Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of
human life - Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental
stimulants on the human frame, illustrated in various instances -
Conjectures not founded on any indications in the past not to be
considered as philosophical conjectures - Mr Godwin's and Mr
Condorcet's conjecture respecting the approach of man towards
immortality on earth, a curious instance of the inconsistency of
scepticism.
MR GODWIN'S conjecture respecting the future approach of man
towards immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a
chapter which professes to remove the objection to his system of
equality from the principle of population. Unless he supposes the
passion between the sexes to decrease faster than the duration of
life increases, the earth would be more encumbered than ever. But
leaving this difficulty to Mr Godwin, let us examine a few of the
appearances from which the probable immortality of man is
inferred.
To prove the power of the mind over the body, Mr Godwin
observes:
How often do we find a piece of good news dissipating a
distemper? How common is the remark that those accidents which
are to the indolent a source of disease are forgotten and
extirpated in the busy and active? I walk twenty miles in an
indolent and half determined temper and am extremely fatigued. I
walk twenty miles full of ardour, and with a motive that
engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as when I
began my journey. Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a
letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary
revolutions in our frame, accelerates the circulation, causes the
heart to palpitate, the tongue to refuse its office, and has been
known to occasion death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. There
is nothing indeed of which the physician is more aware than of
the power of the mind in assisting or reading convalescence.
The instances here mentioned are chiefly instances of the
effects of mental stimulants on the bodily frame. No person has
ever for a moment doubted the near, though mysterious, connection
of mind and body. But it is arguing totally without knowledge of
the nature of stimulants to suppose, either that they can be
applied continually with equal strength, or if they could be so
applied, for a time, that they would not exhaust and wear out the
subject. In some of the cases here noticed, the strength of the
stimulus depends upon its novelty and unexpectedness. Such a
stimulus cannot, from its nature, be repeated often with the same
effect, as it would by repetition lose that property which gives
it its strength.
In the other cases, the argument is from a small and partial
effect, to a great and general effect, which will in numberless
instances be found to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning. The
busy and active man may in some degree counteract, or what is
perhaps nearer the truth, may disregard those slight disorders of
frame which fix the attention of a man who has nothing else to
think of; but this does not tend to prove that activity of mind
will enable a man to disregard a high fever, the smallpox, or the
plague.
The man who walks twenty miles with a motive that engrosses
his soul does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he
comes in; but double his motive, and set him to walk another
twenty miles, quadruple it, and let him start a third time, and
so on; and the length of his walk will ultimately depend upon
muscle and not mind. Powell, for a motive of ten guineas, would
have walked further probably than Mr Godwin, for a motive of half
a million. A motive of uncommon power acting upon a frame of
moderate strength would, perhaps, make the man kill himself by
his exertions, but it would not make him walk a hundred miles in
twenty-four hours. This statement of the case shews the fallacy
of supposing that the person was really not at all tired in his
first walk of twenty miles, because he did not appear to be so,
or, perhaps, scarcely felt any fatigue himself. The mind cannot
fix its attention strongly on more than one object at once. The
twenty thousand pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not
attend to any slight soreness of foot, or stiffness of limb. But
had he been really as fresh and as alert, as when he first set
off, he would be able to go the second twenty miles with as much
ease as the first, and so on, the third, &c. Which leads to a
palpable absurdity. When a horse of spirit is nearly half tired,
by the stimulus of the spur, added to the proper management of
the bit, he may be put so much upon his mettle, that he would
appear to a standerby, as fresh and as high spirited as if he had
not gone a mile. Nay, probably, the horse himself, while in the
heat and passion occasioned by this stimulus, would not feel any
fatigue; but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and
experience, to argue from such an appearance that, if the
stimulus were continued, the horse would never be tired. The cry
of a pack of hounds will make some horses, after a journey of
forty miles on the road, appear as fresh, and as lively, as when
they first set out. Were they then to be hunted, no perceptible
abatement would at first be felt by their riders in their
strength and spirits, but towards the end of a hard day, the
previous fatigue would have its full weight and effect, and make
them tire sooner. When I have taken a long walk with my gun, and
met with no success, I have frequently returned home feeling a
considerable degree of uncomfortableness from fatigue. Another
day, perhaps, going over nearly the same extent of ground with a
good deal of sport, I have come home fresh, and alert. The
difference in the sensation of fatigue upon coming in, on the
different days, may have been very striking, but on the following
mornings I have found no such difference. I have not perceived
that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the
morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning.
In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act
rather by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than
by really and truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind
had really counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel
tired the next morning? if the stimulus of the hounds had as
completely overcome the fatigue of the journey in reality, as it
did in appearance, why should the horse be tired sooner than if
he had not gone the forty miles? I happen to have a very bad fit
of the toothache at the time I am writing this. In the eagerness
of composition, I every now and then, for a moment or two, forget
it. Yet I cannot help thinking that the process, which causes the
pain, is still going forwards, and that the nerves which carry
the information of it to the brain are even during these moments
demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations.
The multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps
prevent their admission, or overcome them for a time when
admitted, till a shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other
vibration to the rout, destroys the vividness of my argumentative
conceptions, and rides triumphant in the brain. In this case, as
in the others, the mind seems to have little or no power in
counteracting or curing the disorder, but merely possesses a
power, if strongly excited, of fixing its attention on other
subjects.
I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind
has no tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state. So
close and intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be
highly extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's
functions. But, perhaps, upon a comparison, the body has more
effect upon the mind than the mind upon the body. The first
object of the mind is to act as purveyor to the wants of the
body. When these wants are completely satisfied, an active mind
is indeed apt to wander further, to range over the fields of
science, or sport in the regions of. Imagination, to fancy that
it has 'shuffled off this mortal coil', and is seeking its
kindred element. But all these efforts are like the vain
exertions of the hare in the fable. The slowly moving tortoise,
the body, never fails to overtake the mind, however widely and
extensively it may have ranged, and the brightest and most
energetic intellects, unwillingly as they may attend to the first
or second summons, must ultimately yield the empire of the brain
to the calls of hunger, or sink with the exhausted body in sleep.
It seems as if one might say with certainty that if a
medicine could be found to immortalize the body there would be no
fear of its [not] being accompanied by the immortality of the
mind. But the immortality of the mind by no means seems to infer
the immortality of the body. On the contrary, the greatest
conceivable energy of mind would probably exhaust and destroy the
strength of the body. A temperate vigour of mind appears to be
favourable to health, but very great intellectual exertions tend
rather, as has been often observed, to wear out the scabbard.
Most of the instances which Mr Godwin has brought to prove the
power of the mind over the body, and the consequent probability
of the immortality of man, are of this latter description, and
could such stimulants be continually applied, instead of tending
to immortalize, they would tend very rapidly to destroy the human
frame.
The probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his
animal frame comes next under Mr Godwin's consideration, and he
concludes by saying, that the voluntary power of some men, in
this respect, is found to extend to various articles in which
other men are impotent. But this is reasoning against an almost
universal rule from a few exceptions; and these exceptions seem
to be rather tricks, than powers that may be exerted to any good
purpose. I have never heard of any man who could regulate his
pulse in a fever, and doubt much, if any of the persons here
alluded to have made the smallest perceptible progress in the
regular correction of the disorders of their frames and the
consequent prolongation of their lives.
Mr Godwin says, 'Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to
conclude, that, because a certain species of power is beyond the
train of our present observation, that it is beyond the limits of
the human mind.' I own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect
widely different from Mr Godwin's. The only distinction that I
see, between a philosophical conjecture, and the assertions of
the Prophet Mr Brothers, is, that one is founded upon indications
arising from the train of our present observations, and the other
has no foundation at all. I expect that great discoveries are yet
to take place in all the branches of human science, particularly
in physics; but the moment we leave past experience as the
foundation of our conjectures concerning the future, and, still
more, if our conjectures absolutely contradict past experience,
we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty, and any one
supposition is then just as good as another. If a person were to
tell me that men would ultimately have eyes and hands behind them
as well as before them, I should admit the usefulness of the
addition, but should give as a reason for my disbelief of it,
that I saw no indications whatever in the past from which I could
infer the smallest probability of such a change. If this be not
allowed a valid objection, all conjectures are alike, and all
equally philosophical. I own it appears to me that in the train
of our present observations, there are no more genuine
indications that man will become immortal upon earth than that he
will have four eyes and four hands, or that trees will grow
horizontally instead of perpendicularly.
It will be said, perhaps, that many discoveries have already
taken place in the world that were totally unforeseen and
unexpected. This I grant to be true; but if a person had
predicted these discoveries without being guided by any analogies
or indications from past facts, he would deserve the name of seer
or prophet, but not of philosopher. The wonder that some of our
modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of
Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles, proves but little.
Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine
cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from saying,
that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the
powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of this
instrument than was known four thousand years ago; and therefore,
though not to be called competent judges, we are certainly much
better able than savages to say what is, or is not, within its
grasp. A watch would strike a savage with as much surprise as a
perpetual motion; yet one is to us a most familiar piece of
mechanism, and the other has constantly eluded the efforts of the
most acute intellects. In many instances we are now able to
perceive the causes, which prevent an unlimited improvement in
those inventions, which seemed to promise fairly for it at first.
The original improvers of telescopes would probably think, that
as long as the size of the specula and the length of the tubes
could be increased, the powers and advantages of the instrument
would increase; but experience has since taught us, that the
smallness of the field, the deficiency of light, and the
circumstance of the atmosphere being magnified, prevent the
beneficial results that were to be expected from telescopes of
extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge, man has
been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts, his
efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not
probably be able to guess at the causes of this mighty
difference. Our further experience has given us some little
insight into these causes, and has therefore enabled us better to
judge, if not of what we are to expect in future, at least of
what we are not to expect, which, though negative, is a very
useful piece of information.
As the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the
body than the mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the
mind can tend very greatly to supersede this 'conspicuous
infirmity'. A man who by great excitements on his mind is able
to pass two or three nights without sleep, proportionably
exhausts the vigour of his body, and this diminution of health
and strength will soon disturb the operations of his
understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have
made no real progress whatever in superseding the necessity of
this species of rest.
There is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the
various characters of which we have some knowledge, relative to
the energies of their minds, their benevolent pursuits, etc., to
enable us to judge whether the operations of intellect have any
decided effect in prolonging the duration of human life. It is
certain that no decided effect of this kind has yet been
observed. Though no attention of any kind has ever produced such
an effect as could be construed into the smallest semblance of an
approach towards immortality, yet of the two, a certain attention
to the body seems to have more effect in this respect than an
attention to the mind. The man who takes his temperate meals and
his bodily exercise, with scrupulous regularity, will generally
be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged in
intellectual pursuits, often forgets for a time these bodily
cravings. The citizen who has retired, and whose ideas, perhaps,
scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden, puddling
all the morning about his borders of box, will, perhaps, live as
long as the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most
extensive, and whose views are the clearest of any of his
contemporaries. It has been positively observed by those who have
attended to the bills of mortality that women live longer upon an
average than men, and, though I would not by any means say that
their intellectual faculties are inferior, yet, I think, it must
be allowed that, from their different education, there are not so
many women as men, who are excited to vigorous mental exertion.
As in these and similar instances, or to take a larger range,
as in the great diversity of characters that have existed during
some thousand years, no decided difference has been observed in
the duration of human life from the operation of intellect, the
mortality of man on earth seems to be as completely established,
and exactly upon the same grounds, as any one, the most constant,
of the laws of nature. An immediate act of power in the Creator
of the Universe might, indeed, change one or all of these laws,
either suddenly or gradually, but without some indications of
such a change, and such indications do not exist, it. Is just as
unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man may be prolonged
beyond any assignable limits, as to suppose that the attraction
of the earth will gradually be changed into repulsion and that
stones will ultimately rise instead of fall or that the earth
will fly off at a certain period to some more genial and warmer
sun.
The conclusion of this chapter presents us, undoubtedly, with
a very beautiful and desirable picture, but like some of the
landscapes drawn from fancy and not imagined with truth, it fails
of that interest in the heart which nature and probability can
alone give.
I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of these
conjectures of Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet concerning the
indefinite prolongation of human life, as a very curious instance
of the longing of the soul after immortality. Both these
gentlemen have rejected the light of revelation which absolutely
promises eternal life in another state. They have also rejected
the light of natural religion, which to the ablest intellects in
all ages has indicated the future existence of the soul. Yet so
congenial is the idea of immortality to the mind of man that they
cannot consent entirely to throw it out of their systems. After
all their fastidious scepticisms concerning the only probable
mode of immortality, they introduce a species of immortality of
their own, not only completely contradictory to every law of
philosophical probability, but in itself in the highest degree
narrow, partial, and unjust. They suppose that all the great,
virtuous, and exalted minds that have ever existed or that may
exist for some thousands, perhaps millions of years, will be sunk
in annihilation, and that only a few beings, not greater in
number than can exist at once upon the earth, will be ultimately
crowned with immortality. Had such a tenet been advanced as a
tenet of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies of
religion, and probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest,
would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it,
as the most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most
pitiful, the most iniquitously unjust, and, consequently, the
most unworthy of the Deity that the superstitious folly of man
could invent.
What a strange and curious proof do these conjectures exhibit
of the inconsistency of scepticism! For it should be observed,
that there is a very striking and essential difference between
believing an assertion which absolutely contradicts the most
uniform experience, and an assertion which contradicts nothing,
but is merely beyond the power of our present observation and
knowledge. So diversified are the natural objects around us, so
many instances of mighty power daily offer themselves to our
view, that we may fairly presume, that there are many forms and
operations of nature which we have not yet observed, or which,
perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present
confined inlets of knowledge. The resurrection of a spiritual
body from a natural body does not appear in itself a more
wonderful instance of power than the germination of a blade of
wheat from the grain, or of an oak from an acorn. Could we
conceive an intelligent being, so placed as to be conversant only
with inanimate or full grown objects, and never to have witnessed
the process of vegetation and growth; and were another being to
shew him two little pieces of matter, a grain of wheat, and an
acorn, to desire him to examine them, to analyse them if he
pleased, and endeavour to find out their properties and essences;
and then to tell him, that however trifling these little bits of
matter might appear to him, that they possessed such curious
powers of selection, combination, arrangement, and almost of
creation, that upon being put into the ground, they would choose,
amongst all the dirt and moisture that surrounded them, those
parts which best suited their purpose, that they would collect
and arrange these parts with wonderful taste, judgement, and
execution, and would rise up into beautiful forms, scarcely in
any respect analogous to the little bits of matter which were
first placed in the earth. I feel very little doubt that the
imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more, would
require better authority, and stronger proofs, before he believed
these strange assertions, than if he had been told, that a being
of mighty power, who had been the cause of all that he saw around
him, and of that existence of which he himself was conscious,
would, by a great act of power upon the death and corruption of
human creatures, raise up the essence of thought in an
incorporeal, or at least invisible form, to give it a happier
existence in another state.
The only difference, with regard to our own apprehensions,
that is not in favour of the latter assertion is that the first
miracle we have repeatedly seen, and the last miracle we have not
seen. I admit the full weight of this prodigious difference, but
surely no man can hesitate a moment in saying that, putting
Revelation out of the question, the resurrection of a spiritual
body from a natural body, which may be merely one among the many
operations of nature which we cannot see, is an event
indefinitely more probable than the immortality of man on earth,
which is not only an event of which no symptoms or indications
have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one of the
most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within the
observation of man.
When we extend our view beyond this life, it is evident that
we can have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and
perhaps, indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say
here, therefore, does not appear to me in any respect to
contradict what I said before, when I observed that it was
unphilosophical to expect any specifick event that was not
indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In ranging beyond
the bourne from which no traveller returns, we must necessarily
quit this rule; but with regard to events that may be expected to
happen on earth, we can seldom quit it consistently with true
philosophy. Analogy has, however, as I conceive, great latitude.
For instance, man has discovered many of the laws of nature:
analogy seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no
analogy seems to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or
a new species of power in the human mind, entirely beyond the
train of our present observations.
The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation,
which every seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine
that these wonderful faculties are contained in these little bits
of matter? To me it appears much more philosophical to suppose
that the mighty God of nature is present in full energy in all
these operations. To this all powerful Being, it would be equally
easy to raise an oak without an acorn as with one. The
preparatory process of putting seeds into the ground is merely
ordained for the use of man, as one among the various other
excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world
is a mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many
vessels will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong
shapes. These will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while
those vessels whose forms are full of truth, grace, and
loveliness, will be wafted into happier situations, nearer the
presence of the mighty maker.
I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for
dwelling so long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think
too absurd and improbable to require the least discussion. But if
it be as improbable and as contrary to the genuine spirit of
philosophy as I own I think it is, why should it not be shewn to
be so in a candid examination? A conjecture, however improbable
on the first view of it, advanced by able and ingenious men,
seems at least to deserve investigation. For my own part I feel
no disinclination whatever to give that degree of credit to the
opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth, which the
appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve. Before
we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is
but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such
an examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less
reason for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely
prolonged, than that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high,
or potatoes indefinitely large. Though Mr Godwin advances the
idea of the indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a
conjecture, yet as he has produced some appearances, which in his
conception favour the supposition, he must certainly intend that
these appearances should be examined and this is all that I have
meant to do.