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Title: The nature of man
Studies in optimistic philosophy
Author: Élie Metchnikoff
Translator: Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell
Release date: March 3, 2025 [eBook #75505]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURE OF MAN ***
[Illustration:
M. ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF
]
THE
NATURE OF MAN
STUDIES IN OPTIMISTIC PHILOSOPHY
BY
ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF
PROFESSOR AT THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
EDITED BY
P. CHALMERS MITCHELL
M.A., D.SC. OXON.
SECRETARY OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
=The Knickerbocker Press=
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Eleventh Printing
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
When Pasteur died a remarkable article appeared in one of the Paris
newspapers. The writer described the intimate routine of the life at the
Pasteur Institute, and compared it with that of a mediæval religious
community. A little body of men, forsaking the world and the things of
the world, had gathered together under the compulsion of a great idea.
They had given up the rivalries and personal interests of ordinary men,
and, sharing their goods and their work, they lived in austere devotion
to science, finding no sacrifice of health or money, or of what men call
pleasure, too great for the common object. Rumours of war and peace,
echoes of the turmoil of politics and religion, passed unheeded over
their monastic seclusion; but if there came news of a strange disease in
China or Peru, a scientific emissary was ready with his microscope and
his tubes to serve as a missionary of the new knowledge and the new hope
that Pasteur had brought to suffering humanity. The adventurous exploits
and the patient vigils of this new Order have brought about a revolution
in our knowledge of disease, and there seems no limit to the triumphs
that will come from the parent Institute in Paris and from its many
daughters in other cities.
Élie Metchnikoff, now Professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is
one of the most distinguished of the disciples who left all else to
follow Pasteur. He was born on the third (16) May, 1845, in a village of
the Government of Kharkoff (Little Russia). He was educated at the
Gymnasium and the University of Kharkoff, passing through the Faculty of
Science. From 1864 to 1870 he worked at Zoology at Giessen, Göttingen
and Munich, successively under three well-known zoologists, Leuckhart,
Henle and Von Siebold, and was then appointed Professor of Zoology and
Comparative Anatomy at Odessa. He made expeditions to Madeira, Teneriffe
and the Kalmuck Steppes in connection with his zoological researches. In
1882, in consequence of administrative difficulties, arising as part of
the troubles that followed the murder of the Tzar, Alexander II., he
resigned the Professorship and became Director of the municipal
Bacteriological Laboratory. In 1888 he went to the Pasteur Institute,
and has remained there since that time.
The earlier part of Metchnikoff’s career was devoted to Zoology, and
chiefly to investigation of the embryological history of the lower
invertebrates, and the sequence of his discoveries should afford food
for reflection to those Baconian economists who are unwilling to shelter
any tree of knowledge that does not give immediate promise of marketable
fruit. The labour of many years spent in minute tracing of the
development of insects, echinoderms, worms and jellyfish, would appear
sufficiently unprofitable to those who give a scanty support to Botany
as the provider of drugs, who tolerate Chemistry because it has supplied
aniline dyes, and who patronise the physical sciences from a lively
sense of the convenience of telephones and telegraphs. And yet from
these remote, inhuman interests, Metchnikoff, without intellectual
transition, passed directly to results affecting vitally the human race,
and became one of the high priests of Bacteriology and a guardian of the
Pandora’s box of modern times.
From observations made originally on water-fleas, he was led to discover
the functions of the white corpuscles of human blood. He showed by what
mechanism these made perpetual war against the intruding microbes of
disease, and he laid the foundations of knowledge as to the agencies
that weaken and the modes of strengthening these guardians of our
health. In a series of investigations into the phenomena of inflammation
in men and lower animals, he carried his observations into new fields,
and explained the relations of the white corpuscles to the juices that
attract and repel them (chemotaxis). It was he, for instance, who
discovered that these corpuscles, under certain circumstances, migrate
into the hairs and absorb and remove the pigment, so producing the
blanching of old age. Although popularly the most interesting this was
far from being the most important of the changes of senile decay that he
found to be due to the activity of the wandering cells of the body. And,
as will be seen in the present volume, the actions and interactions of
the bacteria harboured in the body, the white corpuscles that are a
natural part of the body, and the various juices or serums produced
naturally or introduced by accident or design, are concerned in life
itself and the decay of life.
Metchnikoff is an expert of experts in the science of life, and has
gained the right to a hearing by forty years of patient devotion and
brilliant research. In the volume that he has now given to the public,
he has addressed himself to the gravest and the most serious problems of
humanity, to life and sex and death and the fear of death. From the
earliest days when man could spare time from the satisfaction of his
immediate wants to reflect upon his nature and destiny, these problems
and the invention of fantastic solutions or evasive anodynes have
absorbed his attention. The folklore and philosophy, the religion and
poetry of all races and of all stages of culture, from savage barbarism
to decadent refinement, revolve round these obsessions of the mind, and,
as Metchnikoff most plainly shows, no enduring comfort has yet been
found. Now for the first time in the history of thought, the exact
methods of science have been brought to the statement of the problems.
In revising this translation of Metchnikoff’s book for the
English-speaking public I have had to content myself with seeing that
the plain meaning of the French was transformed to plain English, and
that references to French editions were changed, so far as was possible,
to corresponding references to English editions. Some of the phrases
that recur were difficult to express. “Human nature” for instance is not
an exact equivalent of _la nature humaine_, for the latter phrase has a
complete significance, and very definitely implies not only the mental
qualities of man, but his bodily framework, with its inherited and
acquired anatomical structure and physiological functions. The phrase
“human constitution,” especially in the common medical sense, carries
more of the meaning, and I have used it occasionally. The word “harmony”
means harmony with the environment, and disharmony is want of harmony or
imperfect adaptation to the existing environment. In the case of the
human organism, which has passed through profound changes at a rate
prodigious in the history of evolution, many parts of the constitution
are no longer in gear with the existing environment, and it is in such
disharmonies that Metchnikoff finds the source of the troubles that have
perplexed mankind.
In several parts of this volume, and particularly in the chapter dealing
with disharmonies in the reproductive functions, there is much plain
speaking on matters that modern civilisation attempts to conceal. I have
not had the impertinence to suppress or to alter a line or a word of
these pages. They are written in high seriousness on fundamental facts
of the constitution of man; they relate to problems and difficulties
that every age in the history of man has had to face, and that are dealt
with in the plainest language in the books of all the religions. For the
first time proper knowledge has been brought to the task, and it is to
be remembered that this volume is an attempt to explain mysteries of the
flesh and of the spirit of which all existing explanations have failed
to satisfy humanity. The volume is avowedly no more than a preliminary
statement, a rallying-point for the work of future generations. But it
awakens a new hope for humanity now that the old are fallen dumb; as
Metchnikoff himself says, “If it be true that man cannot live without
faith, this volume, when the age of faith seemed gone by, has provided a
new faith, that in the all-powerfulness of science.” In every country,
the new Order of priests of science, in the vigils of the laboratory, is
working for the future of humanity.
P. CHALMERS MITCHELL.
PREFACE
In offering this book to you, reader, I feel that I must justify its
publication. I admit freely that more could be said for a finished study
in which hypotheses were replaced by exact fact. But to get together
assured results in a field so little explored is a great task, calling
for time and much labour.
I remembered the adage, “_Ars longa, vita brevis_,” and I decided to
publish what is really a programme of work to be carried out as fully as
circumstances may permit. At all events, I hope that such a programme
may have its value for younger investigators, who wish a point of
orientation for their labours.
My book is addressed to disciplined minds, and in especial to
biologists. As I wrote it, I had not the general public in my mind, and
so I did not hesitate to devote nearly the whole of a chapter to
“disharmonies in the apparatus of reproduction.” I see in that apparatus
the clearest proof of the essential disharmony in the organisation of
man.
I have to thank those friends who were familiar with my views and whose
advice and assistance have helped me to develop them.
In particular, I desire to thank my friends Dr. E. Roux, who was at the
pains to make my French more French; and Dr. J. Goldschmidt and Dr.
Mesnil, who have read and revised the proof-sheets.
ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF.
PARIS, _February 8, 1903_.
CONTENTS
_Page_
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION iii
AUTHOR’S PREFACE ix
PART I
DISHARMONIES IN THE NATURE OF MAN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION—SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ON THE NATURE OF MAN 3
Importance of the study of the nature of man—The nature of man
as the foundation of morality—Greek worship of human
nature—Matriopathy of ancient philosophers—Rationalism of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—Degradation of human
nature by religious doctrines—Influence of these conceptions
on actual life and on art—Reaction of the Reformation
against the degradation of human nature—Mutilation of the
human body by primitive races
CHAPTER II
HARMONIES AND DISHARMONIES AMONGST BEINGS INFERIOR TO MAN 17
The organised world before the appearance of man on the
earth—Absence of a law of universal progress—Fertilisation
of vanilla—The part played by insects in the fertilisation
of orchids—Mechanism by which insects carry the pollen of
orchids—Habits of fossorial wasps—Harmonies in
nature—Useless organs—Rudiments of the pollinia of
orchids—Disharmonies in nature—Unadapted insects—Aberration
of instincts—Perversion of sexual instinct—Attraction of
insects by light—Luminous insects—Law of natural
selection—Happiness and unhappiness in the organised world
CHAPTER III
SIMIAN ORIGIN OF MAN 40
Relationship of the human species with anthropoid
apes—Analogies in the dentition, in the organisation of the
limbs and of the brain—Resemblance of the vermiform
appendage of man and anthropoids—Analogy between the
placenta and fœtus of man and anthropoid apes—Blood
relationship of man and monkeys shown by serums and
precipitates—Transmutation of species—Sudden transition from
monkey to man—J. Inaudi, the calculator, as an example of
the sudden appearance of characters in the human
species—Rudimentary organs in man—Proportion of progressive
and retrogressive organs in the organisation of man
CHAPTER IV
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF MAN 61
Perfection of the human form—The covering of hair—The
dentition in general, and the wisdom teeth—The vermiform
appendage—Appendicitis and its gravity—Uselessness of the
cæcum and of the large intestine—Instance of a woman without
a large intestine—Ancestral history of this portion of the
digestive tract—Injurious effect of the microbes of the
large intestine—Frequency of cancer of the large intestine
and of the stomach—Limited usefulness of the stomach—The
instinct of choice of food—Futility of this instinct in man
CHAPTER V
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE
REPRODUCTIVE APPARATUS—DISHARMONIES IN THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL
INSTINCTS 78
I
Remarks on the disharmonies in the human organs of sense and
perception—Rudimentary parts of the reproductive
apparatus—Origin and function of the hymen
II
Evolution and significance of the menstrual flow in
women—Precocious marriage amongst primitive and uncivilised
races—Disharmony between age of puberty and age of
nubility—Age of marriage—Examples of disharmony in the
development of the reproductive function
III
Disharmonies in the family instincts—Artificial
abortion—Desertion and infanticide—Disharmonies in the
social instincts
CHAPTER VI
DISHARMONIES IN THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION 113
The instinct of self-preservation in animals—Man’s instinctive
love of life—Indifference to life during childhood—Buddhist
legend on instinctive self-preservation and the fear of
death—Fear of death treated in literature—Confessions of
Tolstoi regarding the fear of death—Other opinions on the
subject—The fear of death an instinctive
phenomenon—Development in man of a love of life—Treatment of
the aged—Murder of old people—Suicide of old men—Absence of
harmony between the love of life and the conditions of human
existence—The part played by the fear of death in religions
and systems of philosophy
PART II
ATTEMPTS TO DIMINISH THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF THE
HUMAN CONSTITUTION (RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS)
CHAPTER VII
RELIGIOUS ATTEMPTS TO COMBAT THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE
DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION 137
Animism as the foundation of primitive religions—The Jewish
religion in relation to the doctrine of immortality of the
soul—The religions of China—Ancestor-worship in
Confucianism—The conception of immortality in Taoism—The
persistence of the soul in the Buddhist religion—The
paradise of the Chinese Buddhists—Ancestors worshipped as
gods—Influence of religious faith on the fear of
death—Pessimism of the doctrine of Buddha—The meaning of
Nirvâna—Resignation as preached by Buddha—Objections to
immortality of the soul—Irritability of the tissues and
cells of the body—Religious hygiene—Religious means of
controlling the reproductive functions and of preventing
diseases—Failure of religions in their attempts to combat
the ills arising from the disharmonies of the human
constitution
CHAPTER VIII
ATTEMPTS IN SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY TO REMEDY THE ILLS ARISING
FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION 166
Some philosophical systems are in intimate union with
religions—Ideas of ancient philosophers on the immortality
of the soul—The teaching of Plato—The scepticism of
Aristotle—The Stoics—Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius—Modern
philosophical systems—Pessimism and its origin—Lord
Byron—Theories of Schopenhauer and Hartmann—Mailaender’s
philosophy of deliverance—Criticisms of pessimism—Max
Nordau—Ideas of modern thinkers on death
PART III
WHAT SCIENCE IS ABLE TO DO TO ALLEVIATE THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN
CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER IX
WHAT SCIENCE CAN DO AGAINST DISEASE 203
Formation of the experimental method—The intervention of
religion in disease—Disease as a basis of pessimistic
systems of philosophy—Advance of medical science in the war
against disease—The revolution in medicine and surgery due
to the discoveries of Pasteur—The beneficial results of
Serum Therapy in the war against infectious diseases—Failure
of science to cure tuberculosis and malignant
tumours—Protests against the advance of science—Opposition
of Rousseau, Tolstoi and Brunetière—Proclamation of the
fallibility of science—Return to religion and mysticism
CHAPTER X
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF OLD AGE 228
General account of old age—Theory of senile degeneration
amongst unicellular organisms—Conjugation amongst
infusoria—Old age in birds and in anthropoid apes—General
characters of senile degeneration—Sclerosis of the
organs—Phagocyte theory of senile degeneration—Destruction
of higher elements by macrophags—Mechanism of whitening of
the hair—Serums acting on cells (cytotoxins)—Sclerosis of
the arteries and its causation—Harm done by the microbes of
the alimentary canal—Intestinal putrefaction and the modes
of preventing it—Attempts to prolong human life—Longevity in
biblical times
CHAPTER XI
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF DEATH 262
Theory of the immortality of lower organisms—Immortality of
the sexual cells in higher organisms—Immortality of the
cellular soul—Occurrence of natural death in the case of
certain animals—Natural death in the Ephemeridæ—Loss of the
instinct of preservation in adult Ephemerids—Instinct of
life in the aged—Instinct of natural death in man—Death of
old men in biblical times—Changes in the instincts of man
and lower animals
CHAPTER XII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 285
Disharmonies in the human constitution as the chief source of
our sorrows—Scientific data as to the origin and destiny of
man—The goal of human existence—Difficulties in the way of
scientific investigation of the problem, What is
progress?—Difficulty of including the whole human rate in a
scheme of progress and morality—The instincts of life and of
natural death—Application to real life of the doctrines set
forth in this book
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photograph of Élie Metchnikoff _Frontispiece_
_Figs._ _Page_
1. _Catasetum saccatum_ 24
2. _Herminium monorchis_ 26
3. _Cerceris_ 28
4. _Listera ovata_ 32
5. _Pelopæus_ 34
6. Cæcum and vermiform appendage of man 44
7. Cæcum and vermiform appendage of chimpanzee 45
8. Fœtus of gibbon 46
9. Human fœtus 47
10. Fœtus of gorilla 50
11. Human fœtus 51
12. _Paramecium_ about to divide 230
13. Conjugation of _Paramecia_ 231
14. Section of a renal tubule invaded by Macrophags 241
15. Brain cells devoured by Macrophags 241
16. Hair becoming grey 243
17. _Chætogaster_ about to divide 265
18. Ephemerids 271
19. Swarms of _Palingenia virgo_ 273
20. Larva of an Ephemerid 276
THE NATURE OF MAN
PART I
DISHARMONIES IN THE NATURE OF MAN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ON THE NATURE OF MAN
Importance of the study of the nature of man—The nature of man as the
foundation of morality—Greek worship of human nature—Matriopathy of
ancient philosophers—Rationalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries—Degradation of human nature by religious doctrines—Influence
of these conceptions on actual life and on art—Reaction of the
Reformation against the degradation of human nature—Mutilation of the
human body by primitive races
Notwithstanding the real advance made by science, expressions of
discontentment with it are familiar. Science, it is said, no doubt has
ameliorated the material conditions of human life, but is powerless to
solve those moral and philosophical questions that interest cultured
people so deeply. In this region science has done no more than to
destroy the foundations of religion. It has robbed mankind of the
consolations of religion without being able to replace them with
anything more exact or more enduring.
It cannot be disputed that a general uneasiness disturbs the world of
to-day. Although his environment is most favourable to the fulfilment of
many of his capacities, man finds himself without orientation when he
has to determine the course of his life, or to explain to himself his
true relation to such categories of humanity as family, nation, race and
human race. This uneasiness reveals itself as discontentment, and it
leads to pessimism or to mysticism. Most of the philosophical systems of
the nineteenth century were steeped in melancholy, and led straight to a
denial of the possibility of happiness and even to an advocacy of
extinction. The frequency of suicide has increased greatly among all the
civilised peoples. There is no need to tabulate proofs of a notorious
fact.[1]
A remedy for this malady of the age has been sought in the attempt to
restore religious and mystical faith. On all sides have sprung up
efforts to found new religions or to amend the old. Many defenders of
science have gone the length of admitting its incapacity to solve the
problem of the existence of man; they have held that that problem was
insoluble for the human mind. Such a depressing conclusion has been
formulated in spite of many attempts to reach a rational conception of
the universe and of man.
It is no new thing to ask if there be nothing but faith to control human
conduct and to lead mankind towards universal happiness. Men of science
and philosophers, in many ages, have thought that human nature itself
could provide all the materials for a rational morality.
In the ancient world and, above all, among the Greeks, human nature was
held in high esteem. The Oriental races, predecessors of the Greeks in
civilisation, generally represented their gods as fantastic or grotesque
beings, composites of men and animals. The Greeks made gods in their own
image, giving them all the most beautiful qualities of the human race.
Such a conception was a dominant factor in ancient Greek life and
civilisation. The adoration of Man embraced the human body, and led to
the despising of every mode of tampering with the natural body. Thus,
for instance, shaving[2] of the face was regarded as a humiliation, for
a smooth chin gave an unnatural, womanish cast to the face of a man.
The adoration of human nature by the Greeks appeared in Greek plastic
art, and was the cause of its excellence. The ideal of art was to copy,
in the most faithful way, the most perfect example of the human body,
and Greek artists made measurements of the body so accurately that
modern science has confirmed their chief results.[3] As sculpture most
completely realised the Greek ideal of the human body, it became almost
a national art among the Greeks.
Greek philosophy had an equally high opinion of human nature, of the
human body, and of representations of the human body. Just as Greek art
aimed at the presentation of the body of man, so Greek philosophy
proclaimed the nobility of all human qualities, and inculcated the
doctrine of a harmonious development of all sides of human nature.[4]
Such a doctrine was formulated by Plato, and became a fundamental
principle of the Old Academy; the New Academy assumed it, and handed it
on to the Sceptics. According to Xenocrates (fourth century), who
belonged to the Old Academy, happiness consisted not only in the
possession of human virtue, but in the accomplishment of all natural
acts.[5]
The principle of a worship of human nature is in itself rather vague,
and it is not surprising that disputes and contradictions arose in
relation to its application. Thus Plato excluded pleasure from his
conception of the good, while Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, held a contrary
opinion. For the latter pleasure was the natural motive of human action,
and its attainment was associated as intimately with the perfect life as
beauty and health were associated with the perfect human body.[6]
Under the name _Matriopathy_ there arose, in the ancient world, a
doctrine the object of which was the study of the goal of natural
morality. This doctrine was held by many philosophers, but these applied
it to the details of actual life in very different fashions. Thus, for
the Stoics, the _summum bonum_ and happiness, the most lofty aim, could
not be found except by conforming life to nature. Conduct was to be
brought into harmony with the rational order of nature in such a fashion
that every conscious and rational being would perform no actions that
could not be deduced from the general law.[7] The same principle of a
life in harmony with nature led the Epicureans to the conclusion that
“pleasure is a natural good, that is to say, a condition conformable
with nature, and so bringing with it intrinsic contentment.”[8] Setting
out from the same fundamental principle, the theories of the Stoics and
Epicureans led in opposite directions.
The Roman philosophers adopted the principle of a life strictly natural.
Seneca, for instance,[9] enunciated the maxim: “Take nature as your
guide, for so reason bids you and advises you; to live happily is to
live naturally.”
Without following through the centuries the development of the idea in
detail, I may content myself with saying that resort has been made to
it, wherever there was sought, outside the sanction of religion, a
rational principle to guide human conduct. It recurs even among those
convinced Christians who rebelled against the asceticism and hatred of
human nature that became prevalent in the early centuries of the
Christian era.
The Greek conception of a life in harmony with nature found its most
complete development in the rationalism of the Renaissance, and of the
centuries that followed it. Hutcheson,[10] a Scotch philosopher of the
eighteenth century, insisted that right was with the thinkers of the
naturalistic school, and that the realisation of their ideal was to be
considered as the highest virtue. He thus placed himself directly
against the Scotch clergy who asserted the greatest contempt for human
nature. Buckle[11] proclaimed that it was a high honour for Hutcheson to
have been the first Scotchman to raise his voice publicly against the
degrading views of his time.
The French philosophers of the eighteenth century, who sought to replace
the religious foundations of conduct by rational principles, again had
recourse to human nature. Not long before the French Revolution there
appeared a treatise in three volumes, written by Baron d’Holbach, and
entitled, “Universal Morality, or the Duties of Man based on
Nature.”[12] Frankly a materialist and atheist, that writer laid it down
as an axiom that “to be universal, the moral law must be founded on the
essential nature of man, that is to say, on the properties and qualities
found constantly in the human being, and that distinguish him from other
animals.” To be well assured, “morality presumes a science of human
nature.”[13]
The principle of ancient philosophy reappeared in the works of
rationalists of the nineteenth century. Wilhelm von Humboldt declared
that “the ultimate ideal of man, the ideal prescribed for him by the
irrefutable and eternal laws of reason, consisted in a development as
harmonious as possible of all his qualities in their entirety.” The
modern historian, Lecky,[14] defines the aim of life as the full
development of all that exists in the proportions determined by nature.
Philosophers and historians are not alone in the adoption of Greek
rationalism. Many naturalists, and among these some very distinguished
authors, have spoken in the same sense. It is easy to see the Greek
principle in such phrases as those of Darwin[15] when he wrote: “The
term general good may be defined as the means by which the greatest
possible number of individuals can be reared in full vigour and health,
with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are
exposed.”
Georges Seidlitz,[16] an advocate of the great English naturalist, got
still nearer to the conception of the ancients. According to him, the
moral and rational life consisted in “the accomplishment of all the
functions of the body, in due but full proportion.”
Herbert Spencer,[17] in analysing the aim of existence, came to the
conclusion that morality should be adjusted so as to make life as full
and complete as possible. As a criterion of physical perfection, the
English philosopher would accept only the complete devotion of all the
organs to the accomplishment of all their functions, while his criterion
of moral perfection was contribution to the general good. These views
are plainly, if not exactly, expressions of the Greek ideal.
While, then, rational philosophers in all the ages have sought the
foundation of morality in human nature itself, and have held human
nature to be good, or even perfect, many religious doctrines have
displayed a very different view. Human nature was regarded as being
composed of two hostile elements, a body and a soul. The soul alone was
to be honoured, while the body was regarded as the vile source of evils.
Such a view led to the flagellations and torturings of the body which
form so strange and so widespread a phenomenon. The Hindu fakirs who
swing themselves on hooks, the dervishes and Mussulman Assouans who beat
in their skulls with clubs, the Russian Skoptsy who emasculate
themselves, and many other instances make it plain that natural
perfection is not taken as the basis for conduct.
Buddha[18] in the clearest way showed his belief that human nature was
base. Coming out from the apartments of the women, there came to him a
“vivid idea of the impurity of the body, a feeling of repulsion from it,
and of blame of it; regarding his own body and seeing its wretchedness,
he began to despise it, and to formulate conceptions of impurity and
purity; _from the sole of the feet to the crown of the head, to the
limit of the brain, he saw that the body was born in impurity, came from
impurity, and always let itself be drawn to impurity_.” These
reflections led him to the conclusion: “What wise man, having regarded
his own body, will not see in it an enemy?”
Towards the end of the old world, the Greek theory of human nature
yielded to a very different conception. The opposition between the
opinions of the Stoics on morality, and their admiration of human
nature, led Seneca, one of the last Roman Stoics and a celebrated
contemporary of Jesus Christ, to break completely away from the ancient
doctrine. Convinced of the moral weakness and imperfection of man, and
of the persisting power of evil, Seneca declared that human nature
contained a vicious and essentially evil element. This element was
seated in the body, which he regarded as so essentially vile that it is
to be despised. Our body was no more than the dwelling of the soul, its
temporary home, a place in which it cannot be at rest. The body was a
burden which the soul would be rid of, a prison-house from which it
would escape. According to Seneca[19] the soul must wrestle with the
body, for the body brings to it nothing but suffering, while the soul is
essentially pure and spotless, and as much above the body as divinity is
above matter.
A dualism still more pronounced was characteristic of the early
Christian view of human nature, and led to the depreciation of the body
as compared with the soul. In the fourth and fifth centuries of our era
such a view was so dominant that a struggle against the material side of
our nature became a rule of life. The most absolute asceticism spread
throughout the Christian world.[20] A struggle against hunger, thirst,
and desire for sleep, rejection of all pleasures that come from
impressions of sight, of hearing, or of the palate, and, above all,
abstention from sexual intercourse, became, in the opinion of believers,
the true aim of human life. The conviction that human nature was
essentially corrupt led to a declaration of war against it; all the
pleasures were forbidden, even the most innocent of them being thought
vicious. What could be more in contrast with the calm and joyous
philosophy of the Greeks, for whom there did not exist the idea of a
struggle against the supposed corruption and imperfection of man? The
dualistic theory made such demands on its proselytes that these,
absorbed in the salvation of their souls, sank from the physical point
of view to the level of wild beasts. Hermits resorted to the lairs of
animals, abandoned their clothing and went about naked with shaggy and
disordered hair. In Mesopotamia and a part of Syria there arose a sect
of eaters of grass; these were people who had no dwellings and who ate
neither bread nor vegetables, but wandered on the hills and fed on the
herbage. Cleanliness of the body was regarded as an indication of
corruptness of the soul, and among the most highly venerated of the
saints were those who took no care of the body. Athanasius relates with
approval that when St. Antony, the father of monks, became old he never
washed his feet.[21]
Such doctrines soon brought about a most serious perversion of the
innate instincts of the human race. The senses of family and of society
became so weakened that fanatical Christians were more than indifferent
to their kinsmen and countrymen. One saint was venerated because he was
hard and cruel only to his relatives. It is told of the Abbot Siseuss
that on a believer asking to be received into the convent, he inquired
if the suppliant had any one akin to him. “I have only a son,” said the
Christian. “Well, then,” said the abbot, “take your son and cast him
into the river, for thus only may you become a monk.” The father set
about to do the bidding of the abbot, and it was only at the last moment
that the order was recalled. For admission into a Christian community it
was necessary to renounce one’s country.[22]
Such ideas have struck a deep and enduring root. In the opinion of the
ministers of the Scotch Church of the seventeenth century, according to
Buckle,[23] there was nothing so surprising as that the earth could
contain itself in the presence of that horrid spectacle, man, and that
it did not gape, as in former days, to swallow him in the midst of his
wickedness. For certainly, in the created universe, there could be
nothing so monstrous and so horrible as man.
It was to be expected that when such conceptions prevailed, celibacy and
repudiation of the reproductive instinct should have been made
obligatory on the clergy. The words, reported by St. Matthew (xix. 11,
12), that “there be eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the
kingdom of heaven’s sake” were interpreted by some as implying a
voluntary renunciation of marriage, while others insisted on the literal
meaning and in consequence mutilated themselves more or less completely.
The breasts of women were removed to eradicate the maternal instincts.
But it is only the sect of Skoptsy, by no means a small body in Russia,
that applies the gospel command in this stringent fashion. The wish
announced by St. Paul (Corinthians vii. 7), “I say therefore to the
unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I; but
if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than
to burn,” soon became a command, and since the fourth century the
Catholic Church has advocated celibacy of the clergy, although it was
not enforced until the eleventh century (under Gregory VII.). A low view
of human nature has survived in the Catholic Church even to our own
times. Pope Leo XIII., in his “Encyclical on Freemasons,” proclaimed
it.[24] “Human nature,” he said, “was contaminated by the Fall, and as
it is therefore much more prone to vice than to virtue, in order to
attain virtue it is absolutely necessary to restrain the wild impulses
of the soul, and to control the appetites by reason.”
Art has reflected the Christian conception of human nature. Sculpture,
which played so great a part in the ancient world, and which was
intimately associated with Greek ideals, began to decline rapidly in the
Christian era. It lasted longer in the Roman Empire of the East, but in
Italy it was almost completely forgotten by the eighth century. Painting
survived, but not without undergoing an extraordinary degeneration. All
the Italian works of art of the Carlovingian period, displayed the
utmost indifference to natural form, and a loss of the sense of harmony
and beauty. Later on, Italian art fell lower still. “No one dreamed any
longer of studying nature or of observing the human body. An epoch in
which the interference of supernatural forces was generally accepted,
and in which the conception of the universe was founded on a contrast
between the natural and the supernatural, could not admit in its art the
rule of natural law or a natural order of events.”[25]
The intimate connection between the depreciation of human nature due to
Christian doctrine and the inferiority of the art of the middle ages
cannot be denied. Taine[26] writes of the period as follows: “If one
considers the stained-glass windows or the images in the cathedrals, or
the rude paintings, it appears as if the human race had become
degenerate and its blood had been impoverished; pale saints, distorted
martyrs, virgins with flat chests, feet too long and bony hands, hermits
withered and unsubstantial, Christs that look like crushed and bleeding
earthworms, processions of figures that are wan, and stiffened, and sad,
upon whom are stamped all the deformities of misery and all the
shrinking timidity of the oppressed.”
The art of the middle ages fell lower and lower until the Renaissance,
with its return to the Greek ideal, brought new vigour. The great
masters of the Renaissance were in addition scientific men who had
studied mathematics and who employed the technique of mensuration; such
were Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Angelo, and others. The return
to the Greek ideals and to nature brought with it the taste for beauty.
When the ancient spirit was born again, its influence reached science
and even religion, and the Reformation was a defence of human nature.
The Lutheran doctrines resumed the principle of a “development as
complete as possible, of all the natural powers” of man, and saw in that
ideal a guide for humanity. Compulsory celibacy was abolished, and free
play was given to all the tendencies in conformity with the laws of
nature.[27]
Besides those whose religion led them to despise the human body, there
have been many savage races and tribes who have practised mutilations of
the body. It would be a long list were I to set out all the modes in
which the human body has been disfigured. Treatises on Ethnography and
the volumes of travellers contain a multitude of details of this sort.
The hair, the teeth and the lips have been subjected to treatment with
the object of making them as unlike the natural condition as is
possible. Many of the lower races discolour their teeth, or remove some
of them, or file them to points. Others insert in the lips pieces of
wood, of stone, or of bone. A whole chapter might be occupied with an
account of the disfiguring devices of tattooers. The skull, the breasts,
and the feet, have all been subjected to deforming treatment.
Although there is not enough evidence to set down these practices to the
existence of definite and self-conscious religious or philosophic
doctrine, it is at least certain that the people among whom they occur
are far from revering human nature in the fashion of the Greeks, but
rather attempt to distort it in accordance with their own taste.
Discontent with the natural conditions of existence is, as we have seen,
so widespread that there is good reason for an inquiry as to the
existence of some general principle underlying this diversity of opinion
regarding human nature. I have already shown that this question of human
nature has for long interested mankind, and has shared largely in the
formation of ideas of the good and the beautiful. It is not too soon to
submit the problem to rational investigation, using those rigid methods
of science which have been learned in our epoch. I shall try to give an
exposition of human nature in its strength and in its weakness. But
before passing to man, I shall survey the lower forms of life, hoping to
fix some landmarks that will be useful in the study of the larger
problem.
CHAPTER II
HARMONIES AND DISHARMONIES AMONGST BEINGS INFERIOR TO MAN
The organised world before the appearance of man on the earth—Absence
of a law of universal progress—Fertilisation of vanilla—The part
played by insects in the fertilisation of orchids—Mechanism by which
insects carry the pollen of orchids—Habits of fossorial
wasps—Harmonies in nature—Useless organs—Rudiments of the pollinia of
orchids—Disharmonies in nature—Unadapted insects—Aberration of
instincts—Perversion of sexual instinct—Attraction of insects by
light—Luminous insects—Law of natural selection—Happiness and
unhappiness in the organised world
Long before man appeared on the earth animals and plants were
distributed over it. Some of these were endowed with but vague senses,
while others had well-developed instincts, and some even a certain
degree of intelligence which they applied for their self-preservation
and for the propagation of their own kind.
Many species, well adapted for the resistance of external influences,
have survived from very early times to the present day. In the
Carboniferous period birds and mammals did not yet exist, and the thick
forests, with undergrowths of gigantic ferns, were inhabited by large
numbers of articulated animals, amongst which were scorpions and
insects. The scorpions of that time resemble in every way those that
actually live at the present day in tropical countries; and amongst the
insects of that early epoch were some very like the cockroaches of
to-day. Certain tree-like ferns of the present time are also very
similar to those of the coal period. Amongst the animals the bodies of
which are protected by a shell, such as foraminifera and mollusca,
certain species have survived even from an earlier time than the coal
period.
In contrast with this extraordinary survival, there are instances of the
complete disappearance of numbers of species of animals and plants. In
early times, during the Tertiary epoch, the virgin forests of Europe
were inhabited by a large number of monkeys, of which fossil remains are
now found, especially in Greece. These formerly existed even in Europe,
and some anthropoid apes (_Dryopithecus_) have left traces in the
tertiary deposits of France.[28] These animals, notwithstanding that
their organisation was superior to that of scorpions and cockroaches,
have not been able to adapt themselves to the altered conditions of
modern Europe. A similar fate has come upon some of the higher mammals,
such as the mammoth and the mastodon.
These facts do not bear testimony to the prevalent idea that there
exists in nature a law of universal progress tending to the production
of organisms more and more perfect from the point of view of complexity
of structure. It is incontestable that forms higher in the scale of life
have developed only after the appearance of lower forms. But it does not
follow that development always takes a progressive march. Man is one of
the later species that have appeared upon the earth, but there are
others of still more recent date. It is very probable that certain
species of lice have appeared subsequent to man, particularly the
clothes-louse (_Pediculus vestimenti_). Amongst the true parasites which
live only in the human body are some that have acquired their specific
characters after the appearance of man. Such are certain tape-worms and
microbes, such as a species of _gonococcus_. It is therefore amongst
parasites and not to man that we must look for the latest products of
creation.
In nature, then, there is no blind tendency towards progress. Organisms
almost innumerable are born every day with variable characters. Those
amongst them which are adapted to existing circumstances survive and
produce offspring like themselves, but many do not reach maturity, and,
living only for a short time, die without leaving issue.
To give the reader a better idea of adaptations and of their importance
to living creatures, it will, perhaps, be as well to devote some space
to an account of examples of them. Amongst organisms that attract our
attention by their pleasing aspect, there are not many that can rival
flowering plants. Every one admires the great beauty of the blossom of
orchids. There can be no doubt that these flowers have not been
developed to satisfy the æsthetic tastes of man, for the simple reason
that orchids existed for a long time before man’s appearance.
Among orchids there is one which, for more than half a century, has been
cultivated by man in many tropical countries. This is the Vanilla, the
fruit of which produces one of the sweetest of spices.
In former days the pods of only the wild vanilla, which is an
undergrowth of the forests of Mexico and South America, were gathered.
But the employment of vanilla to flavour chocolate has rendered its
artificial culture lucrative; consequently the plant has been
transported to several warm countries where it could be acclimatised. It
has flourished and borne numerous blossoms, but it has never produced
fruit from which alone the aroma is obtained. As the question of the
sterility of the vanilla was of great practical interest to the
cultivator, the matter was investigated, and it was found that the
flower remained sterile because the female and male parts could not come
in contact. The pistils and stamens of the flower are well developed,
but between these sexual organs is a membrane which prevents
fertilisation. After this discovery was made, the idea occurred that the
pollen of the vanilla flower might be transferred artificially to the
stigma of the pistil so as to bring about “artificial” fertilisation. A
young black slave, Edmond Albius, a native of Réunion, discovered in
1841 a practical method by which the male and female elements of the
vanilla could be put in contact; and from this discovery there came a
great extension of the cultivation of the orchid in many countries. At a
certain period a small bamboo point or the tooth of a comb is introduced
into the vanilla flower, and in this way, in a short time, a quantity of
flowers may be fertilised and so made capable of bearing mature
pods.[29]
In the original home of the vanilla the intervention of man is
unnecessary. In Guiana and Mexico fertilisation of the flower is the
work of small bees (of the genus _Melipona_). They frequent the vanilla
flowers to extract nectar, the material of their honey. Small
humming-birds also hover over the vanilla blossoms, and by introducing
their bills into the sexual organs of the flowers bring about contact of
the male and female elements.
Sterility of the vanilla in the countries to which it has been
introduced, before the employment of artificial fecundation, is easily
explained by the fact that in these countries there are no insects nor
humming-birds capable of transporting the pollen.
But it is not only the vanilla that requires the co-operation of living
beings to produce its fruits. It is the case with many other orchids. In
the flowers of these the pollen is massed together and cannot be
transported by the air. It needs the aid of insects, as had already been
pointed out by Sprengell in the eighteenth century, and above all by
Darwin, whose splendid investigations are the basis of the following
passages.[30]
Insects, belonging to different groups, such as bees, wasps, flies,
certain beetles, and many butterflies and moths, visit orchids to sip
the nectar produced by the plants and stored in definite parts of the
flowers. In order that their proboscis may reach the stores of sweet
juice, the insects inevitably touch first the upper parts of the
flowers, where the anthers are present. The pollen grains are clustered
in masses, known as pollinia, and these adhere to the body of the
visiting insect by means of an adhesive fluid which is secreted by an
organ of the flower known as the _rostellum_. In this way the pollinia
adhere firmly, it may be to the proboscis of butterflies, or to the head
or any other part of the body of insects. They can leave the flower and
fly away without losing the adhering pollinia, and in this manner they
serve as the agents for sexual contact and for fertilisation of the
orchids. Ménière relates that a person who kept bees near the garden of
the Faculté de Toulouse complained that they returned from the garden
with their heads covered with tiny yellow bodies which he was unable to
clean off from them. It was easy to recognise in these bodies the
pollinia of orchids very firmly attached to the bees’ heads.[31]
When an insect, bearing these pollinia, introduces itself into another
flower of the same species of orchid, it inevitably comes in contact
with the female apparatus, more particularly with the viscous surface of
the stigma. Some of the grains of pollen contained in the pollen-mass
adhere to the stigma and are thus enabled to fertilise the ovule. This
carriage of pollen from one flower to another brings about a crossing
which is necessary for the production of good seed. On the other hand,
the seed which is the result of self-fertilisation of a flower is
inferior.
An examination of the structure and form of the flowers of many orchids
show that they are adapted in a truly marvellous way to the visits of
insects that convey pollen. In each part of these flowers one can
discern some useful arrangement to secure cross-fertilisation.
For the proper transmission of pollen it is necessary that the pollinia
should adhere very firmly to the body of the insects, and that the
viscous substance which holds them together should have time to
solidify. It is thus of great advantage to the plant if the insects
remain for a considerable time on the flower. In several orchids the
nectar is not easily accessible, and frequently the insect has to search
for a long time before finding what it desires, and sometimes it even
has to pierce a membranous covering before reaching the fluid. The
operation takes a certain time, and this is long enough to allow the
mucus by which the pollinia adhere to the insect to set firmly.
In the case of orchids the mucus of which sets instantaneously, there is
no reason for the visit of the insect to be prolonged. In such cases the
nectar is easy to extract, and the insect finds it without loss of time.
Darwin, after describing these facts, proceeds to say:[32]
“In these five species” (in which the viscid matter “is so adhesive that
it serves to attach the pollinia firmly to the insects without getting
hard”), “and in these alone, we find copious nectar ready stored for
rapid suction in open nectaries. On the other hand, whenever the viscid
matter gets hard by exposure for a short time to the air, it would
manifestly be advantageous to the plant if insects were delayed in
obtaining the nectar; and in all such species the nectar is lodged
within intercellular spaces, so that it can be obtained only by the
inner membrane being penetrated at several points, and this will require
time. If this double relation is accidental, it is a fortunate accident
for the plants; but I cannot believe it to be so, and it appears to me
one of the most wonderful cases of adaptation which has ever been
recorded.”
Some orchids secrete instead of nectar a clear liquid like water. This
fluid is collected in a petal inserted at the lower part of the flower
and shaped into a deep cup-shaped receptacle. It does not attract
insects, but by wetting their wings compels them to leave the flower by
a different exit which passes close to the reproductive organs (_i.e._,
the anther and the stigma). The soft linings of the cup are greedily
devoured by certain insects, particularly by bees. Dr. Cruger, who
observed this, has often seen bees fall into the cup whereupon their
wings became so wet as to prevent their flying away, and they have been
obliged to get out by the channel that carries off the waste from the
reservoir. As the saturated bees creep along the narrow passage after
their involuntary immersion, they come inevitably in contact with the
stigma and the masses of pollen. The latter adhere to the bodies of the
bees and can be conveyed to the sticky stigma of a neighbouring flower.
[Illustration:
FIG. 1.—_Catasetum saccatum_ (from “La Lindenia,” Gand, 1890).
]
In other orchids (_Catasetum_, Fig. 1), the male elements are discharged
by a spring-like arrangement on the body of insects. When certain parts
of the flowers are touched, the pollinia are thrown off like arrows,
which, in the place of the barbs, have viscid swellings. “The insect,
disturbed by so sharp a blow, or after having eaten its fill, flies
sooner or later away to a female plant and, whilst standing in the same
position as before, the pollen-bearing end of the arrow is inserted into
the stigmatic cavity, and a mass of pollen is left on its viscid
surface.”[33]
After giving detailed descriptions of the cross-fertilisation of flowers
by such peculiar means, Darwin makes the following remark: “Who would
have been bold enough to have surmised that the propagation of a species
depended on so complex, so apparently artificial, and yet so admirable
an arrangement?”[34]
One orchid (_Herminium monorchis_, Fig. 2), which bears very small
flowers, is remarkable for the way in which it is fertilised by insects.
Only very small insects are able to penetrate the flowers. The space
being very limited these minute insects can enter the flower only in a
particular way, and at one of the corners. This causes the pollinia to
become attached always to the same place, which is on the outer side of
one of the two front legs. When the insect, the carrier of the pollinia,
enters a second flower, it can scarcely fail to fertilise the stigma,
which is on the corresponding side. Darwin said that it would be
difficult to find a case in which there was so marvellously complete an
adaptation to a very peculiar mode of fertilisation as the little flower
of _Herminium_.
[Illustration:
FIG. 2.—_Herminium monorchis_
(after Sowerby, “English Botany,” ix. 1869)
]
In addition to orchids, there are other flowers the organisation of
which is adapted in a remarkable way to fertilisation by insects. But to
find perfect harmony in the nature of living beings it is not necessary
to confine our observations to flowers. The animal world furnishes us
with numerous examples. To avoid going into the details of these, I
shall content myself with a description of the most remarkable
instances.
Every one has seen, flying near the ground, small, slender, and pretty
wasps. From time to time these bury themselves in the earth or sand, and
re-appear in a few minutes. These are the fossorial wasps, the
interesting habits of which have been studied by Mr. J. H. Fabre, of
Avignon. They are not gregarious, but lead solitary lives and differ in
their habits from their congeners. Bees feed their larvæ with honey and
pollen which they take to them during the whole period of their
development. Wasps are carnivorous, predatory insects, and bring their
spoils to their brood of soft and feeble larvæ which are unable to
provide for themselves. Bees and most wasps look after the welfare of
their young ones in the fashion of human parents in nurseries.
Fossorial wasps act differently; they never see their young. They lay
their eggs in burrows, sunk in the soil and hermetically sealed. The
larvæ are hatched underground and are never seen by the mother.
Provision sufficient for their development, however, is made in advance.
Before depositing eggs, the females sink the burrows, and fill them with
the spoils of the chase, which consist sometimes of spiders and
sometimes of crickets or other insects. Each species of fossorial wasps
preys on a particular kind of insect or on its allies, for the purpose
of provisioning the burrows. These wasps are most fastidious in the
choice of their food, and behave like collectors whose interest is only
in a single or a few species of small animals. Léon Dufour, the
well-known entomologist, was much struck by the ability displayed by
certain wasps (_Cerceris_, Fig. 3) in seeking out and capturing the
pretty beetles of the genus _Buprestis_, which he had great difficulty
in finding himself. In making a study of these beetles he collected the
material from the burrows of _Cerceris_, and so avoided the laborious
task of obtaining them in the natural state of freedom. The burrows were
filled with motionless, but perfectly well preserved, _Buprestes_.
Although dead Coleoptera dried up in a short time, those recovered from
the burrows remained in a good state of preservation for weeks. Léon
Dufour came to the conclusion that the _Cerceris_ kill their prey, but
inject into them some antiseptic liquid which perfectly preserves their
flesh and intestines.
[Illustration:
FIG. 3.—_Cerceris_ (after Buffon).
]
J. H. Fabre pursued the study of the habits of fossorial wasps further.
He ascertained that the captured insects were not dead, but only
paralysed. The continuance of the function of certain organs
demonstrated that the _Buprestes_, the weevils and other small creatures
collected in the burrows of fossorial wasps, were alive. They could even
perform some slight movements, but they were incapable of locomotion,
and so could not escape. The mechanism of this paralysis, as far as
could be ascertained by Fabre, is one of the most remarkable phenomena
in nature. The fossorial wasps, guided by their instinct, immediately
after having seized an insect or spider, bury their sting in the nervous
centre which controls the movements of the legs. When animals with soft
bodies, such as spiders and young crickets, are attacked, the operation
does not present any difficulties. But Coleoptera in general, and the
_Buprestes_ and weevils in particular, are furnished with a very hard
covering which cannot be perforated by the small and slender sting of a
fossorial wasp. To gain their object the wasps probe exactly between the
first and second pair of legs in the median line of the under surface of
the thorax. The skin is thinner at this spot, and they introduce their
sting into the ganglia from which arise the nerves of the legs. In the
case with the _Buprestes_ these ganglia are set close to one another,
and a single prick suffices to affect the nervous centres of three pairs
of legs. Once the sting has been inserted in this way the _Buprestis_
becomes paralysed, but lives for many days. “The _Cerceris_ which preys
on Coleoptera,” writes Fabre,[35] “appears to have made its choice
according to the dictates of an exact physiology and anatomy. It is
impossible to see in its proceedings the results of happy chance; more
than chance is required to explain adaptations so precise.”
After having filled the burrow with a sufficient quantity of insects or
spiders, fossorial wasps lay their eggs and carefully close up the
entrance. In due course the larva is hatched, and devours the food that
it finds close at hand. If the gathered insects were not paralysed, they
could easily escape from their prison; if they were dead, putrefaction
or desiccation (according to circumstances) would render them unfit for
the larvæ. It is therefore sheer necessity that is the factor in the
development of this marvellous instinct that induces the fossorial wasps
to attack the nervous centres of their prey. When one insect has been
devoured, the larva proceeds to another, and so on, until it is fully
grown, whereupon it envelops itself in a case that protects it during
the winter and following spring. In summer it changes at first into a
chrysalis, and later into a perfect insect. It frees itself from the
cocoon, takes to flight, and enters upon life like that of its mother,
which it has never seen.
Of the harmonious phenomena in nature it is indeed difficult to find
other examples so perfect as those of the habits of these fossorial
wasps, or of the mechanism for the fertilisation of orchids. These
harmonies in nature are constantly met with in the world of living
beings, and it is not astonishing that they have for a long time
attracted the attention of many observers and philosophers. As it seemed
impossible to attribute them to the organisms themselves, because of the
low rank and lack of intelligence of these, it has seemed only natural
to set them down as a manifestation of a superior force which organises
and directs all natural phenomena. This argument, however, omits one
side of the medal.
Any close investigation of organisation and life reveals that, beside
many most perfect harmonies, there are facts which prove the existence
of incomplete harmony or even absolute disharmony. The examination of
the flowers of orchids would lead one to the belief that each part, even
the smallest and apparently most insignificant, has its _rôle_ in the
mechanism for fertilisation and cross-fertilisation. In reality it is
not so. There are in certain orchids organs which do not fulfil any
function.
Even among the species of _Catasetum_, in which the pollinia are thrown
with force on the bodies of insects, there are some female flowers in
which the male organs are rudimentary and without utility. In these
flowers, according to Darwin,[36] “the two membranous sacks containing
the rudimentary pollen-masses never open, but they easily separate from
each other and from the anther. The tissue of which they are formed is
thick and pulpy. Like most rudimentary parts, the pollen-masses vary
much in size and form; they are only about one-tenth of the bulk of
those of the male.” There are then, without doubt, some structures that
are of no service.
The existence of these rudimentary pollinia, incapable of being
transported or of fertilising the female element, is easily explained by
the supposition that formerly the flowers of the _Catasetum_ were true
hermaphrodites, but that in the course of time the male organs have
become incompletely atrophied in certain flowers, in which, on the other
hand, the female part has increased. The occurrence of an actual
degeneration is shown by the existence of rudiments of the pollinia too
insignificant to accomplish their normal functions.
Rudimentary and useless organs are widely distributed, and we find them
in many places. Familiar instances are the atrophied eyes of animals
that live in the dark, and the sometimes rudimentary sexual organs of
many plants and animals.
Not only are orchids and other flowers adapted to fertilisation by means
of insects, but many insects display special adaptations to their habit
of visiting flowers. Butterflies, bees, and many other insects, possess
mouth organs modified for the purpose of penetrating flowers to secure
nectar or pollen. Other insects, again, are not so fortunate in this
respect. Darwin[37] on one occasion “found an extremely minute
Hymenopterous insect vainly struggling to escape, with its head cemented
by the hardened viscid matter to the crest of the rostellum and to the
tips of the pollinia (of an orchid, _Listera ovata_, Fig. 4). The insect
was not so large as one of the pollinia, and after causing the explosion
had not strength enough to remove them; it was punished for attempting a
work beyond its strength, and perished miserably.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 4.—_Listera ovata_ (after Barla, “Flora of Nice,” 1868).
]
Many insects, well adapted for the purpose, delight themselves by
sucking the nectar of flowers. Many others would wish to do the same,
but their want of adaptation baffles them. A small “lady-bird” loves the
sweet juice of flowers; it tries often to suck the nectar of the
dandelion, but without success. Hermann Müller[38] has described the
behaviour of this insect in procuring the nectar of _Erodium
cicutorium_. “The awkward way in which this beetle, unadapted to feed on
the plants, endeavours to obtain the honey, is too ludicrous not to be
mentioned. After taking up a position on the petal, it puts its mouth in
the direction of one of the honeycups which are situated on both sides
of the base of the petal. The petal soon breaks off, upon which the
insect fixes itself on a neighbouring sepal or falls to the ground with
the petal. In the first case it proceeds to creep over the flower and
ends by detaching all the petals; in the other case, on recovering from
the shock, it quickly ascends another stem of the same plant and begins
again. I have seen the same lady-bird fall four times in succession with
petals which it had detached without gaining wisdom.”
The instincts of insects, well developed for certain functions, often
present aberrations more or less whimsical and remarkable. The
caterpillars of some butterflies, before changing into chrysalids,
envelop themselves in a wellwoven cocoon capable of protecting them from
noxious influences. Protected by this covering, the caterpillar changes
into a chrysalid, and later into a butterfly, which perforates the end
of the cocoon in order to emerge. When any external agency destroys the
cocoon, normal metamorphosis becomes impossible, and the larva dies
before its maturity. Fabre[39] questioned whether the caterpillar during
the time of the weaving of the cocoon was capable of repairing it if it
was damaged. For this object he cut with a pair of scissors the end of a
cocoon in the course of construction by the caterpillar of the beautiful
peacock-butterfly. In spite of the hole thus produced, the caterpillar
continued its ordinary work without suspicion that it would be of no
avail. On this occasion “the caterpillar of the peacock-butterfly,
notwithstanding the certain fate of the future butterfly, continued
peaceably to spin, without in the least modifying the regular progress
of its labour; when the time had arrived for the putting in of the last
defensive stitches it placed them in the perilous breach, but neglected
to mend the destroyed part of the barricade. It performed its vain task,
ignoring what was indispensable for success.”
Even amongst fossorial wasps, the instincts of which are so admirably
developed, harmony is far from perfect. Fabre endeavoured to ascertain
what effect was produced on these insects by taking away the egg laid in
the burrow. He chose for this experiment the fossorial wasp _Pelopæus_
(Fig. 5), which preys on spiders. He took away the egg which had been
deposited in a carefully-prepared burrow, and watched the subsequent
manœuvres. “The _Pelopæus_ continued to store up spiders for the stolen
egg; it gathered provisions that were not to be eaten; it redoubled its
efforts to replenish a larder that I was constantly robbing with my
forceps.” The insect neither discontinued its fruitless task nor
appeared to be aware of its fruitlessness. Here, then, is an example of
a foiled maternal instinct that gained no useful end.
[Illustration:
FIG. 5.—_Pelopæus_ (after Buffon).
]
In connection with such a slaughter for the benefit of a progeny that
will never exist, I may mention observations relating to a quite
different order of phenomena. There are many creatures that kill and
devour their progeny. Not infrequently rabbits kill and devour all their
progeny, or leave them to die without food or care. Sometimes the
culprits are young rabbits without experience; but this aberration of
instinct is also met with in old rabbits, which once and for all have
contracted the habit of abandoning or eating their young. Some females
of other species of mammals and of birds have often been surprised in
the act of deserting or of killing their offspring.
Perversion of sexual instinct is frequent enough amongst animals.
Huber[40] states that when male ants have a lack of females they ravish
the workers, the attacks being fatal, as the sexual organs are
incompletely developed and functionally incapable. Abnormal pairing has
also been observed in the stag-beetle of the genus _Lucanus_, in bees,
and, above all, in cockchafers.[41] Higher animals, such as dogs,
furnish analogous examples of sexual perversion.
Onanism is well known amongst mammals. It is frequent among monkeys in
menageries, and also in rutting stags, the latter discharging the
seminal fluid by friction with trees. Stallions and mares have often
been observed in the act of satisfying their sexual appetites by
abnormal means. There are several other species (dogs, bears, chamois,
elephants, parrakeets, etc.,) which resort to onanism.[42]
These disharmonious instincts do not in the least cause the death of the
animals that manifest them. But there exist in nature instinctive
aberrations much more dangerous. Who has not seen in the summer numerous
insects gathered round lamps and candles, attracted by the light? Among
these are Coleoptera, Neuroptera (_Phryganea_), Ephemera, and, most
frequently of all, small nocturnal Lepidoptera. After flying round and
round the light several times, they singe their wings and die in
numbers. This instinct is so constant and so developed amongst many of
these insects, that it has been used against them for their own
destruction. Thus amongst the means advocated for destroying a moth,
_Botys sticticalis_, the caterpillars of which devour cereals and
beetroot,[43] is the lighting of numerous fires in the fields. The
moths, attracted by the light, fall in the flames and die in quantities.
When the usual swarms of may-flies emerge from the water, fishers make
straw fires on their boats, and the insects singe their wings. The
innumerable bodies incapable of flight fall into the water, and provide
a coveted food for the fish.[44] This disharmonious and fatal instinct
is displayed chiefly by nocturnal insects that rest during the day and
do not leave their retreats till after sunset. In the cornfields
Coleoptera of the genera _Anisoplia_ and _Rhizotrogus_, resembling each
other in form and general appearance, are to be found. When a fire is
lighted in the darkness of the night it is only the _Rhizotrogus_ that
approaches it at the risk of its life. The _Anisoplia_ remains quiet in
the midst of the corn. The latter kind of beetle pairs during the day,
while the _Rhizotrogi_ satisfy their sexual desires during the night.
Moreover, it is the males only of this species that fly about in the
darkness and approach the fire, whilst the females rest at home in the
plants.[45] It is probable, therefore, that light induces a sort of
sexual excitement in these male beetles. The males, searching for the
female, believe her to be in the midst of the flames, towards which they
fly without being conscious of the danger they incur.
Such an interpretation of this disharmonious and suicidal instinct is
confirmed by the fact that the moths attracted by fire are also almost
exclusively males. Moreover, entomologists have advised against the
lighting of fires by agriculturists in the belief that they destroy the
noxious _Botys_, as they maintain that the females are not attracted.
These latter therefore live on, and, being capable of laying eggs,
produce a generation of voracious caterpillars.
Of the _Ephemera_ attracted by fire in such great quantities males are
by far the more numerous. It is therefore really very probable that the
mad excitement which leads to the destruction of so many male insects,
represents a sort of sexual aberration. In this connection it is to be
remembered that, amongst Coleoptera, species exist of which the females,
hidden in the grass, produce intense light which attracts the males. In
the common glow-worm, the female, which is devoid of wings, alone shines
with the familiar greenish glitter. Even in species of which the two
sexes are luminous, the female shines more vividly. It is true that
there are some beetles with luminous larvæ, a fact that led Darwin[46]
to remark that the production of light by insects may serve to frighten
enemies. This is possible, and it is also possible that certain insects
make use of their luminosity to light their way in the darkness.[47]
But, notwithstanding this, the sexual character of the luminous organ is
so manifest in certain species that it is impossible to doubt its
function as a means of attracting the male.
In conclusion I may say that it is not my purpose at present to discuss
the meaning of an instinct so fatal to insect life. I wish only to point
out the frequency of the natural occurrence of disharmony, so that the
satisfaction of an instinct is fatal to so many of its possessors.
It is plain that an instinct, or any other form of disharmony leading to
destruction, cannot increase, or even endure very long. The perversion
of the maternal instinct tending to abandonment of the young is
destructive to the stock. In consequence, individuals affected by it do
not have the opportunity of transmitting the perversion. If all rabbits,
or a majority of them, left their young to die through neglect, it is
evident that the species would soon die out. On the contrary, mothers,
guided by their instinct to nourish and foster their offspring, will
produce a vigorous generation capable of transmitting the healthy
maternal instinct so essential for the preservation of the species. For
such a reason harmonious characters are more abundant in nature than
injurious peculiarities. The latter, because they are injurious to the
individual and to the species, cannot perpetuate themselves
indefinitely.
In this way there comes about a constant selection of characters. The
useful qualities are handed down and preserved, while noxious characters
perish and so disappear. Although disharmonies tend to the destruction
of a species, they may themselves disappear without having destroyed the
race in which they occur.
This continuous process of natural selection, which offers so good an
explanation of the transmutation and origin of species by means of
preservation of useful and destruction of harmful characters, was
discovered by Darwin and Wallace, and was established by the splendid
researches of the former of these.
Long before the appearance of man on the face of the earth, there were
some happy beings well adapted to their environment, and some unhappy
creatures that followed disharmonious instincts so as to imperil or to
destroy their lives. Were such creatures capable of reflection and
communication, plainly the fortunate among them, such as orchids and
fossorial wasps, would be on the side of the optimists; they would
declare this the best of all possible worlds, and insist that, to secure
happiness it is necessary only to follow natural instincts. On the other
hand, the disharmonious creatures, those ill adapted to the conditions
of life, would be pessimistic philosophers. Consider the case of the
lady-bird, driven by hunger and with a preference for honey, which
searches for it on flowers and meets only with failure, or of insects
driven by their instincts into the flames, only to lose their wings and
their lives; such creatures, plainly, would express as their idea of the
world that it was fashioned abominably, and that existence was a
mistake.
As for man, the creature most interesting to us, in what category does
he fall? Is he a being whose nature is in harmony with the conditions in
which he has to live, or is he out of harmony with his environment? A
critical examination is needed to answer these questions, and to such an
examination the pages to follow are devoted.
CHAPTER III
SIMIAN ORIGIN OF MAN
Relationship of the human species with anthropoid apes—Analogies in
the dentition, in the organisation of the limbs and of the
brain—Resemblance of the vermiform appendage of man and
anthropoids—Analogy between the placenta and fœtus of man and
anthropoid apes—Blood relationship of man and monkeys shown by serums
and precipitates—Transmutation of species—Sudden transition from
monkey to man—J. Inaudi, the calculator, as an example of the sudden
appearance of characters in the human species—Rudimentary organs in
man—Proportion of progressive and retrogressive organs in the
organisation of man
To understand human nature it is necessary first to give an account of
the origin of man. This question has preoccupied mankind for ages, and
for a long time it was believed that a solution of the problem was to be
found in religious dogmas. Man was regarded as being of supernatural
origin, the result of a special creation. Scientific criticism has now
shown that there are no grounds for such a conclusion.
Nearly half a century ago Darwin applied to man his discovery of the
principle of natural selection, and of the part played by that in the
origin and transmutation of species. Soon after the publication of the
“Origin of Species,” attention was given to the special case of man. In
1863 Huxley[48] gave an admirable review of the problem in his work on
“Man’s Place in Nature.” He brought forward arguments of the highest
scientific validity in support of the thesis that man is descended from
animals, and that he is a mammal most nearly related to monkeys, and
among these to the anthropoid apes. In spite of this masterly
exposition, there are still persons of high intelligence and superior
education who declare that science has not yet answered the question as
to whence he came, and that the theory of evolution will never provide
an answer.[49] Close examination of the structure of man has proved, in
the most definite fashion, the existence of a near kinship with the
higher monkeys, or anthropoids. When the chimpanzee and the
ourang-outang were discovered, comparison became inevitable, and many
naturalists, including the great Linnæus, saw that the human race must
find its place in classification near the anthropoids.
Now that all the details of the human organisation have been studied,
and the anatomical structures of man and large monkeys without tails
have been compared, bone with bone and muscle with muscle, a truly
astonishing analogy between these organisms is made manifest, an analogy
apparent in every detail. It is known that in the natural history of
mammals the teeth play an important part as a means of determining
differences and relationships. The dentition of man bears a very great
resemblance to that of anthropoids. Every one knows the _milk teeth_ and
the _permanent teeth_ of man. The anthropoid apes bear in this respect
an astonishing likeness to man. The number (thirty-two in the adult),
the form and general arrangement of the crown, are identical in man and
anthropoid apes. The differences are to be found only in minor details,
such as the exact shape and relative dimensions and the number of cusps.
It can be said in a general way that in the anthropoid apes the teeth
are more strongly developed than in man. The canines are much longer and
the roots of the pre-molars are more complex in the gorilla than in man.
But the fact must not be lost sight of, that all these differences are
less pronounced than those which exist between the dentition of
anthropoid apes and that of all other monkeys. Even in the cynocephalous
monkeys, those that most nearly approach the anthropoids, the teeth
exhibit marked differences. Thus, the forms of the upper molars are
quite different in the baboon and in the gorilla. The canines are
longer, and the pre-molars and molars are still more complex in the
baboon.
In the monkeys of the New World, the dentition differs still more from
that of man and anthropoids. Instead of thirty-two teeth, they possess
thirty-six in the adult condition. The number of pre-molars is twelve
instead of eight. The general form and the crowns of the molars are very
different from those of anthropoid apes.
These considerations led Huxley to conclude that “it is obvious that,
greatly as the dentition of the highest ape differs from that of man, it
differs far more widely from that of the lower and lowest apes.”[50]
Another character which shows that anthropoids are nearer man than other
monkeys is furnished by the anatomy of the sacrum. In monkeys as a whole
the sacrum is composed of three, or rarely four, vertebræ, while in
anthropoid apes it contains five, that is to say just as many as in man.
The whole skeleton, and particularly the skull of man, and the higher
monkeys, present certainly some marked differences; but here again the
differences are less than those between the anthropoid apes and other
monkeys. As regards the osteology the proposition laid down by Huxley is
just. “So that, for the skull, no less than for the skeleton in general,
the proposition holds good, that the differences between man and the
gorilla are of smaller value than those between the gorilla and some
other apes.”[51]
The believers in the doctrine that the human species is essentially
distinct from all the known monkeys have laid great stress on the
difference between the foot of man and that of anthropoid apes. This
difference cannot be denied. Man assumes the direct posture habitually,
while monkeys, even the highest of them, walk on two legs only
occasionally. There has followed from this a greater development of the
feet in monkeys. Yet this difference ought not to be exaggerated. It has
been sought to prove that monkeys are “quadrumanous,” and that their
hind legs terminate in “hind-hands.” But it is clearly shown that in all
essential respects the hinder limb of the gorilla terminates in as true
a foot as that of man.[52] “The hind limb of the gorilla, therefore,
ends in a true foot, with a very movable great toe. It is a prehensile
foot, indeed, but is in no sense a hand; it is a foot which differs from
that of man not in any fundamental character, but in mere proportions,
in the degree of mobility, and in the secondary arrangement of its
parts.”[53]
In all these cases the argument is confirmed, “that be the differences
between the hand and foot of man and those of the gorilla what they may,
the differences between those of the gorilla and those of the lower apes
are much greater.”[54]
The comparison of muscles and of other internal organs leads to the same
conclusion; the differences between monkeys are more varied and greater
than those between anthropoids and man. The anatomy of the brain has
been much discussed with regard to this. Several distinguished
zoologists, amongst them Owen in particular, have insisted on the
absence in all monkeys of certain parts of the brain peculiarly
characteristic of man. Such are the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu,
and the lesser hippocampus. Controversy on this topic has been animated;
but, ultimately, the opinion of Owen did not triumph, and now it is
unanimously accepted that the parts of the brain in question are
“precisely those structures which are the most marked cerebral
characters common to man with the apes. They are among the most
distinctly simian peculiarities which the human organism exhibits.”[55]
[Illustration:
FIG. 6.—Cæcum and vermiform appendage of man (after Ewald).
]
As regards the brain, the differences between man and anthropoid apes
are certainly less marked than those that exist between the higher and
lower monkeys.
The digestive tract affords another argument in favour of the affinity
of anthropoid apes to man. The human cæcum is furnished with the very
remarkable and strange vermiform appendage which often is the cause of a
grave and prevalent illness known as _appendicitis_. Now, it is quite
remarkable that this organ is practically identical with the vermiform
appendage of anthropoid apes. A glance at the accompanying figures (6
and 7) will convince the reader of this. Yet none of the other monkeys
present any such resemblance with man.
[Illustration:
FIG. 7.—Cæcum and vermiform appendage of the chimpanzee (from a
preparation in the Paris Museum of Natural History).
]
It is not surprising, in the face of resemblances so numerous, that
forty years’ science has proclaimed the existence of a close affinity
between man and the anthropoid apes. The view has become an established
doctrine, now that no single fact has been brought against it. Since the
theory was enunciated we have learned much regarding the natural history
of these apes. Generally, when a theory is false, a new set of facts
overthrows it. Attempts may be made to trim the new facts to the
existing theory, but such attempts are doomed to failure, and the theory
disappears. It is of special interest, then, to confront the simian
theory of the origin of man with a series of facts gathered by science
since the theory was propounded.
When Huxley wrote, the embryological history of anthropoid apes was
practically unknown. Darwin, Vogt, and Haeckel, in their attempts to
support the theory of the animal origin of man, had not sufficient
knowledge of the embryology of monkeys. It is only recently that
important work on this subject has been published.
It is known that the history of development is very often an excellent
guide in tracing the relationship of organisms. It is therefore
interesting to examine the established facts concerning the embryology
of anthropoid apes. The material for these studies is very difficult to
obtain, and it is not astonishing that even our present state of
knowledge is still imperfect.
[Illustration:
FIG. 8.—Fœtus of gibbon (after Selenka).
]
The placenta often gives information of great importance in the
classification of mammals. It is sufficient to glance at the zonary
placenta of dogs and seals to be convinced of the relationship of these
two species, which at first sight seem so different. Now, the placentas
of all the anthropoid apes examined up to the present are of the same
discoid type as that of man. The arrangement of the umbilical cord of
man, which was formerly considered as quite peculiar to him, is found in
anthropoid apes, as has been established by Deniker[56] and Selenka[57]
It is striking that the anthropoids resemble man rather than the lower
monkeys in the relation of the fœtus to the fœtal membranes.
[Illustration:
FIG. 9.—Human fœtus of three months and a half.
]
With regard to the embryos themselves, the similarity between those of
monkeys and of man is very great. Selenka insists on the fact that the
youngest stages of human development that have been obtained can hardly
be distinguished from those of the lower monkeys either in position or
in shape. More advanced stages exhibit greater differentiation, and the
later embryos of man resemble those of anthropoids much more closely
than those of the lower monkeys. The fœtus of the gibbon, figured by
Selenka (Fig. 8), presents the most striking likeness to a corresponding
human fœtus (Fig. 9).
Later on, the characters that distinguish man from even the highest of
the apes become more and more pronounced. In the anthropoids the facial
portion becomes more and more prominent, and betrays a bestiality absent
from the human form. None the less the resemblance between the nearly
mature fœtus of anthropoids and human embryos of about the sixth month
is evident enough. M. Deniker had the good fortune to obtain the late
fœtus of a gorilla—a very rare piece of fortune—and he has made an
elaborate investigation of its structure. The general appearance (Fig.
10) is quite enough to show the close relationship with a human fœtus of
a corresponding age (Fig. 11). It is plain, moreover, that the young
gorilla is more human-like than is the adult. Detailed anatomical
investigation only confirms this conclusion.
The skulls of the young stages of anthropoids are much more human in
their character than the adult skulls. Selenka states that such young
skulls of different anthropoids not only resemble one another more
closely, but are more human. As soon as the teeth begin to appear, the
individual characters are assumed so rapidly, and become so marked,
that, in the absence of the intermediate stages, it would be difficult
to establish the kinships.
The data derived from embryology do not point to any one of the existing
genera of monkeys as the ancestor of man. They lead us to infer, rather,
that man and the anthropoid apes had a common origin, and
palæontological evidence must be scanned to find this ancestor. The
greatest importance has been attached to a discovery in Java, made in
1894 by Eugène Dubois. The remains, consisting of the crown of a skull,
two teeth and a femur, belonging to a creature for which the name
_Pithecanthropus erectus_[58] has been invented, have been interpreted
by several anatomists as those of a form intermediate between man and
the anthropoid apes. However, as the facts about this creature are
meagre and have been interpreted differently, I shall not make use of
them in my argument. Even apart from them, the simian origin of man may
be taken as proved.
The series of facts that I have been employing as evidence of the
relationship between men and anthropoid apes has been drawn from the
observations of anatomists and embryologists. Darwin, seeking to broaden
the basis of the argument, called attention to the resemblances of the
parasites of men and apes, as evidence of a close similarity of
physiological processes in the creatures. In the last few years,
investigations in a very different field seem capable of throwing a
novel light on the question.
When the blood of one mammal is injected into the body of another, the
latter shows remarkable modifications. When there is added to a serum,
prepared from the blood of a rabbit and consisting of a colourless
transparent liquid, a few drops of blood drawn from another rodent (for
instance a guinea-pig), nothing unusual happens. The blood of the
guinea-pig preserves its normal colour, and its corpuscles remain
practically unaltered. If, instead of adding guinea-pig’s blood to the
serum of rabbit’s blood, we add a serum drawn from the blood of the
guinea-pig, still no special change occurs.
[Illustration:
FIG. 10.—Fœtus of gorilla (after Deniker).
]
If, however, a serum be prepared from the blood of a rabbit into which
there had first been injected the blood of a guinea-pig, the serum shows
new and striking qualities. The addition to it of some drops of
guinea-pig’s blood brings about, in a very short time, a changed
appearance. The red liquid, at first opaque, becomes transparent. The
mixture of the prepared serum of the rabbit with the blood of the
guinea-pig will assume the colour of claret mixed with water. The change
is due to solution of the red corpuscles of the guinea-pig in the blood
serum of the rabbit.
[Illustration:
FIG. 11.—Human fœtus of about five months.
]
This serum has still another property not less worthy of attention. If
there is added to it not pure blood but only blood serum of the
guinea-pig, a disturbance in the mixture occurs almost at once, and
leads to the forming of a precipitate more or less abundant.
The injection of the blood of the guinea-pig into a rabbit has therefore
changed the serum of the latter by introducing new properties: that of
dissolving the red corpuscles of the guinea-pig and of giving a
precipitate with the blood serum of the same animal.
Frequently the blood serum of animals prepared by previous injections of
the blood of other species of animals is strictly specific. In such
cases the serum only gives a precipitate with the serum of the species
which has furnished the blood for the injections, and only dissolves the
red corpuscles of this same species. But there are some instances in
which a serum of a prepared animal dissolves, not only the red
corpuscles of the species which has furnished the injected blood, but
those of allied species. Thus the blood serum of the rabbit, after some
injections of blood of the chicken, becomes capable of dissolving not
only the red corpuscles of the chicken but also those of the pigeon,
although in a less degree.
It has been suggested that assistance could be rendered to forensic
medicine by making use of this property of serums, to discover the
origin of a certain blood. As is well known, it is often very important
to decide whether a stain was caused by the blood of man or of another
animal. Until quite recently it was not known how to distinguish human
blood from that of other mammals. Experiments have been made to discover
if the red corpuscles found in the blood stain could be dissolved by the
serum of animals which had previously been injected with the blood of
man. In a certain case the human origin of the stain in question was
shown. But it was soon discovered that this method was not infallible.
It is now found that the method of precipitates gives much more
conclusive results. It is done in this way: Human blood is injected
several times into any animal (rabbit, dog, sheep, horse). Some time
afterwards the animal is bled, and a clear and limpid serum, quite
devoid of corpuscles, is prepared. When there is added to this serum one
or several drops of human serum, it forms immediately a precipitate
which falls to the bottom. In this way it is discovered whether the
prepared serum is sufficiently active. It then becomes possible to
recognise even dried human blood. A little of such blood is dissolved in
normal salt solution, and placed in a tube containing the serum of an
animal prepared by means of the injections of human blood. If a
precipitate forms in the liquid in a short time, the fact indicates that
the stain is really human blood. This method is being practised in
forensic medicine.
This reaction is of great interest to us because it is of assistance in
revealing the relationship between species. The serum of an animal
prepared with the blood of the fowl gives a precipitate, not only with
the serum of the fowl itself, but also with that of the pigeon; on the
other hand, it remains undisturbed when the serum of mammals is added.
The reaction indicates then that there is a sufficiently marked degree
of relationship between the fowl and the pigeon. Here is another
example: the serum of an animal prepared with the blood of an ox gives
an abundant precipitate when there is added to it a little blood serum
of the ox, but it does not produce this reaction with the serum of any
of the other mammals, not even with that of the sheep, stag and
deer.[59] The relationship between the _Bovidæ_ and these other
ruminants is then not so close as that between the fowl and the pigeon.
How does the serum of animals which has been injected with human blood
behave? The serum capable of giving a precipitate with human serum does
not produce the same reaction except with the serum of some monkeys (the
small _Papio_).[60]
Gruenbaum, of Liverpool,[61] has been fortunate enough to procure a
considerable quantity of the blood of three large anthropoid apes—the
gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang-outang. He has been able to prove that
the serum of animals injected with man’s blood gives a precipitate not
only with this blood but also with that of the above-mentioned apes. It
was impossible for him “to distinguish this precipitate as regards
quality and quantity from that which is obtained with human blood.”
To verify this result, Gruenbaum prepared the serum of animals injected
with the blood of the gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang-outang. These
three kinds of serum gave precipitates with the blood of these three
apes, and to the same extent with the blood of man. It is therefore
evident that there exists between the human species and the anthropoid
apes not only a superficial analogy of body and of the principal organs,
but a close blood relationship.
Facts of this kind could not be foreseen when the theory of the simian
origin of man was put forward. In spite of this they have arisen to
confirm it in a truly astonishing way.
It is therefore impossible to doubt that man is a member of the group of
primates having a close connection with the higher monkeys of the
present time. This result is of great importance in all questions
relating to human nature.
It would certainly be of considerable interest to know more exactly what
steps were followed in this simian descent of man. On this question our
knowledge is still very imperfect. In his researches on anthropoid apes,
Selenka insists on a more intimate relationship between the chimpanzee
and man. “The great resemblance of the pre-molars and of the molars in
the permanent dentition of the chimpanzee with human teeth appears to
indicate that the chimpanzee and man have a common origin, and descend
from extinct forms like _Dryopithecus_. This conclusion, however, is
contradicted by the fact that the milk teeth of the chimpanzee are much
nearer those of the ourang-outang than those of man.”[62]
It is evident that to clear up this question it would be necessary to
have a greater knowledge of fossil anthropoids such as _Dryopithecus_
and its allies. In the present state of knowledge only a very general
hypothesis can be formulated as to the exact mode of human descent.
We have already shown that the fœtus of man and of the anthropoid
monkeys resemble each other much more than the adult forms, and that the
young of these apes also bear a greater likeness to man than do the
adults. The great development of the skull as compared with the face is
characteristic of young monkeys and of man young or old. The jaws
continue to develop in the anthropoids, while in man there occurs in
this respect a certain arrest of development. The hairs, so small in
man, also show a similar arrest. Generally they remain during the whole
life in a state of incomplete development. It is especially on the back
of man that this feeble development of hairs occurs. As this part of the
body in monkeys, on the contrary, is much more hairy than the under
surface, it has been held to constitute an essential difference between
man and monkeys. But embryological study enables us to settle this
apparent contradiction. The fœtus of the gorilla examined by M. Deniker
possessed an almost entirely smooth back. “The fœtus had true hairs only
on the head, the anterior surface, and around the lips and the genital
organs, and the eyelashes and eyebrows. The remainder of the body was
smooth or covered with down not exceeding a millimetre in length.”[63]
The skin of the under surface, smooth around the navel, was covered with
small hairs more thickly than on the back. The abundance of hairs on the
posterior aspect of the body of monkeys is a later acquisition, which
develops but tardily during fœtal life.
As regards the distribution of these hairs man resembles much more the
embryos of monkeys than adult monkeys. This fact, instead of shaking the
theory of relationship between man and apes, gives us strong evidence as
to the mode of his descent. Putting the known facts together, we may
infer that man is a case of the arrested development of some simian of
ancient days, as it were, a simian monster from the zoological point of
view, although not from the æsthetic. Man may be regarded as a prodigy
sprung from an ape, born with a larger brain and an intelligence more
highly developed than occurred in his parents. Such a view is in
accordance with known facts.
It must be admitted that certain kinds of organisms, instead of evolving
at a very slow pace, spring up suddenly, and that in such a case nature
proceeds with a considerable stride. Darwin foresaw this possibility,
but it has been made plain to us by the remarkable researches of the
botanist Hugo de Vries.[64]
De Vries cultivated for fifteen years the Evening Primrose, a plant of
American origin (_Œnothera lamarckiana_). He obtained, suddenly, a set
of flowers quite distinct from those of the original plant. They
presented such great differences that he could separate them as several
quite distinct species. During the first few years De Vries obtained
three species (_Œnotera lata_, _Œn. nanella_, and sometimes _Œn.
scintillans_), but variation becoming more and more prevalent, he
ultimately distinguished a dozen new species. These were grown from
seed, and transmitted their specific characters to their descendants. De
Vries, in this way, was a witness of the sudden appearance of new
species.
It is probable that man owes his origin to a similar phenomenon. Some
anthropoid ape having at a certain period become varied in specific
characters, produced offspring endowed with new properties. The brain,
of abnormal size, placed in a spacious cranium, allowed a rapid
development of intellectual faculties much more advanced than those of
the parent and those of the original species. This peculiarity would be
transmitted to the descendants, and, as it was of very considerable
advantage in the struggle for existence, the new race would hold its
own, propagate and prevail. The extraordinary development of
intelligence necessarily led to perfections in the choice of
nourishment, perfections which approached the art of preparing more
digestible food. The jaws, under these conditions, had not such a
difficult task as before, and, moreover, they were no longer required
for attack or defence. They became less developed than in the true
anthropoid apes.
These suggestions involve a conception of the mind that is in harmony
with known facts. From time to time prodigies are born with some talent
far greater than the gifts possessed by the parents.
About twelve years ago a young native of Piedmont, Jacques Inaudi by
name, became famous in Paris on account of his extraordinary power of
calculation. He had an astonishing memory for figures, and could perform
mathematical calculations with surprising rapidity.[65] Two minutes were
sufficient for him to multiply two numbers composed of seven and six
figures. Other arithmetical calculations, such as the extraction of
roots, gave him but little trouble.
To attain this result, Inaudi made use of his extraordinary memory for
figures, founded on the persistence of auditory images. When he heard
the numbers pronounced, he remembered them. Inaudi declared to the
Commission convened by the Academy of Sciences, that when he tried to
recall the numbers he heard them as if repeated aloud, in the tone of
his own voice, and that he could hear them for the greater part of the
day. “In an hour, or in two hours’ time, if I thought of the number that
was uttered, I should be able to repeat it as exactly as I have done
before the Commission.”
Now this very extraordinary and rare auditory memory was developed in an
altogether abrupt way. Inaudi, the son of poor peasants of Piedmont,
passed the first years of his life as a shepherd. At the age of six his
wonderful faculty of calculating figures appeared. He did not know at
this time how to read or to write. At eleven years of age he astonished
the members of the Anthropological Society of Paris by his phenomenal
memory, and it was only much later, at the age of twenty, that he learnt
to read and write. Neither of the parents of Inaudi had shown in the
slightest degree a calculating faculty like that of little Jacques. It
must then be admitted that it was developed as suddenly as the new
qualities in the Evening Primrose that we have already mentioned.
The first men, also, were probably ingenious children, born of
anthropoid parents. This hypothesis very well explains the fact that man
is more like the fœtus and the young of anthropoid apes than the adult
animals, and exhibits only a trace of many organs which are much more
developed in simian species.
A very distinguished German anatomist, Wiedersheim,[66] has given in a
pamphlet a _resumé_ of our actual knowledge of the organs of man from
the point of view of their descent. He has found fifteen organs which
show in the human species a considerable advance on those of anthropoid
apes. The chief of these are the lower limb, well adapted for a constant
erect carriage of the body; the strengthening of the pelvis and of the
sacrum, as well as the broadening of the more slender pelvis of the
female; the curvature of the lumbar part of the vertebral column; the
development of the buttocks and of the calves; the difference of certain
muscles of the face; the nose; certain strands from the brain to the
spinal cord; the occipital lobe of the brain; the greater development of
the cerebral cortex, and, lastly, the considerable differentiation of
the muscles of the larynx which permit speech.
But besides these progressive organs, Wiedersheim has counted seventeen
decaying organs, still able to fulfil their physiological function in a
more or less incomplete manner (amongst these are the decadent muscles
of the leg and foot; the eleventh and twelfth pairs of ribs, the toes,
the cæcum, etc.), and not less than one hundred and seven rudimentary
organs which serve no useful physiological purpose (to this category
belong the coccyx—the vestige of a tail—the thirteenth pair of ribs in
the adult, the muscles of the ear, the vermiform appendage, etc.).
We have already shown in the preceding chapter the great importance of
rudimentary organs as aids to the tracing of the genealogy of organisms.
These organs, useless at present, are the vestiges of similar but more
developed organs, which fulfilled a useful function in our ancestors.
The extraordinary quantity of rudimentary organs in man furnishes
another proof of his animal origin, and puts at the disposal of science
information of great value for the philosophic conception of human
nature.
CHAPTER IV
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF MAN
Perfection of the human form—The covering of hair—The dentition in
general and the wisdom teeth—The vermiform appendage—Appendicitis and
its gravity—Uselessness of the cæcum and of the large
intestine—Instance of a woman without a large intestine—Ancestral
history of this portion of the digestive tract—Injurious effect of the
microbes of the large intestine—Frequency of cancer of the large
intestine and of the stomach—Limited usefulness of the stomach—The
instinct of choice of food—Futility of this instinct in man
Although he is a recent arrival on the earth, man has made great
progress as compared with his ancestors, the anthropoid apes. A
comparison between even the lower races of man, such as the Hottentots
or the aborigines of Australia and higher types such as the inhabitants
of Europe and of North Africa, shows that a very great advance has been
made.
Human art has been able to surpass nature in many instances. No natural
sound is so perfect as some of the more beautiful pieces of modern
music. Even in the production of form, man has triumphed over nature.
Breeders of flowers or of birds seek to produce new varieties. With this
object they often frame a conception of what they desire to produce,
and, so to speak, set about to realise their programme. They prepare
ideal images to serve them as guides in the process of production. By
the method of artificial selection they often succeed in their wishes,
and add to their collections some remarkable form. In such fashions
aviculture and horticulture have produced birds and flowers more
beautiful than any found in nature.
In regard to the human body, attempts have been made to surpass nature
and to represent a body corresponding to an artistic ideal. To arrive at
something more beautiful than man, the wings of birds or the characters
of some other creatures have been added to his presentment. Such
attempts have had no other result than to show that the human form, as
created by nature, cannot be surpassed. The ancient conception of the
human body as the artistic ideal has been fully justified. The views of
those religious fanatics who have thrown contempt on the body by
representing it in degraded forms, must be rejected.
It is impossible, however, to apply this result to our conception of the
nature of man in general. The beautiful form of the human body appears
only in youth and in maturity. In old age, the bodies of men and women
are generally ugly, and in extreme old age it is almost impossible to
see the traces of former beauty.
Nor can conceptions of perfection drawn from the human face and body be
extended to the whole of man’s organisation. A glance at some of the
organic systems will make this plain.
The human skin is covered with little hairs, the history of which is
interesting. In one stage of embryonic life nearly the whole of the body
is clad with hairs. This covering is known as the _lanugo_, and consists
of strands of hair, disposed very regularly all over the body, save on
the nose and the hands and feet. There is no doubt but that this is
functionless, and is no more than an inheritance from the old ape-like
condition. Later on, it falls out and is replaced by the ordinary downy
covering of the body. In adult life, and particularly in old age, the
hairs of the second coat tend to grow very long and so to form a
covering that is neither beautiful nor in the least degree useful. We
may take this as a first example of a disharmonious condition in the
human body. Hairs, incapable of protecting the body from cold, survive
merely as an ancestral relic and may become even harmful.
The human skin is constantly exposed to the microbes in dust; and the
follicles of the hairs, in which these microbes lodge, form receptacles
very favourable to their multiplication. In the hollows of the
follicles, certain microbes, as for instance some of the
_Staphylococci_, multiply rapidly and give rise to acne and to pimples.
The process may even go the length of producing a chronic skin-disease
very unpleasant and even dangerous if it be associated with suppuration.
In the human race, intelligence, that is to say, the activity of the
brain, supplants many other functions, and man is able to protect
himself against the inclemencies of weather much better than his furry
ancestors were capable of doing. He is able to do this through his
invention of clothing which may be varied with the nature of the
weather. But the obstinate laws of inheritance burden him with a
covering of hair, not only useless but frequently harmful. And this is
only one example among many.
Although, in an extreme case, man is able to survive the total loss of
the teeth, it cannot yet be said that teeth are useless or harmful. None
the less, a study of the human dentition reveals that this set of organs
is out of harmony with the fundamental needs of our race. The monkeys of
the old world (_Catarrhines_), although they belong obviously to the
brute creation, already exhibit a tendency to reduction in the number of
teeth. While American monkeys (_Platyrrhines_) may possess thirty-six
teeth, the old world forms do not possess more than thirty-two in all,
at least as a normal occurrence. Selenka[67] has shown that among
gorillas and ourangs individuals with a fourth pair of molars, bringing
up the number of teeth to thirty-six, are not rare. He found these
additional molars in 20 per cent. of one hundred and ninety-four adult
skulls of ourangs. On the other hand, in the cases of the chimpanzee and
the gibbon, the third pair of molars differ from the others in smaller
size and occasional absence. This reduction is to be associated with the
smaller jaws and less powerful mastication of these anthropoids.
Cases of supplementary molars are very rare in man, and occur more
frequently in the lower races, such as negroes, Australians, and natives
of New Caledonia.[68] On the other hand, absence of the third pair of
molars, that is to say, of the wisdom teeth, is quite frequent,
especially in the white races. Nearly 10 per cent. of Europeans
throughout their lives have no more than twenty-eight teeth, the wisdom
teeth being absent. This absence is more common in the upper jaw, where
it occurs in from 18 to 19 per cent. of men. The loss of the wisdom
teeth[69] is on the whole to be regarded as an advantage. Certainly from
the “physiological point of view the part played by the wisdom teeth is
subordinate. Their power of masticating is feeble; the loss does not
appreciably interfere with mastication. The complete absence of all four
has no influence on mastication.”[70] These teeth are cut very late,
often not appearing until the thirtieth year and sometimes being delayed
to extreme old age.
Even if they were only useless, the wisdom teeth would furnish an
instance of disharmony in the human body. But these teeth often are a
source of trouble which, although it is not often serious, may lead to
grave diseases and even to death. No other teeth are so subject to
accident. This is due partly to the slowness with which they develop and
to the difficulty they encounter in cutting the mucous membrane. Dental
caries, moreover, is specially frequent in them.[71] The membrane
surrounding them is specially subject to small lesions by which the
infection spreads to adjacent parts. Inflammatory conditions frequently
arise from these teeth, and tumours, caries of the jaw-bone and even
diffused suppuration, leading to death, may be sequelæ of wounds of the
wisdom teeth. Galippe[72] has described a case in which one of these
teeth, failing to cut the gum in the normal position, made its way
through the cheek. This produced an inflammatory suppuration of the
cheek with numerous fistulæ and an inflammation of the masseter muscle
which made it impossible for the mouth to open. Notwithstanding the
extraction of the wisdom tooth that had been the cause of all these
troubles, the patient died of meningitis, which had started from the
tooth. Other cases have been described in which a difficult eruption of
the tooth led to formation of an abscess in the bone, from which there
arose a fatal abscess of the brain.
Wisdom teeth may be the starting-point even of cancerous tumours.
Magitot[73] writes that very many neoplasms of the jaw may be traced to
a source of origin in the socket of the wisdom tooth.
There is no useful function of these teeth to set against their
disadvantages. It was our remote ancestors, masticating hard food, that
had the advantages of these additional teeth. In man they are
rudimentary organs, and provide another proof of our simian origin.
The cæcal or vermiform appendage is another rudimentary organ in the
human body, and is interesting from many points of view. I have already
referred to its importance as definite evidence of our origin from lower
animals, and shown how striking is the resemblance of the human organ to
that of the anthropoid apes. It consists of a thick wall, containing
glands, a muscular layer and lymphoid clumps. That it performs no
function useful to man is made clear by the existence of undisturbed
health in persons from whom it has been removed. Thanks to the advances
of modern surgery, this organ has been removed very often, and sometimes
even in cases where it did not appear to have been diseased. In a great
majority of the cases, the removal of the organ succeeded well, and the
patients experienced no harm, but appeared to carry on all the processes
of digestion with equal completeness.
On the other hand, the cæcal appendage in man is frequently obliterated,
there being no trace of the normal aperture, so that there is no
connection between it and the general digestive cavity. According to
Ribbert,[74] nearly one person in four possesses the appendage in an
obliterated condition, the condition being particularly frequent in the
aged. In young persons and infants the aperture of the appendage is
usually open. In cases where there is no communication with the cavity
of the digestive tract, the processes of digestion appear to be normal.
It is logical to conclude that in the human being the function of the
cæcum is either absent or very slight.
Even in the anthropoid apes the appendage of the cæcum appears to be a
rudimentary structure, with a function at most accessory to that of the
lymphoid clumps. In lower old world monkeys the vermiform appendage does
not usually exist, cases such as that of _Cercopithecus sabaeus_, in
which it is present as a little boss, being rare. It is necessary to
seek the purpose of this structure still lower in the scale of life. In
some herbivorous creatures the cæcum is large, and ends in a portion
richly provided with lymphoid tissue, and similar to the vermiform
appendage. The rabbit and certain marsupials are good examples.
Undoubtedly, in their cases, the portion of the digestive canal which
corresponds to the vermiform appendage of man is active in the digestion
of vegetable matter. The organ is a very old part of the constitution of
mammals, and it is because it has been preserved long after its function
has disappeared that we find it occurring in the body of man.
Rudimentary organs for the most part display a congenital lack of the
power of resistance, and, as Darwin suggested, for this reason they are
frequently the seats of disease. When Darwin wrote his work on the
“Descent of Man,” more than a quarter of a century ago, many fatal cases
of inflammation of the appendage had not been recorded. Darwin quoted
only two cases as known to him. Since then, appendicitis (the name given
by American surgeons to the first acute or to the chronic inflammation
of the appendage) has become a well-known disease in Europe and America,
and occupies considerable space in treatises on the pathology of the
digestive tract.
To give an idea of the prevalence of appendicitis, I may mention that in
a single Paris hospital (Hôpital Trousseau) four hundred and forty-three
cases of the disease have been treated in the five years 1895–1899.[75]
In many of these cases the subjects were infants, as these as a rule are
much more subject to appendicitis than are the aged. According to
Treves,[76] the well-known English surgeon, 36 per cent. of the observed
cases were under twenty years of age. Among old men, on the other hand,
appendicitis is a rare exception. The varying incidence of the disease
at different ages no doubt depends on the fact that in old age the
appendage is often obliterated. The more easy communication with the
other portion of the gut may be, the more chance there is for
inflammation to occur. As it has a muscular layer, the appendage is able
to void its fœcal contents; and a Scotch surgeon, Parker Syms,[77] has
seen an appendage that he had removed, in the act of writhing about like
an earthworm. Such movements, undoubtedly, would aid the discharge of
the contents of the cavity.
The movements of the appendage, however, are usually feeble, and thus
stagnation of the contents is common. Foreign matter is often found in
the cavity, such as the pips of fruit, seeds, hairs, thorns, and in rare
cases pins or even tin-tacks. Such bodies are capable of wounding the
inner wall of the appendage, and so giving an opportunity to the
microbes that abound in the digestive tube, with the result that
microbial infection and inflammation of the organ is produced. Often,
too, intestinal worms pass into the appendage and become the carriers of
pathogenic organisms.
Appendicitis is usually a grave disease, and is fatal in from 8 to 10
per cent. of cases. It would be difficult to find anywhere else in the
human body so flagrant a case of natural disharmony. The organ in
question may be obliterated or removed without disturbance of function,
and, moreover, in its normal condition is a frequent cause of serious
illness!
The vermiform appendage is not the only part of the digestive canal that
is out of harmony with the maintenance of life and health. The cæcum
itself, of which the appendage is only a portion, is degenerating in the
human body, as I stated in the last chapter. The human cæcum, in fact,
is very little developed in comparison with the cæcum of most
herbivorous animals, in which it is a true organ of digestion. In the
human embryo the cæcum and the appendage are relatively better developed
than they are in the adult.
Disharmony is exhibited in the human body not only by rudimentary organs
such as the wisdom teeth and the appendage, or by degenerating organs
such as the cæcum. Some very large parts of our alimentary canal must be
regarded as useless inheritances, bequeathed to us by our animal
ancestors. It is no longer rash to say that not only the rudimentary
appendage and the cæcum but the whole of the large intestine are
superfluous, and that their removal would be attended with happy
results. So far as digestion goes, the latter portion of the alimentary
tract is of little importance. Even from the point of view of absorption
of the products of digestion its importance is strictly secondary. And
so it is not astonishing to find that the removal or disappearance of
nearly the whole of the large intestine can be supported well by man.
As one result of the astonishing progress of surgery, it has been found
possible to excise certain parts of the gut, and particularly of the
large intestine. Thus, in one case, Körte[78] removed, along with part
of the small intestine, a considerable part of the large intestine,
leaving in place only the terminal portion. The patient, who underwent
eight successive abdominal operations, recovered. In the case[79] of
another patient, operated on by Wiesinger, two coils of the large
intestine (the transverse and descending colons) which were ulcerated,
were isolated from the remainder of the gut, while the upper portion of
the large intestine (the cæcum and the ascending colon) was sutured to
the rectum. In spite of these serious interferences with natural
structure, the patients recovered, and appeared to derive great
advantage from the loss of the large intestine.
I have quoted only two out of many similar cases. However, apart from
surgical evidence, there exists proof of the uselessness of the large
intestine in man. The best argument in favour of the proposition may be
drawn from the case of a woman who for thirty-seven years discharged the
waste matter from the alimentary canal through an intestinal fistula.
The latter had opened spontaneously, as the result of an abscess seated
on the right side of the abdomen. Her complaint, however, had not
prevented her from marrying, from bearing three children, nor from
pursuing an arduous calling. The person in question, who was a workwoman
in Varsovie, was examined by a surgeon, M. Ciechomski,[80] thirty-five
years after the establishment of the fistula. The surgeon proposed to
operate, hoping to restore her to the normal condition, and the woman
consented. However, when the abdominal cavity was opened, it appeared
that the large intestine had atrophied along the whole length, from the
cæcum to the rectum; the inner orifice of the fistula had passed into
the digestive tract above the cæcum, opening into the small intestine.
In the circumstances it was impossible to close the fistula, and the
surgeon had to close up the abdominal wall, leaving the patient in her
former condition. The woman recovered rapidly, and continued her usual
mode of life. She came under observation again two years later, but
since then had been lost sight of. The fact that a human being was
capable of carrying on an apparently normal life for thirty years in the
absence of a large intestine is good proof that the organ in question is
not necessary to man, although it has not yet become rudimentary. In
this case again, to find the useful stage of the structure, we have to
go to our remote ancestors.
The large intestine is much better developed in most herbivorous mammals
than it is in carnivorous forms. Although it is useless in the digestion
of animal food, it has an undisputed importance in the digestion of
vegetable matter. It has a very large calibre in herbivorous creatures,
and the voluminous cavity contains quantities of microbes which are able
to digest cellulose. As cellulose is a material that resists the
ordinary processes of digestion, it is easy to see the advantage derived
from the harbouring of the microbes. It is more than probable that in
the horse, the rabbit, and in some other mammals, that live exclusively
on grain and herbage, the large intestine is necessary for normal life.
On the other hand, the large intestine discharges a function similar to
that of the urinary bladder. The urine, which is being secreted
continuously by the kidneys, accumulates in the large reservoir provided
by the bladder. Similarly the waste matter from the processes of
digestion accumulate in the large intestine and remain there for a
longer or shorter period.
In studying the natural history of the large intestine, it striking that
this portion of the gut is well developed only among mammals. These
animals, for the most part, lead an extremely active terrestrial life.
Most of them have to move about very quickly, the predacious forms in
pursuit of their prey, the herbivorous forms to escape from their
enemies. In such a mode of life, the need to stop in order to empty the
intestines would be a serious disadvantage, and the possibility of
retaining the dejecta in a large reservoir would be very useful.[81]
Such are the causes that have determined the growth of the large
intestine among mammals. Birds, which live, so to speak, in the air, and
which do not need to arrest their locomotion in order to void their
excreta, have no large intestine. Reptiles and amphibia, although they
live a terrestrial life, do not require a voluminous large intestine,
and such is not found among them. These animals do not have a fixed
temperature; they are what we know as “cold-blooded,” and in consequence
are small eaters. Most of them are sluggish, and do not lead an active
existence like that of mammals.
In the legacy acquired by man from his animal ancestors, there occur not
only rudimentary organs that are useless or harmful, but fully developed
organs equally useless. The large intestine must be regarded as one of
the organs possessed by man and yet harmful to his health and his life.
The large intestine is the reservoir of the waste of the digestive
processes, and this waste stagnates long enough to putrefy. The products
of putrefaction are harmful. When fæcal matter is allowed to remain in
the intestine, as in cases of constipation, a common complaint, certain
products are absorbed by the organism and produce poisoning, often of a
serious nature. Every one knows that a high temperature may be the
result of constipation in women after childbirth, or in patients
recovering from an operation. This is due to an absorption of substances
produced by the microbes of the large intestine. Similar products may be
the cause of an attack of acne or of other skin diseases. In fine, the
presence of a large intestine in the human body is the cause of a series
of misfortunes. The organ is the seat of many grave diseases, among
which dysentery is notable. In some tropical climates dysentery is a
serious scourge. According to Rhey,[82] it is “the greatest danger to
which a European is subjected in Tonkin. It is responsible for more than
30 per cent. of the deaths caused by disease.” European troops pay it a
large annual toll in the colonies of the French and English.
Malignant tumours seem to display a predilection for this region of the
digestive tract. Thus, among 1148 cases of cancer of the alimentary
tract recorded in the Prussian hospitals in 1895 and 1896, 1022, or 89
per cent., affected the large intestine, including the rectum and
cæcum.[83] The small intestine is the only part of the digestive tract
that is indispensable, and it is attacked to a much smaller extent,
providing only 11 per cent. of the cases of intestinal cancer. The
probable explanation of these facts is that the contents of the gut
remain in the small intestine a shorter time than in the large.
Stagnation is a familiar cause of disease, and is the probable cause of
the frequency of cancer of the stomach. Of 10,537 cases of cancer of all
parts of the digestive tract recorded in the Prussian hospitals in the
same period, 4288, or more than 40 per cent., affected the stomach. The
latter organ is one that the human body would do well to be rid of. It
is not so useless as the large intestine, since it is the chief seat of
digestion of albuminous substances, but the small intestine could take
its place. Moreover, cases are known in which surgeons have removed
cancerous stomachs. The results of such operations were favourable, to
the extent that the patients survived and were able to absorb sufficient
nourishment. They had to eat rather more frequently, and performed the
processes of digestion by means of the secretions of the small intestine
and pancreas.
It is not surprising to find so many instances of useless or harmful
organs in the alimentary tract. Our ancestors were creatures that fed on
crude and rough materials, such as wild plants and unprepared flesh. Man
has learned to cultivate plants that are digested easily, and to prepare
his meats in such a fashion as to be readily digested. The organs that
were adapted to the mode of life of the animal predecessors of man have
become to a large extent superfluous. Many creatures that have found the
opportunity of obtaining their nutriment in a highly digestible
condition have lost, more or less completely, the digestive organs. Many
parasites are instances of this, as for example the tape-worms, which
live in the human digestive tract, bathed by a nutritive fluid which
they absorb directly; they have lost the digestive tract completely.
In the case of man such an evolution has not occurred, and there remains
in the body a harmful organ like the large intestine. In consequence, it
is impossible for him to take his nutriment in the most perfect form. If
he were only to eat substances that could be almost completely absorbed,
the large intestine would be unable to empty itself, and serious
complications would be produced. A satisfactory system of diet has to
make allowance for this, and in consequence of the structure of the
alimentary canal, has to include in the food bulky and indigestible
materials such as vegetables.
At this point I may refer to a topic of considerable general interest.
Animals, in the choice of food for themselves or for their young, are
guided by a blind and innate instinct. As I have shown in my second
chapter, creatures like the fossorial wasps select only particular
species of spiders or insects. Instinct directs them to the kind of food
best suited to the wants of their progeny. Bees are attracted by the
sweet juices of flowers; the silkworm instinctively devours the leaves
of the mulberry and rejects most other plants. In higher animals,
instinct plays the chief part in the choice of food. The difficulty of
getting rats to eat poisoned food is well known; an instinct warns them
of the danger of the material offered to them. In the same way dogs
refrain from food that has been poisoned.
Every one has seen the minute attention bestowed by a monkey on food
before beginning to eat it. It turns over what is offered, smells it
carefully, cleans it, and before beginning to eat, subjects it to an
examination that seems to us ridiculous. Monkeys often throw away food
without even biting it. None the less, in spite of an instinct so highly
developed, monkeys poison themselves with all sorts of dangerous
substances, even when these exhale a strange odour. I have seen monkeys
die poisoned by the phosphorus of matches, or even by iodoform which
they had contrived to steal.
In the case of man, aberrations of instinct in the choice of food are
common. As soon as babies begin to walk, they lay hold of everything and
try to eat it. Bits of paper, lumps of sealing-wax, the mucous matter
from the nose, all appear to them to be things to eat. Constant guard
has to be kept to prevent them from doing themselves an injury. Fruits
and berries they cannot resist. Cases of poisoning very naturally are
extremely frequent, and as every one must know of instances, I shall
mention only a single case. “Messrs. Beadle and Sons, oil manufacturers
at Boston, had thrown out, from the door of their establishment, a
quantity of castor beans that were decayed and useless. Some children
playing in the street mistook the seeds for pistachio nuts, and shared
them with their friends. All the children seem to have eaten of them,
with the result that more than seventy showed serious symptoms of
poisoning.”[84]
The consumption of ergotised rye and of maize contaminated with certain
leguminous plants (_Lathyrus_) frequently produces epidemics of
poisoning without instinct intervening to protect the victims.
While the large intestine, acting as an asylum of harmful microbes, is a
source of intoxication from within, the aberrant instinct of man leads
him to poison himself from without with alcohol and ether, opium and
morphia. The widespread results of alcoholism show plainly the prevalent
existence in man of a want of harmony between the instinct for choosing
food and the instinct of preservation.
The digestive apparatus, then, affords abundant proof of the
imperfection and disharmony of our nature. Moreover, there are many
other proofs, as I shall show in the chapters to follow.
CHAPTER V
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE
APPARATUS. DISHARMONIES IN THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL INSTINCTS
I
_Remarks on the disharmonies in the human organs of sense and
perception.—Rudimentary parts of the reproductive apparatus.—Origin and
function of the hymen_
The digestive organs are not alone amongst the parts of the human body
in exhibiting a greater or lesser disharmony. More than fifty years ago,
a great German physiologist, Johannes Müller, showed that although the
human eye was regarded as a very perfect organ, its power of correction
for aberration of light was poor. Helmholz, another famous German man of
science, stated that the optical study of the eye brought complete
disillusion. “Nature,” he said, “seems to have packed this organ with
mistakes, as if with the avowed purpose of destroying any possible
foundation for the theory that organs are adapted to their environment.”
Not only the eye, but the other organs by means of which we are
conscious of the outside world, present natural disharmony. Therein lies
the cause of our want of certainty about the sources of our perceptions.
Memory, the faculty that registers our mental processes, becomes active
much later than other faculties lodged in the brain. If the new-born
human child were relatively as well developed as the young guinea-pig,
it is probable that we should know far more as to the history of our
consciousness of the external world. But without lingering over the
disharmonies in our senses and faculties, I shall pass at once to a
consideration of the apparatus for maintaining the species.
I have shown that the alimentary tract, the chief organ involved in the
maintenance of the individual life, affords no proof of the theory that
human nature is perfect. Is it the case that the organs of reproduction
give a better result? When I wished to describe the most perfect
examples of harmony to be found amongst plants, I chose the mechanism by
which fertilisation is accomplished in flowers. The persistence of the
species is secured, in the case of flowers, by a marvellous series of
structures and functions.
Is the maintenance of the human species similarly provided for? A
detailed investigation of the male and female human reproductive organs
shows that these contain parts of diverse origin. The apparatus contains
portions of extremely ancient origin, and portions that have been
acquired recently. The internal organs display traces of a remote
hermaphroditism. In the male, there occur traces of the female
apparatus, rudiments of the uterus and fallopian tubes. In the female,
on the other hand, rudiments of the male structure persist. These traces
date very far back in the history of the race, for they occur also in
most other vertebrates. The facts seem to indicate that, at a very
remote period, the ancestral vertebrates were hermaphrodite, and that
they became divided into males and females only gradually, still
retaining in each sex traces of the other sex. Such traces occur
frequently, even in adult man, in the form of rudimentary organs (known
as the organs of Weber, of Rosenmüller, and so forth). The rudiments not
only are functionless but sometimes, as frequently happens with
atrophied structures, form the starting-point of monstrous growths, or
of tumours that interfere with health. Thus the hypertrophy of a part of
the male prostate gland (the organ of Weber) brings about the formation
of a _uterus masculinus_, and so produces a sort of abnormal
hermaphroditism. The rudimentary organs in the male reproductive
apparatus frequently are the starting-points of hydatid cysts. In the
female, cysts such as those of the _parovaria_ are produced by the
proliferation of rudimentary structures. These, although usually benign,
not infrequently become malignant. Lawson Tait,[85] a celebrated English
surgeon, has published a case of this kind. He removed from a young
woman a parovarian cyst that was apparently benign, but in six weeks
symptoms of cancer arose, and the patient died of cancer in three
months.
A comparison of the rudimentary organs in the human reproductive
apparatus with those in the similar structures of lower animals, shows
that many relics have degenerated further in man than in other animals.
Thus the duct of the embryonic kidney (known as the Wolffian body) is of
rare occurrence in adult man, although it is retained throughout life in
the case of some herbivorous animals, in which it is known as Gaertner’s
duct. There are, however, many rudimentary organs in the human
reproductive apparatus, organs that are always useless and not
infrequently more or less harmful to health and life.
Alongside organs which have been useless from time immemorial, the
reproductive system of man possesses structures of recent acquisition.
These deserve special attention, as it might have been supposed that in
them would have been found special instances of adaptation to the
reproductive function.
I have already referred (chap. iii.) to the discussions that have taken
place over the simian origin of man. All attempts to demonstrate the
presence in the human brain of parts that were absent in the simian
brain have failed. It is a curious fact that man displays a more marked
difference from monkeys in the structure of the reproductive system than
in the structure of the brain. There is no _os penis_ in man. This bone,
which facilitates intromission, occurs in many vertebrates, not only
among rodents and carnivora, which are widely separated from man, but in
many monkeys, and most notably in anthropoid apes.[86] For some reason
impossible to establish, man has lost this bone. It may be that certain
ossifications of most rare occurrence[87] may represent an atavistic
inheritance from our remote ancestors.
In the male sex the difference between man and the anthropoid ape is the
loss of an organ; in the female sex it is the acquisition of an organ.
The hymen, the physical indication of virginity, is peculiar to the
human race. That organ would serve the purpose of those disputants who
make every effort to discover the existence of a structure peculiarly
human, far better than the posterior lobe of the brain, or the
hippocampus minor. Bischoff[88] has determined its absence in the
anthropoid apes, and his result has been confirmed by other observers.
Deniker[89] failed to find it either in the fœtal gorilla or in the
young gorilla. In the case of the fœtus of the gibbon, he found a slight
elevation round the entrance to the vagina “which might be homologised
with the hymen,”[90] but which, however, was not the membrane in
question. Deniker[91] himself decided that the “membrane was absent in
anthropoid apes at all ages.” Weidersheim, in his summary of the
organisation of the human body,[92] also sets down the fact that “in
monkeys a hymen is not present.”
The fact that this structure appears late in the development of the
female fœtus bears out the supposition that it has been acquired
recently by the race. According to several observers, who agree in this
matter, the membrane does not develop until at least the nineteenth week
of fœtal life.
Although organs very ancient in origin, and now become degenerate
rudiments, may be useless, it is to be expected that an organ of recent
appearance and still in a progressive condition, would have an important
function. Of what utility is this membrane to a woman? Wiedersheim[93]
remarks that its function has not been made out.
The hymen sometimes plays a large part in family and social relations,
and, regarded as the evidence for virginity, has had moral significance
bestowed on it. A minute examination of this structure is frequently a
part of the judicial procedure in cases of supposed rape and so forth.
The destruction of the hymen has led to the death of many hundreds of
men and women.
From our point of view, however, it is the possible physiological
function of this structure that is interesting. It seems impossible to
conclude otherwise than that in existing races it has practically no
functional value. Its atrophy as the result of sexual congress not only
is no bar to sexual relations, but removes an unpleasant impediment. In
many races the structure is removed as soon as possible. In some parts
of China it is destroyed as part of the toilet of young children, and
indeed many Chinese physicians are ignorant of its existence. A similar
state of affairs occurs in some parts of India. In Brazil, among the
tribe of Machacuras, virgins, in the European sense, do not exist, for
the mothers destroy the hymen in female children soon after birth. In
Kamchatka the aborigines regard it as disgraceful to be married with the
hymen intact, and the mothers operate on their daughters.[94] Among
other races, again, the disagreeable duty of defloration is assigned to
special persons. Among the natives of the Philippines there formerly
existed well-paid public officials the duty of whom was to destroy the
virginity of the girls and so to make marriage pleasanter for the
husbands. A similar custom occurs among the inhabitants of New
Caledonia, and Moncelon states that there virginity is held in little
esteem. “I have proof of the curious circumstance,” he wrote, “that when
a husband shrinks from destroying the virginity of his wife, he employs
some one from a regular profession to take his place.”
Such examples, selected from amongst many, may be taken as proof that
even such a peculiar and recently acquired organ has not a physiological
use.
On the other hand, especially among Christians and Mahomedans, the
existence of the hymen in an intact condition is regarded as very
important. The ancient Jews began to set a high value on virginity.
According to the old Mosaic law, if, at the time of her marriage, a
young girl were found to be no longer a virgin, “Then they shall bring
out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her
city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought
folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house” (Deut. xxii.
21). The religions that have sprung from Judaism have retained this old
view of virginity, although in an attenuated form. Among some Christian
peoples, material proofs of virginity at the time of marriage are
demanded, and among some Mahomedans such proofs are exhibited to friends
and relations on the day after marriage. However, the actual defloration
is not always left to the husband, but among Arabs and Copts and amongst
the natives of Egypt, the operation is performed by a specially selected
matron.[95]
It is plain, then, that this membrane is of no direct service in the
sexual process. It may even give rise to more or less serious
misfortune. Thus, when it is unusually rigid, the adjacent peritoneum
may be torn and the results may be disastrous. Occasionally the rupture
of an abnormally vascular membrane may give rise to bleeding of a
prolonged and even fatal character.[96] Moreover the membrane is a
frequent seat of ulcers, specific or otherwise.[97]
I have already mentioned that among some races a rigorous toilet
involves the destruction of the hymen. It is plain that the existence of
the membrane interferes with strict hygiene of the vagina, especially at
the periods. Probably some blood is retained by the membrane and
furnishes a soil for microbes that may be dangerous to health. It is
quite possible that certain forms of anæmia, as for instance the
chloranæmia of virgins, may be produced by microbial growth. This would
easily explain why marriage is the readiest cure for such anæmia, as
marriage involves destruction of the membrane, and so makes possible the
complete discharge of fluid from the vagina.[98]
What then can be the meaning of this organ, useless as it is for the
sexual functions, sometimes dangerous to health, an organ that is no
ancestral heritage and that must be destroyed by the act of sexual
union? Formerly, when it was accepted that characters acquired in
individual life could be transmitted to offspring, the question was
asked as to why this membrane had not disappeared. The instance was one
of those which helped to overthrow the dogma of the inheritance of
acquired characters.
Although it is useless to existing man, this organ may yet come to be
explained by science. As yet we have to fall back on suppositions. The
hypothesis which seems most probable is that in the earlier period of
the existence of the human race, sexual relations were begun at a very
early age, before the male organs were mature. Under such circumstances
the hymen would not only not have been a barrier, but would have made
congress more satisfactory. Gradually the hymen would have become
dilated without being torn, until it was capable of admitting the adult
organ. This hypothesis implies that in early times the membrane was not
brutally torn, but that it was gradually dilated and that violent
rupture is a modern necessity. In support of the hypothesis it may be
mentioned that amongst certain living races sexual union begins at a
very early age. In Ceylon, marriage takes place when the boys are from
seven to ten years old and when the girls are from four to six years,
according to Roer, or about eight years according to Beierlein. After
the actual wedding ceremony the bride returns to the house of her
parents, and it is only a few years later, when she is adult, that she
goes to her husband. Roer states that he has seen cases where a father
and son were attending school together.
Among the Vedas, a low caste of tropical India, boys marry at the age of
from fifteen to sixteen years, certainly before the sexual organs have
attained their full dimensions. The missionary Etern was struck with the
agitation of the natives of Keradif (in Abyssinia) when they were
ordered within fourteen days to marry all their boys more than fourteen
years old to girls more than nine.[99] In Madagascar, in the beginning
of the seventeenth century, it was the custom for boys to marry at an
age of from ten to twelve years. The natives of German New Guinea marry
their boys at the age of fourteen to fifteen. Even in England a law
still exists permitting marriage to boys fourteen years old. The law is
now a dead letter, but is evidence of the ancient practice.
It is known that even at the present time the hymen is not always
ruptured in sexual congress. Budin has recorded its existence in
seventeen per cent. of primiparous women. Among seventy-five cases of
women in their first confinements he found the hymen intact in thirteen
cases. Since provision for children has fallen on fathers these have
taken to deferring marriage to a later age than when children were left
to the mother. That is the probable reason why there are now fewer
married boys. Thus, formerly, the proportion of women who at the first
childbirth still possessed unruptured hymens, was much greater, and it
is not difficult to suppose that in still earlier times such a condition
was normal. It is plain that there is here an instance of a very
recently acquired disharmony.
The homology between certain portions of the male and female
reproductive apparatus is well known. The male homologue of the female
hymen is a little fold that hinders the mingling of urine with the
seminal fluid during emission, and that is known to anatomists as the
_caput gallinaginis_ or _colliculus seminalis_. It is very much smaller
than the hymen, so that we cannot regard the latter as a rudimentary
homologue of a useful organ. However, the prepuce of the male is a clear
instance of the presence in the male organs of useless parts. It is
removed by circumcision among very many races, such as the Hebrews and
Arabs, and other Mahomedans, and amongst Persians, negroes, Hindus,
Tartars, and its absence seems to bring about no inconvenience.
II
_Evolution and significance of the menstrual flow in women.—Precocious
marriage among primitive and uncivilised races.—Disharmony between age
of puberty and age of nubility.—Age of marriage.—Examples of disharmony
in the development of the reproductive function._
Notwithstanding their imperfections, the human organs of reproduction
are able to fulfil their functions. A close scrutiny, however, shows
that there are many sides on which they are disharmonious or badly
adapted.
The occurrence of bleeding is usually a sign of disease. Bleeding from
the nose or of the lungs or intestines or kidneys is an indication of
disease more or less serious. Discharge of blood from the female
reproductive organs may also be an indication of disease, as for
instance when due to tumours of the uterus. The only exception to the
rule is the periodic flow in the case of women, by which they lose
hundreds of grammes of blood (100 to 600 gr.). There is something
paradoxical in such a physiological occurrence, and it deserves minute
consideration.
These periodic losses, unlike the possession of a hymen, are not a
peculiarity of the human female. “Heat” in lower animals is analogous,
although in that case the chief indications are swellings of the mucous
membrane with a slight discharge of fluid, hardly tinged with blood. The
state indicates the awakening of the sexual instinct and readiness for
coition.[100] Among monkeys there has been observed a flow much more
closely resembling that of woman. In the case of macaques and
cercopitheci, it has been observed even that the flow is monthly.
Heape,[101] while in British India, took advantage of a valuable
opportunity for making observations on this subject.
Among two hundred and thirty females of _Macacus rhesus_ of which the
greater number were adult or nearly so, seventeen displayed signs of
menstruation, consisting of a swelling of the genitalia accompanied by
the discharge of a pale and viscid fluid. Usually the flow assumed a
pale rose tint, due to the presence in it of blood corpuscles, but cases
where it was highly coloured were rare.
Although they are distinctly analogous to the menstrual flows of women,
these occurrences in monkeys are distinguished by the predominance of
the swelling of the genitalia, the viscid character of the discharge,
and the relative absence of blood. They present a condition intermediate
between the “heat” of lower animals and the human phenomena.
In anthropoid apes a similar menstruation has been observed. Bolau,
Ehlers, and Hermes, record it in the case of the chimpanzee. “At this
period,” wrote Hartmann,[102] “swelling and reddening of the genitalia
occurred. The labiæ majores, which are usually inconspicuous, enlarged
greatly, and a similar increase took place in the labiæ minores and the
clitoris.”
In the case of women swelling of the genitalia is very slightly marked,
and the chief occurrence is the flow of blood. It is plain, then, that
something new has been acquired in the menstruation of women.
The condition of the flow at the present time is probably the result of
modifications acquired recently in the history of the race. Among
primitive peoples sexual union occurred at a very early age, and
pregnancy occurred before menstruation. The latter did not appear during
pregnancy nor in the time of suckling, and probably the latter was
hardly over before a new pregnancy had occurred. In that way there was
no opportunity for the onset of menstruation.
The human capacity for procreation throughout the year made the race
extremely prolific. Probably this prolificness is the reason why man has
spread over the surface of the earth, and has multiplied so enormously,
in spite of the barriers to his progress and the high rate of mortality
to which he is subjected.
Instances are known from recent observation of pregnancies occurring
before the onset of menstruation. According to Rhode, among the Guatos,
Indians inhabiting the mouth of the Rio Sâo Lourenzo in Paraguay,
married women not more than five to eight years of age are to be met
with, and these must have married before menstruation. Among the Vedas
of tropical India, girls marry before they are nine years of age, and
have relations with their husbands before sexual maturity. In Chiras in
Persia, girls marry before puberty, and while their chests are still
flat. In Syria, according to Robson, girls marry at the age of ten, and
so before puberty. Du Chaillu related that the Achira of West Africa did
not defer marriage until after the appearance of puberty. Abbadie, while
on his voyage in Nubia, found that men bought young girls and had sexual
relations with them before the time of menstruation. Among the Atjeh of
Sumatra, girls marry at an age certainly before that of puberty, as they
have hardly lost their first set of teeth. Although the husbands are a
few years older, they are still unfitted for sexual union. The couples
sleep together, and attempt sexual union before they are fitted for it.
Among the islanders of Viti, again, marriage takes place before puberty.
The ancient Hindoos married at a very early age. Bötlingk quotes from
the Sanscrit poems in which hell was awarded to the fathers of girls who
had not been married when puberty came on. In other verses it was
written that not only the father but also the mother and the elder
brother were to be carried down into hell if the daughter began to
menstruate before she had been married; the girl herself was to descend
to the lowest degree of Çûdrâ, and was never to be taken as a wife.
There is no doubt as to the possible fertility of marriages contracted
at these early ages. Polak[103] gives examples taken from Persia. It is
not necessary for impregnation that it should have been preceded by a
menstrual flow. Facts making this clear have occurred not only in warm
climates but in our own latitude. Rakhmanoff,[104] in Russia, attended
in childbirth a woman not more than fourteen years of age, of poor
constitution, and badly nourished, and with features still infantine.
Menstruation had not yet taken place; the confinement was normal.
It is reasonable to suppose that in former times these early marriages
of girls under the age of puberty were more common, if indeed they were
not customary. In such circumstances menstruation would have been a rare
phenomenon.
It must be remembered that the examples of menstruation observed in the
case of monkeys were taken from creatures living in abnormal conditions,
isolated in zoological gardens and passing their lives in captivity. It
is highly probable that the periods as they exist to-day, with copious
sanguineous discharge, are a recent acquisition of the human race.
As he emerged from the primitive condition man had to restrain his
prolificness. The history of savages and of civilisations shows that
progress and culture have been accompanied by a rise in the age for
marriage. In this way the menstrual periods could develop without check,
and attain the present condition. In these circumstances it is not
wonderful that menstruation should appear so abnormal and even
pathological. A copious discharge of blood, preceded and accompanied by
pain and by nervous and mental distress as so frequently happens, has no
apparent kinship with the processes of normal life.
It is now easy to see why among so many races there are special rules
made for women during this period. Most of the races of the earth, says
Ploss, regard menstruating women as impure. The occurrence is so
widespread that it is unnecessary to adduce particular cases, but a few
with some point of special interest may be noticed. Thus, among the
Hindoos a high-caste woman is regarded as a pariah in the first day of
the period, and as one of the murderers of Buddha on the second day.
Among many races a woman in this condition is forbidden to come near
men, or to touch a number of objects, as she is regarded as capable of
setting up many diseases and of doing serious damage. The Germans of the
eighteenth century believed that the hair of a menstruating woman buried
in manure would engender snakes.
It is not surprising that the origin of menstruation has been attributed
frequently to evil spirits. The Iranians held that it appeared first in
Dchahi, the goddess of immorality.[105] Such opinions implied vaguely
that there was something abnormal in the process. The history of the
evolution of menstruation explains well the origin of such a notion.
Another bizarre and apparently abnormal feature of the reproductive
processes receives explanation in the history of its evolution. The
feature in question is the painfulness of childbirth. It is truly
astonishing and singular to find a phenomenon essentially normal from
the point of view of physiology accompanied by pain of so marked a
character. No doubt other animals suffer during labour, but among the
mammalia woman undergoes the severest pain.
Observations made on several Europeans who have been brought to bed at
an abnormally early age have shown that, contrary to all expectation,
parturition was easy and the sequelæ normal.[106] Moreover, Dr. Dionij
has stated his opinion that of two cases of a first childbirth at the
ages respectively of fifteen and of forty years, he would prefer the
earlier age. The daughters of the colonists in the Antilles were
accustomed to marry at very early ages. In 1667 Du Tertre related that a
young woman of that region had informed him that the birth of her first
child took place when she was twelve years and a half of age, and that
the process lasted no more than a quarter of an hour and had been
painless. The missionary Beierlein practised for long in Madras, where
marriages were very early, and found that parturition was much more easy
than in Europe.[107]
On the other hand, certain facts show that too young mothers are subject
to a very heavy rate of mortality during childbirth, and soon after it.
The most salient fact in this connection is furnished by Hassenstein,
who has stated that the mortality of labour cases in Abyssinia is 30 per
cent., and who has attributed this death-rate to the circumstance that
marriage takes place before the body of the woman is sufficiently
developed.[108] In British India the disadvantages of precocious
marriage have been repeatedly urged; and in a petition relating to this
subject, Dr. Mansell referred to the case of a woman of twelve years of
age in whom parturition was interfered with by the undeveloped condition
of the pelvis, so that the head of the child had to be destroyed.
Matthews Duncan, the well-known English obstetrician, paid much
attention to the mortality of labour cases, with the object of deciding
the best age for marriage. He came to the conclusion that women from
twenty to twenty-four years of age were best fitted for labour, that is
to say, showed the lowest rate of mortality during labour or as a result
of labour. He also showed that such women were most fertile, and that
the development of the pelvic bones was completed at that period of
life. Women who were of a lower or higher age showed a greater mortality
rate in connection with childbirth.
The facts of which I have just given a summary lead directly to a most
striking instance of disharmony exhibited in the order of the
development of the human reproductive apparatus. Puberty declares itself
in a woman by the beginning of menstruation at a time when girls still
possess infantile characters and when the bones of the pelvic basin are
not yet fully developed. Obviously there is a disharmony between puberty
and the general maturity of the body, that is to say, the nubile
condition.
This disharmony becomes still more evident upon a closer examination of
the phases of development of the different reproductive functions. In
the human race, reproduction is brought about by the union of the sexes
suggested by sympathy or mutual love. The sexual union makes it possible
for the male elements or spermatozoa to reach the eggs and fertilise
them by passing into them. It might have been expected that the
different steps in the process would have been attuned so as to act in
harmony. As a matter of fact there is no such relation. The different
factors of the sexual function develop independently and unharmoniously.
Love and the sexual sense in the human race appear before the other
factors in the process. Ramdohr,[109] in the eighteenth century, stated
that little boys frequently exhibit amorousness towards women. They are
capable of being strongly affected by jealousy and by desire of
exclusive possession of the coveted woman. This fact is well known, and
has been related of famous personages. Thus Dante, at the age of nine,
fell in love with Beatrice; Canova was in love when he was little more
than six years of age, and Lord Byron was in love with Mary Duff at the
age of seven.[110]
Sexual excitability appears at an age when there is no question but that
the sexual elements are undeveloped. In infants still in the cradle,
observers have noticed movements and attitudes showing the presence of
sexual excitability. Curschmann and Fürbringer,[111] both competent
clinicians, have noticed these feelings in children under the age of
five. Later on in life, the development of the sensibility is more
common, and is practically universal among boys before the time at which
the spermatozoa are ripe.
This disharmony is the cause of onanism, which is common everywhere
among boys. Before ordinary sexual congress is possible for them, boys
experience the characteristic pleasure of the sexual sensations, and by
a kind of natural instinct learn self-gratification. Onanism is
sometimes defined as a “gratification of the sexual desire by unnatural
means.”[112] But it is man’s constitution itself that permits the
development of the sensation precociously, before the development of
sexual maturity. Letourneau is right when he says that such sexual
aberrations are abnormal, but not unnatural, as they occur among
animals.
In the case of young boys the habit is so common that, according to
Christian,[113] “very few are able to say that they have avoided it
completely.” The same writer asks the question: “If it be remembered
that onanism among certain peoples, at certain times, has been
recognised as an ordinary event, it is difficult to avoid asking if
there be not a latent vice, hidden in the depths of human nature, and
ready to be provoked into activity by very small causes?” The answer is
sufficiently plain. The cause of onanism, this “vice” or “crime,” as
Tissot and other authors have called it, undoubtedly is the result of a
natural disharmony in the human constitution, of a premature development
of sexual sensation. Among the most civilised races and the lowest
savages the mode of satisfying the premature demand is equally common.
It is to be noticed that onanism is more common and earlier developed in
the male sex. The development of sexual irritability in the female
occurs very irregularly. In some races onanism is so much a custom among
little girls that no attempt is made to conceal the practice. This
occurs, for instance, among certain Hottentot tribes, and is referred to
openly in talk and legends.[114] Similar instances occur elsewhere, but
in most races the practice is thought wrong, and is concealed as much as
possible.
Among girls,[115] onanism is less frequent than in the case of boys, a
circumstance in relation with the fact that sexual sensation usually
appears much later in the female sex. It is almost a general rule that
girls who have arrived at sexual maturity have not acquired sexual
irritability, while to many it comes only gradually after marriage.
Sometimes it does not occur until after the first child has been born.
On the other hand, love begins very early in young girls, although it
long retains a platonic character and is not associated with sexual
sensation until much later.
The maturity of the spermatozoa in the male comes long after the
development of sexual irritability and of love. None the less, it comes
before the organism of the male is actually ready. It happens, in
consequence, especially among the highly civilised peoples, that
marriage and regular unions are impossible at the right time. The youth
has his education to finish, his profession to choose, and he must be
ready to support children before he is able to marry. As civilisation
advances, the age of marriage becomes later and later. In the case of
Europeans, sexual maturity occurs in the male at the age of twelve to
fourteen years, while the average age at the first marriage is shown in
the following table:—
_Table of Age at First Marriage._[116]
Nationality. Age in years of males. Age in years of females.
English 25.94 24.69
French 28.41 25.32
Norwegians 28.51 26.98
Dutch 29.15 27.78
Belgians 29.94 28.19
These figures show clearly what a gap there is between the coming of
sexual maturity and the age at which marriage can be undertaken.
The decay of the reproductive functions shows a series of disharmonies
similar to those that occur during development. Spermatozoa continue to
be formed throughout the greater part of the life of a man, and may
still be found even in very old men. Pawloff, for instance, discovered
that they were present in abundance in the case of a man at the age of
ninety-four, and this observation is not unique.[117] But the presence
of ripe spermatozoa is not the only condition necessary for functional
virility. In the case of old men it happens frequently that there is
incapacity to make normal use of the spermatozoa that are produced. This
brings about a series of discomforts in the sexual functions of advanced
life which, however, do not prevent the retention of the specific
sensation and desire until a very extreme old age. Doctors, in hospitals
devoted to old men, have noticed to what an extent their patients are
engrossed by sexuality. Even some of the ancient authors have noticed
how the amorous sentiments of old men turn into a perverted attraction
to youths.
Sexual irritability and amorousness not only appear before sexual
maturity and general fitness of the organism for marriage, but they
remain after the disappearance of these. It is remarkable to notice how
profound is the difference between the disharmonies of the reproductive
functions in man and the perfect condition of adaptation of the same
functions in the higher plants. In the case of the higher plants, as I
described in my second chapter, the arrangements are complicated on
account of the necessary mediation of insect life. Notwithstanding this,
the perfection of the adaptation is remarkable. At the exact time when
the reproductive products are ripe, the petals open and the nectar is
secreted, while, in addition, at this time many flowers discharge odours
agreeable to insects. Attracted by the scents and colours, the insects
visit the flowers in quest of pollen or nectar, and, becoming dusted
with pollen, carry it to the stigmas of the next flowers they visit. As
soon as fertilisation has taken place the petals fade, the scents are no
longer produced, and the insects cease to visit the flowers to which
they are no longer necessary.
It is not surprising that the disharmonies in the human reproductive
apparatus are a frequent source of trouble. Little children, in whom
sexual irritability has awakened prematurely, learn to satisfy it by
means called “unnatural.” In many cases damage rapidly follows. “In the
child,” wrote Dr. Christian, “there is no secretion of spermatozoa, and
it is in the child that the results of onanism are most disastrous to
the organism, and disastrous almost in inverse proportion to the
age.[118] It is in early infancy that this aberration merits the evil
reputation that it has acquired; it compromises health, intelligence,
and even life. Quite young children wither, becoming pale, stupid, and
fragile, when they have acquired this disastrous habit. The evil is
almost entirely a consequence of the unripeness of the organism for
sexuality.” Happily these evil occurrences are rare.
A publication by Tissot, a Swiss doctor, on the subject of onanism, made
a sensation in the eighteenth century. The book was full of
exaggeration, and it was very inexact, but it contained interesting
confessions from persons who had contracted the habit. A woman wrote to
Tissot in the following terms: “But for the restraint of religion, I
should have put an end to my life, which is ruined by my own fault.” Not
infrequently the vice leads to melancholia.
Other unfortunate results come from the ripening of the sexual products
before the organism is ready for marriage, and before the character has
been formed. As men cannot contract marriage before they are ready for
it, irregular and frequently harmful sexual aberration may occur.
The survival of this specific irritability until too late a period of
life is another source of disaster. Old men who can neither excite
passion nor satisfy it, often become victims of their own amorousness
and unassuaged passions. It has been shown that passion may survive
after the complete atrophy of the functions of the organs. Similarly it
is the case that women from whom the ovaries have been removed, may
continue to retain sexual irritability completely.
Disharmony of sexuality may also occur between persons of different
sexes. The fact that sexuality is usually more precocious in the male
sex often produces a disharmony in the case of married persons. At the
time when a woman is still in full possession of this specific
irritability, the appetite in the man may be on the wane. From this
disharmony there often follows conjugal infidelity or passion between
persons of the same sex.
Schopenhauer devoted attention to this subject and wrote as follows:
“That nature herself may produce a condition totally opposed to the
natural function offers a paradoxical problem of very deep
interest.”[119] It is clear, however, when we consider the disharmonies
in the development and activities of the functions in question, that the
apparently paradoxical and strange aberrations of sexuality are natural
enough.
The existing disharmony gives rise to many evils from earliest youth to
advanced age, and, consequently, it is not surprising to find that
religions have denounced sexuality more or less severely. Dr. Christian
expresses his astonishment “that in nearly all religions it has been
considered a homage to the Deity to abstain from sexual
intercourse.”[120] It is simply because the disharmonies of sexuality
lead to sexual aberrations that religions have found cause for
denouncing human nature as vile.[121]
III
_Disharmonies in the family instincts.—Artificial abortion.—Desertion
and infanticide.—Disharmonies in the social instincts._
As the functions of reproduction are seated deep in the organic world
and none the less present cases of striking disharmony in mankind, it is
not surprising to find similar want of adaptation in the family
instincts of man, as these instincts have been acquired more recently
and are less widespread in the living world.
It has been shown that the animal world provides many examples of
onanism and of aberrations of sexual congress. On the other hand, there
are no cases in the animal world in which pregnancy is destroyed by
aberrant instincts.
To the human race belongs the distinction of having invented modes of
sexual congress which are necessarily barren. No doubt the loss of the
_os penis_ has made such occurrences more easy, as the presence of that
bone would render interruption of coition more difficult. But there are
many ways in which the spermatozoa may be prevented from accomplishing
their function, and these are so common and so familiar that it is
unnecessary to enumerate them. In civilised countries procreation is
limited chiefly by such means. In its early days, the human race must
have been distinguished by its unusual procreative capacity, but with
the growth of civilisation many devices have been employed to limit
that.
Savages and races of low civilisation have recourse to artificial
abortion rather than to means for preventing fertilisation, and abortion
is almost universal among them.
The great treatise of Ploss, “Das Weib,” to which I have made repeated
reference, contains a whole chapter[122] on this subject. Deliberate
abortion with the object of limiting the number of children is customary
all over the globe. In most primitive races and among peoples of low
civilisation it is practised openly without the smallest restraint. Many
of these peoples have adopted the custom of limiting the family to two
children by procuring abortion in subsequent pregnancies. The aborigines
of Kaisar and of the islands of Watubela observe the rule strictly.
Among the natives of the islands of Aaru it is rare to find more than
three children in a family, because any others are destroyed by
artificial abortion.
A similar custom is widespread in India, being quite as common among the
Hindoos who are ruled by England as among independent races. In the
peninsula of Kutch, women frequently procure abortion, and one woman
boasted to Macmurdo that she had made use of the practice five times.
Abortion is equally common in Africa and America.
Even in Europe there are nations amongst which abortion is permitted
within certain limits. The Turks do not regard a fœtus as being really
alive until after the fifth month, and have no scruple in causing its
abortion. Even at later stages, when the operation becomes criminal, it
is frequently practised. In 1872, at Constantinople, more than three
thousand cases of abortion were brought before the Courts in a period of
ten months. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that
illegitimate children are rare in the East.
Artificial abortion is not a modern invention, but was common in ancient
times. The old Greeks practised it openly, without any legal restraint.
Plato regarded it as within the province of the midwife, and Aristotle
permitted it to married people when a pregnancy that was not desired
took place.
Steller, writing of the natives of Kamchatka of the eighteenth century,
stated that among them marriage was contracted rather for sensual
gratification than for the procreation of children, because they
interfered with pregnancies by various kinds of medicaments and by
violent operative interferences.
The arts by which abortion has been produced are numerous and varied. In
addition to the administration of drugs, chiefly of vegetable origin,
implements have been employed. The natives of Greenland use the ribs of
seals or of the walrus, and the Hawaians of the Sandwich Islands employ
for the purpose a wooden implement fashioned as a deity.
On the other hand, certain races have strongly opposed the practice of
abortion. In the ancient world such races were the Medes, the Bactrians,
the Persians, and Jews. Among the ancient Incas, abortion was a crime
punished with death. Later on, the Christian nations followed this view.
However, the reprobation of abortion occurs only in a comparatively
small number of the nations of the earth, and even amongst these the
practice is common in secret.
Animals which are unable to procure abortion very often destroy their
young, as I described in the second chapter of this volume. In the human
race, infanticide is too common. The Greeks and Romans did not regard
the newly born infants as possessing any right to live. The old Germans
held themselves free to expose their infants. The Arabs, before the
faith of Islam had spread to them, were in the habit of burying many
female children alive. In India a similar custom is common, and in China
it is notorious. According to figures collected by Eitel,[123] the
Chinese of the province of Canton very often kill female children
immediately after birth. “It may be said,” he wrote, “that the murder of
female infants is the general rule among the Hak-lo, and especially
among the Hak-ka of the agricultural classes. The Hak-ka themselves
estimate the number of female children exposed as about two-thirds of
those born.” In a little village in which the author lived for several
years, an investigation, made with the help of some Christians, showed
that without exception women who had given birth to two children had
killed at least one of them.
In Tahiti two-thirds of new-born children are killed, those of the
female sex making up the greater part of the numbers. The first three
infants and all twins are killed, and as a rule not more than two or at
most three are actually reared.[124] Among the Melanesians the custom of
infanticide is very common. “It must also be assumed,” said Ratzel,[125]
“that in Ugi (Solomon Islands) all the infants are killed, to be
replaced by the Bauros.”
It is not surprising that such a widespread occurrence of artificial
abortion and of infanticide among primitive races is bringing about a
rapid diminution in the numbers of these, and may lead even to their
extinction. This is taking place in the case of the natives of New South
Wales, of New Guinea, and of the islands of Aaru. Nothing could show
more plainly the feebleness of the human family instinct. In more highly
civilised nations, the rude proceedings of savages have been replaced by
clever devices to prevent conception, and infanticide has become rare.
Artificial abortion is excited by modern methods suggested by the
progress of science. The embryonic membranes are pierced not by the ribs
of seals or hair-pins, but by sterilised sounds, and the operation is
performed with strict asepsis. In averting the natural results of
passion the woman is subjected to the smallest possible risk.
It is indubitable that more than one race has perished because of its
lack of the instinct of family. However, it need not be feared that the
human race itself will disappear because of the failure of procreation.
But it is plain that the readiness with which devices to prevent the
production of children have been adopted shows the weakness of the
family instinct in man, and opens up a problem to which the attention of
moralists and legislators may well be directed.
The family instinct is deeply seated, as it arose among animals more
ancient than man; none the less it exhibits disturbances and aberrations
in the human race capable of bringing about the extinction of peoples or
nations. It is, however, strong enough to secure that man will persist
in the future.
Man certainly is a social animal, but the instinct impelling him towards
union with his fellows is of recent origin. Such animal societies as are
to be found among insects are not comparable with human associations.
Among mammals, the nearest allies of man, the social instincts are
developed only to a slight extent, and even the anthropoid apes show
very little progress in this direction. Many of these creatures have
shown in captivity the aptitude to become friendly with man or with
other animals, and thus have displayed the beginnings of the capacity to
form societies. But, in the wild condition, anthropoids live only in
families, and these contain few individuals. As regards the social
capacities of the chimpanzee Dr. Savage wrote:[126] “They cannot be
called gregarious, seldom more than five, or ten at most, being found
together. It has been said on good authority that they occasionally
assemble in large numbers in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw
once not less than fifty so engaged; hooting, screaming, and drumming
with sticks on old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal
facility by the four extremities.”
We have little acquaintance with the social life of the anthropoids,
but, so far as we know, these creatures present only the merest
beginnings of the social instinct. Man has moved much beyond them in
that direction. Even the lowest races and the most primitive of living
peoples such as, for instance, the Bushmen or the aborigines of
Australia, display a well-developed social instinct.[127]
The universal presence of the social instinct among human beings would
seem to afford the basis of a happy life. In the numerous attempts made
to find a purely rational principle that may serve as the basis for
morality without the intervention of supernatural sanction, abundant use
has been made of man’s craving to live in association with his fellows.
Those who have tried to deduce moral law from the essential constitution
of man have relied largely upon the innate sympathy between man and his
fellows. Such a line of argument is so common and has been employed so
frequently that I need not spend much space in developing it. I shall
limit myself to a few examples.
Towards the end of last century Büchner,[128] a German physician,
published a materialistic code of morality that made a considerable
sensation. He wrote as follows on the question now before us: “What we
term the moral sense arose from the social instincts and habits which,
under pain of extinction, are developed in every society of men and
animals. Morality depends on sociability, and varies with the peculiar
conditions of each particular association. As man is essentially a
social animal, and to be regarded, apart from society, merely as a wild
beast, it is plain that the needs of the community must impose on him
certain restrictions and directions that in time will pass into a
settled code of morals.”
Half a century later practically the same idea was repeated.
Haeckel,[129] the well-known German naturalist, expressed it as follows
in a volume that appeared a few years ago:—
“Modern science shows that the feeling of duty does not rest on an
illusory ‘categorical imperative,’ but on the solid ground of social
instinct, as we find it in the case of all the social animals. It
regards as the highest aim of all morality the re-establishment of a
sound harmony between egoism and altruism, between self-love and the
love of one’s neighbour.... If a man desire to have the advantage of
living in an organised community he has to consult not only his own
fortune but also that of the society and of the ‘neighbours’ who form
the society. He must realise that its prosperity is his own prosperity,
and that it cannot suffer without his own injury. This fundamental law
of society is so simple and so inevitable that one cannot understand how
it can be contradicted in theory or in practice; and yet that is done
to-day and has been done for thousands of years.”
The sexual and family instincts may be satisfied in many different ways,
and this is also the case with the social instincts. Onanism and
perverted passion may satisfy the sexual instinct; celibacy, artificial
abortion and infanticide exist alongside the love of the wife and the
parental cares. So also the social instinct of a criminal may be
satisfied by his association with other criminals. It is well known that
the most hardened criminals have their own codes, and they join
faithfulness to their own companions to an atrocious attitude towards
the rest of the world.
It is not enough then merely to give scope to the social instincts that
we all possess. We have to determine how far, and towards which of our
fellow creatures, we are to exercise such instincts, and it is here that
the difficulty arises which as yet has not been resolved by religion or
rationalism. Must our social instincts reach to our relatives near or
distant, or to our fellow townsmen, or compatriots, or to all white men,
or to all men, white and black, or to the good only, or to the good and
bad alike? Perhaps we should limit the operation of the instinct to
those of our own religion, or who share our views of life? The
instinctive feeling is quite silent on these points, and it is precisely
on them that the difficulties arise. It is well known that at different
epochs and in different circumstances very different answers have been
given to such questions. When religion was predominant, a common faith
was a bond transcending patriotism. Later on, patriotism itself became
the dominant bond. In recent days, a conception of international
solidarity began to appear. Thus, for instance, there was recently a
combination of different nations against China, and nationality was
forgotten. Some of the European nations banded themselves together and
even assumed an Asiatic race in the union, with the object of punishing
a common enemy. What was the bond that united nations so different? It
was not religion, for the bond included Catholics and Protestants,
orthodox Christians and Buddhists. Most probably the bond of union was a
community of interest, the result of similar civilisation and military
and political organisation.
It has been suggested occasionally that the social instinct, or human
sympathy, for the terms are practically identical, may stretch further
and further and become so widespread that all the members of the human
stock will unite and act only for the common good. But the problem is
complex. Sympathy, when pushed too far, may become harmful. Nations have
taken part in a campaign, impelled by some feeling of sympathy, and have
brought harm on themselves. Sympathy extended to criminals and wicked
persons is equally harmful. The social instinct itself must be regulated
for the good of the community which it holds together.
Ought we to extend our sympathy to all humanity, or to limit it to some
particular section? Theorists have spoken of the solidarity of all
humanity, believing it possible to extend our sympathy to the races
furthest removed from us. In countries in which different races are
brought in contact, very practical difficulties are encountered by the
theorists. In America and in some other countries, for instance, laws
have been passed against the Chinese, excluding the latter from the
consideration granted to other races. The negro question also is very
difficult in those countries in which the black race dwells amongst
whites. In Europe it has been the custom to condemn the action of
civilised races in taking their land from natives of primitive type.
Sutherland, the author of a striking work on the origin and development
of morality, justifies such arbitrary conduct. To the question, “Was it
right for the whites to take possession of the Australian forests of the
blacks?” he replied in the affirmative. “No doubt,” he said, “there is a
moral instinct against it, but the action undoubtedly was right.”[130]
In a summary of his conclusions he lays down that moral conduct is a
compromise between the individual and social instincts that so often are
opposed. But he has no more to say than his predecessors as to the
rational basis of the compromise.
The social instinct has been acquired by mankind too recently, and it is
still too feeble, to be a trustworthy guide in all conduct. To obviate
this difficulty, at many different times, divine sanction has been
evoked to control the relations among men. The categorical law has been
formulated with the same object. Thus by one means or another, some kind
of social order has been kept up. The efficacy of these additional
guides is seen clearly on those rare occasions when some special
combination of circumstances has set people free from them. Thus at
Moscow, in 1812, before the arrival of the French army restored
authority, and lately, after the eruption in Martinique, the ordinary
authority lapsed, the anti-social instincts of the people were loose,
and a clear idea was given of the inherent weakness of the human social
instinct.
I have shown that in man the instinct for choosing food and the sexual
and social instincts are still so weak that it is impossible to trust to
them in the absence of other guidance. It is as equally necessary to
determine what kind of food is most suitable for men in different
conditions of life, and what means are best fitted to satisfy rationally
his sexual and family instincts. So also it is urgent to determine
exactly the direction and object of the social instinct. For the love of
our fellow creatures we should seek the best ways of making them happy.
But what is happiness? Is it the feeling of well-being experienced by
the individual himself, or is it the judgment of others on his
sensations? It is notoriously difficult to pronounce on the happiness of
another. From the outside, when a man seems to enjoy health, to have a
family and comfortable means of subsistence, we are inclined to call him
happy; but the individual himself may have a very different opinion
about himself. It is often impossible to rely on the judgment of others.
On the other hand, the opinion of an individual himself on his own
condition may be equally fallacious. Very often the feeling of
well-being is a symptom of general paralysis, as may be inferred from
the following quotation: “The patient is well pleased with himself, and
delighted with his constitution and circumstances. He boasts without
ceasing of his robust health, his muscular strength, the clearness of
his complexion and of his general ‘fitness.’ His clothing is magnificent
and his residence palatial. In a more advanced stage of the disease, the
exaggeration becomes extreme. He believes that he is able to blow down
the walls with his breath, or that he could carry a ton, or drink a
hogshead of wine, or that nothing could tire him out. Then megalomania
begins, and the patients believe themselves in possession of titles, of
power, and wealth. They are members of parliament, noblemen, princes,
generals, kings, emperors, and popes, or God Himself.”[131]
As general paralysis is a result of syphilis, in order to make a large
number of persons believe themselves thoroughly happy, it would be
necessary only to spread this disease. Without lingering on this
paradox, I may at least point out that the problem of happiness, which
is associated intimately with social life, is extremely difficult.
The social instinct is equally powerless to solve the problem of justice
in its relation to the general interest of humanity. It is plain enough
that, in the existing condition of human knowledge, we all inflict and
undergo injustices of different degrees. This misfortune is a
consequence of the disharmony of human nature.
From what I have already said, it must be clear that before we can find
a rational guide to direct us in the operation of our social instinct,
we should have to determine exactly the nature of true happiness for the
individual and of true justice. Then only should we be in a position to
set about making human life as happy as is possible.
CHAPTER VI
DISHARMONIES IN THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION
The instinct of self-preservation in animals—Man’s instinctive love of
life—Indifference to life during childhood—Buddhist legend on
instinctive self-preservation and the fear of death—Fear of death
treated in literature—Confessions of Tolstoi regarding the fear of
death—Other opinions on the subject—The fear of death an instinctive
phenomenon—Development in man of a love of life—Treatment of the
aged—Murder of old people—Suicide of old men—Absence of harmony
between the love of life and the conditions of human existence—The
part played by the fear of death in religions and systems of
philosophy
It is not to be wondered at that man’s social instinct exhibits so many
imperfections and disharmonies, seeing that it is still in an unsettled
condition, and is a recent acquisition. On the other hand, we should
expect to find that love of life and the instinct of self-preservation
had reached a high degree of harmony, since these have been in process
of development throughout the whole animal series that culminated in
man. Even in the lowest forms of life many contrivances exist for
purposes of protection. Creatures, the bodies of which are merely
microscopic drops of protoplasm, the living material, may be protected
by shells from external influences which threaten their destruction.
Plants protect themselves, sometimes by means of thorns which prevent
them from being eaten, sometimes by secretions either merely irritant in
character or actually poisonous. Among animals the means employed for
self-preservation are even more numerous. Shields and shells, the
secretion of fluids exhaling unpleasant odours, or facilitating escape
by clouding the water, as in the case of the ink of the cuttlefish,
offensive weapons, strong teeth, and many other characters, serve no
other purpose than to protect the individual life. The exposition of
this subject would involve writing a complete treatise on the
comparative anatomy of plants and animals.
Among lower animals the preservation of life is accomplished without
mental connivance, conscious or unconscious. Soon, however, protective
instincts begin to appear. Simple cases of these are flight at the
approach of danger, protection by a covering of slimy froth secreted by
the creatures themselves, or built up from this excreta, or from foreign
matter. Such facts show that the love of life and the instinct of
self-preservation are almost universal in the living world.
All these devices for the avoidance of danger and escape from death
could have been developed in animals before these had any distinct idea
as to what death was. We know that some animals can distinguish between
living and dead prey. Some carnivora recognise the smell of dead bodies.
Those which are accustomed to feed on living creatures refuse all
others, detecting the difference by the absence of movement. As in such
cases the idea of death is imperfect, it is easy to deceive the
creatures by offering carcases artificially set in motion, or living
prey rendered motionless by some means or other. In order to escape from
enemies so readily imposed upon, many insects when alarmed become
motionless and feign death; and that may be regarded as yet another
instance in the category of natural means for the protection of
individual life.
Moreover, the higher animals, such as mammals, exhibit a profound
ignorance of death, many of them remaining completely undisturbed in the
presence of dead companions, or even devouring the latter at the risk of
contracting a fatal disease. Rats, for instance, eat the bodies of rats
which have died of plague, and while appeasing their hunger themselves
contract the disease which they transmit to other animals, particularly
to human beings. Unlike those animals, however, which are indifferent to
the death of their kind, there are others that instinctively shrink at
seeing the dead bodies of their own species. Horses on passing a dead
horse show signs of discomfort, and attempt to run away. Bullocks when
witnessing the slaughter of others also exhibit evidences of distress
and fear. In spite of these examples, however, it is quite certain that
animals, even those highest in the scale of life, are unconscious of the
inevitability of death, and of the ultimate fate of all living things.
This knowledge is a human acquisition.
In man, the instinct of self-preservation is well developed. Hardly
appreciable during infancy, it manifests itself in a marked degree in
young children. At the sight of a human corpse, children become
panic-stricken, as though confronted by a wild beast or snake.
In young adults this instinct of self-preservation, which is closely
connected with an instinctive fear of death, is not fully developed. It
often takes some special circumstance to awaken it, such as a dangerous
illness, an accident, or the perils of war. Young people who while in
good health believe their lives to be in danger, often take it to heart
so as to make themselves really ill. Relating his impressions during the
siege of Sebastopol, Tolstoi, who at that time was only twenty-six years
of age, writes as follows: “Notwithstanding the distractions offered by
various and urgent duties, the instinct of self-preservation, and the
longing to quit this horrible place of death was present in the hearts
of all. This desire was equally strong in all; in those mortally
wounded, and in the volunteer rushing with all his might into the centre
of the fray to open a path for the horse of the general, in the general
himself as he directed and controlled his men. The officer of marines,
in the middle of a battalion in action, crushed so that he could hardly
breathe, felt it equally with the wounded man carried on a stretcher by
four soldiers until, further progress being impossible, he had been set
down just under the Nicolai battery, or the artilleryman who had served
his gun for sixteen years.” In the normal course of life, however, the
young do not show an instinctive clinging to life in any marked degree.
They often risk their lives for trifling reasons, and commit all sorts
of indiscretions hurtful to life or health without a thought of the
consequences. They may be inspired by the highest motives, but they are
equally ready to fritter strength away in the gratification of the
lowest appetites. Youth is the age of disinterested sacrifice, but also
of indulgence in all kinds of excesses, alcoholic, sexual and others.
Youths seem to think that they will always attach the same value to
life, and that between death at thirty years of age and death at sixty,
there is a difference only of time. As their love of life is
indifferently developed, young people are often extremely exacting, the
pleasure they enjoy being but moderate, whilst the suffering provoked in
them by the slightest annoyance is intense. They consequently become
epicureans in the lowest sense of the word, or else abandon themselves
to exaggerated pessimism.
“Edite, bibite, post mortem nulla voluptas” was the motto of German
students, greedy for pleasure, and unknowing that a love of life
develops with age in every human being. On the other hand, in order to
keep the balance between joy and sorrow, youth, true to its instincts,
undervalues the former and exaggerates the latter, thus arriving at a
pessimistic view of life, and declaring that existence is a misfortune
in itself. It is significant that Schopenhauer published his theory of
pessimism at the age of thirty-one. His successor, R. Hartmann, when
twenty-six years old, proclaimed that human existence is an evil which
one should get rid of at all costs. Optimistic theories, on the other
hand, have been set forth either by persons advanced in years or by
persons whom special circumstances have caused to appreciate the joy of
living. As a counterbalance to the pessimism of German philosophers,
Duhring formulated a theory of optimism in his book “Der Wert des
Lebens,” but was himself blind at the time. Sir John Lubbock published
some years ago a book entitled “The Pleasures of Life,” which opens with
the following sentence: “Life is a great gift.” His attitude towards
life is entirely opposed to that of the pessimists, but then he
formulated it at the age of fifty-three.
It has long been recognised that the old attach a higher value to life
than do the young. J. J. Rousseau, for instance, says: “Life becomes
dearer to us as its joys pass away. The old cling to it more closely
than the young.”[132]
This reflection is absolutely correct, and is proved by a number of
facts. I once knew very intimately a scientific man who had passed a
very unhappy youth. Being hypersensitive to pain, he tried to assuage it
by every means in his power. Some trifling annoyance sufficing to throw
him into a state of utter prostration, he was in the habit of resorting
to the aid of narcotics. In order to escape from mental anguish he
inoculated himself with poisons. By the time he had arrived at an
advanced age his hypersensitiveness gave place to feelings much less
acute. He ceased to resent the ills of life so bitterly as he did in his
youth; while he came to appreciate better the positive side of life, and
even in moments of unhappiness he did not contemplate putting an end to
his existence.
In youth he was pessimistic, and insisted upon the preponderance of evil
over good. As he became older, his attitude towards existence became
entirely modified.
I do not say, however, that it is necessary to be old in order to
realise the misfortune of death. “He who pretends to face death without
fear is a liar,” said J. J. Rousseau. “That all men fear to die is the
great law dominating the thinking world, and without which all living
things would soon cease to exist. This fear is a natural impulse, and is
not merely an accident but an important factor in the whole order of
things.”[133]
One often hears people express their indifference to death, but an
examination into their real feelings on the subject soon shows the true
state of affairs. I once happened to be present when a lady, already
well advanced in years, expressed a wish for death, and said that she
had no fear of it whatever. On acquiring a fuller knowledge of her case,
I recognised that she was seriously ill, and that she regarded death as
the only possible termination to her sufferings. As soon as she found
that recovery was possible, she manifested intense delight at the
prospect of a prolonged life freed from incessant pain.
Instinctive love of life, and fear of death, which is only a
manifestation of the former, are of an importance in the study of human
nature impossible to over-estimate; it is therefore necessary to
consider a few instances throwing light upon the subject. Even the
ancients were interested in the problem. The subject is perhaps as well
dealt with in a Buddhist legend as anywhere.[134] “The young Prince
Çakya-Mouni, the founder of the Buddhist faith, being desirous of
discovering the true meaning of life, expressed a wish to leave the
world and devote himself to a religious life. In order to turn him from
his purpose, his father built him a magnificent palace, wherein he could
indulge in every sort of pleasure, and in which he would be protected
from all sorrow. Under this system he never saw old people, nor those
who were diseased, nor the dead. In spite of being thus strictly
guarded, the young prince often contrived to escape into the outer world
in order to drive about. During his first drive, he met a broken-down,
decrepid old man, with varicose veins, decayed teeth, a wrinkled skin,
and grey hair, bent double with age like the roof of a house, leaning
upon a stick; all traces of youth had departed from him, only
inarticulate words came from his throat, his procumbent body resting on
the stick, and his limbs and every part of them trembling.” Having
learnt from his coachman that this was an old man, and that “in all
living creatures age creeps upon youth,” that every one came to it and
that “there was no way out of it,” the prince was so deeply impressed
that he said to his coachman, “What a misfortune to be a weak foolish
person, whose intelligence, blinded by the pride of youth, sees nothing
of old age. Turn round my chariot. I would return. What are games and
pleasures to me whose body is the future dwelling-place of old age?”
Another time Çakya-Mouni met on the road a man consumed by fever, his
body weakened, his breathing difficult. Informed by his coachman that
the man was suffering from disease, the young prince exclaimed; “Health,
then, is a mere dream, and the fear of disease takes a terrible form.
What wise man, having seen such a phase of human existence, could
continue to be gay and happy?” Shortly after Çakya-Mouni went out for
the third time, and “saw a dead man placed on a bier covered by a pall,
surrounded by his relations, all weeping, lamenting, wailing, their hair
disordered, placing dust upon their heads, and beating their breasts.”
The violent emotion produced by the sight of the dead man caused the
prince to say to himself: “Woe to youth threatened with old age! Woe to
health, the prey of every kind of disease! Woe to the life of man which
lasts but a little while! Woe to the attractions of pleasure which
seduce the hearts of the wise.” These reflections of Çakya-Mouni are the
basis upon which Buddhism is founded, and that religious philosophy is
impregnated with pessimistic doctrines relating to human life.
Modern pessimists hold views resembling Buddhism. Schopenhauer from
early youth was engrossed by the great problems of human life. His
mother, in a letter to him[135] reproached him with “grumbling at the
inevitable,” which shows that at twenty-seven years of age he had
revolted against the idea of death. The problem of mortality was one of
those in which he was most deeply interested, and his fear of disease
and death was such that he left Berlin at the first outbreak of cholera
in 1831 (influenced by the death of Hegel, who succumbed to the
disease), and went to live at Frankfort, a town unvisited by the
epidemic. He affirms[136] that “the greatest, and generally speaking the
worst, misfortune that can befall any one is to die, and there is no
fear equal to the fear of death.” It was the impossibility of escape
that suggested to him the idea of a pessimistic philosophy.
The literatures as well as the philosophies of all periods have
dealt with the problem of death. Edmond de Goncourt tells in his
“Journal” how, in conversation with his friends, this question was
always recurring. The following is an account of one of these
conversations:[137] “Our old established dinner of five took place
to-day. Flaubert was missing, so there were only Tourguéneff, Zola,
Daudet, and me. The ethical ennui of some of us, the physical
sufferings of the others, led the conversation to death, which we
discussed until eleven o’clock, sometimes passing to other subjects,
but always coming back to the gloomy topic. Daudet declared that in
his case it was an obsession, _a poisoning of his life_, and that he
never moved into a new house without looking round for the place
where his coffin would come to lie. Zola told us that his mother had
died at Médan, and that, as the staircase proved too narrow, the
coffin had had to be lowered from a window; he declared that he
never looked at that window without wondering who would be taken out
that way next, he or his wife. “Yes,” he said, “ever since that day
death has always been in the background of our thoughts, and very
often during the night, looking at my sleepless wife, I feel that
like me she is thinking of it, and we lie quietly without saying
aloud what is in our minds—for shame, yes, for very shame—_Oh! it is
terrible, that thought—and the terror of it becomes visible!_ There
have been nights when I have leapt suddenly out of bed, and held
myself for a second or two in a state of abject terror.”
Jean Finot[138] was told in confidence by E. de Goncourt that if he
could banish the thought of death from his mind life would be relieved
of an almost intolerable burden. Jean Finot also relates that in the
course of a memorable evening spent with Victor Hugo at the house of the
latter, nearly all of the distinguished persons who were present, when
questioned as to their ideas on the subject of death, frankly admitted
that the thought of it inspired them with fear and sadness. Amongst
modern authors Count Léon Tolstoi has dealt most with the problem of
death. In many of his works whole pages of memorable reflections on the
subject are to be found, but the most harrowing and terrible picture he
ever painted is contained in his “Confessions.”[139] The reader will
pardon my propensity for quoting passages relating to death. He will
recall the account of the Siege of Sebastopol already quoted by me, in
which every one was described as fearing death when faced by danger; but
this fear, as the author was a young man of twenty-six, was not wholly
absorbing.
Shortly before he attained his fiftieth year, Tolstoi became bitterly
tormented by the thought of death. He describes the beginning of this
mental crisis in the following words: “First there came moments of
perplexity, of arrest of vital force, as though I had lost the power of
living and moving; I felt utterly lost, and fell into a state of
complete dejection. This passed away, however, and I continued to live
on as before. Before long the moments of perplexity became more
frequent; the arrest of my living energies was always manifested by a
renewal of the same questions, ‘Why? and What comes after?’”[140] For
some time Tolstoi did not pay much attention to his mental condition,
but by degrees he began to analyse it, and reached the following
conclusion: “The fact is that life is a blind alley. I had lived, worked
and marched onward, and had arrived at the edge of an abyss, and nothing
remained to me but to fall into it. And yet I could neither stop nor
retrace my footsteps, nor shut my eyes in order not to see suffering and
inevitable death. It was a void, a complete annihilation.”[141] “In this
condition I felt that I must cease to live, and, fearing death, I had to
employ various ruses to prevent myself from taking my life.”[142] “I
could attach no reasonable meaning to any action of my life. I was
merely astonished to think I had failed to realise the position from the
beginning. All that, I said to myself, must have been patent to all the
world long ago. If not to-day, then to-morrow, disease and death—they
are already here—will attack elderly persons—me—and there will remain
only corruption and worms. My deeds, whatever they may be, will be
forgotten sooner or later, and I shall be no more. Why then take pains
about anything? How a man can know all this and yet go on living amazes
me. One can only go on living just so long as one is intoxicated with
life; once sober, however, one cannot fail to see what an idiotic fraud
it all is. It is also true that there is nothing even amusing or
intelligent about it; it is simply stupid and cruel and nothing more.”
Seeing no way out of this, Tolstoi turned his reflections on family
love: “My family ... I say to myself ... but then my family, my wife,
and children are also merely human beings! They live under the same
conditions as I myself. They have the choice between living a lie or
facing the horrible truth. Why then should they live at all? Why should
I love, cherish, and protect them? In order that they may experience the
same despair, or that they may go through life like idiots? Loving them,
I cannot conceal the truth from them; every step forward in knowledge
leads to this truth; and the truth is death.”[143] To conclude this
series of quotations, which must have given the reader some idea of the
love of life and the fear of death, I shall give one more example,
taken, not from the pen of a master but from daily life.[144] It refers
to the death in the Christian community of a “minister of God, who was
pious as a S. Francis of Assisi, candid as a young girl, of a rigid
asceticism, and renowned for his charity.” Logically speaking, the death
of such a man should have been peaceful. Had he been a fictitious
character, his author would not have described his death except in the
conventional fashion. This is what really occurred, according to the
letters of an intimate friend of the dying man, who wrote as follows:
“Our poor friend is fighting death inch by inch in a way that is
positively tragic. He who was so full of resignation, so serene, so
perfectly at peace with his own soul, _is terrified by the approach of
death_. It is a _horrible sight_, that moves one to tears. We are
powerless not only to afford him physical relief but to console the
terrible anguish which assails the clear intellect that clings so
desperately to life, and which death will claim while fully alive. ‘I
could still,’ he cried, ‘give a course of lectures on theology or
political economy, and I must die.... It is terrible to be fully
conscious.... How much better it would be if I could not think!... And
what is it that we ask of God? Eternal happiness! It is just as if one
of your workpeople came and asked you for a thousand francs for a day’s
work!’ You would answer him, ‘What nonsense you talk, you must be mad,
my friend!’ _It is hard to die._ I confess to you, my friend, that this
makes one reconsider religion and philosophy.... The goodness of God is
not what we think ... _there is a mystery over us_.... Is death then
truly the King of Terrors for those who have led good lives?”
What is this love of life which makes death so terrible? It is a very
interesting question, and Tolstoi himself has published an essay on “the
fear of death.”[145]
He tries to prove that the feeling arises from a false conception of
life. “Those who fear death,” he says, “fear it because it seems an
empty darkness, but the darkness and emptiness present themselves merely
because they have a false conception of life.”[146] According to Tolstoi
man should have no greater fear of death than of any of the other
changes to which it is subjected by life. “No one is afraid of falling
asleep,” he says, “and yet the phenomena of sleep are like those of
death—there is the same loss of consciousness. Man does not fear sleep,
although the arrest of consciousness is as complete as in death.”[147]
Tolstoi thinks that the fear of death is a superstition, and that it
disappears when we see life as it is.[148]
Tokarsky,[149] another Russian writer, a few years ago published a
treatise on the fear of death, and tried to show how little reason there
was for it. The writer was a physician for the insane, and knew himself
to be afflicted with an incurable and fatal disease. His observations on
the fear of death were probably based on his own feelings. Judging from
the evidence of a number of persons who had been in mortal danger,
Tokarsky declared that death had no terror, and that it was unnecessary
to fear it.
Tokarsky’s theory was supported in recent years by Finot[150] whose
arguments in its favour were similar to those of his predecessor. He
held that man himself created the fear of death, and that the prospect
of an unknown future played a considerable part in it. “Beyond that
which we see,” says Finot, “there is always something that we cannot
see, and it is the invisible that we fear.”[151] The idea that death is
generally attended by pain seems to Finot quite erroneous, and he comes
to the conclusion that “our ignorances and prejudices are responsible
for the creation of this superstition, so terrible to contemplate, so
far removed from the truth.”[152] Instances which have occurred of
people threatened with death and suddenly restored to life, give proofs,
according to Finot, that death, far from being painful, is attended by
pleasant sensations. With regard to this, Heim, a Swiss savant, says
that tourists who have had serious falls while mountaineering, and have
been so near to death that they experienced all the premonitory
symptoms, felt above all a sensation of ecstasy.
It cannot be denied that some forms of death are pleasant, but it is no
less certain that in many other cases, and these too the majority—the
sensation of approaching death is, on the contrary, extremely painful.
This question, however, is not necessarily connected with the fear of
death that may come to those who are not yet about to die. But it is
precisely the latter mode of fear that is so important a factor in human
life. Men who are dying of starvation do not feel painfully hungry at
the moment of death. The actual pain of hunger lasts only for a limited
period, probably, in the case of man, only about twenty hours, after
which it is succeeded by a condition of lassitude and general weakness,
which however is different from painful hunger. The fear of death is
similar, for in certain cases it does not last up to the end of life.
The pain of thirst, on the other hand, is much more persistent, lasting
up to the end.
Finot discussed the instinctiveness of the fear of death. “The
question,” he wrote, “is important. For if the fear be instinctive, it
is independent of our will and not to be controlled by reason. It would
then break out in every case at the approach of death. Now the evidence
of many persons who have no more than escaped mortal danger is clearly
against the view.”[153] Hunger is certainly instinctive, and yet is not
always felt when the body is exhausted by want of food or menaced by
death from starvation.
Closer investigation leaves no doubt but that the fear of death is truly
an instinct. In some of the higher animals it exhibits itself in the
same fashion as other instincts. The intimate friend, whom I have
already mentioned, was for years in constant expectation of death, and
faced its approach with perfect calmness. Believing that he had played
his part in life to the best of his power, not only did he think it
quite natural that he should cease to live, but he regarded the
possibility of a decrepid and painful old age with the greatest possible
repugnance. In his case, neither reason nor desire led to a fear of
death. When, however, it was definitely diagnosed that he suffered from
a disease which might prove fatal, there was aroused in him a certain
sensation which must have been the fear of death. Analysis of Tolstoi’s
statements in his “Confessions” makes it clear that his sensations on
reflecting that he too would cease to be, and that there would be left
only corruption and worms, were no other than the instinctive fear of
death, a fear that his reason was powerless to control. To follow
Tolstoi in telling any one that the fear of death is a form of
superstition which must be subdued by the intelligence, is no better
than to attempt to console a woman about to undergo ovariotomy by
telling her that as in future she will be unable to bear children she
ought to subdue her sexual instincts. She will find out that her desire
is not under control of the will but is a pure instinct.
The fear of death has long been recognised as an instinct.
Schopenhauer,[154] for instance, interpreted it in that way. According
to him, “from the point of view of intelligence there is no ground for
fearing death. Reason, which is the outcome of knowledge, does not
present death to us as an evil. It is certainly not the rational,
conscious part of ourselves which fears death; the _fuga mortis_ which
pervades all living beings is an emanation of the blind will.” This
“blind will” is no other than a pure instinct which is independent of
our rational will.
I need not pursue the subject, but I may recall that Lord Byron came to
the conclusion that the fear of death is an instinctive manifestation of
the soul. In “Cain” he expressed this view sufficiently clearly:—
I live,
But live to die; and living, see nothing
To make death hateful, save an _innate clinging_,
A loathsome, and yet all _invincible_
_Instinct of life_, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome—
And so I live.
Later on in the same poem Byron makes Cain say of his father Adam:—
Ere he plucked
The knowledge, he was ignorant of death.
Alas, I scarcely now know what it is;
And yet I fear it, fear I know not what.
It is then indubitable that among the instincts of man there is one
which loves life and fears death. This instinct develops slowly and
progressively with age. In that respect it is astonishingly different
from other instincts. When hunger or thirst or sexual desire is
gratified a sensation of satisfaction is experienced, and this readily
passes into satiety or even indifference. The mood lasts for a certain
time, and then the instinctive needs reawaken. The instinct of life,
however, behaves very differently. In most human beings it develops
slowly and becomes stronger and stronger as the years pass by. In
childhood and early youth we are very anxious to “grow up,” but when we
are adult we have no desire to grow old. We are greatly disturbed by the
appearance of wrinkles and grey hair. Instead of being glad to have
finished a great part of our mortal career, we feel sad at being nearer
the inevitable end. Old age, as it usually presents itself, is marked by
ugly features, and often by repugnant or even horrible characters.
Little children are usually terrified by the appearance of very old
persons, and it is a familiar nursery threat to send for an old man.
The murder of the aged is a custom widespread amongst the lower races.
The natives of Fiji bury their old men alive, on the pretext that they
have become utterly useless. The custom is in existence throughout
Melanesia, and occurs in New Caledonia and in most of the adjacent
Polynesian islands. Old age is universally despised in that part of the
world. The natives of Australia respect old people so long as they
retain their activity, but once they become unable to take care of
themselves they are abandoned. Often they are killed and eaten, and this
custom is favoured by their religious beliefs.[155] The ancient
inhabitants of Germany, according to the investigations of Grimm,
“killed the old and the sick, and often buried them alive.”
The modern civilised world has certainly made considerable progress. The
old are no longer killed; they are tolerated, and accorded liberty to
commit suicide. In many countries work is often refused to the old on
the plea that they are not strong enough for it, and at the same time
they are refused admission to almshouses on the pretext that they are
not yet old enough. Dealing with the question of the average life and of
the normal life, Paul Bert[156] expressed himself with regard to the
aged as follows: “They deserve congratulations, care and consideration,
_but the prolongation of their lives does not demand any special
solicitude from society_.”
However, in spite of the characters of old age which make it horrible
and useless, and at best no more than to be tolerated, and in spite of
the physical and intellectual weakness that accompany it, the
instinctive love of life is preserved in the aged in its strongest form.
To make quite certain about this I have visited almshouses for the aged,
and it was easy to see that all the inmates hoped that their days might
be prolonged. In a Home occupied by fairly well-educated persons, I
discovered that one and all felt as if they were continually being
threatened by death, as if they were convicts awaiting the day of
execution. At the Salpêtrière, where there are a number of very old
women, septuagenarians are regarded almost as young girls. The great
ambition of women of eighty is to live to one hundred, and the desire to
live is almost universal.
This seems a contradiction of another fact demonstrated by statistics,
that age increases the frequency of suicide. It is certain that more old
men commit suicide than young men, but on careful inquiry into the
statistics of the subject, it becomes evident that the chief incentive
to suicide does not lie in the cessation of the will to live, but in the
difficulties experienced by old people of earning a living, and in the
frequent presence of disease in the aged. Deprived of the means of
existence, refused the shelter of charitable institutions, old men are
apt to fall back upon a rope or the fumes of charcoal. Statistics
relating to the suicide of the aged show that the greatest number of
victims belong to the poorer classes. The suicide of rich old men is
generally prompted by the presence of incurable disease. There is,
however, need for much wider inquiry into the subject. It would be
interesting, for instance, to obtain more detailed information regarding
the motives which urge the old to put an end to themselves. In recent
times the suicide of Max von Pettenkofer aroused public attention. After
a distinguished scientific career, he resigned his post of Professor at
the University of Munich at the age of seventy-six. He went to live a
little way outside the town on a property where he devoted himself to
gardening and other country pursuits. Although a sufferer from diabetes,
his intellect remained unimpaired, but he became a prey to extreme
melancholy, owing to the death of some friends to whom he was greatly
attached. Moreover, during the latter part of his life he suffered from
a septic affection of the neck. This disease, not fatal in itself, was
the indirect cause of Pettenkofer’s death, which occurred by suicide at
the age of eighty-three. The _post-mortem_ examination[157] showed a
fairly well preserved organic system, healthy, with the exception of
chronic inflammation of the membranes of the brain and atheroma of the
cerebral arteries. The circumstances relating to this particular case of
suicide are unusually well known, and yet there are many obscure points
about it which are of the highest importance. The chronic meningitis
from which the aged scientist suffered conclusively precluded the theory
that the motives which led him to commit suicide were prompted by the
phenomena of normal life. On the other hand, instances are not wanting
of old men of good education and refined surroundings who cling
tenaciously to life, even at a much more advanced age than the Munich
professor.
The instinctive love of life resembles the sexual instinct in a great
many women. Just as the love of life goes on increasing when the best of
life is past, sexual pleasure is often unfelt by women until their
beauty is already faded.
Another character common to the love of life and the sexual instinct is
that they both persist throughout old age, although they can no longer
be satisfied.
Edmond de Goncourt relates in his diary that at his réunions of literary
celebrities (Zola, Daudet, and Tourgéneff), the conversation turned most
frequently upon the subjects of love, life and women. “Death or love,
strangely enough,” says Edmond de Goncourt, “are always what we talk
about after dinner.”[158] Old age was even then knocking at the doors of
the distinguished writers mentioned, and so it is quite natural that
their interest should have been wholly absorbed by the two instincts
which exhibit such enigmatic and paradoxical tenacity.
We saw in the preceding chapter how disharmonious is the sexual instinct
which often only develops at, and nearly always persists until, a period
of life when its normal and regular functional activity is no longer
possible. We saw, too, the ill resulting from this disharmony in the
reproductive apparatus. The ill, however, although serious, only amounts
in that case to an inconvenience which can be endured.
Far worse is the disharmony of the instinctive love of life which
manifests itself when death is felt to be near at hand. It is then
incomprehensible and particularly terrible, and humanity, from time
immemorial, has sought the key to the tragic puzzle, and tried by all
the means in its power to unravel the mystery. The religions of all
times have been concerned with the problem. “Religion,” says Guyau,[159]
“consists for the most part of meditation upon death. If we had not to
die there would probably be still more superstitions among men, but
there would probably be no systematised superstitions nor religions.”
Philosophy also has tried to solve the question of death. Some ancient
philosophers held the opinion that philosophy is only a meditation upon
death. Socrates and Cicero[160] have well said that “the life of a
philosopher is a continual meditation upon death.” In our own day
Schopenhauer developed the same theory. “Death,” he said,[161] “is the
real inspiring genius of philosophy.... Without death it is doubtful if
philosophy would exist at all. It is therefore quite natural that a
special essay on Death should preface the last, the most serious, and
the most important of my books.”
Judging from the facts set forth in the last three chapters, there can
be no doubt but that the human constitution, although in many ways
perfect and sublime, exhibits numerous and serious disharmonies, which
are the source of all our troubles. Not being so well adapted to the
conditions of life as orchids are, for example, in the matter of their
fertilisation by the mediation of insects, or the burrowing wasps for
the protection of their young, humanity resembles rather those insects
the instinct of which guides them towards the flame which burns their
wings.
Even at a time when humanity had attained no definite knowledge of
itself, a vague suspicion prevailed as to the existence of disharmonies,
and an effort was made to remedy the evil. The following chapters will
show what man has done with a view to remedying the natural disharmonies
of his constitution.
PART II
ATTEMPTS TO DIMINISH THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN
CONSTITUTION
(RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS)
CHAPTER VII
RELIGIOUS ATTEMPTS TO COMBAT THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF
THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION
Animism as the foundation of primitive religions—The Jewish religion
in relation to the doctrine of immortality of the soul—The religions
of China—Ancestor-worship in Confucianism—The conception of
immortality in Taoism—The persistence of the soul in the Buddhist
religion—The paradise of the Chinese Buddhists—Ancestors worshipped as
gods—Influence of religious faith on the fear of death—Pessimism of
the doctrine of Buddha—The meaning of Nirvâna—Resignation as preached
by Buddha—Objections to the immortality of the soul—Irritability of
the tissues and cells of the body—Religious hygiene—Religious means of
controlling the reproductive functions and of preventing
diseases—Failure of religions in their attempts to combat the ills
arising from the disharmonies of the human constitution
Humanity did not await the discovery by science of the existence of
disharmonies before trying to find remedies for them. The will to live,
to preserve health, to satisfy the instincts and to make them act in
unison, have driven mankind, in the very earliest days of reflection, to
invent remedies for the imperfection of the human constitution.
I have shown that, even in the case of animals, the instinct as to
choice of food does not save them from certain harmful substances. Man
himself has for long recognised that this instinct of his is no safe
guide, and has tried to discover surer methods of distinguishing between
substances that are useful as foods and substances that may cause
disease or death. The best wisdom of primitive man must have been given
to the observation of the effects of substances which had been eaten,
and to a consequent framing of dietary rules.
The reproductive functions, in the same way, must have attracted the
notice of man in very early times, as he must have found the harm that
came from a blind following of instinctive desire.
Above all other reasons, man must have been impelled by his instinctive
love of life and fear of death to find some way out of his dangerous
situation. To preserve his life, man must have sought wise choice of
food and control of sexuality.
Since the dawn of intelligence, man has tried to judge the unknown from
the analogies given by what he knows best, that is to say, by his own
self. Thus he came to attribute to everything around him qualities like
his own qualities, and motives like his own motives. He came to think
not only that all living beings were possessed of will and intelligence,
but that inanimate things conducted themselves like human beings.
Such a primitive idea is the basis of what Tylor has called “Animism,”
the foundation of the philosophy and religion of savage and civilised
man alike. When a man was seen to die, it was plain that he did not
entirely disappear, but merely became transformed into a new condition.
The dead body was not alive as we are, but, none the less, it was alive
in a fashion of its own. This was the answer to the desire for the
preservation of life, to the fear of death, that is to say, of total
extinction. It is practically identical with faith in immortality and a
future life.
The animistic conception is almost world wide. It is plain that it
afforded the most efficacious palliative for minds revolting against the
inevitability of death, and that it harmonised with our intense will to
live. “Such child-like ignoring of death,” wrote Tylor,[162] “such
child-like make-believe, that the dead can still do as heretofore, may
well have led the savage to bury with his kinsman the weapons, clothes,
and ornaments that he used in life, to try to feed the corpse, to put a
cigar in the mouth of the skull before its final burial, to lay
playthings in the infant’s grave. But one thought beyond would carry
this dim blind fancy into the range of logical reasoning. Granted that
the man is dead, and his soul gone out of him, then the way to provide
that departed soul with food or clothes or weapons is to bury or burn
them with the body.”
It is needless to recapitulate the various animistic customs which were
in vogue among primitive peoples, and which have left marked traces
amongst nearly if not all civilised races. The details may be found in
the works of several authors, notably Tylor, Lubbock, and
Waitz-Gerland.[163] I shall mention only a few, choosing those that seem
most plain. The Turanians of Eastern Asia bury with their dead all sorts
of implements, such as axes and flints, and food, such as meat and
butter, believing that the departed will have need of these during the
long voyage in the land of the spirits. A Tasmanian, on being asked why
spears were buried with the dead, replied, as if the answer were
self-evident, “Of course for the use in combat of him who has fallen
asleep.” The Greenlanders place bows and other weapons in the tombs of
their men, and knives, needles, and other instruments for sewing are
buried with their women, in the full belief that such objects will be
useful in the other world. In the Congo region, the curious custom
exists of leaving a hole in the grave over the mouth of the dead body,
and once a month passing into this hole meat and drink.
Many races are not content to place merely inanimate objects in the
graves. The Caribbeans, believing that the human spirit after death is
carried to the kingdom of dead souls, sacrifice slaves on the tombs of
their chiefs, in order that the latter may be attended in the next
world. With the same object they bury dogs and weapons. The negroes of
the Gold Coast, at the funeral of a great man, kill women and slaves
that he may be provided for in the next world. Moreover, they bury with
him his finest apparel, his gilded fetishes, and corals and pearls, so
that the dead man may continue to make use of them.
Tylor states that such animistic conceptions occur amongst all savages
without exception. According to Herbert Spencer, if we take groups of
the human race, such as tribes, societies, and nations, we find abundant
evidence that all, or nearly all, have a belief, vague or clear, in the
resurrection of a double of the dead man. It has been suggested that the
origin of this widespread belief is the image of the departed that comes
to us in dreams. These images are taken as real visits of the dead.
In civilised races there are numerous relics of the old beliefs. The
Spaniards set bread and wine on the graves of their relatives on the
anniversaries of their deaths. The Bulgarians hold a feast of the dead
on Palm Sunday. They eat and drink well, and then leave the remains of
the banquet on the graves of their relatives that these may consume them
in the night.
Saint-Foix[164] relates that when Bertrand du Guesclin was buried at St.
Denis, in 1389, several horses were sacrificed. The Bishop of Auxerre
first blessed them, laying his hands on their heads, and then they were
killed. At Treves, in 1781, at the burial of General Frederic Casimir,
his horse, according to the custom of the Teutonic Order, was led in
front of the bier, and when the General had been laid in the tomb, the
horse was killed and buried with him.[165]
Although the sacrifice of men and animals is no longer made by civilised
peoples at burials, many funeral customs have an obviously animistic
origin. In Russia, for instance, rice is placed alongside the corpse,
and pine branches are strewed along the way to be traversed by the
procession. The wreaths of “immortelles,” used so largely at funerals by
the modern French, have an extremely ancient origin. They were employed
by the Romans, and probably their use implied a conception of a future
life in a region where plants and flowers grew.
The belief in life after death, so widespread in the world, has been the
foundation of all religions. I cannot follow this question here as
closely as it deserves. To investigate it elaborately would take more
space than this volume affords, and more knowledge than I possess.
However, it is important to my argument to insist that, among races that
have inhabited very different parts of the earth, that have had very
different manners and have passed through different stages of
civilisation, the conviction has been strong that death is not the end
of all, but only a door leading from one kind of existence to another.
Because of the high importance of the existence of this conviction,
however, I must discuss some of the criticisms that have been made as to
its universality.
It has been asserted repeatedly that the idea of a future life was not a
part of the Jewish religion, as formulated in the Bible. Haeckel has
recently repeated a common opinion that belief in the immortality of the
soul was absent from the oldest and purest form of the Jewish religion.
“There is not to be found,” he said, “either in the Pentateuch or in
those more ancient parts of the Old Testament which were written before
the Babylonian captivity, any idea of the persistence of the human
soul.” This is true only within limits. No doubt the books of Moses
contain no reference to a future life nor to heaven and hell in the
sense of modern creeds, but it is no less true that the ancient Jews
shared with other races the conception of a survival after death. “Like
almost all primitive nations,” wrote Renan,[166] “the Hebrews believed
in a kind of double personality, in a shadow pale and thin which, after
death, descended underground and passed a sad and colourless existence
in the sombre halls of the dead. The dead dwelt there, without feeling,
or knowledge, or memory, in a world without light, abandoned by God. At
the most the old Hebrews hoped to obtain for themselves a quiet
resting-place, a pleasant couch for the time when they would be with the
dead. It comforted them to picture themselves as lying amongst their
ancestors in quiet communion.”
Ancestor-worship, which is associated closely with the idea of a future
life, appears repeatedly in the Pentateuch. Jacob, when he felt death
coming upon him, called his son Joseph and said unto him, “Bury me not,
I pray thee, in Egypt; but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt
carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place.” According to
Chantepie de la Saussaye,[167] “we are coming to recognise more and more
how strongly the children of Israel, and in fact all other peoples, were
tinged with animism and ancestor-worship.”
It is very remarkable how the idea of a future life, which was vague in
the early days of Israel, grew more and more clear. Ezekiel (sixth
century B.C.), when he had “seen the visions of God,” prophesied of
things to come, and declared that God would breathe life into the dry
bones of the dead. The Book of Daniel (second century B.C.) expressed
the same idea in a stronger fashion: “And many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to
shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel xii. 2). “It is plain,” said
Renan,[168] after quoting these words, “that Israel had now reached the
last stage in the secular development of her ideas, and had reached the
conception of the kingdom of God, as synonymous with the future world
and the resurrection. As the conception of a soul distinct from the body
was foreign to her, she could not conceive of a future life apart from
resurrection of the body.”
Still later, in the Talmud, the conception of a future life is clothed
with details. Paradise is depicted as a region filled with sweet odours,
while hell is an unclean place, thick with mire and smoke. According to
the Talmud, in the life beyond the grave, “there is neither eating nor
drinking; the good sit there with crowns on their heads and see God in
bliss.”[169]
At the date of the Cabalistic philosophy, the Jews had embraced the
doctrine of transmigration of souls, and had come to believe that the
spirit of Adam had entered David and would pass on to the Messiah. Some
human souls passed into the bodies of animals, into the leaves of trees,
or even into stones.
It is plain that the idea of a future life was a part of the Jewish
religion.
It has been said, also, that the idea of a future life was absent from
the religions of the Chinese. Büchner,[170] for instance, who came to be
almost the official representative of the materialism of the second half
of last century, asserts that “Buddhism, that famous religion, the most
widespread and one of the most ancient, which counts among its followers
nearly a third of the inhabitants of the earth, ignores completely the
immortality of the soul.” Haeckel, also, in the “Riddle of the
Universe,” a volume that sums up the materialism of the end of the last
century, makes a similar statement. “The higher oriental religions
include no belief whatever in the immortality of the soul; it is not
found in Buddhism, the religion that dominates 30 per cent. of the
entire human race; it is not found in the ancient popular religion of
the Chinese, nor in the reformed religion of Confucius which succeeded
it.”[171]
This question demands a somewhat closer investigation. It has been
thoroughly proved that the basis of the ancient religion of the Chinese
was no more than an extreme development of ancestor-worship. Every
important event in family affairs was accomplished “in the presence of
the ancestors.” It was a bond with relatives beyond the grave. As in
other cases of animism and ancestor-worship, meats were offered to the
dead, and objects were buried with them to be of service to them.
According to A. Réville,[172] the Chinese as a whole “fully recognised
the conception of personal survival after death; if there were no other
reason for stating this, it would be enough to point out that offerings
of real food would be incomprehensible, if made to persons supposed to
be non-existent or reduced to complete unconsciousness.” As they offer
to the dead, food and clothing and precious things, it is plain that the
Chinese think of life beyond the grave as not very different from this
life. “The dead maintain their interest in the affairs and persons and
food that was familiar to them.”
As the idea of immortality became developed further, the Chinese
modified their customs. Instead of offering to the dead material
objects, as is still done by many peoples, they came to substitute
emblems. “Houses and clothing and food imitated in paper, and dolls of
paper and straw to represent slaves, are burned, so that the spiritual
forms of these objects may be offered to the spirit they wish to
honour.”[173]
One of the chief motives of ancestor-worship is fear lest the dead, if
neglected, may visit their wrath on the living by sending plagues and
pestilence upon them.[174]
The worship of the dead had laid hold of the Chinese so firmly that even
Confucius, notwithstanding his intelligence and scepticism, paid it a
large tribute. “Confucius the philosopher,” said Réville, “regarded it
as a duty to offer to his ancestors the gifts of food that princes had
sent to him desiring to honour him.”[175]
Confucius and his followers were reticent and ambiguous in their
references to a future life, but that attitude did not prevent them from
“observing the customs and ceremonies as carefully as if they had had a
confident faith in the immortality of the soul.”[176] Although Lao-tseu
himself believed neither in heaven nor hell, and professed the most
rationalistic views, his disciples none the less accepted the doctrine
of immortality, and even came to believe in rewards and punishments
after death.
The followers of Lao-tseu, the Taoists, devoted themselves specially to
the problem of immortality. They made efforts to discover an elixir that
would be capable of prolonging earthly life to eternity. “One of the
chief claims of Taoism,” wrote Réville, “was the possession of a
specific against death. It was true that they admitted this to be not
only very difficult to obtain, but still more difficult to employ.
However, if certain rules were observed strictly they were at least
confident of great prolongation of life. It was only the very few
Taoists who had reached perfection who could hope to pass into the
better world without being subjected to the pains of death.”[177] “And
so some of the masters of Taoism, such, for instance, as Chang-Tao-Ling,
ascended to heaven without dying, by climbing a lofty peak and vanishing
into the skies.”[178]
The ordinary Taoists accepted fully the idea of immortality. They
“taught the doctrine of purgatory for those who were not evil. To arrive
at this, Lao-tseu simply expanded and applied to mankind generally an
idea that was already familiar to him, the conception of the
transmigration of one soul through several successive bodies. By means
of such expiatory transformations, a man who had not reached it directly
through the holiness of his life, could attain the immortality of genii
and the blessed.”[179]
It was believed for long that the Taoists, following the teaching of
their master, did not recognise a hell. But this opinion has had to be
abandoned, because the “Taoist clergy have provided, in the temples
dedicated to the tutelary deities of their cities, paintings
illustrating the torments prepared for the guilty by the ten courts of
justice that sit in the depths of an ocean hidden in the interior of the
earth.”[180]
Clearly then, many Chinese, both Taoists and followers of Confucius,
believe in the existence of a world beyond the grave. However, the
denial of immortality has been ascribed to Buddhists in particular.
Buddha accepted the Brahmanist doctrine of transmigration of the soul.
This has been established clearly on the evidence of several documents
of admitted authenticity. Orthodox Buddhism is somewhat vague on the
immortality of the soul. Buddha himself avoided making a decisive
statement on this matter. In such circumstances “those who were
terrified at annihilation, and who could not give up the hope of eternal
happiness, interpreted the silence of Buddha according to their own
desire, and inferred that he did not forbid them to hope.”[181]
There are many instances of the evasions of Buddhist teachers when they
were pressed with this disturbing question. Pasénadi, the king, once met
Khémâ, the nun, a disciple of Buddha, renowned for her wisdom. The king
put to her the following question: “Does the Perfect One (Buddha) exist
after death?” “The Sublime One, O great king, has not revealed to us the
existence of paradise beyond the grave.” “Then the Perfect One exists no
longer now that he is dead, O reverend lady?” “Neither, O king, has the
Sublime One revealed that He who is perfect does not exist now that He
is dead.” “Am I to believe, then, O reverend lady, that the Perfect One
still lives, although He is dead, and at the same time does not live? Am
I to believe, O wise lady, that the Perfect One being dead, neither
exists nor does not exist?”[182]
Take again the mode in which Soumirmitá,[183] “the son of a god, and
surrounded and preceded by a crowd of gods,” worshipped Bouddha
(Tathâgata): “Thou art the physician, skilful to save, and who givest
the gift of life everlasting.”
The Buddhists, as they were not given clear doctrines on this subject,
very naturally followed their inclinations by accepting the idea of life
beyond the grave. And certainly Buddhism does not teach annihilation of
the body after death, although this has been lightly taken for granted.
On the contrary, it is so persuaded of survival after death as being the
rule, that it grants only to rare and elect souls the privilege of at
length laying down the burden of continuous life.[184]
The Chinese Buddhists retained the fundamental conceptions of the
ancient religion of their land and continued to worship their ancestors
and to seek the readiest path to immortality. They soon came to
transform Nirvâna into paradise, and to inculcate in the Chinese race
the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. “The Buddhist
monasteries in China for the most part possessed a set of little rooms,
in which there were depicted, in vivid colours, crowded scenes from the
eighteen hells of tribulation and lamentation. For there exist under the
earth eight hells filled with the torments of fire, and ten with the
equally terrible horrors of ice.”[185]
The paradise of the Chinese Buddhists, or Ni-pan (Land of the Pure), is
a region abounding in “gold and silver, and precious stones. Rivers of
crystal run on golden sands covered with splendid lotus-flowers and
traversed by delightful paths. Lovely music is always to be heard. Three
times a day a shower of blossoms falls. There are to be seen there
gorgeous birds, pheasants, and parrots, and many others; and these,
every quarter of an hour, in a choir of melodious voices, trill out the
beauties of religion and recall to their hearers the Buddha, Dharma, and
Sungha. These are some of the wonders prepared for those who are born
again after death. Into that land neither sin nor any evil enters.”[186]
I need no longer accumulate details to show the falseness of the view
that a third of humanity profess materialism to the exclusion of any
belief in survival after death. On the other hand, it is quite certain
that the vast majority of mankind is convinced that death puts no
definite term to existence, and that this life is no more than a passing
stage leading to a life to come. However, although many simple races
believe that the future life is merely a continuation of this life, the
more subtle-minded races present the future life as filled with delights
for the good and with torments for the wicked.
Such an idea of the next world, which is very generally accepted, is
probably the basis of religions. From it have come the conceptions of
supreme beings and divinities Many facts go to show that the primitive
gods were no other than the relatives and ancestors of the living, now
dead, yet living in another world and ruling the affairs of this world.
Wicked ancestors became transformed into evil spirits, while good
ancestors became mild and benevolent deities.
Very many peoples offer prayers to their ancestors and treat them as
gods. The Kaffirs pray and sacrifice to their dead relatives, believing
that the spirits of the dead haunt their late dwelling-places, and,
according to their characters, help or torment their descendants. As
they are able to cause good or evil after death, these play the part of
gods. But, as Lubbock points out (“Origin of Civilisation”), it must be
remembered that the god of a savage is only a being like unto himself,
although probably rather more powerful, and I shall show that there are
many intermediate stages between true gods and mere dead parents whose
malice is to be feared, or whose kindness is to be supplicated.
The North American Indians[187] pray to the spirits of their
forefathers for good weather or luck in hunting, and fancy when an
Indian falls into the fire that the ancestral spirits pushed him in to
punish neglect of the customary gifts, while the natives of Louisiana
are said to have even gone so far as to build temples for dead men. In
Polynesia “at Tanna, the gods are spirits of departed ancestors, aged
chiefs becoming deities after death, presiding over the growth of yams
and fruit-trees, and receiving from the islanders prayer and offerings
of first fruits.”[188] In the Malay Islands “the souls of deceased
ancestors are looked to for prosperity in life and help in distress.”
In Africa ancestor-worship is well developed. The Zulu warriors,
“aided by the amatongo,’ the spirits of their ancestors, conquer in
the battle. Even the little children and old women, of small account
in life, become at death spirits having much power, the infants for
kindness, the crones for malice. But it is especially the head of each
family who receives the worship of his kin.”[189] The Zulu adores his
father, when he is a chief, above all others, and is convinced that a
father remembering his love for his children, will not forget them
when he is dead. “The Zulu follows up the doctrine of divine ancestors
till he reaches a first ancestor of man and creator of the world, the
primeval Unkulunkulu.”[190]
So great is the number of instances that it is too difficult to choose
from them. The fundamental idea is always identical, although details
and accessories vary, as one passes from the hardly idealised relatives
of negro tribes and goes progressively to the “Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth” of the Nicene Creed.
The conception of a future life in the form of immortality or some
kindred state, associated with the conception of many gods or of one
God, has been developed to satisfy the craving for life and to combat
the fear of death, that is to say, to defeat the greatest contradiction
in the constitution of man. I must now inquire how far the different
religions have been successful in this object.
Many primitive races have absolute faith in the tenets of their
religion, and believe in the promise of life beyond the grave as in a
certain fact. Thus the aborigines of the Fiji islands are convinced that
they will be born again, in another world, in the exact condition in
which they leave this life; and so they wish to die before being
afflicted with any infirmity. As it is very difficult to reach old age
without being the victim of some illness or infirmity, when a man feels
the approach of age, he tells his children that the time has come for
him to die. If he himself fails to give this notice, the children
undertake the duty. A family council is called, the day is appointed,
and the grave made ready. The old man is allowed to choose between being
strangled and being buried alive. The following instance will show the
strength of a belief in life to come. Hunt, an English traveller, quoted
by Lubbock, received a visit from a young native of Fiji, whose purpose
was to give an invitation to the funeral of his mother which was to take
place next day. Mr. Hunt accepted the invitation and joined the
procession, but as he was surprised to see no dead body, inquired about
it from the son. The son pointed out his mother, walking in the
procession and as gay and animated as any of the others. Mr. Hunt stated
his surprise, and asked why he had been deceived by being told that the
mother was dead, when she was plainly as much alive and as well as any
one else. He received the reply that the death festival was about to be
celebrated; that presently they would bury her; that she was old, and
that his brother and he, thinking that she had lived long enough, and
should be put to death, had obtained her cheerful consent.
This case is far from being solitary, because many villages have been
described as containing no inhabitants of a greater age than forty
years, all those older having been buried. It is not difficult to
understand that death should have no terrors for persons possessed of a
faith as strong as this. The American Indian, according to Lubbock, has
very little fear of death. He does not fear transference to a realm in
which, as he has been told all his life, there is no sorrow and
abundance of joy.
I know a case of a young girl of the Catholic faith who believed so
firmly in the joys of Paradise that, when stricken with a mortal
illness, she awaited death with a great impatience. Before she died, she
cried out that “already she could see the beautiful flowers and hear the
sweet music of the birds that fill heaven.”
But it is rare to find faith so strong in such a case. More often faith
is not strong enough to subdue the fear of death, and in proof of this I
may recall the instance of the clergyman already given.[191] Stricken
with an incurable disease, he, in spite of his religion, underwent
extreme agony, and could not reconcile himself to the idea of death. The
fear of death showed itself so strongly in this case that I have chosen
it as a characteristic instance of the feeling.
It is only with fanatics and simple or primitive persons that blind
faith can subdue this instinctive fear. For this reason, since the most
ancient times, religions have sought out something more than the promise
of paradise to mitigate this chief disharmony of our nature. In this
connection the doctrines of Buddha are those most interesting. Here I
shall not deal with that modified and transformed Buddhism, in which, as
I have already shown, there was a return to the doctrine of future life,
with its hell of torments and heaven filled with delights.
Buddha made no reference to the great blot on human life. His doctrine,
in its original form, was extremely pessimistic. Take, for instance,
some of his sayings on this subject: “Miserable in truth is this world,
in which there is beginning, birth, growing old, death, disappearance
and renewal. But we know not how to escape from this world, full of
horror though it be. Alas, because of old age, illness, death, and their
like, we know not who shall put an end to this world, which is so full
of horror. To all who are, there comes old age, and illness, and death,
and their like.”[192]
When the Buddha came upon the sorrows of the world, as I have already
described (p. 119), he reflected as follows: “Woe upon youth, threatened
by old age! Woe upon health, which so many maladies destroy! Woe upon
the life of man, which lasts but a little space! Woe on the temptations
of the flesh, which lure the heart of the wise! Would that there were
neither old age nor illness, nor death and the pains of death, which
come from the five elements of life (Skandhas)! Would that there were
neither old age nor illness nor death, which are for ever bound up
together! Nevertheless, when I return again I shall consider
deliverance.”[193]
Having pondered for many days on these problems, Buddha thought that he
had discovered the only solution, and taught men resignation. When a man
was young he would ask of his father: “Lord, would that old age would
never come upon me, and that I should keep for ever the warm colour of
my youth; that I should be always filled with health, and that no
disease should come near me; that my life should be prolonged for ever,
and that death should pass me by! Such an one later on must learn to
give up these longings.”[194]
In his famous “Sermon at Benares,” Buddha gave in brief the outlines of
his doctrines in the following words: “Hear, oh monks! the holy truth of
the springs of sorrow! Sorrow is born of lust of life, that drags us
from incarnation to incarnation, and of pleasure and desire, which seek
their fulfilment hither and thither; the lust of pleasure, the lust of
life, the lust of power. Hear, oh monks! the holy truth of the conquest
of sorrow; it is the killing of this lust by the utter abandonment of
desire, the giving up of all desire, the forgetting of all desire, the
freeing of the body of all desire, until there is no place left for
desire.”[195]
In such a spirit of resignation, Buddha became himself a monk, and lived
according to the strict rules of the pure life that he himself had laid
down (“the belief pure, the will pure, the language pure, the deeds
pure, the means of livelihood pure, the study pure, the attention pure,
the meditation pure”). However, he did not find many kindred souls to
follow the same precepts. Buddhism soon moved away from these original
tenets, and became a religious doctrine of the ordinary kind.
We are inclined to associate with Buddhism the doctrine of Nirvâna, as
if the latter were the goal to which human life should be directed. Many
philosophers, and the pessimists chief among them, naturally with
Schopenhauer at their head, have adopted Nirvâna as the goal of mankind,
as they see the world. However, the word Nirvâna has had many
interpretations put upon it, the which is less surprising as Sanscrit
scholars differ. I do not intend to join in the discussion, as I myself
am not acquainted with Sanscrit, upon which the argument must be
founded. However, I cannot pass it by without comment on the pretext
that it has not yet been settled definitely by specialists, as it is the
case that many thinkers regard Nirvâna as the goal of human existence.
For long Nirvâna was represented as a sort of blank, in which there was
no display of any mental operations. Max Müller,[196] the celebrated
Oxford professor, opposed this interpretation on the ground that,
according to him, in “all passages of Buddhistic origin in which Nirvâna
occurs there is nothing to betoken annihilation. Most of these passages,
if not all of them, would be quite unintelligible if we were to replace
in them the word Nirvâna by the word annihilation.”
Many other specialists share this view, and cannot agree that the goal
of human life was to be annihilation. Rhys Davids, for instance, thinks
that Nirvâna is to be interpreted as a tranquillity of the soul,
possible of achievement in this life, and that the word is best
translated by the term “sanctity.” According to him, Nirvâna does not
mean extinction or annihilation, but rather freedom from the great
passions, such as envy and hate. Pfungst[197] agrees with Max Müller; he
is convinced that the first adepts of Buddha could not have conceived of
Nirvâna as extinction. Dahlmann[198] on the other hand, tries to prove
that Nirvâna in its primitive signification implied the abolition of the
will to live, and really corresponded to annihilation.
I must add, however, that Nirvâna did not occupy a place in Buddhism so
important as has been ascribed to it by several commentators. In many of
the Buddhist authorities mention of Nirvâna is only accidental. In the
“Lalita Vistara,” for instance, the word occurs very seldom, and then
only in unimportant connections. However, the latter document contains a
good deal that serves to explain the conception of Nirvâna.
When the young Buddha, still very exacting, asked his father to obtain
for him perpetual youth, health, life everlasting, and freedom from
death, he added the following words: “Lord, if you cannot give me these
four gifts, at least bring it about that after this life I shall have no
more metempsychoses.”[199]
As I have already stated, Buddhism had embraced the Brahmanistic
doctrine of transmigration of souls. According to the legend, before his
birth as a prince, the Buddha had passed hundreds of earlier existences.
His soul had been the soul not only of fifty-eight kings, but of
eighteen monkeys, four horses, four snakes, three lizards, two fish, and
of other creatures.[200] Such continual transferences of the soul to so
many different animals was a source of perplexity and sorrow to
believers. It was natural that a great thinker like Buddha should have
conceived the desire of sparing himself and his faithful followers so
many transmigrations. He thought of these rebirths as a great evil, from
which a pure life might set one free.
In the poetical language of the Hindoo Buddhists, metempsychosis was
compared to the ocean; the waves that change from moment to moment were
the continual rebirths; our temporary body was the foam of the crests of
the waves, while Nirvâna was the opposite shore. He who reaches Nirvâna
would never again plunge into the great sea of Sangsâra. In a passage
quoted by Rhys Davids, and ascribed to Kâma Sutta, it is stated
expressly that “the sea is an image of the Sangsâra or transmigrations,
while Nirvâna is an island upon it. Once the shores have been reached, a
soul will no longer be plunged in the waves of the ocean, and will be
freed from the successive births of metempsychosis.”
In other words, to avoid being tormented after death by perpetual
rebirths, some of which may be humiliating, it is necessary to live a
pure life and so to secure repose or Nirvâna. Nirvâna is by no means the
cessation of all consciousness, but merely the end of transmigrations.
From such a point of view, it is possible to interpret all, or at least
nearly all, the passages in which Nirvâna is spoken of.
When he was old and full of disease and afflicted with grievous pain,
Buddha, being at the point of death, thought of his disciples and called
them to him and said: “It is not meet that I should enter Nirvâna
without having spoken with those who have cared for me, without speaking
to the community of disciples. By the force of my will I shall subdue
this disease and hold the life within me.” Some time afterwards, the
reverend Ananda went to Buddha and spoke to him, saying amongst other
words as follows: “The Sublime One will surely not enter into Nirvâna
ere he has made known unto the community of disciples his wishes
regarding them.” “Growing more and more feeble, the spirit of Buddha
passed from ecstacy to ecstacy without ceasing, and knew every delight;
then he entered into Nirvâna. And the earth trembled, and thunder rolled
across the skies.”[201]
It is clear that in this passage Nirvâna was associated with death. But
it was with the death of a saint who had lived a pure life.
Metempsychosis would not be inflicted on him, and he would enjoy repose.
It is probable that the term Nirvâna later on came to be applied to the
state of mind of a saint who, by living the pure life, would avoid
transmigration after death.
As the importance of Nirvâna lies in its contrast with metempsychosis,
it is easy to see why the precise state of mind involved in it has not
been described exactly. However, a survey of the Buddhistic writings
makes it plain that at least Nirvâna was not associated with
annihilation. In this respect Max Müller’s verdict must be taken as
correct.
Buddha’s attempt to remedy the ills of human life, then, lay in a
complete renunciation of all the joys and pleasures of life, and in
perfect resignation. The mere fact that primitive Buddhism did not
persist, but rapidly passed into an ordinary religion, is sufficient
proof that Buddha did not achieve his purpose. It was the promise of a
life to come that attracted so many men and spread Buddhism over so
large a part of the earth. However, this faith has been able to maintain
itself only in certain strata of society to which the rationalistic
conception of the mental processes has not penetrated. Since the
awakening of the scientific spirit in Europe, it has been recognised
that the promise of a future life has no basis of fact to support it.
The modern study of the functions of the mind has shown beyond all
question that these are dependent on the functions of the body, in
particular of those of the central nervous system. A slight lowering of
the rate of the circulation of the blood, a fleeting anæmia of the
brain, at once arrests consciousness, that is to say, the fundamental
sensation of the individual mental life. Anæsthetics, used in doses so
small that they do not influence certain parts of the nervous system,
as, for instance, those that control the heart and lungs, completely
abolish consciousness. Persons who are put under chloroform for surgical
purposes fall into a state of absolute unconsciousness. Sometimes, after
undergoing painful sensations, especially sensations of oppression, the
patients imagine themselves to be in rapid motion, and in a few moments
have the sensation of falling into an immense gulf, after which comes
nothingness, the annihilation of sensations and of consciousness. In
other cases, patients, without any sensation of catastrophe, lose all
idea of reality, and every psychic and sensorial function is abolished.
Such states are very closely similar to death, which indeed is the
result, in certain rare instances, of the ordinary process of being
chloroformed.
Neither the narcosis produced by chloroform nor that produced by any
other form of anæsthetic, affords any particle of ground for the view
that there is consciousness in any form apart from the body. The action
of morphine sometimes brings about a strange current of happiness and an
apparent weightlessness of the body; but here again there is no
suspicion given as to the existence of any mental phenomena apart from
the body.
Consciousness of personality is of supreme interest from the point of
view of personal immortality, and this mental phenomenon develops only
slowly and progressively in an infant. This fact, again, like the facts
of narcosis, shows the dependence of consciousness on the action of the
bodily organs. Just as our consciousness comes out of nothing in the
first months, or years, of our life, so it will pass into nothing at the
end of our life.
Mental disease confirms this conclusion, and it, too, gives no ground
for the belief in a survival of the mind after death.
Certain internal sensibilities in the depths of our organism survive our
personal consciousness. When the heart has ceased to beat, and when the
anæmic brain is certainly incapable of personal consciousness, some
portions of the body may still retain vitality. The muscular fibres are
still able to contract when they are stimulated, and the white
corpuscles of the blood can still exhibit their specific movements. It
is certain, moreover, that these white corpuscles possess a specific
sensibility, and, by a sort of sense of taste, respond to the kind of
environment that surrounds them. Our consciousness, however, is
absolutely out of touch with the sensations of these globules, which,
however, none the less are part of our organism. It happens, therefore,
that in certain diseases, the white corpuscles, stimulated by the
presence of particular substances, perform extensive movements of
migration within our bodies. Such migration is quite outside the sphere
of consciousness. The corpuscles, directed by their sensibility, are in
constant pursuit of microbes that have entered the body, and yet these
actions, too, are not made known to our consciousness. In the same
fashion, the thousands of active spermatozoa in the male organs and the
ova in the female possess specific sensibility. These reproductive
elements contain the germ of individual consciousness, but it is not
until they have developed into the new generation that it is possible to
impute to them individual consciousness, and the organism that shelters
them has no idea of what it harbours. The sensibility of the white
corpuscles and of the many other cells composing our body, although
certainly a reality, has no part in the absolutely special sensation
that we call individual consciousness, and which is all we think of in
wishing to escape death.
The idea of a future life is supported by not a single fact, while there
is much evidence against it. The phenomenon of intercommunication across
a distance, sometimes called telepathy, may be actual, but affords no
support to the conception of the existence of souls apart from bodies.
It may be that emanations are given off by certain organs, and that
these are capable of being appreciated by the organs of another body at
a distance; but, even if such were the case, we should have to deal
simply with other bodily functions. Moreover, the supposed phenomena
that fall within this category are so rare, so difficult to observe, and
so obscure, that no certain argument for the continuance of existence
after death can be deduced from them.
It is easy to see why the advance of knowledge has diminished the number
of believers in the persistence of consciousness after death, and that
complete annihilation at death is the conception accepted by the vast
majority of enlightened persons.
Apart from their chief function of consoling men for the inevitability
of death, religions have concerned themselves with some of the results
of other disharmonies of the human constitution. From time immemorial
they have claimed the direction of diet, the control of the reproductive
functions and the prevention or cure of all kinds of disease.
The dietary regulations given by the religions are familiar. Even at the
present day, the cookery of many races is regulated by their religion.
The Jewish diet, notably, is regulated by the Mosaic law, down to the
most minute detail. For instance, it was forbidden to eat the blood of
animals. Moses commanded: “Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat
flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to
the blessing of the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee; the unclean
and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart.
Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it on the earth as
water.”[202] Later on: “Only be sure that thou eat not the blood; for
the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the
flesh.”[203] “Thou shalt not eat it, that it may go well with thee, and
with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in
the sight of the Lord.”[204] The Books of Moses also contain receipts
for the cooking of certain meats. “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all
with water, but roast with fire, his head with his legs, and with the
purtenance thereof.”[205]
It has been suggested that these rules were founded on ideas of hygiene
in consonance with the results of modern science. Some of them, it is
true, such as the prohibition of uncooked or partially cooked meat, are
confirmed by our modern knowledge. But the greater number of the Mosaic
rules, as, for instance, the prohibition of the consumption as food of
blood or the flesh of pigs or hares and so forth, are in direct
opposition to a modern knowledge of hygienic diet. Religious cookery has
no more than a historical interest.
The religions have been greatly occupied with the functions of the
reproductive organs. Most of the founders of the great faiths have paid
a keen attention to the disharmonies of this side of our constitution.
They became persuaded of the merit of abstention, which they practised
themselves and preached to others. Buddha, after devoting his youth to
all the pleasures and not being satisfied, passed to absolute
asceticism. He and his adepts formed an order of monkhood, on which an
absolute celibacy was imposed. If a member of the order had intercourse
with a woman, he was considered to be as guilty as a murderer or a
thief. In the Buddhist rules framed even for laymen, “sexual intercourse
outside marriage was forbidden, on the ground that it was
degrading.”[206]
The views of the Christian religion on sexual matters are well known.
The leaders of Christianity abstained from sexual intercourse and
recommended their conduct to others. St. Paul more than once affirmed
his own continence. “For I would that all men were even as I myself; but
every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and
another after that. I say therefore, to the unmarried and widows, It is
good for them if they abide even as I; but if they cannot contain, let
them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.”[207]
The religions of savage races are equally concerned with the
reproductive functions. There are many extremely strange facts known
concerning this matter, and among such I may mention that the Sandwich
Islanders have a deity who presides at abortions. This god is made in
the form of an elongated wooden instrument, and is known as “Kapo.” The
upper part of the deity is shaped into a grotesque head, while the lower
portion terminates in a point and serves to induce abortion by entering
the uterus and rupturing the fœtal membranes.[208]
Many other idols are used by savages as protections against disease.
Ploss-Bartels,[209] in his treatise on “Medicine among Primitive Races,”
has described a large collection of talismans of this kind. The ruling
idea in the manufacture of these is that diseases are due to the
presence of evil spirits, who are to be scared away as soon as possible.
The Goldi of Siberia construct straw or wooden figures of men and
animals to absorb the spirits of diseases. The Guilaks make wooden human
figures, on the breasts of which are fashioned images of toads. These
talismans are used as remedies for diseases of the chest and stomach.
In higher forms of religion there remain abundant traces of such
notions. Even Martin Luther declared that disease was supernatural in
origin. “Behold a matter on which there is no room for doubt,” he
stated, “and that is that the plague, fevers, and other diseases are the
work of the devil.” A number of religious ceremonies were specified as
the best remedies for diseases.
The plague has left many deep marks on human history, and it is natural
that a malady so terrible should have attracted serious attention. It
was usually attributed to divine wrath, which was to be appeased by
purification and sacrifice. Human beings were slain on altars to appease
the wrath of God and to lessen the mortality from plague.
Such religious customs have disappeared almost completely with the
advancing culture of man, but traces of them survive and become apparent
on occasions. Quite recently, when the King of England, Edward VII., was
afflicted with an abdominal suppuration, he was given the assistance of
the most highly skilled modern surgery, but at the same time special
services were held in the churches to aid the cure of the royal invalid.
Every one has now come to regard such events as mere relics of old
customs without intrinsic importance. Hygiene in the kitchen and the
prevention of disease are no longer under the control of religion, but
are regulated on scientific knowledge obtained by the experimental
method. I need pay no further attention to these matters. However,
religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions
which as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future
life has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life
after death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On
the other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy
humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought
of the inevitability of death.
It was to be expected that in such a state of affairs philosophers would
have sought an issue from the dilemma. Certainly many philosophical
theories have been propounded to explain life and death. As the subject
is of extreme importance I shall reserve a chapter for it.
CHAPTER VIII
ATTEMPTS IN SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY TO REMEDY THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE
DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION
Some philosophical systems are in intimate union with religions—Ideas
of ancient philosophers on the immortality of the soul—The teaching of
Plato—The scepticism of Aristotle—The Stoics—Cicero, Seneca, Marcus
Aurelius—Modern philosophical systems—Pessimism and its origin—Lord
Byron—Theories of Schopenhauer and Hartmann—Mailaender’s philosophy of
deliverance—Criticisms of pessimism—Max Nordau—Ideas of modern
thinkers on death
Systems of philosophy are closely attached to religious doctrine.
Buddhism, for instance, originated in a philosophic theory which
acquired a religious character in the hands of the followers of Buddha.
Similarly, many systems of philosophy are merely religious dogmas which
it has been attempted to support by rational argument apart from
supernatural revelation.
The idea of life beyond the grave has long since furnished one of the
principal bases of various philosophic doctrines, the ultimate object of
which was to solve the problem of death. Ancient philosophy is full of
such. Plato describes the tragic death of his master Socrates, and in
connection with it expresses very clearly his ideas upon death. He puts
these words in the mouth of Socrates in the “Phaedo”: “Far from being
depressed by the death of a friend, I felt, on the contrary, that he was
to be envied; as I witnessed his attitude, and listened to his words,
and noticed the courage with which he faced death, I became convinced
that he did not quit this life without some divine support that drew him
towards another world in which he would find the most perfect happiness
man could wish.”
Plato attributes to Socrates a very definite view as to future
retribution: “In truth,” said Socrates, “if I did not expect to find in
another life gods at once good and wise, and men better than those of
this life, it would be foolish of me not to be disturbed by the approach
of death. But I know that I look to finding myself among just men. I do
not fear to die, because I am confident that something still remains
after this life, and that, according to the old belief, the good will be
treated better than the bad.”
As such views were not derived from a body of revealed truth, it was
necessary to support them by reasoning. Plato therefore went on to try
to convince us of the immortality of the soul by speculative hypotheses.
He recalled the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, and suggested
that the souls who had abandoned themselves to injustice, tyranny, and
plunder would pass into the bodies of wolves and hawks and falcons, for
souls of that nature could not go elsewhere; while the souls of those
who had practised the social and civic virtues known as temperance or
justice, would inhabit the bodies of peaceful and gentle creatures such
as bees and ants, or would even enter other human bodies and again
become good men.
Plato referred also to the law of contrasts in support of his theory.
“As the most strong often springs from the feeblest, or the most swift
from the slow, so life gives rise to death, and from death life
springs.” “From that which is dead,” said Socrates, “is born all that
lives and has life. And so our souls after death pass to the infernal
regions.” “As we must grant that the dead are born from the living as
much as the living from the dead, it is plain that the souls of dead men
exist somewhere, whence they may return to life.”
By such arguments Plato tried to prove the immortality of the soul, the
fundamental basis of his philosophy, and put them in the mouth of his
master Socrates on his deathbed. In the dialogue he tried to refute all
kinds of objections. But, in spite of the assurance with which he
formulated his doctrine, there may be seen underlying the argument a
note of doubt, and it is just this that distinguishes philosophy from
religion.
It is evident that the whole of Plato’s system was the result of an
effort to solve the problem of death. Again and again he said that the
true philosopher lived only to be ready to die; that being so, he
declared it to be childish for men at the last to shrink from what they
had so long been making ready for. It was himself that Plato wished to
convince of a future life. “I do not seek,” he said, “to persuade all
those who are here of the truth of what I say, although to do so would
greatly please me; what I aim at is to convince myself. Behold me, dear
friend, in pursuit of an argument that, as you see, interests me deeply;
if what I say turns out to be true, it is good to have believed it, and
if there be nothing after death, at least I have gained this, that while
I am still with you, I am not borne down with grief.”
The doubt which was only latent in Plato was much more active in some
other ancient philosophers. Aristotle[210] at one time admitted that
part of the soul was immortal, but that the other part was mortal. The
two parts came together at the beginning of a life and separated at its
end. Later on, however, Aristotle abandoned this theory of the
immortality of the personal consciousness, and argued strongly against
the Platonic theory of the immortality of the soul, although, however,
he still believed in the indestructibility of the “rational spirit,” an
immortal principle.
The Stoics still further developed such a conception. They held that
besides the individual soul there was a universal soul, a presiding
influence in which all others had their being.
Cicero, again, discussing old age and death, tried to establish belief
in a future life. “I am convinced,” said Cicero to Scipio and Laelius,
“that your illustrious fathers, who were so dear to me, are still full
of life, and of the only life worthy of the name; for the body is, as it
were, our prison-house, within which we must accomplish the tasks laid
on us by necessity. When I think of the activity of the human spirit,
its vast memory, its prevision, its store of art and knowledge, and
experience, I am convinced in the depths of my being that an existence
with such qualities cannot be mortal. The soul is continually active,
and its activity comes not to it from without; the soul is a
self-supporting activity, and cannot come to an end. Moreover, as the
soul is a simple substance, unalloyed by any mixture of materials, it
can neither be divided nor made to perish.” By such arguments Cicero
sought to prove the immortality of the soul. “I will tell you,” he said,
“why old age, so far from being grievous to me, is full of delight.” But
in the end, he himself saw the weakness of his proof, and the note of
scepticism appeared in him more strongly than in his predecessors, so
that he came to say as follows: “If I am deceived as to the immortality
of the soul, I am deceived gladly, and I would not have the belief torn
from me while I live. If, when I am dead, all feeling is arrested within
me, as some pretended philosophers hold, at least I have not to fear
that after my death they will come and mock me for my error.”
Scepticism becoming more and more definite, belief in the immortality of
the soul persisted only in the purely religious form. Philosophical
systems freed themselves of it, and replaced it by a vague form of
pantheism.
Seneca tried to support the thesis of immortality, but one gets the
impression strongly that there was no vigour in his belief. He is
content with poetry rather than with reason. “The events of this mortal
life,” he wrote in one of his celebrated “Letters,” “are the mere
prelude of a better and more lasting existence. As our mother’s womb,
bearing us for nine months, shapes us not to live there for ever, but
for our place in this world in which it places us, with the strength to
breathe this air and to withstand surrounding things: so, also, the time
that passes from our infancy to our old age is a preparation for a
second birth. Another beginning and another world await us. Until then,
we could not endure, save from afar, the splendour of the heavens. Learn
then, O man, to face without a shudder the decisive hour, the last hour
of the body, but not of the soul. What you see around you consider but
as the furniture of an inn; soon you are going further on. The day that
you dread as your last day is your birthday into immortality.”
In the midst of these glowing visions, however, Seneca is assailed by
dark and gloomy thoughts. “Yes,” he cried, “all that is must perish;
death comes to every living thing. Every day, every hour, reveals to man
the coming of death; there is always some new lesson to remind him of
the fragility he had forgotten, and from a dream of eternity to turn his
thoughts to the grave.”
These heights and depths of spirit led Seneca towards a new theory in
which he gave a final expression of his views on the great problem of
human existence. “All beings pass through definite stages; they must be
born, grow and die. The stars that we see revolving above us, the earth
on which we are carelessly scattered and which seems to us so solid; all
is threatened and all will come to an end. Old age comes on everything;
although the period is very different, the same end comes to everything.
Everything that now is will cease to be; but for all that the world will
not perish; it will dissolve. Dissolution is destruction for us. As a
matter of fact we think of things only as they concern ourselves; our
degenerate soul, incapable of detaching itself from the body, sees
nothing beyond that; none the less we should endure the idea of the
death of ourselves and of those near to us with a greater fortitude were
we to realise that nature is a constant routine of birth and death, that
all composite bodies must dissolve, that the dissolved substances
reform, and that the creative power of God displays itself in this cycle
of change throughout the universe.” From such a final conception of the
universe he draws the consolation: “A great soul should know how to obey
God and submit willingly to the order of the universe. If it be not for
a better life that we are to quit this life, if not to find a home in
the skies more tranquil and more brilliant, our souls, free from
suffering, will return to the spirit that gave them birth and will
mingle in the great all.”
In other words, abandoning the image of life after death that played so
consoling a part in primitive beliefs, philosophy became content to
advocate resignation to the inevitable laws of nature, and to console
itself with the promise of a vague return to some universal, eternal
principle.
The conceptions of the Stoics, especially in the form presented by
Seneca, found an ardent and brilliant exponent in Marcus Aurelius, whose
“Thoughts” are known to all the world. He had much to say of the problem
of death and of the attitude of the philosopher towards it. “Death,”
said Marcus Aurelius, “like birth, is one of nature’s mysteries. In the
two are present the same elements: in the one case in the phase of
combination, in the other in that of dissolution.” In death “there is
nothing repugnant to the essence of an intelligent being, nor to the
general plan of our nature.” But his ideas on death were vague. “Death
may perhaps be a dispersal or resolution into atoms, or an annihilation
in the sense of extinction or deplacement.” “Alexander of Macedon and
his mule-driver were reduced at death to the same condition, that is to
say they returned alike to the originating principle of the universe, or
one and the other were scattered as atoms.”
Although he was definitely a deist, Marcus Aurelius was undecided as to
the immortality of the soul. “If souls have not disappeared,” he said,
“how can the air contain the eternal generations of them?” “Remember
well,” he said in another place, “that that feeble and composite
creature, your soul, will one day resolve into its atoms; the faint
spark of life will be extinguished, or be assigned to some other
dwelling-place.” Clearly enough, there was no consoling hope of a future
life to be derived from these halting dubieties. It was needful to
replace by some other anodyne the belief that for so long had brought
comfort to poor humanity.
Marcus Aurelius tried to counteract the fear of death by the following
reflection: “To fear death is to fear either being deprived of all
feeling or being subjected to some other kind of feeling. But, if we are
deprived of all feeling, we shall have no evil to fear; if we are to
find new kinds of sensations, our existence will be different, but still
existence.” However, he probably realised the weakness of such a
consolation, for he tried to link the problem of death with the general
principles of human conduct.
As I mentioned in the first chapter of this volume, Marcus Aurelius,
like many of the philosophers of antiquity, held the view that man ought
to live according to the dictates of human nature. The theory recurs
again and again in his “Thoughts.” “The fig tree lives according to its
kind, the dog like the dog, bees like bees, and man like man.” He
expresses this view still more emphatically in the following words: “Man
must live in conformity with the laws of his nature.” “No one will
prevent you from living according to the laws of nature, and nothing can
happen to you that is not in accordance with nature’s universal law.”
“Neither hand nor foot can do that which is contrary to the laws of
nature, because the foot can only fulfil the functions of the foot, and
the hand those of the hand. Similarly with man, to behave as a man is
not to defy nature’s laws, because it is only fulfilling the functions
of man. And that which is not against nature cannot be evil.”
Being full of this theory, Marcus Aurelius applied it to death, which,
being a natural phenomenon, was to be accepted without protest. “For,
after all, nature forges the links and nature breaks them. Is she about
to sever them? Very well, let us then say farewell as if we were taking
leave of our friends, but let there be no tearing of the heart strings,
and let us go willingly, and so avoid being dragged away. This, too, is
in accordance with the laws of nature.” “Philosophy,” according to
Marcus Aurelius, “is to await death peacefully, and to regard it as
merely the dissolution of the elements which compose the human frame.
Such is the law of nature, and whatever is in conformity with nature is
not evil.”
Death, being a phenomenon in conformity with nature, must be submitted
to. “Do not abuse death,” advises Marcus Aurelius, “but accept it with
resignation, as being in accordance with the will of nature. Do we not
pass on from infancy to youth, grow up, and become tall and attain
manhood? Do not our teeth come, our beards grow, and our hair turn
white? If we marry, do we not beget children? Are not all such events in
their due season, and the work of nature? Death comes through the same
agency. It therefore behoves a wise man to approach death with neither
anger, repugnance, nor contempt, but to await it like any other
operation of nature.” _Resignation_, then, is what this form of
philosophy amounts to. Not only must death be accepted as inevitable
when it comes after a long life, but even if it surprise us at an
unexpected time. “He who dies after reaching the uttermost limits of
human life,” says Marcus Aurelius, “has reached no further than he who
comes to a premature end. It is the same in the end, whether there are a
hundred years to look back upon, or whether there are only three.”
In his book on Marcus Aurelius, Renan[211] compares his philosophy of
resignation with the Nirvâna of the Buddhists. “Like Jesus, Çakya-Mouni,
Socrates, Francis of Assisi, and three or four other wise men, Marcus
Aurelius was victor over death. He could laugh at it, because it had no
longer any meaning for him.” But, just as the theories of Buddha became
transformed into a religion which promised the immortality of the soul,
and as Nirvâna gave way to the Paradise of the Easterns with its
delights, so the sceptical resignation of ancient philosophy was
vanquished by Christianity with its promises of a future life and
immortality.
Thus, in the course of the centuries, philosophy has been drowned in the
floods of sentiment and of religious notions, and it has been a labour
of Sisyphus to restore reason to humanity. There is the less need to
follow the stages of this resurrection, as, in the end, they come to
little. For long, philosophical systems set themselves the task of
supporting the dogmas of religion by arguments independent of divine
revelation. The gods were replaced by philosophy or by matter, and an
effort was made to solve the eternal and disquieting problem of death by
proving the immortality of the soul.
The philosophers of the early renaissance of human thought accepted the
chief religious dogmas as established truth. Plotin regarded the
immortality of the soul as a self-evident truth that required no proof.
He argued against a resurrection of the body, but accepted the
transmigration of souls.
Although Spinoza had given up the conception of the immortality of the
soul in the ordinary sense, he accepted the Aristotelian idea that “the
human spirit could not be destroyed absolutely with the body, but left
some eternal remnant.” Death, in his view, was a kind of eternal life, a
merging with the absolute, a return to the immortal and universal
substance.
Philosophers have exhausted themselves in the study of the foundations
of human knowledge with the sole object of demonstrating the truth of
religious dogmas. In spite of his scepticism, Kant tried to prove the
genuineness of human knowledge, and to found on that a conviction of the
future life and of the existence of God. Fichte set himself the same
task, but he was forced to recognise that “immortality cannot be deduced
from natural phenomena,” and that it “is supernatural.” “Although we
cannot understand the possibility of eternal life, it still may be
possible, for it transcends human knowledge.” Hegel reached a
pantheistic conclusion and believed in the human soul being re-absorbed
by the absolute.
These idealistic systems, when they reached their final point, provoked
a reaction consisting in the rejection of all formulas based on
speculation. They were succeeded by a dogmatic materialism, which in its
turn gave place to a sceptical positivism, or rather to a form of
agnosticism. Granted the impossibility of belief in the immortality of
the soul or in eternal life in any shape, the philosophy regarding death
was reduced to the stoical idea that our end is in harmony with the laws
of nature, and that it must therefore be accepted without protest.
Resignation, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word, became the
watchword of human wisdom.
It was only to be expected that certain courageous and independent
thinkers should not agree with this conclusion, and attempt to discover
some other solution of the great problem absorbing mankind. Thence arose
pessimism, the philosophic theory which became so prevalent during the
last century, and which claims so many adherents in the present day.
Pessimism, like belief in the immortality of the soul and the advocacy
of resignation to the evils which beset humanity, is the product of the
East, and India was probably its nursery. A pessimistic view of life is
a salient feature of Brahminism, but Buddhism develops even more fully
the doctrine that everything of this world is evil. That “life is made
up of suffering” is the inexhaustible theme which, whether in the shape
of philosophical argument, or in the more attractive form of poetry, the
Buddhist Scriptures din ceaselessly in our ears.[212]
In Europe, the lyrical poets introduced the pessimistic conception of
the world, attracted by its emotional appeal. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Byron struck this sad note, and expressed the view
in the clearest fashion, that if we weighed our hours of joy against our
days of pain, we should perceive clearly that whatever our life had been
it were better not have been. In the following lines his conception of
life is apparent:—
“Our life is a false nature,—’tis not in
The harmony of things, this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of sin,
This boundless Upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
The skies, which rain their plagues on men like dew—
Disease, death, bondage—all the woes we see—
And, worse, the woes we see not—which throbs through
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.”
“EUTHANASIA.”
In chap. vi. I showed that Byron was haunted by a fear of death which
ultimately led him to a recognition of the instinctive character of the
feeling. He, however, like the other pessimistic poets (Leopardi), did
not regard the world as being merely part of a universal system, and it
was left to philosophy to come to this conclusion.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer
endeavoured to give a presentation of a pessimistic theory, borrowed
from Hindoo religions and from the views of contemporary poets, in the
form of a rational philosophy. He developed a conception of life
according to which “existence is to be regarded as something one is
better without, as a kind of mistake which should be remedied when
recognised.”[213] According to Schopenhauer existence is wrong, and
results from the gratification of unrestrained desire. “If an attempt be
made to realise the amount of misery, pain, and evil of all kinds, that
the sun shines upon in its daily course, it will be seen how much better
it would be were the earth to exhibit as few phenomena of life as the
moon, and if the surface of the earth were in a similarly crystallised
condition. Human life might equally be interpreted as a useless
disturbance of the exquisite tranquillity of nothingness,” the meaning
of the disturbance being wrapped in impenetrable mystery.[214]
This melancholy state of life was the result of the cosmic process,
which has created so much evil, and which finally evolved the human
species, capable of feeling and appreciating to the full the pain of the
world. The lower animals he regards as happier than man, their senses
being less fully developed, and being unconscious of the worst aspects
of their existence. In man, pleasure is purely a negation, whereas the
sensation of pain is passive, contemplation, a human monopoly, rendering
suffering still more unbearable. “Man’s capacity for pain increases far
more with the passage of time than does his capacity for enjoyment, and
is especially increased by his foreknowledge of death. Animals only fear
death from instinct, without having any real knowledge of it, and
without having the prospect of it always before their eyes, as is the
case with human beings.”[215] Schopenhauer was convinced that happiness
should not be regarded as the aim of life. “The greatest mistake we can
make,” he said in his principal work,[216] “is to imagine that we are
placed here to be happy.” “So long as we continue in this erroneous view
which optimistic doctrines serve to foster, the world will continue to
seem a mass of contradictions to us.” “It would be nearer the truth to
regard pain as the aim of life rather than pleasure.” “The destiny of
all human existence seems to be suffering. Life is wrapped about with
evil, and cannot be protected from it. Life, at its very beginning, is
signalised by tears, its course is fundamentally tragic, and still more
tragic is its end. It is impossible to ignore that all this is meant to
be.” “Death is the real goal of life. Its attainment brings a solution
of all that has gone before.”
The prospect and expectation of death, being products of reason, are
experienced by men and not by animals. “Only in the case of humanity is
the will capable of renouncing and withdrawing from life.”
What is the answer to all these contradictions and the explanation of a
cosmic process which on the one hand leads but to death, and on the
other hand develops the intelligence so as to enable it to fear and
dread the inevitable end? Is the solution to be found in belief in the
immortality of the soul, supported as it is not only by nearly every
form of religion, but by numerous systems of philosophy? Schopenhauer
devotes many pages to the discussion of this question. He neither
supports the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, nor the
immortality of the conscious soul. “Just as the individual has no memory
of prenatal existence, so after death he will remember nothing of his
present life.”[217] “Those who regard birth as the actual beginning of
man’s life must necessarily face death as final, the two being parallel.
No man can therefore regard himself as immortal without forfeiting his
belief in his own birth. Birth and death have the same origin and the
same significance. They represent but one line, extending in opposite
directions. If birth implies an origin from nothingness, then death must
be complete annihilation.”[218]
There is no such thing as individual immortality. But, according to
Schopenhauer, to desire such immortality would merely be to advocate
“the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. Each individual existence
is a definite mistake, a blunder, something that would better not have
been, and the object of existence should be to end it.”[219]
But if man, as an individual, is mortal, “death only takes away what was
given by birth, that is to say, the principle by which death itself
became possible.”[220] “Consciousness ceases at death, but the cause
which produced that consciousness persists; life comes to an end, but
not the principle which became manifest by life.”[221]
What then is this immortal principle? It is the idea of the species or
genus. Men or dogs, as individuals, perish in due course, but the human
species or the canine species, the man “idea” or the dog “idea,”
endures. Here Schopenhauer reverted to the conception of Spinoza, who,
indeed, denied the immortality of the soul, but none the less believed
in the immortality of the principle of life. This everlasting principle,
according to Schopenhauer, is the will in its widest and most
metaphysical sense, while, on the other hand, the mortal soul is the
reason, a product of the functions of the brain.
The eternal principle of life cannot be defined, because “we cannot pass
outside the limits of our consciousness. And thus the problem of what it
is in itself cannot be resolved.”[222]
Schopenhauer himself recognises that this solution of the problem is not
satisfactory from the point of view of those who desire reassurance of
their immortality. “But,” he continues, “it is better than nothing, for
those who dread death from the point of view of absolute annihilation
should not despise the certainty of the persistence of the most vital
principle of life.”[223] He further remarks that it must be remembered
that nature is interested only in the preservation of the species, being
indifferent to the individual. We ourselves being only a part of nature
ought to further its plans. “If we wish to attain to a wider knowledge
of nature, we must place ourselves more in sympathy with it, and regard
life and death indifferently.”[224] Schopenhauer himself feels that his
theories and arguments are unsatisfactory. When he had reached the full
development of his doctrine, he admitted that it was negative in
character, and that it ended in negation. It spoke only of what it had
to deny and of what ought to be abandoned. It was obliged to regard as
nothingness all that could be acquired in the future. As a consolation,
he added that he meant relative nothingness, and not absolute
nothingness.
As an ultimate aim, there remained nothing but abrogation of the will to
live, and thus misery and wretchedness, which are the inseparable
accompaniments of human life, led to resignation.
As our life is no more than a succession of misfortunes, and as,
according to Schopenhauer, death is the plain conclusion of philosophy,
the end of the individual life must be pleasant. As a general rule, he
said, the death of a well-regulated life is calm and peaceful. But the
privilege of dying willingly, with joy and delight, is reserved for him
who has learned resignation, and has abolished and abandoned his will to
live. For such an one would be willing to die in reality, not merely in
appearance, and would neither desire nor claim a personal immortality.
He would give up readily the existence that we know. Whatever may
replace that existence is nothing from the point of view of
individuality. The Buddhistic faith called the position attained by him
who had given up the will to live, “Nirvâna, or nothingness.”[225]
The natural deduction from this pessimistic doctrine of Schopenhauer
would be to abolish the will to live by abolishing our individual life
by suicide. But such is not the advice of the philosopher. He is far,
however, from agreeing with those who regard suicide as criminal.[226]
He merely does not admit that it solves the question. “He who commits
suicide destroys the individual only, and not the species.” “Suicide is
the voluntary destruction of a solitary phenomenon, without in the
smallest degree affecting the system as a whole.”[227]
The will to live manifesting itself, according to Schopenhauer, by the
creation of new individuals, the philosopher would naturally, in
accordance with his views of life, abstain from bringing others into the
world. Schopenhauer lived and died a bachelor, and, so far as I am
aware, had no children. On the other hand, convinced that the solution
of life’s problem did not lie in suicide, he clung tenaciously to life.
Having relinquished a belief in the immortality of the soul, he fell
back upon a belief in the persistence of some ultimate principle, apart
from conscious life, and held that in resignation and desire for
annihilation (Nirvâna, according to his interpretation of the Buddhist
doctrines) lay the true consolation for all the evils of human
existence.
For a long time Schopenhauer’s views found no echo in the opinions of
other thinkers. Later, however, they became more and more widely
diffused, and philosophic pessimism became quite fashionable. Those who
did not adopt the metaphysical principles of Schopenhauer’s philosophy
agreed with his views on life and on the impossibility of happiness.
Exactly half a century after the publication of Schopenhauer’s principal
work,[228] another German philosopher, E. Hartmann,[229] went a step
further in the same direction. Without agreeing wholly with his
metaphysics, he shared Schopenhauer’s views on the impossibility of
regarding happiness as the true aim of existence. In order to
demonstrate this theory, he examined the three phases of illusion
through which mankind passes. He held that, in the first phase, people
imagined happiness to be attainable during the present life. However,
all that have been regarded as the sources of joy—youth, health, desire,
conjugal love, family love, glory, etc.—end in disillusion. Love itself
is especially submitted to Hartmann’s implacable criticism. According to
him, there can be no question but that “love causes far more suffering
than pleasure to those concerned.”[230] “It cannot be doubted,” he says,
“that reason would prompt a total abstention from love,” and, as a means
to this end, he recommends “the extinction of sexual desire by
castration, if that could be relied upon to destroy desire.”[231] That,
according to Hartmann, “is the only possible means of securing the
happiness of the individual.” It is at the sacrifice of his personal
happiness that man permits himself to love, and so abets the evolution
of the cosmic process.
“When they have become convinced of the impossibility of obtaining
happiness in this world, people persuade themselves that it may be
obtained after death in a transcendental life in another world. This,
however, is only a second phase of illusion, and is based upon faith in
life after death and eternity. It is certain, however, that the
individuality of the organic body as well as that of the mind is only a
delusion which ceases with death.”[232] Hartmann says in conclusion that
“it is therefore plain that the hope of the immortality of the
individual soul is also a mere illusion. And thus the chief support of
the Christian promises is cut away; for men are devoted to their dear
selves, and take little interest in a future happiness in which they
themselves are to have no share.”[233]
Being disillusioned regarding the possibility of obtaining happiness in
this world, or in a future state, humanity falls back upon a third
illusion. Firmly convinced that the aim of life is true happiness, man
concluded that it was only attainable in some future state of the cosmic
process. This hypothesis is based upon belief in a system of progressive
development. “This,” declares Hartmann, “is yet another mistake.
Humanity may progress as much as it likes,” he says, “but it will never
succeed in suppressing or even diminishing the greatest evils which
beset it: disease, old age, dependence on the wishes or the power of
others, misery and discontent. Notwithstanding the new remedies which
are discovered, the number of diseases, especially those of a chronic
nature which are so trying, continues to increase at a rate that
medicine cannot keep pace with. Joyous youth will always constitute a
small portion of humanity, while the greater part will consist of
melancholy old age.”[234]
Against this idea that the happiness of the race will be the eventual
result of progress, Hartmann employs the following arguments: “The
happiest people are those who are the rudest and most primitive, and,
among civilised races, the uneducated classes. It is well known that the
progress of education increases discontent. The progress of science
contributes little or nothing to the absolute happiness of the world.
Practically speaking, this progress is of advantage to politics, social
life, morality, and the arts; but factories, steam-boats, railways, and
telegraphs, have so far done no positive good to humanity.”[235]
Hartmann frequently recurs to the conclusion that the primitive are
happier than the civilised, and that “the lower classes, inferior and
rude, are happier than the rich who are well educated and great; that
idiots are happier than the intelligent, and that, as a general rule,
the less sensitive a man’s nervous system may be, the happier he is, as
his capacity for feeling pain is not so much in excess of his capacity
for enjoyment, and his illusion is therefore greater. With the
progressive development of humanity, however, not only is there an
increase in the extent of human needs, but in the sensitiveness of the
nervous system, and in the cultivation of the mind. In consequence, the
balance of pain over pleasure increases, and the illusion is destroyed,
that is to say, knowledge comes of the misery of life, of the vanity of
most of the pleasures. Misery itself increases as much as knowledge of
misery, as experience has shown; and the apparent increase of happiness
in the world, due to the progress of universe, is merely superficial.
Having reached this extremely pessimistic conclusion, that it is
impossible for humanity to attain happiness, Hartmann proceeds to
inquire into the real destiny of man. He would be no true philosopher if
he did not hold that the world was created according to a general plan,
and that it follows a regular course tending towards a definite end. “We
have seen,” he says, “how that in the present world all has been
arranged in the wisest, and for the most part the best way, and that it
should therefore be regarded as the best possible of worlds.
Notwithstanding this, however, it is supremely miserable, and worse than
if it did not exist at all.”
Being convinced of the illusory nature of its hopes, humanity “must
definitely renounce all pretensions to positive happiness, and aspire
only to a freedom from pain, to annihilation or Nirvâna. This, however,
must not be merely the attitude of solitary individuals, but humanity at
large must cry out for annihilation. This is the only possible outcome
of the third and last phase of illusion.”
By what means is this end to be attained? Hartmann is no advocate of
suicide as the best remedy of the evils of human existence. Upon this
point he agrees with Schopenhauer, and thinks that such a course would
have no effect upon the general progress of the cosmic process. A
renunciation of pleasure—asceticism—would present no better solution of
the problem. Even abstinence from reproduction would not serve the
purpose. “What good would it do,” says Hartmann, “if humanity were to
cease to be by means of sexual abstinence? This unfortunate universe
would continue to exist, and the Unconscious would immediately take
advantage of the opportunity to create a new man or some other similar
type.”[236] Thus it is not the disappearance of mankind that should
constitute our aim, but “the complete abandonment of the individual to
the cosmic process, in order that the latter may accomplish its end and
bring about the universal deliverance of the world.”[237] This being so,
the instinctive love of life reasserts itself, and it becomes necessary
to admit, at least as provisional truth, “the validity of the will to
live; for it is only by complete resignation to life and its troubles,
and not by cowardly renunciation and abandonment, that one may
contribute one’s share in the development of the cosmic process.”[238]
Hartmann’s proposed solution of the problem of human existence belongs
undoubtedly to the category of systems advocating resignation. He is
unable to tell us what is the cosmic process to which he bids man lend
all his forces. He advises humanity to continue to live and to multiply
in the full certainty that happiness cannot be attained. Hartmann
obviously demands a true renunciation and an absolute submission. His
solution has the appearance of being more exact, and of furnishing a
guide to human conduct more clear than that vague aspiration to Nirvâna
proposed by Schopenhauer. But on closer investigation it becomes at once
plain that the greater precision is illusory.
It is easy to see, under such circumstances, that a school of criticism
or negation of the pessimistic doctrines should have gained many
adherents. Very few, on the other hand, have embraced pessimistic
doctrines because of any power being inherent in them to resolve the
difficulties of life. A German pessimistic philosopher, Mailaender,[239]
shared fully Schopenhauer’s opinions as to the misery of human life, but
opposed the latter’s doctrine of resignation and Nirvâna as the solution
of the general problem of life. Mailaender accepted the three stages of
human illusion as expounded by Hartmann, but attacked vigorously the
view of facilitating the cosmic process by acquiescence in the will to
live. “Indeed,” he cried, “your advice is that we should sacrifice
ourselves to the cosmos, we are to choose a career, to learn a trade,
acquire money, property, fame, power, and so forth; we are to marry and
to beget offspring; by such advice you are merely undoing with your own
hands the sole merit of your work, the analysis of illusion. You
suddenly advise the very man who has got behind all these illusions to
succumb to them again, as if an illusion, although it has been
recognised, could still deceive and exercise its power.”[240]
Mailaender takes an entirely different view of the problem. Like his
predecessors, he is convinced of the futility of happiness, but he has
achieved an original view of the cosmic process. He holds that an
unaccountable and divine Being existed before the creation of the world.
Before disappearing “this divinity gave birth to the universe.” By this
means, complete annihilation was made possible. “The world,” says
Mailaender, “is but the means for bringing about a condition of
non-existence, and is the only possible means by which that end could be
attained. God knew that only by creating a real world could we pass from
existence into non-existence.” Maileander regards as certain “that the
universe tends towards universal non-existence.”[241] This tendency is
characterised by the weakening of the total amount of energy, so that
“every individual at the close of the weakening process to which his
energy is submitted, is led in the course of his development to the
point at which his desire for annihilation may be fulfilled.”[242] Life
on our planet, he says, ought to be regarded as a halting-place on the
road to death. In order to appreciate fully the happiness brought by
death, it is necessary first to taste of life, and that is why the
instinct of self-preservation is so well developed in animals. Man
passes first through a phase of development in which he is like any
other animal. “As with them, the will to live is stronger than the will
to die. Life is clung to with extreme pertinacity, and death is
proportionately execrated.” “At first, not only the fear of death
increases, but equally the love of life.” Terror of death becomes
acuter. Animals, knowing nothing of death, only fear it instinctively
through their perception of approaching danger. Man, on the contrary,
knows of the existence of death and what it means. He looks back on his
past life and wonders what the future may hold in store, and realises,
infinitely more than animals realise it, the dangers that threaten him.
During this phase, man does all in his power to keep death at bay, and
to make his life as happy as possible. This, however, is not the last
stage of his development. The thinking man soon comes to the conclusion
that a craving for life is not the true aim of the universe; it is only
the means for attaining to a knowledge of the definite aim of existence,
which is the cessation of life. Philosophy soon shows that perfect
happiness is not possible, and that only death is really desirable. In
summing up the cosmic process, the conclusion arrived at is “that
throughout the universe the desire of death exists in a form more or
less masked, but that in the organic world this assumes the form of a
will to live.”[243] In the end, however, the desire of death becomes
more and more plain, until the philosopher can see “in the whole
universe nothing but a longing for absolute extinction, and fancies that
he can hear the cry rolling from star to star, ‘Deliverance,
deliverance, death to our life!’ and the echoing cry of consolation,
‘Extinction and deliverance await you all!’”[244]
In order to explain in a clearer way the progress of this evolution,
Mailaender describes the state of mind of a man who develops the will to
die, and commits suicide. “At first he glances anxiously and from afar
at death, and shrinks from it with horror. Later, he draws nearer and
walks round it in wide circles. Day by day, however, these circles
become smaller, until finally he embraces Death with weary arms and
looks it straight in the face. Then Peace comes; gentle Peace!”[245]
It is absurd to expect anything to follow death but absolute
annihilation, and the ordinary man faces this prospect with terror. “But
it is essential,” says Mailaender, “that man should dominate the
universe by knowledge, and wise men look forward to total annihilation
with joy.”[246] “In relinquishing Schopenhauer’s will to live,”
concluded Mailaender, “I have finally arrived at the will to die. I have
raised myself upon the shoulders of Schopenhauer, until I have attained
a point of view such as others have never accomplished. At present I am
alone, but behind me all humanity is pressing on to freedom; and before
me is the clear translucent vista of the future.”[247]
I have quoted these views, not because of the solidity of Mailaender’s
arguments, but merely because this pessimistic philosopher proved
himself to be more consistent than his predecessors. While Schopenhauer
and Hartmann, both so firmly convinced of the non-existence of happiness
and the vast preponderance of suffering in all imaginable conditions of
life, lived out their lives, Mailaender, true to his principles,
committed suicide when barely thirty-five years of age.
This is probably not a solitary instance. Under the influence of
pessimism, a certain number of young persons, especially those whose
mental equilibrium is not very firmly established, follow in the tragic
footsteps of Mailaender. Some commit suicide, while others abstain from
taking part in the perpetuation of the race. Others, but these are not
many, curtail their existence by dissipation, thinking life not worth
the care of it.
A modern writer of great talent, Maeterlinck, echoes the pessimism of
the present generation. “It is plain,” he says,[248] “that from one
point of view humanity will always seem wretched, and as though being
dragged towards a fatal precipice, since it will ever be doomed to
disease, to the inconstancy of matter, to old age and to death.” “Yes,
human life as a whole is sad, and it is easier, I may almost say
pleasanter, to discuss and expose its dark side, than to enumerate its
consolations and make the best of them. The miseries of life are many,
obvious, and never failing; whereas the consolations, or rather the
reasons which cause us to fulfil with alacrity the duty of living, are
rare, hard to seek, and precarious.”
Although pessimism has been greatly developed and widely spread during
the nineteenth century, dissentient voices in opposition to this
negative attitude towards the things of this world have not been
wanting. Take the views of the German poet, Robert Hammerling,[249] who
reproaches the pessimistic philosophers with ignoring the attitude of
mind of the majority of mankind who ask but one thing,—life—life at any
price and under any conditions. Against this sentiment all dogmatic
arguments are useless, for, according to Hammerling, the question of
pleasure and pain is a matter of feeling and not of reason. Now, with
regard to the general feeling of humanity, there can be no doubt—it is
frankly optimistic.
Max Nordau, the well-known writer, supports a similar theory. According
to him, all living nature betrays its optimistic foundation. “The truth
is,” he says, “that optimism, limitless and irradicable optimism,
constitutes the fundamental attitude of man, and is the instinctive
feeling which governs him under all circumstances. All other forms of
life confirm this truth....” “All nature,” according to Max Nordau, “by
the bells of flowers and the throats of her birds, rings and proclaims
the truth of optimism.” “No animals feel the pain of the world; and our
own ancestor, the contemporary of the cave bear, was certainly free from
all anxiety relating to the destiny of the human race.”
These arguments do not take into account that, to be true, pessimism
need not necessarily be felt and agreed with by all living creatures.
Birds and other animals, happy in their lives, that is to say optimists,
know nothing of the inevitability of death. Our cave ancestors knew
nothing of it either. If the greater portion of modern humanity is
optimistic, that might be accounted for by its being still under the
influence of one of the three phases of illusion alluded to by Hartmann.
It is only when the highest stage of development is reached that man,
being convinced of the futility of his hopes, arrives at a pessimistic
conception of the universe.
Max Nordau disclaims discipleship of Doctor Pangloss, who held that the
world is the best of all possible worlds. But his arguments reveal a
pronounced optimism. He regards pain as an indispensable factor of the
maintenance of life. “Without pain,” he says, “our lives would not
endure an hour, for we should be unable to recognise dangerous symptoms
and guard against them.” Insensibility to pain is often so grave a
symptom that sick people rejoice when they are again able to feel the
prick of a needle.
This is true enough, but none the less the feeling of pain is very
erratic in both animals and human beings. Quite insignificant causes and
unimportant illnesses, such as certain forms of neuralgia, give rise to
unbearable agony. A physiological phenomenon such as childbirth is often
attended by extremely violent pain which is absolutely useless as a
danger-signal. On the other hand, some of the most dangerous diseases,
such as cancer or kidney disease, may exist for a long time without
causing any sensation of pain, with the result that the sufferer knows
nothing of the presence of the disease until it is too late. Were pain
to play the part assigned to it by Nordau, it would appear in all cases
of danger, and yet would never become almost unbearably acute.
But when men have passed through the three stages of illusion it is not
physical pain which presses most heavily on them. Max Nordau himself
admits that it is “appalling to think of the cessation of our
consciousness, and the annihilation of our ego.” None the less, he
believes “that we are so happily constituted as to be able to accept the
really inevitable with a light heart, and that there is no ill feeling
about the matter.” This admission is not in accordance with the
well-established facts discussed in chap. vi. With very rare exceptions
man does not willingly accept the prospect of death, especially if he be
still under the influence of illusion in any of its three stages. As a
rule those who desire to live feel not only a repugnance to the
contemplation of death, but death seems to them something abnormal and
irrational. It is no answer to assert that all who feel this are
psychopaths, or that it is absurd to think that the happiness of mankind
counts for something in the cosmic process. On the contrary, it is quite
natural that man should seek after happiness, and that he should try to
analyse the phenomena taking place within him and around him from the
point of view of that ideal. For this reason it is quite unjust to say
that pessimism cannot be treated seriously. It is pessimism which has
been the first to draw up a true indictment of human nature, and if pain
is to be regarded as useful in its quality of danger-signal we should
equally recognise that the pessimistic view of the universe is a step
onwards in the evolution of humanity. Without pessimism we might easily
sink into a kind of contented fatalism, and end in quietism, in the
manner of many religions.
It is only natural, however, that the thinking world should not accept
pessimism as the last word of human wisdom, and that more or less noted
philosophers should devote themselves to finding a possible solution of
the problem of life and death. These systems of philosophy, one and all,
have abandoned readily all belief in future life and personal
immortality. But they have adopted pantheistic conceptions, and have
accepted the existence of some general principle into which the
individual consciousness will eventually be absorbed. There is division
of opinion as to the properties of this principle. For some it is the
Idea, for others Will, for others Force, or Eternal Energy.[250] The
nomenclature is the less important as the views as to the nature of the
general principle are absolutely vague. Accordingly this part of the
philosophic doctrines appears in a lyrical form and has passed over into
the domain of poetry.
German poets have helped to spread pantheistic conceptions very widely.
I need hardly mention Goethe, whose ideas were purely those of Spinoza,
but Schiller’s well-known lines are precise:—
“Vor dem Tode erschrickst Du? Du wünschest, unsterblich zu leben?
Leb’ im Ganzen! Wenn du lange dahin bist, es bleibt!”
“Do you shrink from approaching Death? and crave immortality?
Live on in the All! Long after you vanish the All will remain!”
Rückert, in lines almost equally well known, expresses the same idea:—
“Vernichtung weht dich an, so lang Du Einzles bist.
O, fühl’ im Ganzen dich, das unvernichtbar ist.”
“Annihilation fills you with terror, because you are self-centred. You
must feel your unity with the All, which is indestructible.”
A volume might be filled with the attempts of thinkers of different
countries to present these poetical ideas in a form less vague and more
philosophical. I shall select only a few of the more modern instances.
Renan’s[251] ideas may be taken as typical of the compromise between
poetry and philosophy. Speaking of immortality, he said “that we shall
each live again by the traces we leave on the bosom of the
Infinite.”[252]
The views elaborated by Guyau[253] are equally poetic. Like so many
others he is unable to accept without protest the prospect of the
inevitability of death. Brought face to face with this end, he declares
that he feels “not sorrow but indignation, as against an injustice of
nature.” “It is with justice,” he cries, “that we look on nature as a
murderess if she kills what is morally best in ourselves and in
others.”[254]
It is chiefly in the name of love that Guyau protests against death:
“The death of others, the annihilation of those we love, is
insupportable to men, who are essentially thinking and loving
creatures.”[255]
This problem, so vast and so difficult to solve, is presented by him as
follows: “As regards the question of individual immortality, human
thought is dragged in opposite directions by two great forces—science,
in the name of evolution, prepared to sacrifice the individual
completely; love, in the name of an evolution, morally and socially
higher, which would preserve the individual at all hazards. There is no
more disturbing dilemma proposed to the philosopher.”[256]
Guyau hopes that in the course of evolution there will come about a
merging of individual consciousness in the consciousness of the whole.
“One may ask,” he says, “if it may not be that these conscious entities
mingling and interpenetrating, may come to live on from one to the
other, and so to acquire a new duration?” On such a hypothesis he can
foresee “an epoch not, indeed, certain to come, but far from
inconceivable, in which individual consciousnesses will have achieved a
corporate integrity and a complex intercommunion, without themselves
being lost by the union.”[257]
On this hypothesis, “the problem is to be at the same time loving enough
and loved enough to live and endure in another.[258]... Those who vanish
and those who remain must love one another so greatly that the shadows
cast by them on the universal consciousness are identical.” “We should
then feel ourselves passing and ascending from this life to an
immortality of love,” and “the point of contact between life and
immortality would be discovered.”[259]
A solution recently offered by Finot[260] is much less poetical.
According to him, it is only “when death is conceived of as annihilation
that it is repugnant. On the other hand, if we regard it merely as a
change of life, we shall cease to fear it, and even come to love
it.”[261]
But what is this “change of life” that is to prove so consoling? It is
the “immortality of the body,” that is to say, the life of the creatures
developed at the expense of the human body. “Flies begin the work of the
labourers on the dead,” giving birth to worm-like larvæ that writhe in
the decomposing flesh. The same vermin that horrified Tolstoi when he
thought of his own death (see chap. vi. p. 123) became Finot’s symbol of
consolation. He describes the whole succession of the fauna of corpses,
and concludes by saying, “and so goes on the routine of life, from birth
to the tomb, of noisy, clamorous life, ceaselessly renewed. Ever loving,
giving birth, living and dying. The peace of the tomb is as filled with
life as the dust into which we think our bodies will fall.”[262]
I have given the above quotation as an instance showing to what lengths
men have gone in their search for a solution of the problem of death and
in their desire for a gleam of hope that the end may not be final. I
need not say that this idea of the fauna of the corpse has no place in
the philosophy of death. Thinkers, no doubt, would prefer the most vague
ambiguities to certainties of such a nature. Most contemporary
philosophers regard the problem in a very different fashion.
In my opinion, Meyer-Benfey, a scholar at Göttingen, has summed up the
present condition of the problem very clearly and exactly, in essays on
Modern Religion.[263] He realises that it is impossible to accept the
immortality of the soul. Personality must utterly and inevitably perish.
But, just as no single atom of our bodies can be annihilated, so “no
parts of our souls can be lost.” Our actions during life leave traces so
much the deeper as the life has been fuller. It is this reuniting “of
the actions of individuals with the life of the whole of humanity, that
constitutes the true immortality or Nirvâna.” He says, too, “In
accustoming our minds to this thought, and in educating ourselves with a
view to the accomplishment of this end, lies the only possible means of
overcoming the fear of death and the terror of annihilation.”
Meyer-Benfey is of the pessimistic opinion that happiness cannot
possibly be regarded as the supreme end of humanity, for he thinks, if
that were so, the whole course of evolution would have been a mistake.
It would have been much better had evolution been arrested before the
creation of the human race, since animals, being unaware of the
inevitability of death, are undoubtedly happier than man. As, however,
we have passed through the animal stage and reached the human stage, and
achieved some measure of civilisation, and this not by our own desire,
or as the result of mere chance, but guided by the inner workings of our
nature, it is plain that the ultimate goal towards which we are
advancing, must be some other than mere happiness. There can be no
question but that the goal is the triumph of pure and perfect culture.
This idea, that the goal of humanity is progress in all its
manifestations, is no recent theory, and many definitions of this
progress have been advanced, but so far none have been generally
accepted as satisfactory. The term “culture,” though vague, will have to
continue in use until some better word conveying a more precise meaning
is found to replace it.
On reviewing all the systems of philosophy which have attempted so
strenuously to solve the problem of individual death, it becomes plain
that all, or nearly all, of them deny the existence of a future life and
the immortality of the soul. The greater part of them, however, admit
some general principle incomprehensible but eternal, which will
eventually incorporate within itself all individual souls. Feeling that
these vague ideas are incapable of conveying consolation to poor
humanity in its fear of annihilation through death, philosophers have
persistently taught the advantages of resignation. Even Guyau, realising
that his philosophy regarding the immortality of love fails to reassure
those who look to philosophy for some word of consolation, ends by
admitting that “as there is no help to be expected from the inexorable,
nor mercy from that which is in conformity with the universe and even
with our own judgment, resignation is best.”[264] As it is the general
opinion that to be philosophical is to take things as they are, without
undue protest, the watchword of all systems of philosophy is to bow to
the inevitable, that is to say, to be resigned to the prospect of
annihilation.
PART III
WHAT SCIENCE IS ABLE TO DO TO ALLEVIATE THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN
CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER IX
WHAT SCIENCE CAN DO AGAINST DISEASE
Formation of the experimental method—The intervention of
religion in disease—Disease as a basis of pessimistic systems of
philosophy—Advance of medical science in the war against
disease—The revolution in medicine and surgery due to the
discoveries of Pasteur—The beneficial results of Serum Therapy
in the war against infectious diseases—Failure of science to
cure tuberculosis and malignant tumours—Protests against the
advance of science—Opposition of Rousseau, Tolstoi, and
Brunetière—Proclamation of the fallibility of science—Return to
religion and mysticism
Science, the youngest daughter of knowledge, has begun to investigate
the great problems affecting humanity. The chief religions and many
systems of philosophy had been long established before the spirit of
scepticism dared to inquire whether or no these products of the human
mind were really in harmony with fact. Scepticism gained ground little
by little, and open war was declared between religious dogma and
authority on the one side, and scientific reason on the other.
The great religions and the philosophy of Aristotle had ruled a majority
of mankind for some twenty centuries before doubt was cast on the real
value of these doctrines.
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, asked why it was that all the systems of
his time were so vague and so powerless to explain the phenomena of the
world. The cause could not lie in nature herself, for without doubt she
followed laws that were immutable and that could be subjected to exact
observation; nor could it lie in any want of intelligence in those men
who devoted themselves to solve the problems. The true cause of the
failure lay in the falsity or insufficiency of the methods employed.
Bacon, trying to provide a remedy for this condition of affairs, advised
that makers of generalisations should proceed very slowly, passing only
by the smallest stages from particular facts to conclusions only more
general in the slightest degree, and so on, until the ultimate formula
might be reached. By such a path it was possible to attain principles
neither vague nor ambiguous, but clear and exact and that would not be
denied by nature herself.
The first steps taken by science according to this method, which indeed
had been suggested long ago, but which was first clearly laid down by
Bacon, were slow and halting. Religious and philosophical doctrines
still weighed heavily on inquiring minds, so that the new method was not
followed with any great courage. None the less progress was achieved,
until at length the great problems of humanity opened out. More than two
thousand years before the birth of exact science, Buddha had given voice
to the chief grievances of the human race. “Behold, O monks, the holy
truth as to suffering,” he had proclaimed in the Sermon at Benares,
“birth is suffering, old age is suffering, disease is suffering, and
death is suffering.” Science, in its slow progress, passing from
particular to general, reached first one of these four sorrows, the
suffering due to disease.
In the Buddhist legend that I quoted in chap. vi., the sight of a sick
man “whose senses were weakened, who drew his breath with difficulty,
whose limbs were shrivelled, whose bowels were wrung with pain, and his
body pitifully soiled with excrement,” suggested to Buddha the
reflection that “health is no more than the idle vision of a dream while
fear and disease are horrible realities. What wise man, having seen the
thing that life is, can still think of joy or of pleasure? Woe upon
health which is assailed by so many maladies.” When Buddha, who was a
young prince, asked of his father the gift “that he might always remain
full of health, and that he should be smitten by no disease,” his
father, who was the king, replied: “You ask me what is impossible; in
that my son, I can do nothing.”
From that day, every religion has busied itself with the cure and
prevention of disease. They believed that the causes of these were the
influence of evil spirits or the visitations of God; and as remedies
they prescribed sacrifice and prayer and anything that might avert the
anger of God. Even at the present day, similar medicine is used by
primitive races. In Sumatra for instance, when it is impossible to
arrest the flow of blood from a wound, the disaster is ascribed to an
evil spirit (Polasièq) who is sucking the wound and making it incurable.
In Nias, when bleeding from the nose occurs in children, it is supposed
to be due to the father having killed a cock during the pregnancy of the
mother. The indispensable remedy is to make sacrifice to the outraged
deity.
No doubt there co-exist with such practices of primitive races, certain
useful rules, based on correct observation or on experience. It is a
common practice to try all manner of remedies on the sick; although most
do harm, now and again something useful may be discovered. Such vulgar
medicine has undoubted merit, but it cannot be compared with the results
of scientific medicine, which are drawn from rigorous experiment.
Medical science has been slow in developing, but it has now reached a
condition of which humanity may be proud. It is outside my purpose to
give a long exposition of this subject; but it is necessary to my
argument to set out a few facts from which the reader may judge of the
present condition of medical science.
Without doubt the fear of disease has played a large part in the
pessimistic conceptions of the universe. Not only the words of Buddha
that I have quoted, but many of the systems of pessimistic philosophy
attest this. I have already stated in chap. vi. that Schopenhauer in
1831 was driven from Berlin to Frankfurt by fear of cholera.
In his statement of the case against this universe, and as a chief
argument for his proposition that “this is the worst of possible worlds”
Schopenhauer adduced the spreading of epidemics. “An alteration of the
atmosphere so slight that it cannot be detected by chemistry brings
about cholera, or yellow fever, or the black death, diseases which
number their victims by millions; an alteration slightly greater might
destroy all life.”[265]
Hartmann, who has been one of the chief advocates of Schopenhauer’s
pessimism, also had gloomy views on diseases and medicine. He was
convinced that howsoever great the progress of humanity might come to
be, there never would be an end or even a diminution of diseases. “It is
no matter,” he said, “how many remedies may be discovered for diseases;
new diseases, and particularly chronic affections which, although not
serious are extremely painful, will continue to appear more rapidly than
the discoveries of medicine.”[266]
Humanity will be fortunate if the pessimistic philosophers prove as
wrong about their other grievances as they have proved about disease and
medicine. To understand the vast progress made by medicine, it is
necessary only to compare the complaint of Schopenhauer with the actual
state of affairs. When he spoke of epidemics being due to slight changes
of the atmosphere, Schopenhauer obviously was repeating the medical
opinion current in his times. Experimental science has proved that he
was quite wrong. It has been shown conclusively that two of the great
affections of which he spoke, cholera and plague, are due not to
chemical changes in the air, but to definite microbes, the natural
history of which is known as well as that of any other plant. Cholera is
produced by the vibrio, discovered by Koch, a minute organism that lives
in water and that enters the human alimentary canal with food or drink.
We do not yet know a definite cure for cholera, but we do know how to
prevent infection. The most simple mode of guarding against infection is
to swallow only material that has been boiled, and to prevent
contamination of water or of vessels with fæcal matter containing the
Koch’s vibrio. Moreover, in individual cases use may be made of
anti-cholera serums. In 1831, if these discoveries had been made,
philosophy would have taken a different course. Instead of trembling at
the epidemic, and flying to Frankfurt, Schopenhauer would have remained
quietly at Berlin, and Hegel would not have ceased to develop his
idealism in the university of that town.
Schopenhauer enforced his argument by reference to the black death
“capable of destroying millions of victims.” It is certain that the
black death was no other than human plague, which made enormous ravages,
in the fourteenth century, for instance, destroying nearly a third of
the population of Europe. In those days, no one doubted but that it was
a visitation of the Divine wrath, and people gathered in churches to
make common supplication. Sacrifices were offered and flagellations took
place in the hope of averting the terrible malady. Travellers who have
been in the capital of Austria must have seen in one of the chief
streets (Graben) a large and unlovely monument, erected in the
seventeenth century to commemorate the interposition of Providence in
staying one of the great epidemics of plague. Now that science has made
known the true cause of plague, our ideas as to the causes of the
appearance and disappearance of epidemics are very different. Plague is
not the manifestation of the anger of God, but is a scourge due to
invasion by a minute organism, discovered simultaneously by Kitasato and
Yersin in 1894. The natural history of the microbe has been studied, and
we know that it may live not only in human bodies but in the bodies of
small rodents, such as rats and mice, which live in association with
man. These animals are the source of human infection, and it is
necessary to destroy them as completely as possible. There is no doubt
but that the arrest of the plague in the seventeenth century was due to
the fact that rats and mice had themselves been exterminated by the
plague.
Plague, which formerly was the most terrible of epidemic diseases, has
now become a misfortune against which it is simple to guard ourselves.
To secure that end, however, we have not to pray or to scourge
ourselves, but to take measures to destroy rats and mice. Moreover
serums may be employed; and the use of these is not only prophylactic,
but if the disease be not too advanced, is actually curative. The danger
of which Schopenhauer spoke may be regarded as definitely averted, and
this is due to the advance of medical knowledge. In such countries as
British India in which plague still causes great losses, we have to
blame the ignorance of the population. Instead of following the course
prescribed by science, these people still prefer the rules laid down by
the Brahmanistic religion. Their idea of cleanliness and purity is a
religious idea, and not that of medicine and bacteriology. It is not
surprising that plague still exists in India, but none the less no case
is a better instance of the progress of knowledge.
Hartmann’s idea as to a progressive increase in the number of diseases
rests on no exact grounds, and is in opposition to much that we know. As
a matter of fact, as knowledge of hygiene advances and becomes spread
among the peoples, diseases become less frequent and less fatal.
A great stimulus was given to medicine and surgery when there was
applied to these the knowledge gained by Pasteur in his study of
fermentation. Pasteur showed that fermentations were chemical
alterations in organic matter, excited by the presence of minute
organisms very common in the neighbourhood of man.
This discovery was applied in the first place to surgery. Lord Lister,
then a surgeon in Scotland, showed that the festering of wounds was due
to the entrance of minute organisms. Following this clue, he succeeded,
by the use of dressings, in preventing the contamination of wounds and
at once saw a vast reduction in deaths following surgical operations.
Since the discovery of anæsthetics, such as ether, chloroform, and
cocaine, and the use of germ-free dressings, surgery has been developed
in a marvellous fashion. The varied and delicate feats of abdominal
operation are known to all, and recently surgery of the heart has become
possible.
A comparison of the mortality of the wounded in the different wars of
the nineteenth century affords an excellent means of gauging the
progress of surgical treatment of gunshot wounds. The mortality of the
wounded among the English troops in the Crimean war reached 15.21 per
cent.; in the French troops in Italy in 1859–1860, it was 17.36 per
cent.; in the German army in 1870–1871, the years in which antiseptic
surgery came into use, it fell to 11.07 per cent.; while in the
Spanish-American war in 1898, in the most brilliant period of modern
surgery, the percentage mortality of wounded had fallen to 6.64.[267] In
the recent Transvaal war, the mortality was half what it had been in the
Franco-German war.[268]
New medical knowledge, founded on the discovery of the nature of
ferments and of the virus of infection, has reformed the practice of
midwifery to such an extent that puerperal fever, formerly one of the
great scourges of humanity, is now extremely rare.
Blindness acquired at birth, which formerly rendered many lives
extremely miserable, is now practically completely prevented, by means
of the precautions taken to hinder the child from being contaminated by
the mother in the process of birth. The most successful method is that
which was suggested by Credé,[269] a German physician, and consists in
placing in the pupils of the infant a minute drop of nitrate of silver,
which is an antiseptic, and prevents the occurrence of ocular
blennorrhagia.
Appendicitis, a disease so common that I referred to it in chap. iv. as
one of the most salient examples of disharmony in the human
constitution, has been resolutely attacked by medical science. In some
cases, surgical interference makes a definite end of the disease; in
other cases medical treatment has been enough to subdue the symptoms
without recourse to operation.
For a considerable period, those of a sceptical disposition asserted
that the advance of bacteriological knowledge was of service only in
surgical cases. But Pasteur showed that this was an erroneous view.
Working with Chamberland and Roux, Pasteur demonstrated that many
infectious diseases could be prevented by the use of attenuated virus;
he succeeded in saving the lives of many animals and of men, bitten by
rabid dogs and affected by hydrophobia, a disease formerly almost
invariably fatal and among the most horrible to which man is liable.
In the latter direction, medical science is developing at an
extraordinary rate, and is achieving results of a remarkable nature.
Among recent discoveries, I may mention that of the curative properties
of the blood serum of animals which have been subjected to the action
either of microbes or of the soluble products of microbes. Von Behring,
working with the Kitasato, a Japanese investigator, has shown that a
serum of this nature, prepared with the poison produced by the microbe
of diphtheria (the poison was discovered by Roux in collaboration with
Yersin), is capable not only of protecting those in good health from
diphtheria, but of curing those who have been attacked by the disease.
The serum fails to act only when it is employed in advanced cases of
diphtheria.
Anti-diphtheritic serum, introduced into medical practice about eight
years ago, has been tried in every way and has been proved to possess
both preventive and curative properties. If patients still die from
diphtheria, it is only because the treatment has been applied too late
or insufficiently.
The use of the anti-diphtheritic serum has reduced the mortality in
cases of diphtheria from 50 or even 60 per cent. to 12 or 14 per cent.
The number of infant lives that have been saved by this method must be
enormous.
The beneficent discovery of the curative value of serums has been
applied to other diseases and is giving very encouraging results. I
cannot go into details here, but it is enough to say that in the last
quarter of a century medicine has entered a new epoch, and has taken its
place among other exact sciences based on the experimental method.
Although it is not surprising that in so short a space of time science
has not yet conquered all the ills affecting humanity, this failure has
provoked the most severe criticism.
“Indeed,” one of the critics has said, “you vaunt the progress of
medical science at a time when you have to confess that it has failed to
cure tuberculosis, one of the gravest of the infectious diseases, which
alone causes the death of a sixth part of the human race.” It is true
that the infectious nature of this scourge was announced by Villemin
more than forty years ago. Twenty years have passed since Koch, the
German bacteriologist, discovered the microbe that produces not only the
ordinary form of pulmonary consumption but all other varieties of
tuberculosis. And we are still ignorant of any remedy for the disease.
In all the bacteriological institutes and laboratories search is being
made for some vaccine or serum or medicament which will arrest a disease
that in many cases nature herself cures. But the results amount
practically to nothing.
This is certainly a good example of the failure of science. None the
less a closer examination shows that even with the knowledge already
gained we could deal with tuberculosis in a manner more efficacious than
is the existing practice. When the infectious nature of the disease had
been made known, before waiting for the discovery by Koch of the actual
bacillus, we should have employed all the known modes of destroying
infectious matter. In spite of all that has been said and written on the
subject, people still spit on the floors of omnibuses and cars and on
street pavements. Tuberculosis is propagated not because of the failure
of science, but because of the ignorance and stupidity of the
population. To diminish the spread of tuberculosis, of typhoid fever, of
dysentery, and of many other diseases, it is necessary only to follow
the rules of scientific hygiene, without waiting for specific remedies.
Although the science of to-day is sufficiently armed against the
diseases commonly known as infectious, the case is very different with
some other affections, among which the chief place is taken by malignant
tumours, or cancers, in the most general sense of the word.
There are few maladies more terrible, for they practically never
disappear spontaneously, and surgery can remove them successfully only
if they have been recognised at an early stage. Every year a number of
persons, old and young, die victims of malignant tumours, and it is even
possible that cancer is more prevalent now than in former times. It has
been suggested that the increase of cancer is due to the greater
longevity among modern races, and as malignant tumours are most common
in old persons, it may well be that the prolongation of life has given
this disease a larger field. However, even allowing for this, it is
probable that there is a real increase of cancer.
Unquestionably the malignant tumours are the diseases most disappointing
to medicine and surgery, and these sciences are as much at a loss with
regard to them as in the case of infectious diseases before the
discovery of pathogenic organisms. Science is perhaps even in worse case
with regard to cancer than it formerly was with regard to infectious
diseases, for, before the discovery of microbes, something was known of
the virus which produces infection. Thus the virus of smallpox was
known, and was used, by the method of inoculation, to prevent more
serious attacks of the disease. Nearly a century before the discoveries
of Pasteur, Jenner had been able to be of the greatest service to
mankind by his discovery that the virus of cow-pox could be used as a
preventive of infection by smallpox.
In the case of malignant tumours, we do not even know their real nature;
we are ignorant as to whether or no they are infectious, and whether
they are caused by a microbe coming from without or are due to internal
changes of the tissues. Our ignorance, however, affords no ground for
despair. It is probable that the malignant tumours will soon come to be
ranged with infectious diseases due to invasions by specific microbes.
Experiments on the cancers in rats and mice have shown that these can be
inoculated in the same manner as in the case of the recognised
infectious diseases. Hanau has shown that this occurs in the case of
epithelioma of old rats; Morau[270] has succeeded in transferring the
cancers of white mice, and his results have been confirmed by
Jensen[271] and Borr[272], in the Institut Pasteur. These
investigations mark the beginning of a new stage in the knowledge of
tumours. I am unable to see, therefore that the malignant tumours
provide a satisfactory argument in favour of a pessimistic conception of
the universe.
Dr. Boas, of Berlin,[273] in a recent publication, has laid stress on
the fact that most patients affected with cancer do not seek medical aid
until the disease is far advanced. For instance, in 80 per cent. of the
cases of cancer of the rectum that he had attended, the patients
presented themselves too late for operation. Boas advised that the
attention of the public should be drawn, by means of widespread
publication, to the earliest symptoms of cancerous disease. He thought
that such a course might save many lives by making possible operation in
early stages.
The prevention and treatment of disease, which for long was in the hands
of religious authorities, is now passing into the care of those who
employ the methods of scientific medicine. It is now only in the case of
certain nervous maladies, which can be treated by suggestion, that
religion has any important part to play. I have not thought it necessary
to expound at length the work of science in the struggle against
disease, because the evidence on this point is extremely clear and
precise. Every one must accept it, and even the passionate enemies of
science have to bow before the fact.
However, the problem has been changed. Science they now admit, is
capable, no doubt, of assuaging humanity in its sufferings from this or
the other disease. But there is another question. Disease is only an
episode in human life, and the great problems remain unsolved by
science. It is not enough to cure a man of diphtheria or intermittent
fever; it is necessary to explain what the destiny of man is, and why he
must grow old and die at a time when his desire to live is strongest.
Here, plainly, all science must fail, and here must begin the beneficent
work of religion and philosophy. But as science is constantly casting
doubt on the dogmas of religion, and criticising adversely the systems
of philosophy, it is plain, that so far from being of service, science
is actually harmful to mankind.
The campaign against science was opened long ago. In the eighteenth
century Rousseau[274] opened it with brilliancy and zest worthy of his
reputation. He defended his theme with vigour and eloquence and the
following quotations may serve as an example, “Know O people,” he wrote,
“that nature has desired to preserve you from science as a mother tries
to snatch a dangerous weapon from the hands of her child; that the
secrets which she has hidden from you are evils from which she would
preserve you, and that one of her greatest gifts is the difficulty with
which knowledge is acquired. Human beings are perverse, but they would
have been worse had they had the misfortune to be born learned men.[275]
Our sciences are futile in so far as they fail to attain their objects,
but they are worse than futile in the results that they bring about.
Born of idleness, they cherish their mother—Tell me, illustrious
philosophers, you from whom we know why matter attracts matter, the
relations of the orbits traced by revolving planets, the mathematical
properties of curves, what stars may be inhabited, what insects exhibit
curious modes of reproduction; tell me, I say, you from whom we have
gained such marvellous information, if you had never learned of these
things, should we have been less numerous, less well governed, less
flourishing, or worse disposed?”[276]
Such words were capable of impressing men because of their eloquence and
sincerity, but they could not arrest the continued and triumphant
advance of science, which indeed, precisely at the end of the eighteenth
century, began its modern and lasting progress. For it was then that
Laplace described the system of the heavens and that Lavoisier laid the
foundation of modern chemistry and of our knowledge of the
indestructibility of matter.
In the nineteenth century, science has made a revolution in life by its
application of steam and by its other triumphs. None the less it has not
satisfied many distinguished persons. And to-day we find a writer of
genius, in the manner of Rousseau, raising his voice against the science
of the nineteenth century.
Tolstoi, in an essay of which the title is, “On the Aim of Science and
Art,” has attempted to show the incompetence of science with regard to
the great problems that occupy humanity. The task set himself by the
Russian writer was much harder than that of Rousseau, for with the
passing of a century science has become much more powerful.
Tolstoi is convinced that theoretical investigations into the origin of
life, the intimate structure of living matter and so forth, are of no
importance to human beings, and serve no other purpose than to flatter
the pretensions of the learned. “All that we call culture,” he affirmed,
“our sciences, our arts, improvements in the amenity of life, are no
other than attempts to deceive the moral cravings of mankind; all that
we call hygiene and medicine are no other than attempts to deceive the
physical and natural cravings of mankind.”[277]
The whole progress of science “up to the present time, has not only not
improved the lot of the majority of mankind, that is to say of the
labourers, but has made it worse.”[278]
Tolstoi thinks that the epithet “true science” could be given only to
“knowledge of the right aim and true happiness of each individual and of
mankind as a whole. Such a science would serve as a guiding thread in
determining the proper sphere of all knowledge”; “without knowledge of
the proper aim of life and of the real good of humanity, all other
knowledge and every art become merely amusements idle or even
harmful.”[279]
The chief grievance of the great Russian writer against knowledge,
culture, and progress can be resolved into the powerlessness of these to
explain the most difficult problems of humanity, that is to say the real
aim of human life, and what really constitutes true happiness.
In this connection, Tolstoi gives expression to a view which is shared
by many thinkers. Some years later, Brunetière,[280] a well-known French
writer and public man, under the influence of a recent journey to Rome
and visit to the Pope, made public a similar opinion, and proclaimed
aloud the fallibility of science.
Brunetière made his criticism as follows: “For the last two or three
centuries, science has promised to change the face of the earth, to
dispel every mystery; she has not done so. She is powerless to resolve
the sole problems that are essential, that concern the origin of man,
the rules for his conduct, and his future destiny. We know now that
natural science can teach us none of these matters. Thus, in the battle
between science and religion, science has been defeated, because she has
had to admit her powerlessness precisely where religion is most strong.
For religion gives the solutions that science has failed to supply.
Religion teaches us what we can learn neither from anatomy nor from
physiology, that is to say, what we are, whither we are going, and how
we ought to act. Religion and science supplement each other; and, as
science can do nothing for morality, it becomes the duty of religion to
take her place.”
It has been replied to Brunetière, that his recriminations are
unfounded, first, because science has never undertaken to solve the
great problems of the aim of life and the proper basis of morality;
next, because it is probable that these problems will never be solved by
the human understanding. Charles Richet, a well-known French
physiologist, made a vain effort to find any written evidence that
science had promised to solve the great problems which have absorbed the
attention of Tolstoi and Brunetière as well as of quite a large section
of humanity. “In what standard works has science made the astonishing
promises that M. Brunetière recalls with so much bitterness?” asked
Richet.[281] “I have now before me,” he proceeded, “the Manuel du
baccalauréat ès sciences (Guide to a Degree in Science). It is a summary
of contemporary scientific ideas. I have looked through it in vain for
promises—it contains no promises.”[282]
The promises referred to must be looked for in scientific treatises that
deal in generalisations. It is not to be disputed that, since the
renaissance in Europe of the rational and sceptical spirit, that is to
say, in the last two or three centuries, the view has been proclaimed
that all human life may be regulated by natural laws without the
interposition of dogmas, either metaphysical or religious. Attempts of
this kind have been numerous. Büchner, in his treatise on “Force and
Matter,” in which he tried to give a general conception of the universe
based on the scientific knowledge of the nineteenth century, made very
plain statements on this point. “We must seek the foundation of
morality,” said the German populariser, “elsewhere than in the timeworn
and fantastic belief in the supernatural. Science must replace religion;
belief in the real existence of a natural and immutable order in things
must displace belief in spirits and ghosts; natural moral law must take
the place of artificial or dogmatic morality.”[283] Büchner even tried
to indicate what natural morality is. According to him it is “the law of
mutual consideration of the equal rights of each person, both from the
general and the individual point of view, so as to assure the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Everything that damages or destroys
the common good is ‘evil;’ everything that favours it is ‘good.’”
The other question, as to whither we are going, finds an answer in the
materialistic and scientific breviary of Büchner. He disputes the idea
of immortality, which has been supported by nearly all the religions,
and comes to the conclusion that there is nothing appalling to a man,
“imbued with the principles of philosophy, in the conception of the
annihilation of the individual life.” “Annihilation is perfect rest; it
is freedom from all pain and escape from the sensations that torture the
body and the mind—as was explained so clearly in the great religion of
Buddha; it is not to be feared, but rather to be coveted when life has
reached its normal term and when old age has come with its inevitable
assemblage of infirmities.”
I do not wish to suggest that the views I have just quoted are peculiar
to Büchner. That writer has served to a large extent as the mouthpiece
of ideas current among the materialistic and positivist men of science
of his time. In Haeckel’s book, “The Riddle of the Universe,” which
appeared nearly half a century after the first edition of “Force and
Matter,” the same ideas are to be found. He also has found answers to
the questions that absorb mankind. In his opinion also, as I have shown
in chap. v. the problem of natural morality resolves itself into the
social instincts of man, and has nothing to do with religious dogma. As
for the destiny of man, he concludes as follows: “The best end we can
desire after a courageous life, spent in doing good according to our
light, is the eternal peace of the grave.”[284]
There is a very close resemblance between the views of the two great
popularisers of the nineteenth century. Just as Büchner, to show the
stupidity of the idea of eternal life, repeated the legend of the
“Wandering Jew,” so Haeckel, with the same object, related the legend of
the unhappy “Ahasuerus” who sought death vainly, finding his eternal
life intolerable. “However gloriously we may depict this eternal life in
paradise, in the end it would be a fearful burden to the best of men.”
While there is no doubt but that such ideas are shared by many men who
rely on scientific arguments, there are others to whom the problem
presents itself differently. The German physiologist, Du Bois Reymond,
after reflecting on the general problems of knowledge and the universe,
proclaimed an “Ignorabimus” as a warning that a whole series of problems
of the highest importance to humanity were outside the range of human
knowledge and incapable of solution. These problems were precisely the
seven “riddles of the universe” that Haeckel claimed to have solved in
his book.
Many learned men think that the great problems, those, according to
Tolstoi, that constitute the only true science, can never be solved.
“Every day there comes a new conquest,” said Richet,[285] “but we are no
nearer solution of the ultimate enigma, the destiny of human life, an
enigma probably never to be solved.” Philosophers have taken the same
view. “It cannot be from science,” said Guyau, “that personality is to
require the proofs of its own durability.”[286]
The answers given by science as it exists to-day, have failed to console
the spirits that have applied to her. When Richet, in the discussion on
the “bankruptcy of science” recalled the discovery of treatment of
diphtheria by specific serums as an instance of the value of scientific
research, Brunetière replied, “Serum therapy cannot prevent us from
dying, nor tell us why we must die.” The problem of death always recurs.
What is the use of saving the life of a child smitten by diphtheria only
that it may grow up, and by learning the inevitability of death become
filled with terror?
If science be really powerless before the gravest problems that torture
mankind, if she has to excuse herself by admitting her incompetence, if
she can do no better than to extol the silent annihilation of the grave,
it is not surprising that many minds and these not the least capable,
turn from her. The desire to find some consolation in the miseries of a
purposeless existence throws them into the arms of religion or
metaphysics. Here lies the explanation of the actual return in these
days to faith. People plunge into mysticism hoping to find there
something more comforting than the annihilation offered by science.
In all ranks of modern society there are signs of this craving for the
supernatural. It is therefore extremely interesting to follow the
intimate steps of such an abandonment of science and return to faith.
The “Confessions” of Tolstoi gave one of the best examples of the
metamorphosis.
Having reached the conclusion that life is meaningless because it cannot
be harmonised with the fear of death and the prospect of absolute
annihilation, Tolstoi (see chap. vi.) asked if it were not possible to
solve the great problem of human existence by means of the facts of
science. “I searched in all the sciences,” he said, “and not only found
nothing myself, but became convinced that all who sought would find
nothing. Not only would they find nothing, but they would see clearly
precisely what had driven me to despair, the fact that the absurdity of
life is the sole indisputable bit of knowledge open to man.” “For a long
time, observing the grave and solemn tones of the exact sciences, which
indeed, hardly touched the problem of life, it seemed to me that they
must be concealing something that I did not understand.”
All the while, the question that Tolstoi put to himself seemed simple
enough: “Why am I to keep alive? Why am I to do anything?” or, in
another way: “Has life any object that is not destroyed by the
inevitable death that awaits me? To the one question, put in many ways,
I sought an answer in human knowledge.” “From my earliest youth the
speculative sciences interested me deeply. Later on, the mathematical
and physical sciences attracted me, and until my question rose up
clearly before me, day by day growing larger, and imperatively demanding
an answer, until then I was satisfied with the semblance of an answer
given by science.” “I said to myself; everything is evolving,
differentiating, moving towards complexity and amelioration, and the
progress is under the guidance of law. You, you yourself are part of
this whole.” “Although I am deeply ashamed to confess it, there was a
time when I thought myself content with these things. My muscles grew
and became stronger. My memory added to its stores. My ability for
thinking and understanding increased. I grew and developed, and feeling
the growth within me, it seemed natural to believe that the solution of
my own life was given by the law of the whole universe. But the time
came when I stopped growing. I felt that I was no longer developing and
even that I was slipping back. My muscles weakened; my teeth dropped
out; and I felt that this law not only explained nothing, not only had
never explained anything, but had not been a law at all; that in fact I
had taken for a law what I found in myself at a particular stage of my
life.”
“As I found no explanation in science,” Tolstoi went on, in his poignant
narrative, “I began to look for the answer in life, hoping to find it in
the men around me.” “My intellect was at work, but also something else,
something that I can call only the consciousness of life, like some
strong force that compelled my intellect to turn in another direction
and to rescue me from my desperate condition.”
The new direction was the feeling of faith. “However I might put to
myself the question: how must I live? the answer was—by the law of God.
Whither tends my present life? To eternal pain or to blessedness
everlasting. How is my life not destroyed by death? By eternal union
with God, by heaven. And thus I was led inevitably to see that quite
independently of human knowledge, which formerly seemed to me the only
guide, mankind had another guide, a guide that is irrational; faith
which makes life possible. Faith seemed to be as irrational as ever, but
I could not but recognise that faith alone gave mankind an answer to the
problem of life, and in consequence made life possible. Reason had led
me to the conviction that life was absurd, and so, there being no longer
a reason to live, I had wished to kill myself. Looking at mankind as a
whole, I saw that men kept alive by assuring themselves that they saw a
meaning in life. I myself came back to that point of view. I had reached
a time when there seemed to me to be no meaning in life. But as to other
men, so to me, life and the possibility of living were offered by
faith.”
Driven in the direction of faith, Tolstoi reached the following
conclusion: “The object of a man’s life is the salvation of his soul;
for that, we must live in God, and to live in God it is necessary to
give up the pleasures of life, to work, to submit, to suffer and to be
charitable.” And this conclusion led to the other that “a faith has
value in so far as it gives a meaning to life which is not destroyed by
death.”
It is plain then that all this evolution, the beginning of which was the
fear of death, ended in belief in something beyond death. And it is also
plain why Tolstoi should have been as bitter against science as I have
shown him to be. Tolstoi does not afford the only example of a case
where the failure of science to solve the problem of death has led to
the abandonment of science in favour of religion. Brunetière, if it is
possible to judge from his published writings, traversed similar paths
in his journey to the Catholic religion.
However, even an intellect so positive and so sceptical as that of Zola
has been unable to resist the lures of faith. There is a very
interesting note on this subject in the _Journal_ of de Goncourt, dated
February 20, 1883. “To-night, after dinner, at the foot of the bedstead
of carved wood, where coffee was served, Zola began to talk of death, on
which his thoughts have been fixed more than ever since the death of his
mother. After a short silence, he said that death had made an in-road on
the nihilism of his religious convictions, as he could not face the
possibility of an eternal separation.”
In strata of society less impregnated with rational and scientific
thought, it is plain that the return to religion must be more common. I
recall the case of a woman of the people, a workwoman, who declared that
she formerly had had no belief, but that, since the birth of her son,
she had begun to believe in the good God, as she was convinced that it
was only by such a belief that she could guard the life of her child
from the evils of the world.
As things are, it is not wonderful that many people decline to educate
their children in an exclusively scientific spirit, which is destructive
to faith, as they cannot substitute for faith something equally
consoling. Perhaps ideas of this kind lie behind the story of the apple
of the Garden of Eden and the invention of the words of Jahveh: “But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis
ii. 17). The legend of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, and was
chained to a rock, is in the same category.
Solomon gave voice to the same idea, in the clearest way, in his words:
“I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate,
and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in
Jerusalem; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
“And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I
perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge,
increaseth sorrow” (Ecclesiastes, i. 16).
Much later, Shakespeare offered to us in _Hamlet_, the type of a man
very highly cultivated, in whom reason and reflection had arrested
action. As he could not solve by reason the problems that haunted him,
he asked if it were worth while to remain alive. Then followed the
famous lines:
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
As so many men of genius have taken the same point of view, it becomes
necessary to inquire carefully as to whether or no too much knowledge be
harmful to human happiness. If science do no more than to destroy faith
and to teach us that the whole living world is moving towards a
knowledge of inevitable old age and death, it becomes necessary to ask
if the perilous march of science should not be stayed. Is it that the
attraction of mankind to knowledge is as dangerous to the race, as the
attraction of moths to the light is fatal to these wretched insects? The
question demands an exact answer. But before giving the verdict, the
facts of the case must be examined. I shall proceed to this in the
chapters to follow.
CHAPTER X
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF OLD AGE
General account of old age—Theory of senile degeneration amongst
unicellular organisms—Conjugation amongst infusoria—Old age in
birds and anthropoid apes—General characters of senile
degeneration—Sclerosis of the organs—Phagocyte theory of senile
degeneration—Destruction of higher elements by macrophags—Mechanism of
whitening of the hair—Serums acting on cells (cytotoxins)—Sclerosis of
the arteries and its causation—Harm done by the microbes of the
alimentary canal—Intestinal putrefaction and the modes of preventing
it—Attempts to prolong human life—Longevity in biblical times
While I cannot share the views of those who turn from science to seek
truth and consolation in religion, it would be wrong to ignore or to be
indifferent to the existence of that attitude. There are men who are
tormented by the contradiction between the desire of life and the
inevitability of death, and when these demand some solution of the
problem, it is unreasonable merely to say that they are too exacting and
should learn contentment.
If a man complains to his physician of uncontrollable hunger and thirst,
he is not told that it is wrong to be so greedy, and that that fault
could be mastered by strength of mind. The doctor carefully examines the
patient and does what he can for the distressing symptoms, which,
indeed, in this case are generally due to diabetes. Those who hunger and
thirst after eternal life, ought to be similarly treated by men of
science whose duty it is to ameliorate their sufferings as much as
possible.
Science has undoubtedly gone far in the successful treatment of disease,
both as regards prevention and cure, but it is powerless before those
other evils from which Buddha implored his father to grant him
exemption—old age and death. Science has attained to heights of
knowledge undreamed of by Buddha’s father, King Couddhôdana, and yet it
knows no more than he did with regard to the problem of old age and
death. Like the king, science can but reply to its questioners: “You ask
the impossible. I cannot help you!”
Not only is no remedy for old age known to science, but little or
nothing is known with regard to that period in the lives of men and
animals. It was no easy task to compress an account of the present
position of medicine within a few pages, the subject matter being
overwhelming in quantity. With regard to old age it is quite the
contrary, our knowledge being so limited that the subject may be dealt
with in a few lines. With the advance of years, man and the higher
animals undergo important modifications. They become weaker, the body
shrinks, the hair whitens, and the teeth decay; in fact, all the
phenomena connected with senile decay manifest themselves.
At this period of life which overtakes various species of animals at
different ages, the body becomes an easy prey to pernicious influences
and diseases. The direct cause of death cannot always be determined, and
is attributed to the general breaking up of the system which we call
natural death. The first question which presents itself to the
scientific mind is whether this degeneration or senile decay is proper
only to man and the higher animals, or is common to all forms of life.
We have all seen very old trees, the appearance of which proclaims their
age. The trunk is decayed, the bark gnarled, the branches shrivelled,
and the leaves scanty. Some kinds of trees live for hundreds—possibly
thousands—of years, while others age with comparative rapidity. Senile
decay is not unknown in the vegetable kingdom, and its presence is
suspected even among creatures of very simple organisation belonging to
the group of infusoria. These creatures may be reared with ease in
vessels containing macerations of chopped hay or leaves. They multiply
by means of division (Fig. 12), an operation which takes place at very
short intervals, some of them dividing nearly every hour. Owing to this
rapid multiplication the vessels soon become full of a mass of
infusoria. M. Maupas,[287] a very distinguished zoologist, observed that
the infusoria became smaller and smaller after a number of generations,
exhausting themselves, as it were, and perishing unless two individuals
succeed in uniting. This process of “conjugation” (Fig. 13), involves an
exchange of portions of the bodies of the two creatures and brings about
a complete rejuvenescence of the two individuals. After conjugation, a
process essentially similar to the details of sexual fertilisation, the
infusoria resume the normal appearance and again become capable of
reproduction by simple division for many generations.
[Illustration:
FIG. 12. Paramecium about to divide in two.
]
The periodical debility, which precedes conjugation is, according to
Maupas, an instance of senile degeneration among infusoria. He has
recognised its existence in the case of many species of the higher
infusoria (_Ciliata_), but while this phenomenon has been observed in
the case of many other simple organisms, it cannot be set down as
universal among microscopic beings. Among bacteria, a group that
includes the greater number of pathogenic organisms, conjugation has
been very rarely observed. Even the largest kinds, such as, for
instance, the _anthrax_ bacillus, may be propagated for a long series of
generations without the occurrence of conjugation.
[Illustration:
FIG. 13. Conjugation of two Paramecia (after Bütschli).
]
Even in the case of the infusoria which by means of the process of
conjugation can reproduce indefinitely, the preconjugal debility cannot
be identified with the senile degeneration of human beings, the higher
animals and trees. In all these debility is the antecedent, not of
conjugation and rejuvenescence, but of the end of life.
Another important difference is that in the case of infusoria the
preconjugal debility does not occur in every individual, as is the case
with the animals and plants which display real old age. In the infusoria
an indefinite number of generations occur between the individuals that
display debility and those that are ready for conjugation.
If, in spite of these differences, we were to insist on the existence of
an essential resemblance between senile degeneration in man and
preconjugal debility in infusoria, it would be enough to reflect on the
result of applying to the case of man what is an infallible remedy in
the case of the infusoria. For conjugation brings about a real
rejuvenescence of the infusoria and a similar event in the case of man
would only increase the debility. Moreover, according to recent
investigations of Calkins,[288] infusoria, weakened by degeneration, may
become young again not only by conjugating with their kind, but by the
addition of bouillon or extract of brain to the medium in which they
live.
Real old age is a phase of existence in which the natural forces abate
never to be renewed. In animals, the life cycle of which is very
definite, the signs of senile degeneration are not visible. Insects, in
the adult condition, very often live only a short time, and die without
displaying the slightest mark of age. In the case of lower vertebrates,
old age is little known, and has few signs. On the other hand, mammals
and birds display senile atrophy in a marked fashion.
Some species of birds live to a great age, longevity being more common
than among mammals. Cases in which birds such as geese, swans, ravens,
and some birds of prey, have been known to reach the age of fifty
years,[289] are not uncommon, whereas such an event is very rare in the
case of a mammal. Even small birds, such as canaries, may live as long
as twenty years. Parrots are especially long-lived birds. Cockatoos have
been known to reach the age of eighty years and more. I myself have had
opportunities of observing a South American parakeet (_Chrysotis
amazonica_) which lived more than eighty-two years, longer than is usual
even with parrakeets. Several years before it died the bird showed
unmistakable signs of old age. It became less lively, its plumage,
although it did not whiten, lost much of its brightness, and the joints
of the claws showed evidence of the presence of disease. In short, the
parrakeet was obviously worn out and debilitated.
Mammals show the signs of age even more plainly than do birds. A dog
reveals old age by its slow movements, its white hairs, and worn teeth.
The appearance of such an animal is never agreeable, while it is often
dirty and ill-tempered. Brehm describes the old age of a dog as follows:
“At twelve years of age a dog has grown old, and his gait and whole
organisation show signs of age. The coat is no longer glossy; the
forehead and muzzle are grey, the teeth are blunted or have fallen out.
The animal is lazy and apathetic. Many such dogs are dumb and blind.
Dogs may live for twenty, six and twenty, or even thirty years, but such
cases are most unusual.”
As the dog is a domesticated animal, it might be argued that its old
age, with its manifest signs of decrepitude, is the result of the
artificial conditions of its life. To decide on this point it is
necessary to examine an instance of old age in a wild animal. This
presents certain difficulties since wild animals when old and feeble
become an easy prey to carnivorous enemies. It will best serve our
present purpose to consider such information as has been collected
regarding the period of old age in anthropoid apes.
The natives of Borneo have observed “old orangs, which have not only
lost their teeth, but being too feeble to climb, live on the fallen
fruits and herbs.”[290] Gorillas, according to Savage, turn grey in
their old age, from which has arisen the erroneous view that there are
two species of the gorilla.
In their wild state, monkeys, like ourselves, are subject in their old
age to various distressing ailments. Senile degeneration, then, which is
universally looked upon as one of the greatest evils of life, is by no
means restricted to the human race. Old age, as portrayed in the
Buddhist legend, referred to in chap. vi., is perhaps somewhat
exaggerated, but this period of life is undoubtedly characterised by
changes of such a nature as considerably to affect the happiness of the
old. Buddha, being a pessimist, took too dark a view of this, but let us
hear what optimists have to say on the subject. Max Nordau, a doctor, a
writer of books and a journalist, says: “Physically speaking, an old man
presents an unpleasant picture of decrepitude to the casual observer.
Morally speaking, he is a blind and pitiless egotist, having lost all
interest in anything outside himself. Intellectually he becomes
feeble-minded and narrow in his views, being governed by antiquated
notions and prejudices, and incapable of grasping new ideas.”[291]
It may be objected that I am here supporting my argument by quoting from
a writer who, in his capacity of clever journalist, rather forces the
note. Let me therefore refer to what a learned physiologist said when
addressing a serious audience assembled for the purpose of obtaining
truth and information from his lips. After dealing in broad outline with
the physical degeneracy caused by old age, Longet[292] draws the
following mental picture: “The old feel that their task in life is
accomplished, and believe themselves to be universally grudged the space
they occupy in the world. This renders them suspicious of all around
them, and jealous of the young. Their craving for solitude and the
uncertainty of their tempers are due to the same cause. All old people
are not like this, of course. The hearts of some remain youthful and
beat strongly within their feeble frames, but, as a general rule, they
are morose and a nuisance to themselves and others, excepting when they
are surrounded by their children or grandchildren, who like to listen to
them about the past, and who make excuses for the present. Thus the
years speed onward, every round of the clock bringing the end nearer,
and every hour adding a new wrinkle to their faces, some fresh weakness
and some new regret. Their bodies ... become decrepit; their backbones,
too weak to hold them upright, curve over and bend them downwards
towards the earth.”
There can be no doubt but that the period of old age is sad, and a
thorough knowledge of it is necessary before it can be understood.
Disease can only be successfully dealt with when the cause of its
presence is known, and so it is with old age.
Is it possible, one might ask, at the present stage of the world’s
knowledge, to define, with even approximate accuracy, the characteristic
features of senile decay? The task is difficult, for although the
subject is very important, few facts have been collected.
It is common knowledge that the flesh of old animals, used as food, is
tough. An old fowl cannot be compared with a tender and juicy chicken.
Organs such as the liver and kidneys are much harder in the case of old
animals. The horny flesh of old animals is often compared with
boot-leather. Although the comparison does not pretend to be scientific,
it is far from being incorrect. Boot-leather is made from the hides of
animals; that is to say, of a very resistant material that is called
“connective tissue,” and which consists of a dense mass of fibres,
mingled with the living elements or “connective tissue” cells. This
tissue is very durable and so is employed for boots and shoes.
The infiltration of any organ with connective tissue makes it tough and
unpalatable. This hardening is called a _sclerosis_ (of the liver,
kidneys, &c.). In old age many organs exhibit this tendency to hardening
or sclerotic degeneration. The fact has been known for long, but its
significance has been perceived more recently. Demange,[293] in his
monograph on the organic changes associated with old age, states as
follows: “Besides atrophy and degeneration of the parenchymatous
elements,[294] there is to be observed a profound change in the
framework of connective tissue, which serves to support the organs. In
some cases the skeletal framework of an organ becomes more conspicuous,
simply on account of the degeneration of the cells; this is the
condition usually present in the liver of aged persons. More often,
however, the connective tissue receives some kind of stimulation, which,
although it does not amount to inflammation, brings about an active
growth and resulting sclerosis. According to the particular case, the
hardening occurs in the form of isolated patches or strands, or affects
the whole periphery or even the depths of the organ, and smothers the
higher elements in its meshes, so producing a further degeneration. The
cellular elements disappear gradually, connective tissue taking their
place, and the change may be so profound, that as in the case of the
prostate gland, the altered organ may actually transcend the normal
size, partial or general atrophy, however, being more often the result.”
Sclerosis in old people sometimes takes the form of a hardening of the
liver (cirrhosis of the liver) or of the kidneys (renal cirrhosis), but
it is the arteries which are most commonly affected by it, producing a
symptom of degeneration which is called arterial sclerosis.
Cazalis long ago originated the oft-repeated aphorism: “A man is as old
as his arteries,” these vessels, by means of which the blood is
distributed throughout the whole system, being of immense importance in
the economy of the organism. When the connective tissue is so freely
developed as to cause a hardening of the arteries, these are hampered in
the exercise of their function and become very brittle. According to
Demange, all the special modifications undergone by the body during the
period of old age may be attributed to this atrophy of the arteries, but
this theory is proved to be an exaggeration by the fact that post
mortems on the aged frequently reveal the presence of little or no
arterial sclerosis.
It might fairly be supposed that the hardening seen in many organs of
the body during the period of old age is universal, and lends greater
strength to the frame. The bones, which are separated from one another
in youth, become welded together in old age owing to the calcareous
deposits in the joints, and the ossification of the joints between the
vertebra frequently causes the backbone to assume the appearance of a
continuous bone, the greater part of the cartilage having become
ossified. In spite of this, and as though for the purpose of proving how
physically full of contradictions is the period of old age, the human
frame actually becomes lighter and the quantity of component mineral
substances becomes less. This brings about a liability to fracture of
the bones in old people. The fracture of the neck of the femur is a
constant cause of death in the aged, as occurred for instance in the
case of Virchow, one of the most distinguished medical scientists of the
nineteenth century.
Is science, it may be asked, in a position to state precisely what are
the principal modifications which occur in the tissues of old people? At
the International Congress of Medicine held at Berlin in 1890, a
well-known German anatomist, Merkel,[295] attempted to reply to this
question. Speaking of the tissues of old people, he tried to show that
certain of these, such as the skin and the mucous membrane (the
epithelial tissues), preserve their youthful characters to the end,
whereas others, such as the connective tissues, display profound
changes. This essay was the first attempt to form a picture of the
details of senile degeneration, but it did not reach any simple, general
conclusion.
Later on, I myself[296] tried to complete the work, and for the purpose
made use of the published results of all the investigators who had
studied senile degeneration. I gave a summary of my conclusions in the
following words: “In senile atrophy the same condition is always
present: _the atrophy of the higher and specific cells of a tissue and
their replacement by hypertrophied connective tissue_.” In the brain,
the nerve cells disappear; that is to say, the cells which subserve the
higher functions such as intellectuality, sensation, control of
movement, and these are replaced by elements of a lower kind, in
especial by neuroglœa, a kind of connective tissue of the brain. In the
liver, the hepatic cells, of great importance to the nutrition of the
organism, yield to connective tissue. In the kidneys, that tissue
invades and blocks the tubes by which the necessary process of
eliminating soluble waste matter is accomplished. In the ovaries, the
ova, the specific elements which serve to propagate the race, are
similarly eliminated and replaced by granular cells, a variety of
connective tissue. In other words, a conflict takes place in old age
between the higher elements and the simpler or primitive elements of the
organism, and the conflict ends in the victory of the latter. This
victory is signalised by a weakening of the intellect, by digestive
troubles, and by lack of sufficient oxygen in the blood. The word
conflict is not used metaphorically in this case. It is a veritable
battle that rages in the innermost recesses of our beings. Distributed
throughout every part of our bodies are certain cells which fulfil
special functions of their own. They are capable of independent
movement, and also of devouring all sorts of solid matter, a capacity
which has gained them their name of phagocytes or voracious cells. The
function these phagocytes fulfil is a very important one, for it is they
that congregate in vast numbers around microbes or other harmful
intruders, in order to devour them. Effusions of blood and other
elements, on penetrating to parts of the body where their presence is
disadvantageous, are absorbed by these phagocytes. In cases of apoplexy,
where blood is shed into a part of the brain, setting up paralysis, the
phagocytes cluster round the clot and devour the blood corpuscles it has
encased. This absorption is a lengthy process, but by degrees, as the
pressure of the effusion of blood is removed from the brain, and
paralysis disappears, the health of the organism may become completely
restored, recovery in such a case being due to the work of the
phagocytes. After childbirth, when the uterus presents the appearance of
a great open wound clotted with blood, it is again the phagocytes that
clean it and re-establish the normal condition. It is plain, therefore,
that the part played by these cells is beneficent.
The phagocytes may be divided into small active phagocytes, generally
known as the microphags, and larger phagocytes called macrophags, which
are sometimes active and sometimes still. The former, which are produced
in the marrow of the bones, circulate freely in the blood, and occur as
some of the white blood corpuscles, or leucocytes. They are
distinguishable by their oval shape which facilitates their easy passage
through the smaller blood-vessels, and allows of their accumulating in
great numbers in the exudations that form around microbes. These
exudations may be formed extremely rapidly, and so may arrest infection
in the case of many diseases.
The absorption of extravasations of blood and the healing of wounds are
the work of the macrophags. In a general way, the microphags may be said
to rid us of microbes, and the macrophags to heal mechanical injuries,
such as hæmorrhages, wounds, and so forth. Macrophags possess a single
unlobulated nucleus, and occur as white corpuscles in the blood, lymph,
and exudations, or as the fixed cells in connective tissues, the spleen,
and the lymphatic glands, &c.
[Illustration:
FIG. 14. Section of a Renal Tubule, invaded by Macrophags, from the
body of an old man of 90 years. _m_ = macrophag. (From a preparation
made by Dr. Weinberg.)
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 15. Cell from the brain of a woman 100 years old being devoured
by macrophags. (From a preparation made by Dr. Philippe.)
]
The phagocytes are endowed with a sensitiveness of their own, and by
means of a sense of smell or taste are able to recognise the nature of
their surroundings. According to the impression made upon this sense,
they approach the object which arouses it, exhibit indifference to it,
or withdraw from its vicinity. When, however, an infectious microbe
finds its way into the body, the microphags are attracted by its
excretions and swarm into the exudations surrounding it. The macrophags
play a very important part in bringing about senile decay. The atrophy
of the kidneys in old persons is attributable to their agency (Fig. 14).
They accumulate in large quantities in these organs, clustering round
about the renal tubes which they ultimately cause to disappear. Having
appropriated the place of the renal tubes, the macrophags proceed to
form connective tissue, which thus takes the place of the normal renal
tissue. A similar process occurs in the other organs that degenerate in
old age. In the brains of old persons and animals, for instance, it is
known that a number of nervous cells are surrounded and devoured by
macrophags (Fig. 15). Judging from the investigations mentioned above, I
think I am justified in asserting that senile decay is mainly due to the
destruction of the higher elements of the organism by macrophags. This
conclusion has been confirmed by means of direct observation, which was
the more necessary as it is contrary to the opinions of some biologists.
Marinesco,[297] an authority upon everything connected with the nervous
system, has disputed my theory, asserting that the destruction of the
specific elements in the nervous centres of old persons is not brought
about through the agency of macrophags. In support of his theory, M.
Marinesco was good enough to send me a series of preparations from the
spinal marrow of persons of very advanced years from which evidence of
destruction by means of phagocytes or phagocytosis, was completely
absent. I freely admit the absence of phagocytosis in M. Marinesco’s
preparations, but these were derived from the cells of spinal marrow,
which is much less subject to the ravages of senile decay than is the
brain. Even in the lower portions of the encephalon, senility and its
parallel, phagocytosis, are uncommon, whereas in the brains of old
persons, which are more generally affected by senile decay, the higher
elements are clearly shown to undergo destruction by macrophags (Fig.
15). The same phenomenon may be observed in the case of parrots and dogs
of advanced age, and in other animals.
So universal a symptom of old age is the invasion of the tissues by
macrophags, that it must be regarded as of immense importance. In order,
however, to determine more precisely the nature of the function
fulfilled by these phagocytes, it was necessary to select a specially
favourable subject of investigation. My choice fell upon an examination
into the causes of the hair turning white,[298] that being as a rule the
first visible sign of approaching old age.
Hair, before it has lost its colour, is full of pigment scattered
throughout the two layers of which each hair is composed. At a given
moment, the cells of the central cylinder of a hair become active, and
proceed to devour all the pigment within their reach. Once they are
filled with coloured particles, these cells, which are a variety of
macrophag (generally called pigmentophags or more properly speaking
chromophags), become migratory, and, quitting the hair, either find
their way under the skin or leave the body (Fig. 16). The
colouring-matter of the hair is removed in this way by chromophags,
leaving the hair colourless.
The process by which hair becomes white is of importance, because it
shows that the activity of macrophags is a dominant factor in bringing
about senile decay. The brittleness of old people’s bones is probably
due to a similar cause, _i.e._, to the absorption and destruction of the
framework brought about by macrophags invading the layers of bone. There
is still much that remains unknown in this subject, which is well worthy
of special research.
[Illustration:
FIG. 16. Hair about to become grey. Chromophags transporting the
pigment granules.
]
The activity acquired by macrophags during old age is closely connected
with the phenomena that are characteristic of certain chronic
complaints. Sclerosis in old persons belongs to the same category as
organic sclerosis, which may be set up by various morbid influences. The
analogy between senile decay of the kidneys and chronic nephritis,
commonly called interstitial nephritis, is incontestable. The
destruction of nervous cells through the agency of macrophags, which we
have already mentioned as occurring in old age, is equally a symptom of
several diseases of the nervous centres, such as general paralysis of
the insane. Arterial sclerosis in old persons is actually an
inflammatory disease, similar to the inflammation of the arteries set up
by other maladies.
The similarity between senility and disease has long been recognised,
and partly accounts for the repugnance we all experience at the approach
of old age. In childhood and early youth people regard themselves as
older than they really are, and long to be “grown-up,” but having once
arrived at man’s estate, they do not wish to grow old. An instinctive
feeling tells us that there is something abnormal in old age. It cannot
be regarded as a part of healthy physiological function. No doubt,
because old age is the inevitable lot of mankind, it may be termed
normal, in the same fashion as we call the pains of childbirth normal,
since few women escape them. In both cases, however, we have to deal
with pathological rather than physiological conditions. Just as every
effort is made to relieve the sufferings of a woman in labour, so it is
natural to try to suppress the evils accompanying old age, but whereas
in childbirth an anæsthetic affords relief, old age is a chronic malady,
a remedy for which is much harder to find. We have seen that in old age
a struggle takes place between the higher elements and the phagocytes,
the end being usually a weakening in vitality of the former, while the
activity of the latter is enormously increased. It would appear, arguing
from this, that one means of fighting against old age, pathologically
speaking, would be to strengthen the higher elements of the organism,
and to weaken the aggressive capacities of the phagocytes. Let me at
once warn the reader that this is not presented as a definite, but as a
possible solution of the problem, and is offered for consideration like
many other hypotheses on scientific questions. The properties of
cellular elements are easily changed when subjected to various
influences, and it is therefore not irrational to seek some means of
strengthening the blood corpuscles, nerve cells, liver cells, muscular
fibres of the heart, and so forth. The task has become easier since the
discovery of serums that have specific actions on the tissues.
In the third chapter I stated that serums were known which give
precipitates only with the blood of man and of his near relatives the
anthropoid apes. Serum of this kind has a definite specific action.
Serums may be prepared that dissolve only the red corpuscles of
particular species of animals, and that are without action on the other
organic elements. It has been found possible, even, to prepare a serum
that arrests instantaneously the movements of human spermatozoa, and
that is neutral to the similar cells of other animals.
These serums are all prepared in the same way. The cellular elements in
question, spermatozoa or red corpuscles, cells of the liver or of the
kidney, taken from one animal, are injected into an animal of another
species. After several injections have been made, the serum of the
animal operated on becomes active with respect to the cells introduced
into its body. These serums were discovered by J. Bordet of the Pasteur
Institute, but the results have been confirmed by investigators in other
countries. The serums are specifically _cytotoxic_, that is to say, they
poison particular kinds of cells.
Now it has been shown that such serums, employed in small doses, do not
kill or dissolve the specific tissue elements, but actually strengthen
them.[299] Here the case is analogous with the action of poisons, such
as digitalis, which kill in strong doses, but which in weak doses
improve or strengthen the action of certain tissues. In accordance with
this indication, experiment has shown that small doses of a serum which
is capable of dissolving the red corpuscles of human blood, actually
increase the number of those in the body of a patient treated by
injections. In the same way, in the case of a serum large doses of which
destroy the red corpuscles of a rabbit, small doses increase the number
of these elements in the blood.
Here there seems to be a rational method by which we may strive to
strengthen the higher elements of the human body, and so prevent them
from growing old. The task, at first sight indeed, seems an easy one,
only necessitating the injection of a horse (or other animal) with
finely minced atoms of human organs, such as brain, heart, liver,
kidney, &c., when serums could be drawn off in the course of a few
weeks, capable of acting upon those organs. In reality the process would
be a very difficult one to carry out, as human organs are rarely
obtainable in a condition suitable for injecting into animals. Post
mortems can only be legally made twenty-four hours after death, and
there are many other obstacles in the way of removing organs from dead
bodies. Even if all these difficulties were overcome, another difficulty
that would present itself would be the experimenting with various doses
of cytotoxic serums of various strength. It is not therefore to be
wondered at that the attempt to reinforce the higher elements of the
human organism will require much time. If it be necessary to strengthen
the higher elements (nervous, hepatic, renal, and cardiac cells), it is
plain that they undergo a progressively weakening process. It would be
of the highest importance to ascertain the cause of this, for the
knowledge would be a guide to future action.
The similarity between senile decay and the diseases entailing atrophy
in the more important human organs suggests a similitude in cause.
Scleroses of the brain, kidneys, and liver frequently originate in
intoxication by poisons such as alcohol, lead, mercury, and so forth, or
the disease may be induced by some virus, the virus of syphilis being a
common cause.
The immense importance of venereal disease as a malevolent factor in the
phenomena of old age, is especially manifested in arterial sclerosis.
According to the careful investigations of a Swedish doctor,
Edgren,[300] published in his “Monograph on Arterial Sclerosis,” one
case in every five of this disease is caused by syphilis, and he shows
that chronic alcoholism is an even more frequent cause (25 per cent.).
These two factors when united are responsible for nearly half (45 per
cent.) the cases of arterial sclerosis that occur. Syphilitic virus and
alcohol act as poisons which bring about first degeneration and
brittleness of the arterial walls, and eventually a weakening of the
higher elements of the organism. The phagocytes, being cells of an
inferior order, are less sensitive to these poisons, which accounts for
their victory over the poisoned elements.
Rheumatism, gout, and infectious diseases only play a secondary part in
setting up arterial sclerosis. Edgren asserts, as the result of very
careful calculation, that in nearly every fifth case he found it was
impossible to account for the origin of arterial sclerosis. In the
majority of cases the sufferers were elderly persons who, according to
Edgren, “were afflicted with physiological sclerosis.”[301]
I take it that this sclerosis of unknown origin was by no means
physiological but was pathological like that set up by syphilis or
alcoholism. The question then arises whence comes the poison in such
cases? In syphilis there is a virus of a definite nature to deal with,
which causes infection or poisoning, and brings about arterial
sclerosis, general paralysis, and other serious ailments. Alcoholism is
a poison arising from fermentation, excited by microscopical fungi
related to true microbes. Instances of arterial sclerosis which are due
neither to syphilis nor to alcohol poisoning nor to any other known
cause, can only be accounted for as probably arising from poisoning set
up by the mass of microbes congregated in the human intestines. Among
these microbes there may be some that are harmless, and possibly even
beneficial, but there are undoubtedly a great number the presence of
which is extremely prejudicial to health and life. It is impossible to
enter into the details of such an important question, and a brief
mention must suffice.
The human intestine contains an enormous quantity of bacteria, which,
according to the recent investigations of Strassburger,[302] increase at
the rate of 128,000,000,000,000 each day. These microbes, of which there
are few in the digestive portion of the alimentary canal, are very
numerous in the large intestines, _i.e._, in the lower part containing
the waste material. The remains of undigested foods and the mucous
secretions form a medium very favourable to the growth of microbes. This
bacterial flora constitutes a third part of the human excreta. It is
very varied, and contains an immense number of different species, among
which are bacilli, cocci, and many kinds of other bacteria, about which
little is known. The distribution of this bacterial flora shows that it
contributes nothing to the well-being of man, being scanty in the
digestive portions of the body, and abundant in other parts of the gut.
This fact alone suffices to refute the theory of those who attribute
great functional importance to the intestinal flora. This theory
originated principally from the fact that certain animals perish when
brought up under special conditions protecting them from the presence of
microbes. Schottelius[303] was the first to try the experiment of
rearing chickens in a cage specially constructed for this purpose. The
chickens hatched out, and lived for a few weeks: then, there being no
microbes within them and only sterilised food being given, instead of
increasing in weight, they became thin and showed signs of starvation.
Schottelius supplied them with food from which bacteria were no longer
excluded, upon which the chickens rallied, and soon became completely
restored to health. Madame Metchnikoff[304] tried a similar experiment
with tadpoles, which, when kept in vessels and fed upon bread containing
the usual microbes, developed normally, but which, when reared under
conditions entirely free from the presence of microbes, lived on for
some months, but in a degenerate condition, their development being
arrested.
On the other hand, Nuttall and Thierfelder[305] succeeded in keeping
alive for several days new-born guinea-pigs, the alimentary canals of
which were free from microbes, and which were fed only on absolutely
sterilised milk and vegetable matter. Notwithstanding this complete
absence of microbes the guinea-pigs developed well.
As the two sets of experiments were conducted under conditions arranged
so carefully that the chance of error was excluded, it is important to
try to reconcile the apparently contradictory results. There is one
point common to these three experiments, _i.e._, that they were all
executed upon newly born creatures. Now it is well known that at birth
the digestive juices are often very imperfectly secreted. In the case of
the guinea-pigs, these juices sufficed in quantity for the digestion of
the diet provided, whereas in the cases of the chickens and the
tadpoles, the digestive juices were incapable of fulfilling their
function satisfactorily, and the introduction of microbes endowed with
considerable digestive capacity into the intestines compensated for the
functional inefficiency of the gastric juices. In addition to the
guinea-pigs experimented upon by Nuttall and Thierfelder, there may be
mentioned a whole series of lower creatures such as the larvæ of mites
and other insects which are able to digest such indigestible material as
wax and wool in spite of the total absence of microbes within their
intestinal tubes. These experiments are corroborated by the established
physiological fact that the gastric and pancreatic juices of mammals
easily digest the most varied kinds of foods, even if treated so
antiseptically as to ensure the total exclusion of microbes from the
intestines.
I need not go further into this subject as the facts which I have cited
suffice for my present purpose. The complete atrophy of the large
intestines in the case of the woman referred to in chap. iv. proves not
only that this portion of the alimentary canal is not indispensable to
healthy life, but that life may be maintained in the absence of the
flora of the large intestines. And this really is the centre of the
problem. The useless bacterial flora may give rise to serious or fatal
maladies. Wounds of the abdomen are really serious only when they
penetrate the large intestines and so allow the entrance of bacteria
from that region to the peritoneal cavity. In such an event, the
microbes rapidly multiply in the organism and produce a grave and
frequently mortal illness. So long as the microbes remain within the
intestines very few of them get into the circulation, and with these few
the organism is able to cope. While most of the microbes are confined
within the walls of the alimentary canal, the soluble excretions
produced by them pass through into the lymph and blood. Quite a number
of different facts establish this. Thus, for instance, it has been known
for long that the urine of human beings and of animals contains a series
of substances such as derivatives of phenol, indol, creosol, skatol, and
so forth. In certain diseases the amount of these substances greatly
increases. The stagnation of the contents of the intestines increases
the amount of phenol and indol. Such facts and many others make it
probable that these substances are the products of the bacterial flora
of the intestines. They are absorbed by the intestinal wall, pass into
the general circulation, and may give rise to various symptoms of a more
or less serious nature.
Baumann, who has done much work on the subject, has brought together a
series of arguments supporting the bacterial origin of the presence in
the urine of the substances in question. Ewald, working from another
point of view has obtained strong confirmation of Baumann’s suggestions.
He had the opportunity of making observations on a female patient, in
whom, on account of a strangulated hernia, an intestinal fistula was
established. Throughout the time during which the large intestines were
inactive, the urine contained neither phenol nor indol. But as soon as
the fistula was closed and communication with the large intestine had
been re-established, phenol and indol reappeared in the excreta. Ewald
formed the opinion, therefore, that these substances were products of
the large intestine.
I need not weary the reader with more of the facts serving to show that
the bacterial flora of the large intestines is the source of many
poisons harmful to the body. It is among such substances that we must
look for the slow poisons which, in the absence of syphilis or
alcoholism, produce the arterial sclerosis of old age.
In the fourth chapter I gave reasons to support my view that the large
intestine in mammals had been developed because, by storing the products
of digestion, it allowed them to run long distances without stopping,
and so was an advantage in the struggle for existence. Moreover, the
microbes which abound in the contents of the gut make it possible to use
certain substances such as cellulose, that are difficult to digest. But
these two advantages do not count in the case of the human race. Man
does not secure his prey or escape from his enemies by the rapidity of
his locomotion. The great development of his intellectual powers has
given him advantages of another kind. Moreover, by the use of cooking
and the cultivation of plants of high nutritive value, he is able to
dispense with the digestion of cellulose.
There is another side to the picture. Ignorant of death and of old age,
mammals have acquired the advantages of a large intestine at the expense
of longevity. I have already stated that birds live longer than mammals.
Birds are practically devoid of a large intestine, and maintain a
bacterial flora very much poorer than that found in mammals. There is
one exception to this rule, an exception of great importance. Ostriches
and their allies, the largest known birds, are characterised by absence
of the power of flight and by rapidity of terrestrial locomotion by
which they escape their enemies. These are the only birds in which the
large intestine is well-developed. The duration of life is much less in
their case than in that of smaller birds, such as parrots, ravens, and
swans. According to M. Rivière, who has been engaged in ostrich farming
in Algeria, these large birds do not live more than thirty-five years.
The mode of life, and the shorter duration of life, the huge development
of the large intestines and the rich bacterial flora found therein make
the ostriches much more like mammals than birds.
It is to be noticed that many birds in which the duration of life is
long do not possess a cæcum, the portion of the alimentary canal that
contains most bacteria. Examination of the intestinal contents of
parrots shows that there exist in these birds very few microbes. A
comparative study shows plainly that the existence of an abundant
intestinal flora, useless for digestion, helps to shorten life by
producing bacterial poisons which weaken the higher elements and
strengthen the phagocytes.
The human race has inherited from its ancestors an enormous large
intestine and conditions favourable to the life of bacteria. It has to
endure the disadvantages of this heritage. On the other hand, the brain
of man is very highly developed, and with the increase of intellectual
power has come a consciousness of old age and death. Our strong will to
live is opposed to the infirmities of age and the shortness of life.
Here lies the greatest disharmony of the constitution of man.
If we desired to make the phenomena of old age physiological rather than
pathological, it would be necessary to reduce the evils arising from the
presence of a large intestine. It is impossible, I may at once say, to
wait for the operation of forces independent of the human will and that
might lead to the suppression of an organ which has become useless. Man,
guided by exact science, must strive to accelerate or anticipate such a
result. In spite of the progress of surgery, I do not expect to find in
our time that the large intestine will be removed by operation. Perhaps
in the distant future such a proceeding will become normal. For the
present it is more reasonable to attack the harmful microbes of the
large intestine. In the varied flora of that region there exist microbes
termed anærobic, because they are able to live in the absence of free
oxygen, obtaining what they require by the decomposition of organic
matter. Such decomposition is attended by fermentations and
putrefactions, and the production of poisons, such as the alkaloids
(ptomaines), fatty acids, and even true toxins.
In the human intestines under normal conditions, putrefaction occurs
only very slightly, or does not occur at all. But in intestinal diseases
of children and of adults, the microbes of putrefaction multiply
abundantly and produce copious secretions which inflame the intestinal
walls. To avoid these diseases of putrefaction in the case of infants,
it has been suggested to use as food only sterilised milk or other foods
quite free from microbes. This regimen has proved extremely successful.
In the investigation of the factors that hinder putrefaction, it has
been noticed that milk putrefies with considerable difficulty, whereas
meat, preserved under the same conditions, decomposes very readily.
Investigators have attributed the stability of milk to the presence of
casein or of milk-sugar. However, investigations recently made by
Bienstock[306] and confirmed by Tissier and Martel[307] have proved
the existence of certain microbes that hinder the putrefaction of milk.
These are in particular the microbes that sour milk, _i.e._, cause the
formation of lactic acid, and which are antagonistic to the microbes of
putrefaction. The latter multiply only in an alkaline medium. The lactic
acid microbes produce large quantities of acid and so hinder the
multiplication of the organisms of putrefaction. Putrefaction takes
place rapidly, in spite of the presence of the lactic acid microbes, if
there be added soda to macerations of meat or milk. Such facts explain
how it is that lactic acid frequently stops some cases of diarrhœa, and
why treatment with lactic acid is so useful in maladies associated with
putrefaction of the intestinal contents. It makes intelligible,
moreover, the medicinal value of fermented milk.
Rovighi,[308] an Italian physician, drank daily a litre and a half of
kephir, a preparation made by subjecting milk to lactic acid and
alcoholic fermentations. He found that in a few days the products of
intestinal putrefaction in his urine either disappeared or were greatly
reduced.
It is plain, then, that the slow intoxications that weaken the
resistance of the higher elements of the body and that strengthen the
phagocytes may be arrested by the use of kephir, or still better of
soured milk. The latter differs from kephir in that it contains no
alcohol, and alcohol in course of time diminishes the vitality of some
important cells in the body. The presence of a number of the lactic acid
bacteria is inimical to the growth of the bacteria of putrefaction, and
so is of great service to the organism.
But it is not enough merely to introduce useful microbes into the body.
We must also prevent the entrance of “wild” microbes, many of which are
harmful. Soil, especially when it has been manured, contains large
numbers of microbes, some of which are harmful. Bienstock found that the
soil of the strawberry-beds in his garden contained the bacilli of
tetanus. For three weeks he swallowed some of this soil, but found that
the bacteria were destroyed in his intestines, which he attributed to
the action of the normal bacterial inhabitants of the alimentary canal.
It is probable that if this arresting action were weakened the body
would be infected by tetanus from spores of the tetanus microbe
swallowed with earth or strawberries or green vegetables. Moreover,
besides the organisms of tetanus, there are many other dangerous
anærobic bacteria in manured garden soil.
Obviously we should eat no raw food, but confine our diet rigidly to
food that has been thoroughly cooked or sterilised. The exclusion of
“wild” microbes and the introduction of beneficial microbes, such as
those of lactic acid fermentation, must be of great service to health. I
know of individuals who have derived great benefit from such a regimen.
Science, even in its present imperfect condition, has many weapons by
which to prevent or at least diminish the slow and chronic poisoning of
the organism that leads eventually to the degeneration of the higher
elements. When these elements are being destroyed by syphilis or
alcoholism the struggle must be directed against these evils. It is long
since we have known how to do this; that success has not been greater is
due to the carelessness of the people who are concerned.
To strengthen the resistance of the higher elements and to transform the
“wild” population of the intestine into a cultured population, these are
the means by which the pathological symptoms may be removed from old
age, and by which, in all probability, the duration of the life of man
may be considerably increased.
If it be found impossible to eliminate all the harmful microbes from the
flora of the intestines, those that are refractory may be rendered
harmless by appropriate serums. We know already a serum that is specific
against the microbe of botulism, an organism capable of exciting serious
disturbance if it gain entrance to the alimentary canal.
Our inmost convictions assure us that life is too short, and since the
remotest ages attempts have been made to prolong it. I need hardly
mention the quest of the Middle Ages for an elixir of life, but many
thoughtful men have occupied themselves with the problem.
Descartes, who was deeply interested in the subject, believed himself to
have found a mode of lengthening human life. Bacon published a tract on
life and death, and in it gave advice as to how old age might be
reached; blood-letting and the use of saltpetre were parts of his
specific.
One of the oldest methods in the world consisted in bringing old men in
contact with the bodies of young girls. David, King of Israel, employed
this method, which at a much later period came into fashion.
Eighteenth-century quacks proclaimed a number of specifics, among which
was the “holy water” of Saint Germain, an infusion of senna, merely
purgative in its effects. It is certain that some of the medicines used
for the purpose, by emptying the large intestine, decreased the
bacterial flora, and so checked the formation of the poisons that are
harmful to the higher elements.
Hufeland,[309] a well-known German professor, published towards the end
of the eighteenth century, a work called “La Macrobiotique”; or, “the
Art of Prolonging Human Life.” This treatise had a great vogue in its
day, and contained many interesting and just observations. Besides
advocating cleanliness and moderation, Hufeland advised that “we should
use vegetable rather than animal food, as animal food was more liable to
putrefaction, whilst vegetable substances contained an acid principle
that retarded our mortal enemy, putrefaction.”[310] Here the physician
of a day long past anticipated one of the discoveries of modern science.
In our time scientific men have not ceased to concern themselves with
the prolongation of human life. Professor Pflüger, of Bonn, one of the
most distinguished of living physiologists, has published an essay[311]
in which he gave the results of his inquiries into this subject. He
first stated that investigations into the habits of those who had
attained a great age did not give information sufficiently exact.
Pflüger laid stress on the means of avoiding infectious maladies, and
summed up as follows: “Finally, I can do no better than to associate
myself with the advice given in all the treatises on the prolonging of
life: avoid the things that are harmful and be moderate in all things.”
A year later, a well-known German physician, Dr. Ebstein[312] published
a very careful treatise on the same subject. He had been struck by the
fact that among those who have reached a great age, there have been
several who had led an exuberant life, full of excesses, notably in the
consumption of alcohol. None the less, Ebstein advised either a complete
avoidance of alcoholic liquor, or at the most an extreme temperance in
the use of it. He prescribed in addition the simplification of the
conduct of life and the avoiding of anything that is unwholesome.
Study of such works, which are written in a scientific spirit, convinces
me that a science of the prolongation of life could be built up. An
exact investigation of the phenomena of old age would contribute to this
object. At any rate, we cannot set aside as chimerical plans to make old
age a natural process, and one easy to bear. I believe, moreover, that
attempts to prolong life deserve to be encouraged, the more so as
instances of longevity are already numerous.
Quite a number of cases of centenarians who have preserved intellect and
vigour until death have been recorded. It is unnecessary to relate the
histories of these persons, of whom some attained such ages as 120, 140,
and even 185 years (Saint Mungo of Glasgow). My friend, Professor Ray
Lankester,[313] thinks that such unusually old persons are monstrosities
comparable with those who have attained a gigantic stature. But
centenarians are more numerous than giants, and while the latter exhibit
marked signs of pathological weakness the former surprise us by their
health and vigour.
The longevity of the Israelites recorded in the Old Testament is well
known. No doubt there is much exaggeration in these naïve records. Was
it an error of exaggeration to impute an age of 969 years to Methusaleh,
or of 595 to Noah, or were these ages reckoned on a different basis?
Henseler[314] suggested that in these cases each season was counted as a
year, so that the age of Methusaleh was really only 242 years, a length
of life not so vastly greater than ages recorded in modern times.
There is evidence to show that in somewhat later Biblical times ages
were reckoned in our years. Thus in the Book of Numbers (i. 3, 20, 22)
reference is made to those “From twenty years old and upward, all that
are able to go forth to war in Israel.” The limit of age given shows
clearly that the years counted were our years. This interpretation is
supported by many other passages in the Pentateuch, notably where annual
harvest feasts are spoken of. We may therefore accept as probable the
assignment of such ages as 100 or 120 years to several Biblical
personages, such as Aaron, Moses, and Joshua. And the words put in the
mouth of Jahveh may be accepted as important evidence: “And the Lord
said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”[315]
The longevity of that remote period must have surpassed the age of the
present time. From the circumstance that the greatest number of deaths
occurs at the age of seventy years, Ebstein[316] has inferred that
seventy years is the normal duration of life. Although there is no doubt
but that the duration of human life has become longer in the nineteenth
century, we must believe that it was still longer in Biblical times, a
fact that is not particularly surprising.
I have called attention to the important influence of syphilis in
inducing premature and pathological old age, as that disease is a chief
cause of arterial sclerosis and degeneration of the higher elements of
the body. Syphilis has an influence still more serious because its
effects are inherited. Now although the Bible refers to diseases of the
genital organs and lays stress on circumcision, there is no direct
evidence in it as to the existence of syphilis. Ebstein, in a treatise
on the medicine of the Bible,[317] is confident that there is no
reference to syphilis in that Book. Moreover, in the ancient world
generally, syphilis was either unknown or existed only in an attenuated
form. Haeser,[318] the author of the best modern treatise on the history
of medicine, thinks that if syphilis did exist in the ancient world, it
occurred in a localised form and did not become a general disease of the
system as is the case among the moderns.
Humanity would make a great stride towards longevity could it put an end
to syphilis, which is the cause of one fifth of the cases of arterial
sclerosis. The suppression of alcoholism, the second great factor in the
production of senile degeneration of the arteries, will produce a still
more marked extension of the term of life. Scientific study of old age
and of the means of modifying its pathological character will make life
longer and happier. Although modern knowledge is still imperfect, there
is no reason to be pessimistic on the subject of old age.
CHAPTER XI
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF DEATH
Theory of the immortality of lower organisms—Immortality of the sexual
cells in higher organisms—Immortality of the cellular soul—Occurrence
of natural death in the case of certain animals—Natural death in the
Ephemeridæ—Loss of the instinct of preservation in adult
ephemerids—Instinct of life in the aged—Instinct of natural death in
man—Death of old men in Biblical times—Changes in the instincts of man
and lower animals
From what I have said in the last chapter, it is plain that, perhaps
before very long, it will be possible to modify old age. Instead of
retaining its existing melancholy and repulsive character, it may become
a healthy and endurable process; it may also be that the duration of
life will be prolonged. However, it may be asked, what shall we gain by
attaining the age of 100 or 120 years instead of 70 or 80, if there
still remain for us the appalling fate of the inevitable annihilation of
death. Marcus Aurelius said that he who makes a long journey and he who
makes it short, alike meet death at the end; and that once they are
over, three years or a century are much alike. Such assertions, however,
do not take into account the difference in the values we set on a thing
at different ages. A man of the age of twenty-five years and one fifty
years old reason differently, and are affected differently by the same
surroundings. The outlook on life changes in the same individual as he
gets on in years. Young people judge of their impressions by comparison
with their ideals, and as the latter are very high, they are
dissatisfied with things as they really are. They are exacting, and
discontented with what they can get out of the real world; grown up
people and those of advanced years are more easily satisfied because
they have a clearer knowledge of the true value of things. As I have
already had occasion to point out in a previous chapter, the young are
more inclined to pessimism than the old. We see, then, that appreciation
of life changes with age. It is the same with regard to death. It has
often been said that life is only a preparation for death. Cicero said,
“From our youth upwards we must accustom ourselves to face our last
moments without fear. If not, there is an end to peace, since it is
quite certain that we must die.” Philosophy has been called the art of
preparing for death.
Before considering in what direction science may direct our steps
towards solving the problem of death, which in the words of St. Paul is
the “last enemy to be destroyed,” let us see how much is known about it.
We are so accustomed to look upon death as something natural and
inevitable, that it has long since come to be regarded as inherent in
organisms. However, when biologists investigated the matter more
carefully, they failed to discover any proof of the accepted doctrine.
Observation of members of the lowest grade of animal life, such as
infusorians and other protozoa, has shown that these reproduce by simple
division, and in a very short time multiply to an astonishing extent.
Generation succeeds generation, with the utmost rapidity and without the
intervention of death; no single corpse appears in the swarming masses
of animalculæ. From such facts, which are extremely easy to confirm,
several biologists, and in specially Bütschli and Weismann,[319] have
deduced an immortality of the unicellular organisms. When an infusorian
has divided, each daughter organism rapidly completes itself and sets
about again dividing in the fashion of its parent. The process may be
more complicated, as in the cases where a single organism breaks up into
several portions each of which contains an essential part of the parent
organism. Many unicellular organisms reproduce in such a fashion, and as
each animal divides simultaneously into a number of individuals of the
new generation, the individuality is destroyed. It is possible to admit
with Götte[320] that such a process is natural death, although there is
no actual destruction and no corpse.
In any event it cannot be disputed that lower organisms are not subject
to the natural death that comes inevitably to man and the higher
animals. It has been suggested that the debility of infusorians after a
rapid series of divisions, and before conjugation, is to be interpreted
as natural death. But the rejuvenescence that follows conjugation is
incompatible with such an interpretation. Moreover, when conjugation
does not occur, and the debility leads to death, the deaths must be
regarded as accidental.
The theory of the immortality of unicellular organisms is now generally
accepted. However, there are animals, higher in the scale of life, to
which natural death does not come. Among these occur certain forms of
considerable complexity, composed of many organs and very many cells,
such as many polyps, and some worms, especially annelid worms. Some
annelids (Fig. 17) reproduce by transverse divisions very actively.
“Throughout the summer,” said E. Perrier,[321] “the Naïdimorpha are
devoid of genital organs, and apparently (according to unpublished
observations of Maupas), they may be kept alive for several years, and
perhaps indefinitely, in this sexless condition.” This certainly may be
regarded as a case of immortality due to the indefinite power of
regeneration possessed by a complex animal.
The facts that I have cited show that death is not necessarily inherent
in living organisms. Naegeli,[322] a well-known German botanist, has
asserted even that natural death does not exist in nature. He points out
that trees, more than a thousand years old, perish not by natural death,
that is to say, by the gradual decay of their vitality, but by some
catastrophe.
[Illustration:
FIG. 17.—_Chætogaster_ about to divide into four (from a drawing by M.
Mesnil).
]
The age of the famous dragontree of the Villa Oratava at Teneriffe,
admired by Von Humboldt, was estimated at several thousand years. Its
trunk was hollow, but the huge monster continued to flourish until it
was overthrown by a storm. It was only by a catastrophe that the
long-lived giant perished. The Baobab is reputed to live for five or six
thousand years.
In a recently published essay, Jacques Loeb,[323] a distinguished
biologist in Chicago, has made a study of natural death, and has come to
the conclusion that there is no good evidence for its existence. He has
observed that ripe, but unfertilised eggs of sea hedgehogs (Echini) die
a few hours after they have been discharged. Loeb thinks that this may
be a case of natural death, but I cannot agree with this opinion, as an
egg that has not been fertilised by a spermatozoon may be compared with
an organism deprived of its nutrition and so dying of starvation. In
both cases death is purely accidental and could have been avoided.
If natural death does exist, it must have appeared on the face of the
earth long after the appearance of life. Weismann has suggested that
death arose as an adaptation for the advantage of the species, that is
to say, in relation to the surrounding conditions of existence, and not
as an absolute necessity inherent in the nature of the living substance.
He thought that as worn organisms are no longer suited for reproduction
or for the struggle for life, natural death was due to natural
selection, it being necessary to maintain the species in a vigorous
state by weeding out the debased individuals. But the introduction of
death for that purpose was superfluous, since the debility caused by old
age in itself would eliminate the aged in the course of the struggle for
existence. Violent death must have appeared almost as soon as living
things came into being. The infusorians and other low organisms, despite
their potential immortality, must have been subjected perpetually to
violent death, falling victims to larger and stronger organisms. It is
impossible to regard natural death, if indeed it actually exists, as the
product of natural selection for the benefit of the species. In the
press of the world natural death rarely could come into operation,
because maladies or the voracity of enemies so frequently cause violent
death.
No doubt a certain number of deaths are recorded in statistics as being
due to old age, without visible malady. Sometimes decrepit old men feel
no pain and seem to fall quietly into their eternal sleep; but autopsy
reveals serious lesions of the internal organs. There is reason to
believe that even such deaths are in reality violent and are usually
caused by infectious microbes. The general effect on the mind produced
by examination of the collected facts is not an acceptance of the view
that natural death is essentially inherent in living organisms, but the
production of a wish to discover if there be any real proof of its
existence.
For some time natural death has been ascribed only to the parts of the
body that are of use in the individual life. Those cells, the function
of which is to secure reproduction of the species, are, like unicellular
organisms, potentially immortal. The egg-cell of the female is
transformed into a fœtus, and so is the starting-point of the new
generation, while the sexual cells of the new generation give rise to
the third generation, and so on, in an endless chain of life. The
greater number, by far, of the eggs and spermatozoa perish; but their
death is not natural but violent, being due to harmful external
agencies. An infinitesimal minority of the sexual cells survive
indefinitely in the successions of generations.
Scientific proof exists, therefore, that our bodies contain immortal
elements, eggs or spermatozoa. As these cells not only are truly alive
but exhibit properties that are within the category of psychical
phenomena, it would be possible to build up a serious thesis on the
immortality of the soul.
Observations on protozoa, and especially on the infusorian group of
protozoa, show that these simple beings, each of which is composed of no
more than a single cell, possess a high degree of sensibility. They
select their food, distinguish living from dead animalculæ,[324] seek
out their mates for conjugation, avoid danger, and hunt their prey; in
fact, they are in possession of a set of qualities that must be included
in psychical phenomena. Although such phenomena are very much lower in
the case of the infusorians than in the case of higher animals, it is
possible to speak of the soul of protozoa. Moreover, as the body is
immortal by reason of its indefinite power of reproduction by division,
the soul also of these creatures is immortal. However, the soul is so
primitive that it is impossible to speak in definite terms about it.
As the sexual cells of the human body are immortal, like the protozoa,
the problem arises if these too be endowed with an immortal soul. Our
existing knowledge makes it impossible to doubt that ova and spermatozoa
have sensibility in a degree as high as that of the protozoa. The ova
shed secretions that arouse the sensibility of the spermatozoa, and the
latter, directed by this specific “odour” (the occurrence being known
technically as chemotaxis), make their way to the ovum and penetrate it.
Some substances, arousing the spermatozoa into activity and movement,
attract them, others repel them. The phenomena of chemotaxis were shown
for the first time in the case of cryptogams by Pfeffer, the
distinguished botanist, and since then the male cells of many plants and
different kinds of animals have been proved to possess sensibility.
When ova and spermatozoa succeed in conjugating, they produce an
individual of the next generation, to which they transmit what Haeckel
has called the “cellular soul.”[325] This soul, then, is really
immortal, inasmuch as the bodies of the reproductive cells are immortal.
Although it is true that our bodies contain elements endowed with
immortal souls, it by no means follows that our conscious souls are
immortal. In an earlier chapter, I have already pointed out that the
psychical phenomena of many of the cells of our body and the cellular
souls of these are outside our consciousness. We have no consciousness
of the perpetual battle waged by the phagocytes against the microbes
that endeavour to obtain a foothold in our tissues. None the less the
phagocytes are elements endowed with mobility and sensibility and
possessing a cellular soul like that of the protozoa.
A woman has no consciousness of the numerous spermatozoa, with their
cellular souls, that enter her body, nor of those that fertilise her
egg-cells; she is even without consciousness of the much more highly
developed soul of the fœtus. A child before birth possesses psychical
qualities much more numerous and more perfect than those of the
reproductive cells. It is capable of responding to certain sensations
and of performing movements. A child, in the later months of its
prenatal existence, possesses the senses of touch and taste and, within
limits, the sense of sight.[326] This soul is outside the consciousness
of the mother. The mother cannot even tell by her consciousness if she
bears under her girdle one or two embryonic souls. And so the
immortality of the cellular soul has no relation to the problem of
death.
It is a common opinion that only the reproductive cells of man and
animals are immortal, and that the other elements of the body are
mortal, the latter, if they escape violence, dying a natural death. A
contrast has been drawn between the mortal cells in which is resident
the life of the body and the immortal cells on which the species
depends. However, when non-reproductive cells possess the power of
regeneration, it is impossible to deny their immortality. When a polyp
or a worm reproduces by division, a large number of cells go to form the
new individual, and these cells are immortal in the fashion of the
infusoria.
Immortal animals occur only among the lower invertebrates. The power of
regeneration fades away in the higher ranks of the scale of life. Whilst
worms may be divided in several pieces, each piece being capable of
regeneration so as to form a new worm, when molluscs are cut they
display only a limited capacity for regeneration. If the antennæ of a
snail be amputated they will be renewed, but if the whole creature be
cut in pieces death follows. Some of the lower vertebrates, such as
newts and salamanders, can renew the tail and the limbs, but they cannot
reproduce by division. Birds and mammals, the higher vertebrates, have
very little power of regeneration, and tail and limbs are never reformed
in their cases.
It seems to be the case that the advance in the general organisation of
animals has involved a loss in the reproductive capacity of the cells
and tissues. Even in the highest animals, some organs, such as the
liver, still possess regenerative capacity; but, on the other hand, many
cells have lost the power of regeneration completely. The nervous cells,
in particular, which are the highest and most perfectly organised
elements of the body, cannot reproduce themselves. After their initial
appearance in the course of embryonic development, they pass their lives
without regenerating or reproducing. In acquiring the highest qualities,
that is to say, their psychical activity, they have lost completely the
power of reproduction, the distinctive feature of immortal cells. If
cells doomed to natural death really exist, it is in the nervous tissues
that we must look for them.
[Illustration:
FIG. 18.—Ephemerids.
]
The existence of natural death in the animal world cannot be denied, but
it is very rare. The best example is that of the curious insects known
universally as ephemerids (Fig. 18). Swarms of these delicate and
graceful insects are to be seen in the summer months round lights. The
perfect insects emerge from water, in which the six-legged larvæ feed on
the organic débris contained in fresh water. The larvæ are not
predaceous, and escape from their numerous and hungry foes by agility.
They are long-lived, some of them passing two or three years in the mud
of streams, and in the end become winged insects after a rapid
metamorphosis. Near Paris, anglers have a popular name (_manne_, manna)
for one species (_Palingenia virgo_) which emerges in swarms after
sundown from the waters of the Seine and Marne. The swarms fly in huge
numbers, like heavy snow-flakes, for a very short time, and then fall
into the water (Fig. 19). The flight of these insects lasts only an hour
or two, and then, in an enfeebled condition, they fall down in vast
numbers. They are attracted by the lanterns lighted by fishermen, and
are collected to be used as bait. The life in the winged condition is
truly ephemeral and lasts no more than a few hours. The structure of the
insect is adapted to this short life. The larvæ have powerful jaws, used
in the mastication of food; the winged insects possess only vestiges of
jaws. They are unable to feed, and so are adapted only for the briefest
existence. Their hour of aerial life is devoted to love. As soon as they
emerge the males and females unite, and the packets of eggs, which are
deposited at once, fall into the water, and in a few weeks the young
larvæ hatch out.
The mode of life and the organisation of the adult ephemerids show
plainly that they are adapted to natural death. Death comes to them not
because they are without food, or because the environment fails to
provide something necessary to life, but merely because they emerge from
the larval state in a non-viable condition, without the organs necessary
to the maintenance of life.
[Illustration:
FIG. 19.—Swarms of _Palingenia virgo_.
]
Once it is granted that natural death actually exists, it is necessary
to study its mechanism as closely as the existing state of knowledge
permits. To exclude the possibility of the death having to be
interpreted as violent, it would be necessary to know that some very
rapid infectious disease does not attack these insects as soon as they
emerge from the water. This possibility, although remote, must be
examined. Instances are known of large numbers of insects dying very
rapidly as the result of attack by a species of mould which causes an
epidemic. Every one has seen, especially in autumn, dead flies anchored
to the window pane by a little tuft of white fluff. As so many
individuals die about the same time, we might be disposed to assign the
fact to natural death. The actual cause, however, is an infectious and
fatal disease caused by a parasitic mould.
The occurrence of some terrible epidemic may be excluded from
consideration in the case of ephemerids. I have made investigations
which show that such an epidemic does not occur. The bodies of the dying
ephemerids contain no microbe which could be the cause of death. Their
death must be regarded as natural, as the result of their organisation,
as essentially a part of the nature of the insects. Among the cells of
their body there are many active phagocytes. Is it possible to attribute
death to ravages that these cells may cause among the higher cells and
tissues? Microscopic examination, so far from supporting such a
possibility, shows that the organs are quite normal in their intimate
structure. The brain and central nervous system, the muscles and other
organs, show no signs of that invasion by phagocytes found in cases of
senile degeneration. In this example of natural death there is certainly
no possibility of phagocytic intervention.
Some biologists have suggested that the rapid death of ephemerids and of
some other insects is due to debility caused by the great effort of
depositing the male and female sexual cells. On this supposition, the
case would be analogous to the shock which is sometimes the consequence
of a surgical operation. This hypothesis, however, may be excluded, for
among the dead ephemerids there are many males that have not united with
females. Among ephemerids males are much more numerous than females;
many males have no opportunity of undergoing the sexual shock and of
emptying the reproductive organs, and these, none the less, die as
rapidly as the others.
As yet we do not know if all the tissues of the ephemerids die
simultaneously in natural death. Most probably the cells of the nervous
centres perish first, and so bring death on the others. The
investigation ought to be made.
Death comes to the ephemerids in the midst of love, at the moment when
their sexual instincts are satisfied. It would be very interesting to
know the sensations of these creatures as they feel death come on them
in the act of reproduction. Naturally it would be impossible to obtain a
full answer to the question, but many interesting facts regarding it may
be ascertained. All the ephemerids, not only those the life of which is
so brief, but those that live for several days (_Chloë_, for instance),
are extremely easy to capture. It is unnecessary to take them unawares
or to use a net as in the case of flies, wasps, and many other insects.
Ephemerids may be taken with the fingers in the simplest way, because
they offer no resistance and show no desire to escape, although they
have six legs and two or four wings. This is not an isolated case, for
some other insects (as, for example, winged ants and aphides) allow
themselves to be captured with the same carelessness.
Although the adult ephemerids are careless, the wingless larvæ are
timid. When a tube is brought near them, among the water plants, with
the object of capturing them, they rapidly move off. It often requires
much patience and quickness to capture these larvæ (Fig. 20). The
instinct of preservation of life displays itself by rapid flight.
[Illustration:
FIG. 20.—Larva of an ephemerid (_Chloërufulum_).
]
It is remarkable that the adult insect has lost the instinct of
self-preservation. If it be touched it may move a short distance off,
but it does not take to flight although its wings are very large, and
its body, which of itself weighs little, is still lighter because the
digestive tube is filled with air and not with food. As a rule, an
ephemerid that has been touched does not even move off, but allows
itself to be captured without any resistance. It would not be accurate
to say that the larva’s instinct of self-preservation has been replaced
in the adult by an instinct for death; but it must be admitted that the
instinct of preservation has been totally lost. The lack of resistance
cannot be explained by any defect in the organs of sense. Not only are
the eyes of the larval stage fully preserved in the adult, but the adult
males have enormous eyes to enable them to recognise the female in the
turbulent flight which takes place at the close of the day. Ephemerids
of all ages possess well developed tactile organs, and it is thus in
spite of a highly organised sensory system that the adults offer no
resistance to enemies.
It is no mere accident that the most striking examples of natural death
occur among insects, for these creatures display an unusual stability in
their cellular structure with a corresponding lack of the power of
regeneration, in these particulars resembling man and the higher
animals. The cells of the nervous system are very complex, and are well
adapted for the highest function, that is to say, the psychical
function. These highly endowed cells, however, are devoid of the power
of reproduction. Many experiments have been made in relation to this,
and it has been proved clearly that in cold-blooded vertebrates the
brain and spinal cord with the nerve cells contained in them are capable
of regeneration, whilst among mammals only extremely rare cases are
known in which there has been any regeneration of the nervous elements.
It is to be expected, then, that cases of natural death occur in the
higher animals and especially in man. However, no case is known so plain
as that presented by the ephemerids. I have already stated that of
deaths apparently due to senile debility in man, a large proportion are
certainly due to various infectious diseases that affect the old, such
as pneumonia and nephritis. Close examination of the tissues confirms
this conclusion, for the destruction of the higher elements by
phagocytes produces what is really violent death and not a natural death
like that of the ephemerids.
Natural death in man is probably a possibility rather than an actual
occurrence. Old age is not a true physiological process but exhibits
many morbid characters. That being the case, it is not surprising that
it seldom ends in natural death. It is probable, however, that natural
death occasionally occurs in very old men.
Attempts have been made to estimate the natural limits of human life.
Flourens[327] based a calculation on the duration of the period of
growth. If the latter be taken as one fifth the natural life, then human
life ought to last a century. As centenarians are rare, the vast
majority of deaths, which happen before that age has been reached, must
be regarded as violent or accidental. The rule of Flourens, however, is
arbitrary, and there is no evidence to show that it is exact. Probably
in the human race, as in the case of ephemerids, the natural duration of
life varies and cannot be expressed by a definite figure. In most cases
it ought to be more than a hundred years, and only in rare cases ought
it to be much less than that term. Probably there is a variation in the
duration of life just as there is a variation of the date of sexual
maturity for which rules may be laid down but not without anticipating
numerous exceptions.
The existing pathological character of old age vitiates all conclusions
as to natural death, and it is still impossible to be exact in speaking
of that subject. It is known that certain organs and tissues remain
alive for some time after death. In the case of certain infectious
diseases, the heart may be removed from a human body more than thirty
hours after death, and if placed under proper conditions will renew its
life, and beat for several hours. The white corpuscles, the spermatozoa
and the cilia of a corpse, may retain their power of movement. Does this
also happen in the rare cases of natural death? That question must be
answered in the future. The most important question relating to natural
death is the following: Is the appearance of natural death in man
accompanied by the disappearance of one instinct, the instinct of self
preservation, and by the appearance of another instinct, the instinct of
death? Do the phenomena of the ephemerids give us any indication as to
this? An exact answer is not to be expected. As old age is generally
what may be called an unnatural phenomenon, it is extremely rare for
persons to approach the age of natural death with their faculties
unclouded. I have had under observation a centenarian old woman, who
still remembered some incidents of her youth; in her the desire to live
was still strong, but her intellectual faculties were partially dim.
Moreover, her brain, of which I have already spoken (p. 241), showed a
marked degeneration of the nerve cells due to the activity of
macrophages.
I have obtained much information about a centenarian who was alive in
Rouen in 1900, but a single glance at her photograph was enough to show
that she no longer was in full possession of intelligence.[328] She was
infirm in many ways. So also, Chevreul, the celebrated chemist, who died
at the age of one hundred and three years, showed not the faintest wish
for death; he clung to life, but his mental powers had grown weak.
The cases to which I have referred are typical, but there are exceptions
worthy of close attention. Tokarski, in the essay on the fear of death,
to which I referred in the sixth chapter, quoted the case of a female
centenarian who stated as follows: “If you come to live as long as I
have lived, you will understand not only that it is possible not to fear
death, but to feel the same need for death as for sleep.” A new feeling
had come into existence in the very old person, a feeling
incomprehensible to those less old. Apparently this was a case in which
the instinct of natural death had appeared in a centenarian whose mental
faculties had been retained in a sufficiently perfect state.
I wish very much that I had myself been a witness of this old woman’s
remarkable instinct in even one case of the many that I have observed.
But all that have been pointed out to me as subject to this new desire
have turned out to have been possessed of very different ideas. Some
were old invalids, weary of pain and ready to exchange the sorrows of
life for death, but who would have preferred to be healed and to live on
in comfort. When the possibility of recovering health was suggested to
them, they showed signs of pleasure and of the renewal of hope.
Investigations that I have made in homes for the aged have led to
negative results on this subject. No case showed the slightest sign of
the approach of the instinct of death. However, I have learned from Dr.
Fauvel of one case to add to the instance noticed by Tokarski. It was
the case of an old lady whose health and circumstances were comfortable
and who before her death showed a real desire for it and stated it in
much the same language as that quoted by Tokarski. In Fauvel’s case,
however, the old lady had reached the age of only eighty-five years. It
seems probable that this was a second genuine case of the appearance of
the instinct of death, and it is therefore interesting to notice that
that instinct, like the sexual instinct, is subject to variation in the
date of its appearance.
In my search for instances of the instinct of death, I made use of the
large collection made by Lejoncourt,[329] but found that the information
given by this author was very incomplete as to the mode of life and the
last moments of his cases.
The Bible testifies to the frequency of old age in ancient times and to
the complete preservation of the faculties in the aged. It also contains
some references that may be interpreted as instances of the instinct of
death. I may take its account of the death of some of the patriarchs.
“And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived,
an hundred threescore and fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost,
and died in a good old age, an old man, and _full of years_.”[330] “And
the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years. And Isaac gave up
the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and
_full of days_: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.”[331] “After
this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his
sons’ sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and _full of
days_.”[332] It is probable that the phrase “old and full of days,”
which sounds strange in our ears, simply refers to the instinct of
death, developed in well preserved old men who had attained ages of from
140 to 180 years.[333] The Biblical phrase is not merely a commonplace
phrase applied to the death of celebrities for the references to deaths
of other persons were put in different language. “And these are the
years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and
he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.”[334]
“And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age
of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.”[335] “And Aaron was an
hundred and twenty and three years old when he died in Mount Hor.”[336]
“And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was
not dim, nor his natural force abated.”[337] In only one of these later
cases had the individual reached the age of one hundred and forty years,
at which age, apparently, the instinct of natural death appeared.
It may seem altogether surprising and improbable to us that an instinct
for death should arise in man, since we are imbued with an instinct of
an opposite nature. From the facts that I collected in my sixth chapter,
it was to be inferred plainly that the desire of life and the fear of
death are manifestations of an instinct deep-rooted in the constitution
of man. That instinct is of the same order as the instincts of hunger
and thirst, of the need of sleep, of movement and of sexual and maternal
love. The devotion and care bestowed on their young by female birds and
mammals are known universally. And yet these instincts can be reversed.
There is no sacrifice of which the mothers are not capable if it serve
to save the life or promote the well-being of their offspring. Such
devotion is a manifestation of the maternal instinct, which is one of
the strongest instincts known to us. And yet that love, so tender and so
absolute, lasts only for the time during which the wants of the young
need to be satisfied. As soon as the young begin to be independent, the
maternal love changes to indifference or to dislike. At the next
breeding-period, maternal love reappears again, so that there is a
periodic ebb and flow of the instinct.
The new-born babe takes an instinctive delight in the milk of his
mother, which seems to him the only good food in the world. As soon as
he can show his feelings, his intense satisfaction as he is suckled is
plain. But this instinct lasts only during the period of lactation. As
soon as the child begins to take different kinds of food, he ceases to
be pleased with his mother’s milk, and may dislike it for the remainder
of his life. Several adults to whom I have offered human milk would not
even taste it, so disgusting did it seem to them. And yet the taste had
nothing intrinsically disagreeable in it. Here again is an example of a
strong instinct that changes completely.
Children often eat to repletion of some kind of substance, and for long
afterwards that substance disgusts them instead of being coveted by
them. It is said that apprentices to pastry-cooks and makers of
sweetmeats are allowed at first to eat as much as they please. They soon
come to have a profound dislike for the sweet things that children like
so much.
A mother who adores her child, or a child who is extremely fond of
sweetmeats cannot understand how any mother could dislike her offspring
or any apprentice have a distaste for sweets. In the same way, human
beings full of the desire for life, believe more easily in eternal life
than in the possibility of an instinct of death. And yet the instinct of
death seems to lie, in some potential form, deep in the constitution of
man. If the cycle of human life followed its ideal course according to
physiological function, then the instinct of death would appear in its
time, after a normal life and an old age healthy and prolonged.
In reality, human life is subject from its very beginning to the
pernicious disharmonies in the constitution of man. This evil influence
increases with the passing of the years and leads to an old age ruined
by abnormalities. It is not surprising that under such circumstances men
wish neither to grow old nor to die. Old men, in spite of their
attachment to life, do not attain the capacity to know all that is good
in it, and die, in the fear of death, without having known the instinct
of death. They may be compared with unhappy women who have married
before their sexual instincts have awakened and who have died in
childbirth, without ever having known the real joy of loving. Formerly,
the number of women in such a case was large. In some parts of
Abyssinia, girls married when they were still very young and before
their physical development was mature. According to Hassenstein,[338]
nearly one third of these young women died in childbirth. They quitted
life before they had known the true sexual instinct. The advancement of
civilisation and of medical knowledge has greatly reduced the number of
such unhappy women. We must hope that the progress of knowledge will
bring about a similar advance in relation to the instinct of death. With
that progress, the number of men who will live until the instinct has
been attained will become greater and greater.
CHAPTER XII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Disharmonies in the human constitution as the chief source of our
sorrows—Scientific data as to the origin and destiny of man—The goal
of human existence—Difficulties in the way of scientific investigation
of the problem—What is progress?—Difficulty of including the whole
human race in a scheme of progress and morality—The instincts of life
and of natural death—Application to real life of the doctrines set
forth in this book
Man, who is a descendant of some anthropoid ape, has inherited a
constitution adapted to an environment very different from that which
now surrounds him. Man is possessed of a brain very much more highly
developed than that of his ancestors, and has entered on a new path in
the evolution of the higher organisms. The sudden change in his natural
conditions has brought about a large series of organic disharmonies
which become more and more acutely felt as he becomes more intelligent
and more sensitive. And thus there has arisen a number of sorrows which
poor humanity has tried to relieve by all the means in its power. The
disharmonies in the sexual functions have brought into existence
attempted remedies of the strangest kind. The greatest disharmony of the
constitution is that of the morbid nature of old age and the
impossibility of reaching the instinct of natural death; this has
produced childish and erroneous conceptions of the immortality of the
soul and of the resurrection of the body, and many other strange
doctrines that have been imposed upon us as revealed truth.
Human intelligence, in the course of its progressive evolution, has
rebelled against these naïve palliatives. Finding the restoration of the
much-desired harmony beyond its power, humanity became resigned to a
passive fatalism, and believed even that the existence of man was a kind
of bad joke, a _faux pas_ in the evolution of sentient organisms. Exact
science, developing slowly, but surely, has at last tried to master the
situation. Moving step by step, passing from the simple to the complex
and from the particular to the general, science has established a set of
truths which all the world must accept.
Humanity in its misery has put question after question to science, and
has lost patience at the slowness of the advance of knowledge. It has
declared that the answers already found by science are futile and of
little interest. From time to time it has preferred to turn back, and to
delude itself with the beautiful mirages offered by religions and
systems of philosophy.
But science, confident of its methods, has quietly continued to work.
Little by little, the answers to some of the questions that have been
set have begun to appear. Whence do we come? science has been asked
unceasingly. Is not man a being unlike other beings, made in the image
of God, animated with the divine breath, and immortal? No, science
answers. Man is a kind of miscarriage of an ape, endowed with profound
intelligence and capable of great progress. His brain is the seat of
processes that are very complex, and much higher than those of other
animals, but these functions are incompatible with the existence of an
immortal soul.
Whither are we going? That question above all other things has absorbed
the attention of man, and naturally so, for it is less important to know
our origin than to know our destiny. Does death mean absolute
extinction, or is it a gateway leading to a new and everlasting life?
And if the latter alternative be untrue, how are we to face inevitable
death?
Science cannot admit the immortality of the conscious soul, for
consciousness is a function of special elements in the body that
certainly cannot live for ever. Immortality exists only for very low
organisms that renew their lives by repeated divisions with complete
regeneration, and that have no highly developed consciousness.
Death brings absolute extinction, and it seems unbearable because of the
condition in which it surprises us. It comes before man has finished his
physiological development, and when the instinct of life is still
strong.
Ever since man has begun to look a little beyond his daily and immediate
wants, he has asked if there be a goal for his life, and what that goal
may be. As he has generally failed to find such a goal, he has gone the
length of believing life to be a mere accident, and of thinking it idle
to seek a goal. He has formed depressing and pessimistic conclusions.
Humanity may be compared to a boy that has not yet acquired the sexual
instinct, but has asked the meaning of the reproductive organs. As these
organs play no part in the functions of his life, he might easily think
their existence not only absolutely useless but absurd.
Man, because of the fundamental disharmonies in his constitution, does
not develop normally. The earlier phases of his development are passed
through with little trouble; but, after maturity, greater or lesser
abnormality begins, and ends in old age and death that are premature and
pathological. Is not the goal of existence the accomplishment of a
complete and physiological cycle, in which occurs a normal old age
ending in the loss of the instinct of life and the appearance of the
instinct of death.
The pessimistic school has often spoken of death as the true goal of
human life. Schopenhauer,[339] for instance, said: “Death must really be
regarded as the true goal of life; when it comes it at once adjusts all
that has been preparing in the course of life.” Baudelaire[340] has
exactly the same idea in his verse:
“C’est la mort qui console, hélas! et qui fait vivre;
_C’est le but de la vie_, et c’est le seul espoir
Qui, comme un élixir, nous monte et nous enivre
Et nous donne le cœur de marcher jusqu’au soir.”
“Alas! it is death that comforts and gives us life; it is the goal of
our days, it is our only hope that like a wine goes to our head and
makes us drunk, and puts heart into us to journey on till the night.”
The normal end, coming after the appearance of the instinct of death,
may truly be regarded as the ultimate goal of human existence. But
before attaining it, a normal life must be lived: a life filled all
through with the feeling that comes from the accomplishment of function.
Knowledge of the true goal of life clears up the problem and shows us
the right conduct of life. In my first chapter, I tried to lay before
the reader a summary of the views that have been held as to right
conduct. Ever since the attempt has been made to discover a rational
basis of morality, human nature, regarded essentially as good, has been
taken as that basis. Religions and systems of philosophy, on the other
hand, which have tried to find another foundation for morality, have
regarded human nature as vicious at the roots. Science has been able to
tell us that man, the descendant of animals, has good and evil qualities
in his nature, and that his life is made unhappy by the evil qualities.
But the constitution of man is not immutable, and perhaps it may be
changed for the better.
Morality should be based not on human nature in its existing vitiated
condition, but on human nature, ideal, as it may be in the future.
Before all things, it is necessary to try to amend the evolution of the
human life, that is to say, to transform its disharmonies into harmonies
(_Orthobiosis_). This task can be undertaken only by science, and to
science the opportunity of accomplishing it must be given. However, even
in the most civilised countries, science is far from being in this ideal
condition. Obstacles lie in its way and retard its advance.
To make the human constitution better, it would be necessary to know it
thoroughly. How can we try to transform to a normal and physiological
condition old age, at present utterly pathological, unless we first
understand the most intimate details of its mechanism? Deeply rooted
prejudices make it very difficult to examine the organs of the aged
dead. The difficulties surrounding post-mortem investigations are almost
insurmountable. According to the regulations enforced in France,
autopsies cannot be made until twenty-four hours after death. An autopsy
cannot be made except when the corpse has not been claimed by any
relatives in the direct line, husband or wife, brothers, sisters,
uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces. If kinsmen put in no claim, co-operative
societies may take possession of the corpse and oppose the holding of an
examination. Even when an examination has been permitted, it must extend
only to “the ascertaining of exact facts, and this must be taken as
excluding the mutilation of the corpse by the removal of any organ or
portion of the anatomy, however interesting scientifically such material
might be.” (Circular of the Director of “Assistance publique,” January
20, 1900.[341]) It is easy to see that such regulations make extremely
difficult the investigation of senile degeneration, and the search for
means of preventing it, especially by the use of serums obtained after
injecting emulsions of human organs. These difficulties in reality arise
from the prejudice in favour of the existence of a life beyond the grave
and a resurrection of the body.
Almost similar difficulties stand in the way of obtaining the bodies of
old animals. Their owners prefer to keep animals, after they are
useless, until they die, and to bury the bodies instead of devoting them
to the scientific investigation that is so important to humanity.
As soon as we come to believe that the solution of the problems of human
happiness will come not from religions nor from systems of metaphysical
philosophy, but from exact science alone, the obstacles to progress will
be removed. That scientific methods will redress the disharmonies of the
human constitution is the more probable inasmuch as the old age of human
beings was more physiological, and their death more natural, in earlier
times than they are to-day.
The study of the human constitution not only denotes the real goal of
our existence, but indicates to us what is meant by true culture and
real progress.
In earlier chapters, I have shown that philosophers have recognised the
existence in man of a tendency to culture and progress. But what do they
mean by these two words? Attempts have been made to define them as
clearly as possible, and Herbert Spencer, the greatest of living
philosophers, has devoted a special essay to the subject. He examined
those phenomena that he regarded as progressive, first in the inorganic
world, next, in the world of living things, and, finally, in humanity.
He regards as progressive only the changes that tend to increase human
happiness, and it is precisely on account of that tendency that he
regards them as progressive. In order to define progressive phenomena
Spencer thinks it necessary to make parallel studies of them in man and
the animal world. He finds that progress is marked always by a
transformation from the simple and uniform to the complex; and that it
produces constant differentiation, in the evolution of the planetary
world, in the embryonic development of the individual, and in the
societies of men and animals. But differentiation is not a complete
account of progress, for in the latter must be included the change of
the indefinite into the definite. Spencer identifies progress with
evolution, and his well-known definition of evolution is, that it is “an
integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during
which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a
definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion
undergoes a parallel transformation.” Such a formula embraces too much,
so that he is rather vague, especially when he applies it to human
affairs. Differentiation in itself is not the whole of progress. It is
necessary in each concrete case to inquire into its limits and
modifications.
The application of his theory of progress and evolution led Spencer, in
his investigation of the basis of morality, to define human progress as
the tendency towards a life as full and as long as possible. By fulness
he means complexity, if I interpret his argument correctly. Civilised
life as compared with savage life, is a realisation of progress.
Civilised man, according to Spencer, uses food in a better regulated
fashion, in accordance with the call and degree of his appetite; the
food is of better quality, it is freed from contamination, is much more
varied and is better prepared. The same differentiation distinguishes
the clothing, the homes and so forth of civilised man. According to
Spencer, all such progress helps real happiness, that is to say the
fulness and the prolongation of life.
It is easy to see, however, that such an interpretation of progress is
inexact, like the conception of the goal of life associated with it. If
the complication of the mode of life, which is so marked in modern
civilisation, is really the best way of reaching happiness, there are no
reasons to arrest the tendency in that direction. If, on the other hand,
my view be correct, that true progress consists in the elimination of
the disharmonies of human nature and in the cultivation of physiological
old age followed by natural death, the conditions for realising progress
would be different and very clear. The great complexity of life in
modern civilisation is a sign of progress according to Spencer, but I do
not agree with him. Spencer speaks of the variety and preparation of
food. It is certain that this complexity militates against physiological
old age, and that the simpler food of uncivilised races is better. I do
not wish to write an essay on domestic hygiene, and I shall be content
with saying that most of the delicate dishes provided in the homes,
hotels, and restaurants of the rich, stimulate the organs of digestion
and secretion in a harmful way. It would be true progress to abandon
modern cuisine and to go back to the simple dishes of our ancestors. One
of the conditions that enabled the Jews of the earlier Biblical times to
live longer than civilised people, was, beyond all doubt, the greater
simplicity of their diet. True hygiene, which is in open disagreement
with the elaborated art of cookery, is also opposed to the
differentiation of modern dress and dwellings. Progress thus would
consist in simplifying many sides of the lives of civilised people.
The luxury which has done so much harm to mankind, and which would be
included in the formula, “passage from indefinite homogeneity to
definite heterogeneity,” is founded not on a general law of evolution of
the whole universe, but on a particular conception of life, quite
different from mine according to which the rectifying of the abnormal
human cycle to a normal cycle is the true goal of life.
Perhaps one of the oldest conceptions of life that has tended to luxury
is to be found in the book of Ecclesiastes. Having reached the
conclusion: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow” (i. 18), and having said: “Then I beheld
all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done
under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall
not find it, yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall
he not be able to find it.”[342] Solomon laid down the rules of life as
follows: “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a
merry heart: for God now accepteth thy works.”
“Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.”
“Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life
of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of
thy vanity; for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour
which thou takest under the sun.”
“Whatsoever thy hand findest to do, do it with thy might; for there is
no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither
thou goest.”[343]
The wisdom of Solomon was to enjoy this life as much as possible, since
man is unable to solve the problem of the goal of life. His precepts
have been taken as a guide, and have led to an organisation of life that
could only become more and more epicurean.
As soon as the goal of life has been seen clearly, luxury ceases to be
true happiness as it hinders the making perfect of the normal cycle of
human life. Young people, instead of abandoning themselves to all the
pleasures because they have nothing before them but a sad prospect of
morbid old age and death, ought to make ready for physiological old age
and natural death. The apprenticeship certainly will be long. In our
time the years of study already last much longer than occurred even a
century ago. As the body of knowledge grows greater, the time to acquire
it will become prolonged, but this period of preparation will serve as
the prelude to ripe maturity and ideal old age.
Old age is repulsive at present, because it is an old age devoid of its
true meaning, full of egoism, narrowness of view, incapacity and
malignancy. The physiological old age of the future assuredly will be
very different. In the societies of animals, especially as they occur
among insects, the members show a high degree of differentiation. Some
individuals are adapted to the reproductive functions, while others are
sterile and are fitted for the care of the young and to supply the wants
of the community. This differentiation, which is of social value, has
arisen independently in different groups. Thus, in the societies of bees
and ants the workers are sterile females, while in the case of termites,
individuals of both sexes may be sterile. In the human race, evolution
is following another path. There is no sign of the appearance of a
sterile class; but, as the life of man is longer than that of insects,
it is divided into two periods, a reproductive period and a sterile
period. Old age, at present practically a useless burden on the
community, will become a period of work valuable to the community. As
the old man will no longer be subject to loss of memory or to
intellectual weakness, he will be able to apply his great experience to
the most complicated and the most delicate parts of the social life.
Young men are usually very bad politicians, and in countries where they
take a large share in public affairs they do much harm because they are
without the necessary practical knowledge. Their incapacity is clearly
shown by the great changes in their political views as they advance in
years and gain experience. In the future, old men will have charge of
all complex and difficult social functions. Thus, vast improvements will
be made in politics and in justice, which at present are defective
because of their insufficient foundations.
As soon as every one has recognised the true goal of human life, and has
assumed, as the ideal, the realisation of the normal cycle of life, a
real guide to life will have been found. We shall know at least whither
we are going, and as yet we are ignorant of that. We have wished to make
life better, but we have not known how or for whom to make the attempt.
Formerly it was assumed that, in the future, love would spread and
become generalised. Family love had spread to the tribe and then had
been transformed to patriotism; it was held that no obstacle stood in
the way of its embracing all humanity. Such an idea was prevalent in the
eighteenth century, and became a common ground of all systems of
philosophy, morality and politics. But, since means of communication
have been improved so vastly and since the most distant voyages are
within the power of almost every one, the vague notion of “humanity” has
been replaced by exact knowledge of the native savages in many parts of
the earth. We have come to disbelieve in “humanity” in the old sense of
the word, so great is the difference between savage and civilised
peoples. And many modern theories have rejected the inclusion of the
lower races in the sentiment of humanity. In the fifth chapter, I quoted
the view of the moralist, Sutherland, on the advantages that have come
about from the English seizure of the forests that belonged to the
natives of Australia. Moreover, it is well known that a profound hatred
exists between white men and black men in several parts of the earth,
notably in America and the Antilles. Such instances could be multiplied.
How then are we to emerge from this difficulty? At what point is the
love of the future to be stayed, if it cannot spread to all humanity?
In a recently published treatise on natural philosophy, Ostwald,[344] a
very distinguished German physical chemist, has discussed this question.
He calls good “the actions that made easier the existence of other men.”
But to what other men are we to apply this rule? “What is the size of
the circle of altruistic love,” asked Ostwald. “The general feeling,” he
said, “is that it should cover the family and the nation. The feeling
that it should cover all humanity appears to most of us as a theoretical
demand rather than something practical. And thus have not most of us the
tendency to limit our altruistic actions much more in the case of men
beneath us than in the case of our social comrades (Stadesgenossen)?”
According to this formula, moral action would not stretch beyond our
compatriots, and humanity as a whole would be excluded from it.
Here we have entered on a problem relating to the principles of normal
life. In former times, religion was the chief bond among men. Later on,
religion gave way to patriotism, which in default of anything better
still holds its place. Community of language unites the individuals of a
nation, but the advance of civilisation has undermined the foundation of
that source of differentiation. Naturally, when a number of men spoke
only one and the same language, great solidarity was the result, as
ideas spread only by language. But such a monoglottism is not the end of
human progress. As means of communication have improved, the nations
have been brought in contact with each other. The knowledge of foreign
languages is an elementary necessity of modern life. And so the bonds of
nationality certainly will become looser, in this respect following the
bonds of family. The dislike that we have to people whose language we do
not understand, becomes changed into a feeling of unity with them as
soon as we can understand them. In that respect an active development is
in progress, and we shall have to seek out some new principle on which
to base international solidarity. A good deal has been made of the
possession by different nations of the same culture, but the vagueness
of the phrase has not been realised. Recognition of the true goal of
life and of science as the only means by which that goal may be attained
would form an ideal on which men might unite; they would group
themselves around that, as in former days men were held together by
religion.
I think it extremely probable that the scientific study of old age and
of death, two branches of science that may be called _gerontology_ and
_thanatology_, will bring about great modifications in the course of the
last period of life. All that we know on these subjects confirms my
view. But will it lead to the development of an instinct of death? That
instinct lies deep in the roots of the human constitution? Will the
means be found to bring it to the surface? Has not the enormous period
during which it has remained latent led to its atrophy? The science of
the future alone can answer that question. But the persistence of organs
and structures that are extremely ancient, as for instance, the survival
of the mammary glands in males and of the vermiform appendage in
anthropoid apes and man, gives us the hope that the instinct of natural
death may emerge from its latent condition when old age has become a
normal process.
The mammary glands of males are functionless rudiments. They must be
interpreted as vestiges of organs that were more highly developed in
remote ancestors among which both sexes gave milk to nourish the young.
This function exists in a latent condition in the males of living
mammals. Extremely rare cases have existed in which males possessed
large glands secreting enough milk to feed the young. These males, it is
true, had the genital organs either very badly developed or in a
condition approaching hermaphroditism.[345] But in other authentic cases
(perfectly developed) he-goats and rams have been known to provide milk
in considerable quantities, whilst married men have suckled children
with milk secreted by unusually developed glands. It is stated that the
secretion of milk can be excited by stimulation of the nipples.[346]
Such examples of the reappearance of a latent property that has been
lost for untold ages are extremely important.
Probably actual cases of the instinct of natural death in man are as
rare as instances of the secretion of milk by males. But favouring
circumstances and some education of the instinct of death would probably
reawaken it and develop it fully. There is much work to be done before
so great an object can be achieved. But it is the peculiar feature of
science to be eager for much labour, while religions and systems of
metaphysical philosophy are content with passive fatalism and silent
resignation. The mere hope of being able to solve the great problems of
humanity in the more or less distant future brings much satisfaction.
When Tolstoi, agonised by the impossibility of solving the great
problems, and haunted by the fear of death, asked if the love of our
children is not able to sooth our souls, he found that such a hope was
vain. “What is the good,” he said, “of rearing children who will soon
find themselves in the same difficult position as their parents?” “Why
should they live? why should I love them and protect them and foster
them? Is it that they may come to the same despair as I am in myself or
else grow imbecile? As I love them, I do not wish to hide the truth from
them, for each step in knowledge will lead them nearer to it. But the
truth is—death.” I can understand that many persons would abstain from
having children if they had come to these pessimistic conclusions.
The point of view that I have exposed in this book will make life more
possible. Our generation has no chance of attaining physiological old
age and normal death; but it may take real consolation from the thought
that those who are now young may advance several steps in that
direction. It may reflect that each succeeding generation will get
closer and closer to the solution and that true happiness one day will
be reached by mankind.
The slow advance to happiness will demand many sacrifices. Already, men
of science sacrifice their health and sometimes their life to reach the
solution of some important problem, as for instance, to clear up a
medical question, and so be ready to heal or to save the lives of their
fellows.
Before it is possible to reach the goal, mankind must be persuaded that
science is all-powerful and that the deeply rooted existing
superstitions are pernicious. It will be necessary to reform many
customs and many institutions that now seem to rest on enduring
foundations. The abandonment of much that is habitual and a revolution
in the mode of education will require long and painful effort.
Definition of the goal of human existence will bring great precision to
the principles of morality. True policy will have to be reared on new
foundations. The politics of to-day are in the condition in which
medicine still remained in days long past. In the old days any one was
allowed to practise medicine, because there was no medical science and
nothing was exact. Even at the present time, among less civilised
people, any old woman is allowed to be a midwife. In some cases the
mother attends the labour of her daughter, or (as for instance in a
caste of natives in Malabar), it may be the mother-in-law who does the
duty. Very often friends act as midwives. Among more civilised races,
differentiation has taken place, and childbirths are attended by women
of special training, who are midwives by diploma. In the case of nations
still more civilised, the trained midwives are directed by obstetric
physicians who have specialised in the conducting of labour. This high
degree of differentiation has arisen with, and has itself aided, the
progress of obstetric knowledge.
Politics, as they exist to-day, correspond to the early stages of
obstetric practice. Every adult male is thought fit for exercising
functions so difficult as those of an elector or a juryman. The only
excuse for this condition is that political science is in its infancy.
When sociology is more advanced, there will come about a differentiation
like that in medicine. When that has taken place, old persons who have
acquired great experience, and who because of their physiological
constitutions have preserved all their faculties, will give most
valuable services to the society of the future.
In the progress towards the real goal of life, men will lose much of
their liberty, but will receive in exchange a new feeling of solidarity.
As knowledge becomes more and more extensive and exact, freedom to
neglect it will be more and more limited. Formerly any one was at
liberty to teach that whales were fish; but now that it has been proved
that whales are mammals, the mistake is not to be pardoned. Since
medicine has become more of an exact science, the liberty of doctors has
been restrained. Practitioners have already been sentenced for
neglecting antisepsis and asepsis. Other forms of freedom, such as the
freedom to neglect vaccination against smallpox, to spit on the floor,
or to let dogs run loose without being muzzled, are worthy of savage
days and will cease as civilisation advances.
On the other hand, the knowledge that the goal of human life can be
attained only by the development of a high degree of solidarity amongst
men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that the enjoyment of
life according to the precepts of Solomon is opposed to the goal of
human life will lessen luxury and the evil that comes from luxury.
Conviction that science alone is able to redress the disharmonies of the
human constitution will lead directly to the improvement of education
and to the solidarity of mankind.
In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted
continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has
produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In the
problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of
nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able
to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify
his own constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies.
Breeders form a conception of the ideal result when they are about to
attempt the production of some new variety which shall be pleasing
esthetically and of service to man. Next, they study the existing
individual variations in animals and plants on which they wish to work,
and from which they will select with the minutest care. The ideal result
must have some relation to the constitution of the organisms selected.
To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame
the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of
science.
If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion
of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And
if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith
alone, the faith must be in the power of science.
INDEX
Abortion, artificial, 102, 103, 104, 105
as a religious ceremony, 164
Abstinence, Hartmann on sexual, 186
Aged, fear of death by, 131
murder of, by low races, 129, 130
treatment of, by modern society, 130
Albius, and artificial fertilisation, 20
Alcohol, and length of life, 259
as producer of sclerosis, 247
Altruism, limitations of, 296
Anæsthetics, influence of, compared with death, 159
Ancestor-worship, in China, 144
by Confucius, 145, 146
by Kaffirs, 150
quotations from Tylor on, 150
Animism, Tylor on, 138, 139, 140
_Anisoplia_ and light, 36
Annelids, vegetative reproduction of, 264
Annihilation, Büchner on, 220
Mailaender on, 188
Anthropoid apes, relationship to man, 55
social instincts of, 105
Ants, sexual disharmonies in, 34
Apes, compared with man, 42, 43
Appendage, vermiform, of man and apes, 44
Appendicitis, 66, 67
curable by modern science, 211
frequency of, 68
Apoplexy, phagocytes in, 239
Aristotle, on future life, 169
on pleasure, 6
Art, as affected by Christianity, 13
of the Greeks, 5
Arterial sclerosis, 247
Arteries, in old age, 237
Asceticism, 11
Atrophy, in old age, 238
Aurelius, Marcus, on death, 172,174, 262
on immortality, 172
Renan on, 174
Bacon, on failure of philosophy, 203
on lengthening life, 257
Bacteria of the intestines, 248, 249
Baobab-tree, age of, 266
Baudelaire, on death, 288
Baumann, on microbes in intestines, 251
Beetles, as food of wasp larvæ, 28, 29
Behring, von, on diphtheria, 211
Benares, Buddha’s sermon at, 154
Bert, Paul, on treatment of the aged, 130
Bible, old age in, 280
Bienstock, on harmful microbes, 256
on intestinal putrefaction, 255
Birds, absence of large intestine in, 252
age of, 232
Bischoff, on reproductive organs of apes, 81
Blindness, of infants, how prevented, 211
Blood, experiments on serum of, 52, 53
Blood corpuscles, specific sensibility of, 160
Boas, on cancer, 215
Bones, in old age, 237, 243
Bordet, on cytotoxic serums, 245
Botulism (“sausage-disease”), microbe of, 257
Brain, invasion of macrophags (figure), 241
Brunetière, on failure of science, 218
Buddha, contempt of women, 9
death of, 158
on disease, 154
on fear of death, 153
on immortality, 147
Buddha, on Nirvâna, 158
on old age, 154
on renunciation, 154
sermon at Benares, 154
on sorrows of existence, 205
Buddhism, and celibacy, 163
and fear of death, 119
and future life, 144
and immortality, 147, 148
and pessimism, 176, 177
Büchner, on Buddhism, 144
on morality, 107
on science, 219
Burial, of the old, alive, 152
Bütschli, on immortality of protozoa, 264
Byron, on fear of death, 177
on instinctive nature of fear of death, 128
on pessimism, 177
Cæcum, absence of, in birds, 253
of chimpanzee (figure), 45
and disease, 69
of man (figure), 44
of man and apes, compared, 44
of monkeys, 67
Çakya-Mouni, discovers death and disease, 119, 120
Calkins, on degeneration of infusoria, 232
Cancer, in alimentary canal, 73, 74
modern science and, 213, 214
Casimir, sacrifices at burial of, 141
Castration, Hartmann on, 183
_Catasetum_, disharmony in, 30
_Catasetum saccatum_ (figure), 24
Caterpillars and cocoons, 33
Celibacy, 12, 13, 163
Cellulose, digestion of, 252
Centenarians, Lankester on, 259
Lejoncourt on, 280
_Cerceris_, figure of, 28
_Chætogaster_, vegetative reproduction of (figure), 265
Chemotaxis, of sexual cells, 268
Childbirth, ages of women at, 93
pains of, 92
Chinese, ancestor-worship among, 144
belief in immortality, 145
Buddhists, views on future life, 149
laws against, 109
Christianity, and asceticism, 11
and continence, 163
influence of, on art, 13
and human nature, 7, 10
Chromophags, in blanching of hairs, 243
Cicero, on death, 169, 263
on future life, 169
Civilisation, and progress, 292
Cocoons, formation of, 33
Confucius, on ancestor-worship, 145, 146
Conjugation, and immortality, 264
Connective tissue, in old age, 236, 238
Consciousness, relation of to bodily functions, 160
Credé, on prevention of infantile blindness, 210
Cruger, on bees and orchids, 23
Cuisine, modern, evils of, 292
Cytotoxic serums, 245
Dahlmann, on meaning of Nirvâna, 156
Darwin, on fertilisation of orchids, 21, 22
on luminous insects, 37
on natural morality, 8
on origin of man, 40
Davids, Rhys, on meaning of Nirvâna, 156, 157
Death, Aurelius on, 262
Baudelaire on, 288
Cicero on, 169, 263
Guyau on, 195
Hartmann on, 184
Mailaender on, 188, 189, 190
Nordau on, 193
Plato on, 166, 167
Renan on, 195
Rückert on, 195
Schiller on, 195
Schopenhauer on, 179, 180, 181, 288
Seneca on, 171
Socrates on, 166, 167
Tokarsky on, 125
Tolstoi on, 122, 123, 299
Weismann on, 266
Zola on, 226
Philosophers on, 133
as annihilation, 162
compared with anæsthetics, 159
fear of, 115, 116, 153
feigning of, 114
in ephemerids, 275
instinct of, 281, 298
of Jewish patriarchs, 280, 281
natural, 266, 272, 277, 278, 279, 280, 299
in old age, 267
scientific study of, 262
Degeneration, senile, in infusoria, 231
in insects, 232
in vertebrates, 232
De Goncourt, quotations from, 121, 225
Deniker, a fœtus of man and ape, 47
Descartes, on lengthening life, 257
Desire of life, not to be ignored, 228
De Vries, on new species, 57
Diet, as regulated by religious, 162
Digestive system of man, 60
Disease, religious measures against, 164
Dogs, old age in, 233
D’Holbach, on natural morality, 7
Dragon-tree, of Oratava, 265
Dubois, on _Pithecanthropus_, 50
Du Bois Reymond, on agnosticism, 221
Dufour, on wasps, 27
Duhring, a blind optimist, 117
Duncan, Matthews, on childbirth, 94
Duration of life, 277, 278
Ebstein, on prolonging life, 258, 260
Ecclesiastes, on life, 293
Edgren, on arterial sclerosis, 247
Elixirs of life, 257
Emasculation, by Skoptsy, 9
Ephemerids (figures), 271, 273
absence of instinct of preservation in, 275
larvæ (figure), 272
sexual instincts of, 36
swarming of, 271
Epicureans, _summum bonum_ of, 6
Ewald, on microbes in intestines, 251, 252
Eye, of man, imperfections of, 78
Fabre, on caterpillars, 33
on fossorial wasps, 27, 28, 34
Faith, modern return to, 222
Tolstoi’s return to, 224
Zola’s attraction to, 225
Family instincts, 108
love, 295
Fauvel, on natural death, 280
Fear, of death, Rousseau on, 118
Tokarsky on, 125
Tolstoi on, 122, 123
in the aged, 118, 131
in Buddhism, 119
by a Christian minister, 124
by French writers, 121, 122, 132
instinctive nature of, 127, 128, 153
occasional absence of, 152
Feet, of man and apes, 43
Fichte, on future life, 176
Finot, on continuity of life, 197
on fear of death, 122, 126, 197
Flies, cause of death of, 274
Flora of the intestines, 248, 249, 251
Flourens, on limits of life, 277
Fœtus of gibbon, figure of, 46
of man, figure of, 47
Food, of ancestral man, 74
instinct of choice of, 75, 76
Fossorial wasps, 27, 34
Future life, Cicero on, 169
Fichte on, 176
Kant on, 176
Plato on, 168
belief in, 141, 149, 151, 159
opposed by reason, 161, 165
_see_ Immortality
General paralysis, symptoms of, 111
Gerontology, science of old age, 297
Glow-worms, 37
Goal of human life, 300, 301
Gods, of the Greeks, 4
of the Orientals, 4
Goncourt, E. de, quotations on fear of death, 121, 132
Gorillas, old age in, 233
Greek art, 5
philosophy, 5
Gruenbaum, on injection of serums, 54
Guinea-pigs, reared without microbes, 249
Guyau, on death, 195, 196;
on love, 196
on religion and death, 133
on failure of science, 222
on resignation, 199
Haeckel, on the “cellular soul,” 269
on future life, 221
on morality, 107
Hair, blanching of, 242 (figure), 243
and disease, 63
of embryo, 63
Hammerling, on optimism, 191, 192
“_Hamlet_,” quotation from, 227
Hands, of man and apes, 43
Happiness, Hartmann on, 186
Mailaender on, 189
Meyer-Benfey on, 198
meaning of, 111
Hartmann, on death, 184
on immortality, 184
pessimism of, 183
on progress, 185
as a youthful pessimist, 117
Hassenstein, on childbirths in the young, 283
Heape, on menstruation, 88
Hegel, death from cholera, 120
Heim, on feelings at death, 126
Hell of Chinese Buddhists, 149
Helmholz, on the eye, 78
Henseler, on ages of patriarchs, 259
Hermaphroditism, 79, 80
_Herminium monorchis_, figure of, 26
Huber, on ants, 34
Hufeland, on prolonging life, 258
Humanity, vagueness of conception, 296
Humboldt, on natural morality, 8
Hunt, on burial of the aged living, 152
Hutcheson, on naturalism, 7
Huxley, on origin of man, 41
Hymen, disharmonies of, 85
distinctive of human race, 81, 82
primitive function of, 85, 86
ritual destruction of, 83, 84
Illusion, Hartmann on, 183
Mailaender on, 188
Immortality, Aristotle on, 169
Buddha on, 147
Hartmann on, 184
Meyer-Benfey on, 198
Plato on, 168
Schopenhauer on, 179, 180, 181
Seneca on, 170
Spinoza on, 175
amongst animals, 270
of “cellular soul,” 269
of protozoa, 264
of reproductive cells, 267
Inaudi, the calculator, 58
Infanticide, 103, 104
Infusoria, conjugation of, 231
immortality of, 263, 264
reproduction of, 230
senile degeneration of, 231
Insects, compared with vertebrates, 276
fertilisation of plants by, 21
senile degeneration of, 231
Instinct of death, 281, 282, 283, 298
of family, 108
of life, 129
sexual, 283
of society, 109
Intestines, bacterial flora of, 248, 249
large, degeneration of, 70
large, diseases of, 73, 74
large, excision of, 70
large, function of, 70, 71, 72
Jewish belief in future life, 142
Justice, in relation to humanity, 112
Kant, on future life, 176
Kephir, use of, 255
Khémâ, legend on immortality, 147
Kidney ducts, 80
Koch, on microbe of tuberculosis, 212
Lactic acid, arrests putrefaction, 255
Lady-birds and nectar, 32
Language, as a social band, 297
Lankester, Ray, on centenarians, 259
Lanugo, of human embryo, 62
Larvæ, of ephemerids, 276
Lecky, on natural morality, 8
Lejoncourt, on centenarians, 280
Leucocytes and phagocytes, 240
Liberty, future limitation of, 301
Life, duration of, in Biblical times, 259, 260
modes of lengthening, 257, 258
Light, attractive to insects, 35
Linnæus, on origin of man, 41
Lister, and antisepsis, 209
_Listera ovata_, figure of, 32
Loeb, on natural death, 266
Longet, on old age, 234
Longevity, in birds, 232
and large intestine, 252
in Old Testament, 259, 260
Love, Guyau on, 196
spreading of, 295
Lubbock, on ancestor-worship, 150
an optimist, 117
Luminous insects, 37
Luther, Martin, on supernatural origin of disease, 164
Luxury, evils of, 293, 294, 301
Macrophags, definition of, 240
functions of, 240
in senile decay, 241
Maeterlinck, on pessimism, 191
Mailaender, on pessimism, 187, 188
Malignant tumours, science and, 214
Mammary glands, rudimentary, 298
Man, destiny of, 286
disharmonies, and harmonies in, 285
origin of, 40, 286
peculiar characters of, 59
rudimentary organs of, 59, 60
Marinesco, on function of phagocytes, 241
Marriage, age at first, 97
Christian views on, 163
early, in primitive races, 86, 90
Martelly, on intestinal putrefaction, 255
Materialism, Büchner on, 220
Haeckel on, 220
Matriopathy, 6
May-flies and light, 35
Medicine, advance of, 210
Memory, late development of, 78
Ménière, on bees and orchids, 21
Menstruation, in monkeys, 88, 89
origin and significance, 87, 88
origin of, 89
regarded as impure, 92
Merkel, on tissue-changes in old age, 238
Metamorphoses, of ephemerides, 272
Metchnikoff, on blanching of hair, 242
on senile atrophy, 238
Metchnikoff, Madame, on tadpoles
reared without microbes, 249
Meyer-Benfey, on happiness, 198
on immortality, 198
Microbes, absence of, in ephemerids, 274
harmful, 256
of the intestines, 248
producing poisons in intestines, 251
Microphags, definition of, 240
functions of, 240
Milk, fermented or soured, beneficent action of, 255
human, 282
secretion of, by males, 298
Monkeys, and choice of food, 75
Morality, based on human nature, 9
true foundation of, 289
Mosaic regulations on diet, 162, 163
Moths and light, 35
Müller, Johannes, on the eye, 78
Hermann, on lady-birds, 32
Max, on meaning of Nirvâna, 155, 158
Mutilations of the body, 9, 15
Naegeli, on natural death, 265
Natural death, 302
cases of, 278, 279, 280
in ephemerids, 27
Nature, Marcus Aurelius on life according to, 173
and morality, early opinions on, 3
Negroes and whites, 109
Nicene Creed, compared with ancestor-worship, 151
Nirvâna, Aurelius and, 175
Hartmann on, 186
Schopenhauer on, 182
meaning of, 155, 156, 157
Nordau, on old age, 234
on optimism, 192;
on pain, 193
Nuttall and Thierfelder, on germ-free guinea-pigs, 249
Obstetrics, in ancient times, 300
Old age, Longet on, 234
Nordau on, 234
amelioration of, 254
in birds and mammals, 232, 233
characters of, 229, 230, 278, 294
morbidity of, 244
scientific study of, 228
serums in, 245, 246
Onanism, 35, 95, 96, 99
Optimism, Hammerling on, 191, 192
Nordau on, 192
Optimists generally old men, 117
Origin of man, due to sudden appearance of new characters, 57, 59
Ourangs, old age in, 233
Orchids, and fertilisation, 19, 20
Orthobiosis, the taste of science, 289
Ostwald, on love of humanity, 296
Ova, immortality of, 267
Pain, Nordau on, 193
_Palingenia_, swarming of, 272
Pantheism, of German poets, 195
Paradise, according to the Talmud, 143
of Chinese Buddhists, 149
_Paramecium_, conjugation of (figure), 231
division of (figure), 230
Parasites, late evolution of, 18
Parovaria, 80
Parrots, paucity of bacterial flora in, 253
Pasteur, as founder of modern scientific medicine, 209
Pasénadi, legend on immortality, 147
Pathology, of old age, 278
Patriotism, 295
_Pelopæus_, figure of, 34
Penis, os, in man and apes, 81
Personality, consciousness of, 160
Pessimism, Byron on, 177
Hartmann on, 183
Maeterlinck on, 191
Mailaender on, 187
Schopenhauer on, 177, 178, 179
and Buddhism, 176, 177
and disease, 206
and disharmony, 38
origin of, 176
value of, 194
and youth, 117
Pettenkofer, suicide of, 131
Pfeffer, on chemotaxis in cryptogams, 269
Pflüger, on prolonging life, 258
Pfungst, on meaning of Nirvâna, 156
Phagocytes, functions of, 239
inhibited by lactic acid, 255
and poisons, 247
sensibility of, 240
Phagocytosis, in old age, 244
in senility, 242
Philosophy, and death, 166
relation of, and religion, 166
tendency of, to become religious, 175
Phenol, production of by microbes, 251
_Pithecanthropus_, 50
Placenta, of man and apes, 46
Plague, cause of, 208
Plato, and nobility of man, 4
on pleasure, 6
views on death, 166, 167, 168
Pleasure, views of Plato and Aristotle on, 6
Plotin, on immortality, 175
Pollinia of orchids, 21
Politicians, incapacity of young, 295
Politics, compared with savage obstetrics, 300
Post-mortem examinations, 246, 289
Pregnancy, avoidance of, 101
Progress, Hartmann on, 185
Spencer on, 291
not uniform, 18
Protection, means for, amongst animals, 114
Protozoa, absence of death, 263
sensibility of, 268
Purgatory, in Taoism, 146
Putrefaction, in large intestine, 73, 254
Rabbits, and destruction of young, 34, 37
Reformation, 14
Regeneration, in brain, 277
in cells, 271
in vertebrates, 270
Religion, and diet, 163
and disease, 205
and future life, 150
and science, 3
and sexuality, 163
Tolstoi’s return to, 223
Renal tubule, invasion of macrophags (figure), 241
Renan, on death, 195
on Jewish belief in future life, 142, 143
on Marcus Aurelius, 174
Renaissance, art of, 14
Reproduction, not cause of death in ephemerids, 275
Reproductive organs, 79
Resignation, in Buddhism, 159
Guyau on, 199
Hartmann’s system of, 187
Marcus Aurelius on, 174
Resurrection, primitive belief in, 140
Réville, on Chinese belief in immortality, 145, 146
_Rhizotrogus_ and light, 36
Richet, on failure of science, 222
Rousseau, on age and love of life, 117
on failure of science, 216
on fear of death, 118
Rovighi, on utility of milk diet, 255
Rückert, on death, 195
Rudimentary organs, in man, 59, 60
Sacrifice, at burials, 140, 141
Saint-Foix, on sacrifice of horses, 141
St. Matthew, on celibacy, 12
Savage, on old age in apes, 233
on social instincts of apes, 105
Schiller, on death, 195
Schopenhauer, and cholera, 120
on death, 121, 179, 288
on immortality, 179
pessimism of, 117, 177, 178, 179, 207
Schottelius, on rearing of germ-free chicks, 249
Science, advance of, 286
Bacon on, 204
destroys faith, 226
failure of, 215, 216, 217, 218, 222, 223
and immortality, 287
and old age, 228
and pessimism, 207, 286
Sclerosis of arteries, 248
in old age, 236, 237, 243, 244
due to poisons, 247
Scotch clergy on man, 12
Seidlitz, on natural morality, 8
Selenka, on fœtus of man and ape, 47
Self-preservation, 113, 275
Seneca, on death, 171
on human existence, 171
on immortality, 170
on nature as a guide, 7, 10
Senile decay action of macrophags, 241
characters of, 235, 238, 239
importance of phagocytes in, 241
Sensibility, specific, of white blood corpuscles, 160
Serum, alteration of properties, 51
anti-diphtheritic, 211
properties of, as guide to affinity, 51
Serums, use of, in old age, 245, 246
Sexuality, early appearance of, 94, 95
in the aged, 98
disharmonies of, 100
Sexual cells, immortality of, 268
soul of, 268
Shakespeare, sorrow and knowledge, 227
Shaving, regarded as degrading, 5
Skeleton, of man and apes, 43
Skin, of man, 62
Skoptsy, and emasculation, 9
Social instincts, 105, 109, 113
Societies, of insects, 294
Socrates, and death, 166, 167
Solidarity, of men, 297
Solomon, sorrow and knowledge, 226
Soul of cells, Haeckel on, 269
of protozoa, 268
of sexual cells, 268
Soured milk, benefits of, 255
Spencer, H., on belief in resurrection, 140
on natural morality, 9
on progress, 291
Spermatozoa, immortality of, 267
in old men, 97
Spinoza, on immortality, 175
Sterility, in human life, 295
in social insects, 294
Stoics, _summum bonum_ of, 6
on future life, 169
Strassburger, on microbes of the intestines, 248
Suicide, increase of, 4
of the old, 131
Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Mailaender on, 190
Supernaturalism, modern craving for, 222
Survival after death, widespread belief in, 149
Sutherland, on morality of expropriation, 109, 296
Syphilis, absence of reference to in Bible, 260
resistance to effects of, 256
and sclerosis, 247
Tadpoles, reared without microbes, 249
Taine, on Christian art, 14
Tait, Lawson, on cysts, 80
Talmud, on paradise, 143
Taoism, and immortality, 146
Teeth, disharmonies of, 63, 64
of man and apes, 41
wisdom, 64
Telepathy, no argument for future life, 161
Tetanus, microbes of, 256
Thanatology, science of death, 297
Thierfelder, and Nuttall, on germ-free guinea-pigs, 249
Tissier, on intestinal putrefaction, 255
Tokarsky, on fear of death, 125, 279
Tolstoi, on fear of death, 115, 122, 299
on failure of science, 217, 223
return to religion, 223, 224
Tombs, burial of weapons and implements, 139
Transfusion of blood serum, 51
Transmigration of souls, in Buddhism, 157
of souls, Jewish belief in, 144
Trees, death of, 265
Tuberculosis, modern science and, 212
Tylor, on ancestor-worship, 150
on animism, 138
Uhlenhuth, on injection of serums, 53
Vanilla, cultivation of, 19
fertilisation of, 20
Vaccination, 301
Vermiform appendage and disease, 66, 68
of man and apes, 44
Virginity, historical importance of, 83, 84
Waitz-Gerland, on primitive customs, 139
Weapons, burial with dead, 139
Weismann, on origin of death, 266
on immortality of protozoa, 264
Wiedersheim, on human characters, 59
Will to live, Mailaender on, 189
Schopenhauer on, 182
Wisdom teeth, degeneration of, 64, 65
Women, views of Buddha on, 9
Wounds, modern success in healing of, 210
Xenocrates, 5
Youth, absence of fear of death, 116, 117
and excesses, 116
ideals of, 263
and pessimism, 117
Zola, on death, 225
on fear of death, 121
Zulu, ancestor-worship, 151
-----
Footnote 1:
Since A. Wagner’s classical work, “Ueber die Gesetzmässigkeit der
scheinbar wilkürlichen menschlichen Handlungen,” suicide has been
discussed by many authors. The most recent contribution to the subject
is the important monograph by Westergaard, “Die Lehre von der
Mortalitæt u. Morbiditæt,” Second Edition, Jena, 1901.
Footnote 2:
Shaving the beard began at the time of the Macedonian rule, and
philosophers refrained from the new custom, which seemed to them
unprincipled. (V. Hermann, “Lehrbuch der griechischen
Privatalterthümer,” 1870, vol. I., pp. 175–177.)
Footnote 3:
Quetelet, “Anthropomètrie,” 1872, p. 86.
Footnote 4:
Zeller, “Die Philosophie der Griechen,” Third Edition, vol. II. 1, p.
741, 1875.
Footnote 5:
Zeller, _l.c._ p. 880.
Footnote 6:
Zeller, vol. II., 2, p. 447.
Footnote 7:
Zeller, First Edition, vol. III., 7, p. 193.
Footnote 8:
Zeller, _l.c._ p. 401.
Footnote 9:
“De Vita Beata,” chap. viii.
Footnote 10:
“Moral Philosophy,” London, 1755.
Footnote 11:
Buckle, “History of Civilisation in England.”
Footnote 12:
Published at Amsterdam in 1776.
Footnote 13:
Vol. I., p. 32.
Footnote 14:
“History of European Morals,” Third Edition, London, 1877.
Footnote 15:
“The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” First Edition,
vol. I., p. 98.
Footnote 16:
“Die Darwin’sche Theorie.” Second Edition, 1875, p. 272, note 25.
Footnote 17:
“The Data of Ethics,” 1879.
Footnote 18:
The “Lalita Vistara,” translated from Sanscrit into French by Foucaux;
“Annales du Musée Guimet,” vol. VI. p. 183. 1884.
Footnote 19:
Zeller, _loc. cit._ p. 633.
Footnote 20:
Lecky, “History of European Morals,” chap. iv.
Footnote 21:
Lecky.
Footnote 22:
Lecky.
Footnote 23:
Buckle, “History of Civilisation in England.”
Footnote 24:
“De Secta Massonum,” Parisiis, 1884, p. 9. The passage was quoted by
Brunetière in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” 1895, vol. CXXVII., p. 116.
Footnote 25:
Schnaase, “Geschichte der bildenden Künste, vol. III., pp. 577, 584,
and vol. IV., p. 718.
Footnote 26:
“Philosophie de l’Art,” Fourth Edition, 1885, vol. LXXXVIII., p. 352.
Footnote 27:
Reinhard, “System der christlichen Moral,” vol. IV., 1814, p. 831, and
vol. III., p. 14, 1813.
Footnote 28:
Gaudry, “Mammifères tertiaires,” p. 235, 1878.
Footnote 29:
Delteil, “La Vanille,” Paris, 1897.
Footnote 30:
Darwin, “The Fertilisation of Orchids,” Second edition, London, 1877.
See also Müller, “Die Befruchtung der Pflanzen durch Insecten,” pp.
74–85, Leipzig, 1873.
Footnote 31:
_Bulletin de la Société botanique de France_, vol. I., p. 370, 1854.
Footnote 32:
_Loc. cit._ p. 44.
Footnote 33:
Darwin, _loc. cit._ p. 179.
Footnote 34:
_Ibid._ pp. 207–208.
Footnote 35:
Fabre, “Souvenirs entomologiques,” vol. I., pp. 71–78, Paris, 1879.
Footnote 36:
_Loc. cit._ p. 201.
Footnote 37:
_Loc. cit._ pp. 120–121.
Footnote 38:
“Die Befruchtung der Blumen durch Insekten,” p. 167, 1873.
Footnote 39:
“Souvenirs entomologiques,” Fourth series, Paris, 1847.
Footnote 40:
“Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis indigènes,” Paris, 1810.
Footnote 41:
Féré, “L’Instinct sexuel,” Second Edition, p. 76, Paris, 1902.
Footnote 42:
Moll, “Untersuch. üb. d. Libido sexualis,” vol. II. pp. 372, 373.
Footnote 43:
Kœppen, “Insectes invisibles,” vol. II. p. 237, 1883. (In Russian.)
Footnote 44:
Swammerdam, “Biblia Naturæ,” Leydae, 1737.
Footnote 45:
Brehm, “Les Insectes,” édit. franç., vol. I., p. 206.
Footnote 46:
“Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” vol. I., chap. 10,
p. 345.
Footnote 47:
R. Dubois, “Les Elatérides lumineux,” p. 209, Meulan, 1886.
Footnote 48:
Republished, with other essays, as “Man’s Place in Nature,” Macmillan,
London, 1894.
Footnote 49:
Brunetière, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Jan. 1, 1895, p. 99.
Footnote 50:
_Loc. cit._ p. 116.
Footnote 51:
_Loc. cit._ p. 111.
Footnote 52:
_Loc. cit._ p. 126.
Footnote 53:
_Loc. cit._ p. 126.
Footnote 54:
_Loc. cit._ p. 127.
Footnote 55:
_Loc. cit._ p. 139.
Footnote 56:
“Archives de Zoologie expérimentale,” 1885.
Footnote 57:
“Studien über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere,” 1898–1902.
Footnote 58:
A summary of this question is to be found in a new volume by M.
Alsberg, “Die Abstammung des Menschen,” chap. iii., 1902.
Footnote 59:
Uhlenhuth, “Deutsche Medicin. Wochenschrift,” p. 82, 1901.
Footnote 60:
Wassermann and Schuetze, “Berliner klinische Wochenschrift,” p. 7,
1901.
Footnote 61:
The _Lancet_, Jan, 18, 1902.
Footnote 62:
Selenka, _loc. cit._ p. 157.
Footnote 63:
Deniker, _loc. cit._ p. 17.
Footnote 64:
“Die Mutationstheorie,” vol. I., Leipzig, 1901.
Footnote 65:
“Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences,” 1892, pp. 275, 1329;
“Revue scientifique,” 1880, p. 1124.
Footnote 66:
“Der Bau des Menschen,” Third Edition, 1902.
Footnote 67:
Selenka, “Studien über Entwicklungsgesch. d. Thiere,” p. 89.
Footnote 68:
“Dictionnaire encyclopédique des Sciences Medicales,” article “Dent,”
by Magitot, p. 194, 1882.
Footnote 69:
Schmid, “Vierteljahrschrift für Zahnheilkunde,” p. 141, 1896.
Footnote 70:
Schmid, _loc. cit._ p. 147.
Footnote 71:
Redier, in “Revue mensuelle de Stomatologie,” p. 164, 1895.
Footnote 72:
“Comptes Rendus de la Société de Stomatologie de Paris,” vol. I., p.
98, 1890.
Footnote 73:
_Loc. cit._ p. 204.
Footnote 74:
Virchow’s “Archiv für Pathologische Anatomie,” 1893, vol. CXXXII., p.
76.
Footnote 75:
Lannelongue, in the “Bulletin médical,” p. 621, 1902.
Footnote 76:
Treves, “The Surgical Treatment of Perityphlitis,” London 1895.
Footnote 77:
_Edinburgh Medical Journal_, August 1893.
Footnote 78:
“Archiv für klinische Chirurgie,” vol. XLVIII., p. 715, 1894.
Footnote 79:
“Münchener medicinische Wochenschrift,” 1898.
Footnote 80:
“Archiv für klinische Chirurgie,” vol. XLVIII., p. 136, 1894.
Footnote 81:
This topic is discussed at length in my lecture, published in the
_Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society_, 1901, vol. XLV., note 5.
Footnote 82:
“Archives de Médicine navale,” 1887.
Footnote 83:
Ewald, “Klinik des Verdauungskrankheiten,” vol. III., p. 267, 1902.
Footnote 84:
Stillmarck, in “Arbeiten des pharmacologischen Institutes zu Dorpat,”
vol. III., p. 110, 1889.
Footnote 85:
The case is quoted in Pozzi’s “Traité de Gynécologie,” p. 714, 1890.
Footnote 86:
Crisp, “Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London,” p. 48, 1865.
Footnote 87:
Lenhossek, in Virchow’s “Archiv. für pathologische Anatomie,” vol.
XL., p. 1.
Footnote 88:
“Abhandlungen der mathem.-physikal. Classe d. K. Bayerisch. Akad. d.
Wissensch. München,” vol. XIII., Part II., p. 268, 1880.
Footnote 89:
_Loc. cit._ p. 245.
Footnote 90:
_Loc. cit._ p. 250.
Footnote 91:
_Loc. cit._ p. 253.
Footnote 92:
_Loc. cit._ p. 163.
Footnote 93:
_Loc. cit._ p. 208.
Footnote 94:
Ploss-Bartels in “Das Weib,” Seventh Edition, 1902. Vol. II., pp.
228–229 is the source of information on this matter.
Footnote 95:
Ploss-Bartels, _loc. cit._ vol. I., p. 489.
Footnote 96:
Pozzi, “Traité de Gynécologie,” p. 1067, 1890.
Footnote 97:
“Real-encyclopädie d. Gesammten Heilkunde,” Second Edition, vol. X.,
p. 34, 1885.
Footnote 98:
It would be interesting to find out whether or no Hindoo or Chinese
virgins suffer from _chloranæmia_; at present we have no information
on this matter.
Footnote 99:
Ploss-Bartels, _loc. cit._ p. 622.
Footnote 100:
Saint Cyr, “Traité d’obstétrique vétérinaire,” p. 52, Second Edition,
1888.
Footnote 101:
_Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1897_, pp.
135–166.
Footnote 102:
“Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,” p. 88,
1876.
Footnote 103:
Ploss-Bartels, _loc. cit._ p. 625.
Footnote 104:
Vratch, in Russian, p. 1456, 1901.
Footnote 105:
Ploss-Bartels, _loc. cit._ p. 443.
Footnote 106:
Rakhmanoff.
Footnote 107:
Ploss-Bartels, _loc. cit._ p. 626.
Footnote 108:
_Ibid._ p. 626.
Footnote 109:
“Venus Urania,” Leipzig, 1798.
Footnote 110:
Moll, “Untersuch. über die Libido Sexualis,” vol. I., p. 44.
Footnote 111:
“Real-encyclopædie der gesammt. Heilkunde,” vol. XIV., p. 593. Second
Edition, 1888.
Footnote 112:
Fürbringer, _loc. cit._
Footnote 113:
“Dictionnaire encyclopédique des Sciences médicales,” vol. XV., p.
378, 1881.
Footnote 114:
Fritsch, “Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas.” Breslau, 1873.
Footnote 115:
Information that I have obtained from the Zoological Gardens at Anvers
would seem to show the existence of similar differences between the
sexes in the case of monkeys.
Footnote 116:
Wappaeus, “Allgemeine Bevölkerungsstatistik,” vol. II., p. 285, 1861.
Footnote 117:
“Sur les Altérations pathologo-anatomiques des Testicules pendant la
Vieillesse,” St. Petérsbourg, 1894 (in Russian). A few years ago, in
course of the examination of the body of a man who had died at the age
of 103 at Lyons, the seminal vesicles were found to be full of ripe
and active spermatozoa. “Annales d’Hygiène publique,” p. 370, 1900.
Footnote 118:
_Loc. cit._ p. 377.
Footnote 119:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., Supplement to chap.
xliv.
Footnote 120:
_Loc. cit._ p. 364.
Footnote 121:
_See_ chap. i.
Footnote 122:
Vol. I. chap. xxxv.
Footnote 123:
“L’Anthropologie,” vol. IV., p. 129, 1893.
Footnote 124:
Waitz-Gerland, “Anthropologie der Naturvölker,” vol. VI., p. 139,
1872.
Footnote 125:
“Völkerkunde,” vol. I. p. 274, 1885.
Footnote 126:
Huxley, “Man’s Place in Nature,” p. 60.
Footnote 127:
Sutherland, “Origin and Development of the Moral Instinct.”
Footnote 128:
Büchner, “Force and Matter.”
Footnote 129:
Haeckel, “The Riddle of the Universe,” pp. 357–358, Second Edition,
1901.
Footnote 130:
_Loc. cit._ p. 796.
Footnote 131:
Ballet and Blocq, “Paralysie générale progressive,” in “Traité de
Médecine,” published under the direction of Charcot, Bouchard, and
Brissaud, vol. VI., p. 1032, 1894.
Footnote 132:
Emile, “Œuvres complètes de J. J. Rousseau,” vol. II., p. 432, 1876.
Footnote 133:
_Loc. cit._ p. 76.
Footnote 134:
The “Lalita Vistara,” pp. 166–170.
Footnote 135:
Edouard Rod, “Les idées morales du temps présent,” p. 48, Paris, 1892.
Footnote 136:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 529.
Footnote 137:
“Journal de Goncourt,” vol. VI., p. 186, 1878–1884, 1892.
Footnote 138:
“La Philosophie de la Longévité,” p. 209, Paris, 1900.
Footnote 139:
“Les Confessions,” Paris, 1891.
Footnote 140:
_Loc. cit._ p. 41.
Footnote 141:
_Loc. cit._ p. 49.
Footnote 142:
_Loc. cit._ p. 51.
Footnote 143:
_Loc. cit._ p. 60.
Footnote 144:
_Union pour l’action morale_, No. 6, p. 258, Jan. 15, 1902.
Footnote 145:
Complete Works of Tolstoi (in Russian), vol. XII., p. 512, 1897.
Footnote 146:
_Loc. cit._ p. 517.
Footnote 147:
_Loc. cit._ p. 526.
Footnote 148:
_Loc. cit._ p. 536.
Footnote 149:
“Questions de Philosophie et de Psychologie,” 1897, No. 40, p. 931.
(In Russian.)
Footnote 150:
“La Philosophie de la Longévité,” Paris, 1900.
Footnote 151:
_Loc. cit._ p. 211.
Footnote 152:
_Loc. cit._ p. 213.
Footnote 153:
_Loc. cit._ p. 211.
Footnote 154:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 533.
Footnote 155:
Waitz-Gerland, “Anthropologie der Naturvölker,” vol. VI.
Footnote 156:
These words are quoted by Ebstein in his “Die Kunst das menschliche
Leben zu verlängern,” p. 51, 1891. I have been unable to find Paul
Bert’s own words, as the reference given by Ebstein is
bibliographically incorrect.
Footnote 157:
“Münchener Medicinische Wochenschrift,” p. 325, 1901.
Footnote 158:
_Loc. cit._ p. 186.
Footnote 159:
“L’Irréligion de l’Avenir,” Sixth Edition, p. 449, Paris, 1895.
Footnote 160:
“Tusculanes,” vol. I., chap. 30.
Footnote 161:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 527.
Footnote 162:
Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” vol. I., p. 485. Third Edition, 1891.
Footnote 163:
Waitz-Gerland, “Anthropologie der Naturvölker,” 6 vols., 1866–1872.
Footnote 164:
“Essais Historiques sur Paris,” in Œuvres Complètes, vol. IV., p. 150.
Maastricht, 1778.
Footnote 165:
Quoted by Tylor in “Primitive Culture,” chap. XI.
Footnote 166:
“Histoire du Peuple d’Israël,” vol. I., pp. 128–129. 1887.
Footnote 167:
“Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte,” vol. I., p. 253. Freiburg,
Leipzig. Second Edition, 1897.
Footnote 168:
“Histoire du Peuple d’Israël,” vol. IV., p. 327. 1893.
Footnote 169:
Talmud. “Traité Bérakhote,” sheet 17.
Footnote 170:
“Force et Matière.” Sixth French edition, p. 439. 1884.
Footnote 171:
_Loc. cit._, p. 198.
Footnote 172:
“Histoire des Religions,” vol. III., “La religion chinoise,” Paris,
1889; see also “Chantepie de la Saussaye,” _loc. cit._ vol. I., p. 58.
Footnote 173:
Réville, _loc. cit._ p. 191.
Footnote 174:
_Ibid._ p. 195.
Footnote 175:
_Loc. cit._ p. 185.
Footnote 176:
“Histoire des Religions,” vol. III., “La religion chinoise,” Paris
1889, p. 187.
Footnote 177:
_Loc. cit._ p. 450.
Footnote 178:
_Ibid._ p. 444.
Footnote 179:
“Histoire des Religions,” vol. III., “La religion chinoise,” Paris,
1889, p. 469.
Footnote 180:
_Ibid._ p. 470.
Footnote 181:
Oldenburg, “Le Bouddha,” French translation, p. 281, Paris, 1894.
Footnote 182:
Oldenburg, _loc. cit._ p. 282.
Footnote 183:
“Lalita Vistara,” _loc. cit._ p. 303.
Footnote 184:
Réville, _loc. cit._ p. 475.
Footnote 185:
Réville, _loc. cit._ p. 556.
Footnote 186:
_Ibid._ p. 525.
Footnote 187:
Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” vol. II., pp. 113–114, Third Edition,
1891.
Footnote 188:
_Ibid._ vol. II., p. 114.
Footnote 189:
_Ibid._ p. 115.
Footnote 190:
_Ibid._ p. 116.
Footnote 191:
See p. 124.
Footnote 192:
The “Lalita Vistara,” p. 289.
Footnote 193:
The “Lalita Vistara,” p. 176.
Footnote 194:
_Ibid._ p. 170.
Footnote 195:
Oldenburg, p. 214.
Footnote 196:
“Buddhagosas Parables.”
Footnote 197:
“Das Freie Wort,” pp. 603–607, Jan. 5, 1902.
Footnote 198:
“Nirvâna,” Berlin, 1896.
Footnote 199:
“Lalita Vistara,” p. 176.
Footnote 200:
Spence Hardy, “A Manual of Buddhism,” p. 100, London, 1853.
Footnote 201:
Oldenburg, _loc. cit._ pp. 200–206.
Footnote 202:
Deuteronomy xii. 15, 16.
Footnote 203:
_Ibid._ 23.
Footnote 204:
_Ibid._ 25.
Footnote 205:
Exodus xii. 9.
Footnote 206:
Rhys Davids.
Footnote 207:
Corinthians vii. 7–9.
Footnote 208:
Ploss-Bartels, “Das Weib,” vol. I., p. 859.
Footnote 209:
“Die Medecin der Naturvölker,” p. 225, Leipzig, 1893.
Footnote 210:
Zeller, “Die Philosophie der Griechen,” vol. II., Part 2, pp. 462,
465. Tübingen, 1862.
Footnote 211:
“Origines du Christianisme,” vol. VII., Sixth Edition, p. 483. Paris,
1819.
Footnote 212:
Oldenburg, _loc. cit._ p. 215.
Footnote 213:
“Parerga und Paralipomena,” _Edition Reclam._, vol. II., p. 267.
Footnote 214:
_Ibid._ p. 253.
Footnote 215:
_Ibid._ p. 251.
Footnote 216:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 726, Leipzig.
Footnote 217:
_Loc. cit._ vol. II., p. 730.
Footnote 218:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 555, Leipzig.
Footnote 219:
_Loc. cit._ p. 561.
Footnote 220:
_Loc. cit._ p. 564.
Footnote 221:
_Loc. cit._ p. 566.
Footnote 222:
_Loc. cit._ p. 566.
Footnote 223:
_Loc. cit._ p. 537.
Footnote 224:
_Loc. cit._ p. 540.
Footnote 225:
_Loc. cit._ p. 581.
Footnote 226:
“Parerga,” vol. II., p. 258.
Footnote 227:
“Die Welt als Wille,” vol. I., p. 472.
Footnote 228:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.”
Footnote 229:
“Philosophie des Unbewussten,” Berlin, 1869.
Footnote 230:
_Loc. cit._ p. 560.
Footnote 231:
_Loc. cit._ p. 565.
Footnote 232:
_Loc. cit._ p. 603.
Footnote 233:
_Loc. cit._ p. 606.
Footnote 234:
_Loc. cit._ p. 615.
Footnote 235:
_Loc. cit._ p. 621.
Footnote 236:
_Loc. cit._ p. 636.
Footnote 237:
_Loc. cit._ p. 638.
Footnote 238:
_Loc. cit._ p. 638.
Footnote 239:
“Die Philosophie der Erlösung,” 2 vols. Third Edition, Frankfort,
1894.
Footnote 240:
_Loc. cit._ vol. II., p. 637.
Footnote 241:
_Loc. cit._ vol. I., p. 325.
Footnote 242:
_Loc. cit._ p. 327.
Footnote 243:
_Loc. cit._ p. 334.
Footnote 244:
_Loc. cit._ p. 335.
Footnote 245:
_Loc. cit._ p. 349.
Footnote 246:
_Loc. cit._ p. 358.
Footnote 247:
_Loc. cit._ vol. II., p. 242.
Footnote 248:
“Le Temple Enseveli,” 1902.
Footnote 249:
Quoted by Steiner, “Welt und Lebensanschauungen im XIX. Jahrhundert,”
1901. Vol. II., pp. 170–173.
Footnote 250:
Herbert Spencer.
Footnote 251:
“Dialogues et Fragments philosophiques,” Paris, 1876.
Footnote 252:
_Loc. cit._ p. 139.
Footnote 253:
“L’Irréligion de l’Avenir.” Sixth Edition, Paris, 1895.
Footnote 254:
_Loc. cit._ p. 462.
Footnote 255:
_Loc. cit._ p. 462.
Footnote 256:
_Loc. cit._ p. 464.
Footnote 257:
_Loc. cit._ p. 470.
Footnote 258:
_Loc. cit._ p. 471.
Footnote 259:
_Loc. cit._ p. 472.
Footnote 260:
“La Philosophie de la Longévité,” Paris, 1900.
Footnote 261:
_Loc. cit._ p. 307.
Footnote 262:
_Loc. cit._ p. 105.
Footnote 263:
“Die moderne Religion.” Leipzig, 1902. See also _Frankfurter Zeitung_,
Feb. 19 and 20, 1902.
Footnote 264:
_Loc. cit._ p. 476.
Footnote 265:
“Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. II., p. 687.
Footnote 266:
“Philosophie des Unbewussten,” p. 615.
Footnote 267:
Borden, “The Use of the Röntgen Ray,” p. 20. Washington. 1898.
Footnote 268:
_Bulletin du Service de Santé Militaire_, No. 499, p. 73. 1901.
Footnote 269:
The efficacy of Credé’s treatment may be inferred from the figures
recorded at Stockholm, in which city the adoption of the treatment
caused the percentage of cases of this nature to fall from 0.56 in
1891 to 0.045 in 1899. See Widmark, “Mittheilungen a d. Augenklinik d.
Carol. Med. Chir. Instit. zu Stockholm,” p. 126. 1902.
Footnote 270:
“Archives de médecine expérimentale,” vol. VI., p. 677. 1894.
Footnote 271:
“Hospitalstidende,” May 7, 1902, p. 489.
Footnote 272:
“Annales de l’Institut Pasteur,” February 1903.
Footnote 273:
“Deutsche medecin. Wochenschrift,” October 30, 1902, p. 798.
Footnote 274:
“Si le rétablissement des sciences et des arts a contribué à épurer
les mœurs.”—“Œuvres complètes,” vol. I., p. 463, 1875.
Footnote 275:
_Loc. cit._ p. 469.
Footnote 276:
_Loc. cit._ p. 470.
Footnote 277:
_Loc. cit._ p. 437.
Footnote 278:
_Loc. cit._ p. 397.
Footnote 279:
_Loc. cit._ p. 411.
Footnote 280:
_Revue des Deux-Mondes 1895_, No. 1. p. 97. “La Science et la
Religion.” Paris, 1885. _Le Figaro_, January 4, 1899.
Footnote 281:
_Revue Scientifique_, vol. I., p. 33. 1899.
Footnote 282:
_Ibid._ p. 34.
Footnote 283:
_Loc. cit._ p. 511.
Footnote 284:
_Loc. cit._ p. 212.
Footnote 285:
_Loc. cit._ p. 35.
Footnote 286:
“Irreligion,” p. 460.
Footnote 287:
“Le Rajeunissement Kariogamique chez les Cillés,” “Archives de
Zoologie Expérimentale,” 1899.
Footnote 288:
_Biological Bulletin_, vol. III., October 1902, p. 192; “Archiv. für
Entwickelungsmechanik,” vol. XV. p. 139.
Footnote 289:
Gurney, “On the Comparative Ages to which Birds Live,” _The Ibis_,
January 1899, p. 19.
Footnote 290:
Huxley, “Man’s Place in Nature.”
Footnote 291:
“Psychological Paradoxes.”
Footnote 292:
“Traité de Physiologie,” Second Edition, vol. II. p. 935.
Footnote 293:
“Etude Clinique et anatomo-pathologique sur la Vieillesse.” Paris,
1886.
Footnote 294:
The parenchymatous elements are the most important cells of the
organs, _i.e._, of the liver, muscles, brain, &c.
Footnote 295:
“Bemerkungen üb. d. Gewebe beim Altern,” “Verhandl. d. X Internat,
Medic. Congresses.” Vol. II., p. 124. Berlin, 1891.
Footnote 296:
“Année Biologique” de Yves Delage, vol. III., p. 249. 1899.
Footnote 297:
_Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, April 23, 1900.
Footnote 298:
“Annales de l’Institut Pasteur,” p. 865. 1901.
Footnote 299:
_See_ the “Annales de l’Institut Pasteur,” vol. XIV., pp. 369, 378,
390, 402. 1900. The results described therein have been confirmed by
Bélonovsky (“Sur l’Influence de l’Injection de Diverses Doses de Sérum
Hémolytique sur le nombre des Eléments du Sang.” Saint Petérsbourg,
1902), who has found that there is an increase in the amount of
hæmoglobin and of red-blood corpuscles in the blood of anæmic patients
that have been treated with minute doses of hæmolitic serum.
Footnote 300:
“Die Arteriosclerosis.” Leipzig, 1898.
Footnote 301:
_Loc. cit._ p. 118.
Footnote 302:
“Zeitschrift für Klinische Medicin,” vol. XLVI. p. 434. 1902.
Footnote 303:
“Archiv. für Hygiene,” vol. XXXIV., p. 210, 1898; _ibid._ vol. LXII.,
p. 48. 1902.
Footnote 304:
“Annales de l’Institut Pasteur,” p. 630. 1901.
Footnote 305:
“Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie,” p. 109. 1895.
Footnote 306:
“Archiv. für Hygiene,” vol. XXXIX., p. 390. 1902.
Footnote 307:
“Annales de l’Institut Pasteur,” p. 865. 1902.
Footnote 308:
“Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie,” vol. XVI., p. 43. 1892.
Footnote 309:
“L’Art de Prolonger la Vie Humaine.” French translation of German
Second Edition. Lausanne, 1809.
Footnote 310:
_Loc. cit._ p. 296.
Footnote 311:
“Ueber die Kunst der Verlängerung des Menschlichen Lebens.” Bonn,
1890.
Footnote 312:
“Die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern.” Wiesbaden, 1891.
Footnote 313:
“The Advancement of Science,” p. 237. London, 1890.
Footnote 314:
Quoted by Pflüger in “Ueber die Kunst der Verläng.,” p. 14.
Footnote 315:
Genesis vi. 3.
Footnote 316:
_Loc. cit._ p. 12.
Footnote 317:
“Die Medizin im alten Testament.” Stuttgart, 1901.
Footnote 318:
“Lehrbuch d. Geschichte der Medecin,” vol. III., p. 223. Jena 1878.
Footnote 319:
“Essays on Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems.” Authorised
Translation, Oxford, 2 vols., 1889–92.
Footnote 320:
“Ueber den Ursprung des Todes.” 1893.
Footnote 321:
“Traité de Zoologie,” p. 1713.
Footnote 322:
“Abhandlungen der k. Bayerischen Akademie d. Wissenschaften.” 1865.
Footnote 323:
“Archiv für die gesammte Physiologie.” Vol. XCIII., p. 59, 1902.
Footnote 324:
Salomonsen, in “Festskrift ved indvielsen af Statens Serum Institut,”
vol. XII. Copenhagen, 1902.
Footnote 325:
“Gesammelte Populäre Vorträge.” Bonn, 1878.
Footnote 326:
Preyer, “Die Seele des Kindes,” 1884, and “Specielle Physiologie des
Embryo,” p. 547. 1885.
Footnote 327:
“De la longévité humaine,” Second Edition. Paris 1885.
Footnote 328:
_Journal de Rouen_, September 23, 1900. Article by Georges Dubose.
Footnote 329:
“Galerie des Centenaires anciens et modernes.” Paris, 1842.
Footnote 330:
Genesis XXV. 7, 8.
Footnote 331:
Genesis XXXV. 28, 29.
Footnote 332:
Job xlii. 16, 17.
Footnote 333:
It may be that the great longevity of many of the patriarchs, ending
in the appearance of the instinct of death, is the cause of the small
extent to which the idea of a future life had been developed amongst
the ancient Hebrews. (See chap, vii.)
Footnote 334:
Genesis xxv. 17.
Footnote 335:
Genesis xlvii. 28.
Footnote 336:
Numbers xxxiii. 39.
Footnote 337:
Deuteronomy xxxiv. 7.
Footnote 338:
Ploss-Bartels, “Das Weib,” vol. I. p. 626.
Footnote 339:
“Die Welt als Wille u. Vorstellung,” vol. II. p. 730.
Footnote 340:
“Fleurs du Mal. La Mort des Pauvres,” p. 340. 1883.
Footnote 341:
The prohibitions in England are almost equally sweeping.—_Editor._
Footnote 342:
Ecclesiastes, viii. 17.
Footnote 343:
Ecclesiastes ix. 7–10.
Footnote 344:
“Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie.” Leipzig, 1902.
Footnote 345:
Wiedersheim, “Bau des Menschen,” Third Edition, pp. 21, 22. Alsberg,
“Abstam. d. Mensch.,” p. 61.
Footnote 346:
Ploss-Bartels, “Das Weib,” vol. II., p. 464.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
100 Die Welt als Wille und Die Welt als Wille und
Vorsteilung Vorstellung
111 Traité de Médicine Traité de Médecine
117 Der Werk des Lebens Der Wert des Lebens
126 La Philosophie de la Longevité La Philosophie de la Longévité
133 L’Irreligion de l’Avenir L’Irréligion de l’Avenir
195 Einzler bist. O, fühl’ im ganzen Einzles bist. O, fühl’ im Ganzen
Dich dich
195 wünschest unsterblich zu leben? wünschest, unsterblich zu leben?
Leb im gazen Leb’ im Ganzen
265 Abhandlungen der k. bayrischen Abhandlungen der k. Bayerischen
Akademie d. Wissenschaften Akademie d. Wissenschaften
285 doctrines set forth in hits book doctrines set forth in this book
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
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