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The Pleasures of Life

S >> Sir John Lubbock >> The Pleasures of Life




As men, however, have risen in civilization, their religion has risen with
them; they have by degrees acquired higher and purer conceptions of divine
power.

We are only just beginning to realize that a loving and merciful Father
would not resent honest error, not even perhaps the attribution to him of
such odious injustice. Yet what can be clearer than Christ's teaching on
this point. He impressed it over and over again on his disciples. "The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

"If," says Ruskin, "for every rebuke that we titter of men's vices, we put
forth a claim upon their hearts; if, for every assertion of God's demands
from them, we should substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side
by side, with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises
of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful
Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always
unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive; we were to show them a near,
visible, inevitable, out all-beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the
earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting
in the market-place."

But it must not be supposed that those who doubt whether the ultimate
truth of the Universe can be expressed in human words, or whether, even if
it could, we should be able to comprehend it, undervalue the importance of
religious study. Quite the contrary. Their doubts arise not from pride,
but from humility: not because they do not appreciate divine truth, but on
the contrary they doubt whether we can appreciate it sufficiently, and are
sceptical whether the infinite can be reduced to the finite.

We may be sure that whatever may be right about religion, to quarrel over
it must be wrong. "Let others wrangle," said St. Augustine, "I will
wonder."

Those who suspend their judgment are not on that account sceptics, and it
is often those who think they know most, who are especially troubled by
doubts and anxiety.

It was Wordsworth who wrote

"Great God, I had rather be
A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."

In religion, as with children at night, it is darkness and ignorance which
create dread; light and love cast out fear.

In looking forward to the future we may fairly hope with Ruskin that "the
charities of more and more widely extended peace are preparing the way for
a Christian Church which shall depend neither on ignorance for its
continuance, nor on controversy for its progress, but shall reign at once
in light and love."

[1] Shelley.

[2] Arnold. _Pearls of the Faith_.

[3] Tennyson.

[4] Wordsworth.

[5] Chaucer.

[6] Fuller.




CHAPTER XII.

THE HOPE OF PROGRESS.


"To what then may we not look forward, when a spirit of scientific
inquiry shall have spread through those vast regions in which the
progress of civilization, its sure precursor, is actually commenced
and in active progress? And what may we not expect from the exertions
of powerful minds called into action under circumstances totally
different from any which have yet existed in the world, and over an
extent of territory far surpassing that which has hitherto produced
the whole harvest of human intellect."

HERSCHEL.




CHAPTER XII.

THE HOPE OF PROGRESS.


There are two lines, if not more, in which we may look forward with hope
to progress in the future. In the first place, increased knowledge of
nature, of the properties of matter, and of the phenomena which surround
us, may afford to our children advantages far greater even than those
which we ourselves enjoy. Secondly, the extension and improvement of
education, the increasing influence of Science and Art, of Poetry and
Music, of Literature and Religion,--of all the powers which are tending to
good, will, we may reasonably hope, raise man and make him more master of
himself, more able to appreciate and enjoy his advantages, and to realize
the truth of the Italian proverb, that wherever light is, there is joy.

One consideration which has greatly tended to retard progress has been the
floating idea that there was some sort of ingratitude, and even impiety,
in attempting to improve on what Divine Providence had arranged for us.
Thus Prometheus was said to have incurred the wrath of Jove for bestowing
on mortals the use of fire; and other improvements only escaped similar
punishment when the ingenuity of priests attributed them to the special
favor of some particular deity. This feeling has not even yet quite died
out. Even I can remember the time when many excellent persons had a
scruple or prejudice against the use of chloroform, because they fancied
that pain was ordained under certain circumstances.

We are told that in early Saxon days Edwin, King of Northumbria, called
his nobles and his priests around him, to discuss whether a certain
missionary should be heard or not. The king was doubtful. At last there
rose an old chief, and said:--"You know, O King, how, on a winter evening,
when you are sitting at supper in your hall, with your company around you,
when the night is dark and dreary, when the rain and the snow rage
outside, when the hall inside is lighted and warm with a blazing fire,
sometimes it happens that a sparrow flies into the bright hall out of the
dark night, flies through the hall and then flies out at the other end
into the dark night again. We see him for a few moments, but we know not
whence he came nor whither he goes in the blackness of the storm outside.
So is the life of man. It appears for a short space in the warmth and
brightness of this life, but what came before this life, or what is to
follow this life, we know not. If, therefore, these new teachers can
enlighten us as to the darkness that went before, and the darkness that is
to come after, let us hear what they have to teach us."

It is often said, however, that great and unexpected as recent discoveries
have been, there are certain ultimate problems which must ever remain
unsolved. For my part, I would prefer to abstain from laying down any such
limitations. When Park asked the Arabs what became of the sun at night,
and whether the sun was always the same, or new each day, they replied
that such a question was foolish, being entirely beyond the reach of human
investigation.

M. Comte, in his _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, as recently as 1842,
laid it down as an axiom regarding the heavenly bodies, "We may hope to
determine their forms, distances, magnitude, and movements, but we shall
never by any means be able to study their chemical composition or
mineralogical structure." Yet within a few years this supposed
impossibility has been actually accomplished, showing how unsafe it is to
limit the possibilities of science. [1]

It is, indeed, as true now as in the time of Newton, that the great ocean
of truth lies undiscovered before us. I often wish that some President of
the Royal Society, or of the British Association, would take for the theme
of his annual address "The things we do not know." Who can say on the
verge of what discoveries we are perhaps even now standing! It is
extraordinary how slight a margin may stand for years between Man and some
important improvement. Take the case of the electric light, for instance.
It had been known for years that if a carbon rod be placed in an exhausted
glass receiver, and a current of electricity be passed through it the
carbon glowed with an intense light, but on the other hand it became so
hot that the glass burst. The light, therefore, was useless, because the
lamp burst as soon as it was lighted. Edison hit on the idea that if you
made the carbon filament fine enough, you would get rid of the heat and
yet have abundance of light. Edison's right to his patent has been
contested on this very ground. It has been said that the mere introduction
of so small a difference as the replacement of a thin rod by a fine
filament was so slight an item that it could not be patented. The
improvements by Swan, Lane Fox, and others, though so important as a
whole, have been made step by step.

Or take again the discovery of anaesthetics. At the beginning of the
century Sir Humphrey discovered laughing gas, as it was then called. He
found that it produced complete insensibility to pain and yet did not
injure health. A tooth was actually taken out under its influence, and of
course without suffering. These facts were known to our chemists, they
were explained to the students in our great hospitals, and yet for half a
century the obvious application occurred to no one. Operations continued
to be performed as before, patients suffered the same horrible tortures,
and yet the beneficent element was in our hands, its divine properties
were known, but it never occurred to any one to make use of it.

I may give one more illustration. Printing is generally said to have been
discovered in the fifteenth century; and so it was for all practical
purposes. But in fact printing was known long before. The Romans used
stamps; on the monuments of Assyrian kings the name of the reigning
monarch may be found duly printed. What then is the difference? One
little, but all-important step. The real inventor of printing was the man
into whose mind flashed the fruitful idea of having separate stamps for
each letter, instead of for separate words. How slight seems the
difference, and yet for 3000 years the thought occurred to no one. Who can
tell what other discoveries, as simple and yet as far-reaching, lie at
this very moment under our very eyes!

Archimedes said that if you would give him room to stand on, he would move
the earth. One truth leads to another; each discovery renders possible
another, and, what is more, a higher.

We are but beginning to realize the marvelous range and complexity of
Nature. I have elsewhere called attention to this with special reference
to the problematical organs of sense possessed by many animals. [2]

There is every reason to hope that future studies will throw much light on
these interesting structures. We may, no doubt, expect much from the
improvement in our microscopes, the use of new re-agents, and of
mechanical appliances; but the ultimate atoms of which matter is composed
are so infinitesimally minute, that it is difficult to foresee any manner
in which we may hope for a final solution of these problems.

Loschmidt, who has since been confirmed by Stoney and Sir W. Thomson,
calculates that each of the ultimate atoms of matter is at most 1/50000000
of an inch in diameter. Under these circumstances we cannot, it would
seem, hope at present for any great increase of our knowledge of atoms by
improvements in the microscope. With our present instruments we can
perceive lines ruled on glass which are 1/90000 of an inch apart; but
owing to the properties of light itself, it would appear that we cannot
hope to be able to perceive objects which are much less than 1/100000 of
an inch in diameter. Our microscopes may, no doubt, be improved, but the
limitation lies not in the imperfection of our optical appliances, but in
the nature of light itself.

It has been calculated that a particle of albumen 1/80000 of an inch in
diameter contains no less than 125,000,000 of molecules. In a simpler
compound the number would be much greater; in water, for instance, no less
than 8,000,000,000. Even then, if we could construct microscopes far more
powerful than any which we now possess, they could not enable us to obtain
by direct vision any idea of the ultimate organization of matter. The
smallest sphere of organic matter which could be clearly defined with our
most powerful microscopes may be, in reality, very complex; may be built
up of many millions of molecules, and it follows that there may be an
almost infinite number of structural characters in organic tissues which
we can at present foresee no mode of examining. [3]

Again, it has been shown that animals hear sounds which are beyond the
range of our hearing, and I have proved they can perceive the ultra-violet
rays, which are invisible to our eyes. [4]

Now, as every ray of homogeneous light which we can perceive at all,
appears to us as a distinct color, it becomes probable that these
ultra-violet rays must make themselves apparent to animals as a distinct
and separate color (of which we can form no idea), but as different from
the rest as red is from yellow, or green from violet. The question also
arises whether white light to these creatures would differ from our white
light in containing this additional color.

These considerations cannot but raise the reflection how different the
world may--I was going to say must--appear to other animals from what it
does to us. Sound is the sensation produced on us when the vibrations of
the air strike on the drum of our ear. When they are few, the sound is
deep; as they increase in number, it becomes shriller and shriller; but
when they reach 40,000 in a second, they cease to be audible. Light is the
effect produced on us when waves of light strike on the eye. When 400
millions of millions of vibrations of ether strike the retina in a second,
they produce red, and as the number increases the color passes into
orange, then yellow, green, blue, and violet. But between 40,000
vibrations in a second and 400 millions of millions we have no organ of
sense capable of receiving the impression. Yet between these limits any
number of sensations may exist. We have five senses, and sometimes fancy
that no others are possible. But it is obvious that we cannot measure the
infinite by our own narrow limitations.

Moreover, looking at the question from the other side, we find in animals
complex organs of sense, richly supplied with nerves, but the function of
which we are as yet powerless to explain. There may be fifty other senses
as different from ours as sound is from sight; and even within the
boundaries of our own senses there may be endless sounds which we cannot
hear, and colors, as different as red from green, of which we have no
conception. These and a thousand other questions remain for solution. The
familiar world which surrounds us may be a totally different place to
other animals. To them it may be full of music which we cannot hear, of
color which we cannot see, of sensations which we cannot conceive. To
place stuffed birds and beasts in glass cases, to arrange insects in
cabinets, and dried plants in drawers, is merely the drudgery and
preliminary of study; to watch their habits, to understand their relations
to one another, to study their instincts and intelligence, to ascertain
their adaptations and their relations to the forces of Nature, to realize
what the world appears to them; these constitute, as it seems to me at
least, the true interest of natural history, and may even give us the clue
to senses and perceptions of which at present we have no conception. [5]

From this point of view the possibilities of progress seem to me to be
almost unlimited.

So far again as the actual condition of man is concerned, the fact that
there has been some advance cannot, I think, be questioned.

In the Middle Ages, for instance, culture and refinement scarcely existed
beyond the limits of courts, and by no means always there. The life in
English, French, and German castles was rough and almost barbarous. Mr.
Galton has expressed the opinion, which I am not prepared to question,
that the population of Athens, taken as a whole, was as superior to us as
we are to Australian savages. But even if that be so, our civilization,
such as it is, is more diffused, so that unquestionably the general
European level is much higher.

Much, no doubt, is owing to the greater facility of access to the
literature of our country, to that literature, in the words of Macaulay,
"the brightest, the purest, the most durable of all the glories of our
country; to that Literature, so rich in precious truth and precious
fiction; to that Literature which boasts of the prince of all poets, and
of the prince of all philosophers; to that Literature which has exercised
an influence wider than that of our commerce, and mightier than that of
our arms."

Few of us make the most of our minds. The body ceases to grow in a few
years; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.

The onward progress of the future will not, we may be sure, be confined to
mere material discoveries. We feel that we are on the road to higher
mental powers; that problems which now seem to us beyond the range of
human thought will receive their solution, and open the way to still
further advance. Progress, moreover, we may hope, will be not merely
material, not merely mental, but moral also.

It is natural that we should feel a pride in the beauty of England, in the
size of our cities, the magnitude of our commerce, the wealth of our
country, the vastness of our Empire. But the true glory of a nation does
not consist in the extent of its dominion, in the fertility of the soil,
or the beauty of Nature, but rather in the moral and intellectual
pre-eminence of the people.

And yet how few of us, rich or poor, have made ourselves all we might be.
If he does his best, as Shakespeare says, "What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and movement, how
express and admirable!" Few indeed, as yet, can be said to reach this high
ideal.

The Hindoos have a theory that after death animals live again in a
different form; those that have done well in a higher, those that have
done ill in a lower grade. To realize this is, they find, a powerful
incentive to a virtuous life. But whether it be true of a future life or
not, it is certainly true of our present existence. If we do our best for
a day, the next morning we shall rise to a higher life; while if we give
way to our passions and temptations, we take with equal certainty a step
downward toward a lower nature.

It is an interesting illustration of the Unity of Man, and an
encouragement to those of us who have no claims to genius, that, though of
course there have been exceptions, still on the whole, periods of progress
have generally been those when a nation has worked and felt together; the
advance has been due not entirely to the efforts of a few great men, but
also of a thousand little men; not to a single genius, but to a national
effort.

Think, indeed, what might be.

"Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year." [6]

Our life is surrounded with mystery, our very world is a speck in
boundless space; and not only the period of our own individual life, but
that of the whole human race is, as it were, but a moment in the eternity
of time. We cannot imagine any origin, nor foresee the conclusion.

But though we may not as yet perceive any line of research which can give
us a clue to the solution, in another sense we may hold that every
addition to our knowledge is one small step toward the great revelation.

Progress may be more slow, or more rapid. It may come to others and not to
us. It will not come to us if we do not strive to deserve it. But come it
surely will.

"Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay,
Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright." [7]

The future of man is full of hope, and who can foresee the limits of his
destiny?

[1] Lubbock. _Fifty Years of Science_.

[2] _The Senses of Animals_.

[3] Lubbock. _Fifty Years of Science_.

[4] _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_.

[5] Lubbock. _The Senses of Animals_.

[6] Tennyson.

[7] Swinburne.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE DESTINY OF MAN.


"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."--ROMANS
viii. 18.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE DESTINY OF MAN.


But though we have thus a sure and certain hope of progress for the race,
still, as far as man is individually concerned, with advancing years we
gradually care less and less, for many things which gave us the greatest
pleasure in youth. On the other hand, if our time has been well used, if
we have warmed both hands wisely "before the fire of life," we may gain
even more than we lose. If our strength becomes less, we feel also the
less necessity for exertion. Hope is gradually replaced by memory: and
whether this adds to our happiness or not depends on what our life has
been.

There are of course some lives which diminish in value as old age
advances, in which one pleasure fades after another, and even those which
remain gradually lose their zest; but there are others which gain in
richness and peace all, and more, than that of which time robs them.

The pleasures of youth may excel in keenness and in zest, but they have at
the best a tinge of anxiety and unrest; they cannot have the fulness and
depth which may accompany the consolations of age, and are amongst the
richest rewards of an unselfish life.

For as with the close of the day, so with that of life; there may be
clouds, and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening may be beautiful.

Old age has a rich store of memories. Life is full of

"Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past." [1]

Swedenborg imagines that in heaven the angels are advancing continually to
the spring-time of their youth, so that those who have lived longest are
really the youngest; and have we not all had friends who seem to fulfil
this idea? who are in reality--that is in mind--as fresh as a child: of
whom it may be said with more truth than of Cleopatra that

"Age cannot wither nor custom stale
Their infinite variety."

"When I consider old age," says Cicero, "I find four causes why it is
thought miserable: one, that it calls us away from the transaction of
affairs; the second, that it renders the body more feeble; the third, that
it deprives us of almost all pleasures; the fourth, that it is not very
far from death. Of these causes let us see, if you please, how great and
how reasonable each of them is."

To be released from the absorbing affairs of life, to feel that one has
earned a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in itself no evil.

To the second complaint against old age, I have already referred in
speaking of Health.

The third is that it has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed
it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the
higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather,
they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements
of our lower nature.

Then, indeed, it might be said that "Man is the sun of the world; more
than the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and
heat worth gauge or measure." [2]

"Single," says Manu, "is each man born into the world; single he dies;
single he receives the rewards of his good deeds; and single the
punishment of his sins. When he dies his body lies like a fallen tree upon
the earth, but his virtue accompanies his soul. Wherefore let Man harvest
and garner virtue, that so he may have an inseparable companion in that
gloom which all must pass through, and which it is so hard to traverse."

Is it not extraordinary that many men will deliberately take a road which
they know is, to say the least, not that of happiness? That they prefer to
make others miserable, rather than themselves happy?

Plato, in the Phaedrus, explains this by describing Man as a Composite
Being, having three natures, and compares him to a pair of winged horses
and a charioteer. "Of the two horses one is noble and of noble origin, the
other ignoble and of ignoble origin; and the driving, as might be
expected, is no easy matter." The noble steed endeavors to raise the
chariot, but the ignoble one struggles to drag it down.

"Man," says Shelly, "is an instrument over which a series of external and
internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing
wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing
melody."

Cicero mentions the approach of death as the fourth drawback of old age.
To many minds the shadow of the end is ever present, like the coffin in
the Egyptian feast, and overclouds all the sunshine of life. But ought we
so to regard death?

Shelly's beautiful lines,

"Life, like a Dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until death tramples it to fragments,"

contain, as it seems to me at least, a double error. Life need not stain
the white radiance of eternity; nor does death necessarily trample it to
fragments.

Man has, says Coleridge,

"Three treasures,--love and light
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death."

Death is "the end of all, the remedy of many, the wish of divers men,
deserving better of no men than of those to whom she came before she was
called." [3]

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