Man'S Place in Creation.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 2, 1869, Unnumbered Page

Man'S Place in Creation. By C. W. Richmond, One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. [Lecture delivered in Nelson, June 25, 1869.] Most of you are, no doubt, aware that Modern Physiological Science is by some persons thought to throw strong light upon the subject on which I am proposing to address you: Man's Place in Nature. It has at all times been, in a vague way, admitted, that, in respect of his corporeal frame, man is a member of the Animal Kingdom. But, it is undeniable, that recent science tends to bring home more thoroughly the fact of this connection with the lower creatures; so that, to many well instructed persons, that being, who, in the eye of Faith, once seemed to rank only a little lower than the Angels, now appears, viewed in the light of modern speculation, hardly removed one grade above the Apes; and, just as much as these, the creature of material necessity. Thus, the great questions of the Nature and the Destiny of Man, heretofore thought exclusively the property of theologians, seem to be brought into close relation with modern physics. It is my purpose to investigate the character of this relation; the real bearing, in other words, of Natural Science, in its present aspect, on those intensely interesting questions of “Our Whence and Whither.” I know it will be thought by some a highly dangerous course to move this matter. I know the dread, sometimes avowed, but much more often felt without avowal, that such inquiries must certainly confuse our thoughts, and, very likely may perplex our lives. But who is ignorant that, at this very moment, the literary world resounds with this discussion? Who can close his ears to all the loud debate now going on; or can refuse to hear conclusions, fatal to every form of Human Faith, yet drawn triumphantly, and, (so the reasoners, think) with logic not to be evaded, from premises supplied by the undoubted science of the day? Amongst the young the most inquiring minds cannot be kept in ignorance about these things. Their elders, if they please, may try the ostrich plan of safety for themselves, or may draw back, like blinking owls from the unwelcome daylight. But in these days of universal reading mere reticence in Church or Home will not avail. Come good, come ill, the best and manliest minds will strive to sift the matter to the bran, and try conclusions for themselves. There is, then, nothing for it but that those who would uphold the ancient faith in God and Man should don their armour, and go down to battle with this newest foe; unless, indeed, they wish to see materialists in sole possession of the field of thought, free to impose their dreary creed upon the coming age. Divines in vain protest that Man is no fit subject of Zoology. The, Naturalists refuse to be warned off the Human ground. In virtue of man's physical frame they claim him, and will keep him in spite of all objectors, as a subject of their science; and to me it seems expedient at least to listen to them, and learn what they have to say. The faith that hides its head from all opposers is scarcely worthy to be called a faith. My plan, of course, requires me to begin with some succinct account of those researches to which I have alluded. The compass of a single Lecture (not to mention my own want of technical knowledge), will not admit of more than a broad and rapid sketch, or, as I fear I rather ought to say, a meagre

outline, drawn by no master's hand: yet even such an outline may, I trust, suffice for my main purpose. The branch of physics most closely connected with our subject is known as Comparative Physiolgy. In this department of physical inquiry the ultimate object is nothing less than to discover the plan of Organic Nature in both the great kingdoms, the Animal and the Vegetable. The special instrument of inquiry is collation or comparison of one organic form with another, with a view to ascertain the characteristic of each, and thence to infer their relation to one another, and to the whole organic world. This science, like every other part of physical investigation, assumes, of necessity, the existence of a general plan or scheme of things; a plan of scheme towards the discovery of which the Human Intellect is capable of advancing. What then has this science to say on the subject of our inquiry. In the comparison of organic forms the first great division which presents itself is that already noticed, into Animal and Vegetable. So vast is the difference between the more highly organised members of either kingdom—take for instance a Lion and an Oak-tree—that the untrained mind at first refuses to conceive of a possible relation between such diverse forms. Yet when compared with inorganic matter, with clay or granite, it is seen at once that beast and tree resemble each other in presenting, though under such different aspects, the grand phenomenon of vitality; and we express this very simple fact when we say that they are both alive. Science has revealed in detail many points of resemblance between Animal and Vegetable organisms. In both, provision is made for nutrition, and for the reproduction of the species: both also possess an apparatus for the circulation of the nutrient fluid, and for respiration. And, broad as is the distinction manifest between the Animal and Vegetable, when each is highly organized, it is matter of great difficulty to discriminate between the lowest forms of the two kingdoms. Common observation recognises this in the designation, “Animal-plant,” popularly applied to the sea anemone, and other creatures of the same class. The great vital divisions may be likened to two stems of a tree which divide close to the ground: as the topmost branches of each are those which have the least connection, so does the highest vegetable seem farthest removed from the highest animal organisation. On the other hand, the two kingdoms seem to coalesce at their respective bases; just as do the stems of the tree at the point where they branch out. Now, amongst the grounds of distinction between Animals and Plants, there is this possibly essential difference; at all events it is the difference to which I shall specially direct your attention to-night—Plants are destitute of any nervous system. * The appearance of nervous irritability presented by parts of particular plants, as by the leaflets of the sensitive plant, and the stamens of the barberry, is pronounced to be due to a different cause. The characteristic difference hence arising between Animal and Vegetable life is thus expressed by Dr. Carpenter, “The whole nisus (effort, striving) of Vegetative existence consists in the activity of the organs of nutrition and re-production; but, on the other hand, the nisus of animal life tends towards the evolution of the faculties of sensation, and of self-determined motion; and in its highest manifestation to that of the intelligence and will.” So that there is, you see, a kind of life common to both Animal and Vegetable, which the great French Anatomist, Bichat, has termed “Organic Life;” sometimes also called “Vegetative Life,” as being the only life possessed by plants; and there is another kind of life confined to animals, termed by Bichat, “Animal Life;” and which I shall sometimes refer to as “Nervous Life.” In the animal, the stomach, intestines, and glandular system, and, in some degree, the apparatus for circulation, are organs of the

Vegetative or Organic Life; the brain, nerves, eye, ear, and muscular system, of Animal, or Nervous Life. The two Kingdoms being thus discriminated, the study of the resemblances and differences presented by Animals has led to the division of the Animal Kingdom into various groups; on the ground that all the members of each group, in certain points, resemble one another, and differ from the members of other groups. The primary divisions are named Sub-Kingdoms. Each Sub-Kingdom is divided into Classes, the Classes into Orders, the Orders into Families, the Families into Genera. The ultimate Sub-Division is of Genera into Species. The Animal Kingdom is now usually divided into Five Sub-Kingdoms, each other a title, more or less descriptive of some obvious and leading peculiarity of structure. The Vertebrata form the highest Sub-Kingdom; so named from the possession of a backbone, or spine, composed of a variable number of small bones, called Vertebræ—as examples of each of its four classes, take the Horse, the Eagle, the Crocodile, the Salmon. The title of the Second Sub-Kingdom, Articulata, indicates that it comprises Animals, whose bodies are composed of a succession of segments, arranged in a line—hence called jointed, or articulated, animals—of which peculiar structure the Bee and the Lobster are well known forms. All the insect tribes belong to this Sub-Kingdom. The Third Sub-Kingdom comprises the Mollusca, so named from the softness of their bodies; some, but not all, of these Creatures are protected by a shell. The Slug and Oyster are both Molluscs. The Radiata compose the Fourth Sub-Kingdom; and take their designation from the radial or star-like symmetry of their bodies. This form, Carpenter remarks, must in itself be regarded as a Vegetative character, for it corresponds with that which is seen in the disposition of the appendages around the axis in the leaf-buds and flower-buds of Plants. The Star-fish and Sea-Anemone are characteristic forms of the Radiata. The Fifth Sub-Kingdom contains the Protozoa, so called as being the first and lowest form of Animal Life, corresponding in rank with Protophytes in the Vegetable Kingdom. Infusoria and Sponges are members of this group. * Cuvier made only four sub-kingdoms. But his lowest division, Radiata, comprises so heterogeneous an assemblage of forms, that later Naturalists have broken it up, and a portion of what Huxley has called the “Radiate Mob” of Cuvier, is now classed as a distinct sub-kingdom, under the title of Protozoa. The arrangement, like every other part of merely physical science, must continue to vary with increasing knowledge. Now, in determining the priority and mutual relations of these great groups, and of their sub-divisions, we must keep in view the principle of Animal Perfection already announced; namely, the degree of Nervous Life accorded to each, and displayed in the faculties of sensation and locomotion; and, finally, in the mental attributes of Intelligence and Will. An animal is high in the scale, as it recedes from, low as it approaches, a mere Vegetative Life. In other words, the more it is endowed with Nervous Life the higher is it to be placed on the scale of Animal Existence. Tried by this test, we find the Protozoa scarcely entitled to rank as Animals. No definite trace of a Nervous System has yet, I believe, been discovered in them; and their claim to be reckoned Animals rests chiefly upon the nature of their food, which consists of Organic substances; (whereas, Plants are enabled to assimilate mineral substances;) and upon their performance, after a strange fashion of their own, of the function of digestion. It is not until we reach the higher Radiata that we find the first definite indications of a nervous system. Every segments, or division, of these creatures is connected with a ganglionic centre; a ganglion being a little swelling lump or knot of nervous substance; and this centre seems subservient

to its own division alone; at least to have very little dependence upon the other segments of the Animal. In short, to borrow an allusion from our local politics, these creatures may be said to have ultra-provincial constitutions. Next we come to the Two Sub-Kingdoms, immediately beneath the Vertebrata; and these indeed present a sharp and interesting contrast. On the one hand the Mollusca represent the gradually increasing perfection of the apparatus for the discharge of the functions of Organic, or Vegetative Life—creatures, for the most part, sluggish and inert, yet greedy and voracious; “whose God is their belly”; as Carpenter quaintly remarks of them. On the other hand the Articulata are generally characterised by the rapidity of their movements, the great, and sometimes enormous, proportionate strength of their muscles, the extraordinary instincts displayed by some members of the group, and the large endowment of nervous with which these various gifts are connected, and on which they are, in a physical sense, dependent. Thus the Articulata represent the gradually increasing perfection of the Nervous or Animal Life. In the Mollusca the Nervous System is by no means so striking a feature of the organisation. In many of the lower members of the class the mouth is the only indication of a head; the organs of sight, if they exist, are imperfectly evolved. But in the higher classes the case is different. Many of these possess the senses of sight and hearing, and the organs of these senses are collected upon a Head, about which the Nervous ganglions are concentrated. But even in the highest class of Molluses the Nervous System appears subservient to the sensorial and nutritive functions. Turning to the Articulata, we find very distinct indications of an approach in Nervous structure to the Vertebrata. The characterstic feature is a double Nervous cord studded with ganglia at intervals, there being one ganlionic centre for each segment (or division) of the Animal. The more alike the different segements, the more equal are the ganglia. In the lower classes, all the segments of the trunk being nearly of a size, so are the ganglia; and the power of each ganglion is almost wholly confined to its own segment. In this they resemble the Radiata; the chief difference being that the segments of the latter are disposed in a radiate manner, whilst in all the Articulata they are longitudinally arranged. But in the higher Articulata, the great power of the Nervous System is concentrated about the head and thorax (chest). The ganglia of the head are always larger and more important. They are connected with the organs of Sight and other Special Senses, and evidently possess a power of directing and controlling the movements of the entire body, whilst the power of each ganglion of the trunk is, as already said, mostly confined to its own segment. It is obvious that the double Nervous Cord of the Articulata corresponds with, and as it were pre-figures, the Spinal Cord of Vertebrata; and that the cephalic ganglia (ganglia of the head) correspond with the contents, at least with a portion of the contents, of the Vertebrate skull. In the class of Insects which is the highest of the Sub-Kingdom “Articulata,” the development of pure instinct reaches its highest point. Ants and Bees are equalled by no other creature in the geometrical precision of their structures, their perfect adaptation of means to ends, and the absolute regularity with which each member of their wonderful societies performs its alloted part in the economy of the nest or hive. And as pure instinct culminates in these creatures, it would seem that the higher Articulata should be treated as a lateral branch of that great tree of Organic Life, of which we have been as it were, tracing the upward growth. In their own line, there is nothing superior or equal to the Social Insects. Another observation tends in the same direction, it is this: as regard all

the functions of Organic, as distinguished from Animal Life, the Mollusca are nearer Fishes, the lowest class of Vertebrata, than are the Articulata. In continuously tracing the upward course of Nature, we must, therefore, come down again, as it were, from the topmost Articulata in order to regain the main line of progressive development. Pursuing this course, we revert to the highest of the Mollusca, the Cephalopoda; and here we find the hint of the structure which gives to Animals of the highest Sub-Kingdom the name of Vertebrata. The Nervous centres of the Insect are protected by firmly jointed rings, which may be regarded as an exterior skeleton. But the Cephalopod, known as the Cuttlefish, possesses in the bone, which is a well-known article of commerce, the rudiments of a true internal skeleton. If amongst the Articulata we find the first trace of the Spinal Cord, it is here that the bony case which is to hold it begins to make its appearance. You are of course aware that the Spinal Column, or backbone in Man and all Vertebrated Animals, consists of a series of bones strongly connected together, called Vertebræ. Now the received doctrine of modern osteologists is, that the whole skeleton is derived from the development of the elements of Vertebræ. The Human skull is found to be but a continuation of the backbone, consisting of four developed Vertebræ. The ribs, and even the limbs, are equally developments of vertebral appendages. Now, what is the significance of this new rigid element in the structure of animals of the highest Sub-Kingdom? If we see a man providing himself with a strong box, we judge that he is getting ready a safe receptacle for treasure; and similarly this new precaution taken by Nature in the structure of the Spinal Column and skull surely indicates that the contents of these parts are of paramount importance in the animal economy—as we know to be the case. The Vertebrata are divided into four great classes—I. Mammalia (Sucklers); II. Aves (Birds); III. Reptilia (Reptiles); IV. Pisces (Fishes). The gradual ascent in type is even more evident in this division of the Animal Kingdom than in the lower part of the scale. This diagram shows how the three superior classes of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles, rise gradually upwards, each above the one immediately below it, by the improvement of some vital function; each advance implying increased organic complexity and fitting the creature for a higher mode of life. The functions which I have here selected for comparison are, you see, all functions of the organic life; respiration, circulation, and re-production. But I do not mean to abandon that which I have selected as the best criterion of progress in the scale of being, viz, the advancing perfection of the nervous system. The four classes of vertebrates will retain the same relative positions, whether we take as our criterion the perfection of the apparatus of Organic, or that of Animal Life: for the type of Organic Life is raised and improved concurrently with the advance of the Animal Life which it subserves. I have referred to the provision made by Nature in the spinal column and skull for

guarding the physical seats of sensation, emotion, and thought. The inspection of vertebrate forms shows the necessity for this provision in the increasing complexity and delicacy of the Nervous Apparatus, and in its greater importance relatively to the entire Organism. Bearing in mind that the Nervous System of Insects is capable of two great divisions, viz.: (1) the ganglions of the trunk with their double connecting cord, (2) the ganglia of the Head; we find in the Vertebrata that there are gradually developed two additional nervous centres, both contained in the skull. These are called the cerebellum and cerebrum. So that in vertebrates we may take a general view of the system of nervous centres as comprising (1) the spinal cord with its extensions; (2) the sensory ganglia, or nervous organs of the special senses of sight, hearing, and smell and perhaps of general tactile sensibility; which, collectively, may be called the Sensorium; (3) the cerebellum; (4) the cerebrum. The first two, you will recollect, and those only, have their analogues in the Insects and higher Molluscs. From the fact that the greatest proportionate development of sensory ganglia occurs in those tribes of living creatures, I mean the social insects, in which instinct is most powerful, Physiologists infer, no doubt justly, that the physical seat to instinct is in that part of the frame. Now there is, in comparative Physiology, without calling in the aid of other sciences, the very strongest ground for a similar inference respecting the physical seat of intelligence as distinguished from instinct. For, as we pass from one type of vertebrated animal to another we find that the intelligence of the species appears to increase in a just ratio with the increase in the size of the cerebrum; and this organ also becomes, at every step upwards, more and more complex in structure. The inference of course is, that the cerebrum is the physical organ of intelligence. Of the cerebellum the functions seem to be to some extent unascertained. It is largest in man, and appears to be a necessary accompaniment of the expanding powers of the cerebrum. It is generally considered as enabling us unconsciously to combine and harmonise the efforts of a great variety of muscles in complex actions, in obedience to a general volition. We have all seen how a complicated piece of music may be performed automatically, if the piece be well known to the performer; although in learning the piece each movement might have required the exertion of the will. The direction of this sort of automatic action seems to be one, at least, of the functions of the cerebellum, acting in conjunction with the sensory ganglia. Returning to the structure of the Cerebrum: it is divided into two sections, known as the Cerebral Hemispheres. The Hemispheres occupy quite a subordinate position in the lower classes of Vertebrates—that is in Fishes and Reptiles. Looking, from above, at the brain of a Cod-fish, the sensory ganglia, especially those pertaining to the Organs of Sight and Smell, are very prominent objects, and form the chief mass of the brain. Gradually, as we rise in the scale, the Cerebral Hemispheres assume increased importance, till in the Mammalia they form the mass of the brain, capping and completely covering in the sensory ganglia, and also, more or less, over-lapping the Cerebellum. The Cerebellum partly shows itself, however, when we look at the brain from above downwards, in every creature except man himself, and those animals which, in general structure, make a close approach to the Human type—I mean, of course, the Monkeys, Baboons, and Apes. In all these animals the posterior lobe of the Cerebrum is well developed, and completely covers the Cerebellum when the brain is viewed from above. So closely, indeed, does the brain of some of the higher Apes approach to that of man, that Professor Huxley declares it to be impossible “to erect any Cerebral barrier” between them. “So far as Cerebral structure goes it is clear,” he says, ‘that man differ less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang than these do even from the

Monkeys; and that the difference between the brains of the Chimpanzee and Man is almost insignificant, when compared with that between the Chimpanzee brain and that of the Lemur.’ Now the Lemur is recognised as the near relation of the Monkeys. Both are included in the order Quadrumana. Yet it should not be too hastily inferred that these creatures, the Apes and Monkeys, are nearest man in point of intelligence. The intelligence of the Elephant and Dog so far exceeding that of the larger part of the Quadrumana, although their brains are of a type much more remote from the Human, may serve (as Lyell remarks) to convince us that we are yet far from understanding the real nature of the connection of intellectual superiority with Cerebral development. Time will not allow me to enter into any detail of the experiments which have confirmed inferential reasoning respecting the functions of the various Nervous centres. Suffice it to observe that the paramount importance of the Cerebrum is ascertained by a common experience. Severe injuries to the Human brain which involve the Cerebral hemispheres, whether through external violence, or through disease, are instantly attended by deprivation of all power of manifesting any Mental Faculty. In such cases, when persons recover, it is commonly found that they have remained totally unconscious from the time when they received the injury until their recovery; the intervening period having been a blank in their Mental Life. Nor can I do more than glance at the Darwinian theory. All existing forms of life, it teaches, may gradually have been evolved in the course of ages, from a very few primal types; perhaps from one only. Mr. Darwin's reasoning has, of course, a bearing on the question of our affinity to the Brute Creation. It goes to show—not indeed that we are descended from Gorillas, but—that Man and the existing Apes may have been slowly developed by change after change from some common form now extinct. Thus, though it is not asserted that our progenitors were Apes, yet it is plain on Mr. Darwin's theory, that these beasts are entitled to put in a detestable claim of cousin-ship to Man. I do not see, however, that the question of our affinity to the Brute Creation is, in reality, affected by the theory of development. That affinity in truth depends upon the identity of our physical constitution with that of the lower Animals; and this can be established, and is, I think, established, independently of a genetic relation. On the whole, the general conclusions of Physiological Science, upon evidence of which I have here summarised some portions only, are:—First, that the Cerebrum is the Organ, or Physical seat of Man's mental faculties; Secondly, that this structure is not peculiar to Man, but is possessed by many of the higher Animals; Lastly, that the most highly organised Brutes, the Anthropoid Apes, approach so closely to Man in cerebral structure that it is not possible, in the present state of Science, to establish any anatomical or physiological distinction between them. I have been able to take no notice of the confirmation added by Geology, or rather by Palæontology, to these conclusions. No scientific man, I had almost said no rational being, now disputes the fact that life existed on this planet of ours for immeasurable ages before the appearance of Mankind upon the scene. Now the operations of Organic Nature through these immeasurable tracts of time, “imperfectly interpreted as they yet undoubtedly are, present,” writes Mr. Page, “a series of vital gradation and progress, * * * from humbler to more highly organised orders; as if the great design of Nature had been to ascend from the simpler conception of Materialism to the higher aims of mechanical construction; from Mechanism to the subtler elimination of mind; and from Mentalism to the “still higher attribute of Moralism, as developed alone in the heart and soul of Man.” Thus; while Physiology shows us this stage of being as now occupied by a hierarchy of creatures;

Geology adds, as a probable opinion, that these creatures have made their several entrances in the order of their dignity. Stranger yet, it seems that each individual member of the higher orders passes, in the embryonic stages of its growth, through a succession of phases corresponding very closely to the great ascending steps of universal Nature. “Because, in the little frame of Man's body there is a representation of the universal and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts there, therefore was Man called Microcosmos, or the little world.” So writes Sir Walter Raleigh, and the idea which he describes has been treated as a dreaming fancy; but our latest Science tends to establish it as not far off a literal truth. And now, at last, I turn to make enquiry, how should these facts affect our views of Man as a responsible being, and as a living soul. If it has hitherto been held that man possesses, by Divine ordination, a faculty of determining his own actions within certain limits—free will in short—do the revelations of Physiology consist with this belief? Again, if we have believed that the Mind of Man is an immaterial substance, not of necessity bound to the body which is its present Organ of expression, nor ceasing to exist upon the dissolution of that body, are we required by Physical Science to surrender, or to modify that faith? It has been proved to demonstration, the Materialist will promptly answer, that Thought, Fancy, Feeling, are merely operations of that aggregation of material particles, which constitutes the Brain of Man. Could we, with adequate knowledge and instruments investigate the working of that organ, can it be doubted that we might trace in every detail those molecular changes which we call the action of the mind? The Past, Present, and Future of every one of us lie packed, they will aver, in that small receptacle, the Human Cranium. Even existing Science is justified in stating, that in the tissues of the Human Brain, all that a Man has been, is faithfully recorded, all that he is unmistakably expressed, all that he will be, infallibly pre-determined and announced. We await only fuller knowledge to decipher on these fleshly tables, inscriptions, of an inexorable fate. In replying to such assertions, feeling is apt to get the stat of reason. It is the Heart first, which in wrath, arises and exclaims, “Let Science prove all this”— “and then, What matters Science unto Men? At least to me: I would not stay.” Now my confidence is fixed, that feeling here does not mislead us; that emotion so uniform, so powerful, so pure, as this which springs up to rebuke the cold pedantry of the Positive school has a deep, perennial source in the Reason of Mankind, and the Reality of Things. To express this reason, and give the argument a shape, is by no means easy. That, however, is what I shall try to do; but let no one take my failure for the failure of the grounds I go on. First then, I say, there is a plain absurdity in the assumption that cerebral phenomena and mental, being concurrent, are therefore identical. If there be such a thing as mind;—and the materialist must not set out by assuming the contrary;—it may be that by the will of God, certain mental events, call them if you please, phenomena, are ordained to run in parallel series with certain physical, events; just as if, to give a very simple illustration, two files of soldiers should be moving simultaneously along opposite sides of a street; halting together; again advancing together; manoeuvre throughout answering to manoeuvre; the companies so appearing inseparably connected in their movements; and in point of fact inseparably connected; not, however, by a physical

necessity, but by the will of the commander, and the discipline of the men. I, for my part, am prepared to grant that every Thought, Emotion and Memory of Man may have its physical counterpart; but the Materialist confounds the physical expression with the thing expressed. The absurdity is as great as it would be to identify the motions of the Telegraphic apparatus with the transmitted message. As those motions are merely the selected vehicles of expression, so may it be, —so is it, as I believe—with the apparatus of the Human Mind. In short, the mistake of Materialism is the old confusion between symbol and thing signified, which has played such wild work in the World. “It is impossible,” says a great philosophical writer of the present day, to “from a steady conception of thought except as originating behind even the innermost bodily structures, and intrinsically different from them. However much you refine and attenuate the living organism, yet after all, Thought is something quite unlike the whitest and thinnest tissue; and the most delicate of fibres, woven, if you please, in fairy loom, cannot be spun into Emotions. Nor is it at all easier to imagine Ideas and Feelings to be the results of organisation, and to constitute one of the physical relations of atoms; and, if anyone affirms that the juxta-position of a number of particles makes a Hope, and that an aggregation of curious textures forms Veneration, he afirms a proposition to which I can attach no idea. Agitate and affect these structures as you will, pass them through every imaginable change, let them vibrate and glow and take a thousand hues; still you can get nothing but motion and temperature and colour; fit marks and curious signals of Thought behind themselves, but no more to be confounded with it, than are written characters to be mistaken for the genius and knowledge which may record themselves in language. The corporeal frame then is but the mechanism for making Thoughts and Affections apparent, the signal-house with which God has covered us, the electric telegraph by which quickest information flies abroad of the Spiritual force within us. The instrument may be broken, the dial-plate effaced; and though the hidden artist can make no more signs, he may be as rich as ever in the things to be signified. Fever may fire the pulses of the body: but Wisdom and Sanctity cannot sicken, be inflamed, and die. Neither consumption can waste, nor fracture mutilate, nor gunpowder scatter away, Thought and Fidelity and Love, but only that organisation which the Spirit sequestered therein renders so fair and noble. To suppose such a thing would be to invert the order of rank, which God has visibly established among the forces of our World, and to give a downright ascendency to the brute energies of matter, above the Vitality of the Mind, which up to that point, discovers, subdues, and rules them. * * *” The position that the action of the Brain, styled, “Cerebration” in the latest jargon of Materialism, is identical with Thought and Feeling, must then be surrendered as intrinsically absurd. But next, perhaps, the contention is, that Thought and Feeling are mere effects of a material cause. That the bursting of a small duct on the Brain, should, in a moment, destroy the life of Consciousness, and put a stop to every Mental process, is, no doubt, as has been said, a fact of which the significance cannot be increased by the adduction of a thousand like instances. In this, it may be argued, and in the cognate phenomena of Insanity, and of old Age, is the plain proof that Mind is a mere Organic function; suspended when the Organ is deranged, and, on its dissolution, ceasing altogether. Now, in common speech, we do, no doubt, talks of the physical occurrence, the apoplexy, the fever, or the blow, as the very cause of the Mind's failure. But, on a closer scrutiny, we find we are not justified in making such an inference. In truth, we have no right to speak at all of a material cause. Of natural phenomena we know only this, that one event, improperly referred to as effect, invariably attends upon, or

follows, some other event, improperly styled cause. This sounds abstruse; yet I believe, by homely illustration it may be made intelligible; and it is a most important point for the Mind to seize, and keep firm hold of. Suppose some one watching, in a mill or factory, the slow revolution of a huge wheel, or endless band; and that he could, from his stand-point, command a view of but a small part of the entire revolution, the rest being screened from him. Let one point on the tire, or revolving circumference, be supposed to bear some distinguishing mark, say a number, and other points at certain distances other consecutive numbers. After watching for a time the movement before him, the spectator of course becomes aware of the order in rotation of these numbers; and at the return of No. 1, will confidently expect that No. 2. will come into his field of view, at some calculable interval, according to the speed of the machine. No. 2. he will know, and may predict, will be followed by Nos. 3, 4, and the rest in regular succession to the end of the series. Now, this is exactly like our observation of Nature. We become aware that physical phenomena follow one another in a certain, invariable order; so that the appearance of a known antecedent phenomenon prepares us to expect, and enables us to predict, the appearance in due course of the regular consequent. Or it may be that two phenomena occur together, in which case we know, that when one is perceived the other also is present. But, more than this Physics can never teach us. They can never warrant us in declaring that one phenomenon is the true, that is, the efficient, cause of some other of which it is the precursor, or companion. In the case of the revolving wheel, we never for one moment suppose that the emergence of the first marked point causes the emergence of that which we know is next to follow. True, in this example, the Mind is not tempted into such a fallacy; since it is known that the real source of the succession we behold is the motive power of the machinery. But the forces which actuate Nature's great machine are beyond our ken. What they do we know, not what in themselves they are. We are not behind the scenes of that great show, and hence are tempted by that law of our Mental structure which will demand a cause for everything, to attribute casuality to what, as far as we know, is a mere antecedent. Nor does it signify, that in Nature force seems to be transmitted in each of her operations. Each physical event is but a link in the infinite chain of like events; seeming to stand as a cause of those that follow, but, in truth, itself, but the effect of all that have preceded it—so carrying back the mind “with a never ending regress,” in vain search for something which may be rightly called a cause. It is as if we should see the balls upon the table, but not the player; and so should foolishly be moved to attribute to mere ivory impinging upon ivory a power which lies not in dead matter, but in some living Will giving the primal impulse. That Physical Science, apart from mental experience, tells nothing whatever of the cause of Physical events, but merely ascertains their sequences, is a truth admitted by both the great opposing schools into which all modern Philosophers may be divided. Since Hume, all agree that Natural Science is conversant only with the invariable succession of antecedent and consequent, and must disclaim all knowledge of efficient causes, and all idea of necessary connection between cause and effect. Uniform experience leads us to expect that one phenomenon will be followed by a certain other, but gives us no right to affirm that it must be so followed. Physics in short, have no concern at all with efficient causes; which are indeed explained away, or quite ignored, by the Positive School of Metaphysics. Those Philosophers to whom the Materialist would make his appeal as the only trustworthy authorities, Hume, Brown, Comte, the two Mills, Bain, concur in this; which is the very cornerstone of their Philosophy. The last argument of the Materialist is then as

weak as the first. The phenomena of Disease, Insanity, old Age and the like, give no just ground for the conclusion that Thought and Feeling are mere products of the material organisation. Again I say, the Physical are not shown to be more than concomitants of the Mental occurrences; and i is still open to the Theist to refer their connection to the Will of the Almighty. * It is exceedingly satisfactory to find that Professor Huxley, in the paper to which I shall presently refer, entirely agrees in repudiating any knowledge of efficient causes in Physics. Less accomplished men of the Professor's school are continually forgetting this truth, and setting up material causes in opposition to the spiritual first cause believed in by the Theist. I am fully aware that in spite of every argument there will remain on some minds a strong, though perhaps not distinct impression, that the advance of physical science, unfolding more and more as it is doing the boundless plan of creation is decidedly adverse to a belief in Human responsibility. The sources of this general notion are well worth exploration. But I must now limit myself to the narrow ground of the special tendency in this direction of the physical facts I am to-night endeavouring to interpret. Before concluding, I propose, therefore, to say something on the seemingly close affinity to the Brute Creation which the Naturalists have fastened upon us. At the first aspect of the facts on which this unpleasing conclusion is based; when, too, we hear an Owen declare that to determine the difference between Homo and Pithecus is the Anatomist's difficulty; or when a Huxley affirms, that no cerebral barrier intervenes between us and the Quadrumana; our blood begins to curdle, and for a time, we are on the way to think that the dignity of Man, his awful responsibilities, his Heavenly hopes, alike are dreams of Theologians, which the wiser modern world has now left far behind it. “Yea,” say we, in such a mood, “yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; all go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” And what is worse, we are half tempted to the logical conclusion, “that for a Beast there is nothing better than a Beast's enjoyment,” nothing better for a Man than that he, “should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour.” But rousing ourselves to consider facts, we cannot but perceive the folly of ignoring the immense chasm which separates the reflecting mind, thus debating with itself these arduous themes from the highest of the brutes. Anatomy, it is said, can detect no difference between the brain of a Newton and that of the last discovered Ape. Is it indeed so? So much the worse then for Anatomy! At most it comes to this, that there exist no physical signs of an enormous disparity. But this is no reason for discrediting our own most certain conviction that the disparity does, in fact, exist. A far more likely solution is, that the imperfect methods of the Science are as yet unequal to detect the physical indicia. I, for one, am far from thinking that anatomy may not hereafter throw a strong reflected light upon mental science. I say a reflected light, for the original ray divine, the pregnant hint of what to look for, must ever come from Psychology itself. Meanwhile, what folly to surrender our beliefs, because they are not contradicted, but, simply, unrecognised, by the imperfect science of the day. The greater physicists are too wise to forget the limits of their own department. And as to the mere dogmatists of the dissecting room—men, who like Draper of New York, will tell you that those whose fingers have never puddled in the dead brain, can know nothing of the living mind—we must recollect that the “dyers's hand is subdued to what is works in.” It is certain that men may, by too gross a familiarity with the secrets of this fleshly frame, “encarnalise their spirits.” Look for no wide philosophic scope in such a quarter. Inured to the Physical order of ideas they are become incapable of dealing with the Psychological. Leave them to think, if they can, that their own Meditations,

Feelings, Aspirations, are simply oxidation in Cerebral tissues of so much phosphorus. “Ephraim is joined to Idols; let him alone.” Physical Science (in fine) must not pretend to dictate to Mankind on subject which transcend her sphere. Knowledge of the external shows of the World, beautiful and valuable as it is, can never supersede our inner experience of the life which underlies those forms. Man's knowledge of his own mental acts, derived from reflection, cannot be set aside by observation, which, pretending not to leave the region of the sensible, remains of necessity will ever seriously lend its ear to a Philosophy which “denying that we can know ourselves, yet insists that we can decipher the Universe.” One puzzling question remains: Wherein shall we place the mental difference between Man and those lower animals which most closely approach him in intelligence? “The range of the passions of Animals is,” says Agassiz, “as extensive as that of the Human mind, and I am at a loss to perceive a difference of kind between them, however much they may differ in degree, and in the manner in which they are expressed. The gradations of the moral faculties among the higher Animals and Man are, moreover, so imperceptible, that to deny to the first a certain sense of responsibility and consciousness, would certainly be an exaggeration of the difference between Animals and Man.” Again Huxley writes, “No impartial judge can doubt that the roots, as if were, of those great faculties which confer on Man his immeasurable superiority above all other animate things are traceable far down into the animate World. The Dog, the Cat, and the Parrot return love for our love, and hatred for our hatred. They are capable of shame, and of sorrow; and though they may have no logic nor conscious ratiocination, no one who has watched their ways can doubt that they possess that power of rational cerebration which evolves reasonable acts from the premises furnished by the senses, a process which takes fully as large a share as conscious reason in Human activity.” It is no subject for any one to dogmatise upon; yet, until the Naturalists show better reasons than any yet adduced, men will continue to believe that Nature, in passing upward from the Brutes, to what is, as yet, her crowing work upon this planet, has taken one of her great strides, and made a difference in kind. And a sound Psychology, guiding the careful observation of external nature, will here, I think, wholly confirm the views of common sense. As Man is apparently distinguished chiefly by his capacity for moral and spiritual ideas, it is in the faculties concerned with these that we ought to seek the special Human characteristics. It is to three great faculties, that we may trace Man's capability in this direction—Self-consciousness, Conscience, and Free Will. The first confers the idea of personality; in the second originates the sense of duty; the third carries with it the feeling of responsibility. United, these faculties confer the power of conscious self-regulation by an ideal standard of perfection. Now, what ground have we for thinking that any of the Brute Creation possess these great endowments, and share the vast responsibilities which they involve? Agassiz, in the passage I have just cited, vaguely talks of “a certain sense of responsibility and consciousness;” and I know it has been thought that, in the Dog, there is the beginning of a Conscience; the first dawning of a Moral nature. And if by Conscience be meant the dread of punishment, the Dog, no doubt, possesses one; and not the Dog alone, but many other Animals. But, if the term be used in its true sense to indicate perception of the difference in moral worth of several competing principles of action, there is then no reason to believe that Conscience is a faculty possessed by any of the lower creatures. Such of their actions as present, at first sight, the aspect of true voluntary self-restraint, are all to be

referred, I think, to training, the habit of Obedience, or to the absorbing power of some strong affection which, for the time blindly predominates. In no case that I have heard of need it be supposed, that there has been that conscious and voluntary preference of the higher to the lower ground of action in which the Moral life of Man consists. The moral faculty declaring “What I ought to do?” cannot conceivably exist apart from that self-consciousness which, holding up a mental mirror wherein the Soul can see and know itself, enables me to say, —“This is I.” I know what moral grandeur some of the recorded actions of Animals assume. But there is some illusion in our admiration of these affectionate and faithful Brutes. Outwardly, their acts have all the beauty of self-forgetful love. Yet how can there be self-oblivion, or self-surrender in creatures upon whom the idea of self has never dawned? Man is apt to measure all things by the standard of his own nature, and thus it is that we unconsciously attribute to the lower creatures an ideal elevation of which there is no valid reason to suppose them capable. The supposition that the Brutes are destitute of self-consciousness, also best explains, I think, the difference between their intelligence and ours. The mind, which is a mere theatre on which impressions and recollections make their entrances and exists without the faculty of detaining or recalling them at will to compare and classify, must be incapable of general ideas, and of all abstract reasoning. To Man alone, it seems, is given command over his own intelligence. The Dog thinks, but only Man has the power of thought. That God has withheld self-consciousness from the Brute creation, may perhaps be thought to cast some ray of light upon another mysterious subject. It may be that the gift of Immortality has, by the All-Righteous One been confined to that created being in whom alone, so far as our knowledge goes, He has raised the hope and expectation of it—who alone “thinks he is not made to die.” Yet on this dark subject it becomes all to speak with great reserve. Who shall pretend even in thought, to limit His designs? Surely we may preserve our faith in Man's great heritage, without pretending to make it clear that all God's other creatures are shut out. Their destiny is nowise our concern. It is a mystery which as yet transcends our knowledge; and, not improbably, our faculty of knowledge. In what I have just assayed to express respecting the mental characteristic of humanity, I cannot hope to content any one who denies the existence in Man of a moral faculty and free causal power. I expect no one to concur who, in metaphysics, prefers Hume and Mill to Coleridge and Martineau; or who, in Ethics, holds with Paley against Bishop Butler. The differentiation of Mankind from Brutes, must needs fail in the hands of a Philosophy which has analysed away every Human characteristic. As little can I carry with me any of the modern scientific school, which, in terms, abjures materialism, and, with Hume and Comte, disclaims knowledge of efficient causes, yet is ever seeking to refer the whole Creation, the Human mind included, to a supposed primal material impulse. No one who, like Professor Huxley, can think of his own mind as “the expression of molecular changes,” in that matter of life which is common to himself and the stinging nettle, can be convinced by any argument which I have here adduced. Exiling from the world, as they seek to do, all present creative energy, such thinkers are bound to find, in every phenomenon of the Cosmos, neither more nor less than is contained in its immediate antecedent. With them, all existence are but phases of one blind force, whose undulations fill all space and time; and no essential difference can be admitted to exist amongst them. * This whole paragraph, with some of what precedes, has been written since the delivery of the lecture, since which, also, I have read Professor Huxley's paper in the Fortnightly Review, February, 1869, “On the Physical Basis of Life.” The physical observations detailed are of great interest. The metaphysics derived from J. S. Mill are a good example of that modern philosophizing which A. de Morgan not long ago described, with equal truth and point, as “proving that everything is something else; and nothing, anything at all.” As to the Professor's humorous caution against “lunar politics,” and concluding moral, it is impossible not to be reminded to the jeu d' esprit in Punch, —“What is matter? Never mind! What is mind? No matter!” It is certain that physical science cannot but lose by this alliance with mistaken metaphysics. Let the attempt be made by all means, to reduce phenomena to a common formula. But this must not be done by leaving out what is peculiar to each. It is no true science which would explain away whatever it cannot explain. Let physical philosophy confess that the phenomena of mind are wholly different from those with which it has to do.

After all, look at it steadily, and you will see that this doctrine Man's actual physical affinity to brutal forms, instead of raising new doubts, goes far to explain certain admitted facts of human experience, and to lesson the pressure of some old difficulties. I extract the following striking passage, (cited by Lyell, in this connection,) from Hallam's Literature of Europe. —“It might be wandering from the subject of these volumes if we were to pause, even shortly, to inquire whether, while the creation of a world so full of evil must ever remain the most inscrutable of mysteries, we might not be led some way in tracing the connection of moral and physical evil in man with his place in that creation; and especially, whether the law of continuity, which it has not pleased his Maker to break with respect to his bodily structure, and which binds that, in the unity of one great type, to the lower forms of animal life by the common conditions of nourishment, reproduction, and self-defence, has not rendered necessary both the physical appetites and the propensities which terminate in self; whether, again, the superior endowments of his intellectual nature, his susceptibility of moral emotion, and those disinterested affections, which, if not exclusively, he far more intensely professes than any inferior being—above all, the gifts of conscience, and a capacity to know God, might not be expected, even beforehand, by their conflict with animal passions, to produce some partial inconsistencies, some anomalies at least, which he could not himself explain in so compound a being. Every link in the long chain of creation does not pass by easy transition into the next. There are necessary chasms, and as it were leaps from one creation to another, which, though not exceptions to the law of continuity, are accomodations of it to a new series of being. If Man was made in the image of God, he was also made in the image of an Ape. The framework of the body of him who has weighed the stars and made the lightning his slave, approaches to that of a speechless Brute, who wanders in the forests of Sumatra. Thus standing on the frontier land between animal and angelic natures, what wonder that he should partake of both!” The same thought appears in the exhortation of the most modern-minded of Poets— “Move upward, working out the Beast, And let the Ape and Tiger die.” Let man put down within himself the ferocious and the obscene. The very emotion of disgust raised by our nearest neighbours on the scale, those “blurred copies” of ourselves, is not, we may be sure, without a salutary purpose in the divine economy. Physiology, in fine, does but bring home, in a more lively way, if that be possible, one of the very oldest of human convictions, one of the very first of religious lessons. Man has always perceived within himself the contest of the double nature; has always felt the downward drag of the heavy body, the stirring of the brute within him. Oriental thought does but exaggerate this truth in the doctrine of the inherent evil of matter; a doctrine well known to

Theology as Manicheism, to which Dean Milman traces most of the heresies of Christendom; and which may perhaps be found a large ingredient in not a few of its existing creeds. Nor is that a strange voice which we may hear complaining—“I delight in the law of God after the inner man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this Death?” Cleared from the partial misconceptions which obscure it, the primitive belief in God and Man, so deeply grounded, so universally diffused, most surely will outlast successive theories of Physics which, to our darkened understandings, appear from age to age to threaten its extinction; and out of their materials will find fresh arguments to vindicate itself. And, stationed at the summit of terrestrial Nature, looking thence, backward, on the long gradations of inferior creatures, forward, up the world's great altar-stairs, to glory upon glory, dimly discerned, yet surely awaiting the obedient, the soul of Man, as in the days of old, will overflow in grateful benediction for the life already given; in earnest prayer for larger measures of the quickening Spirit Who is Himself the substance of the fuller life to come.