such opinions must result in precisely the conduct of such men as Hobbes, Hume, Boliiigbroke, and Stuart Mill. The materialist defends himself by what he calls “prudence,” because in days of persecution it is absolutely his strongest defence: in effect he says, “Why should I expose myself to ill-treatment and sunering- when by mental reservation, ambiguity, or positive misstatement, I can escape my tormentors and spend my days ’ in quietness and ease? There is no God, no future, no judgment, no heaven, no hell, — what, then, have I to fear? There is no absolute standard of truth, no infallible authority in morals; life is a riddle, and speculation is too fickle to be worth dying for, so why be a martyr when I can have the comfort and applause of popularity?” There is nothing in the creed of mat-erialism, so far as we comprehend it, to point its believers to another course; this is its natural and necessary teaching in times of persecution, and its proper relief in seasons of fear. That it is so, is proved by the examples which have been cited, examples which constitute a logical and moral propter hoc as complete as it is self-evident. It will be understood, then, that in assigning personal reasons for declining to accept the materialistic theory, we are not influenced by the errors of men who were false to their creed, but by the conduct of men who gave that creed its proper expression under conditions which try the reality and worth of human convictions. There are circumstances in which’^we can most correctly interpret the doctrine through the man, and this is specially so in cases of abstract or metaphysical reasoning: a student may find himself unable to follow the dark and intricate ratiocination, yet he can form a correct opmion of its practical results as shown in the conduct of the reasoner, John Stuart Mill himself seems to admit this, for in his Autobiography (p. 159), he says that his practice, learned from Hobbes and his own father, was to study abstract principles by means of the best concrete instances he could find. In pursuance of this course we think a student miofht feel himself entitled to say to Hobbes, or Hume, or Stuart Mill,” I cannot give up my Christian faith at your bidding after what I have seen of your conduct in times of peril: your reasoning may turn out to be as false as your courage: you may turn upon me in the hour of danger when I point you out as my teachers, and may disown me, and abandon me to my fate. Hobbes I cannot trust, because he says ‘It is lawful to make use of ill instruments to do ourselves good’; Hume I cannot trust, because he advised a sceptic to preach Christianity, and not to pique himself on his sincerity; Stuart Mill I cannot trust, because he was kept silent by prudence, and then advised other people to do after his death what he had not dared to do in

Materialism and Spiriiiialisni. 305

his own lifetime, — as if Goliath had on his dying day told his fellow-soldiers to look for a memorandum in his helmet which would give them his mature opinion on the state of public affairs, said opinion being that on the very day after his funeral the Philistines should challenge Israel to battle. No. I decline your leadership. Intellectually you may be great men; I cannot follow all the subtleties of your reasoning, but when I see your honesty break down I begin to suspect that there may be a flaw in your metaphysics. Yoil are not the men to lure me from the standard of ’ the noble army of martyrs,’ for it is evidently consist-^ ent with your principles to befool and victimise others, and to keep yourselves far enough from danger and pain.” But it may be said that men ha7je suffered, personally and socially, for their antichristian or anti-spiritual beliefs. Possibly so; but in their cases, rare enough as to number, the reasoning has been so manifestly feeble and untenable as to deprive their mere courage of all moral value; their courage has either been the expression of bravado, or an attempt to secure notoriety by circuitous means. In the cases iDcfore us we have the most splendid natural endowments, the most consummate mental culture, and the most conspicuous opportunities of influencing public prejudice, and yet all these have been associated either with a “prudence” that was cowardly, or an attitude that was hypocritical; it will be unfair, therefore, to drag up some obscure and uninflucntia)

06 TJie Paiaclele.

sufferer, and make him the pedestal on which to exalt the pretensions of men who had learning enoup-h to bewilder the multitude, but not couraoc enough to take the consequences of their own opinions. Men like Hobbes, Hume, and Stuart Mill, ought to have done their own martyrdom.

But may not a doctrine be true whatever be the personal character of its teachers; as, for example, may not Christianity be true though some of its expositors are known to have been bad men? This is a mixed question, and by no means so unsophisticated as it seems to be. Prima facie it calls for an explicit affirmative, but a little consideration may put another face upon it. For Christianity we must go to Christ, then the inquiry will assume this form: May not Christianity be true though” Jesus Christ was a bad man i Prove that Jesus Christ was a bad man, that Peter, James, and John were bad men, and that Paul was a hypocrite and a coward, and though metaphysically it may be possible for their teaching to be true, yet any argument against Christianity must be infinitely strengthened by such glaring blemishes in the personality of its upholders. Even the delinquency of Peter is inadmissible as an argument in this discussion, because it occurred before the full development of Christianity, and was more than expiated by a life of unsurpassed devotion, and a death unparalleled in the annals of suffering. But apart from these considerations the analogy

Materialism and Spi’itualism. 307

fails altogether as between materialism and Christianity. The materialist will have to be better than his creed if in any sense he be a good man at all; but the Christian professor cannot take the least departure from the strictest purity or honour without instantly incurring the severest displeasure of his creed. Materialism, either as defined or exemplified in the cases which have been quoted, acknowledges no moral sanctions, ignores the existence of God, denies the immortality of the soul, and treats the idea of a spiritual future with contemptuous laughter; thus all the forces and influences which the Christian accepts as moral ofuarantees are dismissed from the consideration of the materialist. Our contention, therefore, is that the creed itself is bad, and that It proves its badness by the conduct of those whose sincerity Is tested by persecution. The question is, What are the natural and proper tendencies of materialism? not, What are some of its occasional and accidental applications? Unquestionably, as In the case of such a man as John Stuart Mill, we see an anti-spiritual creed associated with much that is really beautiful in conduct, — with benevolent interest in public welfare, with private charity, with patriotic ardour and devotion. But all this is beside the mark if used as an exhaustive argument In reply to the charge we are making. It merely shows that a man may be better than his creed; and if it proves anything more than this it proves too much, for probably there is not a creed known amongst mankind that cannot point to some of its professors as amiable and benevolent men, and consequently that could not claim to be true on that ground. With Christianity the case is different: whereas materialism is bound in deference to public opinion to provide for itself some sort of moral theory, Christianity is itself, intrinsically and necessarily, a moral creed that is under no obligation to provide a theory of the physical universe. The result is that whilst the materialist may be a bad man, without violating his strictly materialistic doctrines, the Christian professor is bound by every principle of his faith to be pure and beneficent; he is bound, too, by his professed love of Christ, to be “faithful unto death,” to despise shame, and to sacrifice his life in defence of his spiritual convictions. The materialist is under no such obligation; to him (without God or immortality) shame is defeat, persecution is a reflection upon his adroitness, and death is the crowning proof of his impotence. Our conclusion, therefore, is, that whilst immorality is not inconsistent with materialism, it separates itself for ever from the very nature of Christianity; and that the question. May not a doctrine be true whatever be the personal character of its teachers? does not apply in this case, because no doctrine can be morally good that ignores morals, and no doctrine that ignores morals can be supported by men that are morally good.

JMatcrialisiu and Spirilnalisiii. 309

II. General Reasons.

For reasons more general, the anti-spiritual theory may for the present at least be declined.

I. No man of sgience can object to our waiting until that theory has been more fully tested. It is almost triiiine with common sense to orive an assurance on behalf of Christian thinkers that they watch the progress of physical science with the keenest interest and satisfaction, yet unless the assurance be given in the plainest terms theologians will be exposed to that easiest of all literary imputations, a fear of the advancement of any knowledge that is not distinctively religious. Physicists have so often, happily for the best interests of science, contradicted and corrected each other on matters of fact, that it may be prudent to wait before absolutely deifying any theory which has yet been propounded. The science of one aee has been the lauo-hino- stock of the next. There was a time when “astronomers proved syllogistically that the planets could have no independent motion, because the heavens were incorruptibfe, and nature abhorred a vacuum,“* The chemistry of the Greeks is little better than barbarism to modern P2uropeans, Leibnitz insisted that matter is entirely homogeneous; and, on the other hand. Sir Isaac Newton contended that its atoms are “separated by void spaces,” Stuart Mill himself reminds us that” the Hindoos thought that the

Macaulay, vol. v., p. 241.

earth required to be supported by an elephant; but the earth turned out quite capable of supporting itself, and hanging self-balanced on its own centre.” Descartes thought that a material medium filling the whole space between the arth and the sun was required to enable them to act on one another; but it has been found sufficient to suppose an “immaterial law of attraction, and the medium and its vortices dropped off as superfluities.”* Sir John Herschel once gave it as his opinion that 76° was the angle of maximum polarisation, but “careful observation” satisfied him that 90° or thereabouts is the correct ano-le. Newton decided “that if the density is greater in the interior of the earth than at the centre, the compression would be greater than- in the case of a spheroid of equal density;” but Huygens ingeniously demonstrated that the greatest of English philosophers had fallen into a mistake. Hundreds of such instances could easily be supplied. As compared with Christian; theology, science as it is now urged upon us is but ofl yesterday. Little more than a century ago next to nothing, in view of what is now known, was understood of heat, electricity, and magnetism. Science is young, and some of the privileges of| )Outh may be allowed to it. It might, however, i be inferred from the tone of a few living writers, that the whole sphere of scientific investigation has been exhausted, and that perfect unanimity marks the counsels of all physical philosophers whose

* Examination of Hamilton, 4th ed., p. 252.

Matei’ialisiii and Spiritualism. 3 1 i

opinion is worth consulting. As a mere matter of fact there are writers of acknowlec’g d authority) on scientific subjects who have successfully attacked the whole line of Mr. Huxley’s anti-christian position. This should be remembered by readers who have examined only one side of the subject, for there is a danger, so familiar that it may be undervalued, of forgetting that what is a difficulty to one man may be no difficulty to another, and that a wall may appear to be very strong until the force of opposing guns has been tried upon it. Mr. Huxley’s “Protoplasm” is just such a wall, — rather it is but a wooden fence, before the fire of Christian criticism. As a matter of fact there are men of science, eminent as professors and expositors, endorsed by the highest university honours, and entrusted with the gravest literary and educational responsibilities, who distinctly repudiate Mr. Huxley’s doctrines, and from a Christian standpoint answer and overthrow his illreasoned and frivolous objections. From this it will be seen that there is not an’ open fight as between Christian thinkers on the one side, and scientific thinkers on the other; the Christian argument is zealously supported by men whose renown, to say the least of it, is in no degree inferior to the renown of their opponents. An eminent professor of science who has taken the trouble to inquire into the statistics of German literati re, finds that out of thirty volumes published within a given period, not fewer than twenty were upon the side opposed to such teaching as Mr. Huxley’s, and were, without exception, by authors of established credit and repute in Germany.

To show that such men as Professor Huxley, whose science is triumphant as delineated on his own pages, are not allowed to escape without severe reprisals, the following quotation from a vigorous book on Protoplasm, by Lionel S. Beale, M.B., F.R.S., may be taken as one of innumerable instances: “Mr. Huxley says, ‘If the nature and properties of water may be properly said to result from the nature and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.’ Just as if it had been proved that the properties of water and the properties of protoplasm were properties of the same order, and properties in the same sense. Mr. Huxley’s writings teem with such inaccuracies of expression. The innocent reader is of course expected to conclude, that if Mr. Huxley can find no ’ reasonable ground for refusing to say,’ etc., no one else can do so. The reader, therefore, thankfully accepts Mr. Huxley’s opinion. If a physical writer should be in any doubt about gaining the desired number of converts to his views, and should feel a little miseivinir, lest some of his readers miMit not b(^ inclined to accept the conclusions upon which he desired they should rely, it would be easy for him to add to his arguments a little literary terrorism. He miorht remark with effect that, ‘An aro-ument like the above must indeed be convincing to any one who possesses any mind at all. He who hesitated to accept such a demonstration, would thereby prove himself to be foolish, or savage, or both “; and so forth, the metaphors being varied from time to time to suit the circumstances of each particular case. Confident writers like Mr. Huxley, who deal largely in vague assertions, sometimes express themselves as if they supposed that opponents were really attempting to extort from them a confession that they had been mistaken in some of the views they had pressed with such enthusiastic vehemence. There could not be a greater mistake. I do not believe that any one who has advanced any objections to the doctrines criticised in this work, has the faintest hope of eliciting an acknowledgment upon the part of any physical philosopher, that the slightest mistake has ever been made by a disciple of the material philosophy. It is scarcely conceivable that eVen Dr. Stirling, or any logician, should succeed in convincing Mr. Huxley that refutation of any of the extraordinary dogmas to which he has committed himself was possible even in thought; but» at the same time, it is perhaps scarcely probable, that every one, or nearly every one, is ready to accept Mr. Huxley’s doctrines, simply because Mr. Huxley asserts them to be the only views that satisfy him, and the only conclusions he can accept.“* In another part of the same discussion, Mr. Beale thus comments upon one of Mr. Huxley’s theories’:” I think Professor Huxley is the first observer who has spoken of the cell in its entirety as a mass of protoplasm, and the only one that has ever asserted that any tissue in nature is composed throughout of matter which can properly be regarded as one in kind. This vi;:w is quite irreconcileable with many facts, some of which have been alluded to by Mr. Huxley himself. I doubt if in the whole range of modern science it would be possible to find ‘an assertion more at variance with facts familiar to physiologists than the statement that ’ beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusc, worm, and polype,’ are composed of ’ masses of protoplasm with a nucleus,’ unless it be that still more extravagant assertion that what is ordinarily termed a cell, or elementary part, is a mass of protoplasm; for can anything be more unlike the semi-fluid, active, moving matter of

amoeba protoplasm, than the hard, dry, passive, external part of a cuticular cell or of an elementary part of bone?” In view of contradictions so glaring in the treatment of purely scientific questions, it may be prudent to wait until the material philosophers have had further time for consultation upon points which ought to admit of easy definition and settlement.

“Protoplasm; or, Matter and Life,” pp. 103-4.

Materialism and Spiritiialisni.

o^D

2. The anti- spiritual theory does not cover the whole ground of human consciousness. Granted, that you find in Mr. Huxley’s “nettle” all that he describes; what then y There is a point at which the man and the nettle part company, and it is for that period of separation, as it appears to us, that Mr. Huxley’s theory makes no provision. We are aw-are that this is denied, on the ground that our highest consciousness is but a variety of material change and manifestation; thouMit is but a molecular effect, so is feeling, — “All vital action is the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it,” — “Human logic Is utterly incompetent to prove that any act Is really spontaneous.” But is “human loeic” the hiohest standard of appeal in such a case? Were we to say that human chemistry is utterly incompetent to prove that any man is maliciously disposed, Mr. Huxley might admit the fact, and ask, what then y What if logic have no province in such a matter? And what if speech itself be unable to tell In words the exact condition of the case? Speech and Logic are but instruments, imperfect and blunt enough as we all know; the appeal must be to consciousness, — that other. Inner, self, which no man has seen or can see, but which is knowm to exist and to rule. We must know what is meant by “spontaneous” as well as by “logic “: both the terms, from our point of view, are loosely employed, a fact whlch is the more important on accc unt of their being high-sounding and emphatic.

Mr. Huxley has pronounced upon the utter incompetence of logic in a certain matter, and we have gone a step farther, and asserted the utter incompeteTice of speech, and we take our ilhistrative proof from Mr. Huxley himself. Possibly the term “spontaneous” may mean one thing to Mr. Huxley, and another to ourselves. Let a case be supposed, — as Mr, Huxley’s words are “any act,” they allow liberty enough of supposition: — A man resolves to bestow ten shillings on a poor family, and this he does without appeal or consultation, — is the resolution spontaneous or not? In what degree is it other than spontaneous? It cannot be so in a final degree, because the man altered the alms from ten shillings to five, on second thoughts; then he increased the ten to twenty, and lastly he resolved not to give anything because his inquiries were answered unsatisfactorily: how then? How did it come that the “molecules” did not settle themselves into a proper form at once? How were they influenced? Afterwards the same man was threatened that if he did not give the twenty shillings he would be made to suffer, and under the influence of this threat he gave the money: was the act spontaneous or compulsory? No; he did not give it, for as he was on the point of doing so, superior force came to his aid which enabled him to treat the threatening with contempt, — are the “molecules” influenced by fear or by hope? To us it appears to be infinitely simpler to believe in the immateriality of thought, — the immateriality

Mafcrialisni and Spiritualisui. 3 1 7

of the moral nature; and if no act be “spontaneous,” Mr, Huxley will not blame us for emphatically repudiating his doctrines as intellectually a play upon words, and morally an outrage upon truth and obligation.

We see no escape from this moral difficulty, and Mr. Huxley has not, so far as we are aware, sucreested one. If all vital action is the result of molecular forces, if thoughts are the expression of molecular changes, if there be no spontaneous act on the part of man, if it be impossible to prove that anything whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, then — in view of all these scientific dogmas — where is human responsibility? If virtue is only the expression of a molecular movement, why not vice? And if vice is necessitated or induced by molecular changes, why blame the criminal.’^ Molecular combinations in one case make a thief, and in another they make a policeman, and thus society keeps itself together with tolerable security. The man who can believe this, cannot complain of any deficiency of faith; but whether such a man oucht to be trusted as a teacher, we think the most desperate molecules will hesitate to affirm. Mr. Huxley himself may justly claim to be an honest man, but that does not touch the point; his honesty (on his own theory) is a mere affair of molecular law; another man is a thief, and his dishonesty may shelter itself under the same philosophy, otherwise the philosophy is partial, necessarily and scandalously partial, because

3i8 The Pm-acleie.

‘t expresses only one set of molecular excitements and combinations. Who shall say which is the correct moral reading of molecular law? Who knows beyond r.ll doubt what is right and what is wrong? It will be difficult, too, to show how “molecules come to have the power of self-correction: they pass parliamentary acts, and repeal them; they commit offences, and offer apologies; they plunge men into awful crimes, and torment them with agonies of penitence; they send men to the gallows, and advocate the abolition of capital punishments. This must be an eccentric and unmanageable law, — yet according to Mr. Huxley, it is a law, for all “thoughts” are “the expression of molecular changes in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena.” But seeing that those “changes” are so self-contradictory, not only as between any two individuals of directly opposite character, but actually in the same individual in the course of the same process of thought, where is the inexorable law of nature, the invariable law of continuity, of which so much is made as an objection to the doctrine of influential prayer? If instead of saying “all thoughts are the expression of molecular changes,” Mr. Huxley had said, “all thoughts cause or induce molecular chano-e in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena,” we could have reconciled his theory with the elements of morality, — a harmony which we cannot at present accomplish. But perhaps Mr. Huxley means no more than this, for in the con-

!. JMatcrialim and Spii-ititalism. 319

elusion of his argument, he says,* — “In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phenomena of matter in terms of spirit, or the phenomena of spirit in terms of matter. Matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a property of matter — each statement has a certain relative truth;” — and yet in the very same paragraph he tells us that “the spiritualistic terminology is utterly barren, and leads to- nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas”! This is a most extraordinary molecular change in the writer’s personal protoplasm. If language is to be treated in Mr. Huxley’s magical fashion, we fear it will be utterly impossible to find any common ground of human understanding; if matter and spirit are interchangeable terms, if “thought” and “molecule” are in any sense or application something like synonymous, and if the one of them is “utterly barren,” — it would seem that the otjier cannot be either useful or dignified. If Mr. Huxley thus allows his phrases to be read from either end, or to be inverted as the reader may think best, we shall gladly use that liberty for Mr. Huxley’s own advantage, and instead of reading — “the physical basis of life,” we shall read — “the basis of physical life,” and then thank him, as a great scientific teacher, for much suggestion and instruction.

It has been properly pointed out that Mr. Huxley can have had no opportunity of examining other

“Lay Sermons,” p. 145.

than dead human protoplasm, and therefore he is not in a position to say what effect may be produced upon it, so as to differentiate it from all other protoplasm, by human vitality. That there is great similarity, not only in the basis but in many of the ordinary phenomena, of physical life is not denied; but it does not follow that because an ox and a man both have eyes, ears, bone, muscle, and skin, that therefore the one is in all respects equivalent to the other. Can Mr. Huxley be quite sure that if he could see human protoplasm under vital action he would not modify some applications of his theory? What would Mr. Huxley say to any man who took an organ to pieces to prove that there was no music in it? According to Mr, Huxley’s method, there would be no difliculty in proving that an organ and a wardrobe are equally entitled, that is equally disentitled, to be called musical instruments. They could both be taken to pieces, and it could be made apparent to a business mind that a drawer is protoplastically as good as a diapason. Mr, Huxley seems to allow nothing for life in the one case, as his rival image-breaker allows nothing for combination in the other. Mr. Huxley has written upon the Protoplasm of Life; another man may write on the Protoplasm of Art, and by repeating the logic of his eminent forerunner, he may demonstrate beyond all doubt that a snuffbox and a trumpet are protoplastically the same thinsf. But even were it so demonstrated, what does the demonstration amount to? Things are not to be judged protoplastically altogether, that

Mata’ialism and Spiritualism. 3 2 i

Is but one view either of life or art; they must pass into combination and relationship before their real quality, uses, or value can be fully determined. One man may insist that hydrogen and chlorine never can coalesce; in proof of this he may refer to experiments made by his own hand; but it will turn out on inquiry that his so-called experiments have been conducted in the dark, and any schoolboy will tell him that if a sunbeam be allowed to get at the mixture, the hydrogen and the chlorine will rush together, and report their coalition as with a clap of thunder. Mr. Huxley seems to make no allowance for the influence of the sunbeam. Possibly some reader of Mr. Huxley’s doctrines may feel himself entitled, in pursuance of Mr. Huxley’s example, to reason thus: — “The Huxleys are a remarkable people: they never speak to each other; they take no notice of the world or of other men; they are blind, deaf, and dumb; they are absolutely without intelligence, sympathy, or emotion; — all this I know to be true; I have exhumed whole generations of them, and laid them out in the churchyard, where you may see them, and test my report for yourselves!” This is exactly so, from the churchyard point of view; but if the man could have seen one living Huxley, we know what effect the sight would have had upon his induction. It may be so in the case of Mr. Huxley’s own theory We will not doubt the revelations which his microscope has made, but we must insist that until living protoplasm has been examined, Mr, Huxley is not

Y in a position to dogmatise upon it. In a wider sense than was probably intended, it is yet true that a livino- do:*” is better than a dead Hon.

We now come to the “most wise advice “which Mr. Huxley “enforces” in the name of David Hume, whom he terms “the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century — even though that century produced Kant.” Mr. Huxley thus commits himself to Hume as an ardent admirer, but we have no doubt that the committal was mentally guarded by the strongest reservations, seeing that “the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century “ave a good deal of” advice “which is anything but” most wise.” For example: the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century maintained that “there could be no evil in setting free a few ounces of a certain red fluid called blood, when the possessor of it stood in the way of one’s interest”! This is the man who tells us to burn sundry books of divinity! The most acute thinker of the eighteenth century maintained that “adultery vmsth practised, if men would obtain all the advantages of life; that, if generally practised, it would in time cease to be scandalous; and that, if practised secretly and frequently, it would by degrees come to be thought no crime at all “! This is the man who, in a church, on a Sunday evening,* was described to an Edinburcfh audience as” the most acute thinker of the

“Lay Sermons,” p. 120.

Mater iali sin and Spiritualism. 323

eighteenth century,” and “one of the greatest men Scotland has ever produced.” Now whilst it is possible that a man in whose “private correspondence the most immoral sentiments are expressed,” may have given “most wise advice,” it will be well probably not to act upon any of his exhortations unless they be strongly confirmed by men whose morality is at least decent. Let us once more see what Hume invites us to do: —

“If v’e take in hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance, let us 2.sX^,’Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any’^experimental rea soiling concerning matter of fact or existence f No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

This so-called “most wise advice” is in reality its own Nemesis, for as it contains nothing but declamation, it; must at once be’ committed to the flames. Shakespeare and Milton must, at the biddiner of the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century, be reduced to ashes; painting, music, poetry, fiction, must all be thrown into the fire, if “quantity, number, fact, and existence,” as interpreted by the materialistic school, are to be the boundaries of the new universe. It is characteristic of the gay and easy thinkers who have undertaken to banish spirit and spontaneity from all regions of human thought, that they fix the limits of creation so as to bring themselves into prominence and throw other people into remote and hazy perspective; and that they describe the cords and stakes of the universe with amazing precision and familiarity. Mr. Huxley himself gives a neat illustration of his own method of assio’ninof limits, and chidins other people for not minding their own business; thus: — “If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor an’ one else, have any means of knowing; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call me a sceptic,” * — a pleading which shows at once the extreme convenience of every man having the right to choose his own illustrations, and the extreme awkwardness of selecting an analogy which has no bearing whatever upon the subject in hand. Suppose this same man to ask Mr. Huxley, not about the politics, but about the astronomy of the moon, how then? Or suppose that this same man should decline to believe Mr. Huxley’s doctrine of protoplasm because Mr. Huxley cannot tell the politics of sheep and oxen, how then? Or suppose that this same man will not believe that Mr. Huxley has written a book, because he does not know in what protoplastic form or relationship Mr. Huxley existed a hundred years ago, how then? Mr. Huxley demurs to being called a sceptic when he declares the impossibility of knowing the politics of the inhabitants of the moon; but if he is thereby

“Lay Sermons,” p. 144.

Materialism and Spiiitiialism. 325

sugg-esting that the special questions which Christian thinkers treat as spiritual are to be classed with lunar politics, his illustration fails both in adequacy and justice; — it fails in adequacy because no moral consequences are involved in our ignorance of lunar politics; and it fails in justice because it treats with contempt the convictions and aspirations of men of undoubted intellect and virtue. But let the question of lunar politics be imaginatively put on a level with those spiritual revelations and hopes which have secured the confidence of Christian men, and then see whether Mr. Huxley can easily escape the charge of being a sceptic: let a book professing to give the politics of the moon be published; let that book be the production of a hundred men living in different ages; let there be in that book the continuous and accumulating testimony of eye-witnesses, thinkers, sufferers, patriots, and honest, though may be mistaken, men; let that book be accepted by countless millions of intelligent and conscientious believers; let that book work its way until it becomes one of the prime factors in civilisation; in short, let it be and do what the Bible is and has done; and no man, however anxious he may be to “show a proper regard for the economy of time,” can afford to treat a book which has so challeneed the attention of mankind, as if it were not worthy of his inquiry or care. He may indeed be led to a rejection of it, — in which case he might be called an infidel; he might have strong doubts and suspicions of its authenticity, — in which case he

26 The Paraclete.

would of course be a sceptic; he might accept It and honour it, — in which case he would be a believer; but in no case could he be allowed to treat the question as fit only for lunatics except on the principle that his personal omniscience had been proved.

David Hume, Mr. Huxley’s most acute thinker of the eighteenth century, maintained that “as we have no sensation of efficiency, we can have no idea of it, and no evidence of its reality.” But is it t7’uc that we have no sensation of efficiency? After what we have seen of David Hume’s morals, we must have something more than his word before we can safely accept any statement made solely upon his authority, or even quoted by him without giving the most exact and accessible references. On a subject of this peculiar nature it is more than possible that bluntness of morals may imply some defect in intellectual integrity. What if it be said in reply to Hume’s short and easy assumption of omniscience that we have no sensation of zV/efhciency, and therefore the theistic theory which traces the origin of the universe to the hand of Omnipotence, is presumptively true y Collating the facts supplied by astronomers, geologists, botanists, chemists, and physicists of every name, we have, as regards the structure and continuity of creation, an undoubted sensation of ^///ficiency, — a sensation of what some persons think is best described as almightiness — a sensation, certainly, which cannot to their ‘satisfaction be described by any other term so adequate

Materialism and Spirihtalism.

o/

and precise. But what is exactly meant by the words, “sensation of efficiency”? ‘In how many directions is the term to operate? Let us try it in a direction probably not anticipated by the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century: let us doubt whether Mr. Hume produced the works which bear his name, and let us justify the doubt by saying that as we have no sensation of efficiency we can have no evidence of its reality! “But there the works are, to speak for themselves.” True; but what is the use of addressing a sensation which does not belong to us y “But you can see the works.” True; and we can see the sun and moon, the rocks and hills, and the sight does seem to call into activity, notwithstanding the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century, a sense of efficiency, and sufficiency, and confident security. The bold affirmation that we have no sensation of efficiency is probably best met by a bold affirmation to the exact contrary; certainly we have that sensation in reference to the proportion between means and ends in the common affairs of life, and we have something equal to it when we study the small portion of the universe which is at present accessible to our investigations. Mr. Hume has said that we have no sensation of efficiency, but he has not proved it. Perhaps in his case to say was to prove, an idolatry which might have tempted our faith but for what we know of the infamousness of his detestable morals. He had to make a creed which would quadrate with his immorality, or justify it at least to himself. To deny

God was equal, in Hume’s case, to taking out a licence for godlessness; and to den)’ Him under the name of “Efficiency” was to skulk into atheism without shocking the prejudices of those to whom this application of the word was novel. Besides this, the doctrine is marked by a self-complacency at once impertinent and unphilosophical: the argument is short — we have no sensation of efficiency, therefore there is no efficiency. It is not supposed that the universe may be larger than it looks; it is assumed that there cannot be anything unless we have a sensation of it, and never suggested that in our own case there may be a defect in sensation. Yet these acute thinkers seem to us to contradict themselves, as will be seen from a quotation from Mr. Huxley, which we preserve from the flames in disobedience to David Hume’s “most wise advice.” Mr. Huxley says, “the wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to the dulness of our hearing; and cowld our ears catch the murmurs of these tiny Maelstroms, as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells which constitute each tree, we should be stunned as with the roar of a great city;” — but we do not catch these murmurs, therefore we have no sensation of them, and consequently, on David Hume’s theory, the Maelstroms and the murmurs have no existence! We incline to think, however, that the disciple is wiser than his master in suggesting that perhaps somewhat of our ignorance may be “due only to the dulness of our hearing.” iThis at least is modest;

MateiHalism and Spirittialism. 329

it does not elevate human sensation to the throne of omniscience and infalhbihty; it does make some allowance for human infirmity, and by so much it makes it barely possible that “God is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”

This admission as to the infirmity of our hearing suggests an important inquiry. When we are told that sensation is the source of knowledge, we have a right to ask, Whose? Sensation is a variable quantity. Probably no two men hear or see with equal facility; probably no two men experience precisely the same sensations; so we insist on the inquiry, Whose? Sensation may have only one meaning in words; but in effect, that is to say in intellectual and moral result, it may involve an indefinite number of significations. Would David Hume admit the reality of a sensation of pleasure arising from communion with nature, in the forest or on the sea? The clodhopper knows nothing of such sensation; if he’ has a sensation at all, it is one of weariness or disgust. Then -whose sensation is to be trusted? It may be replied, Educate the sensibility of the clodhopper. Precisely so; but, on the other hand, does the sensibility of the philosopher admit of no education y Has it reached the highest attainable delicacy and responsiveness? Mr. Huxley says no, most distinctly; for in a tropical forest there are Maelstroms and murmurs which escape us because of the dulness of our hearinof. We are content with this admission, because it limits the infallibility of man, and narrowly sayes us from self-deification. Who can tell what sensations men might have were any one of their faculties increased even in an infinitesimal degree? On the theory of David Hume we are asked to find complete results by the use of an incomplete instrument, and to allow the universe to extend in exact proportion as our sensation grows in acutcness and refinement. We prefer to begin our reasoning from the other end, and consequently to believe that “we are of yesterday, and know nothing;” and that though we may have “gathered a pebble or two” of some value, yet “the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered before us.”

Mr. Huxley reseryes” a surprise for his readers in his distinct repudiation of materialism. “I, individually, am no materialist; but, on the contrary, believe materialism to involve grave philosophical error.” Mr. Huxley asks, What do we know of this terrible “matter “except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness? That is to say, the question is pitifully begged by describing” matte r “as a cause, and then implying that we know nothing about it. Mr. Huxley slips in this great word” cause “in an incidental and stealthy manner, as if it did not involve the very question in dispute. But to make things equal and comfortable in all directions, he declares that we know nothing of “spirit ’ either, except that “it is also a name for an unkncwn and hypothetical cau5e,’0r condition, of states of consciousness,” — so, then, because we know so little of “matter,” he is no materialist; and because we know so little of “spirit,” he is no spiritualist. On the whole, considering that he knows so little, it is remarkable how he can snub other people with so much self-complacency, and declare his views with so much dogmatic precision. This wonderful power of non-committal shows to what a state of gracious pliability molecular combination can be brought under certain conditions; and shows, too, that even when life has been reduced to an affair of molecules, we do not escape the frets and inconsistencies of speculative indecision. But Mr. Huxley cannot be allowed to make a language for himself, or to interpret common speech by a private glossary. Mr. Huxley says that thought is the expression of molecular chanofes in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena, — yet he adds that he is no materialist! Mr. Huxley takes it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible to prove that anything whatever may not be the effect of a material and necessary cause, — yet he is no materialist! Mr. Huxley says that the progress of science means “the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity,” — yet he is, individually, no materialist! This is something more than a mere play upon words; it is an ine recusable misuse of language, unless Mr. Huxley be the dictator of human speech and all its meanings.

We are quite sure that Mr. Huxley will not reply. He adds to unusual gaiety of expression In the treatment of serious topics, a happy consciousness that what is said by way of hostile criticism can only be accounted for by the lunacy of the critic. He says that the microscopists who have attacked his “Lay Sermons,” “are ignorant alike of biology and philosophy”; he decides that the philosophers who have attacked it, are “not very learned in biology or microscopy”; his clerical assailants he simply refers to as belonging to “several denominations”; and as for the “few writers who have taken the trouble to understand the subject,” he compliments their ill-spent pains by leaving his “Essay unaltered.” A man whose molecular arrangements are so happily disposed can never be brought to modify or withdraw any statement he has ever made, and so his days will be passed in the quietness and serenity proper to an infallible m.ind. His science and his philosophy have been utterly demolished by Dr. Hutchison Stirling,* who follows him from one position to another with relentless logic; yet Mr. Huxley treats his antagonist with an incivility often indistinguishable from contempt. That Dr. Stirling has not failed in his work is clear from one sentence written by no less an authority than Sir John Herschel: —” Anything more complete and final in the way of refutation than this essay, I cannot

* “As Regards Protoplasm.” (Longmans.)

well ima,o;-ine.” Yet Mr. Huxley’s molecular excitement produces little beyond personal abuse by way of reply: if not “abuse” it is something very like it, inasmuch as it is enlivened by such words as “travesty,” “absurdity,” and “utter misrepresentations,” — harmless words, however, as they merely express a momentary uneasiness of the molecular forces of that protoplasm which men, wolves, and monkeys, possess in common.

We cannot close this review without referring very briefly to the doctrines of another deservedly eminent philosopher. It would appear from his writing’s that Dr. Tyndall is very far from denying the possible existence of spiritual or divine agency in the universe, but he takes special care to express his belief that next to nothing — perhaps absolutely nothing — can be known of such agency. “The mind of man,” says he, “may be compared to a musical instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions we have an infinitude of silence. The phenomena of matter and force lie within our intellectual range, and as far as they reach we wll at all hazards push our inquiries. But behind, and above, and around all, the real mystery of this universe lies unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of solution.” And again,” I walked down Regent Street some, time ago wath a man of great gifts and acquirements, discussing with him various theological questions. I could

not accept his views of the origin and destiny of the universe, nor was I prepared to enunciate anydefinite views of my own. He turned to me eit length, and said, ‘You surely must have a theory of the universe.’ That I should in one way or another have solved this mystery of mysteries seemed to my friend a matter of cdlirse. ‘I have not even a theory of magnetism ’ was my rply. We ought to learn to wait, and pause before closing with the advances of those expounders of the ways of God to men, who offer us intellectual peace at the modest cost of intellectual life.” Dr. Tyndall is evidently an agreeable man, with plenty, of good healthy blood in his veins, and in the light of this happy condition we read the words” at all hazards “as a specimen of that grim pleasantry which is called irony. We really cannot allow Dr. Tyndall to surround his laboratory door with “all hazards,” and to work inside as if a cruel strain were put upon his courage. There are no “hazards”; no body of Christian men is awaiting the appearance of Dr. Tyndall that they may visit him with the penalties due to confirmed and reckless malefactors; the “hazards” do not come though some men are most anxious for the honours of martyrdom. If Dr. Tyndall attaches some other meaning to the word “hazards,” so be it; our only wish is to point out that no Christian thinker is likely to have any mischievous design upon his life. The concise answer which Dr. Tyndall returned to his friend in Regent Street

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seems to have stunned that unguarded individual, to have made him speechless, though as the brevity of the answer is much in excess of its philosophy it ought not to have ended in so decided a case of Trismus. Dr. Tyndall would find it very inconvenient to be bound down to his own methods of reasoning. If he will not meddle with generals until he has settled particulars; If he w411 not touch the universe until he has completed his studies in magnetism; then see how easily he will dispose of great problems. What is your theory of society? I have not even a theory of medicine. What is your theory of the destiny of the human race? I will think of that when I have found out the distinction of every Hansom now plying in Regent Street. If we have to work our way thus slowly through detail, we must know nothing about human speech until we know everything about the anatomy of the human throat; we must defer the study of latitude and longitude until we have mastered the law of parishes and the custom of party-walls; and a consideration of the disturbances of the heavenly bodies must stand over until we have comprehended the nearer mysteries of dyspepsia. Dr. Tyndall certainly drew largely upon the good-nature of his friend in Regent Street when he dismissed with such flippant conciseness the trifling problem of the universe. Consistency with his own reasoning ought to render Dr. Tyndall quite uncertain whether there is indeed any universe at all, for what right has any man who has not studied the practice of match-making, to talk about radiation or eclipses? Besides this, the principle involves the sanction of ignorance beyond a very narrow circle of inquiry and reflection. Dr. Tyndall may decline to go into theological questions because he has not completed his studies in magnetism; the tradesman may decline to read Dr. Tyndall’s books, because it is enough for him to get a glance at the morning papers; and the agricultural labourer may plead that he has no time for paper reading —

“With half the cows to calve,
And Thornaby holme to plough.”

Dr. Tyndall has, in our opinion, laid down a vicious and dangerous principle whose expression was excusable in the hurry of a walk down Regent Street, but it ought not to have been repeated at University College, nor printed as a “Fragment of Science.” The simple fact is that Dr. Tyndall wishes to cast discredit upon any theory of the universe which men may suppose themselves to have found in the Bible, and to him it would appear to be quite conclusive that as he has no theory of magnetism, it is utterly impossible that the Biblical writers can have had any proper notion of the creation of matter or the origin of man.

That this is too severe a criticism will be proved, we think, by reference to Dr. Tyndall’s remarks upon “the miracle by which the victory of Joshua over the Amorltes was rendered complete, where the sun was reported to have stood still for ’ a whole day ’ upon Gideon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon.” Dr. Tyndall states the difficulty of “a modern man of science” in this wiy: “The energy here involved is equal to that of six trillions of horses workino- for the whole of the time employed by Joshua in the destruction of his foes. The amount of power thus expended would be sufficient to supply every individual of an army a thousand times the strength of that of Joshua, with a thousand times the fighting power of each of Joshua’s soldiers, not for the few hours necessary to the extinction of a handful of Amorites, but for millions of years.” Dr. Tyndall says that “the event assumes proportions so vast in comparison with the result to be obtained by it that belief reels under the reflection.” Let us say at once that if this is all that can be urged against the miracle, the Christian believer need not surrender his faith nor be ashamed of his confidence. We do not care to say one word in explanation or defence of the miracle itself, but we do say distinctly that the reason which Dr. Tyndall has pleaded against It strikes us as unjust and ridiculous. If Dr. Tyndall or any other man were to call six trillions of horses to halt, probably he would be startled if they obeyed his voice. “Six trillions” represents an astounding energy to a man who can hardly lift a body equal in weight to his own, but we have yet to learn that God and man

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attach precisely the same vahie to figures, and that a miracle looks as stupendous from a divine as from a human point of view. The ancient king well replied to an astonished beneficiary that the donation might be too much for him to receive, but it was not too much for the giver to bestow. Dr. Tyndall measures the Infinite by himself, and wonders how He could afford to expend or withhold the energy of six trillions of horses. He is not the first to remark upon instances of so-called “waste,” and to point out how the “ointment” and the “energy” could have been better used; but in the latter case as in the former, probably the Lord was wiser than the critic. We are hardly surprised to find Dr. Tyndall lost amongst the numbers which he has reckoned; apparently his belief would have “reeled” less if the horses had been six instead of six trillions; it is amongst the trillions that his belief staggers and perishes. He sug-aests that an Israelite in the agre succeeding that of Joshua would have been satisfied with much less proof of the miracle than an Englishman of average education at the present day, “for to the one the miracle ‘probably consisted of the stoppage of a ball of fire less than a )ard in diameter, while to the other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen hundred thousand times the earth in size;” but a miracle is a miracle whether it be wrought within the compass of a yard or within the circle of a universe, as Dr. Tyndall will admit, seeing that he ‘quotes with

Materialism and Spiritualism. ‘y)

approval the ancient saying that the “law which moulds a tear also rounds a planet.” In standing aghast before the six trillion horse-power, he should have remembered his own words (in his paper on “Prayer and Natural Law”), “In the application of law in Nature the terms great and small are unknown.... The dispersion therefore of the slightest mist by the special volition of the Eternal, would be as much a miracle as the rolling of the Rhone over the Grimsel precipices and down Haslithal to Brientz,” — precisely so; hence the absurdity of Dr. Tyndall allowing his “belief” to “reel” accordlnof to the mere number of horses represented in any supposed miracle.

But Dr. Tyndall is scandalised that the six trillion horse-power should have been In any way Interfered with for the sake of extlnouishinQf a “handful of Amorltes.” Here Is a repetition of the former vice. Had the Amorites been as numerous as the “horses “the professor would have been less distrusted; but to set six trillions of the one ao-alnst a handful of the other is too much for him. Is It true, then, that the case was sknply and absolutely one of a handful of Amorites? Has Dr. Tyndall stated the instance In a calm, scientific, and impartial spirit? Would he be content to have one of his own experiments or illustrations stated In the same- way? Never! He would justly consider himself aggrieved and dishonoured by such a method ■:ii representation. But it is good enough for a book which limits itself to spiritual inquiries and knows nothing- higher than God. Dr. Tyndall speaks of ]Ia”cr, of Heilbronn, as having “that power of genius which breathes large meanings into scanty facts,” but no such power will he attribute to Moses or Joshua, — there was a handful of Amorites, and that is all, and knowing that we know everything! It is a scientific man who tells us so, and scientific men are cool, judicial, exact, not at all like theologians. Do the “scanty facts” admit of no “larre meaninof” beincf “breathed” into them? Is it not better that heaven and earth should pass away than that one word of God should fail y It may be better that the whole material universe should be consumed than that truth should be finally worsted by error. We do not always see the whole meaning of an act: even a commonplace transaction, hardly worth completing for its own sake, may -be needful to the continuance of a set of influences of supreme value and importance. We do more than we think we do, I’he servant of Jonathan thought only- of the arrows which he was gathering, — “the lad knew not of the matter.” In extinofuishins: a handful of Amorites, God mio-ht be keeping an oath, or establishing a covenant, or laying up lessons for the ages; we cannot fix the whole measure or meaning of the deed, and as for the cost of its accomplishment it may be modest on our part to leave that with Himself.

We have said nothing about the miracle itself, yet it is an infinitely more beautiful piece of history than might be inferred from Dr. TyiidaU’s account of it. One circumstance in the miracle is sometimes overlooked even by orthodox expositors: Joshua was hiehlv concerned for the name of God and the honour of Israel; he was the messenger and the representative of the Most High to the soldiers whom he led; and it was he who in a moment of high desire for the vindication of a just cause, exclaimed with unaccustomed fervour — -” Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” By this exclamation he committed the whole cause of Israel, — probably he was as surprised at his own cry as were the people round about him, — -it was a daring and even awful challenge,, and from a human point of view a tremendous risk; yet, according to the narrative, “the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man,” and the miracle was accomplished. Whether the statement be believed or discarded, the grounds on which Dr. Tyndall invites disbelief are, in our opinion, alt02fether ultra vires and untenable.

That Dr. Tyndall is in the habit of making large demands upon his readers in a happily incidental and almost off-hand manner is shown by more than one memorable instance. Look at his remarks upon the growth of a grain of corn, given in his paper on The Scope and Limit of Scientific Materialism; — “Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the conceptive or imagining power oi the purely human mind. An intellect the same in kind as our own woultl, If only sufficiently expanded, be able to follow the whole process from beginning to end. It would see every molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and repulsions exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process and its consummation being an instance of the play of molecular force. Given the grain and its environment, the purely human intellect might, if sufficiently expanded, trace out a prio/i every step of the process of growth, and by the application of purely mechanical principles demonstrate that the cycle must end, as It is seen to end, in the reproduction of forms like that with which it “began.” The words, “If only sufficiently expanded,” will cover anything; will go far Indeed towards accounting for the six trillions of horses, and explaining the “credulous prattle of the ancients about miracles.” But see to what conclusions we are driven by Dr. Tyndall’s reasoning especially if that reasoning be read in the light of Air. Huxley’s molecular speculations and theories. What is true of the “purely human mind “must be true of the purely human body; therefore a body the same In kind as our own, if only stiflicicntly expanded, might play with the stars as with marbles, and run away with the sun as an exercise In gymnastics. According to Mr. Huxley, molecular movement is not confined to a grain of corn (on whose growth Dr. Tyndall’s reasoning is founded), but “all vital action may, with equal propriety, be said to be the result of the mol’icular forces of the protoplasm which displa3’s it “: all thought, too, is said to be the result of molecular movement. If therefore the human mind ivcre only sufficiently expanded it would be able to follow the process of thought-development in the brain of every man, and thus we should be known altoofether to one another. We do not object to Dr. Tyndall ’s theory; indeed it is so worded as to render all objection impossible; we only push that theory to its proper results to show that in proving too much he may have proved nothing, and that under high-sounding phraseology he may have palmed upon his readers a very commonplace and innocent statement. Yet that statement understood in the sense which a Bible believer would attach to it, becomes specially important and helpful. Such a believer would say, Dr. Tyndall is perfectly right within given limits; man was made in the image and likeness of God, and his mind needs but expansion and illumination to see around him a far higher universe than he has yet discovered, and to observe movements in nature which would occasion him infinite surprise and delight; towards the enjoyment of such revelations he will grow if he be faithful to the voice of God within him, and to the opportunities which arise in his daily life; God alone! as the fulness of this imagined power, — the very things which Dr. Tyndall supposes possible to a sufficiently expanded mind are ascribed to the intelligence of God; almost in the very words which a modern man of science might have used —” My substance was not hid

OH

14 The ParacCete.

from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth; Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” The spiritual believer accepts this doctrine, and as to his own progression he is assured that this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and that he shall see deeply into things which now lie beyond his comprehension though they are within the sphere of his prayers.

For these reasons, personal and general, we postpone the deiiication and worsh’p of physical science. It is young and therefore immature; it is pleased with its new wealth, and therefore a little boastful and off-hand; it has done wonders, and it will yet immeasurably exceed all that it has accomplished. Physical science has a friend in every theologian. Theology claims indeed to be the inclusive science; having in one hand the gold and frankincense and myrrh of physical inquiry and result, and having in the other the thought and love and worship of spiritual necessity and aspiration. The theologian has no quarrel with the scientist, but in too many cases the scientist works as if he had a natural and implacable enemy in the theologian. Where this is unhappily the case the scientist never fails (though often with avowedly contrary intention) to suggest the littleness and w’orthlessness -of manhood; he limits its functions.

Materialism and Spirihcalism. 345

impoverishes its resources, and denies its immortality. On the other hand, a sound theology identifies itself with the most vigorous investig-ations of science, and inspires the scientific student with the conviction that his present attainments, how numerous and brilHant soever, are but the pledges of discoveries and conquests ineffable in splendour and value. Any suggestion to the effect that theology is hostile to science is a lie. It may suit the temporary convenience of sciolists, incapable either of veneration or sympathy, to magnify themselves at the expense of others, but if they cannot be excused on the ground of immaturity they must be condemned by the example of men who to a true science have added the simplicity and dignity of Christian faith. Professor Tyndall, speaking of “the real scientific man of to-day,” says :* “In common with the most ignorant, he shares the belief that spring will succeed winter, that summer will succeed spring, that autumn will succeed summer, and that winter will succeed autumn. But he knows still further — and this knowledge is essential to his intellectual repose — that this succession, besides being permanent, is under the circumstances necessary; that the gravitating force exerted between the sun and a revolving sphere with an axis inclined to the plane of its orbit, m2i,st produce the observed succession of the seasons. Not until this relation

* “Fragments of Science,” 62, Cj.

between forces and phenomena has been established is the law of reason rendered concentric with the law of nature; and not until this is effected does the mind of the scientific philosopher rest in peace.” The Christian philosopher carries his inquiry one point higher. In these “far-reaching concords of astronomy” he sees benevolence as well as power, grace as well as necessity. He does not find “peace” where Dr. Tyndall finds it. “Gravitating force,” “revolving sphere,” and succeeding seasons, are appointed by a counsel and directed by an energy which the Christian philosopher believes to be personal and divine; all these things are, in his view, parts of a greater whole; and it is his joy to believe that He who gave laws to His planets has also given statutes and commandments to His children.