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^^ THE LE ADER. [No . 293, Saturday,
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The Postdiluvian History, from the Flood...
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LIFE AND MIND. 2V Principles of Psycholo...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Lectures To Ladies. Lectures To .Ladies ...
aiiied aad stultified by simply keeping a poor woman sending m her cottage while you s £ oVTnteriR" her house , even at her own request , wh . le she is at meals . She ^ SeclSe tosi * r SUemayfaeg you to come in : all the more reason for refusing utterly to obey her , because it shows that that very inward gulf between you and her still exists in her mind which it is the object of your visit to bridge over- If you know her to be in trouble , touch on that trouble as you would with a lady . Woman s heart is alike in all ranks , and the deepest sorrow is the one of which she speaks the last and least . We should not like any one—no , not an angel from Heaven , to come into our houses without knocking at the door , and say , ' I hear you are very ill off , I will lend vou a hundred pounds . I think you are very careless of money . I will take your Accounts into my own hands ; " and still less agaki , — " Your son is a very bad , promtake him out ot
g a te , disgraceful fellow , who is not fit to be mentioned ; I intend to your hands and reform him myself . " Neither do the poor like such unceremonious Djercy , such untender tenderness , benevolence at horseplay , mistaking kicks for caresses . They do not like it , they will not respond to it , save in parishes which have been demoralised by indiscriminate benevolence , and where the last remaining virtues -of the poor saving-self-help and independence liave been exchanged ( as I have too -often seen them exchanged ) for organised begging and hypocrisy . Will the day ever come when these precepts will be unnecessary , and the need of visiting will be but in a better and more equal order of things ? It is far distant at any rate . In the meantime , the benevolence of these men not only relieves misery , but opens the hearts and minds of all to progress of the best and surest kind . We heartily congratulate Mr . Maurice on the associates he has gathered round bim : their names are the deserved crown -of his noble life .
^^ The Le Ader. [No . 293, Saturday,
^^ THE LE ADER . [ No . 293 , Saturday ,
The Postdiluvian History, From The Flood...
The Postdiluvian History , from the Flood to the Call » f Abraham , as set forth zn the early portions of the Book of Genesis , critically examined and explained ^ " By the Bey- E . D . Rendell , of Preston : author of " Autidiluvian History , « Peculiarities o ( the Bible , " & c , & c . James S . Hodson . T « jb writer of this book , as a learned divine and a candid man , finds xt impossible to accept the History of Genesis in its literal sense . " Modern inquiry has removed old interpretations . " He therefore has recourse to the symbolical method , and treats the narrative as the allegorical history -of the Church . He justifies this by a general theory that all primitive * religion was esoteric , and that all primitive religious writings were figurative This character he considers to have been shared by those documents aaterior to Moses , from which the Mosaic history was derived . He as .-umes -these documents not to have been of a mythical character , but revelations ' ' probably produced in Palestine or its neighbourhood . " But what sort of revelation is that which , being allegorical , contains no hint of its allegorical nature , aftd is accepted in its literal sense "by those to whom it is delivered ,
-aftdfoyfche Church ever since V Our confidence in Mr . Eendeli s theory , -ire confess , is not strengthened by the result of its application . According to him , Cain and Abel are faith and charity , and the murder of Abel by Cain is t & e triumph of faith over charity ; the Ark rising above the Flood is l & e Church rising above temptation ; the-want of means for ventilation an . the Ark denoted that spiritual influences are supplied not from without , but from within ; the raven is a bad , and the dove a good principle of the itttedlect ; the rainbow is a type of the variegation of truth ; burnt-offering * « re not burnt-offerings , but loved duties ; Noah ' s drunkenness is spiritual intoxication , and his nakedness moral shame ; Nimrod is dominion in the Church ; the bricks used instead of stones by the builders , of Babel , are falsehoods adopted instead of truth , the burning them hard i * the burning love of those falsehoods , the inflammatory nature of which i # further designated by the vituminous slime , & c , & c . If this is the right ¦ w . ay , of interpreting the Book of Genesis , ye can only say that the author or authors of tliat book must have been skilled above all men in the art of ujing language to conceal their thoughts .
Life And Mind. 2v Principles Of Psycholo...
LIFE AND MIND . 2 V Principles of Psychology . By Herbert Spencer , Author of * ' Social Statistics . ' Longman and Co
( Thibd ARTrccB . ) In a previous article we sketched the rise of the Physiological Method in Paychology . Beginning with the most general and rudimentary conception of the relation between organ and function , fundamentally opposed to the old Psychology , by considering Thought as a property of Matter , aud not as the property of some unknown , unknowable Spirit , this Method passed from hypothesis to hypothesis , becoming more and more definite and precise in its localization of functions , till not only the whole human organism , but the whole animal kingdom was taken into consideration . In Mr . Spencer ' s work , this Method culminates . He makes Psychology one of the jjreat divisions of Biology . Bodily life and mental life are two divisions of Life in general , being related to each other as species of which Life is the genus ; or , to vary . it with our old formula , Life is everywhere psychial , but only specially intelligent . What a stride from the brief and timid reforonces to savages and children , which were considered heretical in Locke , to this bold identification of Thought with Life I Mr . Spencer says : —
Though we commonly regard mental and bodily life as distinct , it needs only to aaceod somewhat above the ordinary point of view , to eeo that they are but eub-diviaiona of life in general ; and that no lino of demarcation can bo drawn between them , otherwise than arbitrarily . Doubtless , to those who persist , after tho popular fashion , in contemplating only tho extreme forms of the two , this assertion will appear as incredible oa tho assertion that a treo arises by imperceptible chungos out of a seed , would appear to one who had eoon none of tho intermediate stages . But in tho absence of prejudice , an examination of the successive links , will produce conviction in the ono case as in tho otlior . It b not more certain that from tho simple reflex action by which tho infapt Bucks , up to tho elaborate roasonmgB of tho adult man , tho progress is by daily infinitesimal steps , tlmn it is certain that between tho automatic actions of tho lowest , creatures , and tho highest conscious notions of the human race , a
aeries of actions , displayed by tho various triboa of the animal kingdom , may bo so placed , M to rondor it impossible to Bay of nny ono , step in tho eories—Hero intelligence bflgjna . If , from the udvuncod man of science , pursuing his Inquiries -with a full understanding of the ratiooiuatlve and inductive processes ho employs , wo doscond to th « man of ordinary education , who reasons well and comprehensively , but without knowing how ; If , going a grade lower , wo analyze the thinkings of tho villager , whose highest gonerullzatioua are but littlo wider than those which local events ailbrd duta
for ; if , again , we sink to the inferior human races , -who cannot be induced to think , who cannot take in ideas of any complexity , and whose conceptions of number scarcely transcend those of the dog ; if we take next the higher quadramana , hosts of whose actions are quite as rational as those of school-boys , and whose language , however unintelligible to us , is manifestly more or less intelligible to each other ; if , from these , we proceed to domesticated animals , whose power of reasoning is conceded even by those under theological bias , with the qualification that it is special and not generala qualification which equally holds between the different grades of human reasoning ; if , from the most sagacious " quadrupeds , we descend to the less and less _ sagacious ones , noting as we pass how gradual is the transition to those which exhibit no power of modifying their actions to suit special conditions , and which so prove themselves to be guided by what we call instinct ; if , from observing the operation of the higher licated
instincts , in which a complicated combination of motions is produced hy a comp combination of stimuli , we go down to the successively lower ones , in which the applied stimuli and the resulting motions are less and less complex ; if , presently , -we find ourselves merging into what is technically known as reflex action , in which a single motion follows a single stimulus ; if , from the creatures in which this implies the irritation of a nerve and the contraction of a muscle , we descend yet lower , to creatures devoid of nervous and muscular svstems , and discover that in these the irritability and the contractility are exhibited by " the same tissue , which tissue also fulfils the functions of assimilation , secretion , respiration , and reproduction ; and if , finally , we perceive that each of the phases of intelligence here instanced , shades off into the adjacent ones by modifications too numerous to specify , too minute to describe , we shall in some measure realize the fact , that no definite separation can be effected between the phenomena of mind and those of vitality in general . detail this
The third and fourth parts of his book demonstrate in proposition . He first inquires into the various definitions of Life ( bodily life ) given by Physiologists , and finally settles on one which , so long as we consider Life in its dynamical aspect , seems unexceptionable , namely : The continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations . Or it may be more popularly worded thus : Life consists in the continuous ad ' justment of an organism to external stimuli . But we only make this change here for the reader ' s sake . Mr . Spencer ' s terms best suit his purposes , and keep the various parts of his * book in obvious connection . With this definition as a guide , he conducts us through the ascending series of vital complexities . He first shows how life itself , _ consisting in the correspondence o £ the internal with the external , varies in complexity with the varying degrees of corresponde nce esta blished ; and then bow the lowest forms of life are those in which the correspondences are direct and homogeneous , because they are limited to a simple environment ; how aa advance is obtained by a slight heterogeneity in the correspondence , and so on till we reach forms of life in which sensations first arise .
Here we greatly desire a fuller treatment than Mr . Spencer has given . The cardinal question which Psychology has to settle with respect to Physiology is this : Can Sensibility be rightly considered as a new element—a new fact introduced : one which has no analogue ; one which is different in kind as well as in degree , from all the other elements of life ; or is it merely one form of that irritability which we all admit to be a general property of vital tissue ? There is no hesitation in Mr . Spencer ' s answer . He says : " There is every reason to believe that the susceptibilities to odours , colours , and sounds , arise by insensible degrees out of that priin its lowest
mordial irritability with which the animal tissue orrnsf is uniformly , or almost uniformly , endowed . " Indeed , the whole tendency of his book is in this direction . He has not , however , as we conceive , carried the princip le far enough , nor expressed with sufficient distinctness its bearing upon consciousness . But we cannot open so wide a question here . Enoug h that he recognises the fact that the Senses have a basis in those primordial properties of organic matter which distinguish it from inorganic . "It is a conclusion to which many facts point that sensibility , of all kinds , tactual and other , takes its use out of those fundamental processes of assimilation and oxidation—integration and disintegration—in which life , in its primitive form , consists . He
says further : — In the lowest members of the animal kingdom , whose bodies are so little organized as to be almost , if not quite , homogeneous , the whole mass of tissue performs , in its imperfect way , all the vital functions . Every part exhibits more or less of that contractility which in higher creatures is confined to the muscles ; that irritability which they show only in the nerves ; that reproductive power which with them is localized ; that absorption of oxygen which only their lungs perform ; that power to assimilate which is eventually confined to the stomach ; that excretory action afterwards divided among the lungs , elun , and kidneys . Where , as in the lowest creatures of all , the body consists of nothing more than a structureless , homogeneous , substance ; and whore , as in « omeivhat higher and larger creatures , the body is made up of little else than an aggregation of like cells , there is an almost complete community of functions throughout ; and only as fast as the structure comes to be specialized , does each part loose tho power ot subserving other processes than its habituul one . is
It is not quite accurate to say the function of assimilation eventually confined to tho stomach ; assimilation is a general property , of tissue ; all tissues assimilate , i . e ., grow , transmute tho blood-plasma into tissues . The stomach prepuves tho food for this assimilation . So also with the absorption of oxygen . Every tissue takes up oxygen and lets out carbonic acid . Even muscle , cut from tho body and deprived of Us bloou , lms been seen , so long as its irritability remained , to perform this absorption of oxygen and exhalation of carbonic acid—which is the fundamental fact , the end and aim of respiration . The function of the lungs , hke that of tho Btonmch , is purely preparatory ; it is a function which the growing complexity of tho organism renders necessary . „ Mr . Spencer , whilo describing the " physiological division of labour , insists on tho fact , that even when one function is specialised , in a particular organ , traces of it still remain iu the othoi'B ; and he adds that , bearing iu mind the fact that heterogeneity of fuuetion arises out ot uji original homogeneity , tho traces of which are never entirely lost , we shnu bo prepared to fiutl a certain parallelism of method and results « " tho evolution of sensory and motor actions . Hero , too , wo may look loi a certain community of function throughout the whole organism— " ¦ V *' ns >< 9 <» :. nii v > i > + i . ^» ^ wiwiU nriYaniam r » f * tlirtKn . onRf'Ant . iliilii ins wliioli » irii ultimately
located and developed in oyes , nose , ivnd the rest . The primordial tissue , which by ono process of diiU'rentiation and integration givea origin to tuo internal and external systexna—the visceral and nervo-muscular organs
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03111855/page/18/
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