Thoughts on Man

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It is with some degree of satisfaction that I perceive lord
Brougham, the reputed author of the Preliminary Discourse to the
Library of Useful Knowledge, at the same time that he states the
dimensions and distances of the heavenly bodies in the usual way,
says not a word of their inhabitants.

It is somewhat remarkable that, since the commencement of the
present century, four new planets have been added to those
formerly contained in the enumeration of the solar system. They
lie between the planets Mars and Jupiter, and have been named
Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas. Brinkley speaks of them in this
manner. "The very small magnitudes of the new planets Ceres and
Pallas, and their nearly equal distances from the sun, induced
Dr. Olbers, who discovered Pallas in 1802, nearly in the same
place where he had observed Ceres a few months before, to
conjecture that they were fragments of a larger planet, which had
by some unknown cause been broken to pieces. It follows from the
law of gravity, by which the planets are retained in their
orbits, that each fragment would again, after every revolution
about the sun, pass nearly through the place in which the planet
was when the catastrophe happened, and besides the orbit of each
fragment would intersect the continuation of the line joining
this place and the sun. Thence it was easy to ascertain the two
particular regions of the heavens through which all these
fragments would pass. Also, by carefully noting the small stars
thereabout, and examining them from time to time, it might be
expected that more of the fragments would be discovered.--M.
Harding discovered the planet Juno in one of these regions; and
Dr. Olbers himself also, by carefully examining them [the small
stars] from time to time, discovered Vesta."

These additions certainly afford us a new epoch in the annals of
the solar system, and of astronomy itself. It is somewhat
remarkable, that Herschel, who in the course of his observations
traced certain nebulae, the light from which must have been two
millions of years in reaching the earth, should never have
remarked these planets, which, so to speak, lay at his feet. It
reminds one of Esop's astrologer, who, to the amusement of his
ignorant countrymen, while he was wholly occupied in surveying
the heavens, suddenly found himself plunged in a pit. These new
planets also we are told are fragments of a larger planet: how
came this larger planet never to have been discovered?

Till Herschel's time we were content with six planets and the
sun, making up the cabalistical number seven. He added another.
But these four new ones entirely derange the scheme. The
astronomers have not yet had opportunity to digest them into
their places, and form new worlds of them. This is all
unpleasant. They are, it seems, "fragments of a larger planet,
which had by some unknown cause been broken to pieces." They
therefore are probably not inhabited. How does this correspond
with the goodness of God, which will suffer no mass of matter in
his creation to remain unoccupied? Herschel talks at his ease of
whole systems, suns with all their attendant planets, being
consigned to destruction. But here we have a catastrophe
happening before our eyes, and cannot avoid being shocked by it.
"God does nothing in vain." For which of his lofty purposes has
this planet been broken to pieces, and its fragments left to
deform the system of which we are inhabitants; at least to humble
the pride of man, and laugh to scorn his presumption? Still they
perform their revolutions, and obey the projectile and
gravitating forces, which have induced us to people ten thousand
times ten thousand worlds. It is time, that we should learn
modesty, to revere in silence the great cause to which the
universe is indebted for its magnificence, its beauty and
harmony, and to acknowledge that we do not possess the key that
should unlock the mysteries of creation.

One of the most important lessons that can be impressed on the
human mind, is that of self-knowledge and a just apprehension of
what it is that we are competent to achieve. We can do much. We
are capable of much knowledge and much virtue. We have patience,
perseverance and subtlety. We can put forth considerable
energies, and nerve ourselves to resist great obstacles and much
suffering. Our ingenuity is various and considerable. We can
form machines, and erect mighty structures. The invention of man
for the ease of human life, and for procuring it a multitude of
pleasures and accommodations, is truly astonishing. We can
dissect the human frame, and anatomise the mind. We can study
the scene of our social existence, and make extraordinary
improvements in the administration of justice, and in securing to
ourselves that germ of all our noblest virtues, civil and
political liberty. We can study the earth, its strata, its soil,
its animals, and its productions, "from the cedar that is in
Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall."

But man is not omnipotent. If he aspires to be worthy of honour,
it is necessary that he should compute his powers, and what it is
they are competent to achieve. The globe of earth, with "all
that is therein," is our estate and our empire. Let us be
content with that which we have. It were a pitiful thing to see
so noble a creature struggling in a field, where it is impossible
for him to distinguish himself, or to effect any thing real.
There is no situation in which any one can appear more little and
ludicrous, than when he engages in vain essays, and seeks to
accomplish that, which a moment's sober thought would teach him
was utterly hopeless.

Even astronomy is to a certain degree our own. We can measure
the course of the sun, and the orbits of the planets. We can
calculate eclipses. We can number the stars, assign to them
their places, and form them into what we call constellations.
But, when we pretend to measure millions of miles in the heavens,
and to make ourselves acquainted with the inhabitants of ten
thousand times ten thousand worlds and the accommodations which
the creator has provided for their comfort and felicity, we
probably engage in something more fruitless and idle, than the
pigmy who should undertake to bend the bow of Ulysses, or strut
and perform the office of a warrior clad in the armour of
Achilles.

How beautiful is the "firmament; this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire!" Let us beware how we mar the magnificent scene
with our interpolations and commentaries! Simplicity is of the
essence of the truly great. Let us look at the operations of
that mighty power from which we ourselves derive our existence,
with humility and reverential awe! It may well become us. Let
us not "presume into the heaven of heavens," unbidden,
unauthorised guests! Let us adopt the counsel of the apostle,
and allow no man to "spoil us through vain philosophy." The
business of human life is serious; the useful investigations in
which we may engage are multiplied. It is excellent to see a
rational being conscious of his genuine province, and not idly
wasting powers adapted for the noblest uses in unmeasured essays
and ill-concocted attempts.

ESSAY XXII.
OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE.

In the preceding Essay I have referred to the theory of Berkeley,
whose opinion is that there is no such thing as matter in the
sense in which it is understood by the writers on natural
philosophy, and that the whole of our experience in that respect
is the result of a system of accidents without an intelligible
subject, by means of which antecedents and consequents flow on
for ever in a train, the past succession of which man is able to
record, and the future in many cases he is qualified to predict
and to act upon.

An argument more palpable and popular than that of Berkeley in
favour of the same hypothesis, might be deduced from the points
recapitulated in that Essay as delivered by Locke and Newton. If
what are vulgarly denominated the secondary qualities of matter
are in reality nothing but sensations existing in the human mind,
then at any rate matter is a very different thing from what it is
ordinarily apprehended to be. To which I add, in the second
place, that, if matter, as is stated by Newton, consists in so
much greater a degree of pores than solid parts, that the
absolute particles contained in the solar system might, for aught
we know, he contained in a nutshell[77], and that no two ever
touched each other, or approached so near that they might not be
brought nearer, provided a sufficient force could be applied for
that purpose,--and if, as Priestley teaches, all that we observe
is the result of successive spheres of attraction and repulsion,
the centre of which is a mathematical point only, we then
certainly come very near to a conclusion, which should banish
matter out of the theatre of real existences[78].

[77] See above, Essay XXI.

[78] See above, Essay XXI.

But the extreme subtleties of human intellect are perhaps of
little further use, than to afford an amusement to persons of
curious speculation, and whose condition in human society
procures them leisure for such enquiries. The same thing happens
here, as in the subject of my Twelfth Essay, on the Liberty of
Human Actions. The speculator in his closet is one man: the
same person, when he comes out of his retirement, and mixes in
intercourse with his fellow-creatures, is another man. The
necessarian, when he reasons on the everlasting concatenation of
antecedents and consequents, proves to his own apprehension
irrefragably, that he is a passive instrument, acted upon, and
acting upon other things, in turn, and that he can never
disengage himself from the operation of the omnipotent laws of
physical nature, and the impulses of other men with whom he is
united in the ties of society. But no sooner does this acute and
ingenious reasoner come into active life and the intercourse of
his fellowmen, than all these fine-drawn speculations vanish from
his recollection. He regards himself and other men as beings
endowed with a liberty of action, as possessed of a proper
initiative power, and free to do a thing or not to do it, without
being subject to the absolute and irresistible constraint of
motives. It is from this internal and indefeasible sense of
liberty, that we draw all our moral energies and enthusiasm, that
we persevere heroically in defiance of obstacles and
discouragements, that we praise or blame the actions of others,
and admire the elevated virtues of the best of our
contemporaries, and of those whose achievements adorn the page of
history.

It is in a manner of precisely the same sort as that which
prevails in the philosophical doctrines of liberty and necessity,
that we find ourselves impelled to feel on the question of the
existence of the material universe. Berkeley, and as many
persons as are persuaded by his or similar reasonings, feel
satisfied in speculation that there is no such thing as matter in
the sense in which it is understood by the writers on natural
philosophy, and that all our notions of the external and actual
existence of the table, the chair, and the other material
substances with which we conceive ourselves to be surrounded, of
woods, and mountains, and rivers, and seas, are mere prejudice
and misconception. All this is very well in the closet, and as
long as we are involved in meditation, and remain abstracted from
action, business, and the exertion of our limbs and corporal
faculties. But it is too fine for the realities of life.
Berkeley, and the most strenuous and spiritualised of his
followers, no sooner descend from the high tower of their
speculations, submit to the necessities of their nature, and mix
in the business of the world, than they become impelled, as
strongly as the necessarian in the question of the liberty of
human actions, not only to act like other men, but even to feel
just in the same manner as if they had never been acquainted with
these abstractions. A table then becomes absolutely a table, and
a chair a chair: they are "fed with the same food, hurt by the
same weapons, and warmed and cooled by the same summer and
winter," as other men: and they make use of the refreshments
which nature requires, with as true an orthodoxy, and as
credulous a temper, as he who was never assailed with such
refinements. Nature is too strong, to be prevailed on to retire,
and give way to the authority of definitions and syllogistical
deduction.

But, when we have granted all this, it is however a mistake to
say, that these "subtleties of human intellect are of little
further use, than to afford an amusement to persons of curious
speculation[79]." We have seen, in the case of the doctrine of
philosophical necessity[80], that, though it can never form a
rule for the intercourse between man and man, it may nevertheless
be turned to no mean advantage. It is calculated to inspire us
with temperance and toleration. It tends impressively to evince
to us, that this scene of things is but like the shadows which
pass before us in a magic lanthorn, and that, after all, men are
but the tools, not the masters, of their fate. It corrects the
illusions of life, much after the same manner as the spectator of
a puppet-shew is enlightened, who should be taken within the
curtain, and shewn how the wires are pulled by the master, which
produce all the turmoil and strife that before riveted our
attention. It is good for him who would arrive at all the
improvement of which our nature is capable, at one time to take
his place among the literal beholders of the drama, and at
another to go behind the scenes, and remark the deceptions in
their original elements, and the actors in their proper and
natural costume.

[79] See above, Essay XXII.

[80] See above, Essay XII.

And, as in the question of the liberty of human actions, so in
that of the reality of the material universe, it is a privilege
not to be despised, that we are so formed as to be able to
dissect the subject that is submitted to our examination, and to
strip the elements of which this sublunary scene is composed, of
the disguise in which they present themselves to the vulgar
spectator. It is little, after all, that we are capable to know;
and the man of heroic mind and generous enterprise, will not
refuse the discoveries that are placed within his reach. The
subtleties of grammar are as the porch, which leads from the
knowledge of words to the knowledge of things. The subtleties of
mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and
supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic. And in the
same manner the faculty which removes the illusions of external
appearance, and enables us to "look into the seeds of time," is
one which we are bound to estimate at its genuine value. The
more we refine our faculties, other things equal, the wiser we
grow: we are the more raised above the thickness of the
atmosphere that envelops our fellow-mortals, and are made
partakers of a nature superhuman and divine.

There is a curious question that has risen out of this
proposition of Berkeley, of the supposed illusion we suffer in
our conceptions of the material universe. It has been said,
"Well then, I am satisfied that the chairs, the tables, and the
other material substances with which I conceive myself to be
surrounded, are not what they appear to be, but are merely an
eternal chain of antecedents and consequents, going on according
to what Leibnitz calls a 'preestablished harmony,' and thus
furnishing the ground of the speculations which mortals cherish,
and the motives of their proceeding. But, if thus, in the
ordinary process of human affairs, we believe in matter, when in
reality there is no such thing as matter, how shall we pronounce
of mind, and the things which happen to us in our seeming
intercourse with our fellow-men, and in the complexities of love
and hatred, of kindred and friendship, of benevolence and
misanthropy, of robbery and murder, and of the wholesale massacre
of thousands of human beings which are recorded in the page of
history? We absolutely know nothing of the lives and actions of
others but through the medium of material impulse. And, if you
take away matter, the bodies of our fellow-men, does it not
follow by irresistible consequence that all knowledge of their
minds is taken away also? Am not I therefore (the person engaged
in reading the present Essay) the only being in existence, an
entire universe to myself?"

Certainly this is a very different conclusion from any that
Berkeley ever contemplated. In the very title of the Treatise in
which his notions on this subject are unfolded, he professes his
purpose to be to remove "the grounds of scepticism, atheism and
irreligion." Berkeley was a sincere Christian, and a man of the
most ingenuous dispositions. Pope, in the Epilogue to his
Satires, does not hesitate to ascribe to him "every virtue under
heaven." He was for twenty years a prelate of the Protestant
church. And, though his personal sentiments were in the highest
degree philanthropical and amiable, yet, in his most diffusive
production, entitled The Minute Philosopher, he treats "those who
are called Free Thinkers" with a scorn and disdain, scarcely to
be reconciled with the spirit of Christian meekness.

There are examples however, especially in the fields of
controversy, where an adventurous speculatist has been known to
lay down premises and principles, from which inferences might be
fairly deduced, incompatible with the opinions entertained by him
who delivered them. It may therefore be no unprofitable research
to enquire how far the creed of the non-existence of matter is to
be regarded as in truth and reality countenancing the inference
which has just been recited.

The persons then, who refine with Berkeley upon the system of
things so far, as to deny that there is any such thing as matter
in the sense in which it is understood by the writers on natural
philosophy, proceed on the ground of affirming that we have no
reason to believe that the causes of our sensations have an
express resemblance to the sensations themselves[81]. That which
gives us a sensation of colour is not itself coloured: and the
same may be affirmed of the sensations of hot and cold, of sweet
and bitter, and of odours offensive or otherwise. The
immaterialist proceeds to say, that what we call matter has been
strewn to be so exceedingly porous, that, for any thing we know,
all the solid particles in the universe might be contained in a
nutshell, that there is no such thing in the external world as
actual contact, and that no two particles of matter were ever so
near to each other, but that they might be brought nearer, if a
sufficient force could be applied for that purpose. From these
premises it seems to follow with sufficient evidence, that the
causes of our sensations, so far as the material universe is
concerned, bear no express resemblance to the sensations
themselves.

[81] See above, Essay XXI.

How then does the question stand with relation to mind? Are
those persons who deny the existence of matter, reduced, if they
would be consistent in their reasonings, to deny, each man for
himself, that he has any proper evidence of the existence of
other minds than his own?

He denies, while he has the sensation of colour, that there
exists colour out of himself, unless in thinking and percipient
beings constituted in a manner similar to that in which he is
constituted. And the same of the sensations of hot and cold,
sweet and bitter, and odours offensive or otherwise. He affirms,
while he has the sensation of length, breadth and thickness, that
there is no continuous substance out of himself, possessing the
attributes of length, breadth and thickness in any way similar to
the sensation of which he is conscious. He professes therefore
that he has no evidence, arising from his observation of what we
call matter, of the actual existence of a material world. He
looks into himself, and all he finds is sensation; but sensation
cannot be a property of inert matter. There is therefore no
assignable analogy between the causes of his sensations, whatever
they may be, and the sensations themselves; and the material
world, such as we apprehend it, is the mere creature of his own
mind.

Let us next consider how this question stands as to the
conceptions he entertains respecting the minds of other men.
That which gives him the sensation of colour, is not any thing
coloured out of himself; and that which gives him the sensation
of length, breadth and thickness, is not any thing long, broad
and thick in a manner corresponding with the impression he
receives. There is nothing in the nature of a parallel, a type
and its archetype, between that which is without him and that
which is within, the impresser and the impression. This is the
point supposed to be established by Locke and Newton, and by
those who have followed the reasonings of these philosophers into
their remotest consequences.

But the case is far otherwise in the impressions we receive
respecting the minds of other men. In colour it has been proved
by these authors that there is no express correspondence and
analogy between the cause of the sensation and the sensation.
They are not part and counterpart. But in mind there is a
precise resemblance and analogy between the conceptions we are
led to entertain respecting other men, and what we know of
ourselves. I and my associate, or fellow-man, are like two
instruments of music constructed upon the same model. We have
each of us, so to speak, the three great divisions of sound,
base, tenor and treble. We have each the same number of keys,
capable of being struck, consecutively or with alternations, at
the will of the master. We can utter the same sound or series of
sounds, or sounds of a different character, but which respond to
each other. My neighbour therefore being of the same nature as
myself, what passes within me may be regarded as amounting to a
commanding evidence that he is a real being, having a proper and
independent existence.

There is further something still more impressive and irresistible
in the notices I receive respecting the minds of other men. The
sceptics whose reasonings I am here taking into consideration,
admit, each man for himself, the reality of his own existence.
There is such a thing therefore as human nature; for he is a
specimen of it. Now the idea of human nature, or of man, is a
very complex thing. He is in the first place the subject of
sensible impressions, however these impressions are communicated
to him. He has the faculties of thinking and feeling. He is
subject to the law of the association of ideas, or, in other
words, any one idea existing in his mind has a tendency to call
up the ideas of other things which have been connected with it in
his first experience. He has, be it delusive or otherwise, the
sense of liberty of action.

But we will go still further into detail as to the nature of man.

Our lives are carried forward by the intervention of what we call
meat, drink and sleep. We are liable to the accidents of health
and sickness. We are alternately the recipients of joy and
sorrow, of cheerfulness and melancholy. Our passions are excited
by similar means, whether of love or hatred, complacency or
indignation, sympathy or resentment. I could fill many pages
with a description of the properties or accidents, which belong
to man as such, or to which he is liable.

Now with all these each man is acquainted in the sphere of his
inward experience, whether he is a single being standing by
himself, or is an individual belonging to a numerous species.

Observe then the difference between my acquaintance with the
phenomena of the material universe, and with the individuals of
my own species. The former say nothing to me; they are a series
of events and no more; I cannot penetrate into their causes; that
which gives rise to my sensations, may or may not be similar to
the sensations themselves. The follower of Berkeley or Newton
has satisfied himself in the negative.

But the case is very different in my intercourse with my
fellow-men. Agreeably to the statement already made I know the
reality of human nature; for I feel the particulars that
constitute it within myself. The impressions I receive from that
intercourse say something to me; for they talk to me of beings
like myself. My own existence becomes multiplied in infinitum.
Of the possibility of matter I know nothing; but with the
possibility of mind I am acquainted; for I am myself an example.
I am amazed at the consistency and systematic succession of the
phenomena of the material universe; though I cannot penetrate the
veil which presents itself to my grosser sense, nor see effects
in their causes. But I can see, in other words, I have the most
cogent reasons to believe in, the causes of the phenomena that
occur in my apparent intercourse with my fellow-men. What
solution so natural, as that they are produced by beings like
myself, the duplicates, with certain variations, of what I feel
within me?

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