Note be — Chapter VI
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The reader may be pleased to recal Professor Huxley's two necessary beliefs—necessary, that is, for making the world we live in less miserable and less ignorant. First, that the Order of Nature is practically ascertainable. Secondly, that our Volition counts for something as a condition in the course of Events. (Lay Sermons, p. 159,—already quoted pp. 247 and 8 ante.)
Evidently, to count for anything, Volition must produce effects; that is, cause certain changes in the natural order of things. This principle, therefore, is clearly asserted by the Professor,—and its consequences follow by logical necessity, as here deduced.
Mr. Huxley's idea of the Order of Nature is also coincident with the view of it taken in this Chapter.
The present writer is glad to mark these undesigned coincidences of thought. "Lay Sermons" had not reached him when this Essay was sent to the Oxford Registrar. Neither had he seen the Professor's Article in the Fortnightly Review.
Addition.—The doctrine in most complete antagonism with Mr. Huxley's position is described as follows by Dr. Carpenter:—
"The most thorough-going expression of this doctrine will be found in the 'Letters of the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,' by Henry G. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show the character of this system of Philosophy. 'Instinct, passion, thought, etc., are effects of organized substances.' 'All causes are material causes.' 'In material conditions I find the origin of all religions, all philosophies, all opinions, all virtues, all "spiritual conditions and influences," in the same manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities in material conditions and causes.' 'I am what I am; a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor demerit.' 'I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled.' 'I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.'" Carpenter. Mental Physiology, p. 4.