On the eastern end of the ridge we halted to take a little food;
not that I seemed to need it, - it was the remonstrance of reason
rather than the consciousness of physical want that caused me
to do so.
not that I seemed to need it, - it was the remonstrance of reason
rather than the consciousness of physical want that caused me
to do so.
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of man, it may be doubted whether, under the vast practical
inducements involved, Calhoun might not have succeeded in win-
ning over an immense majority of the American people to the
support of his compact and plausible scheme for making slavery
the basis of the republic. It was the preamble of the Declara-
tion of Independence which elected Lincoln, which sent forth the
Emancipation Proclamation, which gave victory to Grant, which
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.
Moreover, we cannot doubt that the permanent effects of the
great Declaration on the political and even the ethical ideals of
the American people are wider and deeper than can be measured
by our experience in grappling with any single political problem;
for they touch all the spiritual springs of American national
character, and they create, for us and for all human beings, a
new standard of political justice and a new principle in the
science of government.
“Much ridicule, a little of it not altogether undeserved,” says a
brilliant English scholar of our time, who is also nobly distinguished
in the sphere of English statesmanship, "has been thrown upon the
opening clause of the Declaration of Independence, which asserts
the inherent natural right of man to enjoy life and liberty, with the
means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtain-
ing happiness and safety. Yet there is an implied corollary in this,
which enjoins the highest morality that in our present state we are
able to think of as possible. If happiness is the right of our neigh-
bor, then not to hinder him but to help him in its pursuit must
plainly be our duty. If all men have a claim, then each man is
under an obligation. The corollary thus involved is the corner-stone
of morality. It was an act of good augury thus to inscribe happi-
ness, as entering at once into the right of all and into the duty of
all, in the very head and front of the new charter, as the base of a
national existence and the first principle of a national government.
The omen has not been falsified. The Americans have been true to
their first doctrine. They have never swerved aside to set up caste
and privilege, to lay down the doctrine that one man's happiness
ought to be an object of greater solicitude to society than any other
man's, or that one order should be encouraged to seek its prosperity
through the depression of any other order. Their example proved
infectious. The assertion in the New World that men have a right to
happiness, and an obligation to promote the happiness of one another,
struck a spark in the Old World. Political construction in America
immediately preceded the last violent stage of demolition in Europe. ”
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c
»
We shall not here attempt to delineate the influence of this
State paper upon mankind in general. Of course the emergence
of the American Republic as an imposing world-power is a
phenomenon which has now for many years attracted the atten-
tion of the human race. Surely no slight effect must have re-
sulted from the fact that among all civilized peoples, the one
American document best known is the Declaration of Independ-
ence; and that thus the spectacle of so vast and beneficent a
political success has been everywhere associated with the assertion
of the natural rights of man.
« The doctrines it contained,” says
Buckle, “were not merely welcomed by a majority of the French
nation, but even the government itself was unable to withstand
the general feeling. ” "Its effect in hastening the approach of
the French Revolution
was indeed most remarkable. ”
Elsewhere also in many lands, among many peoples, it has been
appealed to again and again as an inspiration for political cour-
age, as a model for political conduct; and if, as the brilliant Eng-
lish historian just cited has affirmed that noble Declaration
ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and
blazoned on the porch of every royal palace,” it is because it
has become the classic statement of political truths which must
at last abolish kings altogether, or else teach them to identify
their existence with the dignity and happiness of human nature.
It would be unfitting, in a work like the present, to treat of
the Declaration of Independence without making more than an
incidental reference to its purely literary character.
Very likely most writings - even most writings of genuine
and high quality — have had the misfortune of being read too
little. There is, however, a misfortune - perhaps a greater mis-
fortune - which has overtaken some literary compositions, and
these not necessarily the noblest and the best: the misfortune of
being read too much. At any rate, the writer of a piece of
literature which has been neglected, need not be refused the con-
solation he may get from reflecting that he is at least not the
writer of a piece of literature which has become hackneyed. Just
this is the sort of calamity which seems to have befallen the
Declaration of Independence. Is it, indeed, possible for us Amer-
icans, near the close of the nineteenth century, to be entirely just
to the literary quality of this most monumental document - this
much belauded, much bespouted, much beflouted document ?
since in order to be so, we need to rid ourselves if we can of
the obstreperous memories of a lifetime of Independence Days,
-
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MOSES COIT TYLER
and to unlink and disperse the associations which have somehow
confounded Jefferson's masterpiece with the rattle of firecrackers,
with the flash and the splutter of burning tar-barrels, and with
that unreserved, that gyratory and perspiratory eloquence, now
for more than a hundred years consecrated to the return of our
fateful Fourth of July.
Had the Declaration of Independence been what many a revo-
lutionary State paper is,- a clumsy, verbose, and vaporing pro-
duction, -- not even the robust literary taste and the all-forgiving
patriotism of the American people could have endured the weari-
ness, the nausea, of hearing its repetition in ten thousand differ-
ent places, at least once every year for so long a period. Nothing
which has not supreme literary merit has ever triumphantly
endured such an ordeal, or ever been subjected to it. No man
can adequately explain the persistent fascination which this State
paper has had, and which it still has, for the American peo-
ple, or its undiminished power over them, without taking into
account its extraordinary literary merits: its possession of the
witchery of true substance wedded to perfect form; its massive-
ness and incisiveness of thought; its art in the marshaling of the
topics with which it deals; its symmetry, its energy, the definite-
ness and limpidity of its statements; its exquisite diction,- at
once terse, musical, and electrical; and as an essential part of
this literary outfit, many of those spiritual notes which can
attract and enthrall our hearts,- veneration for God, veneration
for man, veneration for principle, respect for public opinion,
moral earnestness, moral courage, optimism, a stately and noble
pathos,- finally, self-sacrificing devotion to a cause so great as to
be herein identified with the happiness, not of one people only, or
of one race only, but of human nature itself.
Upon the whole, this is the most commanding and the most
pathetic utterance, in any age, in any language, of national
grievances and of national purposes; having a Demosthenic
momentum of thought, and a fervor of emotional appeal such as
Tyrtæus might have put into his war-songs. Indeed, the Decla-
ration of Independence is a kind of war-song: it is a stately and
a passionate chant of human freedom; it is a prose lyric of civil
and military heroism. We may be altogether sure that no gen-
uine development of literary taste among the American people in
any period of our future history can result in serious misfortune
to this particular specimen of American literature.
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JOHN TYNDALL.
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JOHN TYNDALL
(1820-1893)
OHN TYNDALL was one of the many Irishmen who have con-
tributed substantially to English thought. He was born at
Leighlin Bridge, near Carlow, Ireland, on August 21st, 1820.
His early education was got at home, and at the school in his native
town; his grounding in English and mathematics being especially
sound. In 1839 he became civil assistant to a division of the ord-
nance survey, and from 1844 to 1847 was a railway engineer at Man-
chester. He then became a teacher of physics at Queenwood College,
Hampshire; and in 1848, desirous of further scientific study and cult-
ure, he went to Germany and heard the Marburg lectures of Bunsen
and Knoblauch, working in the laboratory and making original inves-
tigations in magnetism. He secured his doctorate in 1857; and after
more study in Berlin returned to England, where the publication of
his scientific discoveries brought him a fellowship in the Royal Society.
In 1853 he was, on the proposal of Faraday, elected to the chair of
Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, with which he remained
connected for more than thirty years, becoming its superintendent in
1867 and not retiring until 1887.
Professor Tyndall's long career, from its inception as a teacher
and investigator, was one of fruitful discovery in the realm of physics
and of brilliant exposition of scientific tenets. He began as a young
man the study of radiant heat; and the problems of electricity, mag-
netism, and acoustics also engaged his attention, valuable books upon
these subjects resulting. Such volumes as 'Heat Considered as a Mode
of Motion (1863), 'On Radiation (1865), and Dust and Disease,' are
among the more familiar. The scientific phenomena of glaciers in-
terested him for many years, and from 1856 to his death he visited the
Alps every season,- the initial journey was in company with Huxley,
– and made studies, the deductions from which were embodied in a
series of books very enjoyable in point of literary value. Mountain-
(
eering in 1861' (1862), and 'Hours of Exercise in the Alps' (1871), are
typical of this class. The publications of Tyndall also include a large
number of more technical treatises, adding substantially to his repu-
tation as a physicist, and to the advancement of modern science in
the field of his election. In 1872 he made a successful lecture tour in
the United States; and devoted the proceeds to the establishment of
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15142
JOHN TYNDALL
-
scholarships for the benefit of students doing original research in
sciences. Degrees were conferred upon him by the universities of
Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Oxford, the latter in spite of a protest
that he taught materialism.
Tyndall was a man of marked force of character, unswerving in
his loyalty to truth as he saw it, and gifted in the synthetic present-
ation of principles with lucidity, vigor, and eloquence. His literary
quality is of the high order also to be found in the English Huxley
or the German Haeckel. His Belfast Address in 1874, as president
of the British Association, — which made a sensation as a bold, clear,
uncompromising statement of the position of the present-day scient-
ists,- is a masterly survey and summary of scientific progress, and
very noble in its spirit and expression. The fine closing portion is
one extract chosen to show Tyndall as a writer. A careful read-
ing of the whole address is sufficient to relieve the speaker from the
charge of being a materialist in any strict sense, for he distinctly
disclaims that creed; confessing the mystery of the source of all life
to be insoluble for the man of science, and giving full credit to
the intuitional and creative faculties as authoritative within their
province. The fairness of mind and breadth of vision, together with
the literary merit, displayed in this address, make it one of the most
remarkable deliverances upon science by a scholar of the time.
Professor Tyndall died at Haslemere, Surrey, England, on Decem-
ber 4th, 1893, from an overdose of chloral accidentally administered
by his wife.
THE MATTERHORN
From (Hours of Exercise in the Alps)
>
09
N THE Thursday evening a violent thunder-storm had burst
over Breuil, discharging new snow upon the heights, but
also clearing the oppressive air. Though the heavens
seemed clear in the early part of Friday, clouds showed a dis-
position to meet us from the south as we returned from the col.
I inquired of my companion whether, in the event of the day
being fine, he would be ready to start on Sunday. His answer
was a prompt negative. In Val Tournanche, he said, they always
"sanctified the Sunday. ” I mentioned Bennen, my pious Catholic
guide, whom I permitted and encouraged to attend his mass on
all possible occasions, but who nevertheless always yielded with-
out a murmur to the demands of the weather. The reasoning
had its effect. On Saturday Maquignaz saw his confessor, and
(
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JOHN TYNDALL
15143
arranged with him to have a mass at two A. M. on Sunday; after
which, unshaded by the sense of duties unperformed, he would
commence the ascent.
The claims of religion being thus met, the point of next
importance, that of money, was set at rest by my immediate ac-
ceptance of the tariff published by the Chanoine Carrel. The
problem being thus reduced to one of muscular physics, we
pondered the question of provisions, decided on a bill of fare, and
committed its execution to the industrious mistress of the hotel.
A fog, impenetrable to vision, had filled the whole of the Val
Tournanche on Saturday night, and the mountains were half
concealed and half revealed by this fog when we rose on Sun.
day morning. The east at sunrise was lowering, and the light
which streamed through the cloud orifices was drawn in omi.
nous red bars across the necks of the mountains. It was one of
those uncomfortable Laodicean days which engender indecision,
— threatening, but not sufficiently so to warrant postponement.
Two guides and two porters were considered necessary for the
first day's climb. A volunteer, moreover, attached himself to our
party, who carried a sheepskin as part of the furniture of the
cabin. To lighten their labor, the porters took a mule with them
as far as the quadruped could climb, and afterwards divided
the load among themselves. While they did so I observed the
weather. The sun had risen with considerable power, and had
broken the cloud-plane to pieces. The severed clouds gathered
into masses more or less spherical, and were rolled grandly over
the ridges into Switzerland. Save for a swathe of fog which
now and then wrapped its flanks, the Matterhorn itself remained
clear; and strong hopes were raised that the progress of the
weather was in the right direction.
We halted at the base of the Tête du Lion, a bold precipice
formed by the sudden cutting down of the ridge which flanks the
Val Tournanche to the right. From its base to the Matterhorn
stretches the Col du Lion; crossed for the first time in 1860, by
Mr. Hawkins, myself, and our two guides. We were now beside
a snow gully, which was cut by a deep furrow along its centre,
and otherwise scarred by the descent of stones. Here each man
arranged his bundle and himself, so as to cross the gully in the
minimum of time. The passage was safely made, a few flying
shingle only coming down upon us. But danger declared itself
where it was not expected. Joseph Maquignaz led the way up
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JOHN TYNDALL
the rocks. I was next, Pierre Maquignaz next, and last of all
the porters.
Suddenly a yell issued from the leader: «Cachez-
vous ! » I crouched instinctively ágainst the rock, which formed
a by no means perfect shelter, when a bowlder buzzed past me
through the air, smote the rocks below me, and with a savage
hum flew down to the lower glacier. Thus warned, we swerved
to an arête; and when stones fell afterwards, they plunged to
the right or left of us.
In 1860 the great couloir which stretches from the Col du
Lion downwards was filled with a névé of deep snow. But the
atmospheric conditions which have caused the glaciers of Switz-
erland to shrink so remarkably during the last ten years have
swept away this névé. We had descended it in 1860 hip-deep in
snow, and I was now reminded of its steepness by the inclina-
tion of its bed. Maquignaz was incredulous when I pointed out
to him the line of descent to which we had been committed, in
order to avoid the falling stones of the Tête du Lion. Bennen's
warnings on the occasion were very emphatic, and I could under-
stand their wisdom now better than I did then.
When Mr. Hawkins and myself first tried the Matterhorn,
a temporary danger, sufficient to quell for a time the enthusi-
asm even of our lion-hearted guide, was added to the permanent
Fresh snow had fallen two days before; it had quite over-
sprinkled the Matterhorn, converting the brown of its crags into
an iron-gray; this snow had been melted and re-frozen, form-
ing upon the rocks an enameling of ice. Besides their physical
front, moreover, in 1860, the rocks presented a psychological
one, derived from the rumor of their savage inaccessibility. The
crags, the ice, and the character of the mountain, all conspired to
stir the feelings. Much of the wild mystery has now vanished;
.
especially at those points which in 1860 were places of virgin
difficulty, but down which ropes now hang to assist the climber.
The intrinsic grandeur of the Matterhorn, however, cannot be
effaced.
After some hours of steady climbing, we halted upon a plat-
form beside the tattered remnant of one of the tents employed by
me in 1862. Here we sunned ourselves for an hour. We subse-
quently worked upward, scaling the crags and rounding the bases
of those wild and wonderful rock-towers, into which the weather
of ages has hewn the southern ridge of the Matterhorn. The
work required knowledge, but with a fair amount of skill it is
ones.
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JOHN TYNDALL
15145
safe work. I can fancy nothing more fascinating to a man given
by nature and habit to such things than a climb alone among
these crags and precipices. He need not be theological; but if
complete, the grandeur of the place would certainly fill him with
religious awe.
Looked at from Breuil, the Matterhorn presents two summits:
the one, the summit proper, a square rock-tower in appearance;
the other, which is really the end of a sharp ridge abutting
against the rock-tower, an apparently conical peak. On this
peak Bennen and myself planted our flagstaff in 1862.
At some
distance below it the mountain is crossed by an almost horizon-
tal ledge, always loaded with snow, which from its resemblance
to a white necktie has been called the Cravate. On this ledge
a cabin was put together in 1867. It stands above the precipice
where I quitted my rope in 1862. Up this precipice, by the aid
of a thicker — I will not say a stronger — rope, we now scram-
bled; and following the exact route pursued by Bennen and
myself five years previously, we came to the end of the Cravate.
At some places the snow upon the ledge fell steeply from its
junction with the ciiff; deep step-cutting was also needed where
the substance had been melted and re-congealed. The passage,
however, was soon accomplished along the Cravate to the cabin,
which was almost filled with snow.
Our first need was water. We could of course always melt
the snow; but this would involve a wasteful expenditure of heat.
The cliff at the base of which the hut was built, overhung;
and from its edge the liquefied snow fell in showers beyond the
cabin. Four ice-axes were fixed on the ledge, and over them was
spread the residue of a second tent which I had left at Breuil
in 1862. The water falling upon the canvas flowed towards its
centre. Here an orifice was made, through which the liquid
descended into vessels placed to receive it. Some modification of
this plan might probably be employed with profit for the storing-
up of water for droughty years in England.
I lay for some hours in the warm sunshine, in presence of
the Italian mountains, watching the mutations of the air. But
when the sun sank, the air became chill, and we all retired to
the cabin. We had no fire, though warmth was much needed.
A lover of the mountains, and of his kind, had contributed an
India-rubber mattress; on which I lay down, a light blanket
being thrown over me, while the guides and porters were rolled
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15146
JOHN TYNDALL
up in sheepskins. The mattress was a poor defense against the
cold of the subjacent rock. I bore this for two hours, unwilling
to disturb the guides; but at length it became intolerable.
learning my condition, however, the good fellows were soon alert;
and folding a sheepskin around me, restored me gradually to a
pleasant temperature. I fell asleep, and found the guides prepar-
ing breakfast and the morning well advanced when I opened my
eyes.
It was past six o'clock when the two brothers and I quit-
ted the cabin. The porters deemed their work accomplished, but
they halted for a time to ascertain whether we were likely to
be driven back or to push forward. We skirted the Cravate, and
reached the bridge at its western extremity. This we ascended
along the old route of Bennen and myself to the conical peak
already referred to, which, as seen from Breuil, constitutes a kind
of second summit of the Matterhorn. From this point to the
base of the final precipice of the mountain stretches an arête,
terribly hacked by the weather, but on the whole horizontal.
When I first made the acquaintance of this savage ridge - called
by Italians the Spalla — it was almost clear of snow. It was now
loaded, the snow being beveled to an edge of exceeding sharp-
The slope to the left, falling towards Zmutt, was exceed-
ingly steep, while the precipices on the right were abysmal. No
other part of the Matterhorn do I remember with greater interest
than this. It was terrible, but its difficulties were fairly within
the grasp of human skill; and this association is more ennobling
than where the circumstances are such as to make you conscious
of your own helplessness. On one of the sharpest teeth of the
ridge Joseph Maquignaz halted, and turning to me with a smile,
remarked, “There is no room for giddiness here, sir. ” In fact,
such possibilities in such places must be altogether excluded from
the chapter of accidents of the climber.
It was at the end of this ridge, where it abuts against the last
precipice of the Matterhorn, that my second flagstaff was left in
1862. I think there must have been something in the light fall-
ing upon this precipice, that gave it an aspect of greater verti-
cality when I first saw it than it seemed to possess on the present
occasion. We had however been struggling for many hours pre-
viously, and may have been dazed by our exertion. I cannot
otherwise account for three of my party declining fatly to make
any attempt upon the precipice. It looks very bad, but no real
ness.
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JOHN TYNDALL
15147
climber with his strength unimpaired would pronounce it, without
trial, insuperable. Fears of this rock-wall, however, had been
excited long before we reached it. It was probably the addition
of the psychological element to the physical — the reluctance to
encounter new dangers on a mountain which had hitherto inspired
a superstitious fear -- that quelled further exertion.
Seven hundred feet, if the barometric measurement can be
trusted, of very difficult rock-work now lay above us. In 1862
this height had been underestimated by both Bennen and myself.
Of the 14,800 feet of the Matterhorn, we then thought we had
accomplished 14,600. If the barometer speaks truly, we had only
cleared 14,200.
Descending the end of the ridge, we crossed a narrow cleft
and grappled with the rocks at the other side of it. Our ascent
was oblique, bearing to the right. The obliquity at one place
fell to horizontality, and we had to work on the level round a
difficult protuberance of rock. We cleared the difficulty with-
out haste, and then rose straight against the precipice. Above
us a rope hung down the cliff, left there by Maquignaz on the
occasion of his first ascent. We reached the end of this rope,
and some time was lost by my guide in assuring himself that it
was not too much frayed by friction. Care in testing it was
doubly necessary; for the rocks, bad in themselves, were here
crusted with ice. The rope was in some places a mere hempen
core surrounded by a casing of ice, over which the hands slid
helplessly. Even with the aid of the rope in this condition
it required an effort to get to the top of the precipice, and
we willingly halted there to take a minute's breath. The ascent
was virtually accomplished, and a few minutes more of rapid
climbing placed us on the lightning-smitten top. Thus ended the
long contest between me and the Matterhorn.
The day thus far had swung through alternations of fog
and sunshine. While we were on the ridge below, the air at
times was blank and chill with mist; then with rapid solution
the cloud would vanish, and open up the abysses right and left
On our attaining the summit a fog from Italy rolled
over us, and for some minutes we were clasped by a cold and
clammy atmosphere. But this passed rapidly away, leaving above
us a blue heaven, and far below us the sunny meadows of Zer-
matt. The mountains were almost wholly unclouded, and such
clouds as lingered amongst them only added to their magnificence.
of us.
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15148
JOHN TYNDALL
on
4
1
The Dent d'Érin, the Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Mischabel,
the range of heights between it and Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm,
and the Breithorn, were all at hand, and clear; while the Weiss-
horn, noblest and most beautiful of all, shook out a banner to-
wards the north, formed by the humid southern air as it grazed
the crest of the mountain.
The world of peaks and glaciers surrounding this immediate
circlet of giants was also open to us up to the horizon. Our
glance over it was brief; for it was eleven o'clock, and the work
before us soon claimed all our attention. I found the débris of
my former expedition everywhere: below, the fragments of my
tents, and on the top a piece of my ladder fixed in the snow as
a flagstaff. The summit of the Matterhorn is a sharp horizontal
arête, and along this we now moved eastward. On our left was
the roof-like slope of snow seen from the Riffel and Zermatt;
our right were the savage precipices which fall into Italy.
Looking to the further end of the ridge, the snow there seemed
to be trodden down; and I drew my companions' attention to
the apparent footmarks. As we approached the place, it became
evident that human feet had been there two or three days pre-
viously. I think it was Mr. Elliot of Brighton who had made
this ascent,—the first accomplished from Zermatt since 1865.
On the eastern end of the ridge we halted to take a little food;
not that I seemed to need it, - it was the remonstrance of reason
rather than the consciousness of physical want that caused me
to do so.
We took our ounce of nutriment and gulp of wine (my only
sustenance during the entire day), and stood for a moment
silently and earnestly looking down towards Zermatt. There was
a certain official formality in the manner in which the guides
turned to me and asked, “Êtes-vous content d'essayer ? ” [“Are
you willing to try ? "] A sharp responsive “Oui! ” set us immedi-
ately in motion. It was nearly half past eleven when we quitted
the summit. The descent of the roof-like slope already referred
to offered no difficulty; but the gradient very soon became more
formidable.
One of the two faces of the Matterhorn pyramid, seen from
Zermatt, falls towards the Zmutt glacier, and has a well-known
snow plateau at its base. The other face falls towards the Furgge
glacier. We were on the former. For some time, however, we
kept close to the arête formed by the intersection of the two
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JOHN TYNDALL
15149
faces of the pyramid; because nodules of rock jutted from it
which offered a kind of footing. These rock protuberances helped
us in another way: round them an extra rope which we carried
was frequently doubled, and we let ourselves down by the rope
as far as it could reach, liberating it afterwards (sometimes with
difficulty) by a succession of jerks. In the choice and use of
these protuberances the guides showed both judgment and skill.
The rocks became gradually larger and more precipitous, a good
deal of time being consumed in dropping down and doubling
round them. Still we preferred them to the snow slope at our
left as long as they continued practicable.
This they at length ceased to be, and we had to commit
ourselves to the slope. It was in the worst possible condition.
When snow first falls at these great heights it is usually dry,
and has no coherence. It resembles to some extent flour, or
sand, or sawdust. Shone upon by a strong sun, it partly melts,
shrinks, and becomes more consolidated; and when subsequently
frozen it may be safely trusted. Even though the melting of
the snow and its subsequent freezing may only be very partial,
the cementing of the granules adds immensely to the safety of
the footing. Hence the advantage of descending such a slope
before the sun has had time to unlock the rigidity of the night's
frost. But we were on the steepest Matterhorn slope during the
two hottest hours of the day, and the sun had done his work
effectually. The layer of snow was about fifteen inches thick.
In treading it we came immediately upon the rock, which in
most cases was too smooth to furnish either prop or purchase. It
was on this slope that the Matterhorn catastrophe occurred; it is
on this slope that other catastrophes will occur, if this mountain
should ever become fashionable.
Joseph Maquignaz was the leader of our little party; and a
brave, cool, and competent leader he proved himself to be. He
was silent, save when he answered his brother's anxious and
oft-repeated question, Es-tu bien placé, Joseph ? ” Along with
being perfectly cool and brave, he seemed to be perfectly truth-
ful. He did not pretend to be “ bien placé » when he was not,
nor avow a power of holding which he knew he did not possess.
Pierre Maquignaz is, I believe, under ordinary circumstances, an
excellent guide, and he enjoys the reputation of being never
tired. But in such circumstances as we encountered on the Mat-
terhorn he is not the equal of his brother. Joseph, if I may
»
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-
use the term, is a man of high boiling point, his constitutional
sangfroid resisting the ebullition of fear. Pierre, on the con-
trary, shows a strong tendency to boil over in perilous places.
Our progress was exceedingly slow, but it was steady and
continued. At every step our leader trod the snow cautiously,
seeking some rugosity on the rock beneath it. This however
was rarely found, and in most cases he had to establish a me-
chanical attachment between the snow and the slope which bore
it. No semblance of a slip occurred in the case of any one of
us; and had it occurred, I do not think the worst consequences
could have been avoided. I wish to stamp this slope of the
Matterhorn with the character that really belonged to it when
I descended it; and I do not hesitate to say that the giving way
of any one of our party would have carried the whole of us to
ruin. Why, then, it may be asked, employ the rope ? The rope, I
reply, notwithstanding all its possible drawbacks under such cir-
cumstances, is the safeguard of the climber. Not to speak of the
,
moral effect of its presence, an amount of help upon a dangerous
slope that might be measured by the gravity of a few pounds is
often of incalculable importance; and thus, though the rope may
be not only useless but disastrous if the footing be clearly lost,
and the glissade fairly begun, it lessens immensely the chance of
this occurrence.
With steady perseverance, difficulties upon a mountain, as
elsewhere, come to an end. We were finally able to pass from
the face of the pyramid to its rugged edge, where it was a great
relief to feel that honest strength and fair skill, which might
have gone for little on the slope, were masters of the situation.
Standing on the arête, at the foot of a remarkable cliff gable
seen from Zermatt, and permitting the vision to range over the
Matterhorn, its appearance is exceedingly wild and impressive.
Hardly two things can be more different than the two aspects of
the mountain from above and below. Seen from the Riffel, or
Zermatt, it presents itself as a compact pyramid, smooth and
steep, and defiant of the weathering air. From above, it seems
torn to pieces by the frosts of ages; while its vast facettes are so
foreshortened as to stretch out into the distance like plains. But
this underestimate of the steepness of the mountain is checked
by the deportment of its stones. Their discharge along the side
of the pyramid to-day was incessant; and at any moment, by de-
taching a single bowlder, we could let loose a cataract of them,
1
## p. 15151 (#91) ###########################################
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soon
which flew with wild rapidity and with a thunderous clatter down
the mountain. We once wandered too far from the arête, and
were warned back to it by a train of these missiles sweeping
past us.
As long as our planet yields less heat to space than she
receives from the bodies of space, so long will the forms upon
her surface undergo mutation; and as as equilibrium in
regard to heat has been established, we shall have, as Thomson
has pointed out, not peace but death. Life is the product and
accompaniment of change; and the selfsame power that tears the
flanks of the hills to pieces is the mainspring of the animal and
vegetable worlds. Still there is something chilling in the contem-
plation of the irresistible and remorseless character of those infi-
nitesimal forces, whose integration through the ages pulls down
even the Matterhorn. Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of
the mountain from its higher crags saddened me. Hitherto the
impression that it made was that of savage strength; but here we
had inexorable decay.
This notion of decay, however, implied a reference to a period
when the Matterhorn was in the full strength of mountainhood.
My thoughts naturally ran back to its possible growth and origin.
Nor did they halt there; but wandered on through molten worlds
to that nebulous haze which philosophers have regarded, and
with good reason, as the proximate source of all material things.
I tried to look at this universal cloud, containing within itself
the prediction of all that has since occurred; I tried to imagine
it as the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in solar
and stellar systems, and all that they involve. Did that form-
less fog contain potentially the sadness with which I regarded the
Matterhorn? Did the thought which now ran back to it simply
return to its primeval home? If so, had we not better recast our
definitions of matter and force ? for if life and thought be the
very flower of both, any definition which omits life and thought
must be inadequate if not untrue.
Questions like these, useless as they seem, may still have a
practical outcome. For if the final goal of man has not been
yet attained, if his development has not been yet arrested, who
can say that such yearnings and questionings are not necessary to
the opening of a finer vision, to the budding and the growth
of diviner powers? Without this upward force could man have
risen to his present height? When I look at the heavens and the
## p. 15152 (#92) ###########################################
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JOHN TYNDALL
are
earth, at my own body, at my strength and weakness of mind.
even at these ponderings, and ask myself, Is there no being or
thing in the universe that knows more about these matters than
I do? — what is my answer? Supposing our theologic schemes of
creation, condemnation, and redemption to be dissipated; and the
warmth of denial which they excite, and which, as a motive force,
can match the warmth of affirmation, dissipated at the same time:
would the undeflected human mind return to the meridian of
absolute neutrality as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is
such a position one of stable equilibrium ?
Such the questions, without replies, which could run
through consciousness during a ten-minutes' halt upon the weath-
ered spire of the Matterhorn.
We shook the rope away from us, and went rapidly down the
rocks. The day was well advanced when we reached the cabin,
and between it and the base of the pyramid we missed our way.
It was late when we regained it, and by the time we reached the
ridge of the Hörnli we were unable to distinguish rock from ice.
We should have fared better than we did if we had kept along
the ridge and felt our way to the Schwarz See, whence there
would have been no difficulty in reaching Zermatt; but we left
the Hörnli to our right, and found ourselves incessantly checked
in the darkness by ledges and precipices, possible and actual. We
were afterwards entangled in the woods of Zmutt, carving our
way wearily through bush and bramble, and creeping at times
along dry and precipitous stream-beds. But we finally struck the
path and followed it to Zermatt, which we reached between one
and two o'clock in the morning.
THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE
From the Belfast Address)
T
RACE the line of life backwards, and see it approaching more
and more to what we call the purely physical condition.
We come at length to those organisms which I have com-
pared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and
water. We reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have
"a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its
finely granular character. " Can we pause here? We break a
## p. 15153 (#93) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
15153
magnet and find two poles in each of its fragments. We con-
tinue the process of breaking; but however small the parts, each
carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And
when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision
to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something sim-
ilar in the case of life? Is there not a temptation to close to
some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that “Nature is seen
to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling
of the gods”? or with Bruno, when he declares that Matter is
not that 'mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured
her to be, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things
as the fruit of her own womb”? Believing as I do in the con-
tinuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes
cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively
supplements the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I
cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in
that Matter — which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers,
and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have
hitherto covered with opprobrium — the promise and potency of
all terrestrial life.
If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove
that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without
demonstrable antecedent life, my reply is that evidence considered
perfectly conclusive by many has been adduced; and that, were
some of us who have pondered this question to follow a very
common example, and accept testimony because it falls in with
our belief, we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred
But there is in the true man of science a wish stronger than
the wish to have his beliefs upheld, -namely, the wish to have
them true; and this stronger wish causes him to reject the most
plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated
by error. Those to whom I refer as having studied this ques-
tion, believing the evidence offered in favor of "spontaneous gen-
eration to be thus vitiated, cannot accept it. They know full
well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast
array of substances which were some time ago regarded as the
sole products of vitality. They are intimately acquainted with
the structural power of matter as evidenced in the phenomena
of crystallization. They can justify scientifically their belief in its
potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organisms. But
in reply to your question, they will frankly admit their inability
XXVI–948
to.
.
1
## p. 15154 (#94) ###########################################
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JOHN TYNDALL
»
to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be
developed save from demonstrable antecedent life.
As already
indicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through
lower ones down to the lowest; and it is the prolongation of this
line by the intellect beyond the range of the senses that leads
them to the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated.
The “materialism ” here professed may be vastly different
from what you suppose, and I therefore crave your gracious
patience to the end. « The question of an external world,” says
Mr. J. S. Mill, "is the great battle-ground of metaphysics. ” Mr.
Mill himself reduces external phenomena to "possibilities of sen-
sation. ” Kant, as we have seen, made time and space « forms »
of our own intuitions. Fichte, having first by the inexorable logic
of his understanding proved himself to be a mere link in that
chain of eternal causation which holds so rigidly in nature, vio-
lently broke the chain by making nature, and all that it inherits,
an apparition of his own mind. And it is by no means easy to
combat such notions. For when I say I see you, and that I have
not the least doubt about it, the reply is, that what I am really
conscious of is an affection of my own retina.
And if I urge
that I can check my sight of you by touching you, the retort
would be that I am equally transgressing the limits of fact; for
what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but that
the nerves of my hand have undergone a change. All we hear,
and see, and touch, and taste, and smell, are, it would be urged,
mere variations of our own condition, beyond which, even to the
extent of a hair's-breadth, we cannot go. That anything answer-
ing to our impressions exists outside of ourselves is not a fact,
but an inference, to which all validity would be denied by an
idealist like Berkeley, or by a skeptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer
, .
takes another line. With him, as with the uneducated man, there
is no doubt or question as to the existence of an external world.
But he differs from the uneducated, who think that the world
really is what consciousness represents it to be. Our states of
consciousness are mere symbols of an outside entity, which pro-
duces them and determines the order of their succession, but the
real nature of which we never know. In fact, the whole
process of evolution is the manifestation of a' Power absolutely
inscrutable to the intellect of man. As little in our day as in the
days of Job can man by searching find this Power out. Con-
sidered fundamentally, then, it is by the operation of an insoluble
can
## p. 15155 (#95) ###########################################
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-
mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differentiated, and
mind unfolded, from their prepotent elements in the unmeasur-
able past. There is, you will observe, no very rank materialism
here,
The strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an
experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible
to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific
thought.
From contrast, moreover, it derives enormous relative strength.
On the one side, we have a theory (if it could with any pro-
priety be so called) derived, as were the theories referred to at
the beginning of this address, not from the study of nature, but
from the observation of men - a theory which converts the
Power whose garment is seen in the visible universe into an
artificer, fashioned after the human model, and acting by broken
efforts as a man is seen to act. On the other side, we have
the conception that all we see around us, and all we feel within
us, - the phenomena of physical nature as well as those of the
human mind,- have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life
(if I dare apply the term), an infinitesimal span of which is
offered to the investigation of man. And even this span is only
knowable in part. We can trace the development of a nervous
system, and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of sensation
and thought. We see with undoubting certainty that they go
hand in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment
we seek to comprehend the connection between them. An Archi-
medean fulcrum is here required which the human mind cannot
command; and the effort to solve the problem, to borrow a com-
parison from an illustrious friend of mine, is like the effort of
a man trying to lift himself by his own waistband. All that
has been here said is to be taken in connection with this funda-
mental truth. When nascent senses are spoken of, when the
differentiation of a tissue at first vaguely sensitive all over
. » is
spoken of, and when these processes are associated with the
(
modification of an organism by its environment,” the same paral-
lelism, without contact or even approach to contact, is implied.
Man the object is separated by an impassable gulf from man the
subject. There is no motor energy in intellect to carry it without
logical rupture from the one to the other.
Further, the doctrine of evolution derives man in his total-
ity from the interaction of organism and environment through
(
>>
(
## p. 15156 (#96) ###########################################
15156
JOHN TYNDALL
countless ages past. The human understanding, for example, -
that faculty which Mr. Spencer has turned so skillfully round
upon its own antecedents,- is itself a result of the play between
organism and environment through cosmic ranges of time.
Never surely did prescription plead so irresistible a claim. But
then it comes to pass that, over and above his understanding,
there are many other things appertaining to man whose pre-
scriptive rights are quite as strong as those of the understanding
itself. It is a result, for example, of the play of organism and
environment, that sugar is sweet and that aloes are bitter, that
the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such
facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate rea-
son has yet been rendered) are quite as old as the understand-
ing; and many other things can boast an equally ancient origin.
Mr. Spencer at one place refers to that most powerful of pas-
sions, the amatory passion, as one which when it first occurs is
antecedent to all relative experience whatever; and we may pass
its claim as being at least as ancient and valid as that of the
understanding. Then there are such things woven into the text-
ure of man as the feelings of awe, reverence, wonder; and not
alone the sexual love just referred to, but the love of the beau-
tiful, physical, and moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There is
also that deep-set feeling, which since the earliest dawn of his-
tory, and probably for ages prior to all history, incorporated itself
in the religions of the world. You who have escaped from these
religions into the high-and-dry light of the intellect may deride
them; but in so doing you deride accidents of form merely, and
fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in
the nature of man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfac-
tion is the problem of problems at the present hour.
tesque in relation to scientific culture as many of the religions
of the world have been and are,- dangerous, nay destructive, to
the dearest privileges of freemen as some of them undoubtedly
have been, and would, if they could, be again,- it will be wise
to recognize them as the forms of a force, mischievous if per-
mitted to intrude on the region of knowledge, over which it holds
no command, but capable of being guided to noble issues in the
region of emotion, which is its proper and elevated sphere.
All religious theories, schemes, and systems, which embrace
notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into the domain
of science, must, in so far as they do this, submit to the control
And gro-
>
## p. 15157 (#97) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
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source.
of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting
otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous
to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of an organ-
ism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment, must be plastic
to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. When
this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed,
exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will be
dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimilated. The lift-
ing of the life is the essential point; and as long as dogmatism,
fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of lever-
age may be employed to raise life to a higher level. Science itself
not unfrequently derives a motive power from an ultra-scientific
Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a hindrance
to science; but he means the enthusiasm of weak heads. There
is a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science finds an
ally; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather than to the
diminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening productive-
ness of men of science in their mature years is to be ascribed.
Mr. Buckle sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral
force. He gravely erred; for without moral force to whip it into
action, the achievements of the intellect would be poor indeed.
It has been said that science divorces itself from literature;
but the statement, like so many others, arises from lack of
knowledge. A glance at the least technical writings of its lead-
ers — of its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond -
would show what breadth of literary culture they command.
Where among modern writers can you find their superiors in
clearness and vigor of literary style ? Science desires not isola-
tion, but freely combines with every effort towards the bettering
of man's estate. Single-handed, and supported not by outward
sympathy but by inward force, it has built at least one great
wing of the many-mansioned home which man in his totality
demands. And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends indi-
cate that on one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only
by wise combination of the parts required, with those already
irrevocably built, that we can hope for completeness. There
is no necessary incongruity between what has been accomplished
and what remains to be done. The moral glow of Socrates, which
we all feel by ignition, has in it nothing incompatible with the
physics of Anaxagoras which he so much scorned, but which he
would hardly scorn to-day.
## p. 15158 (#98) ###########################################
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JOHN TYNDALL
3
And here I am reminded of one amongst us, hoary but still
strong, whose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, far more than
any other of his age, unlocked whatever of life and nobleness lay
latent in its most gifted minds; one fit to stand beside Socrates
or the Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they
suffered and dared, — fit, as he once said of Fichte, “to have
been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty
and virtue in the grove of Academe. ” With a capacity to grasp
physical principles which his friend Goethe did not possess, and
which even total lack of exercise has not been able to reduce to
atrophy, it is the world's loss that he, in the vigor of his years,
did not open his mind and sympathies to science, and make its
conclusions a portion of his message to mankind. Marvelously
endowed as he was, equally equipped on the side of the heart
and of the understanding, he might have done much towards
teaching us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable
them in coming times to dwell together in unity of spirit, and
in the bond of peace.
And now the end is come. With more time or greater strength
and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better
said, while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit
expression. But there would have been no material deviation
from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the
growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to
know the environment which, with or without your consent, is
rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjust-
ment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, how-
ever, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be
ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase
intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is
not without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in per-
sons who seek their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the
same. The unstable and the weak will yield to this persuasion,
and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would
exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn the base
repose; to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion
before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of
the swamp.
In the course of this address I have touched on debatable ques-
tions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground;
and this partly with the view of telling you that as regards
## p. 15159 (#99) ###########################################
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15159
these questions, science claims unrestricted right of search. It is
not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno,
of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong.
Here I should agree
with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will under-
go modification. But the point is, that whether right or wrong,
we ask the freedom to discuss them. For science, however,
no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect
it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding
in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his
moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never
satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only
a Newton, but a Shakespeare; not only a Boyle, but a Raphael;
not only a Kant, but a Beethoven; not only a Darwin, but a Car-
lyle.
15138
MOSES COIT TYLER
of man, it may be doubted whether, under the vast practical
inducements involved, Calhoun might not have succeeded in win-
ning over an immense majority of the American people to the
support of his compact and plausible scheme for making slavery
the basis of the republic. It was the preamble of the Declara-
tion of Independence which elected Lincoln, which sent forth the
Emancipation Proclamation, which gave victory to Grant, which
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.
Moreover, we cannot doubt that the permanent effects of the
great Declaration on the political and even the ethical ideals of
the American people are wider and deeper than can be measured
by our experience in grappling with any single political problem;
for they touch all the spiritual springs of American national
character, and they create, for us and for all human beings, a
new standard of political justice and a new principle in the
science of government.
“Much ridicule, a little of it not altogether undeserved,” says a
brilliant English scholar of our time, who is also nobly distinguished
in the sphere of English statesmanship, "has been thrown upon the
opening clause of the Declaration of Independence, which asserts
the inherent natural right of man to enjoy life and liberty, with the
means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtain-
ing happiness and safety. Yet there is an implied corollary in this,
which enjoins the highest morality that in our present state we are
able to think of as possible. If happiness is the right of our neigh-
bor, then not to hinder him but to help him in its pursuit must
plainly be our duty. If all men have a claim, then each man is
under an obligation. The corollary thus involved is the corner-stone
of morality. It was an act of good augury thus to inscribe happi-
ness, as entering at once into the right of all and into the duty of
all, in the very head and front of the new charter, as the base of a
national existence and the first principle of a national government.
The omen has not been falsified. The Americans have been true to
their first doctrine. They have never swerved aside to set up caste
and privilege, to lay down the doctrine that one man's happiness
ought to be an object of greater solicitude to society than any other
man's, or that one order should be encouraged to seek its prosperity
through the depression of any other order. Their example proved
infectious. The assertion in the New World that men have a right to
happiness, and an obligation to promote the happiness of one another,
struck a spark in the Old World. Political construction in America
immediately preceded the last violent stage of demolition in Europe. ”
## p. 15139 (#75) ###########################################
MOSES COIT TYLER
15139
>
c
»
We shall not here attempt to delineate the influence of this
State paper upon mankind in general. Of course the emergence
of the American Republic as an imposing world-power is a
phenomenon which has now for many years attracted the atten-
tion of the human race. Surely no slight effect must have re-
sulted from the fact that among all civilized peoples, the one
American document best known is the Declaration of Independ-
ence; and that thus the spectacle of so vast and beneficent a
political success has been everywhere associated with the assertion
of the natural rights of man.
« The doctrines it contained,” says
Buckle, “were not merely welcomed by a majority of the French
nation, but even the government itself was unable to withstand
the general feeling. ” "Its effect in hastening the approach of
the French Revolution
was indeed most remarkable. ”
Elsewhere also in many lands, among many peoples, it has been
appealed to again and again as an inspiration for political cour-
age, as a model for political conduct; and if, as the brilliant Eng-
lish historian just cited has affirmed that noble Declaration
ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and
blazoned on the porch of every royal palace,” it is because it
has become the classic statement of political truths which must
at last abolish kings altogether, or else teach them to identify
their existence with the dignity and happiness of human nature.
It would be unfitting, in a work like the present, to treat of
the Declaration of Independence without making more than an
incidental reference to its purely literary character.
Very likely most writings - even most writings of genuine
and high quality — have had the misfortune of being read too
little. There is, however, a misfortune - perhaps a greater mis-
fortune - which has overtaken some literary compositions, and
these not necessarily the noblest and the best: the misfortune of
being read too much. At any rate, the writer of a piece of
literature which has been neglected, need not be refused the con-
solation he may get from reflecting that he is at least not the
writer of a piece of literature which has become hackneyed. Just
this is the sort of calamity which seems to have befallen the
Declaration of Independence. Is it, indeed, possible for us Amer-
icans, near the close of the nineteenth century, to be entirely just
to the literary quality of this most monumental document - this
much belauded, much bespouted, much beflouted document ?
since in order to be so, we need to rid ourselves if we can of
the obstreperous memories of a lifetime of Independence Days,
-
## p. 15140 (#76) ###########################################
15140
MOSES COIT TYLER
and to unlink and disperse the associations which have somehow
confounded Jefferson's masterpiece with the rattle of firecrackers,
with the flash and the splutter of burning tar-barrels, and with
that unreserved, that gyratory and perspiratory eloquence, now
for more than a hundred years consecrated to the return of our
fateful Fourth of July.
Had the Declaration of Independence been what many a revo-
lutionary State paper is,- a clumsy, verbose, and vaporing pro-
duction, -- not even the robust literary taste and the all-forgiving
patriotism of the American people could have endured the weari-
ness, the nausea, of hearing its repetition in ten thousand differ-
ent places, at least once every year for so long a period. Nothing
which has not supreme literary merit has ever triumphantly
endured such an ordeal, or ever been subjected to it. No man
can adequately explain the persistent fascination which this State
paper has had, and which it still has, for the American peo-
ple, or its undiminished power over them, without taking into
account its extraordinary literary merits: its possession of the
witchery of true substance wedded to perfect form; its massive-
ness and incisiveness of thought; its art in the marshaling of the
topics with which it deals; its symmetry, its energy, the definite-
ness and limpidity of its statements; its exquisite diction,- at
once terse, musical, and electrical; and as an essential part of
this literary outfit, many of those spiritual notes which can
attract and enthrall our hearts,- veneration for God, veneration
for man, veneration for principle, respect for public opinion,
moral earnestness, moral courage, optimism, a stately and noble
pathos,- finally, self-sacrificing devotion to a cause so great as to
be herein identified with the happiness, not of one people only, or
of one race only, but of human nature itself.
Upon the whole, this is the most commanding and the most
pathetic utterance, in any age, in any language, of national
grievances and of national purposes; having a Demosthenic
momentum of thought, and a fervor of emotional appeal such as
Tyrtæus might have put into his war-songs. Indeed, the Decla-
ration of Independence is a kind of war-song: it is a stately and
a passionate chant of human freedom; it is a prose lyric of civil
and military heroism. We may be altogether sure that no gen-
uine development of literary taste among the American people in
any period of our future history can result in serious misfortune
to this particular specimen of American literature.
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C
@
3
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0. Graech
JOHN TYNDALL.
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1
!
1
1
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1
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15141
JOHN TYNDALL
(1820-1893)
OHN TYNDALL was one of the many Irishmen who have con-
tributed substantially to English thought. He was born at
Leighlin Bridge, near Carlow, Ireland, on August 21st, 1820.
His early education was got at home, and at the school in his native
town; his grounding in English and mathematics being especially
sound. In 1839 he became civil assistant to a division of the ord-
nance survey, and from 1844 to 1847 was a railway engineer at Man-
chester. He then became a teacher of physics at Queenwood College,
Hampshire; and in 1848, desirous of further scientific study and cult-
ure, he went to Germany and heard the Marburg lectures of Bunsen
and Knoblauch, working in the laboratory and making original inves-
tigations in magnetism. He secured his doctorate in 1857; and after
more study in Berlin returned to England, where the publication of
his scientific discoveries brought him a fellowship in the Royal Society.
In 1853 he was, on the proposal of Faraday, elected to the chair of
Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, with which he remained
connected for more than thirty years, becoming its superintendent in
1867 and not retiring until 1887.
Professor Tyndall's long career, from its inception as a teacher
and investigator, was one of fruitful discovery in the realm of physics
and of brilliant exposition of scientific tenets. He began as a young
man the study of radiant heat; and the problems of electricity, mag-
netism, and acoustics also engaged his attention, valuable books upon
these subjects resulting. Such volumes as 'Heat Considered as a Mode
of Motion (1863), 'On Radiation (1865), and Dust and Disease,' are
among the more familiar. The scientific phenomena of glaciers in-
terested him for many years, and from 1856 to his death he visited the
Alps every season,- the initial journey was in company with Huxley,
– and made studies, the deductions from which were embodied in a
series of books very enjoyable in point of literary value. Mountain-
(
eering in 1861' (1862), and 'Hours of Exercise in the Alps' (1871), are
typical of this class. The publications of Tyndall also include a large
number of more technical treatises, adding substantially to his repu-
tation as a physicist, and to the advancement of modern science in
the field of his election. In 1872 he made a successful lecture tour in
the United States; and devoted the proceeds to the establishment of
## p. 15142 (#82) ###########################################
15142
JOHN TYNDALL
-
scholarships for the benefit of students doing original research in
sciences. Degrees were conferred upon him by the universities of
Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Oxford, the latter in spite of a protest
that he taught materialism.
Tyndall was a man of marked force of character, unswerving in
his loyalty to truth as he saw it, and gifted in the synthetic present-
ation of principles with lucidity, vigor, and eloquence. His literary
quality is of the high order also to be found in the English Huxley
or the German Haeckel. His Belfast Address in 1874, as president
of the British Association, — which made a sensation as a bold, clear,
uncompromising statement of the position of the present-day scient-
ists,- is a masterly survey and summary of scientific progress, and
very noble in its spirit and expression. The fine closing portion is
one extract chosen to show Tyndall as a writer. A careful read-
ing of the whole address is sufficient to relieve the speaker from the
charge of being a materialist in any strict sense, for he distinctly
disclaims that creed; confessing the mystery of the source of all life
to be insoluble for the man of science, and giving full credit to
the intuitional and creative faculties as authoritative within their
province. The fairness of mind and breadth of vision, together with
the literary merit, displayed in this address, make it one of the most
remarkable deliverances upon science by a scholar of the time.
Professor Tyndall died at Haslemere, Surrey, England, on Decem-
ber 4th, 1893, from an overdose of chloral accidentally administered
by his wife.
THE MATTERHORN
From (Hours of Exercise in the Alps)
>
09
N THE Thursday evening a violent thunder-storm had burst
over Breuil, discharging new snow upon the heights, but
also clearing the oppressive air. Though the heavens
seemed clear in the early part of Friday, clouds showed a dis-
position to meet us from the south as we returned from the col.
I inquired of my companion whether, in the event of the day
being fine, he would be ready to start on Sunday. His answer
was a prompt negative. In Val Tournanche, he said, they always
"sanctified the Sunday. ” I mentioned Bennen, my pious Catholic
guide, whom I permitted and encouraged to attend his mass on
all possible occasions, but who nevertheless always yielded with-
out a murmur to the demands of the weather. The reasoning
had its effect. On Saturday Maquignaz saw his confessor, and
(
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JOHN TYNDALL
15143
arranged with him to have a mass at two A. M. on Sunday; after
which, unshaded by the sense of duties unperformed, he would
commence the ascent.
The claims of religion being thus met, the point of next
importance, that of money, was set at rest by my immediate ac-
ceptance of the tariff published by the Chanoine Carrel. The
problem being thus reduced to one of muscular physics, we
pondered the question of provisions, decided on a bill of fare, and
committed its execution to the industrious mistress of the hotel.
A fog, impenetrable to vision, had filled the whole of the Val
Tournanche on Saturday night, and the mountains were half
concealed and half revealed by this fog when we rose on Sun.
day morning. The east at sunrise was lowering, and the light
which streamed through the cloud orifices was drawn in omi.
nous red bars across the necks of the mountains. It was one of
those uncomfortable Laodicean days which engender indecision,
— threatening, but not sufficiently so to warrant postponement.
Two guides and two porters were considered necessary for the
first day's climb. A volunteer, moreover, attached himself to our
party, who carried a sheepskin as part of the furniture of the
cabin. To lighten their labor, the porters took a mule with them
as far as the quadruped could climb, and afterwards divided
the load among themselves. While they did so I observed the
weather. The sun had risen with considerable power, and had
broken the cloud-plane to pieces. The severed clouds gathered
into masses more or less spherical, and were rolled grandly over
the ridges into Switzerland. Save for a swathe of fog which
now and then wrapped its flanks, the Matterhorn itself remained
clear; and strong hopes were raised that the progress of the
weather was in the right direction.
We halted at the base of the Tête du Lion, a bold precipice
formed by the sudden cutting down of the ridge which flanks the
Val Tournanche to the right. From its base to the Matterhorn
stretches the Col du Lion; crossed for the first time in 1860, by
Mr. Hawkins, myself, and our two guides. We were now beside
a snow gully, which was cut by a deep furrow along its centre,
and otherwise scarred by the descent of stones. Here each man
arranged his bundle and himself, so as to cross the gully in the
minimum of time. The passage was safely made, a few flying
shingle only coming down upon us. But danger declared itself
where it was not expected. Joseph Maquignaz led the way up
## p. 15144 (#84) ###########################################
15144
JOHN TYNDALL
the rocks. I was next, Pierre Maquignaz next, and last of all
the porters.
Suddenly a yell issued from the leader: «Cachez-
vous ! » I crouched instinctively ágainst the rock, which formed
a by no means perfect shelter, when a bowlder buzzed past me
through the air, smote the rocks below me, and with a savage
hum flew down to the lower glacier. Thus warned, we swerved
to an arête; and when stones fell afterwards, they plunged to
the right or left of us.
In 1860 the great couloir which stretches from the Col du
Lion downwards was filled with a névé of deep snow. But the
atmospheric conditions which have caused the glaciers of Switz-
erland to shrink so remarkably during the last ten years have
swept away this névé. We had descended it in 1860 hip-deep in
snow, and I was now reminded of its steepness by the inclina-
tion of its bed. Maquignaz was incredulous when I pointed out
to him the line of descent to which we had been committed, in
order to avoid the falling stones of the Tête du Lion. Bennen's
warnings on the occasion were very emphatic, and I could under-
stand their wisdom now better than I did then.
When Mr. Hawkins and myself first tried the Matterhorn,
a temporary danger, sufficient to quell for a time the enthusi-
asm even of our lion-hearted guide, was added to the permanent
Fresh snow had fallen two days before; it had quite over-
sprinkled the Matterhorn, converting the brown of its crags into
an iron-gray; this snow had been melted and re-frozen, form-
ing upon the rocks an enameling of ice. Besides their physical
front, moreover, in 1860, the rocks presented a psychological
one, derived from the rumor of their savage inaccessibility. The
crags, the ice, and the character of the mountain, all conspired to
stir the feelings. Much of the wild mystery has now vanished;
.
especially at those points which in 1860 were places of virgin
difficulty, but down which ropes now hang to assist the climber.
The intrinsic grandeur of the Matterhorn, however, cannot be
effaced.
After some hours of steady climbing, we halted upon a plat-
form beside the tattered remnant of one of the tents employed by
me in 1862. Here we sunned ourselves for an hour. We subse-
quently worked upward, scaling the crags and rounding the bases
of those wild and wonderful rock-towers, into which the weather
of ages has hewn the southern ridge of the Matterhorn. The
work required knowledge, but with a fair amount of skill it is
ones.
## p. 15145 (#85) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
15145
safe work. I can fancy nothing more fascinating to a man given
by nature and habit to such things than a climb alone among
these crags and precipices. He need not be theological; but if
complete, the grandeur of the place would certainly fill him with
religious awe.
Looked at from Breuil, the Matterhorn presents two summits:
the one, the summit proper, a square rock-tower in appearance;
the other, which is really the end of a sharp ridge abutting
against the rock-tower, an apparently conical peak. On this
peak Bennen and myself planted our flagstaff in 1862.
At some
distance below it the mountain is crossed by an almost horizon-
tal ledge, always loaded with snow, which from its resemblance
to a white necktie has been called the Cravate. On this ledge
a cabin was put together in 1867. It stands above the precipice
where I quitted my rope in 1862. Up this precipice, by the aid
of a thicker — I will not say a stronger — rope, we now scram-
bled; and following the exact route pursued by Bennen and
myself five years previously, we came to the end of the Cravate.
At some places the snow upon the ledge fell steeply from its
junction with the ciiff; deep step-cutting was also needed where
the substance had been melted and re-congealed. The passage,
however, was soon accomplished along the Cravate to the cabin,
which was almost filled with snow.
Our first need was water. We could of course always melt
the snow; but this would involve a wasteful expenditure of heat.
The cliff at the base of which the hut was built, overhung;
and from its edge the liquefied snow fell in showers beyond the
cabin. Four ice-axes were fixed on the ledge, and over them was
spread the residue of a second tent which I had left at Breuil
in 1862. The water falling upon the canvas flowed towards its
centre. Here an orifice was made, through which the liquid
descended into vessels placed to receive it. Some modification of
this plan might probably be employed with profit for the storing-
up of water for droughty years in England.
I lay for some hours in the warm sunshine, in presence of
the Italian mountains, watching the mutations of the air. But
when the sun sank, the air became chill, and we all retired to
the cabin. We had no fire, though warmth was much needed.
A lover of the mountains, and of his kind, had contributed an
India-rubber mattress; on which I lay down, a light blanket
being thrown over me, while the guides and porters were rolled
## p. 15146 (#86) ###########################################
15146
JOHN TYNDALL
up in sheepskins. The mattress was a poor defense against the
cold of the subjacent rock. I bore this for two hours, unwilling
to disturb the guides; but at length it became intolerable.
learning my condition, however, the good fellows were soon alert;
and folding a sheepskin around me, restored me gradually to a
pleasant temperature. I fell asleep, and found the guides prepar-
ing breakfast and the morning well advanced when I opened my
eyes.
It was past six o'clock when the two brothers and I quit-
ted the cabin. The porters deemed their work accomplished, but
they halted for a time to ascertain whether we were likely to
be driven back or to push forward. We skirted the Cravate, and
reached the bridge at its western extremity. This we ascended
along the old route of Bennen and myself to the conical peak
already referred to, which, as seen from Breuil, constitutes a kind
of second summit of the Matterhorn. From this point to the
base of the final precipice of the mountain stretches an arête,
terribly hacked by the weather, but on the whole horizontal.
When I first made the acquaintance of this savage ridge - called
by Italians the Spalla — it was almost clear of snow. It was now
loaded, the snow being beveled to an edge of exceeding sharp-
The slope to the left, falling towards Zmutt, was exceed-
ingly steep, while the precipices on the right were abysmal. No
other part of the Matterhorn do I remember with greater interest
than this. It was terrible, but its difficulties were fairly within
the grasp of human skill; and this association is more ennobling
than where the circumstances are such as to make you conscious
of your own helplessness. On one of the sharpest teeth of the
ridge Joseph Maquignaz halted, and turning to me with a smile,
remarked, “There is no room for giddiness here, sir. ” In fact,
such possibilities in such places must be altogether excluded from
the chapter of accidents of the climber.
It was at the end of this ridge, where it abuts against the last
precipice of the Matterhorn, that my second flagstaff was left in
1862. I think there must have been something in the light fall-
ing upon this precipice, that gave it an aspect of greater verti-
cality when I first saw it than it seemed to possess on the present
occasion. We had however been struggling for many hours pre-
viously, and may have been dazed by our exertion. I cannot
otherwise account for three of my party declining fatly to make
any attempt upon the precipice. It looks very bad, but no real
ness.
## p. 15147 (#87) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
15147
climber with his strength unimpaired would pronounce it, without
trial, insuperable. Fears of this rock-wall, however, had been
excited long before we reached it. It was probably the addition
of the psychological element to the physical — the reluctance to
encounter new dangers on a mountain which had hitherto inspired
a superstitious fear -- that quelled further exertion.
Seven hundred feet, if the barometric measurement can be
trusted, of very difficult rock-work now lay above us. In 1862
this height had been underestimated by both Bennen and myself.
Of the 14,800 feet of the Matterhorn, we then thought we had
accomplished 14,600. If the barometer speaks truly, we had only
cleared 14,200.
Descending the end of the ridge, we crossed a narrow cleft
and grappled with the rocks at the other side of it. Our ascent
was oblique, bearing to the right. The obliquity at one place
fell to horizontality, and we had to work on the level round a
difficult protuberance of rock. We cleared the difficulty with-
out haste, and then rose straight against the precipice. Above
us a rope hung down the cliff, left there by Maquignaz on the
occasion of his first ascent. We reached the end of this rope,
and some time was lost by my guide in assuring himself that it
was not too much frayed by friction. Care in testing it was
doubly necessary; for the rocks, bad in themselves, were here
crusted with ice. The rope was in some places a mere hempen
core surrounded by a casing of ice, over which the hands slid
helplessly. Even with the aid of the rope in this condition
it required an effort to get to the top of the precipice, and
we willingly halted there to take a minute's breath. The ascent
was virtually accomplished, and a few minutes more of rapid
climbing placed us on the lightning-smitten top. Thus ended the
long contest between me and the Matterhorn.
The day thus far had swung through alternations of fog
and sunshine. While we were on the ridge below, the air at
times was blank and chill with mist; then with rapid solution
the cloud would vanish, and open up the abysses right and left
On our attaining the summit a fog from Italy rolled
over us, and for some minutes we were clasped by a cold and
clammy atmosphere. But this passed rapidly away, leaving above
us a blue heaven, and far below us the sunny meadows of Zer-
matt. The mountains were almost wholly unclouded, and such
clouds as lingered amongst them only added to their magnificence.
of us.
## p. 15148 (#88) ###########################################
15148
JOHN TYNDALL
on
4
1
The Dent d'Érin, the Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Mischabel,
the range of heights between it and Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm,
and the Breithorn, were all at hand, and clear; while the Weiss-
horn, noblest and most beautiful of all, shook out a banner to-
wards the north, formed by the humid southern air as it grazed
the crest of the mountain.
The world of peaks and glaciers surrounding this immediate
circlet of giants was also open to us up to the horizon. Our
glance over it was brief; for it was eleven o'clock, and the work
before us soon claimed all our attention. I found the débris of
my former expedition everywhere: below, the fragments of my
tents, and on the top a piece of my ladder fixed in the snow as
a flagstaff. The summit of the Matterhorn is a sharp horizontal
arête, and along this we now moved eastward. On our left was
the roof-like slope of snow seen from the Riffel and Zermatt;
our right were the savage precipices which fall into Italy.
Looking to the further end of the ridge, the snow there seemed
to be trodden down; and I drew my companions' attention to
the apparent footmarks. As we approached the place, it became
evident that human feet had been there two or three days pre-
viously. I think it was Mr. Elliot of Brighton who had made
this ascent,—the first accomplished from Zermatt since 1865.
On the eastern end of the ridge we halted to take a little food;
not that I seemed to need it, - it was the remonstrance of reason
rather than the consciousness of physical want that caused me
to do so.
We took our ounce of nutriment and gulp of wine (my only
sustenance during the entire day), and stood for a moment
silently and earnestly looking down towards Zermatt. There was
a certain official formality in the manner in which the guides
turned to me and asked, “Êtes-vous content d'essayer ? ” [“Are
you willing to try ? "] A sharp responsive “Oui! ” set us immedi-
ately in motion. It was nearly half past eleven when we quitted
the summit. The descent of the roof-like slope already referred
to offered no difficulty; but the gradient very soon became more
formidable.
One of the two faces of the Matterhorn pyramid, seen from
Zermatt, falls towards the Zmutt glacier, and has a well-known
snow plateau at its base. The other face falls towards the Furgge
glacier. We were on the former. For some time, however, we
kept close to the arête formed by the intersection of the two
## p. 15149 (#89) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
15149
faces of the pyramid; because nodules of rock jutted from it
which offered a kind of footing. These rock protuberances helped
us in another way: round them an extra rope which we carried
was frequently doubled, and we let ourselves down by the rope
as far as it could reach, liberating it afterwards (sometimes with
difficulty) by a succession of jerks. In the choice and use of
these protuberances the guides showed both judgment and skill.
The rocks became gradually larger and more precipitous, a good
deal of time being consumed in dropping down and doubling
round them. Still we preferred them to the snow slope at our
left as long as they continued practicable.
This they at length ceased to be, and we had to commit
ourselves to the slope. It was in the worst possible condition.
When snow first falls at these great heights it is usually dry,
and has no coherence. It resembles to some extent flour, or
sand, or sawdust. Shone upon by a strong sun, it partly melts,
shrinks, and becomes more consolidated; and when subsequently
frozen it may be safely trusted. Even though the melting of
the snow and its subsequent freezing may only be very partial,
the cementing of the granules adds immensely to the safety of
the footing. Hence the advantage of descending such a slope
before the sun has had time to unlock the rigidity of the night's
frost. But we were on the steepest Matterhorn slope during the
two hottest hours of the day, and the sun had done his work
effectually. The layer of snow was about fifteen inches thick.
In treading it we came immediately upon the rock, which in
most cases was too smooth to furnish either prop or purchase. It
was on this slope that the Matterhorn catastrophe occurred; it is
on this slope that other catastrophes will occur, if this mountain
should ever become fashionable.
Joseph Maquignaz was the leader of our little party; and a
brave, cool, and competent leader he proved himself to be. He
was silent, save when he answered his brother's anxious and
oft-repeated question, Es-tu bien placé, Joseph ? ” Along with
being perfectly cool and brave, he seemed to be perfectly truth-
ful. He did not pretend to be “ bien placé » when he was not,
nor avow a power of holding which he knew he did not possess.
Pierre Maquignaz is, I believe, under ordinary circumstances, an
excellent guide, and he enjoys the reputation of being never
tired. But in such circumstances as we encountered on the Mat-
terhorn he is not the equal of his brother. Joseph, if I may
»
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15150
JOHN TYNDALL
-
use the term, is a man of high boiling point, his constitutional
sangfroid resisting the ebullition of fear. Pierre, on the con-
trary, shows a strong tendency to boil over in perilous places.
Our progress was exceedingly slow, but it was steady and
continued. At every step our leader trod the snow cautiously,
seeking some rugosity on the rock beneath it. This however
was rarely found, and in most cases he had to establish a me-
chanical attachment between the snow and the slope which bore
it. No semblance of a slip occurred in the case of any one of
us; and had it occurred, I do not think the worst consequences
could have been avoided. I wish to stamp this slope of the
Matterhorn with the character that really belonged to it when
I descended it; and I do not hesitate to say that the giving way
of any one of our party would have carried the whole of us to
ruin. Why, then, it may be asked, employ the rope ? The rope, I
reply, notwithstanding all its possible drawbacks under such cir-
cumstances, is the safeguard of the climber. Not to speak of the
,
moral effect of its presence, an amount of help upon a dangerous
slope that might be measured by the gravity of a few pounds is
often of incalculable importance; and thus, though the rope may
be not only useless but disastrous if the footing be clearly lost,
and the glissade fairly begun, it lessens immensely the chance of
this occurrence.
With steady perseverance, difficulties upon a mountain, as
elsewhere, come to an end. We were finally able to pass from
the face of the pyramid to its rugged edge, where it was a great
relief to feel that honest strength and fair skill, which might
have gone for little on the slope, were masters of the situation.
Standing on the arête, at the foot of a remarkable cliff gable
seen from Zermatt, and permitting the vision to range over the
Matterhorn, its appearance is exceedingly wild and impressive.
Hardly two things can be more different than the two aspects of
the mountain from above and below. Seen from the Riffel, or
Zermatt, it presents itself as a compact pyramid, smooth and
steep, and defiant of the weathering air. From above, it seems
torn to pieces by the frosts of ages; while its vast facettes are so
foreshortened as to stretch out into the distance like plains. But
this underestimate of the steepness of the mountain is checked
by the deportment of its stones. Their discharge along the side
of the pyramid to-day was incessant; and at any moment, by de-
taching a single bowlder, we could let loose a cataract of them,
1
## p. 15151 (#91) ###########################################
JOHN TYNDALL
15151
soon
which flew with wild rapidity and with a thunderous clatter down
the mountain. We once wandered too far from the arête, and
were warned back to it by a train of these missiles sweeping
past us.
As long as our planet yields less heat to space than she
receives from the bodies of space, so long will the forms upon
her surface undergo mutation; and as as equilibrium in
regard to heat has been established, we shall have, as Thomson
has pointed out, not peace but death. Life is the product and
accompaniment of change; and the selfsame power that tears the
flanks of the hills to pieces is the mainspring of the animal and
vegetable worlds. Still there is something chilling in the contem-
plation of the irresistible and remorseless character of those infi-
nitesimal forces, whose integration through the ages pulls down
even the Matterhorn. Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of
the mountain from its higher crags saddened me. Hitherto the
impression that it made was that of savage strength; but here we
had inexorable decay.
This notion of decay, however, implied a reference to a period
when the Matterhorn was in the full strength of mountainhood.
My thoughts naturally ran back to its possible growth and origin.
Nor did they halt there; but wandered on through molten worlds
to that nebulous haze which philosophers have regarded, and
with good reason, as the proximate source of all material things.
I tried to look at this universal cloud, containing within itself
the prediction of all that has since occurred; I tried to imagine
it as the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in solar
and stellar systems, and all that they involve. Did that form-
less fog contain potentially the sadness with which I regarded the
Matterhorn? Did the thought which now ran back to it simply
return to its primeval home? If so, had we not better recast our
definitions of matter and force ? for if life and thought be the
very flower of both, any definition which omits life and thought
must be inadequate if not untrue.
Questions like these, useless as they seem, may still have a
practical outcome. For if the final goal of man has not been
yet attained, if his development has not been yet arrested, who
can say that such yearnings and questionings are not necessary to
the opening of a finer vision, to the budding and the growth
of diviner powers? Without this upward force could man have
risen to his present height? When I look at the heavens and the
## p. 15152 (#92) ###########################################
15152
JOHN TYNDALL
are
earth, at my own body, at my strength and weakness of mind.
even at these ponderings, and ask myself, Is there no being or
thing in the universe that knows more about these matters than
I do? — what is my answer? Supposing our theologic schemes of
creation, condemnation, and redemption to be dissipated; and the
warmth of denial which they excite, and which, as a motive force,
can match the warmth of affirmation, dissipated at the same time:
would the undeflected human mind return to the meridian of
absolute neutrality as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is
such a position one of stable equilibrium ?
Such the questions, without replies, which could run
through consciousness during a ten-minutes' halt upon the weath-
ered spire of the Matterhorn.
We shook the rope away from us, and went rapidly down the
rocks. The day was well advanced when we reached the cabin,
and between it and the base of the pyramid we missed our way.
It was late when we regained it, and by the time we reached the
ridge of the Hörnli we were unable to distinguish rock from ice.
We should have fared better than we did if we had kept along
the ridge and felt our way to the Schwarz See, whence there
would have been no difficulty in reaching Zermatt; but we left
the Hörnli to our right, and found ourselves incessantly checked
in the darkness by ledges and precipices, possible and actual. We
were afterwards entangled in the woods of Zmutt, carving our
way wearily through bush and bramble, and creeping at times
along dry and precipitous stream-beds. But we finally struck the
path and followed it to Zermatt, which we reached between one
and two o'clock in the morning.
THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE
From the Belfast Address)
T
RACE the line of life backwards, and see it approaching more
and more to what we call the purely physical condition.
We come at length to those organisms which I have com-
pared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and
water. We reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have
"a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its
finely granular character. " Can we pause here? We break a
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magnet and find two poles in each of its fragments. We con-
tinue the process of breaking; but however small the parts, each
carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And
when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision
to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something sim-
ilar in the case of life? Is there not a temptation to close to
some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that “Nature is seen
to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling
of the gods”? or with Bruno, when he declares that Matter is
not that 'mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured
her to be, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things
as the fruit of her own womb”? Believing as I do in the con-
tinuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes
cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively
supplements the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I
cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in
that Matter — which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers,
and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have
hitherto covered with opprobrium — the promise and potency of
all terrestrial life.
If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove
that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without
demonstrable antecedent life, my reply is that evidence considered
perfectly conclusive by many has been adduced; and that, were
some of us who have pondered this question to follow a very
common example, and accept testimony because it falls in with
our belief, we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred
But there is in the true man of science a wish stronger than
the wish to have his beliefs upheld, -namely, the wish to have
them true; and this stronger wish causes him to reject the most
plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated
by error. Those to whom I refer as having studied this ques-
tion, believing the evidence offered in favor of "spontaneous gen-
eration to be thus vitiated, cannot accept it. They know full
well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast
array of substances which were some time ago regarded as the
sole products of vitality. They are intimately acquainted with
the structural power of matter as evidenced in the phenomena
of crystallization. They can justify scientifically their belief in its
potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organisms. But
in reply to your question, they will frankly admit their inability
XXVI–948
to.
.
1
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JOHN TYNDALL
»
to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be
developed save from demonstrable antecedent life.
As already
indicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through
lower ones down to the lowest; and it is the prolongation of this
line by the intellect beyond the range of the senses that leads
them to the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated.
The “materialism ” here professed may be vastly different
from what you suppose, and I therefore crave your gracious
patience to the end. « The question of an external world,” says
Mr. J. S. Mill, "is the great battle-ground of metaphysics. ” Mr.
Mill himself reduces external phenomena to "possibilities of sen-
sation. ” Kant, as we have seen, made time and space « forms »
of our own intuitions. Fichte, having first by the inexorable logic
of his understanding proved himself to be a mere link in that
chain of eternal causation which holds so rigidly in nature, vio-
lently broke the chain by making nature, and all that it inherits,
an apparition of his own mind. And it is by no means easy to
combat such notions. For when I say I see you, and that I have
not the least doubt about it, the reply is, that what I am really
conscious of is an affection of my own retina.
And if I urge
that I can check my sight of you by touching you, the retort
would be that I am equally transgressing the limits of fact; for
what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but that
the nerves of my hand have undergone a change. All we hear,
and see, and touch, and taste, and smell, are, it would be urged,
mere variations of our own condition, beyond which, even to the
extent of a hair's-breadth, we cannot go. That anything answer-
ing to our impressions exists outside of ourselves is not a fact,
but an inference, to which all validity would be denied by an
idealist like Berkeley, or by a skeptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer
, .
takes another line. With him, as with the uneducated man, there
is no doubt or question as to the existence of an external world.
But he differs from the uneducated, who think that the world
really is what consciousness represents it to be. Our states of
consciousness are mere symbols of an outside entity, which pro-
duces them and determines the order of their succession, but the
real nature of which we never know. In fact, the whole
process of evolution is the manifestation of a' Power absolutely
inscrutable to the intellect of man. As little in our day as in the
days of Job can man by searching find this Power out. Con-
sidered fundamentally, then, it is by the operation of an insoluble
can
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-
mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differentiated, and
mind unfolded, from their prepotent elements in the unmeasur-
able past. There is, you will observe, no very rank materialism
here,
The strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an
experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible
to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific
thought.
From contrast, moreover, it derives enormous relative strength.
On the one side, we have a theory (if it could with any pro-
priety be so called) derived, as were the theories referred to at
the beginning of this address, not from the study of nature, but
from the observation of men - a theory which converts the
Power whose garment is seen in the visible universe into an
artificer, fashioned after the human model, and acting by broken
efforts as a man is seen to act. On the other side, we have
the conception that all we see around us, and all we feel within
us, - the phenomena of physical nature as well as those of the
human mind,- have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life
(if I dare apply the term), an infinitesimal span of which is
offered to the investigation of man. And even this span is only
knowable in part. We can trace the development of a nervous
system, and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of sensation
and thought. We see with undoubting certainty that they go
hand in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment
we seek to comprehend the connection between them. An Archi-
medean fulcrum is here required which the human mind cannot
command; and the effort to solve the problem, to borrow a com-
parison from an illustrious friend of mine, is like the effort of
a man trying to lift himself by his own waistband. All that
has been here said is to be taken in connection with this funda-
mental truth. When nascent senses are spoken of, when the
differentiation of a tissue at first vaguely sensitive all over
. » is
spoken of, and when these processes are associated with the
(
modification of an organism by its environment,” the same paral-
lelism, without contact or even approach to contact, is implied.
Man the object is separated by an impassable gulf from man the
subject. There is no motor energy in intellect to carry it without
logical rupture from the one to the other.
Further, the doctrine of evolution derives man in his total-
ity from the interaction of organism and environment through
(
>>
(
## p. 15156 (#96) ###########################################
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JOHN TYNDALL
countless ages past. The human understanding, for example, -
that faculty which Mr. Spencer has turned so skillfully round
upon its own antecedents,- is itself a result of the play between
organism and environment through cosmic ranges of time.
Never surely did prescription plead so irresistible a claim. But
then it comes to pass that, over and above his understanding,
there are many other things appertaining to man whose pre-
scriptive rights are quite as strong as those of the understanding
itself. It is a result, for example, of the play of organism and
environment, that sugar is sweet and that aloes are bitter, that
the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such
facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate rea-
son has yet been rendered) are quite as old as the understand-
ing; and many other things can boast an equally ancient origin.
Mr. Spencer at one place refers to that most powerful of pas-
sions, the amatory passion, as one which when it first occurs is
antecedent to all relative experience whatever; and we may pass
its claim as being at least as ancient and valid as that of the
understanding. Then there are such things woven into the text-
ure of man as the feelings of awe, reverence, wonder; and not
alone the sexual love just referred to, but the love of the beau-
tiful, physical, and moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There is
also that deep-set feeling, which since the earliest dawn of his-
tory, and probably for ages prior to all history, incorporated itself
in the religions of the world. You who have escaped from these
religions into the high-and-dry light of the intellect may deride
them; but in so doing you deride accidents of form merely, and
fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in
the nature of man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfac-
tion is the problem of problems at the present hour.
tesque in relation to scientific culture as many of the religions
of the world have been and are,- dangerous, nay destructive, to
the dearest privileges of freemen as some of them undoubtedly
have been, and would, if they could, be again,- it will be wise
to recognize them as the forms of a force, mischievous if per-
mitted to intrude on the region of knowledge, over which it holds
no command, but capable of being guided to noble issues in the
region of emotion, which is its proper and elevated sphere.
All religious theories, schemes, and systems, which embrace
notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into the domain
of science, must, in so far as they do this, submit to the control
And gro-
>
## p. 15157 (#97) ###########################################
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source.
of science, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting
otherwise proved disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous
to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of an organ-
ism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment, must be plastic
to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. When
this truth has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed,
exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will be
dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimilated. The lift-
ing of the life is the essential point; and as long as dogmatism,
fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of lever-
age may be employed to raise life to a higher level. Science itself
not unfrequently derives a motive power from an ultra-scientific
Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a hindrance
to science; but he means the enthusiasm of weak heads. There
is a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science finds an
ally; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather than to the
diminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening productive-
ness of men of science in their mature years is to be ascribed.
Mr. Buckle sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral
force. He gravely erred; for without moral force to whip it into
action, the achievements of the intellect would be poor indeed.
It has been said that science divorces itself from literature;
but the statement, like so many others, arises from lack of
knowledge. A glance at the least technical writings of its lead-
ers — of its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond -
would show what breadth of literary culture they command.
Where among modern writers can you find their superiors in
clearness and vigor of literary style ? Science desires not isola-
tion, but freely combines with every effort towards the bettering
of man's estate. Single-handed, and supported not by outward
sympathy but by inward force, it has built at least one great
wing of the many-mansioned home which man in his totality
demands. And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends indi-
cate that on one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only
by wise combination of the parts required, with those already
irrevocably built, that we can hope for completeness. There
is no necessary incongruity between what has been accomplished
and what remains to be done. The moral glow of Socrates, which
we all feel by ignition, has in it nothing incompatible with the
physics of Anaxagoras which he so much scorned, but which he
would hardly scorn to-day.
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JOHN TYNDALL
3
And here I am reminded of one amongst us, hoary but still
strong, whose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, far more than
any other of his age, unlocked whatever of life and nobleness lay
latent in its most gifted minds; one fit to stand beside Socrates
or the Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they
suffered and dared, — fit, as he once said of Fichte, “to have
been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty
and virtue in the grove of Academe. ” With a capacity to grasp
physical principles which his friend Goethe did not possess, and
which even total lack of exercise has not been able to reduce to
atrophy, it is the world's loss that he, in the vigor of his years,
did not open his mind and sympathies to science, and make its
conclusions a portion of his message to mankind. Marvelously
endowed as he was, equally equipped on the side of the heart
and of the understanding, he might have done much towards
teaching us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable
them in coming times to dwell together in unity of spirit, and
in the bond of peace.
And now the end is come. With more time or greater strength
and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better
said, while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit
expression. But there would have been no material deviation
from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the
growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to
know the environment which, with or without your consent, is
rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjust-
ment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, how-
ever, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be
ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase
intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is
not without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in per-
sons who seek their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the
same. The unstable and the weak will yield to this persuasion,
and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would
exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn the base
repose; to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion
before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of
the swamp.
In the course of this address I have touched on debatable ques-
tions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground;
and this partly with the view of telling you that as regards
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these questions, science claims unrestricted right of search. It is
not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno,
of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong.
Here I should agree
with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will under-
go modification. But the point is, that whether right or wrong,
we ask the freedom to discuss them. For science, however,
no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect
it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding
in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his
moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never
satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only
a Newton, but a Shakespeare; not only a Boyle, but a Raphael;
not only a Kant, but a Beethoven; not only a Darwin, but a Car-
lyle.
