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 Barry, Alfred, 1826-1910. 
 
 What is natural theology? 
 
 Shelf. 
 

BOYLE LECTURES, 1876. 
 
 WHAT IS NATUEAL THEOLOGY? 
 
 AX ATTEMPT TO ESTIMATE 
 
 THE CUMULATIVE EVIDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 MANY WITNESSES TO GOD,', 
 
 ALFRED 'BARRY, D.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON; CANON OF WORCESTER ; AND 
 HONORARY CIIAPLATN TO THE QUEEN. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE COMMITTEE OF THE 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 SOLD AT THE DEPOSITOEIES : 
 
 77, GEEAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS ; 
 
 4, EOYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY; 
 
 AND BY ALL BOOESELLEES. 
 
The Christian Evidence Committee of theS.P.C.K., 
 while giving its general approval to this work of 
 the Christian Evidence Series, does not hold itself 
 responsible for every statement or every line of 
 argument. 
 
 The responsibility of each writer extends to 
 his own work only. 
 

 \ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD ..•••! 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 THE METHOD OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD • • .41 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 THE MANIFOLD CORD OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. . .74) 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : CAUSATION . . 104 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : THE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 141 
 
 DESIGN x ^ x 
 
 LECTURE YT. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION .... 182 
 
 LECTURE YII. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE .... 217 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 -::tur3 viii. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE THEOLOGY CI THE AFFECTIONS ... 
 
 SUMMARY Or THZ AKGUKEN1 
 
PKIHCE1 
 
 a. ijk aU \f jul u a a v -*■ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Lectures here published were in substance 
 delivered as the Boyle Lectures of 1876. But, 
 on the one hand, they have been since con- 
 siderably enlarged, and in part rewritten for 
 publication, in order to obviate the limitations 
 imposed by homiletical delivery on the develop- 
 ment of various parts of the argument : and, on 
 the other, they contain what has long in prin- 
 ciple engaged my best thought and study. 
 
 In considering (as a Boyle Lecturer is bound 
 to do) the practical condition of the great con- 
 troversy between Christianity and the various 
 rival or antagonistic forms of thought, two con- 
 siderations have forced themselves on my mind, 
 which I have endeavoured to embody in the 
 following pages. 
 
 The first is that, while it is necessary to deal 
 with special attacks or difficulties, our great 
 strength lies in the exhibition in all its fulness 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 been sufficiently applied in Natural Theology, it 
 is perhaps because the tremendous issues of the 
 inquiry after God make the mind impatient of 
 anything' but immediate intuition, in any direc- 
 tion in which it may chance first to move. Such 
 impatience although theoretically indefensible, is 
 yet sufficiently powerful in practice to need con- 
 stant warning that it demands the impossible. 
 
 The present series of Lectures attempts simply 
 a sketch of the cumulative force of the various 
 lines of Natural Theology. I trust hereafter to 
 dwell on the relation of Revelation to Natural 
 Theology as being " Supernatural not Preter- 
 natural ; " and to attempt a similar sketch of 
 the cumulative force of the positive Evidences 
 of Christianity as such. 
 
 Believing that the principles which I have 
 endeavoured to set forth are true — while I am 
 deeply sensible of the defects of their treatment 
 and of the responsibility attaching to all witness 
 for God — I trust that, by His blessing, they may 
 suggest thoughts, not wholly unfruitful for the 
 purpose for which these Lectures were instituted. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 King's College, London, 
 August, 1877. 
 
LECTUEE I. 
 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 I.— THE CLAIM TOR THEOLOGY OF THE CHARACTER OF SCIENCE, 
 NECESSARY FOR THE ULTIMATE INQUIRIES OF HUMAN 
 THOUGHT. 
 
 II. THE VARIOUS BRANCHED OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 III.— THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE 
 RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 
 | (a) THE PROGRESS THROUGH POLYTHEISM AND DUALISM TO 
 MONOTHEISM. - 
 (b) THE SELF-CONDEMNATION OF BUDDHIST NIHILISM. 
 IV.— THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD EXEMPLIFIED IN LAN- 
 GUAGE, AS AT ONCE INSTINCTIVE AND PERMANENT. 
 V.— THE METHOD OF THE GROWTH OF THIS BELIEF IN GOD, 
 SIMILAR TO THE GROWTH OF ALL LAWS OF THOUGHT, 
 INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL. 
 VI —THE TRUE SENSE OF THE PHRASE NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 "At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of 
 three witnesses, shall the matter be established."— Deut. 
 xix. 15. 
 
 In all Science there are two kinds of work, 
 corresponding to the capacities of two different 
 kinds of workers. There is, on the one hand, 
 
 B 
 
8 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 the work devoted absolutely and exhaustively to 
 one especial branch of science ; with a view, first 
 to a complete understanding of its theory, both 
 in principle and in detail, and a complete prac- 
 tical mastery of all its powers ; and next, if it 
 may be, to some original research, which shall 
 carry the banner of truth one stage onward in 
 the path of conquest. There is, on the other 
 hand, the work of combination and comparison 
 of the various lines of science, so far as they 
 have been already worked out, pausing thought- 
 fully to consider how they bear upon each other, 
 either for mutual correction or mutual illustration, 
 and what light they throw on that great problem 
 of Being, which, whatever be the complexity of 
 its parts, is in essence one. These two kinds 
 of work, though practically all but inseparable, 
 are yet perfectly distinct. The history of all 
 science proves, perhaps that there are epochs of 
 alternate predominance of each — epochs (as they 
 have been called) of expansion and of verifi- 
 cation — certainly that there are individuals 
 capable of doing good work in one, yet in- 
 capable of active service, possibly even of appre- 
 ciative judgment, in the other. Few, perhaps, 
 are the minds, the leaders of each generation, in 
 which the two powers are harmoniously com- 
 bined. In that combination they reflect some- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 3 
 
 thing of the Divine Mind, which first made all 
 all things, each in its place and order, and then 
 beheld all that He had made, and contemplating 
 it as a whole, pronounced it to be "very 
 good." 
 
 I. Now it is certainly as a part of true science, 
 that a Boyle Lecturer is bound to regard 
 theology. The founder of these lectures was, as 
 we know, one of the original members in 1663 
 of the Royal Society of Literature and Science. 
 He foresaw and rejoiced in the future advance 
 of the science, both of nature and of man, in 
 many directions. He knew, perhaps, the in- 
 herent tendency in each branch of scientific 
 thought to usurp regions beyond its rightful 
 empire — "to bear no brother/' still more no 
 superior, " negr its throne/' He desired that 
 the old science of Theology — necessarily, if 
 existent at all, the queen of sciences — should 
 maintain its own proper ground, amidst all the 
 growing claims, and the changeful aspects, of 
 other forms of thought. Well he knew, as his 
 own life shows, 1 at once by the knowledge of its 
 
 1 In his will, referring to the Koyal Society, he " yvishes 
 them a happy success in their laudable attempts to dis- 
 cover the true nature of the works of God," and prays 
 " that they and all other searchers into physical truth may 
 cordially refer their attainments to the glory of the great 
 Author of Nature and to the comfort of mankind."— See 
 B 2 
 
4 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 reality, and by the experience of its temporary 
 loss, that religion is more than theology, that 
 Christianity is not merely a science, but a life." 
 But still, as in his own works, so in the lecture- 
 ships which he founded, he maintained the per- 
 petual vitality of theological science. 3 What he 
 
 Birch's "Life of Eobert Boyle," prefixed to the quarto 
 edition of his works (London, 1772). 
 
 2 There is a remarkable passage quoted by Maurice in 
 Ins " First Boyle Lecture " from an autobiography of 
 Boyle, under the name of Philaretus, which describes how 
 on a visit to the Grande Chartreuse in his youth, " the 
 devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melancholy 
 befitting so sad a place, his humour, and the strange 
 stories and pictures of Bruno, the father of the Order, 
 suggested such strange and hideous thoughts, and such 
 distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Chris- 
 tianity . . • that nothing but the forbiddingness of self-de- 
 spatch hindered his acting it." The dark hour passed ; " at 
 last it pleased God, one day he had received the Sacra- 
 ment, to restore unto him the withdrawn sense of His 
 favour." But he adds he "derived from this anxiety the 
 advantage of groundedness in religion," from being forced 
 " to be seriously inquisitive of the very fundamentals of 
 Christianity."— See Birch's " Life," p. 23. 
 
 3 Among his works we find in vol. iv. pp. 1 — 66, a con- 
 sideration of "the Excellency of Theology as compared 
 with Natural Philosophy, as objects of Man's Study;" in 
 vol. v. pp. 158 — 255, a " Free Inquiry into the vulgarly- 
 received Notion of Nature " (as a substitute for our recog- 
 nition of God, or as an intervener between us and Him) ; 
 and in vol. v. pp. 508 — 550, "The Christian Virtuoso, 
 showing that by being addicted to Experimental Philo- 
 sophy a man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 5 
 
 called u Sermons/' have, by force of propriety, 
 assumed the name and character of Lectures, till 
 at times we almost doubt whether they have a 
 right still to claim their place in Church. He had 
 no idea of relegating Christianity to the realms 
 of feeling and practice. To his mind this would 
 be to do either too little or too much — too little, 
 if Christianity be false — too much, far too much, 
 if it be true. 
 
 Surely, simply as a philosopher, he was right. 
 Theology must aspire to the character of a 
 science, if our recognition of God is to have any 
 living power. 
 
 By the twofold light of inte^udconsciousness 
 and external observation, man discerns two 
 worlds around him, to both of which in different 
 degrees he belongs — the world material of things 
 to which he is linked in body — the world 
 spiritual of persons, in which he claims a place 
 in virtue of his mind. In the knowledge 
 of both he is not content, till crude in- 
 stinct and practical familiarity have risen into 
 science. 
 
 But yet he cannot possibly rest on the science, 
 however exact, of these two as separate. For he 
 
 Christian," with " a Discourse on the distinction which 
 represents certain things as above Season, but not con- 
 trary to Reason.' 1 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 knows that they are not separate, because prac- 
 tically they act and react on each other. 
 Neither can he refuse to recognise them as 
 distinct; for they resist all efforts, however 
 daring and ingenious, to make them actually 
 one, whether by materializing spirit or by 
 spiritualizing matter. Distinct they are, yet 
 not separate, neither producing, yet each 
 implying, the other. What can this mean ? 
 
 The conception of some power — call it what 
 you will, Nature, Fate, God — over both, creating, 
 ruling, uniting both, is an absolute necessity 
 of thought. Yet the moment you grasp it, you 
 enter upon the sphere of theology ; earliest, no 
 doubt, as modern philosophy declares, of human 
 conceptions, in the " first thoughts " of simple 
 intuition ; perhaps put aside, at least from exclu- 
 sive sway, by the " second thoughts " of meta- 
 physical idea and physical observation; but 
 inevitably recurring, both in theory and in fact, 
 in those "third thoughts" of mature reflection, 
 which, according to an almost invariable law of 
 knowledge, have to correct and enlarge by the 
 aid of the second thoughts the simple intuition 
 of the first. 
 
 Take, indeed, what path you will, all science 
 ends, as was long ago truly said, in mystery. 
 Who can fathom the mystery of the ultimate 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 nature and origin of matter ? 4 Who can lay 
 Lis finger with unerring certainty on the 
 essential characteristics and the genesis of 
 spirit ? Who, by searching, can so find out 
 God, as to reduce the infinite within the com- 
 prehension of the finite intelligence ? Yet in 
 every line of thought, this necessary limitation of 
 science does not prevent it from being, as far as 
 it goes, true in theory and fruitful in result. 
 
 It is again true, that as we ascend in the scale 
 of being — from the science of inorganic nature to 
 the science of organic life, the science of 
 humanity, the science of God — at each step we 
 find that science becomes in its results less 
 definite and measurable, and yet more subtle, 
 more profound, nearer the heart of our life. 
 At every step, more truly is human science 
 rightly described, as u the knowing " in part 
 " that which/' in respect of full comprehension, 
 "passeth knowledge.''' But yet not without a 
 sense of a law, " setting all things one against 
 another, " we observe that, as science thus becomes 
 
 4 See a remarkable passage on this subject in tbe Bishop 
 of Carlisle's " Oxford and Cambridge Sermons," Sermon II. 
 p. 47, and an interesting Appendix on some of the theories 
 on the subject. He says truly that "it is possible to 
 involve one elf in such a puzzle concerning the constitution 
 of matter, as almost to be driven to take refuge in the 
 eccentric supposition, that it does not exist at all." 
 
8 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 more complex, additional powers of ascertaining 
 its first data are afforded to us. To the mere 
 observation, which alone can operate in the 
 physical sphere, is added, in the sphere of 
 humanity, the witness of internal consciousness ; 
 and the twofold witness of observation and con- 
 sciousness, striving upwards to God, is met, as 
 men have always believed, by some distinct reve- 
 lation of His very self, and (as we Christians 
 believe) by His manifestation in the Person of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 I follow, therefore, at once the principle on 
 which these Lectures were founded, and the 
 dictates of all sound reason, in claiming for 
 theology the right to be treated as a science, as 
 real as the science of nature and of man, al- 
 though doubtless more difficult and mysterious 
 than either ; and, moreover, as at once infinitely 
 more important than either to the true life of 
 the soul, and as imperiously demanded by the 
 necessity of harmonizing both. I hold such a 
 claim absolutely necessary to any permanent 
 and universal reality of religion itself. In an 
 individual life, religion may exist as simply an 
 inspiring sentiment and a practical power ; even 
 in the Church there may be times when inquiry 
 into first principles seems to sleej). But for the 
 race of man, and the whole life of humanity, a 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 power which shuns the test of reason, bidding 
 men escape from thought into the cloudland 
 of sentiment or the busy excitement of work, 
 necessarily abdicates all claim to permanent su- 
 premacy over man. 
 
 II. Treating, therefore, Theology as a science, 
 we may rightly discern in it that twofold division 
 of intellectual labour, at which I have already 
 glanced. It is possible, as many illustrious exam- 
 ples in this very Lectureship have shown, to take 
 up some one line of theology, and so to work it 
 out, as to make such work a landmark m the 
 history of thought. It is possible, on the other 
 hand, without attempting this original work, 
 to survey the various lines of evidential theo- 
 logy, as worked out already, in order to form 
 some conception of their relation to one another— 
 to see whether they really converge to one com- 
 mon point, and whether their testimonies have 
 those marks, at once of independence and coinci- 
 dence, which have made men acknowledge as an 
 universal rule of testimony, that " in the mouth of 
 two or three witnesses every word shall be estab- 
 lished." It is to this latter branch of the work, 
 that I propose, if God will, to devote the Lectures 
 of this year. If it be, as probably it is, the 
 humbler branch, yet perhaps it may be pleaded, 
 that it suggests considerations, apt to be some- 
 
10 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 what neglected in days of excessive division of 
 intellectual labour. Certainly it may be urged, 
 that ; if its conclusion be in any way established, 
 it is one which comes home with remarkable 
 force to the minds of men in general ; and there- 
 fore may be not unsuitable to a time in which 
 speculation in theological subjects is diffused, in 
 popular form, through the mass of educated and 
 half-educated society. 
 
 Now, in the work proposed for these Lectures 
 by their founder/ there is a threefold division. 
 First, the truth of religion in general — that is 
 the recognition of a personal God, having com- 
 munion with man — is to be maintained against 
 Atheism, whether in veiled or unveiled forms. 
 Next, the need of some definite revelation, and 
 of a permanent creed based upon it, is to be 
 maintained against those whom the founder 
 calls " Theists/' but who are popularly and less 
 accurately known as Deists. Lastly, the essen- 
 tial and unique Truth of Christianity is to be 
 maintained against the claims of other esta- 
 blished religions of the world. Our opponents in 
 the last two branches of the argument, are our 
 
 5 The founder's will directs that " eight sermons should 
 1)0 preached every year for proving the Christian religion 
 againsl notorious infidels, to wit, Atheists, Theists, Pagans, 
 Jews, and Mahommedans." 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 11 
 
 allies in the first. It is to the first that I would 
 confine your attention now. I would ask you to 
 consider the convergent force of the various 
 lines of what is called Natural Theology, as bear- 
 ing upon the truth which Deists, Pagans, Jews, 
 Mohammedans hold in common with Christians 
 with various degrees of fervour and certainty. 
 The truth so sublimely embodied in the words, 
 iC Hear, O man, the Lord our God is One Lord," 
 is no unfruitful faith. In proportion to the cer- 
 tainty with which it is held, will the inference 
 be drawn, " Thou shaft love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and all thy mind, with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy strength/'' Whatever 
 other gulfs of division may sunder men from 
 one another, there is none comparable to the 
 fundamental opposition between the life where 
 God is, and the life where He is not. 
 
 III. Now in regard to this fundamental prin- 
 ciple, I would ask you to note that the foundation 
 of these Lectures, while it directs the preacher to 
 aim at " proving the Christian religion/'' evidently 
 imposes on him the task, not of establishing its 
 truth de novo, but of defending it against " any 
 objections and difficulties which may be started." 
 
 In the true meaning of this direction, I 
 trace the recognition of a great fact, ol 
 which the reality, indeed, cannot be doubted, 
 
12 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 but the whole force may be, and often is 
 overlooked — the fact that the belief in God is 
 universally (if I may so express it) in possession 
 of the ground of human thought. It is on the 
 Atheist or Pantheist, rather than upon the 
 Theist, that the onus j) rob an di rests. He must 
 account for the existence of this belief, which is 
 undoubtedly as instinctive and wide-spread, and 
 as apparently ineradicable, as the recognition of 
 the existence of right and wrong, or as the con- 
 sciousness of the freedom of human will. He 
 will, indeed, and on his own premisses he reason- 
 ably may, deny the conclusiveness of the old 
 axiom, that in man te nothing can be frustrate," 
 — that to every belief there must correspond an 
 objective reality, and to every spiritual craving 
 a satisfaction. For that axiom implies in the 
 universe the design, the wisdom, the goodness 
 of a Personal God. 6 But (I repeat) he has 
 the judgment of mankind against him. Either 
 he must leave men at peace in possession 
 of this universal and natural belief, or he 
 must show cause for expelling it from the 
 throne in the realm of thought, which it 
 has occupied from the beginning. How comes 
 it there ? It certainly is no answer to refer 
 
 6 See Hooker, book i. chap. xi. 4. See Aristotle de 
 Coelo, u debs Kal i) (fivais ov$(v /xdriju itoiovgi. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 13 
 
 its existence to an "inveterate tendency to 
 personification." For the question immediately 
 follows, "Whence came that inveterate tend- 
 ency ?" "An inveterate tendency " is another 
 name for a natural law of thought. If the 
 existence of such a law is not a prima facie 
 argument of a corresponding truth, then all 
 reasoning is at an end. 
 
 I am, indeed, not unaware that the fact itself 
 has been questioned. No man can deny the 
 existence of various forms of religion, covering 
 the whole area of humanity both in space and 
 time ; but, just as in morality it is argued that 
 the actual variations in the conceptions of what 
 is right and what is wrong, discredit the belief 
 in a power to recognise right and wrong in the 
 abstract, so it is maintained in religion that the 
 various forms of the idea of God are so many, so 
 startling, so mutually antagonistic, that they 
 may be held to destroy each other. I cannot 
 think that, in either morality or religion, this 
 view can possibly stand the light of investiga- 
 tion and serious thought. 
 
 Glance at the religions of the world, from 
 the lowest Fetichism to the highest and purest 
 Monotheism ; you find this one element common 
 to all — the belief in a personal power, a mind 
 and a will, governing the world of things and 
 
14 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 of men. Even if what we call the powers of 
 nature be worshipped, the light, the heaven, 
 the earth — the Ato? aWrjp, UafjL/jirjrcop re Tf), — 
 they are invariably personified ; and be it ob- 
 served that this personification rapidly passes 
 through so many forms, that at last the concep- 
 tion of personality alone remains, and the 
 original connexion is lost. As man becomes 
 conscious of the inherent superiority of spirit in 
 himself to the grandest forces of material nature, 
 the recognition of a Divine personality increases 
 in its definiteness, although it may clothe itself 
 in attributes belonging to imperfect humanity. 7 
 
 7 This is surely obvious enough in the interesting re- 
 searches into " Compai-ative Mythology " made of late 
 years. See, for example, Max Miiller's " Chips from a Ger- 
 man Workshop," vol. ii. pp. 1 — 144 Thus the myths of 
 ancient Greece are obviously traced to an origin in the per- 
 sonification of Physical Powers and metaphorical descrip- 
 tions of Physical Phenomena. But in their development 
 there is an equally obvious admixture of a true human 
 element. The legend of the labours of Hercules may have 
 as its germ the mythical description of the passage of the 
 sun through the signs of the zodiac. But who, reading it 
 in the full beauty of its development, can fail to see that it 
 has become a spiritual history of the heroic soul, conquer- 
 ing nature, conquering self, and at last made perfect by 
 death ? To resolve all this, and other noble legends, into 
 '•sun-myths" seems almost an outrage on common sense. 
 We might as well suppose the Zeus of Homer to bo merely 
 the sky, because the epithet vfcpeKriyepera refers to an older 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 15 
 
 As he comes to see that the supreme ruling 1 
 power is something greater than physical force 
 and humanity, he speaks of it, it may be, under 
 vaguer and more mysterious names. But every- 
 where he personifies still. He may call it 
 Nature, Law, a " Something not ourselves," but 
 he speaks of it, he thinks of it, as an agent. 
 According to the suggestive satire of the old 
 Greek dramatist, he may dethrone Zeus, but 
 the " vortex " of unknown law and force which 
 he holds to be primeval, he turns, consciousty 
 or unconsciously, into a personal God. 3 
 
 All the various corruptions of the religious 
 idea fail utterly to destroy this fundamental 
 element, this conception of a Personal Ruler. 
 The faith, which the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 describes, seems as instinctive as reason, con- 
 science, affection themselves. 9 Man " endures 
 
 personification of the Heaven. Personification lias passed 
 into Personality. 
 
 8 Aristophanes, "The Clouds/' 1454, Aluos fiaviXevei 
 
 9 It is remarkable that the definitions of Faith given (in 
 Heb. xi. 1), iXTU^ofxevoov inrotTTaais, TrpayfxaTcov eheyxos ov 
 8\€7rofxevctiv (which perhaps in modern language is best 
 described as the " realization of the Invisible''), is in itself 
 applicable to the action of all the human faculties in the 
 discovery of Truth, whether speculative, moral, or aesthetic. 
 It is the peculiarly human attribute, essentially distin- 
 guishing us from the highest brute instinct, and lying on 
 the threshold of all true science. It is only in v. 27 
 
16 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 as seeing-/'' though it may be through mists of 
 doubt and distorting mirage of superstition, 
 "Him who is invisible/'' The belief, moreover, 
 that the Supreme Will, thus universally recog- 
 nised, is glided by the wisdom and righteousness 
 and love, which are the highest attributes of a 
 spiritual nature, is equally universal, although it 
 may be liable to greater obscuration and perver- 
 sion. In the earlier and ruder stages of thought, 
 that Will may be supposed to make the produc- 
 tion of obedience and worship the one thing need- 
 ful, and accordingly to hold prayer and. sacrifice 
 higher than purity and truth, or to supersede 
 by personal favour towards individuals the uni- 
 versal dictates of righteousness. This idea be- 
 longs to the stage of thought, immature but 
 surely not unnatural, which, as in childhood, 
 finds its only virtue in the submission to 
 wisdom and power greater than our own. 
 Occasionally, again, men may, in their sense of 
 confusion and contradiction in the world, 
 actually attribute to the Supreme Power (or at 
 least to supernatural powers) the faults, the 
 blindness, the partiality, of which they are 
 conscious in themselves. But these defects 
 
 where the action of faith is described as upwv, not rb 
 &6pa.Toi>, but rbv aSparop, that the differentia of Faith in 
 its reference to a Personal object is introduced. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 17 
 
 gradually clear up, especially as we advance to- 
 wards Monotheism. The supreme personal will, 
 in the creation of things, is recognised as acting 
 by design ; and in the government of men is 
 acknowledged as guided by moral principles. 
 When once progress is made in this direction, 
 there are no steps backward. The truer and 
 grander conception destroys all others. How- 
 ever imperfectly, the mind of man acknowledges 
 a God, not only of power, but of wisdom and 
 goodness. 
 
 But yet, if even the belief in a Personal will 
 be accepted, the passage to Monotheism — ex- 
 plicit or implicit — seems but a question of 
 time. 
 
 (a) Polytheism — the belief in many gods — is 
 but a brief halting-place in thought. Begotten 
 of the sense of multiplicity of power, it vanishes 
 before the discovery of a unity underlying it. 
 Examine what system of polytheism you will, 
 Greek, Latin, Teutonic, you always come to 
 one God, — it may be a Primal God, from whom 
 all others proceed ; it may be a Supreme God, 
 to whom all others bow. The "gods many 
 and lords many," so long as they are thought of 
 as divine, are only superhuman created beings. 
 The Christian, who believes that there are such 
 beings, and who sees no reason why the teach- 
 
 c 
 
18 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 
 
 ing of the Old Testament,, which attributes to 
 them ministerial functions even in the physical 
 sphere,, should be mere metaphor/ will not fail 
 to see in the errors of a real polytheism a sub- 
 stratum of distorted truth. But in that curious 
 form of polytheism, to which the name of 
 " Henotheism " or "■ Cathenotheism " has been 
 given (itself probably a phase of transition 
 towards the commoner forms), in which each 
 deity is, in turn, represented as independent of 
 the rest, as the only deity present to the mind 
 of the worshipper at the time of his prayer 
 (as in the religion of the Vedic poetry of 
 India), 2 we see still more clearly that we have 
 
 1 I refer not to poetical passages, but to such passages 
 as Exod. xii. 23'; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35. Bound 
 the simple idea has been woven a strange fantastic fabric 
 of speculation and legend. But the idea itself is surely 
 not a priori improbable ; it is only the carrying out, in a 
 higher degree, and in ways to us inconceivable, what Ave 
 know of God's use of human agency in the realm of Nature ; 
 it is, at least, not inconsistent with those appearances of 
 conflict and isolated imperfections, overruled to a general 
 purpose, which Science believes itself to trace in the 
 physical sphere. 
 
 2 See Max Midler's " Chips from a German Workshop," 
 vol. i. p. 27. In his Lecture on the Vedas the author 
 shows that "Agui" (the fire), "Indra" (the day), " Va- 
 runa" (the .sky), are alternately exalted as the Supreme 
 Deity. " All the rest disappear for the moment . . . and 
 He only stands in full light before the eyes of the wor- 
 shipper." lie adds, "The consciousness that all the 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 19 
 
 but ttoWwv ovofiarcov /J<op(f)r) fzia (" One Person 
 many-named"). There is but one Godhead. It 
 only manifests each of its attributes successively 
 under the name of a new god. 
 
 There may be a longer halt in Dualism in its 
 various forms, that is, in the conception of two 
 powers — it maybe of spirit and matter — it maybe 
 (in a moral sense) of good and evil — making this 
 world their battle-field, which springs out of the 
 painful consciousness of the mystery of evil in the 
 world. But examine again more closely, and we 
 shall find not only that the God of Light is the 
 true God, to whom the god of darkness is already 
 inferior, and by whom lie is destined to be over- 
 come ; but also that behind these two rival deities 
 there rises in dim and shadowy majesty the vision 
 of a yet older Being from whom both spring. 3 
 
 deities are but different names of one and the same God- 
 head breaks forth here and there in the Yedas." See also 
 the same author's "Lectures on the Science of Eeligion," 
 Lect. ii. p. 141. 
 
 3 See Hardwick's " Christ and other Masters," part iv. 
 chap. iii. "Faint glimmerings of one .only God — inert, 
 indeed, if not impersonal, but still the primal cause of all 
 things— are discernible here and there in the remains of 
 Medo-Persian heathenism ; and certainly such a dogma . . . 
 is often traceable in the literature of the later Parsees." 
 " The reign of the good principle, though subsequent in 
 time, was represented as far mightier and more lasting 
 than the reign of evil. Ahriman, the child of doubt, shall 
 be hereafter superseded." In other words, the ancient 
 
20 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 This solution of the mystery of the universe is 
 therefore merely temporary and tentative. If it 
 has recently been offered us, as a theory of modern 
 thought, it is simply in despair of any successful 
 search after a true and ultimate solution. 4 
 
 Both these imperfect forms of thought give, 
 way. Monotheism prevails by tire principle of 
 the " survival of the fittest/' First (as I be- 
 lieve), and original in an instinctive form, it 
 emerges again full-grown, after the trial and 
 failure of all these superstitions, which stop 
 half-way between earth and heaven. At this 
 moment, avowedly in Christianity, Judaism, and 
 the Mohammedanism, which is but a wild offshoot 
 from them, it prevails over full half the world, 
 and over all the leading races of mankind; 
 covertly it underlies the systems in which the 
 worship of many gods still seems to prevail. 
 
 Persian could discern beneath the manifold contradictions 
 of the actual world an aboriginal unity, could hear amid 
 them all the promise of some blessed restoration. 
 
 4 I allude, of course, to the speculations of Mr. Stuart 
 Mill. In his "Autobiography" he mentions the common 
 Dualistic hypothesis, as having commended itself to his 
 father, but apparently also as meeting some sympathy from 
 himself. In his " Essays on Theism " he inclines to the 
 softened Dualism (known in the ancient Gnostic theories) 
 of a supposed Creator (a "Demiurgus" in the old phraseo- 
 logy) limited in power by some external conditions, " laws " 
 of matter or being. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 21 
 
 (b) But one strange exception to this universal 
 human belief presents itself in the Buddhism 
 which has been called ' c the Religion of Despair/' 
 which (to quote the words of a chief authority 
 on the subject) 5 "has no god; has not even the 
 confused and vague notion of an universal Spirit 
 in which the human soul may be absorbed. Nor 
 does it admit Nature in the proper sense of the 
 word. It cannot unite the human soul, which 
 it does not even mention, with a God whom it 
 ignores, nor with a Nature which it knows no 
 better." Nothing certainly can be more com- 
 pletely negative than the Buddhist theory. There 
 is hardly a point in modern Nihilism or Agnos- 
 ticism, which is not anticipated in its dreary 
 denial of the Being of God and of the true per- 
 sonality of man, in its recognition of continued 
 flux and decay as the law of all being, of sorrow 
 as the law of all conscious existence, and in 
 its prospect of annihilation as the one supreme 
 happiness of man. It is this utterly negative 
 character, which prevents it from being a religion 
 capable of uniting itself with mental activity, 
 with nobleness of enterprise, with progress of 
 humanity. It broods like a cloud over the stag- 
 nant and unprogressive civilization of Central 
 
 5 Barthelemy St. Hilaire, quoted by Max Miiller, " Chips 
 from a German Workshop," vol. i. 
 
22 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 Asia ; in its own special home in Ceylon it awaits 
 with folded hands the foreseen triumph of Chris- 
 tianity ; it is the only religion which foretells its 
 own absolute extinction in the hereafter. 6 
 
 But, as a practical religion, it is not a little 
 instructive to observe how piteously it struggles 
 to escape from the dreary prison-house of nega- 
 tions into some forms of positive belief. I will 
 not speak of the significant fact, that, side by 
 side with the Buddhist temples, ignored and yet 
 tolerated by their priests, there are shrines in 
 which lower deities are worshipped, as at least 
 having some real power over human life, with a 
 half-hesitating worship." But what shall we say 
 
 6 The religion of Buddha (so he himself prophesied) is to 
 vanish utterly in itself and in its effects through five stages 
 of declension in 5000 years. See Spence Hardy's " Eastern 
 Monachism," chap. xxv. He adds, "Not long ago the 
 high priest of the Buddhists in Ceylon wrote to the monarch 
 of Siam . . . that, unless he came forward liberally to sup- 
 port the cause of their common religion, it would soon be 
 banished from the island by the efforts of Europeans to 
 impress their own systems on the minds of the people." 
 St. Hilaire says, " We are far from predicting for the 
 Buddhism of Ceylon a speedy fall, or even a rapid decay : 
 it is, however, certain that Christianity makes perpetually 
 considerable conquests. The Buddhist priesthood does 
 not seem to prepare for a regenerating struggle, nor to 
 rekindle its zeal in the face of a formidable danger." — " Le 
 Bouddha et sa Religion," part iii. chap. ii. 
 
 "* See Spence Hardy's " Manual of Buddhism," chap. ii. 
 sect. 3. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 23 
 
 of the still more striking fact, that Buddha him- 
 self — as the incarnation of wisdom and righteous- 
 ness and love in a Son of Man, on whom are accu- 
 mulated attributes all but Divine — is practically 
 made a god by the thousands who crowd his 
 temples, and in the presence of his gigantic 
 image pour out to "his memory" the homage 
 of their offerings ? " He who had left no place 
 in the whole universe for a Divine Being was 
 deified himself by the multitudes, who wanted a 
 person whom they could worship, a king whom 
 they might invoke, a friend before whom they 
 could pour out their griefs." 8 How singularly 
 instructive it is, that, where no prayer may rise 
 to God, the people prostrate themselves or bow 
 before the image of Buddha, and declare that 
 "they take refuge in Buddha, in the Law or "Word, 
 and in the Priesthood" — a refuge from "the 
 fear of successive existences, from terrors of mind, 
 from pains of body, and from the misery of the 
 four hells ! " How painfully significant of the 
 reaction from atheism into superstition is the 
 relic-worship of the tooth of Buddha/ the remains 
 
 8 Max Muller's "Chips from a German Workshop," 
 vol. i. p. 254. 
 
 9 On all this subject see Spence Hardy's " Eastern 
 Monachism," chap. xix. There is a curious description of 
 the Festival of the exhibition of the Tooth of Buddha in the 
 Appendix to St. Hilaire's " Le Bouddha et sa Religion." 
 
24 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 of his body from the pyre, the very things that 
 he used, and the impressions of his foot ! 
 
 Nor is this wonderful; for in Buddha they see 
 the very impersonation of that singularly lofty 
 though ascetic morality, and that " enlighten- 
 ment," penetrating into the secrets of the uni- 
 verse, which alone they leave existent amidst 
 the wreck of all other beliefs. Strange, yet in- 
 structive, is the inconsistency in which they hold 
 him to be non-existent, and yet put their trust 
 in him. And even as to the Nirwana itself — 
 whether the extinction which it expresses be the 
 extinction of desire, or the extinction of con- 
 scious life — it would seem that, " except to a few 
 hardened philosophers or ecstatic dreamers/'' it 
 really wears the form of a half- seen paradise, all 
 the sweeter because of the infinite gloom of their 
 conception of this life. In it men hope still to 
 be— 
 
 " From the burden of the flesh, from care and toil released, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, the weary are at 
 rest." 
 
 Even here, therefore, in the very home of what 
 seems a formal atheism, we have the same wit- 
 ness of the soul of man to a Personal Power — 
 something different from either a mere law and 
 an universal all-pervading Spirit. Although with 
 stammering lips and faltering tongue, we call 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 25 
 
 even Buddhism to join the great cloud of wit- 
 nesses by whose direct testimony the belief in 
 God is established. 1 
 
 IV. Yet I cannot but add to this direct witness 
 another form of universal testimony, striking 
 from its very indirectness. I mean the testi- 
 mony of human language. Take whatever lan- 
 guage you will — provided that it has emerged 
 from a mere rudimentary barbarism. Try to 
 describe in it the system of the universe, and to 
 refer to the Power, whatever it is, which is 
 Primeval and Supreme, under which things 
 exist, and men act and think. You will find it 
 impossible to go through a dozen sentences with- 
 out using terms which imply a personal power, 
 ruling by mind, with purpose, and deliberate 
 will. 2 When men, speaking of physical things, 
 dwell on the powers, the laws, the processes of 
 nature — whether in the most rigid scientific 
 
 1 See Note at the end of the Lecture. 
 
 2 The Duke of Argyll, in a Lecture on " Anthropomor- 
 phism in Theology," says with perfect truth, " There is the 
 phraseology of those who, without any thought either of 
 theological dogma or philosophical speculation, are, above 
 all things, observers, and who describe the facts they 
 see in whatever language appears most fully and most 
 adequately to describe them. The language of such men 
 is what Mr. Darwin's language almost always is — eminently 
 teleological and anthropomorphic." — "Problems of Faith," 
 p. 41 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1875). 
 
26 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 terms, or in the rhapsodical fervour which sup- 
 plies the place of religious enthusiasm — they must 
 use phrases again and again, which either mean 
 nothing at all, or mean in nature a God, veiled, 
 imperfect, perhaps capricious, but a person still. 
 When, especially in relation to the higher world 
 of persons, they talk of the power of " Law/' 
 how remarkable it is that this term of law — un- 
 happily more ambiguously and vaguely used 
 than any other — they have been forced to borrow 
 from the political sphere, in which it means the 
 declaration of a personal will, conceived in real 
 thought, backed by a real efficient force. But 
 for the personal associations which cling to it, it 
 could never satisfy men for a moment, as an 
 account either of the origin or the reason of 
 things. 3 These facts, as facts, must be familiar 
 to every one of us. They belong not to one 
 age, or one language, but to all. They are the 
 expression of that " Vox Populi," which is, after 
 all, the ultimate appeal in the simple decision of 
 
 3 A "law," in the sense in which the term is used in 
 physics, is simply a formal statement of a regularly recur- 
 ring fact or series of facts. Hence it describes modes of 
 action, and refers actions to particular classes, but of the 
 cause of action it tolls nothing. Yet from the associations 
 clinging to the word, the statement that physical pheno- 
 mena are due to a law is constantly mistaken for an 
 adequate statement of their cause. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 27 
 
 the " Yes " or " No " on all great questions of 
 human life. But surely it is impossible to over- 
 rate their significance, as implying that the 
 conception of a personal God is an inherent 
 law of all human thought. The wisest judges 
 of evidence tell us, that the witness which most 
 impresses the mind is the accidental, almost un- 
 conscious witness, which comes from many sides, 
 and always speaks out of the abundance of the 
 heart. It is just this kind of witness which we 
 trace in human language on this great question. 
 There can be nothing new to any of us in this 
 reference to the universal testimony of language 
 to a God. But I cannot help thinking that we 
 take it too much as a matter of course, and do 
 not discern its full reality and significance. It 
 is not only universal, but it is permanent. By 
 its universality, it implies the existence of what 
 is called a religious instinct. But this is not 
 all. It is permanent, It belongs to language, 
 not in its first rudimentary stage only, but in its 
 progress towards perfection of expression, cor- 
 responding to growth in subtlety of thought. 
 If men try to get rid of it in describing the 
 conclusions of advanced science, they are re- 
 duced to a cumbrousness of expression all but 
 intolerable; and even then the most carefully 
 constructed lines of abstract expression fail to 
 
28 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 
 
 keep out the irrepressible conceptions of Person- 
 ality. This permanence, hardly to be questioned 
 as a matter of fact, has its own meaning. It 
 shows that this religious instinct, if in form it 
 is modified, yet in essence stands unshaken 
 before the awakening of thought; and, as the 
 mind of man goes out along the various lines of 
 thought, it goes ever with him, growing by 
 degrees from a mere instinct into a rational 
 principle, systematizing its conclusions, and 
 harmonizing them with other forms of thought. 
 
 V. This universal testimony of mankind in 
 both its main lines — the direct witness of the 
 Religions, the indirect witness of the languages 
 of the "World — follows one and the same course. 
 It begins with simple rudimentary conceptions ; 
 it gradually works them out into complete sys- 
 tems of thought, passing on the way through con- 
 flicting forms, of which the deepest and truest 
 at last survives. 
 
 It is the neglect of this distinction between 
 the first instinctive thoughts, and the " third 
 thoughts" of full rational conception (so 
 forcibly insisted on by Coleridge) which is the 
 essential fallacy of the Comtist tabulation of 
 those three different theoretical conditions, 
 through which it supposes the human mind to 
 pass in every branch of knowledge — the Theolo- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 29 
 
 gical, the Metaphysical, and the (so called) Scien- 
 tific or Positive. Surely it is obvious that these 
 conditions are in no sense antagonistic to or exclu- 
 sive of one another. The theological conception 
 — that is the belief in God — with which we are 
 concerned, may probably, in the first instance, 
 present itself to the mind, as the sole necessary 
 account, not only of the " Why/' but of the 
 " How/'' The analogy (that is) of our own 
 individual action may be so rigidly pressed, as to 
 lead to the idea of a direct and independent 
 action of the Deity in every event, or on every 
 individual being. So far it is imperfect, and 
 needs the correction which it speedily receives. 
 But the discovery of " Laws/'' (that is) general 
 methods of action, or of " Principles/'' (that is) 
 Attributes of a Supreme Mind, capable of being 
 in part understood and reflected by man, as 
 determining the Government of the World, in no 
 sense interferes with the conception of a God, 
 as the ultimate Cause of all things, of whose 
 Will we have the expression in the Laws, alike 
 of physical agency and of human life. On the 
 contrary, this conception alone gives anything 
 like completeness to the Metaphysical investiga- 
 tion. So, again, with regard to the " Positive " 
 investigation, tabulation, and classification of 
 facts, it is clear that it may dispel many crude, 
 
30 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 metaphysical or theological conceptions ; it may 
 suggest caution, reticence, modesty, in all specu- 
 lation of either type. Such has, indeed, been 
 the result in all directions of the accumulation 
 of the treasures of inductive science. But to 
 attribute to it the power finally to supersede 
 either is to contradict the very laws of human 
 thought. In the name of true science, as well 
 as true religion, the mind stubbornly rejects the 
 attempt of the " Positive Philosophy 3) to impose 
 on it the duty of " giving over the vain search 
 after Absolute notions, the origin and destination 
 of the Universe, and the causes of Phenomena/' 4 
 There is a truer philosophy after all in the old 
 description of the prerogative of human reason, 
 as contrasted with brute instinct, that " conse- 
 cjuentia cernit, causas rerum videt . . . rebus 
 prassentibus adjungit atque adnectit futuras."" 5 
 The attempt to stifle the exercise of that prero- 
 gative must be vain, even when the soul con- 
 templates only the universe. But it is still more 
 vain, when the soul, becoming conscious of itself, 
 asks the questions, "What am I?" "Whence 
 came I?" " Whither am I going ? " All expe- 
 rience shows, sometimes in grotesque or pathetic 
 
 4 Comto, " Positive Philosophy " (translation by Harriet 
 Martineau), chap. i. 
 
 5 Cic. de Officiis, i. 4. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 31 
 
 forms of extravagance, that if the soul cannot find 
 God (or rather, as a Christian would say, " be 
 found of God "), it will have some substitute for 
 Him, to which it may pay the homage, not only 
 of intellectual recognition, but of devotional 
 Cultus. 
 
 Now this process of development from insti ac- 
 tive conceptions, through the corrections of ob- 
 servation and generalization, to ultimate rational 
 principles, which we here attribute to religious 
 faith, is certainly the process discernible in the 
 growth of the great laws of all human thought, 
 whether in the intellectual or moral sphere. 
 
 Consider the actual process of knowledge in 
 relation to its two spheres — the Ego and the Won 
 Ego — the little world within and the great world 
 without. 
 
 The consciousness of Self — of a personal iden- 
 tity, of a will, of a reason, of a power of desire 
 and action — is absolutely instinctive in the 
 youngest child, or in the merest savage. Yet to 
 " know self" clearly and definitely, was long ago 
 declared to be the highest wisdom. All edu- 
 cation, by teaching from without or by thought 
 from within, is on one side, simply the drawing 
 out into conscious energy the faculties, which 
 lie (so to speak) in embryo in the first instinc- 
 tive knowledge. 
 
32 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 The recognition of the Noil Ego — whether of 
 the world of things or the world of persons 
 around us — is, again, absolutely instinctive. 
 Every student of philosophy has learnt that, since 
 we know of that world simply by its impressions 
 upon our consciousness, it is easy to contend 
 that we have no certainty, except of the existence 
 of those impressions, and that there may be no 
 objective reality corresponding to them. But 
 all such speculations are simply the playthings 
 of philosophic subtlety. There is an instinctive 
 assumption of the reality of the external world. 
 It becomes a "form of thought" under which 
 we begin to observe, to think, to feel towards 
 that outer world, till out of this instinctive 
 recognition grows up the whole fabric of scien- 
 tific knowledge, physical and metaphysical. All 
 education on this side is simply the thoughtful 
 understanding of the various things and beings 
 around us, in their true relations to us and to 
 one another. 
 
 Nor is this otherwise in the moral sense, so 
 far as it deals only with earth. The love of self 
 and the love of our neighbour are its two great 
 laws. Do we not see them both beginning in 
 instinct, and both growing into settled and 
 rational principles ? 
 
 The love of self begins in the instinct of self- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 33 
 
 preservation and self-gratification, and the delight 
 in the exercise of activity and power. It ends 
 in the deliberate recognition of self as a factor 
 in God's universe, in the resolution accordingly 
 to assert our own freedom, take up our own work, 
 defend our own rights, and to seek, in this world 
 and in the next, that individual perfection which 
 is happiness. So developed it is, in spite of its 
 intellectual and moral perversions, a fundamental 
 law of humanity. No theory of life can ignore 
 it, or depreciate it below its right level. 
 
 The love of our neighbour — or, to speak more 
 fully, the u being true in love" towards men — is 
 again (thank God!) absolutely instinctive, in the 
 thrill of natural affection, and in the natural 
 shame which crimsons the cheek in conscious- 
 ness of falsehood or dishonesty. But out of that 
 instinct it grows into the conception of a real 
 spiritual unity, binding men together in various 
 degrees of nearness, making it literally true that 
 " if one member suffer all suffer with it," brincr- 
 ing out (as Butler showed long ago, in his 
 " Sermons on Human Nature,") duty and social 
 affection as inherent laws of humanity, coexist- 
 ing with and dominating the love of self. 
 
 So it is that the great laws of human life 
 assert themselves. All men feel the instinct, 
 unless their nature be intellectually or morally 
 
 D 
 
34 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 disorganized. In different degrees, seldom per- 
 haps in any high and perfect degree, do they 
 grasp the principle. But 'on that knowledge, 
 half-instinctive, half-rational, they act, till the 
 principle works itself practically into the very 
 texture of their life. 
 
 It seems to me deeply significant to note here 
 the exact analogy of the growth of the higher 
 knowledge and love of God, as we gather it from 
 this universal testimony of man. It shows it as 
 an universal instinct in the minds of all men. It 
 shows it worked out by the intellect, conscience, 
 imagination, affections, till it systematizes itself 
 in the religions of the world. 
 
 Nor does the analogy stop here. This process 
 of development is not carried out by each mind 
 for itself, nor does it run its full course in the 
 mass of human minds. Men sometimes speak, 
 scornfully or apologetically, of the fact that reli- 
 gion is in the great majority of men a sentiment, 
 a practice, a doctrine received by tradition from 
 the past, and learnt in each generation from the 
 teaching of the few. We answer that we should 
 be surprised if it were otherwise ; and we should 
 conclude, if it claimed a different character, that 
 it was not a power destined to influence the mass 
 of men and rule the destinies of the world. For 
 we observe precisely the same fact in the other 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 35 
 
 great laws of humanity. As there are few men 
 of science, few moral or metaphysical philosophers, 
 in whom the development of the intellectual and 
 moral powers is worked out systematically, so 
 there are but few who can be original thinkers or 
 profound students in theology. To the many 
 religion is half-instinctive, half- thoughtful. It is 
 known by its practical power to do the work, to 
 meet the needs, to solve (so far as they are 
 soluble) the mysteries of this world. That 
 knowledge is enough to save the soul and to 
 regenerate the life. It is the kind of knowledge 
 which always rules humanity. Yet the more 
 we ponder it, the further we can advance in it, 
 and find, till time shall be no more, new 
 tc depths in the wisdom and the knowledge of 
 God." 
 
 VI. There is then a truth in the old phrase, 
 " Natural Religion. " We Christians must hold 
 it an erroneous phrase, if it opposes itself to Re- 
 vealed Religion, as though Revelation from God 
 were not a part of His dispensation to our race. 
 We see, in fact, that what men generally call 
 " Natural Religion," is mostly the diffused re- 
 fraction of some Revealed Truth. All students 
 of humanity must hold it a delusive phrase, 
 when it leads men (as it led men of old) 
 to attempt to draw out a formal creed of its 
 
36 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 principles, disentangled from all connexion with 
 the actual religions of the world. You may 
 as well try to exhibit an ideal man, with 
 no peculiarities of any existing race. But 
 as what jurists called the Law of Nature 
 was the common substance embodied in, and 
 therefore underlying, the systems of various 
 nations, 6 so there is a meaning in this phrase of 
 " Natural Religion."" It tells us that the main 
 idea of religion — the relation of the human spirit 
 to a personal God — is so deeply and widely natu- 
 ral, that without it you cannot satisfy the needs 
 nor understand the history of man. It tells us, 
 in the language of St. Paul on Mars' Hill, that, 
 even in ignorant worship, men are simply obey- 
 ing an irresistible law, which bids us "feel 
 after and find " in conscious thought " Him 
 who is " in fact " not far from any one of us," 
 and " in whom/" whether we know it or not, 
 
 live 
 
 and move and have our bein 
 
 &■ 
 
 How that instinct is worked out, modified, 
 yet never destroyed, by the consideration of va- 
 
 6 See Maine's " Ancient Law," chap. iii. " The Jus 
 Naturale, or Law of Nature, is simply the Jus Gentium, or 
 Law of Nations seen in the light of a peculiar theory." . . . 
 " After Nature became a household word in the mouths of 
 the Romans, the belief gradually prevailed among the 
 Roman lawyers that the old Jus Gentium was in fact the 
 last Code of Nature." 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 37 
 
 rions distinct lines of thought, we shall strive to 
 see hereafter. Meanwhile I ask you to ponder 
 thoroughly the significance of the fact itself. 
 When the contriver of some material system of 
 force or machinery can be sure that he has the 
 forces of Physical Nature with him, he laughs 
 all material obstacles and all objections of theory 
 to scorn. When a statesman can say, " The 
 law of human nature is on my side, and time 
 itself will fight for me/ J he is little dismayed 
 by opposition, however well organized and 
 strong. If we, in declaring God as revealed in 
 Jesus Christ, know that the belief in God is an 
 inherent tendency in man's spiritual nature, we 
 shall go on, troubled perhaps, but never cast 
 down, by speculative difficulties of understanding, 
 by moral perplexities of practice, even by the 
 errors and imperfections in the preaching and life 
 of Christianity itself. What we have to declare, 
 we confess " passeth human knowledge ,J to dis- 
 cover, and "passeth knowledge" perfectly to com- 
 prehend. But we believe that, in true though 
 in imperfect measure, men can know it, must 
 know it, will know it; and so knowing, "be 
 filled " up to the capacity of their finite nature, 
 " with all the fulness of God." 
 
38 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN" GOD. 
 
 NOTE (seep. 2 i). 
 
 Buddhism must be regarded as being a twofold pro- 
 test, first, against the monstrosity and oppressiveness 
 of the Brahminical system, in its wild mythology, its 
 elaborate sacrifices, and its grotesque superstition; and 
 next, against the artificial tyranny of caste, in reference 
 alike to God and to man. Hence its negative and destruc- 
 tive character as a system of thought ; hence the achieve- 
 ments, which (to use Max Muller's words) gave vitality 
 to the preaching of Buddha— "the simplicity of the 
 ceremonial, which he taught ; the equality of all men, 
 which he declared ; the religious toleration, which he 
 preached." As a solvent of the system, against which 
 it desired to protest, it employed the terrible conception 
 of an all but absolute Nihilism, in which the being of God, 
 the individuality of the soul, the existence even in Nature 
 of anything except a perpetual succession of phenomena, 
 are ail either denied or ignored. That solvent did its tre- 
 mendous work ; but, when the ground was cleared, the 
 Buddhist philosophy could not fill the void, and yet that 
 void proved intolerable to human creatures. 
 
 Accordingly, while in terms denying all personality and 
 immortality of the soul, it admits, apparently from older 
 religions, the idea of a Transmigration, in which, by a 
 strange inconsistency, continuity of individual being ap- 
 pears to be denied (the soul at each birth being supposed 
 to be a new soul), and yet the characteristics of each phase 
 of existence are determined under the law of Kharma (or 
 merit) — a sort of moral fate— by the conduct of the soul in 
 the previous stage. Through these various stages the soul 
 passes to Nirwana, which assumes the aspect of a rest 
 after "life's fitful fever," so often recurrent in various 
 phases. By this conception, rather of the nature of an 
 excrescence on the system, it creates certain refuges, im- 
 perfect enough in theory, but probably powerful in prac- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 39 
 
 tice, against its theoretical negation of continuous per- 
 sonality and responsibility in the soul. 
 
 Similarly its denial of God, still theoretically maintained, 
 and sufficiently real to destroy vitality and progress in its 
 system, is (as is described in the text) softened by the 
 admission of lower forms # of worship, producing in the 
 minds of the people a virtual polytheism. Buddhism 
 accordingly wears a very different aspect in the eyes of 
 those who know it simply by study, and of those who 
 judge of it by actual experience. 
 
 In Ceylon, where perhaps Buddhism exists in its purest 
 form with least foreign admixture, the Buddhist temples 
 themselves are crowded with votaries, whose offerings are 
 made to the " memory of Buddha," with invocation of his 
 protection, in the striking presence of the gigantic image 
 representing him usually at rest ; while at the same time 
 there are other temples, ignored but tolerated by the Bud- 
 dhist priests, in which the Deivas (subordinate deities, or 
 rather Sal/xou^s in the old sense, having superhuman, but 
 not truly divine attributes) are worshipped in almost every 
 village in the Cingalese provinces of Ceylon. Mr. Spence 
 Hardy in his " Manual of Buddhism " intimates an opinion 
 that the whole Dewa system is an excrescence, borrowed 
 from without, and certainly it fits but clumsily into the 
 theory of Buddhism. But in any case we seem to trace 
 here two different reactions against the nihilism of Bud- 
 dhist theory. There is on the one hand a quasi worship of 
 the historical Buddha, who is (not without grounds in the 
 actual facts of his life and character) considered as their 
 highest known type of intellectual and moral excellence, 
 although undoubtedly of a sad, ascetic, all but despairing 
 morality. His devotees exalt him virtually above all other 
 beings ; he is represented as so absolutely perfect as to 
 have neither desire nor capacity of progress; and, accord- 
 ingly, attributes of power and wisdom are heaped upon 
 him, which are far too high for humanity to bear. There 
 is, on the other hand, under the shadow of this tran- 
 
40 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 scendental reverence, a comparatively vulgar and tangible 
 worship of the Dewas, especially of the four great guardian 
 Dewas, which glides practically into a kind of tolerated 
 Polytheism. Moreover, under both aspects there exists 
 in great privilege and power a priesthood, although in true 
 Buddhism there ought to be neither priesthood nor sacri- 
 fice. To it is supposed to be confined the knowledge of the 
 true secrets of life, and to it therefore is paid an almost 
 unlimited deference. 
 
 In the Lamaism of Thibet —perhaps a less pure variety 
 of Buddhism — the worship of the Bhuddha passes from 
 reverence for a historical memory into a devotion to a 
 living deity, transmigrating through a succession of human 
 beings. " When the Tale Lama (the Grand Lama) dies, 
 or, to speak Buddhist language, when he undergoes trans- 
 migration, they choose a child who is to continue the 
 indestructible impersonation of the living Buddha." " He 
 is not only the political and religious sovereign of the 
 Thibetians, but he is their visible god." — (Hue, " Voyage 
 dans le Thibet," vol. ii., c. 6, p. 275, ed. 1850.) The election 
 of the Tale Lama from among the Chaberons, or living 
 Buddhas, through the drawing of a lot after six days of 
 fasting and prayer by the chief of the Lamas, is described 
 in the seventh chapter. The child thus chosen is worshipped 
 as a present deity. 
 
 It is clear that in the Nihilism of the Buddhist theory 
 man cannot live. Under the shadow which it casts there 
 grows up a worship of humanity, although that humanity 
 is declared to be cursed in the very fact of living; an 
 idolatry of the enlightened, and especially of the great 
 teacher of Nihilism ; and a crowd of superstitions, seizing 
 gladly on manifestations of supernatural power in the 
 visible universe. M. St. Hilaire enlarges on the light 
 thrown on modern nihilistic philosophies by Buddhism 
 itself. It would not be difficult to apply to modern society, 
 so far as it is influenced by such philosophies, the lessons 
 drawn from these reactions against it. 
 
 / 
 
LECTURE IT. 
 
 THE METHOD OF THE KNOWLEDGE 
 OF GOD. 
 
 I. — NATURAL THEOLOGY AN INDUCTIVE SCIENCE. 
 II. — THE KNOWLEDGE OP THINGS BY INDUCTION. 
 III.— THE KNOWLEDGE OF PERSONS — 
 
 (a) BY INDUCTION. 
 
 (b) BY SYMPATHY. 
 
 (c) BY PAITH. 
 
 IV. — THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 
 
 (a) BY INDUCTION, ASCENDING TO THE DIVINE MIND. 
 
 (b) BY KNOWLEDGE OF THAT MIND, THROUGH SYMPATHY, 
 
 THE NECESSITY, AND DANGERS OF ANTHROPOMOR- 
 PHISM. 
 
 (c) BY REVELATION, GENERAL AND SPECIAL. 
 
 " That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might 
 feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from 
 every one of us."— Acts xvii. 27. 
 
 It is one of the necessities, possibly one of the 
 compensating advantages, of the system of the 
 delivery at intervals of the steps of a connected 
 argument, that each week the lecturer is driven 
 
42 THE METHOD 
 
 to present clearly, before his own mind, and the 
 mind of his hearers, a short retrospect of the 
 way already trodden. I accordingly remind you 
 how in the last Lecture, after advancing for 
 Theology the claim to be considered as a system 
 of really scientific thought, I endeavoured to 
 set before you the immense significance of the 
 undoubted historical fact, that the belief in a 
 Personal God is universally in almost complete 
 possession of the ground of human thought, 
 being witnessed to, directly by the Religions, 
 indirectly by the Languages, of all nations. I 
 reminded you that the method of its growth, from 
 instinct through practice into systematic know- 
 ledge, placed it in the strictest analogy with the 
 cognizance of those great laws of Truth and 
 Right, which actually rule mankind. I pleaded 
 for the truth implied in the right use of the 
 old phrase " Natural Religion/'' that the concep- 
 tion of God is as really inherent in the nature 
 of man, as those fundamental conceptions of 
 Truth and Right, on which the whole fabrics of 
 Science and Morality are built. 
 
 I. Now when we have thoroughly satisfied our- 
 selves historically of the universal establishment 
 of a belief in God, and drawn the all but irre- 
 sistible inference that its existence implies some 
 natural law in human thought, the question next 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 43 
 
 presents itself, " How, and by what law has it so 
 established itself ? " St. Paul, in the words of the 
 text, speaking to the enlightened heathenism of 
 Athens, declares (though under a characteristic 
 difference of aspect) the same truth which he 
 had proclaimed to the peasants of Lystra, that 
 " God left not Himself without a witness.-" But 
 of what character is this universal witness ? The 
 word " knowledge " is used in different senses ; 
 and, from want of right distinction between them, 
 impossibility is often predicated of knowledge 
 in general, when it ought to be predicated only 
 of one particular kind of knowledge. Of what 
 nature is the knowledge of God, thus attainable, 
 and thus in various degrees attained, by man? 
 Is it, on the one hand, a knowledge of demon- 
 stration, like the knowledge of a mathematical 
 axiom ? Is it, on the other, knowledge claiming 
 what we call " moral certainty/' like the know- 
 ledge which is gained by all Inductive Science? 
 Let me remind you that, although this ques- 
 tion is of deep interest, yet the answer to it does 
 not affect the claim of this knowledge to be a 
 power at once ruling human thought, and in- 
 spiring human life. The controversies which 
 have taken place on this subject, from the days 
 of Clarke and Butler downwards, may be decided 
 one way or the other, without affecting this 
 
44 THE METHOD 
 
 claim. If demonstrative certainty be the more 
 unquestionable, yet it is moral certainty, which, 
 prevails far more widely in life as it actually 
 is, and exercises a larger practical power over 
 human action. It has been rightly described as 
 " the guide of life/ 5 
 
 The very title of these lectures virtually con- 
 tains the answer which I venture to give to this 
 question. For it speaks of the cumulative 
 force of convergent evidences : and the very ex- 
 pression belongs to the field of Inductive Science;/ 
 since no one ever seeks to accumulate evidence 
 in support of an absolute mathematical demon- 
 stration. I cannot but hold that Natural Theo- 
 logy must be an Inductive Science from the 
 very nature of the case. 
 
 If, indeed, the question were simply that 
 which has been discussed asrain and asrain — 
 whether the conception of the existence of a 
 First Cause is, or is not, a necessary conception 
 — we might answer otherwise. It is certain that 
 the present condition of the universe has had a 
 beginning in time ; and that there must have 
 been some First Cause, itself uncaused, seems to 
 be demonstrable. So far as this we may go 
 with those who would a priori demonstrate a 
 God. If, again, it be urged that the existence 
 in the human mind of the idea of Infinity proves 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 45 
 
 that there is an objective reality, an Infinite 
 Being", corresponding" to it, and that in that 
 Being" we must find the First Cause, I should 
 not be prepared to deny the argument, though it 
 would be difficult to secure for it universal 
 acceptance. 1 But Natural Theology is not con- 
 tent with these abstract propositions. It inquires 
 of what nature that First Cause is, and if that 
 nature be Personal, what are its attributes. So 
 inquiring, it enters the inductive sphere. For, 
 even if it be contended that we must infer an 
 original Will, because the one true Cause known 
 by experience is Will, still we cannot be sure that 
 there is no other cause conceivable. We have to 
 inquire whether there are signs, which a posteriori 
 may test the probability of this our inference. 
 
 Now, in all reasoning on data, demonstration 
 seems to be possible, only when, as in Pure 
 
 1 See Butler's "Analogy," part i. chap. vi. "We find 
 within ourselves the idea of Infinity, that is, of Immensity 
 and Eternity, impossible even in imagination, to be re- 
 moved out of being. We seem to discern intuitively, that 
 there must, and cannot but be somewhat, external to our- 
 selves, answering to this idea, or the archetype of it. And 
 from hence — for this abstract, as much as any other, requires 
 a concrete — we conclude, that there is, and cannot but be, an 
 Infinite and Immense Eternal Being existing, prior to all 
 design contributing to His Existence, and exclusive of it." 
 The passage is remarkable, as lying outside Butler's usual 
 line of reasoning. 
 
46 THE METHOD 
 
 Mathematics and Logic, we create for ourselves 
 the data, on which we reason ; because then we 
 know them completely in their actual essence, 
 all that they are and all that they imply. But 
 when we have to reason on data not so created 
 by ourselves — on the things (for example) of 
 nature, or on the human world around us — we 
 cannot know them absolutely and completely ; 
 our knowledge is of certain properties in them, 
 not of their origin or formation, not of the 
 essential constitution, which makes them what 
 they are. Hence in this sphere of thought, 
 absolute demonstration, implying complete 
 knowledge of the data, is impossible. Inductive 
 reasoning, starting from observation of the pro- 
 perties of things, next inferring from such obser- 
 vation the laws which regulate them, and the 
 causes from which they spring, and then from par- 
 ticular instances generalizing ultimate principles, 
 is here the sole process of thought ; and its results 
 are convictions, at first only probable, and ascend- 
 ing at last to what we call " moral certainty/'' 
 If a man, knowing what the data are, and what 
 are the steps of the deduction, denies the conclu- 
 sion of a mathematical demonstration, we say 
 that he is incapable of reasoning. If a man, 
 after he has had laid before him all the evidences, 
 by which a great law of Natural Science has 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 47 
 
 been ascertained to the satisfaction of the world, 
 professes himself still unsatisfied — allows that it 
 holds in fifty cases, but suggests that it might 
 break down in the fifty-first — we do not call 
 him unreasoning but unreasonable. We imply 
 that he resists a natural law of thought, but 
 one of a wholly different kind. 
 
 II. It should be observed, however, that there 
 is a difference in the method of our Induction, as 
 applied to things, and as applied to persons ; and 
 also that Induction occupies a larger place in the 
 means of our actual knowledge in the case of 
 things. 
 
 (a) In the Science of things we have to rely 
 ultimately on the Inductive processes of observa- 
 tion and generalization therefrom. Of course, 
 in actually working out knowledge, we employ 
 both the Inductive and Deductive processes, 
 especially when we use in Physical Science (as 
 in most cases we are now able to do) the pro- 
 cesses of mathematical reasoning. But there 
 always lies on the threshold of investigation the 
 assumption of some law (such as the Laws of 
 Motion in physical Astronomy), which is not 
 established by mathematical demonstration, but 
 suggested by observation, generalized by analogy, 
 and verified by its accordance with hosts of in- 
 dependent facts. Accept that law as true; 
 
48 THE METHOD 
 
 then from it you may deduce mathematically an 
 infinite number of consequences. Such deduc- 
 tion may (as in the discovery of our last planet) 
 lead to fresh advances in knowledge, with which 
 inductive processes have nothing to do. But 
 the acceptance of the law itself is the ultimate 
 basis ; and it is (I repeat) established by reason- 
 ing, which ascends only to moral certainty. In 
 the knowledge of things without us, this alone 
 is found possible ; but this is also perfectly suffi- 
 cient, to be a foundation of the great fabric of 
 theoretical Science and of practical life. 
 
 It is indeed true that at all times, and especially 
 now, abstract speculation here claims its place. 
 Science is fond of " passing beyond the experi- 
 mental region/' and busying itself with theories 
 of what may be the ultimate physical constitu- 
 tion of matter and of force ; and it may often show 
 that its theories will account for a large class of 
 phenomena. But here it has to confess itself 
 speculation, or even imagination. It can only say 
 ' So it may be/ though it is constantly tempted 
 to over-dogmatic assertions, almost amounting 
 to u So it is." The meeting-point between the 
 deductions from its theories, and the results of 
 patient induction from experimental knowledge 
 of facts, is often very hard to find. 
 
 III. When, from the knowledge of things, we 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOD. 49 
 
 pass to the knowledge of persons, then, in the 
 first instance,, the same law holds, with only this 
 difference (highly important, but not affecting 
 its character as an Inductive Science), that we 
 know men partly by observation, partly by 
 sympathy. This implies, in other words, an 
 extension of our means of observation. Our 
 thought can range not only over the great world 
 of action without, but also over the little world 
 of our own human consciousness within. If we 
 ask ourselves how it is that we know any human 
 being by our own unaided powers of knowledge, 
 so as to know not merely what he does, but in 
 some degree what he is, we shall find that we 
 have to rely on both these processes of observa- 
 tion and sympathy. 
 
 (a) First, by observation, we notice how a man 
 acts or endures under various circumstances, 
 either the circumstances of common life, or the 
 crucial tests of special trial, speculative or moral. 
 We go through, in such observation, though 
 mostly unconsciously, the various processes which 
 Inductive Logic draws out elaborately in its 
 well known rules. We come to conclusions as 
 to his character — intellectual, that he is wise or 
 foolish, intelligent or dull— moral, that he is 
 true or false, indolent or energetic in duty, loving 
 or cold-hearted. Then, gliding into a deductive 
 
 E 
 
50 THE METHOD 
 
 process of thought, we infer, with various degrees 
 of certitude, that in the future he will act in 
 such and such ways, determined by the qualities 
 we think we have discovered in him ; and on 
 that inference we ourselves constantly act, risk- 
 ing on its correctness, perhaps little, perhaps, 
 our all. Now in all this we deal with the man 
 just as we should deal with a material thing, 
 either a substance or a force. So identical, in 
 fact, is the process, that, by our inherent tendency 
 to refer all events ultimately to agents, when 
 we are speaking of the thing, we constantly use 
 language strictly applicable to the person, and 
 talk of the play of such a force, or of the beha- 
 viour of such a substance under particular tests. 
 (b) But in respect of the person, we have an- 
 other means of knowledge, the power of sympathy. 
 We extend the area of our observation, by turn- 
 ing our eyes from him to ourselves. We consider 
 what are our own thoughts, emotions, princi- 
 ples, as springs of action ; we are conscious of a 
 will, capable of being impressed by those various 
 springs of action, but also capable of acting (as 
 we say) arbitrarily, without any conscious motive 
 except will, or of choosing between the various 
 directions, in which various motives solicit or 
 press. We know, or we guess, how under his 
 circumstances, we ourselves should act, speak, 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 51 
 
 or feel. " Put yourself in his place/'' is a recog- 
 nised method of studying" of human nature, 
 fruitful of infinite results. Believing the 
 person we observe to be, with whatever indi- 
 vidual peculiarities of difference, a being like 
 ourselves, we read his mind in our own. De- 
 liberately or intuitively we draw our infe- 
 rences concerning him ; and the subtler insight 
 of sympathy constantly aids or supersedes the 
 coarser methods of mere observation. Nor are 
 we deterred from pursuing this process, even 
 when the person we contemplate is known to be 
 greater, wiser, better than ourselves. Such 
 knowledge induces caution and modesty in in- 
 ference, teaching us to draw positive conclu- 
 sions as to his nature from the points which we 
 can understand, while we shrink from denying 
 the existence of notions and principles in him, 
 which we cannot understand. But it does not 
 prevent our judgment by sympathy from being 
 true, and fruitful of results. 
 
 (c) Still, even with this aid, our knowledge is 
 not, and cannot be, demonstrative. We are yet 
 within the lines of Inductive reasoning; and, in 
 fact, although our powers of observation are thus 
 reinforced, yet the subject at the same time 
 increases, at least as much, in difficulty and 
 intricacy. Science of human nature is quite as 
 E 2 
 
52 THE METHOD 
 
 real as science of material things ; in itself and 
 in its results it is unquestionably nobler and 
 more important to us : but it is almost equally 
 unquestionable that it is far vaguer, less definite 
 in its rules, and less measurable in its 
 results. In respect of absolute knowledge,, 
 each man is to his fellows (to use a well-worn 
 phrase) " unknown and unknowable " All 
 experience proves it; all literature declares it. 
 That it is so, is a part at once of the dignity 
 of human nature and the burden of human life. 
 
 If we would really know any Personal Being 
 — what his actions really mean, what is the 
 true object of his existence, what are the real 
 attributes of his secret soul — both observation 
 and sympathy are confessedly insufficient. But 
 then there is introduced a new factor in the 
 complex fabric of our knowledge, wholly uncon- 
 nected in itself with Inductive reasoning, and 
 subject to a different law. This factor is the 
 Self-revelation of the person whom we contem- 
 plate. He must tell us what he is. Such reve- 
 lation may confirm or contradict our previous 
 Induction. According" as it does so, we have 
 less difficulty, or greater difficulty, in accepting 
 it. Nor can we help scrutinizing his positive 
 claims to our confidence, whether intellectual or 
 moral, to see whether he is able and willing to 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 53 
 
 tell the truth. We may even feel hound to 
 cross-examine, on the a priori assumption of the 
 law court that all evidence is likely to be defective 
 in both these requisites. But it is clear that 
 (so far as it is accepted) it gives us knowledge 
 of a totally different kind from the other. If 
 the man were perfect in wisdom, so as absolutely 
 to know himself — perfect in truth, so as to be 
 incapable of falsehood — then we should be said 
 not to think, to conclude, to infer, but actually 
 to know him, so far as our minds are capable of 
 knowing 1 , and so far as human language is capable 
 of expressing" the whole of a human character. 
 The acceptance of this self-revelation with 
 various degrees of faith is a necessary element 
 in life. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, 
 with whatever reservations, it is in all cases 
 our principal means of knowledge of persons. 
 But wherever the nature of the person con- 
 templated rises above our own, it becomes more 
 essential than ever. It is then predominant, 
 I may say all but exclusive of other means of 
 knowledge. The father reveals himself to the 
 child, the learned to the ignorant, the civilized 
 man to the barbarian, the man of genius — the 
 poet, the philosopher, the prophet — to humanity 
 at large. Such revelation not only completes 
 our knowledge of him, bat often throws light on 
 
54 THE METHOD 
 
 our own observation, both of the great world 
 without us, and the little world within. How 
 often at the utterance of genius the mind leaps 
 up in glad recognition of thoughts, complete in 
 idea and vivid in beauty, which have floated, 
 vague, imperfect, half formed, and half formless,- 
 before our own dimmer eyes ! 
 
 It comes then, after all, to this, that for true 
 knowledge of things aud persons alike, absolute 
 demonstration by our own power is impossible. 
 In the science of things, we are content with 
 Induction and Speculation ; if we would know 
 persons, we must add to the Laws of Induction 
 and Speculation the Law of Faith. 2 Every day 
 we do this ; for if we did not, we could not live. 
 
 IV. Let us consider how these principles of 
 knowledge bear upon that universal conception 
 of a God, of which we have already spoken. 
 
 What is the process going on in the mind, 
 when, from the vague instinct of God, which 
 seems to be inherent in man as man, he passes 
 
 2 I venture to refer here to three singularly able dis- 
 courses by the Bishop of Peterborough, at Norwich, in 
 1875 (Hamilton and Adams), dealing with " Christianity 
 and Scepticism," and " Christianity and Faith." His con- 
 clusion is, "Christianity offers a certainty, partly of 
 reason, partly of faith, partly of experience " after faith. 
 He shows decisively that such certainty is the Law of all 
 human life, so far as it is in contact with personal being. 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 55 
 
 on to conscious thought ? He begins in almost 
 all cases (as we may see in the normal growth 
 of the childish mind towards full maturity) by 
 observation. In the process of that observation, 
 no doubt, he carries with him, as an influence 
 determining thought, the consciousness of him- 
 self, and of the effects which his actions produce 
 every day. But still, as in the childhood of the 
 individual mind, so in the earlier stages of the 
 thought of humanity, the objects, consciously 
 and distinctly contemplated, are without, not 
 within. The epic poetry of external life and 
 action precedes the lyric expression of internal 
 thought and feeling. So he looks out on the 
 two great worlds of things and persons. His 
 first observation is that they are distinct in 
 character, yet inseparable in their action and re- 
 action on each other. First over the physical 
 world, then more gradually over both worlds, he 
 discovers that there are unseen powers that rule ; 
 in both he discovers what are called " Laws," 
 reducing the infinite variety of objects and 
 powers to combinations of a few great principles 
 of elemental substance or force; of both, if 
 not of the raw material of both, he concludes 
 irresistibly that there must have been a begin- 
 ning, and at that beginning some First Cause, 
 itself to all human thought final and absolute. 
 
56 THE METHOD 
 
 What is that First Cause ? It must be either 
 material or spiritual, or compact of both ; for, 
 except as a halting -place of despair in the face 
 of mystery, the mind will not accept the co- 
 existence of two separate yet Eternal and self- 
 existent principles. Which is it to be ? 
 
 (a) The answer given depends in theory on 
 the degree in which man recognises in himself 
 a true personality — that is a will, acting with 
 design and a principle — as an ultimate fact, in- 
 capable of being confused with any material 
 force. Every philosophy or religion which is 
 Atheistic, denies this independent existence, 
 and consequently any immortality in the soul. 
 But if we examine historically the character of 
 the answer actually given, it seems that the 
 course of the ancient Greek speculation, on the 
 ruins of which St. Paul stood at Athens, illus- 
 trates with singular clearness the general pro- 
 cess of human thought in the inquiry into the 
 First Cause. 
 
 It had first, its crude, instinctive recognitions 
 of a Divine Power, in the ordinary forms of the 
 popular mythology, which, by their very per- 
 manence under strange superstitions and such 
 presumptuous handling of the poets as shocked 
 the gravity of Plato, showed a latent force of 
 truth. Xext to these came the more recondite 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 57 
 
 teaching of the Mysteries, apparently tending 
 towards the recognition of one Supreme Power, 
 perhaps a living God, perhaps a Soul of Nature. 
 But to these succeeded the free thought of Philo- 
 sophy ; and what was its course ? 
 
 First came the vague guesses of the Ionic 
 School, as to some elemental substance. It is 
 water, said one ; it is air, said another ; it is 
 fire, said a third ; it is no one substance, but 
 earth in its complex variety, replied a fourth. 
 Next succeeded the subtler answer of the Py- 
 thagorean School — " It depends on no elemental 
 substance at all ; it is number, that is, propor- 
 tion in combination, harmony, or what we call 
 ' Law/ " 3 Lastly arose Anaxagoras, and drew 
 the inevitable conclusion, to which the Pytha- 
 gorean answer pointed, "All was Chaos; but 
 Mind came, and ordered all things in per- 
 fection/'' 4 How the chaotic All came into being, 
 
 3 The mysticism of the Pythagoreans as to number is well 
 known. (See Thirl wall's History of Greece, c. xii.) No 
 doubt they often spoke, as if number had an objective reality 
 as a basis of existence, or an energetic power of acting on 
 the material of the universe. But it is difficult to believe 
 that these were anything else than transcendental expres- 
 sions of the simple idea (itself a great advance on the rough 
 guesses of the Ionic school), that on combination and or- 
 ganization, as well as on material, the Kosmos depended. 
 
 4 'Ofxov iravra xp^arra' elra Nous i\6wv aura 5<6/co'cr^7jo'e. 
 See Plato's Phaedo, chaps, xvi. and xlvi. 
 
58 THE METHOD 
 
 lie did not inquire. It was enough for him, as 
 yet, to grasp the belief that this world of min- 
 gled matter and spirit had its archetype in a 
 Divine Mind. So far, at least, he felt after 
 God and found Him ; and although, if we may 
 trust Plato, 5 his search was a hesitating and in- 
 consistent one, falling back too much from his 
 own grand principle on the many superficial 
 notions which it should have superseded, yet its 
 enunciation became a new starting-point in 
 thought — the germ of a Theistic philosophy. 
 
 For here the thought of man arrives at a 
 crucial point. If the ultimate cause be a Thing, 
 either an elemental substance or pervading 
 elemental force, or if it be simply a Law of pro- 
 portion and harmony, the mind can go no 
 further towards any discovery of its nature. 
 That Cause, except in the bare fact of its exist- 
 ence, must remain unknown and unknowable; 
 for simple observation and reasoning will take 
 us no further ; and the barren abstraction (like 
 the to ov of the Eleatic School) will exercise no 
 influence on thought or life. It has been re- 
 marked, 6 with satire not undeserved, that it is 
 
 5 I allude to the interesting sketch of his own cnrly 
 speculations as to Causation put into the mouth of Socrates 
 in the latter part (probably the most purely Platonic part) 
 of the " Phoecio." See chaps, xlv. — xlvii. 
 
 6 Kingsloy's " Phaethon," p. 14. 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 59 
 
 a poor religion which exchanges the sublime 
 opening of the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy 
 for the declaration, " The Something our 
 Nothing is One Something." It is impossible 
 that a soul, which is conscious of itself, can rest 
 on such a vague impersonal cause. 
 
 (b) But if man once accepts the doctrine of an 
 Eternal Mind ordering all things, he will never 
 be contented with the vague unreality of a 
 diffused intelligence, "becoming in humanity 
 conscious of itself," with (be it remarked), as 
 inseparable from that consciousness, the sense 
 (which under this hypothesis is a delusion) of 
 personal individuality. Mind without person- 
 ality is a thing to the ordinary man fairly in- 
 conceivable. Accordingly he ascends at once, 
 naturally and inevitably, to the conception of a 
 Divine Person. The moment he does this, there 
 opens before him the other means of knowing 
 God, by the knowledge of sympathy. 
 
 It cannot be too soon or too frankly acknow- 
 ledged that, unless we start from the conscious- 
 ness of our own personality — the consciousness 
 of will, of purpose, of right, of love — no theo- 
 logy is possible. The purest Nihilism — the 
 Nihilism of the Buddhist Theory — has by a true 
 instinct fixed on the delusion of our own indi- 
 vidual existence, as the first delusion to be got 
 
60 THE METHOD 
 
 rid of on the way to Atheism. The modern 
 Atheistic philosophies, with equal sagacity, at- 
 tack the same consciousness in us; now by 
 making spirit a kind of matter, or a result of 
 material organization ; now by absorbing the 
 individual soul into some great soul of the 
 universe. But happily the sense that " I am 1" 
 remains utterly indestructible, both in the indi- 
 vidual consciousness, and the collective witness 
 of all human society, through the languages, 
 laws, and institutions, without which that society 
 cannot be maintained. It cannot be shaken, 
 unless all reasoning, and even all sensation, is 
 given up as utterly deceptive, and unless all 
 human society is acknowledged to have stood 
 through all the centuries on what is a mere de- 
 lusion. That it is impossible for us to form a 
 logical scheme for its reconcilement with the 
 reign of Law, and with the unity of the whole 
 creation, is perfectly true. Theorists, to whom 
 perfect logical consistency is as the breath of 
 life, accordingly shut their eyes to this un- 
 manageable factor; they may iancy they have 
 got rid of it, so long as they remain in their 
 studious retirement ; but the moment they cross 
 the threshold of active life, it reappears. As 
 Butler says, with grave irony, 7 whatever may be 
 
 ? See the "Analogy," part i. chap. vi. 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 61 
 
 " the opinion of necessity/' as a theory, it is 
 certain that in this world " we are treated/' by 
 self, man, and God, "as if we were free." In 
 this respect, accordingly, the common sense of 
 man is wiser than the philosopher, in refusing 
 the most logical and coherent theory, which does 
 not accept the whole of the strange but unmis- 
 takeable facts. 
 
 We need not be afraid of acknowledging that 
 the belief in God and the consciousness of a 
 true self must stand or fall together. They 
 mutually imply, and in practice mutually 
 strengthen each other. In fact, the union of 
 the two beliefs alone explains the two un- 
 doubted facts of the reality and the limitation 
 of human freedom. It is comparatively easy to 
 conceive how a free will can exist, limited by the 
 dispensation of a Supreme Will, and judged 
 within the limits of capacity and opportunity 
 ordained for it. But it is impossible to conceive 
 how it can find any place at all in a system 
 either purely material, or simply an embodiment 
 of One pervading Spirit. Hence it is that, in 
 proportion as man realizes his own personality, 
 as distinct from, and in some sense superior to, 
 the physical forces around him, and as incapable 
 of submitting absolutely to the will of other 
 human souls, he recognises the Supreme Power 
 
6'Z THE METHOD 
 
 as a real Person, capable of being known in part 
 through sympathy, although, as to perfect com- 
 prehension, " passing all knowledge/'' 
 
 Thus, man is conscious in himself of will, 
 guided by design, ruled by the conviction of 
 righteousness, and the enthusiasm of love. 
 Knowing these things to belong to the' highest 
 part of his own nature, he expects to find them 
 not less, but more, in a nature higher than 
 his. Through these forms of consciousness, 
 distinct but hardly separable, he conceives the 
 attributes of the One God. 
 
 Pirst, he is conscious in himself that he can 
 will ; and that, except when he acts arbitrarily, 
 for the sake of self-knowledge, or in the mere play 
 of mind, he wills and acts with a purpose. In 
 the possession of that will he is conscious of a 
 power to mould the forms of matter, and to set 
 in motion and direct the play of force. In the 
 world around, he sees what appear to be vivid 
 marks of design and power, acting with design 
 like his own, though infinitely transcending his 
 own. He infers, instantly and constantly, that 
 the First Cause, being a Spirit, acted with design, 
 and that for this design all matter, all force, all 
 created spirits work. 
 
 Next, he is conscious of the majesty of right, 
 as that which must guide his action, and the 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 63 
 
 growth of his soul to perfection ; and behind 
 that majesty, he sees the form of a retribution, 
 which enforces its demands, and avenges any 
 disobedience to them. Then he looks abroad 
 into the world, both of things and persons, and 
 thinks that he sees traces of a moral govern- 
 ment, not perfect here, but implying tendencies 
 to perfection. He concludes that the Divine 
 Spirit is a moral Being like himself, though 
 so infinitely above himself, that all the 
 brightest graces in man are but faint reflections 
 of the attributes of God ; that His will is for 
 righteousness, and that in His hand there is 
 retribution for the here and the hereafter. 
 
 Lastly, he is conscious of love, recognising an 
 unity which in various degrees binds man to 
 man, rejoicing in the happiness, the goodness, 
 the reciprocated love, of all spiritual beings. He 
 looks on the world ; he finds it full of what seem 
 provisions for hairpin ess and goodness of all 
 created beings. He infers at once that God is 
 Love, that it is of the essence of Deity to rejoice 
 over all that is good, and to accept the offering 
 of His creatures'' love. 
 
 But all this (men say) is pure anthropomor- 
 phism, fashioning God in the likeness of man. 
 Of course it is ; of course it must be. The only 
 spirit which man perfectly know r s, is his own. 
 
6i THll METHOD 
 
 Through his own, he must infer what the attri- 
 butes of spirit are. 8 He ought not to pretend 
 that so he can fully and absolutely express the 
 attributes of God, as they are in themselves, or 
 as they might be in relation to other classes of 
 creatures utterly unlike man. But he may be- 
 lieve that, so representing- them, he is right so 
 far as he goes ; and that he expresses them as 
 they really are, so far as they hold any relation to 
 man and are intelligible to man. 
 
 u We are His offspring " (so spoke the Theistic 
 philosophy of Greece) . As we look on the face 
 of the children, shall we not gain some glimpse 
 of the glory of the Father ? 
 
 It is true that anthropomorphism has always 
 had its dangers. 
 
 In their instinctive desire of full compre- 
 hension, men constantly forget the distinction of 
 
 8 It has been truly remarked by Dr. Abbott (" Through 
 Nature to Christ," chap, xi.), in criticizing the phrase "the 
 Eternal, which makes for righteousness," that according 
 to the sense which we give to the word "makes," we may 
 be "anthropomorphic," " zoomorphic," or " azoomoi-phic," 
 but that we must be one of the three. "Supposing," he 
 adds, " each of these three hypotheses to be dangerous, I 
 should prefer the first as least dangerous." "Why should 
 we be ashamed of anthropomorphism ? Who would not 
 twenty times sooner worship a man than worship a ten- 
 dency ?" Dr. Abbott will carry with him in this part of his 
 book many who cannot accept his subsequent conclusions. 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 65 
 
 which we have spoken above. In various de- 
 grees they have supposed that through man 
 God is perfectly known, whereas He can but be 
 known imperfectly. Hence came that error, of 
 which the idolatry denounced in the text is the 
 grossest form, conceiving that God can be per- 
 fectly set forth, if not to the eye, at least to the 
 mind, in conceptions embodying all the limita- 
 tions and imperfections of the human spirit. At 
 times, perplexed by that mystery of Evil — which 
 is in all lines of thought the one great cc offence," 
 against which in different degrees every soul at 
 one time or another stumbles — men have either 
 dared to find in God the attributes of the evil 
 too well known in man ; or, in recoil from that 
 horrible blasphemy, have framed the wildest 
 theories of rival Gods, of an intractable matter 
 limiting *the power of the Creator, and the like 
 — theories which can be never said really to live, 
 and which yet never absolutely die. Even 
 when these grosser forms of error have been 
 avoided, men have theorized or dogmatized, as 
 if they could perfectly enter into the counsel of 
 God, so as to say " This must be," or " This 
 cannot be," as if they could even tell, not merely 
 the great principles of God's dispensations, but 
 the methods by which they must be carried out. 9 
 9 Butler treats this " idle and not altogether innocent " 
 
 F 
 
66 THE METHOD 
 
 But these abuses do not destroy the true use. 
 According' to the old true saying, " Man reveals 
 God/'' If, in all men but One, that Revelation 
 be imperfect, yet it is true so far as it goes, and 
 is the only knowledge possible to man. 
 
 By a right instinct, man has never ceased. 
 " to feel after God and find Him/-' by the 
 united powers of observation and sympathy. 
 His discoveries or his guesses he has recorded 
 in the Religion, in the Philosophy, and in the 
 Poetry, of all humanity. To put them aside for 
 the notion of an ultimate material substance, or 
 to be content with the recognition of " Law," 
 which is no cause at all, we believe to be not an 
 advance, but a retrogression in thought. 
 
 (c) But is this all ? Shall we here break the 
 analogy, which rules in the case of the knowledge 
 of all other Personal Beings ? Shall we suppose 
 God to sit far off in majesty, passionless as some 
 great Egyptian idol, while His creatures blindly, 
 in toil, in doubt, and in pain, struggle up to 
 Him ? Or shall we believe that He in some 
 way reveals Himself to man, stoops down to 
 lighten the way of His children, and to draw 
 them on to Him in heaven ? 
 
 I need not say what answer Christianity gives 
 
 presumption of human reason with woll-deserved severity. 
 See " Analogy," part i. Introduction. 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OE GOD. 67 
 
 to this great question. But we are concerned 
 at present to inquire into the process by which 
 the conception of God has established itself in 
 human thought generally. Here the first thing* 
 which strikes the inquirer is this, that it is 
 an error (however common parlance may excuse 
 it) to regard the conception of a special Reve- 
 lation of God as a thing distinct from, or 
 opposed to "Natural Religion."" 1 Rather we 
 should hold it an integral part of that " Natural 
 Religion ; '■ for certainly all the religions of the 
 world take it for granted that in " divers times 
 and manners/' God does reveal Himself to man, 
 and that such Revelation, in the true sense of 
 the word, is " natural/'' as an ordained element 
 in the knowledge of God. Next, on a survey 
 of the actual circumstances of the case, and an 
 inquiry into the credibility of the universal 
 
 1 Ifc must, I think, be concluded that the tacit acceptance 
 of this distinction at the hands of the Deists by most of 
 our English Apologists places the Christian argument at 
 much disadvantage. Butler's chapter on the " Importance 
 of Christianity " (" Analogy," part ii. chap, i.) suffers 
 much from the supposed necessity of drawing this hai'd 
 and fast line. Christianity has to be regarded as "a repub- 
 lication of Natural Religion," and also as " containing an 
 account of a dispensation of things not discoverable by 
 reason," instead of being itself the completion of " Natural 
 Religion," and in respect of its preparatory revelations " as 
 old as the Creation." 
 
 * 2 
 
68 THE METHOD 
 
 tradition, the thought suggests itself, whether 
 such Revelation is not required as an adequate 
 cause of these circumstances — whether, in fact, 
 if we reject the tradition as simply fabulous, and 
 disbelieve the existence of any Revelation, we 
 can sufficiently account for the unvaried and 
 well assured belief in God, which so unquestion- 
 ably pervades humanity. Nor can w r e in this 
 inquiry forget, that, if there be a God, all 
 analogy declares it to be in the highest degree 
 probable that He w r ould reveal Himself to man ; 
 and that accordingly the w r eight of antecedent 
 improbability undoubtedly tells very heavily not 
 against those who believe, but those who dis- 
 believe any Revelation. Thus, in fact, to a be- 
 liever in God the one question is, whether such 
 Revelation is merely through the voice of God, 
 speaking to each individual soul, or, whether 
 over and above this, there have been special 
 Revelations, given in extraordinary and mira- 
 culous clearness, to be the treasure not only of 
 the individual receiver, but of all mankind, not 
 of one generation only, but of the whole of time. 
 This question becomes an historical question. 
 No believer in the latter alternative should be 
 tempted to extenuate the pow r er of the Revelation 
 of God to each soul, not only giving (so to speak) 
 the rough material of knowledge of Himself in 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, 69 
 
 His works, but by a Divine Spirit acting" 
 directly upon the spirits of men, and writing (as 
 Holy Scripture has it) the substance of His 
 Will in their hearts. All religions contain (as 
 I have said) the expression, more or less em- 
 phatic, of this truth ; all English Deism, from 
 the days of Lord Herbert of Cherbury down- 
 wards/ has implied or expressed it. God forbid 
 that we who hold that there is " a Light of 
 God, which lighteth every man/" should ever 
 forget it ! We could not even deny that it 
 might have pleased God so, and so only, to meet 
 the gropings of His creatures after Him. It 
 we choose to please ourselves by framing a 
 world on hypothesis, we might possibly so ac- 
 count for an universal belief in God. The "Vox 
 Populi" — the testimony of humanity, gradually 
 forming and establishing itself — would then be 
 to us the only " Vox Dei/'' But the true form 
 of this question is whether He has so done. 
 
 Christianity expressly says that He has not. 
 Tt declares that from the very beginning God 
 has spoken to men by special Revelations, some 
 of which (not necessarily all) are treasured up 
 
 2 Like the Roman Jurists, who would find a code of that 
 "Law of Nature" which underlies all other codes, Lord 
 Herbert drew out the five Notitice, which he conceived to 
 be engraved on the human soul. 
 
70 THE METHOD 
 
 for us in Holy Scripture, and all of which simply 
 lead up to the perfect Revelation of Himself in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. To us the Vox Populi 
 is not the only Vox Dei ; clear over all, like the 
 dominant note of some full harmony, rises the 
 Vox Christi, and to it all other Voices of God 
 serve but as under-tones. 
 
 For this last great assertion Christianity 
 gives its special reasons, of which this is not the 
 time to speak. At present it belongs to our 
 subject to remind you that historically all human 
 traditions point to special Revelations of God, 
 with an unanimity in substance, and yet an 
 infinite variety of tone and detail, which, on any 
 other subject would be acknowledged as an in- 
 disputable evidence of some great ultimate fact. 
 Wherever any religion has asserted and system- 
 atized dominion over the souls of men, the belief 
 in such a Revelation is the very backbone of its 
 power. 
 
 Nor can I omit to notice, in connexion with 
 this historical tradition, that, if we examine how 
 all other knowledge of Nature and Humanity 
 is gained by man, we certainly do not find that 
 it dawns, equally and freshly, on every individual 
 soul. Each onward step is taken by the few 
 leaders of mankind — " inspired men," as, by an 
 unconscious testimony of language, we term 
 
OP THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 71 
 
 them — men who have (again the word is 
 significant), and often believe that they have, 
 " a mission." The many have to sit at their 
 feet to be taught, able at most to judge of what 
 they cannot originate. Such teachings simply 
 alter the whole face of the spiritual world. 
 Long after the lives of great men are over, some- 
 times when their very names are forgotten, the 
 truth which they declare becomes the treasure 
 of Humanity, and each succeeding generation 
 merely receives it and carries it on. Why 
 should it be thought that in the highest of all 
 teachings — the teaching of God — this law is 
 broken, instead of assuming a higher and 
 nobler form? Surely analogy pleads for the 
 acceptance of the truth, that God did so speak 
 to man " at sundry times and in divers manners 
 by His prophets." We grant that no analogy 
 can represent to us what, by its very nature, 
 can have no analogue, unless in the history of 
 some other world — I mean the perfection and 
 finality of the Revelation of God in Christ. But 
 for special Revelations it does plead, as an integral 
 part of Natural Religion, arid as a chief cause 
 of man's universal belief in God. 
 
 Such certainly is the line of thought as to the 
 knowledge of God, which St. Paul set forth at 
 Athens. He appealed to their observation of 
 
72 THE METHOD 
 
 God's work, " making all men/'' " giving to them 
 all things." We know well how their noblest and 
 w T isest philosophy had read this lesson. He 
 appealed to the knowledge and sympathy of One 
 "in whom we live and move and have our 
 being/' and of whom their own poets had said, 
 " We are His offspring." Again we know 
 how, perhaps above all people, the Greeks had 
 in conception realized the Divine element in 
 man, and had known God through it. But 
 these two means of knowledge combined, he 
 described as a u feeling after God " in the 
 dark, an " ignorant worship " of One still <( un- 
 known." Therefore he crowned all with the 
 direct revelation, " Him declare I unto you ;" 
 and he based that revelation on the authority of 
 the risen Lord Jesus Christ. " Some " (we 
 read) " mocked," as their successors mock still. 
 Some put off the consideration of these deep 
 matters till they should have investigated more 
 obvious truths ; so certain philosophies do still. 
 Only a few clave to him. But that teaching, 
 mocked -and neglected, proved itself a teaching 
 which could really bring to the knowledge 
 of men — the mass of simple and practical men 
 whom the schools of philosophy despised — the 
 truth of God, which their "sages would have 
 died to learn." Why was this ? Because, un- 
 
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 73 
 
 doubtedly, it had in it the supernatural power 
 of the Son of God Himself, in His Word and in 
 His Grace ; but may we not add, Because, 
 supernatural as it was, transcending human 
 science, it yet accorded perfectly with the 
 natural process of the knowledge of man, by its 
 appeal to the Law of Induction to prepare the 
 way, and to the Law of Faith to complete it ? 
 Those who sigh for the absolute demonstrative 
 knowledge, which of any being other than our- 
 selves is impossible, may turn from it in a proud 
 despair, crying out, " God is unknown and un- 
 knowable/' We are content to know God (be 
 it said reverently) by the same kind of know- 
 ledge as that through which we can know man. 
 That knowledge we find to be already a know- 
 ledge sufficient to live and die in — to give a new 
 spring of life to our life, and to scatter by its 
 brightness the shadow of death. For its per- 
 fection we are content to wait, till ' c we know, 
 even as we are known," and exchange our vision 
 " through a glass darkly/' for the vision of 
 " God as He is." 
 
LECTUEE III. 
 
 THE MANIFOLD CORD OF NATURAL 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 I.— THE MANIFOLD LINES OF THE INDUCTION OF GOD, COR- 
 RESPONDING TO THE DIFFERENT FACULTIES OF MAN. 
 II.— THE NECESSITY OF THEIR COMBINATION, FROM THE UNITY 
 BOTH OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 
 III. — THE FORCE OF THEIR CONVERGENCE, FAR EXCEEDING 
 THE MERE SUM OF THEIR SEPARATE FORCES. 
 
 (a) BOTH WHERE THEY AGREE, 
 
 (b) AND WHERE EACH SPEAKS ALONE. 
 
 IV.— EXAMINATION OF THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS OF THE 
 REASONING. 
 
 (a) THE FORCE OF THIS CONVERGENCE. 
 
 (b) THE GREAT " OFFENCE " IN THE MYSTERY OF EVIL. 
 V. — THE NEED OF A REVELATION. 
 
 " A threefold cord is not quickly broken." — Eccles. iv. 12. 
 
 The last lecture added to our first consideration 
 of the undoubted fact, and the immense signifi- 
 cance, of the universal belief in a Personal God, 
 a brief inquiry into the process, by which 
 
THE MANIFOLD CORD, ETC. 75 
 
 such knowledge of God lias been attained in 
 actual thought. 
 
 It seemed clear that the absolute demonstra- 
 tion, which characterizes mathematical and logical 
 reasoning, was possible only when the data of our 
 reasoning were absolutely created, and therefore 
 absolutely known, by ourselves. Of any ex- 
 ternal Thing — a material substance, or a natural 
 force— we can but judge by Induction; in 
 the case of a Person we can first extend the 
 machinery of our Induction by adding to external 
 observation the insight of Sympathy ; and then, 
 if we would complete the whole process of 
 knowledge, we must listen to his disclosure of 
 himself, and so add to the Law of Induction the 
 Law of Faith. 
 
 It is not hard to apply these principles of the 
 method of knowledge to that knowledge of God 
 which (as we have already seen) expresses itself in 
 all the Religions and Languages of human kind. 
 The first lecture dwelt on the true sense of the 
 old term, " Natural Religion/' as implying that 
 the conception of God is as inherent in man's 
 nature as the conception of freedom, of truth, or 
 of right. We now claim that, instead of being 
 distinguished from all " Revealed Religion/' it 
 should be taken, on the authority both of analogy 
 and of tradition, to depend, not only on the indue- 
 
76 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 ti.ons of what is commonly called " Natural Theo- 
 logy," but on the Revelation by God of Himself, 
 both to each individual and to the race of man 
 as a whole. 
 
 From these introductory considerations we 
 now pass on to examine the extent and the 
 composition of this Induction, by which men 
 "feel after God and find Him." 
 
 In each line of thought I take it for granted 
 that it must follow that same well-known path 
 of Inductive Reasoning, by which we arrrive at 
 the knowledge of the law of any physical force 
 or the character of any personal being. First 
 comes observation for ourselves, or teaching by 
 others, of facts — whether these be the outward 
 facts, of which our senses bear witness, or the 
 inner facts, which we learn by our own con- 
 sciousness to exist in ourselves, and conclude by 
 analogy to exist, with whatever variations, in 
 our fellow-men. Such observation (be it always 
 remembered) is possible only under the guidance 
 of certain ideas l or " forms of thought," through 
 which the masses of isolated impressions group 
 themselves in a coherent order. Then we pass, 
 
 1 Of definite and formed knowledge, we accept the 
 maxim, Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius in sensu. 
 Of the formative power we add the old caution, Nisi 
 intellectus ipse. 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77 
 
 in the next stage, to the enunciation of some 
 general law or principle, suggested by these 
 partial observations, after we have thrown off 
 all accidental disturbing influences, and sub- 
 jected the results of observation to crucial tests. 
 It is at this stage (be it remarked) that the 
 inventive or philosophical faculty intervenes, and 
 here, therefore, especially the traces of original 
 genius are found in the history of scientific pro- 
 gress. 2 Lastly, comes the process of Verification, 
 by deduction from our assumed principle of the 
 phenomena or actions, which should occur on the 
 supposition of its truth, and by comparison of 
 the results so obtained with independent obser- 
 vation in the field of Nature and Humanity. 
 
 This process seems essentially characteristic of 
 Inductive Reasoning, be its subject what it may. 
 As we apply it to secondary existences, material 
 force or personal being, so we must apply it to 
 seek out the ultimate existence in God. Such 
 is the process (for example) by which men have 
 so often arrived at the conception of a Great 
 Designer of the universe, who made all things 
 for a purpose, and for that purpose sustains them 
 
 2 Thus, for example, in Physical Astronomy the perfection 
 of the results of pure observation of many generations may 
 be exhibited in " Kepler's Laws ;" but it will be remem- 
 bered how even the vigorous and enterprising mind of 
 
78 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 day by day. It is (as has been well remarked) 3 
 a process as old as human thought itself, differing 
 but in degree in the pages of Xenophon or of 
 Paley, in the simple narrow reasoning of an 
 intelligent peasant, or the large thoughtful 
 observation of a philosopher. 
 
 This I take for granted. It is implied in the 
 description of Natural Theology as an Inductive 
 Science. But the especial points which, using 
 the metaphorical language of the text, I desire 
 to insist upon are three. First that, such being 
 the characteristic method of Induction, there 
 are various lines of thought along which it 
 must proceed. Next, that the results of all must 
 be combined, and each must be considered as 
 designed for such combination. Lastly, that in 
 this combination we must estimate not the mere 
 aggregate sum, but the convergent force of the 
 conclusions arrived at along each of these various 
 lines. There is a "threefold cord;" it may not 
 be untwisted ; and the various strands combined 
 will not be " quickly broken." 
 
 Kepler laboured in vain for the discovery of the principle 
 underlying them. When the genius of Newton once dis- 
 cerned that principle, all was clear for the magnificent 
 discoveries of the future. The history of this process in 
 the various branches of Science is traced again and again 
 by Whewell in the "History of the Inductive Sciences." 
 3 Macaulay's Essay on Bacon. 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 79 
 
 The outline of this view I proceed to sketch 
 out, designing to fill it up in the lectures which 
 succeed. 
 
 I. Now, with regard to the first of these state- 
 ments, but little need be said. It would seem 
 only reasonable that, in relation to the ulti- 
 mate problem of human life, obviously con- 
 cerning man's being as a whole, every faculty 
 of his nature, characteristic of that nature as 
 such, should have its function of inquiry. If 
 the practice of life cannot be carried on without 
 the use of all these faculties, far less is this likely 
 to be true of the inquiry into its foundation. 
 But to verify this consideration, we turn to actual 
 experience. In all our attempts to know and to 
 judge of personal beings, it is almost a common- 
 place to observe, that the process of knowledge 
 is seldom, if ever, carried out through the intel- 
 lect alone. We do not really know what an 
 individual is, nor can we judge of humanity at 
 large, if we regard men coldly and critically, as 
 we should contemplate material substances or 
 lifeless machines, excluding all conceptions of 
 moral relations to ourselves, and shrinking from 
 every touch of sympathy or enthusiasm. We find 
 that the purely intellectual knowledge — the so- 
 called "knowledge of the world" — leads the 
 clearest and most passionless intellects into errors 
 
80 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 both speculative and practical, as to human na- 
 ture, which far duller men of higher moral sense 
 and more genial sympathy easily avoid. No 
 man who depends absolutely upon it can ever 
 be a true philosopher or a political leader of men. 
 For it deals far too much with the outside of 
 human nature ; it disregards some, perhaps the 
 most important, of the qualities which make 
 men something more than machines. Accord- 
 ingly it is a commonplace — familiar alike in 
 literature and in practical experience — that " he 
 knows best who loves best/'' provided always 
 that his love is not a mere sentiment, but a 
 thoughtful principle, clothing the firm skeleton 
 of duty with the warm flesh and blood of affec- 
 tion. 
 
 Now if, following the verdict of humanity at 
 large, we believe God to be a Personal Being, 
 we see at once that this principle must apply to 
 the search after Him. Even if we accept that 
 belief as a hypothesis worthy of investigation, we 
 must try at any rate, whether there are any signs 
 that this principle does apply. If it does apply — 
 if (that is) the moral faculties of our nature 
 imperiously claim their place in relation to the 
 Supreme Power — then this very fact is an 
 argument that the hypothesis is a true one. 
 
 My contention is that it does apply. Histori- 
 
OH" NATURAL THEOLOGY. 81 
 
 call}' it has been applied in all ages ; theoretical 
 examination defends this historical practice, and 
 asserts that it ought to be so applied. Not 
 through one human faculty but through all, we 
 feel after the ultimate Being. In the human 
 spirit Ave distinguish various faculties. We speak 
 of the Reason searching after Truth, of the Con- 
 science recognising Right, of the Imagination 
 having its intuition of Beauty, of the Affections in 
 their natural tendency to recognise unity by love, 
 and their morbid capacity of breaking unity by 
 hatred. These principles of Truth, Right, Beauty, 
 Unity, cannot be regarded as separate and ab- 
 solute existences. They are supreme in the 
 structure of the universe; they must be attri- 
 butes of the One ultimate creative power, what- 
 ever it is. In it they are combined ; hence un- 
 questionably there follows at the least a very 
 high probability, that, in the search after that 
 Power, there must be a combined theology of the 
 intellect, the conscience, the imagination, the 
 affections. Each faculty has its own distinctive 
 line of thought, and in that line is capable of 
 working out a true Induction; but still all 
 coexist, and of all account must be taken. 
 
 II. But I pass on to the next point. Do they 
 coexist in complete separation, each working its 
 conclusions out, utterly unaffected by the others, 
 
 G 
 
82 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 in its own special sphere ? Or do they so coexist 
 as to bear upon and imply each other, so that 
 to conceive of any one as isolated is to conceive 
 of it imperfectly or wrongly ? 
 
 It would have been impossible (I believe) for 
 any one to have refused the latter alternative 
 but for a confusion, which constantly meets us in 
 various quarters, between distinction of thought 
 and separation in fact. Distinct these various 
 lines of argument may be ; separate they cannot 
 be. It is essential to my argument to recognise 
 that each line of thought is, in the abstract, 
 distinct, and in its process independent of the 
 others. For on that distinctness the value of 
 their coincidence in testimony depends. By an 
 effort of the mind we can gain "dry light" 
 through each, for the time regarding the rest as 
 non-existent. But they are not intended to be 
 separate in fact; each strand is elaborated in 
 order that all may be twined together. 4 
 
 4 It seems accordingly that there is such a thing as 
 right " prejudice." I mean the constant recollection, while 
 we are pursuing any line of reasoning, of known truths 
 deducible from other forms of thought, which are touched 
 by it, and the presumption, if they seem to he over- 
 thrown by it, that there may possibly be some flaw in the 
 reasoning. A Physical philosopher would certainly examine 
 any phenomena, seemingly strange and abnormal, with a 
 prejudice in favour of the Law of Gravitation or of the 
 Indestructibility of Force ; and be very slow to accept any 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 83 
 
 In the phases of actual thought, and in the 
 actions to which they lead, we observe that one 
 or other faculty generally predominates; but 
 the others coexist with it in real but secondary 
 power, and their coexistence undoubtedly influ- 
 ences the predominant principle, just as different 
 under-tones of harmony modify the impression 
 made on the ear by the same leading note. Thus 
 in the rigid intellectual processes of Science we 
 have been rightly warned (as by Professor 
 Tyndall) of the uses of imaginative Intuition. 
 Under the aesthetic appreciation and the artistic 
 reproduction of beauty, we have learnt from Mr. 
 Ruskin to trace scientific laws of truth, and even 
 u lamps " of moral principle. The most in- 
 stinctive affection defends itself, if attacked, on 
 grounds of reason — sometimes profoundly true, 
 sometimes almost ludicrously or pathetically 
 fanciful. The sternest and strongest Duty feels 
 itself too weak, unless it calls to its aid the 
 enthusiasm of affection. If it were possible to 
 cultivate but one faculty, deadening and stunt- 
 ing all the rest, the result would be not only to 
 
 apparent witness against their universal application. If a 
 purely physical line of reasoning apparently leads to an 
 immoral or an Atheistic result, it is certainly equally 
 reasonable for one who holds the Instinct of Right and 
 the Instinct of God to he universal, to look upon it with a 
 similar suspicion. 
 
84 THE MANIFOLD COED 
 
 overthrow the balance of the soul, but to destroy 
 all but one of the strands of the golden cord of 
 knowledge, by which it is linked to the world of 
 being without. Every one who has ever watched 
 the play of his own mind on any subject will- 
 know how these various phases of thought, 
 mingle with, at times even seem to confuse, each 
 other. Every one who has studied human na- 
 ture will be aware how the character of any 
 man, as a whole, affects every single action of 
 his mind, moral, intellectual, imaginative. 
 
 If we ask why this is so, the answer is simple 
 enough. It is so, because the subject is one ; it 
 is so, because the object of thought is one. 
 
 It is so, because the subject — that is, the think- 
 ing soul — is one, whatever be the phases of its 
 action. We talk of the Reason and Conscience, 
 the Imagination and the Affections, as if they 
 were distinct spiritual existences, and picture to 
 ourselves a kind of mental drama, in which they 
 act upon each other. It is convenient to do this ; 
 it is probably necessary for distinctness. But 
 we must beware lest in the process we should 
 glide into the Buddhist idea of the soul as com- 
 posed of " groups" — material qualities, sensa- 
 tions, abstract ideas, tendencies, rational faculties 
 —with no personality binding all together ; and so 
 allow the underlying unity of the soul practically 
 
OV NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85 
 
 to escape us. After all, it is the same " I" who 
 thinks and fancies, or resolves and loves. All 
 these various lines of spiritual action start from 
 the same source by the same impulse. They 
 cannot but affect one another, presuppose each 
 other, fit (so to speak) into each other, for the 
 perfect action of the soul. 
 
 It is so, again, because the object contemplated 
 is one. No single line of thought can approach 
 it on all its sides. No one can yield perfect 
 knowledge, even up to the standard of human 
 capacity to know. If the object itself is to stand 
 out in solid reality, the pictures of it from dif- 
 ferent points of view must be not looked at suc- 
 cessively or in separation, but be superimposed 
 and blended into one stereoscopic conception. 
 
 So, therefore, it must be in the Induction of 
 of God. He (we believe) has made the soul for 
 Himself in the perfect unity and variety of all its 
 faculties. Each, as it seeks Him, must draw 
 the others with it. The knowledge " which is life 
 eternal " must pervade the whole being. First, 
 because the reason, conscience, imagination, affec- 
 tion, are all really one, there must be an unity 
 in the Natural Theology of which each claims its 
 own peculiar share. Next, as they tend to Him, 
 converging again after their divergence from 
 their one source, is it not reasonable to think 
 
86 THE MANIFOLD COltD 
 
 that, while all see Him, each may catch some 
 feature in the Divine Image, which is either 
 invisible, or at least blurred and indistinct, to 
 others ? 
 
 Let us suppose that the Theology of the Rea- 
 son leads to results, in themselves imperfect and 
 ambiguous, is it not reasonable that the Theology 
 of the Conscience should be called in to supply 
 imperfection and to determine ambiguity ? If 
 the Moral Being, the Judge of the earth, of whom 
 the Conscience tells us, seems far away from sin- 
 ful men in His unapproachable purity, is it wrong 
 to seek from the Theology of Love the assurance. 
 of His unity with men, weak, blind, sinful though 
 they be ? If many lines of thought converge 
 accurately up to the very edge of Mystery, can 
 we help believing that they meet somewhere 
 behind the veil ? 
 
 It is on this idea that I desire to lay 
 especial stress. Every line of Natural Theology 
 in itself not only is imperfect, but ought (if 
 I may so express it) to be imperfect, because, 
 even for the sake of the right balance and 
 growth of our faculties, we ought not to pursue 
 any one without implying the others. Each may 
 have its rightful predominance at any time and 
 for any particular mind. But predominance is 
 one thing; exclusive isolation is another. 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 87 
 
 Perhaps it may seem as if this proposition 
 needed no enforcement, and as if, when explicitly 
 enunciated, it would be accepted by all. It 
 may be so. But in practice I cannot help 
 thinking that it is constantly neglected. 
 
 The plainer and more flagrant phase of this 
 neglect is seen in the tendency to confine the 
 mind to one line of Natural Theology, as if 
 it alone deserved notice, as if it ought to be 
 conclusive in itself, as if, supposing this not to 
 be so, we have a right to dismiss the very idea 
 of Natural Theology as worthless. We re- 
 member how Paley, in one of the best known 
 and most admirable works on this subject, 
 (within its own range and in relation to the 
 knowledge of his time all but perfect) dwells, in 
 the name of Natural Theology, on one line of 
 thought only — the evidence of Design in Nature. 
 "We notice how others give up as inconclusive, 
 and therefore as non-existent, all intellectual 
 reasoning, content to find God through the 
 " Categorical Imperative " of the Conscience. 
 A recent work of singular force and interest (on 
 the " Unseen Universe ") leads ' ' from a purely 
 physical basis " to God and immortality. All 
 this is well, if the intention be to exhibit, in all 
 the purity of its native force, the single argu- 
 ment which we think the strongest, or which 
 
S8 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 we understand best. There is perhaps some 
 profit, certainly some pleasure, in turning the 
 guns of the exclusive scientist upon himself. But 
 it is not well, if, even for a moment, we forget 
 that in so doing we are for special purposes 
 artificially putting asunder what God has 
 united in our nature. 
 
 Another form, less distinct, but in essence much 
 the same, is found in Mr. Stuart Mill's "Essay 
 on Theism." 5 Here all the lines of argument 
 
 5 There are, indeed, other objections to Mr. Mill's treat- 
 ment. It is to be noted that in the outset he holds it his 
 duty " to maintain complete impartiality and to give a fair 
 examination to both " the a priori and a posteriori methods 
 of inquiry ; but he adds in the same breath his conviction 
 that one (the latter) " is in its nature scientific, the other 
 not only unscientific, but condemned by science." Accord- 
 ingly it is not surprising that, in spite of his excellent inten- 
 tions, he utterly fails to do justice to the a priori argument 
 from Causation, while he lays all stress on the actual 
 evidences of Design, remarking (with a sense of relief) 
 that in it "we have at last arrived at an argument of a 
 really scientific character," and refusing to be driven from 
 it by Evolution theories. The argument from " the general 
 consent of mankind" is inadequately touched, with a 
 curious notion, that a belief, if " native in the human mind," 
 must be " independent of evidence " for its development, 
 and that its degradation in the savage mind proves that 
 there can bo no common substratum in that mind and the 
 mind of civilized man. Tho argument from Consciousness, 
 speculative and moral, is again dismissed with a summari- 
 ness, which would have been impossible in any mind not 
 radically antagonistic to all Intuition. In fact the only 
 
OV NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89 
 
 are recognised ; but each is separately examined, 
 and, because held to be insufficient in itself, is 
 summarily dismissed, instead of being" allowed 
 to leave behind its residuum of evidence, how- 
 ever imperfect, to be taken account of in 
 subsequent investigations. It is not perhaps 
 wonderful that at last that argument from 
 Design, which alone is accepted, should be 
 accepted with much hesitation, when it is thus 
 considered in absolute isolation from the rest. 
 For by this method it is required of each line of 
 thought, that it should be separately conclusive, 
 on pain of being put out of court with a calm 
 severity as absolutely valueless. 
 
 Now, I contend that both these methods are 
 virtually unscientific. For neither certainly 
 represents the way in which we proceed in all 
 other reasonings, whether in Inductive Science 
 or in judgment of human testimony. If a 
 Physicist desires to know the nature of a 
 material substance, he does not confine himself 
 to any one line of investigation, mechanical, 
 chemical, or electrical, even if it chance to seem 
 
 line really worked out is the line of argument from Design, 
 and in this a positive result is arrived at. But, even were 
 it otherwise, I venture to think, for the reason given in the 
 text, that the whole plan of this examination of each evi- 
 dence in separation is radically unsound. 
 
90 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 to him the fittest ; he will combine all ; if each, 
 taken alone, be inconclusive, he will not dismiss 
 it as unmeaning, or necessarily attribute in- 
 conclusiveness to the whole. If a critic desires 
 to ascertain the genuineness of a book, it is 
 mere pedantry to confine himself, either to the 
 external evidence of testimony, or the internal 
 evidence of language, style, or treatment. To 
 each must be allowed its due weight ; defect in 
 one may be compensated by excess in the other. 
 If the object be to ascertain a historical fact, or 
 estimate a historical character, only the man, 
 who has to support a foregone conclusion, will 
 rely, either merely on what a man says for him- 
 self, or merely on what others say of him, 
 either on the unsympathetic keenness of the 
 enemy, or the insight of affection in the friend. 
 When all are combined, then, and then only, do 
 we hold the picture complete, at once in its 
 lights and in its shadows. Now what is 
 necessary in order to follow out adequately the 
 lower and less difficult kinds of investigation, 
 cannot be less necessary — and indeed, ought to 
 be far more necessary — in the higher search 
 after God. We claim that our conclusion should 
 depend on the whole cord, not on any of the 
 untwisted strands. It is in the highest degree 
 unlikely that any one should be strong enough 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 91 
 
 to sustain it ; for this would go far towards 
 indicating that the others were useless. 
 
 III. I plead therefore for the combination of 
 the various elements of Natural Theology against 
 the arguments, which deal with one exclusively, 
 or, if they recognise all, yet deal with each 
 successively, as though it alone existed. But I 
 must go further] still. We cannot be satisfied, 
 even when the aggregate result is contemplated, 
 if it be estimated as though it were but the sum 
 of the results obtained by each. This is the third 
 point — perhaps the most important of all — in 
 examining the nature of the Theological Induc- 
 tion, on which I desire to lay especial stress. 
 
 For this principle of estimate appears to be 
 infinitely below the truth. Its inadequacy 
 is recognised in all reasonings on Evidence, 
 whether the evidence of scientific conclusion or 
 of personal testimony. Wherever we perceive 
 the convergence of two independent lines of 
 reasoning, or the coincidence of two obviously 
 independent witnesses, the effect is so far more 
 than double of the testimony of either, that from 
 the merest presumption the mind darts at once 
 to the assumption of a high probability. Sup- 
 pose we bring in a third from a wholly different 
 quarter. Is the result no more than triple of 
 the original presumption ? On the contrary, it 
 
THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 rises to a moral certainty, which men would be 
 thought all bat mad to question. If (for 
 example) by estimating mechanically the specific 
 gravity of any heavenly body, an astronomer had 
 guessed that by its lightness it might well be a 
 mass of incandescent hydrogen, who would con- 
 sider this to be anything but the merest guess ? 
 But let the spectroscope be turned upon it, and 
 disclose the lines in the spectrum, which cor- 
 respond to the flame of hydrogen ; then .that 
 mere guess assumes almost the character of an 
 undoubted truth. When the critic, proceeding 
 on strictly internal evidence, has shown the 
 abstract probability of this or that correction of 
 the text of an ancient author, men may hesitate 
 still. But let even a single manuscript be dis- 
 covered, which, perhaps against all others, 
 contains his emendation, on the grounds not 
 of criticism, but of simple historic testimony, 
 then slight as the new authority is in itself, its 
 appearance changes the whole aspect of things ; 
 what dwelt before in the cloudland of ingenious 
 conjecture is placed at once on a solid ground. Nor 
 is it otherwise in respect of personal testimony. 
 No one supposes that the coincidence of two in- 
 dependent testimonies simply doubles the force of 
 either. No one doubts that the convergence of 
 many lines of circumstantial evidence, each per- 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. do 
 
 haps in itself weak, may forge an iron chain of 
 cogency. A single witness, let it be as authen- 
 tic as it may, is by the wise rule of law, 
 held to be insufficient. .But it is an accepted 
 rule that " in the mouth of two or three 
 witnesses every word shall be established.'''' 
 
 This point is to my mind one of transcendant 
 importance, and I cannot think that it has been 
 as constantly and familiarly recognised as it 
 deserves. But I must still observe further — what 
 may at first sight appear almost paradoxical — that 
 such coincidence, while it directly establishes the 
 points in which these various testimonies agree, 
 gives an indirect, yet very substantial confirma- 
 tion to the points, on which each speaks alone. 
 For it tends to prove in each the existence of 
 correctness, solidity, veracity of testimony : and 
 if these attributes be once established, we can- 
 not but assume the high probability of their 
 continuance, even when each witness treads his 
 path alone. As a matter of fact, it is (I sup- 
 pose) by the union of the coincidence of many 
 evidences, and the independent witness of one 
 single evidence, that Induction of Science, and 
 establishment of facts by testimony, have really 
 achieved their chief triumphs. When mechanical, 
 chemical, electrical tests of a substance have so 
 far coincided as to establish the accuracy of the 
 
94 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 conclusions derived from each, no one need 
 hesitate to add to the qualities of which all bear 
 witness, those special qualities, which can be 
 tested only by one of those lines of investigation, 
 and to which necessarily there can be no multi- 
 plication of testimony. In those masterly 
 summaries of the results of evidence, which 
 come to us from the judicial bench, there are 
 always elements, on which one witness only 
 speaks, accepted because in other points, by 
 coincidence with the rest, his accuracy and 
 veracity have been tested and not found want- 
 ing. 
 
 Now it is for the full recognition of these prin- 
 ciples in respect of the lines of Natural Theology 
 that I especially plead. It may be possible to 
 show that no single line taken alone leads even 
 to moral certainty. It might be, though diffi- 
 cult, yet not absolutely impossible, to contend 
 that the mere aggregate by addition of their 
 results advances us but a little way. But, if 
 proceeding, as they undoubtedly do, in partial 
 or complete independence, they converge to com- 
 mon conclusions; then the argument of truth 
 from that convergence is all but irresistible ; and 
 if, while thus coinciding in many points, each 
 contributes one peculiar feature to the picture of 
 the One Transcendant Object, then their former 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 95 
 
 coincidence bears indirect evidence to the truth 
 of these isolated declarations. 
 
 IV. Now this is, as it seems to me, exactly the 
 condition of things. The Theology of the Intellect 
 has itself two independent branches — the argu- 
 ment from Causation, leading up to a First Cause, 
 and the argument from the evidence of Design, 
 leading up not to a First Cause only, but a Per- 
 sonal Creator. The two lines of witness have a 
 close parallelism of idea; but each is perfectly 
 distinct — the one looking back to the past, the 
 other onward to the future. Suppose it be con- 
 ceded that the first, considered alone, may leave 
 us in doubt whether the First Cause be material 
 or spiritual, or, at least, whether Personal or Im- 
 personal. The investigation of the second comes 
 in, at once to confirm the former reasoning as to 
 the existence of some First Cause, and to decide the 
 point on which that reasoning left us for a time 
 in doubt. Is it not clear that thus, at once coin- 
 cident with and supplementary to the other, its 
 appearance far more than doubles the confidence 
 which could be placed in either alone ? But let 
 us call another witness — the Theology of the 
 Imagination — proceeding by a wholly different 
 process from that of the Intellect, viz. by the syn- 
 thesis of poetic or artistic intuition, instead of by 
 the analysis of close gradual reasoning, and blend- 
 
96 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 ing the cold light of understanding with the 
 warm glow of affection. By this wholly different 
 method it brings out to us the same truth, the 
 conception of a First Cause and an All-wise 
 Creator; while it adds a still stronger conviction 
 that in the presentation to us of the beauty of 
 creation mind deals with mind, and it su^o-ests 
 at least emotions not of wonder only but of 
 adoration. Can we refuse to recognise here a 
 powerful element of confirmation ? By itself we 
 may well hold a Theology of Imagination to 
 be far too vague and shadowy for definite belief, 
 too poetic for the wear and tear of life. But its 
 very contrast of method gives force to the con- 
 viction, produced byits coincidence in conclusions 
 with the firmer, harder lines of thought. 
 
 This group of witnesses is a group of much gene- 
 ral similarity, though of special peculiarities in 
 each. Many haveheld (withButler) thatinitself it 
 is abundantly sufficient to establish the existence 
 of " an Intelligent Author of Nature/' and simply 
 to leave to Moral Theology the task of discovering 
 His moral attributes and relations to us. But 
 if this conclusion be questioned, we examine that 
 Moral Theology, as another witness of wholly 
 distinct character from the former. We take 
 up the Theology of the Conscience. We find 
 how, proceeding by a wholly independent path, 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 97 
 
 the Conscience, by its witness of the Eternal 
 existence of Right, and by its ineradicable fore- 
 boding of Retribution, leads us to a Supreme 
 Being and to a Personal Being, so confirming at 
 every point the results of the other two lines of 
 thought. But then it adds a yet nobler feature, 
 and shows how He who is the Supreme Cause 
 and the All-wise Creator, is also the All-righteous 
 Judge. Does it not set its seal with potent 
 authority on the conclusions already drawn ? Do 
 not they, in their turn, throw a light on the truth 
 of this Theology of Conscience, which tends still 
 to confirm it, when it passes alone into the dis- 
 tinctly moral sphere ? Yet even now this is not 
 all. There is another twin witness in this second 
 group. Among the Supreme powers which rule 
 human life we recognise not only Reason and 
 Conscience, but Love. That Love has its Theology. 
 By its very nature incapable of fixing on any 
 dead thing or abstract principle, it bears witness 
 to the Personality of the Power which made and 
 rules the world. By that same nature requiring 
 goodness, real or supposed, in the object on which 
 it rests, it adds its voice to the witness of Con- 
 science to the goodness of the Creator and the 
 King. Yet since it is in itself a recognition of 
 unity, and of some degree of likeness, between the 
 lover and the loved, it goes on still further to 
 
 H 
 
98 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 recognise in the Majesty of an Eternal and All- 
 righteous God the face of one who has a true 
 spiritual unity with us, who is indeed not only 
 a First Cause, a Creator, a Judge, but " Our 
 Father which is in heaven." It is by this com- 
 plex process — the same which mostly leads, in 
 all Inductive Science, to moral certainty — that 
 the soul of man feels after God. Only when you 
 conceive of its various lines, not in mere aggre- 
 gation, but in convergence, can you rightly 
 estimate its force. 
 
 Let me remind you in passing that, in relation 
 to the other Law of Natural Religion — the Law 
 of Faith in some Revelation of God — this same 
 principle has its place in estimating the evidences 
 on which that Revelation is accepted. The lines 
 of that evidence also are many, every one needing 
 and implying the rest, all converging to one 
 central result, and yet each conveying its own 
 characteristic witness. Only when we consider 
 them as a whole in their mutual relations, can 
 we estimate the force of the conclusion, which 
 has bowed Humanity atthe feet of Jesus Christ — 
 first, to cry, ' ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
 hast the Words of Eternal Life ; w then, accepting 
 these words, to go on, free from all weariness of 
 doubt and toil of reasoning, " to know" in faith 
 " the things which pass our knowledge." But 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99 
 
 on this it is not yet the time to speak. There is 
 a certain glimpse of appropriateness in the simi- 
 larity of the processes, by which the two great 
 elements of "Natural Religion," properly so 
 called, establish their claims to our allegiance. 
 But at present it will simply be my endeavour 
 to work out in succeeding lectures the sketch 
 here given of the relation of the lines of Natural 
 Theolog}', in the mingled coincidence and inde- 
 pendence which give to their testimony such 
 all but irresistible force. 
 
 It does, I cannot deny, seem to me all but 
 irresistible ; I do not therefore wonder that, as we 
 saw in the First Lecture, mankind at large has 
 found it so. For certainly no such convergence 
 can be pleaded for any other theory of the origin 
 of things. Each has to choose its own ground, 
 and decline to fight elsewhere. Materialistic 
 Theories, for example, if they can claim any 
 witness from external nature, have the con- 
 sciousness of a spirit in man so strongly against 
 them, that they are driven, first to discredit its 
 testimony, and then to deny its existence. Pan- 
 theism, if it seem to account for the great world 
 without, is met by the irreconcilable contradic- 
 tion of the sense of individuality, especially in its 
 moral aspects ; till it is reduced to reckon that 
 ineradicable consciousness as an inherent delu- 
 H 2 
 
100 THE MANIFOLD CORD 
 
 sion of the mind, to be silenced if it cannot be 
 destroyed. Agnosticism, virtually atheistic, and 
 indeed the only form in which Scientific Atheism 
 can well exist, may possibly represent itself as 
 innocent or tolerable before the bar of the pure 
 Intellect ; but before the imperious demand of 
 the Conscience for a basis of duty, and of the 
 Affections for an object of love, it is forced to 
 acknowledge itself as insufficient, in its pure 
 negativeness, to supply a key to the meaning of 
 life. The belief in God may at least claim that 
 it is the only hypothesis, which can venture to 
 recognise all the facts of life, and to appeal to 
 all the faculties of the soul. 
 
 Of course, as Bishop Butler long ago warned 
 us, 6 there must be, in all fairness, due weight given 
 to a similar convergence, if such convergence can 
 be traced, of difficulty and objection. But if we 
 look at the facts, we shall find that there is but 
 one quarter in which any shadow of this conver- 
 gence can be traced. I mean the great mystery 
 of Evil in all its branches — whether in physical 
 suffering, apparent waste or failure, loathsome- 
 ness and decay, or in moral evil, both in guilt and 
 degeneracy — seeming to imply imperfection in 
 the Government of the world, and, whether it 
 be punished or unpunished, equally throwing 
 
 G See Butler's ''Analogy," part ii. chap. vi. 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 101 
 
 doubt upon the Peifect Love of the Creator. In 
 that convergence of witness against the belief in 
 God — strangely evaded, still more strangely 
 accounted for, in many theories of philosophy and 
 religion — we trace the one great difficulty in 
 Natural Theology; sufficient, not indeed to 
 overthrow, but certainly to obscure and impair 
 its witness. In the presence of that mystery, 
 human thought, as we have already said, halts 
 for a time at Dualism in one or other of its forms. 
 But necessarily dissatisfied with this, as a mode 
 of thought unsatisfactory alike to the intellectual 
 craving for unity and to the imperious assertion 
 by the conscience of the inherent supremacy of 
 righteousness, it stands in great degree at a loss, 
 and cries out for some Revelation of God to 
 decide this intolerable conflict. 
 
 V. For we do need here a Gospel from on high. 
 No Revelation, which fails to grapple with this 
 enemy, can be a religion for Humanity. There 
 are two voices in the soul : one telling of sorrow, 
 sin, unbelief; the other callingto joy, righteous- 
 ness, faith. We should contend that, even in 
 themselves, there is a victorious power in this lat- 
 ter voice, which the other may confuse but cannot 
 drown. Still we cannot deny the conflict. Only 
 from God Himself, speaking through man and 
 to man, can come the truth which shall strike in 
 
102 THE MANIFOLD COED 
 
 with authority, to silence the voice of evil, to 
 sanction the utterance of good. 
 
 While, therefore, I seek to draw out the com- 
 bined witness of these various lines of Natural 
 Theology, I must again ask you at all times to 
 bear in mind what is the degree of stress we 
 actually lay upon them. The belief of the 
 Christian, bringing out into clearness and living 
 power the vague beliefs, hopes, speculations of 
 humanity, always holds that man is not left 
 wholly to this Law of Induction. We believe 
 that, in actual fact, as an integral part of the 
 system of the world, God has given His Special 
 Revelation to men ; and that this Revelation, 
 not only meets these various lines of thoug-ht, 
 coming out from the darkness up to which they 
 converge, and binding all together " around the 
 feet of God;" but especially and principally 
 grapples with that great mystery of the existence 
 of Evil which troubles alike every line of Natural 
 Theology, and bids men doubt, sometimes the 
 unity of the First Cause, sometimes the wisdom 
 or power of the Creator, sometimes the righteous- 
 ness of the Supreme Judge, or the love of the One 
 Father. While, therefore, we delight to trace 
 these reasonings and aspirations of the soul to- 
 wards Heaven, its native home, we never for a 
 moment suppose that this home keeps its gates 
 
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 103 
 
 barred in an inhospitable coldness, till men 
 struggle up, in darkness and pain, to burst them 
 open. The gates of our Heavenly City stand 
 open day and night, that through them the light 
 of truth and the warmth of love may stream down 
 to earth, and by a spiritual attraction draw the 
 soul up to Heaven. In the famous lines of our 
 great poet, John Milton, which tell how virtue 
 
 . . . Can teach the soul to climb 
 Far above the starry chime, 
 
 we recognise what the noblest heathen philosophy 
 has taught. But in the words which follow — 
 
 And if virtue feeble were, 
 Heaven itself will stoop to her, 
 
 — we hail the utterance of the faith of the Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Well it is for us to test the various strands of 
 the threefold cord, not easily to be broken. But 
 let us not hold that they are made by man's 
 hand, or that man's own power must raise him 
 up by their golden band. It is from Heaven 
 that they came; it is from Heaven that the 
 power still comes, which through them lays 
 hold of the weakness of man, and brings him 
 safe to the place appointed for him. The first 
 idea is a noble dream ; the last (thank God) has 
 been found by thousands to be a blessed reality. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT 
 CAUSATION. 
 
 I.— THE INQUIRY INTO CAUSATION AN INTELLECTUAL NE- 
 CESSITY, 
 (a) ITS APPLICATION TO PHENOMENA OR EVENTS. 
 (6) ITS APPLICATION TO THE SUBSTANCES OF THE UNI- 
 VERSE. 
 II. — THE INQUIRY INTO THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE 
 IN ITS FOUR GREAT KINGDOMS. 
 
 (a) THE CREATION OF FORM. THE FORCE OF THE ARGU- 
 
 MENT FROM THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THE WORKS OF 
 ART AND NATURE, AND FROM THE POWER OF ART 
 TO CO-OPERATE WITH NATURE. 
 
 (b) THE CREATION OF SUBSTANCE, INCLUDING BOTH 
 
 MIND AND MATTER, TRANSCENDING ALL EXPE- 
 RIENCE. 
 III. -TnE NATURE OF THE FIRST CAUSE. THE THEORIES OF 
 
 (a) MATERIALISM. 
 
 (b) PANTHEISM. 
 
 (c) DUALISM. 
 (tZ) THEISM. 
 
 V. — SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 We understand that the worlds were framed by the 
 
THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : CAUSATION. 105 
 
 word of God, so that the things which are seen were not 
 made of things which do appear." — Heb. xi. 3. 
 
 The main argument of these Lectures has now 
 been sketched in outline. First, in every line 
 of thought there is a process of Induction, by 
 which we work out into definite explicitness the 
 instinctive sense, which I believe to be inherent 
 in all humanity, of the Presence of God. Next, 
 since under all variety the subject — the thinking 
 mind — is one, and the great object of contem- 
 plation is one also, it would seem that these lines 
 of thought cannot be,, and ought not to be, 
 regarded in isolation from each other; as in some 
 reasonings for and against Natural Theology it 
 is too much the habit to regard them. Thirdly, 
 in virtue of the Law of Convergence, as we ac- 
 knowledge it in pursuing scientific investigation, 
 or in estimating human testimony, their com- 
 bined effect is infinitely greater than the mere 
 sum of their evidences ; and accordingly, in vir- 
 tue at once of their independence and coincidence, 
 it tells with all the force of moral certainty, 
 directly on the points in which all agree, indi- 
 rectly even on the points on which each bears its 
 separate testimony. In this respect the supreme 
 knowledge of God stands in the closest analogy 
 to all those leading forms of knowledge, specula- 
 tive and moral, by which our human life is 
 
106 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 guided and ruled. But we maintain, lastly, 
 that this Induction of the human soul, striving 
 up towards Heaven, is met by a distinct self- 
 revelation of God Himself stooping to earth. 
 For such is the belief which is suggested on the 
 ground of analogy, supported by the testimony 
 of universal tradition, and, as Christians hold, 
 established by the convincing power of the signs, 
 which lead us to the completion of such reve- 
 lation in the manifestation of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 This sketch it is the business of the succeeding 
 lectures to work in its various parts. 
 
 I. We begin by considering, in some detail, 
 the first of the great lines of Induction belonging 
 to what I would call the Theology of the Intellect. 
 This is the principle, technically known as the 
 principle of ^Etiology, or the study of the First 
 Cause. Our object is to consider what are the 
 conclusions to which it brings us — conclusions 
 which, in accordance with the general conditions 
 of human knowledge, we should expect to find 
 imperfect in themselves, preparing and (so to 
 speak) waiting for the coincidence of other lines 
 of thought, in order to complete what may be 
 imperfect, and to clear up what may involve 
 some ambiguity. 
 
 What is this line of thought as viewed in 
 
CAUSATION. ]07 
 
 simple outline, keeping clear, so far as may be, 
 of all intricacies of detail, and all subtleties of 
 metaphysical controversy ? 1 
 
 Man finds himself in possession of two forms 
 of consciousness. He is conscious of himself by 
 reflection ; he is conscious of a world around him 
 by observation. Both these forms of conscious- 
 ness coexist and act continually upon one another. 
 Which first awakens it may seem too curious to 
 inquire; but I can hardly doubt that it is 
 the latter consciousness which (as the study of 
 a child's mind shows) is first brought into any- 
 thing like distinctness. Now, as soon as this is 
 done — as soon as any object is distinctly contem- 
 plated — the mind asks two questions, What is 
 it ? How comes it to be ? 
 
 The question, What is it ? comes practically 
 to mean, What are the qualities or properties, by 
 which it impresses itself on my senses or my 
 mind in the present ? The question, How comes 
 it to be ? is virtually an inquiry into its history 
 in the past, and its connexion with pre-existent 
 objects. 
 
 1 On the whole of this subject I would refer the reader 
 to a singularly able, though somewhat difficult, Essay " On 
 the Principle of Causation," by Canon Mozley, published in 
 " Faith and Free Thought," by the Christian Evidence 
 Society, in 1872. 
 
108 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ; 
 
 It is with this latter inquiry that we are at 
 present concerned. We need not, as yet, ask 
 how it originates. It is sufficient for us that it 
 is universal and inevitable. The notion, ad- 
 vanced in some modern systems, that we ought 
 to be content with the inquiry into what is — 
 simply tabulating and classifying our various 
 forms of knowledge of its actual properties and 
 relations — is too contradictory to this inevitable 
 process of the human mind to maintain itself in 
 any complete or ultimate system of thought. 
 
 But what is it which the mind perceives, 
 whether it look outward by observation, or in- 
 ward by reflection ? 
 
 (a). No doubt our primary perceptions are of 
 phenomena or events or sensations — changes in 
 the condition of things without or within. Now 
 of every event or phenomenon it is necessarily 
 assumed that it is connected, by the relation of 
 cause and effect, with events before it and after 
 it. Such conception appears to be a "form of 
 thought" which it is impossible to account for 
 by referring it simply to observation, experience, 
 and the like ; for, in fact, it is under it that all 
 observation and experience, which deserve the 
 name, actually take place. Without it they 
 would resolve themselves, as in an infant or an 
 imbecile, into a mere series of unconnected im- 
 
CAUSATION. 109 
 
 pressions. Our sensations, indeed, can tell us 
 only of succession of events — antecedents and 
 consequents. It is in virtue of a fundamental 
 law of thought that, wherever we see invariable 
 succession, we hold at once that there is necessary 
 succession. The old fallacy, "Post hoc, ergo 
 propter hoc/'' shows at once that from mere suc- 
 cession we infer causal connexion ; and yet that 
 this connexion is something real, distinct from 
 the succession which may take place without it. 
 Hence, whatever the event be — a natural phe- 
 nomenon or the exhibition of human agency, a 
 flash of lightning, or the waving of a sword — we 
 infer at once that it had a cause. But whereas, 
 in a natural phenomenon, we can only trace the 
 line of Causation for a certain distance back, and 
 know not how much farther it may extend, we 
 can, in the case of human agency, arrive at a 
 true cause — ultimate so far as our knowledge 
 goes — in will ; which may act (as every day it 
 does act) without any motive whatever, simply 
 because it does will, but which in any case 
 acts as a conscious self-moving force. 2 Will is 
 certainly a true cause of action, and it is the 
 
 2 The old Greek definition (see Arist. Nic. Ethics, Book 
 iii. chap. 1) of t5 eKouaioy, as ov r\ apxr) eV outw el56ri, can 
 hardly be made clearer, or more accordant with our own 
 consciousness. 
 
110 THE THEOLOGY OE THE INTELLECT: 
 
 only one which we can be said to know. Un- 
 doubtedly we must hold that the myriads of 
 human wills are under some Power, which guides 
 and may overrule them. We know even by ex- 
 perience that, while each is free in itself, the 
 results of human volition are subject to certain 
 laws/ and may be within limits foreseen even by 
 man. But we must still ask, what is the nature 
 of this Supreme Power which impresses its laws 
 upon human will ? Now we are perfectly familiar 
 with the power of one will over another — a power 
 quite distinct from physical necessity — acting in 
 three chief ways, viz. by appeal to reason and 
 conscience producing free conviction, by the 
 application of motives, and by the influence of 
 personal ascendancy ; and we can therefore, by 
 infinite extension of these results of experience, 
 conceive a Supreme Will guiding all other wills 
 by a power absolutely different from that of 
 physical compulsion. But while we know how 
 will can direct and excite force, we are not familiar 
 
 3 We must, of course, guard against the "fallacy of 
 averages," which, when it has proved that the results of 
 human actions may.be tabulated statistically, fancies that 
 it has discovered their cause and eliminated free will. 
 We may infer, no doubt, that they are under " a Law " in 
 the true sense — that is, an expression of the Supreme will. 
 But the assumption that it is a Law of the same kind as 
 those which rule in the physical sphere, monstrous as it 
 is, is yet unfortunately but too common. 
 
CAUSATION. Ill 
 
 with the power of physical forces to create and 
 rule will; and therefore, since Causation of will 
 has to be accounted for, we recoil from the idea 
 of a Primal Physical Impulse, as the first mover 
 in the great chain of events, which constitutes 
 the history of the universe. Even if we are led to 
 believe that there was a time when the power of 
 created will did not exist on the earth, we have no 
 right from this belief to infer the non-existence 
 of all will as a primeval force. Our previous 
 argument stands firm, based alike on reason and 
 on experience. 4 
 
 4 This false inference is not infrequent in materialistic 
 argument. I venture to quote upon it a passage from the 
 eloquent Hunterian Oration of 1877, by Sir James Paget: — 
 
 " Now I cannot doubt that in the doctrine of the corre- 
 lation of physical and vital forces we are nearer to the 
 truth than we were in the Hunterian doctrine, which held 
 that life is something altogether alien and different from 
 other forms or methods of activity ; but to hold the corre- 
 lation and mutual conversion of the forces does not deter- 
 mine the precedence of either the one or the other. If the 
 vital and physical forces are mutually convertible, either 
 may have preceded the other ; the vital force may have 
 preceded the physical, although life appeared late upon 
 this planet, in any of the phenomena in which we can now 
 study it ; and even if we were to hold the possible conver- 
 sion of physical or vital into mental force, into conscious- 
 ness and will (though against this, what I believe to be my 
 consciousness and will are utterly repugnant), yet this 
 would not prove the precedence of the physical force. 
 " The opposite conversion can be as well or as ill traced. 
 
112 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 The contemplation, then, of phenomena leads us 
 irresistibly to a First Cause ; and our experience, 
 so far as we can carry it, gives no distinct evidence 
 of a true cause, absolutely originating action, 
 except in will. The consequence is that almost 
 all language upon the subject, from whatever 
 lips it proceeds, is driven irresistibly to imply 
 
 Mental forces may have preceded physical : mind may 
 have existed before any of the properties of matter ; and 
 thus, even in the view of science, the first essence may 
 have been a Being willing and knowing, and the prime 
 source of all the forces whose operations we now trace. I 
 believe there is not anything in science to disprove such a 
 belief as this; but I doubt whether it be in the power of 
 science yet to determine an order of precedence amongst 
 the forces. I cannot imagine anything before a natural 
 force except a supernatural will ; and a belief of this kind 
 is held by untutored minds as if it were instinctive know- 
 ledge. For man seems naturally prone to believe that, 
 beyond all that there is in the world, there must be a 
 mind, or minds, in the likeness in which his own is created, 
 and with which he is in some kind of personal relation. 
 
 " But science cannot yet reach to the proof of these 
 things, and, until it can reach to proof, science cannot rest, 
 and must not rest ; but the firm and self-guiding belief 
 that a supernatural Will and Knowledge was, and is, and 
 will be, rests on the whole and manifold evidences of the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 " These may seem often opposed to what we believe true 
 in science. Then let us wait. Time — or, if not time-, 
 eternity — will prove that science and the Christian theo- 
 logy are but two sides of truth, and that both sides are as 
 yet only known in part." 
 
CAUSATIOX. 113 
 
 Personality. In spite of all struggles to the 
 contrary, " every tongue " has to " confess to 
 God." 
 
 {b) But from the simple observation of 
 phenomena, we pass to the inference of the 
 existence of things and persons. How that 
 inference takes place we are not here concerned 
 to inquire. Every student of Berkeley's writings 
 knows how difficult it is to prove the absolute 
 existence of any material thing from that purely 
 physical observation, which can reveal only im- 
 pressions upon our senses, suggesting ideas to 
 the mind. Every one who has looked at a 
 stereoscope is aware how by combination of such 
 impressions on the eye we are induced to infer a 
 substance which does not exist. I believe myself 
 that it is from the consciousness of being, 
 underlying the phenomena of the little world 
 within, 5 that we are led to conceive of a substra- 
 tum underlying the phenomena of the great 
 world without, and where that substmium is not 
 
 5 " The operations of the mind may in some degree be 
 spoken of as phenomena manifesting themselves to the 
 internal sense or consciousness ; but they never present 
 themselves as a mere bundle of phenomena, but always in 
 reference to that self which is the ground and origin of 
 
 them We have arrived at something much more than 
 
 a mere phenomenon, viz. at a being the ground of the phe- 
 nomena." — Shaw "On Positivism," pp. 23. 25. 
 
 I 
 
114 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 referable to living beings like ourselves, call it 
 Matter and Force in the abstract. The constant 
 tendency to personification in all such cases shows 
 the origin of the process. But, however the 
 inference takes place, it is universal. We look 
 upon the universe, as a reality, not in raw chaotic 
 material, but as a true Kosmos in form and 
 order, in the co -existence and correlation of all its 
 parts, and we ask, first whether there is a First 
 Cause of Nature, and, if so, of what character is 
 that First Cause. 
 
 II. In relation to the former inquiry, let me 
 here remind you (to guard against an unfor- 
 tunate ambiguity of the use of this word) that 
 by Nature we mean, or ought to mean, the sum 
 total of being cognisable by us, which, if we 
 would understand it aright (so all Science warns 
 us), we must consider in its entirety and its 
 continuity. A student of what we unfortunately 
 call Physical Science is a student of but one part 
 of Nature. Mind is as much a real thine 1 as 
 Matter ; 6 Will is as true a factor in the great 
 world of Nature, as Electricity. 
 
 6 This is the sense, for example, in which Butler uses the 
 word " nature " in his " Analogy." In the discussion of 
 the " supernatural " there is constantly an ambiguity, often 
 an inconsistency, in the sense given to " the natural," 
 which needs the most jealous scrutiny. 
 
CAUSATION. 115 
 
 Now, as we survey these works of Nature, 
 we find that they fall into certain distinct classes. 
 
 There is, first, a fundamental division, which, 
 as yet, no Science can cross, between the things 
 which have life, and the things which have not 
 life. At this point there comes in a new power, 
 entailing a partial break in the great principle 
 of Convertibility of Force. Life, so far as we 
 have yet seen, can be derived only from Life. 
 
 Then, within the realm of life, there comes 
 another division, between the mere vegetative 
 or animal life, 7 and the existence of Mind, Soul, 
 Intelligence — call it what you will — of which 
 we find rudimentary forms, gradually increasing 
 in perfection through the animal world of In- 
 stinct, and, of which we find, so far as earth is 
 concerned, the perfection in man, though we 
 believe that man is but one in a hierarchy of 
 
 7 I use this expression because (so far as merely organic 
 life is concerned) it appears singularly difficult to draw 
 any line of demarcation between the animal and vegetable 
 kingdom. Thus Professor Bentley in his "Manual of 
 Botany " (Introduction, pp. 3, 4), after pointing out general 
 distinctions, in respect of (a) food, (b) powers of motion, (c) 
 respiration, and (d) the composition of permanent tissues, 
 between plants and animals, is forced to conclude that 
 in our present state of knowledge it is, physiologically 
 speaking, " impossible to give a complete and perfect defi- 
 nition of a plant, in contradistinction to what is to be 
 regarded as an animal." 
 
 i % 
 
116 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 intelligent beings, surrounding the throne of 
 God. 
 
 But here again — whatever Physiology may 
 teach as to the connexion of our bodily structure 
 with animal organizations — whatever analogies 
 Psychology may trace between understanding 
 and instinct — still between man and brute there is 
 a great gulf fixed, marked by the peculiar power 
 in man of intellectual progress, by the possession 
 and elaboration of language, by the capacity of 
 rising above the sphere of sense to contemplate 
 the Invisible. 8 At this point again there is a 
 break in the Convertibility of Force. As we can- 
 not see any trace of convertibility of vegetative 
 life into animal instinct ; so we can see still less 
 any vestige of power to raise instinct to the level 
 
 8 It is here, as Coleridge showed in the " Aids to Reflec- 
 tion" (vol. i. pp. 168—183, ed. of 1848), that the true line 
 is to be drawn between the Instinct, differing only in 
 degree from what he called the "understanding" in man, 
 and the Season, which is the peculiarly human faculty. 
 Hooker says truly, " Beasts are in sensible capacity as 
 ripe as men themselves, perhaps more ripe .... The soul 
 of man .... Lath, besides the faculty of growing to sensible 
 knowledge which is common unto us with beasts, a farther 
 ability, whereof in them is no show at all, the ability of 
 reaching higher than unto sensible things" (Ecc. Pol., I. 
 chap. vi. sects. 2, 3). The neglect of this distinction is 
 remarkable in the reasonings of the Darwinian school, as 
 to the derivation of Reason and Conscience from animal 
 instincts. 
 
CAUSATION. 117 
 
 of reason, to degrade reason hopelessly to the 
 level of instinct. To refer life, intelligence, 
 reason, vaguely to unknown " potentialities of 
 matter" is simply to ignore lines of demarca- 
 tion, which to our present knowledge are im- 
 passable. To talk of the genius of a Newton as 
 latent in the light of the sun, or in some ring of 
 cosmical vapour, seems like tracing the poten- 
 tiality of a steam-engine simply to the pro- 
 perties of brass and iron, and the expansive 
 power of steam. 
 
 Now that this our formed system of Nature 
 had a beginning is certain, not only by reason- 
 ing of abstract thought, but by the discoveries 
 of Inductive Science. That there was a time in 
 our world, marked by the existence only of 
 elementary inorganic substance is all but cer- 
 tain ; that there may have been a nebulous 
 period, before solid or liquid forms of material 
 substance had their being, is highly probable. 
 That, at a subsequent period life made its 
 appearance in the world, in its various vegetable 
 and animal forms is again known — whether 
 by evolution from one monad, or by what are 
 awkwardly called " acts of successive creation " 
 we do not as yet inquire. That at a still later 
 time man emerged, as he is — whether again by 
 evolution or otherwise, we care not — is a certain 
 
118 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT : 
 
 thing. Hence the instinct is clearly right, 
 which asks of actual Nature, How it came to 
 be ? For it did come to be. It had a begin- 
 ning ; as even now we have probable indications 
 to show that it will have an end. 
 
 Hence it would seem that the answer to the 
 first inquiry is absolute. The universe had a 
 beginning ; it must have had a First Cause — a 
 Vis Greatrix of some kind or other. It is con- 
 tended with perfect truth, on the principle in- 
 dicated in the old maxim, Causa Causes Causa 
 Causati, that in the conception of a true cause 
 finality is involved, that " an infinite series of 
 secondary causes does not make the cause/'' 
 which "reason requires."" As our old meta- 
 physicians rightly urged, ee that something must 
 be self-existent and the original cause of all 
 things will not bear much dispute."" 9 
 
 (a) But of what nature is that First Cause of 
 the world as we see it ? In pursuing this 
 inquiry it is reasonable to look first to the class 
 of things, of which it is easiest to give account. 
 We see around a certain number of things of all 
 kinds, which we call Works of Art ; and of these 
 we do actually know how they came to be what 
 
 9 See Canon Mozley's " Essay," pp. 20, 32, with his 
 interesting criticism on the merits of Clarke's " Demon- 
 stration of the Being of a God." 
 
CAUSATION. 119 
 
 they are. In each such thing" there is the raw 
 material (the vXij), and the form or structure (the 
 elSo?) . Now how this raw material came into 
 being we know not ; in fact, the observation of 
 Science teaches that, within the range of our 
 knowledge, the sum total of matter is fixed, and 
 the sum total of physical force (if latent and active 
 force be taken together) is equally unchangeable. 
 But the form or structure — that which makes 
 each work of Art what it is — we do know 
 to be simply due to human will and intelligence, 
 moulding the forms of any special kind of 
 matter, combining various kinds of matter to- 
 gether, directing the play of force, calling it from 
 dormancy into life, or from living energy bidding 
 it sink back into mere potentiality again. From 
 the simplest manufacture of the savage to the 
 highest work of civilized Art — the grandest build- 
 ing, the noblest sculpture, the most subtle and ex- 
 quisite machine — the same principle is true. We 
 know (as we say) how it was made. It is true that 
 of the raw material we can give no account ; it is 
 with the structure that we are concerned, and 
 of this the true cause lies in Mind and Will. 
 Henceforward the fact that Mind does work upon 
 matter, and can evoke and direct force, is a 
 thing ascertained. Once ascertained, it cannot 
 be, and ought not to be, forg-otten. We engrave 
 
120 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT: 
 
 it on our memory, as we pass from this class of 
 things which we know to other classes more 
 mysterious to us. For, when we have discovered 
 a true cause, Science bids us take it with us in 
 our further investigation, refusing to imagine 
 new hypothetical causes, till we have tried this 
 and found it wanting. 
 
 Now, when from the works of Art, we turn 
 to the universe itself — the u works of Nature/'' 
 in that true and general sense referred to above — 
 and inquire into the processes, by which in its 
 various parts it comes to be what it actually is, 
 we are struck at once by the fact that, within our 
 knowledge, they wear the aspect of that superim- 
 position on some raw material of form and struc- 
 ture, of which we ourselves in our measure are 
 capable. In what we call inorganic substances, 
 we find that all their infinite variety is due to 
 the combination of but a few elements in various 
 relations and proportions, under the action of a 
 few known physical forces ; and, moreover, by 
 the known existence of things of very different 
 properties, capable nevertheless of being resolved 
 into the same elements, we are driven to the 
 belief that, besides the laws of proportion and 
 structure, which we can trace, there are invisible 
 laws of molecular structure, by which these 
 differences are determined. So far knowledge 
 
CAUSATION. 1 2 L 
 
 and probable inference go. Speculation goes 
 on, with more or less of arbitrary assumption/ 
 to conjecture, that the final elements of matter 
 may be all of one kind, may be perhaps simply 
 centres of force ; and that all the endless variety 
 of Nature may depend on variety of structure of 
 one kind of matter, and on variety of manifesta- 
 tion of but one Force. 
 
 Still more clearly the growth of organic life 
 from the first simple cell is the assimilation of 
 elemental substance under the law of some in- 
 herent structure. So it is in the growth of the 
 rich, endless variety of vegetation from the 
 simple food of the air, the moisture, and the 
 soil. So it is in the still more wonderful growth 
 of animal life by the absorption of substances, 
 less rudimentary indeed, but still in themselves 
 simple enough. Watch the marvellous process 
 from the simple original protoplasm. See how 
 
 1 We smile at the arbitrary inference of the old Greek 
 philosophy, that the heavenly bodies must move in circles, 
 because the works of Nature are perfect and "the circle 
 is the most perfect figure." But, whenever the mind, 
 passing from the solid ground of experience in physical 
 subjects, delights in abstruse speculations as to the 
 origin of things, we constantly find metaphysical assump- 
 tions of the same kind. There are " idols of the cave " 
 everywhere. Mind will assert itself, perhaps abnormally, 
 even while it professes to sit at the feet of Physical Power. 
 
122 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 infinite variety of structure developes, we know 
 not how or why, from what seems the same germ 
 of life, and on what is apparently the same kind of 
 assimilated food. The creative force of Nature 
 here is, again in a far higher and subtler per- 
 fection, the addition to elemental matter of form 
 and structure. 
 
 Pass next to the realm of mind. Is not the 
 same law here manifest ? All the fabric of 
 human knowledge and morality is surely the 
 assimilation, under the mental structure, which 
 Kant calls the " forms of thought/' of food 
 derived from observation, from teaching, from in- 
 stinctive self-perception. It is so in each several 
 mind, as the Socratic process of interrogation 
 so vividly shows. 2 It is so in the inherited 
 knowledge of the race, gradually assimilating 
 fresh food in each generation, and so growing 
 from the simple instinctive notions of the savage 
 to the complicated knowledge of high civiliza- 
 tion. We note, moreover, here also that there are 
 infinite variations of latent mental structure — 
 individual, hereditary, national — and that the 
 same mental and moral food is assimilated 
 
 2 See, for example, the famous example in the " Menon," 
 where Socrates, by judicious questions, draws from an 
 ignorant but intelligent slave-boy the formal conclusion 
 of a geometrical proposition. 
 
CAUSATION. 123 
 
 accordingly in different degrees and different 
 directions ; so that from precisely the same cir- 
 cumstances, natural and artificial, different forms 
 of humanity actually grow up. 
 
 Hence, in respect of all those works of Nature, 
 there is within our knowledge a distinct ana- 
 logy between them and the works of Art. In 
 fact, the whole process is the addition to matter 
 or life or mind of form and structure. The 
 analogy is not broken, because, in the works of 
 Nature, this addition is made by processes to us 
 unknown, and with a subtlety and beauty, which 
 we can but clumsily imitate. And it is drawn 
 closer by the fact that we ourselves, acting by in- 
 telligence and will, can actually, in different de- 
 grees, imitate and co-operate with these natural 
 processes. Thus, for example, we can analyse 
 inorganic substances, and then recombine them 
 again with a known and predetermined effect. 
 We study physical forces, mechanical, chemical, 
 electrical ; and, again, we can combine them, and 
 subject them to certain forms and structures of 
 our own making, that they may serve our will. 
 In less degree, but in very real degree, we can act 
 upon organic life. There is hardly a vegetable 
 product of the earth, which man cannot culti- 
 vate, and by cultivation modify, and, so far as 
 human purposes and conceptions go, improve in 
 
124 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 fruitfulness or beauty. In still less degree, but 
 yet most truly, we can modify the struc- 
 tures and peculiar capacities of animal life. 
 The very theory of evolution of species was sug- 
 gested by the power of selection exercised by 
 man. Lastly, even in the human soul itself, we - 
 know how, by the familiar but most mysterious 
 power of habit in ourselves, we can make the 
 deliberate act of to-day modify the mental and 
 moral structure of to-morrow. We know how, 
 by bringing what we call educating influences 
 to bear on others, we can determine within 
 limits the growth of the human soul in them. 
 All this power of co-operation by the action of 
 the human mind certainly makes the analogy 
 between the works of Art and the works of 
 Nature, I will not say more real, but certainly 
 more vivid and practical. 
 
 What is the inference which men naturally 
 draw, and historically have drawn ? 
 
 (b) The first distinction which occurs to them 
 is between the creation of the form and struc- 
 ture and the creation of the raw sub-stratum of 
 being, — of matter, of life, of mind. 
 
 As to the first, they have seen that the action 
 of mind and will in man is a true efficient 
 causc — the only such cause actually known — ■ 
 undoubtedly producing effects similar to the 
 
CAUSATION. 12< 
 
 works of Nature, capable of actually co-operating 
 within limits with the forces which produce 
 them. As a well-known philosopher (Sir John 
 Herschell) has said, " These works of Nature 
 bear all the appearance of ( manufactured arti- 
 cles/ " Men have drawn, therefore, in all ages 
 the inference that this cause — the operation of 
 mind — is a true and a sufficient cause ; they 
 have refused to put it aside for any other 
 which is merely supposed. They have not been 
 alarmed or disquieted by foolish sarcasms 
 against the notion of a "manufacturing God;" 
 for they know that similarity does not exclude 
 a transcendant superiority, removing Him far 
 away from all the associations which can give 
 any show of plausibility to such sarcasm. 
 This unvarying and determined inference has 
 surely a philosophical propriety and a definite- 
 ness of idea, which vague phrases of a Vis 
 Creatrix Nature, of unknown potentialities, even 
 of Evolution, if it be taken to describe a cause and 
 not a mode of formation, ought not to displace. 
 
 But what of the substance itself? Here 
 unquestionably analogy fails, and we enter a 
 more mysterious region. What shall we say 
 here ? 
 
 First (again to use an old phrase) man is the 
 " microcosm' 1 ' — a little world in himself — and 
 
126 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT 
 
 any true theory of the great world must ac- 
 count for all that is contained in man. For in 
 man there is the material composition, easily 
 analysed into its parts — so much phosphorus, so 
 much iron, so much carbon, and the like — 
 analogous to the lowest inorganic kingdom of 
 the universe. There is the lower vegetative 
 or animal life, with its marvellous structure and 
 assimilating power, uniting him in the closest 
 bonds to the organic world. There is something 
 corresponding to the animal instincts, belonging 
 to that brute creation to which man is phy- 
 siologically linked with a startling closeness — 
 instincts which in those brute creatures he has 
 power, within limits, to modify and enhance. 
 But there is undoubtedly something more. 
 Will, reason, conscience are distinct realities, 
 which, though for their physical exercise they 
 may require physical means, though, even for 
 their own excitation, they may need to use the 
 animal life and structure, fall certainly under a 
 wholly different law of Causation. Who can 
 study the relation of mind to body without 
 seeing that in the complex being of man two 
 wholly different orders of influence act — the one 
 by physical contact, the other by the impres- 
 sion of ideas? For example, idiocy, temporary 
 or permanent, is (we may suppose) accompanied 
 
CAUSATION. 127 
 
 by some particular physical condition of the 
 brain. But who does not know that this con- 
 dition of the brain may be produced either 
 by causes within the range of physical causation, 
 such as a mechanical blow, or the physiological 
 absorption of disease or poison (both being dif- 
 ferent forms of physical power), or by a wholly 
 mental cause — some great joy or sorrow acting, 
 not by contact, but by mental cognition, pre- 
 sented to, and acting upon, not the physical con- 
 stitution, but the mind alone ? Mind, as mind, 
 is a distinct power, lying outside the chain of 
 Physical Causation. As such, it must be ac- 
 counted for in any theory of this world's origin. 
 
 III. Now since, this being the case, matter 
 and force, life and mind, have all to be ac- 
 counted for in any theory of the First Cause — 
 what theories are presented to us ? The First 
 Cause must be either purely material, purely 
 spiritual, or (in some way) compact of both. 
 Let us look these various answers in the 
 face. 
 
 (a) Pure Materialism, holding matter alone 
 to be original, and mind either a development 
 from it, or possibly a mere consequence of its 
 organization — just as the calling out of an 
 electric current is the consequence of the juxta- 
 position of certain material substances — fails, in 
 
128 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 relation both to a priori, idea and a posteriori 
 experience, to give an adequate account of the 
 world as it actually is. For the former con- 
 ception of a development of mind from matter 3 
 not only shocks all our consciousness of radical 
 difference between the mental and physical 
 powers, but is shattered against the conclusion, 
 derived from all our experience, so far as it has 
 yet gone, that not even life can be developed 
 from inorganic force, far less mind developed 
 from vegetative life. The other theory (at least 
 as old as Plato)/ that mind is a consequence of 
 material organization, at once contradicts that 
 inner consciousness of a personal and inde- 
 pendent being, which is our simplest and most 
 ultimate consciousness; and again fails abso- 
 lutely to account for the experience of that 
 line of Causation above alluded to, in which 
 
 3 Development, like most words of the kind, is often 
 used with a latent reference to some external developing 
 power. Now, of course, if there be a creative mind ruling 
 and guiding this development, we can conceive how the 
 created mind might be thus developed. But then the 
 true cause is in the creating mind, not in the matter. 
 
 4 See the " Phaedo," chaps. 41 — 43, where the hypothesis 
 that the soul is a kind of ap/xovla is considered. Socrates 
 meets the hypothesis by the consciousness of the power of 
 the soul over the body, and the fact that the soul itself is 
 capable of having harmony or discord superinduced upou 
 its objective existence. 
 
CAUSATION. 129 
 
 mind, through the simple conception of ideas, 
 so acts upon the body as to produce in it often 
 functional, sometimes organic changes. The 
 experience of ages has but strengthened inde- 
 finitely the protest of the dying Socrates against 
 the notion that mind, which rules by a spiritual 
 right, is but a function of the very matter which 
 it thus rules. 
 
 Such pure Materialism accordingly seems in- 
 capable of maintaining any real empire over 
 human thought. Whenever it endeavours to 
 attain any real dominion, it glides inevitably 
 into Pantheism. Attributing to matter " capa- 
 city of self-motion," " actual sense and percep- 
 tion," as older Materialists put it, or " unknown 
 potentialities" of development, in the vaguer 
 language of modern days, it simply " makes 
 matter cease to be matter and become mind." 5 
 It breaks down, tacitly or avowedly, the dis- 
 tinctions established by daily experience, and 
 
 5 See Canon Mozley's " Essay," pp. 36, 37, with the quo- 
 tations there given from Hobbes and Tyndall. Mr. Thorn- 
 ton (in his " Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common- Sense 
 Metaphysics," p. 226,) puts the alternative plainly — 
 " Either this matter must, whether under superior direction 
 or not, have organized itself, or it must have been organized 
 by some other agency." " If it organized itself, it cannot 
 have been inert or lifeless, but must have been active and 
 animate, and capable of volition." 
 
 K 
 
130 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 escapes from the difficulty of an untenable claim 
 by the process of presenting* a new reality under 
 an old name. No theory of a First Cause of 
 the world as it is can exclude original mind. 
 After all, the old question of the Psalmist re- 
 curs. The power " which planted the ear, shall 
 it not hear?" The power which created the 
 mind, shall it not think? Nothing is clearer 
 within the range of our experience than that the 
 higher power of mind constantly assumes domi- 
 nion over the lower powers of physical force and 
 life, and moulds them to its will. Why should 
 we arbitrarily suppose that, when we pass the 
 border, this law is immediately reversed ? 
 
 (b) But then there are two different relations 
 of mind to matter actually existing. There is the 
 relation in which the human mind stands to the 
 body with which it is linked, acting upon it, 
 being reacted upon by it. There is the relation 
 in which the human mind stands to extraneous 
 matter and force, acting upon them to produce 
 results distinctly analogous to the works of 
 Nature. Which of these relations shall we take 
 as the type of the operation of mind in the great 
 world without ? 
 
 The answer which accepts the first, is 
 the answer of Pantheism — the vague con- 
 ception of some Divine mind diffused through 
 
CAUSATION. 131 
 
 the whole universe, as the soul to which 
 the universe is the body, manifesting emana- 
 tions from itself in what we call created minds, 
 manifesting its derived power in what we 
 call physical phenomena. 6 It is an answer, 
 which from the beginning has expressed itself, 
 not, indeed, in forms of thought practically and 
 widely predominant, but in vague, half-philo- 
 sophic, half-poetic ideas, colouring other forms 
 of thought while they live, and superseding 
 them when they lose vitality and power. 
 
 I hardly know that even in modern days it 
 has advanced far beyond that Pythagorean 
 expression of itself which we find in the famous 
 lines of Virgil : — 
 
 " Principio caelum ac terras, camposque liquentes, 
 Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra, 
 Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
 Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 
 Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitseque volantum, 
 Et quas marmoreo fert monstra sub sequore pontus." 
 
 6 Pantheism has been described "as that speculative 
 system, which reduces all existence, mental and material, to 
 phenomenal modifications of one Eternal self-existing Sub- 
 stance, which is called by the name of God." See article 
 "Pantheism," in " Cyclopaedia Britannica," by John Downes, 
 M.A. (quoted in an interesting article on " Pantheism— 
 from the Vedas to Spinoza," in Church Quarterly Review, 
 No. VII.). 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 " Deura namque ire per omnes 
 Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum ; 
 Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum, 
 Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas j 
 Scilicet huo reddi deinde ac resoluta referri 
 Omnia, neo morti esse locum." 1 
 
 It has been truly remarked that Pantheistic- 
 speculation often hovers on the verge of a true 
 Theism. If it regards the One Eternal Sub- 
 stance as Spirit, and believes its power unex- 
 hausted in the creation of the actual universe, 
 it approaches at least, to that conception of an 
 Eternal Mind above Nature, which must ulti- 
 mately assume the character of a true Per- 
 sonality ; and it undoubtedly does not make the 
 creature consubstantial with the Creator. This 
 mode of thought is perhaps not sufficiently 
 thorough and self-consistent to maintain itself 
 in the abstract. But it frequently runs through 
 many half-poetical representations of " the 
 plastic force of nature," " the potentialities of 
 matter," and the like, which seem rather to 
 veil God from conscious thought, than formally 
 to deny Him. It is well that such views 
 should be tested. If they do not identify the 
 creature with the Creator, or suppose God to be 
 
 7 Virg. ^3n. vi. 724—729 ; Georg. iv. 221—225. It will 
 be observed how entirely all division between man and 
 bruto is broken down under this Pantheistic theory. 
 
CAUSATION. 133 
 
 no greater than His visible works, they are not 
 strictly Pantheistic, and may easily lead up to 
 higher and truer belief in God. 
 
 But for purposes of criticism we must exclude 
 these transitional forms of thought, and con- 
 sider Pantheism in its strictest and completest 
 sense as making the relation of God to the 
 universe the same as the relation of the soul to 
 the body. 
 
 This places it in direct contrast with the 
 answer of a true Theism, accepting the other 
 relation of mind to matter, and so rising to 
 the belief in a Personal God, of whose hand the 
 whole universe is the work. 
 
 (c) True, that as no observation tells of the 
 absolute creation of matter or of force, and as in 
 our experience the action of mind can mani- 
 fest itself only through physical means, that 
 answer is perplexed by doubt as to the relation 
 of a supposed physical substratum to the Eternal 
 Mind. Hence, as we have seen, in many forms 
 of thought, there is the conception of a Dualism, 
 a coexistence of an Eternal Matter and an 
 Eternal Mind ; and in this case almost necessarily 
 the omnipotence of the creating Mind is sup- 
 posed to be limited by some intractability of 
 matter, to which all physical imperfection and 
 suffering, and even moral evil, are referred. 
 
134 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 The Demiurgus — the great workmaster in the 
 old Gnostic theories, and in some modern re- 
 vivals of them — is a kind of God, but a God 
 imperfect either in power or in wisdom. 
 
 But this Dualism sins against the unity and 
 finality which belongs to the very idea of 
 Cause. It is therefore but a temporary po- 
 sition. Unless mind and matter be but one 
 ultimate being, the imperious question forces 
 itself on the mind, Which was the true original ? 
 Did Matter originate Mind ? Did Mind origi- 
 nate Matter ? Either we have to fall back on 
 the pure Materialism, to the fatal difficulties of 
 which we have already referred, or we must 
 accept a pure Theism, unclogged by any ma- 
 terial limitations. 
 
 (cl) If, then, we will believe in a true God, we 
 must face the belief in the creation of matter. 
 Inconceivable indeed it is how this can be, be- 
 cause it transcends our whole experience, but 
 surely not inconceivable that it may be. If we 
 are driven to a theory, we may even embrace 
 that conception at which Berkleyanism hints, — 
 that matter has no objective existence, and that 
 what we call material phenomena are simply 
 impressions on our minds made by the Eternal 
 Mind. 8 It may, indeed, be granted that this is 
 8 See a vigorous and interesting development of a theory 
 
CAUSATION. 135 
 
 a theory difficult to grasp definitely, possibly 
 liable to merge itself in some of the half-formed 
 developments of spiritual Pantheism to which 
 I have already referred. Yet surely it is infi- 
 nitely more reasonable than the theories of pure 
 Materialism or materialistic Pantheism. But, 
 after all, without venturing on any theory, if we 
 are brought face to face with the alternative be- 
 tween original Mind and original Matter, our 
 consciousness of the power of mind to mould and 
 direct material forces, and to make each material 
 thing what it is by structure and organization, 
 makes it not difficult to take the last great step ; 
 and, passing beyond the limits of experience (as 
 in all ultimate theories we must pass), to refer the 
 crude v\rj of the Universe to the same origin as 
 the informing etSo?. 
 
 It seems to me therefore that we may dismiss 
 both Pure Materialism and that Semi-Mate- 
 rialism which these dualistic theories involve. 
 The final antagonism is between the grand theory 
 of Pantheism and the pure Theism which 
 declares not only that "the Earth was with- 
 out form and void" till the moulding hand 
 of the Creator passed over it, but also that " in 
 
 of this kind in Mr. Thornton's " Old- Fashioned Ethics and 
 Common-Sense Metaphysics," chap, iv., on " Huxleyism." 
 
136 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 the beginning God created out of nothing the 
 Heaven and the Earth." 
 
 V. Such is the result of this line of Induc- 
 tion. The two alternatives present themselves 
 — the Mind in Nature of the Pantheist — the 
 Mind over Nature, as well as in Nature, of the . 
 believer in God. How fare these alternatives 
 when brought face to face ? Even if we con- 
 fine ourselves to this line of thought, pro- 
 vided that in our Induction we turn our eyes 
 inward, and recognise the reality of the facts of 
 our own consciousness, I can hardly think that 
 the strife between them is left quite undeter- 
 mined. The consciousness of will and therefore 
 of personality in ourselves is (as I have already 
 urged) the surest of all forms of consciousness. 
 It presents itself to us as a true cause of action, 
 incapable of being resolved into any of the ex- 
 ternal influences which coexist with it. If we 
 are deceived in believing that we have power to 
 originate action by will — if it be but to move 
 the finger this way or that — then all conscious- 
 ness whatever is a delusion, and all reasoning 
 upon it an absurdity. But this consciousness of 
 personality in us, while it accepts gladly the 
 belief in a Personal God over us and in us, " in 
 whom we live and move and have our being," 
 within the limits of whose Law our freedom 
 
CAUSATION. 137 
 
 acts, under the influence of whose Spirit our will 
 moves, yet repudiates as absolutely the concep- 
 tion of true Pantheism, that we have really no 
 individuality, no personality — that what we fancy 
 to be an individual spiritual self, is at most but 
 an emanation shot out from the pervading Spirit, 
 assuming for a time this inexplicable conscious- 
 ness, not only of spiritual being, but of in- 
 dividuality, but destined as its highest wis- 
 dom to unlearn (with the Buddhist) its most 
 certain intuition, and as its highest happiness to 
 be absorbed again, and as an individual to cease 
 to be. I do not at present speak of the argu- 
 ment from the moral sense of conscience, which 
 absolutely repudiates the idea (maintained by 
 all consistent Pantheism) that " evil' is a lower 
 form of good/' because attaching to the Divine 
 Being itself, and the moral sense of love, which 
 utterly refuses to fix on anything but true 
 personality. I consider only the principle of 
 Causation in itself. Even then, I urge, that, 
 so long as the mind devotes itself entirely to the 
 great world without, either of inanimate things, 
 or even of persons, considered en masse as 
 swayed by quasi-physical laws, the ideas of 
 Pantheism may prevail, alike in the cold reason- 
 ings of Science, and in the glowing mysticism of 
 Poetry. But when it turns back upon itself, 
 
138 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 realizing its own actual power to will, to think, 
 to feel — especially in these great crises of life, 
 which show how this individuality can stand 
 against physical force, against the voice of man, 
 even against a Law which speaks in the name 
 of God — -then these Pantheistic dreams vanish 
 like the visions of the night at the first glance 
 of day. We feel a true personality in ourselves ; 
 to a true Person alone can we bow. 
 
 Therefore, even if we had no other line of 
 Natural Theology on which to dwell, I could not 
 wonder that (as I said in my first Lecture) the 
 thought of man, expressed in all the religions 
 of the universe, and implied in all its languages, 
 has chosen the alternative of Theism; and, 
 amidst all confusions and perversions, has still 
 held firmly to the Personal God. 
 
 But my contention is that we ought not to 
 stop here — that, contemporaneously with this 
 line of thought, the conception of Design, on 
 which we are next to dwell, the clear witness of 
 Conscience, the glowing enthusiasm of Love, 
 must be present to our minds ; and that by their 
 presence they not only decide the great question 
 of the Divine Personality, before which we are 
 now pausing, but go on farther still to reveal to 
 us, step by step, the attributes of the Living God. 
 Of this I hope to speak hereafter. Meanwhile 
 
CAUSATION. 139 
 
 I would urge you to let your minds range back 
 in thought to the first origin of this great 
 Universe of Matter and of Spiritual Being. 
 Only, while as they move through all this wide 
 and mysterious region of thought, let them keep 
 fast hold of consciousness of the self which 
 surveys it. Call up in succession all the 
 various theories of Pantheistic self-evolving, 
 self-distributing life, which are presented in the 
 name of science. Thank those who present 
 them for teaching — what the older Deists and 
 some of the older defenders of Christianity too 
 little regarded — the truth that this world is not a 
 mere machine, once created, once started, and 
 then left to work, with perhaps occasional 
 interferences from the hand that made it ; but 
 that the Vis Creatrix is ever present and active, 
 and thatthe Divine Power is inseparable from any 
 particle of its composition and from any moment 
 of life. But yet, if you would have a solid 
 intelligible ground of thought, on which both 
 the world without, and the little world with- 
 in, may rest — ask yourselves whether anything 
 has ever yet been found to take the place of the 
 old simple teaching, which tells how " in the 
 beginning God " — the God who is our Father — 
 " created the heavens and the earth ; " and then 
 under the form of the six days' creation, brings 
 
140 THEOLOGY OF INTELLECT : CAUSATION. 
 
 home to us, step by step, the conviction, that in 
 every fresh development of matter and force, of 
 physical and spiritual life, His Providence and 
 His Spirit rule. How far the Christian doctrine 
 is from the bare Deistic conception, we know by 
 the words of Him, who declared, " My Father- 
 worketh up to this very moment " in the outer 
 sphere of Providence; and by the Apostolic 
 teaching, which, in relation to the inner sphere 
 of spirit, confesses that " in Him we live and 
 move and have our being." But still, while 
 all theories of the universe must hold one 
 part of the text, that "the things which are 
 seen" — the to ftXeTrofjievov, the whole visible 
 system — came not into being out of the things 
 which do appear, it is the distinctive charac- 
 teristic of the true faith of Theism — which has 
 issues both of thought and life of unspeakable 
 moment — that " the worlds were framed," not 
 by the self-evolution of a mere " Soul of the 
 Universe," but " by the word " of a living Per- 
 sonal God. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 I. — THE RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO ETIOLOGY. 
 II. — THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN APPLIED TO THE UNIVERSE 
 AS A WHOLE. ITS POWER TO SUPPLY A GROUND OF 
 UNITY BETWEEN THE VARIOUS KINGDOMS, AND THE 
 WANT OF ANY ADEQUATE SUBSTITUTE FOR IT. 
 III.— THE ARGUMENT APPLIED TO SPECIAL PORTIONS OF THE 
 UNIVERSE. THE RELATION OF THE KINGDOM OF 
 ORGANIC LIFE TO THE KINGDOMS OF INORGANIC 
 FORCE AND OF MIND. -THE TRUE MEANING OF CON- 
 TRIVANCE AS " DESIGN UNDER LAW." 
 IV. — THE BEARING OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION ON TELE- 
 OLOGY, TO MODIFY, NOT TO DESTROY IT. 
 
 THE THREE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF TELEOGICAL 
 
 CONCEPTION. 
 THE EXISTENCE OF A LAW TEMPERING " THE 
 STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE." 
 V.— THE OBJECTIONS FROM WASTE AND SUFFERING. 
 VI. — THE BEARING OF TELEOLOGY ON THE GREAT ALTER- 
 NATIVE OF THEISM AND PANTHEISM. 
 
 And God saw everything that He had made, an' 1 , behold, 
 it was very good." — Gen. i. 31. 
 
142 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 The sketch of the first great line of the Theo- 
 logy of the Intellect has now been drawn, in 
 our argument as to the existence and the nature 
 of the First Cause. In this Induction certain 
 points are clear. First, it is historically certain 
 that this our universe, in its organization and 
 structure, came into being in time, and there- 
 fore had a cause. Next, looking at its various 
 kingdoms — first of physical force and matter, 
 next, of animal life, and, lastly, of mind — -and 
 examining in each the processes by which it 
 comes to be what it is, we find them to be 
 processes bearing a very distinct analogy to 
 the production of the works of Art, of which we 
 actually know that it is due to the addition to 
 raw material of form or structure dictated by 
 human intelligence and will. Lastly, in con- 
 templating the First Cause of the substance of 
 the universe, we see that it must be such to 
 account both for matter and for mind, and that 
 no forms of Materialism supply such a cause. 
 
 So far our path is clear. But now from the 
 two relations of Mind and Matter actually ex- 
 isting, there arise in this line of thought two 
 theories of the First Cause — the Pantheistic idea 
 of an Anima Mundi, an eternal compact of Mind 
 and Matter, and the faith of a true Theism, 
 acknowledging (after, perhaps, a brief halt in 
 
THE EVIDENCE OP DESIGN. 143 
 
 some form of Dualism) a sole Eternal Mind, the 
 Creator, as well as the moulder and director, of 
 Heaven and Earth. These two answers stand face 
 to face. All less decisive and ultimate theories 
 are silenced in the presence of their conflict. 
 
 Now in testing their claims to our allegiance, 
 it is impossible to ignore the fact that against 
 the theory of Pantheism (even in the examina- 
 tion of Causation alone) the sense of individual 
 personality in man protests with such power, 
 that it has seldom or never really dominated 
 the practical belief of the mass of men. But yet, 
 if we confine ourselves to this line of thought, 
 the strife might, perhaps, seem to be at best 
 partially decided. It is my present object to lead 
 you to consider what witness Can be gained from 
 other quarters, to supply imperfection and to de- 
 termine ambiguity. 
 
 With this view I would next seek to trace the 
 outline of the second branch of the Theology of 
 the Intellect, in the study of Teleology — in the 
 study, that is, of the evidence in Nature of 
 Design and Purpose. The great ideas involved 
 in it are expressed in the words of the text, 
 recurring at each of the great epochs of crea- 
 tion, " God beheld all that He had made/'' and, 
 because it fulfilled His Divine purpose, "it was 
 very good."" 
 
144 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 I. It is plain that this line of thought is 
 closely connected with the last. If we conceive 
 any action of Mind as a First Cause in Creation, 
 it is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid inferring 
 at once the existence of purpose. It is true, that 
 in our own experience the mind may act arbi-. 
 trarily, without any purpose except the assertion 
 of will; it may act capriciously, that is, by 
 unconnected and temporary impulses of pur- 
 pose ; it may act blindly, producing 1 indeed 
 effects, but not foreseeing what these effects 
 shall be. It is possible in the abstract to 
 imagine mental action without any great per- 
 vading purpose. But all these phases of action 
 are, except in things absolutely trivial, proofs 
 of mental weakness, which we cannot attribute 
 to a power by hypothesis perfect and supreme. 
 It is not the Theist who talks of "freaks/' 
 and " blunders " of Nature. Hence, if we con- 
 ceive an original Mind we mostly infer some 
 original purpose. But certainly the converse is 
 true. If we discern a glimpse of purpose, we 
 infer unhesitatingly the existence of mind. 
 Thus even speculators, who ignore or deny 
 creative mind, glide into language implying it, 
 whenever they speak, however vaguely, of con- 
 trivance or design. If they would avoid the 
 natural inference, they urge that the discernment 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 145 
 
 of purpose is a delusion, mistaking 1 our own sub- 
 jective forms of thought for objective reality, 
 which has impressed itself on the structure of 
 language. For, if purpose be really traceable, the 
 denial of a creative mind is impossible. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the study of Teleo- 
 logy, examining the signs of Design in Creation 
 — considered (as it may well be) independently 
 of the investigation of original Causation — must 
 bear very closely on the line of thought already 
 followed ; and, if it yields any fruit at all, may 
 well be expected to correct and to elucidate the 
 conclusions drawn from it. 
 
 This study appears to have two methods of 
 application; first, to the universe as a whole; 
 next, to certain parts, in which Design has its 
 most apparent field of exercise. 
 
 II. Let us glance, first, at the universe as a 
 whole, in those closely related but distinct spheres 
 of Being, of which we have already spoken. We 
 have to contemplate (it will be remembered) 
 first, the inorganic world of matter and force, 
 the framework of the universe, actually formed 
 in times anterior to all else. We trace, next, 
 the introduction into this world of the great force 
 of " organic" life, —vegetative or animal life — 
 so-called from its close connexion with inherent 
 structure. We pass on, thirdly, to the new crea- 
 
 L 
 
146 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 tion of Mind in its lower rudimentary forms in 
 the brute creatures, as confined within the sphere 
 of sensation. We end at last, with the forma- 
 tion of Mind in Humanity, as distinct from all 
 other mind in its power to contemplate the In- 
 visible, and in the wonderful results which follow 
 from that power. 
 
 Now, as we have already seen, at each of 
 these divisions there is an apparent break in that 
 great law of the absolute convertibility of force, 
 which runs like a thread of physical continuity 
 through each kingdom. Life cannot, so far as 
 we know, be produced from any of the forces 
 which rule the inorganic world. Mind, even 
 of the lower types, cannot be developed out of the 
 mere vegetative life. Instinct cannot rise into 
 reason, or reason sink into mere instinct. 
 
 The convertibility of force, indeed, remains 
 (so to speak) available in one direction. For in 
 each case the new power introduced has to use 
 the pre-existent forces, in order to exercise its 
 own energy. Life is dependent on the 
 assimilation of material food, and on certain 
 conditions of physical force; mind must act 
 through an animal organisation, and in every 
 action affects that organisation, and is affected 
 by it. But there is no reciprocation. The new 
 power h really new, incapable of production from 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 147 
 
 » — — ~~ ~ ~ 
 
 the old. Therefore, if we look at the universe 
 purely in the connexion of cause and effect, there 
 are what seem to us as breaks, utterly mysterious, 
 in the great Unity of Being. Those breaks must 
 somehow be bridged over. Both theory and ex- 
 perience declare it absolutely impossible to con- 
 sider the universe except as a whole. The Kosmos 
 is one empire, not a mere juxtaposition of 
 separate provinces. As yet, there is one concep- 
 tion, which bridges them solidly over, — the con- 
 ception of design. In spite of much bold specu- 
 lation, hanging in the air, there is no other. 
 
 That the conception of Design supplies this 
 unity it is impossible to doubt. There is a 
 perfect simplicity and intelligibility in the idea 
 of a purpose in the eternal Mind, running 
 through creation as a whole ; by which, first, 
 the inorganic world was formed, and then, 
 when it was fit to sustain organic life, that life 
 was introduced ; by which, next, the vegetation, 
 clothing the bare inorganic framework with new 
 richness and beauty, was made to serve for the 
 sustenance of animal life, involving the existence 
 of rudimentary forms of mind ; by which, lastly, 
 man was introduced into a world inorganic, 
 vegetative, animate, fitted to be the scene of 
 his higher spiritual being. Grant the existence 
 of creative power — grant the actual unity of 
 L 2 
 
148 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 creation as it now exists, and the fact that its 
 lower spheres of existence subserve the higher — 
 then the conception of this fore-determined order 
 of Creation assumes at once the highest pro- 
 bability. Yet this is not all. For not only is 
 this a belief, and so far as we know the only 
 belief which gives any probable theory of unity 
 to the great system of being ; but the purpose of 
 an intelligent will is known by experience to be 
 a vera causa, of which we actually see every day 
 that it can produce, in our little sphere of 
 capacity, a similar order of results. In that 
 " fellow- working with God/' by which man 
 aids in the cultivation and peopling of the 
 world, this succession of the inorganic, the 
 vegetative, the animal, and the human is actually 
 repeated. That at every point, from man's de- 
 ficiency in creative power, some fresh germ has 
 to be sought for, makes no essential difference in 
 the reality of this operation of human design. 
 Hence both theory and experience show that we 
 have in the supposition of a Divine purpose a 
 true and efficient cause. Reason can hardly 
 allow us to put it aside, till some adequate sub- 
 stitute for it be found. 
 
 What substitute has been offered us as yet ? 
 
 There has been an attempt to obliterate the 
 line of demarcation between the inorganic and 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 149 
 
 organic kingdoms, by theories of what is called 
 Ahiogenesis, 1 of the production of life from 
 lifeless matter. But these theories, both in their 
 early crude forms, and their more elaborate 
 modern developments, have been, as yet, discredi- 
 ted utterly by the best scientific investigation. 
 They are theories and nothing more. 2 Then, 
 putting them aside, scientific teaching from high 
 places has offered us a notion (confessed to be 
 " wild ""), of the introduction of organic life on the 
 earth by the fall of some meteoric body, charged 
 with the germs of such life from an unknown 
 world, in which (by the way), unless it be wholly 
 
 1 The name is now, I suppose, established ; but surely 
 it ought to be Azoogenesis. 
 
 2 In the " Belfast Address " Professor Tyndall says, 
 " Those to whom I refer as having studied the question, 
 believing the evidence in favour of spontaneous generation 
 to be vitiated by error, cannot accept it. . . . They frankly 
 admit their inability to point to any satisfactory proof." 
 It is significant that he says in the preceding page, " By 
 an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the Expe- 
 rimental evidence, and discern in the Matter, which we in 
 ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our 
 professed reverence for its Creator, have covered with 
 opprobrium, the promise and potency of intellectual life." 
 What "opprobrium" there is in supposing matter to be 
 incapable of self-motion, and what want of reverence to 
 the Creator is implied in so doing, it is hard to imagine. But 
 we deny the "intellectual necessity," which we think that 
 the Professor has created for himself, and hesitate to 
 accept his unverified discernment. 
 
150 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 compact of organic life, abiogenesis must be 
 possible, or else the difficulty is but shifted from 
 our planet to the mysterious shores of the other. 3 
 
 3 See Sir W. Thomson's Address at Edinburgh in 1871 
 (p. 104 in the " Official Keport ") : — " Did grass and trees 
 and flowers spring into existence in all the fulness of ripe 
 "beauty by a fiat of Creative power ? or did vegetation 
 from seed sown spread and multiply over the whole earth ? 
 ... If a probable solution consistent with the ordinary 
 course of nature can be found, we must not invent an 
 abnormal Act of Creative Power. . . . Because we all con- 
 fidently believe that there have been from time imme- 
 morial many worlds of life besides our own, we must 
 regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are 
 countless seed -bearing meteoric stones moving through 
 space. . . . One such stone falling on the earth might, by 
 what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becoming 
 covered with vegetation. . . . The hypothesis that life 
 originated on this earth thx-ough moss-grown fragments 
 from the remains of another world may seem wild and 
 visionary; all I maintain is, that it is not unscientific." 
 On this passage I would venture to remark, first, that the 
 opening antithesis is at least questionable, for the " creative 
 hypothesis" does not exclude the belief of gradual develop- 
 ment from seed, or seeds, originally sown ; next, that the 
 meteoric hypothesis, even if true, simply puts back and 
 does not solve the problem ; and, lastly, that it is put 
 forth without any corroborative experimental evidence, 
 and that even the " confident belief" in other worlds of 
 life cannot aspire to anything much higher than bare pro- 
 bability. But Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis is happily con- 
 sistent with a profound belief in a true Creator of the 
 Universe. " Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent 
 and benevolent Design lie all around us ; and if ever per- 
 plexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn U3 away 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 151 
 
 There has been an attempt, again, to ob- 
 literate the other line of demarcation between 
 the animal and the human creation, not only by- 
 emphasizing the close connexion (with but 
 trivial marks of differentiation), between the 
 bodily organisation of both, but by deriving 
 man's spiritual nature from brute instincts, as 
 if no difference of kind existed between those 
 instincts and the abstract powers of mind. 
 Against the principles of true Psychology, 4 and 
 without a vestige of historical evidence, the 
 human pedigree is traced, through links which 
 cannot be found, to a race of ancestral apes. 
 But no extent of scientific learning, no grasp of 
 speculative ability, have given even probability 
 to a theory, compared with which meta- 
 physical cobwebs are as chains of adamant. 5 
 
 from them for a time, they come back to us with irresistible 
 force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a free 
 will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one 
 ever-acting Creator and Ruler." 
 
 * It is no disrespect to Mr. Darwin to say that in his 
 "Descent of Man" the psychology is as weak as the 
 physiology is strong. The great fundamental distinction 
 is ignored, between the power of abstract idea, on which 
 all human progress depends, and the power of perception 
 and deduction within the realm of sense, which is common 
 to us with the brutes. 
 
 5 I refer here only to ideas of development ignoring a 
 Creative Mind ruling such development. Under the hypo- 
 thesis of a Supreme mind, development is simply a mode 
 
lo2 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 It is impossible not to honour the scientific 
 instinct, which thus longs and labours for 
 unity. It has already been rewarded by rich 
 fruits of knowledge gathered on the way ; it is 
 far from impossible that in its own lines of 
 thought it may find links of connexion, as yet 
 undiscovered and inconceivable. If it should 
 do so, I cannot see that the belief in Creative 
 Design would be in any sense disproved in 
 principle, though certainly some of its most 
 striking evidences to us might be obscured. 
 Suppose that abiogenesis were proved, suppose 
 that the ' missing links ' between man and 
 brute were discovered. Still the question would 
 remain, as to the Law or principle under which 
 this "unbroken progress took place. Still the 
 discovery, perhaps within limits the imitation, 
 of the process would be the privilege of the 
 created mind of man, as man. Would it not 
 still be reasonable to refer the process itself to a 
 Mind creating or sustaining all things; even 
 though we had lost some obvious signs of its 
 presence ? Just so the belief in God's moral 
 government of the world, is strengthened by the 
 belief in miracles, distinctly manifesting a moral 
 purpose ; yet it does not depend absolutely 
 
 of creation, which certainly appears to be extensively 
 realized in the natural system. 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 153 
 
 upon them. But in the meanwhile, why should 
 we relinquish for all but desperate theories, the 
 faith in what is undoubtedly a real and adequate 
 cause for the order of creation, or driven from 
 them, fall back on a needless confession of a 
 wilful ignorance, delighting in the phrase " un- 
 known and unknowable/'' as if it literally 
 accepted the old proverb, " Omne ignotum pro 
 magnified " ? 
 
 Tt seems reasonable that the consideration of 
 Design should be thus looked upon in its rela- 
 tion to the sum of Being as a whole, before 
 we proceed to consider it in any one of the 
 subordinate kingdoms. If it show itself at what 
 seem to us to be a great break in the line 
 of Physical Continuity, we cannot but infer 
 its pervading presence elsewhere; just as we 
 infer the continuity of an electric current, if it 
 heats platinum, or ignites gunpowder, at the 
 points where the wire along which it moves is 
 broken. There is a certain breadth and sim- 
 plicity in the recognition of Design as needful 
 to the very unity of the Kosmos, which has a 
 power to convince, quite independent of any 
 perplexity arising from intricacies of detail. 
 When we pass to examine the subordinate 
 kingdoms separately, we carry with us the 
 conviction of the existence of Design in the 
 
] 54 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 whole,, to help us in the interpretation of signi- 
 ficant features of the various parts. 
 
 III. Next, when we do thus examine any- 
 separate kingdom, it is of much importance 
 still to consider each with an unceasing con- 
 sciousness of its connexion with the others.. 
 Whatever design exists in Nature must con- 
 cern it in the right gradation of all its parts. 
 To discern the use of one member, we must, 
 while we study it in detail, still remember its 
 connexion with the whole body. 
 
 Thus, for example, it has been customary to 
 consider the kingdom of Organic Life as the 
 especial field for the investigation of Design, 
 and to stake the whole principle of Teleology on 
 the evidence yielded in this field, or even in one 
 little nook of it. Nor is it difficult to see why 
 men are tempted so to do. For since, as we 
 have already seen, the creation of structure is 
 the special function of Human Art, that sphere 
 of Nature, in which all seems to depend upon 
 structure, may naturally be chosen as yielding 
 the closest analogies to the known works of an 
 intelligent will. 
 
 But clearly such isolation is unsound. The 
 kingdom of Organic Life lies on the frontier 
 between the other two. There is the Inorganic 
 world, in which we discern Matter and Force, 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 155 
 
 acting under certain formulas of regularity, which 
 we call Laws. Survey that kingdom, as a whole, 
 in the vastness of the Sidereal system, content 
 with the vague general perception of it which 
 alone is possible to us : or turn, if you will, a closer 
 and minuter vision on this earth our habitation. 
 You discover everywhere regularity of action of 
 each force, and harmony in the actions of all, 
 producing on the mind the impressions both of 
 vastness and of beauty. In all this there is 
 nothing to interfere with the idea of a designing 
 and controlling Mind, and much to suggest it. 
 The very term " Law ■' (as I have already re- 
 minded you), if we consider its origin, implies 
 the belief in the impression on the Forces of this 
 Inorganic world of the dictates of a Personal 
 will; and it is that belief, which alone makes 
 the mind rest on the word Law, as if it implied 
 a true cause. But still under Law the power 
 of Design is veiled. Nature (in this narrow 
 sense of the word) does not indeed deny God, 
 but according to a well-known saying "con- 
 ceals Him." Force under Law, moving with 
 what seems a blind and ruthless regularity, -is 
 the veil ; and that veil, like the veil of Isis, is 
 seldom lifted. 
 
 But, on the other side is the world of 
 Mind and of its works, capable, as we know, 
 
15G THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT : 
 
 of directing and modifying Force, even Physical 
 Force, at the command of Will. In that 
 world we discern by careful investigation the 
 existence of Laws, subtler, though not less 
 real, than Laws of physical Regularity; but 
 here Force under Design is the prominent and 
 obvious conception. In the Inorganic world 
 we see Law, and possibly infer Design; in the 
 world of Mind, we see Design, and only with 
 hesitation and difficulty infer Law. This power 
 of Design, moreover, is not only a real, but an 
 aggressive power. As the world grows older, 
 the province of Physical Law, though it may 
 be more clearly recognised, cannot advance ; it 
 is what it has always been. But the province of 
 Design does advance day by day, as the human 
 will increases its power to direct and combine 
 physical forces, and to educate the innate 
 forces of the mind. It plays each day a more 
 important part in the drama of the Universe, 
 and gradually supersedes (as has been well said) 
 Natural by Human Selection. 
 
 Now let us remind ourselves of what seems 
 too much forgotten — that whatever the Ruling 
 Power of the Universe may be, it must claim 
 both these agencies for its own. Of the Physical 
 Force under Law all hold this obvious; but 
 surely it is equally true of the action of Intelligent 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 157 
 
 Will. No doubt that action proceeds from an 
 infinite number of proximate centres in the 
 millions of free human creatures. But, still it 
 must be one Factor, holding its appointed place, 
 and swayed by the Supreme Power in the great 
 order of the Universe. To suppose otherwise 
 would be to outrage all the demands of philoso- 
 phic thought by denying all unity of Govern- 
 ment in that Universe ; and moreover it would be 
 to ignore the undoubted fact, that through the 
 free actions of men, Laws of human Nature and 
 Society are distinctly traceable, so that even by 
 a finite intelligence those actions can be fore- 
 seen, reckoned on, overruled to preconceived 
 ends. The power of design, though it be 
 exercised through man, must be ultimately the 
 gift and the attribute of the Power which made 
 man. By an influence, no doubt, wholly dif- 
 ferent in its kind from the influence which sways 
 physical powers, but equally real, it must be 
 true that, whatever the creatures do, the Creative 
 Power is the doer of it. If there is an unceasing 
 and invariable stream in the course of the phy- 
 sical Universe, there is a great tide, moving by an 
 attraction from above, which heaves up through all 
 the surges of the troubled sea of Humanity, and, 
 though each particle moves but in its own plane, 
 sends its impulses over the face of the waters. 
 
158 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 Now if we grasp firmly the existence of these 
 two Powers, of Force under Law in the In- 
 organic realm, and of Force under Design in the 
 realm of Mind, before we come back to the inter- 
 mediate province of Organic Life, how wonder- 
 fully this previous knowledge throws a flood of 
 light on the true meaning' of the processes 
 which we there discover ! 
 
 The first word which rises to the lips of any 
 one who surveys an organic structure — whatever 
 his belief or unbelief may be — is the word 
 " Contrivance/'' Now what is " Contrivance ?" 
 It is (as has been well shown 6 ) the union of the 
 two principles of Design and Law ; or, in other 
 words, the application of general Forces to sub- 
 serve deliberate purpose. It would be almost 
 unnecessary to say (were it not for the con- 
 tinual repetition of an old fallacy from most 
 unexpected quarters/) that its existence argues 
 
 6 See the Duke of Argyll's " Eeign of Law/' chap. iii. 
 " What is contrivance, but that kind of arrangement by 
 which the unchangeable demands of Law are met and 
 satisfied ? ... In Kature there is the most elaborate 
 machinery to accomplish purpose through the instrumen- 
 tality of means " 
 
 " Even Mr. Stuart Mill says, " What is meant by design ? 
 Contrivance ; the adaptation of means to end. But the 
 necessity of contrivance is a consequence of the limitation 
 of power" ("Essay on Theism," part ii.). The necessity 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 159 
 
 no necessary defect of power in the Contriver. 
 There is a fallacy of Conversion here. It is true 
 that if such defect exists, it is by contrivance 
 that it must be remedied ; but the converse is 
 not necessarily true. Defect necessitates con- 
 trivance ; contrivance need not imply defect. In 
 a Being of Absolute power it argues simply the 
 determination to preserve general Laws (with- 
 out which the life of His rational creatures could 
 hardly go on,) 8 co-existent with the deliberate 
 execution of Design. It belongs, as our great 
 English theologian Richard Hooker expresses 
 it, to " the Law Eternal/' 9 " the Law which 
 God has set Himself to do all things by." 
 Self-limitation of power, surely argues no defect. 
 It is strange that men, who constantly become 
 a law to themselves, limiting their will on any 
 
 may be so ; every day's experience tells us that the existence 
 of contrivance is not so. 
 
 8 It is notable that the declaration of physical regularity 
 (in Gen. ix. 21, 22) is made a part of God's "covenant" 
 with men ; in other words, is a revelation of His working 
 made for their sake, at a time when human activity and 
 thought needed to be guarded against the fear of over- 
 whelming convulsion. 
 
 9 The fact is that here again there is an ambiguity in 
 the word " Law." It properly means the expression of 
 another will dominating ours, and enforcing itself. But 
 we use it here for a determination of our own will, limiting 
 our own future action, and are apt to forget the variation 
 of sense which we have given to it. 
 
160 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT: 
 
 special occasion by reference to a predeter- 
 mined law, and possibly by the choice of a par- 
 ticular machinery, should fail to understand such 
 action in the Creator. 
 
 Now this contrivance, being the union of 
 Design and Law, is j^recisely that which we might ' 
 expect to discover in the organic sphere, thus 
 intermediate between the realm in which Force 
 under Law is prominent, and the realm known to 
 be ruled by Force under Design. When we do 
 discover what seems exactly like the work of 
 contrivance, this a priori probability of its ex- 
 istence is surely of no slight importance, in 
 determining the interpretation which we shall 
 give to these signs. 
 
 IV. Now what that interpretation has always 
 been in days past, T need hardly say. Let any one 
 examine, first, any single typical instance of 
 organic structure, such as the human hand or 
 the human eye; next any complete organism, 
 such as the human body, in the mutual relation 
 and action of all its parts ; or, lastly, any great 
 family of organic life, in the similarities and 
 differences which characterize its various species. 
 It is impossible for him, except by a constant 
 effort of the mind, and by a weary struggle 
 against the difficulties of language, to avoid the 
 suggestion of ideas and words, which distinctly 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGX. 161 
 
 argue the belief in an overruling Design. Our 
 increasing knowledge only seems to increase 
 this all but irresistible propensity, whether it 
 show itself in the swift intuition of the poet, or 
 in the slower and more deliberate conclusions of 
 the philosopher. 
 
 But it has been frequently thought that in 
 our own days, the discovery of Evolution as a 
 dominant power in the organic sphere, has 
 destroyed, or fatally weakened, this argument 
 of Design. As a witness against the signs of 
 the Presence of God, it has been welcomed ex- 
 ultantly on the one side ; it has been naturally 
 denounced, in anger or in terror, on the other. 
 This latter attitude of what men call the 
 11 Theological mind " has been perhaps un- 
 reasonably ridiculed or denounced. There is u a 
 drum scientific " as well as " a drum ecclesiastic." 
 What is ominously introduced on one side, may 
 not unreasonably be regarded with some jealousy 
 on the other. Nor is all "prejudice," in the 
 true sense of the word, unphilosophical. These 
 who believe on other grounds in the existence 
 of a true God, may well say of any theory, 
 which even seems to obscure His sovereignty 
 over the world, and is hailed as so doing, that 
 — whatever its array of evidence may be — 
 whatever the underlying truth which it may 
 
 M 
 
162 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT 
 
 contain — yet it must have somewhere a fatal 
 defect. 
 
 But already the time is come, when, looking 
 to the latest form of this Evolution theory, two 
 things seem clear to all those who have studied 
 it most deeply. First, that the conception of 
 Evolution in itself offers far the best hypothesis 
 by which to account for many actual facts, and 
 to extend the conceptions suggested by these 
 facts into a general theory. Next, that many 
 of the details (and especially the denial of all 
 sudden developments) are liable to much cor- 
 rection, and that the investigations needful for 
 such correction will need the work of many 
 generations. 
 
 Looking at the conception on this almost 
 acknowledged basis, let us consider what its 
 effect really is on the principle of Teleology 
 as such. 
 
 The conception of Design in Nature seems 
 to have gone through three natural stages in 
 human thought. 
 
 There is, first, the line of thought which has 
 been worked out for generations, from the brief 
 masterly sketch of the argument on the 
 human body in Xenophon to the comprehensive 
 and fascinating work of our own Paley, almost 
 perfect within its own limits in lucidity and 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 163 
 
 coherency of logic. It regards each organ or each 
 organism in itself and by itself. It traces the 
 adaptation of the various parts and of the whole 
 to the circumstances, the function, the happiness 
 of the animal, or, in the case of man, to the 
 subordination of the bodily to the spiritual life. It 
 sees in all these an analogy to the adaptations of 
 human design, at once real in kind and in- 
 finitely transcendant in degree ; and it draws an 
 inference of Creative Design, intelligible to the 
 simplest, and impressive to the dullest mind. 
 
 But, as knowledge advances, it becomes 
 impossible to regard each organism in and by 
 itself. It is seen that such views, being neces- 
 sarily partial, must constantly conflict with each 
 other, just as the organisms which they regard 
 come into mutual conflict. Moreover, it is 
 observed, first that certain great laws of structure 
 and organisation run through whole families of 
 living beings ; and next, that in any individual 
 species there are, or may be, parts of their 
 structure rudimentary and apparently useless, 
 which, nevertheless, in another species receive 
 development and attain to usefulness. And so 
 the conception arose (which was forcibly and 
 clearly worked out by a great living physio- 
 logist 10 ) that on each great family of organic 
 
 10 See " Owen on the Nature of Limbs" (1849). 
 M 2 
 
164 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ; 
 
 life there was a general archetypal structure 
 impressed, which in each species was varied, in 
 minute and beautiful gradations, with a view 
 to the function of that species in the world. 
 It was a theory subtler, less direct and for- 
 cible, than the other ; but, so far as I can see, 
 it led up quite as certainly to the belief in a 
 Designing Mind, and it even increased our con- 
 ception of the beauty and symmetry of Design. 
 But, as knowledge again advanced, this theory 
 also gave place to the conception of Evolution. 
 Consider what that conception, as distinct from 
 many speculations attached to it, really implies. 1 It 
 starts with " the established fast, that all animals 
 and plants produce more offspring than come to 
 perfection. The lower the grade, the greater is 
 the progeny." " Hence an intense struggle for 
 existence." It observes, next, that " while the 
 offspring of the same parents have a general 
 family likeness," r yet individuals " differ from 
 their parents in certain elements of structure." 
 In the struggle for existence " those who are 
 best fitted must survive." So far it is on the 
 solid ground of observed fact. It then advances 
 
 1 I quote in the text from Henslow's " Evolution and 
 Religion," part i. chap. ii. There is an admirable sketch 
 of the main principles in Mr. Thornton's book, already 
 quoted, " Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Meta- 
 physics," chap. v. sect. 2. 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 165 
 
 to two hypotheses, one of which is, as yet, im- 
 perfectly verified, the other incapable of actual 
 verification. It holds that these victorious varia- 
 tions " become hereditary and intensified/' and, 
 on the ruin of less powerful varieties, create our 
 established species. It supposes, next, all species 
 of plants and animals to have sprung from a 
 common parentage, 2 slowly through the ages 
 differentiated into the infinite variety which we 
 see, and preserved by the balance of individual 
 variation and permanence of type. Both these 
 hypotheses need verification; the former has 
 already received it in part, and has in itself much 
 probability : the latter is still a mere hypothesis. 
 Now it is abundantly clear that this Evolution 
 theory materially alters our conception of the 
 method of creative action in the organic 
 world ; and that, in fact, it places the action of 
 the Supreme Power (so to speak) farther away 
 from us, behind the veil of secondary causes. 
 
 2 It is probably not essential to the theory to suppose 
 that all life, in the various genera and species, sprang 
 from a single monad, and travelled from some one birth- 
 place. The conception of what used to be called "centres 
 of creation " might be reconciled with it. The transition 
 from inorganic matter to organic life may have taken place 
 at different times and more places than one ; and the original 
 monad in each case may have had peculiarities dependent 
 on the conditions of its origination. 
 
166 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 But does it really alter our sense of the reality 
 of that action ? I venture to answer No. 
 
 For I note that of the first origin of Life itself, 
 it gives no account, except that as yet its author 
 strongly opposes the idea of its generation out 
 of Inorganic Matter ; and so forces us to face- 
 the idea of a distinct Creation. 
 
 I observe that, next, it gives no account what- 
 ever of the cause either of the origination of those 
 diversities, which present the first germ of the 
 differentiation of species, or of their coexistence 
 with the general permanence of type. 3 Yet it is 
 absurd to speak of chance ; it is hardly more 
 reasonable to use the vague pseudo-scientific 
 phrases, which, professing to declare the cause of 
 
 3 Mr. Thornton says (p. 239), with his usual vigour and 
 plainness of speech, " What, then, is the cause ? Unphilo- 
 sophic people will most likely call it ' all chance,' getting* 
 sneered at for their pains, and justly too, as using words 
 without meaning. But are not philosophers themselves 
 doing much the same thing, and merely restating facts, 
 which they profess to explain, when, like Mr. Lewes, they 
 talk of the ' specific shape ' assumed by an ' organic plasma' 
 being ■ always dependent on the polarity of its molecules/ 
 ' or due to the operation of immanent properties/ or 
 declare that in the process of Organic Evolution 'each 
 stage determines its successor/ ■ consensus of the whole 
 impressing a peculiar direction on the development of 
 parts, and the law of Epigenesis necessitating a serial 
 development'?" Surely there is a little of the Aristo- 
 phanic Atvos here. 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 167 
 
 this phenomenon, simply reiterate under another 
 form the statement of its existence. Nor should we 
 omit to notice (although this may not materially 
 affect the argument) that it seems at least doubtful 
 whether this variation is in all cases slight, need- 
 ing the lapse of many generations to produce by 
 accumulation a strongly marked difference. Ex- 
 perience, both of the effects occasionally caused 
 by breeding, and of what we call monstrous 
 births, seems to contradict any attempt to lay 
 this down as an universal law. Natura non facit 
 saltum 4 may be a good general rule, but cannot 
 be pressed invariably. If exceptional cases be 
 allowed, the hypotheses of Evolution and Suc- 
 cessive Creation approach each other, and may 
 possibly some day form parts of a still wider gene- 
 ralization. But whether gradual or sudden, what 
 is the cause of the variation ? The supposition 
 of an ordaining Will is a true cause — suggested 
 by the actual intervention of human will in 
 producing such variations by cultivation of plants 
 and breeding of animals — although (as we might 
 expect) infinitely transcending the narrow limits, 
 
 4 Mr. Thornton irreverently terms it " a piece of pro- 
 verbial philosophy as weak as the weakest of Mr. Tupper's ." 
 "That Nature," he adds, "does sometimes make a leap, 
 and a pretty long one, must be obvious to any visitor to 
 the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons " (p. 237). 
 
168 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 with which human will has to content itself, espe- 
 cially in relation to the animal kingdom. There 
 is no other that can be placed in rivalry with it. 5 
 
 I observe, again, that this " struggle for ex- 
 istence" goes on in contact with an outer world 
 of elemental force, of inorganic matter, of lower- 
 vegetable life. The " fittest " survives in virtue 
 of its fitness. But how comes, first of all, this 
 general fitness in the lower world to sustain and 
 foster animal life, seeing that the one is not 
 derived from the other ? And, again, this supe- 
 rior fitness, developed in each individual and 
 perpetuated in his descendants, has reference to 
 this outer world of circumstance and of previous 
 history, by which it is certainly not itself pro- 
 duced. Whence comes this peculiar superiority, 
 not manifesting itself hap-hazard and tempo- 
 rarily, but under a law of permanence and con- 
 tinual increase ? Again, I say, the presence of a 
 supreme controlling Will we know to be a true 
 cause. Where shall we find any other ? 
 
 I confess that, taking this conception of the 
 
 5 Suppose, for example, that the exquisite machinery of 
 the ear or eye — favourite illustrations of the princijrie of 
 Teleology — has been formed by a long series of develop- 
 ment from some coarse rudimentary organ. Would the 
 control of a Creative Mind be less needed than on the sup- 
 position of its being created at once in its present beauty 
 of perfection ? 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 169 
 
 process of Evolution, as if it covered the whole 
 ground, it seems to me not a little instructive 
 that its chief discoverer should have called it a 
 "Natural Selection" — a phrase which in the 
 very word "selection" implies mind, and which 
 has no strict meaning*, if " Nature " be imper- 
 sonal. 
 
 But it is worth while to note in passing" that 
 this struggle for existence does not reign abso- 
 lutely supreme, even in the realm of organic life. 
 This realm, as on the one side it touches the 
 inorganic world of general and pitiless force, 
 so on the other borders on the higher realm of 
 mind and humanity. In that higher realm there 
 is indeed the counterpart of the struggle for 
 existence in the fierce competition between indi- 
 viduals and races, under the impulse of self-pre- 
 servation and the principle of self-love. But 
 there is also a rival law, gradually asserting 
 superiority as civilization advances. I mean 
 the law of what we especially call " humanity," 
 directly opposing and often conquering the other 
 more cruel power — preserving the weak just for 
 the sake of their weakness, and using victorious 
 strength for the sake of the race, not for the 
 sake of the individual. Now, first, this higher 
 Law, belonging to the sphere of humanity, has 
 its rudimentary indication within the realm of 
 
170 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 animal life, as (for example) in the maternal 
 instinct — impulsive, I grant, and capricious, but 
 real — which makes the strong* parent creature 
 sacrifice itself for its weak offspring, and which 
 our Lord Himself has hallowed by making it 
 the type of His own love to His people. But 
 this is not all. It is a wonderful but undoubted 
 fact that in the case of animals, domesticated, 
 and so by reflex influence of men raised above 
 themselves, there are daily instances of fidelity, 
 personal attachment to other animals or to men, 
 acts of sacrifice for affection or for obedience, so 
 like the acts of humanity, that we see how this 
 higher law can be introduced by man into the 
 sphere of animal life. Is it unreasonable, again, 
 to think that what the created mind does in 
 special cases every day, affords some analogy of 
 the operation of a Divine Mind in the animal 
 creation as a whole ? The law, whatever it is, 
 which governs organic life, includes this half- 
 moral element, bearing the likeness of humanity, 
 as well as the fierce struggle, which bears the 
 semblance of the ruthlessness of physical force. 
 
 Therefore, I cannot see that this magnificent 
 theory of Evolution, whatever its merits may 
 be, really shakes the true basis of Teleology. It 
 has always seemed to me that, as these concep- 
 tions of the creative method have gradually en- 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 171 
 
 larged themselves, the effect is not unlike that 
 which is produced on our vision, when we 
 increase the magnifying power of a telescope, 
 without increasing the size of the object-glass, 
 and, therefore, the quantity of light admitted. 
 Each increase in magnitude recurring spreads 
 the same light over a larger area, and thus 
 diminishes its intensity. Our object-glass is 
 the human mind ; it can take in but a certain 
 portion of the light of God's presence. It is 
 the penalty of each wider and larger generaliza- 
 tion of that presence, that the vividness of our 
 vision of it shall be dimmed. But the whole 
 light is still the same, and our eyes soon become 
 used to the new circumstances of its diffusion. 
 I believe, therefore, that the old inference of 
 Design in Nature remains exactly the same in 
 essence. The more we discover of the infinite 
 variety in Nature, and, with this extension of 
 discovery, trace more and more a tendency to 
 unity in the origin of all things, and to sim- 
 plicity in the great Forces which rule them, the 
 more shall we be led irresistibly to the conception 
 of an Infinite Creative Mind. 
 
 V. But there is still a disturbing element 
 of thought. Perhaps, in contemplating creatiorj, 
 the question rises in our minds, " To what pur- 
 pose is this waste ? " — so many rudimentary 
 
172 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 forms, so many imperfect existences, and (what 
 is ultimately a result of this, where it is 
 not produced by human sin) so much physical 
 suffering" and death ? It is a natural thought; 
 it has been urged of late with great force. 6 But 
 yet it is clear that, in contemplating the work of 
 any power greater than ourselves, our knowledge 
 must be partial ; and therefore while it may 
 assert, because assertion may be partial, it may 
 not deny, because all denial is universal. 7 In 
 many things we can see design accomplished; 
 there we can draw our conclusions. But we 
 cannot always say, where the design, which we 
 think we trace, is not accomplished, that in 
 these cases no purpose whatever is subserved — 
 any more than our dog or horse, because he 
 often understands our purpose where we need 
 his co-operation, could tell the purpose which 
 governs our life as a whole. 8 The system of 
 
 6 As, for example, in Mr. Stuart Mill's " Essay on Nature." 
 
 7 Butler has pointed this out with his usual force and 
 gravity in his " Analogy," part i. chap, vii., " On the 
 government of God as a scheme imperfectly comprehended." 
 In the fifth chapter he notices the "waste" of seeds 
 referred to below. 
 
 8 This truth was the most instructive lesson gathered 
 from the controversy some years ago, initiated by Dr. 
 Whewell's " Plurality of Worlds." His main object was 
 apparently, first, to warn men of the slightness of the 
 positive evidence, by which they arrived at conclusions on 
 
THE EVIDENCE OP DESIGN. 173 
 
 nature seems bound together by a two-fold com- 
 plexity. Many things subserve one result; 
 each thing subserves many. This complexity, 
 which we can but very imperfectly imitate, 
 makes it singularly difficult either to judge of 
 any one field of being in isolation, or to say of 
 any one thing that it is fruitless, because it does 
 not yield what seems to us its natural fruit. 
 In some cases w T e actually know that we must 
 not say this. A seed of wheat is intended, we 
 should say, to grow, and if it be given scope, it 
 will grow accordingly. Are all the millions of 
 such seeds wasted, which never grow, because 
 they feed the whole race of men ? 9 In other 
 cases we are led indirectly to a similar con- 
 clusion. Again and again, when men have 
 
 this great subject; next, to protest against the false 
 reasoning on "Final Causes," which, assuming the true 
 premisses, that in all Creation God's glory must be shown, 
 and that in our world it is shown most in His rational 
 sreatures, draws the erroneous inference, that in this way, 
 and in this only, can it be fully manifested in the other 
 bodies of our planetary system. 
 
 9 See the "Reign of Law," chap. iv. "The intention 
 with which a grain of wheat is so constituted as to be 
 capable to producing another wheat plant, is not the less 
 of the nature of Purpose, because it co-exists with another 
 intention, that the same grain should be capable of sus- 
 taining the powers and enjoyments of Life in the body and 
 soul of Man. . . . Yet the seeds of corn, which, as seeds, are 
 destroyed, when they are converted into bread, may in 
 that aspect be represented and regarded as failures." 
 
174 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 foolishly and cruelly interfered in the sphere of 
 animal life, by destroying some insignificant race 
 of creatures, unexpected uses of that race in the 
 order of creation have been brought out for the 
 first time by experience of the effects of their 
 loss. Even of the dread mystery of physical- 
 suffering, we know that such suffering has its 
 uses in the sphere of humanity ; can we be sure 
 that it has no purpose elsewhere ? The con- 
 dition of the brute creation, and their capacities 
 of happiness and suffering, are simply unknown 
 to us. We cannot reason upon them, nor need 
 we attempt to meddle with such reasoning. St. 
 Paul speaks of the groaning and travailing of 
 creation as a whole ; he does not encourage us 
 to suppose that it is utterly fruitless, except in 
 the one case of humanity. Christianity refuses on 
 this great subject to disconnect the lower world 
 from the history of man. Surely this doctrine 
 is, to say the least, not destitute of probability, 
 in an age which insists so strongly on unity in 
 creation. 
 
 Even if, in many cases, we are in the dark, 
 let us confess our ignorance, but let us not 
 suffer what we do not know to rob us of the 
 reasonable inference from what we do know. 
 The question " To what purpose this waste ? " 
 in the Gospel, even had it been asked sincerely, 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 175 
 
 yet assumed that one view of use embraced the 
 whole possibility of usefulness ; and it was re- 
 buked accordingly by a larger conception of 
 that which was fit to show forth the glory of 
 God, and be the future lesson of mankind. 
 Possibly to other forms of the same question 
 our Lord's words in reply suggest the principle 
 of the true answer. The one question is, whether 
 the contemplation of Creation as a whole leads 
 to the inference of wisdom and goodness in the 
 Supreme Power, or whether on the whole it 
 seems confused, purposeless, cruel. To that 
 question all human literature supplies the 
 answer. The " offences " are exceptional : 
 therefore, although they perplex and disquiet us 
 in proportion to our higher conception of what 
 is implied in the belief in a God, they can be 
 borne. They may be, in the strictest sense, 
 "trials of faith;" to some, perhaps, the chief 
 trials of faith ; out of which the faith may 
 emerge in greater strength, as well as greater 
 humility. 
 
 VL Such is a brief sketch of the great 
 argument of Teleology. It remains to consider 
 its relation to the argument of Causation. 
 
 Clearly they occupy much common ground in 
 their results, although the observations on 
 which they rest are independent of each other, 
 
176 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 the one from the present inferring" the past, the 
 other discovering in the past anticipation of the 
 present. So far as this is the case, the one 
 simply strengthens the other, without intro- 
 ducing any new step in the argument. 
 
 But what says Teleology on the great ques.- 
 tion between Theism and Pantheism, with 
 which the consideration of Causation alone 
 leaves us face to face ? Any ultimate theory of 
 the origin of the universe must (as we have seen) 
 account both for Mind and Matter, and can 
 hardly accept the idea of their co-ordinate inde- 
 pendent self-existence. But what shall we hold 
 to be the true relation of Mind to Matter? 
 Shall we liken it to the relation of the soul to 
 the body, suggesting the theory of Pantheism, or 
 the relation of the mind in man to external 
 matter on which he works, suggesting the belief 
 in a Personal God ? 
 
 Let us look first to argument from the 
 analogy of our own experience. Certainly, so 
 far as our experience goes, Mind united neces- 
 sarily to matter in humanity has only the 
 power, and that not an absolute power, to use 
 and mould it in the present, without any ca- 
 pacity of preparing it, organizing it, combining 
 various elements in it, for a long series of 
 changes extending far into the future. Mind, 
 
EVIDENCE OF DESIGX. 177 
 
 on the other hand, dealing with matter extra- 
 neous to itself and incapable of reacting upon it, 
 can do this, and does it every day, to an extent 
 limited only by its own faculties, and in forms 
 capable of all but endless variety. It is true that 
 in man the action of mind on external matter can 
 be carried on only through an internal material 
 organization ; but still the power of extension 
 and development of its action does not depend 
 on any improvement of that material organiza- 
 tion. The living and progressive element in it 
 is mental ; the bodily instrumentality remain- 
 ing fixed, and not partaking of the capacity of 
 progress, remains as an adjunct, with which 
 there is comparatively little difficulty in con- 
 ceiving that Mind in other and higher Beings 
 might dispense. So far, therefore, as analogy 
 may be drawn from our human experience, the 
 conclusions of Teleology incline us most distinctly 
 to accept the conception of a mind above the 
 universe, not a mind necessarily united to it, 
 and incapable of transcending it. 
 
 But this argument, although - it has un- 
 doubtedly exercised much power over the com 
 mon reason of mankind, may be put aside as 
 inconclusive, because objection may be taken to 
 pressing human analogies too far. Let us then 
 consider broadly the fact that the whole relation 
 
 N 
 
178 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : 
 
 implied in Design belongs to mind and to mind 
 alone. The relation of cause and effect in 
 Nature carries our thoughts back to an actual 
 history of the past,, exhibited in the external 
 sphere, with connexions which may be physical 
 only, and of which we speak under the vague, 
 term of " Laws " — a term borrowed, indeed, 
 from the realm of Mind, but yet emptied of its 
 distinctive significance. On the other hand, 
 the relation of what we call means and ends 
 looks on to the future. The connexion which it 
 establishes between things is one purely mental 
 — so purely mental, that within our own ex- 
 perience it may never be actually realized in 
 fact, though it may be formed perfectly and 
 distinctly in mind. We are conscious every 
 day, on the one hand, of effects of our own 
 actions, undoubted in fact, yet unforeseen in our 
 mind; and on the other, of ends carefully de- 
 signed in mind, yet unattained in fact. Hence, 
 in relation to the system of the universe, it is clear 
 that the idea of Design represents it as existing 
 potentially in the Creative Mind, before it was 
 realized in fact. This carries with it the inevi- 
 table inference that the Creative Mind existed 
 in sole absolute being before the world was; 
 and that the Will of that Supreme Mind, 
 guided by the creative idea, was the actual 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 179 
 
 Cause of the universe, in its matter as well as its 
 form. 
 
 Hence it is that in all times Teleology is the 
 delight of the Theist, the abomination of the 
 Pantheist. It leads irresistibly to a Creative 
 Mind, distinct from its work, that is, to a true 
 Personal God. Of the character of that Mind, 
 being itself a purely intellectual conception, it 
 can infer only the intellectual attributes of a 
 supreme wisdom, wielding a supreme power. 
 It borrows from other forms of our conscious- 
 ness, when in practice it infers benevolence or 
 righteousness. But in its own sphere its in- 
 ference rises to the belief in that Wisdom and 
 Power as Infinite, so far as we can conceive In- 
 finity — that is, as immeasurably transcending 
 all that we can realize and all that we can 
 imagine. Let the most be made of the irregu- 
 larities, the apparent failures, the waste of 
 energy in conflict, the consequent suffering, in 
 Nature — still these are but exceptions, so com- 
 pletely swallowed up in the evidence of the rule, 
 that, if they are real, they can but weaken the 
 argument very slightly, and the doubt whether 
 they are real grows at every step as we pursue 
 it. Under whatever theory of the First Cause 
 men study Nature in its entirety, by the intui- 
 tion of the poet, or by the induction of the 
 N 2 
 
180 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT: 
 
 philosopher, their minds are pervaded by the 
 thought of Infinity. The cry " What is man ? " 
 rises to their lips in the presence of the mighty 
 universe. But if once the conception of Design 
 be admitted, then, whether we gaze on the 
 vastness of the starlit heavens, with the faintest 
 conception of what it really means, or through 
 the microscope study the infinite delicacy and 
 beauty of minuteness of an organism which it 
 alone can make visible to us, the vague 
 cry of bewilderment changes into the higher 
 strain of adoration — " O the depth of the 
 riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge 
 of God ! » 
 
 We must not for a moment forget, even now, 
 that there are other witnesses still to be called 
 from the moral side of our being, not only to tell 
 their own stoiy of the moral attributes of God, 
 but to strengthen the conviction of His eternal 
 Personality. Only by an effort can we keep 
 their voices from mingling with those tones of 
 witness, which we have been considering; for 
 as I have already reminded you, the soul in all 
 its parts is one. But even now, the conclusion 
 of a Personal Creator, to which the consideration 
 of Causation leads us w 7 ith some hesitation, is 
 infinitely strengthened by these glimpses of De- 
 sign and Purpose. The brief and sublime sim- 
 
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 181 
 
 plicity of the narrative from which the text is 
 taken, while it speaks with a certainty far 
 beyond the results of our Induction, is gladly 
 welcomed as the clear expression of what the 
 soul for itself has dimly seen. 
 
 In the spirit of the great Psalm of Creation 
 (Ps. civ.), which we have sung to-day (Whit- 
 sunday), we survey the wondrous order of the 
 universe; we discover everywhere not only 
 power of Causation, but Design in all its wisdom 
 and beauty; and we recognise, not an Anima 
 mundi, impersonal and impalpable, but a God 
 " who sees all that He has made and beholds it 
 as very good/'' Then, although the moral attri- 
 butes, which awaken our deepest wonder and 
 thanksgiving, are j^et uncontemplated, what 
 can we do but burst into the exclamation of the 
 Psalmist ? " Praise the Lord, O my soul ! O 
 Lord my God, Thou art become exceeding 
 glorious; Thou art clothed in majesty and 
 honour ! " 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINA- 
 TION. 
 
 I- — THE POSITION AND VALUE OP THE IMAGINATION. 
 II. — THE FUNCTION OF THE IMAGINATION IN THE PERCEP- 
 TION OP BEAUTY. 
 III. — THE BEAUTY IN INANIMATE NATURE OP 
 (a) PERFECTION. 
 (&) GRANDEUR.. 
 IV.— THE PECULIAR AND HIGHER BEAUTY OF LIFE AND 
 MIND. 
 V. — THE PERCEPTION OP BEAUTY IN NATURE A REVELA- 
 TION OP MIND — POLYTHEISTIC, PANTHEISTIC, THEISTIC. 
 VI.— THE WITNESS OF IMAGINATION TO A TRUE GOD, BY 
 
 (a) ITS RESTING ON PERSONALITY. 
 
 (b) ITS POWER TO IDEALIZE. 
 
 (c) ITS POWER TO CREATE. 
 
 VII.— THE FUNCTION OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINA- 
 NATION. 
 
 (a) AS A LINK BETWEEN OTHER BRANCHES OF 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 (b) AS HAVING INTRINSIC POWER OF ITS OWN. 
 
 " Thine eyes shall see the King in His glory : they shall 
 behold the land very far away." — Isa. xxxiii. 17. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 183 
 
 Hitherto we have traced out two lines of the 
 Theology of the Intellect, distinct, yet nearly 
 inseparable. The simple consideration of the 
 line of Causation had led us up to the great 
 antagonism, in which Pantheism and Theism 
 stand in deadly opposition to each other. From 
 this consideration we turned next to that con- 
 ception of Design, which so emphatically inter- 
 venes in the controversy on the side of the faith 
 in a Creative Mind. We saw first, how that 
 conception, and it alone, gave unity of Idea to 
 the Universe, carrying on the line of continuity 
 through the great breaks, which otherwise are 
 to us absolutely impassable. We saw next, 
 how, in considering the evidence of Design in 
 the world, as a whole, the existence of the 
 realm of created mind, in which design and 
 will obviously rule, threw an unquestionable 
 light of interpretation over the realm of matter. 
 Then, proceeding to the world of Organic Life — 
 the chosen battle-field of Teleology — we inquired 
 into the true sense of the " contrivance/'' which 
 it so manifestly appears to show ; we asked how 
 far the new theory of Evolution, even accepted 
 as absolutely true, affected the old time-honoured 
 Teleological argument ; we glanced at the signi- 
 ficance of the apparent " waste," which that 
 theory has brought out into special prominence. 
 
184 THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION". 
 
 And, lastly, we examined the ground of the all 
 but invariable opinion which makes Teleology 
 the handmaid of Faith in a true Personal God ; 
 and draws the inference of the Psalmist, " O 
 Lord ! in wisdom hast Thou made them all. 
 Thou art clothed with majesty and honour ! " ' 
 
 (I.) From these two lines of intellectual 
 witness, so closely related to each other, it will 
 be hereafter our most important duty to turn to 
 the two great lines of Moral Theology — the 
 Theology of the Conscience, and the Theology 
 of the Affections — which appear to be similarly 
 related to each other, and which certainly are 
 wholly distinct in character from those already 
 traced out. 
 
 But, before doing so, it is well to refer to a 
 line of witness to God, subordinate, but not 
 unimportant — the Theology of the Imagination, 
 to which the text appeals. It naturally presents 
 itself at this point in the argument, because the 
 Imagination, while most intimately connected 
 with the understanding, possessing, indeed, in 
 itself a substantially intellectual character, is 
 nevertheless a kind of link between the power 
 of pure intellectual thought, and the moral 
 elements of our nature, especially the element of 
 affection. It has much of the light of the one, 
 much also of the earnestness and glow of the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 185 
 
 other; and perhaps its chief power and value 
 depend on this intermediate position between the 
 two great factors of our human nature. Certain] y 
 every one who has ever gazed on a glorious 
 scene in Nature, or listened to a grand strain of 
 music, will remember how, so long as it possessed 
 his soul, it at once stimulated in him a play 
 of intellect — half-passive, half-unconscious, in 
 "thoughts beyond his thought''' — and also 
 kindled moral emotions — perhaps of resolution 
 and enthusiasm, perhaps of humility, sadness, 
 submission — now firing the eye with a new 
 light, now quenching' that fire in tears. 
 
 There are reasons why it should especially 
 claim our consideration in these days, because 
 (whatever we may think of the comparison of 
 this age with ages gone by, in respect of the 
 bright particular stars of solitary greatness,) no 
 one can well doubt that a sense of the power of 
 Imagination, and of the value of all that feeds 
 it, is diffused through Society to an extent 
 rarely, if ever, equalled in earlier times. The 
 popular admiration of natural scenery, especially 
 in its sublimer and more terrible aspects — the 
 passion for Art, and above all other Art the music 
 which is the poetry of the people — the deliberate 
 recognition of the sense of beauty, as an integral 
 factor in all high civilization, not unconnected 
 
186 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 even with its moral aspects — the cordial en- 
 listment of all that can suggest beauty in the 
 service of Religion — all these influences are tell- 
 ing on the thought of our times, to disclose and 
 to exalt the power of Imagination, The very 
 spirit of the age, therefore, suggests that in 
 tracing out the lines of Natural Theology, the 
 Theology of the Imagination should not be passed 
 by. We need not suppose that this Theology of 
 the Imagination belongs to the cloud-]and of 
 unreality. If it claimed to be our sole or even 
 our chief guide, we might indeed, fear lest it 
 should lead us into those shadowy realms. 
 Those who expel Religion from the working- 
 day of understanding to the " dim religious 
 light " of Imagination, and call upon us to be 
 thankful that it is allowed to linger there, appear 
 simply to bring back the old intellectual and 
 aesthetic Paganism, which made (as was well 
 said by Dr. Arnold) the consciousness of God 
 little more than the feeling with which we 
 contemplate a glorious sunset. But while in 
 the name of all that is solid and practical, we 
 indignantly resist this aesthetic ursurpation, and 
 resolve to trace by aid of the intellect and 
 conscience the firm massive skeleton of Truth, 
 which Imagination and Affection may clothe in 
 living flesh and blood, yet we must not carry 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 187 
 
 our indignation so far, as to ignore the claim of 
 the Imagination to a certain province of the 
 Religious kingdom. God made the mind in all 
 its aspects ; in all its aspects it must turn to 
 Him, "to behold the King" of Kings, not 
 only in His Wisdom and His Righteousness, 
 but also " in His Beauty." 
 
 II. I speak of Beauty : for, without attempt- 
 ing to define the subtle processes of imagination, 
 I venture to think that there are three leading 1 
 principles of its action tolerably clear. First, 
 we may say broadly that, as the Intellect dis- 
 cerns Truth, as the Conscience discerns Right, so 
 the Imagination properly discerns Beauty. Next, 
 without discussing the abstract nature of this 
 principle of Beauty, it seems obvious that, while 
 it is closely allied to truth, fitness, power, right- 
 eousness, yet it is something distinct from them 
 all — incapable, perhaps, of existing where they 
 are not, but surely not unfrequently absent 
 where they are present. Lastly, few (in these 
 days at any rate) will doubt that the sense of 
 Beauty in man is, like the sense of truth and 
 the sense of right, universal and irresistible in 
 itself, yet singularly variable and fallible in its 
 applications ; and that, although it begins in a 
 kind of instinct, and in the mass of men is 
 developed chiefly by practice and in detail, yet 
 
188 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 that it has its own true philosophical laws, more 
 subtle, yet not less real, than those which are 
 discerned by the intellect and the conscience. 
 All these things have been recognised in the Art 
 and literature of all ages ; but in our own time 
 they have been brought oat with singular clear- 
 ness, and they have created that movement of 
 manifold iEstheticism, in the midst of which 
 we are living now. 1 It is hardly necessary to 
 do more than recall them to the educated mind. 
 I appeal to your own consciousness. Whether 
 you contemplate nature or humanity — whether 
 you dwell in the inner world of your own fancy, 
 or accept impressions from the minds of others, — 
 you cannot help taking it for granted that there 
 is such a principle as the principle of Beauty, 
 conspicuous by its presence or by its absence, and 
 refusing to be confounded with any other prin- 
 ciple. You cannot help recognising it as a 
 factor in the happiness and purity of life. You 
 cannot but be aware, even if you yourselves 
 understand it not, that it involves, not mere in- 
 
 1 It is almost superfluous to refer to the debt of grati- 
 tude -which Ave owe above all to Mr. Buskin in this matter. 
 Many of us will remember the first reading of " Modern 
 Painters " as a new epoch in appreciation of the meaning 
 of Art, raising it far above the technical rules of experts 
 and the arbitrary maxims of connoisseurs, and showing it 
 firmly based on the rock of universal principle. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 189 
 
 stinct or individual taste, but determinate laws, 
 on obedience to which depend the loveliness of 
 Nature and the perfection of human Art. 
 
 To consider, then, the Theology of the Imagi- 
 nation, is, therefore, to estimate the revelation of 
 God in the beauty of Nature — taking care, as 
 before, to consider Nature in the fulness of its 
 true sense, including the provinces of matter, of 
 life, and of mind, not as separate, but as bearing 
 upon one another at every point. " Nature " (it 
 has been said) " has two revelations — that of Use 
 and that of Beauty." 2 In the study of design 
 the intellect searches thoughtfully into the for- 
 mer; the Theology of the Imagination gazes 
 on the latter, with much of thoughtfulness, with 
 much also of emotion. 
 
 III. What are the chief impressions, then, of 
 Beauty, which Nature makes upon the mind, 
 first in the world of things, and then in the 
 higher world of persons ? Perhaps in the world 
 of inanimate things, as soon as the perception 
 of Beauty becomes a true mental perception, the 
 two impressions most obvious and most forcible 
 are the beauty of perfection, and the beauty of 
 
 2 I quote from the Sermon on " Nature," in Cancn 
 Mozley's "University Sermons" (perhaps one of the most 
 remarkable portions of that remarkable volume,) to which 
 I am throughout this Lecture considerably indebted. 
 
190 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 grandeur. There are indeed sensations of beauty 
 (as, for example, in the richness or delicacy of 
 colour) which are almost entirely sensuous, not 
 wholly unlike the pleasure derived through the 
 palate from strength or refinement of flavour. 
 No idea seems to be as yet awakened in the mind. 
 The soul is possessed or (as men say) " drunk with 
 beauty/'"' and that is all. But as soon as thought 
 is roused to action, then the two ideas of perfec- 
 tion and grandeur are suggested at once. 
 
 Now the sense of the beauty of perfection has 
 necessarily relation to an idea of some unity of 
 construction and purpose in each several thing, 
 which is either clearly discerned by the mind, or, 
 perhaps more often, taken for granted, although 
 not perfectly comprehended. It is distinct from 
 the sense of usefulness ; but of all the impressions 
 of beauty most closely allied with it. To it 
 perhaps belongs the sense of beauty of form and 
 of composition, whether the more obvious beauty 
 which we discern in regular symmetry, or the 
 subtler beauty of that less obvious and freer 
 obedience to a law of unity, which we term pic- 
 turesqueness. There is here a beauty in perfect 
 simplicity, and a subtler beauty in harmony, 
 both of form and colour — a harmony which, as 
 in music, is often enhanced by the apparent 
 discords of strong contrast. In both is involved 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 191 
 
 the conception of the relation of various things, 
 or various parts of a thing, to some unity which 
 makes it what it is. There is a certain beauty 
 in the perfection even of mechanical fitness of 
 the various parts of a structure to work together, 
 especially if they work with ease and swift- 
 ness to one result. Hence it is that while the 
 investigations of material Science always tend 
 to analysis, that is, to the separation of the 
 whole into its various parts, the aesthetic con- 
 ception of the poet or the artist mostly tends in 
 the opposite direction to synthesis. It resists 
 this analytical process ; its idea is to grasp each 
 thing as a whole, and to show that in the whole 
 there is more than the aggregate of its parts. 
 Possibly it is in virtue of its power to aid this 
 conception of the whole, without obtrusion of 
 divisions, and without disproportion of various 
 parts, that, according to the old proverb, — 
 
 " Distance lends enchantment to the view," 
 
 To quote again eloquent w T ords, — " To another 
 the poet leaves search and analysis ; he is content 
 to look and to look only ; he stands, like a 
 w r atcher or a sentinel, gazing on earth, sea, and 
 sky; upon the vast assembled imagery, upon 
 the rich majestic representation on the canvas.'''' 3 
 3 See Mozley's " Sermons/ 5 p. 125 (2nd edit.). 
 
192 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 If ever this attitude of soul gives way to the 
 analytical spirit, pulling the conception to pieces, 
 in hope perhaps of finding the secret of beauty, 
 the power of the imagination is gone. The 
 man is in the condition which Wordsworth 
 describes, — 
 
 " The primrose by the river's brim, 
 A yellow primrose 'tis to him, 
 And it is nothing more." 
 
 Each element is torn from its place, and by the 
 very disruption its significance is gone. 
 
 In this form of the sense of beauty there is an 
 exquisite but calm and well-balanced pleasure. 
 Nothing of awe, perhaps little of enthusiasm, 
 mingles with it. The mind is all the while sen- 
 sible of its own power, to discern, to appreciate, 
 even in some degree to judge, the beauty pre- 
 sented to it. It is far otherwise in the other 
 form of the sense of beauty in the material world 
 — the impression of grandeur, whether of scale 
 or of power. The beauty of perfection is wholly 
 independent of scale; we can recognise it at 
 least as much by the microscope in the infinitely 
 little, as by the telescope in the infinitely vast. 
 But there is a wholly different sense of beauty 
 in the perception of grandeur. It may be the 
 grandeur of vastness, whether of gigantic sim- 
 plicity or of that complex harmony of many 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 193 
 
 parts, which grows upon us, when the eye from 
 below ranges over mountain ridges to some 
 snowy peak, or from above over a great panorama 
 stretching away inimitably into the distance. 
 It may be the grandeur of power, which every 
 man knows well, who has ever listened to the 
 blast of the wind or the roar of an avalanche, 
 felt the dull thrill of an earthquake, or watched 
 the irresistible violence of a stormy sea. 
 
 In all these cases there is a strange delight, 
 which strikes even the most frivolous, in the 
 consciousness of our own insignificance, in the 
 sense of awe, breathing from the grandeur in 
 which, as we say, "we are lost/' in the un- 
 expected, and, as it seems at first sight, the 
 unreasonable, sense of repose, attending upon 
 this sense of our helplessness and littleness. 
 The beauty of grandeur is like the beauty of 
 perfection, in that it resists analysis, and con- 
 ceives that which it contemplates as a whole. 
 The two impressions, indeed, may be closely 
 allied, for grandeur often depends not only on 
 scale, but on the true relation of the parts of a 
 thing to the whole. But it adds, as of its own, 
 the sense of infinity, and the contrast of this 
 infinity with the littleness of man. 
 
 Perhaps connected with this sense of grandeur 
 is the sense of the beauty of mystery, in that 
 
 o 
 
194 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 which is dimly or imperfectly perceived, so as 
 to suggest the idea of something underlying 
 what we see, or extending beyond the range of 
 our vision — of which we simply know that it is, 
 though how it is and what it is we know not. 
 It is perhaps more to partial knowledge than 
 to complete ignorance that we may rightly 
 apply the old saying, Omne ignoiwm pro mag- 
 nifico. If once we see all, or think that we see 
 all — nothing being left to the fantastic power of 
 imagination — every one who is familiar either 
 with architectural magnificence, or even with 
 the vastness of mountain scenery, knows how 
 the highest sense of grandeur passes away. 
 
 Now in some sense these two perceptions of 
 Beauty are complementary to each other. The 
 sense of perfection in structure and purpose is a 
 mental action, implying the recognition of 
 ideas embodied in the world of things, belonging 
 to a mind like our own. Perhaps even here the 
 sense of Beauty is most vividly kindled in the 
 mind, when this recognition is felt to be im- 
 perfect, throwing the mind on the consciousness 
 of ideas embracing but transcending our own. 
 But the sense of grandeur passes beyond this 
 indirect consciousness of our own inferiority. 
 Its essence lies in the belief that the Mind, 
 which we thus contemplate, infinitely transcends 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 195 
 
 our own power even to comprehend it. In the 
 former we feel ourselves, in the latter we lose 
 ourselves, before a Supreme Mind. 
 
 IV. But great as is the sense of beauty in 
 these lower regions of the world of things, 
 there is a still higher and more exquisite sense 
 of beauty as we approach personality, through 
 all the regions of life. In the beauty of merely 
 inanimate nature there is a certain oppressive- 
 ness, unless by faith or imagination we can 
 discern a soul in it. Even in the lower world 
 of things, the sense of beauty largely depends 
 on the sense of change, movement, life, whether 
 real or fancied life. All poetry delights in the 
 attribution of this fancied life — to the play of 
 the clouds, the whispers of the wind, the 
 " twinkling smile " or the te wild laugh " of the 
 ocean, 4 the mystic echoes of the mountain. 5 Per- 
 
 4 The avi)pidnov ye\a<r/ji.a, usually translated by the 
 former of these phrases. Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow, 
 taught by his experience of our south-western coast, inge- 
 niously suggests the latter. (See Mr. Baring- Gould's 
 " Life of Hawker.") 
 
 5 In the " Ghristian Year " (Second Sunday after Trinity), 
 Keble speaks of the indications to the imagination, not 
 only of life, but of love, as the causes of our delight in the 
 sights and sounds of Nature. But this is surely only a 
 part of the whole. The sense of freedom, play, and the 
 like, corresponding to the individuality of human nature, 
 is as much a ground for this delight as the sense of Love, 
 which belongs to the unity of that same nature. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 THE THEOLOGY OP THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 haps one reason why Music appeals more power- 
 fully than painting or sculpture to the mass of 
 men, is that it has in it this constant play of 
 change and animation. But in real life, there 
 is a beauty quite distinct and peculiar. We 
 feel it even in the contemplation of the con-, 
 stant freshness and luxuriance of vegetative 
 life. In this — whether in the intense beauty of 
 the tropical forest, or in the homelier and 
 gentler beauty of our own scenery — we find a 
 constant and satisfying feast, appealing in some 
 way to our sympathy far more than the con- 
 templation of the noblest inanimate grandeur. 
 We feel it more deeply still when we turn to 
 the animal life, in which we trace some shadows 
 of freedom, mind, and will, 6 and which accord - 
 
 6 Very strikingly is the intensity of the sense of beauty 
 in this sphere recognised in a well-known passage of 
 Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner," as melting an ice-bound 
 heart: — 
 
 " happy living things ! no tongue 
 
 Their beauty might declare ; 
 A spring of love gush'd from my heart, 
 
 And I bless' d them unaware. 
 Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 
 
 And I bless'd them unaware. 
 The self-same moment I could pray ; 
 
 And from my neck so free 
 The Albatross fell off, and sank 
 
 Like lead into the sea."— (Part IV.) 
 
THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION. 197 
 
 ingly has power to awaken sympathy as well 
 as delight. But the highest beauty belongs by 
 all confession to "the human form divine." 
 We trace it even in the grace and strength and 
 energy of the body, instinct with life. We 
 trace it far more in the play of feeling and 
 thought, in the countless varieties of momentary 
 or habitual expression which pass over the face. 
 The beauty of perfection is seen perhaps most 
 clearly in organic structure ; but there it is also 
 lit up by a new and higher beauty, when we 
 recognise it as a living structure. Life in its 
 lower and its higher forms has a special beauty 
 of its own. 
 
 But we must take one more step, for which 
 the last has prepared us, and speak of the su- 
 preme sense of Beauty, which belongs to the 
 contemplation of Mind. The recognition in 
 any being even of the power of intellect, in its 
 keen intuition,its comprehensive grasp of reason- 
 ing, its subtle powers of discovery and creation, 
 tells on the imagination ; but it is especially the 
 moral element of strong righteousness, unsullied 
 purity, unwearied love, which carries with it 
 (independently of the emotions of wonder, appro- 
 bation, sympathy), an impression of nobleness 
 and beauty immeasurably beyond any other. 
 If ever we speak of " beauty of character," 
 
198 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 we refer to moral character ; if we trace beauty 
 of expression in the face, it is not so much in 
 the cold light of intellect, as in the enthusiastic 
 glow of earnestness and love. It is because in 
 man the mind and soul look through the face, 
 that we recognise in human beauty something 
 higher than proportion, symmetry, and even life. 
 
 Thus, by a law of its own, the imagination refuses 
 to pause in the world of things, or in the fleshly 
 vestibule of the temple of personality. It goes 
 on and on ; and when it has reached the inner 
 shrine, the light there seen is thrown back on the 
 earlier objects of contemplation. The sense of 
 beauty in unity and perfection, in grandeur 
 above and beyond us, in the glow and play of 
 life, is seen to have been really stimulated by a 
 half conscious sense of mind, behind them and 
 underlying them all. 
 
 This seems to be involved in the undoubted 
 tendency by which, even in the world of things, 
 the imagination is irresistibly driven to per- 
 sonify. That tendency is familiar to us in all 
 poetry, conscious or unconscious — in the poetry 
 which lies diffused (so to speak) in capacity 
 through all humanity, and the poetry which 
 flashes out in concentrated energy from the minds 
 of the artistic leaders of mankind. But what 
 does the tendency itself mean? Surely its first 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 199 
 
 obvious meaning is that the recognition of life 
 and mind is essential to the highest conception 
 of beauty. Surely, if we look deeper, we shall 
 see in it the perception by the Imagination of all 
 that the intellect by another method discovers of 
 that unity of Nature and that law of develop- 
 ment in it, in virtue of which the study of the 
 lower kingdoms of Nature becomes a stepping- 
 stone to the study of personal being. 
 
 There are, indeed, minds and circumstances, in 
 which this natural order of thought is broken, 
 because men are so deeply sensible of the 
 presence of what is evil, or even of what is 
 mean, grotesque, ungraceful, in their own souls 
 and in the condition of the world, that they turn 
 back from humanity in disgust, seeking (often 
 in vain) to forget it altogether in the contem- 
 plation of Nature. Here we observe, that, 
 directly or indirectly, the same disturbing 
 element crosses this line of Theology, which 
 makes itself felt far more painfully in the moral 
 sphere. But, whenever this takes place, then, if 
 there is no recognition of a living God in 
 Nature, the effect is one of utter disquietude and 
 discontent, restlessness or despondent dreari- 
 ness of soul ; the right tendency of the mind 
 being checked, it falls naturally into a morbid 
 condition, sometimes maddened by the contrast 
 
200 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION'. 
 
 between man and Nature, sometimes throwing" 
 the dark shadows of humanity upon Nature 
 itself. 7 If there be a recognition of God, there 
 
 7 I cannot refrain from quoting Canon Mozley's eloquent 
 description of the tone of this kind of poetry : — ■ 
 
 " Take the more striking and conspicuous case of the. 
 great Atheistic poets, and what is the issue of a religion of 
 natural beauty here ? First discord, and then despair. 
 On the one side is their astonishing insight into the glory 
 of the external world ; they dive into the very heart of it 
 and are as absorbed in the vision of beauty before their 
 eyes as if they were prophets whose minds had been 
 attuned by the Divine Creator Himself into sympathetic 
 union with His Creation ; such is the power of the Sight 
 upon them ; on the other hand is the very spirit of blas- 
 phemy ; so that one moment they adoi'e like the cherubim, 
 in the next they cry out like the vexed demoniacs, and say, 
 — ' What have we to do with Thee, Thou God of heaven 
 and earth ? ' How are we to account for this madness, 
 for this dreadful schism in the minds of these men, which 
 splits them, as it were, in two beings ? The cause of this 
 discord in their own spirits was, that they themselves cut 
 nature into two, and took its beauty separated from its 
 law." 
 
 " They came straight from the scene without, which 
 fascinated and enraptured them, to look upon a dark 
 struggle within, which scandalized them ; and they had 
 not a single reason in their minds — I will not say to 
 account for this yoke of weakness and misery, for nobody 
 can do that, — but for submitting to it. They were like 
 men who were obliged to turn away from some smiling 
 and luxuriant landscape to look within the bars of a 
 frightful dungeon. The inner man was simply a dreadful 
 enigma to them ; the strife within, which the apostle 
 describes, was regarded in the light of an insupportable 
 grievance, and of a crime in the constitution of things." 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 201 
 
 is, indeed, rest in Him; yet still, since "it is 
 not good for man to be alone/' even in His 
 Presence, there is in the mind a certain tone of 
 plaintiveness and half-perplexity, making itself 
 felt, as at least an under-current of thought, 
 inclined, in the sense of the discord of humanity, 
 to forget that there is still in it a higher and 
 richer harmony, than the simpler music of Nature 
 can supply. 3 In either case the right order is 
 broken — in the former case hopelessly and funda- 
 mentally — in the latter only in its secondaiy re- 
 lations, and therefore without destruction of a 
 sure and certain hope of a restitution of all 
 things. 
 
 V. Such, as it seems, is the natural course of 
 the recognition of beauty in the system of Nature 
 as a whole, surveyed in its perfect gradation from 
 matter to life, from mere life to spiritual being. 
 It remains now to inquire what is the aid 
 which it gives the mind, in its inquiry into the 
 First Cause and the secret of existence. 
 
 It is unquestionably a Revelation of Mind in 
 Nature, wholly distinct from that Revelation, 
 which comes from the perception of Design for 
 
 8 I have ventured (see "St. James's Lectures," Second 
 Series, Lect. iv. pp. 81, 82) to trace something of this tone 
 in the Christian Year, so far as it contemplates humanity 
 apart from Christ, in the world and not in the Church. 
 
202 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 purposes of usefulness, although certainly in 
 different degrees of closeness related to it. The 
 formation of design and the creation of beauty 
 are familiar to us as distinct mental actions. The 
 human mind, while it recognises and creates 
 what we call usefulness — which is the proper 
 adaptation of each thing or each being to perform 
 the' particular task assigned to it by design — 
 yet holds the sense and the creation of Beauty 
 to be a perfectly distinct thing, good in itself, of 
 which it is idle to ask whether it is useful, 
 whether (that is) it subserves any other pur- 
 pose. A thing is beautiful, and that is enough to 
 make it "a, joy for ever." But it has been 
 truly said that in some sense the creation 
 of beauty still more absolutely belongs to 
 the sphere of mind than the creation of useful- 
 ness. For, while this usefulness is wrought out, 
 mostly through physical machinery or through 
 agents, of whom it matters not whether they 
 are conscious or no, the creation of Beauty is 
 effective only when it works on minds able to 
 contemplate it. It is a real power in the history 
 of the world, only because it speaks to mind, 
 and it is hard to conceive how anything but 
 mind can presuppose mind. Where beauty is 
 unseen by man, imagination deligTits to con- 
 ceive it visible to " purer sprites ;" faith falls 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 203 
 
 back on the higher conception of the contem- 
 plation of it by the Eternal Mind of Him who 
 " saw all that He had made, and, behold, it was 
 very good." If no other joy is yielded by beauty, 
 yet the " Lord shall rejoice in His works." 9 
 
 Hence it is that, in fact, whenever Beauty is 
 discerned in Nature — since the very perception 
 of Beauty is closely connected with ideas which 
 are purely mental, and is excited chiefly by 
 being-s of life and mind — the soul of man infers a 
 creative mind by a swift direct intuition, out- 
 stripping the slower steps of reasoning. Yet 
 who shall say that such Intuition depends not on 
 an inherent Law of Thought, or that because it 
 is swifter, therefore it is less true, than the more 
 gradual conclusion of Reason ? 
 
 But we observe that this Intuition of Mind 
 
 in Nature has assumed various forms. 
 
 9 See Mozley's "Sermons/' pp. 126, 127. "There is 
 this remarkable difference between useful contrivance and 
 beauty as evidence of an intelligent cause, that contrivance 
 has a complete end and account of itself without any refe- 
 rence to the understanding of man. ... It is enough if it 
 works ; and it is not necessary for its use that it should be 
 seen. But it is essential to the very sense and meaning of 
 beauty that it should be seen ; and inasmuch as it is visible 
 to reason alone, we have thus in the very structure of 
 nature a recognition of reason and an address to reason ; 
 wholly unaccountable, unless there is a higher Reason or 
 Mind to make it. For what but reason can address 
 reason ? " 
 
204 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 There was once the old Polytheism — the 
 " Creed outworn/'' except where it lingers in the 
 legendsof fairy land or ghost land — which peopled 
 the world with gods of each power of Nature, 
 and saw the beauty of what were virtually 
 secondary and created minds through all the 
 forms of physical loveliness. But such belief was 
 but a preparatory stage of faith. It vanished 
 before the discovery of Unity in Nature, and the 
 impossibility of finally resting on anything but 
 unity in thought. The Imagination sought for 
 some One Presence in Nature. In all the re- 
 ligious poetry of the world — the earliest form of 
 poetic utterance — it ascended, explicitly or im- 
 plicitly, to One God, sometimes directly, some- 
 times through that curious phase of " Heno- 
 theism " at which we glanced in the first lecture. 1 
 
 But here, also, the same alternative presents 
 itself between the two great antagonists. 
 Against the clear vision of the King in His 
 beauty there rises up the bright but bewilder- 
 ing mist of the Pantheistic theories, which half 
 personify an Impersonal Soul of the Universe, 
 and hold the beauty of Nature to be the beauty 
 of that Soul looking through the face. Largely 
 that vein of thought runs through all the poetry 
 of the world. Perhaps it is not so much by 
 1 See p. 18. 
 
THIS THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 205 
 
 Imagination as by the intense moral sense of 
 Personality in ourselves that it is to be resisted. 
 VI. {a) But yet even Imagination does bear 
 witness against it. At one form of that witness 
 we have already glanced, in the refusal of the 
 Imagination to rest in the world of things or of 
 mere animal life. It recognises in the human 
 mind, in virtue of its personality, and of the intel- 
 lect, conscience, will, which belong to person- 
 ality, a beauty higher than all physical beauty, 
 utterly refusing to be lost in it, capable in 
 measure of creating it, incapable of being 
 created by it. But wherever human Person- 
 ality is recognised as an actual fact, Pantheism 
 is impossible. Accordingly, the poetry of 
 humanity — epic, lyric, dramatic — is the correc- 
 tive of the poetry and art of the physical world. 
 Nor can we fail to see that it predominates over 
 it. The poetry which loses man in Nature, 
 despises him as insignificant and short-lived, or 
 represents his personality as overborne by ex- 
 ternal influences of race or circumstance, never 
 reaches the highest standard. One touch of the 
 intenser poetry of human nature scatters its 
 vague, shadowy beauty, just as one ray of sun- 
 light scatters the mists of the early morning. 
 
 (b) But there is a far clearer witness against 
 the Pantheistic hypothesis in that irresistible 
 
206 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 law of thought, by which Imagination is led, first 
 to idealize, then to recreate. 
 
 To idealize is to conceive of principles of 
 beauty, imperfectly manifested in what we see 
 of Nature or humanity, but capable of being 
 grasped in idea by the human mind itself. Such 
 idealization is familiar to us as the very prin- 
 ciple of the highest art. A great painter, if re- 
 presenting an existing scene, will all but inevit- 
 ably embody in its beauties what the study of 
 surrounding Nature, as a whole, has impressed 
 upon his mind; 2 if painting a human face, he 
 will give it, not this or that momentary expres- 
 sion, but the impress of its fundamental cha- 
 racter. This is much, but Art dares to go even 
 further. A sculptor, who would produce a perfect 
 statue, studies, indeed, his model; yet who 
 believes the Apollo Belvedere to be copied abso- 
 lutely from any living man ? A great dramatic 
 poet concentrates in his conception of a single 
 character, and in the few short hours of a play, 
 ideas which unveil all human nature, and gather 
 up all the great elements of human life. Yet 
 who could fancy Hamlet merely copied from some 
 
 2 Sco Buskin's "Modern Painters," part v. chap. ii. 
 vol. iv., on " Turnerian Topography," comparing his ideal 
 pictirre of the " Pass of Faido " with the actual picture 
 which a photograph, for example, would present. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 207 
 
 living' man of Shakespeare's day ? Mere realism 
 has its use ; good realism may be better than 
 bad idealism. But realism belongs only to the 
 lower ranks of art, and appeals to the mind 
 which can pierce no deeper than the eye. 
 
 But yet there is a wonderful height of mean- 
 ing in this action of the imagination. It involves 
 the assertion for the human mind of an essential 
 superiority to the physical universe in all its 
 grandeur and beauty, and even to the world of 
 humanity in its visible and actual manifestations. 
 It is the claim of a power to discern laws, prin- 
 ciples, ideas, underlying both these worlds ; to 
 understand how these might be developed into 
 capacities of beauty and glory as yet unseen • to 
 distinguish, therefore, between these ideas, which 
 belong essentially to mind, and the actual mani- 
 festations of them in the region of experience. 
 Either that claim is the wildest dream, or the 
 soul, which claims this power, is incapable of 
 being merged in a mere soul of this universe. 
 Yet this tendency is undoubtedly an inherent 
 law of human thought. We have been rightly 
 warned that it has its place under the cold dry 
 light of scientific thought, as well as in the glow 
 and colour of poetry. 
 
 (c) Yet even with this the Imagination is not 
 content. The very name of " imagination " or 
 
208 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 " phantasy " asserts its power to create. How sig- 
 nificant it is that the title of " Art/' which pro- 
 perly denotes all attempt at creation, should have 
 been peculiarly attached by common consent to the 
 creations of imagination. The discovery of beauty 
 drives men irresistibly to imitate and to recreate 
 it without asking why. The moment that the 
 principles of beauty are grasped, the mind goes 
 on to embody them, so imperfectly as rarely to 
 satisfy itself, but yet so far really, that it can 
 represent them to other minds. The poet must 
 sing ; the artist must wield his pencil ; thou- 
 sands who deserve neither of these lofty names, 
 yet will reproduce whatever they have seen, 
 and never without some attempt at creation. 3 
 True that this creation may not embody itself 
 in physical reality; but what matters this, if 
 only the creation reaches the mind of men ? 
 Again, and even more emphatically, I urge the 
 marvellous testimony thus borne to the sove- 
 reignty of mind, as superidr to the noblest forms 
 of matter, as having an existence absolutely dis- 
 tinct from them. 
 
 3 Every one knows the difficulty, except to a trained 
 artist, of sketching only what we can actually see, without 
 putting in what we otherwise know or fancy to exist. 
 Every one recognises in poetic beauty or poetic justice the 
 inevitable tendency to idealize beyond actual experience. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION. 209 
 
 But is that Mind our own mind ? 
 
 All reason revolts against the notion that the 
 individual mind is thus literally the " measure 
 of all things." The more Science shows the in- 
 timate connexion of all individual beings, the 
 more it strengthens the instinctive conscious- 
 ness that the action of the individual mind 
 is ruled by the Superior Creative Power. 
 What has been called the " Pathetic Fallacy/'— 
 the attribution (that is) of our own emotions to 
 the scenes we contemplate, enlarging them in 
 the process, like the Brocken shadow, to gi- 
 gantic dimensions — is dissipated by one touch 
 of the colder Reason, even if it does not of itself 
 pass on to reaction, in the sense of something 
 unfeeling and unsympathetic in Nature, weeping 
 when we smile, smiling when we weep. 
 
 But we may appeal even to the Imagination 
 itself. Possibly in its shallower phases it may 
 be merely self-conscious, fancying that it spins 
 all its creations out of its own self-consciousness. 
 But this is never the case in minds of the 
 highest order. They never conceive themselves 
 to invent their guiding ideas, or to be able in 
 their creations to disregard them. These ideas 
 are felt as existing independently of the indi- 
 vidual mind — whether we call them objective 
 {i laws " impressed upon Nature, or subjective 
 
 p 
 
210 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 " forms of thought/' belonging to the human 
 mind as such,, it matters not. They are dis- 
 covered, not invented ; and, once discovered, they 
 cannot be disregarded. The attempt at such 
 disregard leads in contemplation to the whim or 
 conventionality of the self-styled connoisseur, 
 and in creation to results which we call merely 
 " fantastic " — not perhaps without beauty, but a 
 beauty of a lower kind, appreciable only by a 
 few, not the treasure of all humanity, evanescent 
 as the early tints of the morning sky, when the 
 bright steady sunlight is brought to bear upon it. 
 No ! these ideas are the creations of a Personal 
 Mind ; but we are sure that this mind is not 
 our own, or the mind of any child of man. 
 
 Therefore these two tendencies to idealize and 
 to re-create, seem to me to rescue the sense of 
 Mind in Nature from the ambiguity, in which the 
 conflict of Theism and Pantheism involves it. 
 
 They involve the discovery in the universe of 
 the Ideas of a Creative Mind. They involve 
 the acknowledgment that this Mind is infinitely 
 greater than its works, imperfectly manifested 
 in them all. They add the consciousness that the 
 human soul is in itself superior to the merely 
 physical and animal beauty, which it can dis- 
 cover, test, and in some points reproduce. They 
 temper this consciousness by the unreserved con- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 211 
 
 fession that the Creative ideas, and even the 
 visible embodiment of them, although like our 
 own ideas, yet infinitely transcend them. The 
 more we see, the more the Infinite touches at 
 every point the enlarging circle of our vision : 
 the more we labour to represent or create, the 
 more we feel that one touch of the reality laughs 
 our efforts to scorn. In all this there is a true 
 witness to a living God. No man can wonder 
 that in all ages Imagination has been the hand- 
 maid of Religion, always having its high use, 
 unless, like other servants, it rebels against the 
 superior power. 
 
 VII. For this witness of the Imagination to 
 God, if it be not one of the principal lines of 
 witness, yet has a real strength, not only in 
 itself, but also in its singular power of knitting 
 others together. 
 
 (a) It has a close relation to the Theology of 
 the Intellect. It is like it, because in the uni- 
 verse it recognises first Power and then Mind. 
 But it is unlike, because, where the understanding 
 proceeds by slow, gradual inference, the imagi- 
 nation darts on, by a swift intuition to be veri- 
 fied only by its deductions and results. By like- 
 ness of conclusion, and by unlikeness of method, 
 the two witnesses strengthen each other. 
 
 It leads on to the moral lines of witness, of 
 p 2 
 
212 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION - . 
 
 which we have to speak, because it prepares for 
 the task of passing* from the acknowledgment 
 of Power and Wisdom to the perception of 
 Moral Attributes. But, while the Conscience 
 testifies of God's Righteousness and His Love in 
 their bare solid majesty, the Imagination reaches 
 them through the conceptions of Beauty and 
 Glory — attaching, indeed, to Power as Power, 
 still more to Wisdom as Wisdom, but most of all 
 to Moral Attributes, as of man, so also of God. 
 
 Perhaps even more clearly it leads on to the 
 Theology of Love. Not without cause is Beauty 
 called " Loveliness -" for the very sight of that 
 which is beautiful and glorious tells marvellously 
 on the emotions ; some awe, perhaps, mingles in 
 the soul with adoring love ; but, provided that 
 a true Personal Presence is realized, " perfect 
 love " eventually " casts out fear.'''' 
 
 This Theology, then, of the Imagination bears 
 on all the other laws of Natural Theology. As 
 has been said already, we cannot let it supersede 
 them. Woe be to the religion which is a reli- 
 gion of mere imagination ! But yet, though in 
 less degree, it is woe to us to be wholly without 
 it. The other forms of Natural Theology, in- 
 deed, can stand without this, while it without 
 them has no backbone of solid strength. Yet if 
 in them we discern the grand outline, it is much 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 213 
 
 that, through the imagination, that outline 
 should be so coloured, as forcibly to impress the 
 mind, and still more forcibly to come home to 
 the heart. 
 
 (b) But to this its value, as a link between 
 other powers, or accessory to them, we add two 
 points of distinctive power which we trace in it. 
 
 Less than almost any other line of Natural 
 Theology is it crossed and weakened by the sense 
 of an evil power warring against the good. I 
 do not deny that here also there is some sense 
 of a blight in Nature — traced not only in im- 
 perfection of beauty, but in what seems to us 
 positively ugly, grotesque, horrible. There 
 mingles at times a gleam of serpent-like fasci- 
 nation with the smile of Natural Beauty. But, at 
 any rate in its stronger and more positive form, 
 this impression of disorganization either passes 
 away before the more steadfast gaze of thought, 
 or is felt as altogether secondary, almost trifling. 
 It becomes a common saying that everything 
 " has a beauty of its own,'-' fitting in, like an 
 apparent discord in music, with the general har- 
 mony of the whole. Even if this be not dis- 
 cerned, yet certainly the discord is felt to be so 
 exceptional and comparatively so insignificant, 
 as to be lost in the overpowering impression of 
 beauty. The imagination is therefore spared the 
 
214 THE THEOLOGY OP THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 severity of the trials which the sterner powers of 
 reason and conscience have to hear and conquer. 
 But, besides this, the very sense of imperfec- 
 tion is enlisted for the task of witness. It has a 
 meaning- indicated by the instructive connexion 
 of the two parts of the text. To the idea of 
 "beholding the King in His beauty" is added 
 the prophetic vision ". of the land very far away." 
 The imagination is, by its very power to idealize, 
 the parent of hope — hope of a time when the 
 defects of the present shall be over — hope of a 
 knowledge of God, not as He is in His works, 
 but as He is in Himself. The one book of the 
 New Testament which appeals most to the ima- 
 gination is that Apocalypse, which most unveils 
 Heaven, and most looks on to the future. We 
 grant that hope is not the solid food of this 
 present life. We accept the rebuke, " Why stand 
 ye gazing into Heaven V- — whether it come 
 from angel denizens of that Heaven, or the earth- 
 bound philosophies, which deny that there is any 
 Heaven at all — so long as it simply urges to work 
 instead of gazing. But hope is a power in life, 
 " often doomed, yet Med not to die." A real and 
 effective power can scarcely be found in what is 
 a simple delusion. If earthly life, taken alone, be 
 a series of delusions of hope and disenchantments 
 of experience, the natural conclusion is, not that 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 215 
 
 hope is a mere delusion, but that this life is not 
 our all. Such a conclusion even a cold and scep- 
 tical philosophy has in our own days not refused 
 to draw. 4 We cannot accept this inference as 
 the whole or the main statement of the ground 
 of our faith. But we do not refuse it ; and we 
 value the Theology of the Imagination, which so 
 emphatically places it, where alone it can be safe, 
 in God. 
 
 This form of Theology, then, has its place and 
 its function. It is not accidental that religion 
 has in old times clothed itself in the earliest 
 forms of poetry, and in all ages has hallowed 
 those forms of art which most of all lay hold of 
 the masses of men. It is not accidental that in 
 our own days a religious revival, which desires 
 to claim all men and all society for God, should 
 at once have fostered, and have made use of, the 
 revival of Art. 
 
 Its function is not perhaps to meet the great 
 crises of life and the hardest strains of faith. 
 When unbelief coldly and sternly questions, and 
 when sin and sorrow assail us, then it is to the 
 reason, the conscience, the affection that w r e 
 appeal. But in the more peaceful times of life, 
 when the mind is free to muse and to contem- 
 
 4 See Mr. Stuart Mill's ''Essay on Theism." 
 
216 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 plate — when earthly beauty attracts and earthly 
 occupations engross — it has its appointed work. 
 That work is to turn the eyes upward to " be- 
 hold the King Himself in His beauty/' and to 
 light up this prosaic world with " the glory of 
 the land very far away." 
 
LECTURE TIL 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I. — THE RELATION OF THE LINES OF SPECULATIVE AND 
 MORAL THEOLOGY. 
 II. — THE WHOLLY DIFFERENT CHARACTER OF MORAL THEO- 
 LOGY. 
 
 (a) IN THE FIRST CONDITIONS OF THE INQUIRY. 
 
 (b) IN PROTEST AGAINST UNLIMITED SCEPTICISM. 
 III. — THE TWO ACTIONS OF CONSCIENCE — THE SYNTERESIS 
 
 AND SYNEIDESIS. 
 IV. — THE SYNTEEESIS (OR MORAL SENSE) OF RIGnT, DUTY 
 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 (a) THE EVIDENCE OF ITS EXISTENCE. 
 (6) THE METHOD OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. 
 V. — ITS "WITNESS TO GOD, THROUGH 
 
 (a) THE CONSIDERATION OF ITS ORIGIN. 
 (6) THE SCOPE OF ITS EXERCISE. 
 
 (c) THE BASIS OF ITS AUTHORITY. 
 
 VI. — THE SYNEIDESIS, OR PRACTICAL CONSCIENCE. 
 
 (a) ITS EDUCATION BY MAN, THROUGH LAW AND 
 
 TEACHING. 
 
 (b) THE EDUCATION BY GOD THROUGH MAN. 
 
 (c) THE EDUCATION BY GOD IN THE SOUL ITSELF. 
 VII.— THE MYSTERY OF EVIL. 
 
 (a) ITS POWER TO WEAKEN, BUT NOT TO DESTROY, 
 
 THE WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 (b) ITS BEARING ON THE NEED OF REVELATION. 
 
218 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 " They show the work of the law written in their hearts, 
 their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts 
 the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." — 
 Rom. ii. 15. 
 
 Our survey of the evidences of Natural 
 Theology has now completed the consideration 
 of one chief group. To the investigation by 
 pure intellect of the One First Cause, and of 
 the Foreseeing Creator, we have added the tes- 
 timony of the Imagination, first by its recog- 
 nition of beauty, and then by its inherent 
 tendency to idealize and to re-create the 
 beauty which it thus discovers — in the world of 
 life more than in inorganic matter — in the 
 world of mind more than in mere organic life — 
 to the existence of a Supreme Creative Mind. 
 Although the imagination proceeds by a wholly 
 different method — the method of swift intuition 
 rather than gradual reasoning, — and although, 
 far more than the pure intellect, it affects cer- 
 tainly the emotional, and perhaps the moral 
 element of our nature, nevertheless, in kind, the 
 Theology of the Imagination is cognate with the 
 Theology of the Intellect, and leads us to the 
 same general result. 
 
 I. What is that result ? It is substantially 
 the conclusion that "there is an intelligent 
 Author of Nature and natural Governor of the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 219 
 
 World/'' * which Butler assumes in his Analogy, 
 before he proceeds to what is really an argu- 
 ment of Moral Theology, examining " the 
 moral government/'' which implies the moral 
 nature, of God, and "the moral discipline/' 
 which equally implies the moral freedom and 
 responsibility, of man. The argument of ^Eti- 
 ology leads us irresistibly to some First Cause, 
 leaving us face to face with the great alternative 
 of Theism and Pantheism ; although, if we re- 
 
 1 He says of it in the Introduction to the " Analogy," 
 " It has been often proved by accumulated evidence ; 
 from this argument of Analogy and Final Causes ; from 
 abstract reasonings ; from the most ancient tradition and 
 testimony; and from the general consent of mankind." 
 These are clearly evidences of a different kind. The first 
 and second are abstract, probably "what we have called 
 Teleology and JEtiology; the other two are concrete, 
 simply embodying the fact of an universal belief in God, 
 without examining its grounds. Pearson, in his treatment 
 of Art. I. of the Apostles' Creed, bases the belief in God, 
 first, on the principle of Causation ; next, on the Evidence 
 of Design (in the course of which he anticipates Paley's 
 comparison of the watch) ; thirdly, on the "general con- 
 fession of all nations ; " fourthly, on the historical records 
 of Prophecy and Miracle, manifesting the Divine Action. 
 To these he adds the " particular remembrancer/' Con- 
 science in each man. On this classification the same re- 
 mark may be made as to the mixture of the abstract and 
 the concrete. I venture to think that the right order is to 
 start with the concrete, as a great fact, embodying the 
 verdict of humanity ; and then to investigate the abstract 
 considerations, on which that verdict is pronounced. 
 
220 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 cognise will as a true cause of action, the balance 
 inclines so considerably to the former, that 
 many have held this argument alone sufficient. 
 The argument of Teleology — all but primeval, 
 and, as I believe, unaffected in its essential 
 power by the most recent discoveries of Science 
 — in itself implying irrresistibly a First Cause, 
 adds to that inference so clear an indication of 
 a Creative Mind independent of its works, that, 
 by the confession alike of friends and foes, it 
 must, if admitted as real, decide the contest 
 unmistakably on the side of a true Theism. 
 In point of fact, I suppose it has been from time 
 immemorial the one chief intellectual evidence 
 of the being of a God, and of His attributes of 
 supreme wisdom and power. The argument 
 from the Imagination, still dealing with evidence 
 of purpose and design, connects it not with the 
 creation of usefulness, but with the creation of 
 beauty; and, thus approaching the Creative 
 Mind on another side, at once gives independent 
 testimony to His existence, and adds to His attri- 
 butes of power and wisdom, the attributes of 
 glory, beauty, majesty. It is no wonder that, 
 although less distinct than the line of Tele- 
 ology to the dry light of the understanding, this 
 witness of the imagination should have been in- 
 separably connected with all conceptions of re- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 221 
 
 ligion and forms of worship, which call out the 
 action not only of the mind, but of the con- 
 science and the heart. There is, even in these 
 lines of thought alone, a " threefold cord not 
 quickly broken/' Converging to one great re- 
 sult, they immeasurably strengthen one another. 
 We may well say with Butler that this result 
 is "proved by accumulated evidence." If, less 
 fortunate than he, we are not able to add that 
 it " does not appear to be denied by the gene- 
 rality" of the sceptics of our day, still we are 
 not afraid, in appealing to the common sense of 
 men (whenever they pass from the theories of 
 the Schools to the actual necessities of practical 
 life), to place the clear, solid, and definite con- 
 ception which it furnishes, face to face with the 
 vague Pantheistic theories, or the blankness of 
 Agnosticism, which are proposed to us as 
 substitutes for it. 
 
 II. But the line of argument, which in these 
 lectures I am attempting to work out, does not 
 allow me to acquiesce in this partial separation 
 of the group of intellectual evidences from that 
 moral group on which we are now to enter. I 
 accept willingly this combination of the con- 
 clusions of intellectual reasoning, as prepara- 
 tory to the further investigation in the moral 
 sphere. But I would urge that there should be 
 
-ZU.-Z THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 reciprocity. This latter investigation may be 
 undertaken independently; and, if so undertaken, 
 it throws back its light on the earlier conclu- 
 sions, and adds another, perhaps a still stronger, 
 strand to the cord, which draws us from 
 vague speculation or scepticism to a definite 
 recognition of a Personal God. In witnessing 
 to us what He is, it adds another ground for 
 the belief that He is actually ; in disclosing His 
 moral nature, it implies more forcibly than ever 
 the true personality, to which alone such a 
 nature can be without absurdity attributed. It 
 would be (I conceive) wrong to examine and to 
 determine the cogency of the intellectual lines 
 of Natural Theology, without allowing for this 
 confirmation from the new moral ground. 
 Hitherto our lines of thought have been closely 
 interwoven w T ith each other. Their mutual 
 confirmation is that of witnesses, whose general 
 line of evidence is the same, although all 
 bear it independently, and each has its own 
 peculiarities of detail. Now we call our wit- 
 nesses from a wholly different line of evidence. 
 If we gain from them any confirmation of what 
 has gone before, it is the confirmation of a testi- 
 mony absolutely independent of the other, not 
 only in detail, but in principle. 
 
 For we pass now from the region of the in- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 223 
 
 tellect, or Ci Speculative Reason/' to the moral 
 ground of the "Practical Reason." Both the 
 lines of Theology which we have to consider — 
 the Theology of the Conscience, and the Theology 
 of the Affections — occupy this moral ground. 
 They stand in the same kind of relation to each 
 other as the theology of the intellect and the 
 theology of the imagination ; their tone (that 
 is) and methods are different, but their result is 
 substantially one. Both conscience and affection 
 pronounce the " categorical imperative/' with 
 which modern philosophy has made us familiar. 
 (a) Let us consider at the outset the funda- 
 mental difference in the question which now 
 presents itself to us. The intellect, in contem- 
 plating any object, is conscious, indeed, of itself 
 and of the object ; but it does not necessarily 
 recognise any connexion or relation between the 
 two. Truth shines like a star from heaven ; the 
 eye may gaze upon it from its solitary watch- 
 tower on earth. If it so gaze and discover, 
 well ; if it close itself agamst the light, no tie 
 is broken. The light shines on undimmed; our 
 intellectual vision has, indeed, lost an oppor- 
 tunity of strengthening its insight, but it re- 
 mains unimpaired. But besides this, we see 
 that to the intellect the object contemplated 
 may be a person or a thing, or even an abstract 
 
2'24> THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIEXCE. 
 
 principle, having no concrete reality. Since 
 there is no tie between us and it, its nature may 
 be wholly unlike our own. Hence, while the 
 intellect discerns some creative power, that 
 power may be a physical force, and not a living 
 person ; or, if a person, still one as absolutely 
 removed from us as the gods of Epicurus, too 
 far off or too great to care whether we recognise 
 and serve Him or not. 
 
 But with the Conscience or Moral Sense it is 
 not so. If it leads to the recognition of any 
 object, that object must have necessary moral 
 relations to us ; else Conscience has as little to do 
 with it, as it could have to do with the supposed 
 inhabitants of another planetary world. That 
 object must be a Personal Object ; for to talk of 
 the moral recognition of a Force or a For- 
 mula of Regularity, is simply absurd. That 
 object must have a moral nature ; for all moral 
 obligations are reciprocal, and even to a Supreme 
 Intelligence, if absolutely heartless, no duty on 
 our side could attach. 
 
 In the case, therefore, of the moral lines of 
 Natural Theology, the very first conditions of 
 our inquiry are different. With the Intellect 
 the recognition of some Supreme Power is all 
 but axiomatic; the one question is, What 
 is its nature ? With the Conscience the one 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 225 
 
 question is whether it recognises the Supreme 
 Power at all ; if it does, the nature of that 
 Supreme Power follows as a thing of course. It 
 is possible that our moral sense may regard only 
 our own self and our fellow-men, knowing no- 
 thing of the Supreme Power. But if this is not 
 so, if Conscience bear any witness at all of 
 the Supreme Power, that Power must have a 
 personal being, a relation to us, and a moral 
 nature. The point, therefore, which is ultimate 
 in the investigations of the intellect, is the very 
 starting-point in the testimony of the Conscience; 
 and from that starting-point this testimony 
 unfolds the idea of righteousness and goodness 
 in God, which is but faintly indicated in the 
 earlier investigations. 
 
 (Jj) I may add, moreover, that it is this line 
 of Natural Theology, which protests most 
 forcibly against a lifelong scepticism, or a con- 
 tented Agnosticism. So long" as the under- 
 standing alone is concerned, these mental posi- 
 tions may be defended, though it is hard to 
 conceive how men can glory in them. But if the 
 moral sense testifies of even the probability of 
 any moral relations between us and God, then 
 it is bound by its very nature to be impatient, 
 till these relations are examined, known, and 
 acted upon. It cannot treat it as an open 
 
226 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 question, whether we have, or have not, a King*, 
 a Father, a Saviour. The unlimited suspension 
 of belief, to an intellectual student far from in- 
 tolerable, becomes to the servant of duty, almost 
 as distasteful as misdirection of belief itself. 2 
 
 III. The great question then is, Does the 
 Conscience realty lead us to God ? To answer it, 
 let us first ask, " What is the action or actions 
 of Conscience itself?" This Conscience is a 
 practical Reason. What are the principles 
 which, as reason, it recognises ? What are its 
 deductions which by reasoning it draws from 
 them ? 
 
 The text places the subject very clearly before 
 us. There is (says St. Paul) the " work of the 
 Law," that is, the substance of Moral Truth, 
 
 2 This is the point so gravely and frequently dwelt upon 
 by Butler. The duty of examining and acting upon even 
 imperfect evidence, and the fact that in some cases the 
 performance of this duty under difficulties may be our 
 chief moral probation, are urged by him in his "Analogy" 
 (part ii. chap, vi.), in a chapter which has a peculiar force 
 and interest, as apparently describing his own spiritual 
 experience. Hence the paradox, referred to by Dr. New- 
 man in his " Grammar of Assent," that where only two 
 modes of alternative action are possible, the practical 
 decision may be the same, whether on demonstrative or 
 probable evidence, whether on a high or a low probability. 
 The difference will lie in the amount of enthusiasm we can 
 throw into our actioD, and the amount of sacrifice we are 
 ready to make for it. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 227 
 
 " written on the heart/''. First, " the Conscience 
 bears witness to it/" that it exists ; next, in 
 regard to special actions "the reasoning's of 
 men (Xoyia/^ol) accuse or excuse one another," 
 according as such actions agree or disagree with 
 it. These two actions of Conscience in man are 
 clearly distinct, though perhaps all but insepar- 
 able. 3 Our older Moralists called them by 
 different names. The recognition of moral prin- 
 ciples they named the ^wnqprjai^ (or " Moral 
 Sense"), and the application of those principles 
 the Sweden? (or " Practical Conscience"). Call 
 them by what names we will, we must be careful 
 to distinguish them from each other. The former 
 is of the nature of a " form of thought " in the 
 moral sphere, existing in capacity in the mind, 
 but worked out into actual energy, and by the 
 very process defined, through practical experience. 
 It stands to the deductions from it, as an axiom 
 to the propositions of Geometry, or (perhaps 
 
 3 See, for example, Sanderson, " De Obligatione Con- 
 scientige" (Prselectio I. 12), a book too little known and 
 studied; for, although too scholastic in form for modern 
 tastes, it is marked by singular accuracy and vigour. So 
 Jeremy Taylor, " Ductor Dubitantium " (book i. chap. i. 
 sect. 24), "The ffvvrrjprjais, or the first act of Conscience 
 St. Hierome calls scintillam conscientice, the spark or fire 
 put into the heart of man. The <rvuei8ri<Tts, which is specifi- 
 cally called conscience of the deed done, is the bringing 
 fuel to the fire." 
 
 Q2 
 
228 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 more properly) as a physical Law to the 
 consequences, theoretical or practical, derived 
 from it by Inductive Science. On careful dis- 
 tinction between the two depends all clearness 
 of thought on this subject. 
 
 IV. Let us examine first — what in this 
 argument concerns us most — the former action 
 of Conscience. What is the substance of Moral 
 Truth which it recognises ? 
 
 I answer, Right, Duty, Retribution. First, 
 the eternal existence of right and wrong in the 
 world of humanity ; next, the inherent obligation 
 in man, to choose the one and reject the other; 
 thirdly the belief in a Retribution, by which 
 obedience to this law or obligation is enforced, 
 and which has in it something more than mere 
 physical consequence. It does not concern us 
 to inquire how these fundamental ideas are 
 acquired. We need not examine any theoiy of 
 their development in man from the social 
 instincts of the brute creation, or of their 
 acquisition in full-grown humanity from the 
 inherited traditions of the results of an earlier 
 experience. We need not ask how far they may 
 be held to be innate in every man, and how far 
 impressed upon him by the teaching and tra- 
 dition of the race; or investigate their con- 
 nexion with the intellect on the one side, and 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 229 
 
 the emotions on the other. All these questions 
 are full of the profoundest interest. But they 
 do not touch our present consideration. It is 
 enough for us to hold that, as a matter of fact, 
 these three fundamental conceptions of Right, 
 of Duty, and of Retribution are recognised 
 necessarily by the Conscience of man as 
 man. 
 
 (a) If it be asked why we hold this, the 
 appeal can only be made in answer, as St. Paul 
 makes it, to the consciousness of man. I am 
 not afraid to ask you, stranger as I am to your 
 life and thought, to look into your own hearts. 
 Can you get rid, if } t ou will, of these three 
 conceptions ? Whether you contemplate your 
 life as a whole, or consider any individual action, 
 which presents itself to you to-day, can you 
 help believing that in all actions there is a 
 Right — that if you can see it, you are by the 
 very knowledge bound to follow it — that, if you 
 do follow it, it will be well, and if you do not 
 follow it, it will be ill with you? Few men, I 
 firmly believe,ever fail to grasp these simple ideas, 
 unless indeed, they have bewildered their minds, 
 by confusion between " the witness of the con- 
 science " to those ideas themselves, and the subtle 
 and complicated inferences, drawn from them by 
 " the reasonings of men/'' 
 
230 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 But if any individual mind does deny such 
 witness in itself, what shall we do ? Why not 
 do in this case what we do in all other cases of 
 perverse idiosyncrasy, 4 — appeal from the in- 
 dividual to the race? In the region of sense, 
 if a man is colour-blind, or if his ear cannot 
 distinguish one musical note from another, we 
 do not on that account believe that mankind is 
 wrong .in acknowledging the rich variety of 
 colours, and the distinctive beauty of different 
 musical sounds. In the region of intellect, if 
 a man is so unfortunate as to be unable to see 
 the cogency of mathematical or logical reasoning, 
 to appreciate the evidence of Inductive science, 
 or to feel the loveliness of Art, we do not on 
 that account hold Logic, Science, Art, to be 
 
 4 There is a close analogy between the intellectual and 
 moral capacities of man. In both there are such things 
 as dullness, perversion, imbecility. Nor does it seem 
 doubtful that frequently defect or excellence in the one 
 bears upon defect or excellence in the other. To tell " the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth," for example, de- 
 mands the union of intellectual and moral powers. The 
 Scriptural conception of a " reprobate mind," which calls 
 evil good and good evil, and has lost all faculty of moral 
 distinction, is verified, so far as human experience can 
 verify it, every day. How far it is inborn or acquired, the 
 consequence of inherited evil or of actual sin, it is often 
 hard to say. But, in any case, it is as " monstrous " in- 
 tellectual madness or imbecility. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 231 
 
 simple delusions. We appeal from individual 
 Vagary to what we call the common sense of 
 mankind. So in the moral sphere, we may turn 
 boldly to the testimony of the race., written 
 broadly on the languages, the laws, the institu- 
 tions, and the religions of the worid. If the 
 three principles of Right, Duty, Retribution, 
 are not true and dominant principles, then 
 all languages, which are full of the expression 
 of them, just in proportion to their own linguistic 
 excellence, must be rewritten ; all our systems 
 of Law, invariably professing to expound them, 
 must be reconstructed ; every society — whether 
 family, or nation, or commonwealth of nations — 
 living as it does mainly by moral conceptions, 
 must find new principles of social life ; all 
 religions, involving in different degrees those 
 moral principles, must, be pronounced simple 
 delusions. Securus judicat orbis terrarum ; all 
 these expressions of its judgment must surely 
 be sufficient evidence of the " substance of the 
 Law/' recognised by the consciousness of man. 
 
 (I/) If we ask how that consciousness forms 
 itself into definiteness, the answer will be, as in 
 all other cases, by looking within and by 
 looking without. 
 
 We look within ; in the determining forces of 
 our life, we recognise the influence of physical 
 
232 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 forces and of human agencies upon us ; we re- 
 cognise the force of our own free will, seeking* 
 our own happiness; but we find another real 
 and effective power — distinct from all physical 
 influence, limiting the will, claiming not onJy 
 power but authority — in the acknowledgment 
 of Right and Duty. 5 We look to the great 
 world without, and we trace the same powers at 
 work. Even in the action of the great physical 
 forces, men have been driven irresistibly to 
 endeavour to trace Moral Government, holding 
 this or that natural phenomenon to be a blessing 
 or a judgment. But — putting this reasoning 
 aside, not as necessarily false, but as beyond 
 our power . to prove whether it be false or 
 true 6 — we have learnt to turn to the world of 
 Humanity. In that world — with whatever 
 
 s This is Butler's argument in his second and third 
 " Sermons on Human Nature." 
 
 6 This is surely the position assigned to it by our Lord 
 in the oft-quoted passage (Luke xiii. 1 — 5). He does Dot 
 say that in the disposal of physical events there is no 
 moral judgment ; on the contrary, He seems to imply that 
 there is, by the very words " Except ye repent, ye shall all 
 likewise perish." But He rebukes the unauthorized and 
 ignorant claim to know and to reason upon supposed 
 especial instances of such judgments, without that pro- 
 phetic insight which (as in the Old Testament history or 
 prophecy) alone can sustain this claim. The rebuke is 
 substantially the same as the condemnation of the three 
 friends in the Book of Job. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. Ho- 
 
 imperfections and perversions — it is as certain 
 that the sense of Duty and the expectation of 
 Retribution are great moving 1 and effective 
 powers, as that the sun shines, or that man 
 breathes. There is (as Butler urges forcibly) 
 a moral government visible in the necessary 
 action of human society/ both for its own pre- 
 servation and on simple moral grounds. It has 
 its conflicts with physical force and human 
 selfishness : but in that conflict it never quails 
 or gives place, and it shows tendency towards 
 a completer victory in the future. Men (I ven- 
 ture to repeat) could hardly have felt doubt of 
 this, if they had not confused — what St. Paul in 
 the text and our old moralists kept so carefully 
 apart— the witness to the sacredness of these 
 principles of Right, and the application of them 
 by reasonings of men to the actual circum- 
 stances and actions of life. In that application 
 there is no doubt a very large variety ; what is 
 praised in one age is denounced in another ; 
 what we call virtues in civilization are branded as 
 vices in savage life; what one thoughtful, earnest 
 
 7 See the " Analogy," part i. chap. iii. This argument 
 is clearly supplementary to the argument of his Sermons, 
 passing from the internal to the external sphere, and in 
 both (in accordance with the spirit of his age), proceeding 
 inductive'ly, from the observation of facts to the inference 
 of laws from them. 
 
234 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 man fights for as right, some other equally earnest 
 will stoutly resist as wrong. By vivid repre- 
 sentation, and by not unfrequent exaggeration, 
 of these discrepancies, men have bewildered 
 themselves upon a question which is wholly un- 
 touched by them. For obviously, in spite of all 
 these discrepancies, and as the very watchword of 
 all these conflicts, there remains the idea that 
 there is a Right if we can but find it, and that this 
 Right we must follow. If men ask with Pilate, 
 " What is truth ?'■' the very question, unless it 
 be a mere sarcasm, implies that Truth is. If the 
 world wearies itself in the inquiry, " Is this act 
 right or is it wrong ? " the very strife implies 
 that there is an eternal difference between Rig-lit 
 and Wrong, and that to act on that difference is 
 the very life of our life. The reality of this dif- 
 ficulty of application of Right has an important 
 bearing on the need and probability of Revela- 
 tion. But in what we are now considering we 
 have to do, not with it, but simply with the 
 universal and necessary recognition of the three 
 great Truths — of Right, of Duty, of Retribution. 
 It is of this recognition that we ask, " Does it, 
 or does it not, lead to God ? " 
 
 V. If that question be asked as to the matter 
 of fact, I suppose that, from a historical 
 point of view, there can be no doubt of the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 235 
 
 answer. The recognition of the supremacy 
 of Right and the obligation of Duty, has 
 been undoubtedly connected in the mind of 
 mankind at large with the belief in a Personal 
 God. Whenever Religion has been divorced 
 from Morality, it has been degraded and 
 smitten with death ; whenever Morality has re- 
 fused all connexion with Religion, it has failed 
 to assert itself against the power of physical 
 force and human selfishness. Not perhaps 
 more really, but certainly more plainly still, the 
 belief in a Retribution of Reward and Punish- 
 ment is inseparably connected with belief in 
 God. For Retribution can only come from a 
 Person ; and the retribution experienced at the 
 hands of men is clearly imperfect, even when 
 it is not perverted. The belief, therefore, in "a 
 Judge of the whole world " has been its inevit- 
 able corollary in fact. Whatever the consensus 
 of all ages and countries is worth, it can most 
 certainly be pleaded here. 
 
 But ought these things so to be? Is this 
 consensus a superstition already half-obsolete, or 
 does it represent a true law of thought ? To 
 answer this question aright, it is necessary to 
 consider the origin of the moral sense in man, the 
 scope of its action, and the basis of its authority. 
 
 (a.) First, as to the origin of the Moral 
 
23 G THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Sense of man. It must, of course, come from 
 the original Creative and Supreme Power, 
 whatever that may be. But no one who recog- 
 nises the moral element in man as something 
 superior to all physical force, and distinct from 
 the speculative reason, can accept any theory of 
 its derivation from an original Power, either 
 merely physical or even merely intellectual. 
 Kant was surely right when, in a passage often 
 quoted, he dwelt on the wonder of the starlit 
 heavens (that is, of the Physical Universe) as 
 distinct from, and at most co-ordinate with, 
 the wonder of the moral nature of man. Un- 
 less man be himself a god, self-created, self- 
 developed from some eternal indwelling life, the 
 existence of the moral nature in man, the sub- 
 servience of even his physical constitution to 
 moral ends, the distinctness of the practical from 
 the speculative reason, must argue a Moral 
 Creator. Under the power of such a Creator we 
 may understand how man's moral nature, like 
 his reason, may be a supreme development from 
 rudimentary brute instincts, or the result of long 
 inherited experience, both in the individual and 
 in the race. But without such a Creator these 
 theories of the genesis of the moral sense have no 
 substantial meaning. Whatever is in the effect 
 must be in the cause. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 237 
 
 I may remark that it is on the consciousness 
 of will in us, acting* under the sense of duty 
 and responsibility, often against forces able to 
 crush us in a moment, and against all the 
 motives which other men can bring* to bear 
 upon us, that the most vivid sense of our true 
 personality depends. The " Cogito ergo sum " 
 is felt, if not more truly at least more imme- 
 diately, in respect of the practical than of the 
 speculative reason. 8 Hence it is that (as I have 
 already hinted) it is by Moral Theology that 
 the most trenchant decision is given against the 
 theory of Pantheism, which must ultimately 
 deny all true individual personality. But it 
 does more than this. It will not allow us to re- 
 cognise even a Personal God, unless He be a 
 true and perfect Moral Being. The celebrated 
 saying of a philosopher of our day, 9 that not 
 even '"''the certain looking for the fiery indigna- 
 tion " of Hell should induce him to worship a 
 Being not perfectly good, is — whatever its tone 
 and application — in itself the expression of a 
 
 8 Whichcote expressed this tersely. " ' I act, therefore I 
 am,' was the memorable sentence in which, he echoed and 
 answered the memorable sentence of Descartes." I quote 
 from Professor Westcott's admirable Lecture in " Masters 
 in Theology" (Murray, 1877). 
 
 9 Mr. John Stuart Mill. 
 
238 THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 right moral theology. It is, after all, but a 
 variation of the old question, " Shall not the 
 Judge and Ruler of the whole earth do right ? " 
 Probably it is in this conviction that a Moral 
 Sense implies a Moral Creator, that the first and 
 simplest witness of conscience to God is found. 
 
 (b.) But we pass from the past to the present, 
 from the origin to the daily action of that Moral 
 Sense. What is its scope ? "We recognise by 
 reason the little world of self within, the great 
 world of things and persons without, and some 
 Higher Power by which both came to be. Has 
 the moral sense relation to some only of these, 
 or to all ? 
 
 Now, in the first place, the great principles of 
 the Conscience have a practical relation to the 
 little world within. There are, I cannot doubt, 
 laws of Conscience, which in their perception of 
 Right, in their sense of Duty, in their foresight 
 of Retribution, are self-regarding. 1 The law of 
 
 1 To say that " virtue is unselfishness " is at best a 
 rough and imperfect definition ; and the theory of what has 
 been called " Altruism " in the " Keligion of Humanity," 
 if it be considered as exhaustive, is contradictory to human 
 nature. The Scriptural command " to love our neighbour 
 as ourselves " recognises self-love, and therefore duty to 
 self, as natural ; while, in accordance with what is practi- 
 cally most necessary, it lays chief stress on love and duty 
 to others. Under the impulse of any great enthusiasm 
 these self-regarding virtues sink into abeyance j but they 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 289 
 
 Temperance, restraining" the animal part of our 
 nature ; the law of Purity, cognate to it, wit- 
 nessed to by the instinctive sense of shame ; the 
 law of Manliness, by which I understand the 
 resolution to assert our own freedom and claim our 
 own sphere of action in life ; the law of Energy, 
 or Work, delighting in the exercise of our powers, 
 whether to think or to do — all belong either 
 solely or primarily to the inner individual life, 
 and are, in fact, means of its growth to per- 
 fection. Even if they are exemplified in actions 
 affecting our fellow-men, still (as we see in the 
 spirit of Chivalry, and what men call the sense 
 of honour,) they are primarily self-regarding; 
 they bid men not stoop to what degrades 
 themselves, but act " for very nobleness." If we 
 were altogether removed from human contact, 
 lost on a desert island, or self-condemned to the 
 loneliness of a hermitage, still, although they 
 would be not improbably maimed or stunted in 
 their development by this unnatural life, they 
 would exist. The mind itself is their kingdom. 
 
 reassert themselves in the quieter course of ordinary life. 
 If in the New Testament they are seldom enforced in them- 
 selves — if even the duty of temperance and purity is based 
 on a higher principle — this is because in the morality 
 of that time there was a tendency to exaggerate them, 
 which needed to be checked rather than stimulated. But 
 they naturally found their right place in the actual develop- 
 ment of Christian morality and life. 
 
240 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 But certainly this sphere of the dominion of 
 conscience is comparatively narrow. The sphere 
 of its fuller exercise is in the outer world. I may 
 add that probably this self- regarding Morality 
 is far less instinctive and original. We begin 
 with a sense of duty to the world without us ; • 
 and so, by that curious power of reflection which 
 recognises self as having an objective being, we 
 pass on to the duty to ourselves. Now, when we 
 speak of the outer world in this sense, we, of 
 course, exclude at once the inanimate world of 
 things. To talk of any law of Conscience in 
 relation to the physical forces of Nature, or to 
 the inanimate world itself (unless it be looked 
 upon as subserving some personal relations), 
 would be a sheer absurdity. We see at once 
 1hat Duty properly belongs to our relations to 
 Persons. 
 
 No doubt we feel some duty to beings having: 
 even a faint shadow of Personality, such as the 
 brute creatures, especially those domesticated to 
 our service, and developed in nature by inter- 
 course with man. Yet towards them our ideas 
 of duty are but secondary, and constantly mingled 
 with the consciousness of a duty to God. We 
 seldom separate them from Him who made them. 
 What we call " humanity" towards them has 
 been wonderfully interwoven with, and inspired 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 241 
 
 by, the belief that they are also " God's creatures/' 
 and that " He made and loves them all." 
 
 Properly, therefore, I repeat, the categorical 
 Imperative of the law of Conscience applies 
 only to our relation to Persons. It has two 
 great Laws of Righteousness and Love; and 
 both, in different degrees, pre -suppose in those to 
 whom they are exercised, certain natural relations 
 to us. Where these relations do not exist, as where 
 the rights of personality in individuals are held 
 in abeyance by insanity or utter wickedness, or 
 where the true relations of humanity at large 
 are broken off by the unnatural and monstrous 
 condition of war, these principles cease prac- 
 tically to influence our conduct. Where the re- 
 lations to any special person are closer and more 
 natural than to another, there the power of this 
 twofold duty is intensified, and, in the event of 
 necessary conflict, has a right to claim predomi- 
 nance. The sense of Duty is, in fact, a realiza- 
 tion of human relations ; it is an acknowledg- 
 ment that man's nature is not purely individual, 
 and that, although we die alone, and in some 
 sense live alone, yet (i no man liveth or dieth to 
 himself." 
 
 But it is clear that man's life cannot be 
 regarded as confined only to these two relations 
 to self and to man. There is some Power in the 
 
 R 
 
242 THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 world, and over the world, greater than either. 
 Can it be that the moral nature of man, his 
 highest and most essential characteristic, shall 
 practically cease to be in his relation to that 
 Supreme Power ? Certain it is that its capa- 
 cities are not fully satisfied in the relation to 
 self and to man. " Self- reverence, self-know- 
 ledge, self distrust," is a true description of the 
 inner life of the soul. A full self-knowledge 
 cannot satisfy itself without both the feelings 
 between which it is here placed ; and " Self-dis- 
 trust " is rightly placed as the climax ; the soul 
 looks out of itself for the perfection of its moral 
 life. Nor are the moral capacities of our nature 
 fully satisfied by the addition of the principles of 
 righteousness and love, so far as the} r belong to 
 brotherhood, and therefore imply equality and 
 reciprocation. There is, if I may so express 
 it, a large reserve of moral sense yet un- 
 touched, which implies — what self-distrust cries 
 out for — the relation of inferiority towards a 
 superior Being. It has its expression in re- 
 verence, loyalty, trust — qualities quite as natural, 
 quite as ineradicable, as the self-assertion of man- 
 liness or the righteousness of brotherhood. So 
 essential are they to the perfection of our nature, 
 that the craving for them, if it cannot find its 
 right outlet, manifests itself every day in morbid 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE COXSCIEXCE. 243 
 
 and unreasonable developments. Without some 
 right direction for these elements of our moral 
 nature, our moral life is imperfect. But this is not 
 all ; it is also fall of internal contradiction and 
 conflict. The duty to self, and the duty to our 
 fellow-men as brothers, cannot indeed be really 
 inconsistent ; but yet very often they cannot be 
 reconciled, except in the light of some superior 
 principle harmonizing both. It is not only in 
 the religious life that men are perplexed how- 
 to " save their own souls " by seeking individual 
 perfection, and yet to "save the souls of others/' 
 by contributing theirs hare to the higher life of 
 humanity. If Liberty in the individual life, and 
 Fraternity in the corporate life, be considered in 
 themselves and by themselves, on the hypo- 
 thesis of simple Equality, all history shows them 
 to be hardly capable of any perfect harmony. 
 
 The soul then ought to be able to develope that 
 side of moral life which belongs to the relation 
 to a superior Being. Where shall it find the 
 opportunity ? Towards individuals, no doubt, in 
 their measure and degree — to the Father, the 
 Teacher, the Buler. But it is only in degree. If 
 we lose the conception of limitation, we have 
 practically to deify the man in whom we place 
 unlimited trust ; and then life is a series of 
 alternate idolatry and iconoclasm. But can we 
 B 2 
 
244 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 be satisfied with humanity at large, at the bidding* 
 of modern philosophy ? The idea is perhaps 
 more tolerable and more plausible, than the idea 
 of worshipping" either self or an individual man. 
 Yet it will not bear any thoughtful consi- 
 deration. For, in the first place, the conception 
 of humanity at large is far too abstract and 
 vague, and our relation to it far too distant. 
 Duty to humanity, accordingly, is mostly su- 
 perseded by duty to the actual society, of the 
 family, the class, or the nation, to which we 
 belong; for this is at least tangible in itself, 
 and practical in the actions to which it leads. 
 But, although an absolute worship has been from 
 time to time paid to these narrower societies, 
 yet in theory it is seen, and in practice found, 
 to be an idolatry, worshipping a defective 
 object, fierce and intolerant to those beyond the 
 pale. In the next place, it seems to be for- 
 gotten that, if by generalization we magnify 
 the good of human nature, we magnify equally 
 the evil. In some points it has become pro- 
 verbial that public opinion is shallower and 
 more unjust, public action more shameless, more 
 pitiless, more inconsistent, than the thought and 
 action of the individuals who make up the 
 society. In any case, humanity at large, like 
 humanity in the individual, is a deity, full 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 245 
 
 of monstrosities and defects, incapable of claim- 
 ing- any absolute worship. Lastly, even were 
 this not so, to multiply what is finite will not 
 make the Infinite. Yet nothing which is finite 
 can possibly claim the whole heart; there will 
 always be a reserve of individuality, which it 
 cannot touch. The religion of humanity, if 
 it rise to a Christ, who is at once Man and 
 God, is intelligible; without the Christ it is 
 but a plausible idolatry. 
 
 What, therefore, can be more natural and 
 irresistible than that inference — which, as I have 
 said, men have always actually drawn, — re- 
 cognising in this moral need the witness of a 
 true relation to the Supreme Power over the 
 world. By that recognition the Moral Nature 
 of man finds at once the complement, and the 
 principle of harmony, of the other two great 
 modes of its action. Individuality and Brother- 
 hood are both realized under the conception of 
 a Fatherhood in God. But we observe that, the 
 moment this recognition is accepted, all doubts 
 as to the Nature of the First Cause, and 
 all conceptions of a mere Anima mundi are scat- 
 tered to the winds. The witness of Conscience, if 
 it be relevant at all, is to a true Personal Governor 
 of the world — One, who is Himself a Moral 
 Being, and in whom what we know as Purity 
 
246 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 and Righteousness and Love have their perfec- 
 tion — One, therefore, whose government is 
 essentially Moral. What the understanding 
 by much reasoning concluded, the Conscience 
 realizes with instinctive certainty. 
 
 (c.) But we must go further still. To the 
 witness to God from the origin and scope of 
 action of the Moral Sense, we must add what is 
 a distinct, and, perhaps, a plainer and more 
 intelligible witness still — the consideration of 
 the basis of Morality itself. 
 
 I have spoken of the power of Conscience only 
 as one of the powers which actually rule 
 Humanity, side by side with physical force, 
 with the dominion of man, with the selfishness 
 of merely individual will. So far the simplest 
 observation can lead us. But this is, as we 
 know, far below what Conscience claims. It 
 has (as Butler puts it) " authority as well as 
 power. - " The actual strength of appetite, driv- 
 ing the will to physical gratification, may be 
 great — so great as to rule the soul like a de- 
 moniacal possession. The passions of love and 
 hatred, hope and fear, may sweep over the waters 
 of the soul like a strong and steady wind, or like 
 the sudden irresistible gusts of a hurricane. 
 The power of men over us, acting either by com- 
 pulsion or by persuasion, by individual ascend- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 247 
 
 ancy, or by the spirit of the age, is always a 
 considerable/ and is frequently a tyrannical 
 power. But the still small voice of Conscience 
 is recognised as entirely unlike these, not in 
 degree, but in kind. They can at most say 
 " You must." Conscience alone can take up 
 the higher language of "You ought." Now 
 what is the basis of such authority ? As a rule 
 we hardly question its reality in theory, even if 
 we disobey it in practice. But if it be asked, 
 " Why should I obey Conscience rather than 
 appetite or passion, the voice of man or the 
 dictates of self-love ? " — some answer must be 
 given ; and I firmly believe that no answer can 
 be given, which is satisfactory and complete, 
 excepting the old answer, " Because Conscience 
 is the Voice of God." 
 
 Glance for a moment at the teaching of the 
 two great Schools of simple Moralists on this all- 
 important subject. 
 
 There is the School of the Intuitionists, which 
 boldly says, " The Voice of Conscience carries 
 its own witness with it. Its authority is a 
 fundamental law of your nature, recognised, as 
 the eye recognises light, or the intellect accepts 
 a mathematical axiom." 
 
 The answer (I cannot doubt) has a grand truth 
 in it, but it is obviously an imperfect answer. 
 
248 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I cannot, indeed, think that it is open to the 
 simple denial which some give it. A man may 
 say" I personally cannot recognise such authority. 
 To me it is non-existent. Even were it other- 
 wise, I should not be satisfied with a merely in- 
 dividual judgment, which might be a delusion. 
 I ask for a general answer, aprjlying not to you 
 or to me, but to the whole race of man." But 
 to this objection a not unsatisfactory reply may 
 be given (as I have already suggested 2 ) by an 
 appeal from the individual to the collective witness 
 of humanity, as embodied in the languages and 
 institutions of the world. Still the answer, 
 though right so far as it goes, must be confessed 
 to be imperfect. At best, it does but say this 
 Moral Supremacy is a law of the individual 
 nature. The question still remains " Whence 
 comes that law, and what does the existence of 
 such a law imply ?" 
 
 Turn then to the rival School of Utilitarianism, 
 and hear its answer, " Obey Conscience, because 
 such obedience will produce Happiness.'" In 
 olden days that answer took a selfish form, and 
 Happiness then meant the individual happiness 
 of the doer. In our own days it has assumed a 
 nobler and a grander phase. Happiness now 
 means the happiness of the race. As a prac- 
 2 Sec pp. 229—231. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 249 
 
 tical rule, perhaps, it has purchased this noble- 
 ness at the expense of some vagueness and 
 difficulty of conception, and of the necessary ex- 
 clusion of any life beyond the grave. But we 
 are concerned now with the answer in general. 
 Of it, again, we must say unhesitatingly, that, 
 while it must be acknowledged as containing 
 truth, it is manifestly an imperfect answer. For 
 what does it mean ? It means simply that the 
 law, whatever it is, which guides the outward 
 circumstances of the world, is in accord with 
 the law of our individual moral nature. "Why it 
 is so in accord, and what such accordance must 
 imply, it cannot tell. 
 
 I have spoken here simply of the theoretic 
 imperfection of these answers. But it ought to 
 be added that, in respect of practical efficiency, 
 that imperfection is more marked still. The 
 appeal to individual intuition — how hard it is 
 to maintain it, in the face of the consciousness 
 of our own fallibility, when strong temptation 
 assails the soul, or when the voice of men 
 bids us follow the multitude ! The appeal 
 to the hope of happiness, if it be our 
 own individual happiness, can hardly fail to 
 lower the moral tone and impair the noble 
 simplicity of Conscience ; if it be the happiness 
 of the race, how utterly vague, shadowy, uncer- 
 
250 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 tain, . it seems, in the presence of nearer and 
 more vivid motives ! 
 
 But let us put this aside, and look at the answer 
 simply in theory. We must see that each goes 
 but a little way, and suggests an answer more 
 ultimate than itself. 
 
 The conception of an inherent law in man's 
 nature undoubtedly means a manifestation in 
 man's nature of the working of the Supreme 
 Power, which brought man into being. Think 
 what this means. As the existence of the Moral 
 Sense points (as w r e have seen) to a Moral 
 Creator, so its authority, as the dominant force in 
 our nature, argues certainly that the purpose of 
 Creation was predominantly moral ; and can 
 hardly fail to lead to the further inference, that 
 among the Attributes of His Nature, so far as 
 we can understand them, the Moral Attributes 
 of Righteousness, Love, Holiness, are supreme. 
 To say that the Supremacy of Conscience is an 
 inherent law of Man's Being is simply to say 
 that the Moral Sense is the highest expression 
 in us of the Will of the Supreme Creator. It 
 infers necessarily the existence of a God, who is 
 above all things a Righteous God. 
 
 But take the answer of the Utilitarian in 
 either phase. What is it, after all, except a 
 partial and vague expression of the old belief 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 251 
 
 in a .Retribution, a Moral Government of 
 God ? It is difficult to know why we should 
 stop half-way in the natural inference, and in 
 the name of philosophy substitute for the old 
 language, which at least is intelligible, the 
 profession of belief in an " Eternal Something, 
 not ourselves, which makes for Righteousness/'' 
 For no mere thing — no impersonal Law or 
 physical Force — can " make for/' that is, can 
 sustain and provide for, the power which most 
 distinctly implies personality, in the being who 
 exercises it, and in the beings toward whom it 
 is exercised. Hence, to say that obedience to 
 the Moral Law leads to happiness is ultimately 
 to say that there is over the world the sove- 
 reignty of a Personal Being, whose Will is the 
 righteousness of His creatures, and whose 
 government is directed to the working out of 
 righteousness in them. 
 
 The more we use plain words, and go to the 
 root of the matter, the more we shall find that 
 of the two answers of the Intuitionist and 
 Utilitarian Schools, neither excludes the other, 
 because neither contains the whole truth. 
 Both really meet in the Faith, which finds the 
 basis of the authority of Conscience in the Will 
 of a Righteous God, at once impressed on our 
 individual nature, and worked out in the history 
 
2o2 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 of the "World. The answer of the Intuitionist 
 carries on the inference already drawn from the 
 existence of the moral sense in us ; the answer 
 of the Utilitarian harmonizes with the view 
 which we have been led to take of the full scope 
 of its action ; and both these lead us to God. 
 
 Nor ought it to be altogether omitted that this 
 theory of a basis of the authority of Conscience 
 in the Will and Nature of God is a theory, 
 wdiich, unlike the others taken alone, will work. 
 It comes home to the simplest instincts of the 
 child, as it certainly satisfies the philosophic 
 craving for what is general and absolute. It 
 appeals to the reason in its calmest thoughtful- 
 ness ; yet it can curb the wildest excitement of 
 passion. Effectiveness undoubtedly is in itself 
 no sufficient evidence of truth. But in a matter 
 essentially practical, ineffectiveness may well 
 create a presumption of falsehood. It is no 
 slight secondary consideration, whether a theory 
 will or will not prove itself operative on the mass 
 of men, the many workers as well as the few 
 thinkers. The basis of right in the Will of 
 God has shown this power to work for centuries. 
 No other theory has yet found strength to take 
 its place. 
 
 Looking, therefore, to the general action of 
 Conscience — the Synteresls — I cannot but think 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 253 
 
 that examination shows how true has been that 
 all but universal inference of man, which has 
 connected the ■ recognition of its truth and 
 authority with the acknowledgment of a Living 
 and Righteous God. The three lines of inquiry 
 into the origin, the scope, the basis of the 
 Moral Sense, are in great degree independent : 
 for a man may speculate on its origin without 
 examining its scope, or he may examine the 
 scope of its action as a real power, without 
 inquiring into the basis of its supreme authority. 
 But their results are identical; and so their 
 combined witness tells on the mind with almost 
 irresistible power. 
 
 VI. But from this — to my mind the more 
 important branch of the subject — let us turn to 
 the other action of Conscience — the Spieidesis — 
 which is the application of the Moral Sense 
 to the actions of daily life. It starts with the 
 fundamental ideas of Bight, Duty, Retribution, 
 and asks of any contemplated action, " Is this 
 right ? Is it a part of my duty to do it ? If I 
 do it, will it be well, or ill, with me ? " These 
 are what the text calls " the reasonings of men, 
 accusing or excusing one another." In them 
 we pass from the abstract to the concrete. It 
 is, indeed, through these concrete experiences 
 that the abstract principle is at once defined 
 
254 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 and educated. For here, as in all other lines of 
 thought, we start, indeed, with a vague instinc- 
 tive sense of the general principle ; but yet it 
 is only through these special experiences that we 
 come to a clear and definite conception of this 
 principle itself. Now in the consideration of 
 the particular applications of Conscience, we 
 depart from the simplicity of universal agree- 
 ment, striking out into directions, varying 
 according to time, place, age, and individual cha- 
 racter, with a diversity, which the actual varia- 
 tions of formulated laws can but faintly repre- 
 sent; we pass from axiomatic truths to practical 
 deductions from them, in which lie all but 
 infinite liabilities to error. In all these detailed 
 individual experiences, is there, or is there not, 
 a sense of " God with us w ? 
 
 It is certain that this mental process is not 
 self-evolved and self-contained. It is a moral 
 "education;" and education implies at once 
 something to be drawn out from within, and 
 some external power which draws it out. But 
 any power acting directly upon the Conscience 
 must have the character of Personality. Possibly, 
 in the expectation of Retribution, so far as it is 
 only a vague kind of understanding that the 
 course of Nature is so ordered to give scope for 
 action obedient to Conscience,and to hinder or cut 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 255 
 
 short the action which defies it, we may be 
 content with " a stream " or " a tendency." But 
 — not to mention that this is but an inadequate 
 description of all that the idea of Retribution 
 implies — it is certain that this cannot be the 
 case, in respect of the purer and higher declara- 
 tions of the Moral Sense, dealing not with the 
 consequences, but with the qualities, of actions. 
 If we are taught or guided in them, it must be 
 a higher Moral Sense than our own, and this 
 can belong only to a Personal Being. 
 
 (a.) Now, whatever we may suppose to be 
 theoretically possible in a human being, growing 
 up alone on a desert island, yet, as a matter of 
 general fact, the moral sense in each individual 
 is in part educated by just such a personal power 
 — the power of his fellow-men. From our first 
 moments of consciousness that power acts upon 
 us in two chief ways, — through the coercive 
 power of law, and through the spiritual power 
 of teaching, whether by word, or example, or 
 personal ascendancy. The two powers are 
 almost always co-existent, although mingled in 
 different proportions. In fact, on their coexist- 
 ence in right proportion the welfare of humanity 
 depends. Law, even where it is simply coercive, 
 implies the existence of the principles which it 
 is the task of teaching to enforce, by pro- 
 
266 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 fessing to be based on rights known to those 
 under it ; and, in point of fact, if we consider 
 law in all its developments/ it is not merely 
 coercive, but has a directive and didactic ele- 
 ment interwoven with it. Teaching, on the 
 other hand, seldom deals with men without some 
 reference to a retributive power of law, to en- 
 force attention and to avenge neglect ; for, man 
 being what he is, " discipline," which is pro- 
 perly the " system of learning/' all but invari- 
 ably implies some idea of coercion or retribution. 
 But the two elements are mingled in very dif- 
 ferent proportions. In the early days of child- 
 hood, law predominates; and even the didactic 
 influence, coexistent with law, is largely an 
 appeal, not to conscience and reason, but to 
 faith. In manhood, the work of the law as "a 
 schoolmaster" is, or ought to be, over; the 
 didactic power takes the chief place ; only if the 
 spiritual influence be defied, does law come in, to 
 scourge man for his chastisement, or to take him 
 3 The law of our domestic and educational life, for ex- 
 ample (which, after all, tells on the mass of men at least 
 as powerfully as the law of the civil community), always 
 involves the didactic and disciplinary element, and often 
 makes it the leading element of its system. The force of 
 public opinion, while it should be a purely didactic force, 
 is constantly a law, not unfrequently an oppressive law ; 
 yet it always professes to retain, and mostly does retain, 
 a didactic element. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 257 
 
 out of the way of others. By both the individual 
 Conscience is educated ; and the results of edu- 
 cation necessarily vary according both to the 
 capacity of the individual soul, and to the actual 
 character of the educating influences. We are 
 familiar, therefore, with two actions of Will, 
 brought to bear on us from without, — the reward 
 and punishment by law, and the presentation of 
 truth and right to the perception of Conscience. 
 Under both we are sensible that our freedom and 
 responsibility remain ; under both, in a natural 
 condition of things, our Conscience is informed, 
 strengthened, developed. 
 
 Now, with regard to this process of moral 
 education by the conscious action of our fellow- 
 men upon us, two questions suggest themselves, 
 — What does it imply ? Is it the only edu- 
 cating force ? 
 
 (b.) What does it imply ? It is evidently a 
 law of human nature, just as truly as the exist- 
 ence of the moral sense in the individual; and, 
 if so, it must be a part of the government of the 
 world by the Higher Power, whatever it-be, by 
 which that world was made and is sustained. 
 Butler traces in it, accordingly, a " Moral 
 Government of God," intended for " the Moral 
 discipline of man." 4 His conclusion, strong in 
 
 4 See "Analogy/' part i. chap. iii. sect. v. His line of 
 
 s 
 
258 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 itself, is brought out with still greater force, 
 when we consider — what will be more fully 
 brought out in the next Lecture — that this 
 moral education is chiefly exercised through the 
 existence of natural relations (as of parentage, 
 brotherhood, marriage) on which the physical 
 propagation of the race depends, and of those 
 social relations of political or religious life, with- 
 out which civilization is impossible. For this 
 shows that it is a part of the system of the 
 world as a whole, by which the purely physical 
 forces of organic life and the spiritual powers of 
 moral being are harmonized together under one 
 supreme law. The existence of such a moral 
 government must be surely another indication 
 of a true Moral Governor. In and through this 
 education by man it is He who is the true 
 Educator. 
 
 (<?.) But is this our only moral education? 
 Clearly not : it touches man on the social side 
 of his nature ; but there is in him an individu- 
 ality, never so deeply felt as in relation to moral 
 action. What shall we say of this? It would 
 appear that it has another education of the same 
 
 argument leads him to dwell almost entirely on the co- 
 ercive side of government; but it is equally applicable 
 to the other and more spiritual element of human in- 
 fluence. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 259 
 
 twofold kind, by action of law and by spiritual 
 action. 
 
 There is an action by law upon us, in the fact 
 (which again Butler has pointed out) that this 
 life, in its physical conditions, and in those 
 actions of men which are not intended to affect 
 us, " is peculiarly fit to be a state of moral dis- 
 cipline."" 5 There is much which, through our 
 appetites and passions, must tempt us, with a 
 temptation apparently necessary for our moral 
 growth. There are what common language 
 instinctively and rightly calls " punishments" 
 of our evil-doing, proceeding from physical con- 
 ditions, from the course of human life in itself, 
 irrespective of all conscious dealing of men with 
 us, and from the constitution of our nature. All 
 these indicate an education of us by a law, dis- 
 tinct from all human law, often acting exactly 
 where human law fails. Now such education 
 implies a personal agency ; yet that agency is 
 not of man. What can it be but the agency of 
 a true Moral Governor of the world? 
 
 But we cannot stop here. There is again an 
 experience, of which all human literature is full, 
 which has embodied itself in the tenets of all 
 human religions, especially in their advanced 
 
 5 See " Analogy," part i. chap. v. sect. iv. 
 
260 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 stages. It is the experience, so strikingly ex- 
 pressed in the 139th Psalm, of a Voice in the 
 sonl and yet not of the soul itself, u searching 
 it out,-" " knowing its thoughts long before," 
 i( spying out all its ways," " trying it to the 
 very ground of the heart/'' " looking if there be 
 any way of wickedness in it." What is that 
 Voice ? I cannot do better than quote a striking 
 passage from the lectures of my predecessor. 
 The Psalmist (he says) " felt that an influence 
 which acted upon him individually and personally 
 must be individual and personal itself. Probably 
 he had no speculative ideas as to what personality 
 was. But he knew that it dealt with him in a 
 way to which there was nothing analogous, ex- 
 cept the way in which living persons dealt with 
 him. It praised and it blamed ; it was not like 
 a law, acting without reference to his special 
 peculiarities, but it adapted its operation with 
 infinite variety to all the varying shades of right 
 and wrong, of error or of weakness, within him. 
 In a word, it was just as personal as he was. 
 As a heart answers to heart, and the face of man 
 to man, so did that Power, which was felt in 
 his conscience, correspond to his own nature." 6 
 
 6 See Professor Waco's "Boyle Lectures" for 1875; 
 Lecture II. (p. 202 of first edition) . I gladly take the op- 
 portunity of expressing my obligations through the whole 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 26] 
 
 There are, I know, minds to which such expe- 
 rience is altogether unknown, and may appear 
 fantastic. But I believe them to be exceptional ; 
 I doubt whether they are the highest minds. In 
 any case I may claim a large experience in this 
 matter, written in the poetry, the religion, often 
 the philosophy of the world ; and I may note 
 that it especially belongs to the great crises of 
 life, when the human guidance fails us, or — still 
 worse — contradicts the conscience within. Per- 
 haps in it, most of all experiences, we hear the 
 voice of a present God. We do not argue about 
 it, or speculate on it as probable ; we know 
 Him, really teaching, commanding, inspiring, 
 as a Father His children. Again and again the 
 words of the Patriarch rise to our lips, " I have 
 heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now 
 mine eye seeth Thee." 
 
 Perhaps it is in the craving for this Divine 
 guidance, and the conviction that in some measure 
 it is given, that most of all we feel at once the need 
 and hope of what we call properly " Revelation" 
 — a clear Word of God, to scourge what is evil 
 in us by its terrors, to inspire what is good in us 
 by the simple power of its truth. " Teach me, O 
 Lord, the way of Thy statutes," is the natural 
 
 of this branch of my subject to his treatment of Moral 
 Theology. 
 
262 THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 cry of any soul conscious of God. The New 
 Testament tells us that it is not left unanswered. 
 The first office of the Holy Spirit to " the world/' 
 preparatory to His fuller enlightenment of the 
 Church of Christ, is said to be "to convince'-' 
 the soul of the three great moral principles of 
 " sin, righteousness, and judgment" as present 
 practical realities. 7 Nor can we forget that in 
 Holy Scripture the first great Revelation of God 
 to Israel is in the Ten Commandments, enforcing 
 on the soul the rudiments of righteousness ; 
 as the first recorded teaching of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is designed 
 to exalt and spiritualize the Moral Law, bringing 
 it home to the spirit, not by compulsion but by 
 conviction, not by fear but by love. But of this 
 it is not yet the time to speak, except to note 
 how the special Revelation recognises the capa- 
 city of such twofold education in the human 
 conscience by the outward Law and by the in- 
 ward power of the Spirit; and how, as always, 
 
 7 See John xvi. 8, 13, " He shall convince the world of 
 
 sin, of righteousness, and of judgment He shall 
 
 guide you into all the truth." It is true that the convic- 
 tion of the world is here viewed with a distinct reference 
 to the knowledge of our Lord Himself, and therefore to a 
 conversion to Him. But it is with the general method of 
 action of the Holy Spirit on the heart, not with its special 
 object, that we are here concerned. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 263 
 
 it brings out, in special and supernatural clear- 
 ness, the work which goes on veiled and diffused 
 in the natural system. 
 
 As, then, in the origin, scope, and basis of the 
 power of Conscience, so also in its practical 
 education, we find distinct traces of a Moral 
 Governor of the world, patent to the simplest, 
 yet growing clearer and clearer as they are 
 examined in thought. How they have written 
 themselves on human language and literature, 
 how they have embodied themselves in the reli- 
 gions of the world, all history shows. 
 
 VII. I believe that this witness of Conscience 
 to God, at once in the great principles of Moral 
 Truth, and in the application of them to the 
 needs and acts of every day, is itself so strong, 
 that it would be fairly irresistible, were it not 
 for the presence of the great mystery of moral 
 evil in the world. It is here that the real stress 
 of difficulty lies. It is true that there is some- 
 thing also of perplexity in the imperfection of 
 Retribution in this life, so constantly dwelt upon 
 in all human literature, but nowhere, perhaps, 
 more vividly and resolutely depicted than in the 
 Psalms and the Book of Job. The indiscriminate 
 action of all physical powers, the imperfect and 
 often perverted dealings of humanity with good 
 and evil, the apparent want in some lives of all 
 
264 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 scope and opportunity of moral growth — all 
 these are felt at all times to be an obscuration 
 of the Moral Government of God; and when they 
 touch ourselves, or those dear to us as our own 
 soul, they become a thick darkness. Yet still 
 they can be borne. We can confess our necessary 
 ignorance of the whole counsel of God, which 
 leaves us in life partly to knowledge, partly to 
 faith. We can fall back on the belief in a per- 
 fect equity of Judgment, under which what 
 seerri s indiscriminate is really discriminated, and 
 understand that what is evil to one man is good 
 to another. We can often catch glimpses of a 
 Divine purpose of discipline, — " Whom the Lord 
 loveth He chasteneth." We can look beyond 
 the grave to a perfect Ketribution, in a life for 
 which this life is but a brief preparation, and so 
 think little of "the light affliction which is but 
 for a moment.-''' But the one thing which is an 
 intolerable perplexity is the existence of moral 
 evil in the w r orld. 
 
 The existence of an inborn tendency to evil in 
 man is no doctrine of Christian Revelation. It 
 is a terrible fact ; which it seems strange that 
 any one can doubt, who studies human nature, 
 whether in the growth of a child's character, or 
 in the history of the world at large, as it was and 
 as it is. The shallow optimism, through which 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE, 265 
 
 some have tried to deny or extenuate its ex- 
 istence, or to refer it to mere defects of physical, 
 political, and social machinery, vanishes before 
 deeper thought. The idea found in all con- 
 sistent Pantheism, that evil is a lower form 
 of good — both being parts of the Divine essence, 
 expressed in the system of the universe — is 
 repudiated by the indignant witness of Con- 
 science within us. These theories unhappily 
 live in the practice which is " the way of 
 the world/'' But they cannot stand formal 
 investigation. Speculation accordingly, now, 
 just as in the old Gnostic days, falls back, 
 in the effort to account for Evil, on Dualism 
 in one or other of its forms — now taking up 
 the Manichean idea of two rival Deities, now 
 fancying a Creator, limited in power by 
 some force marring His perfect work. It 
 will not now shrink from St. Paul's awful 
 description of "a law " of evil within ; on 
 the contrary, it will even exaggerate its dark- 
 ness. Nor will it deny that evil is in some sense 
 " sin/' — that is, a resistance to some higher 
 law that rules the world. But it asks, sorrow- 
 fully or scornfully, How can this be under an 
 Almighty and All-Righteous God ? 
 
 (a.) What shall we say ? We shall, I think, 
 frankly acknowledge that the mystery of evil is 
 
266 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 to us simply insoluble. We can, indeed, see 
 that this capacity of evil is as closely con- 
 nected with the mystery of free-will, on which 
 man's high dignity and capacity of goodness 
 depend, as the shadow with the light. We can 
 see that the development of this capacity of 
 evil is a perversion of the probation, needed for 
 the growth of the moral nature, and ordained for 
 its growth in goodness. We must therefore re- 
 solutely repudiate the Dualistic conceptions, 
 which seem to exchange what is mysterious for 
 what is intellectually and morally incredible. 
 Whatever is must fall under the "first Law 
 Eternal " s of God's Providence, even if it con- 
 tradict the {( Second Law Eternal " which he 
 gives to His creatures. But we confess it still 
 " an offence ; " we can understand how men even 
 desire to surrender or deny freedom, in order to 
 avoid it. We freely acknowledge that its exis- 
 tence weakens the testimony of Conscience, 
 otherwise irresistible, to the All Righteous and 
 Almighty God. It cannot be His will ; how it 
 can be by His permission even for a moment, 
 we cannot tell. The great Apostle of the Gentiles 
 ventures only on a " what iff of mere sugges- 
 tion f his Master and ours has revealed nothing. 
 
 See Hooker, Ecc. Pol. I. ii., iii. 9 See Rom. ix. 22—24. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 267 
 
 But we shall boldly declare that, although it 
 weakens the moral witness, it is far indeed from 
 destroying it. For we shall first contend (as all 
 the noblest human thought has consciously 
 asserted, and unconsciously implied in a thou- 
 sand ways) that Righteousness and Truth do 
 prevail over evil and falsehood historically, and 
 that their prevalence shows the force of evil to 
 be an exceptional and disturbing power, not the 
 true law of human life. We shall urge next, 
 that, if this rebellion thwarts in some of its 
 aspects the development of good, yet, like all 
 rebellions, it tends in other aspects to bring out 
 and intensify loyalty to good, and give it a 
 field of triumph. We shall still more emphati- 
 cally plead, that, while the existence of sin 
 weakens the moral witness, yet that the sense of 
 sin, as sin — present even in the hour of evil- 
 doing, but asserting itself with 'tenfold power in 
 the subsequent hours of repentance or remorse 
 — goes far towards undoing the evil, strength- 
 ening, to an intensity which is even agony, the 
 witness of Conscience, and investing it with 
 the sombre majesty of an avenging spirit. For, 
 not from theory but from fact, we believe that 
 sense of sin as sin is ineradicable from the 
 human soul. In its hours of deeper reflection 
 it is not satisfied with the recognition of evil, 
 
2GS THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 as " Vice/'' against ourselves, or as " Crime " 
 against our fellow-men. Looking up to the 
 Supreme Power, it cries out with the Psalmist, 
 " Against Thee only have I sinned, and done 
 this evil in Thy sight." Whether in so crying 
 out it simply feels the horror of sin, or adds to 
 this feeling the expectation of Retribution, in 
 either case the hour of practical trial scatters the 
 theories and doubts of leisurely speculation, and 
 bids the soul recognise not a " Law/' or a 
 " Something," but a true Personal God. Nor 
 shall we fail to add, lastly, that the conception of a 
 Future Life, wherever it is held even as a pro- 
 bable hypothesis, invariably includes the belief 
 that this resistance of evil is but temporary — 
 a cloud overshadowing only the early morning 
 of man's whole being, destined to vanish away 
 in the cloudless sunshine of the Hereafter. 
 
 (b.) All this we shall plead, and in it we may 
 stand, cast down but not despondent, under the 
 shadow of this presence of evil. But we shall 
 acknowledge that, here above all, we look for the 
 light of a Revelation from God. If there be 
 what claims to be such a Revelation, we shall in 
 great degree test it by its power to grapple 
 practically with that awful fact of sin. It may 
 not tell us why sin is : but, if it does not tell us 
 how sin may be conquered, both for the indi- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE. 209 
 
 vidual and the race, how it is over-ruled by the 
 great dispensation of God, we shall conclude 
 that it is not a Gospel to such a world as this. 
 Christianity, as I need hardly remind you, 
 accepts and stands the test. Its power (as St. 
 Augustine reminds us 1 ) turns upon the fact 
 that in it we find what the noblest philosophies 
 cannot give us — the knowledge of the acceptance 
 of " a humble and contrite heart/' and the in- 
 vitation to sin-worn and sin-darkened souls, 
 " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Still, therefore, the witness of Conscience to 
 God sounds on, saddened but not silenced by the 
 mystery of evil. Compared with the other forms 
 of witness, of which I have spoken, it stands out 
 in its clear, trenchant simplicity and in its wide 
 universality. In virtue of the one it cuts like 
 a trumpet-tone through all the din of specu- 
 
 1 See the well-known passage in his " Confessions " (vii. 
 21), where he speaks of that which the highest philosophy 
 
 lacked:—" Non habent illae paginse lacrymas con- 
 
 fessionis, sacrificium tuum . . . arrham Spiritus Sancti, 
 poculumpretiinostri. Nemo ibi cantat : Nonne Deo subdita 
 erit anima mea t Ab ipso enim salutare meum. . . . Nemo ibi 
 
 audit vocantem : Venite ad me, qui laboratis Aliud 
 
 est de silvestri cacumine videre patriam pacis, et itex* ad 
 earn non in venire, et frustra conari per inria . . . . et aliud 
 tenere viam illuc ducentem, curia cselestis Imperatoris 
 munitam." 
 
270 THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 lative controversy, and through the clamour of 
 passion and appetite, when the vaguer and more 
 complex music of the intellect and the imagina- 
 tion would be drowned. In virtue of the other, 
 it comes home, not to the few abstract thinkers, 
 but to the many hard workers and patient 
 sufferers of life. In itself that witness might 
 seem too stern and terrible, were it not that 
 there is added to it, in the Theology of Love, 
 which we have next to contemplate, a sweeter 
 persuasiveness of tone. But even in its stern- 
 ness, how infinitely precious it is ! Better this 
 darkness of a Sinai, out of which sounds the 
 voice of Law, and out of which flash the light- 
 nings of Judgment, than the ignoble ease of a life, 
 spent over the flesh-pots of physical indulgence 
 or in the worldly slavery of Egypt, as if there 
 were nothing higher, grander, more awful, for 
 man. Better the solemn voice within, which 
 tells of sin, righteousness, and judgment, than 
 the silence of moral ignorance, or the bewilder- 
 ment of a thousand earthly voices, calling the 
 soul away from itself and from God. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 I. — THE EXISTENCE OF A TRUE THEOLOGY OF LOVE. 
 II. — THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE LIKE THE PRINCIPLE OF 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 (a) IN ITS DIRECTION TO A PERSONAL OBJECT. 
 
 (b) IN ITS ATTACHMENT TO MORAL QUALITIES. 
 III. — THE PECULIAR CHARACTERISTIC OF LOVE IS ITS WIT- 
 
 NESS (THROUGH SYMPATHY) TO UNITY OF NATUEE 
 BETWEEN THE SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 
 IY. — THE "WITNESS TO GOD OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE 
 OF LOVE IN RESPECT OF — 
 
 (a) ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 (b) ITS SCOPE. 
 
 (c) ITS BASIS IN UNITY OF NATURE. 
 V. — THE SIGNIFICANCE IN THIS RESPECT OF — 
 
 (a) LOVE TOWARDS MAN. 
 
 (b) LOVE TOWARDS GOD. 
 
 VI. — THE THEOLOGY OF LOVE IN RELATION TO THE MYS- 
 TERY OF EVIL. 
 VII. — THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROVISION FOR THE 
 EDUCATION OF LOVE, THROUGH MAN, AND DIRECTLY 
 BY GOD. 
 VIII.— SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 
 
 He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; for God is love." 
 — 1 John iv. 8. 
 
272 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 We pass from the consideration of that Moral 
 Sense, which declares Righteousness, to dwell 
 on that second Moral Sense, which expresses 
 itself in Love. I interpret the text in what 
 seems to me a plain deduction from its literal 
 sense — as declaring to us that the Natural 
 Theology, through which the soul feels after and 
 finds God, is so imperfect as hardly to lead to 
 anything deserving to be called knowledge, un- 
 less to the intellectual witness of the Under- 
 standing and Imagination, we add, not only the 
 Theology of the Conscience, but also the Theology 
 of the Affections. " He that loveth not," — 
 although he may think deeply on Truth, and 
 thirst earnestly after Righteousness — " knoweth 
 not God." 
 
 I. But, before we investigate the points of 
 resemblance and contrast between what I thus 
 designate as the two lines of Moral Theology, 
 it may possibly appear necessary to inquire, 
 whether there is such a thing in the abstract as 
 a true Theology of Love ? 
 
 I can easily imagine how readily the idea 
 may suggest itself to the mind, that while Love 
 is a potent element in the practical life and 
 sentiment of religion, and in the knowledge 
 which is gained thereby, it can contribute little 
 or nothing to the abstract witness of Theology. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 273 
 
 Affection, indeed, is often thought to be too 
 vague, too blind, too merely instinctive, to bear 
 any such definite witness of God, as may stand 
 the examination of reason. There are, therefore, 
 many who maintain that Love should be utterly 
 banished from the mind, as a dangerously dis- 
 turbing influence, until by painful and thought- 
 ful search of Reason, God be found and known 
 — with the compensating promise, that, when 
 lie is known, then Love shall be recalled from 
 exile, and allowed to pour out the whole soul at 
 His feet. It is my first object, therefore, to 
 protest against this tendency to ignore or to 
 deny the claim of the affections to aid in the 
 search after God. Surely analogy itself suggests 
 that we should at least pause, before we reject 
 that claim. In the process of the knowledge 
 of man, love plays a most important part. 
 Sympathy undoubtedly gives a certain insiglt 
 into human nature, denied to a passionless 
 intellect and even to a cold stern sense of duty. 
 Accordingly if the maxim, " He that loveth not, 
 knoweth not man," is the verdict of all true 
 Science of Man, there may be some reason to 
 accept the maxim, " He that loveth not, knoweth 
 not God," as the verdict of all true Theology. 
 
 Our conclusion on this subject must depend 
 on our view of the true character of the prin- 
 
 T 
 
274 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 ciple of Love itself. Modern thought — pro- 
 bably (be it remarked in passing) , under the 
 guidance of Christianity — has certainly out- 
 grown the old Pagan notion of Love, as a merely 
 instinctive and irrational force in man. It is (for. 
 example) almost a commonplace to remark that 
 the philosophical language of the Greek and 
 Latin moralists has no adequate expression for 
 the abstract principle of Love, so well known to 
 us in all modern schools of morality. 1 It is even 
 more than true that, the appreciation of Truth, 
 the feeling of Beauty, and the sense of Right, 
 it begins in mere instinct; and that this in- 
 stinct is plainly akin to the instinct of brute 
 creatures, and may assert itself without any 
 
 1 Of the words ipws and cpiMa, for example, the one 
 involves the idea of individual passion, the other the idea 
 of personal friendship. The word 'Aydirr] is not a classical 
 word. The utter absence of any recognition of Love as a 
 cardinal virtue in Plato's " Republic " is well known. The 
 greatest blot on that noble work is connected with a 
 degrading view of personal love, as a mere appetite, sub- 
 servient to the physical propagation of the race. In what 
 has been called proverbially " Platonic affection " it is 
 most instructive to notice how the highest idea of har- 
 mony of kindred souls trembles constantly on the verge of 
 the^exhibition of the basest passion. The regeneration of 
 the " old commandment from the beginning " to become 
 "a new commandment," exalted, enlarged, and denned in 
 principle, is unquestionably an achievement of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 275 
 
 relation, or even in a relation of antagonism, to 
 the dictates of Reason and Conscience. It is 
 probably true, that, even more than the other 
 co-ordinate principles of human nature, Love 
 grows in man by practice rather than by theory. 
 Nothing is more certain than that beneficence 
 is at once the effect and the cause of benevolence : 
 perhaps in no respect is the influence of habit so 
 remarkable, as in its power to deepen and in- 
 tensify either love or hatred. But while these 
 things are true, yet it is equally true, that Love 
 is capable of being so impregnated by reason, as 
 to assume the form of a settled rational prin- 
 ciple in the soul, and to prove itself one of the 
 strongest and most continuous of the forces 
 which rule society. On the most sacred of all 
 authorities, we hold the Love of our neighbour to 
 be like the Love of Self. Hence, as in Self- Love 
 there is an instinct of self-preservation and self- 
 gratification, capable of being developed by reason 
 into a settled rational desire of our own true 
 happiness ; so the Love, which looks beyond self, 
 may begin in the instinct of natural and social 
 •affections, but is capable of rising, as it does 
 rise every day, into a lofty rational principle. 2 
 
 2 It should be almost unnecessary to refer to Butler's 
 Sermons on this subject — the first Sermon on " Human 
 Nature" and the Sermon on the " Love of our Neighbour." 
 
276 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Men may perhaps doubt whether it is as an in- 
 stinct or as a principle,, that it acts most effec- 
 tively to balance or overbear this natural love of 
 self. But it is as a principle that it throws light 
 on the great problem of Being; it is as a prin-. 
 ciple that it enters into the field of Theology. 
 
 II. Now, as we examine the principle of Love, 
 we shall be struck at once by a similarity in 
 its main characteristics to the principle of Con- 
 science, which argues for it a right to be con- 
 sidered as a true Moral Sense. 
 
 (a.) Thus, first, in all its forms it tends only 
 to a personal object. Except by association and 
 symbolism, we cannot love a thing : except by 
 metaphor, we cannot be said to love an abstract 
 principle. It is curious to observe that, even in 
 these cases, the growth of affection leads in- 
 stantly to personification, and to note how the 
 tendencies to love and to personify live and die 
 together, whether we watch the play of a child 
 with its toys, or study the bursts of poetic en- 
 thusiasm over the glories and wonders of Nature. 
 It is notable that, as we approach actual person- 
 ality, Love shows itself more and more dis- 
 
 But, while the "Analogy" is constantly studied, the Ser- 
 mons, which are closely connected with it, and in some 
 cases introductory to it, do not receive the attention they 
 deserve. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 277 
 
 tinctly. Even the semblance of life in the tree 
 or the flower stirs in ns a rudimentary affection. 
 Towards the brute creatures love becomes real 
 and even passionate, just in proportion as we 
 trace in them any likeness of human personality. 
 The prisoner in his solitary confinement has often 
 discovered that likeness, and welcomed it with 
 affection, in creatures which to the ordinary man 
 seem uninteresting or repulsive. But Love in 
 its true and proper development belongs only to 
 personal relation. It is a witness, stronger even 
 than the sense of duty, and incapable of being 
 either silenced or misunderstood, that man's life 
 cannot be self-sufficing and self-contained, but 
 needs some contact with personality without. 3 
 
 (b.) Then, in the next place, if we inquire to 
 what element in personality Love attaches itself, 
 we must answer (although at first sight the 
 answer may seem strange), that ultimately it 
 can attach itself only to a moral nature. In- 
 tellect as intellect, or power as power, may be 
 
 3 It is here that the Stoic avrapKua (with its modern 
 ascetic counterparts) so utterly breaks down. So far as it 
 indicates conquest over appetite, that is, rises above the 
 world of things, it is noble. So far as it crushes affection, 
 that is, dissociates man from the world of persons, it is 
 inhuman. By what monstrous forms of Nemesis the 
 exclusion of natural affection avenges itself, we know too 
 well. 
 
278 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 admired or feared, but can never be loved. 
 Beauty has, indeed, a wonderful power to kindle 
 Love — a power half-sensuous and even half- 
 physical — which (if modern naturalists may be 
 trusted) must be believed to have its counterpart 
 in the brute creation. But Love, although it may 
 be first kindled by the sense of Beauty, can never 
 content itself with this alone. If it is to endure, 
 it always connects that beauty, in fancy or in 
 reality, with some mental and spiritual qualities. 
 It fastens on what we call the " higher beauty 
 of expression " (that is), it worships an ideal 
 beauty of soul, shining through the visible 
 beauty of the face. And whenever Love passes 
 from a merely passionate form into a settled 
 principle, which is to endure and to rule in life, 
 its attachment to the moral element in man be- 
 comes more distinctly marked. Every one 
 knows, and smiles to see, how the most instinc- 
 tive of all affections — the affection of a mother 
 — is never satisfied with its merely instinctive 
 character, but insists on defending itself by the 
 belief that her children are clever, beautiful, and 
 good. It is a favourite theme of satire to note 
 how the most passionate of all affections — the 
 affection of a lover — invariably clothes the object 
 of his idolatry with an ideal vesture of purity 
 and goodness. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 279 
 
 The instinct, however men may smile at its 
 direction, is still in itself a true instinct. The 
 love, which is to stand the wear and tear of life, 
 must have some moral basis, in the lover and the 
 loved. "Whatever mental attitude it assumes — 
 whether of inferiority towards a father, a teacher, 
 or a leader ; or of equality towards a friend, a 
 brother, or a wife; or of superiority towards a 
 child, a disciple, or a subject — still in every case 
 it must have, or seem to have, such qualities on 
 both sides, as Truth, Honesty, Purity, Loyalty. 
 Else it cannot last. The power to love, as it re- 
 quires a moral nature in him who feels it, so 
 also implies a moral nature in the object towards 
 which it is directed. 4 Unless it be sustained by 
 some higher influence, the conviction of utter 
 baseness, falsehood, selfishness, in that object 
 will probably destroy it utterly, even in its 
 most natural forms, exchanging* it, either for the 
 blank of mere indifference, or for the reaction 
 of indignant hatred. 
 
 III. In these two points it will be observed 
 
 4 This truth is embodied in that idea which Cicero repre- 
 sents in a well-known passage (De Off. I. 5). " Formam 
 quidem ipsam, et tanquam faciem, honesti vides ; quae si 
 oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) ex- 
 citaret sui." For this passage at once recognises the 
 moral basis of Love, and the necessity of personality, (here 
 a visible personality,) in its object. 
 
280 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 that the action of the Affection is exactly similar 
 to the action of the Conscience. So far the sense of 
 Love follow s precisely the same line as the sense 
 of Duty. But in the third characteristic of the 
 action of Moral Sense — the sense of necessary 
 ties or relations between itself and its object — 
 the principle of Love agrees with, but certainly 
 goes far beyond, the principle of duty. 
 
 For Love implies that sign of likeness of 
 nature and character, which we call Sympathy. 
 Ultimately, I suppose that love cannot endure 
 without some actual reciprocity. The capacity 
 of love, in the normal growth of the soul in 
 childhood, is first called out and developed by 
 the experience of love. " We love him, because 
 he first loved us," is the natural expression of 
 the experience of children in relation to their 
 father. Even when the capacity has been de- 
 veloped into energy, though it may last long 
 without return, and may endure to the end with- 
 out adequate return, it is (to say the least) 
 doubtful, whether any love (unless it be sustained 
 by some higher principle), can say to the end, 
 " I will very willingly spend and be spent for 
 you, although the more abundantly I love you, 
 the less I be loved." But, at any rate, it 
 needs sympathy, — that is such likeness of 
 souls as may enable each to appreciate and un- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 28l 
 
 derstand the other. Where no such sympathy 
 is, love cannot last. After vain and often pathe- 
 tic attempts to imagine sympathy, it will sink 
 into despairing' indifference, or perhaps turn into 
 contempt and hatred. The slightest sign of 
 returning sympathy may induce it to forgive 
 seventy times seven times. But there is a limit; 
 and that limit may undoubtedly be reached. 
 In this respect love seems unlike truth and 
 righteousness, which, although in their action 
 they may be partly dependent on reciprocity, 
 yet do not seem to require the existence of mutual 
 sympathy. 
 
 Now this need of sympathy in Love has a 
 most important significance. It implies that 
 Love is a witness to some unity of nature, 
 between him who loves and him who is loved. 
 This connexion of Love with such unity is most 
 plainly shown in the dependence of all forms of 
 natural affection on what we call significantly 
 the " natural ties." The effect of these ties is 
 often actually visible in that form of sympathy 
 which we call likeness of family or national cha- 
 racter. But in any case the mere fact that men are 
 allied — in family by blood, in nations by com- 
 munity, partly of race, partly of law^s and rights, 
 in all mankind by "the touch of nature which 
 makes the whole world kin" — as it secures 
 
282 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 unity of nature, so is acknowledged to be a 
 natural ground of love. To ignore it is said to 
 be " unnatural >} and " inhuman 3> — is branded 
 (that is) as a disobedience to a Law of Humanity 
 as profoundly natural as the right of freedom 
 and the sense of duty themselves. But the 
 same connexion is shown in a different way in 
 that other great class of ties, which we form for 
 ourselves, and yet having formed, cannot at our 
 mere will break. The tie of friendship, sometimes 
 closer than brotherhood ; the tie of voluntary 
 association, social, political, religious ; the tie, 
 above all, of love, consecrated in marriage, 
 voluntary in its origin, yet superseding all 
 national ties — these also imply a true likeness of 
 nature (not perhaps usually the simple likeness 
 of unison, but the subtler likeness of harmony) 
 shown by the pursuit of common objects, the 
 belief in common truths, the love of common 
 principles. 
 
 Love, therefore, implies not only necessary re- 
 lations to one another in actual life, but a certain 
 unity of Nature. In this witness it undoubtedly 
 goes far beyond the sense of duty. For duty 
 may exist without sympathy. It involves a 
 sense rather of likeness than unity of nature. 
 Love not only bears witness to this unity, but 
 makes such witness a primary, even an absorb- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 283 
 
 ing, idea. Duty, iirst recognises our own 
 individuality, and our own freedom, rights, and 
 powers ; and then proceeds to ask, " What ought 
 I to do with them ? What do I owe to others ? " 
 Thus the sense of Righteousness and Truth is the 
 guard of man's proper individuality, in his rela- 
 tions to his fellow-men. On the other hand, 
 the natural impulse of Love is to forget, to sink 
 and (in the true sense of the word) to " deny " 
 self. 3 It asks, not " What ought I to do, or 
 what must I do?" but "What may I do for 
 others ? " In proportion as any consciousness 
 of self is present to the soul, even in craving 
 return of affection, Shakespeare has shown us in 
 his "King Lear/' how the bloom of love is 
 faded, and its glow is chilled. Love, therefore, 
 is the witness of unity against excessive indi- 
 viduality. It is not a little instructive that 
 Plato's celebrated definition of Righteousness is 
 the ra eavrov Trpdrren/ — the doing by each 
 man of the part which he sees to be his own, 
 in the confidence that all others will do the like 
 
 5 It is singularly unfortunate that the word " self- 
 denial, which our Lord makes the test of discipleship 
 (Matt. xvi. 24), should have been, in common parlance, 
 lowered from the idea of self-sacrifice to the idea of mere 
 self-discipline and self-control. Like all errors of phrase, 
 it has avenged itself by bringing in error of idea as to the 
 leading principle of Christian life. 
 
234 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 towards him ; 6 St. Paul's definition of Love is 
 that it ov fyrel ra eavrfjs — " seeks not her own 
 things/' and " looks "(as it is elsewhere ex- 
 pressed) in every man "upon the things of 
 others." Righteousness bids te each man bear 
 his own burden;" Love adds, "Bear ye one 
 another's burdens/' for another's burden is really 
 your own. 7 The temptation of the merely 
 righteous man is to hard self-concentration ; the 
 temptation of Love is to an officiousness in doing 
 good, which may even sap responsibility and 
 sacrifice the true individuality of the person loved. 
 We talk of the ties of Duty and the ties of Love. 
 But they are of a different kind. Duty is as a 
 golden cincture, keeping many separate units in 
 mutual contact, and so in mutual action. The 
 ties of Love are like the net-work of a living 
 organism, by which one single life throbs through 
 many members. 
 
 This witness to unity is the true signifi- 
 cance of the great principle of Love in man. It 
 is well called " the bond of perfectness." No 
 Society can well live without it, If a family is 
 merely kept together by the tie of common 
 interest, or even of mutual duty, its common 
 
 6 See Plat. Pep. iv. p. 433 : — rh ra avrov TrpaTTeiv Kal jxtj 
 xoXvirpo.yiJ.ove'iv hiKaioavvt] iffri. 
 
 7 See 1 Cor. xiii. 5; Phil. ii. 4; Gal. vi. 2. 5. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 285 
 
 life wants warmth and beauty, and eventually 
 is likely to be broken up under any severe 
 pressure. If a nation loses the glow of patriot- 
 ism and the inspiration of loyalty, history tells 
 us how its tone is coarsened and degraded, and 
 the first seeds of its decay are sown. If our 
 action towards human kind is guided only by 
 the recognition of mutual advantage, which is 
 the soul of Commerce, and the cold sense of 
 duty between man and man, we know too well 
 how little what we rightly call " humanity " 
 can stand against selfishness and passion. A 
 Power, which is so integral and essential a 
 factor in the history of the world, must surely 
 have a profound significance in all that concerns 
 the highest life of man. 
 
 IV. What is that significance, when in 
 thought we pass, from the world of self and the 
 world of Humanity, to the consideration of the 
 Higher Power, which is above both ? 
 
 To answer this question, we must follow in 
 great degree the same line of thought, which 
 was our guide in the consideration of the Moral 
 Sense of Righteousness. We must dwell, first, 
 on the origin, the scope, and the basis of the 
 abstract principle of Love in itself; and, next, 
 on the process of its education in its concrete 
 forms. 
 
2S6 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 (a.) What shall we say of its origin? The 
 power to love is one of the highest attributes of 
 man. In harmony with the sense of Right, and 
 clothing the firm skeleton of Duty with living 
 flesh and blood, it is perhaps the best means of 
 softening, purifying, ennobling the moral nature 
 of man. Its enthusiasm is often the surest 
 safeguard against the debasing temptation of 
 appetite, and the hardening influence of selfish- 
 ness and pride. Even for the perfection of the 
 individual nature, what can be an adequate 
 substitute for the spirit of love ? But, besides 
 this, we recognise the energy of love in its 
 various forms as probably the deepest and 
 strongest of all the influences, which actually 
 rule the world as a whole. We observe that the 
 whole network of physical relationship and of 
 social polity subserves it, and is held to fail in 
 its object, unless it supplies an organization 
 through which the currents of love may flow. 
 Love, therefore, is a high spiritual law in the 
 individual nature and in the society of human- 
 kind. Whence came it ? The Supreme Creative 
 Power must be the source of it, as of every 
 power in the world. Of it, therefore, as of 
 Conscience, we ask, " Is it possible for us to 
 imagine this high spiritual capacity of love 
 developed out of physical force or mere animal 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 287 
 
 life ?" Both these powers are, no doubt, pressed 
 into its service; both may supply its lower 
 elements ; both may at times, like other servants, 
 rebel against their true master, and either over- 
 bear his right authority by brute force, or travestie 
 themselves under his likeness. But the power 
 of love is itself a spiritual and moral power. 
 The mind revolts against the idea of tracing it 
 to a physical parentage, as monstrous and in- 
 credible in theory, as destitute of all evidence in 
 practice. Yet, if this be so, what must the 
 Supreme Power be ? The answer must be the 
 answer of the text, " God is Love f and the 
 human love in all its varieties is but the shadow 
 of the Divine. Yet in that answer is not the 
 whole of a true Theology involved ? If we once 
 give it, then we know God as a true Divine 
 Person— as perfect in the two great Moral 
 Attributes of Righteousness and Love — as im- 
 planting those moral powers in -us, in order to 
 impress on our nature the image of Himself. 
 
 (6.) But let us pass from the source of Love 
 in man to the scope of its exercise. What shall 
 we say here ? We must say, as we said of the 
 Conscience, that it cannot be satisfied, either in 
 the little world within, or in the world of men ; 
 and that as Love, like Du ty, is one of the highest 
 faculties of our naturej it would be strange 
 
288 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 indeed, if it had no scope in our relation to the 
 Supreme Power. But we may (I think) urge 
 both these considerations here with even greater 
 force. Love, even less than Duty, can find full 
 scope, if it ignore God. 
 
 For, first, it is clear that far less than duty has 
 it any reference to the little world within. The 
 phrase, " the love of self," can hardly be under- 
 stood in the strict literality, in which we can 
 speak of duty to self, self-respect, and the like. 
 To be absorbed in the thought of self — to gaze 
 with passionate enthusiasm on our own beauty, 
 physical or moral, to delight ourselves in our 
 own intellect or character, to be devoted to our 
 own self-culture and our own happiness — is 
 rightly held to be akin rather to vice than to 
 virtue. It is a madness and an inhumanity, in 
 which (as the old fable of Narcissus teaches) the 
 soul will pine by a moral atrophy and die. Love 
 by its very nature looks without : if it be intro- 
 spective, it is diseased. 
 
 Then, again, if we look to the world of 
 humanity, it is an acknowledged truth — to 
 which both the individual consciousness of every 
 full-grown life, and the collective verdict of 
 human literature bear witness — that man's 
 capacities of love are at once educated by human 
 relationships, and unsatisfied by them. For Love 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 289 
 
 undoubtedly needs for its continued life, the con- 
 viction of the beauty and goodness of the object 
 on whom it rests, and of the existence of some 
 reciprocity of love in him. Now, so far as it 
 assumes the attitudes of superiority and equality, 
 it may possibly find on earth the scope it needs, 
 although even in these it is constantly baffled, 
 wounded, and disappointed, by the proof of the 
 defects, and by the experience of the ingratitude, 
 of its objects. But it has its attitude of inferi- 
 ority, on which such disappointment especially 
 throws it back. Its deepest consciousness, by 
 which, indeed, it is properly and naturally 
 educated in the first instance, is that of loyalty 
 and worship of a superior being. Can it here 
 find full scope of exercise, in relation either to 
 the individual or to the society of men ? Even 
 less (I repeat) than duty. Personal affection has 
 its idolatries ; but, with a shock affecting our 
 whole moral being, it awakes to find that no 
 human being is wise enough, good enough, 
 loving enough, to deserve unqualified devotion 
 of love ; and that even if such a being existed, 
 yet the imperfect mutual knowledge of man 
 and man, which never penetrates to the inmost 
 depths of being, would prevent us from being 
 able fully to recognise, and therefore adequately 
 to love him. Men (I know), offer us, as a sub- 
 
 u 
 
290 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 stitute for the acknowledged imperfection of 
 personal affection,, loyalty to a family, a sove- 
 reign, a nation, or enthusiasm for humanity at 
 large ; but all these equally fail. Here, as in the 
 last Lecture, we must remark that the sum of 
 finite affections will not make a true infinity. 
 The spiritual defects, which forbid absolute devo- 
 tion to each individual, are not obliterated, but 
 intensified by aggregation; the unity between 
 the individual and society is less perfect than 
 between man and man, and, in consequence, the 
 extension of the area of affection simply dilutes 
 its power ; the devotion to the various societies 
 to which man belongs — the family, the nation, 
 and the race— are constantly liable to a conflict, 
 in which it is hard, if not impossible, to decide 
 between the intensity of the narrower, and the 
 grandeur of the wider unity. But besides this 
 we must add — what concerns Love in virtue of 
 the law of needful reciprocity, — that the want 
 of an adequate return of love from society itself is 
 fatal to its claims on our allegiance. The igno- 
 rance in society of its true benefactors is pro- 
 verbial ; the capricious fickleness and perversion 
 of popular gratitude have been felt by all who 
 have, sought to serve their fellows; tardy re- 
 pentance, paying to a man's senseless body or to 
 his memory the tribute which it denied to the 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 291 
 
 living man, is the favourite theme of satire. 
 Duty may stand up against this. But although 
 some transcendental philosophers hold it essential 
 to an enthusiasm for Humanity that it should 
 equally endure, it is at least doubtful, whether 
 in the absence of all reciprocity love can 
 remain for ever, unless through men it looks to 
 God, and for the sake of the Father loves His 
 children. 
 
 For all these reasons we urge that no enthu- 
 siasm for humanity can have a right to " all the 
 mind, and all the soul, and all the strength." 
 There is much that we cannot render to the 
 Csesar, whether of individual royalty, or of col- 
 lective humanity. In every soul, which realizes 
 its own individuality, there must be still a vast 
 unoccupied residuum of the capacity of Love. 
 Men in all ages, as all religions and many of 
 the noblest philosophies show, have believed 
 that it belonged of right to the Supreme Power, 
 and that (as St. Augustine long ago expressed 
 it) u God had made the heart for Himself, and 
 therefore it was unsatisfied till it found Him." 
 Have they been wrong ? They looked to the 
 world of things, and traced on it the lines of 
 foreordained usefulness and beauty, obscured 
 indeed, but certainly not obliterated, by the 
 mystery of evil. In their own action they 
 u 2 
 
292 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 knew that to produce these things for others, 
 was the first instinct of Beneficence, and the 
 highest delight of Love. Such action thev 
 found to be one of the most effective ways of 
 being fellow-workers with the Supreme Power, 
 ruling the world. When they looked at the 
 works of Nature, then of the lower creatures they 
 believed, and of the race of men they knew, that 
 all was ordered to minister to happiness ; they 
 saw that, if only man's own sin could but be 
 rooted out, this world would be even now a 
 Paradise; they readily believed what Religion 
 taught again and again, that all the blight which 
 rests on it now is simply the poisonous miasma of 
 sin. There went up from the souls of men, in- 
 voluntarily and perpetually, a Hymn, not only of 
 wonder and admiration, but of thanksgiving and 
 praise. Surely it would need much to make us 
 believe that it went up to the deaf ear of 
 Physical Force or Impersonal Law. This un- 
 ceasing homage of Love, even in regard to the 
 world of Nature, is surely witness to a living God. 
 But if this be questioned in relation to that 
 world (chiefly by those who dwell on exceptional 
 evil, till they allow it to obscure the normal 
 good), what shall we say of the world of persons ? 
 In this, as I have said, the soul has always felt 
 itself at once stimulated and unsatisfied. Look- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 293 
 
 ing through, all human relationship s, it fixes on 
 Fatherhood as the one primeval and imperish- 
 able relation of superiority, implying Wisdom, 
 Power, Protecting Love. From the finite and 
 imperfect fatherhood of the world, it ascends to 
 " Our Father whicli is in Heaven," as a truer 
 and more ultimate title of the Supreme Power, 
 than even the Universal Creator, King, and 
 Judge. There and there only it finds the rest 
 which it needs, for the understanding in 
 thought, for the conscience in allegiance, for 
 the heart in love. 8 
 
 8 Hooker's treatment of the subject is singularly beau- 
 tiful and profound. In the Ecc. Pol., Book I. chap. v. he 
 argues that the perfection of man is his chief good ; that 
 all things which conduce to it are secondarily good for us ; 
 but that, since all perfection is but a shadow of the Divine 
 perfection, " all are said to seek the highest, and to covet 
 more or less the participation of God," which he explains 
 to be likeness to God, in " continuance/' in " constancy 
 and excellency of operation," in " the knowledge of Truth," 
 and the "exercise of virtue," — that is, of energy. In 
 chap. xi. he goes on to argue that we desire or love good 
 things in proportion to their goodness. But " Nothing 
 may be infinitely desired but that good which is indeed 
 infinite. No good is infinite but God, therefore is He our 
 felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth to union with 
 that which it desireth. If, then, in Him we be blessed, it 
 is by force of participation and conjunction with Him. 
 Again, it is not the possession of any good thing that can 
 make them happy that possess it, unless they enjoy the 
 thing wherewith they are possessed. Then are we happy 
 
294 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AEFECTIOHS. 
 
 (c.) But let us next pass, as before, from the 
 consideration of the origin and scope of Love, to 
 consider the ground of its sacredness, through 
 which it is different in kind from an appetite or 
 passion, and has, like Conscience, an authority 
 as well as a power. Here also, as before, we 
 shall have to pass from the answer of the 
 Intuitionist or Utilitarian to an answer which 
 rests on God. With the one we shall hold that 
 Love is a supreme law of our nature ; with the 
 other that its working is a tendency essential 
 to the supreme good of Humanity. But we 
 shall add that we cannot understand such a law 
 without a Personal Creator to write it on the 
 heart, or such a tendency without a Moral 
 Governor. In all this we have but mutatis 
 mutandis to retrace the ground which we have 
 already trodden in the previous lecture. 
 
 V. But if we ask, " What is the true basis of 
 Love/'' in the sense of asking, "What is its 
 significance as to our nature and being?" — 
 then we shall find out what is its peculiar func- 
 tion in the witness to God. 
 
 (a.) Its existence in the soul shows that the 
 individual nature is not self-centred and self- 
 
 thorefore, when wo fully enjoy God, as an object wherein 
 the powers of our souls arc satisfied even with everlasting 
 delight." 
 
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 295 
 
 sufficing — that it must have some spiritual 
 unity with another nature like its own. Hence,, 
 first, the existence of love to man implies*what 
 we call " a common humanity," in spite of all 
 individual peculiarities, and all the local and 
 national peculiarities, which outward circum- 
 stances and past history have impressed on 'men. 
 The intensity of love varies with the closeness 
 of the unity between man and man, either by 
 blood or by sympathy. We may love all men ; 
 but to love all equally is unnatural and impos- 
 sible. There are " kindred souls," whether by 
 natural kinship or the kinship of harmony of 
 character, in whom the common humanity is 
 most vividly realized, and therefore love most 
 vividly felt. "Whence comes that common 
 humanity ? At first sight it may seem reasonable 
 to reply that it comes from a common human 
 parentage, developing its effects through that 
 series of natural ties, of the power of which we 
 have experience every day in hereditary pecu- 
 liarities, in family likeness, in national character. 
 But this common parentage, however true his- 
 torically, does not account for the whole of the 
 facts. For in each man there is also an individu- 
 ality of character, in respect of which he is more 
 or less than his parentage, and which, unsatisfied 
 with natural bonds of unity, shows itself (as I 
 
296 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 have said) as creative of a new unity, by the 
 origination of that other series of voluntary ties, 
 which co-exist with and at times supersede the 
 other. In virtue of this, each soul is inde- 
 pendent of human parentage, and is (so to speak) 
 in direct connexion with the source of spiritual 
 being. 9 The unity, therefore, which exists 
 between all these distinctly individual natures is 
 something more than the mere existence of a 
 common human parentage would account for. 
 Whence (again we ask) can it come? 
 
 There can be but one answer — that, both in 
 the origin of the race, and in the birth of each 
 individual soul, there is impressed upon human 
 
 9 The co-existence of these two elements of common 
 nature, and distinct individuality, is the ground of the old 
 controversy of Traducianism and Creatianism (of which a 
 brief sketch will be found in Liddon's " Elements of Re- 
 ligion/' Lecture III.). It applies certainly to man's nature 
 as a whole, for it is impressed on the body as well as the 
 soul. No one who has studied human nature, in the whole 
 widtli of society or in the narrow limits of family life, can 
 possibly be either a mere Traducianist or a mere Crea- 
 tianist. Just as under the Darwinian theory, no one 
 doubts the transmission of characteristic properties, and 
 yet no account (except the belief in a Creative Will) can 
 be given of the first individual variations, from which the 
 differentiation of species starts ; so in human nature, 
 especially in the spiritual nature of man, there is a co-ex- 
 istence of unity and individuality, which nothing but tLo 
 same belief can account for. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 297 
 
 nature one eternal type by the hand of Him who 
 made it ; and (as we have already said) that type, 
 being of a moral and spiritual nature, can be im- 
 pressed only by a moral and spiritual Being. 
 Thus the unity between man and man, which 
 human love implies, must have its source in the 
 Creative Will of God. The knowledge of it, 
 therefore, leads us up to a Moral Creator of 
 Humanity. Even in this witness it carries by 
 implication the inference of a likeness between 
 Him and us. 
 
 (b.) But we have already urged that, over and 
 above the love of man to man, there is a love of 
 man to God, not only possible to man, but 
 universal in man ; and in this alone the 
 soul can sink the individuality, which always 
 rightly limits the capacity of love to men. What 
 can this love indicate except a real unity of nature 
 between God and man ? The type, which we have 
 already concluded to be impressed on all human 
 creatures, alike in the origin of the race, and the 
 birth of the individual soul, must, we now see, 
 have a likeness to the Creator Himself, must be 
 " the image of God." In one -of the greatest 
 Epistles of St. Paul, 1 we are taught that the 
 
 1 See Eplies. v. 22 — vi. 9. The characteristic of the 
 Epistle is its tendency to deal with human nature as a 
 whole, as regenerate in Christ, and hence to dwell on the 
 
298 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 three great relationships of human society — 
 father and child, hushand and wife, master and 
 servant — are sacred, as shadows of the relations 
 of God to man in the Lord Jesus Christ. No 
 such completeness of view can be gained by 
 mere Natural Theology ; but the very witness of 
 love to God leads up at least to some conception 
 of a true Fatherhood of God, under which the 
 brotherhood of all men is realized, and which at 
 the same time has a close relation to each indi- 
 vidual life, guarding its freedom and sacredness. 
 It is in this that the peculiar force of the 
 Theology of Love consists. It agrees with the 
 Theology of Conscience in recognising in the 
 Supreme Power a true Personal God, a Moral 
 Creator, a Moral Governor. So far the two 
 witnesses simply coincide. But, while Con- 
 science tells of man's individuality before God, 
 Love witnesses to a true unity of nature and a 
 communion with God, on which we may rest 
 " all our heart and all our mind, all our soul and 
 all our strength/'' That witness is not lost in 
 the conception of God's greatness and our own 
 littleness; it is not destroyed, though it is 
 obscured, even by the sense of sin and judg- 
 
 relations which underlie society as natural, and to bring 
 out the doctrine of that society supernatural, which we 
 call the Catholic Church of Christ. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 299 
 
 ment. On the contrary, in the communion of 
 the soul with God, Love is the element which 
 grows and gradually supersedes the elements of 
 simple wonder and fear ; just as in the conception 
 of God we accept as the ultimate truth, not 
 " God is Power," " God is Light," " God is 
 Righteousness" — although all these be true — 
 but « God is Love." 
 
 VI. Yet I must add that there is one other 
 point, in which this witness of the affections has 
 a peculiar beauty and power of its own in such a 
 world as this. We have had to speak again 
 and again of the awful mystery of the existence 
 of evil — physical suffering, intellectual blind- 
 ness, moral sin — as the one great disturbing 
 influence along all the lines of conviction which 
 lead up to God. We cannot deny that it crosses 
 us here also. We ask in wonder, " How can 
 God, who is Love, create beings, who can be so 
 wretched, blind, sinful, that it were better for 
 them had they never been born?" To that 
 question, as to the parallel question of the Con- 
 science, no full and adequate answer can, from 
 the nature of the case, be given. Nor, again, 
 is it doubtful that, just in proportion to the 
 existence of moral evil in the soul, the love of 
 God is exchanged for a fear, "hiding itself 
 among the trees of the garden j" and, just in 
 
300 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 proportion to the actual power of moraj evil to 
 desolate the world, the belief in God's Love, as 
 well as His Righteousness, is shaken. Sin 
 therefore, weakens this moral witness, as it 
 weakens the other moral witness, to God. Were 
 it not so, their combined testimony would be 
 absolutely irresistible. 
 
 But still it is through this conception of 
 Love that we have the brightest gleam of light 
 from Natural Theology to penetrate the darkness 
 of sin. For, in the first place, love being the 
 measure of unity with God and likeness to Him, 
 we feel that, so long as we have any love in us, our 
 nature cannot be quite estranged from Him or 
 utterly degraded. There is the Divine Image in 
 us, showing itself both in love to man and in love 
 to Him : we cannot but hope that it will con- 
 quer all that obscures it and fights against it. 
 But more than this. In the conception of God's 
 Love there is an undying hope. For love, as we 
 know, even in ourselves, contains, in relation to 
 those who sin against us, the quality of Mercy ; 
 and we hold that this quality belongs necessarily 
 to superior being. 
 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
 It is an attribute to God Himself. 
 
 Accordingly, we know that towards erring and 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 301 
 
 sinful children an earthly father shows mercy, 
 almost as a thing of course, carries not out the 
 strict law of Righteousness against them, but 
 delights to wipe away their tears of penitence, and 
 to swallow up in the gladness of reconciliation all 
 the suffering of the past. If God be Love, we 
 have hope that He will be better than an earthly 
 father to His prodigal sons, that thus the sin of 
 man will be pardoned, and all the cloud of evil 
 vanish away. We hope this : without Revelation 
 I dare not say that we know it. 2 For even the 
 Love of God cannot destroy the responsibility 
 of man. 3 Sin must be atoned for ; there must 
 be repentance, if there is to be pardon. Yet 
 every day in this life we seem to see souls 
 utterly hardened and reprobate, dead to all 
 sorrow for sin, and all desire of righteousness. 
 If there is always pardon to the penitent, can 
 there be always penitence for the sinner ? 
 
 2 On this solemn subject, see Butler's weighty and un- 
 answerable remarks in the " Analogy," part ii. chap. v. 
 
 3 ISTote the profound teaching of our Lord in John xii. 
 47, 48, in which His will for salvation and the inevitable 
 responsibility of man are contrasted. " If any man hear 
 My words, and believe not, I judge him not : for I came not 
 to judge the world, but to save the world. He that re- 
 jecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that 
 judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall 
 judge him in the last day." 
 
302 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 We cannot be sure, that, beyond a certain 
 point, human souls may not be utterly and 
 eternally estranged from God. But we have 
 hope — a hope that has expressed itself in every 
 religion — and that hope comes not from the 
 Reason and the Conscience, but from the 
 Affections. Its very existence is a signal proof 
 of the truth, that " he who loveth not, knoweth 
 not God." 
 
 VII. I have spoken hitherto mainly of the 
 principle of Love in the abstract, corresponding 
 to what we call the Syrderesis in the Moral Sense 
 of Righteousness. But it is far more difficult 
 here to distinguish the abstract principle from 
 the concrete application of it. For since the 
 sense of Righteousness bids us first realize our 
 own individuality and then the duties, which, 
 in virtue of that individual responsibility, we 
 owe to others, it is possible to consider the 
 principle of Duty in its abstract purity and 
 grandeur, as we stand face to face with it in the 
 great question, " For what purpose am I what 
 I am?" Love, on the other hand, being 
 essentially relative and self- forgetful, it is all 
 but impossible to realize it, except in its con- 
 crete forms, in close and necessary connexion 
 with the external objects to which it tends. 
 The distinction, therefore, which in the examina- 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 303 
 
 tion of Conscience was natural and necessary, is 
 somewhat artificial here. 
 
 But still there must here also be a similar 
 consideration of the need of education of the 
 principle of Love, and the inferences to be drawn 
 therefrom. 
 
 That the capacity of Love, like the capacity 
 of Righteousness, needs to be educated, and that 
 provision is made for its education by the ex- 
 istence of human society and natural relation- 
 ships, is too obvious to need proof or enforce- 
 ment. The only difference is that in the educa- 
 tion of Love the lower or coercive element of 
 law has no place, and that the spiritual element 
 is not so much the power of direct teaching, as 
 the magic of example and personal influence. 
 The growth of Love must necessarily be free. 
 It is stimulated by the power of example, be- 
 getting an inevitable reciprocity — with a power 
 stronger here than even in respect of Duty; for it 
 is an all-sufficient ground for loving men that 
 "they first love us." It grows with singular 
 rapidity and certainty by its own action ; for it 
 is well known that we love most those for whom 
 we have had the opportunity of doing most, 
 fully understanding that ff it is blessed to give 
 rather than to receive." It may be added that 
 the culture of the Imagination and of its delight 
 
304 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 in the beauty, which we rightly call " loveli- 
 ness/'' plays a more important part in the educa- 
 tion of Love than in the education of Duty. But 
 these differences do not touch the main point of 
 similarity — that the affections, like the Con- 
 science, need to be educated, and are in part 
 educated by man. 
 
 From this, therefore, exactly as before, we go 
 on to two inferences, — First, that this education 
 by man, being a law of human life, is a part of 
 the moral government of God, and that, there- 
 fore, of His nature Love as well as Righteous- 
 ness is a chief attribute. Next, that there are 
 depths in the capacity of Love, which no human 
 power, either of the individual or of society, can 
 reach, or, indeed, ought to reach. For these 
 there is an educating power which must reach 
 them from on high. 
 
 Not in this case the power of Law. In the 
 sense of Law — that is, of God's Will enforcing 
 and avenging itself — lies the source of fear, 
 whether it be the lower fear of punishment, or the 
 higher fear which is akin to reverence. "Per- 
 fect love casts out fear ;" it cannot, therefore, 
 be fostered by Law. We fall back entirely on 
 the voice of the Spirit in the soul. As He is 
 the awful Spirit of Righteousness, so is He also 
 the sweet Spirit of Love. As by the presence 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 303 
 
 of a Divine Righteousness, in rebuke and judg- 
 ment, He trains the Conscience, so also by the 
 sense of a Divine Love, in its beneficence, its 
 sympathy, its mercy, He trains the capacity of 
 Love. 
 
 It may indeed be noted that, in accordance 
 with that less introspective and more expansive 
 character of love, on which we have already 
 dwelt, the Voice of God in the soul seems here, 
 more than in its appeal to the conscience, 
 to make use of impressions from the outer 
 world. Thus it tells marvellously on the soul 
 through the imagination by the sense of the 
 beauty of Nature. In that relation, even a 
 Christian poet calls it " Nature's Voice,'"' whether 
 he hears it in the bright freshness of the morn- 
 ing, or the calmer peacefulness of the evening, 
 in the silence of the quiet valley or the grandeur 
 of the mountain storm. But it is really a voice 
 within the soul; and the most prosaic mind knows 
 well how at times it melts the heart to tender- 
 ness, and tills the eyes with the tears of an 
 adoring love. It is the voice of a true Personal 
 Being; for none other can call out a real 
 answer of love. Nor can we doubt that the 
 very atmosphere of human affection — in itself, 
 as we have already seen, a powerful educating 
 influence — suggests the existence behind and 
 
306 THE THEOLOGY Ob 1 THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 through it of a higher love of the God who 
 ordained it as one of the great ruling forces of 
 humanity. What Keble again says of the 
 sense of human sympathy in the hour of re- 
 pentance — " They love us : will not God for- 
 give?" — is true of all the various forms of 
 human affection. As by it we first learn to 
 conceive of the love of God, so through it we 
 afterwards learn to feel that higher love ; for in 
 it the voice of the Divine Spirit of Love speaks 
 to us through human voices. 
 
 But yet that Voice, perhaps oftener still, 
 comes home to the soul directly. It breathes 
 first the conviction of God's goodness and 
 especially His mercy; it suggests next the 
 yearning of the soul for Him and for His like- 
 ness ; it calls out lastly the answering current of 
 a conscious love. By the testimony of indivi- 
 dual consciousness and of all human literature, 
 we know that this Voice, thus speaking directly, 
 is heard in the secrets of the soul, — generally the 
 more clearly in proportion to the greater sensi- 
 tiveness and purity of that soul itself. In the 
 education of the capacity of love, as in its origin, 
 its scope, and its basis, we know a present God. 
 
 VIII. Thus, it would seem, the Theology of 
 Love completes the harmony of the many 
 voices which testify of God. 
 
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 307 
 
 Closely parallel to the Theology of Conscience, 
 yet certainly coming* from an independent faculty 
 in the soul, it testifies by the convergent force 
 of coincidence to a Personal, a Moral, a Loving 
 God. Of the two great truths correlative to 
 each other — the spirituality of man, and the 
 Being of a true God, having communion with 
 man — we may hold that the sense of Righteous- 
 ness is the chief guardian of the one, the sense 
 of Love the chief witness to the other. But the 
 two truths must stand or fall together; and 
 the two lines of Moral Theology, perhaps in 
 different proportions, testify of both. Their 
 witness, after all, is more powerful than any 
 other ; for it comes home with a direct and 
 vivid force to the individual Conscience, stirring 
 it not only to know, but to do ; and it tells more 
 or less upon all, not needing research into the 
 past, or abstract reasoning on the first principles 
 of Being, but dealing with the present realities 
 and the present needs of life. Their witness is 
 more fruitful than any other ; for it discloses to 
 us in its measure and degree, not only that God 
 is, but what He is — unfolding to us the Moral 
 Attributes most clearly belonging to Personality, 
 and most intimately affecting our own life in rela- 
 tion to Him. Therefore it is that our Lord pro- 
 mises the blessing of" seeing God/' not to keen- 
 
80S THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 ness or subtlety of intellect, but to the " purity 
 of heart/' which grows out of the "hunger 
 Lind thirst after righteousness."" Therefore it is 
 that, as the crowning perfection of Gospel teach- 
 ing, it is declared that " he that loveth not, 
 knoweth not God/' and that they who are 
 " rooted and grounded in love 3> shall " know 
 what passeth knowledge, and be filled with all 
 the fulness of God." 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 I._(«) SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL POINTS OF THE ARGU- 
 ME NT. 
 (b) THE RELATION OF BELIEF IN HUMAN PERSON- 
 
 ALITY TO BELIEF IN GOD. 
 ( C ) TEE GREAT ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THEISM AND 
 PANTHEISM. 
 II —THE TWO GROUPS OF SPECULATIVE AND MORAL THEO- 
 LOGY: THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS AND COMBINA- 
 TION. 
 
 I XI. THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSIONS — 
 
 (a) THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 
 
 (6) THE INDUCTION OF HIS (RELATIVE) INFINITY, 
 (c) THE CONCEPTION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 
 XV.-THE RELATION OF NATURAL THEOLOGY TO REVELATION. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The brief outline of a great subject is now com- 
 pleted. It remains to sum up the leading con- 
 clusions, to which the course of the argument 
 has led. 
 
310 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 I. (a.) We start 1 from an all-important fact, 
 which must in some way be accounted for — that 
 the belief in a Personal Godhead is all but uni- 
 versal over the field of humanity , both in space 
 and in time. With the one great exception of 
 Buddhism — which is itself unable really to main- 
 tain its Theoretic Nihilism, and which yet, in 
 virtue of that very Nihilism, is incompatible with 
 any activit}^ or progress of man — no belief which 
 excludes a Personal Deity is able to maintain 
 itself as a practical belief, fit for the wear and 
 tear of life ; and no belief in a Personal Deity 
 fails (after perhaps a brief halt in some theory of 
 Dualism) to assume, explicitly or implicitly, the 
 form of a belief in One Eternal God. The evi- 
 dences of our Natural Theology have, therefore, 
 to maintain a vantage-ground already our own 
 against assailant forces, rather than to win for 
 the faith in God a new position in human 
 thought and faith. 2 Their office, indeed, is to 
 
 1 See Lect. I. 
 
 2 In strict accordance with the laws of human nature, 
 Holy Scripture (1 Pet. iii. 15) directs us to be able to give 
 on inquiry " a reason for the hope which is " already " in 
 us," wrought out in the soul, not by abstract reasoning, 
 but by our own instinctive faith and by the teaching of men, 
 which God has ordained on all lines of knowledge to be the 
 two influences of actual education. The command applies 
 to the evidence both of Eeligion as such, and of Chris- 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 311 
 
 draw out, into explicit forms the principles im- 
 plicitly involved in the universal and instinctive 
 belief of mankind. 
 
 But what is the true character and province 
 of Natural Theology ? 8 In itself, when it pro- 
 ceeds beyond the bare demonstration of the 
 existence of a First Cause, it is, and from the 
 nature of the case we maintain that it must be, 
 an Inductive Science — proceeding (as all other 
 Inductive Sciences proceed) by observation, 
 generalization, verification, and resulting at last, 
 not in demonstration, but in moral certainty. 
 If it leads us to a Personal Being, then, although 
 our powers of observation are enlarged by sym- 
 pathy, yet all analogy shows us that, for any- 
 thing like adequate knowledge of Him from 
 Himself, some Self-Revelation is needed, com- 
 plementary to the searchings of Natural Theo- 
 logy, taking up its various lines and carrying 
 them on to the central Unity. To the knowledge 
 of Science, therefore, must be added the know- 
 ledge of Faith. It is important accordingly at 
 the outset to consider what is the force, and what 
 the limitation, of Natural Theology. Those who 
 believe in a Revelation, Supernatural but not 
 
 tianity itself. It shows us clearly the true function of 
 Evidence in relation to Faith. 
 3 See Lect. II. 
 
312 SUMMAUY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Preternatural, will be prepared at once to esti- 
 mate that force, and to expect that limitation. 
 
 To these preliminary considerations we next 
 add 4 — what it is the special object of these 
 lectures to enforce — first, that there are various 
 lines of Natural Theology, corresponding to the 
 Intellect, to the Imagination, to the Conscience, 
 and to the Affections of man ; next, that no one 
 of these various lines can be considered alone, or 
 expected alone to bear the whole stress of proof : 
 thirdly, that, in virtue of the Law of Conver- 
 gence, so well known in the estimation both of 
 scientific evidence and of human testimony, 
 the aggregate result of these various lines of 
 Theology is infinitely greater than the mere sum 
 of their separate evidences; lastly, that, since 
 each has at once its points of agreement with 
 the others, and its peculiarity of some exclusive 
 witness, this confirmatory power of Convergence 
 applies, primarily, indeed, to the points in which 
 all agree, but secondarily also to the testimony 
 which each bears alone. 
 
 From these main considerations we proceed 
 to work out more in detail each of these lines of 
 thought, as defending the fortress of instinctive 
 Faith. 
 
 (Jj.) But before doing so, it is important to 
 4 See Lect. III. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 313 
 
 notice what are the principles of that defence. 
 Everywhere the belief in God, and the conscious- 
 ness of all that makes a true Personality in man, 
 are in the closest connexion with each other. No 
 Theology is possible apart from the recognition 
 of a free will in man, guided by Reason, specula- 
 tive and practical, and in some mysterious way 
 harmonized with the Supreme Power. The con- 
 verse would probably be found to be true — that, 
 without belief in God, the believer in man's true 
 personality will find it all but hopeless to under- 
 stand how this needful harmony can be possible, 
 and so will hardly maintain his own conviction, 
 as a living and acting power. But with this we 
 are not at present concerned. The point, which 
 must be clearly represented to our mind, is this, 
 that we start in the search after God from the 
 conviction, so deeply engraven on the individual 
 consciousness and on the whole history and litera- 
 ture of the world, of a true personality in man. 
 With those who deny this we have no common 
 ground. But wherever it is acknowledged, we 
 believe that the evidence of Natural Theology is 
 fairly irresistible. On the premiss itself, we 
 appeal at once to the first principles of our inner 
 consciousness, and to the exigencies of the outer 
 life in which " we are treated as if we were 
 free." We have no fear that any imperious 
 
314 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 demand for logical comprehensiveness of system, 
 or any impressions, however powerful, of 
 the Majesty of Law, will ever rob mankind 
 of it. 
 
 (<?.) When we have thus considered the prin- 
 ciples of our defence, it is well to glance, next, 
 at the character of the attack. 
 
 The great issue to be decided is between 
 Pantheism and Theism — that is, between the 
 conception of a pervading Soul of the Universe, 
 and the faith in a living Personal God. For a 
 pure Materialism is, I believe, as a real faith, 
 impossible, because it utterly fails to account 
 for all the spiritual phenomena of life. Nor is 
 it probable that what men call " Agnosticism," 
 in respect to God — the denial of all possibility 
 of a true knowledge of Him, and the endeavour 
 to frame a system of life and thought without it 
 — will be much more than a theory of the 
 closet. It cannot meet even the intellectual 
 necessities, much less the moral and spiritual 
 necessities, of life. If there be a God, it is 
 an untenable position; if there be no God, 
 it must find something to supply His place : 
 and till it does, it must acknowledge itself 
 to be a mere pause and halting-place of 
 thought. 
 
 The one great enemy, then, against which 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 315 
 
 Religion has to hold its ground is Pantheism. 5 
 The various evidences of Natural Theology must 
 be ultimately marshalled with a view to its 
 attack, now pressed on with special vehemence 
 by the purely Physical Philosophy of the present 
 day, often fascinating the Intellect, and enlisting 
 in its cause the force of the Imagination. 
 
 II. Now, as we thus marshal them, we find 
 that they fall naturally into two chief groups— 
 the Intellectual (or Speculative) Theology of 
 the Reason and the Imagination, and the 
 Moral Theology of the Conscience and the 
 Affections. These two groups, while in the 
 component elements of each there is a close 
 similarity of main principle, hold towards each 
 other a relation chiefly of independence, differing 
 in the very principles of their method. It is, there- 
 fore, not unusual for men either to dwell wholly 
 on one or the other according to their tastes and 
 
 5 In this respect our position materially differs from that 
 of the great Evidence writers of the eighteenth century. 
 But it seems clear that the Deism, with which they had to 
 deal, was stimulated by not wholly dissimilar causes, viz. 
 by the great development of Physical Science, and by the 
 prevalence (in the school of Locke) of a mental and moral 
 philosophy of a kindred spirit, starting from sensation, 
 decrying abstract ideas, and impatient of mystery. Hence 
 there is much in these great writers, especially in Butler, 
 which may be applied mutatis mutandis to the a priori 
 infidelity of the present day. 
 
316 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 sympathies, or to derive certain results from 
 one considered by itself, before proceeding to 
 investigate the other. Against this practice I 
 have ventured to protest, as, dividing what ought 
 not to be put asunder. It seems but reasonable 
 that these two groups of evidences should be 
 examined together, and their testimonies viewed 
 as converging towards a common truth. When 
 this is done, what is (so to speak) rudimentary 
 and imperfect in one is likely to be brought out 
 into definiteness and conclusiveness by the other. 
 Proceeding, as we have seen, by independent 
 processes, they partly coincide in certain common 
 results, while each goes on to bear a peculiar 
 testimony, to which that coincidence nevertheless 
 gives trustworthiness and strength. When 
 they are so examined, what is their verdict on 
 the great question at issue ? 
 
 We turn to the first group. By Reason 
 surveying the Universe in all its great provinces 
 of Being, we ascend along the line of ^Etiology 
 demonstratively to the existence, and inductively 
 to the nature, of the First Cause, and examine 
 by Teleology the evidences of Design. The 
 former line of thought c brings out at once the 
 great alternative, and places us face to face with 
 
 6 Sec Lcct. IV. 
 
SUMMAUY OF THE ARGUMENT. 317 
 
 the conflict between Theism and Pantheism, 
 inclining, however, if will be recognised as 
 a true Cause, to the side of Theism. Still there 
 might be doubt. There is ultimate Mind. Is 
 it a Mind in the Universe, or a Mind over the 
 Universe ? 
 
 We turn to the second line of Reason, and to 
 the line of Imagination. 7 Their methods are 
 independent, and in some respects opposite to 
 each other. The understanding proceeds by 
 analysis, separating the whole into its parts by 
 gradual reasoning of Science, the Imagination by 
 synthesis, conceiving the whole as a whole in 
 one swift intuition. But their results distinctly 
 coincide, in recognising an independent creative 
 and sustaining Mind. The Understanding, both 
 in the Universe as a whole, and in the separate 
 kingdoms of Nature, traces the evidences of 
 Design, altered in form but unchanged in 
 essence by modern Science ; and the Imagina- 
 tion shows its power to discern Beauty, to 
 idealize and to re-create. Both by different 
 paths lead us not to a mere Anima Muudi, but 
 to a Living God, in whom they clearly recognise 
 Power, Wisdom, Glory, and may perhaps infer 
 Righteousness and Love. 
 
 7 See Lect. V. and VI. 
 
318 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 To many minds the combined evidence of this 
 group has seemed decisive ; either as sufficient in 
 itself, or as a starting-point for an inquiry, not 
 into the Being, but into the Moral Nature of 
 God. Probably they are right in the abstract; 
 certainly they are right as to the effect produced 
 on the mind of humanity at large. But let 
 us suppose that, standing alone, the result of 
 these lines of Speculative Theology be questioned. 
 Let us grant that the speculations of pure 
 Science and the imaginations of merely specula- 
 tive Poetry have tended and still tend, now in one 
 direction, now in another. Sometimes their 
 deities are only Nature and Humanity ; some- 
 times behind both they recognise the form of a 
 Living God. 
 
 Then, if this be so, we turn to the other group 
 of witnesses. We examine the testimony of the 
 Conscience and the Affections. 8 The whole 
 aspect of the question is at once changed. There 
 is no question that, if they bear witness to any 
 object, that object must be a Personal and Moral 
 Being, having (so says Conscience) necessary re- 
 lations to us, and having (so Love declares) an 
 Unity of nature with us. Hence the one ques- 
 tion is, whether these faculties, acknowledged to 
 
 8 See Lect. VII. and VIII. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE AllGUMENT. 319 
 
 be the highest and the most powerful faculties 
 of our nature, have any relation whatever to that 
 Supreme Power, of which Reason and Imagina- 
 tion tell us. To solve that question — allowing 
 on universal human testimony the existence of 
 the great principles of Conscience and Love — 
 we examine, first, their origin, their scope, and 
 their basis in general ; and, next, the process of 
 their education to the particular applications of 
 daily life. Everywhere we find that they do 
 lead up to the Supreme Power, and that, without 
 such an ultimate object, their whole character is 
 defective, if not unintelligible. This being so 3 
 we hold that this group of witnesses interferes 
 in the great strife, which the intellectual Theo- 
 logy but partially determines, with no indecisive 
 voice. Against the Pantheistic alternative, the 
 Moral Theology protests in the name of the in- 
 dividuality of man, of his sense of the eternal 
 difference between Right and "Wrong, of his 
 capacity of infinite Love. It must destroy 
 them, or they will destroy it. In its view all 
 other being vanishes, except the Being of God 
 and the being of our own soul. In fact, did we 
 listen to its witness alone, the conception of God 
 might be even too narrow and too limited in its 
 intense Personality, failing adequately to bring 
 out the all-pervading influence of His Providence 
 
320 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 in the world of things, and of His Spirit in the 
 world of souls. 
 
 But let us take both groups of witness 
 together ; then the witness .of Natural Theology 
 grows upon us in all its depth and power. 
 Were it not for one great disturbing cause, 
 it would be fairly irresistible. But that dis- 
 turbing element undoubtedly exists in the great 
 Mystery of Evil — in the lesser forms of apparent 
 waste and failure, and of physical suffering, 
 seeming to obscure God's Wisdom — in the 
 greater and more terrible form of moral Evil, 
 seeming to discredit His Righteousness and 
 Love. It is, be it frankly acknowledged, a 
 mystery which in different degrees weakens 
 every line of Natural Theology ; yet it has 
 power, we unhesitatingly maintain, to destroy 
 none. Even allowing for its interference, we 
 still find their convergent force so strong that, 
 if we relied on it alone, we should not wonder 
 that the belief in a living Almighty and All 
 Righteous God should be in possession of all the 
 field of human thought, and express itself in all 
 the religions and languages, of the world. 
 
 IV. What is precisely its ultimate result ? 
 
 (a.) I believe, first, that it leads us to the 
 existence of a Personal God, with all the force of 
 moral certainty. By instinctive consciousness, 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 321 
 
 by the inferences of practical experience, by the 
 convergence of many lines of deliberate thought, 
 —by the process (that is) through which we 
 gain knowledge of any Being— the soul ascends 
 to Him, refusing either to turn aside to other 
 objects, or to stop contentedly half way. 
 
 {i.) Next if it be asked how far we know 
 what He is, the answer must be that every line of 
 Induction leads us to what we may call relative 
 Infinity, that is, to attributes transcending our 
 own power perfectly to conceive. The Theology 
 of the Intellect and Imagination invests Him 
 with attributes of Power, Wisdom, Glory, in 
 relation to which our advancing thought per- 
 petually enlarges our vision of their greatness, 
 and yet shows more distinctly how they stretch 
 immeasurably beyond. The soul breaks out into 
 the cry, « O the depth of the riches, both of the 
 wisdom, and the knowledge of God ! How un- 
 searchable are His judgments and His ways 
 past finding out I" So again the Moral 
 Theology brings out to us in God Righteous- 
 ness and Love— like our own, but indefinitely 
 transcending our own — by a knowledge which 
 increases with the perfection of our moral concep- 
 tions, with the consciousness of our own moral 
 needs, with the actual growth of our own moral 
 life. The result is, perhaps, not so much the 
 
 y 
 
322 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 excitement of an adoring wonder, as the kindling 
 of a deep and reverent love, " thirsting for God, 
 yea! for the living God/' But, beyond these 
 conceptions of Infinity the mind in itself cannot 
 go. Infinity necessarily is to such investigation 
 what it is in Mathematical reasoning — the 
 result of the indefinite accumulation of finite 
 quantity, compared with which, nevertheless, no 
 finite quantity bears any appreciable proportion. 
 The conception of God, like the Love of God, 
 demands all the minds and all the souls of all 
 men, and having filled them to the measure of 
 their capacity, overflows infinitely beyond them 
 all. To suppose that they can grasp His 
 absolute Nature is a contradiction in terms. 
 
 (<?.) But, while Inductive reasoning can go 
 no further than this, we must add, thirdly, that 
 we find in each line of thought the notion of 
 the Absolute, as that which we must conceive 
 to be, though we cannot conceive how or what 
 it is in itself. Such in Speculative Theology is 
 the conception of a First Cause, itself uncaused, 
 which, while we may differ as to its nature, 
 and acknowledge that nature to be imperfectly 
 comprehensible, seems nevertheless to be a 
 necessity of thought. Such in Moral Theology 
 is the conception of an Eternal and unchange- 
 _able Righteousness, belonging to the First 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 323 
 
 Cause, so arguing a true Personality in Him, 
 and underlying the nature of all things, of 
 which it is impossible to conceive that it ever 
 was not, or can ever cease to be. These two 
 conceptions are not relative to us and to our 
 capacities, but absolute. They lie beyond the 
 induction of relative Infinity ; they supply to 
 the thought the goal towards which those In- 
 ductions are perpetually approaching. Barren 
 in their own absolute majesty, they are clothed 
 with vividness of beauty and life by these 
 inductions, till they glow, like the everlasting 
 hills under all the changes of light and shade. 
 The First Cause is invested with all the per- 
 fection of Wisdom and Glory, which we discover 
 on every side, and we believe that these At- 
 tributes rise . beyond our conception to an 
 Absolute Infinity. The Eternal Righteousness 
 is brought out to us by all the evidences of an 
 actual Moral Government of the world, which we 
 can discover, while it is acknowledged that they 
 are but indications of an absolute Moral Perfec- 
 tion which is far beyond our powers of discovery. 
 The Ideal Consciousness and the actual Induc- 
 tion meet together. The one gives us the un- 
 changeable Form, the other supplies the colour- 
 ing, which impresses that Form upon the mental 
 
 vision. 
 
 y 2 
 
324 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 It is thus that Natural Theology ascends to- 
 wards the Infinite Being. The meeting-point 
 of the Absolute Conception, and the various lines 
 of Induction converging to it, lies behind the 
 veil. Nevertheless its existence is invariably 
 assumed. More or less vividly it is realized by 
 all forms of Theism, whether they do or do not 
 accept the belief in any special Revelation. 
 
 IV. It is with this acceptance and the grounds 
 of it that we have had to do. But yet we cannot 
 but remind ourselves, in conclusion — as in the 
 course of the argument we have reminded our- 
 selves from time to time — that we Christians, 
 while we thank God for this Natural Theology, 
 hold that in His wisdom it has not stood, nor 
 was it intended to stand, alone. Accordingly, we 
 protest in the strongest terms against the as- 
 sumption, too often made on both sides of this 
 great argument, of any true antithesis between 
 Natural and Revealed Religion. We hold that 
 Revelation, in the sense in which we use the 
 word, is natural — that is, we believe it to be a 
 part of the dispensation of God to man, on which, 
 as complementary to the searchings of Natural 
 Theology, the knowledge of God diffused through 
 the world actually rests. Over and above the 
 witness to God, through which He reveals Him- 
 self to every individual heart, we hold it as a 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 325 
 
 historical truth that He has, "in sundry 
 times and in divers manners/'' specially re- 
 vealed Himself to men, and through them 
 to the whole race, in a Revelation which 
 finds its ultimate perfection in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 In two ways we hold this Revelation to be 
 complementary to all those natural forms of the 
 knowledge of Him. First, in the strict sense of 
 completion, coming forth from behind the veil, 
 to meet all these converging lines of thought, 
 and to bind them in one perfect unity to the 
 Throne of God. Next, in the sense rather of 
 supplement, as giving us the only solution of 
 that great Mystery of Evil, which everywhere 
 (as we have said) weakens and obscures the light 
 shining along each line of Natural Theology, 
 and weighs like a terrible burden upon the souls 
 of men. To this twofold relation of Revelation 
 to Natural Theology we shall endeavour to direct 
 our thoughts hereafter. But meanwhile we must 
 remember, that this is the view of the knowledge 
 of God which Christianity maintains, and that, 
 because it does so maintain it, it is recognised as 
 the true strength of Theism, so that by it, and 
 by it alone, the main battle of Religion has to 
 be fought. 
 
 Such is the general outline of the argument. 
 
326 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 However imperfectly it may have been worked 
 out, I believe that it is essentially true. 
 
 There are two principles universally recognised 
 in human life. The first is that every convic- 
 tion, which is to rule humanity, must appeal not 
 to one faculty of our nature, but to that nature 
 as a whole, in the harmony of all its various 
 faculties. The second is that every such con- 
 viction, speculative or practical, unless it rests on 
 absolute demonstration or absolute faith, is 
 wrought into the soul by many converging' 
 evidences, each possibly in itself inadequate, all 
 in their combination irresistible. I have simply 
 urged that these acknowledged principles 
 should be applied to the highest inquiry— the 
 inquiry after God. 
 
 The knowledge of Him, from whom our 
 complex nature proceeds, if it is really to come 
 home to us, must embrace understanding and 
 imagination, conscience and affections alike. 
 The knowledge of Him, who necessarily is 
 beyond our full comprehension, must be 
 reached by many lines of thought, each giving 
 but an imperfect witness, and all together rising 
 but to a moral certainty. 
 
 So embraced by all our faculties, so impressed 
 on us by the combined evidence of all, we believe 
 that it is ordained by Him to draw us towards the 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 327 
 
 shrine of His Presence. But from that shrine, 
 opened by His hand, we believe that there have 
 shone, in all ages, beams of His own Divine 
 Light, beyond our own power to discover : yet 
 even these veiled and imperfect still, till by the 
 coming of the Son of God the veil was rent in 
 twain, and the way into the Holiest place opened 
 to us for ever. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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