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diff --git a/10427.txt b/10427.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd202ef --- /dev/null +++ b/10427.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5207 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Scientific Essays and Lectures, by Charles +Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: Scientific Essays and Lectures + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: December 9, 2003 [eBook #10427] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS AND LECTURES*** + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +Scientific Lectures and Essays + + + + +Contents: {0} + On Bio-Geology + The Study of Natural History + Superstition + Science + Thoughts in a Gravel-Pit + How to Study Natural History + The Natural Theology of the Future + + + +ON BIO-GEOLOGY {1} + + + +I am not sure that the subject of my address is rightly chosen. I +am not sure that I ought not to have postponed a question of mere +natural history, to speak to you as scientific men, on the questions +of life and death, which have been forced upon us by the awful +warning of an illustrious personage's illness; of preventible +disease, its frightful prevalency; of the 200,000 persons who are +said to have died of fever alone since the Prince Consort's death, +ten years ago; of the remedies; of drainage; of sewage disinfection +and utilisation; and of the assistance which you, as a body of +scientific men, can give to any effort towards saving the lives and +health of our fellow-citizens from those unseen poisons which lurk +like wild beasts couched in the jungle, ready to spring at any +moment on the unsuspecting, the innocent, the helpless. Of all this +I longed to speak; but I thought it best only to hint at it, and +leave the question to your common sense and your humanity; taking +for granted that your minds, like the minds of all right-minded +Englishmen, have been of late painfully awakened to its importance. +It seemed to me almost an impertinence to say more in a city of +whose local circumstances I know little or nothing. As an old +sanitary reformer, practical, as well as theoretical, I am but too +well aware of the difficulties which beset any complete scheme of +drainage, especially in an ancient city like this; where men are +paying the penalty of their predecessors' ignorance; and dwelling, +whether they choose or not, over fifteen centuries of accumulated +dirt. + +And, therefore, taking for granted that there is energy and +intellect enough in Winchester to conquer these difficulties in due +time, I go on to ask you to consider, for a time, a subject which is +growing more and more important and interesting, a subject the study +of which will do much towards raising the field naturalist from a +mere collector of specimens--as he was twenty years ago--to a +philosopher elucidating some of the grandest problems. I mean the +infant science of Bio-geology--the science which treats of the +distribution of plants and animals over the globe, and the cause of +that distribution. + +I doubt not that there are many here who know far more about the +subject than I; who are far better read than I am in the works of +Forbes, Darwin, Wallace, Hooker, Moritz Wagner, and the other +illustrious men who have written on it. But I may, perhaps, give a +few hints which will be of use to the younger members of this +Society, and will point out to them how to get a new relish for the +pursuit of field science. + +Bio-geology, then, begins with asking every plant or animal you +meet, large or small, not merely--What is your name? That is the +collector and classifier's duty; and a most necessary duty it is, +and one to be performed with the most conscientious patience and +accuracy, so that a sound foundation may be built for future +speculations. But young naturalists should act not merely as +Nature's registrars and census-takers, but as her policemen and +gamekeepers; and ask everything they meet--How did you get there? +By what road did you come? What was your last place of abode? And +now you are here, how do you get your living? Are you and your +children thriving, like decent people who can take care of +themselves, or growing pauperised and degraded, and dying out? Not +that we have a fear of your becoming a dangerous class. Madame +Nature allows no dangerous classes, in the modern sense. She has, +doubtless for some wise reason, no mercy for the weak. She rewards +each organism according to its works; and if anything grows too weak +or stupid to take care of itself, she gives it its due deserts by +letting it die and disappear. So, you plant or you animal, are you +among the strong, the successful, the multiplying, the colonising? +Or are you among the weak, the failing, the dwindling, the doomed? + +These questions may seem somewhat rude: but you may comfort +yourself by the thought that plants and animals, though they deserve +all kindness, all admiration, deserve no courtesy--at least in this +respect. For they are, one and all, wherever you find them, +vagrants and landlopers, intruders and conquerors, who have got +where they happen to be simply by the law of the strongest-- +generally not without a little robbery and murder. They have no +right save that of possession; the same by which the puffin turns +out the old rabbits, eats the young ones, and then lays her eggs in +the rabbit-burrow--simply because she can. + +Now, you will see at once that such a course of questioning will +call out a great many curious and interesting answers, if you can +only get the things to tell you their story; as you always may if +you will cross-examine them long enough; and will lead you into many +subjects beside mere botany or entomology. So various, indeed, are +the subjects which you will thus start, that I can only hint at them +now in the most cursory fashion. + +At the outset you will soon find yourself involved in chemical and +meteorological questions; as, for instance, when you ask--How is it +that I find one flora on the sea-shore, another on the sandstone, +another on the chalk, and another on the peat-making gravelly +strata? The usual answer would be, I presume--if we could work it +out by twenty years' experiment, such as Mr. Lawes, of Rothampsted, +has been making on the growth of grasses and leguminous plants in +different soils and under different manures--the usual answer, I +say, would be--Because we plants want such and such mineral +constituents in our woody fibre; again, because we want a certain +amount of moisture at a certain period of the year: or, perhaps, +simply because the mechanical arrangement of the particles of a +certain soil happens to suit the shape of our roots and of their +stomata. Sometimes you will get an answer quickly enough; sometimes +not. If you ask, for instance, Asplenium viride how it contrives to +grow plentifully in the Craven of Yorkshire down to 600 or 800 feet +above the sea, while in Snowdon it dislikes growing lower than 2000 +feet, and is not plentiful even there?--it will reply--Because in +the Craven I can get as much carbonic acid as I want from the +decomposing limestone; while on the Snowdon Silurian I get very +little; and I have to make it up by clinging to the mountain tops, +for the sake of the greater rainfall. But if you ask Polypodium +calcareum--How is it you choose only to grow on limestone, while +Polypodium Dryopteris, of which, I suspect, you are only a variety, +is ready to grow anywhere?--Polypodium calcareum will refuse, as +yet, to answer a word. + +Again--I can only give you the merest string of hints--you will find +in your questionings that many plants and animals have no reason at +all to show why they should be in one place and not in another, save +the very sound reason for the latter which was suggested to me once +by a great naturalist. I was asking--Why don't I find such and such +a species in my parish, while it is plentiful a few miles off in +exactly the same soil?--and he answered--For the same reason that +you are not in America. Because you have not got there. Which +answer threw to me a flood of light on this whole science. Things +are often where they are, simply because they happen to have got +there, and not elsewhere. But they must have got there by some +means, and those means I want young naturalists to discover; at +least, to guess at. + +A species, for instance--and I suspect it is a common case with +insects--may abound in a single spot, simply because, long years +ago, a single brood of eggs happened to hatch at a time when eggs of +other species, who would have competed against them for food, did +not hatch; and they may remain confined to that spot, though there +is plenty of food for them outside it, simply because they do not +increase fast enough to require to spread out in search of more +food. Thus I should explain a case which I heard of lately of +Anthocera trifolii, abundant for years in one corner of a certain +field, and only there; while there was just as much trefoil all +round for its larvae as there was in the selected spot. I can, I +say, only give hints: but they will suffice, I hope, to show the +path of thought into which I want young naturalists to turn their +minds. + +Or, again, you will have to inquire whether the species has not been +prevented from spreading by some natural barrier. Mr. Wallace, whom +you all of course know, has shown in his "Malay Archipelago" that a +strait of deep sea can act as such a barrier between species. +Moritz Wagner has shown that, in the case of insects, a moderately- +broad river may divide two closely-allied species of beetles, or a +very narrow snow-range, two closely-allied species of moths. + +Again, another cause, and a most common one, is: that the plants +cannot spread because they find the ground beyond them already +occupied by other plants, who will not tolerate a fresh mouth, +having only just enough to feed themselves. Take the case of +Saxifraga hypnoides and S. umbrosa, "London pride." They are two +especially strong species. They show that, S. hypnoides especially, +by their power of sporting, of diverging into varieties; they show +it equally by their power of thriving anywhere, if they can only get +there. They will grow both in my sandy garden, under a rainfall of +only 23 inches, more luxuriantly than in their native mountains +under a rainfall of 50 or 60 inches. Then how is it that S. +hypnoides cannot get down off the mountains; and that S. umbrosa, +though in Kerry it has got off the mountains and down to the sea- +level, exterminating, I suspect, many species in its progress, yet +cannot get across County Cork? The only answer is, I believe, that +both species are continually trying to go ahead; but that the other +plants already in front of them are too strong for them, and +massacre their infants as soon as born. + +And this brings us to another curious question: the sudden and +abundant appearance of plants, like the foxglove and Epilobium +angustifolium, in spots where they have never been seen before. Are +there seeds, as some think, dormant in the ground; or are the seeds +which have germinated, fresh ones wafted thither by wind or +otherwise, and only able to germinate in that one spot because there +the soil is clear? General Monro, now famous for his unequalled +memoir on the bamboos, holds to the latter theory. He pointed out +to me that the Epilobium seeds, being feathered could travel with +the wind; that the plant always made its appearance first on new +banks, landslips, clearings, where it had nothing to compete +against; and that the foxglove did the same. True, and most +painfully true, in the case of thistles and groundsels: but +foxglove seeds, though minute, would hardly be carried by the wind +any more than those of the white clover, which comes up so +abundantly in drained fens. Adhuc sub judice lis est, and I wish +some young naturalists would work carefully at the solution; by +experiment, which is the most sure way to find out anything. + +But in researches in this direction they will find puzzles enough. +I will give them one which I shall be most thankful to hear they +have solved within the next seven years--How is it that we find +certain plants, namely, the thrift and the scurvy grass, abundant on +the sea-shore and common on certain mountain-tops, but nowhere +between the two? Answer me that. For I have looked at the fact for +years--before, behind, sideways, upside down, and inside out--and I +cannot understand it. + +But all these questions, and especially, I suspect, that last one, +ought to lead the young student up to the great and complex +question--How were these islands re-peopled with plants and animals, +after the long and wholesale catastrophe of the glacial epoch? + +I presume you all know, and will agree, that the whole of these +islands, north of the Thames, save certain ice-clad mountain-tops, +were buried for long ages under an icy sea. From whence did +vegetable and animal life crawl back to the land, as it rose again; +and cover its mantle of glacial drift with fresh life and verdure? + +Now let me give you a few prolegomena on this matter. You must +study the plants of course, species by species. Take Watson's +"Cybele Britannica" and Moore's "Cybele Hibernica;" and let--as Mr. +Matthew Arnold would say--"your thought play freely about them." +Look carefully, too, in the case of each species, at the note on its +distribution, which you will find appended in Bentham's "Handbook," +and in Hooker's "Student's Flora." Get all the help you can, if you +wish to work the subject out, from foreign botanists, both European +and American; and I think that, on the whole, you will come to some +such theory as this for a general starling platform. We do not owe +our flora--I must keep to the flora just now--to so many different +regions, or types, as Mr. Watson conceives, but to three, namely, an +European or Germanic flora, from the south-east; an Atlantic flora, +from the south-east; a Northern flora, from the north. These three +invaded us after the glacial epoch; and our general flora is their +result. + +But this will cause you much trouble. Before you go a step farther +you will have to eliminate from all your calculations most of the +plants which Watson calls glareal, i.e. found in cultivated ground +about habitations. And what their limit may be I think we never +shall know. But of this we may be sure; that just as invading +armies always bring with them, in forage or otherwise, some plants +from their own country--just as the Cossacks, in 1815, brought more +than one Russian plant through Germany into France--just as you have +already a crop of North German plants upon the battle-fields of +France--thus do conquering races bring new plants. The Romans, +during their 300 or 400 years of occupation and civilisation, must +have brought more species, I believe, than I dare mention. I +suspect them of having brought, not merely the common hedge elm of +the south, not merely the three species of nettle, but all our red +poppies, and a great number of the weeds which are common in our +cornfields; and when we add to them the plants which may have been +brought by returning crusaders and pilgrims; by monks from every +part of Europe, by Flemings or other dealers in foreign wool--we +have to cut a huge cantle out of our indigenous flora: only, having +no records, we hardly know where and what to cut out; and can only, +we elder ones, recommend the subject to the notice of the younger +botanists, that they may work it out after our work is done. + +Of course these plants introduced by man, if they are cut out, must +be cut out of only one of the floras, namely, the European; for +they, probably, came from the south-east, by whatever means they +came. + +That European flora invaded us, I presume, immediately after the +glacial epoch, at a time when France and England were united, and +the German Ocean a mere network of rivers, which emptied into the +deep sea between Scotland and Scandinavia. And here I must add, +that endless questions of interest will arise to those who will +study, not merely the invasion of that truly European flora, but the +invasion of reptiles, insects, and birds, especially birds of +passage, which must have followed it as soon as the land was +sufficiently covered with vegetation to support life. Whole volumes +remain to be written on this subject. I trust that some of your +younger members may live to write one of them. The way to begin +will be; to compare the flora and fauna of this part of England very +carefully with that of the southern and eastern counties; and then +to compare them again with the fauna and flora of France, Belgium, +and Holland. + +As for the Atlantic flora, you will have to decide for yourselves +whether you accept or not the theory of a sunken Atlantic continent. +I confess that all objections to that theory, however astounding it +may seem, are outweighed in my mind by a host of facts which I can +explain by no other theory. But you must judge for yourselves; and +to do so you must study carefully the distribution of heaths both in +Europe and at the Cape, and their non-appearance beyond the Ural +Mountains, and in America, save in Labrador, where the common ling, +an older and less specialised form, exists. You must consider, too, +the plants common to the Azores, Portugal, the West of England, +Ireland, and the Western Hebrides. In so doing young naturalists +will at least find proofs of a change in the distribution of land +and water, which will utterly astound them when they face it for the +first time. + +As for the Northern flora, the question whence it came is puzzling +enough. It seems difficult to conceive how any plants could have +survived when Scotland was an archipelago in the same ice-covered +condition as Greenland is now; and we have no proof that there +existed after the glacial epoch any northern continent from which +the plants and animals could have come back to us. The species of +plants and animals common to Britain, Scandinavia, and North +America, must have spread in pre-glacial times when a continent +joining them did exist. + +But some light has been thrown on this question by an article, as +charming as it is able, on "The Physics of the Arctic Ice," by Dr. +Brown of Campster. You will find it in the "Quarterly Journal of +the Geological Society" for February, 1870. He shows there that +even in Greenland peaks and crags are left free enough from ice to +support a vegetation of between three hundred or four hundred +species of flowering plants; and, therefore, he well says, we must +be careful to avoid concluding that the plant and animal life on the +dreary shores or mountain-tops of the old glacial Scotland was poor. +The same would hold good of our mountains; and, if so, we may look +with respect, even awe, on the Alpine plants of Wales, Scotland, and +the Lake mountains, as organisms, stunted it may be, and even +degraded by their long battle with the elements, but venerable from +their age, historic from their endurance. Relics of an older +temperate world, they have lived through thousands of centuries of +frost and fog, to sun themselves in a temperate climate once more. +I can never pick one of them without a tinge of shame; and to +exterminate one of them is to destroy, for the mere pleasure of +collecting, the last of a family which God has taken the trouble to +preserve for thousands of centuries. + +I trust that these hints--for I can call them nothing more--will at +least awaken any young naturalist who has hitherto only collected +natural objects, to study the really important and interesting +question--How did these things get here? + +Now hence arise questions which may puzzle the mind of a Hampshire +naturalist. You have in this neighbourhood, as you well know, two, +or rather three, soils, each carrying its peculiar vegetation. +First, you have the clay lying on the chalk, and carrying vast +woodlands, seemingly primeval. Next, you have the chalk, with its +peculiar, delicate, and often fragrant crop of lime-loving plants; +and next, you have the poor sands and clays of the New Forest basin, +saturated with iron, and therefore carrying a moorland or peat- +loving vegetation, in many respects quite different from the others. +And this moorland soil, and this vegetation, with a few singular +exceptions, repeats itself, as I daresay you know, in the north of +the county, in the Bagshot basin, as it is called--the moors of +Aldershot, Hartford Bridge, and Windsor Forest. + +Now what a variety of interesting questions are opened up by these +simple facts. How did these three floras get each to its present +place? Where did each come from? How did it get past or through +the other, till each set of plants, after long internecine +competition, settled itself down in the sheet of land most congenial +to it? And when did each come hither? Which is the oldest? Will +any one tell me whether the healthy floras of the moors, or the +thymy flora of the chalk downs, were the earlier inhabitants of +these isles? To these questions I cannot get any answer; and they +cannot be answered without, first--a very careful study of the range +of each species of plant on the continent of Europe; and next, +without careful study of those stupendous changes in the shape of +this island which have taken place at a very late geological epoch. +The composition of the flora of our moorlands is as yet to me an +utter puzzle. We have Lycopodiums--three species--enormously +ancient forms which have survived the age of ice: but did they +crawl downward hither from the northern mountains or upward hither +from the Pyrenees? We have the beautiful bog asphodel again--an +enormously ancient form; for it is, strange to say, common to North +America and to Northern Europe, but does not enter Asia--almost an +unique instance. It must, surely, have come from the north; and +points--as do many species of plants and animals--to the time when +North Europe and North America were joined. We have, sparingly, in +North Hampshire, though, strangely, not on the Bagshot moors, the +Common or Northern Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris); and also, in +the south, the New Forest part of the county, the delicate little +Pinguicula lusitanica, the only species now found in Devon and +Cornwall, marking the New Forest as the extreme eastern limit of the +Atlantic flora. We have again the heaths, which, as I have just +said, are found neither in America nor in Asia, and must, I believe, +have come from some south-western land long since submerged beneath +the sea. But more, we have in the New Forest two plants which are +members of the South Europe, or properly, the Atlantic flora; which +must have come from the south and south-east; and which are found in +no other spots in these islands. I mean the lovely Gladiolus, which +grows abundantly under the ferns near Lyndhurst, certainly wild, but +it does not approach England elsewhere nearer than the Loire and the +Rhine; and next, that delicate orchid, the Spiranthes aestivalis, +which is known only in a bog near Lyndhurst and in the Channel +Islands, while on the Continent it extends from Southern Europe all +through France. Now, what do these two plants mark? They give us a +point in botany, though not in time, to determine when the south of +England was parted from the opposite shores of France; and whenever +that was, it was just after the Gladiolus and Spiranthes got hither. +Two little colonies of these lovely flowers arrived just before +their retreat was cut off. They found the country already occupied +with other plants; and, not being reinforced by fresh colonists from +the south, have not been able to spread farther north than +Lyndhurst. Thus, in the New Forest, and, I may say in the Bagshot +moors, you find plants which you do not expect, and do not find +plants which you do expect; and you are, or ought to be, puzzled, +and I hope also interested, and stirred up to find out more. + +I spoke just now of the time when England was joined to France, as +bearing on Hampshire botany. It bears no less on Hampshire zoology. +In insects, for instance, the presence of the purple emperor and the +white admiral in our Hampshire woods, as well as the abundance of +the great stag-beetle, point to a time when the two countries were +joined, at least as far west as Hampshire; while the absence of +these insects farther to the westward shows that the countries, if +ever joined, were already parted; and that those insects have not +yet had time to spread westward. The presence of these two +butterflies, and partly of the stag-beetle, along the south-east +coast of England as far as the primeval forests of South +Lincolnshire, points, as do a hundred other facts, to a time when +the Straits of Dover either did not exist, or were the bed of a +river running from the west; and when, as I told you just now, all +the rivers which now run into the German Ocean, from the Humber on +the west to the Elbe on the east, discharged themselves into the sea +between Scotland and Norway, after wandering through a vast lowland, +covered with countless herds of mammoth, rhinoceros, gigantic ox, +and other mammals now extinct; while the birds, as far as we know, +the insects, the fresh-water fish, and even, as my friend Mr. Brady +has proved, the Entomostraca of the rivers, were the same in what is +now Holland as in what is now our Eastern counties. I could dwell +long on this matter. I could talk long about how certain species of +Lepidoptera--moths and butterflies--like Papilio Machaon and P. +Podalirius, swarm through France, reach up to the British Channel, +and have not crossed it, with the exception of one colony of Machaon +in the Cambridgeshire fens. I could talk long about a similar +phenomenon in the case of our migratory and singing birds; how many +exquisite species--notably those two glorious songsters, the Orphean +Warbler and Hippolais, which delight our ears everywhere on the +other side of the Channel--follow our nightingales, blackcaps, and +warblers northward every spring almost to the Straits of Dover, but +dare not cross, simply because they have been, as it were, created +since the gulf was opened, and have never learnt from their parents +how to fly over it. + +In the case of fishes, again, I might say much on the curious fact +that the Cyprinidae, or white fish--carp, etc.--and their natural +enemy, the pike, are indigenous, I believe, only to the rivers, +English or continental, on the eastern side of the Straits of Dover; +while the rivers on the western side were originally tenanted, like +our Hampshire streams, as now, almost entirely by trout, their only +Cyprinoid being the minnow--if it, too, be not an interloper; and I +might ask you to consider the bearing of this curious fact on the +former junction of England and France. + +But I have only time to point out to you a few curious facts with +regard to reptiles, which should be specially interesting to a +Hampshire bio-geologist. You know, of course, that in Ireland there +are no reptiles, save the little common lizard, Lacerta agilis, and +a few frogs on the mountain-tops--how they got there I cannot +conceive. And you will, of course, guess, and rightly, that the +reason of the absence of reptiles is: that Ireland was parted off +from England before the creatures, which certainly spread from +southern and warmer climates, had time to get there. You know, of +course, that we have a few reptiles in England. But you may not be +aware that, as soon as you cross the Channel, you find many more +species of reptiles than here, as well as those which you find here. +The magnificent green lizard which rattles about like a rabbit in a +French forest, is never found here; simply because it had not worked +northward till after the Channel was formed. But there are three +reptiles peculiar to this part of England which should be most +interesting to a Hampshire zoologist. The one is the sand lizard +(L. stirpium), found on Bourne-heath, and, I suspect, in the South +Hampshire moors likewise--a North European and French species. +Another, the Coronella laevis, a harmless French and Austrian snake, +which has been found about me, in North Hants and South Berks, now +about fifteen or twenty times. I have had three specimens from my +own parish. I believe it not to be uncommon; and most probably to +be found, by those who will look, both in the New Forest and +Woolmer. The third is the Natterjack, or running toad (Bufo +Rubeta), a most beautifully-spotted animal, with a yellow stripe +down his back, which is common with us at Eversley, and common also +in many moorlands of Hants and Surrey; and, according to Fleming, on +heaths near London, and as far north-east as Lincolnshire; in which +case it will belong to the Germanic fauna. Now, here again we have +cases of animals which have just been able to get hither before the +severance of England and France; and which, not being reinforced +from the rear, have been forced to stop, in small and probably +decreasing colonies, on the spots nearest the coast which were fit +for them. + +I trust that I have not kept you too long over these details. What +I wish to impress upon you is that Hampshire is a country specially +fitted for the study of important bio-geological questions. + +To work them out, you must trace the geology of Hampshire, and +indeed, of East Dorset. You must try to form a conception of how +the land was shaped in miocene times, before that tremendous +upheaval which reared the chalk cliffs at Freshwater upright, +lifting the tertiary beds upon their northern slopes. You must ask- +-Was there not land to the south of the Isle of Wight in those ages, +and for ages after; and what was its extent and shape? You must +ask--When was the gap between the Isle of Wight and the Isle of +Purbeck sawn through, leaving the Needles as remnants on one side, +and Old Harry on the opposite? And was it sawn asunder merely by +the age-long gnawing of the waves? You must ask--Where did the +great river which ran from the west, where Poole Harbour is now, and +probably through what is now the Solent, depositing brackish water- +beds right and left--where, I say, did it run into the sea? Where +the Straits of Dover are now? Or, if not there, where? What, too, +is become of the land to the Westward, composed of ancient +metamorphic rocks, out of which it ran, and deposited on what are +now the Haggerstone Moors of Poole, vast beds of grit? What was the +climate on its banks when it washed down the delicate leaves of +broad-leaved trees, akin to our modern English ones, which are found +in the fine mud-sand strata of Bournemouth? When, finally, did it +dwindle down to the brook which now runs through Wareham town? Was +its bed, sea or dry land, or under an ice sheet, during the long +ages of the glacial epoch? And if you say--Who is sufficient for +these things?--Who can answer these questions? I answer--Who but +you, or your pupils after you, if you will but try? + +And if any shall reply--And what use if I do try? What use, if I do +try? What use if I succeed in answering every question which you +have propounded to-night? Shall I be the happier for it? Shall I +be the wiser? + +My friends, whether you will be the happier for it, or for any +knowledge of physical science, or for any other knowledge +whatsoever, I cannot tell: that lies in the decision of a Higher +Power than I; and, indeed, to speak honestly, I do not think that +bio-geology or any other branch of physical science is likely, at +first at least, to make you happy. Neither is the study of your +fellow-men. Neither is religion itself. We were not sent into the +world to be happy, but to be right; at least, poor creatures that we +are, as right as we can be; and we must be content with being right, +and not happy. For I fear, or rather I hope, that most of us are +not capable of carrying out Talleyrand's recipe for perfect +happiness on earth--namely, a hard heart and a good digestion. +Therefore, as our hearts are, happily, not always hard, and our +digestions, unhappily, not always good, we will be content to be +made wise by physical science, even though we be not made happy. + +And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, +not only with what we can understand, but, content with what we do +not understand--the habit of mind which theologians call--and +rightly--faith in God; the true and solid faith, which comes often +out of sadness, and out of doubt, such as bio-geology may well stir +in us at first sight. For our first feeling will be--I know mine +was when I began to look into these matters--one somewhat of dread +and of horror. + +Here were all these creatures, animal and vegetable, competing +against each other. And their competition was so earnest and +complete, that it did not mean--as it does among honest shopkeepers +in a civilised country--I will make a little more money than you; +but--I will crush you, enslave you, exterminate you, eat you up. +"Woe to the weak," seems to be Nature's watchword. The Psalmist +says: "The righteous shall inherit the land." If you go to a +tropical forest, or, indeed, if you observe carefully a square acre +of any English land, cultivated or uncultivated, you will find that +Nature's text at first sight looks a very different one. She seems +to say: Not the righteous, but the strong, shall inherit the land. +Plant, insect, bird, what not--Find a weaker plant, insect, bird, +than yourself, and kill it, and take possession of its little +vineyard, and no Naboth's curse shall follow you: but you shall +inherit, and thrive therein, you, and your children after you, if +they will be only as strong and as cruel as you are. That is +Nature's law: and is it not at first sight a fearful law? +Internecine competition, ruthless selfishness, so internecine and so +ruthless that, as I have wandered in tropic forests, where this +temper is shown more quickly and fiercely, though not in the least +more evilly, than in our slow and cold temperate one, I have said: +Really these trees and plants are as wicked as so many human beings. + +Throughout the great republic of the organic world the motto of the +majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it +is, and always has been, with the majority of human beings: +"Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." +Overreaching tyranny; the temper which fawns, and clings, and plays +the parasite as long as it is down, and when it has risen, fattens +on its patron's blood and life--these, and the other works of the +flesh, are the works of average plants and animals, as far as they +can practise them. At least, so says at first sight the science of +bio-geology; till the naturalist, if he be also human and humane, is +glad to escape from the confusion and darkness of the universal +battle-field of selfishness into the order and light of Christmas- +tide. + +For then there comes to him the thought--And are these all the +facts? And is this all which the facts mean? That mutual +competition is one law of Nature, we see too plainly. But is there +not, besides that law, a law of mutual help? True it is, as the +wise man has said, that the very hyssop on the wall grows there +because all the forces of the universe could not prevent its +growing. All honour to the hyssop. A brave plant, it has fought a +brave fight, and has its just deserts--as everything in Nature has-- +and so has won. But did all the powers of the universe combine to +prevent it growing? Is not that a one-sided statement of facts? +Did not all the powers of the universe also combine to make it grow, +if only it had valour and worth wherewith to grow? Did not the +rains feed it, the very mortar in the wall give lime to its roots? +Were not electricity, gravitation, and I know not what of chemical +and mechanical forces, busy about the little plant, and every cell +of it, kindly and patiently ready to help it if it would only help +itself? Surely this is true; true of every organic thing, animal +and vegetable, and mineral too, for aught I know: and so we must +soften our sadness at the sight of the universal mutual war by the +sight of an equally universal mutual help. + +But more. It is true--too true if you will--that all things live on +each other. But is it not, therefore, equally true that all things +live for each other?--that self-sacrifice, and not selfishness, is +at the bottom the law of Nature, as it is the law of Grace; and the +law of bio-geology, as it is the law of all religion and virtue +worthy of the name? Is it not true that everything has to help +something else to live, whether it knows it or not?--that not a +plant or an animal can turn again to its dust without giving food +and existence to other plants, other animals?--that the very tiger, +seemingly the most useless tyrant of all tyrants, is still of use, +when, after sending out of the world suddenly, and all but +painlessly, many an animal which would without him have starved in +misery through a diseased old age, he himself dies, and, in dying, +gives, by his own carcase, the means of life and of enjoyment to a +thousandfold more living creatures than ever his paws destroyed? + +And so, the longer one watches the great struggle for existence, the +more charitable, the more hopeful, one becomes; as one sees that, +consciously or unconsciously, the law of Nature is, after all self- +sacrifice: unconscious in plants and animals, as far as we know; +save always those magnificent instances of true self-sacrifice shown +by the social insects, by ants, bees, and others, which put to shame +by a civilisation truly noble--why should I not say divine, for God +ordained it?--the selfishness and barbarism of man. But be that as +it may, in man the law of self-sacrifice--whether unconscious or not +in the animals--rises into consciousness just as far as he is a man; +and the crowning lesson of bio-geology may be, when we have worked +it out after all, the lesson of Christmas-tide--of the infinite +self-sacrifice of God for man; and Nature as well as religion may +say to us: + + +Ah, could you crush that ever craving lust +For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose your life, +Your barren unit life, to find again +A thousand times in those for whom you die-- +So were you men and women, and should hold +Your rightful rank in God's great universe, +Wherein, in heaven or earth, by will or nature, +Naught lives for self. All, all, from crown to base-- +The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain-- +The angels, ministers to God's elect-- +The sun, who only shines to light the worlds-- +The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers-- +The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves +Flee the decay of stagnant self-content-- +The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe-- +The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower-- +The flower, which feeds a thousand velvet worms +Born only to be prey to every bird-- +All spend themselves on others: and shall man, +Whose twofold being is the mystic knot +Which couples earth with heaven, doubly bound, +As being both, worm and angel, to that service +By which both worms and angels hold their life, +Shall he, whose every breath is debt on debt, +Refuse, forsooth, to be what God has made him? +No; let him show himself the creatures' Lord +By free-will gift of that self-sacrifice +Which they, perforce, by Nature's law's endure. + + +My friends, scientific and others, if the study of bio-geology shall +help to teach you this, or anything like this, I think that though +it may not make you more happy, it may yet make you more wise; and, +therefore, what is better than being more happy, namely, more +blessed. + + + +THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY FOR SOLDIERS {181} + + + +Gentlemen: When I accepted the honour of lecturing here, I took for +granted that so select an audience would expect from me not mere +amusement, but somewhat of instruction; or, if that be too ambitious +a word for me to use, at least some fresh hint--if I were able to +give one--as to how they should fulfil the ideal of military men in +such an age as this. + +To touch on military matters, even had I been conversant with them, +seemed to me an impertinence. I am bound to take for granted that +every man knows his own business best; and I incline more and more +to the opinion that military men should be left to work out the +problems of their art for themselves, without the advice or +criticism of civilians. But I hold--and I am sure that you will +agree with me--that if the soldier is to be thus trusted by the +nation, and left to himself to do his own work his own way, he must +be educated in all practical matters as highly as the average of +educated civilians. He must know all that they know, and his own +art besides. Just as a clergyman, being a man plus a priest, is +bound to be a man, and a good man; over and above his priesthood, so +is the soldier bound to be a civilian, and a highly-educated +civilian, plus his soldierly qualities and acquirements. + +It seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without impertinence, ask +you to consider a branch of knowledge which is becoming yearly more +and more important in the eyes of well-educated civilians; of which, +therefore, the soldier ought at least to know something, in order to +put him on a par with the general intelligence of the nation. I do +not say that he is to devote much time to it, or to follow it up +into specialities: but that he ought to be well grounded in its +principles and methods; that he ought to be aware of its importance +and its usefulness; that so, if he comes into contact--as he will +more and more--with scientific men, he may understand them, respect +them, befriend them, and be befriended by them in turn; and how +desirable this last result is, I shall tell you hereafter. + +There are those, I doubt not, among my audience who do not need the +advice which I shall presume to give to-night; who belong to that +fast-increasing class among officers of whom I have often said--and +I have found scientific men cordially agree with me--that they are +the most modest and the most teachable of men. But even in their +case there can be no harm in going over deliberately a question of +such importance; in putting it, as it were, into shape; and +insisting on arguments which may perhaps not have occurred to some +of them. + +Let me, in the first place, reassure those--if any such there be-- +who may suppose, from the title of my lecture, that I am only going +to recommend them to collect weeds and butterflies, "rats and mice, +and such small deer." Far from it. The honourable title of Natural +History has, and unwisely, been restricted too much of late years to +the mere study of plants and animals. I desire to restore the words +to their original and proper meaning--the History of Nature; that +is, of all that is born, and grows in time; in short, of all natural +objects. + +If any one shall say--By that definition you make not only geology +and chemistry branches of natural history, but meteorology and +astronomy likewise--I cannot deny it. They deal each of them, with +realms of Nature. Geology is, literally, the natural history of +soils and lands; chemistry the natural history of compounds, organic +and inorganic; meteorology the natural history of climates; +astronomy the natural history of planetary and solar bodies. And +more, you cannot now study deeply any branch of what is popularly +called Natural History--that is, plants and animals--without finding +it necessary to learn something, and more and more as you go deeper, +of those very sciences. As the marvellous interdependence of all +natural objects and forces unfolds itself more and more, so the once +separate sciences, which treated of different classes of natural +objects, are forced to interpenetrate, as it were; and to supplement +themselves by knowledge borrowed from each other. Thus--to give a +single instance--no man can now be a first-rate botanist unless he +be also no mean meteorologist, no mean geologist, and--as Mr. Darwin +has shown in his extraordinary discoveries about the fertilisation +of plants by insects--no mean entomologist likewise. + +It is difficult, therefore, and indeed somewhat unwise and unfair, +to put any limit to the term Natural History, save that it shall +deal only with nature and with matter; and shall not pretend--as +some would have it to do just now--to go out of its own sphere to +meddle with moral and spiritual matters. But, for practical +purposes, we may define the natural history of the causes which have +made it what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it +holds. And if any one would know how to study the natural history +of any given spot as the history of the causes which have made it +what it is, and filled it with the natural objects which it holds. +And if any one would know how to study the natural history of a +place, and how to write it, let him read--and if he has read its +delightful pages in youth, read once again--that hitherto unrivalled +little monograph, White's "Natural History of Selborne;" and let him +then try, by the light of improved science, to do for any district +where he may be stationed, what White did for Selborne nearly one +hundred years ago. Let him study its plants, its animals, its soils +and rocks; and last, but not least, its scenery, as the total +outcome of what the soils, and plants, and animals, have made it. I +say, have made it. How far the nature of the soils, and the rocks +will affect the scenery of a district may be well learnt from a very +clever and interesting little book of Professor Geikie's, on "The +Scenery of Scotland as affected by its Geological Structure." How +far the plants, and trees affect not merely the general beauty, the +richness or barrenness of a country, but also its very shape; the +rate at which the hills are destroyed and washed into the lowland; +the rate at which the seaboard is being removed by the action of +waves--all these are branches of study which is becoming more and +more important. + +And even in the study of animals and their effects on the +vegetation, questions of really deep interest will arise. You will +find that certain plants and trees cannot thrive in a district, +while others can, because the former are browsed down by cattle, or +their seeds eaten by birds, and the latter are not; that certain +seeds are carried in the coats of animals, or wafted abroad by +winds--others are not; certain trees destroyed wholesale by insects, +while others are not; that in a hundred ways the animal and +vegetable life of a district act and react upon each other, and that +the climate, the average temperature, the maximum and minimum +temperatures, the rainfall, act on them, and in the case of the +vegetation, are reacted on again by them. The diminution of +rainfall by the destruction of forests, its increase by replanting +them, and the effect of both on the healthiness or unhealthiness of +a place--as in the case of the Mauritius, where a once healthy +island has become pestilential, seemingly from the clearing away of +the vegetation on the banks of streams--all this, though to study it +deeply requires a fair knowledge of meteorology, and even of a +science or two more, is surely well worth the attention of any +educated man who is put in charge of the health and lives of human +beings. + +You will surely agree with me that the habit of mind required for +such a study as this, is the very same as is required for successful +military study. In fact, I should say that the same intellect which +would develop into a great military man, would develop also into a +great naturalist. I say, intellect. The military man would +require--what the naturalist would not--over and above his +intellect, a special force of will, in order to translate his +theories into fact, and make his campaigns in the field and not +merely on paper. But I am speaking only of the habit of mind +required for study; of that inductive habit of mind which works, +steadily and by rule, from the known to the unknown; that habit of +mind of which it has been said: "The habit of seeing; the habit of +knowing what we see; the habit of discerning differences and +likenesses; the habit of classifying accordingly; the habit of +searching for hypotheses which shall connect and explain those +classified facts; the habit of verifying these hypotheses by +applying them to fresh facts; the habit of throwing them away +bravely if they will not fit; the habit of general patience, +diligence, accuracy, reverence for facts for their own sake, and +love of truth for its own sake; in one word, the habit of reverent +and implicit obedience to the laws of Nature, whatever they may be-- +these are not merely intellectual, but also moral habits, which will +stand men in practical good stead in every affair of life, and in +every question, even the most awful, which may come before them as +rational and social beings." And specially valuable are they, +surely, to the military man, the very essence of whose study, to be +successful, lies first in continuous and accurate observation, and +then in calm and judicious arrangement. + +Therefore it is that I hold, and hold strongly, that the study of +physical science, far from interfering with an officer's studies, +much less unfitting for them, must assist him in them, by keeping +his mind always in the very attitude and the very temper which they +require. + +If any smile at this theory of mine, let them recollect one curious +fact: that perhaps the greatest captain of the old world was +trained by perhaps the greatest philosopher of the old world--the +father of Natural History; that Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander +of Macedon. I do not fancy, of course, that Aristotle taught +Alexander any Natural History. But this we know, that he taught him +to use those very faculties by which Aristotle became a natural +historian, and many things besides; that he called out in his pupil +somewhat of his own extraordinary powers of observation, +extraordinary powers of arrangement. He helped to make him a great +general: but he helped to make him more--a great politician, +coloniser, discoverer. He instilled into him such a sense of the +importance of Natural History, that Alexander helped him nobly in +his researches; and, if Athenaeus is to be believed, gave him eight +hundred talents towards perfecting his history of animals. Surely +it is not too much to say that this close friendship between the +natural philosopher and the soldier has changed the whole course of +civilisation to this very day. Do not consider me Utopian when I +tell you, that I should like to see the study of physical science an +integral part of the curriculum of every military school. I would +train the mind of the lad who was to become hereafter an officer in +the army--and in the navy likewise--by accustoming him to careful +observation of, and sound thought about, the face of nature; of the +commonest objects under his feet, just as much as the stars above +his head; provided always that he learnt, not at second-hand from +books, but where alone ho can really learn either war or nature--in +the field; by actual observation, actual experiment. A laboratory +for chemical experiment is a good thing, it is true, as far as it +goes; but I should prefer to the laboratory a naturalists' field- +club, such as are prospering now at several of the best public +schools, certain that the boys would get more of sound inductive +habits of mind, as well as more health, manliness, and cheerfulness, +amid scenes to remember which will be a joy for ever, than they ever +can by bending over retorts and crucibles, amid smells even to +remember which is a pain for ever. + +But I would, whether a field-club existed or not, require of every +young man entering the army or navy--indeed of every young man +entering any liberal profession whatsoever--a fair knowledge, such +as would enable him to pass an examination, in what the Germans call +Erd-kunde--earth-lore--in that knowledge of the face of the earth +and of its products, for which we English have as yet cared so +little that we have actually no English name for it, save the clumsy +and questionable one of physical geography; and, I am sorry to say, +hardly any readable school books about it, save Keith Johnston's +"Physical Atlas"--an acquaintance with which last I should certainly +require of young men. + +It does seem most strange--or rather will seem most strange a +hundred years hence--that we, the nation of colonists, the nation of +sailors, the nation of foreign commerce, the nation of foreign +military stations, the nation of travellers for travelling's sake, +the nation of which one man here and another there--as Schleiden +sets forth in his book, "The Plant," in a charming ideal +conversation at the Travellers' Club--has seen and enjoyed more of +the wonders and beauties of this planet than the men of any nation, +not even excepting the Germans--that this nation, I say, should as +yet have done nothing, or all but nothing, to teach in her schools a +knowledge of that planet, of which she needs to know more, and can +if she will know more, than any other nation upon it. + +As for the practical utility of such studies to a soldier, I only +need, I trust, to hint at it to such an assembly as this. All must +see of what advantage a rough knowledge of the botany of a district +would be to an officer leading an exploring party, or engaged in +bush warfare. To know what plants are poisonous; what plants, too, +are eatable--and many more are eatable than is usually supposed; +what plants yield oleaginous substances, whether for food or for +other uses; what plants yield vegetable acids, as preventives of +scurvy; what timbers are available for each of many different +purposes; what will resist wet, salt-water, and the attacks of +insects; what, again, can be used, at a pinch, for medicine or for +styptics--and be sure, as a wise West Indian doctor once said to me, +that there is more good medicine wild in the bush than there is in +all the druggists' shops--surely all this is a knowledge not beneath +the notice of any enterprising officer, above all of an officer of +engineers. I only ask any one who thinks that I may be in the +right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products +given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom"--a miracle of learning--and +see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man, +even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he +should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a +distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity. So +strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see some +knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's excellent little "First Book of +Indian Botany" required of all officers going to our Indian Empire: +but as that will not be, at least for many a year to come, I +recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, and while +away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge which +will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then +of profit, to them during their stay abroad. + +And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any +of you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent +"Monograph of the Bamboos" is an honour to British botanists, and a +proof of the scientific power which is to be found here and there +among British officers: so I do not expect you to become such +geologists as Sir Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand +chapter to the history of extinct animals as Major Cautley did by +his discoveries in the Sewalik Hills. Nevertheless, you can learn-- +and I should earnestly advise you to learn--geology and mineralogy +enough to be of great use to you in your profession, and of use, +too, should you relinquish your profession hereafter. It must be +profitable for any man, and specially for you, to know how and where +to find good limestone, building stone, road metal; it must be good +to be able to distinguish ores and mineral products; it must be good +to know--as a geologist will usually know, even in a country which +he sees for the first time--where water is likely to be found, and +at what probable depth; it must be good to know whether the water is +fit for drinking or not, whether it is unwholesome or merely muddy; +it must be good to know what spots are likely to be healthy, and +what unhealthy, for encamping. The two last questions depend, +doubtless, on meteorological as well as geological accidents: but +the answers to them will be most surely found out by the scientific +man, because the facts connected with them are, like all other +facts, determined by natural laws. After what one has heard, in +past years, of barracks built in spots plainly pestilential; of +soldiers encamped in ruined cities, reeking with the dirt and poison +of centuries; of--but it is not my place to find fault; all I will +say is, that the wise and humane officer, when once his eyes are +opened to the practical value of physical science, will surely try +to acquaint himself somewhat with those laws of drainage and of +climate, geological, meteorological, chemical, which influence, +often with terrible suddenness and fury, the health of whole armies. +He will not find it beyond his province to ascertain the amount and +period of rainfalls, the maxima of heat and of cold which his troops +may have to endure, and many another point on which their health and +efficiency--nay, their very life may depend, but which are now too +exclusively delegated to the doctor, to whose province they do not +really belong. For cure, I take the liberty of believing, is the +duty of the medical officer; prevention, that of the military. + +Thus much I can say just now--and there is much more to be said--on +the practical uses of the study of Natural History. But let me +remind you, on the other side, if Natural History will help you, you +in return can help her; and would, I doubt not, help her and help +scientific men at home, if once you looked fairly and steadily at +the immense importance of Natural History--of the knowledge of the +"face of the earth." I believe that all will one day feel, more or +less, that to know the earth ON which we live, and the laws of it BY +which we live, is a sacred duty to ourselves, to our children after +us, and to all whom we may have to command and to influence; ay, and +a duty to God likewise. For is it not a duty of common reverence +and faith towards Him, if He has put us into a beautiful and +wonderful place, and given us faculties by which we can see, and +enjoy, and use that place--is it not a duty of reverence and faith +towards Him to use these faculties, and to learn the lessons which +He has laid open for us? If you feel that, as I think you all will +some day feel, then you will surely feel likewise that it will be a +good deed--I do not say a necessary duty, but still a good deed and +praiseworthy--to help physical science forward; and to add your +contributions, however small, to our general knowledge of the earth. +And how much may be done for science by British officers, especially +on foreign stations, I need not point out. I know that much has +been done, chivalrously and well, by officers; and that men of +science owe them and give them hearty thanks for their labours. But +I should like, I confess, to see more done still. I should like to +see every foreign station what one or two highly-educated officers +might easily make it, an advanced post of physical science, in +regular communication with our scientific societies at home, sending +to them accurate and methodic details of the natural history of each +district--details ninety-nine hundredths of which might seem +worthless in the eyes of the public, but which would all be precious +in the eyes of scientific men, who know that no fact is really +unimportant; and more, that while plodding patiently through +seemingly unimportant facts, you may stumble on one of infinite +importance, both scientific and practical. For the student of +nature, gentlemen, if he will be but patient, diligent, methodical, +is liable at any moment to the same good fortune as befell Saul of +old, when he went out to seek his father's asses, and found a +kingdom. + +There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the +technicalities and nice distinctions of formal Natural History; who +enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of +science. Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not +suppose that in following it they can do nothing towards enlarging +our knowledge of Nature, especially when on foreign stations. So +far from it, drawings ought always to be valuable, whether of +plants, animals, or scenery, provided only they are accurate; and +the more spirited and full of genius they are, the more accurate +they are certain to be; for Nature being alive, a lifeless copy of +her is necessarily an untrue copy. Most thankful to any officer for +a mere sight of sketches will be the closest botanist, who, to his +own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only from dried +specimens; or the closest zoologist, who knows his animals from +skins and bones. And if any one answers--But I cannot draw. I +rejoin. You can at least photograph. If a young officer, going out +to foreign parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science, +did me the honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should +tell him--Learn to photograph; take photographs of every strange bit +of rock-formation which strikes your fancy, and of every widely- +extended view which may give a notion of the general lie of the +country. Append, if you can, a note or two, saying whether a plain +is rich or barren; whether the rock is sandstone, limestone, +granitic, metamorphic, or volcanic lava; and if there be more rocks +than one, which of them lies on the other; and send them to be +exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society. I doubt not that +the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable +hint or two, for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for +instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons from +mere glances at drawings--I believe from photographs--of the +Abyssinian ranges about Magdala. + +Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble +himself with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply +photograph every strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a +general notion of its species, its look; let him append, where he +can, a photograph of its leafage, flower, fruit; and send them to +Dr. Hooker, or any distinguished botanist: and he will find that, +though he may know nothing of botany, he will have pretty certainly +increased the knowledge of those who do know. + +The sportsman, again--I mean the sportsman of that type which seems +peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own +sakes; he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it +not. He has those very habits of keen observation on which all +sound knowledge of nature is based; and he, if he will--as he may do +without interfering with his sport--can study the habits of the +animals among whom he spends wholesome and exciting days. You have +only to look over such good old books as Williams's "Wild Sports of +the East," Campbell's "Old Forest Ranger," Lloyd's "Scandinavian +Adventures," and last, but not least, Waterton's "Wanderings," to +see what valuable additions to true zoology--the knowledge of live +creatures, not merely dead ones--British sportsmen have made, and +still can make. And as for the employment of time, which often +hangs so heavily on a soldier's hands, really I am ready to say, if +you are neither men of science, nor draughtsmen, nor sportsmen, why, +go and collect beetles. It is not very dignified, I know, nor +exciting: but it will be something to do. It cannot harm you, if +you take, as beetle-hunters do, an indiarubber sheet to lie on; and +it will certainly benefit science. Moreover, there will be a noble +humility in the act. You will confess to the public that you +consider yourself only fit to catch beetles; by which very +confession you will prove yourself fit for much finer things than +catching beetles; and meanwhile, as I said before, you will be at +least out of harm's way. At a foreign barrack once, the happiest +officer I met, because the most regularly employed, was one who +spent his time in collecting butterflies. He knew nothing about +them scientifically--not even their names. He took them simply for +their wonderful beauty and variety; and in the hope, too--in which +he was really scientific--that if he carefully kept every form which +he saw, his collection might be of use some day to entomologists at +home. A most pleasant gentleman he was; and, I doubt not, none the +worse soldier for his butterfly catching. Commendable, also, in my +eyes, was another officer--whom I have not the pleasure of knowing-- +who, on a remote foreign station, used wisely to escape from the +temptations of the world into an entirely original and most pleasant +hermitage. For finding--so the story went--that many of the finest +insects kept to the tree-tops, and never came to ground at all, he +used to settle himself among the boughs of some tree in the tropic +forests, with a long-handled net and plenty of cigars, and pass his +hours in that airy flower-garden, making dashes every now and then +at some splendid monster as it fluttered round his head. His +example need not be followed by every one; but it must be allowed +that--at least as long as he was in his tree--he was neither +dawdling, grumbling, spending money, nor otherwise harming himself, +and perhaps his fellow-creatures, from sheer want of employment. + +One word more, and I have done. If I was allowed to give one +special piece of advice to a young officer, whether of the army or +navy, I would say: Respect scientific men; associate with them; +learn from them; find them to be, as you will usually, the most +pleasant and instructive of companions--but always respect them. +Allow them chivalrously, you who have an acknowledged rank, their +yet unacknowledged rank; and treat them as all the world will treat +them in a higher and truer state of civilisation. They do not yet +wear the Queen's uniform; they are not yet accepted servants of the +State; as they will be in some more perfectly organised and +civilised land: but they are soldiers nevertheless, and good +soldiers and chivalrous, fighting their nation's battle, often on +even less pay than you, and with still less chance of promotion and +of fame, against most real and fatal enemies--against ignorance of +the laws of this planet, and all the miseries which that ignorance +begets. Honour them for their work; sympathise in it; give them a +helping hand in it whenever you have an opportunity--and what +opportunities you have, I have been trying to sketch for you to- +night; and more, work at it yourselves whenever and wherever you +can. Show them that the spirit which animates them--the hatred of +ignorance and disorder, and of their bestial consequences--animates +you likewise; show them that the habit of mind which they value in +themselves--the habit of accurate observation and careful judgment-- +is your habit likewise; show them that you value science, not merely +because it gives better weapons of destruction and of defence, but +because it helps you to become clear-headed, large-minded, able to +take a just and accurate view of any subject which comes before you, +and to cast away every old prejudice and every hasty judgment in the +face of truth and of duty: and it will be better for you and for +them. + +But why? What need for the soldier and the man of science to +fraternise just now? This need: the two classes which will have an +increasing, it may be a preponderating, influence on the fate of the +human race for some time, will be the pupils of Aristotle and those +of Alexander--the men of science and the soldiers. In spite of all +appearances, and all declamations to the contrary, that is my firm +conviction. They, and they alone, will be left to rule; because +they alone, each in his own sphere, have learnt to obey. It is +therefore most needful for the welfare of society that they should +pull with, and not against each other; that they should understand +each other, respect each other, take counsel with each other, +supplement each other's defects, bring out each other's higher +tendencies, counteract each other's lower ones. The scientific man +has something to learn of you, gentlemen, which I doubt not that he +will learn in good time. You, again, have--as I have been hinting +to you to-night--something to learn of him, which you, I doubt not, +will learn in good time likewise. Repeat, each of you according to +his powers, the old friendship between Aristotle and Alexander; and +so, from your mutual sympathy and co-operation, a class of thinkers +and actors may yet arise which can save this nation, and the other +civilised nations of the world, from that of which I had rather not +speak, and wish that I did not think too often and too earnestly. + +I may be a dreamer; and I may consider, in my turn, as wilder +dreamers than myself, certain persons who fancy that their only +business in life is to make money, the scientific man's only +business is to show them how to make money, and the soldier's only +business to guard their money for them. Be that as it may, the +finest type of civilised man which we are likely to see for some +generations to come, will be produced by a combination of the truly +military with the truly scientific man. I say--I may be a dreamer; +but you at least, as well as my scientific friends, will bear with +me; for my dream is to your honour. + + + +SUPERSTITION {201} + + + +Having accepted the very great honour of being allowed to deliver +here two lectures, I have chosen as my subject Superstition and +Science. It is with Superstition that this first lecture will deal. + +The subject seems to me especially fit for a clergyman; for he +should, more than other men, be able to avoid trenching on two +subjects rightly excluded from this Institution; namely, Theology-- +that is, the knowledge of God; and Religion--that is, the knowledge +of Duty. If he knows, as he should, what is Theology, and what is +Religion, then he should best know what is not Theology, and what is +not Religion. + +For my own part, I entreat you at the outset to keep in mind that +these lectures treat of matters entirely physical; which have in +reality, and ought to have in our minds, no more to do with Theology +and Religion than the proposition that theft is wrong, has to do +with the proposition that the three angles of a triangle are equal +to two right angles. + +It is necessary to premise this, because many are of opinion that +superstition is a corruption of religion; and though they would +agree that as such, "corruptio optimi pessima," yet they would look +on religion as the state of spiritual health, and superstition as +one of spiritual disease. + +Others again, holding the same notion, but not considering that +"corruptio optimi pessima," have been in all ages somewhat inclined +to be merciful to superstition, as a child of reverence; as a mere +accidental misdirection of one of the noblest and most wholesome +faculties of man. + +This is not the place wherein to argue with either of these parties: +and I shall simply say that superstition seems to me altogether a +physical affection, as thoroughly material and corporeal as those of +eating or sleeping, remembering or dreaming. + +After this, it will be necessary to define superstition, in order to +have some tolerably clear understanding of what we are talking +about. I beg leave to define it as--Fear of the unknown. + +Johnson, who was no dialectician, and, moreover, superstitious +enough himself, gives eight different definitions of the word; which +is equivalent to confessing his inability to define it at all: + +"1. Unnecessary fear or scruples in religion; observance of +unnecessary and uncommanded rites or practices; religion without +morality. + +"2. False religion; reverence of beings not proper objects of +reverence; false worship. + +" 3. Over nicety; exactness too scrupulous." + +Eight meanings; which, on the principle that eight eighths, or +indeed eight hundred, do not make one whole, may be considered as no +definition. His first thought, as often happens, is the best-- +"Unnecessary fear." But after that he wanders. The root-meaning of +the word is still to seek. But, indeed, the popular meaning, thanks +to popular common sense, will generally be found to contain in +itself the root-meaning. + +Let us go back to the Latin word Superstitio. Cicero says that the +superstitious element consists in "a certain empty dread of the +gods"--a purely physical affection, if you will remember three +things: + +1. That dread is in itself a physical affection. + +2. That the gods who were dreaded were, with the vulgar, who alone +dreaded them, merely impersonations of the powers of nature. + +3. That it was physical injury which these gods were expected to +inflict. + +But he himself agrees with this theory of mine; for he says shortly +after, that not only philosophers, but even the ancient Romans, had +separated superstition from religion; and that the word was first +applied to those who prayed all day ut liberi sui sibi superstites +essent, might survive them. On the etymology no one will depend who +knows the remarkable absence of any etymological instinct in the +ancients, in consequence of their weak grasp of that sound inductive +method which has created modern criticism. But if it be correct, it +is a natural and pathetic form for superstition to take in the minds +of men who saw their children fade and die; probably the greater +number of them beneath diseases which mankind could neither +comprehend nor cure. + +The best exemplification of what the ancients meant by superstition +is to be found in the lively and dramatic words of Aristotle's great +pupil Theophrastus. + +The superstitious man, according to him, after having washed his +hands with lustral water--that is, water in which a torch from the +altar had been quenched--goes about with a laurel-leaf in his mouth, +to keep off evil influences, as the pigs in Devonshire used, in my +youth, to go about with a withe of mountain ash round their necks to +keep off the evil eye. If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and +either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate +selfishness of fear, lets someone else go before him, and attract to +himself the harm which may ensue. He has a similar dread of a +screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas +Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar to +it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he pours oil +on it, kneels down, and adores it. If a rat has nibbled one of his +sacks he takes it for a fearful portent--a superstition which Cicero +also mentions. He dare not sit on a tomb, because it would be +assisting at his own funeral. He purifies endlessly his house, +saying that Hecate--that is, the moon--has exercised some malign +influence on it; and many other purifications he observes, of which +I shall only say that they are by their nature plainly, like the +last, meant as preservatives against unseen malarias or contagions, +possible or impossible. He assists every month with his children at +the mysteries of the Orphic priests; and finally, whenever he sees +an epileptic patient, he spits in his own bosom to avert the evil +omen. + +I have quoted, I believe, every fact given by Theophrastus; and you +will agree, I am sure, that the moving and inspiring element of such +a character is mere bodily fear of unknown evil. The only +superstition attributed to him which does not at first sight seem to +have its root in dread is that of the Orphic mysteries. But of them +Muller says that the Dionusos whom they worshipped "was an infernal +deity, connected with Hades, and was the personification, not merely +of rapturous pleasure, but of a deep sorrow for the miseries of +human life." The Orphic societies of Greece seem to have been +peculiarly ascetic, taking no animal food save raw flesh from the +sacrificed ox of Dionusos. And Plato speaks of a lower grade of +Orphic priests, Orpheotelestai, "who used to come before the doors +of the rich, and promise, by sacrifices and expiatory songs, to +release them from their own sins, and those of their forefathers;" +and such would be but too likely to get a hearing from the man who +was afraid of a weasel or an owl. + +Now, this same bodily fear, I verily believe, will be found at the +root of all superstition whatsoever. + +But be it so. Fear is a natural passion, and a wholesome one. +Without the instinct of self-preservation, which causes the sea- +anemone to contract its tentacles, or the fish to dash into its +hover, species would be extermined wholesale by involuntary suicide. + +Yes; fear is wholesome enough, like all other faculties, as long as +it is controlled by reason. But what if the fear be not rational, +but irrational? What if it be, in plain homely English, blind fear; +fear of the unknown, simply because it is unknown? Is it not +likely, then, to be afraid of the wrong object? to be hurtful, +ruinous to animals as well as to man? Any one will confess that, +who has ever seen, a horse inflict on himself mortal injuries, in +his frantic attempts to escape from a quite imaginary danger. I +have good reasons for believing that not only animals here and +there, but whole flocks and swarms of them, are often destroyed, +even in the wild state, by mistaken fear; by such panics, for +instance, as cause a whole herd of buffaloes to rush over a bluff, +and be dashed to pieces. And remark that this capacity of panic, +fear--of superstition, as I should call it--is greatest in those +animals, the dog and the horse for instance, which have the most +rapid and vivid fancy. Does not the unlettered Highlander say all +that I want to say, when he attributes to his dog and his horse, on +the strength of these very manifestations of fear, the capacity of +seeing ghosts and fairies before he can see them himself? + +But blind fear not only causes evil to the coward himself: it makes +him a source of evil to others; for it is the cruellest of all human +states. It transforms the man into the likeness of the cat, who, +when she is caught in a trap, or shut up in a room, has too low an +intellect to understand that you wish to release her: and, in the +madness of terror, bites and tears at the hand which tries to do her +good. Yes; very cruel is blind fear. When a man dreads he knows +not what, he will do he cares not what. When he dreads desperately, +he will act desperately. When he dreads beyond all reason, he will +behave beyond all reason. He has no law of guidance left, save the +lowest selfishness. No law of guidance: and yet his intellect, +left unguided, may be rapid and acute enough to lead him into +terrible follies. Infinitely more imaginative than the lowest +animals, he is for that very reason capable of being infinitely more +foolish, more cowardly, more superstitious. He can--what the lower +animals, happily for them, cannot--organise his folly; erect his +superstitions into a science; and create a whole mythology out of +his blind fear of the unknown. And when he has done that--Woe to +the weak! For when he has reduced his superstition to a science, +then he will reduce his cruelty to a science likewise, and write +books like the "Malleus Maleficarum," and the rest of the witch +literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; +of which Mr. Lecky has of late told the world so much, and told it +most faithfully and most fairly. + +But, fear of the unknown? Is not that fear of the unseen world? +And is not that fear of the spiritual world? Pardon me: a great +deal of that fear--all of it, indeed, which is superstition--is +simply not fear of the spiritual, but of the material; and of +nothing else. + +The spiritual world--I beg you to fix this in your minds--is not +merely an invisible world which may become visible, but an invisible +world which is by its essence invisible; a moral world, a world of +right and wrong. And spiritual fear--which is one of the noblest of +all affections, as bodily fear is one of the basest--is, if properly +defined, nothing less or more than the fear of doing wrong; of +becoming a worse man. + +But what has that to do with mere fear of the unseen? The fancy +which conceives the fear is physical, not spiritual. Think for +yourselves. What difference is there between a savage's fear of a +demon, and a hunter's fear of a fall? The hunter sees a fence. He +does not know what is on the other side, but he has seen fences like +it with a great ditch on the other side, and suspects one here +likewise. He has seen horses fall at such, and men hurt thereby. +He pictures to himself his horse falling at that fence, himself +rolling in the ditch, with possibly a broken limb; and he recoils +from the picture he himself has made; and perhaps with very good +reason. His picture may have its counterpart in fact; and he may +break his leg. But his picture, like the previous pictures from +which it was compounded, is simply a physical impression on the +brain, just as much as those in dreams. + +Now, does the fact of the ditch, the fall, and the broken leg, being +unseen and unknown, make them a spiritual ditch, a spiritual fall, a +spiritual broken leg? And does the fact of the demon and his +doings, being as yet unseen and unknown, make them spiritual, or the +harm that he may do, a spiritual harm? What does the savage fear? +Lest the demon should appear; that is, become obvious to his +physical senses, and produce an unpleasant physical effect on them. +He fears lest the fiend should entice him into the bog, break the +hand-bridge over the brook, turn into a horse and ride away with +him, or jump out from behind a tree and wring his neck--tolerably +hard physical facts, all of them; the children of physical fancy, +regarded with physical dread. Even if the superstition proved true; +even if the demon did appear; even if he wrung the traveller's neck +in sound earnest, there would be no more spiritual agency or +phenomenon in the whole tragedy than there is in the parlour-table, +when spiritual somethings make spiritual raps upon spiritual wood; +and human beings, who are really spirits--and would to heaven they +would remember that fact, and what it means--believe that anything +has happened beyond a clumsy juggler's trick. + +You demur? Do you not see that the demon, by the mere fact of +having produced physical consequences, would have become himself a +physical agent, a member of physical Nature, and therefore to be +explained, he and his doings, by physical laws? If you do not see +that conclusion at first sight, think over it till you do. + +It may seem to some that I have founded my theory on a very narrow +basis; that I am building up an inverted pyramid; or that, +considering the numberless, complex, fantastic shapes which +superstition has assumed, bodily fear is too simple to explain them +all. + +But if those persons will think a second time, they must agree that +my base is as broad as the phenomena which it explains; for every +man is capable of fear. And they will see, too, that the cause of +superstition must be something like fear, which is common to all +men: for all, at least as children, are capable of superstition; +and that it must be something which, like fear, is of a most simple, +rudimentary, barbaric kind; for the lowest savage, of whatever he is +not capable, is still superstitious, often to a very ugly degree. +Superstition seems, indeed, to be, next to the making of stone- +weapons, the earliest method of asserting his superiority to the +brutes which has occurred to that utterly abnormal and fantastic +lusus naturae called man. + +Now let us put ourselves awhile, as far as we can, in the place of +that same savage; and try whether my theory will not justify itself; +whether or not superstition, with all its vagaries, may have been, +indeed must have been, the result of that ignorance and fear which +he carried about with him, every time he prowled for food through +the primeval forest. + +A savage's first division of nature would be, I should say, into +things which he can eat and things which can eat him: including, of +course, his most formidable enemy, and most savoury food--his +fellow-man. In finding out what he can eat, we must remember, he +will have gone through much experience which will have inspired him +with a serious respect for the hidden wrath of nature; like those +Himalayan folk, of whom Hooker says, that as they know every +poisonous plant, they must have tried them all--not always with +impunity. + +So he gets at a third class of objects--things which he cannot eat, +and which will not eat him; but will only do him harm, as it seems +to him, out of pure malice, like poisonous plants and serpents. +There are natural accidents, too, which fall into the same category, +stones, floods, fires, avalanches. They hurt him or kill him, +surely for ends of their own. If a rock falls from the cliff above +him, what more natural than to suppose that there is some giant up +there who threw it at him? If he had been up there, and strong +enough, and had seen a man walking underneath, he would certainly +have thrown the stone at him and killed him. For first, he might +have eaten the man after; and even if he were not hungry, the man +might have done him a mischief; and it was prudent to prevent that +by doing him a mischief first. Besides, the man might have a wife; +and if he killed the man, then the wife would, by a very ancient law +common to man and animals, become the prize of the victor. Such is +the natural man, the carnal man, the soulish man, the [Greek] of St. +Paul, with five tolerably acute senses, which are ruled by five very +acute animal passions--hunger, sex, rage, vanity, fear. It is with +the working of the last passion, fear, that this lecture has to do. + +So the savage concludes that there must be a giant living in the +cliff, who threw stones at him, with evil intent; and he concludes +in like wise concerning most other natural phenomena. There is +something in them which will hurt him, and therefore likes to hurt +him; and if he cannot destroy them, and so deliver himself, his fear +of them grows quite boundless. There are hundreds of natural +objects on which he learns to look with the same eyes as the little +boys of Teneriffe look on the useless and poisonous Euphorbia +canariensis. It is to them--according to Mr. Piazzi Smyth--a demon +who would kill them, if it could only run after them; but as it +cannot, they shout Spanish curses at it, and pelt it with volleys of +stones, "screeching with elfin joy, and using worse names than ever, +when the poisonous milk spurts out from its bruised stalks." + +And if such be the attitude of the uneducated man towards the +permanent terrors of nature, what will it be towards those which are +sudden and seemingly capricious?--towards storms, earthquakes, +floods, blights, pestilences? We know too well what it has been-- +one of blind, and therefore often cruel, fear. How could it be +otherwise? Was Theophrastus's superstitious man so very foolish for +pouring oil on every round stone? I think there was a great deal to +be said for him. This worship of Baetyli was rational enough. They +were aerolites, fallen from heaven. Was it not as well to be civil +to such messengers from above?--to testify by homage to them due awe +of the being who had thrown them at men, and who though he had +missed his shot that time might not miss it the next? I think if +we, knowing nothing of either gunpowder, astronomy, or Christianity, +saw an Armstrong bolt fall within five miles of London, we should be +inclined to be very respectful to it indeed. So the aerolites, or +glacial boulders, or polished stone weapons of an extinct race, +which looked like aerolites, were the children of Ouranos the +heaven, and had souls in them. One, by one of those strange +transformations in which the logic of unreason indulges, the image +of Diana of the Ephesians, which fell down from Jupiter; another was +the Ancile, the holy shield which fell from the same place in the +days of Numa Pompilius, and was the guardian genius of Rome; and +several more became notable for ages. + +Why not? The uneducated man of genius, unacquainted alike with +metaphysics and with biology, sees, like a child, a personality in +every strange and sharply-defined object. A cloud like an angel may +be an angel; a bit of crooked root like a man may be a man turned +into wood--perhaps to be turned back again at its own will. An +erratic block has arrived where it is by strange unknown means. Is +not that an evidence of its personality? Either it has flown hither +itself, or some one has thrown it. In the former case, it has life, +and is proportionally formidable; in the latter, he who had thrown +it is formidable. + +I know two erratic blocks of porphyry--I believe there are three--in +Cornwall, lying one on serpentine, one, I think, on slate, which--so +I was always informed as a boy--were the stones which St. Kevern +threw after St. Just when the latter stole his host's chalice and +paten, and ran away with them to the Land's End. Why not? Before +we knew anything about the action of icebergs and glaciers, that is, +until the last eighty years, that was as good a story as any other; +while how lifelike these boulders are, let a great poet testify; for +the fact has not escaped the delicate eye of Wordsworth: + + +As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie +Couched on the bald top of an eminence; +Wonder to all who do the same espy, +By what means it could thither come, and whence, +So that it seems a thing endued with sense; +Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf +Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. + + +To the civilised poet, the fancy becomes a beautiful simile; to a +savage poet, it would have become a material and a very formidable +fact. He stands in the valley, and looks up at the boulder on the +far-off fells. He is puzzled by it. He fears it. At last he makes +up his mind. It is alive. As the shadows move over it, he sees it +move. May it not sleep there all day, and prowl for prey all night? +He had been always afraid of going up those fells; now he will never +go. There is a monster there. + +Childish enough, no doubt. But remember that the savage is always a +child. So, indeed, are millions, as well clothed, housed, and +policed as ourselves--children from the cradle to the grave. But of +them I do not talk; because, happily for the world, their +childishness is so overlaid by the result of other men's manhood; by +an atmosphere of civilisation and Christianity which they have +accepted at second-hand as the conclusions of minds wiser than their +own, that they do all manner of reasonable things for bad reasons, +or for no reason at all, save the passion of imitation. Not in +them, but in the savage, can we see man as he is by nature, the +puppet of his senses and his passions, the natural slave of his own +fears. + +But has the savage no other faculties, save his five senses and five +passions? I do not say that. I should be most unphilosophical if I +said it; for the history of mankind proves that he has infinitely +more in him than that. Yes: but in him that infinite more, which +is not only the noblest part of humanity, but, it may be, humanity +itself, is not to be counted as one of the roots of superstition. +For in the savage man, in whom superstition certainly originates, +that infinite more is still merely in him; inside him; a faculty: +but not yet a fact. It has not come out of him into consciousness, +purpose, and act; and is to be treated as non-existent: while what +has come out, his passions and senses, is enough to explain all the +vagaries of superstition; a vera causa for all its phenomena. And +if we seem to have found a sufficient explanation already, it is +unphilosophical to look farther, at least till we have tried whether +our explanation fits the facts. + +Nevertheless, there is another faculty in the savage, to which I +have already alluded, common to him and to at least the higher +vertebrates--fancy; the power of reproducing internal images of +external objects, whether in its waking form of physical memory--if, +indeed, all memory be not physical--or in its sleeping form of +dreaming. Upon this last, which has played so very important a part +in superstition in all ages, I beg you to think a moment. Recollect +your own dreams during childhood; and recollect again that the +savage is always a child. Recollect how difficult it was for you in +childhood, how difficult it must be always for the savage, to decide +whether dreams are phantasms or realities. To the savage, I doubt +not, the food he eats, the foes he grapples with, in dreams, are as +real as any waking impressions. But, moreover, these dreams will be +very often, as children's dreams are wont to be, of a painful and +terrible kind. Perhaps they will be always painful; perhaps his +dull brain will never dream, save under the influence of +indigestion, or hunger, or an uncomfortable attitude. And so, in +addition to his waking experience of the terrors of nature, he will +have a whole dream-experience besides, of a still more terrific +kind. He walks by day past a black cavern mouth, and thinks, with a +shudder--Something ugly may live in that ugly hole: what if it +jumped out upon me? He broods over the thought with the intensity +of a narrow and unoccupied mind; and a few nights after, he has +eaten--but let us draw a veil before the larder of a savage--his +chin is pinned down on his chest, a slight congestion of the brain +comes on; and behold he finds himself again at that cavern's mouth, +and something ugly does jump out upon him: and the cavern is a +haunted spot henceforth to him and to all his tribe. It is in vain +that his family tell him that he has been lying asleep at home all +the while. He has the evidence of his senses to prove the contrary. +He must have got out of himself, and gone into the woods. When we +remember that certain wise Greek philosophers could find no better +explanation of dreaming than that the soul left the body, and +wandered free, we cannot condemn the savage for his theory. + +Now, I submit that in these simple facts we have a group of "true +causes" which are the roots of all the superstitions of the world. + +And if any one shall complain that I am talking materialism: I +shall answer, that I am doing exactly the opposite. I am trying to +eliminate and get rid of that which is material, animal, and base; +in order that that which is truly spiritual may stand out, distinct +and clear, in its divine and eternal beauty. + +To explain, and at the same time, as I think, to verify my +hypothesis, let me give you an example--fictitious, it is true, but +probable fact nevertheless; because it is patched up of many +fragments of actual fact: and let us see how, in following it out, +we shall pass through almost every possible form of superstition. + +Suppose a great hollow tree, in which the formidable wasps of the +tropics have built for ages. The average savage hurries past the +spot in mere bodily fear; for if they come out against him, they +will sting him to death; till at last there comes by a savage wiser +than the rest, with more observation, reflection, imagination, +independence of will--the genius of his tribe. + +The awful shade of the great tree, added to his terror of the wasps, +weighs on him, and excites his brain. Perhaps, too, he has had a +wife or a child stung to death by these same wasps. These wasps, so +small, yet so wise, far wiser than he: they fly, and they sting. +Ah, if he could fly and sting; how he would kill and eat, and live +right merrily. They build great towns; they rob far and wide; they +never quarrel with each other: they must have some one to teach +them, to lead them--they must have a king. And so he gets the fancy +of a Wasp-King; as the western Irish still believe in the Master +Otter; as the Red Men believe in the King of the Buffaloes, and find +the bones of his ancestors in the Mammoth remains of Big-bone Lick; +as the Philistines of Ekron--to quote a notorious instance--actually +worshipped Baal-zebub, lord of the flies. + +If they have a king, he must be inside that tree, of course. If he, +the savage, were a king, he would not work for his bread, but sit at +home and make others feed him; and so, no doubt, does the wasp-king. + +And when he goes home he will brood over this wonderful discovery of +the wasp-king; till, like a child, he can think of nothing else. He +will go to the tree, and watch for him to come out. The wasps will +get accustomed to his motionless figure, and leave him unhurt; till +the new fancy will rise in his mind that he is a favourite of this +wasp-king: and at last he will find himself grovelling before the +tree, saying--"Oh great wasp-king, pity me, and tell your children +not to sting me, and I will bring you honey, and fruit, and flowers +to eat, and I will flatter you, and worship you, and you shall be my +king." + +And then he would gradually boast of his discovery; of the new +mysterious bond between him and the wasp-king; and his tribe would +believe him, and fear him; and fear him still more when he began to +say, as he surely would, not merely--"I can ask the wasp-king, and +he will tell his children not to sting you:" but--"I can ask the +wasp-king, and he will send his children, and sting you all to +death." Vanity and ambition will have prompted the threat: but it +will not be altogether a lie. The man will more than half believe +his own words; he will quite believe them when he has repeated them +a dozen times. + +And so he will become a great man, and a king, under the protection +of the king of the wasps; and he will become, and it may be his +children after him, priest of the wasp-king, who will be their +fetish, and the fetish of their tribe. + +And they will prosper, under the protection of the wasp-king. The +wasp will become their moral ideal, whose virtues they must copy. +The new chief will preach to them wild eloquent words. They must +sting like wasps, revenge like wasps, hold altogether like wasps, +build like wasps, work hard like wasps, rob like wasps; then, like +the wasps, they will be the terror of all around, and kill and eat +all their enemies. Soon they will call themselves The Wasps. They +will boast that their king's father or grandfather, and soon that +the ancestor of the whole tribe was an actual wasp; and the wasp +will become at once their eponym hero, their deity, their ideal, +their civiliser; who has taught them to build a kraal of huts, as he +taught his children to build a hive. + +Now, if there should come to any thinking man of this tribe, at this +epoch, the new thought--Who made the world? he will be sorely +puzzled. The conception of a world has never crossed his mind +before. He never pictured to himself anything beyond the nearest +ridge of mountains; and as for a Maker, that will be a greater +puzzle still. What makers or builders more cunning than those wasps +of whom his foolish head is full? Of course, he sees it now. A +Wasp made the world; which to him entirely new guess might become an +integral part of his tribe's creed. That would be their cosmogony. +And if, a generation or two after, another savage genius should +guess that the world was a globe hanging in the heavens, he would, +if he had imagination enough to take the thought in at all, put it +to himself in a form suited to his previous knowledge and +conceptions. It would seem to him that The Wasp flew about the +skies with the world in his mouth, as he carries a bluebottle fly; +and that would be the astronomy of his tribe henceforth. Absurd +enough: but--as every man who is acquainted with old mythical +cosmogonies must know--no more absurd than twenty similar guesses on +record. Try to imagine the gradual genesis of such myths as the +Egyptian scarabaeus and egg, or the Hindoo theory that the world +stood on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, the tortoise on +that infinite note of interrogation which, as some one expresses it, +underlies all physical speculations, and judge: must they not have +arisen in some such fashion as that which I have pointed out? + +This, I say, would be the culminating point of the wasp-worship, +which had sprung up out of bodily fear of being stung. + +But times might come for it in which it would go through various +changes, through which every superstition in the world, I suppose, +has passed or is doomed to pass. + +The wasp-men might be conquered, and possibly eaten, by a stronger +tribe than themselves. What would be the result? They would fight +valiantly at first, like wasps. But what if they began to fail? +Was not the wasp-king angry with them? Had not he deserted them? +He must be appeased; he must have his revenge. They would take a +captive, and offer him to the wasps. So did a North American tribe, +in their need, some forty years ago; when, because their maize-crops +failed, they roasted alive a captive girl, cut her to pieces, and +sowed her with their corn. I would not tell the story, for the +horror of it, did it not bear with such fearful force on my +argument. What were those Red Men thinking of? What chain of +misreasoning had they in their heads when they hit on that as a +device for making the crops grow? Who can tell? Who can make the +crooked straight, or number that which is wanting? As said Solomon +of old, so must we--"The foolishness of fools is folly." One thing +only we can say of them, that they were horribly afraid of famine, +and took that means of ridding themselves of their fear. + +But what if the wasp tribe had no captives? They would offer +slaves. What if the agony and death of slaves did not appease the +wasps? They would offer their fairest, their dearest, their sons +and their daughters, to the wasps; as the Carthaginians, in like +strait, offered in one day 200 noble boys to Moloch, the volcano- +god, whose worship they had brought out of Syria; whose original +meaning they had probably forgotten; of whom they only knew that he +was a dark and devouring being, who must be appeased with the +burning bodies of their sons and daughters. And so the veil of +fancy would be lifted again, and the whole superstition stand forth +revealed as the mere offspring of bodily fear. + +But more: the survivors of the conquest might, perhaps, escape, and +carry their wasp-fetish into a new land. But if they became poor +and weakly, their brains and imagination, degenerating with their +bodies, would degrade their wasp-worship till they knew not what it +meant. Away from the sacred tree, in a country the wasps of which +were not so large or formidable, they would require a remembrancer +of the wasp-king; and they would make one--a wasp of wood, or what +not. After a while, according to that strange law of fancy, the +root of all idolatry, which you may see at work in every child who +plays with a doll, the symbol would become identified with the thing +symbolised; they would invest the wooden wasp with all the terrible +attributes which had belonged to the live wasps of the tree; and +after a few centuries, when all remembrance of the tree, the wasp- +prophet and chieftain, and his descent from the divine wasp--ay, +even of their defeat and flight--had vanished from their songs and +legends, they would be found bowing down in fear and trembling to a +little ancient wooden wasp, which came from they knew not whence, +and meant they knew not what, save that it was a very "old fetish," +a "great medicine," or some such other formula for expressing their +own ignorance and dread. Just so do the half-savage natives of +Thibet, and the Irishwomen of Kerry, by a strange coincidence-- +unless the ancient Irish were Buddhists, like the Himalayans--tie +just the same scraps of rag on the bushes round just the same holy +wells, as do the Negros of Central Africa upon their "Devil's +Trees;" they know not why, save that their ancestors did it, and it +is a charm against ill-luck and danger. + +And the sacred tree? That, too, might undergo a metamorphosis in +the minds of men. The conquerors would see their aboriginal slaves +of the old race still haunting the tree, making stealthy offerings +to it by night: and they would ask the reason. But they would not +be told. The secret would be guarded; such secrets were guarded, in +Greece, in Italy, in medieval France, by the superstitious awe, the +cunning, even the hidden self-conceit, of the conquered race. Then +the conquerors would wish to imitate their own slaves. They might +be in the right. There might be something magical, uncanny, in the +hollow tree, which might hurt them; might be jealous of them as +intruders. They, too, would invest the place with sacred awe. If +they were gloomy, like the Teutonic conquerors of Europe and the +Arabian conquerors of the East, they would invest it with unseen +terrors. They would say, like them, a devil lives in the tree. If +they were of a sunny temper, like the Hellenes, they would invest it +with unseen graces. What a noble tree! What a fair fountain hard +by its roots! Surely some fair and graceful being must dwell +therein, and come out to bathe by night in that clear wave. What +meant the fruit, the flowers, the honey, which the slaves left there +by night? Pure food for some pure nymph. The wasp-gods would be +forgotten; probably smoked out as sacrilegious intruders. The lucky +seer or poet who struck out the fancy would soon find imitators; and +it would become, after a while, a common and popular superstition +that Hamadryads haunted the hollow forest trees, Naiads the wells, +and Oreads the lawns. Somewhat thus, I presume, did the more +cheerful Hellenic myths displace the darker superstitions of the +Pelasgis and those rude Arcadian tribes who offered, even as late as +the Roman Empire, human sacrifices to gods whose original names were +forgotten. + +But even the cultus of nymphs would be defiled after awhile by a +darker element. However fair, they might be capricious and +revengeful, like other women. Why not? And soon, men going out +into the forest would be missed for awhile. They had eaten narcotic +berries, got sun-strokes, wandered till they lost their wits. At +all events, their wits were gone. Who had done it? Who but the +nymphs? The men had seen something they should not have seen; done +something they would not have done; and the nymphs had punished the +unconscious rudeness by that frenzy. Fear, everywhere fear, of +Nature--the spotted panther as some one calls her, as fair as cruel, +as playful as treacherous. Always fear of Nature, till a Divine +light arise, and show men that they are not the puppets of Nature, +but her lords; and that they are to fear God, and fear naught else. + +And so ends my true myth of the wasp-tree. No, it need not end +there; it may develop into a yet darker and more hideous form of +superstition, which Europe has often seen; which is common now among +the Negros; {223} which we may hope, will soon be exterminated. + +This might happen. For it, or something like it, has happened too +many times already. + +That to the ancient women who still kept up the irrational remnant +of the wasp-worship, beneath the sacred tree, other women might +resort; not merely from curiosity, or an excited imagination, but +from jealousy and revenge. Oppressed, as woman has always been +under the reign of brute force; beaten, outraged, deserted, at best +married against her will, she has too often gone for comfort and +help--and those of the very darkest kind--to the works of darkness; +and there never were wanting--there are not wanting, even now, in +remote parts of these isles--wicked old women who would, by help of +the old superstitions, do for her what she wished. Soon would +follow mysterious deaths of rivals, of husbands, of babes; then +rumours of dark rites connected with the sacred tree, with poison, +with the wasp and his sting, with human sacrifices; lies mingled +with truth, more and more confused and frantic, the more they were +misinvestigated by men mad with fear: till there would arise one of +those witch-manias, which are too common still among the African +Negros, which were too common of old among the men of our race. + +I say, among the men. To comprehend a witch-mania, you must look at +it as--what the witch-literature confesses it unblushingly to be-- +man's dread of Nature excited to its highest form, as dread of +woman. + +She is to the barbarous man--she should be more and more to the +civilised man--not only the most beautiful and precious, but the +most wonderful and mysterious of all natural objects, if it be only +as the author of his physical being. She is to the savage a miracle +to be alternately adored and dreaded. He dreads her more delicate +nervous organisation, which often takes shapes to him demoniacal and +miraculous; her quicker instincts, her readier wit, which seem to +him to have in them somewhat prophetic and superhuman, which +entangled him as in an invisible net, and rule him against his will. +He dreads her very tongue, more crushing than his heaviest club, +more keen than his poisoned arrows. He dreads those habits of +secrecy and falsehood, the weapons of the weak, to which savage and +degraded woman always has recourse. He dreads the very medicinal +skill which she has learnt to exercise, as nurse, comforter, and +slave. He dreads those secret ceremonies, those mysterious +initiations which no man may witness, which he has permitted to her +in all ages, in so many--if not all--barbarous and semi-barbarous +races, whether Negro, American, Syrian, Greek, or Roman, as a homage +to the mysterious importance of her who brings him into the world. +If she turns against him--she, with all her unknown powers, she who +is the sharer of his deepest secrets, who prepares his very food day +by day--what harm can she not, may she not, do? And that she has +good reason to turn against him, he knows too well. What +deliverance is there from this mysterious house-fiend, save brute +force? Terror, torture, murder, must be the order of the day. +Woman must be crushed, at all price, by the blind fear of the man. + +I shall say no more. I shall draw a veil, for very pity and shame, +over the most important and most significant facts of this, the most +hideous of all human follies. I have, I think, given you hints +enough to show that it, like all other superstitions, is the child-- +the last born and the ugliest child--of blind dread of the unknown. + + + +SCIENCE {229} + + + +I said, that Superstition was the child of Fear, and Fear the child +of Ignorance; and you might expect me to say antithetically, that +Science was the child of Courage, and Courage the child of +Knowledge. + +But these genealogies--like most metaphors--do not fit exactly, as +you may see for yourselves. + +If fear be the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of +fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread +Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her +awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, +as in the Egyptian temple of old--"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal +yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to lift it? If +she will leave them in peace, they will leave her in peace. It is +enough that she does not destroy them. So as ignorance bred fear, +fear breeds fresh and willing ignorance. + +And courage? We may say, and truly, that courage is the child of +knowledge. But we may say as truly, that knowledge is the child of +courage. Those Egyptian priests in the temple of Isis would have +told you that knowledge was the child of mystery, of special +illumination, of reverence, and what not; hiding under grand words +their purpose of keeping the masses ignorant, that they might be +their slaves. Reverence? I will yield to none in reverence for +reverence. I will all but agree with the wise man who said that +reverence is the root of all virtues. But which child reverences +his father most? He who comes joyfully and trustfully to meet him, +that he may learn his father's mind, and do his will; or he who at +his father's coming runs away and hides, lest he should be beaten +for he knows not what? There is a scientific reverence, a reverence +of courage, which is surely one of the highest forms of reverence. +That, namely, which so reveres every fact, that it dare not overlook +or falsify it, seem it never so minute; which feels that because it +is a fact it cannot be minute, cannot be unimportant; that it must +be a fact of God; a message from God; a voice of God, as Bacon has +it, revealed in things; and which therefore, just because it stands +in solemn awe of such paltry facts as the Scolopax feather in a +snipe's pinion, or the jagged leaves which appear capriciously in +certain honeysuckles, believes that there is likely to be some deep +and wide secret underlying them, which is worth years of thought to +solve. That is reverence; a reverence which is growing, thank God, +more and more common; which will produce, as it grows more common +still, fruit which generations yet unborn shall bless. + +But as for that other reverence, which shuts its eyes and ears in +pious awe--what is it but cowardice decked out in state robes, +putting on the sacred Urim and Thummim, not that men may ask counsel +of the Deity, but that they may not? What is it but cowardice, very +pitiable when unmasked; and what is its child but ignorance as +pitiable, which would be ludicrous were it not so injurious? If a +man comes up to Nature as to a parrot or a monkey, with this +prevailing thought in his head--Will it bite me?--will he not be +pretty certain to make up his mind that it may bite him, and had +therefore best be left alone? It is only the man of courage--few +and far between--who will stand the chance of a first bite, in the +hope of teaching the parrot to talk, or the monkey to fire off a +gun. And it is only the man of courage--few and far between--who +will stand the chance of a first bite from Nature, which may kill +him for aught he knows--for her teeth, though clumsy, are very +strong--in order that he may tame her and break her in to his use by +the very same method by which that admirable inductive philosopher, +Mr. Rarey, used to break in his horses; first, by not being afraid +of them; and next, by trying to find out what they were thinking of. +But after all, as with animals, so with Nature; cowardice is +dangerous. The surest method of getting bitten by an animal is to +be afraid of it; and the surest method of being injured by Nature is +to be afraid of it. Only as far as we understand Nature are we safe +from it; and those who in any age counsel mankind not to pry into +the secrets of the universe, counsel them not to provide for their +own life and well-being, or for their children after them. + +But how few there have been in any age who have not been afraid of +Nature. How few have set themselves, like Rarey, to tame her by +finding out what she is thinking of. The mass are glad to have the +results of science, as they are to buy Mr. Rarey's horses after they +are tamed; but for want of courage or of wit, they had rather leave +the taming process to someone else. And therefore we may say that +what knowledge of Nature we have--and we have very little--we owe to +the courage of those men--and they have been very few--who have been +inspired to face Nature boldly; and say--or, what is better, act as +if they were saying--"I find something in me which I do not find in +you; which gives me the hope that I can grow to understand you, +though you may not understand me; that I may become your master, and +not as now, you mine. And if not, I will know; or die in the +search." + +It is to those men, the few and far between, in a very few ages and +very few countries, who have thus risen in rebellion against Nature, +and looked it in the face with an unquailing glance, that we owe +what we call Physical Science. + +There have been four races--or rather a very few men of each four +races--who have faced Nature after this gallant wise. + +First, the old Jews. I speak of them, be it remembered, exclusively +from an historical, and not a religious point of view. + +These people, at a very remote epoch, emerged from a country highly +civilised, but sunk in the superstitions of nature-worship. They +invaded and mingled with tribes whose superstitions were even more +debased, silly, and foul than those of the Egyptians from whom they +escaped. Their own masses were for centuries given up to nature- +worship. Now, among those Jews arose men--a very few--sages-- +prophets--call them what you will, the men were inspired heroes and +philosophers--who assumed towards nature an attitude utterly +different from the rest of their countrymen and the rest of the then +world; who denounced superstition and the dread of nature as the +parent of all manner of vice and misery; who for themselves said +boldly that they discerned in the universe an order, a unity, a +permanence of law, which gave them courage instead of fear. They +found delight and not dread in the thought that the universe obeyed +a law which could not be broken; that all things continued to that +day according to a certain ordinance. They took a view of Nature +totally new in that age; healthy, human, cheerful, loving, trustful, +and yet reverent--identical with that which happily is beginning to +prevail in our own day. They defied those very volcanic and +meteoric phenomena of their land, to which their countrymen were +slaying their own children in the clefts of the rocks, and, like +Theophrastus's superstitious man, pouring their drink-offerings on +the smooth stones of the valley; and declared that, for their part, +they would not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the +hills were carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters +raged and swelled, and the mountains shook at the tempest. + +The fact is indisputable. And you must pardon me if I express my +belief that these men, if they had felt it their business to found a +school of inductive physical science, would, owing to that temper of +mind, have achieved a very signal success. I ground that opinion on +the remarkable, but equally indisputable fact, that no nation has +ever succeeded in perpetuating a school of inductive physical +science, save those whose minds have been saturated with this same +view of Nature, which they have--as an historic fact--slowly but +thoroughly learnt from the writings of these Jewish sages. + +Such is the fact. The founders of inductive physical science were +not the Jews; but first the Chaldaeans, next the Greeks, next their +pupils the Romans--or rather a few sages among each race. But what +success had they? The Chaldaean astronomers made a few discoveries +concerning the motions of the heavenly bodies, which, rudimentary as +they were, still prove them to have been men of rare intellect. For +a great and a patient genius must he have been, who first +distinguished the planets from the fixed stars, or worked out the +earliest astronomical calculation. But they seem to have been +crushed, as it were, by their own discoveries. They stopped short. +They gave way again to the primeval fear of Nature. They sank into +planet-worship. They invented, it would seem, that fantastic +pseudo-science of astrology, which lay for ages after as an incubus +on the human intellect and conscience. They became the magicians +and quacks of the old world; and mankind owed them thenceforth +nothing but evil. Among the Greeks and Romans, again, those sages +who dared face Nature like reasonable men, were accused by the +superstitious mob as irreverent impious atheists. The wisest of +them all, Socrates, was actually put to death on that charge; and +finally, they failed. School after school, in Greece and Rome, +struggled to discover, and to get a hearing for, some theory of the +universe which was founded on something like experience, reason, +common sense. They were not allowed to prosecute their attempt. +The mud-ocean of ignorance and fear in which they struggled so +manfully was too strong for them; the mud-waves closed over their +heads finally, as the age of the Antonines expired; and the last +effort of Graeco-Roman thought to explain the universe was +Neoplatonism--the muddiest of the muddy--an attempt to apologise +for, and organise into a system, all the nature-dreading +superstitions of the Roman world. Porphyry, Plotinus, Proclus, poor +Hypatia herself, and all her school--they may have had themselves no +bodily fear of Nature; for they were noble souls. Yet they spent +their time in justifying those who had; in apologising for the +superstitions of the very mob which they despised: just as--it +sometimes seems to me--some folk in these days are like to end in +doing; begging that the masses might be allowed to believe in +anything, however false, lest they should believe in nothing at all: +as if believing in lies could do anything but harm to any human +being. And so died the science of the old world, in a true second +childhood, just where it began. + +The Jewish sages, I hold, taught that science was probable; the +Greeks and Romans proved that it was possible. It remained for our +race, under the teaching of both, to bring science into act and +fact. + +Many causes contributed to give them this power. They were a +personally courageous race. This earth has yet seen no braver men +than the forefathers of Christian Europe, whether Scandinavian or +Teuton, Angle or Frank. They were a practical hard-headed race, +with a strong appreciation of facts, and a strong determination to +act on them. Their laws, their society, their commerce, their +colonisation, their migrations by land and sea, proved that they +were such. They were favoured, moreover, by circumstances, or--as I +should rather put it--by that divine Providence which determined +their times, and the bounds of their habitation. They came in as +the heritors of the decaying civilisation of Greece and Rome; they +colonised territories which gave to man special fair play, but no +more, in the struggle for existence, the battle with the powers of +Nature; tolerably fertile, tolerably temperate; with boundless means +of water communication; freer than most parts of the world from +those terrible natural phenomena, like the earthquake and the +hurricane, before which man lies helpless and astounded, a child +beneath the foot of a giant. Nature was to them not so inhospitable +as to starve their brains and limbs, as it has done for the +Esquimaux or Fuegian; and not so bountiful as to crush them by its +very luxuriance, as it has crushed the savages of the tropics. They +saw enough of its strength to respect it; not enough to cower before +it: and they and it have fought it out; and it seems to me, +standing either on London Bridge or on a Holland fen-dyke, that they +are winning at last. + +But they had a sore battle: a battle against their own fear of the +unseen. They brought with them, out of the heart of Asia, dark and +sad nature-superstitions, some of which linger among our peasantry +till this day, of elves, trolls, nixes, and what not. Their Thor +and Odin were at first, probably, only the thunder and the wind: +but they had to be appeased in the dark marches of the forest, where +hung rotting on the sacred oaks, amid carcases of goat and horse, +the carcases of human victims. No one acquainted with the early +legends and ballads of our race, but must perceive throughout them +all the prevailing tone of fear and sadness. And to their own +superstitions they added those of the Rome which they conquered. +They dreaded the Roman she-poisoners and witches, who, like Horace's +Canidia, still performed horrid rites in graveyards and dark places +of the earth. They dreaded as magical the delicate images engraved +on old Greek gems. They dreaded the very Roman cities they had +destroyed. They were the work of enchanters. Like the ruins of St. +Albans here in England, they were all full of devils, guarding the +treasures which the Romans had hidden. The Caesars became to them +magical man-gods. The poet Virgil became the prince of +necromancers. If the secrets of Nature were to be known, they were +to be known by unlawful means, by prying into the mysteries of the +old heathen magicians, or of the Mohammedan doctors of Cordova and +Seville; and those who dared to do so were respected and feared, and +often came to evil ends. It needed moral courage, then, to face and +interpret fact. Such brave men as Pope Gerbert, Roger Bacon, +Galileo, even Kepler, did not lead happy lives; some of them found +themselves in prison. All the medieval sages--even Albertus Magnus- +-were stigmatised as magicians. One wonders that more of them did +not imitate poor Paracelsus, who, unable to get a hearing for his +coarse common sense, took--vain and sensual--to drinking the +laudanum which he himself had discovered, and vaunted as a priceless +boon to men; and died as the fool dieth, in spite of all his wisdom. +For the "Romani nominis umbra," the shadow of the mighty race whom +they had conquered, lay heavy on our forefathers for centuries. And +their dread of the great heathens was really a dread of Nature, and +of the powers thereof. For when the authority of great names has +reigned unquestioned for many centuries, those names become, to the +human mind, integral and necessary parts of Nature itself. They +are, as it were, absorbed into it; they become its laws, its canons, +its demiurges, and guardian spirits; their words become regarded as +actual facts; in one word, they become a superstition, and are +feared as parts of the vast unknown; and to deny what they have said +is, in the minds of the many, not merely to fly in the face of +reverent wisdom, but to fly in the face of facts. During a great +part of the Middle Ages, for instance, it was impossible for an +educated man to think of nature itself, without thinking first of +what Aristotle had said of her. Aristotle's dicta were Nature; and +when Benedetti, at Venice, opposed in 1585 Aristotle's opinions on +violent and natural motion, there were hundreds, perhaps, in the +universities of Europe--as there certainly were in the days of the +immortal "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum"--who were ready, in spite of +all Benedetti's professed reverence for Aristotle, to accuse him of +outraging not only the father of philosophy, but Nature itself and +its palpable and notorious facts. For the restoration of letters in +the fifteenth century had not at first mended matters, so strong was +the dread of Nature in the minds of the masses. The minds of men +had sported forth, not toward any sound investigation of facts, but +toward an eclectic resuscitation of Neoplatonism; which endured, not +without a certain beauty and use--as let Spenser's "Faerie Queen" +bear witness--till the latter half of the seventeenth century. + +After that time a rapid change began. It is marked by--it has been +notably assisted by--the foundation of our own Royal Society. Its +causes I will not enter into; they are so inextricably mixed, I +hold, with theological questions, that they cannot be discussed +here. I will only point out to you these facts: that, from the +latter part of the seventeenth century, the noblest heads and the +noblest hearts of Europe concentrated themselves more and more on +the brave and patient investigation of physical facts, as the source +of priceless future blessings to mankind; that the eighteenth +century which it has been the fashion of late to depreciate, did +more for the welfare of mankind, in every conceivable direction, +than the whole fifteen centuries before it; that it did this good +work by boldly observing and analysing facts; that this boldness +towards facts increased in proportion as Europe became indoctrinated +with the Jewish literature; and that, notably, such men as Kepler, +Newton, Berkeley, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Descartes, in whatsoever else +they differed, agreed in this, that their attitude towards Nature +was derived from the teaching of the Jewish sages. I believe that +we are not yet fully aware how much we owe to the Jewish mind, in +the gradual emancipation of the human intellect. The connection may +not, of course, be one of cause and effect; it may be a mere +coincidence. I believe it to be a cause; one of course of very many +causes: but still an integral cause. At least the coincidence is +too remarkable a fact not to be worthy of investigation. + +I said, just now--The emancipation of the human intellect. I did +not say--Of science or of the scientific intellect; and for this +reason: + +That the emancipation of science is the emancipation of the common +mind of all men. All men can partake of the gains of free +scientific thought, not merely by enjoying its physical results, but +by becoming more scientific men themselves. + +Therefore it was, that though I began my first lecture by defining +superstition, I did not begin my second by defining its antagonist, +science. For the word "science" defines itself. It means simply +knowledge; that is, of course, right knowledge, or such an +approximation as can be obtained; knowledge of any natural object, +its classification, its causes, its effects; or in plain English, +what it is, how it came where it is, and what can be done with it. + +And scientific method, likewise, needs no definition; for it is +simply the exercise of common sense. It is not a peculiar, unique, +professional, or mysterious process of the understanding: but the +same which all men employ, from the cradle to the grave, in forming +correct conclusions. + +Every one who knows the philosophic writings of Mr. John Stuart +Mill, will be familiar with this opinion. But to those who have no +leisure to study him, I should recommend the reading of Professor +Huxley's third lecture on the origin of species. + +In that he shows, with great logical skill, as well as with some +humour, how the man who, on rising in the morning finds the parlour- +window open, the spoons and teapot gone, the mark of a dirty hand on +the window-sill, and that of a hob-nailed boot outside, and comes to +the conclusion that someone has broken open the window, and stolen +the plate, arrives at that hypothesis--for it is nothing more--by a +long and complex train of inductions and deductions of just the same +kind as those which, according to the Baconian philosophy, are to be +used for investigating the deepest secrets of Nature. + +This is true, even of those sciences which involve long mathematical +calculations. In fact, the stating of the problem to be solved is +the most important element in the calculation; and that is so +thoroughly a labour of common sense that an utterly uneducated mart +may, and often does, state an abstruse problem clearly and +correctly; seeing what ought to be proved, and perhaps how to prove +it, though he may be unable to work the problem out for want of +mathematical knowledge. + +But that mathematical knowledge is not--as all Cambridge men are +surely aware--the result of any special gift. It is merely the +development of those conceptions of form and number which every +human being possesses; and any person of average intellect can make +himself a fair mathematician if he will only pay continuous +attention; in plain English, think enough about the subject. + +There are sciences, again, which do not involve mathematical +calculation; for instance, botany, zoology, geology, which are just +now passing from their old stage of classificatory sciences into the +rank of organic ones. These are, without doubt, altogether within +the scope of the merest common sense. Any man or woman of average +intellect, if they will but observe and think for themselves, +freely, boldly, patiently, accurately, may judge for themselves of +the conclusions of these sciences, may add to these conclusions +fresh and important discoveries; and if I am asked for a proof of +what I assert, I point to "Rain and Rivers," written by no professed +scientific man, but by a colonel in the Guards, known to fame only +as one of the most perfect horsemen in the world. + +Let me illustrate my meaning by an example. A man--I do not say a +geologist, but simply a man, squire or ploughman--sees a small +valley, say one of the side-glens which open into the larger valleys +in the Windsor forest district. He wishes to ascertain its age. + +He has, at first sight, a very simple measure--that of denudation. +He sees that the glen is now being eaten out by a little stream, the +product of innumerable springs which arise along its sides, and +which are fed entirely by the rain on the moors above. He finds, on +observation, that this stream brings down some ten cubic yards of +sand and gravel, on an average, every year. The actual quantity of +earth which has been removed to make the glen may be several million +cubic yards. Here is an easy sum in arithmetic. At the rate of ten +cubic yards a-year, the stream has taken several hundred thousand +years to make the glen. + +You will observe that this result is obtained by mere common sense. +He has a right to assume that the stream originally began the glen, +because he finds it in the act of enlarging it; just as much right +as he has to assume, if he find a hole in his pocket, and his last +coin in the act of falling through it, that the rest of his money +has fallen through the same hole. It is a sufficient cause, and the +simplest. A number of observations as to the present rate of +denudation, and a sum which any railroad contractor can do in his +head, to determine the solid contents of the valley, are all that +are needed. The method is that of science: but it is also that of +simple common sense. You will remember, therefore, that this is no +mere theory or hypothesis, but a pretty fair and simple conclusion +from palpable facts; that the probability lies with the belief that +the glen is some hundreds of thousands of years old; that it is not +the observer's business to prove it further, but other persons' to +disprove it, if they can. + +But does the matter end here? No. And, for certain reasons, it is +good that it should not end here. + +The observer, if he be a cautious man, begins to see if he can +disprove his own conclusions; moreover, being human, he is probably +somewhat awed, if not appalled, by his own conclusion. Hundreds of +thousands of years spent in making that little glen! Common sense +would say that the longer it took to make, the less wonder there was +in its being made at last: but the instinctive human feeling is the +opposite. There is in men, and there remains in them, even after +they are civilised, and all other forms of the dread of Nature have +died out in them, a dread of size, of vast space, of vast time; that +latter, mind, being always imagined as space, as we confess when we +speak instinctively of a space of time. They will not understand +that size is merely a relative, not an absolute term; that if we +were a thousand times larger than we are, the universe would be a +thousand times smaller than it is; that if we could think a thousand +times faster than we do, time would be a thousand times longer than +it is; that there is One in whom we live, and move, and have our +being, to whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years +as one day. I believe this dread of size to be merely, like all +other superstitions, a result of bodily fear; a development of the +instinct which makes a little dog run away from a big dog. Be that +as it may, every observer has it; and so the man's conclusion seems +to him strange, doubtful: he will reconsider it. + +Moreover, if he be an experienced man, he is well aware that first +guesses, first hypotheses, are not always the right ones; and if he +be a modest man, he will consider the fact that many thousands of +thoughtful men in all ages, and many thousands still, would say, +that the glen can only be a few thousand, or possibly a few hundred, +years old. And he will feel bound to consider their opinion; as far +as it is, like his own, drawn from facts, but no further. + +So he casts about for all other methods by which the glen may have +been produced, to see if any one of them will account for it in a +shorter time. + +1. Was it made by an earthquake? No; for the strata on both sides +are identical, at the same level, and in the same plane. + +2. Or by a mighty current? If so, the flood must have run in at +the upper end, before it ran out at the lower. But nothing has run +in at the upper end. All round above are the undisturbed gravel- +beds of the horizontal moor, without channel or depression. + +3. Or by water draining off a vast flat as it was upheaved out of +the sea? That is a likely guess. The valley at its upper end +spreads out like the fingers of a hand, as the gullies in tide-muds +do. + +But that hypothesis will not stand. There is no vast unbroken flat +behind the glen. Right and left of it are other similar glens, +parted from it by long narrow ridges: these also must be explained +on the same hypothesis; but they cannot. For there could not have +been surface-drainage to make them all, or a tenth of them. There +are no other possible hypotheses; and so he must fall back on the +original theory--the rain, the springs, the brook; they have done it +all, even as they are doing it this day. + +But is not that still a hasty assumption? May not their denuding +power have been far greater in old times than now? + +Why should it? Because there was more rain then than now? That he +must put out of court; there is no evidence of it whatsoever. + +Because the land was more friable originally? Well, there is a +great deal to be said for that. The experience of every countryman +tells him that bare or fallow land is more easily washed away than +land under vegetation. And no doubt, when these gravels and sands +rose from the sea, they were barren for hundreds of years. He has +some measure of the time required, because he can tell roughly how +long it takes for sands and shingles left by the sea to become +covered with vegetation. But he must allow that the friability of +the land must have been originally much greater than now, for +hundreds of years. + +But again, does that fact really cut off any great space of time +from his hundreds of thousands of years? For when the land first +rose from the sea, that glen was not there. Some slight bay or bend +in the shore determined its site. That stream was not there. It +was split up into a million little springs, oozing side by side from +the shore, and having each a very minute denuding power, which kept +continually increasing by combination as the glen ate its way +inwards, and the rainfall drained by all these little springs was +collected into the one central stream. So that when the ground +being bare was most liable to be denuded, the water was least able +to do it; and as the denuding power of the water increased, the +land, being covered with vegetation, became more and more able to +resist it. All this he has seen, going on at the present day in the +similar gullies worn in the soft strata of the South Hampshire +coast; especially round Bournemouth. + +So the two disturbing elements in the calculation may be fairly set +off against each other, as making a difference of only a few +thousands or tens of thousands of years either way; and the age of +the glen may fairly be, if not a million years, yet such a length of +years as mankind still speak of with bated breath, as if forsooth it +would do them some harm. + +I trust that every scientific man in this room will agree with me, +that the imaginary squire or ploughman would have been conducting +his investigation strictly according to the laws of the Baconian +philosophy. You will remark, meanwhile, that he has not used a +single scientific term, or referred to a single scientific +investigation; and has observed nothing and thought nothing, which +might not have been observed and thought by any one who chose to use +his common sense, and not to be afraid. + +But because he has come round, after all this further investigation, +to something very like his first conclusion, was all that further +investigation useless? No--a thousand times, no. It is this very +verification of hypotheses which makes the sound ones safe, and +destroys the unsound. It is this struggle with all sorts of +superstitions which makes science strong and sure, and her march +irresistible, winning ground slowly, but never receding from it. It +is this buffeting of adversity which compels her not to rest +dangerously upon the shallow sand of first guesses, and single +observations; but to strike her roots down, deep, wide, and +interlaced, into the solid ground of actual facts. + +It is very necessary to insist on this point. For there have been +men in all past ages--I do not say whether there are any such now, +but I am inclined to think that there will be hereafter--men who +have tried to represent scientific method as something difficult, +mysterious, peculiar, unique, not to be attained by the unscientific +mass; and this not for the purpose of exalting science, but rather +of discrediting her. For as long as the masses, educated or +uneducated, are ignorant of what scientific method is, they will +look on scientific men, as the middle age looked on necromancers, as +a privileged, but awful and uncanny caste, possessed of mighty +secrets; who may do them great good, but may also do them great +harm. Which belief on the part of the masses will enable these +persons to instal themselves as the critics of science, though not +scientific men themselves: and--as Shakespeare has it--to talk of +Robin Hood, though they never shot in his bow. Thus they become +mediators to the masses between the scientific and the unscientific +worlds. They tell them--You are not to trust the conclusions of men +of science at first hand. You are not fit judges of their facts or +of their methods. It is we who will, by a cautious eclecticism, +choose out for you such of their conclusions as are safe for you; +and them we will advise you to believe. To the scientific man, on +the other hand, as often as anything is discovered unpleasing to +them, they will say, imperiously and e cathedra--Your new theory +contradicts the established facts of science. For they will know +well that whatever the men of science think of their assertion, the +masses will believe it; totally unaware that the speakers are by +their very terms showing their ignorance of science; and that what +they call established facts scientific men call merely provisional +conclusions, which they would throw away to-morrow without a pang +were the known facts explained better by a fresh theory, or did +fresh facts require one. + +This has happened too often. It is in the interest of superstition +that it should happen again; and the best way to prevent it surely +is to tell the masses--Scientific method is no peculiar mystery, +requiring a peculiar initiation. It is simply common sense, +combined with uncommon courage, which includes uncommon honesty and +uncommon patience; and if you will be brave, honest, patient, and +rational, you will need no mystagogues to tell you what in science +to believe and what not to believe; for you will be just as good +judges of scientific facts and theories as those who assume the +right of guiding your convictions. You are men and women: and more +than that you need not be. + +And let me say that the man of our days whose writings exemplify +most thoroughly what I am going to say is the justly revered Mr. +Thomas Carlyle. + +As far as I know he has never written on any scientific subject. +For aught I am aware of, he may know nothing of mathematics or +chemistry, of comparative anatomy or geology. For aught I am aware +of, he may know a great deal about them all, and, like a wise man, +hold his tongue, and give the world merely the results in the form +of general thought. But this I know: that his writings are +instinct with the very spirit of science; that he has taught men, +more than any living man, the meaning and end of science; that he +has taught men moral and intellectual courage; to face facts boldly, +while they confess the divineness of facts; not to be afraid of +Nature, and not to worship Nature; to believe that man can know +truth; and that only in as far as he knows truth can he live +worthily on this earth. And thus he has vindicated, as no other man +in our days has done, at once the dignity of Nature and the dignity +of spirit. That he would have made a distinguished scientific man, +we may be as certain from his writings as we may be certain, when we +see a fine old horse of a certain stamp, that he would have made a +first-class hunter, though he has been unfortunately all his life in +harness. Therefore, did I try to train a young man of science to be +true, devout, and earnest, accurate and daring, I should say--Read +what you will: but at least read Carlyle. It is a small matter to +me--and I doubt not to him--whether you will agree with his special +conclusions: but his premises and his method are irrefragable; for +they stand on the "voluntatem Dei in rebus revelatam"--on fact and +common sense. + +And Mr. Carlyle's writings, if I am correct in my estimate of them, +will afford a very sufficient answer to those who think that the +scientific habit of mind tends to irreverence. + +Doubtless this accusation will always be brought against science by +those who confound reverence with fear. For from blind fear of the +unknown, science does certainly deliver man. She does by man as he +does by an unbroken colt. The colt sees by the road side some quite +new object--a cast-away boot, an old kettle, or what not. What a +fearful monster! What unknown terrific powers may it not possess! +And the colt shies across the road, runs up the bank, rears on end; +putting itself thereby, as many a man does, in real danger. What +cure is there? But one: experience. So science takes us, as we +should take the colt, gently by the halter; and makes us simply +smell at the new monster; till after a few trembling sniffs, we +discover, like the colt, that it is not a monster, but a kettle. +Yet I think, if we sum up the loss and gain, we shall find the +colt's character has gained, rather than lost, by being thus +disabused. He learns to substitute a very rational reverence for +the man who is breaking him in, for a totally irrational reverence +for the kettle; and becomes thereby a much wiser and more useful +member of society, as does the man when disabused of his +superstitions. + +From which follows one result. That if science proposes--as she +does--to make men brave, wise, and independent, she must needs +excite unpleasant feelings in all who desire to keep men cowardly, +ignorant, and slavish. And that too many such persons have existed +in all ages is but too notorious. There have been from all time, +goetai, quacks, powwow men, rain-makers, and necromancers of various +sorts, who having for their own purposes set forth partial, ill- +grounded, fantastic, and frightful interpretations of nature, have +no love for those who search after a true, exact, brave, and hopeful +one. And therefore it is to be feared, or hoped, that science and +superstition will to the world's end remain irreconcilable and +internecine foes. + +Conceive the feelings of an old Lapland witch, who has had for the +last fifty years all the winds in a sealskin bag, and has been +selling fair breezes to northern skippers at so much a puff, +asserting her powers so often, poor old soul, that she has got to +half believe them herself--conceive, I say, her feelings at seeing +her customers watch the Admiralty storm-signals, and con the weather +reports in The Times. Conceive the feelings of Sir Samuel Baker's +African friend, Katchiba, the rain-making chief, who possessed a +whole houseful of thunder and lightning--though he did not, he +confessed, keep it in a bottle as they do in England--if Sir Samuel +had had the means, and the will, of giving to Katchiba's Negros a +course of lectures on electricity, with appropriate experiments, and +a real bottle full of real lightning among the foremost. + +It is clear that only two methods of self-defence would have been +open to the rain-maker: namely, either to kill Sir Samuel, or to +buy his real secret of bottling the lightning, that he might use it +for his own ends. The former method--that of killing the man of +science--was found more easy in ancient times; the latter in these +modern ones. And there have been always those who, too good-natured +to kill the scientific man, have patronised knowledge, not for its +own sake, but for the use which may be made of it; who would like to +keep a tame man of science, as they would a tame poet, or a tame +parrot; who say--Let us have science by all means, but not too much +of it. It is a dangerous thing; to be doled out to the world, like +medicine, in small and cautious doses. You, the scientific man, +will of course freely discover what you choose. Only do not talk +too loudly about it: leave that to us. We understand the world, +and are meant to guide and govern it. So discover freely: and +meanwhile hand over your discoveries to us, that we may instruct and +edify the populace with so much of them as we think safe, while we +keep our position thereby, and in many cases make much money by your +science. Do that, and we will patronise you, applaud you, ask you +to our houses; and you shall be clothed in purple and fine linen, +and fare sumptuously with us every day. I know not whether these +latter are not the worst enemies which science has. They are often +such excellent, respectable, orderly, well-meaning persons. They +desire so sincerely that everyone should be wise: only not too +wise. They are so utterly unaware of the mischief they are doing. +They would recoil with horror if they were told they were so many +Iscariots, betraying Truth with a kiss. + +But science, as yet, has withstood both terrors and blandishments. +In old times she endured being imprisoned and slain. She came to +life again. Perhaps it was the will of Him in whom all things live, +that she should live. Perhaps it was His spirit which gave her +life. + +She can endure, too, being starved. Her votaries have not as yet +cared much for purple and fine linen, and sumptuous fare. There are +a very few among them who, joining brilliant talents to solid +learning, have risen to deserved popularity, to titles, and to +wealth. But even their labours, it seems to me, are never rewarded +in any proportion to the time and the intellect spent on them, nor +to the benefits which they bring to mankind; while the great +majority, unpaid and unknown, toil on, and have to find in science +her own reward. Better, perhaps, that it should be so. Better for +science that she should be free, in holy poverty, to go where she +will and say what she knows, than that she should be hired out at so +much a year to say things pleasing to the many, and to those who +guide the many. And so, I verily believe, the majority of +scientific men think. There are those among them who have obeyed +very faithfully St. Paul's precept: "No man that warreth entangleth +himself with the affairs of this life." For they have discovered +that they are engaged in a war--a veritable war--against the rulers +of darkness, against ignorance and its twin children, fear and +cruelty. Of that war they see neither the end nor even the plan. +But they are ready to go on; ready, with Socrates, "to follow reason +whithersoever it leads;" and content, meanwhile, like good soldiers +in a campaign, if they can keep tolerably in a line, and use their +weapons, and see a few yards ahead of them through the smoke and the +woods. They will come out somewhere at last; they know not where +nor when: but they will come out at last, into the daylight and the +open field; and be told then--perhaps to their own astonishment--as +many a gallant soldier has been told, that by simply walking +straight on, and doing the duty which lay nearest them, they have +helped to win a great battle, and slay great giants, earning the +thanks of their country and of mankind. + +And, meanwhile, if they get their shilling a-day of fighting-pay, +they are content. I had almost said, they ought to be content. For +science is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great +reward. I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of +the man to whom, panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his +life under the tropic forest, Isis shall for a moment lift her +sacred veil, and show him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed +not of; some law, or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact; +but explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them all with +each other and with the mighty whole, till order and meaning shoots +through some old Chaos of scattered observations. + +Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give, nor poverty +take away? What it may lead to, he knows not. Of what use it may +become, he knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere it must +lead; of some use it will be. For it is a truth; and having found a +truth, he has exorcised one more of the ghosts which haunt humanity. +He has left one object less for man to fear; one object more for man +to use. Yes, the scientific man may have this comfort, that +whatever he has done, he has done good; that he is following a +mistress who has never yet conferred aught but benefits on the human +race. + +What physical science may do hereafter I know not; but as yet she +has done this: + +She has enormously increased the wealth of the human race; and has +therefore given employment, food, existence, to millions who, +without science, would either have starved or have never been born. +She has shown that the dictum of the early political economists, +that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of +subsistence, is no law of humanity, but merely a tendency of the +barbaric and ignorant man, which can be counteracted by increasing +manifold by scientific means his powers of producing food. She has +taught men, during the last few years, to foresee and elude the most +destructive storms; and there is no reason for doubting, and many +reasons for hoping, that she will gradually teach men to elude other +terrific forces of nature, too powerful and too seemingly capricious +for them to conquer. She has discovered innumerable remedies and +alleviations for pains and disease. She has thrown such light on +the causes of epidemics, that we are able to say now that the +presence of cholera--and probably of all zymotic diseases--in any +place, is usually a sin and a shame, for which the owners and +authorities of that place ought to be punishable by law, as +destroyers of their fellow-men; while for the weak, for those who, +in the barbarous and semi-barbarous state--and out of that last we +are only just emerging--how much has she done; an earnest of much +more which she will do? She has delivered the insane--I may say by +the scientific insight of one man, more worthy of titles and +pensions than nine-tenths of those who earn them--I mean the great +and good Pinel--from hopeless misery and torture into comparative +peace and comfort, and at least the possibility of cure. For +children, she has done much, or rather might do, would parents read +and perpend such books as Andrew Combe's and those of other writers +on physical education. We should not then see the children, even of +the rich, done to death piecemeal by improper food, improper +clothes, neglect of ventilation and the commonest measures for +preserving health. We should not see their intellects stunted by +Procrustean attempts to teach them all the same accomplishments, to +the neglect, most often, of any sound practical training of their +faculties. We should not see slight indigestion, or temporary +rushes of blood to the head, condemned and punished as sins against +Him who took up little children in His arms and blessed them. + +But we may have hope. When we compare education now with what it +was even forty years ago, much more with the stupid brutality of the +monastic system, we may hail for children, as well as for grown +people, the advent of the reign of common sense. + +And for woman--What might I not say on that point? But most of it +would be fitly discussed only among physicians and biologists: here +I will say only this: Science has exterminated, at least among +civilised nations, witch-manias. Women--at least white women--are +no longer tortured or burnt alive from man's blind fear of the +unknown. If science had done no more than that, she would deserve +the perpetual thanks and the perpetual trust, not only of the women +whom she has preserved from agony, but the men whom she has +preserved from crime. + +These benefits have already accrued to civilised men, because they +have lately allowed a very few of their number peaceably to imitate +Mr. Rarey, and find out what nature--or rather, to speak at once +reverently and accurately, He who made nature--is thinking of, and +obey the "voluntatem Dei in rebus revelatam." This science has +done, while yet in her infancy. What she will do in her maturity, +who dare predict? At least, in the face of such facts as these, +those who bid us fear, or restrain, or mutilate science, bid us +commit an act of folly, as well as of ingratitude, which can only +harm ourselves. For science has as yet done nothing but good. Will +any one tell me what harm it has ever done? When any one will show +me a single result of science, of the knowledge of and use of +physical facts, which has not tended directly to the benefit of +mankind, moral and spiritual, as well as physical and economic--then +I shall be tempted to believe that Solomon was wrong when he said +that the one thing to be sought after on earth, more precious than +all treasure, she who has length of days in her right hand, and in +her left hand riches and honour, whose ways are ways of pleasantness +and all her paths are peace, who is a tree of life to all who lay +hold on her, and makes happy every one who retains her, is--as you +will see if you will yourselves consult the passage--that very +Wisdom--by which God has founded the earth; and that very +Understanding--by which He has established the heavens. + + + +THOUGHTS IN A GRAVEL-PIT {262} + + + +Ladies and gentlemen, we may of course think of anything which we +choose in a gravel-pit, as we may anywhere else. Thought is free: +at least so we fancy. + +But the most right sort of thought, after all, is thought about what +lies nearest us; not always, but surely once in a way, that we may +understand something of everyday objects. And therefore it may be +well worth our while to go once into a gravel-pit, and think about +it, till we have learnt what a gravel-pit is. + +Learnt what a gravel-pit is? Everybody knows. + +If it be so, everybody knows more than I know. We all know a +gravel-pit when we see one; but we do not all know what we see. I +do not know. I know a little; a few scraps of fact about these pits +round here, though about no others. Were I to go into a pit a +hundred miles, even fifty miles off, I could tell you nothing +certain about it; perhaps might make a dozen mistakes. But what I +know, with tolerable certainty, about the pits round here, I wish to +tell you to-night. + +But why? You do not need, one in ten of you, to know anything about +gravel, unless you be highway surveyor, or have a garden-walk to +make; and then someone will easily tell you where the best gravel is +to be got, at so much a load. + +Very true; but you come here to-night to instruct yourselves; that +is, to learn, if you can, something more about the world you live +in; something more about God who made the world. + +And you come here to educate yourselves; to educe and bring out your +own powers of perceiving, judging, reasoning; to improve yourselves +in the art of all arts, which is, the art of learning. That is +mental education. + +Now if a gravel-pit will teach you a little about these things, you +will surely call it a rich gravel-pit. If it helps you to wisdom, +which is worth more than gold; which is the only way to get gold +wisely, and spend it wisely; then we will call our pit no more a +gravel-pit, but a wisdom-pit, a mine of wisdom. + +Let us go out, then, in fancy (for it is too cold to go out in +person) to Hook Common, scramble down into the first gravel-pit we +come to, and see what we can see. + +The first thing we see is a quantity of stones, more or less +rounded, lying in gravel and poor clay. + +Well--what do those stones tell us? + +These stones, as I told you when I addressed you last, are ancient +and venerable worthies. They have seen a great deal in their time. +They have had a great deal of knocking about, and have stood it +manfully. They have stood the knocking about of three worlds +already; and have done their duty therein; and they are ready (if +you choose to mend the road with them) to stand the knocking about +of this fourth world, and being most excellent gravel, to do their +duty in this world likewise; which is more, I fear, than either you +or I can say for ourselves. + +Three worlds? + +Yes. Standing there in the gravel-pit, I see three old worlds, in +each of which these stones played their part; and this world of man +for the fourth, and the best of all--for man if not for the stones. +I speak sober truth. Let me explain it step by step. + +You know the chalk-hills to the south; and the sands of Crooksbury +and the Hind Head beyond them. There is one world. + +You know the clays and sands of Hook and Newnham, Dogmersfield and +Shapley Heath, and all the country to the north as far as Reading. +There is a second world. + +You know the gravel-pit itself; and all the upper soils and gravels, +which are spread over the length and breadth of the country to the +north. There is a third world. + +Let us take them one by one. + +First, the chalk. + +The chalk-hills rise much higher than the surrounding country; but +you must not therefore suppose that they were made after it, and +laid on the top of it. That guess would be true, if you went south- +east from here toward the Hind Head. The chalk lies on the top of +the sands of Crooksbury Hill, and the clays of Holt Forest; but it +dips underneath the sands of Shapley Heath, and the clays of +Dogmersfield, and reappears from underneath them again at Reading. + +Thus you at Odiham stand on the edge of a chalk basin; of what was +once a sea, or estuary, with shores of chalk, which begins at the +foot of the High Clere Hills, and runs eastward, widening as it +goes, past London, into the Eastern Sea. Everywhere under this +great basin is the floor of chalk, covered with clays and sands, +which, for certain reasons, are called by geologists Tertiary +strata. + +But what has this to do with a gravel-pit? + +This first. That all the flints in this pit have come out of the +chalk. They are coloured, most of them, with iron, which has turned +them brown; but they are exactly the same flints as those gray ones +in the chalk-pit on the other side of the town. + +How do I know that? + +I think our own eyes will prove it: they are the same shapes, and +of the same substance; but as a still surer proof, we find exactly +the same fossils in them; sponges, choanites (which were something +like our modern sea-anemones), corals, and "shepherds' crowns" as +the boys call the fossil sea-urchins. The species of all these, and +of other fossils, in the chalk-pit and in the gravel-pit, are +absolutely identical. The natural conclusion is, then, that the +gravel has been formed from the washings of the chalk. The white +lime of the chalk has been carried away in water by some flood or +floods; the heavier flints have been left behind. + +Stop now one moment, and think. You all know how very few flints +there are in the chalk-pit, in proportion to the mass of chalk. You +all know what vast gravel-beds cover the country to the north, and +often to the thickness of many feet. Try and conceive, then, what a +much more vast mass of chalk must have been washed away, to leave +that vast mass of gravel behind it.--Conceive? It is past +conception. I will but give you two hints as to its probable size. + +The chalk to the eastward, between here and Farnham, is a far +narrower and shallower band than anywhere else in England. Its +narrowest point is, I believe, beneath the bishop's palace at +Farnham, where it may be a hundred feet thick, instead of several +hundred, as it usually is in other parts of England. The cause of +this is, that the whole of the upper chalk has been washed away, to +form the gravel-beds to the north and east of us. + +Again. Some of you may have been on the Hind Head or on Leith Hill, +and have looked southward over the glorious prospect of the rich +Weald, spread out five hundred feet below--a sight to make an +Englishman proud of his native land. Now, the mass of chalk which +has been carried away began behind you, at the Hogsback, and the +line of chalk-hills which runs to Boxhill, and stretched hundreds of +feet above your head as you stand on Hind Head or Leith Hill, right +over the old Weald of Sussex to the chalk of the South Downs. And +out of the scourings of that vast mass of chalk was our gravel-pit +made. + +Of that, and also of the Hind Head sands below it. + +For you will find a great deal of sharp sand in our gravel-pits, +which has not, I believe, come from the grinding of chalk flints; +for if it had been ground, it would not be the sharp sand it is; the +particles would be rounded off at the edges. This is probably sand +from the Hind Head; from what geologists term the greensands, below +the chalk. + +And I have a better proof of this--at least I should have in every +gravel-pit at Eversley--in a few pieces of a stone which is not +chalk-flint at all; flattish and oblong, not more than two or three +inches in diameter; of a grayish colour, and a porous worm-eaten +surface, which no chalk-flint ever has. They are chert, which +abound in the greensand formation; and insignificant as they look, +are a great token of a most important fact; that the currents which +formed our sands and gravels set from the south during a long series +of ages, first till they had washed away all the chalk off the +Weald, and next till they had washed away a great part of the sands, +which then became exposed, the remains whereof form great commons +over a wide tract of Surrey. + +Now let me pause, and ask you to observe one thing. How, in +inductive science, we arrive, by patient and simple observation of +the things around us, at the most grand and surprising results. Of +course I am not giving you the whole of the facts which have made +this argument certain. I am only giving you enough to make it +probable to you. Its certainty has been proved by many different +men, labouring in many different parts of England, and of the +Continent also, and then comparing their discoveries together; +often, of course, making mistakes; but each working on patiently, +and correcting their early mistakes by fresh facts, till they have +at last got hold of the true key to the mystery, and are as certain +of the existence of the great island of the Weald, and its gradual +destruction by the waves and currents of an ancient sea, as if they +had seen it with their bodily eyes. You must take all this, of +course, as truth from me to-night; but you may go and examine for +yourselves; and see how far your own common sense and observations +agree with those of learned geologists. + +The history of this great Wealden island to the south-east of us is +obscure enough; but a few general facts, which bear upon our gravel- +pit, I can give you. + +I must begin, however, ages before the Wealden island existed; when +the chalk of which its mass was composed was at the bottom of a deep +ocean. + +We know now what chalk is, and how it was made. We know that it was +deposited as white lime mud, at a vast sea-depth, seemingly +undisturbed by winds or currents. We know that not only the flint, +but the chalk itself, is made up of shells; the shell of little +microscopic animalcules smaller than a needle's point, in millions +of millions, some whole, some broken, some in powder, which lived, +and died, and decayed for ages in the great chalk sea. + +We know this, I say. We had suspected it long ago, and become more +and more certain of it as the years went on. But now we seem to +have a proof of it which is past gainsaying. + +In the late survey of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, with a view +to laying down the electric telegraph between England and America, +by Lieutenant Maury of the American navy, a great discovery was +made. It was found that the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, after you +have left the land a few hundred miles, is one vast plain of mud, of +some thirteen hundred miles in breadth. But here is the wonder; it +was found that at a depth, averaging 1,600 fathoms--9,600 feet--in +utter darkness, the sea floor is covered with countless millions of +animalcule-shells, of the same families, though not of the same +species, as those which compose the chalk. + +At the bottom of a still ocean, then, the chalk was deposited. But +it took many an age to raise it to where Odiham chalk-pit now +stands. + +But how was it raised? + +By the upheaving force of earthquakes. Or rather, by the upheaving +force which causes earthquakes, when it acts in a single shock, +cracking the earth's crust by an explosion; but which acts, too, +slowly and quietly, uplifting day by day, and year by year, some +portions of the earth's surface, and letting others sink down; as in +the case of the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, which is now +1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. + +That these upheaving forces were much more violent than now, in the +earlier epochs of our planet, we have some reason to believe: but +the subject is too long a one to enter on now; and all I can say is, +that you must conceive for yourself the chalk gradually brought up +to the surface, worn away along a shifting shoreline by the waves of +the sea, and covered in shallow water by the clays and sands on +which Odiham stands; and which compose the earliest part of our +second world. + +A second world; a new world. We can use no weaker expression. When +we compare the chalk with the strata which lie upon it, we can only +call them a complete new creation. + +For not only were they deposited in shallow water; a great deal of +them, probably, near river-mouths, and by the force of violent +currents, as the irregularity of their lower bed proves: but there +is hardly a plant or animal found in the chalk itself, which is +found in the gravels, sands, or clays above it. The shells are all +new species; unseen before in this planet. The vegetables, as far +as we know them, are all different from anything found in the chalk, +or in the beds below it. God Almighty, for His own good pleasure, +has made all things new. It is a very awful fact; but it is a very +certain one. Several times, in the history of our planet, has the +Lord God fulfilled the words of the Psalmist: + +"Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return again to their +dust. + +"Thou sendest forth thy breath, they are made: and thou renewest +the face of the earth." + +But in no instance, perhaps, is the gulf so vast; is the leap from +one world to another so sheer, as that between the chalk and the +London clay above it. + +But how do I know that there was a shore-line here? And how do I +know that the chalk was covered with sand-beds? + +I know that there was a shore-line here, from this fact. If you +will look at the surface of the chalk, where the sands and clays lie +on it, you will find that it is not smooth; that the beds do not +rest conformably on each other, as if they had been laid down +quietly by successive tides, while the chalk below was still soft +mud. So far from it, the chalk must have become hard rock, and have +been exposed to the action of the sea waves, for centuries, perhaps, +before the sands began to cover it. For you find the surface of the +chalk furrowed, worn into deep pits, which are often filled with +sand, and gravel, and rounded lumps of chalk. You may see this for +yourselves, in the topmost layer of any chalk-pit round here. You +may see, even, in some places, the holes which boring shells, such +as work now close to the tide-level, have made in it; all the signs, +in fact, of the chalk having been a rocky sea-beach for ages. + +The first bed which you will generally find upon the water-worn +surface of the chalk is a layer of green-sand and green-coated +flints. Among these are met with in many places beds of a great +oyster, now unknown in life. I cannot say whether there are any +here; but at Reading, to the east of Farnham, at Croydon, and under +London, they are abundant. There must have been miles and miles of +oyster-bed at the bottom of that Eocene sea; among the oyster-beds, +beds of a peculiar pebble, which we shall see in our gravel-pit. + +They are flints; but very small, dark, often almost black, and quite +round and polished. Compare them with the average flints of the +pit, and you see that while the average flints are fresh from the +chalk, these have plainly been rolled and rounded for years. They +are (except in their dark colour) exactly such shingle as forms the +south-coast beach about Hastings and Brighton. They are the shingle +beaches of the Eocene sea, part of which are preserved under the +London clay. To the north a vast bed of them remains in its +original place, on Blackheath near London; while part, in the +district to the south, which the London clay has not covered, have +been washed away, and carried into our gravel-pit, to mingle with +other flints fresh from the chalk. + +I said just now that I had proof that a great tract of the chalk- +hills which are now bare, was once covered with sand and gravel. +Here, in the presence of these dark pebbles, is a proof. But I have +another, and a yet more curious one. + +For our gravel-pit, if it be, will possibly yield us another, and a +more curious object. You most of you have seen, I dare say, large +stones, several feet long, taken out of these pits. In the gravels +and sands at Pirbright they are so plentiful that they are quarried +for building-stone. And good building-stone they make; being +exceedingly hard, so that no weather will wear them away. They are +what is called saccharine (that is, sugary) sandstone. If you chip +off a bit, you find it exactly like fine whity-brown sugar, only +intensely hard. Now these stones have become very famous; for two +reasons. First, the old Druids used them to build their temples. +Second, it is a most puzzling question where they came from. + +First. They were used to build Druid temples. + +If you go to the further lodge of Dogmersfield Park, which opens +close to the Barley-mow Inn, you will see there several of them, +about five feet high each, set up on end. They run in a line +through the plantation past the lodge, along the park palings; one +or two are in an adjoining field. They are the remains of a double +line; an avenue of stones, which has formed part of an ancient +British temple. + +I know no more than that: of that I am certain. + +But if you go to the Chalk Downs of Wiltshire, you see these temples +in their true grandeur. You have all heard of Stonehenge on +Salisbury Plain. Some of you may have heard of the great Druid +temple at Abury in Wilts, which, were it not all but destroyed, +would be even grander than Stonehenge. These are made of this same +sugar-sandstone. + +But where did the sandstone come from? You may say, it "grew" of +itself in our sands and gravels; but it certainly did not "grow" on +the top of a bare chalk down. The Druids must have brought the +stones thither, then, from neighbouring gravel-pits. They brought +them, no doubt: but not from gravel-pits. The stones are found +loose on the downs on the top of the bare chalk, in places where +they plainly have not been put by man. + +For instance, near Marlborough is a long valley in the chalk, which, +for perhaps half a mile, is full of huge blocks of this sandstone, +lying about on the turf. The "gray wethers" the shepherds call +them. One look at them would show you that no man's hand had put +them there. They look like a river of stone, if I may so speak; as +if some mighty flood had rolled them along down the valley, and +there left them behind as it sunk. + +Now, whence did they come? + +Many answers have been given to that question. It was supposed by +many learned men that they had been brought from the sandstone +mountains of Wales, like the rolled pebbles of which I spoke just +now. But the answer to that was, that these great stones are not +rolled: they are all squarish, more or less; their edges are often +sharp and fresh, instead of being polished almost into balls, as +they would have been in rolling two hundred miles along a sea- +bottom, before such a tremendous current as would have been needed +to carry them. + +Then rose a very clever guess. They must have been carried by +icebergs, as much silt and stones (we know) has been carried, and +have dropped, like them, to the bottom, when the icebergs melted. + +There is great reason in that; but we have cause now to be certain +that they did not come from Wales. That they are not pieces of a +rock older than the chalk, but much younger; that they were very +probably formed close to where they now lie. + +Now--how do we know that? + +If you are not tired with all this close reasoning, I will tell +you.--If you are, say so: but as I said at first, I want to show +you what steady and sharp head-work this same geology requires, even +in the nearest gravel-pit. + +Well, then. I do not think our gravel-pit will tell us what we +want: but I know one which will. + +You have all heard of Lady Grenville's lovely place, Dropmore, +beyond Maidenhead; where the taste of that good and great man, the +late Lord Grenville, converted into a paradise of landscape- +gardening art a barren common, full of clay and gravel-pits. Lord +Grenville wanted stones for rockwork; in those pits he found some +blocks, of the same substance as those of Stonehenge or Pirbright. +And they contain the answer. The upper surface of most of them is +the usual clear sugar-sandstone: but the under surface of many has +round pebbles imbedded in it, looking just like plums in a pudding; +the smaller above and the larger below, as if they had sunk slowly +through the fluid sand, before the whole mass froze, as it were, +suddenly together. And these pebbles are nothing else than rolled +chalk flints. + +That settles the matter. The pebbles could not come from Wales; +there are no flints there. They could not have been made before the +chalk; for out of the chalk they came; and the only explanation +which is left to us, I believe, is, that over the tops of the chalk +downs; over our heads where we stand now, there once stretched +layers of sand and gravel, "Tertiary strata" as I have been calling +them to you; and among them layers of this same hard sandstone. + +When the floods came they must have swept away all these soft sands +and gravels (possibly to make the Bagshot sands, of which I shall +speak presently), and left the chalk downs bare; but while they had +strength to move the finer particles, they had not generally +strength to move these sandstone blocks, but let them drop through, +and remain upon the freshly-bared floor of chalk, as the only relics +of a tertiary land long since swept away; while some were carried +off, possibly by icebergs, as far as Pirbright, and dropped, as the +icebergs melted, both there, at Dogmersfield, and also, though few +and small, in Eversley and the neighbourhood. + +But how came these tertiary sandstones to be so very hard, while the +strata around them are so soft? + +Ladies and gentlemen, I know no more than you. Experience seems to +say that stone will not harden into that sugary crystalline state, +save under the influence of great heat: but I do not know how the +heat should have got to that layer in particular. Possibly there +may have been eruptions of steam, of boiling water holding silex +(flint) in solution--a very rare occurrence: but something similar +is still going on in the famous Geysers or boiling springs of +Iceland. However, I have no proof that this was the cause. I +suppose we shall find out some day how it happened; for we must +never despair of finding out anything which depends on facts. + +Part of the town of Odiham, and of North Warnborough, stands, I +believe, upon these lower beds, which are called by geologists the +Woolwich and Reading beds, and the Plastic clays, from the good +brick earth which is so often found among them. But as soon as you +get to Hook Common, and to Dogmersfield Park, you enter on a fresh +deposit; the great bed of the London clay. + +I give you a rough section, from a deep well at Dogmersfield House; +from which you may see how steeply the chalk dips down here under +the clay, so that Odiham stands, as it were, on the chalk beach of +the clay sea. + +In boring that well there were pierced: + +Forty feet of the upper sands (the Bagshot sands), of which I shall +speak presently. + +Three hundred and thirty feet of London clay. + +Then about forty feet of mottled clays and sands. + +Whether the chalk was then reached, I do not know. It must have +been close below. But these mottled clays and sands abound in water +(being indeed the layer which supplies the great breweries in +London, and those soda-water bottles on dumb-waiters which squirt in +Trafalgar Square); and (I suppose) the water being reached, the +boring ceased. + +Now, this great bed of London clay, even more than the sands below +it, deserves the title of a new creation. + +As a proof--some of you may recollect, when the South-Western +Railway was in making, seeing shells--some of them large and +handsome ones--Nautili, taken out of the London clay cutting near +Winchfield. + +Nautili similar to them (but not the same) are now only found in the +hottest parts of the Indian seas; and what is more, not one of those +shells is the same as the shells you find in the chalk. Throughout +this great bed of London clay, the shells, the remains of plants and +animals, are altogether a new creation. If you look carefully at +the London clay shells, you will be struck with their general +likeness to fresh East Indian shells; and rightly so. They do +approach our modern live shells in form, far more than any which +preceded them; and indeed, a few of the London clay shells exist +still in foreign seas; in the beds, again, above the clay, you will +meet with still more species which are yet alive; while in the +chalk, and below the chalk, you never meet, I believe, with a single +recent shell. It is for this reason that the London clay is said to +be Eocene, that is, the dawn of the new creation. + +The chalk, I told you, seems to have been deposited at the bottom of +a still and deep ocean. But the London clay, we shall find, was +deposited in a comparatively shallow sea, least in depth toward High +Clere on the west, and deepening towards London and the mouth of the +Thames. + +For not only is the clay deeper as you travel eastward, but--and +this is a matter to which geologists attach great importance--the +character of the shells differs in different parts of the clay. + +You must know that certain sorts of shells live in deep water, and +certain in shallow. You may prove this to yourselves, on a small +scale, whenever you go to the seaside. You will find that the shell +which crawl on the rocks about high-water mark are different from +those which you find at low-tide mark; and those again different +from the shells which are brought up by the oyster-dredgers from the +sea outside. Now, the lower part of the clay, near here, contains +shallow-water shells: but if you went forty miles to the eastward, +you would find in the corresponding lower beds of the clay, deep- +water shells, and far above them, shallow-water shells such as you +find here: a fact which shows plainly that this end of the clay sea +was shallowest, and therefore first filled up. + +But again--and this is a very curious fact--between the time of the +Plastic clays and sands, with their oyster-beds and black pebbles, +and that of the London clay, great changes had taken place. The +Plastic clay and sands were deposited during a period of earthquake, +of upheaval and subsidence of ancient lands; and therefore of +violent currents and flood waves, seemingly rushing down from, or +round the shores of that Wealden island to the south of us, on the +shore of which island Odiham once stood. We know this from the +great irregularity of the beds: while the absence of that +irregularity proves to us that the London clay was deposited in a +quiet sea. + +But more. A great change in the climate of this country had taken +place meanwhile; slowly perhaps: but still it had taken place. + +In the lowest clay above the chalk are found at Reading many leaves, +and buds, and seeds of trees, showing that there was dry land near; +and these trees, as far as the best botanists can guess, were trees +like those we have in England now. Not of the same species, of +course: but still trees belonging to a temperate climate, which had +its regular warm summer and cold winter. + +But before the London clay had been all deposited, this temperate +climate had changed to a tropical one; and the plants and animals of +the upper part of the London clay had begun to resemble rather those +of the mouths of the African slave-rivers. + +Extraordinary as this is, it is certainly true. + +We know that the country near the mouth of the Thames, and probably +the land round us here, was low rich soil, some half under water, +some overflowed by rivers; some by fresh or brackish pools. We know +all this; for we find the shells which belong to a shallow sea, +mixed with fresh-water ones. We know, too, that the climate of this +rich lowland was a tropical one. We know that the neighbourhood of +the Isle of Sheppey, at the mouth of the Thames, was covered with +rich tropic vegetation; with screw pines and acacias, canes and +gourds, tenanted by opossums, bats, and vultures: that huge snakes +twined themselves along the ground, tortoises dived in the pools, +and crocodiles basked on the muds, while the neighbouring seas +swarmed with sharks as huge and terrible as those of a West Indian +shore. + +It is all very wonderful, ladies and gentlemen: but be it is: and +all we can say is, with the Mussulman--"God is great." + +And then--when, none knows but God--there came a time in which some +convulsion of nature changed the course of the sea currents, and +probably destroyed a vast tract of land between England and France, +and probably also, that sunken island of Atlantis of which old Plato +dreamed--the vast tract which connected for ages Ireland, Cornwall, +Brittany, and Portugal. That convulsion covered up the rich clays +with those barren sands and gravels, which now rise in flat and +dreary steppes, on the Beacon Hill, Aldershot Moors, Hartford Bridge +Flat, Frimley ridges, and Windsor Forest. That rich old world was +all swept away, and instead of it desolation and barrenness, piling +up slowly on its ruins a desert of sand and shingle, rising inch by +inch out of a lifeless sea. There is something very awful to me in +the barrenness of those Bagshot sands, after the rich tropic life of +the London clay. Not a fossil is to be found in them for miles. +Save a few shells, I believe, near Pirbright, there is not a hint +that a living being inhabited that doleful sea. + +But do not suppose, gentlemen and ladies, that we have yet got our +gravel-pit made, or that the way-worn pebbles of which it is +composed are near the end of their weary journey. Poor old stones! +Driven out of their native chalk, rolled for ages on a sea-beach, +they have tried to get a few centuries' sleep in the Eocene sands on +the top of the chalk hills behind us, while the London clay was +being deposited peacefully in the tropic sea below; and behold, they +are swept out, once more, and hurled pell-mell upon the clay, two +hundred feet over our heads. + +Over our heads, remember. We have come now to a time when Hartford +Bridge Flats stretched away to the Beacon Hill, and many a mile to +the south-eastward--even down into Kent, and stretched also over +Winchfield and Dogmersfield hither. + +What broke them up? What furrowed out their steep side-valleys? +What formed the magnificent escarpment of the Beacon Hill, or the +lesser one of Finchamstead Ridges? What swept away all but a thin +cap of them on the upper part of Dogmersfield Park, another under +Winchfield House; another at Bearwood, and so forth? + +The convulsions of a third world; more fertile in animal life than +those which preceded it: but also, more terrible and rapid, if +possible, in its changes. + +Of this third world, the one which (so to speak) immediately +preceded our own, we know little yet. Its changes are so +complicated that geologists have as yet hardly arranged them. But +what we can see, I will sketch for you shortly. + +A great continent to the south--England, probably an island at the +beginning of the period, united to the continent by new beds--the +Mammoth ranging up to where we now stand. + +Then a period of upheaval. The German Ocean becomes dry land. The +Thames, a far larger river than now, runs far eastward to join the +Seine, and the Rhine, and other rivers, which altogether flow +northward, in one enormous stream, toward the open sea between +Scotland and Norway. + +And with this, a new creation of enormous quadrupeds, as yet +unknown. Countless herds of elephants pastured by the side of that +mighty river, where now the Norfolk fisherman dredges their teeth +and bones far out in open sea. The hippopotamus floundered in the +Severn, the rhinoceros ranged over the south-western counties; +enormous elk and oxen, of species now extinct, inhabited the vast +fir and larch forests which stretched from Norfolk to the farthest +part of Wales; hyenas and bears double the size of our modern ones, +and here and there the sabre-toothed tiger, now extinct, prowled out +of the caverns in the limestone hills, to seek their bulky prey. + +We see, too, a period--whether the same as this, or after it, I know +not yet--in which the mountains of Wales and Cumberland rose to the +limits of eternal frost, and Snowdon was indeed Snowdon, an alp down +whose valleys vast glaciers spread far and wide; while the reindeer +of Lapland, the marmot of the Alps, and the musk ox of Hudson's Bay, +fed upon alpine plants, a few of whose descendants still survive, as +tokens of the long past age of ice. And at every successive +upheaval of the western mountains the displaced waters of the ocean +swept over the lower lands, filling the valley of the Thames and of +the Wey with vast beds of drift gravel, containing among its chalk +flints, fragments of stone from every rock between here and Wales, +teeth of elephants, skulls of ox and musk ox; while icebergs, +breaking away from the glaciers of the Welsh Alps, sailed down over +the spot where we now are, dropping their imbedded stones and silt, +to confuse more utterly than before the records of a world rocking +and throbbing above the shocks of the nether fire. + +At last the convulsions get weak. The German Ocean becomes sea once +more; the north-western Alps sink again to a level far lower even +than their present one; only to rise again, but not so high as +before; sea-beaches and sea-shells fill many of our lower valleys; +whales by hundreds are stranded (as in the Farnham vale) where is +now dry land. Gradually the sunken land begins to rise again, and +falls perhaps again, and rises again after that, more and more +gently each time, till as it were the panting earth, worn out with +the fierce passions of her fiery youth, has sobbed herself to sleep +once more, and this new world of man is made. And among it, I know +not when, or by what diluvial wave out of hundreds which swept the +Pleistocene earth, was deposited our little gravel-pit, from which +we started on our journey through three worlds. + +When? + +Enough for us that He knows when, in whose hand are the times and +the seasons--God the Father of the spirits of all flesh. + +And now, ladies and gentlemen, take from hence a lesson. I have +brought you a long and a strange road. Starting from this seemingly +uninteresting pit, we have come upon the records of three older +worlds, and on hints of worlds far older yet. We have come to them +by no theories, no dreams of the fancy, but by plain honest +reasoning, from plain honest facts. That wonderful things had +happened, we could see: but why they had happened, we saw not. +When we began to ask the reason of this thing or of that, remember +how we had to stop, and laying our hands upon our mouths, only say +with the Mussulman: "God is great." We pick our steps, by lanthorn +light indeed, and slowly, but still surely and safely, along a dark +and difficult road: but just as we are beginning to pride ourselves +on having found our way so cleverly, we come to an edge of darkness; +and see before our feet a bottomless abyss, down which our feeble +lanthorn will not throw its light a yard. + +Such is true science. Is it a study to make men conceited and self- +sufficient? Believe it not. If a scientific man, or one who calls +himself so, be conceited, the conceit was there before the science; +part of his natural defects: and if it stays there long after he +has really given himself to the patient study of nature, then is he +one of those of whom Solomon has said: "Though you pound a fool in +a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his folly depart +from him." + +For what more fit to knock the conceit out of a student, than being +pounded by these same hard facts--which tell him just enough to let +him know--how little he knows? What more fit to make a man patient, +humble, reverent, than being stopped short, as every man of science +is, after each half-dozen steps, by some tremendous riddle which he +cannot explain--which he may have to wait years to get explained-- +which as far as he can see will never be explained at all? + +The poet says: "An undevout astronomer is mad," and he says truth. +It is only those who know a little of nature, who fancy that they +know much. I have heard a young man say, after hearing a few +popular chemical lectures, and seeing a few bottle and squirt +experiments: Oh, water--water is only oxygen and hydrogen!--as if +he knew all about it. While the true chemist would smile sadly +enough at the youth's hasty conceit, and say in his heart: "Well, +he is a lucky fellow. If he knows all about it, it is more than I +do. I don't know what oxygen IS, or hydrogen, either. I don't even +know whether there are any such things at all. I see certain +effects in my experiments which I must attribute to some cause, and +I call that cause oxygen, because I must call it something; and +other effects which I must attribute to another cause, and I call +that hydrogen. But as for oxygen, I don't know whether it really +exists. I think it very possible that it is only an effect of +something else--another form of a something, which seems to make +phosphorus, iodine, bromine, and certain other substances: and as +for hydrogen--I know as little about it. I don't know but what all +the metals, gold, silver, iron, tin, sodium, potassium, and so +forth, are not different forms of hydrogen, or of something else +which is the parent of hydrogen. In fact, I know but very little +about the matter; except this, that I do know very little; and that +the more I experiment, and the more I analyse, the more unexpected +puzzles and wonders I find, and the more I expect to find till my +dying day. True, I know a vast number of facts and laws, thank God; +and some very useful ones among them: but as to the ultimate and +first causes of those facts and laws, I know no more than the +shepherd-boy outside; and can say no more than he does, when he +reads in the Psalms at school: "I, and all around me, are fearfully +and wonderfully made; marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul +knoweth right well." + +And so, my friends, though I have seemed to talk to you of great +matters this night; of the making and the destruction of world after +world: yet what does all I have said come to? I have not got one +step beyond what the old Psalmist learnt amid the earthquakes and +volcanoes of the pastures and the forests of Palestine, three +thousand years ago. I have not added to his words; I have only +given you new facts to prove that he had exhausted the moral lesson +of the subject, when he said: + +These all wait upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in +due season. + +Thou givest, and they gather: thou openest thy hand, and they are +filled with good. + +Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their +breath; they die and return to their dust. + +Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest +the face of the earth. + +But--The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever. The Lord shall +rejoice in his works. Amen. + + + +HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY {290} + + + +Ladies and gentlemen, I speak to you to-night as to persons +assembled, somewhat, no doubt, for amusement, but still more for +instruction. Institutions such as this were originally founded for +the purpose of instruction; to supply to those who wish to educate +themselves some of the advantages of a regular course of scholastic +or scientific training, by means of classes and of lectures. + +I myself prize classes far higher than I do lectures. From my own +experience, a lecture is often a very dangerous method of teaching; +it is apt to engender in the mind of men ungrounded conceit and +sciolism, or the bad habit of knowing about subjects without really +knowing the subject itself. A young man hears an interesting +lecture, and carries away from it doubtless a great many new facts +and results: but he really must not go home fancying himself a much +wiser man; and why? Because he has only heard the lecturer's side +of the story. He has been forced to take the facts and the results +on trust. He has not examined the facts for himself. He has had no +share in the process by which the results were arrived at. In +short, he has not gone into the real scientia, that is, the +"knowing" of the matter. He has gained a certain quantity of +second-hand information: but he has gained nothing in mental +training, nothing in the great "art of learning," the art of finding +out things for himself, and of discerning truth from falsehood. Of +course, where the lecture is a scientific one, illustrated by +diagrams, this defect is not so extreme: but still the lecturer who +shows you experiments, is forced to choose those which shall be +startling and amusing, rather than important; he is seldom or never +able, unless he is a man of at once the deepest science and the most +extraordinary powers of amusing, to give you those experiments in +the proper order which will unfold the subject to you step by step; +and after all, an experiment is worth very little to you, unless you +perform it yourself, ask questions about it, or vary it a little to +solve difficulties which arise in your own mind. + +Now mind--I do not say all this to make you give up attending +lectures. Heaven forbid. They amuse, that is, they turn the mind +off from business; they relax it, and as it were bathe and refresh +it with new thoughts, after the day's drudgery or the day's +commonplaces; they fill it with pleasant and healthful images for +afterthought. Above all, they make one feel what a fair, wide, +wonderful world one lives in; how much there is to be known, and how +little one knows; and to the earnest man suggest future subjects of +study. I only ask you not to expect from lectures what they can +never give; but as to what they can give, I consider, I assure you, +the lecturer's vocation a most honourable one in the present day, +even if we look on him as on a mere advertiser of nature's wonders. +As such I appear here to-night; not to teach you natural history; +for that you can only teach yourselves: but to set before you the +subject and its value, and if possible, allure some of you to the +study of it. + +I have said that lectures do not supply mental training; that only +personal study can do that. The next question is, What study? And +that is a question which I do not answer in a hurry, when I say, The +study of natural history. It is not, certainly, a study which a +young man entering on the business of self-education would be likely +to take up. To him, naturally, man is the most important subject. +His first wish is to know the human world; to know what men are, +what they have thought, what they have done. And therefore, you +find that poetry, history, politics, and philosophy are the matters +which most attract the self-guided student. I do not blame him, but +he seems to me to be beginning at the middle, rather than at the +beginning. I fell into the same fault myself more than once, when I +was younger, and meddled in matters too high for me, instead of +refraining my soul, and keeping it low; so I can sympathise with +others who do so. But I can assure them that they will find such +lofty studies do them good only in proportion as they have first +learnt the art of learning. Unless they have learnt to face facts +manfully, to discriminate between them skilfully, to draw +conclusions from them rigidly; unless they have learnt in all things +to look, not for what they would like to be true, but for what is +true, because God has done it, and it cannot be undone--then they +will be in danger of taking up only the books which suit their own +prejudices--and every one has his prejudices--and using them, not to +correct their own notions, but to corroborate and pamper them; to +confirm themselves in their first narrow guesses, instead of +enlarging those guesses into certainty. The son of a Tory turn will +read Tory books, the son of a Radical turn Radical books; and the +green spectacles of party and prejudice will be deepened in hue as +he reads on, instead of being thrown away for the clear white glass +of truth, which will show him reason in all honest sides, and good +in all honest men. + +But, says the young man, I wish to be wide-minded and wide-hearted-- +I study for that very purpose. I will be fair, I will be patient, I +will hear all sides ere I judge. And I doubt not that he speaks +honestly. But (I quote with all reverence) though the spirit be +willing, the flesh is weak. Studies which have to do with man's +history, man's thoughts, man's feelings, are too exciting, too +personal, often, alas, too tragical, to allow us to read them calmly +at first. The men and women of whom we read are so like ourselves +(for the human heart is the same in every age), that we +unconsciously begin to love or hate them in the first five minutes, +and read history as we do a novel, hurrying on to see when the +supposed hero and heroine get safely married, and the supposed +villain safely hanged, at the end of the chapter, having forgotten +all the while, in our haste, to ascertain which is the hero and +which is the villain. Mary Queen of Scots was "beautiful and +unfortunate"--what heart would not bleed for a beautiful woman in +trouble? Why stop to ask whether she brought it on herself? She +was seventeen years in prison. Why stop to ascertain what sort of a +prison it was? And as for her guilt, the famous Casket Letters +were, of course, a vile forgery. Impossible that they could be +true. Hoot down the cold-hearted, and disagreeable, and troublesome +man of facts, who will persist in his stupid attempt to disenchant +you, and repeat--But the Casket Letters were not a forgery, and we +can prove it, if you will but listen to the facts. Her prison, as +we will show you (if you will be patient and listen to facts), +consisted in greater pomp and luxury than that of most noblemen, +with horses, hounds, books, music, liberty to hunt and amuse herself +in every way, even in intriguing with every court of Europe, as we +can show you again, if you will be patient and listen to facts. And +she herself was a very wicked and false woman, an adulteress and a +murderess (though fearfully ill-trained in early youth), who sowed +the wind, poor wretch, from girlhood to old age, and therefore +reaped the whirlwind, receiving the just reward of her deeds. +Catherine of Russia, meanwhile, instead of being beautiful and +unfortunate, was only handsome and successful. Brand her as a +disgrace to human nature. The morals and ways of the two were +pretty much on a par, with these exceptions in Catherine's favour-- +that she had strong passions, Mary none; that she lived in outer +darkness and practical heathendom, while Mary had the light shining +all round her, and refused it deliberately again and again. What +matter to the sentimentalist? Hiss the stupid hard-hearted man of +facts, by all means. What if he be right? He has no business to be +right; we will consider him wrong accordingly, of our own sovereign +will and pleasure. For after all, if we had the facts put before us +(says the conscience of many a hearer), we could not judge of them; +we read to be amused and instructed, not to study cases like so many +barristers. So is history read. And so, alas, is history written, +too often, for want of a steady and severe training which would +enable people to judge dispassionately of facts. In politics the +case is the same. In poetry, which appeals more directly to the +feelings, it must needs be still worse; as has been shown sadly +enough of late by the success of several poems, in which every +possible form of bad taste has only met with unbounded admiration +from the many who have not had their senses exercised to discern +between good and evil. + +Now what seems to me to be wanted for young minds, is a study in +which no personal likes or dislikes shall tempt them out of the path +of mental honesty; a study in which they shall be free to look at +facts exactly as they are, and draw their conclusions patiently and +dispassionately. And such a study I have found in that of natural +history. + +Do not fancy it, I beg you, an easy thing to judge fairly of facts; +even to discover the facts at all, when they are staring you in the +face; and to see what it is that you do see. Any lawyer will tell +you, that if you ask three honest men to bear testimony concerning +an event which happened but yesterday, none of them, if he be at all +an interested party, will give you exactly the same account of it: +not that he wishes to say what is untrue; but that different parts +of the whole matter having struck each man with different force, a +different picture has been left on each man's memory. I have been +utterly astounded of late, in investigating these strange stories of +table-turning and spirit-rapping, to find how even clear-headed and +well-instructed persons (as one had fancied them) become unable to +examine fairly into a thing, the moment the desire to believe has +entered the heart; and how no amount of mere cultivation, if the +scientific habit of mind be wanting, can prevent people from finding +(as in table-turning) miracles in the most simple mechanical +accidents; or from becoming (as in spirit-rapping) the dupes of the +most clumsy, palpable, and degrading impostures, even after they +have been exposed over and over again in print. Humiliating, +indeed, it is, in this so self-confident and boastful nineteenth +century, amid steam-engines, railroads, electric telegraphs, and all +the wonders of our inductive science, to find exploded superstitions +leaping back into life even more monstrous and irrational than in +past ages, and to see our modern Pharisees and Sadducees, like those +in Judea of old, seeking after a sign of an unseen world; and being +unable to find one either in the heaven above or in the earth +beneath, discovering it at last (I am almost ashamed to speak the +words) under the parlour-table. + +Against such extravagances, and against the loose sentimental tone +of mind which begets them, hardly anything would be a better +safeguard than the habitual study of nature. The chemist, the +geologist, the botanist, the zoologist, has to deal with facts which +will make him master of them, and of himself, only in proportion as +he obeys them. Many of you doubtless know Lord Bacon's famous +apothegm, Nature is only conquered by obeying her; and will +understand me when I say, that you cannot understand, much less use +for scientific purposes, the meanest pebble, unless you first obey +that pebble. Paradoxical; but true. + +See this pebble which I hold in my hand, picked up out of the street +as I came along; it shall be my only object to-night. There the +thing is; and is as it is, and in no other way; and such it will be, +and so it will behave and act, in spite of me, and all my fancies +about it, and notions of what it ought to have been like, and what +it ought to have done. It is a thought of God's; and strong by the +eternal laws of matter, which are the will of God. It has the whole +universe, sun, and stars, and all, backing it by God's appointment, +to keep it where it is and what it is; and till (as Lord Bacon has +it) I have discovered and obeyed the will of God revealed in that +pebble, it is to me a riddle more insoluble than the Sphinx's, a +fortress more impregnable than Sevastopol. I may crush it: but +destroying is not conquering: but I cannot even mend the road with +it prudently, until I have discovered whether Almighty God has made +it fit to mend roads with. I may have the genius of a Plato or of a +Shakespeare, but all my genius will not avail to penetrate that +pebble, or see anything in it but a little round dirty stone, until +I have treated the pebble with reverence, as a thing independent of +my likes and dislikes, fancies, and aspirations; and have asked it +humbly to tell me its story, taking counsel meanwhile of hundreds of +kindred pebbles, each as silent and reserved as this one; and +watched and listened patiently, through many mistakes and +misreadings, to what it has to say for itself, and what God has made +it to be. And then at last that little black rounded pebble, from +the street outside, may, and will surely, if I be patient and honest +enough, tell me a tale wilder and grander than any which I could +have dreamed for myself; will shame the meanness of my imagination, +by the awful magnificence of God's facts, and say to me: + +"Ages and AEons since, thousands on thousands of years before there +was a man to till the ground, I the little pebble was a living +sponge, in the milky depths of the great chalk ocean; and hundreds +of living atomies, each more fantastic than a ghost-painter's +dreams, swam round me, and grew on me, and multiplied, till I became +a tiny hive of wonders, each one of which would take you a life to +understand. And then, I cannot yet tell you how, and till I tell +you you will never know, the delicate flint-needles in my skin +gathered other particles of flint to them, and I and all my +inhabitants became a stone; and the chalk-mud settled round us, I +know not how, and covered us in; and for ages on ages I lay buried +in the nether dark, and felt the glow of the nether fires, and was +cracked and tossed by a hundred earthquakes. Again and again I have +been part of an island, and then again sunk beneath the sea, to be +upheaved again after long centuries, till I saw the light once more, +and dropped from the face of some chalk cliff far away among high +hills which have long since been swept off the face of the earth, +and was tossed by currents till I became a pebble on the beach, +while Reading was a sand-bank in a shallow sea. There I lay and +rolled till I was rounded, for many a century more; till flood after +flood past over me, and a new earth was made; and I was mixed up +with fresh flints from wasting chalk-hills, and with freestones from +the Gloucestershire wolds, and with quartz-boulders from the +mountains of Wales, while over me swept the carcases of drowned +elephants and bisons, and many a monstrous beast; and above me +floated uprooted palms, and tropic fruits and seeds, and the wrecks +of a dying world. And then there came another age-- + + +And it grew wondrous cold; +And ice mast-high came floating by, +As green as emerald; + + +and as the icebergs melted in the sun, the stones and the silt fell +out of them, and covered me up; and I was in darkness once more, +vexed by many an earthquake, till I became part of this brave +English land. And now I am a pebble here in Reading street, to be +ground beneath the wheels of busy men: and yet you cannot kill me, +or hinder my fulfilling the law which cannot be broken. This year I +am a pebble in the street; and next year I shall be dust upon the +fields above; and the year after that I shall be alive again, and +rise from the ground as fair green wheat-stems, bearing up food for +the use of man. And even after that you cannot kill me. The +trampled and sodden straw will rot only to enter into a new life; +and I shall pass through a fresh cycle of strange adventures, age +after age, till time shall be no more; doing my work in my +generation, and fulfilling to the last the will of God, as +faithfully as when I was the water-breathing sponge in the abysses +of the old chalk sea." All this and more, gentlemen and ladies, the +pebble could tell to you, and will: but he is old and venerable, +and like old men, he wishes to be approached with respect, and does +not like to be questioned too much or too rapidly; so that you must +not be offended if you meet with more than one rebuff from him; or +if he keeps stubborn silence, till he has seen that you are a modest +and attentive person, to whom it is worth while to open a little of +his forty or fifty thousand years' experience. + +Second only to the good effect of this study on the logical faculty, +seems to me to be its effect on the imagination. Not merely in such +objects as the pebble, whose history I have so hastily, but I must +add faithfully, sketched; but in the tiniest piece of mould on a +decayed fruit, the tiniest animalcule from the stagnant pool, will +imagination find inexhaustible wonders, and fancy a fairy-land. And +I beg my elder hearers not to look on this as light praise. +Imagination is a valuable thing; and even if it were not, it is a +thing, a real thing, a faculty which every one has, and with which +you must do something. You cannot ignore it; it will assert its own +existence. You will be wise not to neglect it in young children; +for if you do not provide wholesome food for it, it will find +unwholesome food for itself. I know that many, especially men of +business, are inclined to sneer at it, and ask what is the use of +it? The simple answer is, God has made it; and He has made nothing +in vain. But you will find that in practice, in action, in +business, imagination is a most useful faculty, and is so much +mental capital, whensoever it is properly trained. Consider but +this one thing, that without imagination no man can possibly invent +even the pettiest object; that it is one of the faculties which +essentially raises man above the brutes, by enabling him to create +for himself; that the first savage who ever made a hatchet must have +imagined that hatchet to himself ere he began it; that every new +article of commerce, every new opening for trade, must be arrived at +by acts of imagination; by the very same faculty which the poet or +the painter employs, only on a different class of objects; remember +that this faculty is present in some strength in every mind of any +power, in every mind which can do more than follow helplessly in the +beaten track, and do nothing but what it has seen others do already: +and then see whether it be not worth while to give the young a study +which above all others is fitted to keep this important and +universal faculty in health. Now, from fifty to five-and-twenty +years ago, under the influence of the Franklin and Edgeworth school +of education, imagination was at a discount. That school was a good +school enough: but here was one of its faults. It taught people to +look on imagination as quite a useless, dangerous, unpractical, bad +thing, a sort of mental disease. And now, as is usual after an +unfair depreciation of anything, has come a revolution; and an +equally unfair glorifying of the imagination; the present generation +have found out suddenly that the despised faculty is worth +something, and therefore are ready to believe it worth everything; +so that nowadays, to judge from the praise heaped on some poets, the +mere possession of imagination, however ill regulated, will atone +for every error of false taste, bad English, carelessness for truth; +and even for coarseness, blasphemy, and want of common morality; and +it is no longer charity, but fancy, which is to cover the multitude +of sins. + +The fact is, that youth will always be the period of imagination; +and the business of a good education will always be to prevent that +imagination from being thrown inward, and producing a mental fever, +diseasing itself and the whole character by feeding on its own +fancies, its own day dreams, its own morbid feelings, its likes and +dislikes; even if it do not take at last to viler food, to French +novels, and lawless thoughts, which are but too common, alas! though +we will not speak of them here. + +To turn the imagination not inwards, but outwards; to give it a +class of objects which may excite wonder, reverence, the love of +novelty and of discovering, without heating the brain or exciting +the passions--this is one of the great problems of education; and I +believe from experience that the study of natural history supplies +in great part what we want. The earnest naturalist is pretty sure +to have obtained that great need of all men, to get rid of self. He +who, after the hours of business, finds himself with a mind relaxed +and wearied, will not be tempted to sit at home dreaming over +impossible scenes of pleasure, or to go for amusement to haunts of +coarse excitement, if he have in every hedge-bank, and wood land, +and running stream, in every bird among the boughs, and every cloud +above his head, stores of interest which will enable him to forget +awhile himself, and man, and all the cares, even all the hopes of +life, and to be alone with the inexhaustible beauty and glory of +Nature, and of God who made her. An hour or two every day spent +after business-hours in botany, geology, entomology, at the +telescope or the microscope, is so much refreshment gained for the +mind for to-morrow's labour, so much rest for irritated or anxious +feelings, often so much saved from frivolity or sin. And how easy +this pursuit. How abundant the subjects of it! Look round you +here. Within the reach of every one of you are wonders beyond all +poets' dreams. Not a hedge-bank but has its hundred species of +plants, each different and each beautiful; and when you tire of +them--if you ever can tire--a trip into the meadows by the Thames, +with the rich vegetation of their dikes, floating flower-beds of +every hue, will bring you as it were into a new world, new forms, +new colours, new delight. You ask why this is? And you find +yourself at once involved in questions of soil and climate, which +lead you onward, step by step, into the deepest problems of geology +and chemistry. In entomology, too, if you have any taste for the +beauties of form and colour, any fondness for mechanical and +dynamical science, the insects, even to the smallest, will supply +endless food for such likings; while their instincts and their +transformations, as well as the equally wondrous chemical +transformation of salts and gases into living plants, which +agricultural chemistry teaches you, will tempt you to echo every day +Mephistopheles's magic song, when he draws wine out of the table in +Auersbach's cellar: + + +Wine is grapes, and grapes are wood-- +The wooden board yields wine as good: +It is but a deeper glance +Into Nature's countenance. +All is plain to him who seeth; +Lift the veil and look beneath, +And behold, the wise man saith, +Miracles, if you have faith. + + +Believe me you need not go so far to find more than you will ever +understand. An hour's summer walk, in the company of some one who +knows what to look for and how to look for it, by the side of one of +those stagnant dikes in the meadows below, would furnish you with +subjects for a month's investigation, in the form of plants, shells, +and animalcules, on each of which a whole volume might be written. +And even at this seemingly dead season of the year, fancy not that +nature is dead--not even that she sleeps awhile. Every leaf which +drops from the bough, to return again into its gases and its dust, +is working out chemical problems which have puzzled a Boyle and a +Lavoisier, and about which a Liebig and a Faraday will now tell you +that they have but some dim guess, and that they stand upon the +threshold of knowledge like (as Newton said of himself) children +gathering a few pebbles, upon the shore of an illimitable sea. In +every woodland, too, innumerable fungi are at work, raising from the +lower soil rich substances, which, strewed on the surface by quick +decay, will form food for plants higher than themselves; while they, +by their variety and beauty, both of form and colour, might well +form studies for any painter, and by the obscure laws of their +reproduction, studies for any philosopher. Why, there is not a heap +of dead leaves among which by picking it through carefully you might +not find some twenty species of delicate and elegant land-shells; +hardly a tree-foot at which, among the moss and mould, you might not +find the chrysalides of beautiful moths, where caterpillars have +crawled down the trunk in autumn, to lie there self-buried and die +to live again next spring in a new and fairer shape. And if you +cannot reach even there, go to the water-but in the nearest yard, +and there, in one pinch of green scum, in one spoonful of water, +behold a whole "Divina Commedia" of living forms, more fantastic a +thousand times than those with which Dante peopled his unseen world: +and then feel, as you should feel, abashed at the ignorance and +weakness of mortal man; abashed still more at that rash conceit of +his, which makes him fancy himself the measure of all things; and +say with me: "Oh Lord, thy works are manifold; thy ways are very +deep. In wisdom hast thou made them all, the earth is full of thy +riches. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest all things living with +plenteousness; they continue this day according to thine ordinance, +for all things serve thee. Thou hast made them fast for ever and +ever; thou hast given them a law which shall not be broken. Let +them praise the name of the Lord; for he spake the word and they +were made, he commanded, and they were created." + +This I shall say, but little more than this, on the religious effect +of the study of natural history. I do not wish to preach a sermon +to you. I can trust God's world to bear better witness than I can, +of the Loving Father who made it. I thank him from my own +experience for the testimony of His Creation, only next to the +testimony of His Bible. I have watched scientific discoveries which +were supposed in my boyhood to be contrary to revelation, found out +one by one to confirm and explain revelation, as crude and hasty +theories were corrected by more abundant facts, and men saw more +clearly what both the Bible and Nature really did say; and I can +trust that the same process will go on for ever, and that God's +earth and God's word will never contradict each other. I have found +the average of scientific men, not less, but more, godly and +righteous men than the average of their neighbours; and I can trust +that this will be more and more the case as science deepens and +widens. And therefore I can trust that every patient, truthful, and +healthful mind will, the more it contemplates the works of God, re- +echo St. Paul's great declaration that the Invisible things of God +are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood +by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. +And so trusting, I pass on to a lower view of the subject, and yet +not an unnecessary one. + +In an industrial country like this, the practical utility of any +study must needs be always thrown into the scale; and natural +history seems at first sight somewhat unpractical. What money will +it earn for a man in after life?--is a question which will be asked; +and which it is folly to despise. For if the only answer be: "None +at all," a man has a right to rejoin: "Then let me take up some +pursuit which will train and refresh my mind as much as this one, +and yet be of pecuniary benefit to me some day." If you can find +such a study, by all means follow it: but I say that this study too +may be of great practical benefit in after life. How much money +have I, young as I am, seen wasted for want of a little knowledge of +botany, geology, or chemistry. How many a clever man becomes the +dupe of empirics for want of a little science. How many a mine is +sought for where no mine could be; or crop attempted to be grown, +where no such crop could grow. How many a hidden treasure, on the +other hand, do men walk over unheeding. How many a new material, +how many an improved process in manufacture is possible, yet is +passed over, for want of a little science. And for the man who +emigrates, and comes in contact with rude nature teeming with +unsuspected wealth, of what incalculable advantage to have if it be +but the rudiments of those sciences, which will tell him the +properties, and therefore the value, of the plants, the animals, the +minerals, the climates with which he meets? True--home-learnt +natural history will not altogether teach him about these things, +because most of them must needs be new: but it will teach him to +compare and classify them as he finds them, and so by analogy with +things already known to him, to discover their intrinsic worth. + +For natural history stands to man's power over Nature, that is, to +his power of being useful to himself and to mankind, in the same +relation as do geography, grammar, arithmetic, geometry, political +economy; none of them, perhaps, bearing directly on his future +business in life; but all training his mind for his business, all +giving him the rudiments of laws which he will hereafter work out +and apply to his profession. And even at home, be sure that such +studies will bear fruit in after life. The productive wealth of +England is not exhausted, doubt it not; our grandchildren may find +treasures in this our noble island of which we never dreamed, even +as we have found things of which our forefathers dreamed not. +Recollect always that a great market town like this is not merely a +commercial centre; not perhaps even a commercial centre at all: but +that she is an agricultural centre, and one of the most important in +England; that the increase of science here will be sure more or less +to extend itself to the neighbourhood: and then lay to heart this +one fact. A friend of mine, and one whom I am proud to call my +friend, succeeding to an estate, thought good to cultivate it +himself. And being a man of common sense, he thought good to know +something of what he was doing. And he said to himself: The soil, +and the rain, and the air are my raw materials. I ought surely then +to find out what soil, and rain, and air are; so I must become a +geologist and a meteorologist. Vegetable substances are what I am +to make. And I ought surely to know what it is that I am making; so +I must become a botanist. The raw material does somehow or other +become manufactured into the produce; the soil into the vegetable. +I ought surely to know a little about the processes of my own +manufacture; so I must learn chemistry. Chance and blind custom are +not enough for me. At best they can but leave me where they found +me, at their mercy. Science I need; and science I will acquire. +What was the result? After many a mistake and disappointment, he +succeeded in discovering on his own estate a mine of unsuspected +wealth--not of gold indeed, but of gold's worth--the elements of +human food. He discovered why some parts of his estate were +fertile, while others were barren; and by applying the knowledge +thus gained, he converted some of his most barren fields into his +most fertile ones; he preserved again and again his crops from +blight, while those of others perished all around him; he won for +himself wealth, and the respect and honour of men of science; while +those around him, slowly opening their eyes to his improvements, +followed his lessons at second-hand, till the whole agriculture of +an important district has become gradually but permanently improved, +under the auspices of one patient and brave man, who knew that +knowledge was power, and that only by obeying nature can man conquer +her. + +Bear in mind both these last great proverbs; and combine them in +your mind. Remember that while England is, and ever will be, +behindhand in metaphysical and scholastic science, she is the nation +which above all others has conquered nature by obeying her; that as +it pleased God that the author of that proverb, the father of +inductive science, Bacon Lord Verulam, should have been an +Englishman, so it has pleased Him that we, Lord Bacon's countrymen, +should improve that precious heirloom of science, inventing, +producing, exporting, importing, till it seems as if the whole human +race, and every land from the equator to the pole must henceforth +bear the indelible impress and sign manual of English science. + +And bear in mind, as I said just now, that this study of natural +history is the grammar of that very physical science which has +enabled England thus to replenish the earth and subdue it. Do you +not see, then, that by following these studies you are walking in +the very path to which England owes her wealth; that you are +training in yourselves that habit of mind which God has approved as +the one which He has ordained for Englishmen, and are doing what in +you lies toward carrying out, in after life, the glorious work which +God seems to have laid on the English race, to replenish the earth +and subdue it? + +One word more, and I have done. Unless you are already tired of +hearing me, I would suggest a few practical hints before we part. +The best way of learning these matters is by classes, in which men +may combine and interchange their thoughts and observations. The +greatest savants find this; and have their Microscopic Society, +Linnaean, Royal, Geological Societies, British Associations, and +what not, in which all may know what each has done, and each share +in the learning of all; for as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man +sharpens the face of his friend. I have nothing to say against +debating societies: perhaps it was my own fault that whenever I +belonged to one as a young man, I found them inclined to make me +conceited, dictatorial, hasty in my judgments, trying to state a +case before I had investigated it, to teach others before I had +taught myself, to make a fine speech, not to find out the truth; +till in, I think, a wise moment for me, I vowed at twenty never to +set foot in one again, and kept my vow. Be that as it may, I wish +that side by side with the debating society, I could see young men +joining in natural history societies; going out in company on +pleasant evenings to search together after the hidden treasures of +God's world, and read the great green book which lies open alike to +peasant and to peer; and then meeting, say once a week, to debate, +not of opinions but of facts; to show each what they had found, to +classify and explain, to learn and to wonder together. In such a +class many appliances would be possible. A microscope, for +instance, or chemical apparatus, might belong to the society, which +each individual by himself would not be able to afford; while as for +books--books on these subjects are now published at a marvellous +cheapness, which puts them within the reach of every one, and of an +excellence which twenty years ago was impossible. Any working man +in this town might now, especially in a class, consult scientific +books, for which I, as a lad, twenty years ago, was sighing in vain; +nay, many of which, twenty years ago, the richest nobleman could not +have purchased; for the simple reason, that, dear or cheap, they did +not exist. Such classes, too, would be the easiest, cheapest, and +pleasantest way of establishing what ought to exist, I think, in +connection with every institution like this, namely, a museum. If +the young men were really ready and willing to collect objects of +interest, I doubt not that public-spirited men would be found, who +would undertake the expense of mounting them in a museum. And you +cannot imagine, I assure you, how large and how interesting a museum +might be formed of the natural curiosities of a neighbourhood like +this, I may say, indeed, of any neighbourhood or of any parish: but +your museum need not be confined to the neighbourhood. Societies +now exist in every part of England, who will be happy to exchange +their duplicates for yours. As your collection increased in +importance, old members abroad would gladly contribute foreign +curiosities to your stock. Neighbouring gentlemen would send you +valuable objects which had been lumbering their houses, uncared for, +because they stood alone, and formed no part of a collection; and I, +for one, would be happy to add something from the fauna and flora of +those moorlands, where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature; +never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me, +I had companions in every bee, and flower, and pebble; and never +idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather, +without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher +here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting +than all the books, save one, which were ever written upon earth. + + + +THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE + + + +Read at Sion College, January 10th, 1871. + +When I accepted the unexpected and undeserved honour of being +allowed to lecture here, the first subject which suggested itself to +me was Natural Theology. + +It is one which has taken up much of my thought for some years past, +{313} which seems to me more and more important, and which is just +now somewhat forgotten; I therefore determined to say a few words on +it to-night. I do not pretend to teach but only to suggest; to +point out certain problems of Natural Theology, the further solution +of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted. + +I wish to speak, remember, not on natural religion, but on natural +theology. By the first, I understand what can be learned from the +physical universe of man's duty to God and to his neighbour; by the +latter, I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself. Of +natural religion I shall say nothing. I do not even affirm that a +natural religion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that +a natural theology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it +is most important that natural theology should, in every age, keep +pace with doctrinal or ecclesiastical theology. + +Bishop Butler certainly held this belief. His "Analogy of Religion, +Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature"--a +book for which I entertain the most profound respect--is based on a +belief that the God of Nature and the God of Grace are one; and +that, therefore, the God who satisfies our conscience ought more or +less to satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's +mission, and he fulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to +be re-filled again and again, as human thought changes and human +science develops; for if in any age or country the God who seems to +be revealed by Nature seems different from the God who is revealed +by the then popular religion, then that God, and the religion which +tells of that God, will gradually cease to be believed in. + +For the demands of Reason (as none knew better than good Bishop +Butler) must be and ought to be satisfied. And when a popular war +arises between the reason of a generation and its theology, it +behoves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and +godly fear, on which side lies the fault: whether the theology +which they expound is all that it should be, or whether the reason +of those who impugn it is all that it should be. + +For me, as (I trust) an orthodox priest of the Church of England, I +believe the theology of the National Church of England, as by law +established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is +not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of +England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the +seventeenth century, have done more for sound physical science than +the clergy of any other denomination; or that the three greatest +natural theologians with which I, at least, am acquainted--Berkeley, +Butler, and Paley--should have belonged to our Church. I am not +unaware of what the Germans of the eighteenth century have done. I +consider Goethe's claims to have advanced natural theology very much +over-rated: but I do recommend to young clergymen Herder's +"Outlines of the Philosophy of the History of Man" as a book (in +spite of certain defects) full of sound and precious wisdom. But it +seems to me that English natural theology in the eighteenth century +stood more secure than that of any other nation, on the foundation +which Berkeley, Butler, and Paley had laid; and that if our orthodox +thinkers for the last hundred years had followed steadily in their +steps, we should not be deploring now a wide, and as some think +increasing, divorce between Science and Christianity. + +But it was not so to be. The impulse given by Wesley and Whitfield +turned (and not before it was needed) the earnest mind of England +almost exclusively to questions of personal religion; and that +impulse, under many unexpected forms, has continued ever since. I +only state the fact--I do not deplore it; God forbid! Wisdom is +justified of all her children, and as, according to the wise +American, "it takes all sorts to make a world," so it takes all +sorts to make a living Church. But that the religious temper of +England for the last two or three generations has been unfavourable +to a sound and scientific development of natural theology, there can +be no doubt. + +We have only, if we need proof, to look at the hymns--many of them +very pure, pious, and beautiful--which are used at this day in +churches and chapels by persons of every shade of opinion. How +often is the tone in which they speak of the natural world one of +dissatisfaction, distrust, almost contempt. "Disease, decay, and +death around I see," is their key-note, rather than "O all ye works +of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him together." +There lingers about them a savour of the old monastic theory, that +this earth is the devil's planet, fallen, accursed, goblin-haunted, +needing to be exorcised at every turn before it is useful or even +safe for man. An age which has adopted as its most popular hymn a +paraphrase of the mediaeval monk's "Hic breve vivitur," and in which +stalwart public-school boys are bidden in their chapel worship to +tell the Almighty God of Truth that they lie awake weeping at night +for joy at the thought that they will die and see Jerusalem the +Golden--is doubtless, a pious and devout age; but not--at least as +yet--an age in which natural theology is likely to attain a high, a +healthy, or a scriptural development. + +Not a scriptural development. Let me press on you, my clerical +brethren, most earnestly this one point. It is time that we should +make up our minds what tone Scripture does take toward Nature, +natural science, natural theology. Most of you, I doubt not, have +made up your minds already, and in consequence have no fear of +natural science, no fear for natural theology. But I cannot deny +that I find still lingering here and there certain of the old views +of nature of which I used to hear but too much here in London some +five-and-thirty years ago; not from my own father, thank God! for +he, to his honour, was one of those few London clergy who then faced +and defended advanced physical science; but from others--better men +too than I shall ever hope to be--who used to consider natural +theology as useless, fallacious, impossible, on the ground that this +Earth did not reveal the will and character of God, because it was +cursed and fallen; and that its facts, in consequence, were not to +be respected or relied on. This, I was told, was the doctrine of +Scripture, and was therefore true. But when, longing to reconcile +my conscience and my reason on a question so awful to a young +student of natural science, I went to my Bible, what did I find? No +word of all this. Much--thank God, I may say one continuous +undercurrent--of the very opposite of all this. I pray you bear +with me, even though I may seem impertinent. But what do we find in +the Bible, with the exception of that first curse? That, remember, +cannot mean any alteration in the laws of nature by which man's +labour should only produce for him henceforth thorns and thistles. +For, in the first place, any such curse is formally abrogated in the +eighth chapter and twenty-first verse of the very same document--"I +will not again curse the earth any more for man's sake. While the +earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and +winter, day and night shall not cease." And next, the fact is not +so; for if you root up the thorns and thistles, and keep your land +clean, then assuredly you will grow fruit-trees and not thorns, +wheat and not thistles, according to those laws of Nature which are +the voice of God expressed in facts. + +And yet the words are true. There is a curse upon the earth, though +not one which, by altering the laws of nature, has made natural +facts untrustworthy. There is a curse on the earth; such a curse as +is expressed, I believe, in the old Hebrew text, where the word +"adamah" (correctly translated in our version "the ground") +signifies, as I am told, not this planet; but simply the soil from +whence we get our food; such a curse as certainly is expressed by +the Septuagint and the Vulgate versions: "Cursed is the earth"-- +[Greek]; "in opere tuo," as the Vulgate has it--"in thy works." +Man's work is too often the curse of the very planet which he +misuses. None should know that better than the botanist, who sees +whole regions desolate, and given up to sterility and literal thorns +and thistles, on account of man's sin and folly, ignorance and +greedy waste. Well said that veteran botanist, the venerable Elias +Fries, of Lund: + +"A broad band of waste land follows gradually in the steps of +cultivation. If it expands, its centre and its cradle dies, and on +the outer borders only do we find green shoots. But it is not +impossible, only difficult, for man, without renouncing the +advantage of culture itself, one day to make reparation for the +injury which he has inflicted: he is appointed lord of creation. +True it is that thorns and thistles, ill-favoured and poisonous +plants, well named by botanists rubbish plants, mark the track which +man has proudly traversed through the earth. Before him lay +original Nature in her wild but sublime beauty. Behind him he +leaves the desert, a deformed and ruined land; for childish desire +of destruction, or thoughtless squandering of vegetable treasures, +has destroyed the character of nature; and, terrified, man himself +flies from the arena of his actions, leaving the impoverished earth +to barbarous races or to animals, so long as yet another spot in +virgin beauty smiles before him. Here again, in selfish pursuit of +profit, and consciously or unconsciously following the abominable +principle of the great moral vileness which one man has expressed-- +'Apres nous le Deluge'--he begins anew the work of destruction. +Thus did cultivation, driven out, leave the East, and perhaps the +deserts formerly robbed of their coverings; like the wild hordes of +old over beautiful Greece, thus rolls this conquest with fearful +rapidity from East to West through America; and the planter now +often leaves the already exhausted land, and the eastern climate, +become infertile through the demolition of the forests, to introduce +a similar revolution into the Far West." {320} + +As we proceed, we find nothing in the general tone of Scripture +which can hinder our natural theology being at once scriptural and +scientific. + +If it is to be scientific, it must begin by approaching Nature at +once with a cheerful and reverent spirit, as a noble, healthy, and +trustworthy thing: and what is that, save the spirit of those who +wrote the 104th, 147th, and 148th Psalms--the spirit, too, of him +who wrote that Song of the Three Children, which is, as it were, the +flower and crown of the Old Testament, the summing up of all that is +most true and eternal in the old Jewish faith; and which, as long as +it is sung in our churches, is the charter and title-deed of all +Christian students of those works of the Lord, which it calls on to +bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever? + +What next will be demanded of us by physical science? Belief, +certainly, just now, in the permanence of natural laws. Why, that +is taken for granted, I hold, throughout the Bible. I cannot see +how our Lord's parables, drawn from the birds and the flowers, the +seasons and the weather, have any logical weight, or can be +considered as aught but capricious and fanciful illustrations--which +God forbid--unless we look at them as instances of laws of the +natural world, which find their analogues in the laws of the +spiritual world, the kingdom of God. I cannot conceive a man's +writing that 104th Psalm who had not the most deep, the most earnest +sense of the permanence of natural law. But more: the fact is +expressly asserted again and again. "They continue this day +according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee." "Thou +hast made them fast for ever and ever. Thou hast given them a law +which shall not be broken--" + +Let us pass on, gentlemen. There is no more to be said about this +matter. + +But next, it will be demanded of us that natural theology shall set +forth a God whose character is consistent with all the facts of +nature, and not only with those which are pleasant and beautiful. +That challenge was accepted, and I think victoriously, by Bishop +Butler as far as the Christian religion is concerned. As far as the +Scripture is concerned, we may answer thus: + +It is said to us--I know that it is said: You tell us of a God of +love, a God of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and little +children. But there are more facts in nature than these. There is +premature death, pestilence, famine. And if you answer: Man has +control over these; they are caused by man's ignorance and sin, and +by his breaking of natural laws--what will you make of those +destructive powers over which he has no control; of the hurricane +and the earthquake; of poisons, vegetable and mineral; of those +parasitic Entozoa whose awful abundance, and awful destructiveness +in man and beast, science is just revealing--a new page of danger +and loathsomeness? How does that suit your conception of a God of +love? + +We can answer: Whether or not it suits our conception of a God of +love, it suits Scripture's conception of Him. For nothing is more +clear--nay, is it not urged again and again, as a blot on +Scripture?--that it reveals a God not merely of love, but of +sternness--a God in whose eyes physical pain is not the worst of +evils, nor animal life (too often miscalled human life) the most +precious of objects--a God who destroys, when it seems fit to Him, +and that wholesale, and seemingly without either pity or +discrimination, man, woman and child, visiting the sins of the +fathers on the children, making the land empty and bare, and +destroying from off it man and beast! This is the God of the Old +Testament. And if any say (as is often too rashly said): This is +not the God of the New: I answer, but have you read your New +Testament? Have you read the latter chapters of St. Matthew? Have +you read the opening of the Epistle to the Romans? Have you read +the Book of Revelations? If so, will you say that the God of the +New Testament is, compared with the God of the Old, less awful, less +destructive, and therefore less like the Being--granting always that +there is such a Being--who presides over nature and her destructive +powers? It is an awful problem. But the writers of the Bible have +faced it valiantly. Physical science is facing it valiantly now. +Therefore natural theology may face it likewise. Remember Carlyle's +great words about poor Francesca in the Inferno: "Infinite pity, +yet also infinite rigour of law. It is so Nature is made. It is so +Dante discerned that she was made." + +There are two other points on which I must beg leave to say a few +words. Physical science will demand of our natural theologians that +they should be aware of their importance, and let (as Mr. Matthew +Arnold would say) their thoughts play freely round them. I mean +questions of Embryology and questions of Race. + +On the first there may be much to be said, which is for the present +best left unsaid, even here. I only ask you to recollect how often +in Scripture those two plain old words, beget and bring forth, +occur, and in what important passages. And I ask you to remember +that marvellous essay on Natural Theology, if I may so call it in +all reverence, the 139th Psalm, and judge for yourself whether he +who wrote that did not consider the study of Embryology as +important, as significant, as worthy of his deepest attention, as an +Owen, a Huxley, or a Darwin. Nay, I will go farther still, and say, +that in those great words--"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet +being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which +in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them,"- +-in those words, I say, the Psalmist has anticipated that realistic +view of embryological questions to which our most modern +philosophers are, it seems to me, slowly, half unconsciously, but +still inevitably, returning. + +Next, as to Race. Some persons now have a nervous fear of that +word, and of allowing any importance to difference of races. Some +dislike it, because they think that it endangers the modern notions +of democratic equality. Others because they fear that it may be +proved that the negro is not a man and a brother. I think the fears +of both parties groundless. As for the negro, I not only believe +him to be of the same race as myself, but that--if Mr. Darwin's +theories are true--science has proved that he must be such. I +should have thought, as a humble student of such questions, that the +one fact of the unique distribution of the hair in all races of +human beings, was full moral proof that they had all had one common +ancestor. But this is not matter of natural theology. What is +matter thereof, is this: + +Physical science is proving more and more the immense importance of +Race; the importance of hereditary powers, hereditary organs, +hereditary habits, in all organised beings, from the lowest plant to +the highest animal. She is proving more and more the omnipresent +action of the differences between races; how the more favoured race +(she cannot avoid using the epithet) exterminates the less favoured, +or at least expels it, and forces it, under penalty of death, to +adapt itself to new circumstances; and, in a word, that competition +between every race and every individual of that race, and reward +according to deserts, is (as far as we can see) an universal law of +living things. And she says--for the facts of history prove it-- +that as it is among the races of plants and animals, so it has been +unto this day among the races of men. + +The natural theology of the future must take count of these +tremendous and even painful facts: and she may take count of them. +For Scripture has taken count of them already. It talks +continually--it has been blamed for talking so much--of races, of +families; of their wars, their struggles, their exterminations; of +races favoured, of races rejected, of remnants being saved to +continue the race; of hereditary tendencies, hereditary excellences, +hereditary guilt. Its sense of the reality and importance of +descent is so intense, that it speaks of a whole tribe or a whole +family by the name of its common ancestor, and the whole nation of +the Jews is Israel, to the end. And if I be told this is true of +the Old Testament, but not of the New, I must answer: What! does +not St. Paul hold the identity of the whole Jewish race with Israel +their forefather, as strongly as any prophet of the Old Testament? +And what is the central historic fact, save One, of the New +Testament, but the conquest of Jerusalem--the dispersion, all but +destruction of a race, not by miracle, but by invasion, because +found wanting when weighed in the stern balances of natural and +social law? + +Gentlemen, think of this. I only suggest the thought; but I do not +suggest it in haste. Think over it--by the light which our Lord's +parables, His analogies between the physical and social constitution +of the world, afford--and consider whether those awful words, +fulfilled then and fulfilled so often since--"The kingdom of God +shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the +fruits hereof"--may not be the supreme instance, the most complex +development of a law which runs through all created things, down to +the moss which struggles for existence on the rock! + +Do I say that this is all? That man is merely a part of Nature, the +puppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies? That brute +competition is the one law of his life? That he is doomed for ever +to be the slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine +struggle for existence? God forbid. I believe not only in Nature, +but in Grace. I believe that this is man's fate only as long as he +sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption. I believe +that if he will + + +Strive upward, working out the beast, +And let the ape and tiger die; + + +if he will be even as wise as the social animals; as the ant and the +bee, who have risen, if not to the virtue of all-embracing charity, +at least to the virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism, {326} then +he will rise towards a higher sphere; toward that kingdom of God of +which it is written: "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, +and God in him." + +Whether that be matter of natural theology, I cannot tell as yet. +But as for all the former questions--all that St. Paul means when he +talks of the law, and how the works of the flesh bring men under the +law, stern and terrible and destructive, though holy and just and +good,--they are matter of natural theology; and I believe that on +them, as elsewhere, Scripture and science will be ultimately found +to coincide. + +But here we have to face an objection which you will often hear now +from scientific men, and still oftener from non-scientific men; who +will say: It matters not to us whether Scripture contradicts or +does not contradict a scientific natural theology; for we hold such +a science to be impossible and naught. The old Jews put a God into +Nature, and therefore of course they could see, as you see, what +they had already put there. But we see no God in Nature. We do not +deny the existence of a God; we merely say that scientific research +does not reveal Him to us. We see no marks of design in physical +phenomena. What used to be considered as marks of design can be +better explained by considering them as the results of evolution +according to necessary laws; and you and Scripture make a mere +assumption when you ascribe them to the operation of a mind like the +human mind. + +Now, on this point I believe we may answer fearlessly: If you +cannot see it we cannot help you. If the heavens do not declare to +you the glory of God, nor the firmament show you His handy-work, +then our poor arguments about them will not show it. "The eye can +only see that which it brings with it the power of seeing." We can +only reassert that we see design everywhere, and that the vast +majority of the human race in every age and clime has seen it. +Analogy from experience, sound induction (as we hold) from the works +not only of men but of animals, has made it an all but self-evident +truth to us, that wherever there is arrangement, there must be an +arranger; wherever there is adaptation of means to an end, there +must be an adapter; wherever an organisation, there must be an +organiser. The existence of a designing God is no more demonstrable +from Nature than the existence of other human beings independent of +ourselves, or, indeed, the existence of our own bodies. But, like +the belief in them, the belief in Him has become an article of our +common sense. And that this designing mind is, in some respects, +similar to the human mind, is proved to us (as Sir John Herschel +well puts it) by the mere fact that we can discover and comprehend +the processes of Nature. + +But here again, if we be contradicted, we can only reassert. If the +old words, "He that made the eye, shall He not see? He that planted +the ear, shall He not hear?" do not at once commend themselves to +the intellect of any person, we shall never convince that person by +any arguments drawn from the absurdity of conceiving the invention +of optics by a blind race, or of music by a deaf one. + +So we will assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly; and more: we +will say, in spite of ridicule, that if such a God exists, final +causes must exist also. That the whole universe must be one chain +of final causes. That if there be a Supreme Reason, He must have a +reason, and that a good reason, for every physical phenomenon. + +We will tell the modern scientific man--You are nervously afraid of +the mention of final causes. You quote against them Bacon's saying, +that they are barren virgins; that no physical fact was ever +discovered or explained by them. You are right as far as regards +yourselves; you have no business with final causes, because final +causes are moral causes, and you are physical students only. We, +the natural theologians, have business with them. Your duty is to +find out the How of things; ours, to find out the Why. If you +rejoin that we shall never find out the Why, unless we first learn +something of the How, we shall not deny that. It may be most +useful, I had almost said necessary, that the clergy should have +some scientific training. It may be most useful, I sometimes dream +of a day when it will be considered necessary, that every candidate +for ordination should be required to have passed creditably in at +least one branch of physical science, if it be only to teach him the +method of sound scientific thought. But our having learnt the How, +will not make it needless, much less impossible, for us to study the +Why. It will merely make more clear to us the things of which we +have to study the Why; and enable us to keep the How and the Why +more religiously apart from each other. + +But if it be said: After all, there is no Why; the doctrine of +evolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with +that of final causes--let us answer, boldly: Not in the least. We +might accept all that Mr. Darwin, all that Professor Huxley, has so +learnedly and so acutely written on physical science, and yet +preserve our natural theology on exactly the same basis as that on +which Butler and Paley left it. That we should have to develop it, +I do not deny. That we should have to relinquish it, I do. + +Let me press this thought earnestly on you. I know that many wiser +and better men than I have fears on this point. I cannot share in +them. + +All, it seems to me, that the new doctrines of Evolution demand is +this. We all agree, for the fact is patent, that our own bodies, +and indeed the body of every living creature, are evolved from a +seemingly simple germ by natural laws, without visible action of any +designing will or mind, into the full organisation of a human or +other creature. Yet we do not say, on that account: God did not +create me; I only grew. We hold in this case to our old idea, and +say: If there be evolution, there must be an evolver. Now the new +physical theories only ask us, it seems to me, to extend this +conception to the whole universe: to believe that not individuals +merely, but whole varieties and races, the total organised life on +this planet, and it may be the total organisation of the universe, +have been evolved just as our bodies are, by natural laws acting +through circumstance. This may be true, or may be false. But all +its truth can do to the natural theologian will be to make him +believe that the Creator bears the same relation to the whole +universe as that Creator undeniably bears to every individual human +body. + +I entreat you to weigh these words, which have not been written in +haste; and I entreat you also, if you wish to see how little the new +theory, that species may have been gradually created by variation, +natural selection, and so forth, interferes with the old theory of +design, contrivance, and adaptation, nay, with the fullest admission +of benevolent final causes--I entreat you, I say, to study Darwin's +"Fertilisation of Orchids"--a book which (whether his main theory be +true or not) will still remain a most valuable addition to natural +theology. + +For suppose, gentlemen, that all the species of Orchids, and not +only they, but their congeners--the Gingers, the Arrowroots, the +Bananas--are all the descendants of one original form, which was +most probably nearly allied to the Snowdrop and the Iris. What +then? Would that be one whit more wonderful, more unworthy of the +wisdom and power of God, than if they were, as most believe, created +each and all at once, with their minute and often imaginary shades +of difference? What would the natural theologian have to say, were +the first theory true, save that God's works are even more wonderful +than he always believed them to be? As for the theory being +impossible: we must leave the discussion of that to physical +students. It is not for us clergymen to limit the power of God. +"Is anything too hard for the Lord?" asked the prophet of old: and +we have a right to ask it as long as time shall last. If it be said +that natural selection is too simple a cause to produce such +fantastic variety: that, again, is a question to be settled +exclusively by physical students. All we have to say on the matter +is, that we always knew that God works by very simple, or seemingly +simple, means; that the whole universe, as far as we could discern +it, was one concatenation of the most simple means; that it was +wonderful, yea, miraculous in our eyes, that a child should resemble +its parents, that the raindrops should make the grass grow, that the +grass should become flesh, and the flesh sustenance for the thinking +brain of man. Ought God to seem less or more august in our eyes, +when we are told that His means are even more simple than we +supposed? We held Him to be Almighty and Allwise. Are we to +reverence Him less or more, if we hear that His might is greater, +His wisdom deeper, than we ever dreamed? We believed that His care +was over all His works; that His Providence watched perpetually over +the whole universe. We were taught--some of us at least--by Holy +Scripture, to believe that the whole history of the universe was +made up of special Providences. If, then, that should be true which +Mr. Darwin writes: "It may be metaphorically said that natural +selection is daily and hourly scrutinising throughout the world, +every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, +preserving and adding up that which is good, silently and +incessantly working whenever and wherever opportunity offers at the +improvement of every organic being"--if that, I say, were proven to +be true, ought God's care and God's providence to seem less or more +magnificent in our eyes? Of old it was said by Him without whom +nothing is made: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Shall +we quarrel with Science if she should show how those words are true? +What, in one word, should we have to say but this?--We knew of old +that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He +is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make +themselves. + +But it may be said: These notions are contrary to Scripture. I +must beg very humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion. +Scripture says that God created. But it nowhere defines that term. +The means, the How of Creation, is nowhere specified. Scripture, +again, says that organised beings were produced each according to +their kind. But it nowhere defines that term. What a kind +includes, whether it includes or not the capacity of varying (which +is just the question in point), is nowhere specified. And I think +it a most important rule in scriptural exegesis, to be most cautious +as to limiting the meaning of any term which Scripture itself has +not limited, lest we find ourselves putting into the teaching of +Scripture our own human theories or prejudices. And consider, Is +not man a kind? And has not mankind varied, physically, +intellectually, spiritually? Is not the Bible, from beginning to +end, a history of the variations of mankind, for worse or for +better, from their original type? + +Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and good will, +on these new theories; for, correct or incorrect, they surely mark a +tendency toward a more, not a less, scriptural view of nature. Are +they not attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to escape +from that shallow mechanical notion of the universe and its Creator +which was too much in vogue in the eighteenth century among divines +as well as philosophers; the theory which Goethe (to do him +justice), and after him Mr. Thomas Carlyle, have treated with such +noble scorn; the theory, I mean, that God has wound up the universe +like a clock, and left it to tick by itself till it runs down, never +troubling Himself with it, save possibly--for even that was only +half believed--by rare miraculous interferences with the laws which +He Himself had made? Out of that chilling dream of a dead universe +ungoverned by an absent God, the human mind, in Germany especially, +tried during the early part of this century to escape by strange +roads; roads by which there was no escape, because they were not +laid down on the firm ground of scientific facts. Then, in despair, +men turned to the facts which they had neglected, and said: We are +weary of philosophy; we will study you, and you alone. As for God, +who can find Him? And they have worked at the facts like gallant +and honest men; and their work, like all good work, has produced, in +the last fifty years, results more enormous than they even dreamed. +But what are they finding, more and more, below their facts, below +all phenomena which the scalpel and the microscope can show? A +something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly +omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before them deeper and +deeper, the deeper they delve: namely, the life which shapes and +makes--that which the old school-men called "forma formativa," which +they call vital force and what not--metaphors all, or rather +counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should call it x or +y. One says: It is all vibrations; but his reason, unsatisfied, +asks: And what makes the vibrations vibrate? Another: It is all +physiological units; but his reason asks: What is the "physis," the +nature and "innate tendency" of the units? A third: It may be all +caused by infinitely numerous "gemmules;" but his reason asks him: +What puts infinite order into those gemmules, instead of infinite +anarchy? I mention these theories not to laugh at them. No man has +a deeper respect for those who have put them forth. Nor would it +interfere with my theological creed, if any or all of them were +proven to be true to-morrow. I mention them only to show that +beneath all these theories--true or false--still lies the unknown x. +Scientific men are becoming more and more aware of it; I had almost +said ready to worship it. More and more the noblest-minded of them +are engrossed by the mystery of that unknown and truly miraculous +element in Nature, which is always escaping them, though they cannot +escape it. How should they escape it? Was it not written of old: +"Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither shall I flee from +Thy spirit?" + +Ah that we clergy would summon up courage to tell them that! +Courage to tell them--what need not hamper for a moment the freedom +of their investigations, what will add to them a sanction, I may say +a sanctity--that the unknown x which lies below all phenomena, which +is for ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part +of the whole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling +of every cell of protoplasm, is none other than that which the old +Hebrews called--(by a metaphor, no doubt--for how can man speak of +the unseen, save in metaphors drawn from the seen?--but by the only +metaphor adequate to express the perpetual and omnipresent miracle)- +-The Breath of God; The Spirit who is The Lord and Giver of Life. + +In the rest, gentlemen, let us think, and let us observe. For if we +are ignorant, not merely of the results of experimental science, but +of the methods thereof, then we and the men of science shall have no +common ground whereon to stretch out kindly hands to each other. + +But let us have patience and faith; and not suppose in haste, that +when those hands are stretched out it will be needful for us to +leave our standing-ground, or to cast ourselves down from the +pinnacle of the temple to earn popularity; above all, from earnest +students who are too high-minded to care for popularity themselves. + +True, if we have an intelligent belief in those Creeds and those +Scriptures which are committed to our keeping, then our philosophy +cannot be that which is just now in vogue. But all we have to do, I +believe, is to wait. Nominalism, and that "Sensationalism" which +has sprung from nominalism, are running fast to seed; Comtism seems +to me its supreme effort: after which the whirligig of Time may +bring round its revenges; and Realism, and we who own the Realist +creeds, may have our turn. Only wait. When a grave, able, and +authoritative philosopher explains a mother's love of her newborn +babe, as Professor Bain has done, in a really eloquent passage of +his book on the "Emotions and the Will" (Second Edition, pp. 78, +79), then the end of that philosophy is very near; and an older, +simpler, more human, and, as I hold, more philosophic explanation of +that natural phenomenon, and of all others, may get a hearing. + +Only wait; and fret not yourselves, else shall you be moved to do +evil. Remember the saying of the wise man: "Go not after the +world. She turns on her axis; and if thou stand still long enough +she will turn round to thee." + + + +Footnotes: + +{0} The Macmillan and Co. book from which this eBook was +transcribed ("Scientific Lectures and Essays") also contains "Town +Geology". However, as Charles Kingsley published that as a separate +book it is not included here. It is available from Project +Gutenberg.--DP. + +{1} An Address given to the Scientific Society of Winchester, 1871. + +{181} A Lecture delivered to the Officers of the Royal Artillery, +Woolwich, 1872. + +{201} A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, London, 1867. + +{223} For an account of Sorcery and Fetishism among the African +Negros, see Burton's "Lake Regions of Central Africa," vol. ii. pp. +341-60. + +{229} A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution. + +{262} A Lecture delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Odiham, +1857. + +{290} Lecture delivered at Reading, 1846. + +{313} Novalis, I think, says that one's own thought gains quite +infinitely in value as soon as one finds it shared by even one other +human being. The saying has proved true, at least, to me. The +morning after this paper was read, I received a book, "The Genesis +of Species, by St. George Mivart, F.R.S." The name of the author +demanded all attention and respect; and as I read on, I found him, +to my exceeding pleasure, advocating views which I had long held, +with a learning and ability to which I have no pretensions. The +book will, doubtless, excite much useful criticism and discussion in +the scientific world. I hope that it may do the same in the +clerical world; and I earnestly beg those clergymen who heard me +with so much patience and courtesy at Sion College, to ponder well +Mr. Mivart's last chapter, on "Theology and Evolution." + +{320} Quoted from Schleiden's "The Plant, a Biography."--Lecture +XI. in fine. + +{326} I am well aware what a serious question is opened up in these +words. The fact that the great majority of workers among the social +insects are barren females or nuns, devoting themselves to the care +of other individuals' offspring, by an act of self-sacrifice, and +that by means of that self-sacrifice these communities grow large +and prosperous, ought to be well weighed just now; both by those who +hold that morality has been evolved from perceptions of what was +useful or pleasurable, and by those who hold as I do that morality +is one, immutable and eternal. Those who take the former view +(confounding, as Mr. Mivart well points out in his Genesis of +Species, "material" and "formal" morality) have no difficulty in +tracing the germs of the highest human morality in animals; for +self-interest is, in their eyes, the ultimate ground of morality, +and the average animal is utterly selfish. But certain animals +perform acts, as in the case of working bees and ants, and (as I +hold) in the case of mothers working for and protecting their +offspring, which at least seem formally moral; because they seem +founded on self-sacrifice. I am well aware, I say again, of the +very serious admissions which we clergymen should have to make if we +confessed that these acts really are that which they seem to be. +But I do not see why we should not be as just to an ant as to a +human being; I am ready, with Socrates, to follow the Logos +whithersoever it leads; and I hope that Mr. Mivart will reconsider +the two latter paragraphs of p. 196, and let his "thoughts play +freely" round this curious subject. Perhaps, in so doing, he may +lay his hand on an even sharper weapon than those which he has +already used against the sensationalist theory of morals. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS AND LECTURES*** + + +******* This file should be named 10427.txt or 10427.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/2/10427 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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