"We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep."'
In my work on 'Heat,' published in 1863 and republished many times since, I employ the precise language thus extracted from the 'Saturday Review.'
The distinction is here clearly brought out which I had resolved at all hazards to draw — that, namely, between what men knew or might know, and what they could never hope to know. Impart simple magnifying power to our present vision, and the atomic motions of the brain itself might be brought into view. Compare these motions with the corresponding states of consciousness, and an empirical nexus might be established; but 'we try to soar in a vacuum when we endeavour to pass by logical deduction from the one to the other.' Among these brain-effects a new product appears which defies mechanical treatment. We cannot deduce motion from consciousness or consciousness from motion as we deduce one motion from another. Nevertheless observation is open to us, and by it relations may be established which are at least as valid as those of the deductive reason. The difficulty may really lie in the attempt to convert a datum into an inference — an ultimate fact into a product of logic. My desire for the moment, however, is not to theorise, but to let facts speak in reply to accusation.
The most 'materialistic' speculation for which I was responsible, prior to the 'Belfast Address,' is embodied in the following extract from a brief article written as far back as 1865 :— 'Supposing the molecules of the human body, instead of replacing others, and thus renewing a pre-existing form, to be gathered first-hand from nature, and placed in the exact relative positions which they occupy in the body. Supposing them to have the same forces and distribution of forces, the same motions and distribution of motions — would this organised concourse of molecules stand before us as a sentient, thinking being? There seems no valid reason to assume that it would not. Or supposing a planet carved from the sun, set spinning round an axis, and sent revolving round the sun at a distance equal to that of our earth, would one consequence of the refrigeration of the mass be the development of organic forms? I lean to the affirmative.' This is plain speaking, but it is without 'dogmatism.' An opinion is expressed, a belief, a leaning — not an established 'doctrine.'
The burthen of my writings in this connection is as much a recognition of the weakness of science as an assertion of its strength. In 1867, I told the working men of Dundee that while making the largest demand for freedom of investigation; while considering science to be alike powerful as an instrument of intellectual culture, and as a ministrant to the material wants of men; if asked whether science has solved, or is likely in our day to solve, 'the problem of the universe,' I must shake my head in doubt. I compare the mind of man to a musical instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions exists infinite silence. The phenomena of matter and force come within our intellectual range; but behind, and above, and around us the real mystery of the universe lies unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of solution.
While refreshing my mind on these old themes I appear to myself as a person possessing one idea, which so over-masters him that he is never weary of repeating it. That idea is the polar conception of the grandeur and the littleness of man — the vastness of his range in some respects and directions, and his powerlessness to take a single step in others. In 1868, before the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association, then assembled at Norwich, I repeat the same well-worn note :-
'In thus affirming the growth of the human body to be mechanical, and thought as exercised by us to have its correlative in the physics of the brain, the position of the "materialist," as far as that position is tenable, is stated. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain this position against all attacks, but I do not think he can pass beyond it. The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the pre-scientific ages. Phosphorus is a constituent of the human brain, and a trenchant German writer has exclaimed, "Ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke!" That may or may not be the case; but, even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone here assigned to the materialist, he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this "matter" of which we have been discoursing — who or what divided it into molecules, and impressed upon them this necessity of running into organic forms — he has no answer. Science is also mute in regard to such questions. But if the materialist is confounded and science is rendered dumb, who else is prepared with an answer? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and philosopher, one and all.'
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The roll of echoes which succeeded the Lecture delivered by Professor Virchow at Munich on September 22, 1877, was long and loud. The 'Times' published a nearly full translation of the lecture, and it was eagerly commented on in other journals. Glances from it to an Address delivered by me before the Midland Institute in the autumn of 1877, and published in this volume, were very frequent. Professor Virchow was held up to me in some quarters as a model of philosophic caution, who by his reasonableness reproved my rashness, and by his depth reproved my shallowness. With true theologic courtesy I was sedulously emptied, not only of the 'principles of scientific thought,' but of 'common modesty' and 'common sense.' And though I am indebted to Professor Clifford for recalling in the 'Nineteenth Century' for April the public mind in this connection from heated fancy to sober fact, I do not think a brief additional examination of Virchow's views, and of my relation to them, will be out of place here.