Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays Part 5

I have been careful to speak of the "appearance" of cyclical evolution presented by living things; for, on critical examination, it will be found that the course of vegetable and of animal life is not exactly represented by, the figure of a cycle which returns into itself. What actually happens, in all but the lowest organisms, is that one part of the growing germ (A) gives rise to tissues and organs; while another part (B) remains in its primitive condition, or is but slightly modified. The moiety A becomes the body of the adult and, sooner or later, perishes, while portions of the moiety B are detached and, as offspring, continue the life of the species. Thus, if we trace back an organism along the direct line of descent from its remotest ancestor, B, as a whole, has never suffered death; portions of it, only, have been cast off and died in each individual offspring.

Everybody is familiar with the way in which the "suckers" of a strawberry plant behave. A thin cylinder of living tissue keeps on growing at its free end, until it attains a considerable length. At [88] successive intervals, it develops buds which grow into strawberry plants; and these become independent by the death of the parts of the sucker which connect them. The rest of the sucker, however, may go on living and growing indefinitely, and, circ.u.mstances remaining favourable, there is no obvious reason why it should ever die. The living substance B, in a manner, answers to the sucker. If we could restore the continuity which was once possessed by the portions of B, contained in all the individuals of a direct line of descent, they would form a sucker, or stolon, on which these individuals would be strung, and which would never have wholly died.

A species remains unchanged so long as the potentiality of development resident in B remains unaltered; so long, e.g., as the buds of the strawberry sucker tend to become typical strawberry plants. In the case of the progressive evolution of a species, the developmental potentiality of B becomes of a higher and higher order. In retrogressive evolution, the contrary would be the case. The phenomena of atavism seem to show that retrogressive evolution that is, the return of a species to one or other of its earlier forms, is a possibility to be reckoned with. The simplification of structure, which is so common in the parasitic members of a group, however, does not properly come under this head. The worm-like, limbless Lernoea has no resemblance to any of the stages of development of the many-limbed active animals of the group to which it belongs. [89] Note 2 (p. 49).

Heracleitus says,[Greek phrase Potamo gar ouk esti dis embenai to suto]

but, to be strictly accurate, the river remains, though the water of which it is composed changes--just as a man retains his ident.i.ty though the whole substance of his body is constantly s.h.i.+fting.

This is put very well by Seneca (Ep. lvii. i. 20, Ed. Ruhkopf): "Corpora nostra rapiuntur fluminum more, quidquid vides currit c.u.m tempore; nihil ex his quae videmus manet. Ego ipse dum loquor mutari ista, mutatus sum. Hoc est quod ait Herac.l.i.tus 'In idem flumen bis non descendimus.' Manet idem fluminis nomen, aqua transmissa est. Hoc in amne manifestius est quam in homine, sed nos quoque non minus velox cursus praetervehit."

Note 3 (p. 55).

"Multa bona nostra n.o.bis nocent, timoris enim tormentum memorin reducit, providentia antic.i.p.at. Nemo tantum praesentibus miser est."

(Seneca, Ed. v. 7.)

Among the many wise and weighty aphorisms of the Roman Bacon, few sound the realities of life more deeply than "Multa bona nostra n.o.bis nocent." If there is a soul of good in things evil, it is at least equally true that there is a soul of evil in things good: for things, like men, have "les defauts de leurs qualites." It is one of the last lessons one learns from experience, but not the least important, that a [90] heavy tax is levied upon all forms of success, and that failure is one of the commonest disguises a.s.sumed by blessings.

Note 4 (p. 60).

"There is within the body of every man a soul which, at the death of the body, flies away from it like a bird out of a cage, and enters upon a new life ... either in one of the heavens or one of the h.e.l.ls or on this earth. The only exception is the rare case of a man having in this life acquired a true knowledge of G.o.d. According to the pre-Buddhistic theory, the soul of such a man goes along the path of the G.o.ds to G.o.d, and, being united with Him, enters upon an immortal life in which his individuality is not extinguished. In the latter theory his soul is directly absorbed into the Great Soul, is lost in it, and has no longer any independent existence. The souls of all other men enter, after the death of the body, upon a new existence in one or other of the many different modes of being. If in heaven or h.e.l.l, the soul itself becomes a G.o.d or demon without entering a body; all superhuman beings, save the great G.o.ds, being looked upon as not eternal, but merely temporary creatures. If the soul returns to earth it may or may not enter a new body; and this either of a human being, an animal, a plant, or even a material object. For all these are possessed of souls, and there is no essential difference between these souls and the souls of men--all being alike mere sparks of the Great Spirit, who is [91] the only real existence." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, 1881, p. 83.)

For what I have said about Indian Philosophy, I am particularly indebted to the luminous exposition of primitive Buddhism and its relations to earlier Hindu thought, which is given by Prof. Rhys Davids in his remarkable Hibbert Lectures for 1881, and Buddhism (1890). The only apology I can offer for the freedom with which I have borrowed from him in these notes, is my desire to leave no doubt as to my indebtedness. I have also found Dr. Oldenberg's Buddha (Ed. 2, 1890) very helpful. The origin of the theory of transmigration stated in the above extract is an unsolved problem. That it differs widely from the Egyptian metempsychosis is clear. In fact, since men usually people the other world with phantoms of this, the Egyptian doctrine would seem to presuppose the Indian as a more archaic belief.

Prof. Rhys Davids has fully insisted upon the ethical importance of the transmigration theory. "One of the latest speculations now being put forward among ourselves would seek to explain each man's character, and even his outward condition in life, by the character he inherited from his ancestors, a character gradually formed during a practically endless series of past existences, modified only by the conditions into which he was born, those very conditions being also, in like manner, the last result of a practically endless series of past causes. Gotama's; speculation might be stated in the same words.

But it attempted also to explain, in a way different from [92] that which would be adopted by the exponents of the modern theory, that strange problem which it is also the motive of the wonderful drama of the book of Job to explain--the fact that the actual distribution here of good fortune, or misery, is entirely independent of the moral qualities which men call good or bad. We cannot wonder that a teacher, whose whole system was so essentially an ethical reformation, should have felt it inc.u.mbent upon him to seek an explanation of this apparent injustice. And all the more so, since the belief he had inherited, the theory of the transmigration of souls, had provided a solution perfectly sufficient to any one who could accept that belief." (Hibbert Lectures, p. 93.) I should venture to suggest the subst.i.tution of "largely" for "entirely" in the foregoing pa.s.sage.

Whether a s.h.i.+p makes a good or a bad voyage is largely independent of the conduct of the captain, but it is largely affected by that conduct. Though powerless before a hurricane he may weather a bad gale.

Note 5 (P. 61).

The outward condition of the soul is, in each new birth, determined by its actions in a previous birth; but by each action in succession, and not by the balance struck after the evil has been reckoned off against the good. A good man who has once uttered a slander may spend a hundred thousand years as a G.o.d, in consequence of his goodness, and when the power of his good actions is exhausted, may be born [93] as a dumb man on account of his transgression; and a robber who has once done an act of mercy, may come to life in a king's body as the result of his virtue, and then suffer torments for ages in h.e.l.l or as a ghost without a body, or be re-born many times as a slave or an outcast, in consequence of his evil life.

"There is no escape, according to this theory, from the result of any act; though it is only the consequences of its own acts that each soul has to endure. The force has been set in motion by itself and can never stop; and its effect can never be foretold. If evil, it can never be modified or prevented, for it depends on a cause already completed, that is now for ever beyond the soul's control. There is even no continuing consciousness, no memory of the past that could guide the soul to any knowledge of its fate. The only advantage open to it is to add in this life to the sum of its good actions, that it may bear fruit with the rest. And even this can only happen in some future life under essentially them same conditions as the present one: subject, like the present one, to old age, decay, and death; and affording opportunity, like the present one, for the commission of errors, ignorances, or sins, which in their turn must inevitably produce their due effect of sickness, disability, or woe. Thus is the soul tossed about from life to life, from billow to billow in the great ocean of transmigration. And there is no escape save for the very few, who, during their birth as men, attain to a right knowledge of the Great Spirit: and thus enter into immortality, or, as the later [94] philosophers taught, are absorbed into the Divine Essence." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 85, 86.)

The state after death thus imagined by the Hindu philosophers has a certain a.n.a.logy to the purgatory of the Roman Church; except that escape from it is dependent, not on a divine decree modified, it may be, by sacerdotal or saintly intercession, but by the acts of the individual himself; and that while ultimate emergence into heavenly bliss of the good, or well-prayed for, Catholic is professedly a.s.sured, the chances in favour of the attainment of absorption, or of Nirvana, by any individual Hindu are extremely small.

Note 6 (P. 62).

"That part of the then prevalent transmigration theory which could not be proved false seemed to meet a deeply felt necessity, seemed to supply a moral cause which would explain the unequal distribution here of happiness or woe, so utterly inconsistent with the present characters of men." Gautama "still therefore talked of men's previous existence, but by no means in the way that he is generally represented to have done." What he taught was "the transmigration of character."

He held that after the death of any being, whether human or not, there survived nothing at all but that being's "Karma," the result, that is, of its mental and bodily actions. Every individual, whether human or divine, was the last inheritor and the last result of the Karma of a long series of past individuals--"a series [95] so long that its beginning is beyond the reach of calculation, and its end will be coincident with the destruction of the world." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 92.)

In the theory of evolution, the tendency of a germ to develop according to a certain specific type, e.g. of the kidney bean seed to grow into a plant having all the characters of Phaseolus vulgaris, is its "Karma." It is the "last inheritor and the last result" of all the conditions that have affected a line of ancestry which goes back for many millions of years to the time when life first appeared on the earth. The moiety B of the substance of the bean plant (see Note 1) is the last link in a once continuous chain extending from the primitive living substance: and the characters of the successive species to which it has given rise are the manifestations of its gradually modified Karma. As Prof. Rhys Davids aptly says, the snowdrop "is a snowdrop and not an oak, and just that kind of snowdrop, because it is the outcome of the Karma of an endless series of past existences."

(Hibbert Lectures, p. 114.)

Note 7 (p. 64).

"It is interesting to notice that the very point which is the weakness of the theory--the supposed concentration of the effect of the Karma in one new being--presented itself to the early Buddhists themselves as a difficulty. They avoided it, partly by explaining that it was a particular thirst in the creature dying (a craving, Tanha, which plays other [96] wise a great part in the Buddhist theory) which actually caused the birth of the new individual who was to inherit the Karma of the former one. But, how this too place, how the craving desire produced this effect, was acknowledged to be a mystery patent only to a Buddha." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, P. 95.)

Among the many parallelisms of Stoicism and Buddhism, it is curious to find one for this Tanha, "thirst," or "craving desire" for life.

Seneca writes (Epist. lxxvi. 18): "Si enim ullum aliud est bonum quam honestum, sequetur nos aviditas vitae aviditas rerum vitam instruentium: quod est intolerabile infinitum, vagum."

Note 8 (P. 66).

"The distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of Buddhism was that it started a new line, that it looked upon 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 so completely filled and dominated the minds of the superst.i.tious and 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 any the least reference to G.o.d, or to G.o.ds, either great or small. Like the Upanishads, it placed the first importance on knowledge; but it was no longer a knowledge of G.o.d, it was a clear perception of the real nature, as [97] 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 far reaching, grown great and beyond measure." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 29.)

The contemporary Greek philosophy takes an a.n.a.logous direction.

According to Heracleitus, the universe was made neither by G.o.ds nor men; but, from all eternity, has been, and to all eternity, will be, immortal fire, glowing and fading in due measure. (Mullach, Herac.l.i.ti Fragmenta, 27.) And the part a.s.signed by his successors, the Stoics, to the knowledge and the volition of the "wise man" made their Divinity (for logical thinkers) a subject for compliments, rather than a power to be reckoned with. In Hindu speculation the "Arahat," still more the "Buddha," becomes the superior of Brahma; the stoical "wise man" is, at least, the equal of Zeus.

Berkeley affirms over and over again that no idea can be formed of a soul or spirit--"If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can form any idea of power or active being; and whether he hath ideas of two princ.i.p.al powers marked by the names of will and understanding distinct from each other, as well as from a third idea of substance or being in general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subject of the aforesaid power, which is signified by the name soul or spirit.

This is what some hold but, so far as I can see, the words will, soul, spirit, do not stand for different ideas or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something which is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be like unto or represented by Any idea whatever [though it must be owned at the same time, that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind, such as willing, loving, hating, inasmuch as we know or understand the meaning of these words". (The Principles of Human Knowledge, lxxvi. See also sections lx.x.xix., cx.x.xv., cxlv.)

It is open to discussion, I think, whether it is possible to have "some notion" of that of which we can form no "idea."

Berkeley attaches several predicates to the "perceiving active being mind, spirit, soul or myself" (Parts I. II.) It is said, for example, to be "indivisible, incorporeal, unextended, and incorruptible." The predicate indivisible, though negative in form, has highly positive consequences. For, if "perceiving active being" is strictly indivisible, man's soul must be one with the Divine spirit: which is good Hindu or Stoical doctrine, but hardly orthodox Christian philosophy. If, on the other hand, the "substance" of active perceiving "being" is actually divided into the one Divine and innumerable human ent.i.ties, how can the predicate "indivisible" be rigorously applicable to it?

Taking the words cited, as they stand, the amount to the denial of the possibility of any knowledge of substance. "Matter" having been resolved into mere affections of "spirit", "spirit" melts away into an admittedly inconceivable and unknowable [99] hypostasis of thought and power--consequently the existence of anything in the universe beyond a flow of phenomena is a purely hypothetical a.s.sumption. Indeed a pyrrhonist might raise the objection that if "esse" is "percipi"

spirit itself can have no existence except as a perception, hypostatized into a "self," or as a perception of some other spirit.

In the former case, objective reality vanishes; in the latter, there would seem to be the need of an infinite series of spirits each perceiving the others.

It is curious to observe how very closely the phraseology of Berkeley sometimes approaches that of the Stoics: thus (cxlviii.) "It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they cannot see G.o.d.

. . But, alas, we need only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord of all things with a more full and clear view, than we do any of our fellow-creatures . . . we do at all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity: everything we see, hear, feel, or any wise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of the power of G.o.d" .

. . cxlix. "It is therefore plain, that nothing can be more evident to any one that is capable of the least reflection, than the existence of G.o.d, or a spirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that variety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us, on whom we have an absolute and entire dependence, in short, in whom we live and move and have our being." cl. "[But you will say hath Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they all be ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of G.o.d? ... if by Nature is [100] meant some being distinct from G.o.d, as well as from the laws of nature and things perceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound, without any intelligible meaning annexed to it.] Nature in this acceptation is a vain Chimaera introduced by those heathens, who had not just notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of G.o.d."

Compare Seneca (De Beneficiis, iv. 7):

"Natura, inquit, haec mihi praestat. Non intelligis te, quum hoc dicis, mutare Nomen Deo? Quid enim est aliud Natura quam Deus, et divina ratio, toti mundo et partibus ejus inserta? Quoties voles tibi licet aliter hunc auctorem rerum nostrarum compellare, et Jovem illum optimum et maximum rite dices, et tonantem, et statorem: qui non, ut historici tradiderunt, ex eo quod post votum susceptum acies Romanorum fugientum stet.i.t, sed quod stant beneficio ejus omnina, stator, stabilitorque est: hunc eundem et fatum si dixeris, non mentieris, nam quum fatum nihil aliud est, quam series implexa causarum, ille est prima omnium causa, ea qua caeterae pendent." It would appear, therefore, that the good Bishop is somewhat hard upon the "heathen,"

of whose words his own might be a paraphrase.

There is yet another direction in which Berkeley's philosophy, I will not say agrees with Gautama's, but at any rate helps to make a fundamental dogma of Buddhism intelligible.

"I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and s.h.i.+ft the scene as often as I think fit. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy: and by the same power [101] it is obliterated, and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active.

This much is certain and grounded on experience. . ." (Principles, xxviii.)

A good many of us, I fancy, have reason to think that experience tells them very much the contrary; and are painfully familiar with the obsession of the mind by ideas which cannot be obliterated by any effort of the will and steadily refuse to make way for others. But what I desire to point out is that if Gautama was equally confident that he could "make and unmake" ideas--then, since he had resolved self into a group of ideal phantoms--the possibility of abolis.h.i.+ng self by volition naturally followed.

Note 9 (P. 68).

According to Buddhism, the relation of one life to the next is merely that borne by the flame of one lamp to the flame of another lamp which is set alight by it. To the "Arahat" or adept "no outward form, no compound thing, no creature, no creator, no existence of any kind, must appear to be other than a temporary collocation of its component parts, fated inevitably to be dissolved."--(Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 211.)

The self is nothing but a group of phenomena held together by the desire of life; when that desire shall have ceased, "the Karma of that particular chain of lives will cease to influence any longer any distinct individual, and there will be no more birth; [102] for birth, decay, and death, grief, lamentation, and despair will have come, so far as regards that chain of lives, for ever to an end."

The state of mind of the Arahat in which the desire of life has ceased is Nirvana. Dr. Oldenberg has very acutely and patiently considered the various interpretations which have been attached to "Nirvana" in the work to which I have referred (pp. 285 et seq.). The result of his and other discussions of the question may I think be briefly stated thus:

1. Logical deduction from the predicates attached to the term "Nirvana" strips it of all reality, conceivability, or perceivability, whether by G.o.ds or men. For all practical purposes, therefore, it comes to exactly the same thing as annihilation.

2. But it is not annihilation in the ordinary sense, inasmuch as it could take place in the living Arahat or Buddha.

3. And, since, for the faithful Buddhist, that which was abolished in the Arahat was the possibility of further pain, sorrow, or sin; and that which was attained was perfect peace; his mind directed itself exclusively to this joyful consummation, and personified the negation of all conceivable existence and of all pain into a positive bliss.

This was all the more easy, as Gautama refused to give any dogmatic definition of Nirvana. There is something a.n.a.logous in the way in which people commonly talk of the "happy release" of a man who has been long suffering from mortal disease. According to their own views, it must always be extremely doubtful whether the man will be any happier after the "release" [103] than before. But they do not choose to look at the matter in this light.