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Doctrine of retribution : eight lectures preached before the THE DOCTRINE OE RETRIBUTION. I // * * 4 \ 4 % BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME, The Philosophy of Natural Theology. An Essay in Confutation of the Scepticism of the Present Day, which received a prize at Oxford, November 26, 1S72. By William Jackson, M.A. Mr. Jackson's Essay embraces the following subjects: I. Philosophy of Design. — II. Conditions of Knowledge.—III. Beliefs of Reason.— IV. Production and its Law.— V. Causation. — VI. Responsibility. 8vo, Cloth,.$3 00 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, Publishers , 770 Broadway, Cor. 9th St., New York. Sent by mail free of expense , on receipt of price. THE DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTION: EIGHT LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, IN THE YEAR 1875, ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE JOHN HAMPTON, M.A ., CANON OF SALISBUR Y. A Lecfwres, y/ BY WILLIAM JACKSON, M.A., F.S.A., (.Formerly Fellow of Worcester College ,) AUTHOR OF “THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY,” “POSITIVISM,” * “ RIGHT AND WRONG,” ETC. Ifrfo %axk: ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 770 , BROADWAY. 1 8 7 6. .. I y i b, / / t \ / • . < N t EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REY. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY, -“I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the “ Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for “ ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates “ upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; “ that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the “ University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all “ the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, repara- “ tions, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder “ to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be estab- “ lished for ever in the said University, and to be performed in the “ manner following: “ I direct and appoint, that, upon the First Tuesday in Easter “ Term, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges “ only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing- “ House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the “ afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year “ following, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, between the commencement of “ the last month in Lent Term and the end of the third week in Act “ Term. “ Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons “ shall be preached upon either of the following subjects :—to confirm “ and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and “ schismatics—upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures— “ upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to “ the faith and practice of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity VI Rev. John Bamp ton's Will. “ of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—upon the Divinity of the> “ Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre- “ hended in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed. “ Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture “ Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are “ preached; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the “ University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one “ copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put “ into the Bodleian Library; and the expense of printing them shall “ be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for estab- “ lishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not “ be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. “ Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to “ preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the “ degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of “ Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same person shall never preach “ the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.” INTRODUCTION. HE preliminaries desirable for an intelligent -L perusal of the following Lectures are stated in the first of the series. Some such explanations were imperative upon an author who had to preach his book before printing it; and this circumstance super¬ sedes a good deal of w T hat would otherwise have formed prefatory matter. The Doctrine of Ketribution is, I wish to impress upon my readers, a contribution, and only a con¬ tribution, to a subject as vast as it is interesting— the Philosophy of Natural Beligion.* Any adequate * The subject, is, in fact, very much wider than may be generally imagined. It is so linked with the Philosophy of Natural Theology, as to make in strict propriety a part of the same connected Whole. From my first Lecture above cited, a fair idea may be acquired concerning the exact relations between these great provinces of the Science of Human Nature. It is there shown that Natural Religion may be treated simply as the logical consequent of Natural Theology; •—or it may receive an independent grounding upon the truth of Moral Distinctions ;—or, thirdly, these two Methods may be made to illustrate and verify each other. For reasons there assigned, I have preferred to employ the second Method, but with a constantly recurring regard to the third ; and this kind of recurrence I wish to be considered as occupying the relative position of a confirmatory argument. The strength of such a verification will be much more thoroughly appre- Introduction. • • • Vlll discussion of this subject as a whole, must involve details which might very probably occupy not eight, but eight times eight Lecture Sermons. Finding myself compelled to isolate one line of thought from its allies and supporters, and to treat it separately, I have ventured on endeavouring, with earnestness of purpose, to answer the most anxious question ever asked by the reasoning mind of Man—the question whether Eetributive Justice is or is not sovereign over human Futurities ? Along with an affirmative reply, comes the determination of another enquiry. For, if the facts of our Moral nature distinctly point to a finality of Retribution, they must also prove the reasonable truth of certain Religious beliefs, which transcend Man’s present existence and constitute a Natural Religion. In attempting a valid reply to these very solemn human demands, I have adopted a method very different in two respects from the kind of discussion not uncommonly used by recent controversialists. Writers on Natural Religion often commence by submitting to critical examination some form of Faith which has been familiar to their childhood, and which rests its claim for acceptance on grounds of prseter-natural evidence. This Belief, they strip ciated by an occasional reference to my Essay on the Philosophy of Natural Theology, published just a year ago. And this is particularly the case with respect to Lectures III., IV., and V. ensuing, together with the first half of Lecture VIII., because upon the topics they contain a great number of facts and illustrations are given in the 1874 volume, which did not appear well adapted for recital from the pulpit. Introduction. IX of every supra-mundane character,—its transcendent doctrines included. They then go on to scrutinize the residuum. There is little difficulty in predicting, from the beginning of such a process, what must necessarily he its result: a ca'put mortnum —a de¬ vitalized mass of formal dogma, neither human nor yet in the least divine. Nothing for a struggling man to live by,—nothing in the strength of which any earnest man would dare to die. The Method pursued in these pages is a reverse procedure. It does not set out from considering what has been held religious, but from what is ascertainably natural. The portraiture of Natural Religion is outlined after an examination into the specific character and attributes of Human Nature. Of this investigation, the results are placed in a variety of lights, and are repeatedly tested and veri¬ fied. In such-like respects, I have been unsparing —perhaps at some risk of putting a strain on my reader’s attention. It may, however, be hoped that the forms of oral address, which are carefully kept unaltered, will lessen the dryness of that ever- pertinent enquiry,—Is what has been said probably or certainly true ? * * The maintenance of those actual shapes into which the several Lectures were cast, has caused a few repetitions. The Bampton Lectures are not delivered consecutively; e.g., my own preaching turns occurred, as follows : February 21 ; March 7, 14 ; April 11,18 ; and May 2, 9, 80. It is impossible, under such conditions, to avoid the necessity of reiterating statements which may easily escape the memory of auditors. So far as philosophic argument is concerned, “ Intervalla vides humane commoda.” X Introduction. But all tests of reasoning must yield the palm of exactness and stringency to those most powerful touchstones,—interdependence, and coherency. And their application to my argument forms the second difference of Method to which I have alluded. A Drama or Epic Poem ought, we know, to contain within itself a beginning, a middle, and an end. The same requirement is yet more legitimately demanded of philosophical thinking. Every conclusion ought to link itself with a demonstrated truth or an axiomatic first-ground by that kind of connection which, grow¬ ing naturally out of the one, culminates with an equally natural meaning and propriety in the other. Philosophic thought which answers this description is evidently both coherent and interdependent. Its flaws, if there are any, will he readily perceived. But when the cohering parts are sound, the whole can safely he pronounced a Reality. Thus much I have said for two reasons :—one, on my own account, and in order that whether my reader agrees with me or no, he may see that I have done my best to assist him in judging for himself. The other, because ft seems time that some serious protest should be entered against the fashion of making English Philosophy into a department of English light literature. It may be true, that Easy philosophies must always dispense with principles, —for the plain reason that the discovery of princi¬ ples is no easy task. And it is never difficult to cover up the hiatus valcle deflendos by smart and plausible writing—by the quiet assumption of an Introduction. xi ipse dixi —or (safest of all) by relegating everything which the ingenious writer or intelligent reader may not happen to know, into the abysmal Profound of the Unknowable. With the employment of this much-misused phrase, all endeavour after coherency is, of course, resigned. But let it be emphatically understood that the opponents of Doubt and Denial in their modern forms—from dogmatic Atheism to moral and religious know-nothingness—do with un¬ compromising purpose accuse those airy shapes, one and all, of an incoherence thorough enough to make them, while glittering as soap-bubbles, like soap- bubbles, disappointingly unsubstantial. In antithesis to the incomplete and ungrounded treatment which I venture openly to condemn, I have on each occasion stated the first principles upon which I myself rely; what certitude I attach to each; and why I conceive them to claim our assent. In like manner, I have tried to make it clear that the issue and end of my reasoning is in consonance with the functions distinctive of Human Nature ; and, therefore, with our acknowledged aims and aspirations. So far as regards Mankind, I can¬ not but be of opinion, that such a harmony is in itself a conclusive argument. How much more so, then, when its consonance is greater, grander far,— wide as all we know of the Universe, and lofty as our purest and noblest thoughts concerning God! PRINCE TON THEOLOGICAL ,J CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE THE SUBJECT IN PERSPECTIVE.I LECTURE IT. THE ANSWEK OF CONSCIENCE.G1 LECTURE III. SCEPTICISM WHEN THOKOUGH. . 103 FIRST PRINCIPLES LECTURE IV. 113 LECTURE V. THE PREROGATIVE OF HUMANITY. . .179 LECTURE VI. man’s inner law and life 223 LECTURE VII. GROWTH, TRIAL, AND TRIUMPH.257 LECTURE VIII. ABSOLUTE TRUTH AND THE SOLEMN HEREAFTER . 239 I LECTUEE I. TEIE SUBJECT IN PERSPECTIVE . 1 < • t * t \ r i % w I / \ % LECTUEES. , • LECTUEE I. Habakkuk i. 12. “ Art Thou not from everlasting, 0 lord my God, mine Holy One ? We shall not die. 0 Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment ; And, 0 mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction.” T I 1HEEE are periods of the world’s history when nations seem to live through many ages in one. Those are times in which women must weep, whilst men’s hearts bleed inwardly. A period of this kind in Europe was the transition from the last century to the present. We who read the narratives of French revolution and French con¬ quest, feel no surprise that, among those who saw such monstrosities, many lost their reason. Young heads grew grey in a single night; numbers of middle- class men and women became depraved,—some¬ times even devilish. A like period in Palestine was that which culminated in the first fall of Jerusalem. It came slowly, as great horrors are wont to come. Prophet after prophet stood upon the tower of his 4 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. watch, to look for the day of the Lord. That day rose like the morning spread npon the mountains,—a dawn making darkness visible. They who thought and felt for their race asked eagerly, “ Watchman, what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ? ” And sad is the soul of any human being whose inward eye sees farther than his fellows ! Let us try to picture for ourselves something of what the prophet Habakkuk saw;—saw, that is, in part with his bodily eye, and in part with the eye of his spirit. In these fields of vision he blended the prospect of two opposed cities—the one near, the other at a distance. He pictured them as their builders made them. He beheld them in their human life and moral meaning. He saw both as they would be when a few brief generations should have passed away. The city to which the vision came was built upon a rock, and begirt by circling hills : “ As the mount¬ ains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about His people.” Between those hills were stony valleys with steep watercourses—the “ wadies ” of the East and of Spain. Behind stretched lonely downs, over which sheep heard their shepherd’s voice and followed him to find green pastures. Elsewhere was the wilderness of crags and thickets ; and amidst them one might he alone with the wild beasts. East¬ wards, beyond the palm trees, flowed the stream that had been crossed by the pilgrim-fathers ; and down it, where the limestone ridges are overlooked by high volcanic summits, lay a deep secluded vale. Here Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective . 5 slept the lake of desolation—the heavy waters of the Dead Sea. The recollections, the anticipations, which these various scenes naturally awakened, I may leave to your imagination. One circumstance we will not forget. There was in the prophet’s mind a “ central point ” round which every remembrance and every hope clustered: “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.” Not for site alone, nor for its own sake only, but because of its law of Right and Wrong: “ For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.” And again, not of David only, nor yet only for Judah: “ Out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” “ The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Did this seem likely to be verified now ? From the mountain of the Lord’s house you cannot descry the strongholds of the hitter and hasty Chaldee. But he comes, terrible and dreadful;‘and shall iron break the northern iron and the steel ? Below yon dim horizon are the rolling plains which Abraham crossed, in search of a purer law and an heritage as yet unseen. Yonder glides the slow flood of yellowish water, on the far side of which Abraham’s fathers served other gods. Beside it, and bestriding it, stood the city built by the might of Chaldean power, and for the honour of Chaldean majesty—the adver¬ sary and antitype of the City of David, and of God. Was this Babylon the seat of independent sove- 6 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. reignty at tlie time when the prophet spoke ? If so, he foretold the end from the beginning. If not, he spoke like her who saw “ The phantom of many a Danish ship, Where ship there yet was none.” However this may be, he must have felt as Dante* felt when he heard the words of that plaintive hymn —“ 0 God, the heathen are come into Thine inherit¬ ance.” And, like Dante, he wrote the lament of a nation which was socially lost because it had ceased to be morally alive. In the prophet’s day the law was slacked, and judgment did not go forth. Therefore the foreigner took the Hebrews in his net. They were made “ as the fishes of the sea ”—a lawful prey—creatures over whom there are rights, not men with rights of their own. They became “like the creeping things that have no ruler over them”—no ruler, that is, in any true sense—no man and ruler of men. These things the prophet saw. He saw another and a contrasted event to follow afterwards; but his eyes rested first on the moral and social degradation. Such as he described was the fate of the peoples, nations, and languages, who came to the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon, to bow down before the greatest golden image the world had ever adored. The ears of the multitude were soothed by the sound of all kinds of music. Their souls were enthralled by the glittering emblem of Plutocracy, fittest of all * Purgatorio , Canto 33. Lect. i.j The Subject in Perspective . 7 emblems for great Babel, the city of merchant- princes, and lighted up (as we may picture it) by a sun bright as Napoleon’s sun of Austerlitz. Certain of these strangers must needs weep tears of shame : captives themselves, and mourning over the captivity of their country’s gods. They thought upon the conqueror’s question, “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” They thought upon his burning fiery furnace. They fell down and wor¬ shipped the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up: three men, and three men only, excepted. These three were captives of the great king. Food, clothing, shelter, life,—all dependent upon his lightest word. Bitter is the exile’s bread; but more poisonous the dainties tossed sometimes to the slave. Yet those slave-satraps—a small unthought-of few— fulfilled the foresight of the prophet. They practised what he preached, when he said, “ Art Thou not from everlasting, 0 Lord my God, mine Holy One ? ive shall not die.” And this was the second event which our text places in antithesis with the first: a foretaste of the great victory which will-force should achieve over world-force; a symbol of Eternal Justice set over against the brief triumph of the covetous and violent Chaldee. Now, to what wisdom, to what principle of knowledge, or assent, shall we ascribe the prophet’s words ? To Faith ? Yes : in the form under which they were uttered, and hy virtue of the insight and foresight which spoke and wrote them, for a genera¬ tion that should live at the end, just as the speaker 8 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. himself lived at the beginning. In this form, and with this kind of certitude when earthly events seemed adverse, they were Faith. In another form —shaped, that is, by the laws of thought, springing up from our human intuitions, an efflux of that light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world—in this other form, and resting on the primary beliefs of practical Eeason, the very same words might have been true Philosophy. Does it sound strange to say Philosophy ? I shall hope to show clearly in what sense and to what extent the assertion is true. Meantime, you may remember how a great poet—no distant neighbour to Oxford— repudiated the judgment of fools, and found Philoso¬ phy neither harsh nor unmusical. He believed her to be what he himself called her—Divine. You may verify what I have said. If in evil days you put the same questions to real Faith and to real Philosophy, the answers will coin¬ cide. Ask, for example, Must we be content to suffer in a righteous cause? Are we sure that our sorrows shall be turned into joy ? No contradictory replies to these and such-like questions have ever been uttered by them of whom the world was not worthy. All have said the same thing—saint and sage, prophet and apostle, Socrates and Boethius—from the first Hebrew to the last G-entile of that noble army, that great cloud of witnesses, who died rather than speak or act a falsehood. A little incense on an idol altar was no large handful: but it was an infinite untruth ! For this reason, and for one other reason, I have Lect. i.j The Subject in Perspective . 9 chosen a verse of Old Testament prophecy to he the text of this Lecture, and to stand as a fit motto to the whole series. The one other reason I may as well state at the outset. It is this :— The prophet spoke in foresight as well as in faith. What he said was a strong assertion not of what would be only, but of what must he ; and it was meant to he received and acted on by those who should live when he and his generation had been gathered to their fathers. With a similar hope, although with immeasurably humbler credentials, I desire to dedicate this present course of Bampton Lectures to the youth of this University. In this wish I shall have, I am sure, the true-hearted sympathy of elder men. The things I am about to say are things which I myself, and those who think with me, cannot but feel and know to be unfailingly certain of their accomplishment. On the assurance of these eternal verities, we willingly rest our hopes for the solemn Hereafter. Being ourselves persuaded that there is no “ peradventure ” in the case, we desire to persuade others also. Before all, to persuade the young. And this for the best of reasons. You, who listen to me this morning, will have no choice hut to be sharers—some of you, possibly, prominent actors—in a vast crisis of affairs. Few educated persons who have watched fche world for twenty years, can avoid a deep-felt convic¬ tion that one of the greater periods of change which befal civilized Europe is impending,—or, to speak more accurately, has begun: I will not say, “begun to [Lect. I. io The Doctrine of Retribution . run its course,” for such a phrase would savour of Fatalism. Let us hope that it may await the direction which brave hearts and manly heads shall impress upon it. Beyond a doubt, soon as always, the ex¬ ample of England will have much to do with the practical solution. Soon, as of old, Oxford will to a large extent influence England. It is Oxford’s honest boast that hither come in numbers the flower and promise of English homes, and that few of the many remain and go away without knowing that Oxford has been to them a fresh home-circle of thought and purpose, whence all carry in turn aspirations and lasting memories. If you can hut crown your lives here with true Amaranth, there will he no sorrow in the long remembrance. Let me point out to you some evidences of the change which has set in :— Seventeen years ago there was preached from this pulpit a series of Bampton Lectures one object of which was to show the failures of certain philoso¬ phies, and the mischievous tendencies of others. These lectures were much listened to, and more read. They excited a great deal of controversy. Amongst hostile critics some considered the lecturer unfaithful to philosophy itself. Other some were of opinion that he attached consequences to certain philoso¬ phical systems, not intended by their authors. In short, they questioned the equity of his interpreta¬ tions. I mention this unfriendly criticism solely with the view of impressing upon your minds one remark- Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective . 11 able fact. People in those days could scarcely credit the existence of a nineteenth century Atheism. Deism was a possibility,—so was Pantheism: but who ever knew an Atheist ? What a change has come over us now ! We have buildings set apart for the propagation of Atheism. There are journals devoted to its advocacy, or (as the writers think) its demonstration, in one at least of its shapes. I say, in one, because Mr. Stuart Mill divides Atheism into two forms : first, the dogmatic denial of God’s existence; secondly, the denial that there is any evidence on either side, which (he adds), for most practical purposes, amounts to the same thing. You may feel surprised at hearing any Atheists spoken of as Dogmatists ; but French Positivism, in its early times, maintained that to assert Atheism was to dogmatize, and to show oneself a bigot. A person might as philosophically be a Theist as an Atheist. The right course was to assert that all knowledge on the subject is impossible. Parisians are, however, addicted to neatness of statement; and this may predispose them to Dogmatics. At all events, they made progress in the bigotry of Atheism. We have it on Communist authority that the Revolution of 1871 was atheistic. The same journal tells us that this fact was a sufficient reason, and constituted the reason, why the sacrifice of the Archbishop of Paris was urgently—nay, imperatively —demanded. “ We,” (said these Atheists,) “ owe it to ourselves—we owe it to the world.” The world did look on ; but perhaps the Archbishop’s murder may 12 7 he Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect. t. not have altogether advanced the cause of dogmatic Atheism throughout the whole world. In our own country, Dogmatism of this sort is upheld, amongst what may be termed the lower middle-class, by Fatalists. Nothing draws more rapturous plaudits from such an audience, in an atheistic lecture-room, than the plain assertion that man is a machine ; that he is driven by natural law in the same sense that a splash of mud is thrown by a carriage-wheel. Whatever wickedness he does, the fault is in Nature, not in him. And he need not fear Retributive Justice. Retribution would in itself be unjust. Neither is there any life where justice can be done. Amongst educated circles, dogmatic Atheism is best known by feeble imitations either of Strauss or of Haeckel. The former passed from sceptical Theology to the denial of Theism. The latter en¬ grafted upon an extended evolution-system certain metaphysical theories, which landed him also in Atheism. Men belonging to either camp are usually bigots. One class tells us that belief in God is an outrage upon their religious feelings. The other describes all writers and speakers as unscientific idiots, if they reach any conclusion short of atheistic Mechanism. ♦ 3 I have said enough to show you that there is a change since 1858. Let me now direct your thoughts to the second kind of Atheism mentioned by Mr, Mill. It is by far the more widely spread, and is much more likely to gain influence in a country lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 13 which calls itself “practical.” To say “There is no God” will he held by most people the saying of a fool or a dreamer of abstract dreams. But to say “ There is no evidence that a God exists ” is quite another thing. It saves the labour of some non- t commercial reasoning; it serves as an apology for religious indifferentism. A curious history attaches to this last mode of denying God. Bather more than a century ago, Scotland made France the present of an “ Easy Philosophy.” This was the name given by David Hume to his own system; and he meant to place it in contrast with more abstract reasonings which seriously attempt to determine, in one way or another, the great problems of thought and life. Hume’s “Easy Philosophy” was an irony—a purely sceptical contribution to what was called the French Illumination. Compared with some other con¬ tributors, his ironies seem modest. Most here have no doubt heard the story of Hume’s seventeen dinner companions, who accused Yoltaire of narrow¬ ness because he was a Deist, while they themselves were Atheists. Hume died before the first French Bevolution; therefore we cannot tell what its influence might have been upon his mind. But the remarkable point is this: when dogmatic Atheism fell into disrepute, Hume’s Scepticism survived. Comte claimed him as his own ancestor, and endeavoured to requite this country for the gift bestowed on France. It was, of course, returned in a condition more systematic and less ironical. 14 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. It also underwent much development. Yet, as I have already noted, it was not dogmatic Atheism,— and thus far remained true to the sceptical stand¬ point. Still, the advance seems very considerable. Hume thought Deism a very useful doctrine. He asks one of his correspondents to help him with arguments in its favour. Comte thought belief in a Deity superfluous, and therefore he dispensed with it. He also dispensed with the idea of a personal life beyond the grave. In other words, he rejected both. I am obliged to speak in this way of his teaching, because he loved system as dearly as the most extreme dogmatizer. Consequently, in dis¬ pensing with these infinite beliefs, he did in fact renounce them. Thus, therefore, he forsook the truly sceptical position, and left to Hume the glory of continuing its best representative man. Comte’s gift of Positivism to England was not appreciated whole and entire, as he expected. One reason is, that in his later days he felt the need of something more emotional than cold systematization. A calendar of ceremonial observances was the result; and it alienated numbers among his disciples. Yet, what is now commonly called Positive thinking has leavened the minds of English-speaking men, here and in America, to an almost incredible extent. The advance over Hume has been also maintained. Let me give you one conclusive illustration of this fact. The late Mr. Mill left behind him three remarkable essays, published since his decease. They clear up an enigma which had perplexed Mill’s admirers. Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 15 He exercised a reserve on religions subjects which (to quote a safe authority) “ perhaps even scandalized some of the more ardent and on-pressing spirits.” In this posthumous publication are discussed the all-important beliefs in God and immortality. Mill does not allow them the position of beliefs. He characterizes them as hopes only, and adds many limitations. Still, as hopes, he advises us to cherish them. They are, in his view, contributions to individual happiness; they are also useful to man¬ kind. Here, then, he resembles Hume. Now, for these cautious predilections Mill is held by his friends unfaithful to Positive thinking. He is pro¬ nounced guilty of aberrations as great as Comte’s. His memory is mourned with a kind of contemptuous pity. The surprise and disappointment expressed on this occasion by leaders of Positive thought, furnishes a fair index to what, in their opinion, is the logical outcome of their method. It would appear unable to tolerate even the modest hope that there exists a God, or that He reserves an immortality for men. Such is the attitude maintained by no unskilful advo¬ cacy. It brings to its advocates personal credit, praise, and pecuniary gain. What may be the next stage of its evolution—what the method portends to its disciples—are questions which people will answer differently, according to their estimate of certain other elements of change. As a rule, every crisis of thought and feeling w T hich shakes traditionary beliefs will make, if it does not find, a corresponding crisis [Lect. I. 16 The Doctrine of Retribution. in affairs. It so happens that, coincidently with the spread of Atheism and Scepticism, there is going on a vast social re-arrangement. The movement is not confined to England. On the contrary, it is felt by every civilized nation, from Bussia, across Europe, to America, and so round the globe. For example, Germany is engaged with problems deliberated on by the Cecils of Queen Elizabeth’s day. The heat of our own sixteenth century mind-friction blazed out into flames of genius. Philosophy, poetry, and re¬ ligious thought so ennobled men’s souls as to save our after-struggles from some stains of infamy which have disgraced other nations. Through the darkest of our dark days, national morality never became quite extinct. But I suppose the danger to us now lies in the coincidence I have pointed out. The set of thinking takes the less noble side as the trying time comes on,—just when the hour of social change is tolling what sounds in some ears a tocsin. Life is short; and if life in this world is held by change- lovers to be all that human beings can look for, the temptation to make the most of it by injustice, robbery, and wrong, is very great indeed. One obvious consideration may seem to counterbalance the dread. In this country events move slowly when they depend upon abstract indoctrination. Even Napoleon bad a value for our absence of ideology. It may be, also, that the great heart of England will remain sound in its abhorrence of foul play. How¬ ever these things turn out, we shall all agree upon one maxim—national, European, world-wide. There Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 17 can be no true progress for mankind, either physical or social, without a corresponding healthiness of moral insights and beliefs. And the reason is plain. If these are weakened, public opinion alters its current, or loses its vigorous tone ; there is risk either way, and it is quite possible both risks may occur together. In considering the peril of social change, it is not easy to forget that the disturbing idea of indi¬ vidual moral change is raised in every honest spirit— particularly every honest young spirit. Now, I am quite sure that disbelief of the kinds I have been describing must make a very great difference to any human being. Every one of you who has to choose his lot in life will choose, if he disbelieves, differently from the choice of a firm believer. And every one whose life is fixed will work out its perplexities differently. Of one fact you may, with me, feel confident. To be really good—a thing much greater than being sentimentally good—is a very hard choice for three-fourths of mankind. It is hard to be poor and honest; it is hard for better-off people not to requite crooked policy by crookedness ; it is hard for every one to speak the truth : and we all know that justice is harder than generosity. When we think on these things, they bring to mind St. Paul’s pre¬ cept to “ endure hardness.” We remember also St. Peter’s exhortation that Christians should be as “ strangers and pilgrims,”—strangers from the immoralities and disbeliefs of a mixed world, because pilgrims to a purer world than this. But to act upon 2 [Lect. I. 18 The Doctrine of Retribution. these maxims, most of ns want first to answer Pilate’s question, “What is Truth?” If we feel a certainty, or probability, that social and individual goodness depends upon such and such beliefs, this is a very strong reason for investigating them. But the final aim of our investigation must be to discover whether they are ascertainably true. I have now explained why it is that I feel in my inmost soul a deep longing and desire to make you companions in my own certitude. The problems I wish to discuss with you are amongst a small number of earnest problems to which we may accommodate the Socratic position—that wrong-doing and igno¬ rance are identical. No man can be cold or half¬ hearted in respect of them, unless their true nature is more or less hidden from his eyes,—so paramount appears their ultimate issue. Along with the first beginnings of history the vast debate began : Have moral Eight and Wrong neces¬ sarily opposite issues ? When Cain slew Abel, which was the better, the happier man ? One of these, “ being dead, yet speaketh.” It is no less true that the question of Eetribution, as at first mooted, turned upon consequences to follow in the life now present— upon joys and sorrows over which death draws a veil. A hoary head found in the paths of righteousness is a crown of glory; but the grey hairs of the violent, the unjust, and the treacherous shall be brought down to the grave with blood. Or, next, if the evil¬ doer escapes, “fret not thyself”—his children must be houseless, and beg their bread. Worst of all, Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 19 when birth-sin becomes the punishment of sin com¬ mitted. The law of visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate God, is recognised in our nineteenth century as a biological law: it is called by the name of heredity. In England and elsewhere, philanthropists have been for some time at work devising reformatory schools and other insti¬ tutions, to mitigate the social consequences of this direst of all known diseases. It is now found true, as it was at the era when the Second Commandment was written, that the degradation or loss of the spiritual idea of God is the hardest obstacle in the way of elevating crime-debased children to a higher moral sense. This heredity—this stern conception of Retributive Justice—is in our day a generalised fact of social science : it was accepted as an Article of Faith in the days of the Old Testament. But, before the close of that ancient Canon, there was a visible widening of the horizon. The march of time brings with it a march of foresight. We indi¬ vidual men and women are all members of a body corporate. We can say, “ This people is my people, and their God my God.” The good or evil which is slow to drop upon ourselves, or our generation, will assuredly befall our race. And this wider conception is again conformable to the most modern doctrines of Sociology: “ What the units are, that will he the aggregate.” You cannot pile cannon-balls into the shapes you build cubes of granite. And in living forms there are forces, the function of which is to 20 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. resist disintegration. If, now, we imagine these turned into repellents—no longer uniting forces, but posi¬ tively disuniting—we shall have a lively image of the effect of demoralised opinion. Class repels class ; man flies off from man. A people whose inward life is sound survives outward attacks, times of misfor¬ tune, panic, and depression. A nation morally half¬ dead falls asunder. It has sown the wind; it shall reap the whirlwind. The convictions reached, before life and immor¬ tality were brought to light through the Gospel, were very strong. Put into calm English, they may he thus stated :— There is substantive Eight, and its contradictory is Wrong. These two are for ever irreconcileable. Eight shall be crowned at last; Wrong shall be finally defeated. Under all wrongful tyrannies the righteous might say, “Art Thou not from everlasting, mine Holy One? We shall not die.” Throughout every kind of calamity he might keep a personal confidence :— “ I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” * If life itself became desperate, the righteous hath hope in his death; and the end of that man is peace. When St. Paul described the Christians’ triumph, he made but a slight change in the message of Hosea :— “ 0 death, I will be thy plagues ; 0 grave, I will be thy destruction.” f * Hab. iii. 18. f Hosea xiii. 14. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 2 i And the first Church was consoled by the remem¬ brance that, before themselves, “ others were tor¬ tured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”* I need not adduce parallels from the nobler classics. You will not easily forget why Antigone chose a living sepulchre : you have all read, or to speak truly, you have all seen, the Furies of Orestes. They portray the eternal laws which Socrates desired to meet with a quiet conscience. Therefore he stayed in prison, and was content to drink the hemlock. Nay, more,—he enjoined a sacrifice to iEsculapius, whose cup cured that disease with which the un¬ moral atmosphere of Athens had oppressed him. We all feel how, in the Socratic tragedy, there is an approach to the New Testament. We feel, too, that the Christian idea of Ketribution is altogether emancipated from the limitations of the ancient Theocracy. It rests upon the distinct facts, that here we have no continuing city, hut we seek one to come. The individual believer is taught to look broadly upon life, and to know, for a cer¬ tainty, that temporal power and prosperity are very far indeed from being indications of the favour of his God. For example, in those days the Roman Empire had its course to run, and during that period there remained to it the golden sceptre, the iron sword, the purple vestment,—even though the sceptre was an instrument of unlawful tyranny, and though sword and vestment both were dyed with blood. * Heb. xi. 35. 22 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. Neither could the Christian expect to be above his Lord,—that Man of Sorrows, to Whose image a pre¬ destined conformity was, for each one, the strongest assurance of his hope. Being reviled, he was not to revile again ; being persecuted, he was to suffer it— committing himself to Him that judgeth righteously. But let emperors and peoples, gainsayers one and all, tremble ! Bor they must, one and all, stand before a judgment-seat, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. This, then, is the New Testament answer to the two main questions which are for ever agitating the great heart of Humanity. A life is set before us which its worst despisers must admit to be brotherly, pure, noble, sublime. How these Christians love one another ! How faithful they are to their Leader, Christ! They despise riches, torments, pleasures, death! Can we, think you, look back and say that their life was not only sublime, but happy ? What is the verdict of you who are here this morning ? Would you give the bene vivere of our old friend Terence for an Apostolic Euthanasia , together with an Athanasia to follow? The most Platonizing of English bishops thought of the life which now is, when weighed against that which is to come, as of a single night passed at a wayside inn. The Port Boyalist exclaimed, “ Let us labour and suffer; we have all eternity to rest in.” One who, fighting with wild beasts, was a spectacle to angels and men, reckoned “ that the sufferings of this present time Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . • 23 are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall he revealed in us.” Why should I say more ? Most of you have asked your own hearts how far you could count it all joy to endure hardships; and whatever your feeling was, or is, upon the subject, you will have seen that the Christian choice is essentially a ivaiting for the Unseen. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The event is certain, but the harvest is not immediate; neither to sinner, nor yet to saint! A great thinker, who thoroughly knew the world, ob¬ served, “ Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of • men is fully set in them to do evil.” * Christianity has not annihilated the delay; and no doubt it still forms the real cause why, when a Christian reasons with men upon righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come, so few omit an “ almost ” from their conclusion. Is it not repeating an obvious truth, to remark that both in excluding the “ almost,” and also as regards each practical element of the true life pictured by St. Paul, Philosophy—if not falsely so called—will always coincide with Faith ? But the philosophic ideal is not a Person—it is a maxim ; the philosophic persuasion is not a supra-rational assent—it is a reasoned-out conviction. Still, in both Faith and Philosophy, the conclusion is an act of Will: an act so determinate and so complete that our whole being goes forth in it. For Philosophy, as well as for Faith, this * Ecclesiastes viii. 11. [Lect. I. 24 The Doctrine of Retribution. volition includes the deliberate choice of a satisfying future, over a present which is felt, at best, to be inadequate,—incommensurate, that is, with the vast longing of Humanity. The same choice implies that present happiness is not looked upon as necessarily the lot of the righteous. The delay of judgment, the stay of execution, counted by the unbeliever as “ slackness,” is an admitted factor of moral proof concerning the Eternal “ must be.” It is also an aid to demonstration in the highest school of Philosophy —the science (that is to say) of Natural Eeligion. It seems worthy of remark, that there exists one hook of the Old Testament,—a most puzzling book to the majority of commentators,—which makes this patience of saints and sages the subject of a religious dialectic. In the eyes of his censors, Job, the Eastern chieftain, appeared a guilty man, brought down by his sins (pride among the rest) to a dunghill and a potsherd; even as we see the haughtiest of Chaldee despots suffering for his boastfulness, after the manner of a frenzied dervish. The king was driven from men, his body wet with the dews of heaven; and his understanding departed from him. Job retained his understanding, held fast his integrity, and asserted that “ The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure;”* whilst “the just upright man is laughed to scorn.”f For, “ Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not re¬ ceive evil ? ” l Out of the whirlwind God answers Job, and teaches him a lesson of diffidence in the presence * Job xii. 6. f Ibid. 4. + Ibid. ii. 10. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 25 of the Incomprehensible. Yet God decides against his antagonists, because “ Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.”* In other words, Job maintained the theory of Divine government by general laws ; and, while every phrase and every figure is redolent of the far East, he argues like a philosophic reasoner, or a modern Christian morahst. Perhaps we shall be right in saying that this hook and Ecclesiastes are the two Scriptural documents which occupy most nearly the standpoint of Natural Religion. Job in his agony— the Preacher in his disappointment—fix their eyes upon the God who made Orion and the Pleiades, —the God who appointed human life and human labour. They inquire what relation He hears to us in our hours of sorrow, and when the years come in which we shall each of us say, “I have no pleasure in them.” And this is the side of Natural Religion which commands the attention of most men, even when half-indifferent. Again, the very fact that these two writers argue, instead of teaching dogmatically, gives them a very peculiar position. They are, for both reasons, adapted to minds clouded over by the part-sad, part-angry spirit engendered by the attri¬ tion of a jagged life which seems to lead no-whither, —likewise by that kind of autumnal feeling certain to descend upon us all when we burn our dead leaves. At such times of pause and remembrance, men who scarcely expect a syllable of answer never refrain from asking, “Can there be satisfaction for human * Job xlii. 7. 26 The Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect. I. longings beyond the grave ?” and, “ Is there a final distinction between the just and the unjust ? ” Now both these are very principal problems of Natural Beligion. And I have dwelt on the peculiar aspect of two canonical books, because the method of inquiry to be pursued in this course of Lectures compels us to leave on one side the region of dog¬ matic teaching, and to proceed as the writers of Job and Ecclesiastes proceed. Our reasoning must stand upon other grounds than received doctrines, in order that it may be allowed its rank among evidences and scientific arguments. We must therefore treat these two great problems, and the problems they make inevitable, in the light of open questions, to be thought out by men for whom they are matters of Life and Death. You will perceive that we are entering on a wide field of inquiry. Lest it should seem vague or indefinite, let us set a mark on the horizon where we hope to find the meeting-point of earth and heaven. This point is the Doctrine of Betribution. For, if it be a truth of the moral law that Eight and Wrong are correlated by Good and Evil, and must severally bear their respective fruits at last, we may even now take up our parable and say, “ Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” * But “ When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth.” f That is to say, there is a final distinction between the just and the unjust. There * Psalm xcvii. 11. f Prov. xi. 7. Lkct. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 27 really is a satisfaction for human longings beyond the grave. Betributive Justice, although delayed, is not uncertain. The moral axiom upon which Betribu- tion rests—the moral law by virtue of which it comes to pass—are as sure and as unerring as the firmest principles and most absolute laws of Nature. This may be termed our Fact-knowledge of the Doctrine of Betribution. It may safely be so termed, because Morality is (as I shall endeavour to show) not only one human fact, but the human fact of our universe. To a Theist, Betributive Justice appears evidently enrolled among the attributes of God. For the God in whom he has placed his trust is the Moral Sovereign of the whole Cosmos. If we believe in His existence, we believe that justice must be done. And if not done in this life, then must there exist some other sphere in which God shall bring every work into judgment. Therefore, he that feareth the Lord is bidden to “ trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God.” Whereas to the self-deceived unrighteous it is said, “ This shall ye have of mine hand: ye shall lie down in sorrow.” * Hence we see how different roads converge to the same point; and in this main belief, underlying Natural Beligion, the Moral Philosopher and the Natural Theist—if I may thus speak—both meet and agree. Here, however, we must carefully observe that Natural Beligion is by no means identical with Natural Theology. “ There was never miracle,” says * Isaiah 1. 10, 11. 2 8 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. Bacon, “ wrought by God to convert an Atheist; because the light of Nature might have led him to confess a God.” To record the truths discerned by this light is the business of the Natural Theologian. He registers them with the object of leading Man to the confession of a God. Yet for this light to shine, it is necessary that Man should (in Baconian phrase) consider himself as Nature’s “minister et interpres he should wait upon Nature with a loving eye, and translate her meaning into human thoughts. To succeed in his translation, Man must take with him the fact that he is not only Nature’s interpreter, but Nature’s interpretation —her “word-book.” The rule of knowledge, as well as of Being, appears absolute, —that every higher thought, every higher existence, must explain lower thoughts and lower existences. This rule would seem to be the truth involved in the Positive Philosophy of Comte—the vital germ in his systematizing. How far that growing point has been fairly developed by Positivism, is a different ques¬ tion, and foreign to our inquiry. Whatever may be thought on this subject, none will doubt that Man is visibly this world’s highest fact. In him, there¬ fore, and by correlating him with the world he inhabits, we shall find its most certain explanation. Linked in a thousand ways to the world, yet differing manifestly from it—in the world, yet not truly of the world—Man is (so to speak) the great supra-natural element discoverable in Nature. In this spirit, Job turns his human eye upon the starry heavens, and infers from their glory and beauty the invisible things Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective . 29 of God. In this same spirit, the Preacher examines human nature itself, and concludes, “Fear God and keep His commandments : for this is the Whole of Man.”* St. Paul unites both preacher and patriarch. He maintains that what may be known of God is manifest both in and unto mankind. His invisible things are shown us visibly. We may ourselves feel after and find the Lord. Such, then, is the utterance of Natural Theology, and upon such grounds it speaks. Natural Eeligion, as strictly defined and distin¬ guished from Natural Theology, does not need to ask the previous question, “ Is there indeed a God ? ” In reasoning out its principles, we may proceed along very separate paths. One is to assume the conclu¬ sions of Natural Theology, and argue from them to the relations which they determine, the duties they impose, and the feelings they excite, when Man is viewed as standing in the presence of his God. This is the easiest way of conducting the discussion ; hut it is not to all minds a method the most satisfac¬ tory. Another path sets out from the truth of Moral Distinctions, and leads to the establishment and definition of the doctrine of Betributive Justice, as well as of the law of its ultimate development. You will not fail to observe that, if the truth of Betribution be thus established, Natural Theology gains a fresh and confirmatory evidence. And such a result is too valuable to be neglected in planning the method of these Lectures. On the whole, it appears advisable to adopt a line * Ecclesiastes xii. 13. 30 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I. of reasoning which unites in itself the advantages of the two paths just indicated. It will be my endeavour to rest the conclusions of Natural Religion—and above all, its main and most essential doctrine—upon the truths of Pure Morality. But from time to time, and at various landing-places of the argument, it will be wise to compare them with the positions which a Theist must needs occupy in regard of the questions at issue. For example :— A Theist has answered for himself the question, “ Is there indeed a God?” Upon the grounds justifying this answer, and upon other correlated grounds, the advocate of Natural Religion may take his stand. The inquiries he may thus put to his consciousness are such as these: What difference does the known existence of a God make to us men ? What is there in our nature manifestly responsive to the demands made upon us by a belief in One Who is Divine ? Is our life now present marked by the capabilities of such higher things as are suggested by so much as we can perceive of His Nature ? And does human life hear the impress—or does it not— of aspiring towards that nobler elevation which will bring us nearer to Himself ? Concerning every one of these questions the Moral Philosopher may ask : How far do the naturally resulting answers agree with the conclusions which I have already reached by arguing from the truth of Moral Distinctions ? There is, indeed, every reason to expect that the comparison will show an absolute Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 3 1 coincidence between the results of the Moralist and those of the Natural Theologian. And this coin¬ cidence is likely to be most clear and complete respecting the greatest of human concerns—the tenet of Retribution. God is of purer eyes than to behold evil. He cannot look on iniquity. Therefore the righteous shall not die. From both the comparison and the conclusion, you will draw another most important inference. Natural Religion differs very widely from Natural Theology in the fact that it is not an abstract, but an applied Philosophy of Theism. As befits practical science, I shall, consequently, employ the simplest order and kinds of reasoning, stated in the least technical sort of language. And I shall venture to vary the terms I apply to mental and moral phe¬ nomena, much as they would be varied by any one engaged in ordinary conversation. This plan will, I think, yield the most intelligible mode of expression, and also the best means for avoiding the mischief attaching itself to real or imaginary connotations.* * If any one wishes to understand the risks of connotation , and how much may, by its aid, be alleged against doctrines thus construed and misconstrued,—let him read Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “ Principles of Psychology,” Part VII. chap. iii. Few thinkers, probably, will consider all Mr. Spencer’s connotings tenable. He supposes, for instance, that the idea expressed by the personal pronoun “ I,” must necessarily connote the thought of a “ Thou.” Such an altruism—'as Comte would call this thought—such a remembrance of his neighbour ever present to every egoist, may hold scientifically true in Sanscrit Philology : it may be practically true in the golden rule of Christianity. But is it true for common life, or in any current system of Philosophy ? 3 2 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. To this distinction between Natural Theology and Natural Religion, you will add one further inference. Their contrast is broadest on the emotional side. The evidences adduced by the Natural Theologian excite wonder, veneration, faith. But Natural Re¬ ligion is Man’s incense,—the incense of his spiritual Being sent up from earth to heaven. Without this incense from Nature’s interpreter, the world he ex¬ plains must be so far silent that no voice speaking from hence could confess the existence of a God. The song of the birds in our English hedgerows, the myriads of sounds which pervade those vast American forests where Man’s foot has never trod,—these, one and all, in their countless varieties, are the expression of animal enjoyment, animal affection, and animal life, in their wonderfully diversified phases. It is true that Man likes poetically to depict the lower crea¬ tion as it were in full sympathy with himself. He imagines that even mists and vapours, when they rise at the blush of morning, may be participants of his adoration, fellow-worshippers before the eye of Him Whom he desires to praise. Yet, in solemn truth, it is not so. The inexhaustible beauty, the indescribable loveliness of the world we look upon, may aid our human reason in its delineation of God—may make our human heart swell at the mention of His name. In this sense, the whole creation does truly join with us ; hut Man alone can give voice to the sublime idea. It is his tongue, his divine power of speech, which must utter the truth that there exists a God who is our Sovereign, our Father, and our Judge. Lect. I.] 33 The Subject in Pe rspective . Our Judge! This is the crown which Natural Religion places on the moral doctrine and law of Retribution.’ For the rightful power and adminis¬ tration of Retributive Justice are thus centered in a sublime Personality. “He doth execute the judg¬ ment of the fatherless and widow.”* For, “a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.” f These texts coincide with our human idea of Retribution. We do not conceive of it as merely the bestowal of happiness upon Virtue ; hut rather as the setting right that which is morally wrong. He, therefore, who administers Retributive Justice, appears in our eyes as in all ways the oppo¬ site of arbitrary. On the one side, He is no respecter of persons; on the other hand, He is no vindictive executioner. To smite or give justly is to be just. And shall not the Judge of all the whole world do right ? I There is, we may observe, a tie between men of ruth and pity, such as that felt by the Indian chief who petitioned for death by scourging, rather than the white stranger, though justly condemned, should suffer it. This emotion, seldom eradicated, except amongst the ministrants of superstitious torture, bar¬ barian, pagan, or papistical, makes true Retribution sorrowful to the Judge. Our Oxonian Talfourd wept, whilst the criminal he sentenced to die only smiled. Talfourd did his duty at the cost of suffering to him¬ self. Had he stood by and seen the murderous deed, * Dent. x. 18. t Psalm lxviii. 5. J Compare Gen. xviii. 25 with Rom. iii. 6. 3 34 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. he would with just resentment have felled its perpetra¬ tor to the ground. Both these cases—the judgment painfully pronounced, and the vengeance which might have been easier—form examples of purely Retribu¬ tive Justice. We have thus cleared ourselves a way by which to approach and gaze upon the real lineaments of Justice,—Justice embodied in the law which lends to Death his terror and his sting. Those lineaments may be stern, but we are sure they must also be sorrowful; for they are a living Image graven on our nature by the finger of One who desireth not the death of a sinner. “ Turn ye, turn ye : why will ye die?”* The great and good are apt to confess with sorrow that they have outraged the law of Nature and of God. But how often is that law outraged, without any compunction, by those of us who are neither great nor good ? We have likewise arrived at the ideal of Divine Mercy. By no means capricious, but just, or as men speak, austere : yet not without traits of what we call human tenderness. He, Whom we darkly behold, is not inaccessible to the pleas of oppressed sorrow or of inevitable ignorance. His quality of Mercy is not strained, but droppeth like the gentle dew from Heaven. Because not strained, but the utterance of Equity, it is reconcileable with Justice. Or rather, we may say it is the highest, purest Justice. The importance—the exceeding utility and worth attaching to this view of the Divine judgment— * Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 3 5 may reasonably appear to transcend all powers of estimation. If it be true, bow vast the truth, since this selfsame truth naturally appertains to all worlds of Being like our own! How great its value to our world, may be seen by reflecting on the influence it ought to exercise over our moral des¬ tinies ; and, according to the law by which moral destinies rule physical destinies, we must add, over our whole destination—the whole history of our future and final development. Take, for example, the social crisis through which, as I have said, European civiliza¬ tion—nay, the entire civilized world—is passing. For many years past men have heard much respecting an internecine war between Religion and Philosophy. A war this, which has lingered on with many and various alternations. It has shown itself incapable of decision, and, by the very conditions of the combat, it may be thought necessarily interminable. Neither belligerent power seems able to make peace within its own territory. Religion has been split into fac¬ tions ranging from Sacerdotalism to Rationalism, and these two extremes are even now active elements in its character. The divisions of Philosophy are not less fatal; they are probably more profound. On the one side transcendental beliefs strive to feed their pristine fires : on the other side we have the dim lights, the restricted powers of phenomenology. An outlook this latter, not reaching beyond the three¬ score and ten years of mortal life, and therefore possessing no hold upon affections which claim to be immortal. 36 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. So far as the vision of a purely philosophic thinker can extend, no approach can be made—at least in our day—towards a decision of the momentous contest, save and except through the Doctrine of Retribution. In this one doctrine there seems to be life and hope. And the reason is plain: this doctrine is the issue of a line of thought which must exercise a chasten¬ ing as well as an invigorating effect upon both con¬ tending parties. It denies the name of true Philosophy to any system which does not assert amongst its foundation principles a severe and independent Morality. It . refuses to admit the possibility of any real Religion, if divorced from the unbroken sovereignty of moral maxims. Por it maintains that moral Truth known, practised, and attained, is our appointed human path¬ way to a sphere of knowledge which is truly Divine. So that when we speak of Humanity our speech enfolds within itself Theology. And in this spirit St. Paul views the Law as our religious as well as our disciplinary schoolmaster. Such then is the scope and aim of our high argu¬ ment. Its conduct may be summarily characterized. My first step must he to depict in some concrete way what manner of thing is absolute Morality. This must be so done as to manifest the “why” of human action. And, along with it, must he shown by what necessary consequence the “why” of action may determine the “ how,” together with its most dominant circumstantials. These points will make up the subject of my next Lecture. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 3 7 Amongst them, one point will stand out pre-emi¬ nently clear above all the rest—the belief in a futurity of moral distinctions. Eetributive Justice to be influential must be inevitable ; to be supreme it must be absolute. We cannot acquiesce in it as a permissible tenet, a thought of what may be, and would be excellent, if true,—a hope dear to us as a cherished emotion, and beautiful as a moral senti¬ ment. Our ordeal is too rough, the battle of life too stern, for such an acquiescence to endure that Cross on which, as on an altar, must be offered human flesh and blood, broken bodies, and souls into which the iron has entered. An aesthetic belief may, for its loveliness’ sake, be dear—almost as the drops which visit our sad heart. But suppose that heart is to be pierced—bruised to powder—burned away in a slow-consuming furnace of affliction: then, if Morality be anything less than insight and knowledge, the victim will feel that be dies as be has lived; that be has lived as be was born—in vain! Whatever is strong, good, and safe to live by and to die by, must be the very life-blood of our nature as Men; whatever else we think or feel, this we must know and possess. Or, to speak more truly, it must possess us. So possess us, that we may be conscious of our human inability to liberate our own Being, and, therefore, our Future from its enduring domination. A power from time to time made present to our conscience now,—a power which we feel will continue present always. It is on grounds of this kind that we determine 38 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect, i. how to act under circumstances of deep trial, when our moral constancy becomes the subject of some crucial experiment. And in this manner the “ why ” of moral sanctions determines the “ how ” of choice and activity. Next in order, fairness seems to demand that we should enquire into the main characteristics of such objections as are likely to be urged against this line of thought. The enquiry need not be long. In modern day, one definite character pervades them all. They deny or doubt Man’s power of attaining transcendental truth. According to the strength of the doubt entertained is the thoroughness of denial. The objections themselves, therefore, when put into words, assume different shapes, and are described by different appellations. But, running through them all, we may observe an ascending scale of Phenome¬ nalism. It rises step by step, from the diffused Positive thinking which tinctures so many of our serials, up to full-formed and systematic Scepticism. Attempts have been made to place Natural Science in antagonism with transcendental beliefs. They have failed (as we shall see) for two reasons. One, that no science is possible without some universal prin¬ ciples which are its laws ; and that all universals transcend experience. The other reason is, that the noblest enlargements of our scientific territory are neither verified nor verifiable, as phenomenalists and Positive thinkers assume to be the case. On this subject I shall hope to show that a number of writers upon whom Mr. Mill’s Theism jars ungently, have Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 39 1 mistaken, or at all events have misrepresented, the Natural Science indagatio veri as practised by our greatest authorities in this country. Contrariwise, the Philosophy to be maintained in these Lectures asserts the existence of a Truth-power in Man, capable of apprehending a moral antithesis of Eight and Wrong so axiomatic and so absolute as to carry with it, by consequence, the reality of other transcendental truths. Now the most stringent mode of testing any system or idea is, after presenting it in outline, to take it to pieces and put it together again. When taking it to pieces we try its principles one by one, just as if we were sounding separate pieces of railway iron-work, to see that all is in travelling trim. Whilst putting it together again we examine into the coherence of these tried principles, and consider whether they authorise our conclusion. The former part of this process suggests several methods of trying each separated principle of Thought. One is to see what difference must be made by the absence of each, suppose we agree to deny or so far doubt its validity as to make its elimination appear our necessary result. It may be found that to elimi¬ nate this same truth means in effect to turn all truth out of doors. An example good and apt will come before us in my third Lecture. Deny the laws of knowing, and you make knowledge impossible. Therefore you cannot know that the belief against which you argue is untrue. If any one affirms its truth you must let him alone ; you at least have no right to deny it. For in every step of your denial 40 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. yon employ a law or principle which yon have already denied. In point of fact yon have by implication denied yonrself. And to he withont the power of knowing anything is to cease from being a man. This consequence—a reductio ad absurdum —shows ns that knowledge—the fact, I mean, of knowing any kind of truth—affirms the existence of some truth- power in Man. And this proof of its existence is easily confirmed by the history of speculative thought. For instance, both Kant and Hume equally asserted that universal truth and necessary truth are foreign as ideas from Sensation; it is impossible that they can ever be given us by any amount of experience. As we have said, and shall distinctly see, mathe¬ matical and modern science comprehend such truth. They find it there where alone it can be found—in streams springing out from that fontal well—the truth-power which is a dotation and heir-loom of Humanity. The moment these words are uttered, one is strongly tempted to reflect upon the first birthplace and descent of such a power as this. But all similar reflections I must steadily avoid. My business is to investigate facts, and, as far as I can, to describe their real nature, their significance, and philosophic interpretations. Collateral reflections, however fairly deducible, I must leave to the learned leisure of my auditors. In pursuing the proposed investigation, I shall, for clearness’ sake, place the kinds and degrees of doubt already characterized side by side with my own Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 4 1 affirmative arguments. The comparison, or perhaps I should say the contrast, will illustrate as well as test every step of the putting-together process. It will also, I am afraid, cause some strain upon both your memory and your attention. Among these contrasts, the sharpest is the one to which allusion has been made : I mean, of course, philosophic Scepticism. The self-contradiction in¬ tellectually involved in it has now been briefly noted, but deserves much more extensive illustration. This I shall attempt to give in the course of my third Lecture. There is another way of looking at the contrast. Scepticism is inconsistent with firm moral beliefs, because it denies all real knowledge—all truth, and all truth-power. It does so on alleged speculative grounds. During the earlier phases of its specula¬ tions it puts Morality out of sight, hut saps the foundations of the moral code as it goes on. The sap itself would, in an argumentative point of view, convince no reasoner; for it consists simply of questionable observations upon human life,—such as the supposed dead-level of society; the absence of moral differences between man and man; nay— what seems more important still—the absence of any tangibly great difference between men and animals. Yet, points of this kind will gain credence when intellectual truth is conceived unattainable, when human Reason has been degraded into per¬ ception and recollection—a sense of proximity, of similarity, of sequence,—and beyond these small 42 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. powers little or nothing. But if it can be shown, on the contrary side, that to degrade Reason ends in the self-confutation of the argument employed in its degradation,—that Scepticism becomes at last philosophic suicide ,—then the intellectual sceptic is silenced, and, in the enforced silence of speculation, Morality must resume its sway. For the world cannot go on without its working movements, its powerful springs and levers. Let practical truth he denied, and Morality be reduced to convention, then, pari passu, peoples and nations become herds of human animals. Man’s nature, like brute nature, becomes visibly red in tooth and claw. The abso¬ luteness of moral axioms is historically verified at the cost of many sorrows. It was so when Jerusalem fell. It has been so throughout two great French revolutions. The next ground principle of our Philosophy is that Moral Truth must, in its own nature, be true for us, and for all beings constituted like ourselves. One whole Lecture * will not be too much for the enunciation of this principle. I shall examine the moral First-truth in connexion with other axiomatic principles inalienable from the human mind. Hence you will perceive how impossible it is to ostracize Morality without obliterating the character and constitution of Humanity. In order that this important pivot of my argument may obtain sufficient illustration and verification, I shall next endeavour to demonstrate that, among all * The Fourth. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 43 the attributes specifically distinctive of Man, Morality is the one most ascertainably pre-eminent. And I confess myself unable to conceive a stronger verifying process than this. For no fact can be more evident or less disputable than that no amount of meta¬ physical refining, no subtle theories of science can ever take us out of ourselves, or make us cease to be men. To attempt so hopeless a task, is to put out our natural eyes in the expectation of getting new ones. Or, we may liken it to an endeavour after more just views of things carried out by applying an eye to the wrong end of a refracting telescope. It is right and good for us to. correct the idiosyncracies of individuals. We may appeal from them to the proper attributes of the human species. We may on all occasions make due allowance for the ‘‘personal equation,”—and I ought to add for the tribal and popular equation also. In fine, we may, or rather we must, “keep ourselves from idols,” and abjure the “ lumen madiduvi ” for the “ lumen siccumP The one is a shadow-haunted phantasy,—the other pure imactical Eeason. But we must remember that to be practical it must be pure in more than one respect. Pure, not only as we speak of pure speculative Eeason, but morally purified and unspotted. We can hope nothing from Thought overclouded by prejudice or partiality; we can hope nothing from a soul steeped in sensuality or sloth. To realize pure, because purified, human truth, is the aim of a Philosophy which does not seek its purpose by listening to the Tempter’s voice, “ eritis 44 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. sicut Dei but, by patient investigation of what is knowably true to us as men. Knowable, that is, by our highest attainable reach of Reason distinguishing us most obviously from brutes. Ascertainable, also, by its conformity to our essential manhood, in its breadth and length. Verifiable, by its conformity with the law of our nobler progress ; a law written on our moral natures, and repeated in our history. From what I have said it will be seen that my fourth Lecture, with which this line of thought commences, is almost entirely constructive. As to the rest—the remaining moiety of the whole course —I must be brief; for those Lectures do not as yet exist even in outline. Their general plan will be to show that the moral first-ground cannot be main¬ tained apart from the assertion of a future life after death and a final distinction in the destiny and development of good and evil men. This assertion constitutes what may be called the transcendental element in the doctrine of Retribution. Real Utili¬ tarianism leads to its affirmation as a reasonable hope and probability. Independent Morality asserts it as a fact made imperative on human belief. Whilst the putting-together process goes on, I shall en¬ deavour, at each step of the argument, to prove that a morality of this kind, independent in its code, transcendental in its issues, necessitates a Religion. This religion is rightly called natural; because in arguing the question of religious Evidence it stands j prior in thought to supra -natural religion ; and is founded, as a logical system, on the characteristic Lect. I.] 45 The Subject in Perspective. attribute of Humanity. At the close of each Lecture, therefore, the step gained in Moral Philosophy will he viewed as a step gained in religious knowledge; and will constitute, if you please, each Sermon’s practical application. I shall also venture on con¬ firming my conclusions, by paralleling them with the conclusions of Natural Theism. These will be deduced from the principle that, so soon as the existence of a God is made known to us, we cannot but discern that our race must have certain deter¬ minable relations with Him. As to the arguments. It will be right, first, to demonstrate that the moral antithesis or axiom is truly and properly Human. One great proof to be employed results from a contrast of Man’s nature with purely animal nature. It is needful to state this proof distinctly, because so much has been said lately on the resemblances between men and animals, that the undeniable facts of contrast may seem to have slipped out of mind. A comparison of the moral—that is, the truly human axiom—with the axiomatic principle of Induc¬ tion will, next, show us that the former claims a certitude of equal, or, to ourselves, of superior strength. It is also more verifiable than the procedure of applied Science. Hence we infer a vast and solemn lesson. The law' of Nature’s uniformity carries in itself a forecast of Nature’s dissolution. The law of absolute Morality prophesies human permanence when mate¬ rial nature undergoes that tremendous transformation. I shall try to compress these related topics into one Lecture—my fifth. 46 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. Another subject, however, and a much broader one, underlies the comparison between men and animals. From age to age one mournful idea rises afresh upon Thought’s troubled sea. Human nature and brute nature cannot he very widely dissociated, because both have their whole ground of being in the entity of inanimate nature. This conception in repeating itself puts on different garbs suited to its several re¬ appearances. With the advance of physical science, it has overpassed the mud of ancient Nile, and the time “ Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris.” * It has swept through many geological periods of life,—and across periods void of life. It strives to connect Man with the first substratum of the palpable Universe—luminous matter, endowed with motion, governed by immanent law, and destined to unfold itself not only into worlds hut their inhabitants ; into all that lives, thinks, feels, fears, suffers, rejoices, doubts, disputes, or believes. This is a really syste¬ matized Materialism; and we are compelled to ask, How does its possibility admit of being tested ? The answer appears equally short and simple. By its Law. To examine this mechanical hypothesis must he the business of my next, that is, my sixth Lecture. In law lies the essence of the whole proof or disproof. If there be an affinity or likeness, not a contrast or antagonism, between the law of material Nature and the law of Man’s Nature, then our Faith in Man’s * Horace, Sat. i. 3, 99. Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 47 survival beyond bodily decay is, as Mr. Mill reckons it, a “ bope ” rather than a belief. If, furthermore, any Theist or Natural Theologian has attempted to build his system in the manner Mill censures,—either by a deification of Nature and her law, or by a denial of the misery and evil existing under Nature’s dominion, and as a consequence of her mechanism,— such a systematizer must have forgotten or ignored the words of one who is the greatest amongst Natural Theologians : “ The creature was made subject to vanity.” * The antitheses to Nature and Nature’s law are moral insight, duty, holiness ; to live and to die for and in God. But when we state the full truth to ourselves, a practical question arises, than which few are more serious,—very few indeed more perplexing. The question runs thus :—How can Man hope in his life and heart to overcome the antagonism which he encounters ? to be in the natural world, yet not of that world ? to use it, not as bound by its law, but as its sovereign, according to his own free will and for his own human purposes ? I shall attempt to remove this perplexity, which so deeply saddened Mill, by no sort of theorizing, but by a matter-of-fact solution. We may know that this world is not our all. And this knowledge cuts the web which Nature-wor¬ shippers call destiny and fate. Nay—our Race has seen men of like passions with ourselves who have attained this knowledge, and have lived and died in its light and strength. And in their lives and * Romans viii. 20. [IiECT. I. 48 The Doctrine of Retribution. deaths tlie immoral contrarieties of Nature are trans¬ figured into a discipline, a holiness, and a crown. For no truth can be more certain than this :—If our human immortality is the triumphant sphere of Man’s perfected moral evolution, then the knowledge of such an immortality must be an aid and incentive to present moral endeavours. It must assist and comfort us in the arduous soul-development impera¬ tively required by Man’s Conscience. With the conclusion of my sixth Lecture, enough may seem done to satisfy the requirements of Moral Philosophy in general. Enough, too, for elucidating the doctrine of Retribution with which we have specially interested ourselves. But we must not forget that the reason why we are thus interested consists in the fact that Retribution has appeared to us the horizon-point where Earth and Heaven meet together. In plain words, it marks the inosculation of independent Morality—the morality of purified right Reason—with the tenets and maxims of Natural Religion. The former tells us, with the emphasis of an absolute law, that the performance of much that is often irksome, and sometimes extremely painful, is a “ must be ” imperative upon the human Being as contra-distinguished Rom the human Animal. The latter tells us that a religious conviction, which ought to be distinguished from the moral sense of duty or Rightness, is also a birth-gift and heir-loom of Humanity. In my seventh Lecture I shall desire to show that both these propositions are practically true. For this Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 49 purpose I shall venture upon two enquiries which are prudently shunned by every person who writes merely to build up a system,—who argues, that is, for an unmoral victory. You will, I hope, feel as I do, a desire to follow after Truth as far as we can, even though our gains may seem fragmentary; and, like explorers in a land stretching its limits far beyond human ken, we can only estimate each real step in the search by a valuation of its separate and intrinsic worth. For practical use —tine one test of working Power—it will he expedient to show that the “why” of moral duty is not an otiose hut a fruitful principle,—that it guides honest minds to the “ how ” of action. And this connection between the sanction and the method of moral right-doing must form my first subject of enquiry. The second will he of an equally practical character. It appears right that the same moral law should be viewed under a religious aspect, because one proper characteristic of independent Morality is that, whilst arising from an insight into truth, it affords also a test of truth. Never, indeed, could it become an evidence of true Religion, were it not a touchstone of religions falsely so-called. The religious man regards it as a law divinely written on the heart; it cannot, therefore, be at variance with any other Divine law. But it may be much at variance with the law of teachers who make God’s commandments of none effect by their tradition. Now if this be true, it must follow that religious duty and moral law will harmonize; they will be at one. Whether viewed morally or 4 50 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i. religiously, our duty to our neighbour will be found altogether one. Our duty to God will to a certain extent—so far, that is, as God is naturally knowable— be one. The proof and illustration of this harmony, this at-oneness of independent Morality and Natural Religion, ought to be elicited from an examination of the conditions under which we are required to do our duty. Are they such as to coincide with our concep¬ tion of God ? Of a Being, I mean, conceived by us not in the light of a Judge only, nor a Sovereign only, hut also of a Father and a Friend ? No enquiry can be more solemn or more anxious. Were this life all, it would have to he answered in the negative. But if the moral law he absolute, if the doctrine of Retribution be a truth, then this life is not all; it is hnowably the reverse of all, and the external conditions of duty with which it surrounds us are neither harsh nor inappropriate to pilgrims of hope and patience. And the same is true of the internal conditions of duty, the laws of volition and soul-development. In this respect, God has, indeed, provided some better thing for us. He has not only made a way of escape from temptation, but has also given us, even now amidst temptations, the victory. He has done this by consolidating the innermost of social ties, by conferring on Man the means of entering into the closest and most powerful bands of union and communion ; the strength of which is correlative to his own dangerous weaknesses. And looking into this Divine institution as into a mirror where Almighty Goodness has glassed itself, we see that our human Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 51 idea of absolute duty finds an appropriate corre¬ spondency and complement in the swpra-human ideal of a spiritual society,—of a Church. With the end of this seventh Lecture the whole course might close. We shall then have traversed its lines of reasoning already laid down. We shall have reached the goal proposed to us—the coincidence between the results of the Moralist and those of the Natural Theist. What we conclude from the absolute truths of Morality, and notably from the doctrine of Retribution, will have been shown to harmonize with those relations between God and Man which ensue upon the conclusions of Natural Theology. Retribu¬ tive Justice underlies this meeting-point; it underlies our certitude of a future life, and the glorious super¬ structure of Natural Religion. In order, however, that no kind of reasonable verification be neglected, I shall endeavour to make of my last Lecture something more than a summary and synthesis of the elements of thought already preceding it. My purpose is (as I have said) to avoid technical language, and employ plain and popular forms of speech. To maintain this rule, I must omit certain kinds of argument: metaphysical reasoning, for example, and such psychological questions as belong to the rise and progress of our common Humanity. My positions will, therefore, rest throughout upon the facts of our moral nature—the existing constitution of our Conscience, Will, and Being, as men. I shall not attempt to traverse the debateable ground of 5 2 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. what is called Anthropogeny, nor discuss supposable conditions prevenient to what we now are: the embryo states and cradle of life of mankind. Fact-argument is, of course, the kind of argument most welcome to the generality of auditors, because most used in common-sense affairs. Bufc concerning all facts of human Life, Thought, and Will, there is one difficulty which may at any time he raised. It may always be said, these are facts only because men are not reasonable. Men accept as truth what they wish to believe in consequence of custom, pre¬ judice, or predilection. Were this a just account of the matter, the old fable might be quoted against all human knowledge. Our world of thought would rest upon an elephant; its elephant stand on a tor¬ toise ; its tortoise hang in air ! But the lesson would tell equally against all knowing, thinking, speech; against irreligious creeds as well as religious; against doubt, denial, disbelief. To a practised reasoner, this and all other such difficulties appear a cloud- army. He is well aware that the ttov o-tgj, the fulcrum for the lever, the first-grounds of Beason, must exist somewhere, or else Being itself must melt away into illusive Nihilism. But “Hae nugae seria ducent In mala derisum.” This eighth Lecture, therefore, will attempt to show that such assents as are demanded by the doctrine of Retribution are not extensions of belief got by any process—supra, infra, or extra Naturam Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 53 Humanam; but truths given us by that truth-power of Eeason to which the apostles appeal, to which all evidences of Religion appeal, and on which all Man’s scientific knowledge necessarily reposes. Sciences themselves have their gradations. The science of metaphysics is defined to be the science of First-grounds—the account of why we accept any knowledge or any truth at all. When I say why we accept, I mean why we are constrained to such acceptance by the very law of our Humanity. I shall venture, then, just so far over the metaphysical border-line, as to prove (I hope successfully) that to reject or call in question the first-grounds of Morality and Retributive Justice is to deny, not only our knowledge, but our power of knowing—to deny, not only practical life and reality, but, along with all the rest, our Beason. For nothing can be plainer than that if Reason’s sovereign gift to us is a circlet of truth, we are not at liberty to break it up and deal as we please with its fragments. We have no right to say, “ Let this be treasured as a pearl of price, —let that be cast before swine.” Such unfounded usurpations might befit the tyrants of Reason; but I ask you to be Reason’s disciples,—to be sincere and heart-whole in your discipleship,—above all, to be consistent. Thus arguing, I shall, as on other occasions, sup¬ port and verify abstract thought by the results of common-sense, and by our experience of life in the concrete. On such topics I hope to cite sufficient authority. 54 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. i. My last Lecture must close with what quaint old Fuller might call a “ Pisgah Sight” of Natural Religion. A few words as to Method may he expected from me. I shall say them, and then have done with this view of my intended argument. We are about to deal with first-truths. Let us recall some valuable doctrine which the ancestor of Oxford logic taught in his Athenian School respecting them. They cannot be proved deductively, because, being first, there is nothing prior from which to syllogize. But we can prove them in the most palpably stringent manner, by demonstrating the absurdity and impossibility of denying them. Furthermore, their harmony with other known truths is no mean verification. On these doctrines Aristotle founds his method. Our method will be a following of Aristotle; and the Aristotelian method is the widest possible. Its first-truths are given us in Consciousness: Aristotle’s Practical Reason—the Lumen Siccum of Bacon—the Pure Practical Reason of Kant. We begin, there¬ fore, by interrogating Consciousness. Next, we are unable to deny them without affirming that which is absurd or impossible. Finally, they are accordant with other knowledge. And the more widely these symphonies are echoed in the different spheres of human life—science, aesthetic art, philosophy, emotion, sentiment, aspiration—the better for our argument; because we are listening to a concord of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. Our method involves, of course, an appeal to the Lect. I] 55 The Subject in Perspective . liistory of human civilization, and some criticism of what is written there respecting the subjects discussed. A recalcitrant disciple of Mr. Mill tells us that it was Mill’s partial adoption of this procedure which caused the antagonism between him and those who have renounced his ultimate teaching. You may, there¬ fore, like to recollect the method preferred by them on our subject. It is extremely narrow, and may with fairness be described as a dogmatic vilipending of Human Nature. Their contempt for Humanity is shown by their dwelling on its lowest traits, and absciding its nobilities as illusions. The circle of Man’s hope, belief, and knowledge thus becomes “ Small by degrees, and beautifully less ; ” till truth is reduced to a vanishing point. My own view of Human Nature includes those abscided nobilities. Yet it can never be correctly accused of Optimism. I argue, not only from the good which Man endeavours, but from the evil he has done. The darker aspect is the foil of the brighter; and both aspects show the moral vitality of Man. They do so, because the inexorable social law deduced from Man’s history has not called good, evil; nor evil, good. If you hesitate to admit this statement, reflect that it is proved true by the patent fact of Progress. For progress cannot be evolved apart from some insight into evil, desire to root it out, and endeavour to plant and nurture some goodness in its stead. Should this wide generaliza¬ tion appear too wide, consider that self-education— [Lect. I. 56 The Doctrine of Retribution . tlie task and duty of ns all—is in miniature exactly the same thing as social progress on a larger and grander scale. Consider, likewise, how mnch moral insight Remorse pre-supposes, and remember that in one sense we all make Death. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is a law known or knowahle by ourselves. For all these reasons, I ask yon to agree with me that the widest feasible method is the safer, as the more philosophic. It seems evidently safer, because if a certain kind of truth can he shown to possess the assenting sympathies of Humanity,—if it appears to he the indigenous growth and blossom of our nature, —it may claim a jprima-facie probability in its favour. “ There is,” says Mill, “ a certain presumption of the truth of any opinion held by many human minds, requiring to he rebutted by assigning some other real or possible cause for its prevalence.” * Such a method is also more philosophic. For Philosophy aspires to represent the widest and deepest thought of Mankind. Let this thought be adequately represented, and the doctrine of Retribution—nay, the whole cycle of Natural Religion—has gained its first ground. Yet not its whole ground, unless Philosophy be en¬ cyclopaedic. Reasoned-out Thought is far Rom being the whole of Man; although this conception would certainly he nearer truth than systems which conceive him as a register of observations. Now, Natural Religion is, as we have intimated, the going forth of our entire human being towards a trans- * Three Essays, p. 128. Lkct. I.] 57 The Subject in Perspective. cendent human Futurity, and towards an Author and End of our existence Whom we legitimately apprehend as transcending both our own nature and the natural world by which we are in this present life environed. Its evidences must, there¬ fore, resemble in variety the evidences of Natural Theology. Respecting them, Mill writes: “ The evidences of a Creator are not only of several distinct kinds, but of such diverse characters that they are adapted to minds of very different descriptions; and it is hardly possible for any mind to be equally impressed by them all.”* A conclusive reason, surely, for the method which I have proposed. The subject itself on which we are entering has attractions for more than one character of mind. It may reasonably attract the man who, after deliberation, has chosen for the guide of his life, Christianity. A harder and less common choice than most persons seem to imagine. Now, Natural Religion has an immediate relativity with the wider evidences of Christian Revelation. These are classed as internal, and external. Suppose the truth of Natural Religion once accepted, we have already gained an insight into the previous question under¬ lying all evidence for Revelation. We see, in the first place, why, and in what respects, Revelation is desir¬ able. Moreover, we can appreciate its interior fitness for the needs and shortcomings of our nature. This kind of appreciation forms an internal evidence of considerable value. Taking, then, the aspirations of * Three Essays, p. 138. 5 8 The Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect. i. the human soul, its unsatisfied longings and noblest tendencies, distinct but undeveloped, we acquire some estimate of the goodness and greatness of Christian precepts, sentiments, and principles. Such an esti¬ mate yields an internal evidence more valuable still, and one which increases in force as we ourselves travel heavenwards. It thus realizes the ancient pilgrim- promise,—“ As thy days, so shall thy strength he.” Again, the main external evidence of supernatural words lies in an appeal to supernatural works. Ob¬ jections against miracles whether grounded on phy¬ sical laws, or on any other basis whatever, all merge in the doubt acutely suggested by Hume : “ Can the probable strength of testimony outweigh the a priori improbability of a miracle ?” In holding this balance, the scale of testimony has been deprived of some weight by the observation that eye-witness is often mistaken. How much more, then, its repeated echoes ! The right answer lies in a scrutiny of the opposite scale. Are miracles inherently improbable ? Questionless, they are so, if viewed as isolated oc¬ currences. Still more improbable, if resolved away as facts often are resolved away. But how , when viewed in the concrete ? If Natural Religion be true and right, they are natural expectations. So far from being improbabilities, if they were absent Christianity would be called to account for their absence. Mohammedanism was so called to account; and the argument has been thought unanswerable. To a reasoner not as yet persuaded to be a Christian, Natural Religion must appear of the very Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective . 59 highest importance. If demonstrated, Reason and Hope have now ceased to be at variance. The sup¬ posed antithesis has disappeared. Our human soul, if not naturally a Christian (as Tertullian thought it), is by no means atheistic, nor yet sceptical. Least of all can it ever be indifferent. At an interval, pos¬ sibly, but still at no hopeless interval, it places some kind of trust in a living and just God. To a patriot or philanthropist, what can be more welcome than the belief that Human Nature is no lifeless waste, incapable of religious culture, and, when most civilized, the least visited by that one warm and repaying hope which can lift us above ourselves and help us to “ do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God ” ? Such help is in the hope that this God “ will be our Guide even unto death,”—in the trust that, what¬ ever our lot may be now, whatever be our un¬ satisfied capabilities of knowing, loving, and of true upw r ard-looking aspirations, there exists a better Life more able to satisfy, more adapted to ennoble our natures. It is a life as yet unseen; “ but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” V LECTURE II. THE ANSWER OF CONSCIENCE. LECTURE II. St. Luke xvi. 25. “Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime RECEIYEDST THY GOOD THINGS, AND LIKEWISE LAZARUS EVIL THINGS : BUT NOW HE IS COMFORTED, AND THOU ART TORMENTED >> "A JTY text belongs to the only word-picture of the Gospel ■which portrays a soul in suffering, and also a reverse—another soul in loco refrigerii. The part of this picture most impressive at all times is that central point of illumination where the light of Paradise appears thrown across the shadows of a gloomier scene. The brightness and the dark¬ ness are contrasted together, and both placed in anti¬ thesis with the more passing shades and sunbeams of this life now present. The self-indulgent pleasures of earth are not crowned by felicity in heaven. The sorrow and degradation of an earthly sufferer are not reckoned worthy to be compared with the glory revealed in him. Whatever other purposes our Lord’s picture may have been intended to serve, one of its effects appears reflected in the lives of the early Christians. Nero stood out before their eyes the vera effigies of that Antichrist, whose main characteristic it was to shed the blood of martyrs. The latest known type of 64 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. Nero’s face represents him as a sated voluptuary, wearing the hard, cold, cruel smile which indicates that sensuality has put on its final phase—the pleasure of beholding pain. Ordinary self-indulgence usually implies indifference to the sufferings of others; but the more debasing kinds of animal propensity always pass the bounds of indifference, and make the human beast feel a loathsome delight in human torments. “ There are persons,” says Mr. Stuart Mill,* “who have a real pleasure in inflicting, or seeing the in¬ fliction of pain. This kind of cruelty is not mere hard-heartedness, absence of pity or remorse ; it is a positive thing, a particular kind of voluptuous excitement. The East, and Southern Europe, have afforded, and probably still afford, abundant examples of this hateful propensity. I suppose it will he granted that this is not one of the natural inclina¬ tions which it would be wrong to suppress. The only question would be whether it is not a duty to suppress the man himself along with it.” Such undoubtedly was Nero, and many another brutal persecutor. Primitive Christians nerved themselves to endure, by deepening the shadows and defining the glories which their Master had placed in contrast: witness the awful scenes drawn by the African enthusiasm of Tertullian, and the exclama¬ tions of rapture attributed to tortured and dying men. As times grew calmer, earnest souls grew calmer too. A worldly life could expect no beatific issue; * Essays , p. 57. Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience. 65 for it is impossible to make the desired gain out of both worlds. A steadfast life, so unselfish as to be void of offence towards God and Man, was acknow¬ ledged as a high and noble attainment. It was as if the scenes of a pious and tranquil old age drawn by Plato had been Christianized and made more serenely beautiful. The world now present is depicted as a dissolving view,—that upper world as a city not built with hands, an inheritance that fadeth not away. In dealing with the subject of Betribution, it cannot be doubted that words exercise a misleading influence upon thought. For if we put aside the stronger—I might say coarser—difficulties, raised by some objectors and to be noticed hereafter, there is a refined and an almost indefinable dread upon minds endowed with strong imaginative powers, lest the pure motives from which they desire to pursue good¬ ness should become sullied by a reference to its personal benefits, remembered at the moment of volition. Such a feeling was expressed in this church by a former vicar, with his usual felicity of language. We get a glimpse into something of the same kind from the attitude assumed by the present President of the British Association towards Natural Beligion. Both in him and in Dr. Newman there is also a decided trust in emotional feeling or sentiment, as a foundation for assent to the most sublime kinds of truth. Trains of thought leading the same way ap¬ pear blended in the posthumous Essays of Mr. Stuart Mill. When three such different thinkers are visited 5 66 The Doctrine of Retribution. [I-ect. ii. by an approximately like kind of impression, we may be sure that it is one wbicb deserves consideration. Let us bear it therefore in mind as we proceed. You will probably have been struck at the beginning of your Ethics by the manner in which Aristotle advances Happiness in his vanguard. He inscribes on its banner the maxim that it deserves to attract us all because a substantial, as well as an ultimate, object of pursuit. This, you know, has given rise to many controversies on the question of Eudaemonism ; and they have in turn connected themselves with enquiries into the nature of pleasure and utility, and with discussions how far these latter are either aims or criteria appertaining to human Morality. Any one acquainted with the language of Hume, Paley, and Jeremy Bentham, may feel at once satisfied of the superior purity and refinement of moral character stamped upon the Ethics of twenty-one hundred years ago. We meet with a similar phenomenon in Cicero, who exacts, as obvious duty, rules of commercial honesty and truth which are utterly alien from the age we live in; and which, if enforced from a pulpit, would stamp the preacher as an enthusiast or Utopian visionary. Such plain facts r&ise a presumption against all theories which make Morality a sort of social development. No one will accuse the Gospel of having introduced into Ethics pleasurable enjoy¬ ment, self-indulgence, or self-interest, as principles of Christian activity. Neither can we say that society has regressed since the era of Alexander or the last days of Eoman oligarchy. We must lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 67 therefore maintain (as indeed seems to be the truth) that those lower motives advocated in our eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are the utterances of a voice never quite silenced in human creatures : the natural language of that side of our being on which we ap¬ proach animality. Thus viewed, the older and more noble maxims which we have cited are not expressions indigenous to pleasure-loving Greece or to brutally luxurious Rome. They are the reactions of higher natures against the degraded tones of their times. 0 si sint omnia ! Would that it were always so with both Pagan and Christian Philosophies ! Leaving Hedonism in shadow for the present, we may remark that Aristotle was fully aware how even the most ordinary human comfort, much more happi¬ ness, is, in this disjointed world, very often incom¬ patible with virtue. The conditions of life he lays down for the happy man are, he knows, very seldom realized. Next, what is to be done when the question lies between right and suffering ? In moderate tempta¬ tions, such as are common to man, the answer is clear to his mind. But it may come to the cuo-yicrra and Seivorara — the most shameful of intolerable torments. Here the greatest of systematic pre-Christian moralists hesitates, where a Christian father would have made a deliberate stand. Yet one admires Aristotle’s hesi¬ tation. There is no attempt to cover up his shrinking from torture; no excuse to blind his reader. His is sheer sympathy,—fellow-feeling with human nerve and brain. The philosopher does what it is unusual to do : he puts himself by the side of a mutilated 68 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. fellow-creature, and asks, What should I say or do ? The exact question which three-fourths of us never ask ! If you will steady your thoughts in face of this question of questions, it will become a vast inlet of knowledge ! There is strong mental KdOapcns ,— a very real purification of the Soul gained by con¬ templating terrible dilemmas of Right and Wrong, Greek tragic issues, Scandinavian myth-enigmas, and other such dark things which underlie this life of ours, yet are seldom apparent on the surface of its much-concealing stream. Few prose writers of our own age have ever brought to light so many of these half-hidden (almost always neglected) horrors, as that author of realistic fictions wdio was buried in Westminster Abbey nearly five years ago. By way of prelude to one of them, he wrote a brief account of his travels on the Continent, and entitled it “ Pictures from Italy.” I will read one or two passages from his sketch of what he saw in the Pope’s Palace at Avignon. They will recall to most persons here a dreadful and revolting descrip¬ tion, which is unfit for recital in this place. As you listen to my short extracts, let me ask you to reckon, if you can, the amount of untold, unremembered misery implied in Charles Dickens’s narrative. Misery not lightened by one touch of sympathy then ; misery so unimaginable that tears are never shed over it now. Misery enacted by men who are to us like phantoms passed away—the torturers and the tor¬ tured—yet all recorded, and their names written somewhere. Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 69 “A few steps brought us to the dungeons, in which the prisoners of the Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively doored and fastened, as of old. . . . On, into a vaulted chamber, now used as a store-room : once the Chapel of the Holy Office. The place where the tribunal sat was plain. The platform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition chambers ! But it was, and may be traced there yet. “ High up in the jealous wall are niches where the faltering replies of the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of the very cell we had just looked into . . We had trodden in their very footsteps. . . . Then, into a room adjoining—a rugged room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top to the bright day. . . . The Chamber of Torture ! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle the victim’s cries ! * . . . There the furnace was : there they made the irons red-hot. Those holes supported the sharp stake, on which the tortured persons hung poised,—dangling with their whole weight from the roof. ... A cold air, laden with an earthy smell, falls upon the face. It comes from a trap-door in the wall. One looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the * It might seem uncandid were I to omit from these pages Mr. Dickens’s strong antithesis between the Inquisition and Christ-like Christianity :— “ See the stone trough ... for the water torture! Gurgle, swell, bloaf, burst, for the Redeemer’s honour ! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into your unbelieving body, heretic, at every breath you draw !. And when the executioner plucks it out, reeking with the smaller mysteries of God’s own Image, know us for His chosen servants, true believers in the Sermon on the Mount, elect disciples of Him who never did a miracle but to heal; who never struck a man with palsy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, madness, any one affliction of mankind; and never stretched His blessed hand out but to give relief and ease ! ” Compare the speeches of the various high personages in “ Queen Mary” (published since I wrote), particularly the protest assigned to Cardinal Pole. jo The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii. top, of a steep, dark, lofty tower; very dismal, very dark, very cold. The executioner of the Inquisition flung those who were past all further torturing down here. “ Again into the Chapel of the Holy Office. ... A little trap-door in the floor. . . . Behold the oubliettes of the Inquisition ! Subter¬ ranean, frightful, black, terrible, deadly! . . . My blood ran cold as I looked down into the vaults where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside—of wives, friends, children, brothers —starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph.” Place yourself, in imagination, each or any of you, beneath the vault of yonder rugged room. Picture the scene at least two or three times, and each time put to your own heart a problem. Begin by laying aside tl\e thought of friends from whom, when once a prisoner, you are severed. Not a soul of them will ever see you again. No one can even conjecture where you are. You have been trapped, it may be, in a lonely street, and brought hither under cover of night. Fix your attention entirely upon yourself. In another ten minutes you must undergo the Ques¬ tion : what answer w T ill you give ? Will you confess to these men, according to the example of St. Paul, ‘ After the way which they call heresy, so worship I, the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets ” ? Or will you deny your own convictions, and return to a creed you have quitted in obedience to Scripture and the Church primitive—that Church which was most pure and incorrupt ? To do this would he to obtain, at the very least, easy death; probably no more than Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 71 a short penance; possibly, seclusion in a well-known monastery. To denounce your friends, and enter the service of your tormentors as a spy, would be to gain life and mucb tbat makes life luxurious, if not splendid. Of these last basenesses you pronounce yourself incapable; but as to the former, think quickly, for you have not mucb time to think. What profit shall there be in your blood when you go down into the pit ? You shall go down in silence. No protest of yours—no word, nor deed, will ever be known : neither the fact of your death, if you die ; nor yet your existence, should you continue to live in any other vocation than the abhorred one of being a spy upon your friends. Such is the policy of this tribunal. In this situation, if Eight and Wrong be thought to depend on utility or non-utility, Eight and Wrong are at an end . Pleasure is a different affair. Some kinds of pleasures are always accessible to living animals. Eemember what Archdeacon Paley says about pleasure . “ The greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life is what we mean by happiness, when we enquire or pronounce what human happiness consists in. “ In which enquiry I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature ; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others ; because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity.” * So far the Archdeacon. * Moral and Political Philosophy , Book I. ch. vi. 72 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.ii. Such a life as yours will not last long; you may therefore omit what that eighteenth-century divine writes respecting the limits of time and repetition. The notion of your being wearied out by the happiness of pleasure is, in all likelihood, an ab¬ surdity. Quick, then,—for you deliberate as Damocles feasted. This life present has some charms left, but not any connected with usefulness towards your fellow- creatures ; nor yet with any importance your martyr¬ dom might possess in their eyes. The debate is personal,—a question for reasonable self-love: a very different thing from that iron question before you. The whole matter can be stated in ten words, —Will you live, compelled to make your life a lie? Is it imaginable that any human creature, clothed in shrinking flesh and blood, would, in so horrible a moment, fail to ask himself or herself, Am I sure there exists an Immortality,—a just requital in a life after death ? Am I quite certain that I shall really live again, beneath the rule of a righteous God? If this self-interrogation is inevitable, does it not appear that we have found a case in which the idea of Retribution will form a very essential belief, and the thought of our exceeding great reward no im¬ proper consolation to a struggling half-dead man or woman ? Half-dead with horror,—not on your Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 73 own account alone, 0 foreboding soul,—but because near you crouches another being, more dear than the ruddy drops that visit your sad heart. To this other, your answer is all significant: one fate enfolds you both in its grim embrace. No matter who this other may be,—your daughter, my father; your sister, my young friend; or it may be your affianced bride ;— whatever that crouching Form may be to you,— daughter, sister, bride, brother, father, husband of your heart,—it enshrines the jewel you love best, the spirit that responds to yours. And life or death,—ease or the bed of pain and the dark dank oubliette,—the piecemeal dying and decaying ;— such is the alternative waiting for the words of your mouth. We need not pursue a theme so agonizing. It is one with respect to which Facts that make us blush for our species have unhappily overpassed the farthest range of Fancy. Its interest to us now turns upon a single point. And we may determine it. There are not twenty persons in this church who would refuse to die. You would die, because it must needs be more terrible to live,—to live and despise yourself, hate yourself, condemn yourself, every day of your life. And when Death comes at last, you must needs feel and know it most terrible of all so to depart. You would die, because to live must be the exist¬ ence of a brute animal, and not of a Man. You would die, because the Choice rests with yourself. You can neither evade it, nor throw it upon fate, frenzy, 7 4 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. ignorance, impulse. It is a choice which calls out your central Being. Yon are face to face with an issue infinite; and the lot, once chosen, is immutable. Immutable for yourself, and for the one you love better than self,—nay, than all the whole world besides. It is obvious how, in the choice of strangling rather than life, the chooser naturally bends his eye upon the belief in Ketribution, whole and entire. How natural it is to think of the tyrant inquisitor, claiming to wield infallibly-directed thunderbolts, as of one who shall himself he stricken :— “ I say to thee, false Priest, A ministering angel shall my dear one be, When thou best howling.’’ Or, if the sufferer loses the thought of his hateful tormentor in love and sorrow for the partner of his torment, then does not that doctrine which affirms “ the recompence of the reward ” seem the true non dolet ,—the sole anodyne for the beloved of his soul ? To think of that dear one’s pain as swallowed up in immediate blessedness unspeakable,—to hope that its vision and realization may sustain the failing heart of flesh, and dull the anguish of those slow-moving hours,—shall we not all say, this is human ;—true for us, and true for all beings endowed with like affec¬ tions throughout the universe ? And should we not say the same of a second thought certain to come in,—the thought of sharing that same Infinity of bliss ? Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 75 Such, then, is the most striking aspect of the picture we have been contemplating. Let me now call your attention to one special circumstance con¬ nected with it. Those thinkers who fear for their purity of moral aims, the slightest shadow of self- consoling hope, entertain no such misgiving when they behold the tears of the oppressed,—of them that have no comforter ;—while on the side of their oppressors is power,—but they have no comforter.* Here the Fountain of Hope seems to spring up in its proper place : it is, according to the oriental meta¬ phor, like an eye in a desert land, looking from earth to Heaven. Could we really believe, that sorrow im¬ morally—or even ?m-morally inflicted—has no appeal; that injured righteousness is hopeless as the silent grave ;—could we divest ourselves of each thought and sentiment which tells us the exact opposite,— then the world would indeed appear, through one or more of its fairest portions, nothing better than a vast lazar-house ! We should praise “ the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive.” We should say, “ Better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.”f But in the very moment of our so speaking, we should feel that our speech was at once to God and to Man untrue. We should recoil from our own disbelief in horror, and maintain with all our might, that “ God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” J “ For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every * Ecclesiastes iv. 1. f lb. iv. 2, 3. + lb. iii. 17. [Lect. II. 76 The Doctrine of Retribution . secret thing, whether it he good or whether it be evil.” * Having adverted to these truths, we leave them for the present; simply affirming that they are truths for us,—true in the fact of their being the essential glasses and optical arrangements, through which our Moral Eye looks ; just as there are other optical arrangements and glasses, never alienated, nor alien¬ able by our human Understanding. And if these affirmations are true for us, then are they true also for all beings in a like manner morally constituted. Let me now rather call your attention away from the end in view, (that of Retribution,)—and direct it to those Ethical Distinctions , on the reality of which our present knowledge of the ultima ratio is surely and certainly founded. Turn hack your eyes to the scene we drew. This (as you will perceive at a glance) affords an instance where the inner and nobler element of our Being uses its outer envelope as a base mechanical slave,—com¬ mands it to suffer, to languish, and expire,—and accounts such absolute sovereignty no unrighteous usurpation. Is it possible, then, that our Soul can he hut the rhythm of an organized body ?—our Morality a well-tuned music made by nerve and brain ? Were this supposahle, it must naturally follow that when the face blanches, and every nerve thrills with anguish, —when sight and sense almost refuse their functions, —when the brain itself sickens and whirls under the torture, and from sympathy with another’s torments, * Ecclesiastes xii. 14. Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience . 77 —then , surely, kinship and birth would assert their ties, the body would modulate its rhythm , and the soul yield to the terrible dilemma. Then, surely, the moral law would become inverted ,— i\ed)s ctol (“ be it far from thee ”) would become its sentence,—and the torn flesh gain a respite from its rack. The same yielding of Soul to body must necessarily ensue with equal certainty in all or any of the follow¬ ing cases, which have been maintained by sophisti¬ cated logic,—provided, that is, all or any of them could he held true. If, in the first place, Right and Wrong were mere modifications of pleasure and pain. If, again, our sense of Duty were simply a transformed sense of earthly Interest. If, furthermore, we could hnow nothing of a Good higher than gross Corporeal good. Finally, if Truth and Morality had no eleva¬ tion, no superiority, when compared with sensual enjoyment, or with circumstances easy and useful to the sons of clay. Were any of these propositions true, the Soul could never command the body to suffer. Each sufferer’s counsel to his best beloved would repeat the “ Be it far from thee ” which Christ pronounced the voice of Satan, heard in the person of Simon Peter. But let these propositions be esteemed false;—and, contrariwise, we hear Duty speaking a peculiar language,—far— very far different from the accents of physical pleasure or pain, of expediency and utility, of all else that measures the Immortal Conscience by a mortal standard—or of all that doubts or denies its Immortality. And this language of Duty is a Tongue spoken by Men ,—it may be by 78 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. n. other reasoning creatures. Perchance, it is one amongst the many tongues of Angels. Yet the savans of the last century boldly asserted that Morality was nothing better than well-dressed usefulness. Many of our young thinkers now are apt to speak of Bentham or Mill as the chiefs of Utilita¬ rianism ;—forgetting its lineal descent from the speculations of David Hume. “ This circumstance,” he says, “ of usefulness has, in general, the strongest energy, and most entire command over our sentiments. It must, therefore, be the source of a considerable part of the merit ascribed to humanity, benevolence, friendship, public spirit, and other social virtues of that stamp; as it is the SOLE source of the moral approbation paid to fidelity, justice, veracity, integrity, and those other estimable and useful qualities and principles.” * Sentences, these, as wide and incisive as anything that Bentham ever wrote. They are, also, in har¬ mony with the general tenor of Hume’s other moral maxims ;—strung, as it were, upon the thread that runs through all his Sociology. We may grant that more recent rhetoric is often more vigorous. As, for example, when Bentham writes, or is supposed to have written,— “ The talisman of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance, is to be found in a single word, an authoritative imposture, which in these pages it will be frequently necessary to unveil. It is the word ‘ ought/-* ought or ought not,’ as circumstances maybe. In deciding you ought to do this, you ought not to do it, is not every question of morals set at rest ? If,” he continues, “ the use of the word be admissible at all, it * ought ’ to be banished from the vocabulary of morals.” t * Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Section III. Part 2. f Deontology , I. p. 32. Though published professedly from Ben- tham’s manuscript, some doubts have been thrown on his authorship : a point of no consequence to my use of the passage. Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience. 79 Strange, that the author of this edict of exile should never have reflected that to require for Utility’s sake the ostracism of “ Ought ” from our vocabulary, is to confess that this same “ Ought ”— this verb of Duty—is, after all, a distinctly Human utterance,—an utterance which lives and breathes through the noblest languages of Man. It gathers into itself the idea of an inward constraint which alone is perfect freedom; of a noble mark at which the Spirit aims ; of a soul-culture which is the most Beautiful as well as the Best. For, as Undine truly says, every creature aspires after that which is higher than its firstborn self. The Law of the Sublime is written on the nature of the lowly;—and Man, who is the highest of all, is also the real Yoice of the world. He inherits and explains it, as its Tenant, its Interpreter, and its Spokesman. And in this respect the “ Ought to do ” sounds to human ears as something more than a rule for our Moral governance;—it is in itself a prophecy of better things yet to be revealed in us. That the utterance of Duty is really prophetic, as well as supreme, may appear a verified fact, if we revert in thought to those ages when Moral Truth was most lavishly tested by imprisonment, torture, and death. Why did the Babylonian Captives defy the tyranny of the great King,—or the Maccabee victims resist the will of Antiochus ? Why did Christian Martyrs undergo all that the barbarism of Borne’s carnifices could invent ? Why labour, as bondslaves maimed and miserable, in underground caverns for ever banished from the common sun, the goodly earth 8o The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. and air ? The reason in each case put on the reli¬ gious garb of its own age and period; but in no case, probably, was there insight as to the present mun¬ dane issue. There was, doubtless, many a hopeful thought directed to the supra-mundane sphere. There was a belief, too, that he who fought against God,— Epiphanes, Nero, Antichrist,—fought for his own destruction. But to us the result has become wide, deep, firm, beyond all possibility of anticipation. The blood of the Martyrs has been the seed of the Church; and many a fair harvest-field has grown golden through its vitalizing force. That blood has also germinated into the choicest plants of our Church’s vineyard,—religious freedom,—the freedom of Conscience, Reason, Will. I say Will,—for Will was tried against iron,— and came off victorious from that grim conflict. The primitive martyr who bore pain died in hope ; yet unconscious of the benefit which would follow to mankind,—a benefit which our own Anglo-Saxon race seems likely to make world¬ wide. And the same is true of the period when our English priests and bishops triumphed over Marian degradation, fetters, and flame. The proverb, hap¬ pily vulgar in England, that “ Honesty is the best Policy,” represents in homely phrase a maxim made absolute by the Moral Law: that right doing must finally prevail—and prevail for final good. Yet, liow this prophetic maxim should receive an earthly accomplishment,—Duty never waited nor asked to know. Duty accepted with certitude of faith the affirmed eternal “ Shall be .” lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 81 To see the absoluteness of this truth, we must examine its elements one by one. Most of them are involved in the example chosen as the main subject of this Lecture —suffering for Conscience ’ sake. But to be appreciated, they require separate illustration. Observe, first , as flowing naturally from my latter remarks, one salient point which may he called the Paradox of moral performance. The very thing which seems to coarse perceptions unlikely to be obtained by Self-Denial, is the goal reached ,—the prize enjoyed as its inevitable consequent. Take, for example, the case of an ascetic philanthropist:— “If,” says Professor Grote of Cambridge—“ If a man’s life is to be spent in the service of his fellow-creatures, in promoting a ma¬ terial happiness for them, he must not have the idea that a material happiness is what he wants for himself; he must find his own happi¬ ness in the success of his labours, and in the sight of their happi¬ ness ; where indeed he will find it most abundantly, and in a form far more real and intense than any material happiness could be: so that philanthropy is the best self-love, always under the all- important consideration, (which renders vain a good deal which philosophers have said upon this subject,) that it is not from such policy, and with a view to the happiness of self, that it is practised.”* The truth here is plain. Were Philanthropy con¬ taminated with Self-love, it would cease to be Philanthropy. It would become that trade-benevo- lence , which has disgraced many a public character in England and America: a sort of benevolence which in this country, happily for our morals, has been from time to time requited by exposure and criminal degradation. Philanthropy is the opposite of Self-love,—they are * Grote’s Examination of the Utilitarian Philosojihy, p. 104, note. 6 . 82 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.ii. mutual exclusives; the very thought of the one con¬ sumes, like a flame of fire, all thought of the other. And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the Mint of Nature and of God has stamped Happiness—pure and elevated happiness—on the obverse of every medal inscribed with the legend of self-control and self-devotion. It is the same paradox as the great heathen’s assertion, that although perfect happiness is attendant on perfected Virtue, yet the votary of pleasure or self-gratification will inevitably ruin both. How often has this pulpit echoed with lessons of Asceticism, more or less refined ! And how many men of high aims and pure conscience are better and happier for those lessons ! When one thinks of such realities, one feels proud of one’s own University, and glad to be a missionary to its nobler youth. The paradox of Philanthropy is likewise the para¬ dox of Martyrdom. The grand difference is that the medallic obverse—the Martyr’s crown—pre-supposes a Heaven, where bright things will shine their brightest. Our next step may appear easy in comparison with the first. It may seem a like, but less, paradox to say, that Usefulness is best secured by a purely ethical disregard—nay, contempt—of Utility. This consequence turns, no doubt, on the tone and temper of mind produced ; and an observation of these effects cannot but be instructive. Theoretically, the asser¬ tion of Eight and Wrong, in opposition to Expediency, is supposed to harden a character. Independent Morality has been associated with sternness; while Lect. il] The Answer of Conscience . 83 general considerations of utility, and an eye to con¬ sequences, are said to soften men’s dispositions, and make them tolerant. But facts do not bear out either conclusion. In the School of Bentham, bene¬ volent Utilitarianism flowered,—and the elder Mill is ever eulogized as its pride. Mr. Grote, the historian, had opportunities for observation, was a friend of “the Benthamians,” as he terms them, and was not the man to set down aught in malice. Yet his cen¬ sure points to cynicism, asperity, and something like detraction.* If, then, such is the influence of a noble regard to Utility, what will be the effect of an ignoble and contracted Self-interest ? In truth, the self-regarding question, “ Who will show us any good ? ” is an up-growth no more indige¬ nous to Moral Reason than it is to the soil of Faith. The answer in all ages is the same : The light of supreme Truth is also the light of the supreme Good. But, as the sun darkens all earthly fires, so does * Mr. Grote’s impression may be distinctly gathered from a letter printed by Mrs. Grote in her Life of the historian :—** G. Grote to G. W. Norman, May 1819. London. ... I have breakfasted and dined several times with Ricardo, who has been uncommonly civil and kind to me. I have met Mill often at his house, and hope to derive great pleasure and instruction from his acquaintance, as he is a very profound thinking man, and seems well disposed to communi¬ cate, as well as clear and intelligible in his manner. His mind has, indeed, all that cynicism and asperity which belong to the Benthamian school, and what I chiefly dislike in him is the readiness and seeming preference with which he dwells on the faults and defects of others— even of the greatest men ! But it is so very rarely that a man of any depth comes across my path, that I shall most assuredly cultivate his acquaintance a good deal farther.” 8 4 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. Eternal Truth, (which is one side of the manifoldness of Good supreme,) obscure and utterly eclipse the dust- horn maxims of selfish calculation. It may appear, in an argumentative way, to thee and me, 0 logical controversialist, that we should each of us, above all things, secure our own selves. But suppose the thought of a so-seeming Expediency poisons the fount of virtue and uncontaminated happiness ? Suppose the self-interested pursuit ruins our best and highest Self ? Shall we not thereby live to frustrate our own logical conclusion,—to stultify our rule of choice,— “ Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas ? ” Had the faithful, in the Papal Inquisition at Avignon, chosen to live, would life have been worth the having ? This instance may remind us to enquire how Expediency prospers ? Did the Massacre of St. Bar¬ tholomew prove a final Utility to France and Rome ? Has Spain been tranquillized by her ages of Inquisi¬ torial decimation ? When the Romans crucified six thousand slaves at once, because it was politic so to do, was such policy a symptom of vitality or of decay ? Did the Jewish state grow vigorous by her ruler’s base Utilitarian maxim, “It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people 9 9 ? * Was this Expediency the language of Moral Right ? With as much falsehood, and as little truth, we might say that vox populi was vox Dei, when the people cried out, “ Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! ” There is, indeed, a very similar lesson taught us by * S. John xi. 50. Lect. ii.j The Answer of Conscience . 85 the High Priest and his citizens. The infallibility of the People, and the certitude of the supreme law of human advantage, are both negatived. Yet both are kindred doctrines. Here is a case in point:— “ The community,” wrote Mr. James Mil], in a passage justly castigated by Lord Macaulay—‘‘the community cannot have an in¬ terest opposite to its interests. To affirm this would be a contradiction in terms. . . . One community may intend the evil of another ; never its own.” * Like other verbal contradictions, this one does not hold when applied to realities. Communities, like the individuals composing them, act every day from interested motives in a manner most effectively opposed to their own interests. Nothing is more ordinary than to hear a man com¬ plain that his life has been a failure,—for which he has only to blame himself and his advisers. Nothing is more historical than to find a community taking vengeance on some political scapegoat—some Pro¬ fessor of Statecraft, who never could have persuaded his fellow-countrymen, had they not been self-per¬ suaded into hearing him, and adopting his nn -moral expedients. * For both passage censured and strictures referred to, see the Review of Mill’s “Essay on Government” in the Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, about two leaves from its commence¬ ment. Early in this paper, the critic remarks on the singular ten¬ dency of Utilitarians to do as we shall find M. Comte guilty of doing, — i.e., to substitute assumed or d priori principles for the slower and more careful process of Induction. The same tendency leads such reasoners to neglect verification by experience. Compare Macaulay’s strictures—pre-eminent as specimens of his peculiar debating power— with Huxley on Positivism (Lay Sermons, p. 162), J. S. Mill on Comte (pp. 83-5); and with pp. 91-2 post, and footnote appended. ,86 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. 11. Let us take by way of illustration a case often dis¬ cussed by leaders of the People, and almost always wrongly determined. That tbe good citizen should yield liis own manifest private advantage, for tbe sake of a fairly probable public good, is an evident dictate of tbe Moral Law. Any real lover of bis species would be tbe first to confess and act upon it. But does tbe Moral Law equally countenance any body-politic wbicb makes a practice of over-riding tbe rightful interests of its individual citizens ? View tbe sacrifice from both opposed sides, as a spontaneous act benevolently done, or as a forced “ benevolence ”—an exercise of summum jus. It is plain that many communities would pronounce one and tbe same thing to be in both cases expedient. Yet, in tbe long run, tbe adverse moral rule of respect for individual rights will certainly be found to coincide with social well¬ being—understood in its widest acceptation. We may here reflect with sorrow bow few States, large or small, have at any time learned tbe lesson, Fiat Justitia , Coelum ruat. We may also draw an obvious inference that tbe Moral Law never does command the tiling wbicb is ^expedient, nor yet does it com¬ mand tbe expedient thing because it is expedient. It commands tbe act, because, being expedient, it is also right, just, and equitable in foro conscientice. A further plain inference is that tbe very fact of this double consideration of tbe Expedient and tbe Moral establishes an intrinsic distinction between our two human faculties consulted—our sense of wliat is lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 87 useful and our sense of wliat is right. They may agree, or they may not. If they do agree, so much the easier our course. If they disagree irreconcile- ably, in reality and not in phrase only, the supremacy of Eight ought to he admitted. And (as we have seen) there is reason to believe that its admission must be honest and honourable in the first place ; in the second, it will be found at last a worldly-wise course of action. Yet the fact appears undeniable, that some contest between the apparently Expedient and the apparently Eight, is an occurrence which must always be ex¬ pected in a world like ours. Examples are written in every book of Thucydides. Examples are written in the book of every human life. It has, there¬ fore, become a question urgent upon the moralist,— Can we discover a plain rule by which such ques¬ tions shall be determined, without a show of Uto¬ pianism on the one side ; on the other, without any reproach of unworthy compliance with base motives and impulses more germane to the brute than to the human creature ? Several answers have been suggested, as solutions of this practical difficulty. One rests its efficacy upon the culture of our Moral sense—a hope shared in common by philanthropists and legislators at almost all periods of history. Let a man cultivate his Conscience as the garden of his Soul,—as the vineyard of his Lord. Eew of us are ignorant what acuteness of insight becomes the peculiar property of a woman true to her heart and her sex; we feel 88 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. how much we may learn, and have learned, from the mind and music of that delicate Moral beauty. Such are often the companion Spirits * given us, as part of our human education ; and he who has always lacked that influence of Woman, lacks (as Dr. John¬ son said of melody) one sense additional to the ordinary five. This fact, which will be affirmed by most men of the world, as it was by Lord Lytton in almost every book he wrote,—this single fact is sufficient to prove the existence of some cultivable Ethical insight. It is to this selfsame insight, this faculty divine, that the Scripture appeals when it says, “ Love thy neighbour, and the stranger, as thyself.”! “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” J These words of Moses and of Christ have (as is well known) elicited the admiration of men who differed so widely in their religious tenets, as to agree in little besides this most penetrating ethical aphorism. Now, the human endowment implicitly re¬ ferred to,—the power which renders so noble a maxim intelligible and appropriate to us ,—that power which renders us capable of regarding ourselves as other than ourselves, and of looking at the things of others as if they were our own,—is a power separating between Man and Brute, and involving the history of our * “A Spirit, yet a Woman too ! ” (Wordsworth). Compare Dante, Purgatorio, xxx., xxxi. t Leviticus xix. 18 and 34 ; Matt. v. 19. J Matt. vii. 12, xxii. 39, and Luke vi. 31. These double parallels make up one precept : the former texts containing the principle of the commandment; the latter its practical application. Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience . 89 most clearly distinctive Intuitions. It shows us what our Moralities ought to be ; it also shows us the central secret of our own Volitions. To see our¬ selves as other than ourselves, in an ab-extrd light, enables us to say with Horace, “ This was unlovely.” To see others even as it were ourselves enables us to spend and be spent in the common service. Thus doubly seeing, we live a twofold life,—not for self only, but for Humanity, and therefore in the purest, truest sense, for God. As plain and practical Canons of Duty, no one will question the supreme excellence of the precepts such as those already quoted. If it be desired to link them with Ethical Science,—and if the question arises, Where is their evidence and ground of determination ?—our answer need not be far to seek. Such words as these, successfully addressed to Human Nature, and obtaining from it both echo and assent, lead to no doubtful presupposal of two very important conditions. The first, that they must meet with a sufficient affirmation from our Nature itself; otherwise they would remain in¬ operative. The second, that in order to bear the noble fruit they have borne, they must not only fall upon ground the reverse of barren, but they must needs carry within themselves some germ of vitality, some truth-producing Truth. And the more difficult obedience to such lofty precepts may appear in any man’s eyes, the more absolutely certain must also appear the existence of these two essential con¬ ditions. Hence, likewise, the greatest encourage- go The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii. ment for us to investigate in the direction to which they point. For, he it remembered, what we want to discover is a living type which embodies an intelligible First-Truth; not a mere abstract state¬ ment of generalized facts, but a formative principle, a genetic law of Duty capable of a verification in like manner with other laws of human activity. Let us observe, however, that laws of this kind must be carefully distinguished from the law and method of Physical Science. The reason of this distinction is plain : the latter are mechanical, and pertain to a grand Mechanism ; but Man is not a machine. Were he some such sort of Thing,-—not a Person to will and choose, but a determinately moved and driven Thing,—then, indeed, the question suggested by the horrible torture-chamber at Avignon would never have been answered in more than one way. The kind of Law we seek may be more definitely apprehended if I give a few moments’ consideration to some recent endeavours of speculative thinking on the subject. They have not been very prolific in results; and therefore what is to be said will easily lie in brief compass. Tentative systems, or the rudiments of systems framed to meet the demands of exact Science, have of late years issued in theoretic Sociology. Its conception is attributed by zealous disciples to the French founder of Positivism, who wrote on the subject himself, and laid down rules for the guidance of those who were to work at its elaboration. The curious point attaching to these rules is that, as he Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 91 observes, they exactly reverse the method of the Inductive Sciences. Within its own strict limits every Inductive Science subjects its Universal laws —those especially which involve hypotheses—to a verification repeated from time to time by every fresh investigator. And it is on this pivot of experi¬ mentation that the certitude of such sciences always turns triumphantly. But the method of Comtist Sociology inverts —we ought perhaps to say anni¬ hilates—this procedure. The results of experience are to be verified by the Universal laws of Human Nature; and such laws are to be received as laws already known to us : a principle which may seem in danger of assuming the chief points in debate,— assuming them, that is, by an unconscious process, familiar enough in the reading of those who study the history of Speculation. Comte’s plan was to analyze and generalize the whole intellectual annals of Mankind. He wrote (quite naturally) a Comtian Philosophy of History. There is, of course, as much room for theorizing here as in his analysis and classification of the sciences. Indeed, Mr. Mill considers both these encyclopaedic labours of almost equal value. To any one wTlo accepts late scientific appreciations of Comte’s philosophic arrangements, this praise must appear the reverse of complimentary.* * For an estimate of Comte’s bookish unreality as regards Physical Science, I need only refer to Professor Huxley and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Concerning our special subject of Mental Science, Mill has sufficiently exposed the absurdity of substituting for Psychology a new version of Gall and Spurzheim, vastly inferior to the original. In Metaphysics Comte was simply uninformed, and could not have 92 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. n. But whatever his analytic data were worth, they had, it appears, little final influence on his Sociology; the outcome of which was to assign the true develop¬ ment of the human Bace not to its character as formed by action and interaction, hut to its specu¬ lative opinions. And this conclusion, when applied to social life, issues (wonderful to relate) in the absolute control of existence by Positive thinkers armed with despotic powers. The idea of a con¬ trolling despotism Comte drew from his Roman Catholic education : Positive thought was of course the ne plus ultra of his own Humanity. ■ Enquiring further, we pass over M. Comte’s later vagaries on the subject of Polity, and ask with some curiosity in what light the required laws of Human Nature have appeared to recent thinkers more or less imbued with the leading doctrines of Positivism ? Speaking generally, we find that, though elevated to the rank of laws, these desiderata are merely averages ; in other words, they are generalized facts. They do not, therefore, possess the essential quality of being in themselves cc genetic.” You will more fully perceive the value of this distinction if I observe that an average death-rate is useful for the informa¬ tion of Life-Assurance Offices, but the generalized explained the difference between an absolute idea and a logical abstraction. It is curious that when systematizing Biology, he fell into the same inversion of the Inductive process as he did respecting Sociology, and based the special upon the general—an error properly exposed by Mr. Huxley. Though praising Comte’s historical prepara¬ tions, Mill says, “ He has not created Sociology ... he has done nothing in it which does not require to be done over again, and better.” lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 93 fact, per se, does not enable us to lengthen life. The contrary is true of the biological laws which govern mortality: their object is to promote health and length of days. Another mischief arising from averages,—perhaps I ought to say another fallacy , —is that, if looked at, as they have been vulgarly looked at, in the light of genetic principles, they confuse most important Moral distinctions. For, when we come to action, the Truths we must keep steadily in mind are not drawn from any average standard of wliat is , but from the Philosophy of tvhat ought to he. And this Philosophy, depicted for us in the living portraiture of History, shines out as the reflection of noble achievements—the lesson of good Exemplars. As a law written on our hearts, it is the high aim of which Aristotle speaks,— the poet’s thought: “We may make our lives sublime ! ” Yet in such lofty lives the average-compilers see only exceptions to their law. Nay, more—with the true spirit of average-making intellects, they class great Spirits as eccentricities. Hume’s and Buckle’s social laws are suggestive of some Utilitarian Physical Geography, which might account plains the true beauty of the world, and mountains its deforming wastes. In our world of Humanity we have reason to thank God that there are high summits bathed in brightness, since lower levels lie too much in shadow. The ideal “ ought to hef (in itself the end and fulfilment of Man’s Being,) is, when personified 94 The Doctrine of Ret) ibution . [Lect. ii. by individual men, its actual realization.* It exists in our world oftener than ordinary minds suspect, and it interprets our hidden Life for us. To show this was the task and glory of Charles Dickens. You, my young friends, will find that the average t assumed to be the “ wliat isf can never in point of fact guide you correctly. You will discover that the difference between man and man, in regard of such virtues (for example) as Truth, Justice, or Disinter¬ estedness,^—is a chasm so vast as to resemble a great gulf placed between them. If you believe that every man has his price, you will be wrong. If you think that all pursue their own interest, because it is their private interest, experience will contradict your theory. And as for Truth,—the contrast between individual men in this respect, is as great as between Mephistopheles and some saintly spirit walking in the light of God’s presence. One inference from what has been just said is this : No moral law 7 can be truly Moral unless it contains what I will venture to call an Ideal element. But by this word Ideal, I am far from understanding anything unreal. The element I mean is a growing- point for which the soil of our present life is not always rich enough.! Every now and then we see * Hence the Philosophy of teaching by example,—a philosophy presupposed in every chapter of the Old Testament. So, with Cicero, History is “ Testis Tempornm, lux Yeritatis, vita Memoriae, magistra Yitae, nuntia Yetustatis.” De Oral. II. 36. \ The sense of this inadequacy is one reason why the life Man now lives must always appear not only unsatisfying,—but (what is far more exact) essentially disparate to Man’s higher nature. Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 95 what strikes ns as a superhuman stature. Such realized ideals satisfy, so to speak, the aesthetic instincts of our moral sense—they are the “ fair souls ” which the great German poet could admire even when they differed widely from himself. Human spirits, thus beautiful by reason of their words and works, are, by the fact of their existence, verifica¬ tions of the truly genetic law after which we have been enquiring. They are rainbow clouds—witnesses giving us encouragement to “ lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” It is but just towards Comte, on whom we have animadverted, to add that he felt the need of an Ideal, and condemned his whole scientific system without it. Like Mr. Mill, he was on that ac¬ count himself condemned as unfaithful to Positive thinking. Another inference seems plain. Little need he looked for from the modern science of Sociology at present. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has thought and written on the subject, entertains small hope of its results for many years to come. “ Very little is,” he says, “ to be expected.” * Without accepting every reason he gives for this conclusion, there may remain with most people a strong persuasion of its general correctness. Another position of Mr. Spencer’s will command assent. He severely censures the political schemer who, by means “ of a legislative apparatus, properly devised and worked with due dexterity, .... expects to * Study of Sociology, p. 390. 96 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii. get out of a stupid people the effects of intelligence, and to evolve from inferior citizens superior con¬ duct.”* By these words he expresses that deep- felt necessity which interests us in the belief that propagandism of Moral distinctions is a duty incum¬ bent on each and all of us. The noble foundations of Oxford were intended to make missionaries of civi¬ lization at the very least. That vocation belongs to our University. Some of us here may teach the teachers in Church and State—at all events the teachers who leaven the masses of this country. Would not our vast lower classes be better for the solemn lesson that the Law of Bight and Wrong is true for us, and therefore must be true for us always ? That, being absolute, it has its issue in a sphere where justice is done—a final Empire of Betribution ? Or, state the lesson in a converse manner. Set out from the recompence of the Beward; the future Good or Evil which constitutes a natural Law of Betribution. The awe inspired by this tremendous Law of Laws,—the strength of which arms Death with his terror and his sting,—springs from the knowledge that Betributive Justice metes out to * “Just as the perpetual-motion schemer hopes, by a cunning arrangement of parts, to get from one end of his machine more energy than he puts in at the other; so the ordinary political schemer is convinced that out of a legislative apparatus, properly devised and worked with due dexterity, may be had beneficial state-action with¬ out any detrimental reaction. He expects to get out of a stupid people the effects of intelligence, and to evolve from inferior citizens superior conduct.” Study of Socioloyy, p. 6. Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience. 97 every one the Judgment of his noblest Ideal; that it follows always the strict rule of the “ Ought to do"' —the “ Ought so to be.” Bring this truth home to the Pharisee. He asks no longer what the publican is, but what he himself ought to have been—yet is not. Let it come home to yourselves ; and you may, I trust, see it in a more hopeful light. That higher life to which your best nature prompts you, cannot, if matured, continue without its glorious fruit. If you can rise above self, you shall attain far more than self can give. Despised, it may be, now, you shall receive honour then. Listen to the better voice that pleads in your heart, and you will turn a deaf ear to the whispers of sloth, sensuality, and sin. I began this Lecture with a picture, terrible yet true. High Heroic questions take us away from the trivialities and plausibilities of existence. Phari¬ saism is the self-flattering comparison with other men. Average Morality, elevated into a Moral or rather an Un-moral law of life, is really nothing better than gross Pharisaism. Men look into the statistics of gambling, fraud, swindling, drunkenness, violence, murderous assaults, and kickings to death. Folding their hands, they utter a devout “ God, I thank Thee.” Yet these barbarities are but vulgar versions of their own loose talk, small envies, and gentlemanly scep¬ ticism ; their absolute neglect of Duty, and of all that raises Man above the brute. Now, put aside for the moment easy indifference, and look at stern moral issues. I have placed a question before you—very whole- 7 98 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. ii. some because very extreme,—but I should like you to make it still more stringent. Robe it in whatever vesture seems most influential to your own judgment. Only let the case be a plain , concrete , human problem of the choice between Right and Wrong. Above all, keep it clear from all subtle refinings, and analytic oppositions of Science, falsely so-called. In order that you may do so, let every consideration of self- interest, self-pleasing, or even self-ease—every warm sympathetic influence of natural affection—be on the side of speaking and acting an untruth. Make the consequences of truthfulness as horrible as you can. Place torments almost intolerable before your mind’s eye. Think that you have to do with persons who feel (as Mr. Mill wrote) “ a real pleasure in inflicting, or seeing the infliction of pain.” With such torments and such tormentors full in view, say, first, have you any doubt whether Right and Wrong is a shadowy or a real distinction ?—whether it is not, in this ex¬ treme case, a Reality, which neither self-interest nor self-ease, nor even natural sympathy and love, can dissolve into a good man’s dream ? And have you any honest doubt in your heart, that the Fiat of volition which will finally give outward shape and substance to this inward Reality, is also an actual humanly Existent Power? Upon this ground only are you justified in prophesying that if you now re¬ ceive these evil things, you will finally be comforted, whilst they who receive their good things, so appraised by base spirits —the delights of voluptuous cruelty— will then be tormented. And which will righteously Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience . 99 be found the more severe ?—the torments they now inflict, or the torments of Retribution ? No primi¬ tive Christian had a doubt on this question. Say next what ought you to do ? If you hesitate, let a heathen moralist tell you— u Summum crede Nefas animam prseferre pudori.” If you cannot feel sure of yourself, what would you wish to do ? What will you desire for the dearest Life of your soul to choose ? And now : Do not omit to make a present practical use of this question—the old question we have had before—Will pitted against Iron. Recal to your¬ selves the fact, that the unswerving Rightness which is imperative in extremes must a fortiori be a duty when to render it is an easier thing. If you ought to maintain the truthfulness of your life, even at the cost of offering that life as a sacrifice— ivliat ought you to do when the world smiles upon you, when the freshness of youth and health throbs joyously in each free pulse ? The eye of Retributive Justice has looked upon many and great masteries, since martyrs first were crowned ! That same eye looks search- ingly into all temptations u common to Man.” Wilt thou, then, full in sight of that Divine Eye, sell thy soul for gold, for passion, for perversity—for next to nothing ? Art thou so poor a creature as not to fight against thy foe ? Art thou so blind as not to discerd the fast-coming captivity ? If it be true of civil liberty— “ Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,” ioo The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii. surely, surely, to lie down and yield to Sin is the act of a Moral dastard, of a degenerate enervated spirit ! This is Oxford, not Capua; you are English young men, not worn-out and spirit-weary barbarians ! At all events, do not part with the Idea of an abso¬ lute Bightness—valid now, and valid always—a Truth to live and die in. As we have set it out this morn¬ ing, it is not science, but a preparation for science. It is of the nature of a moral judgment; and stands in the like relation to Science as that which Faith bears to Knowledge. Both are the preparations and precursors of some deeper and clearer attainment. In proportion as the mind of any man, who judges or believes by a pure insight, makes progress in morality and spiritual intelligence, he becomes more highly endowed with the powers needful for certitude, philo¬ sophic, as well as religious. Faith ripens into know¬ ledge, Judgment into science. The gain to ns is great. We are in the condition of men “ who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” We confirm our primary moral decision by the verification of our own satisfactory moral development. We do more than confirm,—we extend the field of our insight. We look (that is) through an improved optic glass, endowed with superior definition and penetration. We see farther, we see more,—and more exactly. At first, we saw that the distinction between Eight and Wrong w r as valid for us, and that we ought to he guided by it. Neither could we help inferring, that to be imperative on us, it must be valid for all time, under all changes, Lect. II.] The Answer of Conscience. ioi and beyond the life we are now living. But, superior insight enables us to see the ultimate Why and Hoto : why we ought to obey this same moral law,—and how we shall apply it truly on each given occasion. And the answers to these- two questions make our knowledge all of one piece,, and thus give to its validity another kind of verification. We have put the Law of Retribution on a Moral trial this morning. The sentence besought was that of a concrete moral Judgment, respecting a crucial case and Question. Next Sunday, I hope to put the same law on an un -moral trial, and so to. approach the enquiry, “ Where lies our higher appeal?” I shall begin with Scepticism, and leave absolutely immoral views till we have delved more deeply down into the foundations of Morality. *** Additional Note on pp. 90-2 mite.. Let it be observed that the Sociology here described is something wholly distinct from what is termed Social Science by the philanthro¬ pists, whose useful Congresses have earned so many welcomes and acknowledgments. The difference may not seem very unlike that which subsists between M. Comte’s Politique and the Constitutional Science, or art of Statesmanship employed by English Politicians. Any true Sociology will have to ground itself upon the data induc¬ tively collected by students of working Social Science throughout its various departments. And the latter, to be used practically, necessitates a frequent appeal to legislation, which in turn is closely linked with Sociology. It may therefore be worth remarking that in the article before cited, Macaulay censures James Mill as follows:— “It is remarkable that Mr. Mill, with all his affected display of precision, has here given a description of the ends of government far 102 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. II. less precise than that which is in the months of the vulgar. The first man with whom Mr. Mill may travel in a stage coach will tell him that government exists for the protection of the persons and property of men. But Mr. Mill seems to think that the preservation of property is the first and only object.” Yet, curiously enough, he does not censure him for omitting from his description the grand objects of promoting the moral together with the physical well-being of the citizens,—their educated intelligence together with their pro¬ ductive powers and accumulations of property. These omissions are placed in a sufficiently clear light by the several tendencies of Social Science operative at the present day; and every such correction is extremely valuable, since our heartiest assent must be given to the principle enunciated by Macaulay in his next following Essay :—“We say with Bacon—‘Non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime generalia veniatur.’ In the present enquiry, the science of human nature is the ‘maxime generate.’ To this the Utilitarian rushes at once, and from this he deduces a hundred sciences. But the true philosopher, the inductive reasoner, travels iip to it slowly, through those hundred sciences, of which the science of government is one.” LECTURE III. SCEPTICISM WHEN THOROUGH. LECTUEE III. St. Matthew vi. 23. “ If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is THAT DARKNESS !” iHESE words are true of Nations, as well as of individual Men. In observing tlieir verifica¬ tion by events, we more frequently find it in the histories of Peoples, than in private biographies. The reason is that cause and effect, when written large, are more conspicuous and less mistakeable. You may remember how Aristotle lays down a prin¬ ciple similar in meaning, and not very dissimilarly expressed from the wording of my text. Although chiefly applicable to religious and moral darkness, the same principle holds true in the sphere of intellect. It is natural that such should be the case. These two provinces of human life are really two separate aspects of a Eeason one and indivisible. This Eeason we may cultivate in differing spheres; and from so doing we expect different results. Compare England with Caffre-Land. See the enormous superiority of her intellectual eye. And is there not an enormous superiority of moral eye¬ sight also ? It has been the boast of England that in Morality her light was the steadiest and brightest [Lect. III. 106 The Doctrine of Retribution. among civilized nations. For example, she claimed the honour of always keeping her word. And we remember periods when her commercial honour and her political promises were held out as being equally irreproachable. We tried to look through an unsophisticated Moral eye last Sunday. We are now to enquire into one kind of sophistication. The positions of an Atheist or a Fatalist respectively, deny the power or the use of seeing anything to bodily sense invisible. The position of a Sceptic is to question both use and power; hut not to deny either absolutely. All these three characters are, in private affairs, likely to be guided by feelings which result from circumstances,—that is (in scientific speech) from their environment. If national affairs permit the reception of such doctrines on a grand scale, the effect of each and all is to degrade public opinion— to excuse, and therefore let loose, the worst passions of Mankind. We will study Scepticism this morning in the person of David Hume. I choose him as being a typical Sceptic of keen and cultivated intellect. It is convenient, too, that we need not he over-reti¬ cent about him, since he long ago became a public property. I see no reason, however, for dwelling on his private career. It is sufficient to say, that his character was good-natured, vain, and social. Pleasure loving,—on which account he betrays cer¬ tain immoral and more un-mor&\ tendencies. His sceptical writings are extremely important. Their Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 107 pleasant banter earned them immediate influence in France. English people enjoy ironies only to a limited degree, and are often as much puzzled by them as enlightened. In our day Hume’s progeny is chiefly Materialistic, in the immoral and irre¬ ligious sense of that ambiguous word. His great recommendations for our purpose are two. One, that he is thorough in his Scepticism : with him the world is all an optical shadow. The other, that he is a distinctly modern Sceptic. Ancient Scepticism, we may remark, is of a totally different cast. As has been observed,* the Greek assailed feeling and sensation first of all,—-whereas Hume assumes their veracity, and proceeds to attack universal truths, because not contained in the em¬ pirical circle *— the circle of sensuous perception. The issue is universal Doubt:—• « “We have, therefore,” he says, “no choice left but betwixt a false reason and none at all. For my part, I know not what ought to be done in the present case.” And again, “ The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what ? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return ? ” f A man in the posture of mind thus described is, * By Hegel, Die Logik (Encycl.), sec. 39. f Treatise of Human Nature , Bk. I., P. 4, 7, (Green and Grose, i. p. 548.) A knowledge of the Treatise is indispensable to real students. On its value and relation to Hume’s later works, see Mr. Green’s Preface to vol. i., and Mr. Grose’s remarks, iii., pp. 37-9 and 75-7. [Lect. III. 108 The Doctrine of Retribution . or ought to be, reduced to inaction. Hume repre¬ sents this natural result as follows :— “ I am,” he adds (just after the last quotation),—“ I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.” Of course, upon many men the natural effect would he either Pessimism or Indifferentism. Hume had too much of the Boswell about him to become a Pessimist; but he saw that, if his use or misuse of Reason thrust him down into darkness, he could hardly expect Reason to raise him up again. He reminds us of our text,—“ If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! ” The philosopher felt at times constrained to forsake Reason. He appealed against her to the commonest of all common sense. “ Philosophy,” he tells us, “ expects a victory more from the returns of a serious good-humoured disposition, than from the force of reason and conviction.” The most wonderful circumstance remains behind. Conviction was, after all, not a rational conviction; only a persuasion convenient in practice. The very next sentence runs thus :— “In all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepti¬ cism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.” Every honest thinker must be glad of Hume’s surprising outspokenness. It is more than a little surprising in a person educated hy French Jesuits, and used to see economies of speech, reticences of Lect. iil] Scepticism when Thorough. 109 all sorts, valued and practised every day. Under any circumstances, such cool, half-bantering, sceptical talk, seems a phenomenon to be accounted for in a young man of seven-and-twenty. How easily does the rogue laugh Actualities out of court, till nobody can tell the difference between a lake and a mirage ! Common-sense people were used to speak with some confidence of the little fact that fire warms. Our young sage sets it down among disputable topics. Yet a man may keep this and other pet beliefs, animi volujotatisque causa , as Cassar says of British hares,—if, that is, he happens to fancy them ! They are not worth the labour of extinguishing ! Beality is thus vaporized into Credulity. And when we pass from the outer to the inner world, Ideas appear with Hume no safer than Bealities. They are the relics of impressions, once made through the senses, and since fallen dim. Hence, the idea of a mathe¬ matical point is simply impossible. That which has neither length, breadth, nor thickness, never im¬ pressed itself upon any sense. Exact Equality and Inequality, a Bight line, the Infinitude of geome¬ tricians, are no ideas proper to our poor human mind. As a matter of fact, Infinity of all kinds is inconceivable; and with the Inconceivable, we, who are the slaves of “ every schoolboy’s” intelligence, can have nothing whatever to do. The universals which people have called primary truths must either be refracted palpabilities, or they must be accounted Nothings. Henceforth let no man look in the face such reasons as he may suppose himself to possess ixo The Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect. hi. for any fact, natural law, moral distinction, or meta¬ physical first-ground. He who asks for Truth does so on pain of being driven to reject, with our young sage, and with a great many schoolboys, all belief, all reasoning, all first principles; and to consider no one opinion more likely or more probable than another. And what now has become of our Moral Realities ? In his more mature years, Hume lost the fire, but not the frosts, of his youth. His delight is to congeal some living Truth. He compounds a freezing mix¬ ture, and leaves it to do all he wants. The work is slow; hut (as Hume feels) it is sure. He is in no haste to burn down anything: the snows of Russia are stronger than the flames of Moscow. Upon this mode of procedure he bestows the name of “ Easy Philosophy.” He contrasts it with the toil and austerity of abstract disquisitions. In a mild, forbearing way, he tells us that, in his time, “ the matter was carried further, even to the rejection of all profound reasoning, or what is commonly called Metaphysics.” * Yet accurate results possess, he adds, among other good qualities, the considerable ad¬ vantage of subserving easy and humane philosophy. There has for some time existed another and less flattering name for this celebrated system. That name is current in certain parts of the European continent which do not lie within the boundaries of Erance. The working thinkers of those parts call this holiday wisdom, a “ parlour-fire philosophy.” * Inquiry concerning Human Understanding , S. i. (G. & G., iv. 6.) Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 111 Within the boundaries of France it was, long before Hume wrote, esteemed the only polite philosophy ; and from Charles the Second’s reign downwards, its essential principles—or negations of principle— have never been altogether lost on this side the Channel. We must add that to French Scepticism manner is quite as important as matter. Gibbon learned from a Frenchman that peculiar irony, which convinced his opponents how impossible it is to refute a sneer. From another Frenchman, Hume derived his pleasantry of Doubt. What praise so high among advanced thinkers in those years, as the glory of resembling Yoltaire ! And who more hard to answer ? For the appreciation of a philosophy, as respects either matter or manner, no method is so ready as the well-worn, but odious, path of comparison. Con¬ trast with our Franco-Scot the life and labours of his great North-German antagonist. Kant was himself of Scottish descent; hut born and bred in an atmosphere very different from that breathed by Hume. At his mother’s side, and not in a Jesuit seminary, the Scoto-Teuton acquired the first prin¬ ciples of Truth. All his days long Kant held fast, and exercised, those firm man-like virtues, which had been most prized in England during previous generations. His manner of subsistence was to work for his own livelihood. In management, he showed himself exact—a good accountant. Slow to determine, he was of inflexible resolution; his existence uniform, some would say monotonous; a celibate, because he 112 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. hi. found it hard to wive and thrive; no traveller, though delighting in books of travels ; but a stay- at-home, industrious, self-controlled MAN. Life with him was both honest and earnest; and his philosophy was a part of his life. What he did, he did for all time. How could he otherwise move Mankind by an influence obtained at sixty-four ? No verbal economies in his books : his much-criti¬ cized obscurities sprang from a jostling of thoughts too numerous to pass singly through the portals of speech. To quit Hume’s flowery rhetoric, and open a volume of the stiff German, is like exchanging a gay parterre filled with exotics for a native forest, —vast, vigorous, tangled, high-arching, and sublime ! The one is a sauntering ground, where ladies meet a smiling sage, and talk in a ready indeterminate way. The other is a dim retreat, a silent shade, fit for manly thought with a real meaning in it; or for the deliberate Moralities of a reasoning Will. Our in¬ tellectual eye looks down long perspectives, solemn, •perchance sombre, but well repaying a diligent life¬ long exploration. The youth who disciplines his mind with Euclid, Kant, and Aristotle, will need no other intellectual athletics to give it tone and muscularity. I have dwelt at some length upon the characters of thought, speech, and action, displayed by two very typical philosophers. My reason is this. For the object we have in view, philosophy must be con¬ templated not as an abstraction , but as a human activity. Natural Keligion is the going forth of a Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 113 Man’s whole natural Being. Philosophy in its highest aspect is nothing less than a phase of Natural Re¬ ligion. The man who philosophizes brings forth his innermost Life, and sets it in the light of his own consciousness. He examines himself; criticizes; estimates the strength and limits of his own Reason as a thinking Power, a volitional Power, and a Power sensitive to that which is noble, beautiful, divine. And when this is done, and his entire Being is (if we may so express it) penetrated and lightened by the Light dwelling in his soul, the true Manhood of the man goes forth to his Race ; the fire burns within him, and he speaks with his tongue. Our studies here make us know the wonderful mightiness of speech—how great a matter that little fire kindleth. A solitary man (like Kant) evokes his central Life into such utterance as time and strength permit. Soon it becomes to a reflective portion of mankind, not his but their Life ; their thought and being. . Just as heat is a mode of Motion, so is Philosophy a mode of Humanity. Springing out from elevated Souls, as from unsealed fountains, it flows down to each and all of us, like a vast, many-voiced Life- stream,—as it w T ere a thousand times a thousand lives and tongues in one. This manifold voice speaks to us in the cool of our day; in the darkness of our vision-haunted night; or when the shadow of Heath falls athwart our path. Whether we will hear or whether we will forbear, it speaks always of great things. It tells us that the true heritage of our Race 8 [Lect. III. 114 The Doctrine of Retribution. is to be transfigured; to live a nobler, yet a human life, when things mutable and material shall have perished or have been changed! Physicists inform us that our sun is slowly burning out his fires; that the forces which move our planetary system are waning now, and are doomed to wane away. Then, its orbs must collapse. Then, our cheerful Earth, with her seasons, colours, light and shade, rest and motion, will cease to be a Human World. But, if Philosophy reads Earth and Heaven aright, we may hope to grow, while those glittering orbs wax old,— we shall be , and be good , when they decline and disappear. Thus looked at, a Man is of more worth than a world. What, then, is the worth of a whole world of mankind ? We can only calculate this sum in terms which transcend our finite understanding. We have to raise our known Moral Distinctions, by the power of infini¬ tude. We have to contemplate them in the dawn- light of an Eternal sphere, no longer cribbed, cabined, and confined, but free, effectual, life-giving, absolute. Briefly, we must contemplate them in the dawn-light of a futurity of Betribution. In the ordinary course of events we are all very slow to apprehend the possibilities of these great things. What we cannot paint.in our imaginations we are apt to put aside as inconceivable ; not know¬ ing that the eye of Beason may see far beyond that horizon where Fancy’s wing grows weary. We are slower still to connect our unfathomable Future with our shallow Present. How can our slight duties, or Lect hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 115 our little wrongs, now done, stand related to Retribu¬ tion and Immortality ? Not at once, but slowly, and after a time, we learn the secret. When the scars of sins, long cicatrised, have acbed for years, we begin to suspect it. Life, sorrow, and death-beds, teach us the rest. A small seed, we know, if cast into the earth, may grow up a stately tree—a shadow and shelter from the storm—a house of life to birds of the air which come and lodge among its branches. With us, too, a seed is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. We have, also, another sowing and another harvest. He that soweth to his flesh, of the flesh shall reap cor¬ ruption. A little seeming error, a venial fault, a hidden bad propensity, makes the whole head sick, the whole heart faint. It is the little rift, that widens till it silences the music of the soul; it is the little speck that moulders away our fruits of purity and peace ; it is the little worm that eats out a life which should bloom beyond the grave. It slays the Spirit, whose heritage was (as we said) to be —and be good —when suns and planets decline and disappear. One striking lesson more remains to us. A slight falsity—nay, even a carelessness of Truth—may silence the music, and perplex the plain speech of Natural Religion. It may moulder and eat out the vitality of philosophic Thinking, till Thought corrupts, and becomes unwholesome—poisonous—contagious. The special wonder is, that the rift, the speck, the worm may appear to be far away from the central core and [Lect. III. 116 The Doctrine of Retribution, soul of the philosophy. As we develope our main topic, the Eeality of my statements may become increasingly clear to you. And the easiest method of attaining our object will be to contrast, yet more exactly, the two philosophers, together with their systems already placed in antithesis. It is not, of course, my intention to criticize either system. Kant has been annotated, controverted, explained a hundred times over. Hume is now edited and commented upon with care and fulness. My plan will, therefore, be to marshal certain small-seeming falsities in a human , not an ab extra , line of view; and to range over against them the great truths of Moral Distinctions and Moral Retribution. Suppose, then, we ask ourselves, why we are bound so to will and act, that the principle upon which our volition proceeds might safely serve as a governing maxim for the law of the whole Race ? This “ Why ? ” (you will perceive), is the pivot on which the justice and necessity of a final Retribution turn. Now, what connection is here apparent with the following common-sense trivialities ? Why must a stone cast upwards fall? Why must two and two make four, —not three, nor five ? Yet consider. Are these trivialities really obvious to common-sense, when we ask, first, Can we explain the “ must ” in either of these latter cases ? Next: If we cannot, is there any principle by virtue of which we ought to accept the Inexpticable ? In point of fact, whoever answers those trivial questions, has penetrated into the inner substance and heart of the Lect. III.] Scepticism when Thorough . 117 universe. Hume’s contention was that they are unanswerable ; we may put them amongst beliefs to be kept if we please; but we can unshell no kernel of Truth by examining them. Kant asserted that they are answerable ; that it is worth a life’s devotion to answer them truly; and that, when answered, the consequences to Truth are infinite. And by Truth he meant human Truth ; the Truth by which we ought, as men, to live,—the practical Truth which can translate us into a futurity of happier progress, when we come to die. The problem I propose first to examine is the one which is most abstract. You may take it as a rule, that whatever principle seems at first sight very useless, otiose, and recondite, is in fact most likely to move the world of Men. This wholesome rule underlies the excessive dread, felt by ordinary English¬ men, of opinions which appear in their eyes poetical, enthusiastic, or remote from common sense. Their dread, though extreme, is by no means absurd. A false abstraction of Political Economy may move and mislead the masses. Even educated minds often mix together in one vague “ delenda estfi a plain evil, an innocuous usage, and an institution posi¬ tively beneficial. Throughout our individual life, some undefined thought, some proverb, some proposi¬ tion so large as to sweep a world of impulses into its net, comes back upon us in our quiet hours, makes 'us uneasy when we might he at rest, and stirs us up to spasmodic action. The recollections or regrets that cause our cheeks to burn, or our ears to tingle, [Lect. III. 118 The Doctrine of Retribution. seem small in themselves, and often far away from immediate interests ; hut they move our innermost feelings notwithstanding. At this moment the word “ Unthinkable ” is just such a motive Power. It appears strong enough to relegate many reasonings and more beliefs into an ostracism which may outlast at least one generation. Yet surely there is something shadowy, not to say spectral, about the dread which this word inspires. Who ever succeeded in “ thinking ” himself ? Has any one of us the least conception what a Self is like,—how it exists,—how it energises ? How many of us have settled the question of what constitutes any Individuality ? Would it then he wise to say, —We are essentially Unthinkables, therefore we are nonentities ? Yet some of us are tolerably sub¬ stantial entities, in mind, will, and activity, corporeal and incorporeal. There is to us no stronger fact in the world, than that you are you, and I am I. The force of the fact as a basis for Eights and Duties, Property and Eesponsibility, and as subversive of Socialism, Communism, and other fraternal modes of robbery and wrong, appears to consist in its being a Concrete , not at all an abstract Truth. For this reason the wcw-entity of a Meum and Tuum is not maintainable in a concrete shape ; yet it has been, and is, maintained on grounds of an imagina¬ tive and easy-pliilosophy description. The more fancifully abstract, the more likely to be found un¬ answerable. On approaching Hume’s most renowned abstrac- lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 119 tion, we feel that a kind of awe is inspired by it. No one can exactly revere Hume; but no informed person can help being impressed by bis power. And this strength of bis, (some of it springing from bis masked earnestness,) is by no means illusory. Hume was (as the systems of philosophy tell us) influenced by the great French Illumination ; and, in bis turn, be influenced it. This means, in plainer language, that he shared in forcing on that vast movement of thought, which seemed not unlikely to change the whole face of civilized society. It first entranced, and then disappointed ardent spirits, such as our Balliol Southey, Cantabrigian Coleridge, and Words¬ worth affiliated to both Universities. It failed where they expected it would succeed; it had no effect in elevating men’s spirits by new maxims of purity and peace. In this sense Madame Eoland and a host of others lived and died in vain. In this sense the Goddess of Reason was worshipped to a purpose worse than vain. Yet the movement was not in¬ effectual. It did alter the map of Europe. It has not been without its consequences to the map of France. We English felt a blast of the whirlwind years ago ! We feel it with some distinctness now ! Whenever such is the case, we are sure there has been a moral Force at work, or (as some in this instance prefer to say) a very immoral one. Hume, like others of the Illumination, had (I fear) a criminal intent upon Morality. He approached the object aimed at, first through abstract argument, secondly by analysing, that is, dissolving away, an elementary [Lect. III. 120 The Doctrine of Retribution. factor of Human Nature. The effect of both assaults was to make Morality Conventional. We will (as I said) examine the abstraction first. I allude, of course, to Hume’s celebrated theory of Customary Association. At a glance we may perceive what a power is here for easy-philosophy to handle. Habit is second nature. We are all the creatures of Habit. Why should not Habit account for modern prejudice, and old-fashioned principle also ? Why should it not make us think as we do think, on universal truths and on universal interests,—on our sociology, polity, Morality ? If it can be shown that we survey the inanimate world,—Matter, Force, Law,—through glasses fitted to our minds’ eyes by Habituation, is it certain that we do not also survey the intelligent and moral world by aid of similar optics ? At all events, Reason cannot—does not—govern Moral Choice. Justice being some kind of Utility, pro¬ perty is no more than a customary arrangement: respect for human Rights—perchance for human life (either our own or other people’s)—or, again, for human truth, rectitude, purity, may well be neither more nor less than convenient fashions of feeling.* * Read, first, the following non-ethical propositions :— (1) “A blemish, a fault, a vice, a crime ; these expressions seem to denote different degrees of censure and disapprobation ; which are, however, all of them, at the bottom, pretty nearly of the same kind or species. The explication of one will easily lead us into a just conception of the others; and it is of greater consequence to attend to things than to verbal appellations .”—Inquiry concerning the Prin¬ ciples cf Morals, App. iv. (G. and G. iv. 287.) Lect. III.] 12 I Scepticism when Thorough . As customs, we may deal with them all; as customs, we cannot say that any one of them holds good in any life but this. Yet if we cannot affirm a vitality (2) “ Most people will readily allow, that the useful qualities of the mind are virtuous, because of their utility. This way of thinking is so natural, and occurs on so many occasions, that few will make any scruple of admitting it. Now this being once admitted, the force of sympathy must necessarily be acknowledg’d. Virtue is consider’d as means to an end. Means to an end are only valued so far as the end is valued. But the happiness of strangers affects us by sympathy alone. To that principle, therefore, we are to ascribe the sentiment of approbation which arises from the survey of all those virtues that are useful to society, or to the person possess’d of them. These form the most considerable part of morality .”—Treatise III. 6. (G. and G. ii. 372.) Compare the fuller statement of the Principles of Utility and Love of Approbation, Inquiry , etc., S. III. P. ii. sub fin. (G. and G. iv. 196), and S. V. P. ii. init. (G. and G. iv. 207.) Next consider the consequences deducible as to Moral Distinctions, taken from the outspoken Treatise. (1) “ The rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason.”— Bk. III. i. 1. (G. and G. ii. 235.) (2) “Moral Distinctions are not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.”— Ibid. ii. 1 (p. 236). (3) “ In short, it may be establish’d as an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality.”— Ibid. ii. 1 (p. 253). (4) “A promise wou’d not be intelligible, before human conventions had establish’d it; and that even if it were intelligible, it would not be attended with any moral obligation.”— Ibid. ii. 5 (p. 285). And as to our Duty in regard of them :— (1) “ Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”— Ibid. Bk. II. iii. 3 (p. 195). (2) [A few sentences further on] “ ’Tis not contrary to reason to pre¬ fer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” I quote freely from Hume, because his writings show much that is 122 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. hi. in Moral maxims apart from our habituations,—if there is no essential distinction between Right and Wrong, indelible, and pertaining to the eternal Then, —surely there can be no cause why we should act upon it Noiv. Farewell, a long farewell, to the hopes of good, and the terrors of wicked men! Farewell to moral certitudes, and moral restraints; above all, to the Belief in a just Retribution ! In this manner the question, all important to Natural Religion, assumes an abstract shape. Have we, or have we not, any ground for asserting that, independently of us and our transitory customs and habits of thought, there exists any uniform connection between things or events themselves ?—any nexus binding them together ? This question may be answered with the same non-e thical result in two opposite directions. Each of us may say, u All things are fluent, and I cannot control them.” Or, “ All things are necessarily determined, and I can generally veiled by those on whom his mantle has descended. They show, for instance, the connection existing between intellectual Scep¬ ticism and a denial (direct or indirect) of Independent Morality. For its principles the Sceptic substitutes maxims and motives which appear non-Ethical when viewed in the light of an unsophisticated Con¬ science. It is well to see with Hume what premises lead to such and such conclusions ; it is well to see conversely how a given set of conclusions stand connected with such and such premises. I do not, however, mean to charge all modern theorists with an intentional concealment of un-moral pedigrees. Many among them are guilty less of conspiracy than of larceny ; they have been at Hume’s feast of knowledge, and stolen only a few of the scraps. Against one poisonous scrap in particular we must protest,—the practice, that is, of adducing motives which rule “the baser sort ” as a fair representation of Man’s Moral Nature. Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 123 alter nothing,—no, not even myself.” It may seem, too, that all things must he either fluent or deter¬ mined. If we hesitate to say which, we stand convicted of Ignorance. Whichever way we do pronounce, we stand convicted of Impotence ; be¬ cause either way our volitions remain without influence upon the stream of Events. They are, in fact, a part of it. Hume approached Causation from the side which in his day was most obscure. He censures what he calls beginning at the wrong end,—“ examining,” that is, “ the faculties of the Soul, the influence of the Understanding, and the operations of the Will.” For these, he substituted “the operations of body and brute unintelligent matter,” and proceeds to discuss them more suo* A very notable circum¬ stance is that in his Inquiry (which I am now quoting), as well as in his more outspoken and com¬ plete Treatise , there appears a want of separation between our perceptions of things outside us, and the emotions we feel stirring within us. They are confounded together under one general term—“im¬ pressions.” “Ideas,” the Entities of Plato, are with Hume less lively perceptions—pale shadows— poor relics of impressions passed away.f * Inquiry concerning Human Understandmg, Sect. VIII., Part ii. (G. and G. iv. 76.) t Ibid. Sect. II. (G. and G. iv. 13, 14.) “By the term impression , then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations 124 [Lect. III. The Doctrine of Retribution . As regards Causation* in the Natural world, the “ imagination , ’ receives from two successive objects an impression of sequency. f There happens, in fact, or movements above mentioned.” A few sentences before, he likens ideas to images reflected in a mirror truly, but in colours faint and dull. Compare Treatise , B. I. i. 7 (G. and G. i. 327): “An idea is a weaker impression,” etc.; also pp. 875, 481. The term “impression” is vague enough; but what shall we say to the following account of Causation ( Inquiry , S. VII., G. and G. iv. 62)?—“This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion. Nothing farther is in the case. Contemplate the subject on all sides, you will never find any other origin of that idea.” Customary feeling, imagination, senti¬ ment, impression—a sufficient account of the most essential among human “ ideas” ! And not the least attempt at discrimination ! No thinker can form an adequate notion of Hume’s unfixedness of speech, till he tries to write out the main principles of Hume’s system. The curious question is, “ How far is this laxity intentional ? ” It is at all events convenient. * Causation is itself an idea. (See last Note.) t Compare with Inquiry before cited, Treatise, B. I. iii. 14. (G. and G. i. 464.) “ Such a relation can never be an object of reasoning, and can never operate upon the mind, but by means of custom, which determines the imagination to make a transition from the idea of one object to that of its usual attendant, and from the impression of one to a more lively idea of the other. However extraordinary these sentiments may appear, I think it fruitless to trouble myself with any farther inquiry or reasoning upon the subject, but shall repose myself on them as on establish’d maxims.” A custom, an imagination, an impression: here are Natural Science and Moral Philosophy; and on the side of easy thought their foundations are complete. But suppose the Law of Nature’s Uniformity is not an objective Truth; and Man not in fact the parent of his own immoral actions, there appears at once an end to all the Inductive Sciences, as well as to all human Accountability,— “ Decipimur Specie Recti.” Lect. III.] 125 Scepticism when Thorough . a sequence of impression upon impression. Use and custom determine the mind to infer, or expect, still further sequences. To expect a sunrise, to infer that a human being will die, are examples of this mental determination. “The necessity or power,” he says, “which unites causes and effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other.” Hence, we can say fire ivill burn, because in our apprehension this is true; but we cannot say fire must burn, if we mean thereby anything more than a “must” existing in our own mind. That such is Hume’s meaning, seems ascertained beyond doubt by his very next sentence :— “The efficacy or energy of causes is neither placed in the causes themselves, nor in the deity, nor in the concurrence of these two principles; but belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the union of two or more objects in all past instances. ’Tis here that the real power of causes is placed along with their connexion and necessity.” * To put the case in a few words, the “must” is true for us; but it may, or may not , be true for the Universe. In the mouths of most men this phraseology would mean Idealism. In Hume’s it meant blank intel¬ lectual Ignorance. Except as the means to an end he did not care to throw doubt on realities ; he did care always to throw doubt on human understanding. But he could not do the one without doing the other. * Treatise, B. I. iii. 14. (G. and G. i. 460.) 126 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi. For if the elements of knowledge are doubtful, are we not barred from saying that realities are certain ? On Hume’s principles, says liis latest editor, it is impossible to explain the w T orld of knowledge. # So far as the natural world is concerned, we may act on the truth of Causation ; but behind each act lies a wholesome reserve of Ignorance. Can this reasoning be applied to the Moral world ? Yes: Hume does so apply it. The “must” is here again true for us. The mind infers the same sequence in the actions of Men, as it did in the phenomena of nature, and for precisely the same reasons. Neither is there any perceivable difference in the necessity of the Causation, nor in the certainty of our expectation. Yet there is an inevitable difference between the two several cases—the Worlds without and within us ; also between the conclusions severally to be drawn concerning them. These conclusions Hume leaves to his reader’s sagacity. Both in the Natural and the Moral world, the efficacy of Cause is only empirically true for us, and therefore not absolutely true for the Universe. In the world without, what we call effect may be event; at least w T e cannot say it must be more. But then, here * Mr. Green in General Introduction , I., S. 294. When my first four Lectures were written, this valuable Edition had not been pub¬ lished. The Treatise appeared in time for me to quote Mr. Green’s dictum when preaching my third lecture, and to alter most of my references by adding to them the Oxford pagination. In Hume’s later years, he hid his nihilisms from common eyes by ostracising the contents of Treatise , B. I. Pts. ii. and iv. ;—an “ economy ” which left his system philosophically baseless. Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 127 comes in the inevitable difference. What is true for us will necessarily be true for the world of Morality , because that world is not outside hut within us. The one morally good thing is a good Will. If, therefore, the “ must be ” of the Will is true for us, it is true for the inner—that is, the moral sphere in which our Will moves. Hume, of course, would prefer saying, wherein our Will “ is moved by the strongest motive.” On the “ constant conjunction ” of act and strongest motive, he uses the well-known, well-worn weapons of Fatal¬ ism,—or, as its modern advocates have re-named it, Determinism. He is equally emphatic on the general uniformity of human character, and the ease of con¬ sequent prediction concerning what each man will or will not do. Uniformity of character may be compared with the uniformity of inanimate nature so far as the power of prediction goes ; and thus under¬ stood, we can, as Hume says, ‘‘ never free ourselves from the bonds of Necessity T * In the outside world we think the “must be/’ hut cannot certainly know it. In the world within, what we think as true for * “We feel that our actions are subject to our will on most occa¬ sions, and imagine we feel that the will itself is subject to nothing; because when by a denial of it we are provok’d to try, we feel that it moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself even on that side, on which it did not settle. This image or faint motion, we perswade ourselves, cou’d have been compleated into the thing itself; because, shou’d that be deny’d, we find upon a second trial, that it can. But these efforts are all in vain ; and whatever capricious and irregular actions we may perform, as the desire of showing our liberty is the sole motive of our actions, we can never free ourselves from the bonds of necessity.” Treatise, B. II. iii. 2. (G. and G. ii. 189.) [Lect. III. 128 The Doctrine of Retribution. other men, that same “must” we cannot but lay upon ourselves . Thus, as natural Causation con¬ victed us of Ignorance, so Moral Causation convicts us of Impotence; or at best of the bondage ensuing upon a balance struck between our lack of knowledge and our human heritage of imbecility. It will not, I think, escape you that the more Motive resembles (as in some modern theories) an efficient or producing cause, and the farther it recedes from the Aristotelian idea of a final cause, or object of pursuit, the more absolute appears the subjection of Man to mechanical Law. His actions are en¬ chained; his Will is determined by the “ must be.” And the chain becomes doubled in strength when individual character is looked upon as a fragment of universal character, and men are supposed to be like each other, as pebbles in a brook are like each other. The possibility of a powerful religious influence upon character was a thought foreign to Hume’s mind; feeble, too (as it would seem), were his ideas of self¬ formation and self-reformation. Yet, without these last-named endowments, all that is Manlike in Humanity has vanished. For the crown and glory of our Human Nature, and its loftiest distinction from mere brute nature, is that we can elevate our¬ selves, improve our best faculties, enhance their vigour, form increasingly noble habits, and, by the exercise of self-discipline, mount high above our original selves. Such, and nothing less, is the hope of self-change never relinquished by any human being, except an Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 129 incurable trifler, a madman, or a vice-besotted wretch. Yet it is the element of our nature which Hume is bent on dissolving away. Contrast this undying hope with his survey and estimate of Mankind, as described by his best biographer. It runs thus :— “ How very clearly we find these principles practically illustrated in his history! A disinclination to believe in the narratives of great and remarkable deeds proceeding from peculiar impulses : a propen¬ sity, when the evidence adduced in their favour cannot be rebutted, to treat these peculiarities rather as diseases of the mind, than as the operation of noble aspirations : a levelling disposition to find all men pretty much upon a par, and none in a marked manner better or worse than their neighbours : an inclination to doubt all authorities which tended to prove that the British people had any fundamental liberties not possessed by the French and other European nations.” Mr. Burton concludes by saying, “ Such are the practical fruits of this Necessitarian philosophy.” * At first sight Hume’s judgments appear less philo¬ sophic than worldly-wise. Every modern reader feels struck by the thought, “ How like they are to the opinions which pass current along with another habitual maxim:— “-Quserenda pecunia primum est, Yirtus post nummos.” “ Get Money, Money still! And then let Virtue follow, if she will.” Yet, when we observe more closely, there appears this salient distinction between the vulgar worldling and the philosopher. Men given up to selfishness and a mercenary mind are always apt to see their fellow-men in a light reflected from themselves. * Burton’s Life of Hume, Vol. i., pp. 278-9. 9 130 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi Their own low standard of what is Eight, True, and Good, causes them to maintain views which are a slander upon our highest Human Nature. Such views do, in fact, amount to a disbelief of not the highest only, hut of all that is otherwise than very mean and base in Humanity. Yet these same men, who thus assert the empire of baseness, often express regret at their own shameful conclusions. The apo¬ logy alleged for such conclusions is that they follow from a had experience of mankind. With Hume and his modern disciples—for Hume is a representative thinker—the case is exceedingly different. His low estimate of moral character sprang (precisely as his doctrine of Necessity sprang) from a system of thought, which he placed before the world as well-reasoned wisdom. Look at this kind of philosophy from any side you will, and its mischief-working power appears evidenced by its tone of ethical degradation. Morally, it is bad enough to do evil actions, but it is far worse to justify the wrongs, or to have pleasure in men that do them. Socially, the homage paid by vicious minds to virtue is often insincere, and may be downright hypocrisy. Yet it has a tendency to check contagion. Strange to say, Society sometimes runs far less risk from vicious practices than it does from vicious theories. A wicked play, poem, novel—worst of all, a wicked philosophy—is the most deadly of all pestilential ferments. The reason is plain. The hateful mien of vice is the gross, self-degraded example. The attractive mien is the plausible, glozing apology. Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 131 This, as Milton tells us, gives a most certain title to princedom in Hell. Neither can we ever forget, that the man who deliberately argues his intellect into any act of treason to his better nature, has barred himself from his only possible defence—the p]ea, namely, that he did it ignorantly, in unbelief. It is because Hume is a representative thinker, that we find in his writings a subject for careful examination. He is sometimes spoken of as in¬ heriting the mantle of Locke. But he wore it “ with a difference.” Locke was an Englishman, and an Oxonian. What Locke meant was Empiricism, not Scepticism. He had so intense a dread of Disbelief, that he did in the seventeenth century what Mr. Huxley has done in the nineteenth—he advocated the suppression of Atheism by penal enactments. On the other hand, how significant is the fact that Hume was Scoto-Erench, and educated in France, you may perceive if you recollect that Hamilton, like Kant, was Scoto-Teuton, although, unlike Kant, he was educated here in Oxford. Hume’s philosophy (French-horn) appertained to the French “ Illumina¬ tion ” ; neither is its essential Thought and Meaning even now dead in France: Hume was the great ancestor of Comte. The neat Frenchman founded (as we have said) a religion from which Heaven and God are shut out, along with a theoretic system per¬ fectly well fitted to form the base of such a worship. Comtism is, we have said, very rarely accepted in its entire sweep ; hut it has leavened thought in France, England, and America, to an extent almost 132 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. tii. incredible. At this moment it is giving rise to new and far-reacliing speculative developments. The noteworthy fact seems plain,—what continues most leavening in Comte’s theories, what is most alive and energetic in Positive thinking, may he implicitly found in Hume. Prom Hume, too, have floated down the more keen-edged maxims of Scepticism now circulated throughout English society. He may also safely he pronounced the true progenitor of its educated, easy, Indifferentism. \ r et, strange to say, the Logic of Events has tho¬ roughly and absolutely confuted Hume. To see this distinctly, we must try to see with distinctness what was the indubitable but undeclared outcome of his ground-principles. They appear wide enough ; for they relate to human life, abstract speculation, and the world we live in. And these correlative grounds of belief and action mutually supplement and sup¬ port each other. What then was their Effect ? Life, says this Philosophy, is a poor thing—for each, for all; but nobody has a right to complain. A law of average Morality, bad enough to be average baseness , is entitled the Law of Human Nature. It is in practical every-day wisdom, what a law of Neces¬ sity or Determinism is in abstract or metaphysical reasoning. Happy men—or, at least, happy enough, if we do but know our own happiness ! Accountability is impossible. It is a task too high for our impo¬ tence. Eetribution has been the weak souls’ dream. Let it become a thing of the Past. The poverty of our nature pleads our exemption from Justice; and Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 133 to creatures such as we are, Escape and Evasion may suffice. We can hope for nothing better :— v “ Fallere et effugere est Triumphus ! ” Or, to quote a modern “ confidence ” in print,— “ I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and im¬ pelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled.” And again—more wooden still,— “ I cannot alter my will, or be other than what'Tam, and canno deserve either reward or punishment.” These sentences are published under the joint re¬ sponsibility of a gentleman and lady, both advanced thinkers ; and they show that Hume’s labours have not been thrown away. The Master is, however, more complete. He paints a view of the broad Cosmos and the Aspects of Nature, as beheld by tutored eyes, appropriate enough for the background of a philosophy of Determinism—sufficiently appro¬ priate, because sufficiently wrapped in shadows. Measureless, as we have seen, is the impotence pf Man. Measureless the haze of Doubt in which his objects of pursuit and his powers of pursuing are alike involved. Irremediable, also, the uncertainty whether what is truest for him is at all true for extended experience—true beyond Death—true else¬ where in the Universe. And the sphere Man in¬ habits has its light and shade adapted to his uncer¬ tain eyesight. The world surrounding us all, is like a succession of dioramic scenes passing over a stage on which we gaze. We have no true interest in the imagination of their reality. What promise of aught [Lect. III. 134 The Doctrine of Retribution. that is Permanent can exist in a dissolving trans¬ parency ? Begarding the outer world, it is to us much the same as these poor lives of ours. We are again spectators, — spectators free from praise or blame. Who can detach himself from the adamant circle drawn round his human lot ? Who can fix fast the rope of sand, the moving particles as they become events outside him ? The control of our environments, or of our lives, self-change and self¬ training, are visions no less dreamy than immortal self-duration. Of Man’s waking existence the true guides are his passions, appetites, desires ; his self¬ ease and self-interest; his love of sympathy and of applause. These guides are morally and socially safe as w r ell as supreme,—they make and keep each man estimable ; they are the builders and guardians of the State. But beyond this present waking existence we assuredly know and hope nothing. Nor yet have we cause to apprehend possible Futurities of any land. In few words :—When we speak of Duty or Virtue we mean and can only mean—a rule or mode of life consentaneous with the private wishes of an indi¬ vidual and those of the society in which he lives. Upon these—their balance and resultant—he depends for his Moral code, its maxims and its sanctions. Now, what has the logic of events said to these things ? Are outward events, we ask first, ascertain- ably nothing more than faded impressions, ideas fallen dim ? Physical Science has by its progress answered this question. The law of Natural Uni¬ formity,—no consequent without an adequate ante- Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 135 cedent, no change without a cause of change,—is a Law as firmly written on the Physical Universe as the laws of Inertia and Gravitation. And this thorough certitude of the principle upon which all inductive knowledge rests, is one of the vast services which the study of Nature has rendered to Morals and to Reli¬ gion. Here is one sure instance of a belief traversing every sphere of practical Thought, ascertained true for us, and in itself , by a verification wide as the known natural universe. Examine this belief, and you find that it became our human property through conditions under which Moral belief must in like manner become ours. Hence results a lesson, good for us all. Do not accuse your own reasonable natures of falsehood and treachery; accept their data reasonably , and in accordance with the laws governing those angles of vision under which they are presented to you. In few words, trust your own human view of the Universe. Let exceptions and allowances, such as those which observers of the heavens term “ the personal equation/’ be taken to establish the rule. And this acceptance of a rule—this trust—is the plain contradictory of Hume’s systematic depre¬ ciation of Man’s Intelligence, his hollow banter of human Beliefs, his fixed faith in human imbecilities. The very same law of Natural Uniformity helps us to establish the truth of that Moral poiver of Causation which Hume took such pains to explain away. This it does by force of the salient contrast between a mechanical chain of events and the varied effects —that is, the various purposes —carried out by [Lect. III. 136 The Doctrine of Retribution. a Volitional Cause. The outward world is governed by fixed laws. Put an alkali and an acid together in water,—they will always act, react, and combine into a neutral. But place the same wicked pleasure within the same man’s grasp at various periods of his career. He will not always clutch it. At one time he will go after it straightway, “ As an ox goeth to the slaughter, Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks.” At another time he will “ eschew evil, and do good, —seek peace, and ensue it.” The man who thus chooses diversely preserves his Individuality; but the moral 'phases of his character are changed. He may have grown soul-sick at his own sinfulness. He may have accused himself, judged himself, con¬ demned himself. Hence, he may have learned “ to labour and to wait.” Or he may have found a sudden freedom from his griefs and fears, like that haunted wretch who dwelt among tombs crying and cutting his flesh with stones. Whatever the incidents of change may be, one and the same contrast with mechanical law remains. Earth’s natural substances preserve their properties, their affinities, and their chemical behaviour. The mind of Man developes itself, educates itself, is recipient of higher influ¬ ences. And the transformed human being acts as he feels it right and good to act. We have said how Hume endeavoured to represent our Nature as barred from inward change by a fixity of character almost as invariable as cold material Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough . 137 laws. To this argument we shall get occasion to recur, as it still continues the palmary argument of modern Determinism. Meantime, it seems wonderful to remember that there was a still more sweeping confutation in reserve for the philosophy which fettered Humanity fast,—so fast that Retributive Justice might seem an empty shadow, Right and Wrong the phantoms of a troubled brain. The world has never seen a real —that is, a really consistent—Fatalist. What human being ever ac¬ quitted from blame the false friend who consciously and wilfully defrauded or otherwise betrayed him ? In this opinion I find myself supported by Mr. Mill. That experienced observer goes with me one step further , in saying that many men and women are fatalists in regard of their own actions. Caesar had his fortunes—Napoleon his star. Necessity inward as well as outward is often the tyrant’s plea. It is not infrequently the conscience-salve of some English Pharisee, who, for a show, makes long prayers and prayerfully devours widows’ houses. By parity of reasoning it would appear probable that there never has existed a real Sceptic. An absolute Sceptic is of course impossible, because he would have to disbelieve his own Disbelief—he would hold it doubtful whether it be possible to doubt. It may also be true that no human creature ever so entirely divested himself of that upward tendency of his Being as to keep moral ^certainties 'perpetually predominant. But there are, we all know, many practical Sceptics—men who seldom act upon the 138 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi. l dominant thought that from evil words and works evil consequences must one day ensue. Over their actions they would seem to write one universal “ pereuntf while they blot from their consciences the final “ et imputantur .” Neither does Scepticism require any great energy of decision in order to be extremely mischievous. If a person is so far uncertain concerning the Here¬ after as to think that it deserves no sacrifice,—of him we may truly say, “ he that is not with us is against us,” and against his own virtue and happi¬ ness besides. Briefly, the dread of self-sacrifice, the inability to endure hardness, the wish for indulgence in some vice the heart is secretly inclined to, clothe Scepticism with its emotional allurement, and sharpen its intellectual persuasiveness. Great, there¬ fore, the responsibility of many a modern thinker who furnishes reasonably-sounding pretences to that worst weakness, that birth-sin of Mankind! Upon Hume, and others like Hume,—educated people of both sexes—some gay, thoughtless, glitter¬ ing—others gravely, sternly earnest,—a much higher and much more awful Kesponsibility rested. It is had enough to congeal the warm life of an individual Man, and poison his heart’s best blood. It is infi¬ nitely worse to scoff and smile away the better thoughts of mixed and mighty multitudes. The only excuse for those scoffers comes from the hope that they knew not what they did. But is it easy to suppose that the historian of Scotland and the Stuarts could be unversed in the history of national Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 139 epidemics ? Surely lie, and such as he was, must have known how impalpable, yet how energetic, is the virus that envenoms a people. Subtle and un¬ perceived as the germs of zymotic disease, gaining strength as they spread, and intensified by the vapoury heats of overcrowded cities,—such, and in like manner, the pestilential breath of demoralizing opinions passes over whole provinces, fevering vast multitudes as it flies. Some races appear more susceptible to its poisonous atmosphere than others ; but national calamities and passions make even the calmest and most phlegmatic susceptible. Even so it had happened in Scotland ; so, too, it was about to happen in France. The free-thinking philosophers of that period were no wiser than the educated circles of ladies and gentlemen for whom they lived and wrote. We, looking back nowadays, are apt to wonder how they could so perilously sport with the world’s received maxims and modes of thinking. The truth is, these people were supported by their world’s sympathy; the mistake they made was to forget that there were in Europe—and notably in France—other worlds, with other ways of life and feeling quite outside the exclusive pale of their own. Unmindful of this social fact—yet perhaps not more unmindful than the French Court, the French Church, and the French Noblesse—a clever circle, pervaded by Scepticism of every kind and degree, was bent on illu¬ minating the French people. Inflamed with zeal for the emancipation of Mankind from evils indescribably [Lect. III. 140 The Doctrine of Retribution . gross, they kindled their new Illumination where the shadows of despotism and superstition lay deepest. We may figure to ourselves a tall Lighthouse, with its lantern bright hut colourless upon one side,— on the other fiery red. In the former direction, it stands like a benevolent giant overlooking heights beneath which the waters sleep in security. In the reverse direction, it flashes an ensanguined glow across sunken shoals, jagged reefs, and currents raging tempestuously. Just so, this illuminative wisdom of free thought blazed out between the two contrasted classes of the French nation : the class which enjoyed life without care, and the class which toiled serf-like and hopeless. Beheld amongst the calms of aristocratic conventionalism, what could appear better adapted to the idle, disillusionised men and women of that hollow and frivolous upper-world ? Its quiet clearness seemed like the enlightenment of an ironical Koran, preaching libertine freedom . There is always an incessant craving for strong sensations when life appears short and tedious, and when the ghastly skull cannot be wholly hidden by rosebuds garlanded before they he withered. To such hearts and heads, Easy Philosophy brings certain alleviations ; its tranquil brilliancy, though cold and pale, is soothing. Its promise seems to be security in wicked pleasure,—under all circumstances —Security. But, what was the other side of the Lantern like ? It gleamed blood-red and fiery over the sons and daughters of civilized servitude,—the part-educated, Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough . 141 half-famished, whole-desperate dwellers in the dark places of society. They, too, craved strong sensations. Concerning such, we may take np our parable and say,—“ Over them was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward re¬ ceive them : but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness.” * Unto themselves first; next to their cynical Lords and Ladies ; to the French race ; and to all Europe ! Of any pure and spiritual teaching, they would have asked, “ Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery?” To the misery- maddened no light was or could be so welcome, as that lurid blaze of unbelieving philosophy, which burned away their fears of a future Retribution, and by consequence set their passions and their vengeance free. Had there existed prophetic insight among the reasoners of polished France, the visible fact that their Philosophy shone out over such terrific shadows, would have been a danger-signal of the coming wreck. But no warning voice was heard, till the flame of atheistic selfishness was answered by the furnace-fires of that Terror which consumed all human ties. Bo we, in these days, wonder that no warning was heeded then ? Would any similar warning be more effectual now ? Fatalism and Atheism are preached constantly amidst the plaudits of ignorant English¬ men. How many highly-bred politicians deem the matter a thing of the slightest consequence ? Hume would never have set cities on fire, beheaded * Wisdom of Solomon, xvii. 21. 142 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi. or hacked to pieces human beings,—least of all the refined, the noble, the educated. But he must be reckoned among those who sneeringly scattered smouldering embers, and bequeathed to others death by the inevitable conflagration. Think,-—for a single moment picture to yourselves, —what it was to run the gauntlet through a mob of murder-wearied, more than half intoxicated, man and woman slayers. See, here is a Cup ! It is red outside and within, — deep, ensanguined, red. Well may it he so!—it is held by blood-stained hands; it is filled from aristocratic veins. Drink, you that desire to live, was the cry,—drink, and live you may. The fame of one nobly-born maiden * is immortal,—she did drink that her Father might continue in life. For a brief half-hour father and daughter, aged man and stout-hearted girl, were the idols of those who worshipped Unreason, Fate, and Fury. No lack of such worshippers in those days : renegade noblesse ; priests that blasphemed; lawyers who enacted de¬ crees of blood and fire; orators for ever sharpening the citizens’ passions and their poniards. Madness everywhere !—the ringing tocsin—the rumble of the death-cart — the heavy knife that descended every second minute; whilst no open mourners dared to go about the streets. Seldom has the Logic of Events been more com¬ plete. For this was the Beacon-blaze of the great French Illumination! * Mademoiselle de Sombreuil. LECTURE IV. FIRST PRINCIPLES. A ✓ I LECTURE IY. Psalm lxii. 11, 12. “ God hath spoken once ; Twice have I heard this ; That power belongeth unto God. Also unto Thee, 0 Lord, belongeth mercy : For Thou renderest to every man according to his work.” HE Psalmist here expresses one of the most transcendent convictions entertained at any time by any human Soul. It realizes for ns the existence of a supreme Sovereign, Who is also a redresser of Wrongs and a rewarder of Righteous dealing. Who does yet more : He has regard to the duties and devotions which leave those that render them unprofitable servants. But He, of the plenitude of His mercy, requites them with good measure, running over, given into their bosoms. To the essential ideas conveyed, the form of words into which they are thrown is of small consequence. But it so happens that our Lord adopts the outward shaping bestowed on his thought by the Psalmist, “ The Son of Man,’ 7 He says, “ shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” One great beauty of this saying consists in its exquisite transparency of expression. It recognises, 10 146 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv. with unmistakeable emphasis, three grand ideas. First, The Reality of Moral Distinctions. Next, Their coming affirmation and their empire over us, who (whether we like it or no) are heirs to vast Futurities. Thirdly, The certainty, equity, and clear¬ ness of the Criterion employed in separating between man and his fellow-man. This whole series of principles moulded into facts, and destined to absolute completion, is represented as a future consummation of the present discipline and development of our race. When the world we inhabit put on long ago its glorious apparel, the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy. When the Race which now inhabits this world grows ripe for its more developed phase, the Sovereign of Mankind is portrayed in shining state, attended by His holy angels. He appears creator-like, in His inauguration of a new and noble existence, reserved for the spirits of just men made perfect. Those righteous souls, who have thus reached the required stature of their growth, are to possess a world which cannot be shaken. Their trials, and the weary, tearful times of their pilgrimage, are over. The clouds are rolled away from their upward vision. Faith has yielded place to sight. Now, therefore, their patient endurance obtains its crown. Accounted not only faithful, but sure and steadfast, they receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. The natural lesson follows,—that we who have not yet attained, should serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. For Retributive Justice Lect. IV.] First Principles . 147 is more than one-sided. “ Our God is a consuming Fire.” The point here remarkable to us, is that every one of the three ideas contained in our text, and in the parallel sayings of our Lord, is found among the lorinciples of Natural Religion. Add that the basis of Moral truth (which underlies Natural Religion) cannot but be as distinctly too-sided as the scriptural doctrine of Retribution. Every moral “ ought to do ” is always attended by an “ ought not to be done.” And if happiness be allotted to a fulfilment of the “ Ought,” then, pari passu , a loss of happiness will attend upon the perpetrated “ ought not.” The Law of Retribution, in order to be Ethical, must follow (equitably as well as naturally) upon both right and wrong doing. Both ways, it must find its issue in a just recompense of reward. That outcome of Morality which is commonly called Retributive Justice, has occupied some of our attention. We saw that, as a matter of fact, the sense of Responsibility asserts and re-asserts itself under the most varied phases of our environment. Under diversities of social life, for example, as wide apart as old Jerusalem and modern Konigsberg. Under diversified modes of thought and feeling, such as ruled the beginnings of our Race, and such as in our hard nineteenth century still lead to self- control and self-sacrifice. There are no two beliefs so thoroughly Anglo-Saxon as those embodied in the “ I ought ” and the “ I am accountable.” With these two sturdy beliefs is connected our 148 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iy sense of shame. The man who complies with some baseness, either to save himself from pain or to acquire new means of enjoyment, cannot be made to feel himself anything better than a dastard. And this is true of most men—from an Indian Chief to a traitorous mob-courtier, or even a renegade Churchman. He who conquers through suffering, is ennobled both in his own eyes and in the estimation of his fellows. This, again, is pre-eminently true of all Christian and Anglican martyrs. It is true of Eegulus; it is true also of Howard, the philan¬ thropist. At the close of the last, and beginning of the present century, the main questions relating to Duty, Responsibility, Moral law, Moral distinctions, and their issues, put on (as we have already seen) a lifelike aspect. They were cast into this attractive mould by the ironical philosophy of Hume, and the earnest antagonism of Kant. If we remember that the former was born in 1711 , and died in 1776 ; the latter, born in 1724 , lived on till 1804 ,—we shall see the significance of this antithesis. A very ready and certain method for any one to convince himself of its importance, is to translate the philosophical language of that day into the modern scientific terminology which veils its metamorphosis. We see then how complete is the pedigree of Thought. The question of questions, under which all other issues are naturally ranged, and from which they derive their special interest, may be stated in these words : How far is Man merely a Spectator,—how Lect. iv.] First Principles. 149 far a real Agent in the affairs of his existence ? The scope of this question is rendered apparent by ob¬ serving the conditions requisite for answering it. The balance between looking on at our tragedy or comedy of Life, and exerting a causal energy upon its scenes and events, can only he decided by our estimate of human knowledge and human Will¬ power. The Sceptic always prefers to state the terms of this estimate in a destructive form, and to ask (as Hume was never weary of asking) how vast is Man’s ignorance,—how vast is Man’s impotence ? He will often like to add (as Hume added), that the evidence of these imbecilities is for ever meeting us on every side. In my last Lecture I quoted some of Hume’s most favoured evidence. From a metaphysical point of view, he pronounced Man’s knowledge as resting upon no first-grounds of certitude. From a social point of view, human actions were held resolvable into motives, always the reverse of sublime, often little better than bestial; and dependent on a typical character which can yield small hope of change, —still less of self-education. That our character is thus formed for us, even now remains (according to Mr. Mill) the strongest argument of modern Fatalism. There does exist a rejoinder, but it turns on a princi¬ ple not mentioned either by Hume or his nineteenth century disciples. In all that belongs to Life, we must on each occasion await the next swing of the pendulum. The license of one age gives place to the austerities [Lect. IV. i 50 The Doctrine of Retribution. of another : the court promotes the convent, and the convent falls before temptations common to man, and so the circle is again complete. The doubts of Hume awakened the criticism of Kant. A theory of life, ignoble at the best, was belied by a noble life; and this nobility was in turn the honest outcome of a philosophy, to which we all look back as era-making, in the same sense that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were era-making. We feel, as well as know, this to be true in the case of the great German, no less than in the case of the great Greeks. True, also, in the same way, and for a precisely similar reason. These four thinkers went to Man’s Nature for starting- points of Truth ; plastic Law r s under which we all see, understand, believe, hope, and learn to live an intellectual and moral life, at first and at all times. The practical teaching of the four, otherwise different, met in one distinctly human position. This conclusion is, in point of fact, the inevitable result to which thorough Scepticism itself works round. And that all Scepticism, if fairly stated and reasoned, must at last become thorough, is plain ; because unless Scepticism succeeds in demolishing the validity of Thought, it ceases to be Scepticism. What, then, is the process of demolition ? Answer this question, and you will see that by virtue of its own Method Scepticism is shown to be an Unreality. It can only destroy the validity of Thought by assuming that the law r s of Thought are valid; it must use Eeason to disprove the truth of Reason. "But if Thought be invalid, and Reason no safe source Lect. iy.] First Principles. 151 of truth, it necessarily follows that the thinking and reasoning by which the Sceptic reaches his conclusion must have been from the first invalid and unsafe. The whole sceptical argument, therefore, ivas and is an illusion,—and Truth lies in a precisely opposite direction. This, always, is the logical felo de se committed by argumentative Doubt. Hence Kant’s criticism may be viewed as a protest against reasoned-out suicide; a life-preserver amidst the philosophical shipwreck. All our own every-day existence is a similar protest, and becomes (by parity of reasoning) a verification of that antagonistic system of Thought which asserts some ultimate Truth-power in Man. Hume (as we have already seen) did himself, in his common-sense hours, feel his own conclusions, or rather his endless want of conclusion, as a sufficient evidence to prove his arguments hollow. In this feeling he was con¬ sistent with his utilitarian maxims. A man to he useful must act with earnestness. But no man will act earnestly without earnest convictions. The issue of thorough doubt ought to be a waveless slumber of the soul—a hesitating, or at least an expectant, Quietism. Kant’s protest was perfectly natural. The serious Teutonic spirit can never rest content with trifling away serious existence. It is point-blank opposed to that wretchedly frivolous spirit which feels satisfied with depreciating or denying the great aims of Hu¬ manity. In its nobler view, Man is in this world sovereign over all that is merely sensitive. He shed [Lect. IV. 152 The Doctrine of Retribution. a glory over Nature from the light of his own Being. Outside impressions,—the shifting circumstantials of Man’s environment,—rush inwards through the open avenues of his bodily senses. They come like shadows, but can never so depart. They enter in—a long procession, an ever-passing train of individual objec¬ tivities. Once entered, they receive order, clearness, harmony, significance, from the sovereign laws of human thought. That which was a disconnected event, and in itself transitory, is converted into the link of a chain. That which was figured as fluent, vanishing, a fragment of the Manifold and Mutable, becomes fixed, and conditioned upon the Universal and the Absolute. Look, for example, at the physical sphere. By this same universal “ must he,” we gain access to the mechanism of the Heavens. We are enabled to explain the phases of our world’s satellite, and the translation of our world in space. We distinguish the movements of our planetary system, in relation to ourselves, and also to the starry harriers of the sky. With the elder Herschel, we break through those remote harriers, and gaze backwards upon the realm left behind us—from a far-away distance, real and evident to the Mathematician, hut overpowering the wildest imagination. So simply a matter of fact is this, that we are obliged to accept the absolutely inconceivable. Truth becomes stranger than fiction ; plain prose outsoars the most sublime glancing of the poet’s eye. Our own world, our own system, appears, to scientific sight, a part of that double- Lect. iy.j First Principles . 153 belted galaxy, which the vision of our body and of our fancy looks upon as traversing the distant Uni¬ verse. And through those immeasurable regions far beyond, there float, balanced in clear azure, suns, systems—formed and unformed—amidst a Space stretched out into infinitude ; and sown with worlds like grains of rice thrown broadcast over the wide¬ spread waters of Orissa. Strange, too, is it not? how we—Hume’s imbecile fellow-creatures—should have found means to ascer¬ tain that the elementary components of orbs and systems of orbs, glittering in the limitless Sky-ocean, are identical with the useful elements found in this world,—with substances which enter into the compo¬ sition of our earth, our bodies, our food, our clothing, our arts, arms, and hearths !* Nay, more than this. From Nature’s uniformity it follows that the thing which hath been, must be. We read a Nebula into a Sun with revolving globes around him. We watch * We know even tlie sidereal distribution of substances which we have been accustomed to call our own:— “ It is a curious circumstance that some of the whiter stars, such as Sirius, do not appear to contain anything but hydrogen ; at least we have no indication that they do ; other stars again of less white¬ ness, in addition to hydrogen, have such substances as iron, sodium, etc.; while yellow, orange, and blood-red stars, and variable stars, appear to contain in their atmospheres substances which are com¬ pounds .”—The Unseen Universe , Sect. 159. [The brighter stars of the Sirius class shew indications of sodium, iron, and magnesium. The absorptive strata appear to be thick and under great pressure, as well as of a very high temperature. Compare Schellen’s Spectrum Analysis, Part III., Sect. 62.] The composition of unresolved Nebuhe will occur for mention in my sixth Lecture. 154 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv. the Comet as it flies away, and foretell its return. We know when the eclipse, or the transit, must come to pass. We register their phenomena, and verify our own verities. And when we have done all this, we can properly understand why a stone thrown upwards must fall down. We have demonstrated what we knew prior to our cosmical experience,— the truths of number, measure, and magnitude. We acknowledge them as true for us , and true for the whole material Universe. Were this all, Man could scarcely he spoken of as branded by Nature with extreme ignorance. But this is not all. The great Greek Moralist questioned mathematical first-principles out of the mouth and mind of a slave. So, too, from a raw English lad may he questioned out the axiom which underlies demonstration, and enables us to convert rough ore into sterling thought, without fearing that the logic of events will confute us. This axiom is the surest of all principles —the principle of contradiction. Knowing that if our inward vision is true—and cannot hut be true—this principle is also a certain logical truth, we proceed to infer, and to employ our inferences as premises for further stages of inferring—chain after chain, conclusion upon con¬ clusion—till we reach some new world of knowledge ; vast, it may he, as the gain of a second hemisphere. Neither do we feel apprehensive lest our science should he found an oblique shadow, or our Keason a meteor spark. And surely it is better for us that we should know and acknowledge these facts, since Lect. IV.] First Principles. 15 5 they are knowable, and given us to know: better far than to conclude, with David Hume, “ that we have no choice left blit betwixt a false Reason or none at all.” An affirmative philosophy stands opposed to the negations and blanks of Scepticism, not only in its conclusions, but also in its discovery of binding laws. And it is, in its highest nature, synthetic. In this view, the destructive analysis, which forms the approved method of Sceptics, appears nothing better than an attempt to reduce valuable substances into worthless elements. The mere statement of this result stamps Scepticism as suicidal in respect of Utility, just as we have seen it suicidal in respect of Validity. That is to say,—As its procedure in¬ validates itself, so its results are simply useless! And the corollary seems obvious : Scepticism cannot, in strictness of speech, be termed a Philosophy; much less a Philosophy which satisfies the requirements of Human Nature. What, then, is the contrasted amount of satisfac¬ tion to be gained from an opposite Method ? Suppose you contemplate a Geometrical diagram, you will perceive that one or more principles are made evident by the truth of its construction; and these, when stated, you recognise as axiomatic. In other words, you perceive a theoretically certain u must befi prior to all actual experience, and often whole centuries of time in advance of it. Now, one use of verification when it does accrue (as in this case it has accrued from the measurement of Earth and Heavens), is to [Lect. TV. 156 The Doctrine of Retribution. verify, first, the principles themselves ; next, the truth of that hind of insight which discovered those axioms and affirmed them. And the possession of such insights is an endowment characteristic of Man. The Mathematical insight, which is our common property, having been found safe, there arises a presumption in favour of the validity of our other axiomatic insights, provided they possess a history sufficiently resembling the history of the insight already verified. For instance ;—There arises a pre¬ sumption in favour of the axiom on which Logic rests over and above its own inherent certitude. We all perceive its truth. We are unable to deny it. We cannot help denying its contradictory. Thus the history of the logical axiom runs parallel with the history of Mathematical axioms. This same point of presumptive evidence a priori gives rise to some further notable consideration. Any axiom is, we suppose, a truth shining by its own light. So let it he; yet each valid example of axiomatic truth adds strength and illumination to another. Consequently, the evidence becomes ac¬ cumulative ; or, if you please, verificatory . Taking the two instances just adduced, the whole effect on the mind may be stated as follows. Just as Mathe¬ matical axioms are accepted prior to all application, so the grand principle of Logic claims to be accepted prior to its employment. And after this first claim is put in, a kind of confirmatory claim appears reasonable, anterior to any question of /ac^-verifica- Lect. iv.j First Principles. 15 7 tion, because the a-priori conviction in this second instance is not without precedent. One set of veri¬ fied axioms—to wit, the Mathematical—must cause us to expect the truth of another axiom—that is to say, the Logical; and we feel this probability would be just were no other kind of verification feasible or forthcoming. It is true, indeed, that we are able to find a subsequent and final satisfaction from the coincidence of fact or experiment, with, first , our primary conviction, and, next , our probable expecta¬ tion, which was superadded from analogy and pre¬ cedent. But suppose no fact-verifying process had ever been possible, w r e might still have kept a suffi¬ cient confidence in our certitude already acquired. Suppose, on the contrary, that it lias been not only possible but actual—as is really the case—we must needs feel a fresh certitude, sufficing in itself, suf¬ ficing also because closely connected with our own previous experience. Another extremely instructive point is, that our acceptance of the Logical ground-principle per se appears far from being brought home to us in the same manner as our acceptance of the axioms of Geometry. There is, in their case, an outward form or schema ,—an appeal to sensuous perception as well as to Reason. The principle of Contradiction, on the other hand, is suggested as well as assured to us by a purely abstract process. Its very entrance into the mind comes to pass through a medium, “ from out¬ ward sense refined and clear.” Poetry is, we know, a more simply ideal art than painting or music, 158 The Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect. iv. because it is clothed in a vestment woven by the human mind, instead of addressing us under the guise of a sensuous presentation impressed upon the animal eye. So, too, the foundation-principle underlying all inference robes itself in our human travelling attire of Thought,—which is (we may say without being poets) a plumage alive with winged words. And those vitalized pinions are given to no creature below the race of reasoning, and, therefore , articu¬ lately-speaking men. It happens, however, that the whole of our Life is perpetually adding material confirmation strong to the formal certitude claimed by this ground-prin¬ ciple of direct demonstration. Here, again, as in the example of Geometry, a never-ending process of verification cannot fail to repeat the lesson, “ Trust your own Intuitions.” I must now conduct you to the spectacle of a more recondite kind of Trust. A trust, as absolute in its way, as our assurance of mathematical or logical First-grounds. Yet it occupies a different position in the science of mind, and opens out to our view a different territory of human insight. Amongst all the wonderful procedures of Man’s thought, none seems so marvellous, as regards either its origin, its realization, or its results, as the process of Induction. Its work has been going on since Man first tenanted the world. It surrounds us, from the cradle to the grave, with a mental atmosphere in which our whole Face works and 'marches onwards continually. Yet no subject of psychological investigation has been Lect. IV.] *59 First Principles. so tardy in attaining ripeness. None so slow to lay bare the secret of its energy to the philosophic eye. Compare Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Upon one topic you will find an accordance. Nor will any deep thinker henceforward hesitate to affirm that the universality of the Inductive principle, (the sole characteristic which makes its value inestimable,) is given by the Mind of Man alone. It compels our assent before experience ; no alleged experience can ever be weighed in the scale against it. Neither could any supposable mass of favourable experience, heaped up mountains high, reach the absolute eleva¬ tion to which it rises,—nor yet, if ever so broadly expanded, attain the completeness of its rule over the whole material universe. Human experience may, in a sense, be said to verify its truth. But such verification appears, when examined, to yield not an enlarging, but a limiting and defining effect —a greater precision and exactness of application. And, so far as this limitary effect is concerned, it stands in diametrical contrast with the verifications of applied Geometry. The whole subject of Induction is (as I have said) surrounded by unsolved and half-solved questions. You will have observed that the practice of Aristotle varies. Sometimes, when he uses Induction, he enumerates instances; sometimes he boldly lays his hand upon one single typical example, and by its appositeness leads up his auditor’s mind to grasp a whole idea. Bacon’s scheme of Induction must strike every reader who understands him as truly gigantic. [Lect. IV. 16o The Doctrine of Retribution. By the unintelligent it is voted thoroughly Utopian. Modern Science has, however, culled from it a method of interrogating Nature by crucial questions, answering the same by crucial experiments ; and sub¬ jecting hypotheses thus gained to successive verifica¬ tions. Sir Isaac Newton’s breadth of sweep, gained by his poring over a wide cycle of facts till the light of some verifiable theory dawned upon his intellect, may seem, in some eyes, a nearer approach to the Baconian scheme than the practice adopted by later philosophers. How this light of theory arises, w r e cannot tell; but it does in fact arise. So writes Dr. Tyndall, who looks upon its law as a possession assigned to Genius, and likens it to a kind of Inspi¬ ration.* Or, to use another of his similitudes, the process may be compared with the clearing of a mirror, or photographic plate. The mind, thus brought into an unclouded state, receives a lucid image. And such a final image is the result sought by the philosopher’s Induction. This account of the Inductive process may appear to several here much more complicated—more deli¬ cate in adaptation, and bearing, on the face of it, less warranty of certitude than they have been ac¬ customed to imagine. Yet, as you all know, the certitude becomes, in effect, absolute. The truth is, that what seems broad and simple enough in general outline, must often be extremely refined and tentative amongst the lights and shades of specialized definition. And the nobler the science, * Fragments of Science, pp. 57, 58, GO. Lect. iv.] First Principles . 161 the more likely this contrast to ensue. Prima- facie theories are always facile in appearance. The functional application of them is immensely diffi¬ cult. So, too, Doubt and Denial are easy. The difficulty lies with Proofs and Affirmatives. Most of you may remember the old and true adage, “ Unus asinus plus negabit in una hora quam centum philosophi in centum annis probaverint.” I must venture on showing you two further charac¬ teristics of the great Inductive Law; both equally remote from the conceptions commonly formed of it. As regards the first , one of the most subtle among our own metaphysical Theologians is not unsupported by the most Utilitarian of Professors belonging to another University. And, indeed, the truth of the case is plain, when once distinctly stated. Our primary belief in the Uniformity of Nature, our earliest assurance—“ that the thing which hath been shall be,”—springs from an im¬ pulse to believe, 'prior not only to reasoning on the subject, but also to every kind of empirical justification. For years, we all accept and act upon a maxim which not one in a hundred amongst us is able, in after life, approximately to explain. No rhetorical power on earth would argue us out of our belief in Nature’s Uniformity. Yet, very few of us reflect that both its hind of certitude, and the connateness of its origin with our human consciousness, manifest a very near approach to the characters of our natural beliefs in Moral Distinctions and in God. So connate with 11 162 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv. the beginnings of onr life, does this last-named Theistie belief appear to Mr. Hnme, so deeply in- woven with the earliest fibres of our being, that he classes Theism amongst the instincts or peculiar attributes of Humanity. His words are :— “ The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the Divine workman has set upon his work ; and nothing surely can more dignify mankind, than to be thus selected from all other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impression of the uni¬ versal Creator.” * Whether this and other similar beliefs are pro¬ perly termed instinctive or not, no way concerns our present investigation. Our business lies with the actual character,—not the origin of our primary belief in Retribution, together with its moral correla¬ tives. Yet, if we do find cause to view such beliefs in the light of Instincts, we ought carefully to add that they are instincts appertaining to a nature endowed with Reason. Life, as we see it in vegeta¬ bles or Infusoria, becomes altered by the introduction of a nervous system, and appears still more changed when subjected to the dominion of nervous centres. Precisely so, Instinct may undergo most real altera¬ tion, simultaneously with the very first dawn of Reason. It may aftemvards become metamorphosed, and be translated into a new and glorious shape, as Reason arrives at its sovereignty over the per¬ fected human creature. This hypothesis would ex¬ plain much that is dark respecting the paths by * Natural History of Religion, Sect. xv. (G. & G. iv. 362.) Lect. iv.j First Principles. 163 which automatism inosculates with the spontaneous movements of our human Will-power. It may ex¬ plain much respecting the empire of Habit over our lower nature ; and the manner in which our higher Self uses fresh Habituations, to conquer and control inferior impulses and desires,—that is, to change our own character , and by such change to acquire new aims, new motives, new volitions. The whole sub¬ ject deserves a long and careful consideration, and is sure to repay the toils of some nineteenth century philosopher. In whatever way the question of Rise and Progress be argued, we must now leave it in the shadows. It has been fertile in hypotheses which range from innate Ideas, the doctrine of Anamnesis , and a faith in former worlds of spiritual life, down to the modern theory of derivation by heredity—that is to say, the inherited and assimilated experience of numberless generations. But Natural Religion deals with the observed and observable facts of our existing Moral Nature, and does not concern itself with specu¬ lations founded on an embryology. And this course must appear to be a dictate of right reason. Just as the embryonic brain is not identical, in form or function, with the brain of a Kant or an Aristotle— (although pre-supposed and involved as a foregone condition)—exactly so, let the exercise of our prac¬ tical Reason be conditioned as it may, there is no necessary identity of operation between its present insights and its formative, and part-formed, uses, throughout periods long passed away. 164 The Doctrine of Retribution . [Lect. iv. With this protest, never to be forgotten by any * Moralist, I pass to the second remarkable character¬ istic of Inductive Law which I proposed elucidating. We saw how pure were those abstractions upon which rest the mathematical sciences, as well as the science of all Reasoning. Should any one feel at all doubtful respecting the essential abstractedness of Geometrical axioms, let him consider that Francis Bacon assigned Mathematics to the province of Metayhysic , by reason of this very character. As regards their entrance into the mind, we have already observed a difference between them and the primary axiom of Logic. Not¬ withstanding this, we must agree with Bacon, that they are, of all Forms , the most abstract and sepa¬ rated from Matter. But what a salient contrast do they present to the ground-principle of Induction ! This principle cannot be called a formal first-truth. It is from its very beginning concrete ; bound up (so to speak) with our material existence, and the facts of our material environment. Our Reason does not look forth upon a visible schema , or diagram, displaying some self- evident truth to the inward eye. Much less does Reason represent to itself an ideally- conceived prin¬ ciple. What Reason sees, is a fact or an event; and from the present infers the future,—from the parti¬ cular asserts a knowledge of the universal. I have dwelt on this phenomenon elsewhere,* and cannot repeat myself, but may just mention the circum¬ stance, that these and similar insights controlling * Philosophy of Natural Theology , p. 25G seq. Lect. iv.] First Principles. 165 our practical life (moral and aesthetic), our relations to the outside world and our knowledge of its forces, ought all to be included under one collective designa¬ tion. I have therefore ventured to bestow upon the whole genus one common name,, and have called them Beliefs of Reason. The first word, “ Beliefs,” is not inappropriate to the reliance they, from the first, inspire ; and it has the merit, of not saying too much. The addition “ of Reason.,” limits such in¬ stincts (if we may so term them) to, the sole Rational inhabitants of this world. Reason in itself thus finally appears to us, who are endowed with its living essence, as the exact opposite to any imaginable accretion of sensuous elements, or any bundle of heterogeneous properties. A mode of existence, illus¬ trative of what it is unlihe , may be found in those composite animals whose blossoming lives resemble flower-clusters grown together. Reason sits, so to speak, at the centre of our world,—a world exhibit¬ ing before the eye of Reason its several zones of pure Thought, mixed Truth, and operative Belief. Throughout all these zones Reason looks with equal eye: when we speak, therefore, of Man’s practical Reason, the phrase is not meant to differentiate an Entity, one and indivisible. But, just as we mentally distinguish the hollow and the swell of a curve, even though the curve be a mathematical, not a tangible line, so (to borrow a simile from Aristotle) we may, with like propriety, distinguish the differing activities of Reason. The Diverseness we speak of is not in the Principle, but in its operation. It springs not 166 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. rv. from any modification of the working essence, but is given by the sphere in which Reason works. The Law which onr Reason enunciates for the sphere of natural events—the Inductive Law of Science—may be expressed by various forms of speech, negative as well as affirmative; yet each and all assert the same universal “ must be.” We may say, “ There is no change without a cause of change ; ” or, “ Every consequent must have its antecedent,—• each antecedent its invariable consequent.” Either way, we mean to express our firm belief in the Uni¬ formity of Nature, just as was meant, in days of old, by that short but emphatic maxim, “ The thing which hath been, shall be.” Precisely in the same manner, we both say and believe that, throughout the Moral zone, even as throughout the physical zone of the world, a Law embodying an immutable u must be” is, to the eye of our Reason, universal. The different operation of the Must (a fact which we also perceive and assert), is consequent upon the difference of subject- matter controlled by the Supreme formal Law T . In the sphere of physics, where Things as they exist can neither originate nor terminate Motion, the Law is necessarily mechanical. In the sphere of Volition, Persons not Things are the subjects of Law. They are able to commence actions, and to hinder them. The necessity, therefore, becomes Moral,—the “ Must he ” is transformed into an “ ought to do.” However people may argue or refine on such topics, this again is a persuasion which no arguments can eradicate Lect. iy.] First Principles. 167 from the human mind : “I know I ought not to have done it ” will always be the utterance of multitudes whose sin has found them out. “ You ought not ” is the phrase of a Father to an erring child. Husbands, wives, friends, neighbours, all urge the same plea. The “ you ought,” or “ I ought,” stands through our wdiole lives absolutely imperative. “ There is a nobility of aim open in some way to every man. You ought to embrace it ” is practically said to every youth, by every tutor, every professor, every Head of a House in Oxford. It drops from the lips of our golden-mouthed preachers ; it beams out from the example of many a self-controlled, self-denying votary of Religion. “ These things bring a man peace at the last,” is the consensus of all your guides and all your exemplars. And consider how often, when all seemed against it, before the eyes of all Oxford men, the “ I ought ” has been victoriously maintained. Here, for example, in this very church, within these four walls, Anglican prelates, lawfully anointed, were brought to bay by their persecutors and required to affirm a Falsehood. Although the penalties were loss of earthly substance and position, imprisonment, cruel mockings, and death by fire, the “ I ought ” prevailed. It prevailed here ; it prevailed in sight of the old grey walls of Balliol, and the Saxon tower of St. Michael’s. There the sacrifice of Duty was consummated. There one Bishop said to his companion in torture, “ Be of good comfort and play the Man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be [Lect. IY. i 68 The Doctrine of Retribution. put out.” These words still stand true. True for England,—true for Oxford ! We Oxonians have often been censured for clinging too fondly to the records and customs of the Past; and false prophets were not wanting, more than two centuries ago, who foretold the approaching Bomanism of our whole University. Yet what was the answer pronounced at Magdalen, and repeated through Oxford, when James the Second tried that question out ? And if the question were tried again, what would he our answer now ? There are in this church, men who, like myself, have reason to mourn the loss of friends remaining in the same land, but no longer walking to the same House of God. Yet, for many here, as for me, the “ I ought ” remains the same. That old Bishop’s words are not dead, but living. We would rather ourselves die in the slow-consuming flame, than yield allegiance to the proud false Dogma which has torn by its perplexities the breasts of some among our lost friends, and of others our fellow- countrymen. We would resist, not only in theory, but also in practice, the Schism-causing pretensions of Papal Borne. So long as the power of Resist¬ ance shall remain to us, and to leaders of men like-minded with our humbler selves, the resolve (long ago spoken) will be echoed, and re-echoed,— “ That no Italian Priest Shall tithe or toll in these dominions.” In saying this, we may all wish to say likewise,— “ Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.” * * 1 Esdras iv. 41. Lect. iv.] First Principles . 169 The “ ought,” which is ours now, will one day become the final “ Must he ” of the Universe. No real martyr for conscience’ sake has ever failed to place trust in this principle. The Patriarch, when forsaken of mankind, and reasoning over the' battle- cries. of Eight and Wrong, said, “ I know that my Eedeemer liveth.” * Socrates looked for undying friends, powerful, eternal, immutable, when he swal¬ lowed the juice,, and felt his limbs grow cold. The Mother and her seven sons, in Maccabee times,, offered their bodies and lives for the laws of their Fathers, believing that the King of the World should raise them up, who died for His laws, unto everlasting- life.! The last instance brings with it another reflection.. What we have already said, results from the insight of Eeason, directed to th e practical, that isdhe Moral, Truth-zone of our earthly existence. But add to this the conclusion of Natural Theology—the Belief in a righteous God. We rise- to our- knowledge of Him through His attributes ; some visible,, some dimly seen.. From them, inscribed on Nature, and on our own Nature, we revere^ Him as our true Cause,, our Law-giver, and onr Judge. We are,, at once, sure that the sighing of the prisoner shall come before Him; that He will not be forgetful of them that are- appointed to die. And it is God. alone Who can finally take away the veil that is spread over all nations, and ransom them from, the power of the grave. To the man who believes in God, and realizes. * Job xix.. 25. t 2 Maccabees vii,. 9*. 170 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv. God’s presence, the simple “ ought to do ” is irra¬ diated with a new clearness ; it seems to pervade the soul through higher avenues of sense. He feels himself impelled by a desire to please his Lord,—he cherishes in his heart a sentiment of loyalty, devotion, and love. And a human being, thus strengthened and renovated, becomes as it were a Law unto himself. It cannot be that every heart of man has been visited by emotions so sublime, by affections so happy and so vivifying. Neither, again, can we expect all human minds to he equally clear-sighted in regard of the “ ought, and ought not to do.” We are, early or late, made aware that the fact is contrariwise. In looking at Life, we must begin by placing on one side many cases of stark moral insensibility; which can only be paralleled, in the physical sphere, by such phenomena as colour-blindness, complete ab¬ sence of musical ear, and other congenital imperfec¬ tions. The intellectual world presents much closer parallels. Incapacity for apprehending the most obvious common-sense propositions has clouded the existence of many a son of Genius. Inability to learn Geometry is not an uncommon thing; indeed, if geo¬ metrical power were more generally possessed, there would be a great diminution of inconsequential rea¬ soning. I myself knew a gentleman who had amassed a large fortune in business, and occupied the station of a county magistrate, yet was altogether unequal to abstract thought. And so far did this inability extend, that he could not perceive the truth of several amongst Euclid’s axioms. The effect on his judicial Lect. iv.] First Principles . 171 functions was notable : they were performed with the most indiscriminating austerity. Putting aside such instances as these, an equal power of apprehending moral truth must never he expected amongst men. Yet, at first sight, we may feel surprised by the greatness of its inequality. Suppose the phase of this world now passing before our eyes could be taken to represent the whole history of Mankind ,—then the admitted antagonism between Moral first-principles and the insusceptible state of full many an inward eye, might appear hope¬ lessly enigmatic. But, in numberless instances, we discern—in more we infer—a strong and sufficient ivhy. To go no farther than our own country, one cause lies heavy as an incubus upon the hearts of those who are conversant with vast cities, and the birthplaces and wild-beast dens for youth and age contained in them. The heroism, sometimes the Quixotism, of home-missionaries, both male and female, bears per¬ petual witness to this mournful reality. And, when we pass from the annals of the Poor into an atmo¬ sphere of what is called Kespectability, no one can help observing causes enough, and more than enough, for the spread and heredity of moral short-sighted¬ ness. We hear maxims, against which the better nature of the speaker must revolt. We see examples sometimes carelessly wicked, sometimes ingrained upon men’s lives by a long course of Indifferentism, and by the habit of asking “ What is Truth?” with¬ out any serious search for a reply. And we know that, just as moral epidemics pervade certain eras of IJ2 The Dextrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv. history,, (we in England need go no farther back than Charles the Second’s day,) so, too, Man’s individual proclivities to self-indulgent vice must at all times he frightfully contagious. Selfishness and sensuality are now, as always, like the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday. In our present imperfect state, Retribu¬ tion most frequently takes the form of sin punishing sin. Often a man’s or woman’s whole existence is wrong and wretched, themselves being judges. Some¬ times the children judge their fathers and mothers; more commonly they imitate their wicked example. And this, as we have observed, is at once a statute of Retribution written in the Old Testament, and a law of Heredity asserted and explained by the foremost of modern Biologists.. These facts considered, we might imagine that, in the lapse of ages, Morality must become extinct. But it is undying,—more tenacious of vitality than grains of wheat unwrapped from Egyptian catacombs, which even now produce their hundredfold in Devon¬ shire cornfields. Men, in their thoughts,, accuse one another; very often they accuse themselves ; often there is a contest as well as a self-accusation. “ That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”* “ There is another man within me, that’s angry with me, re¬ bukes, commands, and dastards me.” f Often the self-accuser proceeds to absolute self- condemnation :— * Romans vii. 15. f Beligio Medici,. Part II., sect. \