NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Lifting the Veil. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. Pp. 200.
This book was probably suggested by Gates Ajar. It is an attempt to say something about the future state of the human race. In some respects the volume is more valuable than Miss Phelps's endeavor to convey an idea of the happiness of paradise. It is not so materialistic. Yet both works are very defective, because of the simple fact that neither of the authors know any thing of that which makes heaven to be heaven—the beatific vision. Their highest ideal is perfect intellectual contentment, with unimpeded exercise of our natural capacities and the companionship of our friends and our blessed Saviour. Yet it is encouraging to see that Protestants are writing such books as these. They are the expression of the deepest wants of the human soul. They prove that the Protestantism of to-day has failed to answer these wants. If we were not already perfectly convinced, they would convince us, that when the truth is adequately presented to these souls, they will gladly accept it.
Passages From the English Note-books Of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870. 2 vols.
One great charm of these two volumes lies in the fact that they were never written for publication. But we regret the omission of certain passages. The editor of the volumes thought it wise to withhold a portion of the notes which were afterward absorbed into one or another of the romances or papers in Our Old Home. Yet surely it would have been a pleasure to contrast the rough sketch contained in his notes with the elaborate and finely-finished picture which Mr. Hawthorne afterward presented to the public. The editor tells us that these cartoons were carefully finished even "at the first stroke." However, the volumes will always be valuable, because they give a clear insight of their author's character. If one writes his every-day impressions of places, persons, and events, he gives the world a picture of his mind. Thus when these series of notes are completed by the notes upon America and Italy, we shall be enabled to form a far truer estimate of this distinguished American writer than we could possibly do from those works which have given him a name in literature, both in his own country and in more critical and fastidious England.
Hidden Saints: Life of Sœur Marie. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1870. Pp. 215.
In many respects this is a useful contribution to our Catholic literature. It tells the story of a workwoman who attained a very high degree of Christian perfection. In its matter, the book reminds one of Marie-Eustelle Harpain, but it does not greatly resemble it in its composition. A religious biography can do good in two ways. It can edify the readers with the history of remarkable piety and virtue. And it can also elevate and refine our minds, if it be written in pure and correct English. Unfortunately, this biography does not possess this character. Its very title is an example of a fault which is frequently seen throughout the volume. It is the "Life of Sœur Marie," not Sister Mary. When this good girl addresses her director, she does not say "Father," but it must be "Mon Père," and without the accent to which that word is lawfully entitled. Surely it is absurd affectation to ruin a beautiful thought and a good English sentence by mixing with it two or three French words. But this is not the only fault of the volume. It speaks of "promises of milk and water," an expression which contains no definite idea. It informs us that Sister Mary "went straight to church." Who can tell whether the author intends to say that she went to church immediately or went there by the most direct way? Then, too, if this book be intended to form one of a series of biographies of persons who are not canonized, why call them "Hidden Saints"? The holy see has always wished us to be most careful in the use of this word. But these faults do not destroy the value of the book. They are only blemishes, and in a future edition we hope to find them completely removed.
Marion. A Tale of French Society under the Old Régime. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 176.
Marion is a woman of "stiff figure, bony hands, bloodshot eyes, and innumerable wrinkles, always reminding one of stories about vampires and ghouls." (P. 4.) This sentence gives a fair idea of the style and literary value of this novel. It is filled with similar nonsensical and overdrawn descriptions. We must, therefore, beg leave to differ from the very modest opinion expressed in the preface, that the book has a character "which stamps it as one that the young may read with profit." On the contrary, it is a shame that such a story should be translated and allowed to live in another language than the one in which it was originally written. However, we will do it justice. There is one mark of common sense about the book. It is this—both the author and translator have concealed their names.
Thomas Francis Meagher. By Captain W. F. Lyons. New York: D. & J. Sadlier. 1870. Pp. 357.
We do not believe the sentiment which Shakespeare has put in the mouth of Mark Antony, that
"The evil which men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones."
It is not true that men delight in recalling the faults of their fellow-men; and especially do the dead claim our forgiveness and compassion. We are truly sorry, therefore, to find in this volume speeches which reflect no credit from a literary point of view upon General Meagher, and which, moreover, contain doctrines most clearly condemned by the Catholic Church. Out of respect to the many good qualities of Meagher, we wish to forget his faults. We would wish also to remember, and we wish his countrymen to remember, his manly virtues. But until the speech beginning on page 280 of this volume is omitted, we cannot recommend this book to the Catholic public, or consider it a worthy monument of Thomas Francis Meagher.
History of the Foundation Of the Order of the Visitation. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 271.
Few books issued by Catholic publishers are more interesting and useful than this history of the Order of the Visitation. Besides the history of their foundation, it contains the lives of several members of the order; among them Mademoiselle De La Fayette, a relative of the general so distinguished in our war for independence. The book merits a wide circulation.
Alaska and its Resources; By W. H. Dall. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870.
Mr. Dall was "the director of the scientific corps of the late Western Union Telegraph Expedition." His book is the result of great industry, and is highly creditable to him every way. Those who desire to know something worth knowing about this singular region will find this work very interesting. The writer says in his introduction that he "has specially endeavored to convey as much information as his scope would allow in regard to the native inhabitants, history, and resources of the country. This end," he adds, "has been kept steadily in view, perhaps, at the risk of dulness." We think he has succeeded admirably, and have no fear whatever that any one capable of appreciating the book is likely to find it dull.
Paradise of the Earth. Translated from the French of Abbé Sanson by Rev. F. Ignatius Sisk. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870. Pp. 528.
This book was originally written for religious, though we presume it is now intended to have a wider circulation. The means of finding happiness is treated under a two-fold head: First, Removal of obstacles; second, Practice of the solid virtues. The chapters which treat of the mortification of the passions are carefully written. Indeed, the author has wished to present the teaching of the saints and doctors of the church rather than his own opinions.
Loretto; or the Choice. By George H. Miles. New and enlarged edition. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 371.
This story presents a very fair picture of Southern Catholic society. The characters in it are mostly well conceived. They are not impossible persons. Nothing extraordinary happens to any one of them. They speak in a natural manner. The plot, too, though simple, is very pleasingly developed, and the interest of the reader constantly maintained. For all these good qualities, so rare in modern works of fiction, the book deserves a hearty recommendation. But beyond all this, the story merits praise for the sound principles of morality which appear on every page, and which the author presents in a manner at once pleasing and truthful.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By Secondo Franco, S.J. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. Pp. 305.
This manual of devotion makes a very handsome appearance in its dress of blue and gold. Its object is to explain clearly the essence of the worship of the Sacred Heart. Yet this book is not in any sense a controversial work. It is written for devout Catholics. It will be of service to any one who wishes to gain a knowledge of the interior life of our Redeemer by studying his sacred heart. The book is filled with fervent sentences and devout aspirations, which will help the reader to become like Him "who was meek and humble of heart."
Beech Bluff: A Tale of the South. By Fannie Warner. Philadelphia. P. F. Cunningham.
In this volume we have what purports to be the experience of a Northern lady in the sunny South, during a three years' residence as governess in the State of Georgia. The tale, which is written in a pleasing and natural style, is entirely free from all sensational incidents, and has a strong under-current of sound practical Catholicity. It will be none the less acceptable to many as being descriptive of a phase of society which is now (happily, in some respects) "among the things that were."
Wonders of Architecture. Translated from the French of M. Lefevre. To which is added a chapter on English Architecture. By R. Donald, 1 vol. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.
A beautiful little book, containing illustrations of some of the finest creations of the great architects of the world. It is both entertaining and instructive.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XI., No. 66.—SEPTEMBER, 1870.
HEREDITARY GENIUS.[285]
Mr. Galton is what in these days is called a scientist, or cultivator of the physical sciences, whose pretension is to confine themselves strictly to the field of the sciences as distinguished from science; to assert nothing but positive facts and the laws of their production and operation, ascertained by careful observation and experiment, and induction therefrom. Their aim would seem to be to explain all the facts or phenomena of the universe by means of second causes, and to prove that man is properly classed with animals, or is only an animal developed or completed, not an animal transformed and specificated by a rational soul, which is defined by the church to be forma corporis.
Between the scientists and philosophers, or those who cultivate not the special sciences, but the science of the sciences, and determine the principles to which the several special sciences must be referred in order to have any scientific character or value, there is a long-standing quarrel, which grows fiercer and more embittered every day. We are far from pretending that the positivists or Comtists have mastered all the so-called special sciences; but they represent truly the aims and tendencies of the scientists, and of what by a strange misnomer is called philosophy; so-called, it would seem, because philosophy it is not. Philosophy is the science of principles, as say the Greeks, or of first principles, as say the Latins, and after them the modern Latinized nations. But Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill, and the late Sir William Hamilton, the ablest representatives of philosophy as generally received by the English-speaking world, agree with the Comtists or positivists in rejecting first principles from the domain of science, and in relegating theology and metaphysics to the region of the unknown and the unknowable. Their labors consequently result, as Sir William Hamilton himself somewhere admits, in universal nescience, or, as we say, absolute nihilism or nullism.
This result is not accidental, but follows necessarily from what is called the Baconian method, which the scientists follow, and which is, in scholastic language, concluding the universal from the particular. Now, in the logic we learned as a school-boy, and adhere to in our old age, this is simply impossible. To every valid argument it is necessary that one of the premises, called the major premise, be a universal principle. Yet the scientists discard the universal from their premises, and from two or more particulars, or particular facts, profess to draw a valid universal conclusion, as if any conclusion broader than the premises could be valid! The physico-theologians are so infatuated with the Baconian method that they attempt, from certain facts which they discover in the physical world, to conclude, by way of induction, the being and attributes of God, as if any thing concluded from particular facts could be any thing but a particular fact. Hence, the aforenamed authors, with Professor Huxley at their tail, as well as Kant in his Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, have proved as clearly and as conclusively as any thing can be proved that a causative force, or causality, cannot be concluded by way either of induction or of deduction from any empirical facts, or facts of which observation can take note. Yet the validity of every induction rests on the reality of the relation of cause and effect, and the fact that the cause actually produces the effect.
Yet our scientists pretend that they can, from the observation and analysis of facts, induce a law, and a law that will hold good beyond the particulars observed and analyzed. But they do not obtain any law at all; and the laws of nature, about which they talk so learnedly, are not laws, but simply facts. Bring a piece of wax to the fire and it melts, hence it is said to be a law that wax so brought in proximate relation with fire will melt; but this law is only the particular fact observed, and the facts to which you apply it are the identical facts from which you have obtained it. The investigation, in all cases where the scientists profess to seek the law, is simply an investigation to find out and establish the identity of the facts, and what they call the law is only the assertion of that identity, and never extends to facts not identical, or to dissimilar facts.
Take mathematics; as far as the scientist can admit mathematics, they are simply identical propositions piled on identical propositions, and the only difference between Newton and a plough-boy is, that Newton detects identity where the plough-boy does not. Take what is called the law of gravitation; it is nothing but the statement of a fact, or a class of facts observed, and the most that it tells us is, that if the facts are identical, they are identical—that is, they bear such and such relations to one another. But let your positivist attempt to explain transcendental mathematics, and he is all at sea, if he does not borrow from the ideal science or philosophy which he professes to discard. How will the geometrician explain his infinitely extended lines, or lines that may be infinitely extended? A line is made up of a succession of points, and therefore of parts, and nothing which is made up of parts is infinite. The line may be increased or diminished by the addition or subtraction of points, but the infinite cannot be either increased or diminished. Whence does the mind get this idea of infinity? The geometrician tells us the line may be infinitely extended—that is, it is infinitely possible; but it cannot be so unless there is an infinite ground on which it can be projected. An infinitely possible line can be asserted only by asserting the infinitely real, and therefore the mind, unless it had the intuition of the infinitely real, could not conceive of a line as capable of infinite extension. Hence the ancients never assert either the infinitely possible or the infinite real. There is in all Gentile science, or Gentile philosophy, no conception of the infinite; there is only the conception of the indefinite.
This same reasoning disposes of the infinite divisibility of matter still taught in our text-books. The infinite divisibility of matter is an infinite absurdity; for it implies an infinity of parts or numbers, which is really a contradiction in terms. We know nothing that better illustrates the unsoundness of the method of the scientists. Here is a piece of matter. Can you not divide it into two equal parts? Certainly. Can you do the same by either of the halves? Yes. And by the quarters. Yes. And thus on ad infinitum? Where, then, is the absurdity? None as long as you deal with only finite quantities. The absurdity is in the fact that the infinite divisibility of matter implies an infinity of parts; and an infinity of parts, an infinity of numbers; and numbers and every series of numbers may be increased by addition, and diminished by subtraction. An infinite series is impossible.
The moment the scientists leave the domain of particulars or positive facts, and attempt to induce from them a law, their induction is of no value. Take geology. The geologist finds in that small portion of the globe which he has examined certain facts, from which he concludes that the globe is millions and millions of ages old. Is his conclusion scientific? Not at all. If the globe was in the beginning in a certain state, and if the structural and other changes which are now going on have been going on at the same rate from the beginning—neither of which suppositions is provable—then the conclusion is valid; not otherwise. Sir Charles Lyell, if we recollect aright, calculated that, at the present rate, it must have taken at least a hundred and fifty thousand years to form the delta of the Mississippi. Officers of the United States army have calculated that a little over four thousand years would suffice.
So of the antiquity of man on the globe. The scientist finds what he takes to be human bones in a cave along with the bones of certain long since extinct species of animals, and concludes that man was contemporary with the said extinct species of animals; therefore man existed on the globe many, nobody can say how many, thousand years ago. But two things render the conclusion uncertain. It is not certain from the fact that their bones are found together that man and these animals were contemporary; and the date when these animals became extinct, if extinct they are, is not ascertained nor ascertainable. They have discovered traces in Switzerland of lacustrian habitations; but these prove nothing, because history itself mentions "the dwellers on the lakes," and the oldest history accepted by the scientists is not many thousand years old. Sir Charles Lyell finds, or supposes he finds, stone knives and axes, or what he takes to be stone knives and axes, deeply embedded in the earth in the valley of a river, though at some distance from its present bed; and thence concludes the presence of man on the earth for a period wholly irreconcilable with the received biblical chronology. But supposing the facts to be as alleged, they do not prove any thing, because we cannot say what changes by floods or other causes have taken place in the soil of the locality, even during the period of authentic history. Others conclude from the same facts that men were primitively savages, or ignorant of the use of iron. But the most they prove is that, at some unknown period, certain parts of Europe were inhabited by a people who used stone knives and axes; but whether because ignorant of iron, or because unable from their poverty or their distance from places where they were manufactured to procure similar iron utensils, they give us no information. Instances enough are recorded in history of the use of stone knives by a people who possessed knives made of iron. Because in our day some Indian tribes use bows and arrows, are we to conclude that fire-arms are unknown in our age of the world?
What the scientists offer as proof is seldom any proof at all. If an hypothesis they invent explains the known facts of a case, they assert it as proved, and therefore true. What fun would they not make of theologians and philosophers, if they reasoned as loosely as they do themselves? Before we can conclude an hypothesis is true because it explains the known facts in the case, we must prove, 1st, that there are and can be no facts in the case not known; and, 2d, that there is no other possible hypothesis on which they can be explained. We do not say the theories of the scientists with regard to the antiquity of the globe and of man on its surface, nor that any of the geological and astronomical hypotheses they set forth are absolutely false; we only say that their alleged facts and reasonings do not prove them. The few facts known might be placed in a very different light by the possibly unknown facts; and there are conceivable any number of other hypotheses which would equally well explain the facts that are known.
The book before us on Hereditary Genius admirably illustrates the insufficiency of the method and the defective logic of the scientists. Mr. Galton, its author, belongs to the school of which such men as Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Sir John Lubbock, and Professor Huxley are British chiefs, men who disdain to recognize a self-existent Creator, and who see no difficulty in supposing the universe self-evolved from nothing, or in tracing intelligence, will, generous affection, and heroic effort to the mechanical, chemical, and electrical arrangement and combination of the particles of brute matter. Mr. Galton has written his book, he says, p. 1, to show
"that a man's natural abilities are derived from inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and the physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses, gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing any thing else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race [breed] of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations."
Mr. Galton, with an air of the most perfect innocence in the world, places man in the category of plants and animals, and in principle simply reproduces for our instruction the Man-Plant, from which there is but a step to the Man-Machine of the cynical Lamettrie, the atheistical professor of mathematics in the university of Berlin, and friend of Frederick the Great. The attempt to prove it is a subtle attempt to prove, in the name of science, that the soul, if soul there be, is generated as well as the body, and that a man's natural abilities are derived through generation from his organization. The author from first to last gives no hint that his doctrine is at war with Christian theology, with the freedom of the human will, or man's moral responsibility for his conduct, or that it excludes all morality, all virtue, and all sin, and recognizes only physical good or evil. He would no doubt reply to this that science is science, facts are facts, and he is under no obligation to consider what theological doctrines they do or do not contradict; for nothing can be true that contradicts science or is opposed to facts. That is opposed to actual facts, or that contradicts real science, conceded; for one truth can never contradict another. But the author is bound to consider whether a theory or hypothesis which contradicts the deepest and most cherished beliefs of mankind in all ages and nations, and in which is the key to universal history, is really science, or really is sustained by facts. The presumption, as say the lawyers, is against it, and for its acceptance it requires the clearest and the most irrefragable proofs, and we are not sure that even any proofs would be enough to overcome the presumptions against it, founded as they are on reasons as strong and as conclusive as it is in any case possible for the human mind to have. The assertion that man's natural abilities originate in his organization, and therefore that we may obtain a peculiar breed of men, as we can obtain a peculiar breed of dogs or horses, is revolting to the deepest convictions and the holiest and most irrepressible instincts of every man, except a scientist, and certainly can be reasonably received only on evidence that excludes the possibility of a rational doubt.
Mr. Galton proves, or attempts to prove, his theory by what he no doubt calls an appeal to facts. He takes from a biographical dictionary the names of a few hundreds of men, chiefly Englishmen, during the last two centuries, who have been distinguished as statesmen, lawyers, judges, divines, authors, etc., and finds that in a great majority of cases, as far as is known, they have sprung from families of more than average ability, and, in some cases, from families which have had some one or more members distinguished for several consecutive generations. This is really all the proof Mr. Galton brings to prove his thesis; and if he has not adduced more, it is fair to conclude that it is because no more was to be had.
But the evidence is far from being conclusive. Even if it be true that the majority of eminent men spring from families more or less distinguished, it does not necessarily follow that they derive their eminent abilities by inheritance; for in those same families, born of the same parents, we find other members whose abilities are in no way remarkable, and in no sense above the common level. In a family of half a dozen or a dozen members one will be distinguished and rise to eminence, while the others will remain very ordinary people. Of the Bonaparte family no member approaches in genius the first Napoleon, except the present emperor of the French. Why these marked differences in the children of the same blood, the same breed, the same parents and ancestors? If Mr. Galton explains the inferiority of the five or the eleven by considerations external or independent of race or breed, why may not the superiority of the one be explained by causes alike independent of breed? Why are the natural abilities of my brothers inferior to mine, since we are all born of the same parents? If a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance from organization, why am I superior to them? Every day we meet occasion to ask similar questions. This fact proves that there are causes at work, on which man's eminence or want of eminence depends, of which Mr. Galton's theory takes no note, which escape the greatest scientists, and at best can be only conjectured. But conjecture is not science.
This is not all. As far as known, very eminent men have sprung from parents of very ordinary natural abilities, as of social position. The founders of dynasties and noble families have seldom had distinguished progenitors, and are usually not only the first but the greatest of their line. The present Sir Robert Peel cannot be named alongside of his really eminent father, nor the present Duke of Wellington be compared with his father, the Iron Duke. There is no greater name in history than that of St. Augustine, the eminent father and doctor of the church, a man beside whom in genius and depth, and greatness of mind as well as tenderness of heart, your Platos and Aristotles appear like men of only ordinary stature; yet, though his mother was eminent for her sanctity, his parents do not appear to have been gifted with any extraordinary mental power. Instances are not rare, especially among the saints, of great men who have, so to speak, sprung from nothing. Among the popes we may mention Sixtus Quintus, and Hildebrand, St. Gregory VII.; and among eminent churchmen we may mention St. Thomas of Canterbury, Cardinal Ximenes, and Cardinal Wolsey. The greatest and most gifted of our own statesmen have sprung from undistinguished parents, as Washington, the elder Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Webster, Calhoun. Who dares pretend that every saint has had a saint for a father or mother; that every eminent theologian or philosopher has had any eminent theologian or philosopher for his father; or that every eminent artist, whether in painting, architecture, sculpture, or music, has been the son or grandson of an eminent artist?
Then, again, who can say how much of a great man's greatness is due to his natural abilities with which he was born, and how much is due to the force of example, to family tradition, to education, to his own application, and the concurrence of circumstances? It is in no man's power to tell, nor in any scientist's power to ascertain. It is a common remark that great men in general owe their greatness chiefly to their mothers, and that, in the great majority of cases known, eminent men have had gifted mothers. This, if a fact, is against Mr. Galton's theory; for the father, not the mother, transmits the hereditary character of the offspring, the hereditary qualities of the line, if the physiologists are to be believed. Hence nobility in all civilized nations follows the father, not the mother. The fact of great men owing their greatness more to the mother is explained by her greater influence in forming the mind, in moulding the character, in stimulating and directing the exercise of her son's faculties, than that of the father. It is as educator in the largest sense that the mother forms her son's character and influences his destiny. It is her womanly instincts, affection, and care and vigilance, her ready sympathy, her love, her tenderness, and power to inspire a noble ambition, kindle high and generous aspirations in the breast of her son, that do the work.
Even if it were uniformly true that great men have always descended from parents remarkable for their natural abilities, Mr. Galton's theory that genius is hereditary could not be concluded with scientific certainty. The hereditary transmission of genius might indeed seem probable; but, on the empirical principles of the scientists, it could not be asserted. All that could be asserted would be the relation of concomitance or of juxtaposition, not the relation of cause and effect. The relation of cause and effect is not and cannot, as the scientists tell us, be empirically apprehended. How can they know that the genius of the son is derived hereditarily from the greatness of his progenitors? From the juxtaposition or concomitance of two facts empirically apprehended there is no possible logic by which it can be inferred that the one is the cause of the other. Hence, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill, Sir William Hamilton, Professor Huxley, and the positivists follow Hume, and relegate, as we said, causes to the region of the unknowable. In fact, the scientists, if they speak of the relation of cause and effect, mean by it only the relation of juxtaposition in the order of precedence and consequence. Hence, on their own principles, though the facts they assert and describe may be true, none of their conclusions from them, or hypotheses to explain them, have or can have any scientific validity. For, after all, there may be a real cause on which the facts depend, and which demands an entirely different explanation from the one which the scientists offer.
We refuse, therefore, to accept Mr. Galton's hypothesis that genius is hereditary, because the facts he adduces are not all the facts in the case, because there are facts which are not consistent with it, and because he does not show and cannot show that it is the only hypothesis possible for the explanation even of the facts which he alleges. Even his friendly and able reviewer, Dr. Meredith Clymer, concludes his admirable analysis by saying, "A larger induction is necessary before any final decision can be had on the merits of the question." This is the verdict of one of the most scientific minds in the United States, and it is the Scotch verdict, not proven. Yet Mr. Galton would have us accept his theory as science, and on its strength set aside the teachings of revelation and the universal beliefs of mankind. This is the way of all non-Christian scientists of the day, and it is because the church refuses to accept their unverified and unverifiable hypotheses, and condemns them for asserting them as true, that they accuse her of being hostile to modern science. They make certain investigations, ascertain certain facts, imagine certain hypotheses, which are nothing but conjectures, put them forth as science, and then demand that she accept them, and give up her faith so far as incompatible with them. A very reasonable demand indeed!
Press these proud scientists closely, and they will own that as yet their sciences are only tentative, that as yet they are not in a condition to prove absolutely their theories, or to verify their conjectures, but they are in hopes they soon will be. At present, science is only in its infancy, it has only just entered upon the true method of investigation; but it is every day making surprising progress, and there is no telling what marvellous conclusions it will soon arrive at. All this might pass, if it did not concern matters of life and death, heaven and hell. The questions involved are too serious to be sported with, too pressing to wait the slow and uncertain solutions of the tentative science which, during six thousand years, has really made no progress in solving them. The scientists retard science when they ask from it the solution, either affirmative or negative, of questions which confessedly lie not in its province, and dishonor and degrade it when they put forth as science their crude conjectures, or their unverified and unverifiable hypotheses. They, not we, are the real enemies of science, though it would require a miracle to make them see it. Deluded mortals! they start with assumptions that exclude the very possibility of science, and then insist that what they assert or deny shall be accepted by theologians and philosophers as established with scientific certainty! Surely the apostle must have had them in mind when he said of certain men that, "esteeming themselves wise, they became fools."
Genius is not hereditary in Mr. Galton's sense, nor are a man's natural abilities derived by inheritance in the way he would have us believe; for both belong to the soul, not to the body; and the soul is created, not generated. Only the body is generated, and only in what is generated is there natural inheritance. All the facts Mr. Galton adduces we are prepared to admit; but we deny his explanation. We accept, with slight qualifications, his views as summed up by Dr. Clymer in the following passage:
"The doctrine of the pretensions of natural equality in intellect, which teaches that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort, is daily contradicted by the experiences of the nursery, schools, universities, and professional careers. There is a definite limit to the muscular powers of every man, which he cannot by any training or exertion overpass. It is only the novice gymnast who, noting his rapid daily gain of strength and skill, believes in illimitable development; but he learns in time that his maximum performance becomes a rigidly-determinate quantity. The same is true of the experience of the student in the working of his mental powers. The eager boy at the outset of his career is astonished at his rapid progress; he thinks for a while that every thing is within his grasp; but he too soon finds his place among his fellows; he can beat such and such of his mates, and run on equal terms with others, while there will be always some whose intellectual and physical feats he cannot approach. The same experience awaits him when he enters a larger field of competition in the battle of life; let him work with all his diligence, he cannot reach his object; let him have opportunities, he cannot profit by them; he tries and is tried, and he finally learns his gauge—what he can do, and what lies beyond his capacity. He has been taught the hard lesson of his weakness and his strength; he comes to rate himself as the world rates him; and he salves his wounded ambition with the conviction that he is doing all his nature allows him. An evidence of the enormous inequality between the intellectual capacity of men is shown in the prodigious differences in the number of marks obtained by those who gain mathematical honors at the University of Cambridge, England. Of the four hundred or four hundred and fifty students who take their degrees each year, about one hundred succeed in gaining honors in mathematics, and these are ranged in strict order of merit. Forty of them have the title of 'wrangler,' and to be even a low wrangler is a creditable thing. The distinction of being the first in this list of honors, or 'senior wrangler' of the year, means a great deal more than being the foremost mathematician of four hundred or four hundred and fifty men taken at haphazard. Fully one half the wranglers have been boys of mark at their schools. The senior wrangler of the year is the chief of these as regards mathematics. The youths start on their three-years' race fairly, and their run is stimulated by powerful inducements; at the end they are examined rigorously for five and a half hours a day for eight days. The marks are then added up, and the candidates strictly rated in a scale of merit. The precise number of marks got by the senior wrangler, in one of the three years given by Mr. Galton, is 7634; by the second wrangler, 4123; and by the lowest man in the list of honors, 237. The senior wrangler, consequently, had nearly twice as many marks as the second, and more than thirty-two times as many as the lowest man. In the other examinations given, the results do not materially differ. The senior wrangler may, therefore, be set down as having thirty-two times the ability of the lowest men on the lists; or, as Mr. Galton puts it, 'he would be able to grapple with problems more than thirty-two times as difficult; or, when dealing with subjects of the same difficulty, but intelligible to all, would comprehend them more rapidly in, perhaps, the square-root of that proportion.' But the mathematical powers of the ultimate man on the honors-list, which are so low when compared with those of the foremost man, are above mediocrity when compared with the gifts of Englishmen generally; for, though the examination places one hundred honor-men above him, it puts no less than three hundred 'poll-men' below him. Admitting that two hundred out of three hundred have refused to work hard enough to earn honors, there will remain one hundred who, had they done their possible, never could have got them.
"The same striking intellectual differences between man and man are found in whatever way ability may be tested, whether in statesmanship, generalship, literature, science, poetry, art. The evidence furnished by Mr. Galton's book goes to show in how small degree eminence in any class of intellectual powers can be considered as due to purely special faculties. It is the result of concentrated efforts made by men widely gifted—of grand human animals; of natures born to achieve greatness."
We are far from pretending that all men are born with equal abilities, and that all souls are created with equal possibilities, or that every child comes into the world a genius in germ. We believe that all men are born with equal natural rights, and that all should be equal before the law, however various and unequal may be their acquired or adventitious rights; but that is all the equality we believe in. No special effort or training in the world, under the influence of the most favorable circumstances, can make every child a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a Bossuet, a Newton, a Leibnitz, a Julius Cæsar, a Wellington, a Napoleon. As one star differeth from another in glory, so does one soul differ from another in its capacities on earth as well as in its blessedness in heaven. Here we have no quarrel with Mr. Galton. We are by no means believers in the late Robert Owen's doctrine, that you can make all men equal if you will only surround them from birth with the same circumstances, and enable them to live in parallelograms.
We are prepared to go even farther, and to recognize that the distinction between noble and ignoble, gentle and simple, recognized in all ages and by all nations, is not wholly unfounded. There is as great a variety and as great an inequality in families as in individuals. Aristocracy is not a pure prejudice; and though it has no political privileges in this country, yet it exists here no less than elsewhere, and it is well for us that it does. No greater evil could befall any country than to have no distinguished families rising, generation after generation, above the common level; no born leaders of the people, who stand head and shoulders above the rest; and the great objection to democracy is, that it tends to bring all down to a general average, and to place the administration of public interests in the hands of a low mediocrity, as our American experience, in some measure, proves. The demand of the age for equality of conditions and possessions is most mischievous. If all were equally rich, all would be equally poor; and if all were at the top of society, society would have no bottom, and would be only a bottomless pit. If there were none devoted to learning, no strength and energy of character above the multitude, society would be without leaders, and would soon fall to pieces, as an army of privates without officers.
There is no doubt that there are noble lines, and the descendants of noble ancestors do, as a rule, though not invariably, surpass the descendants of plebeian or undistinguished lines. The Stanleys, for instance, have been distinguished in British history for at least fifteen generations. The present Earl Derby, the fifteenth earl of his house, is hardly inferior to his gifted father, and nobly sustains the honors of his house. We expect more from the child of a good family than from the child of a family of no account, and hold that birth is never to be decried or treated as a matter of no importance. But we count it so chiefly because it secures better breeding, and subjection to higher, nobler, and purer formative influences, from the earliest moment. Example and family traditions are of immense reach in forming the character, and it is not a little to have constantly presented to the consideration of the child the distinguished ability, the eminent worth and noble deeds of a long line of illustrious ancestors, especially in an age and country where blood is highly esteemed, and the honorable pride of family is cultivated. The honor and esteem in which a family has been held for its dignity and worth through several generations is a capital, an outfit for the son, secures him, in starting, the advantage of less well-born competitors, and all the aid in advance of a high position and the good-will of the community. More is exacted of him than of them; he is early made to feel that noblesse oblige, and that failure would in his case be dishonor. He is thereby stimulated to greater effort to succeed.
Yet we deny not that there is something else than all this in blood. A man's genius belongs to his soul, and is no more inherited than the soul itself. But man is not all soul, any more than he is all body; body and soul are in close and mysterious relation, and in this life neither acts without the other. The man's natural abilities are psychical, not physical, and are not inherited, because the soul is created, not generated; but their external manifestation may depend, in a measure, on organization, and organization is inherited. Mr. Galton's facts may, then, be admitted without our being obliged to accept his theory. The brain is generally considered by physiologists as the organ of the mind, and it may be so, without implying that the brain secretes thought, will, affection, as the liver secretes bile, or the stomach secretes the gastric juice.
The soul is distinct from the body, and is its form, its life, or its vivifying and informing principle; yet it uses the body as the organ of its action. Hence, De Bonald defines man, an intelligence that serves himself by organs, not an intelligence served by organs, as Plato said. The activity is in the soul, not in the organs. The organ we call the eye does not see; the soul sees by means of the eye. So of the ear, the smell, the taste, the touch. We speak of the five senses; but we should speak more correctly if we spoke, not of five senses, but of five organs of sense; for the sense is psychical, and is one like the soul that senses through the organs. In like manner, the brain appears to be the organ of the mind, through which, together with the several nerves that centre in it, the mind performs its various operations of thinking, willing, reasoning, remembering, reflecting, etc. The nature of the relation of the soul, which is one, simple, and immaterial, with a material body with its various organs, nervous and ganglionic systems, is a mystery which we cannot explain. Yet we cannot doubt that there is a reciprocal action and reaction of the soul and body, or, at least, the bodily organs can and do offer, at times, an obstacle to the external action of the soul. I cannot by my will raise my arm, if it be paralyzed, though my psychical power to will to raise it is not thereby affected. If the organs of seeing and hearing, the eye and the ear, are injured or originally defective, my external sight and hearing are thereby injured or rendered defective; but not in other psychical relations, as evinced by the fact that when the physical defect is removed, or the physical injury is cured, the soul finds no difficulty in manifesting its ordinary power of seeing or hearing. So we may say of the other organs of sense, and of the body generally, in so far as it is the organ of the soul, or used by the soul in its external display or manifestation of its powers.
No doubt the organization may be more or less favorable to this external display or manifestation, or that, under certain conditions, and to a certain extent, the organization is hereditary, or transmitted by natural generation. There may be transmitted from parents or ancestors a healthy or diseased, a normal or a more or less abnormal organization; and so far, and in this sense, genius may be hereditary, and a man's natural abilities may be derived by inheritance, as are the form and features; but only to this extent, and in this sense—that is, as to their external display or exercise; for a man may be truly eloquent in his soul, and even in writing, whose stammering tongue prevents him from displaying any eloquence in his speech. The organization does not deprive the soul of its powers. My power to will to raise my arm is not lessened by the fact that my arm is paralyzed. And in all ordinary cases, the soul is able, at least by the help of grace, freely given to all, to overcome a vicious temperament, control, in the moral order, a defective organization, and maintain her moral freedom and integrity. It has been proved that the deaf-mute can be taught to speak, and that idiots or natural-born fools can be so educated as to be able to exhibit no inconsiderable degree of intelligence.
We do not believe a word in Darwin's theory of natural selection; for all the facts on which he bases it admit of a different explanation, nor in its kindred theory of development or evolution of species. One of our own collaborators has amply refuted both theories, by showing that what these theories assume to be the development or evolution of new species, whether by natural selection or otherwise, is but a reversion to the original type and condition, in like manner as we have proved, over and over again, that the savage is the degenerate, not the primeval man. It is not improbable that your African negro is the degenerate descendant of a once over-civilized race, and that he owes his physical peculiarities to the fact that he has become subject, like the animal world, to the laws of nature, which are resisted and modified in their action by the superior races. We do not assert this as scientifically demonstrated, but as a theory which is far better sustained by well-known facts and incontrovertible principles than either the theory of development or of natural selection.
Yet the soul as forma corporis has an influence, we say not how much, on organization; and high intellectual and moral culture may modify it, and, other things being equal, render it in turn more favorable to the external manifestation of the inherent powers of the soul. This more favorable organization may be transmitted by natural generation from parents to children, and, if continued through several consecutive generations, it may give rise to noble families and to races superior to the average. Physical habits are transmissible by inheritance. This is not, as Darwin and Mr. Galton suppose, owing to natural selection, but to the original mental and moral culture become traditional in certain families and races, and to the voluntary efforts of the soul, as is evident from the fact that when the culture is neglected, and the voluntary efforts cease to be made, the superiority is lost, the organization becomes depraved, and the family or race runs out or drops into the ranks of the ignoble. The blood, however blue, will not of itself alone suffice to keep up the superiority of the family or the race; nor will marriages, however judicious, through no matter how many consecutive generations, without the culture, keep up the nobility, as Mr. Galton would have us believe; for the superiority of the blood depends originally and continuously on the soul, its original endowments, and its peculiar training or culture through several generations.
It is in this same way we explain the origin and continuance of national characteristics and differences. Climate and geographical position count, no doubt, for something; but more in the direction they give to the national aims and culture than in their direct effects on bodily organization. It is not probable that the original tribes of Greece had any finer organic adaptation to literature and the arts than had the Scythian hordes from which they sprang; but their climate and geographical position turned their attention to cultivation of the beautiful, and the continual cultivation of the beautiful through several generations gave the Greeks an organization highly favorable to artistic creations. Then, again, Rome cultivated and excelled in the genius of law and jurisprudence. But under Christian faith and culture, the various nations of Europe became assimilated, and the peculiar national characteristics under Gentilism were in a measure obliterated. They also revive as the nations under Protestantism recede from Christianity and return to Gentilism, and are held in check only by the reminiscences of Catholicity, and by the mutual intercourse of nations kept up by trade and commerce, literature and the arts.
The facts alleged by Mr. Galton and his brother materialists are, therefore, explicable without impugning the doctrine of the simplicity and immateriality of the soul, and that the soul is created, not generated as is the body. They are perfectly explicable without supposing our natural abilities originate in or are the result of natural organization. They can be explained in perfect consistency with revelation, with the teachings of the church, and with the universal beliefs of mankind. Thus it would be supreme unreason to require us to reject the Gospel, or our holy religion, on the strength of the unverified and unverifiable hypotheses of the scientists, and degrade man, the lord of this lower creation, to the level of the beasts that perish. The quarrel we began by speaking of is in no sense a quarrel between faith and reason, or revelation and science; but simply a quarrel between what is certain by faith and reason on the one side, and the unverified and unverifiable hypotheses or conjectures of the so-called scientists on the other. We oppose none of the real facts which the scientists set forth; we oppose only their unsupported theories and unwarranted inductions. We conclude by reminding the scientists that others have studied nature as well as they, and are as familiar with its facts and as able to reason on them as they are, and yet have no difficulty in reconciling their science and their faith.
DION AND THE SIBYLS.
A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.
BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.