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Leader (1850-1860), 24th April 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 400, Untitled Article

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      When men put up prayers for rain or fine weather , they are acting upon the theological conception that these phenomena are not resultants ot mvariable laws , but of some variable wi « . The clergyman refusing to pray for rain « while the wind is in this quarter , " naively rebukes the impropriety of the request . When men believe that if yon wish f 0 r something on seeing a piebald horse , the wish will be realised—when they believe that if thirteen sit down to dinner , one t « ill die beforethe year is out—when they believe that if any one be bitten by a dog , and that dog should afterwards be attacked by hydrophobia , the person bitten will also be attacked by that disease—when they believe that a peculiar conjunction

      of the stars will rule their destinies—they are in the theological stage , and conceive Nature as indefinitely variable . History is crowded with examples of this conception . In poetry , in literature , in daily life , we constantly find traces of this primitive spontaneous mode of conceiving things . To take an illustration I have used before : —In the camp of A gamemnon an epidemic breaks out . The men die by scores ; but as the dreadful arrows of death are invisible , the terrified army attributes the pestilence to the anger of offended Apollo , who avenges an insult to his priest by this

      " clanging of the silver bow . " This explanation , so absurd m our eyes , was acceptable to the facile acquiescence of that epoch ; and expiatory peace-offerings were made to the irritated deity , in a case where modern science , with its sanitary commission , would have seen bad drainage or imperfect ventilation ! But to' prove that the theological stage is not thoroughly and universally passed , I need only refer to the monstrous illustration of our own days , when learned men , the Teachers of our people , gravely attributed the Cholera to God ' s anger at England ' endowment of

      the Maynooth Colleges ! There was a church in Sienna which had often been injured by lightning . A conductor was set up , in defiance of the " religious world , " wherein it was regarded as " the heretical stake . " A storm arose , the lightning struck the tower ; crowds flocked to see if the church was spared , and lo ! the very spiders webs upon it were unbroken ! Here we see science correcting the mischievous prejudices of theology . Mythology is poetry to us ; to the ancients , it was religion and science . The explanations given in those days were all drawn from the fundamental conception of nature as subject to no other laws than those of supernatural agencies . The lowest of the theological periods is that of Fetichism ; from that there is a transition to Polytheism ; and the highest is Monotheism , wherein the providential agency of One being is substituted for that of

      many independent divinities . The same tendency to look beyond the fact for an explanation of the fact _—to imagine an agency superadded to the phenomena—is visible in the metaphysical period . The notion of invariableness is admitted , and to explain it some " entity" " principle" is imagined . Thus Kepler imagined that the regularity of planetary movements was owing to the planets teing endowed with minds capable of making observations on the sun ' s apparent diameter , in order to regulate their motions so as to describe areas proportioned to the times . Thus natural philosophers even now continue to repeat the old notions of a vis inertia , which they talk of " overcoming , "

      and in chemistry they imagine " affinities , " while they laugh at the old notion of a " phlogistic principle . " In biology we see the Metaphysical Method still running riot . Aristotle may , historically , be admired for his conception of " animating principles" ( ipv- ^ ai ) , which causeid the vital actions of animals and plants- —principles which had a sort of hierarchy among themselves , under a supreme controlling agent ( tyvartg ); but while the historian of science will award the praise due to such a conception in the series of progressive conceptions , he must with wonder , not unmingled with contempt , record that a philosopher of considerable repute ( Dr . Prout )

      has in this nineteenth century revived that conception in all the plenitude of its absurdity . Dr . Prout assumes the existence of organic agents , whose office it is to produce and regulate vital phenomena , " distinct intelligent agents , " all under one hierarchy , " each possessing more or less control over all the agents below itself , and having the power of appropriating their services , till at length , in the combined operation of the whole scries of agents at the top of the scale , we reach the perfection of organic existence . " That such a notion has not been met by shouts of laughter , shows how dimly the Positive Method is conceived even by men of positive

      science I As a striking and useful example of this metaphysical method , let us consider the widely spread belief in a vis medicatrix natures , or , as the vulgar express it , "Nature the best physician . " Not only the vulgar , but renowned men of science , believe that the process of reparation which is observed in the organism—the power which ejects noxious ingredients from the system—the " conservative powers , " in short—are owing to some " tendency , " " principle , " which they set to the credit of " Nature ; " forgetting , as I have said on a former occasion , that if the

      torn tissue or broken limb be repaired by a vis medioatnm , or " curative principle , " we must ask whether poisoning is owing to a " poisoning principle . " An exhalation from an uncovered drain or stagnant pool enters tlie blood through the active agency of the lungs . What does Nature ? Docs she resist this disturbing influence—eject this noxious ingredient ? Not she ; but pumps away as if the poison were the most beneficent of visitors , and distributes it throughout the organism with the snmo impartiality as she distributes the health-giving oxygen . On the metaphysical method , we tiutst smipdfte some " principle" at work here . What fehftll

      we call it ? The vis deletrix—the ^ destructive principle ? " Physiologists - —especially those who indulge in natural theology— -explain to you the " beneficent intention" of the digestive apparatus ; but they omit to add that if * instead of mutton ^ you introaWe arsenic , watchful Nature does hot cbmtnence an dntiperistaltic action ; and eject the poison , but absorbs it as actively as if it weire pregnant with nutriment . The vis St > eU ( ryje Is tit work ! An insect settles } in some part of your body ; take ^ lip its ^ bde there , and begins to make itself comfortable by feeding on the body . i ) 6 es Nature , by her vis medicatrix , expel the intruder ? Yes , as a cteese expels the maggot . Nature cherishes the parasitic fungus , feeds and fosters it with tender care ^ makes much of it , nourishes its vitality with the vitality of your body ; and so tendered , the fungus grows and grows till you are destroyed ; and you—who perhaps may be a Snakspeare ; a GOettie , a Bacon , a man of quite infinite value to humanity—are sacrificed to a

      fun g us ! In truth , Nature is neither Physician nor Assassin r and it is only 6 tir vain efforts to discover her ** intentions" that make her appear such . Our province is to study her laws ; to trace herprocesses , and ; thankful if we can so far penetrate the divine significance of the universe ; be content—r-as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down in quiet ignorance of all trdnscendant subjects . Inthe final and . Positive stage , men . accept Nature as she presents herself , without seeking beyond the facts for fantasticentities . "It was formerly believed , " says Oersted , " that basilisks existed ha cellars

      which had been long closed ; they were invisible , but their look killed whoever it fell upon ; Since it is become more generally known that fer ^ mentation is produced by a noxious air , whose weight causes it to accumulate in low places , we recognise the desti ^ ctive agent , Hnd dtivfe it a ^ ay by means of fresh air . " There you have an example of th ^ two conceptions , metaphysical and positive : the one seeking its explanation m an unknown entity ( basilisk ) , the other in knoyra laws of Nature ' s processes . History shows us the gradual dispersion of superstitions and fantastic creeds before the light of certainty which Science carries everywhere . to the

      Having , by variotts examples ^ endeayoured jjopularizS concephbii of the fundamental law of the three phases through which humanity passes , I will conclude with some passages of my former exposition , < &f < 3 omte ' s system , and risk the tediousness of repetition , for the sake of the effect of

      iteration ' .= — : ¦ -:. ¦ - " All are agreed , in these days , tliat realknowledge must be founded on the observation offacts .. Hence contempt of mere theories ; But no science cotild have its origin in simple observation ; forlf , on the one hand , all positive theories must be founded on dbservation , so , on the other , it is equally necessary to have some sort of theory before we address ourselves to the task of steady observation . If , in contemplating phenomena , we do not connect them with some principle , it would not only be impossible for us to combine our isolated observations ; and consequently to draw any benefit from them ; but we should also be unable even to retain them , and most frequently the important facts would remain unperceived . We are consequently forced to theorize . A theory is necessary to observation , and a correct theory to correct observation .

      " This double necessity imposed upon the mind—of observation for the formation of a theory , and of a theory for the practice of observation—would have caused it to move in a circle , if nature had not fortunately provided an outlet in the spontaneous activity of the mind . This activity causes it to begin by assuming a cause , which it seeks out of nature , i . e ., supernatural . As man is conscious that he acts according as he wills , so he naturally concludes that everything acts in accordance with some superior will . Hence Fetichism , which is nothing but the endowment of inanimate tilings with life and volition . This is the logical necessity for the supernatural stage : the mind commences with the unknowable ; it has first to learn its impotence , to learn the limits of its range , before it can content itself with the knowable . ^ % vaav m wt r ^ smmi ¦* Av ^ it * # ^ a ^^ m ^ r ** - * r ¦ ¦ *¦»» ' - »¦ . , t

      _ " The metaphysical stage is equally important as the transitive stage . The supernatural and positive stages aro so widely opposed that they require intermediate notions to bridge over the chasm . In substituting an entity inseparable from phenomena for a supernatural agent , through whose will these phenom were produced , the mind became habituated to consider only the phenomena themselves . This was a most important condition . The result was , that the ideaa of these metaphysical entities gradually faded , and wore lost in the mere abstract names ot the phenomena . » ¦ " The positive stage was now possible . The mind having , ceased to interpose cither supernatural agents or metaphysical entities between the phenomena ana their production , attended solely to the phenomena themselves . These it reduce ** to laws ; in other words , it arranged them according to their invariaWo relations of similitude and succession . TUo search after essences and causes was renounced .

      The pretension to absolute knowledge was set aside . The discovery of laws became the great object of mankind . , . " ltomembor that although every branch of knowledge must pass through these three stages , in obedionco to the law of evolution , nevertheless tho progress is not strictly chronological . Some sciences are more rapid in their evolution than others ; some individuals pass through these evolutions more quickly than others ; so also of nations . Tho present intellectual anarchy results from that difference ; some sciences being in tho positive , some in the supernatural , and some in the metaphysical stage : and this is furthor to bo subdivided into individual differences * positive

      for in a science which , on tho whole , may fairly l ) e admitted , as being thoro will bo found Home cultivators still in the metaphysical stage . Astronomy W now in so positive a condition , that we need nothing but the laws of dynamics ana gravitation to explain all celestial phenomena ; and this explanation wo know to bo correct , iia far as anything can bo known , because wo can predict tho ¦ return o a comot with tho nicest accuracy , or can enable the mariner to discover his la * - tudo and find his way amidst the ' waste of waters / This is a positive science . But so far is meteorology from Buch a condition , that prayers for dry or row weather aro still offered up in churches ; whereas if once the laws of tbeee pnen * menu wore traced , there would no more be prayera for rain than / of the pun w

      Untitled Article

      400 ¦ r T BE IE A D E Il > ;;• . '¦ ¦ .,., )* p ££ ESA | y | t ^ i ^ ; : ;

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 24, 1852, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1932/page/20/