Man and his dwelling place; an essay towards the interpretation of nature

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Preface To Third Edition

It is fourteen years since this book was written ; necessarily, therefore, though the main outlines of the thought still command my belief, there were many things in it which inadequately expressed my present views. These I have endeavoured to amend, but more by omitting topics not essential to the elucidation of the main position of the volume than by additions, which could hardly have failed to betray the weaknesses they were meant to supplement. The book is therefore shorter than it was, and I hope more clear.

There is one point, however, on which a distinct explanation is desirable. When I wrote the book my feeling was (I suppose the prevalent one) that a difference, even a contrast, exists between man's intellectual and his moral life : that there is a want in respect to the latter which does not exist in respect to the former ; so that while his intellectual progress has been a consistent advance, an intelligible living process, his intellectual constitution being perfectly vi PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

adapted to the world in which he lives, his moral nature is different : that this is imperfect, and needs for its perfectness another world and a different order. This thought I have seen reason to change. To me, now, it seems established by abundant evidence that man's moral and intellectual nature arc alike, and his moral and intellectual progress strictly parallel. The failures which mark his moral life have their counterparts ■ — ■ without marring its perfectness — in his Intellectual life. So that, as satisfactory and beautiful as is the one, so beautiful and so perfectly a subject for joyful contemplation is the other: that they live indeed a common life, with common failures and common victories, and have before them a common destiny of secured and perfect triumph. The contrast between them is one oi period, not one of nature or of end.

The evidence for this belief is not here to be discussed ; but it was necessary for me to state the change in my convictions, because I think that the contrary feeling (though it is nowhere expressed as an opinion) so pervaded the volume that it was hardly possible to put aside all trace of it.

JAMES HINTDN, London, Deciniber r, 1S71.

Preface To Second Edition

The reception of this book, both by the public and by those who have passed a critical judgment upon it, has been so much more favourable than I anticipated, that I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing my grateful appreciation of the candour and generosity with which it has been treated. Especially my thanks are due to those who, while sympathizing with my aims, have pointed out what have appeared to them to be defects in my arguments. Of many of those defects no one can be more sensible than myself, nor can I look without .regret upon the faults of grouping and detail with which, I am conscious, the work abounds. But being convinced that in their main principles the views herein advocated are true, and being strongly fortified in that belief by kind tokens of assent received from many quarters, and from individuals whose approbation it is a proud satisfaction to have won, I venture still to submit them to the judgment of the viii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

public, trusting that in the future, as in the past, the interest and importance of the theme will outweigh the deficiencies of the advocate. I know quite well I am not equal to the just treatment of these subjects ; I never thought I was ; and therefore the detection of innumerable shortcomings in my work does not afflict me with any kind of despair. Almost I am glad, rather, that the handling should be unworthy of the topic, that so the question which I would submit to the reader's judgment may be commended to him solely by its own intrinsic weight.

It would be impossible for me here sufficiently to notice the arguments i,vhich have been urged against my views. But I may, perhaps, briefly refer to a few points in respect to which my meaning appears to have been misunderstood. I have seemed to some to represent knowledge — a mere intellectual enlightenment — as the one thing necessary for man, or, at least to place my chief reliance on such enlightenment. Nothing can be farther from my thought. I believe I place such knowledge exactly where St. Paul placed it when he asked, " How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard } "

It has been objected that we have not any faculties by which we can gain true knowledge. Of this I need only say, that the question does not affect my present object, one way or the other. I only argue for a change in our way of thinking ; in fact, for a different application of the faculties we are now using. The reader can easily decide for himself, whether he can or cannot think as I suggest.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. ii

I believe that the defect in man, which I seek to prove, is the same with the death of which the New Testament speaks in describing our present state. I cannot, therefore, forego the use of the terms Life and Death. Nor do I think that any advantage would be gained by foregoing them ; for I believe that no one who assents to the thought will feel the words to be otherwise than strictly and most impressively appropriate.

Whether or not the doctrine of this volume satisfies the conscience, I can only appeal to the conscience of the reader. It comes nearer to satisfying mine than any other. It docs indeed, to my feeling, retain and intensify all that elsewhere meets the demands of the conscience. For this reason chiefly I value it, and believe that it must prevail. For conscience, we well know, is the ruler in the human soul. But if the reader find that it does not satisfy his conscience, let him reject it. No voice more earnestly than mine would entreat him, in such case, to regard it as a delusion and a snare.

The design of the volume was simply to give expression to certain convictions that had gradually grown up in my mind until they pressed upon it with overwhelming force. I felt that a doctrine, legitimately arising out of studies which seemed purely scientific in their aim, possessed the highest religious significance, and not only promised, but gave a solution of some difficulties that had long perplexed the human mind, and even of some that had been pronounced insoluble. I could not do otherwise than

It PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

attempt to utter what I thus perceived. The utterance must have been stammering' and feeble, for the ideas of which I sought to be the medium oppressed me with their vastness. I did not grasp them ; they held and used me rather. My fault is that I have been so imperfectly their instrument.

The time has been long anticipated, when the results of the modern investigation of nature shall receive a higher interpretation, and their relations to moral and religious questions come into clearer light. Nor have there been wanting indications of a belief that, when that time shall come, it will be rich in benefits, and will enable men to take a position which had previously been beyond their reach. Humbly I believe that that time has already begun. It needs only that we should be willing to go where a clear light shines, and an open path awaits us.

Not that I have sought to introduce scientific dogmas into the sphefe of religion, or have attempted to explain the mysteries of religion by any scientific light. Nothing could have been farther from my seeking; few things could be in my opinion more irrational. But I think I have seen that science does of itself become religious, and affirm a doctrine respecting man which is one with the fundamental affirmation of the Christian records. I cannot help seeing this, nor believing that others will see it also, I cannot help believing that others also will rejoice to see it, as I rejoice.

Surelyour havingdespairedof agood, is no reason that we should refuse to accept it when it comes.

And if we have schooled ourselves, taught by a long experience, to believe that our intellectual and our religious lives must always be alien from each other, if not opposed, we need not therefore be the more reluctant to allow them to be in unison when they do visibly unite. The question is one of fact.

When I think of this matter, I seem to see man, like an instinct-led creature, doing a work which he neither designs n5r knows. Under the constraint of various impulses and desires, he gathers laboriously together the materials, and constructs the edifice, of knowledge ; under impulses which consciously tend no farther than the mere construction, and desires which find their gratification in immediate results. But more is done than he aims to do. Man makes science as the bird builds its nest : with instincts satisfied in the work itself, but with ends reaching far beyond. With fragmentary sticks, and straws, and moss, and feathers from its own ungrudging bosom, cunningly built up, doubtless with delight and inward satisfaction in the doing, the bird has formed for itself unwittingly a nest — a home adapted to its highest life. Does God thus take thought for birds, and has He not granted to man also the privilege of doing more than he designs ? Should it surprise us to find that in fulfilling desires of their own, mankind also have wrought out a work of higher use t

There are two classes of persons to whom I hoped that the thoughts contained in this volume might be welcome : those who feel painfully the weight of the moral problems presented by the world, on the one xii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

hand ; and on the other, those who desire to see a more satisfactory and more hopeful solution of the problems which the intellect encounters. If any of these find help or light in what I have suggested, I am more than satisfied.

CHAPTER I. Of the Work of Science

Various kinds of Proof— Method adopted in. tins \\ ork— Sources of Error arising from I.anguage — Meaning of the Statement that Man wants Life — Illustration — Meaning of the word Pktnemena — ^hat the Limitation of our Knowledge to Phenomena implies — Man naturally under Illusion — Proofs that Nature is not Inert — The felt Inertness, therefore due to Man — This a Result taught by Science — Adaptation of Science to teach us respecting ourselves— Use of the words Apfiarana, FhlncBunon, and Fact — Relation of the Physical to the Spiriinal „ x\v CONTENTS.

CHAPTER II. Of the Laws of Nature

The Thought that the Inertness felt in Nature is due to Man, in Harmony with Man's Moral and Emotional Nature — Invariibleness not Proof of Inertness — The Necessity in Nature not Passive, but Love — The Argument a Moral one — The Inference of Passive Forces not justified — Illustration by Light or Sound— The Idea of />r«— Law in Nature... i

CHAPTER IIL Oi' THE Illustration from Astronomy. Difficulty felt in receiving this View— Its Source — Aid given by the History of Astronomy — Parallel of the proposed Correction of our Thought to that effected when the Motion perceived in the Heavens was referred to a Motion affecting Man — Mode in which both Problems are solved, by formation of Hypotheses, and Correction of our Impressions thereby -— Simplicily of the Problem — Apparent Contradiction of Coosciousness — Reconciliation— Bearing on the Question of Man's Freedom- Nature of the Inertness ascribed to Man ;

chapter iv. Of Knowing

Application of the foregoing Argument — Unsolved Problems no

reason for rejecting a new View — Onr Conceptions, how to be

used — Limitations of Thought— The Place of Sense— Nature of Perceptioi

CHAPTER V. Of Being

Recapitulation — Means of correcting our Impressions respecting the Universe— Part played by Science in this— Why Failure in the Past— Mystery— What it is to know— Theory of a. Mal/rial Substratum — Harmony introduced by admitting Man's Illusion— Practical Importance of the Question

CHAPTER VI. Of Man

Simplicity and Familiarity of this Method of Judging, by considering our own Condition — Tte Demonstration of its Necessity — Inertness a negative Quality— Defect thereby proved, in Man — The not-existing felt as existing — Advantages of the Law that our own Condition is revealed to us by Conditions perceived as external — Elevation of View thence arising

Chapter VII

The Relation of Science to Philosophy. isitivism, the denial that Man can have Knowledge rightly so called — Its practical Grounds — Necessity of facing (he Problem Satisiacl9ry result — the bearing of Scientific Inquiry upon Man — New Data supplied — The Argument from previous Failure invalidated — Course of Human Thought — Existence not denied — Known as Cause — Our Eiperience not truly with Phenomena — Practical Results -

CHAPTER I. Of Death

The Question truly a Religious one— Reason of Man's fear— Subjection of the Moral and Religious Convictions to Intellectual Conceptions — Cause — ADeadness of Man afSrmed in the New Testament— The same also taught by Study of Nature— Sphitual Death— Why the Bible has been made to speak an opposite Language „

Contents

CHAPTliR II.

The Eternal — In what Way to be Known^Not to be intellectually Eraspcd — The Divine Existence not related to Time as ouii is — Life given in Believing— But not a merely individual Change— .The perfect Life of the Individual is in the perfected Life of Man — Eternal Life not Happiness _

CHAPTER in.

chapter ii. Of Illusion

le question of Evil— We feel as Evil that which is not Evil— Why— Evil pertains to the Phenomenal— What would deliver us from the Feeling of Evil — The privil^e of sharing it — Necessity of Illusion 10 Man

Chapter III

Of Reality, The World's Redemption, wrought out in our Experience, subordinates all olliec interests — Gives a Happiness not dependent upon Circumstances— Makes clear the Mystery of Human Life —Delivers from the Bondage of Self— Satisfies, in making us Parlfllters with Christ ^, i;

Chapter IV

Of Weongness, Man's Failure and its Cause — Error and Ignorance remedied through Failure— Also in relation to the Eternal—The Feeling of Evil inseparable from the Self— The Doctrine practical- Attaches to daily Work a higher Value and more imperative Claim— Gives Harmony to Life— Makes Earthly Life the Nourisher of Piety .;„ „ „.. i;

Dialog tTE I. — Dialogue II. „.,..

Dialogue III

INTRODUCTION.

He who lias seen obscurities whicli appeared impenetrable in physical and mathematical science suddenly dispelled, and the most barren and unpromising fieHs of inquiry converted, as if by inspiration, into rich and inexhaustible springs of knowledge and power on a simple change of our point of Tiew, or by merely bringing to bear upon them some principle which it never occurred before lo try, will surely be the very last to acquiesce in any dispiriting prospects of either the present or future destinies of manltind.

It has Jjeen well observed that the child and the savage invent an explanation of everything tliey do not understand, whilst the man whose powers are matured and disciplined investigates. He has learnt to be patient, and to wait for grounds of knowledge before he supposes himself to know. Thus progress is made. From investigation comes discovery. Our partial and incompetent reason, brought into contact with the great facts of nature, becomes itself enlarged. For the natural suppositions by which man explains the unknown are not equal to the scope of things. They express himself, his ignorance, his limited relations.

« INTRODUCTTON.

All advance in knowledge is a deliverance of man from himself. Slowly and painfully he learns that he is not the measure of truth, that the fact may be very different from the appearance to him. The lesson is hard, but the reward is great. So he escapes from illusion and error, from ignorance and failure. Directing his thoughts and energies no more according to his own impressions, but according to the truth of things, he finds himself in possession of an unimaginable power alike of understanding and of acting. To a truly marvellous extent he is the lord of nature.

But the conditions of this lordship are inexorable. They are the surrender of prepossessions, the abandonment of assumptions, the confession of ignorance. Hence in all passing from error to truth we learn something respecting ourselves, as well as respecting the object of our study. Simultaneously with our better knowledge we recognize the reason of our ignorance, and perceive what defect on our part has caused us to think wrongly.

Either the world is such as it appears to us, or it is not. If it be not, there must be some condition affecting ourselves which modifies- the impression that we receive from it. And this condition must be operative on all mankind : it must relate to man as a whole rather than to individual men.

So far as we could judge without reference to experience, either of these cases might be supposed. There is perhaps no sufficient reason, a priori, why

INTRODUCTION. ixl

we should not imagine that the appearance might correspond with the fact of things ; and, on the other hand, we know that circumstances which affect ourselves do continually modify our perception of objects, so that their appearance differs more or less considerably from that which they truly are. And in some cases this difference of the appearance from the fact is very great. Perhaps nothing can be more unlike the planets than the appearance they present to us ; or, to make the case more striking, let us imagine our own earth viewed from one of the other planets. Can anything be more different from this dark soUd varied mass than the bright spot it would appear ?

Therefore, when we approach inquiries relating to nature, and the true relations which we bear to the universe, we must be treading on unsafe ground if we assume, without investigation, one of these possible events to be true to the exclusion of the other. We cannot be sure that the world does not diiTer in extreme degree from its appearance. All experience combines to teach us caution. The history of human error Is a history of the taking it for granted that things are as they appear.

Speaking generally, we may say that all speculation hitherto has been based upon the supposition that the appearance of the world does correspond with the fact. All systems are attempts to represent the order of things on that natural supposition. And not only is this the case with philosophical systems, it is equally true of the ordinary and unregulated ideas which lie in every man's mind All our conceptions are based jcxil introduction;.

on the implied postulate that the world is as it appears.

How far the result is satisfactory each man must judge for himself. But it should not be forgotten that another course is open. If we could recognize any element in our condition that should have the effect of causing the appearance of the world in which we are to differ from the fact, the issue of our speculative labours might at least be different from that which it is at present.

That appearances should be deceptive has an evident basis in nature. For the appearance of every object, or the way in which it primarily impresses us, depends upon our relations in respect to it. But these relations, infinitely varied as they are," must be ascertained by the study of those objects themselves. We have not any intuitive knowledge of them. Therefore as our relations to the world become more widely known to us wc are constantly learning to recognize, as the cause of our perceptions, facts which are widely different from that which those perceptions at first suggest. Nor do we feel in doing this any embarrassment or difficulty : it is the very thing which gives to our conceptions clearness and simplicity.

For right knowledge, it is necessary that the relations between ourselves and the objects that affect us should be clearly understood : that we should know why, the fact being as it is, the appearance must be such as it is to us. The planets appear so small because of our distance, so bright because of the laws of reflection of light : they appear to be

INTRODUCTION. Sxiu

revolving around the earth because we are being moved. Knowing these things, it is no longer strange to us to think of those spcclts of light as orbs kindred to our own ; or of the stars, so hke them in respect to sense, as yet vaster worlds glowing with a radiance of their own. We entirely mistake if we imagine that there is any difficulty to the human mind in recognizing under any sensuous appearance a fact how unlike soever to that appearance. Nothing is more natural : to nothing is our native tendency more strong. The* discovery of facts beneath appearances is the very work of the intellect, and is indeed but the recognition of our own relations to the universe. But there is always a difficulty in first taking this step: that which, when it is familiar, it seems impossible to doubt, when it was new seemed not less impossible to beUeve. The source of this difficulty lies in our very constitution. For we necessarily think that an appearance corresponds to the fact until by increasing knowledge we have learnt otherwise. The intellect demands that every appearance should be accounted for. Every impression on us has some cause ; and we necessarily suppose a cause correspondent to every such impression until some other fact be shown to which it may be more reasonably referred. This constitutes the formation of hypotheses ; which are accordingly necessities of our mental being. Thus before astronomy was understood, men necessarily supposed that there existed in the heavens a small bright disc such as the moon appears. This was a hypothesis, which the recognition of the true moon sets aside.

xiiv INTRODUCTION.

Hence arises one chief difficulty in the advance of knowledge. For it is the proper work of the intellect in removing ignorance to connect our impressions with facts different from those which are first suggested to us. New truths therefore always come, not only with an aspect of strangeness, but in apparent opposition to received and established beUcfs ; sometimes in opposition to views held sacred, or fundamental to all knowledge. The hypothesis, or cause that had been supposed in ignorance in order to account for the appearance, has a hold upon the mind as if it were a fact certainly known. It is the hardest thing possible for men to remember that such hypothesis has no foundation except their own ignorance. The fact that they have been obliged to suppose it, and that to have denied it, without showing how the impressions of which they are conscious could be otherwise produced, would have been to leave a ridiculous vacancy and to run in the face of common sense, often overpowers all other considerations. The demand upon them to give up that which they have considered as of all things the most certain, is too much. Evidence is of little avail against that feeling. The utmost simplicity, beauty, and necessity in the new opinion often go for nothing in comparison with it.

And there is, besides, always this argument in favour of a hypothesis that has by long use become established as a truth ; it is so natural ; it answers so exactly to the impression or appearance which it is used to account for. This must be the case ; being

TNTKODVCTION.

invented for the very purpose of accounting for our impressions, a hypothesis cannot be wanting in exact correspondence with them. In this respect it must have an advantage, and a very powerful one in relation to some of our strongest feelings, over the truth which seeks to supplant it. For that truth demands reflection and thought ; it is in a certain sense opposed to our first natural conceptions, and involves an exercise of reason and a regard to the mutual bearing of various facts. Hence the struggle for the life of a hypothesis is the more prolonged. If the hypothesis be assumed, everything is simple, our impressions need no correcting, and the case is just as it seems. To all this there is nothing to be opposed but the argument that, plausible as that belief may be, investigation and a Just use of our powers forbid us to rest in it. The weak part of a hypothesis is not that it doqs not account for our impressions — this it can hardly fai! to do — but that it will not bear investigation. The existence of that which is seen in spectral illusions or in dreams would account perfectly for their occurrence, and we do indeed at first always account for them so. That is the natural hypothesis; but examination proves it impossible, and we have learnt accordingly to assign them to other causes. Which causes, it may be observed, are very far from being such as we should have thought likely.

These are in part the reasons which render the establishment of a new truth so difficult. Every such truth has to encounter a hypothesis which perfectly accounts for the appearances, makes little demand on xxvi INTRODUCTION.

the thought fulness and reason of men, and, above all, is established as a certain and unassailable truth, based on an experience which cannot deceive. It is no wonder that under these circumstances false views of nature should have struggled long with advancing knowledge. We should not complain that it has been so : that were to find fault with the very faculties and mental tendencies through which alone we have been made capable of learning.

Especially we should avoid the injustice with which it is too customary to treat the past. We are apt to think that -the men who strove so long against opinions which arc to us almost self-evident must have been less open to conviction and less willing to abide by the results of investigation than ourselves. But herein we do a twofold wrong : we cast undeserved reproach upon the dead, and inflict a deeper injury upon oarsclvcs. Reading history so, maWng it feed our own self-confidence and pride, is sadly to abuse its lesson. Men do not alter : in these days they are no more willing to give up what they consider settled facts and principles than they were of old. In all ages men have been willing to apply principles that have been proved true, to do again in other forms that which has been done before ; in no age willing, or likely to be willing, to do more. In the past we may read the present ; we forget what those men whose errors we pity were called upon to do ; we forget how much we owe them for what they did. They were called upon to set aside the very principles on which their mental life was moulded, to abandon, as false,

INTRODUCTION. ixvii

convictions which seemed to carry away with them the entire basis on which a sound judgment or a steadfast faith could be sustained. And they did it. Trusting in God, the world has given up over and over again well nigh all its most assured convictions ; trusting in God that the fact must be better than their thought. Is it for us to boast ourselves.' are wc willing to do as much again ?

The truth is that every generation of men thinks that it has at last arrived at the ultimate principles o£ knowledge, and that whatever mental revolutions may have been necessary before, no more will be needed thereafter. It must be so. The very fact of men honestly striving to do their best involves it, Man cannot foresee the future ; his little horizon must seem to include the scope of heaven and earth. Ever, therefore, he is anxious to knoi* more in accordance with his ow* ideas, but he little anticipates conceiving differently. Yet it might not be impossible to draw from history a lesson that should make us truly wiser, if we would 'remember that the thing which has been is the criterion of that which is likely to be ; and that, as other ages, so we also might be called upon to admit ourselves in error in some of those opinions in respect to which we have been most sure that we arc right.

The idea which is commonly entertained of nature is the best conception that men have been able to form respecting it, in the absence of definite, or at least of complete knowledge. Accordingly it corresponds xxvHI INTRODUCTION.

precisely to their first natural impressions, which indeed it is constructed to represent as closely as possible. It is therefore conformable to all experience that the advance of knowledge should bring men into collision with this conception, and that it should exist as an obstacle to a truer interpretation of the facts. If it be the case that our impressions fall short of the truth, then of necessity the ideas to which we have had recourse ,to account for those impressions must be .inadequate. They must embody our ignorance, and differ essentially from those which we should form if the true relations which exist between ourselves and the world were known to us. In a word, our conception of nature is a hypothesis.