History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

596

No one can understand the real history of the Puritans, who does not take this into consideration. In the present Introduction, it is impossible to discuss so large a subject; and I must reserve it for the future part of this work, in which the history of England will be specially treated. In the mean time, I may mention, that the distinction between fanaticism and superstition is clearly indicated, but not analyzed, by Archbishop Whately, in his Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin in Human Nature, p. 49. This should be compared with Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. pp. 81–89, Edinb. 1826, on the difference between enthusiasm and superstition; a difference which is noticed, but, as it appears to me, misunderstood, by Maclaine, in his Additions to Mosheim's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. ii. p. 38.

597

Compare Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 143, with Burton's Diary of the Parliaments of Cromwell, vol. i. pp. xcviii. 145, 392, vol. ii. pp. 35, 229. In 1650, a second conviction of fornication was made felony, without benefit of clergy; but, after the Restoration, Charles II. and his friends found this law rather inconvenient; so it was repealed. See Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 65.

598

See Life of Ken, by a Layman, edit. 1854, vol. i. p. 51. At p. 129, the same writer says, with sorrow, ‘The church recovered much of her temporal possessions, but not her spiritual rule.’ The power of the bishops was abridged ‘by the destruction of the court of high-commission.’ Short's Hist. of the Church of England, p. 595. See also, on the diminished influence of the Church-of-England clergy after the Restoration, Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. pp. 278, 279; and Watson's Observations on the Life of Wesley, pp. 129–131.

599

Buckingham and Halifax, the two men who were perhaps best acquainted with Charles II., both declared that he was a deist. Compare Lingard's Hist. of Engl. vol. viii. p. 127, with Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. v. p. 55. His subsequent conversion to Catholicism is exactly analogous to the increased devotion of Louis XIV. during the later years of his life. In both cases, superstition was the natural refuge of a worn-out and discontented libertine, who had exhausted all the resources of the lowest and most grovelling pleasures.

600

One of the most curious instances of this may be seen in the destruction of the old notions respecting witchcraft. This important revolution in our opinions was effected, so far as the educated classes are concerned, between the Restoration and the Revolution; that is to say, in 1660, the majority of educated men still believed in witchcraft; while in 1688, the majority disbelieved it. In 1665, the old orthodox view was stated by Chief-Baron Hale, who, on a trial of two women for witchcraft, said to the jury: ‘That there are such creatures as witches, I make no doubt at all; for, first, the Scriptures have affirmed so much; secondly, the wisdom of all nations hath provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.’ Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. i. pp. 565, 566. This reasoning was irresistible, and the witches were hung; but the change in public opinion began to affect even the judges, and after this melancholy exhibition of the Chief-Baron, such scenes became gradually rarer; though Lord Campbell is mistaken in supposing (p. 563) that this was ‘the last capital conviction in England for the crime of bewitching.’ So far from this, three persons were executed at Exeter for witchcraft in 1682. See Hutchinson's Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, 1720, pp. 56, 57. Hutchinson says: ‘I suppose these are the last three that have been hanged in England.’ If, however, one may rely upon a statement made by Dr. Parr, two witches were hung at Northampton in 1705; and in ‘1712, five other witches suffered the same fate at the same place.’ Parr's Works, vol. iv. p. 182, 8vo, 1828. This is the more shameful, because, as I shall hereafter prove, from the literature of that time, a disbelief in the existence of witches had become almost universal among educated men; though the old superstition was still defended on the judgment-seat and in the pulpit. As to the opinions of the clergy, compare Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. vol. iii. pp. 345, 348; Vernon Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 302, 303; Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 220, 221; Wesley's Journals, pp. 602, 713. Wesley, who had more influence than all the bishops put together, says: ‘It is true, likewise, that the English in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it… The giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible… But I cannot give up, to all the Deists in Great Britain, the existence of witchcraft, till I give up the credit of all history, sacred and profane.’

However, all was in vain. Every year diminished the old belief; and in 1736, a generation before Wesley had recorded these opinions, the laws against witchcraft were repealed, and another vestige of superstition effaced from the English statute-book. See Barrington on the Statutes, p. 407; Note in Burton's Diary, vol. i. p. 26; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. i. p. 307.

To this it may be interesting to add, that in Spain a witch was burned so late as 1781. Ticknor's Hist. of Spanish Literature, vol. iii. p. 238.

601

The first edition was published in 1646. Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol. ii. p. 163.

602

See the notes in Mr. Wilkin's edition of Browne's Works, Lond. 1836, vol. ii. pp. 284, 360, 361.

603

The precise date is unknown; but Mr. Wilkin supposes that it was written ‘between the years 1633 and 1635.’ Preface to Religio Medici, in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 4.

604

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 58.

605

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 47.

606

Or, as he calls it, ‘chiromancy.’ Religio Medici, in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 89.

607

‘For my part, I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches. They that doubt of these, do not only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely, and upon consequence, a sort, not of infidels, but atheists.’ Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 43, 44.

608

‘From this I do compute or calculate my nativity.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 64.

609

Religio Medici, sec. ix. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14: unfortunately too long to extract. This is the ‘credo quia impossibile est,’ originally one of Tertullian's absurdities, and once quoted in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle, as ‘the ancient religious maxim.’ Parl. Hist. vol. xi. p. 802. Compare the sarcastic remark on this maxim in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, book iv. chap. xviii. Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 271. It was the spirit embodied in this sentence which supplied Celsus with some formidable arguments against the Fathers. Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.

610

Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, book iii. chap. xxviii. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 534.

611

Ibid. book i. chap. vii. vol. ii. p. 225.

612

‘A supinity, or neglect of inquiry.’ Ibid. book i. chap. v. vol. ii. p. 211.

613

‘A third cause of common errors is the credulity of men.’ Book i. chap. v. vol. ii. p. 208.

614

See two amusing instances in vol. ii. pp. 267, 438.

615

Vulgar and Common Errors, book vii. chap. xi., in Browne's Works, vol. iii. p. 326.

616

Monk (Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 37) says, that Boyle's discoveries ‘have placed his name in a rank second only to that of Newton;’ and this, I believe, is true, notwithstanding the immense superiority of Newton.

617

Compare Powell on Radiant Heat (Brit. Assoc. vol. i. p. 287), with Lloyd's Report on Physical Optics, 1834, p. 338. For the remarks on colours, see Boyle's Works, vol. ii. pp. 1–40; and for the account of his experiments, pp. 41–80; and a slight notice in Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 155, 156, 236. It is, I think, not generally known, that Power is said to be indebted to Boyle for originating some of his experiments on colours. See a letter from Hooke, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. p. 533.

618

Dr. Whewell (Bridgewater Treatise, p. 266) well observes, that Boyle and Pascal are to hydrostatics what Galileo is to mechanics, and Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton to astronomy. See also on Boyle, as the founder of hydrostatics, Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, pp. 397, 398; and his Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 204.

619

This was discovered by Boyle about 1650, and confirmed by Mariotte in 1676. See Whewell's Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 557, 588; Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 215; Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 41, 200; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 363. This law has been empirically verified by the French Institute, and found to hold good for a pressure even of twenty-seven atmospheres. See Challis on the Mathematical Theory of Fluids, in Sixth Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 226; and Herschel's Nat. Philos. p. 231. Although Boyle preceded Mariotte by a quarter of a century, the discovery is rather unfairly called the law of Boyle and Mariotte; while foreign writers, refining on this, frequently omit the name of Boyle altogether, and term it the law of Mariotte! See, for instance, Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 126; Monteil Divers Etats, vol. viii. p. 122; Kaemtz's Meteorology, p. 236; Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. i. pp. 583, 645, vol. ii. pp. 484, 615; Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. i. p. 339, vol. ii. pp. 58, 183.

620

‘L'un des créateurs de la physique expérimentale, l'illustre Robert Boyle, avait aussi reconnu, dès le milieu du dix-septième siècle, une grande partie des faits qui servent aujourd'hui de base à cette chimie nouvelle.’ Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 30. The ‘aussi’ refers to Rey. See also Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences Naturelles, part ii. pp. 322, 346–349. A still more recent writer says, that Boyle ‘stood, in fact, on the very brink of the pneumatic chemistry of Priestley; he had in his hand the key to the great discovery of Lavoisier.’ Johnston on Dimorphous Bodies, in Reports of Brit. Assoc. vol. vi. p. 163. See further respecting Boyle, Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 576, 577, 579, vol. ii. p. 24; and Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 177.

621

This disregard of ancient authority appears so constantly in his works, that it is difficult to choose among innumerable passages which might be quoted. I will select one which strikes me as well expressed, and is certainly very characteristic. In his Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 359), ‘For I am wont to judge of opinions as of coins: I consider much less, in any one that I am to receive, whose inscription it bears, than what metal it is made of. It is indifferent enough to me whether it was stamped many years or ages since, or came but yesterday from the mint.’ In other places he speaks of the ‘schoolmen’ and ‘gownmen’ with a contempt not much inferior to that expressed by Locke himself.

622

In his Considerations touching Experimental Essays, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 197), ‘Perhaps you will wonder, Pyrophilus, that in almost every one of the following essays I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often perhaps, it seems, it is not improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of the opinions I incline to,’ &c. Indeed, this spirit is seen at every turn. Thus his Essay on Crystals, which, considering the then state of knowledge, is a remarkable production, is entitled ‘Doubts and Experiments touching the curious Figures of Salts.’ Works, vol. ii. p. 488. It is, therefore, with good reason that M. Humboldt terms him ‘the cautious and doubting Robert Boyle.’ Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 730.

623

On the sincere Christianity of Boyle, compare Burnet's Lives and Characters, edit. Jebb, 1833, pp. 351–360; Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. pp. 32, 33; Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273. He made several attempts to reconcile the scientific method with the defence of established religious opinions. See one of the best instances of this, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 38, 39.

624

The Sceptical Chemist is in Boyle's Works, vol. i. pp. 290–371. It went through two editions in the author's lifetime, an unusual success for a book of that kind. Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 375, vol. iv. p. 89, vol. v. p. 345. I find from a letter written in 1696 (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. iv, p. 344), that Boyle's works were then becoming scarce, and that there was an intention of reprinting the whole of them. In regard to the Sceptical Chemist, it was so popular, that it attracted the attention of Monconys, a French traveller, who visited London in 1663, and from whom we learn that it was to be bought for four shillings, ‘pour quatre chelins.’ Voyages de Monconys, vol. iii. p. 67, edit. 1695; a book containing some very curious facts respecting London in the reign of Charles II.; but, so far as I am aware, not quoted by any English historian. In Sprengel's Hist. de la Médecine, vol. v. pp. 78–9, there is a summary of the views advocated in the Sceptical Chemist, respecting which Sprengel says, ‘Ce fut cependant aussi en Angleterre que s'élevèrent les premiers doutes sur l'exactitude des explications chimiques.’

625

‘From the nature and constitution of the Royal Society, the objects of their attention were necessarily unlimited. The physical sciences, however, or those which are promoted by experiment, were their declared objects; and experiment was the method which they professed to follow in accomplishing their purpose.’ Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 6. When the society was first instituted, experiments were so unusual, that there was a difficulty of finding the necessary workmen in London. See a curious passage in Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, 1848, vol. ii. p. 88.

626

Dr. Paris (Life of Sir H. Davy, 1831, vol. ii. p. 178) says, ‘The charter of the Royal Society states, that it was established for the improvement of natural science. This epithet natural was originally intended to imply a meaning, of which very few persons, I believe, are aware. At the period of the establishment of the society, the arts of witchcraft and divination were very extensively encouraged; and the word natural was therefore introduced in contradistinction to supernatural.’ The charters granted by Charles II. are printed in Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. pp. 481–521. Evelyn (Diary, 13 Aug. 1662, vol. ii. p. 195) mentions, that the object of the Royal Society was ‘natural knowledge.’ See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 358; Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98; and on the distinction thus established in the popular mind between natural and supernatural, compare Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 455, vol. iv. pp. 288, 359.

627

The speculative view of this tendency has been recently illustrated in the most comprehensive manner by M. Auguste Comte, in his Philosophie Positive; and his conclusions in regard to the earliest stage of the human mind are confirmed by everything we know of barbarous nations; and they are also confirmed, as he has decisively proved, by the history of physical science. In addition to the facts he has adduced, I may mention, that the history of geology supplies evidence analogous to that which he has collected from other departments.

A popular notion of the working of this belief in supernatural causation may be seen in a circumstance related by Combe. He says, that in the middle of the eighteenth century the country west of Edinburgh was so unhealthy, ‘that every spring the farmers and their servants were seized with fever and ague.’ As long as the cause of this was unknown, ‘these visitations were believed to be sent by Providence;’ but after a time the land was drained, the ague disappeared, and the inhabitants perceived that what they had believed to be supernatural was perfectly natural, and that the cause was the state of the land, not the intervention of the Deity. Combe's Constitution of Man, Edinb. 1847, p. 156.

628

I say apparent mystery, because it does not at all lessen the real mystery. But this does not affect the accuracy of my remark, inasmuch as the people at large never enter into such subtleties as the difference between Law and Cause; a difference, indeed, which is so neglected, that it is often lost sight of even in scientific books. All that the people know is, that events which they once believed to be directly controlled by the Deity, and modified by Him, are not only foretold by the human mind, but are altered by human interference. The attempts which Paley and others have made to solve this mystery by rising from the laws to the cause, are evidently futile, because to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as the problem; and the arguments of the natural theologians, in so far as they are arguments, must depend on reason. As Mr. Newman truly says, ‘A God uncaused and existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from eternity. We must not reject the latter theory as incomprehensible; for so is every other possible theory.’ Newman's Natural History of the Soul, 1849, p. 36. The truth of this conclusion is unintentionally confirmed by the defence of the old method, which is set up by Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 262–5; because the remarks made by that able writer refer to men who, from their vast powers, were most likely to rise to that transcendental view of religion which is slowly but steadily gaining ground among us. Kant, probably the deepest thinker of the eighteenth century, clearly saw that no arguments drawn from the external world could prove the existence of a First Cause. See, among other passages, two particularly remarkable in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant's Werke, vol. ii. pp. 478, 481, on ‘der physikotheologische Beweis.’

629

This is tersely expressed by M. Lamennais: ‘Pourquoi les corps gravitent-ils les uns vers les autres? Parceque Dieu l'a voulu, disaient les anciens. Parceque les corps s'attirent, dit la science.’ Maury, Légendes du Moyen Age, p. 33. See to the same effect Mackay's Religious Development, 1850, vol. i. pp. 5, 30, 31, and elsewhere. See also a partial statement of the antithesis in Copleston's Inquiry into Necessity and Predestination, p. 49; an ingenious but overrated book.

630

I much regret that I did not collect proof of this at an earlier period of my reading. But having omitted taking the requisite notes, I can only refer, on the superstition of sailors to Heber's Journey through India, vol. i. p. 423; Richardson's Travels in the Sahara, vol. i. p. 11; Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 347; Davis's Chinese, vol. iii. pp. 16, 17; Travels of Ibn Batuta in the Fourteenth Century, p. 43; Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. i. p. 9; Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol. i. p. 130; Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. iv. p. 566; Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, vol. iii. p. 53; Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, 1850, vol. ii. p. 255; Cumberland's Memoirs, 1807, vol. i. pp. 422–425; Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. pp. 96, 97; Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. i. p. 93; Holcroft's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 207, vol. iii. p. 197.

631

Andokides, when accused before the dikastery at Athens, said, ‘No, dikasts; the dangers of accusation and trial are human, but the dangers encountered at sea are divine.’ Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. xi. p. 252. Thus, too, it has been observed, that the dangers of the whale-fishery stimulated the superstition of the Anglo-Saxons. See Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 390, 391. Erman, who mentions the dangerous navigation of the Lake of Baikal, says, ‘There is a saying at Irkutsk, that it is only upon the Baikal, in the autumn, that a man learns to pray from his heart.’ Erman's Travels in Siberia, vol. ii. p. 186.

632

In Europe, in the tenth century, an entire army fled before one of those appearances, which would now scarcely terrify a child: ‘Toute l'armée d'Othon se dispersa subitement à l'apparition d'une éclipse de soleil, qui la remplit de terreur, et qui fut regardée comme l'annonce du malheur qu'on attendait depuis longtemps.’ Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 368. The terror inspired by eclipses was not finally destroyed before the eighteenth century; and in the latter half of the seventeenth century they still caused great fear both in France and in England. See Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 52, vol. iii. p. 372; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 366; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 36. Compare Voyages de Monconys, vol. v. p. 104, with Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2nd series, pp. 194, 195. There probably never has been an ignorant nation whose superstition has not been excited by eclipses. For evidence of the universality of this feeling, see Symes's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 296; Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. i. p. 530; Southey's Hist. of Brazil, vol. i. p. 354, vol. ii. p. 371; Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra, p. 159; Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 105; Moffat's Southern Africa, p. 337; Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 414; Moorcroft's Travels in the Himalayan Provinces, vol. ii. p. 4; Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 305; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 331; Mackay's Religious Development, vol. i. p. 425; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 176, vol. vi. p. 16; Wilson's Note in the Vishnu Purana, p. 140; Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 90; Montucla, Hist. des Mathématiques, vol. i. p. 444; Asiatic Researches, vol. xii. p. 484; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 101; Prescott's Hist. of Peru, vol. i. p. 123; Kohl's Russia, p. 374; Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. iii. p. 440, vol. vi. p. 216; Murray's Life of Bruce, p. 103; Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 289; Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. vii. p. 432, vol. xii. pp. 205, 557; Journal Asiatique, Ie série, vol. iii. p. 202, Paris, 1823; Clot-Bey, de la Peste, Paris, 1840, p. 224.

In regard to the feelings inspired by comets, and the influence of Bayle in removing those superstitions late in the seventeenth century, compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philosoph., vol. xi. p. 252; Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. iii. p. 415; Lettres de Sevigné, vol. iv. p. 336; Autobiography of Sir S. D'Ewes, edit. Halliwell, vol. i. pp. 122, 123, 136.