Had Hume been content to insist that testimony in favour of miracles should never be received without extreme doubt and hesitation, his lesson might well have passed without further objection than that of its being superfluous for any one with sense enough to profit by it. Nor might it have been easy to discover a flaw in his logic, although he had gone so far as to maintain that no one of the miracles as yet on record is either adequately attested, or would, even if it had undoubtedly occurred, afford sufficient evidence of any religious truth. The best and only adequate evidence for any religious creed is the satisfaction which it affords to the soul's cravings and promises to the soul's aspirations; and no rational Christian would be at all the more disposed to turn Mussulman, even though it should be demonstrated to his entire conviction that Christ did not raise Lazarus from the dead, and that Mahomet did turn the hill Safa into gold, instead of prudently confining himself to boasting that he could have effected the transmutation if he had thought proper. But for the purpose which Hume had in view, it was necessary to establish, not merely the doubtfulness, but the absolute falsehood of the miracular testimony on which, in his opinion, 'our holy religion' rests, in order that the character of the superstructure being inferred from that of the foundation, both might be condemned together. There is, however, an irreligious as well as a religious fanaticism, and, though it is difficult, while looking at Hume's portrait, to credit the owner of that plump, good-humoured face with feeling of any sort warm enough to be termed fanatical, it is humiliating to note from his example into what strange inconsistency the coolest and calmest judgment may be warped by irreligious prejudice. Having not long before, in order to disparage natural religion, emphatically denied the existence of any causal connection between successive events, he now, in order equally to discredit the very possibility of revealed religion, tacitly assumes that same connection, not simply to exist, but to be of an efficacy which no disturbing forces can impair. Admitting that 'the Indian prince who refused to believe the first relations concerning the effects of frost' was wrong in his belief, Hume will have it that the prince nevertheless 'reasoned justly.' Although recognising truth to be the sole worthy object of quest, he yet enjoins rigid adherence to a rule which he is aware must inevitably lead to frequent error.
Rather strikingly contrasted, in respect of execution, with Hume's chapter on Miracles, comes the one next in order on a Providence and a Future State, which, for the skill with which the fallacy involved in it is disguised, may be regarded as quite a masterpiece of false reasoning. Among its leading propositions there is but one which does not command immediate assent. That we can argue but from what we know; that of causes, known to us only by their effects, our estimate ought to be exactly proportioned to the effects; that of a Creator manifested only by His works, no higher qualities, no greater degrees of power, intelligence, justice, or benevolence, can be confidently predicated—whatever be conjectured—than are apparent in his workmanship: all this, on one moment's reflection, is perceived to be indisputable. Needs must it be, however reluctantly, admitted that nothing can be more illogical than to return back to the cause, and infer from it other effects beyond those by which alone it is known to us, or to infer from creative attributes, distinctly manifested, the existence of other and not apparent attributes, endowed with some efficacy additional to that possessed by the former. But does it hence follow that faith in a superintending Providence is so mere a matter of 'conceit and imagination,' a faith so absolutely irrational as Hume considered it? A candid examination of God's works will warrant us in coming to a widely different conclusion. Among those works is man—a being who, in spite of the utter insignificance of his greatest performances, is capable of forming most exalted conceptions of justice, benevolence, and goodness in general, and of feeling the most eager desire to act up to his own ideal. If the divine notions of goodness in its several varieties be not identical with the human, it can only be because they are superior; and so, too, of the divine love of, and zeal for, goodness. It cannot be that the Creator is inferior to the creature in virtues which the creature derives from Him alone. Demonstrably, therefore, God is good and just in the very highest degree in which those qualities can be conceived by man. Demonstrably, too, since the universe is the work of His hands, He must be possessed of power which, if not necessarily unbounded, is at least as boundless as the universe. Thus, rigidly arguing from effects to causes, and scrupulously proportioning the one to the other, man sees imaged on the face of creation a creator, both realising his highest conception of goodness, and wielding measureless might. Is not such a being worthy to be looked up to, and confided in, and adored and loved as a superintending providence? Is not faith in such a providence not simply not irrational, but the direct result of a strictly inductive process? And would it be an irrational stretch of faith sanguinely to hope, if not implicitly to believe, that an union of infinite justice with measureless might may, in some future stage of existence, afford compensation for the apparently inequitable distribution of good and evil which, according to all experience, has hitherto taken place among human beings?
Were it desirable to amplify the apology with which this paper commenced, some additional justification of the freedom of the foregoing criticisms might be found in hints thrown out by Hume in various parts of the treatise which we have been examining, and particularly in its concluding chapter, that in many of his most startling doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's temperament, too cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a certain tepid geniality to save him from becoming a scoffer. The character which he claims for himself, and somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or general doubter—a character in which, when rightly understood, there is nothing to be ashamed of. To take nothing on trust, to believe nothing without proof, to show no greater respect for authority than may consist in attentive and candid examination of its statements, to accept only verified facts as bases for reasoning on matters of fact and existence—these are golden rules of philosophical research, principles in which lies the secret of all real progress in any of the higher departments of science. By Hume they were adopted con amore, and with keen appreciation, not more of their practical utility, than of the sport which he perceived them to be capable of yielding. His serious purpose was to unmask the numberless pretences which in politics, political economy, metaphysics, morals, and theology he found universally current as gospel truths; to expose the ambiguity and contradictions latent in popular thought, and in the popular forms of expression which are so apt to be mistaken for thought, and to indicate the only safe mode of investigation and the only trustworthy tests of genuine knowledge; his favourite amusement to put time-honoured commonplaces on the rack, and demanding their raison d'être, to pass on them summary sentence of extinction if they failed to account satisfactorily for their existence. Unfortunately, in his keen enjoyment of the fun of the thing, he not unfrequently overlooked the solid interests at stake. Like a huntsman who, for the sake of a better run, should outrace his quarry, or who, seeing that the dogs were close upon the hare, should, in order to prolong the chase, start a fresh hare, kept till then snug at his saddle-bow, so Hume, in the excitement of metaphysical pursuit, instead of stopping to gather up whatever verified affirmations came in his way, would prefer to follow any new negation that he espied, or, if momentarily accepting any affirmation as established, would proceed forthwith to affirm its direct opposite with the view of neutralising both. In this, his practice resembled that of metaphysicians in general, who take a singular delight in setting themselves riddle after riddle, which they either assume to be hopelessly insoluble, or which they no sooner solve than they use the solution as the subject of another riddle involving its predecessor in redoubled perplexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game were content to play it by themselves, without inviting others to join who are constitutionally unfit for such intellectual wrestling. But mental exercises may to philosophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet be death to the multitude; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands self-condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by challenging them to disputations confessedly leading no whither, and bewildering them with confessedly 'vain and profane babblings, and strivings after words to no profit, but to subverting of the hearers, and overthrow of the faith of some.' And it is as poor an excuse for this wanton tampering with other people's creeds, as it is poor amends for its mischievous consequences, that Hume offers when, after watching for a while his puzzled disciples blown about by the winds of adverse doctrine that he has let loose upon them, he proceeds to rally them on their 'whimsical condition,' which he speaks of as a mere laughing matter got up chiefly for amusement. It is only an aggravation of offence that, while, on the one hand, he solemnly pronounces everything to be 'a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery,' he, on the other hand, cheerily exhorts us not to suffer the 'doubts raised by philosophy to affect our actions.' 'Nature,' he says, 'is always too strong for principles, will always maintain her rights, and prevail, in the end, against all reasoning whatever.' 'The great subverter of Pyrrhonism,' he continues, 'is actual employment and the occupations of common life,' in presence of which its overstrained scruples 'vanish like smoke.' Although real knowledge consists solely in knowing that we know nothing, and in doubting everything, and although sceptics may 'justly triumph' in principles which lead them to deny even the attraction of gravitation, still they had better beware how they act on these principles, lest by stepping unconcernedly out of window they come fatally to grief on the stones below, and so the sect and its tenets be annihilated together. So, or to such effect, Hume: but how can there be just ground for pride in speculations which, as their own professors admit, would, on the first attempt to reduce them to practice, be shattered to pieces by hard facts? That cannot possibly, even on Hume's recommendation, be accepted as metaphysical truth, which flatly contradicts common sense, nor can there be any unbecoming self-confidence in seeking, even though Hume pronounce the search hopeless, for metaphysical truth, with which common sense may be reconciled.
CHAPTER IV.
HUXLEYISM.
'À force d'esprit tout lui paroît matière.'
In one of his interesting 'Lay Sermons,' the most interesting perhaps of the whole interesting series, Professor Huxley, taking for his theme the 'Physical Basis of Life,' combats 'the widely-spread conception of life as a something which works through matter, but is independent of it;' affirming, on the contrary, 'that matter and life are inseparably connected, and that there is one kind of matter which is common to all living beings.' The preacher may be safely allowed to have satisfactorily made out the second portion of this affirmation. With his own singular felicity of illustration, he shows how all vegetable and animal tissues, without exception, from that of the brightly coloured lichen looking so like a mere mineral incrustation on the rock that bears it, to that of the painter who admires or the botanist who dissects it, are, however diverse in aspect, essentially one in composition and structure. He explains how the microscopic fungi clustering by millions within the body of a single fly, the giant pine of California towering to the height of a cathedral spire, the Indian fig-tree covering acres with its profound shadow, the animalcules of ocean's lowest deep, minute enough to dance in myriads on the point of a needle, and the Finner whale, hugest of beasts, that disports its ninety feet of bone and blubber on ocean's billowy heights, the flower that a girl wears in her hair, and the blood that courses through her veins, are, each and all, smaller or larger multiples or aggregates of one and the same structural unit, which, again, is invariably resolvable into the same identical elements. That unit, he tells us, is an atom or corpuscle composed of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, which, and which alone, seem to be required by nature for laying withal the foundations of vitality, inasmuch as no substance from which any one of these ingredients is totally absent, ever exhibits any sign of life, while, on the other hand, not only are these four ingredients sufficient of themselves to form a substance capable of living, but they actually do with very little (when any) foreign admixture, form all substances whatsoever that are ever found vivified. All such substances, he informs us, are but varieties of protoplasm, differing indeed from each other in texture, colour, and general appearance, even as a diamond differs from granite, yet all being equally protoplasm, just as a diamond and a block of granite are equally stones, or as heart of oak and the outer case of a nettle's sting are equally wood. The human ovum, he gives us to understand, is in its earliest stage but a single particle of protoplasm; the human fœtus but an aggregation of such particles, variously modified; the human body perfectly matured, but a larger aggregation of such particles still further modified.
He proceeds to point out, as following from these premises, that a solution of smelling salts, together with an infinitesimal quantity of certain other salts, contains all the elements that enter into the composition of protoplasm, and consequently of whatever substance the very highest animal requires for sustenance. He does not, however, leave us to suppose that any abundance of the fluid in question would avail aught to save a hungry creature of any sort from starving, but continues his exposition to the following effect. Not only is there no animal, there is not even any vegetable organism, to which the elements of food can serve as food, as long as they remain elementary. It is indispensable that hydrogen and oxygen should combine to form water, nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonia, carbon and oxygen to form carbonic acid; and even then, even at a table groaning under whole hogsheads of these primitive compounds, there is no single animal that would not find itself at a Barmecide feast. There are many plants likewise, which in the midst of such uncongenial plenty would be equally without a drop to drink; but there are also multitudes of others which, without the aid of any more elaborated nutriment, would be able to grow into a million, nay million million fold of their original bulk. Provided there be in the seed or germ of any of these latter one single particle of living protoplasm to begin with, that single particle may convert into animated protoplasm an indefinite quantity of inanimate ammonia, carbonic acid, and water. The protoplasm thus created in the first instance, and created, let us suppose, in the form of a lichen or a fungus, is converted by decay into vegetable mould, in which grass may take root and grow, and which, in that case, will be converted into herbaceous protoplasm; which, being eaten by sheep or oxen, becomes ovine or bovine protoplasm, commonly called mutton or beef; which, again, being eaten by man, becomes human protoplasm, and, if eaten by a philosopher, becomes part of a mass of protoplasm capable of investigating and of expounding in lectures or lay sermons, the changes which itself and its several components have undergone.
So far we advance with willing steps like dutiful disciples along the path of knowledge indicated by our distinguished biological teacher, who here, however, pulls us up short by suddenly intimating that he sees no break in the series of transubstantiations whereby precisely such oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon as he is lecturing upon, have become metamorphosed into him, the lecturer, and us, the lectured audience, and cannot 'understand why the language which is applicable to any one term of the series should not be used in regard to any of the others.' Oxygen and hydrogen, he reminds us, are gases, whose particles, at and also much below 32° Fahrenheit, tend to rush away from each other with great force; and this tendency we call a property of each gas. Let oxygen and hydrogen be mixed in certain proportions, and an electric spark passed through them, and they will disappear, and a quantity of water equal in weight to the sum of their weights will appear in their place. But amongst the properties of the water will be some, the direct opposites of those of its components; watery particles, for example, at any temperature not higher than 32° Fahrenheit, tending not to rush asunder, but to cohere into definite geometrical shapes or to build up frosty imitations of vegetable foliage. And let the water be brought into conjunction with ammonia and carbonic acid, and the three will, under certain conditions, give rise to protoplasm, which again, if subjected to a certain succession of processes, will rise by successive stages from protoplasm that gives no other signs of life than those of feeding and reproducing its kind, to protoplasm endowed with the power of spontaneous motion, and finally to protoplasm that thinks and reasons, speculates and philosophises. Now why should any of the various phenomena of life exhibited by these varieties of protoplasm be supposed to be of a different class from the appearances of activity exhibited by any of the varieties of lifeless matter? What reason is there why, for instance, thought should not be termed a property of thinking protoplasm, just as congelation is a property of water, and centrifugience of gas? Professor Huxley protests that he is aware of no reason. We call, he says, the several strange phenomena which are peculiar to water, 'the properties of water, and do not hesitate to believe that in some way or other they result from the properties of the component elements of water. We do not assume that something called aquosity entered into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the facets of the crystal or among the leaflets of the hoar frost. On the contrary, we live in the hope and faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts or the manner in which they are put together.' Why, then, when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, and an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance in their place, should we assume the existence in the living matter of a something which has no representative or correlative in the unliving matter that gave rise to it? Why imagine that into the newly formed hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a something called vitality entered and took possession? 'What better philosophical status has vitality than aquosity?' 'If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant signification, we are,' he considers, 'logically bound to apply to protoplasm or the physical basis of life the same conceptions as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere.' Wherefore, he concludes, that 'if the phenomena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by protoplasm its properties,' and that if it be correct to describe 'the properties of water as resulting from the nature and disposition of its component molecules,' there can be no 'intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.'