GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 8 November [1856]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 8 November [1856]
Title
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 8 November [1856]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Sara Sophia Hennell
Date(s)
- 1856-11-08
Place
Richmond
Letter Content
GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 8 November [1856]
MS: Coventry City Libraries. Hitherto unpublished.
Richmond | November 8.
Dear Sara
The following is a note on the meaning of the word Islam, copied from Smith's Gibbon 759 v. VI. 222. "Islam is the verbal noun or infinitive, and Moslim, which has been corrupted into Musalman or Musulman, is the participle of the causative form of salm, which means immunity, peace. The signification of Islam, therefore, is, to make peace, or to obtain immunity, either by compact, or by doing homage to the stronger, acknowledging his superiority, and surrendering to him the object in dispute. It also means simply to surrender. In the Koran, it signifies in most instances to do homage to God, to acknowledge him as an absolute Lord, to the exclusion of idols. Sometimes, however, it occurs in this book in its technical meaning as the name of a religion."
Mr. Lewes does agree with you that "the right method of science is to learn (or rather to inquire?) how things exist and not why."
Still, so far as my logical faculties will help me, your passage on "design" remains self-contradictory. Either you hold that it is legitimate to infer creative design from observed relations, or you do not hold that position. If you hold it, why do you say that "to pronounce on the final causes of things is beyond the sphere of human reason"? since every inference of creative design involves the affirmation that a final cause is discerned. If you do not hold it, why do you unnecessarily use the words design, designed etc. -- when they misrepresent your meaning? And what is the fitness of the terms "the eye was designed to see," if you only mean by them that there exists a certain relation between light and the eye, which issues in vision?
On the other hand, if you mean by this "affirmation" what the terms convey, namely, that there is a Being who has the same relation to the eye as a piano maker has to a piano, why do you appear to range yourself with the antagonists of Natural Theology, since you admit its fundamental principle?
According to your definition of science, there can be no true knowledge of things except in their evolution -- their dependence on observed antecedents, yet you directly fly off from that position into an anthropomorphic assumption as to the origin of things.
Again if God "designed the eye to see," he surely designed every particular kind of eye and all its relations. How could He design any eye without designing its forms? I cannot conceive what is the bearing of your distinction between those two positions.
Mind, I am not contending against any one position in the extract. I am only stating my inability to see its logic.
Apart from all these objections I must suggest that the phrase "Design of Creation" is equivocal. It may mean "the final cause of the universe as a whole" and is more likely to suggest that idea than what I imagine you mean, namely, the final causes of things considered individually.
Herbert Spencer is coming to dine with us tomorrow, having come back from Paris weary of solitary sightseeing. 760
Ever your affectionate
Marian.
MS: Coventry City Libraries. Hitherto unpublished.
Richmond | November 8.
Dear Sara
The following is a note on the meaning of the word Islam, copied from Smith's Gibbon 759 v. VI. 222. "Islam is the verbal noun or infinitive, and Moslim, which has been corrupted into Musalman or Musulman, is the participle of the causative form of salm, which means immunity, peace. The signification of Islam, therefore, is, to make peace, or to obtain immunity, either by compact, or by doing homage to the stronger, acknowledging his superiority, and surrendering to him the object in dispute. It also means simply to surrender. In the Koran, it signifies in most instances to do homage to God, to acknowledge him as an absolute Lord, to the exclusion of idols. Sometimes, however, it occurs in this book in its technical meaning as the name of a religion."
Mr. Lewes does agree with you that "the right method of science is to learn (or rather to inquire?) how things exist and not why."
Still, so far as my logical faculties will help me, your passage on "design" remains self-contradictory. Either you hold that it is legitimate to infer creative design from observed relations, or you do not hold that position. If you hold it, why do you say that "to pronounce on the final causes of things is beyond the sphere of human reason"? since every inference of creative design involves the affirmation that a final cause is discerned. If you do not hold it, why do you unnecessarily use the words design, designed etc. -- when they misrepresent your meaning? And what is the fitness of the terms "the eye was designed to see," if you only mean by them that there exists a certain relation between light and the eye, which issues in vision?
On the other hand, if you mean by this "affirmation" what the terms convey, namely, that there is a Being who has the same relation to the eye as a piano maker has to a piano, why do you appear to range yourself with the antagonists of Natural Theology, since you admit its fundamental principle?
According to your definition of science, there can be no true knowledge of things except in their evolution -- their dependence on observed antecedents, yet you directly fly off from that position into an anthropomorphic assumption as to the origin of things.
Again if God "designed the eye to see," he surely designed every particular kind of eye and all its relations. How could He design any eye without designing its forms? I cannot conceive what is the bearing of your distinction between those two positions.
Mind, I am not contending against any one position in the extract. I am only stating my inability to see its logic.
Apart from all these objections I must suggest that the phrase "Design of Creation" is equivocal. It may mean "the final cause of the universe as a whole" and is more likely to suggest that idea than what I imagine you mean, namely, the final causes of things considered individually.
Herbert Spencer is coming to dine with us tomorrow, having come back from Paris weary of solitary sightseeing. 760
Ever your affectionate
Marian.
Signature
Marian.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Sara Sophia Hennell, Richmond, 8 November [1856], Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/94108