SELECTIONS FROM PREVIOUS WORKS

_WITH REMARKS ON MR. G. J. ROMANES'_ "_MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS_"ANDA PSALM OF MONTREAL

BYSAMUEL BUTLER

"The course of true science, like that of true love, never did runsmooth. "PROFESSOR TYNDALL, _Pall Mall Gazette_, Oct 30, 1883. 

(OP. 7)

LONDONTRUBNER & CO. , LUDGATE HILL1884[_All rights reserved_]

Ballantyne PressBALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON

PREFACE. 

I delayed these pages some weeks in order to give Mr. Romanes anopportunity of explaining his statement that Canon Kingsley wrote aboutinstinct and inherited memory in _Nature_, Jan. 18, 1867. {iii} I wroteto the _Athenaeum_ (Jan. 26, 1884) and pointed out that _Nature_ did notbegin to appear till nearly three years after the date given by Mr. Romanes, and that there was nothing from Canon Kingsley on the subject ofinstinct and inherited memory in any number of _Nature_ up to the date ofCanon Kingsley's death. I also asked for the correct reference. 

This Mr. Romanes has not thought it incumbent upon him to give. I amtold I ought not to have expected him to give it, inasmuch as it is nolonger usual for men of any but the lowest scientific standing to correcttheir misstatements when they are brought to book. Science is made forFellows of the Royal Society, and for no one else, not Fellows of theRoyal Society for science; and if the having achieved a certain positionshould still involve being obliged to be as scrupulous and accurate asother people, what is the good of the position? This view of the matteris practical, but I regret that Mr. Romanes should have taken it, for hishaving done so has prevented my being able to tell the reader what CanonKingsley said about memory and instinct, and this he might have been gladto know. 

I suspect, however, that what Canon Kingsley said was after all not veryimportant. If it had been, Mr. Romanes would have probably told us whatit was in his own book. I should think it possible that Mr. Romanes--notfinding Canon Kingsley's words important enough to be quoted, or evenreferred to correctly, or never having seen them himself and not knowingexactly what they were, yet being anxious to give every one, and moreparticularly Canon Kingsley, his due--felt that this was an occasion onwhich he might fairly take advantage of his position and say at largewhatever he was in the humour for saying at the moment. 

I should not have thought this possible if I had not ere now had reasonto set Mr. Romanes down as one who was not likely to be squeamish abouttrifles. Nevertheless, on this present occasion I certainly did thinkthat he had only made a slip such as we all make sometimes, and such ashe would gladly take the earliest opportunity to correct. As it is, I donot know what to think, except that D. C. L. 's and F. R. S. 's seem to be madeof much the same frail materials as we ordinary mortals are. 

As regards the extracts from my previous books given in this volume, Ishould say that I have revised and corrected the original textthroughout, and introduced a sentence or two here and there, but havenowhere made any important alteration. I regret greatly that want ofspace has prevented me from being able to give the chapters from Life andHabit on "The Abeyance of Memory, " and "What we should expect to find ifDifferentiations of Structure and Instinct are mainly due to Memory;" itis in these chapters that an explanation of many phenomena is given, ofwhich, so far as I know, no explanation of any kind had been previouslyattempted, and in which phenomena having apparently so little connectionas the sterility of hybrids, the principle underlying longevity, theresumption of feral characteristics, the sterility of many animals underconfinement, are not only made intelligible but are shown to be all partand parcel of the same story--all being explicable as soon as Memory ismade the main factor of heredity. 

_Feb. _ 16, 1884. 

SELECTIONS FROM EREWHON. {1}

_CURRENT OPINIONS_. (CHAPTER X. OF EREWHON. )

This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into illhealth, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he isseventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and ifconvicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less severelyas the case may be. There are subdivisions of illnesses into crimes andmisdemeanours as with offences amongst ourselves--a man being punishedvery heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or hearing in oneover sixty-five who has had good health hitherto is dealt with by fineonly, or imprisonment in default of payment. 

But if a man forges a cheque, sets his house on fire, robs with violencefrom the person, or does any other such things as are criminal in our owncountry, he is either taken to a hospital and most carefully tended atthe public expense, or if he is in good circumstances, he lets it beknown to all his friends that he is suffering from a severe fit ofimmorality, just as we do when we are ill, and they come and visit himwith great solicitude, and inquire with interest how it all came about, what symptoms first showed themselves, and so forth, --questions which hewill answer with perfect unreserve; for bad conduct, though considered noless deplorable than illness with ourselves, and as unquestionablyindicating something wrong with the individual who misbehaves, isnevertheless held to be the result of either pre-natal or post-natalmisfortune. I should add that under certain circumstances poverty andill luck are also considered criminal. 

Accordingly, there exists a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom theycall straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which literallymeans "one who bendeth back the crooked. " These men practise much asmedical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on everyvisit. They are treated with the same unreserve and obeyed just asreadily as our own doctors--that is to say, on the wholesufficiently--because people know that it is their interest to get wellas soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they would beif their bodies were out of order, even though they may have to undergo avery painful course of treatment. 

When I say that they will not be scouted, I do not mean that anErewhonian offender will suffer no social inconvenience. Friends willfall away from him because of his being less pleasant company, just as weourselves are disclined to make companions of those who are either pooror poorly. No one with a due sense of self-respect will place himself onan equality in the matter of affection with those who are less lucky thanhimself in birth, health, money, good looks, capacity, or anything else. Indeed, that dislike and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate forthe unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered tohave met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, isnot only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute;what progress either of body or soul had been otherwise possible? Thefact therefore that the Erewhonians attach none of that guilt to crimewhich they do to physical ailments, does not prevent the more selfishamong them from neglecting a friend who has robbed a bank, for instance, till he has fully recovered; but it does prevent them from even thinkingof treating criminals with that contemptuous tone which would seem tosay, "I, if I were you, should be a better man than you are, " a tonewhich is held quite reasonable in regard to physical ailment. 

Hence, though they conceal ill health by every kind of cunning, they arequite open about even the most flagrant mental diseases, should theyhappen to exist, which to do the people justice is not often. Indeed, there are some who, so to speak, are spiritual valetudinarians, and whomake themselves exceedingly ridiculous by their nervous supposition thatthey are wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time. Thishowever is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserveor unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about ourhealth. 

It has followed that all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as, How do you do? and the like, are considered signs of gross ill-breeding;nor do the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentaryremark as telling a man that he was looking well. They salute each otherwith, "I hope you are good this morning;" or "I hope you have recoveredfrom the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;"and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, hesays so, and is condoled with accordingly. Nay, the straighteners havegone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught atthe Colleges of Unreason) to all known forms of mental indisposition, andhave classified them according to a system of their own, which, though Icould not understand it, seemed to work well in practice, for they arealways able to tell a man what is the matter with him as soon as theyhave heard his story, and their familiarity with the long names assureshim that they thoroughly understand his case. 

* * * * *

We in England rarely shrink from telling our doctor what is the matterwith us merely through the fear that he will hurt us. We let him do hisworst upon us, and stand it without a murmur, because we are not scoutedfor being ill, and because we know the doctor is doing his best to cureus, and can judge of our case better than we can; but we should concealall illness if we were treated as the Erewhonians are when they haveanything the matter with them; we should do as we do with our moral andintellectual diseases, --we should feign health with the most consummateart, till we were found out, and should hate a single flogging given byway of mere punishment more than the amputation of a limb, if it werekindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of ourdifficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctorthat it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in thelike plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, anda diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenevertheir straightener recommends it. 

I do not suppose that even my host, on having swindled a confiding widowout of the whole of her property, was put to more actual suffering than aman will readily undergo at the hands of an English doctor. And yet hemust have had a very bad time of it. The sounds I heard were sufficientto show that his pain was exquisite, but he never shrank from undergoingit. He was quite sure that it did him good; and I think he was right. Icannot believe that that man will ever embezzle money again. He may--butit will be a long time before he does so. 

During my confinement in prison, and on my journey, I had discovered muchof the above; but it still seemed new and strange, and I was in constantfear of committing some rudeness from my inability to look at things fromthe same stand-point as my neighbours; but after a few weeks' stay withthe Nosnibors I got to understand things better, especially on havingheard all about my host's illness, of which he told me fully andrepeatedly. 

It seemed he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many yearsand had amassed enormous wealth, without exceeding the limits of what wasgenerally considered justifiable or at any rate permissible dealing; butat length on several occasions he had become aware of a desire to makemoney by fraudulent representations, and had actually dealt with two orthree sums in a way which had made him rather uncomfortable. He hadunfortunately made light of it and pooh-poohed the ailment, untilcircumstances eventually presented themselves which enabled him to cheatupon a very considerable scale;--he told me what they were, and they wereabout as bad as anything could be, but I need not detail them;--he seizedthe opportunity, and became aware when it was too late that he must beseriously out of order. He had neglected himself too long. 

He drove home at once, broke the news to his wife and daughters as gentlyas he could, and sent off for one of the most celebrated straighteners ofthe kingdom to a consultation with the family practitioner, for the casewas plainly serious. On the arrival of the straightener he told hisstory, and expressed his fear that his morals must be permanentlyimpaired. 

The eminent man reassured him with a few cheering words, and thenproceeded to make a more careful diagnosis of the case. He inquiredconcerning Mr. Nosnibor's parents--had their moral health been good? Hewas answered that there had not been anything seriously amiss with them, but that his maternal grandfather, whom he was supposed to resemblesomewhat in person, had been a consummate scoundrel and had ended hisdays in a hospital, --while a brother of his father's, after having led amost flagitious life for many years, had been at last cured by aphilosopher of a new school, which as far as I could understand it boremuch the same relation to the old as homoeopathy to allopathy. Thestraightener shook his head at this, and laughingly replied that the curemust have been due to nature. After a few more questions he wrote aprescription and departed. 

I saw the prescription. It ordered a fine to the State of double themoney embezzled; no food but bread and milk for six months, and a severeflogging once a month for twelve. He had received his eleventh floggingon the day of my arrival. I saw him later on the same afternoon, and hewas still twinged; but even though he had been minded to do so (which heshowed no sign of being), there would have been no escape from followingout the straightener's prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws ofErewhon are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied thathis orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to ahospital (as the poor are), and would have been much worse off. Such atleast is the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it. 

On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr. Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent towatch the completion of the cure. I was struck with the delicacy withwhich he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after thephysical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellownessabout my host's eyes which argued a bilious habit of body. To have takennotice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette. I am told that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to glance at thepossibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it important inorder to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets aregenerally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon thematter as well as he can. 

Sensible men have been known to say that the straightener should instrict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely tobear upon the case; but people are naturally shy of doing this, for theydo not like lowering themselves in the opinion of the straightener, andhis ignorance of medical science is supreme. I heard of one lady howeverwho had the hardihood to confess that a furious outbreak of ill-humourand extravagant fancies for which she was seeking advice was possibly theresult of indisposition. "You should resist that, " said thestraightener, in a kind, but grave voice; "we can do nothing for thebodies of our patients; such matters are beyond our province, and Idesire that I may hear no further particulars. " The lady burst intotears, promised faithfully that she would never be unwell again, and kepther word. 

To return however to Mr. Nosnibor. As the afternoon wore on manycarriages drove up with callers to inquire how he had stood his flogging. It had been very severe, but the kind inquiries upon every side gave himgreat pleasure, and he assured me that he felt almost tempted to do wrongagain by the solicitude with which his friends had treated him during hisrecovery: in this I need hardly say that he was not serious. 

During the remainder of my stay in the country Mr. Nosnibor wasconstantly attentive to his business, and largely increased his alreadygreat possessions; but I never heard a whisper to the effect of hishaving been indisposed a second time, or made money by other than themost strictly honourable means. I did hear afterwards in confidence thatthere had been reason to believe that his health had been not a littleaffected by the straightener's treatment, but his friends did not chooseto be over curious upon the subject, and on his return to his affairs itwas by common consent passed over as hardly criminal in one who wasotherwise so much afflicted. For they regard bodily ailments as the morevenial in proportion as they have been produced by causes independent ofthe constitution. Thus if a person ruin his health by excessiveindulgence at the table, or by drinking, they count it to be almost apart of the mental disease which brought it about and so it goes forlittle, but they have no mercy on such illnesses as fevers or catarrhs orlung diseases, which to us appear to be beyond the control of theindividual. They are only more lenient towards the diseases of theyoung--such as measles, which they think to be like sowing one's wildoats--and look over them as pardonable indiscretions if they have notbeen too serious, and if they are atoned for by complete subsequentrecovery. 

AN EREWHONIAN TRIAL. (CHAPTER XI. OF EREWHON. )

I shall best convey to the reader an idea of the entire perversion ofthought which exists among this extraordinary people, by describing thepublic trial of a man who was accused of pulmonary consumption--anoffence which was punished with death until quite recently. The trialdid not take place till I had been some months in the country, and I amdeviating from chronological order in giving an account of it here; but Ihad perhaps better do so in order to exhaust this subject beforeproceeding with others. 

The prisoner was placed in the dock, and the jury were sworn much as inEurope; almost all our own modes of procedure were reproduced, even tothe requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty. He pleaded notguilty and the case proceeded. The evidence for the prosecution was verystrong, but I must do the court the justice to observe that the trial wasabsolutely impartial. Counsel for the prisoner was allowed to urgeeverything that could be said in his defence. 

The line taken was that the prisoner was simulating consumption in orderto defraud an insurance company, from which he was about to buy anannuity, and that he hoped thus to obtain it on more advantageous terms. If this could have been shown to be the case he would have escapedcriminal prosecution, and been sent to a hospital as for moral ailment. The view however was one which could not be reasonably sustained, inspite of all the ingenuity and eloquence of one of the most celebratedadvocates of the country. The case was only too clear, for the prisonerwas almost at the point of death, and it was astonishing that he had notbeen tried and convicted long previously. His coughing was incessantduring the whole trial, and it was all that the two jailers in charge ofhim could do to keep him on his legs until it was over. 

The summing up of the judge was admirable. He dwelt upon every pointthat could be construed in favour of the prisoner, but as he proceeded itbecame clear that the evidence was too convincing to admit of doubt, andthere was but one opinion in the court as to the impending verdict whenthe jury retired from the box. They were absent for about ten minutes, and on their return the foreman pronounced the prisoner guilty. Therewas a faint murmur of applause but it was instantly repressed. The judgethen proceeded to pronounce sentence in words which I can never forget, and which I copied out into a note-book next day from the report that waspublished in the leading newspaper. I must condense it somewhat, andnothing which I could say would give more than a faint idea of thesolemn, not to say majestic, severity with which it was delivered. Thesentence was as follows:--

"Prisoner at the bar, you have been accused of the great crime oflabouring under pulmonary consumption, and after an impartial trialbefore a jury of your countrymen, you have been found guilty. Againstthe justice of the verdict I can say nothing: the evidence against youwas conclusive, and it only remains for me to pass such a sentence uponyou, as shall satisfy the ends of the law. That sentence must be a verysevere one. It pains me much to see one who is yet so young, and whoseprospects in life were otherwise so excellent, brought to thisdistressing condition by a constitution which I can only regard asradically vicious; but yours is no case for compassion: this is not yourfirst offence: you have led a career of crime, and have only profited bythe leniency shown you upon past occasions, to offend yet more seriouslyagainst the laws and institutions of your country. You were convicted ofaggravated bronchitis last year: and I find that though you are now onlytwenty-three years old, you have been imprisoned on no less than fourteenoccasions for illnesses of a more or less hateful character; in fact, itis not too much to say that you have spent the greater part of your lifein a jail. 

"It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy parents, and had a severe accident in your childhood which permanently underminedyour constitution; excuses such as these are the ordinary refuge of thecriminal; but they cannot for one moment be listened to by the ear ofjustice. I am not here to enter upon curious metaphysical questions asto the origin of this or that--questions to which there would be no endwere their introduction once tolerated, and which would result inthrowing the only guilt on the primordial cell, or perhaps even on theelementary gases. There is no question of how you came to be wicked, butonly this--namely, are you wicked or not? This has been decided in theaffirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say that ithas been decided justly. You are a bad and dangerous person, and standbranded in the eyes of your fellow-countrymen with one of the mostheinous known offences. 

"It is not my business to justify the law: the law may in some cases haveits inevitable hardships, and I may feel regret at times that I have notthe option of passing a less severe sentence than I am compelled to do. But yours is no such case; on the contrary, had not the capitalpunishment for consumption been abolished, I should certainly inflict itnow. 

"It is intolerable that an example of such terrible enormity should beallowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society ofrespectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightlyof all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that you should havethe chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you. The unborn must not be allowed to come near you: and this not so much fortheir protection (for they are our natural enemies), as for our own; forsince they will not be utterly gainsaid, it must be seen to that theyshall be quartered upon those who are least likely to corrupt them. 

"But independently of this consideration, and independently of thephysical guilt which attaches itself to a crime so great as yours, thereis yet another reason why we should be unable to show you mercy, even ifwe are inclined to do so. I refer to the existence of a class of men wholie hidden among us, and who are called physicians. Were the severity ofthe law or the current feeling of the country to be relaxed never soslightly, these abandoned persons, who are now compelled to practisesecretly, and who can be consulted only at the greatest risk, wouldbecome frequent visitors in every household; their organisation and theirintimate acquaintance with all family secrets would give them a power, both social and political, which nothing could resist. The head of thehousehold would become subordinate to the family doctor, who wouldinterfere between man and wife, between master and servant, until thedoctors should be the only depositaries of power in the nation, and haveall that we hold precious at their mercy. A time of universaldephysicalisation would ensue; medicine-vendors of all kinds would aboundin our streets and advertise in all our newspapers. There is one remedyfor this, and one only. It is that which the laws of this country havelong received and acted upon, and consists in the sternest repression ofall diseases whatsoever, as soon as their existence is made manifest tothe eye of the law. Would that that eye were far more piercing than itis. 

"But I will enlarge no further upon things that are themselves soobvious. You may say that it is not your fault. The answer is readyenough at hand, and it amounts to this--that if you had been born ofhealthy and well-to-do parents, and been well taken care of when you werea child, you would never have offended against the laws of your country, nor found yourself in your present disgraceful position. If you tell methat you had no hand in your parentage and education, and that it istherefore unjust to lay these things to your charge, I answer thatwhether your being in a consumption is your fault or no, it is a fault inyou, and it is my duty to see that against such faults as this thecommonwealth shall be protected. You may say that it is your misfortuneto be criminal; I answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate. 

"I do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment, with hardlabour, for the rest of your miserable existence. During that period Iwould earnestly entreat you to repent of these wrongs you have donealready, and to entirely reform the constitution of your whole body. Ientertain but little hope that you will pay attention to my advice; youare already far too abandoned. Did it rest with myself, I should addnothing in mitigation of the sentence which I have passed, but it is themerciful provision of the law that even the most hardened criminal shallbe allowed some one of the three official remedies, which is to beprescribed at the time of his conviction. I shall therefore order thatyou receive two tablespoonfuls of castor-oil daily, until the pleasure ofthe court be further known. "

When the sentence was concluded, the prisoner acknowledged in a fewscarcely audible words that he was justly punished, and that he had had afair trial. He was then removed to the prison from which he was never toreturn. There was a second attempt at applause when the judge hadfinished speaking, but as before it was at once repressed; and though thefeeling of the court was strongly against the prisoner, there was no showof any violence against him, if one may except a little hooting from thebystanders when he was being removed in the prisoners' van. Indeed, nothing struck me more during my whole sojourn in the country, than thegeneral respect for law and order. 

MALCONTENTS. (PART OF CHAPTER XII. OF EREWHON. )

I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is nounfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes, or rewarding themfor their sheer good luck: it is the normal condition of human life thatthis should be done, and no right-minded person will complain at beingsubjected to the common treatment. There is no alternative open to us. It is idle to say that men are not responsible for their misfortunes. What is responsibility? Surely to be responsible means to be liable tohave to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which liveare responsible for their lives and actions should society see fit toquestion them through the mouth of its authorised agent. 

What is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and tend it, andlull it into security, for the express purpose of killing it? Itsoffence is the misfortune of being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot defend itself. This is ample. Who shall limit theright of society except society itself? And what consideration for theindividual is tolerable unless society be the gainer thereby? Whereforeshould a man be so richly rewarded for having been son to a millionaire, were it not clearly provable that the common welfare is thus betterfurthered? We cannot seriously detract from a man's merit in having beenthe son of a rich father without imperilling our own tenure of thingswhich we do not wish to jeopardise; if this were otherwise we should notlet him keep his money for a single hour; we would have it ourselves atonce. For property _is_ robbery, but then we are all robbers or would-berobbers together, and have found it expedient to organise our thieving, as we have found it to organise our lust and our revenge. Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to theinstinct. 

But to return. Even in England a man on board a ship with yellow feveris held responsible for his mischance, no matter what his being kept inquarantine may cost him. He may catch the fever and die; we cannot helpit; he must take his chance as other people do; but surely it would bedesperate unkindness to add contumely to our self-protection, unless, indeed, we believe that contumely is one of our best means ofself-protection. Again, take the case of maniacs. We say that they areirresponsible for their actions, but we take good care, or ought to takegood care, that they shall answer to us for their insanity, and weimprison them in what we call an asylum (that modern sanctuary!) if we donot like their answers. This is a strange kind of irresponsibility. Whatwe ought to say is that we can afford to be satisfied with a lesssatisfactory answer from a lunatic than from one who is not mad, becauselunacy is less infectious than crime. 

We kill a serpent if we go in danger by it, simply for being such andsuch a serpent in such and such a place; but we never say that theserpent has only itself to blame for not having been a harmless creature. Its crime is that of being the thing which it is: but this is a capitaloffence, and we are right in killing it out of the way, unless we thinkit more dangerous to do so than to let it escape; nevertheless we pitythe creature, even though we kill it. 

But in the case of him whose trial I have described above, it wasimpossible that any one in the court should not have known that it wasbut by an accident of birth and circumstances that he was not himselfalso in a consumption; and yet none thought that it disgraced them tohear the judge give vent to the most cruel truisms about him. The judgehimself was a kind and thoughtful person. He was a man of magnificentand benign presence. He was evidently of an iron constitution, and hisface wore an expression of the maturest wisdom and experience; yet forall this, old and learned as he was, he could not see things which onewould have thought would have been apparent even to a child. He couldnot emancipate himself from, nay, it did not even occur to him to feel, the bondage of the ideas in which he had been born and bred. So was itwith the jury and bystanders; and--most wonderful of all--so was it evenwith the prisoner. Throughout he seemed fully impressed with the notionthat he was being dealt with justly: he saw nothing wanton in his beingtold by the judge that he was to be punished, not so much as a necessaryprotection to society (although this was not entirely lost sight of), asbecause he had not been better born and bred than he was. But this ledme to hope that he suffered less than he would have done if he had seenthe matter in the same light that I did. And, after all, justice isrelative. 

I may here mention that only a few years before my arrival in thecountry, the treatment of all convicted invalids had been much morebarbarous than now; for no physical remedy was provided, and prisonerswere put to the severest labour in all sorts of weather, so that most ofthem soon succumbed to the extreme hardships which they suffered; thiswas supposed to be beneficial in some ways, inasmuch as it put thecountry to less expense for the maintenance of its criminal class; butthe growth of luxury had induced a relaxation of the old severity, and asensitive age would no longer tolerate what appeared to be an excess ofrigour, even towards the most guilty; moreover, it was found that jurieswere less willing to convict, and justice was often cheated because therewas no alternative between virtually condemning a man to death andletting him go free; it was also held that the country paid inrecommittals for its overseverity; for those who had been imprisoned evenfor trifling ailments were often permanently disabled by theirimprisonment; and when a man has been once convicted, it was probable hewould never afterwards be long off the hands of the country. 

These evils had long been apparent and recognised; yet people were tooindolent, and too indifferent to suffering not their own, to bestirthemselves about putting an end to them, until at last a benevolentreformer devoted his whole life to effecting the necessary changes. Hedivided illnesses into three classes--those affecting the head, thetrunk, and the lower limbs--and obtained an enactment that all diseasesof the head, whether internal or external, should be treated withlaudanum, those of the body with castor-oil, and those of the lower limbswith an embrocation of strong sulphuric acid and water. It may be saidthat the classification was not sufficiently careful, and that theremedies were ill chosen; but it is a hard thing to initiate any reform, and it was necessary to familiarise the public mind with the principle, by inserting the thin end of the wedge first: it is not therefore to bewondered at that among so practical a people there should still be someroom for improvement. The mass of the nation are well pleased withexisting arrangements, and believe that their treatment of criminalsleaves little or nothing to be desired; but there is an energeticminority who hold what are considered to be extreme opinions, and who arenot at all disposed to rest contented until the principle lately admittedhas been carried further. 

THE MUSICAL BANKS. (CHAPTER XIV. OF EREWHON. )

On my return to the drawing-room, I found the ladies were just puttingaway their work and preparing to go out. I asked them where they weregoing. They answered with a certain air of reserve that they were goingto the bank to get some money. 

Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of theErewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; Ihad however gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinctcommercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to theimagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuchas the banks conducted upon this system were decorated in the mostprofuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied withmusic, so that they were called musical banks though the music washideous to a European ear. 

As for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so now:they have a code in connection with it, which I have no doubt theythemselves understand, but no foreigner can hope to do so. One rule runsinto and against another as in a most complicated grammar, or as inChinese pronunciation, wherein I am told the slightest change inaccentuation or tone of voice alters the meaning of a whole sentence. Whatever is incoherent in my description must be referred to the fact ofmy never having attained to a full comprehension of the subject. 

So far however as I could collect anything certain, they appeared to havetwo entirely distinct currencies, each under the control of its own banksand mercantile codes. The one of them (the one with the musical banks)was supposed to be _the_ system, and to give out the currency in whichall monetary transactions should be carried on. As far as I could see, all who wished to be considered respectable, did keep a certain amount ofthis currency at these banks; nevertheless, if there is one thing ofwhich I am more sure than another it is that the amount so kept was but avery small part of their possessions. I think they took the money, putit into the bank, and then drew it out again, repeating the process dayby day, and keeping a certain amount of currency for this purpose and noother, while they paid the expenses of the bank with the other coinage. Iam sure the managers and cashiers of the musical banks were not paid intheir own currency. Mr. Nosnibor used to go to these musical banks, orrather to the great mother bank of the city, sometimes but not veryoften. He was a pillar of one of the other kind of banks, though he heldsome minor office also in these. The ladies generally went alone; asindeed was the case in most families, except on some few great annualoccasions. 

I had long wanted to know more of this strange system, and had thegreatest desire to accompany my hostess and her daughters. I had seenthem go out almost every morning since my arrival, and had noticed thatthey carried their purses in their hands, not exactly ostentatiously, yetjust so as that those who met them should see whither they were going. Ihad never yet been asked to go with them myself. 

It is not easy to convey a person's manner by words, and I can hardlygive any idea of the peculiar feeling which came upon me whenever I sawthe ladies in the hall, with their purses in their hands, and on thepoint of starting for the bank. There was a something of regret, asomething as though they would wish to take me with them, but did notlike to ask me, and yet as though I were hardly to ask to be taken. Iwas determined however to bring matters to an issue with my hostess aboutmy going with them, and after a little parleying and many inquiries as towhether I was perfectly sure that I myself wished to go, it was decidedthat I might do so. 

We passed through several streets of more or less considerable houses, and at last turning round a corner we came upon a large piazza, at theend of which was a magnificent building, of a strange but noblearchitecture and of great antiquity. It did not open directly on to thepiazza, there being a screen, through which was an archway, between thepiazza and the actual precincts of the bank. On passing under thearchway we found ourselves upon a green sward, round which there ran anarcade or cloister, while in front of us uprose the majestic towers ofthe bank and its venerable front, which was divided into three deeprecesses and adorned with all sorts of marbles and many sculptures. Oneither side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy bythe hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularlycomfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards andgardens, and gave me an impression of great peace and plenty. 

Indeed it had been no error to say that this building was one whichappealed to the imagination; it did more--it carried both imagination andjudgment by storm. It was an epic in stone and marble; neither had Iever seen anything in the least comparable to it. I was completelycharmed and melted. I felt more conscious of the existence of a remotepast. One knows of this always, but the knowledge is never so living asin the actual presence of some witness to the life of bygone ages. Ifelt how short a space of human life was the period of our own existence. I was more impressed with my own littleness, and much more inclinable tobelieve that the people whose sense of the fitness of things was equal tothe upraising of so serene a handiwork, were hardly likely to be wrong inthe conclusions they might come to upon any subject. My feelingcertainly was that the currency of this bank must be the right one. 

We crossed the sward and entered the building. If the outside had beenimpressive the inside was even more so. It was very lofty and dividedinto several parts by walls which rested upon massive pillars; thewindows were filled with glass, on which had been painted the principalcommercial incidents of the bank for many ages. In a remote part of thebuilding there were men and boys singing; this was the only disturbingfeature, for as the gamut was still unknown, there was no music in thecountry which could be agreeable to a European ear. The singers seemedto have derived their inspirations from the songs of birds and thewailing of the wind, which last they tried to imitate in melancholycadences which at times degenerated into a howl. To my thinking thenoise was hideous, but it produced a great effect upon my companions, whoprofessed themselves much moved. As soon as the singing was over theladies requested me to stay where I was, while they went inside the placefrom which it had seemed to come. 

During their absence certain reflections forced themselves upon me. 

In the first place, it struck me as strange that the building should beso nearly empty; I was almost alone, and the few besides myself had beenled by curiosity, and had no intention of doing business with the bank. But there might be more inside. I stole up to the curtain, and venturedto draw the extreme edge of it on one side. No, there was hardly any onethere. I saw a large number of cashiers, all at their desks ready to paycheques, and one or two who seemed to be the managing partners. I alsosaw my hostess and her daughters and two or three other ladies; alsothree or four old women and the boys from one of the neighbouringColleges of Unreason; but there was no one else. This did not look asthough the bank was doing a very large business; and yet I had alwaysbeen told that every one in the city dealt with this establishment. 

I cannot describe all that took place in these inner precincts, for asinister-looking person in a black gown came and made unpleasant gesturesat me for peeping. I happened to have in my pocket one of the musicalbank pieces, which had been given me by Mrs. Nosnibor, so I tried to tiphim with it; but having seen what it was, he became so angry that it wasall I could do to pacify him. When he was gone I ventured to take asecond look, and saw Zulora in the very act of giving a piece of paperwhich looked like a cheque to one of the cashiers. He did not examineit, but putting his hand into an antique coffer hard by, he pulled out aquantity of dull-looking metal pieces apparently at random, and handedthem over without counting them; neither did Zulora count them, but putthem into her purse and departed. It seemed a very singular proceeding, but I supposed that they knew their own business best, at any rate Zuloraseemed quite satisfied, thanked him for the money, and began makingtowards the curtain: on this I let it drop and retreated to a reasonabledistance. 

Mrs. Nosnibor and her daughters soon joined me. For some few minutes weall kept silence, but at last I ventured to remark that the bank was notso busy to-day as it probably often was. On this Mrs. Nosnibor said thatit was indeed melancholy to see what little heed people paid to the mostprecious of all institutions. I could say nothing in reply, but I haveever been of opinion that the greater part of mankind do approximatelyknow where they get that which does them good. Mrs. Nosnibor went on tosay that I must not imagine there was any want of confidence in the bankbecause I had seen so few people there; the heart of the country wasthoroughly devoted to these establishments, and any sign of their beingin danger would bring in support from the most unexpected quarters. Itwas only because people knew them to be so very safe, that in some cases(as she lamented to say in Mr. Nosnibor's) they felt that their supportwas unnecessary. Moreover these institutions never departed from thesafest and most approved banking principles. Thus they never allowedinterest on deposit, a thing now frequently done by certain bubblecompanies, which by doing an illegitimate trade had drawn many customersaway; and even the shareholders were fewer than formerly, owing to theinnovations of these unscrupulous persons. 

It came out by and by that the musical banks paid little or no dividend, but divided their profits by way of bonus on the original shares once inevery three hundred and fifty years; and as it was now only two hundredyears since there had been one of these distributions, people felt thatthey could not hope for another in their own time and preferredinvestments whereby they got some more tangible return; all which, shesaid, was very melancholy to think of. 

Having made these last admissions, she returned to her originalstatement, namely, that every one in the country really supported thebank. As to the fewness of the people, and the absence of theable-bodied, she pointed out to me with some justice that this wasexactly what we ought to expect. The men who were most conversant aboutthe stability of human institutions, such as the lawyers, men of science, doctors, statesmen, painters, and the like, were just those who were mostlikely to be misled by their own fancied accomplishments, and to be madeunduly suspicious by their licentious desire for greater present return, which was at the root of nine-tenths of the opposition, by their vanity, which would prompt them to affect superiority to the prejudices of thevulgar, and by the stings of their own conscience, which was constantlyupbraiding them in the most cruel manner on account of their bodies, which were generally diseased; let a person's intellect be never sosound, unless his body were in absolute health, he could form no judgmentworth having on matters of this kind. The body was everything: it neednot perhaps be such a _strong_ body (she said this because she saw I wasthinking of the old and infirm-looking folks whom I had seen in thebank), but it must be in perfect health; in this case, the less activestrength it had the more free would be the working of the intellect, andtherefore the sounder the conclusion. The people, then, whom I had seenat the bank were in reality the very ones whose opinions were most worthhaving; they declared its advantages to be incalculable, and evenprofessed to consider the immediate return to be far larger than theywere entitled to; and so she ran on, nor did she leave off till we hadgot back to the house. 

She might say what she pleased, but her manner was not one that carriedmuch conviction; and later on I saw signs of general indifference tothese banks that were not to be mistaken. Their supporters often deniedit, but the denial was generally so couched as to add another proof ofits existence. In commercial panics, and in times of general distress, the people as a mass did not so much as even think of turning to thesebanks. A few individuals might do so, some from habit and earlytraining, some from hope of gain, but few from a genuine belief that themoney was good; the masses turned instinctively to the other currency. Ina conversation with one of the musical bank managers I ventured to hintthis as plainly as politeness would allow. He said that it had been moreor less true till lately; but that now they had put fresh stained glasswindows into all the banks in the country, and repaired the buildings, and enlarged the organs, and taken to talking nicely to the people in thestreets, and to remembering the ages of their children and giving themthings when they were ill, so that all would henceforth go smoothly. 

"But haven't you done anything to the money itself?" said I timidly. 

To this day I do not know exactly what the bank-manager said, but it cameto this in the end--that I had better not meddle with things that I didnot understand. 

On reviewing the whole matter, I can be certain of this much only, thatthe money given out at the musical banks is not the current coin of therealm. It is not the money with which the people do as a general rulebuy their bread, meat, and clothing. It is like it; some coins very likeit; and it is not counterfeit. It is not, take it all round, a spuriousarticle made of base metal in imitation of the money which is in dailyuse; but it is a distinct coinage which, though I do not suppose it everactually superseded the ordinary gold, silver, and copper, was probablyissued by authority, and was intended to supplant those metals. Some ofthe pieces were really of exquisite beauty; and some were, I do verilybelieve, nothing but the ordinary currency, only that there was anotherhead and name in place of that of the commonwealth. And here was one ofthe great marvels; for those who were most strongly in favour of thiscoinage maintained, and even grew more excited if they were opposed herethan on any other matter, that the very self-same coin with the head ofthe commonwealth upon it was of little if any value, while it becameexceedingly precious it stamped with the other image. 

Some of the coins were plainly bad; of these last there were not many;still there were enough for them to be not uncommon. These were entirelycomposed of alloy; they would bend easily, would melt away to nothingwith a little heat, and were quite unsuited for a currency. Yet therewere few of the wealthier classes who did not maintain that even thesecoins were genuine good money, though they were chary of taking them. Every one knew this, so they were seldom offered; but all thought itincumbent upon them to retain a good many in their possession, and to letthem be seen from time to time in their hands and purses. Of coursepeople knew their real value exceedingly well; but few, if any, dared tosay what that value was; or if they did, it would be only in certaincompanies or in writing in the newspapers anonymously. Strange! therewas hardly any insinuation against this coinage which they would nottolerate and even applaud in their daily papers; and yet, if the samething were said without ambiguity to their faces--nominative case verband accusative being all in their right places, and doubt impossible--theywould consider themselves very seriously and justly outraged, and accusethe speaker of being unwell. 

I never could understand, neither can I do so now, why a single currencyshould not suffice them; it would seem to me as though all their dealingswould have been thus greatly simplified; but I was met with a look ofhorror if ever I dared to hint at it. Even those who to my certainknowledge kept only just enough money at the musical banks to swear by, would call the other banks (where their securities really lay) cold, deadening, paralysing, and the like. I noticed another thing moreoverwhich struck me greatly. I was taken to the opening of one of thesebanks in a neighbouring town, and saw a large assemblage of cashiers andmanagers. I sat opposite them and scanned their faces attentively. Theydid not please me; they lacked, with a few exceptions, the trueErewhonian frankness; and an equal number from any other class would havelooked happier and better men. When I met them in the streets they didnot seem like other people, but had, as a general rule, a crampedexpression upon their faces which pained and depressed me. 

Those who came from the country were better; they seemed to have livedless as a separate class, and to be freer and healthier; but in spite ofmy seeing not a few whose looks were benign and noble, I could not helpasking myself concerning the greater number of those whom I met, whetherErewhon would be a better country if their expression were to betransferred to the people in general. I answered myself emphatically, no. A man's expression is his sacrament; it is the outward and visiblesign of his inward and spiritual grace, or, want of grace; and as Ilooked at the majority of these men, I could not help feeling that theremust be a something in their lives which had stunted their naturaldevelopment, and that they would have been more healthily-minded in anyother profession. 

I was always sorry for them, for in nine cases out of ten they were well-meaning persons; they were in the main very poorly paid; theirconstitutions were as a rule above suspicion; and there were recordednumberless instances of their self-sacrifice and generosity; but they hadhad the misfortune to have been betrayed into a false position at an agefor the most part when their judgment was not matured, and after havingbeen kept in studied ignorance of the real difficulties of the system. But this did not make their position the less a false one, and its badeffects upon themselves were unmistakable. 

Few people would speak quite openly and freely before them, which struckme as a very bad sign. When they were in the room every one would talkas though all currency save that of the musical banks should beabolished; and yet they knew perfectly well that even the cashiersthemselves hardly used the musical bank money more than other people. Itwas expected of them that they should appear to do so, but this was all. The less thoughtful of them did not seem particularly unhappy, but manywere plainly sick at heart, though perhaps they hardly knew it, and wouldnot have owned to being so. Some few were opponents of the whole system;but these were liable to be dismissed from their employment at anymoment, and this rendered them very careful, for a man who had once beencashier at a musical bank was out of the field for other employment, andwas generally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treatment whichwas commonly called his education. In fact it was a career from whichretreat was virtually impossible, and into which young men were generallyinduced to enter before they could be reasonably expected, consideringtheir training, to have formed any opinions of their own. Few indeedwere those who had the courage to insist on seeing both sides of thequestion before they committed themselves to either. One would havethought that this was an elementary principle, --one of the first thingsthat an honourable man would teach his boy to do; but in practice it wasnot so. 

I even saw cases in which parents bought the right of presenting to theoffice of cashier at one of these banks, with the fixed determinationthat some one of their sons (perhaps a mere child) should fill it. Therewas the lad himself--growing up with every promise of becoming a good andhonourable man--but utterly without warning concerning the iron shoewhich his natural protector was providing for him. Who could say thatthe whole thing would not end in a life-long lie, and vain chafing toescape?

I confess that there were few things in Erewhon which shocked me morethan this. 

BIRTH FORMULAE. (CHAPTER XVII. OF EREWHON. )

I heard what follows not from Arowhena, but from Mr. Nosnibor and some ofthe gentlemen who occasionally dined at the house: they told me that theErewhonians believe in pre-existence; and not only this (of which I willwrite more fully in the next chapter), but they believe that it is oftheir own free act and deed in a previous state that people come to beborn into this world at all. 

They hold that the unborn are perpetually plaguing and tormenting themarried (and sometimes even the unmarried) of both sexes, flutteringabout them incessantly, and giving them no peace either of mind or bodyuntil they have consented to take them under their protection. If thiswere not so--this is at least what they urge--it would be a monstrousfreedom for one man to take with another, to say that he should undergothe chances and changes of this mortal life without any option in thematter. No man would have any right to get married at all, inasmuch ashe can never tell what misery his doing so may entail forcibly upon hischildren who cannot be unhappy as long as they remain unborn. They feelthis so strongly that they are resolved to shift the blame on to othershoulders; they have therefore invented a long mythology as to the worldin which the unborn people live, what they do, and the arts andmachinations to which they have recourse in order to get themselves intoour own world. 

I cannot think they seriously believe in this mythology concerning pre-existence; they do and they do not; they do not know themselves what theybelieve; all they know is that it is a disease not to believe as they do. The only thing of which they are quite sure is that it is the pesteringof the unborn, which causes them to be brought into this world, and thatthey would not be here if they would only let peaceable people alone. 

It would be hard to disprove this position, and they might have a goodcase if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will notdo; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written wordof the child itself as soon as it is born, giving the parents indemnityfrom all responsibility on the score of its birth, and asserting its ownpre-existence. They have therefore devised something which they call abirth formula--a document which varies in words according to the cautionof parents, but is much the same practically in all cases; for it hasbeen the business of the Erewhonian lawyers during many ages to exercisetheir skill in perfecting it and providing for every contingency. 

These formulae are printed on common paper at a moderate cost for thepoor; but the rich have them written on parchment and handsomely bound, so that the getting up of a person's birth formula is a test of hissocial position. They commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. Wasa member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for inevery way, and had no cause of discontent, &c. &c. , he did of his ownwanton restlessness conceive a desire to enter into this present world;that thereon having taken the necessary steps as set forth in laws of theunborn kingdom, he set himself with malice aforethought to plague andpester two unfortunate people who had never wronged him, and who werequite contented until he conceived this base design against their peace;for which wrong he now humbly entreats their pardon. He acknowledgesthat he is responsible for all physical blemishes and deficiencies whichmay render him answerable to the laws of his country; that his parentshave nothing whatever to do with any of these things; and that they havea right to kill him at once if they be so minded, though he entreats themto show their marvellous goodness and clemency towards him by sparing hislife. If they will do this he promises to be their most abject creatureduring his earlier years, and indeed unto his life's end, unless theyshould see fit in their abundant generosity to remit some portion of hisservice hereafter. And so the formula continues, going sometimes intovery minute details, according to the fancies of family lawyers, who willnot make it any shorter than they can help. 

The deed being thus prepared, on the third or fourth day after the birthof the child, or as they call it, the "final importunity, " the friendsgather together, and there is a feast held, where they are all verymelancholy--as a general rule, I believe quite truly so--and makepresents to the father and mother of the child in order to console themfor the injury which has just been done them by the unborn. By and bythe child himself is brought down by his nurse, and the company begin torail upon him, upbraiding him for his impertinence and asking him whatamends he proposes to make for the wrong that he has committed, and howhe can look for care and nourishment from those who have perhaps alreadybeen injured by the unborn on some ten or twelve occasions; for they sayof people with large families, that they have suffered terrible injuriesfrom the unborn; till at last, when this has been carried far enough, some one suggests the formula, which is brought forth and solemnly readto the child by the family straightener. This gentleman is alwaysinvited on these occasions, for the very fact of intrusion into apeaceful family shows a depravity on the part of the child which requireshis professional services. 

On being teased by the reading and tweaked by the nurse, the child willcommonly fall a-crying, which is reckoned a good sign as showing aconsciousness of guilt. He is thereon asked, Does he assent to theformula? on which, as he still continues crying and can obviously make noanswer, some one of the friends comes forward and undertakes to sign thedocument on his behalf, feeling sure (so he says) that the child would doit if he only knew how, and that he will release the present signer fromhis engagement on arriving at maturity. The friend then inscribes thesignature of the child at the foot of the parchment, which is held tobind the child as much as though he had signed it himself. Even this, however, does not fully content them, for they feel a little uneasy untilthey have got the child's own signature after all. So when he is aboutfourteen these good people partly bribe him by promises of greaterliberty and good things, and partly intimidate him through their greatpower of making themselves passively unpleasant to him, so that thoughthere is a show of freedom made, there is really none, and partly theyuse the offices of the teachers in the Colleges of Unreason, till atlast, in one way or another, they take very good care that he shall signthe paper by which he professes to have been a free agent in coming intothe world, and to take all the responsibility of having done so on to hisown shoulders. And yet, though this document is in theory the mostimportant which any one can sign in his whole life, they will have himcommit himself to it at an age when neither they nor the law will formany a year allow any one else to bind him to the smallest obligation, nomatter how righteously he may owe it, because they hold him too young toknow what he is about. 

I thought this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece with the manyadmirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say apart of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason. Iasked him whether he did not think it would do serious harm to a lad'sprinciples, and weaken his sense of the sanctity of his word, and oftruth generally, that he should be led into entering upon an engagementwhich it was so plainly impossible he should keep even for a single daywith tolerable integrity--whether, in fact, the teachers who so led him, or who taught anything as a certainty of which they were themselvesuncertain, were not earning their living by impairing the truth-sense oftheir pupils. The professor, who was a delightful person, seemedsurprised at the view I took, and gave me to understand, perhaps justlyenough, that I ought not to make so much fuss about a trifle. No one, hesaid, expected that the boy either would or could do all that heundertook; but the world was full of compromises; and there was hardlyany engagement which would bear being interpreted literally. Humanlanguage was too gross a vehicle of thought--thought being incapable ofabsolute translation. He added, that as there can be no translation fromone language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, orenlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought withouta jarring and a harshness somewhere--and so forth; all of which seemed tocome to this in the end, that it was the custom of the country, and thatthe Erewhonians were a conservative people; that the boy would have tobegin compromising sooner or later, and this was part of his education inthe art. It was perhaps to be regretted that compromise should be asnecessary as it was; still it was necessary, and the sooner the boy gotto understand it the better for himself. But they never tell this to theboy. 

From the book of their mythology about the unborn I made the extractswhich will form the following chapter. 

THE WORLD OF THE UNBORN. (PART OF CHAPTER XVII. OF EREWHON. )

The Erewhonians say it was by chance only that the earth and stars andall the heavenly worlds began to roll from east to west, and not fromwest to east, and in like manner they say it is by chance that man isdrawn through life with his face to the past instead of to the future. For the future is there as much as the past, only that we may not see it. Is it not in the loins of the past, and must not the past alter beforethe future can do so?

They have a fable that there was a race of men tried upon the earth once, who knew the future better than the past, but that they died in atwelvemonth from the misery which their knowledge caused them. They saythat if any were to be born too prescient now, he would die miserably, before he had time to transmit so peace-destroying a faculty todescendants. 

Strange fate for man! He must perish if he get that, which he mustperish if he strive not after. If he strive not after it he is no betterthan the brutes, if he get it he is more miserable than the devils. 

Having waded through many chapters like the above, I came at last to theunborn themselves, and found that they were held to be souls pure andsimple, having no actual bodies, but living in a sort of gaseous yet moreor less anthropomorphic existence, like that of a ghost; they have thusneither flesh nor blood nor warmth. Nevertheless they are supposed tohave local habitations and cities wherein they dwell, though these are asunsubstantial as their inhabitants; they are even thought to eat anddrink some thin ambrosial sustenance, and generally to be capable ofdoing whatever mankind can do, only after a visionary ghostly fashion, asin a dream. On the other hand, as long as they remain where they arethey never die--the only form of death in the unborn world being theleaving it for our own. They are believed to be extremely numerous, farmore so than mankind. They arrive from unknown planets, full grown, inlarge batches at a time; but they can only leave the unborn world bytaking the steps necessary for their arrival here--which is, in fact, bysuicide. 

They ought to be a happy people, for they have no extremes of good or illfortune; never marrying, but living in a state much like that fabled bythe poets as the primitive condition of mankind. In spite of this, however, they are incessantly complaining; they know that we in thisworld have bodies, and indeed they know everything else about us, forthey move among us whithersoever they will, and can read our thoughts, aswell as survey our actions at pleasure. One would think that this shouldbe enough for them; and indeed most of them are alive to the desperaterisk which they will run by indulging themselves in that body with"sensible warm motion" which they so much desire; nevertheless, there aresome to whom the _ennui_ of a disembodied existence is so intolerablethat they will venture anything for a change; so they resolve to quit. The conditions which they must accept are so uncertain, that none but themost foolish of the unborn will consent to take them; and it is fromthese and these only that our own ranks are recruited. 

When they have finally made up their minds to leave, they must go beforethe magistrate of the nearest town and sign an affidavit of their desireto quit their then existence. On their having done this, the magistratereads them the conditions which they must accept, and which are so longthat I can only extract some of the principal points, which are mainlythe following:--

First, they must take a potion which will destroy their memory and senseof identity; they must go into the world helpless, and without a will oftheir own; they must draw lots for their dispositions before they go, andtake it, such as it is, for better or worse--neither are they to beallowed any choice in the matter of the body which they so much desire;they are simply allotted by chance, and without appeal, to two peoplewhom it is their business to find and pester until they adopt them. Whothese are to be, whether rich or poor, kind or unkind, healthy ordiseased, there is no knowing; they have, in fact, to entrust themselvesfor many years to the care of those for whose good constitution and goodsense they have no sort of guarantee. 

It is curious to read the lectures which the wiser heads give to thosewho are meditating a change. They talk with them as we talk with aspendthrift, and with about as much success. 

"To be born, " they say, "is a felony--it is a capital crime, for whichsentence may be executed at any moment after the commission of theoffence. You may perhaps happen to live for some seventy or eightyyears, but what is that, in comparison with the eternity which you nowenjoy? And even though the sentence were commuted, and you were allowedto live for ever, you would in time become so terribly weary of life thatexecution would be the greatest mercy to you. Consider the infiniterisk; to be born of wicked parents and trained in vice! to be born ofsilly parents, and trained to unrealities! of parents who regard you as asort of chattel or property, belonging more to them than to yourself!Again, you may draw utterly unsympathetic parents, who will never be ableto understand you, and who will thwart you as long as they can to theutmost of their power (as a hen when she has hatched a duckling), andthen call you ungrateful because you do not love them, or parents who maylook upon you as a thing to be cowed while it is still young, lest itshould give them trouble hereafter by having wishes and feelings of itsown. 

"In later life, when you have been finally allowed to pass muster as afull member of the world, you will yourself become liable to thepesterings of the unborn--and a very happy life you may be led inconsequence! For we solicit so strongly that a few only--nor these thebest--can refuse us; and yet not to refuse is much the same as going intopartnership with half a dozen different people about whom one can knowabsolutely nothing beforehand--not even whether one is going intopartnership with men or women, nor with how many of either. Delude notyourself with thinking that you will be wiser than your parents. You maybe an age in advance of _them_, but unless you are one of the great ones(and if you are one of the great ones, woe betide you), you will still bean age behind your children. 

"Imagine what it must be to have an unborn quartered upon you, who is ofa different temperament to your own; nay, half a dozen such, who will notlove you though you may tell them that you have stinted yourself in athousand ways to provide for their well-being, --who will forget all thatself-sacrifice of which you are yourself so conscious, and of whom youmay never be sure that they are not bearing a grudge against you forerrors of judgment into which you may have fallen, but which you hadhoped had been long since atoned for. Ingratitude such as this is notuncommon, yet fancy what it must be to bear! It is hard upon theduckling to have been hatched by a hen, but is it not also hard upon thehen to have hatched the duckling?

"Consider it again, we pray you, not for our sake but for your own. Yourinitial character you must draw by lot; but whatever it is, it can onlycome to a tolerably successful development after long training; rememberthat over that training you will have no control. It is possible, andeven probable, that whatever you may get in after life which is of realpleasure and service to you, will have to be won in spite of, rather thanby the help of, those whom you are now about to pester, and that you willonly win your freedom after years of a painful struggle, in which it willbe hard to say whether you have suffered most injury, or inflicted it. 

"Remember also, that if you go into the world you will have free will;that you will be obliged to have it, that there is no escaping it, thatyou will be fettered to it during your whole life, and must on everyoccasion do that which on the whole seems best to you at any given time, no matter whether you are right or wrong in choosing it. Your mind willbe a balance for considerations, and your action will go with the heavierscale. How it shall fall will depend upon the kind of scales which youmay have drawn at birth, the bias which they will have obtained by use, and the weight of the immediate considerations. If the scales were goodto start with, and if they have not been outrageously tampered with inchildhood, and if the combinations into which you enter are average ones, you may come off well; but there are too many "ifs" in this, and with thefailure of any one of them your misery is assured. Reflect on this, andremember that should the ill come upon you, you will have yourself tothank, for it is your own choice to be born, and there is no compulsionin the matter. 

"Not that we deny the existence of pleasures among mankind; there is acertain show of sundry phases of contentment which may even amount tovery considerable happiness; but mark how they are distributed over aman's life, belonging, all the keenest of them, to the fore part, and fewindeed to the after. Can there be any pleasure worth purchasing with themiseries of a decrepit age? If you are good, strong, and handsome, youhave a fine fortune indeed at twenty, but how much of it will be left atsixty? For you must live on your capital; there is no investing yourpowers so that you may get a small annuity of life for ever: you must eatup your principal bit by bit and be tortured by seeing it growcontinually smaller and smaller, even though you happen to escape beingrudely robbed of it by crime or casualty. Remember, too, that therenever yet was a man of forty who would not come back into the world ofthe unborn if he could do so with decency and honour. Being in theworld, he will as a general rule stay till he is forced to go; but do youthink that he would consent to be born again, and re-live his life, if hehad the offer of doing so? Do not think it. If he could so alter thepast as that he should never have come into being at all, do you notthink that he would do it very gladly? What was it that one of their ownpoets meant, if it was not this, when he cried out upon the day in whichhe was born, and the night in which it was said there is a man childconceived? 'For now, ' he says, 'I should have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then had I been at rest with kings and counsellorsof the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princesthat had gold, who filled their houses with silver; or as an hiddenuntimely birth, I had not been; as infants which never saw light. Therethe wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. ' Be verysure that the guilt of being born carries this punishment at times to allmen; but how can they ask for pity, or complain of any mischief that maybefall them, having entered open-eyed into the snare?

"One word more and we have done. If any faint remembrance, as of adream, flit in some puzzled moment across your brain, and you shall feelthat the potion which is to be given you shall not have done its work, and the memory of this existence which you are leaving endeavours vainlyto return; we say in such a moment, when you clutch at the dream but iteludes your grasp, and you watch it, as Orpheus watched Eurydice, glidingback again into the twilight kingdom, fly--fly--if you can remember theadvice--to the haven of your present and immediate duty, taking shelterincessantly in the work which you have in hand. This much you mayperhaps recall; and this, if you will imprint it deeply upon your everyfaculty, will be most likely to bring you safely and honourably homethrough the trials that are before you. " {47}

This is the fashion in which they reason with those who would be forleaving them, but it is seldom that they do much good, for none but theunquiet and unreasonable ever think of being born, and those who arefoolish enough to think of it are generally foolish enough to do it. Finding therefore that they can do no more, the friends follow weeping tothe courthouse of the chief magistrate, where the one who wishes to beborn declares solemnly and openly that he accepts the conditions attachedto his decision. On this he is presented with the potion, whichimmediately destroys his memory and sense of identity, and dissipates thethin gaseous tenement which he has inhabited: he becomes a bare vitalprinciple, not to be perceived by human senses, nor appreciated by anychemical test. He has but one instinct, which is that he is to go tosuch and such a place, where he will find two persons whom he is toimportune till they consent to undertake him; but whether he is to findthese persons among the race of Chowbok or the Erewhonians themselves isnot for him to choose. 

SELECTIONS FROM THE FAIR HAVEN. 

MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN PICKARD OWEN. (CHAPTER I. OF THE FAIR HAVEN. ){48}

The subject of this memoir, and author of the work which follows it, wasborn in Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, on the 5th ofFebruary 1832. He was my elder brother by about eighteen months. Ourfather and mother had once been rich, but through a succession ofunavoidable misfortunes they were left with but a slender income when mybrother and myself were about three and four years old. My father diedsome five or six years afterwards, and we only recollected him as asingularly gentle and humorous playmate who doted upon us both and neverspoke unkindly. 

The charm of such a recollection can never be dispelled; both my brotherand myself returned his love with interest, and cherished his memory withthe most affectionate regret, from the day on which he left us till thetime came that the one of us was again to see him face to face. So sweetand winning was his nature that his slightest wish was our law--andwhenever we pleased him, no matter how little, he never failed to thankus as though we had done him a service which we should have had a perfectright to withhold. How proud were we upon any of these occasions, andhow we courted the opportunity of being thanked! He did indeed well knowthe art of becoming idolised by his children, and dearly did he prize theresults of his own proficiency; yet truly there was no art about it; allarose spontaneously from the well-spring of a sympathetic nature whichwas quick to feel as others felt, whether old or young, rich or poor, wise or foolish. On one point alone did he neglect us--I refer to ourreligious education. On all other matters he was the kindest and mostcareful teacher in the world. Love and gratitude be to his memory!

My mother loved us no less ardently than my father, but she was of aquicker temper, and less adept at conciliating affection. She must havebeen exceedingly handsome when she was young, and was still comely whenwe first remembered her; she was also highly accomplished, but she feltmy father's loss of fortune more keenly than my father himself, and itpreyed upon her mind, though rather for our sake than for her own. Hadwe not known my father we should have loved her better than any one inthe world, but affection goes by comparison, and my father spoiled us forany one but himself; indeed, in after life, I remember my mother'stelling me, with many tears, how jealous she had often been of the lovewe bore him, and how mean she had thought it of him to entrust allscolding or repression to her, so that he might have more than his dueshare of our affection. Not that I believe my father did thisconsciously; still, he so greatly hated scolding that I dare say we mightoften have got off scot-free when we really deserved reproof had not mymother undertaken the _onus_ of scolding us herself. We thereforenaturally feared her more than my father, and fearing more we loved less. For as love casteth out fear, so fear love. 

This must have been hard to bear, and my mother scarcely knew the way tobear it. She tried to upbraid us, in little ways, into loving her asmuch as my father; the more she tried this, the less we could succeed indoing it; and so on and so on in a fashion which need not be detailed. Not but what we really loved her deeply, while her affection for us wasinsurpassable; still we loved her less than we loved my father, and thiswas the grievance. 

My father entrusted our religious education entirely to my mother. Hewas himself, I am assured, of a deeply religious turn of mind, and athoroughly consistent member of the Church of England; but he conceived, and perhaps rightly, that it is the mother who should first teach herchildren to lift their hands in prayer, and impart to them a knowledge ofthe One in whom we live and move and have our being. My mother acceptedthe task gladly, for in spite of a certain narrowness of view--thenatural but deplorable result of her earlier surroundings--she was one ofthe most truly pious women whom I have ever known; unfortunately forherself and us she had been trained in the lowest school of Evangelicalliteralism--a school which in after life both my brother and myself cameto regard as the main obstacle to the complete overthrow of unbelief; wetherefore looked upon it with something stronger than aversion, and formy own part I still deem it perhaps the most insidious enemy which thecause of Christ has ever encountered. But of this more hereafter. 

My mother, as I said, threw her whole soul into the work of our religiouseducation. Whatever she believed she believed literally, and, if I maysay so, with a harshness of realisation which left little scope forimagination or mystery. Her ideas concerning heaven and her solutions oflife's enigmas were clear and simple, but they could only be reconciledwith certain obvious facts--such as the omnipotence and all-goodness ofGod--by leaving many things absolutely out of sight. And this my mothersucceeded effectually in doing. She never doubted that her opinionscomprised the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; shetherefore made haste to sow the good seed in our tender minds, and so farsucceeded that when my brother was four years old he could repeat theApostles' Creed, the general confession, and the Lord's Prayer without ablunder. My mother made herself believe that he delighted in them; but, alas! it was far otherwise; for strange as it may appear concerning onewhose later life was a continual prayer, in childhood he detested nothingso much as being made to pray, and to learn his catechism. In this I amsorry to say we were both heartily of a mind. As for Sunday the lesssaid the better. 

I have already hinted (but as a warning to other parents had better, perhaps, express myself more plainly) that this aversion was probably theresult of my mother's undue eagerness to reap an artificial fruit of lip-service, which could have little meaning to the heart of one so young. Ibelieve that the severe check which the natural growth of faithexperienced in my brother's case was due almost entirely to this cause, and to the school of literalism in which he had been trained; but, however this may be, we both of us hated being made to say our prayers. Morning and evening it was our one bugbear, and we would avoid it, asindeed children generally will, by every artifice which we could employ. 

Thus we were in the habit of feigning to be asleep shortly before prayertime, and would gratefully hear my father tell my mother that it was ashame to wake us; whereon he would carry us up to bed in a stateapparently of the profoundest slumber when we were really wide awake andin great fear of detection. For we knew how to pretend to be asleep, butwe did not know how we ought to wake again; there was nothing for ittherefore when we were once committed, but to go on sleeping till we werefairly undressed and put to bed, and could wake up safely in the dark. But deceit is never long successful, and we were at last ignominiouslyexposed. 

It happened one evening that my mother suspected my brother John, andtried to open his little hands which were lying clasped in front of him. Now my brother was as yet very crude and inconsistent in his theoriesconcerning sleep, and had no conception what a real sleeper would dounder these circumstances. Fear deprived him of his powers ofreflection, and he thus unfortunately concluded that because sleepers, sofar as he had observed them, were always motionless, therefore they mustbe rigid and incapable of motion; and indeed that any movement, under anycircumstances (for from his earliest childhood he liked to carry histheories to their legitimate conclusion), would be physically impossiblefor one who was really sleeping; forgetful, oh! unhappy one, of theflexibility of his own body on being carried up stairs, and, more unhappystill, ignorant of the art of waking. He therefore clenched his fingersharder and harder as he felt my mother trying to unfold them, while hishead hung listless, and his eyes were closed as though he were sleepingsweetly. It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed. Mymother begged my father to box his ears, which my father flatly refusedto do. Then she boxed them herself, and there followed a scene, and aday or two of disgrace for both of us. 

Shortly after this there happened another misadventure. A lady came tostay with my mother, and was to sleep in a bed that had been brought intoour nursery, for my father's fortunes had already failed, and we wereliving in a humble way. We were still but four and five years old, sothe arrangement was not unnatural, and it was assumed that we should beasleep before the lady went to bed, and be down stairs before she wouldget up in the morning. But the arrival of this lady and her being put tosleep in the nursery were great events to us in those days, and beingparticularly wanted to go to sleep, we of course sat up in bed talkingand keeping ourselves awake till she should come up stairs. Perhaps wehad fancied that she would give us something, but if so we weredisappointed. However, whether this was the case or not, we were wideawake when our visitor came to bed, and having no particular object togain, we made no pretence of sleeping. The lady kissed us both, told usto lie still and go to sleep like good children, and then began doing herhair. 

I remember this was the occasion on which my brother discovered a goodmany things in connection with the fair sex which had hitherto beenbeyond his ken; more especially that the mass of petticoats and clotheswhich envelop the female form were not, as he expressed it to me, "allsolid woman, " but that women were not in reality more substantially builtthan men, and had legs as much as he had--a fact which he had never yetrealised. On this he for a long time considered them as impostors, whohad wronged him by leading him to suppose that they had far more "body inthem" (so he said) than he now found they had. 

This was a sort of thing which he regarded with stern moral reprobation. If he had been old enough to have a solicitor I believe he would have putthe matter into his hands, as well as certain other things which hadlately troubled him. For but recently my mother had bought a fowl, andhe had seen it plucked, and the inside taken out; his irritation had beenextreme on discovering that fowls were not all solid flesh, but thattheir insides--and these formed, as it appeared to him, an enormouspercentage of the bird--were perfectly useless. He was now beginning tounderstand that sheep and cows were also hollow as far as good meat wasconcerned; the flesh they had was only a mouthful in comparison with whatthey ought to have considering their apparent bulk: insignificant, mereskin and bone covering a cavern. What right had they, or anything else, to assert themselves as so big, and prove so empty? And now thisdiscovery of woman's falsehood was quite too much for him. The worlditself was hollow, made up of shams and delusions, full of sound and furysignifying nothing. 

Truly a prosaic young gentleman enough. Everything with him was to beexactly in all its parts what it appeared on the face of it, andeverything was to go on doing exactly what it had been doing hitherto. Ifa thing looked solid, it was to be very solid; if hollow, very hollow;nothing was to be half and half, and nothing was to change unless he hadhimself already become accustomed to its times and manners of changing;there were to be no exceptions and no contradictions; all things were tobe perfectly consistent, and all premisses to be carried with extremestrigour to their legitimate conclusions. Heaven was to be very neat (forhe was always tidy himself), and free from sudden shocks to the nervoussystem, such as those caused by dogs barking at him, or cows driven inthe streets. God was to resemble my father, and the Holy Spirit to bearsome sort of indistinct analogy to my mother. 

Such were the ideal theories of his childhood--unconsciously formed, butvery firmly believed in. As he grew up he made such modifications aswere forced upon him by enlarged perceptions, but every modification wasan effort to him, in spite of a continual and successful resistance towhat he recognised as his initial mental defect. 

I may perhaps be allowed to say here, in reference to a remark in thepreceding paragraph, that both my brother and myself used to notice it asan almost invariable rule that children's earliest ideas of God aremodelled upon the character of their father--if they have one. Shouldthe father be kind, considerate, full of the warmest love, fond ofshowing it, and reserved only about his displeasure, the child, havinglearned to look upon God as his Heavenly Father through the Lord's Prayerand our Church Services, will feel towards God as he does towards his ownfather; this conception will stick to a man for years and years after hehas attained manhood--probably it will never leave him. On the otherhand, if a man has found his earthly father harsh and uncongenial, hisconception of his Heavenly Parent will be painful. He will begin byseeing God as an exaggerated likeness of his father. He will thereforeshrink from Him. The rottenness of still-born love in the heart of achild poisons the blood of the soul, and hence, later, crime. 

To return, however, to the lady. When she had put on her night-gown, sheknelt down by her bed-side and, to our consternation, began to say herprayers. This was a cruel blow to both of us; we had always been underthe impression that grown-up people were not made to say their prayers, and the idea of any one saying them of his or her own accord had neveroccurred to us as possible. Of course the lady would not say her prayersif she were not obliged; and yet she did say them; therefore she must beobliged to say them; therefore we should be obliged to say them, and thiswas a great disappointment. Awe-struck and open-mouthed we listenedwhile the lady prayed aloud and with a good deal of pathos for manyvirtues and blessings which I do not now remember, and finally for myfather and mother and for both of us--shortly afterwards she rose, blewout the light and got into bed. Every word that she said had confirmedour worst apprehensions: it was just what we had been taught to sayourselves. 

Next morning we compared notes and drew some painful inferences; but inthe course of the day our spirits rallied. We agreed that there weremany mysteries in connection with life and things which it was high timeto unravel, and that an opportunity was now afforded us which might notreadily occur again. All we had to do was to be true to ourselves andequal to the occasion. We laid our plans with great astuteness. Wewould be fast asleep when the lady came up to bed, but our heads shouldbe turned in the direction of her bed, and covered with clothes, all buta single peep-hole. My brother, as the eldest, had clearly a right to benearest the lady, but I could see sufficiently, and could depend on hisreporting faithfully whatever should escape me. 

There was no chance of her giving us anything--if she had meant to do soshe would have done it sooner; she might, indeed, consider the moment ofher departure as the most auspicious for this purpose, but then she wasnot going yet, and the interval was at our own disposal. We spent theafternoon in trying to learn to snore, but we were not certain about it, and in the end concluded that as snoring was not _de rigueur_ we hadbetter dispense with it. 

We were put to bed; the light was taken away; we were told to go tosleep, and promised faithfully that we would do so; the tongue indeedswore, but the mind was unsworn. It was agreed that we should keeppinching one another to prevent our going to sleep. We did so atfrequent intervals; at last our patience was rewarded with the heavycreak, as of a stout elderly lady labouring up the stairs, and presentlyour victim entered. 

To cut a long story short, the lady on satisfying herself that we wereasleep, never said her prayers at all; during the remainder of her visitwhenever she found us awake she always said them, but when she thought wewere asleep, she never prayed. I should perhaps say that we had thematter out with her before she left, and that the consequences wereunpleasant for all parties; they added to the troubles in which we werealready involved as to our prayers, and were indirectly among theearliest causes which led my brother to look with scepticism uponreligion. 

For awhile, however, all went on as though nothing had happened. Aneffect of distrust, indeed, remained after the cause had been forgotten, but my brother was still too young to oppose anything that my mother toldhim, and to all outward appearance he grew in grace no less rapidly thanin stature. 

For years we led a quiet and eventless life, broken only by the one greatsorrow of our father's death. Shortly after this we were sent to a dayschool in Bloomsbury. We were neither of us very happy there, but mybrother, who always took kindly to his books, picked up a fair knowledgeof Latin and Greek; he also learned to draw, and to exercise himself alittle in English composition. When I was about fourteen my mothercapitalised a part of her income and started me off to America, where shehad friends who could give me a helping hand; by their kindness I wasenabled, after an absence of twenty years, to return with a handsomeincome, but not, alas! before the death of my mother. 

Up to the time of my departure my mother continued to read the Bible withus and explain it. She had become enamoured of those millenarianopinions which laid hold of so many some twenty-five or thirty years ago. The Apocalypse was perhaps her favourite book in the Bible, and she wasimbued with a conviction that all the many and varied horrors with whichit teems were upon the eve of their accomplishment. The year eighteenhundred and forty-eight was to be (as indeed it was) a time of generalbloodshed and confusion, while in eighteen hundred and sixty-six, shouldit please God to spare her, her eyes would be gladdened by the visibledescent of the Son of Man with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ should rise first; thenshe, as one of them that were alive, would be caught up with other saintsinto the air, and would possibly receive while rising some distinguishingtoken of confidence and approbation which should fall with dueimpressiveness upon the surrounding multitude; then would come theconsummation of all things, and she would be ever with the Lord. Shedied peaceably in her bed before she could know that a commercial panicwas the nearest approach to the fulfilment of prophecy which the yeareighteen hundred and sixty-six brought forth. 

These opinions of my mother's injured her naturally healthy and vigorousmind by leading her to indulge in all manner of dreamy and fancifulinterpretations of Scripture, which any but the most narrow literalistwould feel at once to be untenable. Thus several times she expressed tous her conviction that my brother and myself were to be the two witnessesmentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation, and dilatedupon the gratification she should experience upon finding that we hadindeed been reserved for a position of such distinction. We were as yetmere children, and naturally took all for granted that our mother toldus; we therefore made a careful examination of the passage which threwlight upon our future. On finding that the prospect was gloomy and fullof bloodshed we protested against the honours which were intended for us, more especially when we reflected that the mother of the two witnesseswas not menaced in Scripture with any particular discomfort. If we wereto be martyrs, my mother ought to wish to be a martyr too, whereasnothing was farther from her intention. Her notion clearly was that wewere to be massacred somewhere in the streets of London, in consequenceof the anti-Christian machinations of the Pope; that after lying aboutunburied for three days and a half we were to come to life again; andfinally, that we should conspicuously ascend to heaven, in front, perhaps, of the Foundling Hospital. 

She was not herself indeed to share either our martyrdom or ourglorification, but was to survive us many years on earth, living in anodour of great sanctity and reflected splendour, as the central and mostaugust figure in a select society. She would perhaps be able indirectly, through her sons' influence with the Almighty, to have a voice in most ofthe arrangements both of this world and of the next. If all this were tocome true (and things seemed very like it), those friends who hadneglected us in our adversity would not find it too easy to be restoredto favour, however greatly they might desire it--that is to say, theywould not have found it too easy in the case of one less magnanimous andspiritually-minded than herself. My mother said but little of the abovedirectly, but the fragments which occasionally escaped her were pregnant, and on looking back it is easy to perceive that she must have beenbuilding one of the most stupendous aerial fabrics that have ever beenreared. 

I have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half afraidthat I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the part of one ofthe most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever existed. But one canlove while smiling, and the very wildness of my mother's dream serves toshow how entirely her whole soul was occupied with the things which areabove. To her, religion was all in all; the earth was but a place ofpilgrimage--only so far important as it was a possible road to heaven. She impressed this upon both of us by every word and action--instant inseason and out of season, so that she might but fill us more deeply witha sense of the things belonging to our peace. 

But the inevitable consequences happened; my mother had aimed too highand had overshot her mark. The influence indeed of her guileless andunworldly nature remained impressed upon my brother even during the timeof his extremest unbelief (perhaps his ultimate safety is in the mainreferable to this cause, and to the happy memories of my father, whichhad predisposed him to love God), but my mother had insisted on the mostminute verbal accuracy of every part of the Bible; she had also dweltupon the duty of independent research, and on the necessity of giving upeverything rather than assent to things which our conscience did notassent to. No one could have more effectually taught us to try _tothink_ the truth, and we had taken her at her word because our heartstold us that she was right. But she required three incompatible things. When my brother grew older he came to feel that independent andunflinching examination, with a determination to abide by the results, would lead him to reject the point which to my mother was more importantthan any other--I mean the absolute accuracy of the Gospel records. Mymother was inexpressibly shocked at hearing my brother doubt theauthenticity of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and then, as it appeared tohim, she tried to make him violate the duties of examination and candourwhich he had learnt too thoroughly to unlearn. Thereon came pain and anestrangement which was none the less profound for being mutuallyconcealed. It seemed to my mother that he would not give up thewilfulness of his own opinions for her and for his Redeemer's sake. Tohim it seemed that he was ready to give up not only his mother but ChristHimself for Christ's sake. 

This estrangement was the gradual work of some five or six years, duringwhich my brother was between eleven and seventeen years old. Atseventeen, I am told that he was remarkably well informed and clever. Hismanners were, like my father's, singularly genial, and his appearancevery prepossessing. He had as yet no doubt concerning the soundness ofany fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was already too activeto allow of his being contented with my mother's childlike faith. Therewere points on which he did not indeed doubt, but which it would none theless be interesting to consider; such for example as the perfectibilityof the regenerate Christian, and the meaning of the mysterious centralchapters of the Epistle to the Romans. He was engaged in theseresearches though still only a boy, when an event occurred which gave thefirst real shock to his faith. 

He was accustomed to teach in a school for the poorest children everySunday afternoon, a task for which his patience and good temper wellfitted him. On one occasion, however, while he was explaining the effectof baptism to one of his favourite pupils, he discovered to his greatsurprise that the boy had never been baptized. He pushed his inquiriesfurther, and found that out of the fifteen boys in his class only fivehad been baptized, and, not only so, but that no difference indisposition or conduct could be discovered between the regenerate boysand the unregenerate. The good and bad boys were distributed inproportions equal to the respective numbers of the baptized andunbaptized. In spite of a certain impetuosity of natural character, hewas also of a matter-of-fact and experimental turn of mind; he thereforewent through the whole school, which numbered about a hundred boys, andfound out who had been baptized and who had not. The same resultsappeared. The majority had not been baptized; yet the good and baddispositions were so distributed as to preclude all possibility ofmaintaining that the baptized boys were better than the unbaptized. 

The reader may smile at the idea of any one's faith being troubled by afact of which the explanation is so obvious, but as a matter of fact mybrother was seriously and painfully shocked. The teacher to whom heapplied for a solution of the difficulty was not a man of any real power, and reported my brother to the rector for having disturbed the school byhis inquiries. The rector was old and self-opinionated; the difficulty, indeed, was plainly as new to him as it had been to my brother, butinstead of saying so at once, and referring to any recognised theologicalauthority, he tried to put him off with words which seemed intended tosilence him rather than to satisfy him; finally he lost his temper, andmy brother fell under suspicion of unorthodoxy. 

This kind of treatment did not answer with my brother. He alludes to itresentfully in the introductory chapter of his book. He becamesuspicious that a preconceived opinion was being defended at the expenseof honest scrutiny, and was thus driven upon his own unaidedinvestigation. The result may be guessed: he began to go astray, andstrayed further and further. The children of God, he reasoned, themembers of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, were no morespiritually minded than the children of the world and the devil. Wasthen the grace of God a gift which left no trace whatever upon those whowere possessed of it? A thing the presence or absence of which might beascertained by consulting the parish registry, but was not discernible inconduct? The grace of man was more clearly perceptible than this. Assuredly there must be a screw loose somewhere, which, for aught heknew, might be jeopardising the salvation of all Christendom. Where thenwas this loose screw to be found?

He concluded after some months of reflection that the mischief was causedby the system of sponsors and by infant baptism. He, therefore, to mymother's inexpressible grief, joined the Baptists, and was immersed in apond near Dorking. With the Baptists he remained quiet about threemonths, and then began to quarrel with his instructors as to theirdoctrine of predestination. Shortly afterwards he came accidentally upona fascinating stranger who was no less struck with my brother than mybrother with him, and this gentleman, who turned out to be a RomanCatholic missionary, landed him in the Church of Rome, where he felt surethat he had now found rest for his soul. But here, too, he was mistaken;after about two years he rebelled against the stifling of all freeinquiry; on this rebellion the flood-gates of scepticism were opened, andhe was soon battling with unbelief. He then fell in with one who was apure Deist, and was shorn of every shred of dogma which he had ever held, except a belief in the personality and providence of the Creator. 

On reviewing his letters written to me about this time, I am painfullystruck with the manner in which they show that all these pitiablevagaries were to be traced to a single cause--a cause which still existsto the misleading of hundreds of thousands, and which, I fear, seemslikely to continue in full force for many a year to come--I mean, to afalse system of training which teaches people to regard Christianity as athing one and indivisible, to be accepted entirely in the strictestreading of the letter, or to be rejected as absolutely untrue. The factis, that all permanent truth is as one of those coal measures, a seam ofwhich lies near the surface, and even crops up above the ground, butwhich is generally of an inferior quality and soon worked out; beneath itthere comes a labour of sand and clay, and then at last the true seam ofprecious quality, and in virtually inexhaustible supply. The truth whichis on the surface is rarely the whole truth. It is seldom until this hasbeen worked out and done with--as in the case of the apparent flatness ofthe earth--that unchangeable truth is discovered. It is the glory of theLord to conceal a matter: it is the glory of the king to find it out. Ifmy brother, from whom I have taken the above illustration, had had somejudicious and wide-minded friend, to correct and supplement the mainlyadmirable principles which had been instilled into him by my mother, hewould have been saved years of spiritual wandering; but, as it was, hefell in with one after another, each in his own way as literal andunspiritual as the other--each impressed with one aspect of religioustruth, and with one only. In the end he became perhaps the widest-mindedand most original thinker whom I have ever met; but no one from his earlymanhood could have augured this result; on the contrary, he showed everysign of being likely to develop into one of those who can never see morethan one side of a question at a time, in spite of their seeing that sidewith singular clearness of mental vision. In after life, he often metwith mere lads who seemed to him to be years and years in advance of whathe had been at their age, and would say, smiling, "With a great sumobtained I this freedom; but thou wast free-born. "

Yet when one comes to think of it, a late development and laboriousgrowth are generally more fruitful than those which are over earlyluxuriant. Drawing an illustration from the art of painting, with whichhe was well acquainted, my brother used to say that all the greatestpainters had begun with a hard and precise manner, from which they hadonly broken after several years of effort; and that in like manner allthe early schools were founded upon definiteness of outline to theexclusion of truth of effect. This may be true; but in my brother's casethere was something even more unpromising than this; there was acommonness, so to speak, of mental execution, from which no one couldhave foreseen his after-emancipation. Yet in the course of time he wasindeed emancipated to the very uttermost, while his bonds will, I firmlytrust, be found to have been of inestimable service to the whole humanrace. 

For although it was so many years before he was enabled to see theChristian scheme _as a whole_, or even to conceive the idea that therewas any whole at all, other than each one of the stages of opinionthrough which he was at the time passing; yet when the idea was at lengthpresented to him by one whom I must not name, the discarded fragments ofhis faith assumed shape, and formed themselves into a consistentlyorganised scheme. Then became apparent the value of his knowledge of thedetails of so many different sides of Christian verity. Buried in thedetails, he had hitherto ignored the fact that they were only theunessential developments of certain component parts. Awakening to theperception of the whole after an intimate acquaintance with the details, he was able to realise the position and meaning of all that he hadhitherto experienced in a way which has been vouchsafed to few, if anyothers. Thus he became truly a broad Churchman. Not broad in theordinary and ill-considered use of the term (for the broad Churchman isas little able to sympathise with Romanists, extreme High Churchmen andDissenters, as these are with himself--he is only one of a sect which iscalled by the name of broad, though it is no broader than its own base), but in the true sense of being able to believe in the naturalness, legitimacy, and truth _qua_ Christianity even of those doctrines whichseem to stand most widely and irreconcilably asunder. 

SELECTIONS FROM LIFE AND HABIT. 

ON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS. (FROM CHAPTER I. OF LIFE AND HABIT. ) {68}

It will be our business in the following chapters to consider whether theunconsciousness, or quasi-unconsciousness, with which we perform certainacquired actions, throws any light upon Embryology and inheritedinstincts, and otherwise to follow the train of thought which the classof actions above mentioned may suggest. More especially I propose toconsider them in so far as they bear upon the origin of species and thecontinuation of life by successive generations, whether in the animal orvegetable kingdoms. 

Taking then, the art of playing the piano as an example of the kind ofaction we are in search of, we observe that a practised player willperform very difficult pieces apparently without effort, often, indeed, while thinking and talking of something quite other than his music; yethe will play accurately and, possibly, with much expression. If he hasbeen playing a fugue, say in four parts, he will have kept each part welldistinct, in such a manner as to prove that his mind was not prevented, by its other occupations, from consciously or unconsciously followingfour distinct trains of musical thought at the same time, nor from makinghis fingers act in exactly the required manner as regards each note ofeach part. 

It commonly happens that in the course of four or five minutes a playermay have struck four or five thousand notes. If we take intoconsideration the rests, dotted notes, accidentals, variations of time, &c. , we shall find his attention must have been exercised on many moreoccasions than when he was actually striking notes: so that it may not betoo much to say that the attention of a first-rate player has beenexercised--to an infinitesimally small extent--but still trulyexercised--on as many as ten thousand occasions within the space of fiveminutes, for no note can be struck nor point attended to without acertain amount of attention, no matter how rapidly or unconsciouslygiven. 

Moreover, each act of attention has been followed by an act of volition, and each act of volition by a muscular action, which is composed of manyminor actions; some so small that we can no more follow them than theplayer himself can perceive them; nevertheless, it may have beenperfectly plain that the player was not attending to what he was doing, but was listening to conversation on some other subject, not to sayjoining in it himself. If he has been playing the violin, he may havedone all the above, and may also have been walking about. Herr Joachimwould unquestionably be able to do all that has here been described. 

So complete may be the player's unconsciousness of the attention he isgiving, and the brain power he is exerting, that we may find it difficultto awaken his attention to any particular part of his performance withoutputting him out. Indeed we cannot do so. We observe that he finds ithardly less difficult to compass a voluntary consciousness of what he hasonce learnt so thoroughly that it has passed, so to speak, into thedomain of unconsciousness, than he found it to learn the note or passagein the first instance. The effort after a second consciousness of detailbaffles him--compels him to turn to his music or play slowly. In fact itseems as though he knows the piece too well to be able to know that heknows it, and is only conscious of knowing those passages which he doesnot know so thoroughly. 

At the end of his performance, his power of recollecting appears to be noless annihilated than was his consciousness of attention and volition. For of the thousands of acts requiring the exercise of both the one andthe other, which he has done during the five minutes, we will say, of hisperformance, he will remember hardly one when it is over. If he calls tomind anything beyond the main fact that he has played such and such apiece, it will probably be some passage which he has found more difficultthan the others, and with the like of which he has not been so longfamiliar. All the rest he will forget as completely as the breath whichhe has drawn while playing. 

He finds it difficult to remember even the difficulties he experienced inlearning to play. A few may have so impressed him that they remain withhim, but the greater part will have escaped him as completely as theremembrance of what he ate, or how he put on his clothes, this day tenyears ago; nevertheless, it is plain he does in reality remember morethan he remembers remembering, for he avoids mistakes which he made atone time, and his performance proves that all the notes are in hismemory, though if called upon to play such and such a bar at random fromthe middle of the piece, and neither more nor less, he will probably saythat he cannot remember it unless he begins from the beginning of thephrase which leads to it. 

In spite, however, of the performer's present proficiency, our experienceof the manner in which proficiency is usually acquired warrants us inassuming that there must have been a time when what is now so easy as tobe done without conscious effort of the brain was only done by means ofbrain work which was very keenly perceived, even to fatigue and positivedistress. Even now, if the player is playing something the like of whichhe has not met before, we observe he pauses and becomes immediatelyconscious of attention. 

We draw the inference, therefore, as regards pianoforte or violinplaying, that the more the familiarity or knowledge of the art, the lessis there consciousness of such knowledge; even so far as that thereshould be almost as much difficulty in awakening consciousness which hasbecome, so to speak, latent, --a consciousness of that which is known toowell to admit of recognised self-analysis while the knowledge is beingexercised--as in creating a consciousness of that which is not yet wellenough known to be properly designated as known at all. On the otherhand, we observe that the less the familiarity or knowledge, the greaterthe consciousness of whatever knowledge there is. 

* * * * *

To sum up, then, briefly. It would appear as though perfect knowledgeand perfect ignorance were extremes which meet and becomeindistinguishable from one another; so also perfect volition and perfectabsence of volition, perfect memory and perfect forgetfulness; for we areunconscious of knowing, willing, or remembering, either from not yethaving known or willed, or from knowing and willing so well and sointensely as to be no longer conscious of either. Conscious knowledgeand volition are of attention; attention is of suspense; suspense is ofdoubt; doubt is of uncertainty; uncertainty is of ignorance; so that themere fact of conscious knowing or willing implies the presence of more orless novelty and doubt. 

It would also appear as a general principle on a superficial view of theforegoing instances (and the reader may readily supply himself withothers which are perhaps more to the purpose), that unconscious knowledgeand unconscious volition are never acquired otherwise than as the resultof experience, familiarity, or habit; so that whenever we observe aperson able to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may assumeboth that he must have done it very often before he could acquire sogreat proficiency, and also that there must have been a time when he didnot know how to do it at all. 

We may assume that there was a time when he was yet so nearly on thepoint of neither knowing nor willing perfectly, that he was quite aliveto whatever knowledge or volition he could exert; going further back, weshall find him still more keenly alive to a less perfect knowledge;earlier still, we find him well aware that he does not know nor willcorrectly, but trying hard to do both the one and the other; and so on, back and back, till both difficulty and consciousness become little morethan "a sound of going, " as it were, in the brain, a flitting to and froof something barely recognisable as the desire to will or know atall--much less as the desire to know or will definitely this or that. Finally they retreat beyond our ken into the repose--the inorganickingdom--of as yet unawakened interest. 

In either case--the repose of perfect ignorance or of perfectknowledge--disturbance is troublesome. When first starting on anAtlantic steamer, our rest is hindered by the screw; after a short time, it is hindered if the screw stops. A uniform impression is practicallyno impression. One cannot either learn or unlearn without pains or pain. 

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS THE LAW AND GRACE. (FROM CHAPTER II. OF LIFE AND HABIT. )

Certain it is that we know best what we are least conscious of knowing, or at any rate least able to prove; as, for example, our own existence, or that there is a country England. If any one asks us for proof onmatters of this sort, we have none ready, and are justly annoyed at beingcalled to consider what we regard as settled questions. Again, there ishardly anything which so much affects our actions as the centre of theearth (unless, perhaps, it be that still hotter and more unprofitablespot the centre of the universe), for we are incessantly trying to get asnear it as circumstances will allow, or to avoid getting nearer than isfor the time being convenient. Walking, running, standing, sitting, lying, waking, or sleeping, from birth till death it is a paramountobject with us; even after death--if it be not fanciful to say so--it isone of the few things of which what is left of us can still feel theinfluence; yet what can engross less of our attention than this dark anddistant spot so many thousands of miles away?

The air we breathe, so long as it is neither too hot nor cold, nor rough, nor full of smoke--that is to say, so long as it is in that state withwhich we are best acquainted--seldom enters into our thoughts; yet thereis hardly anything with which we are more incessantly occupied night andday. 

Indeed, it is not too much to say that we have no really profoundknowledge upon any subject--no knowledge on the strength of which we areready to act at moments unhesitatingly without either preparation orafter-thought--till we have left off feeling conscious of the possessionof such knowledge, and of the grounds on which it rests. A lessonthoroughly learned must be like the air which feels so light, thoughpressing so heavily against us, because every pore of our skin issaturated, so to speak, with it on all sides equally. This perfection ofknowledge sometimes extends to positive disbelief in the thing known, sothat the most thorough knower shall believe himself altogether ignorant. No thief, for example, is such an utter thief--so _good_ a thief--as thekleptomaniac. Until he has become a kleptomaniac, and can steal a horseas it were by a reflex action, he is still but half a thief, with manyunthievish notions still clinging to him. Yet the kleptomaniac isprobably unaware that he can steal at all, much less that he can steal sowell. He would be shocked if he were to know the truth. So again, noman is a great hypocrite until he has left off knowing that he is ahypocrite. The great hypocrites of the world are almost invariably underthe impression that they are among the very few really honest people tobe found; and, as we must all have observed, it is rare to find any onestrongly under this impression without ourselves having good reason todiffer from him. 

Again, it has been often and very truly said that it is not the consciousand self-styled sceptic, as Shelley, for example, who is the trueunbeliever. Such a man as Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantlyproves, have more in common than not with the true unselfconsciousbeliever. Gallio again, whose indifference to religious animosities haswon him the cheapest immortality which, so far as I can remember, wasever yet won, was probably, if the truth were known, a person of thesincerest piety. It is the unconscious unbeliever who is the trueinfidel, however greatly he would be surprised to know the truth. Mr. Spurgeon was reported as having asked God to remove Lord Beaconsfieldfrom office "_as soon as possible_. " There lurks a more profounddistrust of God's power in these words than in almost any open denial ofHis existence. 

In like manner, the most perfect humour and irony is generally quiteunconscious. Examples of both are frequently given by men whom the worldconsiders as deficient in humour; it is more probably true that thesepersons are unconscious of their own delightful power through the verymastery and perfection with which they hold it. There is a play, forinstance, of genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific andtheological journals which for some time past we have looked for in vainin "---"

The following extract, from a journal which I will not advertise, mayserve as an example:

"Lycurgus, when they had abandoned to his revenge him who had put out hiseyes, took him home, and the punishment he inflicted upon him wassedulous instructions to virtue. " Yet this truly comic paper does notprobably know that it is comic, any more than the kleptomaniac knows thathe steals, or than John Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote ahymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon in composing atreatise on divorce. No more again did Goethe know how exquisitelyhumorous he was when he wrote, in his Wilhelm Meister, that a beautifultear glistened in Theresa's right eye, and then went on to explain thatit glistened in her right eye and not in her left, because she had had awart on her left which had been removed--and successfully. Goetheprobably wrote this without a chuckle; he believed what a good manypeople who have never read Wilhelm Meister believe still, namely, that itwas a work full of pathos--of fine and tender feeling; yet a lessconsummate humorist must have felt that there was scarcely a paragraph init from first to last the chief merit of which did not lie in itsabsurdity. 

But enough has perhaps been said. As the fish in the sea, or the bird inthe air, so unreasoningly and inarticulately safe must a man feel beforehe can be said to know. It is only those who are ignorant anduncultivated who can know anything at all in a proper sense of the words. Cultivation will breed in any man a certainty of the uncertainty even ofhis most assured convictions. It is perhaps fortunate for our comfortthat we can none of us be cultivated upon very many subjects, so thatconsiderable scope for assurance will still remain to us; but howeverthis may be, we certainly observe it as a fact that those are thegreatest men who are most uncertain in spite of certainty, and at thesame time most certain in spite of uncertainty, and who are thus bestable to feel that there is nothing in such complete harmony with itselfas a flat contradiction in terms. For nature hates that any principleshould breed, so to speak, hermaphroditically, but will give to each anhelp meet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; as in thecase of descent with modification, of which the essence is that everyoffspring resembles its parents, and yet, at the same time, that nooffspring resembles its parents. But for the slightly irritatingstimulant of this perpetual crossing, we should pass our livesunconsciously as though in slumber. 

Until we have got to understand that though black is not white, yet itmay be whiter than white itself (and any painter will readily paint thatwhich shall show obviously as black, yet it shall be whiter than thatwhich shall show no less obviously as white), we may be good logicians, but we are still poor reasoners. Knowledge is in an inchoate state aslong as it is capable of logical treatment; it must be transmuted intothat sense or instinct which rises altogether above the sphere in whichwords can have being at all, otherwise it is not yet incarnate. Forsense is to knowledge what conscience is to reasoning about light andwrong; the reasoning must be so rapid as to defy conscious reference tofirst principles, and even at times to be apparently subversive of themaltogether, or the action will halt. It must become automatic before weare safe with it. While we are fumbling for the grounds of ourconviction, our conviction is prone to fall, as Peter for lack of faithsinking into the waves of Galilee; so that the very power to prove at allis an _a priori_ argument against the truth--or at any rate the practicalimportance to the vast majority of mankind--of all that is supported bydemonstration. For the power to prove implies a sense of the need ofproof, and things which the majority of mankind find practicallyimportant are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred above proof. Theneed of proof becomes as obsolete in the case of assured knowledge, asthe practice of fortifying towns in the middle of an old and long-settledcountry. Who builds defences for that which is impregnable or littlelikely to be assailed? The answer is ready, that unless the defences hadbeen built in former times it would be impossible to do without them now;but this does not touch the argument, which is not that demonstration isunwise but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, andtherefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is notyet securely known. _Qui s'excuse_, _s'accuse_; and unless a matter canhold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continualdemonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall notlose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its owntrumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error in process ofdetection, for if evidence concerning any opinion has long been deemedsuperfluous, and ever after this comes to be again felt necessary, weknow that the opinion is doomed. 

If there is any truth in the above, it follows that our conception of thewords "science" and "scientific" must undergo some modification. Notthat we should speak slightingly of science, but that we should recognisemore than we do, that there are two distinct classes of scientificpeople, corresponding not inaptly with the two main parties into whichthe political world is divided. The one class is deeply versed in thosesciences which have already become the common property of mankind;enjoying, enforcing, perpetuating, and engraining still more deeply intothe mind of man acquisitions already approved by common experience, butsomewhat careless about extension of empire, or at any rate disinclined, for the most part, to active effort on their own part for the sake ofsuch extension--neither progressive, in fact, nor aggressive--but quiet, peaceable people, who wish to live and let live, as their fathers beforethem; while the other class is chiefly intent upon pushing forward theboundaries of science, and is comparatively indifferent to what is knownalready save in so far as necessary for purposes of extension. Theselast are called pioneers of science, and to them alone is the title"scientific" commonly accorded; but pioneers, important to an army asthey are, are still not the army itself, which can get on better withoutthe pioneers than the pioneers without the army. Surely the class whichknows thoroughly well what it knows, and which adjudicates upon the valueof the discoveries made by the pioneers--surely this class has as good aright or better to be called scientific than the pioneers themselves. 

These two classes above described blend into one another with every shadeof gradation. Some are admirably proficient in the well-knownsciences--that is to say, they have good health, good looks, good temper, common sense, and energy, and they hold all these good things in suchperfection as to be altogether without introspection--to be not under thelaw, but so entirely under grace that every one who sees them likes them. But such may, and perhaps more commonly will, have very littleinclination to extend the boundaries of human knowledge; their aim is inanother direction altogether. Of the pioneers, on the other hand, someare agreeable people, well versed in the older sciences, though stillmore eminent as pioneers, while others, whose services in this lastcapacity have been of inestimable value, are noticeably ignorant of thesciences which have already become current with the larger part ofmankind--in other words, they are ugly, rude, and disagreeable people, very progressive, it may be, but very aggressive to boot. 

The main difference between these two classes lies in the fact that theknowledge of the one, so far as it is new, is known consciously, whilethat of the other is unconscious, consisting of sense and instinct ratherthan of recognised knowledge. So long as a man has these, and of thesame kind as the more powerful body of his fellow-countrymen, he is a manof science though he can hardly read or write. As my great namesake saidso well, "He knows what's what, and that's as high as metaphysic wit canfly. " As is usual in cases of great proficiency, these true and thoroughknowers do not know that they are scientific, and can seldom give areason for the faith that is in them. They believe themselves to beignorant, uncultured men, nor can even the professors whom they sometimesoutwit in their own professorial domain perceive that they have beenoutwitted by men of superior scientific attainments to their own. Thefollowing passage from Dr. Carpenter's "Mesmerism, Spiritualism, " &c. , may serve as an illustration:--

"It is well known that persons who are conversant with the geologicalstructure of a district are often able to indicate with considerablecertainty in what spot and at what depth water will be found; and men _ofless scientific knowledge_, _but of considerable practicalexperience_"--(so that in Dr. Carpenter's mind there seems to be somesort of contrast or difference in kind between the knowledge which isderived from observation of facts and scientific knowledge)--"frequentlyarrive at a true conclusion upon this point without being able to assignreasons for their opinions. "

"Exactly the same may be said in regard to the mineral structure of amining district; the course of a metallic vein being often correctlyindicated by the shrewd guess of an _observant_ workman, when _thescientific reasoning_ of the mining engineer altogether fails. "

Precisely. Here we have exactly the kind of thing we are in search of:the man who has observed and observed till the facts are so thoroughly inhis head that through familiarity he has lost sight both of them and ofthe processes whereby he deduced his conclusions from them--is apparentlynot considered scientific, though he knows how to solve the problembefore him; the mining engineer, on the other hand, who reasonsscientifically--that is to say, with a knowledge of his own knowledge--isfound not to know, and to fail in discovering the mineral. 

"It is an experience we are continually encountering in other walks oflife, " continues Dr. Carpenter, "that particular persons are guided--someapparently by an original and others by _an acquired intuition_--toconclusions for which they can give no adequate reason, but whichsubsequent events prove to have been correct. " And this, I take it, implies what I have been above insisting on, namely, that on becomingintense, knowledge seems also to become unaware of the grounds on whichit rests, or that it has or requires grounds at all, or indeed evenexists. The only issue between myself and Dr. Carpenter would appear tobe that Dr. Carpenter, himself an acknowledged leader in the scientificworld, restricts the term "scientific" to the people who know that theyknow, but are beaten by those who are not so conscious of their ownknowledge; while I say that the term "scientific" should be applied (onlythat they would not like it) to the nice sensible people who know what'swhat rather than to the professorial classes. 

And this is easily understood when we remember that the pioneer cannothope to acquire any of the new sciences in a single lifetime so perfectlyas to become unaware of his own knowledge. As a general rule, we observehim to be still in a state of active consciousness concerning whateverparticular science he is extending, and as long as he is in this state hecannot know utterly. It is, as I have already so often insisted, thosewho do not know that they know so much who have the firmest grip of theirknowledge: the best class, for example, of our English youth, who livemuch in the open air, and, as Lord Beaconsfield finely said, never read. These are the people who know best those things which are best worthknowing--that is to say, they are the most truly scientific. 

Unfortunately, the apparatus necessary for this kind of science is socostly as to be within the reach of few, involving, as it does, anexperience in the use of it for some preceding generations. Even thosewho are born with the means within their reach must take no less pains, and exercise no less self-control, before they can attain the perfectunconscious use of them, than would go to the making of a James Watt or aStephenson; it is vain, therefore, to hope that this best kind of sciencecan ever be put within the reach of the many; nevertheless it may besafely said that all the other and more generally recognised kinds ofscience are valueless except in so far as they minister to this thehighest kind. They have no _raison d'etre_ unless they tend to do awaywith the necessity for work, and to diffuse good health, and that goodsense which is above self-consciousness. They are to be encouragedbecause they have rendered the most fortunate kind of modern Europeanpossible, and because they tend to make possible a still more fortunatekind than any now existing. But the man who devotes himself to sciencecannot--with the rarest, if any, exceptions--belong to this mostfortunate class himself. He occupies a lower place, both scientificallyand morally, for it is not possible but that his drudgery should somewhatsoil him both in mind and health of body, or, if this be denied, surelyit must let him and hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness. We do not feel that it increases the glory of a king or great noblemanthat he should excel in what is commonly called science. Certainly heshould not go further than Prince Rupert's drops. Nor should he excel inmusic, art, literature, or theology--all which things are more or lessparts of science. He should be above them all, save in so far as he canwithout effort reap renown from the labours of others. It is a _lache_in him that he should write music or books, or paint pictures at all; butif he must do so, his work should be at best contemptible. Much as wemust condemn Marcus Aurelius, we condemn James I. Even more severely. 

It is a pity there should exist so general a confusion of thought uponthis subject, for it may be asserted without fear of contradiction thatthere is hardly any form of immorality now rife which produces moredisastrous effects upon those who give themselves up to it, and uponsociety in general, than the so-called science of those who know thatthey know too well to be able to know truly. With very clever people--thepeople who know that they know--it is much as with the members of theearly Corinthian Church, to whom St. Paul wrote, that if they lookedtheir numbers over, they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor well-born people among them. Dog-fanciers tell us that performing dogs nevercarry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and areconvinced of sin accordingly--they know that they know things, in respectof which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under the law, and they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed. So with the humanclever dog; he may speak with the tongues of men and angels, but so longas he knows that he knows, his tail will droop. 

More especially does this hold in the case of those who are born towealth and of old family. We must all feel that a rich young noblemanwith a taste for science and principles is rarely a pleasant object. Wedo not understand the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inheriteternal life, unless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there wasnot some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardlyworth considering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made agood reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful ifthey did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is anytemptation to appeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but badmasters. As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as fromwant of principle. They are, as their name implies, of an elementarycharacter, suitable for beginners only, and he who has so little masteredthem as to have occasion to refer to them consciously, is out of place inthe society of well-educated people. The truly scientific invariablyhate him, and, for the most part, the more profoundly in proportion tothe unconsciousness with which they do so. 

If the reader hesitates, let him go down into the streets and look in theshop-windows at the photographs of eminent men, whether literary, artistic, or scientific, and note the work which the consciousness ofknowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of them; then let him goto the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art, the truest preachers of thetruest gospel of grace; let him look at the Venus of Milo, theDiscobolus, the St. George of Donatello. If it had pleased these peopleto wish to study, there was no lack of brains to do it with; but imagine"what a deal of scorn" would "look beautiful in the contempt and anger"of the Venus of Milo's lip if it were suggested to her that she shouldlearn to read. Which, think you, knows most, the Theseus, or any modernprofessor taken at random? True, learning must have a great share in theadvancement of beauty, inasmuch as beauty is but knowledge perfected andincarnate--but with the pioneers it is _sic vos non vobis_; the grace isnot for them, but for those who come after. Science is like offences. Itmust needs come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes; for therecannot be much beauty where there is consciousness of knowledge, andwhile knowledge is still new it must in the nature of things involve muchconsciousness. 

It is not knowledge, then, that is incompatible with beauty; there cannotbe too much knowledge, but it must have passed through many people who itis to be feared must be both ugly and disagreeable, before beauty orgrace will have anything to say to it; it must be so diffused throughouta man's whole being that he shall not be aware of it, or he will bearhimself under it constrainedly as one under the law, and not as one undergrace. 

And grace is best, for where grace is, love is not distant. Grace! theold Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not withstand, but, as the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgavehim, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he "troubled deafheaven with his bootless cries, " his thin voice pleading for grace afterthe flesh. 

The waves came in one after another, the sea-gulls cried together aftertheir kind, the wind rustled among the dried canes upon the sandbanks, and there came a voice from heaven saying, "Let My grace be sufficientfor thee. " Whereon, failing of the thing itself, he stole the word andstrove to crush its meaning to the measure of his own limitations. Butthe true grace, with her groves and high places, and troops of young menand maidens crowned with flowers, and singing of love and youth andwine--the true grace he drove out into the wilderness--high up, it maybe, into Piora, and into such-like places. Happy they who harboured herin her ill report. 

It is common to hear men wonder what new faith will be adopted by mankindif disbelief in the Christian religion should become general. They seemto expect that some new theological or quasi-theological system willarise, which, _mutatis mutandis_, shall be Christianity over again. Itis a frequent reproach against those who maintain that the supernaturalelement of Christianity is without foundation, that they bring forward nosuch system of their own. They pull down but cannot build. We sometimeshear even those who have come to the same conclusions as the destroyerssay, that having nothing new to set up, they will not attack the old. Buthow can people set up a new superstition, knowing it to be asuperstition? Without faith in their own platform, a faith as intense asthat manifested by the early Christians, how can they preach? A newsuperstition will come, but it is in the very essence of things that itsapostles should have no suspicion of its real nature; that they should nomore recognise the common element between the new and the old than theearly Christians recognised it between their faith and Paganism. If theydid, they would be paralysed. Others say that the new fabric may be seenrising on every side, and that the coming religion is science. Certainlyits apostles preach it without misgiving, but it is not on that accountless possible that it may prove only to be the coming superstition--likeChristianity, true to its true votaries, and, like Christianity, false tothose who follow it introspectively. 

It may well be we shall find we have escaped from one set of taskmastersto fall into the hands of others far more ruthless. The tyranny of theChurch is light in comparison with that which future generations may haveto undergo at the hands of the doctrinaires. The Church did uphold agrace of some sort as the _summum bonum_, in comparison with which all so-called earthly knowledge--knowledge, that is to say, which had not passedthrough so many people as to have become living and incarnate--wasunimportant. Do what we may, we are still drawn to the unspoken teachingof her less introspective ages with a force which no falsehood couldcommand. Her buildings, her music, her architecture, touch us as noneother on the whole can do; when she speaks there are many of us who thinkthat she denies the deeper truths of her own profounder mind, andunfortunately her tendency is now towards more rather than lessintrospection. The more she gives way to this--the more she becomesconscious of knowing--the less she will know. But still her ideal is ingrace. 

The so-called man of science, on the other hand, seems now generallyinclined to make light of all knowledge, save of the pioneer character. His ideal is in self-conscious knowledge. Let us have no more Lo, here, with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows; no soonerhas he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great flourish oftrumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than himself. Heis but medicine-man, augur, priest, in its latest development; useful itmay be, but requiring to be well watched by those who value freedom. Waittill he has become more powerful, and note the vagaries which his conceitof knowledge will indulge in. The Church did not persecute while she wasstill weak. Of course every system has had, and will have, its heroes, but, as we all very well know, the heroism of the hero is but remotelydue to system; it is due not to arguments, nor reasoning, nor to anyconsciously recognised perceptions, but to those deeper sciences whichlie far beyond the reach of self-analysis, and for the study of whichthere is but one schooling--to have had good forefathers for manygenerations. 

Above all things let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in_me_. In that I write at all I am among the damned. If he must believein anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting ofGiovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's FirstEpistle to the Corinthians. 

But to return. Whenever we find people knowing that they know this orthat, we have the same story over and over again. They do not yet knowit perfectly. 

We come, therefore, to the conclusion that our knowledge and reasoningsthereupon, only become perfect, assured, unhesitating, when they havebecome automatic, and are thus exercised without further conscious effortof the mind, much in the same way as we cannot walk nor read nor writeperfectly till we can do so automatically. 

APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTHWHICH ARE COMMONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE. (CHAPTER III. OF LIFE ANDHABIT. )

What is true of knowing is also true of willing. The more intensely wewill, the less is our will deliberate and capable of being recognised aswill at all. So that it is common to hear men declare under certaincircumstances that they had no will, but were forced into their ownaction under stress of passion or temptation. But in the more ordinaryactions of life, we observe, as in walking or breathing, that we do notwill anything utterly and without remnant of hesitation, till we havelost sight of the fact that we are exercising our will. 

The question, therefore, is forced upon us, how far this principleextends, and whether there may not be unheeded examples of its operationwhich, if we consider them, will land us in rather unexpectedconclusions. If it be granted that consciousness of knowledge and ofvolition vanishes when the knowledge and the volition have become intenseand perfect, may it not be possible that many actions which we do withoutknowing how we do them, and without any conscious exercise of thewill--actions which we certainly could not do if we tried to do them, norrefrain from doing if for any reason we wished to do so--are done soeasily and so unconsciously owing to excess of knowledge or experiencerather than deficiency, we having done them too often, knowing how to dothem too well, and having too little hesitation as to the method ofprocedure, to be capable of following our own action, without thederangement of such action altogether; or, in other cases, because wehave so long settled the question that we have stowed away the wholeapparatus with which we work in corners of our system which we cannot nowconveniently reach?

It may be interesting to see whether we can find any class or classes ofactions which link actions which for some time after birth we could notdo at all, and in which our proficiency has reached the stage ofunconscious performance obviously through repeated effort and failure, and through this only, with actions which we could do as soon as we wereborn, and concerning which it would at first sight appear absurd to saythat they can have been acquired by any process in the least analogous towhat we commonly call experience, inasmuch as the creature itself whichdoes them has only just begun to exist, and cannot, therefore, in thevery nature of things, have had experience. 

Can we see that actions, for the acquisition of which experience is suchan obvious necessity, that whenever we see the acquisition we assume theexperience, gradate away imperceptibly into actions which seem, accordingto all reasonable analogy, to necessitate experience--of which, however, the time and place are so obscure, that they are not now commonlysupposed to have any connection with _bona fide_ experience at all. 

Eating and drinking appear to be such actions. The new-born child cannoteat, and cannot drink, but he can swallow as soon as he is born; andswallowing appears (as we may remark in passing) to have been an earlierfaculty of animal life than that of eating with teeth. The ease andunconsciousness with which we eat and drink is clearly attributable topractice; but a very little practice seems to go a long way--asuspiciously small amount of practice--as though somewhere or at someother time there must have been more practice than we can account for. Wecan very readily stop eating or drinking, and can follow our own actionwithout difficulty in either process; but as regards swallowing, which isthe earlier habit, we have less power of self-analysis and control: whenwe have once committed ourselves beyond a certain point to swallowing, wemust finish doing so, --that is to say, our control over the operationceases. Also, a still smaller experience seems necessary for theacquisition of the power to swallow than appeared necessary in the caseof eating; and if we get into a difficulty we choke, and are more at aloss how to become introspective than we are about eating and drinking. 

Why should a baby be able to swallow--which one would have said was themore complicated process of the two--with so much less practice than ittakes him to learn to eat? How comes it that he exhibits in the case ofthe more difficult operation all the phenomena which ordinarily accompanya more complete mastery and longer practice? Analogy points in thedirection of thinking that the necessary experience cannot have beenwanting, and that, too, not in such a quibbling sort as when people talkabout inherited habit or the experience of the race, which, withoutexplanation, is to plain-speaking persons very much the same, in regardto the individual, as no experience at all, but _bona fide_ in thechild's own person. 

Breathing, again, is an action acquired after birth, generally with somelittle hesitation and difficulty, but still acquired in a time seldomlonger, as I am informed, than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Foran art which has to be acquired at all, there seems here, as in the caseof eating, to be a disproportion between, on the one hand, the intricacyof the process performed, and on the other, the shortness of the timetaken to acquire the practice, and the ease and unconsciousness withwhich its exercise is continued from the moment of acquisition. 

We observe that in later life much less difficult and intricateoperations than breathing require much longer practice before they can bemastered to the extent of unconscious performance. We observe also thatthe phenomena attendant on the learning by an infant to breathe areextremely like those attendant upon the repetition of some performance byone who has done it very often before, but who requires just a littleprompting to set him off, on getting which, the whole familiar routinepresents itself before him, and he repeats his task by rote. Surely thenwe are justified in suspecting that there must have been more _bona fide_personal recollection and experience, with more effort and failure on thepart of the infant itself, than meet the eye. 

It should be noticed, also that our control over breathing is verylimited. We can hold our breath a little, or breathe a little faster fora short time, but we cannot do this for long, and after having gonewithout air for a certain time we must breathe. 

Seeing and hearing require some practice before their free use ismastered, but not very much. They are so far within our control that wecan see more by looking harder, and hear more by listeningattentively--but they are beyond our control in so far as that we mustsee and hear the greater part of what presents itself to us as near, andat the same time unfamiliar, unless we turn away or shut our eyes, orstop our ears by a mechanical process; and when we do this it is a signthat we have already involuntarily seen or heard more than we wished. Thefamiliar, whether sight or sound, very commonly escapes us. 

Take again the processes of digestion, the action of the heart, and theoxygenisation of the blood--processes of extreme intricacy, done almostentirely unconsciously, and quite beyond the control of our volition. 

Is it possible that our unconsciousness concerning our own performance ofall these processes arises from over-experience?

Is there anything in digestion or the oxygenisation of the blooddifferent in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing adifficult piece of music on the piano? There may be in degree, but as aman who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on when once started, almost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he digestsit as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar tohim or he to it, owing to some derangement or occurrence with which he isunfamiliar, and under which therefore he is at a loss how to comporthimself, as a player would be at a loss how to play with gloves on, orwith gout in his fingers, or if set to play music upside down. 

Can we show that all the acquired actions of childhood and after-life, which we now do unconsciously, or without conscious exercise of the will, are familiar acts--acts which we have already done a very great number oftimes?

Can we also show that there are no acquired actions which we can performin this automatic manner which were not at one time difficult, requiringattention, and liable to repeated failure, our volition failing tocommand obedience from the members which should carry its purposes intoexecution?

If so, analogy will point in the direction of thinking that other actswhich we do even more unconsciously may only escape our power of self-examination and control because they are even more familiar--because wehave done them oftener; and we may imagine that if there were amicroscope which could show us the minutest atoms of consciousness andvolition, we should find that even the apparently most automatic actionswere yet done in due course, upon a balance of considerations, and underthe deliberate exercise of the will. 

We should also incline to think that even such an action as theoxygenisation of its blood by an infant of ten minutes' old, can only bedone so well and so unconsciously, after repeated failures on the part ofthe infant itself. 

True, as has been already implied, we do not immediately see when thebaby could have made the necessary mistakes and acquired that infinitepractice without which it could never go through such complex processessatisfactorily; we have therefore invented the word "heredity, " andconsider it as accounting for the phenomena; but a little reflection willshow that though this word may be a very good way of stating thedifficulty, it does nothing whatever towards removing it. {96}

Why should heredity enable a creature to dispense with the experiencewhich we see to be necessary in all other cases before difficultoperations can be performed successfully?

What is this talk that is made about the experience _of the race_, asthough the experience of one man could profit another who knows nothingabout him? If a man eats his dinner, it nourishes _him_ and not hisneighbour; if he learns a difficult art, it is _he_ that can do it andnot his neighbour. Yet, practically, we see that the vicariousexperience, which seems so contrary to our common observation, doesnevertheless appear to hold good in the case of creatures and theirdescendants. Is there, then, any way of bringing these apparentlyconflicting phenomena under the operation of one law? Is there any wayof showing that this experience of the race, of which so much is saidwithout the least attempt to show in what way it may or does become theexperience of the individual, is in sober seriousness the experience ofone single being only, repeating in a great many different ways certainperformances with which it has become exceedingly familiar?

It comes to this--that we must either suppose the conditions ofexperience to differ during the earlier stages of life from those whichwe observe them to become during the heyday of any existence--and thiswould appear very gratuitous, tolerable only as a suggestion because thebeginnings of life are so obscure, that in such twilight we may do prettymuch whatever we please without fear of being found out--or that we mustsuppose continuity of life and sameness between living beings, whetherplants or animals, and their descendants, to be far closer than we havehitherto believed; so that the experience of one person is not enjoyed byhis successor, so much as that the successor is _bona fide_ an elongationof the life of his progenitors, imbued with their memories, profiting bytheir experiences--which are, in fact, his own until he leaves theirbodies--and only unconscious of the extent of these memories andexperiences owing to their vastness and already infinite repetition. 

Certainly it presents itself to us as a singular coincidence--

I. That we are _most conscious of_, _and have most control over_, suchhabits as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences--which areacquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, andnot common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirelyhuman. 

II. That we are _less conscious of_, _and have less control over_, theuse of teeth, swallowing, breathing, seeing and hearing--which wereacquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for which we had providedourselves with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light, but whichare still, geologically speaking, recent, or comparatively recent. 

ill. That we are _most unconscious of_, _and have least control over_, our digestion, which we have in common even with our invertebrateancestry, and which is a habit of extreme antiquity. 

There is something too like method in this for it to be taken as theresult of mere chance--chance again being but another illustration ofNature's love of a contradiction in terms; for everything is chance, andnothing is chance. And you may take it that all is chance or nothingchance, according as you please, but you must not have half chance andhalf not chance--which, however, in practice is just what you _must_have. 

Does it not seem as though the older and more confirmed the habit, themore unquestioning the act of volition, till, in the case of the oldesthabits, the practice of succeeding existences has so formulated theprocedure, that, on being once committed to such and such a line beyond acertain point, the subsequent course is so clear as to be open to nofurther doubt, and admit of no alternative, till the very power ofquestioning is gone, and even the consciousness of volition? And thistoo upon matters which, in earlier stages of a man's existence, admittedof passionate argument and anxious deliberation whether to resolve themthus or thus, with heroic hazard and experiment, which on the losing sideproved to be vice, and on the winning virtue. For there was passionateargument once what shape a man's teeth should be, nor can the colour ofhis hair be considered as even yet settled, or likely to be settled for avery long time. 

It is one against legion when a creature tries to differ from his ownpast selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so as tolack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, or not to gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should "eat strange food, " and thathis cheek should "so much as lank not, " than that he should starve if thestrange food be at his command. His past selves are living in unrulyhordes within him at this moment and overmastering him. "Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and found our profit in it, " cry the soulsof his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, coming and goingas the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear arethe near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire. "Withhold, " cry some. "Go onboldly, " cry others. "Me, me, me, revert hitherward, my descendant, "shouts one as it were from some high vantage-ground over the heads of theclamorous multitude. "Nay, but me, me, me, " echoes another; and ourformer selves fight within us and wrangle for our possession. Have wenot here what is commonly called an _internal tumult_, when deadpleasures and pains tug within us hither and thither? Then may thebattle be decided by what people are pleased to call our own experience. Our own indeed! What is our own save by mere courtesy of speech? Amatter of fashion. Sanction sanctifieth and fashion fashioneth. And sowith death--the most inexorable of all conventions. 

However this may be, we may assume it as an axiom with regard to actionsacquired after birth, that we never do them automatically save as theresult of long practice, and after having thus acquired perfect masteryover the action in question. 

But given the practice or experience, and the intricacy of the process tobe performed appears to matter very little. There is hardly anythingconceivable as being done by man, which a certain amount of familiaritywill not enable him to do, unintrospectively, and without consciouseffort. "The most complex and difficult movements, " writes Mr. Darwin, "can in time be performed without the least effort or consciousness. " Allthe main business of life is done thus unconsciously orsemi-unconsciously. For what is the main business of life? We work thatwe may eat and digest, rather than eat and digest that we may work; this, at any rate, is the normal state of things; the more important businessthen is that which is carried on unconsciously. So again, the action ofthe brain, which goes on prior to our realising the idea in which itresults, is not perceived by the individual. So also all the deepersprings of action and conviction. The residuum with which we fret andworry ourselves is a mere matter of detail, as the higgling and hagglingof the market, which is not over the bulk of the price, but over the lasthalfpenny. 

Shall we say, then, that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves thewhole principle of the pump, and hence a profound practical knowledge ofthe laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its blood(millions of years before Sir Humphry Davy discovered oxygen), sees andhears--all most difficult and complicated operations, involving anunconscious knowledge of the facts concerning optics and acoustics, compared with which the conscious discoveries of Newton sink into utterinsignificance? Shall we say that a baby can do all these things atonce, doing them so well and so regularly, without being even able todirect its attention to them, and without mistake, and at the same timenot know how to do them, and never have done them before?

Such an assertion would be a contradiction to the whole experience ofmankind. Surely the _onus probandi_ must rest with him who makes it. 

A man may make a lucky hit now and again by what is called a fluke, buteven this must be only a little in advance of his other performances ofthe same kind. He may multiply seven by eight by a fluke after a littlestudy of the multiplication table, but he will not be able to extract thecube root of 4913 by a fluke, without long training in arithmetic, anymore than an agricultural labourer would be able to operate successfullyfor cataract. If, then, a grown man cannot perform so simple anoperation as that, we will say, for cataract, unless he have been longtrained in other similar operations, and until he has done what comes tothe same thing many times over, with what show of reason can we maintainthat one who is so far less capable than a grown man, can perform suchvastly more difficult operations, without knowing how to do them, andwithout ever having done them before? There is no sign of "fluke" aboutthe circulation of a baby's blood. There may perhaps be some littlehesitation about its earliest breathing, but this, as a general rule, soon passes over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour afterbirth, being as regular and easy as at any time during life. Is itreasonable, then, to say that the baby does these things without knowinghow to do them, and without ever having done them before, and continuesto do them by a series of lifelong flukes?

It would be well if those who feel inclined to hazard such an assertionwould find some other instances of intricate processes gone through bypeople who know nothing about them, and who never had any practicetherein. What _is_ to know how to do a thing? Surely to do it. What isproof that we know how to do a thing? Surely the fact that we can do it. A man shows that he knows how to throw the boomerang by throwing theboomerang. No amount of talking or writing can get over this; _ipsofacto_, that a baby breathes and makes its blood circulate, it knows howto do so; and the fact that it does not know its own knowledge is onlyproof of the perfection of that knowledge, and of the vast number of pastoccasions on which it must have been exercised already. As has been saidalready, it is less obvious when the baby could have gained itsexperience, so as to be able so readily to remember exactly what to do;_but it is more easy to suppose that the necessary occasions cannot havebeen wanting_, _than that the power which we observe_, _should have beenobtained without practice and memory_. 

If we saw any self-consciousness on the baby's part about its breathingor circulation, we might suspect that it had had less experience, or hadprofited less by its experience, than its neighbours--exactly in the samemanner as we suspect a deficiency of any quality which we see a maninclined to parade. We all become introspective when we find that we donot know our business, and whenever we are introspective we may generallysuspect that we are on the verge of unproficiency. Unfortunately, in thecase of sickly children we observe that they sometimes do becomeconscious of their breathing and circulation, just as in later life webecome conscious that we have a liver or a digestion. In that case thereis always something wrong. The baby that becomes aware of its breathingdoes not know how to breathe and will suffer for his ignorance andincapacity, exactly in the same way as he will suffer in later life forignorance and incapacity in any other respect in which his peers arecommonly knowing and capable. In the case of inability to breathe, thepunishment is corporal, breathing being a matter of fashion, so old andlong settled that nature can admit of no departure from the establishedcustom, and the procedure in case of failure is as much formulated as thefashion itself. In the case of the circulation, the whole performancehas become one so utterly of rote, that the mere discovery that we coulddo it at all was considered one of the highest flights of human genius. 

It has been said a day will come when the Polar ice shall haveaccumulated, till it forms vast continents many thousands of feet abovethe level of the sea, all of solid ice. The weight of this mass will, itis believed, cause the world to topple over on its axis, so that theearth will be upset as an ant-heap overturned by a ploughshare. In thatday the icebergs will come crunching against our proudest cities, razingthem from off the face of the earth as though they were made of rottenblotting-paper. There is no respect now of Handel nor of Shakespeare;the works of Rembrandt and Bellini fossilise at the bottom of the sea. Grace, beauty, and wit, all that is precious in music, literature, andart--all gone. In the morning there was Europe. In the evening thereare no more populous cities nor busy hum of men, but a sea of jagged ice, a lurid sunset, and the doom of many ages. Then shall a scared remnantescape in places, and settle upon the changed continent when the watershave subsided--a simple people, busy hunting shellfish on the dryingocean beds, and with little time for introspection; yet they can read andwrite and sum, for by that time these accomplishments will have becomeuniversal, and will be acquired as easily as we now learn to talk; butthey do so as a matter of course, and without self-consciousness. Alsothey make the simpler kinds of machinery too easily to be able to followtheir own operations--the manner of their own apprenticeship being tothem as a buried city. May we not imagine that, after the lapse ofanother ten thousand years or so, some one of them may again becomecursed with lust of introspection, and a second Harvey may astonish theworld by discovering that it can read and write, and that steam-enginesdo not grow, but are made? It may be safely prophesied that he will diea martyr, and be honoured in the fourth generation. 

PERSONAL IDENTITY. (CHAPTER V. OF LIFE AND HABIT. )

"Strange difficulties have been raised by some, " says Bishop Butler, "concerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents asimplied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or indeed in anytwo consecutive moments. " But in truth it is not easy to see thestrangeness of the difficulty, if the words either "personal" or"identity" are used in any strictness. 

Personality is one of those ideas with which we are so familiar that wehave lost sight of the foundations upon which it rests. We regard ourpersonality as a simple definite whole; as a plain, palpable, individualthing, which can be seen going about the streets or sitting indoors athome; as something which lasts us our lifetime, and about the confines ofwhich no doubt can exist in the minds of reasonable people. But in truththis "we, " which looks so simple and definite, is a nebulous andindefinable aggregation of many component parts which war not a littleamong themselves, our perception of our existence at all being perhapsdue to this very clash of warfare, as our sense of sound and light is dueto the jarring of vibrations. Moreover, as the component parts of ouridentity change from moment to moment, our personality becomes a thingdependent upon time present, which has no logical existence, but livesonly upon the sufferance of times past and future, slipping out of ourhands into the domain of one or other of these two claimants the momentwe try to apprehend it. And not only is our personality as fleeting asthe present moment, but the parts which compose it blend some of them soimperceptibly into, and are so inextricably linked on to, outside thingswhich clearly form no part of our personality, that when we try to bringourselves to book and determine wherein we consist, or to draw a line asto where we begin or end, we find ourselves baffled. There is nothingbut fusion and confusion. 

Putting theology on one side, and dealing only with the common sense ofmankind, our body is certainly part of our personality. With thedestruction of our bodies, our personality, as far as we can follow it, comes to a full stop; and with every modification of them it iscorrespondingly modified. But what are the limits of our bodies? Theyare composed of parts, some of them so unessential as to be hardlyincluded in personality at all, and to be separable from ourselveswithout perceptible effect, as hair, nails, and daily waste of tissue. Again, other parts are very important, as our hands, feet, arms, legs, &c. , but still are no essential parts of our "self" or "soul, " whichcontinues to exist, though in a modified condition, in spite of theiramputation. Other parts, as the brain, heart, and blood, are soessential that they cannot be dispensed with, yet it is impossible to saythat personality consists in any one of them. 

Each one of these component members of our personality is continuallydying and being born again, supported in this process by the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe; which three things link uson, and fetter us down, to the organic and inorganic world about us. Forour meat and drink, though no part of our personality before we eat anddrink, cannot, after we have done so, be separated entirely from uswithout the destruction of our personality altogether, so far as we canfollow it; and who shall say at what precise moment our food has or hasnot become part of ourselves? A famished man eats food; after a shorttime his whole personality is so palpably affected that we know the foodto have entered into him and taken, as it were, possession of him; butwho can say at what precise moment it did so? Thus we find that we meltaway into outside things and are rooted into them as plants into the soilin which they grow, nor can any man say he consists absolutely in this orthat, nor define himself so certainly as to include neither more nor lessthan himself; many undoubted parts of his personality being moreseparable from it, and changing it less when so separated, both to hisown senses and those of other people, than other parts which are strictlyspeaking no parts at all. 

A man's clothes, for example, as they lie on a chair at night are no partof him, but when he wears them they would appear to be so, as being akind of food which warms him and hatches him, and the loss of which maykill him of cold. If this be denied, and a man's clothes be consideredas no part of his self, nevertheless they, with his money, and it mayperhaps be added his religious opinions, stamp a man's individuality asstrongly as any natural feature can stamp it. Change in style of dress, gain or loss of money, make a man feel and appear more changed thanhaving his chin shaved or his nails cut. In fact, as soon as we leavecommon parlance on one side, and try for a scientific definition ofpersonality, we find that there is none possible, any more than there canbe a demonstration of the fact that we exist at all--a demonstration forwhich, as for that of a personal God, many have hunted but which nonehave found. The only solid foundation is, as in the case of the earth'scrust, pretty near the surface of things; the deeper we try to go, thedamper, darker, and altogether more uncongenial we find it. There is noquagmire of superstition into which we may not be easily lured if we oncecut ourselves adrift from those superficial aspects of things, in whichalone our nature permits us to be comforted. 

Common parlance, however, settles the difficulty readily enough (asindeed it settles most others if they show signs of awkwardness) by thesimple process of ignoring it: we decline, and very properly, to go intothe question of where personality begins and ends, but assume it to beknown by every one, and throw the onus of not knowing it upon the over-curious, who had better think as their neighbours do, right or wrong, orthere is no knowing into what villany they may not presently fall. 

Assuming, then, that every one knows what is meant by the word "person"(and such superstitious bases as this are the foundations upon which allaction, whether of man, beast, or plant, is constructed and renderedpossible; for even the corn in the fields grows upon a superstitiousbasis as to its own existence, and only turns the earth and moisture intowheat through the conceit of its own ability to do so, without whichfaith it were powerless; and the lichen only grows upon the granite rockby first saying to itself, "I think I can do it;" so that it would not beable to grow unless it thought it could grow, and would not think itcould grow unless it found itself able to grow, and thus spends its lifearguing most virtuously in a most vicious circle--basing action uponhypothesis, which hypothesis is in turn based upon action)--assuming thatwe know what is meant by the word "person, " we say that we are one andthe same person from birth till death, so that whatever is done by orhappens to any one between birth and death, is said to happen to or bedone by one individual. This in practice is found sufficient for the lawcourts and the purposes of daily life, which, being full of hurry and thepressure of business, can only tolerate compromise, or conventionalrendering of intricate phenomena. When facts of extreme complexity haveto be daily and hourly dealt with by people whose time is money, theymust be simplified, and treated much as a painter treats them, drawingthem in squarely, seizing the more important features, and neglecting allthat does not assert itself as too essential to be passed over--hence theslang and cant words of every profession, and indeed all language; forlanguage at best is but a kind of "patter, " the only way, it is true, inmany cases, of expressing our ideas to one another, but still a very badway, and not for one moment comparable to the unspoken speech which wemay sometimes have recourse to. The metaphors and _facons de parler_ towhich even in the plainest speech we are perpetually recurring (as, forexample, in this last two lines, "plain, " "perpetually, " and "recurring, "are all words based on metaphor, and hence more or less liable tomislead) often deceive us, as though there were nothing more than what wesee and say, and as though words, instead of being, as they are, thecreatures of our convenience, had some claim to be the actual ideasthemselves concerning which we are conversing. 

This is so well expressed in a letter I have recently received from afriend, now in New Zealand, and certainly not intended by him forpublication, that I shall venture to quote the passage, but should saythat I do so without his knowledge or permission which I should not beable to receive before this book must be completed. 

"Words, words, words, " he writes, "are the stumbling-blocks in the way oftruth. Until you think of things as they are, and not of the words thatmisrepresent them, you cannot think rightly. Words produce theappearance of hard and fast lines where there are none. Words divide;thus we call this a man, that an ape, that a monkey, while they are allonly differentiations of the same thing. To think of a thing they mustbe got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear--only the clothes. I say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more importance. Other men's words will stop you at the beginning of an investigation. Aman may play with words all his life, arranging them and rearranging themlike dominoes. If I could _think_ to you without words you wouldunderstand me better. "

If such remarks as the above hold good at all, they do so with the words"personal identity. " The least reflection will show that personalidentity in any sort of strictness is an impossibility. The expressionis one of the many ways in which we are obliged to scamp our thoughtsthrough pressure of other business which pays us better. For surely allreasonable people will feel that an infant an hour before birth, when inthe eye of the law he has no existence, and could not be called a peerfor another sixty minutes, though his father were a peer, and alreadydead, --surely such an embryo is more personally identical with the babyinto which he develops within an hour's time than the born baby is sowith itself (if the expression may be pardoned), one, twenty, or it maybe eighty years after birth. There is more sameness of matter; there arefewer differences of any kind perceptible by a third person; there ismore sense of continuity on the part of the person himself, and far moreof all that goes to make up our sense of sameness of personality betweenan embryo an hour before birth and the child on being born, than there isbetween the child just born and the man of twenty. Yet there is nohesitation about admitting sameness of personality between these twolast. 

On the other hand, if that hazy contradiction in terms, "personalidentity, " be once allowed to retreat behind the threshold of the womb, it has eluded us once for all. What is true of one hour before birth istrue of two, and so on till we get back to the impregnate ovum, which mayfairly claim to have been personally identical with the man of eightyinto which it ultimately developed, in spite of the fact that there is noparticle of same matter nor sense of continuity between them, norrecognised community of instinct, nor indeed of anything which on a_prima facie_ view of the matter goes to the making up of that which wecall identity. 

There is far more of all these things common to the impregnate ovum andthe ovum immediately before impregnation, or again between the impregnateovum, and both the ovum before impregnation and the spermatozoon whichimpregnated it. Nor, if we admit personal identity between the ovum andthe octogenarian, is there any sufficient reason why we should not admitit between the impregnate ovum and the two factors of which it iscomposed, which two factors are but offshoots from two distinctpersonalities, of which they are as much part as the apple is of theapple-tree; so that an impregnate ovum cannot without a violation offirst principles be debarred from claiming personal identity with bothits parents, and hence, by an easy chain of reasoning, _with each of theimpregnate ova from which its parents were developed_. 

So that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descendedfrom its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality ofevery ovum in the chain of its ancestry, every which ovum _it actuallyis_ as truly as the octogenarian _is_ the same identity with the ovumfrom which he has been developed. The two cases stand or fall together. 

This process cannot stop short of the primordial cell, which again willprobably turn out to be but a brief resting-place. We therefore proveeach one of us to _be actually_ the primordial cell which never died nordies, but has differentiated itself into the life of the world, allliving beings whatever, being one with it, and members one of another. 

To look at the matter for a moment in another light, it will be admittedthat if the primordial cell had been killed before leaving issue, all itspossible descendants would have been killed at one and the same time. Itis hard to see how this single fact does not establish at the point, asit were, of a logical bayonet, an identity between any creature and allothers that are descended from it. 

* * * * *

The fencing (for it does not deserve the name of serious disputation)with which Bishop Butler meets his opponents is rendered possible by thelaxness with which the words "identical" and "identity" are ordinarilyused. Bishop Butler would not seriously deny that personality undergoesgreat changes between infancy and old age, and hence that it must undergosome change from moment to moment. So universally is this recognised, that it is common to hear it said of such and such a man that he is notat all the person he was, or of such and such another that he is twicethe man he used to be--expressions than which none nearer the truth canwell be found. On the other hand, those whom Bishop Butler is intendingto confute would be the first to admit that, though there are manychanges between infancy and old age, yet they come about in any oneindividual under such circumstances as we are all agreed in consideringas the factors of personal identity rather than as hindrancesthereto--that is to say that there has been no entire and permanent deathon the part of the individual between any two phases of his existence, and that any one phase has had a lasting though perhaps imperceptibleeffect upon all succeeding ones. So that no one ever seriously argued inthe manner supposed by Bishop Butler, unless with modifications andsaving clauses, to which it does not suit his purpose to call attention. 

* * * * *

No doubt it would be more strictly accurate to say "you are the now phaseof the person I met last night, " or "you are the being which has beenevolved from the being I met last night, " than "you are the person I metlast night. " But life is too short for the periphrases which would crowdupon us from every quarter, if we did not set our face against all thatis under the surface of things, unless, that is to say, the going beneaththe surface is, for some special chance of profit, excusable or capableof extenuation. 

* * * * *

Take again the case of some weeping trees, whose boughs spring up intofresh trees when they have reached the ground, who shall say at what timethey cease to be members of the parent tree? In the case of cuttingsfrom plants it is easy to elude the difficulty by making a parade of thesharp and sudden act of separation from the parent stock, but this isonly a piece of mental sleight of hand; the cutting remains as much partof its parent plant as though it had never been severed from it; it goeson profiting by the experience which it had before it was cut off, asmuch as though it had never been cut off at all. This will be morereadily seen in the case of worms which have been cut in half. Let aworm be cut in half, and the two halves will become fresh worms; which ofthem is the original worm? Surely both. Perhaps no simpler cage thanthis could readily be found of the manner in which personality eludes us, the moment we try to investigate its real nature. There are few ideaswhich on first consideration appear so simple, and none which becomesmore utterly incapable of limitation or definition as soon as it isexamined closely. 

It has gone the way of species. It is now generally held that speciesblend or have blended into one another; so that any possibility ofarrangement and apparent subdivision into definite groups, is due to thesuppression by death both of individuals and whole genera, which, hadthey been now existing, would have linked all living beings by a seriesof gradations so subtle that little classification could have beenattempted. What we have failed to see is that the individual is as muchlinked onto other individuals as the species is linked on to otherspecies. How it is that the one great personality of life as a whole, should have split itself up into so many centres of thought and action, each one of which is wholly, or at any rate nearly unconscious of itsconnection with the other members, instead of having grown up into a hugepolyp, or as it were coral reef or compound animal over the whole world, which should be conscious but of its own one single existence; how it isthat the daily waste of this creature should be carried on by theconscious death of its individual members, instead of by the unconsciouswaste of tissue which goes on in the bodies of each individual (if indeedthe tissue which we waste daily in our own bodies is so unconscious ofits birth and death as we suppose); how, again, that the daily repair ofthis huge creature life should have become decentralised, and be carriedon by conscious reproduction on the part of its component items, insteadof by the unconscious nutrition of the whole from a single centre, as thenutrition of our own bodies would appear (though perhaps falsely) to becarried on; these are matters upon which I dare not speculate here, buton which some reflections may follow in subsequent chapters. 

INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. (CHAPTER XI. OF LIFE AND HABIT. )

Obviously the memory of a habit or experience will not commonly betransmitted to offspring in that perfection which is called "instinct, "till the habit or experience has been repeated in several generationswith more or less uniformity; for otherwise the impression made will notbe strong enough to endure through the busy and difficult task ofreproduction. This of course involves that the habit shall haveattained, as it were, equilibrium with the creature's sense of its ownneeds, so that it shall have long seemed the best course possible, leaving upon the whole and under ordinary circumstances little further tobe desired, and hence that it should have been little varied during manygenerations. We should expect that it would be transmitted in a more orless partial, varying, imperfect, and intelligent condition beforeequilibrium had been attained; it would, however, continually tendtowards equilibrium. 

When this stage has been reached, as regards any habit, the creature willcease trying to improve; on which the repetition of the habit will becomestable, and hence capable of more unerring transmission--but at the sametime improvement will cease; the habit will become fixed, and be perhapstransmitted at an earlier and earlier age, till it has reached that dateof manifestation which shall be found most agreeable to the other habitsof the creature. It will also be manifested, as a matter of course, without further consciousness or reflection, for people cannot be alwaysopening up settled questions; if they thought a matter all over yesterdaythey cannot think it all over again to-day, what they thought then theywill think now, and will act upon their opinion; and this, too, even inspite sometimes of misgiving, that if they were to think still furtherthey could find a still better course. It is not, therefore, to beexpected that "instinct" should show signs of that hesitating andtentative action which results from knowledge that is still so imperfectas to be actively self-conscious; nor yet that it should grow or varyperceptibly unless under such changed conditions as shall baffle memory, and present the alternative of either invention--that is to say, variation--or death. 

But every instinct must have passed through the laboriously intelligentstages through which human civilisations _and mechanical inventions_ arenow passing; and he who would study the origin of an instinct with itsdevelopment, partial transmission, further growth, further transmission, approach to more unreflecting stability, and finally, its perfection asan unerring and unerringly transmitted instinct, must look to laws, customs, _and machinery_ as his best instructors. Customs and machinesare instincts _and organs_ now in process of development; they willassuredly one day reach the unconscious state of equilibrium which weobserve in the structures and instincts of bees and ants, and an approachto which may be found among some savage nations. We may reflect, however, not without pleasure, that this condition--the truemillennium--is still distant. Nevertheless the ants and bees seem happy;perhaps more happy than when so many social questions were in as hotdiscussion among them as other and not dissimilar ones will one day beamongst ourselves. 

And this, as will be apparent, opens up the whole question of thestability of species, which we cannot follow further here, than to say, that according to the balance of testimony, many plants and animals doappear to have reached a phase of being from which they are hard tomove--that is to say, they will die sooner than be at the pains ofaltering their habits--true martyrs to their convictions. Such racesrefuse to see changes in their surroundings as long as they can, but whencompelled to recognise them, they throw up the game because they cannotand will not, or will not and cannot, invent. 

This is perfectly intelligible, for a race is nothing but a long-livedindividual, and like any individual, or tribe of men whom we have yetobserved, will have its special capacities and its special limitations, though, as in the case of the individual, so also with the race, it isexceedingly hard to say what those limitations are, and why, having beenable to go so far, it should go no further. Every man and every race iscapable of education up to a certain point, but not to the extent ofbeing made from a sow's ear into a silk purse. The proximate cause ofthe limitation seems to lie in the absence of the wish to go further; thepresence or absence of the wish will depend upon the nature andsurroundings of the individual, which is simply a way of saying that onecan get no further, but that as the song (with a slight alteration)says:--

 "Some breeds do, and some breeds don't, Some breeds will, but this breed won't: I tried very often to see if it would, But it said it really couldn't, and I don't think it could. "

* * * * *

M. Ribot in his work on Heredity {119} writes (p. 14):--"The ducklinghatched by the hen makes straight for water. " In what conceivable waycan we account for this, except on the supposition that the ducklingknows perfectly well what it can and what it cannot do with water, owingto its recollection of what it did when it was still one individualitywith its parents, and hence, when it was a duckling before?

"The squirrel, before it knows anything of winter, lays up a store ofnuts. A bird when hatched in a cage will, when given its freedom, buildfor itself a nest like that of its parents, out of the same materials, and of the same shape. "

If this is not due to memory, "even an imperfect" explanation of whatelse it can be due to, "would, " to quote from Mr. Darwin, "besatisfactory. "

"Intelligence gropes about, tries this way and that, misses its object, commits mistakes, and corrects them. "

Yes. Because intelligence is of consciousness, and consciousness is ofattention, and attention is of uncertainty, and uncertainty is ofignorance or want of consciousness. Intelligence is not yet thoroughlyup to its business. 

"Instinct advances with a mechanical certainty, hence comes itsunconscious character. It knows nothing either of ends, or of the meansof attaining them: it implies no comparison, judgment, or choice. "

This is assumption. What is certain is that instinct does not betraysigns of self-consciousness as to its own knowledge. It has dismissedreference to first principles, and is no longer under the law, but underthe grace of a settled conviction. 

"All seems directed by thought. "

Yes; because all _has been_ in earlier existences directed by thought. 

"Without ever arriving at thought. "

Because it has _got past thought_, and though "directed by thought"originally, is now travelling in exactly the opposite direction. It isnot likely to reach thought again, till people get to know worse andworse how to do things, the oftener they practise them. 

"And if this phenomenon appear strange, it must be observed thatanalogous states occur in ourselves. _All that we do fromhabit_--_walking_, _writing_, _or practising a mechanical act_, _forinstance_--_all these and many other very complex acts are performedwithout consciousness_. 

"Instinct appears stationary. It does not, like intelligence, seem togrow and decay, to gain and to lose. It does not improve. "

Naturally. For improvement can only as a general rule be looked foralong the line of latest development, that is to say, in mattersconcerning which the creature is being still consciously exercised. Olderquestions are settled, and the solution must be accepted as final, forthe question of living at all would be reduced to an absurdity, ifeverything decided upon one day was to be undecided again the next; aswith painting or music, so with life and politics, let every man be fullypersuaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will be commonly abetter policy than indecision--I had almost added with right; and a firmpurpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporaryexemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, towhich it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the correspondingmodification of other structures and instincts was found preferable tothe revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentaryorgans are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests--thesigns of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they arealso instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trickwhich we have long practised, and which is not sufficiently troublesometo make it a serious object with us to cure ourselves of the habit. 

"If it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it only varieswithin very narrow limits; and though this question has been warmlydebated in our day and is yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinctimmutability is the law, variation the exception. "

This is quite as it should be. Genius will occasionally rise a littleabove convention, but with an old convention immutability will be therule. 

"Such, " continues M. Ribot, "are the admitted characters of instinct. "

Yes; but are they not also the admitted characters of habitual actionsthat are due to memory?

* * * * *

M. Ribot says a little further on: "Originally man had considerabletrouble in taming the animals which are now domesticated; and his workwould have been in vain had not heredity" (memory) "come to his aid. Itmay be said that after man has modified a wild animal to his will, theregoes on in its progeny a silent conflict between two heredities"(memories), "the one tending to fix the acquired modifications and theother to preserve the primitive instincts. The latter often get themastery, and only after several generations is training sure of victory. But we may see that in either case heredity" (memory) "always asserts itsrights. "

How marvellously is the above passage elucidated and made to fit in withthe results of our recognised experience, by the simple substitution ofthe word "memory" for heredity. 

* * * * *

I cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more instances of what Ithink must be considered by every reader as hereditary memory. SydneySmith writes:--

"Sir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven. Within a few minutesafter the shell was broken, a spider was turned loose before this veryyouthful brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded more than afew inches, before he was descried by one of these oven-born chickens, and, at one peck of his bill, immediately devoured. This certainly wasnot imitation. A female goat very near delivery died; Galen cut out theyoung kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and apan of milk; the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and thenbegan to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And what is commonly andrightly called instinct, cannot be explained away under the notion of itsbeing imitation. " (Lecture xvii. On Moral Philosophy. )

It cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion of its beingimitation, but I think it may well be so under that of its being memory. 

Again, a little further on in the same lecture as that above quoted from, we find:--

"Ants and beavers lay up magazines. Where do they get their knowledgethat it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather as it is insummer? Men and women know these things, because their grandpapas andgrandmammas have told them so. Ants hatched from the egg artificially, or birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition, without the smallest communication with any of their relations. Nowobserve what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand, in each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?)that an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animalmust be nourished with other animals. She collects a few green flies, rolls them up neatly in several parcels (like Bologna sausages), andstuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When thewasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision ready made; and whatis most curious, the quantity allotted to each is exactly sufficient tosupport it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide foritself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable as itdoes not feed upon flesh itself. Here the little creature has never seenits parent; for by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten bysparrows; and yet, without the slightest education, or previousexperience, it does everything that the parent did before it. Now theobjectors to the doctrine of instinct may say what they please, but youngtailors have no intuitive method of making pantaloons; a new-born mercercannot measure diaper; nature teaches a cook's daughter nothing aboutsippets. All these things require with us seven years' apprenticeship;but insects are like Moliere's persons of quality--they know everything(as Moliere says) without having learnt anything. 'Les gens de qualitesavent tout, sans avoir rien appris. '"

How completely all difficulty vanishes from the facts so pleasantly toldin this passage when we bear in mind the true nature of personalidentity, the ordinary working of memory, and the vanishing tendency ofconsciousness concerning what we know exceedingly well. 

My last instance I take from M. Ribot, who writes:--"Gratiolet, in his_Anatomie Comparee du Systems Nerveux_, states that an old piece ofwolf's skin, with the hair all worn away, when set before a little dog, threw the animal into convulsions of fear by the slight scent attachingto it. The dog had never seen a wolf, and we can only explain this alarmby the hereditary transmission of certain sentiments, coupled with acertain perception of the sense of smell. " ("Heredity, " p. 43. )

I should prefer to say "we can only explain the alarm by supposing thatthe smell of the wolf's skin"--the sense of smell being, as we all know, more powerful to recall the ideas that have been associated with it thanany other sense--"brought up the ideas with which it had been associatedin the dog's mind during many previous existences"--he on smelling thewolf's skin remembering all about wolves perfectly well. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS. (FROM CHAPTER XV. OF LIFE AND HABIT. )

Here, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I have crossed thethreshold only of my subject. My work is of a tentative character, putbefore the public as a sketch or design for a, possibly, furtherendeavour, in which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms whichthis present volume may elicit. {125} Such as it is, however, for thepresent I must leave it. 

We have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly till we can do itunconsciously, and that we cannot do anything unconsciously till we cando it thoroughly; this at first seems illogical; but logic andconsistency are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only. Thusa boy cannot really know how to swim till he can swim, but he cannot swimtill he knows how to swim. Conscious effort is but the process ofrubbing off the rough corners from these two contradictory statements, till they eventually fit into one another so closely that it isimpossible to disjoin them. 

Whenever we see any creature able to go through any complicated anddifficult process with little or no effort--whether it be a bird buildingher nest, or a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum turningitself into a baby--we may conclude that the creature has done the samething on a very great number of past occasions. 

We found the phenomena exhibited by heredity to be so like those ofmemory, and to be so inexplicable on any other supposition than that theywere modes of memory, that it was easier to suppose them due to memory inspite of the fact that we cannot remember having recollected, than tobelieve that because we cannot so remember, therefore the phenomenacannot be due to memory. 

We were thus led to consider "personal identity, " in order to see whetherthere was sufficient reason for denying that the experience, which wemust have clearly gained somewhere, was gained by us when we were in thepersons of our forefathers; we found, not without surprise, that unlesswe admitted that it might be so gained, in so far as that we once_actually were_ our remotest ancestor, we must change our ideasconcerning personality altogether. 

We therefore assumed that the phenomena of heredity, whether as regardsinstinct or structure, were due to memory of past experiences, accumulated and fused till they had become automatic, or quasi automatic, much in the same way as after a long life--

 . . . "Old experience doth attain To something like prophetic strain. "

After dealing with certain phenomena of memory, but more especially withits abeyance and revival, we inquired what the principal correspondingphenomena of life and species should be, on the hypothesis that they weremainly due to memory. 

I think I may say that we found the hypothesis fit in with actual factsin a sufficiently satisfactory manner. We found not a few matters, as, for example, the sterility of hybrids, the principle underlyinglongevity, the phenomena of old age, and puberty as generally near theend of development, explain themselves with more completeness than I haveyet heard of their being explained on any other hypothesis. Most indeedof these phenomena have been left hitherto without even an attempt at anexplanation. 

We considered the most important difficulty in the way of instinct ashereditary habit, namely, the structure and instincts of neuter insects;these are very unlike those of their parents, and cannot, apparently, betransmitted to offspring by individuals of the previous generation, inwhom such structure and instincts appeared, inasmuch as these creaturesare sterile. I do not say that the difficulty is wholly removed, inasmuch as some obscurity must be admitted to remain as to the manner inwhich the structure of the larva is aborted; this obscurity is likely toremain till we know more of the early history of civilisation among beesthan I can find that we know at present; but I believe the difficulty wasreduced to such proportions as to make it little likely to be felt incomparison with that of attributing instinct to any other cause thaninherited habit, or memory on the part of offspring, of habits contractedin the persons of its ancestors. {127}

We then inquired what was the great principle underlying variation, andanswered, with Lamarck, that it must be "sense of need;" and though notwithout being haunted by suspicion of a vicious circle, and also wellaware that we were not much nearer the origin of life than when westarted, we still concluded that here was the truest origin of species, and hence of genera; and that the accumulation of variations, which intime amounted to specific and generic differences, was due tointelligence and memory on the part of the creature varying, rather thanto the operation of what Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection. " Atthe same time we admitted that the course of nature is very much as Mr. Darwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far as that there is astruggle for existence, and that the weaker must go to the wall. But wedenied that this part of the course of nature would lead to much, if any, accumulation of variation, unless the variation was directed mainly byintelligent sense of need, with continued personality and memory. 

We conclude, therefore, that the small, apparently structureless, impregnate ovum from which we have each one of us sprung, has a potentialrecollection of all that has happened to each one of its ancestors priorto the period at which any such ancestor has issued from the bodies ofits progenitors--provided, that is to say, a sufficiently deep, orsufficiently often-repeated, impression has been made to admit of itsbeing remembered at all. 

Each step of normal development will lead the impregnate ovum up to, andremind it of, its next ordinary course of action, in the same way as we, when we recite a well-known passage, are led up to each successivesentence by the sentence which has immediately preceded it. 

And for this reason, namely, that as it takes two people "to tell" athing--a speaker and a comprehending listener, without which last, thoughmuch may have been said, there has been nothing told--so also it takestwo people, as it were, to "remember" a thing--the creature remembering, and the surroundings of the creature at the time it last remembered. Hence, though the ovum immediately after impregnation is instinct withall the memories of both parents, not one of these memories can normallybecome active till both the ovum itself, and its surroundings, aresufficiently like what they respectively were, when the occurrence now tobe remembered last took place. The memory will then immediately return, and the creature will do as it did on the last occasion that it was inlike case as now. This ensures that similarity of order shall bepreserved in all the stages of development in successive generations. 

Life then is the being possessed of memory. We are all the same stuff tostart with; plants and animals only differ from one another because theyremember different things; they grow up in the shapes they bear becausethese shapes are the embodiments of their ideas concerning their own pasthistory; they are forms of faith or faiths of form whichever the readerchooses. 

Hence the term "Natural History, " as applied to the different plants andanimals around us. For surely the study of natural history means onlythe study of plants and animals themselves, which, at the moment of usingthe words "Natural History, " we assume to be the most important part ofnature. 

A living creature well supported by a mass of healthy ancestral memory isa young and growing creature, free from ache or pain, and thoroughlyacquainted with its business so far, but with much yet to be reminded of. A creature which finds itself and its surroundings not so unlike those ofits parents about the time of their begetting it, as to be compelled torecognise that it never yet was in any such position, is a creature inthe heyday of life. A creature which begins to be aware of itself is onewhich is beginning to recognise that the situation is a new one. 

It is the young and fair, then, who are the truly old and trulyexperienced; it is they who alone have a trustworthy memory to guidethem; they alone know things as they are, and it is from them that, as wegrow older, we must study if we would still cling to truth. The wholecharm of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect of experience, and where this has for some reason failed, or been misapplied, the charmis broken. When we say that we are getting old, we should say ratherthat we are getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience, which drives us into doing things which we do not understand, and landsus, eventually, in the utter impotence of death. The kingdom of heavenis the kingdom of little children. 

SELECTIONS FROM EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. {131}

IMPOTENCE OF PALEY'S CONCLUSION. THE TELEOLOGY OF THE EVOLUTIONIST. (FROM CHAPTER III. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. )

If we conceive of ourselves as looking simultaneously upon a real foot, and upon an admirably constructed artificial one, placed by the side ofit, the idea of design, and design by an intelligent living being with abody and soul (without which, the use of the word design is delusive), will present itself strongly to our minds in connection both with thetrue foot and with the model; but we find another idea asserting itselfwith even greater strength, namely, that the design of the true foot isinfinitely more intricate, and yet is carried into execution in far moremasterly manner than that of the model. We not only feel that there is awider difference between the ability, time, and care which have beenlavished on the real foot and upon the model, than there is between theskill and the time taken to produce Westminster Abbey, and that bestowedupon a gingerbread cake stuck with sugar plums so as to represent it, butalso that these two objects must have been manufactured on differentprinciples. We do not for a moment doubt that the real foot wasdesigned, but we are so astonished at the dexterity of the designer thatwe are at a loss for some time to think who could have designed it, wherehe can live, in what manner he studied, for how long, and by whatprocesses he carried out his design, when matured, into actual practice. Until recently it was thought that there was no answer to many of thesequestions, more especially to those which bear upon the mode ofmanufacture. For the last hundred years, however, the importance of astudy has been recognised which does actually reveal to us in no smalldegree the processes by which the human foot is manufactured, so that inour endeavour to lay our hands upon the points of difference between thekind of design with which the foot itself is designed, and the design ofthe model, we turn naturally to the guidance of those who have made thisstudy their specialty; and a very wide difference does this study, embryology, at once reveal to us. 

Writing of the successive changes through which each embryo is forced topass, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes says that "none of these phases have anyadaptation to the future state of the animal, but are in positivecontradiction to it or are simply purposeless; whereas all show stampedon them the unmistakable characters of _ancestral_ adaptation, and theprogressions of organic evolution. What does the fact imply? There isnot a single known example of a complex organism which is not developedout of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex structure whichdistinguishes it, there must be an evolution of forms similar to thosewhich distinguish the structure of organisms lower in the series. On thehypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic world, nothing couldbe more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability toconstruct an organism at once, without making several previous tentativeefforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and_repeating for centuries the same tentatives in the same succession_. Donot let us blink this consideration. There is a traditional phrase muchin vogue among the anthropomorphists, which arose naturally enough from atendency to take human methods as an explanation of the Divine--a phrasewhich becomes a sort of argument--'The Great Architect. ' But if we areto admit the human point of view, a glance at the facts of embryologymust produce very uncomfortable reflections. For what should we say toan architect who was unable, or being able was obstinately unwilling, toerect a palace except by first using his materials in the shape of a hut, then pulling them down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then addingstory to story and room to room, _not_ with any reference to the ultimatepurposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to the way in whichhouses were constructed in ancient times? What should we say to thearchitect who could not form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but wasforced to begin as if going to construct a mansion, and after proceedingsome way in this direction, altered his plan into a palace, and thatagain into a museum? Yet this is the sort of succession on whichorganisms are constructed. The fact has long been familiar; how has itbeen reconciled with infinite wisdom? Let the following passage answerfor a thousand:--'The embryo is nothing like the miniature of the adult. For a long while the body in its entirety and in its details, presentsthe strangest of spectacles. Day by day and hour by hour, the aspect ofthe scene changes, and this instability is exhibited by the mostessential parts no less than by the accessory parts. One would say thatnature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many times missingthe path' (on dirait que la nature tatonne et ne conduit son oeuvre a bonfin, qu'apres s'etre souvent trompee). " {134a}

The above passage does not, I think, affect the evidence for design whichwe adduced in the preceding chapter. {134b} However strange the processof manufacture may appear, when the work comes to be turned out thedesign is too manifest to be doubted. 

If the reader were to come upon some lawyer's deed which dealt withmatters of such unspeakable intricacy that it baffled his imagination toconceive how it could ever have been drafted, and if in spite of this hewere to find the intricacy of the provisions to be made, exceeded only bythe ease and simplicity with which the deed providing for them was foundto work in practice; and after this, if he were to discover that thedeed, by whomsoever drawn, had nevertheless been drafted upon principleswhich at first seemed very foreign to any according to which he was inthe habit of drafting deeds himself, as for example, that the draftsmanhad begun to draft a will as a marriage settlement, and so forth--yet anobserver would not, I take it, do either of two things. He would not inthe face of the result deny the design, making himself judge rather ofthe method of procedure than of the achievement. Nor yet after insistingin the manner of Paley, on the wonderful proofs of intention and on theexquisite provisions which were to be found in every syllable--thusleading us up to the highest pitch of expectation--would he present uswith such an impotent conclusion as that the designer, though a livingperson and a true designer, was yet immaterial and intangible, asomething, in fact, which proves to be a nothing; an omniscient andomnipotent vacuum. 

Our observer would feel he need not have been at such pains to establishhis design if this was to be the upshot of his reasoning. He wouldtherefore admit the design, and by consequence the designer, but wouldprobably ask a little time for reflection before he ventured to say who, or what, or where the designer was. Then gaining some insight into themanner in which the deed had been drawn, he would conclude that thedraftsman was a specialist who had had long practice in this particularkind of work, but who now worked almost as it might be said automaticallyand without consciousness, and found it difficult to depart from ahabitual method of procedure. 

We turn, then, on Paley, and say to him: "We have admitted your designand your designer. Where is he? Show him to us. If you cannot show himto us as flesh and blood, show him as flesh and sap; show him as a livingcell; show him as protoplasm. Lower than this we should not fairly go;it is not in the bond or _nexus_ of our ideas that something utterlyinanimate and inorganic should scheme, design, contrive, and elaboratestructures which can make mistakes: it may elaborate low unerring things, like crystals, but it cannot elaborate those which have the power to err. Nevertheless, we will commit such abuse with our understandings as towaive this point, and we will ask you to show him to us as air which, ifit cannot be seen yet can be felt, weighed, handled, transferred fromplace to place, be judged by its effects, and so forth; or if this maynot be, give us half a grain of hydrogen, diffused through all space andinvested with some of the minor attributes of matter; or if you cannot dothis, give us an imponderable like electricity, or even the highermathematics, but give us something or throw off the mask and tell usfairly out that it is your paid profession to hoodwink us on this matterif you can, and that you are but doing your best to earn an honestliving. "

We may fancy Paley as turning the tables upon us and as saying; "But youtoo have admitted a designer--you too then must mean a designer with abody and soul, who must be somewhere to be found in space, and who mustlive in time. Where is this your designer? Can you show him more than Ican? Can you lay your finger on him and demonstrate him so that a childshall see him and know him, and find what was heretofore an isolated ideaconcerning him, combine itself instantaneously with the idea of thedesigner, we will say, of the human foot, so that no power on earth shallhenceforth tear those two ideas asunder? Surely if you cannot do this, you too are trifling with words, and abusing your own mind and that ofyour reader. Where, then, is your designer of man? Who made him? Andwhere, again, is your designer of beasts and birds, of fishes and ofplants?"

Our answer is simple enough; it is that we can and do point to a livingtangible person with flesh, blood, eyes, nose, ears, organs, senses, dimensions, who did of his own cunning after infinite proof of every kindof hazard and experiment scheme out and fashion each organ of the humanbody. This is the person whom we claim as the designer and artificer ofthat body, and he is the one of all others the best fitted for the taskby his antecedents, and his practical knowledge of the requirements ofthe case--for he is man himself. 

Not man, the individual of any given generation, but man in the entiretyof his existence from the dawn of life onwards to the present moment. Inlike manner we say that the designer of all organisms is so incorporatewith the organisms themselves--so lives, moves, and has its being inthose organisms, and is so one with them--they in it, and it in them--thatit is more consistent with reason and the common use of words to see thedesigner of each living form in the living form itself, than to look forits designer in some other place or person. 

Thus we have a third alternative presented to us. 

Mr. Charles Darwin and his followers deny design, as having anyappreciable share in the formation of organism at all. 

Paley and the theologians insist on design, but upon a designer outsidethe universe and the organism. 

The third opinion is that suggested in the first instance and carried outto a very high degree of development by Buffon. It was improved, andindeed, made almost perfect by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, but too much neglectedby him after he had put it forward. It was borrowed, as I think we maysay with some confidence, from Dr. Darwin by Lamarck, and was followed upby him ardently thenceforth, during the remainder of his life, thoughsomewhat less perfectly comprehended by him than it had been by Dr. Darwin. It is that the design which has designed organisms, has residedwithin, and been embodied in, the organisms themselves. 

FAILURE OF THE FIRST EVOLUTIONISTS TO SEE THEIR POSITION AS TELEOLOGICAL. (CHAPTER IV. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. )

It follows from the doctrine of Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, if notfrom that of Buffon himself, that the majority of organs are as purposiveto the evolutionist as to the theologian, and far more intelligibly so. Circumstances, however, prevented these writers from acknowledging thisfact to the world, and perhaps even to themselves. Their _crux_ was, asit still is to so many evolutionists, the presence of rudimentary organs, and the processes of embryological development. They would not admitthat rudimentary and therefore useless organs were designed by a Creatorto take their place once and for ever as part of a scheme whose main ideawas, that every animal structure was to serve some useful end inconnection with its possessor. 

This was the doctrine of final causes as then commonly held; in the faceof rudimentary organs it was absurd. Buffon was above all things else aplain matter of fact thinker, who refused to go far beyond the obvious. Like all other profound writers, he was, if I may say so, profoundlysuperficial. He felt that the aim of research does not consist in theknowing this or that, but in the easing of the desire to know orunderstand more completely--in the peace of mind which passeth allunderstanding. His was the perfection of a healthy mental organism bywhich over effort is felt to be as vicious and contemptible as indolence. He knew this too well to know the grounds of his knowledge, but wesmaller people who know it less completely, can see that such felicitousinstinctive tempering together of the two great contradictory principles, love of effort and love of ease, has underlain every healthy step of allhealthy growth, whether of vegetable or animal, from the earliestconceivable time to the present moment. Nothing is worth looking atwhich is seen either too obviously or with too much difficulty. Nothingis worth doing or well done which is not done fairly easily, and somelittle deficiency of effort is more pardonable than any very perceptibleexcess, for virtue has ever erred on the side of self-indulgence ratherthan of asceticism. 

According to Buffon, then--as also according to Dr. Darwin, who was justsuch another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly a pupilof Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one--if an organ aftera reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it was to becalled useless without more ado, and theories were to be ordered out ofcourt if they were troublesome. In like manner, if animals breed freely_inter se_ before our eyes, as for example the horse and ass, the factwas to be noted, but no animals were to be classed as capable ofinterbreeding until they had asserted their right to such classificationby breeding with tolerable certainty. If, again, an animal looked as ifit felt, that is to say, if it moved about pretty quickly or made anoise, it must be held to feel; if it did neither of these things it didnot look as if it felt, and therefore it must be said not to feel. _Denon apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est lex_ was one of the chiefaxioms of their philosophy; no writers have had a greater horror ofmystery or of ideas that have not become so mastered as to be, or to havebeen, superficial. Lamarck was one of those men of whom I believe it hasbeen said that they have brain upon the brain. He had his theory that ananimal could not feel unless it had a nervous system, and at least aspinal marrow--and that it could not think at all without a brain--allhis facts, therefore, have to be made to square with this. With Buffonand Dr. Darwin we feel safe that however wrong they may sometimes be, their conclusions have always been arrived at on that fairly superficialview of things in which, as I have elsewhere said, our nature alonepermits us to be comforted. 

To these writers, then, the doctrine of final causes for rudimentaryorgans was a piece of mystification and an absurdity; no less fatal toany such doctrine were the processes of embryological development. Itwas plain that the commonly received teleology must be given up; but theidea of design or purpose was so associated in their minds withtheological design that they avoided it altogether. They seem to haveforgotten that an internal purpose is as much purpose as an external one;hence, unfortunately, though their whole theory of development isintensely purposive, it is the fact rather than the name of teleologywhich has hitherto been insisted upon, even by the greatest writers onevolution--the name having been most persistently denied even by thosewho were most insisting on the thing itself. 

It is easy to understand the difficulty felt by the fathers of evolutionwhen we remember how much had to be seen before the facts could lie wellbefore them. It was necessary to attain, firstly, to a perception of theunity of person between parents and offspring in successive generations;secondly, it must be seen that an organism's memory (within thelimitations to which all memory is subject) goes back for generationsbeyond its birth, to the first beginnings in fact, of which we knowanything whatever; thirdly, the latency of that memory, as of memorygenerally, till the associated ideas are reproduced, must be brought tobear upon the facts of heredity; and lastly, the unconsciousness withwhich habitual actions come to be performed, must be assigned as theexplanation of the unconsciousness with which we grow and discharge mostof our natural functions. 

Buffon was too busy with the fact that animals descended withmodification at all, to go beyond the development and illustration ofthis great truth. I doubt whether he ever saw more than the first, andthat dimly, of the four considerations above stated. 

Dr. Darwin was the first to point out the first two considerations; hedid so with some clearness, but can hardly be said to have understoodtheir full importance: the two latter ideas do not appear to haveoccurred to him. 

Lamarck had little if any perception of any one of the four. When, however, they are firmly seized and brought into their due bearings oneupon another, the facts of heredity become as simple as those of a manmaking a tobacco pipe, and rudimentary organs are seen to be essentiallyof the same character as the little rudimentary protuberance at thebottom of the pipe to which I referred in 'Erewhon. ' {141}

These organs are now no longer useful, but they once were so, and weretherefore once purposive, though not so now. They are the expressions ofa bygone usefulness; sayings, as it were, about which there was at onetime infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expressionshould best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouthsof those who used them, though they have become such mere shibboleths andcant formulae to ourselves that we think no more of their meaning than wedo of Julius Caesar in the month of July. They continue to be reproducedthrough the force of habit, and through indisposition to get out of anyfamiliar groove of action until it becomes too unpleasant for us toremain in it any longer. It has long been felt that embryology andrudimentary structures indicated community of descent. Dr. Darwin andLamarck insisted on this, as have all subsequent writers on evolution;but the explanation why and how the structures come to berepeated--namely, that they are simply examples of the force of habit--canonly be perceived intelligently by those who admit such unity betweenparents and offspring as that the self-development of the latter can beproperly called habitual (as being a repetition of an act by one and thesame individual), and can only be fully sympathised with by those whorecognise that if habit be admitted as the key to the fact at all, theunconscious manner in which the habit comes to be repeated is only of apiece with all our other observations concerning habit. For the fullerdevelopment of the foregoing, I must refer the reader to my work "Lifeand Habit. "

The purposiveness, which even Dr. Darwin (and Lamarck still less) seemsnever to have quite recognised in spite of their having insisted so muchon what amounts to the same thing, now comes into full view. It is seenthat the organs external to the body, and those internal to it, are thesecond as much as the first, things which we have made for our ownconvenience, and with a prevision that we shall have need of them; themain difference between the manufacture of these two classes of organsbeing, that we have made the one kind so often that we can no longerfollow the processes whereby we make them, while the others are newthings which we must make introspectively or not at all, and which arenot yet so incorporate with our vitality as that we should think theygrow instead of being manufactured. The manufacture of the tool, and themanufacture of the living organ prove therefore to be but two species ofthe same genus, which, though widely differentiated, have descended as itwere from one common filament of desire and inventive faculty. Thegreater or less complexity of the organs goes for very little. It isonly a question of the amount of intelligence and voluntaryself-adaptation which we must admit, and this must be settled rather byan appeal to what we find in organism, and observe concerning it, than bywhat we may have imagined _a priori_. 

Given a small speck of jelly with some power of slightly varying itsactions in accordance with slightly varying circumstances anddesires--given such a jelly-speck with a power of assimilating othermatter, and thus of reproducing itself, given also that it should bepossessed of a memory and a reproductive system, and we can show how thewhole animal world can have descended it may be from an _amoeba_ withoutinterference from without, and how every organ in every creature isdesigned at first roughly and tentatively but finally fashioned with themost consummate perfection, by the creature which has had need of thatorgan, which best knew what it wanted, and was never satisfied till ithad got that which was the best suited to its varying circumstances intheir entirety. We can even show how, if it becomes worth theEthiopian's while to try and change his skin, or the leopard's to changehis spots, they can assuredly change them within a not unreasonable timeand adapt their covering to their own will and convenience, and to thatof none other; thus what is commonly conceived of as direct creation byGod is moved back to a time and space inconceivable in their remoteness, while the aim and design so obvious in nature are shown to be still atwork around us, growing ever busier and busier, and advancing from day today both in knowledge and power. 

It was reserved for Mr. Charles Darwin and for those who have too rashlyfollowed him to deny purpose as having had any share in the developmentof animal and vegetable organs; to see no evidence of design in thosewonderful provisions which have been the marvel and delight of observersin all ages. The one who has drawn our attention more than perhaps anyother living writer to those very marvels of co-adaptation, is theforemost to maintain that they are the result not of desire and design, either within the creature or without it, but of blind chance, working nowhither, and due but to the accumulation of innumerable lucky accidents. 

"There are men, " writes Professor Tyndal in the _Nineteenth Century_ forlast November, {144} "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthyin regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; andthey are sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plodmeritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of thepinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realise the mentalact--the act of inspiration it might well be called--by which a man ofgenius, after long pondering and proving, reaches a theoretic conceptionwhich unravels and illuminates the tangle of centuries of observation andexperiment. There are minds, it may be said in passing, who, at thepresent moment, stand in this relation to Mr. Darwin. "

The more rhapsodical parts of the above must go for what they are worth, but I should be sorry to think that what remains conveyed a censure whichmight fall justly on myself. As I read the earlier part of the passage Iconfess that I imagined the conclusion was going to be very differentfrom what it proved to be. Fresh from the study of the older men andalso of Mr. Darwin himself, I failed to see that Mr. Darwin had"unravelled and illuminated" a tangled skein, but believed him, on thecontrary, to have tangled and obscured what his predecessors had made ingreat part, if not wholly, plain. With the older writers, I had felt asthough in the hands of men who wished to understand themselves and tomake their reader understand them with the smallest possible exertion. The older men, if not in full daylight, at any rate saw in what quarterof the sky the dawn was breaking, and were looking steadily towards it. It is not they who have put their hands over their own eyes and ours, andwho are crying out that there is no light, but chance and blindnesseverywhere. 

THE TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF ORGANISM. (CHAPTER V. OF EVOLUTION, OLDAND NEW. )

I have stated the foregoing in what I take to be an extreme logicaldevelopment, in order that the reader may more easily perceive theconsequences of those premises which I am endeavouring to re-establish. But it must not be supposed that an animal or plant has ever conceivedthe idea of some organ widely different from any it was yet possessed of, and has set itself to design it in detail and grow towards it. 

The small jelly-speck, which we call the amoeba, has no organs save whatit can extemporise as occasion arises. If it wants to get at anything, it thrusts out part of its jelly, which thus serves it as an arm or hand:when the arm has served its purpose, it is absorbed into the rest of thejelly, and has now to do the duty of a stomach by helping to wrap up whatit has just purveyed. The small round jelly-speck spreads itself out andenvelops its food, so that the whole creature is now a stomach, andnothing but a stomach. Having digested its food, it again becomes ajelly-speck, and is again ready to turn part of itself into hand or footas its next convenience may dictate. It is not to be believed that sucha creature as this, which is probably just sensitive to light and nothingmore, should be able to form any conception of an eye and set itself towork to grow one, any more than it is believable that he who firstobserved the magnifying power of a dew-drop, or even he who firstconstructed a rude lens, should have had any idea in his mind of LordRosse's telescope with all its parts and appliances. Nothing could bewell conceived more foreign to experience and common sense. Animals andplants have travelled to their present forms as a man has travelled toany one of his own most complicated inventions. Slowly, step by step, through many blunders and mischances which have worked together for goodto those that have persevered in elasticity. They have travelled as manhas travelled, with but little perception of a want till there was alsosome perception of a power, and with but little perception of a powertill there was a dim sense of want; want stimulating power, and powerstimulating want; and both so based upon each other that no one can saywhich is the true foundation, but rather that they must be both baselessand, as it were, meteoric in mid air. They have seen very little aheadof a present power or need, and have been then most moral, when mostinclined to pierce a little into futurity, but also when most obstinatelydeclining to pierce too far, and busy mainly with the present. They havebeen so far blindfolded that they could see but for a few steps in frontof them, yet so far free to see that those steps were taken with aim anddefinitely, and not in the dark. 

"Plus il a su, " says Buffon, speaking of man, "plus il a pu, mais aussimoins il a fait, moins il a su. " This holds good wherever life holdsgood. Wherever there is life there is a moral government of rewards andpunishments understood by the amoeba neither better nor worse than byman. The history of organic development is the history of a moralstruggle. 

As for the origin of a creature able to feel want and power and as towhat want and power spring from, we know nothing as yet, nor does it seemworth while to go into this question until an understanding has been cometo as to whether the interaction of want and power in some low form orforms of life which could assimilate matter, reproduce themselves, varytheir actions, and be capable of remembering, will or will not suffice toexplain the development of the varied organs and desires which we see inthe higher vertebrates and man. When this question has been settled, then it will be time to push our inquiries farther back. 

But given such a low form of life as here postulated, and there is noforce in Paley's pretended objection to the Darwinism of his time. 

"Give our philosopher, " he says, "appetencies; give him a portion ofliving irritable matter (a nerve or the clipping of a nerve) to workupon; give also to his incipient or progressive forms the power ofpropagating their like in every stage of their alteration; and if he isto be believed, he could replenish the world with all the vegetable andanimal productions which we now see in it. " {148}

After meeting this theory with answers which need not detain us, hecontinues:--

"The senses of animals appear to me quite incapable of receiving theexplanation of their origin which this theory affords. Including underthe word 'sense' the organ and the perception, we have no account ofeither. How will our philosopher get at vision or make an eye? Or, suppose the eye formed, would the perception follow? The same of theother senses. And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you willto the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to beobserved by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able tomake of past things with the present. Concede what you please to thesearbitrary and unattested superstitions, how will they help you? Here isno inception. No laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail atpresent, nor any analogous to these would give commencement to a newsense; and it is in vain to inquire how that might proceed which wouldnever _begin_. "

In answer to this, let us suppose that some inhabitants of another worldwere to see a modern philosopher so using a microscope that they shouldbelieve it to be a part of the philosopher's own person, which he couldcut off from and join again to himself at pleasure, and suppose therewere a controversy as to how this microscope had originated, and that oneparty maintained the man had made it little by little because he wantedit, while the other declared this to be absurd and impossible; I ask, would this latter party be justified in arguing that microscopes couldnever have been perfected by degrees through the preservation of andaccumulation of small successive improvements inasmuch as men could nothave begun to want to use microscopes until they had had a microscopewhich should show them that such an instrument would be useful to them, and that hence there is nothing to account for the _beginning_ ofmicroscopes, which might indeed make some progress when once originated, but which could never originate?

It might be pointed out to such a reasoner, firstly, that as regards anyacquired power the various stages in the acquisition of which he might besupposed able to remember, he would find that logic notwithstanding, thewish did originate the power, and yet was originated by it, both comingup gradually out of something which was not recognisable as either poweror wish, and advancing through vain beating of the air, to a vagueeffort, and from this to definite effort with failure, and from this todefinite effort with success, and from this to success with littleconsciousness of effort, and from this to success with such completeabsence of effort that he now acts unconsciously and without power ofintrospection, and that, do what he will, he can rarely or never draw asharp dividing line whereat anything shall be said to begin, though noneless certain that there has been a continuity in discontinuity, and adiscontinuity in continuity between it and certain other past things;moreover, that his opponents postulated so much beginning of themicroscope as that there should be a dew-drop, even as our evolutionistsstart with a sense of touch, of which sense all the others aremodifications, so that not one of them, but is resolvable into touch bymore or less easy stages; and secondly, that the question is one of factand of the more evident deductions therefrom, and should not be carriedback to those remote beginnings where the nature of the facts is sopurely a matter of conjecture and inference. 

No plant or animal, then, according to our view, would be able toconceive more than a very slight improvement on its organisation at agiven time, so clearly as to make the efforts towards it that wouldresult in growth of the required modification; nor would these efforts bemade with any far-sighted perception of what next and next and after, butonly of what next; while many of the happiest thoughts would come likeall other happy thoughts--thoughtlessly; by a chain of reasoning tooswift and subtle for conscious analysis by the individual. Some of thesemodifications would be noticeable, but the majority would involve no morenoticeable difference that can be detected between the length of theshortest day, and that of the shortest but one. 

Thus a bird whose toes were not webbed, but who had under force ofcircumstances little by little in the course of many generations learnedto swim, either from having lived near a lake, and having learnt the artowing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in shallow pools by thesea-side at low water and finding itself sometimes a little out of itsdepth and just managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or sobetween it and safety--such a bird did not probably conceive the idea ofswimming on the water and set itself to learn to do so, and then conceivethe idea of webbed feet and set itself to get webbed feet. The birdfound itself in some small difficulty, out of which it either saw, or atany rate found that it could extricate itself by striking out vigorouslywith its feet and extending its toes as far as ever it could; it thusbegan to learn the art of swimming and conceived the idea of swimmingsynchronously, or nearly so; or perhaps wishing to get over a yard or twoof deep water, and trying to do so without being at the trouble of risingto fly, it would splash and struggle its way over the water, and thuspractically swim, though without much perception of what it had beendoing. Finding that no harm had come to it, the bird would do the sameagain and again; it would thus presently lose fear, and would be able toact more calmly; then it would begin to find out that it could swim alittle, and if its food lay much in the water so that it would be ofgreat advantage to it to be able to alight and rest without being forcedto return to land, it would begin to make a practice of swimming. Itwould now discover that it could swim the more easily according as itsfeet presented a more extended surface to the water; it would thereforekeep its toes extended wherever it swam, and as far as in it lay, wouldmake the most of whatever skin was already at the base of its toes. Aftermany generations it would become web-footed, if doing as above describedshould have been found continuously convenient, so that the bird shouldhave continuously used the skin about its toes as much as possible inthis direction. 

For there is a margin in every organic structure (and perhaps more thanwe imagine in things inorganic also), which will admit of references, asit were, side notes, and glosses upon the original text. It is on thismargin that we may err or wander--the greatness of a mistake dependingrather upon the extent of the departure from the original text, than onthe direction that the departure takes. A little error on the bad sideis more pardonable, and less likely to hurt the organism than a too greatdeparture upon the right one. This is a fundamental proposition in anytrue system of ethics, the question what is too much or too sudden beingdecided by much the same higgling as settles the price of butter in acountry market, and being as invisible as the link which connects thelast moment of desire with the first of power and performance, and withthe material result achieved. 

It is on this margin that the fulcrum is to be found, whereby we obtainthe little purchase over our structure, that enables us to achieve greatresults if we use it steadily, with judgment, and with neither too littleeffort nor too much. It is by employing this that those who have a fancyto move their ears or toes without moving other organs learn to do so. There is a man at the Agricultural Hall now {153a} playing the violinwith his toes, and playing it, as I am told, sufficiently well. The eyeof the sailor, the wrist of the conjuror, the toe of the professionalmedium, are all found capable of development to an astonishing degree, even in a single lifetime; but in every case success has been attained bythe simple process of making the best of whatever power a man has had atany given time, and by being on the look-out to take advantage ofaccident, and even of misfortune. If a man would learn to paint, he mustnot theorise concerning art, nor think much what he would do beforehand, but he must do _something_--whatever under the circumstances will comehandiest and easiest to him; and he must do that something as well as hecan. This will presently open the door for something else, and a waywill show itself which no conceivable amount of searching would havediscovered, but which yet could never have been discovered by sittingstill and taking no pains at all. "Dans l'animal, " says Buffon, "il y amoins de jugement que de sentiment. " {153b}

It may appear as though this were blowing hot and cold with the samebreath, inasmuch as I am insisting that important modifications ofstructure have been always purposive; and at the same time am denyingthat the creature modified has had any far-seeing purpose in the greaterpart of all those actions which have at length modified both structureand instinct. Thus I say that a bird learns to swim without having anypurpose of learning to swim before it set itself to make those movementswhich have resulted in its being able to do so. At the same time Imaintain that it has only learned to swim by trying to swim, and thisinvolves the very purpose which I have just denied. The reconciliationof these two apparently irreconcilable contentions must be found in theconsideration that the bird was not the less trying to swim, merelybecause it did not know the name we have chosen to give to the art whichit was trying to master, nor yet how great were the resources of thatart. A person, who knew all about swimming, if from some bank he couldwatch our supposed bird's first attempt to scramble over a short space ofdeep water, would at once declare that the bird was trying to swim--ifnot actually swimming. Provided then that there is a very littleperception of, and prescience concerning, the means whereby the nextdesired end may be attained, it matters not how little in advance thatend may be of present desire or faculties; it is still reached throughpurpose, and must be called purposive. Again, no matter how many ofthese small steps be taken, nor how absolute was the want of purpose orprescience concerning any but the one being actually taken at any givenmoment, this does not bar the result from having been arrived at throughdesign and purpose. If each one of the small steps is purposive theresult is purposive, though there was never purpose extended over morethan one, two, or perhaps at most three steps at a time. 

Returning to the art of painting for an example, are we to say that theproficiency which such a student as was supposed above will certainlyattain, is not due to design, merely because it was not until he hadalready become three parts excellent that he knew the full purport of allthat he had been doing? When he began he had but vague notions of whathe would do. He had a wish to learn to represent nature, but the lineinto which he has settled down has probably proved very different fromthat which he proposed to himself originally. Because he has takenadvantage of his accidents, is it, therefore, one whit the less true thathis success is the result of his desires and his design? The _Times_pointed out some time ago that the theory which now associates meteorsand comets in the most unmistakable manner, was suggested by oneaccident, and confirmed by another. But the writer added well that "suchaccidents happen only to the zealous student of nature's secrets. " Inthe same way the bird that is taking to the habit of swimming, and ofmaking the most of whatever skin it already has between its toes, willhave doubtless to thank accidents for no small part of its progress; butthey will be such accidents as could never have happened to or been takenadvantage of by any creature which was not zealously trying to make themost of itself--and between such accidents as this, and design, the lineis hard to draw; for if we go deep enough we shall find that most of ourdesign resolves itself into as it were a shaking of the bag to see whatwill come out that will suit our purpose, and yet at the same time thatmost of our shaking of the bag resolves itself into a design that the bagshall contain only such and such things, or thereabouts. 

Again, the fact that animals are no longer conscious of design andpurpose in much that they do, but act unreflectingly, and as we sometimessay concerning ourselves "automatically" or "mechanically"--that theyhave no idea whatever of the steps, whereby they have travelled to theirpresent state, and show no sign of doubt about what must have been at onetime the subject of all manner of doubts, difficulties, anddiscussions--that whatever sign of reflection they now exhibit is to befound only in case of some novel feature or difficulty presenting itself;these facts do not bar that the results achieved should be attributed toan inception in reason, design and purpose, no matter how rapidly and aswe call it instinctively, the creatures may now act. 

For if we look closely at such an invention as the steam engine in itslatest and most complicated developments, about which there can be nodispute but that they are achievements of reason, purpose and design, weshall find them present us with examples of all those features thepresence of which in the handiwork of animals is too often held to barreason and purpose from having had any share therein. 

Assuredly such men as the Marquis of Worcester and Captain Savery hadvery imperfect ideas as to the upshot of their own action. The simpleststeam engine now in use in England is probably a marvel of ingenuity ascompared with the highest development which appeared possible to thesetwo great men, while our newest and most highly complicated engines wouldseem to them more like living beings than machines. Many, again, of thesteps leading to the present development have been due to action whichhad but little heed of the steam engine, being the inventions ofattendants whose desire was to save themselves the trouble of turningthis or that cock, and who were indifferent to any other end than theirown immediate convenience. No step in fact along the whole route wasever taken with much perception of what would be the next step after theone being taken at any given moment. 

Nor do we find that an engine made after any old and well-known patternis now made with much more consciousness of design than we can suppose abird's nest to be built with. The greater number of the parts of anysuch engine, are made by the gross as it were like screw and nuts, whichare turned out by machinery and in respect of which the labour of designis now no more felt than is the design of him who first invented thewheel. It is only when circumstances require any modification in thearticle to be manufactured that thought and design will come into playagain; but I take it few will deny that if circumstances compel a birdeither to give up a nest three-parts built altogether, or to make sometrifling deviation from its ordinary practice, it will in nine cases outof ten make such deviation as shall show that it had thought the matterover, and had on the whole concluded to take such and such a course, thatis to say, that it had reasoned and had acted with such purpose as itsreason had dictated. 

And I imagine that this is the utmost that any one can claim even forman's own boasted powers. Set the man who has been accustomed to makeengines of one type, to make engines of another type without anyintermediate course of training or instruction, and he will make nobetter figure with his engines than a thrush would do if commanded by hermate to make a nest like a blackbird. It is vain then to contend thatthe ease and certainty with which an action is performed, even though itmay have now become matter of such fixed habit that it cannot be suddenlyand seriously modified without rendering the whole performance abortive, is any argument against that action having been an achievement of designand reason in respect of each one of the steps that have led to it; andif in respect of each one of the steps then as regards the entire action;for we see our own most reasoned actions become no less easy, unerring, automatic, and unconscious, than the actions which we call instinctivewhen they have been repeated a sufficient number of times. 

* * * * *

If the foregoing be granted, and it be admitted that the unconsciousnessand seeming automatism with which any action may be performed is no barto its having a foundation in memory, reason, and at one time consciouslyrecognised effort--and this I believe to be the chief addition which Ihave ventured to make to the theory of Buffon and Dr. Erasmus Darwin--thenthe wideness of the difference between the Darwinism of eighty years agoand the Darwinism of to-day becomes immediately apparent, and it alsobecomes apparent, how important and interesting is the issue which israised between them. 

According to the older Darwinism the lungs are just as purposive as thecorkscrew. They, no less than the corkscrew, are a piece of mechanismdesigned and gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelligentcreature for the gratification of its own needs. True there are manyimportant differences between mechanism which is part of the body, andmechanism which is no such part, but the differences are such as do notaffect the fact that in each case the result, whether, for example, lungsor corkscrew, is due to desire, invention, and design. 

And now I will ask one more question, which may seem, perhaps, to havebut little importance, but which I find personally interesting. I havebeen told by a reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason tocomplain, that the theory I put forward in "Life and Habit, " and which Iam now again insisting on, is pessimism--pure and simple. I have a veryvague idea what pessimism means, but I should be sorry to believe that Iam a pessimist. Which, I would ask, is the pessimist? He who sees loveof beauty, design, steadfastness of purpose, intelligence, courage, andevery quality to which success has assigned the name of "worth" as havingdrawn the pattern of every leaf and organ now and in all past time, or hewho sees nothing in the world of nature but a chapter of accidents and offorces interacting blindly?

BUFFON--MEMOIR. (CHAPTER VIII. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. )

Buffon, says M. Flourens, was born at Montbar, on the 7th of September1707; he died in Paris, at the Jardin du Roi, on the 16th of April 1788, aged 81 years. More than fifty of these years, as he used himself tosay, he had passed at his writing-desk. His father was a councillor ofthe parliament of Burgundy. His mother was celebrated for her wit, andBuffon cherished her memory. 

He studied at Dijon with much _eclat_, and shortly after leaving becameaccidentally acquainted with the Duke of Kingston, a young Englishman ofhis own age, who was travelling abroad with a tutor. The three travelledtogether in France and Italy, and Buffon then passed some months inEngland. 

Returning to France, he translated Hales's Vegetable Statics and Newton'sTreatise on Fluxions. He refers to several English writers on naturalhistory in the course of his work, but I see he repeated spells theEnglish name Willoughby, "Willulghby. " He was appointed superintendentof the Jardin du Roi in 1739, and from thenceforth devoted himself toscience. 

In 1752 Buffon married Mdlle de Saint Belin, whose beauty and charm ofmanner were extolled by all her contemporaries. One son was born to him, who entered the army, became a colonel, and I grieve to say, wasguillotined at the age of twenty-nine, a few days only before theextinction of the Reign of Terror. 

Of this youth, who inherited the personal comeliness and ability of hisfather, little is recorded except the following story. Having falleninto the water and been nearly drowned when he was about twelve yearsold, he was afterwards accused of having been afraid: "I was so littleafraid, " he answered, "that though I had been offered the hundred yearswhich my grandfather lived, I would have died then and there, if I couldhave added one year to the life of my father;" then thinking for aminute, a flush suffused his face and he added, "but I should petitionfor one quarter of an hour in which to exult over the thought of what Iwas about to do. "

On the scaffold he showed much composure, smiling half proudly, halfreproachfully, yet wholly kindly upon the crowd in front of him. "Citoyens, " he said, "Je me nomine Buffon, " and laid his head upon theblock. 

The noblest outcome of the old and decaying order, overwhelmed in themost hateful birth frenzy of the new. So in those cataclysms andrevolutions which take place in our own bodies during their development, when we seem studying in order to become fishes and suddenly make, as itwere, different arrangements and resolve on becoming men--so, doubtless, many good cells must go, and their united death cry comes up, it may be, in the pain which an infant feels on teething. But to return. The manwho could be father of such a son, and who could retain that son'saffection, as it is well known that Buffon retained it, may not perhapsalways be strictly accurate, but it will be as well to pay attention towhatever he may think fit to tell us. These are the only people whom itis worth while to look to and study from. 

"Glory, " said Buffon, after speaking of the hours during which he hadlaboured, "glory comes always after labour if she can--_and she generallycan_. " But in his case she could not well help herself. "He wasconspicuous, " says M. Flourens, "for elevation and force of character, for a love of greatness and true magnificence in all he did. His greatwealth, his handsome person, and graceful manners seemed incorrespondence with the splendour of his genius, so that of all the giftswhich Fortune has in it her power to bestow she had denied him nothing. "

Many of his epigrammatic sayings have passed into proverbs: for example, that "genius is but a supreme capacity for taking pains. " Another andstill more celebrated passage shall be given in its entirety and with itsoriginal setting. 

"Style, " says Buffon, "is the only passport to posterity. It is notrange of information, nor mastery of some little known branch of science, nor yet novelty of matter that will ensure immortality. Works that canclaim all this will yet die if they are conversant about trivial objectsonly, or written without taste, genius, and true nobility of mind; forrange of information, knowledge of details, novelty of discovery are of avolatile essence and fly off readily into other hands that know betterhow to treat them. The matter is foreign to the man, and is not of him;the manner is the man himself. " {162}

"Le style, c'est l'homme memo. " Elsewhere he tells us what true styleis, but I quote from memory and cannot be sure of the passage. "Lestyle, " he says "est comme le bonheur; il vient de la douceur de l'ame. "

Is it possible not to think of the following?--

"But whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there betongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away. . . And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but thegreatest of these is charity. " {163}

BUFFON'S METHOD--THE IRONICAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORK. (CHAPTER IX. OFEVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. )

Buffon's idea of a method amounts almost to the denial of the possibilityof method at all. "The true method, " he writes, "is the completedescription and exact history of each particular object, " {164a} andlater on he asks, "is it not more simple, more natural and more true tocall an ass an ass, and a cat a cat, than to say, without knowing why, that an ass is a horse, and a cat a lynx?" {164b}

He admits such divisions as between animals and vegetables, or betweenvegetables and minerals, but that done, he rejects all others that can befounded on the nature of things themselves. He concludes that one whocould see living forms as a whole and without preconceived opinions, would classify animals according to the relations in which he foundhimself standing towards them:--

 "Those which he finds most necessary and useful to him will occupy the first rank; thus he will give the precedence among the lower animals to the dog and the horse; he will next concern himself with those which without being domesticated, nevertheless occupy the same country and climate as himself, as for example stags, hares, and all wild animals; nor will it be till after he has familiarised himself with all these that curiosity will lead him to inquire what inhabitants there may be in foreign climates, such as elephants, dromedaries, &c. The same will hold good for fishes, birds, insects, shells, and for all nature's other productions; he will study them in proportion to the profit which he can draw from them; he will consider them in that order in which they enter into his daily life; he will arrange them in his head according to this order, which is in fact that in which he has become acquainted with them, and in which it concerns him to think about them, This order--the most natural of all--is the one which I have thought it well to follow in this volume. My classification has no more mystery in it than the reader has just seen . . . It is preferable to the most profound and ingenious that can be conceived, for there is none of all the classifications which ever have been made or ever can be, which has not more of an arbitrary character than this has. Take it for all in all, " he concludes, "it is more easy, more agreeable, and more useful, to consider things in their relation to ourselves than from any other standpoint. " {165}

 "Has it not a better effect not only in a treatise on natural history, but in a picture or any work of art to arrange objects in the order and place in which they are commonly found, than to force them into association in virtue of some theory of our own? Is it not better to let the dog which has toes, come after the horse which has a single hoof, in the same way as we see him follow the horse in daily life, than to follow up the horse by the zebra, an animal which is little known to us, and which has no other connection with the horse than the fact that it has a single hoof?" {166a}

Can we suppose that Buffon really saw no more connection than this? Thewriter whom we shall presently find {166b} declining to admit anyessential difference between the skeletons of man and of the horse, canhere see no resemblance between the zebra and the horse, except that theyeach have a single hoof. Is he to be taken at his word?

It is perhaps necessary to tell the reader that Buffon carried theforegoing scheme into practice as nearly as he could in the first fifteenvolumes of his Natural History. He begins with man--and then goes on tothe horse, the ass, the cow, sheep, goat, pig, dog, &c. One would beglad to know whether he found it always more easy to know in what orderof familiarity this or that animal would stand to the majority of hisreaders than other classifiers have found it to know whether anindividual more resembles one species or another; probably he never gavethe matter a thought after he had gone through the first dozen mostfamiliar animals, but settled generally down into a classification whichbecomes more and more specific--as when he treats of the apes andmonkeys--till he reaches the birds, when he openly abandons his originalidea, in deference, as he says, to the opinion of "le peuple desnaturalistes. "

Perhaps the key to this piece of apparent extravagance is to be found inthe word "mysterieuse. " {166c} Buffon wished to raise a standing protestagainst mystery mongering. Or perhaps more probably, he wished at onceto turn to animals under domestication, so as to insist early on the mainobject of his work--the plasticity of animal forms. 

I am inclined to think that a vein of irony pervades the whole or muchthe greater part of Buffon's work, and that he intended to convey onemeaning to one set of readers, and another to another; indeed, it isoften impossible to believe that he is not writing between his lines forthe discerning, what the undiscerning were not intended to see. It mustbe remembered that his Natural History has two sides, --a scientific and apopular one. May we not imagine that Buffon would be unwilling to debarhimself from speaking to those who could understand him, and yet wouldwish like Handel and Shakespeare to address the many, as well as the few?But the only manner in which these seemingly irreconcilable ends could beattained, would be by the use of language which should be self-adjustingto the capacity of the reader. So keen an observer can hardly have beenblind to the signs of the times which were already close at hand. Free-thinker though he was, he was also a powerful member of the aristocracy, and little likely to demean himself--for so he would doubtless hold it--byplaying the part of Voltaire or Rousseau. He would help those who couldsee to see still further, but he would not dazzle eyes that were yetimperfect with a light brighter than they could stand. He wouldtherefore impose upon people, as much as he thought was for their good;but, on the other hand, he would not allow inferior men to mystify them. 

"In the private character of Buffon, " says Sir William Jardine in acharacteristic passage, "we regret there is not much to praise; hisdisposition was kind and benevolent, and he was generally beloved by hisinferiors, followers, and dependants, which were numerous over hisextensive property; he was strictly honourable, and was an affectionateparent. In early youth he had entered into the pleasures anddissipations of life, and licentious habits seem to have been retained tothe end. But the great blemish in such a mind was his declaredinfidelity; it presents one of those exceptions among the persons whohave been devoted to the study of nature; and it is not easy to imagine amind apparently with such powers, scarcely acknowledging a Creator, andwhen noticed, only by an arraignment for what appeared wanting ordefective in His great works. So openly, indeed, was the freedom of hisreligious opinions expressed, that the indignation of the Sorbonne wasprovoked. He had to enter into an explanation which he in some wayrendered satisfactory; and while he afterwards attended to the outwardordinances of religion, he considered them as a system of faith for themultitude, and regarded those most impolitic who most opposed them. "{168}

This is partly correct and partly not. Buffon was a free-thinker, and asI have sufficiently explained, a decided opponent of the doctrine thatrudimentary and therefore useless organs were designed by a Creator inorder to serve some useful end throughout all time to the creature inwhich they are found. 

He was not, surely, to hide the magnificent conceptions which he had beenthe first to grasp, from those who were worthy to receive them; on theother hand he would not tell the uninstructed what they would interpretas a licence to do whatever they pleased, inasmuch as there was no God. What he did was to point so irresistibly in the right direction, that areader of any intelligence should be in no doubt as to the road he oughtto take, and then to contradict himself so flatly as to reassure thosewho would be shocked by a truth for which they were not yet ready. If Iam right in the view which I have taken of Buffon's work, it is not easyto see how he could have formed a finer scheme, nor have carried it outmore finely. 

I should, however, warn the reader to be on his guard against acceptingmy view too hastily. So far as I know I stand alone in taking it. Neither Dr. Darwin, nor Flourens, nor Isidore Geoffroy, nor Mr. CharlesDarwin see any subrisive humour in Buffon's pages; but it must beremembered that Flourens was a strong opponent of mutability, andprobably paid but little heed to what Buffon said on this question;Isidore Geoffroy is not a safe guide, few men indeed less so. Mr. Charles Darwin seems to have adopted the one half of Isidore Geoffrey'sconclusions without verifying either; and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who has nosmall share of a very pleasant conscious humour, yet sometimes rises tosuch heights of unconscious humour, that Buffon's puny labour may wellhave been invisible to him. Dr. Darwin wrote a great deal of poetry, some of which was about the common pump. Miss Seward tells us, that he"illustrated this familiar object with a picture of Maternal Beautyadministering sustenance to her infant. " Buffon could not have doneanything like this. 

Buffon never, then, "arraigned the Creator for what was wanting ordefective in His works;" on the contrary, whenever he was led up by anirresistible chain of reasoning to conclusions which should make menrecast their ideas concerning the Deity, he invariably retreats undercover of an appeal to revelation. Naturally enough, the Sorbonneobjected to an artifice which even Buffon could not conceal completely. They did not like being undermined; like Buffon himself, they preferredimposing upon the people, to seeing others do so. Buffon made his peacewith the Sorbonne immediately, and, perhaps, from that time forward, contradicted himself a little more impudently than heretofore. 

It is probably for the reasons above suggested that Buffon did notpropound a connected scheme of evolution or descent with modification, but scattered his theory in fragments up and down his work in theprefatory remarks with which he introduces the more striking animals orclasses of animals. He never wastes evolutionary matter in the prefaceto an uninteresting animal; and the more interesting the animal, the moreevolution will there be commonly found. When he comes to describe theanimal more familiarly--and he generally begins a fresh chapter or halfchapter when he does so--he writes no more about evolution, but gives anadmirable description, which no one can fail to enjoy, and which I cannotthink is nearly so inaccurate as is commonly supposed. Thesedescriptions are the parts which Buffon intended for the general reader, expecting, doubtless, and desiring that such a reader should skip the dryparts he had been addressing to the more studious. It is true thedescriptions are written _ad captandum_, as are all great works, but theysucceed in captivating, having been composed with all the pains a man ofgenius and of great perseverance could bestow upon them. If I am notmistaken, he looked to these parts of his work to keep the whole alivetill the time should come when the philosophical side of his writingsshould be understood and appreciated. 

Thus the goat breeds with the sheep, and may therefore serve as the textfor a dissertation on hybridism, which is accordingly given in thepreface to this animal. The presence of rudimentary organs under a pig'shoof suggests an attack upon the doctrine of final causes in so far as itis pretended that every part of every animal or plant was speciallydesigned with a view to the wants of the animal or plant itself, once andforever throughout all time. The dog with his great variety of breedsgives an opportunity for an article on the formation of breeds and sub-breeds by man's artificial selection. The cat is not honoured with anyphilosophical reflection, and comes in for nothing but abuse. The haresuggests the rabbit, and the rabbit is a rapid breeder, although the hareis an unusually slow one; but this is near enough, so the hare shallserve us for the theme of a discourse on the geometrical ratio ofincrease and the balance of power which may be observed in nature. Whenwe come to the carnivora, additional reflections follow upon thenecessity for death, and even for violent death; this leads to thequestion whether the creatures that are killed suffer pain; here, then, will be the proper place for considering the sensations of animalsgenerally. 

Perhaps the most pregnant passage concerning evolution is to be found inthe preface to the ass, which is so near the beginning of the work as tobe only the second animal of which Buffon treats after having describedman himself. It points strongly in the direction of his having believedall animal forms to have been descended from one single common ancestraltype. Buffon did not probably choose to take his very first opportunityin order to insist upon matter that should point in this direction; butthe considerations were too important to be deferred long, and areaccordingly put forward under cover of the ass, his second animal. 

When we consider the force with which Buffon's conclusion is led up to;the obviousness of the conclusion itself when the premises are onceadmitted; the impossibility that such a conclusion should be again lostsight of if the reasonableness of its being drawn had been once admitted;the position in his scheme which is assigned to it by its propounder; thepersistency with which he demonstrates during forty years thereafter thatthe premises, which he has declared should establish the conclusion inquestion, are indisputable;--when we consider, too, that we are dealingwith a man of unquestionable genius, and that the times and circumstancesof his life were such as would go far to explain reserve and irony--isit, I would ask, reasonable to suppose that Buffon did not in his ownmind, and from the first, draw the inference to which he leads hisreader, merely because from time to time he tells the reader, with ashrug of the shoulders, that _he_ draws no inferences opposed to the Bookof Genesis? Is it not more likely that Buffon intended his reader todraw his inferences for himself, and perhaps to value them all the morehighly on that account?

The passage to which I am alluding is as follows:--

 "If from the boundless variety which animated nature presents to us, we choose the body of some animal or even that of man himself to serve as a model with which to compare the bodies of other organised beings, we shall find that though all these beings have an individuality of their own, and are distinguished from one another by differences of which the gradations are infinitely subtle, there exists at the same time a primitive and general design which we can follow for a long way, and the departures from which (_degenerations_) are far more gentle than those from mere outward resemblance. For not to mention organs of digestion, circulation, and generation, which are common to all animals, and without which the animal would cease to be an animal, and could neither continue to exist nor reproduce itself--there is none the less even in those very parts which constitute the main difference in outward appearance, a striking resemblance which carries with it irresistibly the idea of a single pattern after which all would appear to have been conceived. The horse, for example--what can at first sight seem more unlike mankind? Yet when we compare man and horse point by point and detail by detail, is not our wonder excited rather by the points of resemblance than of difference that are to be found between them? Take the skeleton of a man; bend forward the bones in the region of the pelvis, shorten the thigh bones, and those of the leg and arm, lengthen those of the feet and hands, run the joints together, lengthen the jaws, and shorten the frontal bone, finally, lengthen the spine, and the skeleton will now be that of a man no longer, but will have become that of a horse--for it is easy to imagine that in lengthening the spine and the jaws we shall at the same time have increased the number of the vertebrae, ribs, and teeth. It is but in the number of these bones, which may be considered accessory, and by the lengthening, shortening, or mode of attachment of others, that the skeleton of the horse differs from that of the human body. . . . We find ribs in man, in all the quadrupeds, in birds, in fishes, and we may find traces of them as far down as the turtle, in which they seem still to be sketched out by means of furrows that are to be found beneath the shell. Let it be remembered that the foot of the horse, which seems so different from a man's hand, is, nevertheless, as M. Daubenton has pointed out, composed of the same bones, and that we have at the end of each of our fingers a nail corresponding to the hoof of a horse's foot. Judge, then, whether this hidden resemblance is not more marvellous than any outward differences--whether this constancy to a single plan of structure which we may follow from man to the quadrupeds, from the quadrupeds to the cetacea, from the cetacea to birds, from birds to reptiles, from reptiles to fishes--in which all such essential parts as heart, intestines, spine are invariably found--whether, I say, this does not seem to indicate that the Creator when He made them would use but a single main idea, though at the same time varying it in every conceivable way, so that man might admire equally the magnificence of the execution and the simplicity of the design. " {174}

 "If we regard the matter thus, not only the ass and the horse, _but even man himself_, _the apes_, _the quadrupeds_, _and all animals might be regarded but as forming members of one and the same family_. But are we to conclude that within this vast family which the Creator has called into existence out of nothing, there are other and smaller families, projected as it were by Nature, and brought forth by her in the natural course of events and after a long time, of which some contain but two members, as the ass and the horse, others many members, as the weasel, martin, stoat, ferret, &c. , and that on the same principle there are families of vegetables, containing ten, twenty, or thirty plants, as the case may be? If such families had any real existence they could have been formed only by crossing, by the accumulation of successive variations (_variation successive_), and by degeneration from an original type; but if we once admit that there are families of plants and animals, so that the ass may be of the family of the horse, and that the one may only differ from the other through degeneration from a common ancestor, we might be driven to admit that the ape is of the family of man, that he is but a degenerate man, and that he and man have had a common ancestor, even as the ass and horse have had. It would follow then that every family, whether animal or vegetable, had sprung from a single stock, which after a succession of generations had become higher in the case of some of its descendants and lower in that of others. "

What inference could be more aptly drawn? But it was not one whichBuffon was going to put before the general public. He had said enoughfor the discerning, and continues with what is intended to make theconclusions they should draw even plainer to them, while it conceals themstill more carefully from the general reader. 

"The naturalists who are so ready to establish families among animals andvegetables, do not seem to have sufficiently considered the consequenceswhich should follow from their premises, for these would limit directcreation to as small a number of forms as any one might think fit(reduisoient le produit immediat de la creation, aun nombre d'individusaussi petit que l'on voudroit). _For if it were once shown that we hadright grounds for establishing these families_; _if the point were oncegained that among animals and vegetables there had been_, _I do not sayseveral species_, _but even a single one_, _which had been produced inthe course of direct descent from another species_; _if for example itcould be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from thehorse_--_then there is no further limit to be set to the power ofnature_, _and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficienttime she could have evolved all other organised forms from one primordialtype_ (_et l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer_, _que d'un seul etre ellea su tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises_). "

Buffon now felt that he had sailed as near the wind as was desirable. Hisnext sentence is as follows:--

"But no! It is certain _from revelation_ that all animals have alikebeen favoured with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that thefirst pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of theCreator. " {176}

This might be taken as _bona fide_, if it had been written by Bonnet, butit is impossible to accept it from Buffon. It is only those who judgehim at second hand, or by isolated passages, who can hold that he failedto see the consequences of his own premises. No one could have seen moreclearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to show asympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even whenironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merelyamusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimateirony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom heappeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently tothe different capacities of his readers, and who trusts to the good senseof the discerning to understand the difficulty of his position and makedue allowance for it. 

The compromise which he thought fit to put before the public was that"Each species has a type of which the principal features are engraved inindelible and eternally permanent characters, while all accessory touchesvary. " {177a} It would be satisfactory to know where an accessory touchis supposed to begin and end. 

And again:--

 "The essential characteristics of every animal have been conserved without alteration in their most important parts. . . . The individuals of each genus still represent the same forms as they did in the earliest ages, especially in the case of the larger animals" (so that the generic forms even of the larger animals prove not to be the same, but only "especially" the same as in the earliest ages). {177b}

This transparently illogical position is maintained ostensibly from firstto last, much in the same spirit as in the two foregoing passages, written at intervals of thirteen years. But they are to be read by thelight of the earlier one--placed as a lantern to the wary upon thethreshold of his work in 1753--to the effect that a single, well-substantiated case of degeneration would make it conceivable thatall living beings were descended from but one common ancestor. If afterhaving led up to this by a remorseless logic, a man is found five-and-twenty years later still substantiating cases of degeneration, as he hasbeen substantiating them unceasingly in thirty quartos during the wholeinterval, there should be little question how seriously we are to takehim when he wishes us to stop short of the conclusions he has told us weought to draw from the premises that he has made it the business of hislife to establish--especially when we know that he has a Sorbonne to keepa sharp eye upon him. 

I believe that if the reader will bear in mind the twofold, serious andironical, character of Buffon's work he will understand it, and feel anadmiration for it which will grow continually greater and greater themore he studies it, otherwise he will miss the whole point. 

Buffon on one of the early pages of his first volume protested againstthe introduction of either "_plaisanterie_" or "_equivoque_" (p. 25) intoa serious work. But I have observed that there is an unconscious ironyin most disclaimers of this nature. When a writer begins by saying thathe has "an ineradicable tendency to make things clear, " we may infer thatwe are going to be puzzled; so when he shows that he is haunted by asense of the impropriety of allowing humour to intrude into his work, wemay hope to be amused as well as interested. As showing how far theobjection to humour which he expressed upon his twenty-fifth pagesucceeded in carrying him safely over his twenty-sixth andtwenty-seventh, I will quote the following, which begins on page twenty-six:--

 "Aldrovandus is the most learned and laborious of all naturalists; after sixty years of work he has left an immense number of volumes behind him, which have been printed at various times, the greater number of them after his death. It would be possible to reduce them to a tenth part if we could rid them of all useless and foreign matter, and of a prolixity which I find almost overwhelming; were this only done, his books should be regarded as among the best we have on the subject of natural history in its entirety. The plan of his work is good, his classification distinguished for its good sense, his dividing lines well marked, his descriptions sufficiently accurate--monotonous it is true, but painstaking; the historical part of his work is less good; it is often confused and fabulous, and the author shows too manifestly the credulous tendencies of his mind. 

 "While going over his work, I have been struck with that defect, or rather excess, which we find in almost all the books of a hundred or a couple of hundred years ago, and which prevails still among the Germans--I mean with that quantity of useless erudition with which they intentionally swell out their works, and the result of which is that their subject is overlaid with a mass of extraneous matter on which they enlarge with great complacency, but with no consideration whatever for their readers. They seem, in fact, to have forgotten what they have to say in their endeavour to tell us what has been said by other people. 

 "I picture to myself a man like Aldrovandus, after he has once conceived the design of writing a complete natural history. I see him in his library reading, one after the other, ancients, moderns, philosophers, theologians, jurisconsults, historians, travellers, poets, and reading with no other end than with that of catching at all words and phrases which can be forced from far or near into some kind of relation with his subject. I see him copying all these passages, or getting them copied for him, and arranging them in alphabetical order. He fills many portfolios with all manner of notes, often taken without either discrimination or research, and at last sets himself to write with a resolve that not one of all these notes shall remain unused. The result is that when he comes to his account of the cow or of the hen, he will tell us all that has ever yet been said about cows or hens; all that the ancients ever thought about them; all that has ever been imagined concerning their virtues, characters, and courage; every purpose to which they have ever yet been put; every story of every old woman that he can lay hold of; all the miracles which certain religions have ascribed to them; all the superstitions they have given rise to; all the metaphors and allegories which poets have drawn from them; the attributes that have been assigned to them; the representations that have been made of them in hieroglyphics and armorial bearings, in a word all the histories and all fables in which there was ever yet any mention either of a cow or hen. How much natural history is likely to be found in such a lumber-room? and how is one to lay one's hand upon the little that there may actually be?" {180}

It is hoped that the reader will see Buffon, much as Buffon saw thelearned Aldrovandus. He should see him going into his library, &c. , andquietly chuckling to himself as he wrote such a passage as the one inwhich we lately found him saying that the larger animals had "especially"the same generic forms as they had always had. And the reader shouldprobably see Daubenton chuckling also. 

EXTRACTS FROM UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. 

RECAPITULATION AND STATEMENT OF AN OBJECTION. (CHAPTER X. OF UNCONSCIOUSMEMORY. ) {181a}

The true theory of unconscious action is that of Professor Hering, fromwhose lecture {181b} it is no strained conclusion to gather that he holdsthe action of all living beings, from the moment of conception to that offullest development, to be founded in volition and design, though thesehave been so long lost sight of that the work is now carried on, as itwere, departmentally and in due course according to an official routinewhich can hardly be departed from. 

This involves the older "Darwinism" and the theory of Lamarck, accordingto which the modification of living forms has been effected mainlythrough the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary with varyingconditions--the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B. Baildon has just said, "sometimes comes to mean merely the survival ofthe survivors" {181c}) being taken as a matter of course. According tothis view of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy between thedevelopment of living organs, or tools, and that of those organs or toolsexternal to the body which has been so rapid during the last few thousandyears. 

Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughouttheir development, and preserve the due order in each step they take, through memory of the course they took on past occasions when in thepersons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already too often saidthat if this memory remains for long periods together latent and withouteffect, it is because the vibrations of the molecular substance of thebody which are its supposed explanation are during these periods toofeeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force through anaccession of similar vibrations issuing from exterior objects; or, inother words, until recollection is stimulated by a return of theassociated ideas. On this the internal agitation becomes so muchenhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action ensueswhich is proper to the vibrations of the particular substance under theparticular conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose ProfessorHering to intend. 

Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves tothe fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed, according to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in theegg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection ofthe action taken by its ancestors when they were first hatched. It isguided in the course it takes by the experience it can thus command. Eachstep it takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through adevelopment as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar leadinghis recollection to the bar that should next follow. 

In Life and Habit will be found examples of the manner in which this viewsolves a number of difficulties for the explanation of which the leadingmen of science express themselves at a loss. The following fromProfessor Huxley's recent work upon the crayfish may serve for anexample. Professor Huxley writes:--

 "It is a widely received notion that the energies of living matter have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual components of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are taken by vigorous successors. A city remains notwithstanding the constant death-rate of its inhabitants; and such an organism as a crayfish is only a corporate unity, made up of innumerable partially independent individualities. "--_The Crayfish_, p. 127. 

Surely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain whyno organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives. Thedeath of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the socialcondition becoming more complex than there is memory of past experienceto deal with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, and decay. Thecrayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we have heard of diesooner or later. There are some savages who have not yet arrived at theconception that death is the necessary end of all living beings, and whoconsider even the gentlest death from old age as violent and abnormal; soProfessor Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing that though a citycommonly outlives many generations of its citizens, yet cities and statesare in the end no less mortal than individuals. "The _city_, " he says, "remains. " Yes, but not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a citythat will last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last forever. 

I have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring forwardin support of Professor Hering's theory; it now remains for me to meetthe most troublesome objection to it that I have been able to think of--anobjection which I had before me when I wrote Life and Habit, but whichthen as now I believe to be unsound. Seeing, however, that a plausiblecase can be made out for it, I will state it and refute it here. When Isay refute it, I do not mean that I shall have done with it--for it isplain that it opens up a vaster question in the relations between the so-called organic and inorganic worlds--but that I will refute thesupposition that it any way militates against Professor Hering's theory. 

"Why, " it may be asked, "should we go out of our way to inventunconscious memory--the existence of which must at the best remain aninference {184}--when the observed fact that like antecedents areinvariably followed by like consequents should be sufficient for ourpurpose? Why should the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a givencondition will always become a butterfly within a certain time beconnected with memory when it is not pretended that memory has anythingto do with the invariableness with which oxygen and hydrogen when mixedin certain proportions make water?"

We assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into itscomponent parts, and if these were brought together again, and againdecomposed and again brought together any number of times over, theresults would be invariably the same, whether decomposition orcombination, yet no one will refer the invariableness of the actionduring each repetition, to recollection by the gaseous molecules of thecourse taken when the process was last repeated. On the contrary, we areassured that molecules in some distant part of the world which had neverentered into such and such a known combination themselves, nor heldconcert with other molecules that had been so combined, and which, therefore, could have had no experience and no memory, would none theless act upon one another in that one way in which other likecombinations of atoms have acted under like circumstances, as readily asthough they had been combined and separated and recombined again ahundred or a hundred thousand times. It is this assumption, tacitly madeby every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time andin every action of their lives, that has made any improvement in actionpossible--for it is this which lies at the root of the power to profit byexperience. I do not exactly know _why_ we make this assumption, and Icannot find out that any one else knows much better than myself, but I donot recommend any one to dispute it. 

As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not supposean alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any momentduring the process of combination. This process is, in all probability, an exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude of actions andsubordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, and each one ofwhich has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all come to passin what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point do we conceiveof any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or left of adetermined course, but invest each one of them with so much of the divineattributes as that with it there shall be no variableness neither shadowof turning. 

We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity ofthings, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances inwhich they are placed. We say that only one proximate result can everarise from any given combination. If, then, so great uniformity ofaction as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one willimpute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the only wayof accounting for regularity of action in living beings? Sameness ofaction may be seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that wecan consistently call memory. In these cases we say that it is due tosameness of substance in same circumstances. 

The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is nomore possible for living action to have more than one set of proximateconsequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed inthe proportions proper for the formation of water. Why then notrecognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action tothe reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense ofconnection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar actiontaken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogenmolecules between the several occasions on which they may have beendisunited and reunited?

A boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught them inthe persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit soil for acertain kind of seed to grow upon. In like manner he should be said togrow his nose because he is a fit combination for a nose to spring from. Dr. X---'s father died of _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine; sodid Dr. X---. Can it be pretended that Dr. X--- remembered having diedof _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine when in the person of hisfather, and accordingly, when he came to be forty-nine years old himself, died also? For this to hold, Dr. X---'s father must have begotten himafter he was dead; for the son could not remember the father's deathbefore it happened. 

As for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they aredeveloped for the most part not only long after the average age ofreproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory of anyprevious existence can remain; for a man will not have many maleancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor femaleancestors who did so at over forty. By our own showing, therefore, recollection can have nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can doubtthat gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In whatrespects do the two things differ so that we should refer the inheritanceof eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection between memoryand gout? We may have a ghost of a pretence for saying that a man growsa nose by rote, or even that he catches the measles or whooping-cough byrote; but do we mean to say that he develops the gout by rote in his oldage if he comes of a gouty family? If, then, rote and red-tape havenothing to do with the one, why should they with the other?

Remember also the cases in which aged females develop malecharacteristics. Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable extent, which make their appearance during the decay of the body, and grow withgreater and greater vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for daysafter death itself. It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendencyto develop these characteristics runs as an inheritance in certainfamilies; here then is perhaps the best case that can be found of adevelopment strictly inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to dowith memory. Why should not all development stand upon the same footing?

A friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, concludedwith the following words:--

"If you cannot be content with the similar action of similar substances(living or non-living) under similar circumstances--if you cannot acceptthis as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to connect repetitionof similar action with memory before you can rest in it and bethankful--be consistent, and introduce this memory which you find sonecessary into the inorganic world also. Either say that a chrysalisbecomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it is, and, being thatkind of thing, must act in such and such a manner and in such a manneronly, so that the act of one generation has no more to do with the act ofthe next than the fact of cream being churned into butter in a dairy oneday has to do with other cream being churnable into butter in thefollowing week--either say this or else develop some mentalcondition--which I have no doubt you will be very well able to do if youfeel the want of it--in which you can make out a case for saying thatoxygen and hydrogen on being brought together, and cream on beingchurned, are in some way acquainted with, and mindful of, action taken byother cream, and other oxygen and hydrogen on past occasions. "

I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being ableto develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his owningenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his life, wasbut an example of this omnipresent principle. 

When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. Iendeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory, and reasoned as follows:--A repetition of like antecedents will becertainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether theagents be men and women or chemical substances. "If there be two cowardsperfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in aperfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselvesperfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarityin the running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between theoriginal combination and its repetition. " {189} Here certainly there isno coming into play of memory, more than in the pan of cream on twosuccessive churning days, yet the action is similar. 

A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner. About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at one he takes down hishat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood, andon getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which isthe best eating-house within easy distance. The policeman tells him ofthree houses, one of which is a little farther off than the other two, but is cheaper. Money being a greater object to him than time, the clerkdecides on going to the cheaper house. He goes, is satisfied, andreturns. 

Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and--it will besaid--remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the sameplace as before. But what has his memory to do with it? Suppose him tohave forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from the momentof his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in other respects sound inmind and body, and unchanged generally. At half-past twelve he wouldbegin to be hungry; but his beginning to be hungry cannot be connectedwith his remembering having begun to be hungry yesterday. He would beginto be hungry just as much whether he remembered or no. At one o'clock heagain takes down his hat and leaves the office, not because he remembershaving done so yesterday, but because he wants his hat to go out with. Being again in the street, and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (forhe remembers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at thecorner of the street, and asks him the same question as before; thepoliceman gives him the same answer, and money being still an object tohim, the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes there, findsthe same _menu_, makes the same choice for the same reasons, eats, issatisfied, and returns. 

What similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same timemore incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do with memory; on thecontrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his action ofthe second day so exactly resembles that of the first. As long as he hasno power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat the same actionsin exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, such as hisbeing sent away, modify the situation. Till this or some othermodification occurs, he will day after day go down into the streetwithout knowing where to go; day after day he will see the same policemanat the corner of the same street, and (for we may as well suppose thatthe policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, and ask andbe answered, till he and the policeman die of old age. This similarityof action is plainly due to that--whatever it is--which ensures that likepersons or things when placed in like circumstances shall behave in alike manner. 

Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of actionwill disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to him on thefirst day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification in himin regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get his dinner. He had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Somemodification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor, and this is immediately observable. He wants his dinner, indeed, goesdown into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he doesnot ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and whathe did, and therefore goes straight to the eating-house without wastingtime: nor does he dine off the same dish two days running, for heremembers what he had yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarityof action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce itinto such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes bysuccessive generations? The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as thegoose, are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequenceone goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water. Whyshould it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds--namely, that it is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like proportionsin the same manner?

ON CYCLES. (CHAPTER XI. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. )

The one faith on which all normal living beings consciously orunconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by likeconsequents. This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable, but except a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perisheverlastingly. In the assurance of this all action is taken. But ifthis fundamental article is admitted, it follows that if ever a completecycle were formed, so that the whole universe of one instant were torepeat itself absolutely in a subsequent one, no matter after whatinterval of time, then the course of the events between these two momentswould go on repeating itself for ever and ever afterwards in due order, down to the minutest detail, in an endless series of cycles like acirculating decimal. For the universe comprises everything; there couldtherefore be no disturbance from without. Once a cycle, always a cycle. 

Let us suppose the earth of given weight, moving with given momentum in agiven path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find itselfat any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was conditionedat some past moment; then it must move exactly in the same path as theone it took when at the beginning of the cycle it has just completed, andmust therefore in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and thereforea third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance of escape thana circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have been reproduced withperfect accuracy as to draw it into such a whirlpool. 

We see something very like this actually happen in the yearly revolutionsof the planets round the sun. But the relations between, we will say, the earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely. These relationsdeal only with a small part of the universe, and even in this small partthe relation of the parts _inter se_ has never yet been reproduced withthe perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument. They are liable, moreover, to disturbance from events which may or may not actually occur(as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or the sun's coming withina certain distance of another sun), but of which, if they do occur, noone can foresee the effects. Nevertheless the conditions have been sonearly repeated that there is no appreciable difference in the relationsbetween the earth and sun on one New Year's Day and on another, nor isthere reason for expecting such change within any reasonable time. 

If there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the wholeuniverse, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. Excludea single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relativepositions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element ofdisturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be said isthat it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearlyperfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but whichmust inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition. The movement ofthe series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, and convergent ordivergent at a greater or less rate according to circumstances. 

We cannot conceive of all the atoms in the universe standing twice overin absolutely the same relation each one of them to every other. Thereare too many of them, and they are too much mixed; but, as has been justsaid, in the planets and their satellites we do see large groups of atomswhose movements recur with some approach to precision. The same holdsgood also with certain comets and with the sun himself. The result isthat our days and nights and seasons follow one another with nearlyperfect regularity from year to year, and have done so for as long timeas we know anything for certain. A vast preponderance of all the actionthat takes place around us is cyclical action. Within the great cycle ofthe planetary revolution of our own earth, and as a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of the seasons; these generate atmosphericcycles. Water is evaporated from the ocean and conveyed tomountain-ranges, where it is cooled, and whence it returns again to thesea. This cycle of events is being repeated again and again with littleappreciable variation. The tides, and winds in certain latitudes, goround and round the world with what amounts to continuous regularity. There are storms of wind and rain called cyclones. In the case of these, the cycle is not very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, andthe tendency to recur is comparatively soon lost. It is a common sayingthat history repeats itself, so that anarchy will lead to despotism anddespotism to anarchy; every nation can point to instances of men's mindshaving gone round and round so nearly in a perfect cycle that manyrevolutions have occurred before the cessation of a tendency to recur. Lastly, in the generation of plants and animals we have, perhaps, themost striking and common example of the inevitable tendency of all actionto repeat itself when it has once proximately done so. Let only oneliving being have once succeeded in producing a being like itself, andthus have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a series of generationsmust follow of necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no partin the original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the firstreproductive creature or all its descendants within a few generations. Ifno such mishap occurs as this, and if the recurrence of the conditions issufficiently perfect, a series of generations follows with as muchcertainty as a series of seasons follows upon the cycle of the relationsbetween the earth and sun. 

Let the first periodically recurring substance--we will say A--be able torecur or reproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2, &c. ; let A also have consciousness and a sense of self-interest, whichqualities must, _ex hypothesi_, be reproduced in each one of itsoffspring; let these get placed in circumstances which differsufficiently to destroy the cycle in theory without doing sopractically--that is to say, to reduce the rotation to a spiral, but to aspiral with so little deviation from perfect cycularity as for eachrevolution to appear practically a cycle, though after many revolutionsthe deviation becomes perceptible; then some such differentiations ofanimal and vegetable life as we actually see follow as matters of course. A1 and A2 have a sense of self-interest as A had, but they are notprecisely in circumstances similar to A's, nor, it may be, to eachother's; they will therefore act somewhat differently, and every livingbeing is modified by a change of action. Having become modified, theyfollow the spirit of A's action more essentially in begetting a creaturelike themselves than in begetting one like A; for the essence of A's actwas not the reproduction of A, but the reproduction of a creature likethe one from which it sprung--that is to say, a creature bearing tracesin its body of the main influences that have worked upon its parent. 

Within the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in the lifeof each individual, whether animal or plant. Observe the action of ourlungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle having been onceestablished, it is repeated many millions of times in an individual ofaverage health and longevity. Remember also that it is thisperiodicity--this inevitable tendency of all atoms in combination torepeat any combination which they have once repeated, unless forciblyprevented from doing so--which alone renders nine-tenths of ourmechanical inventions of practical use to us. There is not internalperiodicity about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine orwatermill when once set in motion. The actions of these machines recurin a regular series, at regular intervals, with the unerringness ofcirculating decimals. 

When we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in theworld around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends itsaction, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the vastest andthe smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord with our ideas ofwhat must inevitably happen when a like combination is placed incircumstances like those in which it was placed before--when we bear inmind all this, is it possible not to connect the facts together, and torefer cycles of living generations to the same unalterableness in theaction of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter andSaturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine move up anddown as long as the steam acts upon it?

But who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston-rod, to air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the earth andplanets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of the universe, if they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can take account of?{198a} And if not, why introduce it into the embryonic development ofliving beings, when there is not a particle of evidence in support of itsactual presence, when regularity of action can be ensured just as wellwithout it as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existingunder circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it issupposed to be exercised without any conscious recollection? Surely amemory which is exercised without any consciousness of recollecting isonly a periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all. {198b}

REPUTATION--MEMORY AT ONCE A PROMOTER AND A DISTURBER OF UNIFORMITY OFACTION AND STRUCTURE. (CHAPTER XII. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. )

To meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do littlemore than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases anddevelopments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to amemory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in theparents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthfuldevelopment generally is due to memory. 

This is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself into anassertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and embryonicdevelopment being due to memory, and a contention that the necessity ofeach particular moment in each particular case is sufficient to accountfor the facts without the introduction of memory. 

I will deal with these two last points briefly first. As regards theevidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due to arapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in thepersons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, I mustrefer my readers to Life and Habit, and to the translation of ProfessorHering's lecture given in Chapter VI. Of Unconscious Memory. I will onlyrepeat here that a chrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the sameperson with the chrysalis of its preceding generation, as this last isone and the same person with the egg or caterpillar from which it sprang. You cannot deny personal identity between two successive generationswithout sooner or later denying it during the successive stages in thesingle life of what we call one individual; nor can you admit personalidentity through the stages of a long and varied life (embryonic and post-natal) without admitting it to endure through an endless series ofgenerations. 

The personal identity of successive generations being admitted, thepossibility of the second of two generations remembering what happened toit in the first is obvious. The _a priori_ objection, therefore, isremoved, and the question becomes one of fact--does the offspring act asif it remembered?

The answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but that itis not possible to account for either its development or its earlyinstinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of itsremembering, and remembering exceedingly well. 

The only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living beingmay display a vast and varied information concerning all manner ofdetails, and be able to perform most intricate operations, independentlyof experience and practice. Once admit knowledge independent ofexperience, and farewell to sober sense and reason from that moment. 

Firstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility forremembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of havingremembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can bebrought forward, so as to account for the phenomena of instinct andheredity generally, which is not easily reducible to an absurdity. Beyondthis we do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from us whorequire further evidence. 

As regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will accountfor likeness of result, without there being any need for introducingmemory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to likeness ofantecedents, and I grant this will hold as good with embryos as withoxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the one will cover the other, for the writs of the laws common to all matter run within the womb asfreely as elsewhere; but admitting that there are combinations into whichliving beings enter with a faculty called memory which has its effectsupon their conduct, and admitting that such combinations are from time totime repeated (as we observe in the case of a practised performer playinga piece of music which he has committed to memory), then I maintain thatthough, indeed, the likeness of one performance to its immediatepredecessor is due to likeness of the combinations immediately precedingthe two performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both thesecombinations as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, andtherefore proper to be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say thatHerr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because hewas such and such an arrangement of matter in such and suchcircumstances, resembling those under which he played without music onsome past occasion. This goes without saying; we say only that he playedthe music by heart or by memory, as he had often played it before. 

To the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because itremembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in duecourse before it, but because when matter is in such a physical andmental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assumepresently such another physical and mental state as to be calledchrysalis, and that therefore there is no memory in the case--to thisobjector I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have become solike the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter ofnecessity, unless both parent and offspring had been influenced bysomething that we usually call memory. For it is this very possession ofa common memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken by, and hence to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and whichguided the parent in its turn to a state virtually identical with acorresponding state in the existence of its own parent. To memory, therefore, the most prominent place in the transaction is assignedrightly. 

To deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with thedevelopment of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct hasanything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House ofCommons. What should we think of one who said that the action of thesegentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government, but was simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanicalforces at work, which being such and such, the action which we see isinevitable, and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? Weshould answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical andmechanical action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, itwas all chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstructparliamentary business is involved in certain kinds of chemical andmechanical action, and that the kinds involving this had preceded therecent proceedings of the members in question. If asked to prove this, we can get no further than that such action as has been taken has neverbeen seen except as following after and in consequence of a desire toobstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more beexpected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the bidding ofa foreigner. 

A little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable todeny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time denying theirexistence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no place in theacquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action. He will feelthat the actions, and the relation of one action to another which heobserves in embryos is such as is never seen except in association withand as a consequence of will and memory. He will therefore say that itis due to will and memory. To say that these are the necessary outcomeof certain antecedents is not to destroy them: granted that they are--aman does not cease to be a man when we reflect that he has had a fatherand mother, neither do will and memory cease to be will and memory on theground that they cannot come causeless. They are manifest minute byminute to the perception of all people who can keep out of lunaticasylums, and this tribunal, though not infallible, is nevertheless ourultimate court of appeal--the final arbitrator in all disputed cases. 

We must remember that there is no action, however original or peculiar, which is not in respect of far the greater number of its details foundedupon memory. If a desperate man blows his brains out--an action which hecan do once in a lifetime only, and which none of his ancestors can havedone before leaving offspring--still nine hundred and ninety-ninethousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist ofhabitual movements--movements, that is to say, which were once difficult, but which have been practised and practised by the help of memory untilthey are now performed automatically. We can no more have an action thana creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory. Ideas andactions seem almost to resemble matter and force in respect of theimpossibility of originating or destroying them; nearly all that are, arememories of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created, disappearing but not perishing. 

It appears, then, that when in Chapter X. We supposed the clerk whowanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken theday before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him to beguided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his takingdown his hat and going out into the street. We could not, indeed, deprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his action. 

Nevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course oftime come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the newforms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still arising, and in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical inventions. Butit is only a very little new that is added at a time, and that little isgenerally due to the desire to attain an end which cannot be attained byany of the means for which there exists a perceived precedent in thememory. When this is the case, either the memory is further ransackedfor any forgotten shreds of details a combination of which may serve thedesired purpose; or action is taken in the dark, which sometimes succeedsand becomes a fertile source of further combinations; or we are broughtto a dead stop. All action is random in respect of any of the minuteactions which compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, realor supposed. So that random, or action taken in the dark, or illusion, lies at the very root of progress. 

I will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct andembryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch ascertain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed toit. 

Those who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two mainclasses: those which we have often repeated before by means of a regularseries of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain tolerablywell-defined point--as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, orwhen we dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details of which areindeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose arenew--as when we are being married, or presented at court. 

At each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above referredto there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to the less orgreater number of times the action has been repeated), not only of thesteps in the present and previous performances which have led up to theparticular point that may be selected, _but also of the particular pointitself_; there is therefore, at each point in a habitual performance, amemory at once of like antecedents _and of a like present_. 

If the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were absolutelyperfect; that is to say, if the vibrations in the nervous system (or, ifthe reader likes it better, if the molecular change in the particularnerves affected--for molecular change is only a change in the characterof the vibrations going on within the molecules--it is nothing else thanthis)--it the vibrations in the particular nerves affected by anyoccurrence continued on each fresh repetition of the occurrence in theirfull original strength and without having been interfered with by anyother vibrations; and if, again, the new waves running into the faint oldones from exterior objects and restoring the lapsed molecular state ofthe nerves to a pristine condition were absolutely identical in characteron each repetition of the occurrence with the waves that ran in upon thelast occasion, then there would be no change in the action, and nomodification or improvement could take place. For though indeed thelatest performance would always have one memory more than the latest butone to guide it, yet the memories being identical, it would not matterhow many or how few they were. 

On any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, orboth, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight variation ineach individual case, and some part of this variation is remembered, withapprobation or disapprobation as the case may be. 

The fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there is onememory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is slightlydifferent from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent and, _exhypothesi_, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual action--and thelife of an organism should, as has been sufficiently insisted on, beregarded as the habitual action of a single individual, namely, of theorganism itself, and of its ancestors. This is the key to accumulationof improvement, whether in the arts which we assiduously practise duringour single life, or in the structures and instincts of successivegenerations. The memory does not complete a true circle, but is, as itwere, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom. It is no longer a perfectlycirculating decimal. Where, on the other hand, there is no memory of alike present, where, in fact, the memory is not, so to speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of improvement. The effect of any variation isnot transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of still further change. 

As regards the second of the two classes of actions above referredto--those, namely which are not recurrent or habitual, _and at no pointof which is there a memory of a past present like the one which ispresent now_--there will have been no accumulation of strong and well-knit memory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if taken atall, will be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual actions (ourown and those of other people) pieced together with a result more or lesssatisfactory according to circumstances. 

But it does not follow that the action of two people who have hadtolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similarcircumstances should be more unlike each other in this second case thanin the first. On the contrary, nothing is more common than to observethe same kind of people making the same kind of mistake when placed forthe first time in the same kind of new circumstances. I did not say thatthere would be no sameness of action without memory of a like present. There may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, conscious orunconscious, of like antecedents, and _a presence only of like presentswithout recollection of the same_. 

The sameness of action of like persons placed under like circumstancesfor the first time, resembles the sameness of action of inorganic matterunder the same combinations. Let us for a moment suppose what we callnon-living substances to be capable of remembering their antecedents, andthat the changes they undergo are the expressions of their recollections. Then I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, we willsay, that is about to be churned of the cream of the preceding week, butthe common absence of such memory from each week's cream is an element ofsameness between the two. And though no cream can remember having beenchurned before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identicalantecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories and nearly thesame proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of one week is as truly thesame as the cream of another; week from the same cow, pasture, &c. , asanything is ever the same with anything; for the having been subjected tolike antecedents engenders the closest similarity that we can conceiveof, if the substances were like to start with. Same is as same does. 

The manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of likepresents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, forexample, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason forsaying that such other and far more numerous and important phenomena asthose of embryonic development are not phenomena of memory. Growth andthe diseases of old age do indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on thesame footing. The question, however, whether certain results are due tomemory or no must be settled not by showing that two combinations, neither of which can remember the other (as between each other), may yetgenerate like results, and therefore, considering the memory theorydisposed of for all other cases, but by the evidence we may be able toadduce in any particular case that the second agent has actuallyremembered the conduct of the first. Such evidence must show firstlythat the second agent cannot be supposed able to do what it is plain hecan do, except under the guidance of memory or experience, and secondly, that the second agent has had every opportunity of remembering. When thefirst of these tests fails, similarity of action on the part of twoagents need not be connected with memory of a like present as well as oflike antecedents; when both fail, similarity of action should be referredto memory of like antecedents only. 

Returning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said thatconsciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the greateror fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it may beobserved as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness of memorythe greater the uniformity of action, and _vice versa_. For the lessconsciousness involves the memory's being more perfect, through a largernumber (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; there istherefore a less proportionate difference in respect of the number ofrecollections of this particular act between the most recent actor andthe most recent but one. This is why very old civilisations, as those ofmany insects, and the greater number of now living organisms, appear tothe eye not to change at all. 

For example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will sayby A, B, C, &c, who are similar in all respects, except that A actswithout recollection, B with recollection of A's action, C withrecollection of both B's and A's, while J remembers the course taken byA, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I--the possession of a memory by B willindeed so change his action, as compared with A's, that it may well behardly recognisable. We saw this in our example of the clerk who askedthe policeman the way to the eating-house on one day, but did not ask himthe next, because he remembered; but C's action will not be so differentfrom B's as B's from A's, for though C will act with a memory of twooccasions on which the action has been performed, while B recollects onlythe original performance by A, yet B and C both act with the guidance ofa memory and experience of some kind, while A acted without any. Thusthe clerk referred to in Chapter X. Will act on the third day much as heacted on the second--that is to say, he will see the policeman at thecorner of the street, but will not question him. 

When the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the differencebetween J's repetition of it and I's will be due solely to the differencebetween a recollection of nine past performances by J against only eightby I, and this is so much proportionately less than the differencebetween a recollection of two performances and of only one, that a lessmodification of action should be expected. At the same timeconsciousness concerning an action repeated for the tenth time should beless acute than on the first repetition. Memory, therefore, thoughtending to disturb similarity of action less and less continually, mustalways cause some disturbance. At the same time the possession of amemory on the successive repetitions of an action after the first, and, perhaps, the first two or three, during which the recollection may besupposed still imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will beone of the elements of sameness in the agents--they both acting by thelight of experience and memory. 

During the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely underthe guidance of a practised and powerful memory of circumstances whichhave been often repeated, not only in detail and piecemeal, but as awhole, and under many slightly varying conditions; thus the performancehas become well averaged and matured in its arrangements, so as to meetall ordinary emergencies. We therefore act with great unconsciousnessand vary our performances little. Babies are much more alike thanpersons of middle age. 

Up to the average age at which our ancestors have had children duringmany generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but thevariations in external circumstances begin to make themselves perceptiblein our characters. In middle life we live more and more continually uponthe piecing together of details of memory drawn from our personalexperience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; andthis resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to cream alittle time ago. It is not surprising, then, that a son who hasinherited his father's tastes and constitution, and who lives much as hisfather had done, should make the same mistakes as his father did when hereaches his father's age--we will say of seventy--though he cannotpossibly remember his father's having made the mistakes. It were to bewished we could, for then we might know better how to avoid gout, cancer, or what not. And it is to be noticed that the developments of old ageare generally things we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how todo so. 

CONCLUSION. (CHAPTER XIII. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. )

If we observed the resemblance between successive generations to be asclose as that between distilled water and distilled water through alltime, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action ofliving beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanicalcombinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little placeamong the causes of their action as it can have in anything, and thateach repetition, whether of a habit or the practice of art, or of anembryonic process in successive generations, was as original as the"Origin of Species" itself, for all that memory had to do with it. Isubmit, however, that in the case of the reproductive forms of life wesee just so much variety, in spite of uniformity, as is consistent with arepetition involving not only a nearly perfect similarity in the agentsand their circumstances, but also the little departure therefrom that isinevitably involved in the supposition that a memory of like presents aswell as of like antecedents (as distinguished from a memory of likeantecedents only) has played a part in their development--a cyclicalmemory, if the expression may be pardoned. 

There is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our mostpowerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon one sideand begin with the amoeba. Let us suppose that this "structureless"morsel of protoplasm is, for all its "structurelessness, " composed of aninfinite number of living molecules, each one of them with hopes andfears of its own, and all dwelling together like Tekke Turcomans, of whomwe read that they live for plunder only, and that each man of them isentirely independent, acknowledging no constituted authority, but thatsome among them exercise a tacit and undefined influence over the others. Let us suppose these molecules capable of memory, both in their capacityas individuals and as societies, and able to transmit their memories totheir descendants from the traditions of the dimmest past to theexperiences of their own lifetime. Some of these societies will remainsimple, as having had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar, and therefore striking, incidents will from time to time occur, which, when they do not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, will leave theirimpression upon it. The body or society will remember these incidentsand be modified by them in its conduct, and therefore more or less in itsinternal arrangements, which will tend inevitably to specialisation. Thismemory of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain, withProfessor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which, accumulated incountless generations, has led up from the amoeba to man. If there hadbeen no such memory, the amoeba of one generation would have exactlyresembled the amoeba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle would havebeen established; the modifying effects of an additional memory in eachgeneration have made the cycle into a spiral, and into a spiral whoseeccentricities, in the outset hardly perceptible, is becoming greater andgreater with increasing longevity and more complex social and mechanicalinventions. 

We say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which itultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers havinggrown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it made it onthe same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is to say, as the joint result both of desire and experience. When I sayexperience, I mean, experience not only of what will be wanted, but alsoof the details of all the means that must be taken in order to effectthis. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken not only inrespect of the main design, but in respect also of every atomic action, so to speak, which goes to make up the execution of this design. It isnot only the suggestion of a plan which is due to memory, but, asProfessor Hering has so well said, it is the binding power of memorywhich alone renders any consolidation or coherence of action possible, inasmuch as without this no action could have parts subordinate one toanother, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of an action, great orsmall, could have reference to any other part, much less to a combinationof all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate atoms of actions couldever happen--these bearing the same relation to such an action, we willsay, as a railway journey from London to Edinburgh as a single moleculeof hydrogen to a gallon of water. 

If asked how it is that the chicken shows no sign of consciousnessconcerning this design, nor yet of the steps it is taking to carry itout, we reply that such unconsciousness is usual in all cases where anaction, and the design which prompts it, have been repeated exceedinglyoften. If, again, we are asked how we account for the regularity withwhich each step is taken in its due order, we answer that this too ischaracteristic of actions that are done habitually--they being veryrarely misplaced in respect of any part. 

When I wrote Life and Habit, I had arrived at the conclusion that memorywas the most essential characteristic of life, and went so far as to say, "Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember--matter whichcan remember is living. " I should perhaps have written, "Life is thebeing possessed of a memory--the life of a thing at any moment is thememories which at that moment it retains;" and I would modify the wordsthat immediately follow, namely, "Matter which cannot remember is dead;"for they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot rememberanything at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to bethe case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember alittle, and which is not living in respect of what it can remember. I donot see how action of any kind (chemical as much as vital) is conceivablewithout the supposition that every atom retains a memory of certainantecedents. I cannot, however, at this point, enter upon the reasonswhich have compelled me to join the many who are now adopting thisconclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any ratewe cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations shoulddevelop from the simplicity of the amoeba to the complexity of the humanbody without the presence of that memory which can alone account at oncefor the resemblances and the differences between successive generations, for the arising and the accumulation of divergences--for the tendency todiffer and the tendency not to differ. 

At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom inthe universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a humbleway. He must have life eternal, as well as matter eternal; and the lifeand the matter must be joined together inseparably as body and soul toone another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who repeatphrases conventionally, but as people who would have their words takenaccording to their most natural and legitimate meaning; and he will feelthat the main difference between him and many of those who oppose himlies in the fact that whereas both he and they use the same language, hisopponents only half mean what they say, while he means it entirely. 

The attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is inaccordance with our observation and experience. It is therefore properto be believed. The attempt to get it from that which has absolutely nolife is like trying to get something out of nothing. The millionth partof a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent. Will in five hundredyears become over a million pounds, and so long as we have any millionthof a millionth of the farthing to start with, our getting as many millionpounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, but without theinitial millionth of a millionth of a millionth part, we shall get noincrement whatever. A little leaven will leaven the whole lump, butthere must be _some_ leaven. 

We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in respectof the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than theorganic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common withthe inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one's self on the samemoral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; it is enough thatwe should feel the stone to have a moral platform of its own, though thatplatform embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws ofgravitation, chemical affinity, &c. As for the difficulty of conceivinga body as living that has not got a reproductive system--we shouldremember that neuter insects are living but are believed to have noreproductive system. Again, we should bear in mind that mereassimilation involves all the essentials of reproduction, and that bothair and water possess this power in a very high degree. The essence of areproductive system, then, is found low down in the scheme of nature. 

At present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on the onehand their experiments and their theories alike teach them thatspontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they musthave an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their owntheory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this origin in noother way than by _Deus ex machina_ method, which they reject asunproved, or spontaneous generation of living from non-living matter, which is no less foreign to their experience. As a general rule, theyprefer the latter alternative. So Professor Tyndall, in his celebratedarticle (_Nineteenth Century_, November 1878), wrote:--

"The theory of evolution in its complete form involves the assumptionthat at some period or other of the earth's history there occurred whatwould be now called 'spontaneous generation. '" {217} And so ProfessorHuxley--

 "It is argued that a belief in abiogenesis is a necessary corollary from the doctrine of Evolution. This may be" [which I submit is equivalent here to "is"] "true of the occurrence of abiogenesis at some time. " {218}

Professor Huxley goes on to say that however this may be, abiogenesis (orspontaneous generation) is not respectable and will not do at all now. There may have been one case once; this may be winked at, but it must notoccur again. "It is enough, " he writes, "that a single particle ofliving protoplasm should once have appeared on the globe as the result ofno matter what agency. In the eyes of a consistent [!] evolutionist anyfurther [!] independent formation of protoplasm would be sheer waste"--andthe sooner the Almighty gets to understand that He must not make thatsingle act of special creation into a precedent the better for Him. 

Professor Huxley, in fact, excuses the single case of spontaneousgeneration which he appears to admit, because however illegitimate, itwas still "only a very little one, " and came off a long time ago in aforeign country. For my own part I think it will prove in the end moreconvenient if we say that there is a low kind of livingness in every atomof matter, and adopt Life eternal as no less inevitable a conclusion thanmatter eternal. 

It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion thereis life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at all timesin all things. The reader who takes the above position will find that hecan explain the entry of what he calls death among what he calls theliving, whereas he could by no means introduce life into his system if hestarted without it. Death is deducible; life is not deducible. Death isa change of memories; it is not the destruction of all memory. It is asthe liquidation of one company each member of which will presently join anew one, and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, by way ofgreater aptitude for working in concert with other molecules. This iswhy animals feed on grass and on each other, and cannot proselytise orconvert the rude ground before it has been tutored in the firstprinciples of the higher kinds of association. 

Again, I would recommend the reader to beware of believing anything inthis book unless he either likes it, or feels angry at being told it. Ifrequired belief in this or that makes a man angry, I suppose he should, as a general rule, swallow it whole then and there upon the spot, otherwise he may take it or leave it as he likes. 

I have not gone far for my facts, nor yet far from them; all on which Irest are as open to the reader as to me. If I have sometimes used hardterms, the probability is that I have not understood them, but have doneso by a slip, as one who has caught a bad habit from the company he hasbeen lately keeping. They should be skipped. 

Do not let the reader be too much cast down by the bad language withwhich professional scientists obscure the issue, nor by their seeming tomake it their business to fog us under the pretext of removing ourdifficulties. It is not the ratcatcher's interest to catch all the rats;and, as Handel observed so sensibly, "Every professional gentleman mustdo his best for to live. " The art of some of our philosophers, however, is sufficiently transparent, and consists too often in saying "organismwhich . . . Must be classified among fishes, " {220a} instead of "fish"and then proclaiming that they have "an ineradicable tendency to try tomake things clear. " {220b}

If another example is required, here is the following from an articlethan which I have seen few with which I more completely agree, or whichhave given me greater pleasure. If our men of science would take towriting in this way, we should be glad enough to follow them. Thepassage I refer to runs thus:--

 "Professor Huxley speaks of a 'verbal fog by which the question at issue may be hidden;' is there no verbal fog in the statement that _the aetiology of crayfishes resolves itself into a gradual evolution in the course of the mesozoic and subsequent epochs of the world's history of these animals from a primitive astacomorphous form_? Would it be fog or light that would envelop the history of man if we say that the existence of man was explained by the hypothesis of his gradual evolution from a primitive anthropomorphous form? I should call this fog, not light. " {220c}

Especially let him mistrust those who are holding forth about protoplasm, and maintaining that this is the only living substance. Protoplasm maybe, and perhaps is, the _most_ living part of an organism, as the mostcapable of retaining vibrations, of a certain character, but this is theutmost that can be claimed for it. I have noticed, however, thatprotoplasm has not been buoyant lately in the scientific market. 

Having mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdownof that school of philosophy which divided the _ego_ from the _non ego_. The protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at _ego_, tillthey have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body, andthey will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they aredoing now. 

Others, again, are so unifying the _ego_ and the _non ego_, that withthem there will soon be as little of the _non ego_ left as there is ofthe _ego_ with their opponents. Both, however, are so far agreed as thatwe know not where to draw the line between the two, and this rendersnugatory any system which is founded upon a distinction between them. 

The truth is, that all classification whatever, when we examine its_raison d'etre_ closely, is found to be arbitrary--to depend on our senseof our own convenience, and not on any inherent distinction in the natureof the things themselves. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing andone action. The universe, or God, and the action of the universe as awhole. 

Lastly, I may predict with some certainty that before long we shall findthe original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (with an infusion ofProfessor Hering into the bargain) generally accepted instead of the neo-Darwinism of to-day, and that the variations whose accumulation resultsin species will be recognised as due to the wants and endeavours of theliving forms in which they appear, instead of being ascribed to chance, or, in other words, to unknown causes, as by Mr. Charles Darwin's system. We shall have some idyllic young naturalists bringing up Dr. ErasmusDarwin's note on _Trapa natans_ {221} and Lamarck's kindred passage onthe descent of _Ranunculus hederaceus_ from _Ranunculus aquatilis_ {222a}as fresh discoveries, and be told with much happy simplicity, that thoseanimals and plants which have felt the need of such a structure havedeveloped it, while those which have not wanted it have gone without it. Thus it will be declared, every leaf we see around us, every structure ofthe minutest insect, will bear witness to the truth of the "great guess"of the greatest of naturalists concerning the memory of living matter. {222b}

I dare say the public will not object to this, and am very sure that noneof the admirers of Mr. Charles Darwin or Mr. Wallace will protest againstit; but it may be as well to point out that this was not the view of thematter taken by Mr. Wallace in 1858 when he and Mr. Darwin first cameforward as preachers of natural selection. At that time Mr. Wallace sawclearly enough the difference between the theory of "natural selection"and that of Lamarck. He wrote:--

 "The hypothesis of Lamarck--that progressive changes in species have been produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development of their own organs and thus modify their structure and habits--has been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of varieties and species, . . . But the view here developed renders such a hypothesis quite unnecessary . . . The powerful retractile talons of the falcon and the cat tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of those animals, . . . Neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer neck than usual _at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same ground as their short-necked companions_, _and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them_" (italics in original). {223a}

This is absolutely the neo-Darwin doctrine, and a denial of the mainlyfortuitous character of the variations in animal and vegetable forms cutsat its root. That Mr. Wallace, after years of reflection, still adheredto this view, is proved by his heading a reprint of the paragraph justquoted from {223b} with the words "Lamarck's hypothesis very differentfrom that now advanced;" nor do any of his more recent works show that hehas modified his opinion. It should be noted that Mr. Wallace does notcall his work Contributions to the Theory of Evolution, but to that ofNatural Selection. 

Mr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to sayingthat Mr. Wallace has arrived at _almost_ (italics mine) the same generalconclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {223c} but he still, as in 1859, declares that it would be "a serious error to suppose that the greaternumber of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation andthen transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations, " {223d} and hestill comprehensively condemns the "well-known doctrine of inheritedhabit, as advanced by Lamarck. " {224}

As for the statement in the passage quoted from Mr. Wallace, to theeffect that Lamarck's hypothesis "has been repeatedly and easily refutedby all writers on the subject of varieties and species, " it is a verysurprising one. I have searched Evolution literature in vain for anyrefutation of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck'shypothesis really is), which need make the defenders of that system atall uneasy. The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yetbeen made is Paley's Natural Theology, which was throughout obviouslywritten to meet Buffon and the Zoonomia. It is the manner of theologiansto say that such and such an objection "has been refuted over and overagain, " without at the same time telling us when and where; it is to beregretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the theologians'book. His statement is one which will not pass muster with those whompublic opinion is sure in the end to follow. 

Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, "repeatedly and easily refute"Lamarck's hypothesis in his brilliant article in the _Leader_, March 20, 1852? On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those"who cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers. " Thisarticle was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr. Wallace; how absolutely, however, does the word "cavalierly" apply tothem!

Does Isidore Geoffrey, again, bear Mr. Wallace's assertion out better? In1859--that is to say but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written--hewrote as follows:--

 "Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely closed, and what indeed they are still saying--commonly too without any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching. 

 "When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's theory discussed--and, I may as well at once say, refuted in some important points {225a}--with at any rate the respect due to one of the most illustrious masters of our science? And when will this theory, the hardihood of which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from the interpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so many naturalists have followed their opinion concerning it? If its author is to be condemned, let it be, at any rate, not before he has been heard. " {225b}

In 1873 M. Martin published his edition of Lamarck's _PhilosophicZoologique_. He was still able to say, with, I believe, perfect truth, that Lamarck's theory has "never yet had the honour of being discussedseriously. " {225c}

Professor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less cavalier than Mr. Wallace. He writes: {225d}--

 "Lamarck introduced the conception of the action of an animal on itself as a factor in producing modification. "

Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and Dr. Darwin whointroduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin. The accuracy ofProfessor Huxley's statements about the history and literature ofevolution is like the direct interference of the Deity--it vanisheswhenever and wherever I have occasion to test it. 

"But _a little consideration showed_" (italics mine) "that though Lamarckhad seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of modification, itis a cause the actual effects of which are wholly inadequate to accountfor any considerable modification in animals, and which can have noinfluence whatever in the vegetable world, " &c. 

I should be very glad to come across some of the "little consideration"which will show this. I have searched for it far and wide, and havenever been able to find it. 

I think Professor Huxley has been exercising some of his ineradicabletendency to try to make things clear in the article on Evolution, alreadyso often quoted from. We find him (p. 750) pooh-poohing Lamarck, yet onthe next page he says, "How far 'natural selection' suffices for theproduction of species remains to be seen. " And this when "naturalselection" was already so nearly of age! Why, to those who know how toread between a philosopher's lines the sentence comes to very nearly thesame as a declaration that the writer has no great opinion of "naturalselection. " Professor Huxley continues, "Few can doubt that, if not thewhole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation. " Aphilosopher's words should be weighed carefully, and when ProfessorHuxley says, "few can doubt, " we must remember that he may be includinghimself among the few whom he considers to have the power of doubting onthis matter. He does not say "few will, " but "few can" doubt, as thoughit were only the enlightened who would have the power of doing so. Certainly "nature"--for that is what "natural selection" comes to--israther an important factor in the operation, but we do not gain much bybeing told so. If however, Professor Huxley neither believes in theorigin of species, through sense of need on the part of animalsthemselves, nor yet in "natural selection, " we should be glad to knowwhat he does believe in. 

The battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight. Itis a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between thepurposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal andvegetable bodies. According to Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Paley, organs are purposive; according to Mr. Darwin and his followers, they arenot purposive. But the main arguments against the system of Dr. ErasmusDarwin are arguments which, so far as they have any weight, tell againstevolution generally. Now that these have been disposed of, and theprejudice against evolution has been overcome, it will be seen that thereis nothing to be said against the system of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarckwhich does not tell with far greater force against that of Mr. CharlesDarwin and Mr. Wallace. 

REMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. {228a}

I have said on page 96 of this book that the word "heredity" may be avery good way of stating the difficulty which meets us when we observethe reappearance of like characteristics, whether of body or mind, insuccessive generations, but that it does nothing whatever towardsremoving it. 

It is here that Mr. Herbert Spencer, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, and Mr. Romanes fail. Mr. Herbert Spencer does indeed go so far in one place asto call instinct "organised memory, " {228b} and Mr. G. H. Lewesattributes many instincts to what he calls the "lapsing of intelligence. "{228c} So does Mr. Herbert Spencer, {228d} whom Mr. Romanes should haveknown that Mr. Lewis was following. Mr. Romanes, in his recent work, Mental Evolution in Animals (November, 1883), endorses this, andfrequently uses such expressions as "the lifetime of the species, " {228e}"hereditary experience, " {228f} and "hereditary memory and instinct, "{228g} but none of these writers (and indeed no writer that I know ofexcept Professor Hering of Prague, for a translation of whose address onthis subject I must refer the reader to my book Unconscious Memory) hasshown a comprehension of the fact that these expressions are unexplainedso long as "heredity, " whereby they explain them, is unexplained; andnone of them sees the importance of emphasizing Memory, and making it asit were the keystone of the system. 

Mr. Spencer may very well call instinct "organised memory" if he meansthat offspring can remember--within the limitations to which all memoryis subject--what happened to it while it was yet in the person or personsof its parent or parents; but if he does not mean this, his use of theword "memory, " his talk about "the experience of the race, " and otherexpressions of kindred nature, are delusive. If he does mean this, it isa pity he has nowhere said so. 

Professor Hering does mean this, and makes it clear that he does so. Hedoes not catch the ball and let it slip through his fingers again, butholds it firmly. "It is to memory, " he says, "that we owe almost allthat we have or are; our ideas and conceptions are its work; our everythought and movement are derived from this source. Memory connects thecountless phenomena of our existence into a single whole, and as ourbodies would be scattered into the dust of their component atoms if theywere not held together by the cohesion of matter, so our consciousnesswould be broken up into as many moments as we had lived seconds, but forthe binding and unifying force of Memory. " {229} And he proceeds to showthat Memory persists between generations exactly as it does between thevarious stages in the life of the individual. If I could find any suchpassage as the one I have just quoted, in Mr. Herbert Spencer's, Mr. Lewes's, or Mr. Romanes' works, I should be only too glad to quote it, but I know of nothing comparable to it for definiteness of idea, thoroughness and consistency. 

No reader indeed can rise from a perusal of Mr. Herbert Spencer's, or Mr. G. H. Lewes', work with an adequate--if indeed with any--impression thatthe phenomena of heredity are in fact phenomena of memory; that heredity, whether as regards body or mind, is only possible because each generationis linked on to and made one with its predecessor by the possession of acommon and abiding memory, in as far as bodily existence was common--thatis to say, until the substance of the one left the substance of theother; and that this memory is exactly of the same general character asthat which enables us to remember what we did half an hour ago--strongunder the same circumstances as those under which this familiar kind ofmemory is strong, and weak under those under which it is weak. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes have even less conception of the connection betweenheredity and memory than Dr. Erasmus Darwin had at the close of the lastcentury. {230}

Mr. Lewes' position was briefly this. He denied that there could be anyknowledge independent of experience, but he could not help seeing thatyoung animals come into the world furnished with many organs which theyuse with great dexterity at a very early age. This looks as if they areacting on knowledge acquired independently of experience. "No, " says Mr. Lewes, "not so. They are born with the organs--I cannot tell how or why, but heredity explains all that, and having once got the organs, theobjects that come into contact with them in daily life naturally producethe same effect as on the parents, just as oxygen coming into contactwith the right quantity of hydrogen will make water; hence even the firsttime the offspring come into contact with any given object they act astheir parents did. " The idea of the young having got their experience ina past generation does not seem to have even crossed his mind. 

"What marvel is there, " he asks, "that constant conditions acting uponstructures which are similar should produce similar results? It is inthis sense that the paradox of Leibnitz is true, and we can be said 'toacquire an innate idea;' only the idea is not acquired independently ofexperience, but through the process of experience similar to that whichoriginally produced it. " {231a}

The impression left upon me is that he is all at sea for want of the cluewith which Professor Hering would have furnished him, and that had thatclue been presented to him a dozen years or so earlier than it was hewould have adopted it. 

As regards Mr. Romanes the case is different. His recent work, MentalEvolution in Animals, {231b} shows that he is well aware of the directionwhich modern opinion is taking, and in several places he so writes as towarrant me in claiming his authority in support of the views which I havebeen insisting on for several years past. 

Thus Mr. Romanes says that the analogies between the memory with which weare familiar in daily life and hereditary memory "are so numerous andprecise" as to justify us in considering them to be of essentially thesame kind. {232a}

Again he says that although the memory of milk shown by new-born infantsis "at all events in large part hereditary, it is none the less memory"of a certain kind. {232b}

Two lines lower down he writes of "hereditary memory or instinct, "thereby implying that instinct is "hereditary memory. " "It makes noessential difference, " he says, "whether the past sensation was actuallyexperienced by the individual itself, or bequeathed it, so to speak, byits ancestors. {232c} For it makes no essential difference whether thenervous changes . . . Were occasioned during the lifetime of theindividual or during that of the species, and afterwards impressed byheredity on the individual. "

Lower down on the same page he writes:--

 "As showing how close is the connection between hereditary memory and instinct, " &c. 

And on the following page:--

 "And this shows how closely the phenomena of hereditary memory are related to those of individual memory: at this stage . . . It is practically impossible to disentangle the effects of hereditary memory from those of the individual. "

Again:--

 "Another point which we have here to consider is the part which heredity has played in forming the perceptive faculty of the individual prior to its own experience. We have already seen that heredity plays an important part in forming memory of ancestral experiences, and thus it is that many animals come into the world with their power of perception already largely developed. . . . The wealth of ready-formed information, and therefore of ready-made powers of perception, with which many newly-born or newly-hatched animals are provided, is so great and so precise that it scarcely requires to be supplemented by the subsequent experience of the individual. " {233a}

Again:--

 "Instincts probably owe their origin and development to one or other of two principles. 

 "I. The first mode of origin consists in natural selection or survival of the fittest, continuously preserving actions, &c. &c. . . . 

 "II. The second mode of origin is as follows:--By the effects of habit in successive generations, actions which were originally intelligent become as it were stereotyped into permanent instincts. Just as in the lifetime of the individual adjustive actions which were originally intelligent may by frequent repetition become automatic, so in the lifetime of species actions originally intelligent may by frequent repetition and heredity so write their effects on the nervous system that the latter is prepared, even before individual experience, to perform adjustive actions mechanically which in previous generations were performed intelligently. This mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately called (by Lewes--see Problems of Life and Mind {233b}) the 'lapsing of intelligence. '" {233c}

Later on:--

 "That 'practice makes perfect' is a matter, as I have previously said, of daily observation. Whether we regard a juggler, a pianist, or a billiard-player, a child learning his lesson or an actor his part by frequently repeating it, or a thousand other illustrations of the same process, we see at once that there is truth in the cynical definition of a man as a 'bundle of habits. ' And the same of course is true of animals. " {234a}

From this Mr. Romanes goes on to show "that automatic actions andconscious habits may be inherited, " {234b} and in the course of doingthis contends that "instincts may be lost by disuse, and conversely thatthey may be acquired as instincts by the hereditary transmission ofancestral experience. " {234c}

On another page Mr. Romanes says:--

 "Let us now turn to the second of these two assumptions, viz. , that some at least among migratory birds must possess, by inheritance alone, a very precise knowledge of the particular direction to be pursued. It is without question an astonishing fact that a young cuckoo should be prompted to leave its foster parents at a particular season of the year, and without any guide to show the course previously taken by its own parents, but this is a fact which must be met by any theory of instinct which aims at being complete. Now upon our own theory it can only be met by taking it to be due to inherited memory. " {234d}

Mr. Romanes says in a note that this theory was first advanced by CanonKingsley in _Nature_, January 18, 1867, a piece of information which Ilearn for the first time; otherwise, as I need hardly say, I should havecalled attention to it in my own books on evolution. _Nature_ did notbegin to appear till the end of 1869, and I can find no communicationfrom Canon Kingsley bearing upon hereditary memory in any number of_Nature_ prior to the date of Canon Kingsley's death; but no doubt Mr. Romanes has only made a slip in his reference. Mr. Romanes also saysthat the theory connecting instinct with inherited memory "has since beenindependently 'suggested' by many writers. "

A little lower Mr. Romanes says: "Of what kind, then, is the inheritedmemory on which the young cuckoo (if not also other migratory birds)depends? We can only answer, of the same kind, whatever this may be, asthat upon which the old bird depends. " {235}

I have given above most of the more marked passages which I have beenable to find in Mr. Romanes' book which attribute instinct to memory, andwhich admit that there is no fundamental difference between the kind ofmemory with which we are all familiar and hereditary memory astransmitted from one generation to another. But throughout his workthere are passages which suggest, though less obviously, the sameinference. 

The passages I have quoted show that Mr. Romanes is upholding the sameopinions as Professor Hering's and my own, but their effect and tendencyis more plain here than in Mr. Romanes' own book, where they are overlaidby nearly 400 long pages of matter which is not always easy ofcomprehension. 

The late Mr. Darwin himself, indeed--whose mantle seems to have fallenmore especially and particularly on Mr. Romanes--could not contradicthimself more hopelessly than Mr. Romanes often does. Indeed in one ofthe very passages I have quoted in order to show that Mr. Romanes acceptsthe phenomena of heredity as phenomena of memory, he speaks of "heredityas playing an important part _in forming memory_ of ancestralexperiences;" so that whereas I want him to say that the phenomena ofheredity are due to memory, he will have it that the memory is due to theheredity, {236a} which seems to me absurd. 

Over and over again Mr. Romanes insists that it is heredity which doesthis or that. Thus it is "_heredity with natural selection which adapt_the anatomical plan of the ganglia. " {236b} It is heredity whichimpresses nervous changes on the individual. {236c} "In the lifetime ofspecies actions originally intelligent may by frequent repetition _andheredity_, " &c. {236d}; but he nowhere tells us what heredity is any morethan Messrs. Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Lewes have done. This, however, is, exactly what Professor Hering, whom I have unwittinglyfollowed, does. He resolves all phenomena of heredity, whether inrespect of body or mind, into phenomena of memory. He says in effect, "Aman grows his body as he does, and a bird makes her nest as she does, because both man and bird remember having grown body and made nest asthey now do, or very nearly so, on innumerable past occasions. " He thusreduces life from an equation of say 100 unknown quantities to one of 99only by showing that heredity and memory, two of the original 100 unknownquantities, are in reality part of one and the same thing. 

That he is right Mr. Romanes seems to me to admit, though in a veryunsatisfactory way. 

REMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS--(_continued_). 

I will give examples of my meaning. Mr. Romanes says on an early page, "The most fundamental principle of mental operation is that of memory, for this is the _conditio sine qua non_ of all mental life" (page 35). 

I do not understand Mr. Romanes to hold that there is any living beingwhich has no mind at all, and I do understand him to admit thatdevelopment of body and mind are closely interdependent. 

If then, "the most fundamental principle" of mind is memory, it followsthat memory enters also as a fundamental principle into development ofbody. For mind and body are so closely connected that nothing can enterlargely into the one without correspondingly affecting the other. 

On a later page, indeed, Mr. Romanes speaks point-blank of the new-bornchild as "_embodying_ the results of a great mass of _hereditaryexperience_" (p. 77), so that what he is driving at can be collected bythose who take trouble, but is not seen until we call up from our ownknowledge matter whose relevancy does not appear on the face of it, anduntil we connect passages many pages asunder, the first of which mayeasily be forgotten before we reach the second. There can be no doubt, however, that Mr. Romanes does in reality, like Professor Hering andmyself, regard development, whether of mind or body, as due to memory, for it is nonsense indeed to talk about "hereditary experience" or"hereditary memory" if anything else is intended. 

I have said above that on page 113 of his recent work Mr. Romanesdeclares the analogies between the memory with which we are familiar indaily life, and hereditary memory, to be "so numerous and precise" as tojustify us in considering them as of one and the same kind. 

This is certainly his meaning, but, with the exception of the wordswithin inverted commas, it is not his language. His own words arethese:--

 "Profound, however, as our ignorance unquestionably is concerning the physical substratum of memory, I think we are at least justified in regarding this substratum as the same both in ganglionic or organic, and in conscious or psychological memory, seeing that the analogies between them are so numerous and precise. Consciousness is but an adjunct which arises when the physical processes, owing to infrequency of repetition, complexity of operation, or other causes, involve what I have before called ganglionic friction. "

I submit that I have correctly translated Mr. Romanes' meaning, and alsothat we have a right to complain of his not saying what he has to say inwords which will involve less "ganglionic friction" on the part of thereader. 

Another example may be found on p. 43 of Mr. Romanes' book. "Lastly, " hewrites, "just as innumerable special mechanisms of muscularco-ordinations are found to be inherited, innumerable specialassociations of ideas are found to be the same, and in one case as in theother the strength of the organically imposed connection is found to beara direct proportion to the frequency with which in the history of thespecies it has occurred. "

Mr. Romanes is here intending what the reader will find insisted on on p. 98 of the present volume; but how difficult he has made what could havebeen said intelligibly enough, if there had been nothing but the reader'scomfort to be considered. Unfortunately that seems to have been by nomeans the only thing of which Mr. Romanes was thinking, or why, afterimplying and even saying over and over again that instinct is inheritedhabit due to inherited memory, should he turn sharply round on p. 297 andpraise Mr. Darwin for trying to snuff out "the well-known doctrine ofinherited habit as advanced by Lamarck"? The answer is not far to seek. It is because Mr. Romanes did not merely want to tell us all aboutinstinct, but wanted also, if I may use a homely metaphor, to hunt withthe hounds and run with the hare at one and the same time. 

I remember saying that if the late Mr. Darwin "had told us what theearlier evolutionists said, why they said it, wherein he differed fromthem, and in what way he proposed to set them straight, he would havetaken a course at once more agreeable with usual practice, and morelikely to remove misconception from his own mind and from those of hisreaders. " {239} This I have no doubt was one of the passages which madeMr. Romanes so angry with me. I can find no better words to apply to Mr. Romanes himself. He knows perfectly well what others have written aboutthe connection between heredity and memory, and he knows no less wellthat so far as he is intelligible at all he is taking the same view thatthey have taken. If he had begun by saying what they had said and hadthen improved on it, I for one should have been only too glad to beimproved upon. 

Mr. Romanes has spoiled his book just because this plain old-fashionedmethod of procedure was not good enough for him. One-half the obscuritywhich makes his meaning so hard to apprehend is due to exactly the samecause as that which has ruined so much of the late Mr. Darwin's work--Imean to a desire to appear to be differing altogether from others withwhom he knew himself after all to be in substantial agreement. Headopts, but (probably quite unconsciously) in his anxiety to avoidappearing to adopt, he obscures what he is adopting. 

Here, for example, is Mr. Romanes' definition of instinct:--

 "Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported the element of consciousness. The term is therefore a generic one, comprising all those faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same species. " {240}

If Mr, Romanes would have been content to build frankly upon ProfessorHering's foundation, the soundness of which he has elsewhere abundantlyadmitted, he might have said--

"Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past generations--the newgeneration remembering what happened to it before it parted company withthe old. " Then he might have added as a rider--

"If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any given lifetime, it isnot an instinct. If having been acquired in one lifetime it istransmitted to offspring, it is an instinct in the offspring though itwas not an instinct in the parent. If the habit is transmittedpartially, it must be considered as partly instinctive and partlyacquired. "

This is easy; it tells people how they may test any action so as to knowwhat they ought to call it; it leaves well alone by avoiding all suchdebatable matters as reflex action, consciousness, intelligence, purpose, knowledge of purpose, &c. ; it both introduces the feature of inheritancewhich is the one mainly distinguishing instinctive from so-calledintelligent actions, and shows the manner in which these last pass intothe first, that is to say, by way of memory and habitual repetition;finally it points the fact that the new generation is not to be lookedupon as a new thing, but (as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since said {241}) as"a branch or elongation" of the one immediately preceding it. 

But then to have said this would have made it too plain that Mr. Romaneswas following some one else. Mr. Romanes should remember that no onewould mind how much he took if he would only take it well. But this iswhat those who take without due acknowledgment never do. 

In Mr. Darwin's case it is hardly possible to exaggerate the waste oftime, money, and trouble that has been caused by his not having beencontent to appear as descending with modification like other people fromthose who went before him. It will take years to get the evolutiontheory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin has left it. He was heir to adiscredited truth; he left behind him an accredited fallacy. Mr. Romanes, if he is not stopped in time, will get the theory connectingheredity and memory into just such another muddle as Mr. Darwin has gotEvolution, for surely the writer who can talk about "_heredity being ableto work up_ the faculty of homing into the instinct of migration, " {242a}or of "the principle of (natural) selection combining with that oflapsing intelligence to the formation of a joint result, " {242b} islittle likely to depart from the usual methods of scientific procedurewith advantage either to himself or any one else. Fortunately Mr. Romanes is not Mr. Darwin, and though he has certainly got Mr. Darwin'smantle, and got it very much too, it will not on Mr. Romanes' shouldershide a good deal that people were not going to observe too closely whileMr. Darwin wore it. 

REMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS--(_concluded_). 

I gather that in the end the late Mr. Darwin himself admitted thesoundness of the view which the reader will have found insisted upon inthe extracts from my earlier books given in this volume. Mr. Romanesquotes a letter written by Mr. Darwin in the last year of his life, inwhich he speaks of an intelligent action gradually becoming"_instinctive_, _i. E. _, _memory transmitted from one generation toanother_. " {243a}

Briefly, the stages of Mr. Darwin's opinion upon the subject ofhereditary memory are as follows:--

1859. "It would be _the most serious error_ to suppose that the greaternumber of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation andtransmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations. " {243b} And thismore especially applies to the instincts of many ants. 

1876. "It would be _a serious error_ to suppose" &c. , as before. {243c}

1881. "We should remember _what a mass of inherited knowledge_ iscrowded into the minute brain of a worker ant. " {243d}

1881 or 1882. Speaking of a given habitual action Mr. Darwin writes:--"Itdoes not seem to me at all incredible that this action [and why this morethan any other habitual action?] should then become instinctive:" _i. E. _, _memory transmitted from one generation to another_. {244a}

And yet in 1839 or thereabouts, Mr. Darwin had pretty nearly grasped theconception from which until the last year or two of his life he sofatally strayed; for in his contribution to the volumes giving an accountof the voyages of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_, he wrote: "Nature bymaking habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary, has fitted theFuegian for the climate and productions of his country" (p. 237). 

What is the secret of the long departure from the simple common-senseview of the matter which he took when he was a young man? I imaginesimply what I have referred to in the preceding chapter, --over-anxiety toappear to be differing from his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, andLamarck. 

I believe I may say that Mr. Darwin before he died not only admitted theconnection between memory and heredity, but came also to see that he mustreadmit that design in organism which he had so many years opposed. Forin the preface to Hermann Muller's Fertilisation of Flowers, {244b} whichbears a date only a very few weeks prior to Mr. Darwin's death, I findhim saying:--"Design in nature has for a long time deeply interested manymen, and though the subject must now be looked at from a somewhatdifferent point of view from what was formerly the case, it is not onthat account rendered less interesting. " This is mused forth as ageneral gnome, and may mean anything or nothing: the writer of theletterpress under the hieroglyph in Old Moore's Almanac could not be moreguarded; but I think I know what it does mean. 

I cannot of course be sure; Mr. Darwin did not probably intend that Ishould; but I assume with confidence that whether there is design inorganism or no, there is at any rate design in this passage of Mr. Darwin's. This, we may be sure, is not a fortuitous variation; andmoreover it is introduced for some reason which made Mr. Darwin think itworth while to go out of his way to introduce it. It has no fitness inits connection with Hermann Muller's book, for what little Hermann Mullersays about teleology at all is to condemn it; why then should Mr. Darwinmuse here of all places in the world about the interest attaching todesign in organism? Neither has the passage any connection with the restof the preface. There is not another word about design, and even hereMr. Darwin seems mainly anxious to face both ways, and pat design as itwere on the head while not committing himself to any proposition whichcould be disputed. 

The explanation is sufficiently obvious. Mr. Darwin wanted to hedge. Hesaw that the design which his works had been mainly instrumental inpitchforking out of organisms no less manifestly designed than aburglar's jemmy is designed, had nevertheless found its way back again, and that though, as I insisted in Evolution, Old and New, and UnconsciousMemory, it must now be placed within the organism instead of outside it, as "was formerly the case, " it was not on that account any theless--design, as well as interesting. 

I should like to have seen Mr. Darwin say this more explicitly. Indeed Ishould have liked to have seen Mr. Darwin say anything at all about themeaning of which there could be no mistake, and without contradictinghimself elsewhere; but this was not Mr. Darwin's manner. 

In passing I will give another example of Mr. Darwin's manner when he didnot quite dare even to hedge. It is to be found in the preface which hewrote to Professor Weismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent, publishedin 1882. 

"Several distinguished naturalists, " says Mr. Darwin, "maintain with muchconfidence that organic beings tend to vary and to rise in the scale, independently of the conditions to which they and their progenitors havebeen exposed; whilst others maintain that all variation is due to suchexposure, though the manner in which the environment acts is as yet quiteunknown. At the present time there is hardly any question in biology ofmore importance than this of the nature and causes of variability, andthe reader will find in the present work an able discussion on the wholesubject which will probably lead him to pause before he admits theexistence of an innate tendency to perfectibility"--or towards, _beingable to be perfected_. 

I could find no able discussion upon the whole subject in ProfessorWeismann's book. There was a little something here and there, but notmuch. 

Mr Herbert Spencer has not in his more recent works said anything whichenables me to appeal to his authority. 

I imagine that if he had got hold of the idea that heredity was only amode of memory before 1870, when he published the second edition of hisPrinciples of Psychology, he would have gladly adopted it, for he seemscontinually groping after it, and aware of it as near him, though he isnever able to grasp it. He probably failed to grasp it because Lamarckhad failed. He could not adopt it in his edition of 1880, for this isevidently printed from stereos taken from the 1870 edition, and noconsiderable alteration was therefore possible. 

The late Mr. G. H. Lewes did not get hold of the memory theory, probablybecause neither Mr. Spencer nor any of the well-known German philosophershad done so. Mr. Romanes, as I think I have shown, actually has adoptedit, but he does not say where he got it from. I suppose from readingCanon Kingsley in _Nature_ some years before _Nature_ began to exist, or(for has not the mantle of Mr. Darwin fallen upon him?) he has thought itall out independently; but however Mr. Romanes may have reached hisconclusion, he must have done so comparatively recently, for when hereviewed my book, Unconscious Memory, {247} he scoffed at the very theorywhich he is now adopting. 

Of the view that "there is thus a race memory, as there is an individualmemory, and that the expression of the former constitutes the phenomenaof heredity"--for it is thus Mr. Romanes with fair accuracy describes thetheory I was supporting--he wrote:

"Now this view, in which Mr. Butler was anticipated by Prof. Hering, isinteresting if advanced merely as an illustration; but to imagine that itmaintains any truth of profound significance, or that it can possibly befraught with any benefit to science, is simply absurd. The most cursorythought is enough to show, " &c. &c. 

"We can understand, " he continued, "in some measure how an alteration inbrain structure when once made should be permanent, . . . But we cannotunderstand how this alteration is transmitted to progeny throughstructures so unlike the brain as are the products of the generativeglands. And we merely stultify ourselves if we suppose that the problemis brought any nearer to a solution by asserting that a future individualwhile still in the germ has already participated, say in the cerebralalterations of its parents, " &c. Mr. Romanes could find no measure ofabuse strong enough for me, --as any reader may see who feels curiousenough to turn to Mr. Romanes' article in _Nature_ already referred to. 

As for Evolution, Old and New, he said I had written it "in the hope ofgaining some notoriety by deserving and perhaps receiving a contemptuousrefutation from" Mr. Darwin. {248a} In my reply to Mr. Romanes I said, "I will not characterise this accusation in the terms which it merits. "{248b} Mr. Romanes, in the following number of _Nature_, withdrew hisaccusation and immediately added, "I was induced to advance it because itseemed the only rational motive that could have led to the publication ofsuch a book. " Again I will not characterise such a withdrawal in theterms it merits, but I may say in passing that if Mr. Romanes thinks themotive he assigned to me "a rational one, " his view of what is rationaland mine differ. It does not commend itself as "rational" to me, that aman should spend a good deal of money and two or three years of work inthe hope of deserving a contemptuous refutation from any one--not evenfrom Mr. Darwin. But then Mr. Romanes has written such a lot aboutreason and intelligence. 

The reply to Evolution, Old and New, which I actually did get from Mr. Darwin, was one which I do not see advertised among Mr. Darwin's otherworks now, and which I venture to say never will be advertised among themagain--not at least until it has been altered. I have seen no reason toleave off advertising Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory. 

I have never that I know of seen Mr. Romanes, but am told that he isstill young. I can find no publication of his indexed in the BritishMuseum Catalogue earlier than 1874, and then it was only about ChristianPrayer. Mr. Romanes was good enough to advise me to turn painter orhomoeopathist; {249} as he has introduced the subject, and consideringhow many years I am his senior, I might be justified (if it could be anypleasure to me to do so) in suggesting to him too what I should imaginemost likely to tend to his advancement in life; but there are examples sobad that even those who have no wish to be any better than theirneighbours may yet decline to follow them, and I think Mr. Romanes' isone of these. I will not therefore find him a profession. 

But leaving this matter on one side, the point I wish to insist on isthat Mr. Romanes is saying almost in my own words what less than threeyears ago he was very angry with me for saying. I do not think thatunder these circumstances much explanation is necessary as to the reasonswhich have led Mr. Romanes to fight so shy of any reference to Life andHabit, Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory--works in which, ifI may venture to say so, the theory connecting the phenomena of hereditywith memory has been not only "suggested, " but so far established thateven Mr. Romanes has been led to think the matter over independently andto arrive at the same general conclusion as myself. 

Curiously enough, Mr. Grant Allen too has come to much the sameconclusions as myself, after having attacked me, though not so fiercely, as Mr. Romanes has done. In 1879 he said in the _Examiner_ (May 17) thatthe teleological view put forward in Evolution, Old and New, was "justthe sort of mystical nonsense from which" he "had hoped Mr. Darwin hadfor ever saved us. " And so in the _Academy_ on the same day he said thatno "one-sided argument" (referring to Evolution, Old and New) could everdeprive Mr. Darwin of the "place which he had eternally won in thehistory of human thought by his magnificent achievement. "

A few years, and Mr. Allen entertains a very different opinion of Mr. Darwin's magnificent achievement. 

"There are only two conceivable ways, " he writes, "in which any incrementof brain power can ever have arisen in any individual. The one is theDarwinian way, by 'spontaneous variation, ' that is to say by variationdue to minute physical circumstances affecting the individual in thegerm. The other is the Spencerian way, by functional increment, that isto say by the effect of increased use and constant exposure to varyingcircumstances during conscious life. " {250}

Mr. Allen must know very well, or if he does not he has no excuse at anyrate for not knowing, that the theory according to which increase ofbrain power or any other bodily or mental power is due to use, is no moreMr. Spencer's than the theory of gravitation is, except in so far as thatMr. Spencer has adopted it. It is the theory which every one except Mr. Allen associates with Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, but more especially(and on the whole I suppose justly) with Lamarck. 

"I venture to think, " continues Mr. Allen, "that the first way [Mr. Darwin's], if we look it clearly in the face, will be seen to be_practically unthinkable_; and that we have therefore no alternative butto accept the second. "

These writers go round so quickly and so completely that there is nokeeping pace with them. "As to Materialism, " he writes presently, "surely it is more profoundly materialistic to suppose that mere physicalcauses operating on the germ can determine minute physical and materialchanges in the brain, which will in turn make the individuality what itis to be, than to suppose _that all brains are what they are in virtue ofantecedent function_. The one creed makes the man depend mainly upon theaccidents of molecular physics in a colliding germ cell and sperm cell;_the other makes him depend mainly upon the doings and gains of hisancestors as modified and altered by himself_. "

Here is a sentence taken almost at random from the body of the article:--

 "We are always seeing something which adds to our total stock of memories; we are always learning and doing something new. The vast majority of these experiences are similar in kind to those already passed through by our ancestors: they add nothing to the inheritance of the race. . . . Though they leave physical traces on the individual, they do not so far affect the underlying organisation of the brain as to make the development of after-brains somewhat different from previous ones. But there are certain functional activities which do tend so to alter the development of after-brains; certain novel or sustained activities which apparently result in the production of new correlated brain elements or brain connections hereditarily transmissible as increased potentialities of similar activity in the offspring. "

Of Natural Selection Mr. Allen writes much, as Professor Mivart andothers have been writing for many years past. 

"It seems to me, " he says, "easy to understand how survival of thefittest may result in progress starting from such functionally producedgains, but impossible to understand how it could result in progress if ithad to start in mere accidental structural increments due to spontaneousvariation alone. " {252a}

Mr. Allen may say this now, but until lately he has been among the firstto scold any one else who said so. 

And this is how the article concludes:--

"The first hypothesis (Mr Darwin's) is one that throws no light upon anyof the facts. The second hypothesis (which Mr. Allen is pleased to callMr. Herbert Spencer's) is one that explains them all with transparentlucidity. " {252b}

So that Mr. Darwin, according to Mr. Allen, is clean out of it. Trulywhen Mr. Allen makes stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumps uponthem to some tune. But then Mr. Darwin is dead now. I have not heard ofhis having given Mr. Allen any manuscripts as he gave Mr. Romanes. Ihope Mr. Herbert Spencer will not give him any. If I was Mr. Spencer andfound my admirers crowning me with Lamarck's laurels, I think I shouldhave something to say to them. 

What are we to think of a writer who declares that the theory thatspecific and generic changes are due to use and disuse "explains _all thefacts_ with transparent lucidity"?

Lamarck's hypothesis is no doubt a great help and a great step towardProfessor Hering's; it makes a known cause underlie variations, and thusis free from those fatal objections which Professor Mivart and othershave brought against the theory of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace; but howdoes the theory that use develops an organism explain why offspringrepeat the organism at all? How does the Lamarckian hypothesis explainthe sterility of hybrids, for example? The sterility of hybrids has beenalways considered one of the great _cruces_ in connection with any theoryof Evolution. How again does it explain reversion to long-lostcharacters and the resumption of feral characteristics? the phenomena ofold age? the principle that underlies longevity? the reason why thereproductive system is generally the last to arrive at maturity, and whyfew further developments take place in any organism after this has beenfully developed? the sterility of many animals under captivity? thedevelopment in both males and females, under certain circumstances, ofthe characteristics of the opposite sex? the latency of memory? theunconsciousness with which we develop, and with which instinctive actionsare performed? How does any theory advanced either by Lamarck, Mr. Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Darwin explain, or indeed throw light upon thesefacts until supplemented with the explanation given of them in Life andHabit--for which I must refer the reader to that work itself?

People may say what they like about "the experience of the race, " {254a}"the registration of experiences continued for numberless generations, "{254b} "infinity of experiences, " {254c} "lapsed intelligence, " &c. , butuntil they make Memory, in the most uncompromising sense of the word, thekey to all the phenomena of Heredity, they will get little help to thebetter understanding of the difficulties above adverted to. Add this tothe theory of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and the points which Ihave above alluded to receive a good deal of "lucidity. "

But to return to Mr. Romanes: however much he and Mr. Allen may differabout the merits of Mr. Darwin, they were at any rate not long sincecordially agreed in vilipending my unhappy self, and are now saying verymuch what I have been saying for some years past. I do not deny thatthey are capable witnesses. They will generally see a thing when acertain number of other people have come to do so. I submit that, nomatter how grudgingly they give their evidence, the tendency of thatevidence is sufficiently clear to show that the opinions put forward inLife and Habit, Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory, deservethe attention of the reader. 

I may perhaps deal with Mr. Romanes' recent work more fully in the sequelto Life and Habit on which I am now engaged. For the present it isenough to say that if he does not mean what Professor Hering and, _longointervallo_, myself do, he should not talk about habit or experience asbetween successive generations, and that if he does mean what we do--whichI suppose he does--he should have said so much more clearly andconsistently than he has. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

This afternoon (March 7, 1884), the copies of this book being ready forissue, I see Mr. Romanes' letter to the _Athenaeum_ of this day, and getthis postscript pasted into the book after binding. 

Mr. Romanes corrects his reference to the passage in which he says thatCanon Kingsley first advanced the theory that instinct is inheritedmemory ("M. E. In Animals, " p. 296). Canon Kingsley's words are to befound in _Fraser_, June, 1867, and are as follows:--

 "Yon wood-wren has had enough to make him sad, if only he recollects it, and if he can recollect his road from Morocco hither he maybe recollects likewise what happened on the road: the long weary journey up the Portuguese coast, and through the gap between the Pyrenees and the Jaysquivel, and up the Landes of Bordeaux, and through Brittany, flitting by night and hiding and feeding as he could by day; and how his mates flew against the lighthouses and were killed by hundreds, and how he essayed the British Channel and was blown back, shrivelled up by bitter blasts; and how he felt, nevertheless, that 'that was water he must cross, ' he knew not why; but something told him that his mother had done it before him, and he was flesh of her flesh, life of her life, and had inherited her instinct (as we call hereditary memory in order to avoid the trouble of finding out what it is and how it comes). A duty was laid on him to go back to the place where he was bred, and now it is done, and he is weary and sad and lonely, &c. &c. 

This is a very interesting passage, and I am glad to quote it; but ithardly amounts to advancing the theory that instinct is inherited memory. Observing Mr. Romanes' words closely, I see he only says that CanonKingsley was the first to advance the theory "that many hundred miles oflandscape scenery" can "constitute an object of inherited memory;" but ashe proceeds to say that "_this_" has since "been independently suggestedby several writers, " it is plain he intends to convey the idea that CanonKingsley advanced the theory that instinct generally is inherited memory, which indeed his words do; but it is hardly credible that he should haveleft them where he did if he had realized their importance. 

Mr. Romanes proceeds to inform me personally that the reference to"Nature" in his proof "originally indicated another writer who hadindependently advanced the same theory as that of Canon Kingsley. " Afterthis I have a right to ask him to tell me who the writer is, and where Ishall find what he said. I ask this, and at my earliest opportunity willdo my best to give this writer, too, the credit he doubtless deserves. 

I have never professed to be the originator of the theory connectingheredity with memory. I knew I knew so little that I was in greattrepidation when I wrote all the earlier chapters of "Life and Habit. " Iput them paradoxically, because I did not dare to put them otherwise. Asthe book went on, I saw I was on firm ground, and the paradox wasdropped. When I found what Professor Hering had done, I put him forwardas best I could at once. I then learned German, and translated him, giving his words in full in "Unconscious Memory;" since then I havealways spoken of the theory as Professor Hering's. 

Mr. Romanes says that "the theory in question forms the backbone of allthe previous literature on instinct by the above-named writers (not tomention their numerous followers) and is by all of them elaboratelystated as clearly as any theory can be stated in words. " Few except Mr. Romanes will say this. I grant it ought to have formed the backbone "ofall previous literature on instinct by the above-named writers, " but whenI wrote "Life and Habit" it was not understood to form it. If it hadbeen, I should not have found it necessary to come before the public thisfourth time during the last seven years to insist upon it. Of course thetheory is not new--it was in the air and bound to come; but when it came, it came through Professor Hering of Prague, and not through those who, great as are the services they have rendered, still did not render thisparticular one of making memory the keystone of their system. Mr. Romanes now says: "Why, of course, that's what they were meaning all thetime. " Perhaps they were, but they did not say so, andothers--conspicuously Mr. Romanes himself--did not understand them to bemeaning what he now discovers that they meant. When Mr. Romanes attackedme in _Nature_, January 27, 1881, he said I had "been anticipated byProfessor Hering, " but he evidently did not understand that any one elsehad anticipated me; and far from holding, as he now does, that "thetheory in question forms the backbone of all the previous" writers oninstinct, and "is by all of them elaborately stated as clearly as anytheory can be stated in words, " he said (in a passage already quoted)that it was "interesting, if advanced merely as an illustration, but toimagine that it maintains any truth of profound significance, or that itcan possibly be fraught with any benefit to science, is absurd. "Considering how recently Mr. Romanes wrote the words just quoted, he hassoon forgotten them. 

I do not, as I have said already, and never did, claim to have originatedthe theory I put forward in "Life and Habit. " I thought it outindependently, but I knew it must have occurred to many, and had probablybeen worked out by many, before myself. My claim is to have brought itperhaps into fuller light, and to have dwelt on its importance, bearings, and developments with some persistence, and to have done so without muchrecognition or encouragement, till lately. Of men of science, Mr. A. R. Wallace and Professor Mivart gave me encouragement, but no one else hasdone so. I sometimes saw, as in the Duke of Argyll's case, and in Mr. Romanes' own, that men were writing at me, or borrowing from me, but withthe two exceptions already made, and that also of the Bishop of Carlisle, not one of the literary and scientific notables of the day so much asmentioned my name while making use of my work. 

A few words more, and I will bring these remarks to a close, Mr. Romanessays I represent "the phenomena of memory as occurring throughout theinorganic world. " This implies that I attribute all the phenomena ofmemory as we see them in animals to such things as stones and gases. Mr. Romanes knows very well that I have never said anything which couldwarrant his attempting to put the absurdity into my mouth which he heretries to do. The reader who wishes to see what I do maintain upon thissubject will find it on pp. 216-218 of the present volume. 

EXTRACTS FROM "ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OP PIEDMONT AND THE CANTON TICINO. "

DALPE, PRATO, ROSSURA. (FROM CHAPTER III. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES. ){255}

Talking of legs, as I went through the main street of Dalpe an old ladyof about sixty-five stopped me, and told me that while gathering herwinter store of firewood she had had the misfortune to hurt her leg. Iwas very sorry, but I failed to satisfy her; the more I sympathised ingeneral terms, the more I felt that something further was expected of me. I went on trying to do the civil thing, when the old lady cut me short bysaying it would be much better if I were to see the leg at once; so sheshowed it me in the street, and there, sure enough, close to the grointhere was a swelling. Again I said how sorry I was, and added thatperhaps she ought to show it to a medical man. "But aren't _you_ amedical man?" said she in an alarmed manner. "Certainly not, ma'am, "replied I. "Then why did you let me show you my leg?" said sheindignantly, and pulling her clothes down, the poor old woman began tohobble off; presently two others joined her, and I heard hearty peals oflaughter as she recounted her story. A stranger visiting these out-of-the-way villages is almost certain to be mistaken for a doctor. Whatbusiness, they say to themselves, can any one else have there, and who inhis senses would dream of visiting them for pleasure? This old lady hadrushed to the usual conclusion, and had been trying to get a littleadvice gratis. 

* * * * *

The little objects looking like sentry-boxes that go all round PratoChurch contain rough modern frescoes representing, if I remember rightly, the events attendant upon the crucifixion. These are on a small scalewhat the chapels on the sacred mountain of Varallo are on a large one. Small single oratories are scattered about all over the Canton Ticino, and indeed everywhere in North Italy, by the road-side, at all halting-places, and especially at the crest of any more marked ascent, where thetired wayfarer, probably heavy laden, might be inclined to say a naughtyword or two if not checked. The people like them, and miss them whenthey come to England. They sometimes do what the lower animals do inconfinement when precluded from habits they are accustomed to, and put upwith strange makeshifts by way of substitute. I once saw a poor Ticinesewoman kneeling in prayer before a dentist's show-case in the HampsteadRoad; she doubtless mistook the teeth for the relics of some saint. I amafraid she was a little like a hen sitting upon a chalk egg, but sheseemed quite contented. 

Which of us, indeed, does not sit contentedly enough upon chalk eggs attimes? And what would life be but for the power to do so? We do notsufficiently realise the part which illusion has played in ourdevelopment. One of the prime requisites for evolution is a certainpower for adaptation to varying circumstances, that is to say, ofplasticity, bodily and mental. But the power of adaptation is mainlydependent on the power of thinking certain new things sufficiently likecertain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too muchincommoded by the change--upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the newfor the old. The power of fusing ideas (and through ideas, structures)depends upon the power of _con_fusing them; the power to confuse ideasthat are not very unlike, and that are presented to us in immediatesequence, is mainly due to the fact of the impetus, so to speak, whichthe mind has upon it. It is this which bars association from sticking tothe letter of its bond; for we are in a hurry to jump to a conclusion onthe first show of plausible pretext, and cut association's statement ofclaim short by taking it as read before we have got through half of it. We "get it into our notes, in fact, " as Mr. Justice Stareleigh did inPickwick, and having got it once in, we are not going to get it outagain. This breeds fusion and confusion, and from this there come newdevelopments. 

So powerful is the impetus which the mind has continually upon it that wealways, I believe, make an effort to see every new object as a repetitionof the object last before us. Objects are so varied and presentthemselves so rapidly, that as a general rule we renounce this effort toopromptly to notice it, but it is always there, and as I have just said, it is because of it that we are able to mistake, and hence to evolve newmental and bodily developments. Where the effort is successful, there isillusion; where nearly successful but not quite, there is a shock and asense of being puzzled--more or less, as the case may be; where it soobviously impossible as not to be pursued, there is no perception of theeffort at all. 

Mr. Locke has been greatly praised for his essay upon humanunderstanding. An essay on human misunderstanding should be no lessinteresting and important. Illusion to a small extent is one of the maincauses, if indeed it is not the main cause, of progress, but it must beupon a small scale. All abortive speculation, whether commercial orphilosophical, is based upon it, and much as we may abuse suchspeculation, we are, all of us, its debtors. 

* * * * *

I know few things more touching in their way than the porch of RossuraChurch: it is dated early in the last century, and is absolutely withoutornament; the flight of steps inside it lead up to the level of the floorof the church. One lovely summer Sunday morning passing the churchbetimes, I saw the people kneeling upon these steps, the church withinbeing crammed. In the darker light of the porch, they told out againstthe sky that showed through the open arch beyond them; far away the eyerested on the mountains--deep blue, save where the snow still lingered. Inever saw anything more beautiful--and these forsooth are the people whomso many of us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantismamong them!

I liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longerpresents. One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which wasafterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and made thechurch too cold. While it was open, one could sit on the church stepsand look down through it on to the bottom of the Ticino valley; andthrough the windows one could see the slopes about Dalpe and Cornone. Between the two windows there is a picture of austere old S. CarloBorromeo with his hands joined in prayer. 

It was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I havesince found very largely used throughout North Italy. It is pronounced"chow" pure and simple, but is written, if written at all, "ciau" or"ciao, " the "a" being kept very broad. I believe the word is derivedfrom "schiavo, " a slave, which became corrupted into "schiao, " and"ciao. " It is used with two meanings, both of which, however, arededucible from the word slave. In its first and more common use it issimply a salute, either on greeting or taking leave, and means, "I amyour very obedient servant. " Thus, if one has been talking to a smallchild, its mother will tell it to say "chow" before it goes away, andwill then nod her head and say "chow" herself. The other use is a kindof pious expletive, intending "I must endure it, " "I am the slave of ahigher power. " It was in this sense I first heard it at Rossura. Awoman was washing at a fountain while I was eating my lunch. She saidshe had lost her daughter in Paris a few weeks earlier. "She was abeautiful woman, " said the bereaved mother, "but--chow. She had greattalents--chow. I had her educated by the nuns of Bellinzona--chow. Herknowledge of geography was consummate--chow, chow, " &c. Here "chow"means "pazienza, " "I have done and said all that I can, and must now bearit as best I may. "

I tried to comfort her, but could do nothing, till at last it occurred tome to say "chow" too. I did so, and was astonished at the soothingeffect it had upon her. How subtle are the laws that govern consolation!I suppose they must ultimately be connected with reproduction--theconsoling idea being a kind of small cross which _re-generates_ or _re-creates_ the sufferer. It is important, therefore, that the new ideaswith which the old are to be crossed should differ from these lastsufficiently to divert the attention, and yet not so much as to cause apainful shock. 

There should be a little shock, or there will be no variation in the newideas that are generated, but they will resemble those that precededthem, and grief will be continued; there must not be too great a shock orthere will be no illusion--no confusion and fusion between the new set ofideas and the old, and in consequence there will be no result at all, or, if any, an increase in mental discord. We know very little, however, upon this subject, and are continually shown to be at fault by finding anunexpectedly small cross produce a wide diversion of the mental images, while in other cases a wide one will produce hardly any result. Sometimesagain, a cross which we should have said was much too wide will have anexcellent effect. I did not anticipate, for example, that my saying"chow" would have done much for the poor woman who had lost her daughter:the cross did not seem wide enough: she was already, as I thought, saturated with "chow. " I can only account for the effect my applicationof it produced by supposing the word to have derived some element ofstrangeness and novelty as coming from a foreigner--just as land whichwill give a poor crop, if planted with sets from potatoes that have beengrown for three or four years on this same soil, will yet yieldexcellently if similar sets be brought from twenty miles off. For thepotato, so far as I have studied it, is a good-tempered, frivolous plant, easily amused and easily bored, and one, moreover, which if bored, yawnshorribly. 

I may say in passing that the tempers of plants have not beensufficiently studied; and what little opinion we have formed about theirdispositions is for the most part ill formed. The sulkiest tree that Iknow is the silver beech. It never forgives a scratch. --There is a treein Kensington gardens a little off the west side of the Serpentine withnames cut upon it as long ago as 1717 and 1736, which the tree is aslittle able to forgive and forget as though the injury had been done notten years since. And the tree is not an aged tree either. 

CALONICO. (FROM CHAPTER V. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES. )

Our inventions increase in geometrical ratio. They are like livingbeings, each one of which may become parent of a dozen others--some goodand some ne'er-do-weels; but they differ from animals and vegetablesinasmuch as they not only increase in a geometrical ratio, but the periodof their gestation decreases in geometrical ratio also. Take this matterof Alpine roads for example. For how many millions of years was there noapproach to a road over the St. Gothard, save the untutored watercoursesof the Ticino and the Reuss, and the track of the bouquetin or thechamois? For how many more ages after this was there not a mereshepherd's or huntsman's path by the river-side--without so much as a logthrown over so as to form a rude bridge? No one would probably have everthought of making a bridge out of his own unaided imagination, more thanany monkey that we know of has done so. But an avalanche or a flood onceswept a pine into position and left it there; on this a genius, who wasdoubtless thought to be doing something very infamous, ventured to makeuse of it. Another time a pine was found nearly across the stream, butnot quite; and not quite, again, in the place where it was wanted. Asecond genius, to the horror of his fellow-tribesmen--who declared thatthis time the world really would come to an end--shifted the pine a fewfeet so as to bring it across the stream and into the place where it waswanted. This man was the inventor of bridges--his family repudiated him, and he came to a bad end. From this to cutting down the pine andbringing it from some distance is an easy step. To avoid detail, let uscome to the old Roman horse-road over the Alps. The time between theshepherd's path and the Roman road is probably short in comparison withthat between the mere chamois track and the first thing that can becalled a path of men. From the Roman we go on to the mediaeval road withmore frequent stone bridges, and from the mediaeval to the Napoleoniccarriage-road. 

The close of the last century and the first quarter of this present onewas the great era for the making of carriage-roads. Fifty years havehardly passed, and here we are already in the age of tunnelling andrailroads. The first period, from the chamois track to the foot road, was one of millions of years; the second, from the first foot road to theRoman military way, was one of many thousands; the third, from the Romanto the mediaeval, was perhaps a thousand; from the mediaeval to theNapoleonic, five hundred; from the Napoleonic to the railroad, fifty. What will come next we know not, but it should come within twenty years, and will probably have something to do with electricity. 

It follows by an easy process of reasoning that after another couple ofhundred years or so, great sweeping changes should be made several timesin an hour, or indeed in a second, or fraction of a second, till theypass unnoticed as the revolutions we undergo in the embryonic stages, orare felt simply as vibrations. This would undoubtedly be the case butfor the existence of a friction which interferes between theory andpractice. This friction is caused partly by the disturbance of vestedinterests which every invention involves, and which will be foundintolerable when men become millionaires and paupers alternately once afortnight--living one week in a palace and the next in a workhouse, andhaving perpetually to be sold up, and then to buy a new house andrefurnish, &c. --so that artificial means for stopping inventions will beadopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed ingeometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and thebackwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another. At anyrate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable timefor a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be. Thepast was too slow, and the future will be much too fast. 

The fact is (but it is so obvious that I am ashamed to say anything aboutit) that science is rapidly reducing time and space to a veryundifferentiated condition. Take lamb: we can get lamb all the yearround. This is perpetual spring; but perpetual spring is no spring atall; it is not a season; there are no more seasons, and being no seasons, there is no time. Take rhubarb, again. Rhubarb to the philosopher isthe beginning of autumn, if indeed the philosopher can see anything asthe beginning of anything. If any one asks why, I suppose thephilosopher would say that rhubarb is the beginning of the fruit season, which is clearly autumnal, according to our present classification. Fromrhubarb to the green gooseberry the step is so small as to require nobridging--with one's eyes shut, and plenty of cream and sugar, they arealmost indistinguishable--but the gooseberry is quite an autumnal fruit, and only a little earlier than apples and plums, which last are almostwinter; clearly, therefore, for scientific purposes rhubarb is autumnal. 

As soon as we can find gradations, or a sufficient number of unitinglinks between two things, they become united or made one thing, and anyclassification of them must be illusory. Classification is only possiblewhere there is a shock given to the senses by reason of a perceiveddifference, which, if it is considerable, can be expressed in words. Whenthe world was younger and less experienced, people were shocked at whatappeared great differences between living forms; but species, whether ofanimals or plants, are now seen to be so united, either inferentially orby actual finding of the links, that all classification is felt to bearbitrary. The seasons are like species--they were at one time thoughtto be clearly marked, and capable of being classified with some approachto satisfaction. It is now seen that they blend either in the present orthe past insensibly into one another, much as Mr. Herbert Spencer showsus that geology and astronomy blend into one another, {265} and cannot beclassified except by cutting Gordian knots in a way which none but plainsensible people can tolerate. Strictly speaking, there is only oneplace, one time, one action, and one individual or thing; of this thingor individual each one of us is a part. It is perplexing, but it isphilosophy; and modern philosophy, like modern music, is nothing if it isnot perplexing. 

A simple verification of the autumnal character of rhubarb may, at firstsight, appear to be found in Covent Garden Market, where we can actuallysee the rhubarb towards the end of October. But this way of looking atthe matter argues a fatal ineptitude for the pursuit of true philosophy. It would be "the most serious error" to regard the rhubarb that willappear in Covent Garden Market next October as belonging to the autumnthen supposed to be current. Practically, no doubt, it does so, buttheoretically it must be considered as the first-fruits of the autumn (ifany) of the following year, which begins before the preceding summer (or, perhaps, more strictly, the preceding summer but one--and hence, but anynumber), has well ended. Whether this, however, is so or no, the rhubarbcan be seen in Covent Garden, and I am afraid it must be admitted that tothe philosophically minded there lurks within it a theory of evolution, and even Pantheism, as surely as Theism was lurking in Bishop Berkeley'star-water. 

To return, however, to Calonico. The _curato_ was very kind to me. Wehad long talks together. I could see it pained him that I was not aCatholic. He could never quite get over this, but he was very good andtolerant. He was anxious to be assured that I was not one of thoseEnglish who went about distributing tracts, and trying to convert people. This of course was the last thing I should have wished to do; and when Itold him so, he viewed me with sorrow but henceforth without alarm. 

All the time I was with him I felt how much I wished I could be aCatholic in Catholic countries, and a Protestant in Protestant ones. Surely there are some things which like politics are too serious to betaken quite seriously. _Surtout point de zele_ is not the saying of acynic, but the conclusion of a sensible man; and the more deep ourfeeling is about any matter, the more occasion have we to be on our guardagainst _zele_ in this particular respect. There is but one step fromthe "earnest" to the "intense. " When St. Paul told us to be all thingsto all men he let in the thin end of the wedge, nor did he mark it to sayhow far it was to be driven. 

I have Italian friends whom I greatly value, and who tell me they think Iflirt just a trifle too much with "_il partito nero_, " when I am inItaly, for they know that in the main I think as they do. "Thesepeople, " they say, "make themselves very agreeable to you, and show youtheir smooth side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one. Knuckle under to them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you;have any individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple norremorse in their attempts to get you out of their way. '_Il prete_' theysay, with a significant look, '_e sempre prete_. ' For the future let ushave professors and men of science instead of priests. "

I smile to myself at this last, and reply, that I am a foreigner comeamong them for recreation, and anxious to keep clear of their internaldiscords. I do not wish to cut myself off from one side of theirnational character--a side which, in some respects, is no lessinteresting than the one with which I suppose I am on the whole moresympathetic. If I were an Italian, I should feel bound to take a side;as it is, I wish to leave all quarrelling behind me, having as much ofthat in England as suffices to keep me in good health and temper. 

In old times people gave their spiritual and intellectual sop to Nemesis. Even when most positive, they admitted a percentage of doubt. Mr. Tennyson has said well, "There lives more doubt"--I quote from memory--"inhonest faith, believe me, than in half the" systems of philosophy, orwords to that effect. The victor had a slave at his ear during histriumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia, dressed in theirmasters' clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, andblacked their faces for them. They made their masters wait upon them. Inthe ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravelyconducted to the cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was saidbefore him, and hymns chanted discordantly. The elder D'Israeli, fromwhom I am quoting, writes: "On other occasions, they put burnt old shoesto fume in the censors: ran about the church leaping, singing, dancing, and playing at dice upon the altar, while a _boy bishop_ or _pope offools_ burlesqued the divine service;" and later on he says: "So late as1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what he himselfwitnessed at Aix on the Feast of Innocents, says--'I have seen in somemonasteries in this province extravagances solemnised which pagans wouldnot have practised. Neither the clergy nor the guardians indeed go tothe choir on this day, but all is given up to the lay brethren, thecabbage-cutters, errand boys, cooks, scullions, and gardeners; in a word, all the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that theyperform the offices proper for the day. They dress themselves with allthe sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out: theyhold in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend toread with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix therinds of scooped oranges . . . ! particularly while dangling the censersthey keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about theirheads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neithersing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish asshrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. Thenonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:--

 "'Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum, Haec est festa dies festarum festa dierum. '" {269}

Faith was far more assured in the times when the spiritual saturnaliawere allowed than now. The irreverence which was not dangerous then, isnow intolerable. It is a bad sign for a man's peace in his ownconvictions when he cannot stand turning the canvas of his lifeoccasionally upside down, or reversing it in a mirror, as painters dowith their pictures that they may judge the better concerning them. Iwould persuade all Jews, Mohammedans, Comtists, and freethinkers to turnhigh Anglicans, or better still, downright Catholics for a week in everyyear, and I would send people like Mr. Gladstone to attend Mr. Bradlaugh's lectures in the forenoon, and the Grecian pantomime in theevening, two or three times every winter. I should perhaps tell themthat the Grecian pantomime has nothing to do with Greek plays. Theylittle know how much more keenly they would relish their normal opinionsduring the rest of the year for the little spiritual outing which I wouldprescribe for them, which, after all, is but another phase of the wisesaying--"_Surtout point de zele_. " St. Paul attempted an obviouslyhopeless task (as the Church of Rome very well understands) when he triedto put down seasonarianism. People must and will go to church to be alittle better, to the theatre to be a little naughtier, to the RoyalInstitution to be a little more scientific, than they are in actual life. It is only by pulsations of goodness, naughtiness, and whatever else weaffect that we can get on at all. I grant that when in his office, a manshould be exact and precise, but our holidays are our garden, and toomuch precision here is a mistake. 

Surely truces, without even an _arriere pensee_ of difference of opinion, between those who are compelled to take widely different sides during thegreater part of their lives, must be of infinite service to those who canenter on them. There are few merely spiritual pleasures comparable tothat derived from the temporary laying down of a quarrel, even though wemay know that it must be renewed shortly. It is a great grief to me thatthere is no place where I can go among Mr. Darwin, Professors Huxley, Tyndal, and Ray Lankester, Miss Buckley, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Grant Allen andothers whom I cannot call to mind at this moment, as I can go among theItalian priests. I remember in one monastery (but this was not in theCanton Ticino) the novice taught me how to make sacramental wafers, and Iplayed him Handel on the organ as well as I could. I told him thatHandel was a Catholic; he said he could tell that by his music at once. There is no chance of getting among our scientists in this way. 

Some friends say I was telling a lie when I told the novice Handel was aCatholic, and ought not to have done so. I make it a rule to swallow afew gnats a day, lest I should come to strain at them, and so boltcamels; but the whole question of lying is difficult. What _is_ "lying"?Turning for moral guidance to my cousins the lower animals, whoseunsophisticated nature proclaims what God has taught them with adirectness we may sometimes study, I find the plover lying when she luresus from her young ones under the fiction of a broken wing. Is God angry, think you, with this pretty deviation from the letter of strict accuracy?or was it not He who whispered to her to tell the falsehood--to tell itwith a circumstance, without conscientious scruple, not once only, but tomake a practice of it so as to be a plausible, habitual, and professionalliar for some six weeks or so in the year? I imagine so. When I wasyoung I used to read in good books that it was God who taught the bird tomake her nest, and if so He probably taught each species the otherdomestic arrangements best suited to it. Or did the nest-buildinginformation come from God, and was there an evil one among the birds alsowho taught them at any rate to steer clear of priggishness?

Think of the spider again--an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it. What a mean and odious lie is that web which naturalists extol as such amarvel of ingenuity!

Once on a summer afternoon in a far country I met one of those orchidswho make it their business to imitate a fly with their petals. This liethey dispose so cunningly that real flies, thinking the honey is beingalready plundered, pass them without molesting them. Watching intentlyand keeping very still, methought I heard this orchid speaking to theoffspring which she felt within her, though I saw them not. "Mychildren, " she exclaimed, "I must soon leave you; think upon the fly, myloved ones, for this is truth; cling to this great thought in yourpassage through life, for it is the one thing needful; once lose sight ofit and you are lost!" Over and over again she sang this burden in asmall still voice, and so I left her. Then straightway I came upon somebutterflies whose profession it was to pretend to believe in all mannerof vital truths which in their inner practice they rejected; thus, asserting themselves to be certain other and hateful butterflies which nobird will eat by reason of their abominable smell, these cunning onesconceal their own sweetness, and live long in the land and see good days. No: lying is so deeply rooted in nature that we may expel it with a fork, and yet it will always come back again: it is like the poor, we must haveit always with us. We must all eat a peck of moral dirt before we die. 

All depends upon who it is that is lying. One man may steal a horse whenanother may not look over a hedge. The good man who tells no lieswittingly to himself and is never unkindly, may lie and lie and liewhenever he chooses to other people, and he will not be false to any man:his lies become truths as they pass into the hearers' ear. If a mandeceives himself and is unkind, the truth is not in him; it turns tofalsehood while yet in his mouth, like the quails in the Wilderness ofSinai. How this is so or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercyon whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He hardeneth. My Italianfriends are doubtless in the main right about the priests, but there aremany exceptions, as they themselves gladly admit. For my own part I havefound the _curato_ in the small subalpine villages of North Italy to bemore often than not a kindly excellent man to whom I am attracted bysympathies deeper than any mere superficial differences of opinion cancounteract. With monks, however, as a general rule, I am less able toget on: nevertheless I have received much courtesy at the hands of some. 

My young friend the novice was delightful--only it was so sad to think ofthe future that is before him. He wanted to know all about England, andwhen I told him it was an island, clasped his hands and said, "Oh cheProvidenza!" He told me how the other young men of his own age plaguedhim as he trudged his rounds high up among the most distant hamletsbegging alms for the poor. "Be a good fellow, " they would say to him, "drop all this nonsense and come back to us, and we will never plague youagain. " Then he would turn upon them and put their words from him. Ofcourse my sympathies were with the other young men rather than with him, but it was impossible not to be sorry for the manner in which he had beenhumbugged from the day of his birth, till he was now incapable of seeingthings from any other standpoint than that of authority. 

What he said to me about knowing that Handel was a Catholic by his music, put me in mind of what another good Catholic once said to me about apicture. He was a Frenchman and very nice, but a _devot_, and anxious toconvert me. He paid a few days' visit to London, so I showed him theNational Gallery. While there I pointed out to him Sebastian delPiombo's picture of the raising of Lazarus as one of the supposedmasterpieces of our collection. He had the proper orthodox fit ofadmiration over it, and then we went through the other rooms. After awhile we found ourselves before West's picture of "Christ healing theSick. " My French friend did not, I suppose, examine it very carefully, at any rate he believed he was again before the raising of Lazarus bySebastian del Piombo; he paused before it, and had his fit of admirationover again: then turning to me he said, "Ah! you would understand thispicture better if you were a Catholic. " I did not tell him of hismistake. 

PIORA. (FROM CHAPTER VI. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES. ) {275}

An excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val Piora, which I have already more than once mentioned. There is a large hotelhere which has been opened some years, but has not hitherto proved thesuccess which it was hoped it would be. I have stayed there two or threetimes and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signer Lombardiof the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place ofresort. 

I took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; herethe path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached. There isa house at Ronco where refreshments and excellent Faido beer can be had. The old lady who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw hersitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valleyas though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny. She had asomewhat stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquilinenose; her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which shewore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look shecast upon the expanse below made a very fine _ensemble_. "She would haveafforded, " as Sir Walter Scott says, "a study for a Rembrandt, had thatcelebrated painter existed at the period, " {276} but she must have been asmart-looking, handsome girl once. 

She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I alreadyknew, and the _Lago Tom_, the highest of the three lakes. She said sheknew the _Lago Tom_. I said laughingly, "Oh, I have no doubt you do. We've had many a good day at the _Lago Tom_, I know. " She looked down atonce. 

In spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of forty, and altogether she was a very grand old lady. Her house is scrupulouslyclean. While I watched her spinning, I thought of what must so oftenoccur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a look-out the old womanmust have in winter, when the wind roars and whistles, and the snowdrives down the valley with a fury of which we in England can have littleconception. What a place to see a snowstorm from! and what a place fromwhich to survey the landscape next morning after the storm is over andthe air is calm and brilliant. There are such mornings: I saw one once, but I was at the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco. Roncowould take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of thevalley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deepshadow below, though the upper hill-sides may be seen to have the sunupon them. I walked once on a frosty winter's morning from Airolo toGiornico, and can call to mind nothing in its way more beautiful:everything was locked in frost--there was not a watershed but was sheetedand coated with ice: the road was hard as granite--all was quiet, andseen as through a dark but incredibly transparent medium. Near Piotta Imet the whole village dragging a large tree; there were many men andwomen dragging at it, but they had to pull hard, and they were silent; asI passed them I thought what comely, well-begotten people they were. Then, looking up, there was a sky, cloudless and of the deepest blue, against which the snow-clad mountains stood out splendidly. No one willregret a walk in these valleys during the depth of winter. But I shouldhave liked to have looked down from the sun into the sunlessness, as theold Fate woman at Ronco can do when she sits in winter at her window; oragain, I should like to see how things would look from this same windowon a leaden morning in midwinter after snow has fallen heavily and thesky is murky and much darker than the earth. When the storm is at itsheight, the snow must search and search and search even through thedouble windows with which the houses are protected. It must rest uponthe frames of the pictures of saints, and of the sisters "grab, " and ofthe last hours of Count Ugolino, which adorn the walls of the parlour. Nowonder there is a _S. Maria della Neve_, --a "St. Mary of the Snow;" but Ido wonder that she has not been painted. 

I said this to an Italian once, and he said the reason was probablythis--that St. Mary of the Snow was not developed till long after Italianart had begun to decline. I suppose in another hundred years or so weshall have a _St. Maria delle Ferrovie_--a St. Mary of the Railways. 

From Ronco the path keeps level and then descends a little so as to crossthe stream that comes down from Piora. This is near the village ofAltanca, the church of which looks remarkably well from here. Then thereis an hour and a half's rapid ascent, and at last all on a sudden onefinds oneself on the _Lago Ritom_, close to the hotel. 

The lake is about a mile, or a mile and a half, long, and half a milebroad. It is 6000 feet above the sea, very deep at the lower end, anddoes not freeze where the stream issues from it, so that the magnificenttrout with which it abounds can get air and live through the winter. Inmany other lakes, as, for example, the _Lago di Tremorgio_, they cannotdo this, and hence perish, though the lakes have been repeatedly stocked. The trout in the _Lago Ritom_ are said to be the finest in the world, andcertainly I know none so fine myself. They grow to be as large asmoderate-sized salmon, and have a deep-red flesh, very firm and full offlavour. I had two cutlets off one for breakfast, and should have saidthey were salmon unless I had known otherwise. In winter, when the lakeis frozen over, the people bring their hay from the farther Lake ofCadagna in sledges across the Lake Ritom. Here, again, winter must beworth seeing, but on a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place. There are a few stunted pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are forthe most part bare and green. Piora in fact is a fine breezy open uplandvalley of singular beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it;it is rich in rhododendrons and all manner of Alpine flowers, just atrifle bleak, but as bracing as the Engadine itself. 

The first night I was ever in Piora there was a brilliant moon, and theunruffled surface of the lake took the reflection of the mountains. Icould see the cattle a mile off, and hear the tinkling of their bellswhich danced multitudinously before the ear as fire-flies come and gobefore the eyes; for all through a fine summer's night the cattle willfeed as though it were day. A little above the lake I came upon a man ina cave before a furnace, burning lime, and he sat looking into the firewith his back to the moonlight. He was a quiet moody man, and I amafraid I bored him, for I could get hardly anything out of him but "Ohaltro"--polite but not communicative. So after a while I left him withhis face burnished as with gold from the fire, and his back silver withthe moonbeams; behind him were the pastures and the reflections in thelake and the mountains and the distant ringing of the cowbells. 

Then I wandered on till I came to the chapel of S. Carlo; and in a fewminutes found myself on the _Lugo di Cadagna_. Here I heard that therewere people, and the people were not so much asleep as the simplepeasantry of these upland valleys are expected to be by nine o'clock inthe evening. For now was the time when they had moved up from Ronco, Altanca, and other villages in some numbers to cut the hay, and wereliving for a fortnight or three weeks in the chalets upon the _Lago diCadagna_. As I have said, there is a chapel, but I doubt whether it isattended during this season with the regularity with which the parishchurches of Ronco, Altanca, &c. , are attended during the rest of theyear. The young people, I am sure, like these annual visits to the highplaces, and will be hardly weaned from them. Happily the hay will bealways there, and will have to be cut by some one, and the old peoplewill send the young ones. 

As I was thinking of these things, I found myself going off into a doze, and thought the burnished man from the furnace came up and sat beside me, and laid his hand upon my shoulder. Then I saw the green slopes thatrise all round the lake were much higher than I had thought; they went upthousands of feet, and there were pine forests upon them, while two largeglaciers came down in streams that ended in a precipice of ice, fallingsheer into the lake. The edges of the mountains against the sky wererugged and full of clefts, through which I saw thick clouds of dust beingblown by the wind as though from the other side of the mountains. 

And as I looked, I saw that this was not dust, but people coming incrowds from the other side, but so small as to be visible at first onlyas dust. And the people became musicians, and the mountainousamphitheatre a huge orchestra, and the glaciers were two noble armies ofwomen-singers in white robes, ranged tier above tier behind each other, and the pines became orchestral players, while the thick dust-like cloudof chorus-singers kept pouring in through the clefts in the precipices ininconceivable numbers. When I turned my telescope upon them I saw theywere crowded up to the extreme edge of the mountains, so that I could seeunderneath the soles of their boots as their legs dangled in the air. Inthe midst of all, a precipice that rose from out of the glaciers shapeditself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knewsitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as hethundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture. I heard the greatpedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, as the rays ofthe Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast ofLabrador. Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus "VenusLaughing from the Skies;" but ere the sound had well died away, I awoke, and all was changed; a light fleecy cloud had filled the whole basin, butI still thought I heard a sound of music, and a scampering-off of greatcrowds from the part where the precipices should be. After that I heardno more but a little singing from the chalets, and turned homewards. WhenI got to the chapel of S. Carlo, I was in the moonlight again, and whennear the hotel, I passed the man at the mouth of the furnace with themoon still gleaming upon his back, and the fire upon his face, and he wasvery grave and quiet. 

S. MICHELE AND MONTE PIRCHIRIANO. (EXTRACTS FROM CHAPTERS VII. AND X. OFALPS AND SANCTUARIES. )

The history of the sanctuary of S. Michele is briefly as follows:--

At the close of the tenth century, when Otho III. Was Emperor of Germany, a certain Hugh de Montboissier, a noble of Auvergne, commonly called"Hugh the Unsewn" (_lo sdruscito_), was commanded by the Pope to found amonastery in expiation of some grave offence. He chose for his site thesummit of the Monte Pirchiriano in the valley of Susa, being attractedpartly by the fame of a church already built there by a recluse ofRavenna, Giovanni Vincenzo by name, and partly by the striking nature ofthe situation. Hugh de Montboissier, when returning from Rome to Francewith Isengarde his wife, would, as a matter of course, pass through thevalley of Susa. The two--perhaps when stopping to dine at S. Ambrogio--would look up and observe the church founded by GiovanniaVincenzo: they had got to build a monastery somewhere; it would verylikely, therefore, occur to them that they could not perpetuate theirnames better than by choosing this site, which was on a much-travelledroad, and on which a fine building would show to advantage. If my viewis correct, we have here an illustration of a fact which is continuallyobservable--namely, that all things which come to much, whether they bebooks, buildings, pictures, music, or living beings, are begotten ofothers of their own kind. It is always the most successful, like Handeland Shakespeare, who owe most to their forerunners, in spite of themodifications with which their works descend. 

Giovanni Vincenzo had built his church about the year 987. It ismaintained by some that he had been bishop of Ravenna, but Clareta givessufficient reason for thinking otherwise. In the "Cronaca Clusina" it issaid that he had for some years previously lived as a recluse on theMonte Caprasio, to the north of the present Monte Pirchiriano; but thatone night he had a vision, in which he saw the summit of MontePirchiriano enveloped in heaven-descended flames, and on this founded achurch there, and dedicated it to S. Michael. This is the origin of thename Pirchiriano, which means [Greek text], or the Lord's fire. 

Avogadro is among those who make Giovanni Bishop, or rather Archbishop, of Ravenna, and gives the following account of the circumstances whichled to his resigning his diocese and going to live at the top of theinhospitable Monte Caprasio. It seems there had been a confirmation atRavenna, during which he had accidentally forgotten to confirm the childof a certain widow. The child, being in weakly health, died beforeGiovanni could repair his oversight, and this preyed upon his mind. Inanswer, however, to his earnest prayers, it pleased the Almighty to givehim power to raise the dead child to life again; this he did, and havingimmediately performed the rite of confirmation, restored the boy to hisoverjoyed mother. He now became so much revered that he began to bealarmed lest pride should obtain dominion over him; he felt, therefore, that his only course was to resign his diocese, and go and live the lifeof a recluse on the top of some high mountain. It is said that hesuffered agonies of doubt as to whether it was not selfish of him to takesuch care of his own eternal welfare, at the expense of that of hisflock, whom no successor could so well guide and guard from evil; but inthe end he took a reasonable view of the matter, and concluded that hisfirst duty was to secure his own spiritual position. Nothing short ofthe top of a very uncomfortable mountain could do this, so he at onceresigned his bishopric and chose Monte Caprasio as on the whole the mostcomfortable uncomfortable mountain he could find. 

The latter part of the story will seem strange to Englishmen. We canhardly fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury or York resigning his dioceseand settling down quietly on the top of Scafell or Cader Idris to securehis eternal welfare. They would hardly do so even on the top of PrimroseHill. But nine hundred years ago human nature was not the same as now-a-days. 

* * * * *

Comparing our own clergy with the best North Italian and Ticinesepriests, I should say there was little to choose between them. Thelatter are in a logically stronger position, and this gives them greatercourage in their opinions; the former have the advantage in respect ofmoney, and the more varied knowledge of the world which money willcommand. When I say Catholics have logically the advantage overProtestants, I mean that starting from premises which both sides admit, amerely logical Protestant will find himself driven to the Church of Rome. Most men as they grow older will, I think, feel this, and they will seein it the explanation of the comparatively narrow area over which theReformation extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of lateyears here in England. On the other hand, reasonable people will lookwith distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeperthan reason can reach. They rest on faith--for there is no absolutelycertain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more thanthere is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs oflife which is absolutely unimpeachable. The Funds are not absolutelysafe; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railwayjourney is not absolutely safe; one person at least in several millionsgets killed. We invest our money upon faith, mainly. We choose ourdoctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we formconcerning his capacity? We choose schools for our children chiefly uponfaith. The most important things a man has are his body, his soul, andhis money. It is generally better for him to commit these interests tothe care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his ownmedical man, or invest his money on his own judgment; and this is nothingelse than making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, thebasis of our action in those respects which touch us most nearly. 

On the other hand, as good a case could be made out for placing reason asthe foundation, inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a faith, to beworth anything, must be a reasonable one--one, that is to say, which isbased upon reason. The fact is that faith and reason are like functionand organ, desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible tosay which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small whenwe can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we firstcaught sight of. All we can now see is that each has a tendencycontinually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only. Strictly they are not two things, but two aspects of one thing; forconvenience' sake, however, we classify them separately. 

It follows, therefore--but whether it follows or no, it is certainlytrue--that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide: aman's safety lies neither in faith nor reason, but in temper--in thepower of fusing faith and reason, even when they appear most mutuallydestructive. 

That we all feel temper to be the first thing is plain from the fact thatwhen we see two men quarrelling we seldom even try to weigh theirarguments--we look instinctively at the tone or spirit or temper whichthe two display and give our verdict accordingly. 

A man of temper will be certain in spite of uncertainty, and at the sametime uncertain in spite of certainty; reasonable in spite of his restingmainly upon faith rather than reason, and full of faith even whenappealing most strongly to reason. If it is asked, In what should a manhave faith? To what faith should he turn when reason has led him to aconclusion which he distrusts? the answer is, To the current feelingamong those whom he most looks up to--looking upon himself with suspicionif he is either among the foremost or the laggers. In the rough, homelycommon sense of the community to which we belong we have as firm groundas can be got. This, though not absolutely infallible, is secure enoughfor practical purposes. 

As I have said, Catholic priests have rather a fascination for me--whenthey are not Englishmen. I should say that the best North Italianpriests are more openly tolerant than our English clergy generally are. Iremember picking up one who was walking along a road, and giving him alift in my trap. Of course we fell to talking, and it came out that Iwas a member of the Church of England. "Ebbene, Caro Signore, " said hewhen we shook hands at parting; "mi rincresce che lei non crede come io, ma in questi tempi non possiamo avere tutti i medesimi principii. " {287}

* * * * *

The one thing, he said, which shocked him with the English, was themanner in which they went about distributing tracts upon the Continent. Isaid no one could deplore the practice more profoundly than myself, butthat there were stupid and conceited people in every country, who wouldinsist upon thrusting their opinions upon people who did not want them. He replied that the Italians travelled not a little in England, but thathe was sure not one of them would dream of offering Catholic tracts topeople, for example, in the streets of London. Certainly I have neverseen an Italian to be guilty of such rudeness. It seems to me that it isnot only toleration that is a duty; we ought to go beyond this now; weshould conform, when we are among a sufficient number of those who wouldnot understand our refusal to do so; any other course is to attach toomuch importance at once to our own opinions and to those of ouropponents. By all means let a man stand by his convictions when theoccasion requires, but let him reserve his strength, unless it isimperatively called for. Do not let him exaggerate trifles, and let himremember that everything is a trifle in comparison with the not givingoffence to a large number of kindly, simple-minded people. Evolution, aswe all know, is the great doctrine of modern times; the very essence ofevolution consists in the not shocking anything too violently, butenabling it to mistake a new action for an old one, without "makingbelieve" too much. 

One day when I was eating my lunch near a fountain, there came up amoody, meditative hen, crooning plaintively after her wont. I threw hera crumb of bread while she was still a good way off, and then threw more, getting her to come a little closer and a little closer each time; atlast she actually took a piece from my hand. She did not quite like it, but she did it. "A very little at a time, " this is the evolutionprinciple; and if we wish those who differ from us to understand us, itis the only method to proceed upon. I have sometimes thought that someof my friends among the priests have been treating me as I treated themeditative hen. But what of that? They will not kill and eat me, nortake my eggs. Whatever, therefore, promotes a more friendly feelingbetween us must be pure gain. 

* * * * *

Sometimes priests say things, as a matter of course, which would make anyEnglish clergyman's hair stand on end. At one town there is a remarkablefourteenth-century bridge, commonly known as "The Devil's Bridge. " I wassketching near this when a jolly old priest with a red nose came up andbegan a conversation with me. He was evidently a popular character, forevery one who passed greeted him. He told me that the devil did notreally build the bridge. I said I presumed not, for he was not in thehabit of spending his time so well. 

"I wish he had built it, " said my friend; "for then perhaps he wouldbuild us some more. "

"Or we might even get a church out of him, " said I, a little slyly. 

"Ha, ha, ha! we will convert him, and make a good Christian of him in theend. "

When will our Protestantism, or Rationalism, or whatever it may be, sitas lightly upon ourselves?

Another time I had the following dialogue with an old Piedmontese priestwho lived in a castle which I asked permission to go over:--

"Vous etes Anglais, monsieur?" said he in French. 

"Oui, monsieur. "

"Vous etes Catholique?"

"Monsieur, je suis de la religion de mes ancetres. "

"Pardon, monsieur, vos ancetres etaient Catholiques jusqu'au temps deHenri Huit. "

"Mais il y a trois cents ans depuis le temps de Henri Huit. "

"Eh bien; chacun a ses convictions; vous ne parlez pas contre lareligion?"

"Jamais, jamais, monsieur, j'ai un respect enorme pour l'egliseCatholique. "

"Monsieur, faites comme chez vous; allez ou vous voulez; vous trouvereztoutes les portes ouvertes. Amusez vous bien. "

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DECLINE OF ITALIAN ART. (FROM CHAPTER XIII. OFALPS AND SANCTUARIES. )

Those who know the Italians will see no sign of decay about them. Theyare the quickest-witted people in the world, and at the same time havemuch more of the old Roman steadiness than they are generally creditedwith. Not only is there no sign of degeneration, but, as regardspractical matters, there is every sign of health and vigorousdevelopment. The North Italians are more like Englishmen, both in body, and mind, than any other people whom I know; I am continually meetingItalians whom I should take for Englishmen if I did not know theirnationality. They have all our strong points, but they have more graceand elasticity of mind than we have. 

Priggishness is the sin which doth most easily beset middle-class, and so-called educated Englishmen; we call it purity and culture, but it doesnot much matter what we call it. It is the almost inevitable outcome ofa university education, and will last as long as Oxford and Cambridge do, but not much longer. 

Lord Beaconsfield sent Lothair to Oxford; it is with great pleasure thatI see he did not send Endymion. My friend Jones called my attention tothis, and we noted that the growth observable throughout LordBeaconsfield's life was continued to the end. He was one of those who, no matter how long he lived, would have been always growing: this is whatmakes his later novels so much better than those of Thackeray or Dickens. There was something of the child about him to the last. Earnestness washis greatest danger, but if he did not quite overcome it (as who indeedcan? It is the last enemy that shall be subdued), he managed to veil itwith a fair amount of success. As for Endymion, of course if LordBeaconsfield had thought Oxford would be good for him, he could, as Jonespointed out to me, just as well have killed Mr. Ferrars a year or twolater. We feel satisfied, therefore, that Endymion's exclusion from auniversity was carefully considered, and are glad. 

I will not say that priggishness is absolutely unknown among the NorthItalians; sometimes one comes upon a young Italian who wants to learnGerman, but not often. Priggism, or whatever the substantive is, is asessentially a Teutonic vice as holiness is a Semitic characteristic; andif an Italian happens to be a prig, he will, like Tacitus, invariablyshow a hankering after German institutions. The idea, however, that theItalians were ever a finer people than they are now, will not pass musterwith those who knew them. 

At the same time, there can be no doubt that modern Italian art is inmany respects as bad as it was once good. I will confine myself topainting only. The modern Italian painters, with very few exceptions, paint as badly as we do, or even worse, and their motives are as poor asis their painting. At an exhibition of modern Italian pictures, Igenerally feel that there is hardly a picture on the walls but is asham--that is to say, painted not from love of this particular subjectand an irresistible desire to paint it, but from a wish to paint anacademy picture, and win money or applause. 

The last rays of the sunset of genuine art are to be found in the votivepictures at Locarno or Oropa, and in many a wayside chapel. In these, religious art still lingers as a living language, however rudely spoken. In these alone is the story told, not as in the Latin and Greek verses ofthe scholar, who thinks he has succeeded best when he has most concealedhis natural manner of expressing himself, but by one who knows what hewants to say, and says it in his mother-tongue, shortly, and withoutcaring whether or not his words are in accordance with academic rules. Iregret to see photography being introduced for votive purposes, and alsoto detect in some places a disposition on the part of the authorities tobe a little ashamed of these pictures and to place them rather out ofsight. 

The question is, how has the falling-off in Italian painting been caused?And by doing what may we again get Bellinis and Andrea Mantegnas as inold time? The fault does not lie in any want of raw material: nor yetdoes it lie in want of taking pains. The modern Italian painter fretshimself to the full as much as his predecessor did--if the truth wereknown, probably a great deal more. I am sure Titian did not take muchpains after he was more than about twenty years old. It does not lie inwant of schooling or art education. For the last three hundred years, ever since the Caraccis opened their academy at Bologna, there has beenno lack of art education in Italy. Curiously enough, the date of theopening of the Bolognese Academy coincides as nearly as may be with thecomplete decadence of Italian painting. The academic system trains boysto study other people's works rather than nature, and, as Leonardo daVinci so well says, it makes them nature's grandchildren and not herchildren. This I believe is at any rate half the secret of the wholematter. 

If half-a-dozen young Italians could be got together with a taste fordrawing; if they had power to add to their number; if they were allowedto see paintings and drawings done up to the year A. D. 1510, and votivepictures and the comic papers; if they were left with no other assistancethan this, absolutely free to please themselves, and could be persuadednot to try and please any one else, I believe that in fifty years weshould have all that was ever done repeated with fresh naivete, and asmuch more delightfully than even by the best old masters, as these aremore delightful than anything we know of in classic painting. The youngplants keep growing up abundantly every day--look at Bastianini, dead notten years since--but they are browsed down by the academies. I rememberthere came out a book many years ago with the title, "What becomes of allthe clever little children?" I never saw the book, but the title ispertinent. 

Any man who can write, can draw to a not inconsiderable extent. Look atthe Bayeux tapestry; yet Matilda probably never had a drawing lesson inher life. See how well prisoner after prisoner in the Tower of Londonhas cut out this or that in the stone of his prison wall, without, in allprobability, having ever tried his hand at drawing before. Look at myfriend Jones, who has several illustrations in this book. {294} Thefirst year he went abroad with me he could hardly draw at all. He was noyear away from England more than three weeks. How did he learn? On theold principle, if I am not mistaken. The old principle was for a man tobe doing something which he was pretty strongly bent on doing, and to geta much younger one to help him. The younger paid nothing forinstruction, but the elder took the work, as long as the relation ofmaster and pupil existed between them. I, then, was mailingillustrations for this book, and got Jones to help me. I let him seewhat I was doing, and derive an idea of the sort of thing I wanted, andthen left him alone--beyond giving him the same kind of small criticismthat I expected from himself--but I appropriated his work. That is theway to teach, and the result was that in an incredibly short time Jonescould draw. The taking the work is a _sine qua non_. If I had not beengoing to have his work, Jones, in spite of all his quickness, wouldprobably have been rather slower in learning to draw. Being paid inmoney is nothing like so good. 

This is the system of apprenticeship _versus_ the academic system. Theacademic system consists in giving people the rules for doing things. Theapprenticeship system consists in letting them do it, with just a trifleof supervision. "For all a rhetorician's rules, " says my great namesake, "teach nothing but, to name his tools;" and academic rules generally aremuch the same as the rhetorician's. Some men can pass through academiesunscathed, but they are very few, and in the main the academic influenceis a baleful one, whether exerted in a university or a school. Whileyoung men at universities are being prepared for their entry into life, their rivals have already entered it. The most university andexamination ridden people in the world are the Chinese, and they are theleast progressive. 

Men should learn to draw as they learn conveyancing: they should go intoa painter's studio and paint on his pictures. I am told that half theconveyances in the country are drawn by pupils; there is no more mysteryabout painting than about conveyancing--not half in fact, I should think, so much. One may ask, How can the beginner paint, or draw conveyances, till he has learnt how to do so? The answer is, How can he learn, without at any rate trying to do? It is the old story, organ andfunction, power and desire, demand and supply, faith and reason, etc. , the most virtuous action and interaction in the most vicious circleconceivable. If the beginner likes his subject, he will try: if hetries, he will soon succeed in doing something which shall open a door. It does not matter what a man does; so long as he does it with theattention which affection engenders, he will come to see his way tosomething else. After long waiting he will certainly find one door open, and go through it. He will say to himself that he can never findanother. He has found this, more by luck than cunning, but now he isdone. Yet by and by he will see that there is _one_ more smallunimportant door which he had overlooked, and he proceeds through thistoo. If he remains now for a long while and sees no other, do not lethim fret; doors are like the kingdom of heaven, they come not byobservation, least of all do they come by forcing: let him just go ondoing what comes nearest, but doing it attentively, and a great wide doorwill one day spring into existence where there had been no sign of onebut a little time previously. Only let him be always doing something, and let him cross himself now and again, for belief in the wondrousefficacy of crosses and crossing is the corner-stone of the creed of theevolutionists. Then after years--but not probably till after a greatmany--doors will open up all around, so many and so wide that thedifficulty will not be to find a door, but rather to obtain the means ofeven hurriedly surveying a portion of those that stand invitingly open. 

I know that just as good a case can be made out for the other side. Itmay be said as truly that unless a student is incessantly on the watchfor doors he will never see them, and that unless he is incessantlypressing forward to the kingdom of heaven he will never find it--so thatthe kingdom does come by observation. It is with this as with everythingelse--there must be a harmonious fusing of two principles which are inflat contradiction to one another. 

The question of whether it is better to abide quiet and take advantage ofopportunities that come, or to go farther afield in search of them, isone of the oldest which living beings have had to deal with. It was onthis that the first great schism or heresy arose in what was heretoforethe catholic faith of protoplasm. The schism still lasts, and hasresulted in two great sects--animals and plants. The opinion that it isbetter to go in search of prey is formulated in animals; the other--thatit is better on the whole to stay at home and profit by what comes--inplants. Some intermediate forms still record to us the long struggleduring which the schism was not yet complete. 

If I may be pardoned for pursuing this digression further, I would saythat it is the plants and not we who are the heretics. There can be noquestion about this; we are perfectly justified, therefore, in devouringthem. Ours is the original and orthodox belief, for protoplasm is muchmore animal than vegetable; it is much more true to say that plants havedescended from animals than animals from plants. Nevertheless, like manyother heretics, plants have thriven very fairly well. There are a greatmany of them, and as regards beauty, if not wit--of a limited kindindeed, but still wit--it is hard to say that the animal kingdom has theadvantage. The views of plants are sadly narrow; all dissenters arenarrow-minded; but within their own bounds they know the details of theirbusiness sufficiently well--as well as though they kept the most nicely-balanced system of accounts to show them their position. They are eaten, it is true; to eat them is our intolerant and bigoted way of trying toconvert them: eating is only a violent mode of proselytising orconverting; and we do convert them--to good animal substance, of our ownway of thinking. If we have had no trouble with them, we say they have"agreed" with us; if we have been unable to make them see things from ourpoints of view, we say they "disagree" with us, and avoid being on morethan distant terms with them for the future. If we have helped ourselvesto too much, we say we have got more than we can "manage. " But then, animals are eaten too. They convert one another, almost as much as theyconvert plants. And an animal is no sooner dead than a plant willconvert it back again. It is obvious, however, that no schism could havebeen so long successful, without having a good deal to say for itself. 

Neither party has been quite consistent. Who ever is or can be? Everyextreme--every opinion carried to its logical end--will prove to be anabsurdity. Plants throw out roots and boughs and leaves: this is a kindof locomotion; and as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed out, they dosometimes approach nearly to what may be called travelling; a man ofconsistent character will never look at a bough, a root, or a tendrilwithout regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipled compromise. On theother hand, many animals are sessile, and some singularly successfulgenera, as spiders, are in the main liers-in-wait. It may appear, however, on the whole, like reopening a settled question to uphold theprinciple of being busy and attentive over a small area, rather thangoing to and fro over a larger one, for a mammal like man, but I thinkmost readers will be with me in thinking that, at any rate as regards artand literature, it is he who does his small immediate work most carefullywho will find doors open most certainly to him, that will conduct himinto the richest chambers. 

Many years ago, in New Zealand, I used sometimes to accompany a dray andteam of bullocks who would have to be turned loose at night that theymight feed. There were no hedges or fences then, so sometimes I couldnot find my team in the morning, and had no clue to the direction inwhich they had gone. At first I used to try and throw my soul into thebullocks' souls, so as to divine if possible what they would be likely tohave done, and would then ride off ten miles in the wrong direction. People used in those days to lose their bullocks sometimes for a week orfortnight--when they perhaps were all the time hiding in a gully hard bythe place where they were turned out. After some time I changed mytactics. On losing my bullocks I would go to the nearest accommodationhouse, and stand drinks. Some one would ere long, as a general rule, turn up who had seen the bullocks. This case does not go quite on allfours with what I have been saying above, inasmuch as I was not veryindustrious in my limited area; but the standing drinks and inquiring wasbeing as industrious as the circumstances would allow. 

To return, universities and academies are an obstacle to the finding ofdoors in later life; partly because they push their young men too fastthrough doorways that the universities have provided, and so discouragethe habit of being on the look-out for others; and partly because they donot take pains enough to make sure that their doors are _bona fide_ ones. If, to change the metaphor, an academy has taken a bad shilling, it isseldom very scrupulous about trying to pass it on. It will stick to itthat the shilling is a good one as long as the police will let it. I wasvery happy at Cambridge; when I left it I thought I never again could beso happy anywhere else; I shall ever retain a most kindly recollectionboth of Cambridge and of the school where I passed my boyhood; but Ifeel, as I think most others must in middle life, that I have spent asmuch of my maturer years in unlearning as in learning. 

The proper course is for a boy to begin the practical business of lifemany years earlier than he now commonly does. He should begin at thevery bottom of a profession; if possible of one which his family haspursued before him--for the professions will assuredly one day becomehereditary. The ideal railway director will have begun at fourteen as arailway porter. He need not be a porter for more than a week or tendays, any more than he need have been a tadpole more than a short time;but he should take a turn in practice, though briefly, at each of thelower branches in the profession. The painter should do just the same. He should begin by setting his employer's palette and cleaning hisbrushes. As for the good side of universities, the proper preservativeof this is to be found in the club. 

If, then, we are to have a renaissance of art, there must be a completestanding aloof from the academic system. That system has had timeenough. Where and who are its men? Can it point to one painter who canhold his own with the men of, say, from 1450 to 1550? Academies willbring out men who can paint hair very like hair, and eyes very like eyes, but this is not enough. This is grammar and deportment; we want wit anda kindly nature, and these cannot be got from academies. As far as mere_technique_ is concerned, almost every one now can paint as well as is inthe least desirable. The same _mutatis mutandis_ holds good with writingas with painting. We want less word-painting and fine phrases, and moreobservation at first-hand. Let us have a periodical illustrated bypeople who cannot draw, and written by people who cannot write (perhaps, however, after all, we have some), but who look and think for themselves, and express themselves just as they please, --and this we certainly havenot. Every contributor should be at once turned out if he or she isgenerally believed to have tried to do something which he or she did notcare about trying to do, and anything should be admitted which is theoutcome of a genuine liking. People are always good company when theyare doing what they really enjoy. A cat is good company when it ispurring, or a dog when it is wagging its tail. 

The sketching-clubs up and down the country might form the nucleus ofsuch a society, provided all professional men were rigorously excluded. As for the old masters, the better plan would be never even to look atone of them, and to consign Raffaelle, along with Plato, Marcus AureliusAntoninus, Dante, Goethe, and two others, neither of them Englishmen, tolimbo, as the Seven Humbugs of Christendom. 

While we are about it, let us leave off talking about "art for art'ssake. " Who is art, that it should have a sake? A work of art should beproduced for the pleasure it gives the producer, and the pleasure hethinks it will give to a few of whom he is fond; but neither money norpeople whom he does not know personally should be thought of. Of coursesuch a society as I have proposed would not remain incorrupt long. "Everything that grows, holds in perfection but a little moment. " Themembers would try to imitate professional men in spite of their rules, or, if they escaped this and after a while got to paint well, they wouldbecome dogmatic, and a rebellion against their authority would be asnecessary ere long as it was against that of their predecessors: but thebalance on the whole would be to the good. 

Professional men should be excluded, if for no other reason yet for this, that they know too much for the beginner to be _en rapport_ with them. Itis the beginner who can help the beginner, as it is the child who is themost instructive companion for another child. The beginner canunderstand the beginner, but the cross between him and the proficientperformer is too wide for fertility. It savours of impatience, and is inflat contradiction to the first principles of biology. It does abeginner positive harm to look at the masterpieces of the greatexecutionists, such as Rembrandt or Turner. 

If one is climbing a very high mountain which will tax all one'sstrength, nothing fatigues so much as casting upward glances to the top;nothing encourages so much as casting downward glances. The top seemsnever to draw nearer; the parts that we have passed retreat rapidly. Leta water-colour student go and see the drawing by Turner in the basementof our National Gallery, dated 1787. This is the sort of thing for him, not to copy, but to look at for a minute or two now and again. It willshow him nothing about painting, but it may serve to teach him not toovertax his strength, and will prove to him that the greatest masters inpainting, as in everything else, begin by doing work which is no waysuperior to that of their neighbours. A collection of the earliest knownworks of the greatest men would be much more useful to the student thanany number of their maturer works, for it would show him that he need notworry himself because his work does not look clever, or as silly peoplesay, "show power. "

The secrets of success are affection for the pursuit chosen, a flatrefusal to be hurried or to pass anything as understood which is notunderstood, and an obstinacy of character which shall make the student'sfriends find it less trouble to let him have his own way than to bend himinto theirs. Our schools and academies or universities are covertly butessentially radical institutions, and abhorrent to the genius ofConservatism. Their sin is the true radical sin of being in too great ahurry, and the natural result has followed, they waste far more time thanthey save. But it must be remembered that this proposition like everyother wants tempering with a slight infusion of its direct opposite. 

I said in an early part of this book that the best test to know whetheror no one likes a picture is to ask oneself whether one would like tolook at it if one was quite sure one was alone. The best test for apainter as to whether he likes painting his picture is to ask himselfwhether he should like to paint it if he was quite sure that no oneexcept himself, and the few of whom he was very fond, would ever see it. If he can answer this question in the affirmative, he is all right; if hecannot, he is all wrong. 

I must reserve other remarks upon this subject for another occasion. 

SANCTUARIES OF OROPA AND GRAGLIA. (FROM CHAPTERS XV. AND XVI. OF ALPSAND SANCTUARIES. )

The morning after our arrival at Biella, we took the daily diligence forOropa, leaving Biella at eight o'clock. Before we were clear of the townwe could see the long line of the hospice, and the chapels dotted aboutnear it, high up in a valley at some distance off; presently we wereshown another fine building some eight or nine miles away, which we weretold was the sanctuary of Graglia. About this time the pictures andstatuettes of the Madonna began to change their hue and to becomeblack--for the sacred image of Oropa being black, all the Madonnas in herimmediate neighbourhood are of the same complexion. Underneath some ofthem is written, "Nigra sum sed sum formosa, " which, as a rule, was moretrue as regards the first epithet than the second. 

It was not market-day, but streams of people were coming to the town. Many of them were pilgrims returning from the sanctuary, but more werebringing the produce of their farms or the work of their hands for sale. We had to face a steady stream of chairs, which were coming to town inbaskets upon women's heads. Each basket contained twelve chairs, thoughwhether it is correct to say that the basket contained the chairs--whenthe chairs were all, so to say, froth running over the top of thebasket--is a point I cannot settle. Certainly we had never seen anythinglike so many chairs before, and felt almost as though we had surprisednature in the laboratory wherefrom she turns out the chair-supply of theworld. The road continued through a succession of villages almostrunning into one another for a long way after Biella was passed, buteverywhere we noticed the same air of busy thriving industry which we hadseen in Biella itself. We noted also that a preponderance of the peoplehad light hair, while that of the children was frequently nearly white, as though the infusion of German blood was here stronger even than usual. Though so thickly peopled, the country was of great beauty. Near at handwere the most exquisite pastures close shaven after their second mowing, gay with autumnal crocuses, and shaded with stately chestnuts; beyondwere rugged mountains, in a combe on one of which we saw Oropa itself nowgradually nearing; behind, and below, many villages, with vineyards andterraces cultivated to the highest perfection; farther on, Biella alreadydistant, and beyond this a "big stare, " as an American might say, overthe plains of Lombardy from Turin to Milan, with the Apennines from Genoato Bologna hemming the horizon. On the road immediately before us, westill faced the same steady stream of chairs flowing ever Biella-ward. 

After a couple of hours the houses became more rare; we got above thesources of the chair-stream; bits of rough rock began to jut out from thepasture; here and there the rhododendron began to shew itself by theroadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as level as though cut witha knife; stone-roofed _cascine_ began to abound, with goats and cattlefeeding near them; the booths of the religious trinket-mongers increased;the blind, halt, and maimed became more importunate, and thefoot-passengers were more entirely composed of those whose object was, orhad been, a visit to the sanctuary itself. The numbers of thesepilgrims--generally in their Sunday's best, and often comprising thegreater part of a family--were so great, though there was no specialfesta, as to testify to the popularity of the institution. Theygenerally walked barefoot, and carried their shoes and stockings; theirbaggage consisted of a few spare clothes, a little food, and a pot or panor two to cook with. Many of them looked very tired, and had evidentlytramped from long distances--indeed, we saw costumes belonging to valleyswhich could not be less than two or three days distant. They were almostinvariably quiet, respectable, and decently clad, sometimes a littlemerry, but never noisy, and none of them tipsy. As we travelled alongthe road, we must have fallen in with several hundreds of these pilgrimscoming and going; nor is this likely to be an extravagant estimate, seeing that the hospice can make up more than five thousand beds. Byeleven we were at the sanctuary itself. 

Fancy a quiet upland valley, the floor of which is about the same heightas the top of Snowdon, shut in by lofty mountains upon three sides, whileon the fourth the eye wanders at will over the plains below. Fancyfinding a level space in such a valley watered by a beautiful mountainstream, and nearly filled by a pile of collegiate buildings, not lessimportant than those, we will say, of Trinity College, Cambridge. True, Oropa is not in the least like Trinity, except that one of its courts islarge, grassy, has a chapel and a fountain in it, and rooms all round it;but I do not know how better to give a rough description of Oropa than bycomparing it with one of our largest English colleges. 

The buildings consist of two main courts. The first comprises a coupleof modern wings, connected by the magnificent facade of what is now thesecond or inner court. This facade dates from about the middle of theseventeenth century; its lowest storey is formed by an open colonnade, and the whole stands upon a raised terrace from which a noble flight ofsteps descends into the outer court. 

Ascending the steps and passing under the colonnade, we find ourselves inthe second or inner court, which is a complete quadrangle, and is, so atleast we were told, of rather older date than the facade. This is thequadrangle which gives its collegiate character to Oropa. It issurrounded by cloisters on three sides, on to which the rooms in whichthe pilgrims are lodged open--those at least that are on theground-floor, but there are three storeys. The chapel, which wasdedicated in the year 1600, juts out into the court upon the north-eastside. On the north-west and south-west sides are entrances through whichone may pass to the open country. The grass at the time of our visit wasfor the most part covered with sheets spread out to dry. They lookedvery nice, and, dried on such grass, and in such an air, they must bedelicious to sleep on. There is, indeed, rather an appearance as thoughit were a perpetual washing-day at Oropa, but this is not to be wonderedat considering the numbers of comers and goers; besides, people in Italydo not make so much fuss about trifles as we do. If they want to washtheir sheets and dry them, they do not send them to Ealing, but lay themout in the first place that comes handy, and nobody's bones are broken. 

On the east side of the main block of buildings there is a grassy slopeadorned with chapels that contain figures illustrating scenes in thehistory of the Virgin. These figures are of terra-cotta, for the mostpart life-size, and painted up to nature. In some cases, if I rememberrightly, they have hemp or flax for hair, as at Varallo, and throughoutrealism is aimed at as far as possible, not only in the figures, but inthe accessories. We have very little of the same kind in England. Inthe Tower of London there is an effigy of Queen Elizabeth going to thecity to give thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This looks asif it might have been the work of some one of the Valsesian sculptors. There are also the figures that strike the quarters of Sir John Bennett'scity clock in Cheapside. The automatic movements of these last-namedfigures would have struck the originators of the Varallo chapels withenvy. They aimed at realism so closely that they would assuredly havehad recourse to clockwork in some one or two of their chapels; I cannotdoubt, for example, that they would have eagerly welcomed the idea ofmaking the cock crow to Peter by a cuckoo-clock arrangement, if it hadbeen presented to them. This opens up the whole question of realism_versus_ conventionalism in art--a subject much too large to be treatedhere. 

As I have said, the founders of these Italian chapels aimed at realism. Each chapel was intended as an illustration, and the desire was to bringthe whole scene more vividly before the faithful by combining thepicture, the statue, and the effect of a scene upon the stage in a singlework of art. The attempt would be an ambitious one though made once onlyin a neighbourhood, but in most of the places in North Italy whereanything of the kind has been done, the people have not been content witha single illustration; it has been their scheme to take a mountain asthough it had been a book or wall and cover it with illustrations. Insome cases--as at Orta, whose Sacro Monte is perhaps the most beautifulof all as regards the site itself--the failure is complete, but in someof the chapels at Varese and in many of those at Varallo, great workshave been produced which have not yet attracted as much attention as theydeserve. It may be doubted, indeed, whether there is a more remarkablework of art in North Italy than the crucifixion chapel at Varallo, wherethe twenty-five statues, as well as the frescoes behind them, are (withthe exception of the figure of Christ, which has been removed) byGaudenzio Ferrari. It is to be wished that some one of thesechapels--both chapel and sculptures--were reproduced at South Kensington. 

Varallo, which is undoubtedly the most interesting sanctuary in NorthItaly, has forty-four of these illustrative chapels; Varese, fifteen;Orta, eighteen; and Oropa, seventeen. No one is allowed to enter them, except when repairs are needed; but when these are going on, as isconstantly the case, it is curious to look through the grating into thesomewhat darkened interior, and to see a living figure or two among thestatues; a little motion on the part of a single figure seems tocommunicate itself to the rest and make them all more animated. If theliving figure does not move much, it is easy at first to mistake it for aterra-cotta one. At Orta, some years since, looking one evening into achapel when the light was fading, I was surprised to see a saint whom Ihad not seen before; he had no glory except what shone from a very rednose; he was smoking a short pipe, and was painting the Virgin Mary'sface. The touch was a finishing one, put on with deliberation, slowly, so that it was two or three seconds before I discovered that theinterloper was no saint. 

The figures in the chapels at Oropa are not as good as the best of thoseat Varallo, but some of them are very nice notwithstanding. We liked theseventh chapel the best--the one which illustrates the sojourn of theVirgin Mary in the Temple. It contains forty-four figures, andrepresents the Virgin on the point of completing her education as headgirl at a high-toned academy for young gentlewomen. All the young ladiesare at work making mitres for the bishop, or working slippers in Berlinwool for the new curate, but the Virgin sits on a dais above the otherson the same platform with the venerable lady-principal, who is havingpassages read out to her from some standard Hebrew writer. The statuesare the work of a local sculptor, named Aureggio, who lived at the end ofthe seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. 

The highest chapel must be a couple of hundred feet above the mainbuildings, and from near it there is an excellent bird's-eye view of thesanctuary and the small plain behind; descending on to this last, weentered the quadrangle from the north-west side, and visited the chapelin which the sacred image of the Madonna is contained. We did not seethe image itself, which is only exposed to public view on greatoccasions. It is believed to have been carved by St. Luke theEvangelist. It is said that at one time there was actually aninscription on the image in Greek characters, of which the translationis, "Eusebius. A token of respect and affection from his sincere friend, Luke;" but this being written in chalk or pencil only, has been worn off, and is known by tradition only. I must ask the reader to content himselfwith the following account of it which I take from Marocco's work uponOropa:--

 "That this statue of the Virgin is indeed by St. Luke is attested by St. Eusebius, a man of eminent piety, and no less enlightened than truthful, and the store which he set by it is proved by his shrinking from no discomforts in his carriage of it from a distant country, and by his anxiety to put it in a place of great security. His desire, indeed, was to keep it in the spot which was most near and dear to him, so that he might extract from it the higher incitement to devotion, and more sensible comfort in the midst of his austerities and apostolic labours. 

 "This truth is further confirmed by the quality of the wood from which the statue is carved, which is commonly believed to be cedar; by the Eastern character of the work; by the resemblance both of the lineament and the colour to those of other statues by St. Luke; by the tradition of the neighbourhood, which extends in an unbroken and well- assured line to the time of St. Eusebius himself; by the miracles that have been worked here by its presence, and elsewhere by its invocation, or even by indirect contact with it; by the miracles, lastly, which are inherent in the image itself, {311} and which endure to this day, such as is its immunity from all worm and from the decay which would naturally have occurred in it through time and damp--more especially in the feet, through the rubbing of religious objects against them. 

 * * * * *

 "The authenticity of this image is so certainly and clearly established, that all supposition to the contrary becomes inexplicable and absurd. Such, for example, is a hypothesis that it should not be attributed to the Evangelist, but to another Luke, also called 'Saint, ' and a Florentine by birth. This painter lived in the eleventh century--that is to say, about seven centuries after the image of Oropa had been known and venerated! This is indeed an anachronism. 

 "Other difficulties drawn either from the ancient discipline of the Church or from St. Luke the Evangelist's profession, which was that of a physician, vanish at once when it is borne in mind--firstly, that the cult of holy images, and especially of that of the most blessed Virgin, is of extreme antiquity in the Church, and of apostolic origin, as is proved by ecclesiastical writers and monuments found in the catacombs which date, as far back as the first century (see among other authorities, Nicolas, La Vergine vivente nella Chiesa, lib. Iii. Cap. Iii. Section 2); secondly, that as the medical profession does not exclude that of artists, St. Luke may have been both artist and physician; that he did actually handle both the brush and the scalpel is established by respectable and very old traditions, to say nothing of other arguments which can be found in impartial and learned writers upon such matters. "

I will only give one more extract. It runs:--

 "In 1855 a celebrated Roman portrait-painter, after having carefully inspected the image of the Virgin Mary at Oropa, declared it to be certainly a work of the first century of our era. " {313}

I once saw a common cheap china copy of this Madonna announced as to begiven away with two pounds of tea, in a shop near Hatton Garden. 

The church in which the sacred image is kept is interesting from thepilgrims who at all times frequent it, and from the collection of votivepictures which adorn its walls. Except the votive pictures and thepilgrims the church contains little of interest, and I will pass on tothe constitution and objects of the establishment. 

The objects are--1. Gratuitous lodging to all comers for a space of fromthree to nine days as the rector may think fit. 2. A school. 3. Help tothe sick and poor. It is governed by a president and six members, whoform a committee. Four members are chosen by the communal council, andtwo by the cathedral chapter of Biella. At the hospice itself therereside a director, with his assistant, a surveyor to keep the fabric inrepair, a rector or dean with six priests, called _cappellani_, and amedical man. "The government of the laundry, " so runs the statute onthis head, "and analogous domestic services are entrusted to a competentnumber of ladies of sound constitution and good conduct, who livetogether in the hospice under the direction of an inspectress, and arecalled daughters of Oropa. "

The bye-laws of the establishment are conceived in a kindly, genialspirit, which in great measure accounts for its unmistakable popularity. We understood that the poorer visitors, as a general rule, availthemselves of the gratuitous lodging, without making any present whenthey leave, but in spite of this it is quite clear that they are wantedto come, and come they accordingly do. It is sometimes difficult to layone's hands upon the exact passages which convey an impression, but as weread the bye-laws which are posted up in the cloisters, we foundourselves continually smiling at the manner in which almost anything thatlooked like a prohibition could be removed with the consent of thedirector. There is no rule whatever about visitors attending the church;all that is required of them is that they do not interfere with those whodo. They must not play games of chance, or noisy games; they must notmake much noise of any sort after ten o'clock at night (which correspondsabout with midnight in England). They should not draw upon the walls oftheir rooms, nor cut the furniture. They should also keep their roomsclean, and not cook in those that are more expensively furnished. Thisis about all that they must not do, except fee the servants, which ismost especially and particularly forbidden. If any one infringes theserules, he is to be admonished, and in case of grave infraction orcontinued misdemeanor he may be expelled and not readmitted. 

Visitors who are lodged in the better-furnished apartments can be waitedupon if they apply at the office; the charge is twopence for cleaning aroom, making the bed, bringing water, &c. If there is more than one bedin a room, a penny must be paid for every bed over the first. Boots canbe cleaned for a penny, shoes for a halfpenny. For carrying wood, &c. , either a halfpenny or a penny will be exacted according to the timetaken. Payment for these services must not be made to the servant, butat the office. 

The gates close at ten o'clock at night, and open at sunrise, "but if anyvisitor wishes to make Alpine excursions, or has any other sufficientreason, he should let the director know. " Families occupying many roomsmust--when the hospice is very crowded, and when they have had duenotice--manage to pack themselves into a smaller compass. No one canhave rooms kept for him. It is to be strictly "first come, firstserved. " No one must sublet his room. Visitors must not go away withoutgiving up the key of their room. Candles and wood may be bought at afixed price. 

Any one wishing to give anything to the support of the hospice must do soonly to the director, the official who appoints the apartments, the deanor the cappellani, or to the inspectress of the daughters of Oropa, butthey must have a receipt for even the smallest sum; alms-boxes, however, are placed here and there into which the smaller offerings may be dropped(we imagine this means anything under a franc). 

The poor will be fed as well as housed for three daysgratuitously--provided their health does not require a longer stay; butthey must not beg on the premises of the hospice; professional beggarswill be at once handed over to the mendicity society in Biella, or evenperhaps to prison. The poor for whom a hydropathic course isrecommended, can have it under the regulations made by the committee--thatis to say, if there is a vacant place. 

There are _trattorie_ and cafes at the hospice, where refreshments may beobtained both good and cheap. Meat is to be sold there at the pricescurrent in Biella; bread at two centimes the chilogramma more, to pay forthe cost of carriage. 

Such are the bye-laws of this remarkable institution. 

Few except the very rich are so under-worked that two or three days ofchange and rest are not at times a boon to them, while the mere knowledgethat there is a place where repose can be had cheaply and pleasantly isitself a source of strength. Here, so long as the visitor wishes to bemerely housed, no questions are asked; no one is refused admittance, except for some obviously sufficient reason; it is like getting a readingticket for the British Museum, there is practically but one test--that isto say, desire on the part of the visitor--the coming proves the desire, and this suffices. A family, we will say, has just gathered its firstharvest; the heat on the plains is intense, and the malaria from the rice-grounds little less than pestilential; what, then, can be nicer than tolock up the house and go for three days to the bracing mountain air ofOropa? So at daybreak off they all start trudging, it may be, theirthirty or forty miles, and reaching Oropa by nightfall. If there is aweakly one among them, some arrangement is sure to be practicable wherebyhe or she can be helped to follow more leisurely, and can remain longerat the hospice. Once arrived, they generally, it is true, go the roundof the chapels, and make some slight show of pilgrimage, but the mainpart of their time is spent in doing absolutely nothing. It issufficient amusement to them to sit on the steps, or lie about under theshadow of the trees, and neither say anything nor do anything, but simplybreathe, and look at the sky and at each other. We saw scores of suchpeople just resting instinctively in a kind of blissful waking dream. Others saunter along the walks which have been cut in the woods thatsurround the hospice, or if they have been pent up in a town and have afancy for climbing, there are mountain excursions, for the making ofwhich the hospice affords excellent headquarters, and which are lookedupon with every favour by the authorities. 

It must be remembered also that the accommodation provided at Oropa ismuch better than what the people are, for the most part, accustomed to intheir own homes, and the beds are softer, more often beaten up, andcleaner than those they have left behind them. Besides, they havesheets--and beautifully clean sheets. Those who know the sort of placein which an Italian peasant is commonly content to sleep, will understandhow much he must enjoy a really clean and comfortable bed, especiallywhen he has not got to pay for it. Sleep, in the circumstances ofcomfort which most readers will be accustomed to, is a more expensivething than is commonly supposed. If we sleep eight hours in a Londonhotel we shall have to pay from 4d. To 6d. An hour, or from 1d. To 1. 5d. For every fifteen minutes we lie in bed; nor is it reasonable to believethat the charge is excessive when we consider the vast amount ofcompetition which exists. There is many a man the expenses of whosedaily meat, drink, and clothing are less than what an accountant wouldshow us we, many of us, lay out nightly upon our sleep. The cost ofreally comfortable sleep-necessaries cannot, of course, be nearly sogreat at Oropa as in a London hotel, but they are enough to put thembeyond the reach of the peasant under ordinary circumstances, and herelishes them all the more when he can get them. 

But why, it may be asked, should the peasant have these things if hecannot afford to pay for them; and why should he not pay for them if hecan afford to do so? If such places as Oropa were common, would not lazyvagabonds spend their lives in going the rounds of them, &c. , &c. ?Doubtless if there were many Oropas, they would do more harm than good, but there are some things which answer perfectly well as rarities or on asmall scale, out of which all the virtue would depart if they were commonor on a larger one; and certainly the impression left upon our minds byOropa was that its effects were excellent. 

Granted the sound rule to be that a man should pay for what he has, or gowithout it; in practice, however, it is found impossible to carry thisrule out strictly. Why does the nation give A. B. , for instance, and allcomers a large, comfortable, well-ventilated, warm room to sit in, withchair, table, reading-desk, &c. , all more commodious than what he mayhave at home, without making him pay a sixpence for it directly fromyear's end to year's end? The three or nine days' visit to Oropa is atrifle in comparison with what we can all of us obtain in London if wecare about it enough to take a very small amount of trouble. True, onecannot sleep in the reading-room of the British Museum--not all night, atleast--but by day one can make a home of it for years together exceptduring cleaning times, and then it is hard if one cannot get into theNational Gallery or South Kensington, and be warm, quiet, and entertainedwithout paying for it. 

It will be said that it is for the national interest that people shouldhave access to treasuries of art or knowledge, and therefore it is worththe nation's while to pay for placing the means of doing so at theirdisposal; granted, but is not a good bed one of the great ends ofknowledge, whereto it must work, if it is to be accounted knowledge atall? and it is not worth a nation's while that her children should nowand again have practical experience of a higher state of things than theone they are accustomed to, and a few days' rest and change of scene andair, even though she may from time to time have to pay something in orderto enable them to do so? There can be few books which do an averagely-educated Englishman so much good, as the glimpse of comfort which he getsby sleeping in a good bed in a well-appointed room does to an Italianpeasant; such a glimpse gives him an idea of higher potentialities inconnection with himself, and nerves him to exertions which he would nototherwise make. On the whole, therefore, we concluded that if theBritish Museum reading-room was in good economy, Oropa was so also; atany rate, it seemed to be making a large number of very nice peoplequietly happy--and it is hard to say more than this in favour of anyplace or institution. 

The idea of any sudden change is as repulsive to us as it will be to thegreater number of my readers; but if asked whether we thought our Englishuniversities would do most good in their present condition as places ofso-called education, or if they were turned into Oropas, and all theeducational part of the story totally suppressed, we inclined to thinkthey would be more popular and more useful in this latter capacity. Wethought also that Oxford and Cambridge were just the places, andcontained all the appliances and endowments almost ready made forconstituting two splendid and truly imperial cities ofrecreation--universities in deed as well as in name. Nevertheless weshould not venture to propose any further actual reform during thepresent generation than to carry the principle which is already admittedas regards the M. A. A degree a trifle further, and to make the B. A. Degree a mere matter of lapse of time and fees--leaving the little go, and whatever corresponds to it at Oxford, as the final examination. Thiswould be enough for the present. 

There is another sanctuary about three hours' walk over the mountainbehind Oropa, at Andorno, and dedicated to St. John. We were preventedby the weather from visiting it, but understand that its objects are muchthe same as those of the institution I have just described. I will nowproceed to the third sanctuary for which the neighbourhood of Biella isrenowned. 

* * * * *

At Graglia I was shown all over the rooms in which strangers are lodged, and found them not only comfortable but luxurious--decidedly more so thanthose of Oropa; there was the same cleanliness everywhere which I hadnoticed in the restaurant. As one stands at the windows or on thebalconies and looks down to the tops of the chestnuts, and over these tothe plains, one feels almost as if one could fly out of the window like abird; for the slope of the hills is so rapid that one has a sense ofbeing already suspended in mid-air. 

I thought I observed a desire to attract English visitors in the pictureswhich I saw in the bedrooms. Thus there was "A view of the Black-leadMine in Cumberland, " a coloured English print of the end of the lastcentury or the beginning of this, after, I think, Loutherbourg, and inseveral rooms there were English engravings after Martin. The Englishwill not, I think, regret if they yield to these attractions. They willfind the air cool, shady walks, good food, and reasonable prices. Theirrooms will not be charged for, but they will do well to give the same asthey would have paid at a hotel. I saw in one room one of thoseflippant, frivolous, Lorenzo de' Medici matchboxes on which there was agaudily-coloured nymph in high-heeled boots and tights, smoking acigarette. Feeling that I was in a sanctuary, I was a little surprisedthat such a matchbox should have been tolerated. I suppose it had beenleft behind by some guest. I should myself select a matchbox with theNativity or the Flight into Egypt upon it, if I were going to stay a weekor so at Graglia. I do not think I can have looked surprised orscandalised, but the worthy official who was with me could just see thatthere was something on my mind. "Do you want a match?" said he, immediately reaching me the box. I helped myself, and the matterdropped. 

There were many fewer people at Graglia than at Oropa, and they werericher. I did not see any poor about, but I may have been there during aslack time. An impression was left upon me, though I cannot say whetherit was well or ill founded, as though there were a tacit understandingbetween the establishments at Oropa and Graglia that the one was to adaptitself to the poorer, and the other to the richer classes of society; andthis not from any sordid motive, but from a recognition of the fact thatany great amount of intermixture between the poor and the rich is notfound satisfactory to either one or the other. Any wide difference infortune does practically amount to a specific difference, which rendersthe members of either species more or less suspicious of those of theother, and seldom fertile _inter se_. The well-to-do working-man canhelp his poorer friends better than we can. If an educated man has moneyto spare, he will apply it better in helping poor educated people thanthose who are more strictly called the poor. As long as the world isprogressing, wide class distinctions are inevitable; their discontinuancewill be a sign that equilibrium has been reached. Then humancivilisation will become as stationary as that of ants and bees. Somemay say it will be very sad when this is so; others, that it will be agood thing; in truth, it is good either way, for progress and equilibriumhave each of them advantages and disadvantages which make it impossibleto assign superiority to either; but in both cases the good greatlyoverbalances the evil; for in both the great majority will be fairly wellcontented, and would hate to live under any other system. 

Equilibrium, if it is ever reached, will be attained very slowly, and theimportance of any change in a system depends entirely upon the rate atwhich it is made. No amount of change shocks--or, in other words, isimportant--if it is made sufficiently slowly, while hardly any change istoo small to shock if it is made suddenly. We may go down a ladder often thousand feet in height if we do so step by step, while a sudden fallof six or seven feet may kill us. The importance, therefore, does notlie in the change, but in the abruptness of its introduction. Nothing isabsolutely important or absolutely unimportant; absolutely good, orabsolutely bad. 

This is not what we like to contemplate. The instinct of those whosereligion and culture are on the surface only is to conceive that theyhave found, or can find, an absolute and eternal standard, about whichthey can be as earnest as they choose. They would have even the pains ofhell eternal if they could. If there had been any means discoverable bywhich they could torment themselves beyond endurance, we may be sure theywould long since have found it out; but fortunately there is a strongerpower which bars them inexorably from their desire, and which has ensuredthat intolerable pain shall last only for a very little while. Foreither the circumstances or the sufferer will change after no long time. If the circumstances are intolerable, the sufferer dies: if they are notintolerable, he becomes accustomed to them, and will cease to feel themgrievously. No matter what the burden, there always has been, and alwaysmust be, a way for us also to escape. 

A PSALM OF MONTREAL. 

[The City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in many respects, most agreeable on the American continent, but its inhabitants are as yettoo busy with commerce to care greatly about the masterpieces of oldGreek Art. A cast of one of these masterpieces--the finest of theseveral statues of Discoboli, or Quoit-throwers--was found by the presentwriter in the Montreal Museum of Natural History; it was, however, banished from public view, to a room where were all manner of skins, plants, snakes, insects, &c. , and in the middle of these, an old man, stuffing an owl. The dialogue--perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhapsa little of one and a little of the other--between the writer and thisold man gave rise to the lines that follow. ]

Stowed away in a Montreal lumber-room, The Discobolus standeth, and turneth his face to the wall;Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed, and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic, and no man regardeth. O God! O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter, Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful, --He preacheth gospel of grace to the skins of owls, And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls. O God! O Montreal!

When I saw him, I was wroth, and I said, "O Discobolus!Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men, What doest thou here, how camest thou here, Discobolus, Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?" O God! O Montreal!

And I turned to the man of skins, and said unto him, "Oh! thou man ofskins, Wherefore hast thou done thus, to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?"But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins, And he answered, "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

"The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar, --He hath neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;I, sir, am a person of most respectable connections, --My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

Then I said, "O brother-in law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher!Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls, Thou callest 'trousers' 'pants, ' whereas I call them 'trousers, 'Therefore thou art in hell-fire, and may the Lord pity thee! O God! O Montreal!

"Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas, The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haberdashery to thegospel of the Discobolus?"Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty, saying, "The Discobolus hath nogospel, --But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

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Footnotes:

{iii} See page 234 of this book. 

{1} The first edition of Erewhon was published in the spring of 1872. 

{47} The myth above alluded to exists in Erewhon with changed names andconsiderable modifications. I have taken the liberty of referring to thestory as familiar to ourselves. 

{48} The first edition of the Fair Haven was published April 1873. 

{68} The first edition of Life and Habit was published in December, 1877. 

{96} See page 228 of this book, "Remarks on Mr. Romanes' 'MentalEvolution in Animals. '"

{119} Kegan Paul, 1875. 

{125} It is now (January 1884) more than six years since Life and Habitwas published, but I have come across nothing which makes me wish toalter it to any material extent. 

{127} It must be remembered that the late Mr. C. Darwin expressly deniedthat instinct and inherited habit are generally to be connected. --See Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species, " end of chapter viii. , where he expresseshis surprise that no one has hitherto adduced the instincts of neuterinsects "against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advancedby Lamarck. "

Mr. Romanes, in his "Mental Evolution in Animals" (November, 1883), refers to this passage of Mr. Darwin's, and endorses it with approbation(p. 297). 

{131} Evolution, Old and New, was published in May, 1879. 

{134a} Quatrefages, "Metamorphoses de l'Homme et des Animaux, " 1862, p. 42; G. H. Lewes, "Physical Basis of Mind, " 1877, p. 83. 

{134b} I have been unable, through want of space, to give this chapterhere. 

{141} Page 210, first edition. 

{144} 1878. 

{148} "Nat. Theol. " ch. Xxiii. 

{153a} 1878. 

{153b} "Oiseaux, " vol. I. P. 5. 

{162} "Discours de Reception a l'Academie Francaise. "

{163} I Cor. Xiii. 8, 13. 

{164a} Tom. I. P. 24, 1749. 

{164b} Tom. I. P. 40, 1749. 

{165} Vol. I. P. 34, 1749. 

{166a} Tom. I. P. 36. 

{166b} See p. 173. 

{166c} Tom. I. P. 33. 

{168} The Naturalist's Library, vol. Ii. P. 23. Edinburgh, 1843. 

{174} Tom. Iv. P. 381, 1753. 

{176} Tom. Iv. P. 383, 1753 (this was the first volume on the loweranimals). 

{177a} Tom xiii. P. 1765. 

{177b} Sup. Tom. V. P. 27, 1778. 

{180} Tom. I. P. 28, 1749. 

{181a} Unconscious Memory was published December, 1880. 

{181b} See Unconscious Memory, chap. Vi. 

{181c} The Spirit of Nature, p. 39. J. A. Churchill & Co. 1880. 

{184} I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, andshall put others like them, because they are characteristic; but nothingcan become so well known as to escape being an inference. 

{189} Erewhon, chap, xxiii. 

{198a} It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the mouthof an objector. 

{198b} Mr. Herbert Spencer denies that there can be memory without a"tolerably deliberate succession of psychical states. " {198c} So thatpractically he denies that there can be any such thing as "unconsciousmemory. " Nevertheless a few pages later on he says that "consciousmemory passes into unconscious or organic memory. " {198d} It is plain, therefore, that he could after all find no expression better suited forhis purpose. 

Mr. Romanes is, I think, right in setting aside Mr. Spencer's limitationof memory to conscious memory. He writes, "Because I have so often seenthe sun shine that my memory of it as shining has become automatic, I seeno reason why my memory of this fact, simply on account of itsperfection, should be called no memory. " {198e}

{198c} Principles of Psychology, I. , 447. 

{198d} Ibid, p. 452. 

{198e} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 130

{217} Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1878, p. 826. 

{218} Encyclopedia Britannica, Art. Biology, 9th ed. , Vol. 3, p. 689. 

{220a} Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit. , 9th ed. , Art. Evolution, p. 750. 

{220b} "Hume, " by Professor Huxley, p. 45. 

{220c} "The Philosophy of Crayfishes, " by the Right Rev. The Lord Bishopof Carlisle. Nineteenth Century for October 1880, p. 636. 

{221} Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360. Paris, 1800. 

{222a} Philosophie Zoologique, tom. I. P. 231. Ed. M. Martin. Paris, 1873. 

{222b} Those who read the three following chapters will see that thesewords, written in 1880, have come out near the truth in 1884. 

{223a} Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams &Norgate. 1858, p. 61. 

{223b} Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed. , 1871, p. 41. 

{223c} Origin of Species, p. I, ed. 1872. 

{223d} Origin of Species, 6th ed. , p. 206. I ought in fairness to MrDarwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as serious ashe once did. It is now "a serious error" only; in 1859 it was "mostserious error. "--_Origin of Species_, 1st ed. , p. 209. 

{224} Origin of Species, 1st ed. , p. 242; 6th ed. , p. 233. 

{225a} I never could find what these particular points were. 

{225b} Isidore Geoffrey, Hist. Nat. Gen. , tom. Ii. P. 407, 1859. 

{225c} M. Martin's edition of the Philosophie Zoologique (Paris, 1873), Introduction, p. Vi. 

{225d} Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. , p. 750. 

{228a} Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{228b} Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. P. 445. 

{228c} Ibid. I. 456. 

{228d} Problems of Life and Mind, first series, Vol. I. , 3rd ed. 1874, p. 141, and Problem I. 21. 

{228e} p. 33. 

{228f} p. 77. 

{228g} p. 115. 

{229} Translation of Professor Hering's address on "Memory as anOrganised Function of Matter, " Unconscious Memory, p. 116. 

{230} See Zoonomia, Vol. I. P. 484. 

{231a} Problems of Life and Mind, I. Pp. 239, 240: 1874. 

{231b} Kegan Paul. November, 1883. 

{232a} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 113. 

{232b} Ibid. P. 115. 

{232c} Ibid. P. 116. Kegan Paul. Nov. 1883. 

{233a} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 131. Kegan Paul. Nov. 1883. 

{233b} Vol. I. , 3rd ed. 1874, p. 141, and Problem I. 21. 

{233c} Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 177, 178. Nov. 1883. 

{234a} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 193. 

{234b} Ibid, p. 195. 

{234c} Ibid, p. 296. Nov. 1883. 

{234d} Ibid. P. 192. Nov. 1883. 

{235} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 296. Nov. 1883. 

{236a} See page 228. 

{236b} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 33. Nov. 1883. 

{236c} Ibid, p. 116. 

{236d} Ibid. P. 178. 

{239} Evolution, Old and New, pp. 357, 358. 

{240} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 159. Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{241} Zoonomia, Vol. I. P. 484. 

{242a} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 297. Kegan Paul & Co. , 1883. 

{242b} Ibid. P. 201. 

{243a} Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 301. November, 1883. 

{243b} Origin of Species, Ed. I. P. 209. 

{243c} Ibid, Ed. VI. 1876, p. 206. 

{243d} Formation of Vegetable Mould, &c. , p. 98. 

{244a} Quoted by Mr. Romanes as written in the last year of Mr. Darwin'slife. 

{244b} Macmillan, 1883. 

{247} Nature, Jan. 27, 1881. 

{248a} Nature, Jan. 27, 1881. 

{248b} Ibid. , Feb. 3, 1881. 

{249} Nature, Jan. 27, 1881. 

{250} Mind, October, 1883. 

{252a} _Mind_ for October 1883, p. 498. 

{252b} Ibid, p. 505, October 1883. 

{254a} Principles of Psychology, I. 422. 

{254b} Ibid. I. 424. 

{254c} Ibid. I. 424. 

{255} The first edition of Alps and Sanctuaries was published Dec. 1882. 

{265} Princ. Of Psych. , ed. 3, Vol. I. , p. 136, 1880. 

{269} Curiosities of Literature, Lond. 1866, Routledge & Co. , p. 272. 

{275} See p. 87 of this vol. 

{276} Ivanhoe, chap xxiii. , near the beginning. 

{287} "Well, my dear sir, I am sorry you do not think as I do, but inthese days we cannot all of us start with the same principles. "

{294} For these I must refer the reader to Alps and Sanctuaries itself. 

{311} "Dalle meraviglie finalmente che sono inerenti al simulacrostesso. "--Cenni storico artistici intorno al santuario di Oropa. (Prof. Maurizio, Marocco. Turin, Milan, 1866, p. 329. )

{313} Marocco, p. 331.