John Austin(1790-1859).
Among those who frequented James Mill’s house were Grote and the two Austins, John and Charles, the latter a man of almost unequalled reputation for brilliant talents, who contented himself with extraordinary pecuniary success at the bar, and early retired with a fortune. The elder brother, John Austin, was rather an independent thinker who adopted many of the same views, than a disciple of James Mill. He never achieved what was expected of him.
S. Mill says that his error was over-elaboration: he wore himself out before his work was accomplished through incapacity to satisfy himself. His writings are nevertheless full of redundancies; but he did a great deal towards forming a terminology for scientific jurisprudence. His works,The Province of Jurisprudence Determined(1832), andLectures on Jurisprudence(1863), are, like nearly all the writings of his school, deficient in human interest.
Partly stimulated by and partly stimulating these men, John Mill began to think for himself and to initiate movements. It was he who in the winter of 1822-1823 founded the Utilitarian Society, the name of which was borrowed from Galt’sAnnals of the Parish. A little later he was brought, through the agency of a debating society, into contact with a wider circle. The battles were originally between the philosophic Radicals and the Tory lawyers; but afterwards they were joined by those whom Mill describes as the Coleridgians, Maurice and Sterling. It was under the attrition of these friendships and friendly discussions that Mill’s mind was formed and polished after it passed from under the immediate control of his father. His interest from the start centred in philosophy. Before 1830 he had begun to write on logic, but his first important publication was theSystem of Logic(1843). For some years he edited theLondon Review, afterwards entitled theLondon and Westminster. HisPolitical Economyappeared in 1848. In 1851 he married a widow, Mrs. Taylor, to whom he ascribes a share in some of his works scarcely inferior to his own. Her influence is especially strong in the essayOn Liberty(1859), though this was not published until after her death.
About this time Mill took up the question ofparliamentary reform, and in 1861 published hisConsiderations on Representative Government. Nearly contemporaneous in composition, though eight years later in publication, was theSubjection of Women; whileUtilitarianism(1862) was the result of a revision of papers written towards the close of Mill’s married life.Auguste Comte and Positivism(reprinted fromThe Westminster Review) and theExamination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophyboth appeared in 1865. There remain to mention only theAutobiographyand a collection of essays, both posthumous. During these later years Mill’s life was for a time more public than it had previously been. In 1865 the electors of Westminster asked him to be their representative, and he was elected without the ordinary incident of a canvass. In the election of 1868 however he was defeated, and the constituency never had an opportunity of redeeming its error.
Mill’s writings may be grouped under the heads of philosophical, economic, and political. The highly interesting but depressing and melancholyAutobiographystands outside these classes. Perhaps it is his best composition from the point of view of literature; and certainly it is the most valuable document for a study of the growth of his school. The three divisions are not mutually exclusive, for, strictly speaking, the first would embrace the other two. In it an attempt is made to lay down general principles which are applied in them.
Mill’s theory is contained in hisLogic, hisUtilitarianism, and his books on Comte and Hamilton. It has become known by the name he gave it as Utilitarianism; and as Bentham was the founder and first leader of the school, so was Mill the successor to his position and authority. It is a modern form of the theory associated with the name of the philosopher Epicurus; and on that ground it has been subjected to moral censure. Perhaps ultimately, as directedagainst the principle, the censure is sound; but it cannot be fairly turned against individuals. Certainly no thinkers of their time laboured more strenuously for the good of the community than Mill and Bentham. In Bentham’s exposition, the philosophy crystallised itself in the often-quoted phrase, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number.’ His contribution consists in the introduction of the idea of the greatest number. Whether that idea is logically consistent with a philosophy of pleasure may be questioned; but it was to Bentham’s addition that the maxim owed its power and its practical influence on legislation. It was moreover this consideration, in addition to the fact that he breathed Benthamite ideas from the cradle, that attracted Mill. For he was a typically English philosopher. He never of his own choice dwelt long on purely metaphysical problems, nor did he succeed well when he was forced to attempt them. His attitude towards Hume’s theory of cause, after Kant’s criticism of it, is vividly illustrative of his speculative limitations. If Oxford is the place where German philosophies go when they die, apparently London in Mill’s time was the place where German philosophies did not go at all; and even dead German philosophies are better than the English predecessors which they slew in the day of their vigour.
As a Utilitarian, Mill was more valuable for exposition than for the original elements of his thought. In all his writings he is clear in expression and abundant in illustration. This abundance, in truth, appears to the reader not wholly ignorant of the subject to be cognate to verbosity. It was however part of the secret of Mill’s great influence. He forced people to understand him. He talked round and round the subject, looked at it from every point of view and piled example upon example, until it was impossible to miss his meaning. When we add wideknowledge, patient study, keen intelligence and a considerable, if not exactly a great talent for original speculation, Mill’s influence as a philosopher is explained. He wielded, from the publication of hisLogictill his death, a greater power than any other English thinker, unless Sir William Hamilton is to be excepted for the earlier part of the period.
These characteristics, combined perhaps with a greater share of originality, appear in theSystem of Logicas well as in the Utilitarian treatises. Its merit is proved by the fact that through many years of adverse criticism it has maintained its ground at the universities as one of the most useful books on the subject. The freshest section is that which is devoted to Induction. TheExamination of Hamiltonshows Mill to have possessed the gift of acute and powerful criticism of philosophy. He may not have succeeded in establishing his own position, but he certainly damaged very seriously the rival system of Hamilton.
Mill’sPolitical Economyis, like his general philosophy, lucid, full and thorough. Though cautious here, as always, in the admission of new principles, Mill made considerable contributions to economics. The theory of international exchanges is almost wholly his, and many particular turns and details of economic doctrine are due to him. In a still greater number of cases he has been, not the originator, but the best exponent of economic theory. The caution and judiciousness of his reasoning were qualities peculiarly valuable in this sphere; and where the views of ‘orthodox’ political economy are accepted at all, Mill’s opinions are treated with respect.
The time when Mill’s authority was at its height was also the time when political economy was held in greatest honour as a science. The writers on it were numerous;and though, with the exception of Mill, they were not individually very distinguished, their collective work was important. They developed the doctrines of Adam Smith and Ricardo and Mill; while the speculations of Malthus acquired through Darwin a new importance, until a reaction, brought about more by sentiment than reason, led many to the conviction, or the faith, that they could not possibly be sound. The doctrine oflaissez faire, so influential on government during the third quarter of the century, was the work partly of the economists and partly of the practical politicians of the Manchester school. It was never followed out logically, and before the close of the period there were signs of a movement which has since led to an opposite excess. Of the men who did this work Nassau W. Senior (1790-1864), in the earlier part of the period, and J. E. Cairnes (1823-1875) in the later deserve individual mention. The former was a great upholder of the deductive theory of political economy. The latter, in his treatise onThe Slave Power(1862), produced one of the most noteworthy special studies in economics, and also one of the most powerful arguments in favour of the action of the Northern States of America.
It was the practical aspect of the science that chiefly interested Mill in economics. It was this still more, if possible, that inspired him in his more specifically political works, the treatises onLiberty, on theSubjection of Women, and onRepresentative Government. In his schemes of reform Mill was, in his own time, considered extreme; he would now be thought moderate. The caution of his speculation is nowhere more clearly marked than in hisLiberty. It pleads certainly for more power to the state than the Manchester School would have granted; but it does so only in order to preserve the real freedom of the individual. In theSubjection of WomenMill was apioneer on a road which has been well trodden since; and, for good or ill, there has been steady progress towards the triumph of his ideas. InRepresentative Governmenthe shows a faith, probably excessive, in political machinery; but, whether it can do all Mill supposed or not, such machinery is necessary, and his labour tended to make it better.
William Whewell(1794-1866).
Over against Mill, with some points of resemblance, but more of difference, may be set William Whewell, who, in 1841, became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and who acquired an immense reputation both for encyclopædic knowledge and for brilliant wit. On the human side he was certainly more attractive than Mill. Like the latter, he was fascinated by the great performances and the boundless promise of science; and he is one of those whose task it has been to formulate a philosophy of science. To this task he devoted himself more exclusively than Mill, and he brought to it a greater knowledge of scientific processes and discoveries. Moreover, his point of view was different. Mill was a pure empiricist. Whewell held that empiricism alone could not explain even itself; and he therefore taught that there was necessary truth as well as empirical truth. This was at once the starting point of his controversy with Mill and the ground-work of his writings, theHistory of the Inductive Sciences(1837) and thePhilosophy of the Inductive Sciences(1840). He is best known by hisNovum Organum Renovatum, which was originally a portion of the second work.
Whewell’s strong point is his great knowledge of the history of science. His inductive theory is somewhat loose. It amounts to no more than a succession of tests of hypotheses; and of these tests the most stringent, prediction and consilience of inductions, are open to the fatal objectionthat they are not and cannot be applied to all inductions. Mill’s inductive methods also are more stringent in appearance than they prove to be in reality; but they at least point to an ideal towards which it is always possible to strive.
Sir William Hamilton(1788-1856).
Of a widely different school of thought was Sir William Hamilton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh from 1836 to his death. Hamilton was a man of vast reading, and though it has been questioned whether his learning was as exact and profound as it appeared to be, there can hardly be a doubt that it was great enough to hamper the free play of his thought, and that it explains two of his characteristic faults. One is the excessive technicality of his diction. His style, otherwise clear and good, is overloaded with words specially coined for the purposes of the logician and metaphysician. The second fault is his inability to resist the temptation of calling a ‘cloud of witnesses,’ without making any serious attempt to weigh their evidence. Hamilton was a disciple of the Scottish school of philosophy, and a great part of his life was devoted to an elucidation of Reid, of whose works he published an elaborate edition in 1853. But Reid’s principle of Common Sense, as an answer to the philosophic scepticism of Hume, is little better than an evasion; and Hamilton had not much to add to it. Besides the edition of Reid Hamilton publishedDiscussions on Philosophy and Literature(1852); and after his death there appeared theLectures on Metaphysics and Logic(1859-1861), by which he is best known.
James Frederick Ferrier(1808-1864).
Hamilton had a great and not altogether a wholesome influence on James Frederick Ferrier, who in the domain of purely metaphysical thought was probably the most giftedman of his time. Ferrier describes his own philosophy as Scotch to the core. There is in it, nevertheless, a considerable tincture from the German, and Ferrier deserves the credit of being one of the earliest professional philosophers who really grappled with German thought. He was also the master of a very clear and attractive style, which makes the reading of his philosophy a pleasure rather than a toil.
Henry Longueville Mansel(1820-1871).
Henry Longueville Mansel, a pupil of Hamilton’s, and joint editor of his lectures along with John Veitch, afterwards Professor of Logic in Glasgow University, was the ablest exponent of the Hamiltonian philosophy in England. Mansel’s power of acute and lucid reasoning was shown in hisProlegomena Logica(1851), and afterwards in hisPhilosophy of the Conditioned(1866). Both were developments of Hamilton’s principles, and they have suffered from the general discredit of the Hamiltonian school. Mansel is better known now, by name at least, on account of hisLimits of Religious Thought, (constituting the Bampton lectures for 1858), which was the occasion of a controversy between him and Maurice.
Harriet Martineau(1802-1876).
The other philosophical writers of the period were, with one exception, of minor importance. Harriet Martineau was a woman of varied activity. She wrote political economy, history and fiction; and her story,Deerbrook(1839), is among the best and freshest of her works. She is however most memorable, not as an original thinker, but as a translator and expounder. She translated and condensed the philosophy of Comte, and did as much as anyone to make it known in England. She had the great merits of unshrinking courage, perfect sincerity and undoubting loyalty to truth.
George Henry Lewes(1817-1878).
Another miscellaneous writer of the Comtist school was George Henry Lewes, who has been elsewhere mentioned in connexion with George Eliot. He was an active-minded, energetic man, whose life touches literature at many points. He too wrote novels, but they did not succeed. He was a critic of no mean power. He took great interest in and possessed considerable knowledge of science, and in 1859-1860 published a popular scientific work,The Physiology of Common Life. But his best known book is theLife of Goethe(1855). It is an able biography and pleasant to read, though perhaps, considering the calibre of the subject, rather lacking in weight. It is however no small compliment to Lewes’s work that it was for many years accepted, both in Germany and in England, as the standard biography of Goethe. Lewes’s principal contributions to philosophy wereA Biographical History of Philosophy(1845-1846),Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences(1853), andProblems of Life and Mind(1873-1879). In all of them Lewes shows himself an unswerving Positivist. He accepts and reiterates his master’s doctrine that the day of metaphysics is past, so that his philosophy is, in a sense, the negation of philosophy.
Sir George Cornewall Lewis(1806-1863).
In the sphere of political science, the man next in power to Mill was Sir George Cornewall Lewis. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the first administration of Lord Palmerston, Lewis had the opportunity of making a practical acquaintance with his subject; but his theories were formed earlier. Extensive knowledge, combined with clearness of intellect and independence of judgment, gives value to his work. HisInquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History(1855) was remarkable for its attack upon the theories of Niebuhr, which were in those daysaccepted with an almost superstitious reverence. But previous to this Lewis had written his most important book,The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion(1849), a well reasoned and well written argument, worthy of attention in these days when there seems to be a disposition to forget the limits beyond which the influence is illegitimate. Lewis teaches the wisdom and even the necessity of submitting to ‘authority’ where we cannot investigate for ourselves, and where all who are competent to form an opinion are agreed; but he is careful not to set up any absolute and indefeasible authority which might dictate to reason and against reason.
Towards the close of the period there are noticeable traces of a new school superseding both Utilitarianism and Positivism. This school, nourished upon German idealism, had its centre at Oxford, and the men who have done the principal work in it were pupils of Jowett. They belong however to the later period and come within our present scope only as an indication of tendency.
Herbert Spencer(1820-1903).
The root of thought in all these men is the idea of development, the great formative idea of the present century. This idea however had an English as well as a German growth. In England it is best known through Darwin. But while Darwin shows its scientific side, the most celebrated of recent English philosophers, Mr. Herbert Spencer (1820), makes it the basis of a philosophy.The Synthetic Philosophy, just completed, is distinguished for the vastness of its design, the accomplishment of which gives Mr. Spencer a place among the few encyclopædic thinkers of the world. His philosophy is interesting also because it concentrates and reflects the spirit of the time. No other thinker has so strenuously laboured to gather together all the accumulations of modern knowledge andtounite them under general conceptions. The alliance between the Spencerian philosophy and physical science is unusually close; and Mr. Spencer in his illustrations shows an all-embracing range of knowledge, which becomes minute in those branches of science bearing directly upon the phenomena of life. The future only can determine the exact value of this knowledge, for there are grave differences of opinion between Mr. Spencer and some of the leading biologists, like Weismann; but it may at least be said of him that he is the first philosopher since Bacon (‘who wrote on science like a Lord Chancellor’), or at latest Leibnitz, who has met men of science on something like equal terms within the domain of science. Mr. Spencer’s unique interest is that he has attempted an exhaustive survey of all the facts relating to the development of life and of society. He does not go beyond that, to the origin of all things; for it is one of his cardinal principles that behind the Knowable there is dimly visible a something not only unknown but unknowable. We are compelled to regard every phenomenon as the manifestation of an infinite and incomprehensible Power. In this the philosopher finds the reconciliation of religion with science; a reconciliation for which the religious have seldom shown much gratitude, because they are forbidden to say anything specific about the Power whose existence they may, and indeed must, assume. On this point there is a quarrel between Mr. Spencer and the metaphysicians, who dispute the right of any man to assert the existence of an Unknowable. If we can assert its existence surely we know it at least in part; and if so may we not by investigation come to know it better?
The Spencerian philosophy is the most comprehensive and ambitious application of the principle of evolution ever attempted. Without showing anywhere that mastery of detail and that power of marshalling facts in evidencewhich give Darwin’s great work its unequalled significance, theSynthetic Philosophyyet reaches at both ends beyond the limits Darwin set himself. Mr. Spencer begins by recognising three kinds of evolution, in the spheres of the inorganic, the organic and the super-organic; and all the parts of theSynthetic Philosophyfind a place under one or other of these; but the treatment of the first part is omitted as less pressing and as adding too greatly to the magnitude of the scheme. After theFirst Principles, in which are laid down the limits of the knowable and the unknowable, there follows therefore thePrinciples of Biology(1864-1867), where the evolution of life, the gradual differentiation of functions and kindred topics are treated. Still within the sphere of the evolution of the organic we have next thePrinciples of Psychology(1855), where organisms exhibiting the phenomena of mind are examined from various points of view to determine so far as possible the nature of mind, its relations with the universe, the composition of its simpler elements, etc. From psychology we step to super-organic evolution in thePrinciples of Sociology(1876-1896), which is probably regarded by the majority as the most characteristic part of the Spencerian philosophy. It is certainly one of the most interesting; for it combines in an unusual measure the best results of ancient thought with full justice to modern individualism. Mr. Spencer is a consistent individualist, but a far-sighted one. He sees that ‘the survival of the fittest,’ and with it progress, are impossible unless ‘the fittest’ both wins and keeps advantage to himself. Unlimited altruism would be as bad as unlimited egoism, and would indeed foster egoism, for it would in the end mean the stripping of generosity to pamper greed. On the other hand, pure egoism is fatal to society; and the animal for whom gregariousness is an advantage must fail in the struggle if he is unfaithfulto the social principle. Hence there arises a society which is a balance between the two principles. It demands sacrifices from the individual in return for benefits; but the law of its existence prohibits the extension of this demand beyond the point where the individual ‘fittest’ survives and prospers. If the demand goes beyond this the course is downwards; for, as society is composed of individuals, a society in which the strongest has no advantage is a society in which progress is impossible, but, on the contrary, deterioration is sooner or later certain. There is no room on Spencerian principles for any socialism which does not recognise difference of reward according to difference of capacity.
In thePrinciples of Ethics(1892-1893) Mr. Spencer attempts to apply the results reached in the earlier parts of his scheme to the enunciation of a theory of right living. It is here that an evolutionary system based upon science is felt to be least convincing. There is a gulf never satisfactorily bridged between ethical principles as gradually evolved out of the non-moral state, and the ‘moral imperative’ as it is felt by the human conscience. Hence, the man of religion insists, the necessity of being specific about that vague Power dimly seen behind the philosophy of evolution; and hence the necessity, in the view of the metaphysician, of regarding evolution from above as well as from below. We learn much by tracing things to their origin; but to learn all we must consider as well what they ultimately become. It is in fact the final form that gives importance to the question of origin. The temptation of evolution is certainly to underrate the significance of the later stages; and the higher we go the greater are the effects of such an error.
But whatever its faults theSynthetic Philosophyremains unequalled in the present age for boldness ofconception and for the solidity derived from its league with science. No other philosophy is so eminently modern in spirit and method; and whatever modifications may prove to be required, thought at once so daring and so patient can never be ignored.
SCIENCE.
The achievements of science as a rule hardly come within the purview of the critic of literature, for language is commonly used by science for a purpose other than that of literary expression, and even when science is popularised by writers like Mary Somerville the result is apt to be something not very valuable for its substance nor yet for its style. Nevertheless, all science may indirectly, and some of it does directly, influence literature. In point of fact, this influence has been one of the great features of the present century. We see it on the one hand as a force of attraction, on the other as a force of repulsion; for while some have been fired with the hope of human progress, others have been chilled by the fear of its materialising tendency. Both classes have been prone to exaggerate the mere mechanical results of science and to forget that its true aim is knowledge, not machines. It is however in the sphere of ideas that we must look for its effect upon literature. Whether we travel by railways or by stage-coaches, whether we transmit our messages by letter or by telegraph, matters little; but it matters much whether we are hopeful or despondent, whether we feel that there is no new thing under the sun, or are inspired by ideas that seem to open new worlds to our intellect. We must ask then, in the first place, what is the effect of science on the spirit of menand their view of life; and in the second place, what are the scientific ideas which directly and in themselves influence popular thought and colour literature.
It is obvious that there are certain departments of science which from their very nature can have little or no direct influence. The mathematical researches of men like Sir William Rowan Hamilton are far too technical, too difficult and too abstruse for popular apprehension. They remain a mere name, and not even their general import is understood. The same remark applies to the mathematical work of Augustus de Morgan, who, by the way, gave valuable hints for Hamilton’s great work on quaternions. But De Morgan was a logician as well, and the author of theBudget of Paradoxesis worthy of remembrance in literature. In physics the case is somewhat different. The processes by which physicists like Joule and Faraday attain their results remain mysterious, but the general character of the results becomes known, their great importance is obvious, and they generate a confidence in the powers of man which in the present day goes far towards counteracting tendencies to pessimism.
There are however certain sciences whose influence upon life and thought is direct, because their results bear upon man’s own position in the universe. Astronomy, through its relation to the Mosaic cosmogony, belongs to this class; but its force had been felt long before the opening of the period. It is especially the sciences of geology and biology that have changed men’s minds, and it is they that have produced the most books which, apart from the scientific value of their contents, might claim to rank as literature.
Geology was at the opening of the period practically a new science. What had previously been done in it was trifling compared with what has been accomplished since, and its bearing upon questions of universal interest was not even suspected by the multitude. Darwin in his brief autobiography relates an anecdote illustrative of the primitive state of the science in his youth. ‘I,’ says he, ‘though now only sixty-seven years old, heard the Professor [of Geology in Edinburgh], in a field lecture at Salisbury Crags, discoursing on a trap-dyke, with amygdaloidal margins and the strata indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us, say that it was a fissure filled with sediment from above, adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained that it had been injected from beneath in a molten condition.’ Even more striking than any aberration of an individual is the general fact that the prevailing theory at that time in geology was the ‘catastrophic,’ and a science with an unlimited command of catastrophes is no more scientific in spirit than a theology with an unlimited command of miracles.
Sir Charles Lyell(1797-1875).
The first need of a science in this state is the accumulation of facts, and most of the older geologists of the time, like Sedgwick, Murchison and Buckland, bent themselves to this task. But the man who dealt the death-blow to the old uncritical view of geology was Sir Charles Lyell, whosePrinciples of Geology(1830-1833) marks an epoch in the science. Lyell’s central doctrine is that the past history of the earth must be inferred by ordinary processes of observation and reasoning from the present, and that it is possible to interpret ‘the testimony of the rocks’ by means of principles which we still see at work. In other words, he was a ‘uniformitarian.’ The victory of his view established ‘the reign of law’ over the field of geology, and went far towards convincing men of its universality. Assuming no causes except such as he could point to in experience, Lyell showed how the geologicalformations of the earth arose. According to Darwin, the effect of Lyell’s work could formerly be seen in the much more rapid progress of geology in England than in France; and thePrinciples of Geologywas most helpful to Darwin himself.
In hisAntiquity of Man(1863) Lyell touched the verge of the problem of organic life. He did so in a spirit of open-minded conservatism. He had now to guide him the great light of theOrigin of Species, and even before its publication he had had glimmerings of evolution. He saw that Darwin only extended to the animal and vegetable world his own central principle. But he felt a deep objection to tracing the descent of man through some ape-like creature, and hence, whileThe Antiquity of Manrecognises the long history of the race upon earth, it contains no avowal of belief in his descent from inferior forms of life.
Hugh Miller(1802-1856).
Another geologist, who was rather a popular expositor than a profound man of science, was Hugh Miller. Miller was bred as a mason, and it was in the quarries where he pursued his trade (quarrying being in his time and district associated with stone-cutting) that he laid the foundation of his geological knowledge. But Miller was more than a geologist. He threw himself energetically into the contest which culminated in the Scottish Disruption of 1843; and for the last sixteen years of his life he was editor of the bi-weekly paper,The Witness, which had been established by the leaders of the Free Church movement as the organ of their opinions. The sad close of Miller’s life by suicide is well known. His health had been undermined by early hardships and by subsequent overwork, and an examination after death proved that the brain was diseased.
A great deal of Miller’s work was done forThe Witness.He was a most conscientious as well as a most able journalist, and he brought to his occupation a rare literary power. There was an imaginative and poetic strain in his nature which sometimes showed itself in the weaker form of fine writing, but often gave eloquence to his descriptions and fervour to his argument. This is the living part of him; for it is certainly not their scientific value that causes Hugh Miller’s books to be still read.
Miller’s most important works areThe Old Red Sandstone(1841),Footprints of the Creator(1847),My Schools and Schoolmasters(1854), andThe Testimony of the Rocks(1857). In their geological aspect they merely supply the raw material of science. Miller had not the previous training requisite to give his work the highest value. He knew little or nothing about comparative anatomy, and therefore could not himself deal with the fossils he discovered. In the view of modern experts his scientific value lies in his strong common sense and his keen powers of observation amounting almost to genius. His function is to stimulate others rather than to sway thought by great discoveries. A liberal in politics, he was something of a conservative in science.The Footprints of the Creatorwas written in answer to theVestiges of Creation, and its author figures as one of the numerous reconcilers of the text of Genesis with the discoveries of geology. His value in literature is higher than in science, for he wrote a style always pleasant, and sometimes eloquent.My Schools and Schoolmasters, a volume of autobiography, is one of the best of its class in the language, and is the work by which Miller will be longest remembered.
Related to geology, and even more influential upon modern thought, has been the theory of biological evolution, represented within the present period by RobertChambers, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Thomas Huxley too, though so much of his work is of a later date, demands mention for his long polemic on behalf of evolution, begun immediately after the publication ofThe Origin of Speciesand continued till his death. The work of Sir Richard Owen the great anatomist had an important bearing upon this theory, but he was neither a Darwinian nor are his scientific writings literature.
Robert Chambers(1802-1871).
Robert Chambers stands by himself. He was of the best class of self-made men, and as a publisher perhaps even more than as a writer did service to literature. He had great talent for not only acquiring information but making it popular. His most remarkable book, theVestiges of the Natural History of Creation(1844), was published anonymously, and, in fear of the outcry of orthodoxy, extraordinary precautions were taken to guard the secret of the authorship. For a long time the efforts were successful, and, though the secret gradually became an open one, it was not till 1884 that his responsibility for the book was authoritatively avowed. TheVestiges of Creationhas been unduly depreciated since the time of Darwin. The gaps in the argument, and still more perhaps the untenable assumptions and mistaken assertions, are easy to detect now; but it is at least ungracious to insist upon them. Chambers was not an accomplished naturalist; on the contrary, Huxley charges him with ‘prodigious ignorance.’ He had not laboured as long, as patiently or as strenuously at the subject as Darwin; but at the same time his book is in an uncommon degree bold and suggestive. The best minds were already dallying with the idea of evolution, but in 1844 there nowhere existed in English such a concrete and clear presentation of it as Chambers gave.Judged in relation to what was known and thought then, his work was a memorable, though, from lack of a sufficiently firm foundation, hardly a great one.
Charles Robert Darwin(1809-1882).
Charles Robert Darwin is the true father of evolution as applied in modern science, and of all the men of science of the century he most demands and deserves attention in connexion with literature. No recent doctrine, either in science or philosophy, has produced anything comparable to the revolution in thought caused byThe Origin of Species. Its central ideas have been applied not merely in the department of biology, but everywhere in the world of thought,—in philosophy, in religion, in literature and literary criticism. We cannot refer all this to Darwin alone, for the conception of evolution can be traced for two thousand years or more; but it was Darwin who first planted it firmly in the human mind, and consequently he is the chief though not the sole cause of the revolution. Another element of his greatness, important in a criticism of literature, is that his works are themselves literature. Writing a perfectly plain style, he yet succeeds in so expressing his meaning that the manner is no inconsiderable part of his charm. Some of the less compressed works, like theNaturalist’s Voyage round the Worldand the monograph on earthworms, are as fascinating and as difficult to relinquish as a skilful story of adventure; and if this cannot be said ofThe Origin of Speciesitself, the reason is that it is so packed with thought that the reader is compelled to pause over it.
Darwin, the son of a physician, was originally destined to follow his father’s profession, and went to study in Edinburgh; but he liked neither the teaching nor the profession. In 1828 he went to Cambridge, and though he derived no great benefit from the regular studies of theplace, the connexions he formed influenced the course of his life. He began the study of geology under Sedgwick, and he was on very intimate terms with Professor Henslow, through whom he became naturalist of the ‘Beagle.’ The voyage of this ship laid the foundations of his fame but permanently injured his health. In 1839 Darwin married, and in 1842 he settled at Down in Kent, where he lived an exceptionally retired and quiet life, compulsorily sequestered from society because of his health.
Darwin’s literary life had begun before this. In 1839 hisJournal of Researches(better known asA Naturalist’s Voyage round the World) was printed as part of the narrative of the voyage of the ‘Beagle,’ and in 1845 a second edition was called for. It is full to overflowing of the results of observation set down in a delightfully easy narrative style. Darwin was not yet an evolutionist, though the materials are there out of which the evolutionist grew, and occasional remarks indicate that the subject was not foreign to his mind.The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs(1842) was another product of this memorable voyage. The theory maintained is that the reefs are the result of gradual subsidence, and form the last relics of submerged continents. Geologists were impressed by the boldness and originality of the speculation and by the great mass of facts with which, in Darwin’s invariable way, it was supported. This was followed by two other publications on volcanic islands, and on the geology of South America. These writings won for Darwin a high position among men of science; but it was not until the appearance of the second edition of theNaturalist’s Voyagethat he became widely known.
The highly characteristic and instructive story of the incubation and writing ofThe Origin of Specieshas been told by Darwin himself. He had been long haunted by theidea of a possible modification of species; and shortly after his return in the ‘Beagle’ he began to collect all facts bearing on the variation of animals and plants. His first note-book was opened in July, 1837. He read widely, conversed with breeders and gardeners, and addressed printed enquiries to such as seemed likely to give him information. He was led to the conclusion that ‘selection was the keystone of man’s success in making useful races of animals and plants;’ but he could not understand how selection could be applied in a state of nature. The reading for amusement of Malthus onPopulationgave him the clue. In the fierce competition for life among animals and plants, favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. He read Malthus in October, 1838. But, to avoid prejudice, for three years and a half, till June, 1842, he refrained from writing even the briefest sketch of his theory. In 1844 the first sketch was enlarged. In 1856 he began to write out his views on a scale much more extensive than that finally adopted; and yet, even so, it was only an abstract of the materials collected. In 1858 Mr. Wallace, then in the Malay Archipelago, sent Darwin an essay which proved to contain exactly his own theory. On the advice of Lyell and the great botanist Hooker an abstract from Darwin’s manuscript was published in 1858, simultaneously with Mr. Wallace’s essay. The concurrence of ideas between Mr. Wallace and himself set Darwin vigorously to work. He undertook once more to make an abstract of the manuscript begun in 1856, and in 1859 published the celebratedOrigin of Species.
The book owes much of its effect to this process of gradual expansion and gradual contraction. The reader is struck with three things in it: first, the great range, combined with sobriety, of speculation; secondly, thewonderful mastery of detail; and thirdly, the beautiful balance and proportion, the sufficiency without undue length of the arguments. Hardly any other pioneer in untravelled realms of thought has left such an impression of wholeness.[4]Neither could Darwin have done so without the long preliminary training. TheOriginbears on almost every page the marks that it too is a product of selection. Darwin sifts his mass of examples and chooses those best suited for his purpose. The completeness of the book moreover is largely owing to the fact, noted by Darwin himself, that for many years he had made a memorandum, at the moment, of every fact, observation or thoughtopposedto his results; because he had found that such facts and thoughts were more apt to be forgotten than favourable ones. ‘Owing to this habit,’ he says, with truth, ‘very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.’
No book of this century has roused such a tempest asThe Origin of Species. A number of the younger men of science hailed the theory with eagerness, and one or two of the older were extremely friendly; but many were startled and were unprepared to accept views so novel. Still more, the exponents of orthodox religion were wild against the theory; and in the British Association meeting in 1860, at Oxford, Bishop Wilberforce, by an unmannerly attack, drew down upon himself a crushing rebuke from Huxley. Gradually a calmer temper prevailed, and the problems were discussed fairly on both sides, as questions of science, not matters of faith to be determined by an appeal to Genesis.
The time has not yet come for a final verdict uponTheOrigin of Species; but even if Darwin’s theory should in the end prove to need great modification, his book will still be one of first-rate importance. It has proved itself already the most stimulating book of the century. Those who oppose Darwin oppose him now with his own weapons: they are evolutionists, though they think some other scheme of evolution the true one. The change is vast from the almost universally prevalent belief in special acts of creation and fixed types to a belief, nearly as widespread, in the gradual development of all the variety of life from at most a few primordial forms. And this result has been, more than almost any result equally great, the work of one man.
This great book was followed by some of those special studies which Darwin had the gift of making almost as interesting as his discussions of central principles. This is partly because he makes all his work illustrative of those principles. No one was ever more steadfastly guided by a single idea; and hence his works have an unusually intimate connexion with one another. Thus,The Fertilisation of Orchids(1862) is a detailed study of a subject which occupies one or two paragraphs in theOrigin. InThe Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants(1865) Darwin broke new ground; for it was after the publication ofThe Origin of Speciesthat he was led to notice these phenomena. The new material however served the purpose of the theory, and the author was ‘pleased to find what a capital guide for observations a full conviction of the change of species is.’ The book on climbing plants was the outcome of observations carried on in broken health. ‘All this work about climbers,’ says Darwin, ‘would hurt my conscience, did I think I could do harder work.’ InThe Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication(1868), on the other hand, he was reverting to that department ofinvestigation in which he had first seen clear light on the question of species. The most debated point in this book is the celebrated speculation of Pangenesis. Darwin advanced it, not as something proved, but because ‘it is a relief to have some feasible explanation of the facts, which can be given up as soon as any better hypothesis is formed.’ It throws light however on the essentially speculative character of his intellect to find that this admittedly doubtful hypothesis of Pangenesis is the part of the book on which he looks with the greatest affection,—‘my beloved child,’ as he phrases it.
The Descent of Man(1871) ranks next in wide importance toThe Origin of Species. It is the application in detail of the same principles to the human race. That the application was inevitable was already evident in the earlier book; and it was this that brought upon theOriginthe most virulent abuse. Just because it is so inevitable,The Descent of Manhas not the unique interest ofThe Origin of Species. Once we are familiar with the view that all the species of animals have been produced by the accumulation of minute variations, there is no surprise in the idea that man and all his powers may have been so produced likewise. Nevertheless, Darwin differs on this point from the man who shares with him the honour of discovering the theory of evolution. Mr. Wallace, while arguing with Darwin that man has been evolved out of some lower form, holds that ‘natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape,’ and that in the higher human faculties there is evidence of the working of a supernatural power. The position is a strange one. If the whole creation moves harmoniously through all its grades by the action of one law, it will need overwhelming evidence to show that just at the end this law is superseded by another altogether unlike it. Either the supernaturalgoverns the whole of life, or its introduction to explain one stage is gratuitous.
AfterThe Descent of MancameThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals(1872); and that again was followed byInsectivorous Plants(1875). The former was originally intended merely to form a chapter in theDescent; but the materials grew, and the result is one of the most readable of books. TheInsectivorous Plantsembodies one of the most remarkable of Darwin’s discoveries. Its richness is due to the patience and skill with which the facts were accumulated. Sixteen years passed between the time when Darwin first noticed that plants lived on insects and the appearance of the book. In the interval he had done many things; but, whenever he had leisure, he was always adding to his store of facts relating to this class of plants; and, as he justly says, ‘a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were that of another person.’
Later, Darwin wrote on the fertilisation of plants, in order to demonstrate the importance of cross-fertilisation; on the forms of flowers; and on the movements of plants,—the last a kind of extension and generalisation of the book on climbing plants, endeavouring to co-ordinate all the movements of plants as variations of an inherent tendency of the parts to a revolving motion. The theory has not been accepted by botanists. Last of all, in 1881, appeared the monograph onThe Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. This book is just the expansion and completion of a paper read by Darwin to a scientific society as far back as 1837. All that time the subject dwelt in his mind; and when at last leisure permitted, he developed it into what is perhaps the most purely delightful of all his books. In greatness it does not come into competition with some of them at all; but thefamiliarity of the phenomena, the care with which they are examined, the skill of the arrangement and the charm of finding meaning in what had been so meaningless, have made the volume one of the most widely read of all Darwin’s works.
That which distinguishes Darwin from other naturalists is the combination of extraordinary speculative power with great knowledge of detail and unlimited patience. These qualities have been combined in others as well, but never, within the field of natural history, in the same degree. More commonly they are found separate. The ordinary type of naturalist is the man who knows an immense number of facts about plants and animals, and who rests content with that knowledge. He may be master of everything about the great subject of scarabees, but it scarcely occurs to him toexplainthe scarabees themselves, still less to use them in explaining other creatures. On the other hand, the opposite type, the type which speculates only without first laying the foundation of fact, is likewise common enough. How ineffectual this is may be seen from the history of earlier speculations on evolution. TheVestiges of Creationand the theory of Lamarck are superseded, not so much because of deficiency in speculative power, as because the theories are not sufficiently buttressed by facts. Even though Darwin’s own theory should ultimately be, in one sense, as dead as that of Chambers, it will always remain one of the landmarks of thought.
Undoubtedly Darwin’s intellect was fundamentally speculative. We have seen how in the book onVariation under Domesticationhis affection clung to Pangenesis, perhaps the most questionable part of its contents. He was restless under the sense of an unexplained fact, and thankful for even a provisional explanation. He notes the effect upon him of the discovery that science cannot remaincontent with facts alone. Geologising with Sedgwick in North Wales, he heard about a tropical shell which had been picked up in a neighbouring quarry. ‘I told Sedgwick of the fact, and he at once said (no doubt truly) that it must have been thrown away by some one into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it would be the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that we know about the superficial deposits of the Midland Counties.... I was then utterly astonished at Sedgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions can be drawn from them.’ It is this conception that he kept steadily before his eyes, and his glory lies in his success in drawing general laws from his facts.