Chapter IV (1)

MENTAL LAWS ARE EITHER MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL. COMPARISON OF MORAL AND
INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIRY INTO THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY EACH ON THE
PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.

In the preceding chapter, it has, I trust, been made apparent, that, whatever may hereafter be the case, we, looking merely at the present state of our knowledge, must pronounce the metaphysical method to be unequal to the task, often imposed upon it, of discovering the laws which regulate the movements of the human mind. We are, therefore, driven to the only remaining method, according to which mental phenomena are to be studied, not simply as they appear in the mind of the individual observer, but as they appear in the actions of mankind at large. The essential opposition between these two plans is very obvious: but it may perhaps be well to bring forward further illustration of the resources possessed by each for the investigation of truth; and for this purpose, I will select a subject which, though still imperfectly understood, supplies a beautiful instance of the regularity with which, under the most conflicting circumstances, the great Laws of Nature are able to hold their course.

The case to which I refer, is that of the proportion kept up in the births of the sexes; a proportion which if it were to be greatly disturbed in any country, even for a single generation, would throw society into the most serious confusion, and would infallibly cause a great increase in the vices of the people.[303] Now, it has always been suspected that, on an average, the male and female births are tolerably equal; but, until very recently, no one could tell whether or not they are precisely equal, or, if unequal, on which side there is an excess.[304] The births being the physical result of physical antecedents, it was clearly seen that the laws of the births must be in those antecedents; that is to say, that the causes of the proportion of the sexes must reside in the parents themselves.[305] Under these circumstances, the question arose, if it was not possible to elucidate this difficulty by our knowledge of animal physiology; for it was plausibly said, 'Since physiology is a study of the laws of the body,[306] and since all births are products resulting from the body, it follows that if we know the laws of the body, we shall know the laws of the birth.' This was the view taken by physiologists of our origin;[307] and this is precisely the view taken by metaphysicians of our history. Both parties believed that it was possible at once to rise to the cause of the phenomenon, and by studying its laws predict the phenomenon itself. The physiologist said, 'By studying individual bodies, and thus ascertaining the laws which regulate the union of the parents, I will discover the proportion of the sexes, because the proportion is merely the result to which the union gives rise.' Just in the same way, the metaphysician says, 'By studying individual minds, I will ascertain the laws which govern their movements; and in that way I will predict the movements of mankind, which are obviously compounded of the individual movements.'[308] These are the expectations which have been confidently held out, by physiologists respecting the laws of the sexes, and by metaphysicians respecting the laws of history. Towards the fulfilment, however, of these promises the metaphysicians have done absolutely nothing; nor have the physiologists been more successful, although their views have the support of anatomy, which admits of the employment of direct experiment, a resource unknown to metaphysics. But towards settling the present question, all this availed them nothing; and physiologists are not yet possessed of a single fact which throws any light on this problem: Is the number of male births equal to female births--is it greater, or is it less?

[303] Thus we find that the Crusades, by diminishing the proportion of
men to women in Europe, increased licentiousness. See a curious
passage in _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. ii. p.
376. In Yucatan, there is generally a considerable excess of
women, and the result is prejudicial to morals. _Stephens's
Central America_, vol. iii. pp. 380, 429. On the other hand,
respecting the state of society produced by an excess of males,
see _Mallet's Northern Antiquities_, p. 259; _Journal of
Geographical Society_, vol. xv. p. 45, vol. xvi. p. 307;
_Southey's Commonplace Book_, third series, p. 579.

[304] On this question a variety of conflicting statements may be seen
in the old writers. Goodman, early in the seventeenth century,
supposed that more females were born than males. _Southey's
Commonplace Book_, third series, p. 696. Turgot (_[OE]uvres_,
vol. ii. p. 247) rightly says, 'il naît un peu plus d'hommes que
de femmes;' but the evidence was too incomplete to make this more
than a lucky guess; and I find that even Herder, writing in 1785,
takes for granted that the proportion was about equal: 'ein
ziemliches Gleichmass in den Geburten beider Geschlechter'
(_Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. ii. p. 149), and was sometimes in
favour of girls, 'ja, die Nachrichten mehrerer Reisenden machen
es wahrscheinlich, dass in manchen dieser Gegenden wirklich mehr
Töchter als Söhne geboren werden.'

[305] A question, indeed, has been raised as to the influence exercised
by the state of the mind during the period of orgasm. But
whatever this influence may be, it can only affect the subsequent
birth through and by physical antecedents, which in every case
must be regarded as the proximate cause. If, therefore, the
influence were proved to exist, we should still have to search
for physical laws: though such laws would of course be considered
merely as secondary ones, resolvable into some higher
generalization.

[306] Some writers treat physiology as a study of the laws of life. But
this, looking at the subject as it now stands, is far too bold a
step, and several branches of knowledge will have to be raised
from their present empirical state, before the phenomena of life
can be scientifically investigated. The more rational mode seems
to be, to consider physiology and anatomy as correlative; the
first forming the dynamical, and the second forming the statical
part of the study of organic structure.

[307] 'Voulez-vous savoir de quoi dépend le sexe des enfants? Fernel
vous répond, sur la foi des anciens, qu'il dépend des qualités de
la semence du père et de la mère.' _Renouard_, _Histoire de la
Médecine_, Paris, 1846, vol. ii. p. 106; see also, at p. 185, the
opinion of Hippocrates, adopted by Galen; and similar views in
_Lepelletier_, _Physiologie Médicale_, vol. iv. p. 332, and
_Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. i. pp. 252, 10, vol. ii.
p. 115, vol. iv. p. 62. For further information as to the
opinions which have been held respecting the origin of sexes, see
_Beausobre_, _Histoire de Manichée_, vol. ii. p. 417; _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. iii. pp. 358, 361; _Vishnu Purana_, p. 349;
_Works of Sir William Jones_, vol. iii. p. 126; _Ritter's History
of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iii. p. 191; _Denham and
Clapperton's Africa_, pp. 323, 324; _Maintenon_, _Lettres
Inédites_, vol. ii. p. 62; and the view of Hohl (_Burdach's
Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 472), 'que les femmes chez lesquelles
prédomine le système artériel procréent des garçons, au lieu que
celles dont le système veineux a la prédominance mettent au monde
des filles.' According to Anaxagoras the question was extremely
simple: [Greek: kai arrena men apo tôn dexiôn, thêlea de apo tôn
aristerôn.] _Diog. Laert._ ii. 9, vol. i. p. 85.

[308] 'Le metaphysicien se voit comme la source de l'évidence et le
confident de la nature: Moi seul, dit-il, je puis généraliser les
idées, et découvrir le germe des événements qui se développent
journellement dans le monde physique et moral; et c'est par moi
seul que l'homme peut être éclairé.' _Helvetius_, _de l'Esprit_,
vol. i. p. 86. Compare _Herder_, _Ideen zur Geschichte der
Menschheit_, vol. ii. p. 105. Thus, too, M. Cousin (_Hist. de la
Philosophie_, II. série, vol. i. p. 131) says, 'Le fait de la
conscience transporté de l'individu dans l'espèce et dans
l'histoire, est la clef de tous les développements de
l'humanité.'

These are questions to which all the resources of physiologists, from Aristotle down to our own time, afford no means of reply.[309] And yet at the present day we, by the employment of what now seems a very natural method, are possessed of a truth which the united abilities of a long series of eminent men failed to discover. By the simple experiment of registering the number of births and their sexes; by extending this registration over several years, in different countries,--we have been able to eliminate all casual disturbances, and ascertain the existence of a law which, expressed in round numbers, is, that for every twenty girls there are born twenty-one boys: and we may confidently say, that although the operations of this law are of course liable to constant aberrations, the law itself is so powerful, that we know of no country in which during a single year the male births have not been greater than the female ones.[310]

[309] Considering the very long period during which physiology has been
studied, it is remarkable how little the physiologists have
contributed towards the great and final object of all science,
namely, the power of predicting events. To me it appears that the
two principal causes of this are, the backwardness of chemistry,
and the still extremely imperfect state of the microscope, which
even now is so inaccurate an instrument, that when a high power
is employed, little confidence can be placed in it; and the
examination, for instance, of the spermatozoa has led to the most
contradictory results. In regard to chemistry, MM. Robin and
Verdeil, in their recent great work, have ably proved what
manifold relations there are between it and the further progress
of our knowledge of the animal frame; though I venture to think
that these eminent writers have shown occasionally an undue
disposition to limit the application of chemical laws to
physiological phenomena. See _Robin et Verdeil_, _Chimie
Anatomique et Physiologique_, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 20, 34,
167, 337, 338, 437, 661, vol. ii. pp. 136, 137, 508, vol. iii.
pp. 135, 144, 183, 281, 283, 351, 547. The increasing tendency of
chemistry to bring under its control what are often supposed to
be purely organic phenomena, is noticed cautiously in _Turner's
Chemistry_, vol. ii. p. 1308, London, 1847; and boldly in
_Liebig's Letters on Chemistry_, 1851, pp. 250, 251. The
connexion between chemistry and physiology is touched on rather
too hastily in _Bouilland_, _Philosophie Médicale_, pp. 160, 257;
_Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. iii. p. 166;
_Brodie's Lectures on Pathology_, p. 48; _Henle_, _Traité
d'Anatomie_, vol. i. pp. 25, 26; _Feuchtersleben's Medical
Psychology_, p. 88; but better in _Holland's Medical Notes_,
1839, p. 270, a thoughtful and suggestive work. On the necessity
of chemistry for increasing our knowledge of embryology, compare
_Wagner's Physiology_, pp. 131, 132 note, with _Burdach_, _Traité
de Physiologie_, vol. iv. pp. 59, 168.

[310] It used to be supposed that some of the eastern countries formed
an exception to this; but more precise observations have
contradicted the loose statements of the earlier travellers, and
in no part of the world, so far as our knowledge extends, are
more girls born than boys; while in every part of the world for
which we have statistical returns, there is a slight excess on
the side of male births. Compare _Marsden's History of Sumatra_,
p. 234; _Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 81, 82; _Sykes on
the Statistics of the Deccan_, in _Reports of British
Association_, vol. vi. pp. 246, 261, 262; _Niebuhr_, _Description
de l'Arabie_, p. 63; _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. i. p. 139;
_McWilliam_, _Medical History of Expedition to the Niger_, p.
113; _Elliotson's Human Physiology_, p. 795; _Thomson's Hist. of
Royal Society_, p. 531; _Sadler's Law of Population_, vol. i. pp.
507, 511, vol. ii. pp. 324, 335; _Paris and Fonblanque's Medical
Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 259; _Journal of Statist. Soc._ vol.
iii. pp. 263, 264, vol. xvii. pp. 46, 123; _Journal of
Geographical Soc._ vol. xx. p. 17; _Fourth Report of British
Association_, pp. 687, 689, _Report for_ 1842, pp. 144, 145;
_Transac. of Sections for_ 1840, p. 174, _for_ 1847, p. 96, _for_
1849, p. 87; _Dufau_, _Traité de Statistique_, pp. 24, 209, 210;
_Burdach_, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57, 273,
274, 281, vol. v. p. 373; _Hawkins's Medical Statistics_, pp.
221, 222.

The importance and the beautiful regularity of this law make us regret that it still remains an empirical truth, not having yet been connected with the physical phenomena by which its operations are caused.[311] But this is immaterial to my present purpose, which is only to notice the method by which the discovery has been made. For this method is obviously analogous to that by which I propose to investigate the operations of the human mind; while the old and unsuccessful method is analogous to that employed by the metaphysicians. As long as physiologists attempted to ascertain the laws of the proportion of sexes by individual experiments, they effected absolutely nothing towards the end they hoped to achieve. But when men became dissatisfied with these individual experiments, and instead of them, began to collect observations less minute, but more comprehensive, then it was that the great law of nature, for which during many centuries they had vainly searched, first became unfolded to their view. Precisely in the same way, as long as the human mind is only studied according to the narrow and contracted method of metaphysicians, we have every reason for thinking that the laws which regulate its movements will remain unknown. If, therefore, we wish to effect anything of real moment, it becomes necessary that we should discard those old schemes, the insufficiency of which is demonstrated by experience as well as by reason; and that we should substitute in their place such a comprehensive survey of facts as will enable us to eliminate those disturbances which, owing to the impossibility of experiment, we shall never be able to isolate.

[311] In _Müller's Physiology_, vol. ii. p. 1657, a work of great
authority, it is said, that 'the causes which determine the sex
of the embryo are unknown, although it appears that the relative
age of the parents has some influence over the sex of the
offspring.' That the relative age of the parents does affect the
sex of their children, may, from the immense amount of evidence
now collected, be considered almost certain; but M. Müller,
instead of referring to physiological writers, ought to have
mentioned that the statisticians, and not the physiologists, were
the first to make this discovery. On this curious question, see
_Carpenter's Human Physiology_, p. 746; _Sadler's Law of
Population_, vol. ii. pp. 333, 336, 342; _Journal of Statistical
Society_, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264. In regard to animals below man,
we find from numerous experiments, that among sheep and horses
the age of the parents 'has a very great general influence upon
the sex' of the offspring. _Elliotson's Physiology_, pp. 708,
709; and see _Cuvier_, _Progrès des Sciences Naturelles_, vol.
ii. p. 406. As to the relation between the origin of sex and the
laws of arrested development, compare _Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_,
_Hist. des Anomalies de l'Organisation_, vol. ii. pp. 33, 34, 73,
vol. iii. p. 278, with _Lindley's Botany_, vol. ii. p. 81. In
_Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. p. 302, there is a
singular case recorded by Lamotte, which would seem to connect
this question with pathological phenomena, though it is uncertain
whether the epilepsy was an effect or a cognate symptom.

The desire that I feel to make the preliminary views of this Introduction perfectly clear, is my sole apology for having introduced a digression which, though adding nothing to the strength of the argument, may be found useful as illustrating it, and will at all events enable ordinary readers to appreciate the value of the proposed method. It now remains for us to ascertain the manner in which, by the application of this method, the laws of mental progress may be most easily discovered.

If, in the first place, we ask what this progress is, the answer seems very simple: that it is a two-fold progress, Moral and Intellectual; the first having more immediate relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. This is a classification which has been frequently laid down, and with which most persons are familiar. And so far as history is a narration of results, there can be no doubt that the division is perfectly accurate. There can be no doubt that a people are not really advancing, if, on the one hand, their increasing ability is accompanied by increasing vice, or if, on the other hand, while they are becoming more virtuous, they likewise become more ignorant. This double movement, moral and intellectual, is essential to the very idea of civilization, and includes the entire theory of mental progress. To be willing to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it is the intellectual part: while the closer these two parts are knit together, the greater the harmony with which they work; and the more accurately the means are adapted to the end, the more completely will the scheme of our life be accomplished, and the more securely shall we lay a foundation for the further advancement of mankind.

A question, therefore, now arises of great moment: namely, which of these two parts or elements of mental progress is the most important. For the progress itself being the result of their united action, it becomes necessary to ascertain which of them works more powerfully, in order that we may subordinate the inferior element to the laws of the superior one. If the advance of civilization, and the general happiness of mankind, depend more on their moral feelings than on their intellectual knowledge, we must of course measure the progress of society by those feelings; while if, on the other hand, it depends principally on their knowledge, we must take as our standard the amount and success of their intellectual activity. As soon as we know the relative energy of these two components, we shall treat them according to the usual plan for investigating truth; that is to say, we shall look at the product of their joint action as obeying the laws of the more powerful agent, whose operations are casually disturbed by the inferior laws of the minor agent.

In entering into this inquiry, we are met by a preliminary difficulty, arising from the loose and careless manner in which ordinary language is employed on subjects that require the greatest nicety and precision. For the expression, Moral and Intellectual Progress, is suggestive of a serious fallacy. In the manner in which it is generally used, it conveys an idea that the moral and intellectual faculties of men are, in the advance of civilization, naturally more acute and more trustworthy than they were formerly. But this, though it may possibly be true, has never been proved. It may be that, owing to some physical causes still unknown, the average capacity of the brain is, if we compare long periods of time, becoming gradually greater; and that therefore the mind, which acts through the brain, is, even independently of education, increasing in aptitude and in the general competence of its views.[312] Such, however, is still our ignorance of physical laws, and so completely are we in the dark as to the circumstances which regulate the hereditary transmission of character, temperament,[313] and other personal peculiarities, that we must consider this alleged progress as a very doubtful point; and, in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot safely assume that there has been any permanent improvement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man, nor have we any decisive ground for saying that those faculties are likely to be greater in an infant born in the most civilized part of Europe, than in one born in the wildest region of a barbarous country.[314]

[312] That the natural powers of the human brain are improving because
they are capable of transmission, is a favourite doctrine with
the followers of Gall, and is adopted by M. A. Comte
(_Philosophie Positive_, vol. iv. pp. 384, 385); who, whoever,
admits that it has never been sufficiently verified: 'sans que
toutefois l'expérience ait encore suffisamment prononcé.' Dr.
Prichard, whose habits of thought were very different, seems,
nevertheless, inclined to lean in this direction; for his
comparison of skulls led him to the conclusion, that the present
inhabitants of Britain, 'either as the _result of many ages of
greater intellectual cultivation_, or from some other cause,
have, as I am persuaded, much more capacious braincases than
their forefathers.' _Prichard's Physical History of Mankind_,
vol. i. p. 305. Even if this were certain, it would not prove
that the contents of the crania were altered, though it might
create a presumption; and the general question must, I think,
remain unsettled until the researches begun by Blumenbach, and
recently continued by Morton, are carried out upon a scale far
more comprehensive than has hitherto been attempted. Compare
_Burdach_, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 253; where,
however, the question is not stated with sufficient caution.

[313] None of the laws of hereditary descent connected with the
formation of character, have yet been generalized; nor is our
knowledge much more advanced respecting the theory of
temperaments, which still remains the principal obstacle in the
way of the phrenologists. The difficulties attending the study of
temperaments, and the obscurity in which this important subject
is shrouded, may be estimated by whoever will compare what has
been said upon it by the following writers: _Müller's
Physiology_, vol. ii. pp. 1406-1410; _Elliotson's Human
Physiology_, pp. 1059-1062; _Blainville_, _Physiologie Générale
et Comparée_, vol. i. pp. 168, 264, 265, vol. ii. pp. 43, 130,
214, 328, 329, vol. iii. pp. 54, 74, 118, 148, 149, 284, 285;
_Williams's Principles of Medicine_, pp. 16, 17, 112, 113;
_Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, _Anomalies de l'Organisation_, vol. i.
pp. 186, 190; _Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol.
i. pp. 204, 205, vol. iii. p. 276; _Renouard_, _Hist. de la
Médecine_, vol. i. p. 326; _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_,
vol. i. p. 380, vol. ii. p. 408, vol. iii. p. 21, vol. v. p. 325,
vol. vi. p. 492; _Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. pp. 39,
226, 429, 594, vol. ii. p. 29; _Lepelletier_, _Physiol.
Médicale_, vol. i. pp. 139, 281, vol. iii. pp. 372-429, vol. iv.
pp. 93, 123, 133, 143, 148, 177; _Henle_, _Anatomie Générale_,
vol. i. p. 474, vol. ii. pp. 288, 289, 316; _Bichat_, _Anatomie
Générale_, vol. i. p. 207, vol. ii. p. 444, vol. iii. pp. 310,
507, vol. iv. pp. 281, 399, 400, 504; _Bichat sur la Vie_, pp.
80, 81, 234, 235; _Phillips on Scrofula_, p. 9; _Feuchtersleben's
Medical Psychology_, pp. 143-145; _[OE]uvres de Fontenelle_,
Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 110; _Cullen's Works_, Edinb. 1827, vol.
i. pp. 214-221; _Cabanis_, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_,
pp. 76-83, 229-261, 520-533; _Noble on the Brain_, pp. 370-376;
_Combe's North America_, vol. i. pp. 126-128. Latterly, attention
has been paid to the chemistry of the blood as it varies in the
various temperaments; and this seems a more satisfactory method
than the old plan of merely describing the obvious symptoms of
the temperament. _Clark on Animal Physiology_, in _Fourth Report
of the British Association_, p. 126; _Simon's Animal Chemistry_,
vol. i. p. 236; _Wagner's Physiology_, p. 262.

[314] We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, and
hereditary virtues; but whoever will critically examine the
evidence will find that we have no proof of their existence. The
way in which they are commonly proved is in the highest degree
illogical; the usual course being for writers to collect
instances of some mental peculiarity found in a parent and in his
child, and then to infer that the peculiarity was bequeathed. By
this mode of reasoning we might demonstrate any proposition;
since in all large fields of inquiry there are a sufficient
number of empirical coincidences to make a plausible case in
favour of whatever view a man chooses to advocate. But this is
not the way in which truth is discovered; and we ought to inquire
not only how many instances there are of hereditary talents, &c.
but how many instances there are of such qualities not being
hereditary. Until something of this sort is attempted, we can
know nothing about the matter inductively: while, until
physiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can know
nothing about it deductively.

These considerations ought to prevent us from receiving
statements (_Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence_, pp. 644, 678, and
many other books) which positively affirm the existence of
hereditary madness and hereditary suicide; and the same remark
applies to hereditary disease (on which see some admirable
observations in _Phillips on Scrofula_, pp. 101-120, London,
1846); and with still greater force does it apply to hereditary
vices and hereditary virtues; inasmuch as ethical phenomena have
not been registered as carefully as physiological ones, and
therefore our conclusions respecting them are even more
precarious.

Whatever, therefore, the moral and intellectual progress of men may be, it resolves itself not into a progress of natural capacity,[315] but into a progress, if I may so say, of opportunity; that is, an improvement in the circumstances under which that capacity after birth comes into play. Here, then, lies the gist of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal power, but of external advantage. The child born in a civilized land is not likely, as such, to be superior to one born among barbarians; and the difference which ensues between the acts of the two children will be caused, so far as we know, solely by the pressure of external circumstances; by which I mean the surrounding opinions, knowledge, associations; in a word, the entire mental atmosphere in which the two children are respectively nurtured.

[315] To what has been already stated, I will add the opinions of two of
the most profound among modern thinkers. 'Men, I think, have been
much the same for natural endowments in all times.' _Conduct of
the Understanding_, in _Locke's Works_, vol. ii. p. 361. 'Les
dispositions primitives agissent également chez les peuples
barbares et chez les peuples policés; ils sont vraisemblablement
les mêmes dans tous les lieux et dans tous les tems.... Plus il
y aura d'hommes, et plus vous aurez de grands hommes ou d'hommes
propres à devenir grands.' _Progrès de l'Esprit Humain_, in
_[OE]uvres de Turgot_, vol. ii. p. 264. The remarks of Dr. Brown
(_Lectures on the Mind_, p. 57), if I rightly understand his
rhetorical language, apply not to natural capacity, but to that
which is acquired: see the end of his ninth Lecture.

On this account it is evident, that if we look at mankind in the aggregate, their moral and intellectual conduct is regulated by the moral and intellectual notions prevalent in their own time. There are, of course, many persons who will rise above those notions, and many others who will sink below them. But such cases are exceptional, and form a very small proportion of the total amount of those who are nowise remarkable either for good or for evil. An immense majority of men must always remain in a middle state, neither very foolish nor very able, neither very virtuous nor very vicious, but slumbering on in a peaceful and decent mediocrity, adopting without much difficulty the current opinions of the day, making no inquiry, exciting no scandal, causing no wonder, just holding themselves on a level with their generation, and noiselessly conforming to the standard of morals and of knowledge common to the age and country in which they live.

Now, it requires but a superficial acquaintance with history to be aware that this standard is constantly changing, and that it is never precisely the same even in the most similar countries, or in two successive generations in the same country. The opinions which are popular in any nation vary in many respects almost from year to year; and what in one period is attacked as a paradox or a heresy, is in another period welcomed as a sober truth; which, however, in its turn is replaced by some subsequent novelty. This extreme mutability in the ordinary standard of human actions shows that the conditions on which the standard depends must themselves be very mutable; and those conditions, whatever they may be, are evidently the originators of the moral and intellectual conduct of the great average of mankind.

Here, then, we have a basis on which we can safely proceed. We know that the main cause of human actions is extremely variable; we have only, therefore, to apply this test to any set of circumstances which are supposed to be the cause, and if we find that such circumstances are not very variable, we must infer that they are not the cause we are attempting to discover.

Applying this test to moral motives, or to the dictates of what is called moral instinct, we shall at once see how extremely small is the influence those motives have exercised over the progress of civilization. For there is, unquestionably, nothing to be found in the world which has undergone so little change as those great dogmas of which moral systems are composed. To do good to others; to sacrifice for their benefit your own wishes; to love your neighbour as yourself; to forgive your enemies; to restrain your passions; to honour your parents; to respect those who are set over you: these, and a few others, are the sole essentials of morals; but they have been known for thousands of years, and not one jot or tittle has been added to them by all the sermons, homilies, and text-books which moralists and theologians have been able to produce.[316]

[316] That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament
contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and
that some of the most beautiful passages in the Apostolic
writings are quotations from pagan authors, is well known to
every scholar; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an
objection against Christianity, it is a strong recommendation of
it, as indicating the intimate relation between the doctrines of
Christ and the moral sympathies of mankind in different ages. But
to assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths
previously unknown, argues, on the part of the assertor, either
gross ignorance or else wilful fraud. For evidence of the
knowledge of moral truths possessed by barbarous nations,
independently of Christianity, and for the most part previous to
its promulgation, compare _Mackay's Religious Development_, vol.
ii. pp. 376-380; _Mure's Hist. of Greek Literature_, vol. ii. p.
398, vol. iii. p. 380; _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p.
31; _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 47; _Works of Sir W.
Jones_, vol. i. pp. 87, 168, vol. iii. pp. 105, 114; _Mill's
History of India_, vol. i. p. 419; _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_,
vol. i. pp. 364-366; _Beausobre_, _Histoire de Manichée_, vol. i.
pp. 318, 319; _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 193;
_Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 198; _Transac. of
Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 5, vol. iii. pp. 283, 284; _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. vi. p. 271, vol. vii. p. 40, vol. xvi. pp. 130,
277, vol. xx. pp. 460, 461; _The Dabistan_, vol. i. pp. 328, 338;
_Catlin's North-American Indians_, vol. ii. p. 243; _Syme's
Embassy to Ava_, vol. ii. p. 389; _Davis's Chinese_, vol. i. p.
196, vol. ii. pp. 136, 233; _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol.
iv. p. 77, Paris, 1824.

But, if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with the progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is indeed startling.[317] All the great moral systems which have exercised much influence have been fundamentally the same; all the great intellectual systems have been fundamentally different. In reference to our moral conduct, there is not a single principle now known to the most cultivated Europeans, which was not likewise known to the ancients. In reference to the conduct of our intellect, the moderns have not only made the most important additions to every department of knowledge that the ancients ever attempted to study, but besides this, they have upset and revolutionized the old methods of inquiry; they have consolidated into one great scheme all those resources of induction which Aristotle alone dimly perceived; and they have created sciences, the faintest idea of which never entered the mind of the boldest thinker antiquity produced.

[317] Sir James Mackintosh was so struck by the stationary character of
moral principles, that he denies the possibility of their
advance, and boldly affirms that no further discoveries can be
made in morals: 'Morality admits no discoveries.... More than
three thousand years have elapsed since the composition of the
Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in what
important respect the rule of life has varied since that distant
period. Let the Institutes of Menu be explored with the same
view; we shall arrive at the same conclusion. Let the books of
false religion be opened; it will be found that their moral
system is, in all its grand features, the same.... The fact is
evident that no improvements have been made in practical
morality.... The facts which lead to the formation of moral
rules are as accessible, and must be as obvious, to the simplest
barbarian as to the most enlightened philosopher.... The case of
the physical and speculative sciences is directly opposite. There
the facts are remote and scarcely accessible.... From the
countless variety of the facts with which they are conversant, it
is impossible to prescribe any bounds to their future
improvement. It is otherwise with morals. They have hitherto been
stationary; and, in my opinion, they are likely for ever to
continue so.' _Life of Mackintosh, edited by his Son_, London,
1835, vol. i. pp. 119-122. Condorcet (_Vie de Turgot_, p. 180)
says, 'La morale de toutes les nations a été la même;' and Kant
(_Logik_, in _Kant's Werke_, vol. i. p. 356), 'In der
Moral-philosophie sind wir nicht weiter gekommen, als die Alten.'

These are, to every educated man, recognized and notorious facts; and the inference to be drawn from them is immediately obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and intellectual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because, when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is the intellectual one; and that this is the real mover may be proved in two distinct ways: first, because being, as we have already seen, either moral or intellectual, and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it must be intellectual; and, secondly, because the intellectual principle has an activity and a capacity for adaptation, which, as I undertake to show, is quite sufficient to account for the extraordinary progress that, during several centuries, Europe has continued to make.

Such are the main arguments by which my view is supported; but there are also other and collateral circumstances which are well worthy of consideration. The first is, that the intellectual principle is not only far more progressive than the moral principle, but is also far more permanent in its results. The acquisitions made by the intellect are, in every civilized country, carefully preserved, registered in certain well-understood formulas, and protected by the use of technical and scientific language; they are easily handed down from one generation to another, and thus assuming an accessible, or, as it were, a tangible form, they often influence the most distant posterity, they become the heirlooms of mankind, the immortal bequest of the genius to which they owe their birth. But the good deeds effected by our moral faculties are less capable of transmission; they are of a more private and retiring character; while, as the motives to which they owe their origin are generally the result of self-discipline and of self-sacrifice, they have to be worked out by every man for himself; and thus, begun by each anew, they derive little benefit from the maxims of preceding experience, nor can they well be stored up for the use of future moralists. The consequence is, that although moral excellence is more amiable, and to most persons more attractive, than intellectual excellence, still, it must be confessed that, looking at ulterior results, it is far less active, less permanent, and, as I shall presently prove, less productive of real good. Indeed, if we examine the effects of the most active philanthropy, and of the largest and most disinterested kindness, we shall find that those effects are, comparatively speaking, short-lived; that there is only a small number of individuals they come in contact with and benefit; that they rarely survive the generation which witnessed their commencement; and that, when they take the more durable form of founding great public charities, such institutions invariably fall, first into abuse, then into decay, and after a time are either destroyed, or perverted from their original intention, mocking the effort by which it is vainly attempted to perpetuate the memory even of the purest and most energetic benevolence.

These conclusions are no doubt very unpalatable; and what makes them peculiarly offensive is, that it is impossible to refute them. For the deeper we penetrate into this question, the more clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling.[318] There is no instance on record of an ignorant man who, having good intentions, and supreme power to enforce them, has not done far more evil than good. And whenever the intentions have been very eager, and the power very extensive, the evil has been enormous. But if you can diminish the sincerity of that man, if you can mix some alloy with his motives, you will likewise diminish the evil which he works. If he is selfish as well as ignorant, it will often happen that you may play off his vice against his ignorance, and by exciting his fears restrain his mischief. If, however, he has no fear, if he is entirely unselfish, if his sole object is the good of others, if he pursues that object with enthusiasm, upon a large scale, and with disinterested zeal, then it is that you have no check upon him, you have no means of preventing the calamities which, in an ignorant age, an ignorant man will be sure to inflict. How entirely this is verified by experience, we may see in studying the history of religious persecution. To punish even a single man for his religious tenets, is assuredly a crime of the deepest dye; but to punish a large body of men, to persecute an entire sect, to attempt to extirpate opinions, which, growing out of the state of society in which they arise, are themselves a manifestation of the marvellous and luxuriant fertility of the human mind,--to do this is not only one of the most pernicious, but one of the most foolish acts that can possibly be conceived. Nevertheless, it is an undoubted fact that an overwhelming majority of religious persecutors have been men of the purest intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals. It is impossible that this should be otherwise. For they are not bad-intentioned men, who seek to enforce opinions which they believe to be good. Still less are they bad men, who are so regardless of temporal considerations as to employ all the resources of their power, not for their own benefit, but for the purpose of propagating a religion which they think necessary to the future happiness of mankind. Such men as these are not bad, they are only ignorant; ignorant of the nature of truth, ignorant of the consequences of their own acts. But, in a moral point of view, their motives are unimpeachable. Indeed, it is the very ardour of their sincerity which warms them into persecution. It is the holy zeal by which they are fired that quickens their fanaticism into a deadly activity. If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,--he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine; and the extent of his persecution will be regulated by the extent of his sincerity. Diminish the sincerity, and you will diminish the persecution: in other words, by weakening the virtue you may check the evil. This is a truth of which history furnishes such innumerable examples, that to deny it would be not only to reject the plainest and most conclusive arguments, but to refuse the concurrent testimony of every age. I will merely select two cases, which, from the entire difference in their circumstances, are very apposite as illustrations: the first being from the history of Paganism, the other from the history of Christianity; and both proving the inability of moral feelings to control religious persecution.

[318] One part of the argument is well stated by Cuvier, who says, 'Le
bien que l'on fait aux hommes, quelque grand qu'il soit, est
toujours passager; les vérités qu'on leur laisse sont
éternelles.' _Cuvier_, _Eloges Historiques_, vol. ii. p. 304.

I. The Roman emperors, as is well known, subjected the early Christians to persecutions, which, though they have been exaggerated, were frequent and very grievous. But what to some persons must appear extremely strange, is, that among the active authors of these cruelties, we find the names of the best men who ever sat on the throne; while the worst and most infamous princes were precisely those who spared the Christians, and took no heed of their increase. The two most thoroughly depraved of all the emperors were certainly Commodus and Elagabalus; neither of whom persecuted the new religion, or indeed adopted any measures against it. They were too reckless of the future, too selfish, too absorbed in their own infamous pleasures, to mind whether truth or error prevailed; and being thus indifferent to the welfare of their subjects, they cared nothing about the progress of a creed, which they, as Pagan emperors, were bound to regard as a fatal and impious delusion. They, therefore, allowed Christianity to run its course, unchecked by those penal laws which more honest, but more mistaken, rulers would assuredly have enacted.[319] We find, accordingly, that the great enemy of Christianity was Marcus Aurelius: a man of kindly temper, and of fearless, unflinching honesty, but whose reign was characterized by a persecution from which he would have refrained had he been less in earnest about the religion of his fathers.[320] And to complete the argument, it may be added, that the last and one of the most strenuous of the opponents of Christianity, who occupied the throne of the Cæsars, was Julian: a prince of eminent probity, whose opinions are often attacked, but against whose moral conduct even calumny itself has hardly breathed a suspicion.[321]

[319] 'The first year of Commodus must be the epocha of the toleration.
From all these authorities, it appears beyond exception, that
Commodus put a stop to the persecution in the first year of his
reign.... Not one writer, either heathen or Christian, makes
Commodus a persecutor.' _Letters concerning the Thundering
Legion_, in _Moyle's Works_, vol. ii. p. 266, London, 1726.
'Heliogabalus also, though in other respects the most infamous of
all princes, and perhaps the most odious of all mortals, showed
no marks of bitterness or aversion to the disciples of Jesus.'
_Mosheim's Eccl. History_, vol. i. p. 66: see also _Milman's
Hist. of Christianity_, London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225.

[320] Dr. Milman (_History of Christianity_, 1840, vol. ii. p. 159)
says, 'A blameless disciple in the severest school of philosophic
morality, the austerity of Marcus rivalled that of the Christians
in its contempt of the follies and diversions of life; yet his
native kindliness of disposition was not hardened or embittered
by the severity or the pride of his philosophy. With Aurelius,
nevertheless, Christianity found not only a fair and high-minded
competitor for the command of the human mind; not only a rival in
the exaltation of the soul of man to higher views and more
dignified motives; but a violent and intolerant persecutor.' M.
Guizot compares him with Louis IX. of France; and certainly there
was in both an evident connexion between sincerity and
persecution: 'Marc Auréle et saint Louis sont peut-être les deux
seuls princes qui, en toute occasion, aient fait de leurs
croyances morales la première règle de leur conduite: Marc
Auréle, stoicien; saint Louis, chrétien.' _Guizot_, _Civilisation
en France_, vol. iv. p. 142. Even Duplessis Mornay (_Mém._ vol.
iv. p. 374) calls him 'le meilleur des empereurs payens;' and
Ritter (_Hist. of Philos._ vol. iv. p. 222), 'the virtuous and
noble emperor.'

[321] Neander (_History of the Church_, vol. i. p. 122) observes, that
the best emperors opposed Christianity, and that the worst ones
were indifferent to its encroachments. The same remark, in regard
to Marcus and Commodus, is made by Gibbon (_Decline and Fall_,
chap. xvi. p. 220, Lond. 1836). Another writer, of a very
different character, ascribes this peculiarity to the wiles of
the devil: 'In the primitive times, it is observed that the best
emperors were some of them stirred up by Satan to be the
bitterest persecutors of the Church.' _Memoirs of Colonel
Hutchinson_, p. 85.

II. The second illustration is supplied by Spain; a country of which it must be confessed, that in no other have religious feelings exercised such sway over the affairs of men. No other European nation has produced so many ardent and disinterested missionaries, zealous self-denying martyrs, who have cheerfully sacrificed their lives in order to propagate truths which they thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else have the spiritual classes been so long in the ascendant; nowhere else are the people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so numerous. But the sincerity and the honesty of purpose by which the Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked, have not only been unable to prevent religious persecution, but have proved the means of encouraging it. If the nation had been more lukewarm, it would have been more tolerant. As it was, the preservation of the faith became the first consideration; and everything being sacrificed to this one object, it naturally happened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soil was prepared in which the Inquisition took root and flourished. The supporters of that barbarous institution were not hypocrites, but enthusiasts. Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to be cruel. For cruelty is a stern and unbending passion; while hypocrisy is a fawning and flexible art, which accommodates itself to human feelings, and flatters the weakness of men in order that it may gain its own ends. In Spain, the earnestness of the nation, being concentrated on a single topic, carried everything before it; and hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution of heresy was thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that duty was fulfilled is seen in the history of the Spanish Church. Indeed, that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating and incorruptible integrity, may be proved in a variety of ways, and from different and independent sources of evidence. This is a question to which I shall hereafter return; but there are two testimonies which I cannot omit, because, from the circumstances attending them, they are peculiarly unimpeachable. Llorente, the great historian of the Inquisition, and its bitter enemy, had access to its private papers; and yet, with the fullest means of information, he does not even insinuate a charge against the moral character of the inquisitors; but while execrating the cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity of their intentions.[322] Thirty years earlier, Townsend, a clergyman of the Church of England, published his valuable work on Spain;[323] and though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had every reason to be prejudiced against the infamous system which he describes, he also can bring no charge against those who upheld it; but having occasion to mention its establishment at Barcelona, one of its most important branches, he makes the remarkable admission, that all its members are men of worth, and that most of them are of distinguished humanity.[324]

[322] By which, indeed, he is sorely puzzled. 'On reconnaîtra mon
impartialité dans quelques circonstances où je fais remarquer
chez les inquisiteurs des dispositions généreuses; ce qui me
porte à croire que les atroces sentences rendues par le
Saint-Office, sont plutôt une conséquence de ses lois organiques,
qu'un effet du caractère particulier de ses membres.' _Llorente_,
_Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne_, vol. i. p.
xxiii.: compare vol. ii. pp. 267, 268, vol. iv. p. 153.

[323] Highly spoken of by the late Blanco White, a most competent judge.
See _Doblado's Letters from Spain_, p. 5.

[324] 'It is, however, universally acknowledged, for the credit of the
corps at Barcelona, that all its members are men of worth, and
most of them distinguished for humanity.' _Townsend's Journey
through Spain, in 1786 and 1787_, vol. i. p. 122, Lond. 1792.

These facts, startling as they are, form a very small part of that vast mass of evidence which history contains, and which decisively proves the utter inability of moral feelings to diminish religious persecution. The way in which the diminution has been really effected by the mere progress of intellectual acquirements, will be pointed out in another part of this volume; when we shall see that the great antagonist of intolerance is not humanity, but knowledge. It is to the diffusion of knowledge, and to that alone, that we owe the comparative cessation of what is unquestionably the greatest evil men have ever inflicted on their own species. For that religious persecution is a greater evil than any other, is apparent, not so much from the enormous and almost incredible number of its known victims,[325] as from the fact that the unknown must be far more numerous, and that history gives no account of those who have been spared in the body, in order that they might suffer in the mind. We hear much of martyrs and confessors--of those who were slain by the sword, or consumed in the fire; but we know little of that still larger number who, by the mere threat of persecution, have been driven into an outward abandonment of their real opinions; and who, thus forced into an apostasy the heart abhors, have passed the remainder of their life in the practice of a constant and humiliating hypocrisy. It is this which is the real curse of religious persecution. For in this way, men being constrained to mask their thoughts, there arises a habit of securing safety by falsehood, and of purchasing impunity with deceit. In this way fraud becomes a necessary of life; insincerity is made a daily custom; the whole tone of public feeling is vitiated, and the gross amount of vice and of error fearfully increased. Surely, then, we have reason to say, that, compared to this, all other crimes are of small account; and we may well be grateful for that increase of intellectual pursuits which has destroyed an evil that some among us would even now willingly restore.

[325] In 1546, the Venetian ambassador at the court of the Emperor
Charles V. stated, in an official report to his own government on
his return home, 'that in Holland and in Friesland, more than
30,000 persons have suffered death at the hands of justice for
Anabaptist errors.' _Correspondence of Charles V. and his
Ambassadors_, edited by William Bradford, Lond. 8vo, 1850, p.
471. In Spain, the Inquisition, during the eighteen years of
Torquemada's ministry, punished, according to the lowest
estimate, upwards of 105,000 persons, of whom 8,800 were burned.
_Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella_, vol. i. p. 265.
In Andalusia alone, during a single year, the Inquisition put to
death 2,000 Jews, 'besides 17,000 who underwent some form of
punishment less severe than that of the stake.' _Ticknor's
History of Spanish Literature_, vol. i. p. 410. For other
statistical evidence on this horrible subject, see _Llorente_,
_Histoire de l'Inquisition_, vol. i. pp. 160, 229, 238, 239, 279,
280, 406, 407, 455, vol. ii. pp. 77, 116, 376, vol. iv. p. 31;
and, above all, the summary at pp. 242-273.