LITMIR.BIZ

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and rabbits, to prove that heat is generated rather by the nervous system than by the respiratory organs. Without following this eminent surgeon into all its details, I may be permitted to observe, 1st, That, as a mere matter of history, no great physiological truth has ever yet been discovered, nor has any great physiological fallacy been destroyed, by such limited experiments on a single class of animals; and this is partly because in physiology a crucial instance is impracticable, owing to the fact that we deal with resisting and living bodies, and partly because every experiment produces an abnormal condition, and thus lets in fresh causes, the operation of which is incalculable; unless, as often happens in the inorganic world, we can control the whole phenomenon. 2nd, That the other department of the organic world, namely, the vegetable kingdom, has, so far as we are aware, no nervous system, but nevertheless possesses heat; and we moreover know that the heat is a product of oxygen and carbon (see note 32 to chapter ii.). 3d, That the evidence of travellers respecting the different sorts of food, and the different quantities of food, used in hot countries and in cold ones, is explicable by the respiratory and chemical theories of the origin of animal heat, but is inexplicable by the theory of the nervous origin of heat.

       CHAPTER III

      EXAMINATION OF THE METHOD EMPLOYED BY METAPHYSICIANS FOR DISCOVERING MENTAL LAWS

      The evidence that I have collected seems to establish two leading facts, which, unless they can be impugned, are the necessary basis of universal history. The first fact is, that in the civilizations out of Europe, the powers of nature have been far greater than in those in Europe. The second fact is, that those powers have worked immense mischief; and that while one division of them has caused an unequal distribution of wealth, another division of them has caused an unequal distribution of thought, by concentrating attention upon subjects which inflame the imagination. So far as the experience of the past can guide us, we may say, that in all the extra European civilizations, these obstacles are insuperable: certainly no nation has ever yet overcome them. But Europe, being constructed upon a smaller plan than the other quarters of the world – being also in a colder region, having a less exuberant soil, a less imposing aspect, and displaying in all her physical phenomena much greater feebleness – it was easier for Man to discard the superstitions which Nature suggested to his imagination; and it was also easier for him to effect, not, indeed, a just division of wealth, but something nearer to it, than was practicable in the older countries.

      Hence it is that, looking at the history of the world as a whole, the tendency has been, in Europe, to subordinate nature to man; out of Europe, to subordinate man to nature. To this there are, in barbarous countries, several exceptions; but in civilized countries the rule has been universal. The great division, therefore, between European civilization and non-European civilization, is the basis of the philosophy of history, since it suggests the important consideration, that if we would understand, for instance, the history of India, we must make the external world our first study, because it has influenced man more than man has influenced it. If, on the other hand, we would understand the history of a country like France or England, we must make man our principal study, because nature being comparatively weak, every step in the great progress has increased the dominion of the human mind over the agencies of the external world. Even in those countries where the power of man has reached the highest point, the pressure of nature is still immense; but it diminishes in each succeeding generation, because our increasing knowledge enables us not so much to control nature as to foretell her movements, and thus obviate many of the evils she would otherwise occasion. How successful our efforts have been, is evident from the fact, that the average duration of life constantly becomes longer, and the number of inevitable dangers fewer; and what makes this the more remarkable is, that the curiosity of men is keener, and their contact with each other closer, than in any former period; so that while apparent hazards are multiplied, we find from experience that real hazards are, on the whole, diminished.287

      If, therefore, we take the largest possible view of the history of Europe, and confine ourselves entirely to the primary cause of its superiority over other parts of the world, we must resolve it into the encroachment of the mind of man upon the organic and inorganic forces of nature. To this all other causes are subordinate.288 For we have seen that wherever the powers of nature reached a certain height, the national civilization was irregularly developed, and the advance of the civilization stopped. The first essential was, to limit the interference of these physical phenomena; and that was most likely to be accomplished where the phenomena were feeblest and least imposing. This was the case with Europe; it is accordingly in Europe alone, that man has really succeeded in taming the energies of nature, bending them to his own will, turning them aside from their ordinary course, and compelling them to minister to his happiness, and subserve the general purposes of human life.

      All around us are the traces of this glorious and successful struggle. Indeed, it seems as if in Europe there was nothing man feared to attempt. The invasions of the sea repelled, and whole provinces, as in the case of Holland, rescued from its grasp, mountains cut through and turned into level roads; soils of the most obstinate sterility becoming exuberant, from the mere advance of chemical knowledge; while, in regard to electric phenomena, we see the subtlest, the most rapid, and the most mysterious of all forces, made the medium of thought, and obeying even the most capricious behests of the human mind.

      In other instances, where the products of the external world have been refractory, man has succeeded in destroying what he could hardly hope to subjugate. The most cruel diseases, such as the plague, properly so called, and the leprosy of the Middle Ages,289 have entirely disappeared from the civilized parts of Europe; and it is scarcely possible that they should ever again be seen there. Wild beasts and birds of prey have been extirpated, and are no longer allowed to infest the haunts of civilised men. Those frightful famines, by which Europe used to be ravaged several times in every century,290 have ceased; and so successfully have we grappled with them, that there is not the slightest fear of their ever returning with any thing like their former severity. Indeed, our resources are now so great, that we could at worst, only suffer from a slight and temporary scarcity: since, in the present state of knowledge, the evil would be met at the outset by remedies which chemical science could easily suggest.291

      It is hardly necessary to notice how, in numerous other instances, the progress of European civilization has been marked by the diminished influence of the external world: I mean, of course, those peculiarities of the external world which have an existence independent of the wishes of man, and were not created by him. The most advanced nations do, in their present state, owe comparatively little to those original features of nature which, in every civilization out of Europe, exercised unlimited power. Thus, in Asia and elsewhere, the course of trade, the extent of commerce, and many similar circumstances, were determined by the existence of rivers, by the facility with which they could be navigated, and by the number and goodness of the adjoining harbours. But, in Europe, the determining cause is, not so much these physical peculiarities, as the skill and energy of man. Formerly the richest countries were those in which nature was most bountiful; now the richest countries are those in which man is most active. For, in our age of the world, if nature is parsimonious, we know how to compensate her deficiencies. If a river is difficult to navigate, or a country difficult to traverse, our engineers can correct the error, and remedy the evil. If we have no rivers, we make canals; if we have no natural harbours, we make artificial ones. And so marked is this tendency to impair the authority of natural phenomena, that it is seen even in the distribution of the people, since, in the most civilized parts of Europe, the population of the towns is everywhere outstripping that of the country; and it is evident that the more men congregate in great cities, the more they will become accustomed to draw their materials of thought from the business of human life, and the less attention they will pay to those peculiarities of nature, which are the fertile source of superstition, and by which, in every civilization out of Europe, the progress of man was arrested.

      From these facts it may be fairly inferred, that the advance of European civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws, and an increasing influence of mental laws. The complete proof of this

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