the distortion of its shape, and consequently, depending
on the pressures within and without, and the power of
the *skin, we get an immense variety of form and size
of both non-living and of living matter. It is the
power of the skin, combined with the pressures
within and without, etc., that gives us great trees and
large animals, and such an immense variety of trees
and animals. The power of the skin, and the capacity
to form it, is also one of the great secrets of theredity,
and the differences of the power of the skin, etc., is
that which allows of such great variation. But it is not
only the power of the skin, there is also the question
of the Jsize of the cells. The cells of some things are
larger than the cells of others, and contain a larger
quantity, if not a better quality, of nutrient matter ;
and consequently the daughter cells are larger, and as
they increase and grow you get a larger object. There
is more, however, than the mere question of size, there
is likeness. Why an elephant and not a fish ? The
reply is that it is a question of the most delicate play
of complex physical forces. Every reproductive cell,
if it could be seen in its entirety, has its distinctive
points and potentialities ; and within and without are

*Take the word skin as meaning envelope.
fHeredity, and Weismann's germ-plasm, see Addenda.

\ Physiologists would, perhaps more correctly, say that cells are
generally nearly of the same size ; but some are larger and some
smaller ; and that bulk is caused by increase of either.



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 61

working forces that under similar conditions have only
one result, limited in extent, and *defmite in end, so
that with mathematical precision they produce effects
that follow one another to a certain conclusion.
Variation is caused by interference with those con-
ditions or forces.

The question of tsex, after its first evolution,
appears to depend upon the virility of the parent cells.
If the male reproductive cell is the more virile it will
be the dominant factor and vice versa. When families
are mixed in sex it results from the swing of the
pendulum of virility between the reproductive cells.
Physiologists know how many things go to produce
virility, constitution, food, air, etc.

A living cell is an electro-magnetic, and an electro-
chemical machine, within an envelope, and living
organisms of a higher type are electro-magnetic
and electro-chemical machines containing within an
envelope many such small machines, the combined
effects of which give the necessary electro-magnetic
and electro-chemical forces to produce motion, and the
other phenomena characteristic of living things, aided
by various stimuli, such as heat, etc. The whole being
material motion ; but motion at various speeds and in
many ways.

The electrician forms a battery by putting a plate
of copper and a plate of zinc into a suitable fluid, and
electro-chemical results follow. When he withdraws
the fluid from the cell the results apparently cease.
It is the speed of movement, and arrangement, of the
portions of matter in the copper, zinc, and the fluid



"'Definite in end in the sense that given certain conditions and
forces certain results must foliow.

Read Professor J. Arthur Thomson's " Heredity," page 476.



62 Thoughts on Natural Philosophy.

that produces the electro-chemical effects. Nature,
like the electrician, puts her positive and negative
materials within her living cells, that she has formed by
enveloping the materials in some species of envelope,
and adding a suitable fluid, electro-chemical results
follow. When by the operations o.^ nature the fluid
is withdrawn, the results apparently cease, and the
cell or cells (or seeds) appear lifeless ; but when she
again supplies the suitable fluid under suitable con-
ditions they again give the electro-chemical phenomena
of life, unless they have been left long without fluid,
and the molecular clockwork has, while without the
fluid, run down below the energy, or speed of
movement, necessary to the manifestation of electro-
chemical effects when the fluid is again added.

It is evident that it is only necessary for a cell in inanimate
nature, that contains the necessary materials, having the needful
energy, within an insulating envelope, to be supplied with the
suitable fluid for the phenomena of life, under suitable conditions,
to be manifested. How simple after all is the origin of
life, the difficulty has been in our want of under-
standing. It may be a little difficult at first glance
to see in all its fulness and beauty ; but when we
remember that the difference between life and death in
the seed, and cell, is really the difference between the
feebleness and swiftness of movements, in various
ways, of small portions of matter the subject becomes
quite easy. If they move at sufficient speed, on the
addition of the needful fluid, life is manifested ; if the
speed of movement is too feeble it is death, they are
inanimate, life is consequently at bottom a question
cf speed.

The difference between the living and the non-living
is the capacity possessed, as a result of speed, by the



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 63

living to produce the electro-chemical and other effects
within their cells that result in growth. Nevertheless
the living are not independent, they also are dependent
on external as well as internal physical law, they are
electro-chemical machines connected with and con-
trolled by the great machine nature ; and perhaps the
best definition of life is that it consists in an arrange-
ment of suitable materials, by material motion, in
suitable form, moving within certain rates of speed.
As we approach the borderland between animate and
inanimate nature it is almost as difficult to separate
the living from the non-living as it is to distinguish
between the animal and vegetable ; and it is a question
whether we ought riot to extend the definition of life
to include much that is now regarded as not living,
although perhaps much harm may not be done if we
remember the difficulty of drawing an abrupt dividing
line between the two Kingdoms. They appear to be
imperceptibly merged in one another. This is nature's
way and may be taken to be one of the indications of
the unity of nature, and her rule of natural law. You
may not like it, you may prefer what looks to you more
clear and definite ; but nature declines to work accord-
ing to our dictation, she has her own inimitable way
of gradual and imperceptible mutation.

The great physiologist Verworn writes that : " The
fact stands out clearly and distinctly that life from its
beginning has been dependent upon the external
conditions of the earth's surface. In a mathematical
sense, life is a function of the earth's development.
Living substance could not exist while the earth was
a molten sphere without a solid, cool, crust ; it was
obliged to appear with the same inevitable necessity
as a chemical combination when the necessary con-



64 Thoughts on Natural Philosophy.

ditions were given ; and it was obliged to change its
form and its composition in the same measure as the
external conditions of life changed in the course of the
earth's development. It is only a portion of the earth's
matter. The combination of this matter into living
substance was as much the necessary product of the
earth's development as was the origin of water. It is
an inevitable result of the progressive cooling of the
masses that formed the earth's crust. Likewise, the
chemical, physical, and morphological characteristics
of existing living substance are the necessary result of
the influence of the external conditions of life upon the
internal relations of past living substance. Internal
and external vital conditions are inseparably correlated,
and the expression of this correlation is life." The
whole being caused by material motion. When the
earth and its surroundings are sufficiently cold, when
material motion is too feeble for the manifestation of
life, vital phenomena on this planet will cease to exist.

The subject is so vast and so exquisitely beautiful
that one might write for ever, and there is a danger of
eloquent gush ; but I spare the reader.

Some persons may fear to amend the Newtonian
philosophy, lest some great catastrophe happen. They
may argue : " How can I give up this idea ? What
was to keep matter together before this universe was
evolved, and what is to keep matter together if the
universe be destroyed?" I think that we can ease
their minds. Space is illimitable, and eternity has
neither beginning nor end. Eternal space is all space.
Matter cannot possibly drop out ; there is nowhere for
it to drop to. Instead of needing holding together, it
needed the very reverse the freest possible oppor-
tunity of movement, which is allowed to it by



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 65

my theory, then vortication, as developed, keeps it
together, or unlooses it, under physcial force and law,
as nature in her working compels.

Our finite thoughts are apt at times to be petty, and
to move in a groove. In dealing with natural
philosophy we need to overcome this style of thought
to give wings to our instructed imaginations, that we
may realise the exquisite and infinite beauty and
grandeur of nature. Free moving matter* may have,
during eternity, evolved unnumbered universes and
peoples before our present one that will dissipate to
dust ; and tfrom that dissipated freely moving matter
countless universes and peoples in succession may be
evolved, speeding on in never-ending cycles of beauty,
majesty, and glory, perhaps towards perfection, when
shame and sorrow shall be no more ; but, in any case,
in an endless chain of intricate loveliness, dazzling
brilliance, and gorgeous beauty. Finally, whatever
the original cause of motion, the speed theory must be
true, because two portions of matter moving adjacent
to one another along a straight line at equal rates of
speed must continue to move together so long as their
speeds remain equal and they do not receive any
interference. This, firmly grasped and rightly applied,
is the key to unbar the way into paradise after paradise
of nature ; and reveal the hidden beauties of her varied
and secret work.

May sweet reasonableness, courtesy, and peace be
with us evermore.

*The potential existed.
jSee Addenda, for maintenance of energy.



AFTER THOUGHTS.



NATURE teaches in no uncertain way the prin-
ciple of natural evolution,* illustrations are
continually before our eyes, and the doctrine
has passed as a truism into our literature, and is
taught in our schools. tAtoms, molecules, suns,
stars, planets, plants, animals, and man have been
evolved by natural processes ; and consequently
the thoughts, emotions, works, and religions of men.

Many centuries before the time of our earliest
records the parent race of the Aryan races the
Hindus, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Kelts, Teutons,
and Sklaves had passed through the earliest phases
of its religious beliefs.

Persia, or Iran, are in modern political geography
synonymous terms ; the kingdom which we call Persia
the Persians themselves call Iran. The name Iran,
on the other hand, was originally of much wider
signification than Persia, and the whole upland
country from Kurdistan to Afghanistan may, in



"The idea that all the varied structures in the world, the divergent
forms of rocks and minerals and crystals, the innumerable trees and
herbs that cover the face of the earth like a mantle, and all the animal
host of creatures great and small that dwell on the land or dart
through the air or people the waters that all these had arisen by
natural laws from a primitive unformed material was known to the
Greeks, was developed by the Romans, and even received the approval
of the early Christian Fathers, who wrote long before the idea had
been invented that the naive legends of the Old Testament were an
authoritative and literal account of the origin of the world. "Thomas
Henry Huxley," by P. C. Mitchell.

tAristotle, in Physics II., 8, wrote, "Why are not the things which
seem the result of design, merely spontaneous variations, which, being
useful, have been preserved, while others are continually eliminated
as unsuitable?"



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 67

accordance with the native use of its ancient inhabi-
tants, be called the Iranian upland. The inhabitants
of this upland, together with certain tribes of the same
race in other lands, shared with their near kinsmen
in India the name of Aryans.

Attempts have been made with considerable success
to argue from the words and beliefs found, in their
earliest records, to have been common afterwards
among one or more of the seven races, to the religious
ideas which must have existed in the parent stock.
*The beliefs of our remote ancestors may be summed
up as having resulted from that curious attitude of
mind which is now designated by the word Animism.
They had come to believe, most probably through the
influence of dreams, etc., in the existence of souls, or
ghosts, or spirits inside their own bodies ; and they had
not yet learned to discriminate in this respect between
themselves and the other animals and objects around
them which seemed to be possessed of power and
movement. In due course they produced written
records, some of these have survived in the form of Vedic
hymns. The Vedas, though they are amongst our
earliest records, show us only a very advanced stage
in the beliefs resulting from an Animistic frame of
mind. The more powerful spirits or ghosts supposed
to dwell in various external things, have become in the
Vedas objects of greater fear than the rest ; they are
endowed with higher attributes, are surrounded by
deeper mystery, and have been promoted to be kings,
as it were, among the gods. These were chiefly the
spirits supposed to animate, or to cause, the sky and
the heavenly bodies ; and the promotion of these

*Read the works of E. B. Tylor, T. W. Rhys Davids, Max M uller,
Rev. A. H. Sayce, Dr. Isaac Taylor, etc.



68 Thoughts on Natural Philosophy.



spirits had so dimmed the comparative glory of the
rest, that the Animism becomes in the Vedas what we
call Polytheism. The newer stage of belief was not
a contradiction of the older ; it was simply a further
advance along the same lines, and resting on the same
foundations. The lesser spirits, or at least most of
them, survived as naiads and dryads, spirits of the
streams and trees, demons, goblins, ogres, spirit-
messengers, and fairies, good or bad. And the old
belief in mysteriously animated objects survived, too,
in the belief in magic, in sorcery, and in charms of
various kinds.

The Vedas are the source of two vast currents
through the ocean of religious thought, one of which
flows by way of the Rig Vedas, Upanishads, etc.,
through Brahmanism (a system of religious institu-
tions, originated and elaborated by the Brahmans) to
Buddhism ; and the other by way the *Zend Avesta
through the Accadian, Semitic, and Hebrew religions
to Christianity.

Buddha altogether denied the revealed character of
the Veda, and the efficacy of the Brahmanical cere-
monies deduced from it, and rejected the claims of the
Sacerdotal class to be the repositories and divinely
appointed teachers of sacred knowledge. +The dis-
tinguishing characteristic of Buddhism was that it
started on a new line, that it looked on the deepest
questions men have to solve from an entirely different
standpoint. It swept away from the field of its vision
the whole of the great soul-theory which had hitherto

*The religious ideas indicated in the Vedas and Zend Avesta com-
bined with a more Primitive Animism and Shamanism, etc. were
more or less the ideas of the peoples dwelling in the mountains of
Media and the valleys watered by the Tigris an'd Euphrates.

-!-T. W. Rhys Davids.



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 69

so completely filled and dominated the minds of the
superstitious and of the thoughtful alike. For the
first time in the history of the world, it proclaimed a
salvation which each man could gain for himself, and
by himself, in this world, during this life, without the
least reference to God, or to gods, either great or
small.

Like the Upanishads, it placed the first importance
on knowledge; but it was no longer a knowledge of
God, it was a clear perception of the real nature, as
they supposed it to be, of men and things. And it
added to the necessity of knowledge, the necessity of
purity, of courtesy, of uprightness, of peace, and of a
universal love. The Buddhist was to let his mind
pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of
love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the
fourth. And " thus the whole wide world above,
below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to.
pervade with heart of love, far-reaching, grown great
and beyond measure."

The Buddhist doctrine is, try to get as near to
wisdom and goodness as you can in this life. Trouble
not yourself about the gods. Disturb yourself not
by curiosities or desires about any future existence.
Seek only after the fruit of the noble path of self-
culture and self-control. Early Buddhism had no
idea, just as early Christianity had not, of the principle
underlying the foundation of the higher morality of
the future, the duty which we owe, not only to our
fellow-men of to-day, but also to those of the morrow
to the race as a whole, but in the future even more
than now. Buddhists and Christians may both main-
tain, and perhaps rightly maintain, that the duty of
universal love laid down in their Scriptures can be



70 Thoughts on Natural Philosophy.

held to involve and include this modern conception ;
but neither the early Buddhists nor the early Christians
looked at the matter quite in this way. The sense of
duty to the race has sprung out of a fact only
lately become a generally received conception -the
progressive continuity of human progress. And the
corresponding doctrine of Buddhism is not that " the
thoughts of men are widened with the process of the
suns," but that there are recurring cycles of improve-
ment and decay. It is true that the Buddhist duty of
universal love is much more far-reaching as regards
the present than the corresponding duty as commonly
received in any other religion. It enfolds in its ample
embrace not only the brethren and sisters of the new
faith, not only our neighbours but every being that
has life. " As a mother, even at the risk of her own
li'fe, protects her son, her only son, so let a man
cultivate goodwill without measure toward all beings.
Let him cultivate goodwill without measure un-
hindered love and friendliness toward the whole
world, above, below, around. Standing, walking,
sitting, or lying, let him be firm in this mind so long as
he is awake : this state of heart, they say, is the best
in the world."

The Zend Avesta is the original document of the
religion of Zoroaster, and is still used by the Parsees
as their Bible and prayer book, and was written in
pahlavi. Pahlavi means Parthian. This fact points
to the conclusion that the system of writing was
developed in Parthian times, when the great nobles,
the Pahlavans ruled, and Media was their main seat,
" the Pahlav country." The political and military
institutions of the Persians are substantially those of
the Medes ; even the dress (of the Persian troops) was
borrowed from the Medes.



Thoughts on Natural Philosophy. 71

The ideas indicated in the Vedas and Zend
Avesta, combined with a more primitive Animism, and
Shamanism, were more or less the ideas of the peoples
dwelling in the mountains of Media and the valleys
watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. *About three
thousand years before our era, the fertile plain of
Babylonia was under the domination of the Accadians,
though the Semitic nomad and trader were already
beginning to make their appearance. The country
was divided into two provinces, the northern called
Accadia, and the southern Sumir, or Shinar, in
which two separate though closely allied dialects were
spoken. About two thousand years B.C., the Accadian
was gradually superseded by the Semite, and before
long the Accadian language itself became extinct,
remaining only as the sacred and learned language of
religion and law. The Semitic Assyrian adopted and
gradually transformed the religion of the Accadians,
and became the dominant power in Chaldea.
Abraham, a Semite, came out of Ur of the Chaldees ;
and the religion of the Semitic Assyrian Chaldeans
became in a modified form the religion of the Hebrews.
The word for tSabbath in the Hebrew Old Testament
is an Accadian word, and the ritual is in the main
similar to the Accadian ritual. The religion of the
Hebrews developed, under the teachings of Jesus of
Nazareth, and his Apostles, into Christianity, and the
key-note of Christianity, as of Buddhism, is love.

No matter what differences of opinion there may be
with regard to the foregoing account of the growth of

*Rev. A. H. Sayce.

fAnd the word Elohim (Gods) is plural (the translation " God" is
an arbitrary translation) probably pointing to an early use in that
plural sense.



72 Thoughts on Nafural Philosophy.

religious thought, all will agree with the conclusion
that those two religions exalt love.

Christendom, and Buddhadom, have been compared
to large trees, and their tap roots go down to the
Aryans and their Vedas, and even deeper to a still
more primitive form of religious thought.

Confucianism, and the Greek philosophies, if they
did not attain to the fullness and beauty of the theory
of love developed in Buddhism and Christianity, at
least gave indications of an idea of that principle ; and
in the religion of ancient Egypt* traces of the idea, if
not the word, however faint and elusive, may be said
to exist. This principle of love is a later and more
cultured development of earlier religious thought,
found embedded, in the written religions, in a setting
of more primitive ideas.

Max Muller has given us definitions, etymological,
historical, dogmatic, and otherwise of the word
religion ; but what is wanted to be known is, what
is religion? Writing without authority, and purely
from the point of view of a student, who has given
thought and study to this vast and interesting
subject, it appears that treligion may be said to be
love, in activity. The higher written religions seem to
sanction this definition, and one, at least, of those
religions was written with a view to promoting the
activity of love ; and informs us that it is the supreme
test by which a man may know if he is truly religious ;
and it also forms an important part of Buddhist
teaching. The written religions are comparatively

*Andrew Lang appears to think that this is true of the religion of
some savages.

fNot so much historically and comparatively, as essentially, and
apart from the more primitive ideas.



ThougJits on Natural Philosophy. 73.

modern ; for countless ages before their production,
men and women lived,* loved, mated, and reared in
love their offspring, must have done so or the race
would have perished, and were in the doing so (in spite
of many shortcomings) truly and beautifully religious ;
and that as a necessity of their being. They could
not, in a sense, help it any more than the sun could
help shining. Love for ones own flesh and blood, and
ones fellows is the very essence and perfection of
religion, and it is the result of the natural evolution of
the emotions of men and women. Love, however, is
not only a natural product, it is an art, which like other
arts may be much assisted, in its individual manifesta-
tion, by stimulation, education, study and practice. It
is natural that in the process of this slow and gradual
evolution of man, thoughts, habits, and customs, more
or less imperfect and unbeautiful, should have been
manifested both in his ways and in his written words.
The product being imperfect men and imperfect
religions. But in this as in other things, the survival
of the fittest holds good. The unfit may linger on,
both in practice, and enshrined amongst the fit in
written records ; but that which is unfit will eventually
be cast off, like autumn leaves, to find a deserved
oblivion, and the fit, the useful, and the beautiful, will
survive. The most beautiful of all, the essence and
the sum of true religion and morality, love will survive,
and go on to perfection. It is here that natural and
written religion, and philosophy, that all shades of



*In spite of many hindrances, and quaint customs, referred to, and