Letters on the laws of man's nature and development

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PRFSENTED BY

LETTERS

Preface

This book is in reality what it appears to be, — a correspondence between two friends. The responsibility for its publication is mine. For some years, I had been taking a stronger and stronger interest in Mr. Atkinson's views on a group of subjects which I had been contemplating from my youth up, with incessant curiosity, and, till of late, slight satisfaction. Last year, I asked him to permit me to inquire of him, in some sort of sequence, about his researches into the nature and position of the Human Being ; and the replies I have received seemed to me to require of us both the discharge of that great social duty, — to impart what we believe, and what we think we have learned. I therefore suggested the publication of our letters. Among the few things of which we can pronounce ourselves certain, is the obligation of inquirers after truth to communicate what they obtain ; and there is nothing in the surprise, reluctance, levity, or disapprobation of any person, or any number of persons, which can affect that certainty. It may a*

VI PREFACE.

be, or it may not be, that there are some who already hold our views, and many who are prepared for them, and needing them. It is no part of our business to, calculate or conjecture the reception that our correspondence is likely to meet with. The one of us has earned, and the other has received, some knowledge, and both of us have thence come to entertain views which we value ; and the first duty belonging to the privilege is to impart what we believe to be true.

It will at once occur to every considerate reader, that to establish by evidence and argument the facts and conclusions contained in these Letters would require many volumes. If we put out only one, its contents must be merely expository ; and such, and nothing more, is the character of this volume. It has neither the compass, nor the order, nor the relative proportion, of a treatise. I believe that it has substance and connection enough to make it of value in its actual shape. Such as it is, we send it forth in the hope that we shall be corrected where we are wrong, enlightened where we are dim or blind, and sympathized with by those who estimate truth and freedom as we do.

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

Ambleside, November. 1850.

MOTTOES

" To generate and superinduce a new nature, or new natures, upon a given body, is the labor and aim of human power : whilst to discover the form or true difference of a given nature, or the nature to which such nature is owing, or source from which it emanates (for these terms approach nearest to an explanation of our meaning), is the labor and discovery of human knowledge." — Bacon: Novum Organum, Aph. 1, Book 2d.

"It is our office, as faithful secretaries, to receive and note down such (laws) as have been enacted by the voice of Nature herself: and our trustiness must stand acquitted, whether they are accepted, or by the suffrage of general opinion, rejected. Still, we do not abandon the hope that in times yet to come, individuals may arise who will both be able to comprehend and digest the choicest of those things ; and solicitous also to carry them to perfection." — Bacon : Anticipations of the Second PhU losophy.

" The true end, scope, or office of knowledge, I have set down to consist not in any plausible, delectable, reverend, or admired discourse, or any satisfactory arguments, but in effecting and working, and in discovery of particulars not revealed before, for the better endowment and help of Man'3 life." — Bacon : Interpretation of Nature.

" Concerning the publication of novel facts, there can be but one judgment ; for facts are independent of fashion, taste, and caprice, and are subject to no code of criticism. They are more

V2I1 MOTTOES.

useful, perhaps, even when they contradict, than when they support, received doctrines ; for our theories are only imperfect approximations to the real knowledge of things." — Sir H. Davy.

"The state of the speculative faculties, the character of the propositions assented to, essentially determines the moral and political state of the community, as we have already seen that it determines the physical. Every considerable change historically known to us in the condition of any portion of mankind, has been preceded by a change of proportional extent in the state of their knowledge, or in their prevalent beliefs." — Mill : System of Logic.

" The deep philosopher sees chains of causes and effects so wonderfully and strangely linked together, that he is usually the last person to decide upon the impossibility of any two series of events being independent of each other ; and in Science, so many

natural miracles, as it were, have been brought to light,

that the physical inquirer is seldom disposed to assert, confidently, on any abstruse subjects belonging to the order of natural things; and still less so, on those relating to the more mysterious relations of moral events and intellectual natures." — Sir H. Davy : on Omens.

" The Ancients, whose genius was less limited, and whose philosophy was more extended, wondered less than we do at facts which they could not explain. They had a better view of Nature, such as she is : a sympathy, a singular correspondence, was to them only a phenomenon, while to us it is a paradox, when we cannot refer it to our pretended laws of motion." — Buffon.

" It does not become the spirit which characterizes the present age, distrustfully to reject every generalization of views, and every attempt to examine into the nature of things, by the process of reason and induction." — Humboldt : Introduction to Cosmos.

" With regard to authority, it is the greatest weakness to attribute infinite credit to particular authors, and to refuse his own prerogative to Time, the author of all authors, and, therefore, of

MOTTOES. IX

all authority. It is not wonderful, therefore, if the bonds of antiquity, authority, and unanimity have so enchained the power of Man, that he is unable (as if bewitched) to become familiar with things themselves." — Bacon : Nov. Org., Aph. 84.

" Moreover, in these mixtures of divinity and philosophy, the received doctrines only of the latter are included ; and any novelty, even though it be an improvement, scarcely escapes banishment and extermination." — Bacon : Nov. Org., Aph. 89.

" For if they mean that the ignorance of a second cause doth make men more devoutly to depend upon the Providence of God, as supposing the effect to come immediately from his hand, I demand of them, as Job demanded of his friends, « Will you lie for God, as man will for man, to gratify him ? ' " — Bacon : Interpretation of Nature.

can subsist without certain properties. It is only the metaphysical theologians that have embraced the error that all activity and all action is owing to a spiritual being, and that inertia is the essence of matter." — Gall.

In regard to Astronomy, " Almost all its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to every one, till he has understood and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most positive evidence of his senses." — Sir John .Herschel.

"The opinions of men are received according to the ancient

belief, and upon trust, as if it were religion and law."

" Another religion, other witnesses, and like promises and threats, might by the same way imprint a quite contrary belief." — Montaigne.

" Is our faith on the sand or on a rock ? Is it too brittle to bear touching ? " — Archbishop of Dublin. 1850.

" Hobbes mentions the true revelation ; but clearly shows he does not believe it. Hallam considers him an Atheist. I hava

X MOTTOES.

equal right to consider Bacon so. Descartes, Hallam says, professed a belief in the motion of the sun, to save himself with the priests. And Hobbes thinks Aristotle did not speak as he reallythought. It is surely time all this lying and counter-lying should be put a stop to, or a help be rendered to so worthy an end, — that men's minds may expand as freely as any other growth of nature. But in our time, — no. The honey is not for us, but to work the cell ; — to work in faith and hope, in the love of truth, and for justice' sake. This is enough ; — enough for the strong. And for the weak, they should not leave their mother's side." — Private Letter-

" Add to the power of discovering truth, the desire of using it for the promotion of human happiness, and you have the great end and object of our existence. This is the immaculate model of excellence that every human being should fix in the chambers of his heart ; which he should place before his mind's eye from •the rising to the setting of the sun, — to strengthen his understanding that he may direct his benevolence, and to exhibit to the world the most beautiful spectacle the world can behold, — of consummate virtue guided by consummate talents." — Sydney Smith : Moral Philosophy, p. 94.

Contents

Letter

1.— 2.— 3.—

4. — 5.— 6.—

I. Inquiry For A Basis

My dear Friend,

I rather think the reason why we have so much pleasure in talking over, and writing about, the powers and action of men, and the characters of individuals, is, that your observations proceed upon some basis of real science, and that I know that they do ; and that thus we are talking to some purpose on the most interesting subjects, instead of theorizing without taking stock of our facts on the one hand, or merely amusing ourselves with desultory observations on the other. I want, however, to look closer into the matter. I want to know precisely what your scientific basis is, instead of merely profiting by your having one, and having a general notion how you came by it. I want you to tell me, with great particularity, (if you will,) how you would have one set about the study of the powers of Man, in order to understand his nature, 1 and his place, business and pleasure in the universe.

For thirty years past I have been disposed to this kind of study ; and it is strange to think how many books I have read, and how often over, and what an amount of hours I have spent in thinking, and how many hundreds of human beings I have watched and speculated upon, without being ever, for one moment, satisfied that I knew what I was about, — for want, I suppose, of some scientific basis for the inquiry, and of some laws manifesting themselves in its course ; — laws on which one might rest, and to which one might recur, when in perplexity how to proceed. I am sure I do not wonder at scientific men sneering at metaphysics, if the case be at all as I suppose it : — that Natural Philosophy and Mental Philosophy are arbitrarily separated ; — that the one is in a regenerate state (thanks to Bacon), and the other in an unregenerate state ; — and that we can no more get on in Mental Philosophy without an ascertainment of the true method of inquiry, than the men of the middle ages could get on with Natural Philosophy (except in the departments of detail), till a man rose up to give us a Novum Organon Scientiarum. And why Mental Philosophy is not yet included among the sciences which are benefiting by the Novum Organon of Bacon is a thing that I am quite unsatisfied about. I do not mean that I at all wonder that the greater number of students have recourse to unsound methods ; because we see that the fact is so with the greater

INQUIRY FOR A BASIS. S

number of physical inquirers, — the true followers of Bacon being few indeed among Natural philosophers, as they are called. My wonder is, — not that there are few so-called Mental philosophers who use or even advocate any experimental method of inquiry into the science of mind ; but that there seem to me to be none. If I am wrong as to the fact, tell me ; and pray point out where I may find such, if you know them to exist.

I am well aware what the answer of metaphysicians to this difficulty of mine would be. They would plead the totally different and incompatible nature of the two regions of inquiry, and therefore of the method of penetrating those regions. But this is exactly what I am not satisfied about. When I look at the course of metaphysical inquiry from the beginning to this day, I see something very much like the course of physical inquiry from the beginning to Bacon's day : and I am not sure that Bacon may not yet. throw down the barrier between the two regions, and make them one. When I look back upon the two paths, it seems to me that I see the same Idols set up for worship on the wayside ; and I hear the same excuses for wild theorizing in both departments, — that spiritual agencies are at work, which can be recognized only by each man for himself, by means of a special spiritual sense of which no one can give an account. Now, Science has disabused us of our blinding and perplexing notions of spiritual anti-types of material things, and of spiritual interference in material operations ; and we have arrived at the notion of chance-excluding Law in the physical operations of the universe. I want to know why it is not possible for us to pursue the same process in regard to Mental Philosophy ; — why we are to take for granted that the two regions of science are so unlike, that the same principle of inquiry is not applicable to both ; — and if so, what we are to do next ; for we cannot remain forever as hopelessly adrift on the sea of conjecture about the truths of Mental Science as we are now. I do not ask you, however, to make an express reply to every thing I may put in the form of a question, — as above. If you will tell me how you would set to work to ascertain the powers of Man, in order to understand his position and destiny in the Universe, that will include an answer to my speculations on past methods of inquiry.

Your ideas will descend upon this locality in curious contrast with some which are to be found here. I like to talk with the gardener, and the cowherd's wife, and any workman who may relish a bit of talk on Sundays, on their notions of how body and mind should be treated, and what they are living for, and what is wrong and right in morals. There is much amusement and instruction in hearing them lay down the law about health and duty. And then, when I meet a poet here, and a scholar there, and a Quaker or Swedenborgian religionist somewhere else, it seems to me that I have been carried back some thousands of years, to the

PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 5

time when science was composed of dreaming, and when men's instincts constituted the mythology under which they lived. It is all very interesting, however, and all worthy of respect. To us, who are in search of facts, there is no dream of any intellect, no dogmatic assurance, no stirring of any instinct, which is not full of interest and instruction. But I shall be glad of your answer to my question, as guidance in using the material furnished by my neighbors.

II. Proposal Of A Basis

My dear Friend,

By all means let us go into this inquiry and explanation. Nothing will give me greater pleasure ; for certainly it is most important that we should form a true estimate of man's nature, and ascertain the real basis of a science of mind. Men have been wandering amidst poesies, theologies, and metaphysics, and have been caught in the web of ideal creations, and have to be brought back again to particulars and material conditions ; to investigate the real world, and those laws of being and action which are the form and nature of things,

6 MAX'S NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT.

and the phenomena which they present, as they are here, within us and about us in reality and in truth, and not as we would fancy them to be. There are not two philosophies, one for Mind and another for Matter. Nature is one, and to be studied as a whole. " There is nothing in nature," says Bacon, " but individual bodies, exhibiting clear individual effects, according to particular laws." * Instinct, passion, thought, &c, are effects of organized substances : but men have sought to make out a philosophy of mind, by studying these effects apart from causes, and have even asserted that mind was entirely independent of body, and having some unintelligible nature of its own, called free will, — not subject to law, or dependent on material conditions ; though a man has no more power to determine his own will than he has wings to fly. Of course, I need not say to you that these popular notions are mere delusion. I cannot tell you how odd it seems to me to have to assert such a self-evident fact. All the conditions of man and mental peculiarities are now traced to physical causes and conditions, exhibiting clear determining laws. The instinct of animals and the mental condition of men are all phenomena exhibited as a consequence of the bodily condition, and the influences which have been acting upon it. This is now as clearly understood as the physical conditions and cause of the rainbow and of the thun-

* Novum Organon, II. Aph. 2.

PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 7

der-storm. What men are for the most part believing now is a kind of insanity ; but, as Bacon says truly, " those who resolve not to conjecture and divine, but to discover and know ; not to invent buffooneries and fables about worlds, but to inspect, and, as it were, dissect the nature of this real world, must derive all from things themselves."

We know nothing fundamental of nature, nor can we conceive any thing of the nature of the primary cause. We know not, nor can we know, what things really are, but only what they appear to us ; and the relations of their appearances. The form of these relations we term Law. Whatever is must have a form of being and action. It cannot be what it is not ; but must be subject to the form or law of its constitution. Even supposing the mind was an entity separable from the body, and acting independently of body, it must still have a nature of its own, and be determined by the form of that nature ; and this form of being and action we term Law. Nothing can be of itself, or change its condition, unless it be acted upon by something else. A man cannot of himself, or by his will, become a tree, any more than a triangle can by any means become a circle : nor are more causes to be admitted than are sufficient to produce any particular change or effect. Hence we require no supernatural causes when we can recognize adequate natural causes inherent in the constitution of nature. The phenomena of instinct and reason are no exception or anomaly in nature. The different characters of men arise from the differences in the substance and form of their being ; just as it is with other animals, and with plants and stones. For every effect, there is a sufficient cause ; and all causes are material causes, influenced by surrounding circumstances ; which is nothing more than matter being influenced by matter. I observe that drunkenness and madness, idiocy, genius, sleep, dreams, murder, charity, are effects, the consequence of material conditions ; absolutely and wholly so. If I pour a bottle of wine down a man's throat, he becomes drunk. If I press a splinter of bone into the brain, madness ensues. I want no devil to account for these effects. Again, if I place a naturally good disposition under favorable circumstances, goodness is invariably the result. If I place a naturally ill-disposed person under unfavorable circumstances, evil is necessarily the result. I want no good spirit in the one case, nor evil spirit in the other, to account for those facts, any more than to account for geese being geese, and green gooseberries being acid, and those which have ripened by exposure to the sun being of a delicious flavor. We now can perceive precisely why men think as they do ; how they are deceived by their own thoughts and feelings : otherwise, their seeming total apathy, — their inability to comprehend the nature of science, and the necessity of universal law, would make us despair of progress.

PROPOSAL OF A BASIS. 9

The reason why you are interested in my thoughts and opinions is, not that I have more ability than others, but that I have endeavored, under favorable circumstances, to renounce all idols and superstitions, and have drawn close to nature, to examine into causes. In material conditions I find the origin of all religions, all philosophies, all opinions, all virtues, and " spiritual conditions and influences," in the same manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities, in material conditions and causes. I have followed Bacon's method, because there is no other that can lead to any discovery and practical results, or represent nature. I have but one earnest desire in life, which is to acquire knowledge ; and a knowledge of human nature in particular, — that being the most important and the most needed. And I would freely utter, on all occasions, what I know and believe, honestly and without reserve, or regard for the opinion of a world which is full of superstition and hypocrisy on the one side, while on the other we see the mental powers of men crushed by excessive labor, or excessive indolence and indulgence.

Man is every where against his fellow-man, and every nation is ruled by the sword, or other symbol of force, and none by knowledge and virtue. No moral principle or religious system or belief will elevate men and set them free, except such as is based on a knowledge of causes, and the result of a true science of human nature. This position I think we may stand on, as upon a rock, " and thence observe the wanderings up and down of other men." But I do not wish to dispute with any men, about their belief or their morals, or their laws of expediency j for I say that all the systems of the whole world are wrong ; — they being all founded on error in the ignorance of natural causes and material conditions. I have nothing to say to any, but that we must turn aside and begin afresh, from the beginning. What use is there in disputing with the Mohammedan about his prophet or his harem ? or with the Roman Catholic about his saints and his transubstantiation ? or with the English Protestant about, his dull formalism, his services, and his worldly pride, and vulgar regard for wealth ? We must begin at the beginning, and exhibit the inherent causes of all the various beliefs and passions which have so long triumphed over truth and Man's better nature. We must exhibit the real, fundamental and material causes of men's thoughts : and out of a knowledge of human nature will grow a wisdom and revelation of principles which will revolutionize the world, and become the guide of man in legislation and education. Let us not assume any thing, but interpret the book of nature. Thus may we lay hold of the Science of Human Nature : and till we recognize this science, we live in a barbarous and dark age, and have no health in us.

PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 11

III. Preparation Of The Ground

Yes, — the reason why I want to understand your views is that which you assign ; — that you have ahjured idols, and come with a free mind to the study of a subject which is rarely entered upon from the beginning. It appears to me that men come to the subject with antecedent notions of " dignity of origin " for man ; with words upon their lips about man being made in the image of God ; and then, in the fear of impiety, if this notion is invaded, they lose their freedom, and desire to find the truth lying in one direction, rather than another. Now, from the moment that a man desires to find the truth on one side rather than another, it is all over with him as a philosopher. I doubt whether I have ever met with any one but yourself who was perfectly free from such leaning. I have sometimes supposed that I had met with a truly impartial inquirer, — judging him by the sacrifices he had made for his convictions. But, sooner or later, out it comes ! He lets out, in one connection or another, that he should be sorry to believe this or that, which he has not yet the means of fully comprehending. He may have gone further in free inquiry than his neighbors, and he rejoices in what he has attained ; yet, not the less does he pity those who have outstripped him, as the brethren and friends whom he has outstripped are pitying him. He says that his brethren and ancient friends cannot judge for him, because they have never been in his state of mind, — have never looked from his point of view ; and he straightway forgets that this is precisely his own position with regard to those by whom he is outstripped. This pitying, this mutual judging, is so wholly incompatible with an effectual pursuit of truth, that I am concerned to hear it going forward on every hand, — concerned to see that you are perhaps the only person of all my acquaintance that is altogether above it. I dare not say that I am. I can only say that I ought to be ashamed if I am not, for I have had some blessed lessons on this matter. Feeling, as 1 do, daily comfort in the knowledge of some things which I should once have shrunk from supposing, it would be weak, — as foolish as cowardly, — ever again to shrink from knowing any thing that is true, or to have any preferences whatever among unascertained matters of speculation or fact.

As to the notion about dignity of origin that inquirers bring with them as their first misleading partiality, — it seems to me premature, in the first place. What we want to know is what our powers are, and how they work : and it would be vitiating the research at once to conclude, on moral grounds, against admitting evidence of physical fact. Such a kind of objection appears also to be worse than premature ; even foolish. Surely it is the quality

PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. 13

of the powers alone which can determine the quality of their origin : and if we set about objecting to the universal law, or to any of its applications, whereby great things invariably issue from small beginnings, we may safely conclude that it is our notion of dignity that is wrong, and not any one application of that universal law.

For me it is enough that I am what I am ; — something far beyond my own power of analysis and comprehension. By what combination of elements, or action of forces, I came to be what I am, does not at all touch my personal complacency, or interfere with my awe of the universe. If, because I can at this moment think abstractedly and feel keenly, I abjure an origin in matter which cannot think, and forces which cannot feel, I cannot reasonably stop short of despising myself for having once been a babe, " mewling and puking in the nurse's arms." But it is enough to say that we are satisfied with the truism, — " Here we are ! We are what we are, however we came to be so."

As to the great point of controversy between you and the holders of popular views and language, — the question whether there are two methods of access to knowledge of man's nature open to us, or one, — I think the onus rests with the holders that there are two, to prove their point against him who declares that one suffices. You are satisfied with observation of phenomena manifesting themselves through matter. Others insist that there is also an interior consciousness which teaches us 2 things not only unattainable by other means, but bearing no relation to knowledge which comes by any other channel. We deny, for our part, having any interior consciousness which informs us of any spiritual existence antagonistic to, or apart from, matter. If we once . fancied we had, we have learned that it was through an ignorant and irreverent misapprehension of the powers and functions of matter. We have a right to require evidence of their assertion from those who say that man is endowed with such a means of knowledge of his origin and constitution. Such evidence, however, can never be had. All declare it to be impossible ; we, because we are confident that it does not exist ; and its advocates because facts of consciousness are not provable. They pity us, as Mr. Newman does, in his book on " the Soul : " and we are happy in having open before us (and in being free to follow it) a single path which will surely lead us to what we want : — happy and satisfied to agree with Bacon that "all things are delivered in matter," and that " we must bring men to particulars."