Part 21

The "deadly nightshade" has similar properties. (In fact, morion was originally made from the _Atropa belladonna_, not from its ally the _Atropa mandragora_.) In 1851, Dr. Richardson attended two children who were poisoned for a time from eating the berries and chewing the leaves of the nightshade, which they had gathered near Richmond. They were brought home insensible, he says, "and they lay in a condition of suspended life for seven hours, the greatest care being required to detect either the respiration or the movements of the heart; they nevertheless recovered."

With the nitrite of amyl, Dr. Richardson has suspended the life of a frog for nine days, yet the creature was then restored to full and vigorous life. He has shown also that the same power of suspension, though in less degree, "could be produced in warm-blooded animals, and that the heart of a warm-blooded animal would contract for a period of eighteen hours after apparent death." The action of nitrite of amyl seems to resemble that of cold. In the pleasing language of the doctors, "it prevents the pectous change of colloidal matter, and so prevents _rigor mortis_, coagulation of blood, and solidification of nervous centres and cords." So long as this change is prevented, active life can be restored. But when in these experiments "the pectous change occurred, all was over, and resolution into new forms of matter by putrefaction was the result." From the analogy of some of the symptoms resulting from the use of nitrite of amyl with the symptoms of catalepsy, Dr. Richardson has "ventured to suggest that under some abnormal conditions the human body itself, in its own chemistry, may produce an agent which causes the suspended life observed during the cataleptic condition." The suggestion has an interest apart from the question of the possibility of safely suspending animation for considerable periods of time: it might be possible to detect the nature of the agent thus produced by the chemistry of the human body (if the theory is correct), and thus to learn how its power might be counteracted.

Chloral hydrate seems singularly efficient in producing the semblance of death,--so completely, indeed, as to deceive even the elect. Dr. Richardson states that at the meeting of the British Association at Exeter, some pigeons which had been put to sleep by the needle injection of a large dose of chloral, "fell into such complete resemblance of death that they passed for dead among an audience containing many physiologists and other men of science. For my own part," he proceeds, "I could detect no sign of life in them, and they were laid in one of the out-offices of the museum of the infirmary as dead. In this condition they were left late at night, but in the following morning they were found alive, and as well as if nothing hurtful had happened to them." Similar effects seem to be produced by the deadly poisons cyanogen gas and hydrocyanic acid, though in the following case, narrated by Dr. Richardson, the animal experimented upon (not with the idea of eventually restoring it to life) belonged to a race so specially tenacious of life that some may consider only one of its proverbial nine lives to have been affected. In the laboratory of a large drug establishment a cat, "by request of its owner, was killed, as was assumed, instantaneously and painlessly by a large dose of Scheele's acid. The animal appeared to die without a pang, and, presenting every appearance of death, was laid in a sink to be removed on the next morning. At night the animal was lying still in form of death in the tank beneath a tap. In the morning it was found alive and well, but with the fur wet from the dropping of water from the tap." This fact was communicated to Dr. Richardson by an eminent chemist under whose direct observation it occurred, in corroboration of an observation of his own similar in character.

Our old friend alcohol (if friend it can be called) possesses the power of suspending active vitality without destroying life, or at any rate without depriving the muscles of their excitability. Dr. Richardson records the case of a drunken man who, while on the ice at the Welsh Harp lake, fell into the water through an opening in the ice, and was for more than fifteen minutes completely immersed. He was extricated to all appearance dead, but under artificial respiration was restored to consciousness, though he did not survive for many hours. On the whole, alcoholic suspension of life does not appear to be the best method available. To test it, the patient must first get "very, very drunk," and even then, like the soldiers in the old song, must go on drinking, lest the experiment should terminate simply in the fiasco of a drunken sleep.

The last agent for suspending life referred to by Dr. Richardson is pure oxygen. But he has not yet obtained such information on the power of oxygen in this respect as he hopes to do.

Summing up the results of the various experiments made with narcotics and other agents for suspending life, Dr. Richardson remarks that much is already known in the world of science in respect to the suspension of animal life by artificial means: "cold as well as various chemical agents has this power, and it is worthy of note that cold, together with the agents named, is antiseptic, as though whatever suspended living action, suspended also by some necessary and correlative influence the process of putrefactive change." He points out that if the news from Brisbane were reliable, it would be clear that what had been done had been effected by the combination of one of the chemical agents above named, or of a similar agent, with cold. The only question which would remain as of moment is, not whether a new principle has been developed, but whether in matter of detail a new product has been discovered which, better than any of the agents we already possess, destroys and suspends animation. "In organic chemistry," he proceeds, "there are, I doubt not, hundreds of substances which, like mandragora and nitrite of amyl, would suspend the vital process, and it may be a new experimenter has met with such an agent. It is not incredible, indeed, that the Indian Fakirs possess a vegetable extract or essence which possesses the same power, and by means of which they perform their as yet unexplained feat of prolonged living burial." But he is careful to note the weak points of the Australian story--viz., first, the statement that the method used is a secret, "for men of true science know no such word;" secondly, that the experimenter has himself to go to America to procure more supplies of his agents; and, thirdly, that he requires two agents, one of which is an antidote to the other. As respects this third point, he asks very pertinently how an antidote can be absorbed and enter into the circulation in a body practically dead.

It is, of course, now well known that the whole story was a hoax, and a mischievous one. Several Australian farmers travelled long distances to Sydney to make inquiries about a method which promised such important results, only to find that there was not a particle of truth in the story.

RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Many fail to see a joke when it is gravely propounded in print, who would at once recognise it as such, were it uttered verbally, with however serious a countenance. Possibly this is due to the necessary absence in the printed account of the indications by which we recognise that a speaker is jesting--as a certain expression of countenance, or a certain intonation of voice, by which the grave utterer of a spoken jest conveys his real meaning. In a paper which recently appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, Mr. Foster (Thomas of that ilk) propounded very gravely the theory that our Nursery Rhymes have in reality had their origin in Nature Myths. He explained, for instance, that the rhymes relating to Little Jack Horner were originally descriptive of sunrise in winter: Little Jack is the sun in winter, the Christmas pie is the cloud-covered sky; the thumb represents the sun's first ray piercing through the clouds; and Jack's rejoicing means the brightness of full sunlight. So also the rhymes beginning Hey Diddle Diddle are shown to be of deep and solemn import, all in manifest burlesque of some recent extravagant interpretations of certain ancient stories by Goldziher, Steinthal, and others. Yet this fun was seriously criticized by more than half the critics, by some approvingly, by some otherwise.

[71] For a full account of this clever hoax the reader is referred to my "Myths and Marvels of Astronomy."

[72] The most curious are given in the ninth essay of my work referred to in the preceding note.

[73] Few probably are aware how long some animals may remain without breathing and yet survive. Kittens and puppies have been brought to life after being immersed in water for nearly three-quarters of an hour.

[74] Objection has been taken to the italicized words in the following passage from "No Thoroughfare" (one of the parts certainly written by Dickens and not by Wilkie Collins): "The cry came up: 'His heart still beats against mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but I am not afraid.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking still, and we are deadly cold. _His heart no longer beats against mine._ Let no one come down to add to our weight. Lower the rope only.' ... The cry came up with a deathly silence, 'Raise! softly!' ... She broke from them all and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands upon _the heart that stood still_." It has been supposed that Dickens wilfully departed here from truth, in order to leave the impression on the reader that Vendale was assuredly dead. That he wished to convey this impression is obvious. He often showed similar care to remove, if possible, all hope from the anxious reader's mind (markedly so in his latest and unfinished work, where nevertheless any one well acquainted with Dickens's manner knows not only that Drood is alive, but that disguised as Datchery he was to have watched Jasper to the end). But in reality, it has happened more than once that persons have been restored to life who have been found in snow-drifts not merely reduced to complete insensibility, but without any recognisable heart-beat. Dickens had probably heard of such cases when in Switzerland.

[75] Dr. Richardson will certainly excite the contempt of the northern professor who rebuked me recently for speaking of heat when I should have said temperature. "An atmosphere two degrees below freezing-point" is an expression as inadmissible, if we must be punctilious in such matters, as the expressions "blood-heat," "a heat of ten degrees," and so forth. Possibly, however, it is not desirable to be punctilious when there is no possibility of being misunderstood, especially as it may be noticed (the Edinburgh professor has often afforded striking illustrations of the fact by errors of his own) that too great an effort to be punctilious often results in very remarkable incorrectness of expression.

JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY TESTED.

IV.--UTILITARIANISM.

In some respects Mill's Essays, published under the title "Utilitarianism," are among his best writings. They have, in the first place, the excellence of brevity. Ninety-six pages, printed in handsome type, make but a light task for the student who wishes to enter into the intricacies of moral doctrine. Moreover, the last Essay consists of a digression concerning the nature and origin of the idea of Justice, and it occupies nearly one-third of the whole book. Thus Mill managed to compress his discussion of so important a subject as the foundations of Moral Right and Wrong into some sixty pleasant pages.

And pleasant pages they certainly are, for they are written in Mill's very best style. Now Mill, even when he is most prolix, when he is pursuing the intricacies of the most involved points of logic and philosophy, can seldom or never be charged with dulness and heaviness. His language is too easy, polished, and apparently lucid. In these Essays on Utilitarianism, he reaches his own highest standard of style. There is hardly any other book in the range of philosophy, so far as my reading has gone, which can be read with less effort. There is something enticing in the easy flow of sentences and ideas, and without apparent difficulty the reader finds himself agreeably borne into the midst of the most profound questions of ethical philosophy, questions which have been the battle-ground of the human intellect for two thousand five hundred years.

Partly to this excellence of style, partly to Mill's immense reputation, acquired by other works and in other ways, must we attribute the importance which has been generally attached to these ninety-six pages. Probably no other modern work of the same small typographical extent has been equally discussed, criticized, and admired, unless, indeed, it be the Essay on Liberty of the same author. The result is, that Mill has been generally regarded as the latest and best expounder of the great Utilitarian Doctrine--that doctrine which is, by one and no doubt the preponderating school, regarded as the foundation of all moral and legislative progress. Many there are who think that, what Hume and Paley and Jeremy Bentham began, Mill has carried nearly to perfection in these agreeable Essays.

Nothing can be more plain, too, than that Mill himself believed he was dutifully expounding the doctrines of his father, of his father's friend, the great Bentham, and of the other unquestionable Utilitarians among whom he grew up. Mill seems to pride himself upon having been the first, not indeed to invent, but to bring into general acceptance the name of the school to which he supposed himself to belong. He says:[76] "The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's 'Annals of the Parish.' After using it as a designation for several years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions--to denote the recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it--the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution."

In the Autobiography (p. 79), Mill makes a statement to the same effect, saying--

"I did not invent the word, but found it in one of Galt's novels, the 'Annals of the Parish,' in which the Scotch clergyman, of whom the book is a supposed autobiography, is represented as warning his parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become utilitarians. With a boy's fondness for a name and a banner I seized on the word, and for some years called myself and others by it as a sectarian appellation; and it came to be occasionally used by some others holding the opinions it was intended to designate. As those opinions attracted more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and opponents, and got into rather common use just about the time when those who had originally assumed it, laid down that along with other sectarian characteristics."

It is pointed out, however, by Mr. Sidgwick in his article on Benthamism,[77] that Bentham himself suggested the name "Utilitarian," in a letter to Dumont, as far back as June, 1802.

Mill explicitly states that it was his purpose in these Essays on Utilitarianism to expound a previously received doctrine of utility. Towards the close of his first chapter, containing General Remarks, he says (p. 6): "On the present occasion, I shall, without further discussion of the other theories, attempt to contribute something towards the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is susceptible of." He proceeds to explain that a preliminary condition of the rational acceptance or rejection of a doctrine is that its formula should be correctly understood. The very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of the Utilitarian formula was the chief obstacle which impeded its reception; the main work to be done, therefore, by a Utilitarian writer was to clear the doctrine from the grosser misconceptions. Thus the question would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed. His Essays purport throughout to be a defence and exposition of the Utilitarian doctrine.

But one characteristic of Mill's writings is that there is often a wide gulf between what he intends and what he achieves. There is even a want of security that what he is at any moment urging may not be the logical contrary of what he thinks he is urging. This happens to be palpably the case with the celebrated Essays before us. Mill explains and defends his favourite doctrine with so much affection and so much candour that he finally explains himself into the opposite doctrine. Yet with that simplicity which is a pleasing feature of his personal character, Mill continues to regard himself as a Utilitarian long after he has left the grounds of Paley and Bentham. Lines of logical distinction and questions of logical consistency are of little account to one who cannot distinguish between fact and feeling, between sense and sentiment. It is possible that no small part of the favour with which these Essays have always been received by the general public is due to the happy way in which Mill has combined the bitter and the sweet. The uncompromising rigidity of the Benthamist formulas is softened and toned down. An apparently scientific treatment is combined with so many noble sentiments and high aspirations, that almost any one except a logician may be disarmed.

But nothing can endure if it be not logical. These Essays may be very agreeable reading; they may make readers congratulate themselves on so easily becoming moral philosophers; but they cannot really advance moral science if they represent one thing as being another thing. I make it my business therefore in this article to show that Mill was intellectually unfitted to decide what was utilitarian and what was not. In removing the obstacles to the reception of his favourite doctrine he removed its landmarks too, and confused everything. It is true that I come rather late in the day to show this. Some scores, if not hundreds, of critics have shown the same fact more or less clearly. Eminent men of the most different schools and tones of thought--such as the Rev. Dr. Martineau, Mr. Sidgwick, Dr. Ward, Professor Birks, the late Professor Grote--have criticized and refuted Mill time after time.

Since commencing my analysis of Mill's Philosophy, I have been surprised to find, too, that some who were supposed to support Mill's school through thick and thin, have long since discovered the inconsistencies which I would now expose, at such wearisome length as if they were new discoveries. Such is the ground which my friend, Professor Croom Robertson, takes in his quarterly review, _Mind_, which must be considered our best authority on philosophical questions. As to this matter of Utilitarianism, a very eminent author, formerly a friend of Mill himself, assures me that the subject is quite threshed out, and implies that there is no need for me to trouble the public any more about it. In fact, it would seem to be allowed within philosophical circles that Mill's works are often wrongheaded and unphilosophical. Yet these works are supposed to have done so much good that obloquy attaches to any one who would seek to diminish the respect paid to them by the public at large. Philosophers, and teachers of the last generation at least, have done their best to give Mill's groundless philosophy a hold upon all the schools and all the press, and yet we of this generation are to wait calmly until this influence dissolves of its own accord. We are to do nothing to lessen the natural respect paid to the memory of the dead, especially of the dead who have unquestionably laboured with single-minded purpose for what they considered the good of their fellow-creatures. But in nothing is it more true than in philosophy, that "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Words and false arguments cannot be recalled. Throw a stone into the surface of the still sea, and you are powerless to prevent the circle of disturbance from spreading more and more widely. True it is, that one disturbance may be overcome and apparently obliterated by other deeper disturbances; but Mill's works and opinions were disseminated by the immense former influence of the united band of Benthamist philosophers. He is criticized and discussed and repeated, in almost every philosophical work of the last thirty or forty years. He is taken throughout the world as the representative of British philosophy, and it is not sufficient for a few eminent thinkers in Oxford, or Cambridge, or London, or Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, to acknowledge in a tacit sort of way that this doctrine and that doctrine is wrong. Eventually, no doubt, the opinion of the Lecture Halls and Combination Rooms will guide the public opinion; but it may take a generation for tacit opinions to permeate society. We must have them distinctly and boldly expressed. It is especially to be remembered that the public press throughout the English-speaking countries is mostly conducted by men educated in the time when Mill's works were entirely predominant. These men are now for the most part cut off, by geographical or professional obstacles, from the direct influence of Oxford or Cambridge. The circle of disturbance has spread beyond the immediate reach of those centres of thought. To be brief, I do not believe that Mill's immense philosophical influence, founded as it is on confusion of thought, will readily collapse. I fear that it may remain as a permanent obstacle in the way of sound thinking. _Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione._ Had Mill simply erred as did Hobbes about elementary geometry, and Berkeley about infinitesimals, it would be necessary merely to point out the errors and consign them to merciful oblivion. But it is not so easy to consign to oblivion ponderous works so full of confusion of thought that every inexperienced and unwarned reader is sure to lose his way in them, and to take for profound philosophy that which is really a kind of kaleidoscopic presentation of philosophic ideas and phrases, in a succession of various but usually inconsistent combinations. To the public at large, Mill's works still undoubtedly remain as the standard of accurate thinking, and the most esteemed repertory of philosophy. I cannot therefore consider my criticism superfluous, and at the risk of repeating much that has been said by the eminent critics already mentioned, or by others, I must show that Mill has thrown ethical philosophy into confusion as far as could well be done in ninety-six pages.

The nature of the Utilitarian doctrine is explained by Mill with sufficient accuracy in pp. 9 and 10, where he says--