Professor Tyndall and His Opponents
THE JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE AND MENTAL PATHOLOGY. Art. I.? :Author: J. M. WINN, M.D., M.E.C.P., &c.
In the Fortnightly Review for November 1875, Dr Tyndall published his long-expected reply in an article entitled “Materialism and its Opponents.” A more unsatisfactory or evasive answer can scarcely be imagined. He was chal- lenged to prove, by inductive reasoning, the truth of the materialistic theory which he advocated so strongly. He was, moreover, earnestly pressed to explain the inconsistency between the opinions given in his Address before the British Association at Belfast and those which he afterwards published m his reprint. To this glaring inconsistency I referred as follows in my treatise on Materialism*:?” The strongest con- trast, however, to the materialistic opinions so conspicuously brought forward in the Address, as well as in Dr Tyndall’s other published works, is exhibited in the following extract from the preface to the reprint of the Address, which appeared about a month after its delivery : ‘ I have noticed during years ?f self-observation that it is not in hours of clearness and vigour that this doctrine [material atheism] commends itself to yuy mind ; that in the presence of stronger and healthier thought it ever dissolves and disappears,! as offering no solution of the * ” Materialism” (originally published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine) -with Appendix: Hardwicke & Bogue, 192 Piccadilly, London. t Dr Lionel Beale puts this inconsistency very forcibly in his lecture on the ” Machinery of Lifo,” delivered before the Philosophical Society of Leamington, January 7, 1875:?”Perhaps the most marvellous feat ever performed by any machine, conscious or unconscious, was that of discerning in matter ‘the promise and potency of all terrestrial life’ in the month of August, and discovering in the next month, in the presence of stronger and healthier thought, that the doctrine issolved and disappeared.”
PART I. VOL. II.?NEW SERIES. A 4 PROFESSOR TYNDALL AND HIS OPPONENTS.
mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a part.’ It is deeply to be deplored that Dr Tyndall did not mention this fact when he delivered his Address at Belfast, and promulgated doctrines which are calculated to undermine the faith of thousands, and which, if true, would shake the very foundations of all morality and religion.” He has fulfilled neither of these requirements. He has left his molecular hypothesis as baseless as ever, and has altogether avoided giving a positive answer to the vital question, whether he is or is not a materialistic atheist. From a man holding a distinguished and influential position, and who is also a popular lecturer on physical science, the public had a right to expect a satisfactory reply to such an inquiry; and, as he has not given one, there is strong reason to fear, from the prevailing tone of the article in the Fortnightly Review, that since the publication of the reprint of his Address, Dr. Tyndall has not experienced many of those lucid intervals in which the doctrine of materialistic atheism ceases to commend itself to his mind, and it must therefore be concluded that he is still wandering in the dark and dreary region of Atheism.
I will now proceed to make a few observations on the leading points of the Professor’s reply in the order in which they occur. It is painful to find him always on the alert to throw discredit on revealed religion, and lie seems never so happy as when he thinks he has found some flaw in the Bible. He commences his paper with an irrelevant discussion on the Colenso controversy, on which he has nothing new to offer, and forgets that it has nothing to do with the question at issue. This question has no reference to any particular form of religion ; it is not whether the Mosaic account of the Creation be true or false; but it is the question which involves the foundation of all religion?whether we are to believe in a Creator and over- ruling Providence, or to substitute the Professor’s extravagant and visionary notion of atomic power. If this latter be true, a holocaust may at once be made of the Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, and all other religious books; and every man must be left to do that which is right in his own eyes.
Dr Tyndall observes that he has “no desire to repay in kind the hard words” which have been thrown at him. He cannot expect that those who have read his unjustifiable and unprovoked attack on religion will allow what they hold most sacred to be treated with ridicule or contempt without raising an earnest protest against it. The following passages from his reply will show that he does not always use language of the gentlest character. Speaking of the Catholic student, he says: Let him sit under the immeasurable heavens, watch the stars in their courses, scan the mysterious nebulas, and try to realise what it all is and means. Let him bring the thoughts and conceptions which thus enter into his mind lace to lace with the notions of the genesis and rule of thiDgs which pervade the writings of the princes of his Church, and he will see and feel what drivellers even men of strenuous intellects may become, through exclusively dwelling and dealing with theological chimeras.” …” But, quitting the more grotesque forms of the theological, I already see, or think I see, emerging from recent discussions, that wonderful plasticity of the Theistic Idea which enables it to maintain through many changes its hold upon superior minds; and which, if it is to last, will eventually enable it to shape itself in accordance with scientific conditions.” Again, “The resurrection of our Saviour, says Dr Reichel, ‘ is the central fact of Christianity. Without His resurrection, His birth and His death would have been alike unavailing; nay, more, if He did not rise from the dead His birth was the birth of a bastard, and his death the death of an impostor.’ This may be orthodoxy, but, entertaining the notions that I do of Christ and of His incomparable life upon the earth, if the momentary use of the term blasphemy were granted to me by my Christian brethren, I should feel inclined to employ it here.” It is unnecessary to say anything further about the words used in these passages which I have marked in italics, but it is of the greatest importance that the un- philosophical opinions expressed in them should be combated. If the plasticity of the Theistic Idea be admitted, and we are to leave the settlement of the whole matter to Dr Tyndall, there is an end of the discussion, and he would so mould the plastic Idea that the notion of a Creator would be reduced to a self-generated molecule. Dr Reichel’s expression is perfectly true and just. If the Divine nature of Christ be not admitted* the inevitable conclusion is that He must have been illegitimate. It is to be hoped that Dr Tyndall will give the world the benefit of the particular notions which he says he entertains of Christ. I fear that those of a materialist cannot be very exalted, as of course it is impossible for him to admit his Divinity. In referring to the question, whether mathematics tends to give support to theology or not, the Professor exultingly remarks that ” out of mathematics no salvation for theology can possibly come.” We might retort and say, out of mathematics no sal- vation for materialism can possibly come. No one pretends to demonstrate the existence of a Deity by mathematics: it is sufficient to know that the study of this science is not incom- * Dr Adam Clarke, in his Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible, observes, in allusion to the well-known words ” I and my Father are one,” that “If Jesus Christ was not God, could Ho have said these words without blasphemy?” patible with religious belief. Some of our greatest mathema- ticians were believers in the being of a Grod; for instance, Newton, Pascal, Wallis, Bradley, Brinkley, Peacock, &c. Moreover, it must be admitted that the discoveries which have been made in astronomy by the aid of mathematics have given us grander conceptions of the might and majesty of the Creator. Dr Tyndall, who will drag theology into the discussion, heedless of the fact that it has nothing to do with his materialistic hypothesis, occupies more than half of his article in showing to what extent he agrees or disagrees with the views of the Rev. James Martineau. He quotes the following eloquent passage from that gentleman’s writings, and then proceeds to comment upon it: ” The universe which includes us and folds us round is the life-dwelling of an Eternal Mind; the world of our abode is the scene of a moral government, incipient but not yet com- plete ; and the upper zones of human affections, above the clouds of self and passion, take us into the sphere of a Divine Com- munion.” Dr Tyndall states that he has himself experienced a Communion of this sort, but it will be seen from the following passages that there is nothing very Divine in the Professor’s Communion. They are much the same as those to which I referred at the commencement of this article. He observes that in the ” hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action has ceased and the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend.” … ” When I attempt to give the Power which I see manifested in the universe an objective form, personal or otherwise, it slips away from me, declining all intellectual manipulation. I dare not, save poetically, use the pronoun He regarding it; I dare not call it a Mind; I refuse to call it even a Cause. Its mystery overshadows me, but it remains a mystery, while the objective frames which my neigh- bours try to make it fit, simply distort and desecrate it.” But the Professor should not stop here. Having brought down his Communion to a poetical emotion, the next step for a materialist is?to use his own phraseology?to reduce that emotion to the ” thrill of a ganglion.”
In a foot-note, Dr Tyndall introduces the following sin- gular excuse for the versatility of his opinions :?” In the first preface to the ‘ Belfast Address,’ I referred to’ hours of clearness and vigour,’ as four years previously I had referred to hours of ‘ health and strength and sanity,’ and brought down upon myself in consequence, a considerable amount of ridicule. Why, I know not: for surely it is not when sleepy after a gluttonous meal, or when suffering from dyspepsia, or even when possessed by an arithmetical problem demanding’ concentrated thought, that we care most for the starry heavens or the sense of responsibility in man.” It would have been wiser if the Professor, when on the platform at Belfast, had given to the world his choicest thoughts; otherwise it must seem as it he had given utterance to crude materialistic opinions which might have been engendered at some time when he was sleepy, when suffering from dyspepsia, after a gluttonous meal, or when possessed by an arithmetical problem demanding con- centrated thought.
In reply to the oft-repeated objection to materialism?”If you only knew the comfort of belief”?Dr Tyndall says, ” I choose the nobler part of Emerson, when, after various dis- enchantments, he exclaimed ‘ I covet truth.’” Of all the cants in this canting world, there is none more unfair than this perpetual reiteration of the sceptic and the atheist, that it is truth they seek. Does the Professor suppose that all the wisest and best men among every denomination of Christians, are not quite as earnest in the search after truth as he is ? Dr Tyndall and the materialistic psychologists speak contemptuously of metaphysics, yet it is curious to observe how frequently they have recourse to language of a metaphysical character. The following passage is an illustration of this : ” The term Vorstellungs-taliigkeit [power of representation] as used by me means the power of definite mental presenta- tion, of attaching to words the corresponding objects of thought, and of seeing these in their proper relations, without the interior haze and soft penumbral borders which the theologian loves.” Here we have an instance, not only of metaphysical phraseology, but also another specimen of the pleasure the Professor feels in ridiculing the clergy. He prides himself on his Vorstellungs-fahigkeit, but anyone familiar with his writings must have remarked that his own mental vision is not always free from mist.
In order to illustrate the sufficiency of matter to produce all the marvellous beauty of the vegetable world, he draws a most illogical comparison between the growth of a tree and the action of an ingenious acoustic instrument devised by Sir C. Wheatstone, which Dr Tyndall describes in this manner:? ” There is an experiment, first made by Wheatstone, where the music of a piano is transferred from its sound-board, through a thin wooden rod, across several silent rooms in succession, and poured out at a distance from the instrument. The strings of the piano vibrate, not singly, but ten at a time. Every string subdivides, yielding not one note, but a dozen. All these vibrations and subvibrations are crowded together into a bit of deal not more than a quarter of a square inch in section. Yet no note is lost. Each vibration asserts its indi- vidual rights; and all are at last shaken forth into the air by a second sound-board, against which the distant end of the rod presses.” … . “I turn to my tree and observe its roots, its trunk, its branches, and its leaves. As the rod conveys the music, and yields it up to the distant air, so does the trunk convey the matter and the motion?the shocks and pulses, and other vital actions which eventually emerge in the umbrageous foliage of the tree.” It requires only a small acquaintance with the first principles of acoustics and vege- table physiology to see the fallacy of this parallel. One part of it is merely an illustration of the mode in which sounds may be conveyed rapidly, to a great distance, by a vibrating medium. Far different is it with the other part of the parallel?with the gradual growth of a tree, which requires for its accomplishment a variety of processes, under the control of vital force. Dr Tyndall is himself driven to the necessity of using the words vital actions, although he denies the exist- ence of vitality.
Dr Tyndall, whose object it is of course to exalt matter and lower mind, quotes Tertullian as an authority for the materiality of the soul, and ” wonders what would have hap- pened to this great Christian Father amid the roaring lions of Belfast.” Tertullian was a bit of a roaring lion himself, and had Dr Tyndall been better acquainted with his history he would have known that, however valuable he may have been as a witness to the truth of Christianity, he had no claim to be looked up to as an authority on metaphysical questions. Gabriel Seigneux de Correcon, in his notes to Addison’s Evi- dences of the Christian Eeligion, gives the following sketch of Tertullian’s character:?” Upright and zealous, but at the same time very rigid, and unpardonably intolerant towards those he deemed heretics; he calls Marcion a sailor and a Scythian, not recollecting that St. Peter had been a fisherman, and that Anacharsis, an acknowledged great philosopher, was of Scythia ; or rather not recollecting that personalities are of no weight, and can injure no one but their authors. Too ardent not to be precipitate, he has been accused of want of judgment. His credulity showed itself in one of his works. To prove the materiality of the soul, he quotes an enthu- siastic woman, who asserts she has seen one” When Dr. Tyndall discusses metaphysical and theological subjects, his ignorance of such matters becomes lamentably apparent.
Having reduced soul and mind to matter, the Professor, with that inconsistency for which he is so conspicuous, imme- diately takes flight in an opposite direction, and suggests that vegetables may possibly be endowed with consciousness, and minerals with properties which are only conceded to living organisms. Consciousness is incompatible with the absence of a nervous system; it is therefore impossible to believe that the lowest animal organisms, such as Amoebae and Bacteria, much less any form of vegetable life, can possess this property. In confirmation of his hypothesis Dr Tyndall refers to the fly- catching Dioneea; but the closing of the leaf of this plant and the movements of the sensitive plant cannot be explained in the same manner as the vital movements of animals, and aie probably of quite a different nature. Is it not possible that they may be owing to electricity ? The Professor would pio- bably render a great service to science if lie would turn his rare powers as a scientific experimentalist in this direction. As to the notion that minerals may have the power of responding to irritants?it is so extravagant that it requires no comment. I presume it is only another of those wild flights of fancy which the Professor dignifies with the title of the ” scientific use of the imagination.”
Having made Vorstellungs-fahigkeit (which, as I have before stated, he defines the power of definite mental pre- sentation) the basis of his reasoning, it might be expected that his language would be of the most rigidly exact character; and it would be startling (if the Professor had not accus- tomed us to his contradictory opinions) to find him, after ignoring the ideas of vitality and mind, and after discovering in matter ” the promise and potency of all terrestrial life ‘ it would be startling, I say, to find him writing in the fol- lowing strain:?” Nor am I anxious to shut out the idea that the life here spoken of may be but a subordinate part and function of a higher life, as the living moving blood is sub- ordinate to the living man. I resist no such idea as long as it is not dogmaticaily imposed. Left for the human mind freely to operate upon, the idea has ethical vitality; but, stiffened into a dogma, the inner force disappears and the outward yoke of a usurping hierarchy takes its place. In the Uame of common sense what notion can any one have of ethical vitality, whose reasoning has a tendency to destroy the founda- tion of all religion. Morality has ever been based on religion; destroy this basis, and substitute for it materialistic or utili- tarian doctrines, and where would be its vitality ?
But waiving the consideration of this higher life, I will ? turn to the question of life, simply as it is exhibited in our bodily organisation. The majority of our most eminent physiologists (I am not speaking of the materialistic physiolo- gists of the present day) have used the term vital force or vitality to group together and generalise a large number of facts which, in our present state of knowledge, cannot be ex- plained by physical force. But if Dr Tyndall really believes that all the phenomena generally understood as vital are solely the result of atomic power, what right has he, strictly speaking, to employ any term implying vitality in his argument ?
Immediately after warming himself up to a sort of almost religious sentiment, the Professor falls back again into the cold depths of materialism. Following close on his remarks on vitality are others in the following strain : “The problem before us is, at all events, capable of definite statement. We have on the one hand strong grounds for concluding that the earth was once a molten mass. We now find it not only swathed by an atmosphere, and covered by a sea, but also crowded with living- things. The question is, how were they introduced ? The conclusion of science, which recognises unbroken causal connection between the past and the present, would undoubtedly be that the molten ea.rth contained within it elements of life, which grouped themselves into their present forms as the planet cooled.”
I am willing to try conclusions with Dr Tyndall on the assumption that the earth was once a molten mass. I would not do so on the assumption that it was once a frozen mass. As regards animal life, Dr B. W. Bichardson has clearly de- monstrated that if the animal temperature be raised to eleven degrees above the natural standard, death is inevitable ; on the other hand, the degree of cold from which an animal might re- cover was so great, that he was obliged to leave the fatal degree indefinite. If, then, the earth was ever liquefied by fire, every form of life, if there had been any, must have been destroyed ; it must therefore be admitted that this life itself, this birth, this growth, this mystery, we cannot yet comprehend, must have been superadded to matter after the creation of the earth. Dr. Tyndall would probably reply that he does not deny that there is a marked difference between organised and unor- ganised structures, and that intense heat would be fatal to what we call life; but that he believes that the molten mass contained the elements of life. By this vague expression I presume he means the old story of the potentiality of atoms. The onus jprobandi, however, that matter and physical force can produce a living germ, rests with Dr Tyndall. Can he advance a single instance in which there is the faintest shadow of a proof that a living cell lias been educed by any chemical, electrical, or mechanical process ? As regards spontaneous generation no one is a more decided unbeliever in this doctrine than himself. When he has succeeded in manufacturing a little Bacterium?leave alone the Cingalese Fern, the beauty of which he has so eloquently pictured?I shall become a convert to his hypothesis.
” The conclusion of pure intellect points this “way [to scien- tific materialism] and no other/’ This is the Professor’s dogma ; which, however, is immediately followed by passages which cannot be considered as the offspring of pure intellect; they rather seem to result from that cloudiness of mental vision which he admits that he occasionally experiences. He says: ” But this purity is troubled by our interests in this life, and by our hopes and fears regarding the life to come. Reason is traversed by the emotions; anger rising in the weaker heads to the height of suggesting the compendious shooting of the inquirer would be an act agreeable to Grod and serviceable to man. But this foolishness is more than neutralised by the sympathy of the wise ; and in England at least, so long as the courtesy which befits an earnest theme is adhered to, such sympathy is ever ready for an honest man. None of us here need shrink from saying all that he has a right to say. We ought, however, to remember that it is not only a band of Jesuits, weaving their schemes of intellectual slavery under the innocent guise of education, that we are opposing. Our foes are to some extent they of our own household, including not only the ignorant and the passionate, but a minority of minds of high calibre and culture, lovers of freedom moreover, who, though its objective hull be riddled by logic, still find the ethic life of their religion unimpaired.” This is mere rhapsody. W hat does Dr Tyndall mean by anyone’s contemplating the ” com- pendious shooting ” of any inquirer ? I never heard that any- one ever expressed a wish to shoot him or any other inquirer ; if anyone had done so, it would have been not only foolish, but criminal. Who are these terrible foes in our own household of whom he seems in such dread ? and what does he mean by the hull of their religion being riddled by logic, though they fortunately still maintain, in spite of the shots from the materialistic battery, the ethic life of their religion ? The Professor, in his seesaw manner, goes on to repeat the same arguments as he used in the Belfast Address. We have again the stereotyped sneer of the atheist, who accuses those, who believe in a Creator, of anthropomorphism, of making their ” God ” … . “a large Individual, who holds the leading-strings of the universe, and orders its steps from a position outside it all.” In answer to this, I can only repeat what I have elsewhere observed, that the word Creator is never intended to convey the notion of the ” technic of man,5’ but is our only mode of expressing- our conception of the might and mystery of the Author of all things. How can man, with his finite faculties and limited language, speak of Infinite Power in other than finite words ?
Dr Tyndall’s atheistic proclivities become more apparent towards the close of his article. He hesitates to admit, with Gassendi and Clerk Maxwell, that even the atoms were created, and remarks ” that little profit to the human heart seems derivable from this mode of regarding the Divine operations.” Having thus rejected all creative power, both direct and in- direct, what remains but Atheism ?
With an air of triumph the Professor asks whether an egg is matter, and whether the gradual additions made to the human ovum in utero during the period of gestation are matter or not, and then jumps to the conclusion that matter “is the mys- terious thing by which all this is accomplished.” What can be more illogical ? He confounds cause and effect. Of course everyone is aware that living organisms derive their nourish- ment from matter; but the question is, are not living germs, which appropriate and assimilate matter by their inherent vital force, totally different from any known combination of atoms the result of physical force ?
The concluding paragraph of the reply is so extraordinary that I cannot refrain from quoting it at length : ” The world will have religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it to the intellectual whoredom of spiritualism. What is really wanted is the lifting poiuer of an ideal element in human life. But the free play of this power must be preceded by its release from the torn sivaddling bands of the ‘past, and from the practical materialism of the present. It is now in danger of being strangled by the one or stupefied by the other. I look, how- ever, forward to a time when the strength, insight, and elevation, which now visit us in mere hints and glimpses during moments of clearness and vigour, shall be the stable and permanent pos- session of purer and mightier minds than ours?purer and mightier partly because of their deeper knowledge of matter and- their more faithful conformity to its laws.” What does he mean by the lifting power of an ideal element, which is ulti- mately to supersede the old-fashioned notions derived from the Bible ? He has just before stated that matter will account for all the mysteries that surround us. Is it, after all, Pantheism that the Professor is driving at ? Why does he not state, in plain language, what he does believe, beyond the potency of matter ? What does he mean by his refined expression, ” intellec- tual whoredom of spiritualism ” ? Have liis opponents ever used any language half so bad as this ? Is materialism less mere- tricious than spiritualism ? He looks forward to a sort of millennium, when the ideal element shall regenerate the world through the more perfect knowledge of the laws of matter. In the meanwhile, those who think that literature and art are as ennobling as physical science, those who have neither time nor inclination for scientific pursuits, and the multitudes of the poor and heavy-laden, who have hitherto derived comfort from their religious belief, must be looked upon as poor, ignorant, credu- lous creatures, the mere victims of a delusion. Happy indeed is it that, even by the Professor’s confession, the world will have religion !
Dr Tyndall, in a note to the Times of the 28th of January last, says, in reference to spontaneous generation, ” The dialectic dust of Dr Bastian’s letter I leave to the slow sure process of self-subsidence.” The cloud of cosmic dust which he himself has raised may be safely left to the same sure process. Five years since I wrote a little satire for circulation amongst my friends, with the hope that the veductio cid obsitrdvLin might be of some use to those who had no fixed creed. I would commend it to the consideration of those School Boards which are opposed to religious instruction. It Was after this fashion :?
A Catechism of Advanced Views. Designed for the benefit of the rising generation. Question.?What is your name’! Ansiver.?Tom Paine. Question.?Who gave you that name ? Answer.?The Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in the parish where I was born. Catechist.?Rehearse the articles of thy belief.
Answer.?I believe in the physical constructive forces which made heaven and earth; in Huxley, Darwin, Robert Owen, Bain, Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, and in all Avho entertain advanced opinions. I also believe in the social system, the folly of marriage, the doctrine of development, the lifting power of the ideal element, and the right (Divine I was about to say) of the multitude to govern themselves. I also add, that I believe in the efficacy of elementary drawing, algebra, and geometry ; studies which have been particularly recommended by Professor Huxley for adoption by the School Board, the great object being to cultivate the intellect, and leave the morals to take care of themselves.
Question.?My good?I mean clever-?child, what dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy belief ?
Answer.?That Christianity is a delusion and a snare, and a stumblincrblock to the diffusion of science and civil liberty, and that there is nothing in creation which evidences an intelligent design or a Divine Providence.
Question.?After the wonderfully clever and original statements you have made, I am almost ashamed to ask you if you believe in the Sacra- ments and the Ten Commandments.
Answer.?Most assuredly not. Man’s conduct must be regulated by experience, and his first duty is to take care of himself. As regards his offspring, the abolition of marriage under the social system would render it extremely difficult for a child to know his father; it would therefore be incumbent on the State to provide for his children. I need scarcely remark that the social system especially and forcibly demonstrates the absurdity of the fifth commandment?based on super- stition and ignorance?which enjoins that a child should honour his father and mother.
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