Sfrnm tl|f ffitbntru nf tl}t Htbrarg of Prinrrton Qlli^obgtral ^^mttiarg BL 51 .B8 Bryant, William McKendree, b. 1843. Life, death and immortality LIFE DEATH AND IMMORTALITY WITH KINDRED ESSAYS WIIvLIAM M. BRYANT, M. A., LL. D. INSTRUCTOR IN PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS ST. LOUIS NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOL THE BAKER AND TAYLOR CO. 5 AND 7 East Sixteenth Street 1898 Copyright 1898 By WM. M. BRYANT To The Rev. R. A. Holi^and, S. T. D. PREFACE. The essays comprised in this volume have de- veloped one by one during a number of years past. It will be found that all of them are really upon one common theme— the religious aspect of human na- ture. For the time being negative criticism of Chris- tianity as based upon the "Sacred Writings," ap- pears to have fairly exhausted its resources. And in doing so it has performed the very great service of preparing the way for further positive interpretation of the fundamental conceptions which constitute the core of the Christian doctrine as to man's nature and destiny. The studies here presented are offered as a contribution in the direction of such positive interpre- tation. Four of the essays, it should be added, have pre- viously l^een published in full — that on Buddhism and VI PREFACE. Christianity, in the Andover Review; the second, the ' sixth, and the last, (as well as part of the first) in the Ujiitarian Review. The last essay has also been printed separately as a booklet. CONTENTS. Pages. I. Life, Dkath and Immortauty 1-75 II. Oriental Rewgions 76-85 III. Buddhism and Christianity 90-145 IV. Christianity and Mohammedanism 146-258 V. The Naturai. History of Church Organ- ization 259-296 VI. The Heresy of Non-Progressive Ortho- doxy 297-317 VII. MiRACi^ES 318-368 VIII. Christian Kthics as Contrasted With THE Kthics of Other Rewgions. 369-405 IX. Eternity— A Thread in the Weaving of A Life 406-442 ERRATA. Of the misprints the following are those materially affecting the sense : Page 35, line 13 from above, omit not. Page 124, line 2 from above, for unit read unity. Page 208, last line (foot note), for 236 read 136. Page 225, line 3 from below, for lyrisin read lyricism. Page 278, line 5 from below, for resistance read existence. Page 337, line 5 from below, for motive read nature. Page 402, line 5 from above, for care read core. 1. LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTAUTY/ [FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.] 1. The Origin of IJfe. When it was suggested a number of years ago in one of the leading scientific assemblies of the world that the origin of life on the earth may have been due to the chance transmission through space of a pri- mordial germ wrapped up in a meteorite, a discovery of real significance appeared to have been made. All the world was duly notified. And apparently all the world was expected to be duly content thereafter, as if nothing further was to be said concerning the pre- viously much vexed question of the "Beginnings of Eife." The suggestion, as well as its ready acceptance by men of science, was indeed quite in keeping with an opinion more or less prevalent and which came to be formulated by the authors of "The Unseen Universe," to the effect that "it is not so much the right or priv- I ilege as the bounden duty of the men of science to put ^For a statement of the presuppositions of this essay the reader is referred to my volume: ''^The World- Energy and its Self -Conservation.'" 2 I^IFK, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. back the direct interference of the Great First Cause — the unconditioned — as far as he possibly can in time.'" What the Great First Cause could possibly "inter- fere" with or in, outside of its own legitimate domain, or what possible efficiency "the man of science" can or could have to "put back" such interference in time in any degree, does not seem altogether evident on first glance to the non-"scientific ' eye. Still less does it seem evident when one takes into account the full significance of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, upon w^iich the man of science, with ex- cellent reasons, lays so much stress. In non-scientific ages, when people had not yet learned to really think, but only gave loose rein to their phantasy, they saw nothing contradictory in the supposition that any given portion of matter might wholly cease to exist, or that the non-existent might become solid reality. But now everyone knows how experimental science long since awakened men to critical habits of thinking, and how the mind, once awakened to this state, finds it utterly incon- ceivable that something should become nothing, or that nothing should become something. Form or mode of existence may here and there change — nay, must ceaselessly and everywhere change. But that 'First Kdition, p. 131. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 3 the total quantity of Energy should ever change is utterly unthinkable. It may indeed be hnagined, for imagination is never troubled by a contradiction. But thought utterly and spontaneously repudiates contra- diction. And the more clearly the contradiction is recognized as such, the more is it seen to be some- thing absolutely and forever foreign to thought. The consistent alone can be received into the thinking consciousness and maintained there. The "man of science" then is bound to recognize, and indeed is constantly insisting, that the total quantity of Energy is changeless. Nothing can be added to it ; nothing can be taken from it. And if this be true of the total quantity of Energy it must be true of each one of its modes. Each is a mode of the total Energ3^ Each is the total Energy in one of its modes. So that if in any given locality a given mode of Energy increases in degree, it must be through a corresponding decrease in degree of the same mode elsewhere. Doubtless locally the various modes of Energy are interchangeable. The disap- pearance of heat as heat at any given point must ever be the obverse of the coming into manifestation at the same point of an exactly equivalent amount of light, or of sound, or of electric tension, or of expansion of a mass of matter, or of all these combined. But as a whole the total Energy must, in its very nature as an unchanging total, preserve each of its modes undi- 4 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. minished, unchanged in its total compass as a mode of the total Energy. But now assuming that the total Energy is forever the same, there is to be considered the further ques- tion : Can Energy be conceived scientific illy, can it really be thought as ever in any other state than that of total and complete activity ? And the only an- swer which the really thinking mind can make to this would seem to be that Energy cannot exist other- wise than as active. Its activity is its existence. Were it partially inactive, it would be partially non- existent. And thus if it could ever for a moment cease its activity in whole or in part, then it would in that fact cease to exist in whole or in part. So that the total Energy as changeless cannot be conceived otherwise than as changelessly active. That would seem to be the real meaning of the phrase: "Total quantity of Energy." And if so, then the Total Energy must be one and the same with the "Great First Cause," to the activity of which is due every phase of Reality. Whence it seems evident that the Great First Cause is a Power which in its changeless comj'jleteness is forever equal to itself in its activity, and hence also in the product of its activity. And if this is true, then it could not at some period "as far back in time" as "the man of science" can push it, have created a world and after- ward left it to spin on of its own accord, without "in- THE ORIGIN OF LIFE- , .5 terference," for an indefinite period following. Rather that same Great First Cause, whose creative activity was needful to give the world its existence at the "beginning," is not less needful, and perpetually needful, to maintain the world in its existence — as was long ago recognized and explicitly afhrmed by Des Cartes. "In truth," he says, "it is perfectly clear and evident to all who will attentively consider the nature of duration, that the conservation of a sub- stance, in each moment of its duration, requires the same power and act that would be necessary to create it, supposing it were not yet in existence ; so that it is manifCvStly a dictate of the natural light that con- servation and creation differ merely in respect of our mode of thinking."' Thus, whether we regard the phenomena of the w^orld beyond us or the phenomena of the world within us, we are driven to recognize the fact that "each order of manifestations carries wath it the irre- sistible implication of some power that manifests it- self. ""' And ultimately these manifestations are noth- ing else than modes of activity of the Total Energy ; or, to use a phrase of Mr. Spencer's, they are "modes of manifestation of the Unknowable."' But we have ^Meditations^ p. 48, trans. (5th Ed.) Edinburg. 'Herbert Spencer, First Principles, (N.Y. Ed.) p. 154. ''op. cit. p. 122. 6 LIFR, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. already seen that the Total Energy must be perpet- ually and totally active ; so that the "Unknowable," as in a state of perpetual and absolute self-manifes- tation, may just as well be named the Progressively- Knowable to the finite mind — the progressive aspect belonging solely to the finite mind as advancing in power to comprehend the changeless Total Power. In other words, the Great First Cause is not merely a chronological first. It is the first, last, only and eternal Cause forever self-manifested in the total round of Creation as its infinitely adequate Effect. Cause and Effect are in truth but complementary as- pects of the* same Total. Cause cannot be where Effect is not ; and where effect is there and in that very fact is Cause, open, manifest, revealed as pres- ent, active, actual and knowable. In short when one thinks, really thinks and does not merely follow the lead of his phantasy, concern- ing the Total Energy or Great First Cause, he cannot but see that, as applied to it, time has no meaning. For it there can be neither yesterday nor to-morrow, but only a changeless Now of absolute perfection. Within it every phase of change is perpetually pres- ent. If "here and now" there is a world in bloom, elsewhere and now there are worlds in the bud, and yet other worlds in the germinal state, and elsewhere still other worlds in fruitage, and again elsewhere worlds in decay. In the total round of the manifes- THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. . 7 tations of the forever self-equal Energy, the full range of Integration is precisely balanced by the full range of Disintegration, as Mr. Spencer might phrase it ; or if we use the symbols of Heraclitus, the Way Upward and the Way Downward are the unvarying reciprocals of the total, unchanging Process of Be- coming. In short if it be granted that the total Creative Pro- cess — that is, the entire range of activity involved in the conservation of Energy throughout space — is a process complete in itself and therefore absolutely un- changing, then all modes of existence must be per- petually represented in the total, ceaseless Result. So that, so far as appears, it would be just as well for the "man of science" to dispense with any further efforts to "put back" the activity of the Great First Cause in time, and, instead of this, to devote himself to lifting his own thought out of the forms of time into what Spinoza calls the "form of Eternity ;" so far, at least, as to recognize the presence and activity of that Cause in every phase of reality. And now to what does all this point respecting the "origin" of Eife ? Is it not precisely this : that Life itself is simpfy one of the necessary and hence per- petual factors in the total Process of the Universe ? In other words, the truth appears to be that Life, as a necessary phase in the total process of creative Intel- ligence, must be incessantly beginning and therefore 8 IvIKE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. an eternal fad. Thus, as in any given locality, mat- ter advances in this process "from the [compara- tively] homogeneous to the [comparatively] hetero- geneous," a stage of complexity must be reached in which the transition from the inorganic to the or- ganic is just as "natural" as at another stage is the transition from the state of fusion to the crystalline state. And so the exigencies of the case do not seem to call for the importation to our world of a primordial germ from the "void inane;" though it must be confessed that the conception of such wondrous voy- age of Life from world to world is a very picturesque one — rivaling more than successfully the celebrated Trip to the Moon on:e made by a well-kn^wji French- man with his two or three companions. It would seem indeed that "the man of science" should be the last to complain if the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy as unfolded in the general theory of Evolution is taken seriously and pressed to its logical — i. e. legitimate — ^conclusions. This, in truth, the man of science himself professes to do an:i not to complain of anyone else having done. And so, after having in one noted representative proposed the solution of the mystery of \\\t origin of Life by \\\t importation theory, he returned to First Principles in the person of another and declared that "matter" itself contains "the promise and potency of all terres- THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 9 trial life." All the world, it would seem, should be •astonished by so bold a solution of the problem. And for a little whila a considerable part of the world wis foolish enou2:h to be not only astonished but duly alarmed and even angered. And yet what does this latter solution signify but that scientific eyes recognize matter to be nothing else than a mode of Energy, a mode of the ultimate Sub- •stance which one may just as well frankly name the •eternal, divinely rational, creative Power. In fact, the "man of science" himself is coming to recognize, along with the theologian, that all these later discus- 'Sions concerning Energy are, in truth, but a widening and enriching of that conception which men have always held in one or another form, and which they have represented by some such term as "God." And so if it be said that matter contains the promise and potency of all terrestrial life, that can only mean, so •far as it means anything, that matter is but one stage or phase of the total creative Process leading up, with- out the least break of continuity, from the relatively inert, space-filling modes of the divine Energy, through living units that are still predominantly physical, to a spontaneous, divinely gifted unit, capable of tracing out the main threads of the whole wondrous Process and of living that Process over again, at least in a dim way, in his own conscious existence. The mystery of the Beginnings of Life, then, is no 10 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. greater intrinsically than the mystery which inheres in the beginning of a crystal. The same totality of Energy is required to explain the existence of the one no less than to explain the existence of the other In the one case indeed the unit is "organic," while in the other it is "inorganic." That is, the one per- forms certain functions requiring certain organs ; and the performance of these functions is itself a process necessary to the existence of the organic unit. The moment the process ceases that moment the unit ceases to exist as an organic unit — a fact which, it seems, Aristotle did not fail to notice. For he is re- ported to have remarked that a hand which has been, cut off has ceased from that moment to be a hand. It performs no function ; there is no function per- formed in it. It is no longer an organ and is thus essentially no longer in strict sense organic. It is simply equivalent to so much inorganic matter, as its dissolution or "decay" will speedily show. On the other hand, while the crystal comes into existence through a process, that process must be suspended if the crystal is to be preserved. So that the crystalline state is one of arrested process ; while the organic state is one of continuous process. The crystal is- preserved by arrest of the process which formed it. The organic unit is destroyed by stopping the process through which it has coaie to be what it is. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 11 2. The Significajice of Life. Thus we come to Mr. Spencer's definition of Life as the "continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations.'" It is not merely an adjustment; it is a coyitimwics adjustment. And this already gives to the living unit the unique characteristic of self-move- ment, of which characteristic, as Mr. Spencer de- clares, "the lowest animal and the highest animal present no contrast more striking than that between the small self mobility of the one and the great self- mobility of the other. "- In short, if we begin with the highest organisms, and if while tracing the whole series backward, we note the steadily diminishing degree of self-mobility, we must expect to find at length an insensible tran- sition from the unit having the least degree of self- mobility to a unit which is merely inert — which has no self-mobility at all ; and yet which has the pre- moyiition of self-mobility in 'its attraction for every other portion of matter. So that the appearance of the simplest living unit on the surface of a planet on which organisms had not previously existed, must be but the next natural stage of advance in complexity beyond the ultimate limit of heterogeneity in inor- ganic matter as such ; just as the advance in the com- ^ First Principles, p. 84. -Principles 0/ Psychology, opening sentence. 12 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. plexity of organisms from the lowest to the highest type is but a further manifestation of the same cre- ative Energy, the continuous activity of which can alone be conceived as sufficient to account alike for the beginnings, the continuance, and the develop- ment of Life— whether on this planet or on another, from which latter Life might in vivid poetic fancy be conceived as finding transportation to this, via the meteoric line. But Mr. Spencer's definition of Life presents us di- rectly with the terms of a relation which it seems im- portant to carefully consider The terms are : "inner" and "outer." Let us try to discover as precisely as we may the relation here involved. And first, the merely physical, the merely space-filling phases of existence appear to be justly characterized as purely external. Any given mass of matter is said to have its outer and its inner parts. But the mass may be divided ; and thus parts that were before regarded as "inner" now appear as "outer." And this possibility has no limit whatever in thought. No particle of matter can be so small but that further division is conceived as pos- sible. So that the "inner" parts of a given mass of matter must always be thought of as separable, as being side-by-side with one another, and hence as outside of one another. Hence however small the particles may be conceived to be in a given mass of matter, each particle is still "outer" or outside of THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 13 every other particle, aad thus in reality presents no phase that can be rightly regarded as "inner." Thus, secondly, we come to enquire what must be the nature of that unit which can rightly be regarded as possessing the characteristic of internality. And here again we may borrow a clew from Mr. Spencer, though it is not so certain that he would approve of the use to which it is proposed here to apply it. The clew is to be found in the distinction which Mr. Spen- cer makes between the "objective" and the "sub- jective." The latter is the ''world of conscious- ness." The former is the "world beyond conscious- ness," while both are "manifestations of the Un- knowable. ' ' ' Thus the physical is "objective' ' while mind is "subjective." Things are objective. Thought is subjective. And now as we have just seen that things, in the sense of those facts which we know as the "physical" world, are characterized by externality to such a de- gree as that they present no phase to which the term "inner" can be rightly applied, it would seem that if the term "inner" is to find any point of application at all it must find it in the subjective or thought world. And this seems the more reasonable when we reflect that as a matter of fact the term "outer" is ""First Principles, p. 156. It is interesting to observe, by the way, how, even in Mr. Spencer's own phrase, the Un- knowable, "manifests itself" — makes '\is^\i know7i. 14 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTAI^ITY. as little applicable to thought as the correlative term "inner" is to things. For thought cannot be conceived as having dimensions in space. It can be conceived only as an activity which may indeed have reference to objects occupying space, but which cannot itself be bounded by or in space. Indeed thought has certain modes that have no reference to space or space- related objects. It may be directed upon mind itself in any of its modes ; and manifestly in such case its interests are essentially subjective or inner. It is a definite unit definitely related to itself ; that is, its activity is not directed upon some "outer" object, but is concentrated within itself. Self-relation — that is the essential characteristic of mind, and self-relation proves also to be of the very essence of internality. Mind is the "inner" then, and is thus the antithesis of matter as the "outer." And yet it is important to note more explicitly that "outer" and "inner" are not merely antithetical terms, but rather that they are correlatives, and thus that either term in isolation must be wholly mean- ingless. The inner, if it is any phase of reality, must be the inner of the outer. The subjective is such only in immediate relation with the objective. We will not stop here to consider what possible other meanings might attach to the terms subjective and objective (as that in the use of certain German thinkers, where subjective means "arbitrary" o- THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 15 '''capricious ;" and objective means : universal, valid, true), but will proceed to follow out our newly found •clew in its application to Life. As the inner is the subjective, then inner relations must be subjective re- lations. And as outer is objective, then outer rela- tions must be objective relations. Whence it would seem that Life may be redefined as the continuous adjustment of subjective relations to objective re- lations. And if it be objected that this is inappli- cable to vegetal life, it is to be answered that the terms subjective and objective, like the terms inner and outer, are of varying degree, and that wherever there is a living unit, there also is to be found as the central factor of such living unit the quality of inter- nality or subjectivity. The more advanced the form of life the more manifest the characteristic of subjec- tivity is invariably found to be. Or, as Professor Hux- ley has said, "The lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows and reproduces its kind. In addition, all ani- mals manifest those transitory changes of form which we class under irritability and contractility ; and it is more than probable that, when the vegetable world is thoroughly explored, we shall find all plants in pos- session of the same powers, at one time or another of their existence."^ In other words the evolution of Life is the process 'Lecture on The Physical Basis of Life. 16 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. of the unfolding of intelligence in ever-increasingly adequate modes of conscious existence. And this is- shown in the premonitional stage by what Darwin has described as the Power of Movement in Plants^ and which Professor Gray has illustrated briefly in his little work entitled: ''How Plants Behave;'"' while it is substantially affirmed, in respect of the- more advanced order of life, in what is now a com- monplace of science : that the measure of superiority in an animal organism is the degree of complexity of its nervous structure, which is of course in its tunx the direct instrumentality of intelligence. And this, manifestly, is in perfect keeping with what was before indicated ; namely, that the various- phases of complexity in the inorganic world cul- minate in a state of matter, one further degree in the complexity of which must transform it into living: matter ; must evolve, through increased complexity of relations in the external, objective or physical as- pect of existence, the characteristic of the internal, subjective or psychical aspect of existence — the latter being destined, through unbroken continuity of the Process, to advance in adequacy until there arises a being of the highest possible type. And since intel- ligence is the mark of superiority (measured physi- cally by the degree of complexity of the nervous sys- tem as instrumentality of intelligence), then the "continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer re- THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 17 lations" must as a subjective process consist in^the advance from the vaguest phase of subjectivity or conscious existence to the most complex and ade- quate phase — from an amoeba to a Shakespeare. And that contrast which Mr. Spencer finds the most striking of all as between the lowest animal and the highest animal — namely, the contrast in self-mobility — is in truth essentially a contrast involved in the advance from the living unit which is predominantly physical to the living unit which is predominantly psychical. So that the system of Evolution, as Mr. Spencer presents it, appears to be in its most impor- tant aspects just an elaborate description of the mode ^in which man is ever to "struggle upward out of na- ture into spirituality," as Hegel^ had already ex- pressed it. And these utterances but reaffirm, each in its own way, that man was "made of the dust of the earth" — "dust" being, let us repeat, nothing else than one essential mode of the divine Energy. On the other hand the "outer" relations to which the inner relations are continuously adjusted in the process of life — what are they ? The living, the con- scious, the rational unit is unfolded through a con- tinuous adjustment of the inner or subjective rela- tions to those "outer" relations. Mind, the general type of intelligence, finds its realization in each indi- 1 Werke, 2te Auflage, X-, 120. 18 LIFK, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. vidual thinking unit through this adjustment, as it takes place directly on the part of such unit, and also in a still wider sense as the adjustment takes place in- directly on the part of the whole race. So that there must be some characteristic in these "outer" rela- tions which is after all quite like in nature to mind itself, since it is only by adjustment of itself to these outer relations that mind can become realized at all. And now when examined more closel}" the whole range of the "outer" relations constitutes, as alread}^ pointed out, a system, or as Mr. Spencer names it, an ' 'established order. ' ' ^ But this system or established order maj^- just as well be regarded — nay, cannot but be regarded — as the Method of the activit)^ which the perfect Power or eternally self-conserved Energy must ever exhibit in changeless self-consistenc3^ It is evident then that what constitutes the sum of relations which to each individual created mind are "outer," can hardly be anything else than the mani- festation, or utterance, or outer ance of the perfect Power in its consciously-pursued method. For, as al- ready intimated, the "outer" is in necessary relation with the "inner," — is, in short, just the outer of the inner. And when we consider these terms in respect of the total Energy, that which is "outer" to the finite mind proves to be nothing else than the ex- ^ First Principles^ p. 117. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 19 pressioii or complex mode of manifestation of the in- finitely manifold Thought of the divine Mind — of that ultimate Internality or Spontaneity which is referred to, often vaguely enough, as the "Great First Cause." It would seem then that this is the secret of the marvelous efficiency of these "outer relations" as stimulus and guidance for the indi- vidual created mind in its struggle upward out of nature into spirituality. At first indeed this struggle takes place blindly through vague instinct ; and yet at length it proceeds consciously through realized reason. It is thus that the living unit of the higher order adjusts its inner relations to the outer relations in the midst of which its evolution takes place. And this unit characterized by realized reason becomes in- creasingly capable of tracing through these outer re- lations the evidences of a subjectivity precisely like its own in nature, though also immeasurably differ- ent from its own in the fact that it is absolutely per- fect in realization. Even Mr. Spencer, with his in- sistent use of the term Unknowable as descriptive of the Ultimate Power, finds himself driven to a conclu- sion which would seem to be not far removed from that just reached. For in tracing the relation of the "faint states" to the "vivid states" of consciousness, he notes that states not self-produced, or, in other words, states not dependent upon one's own volun- tary activity, are inevitably associated with those 20 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. states which are so produced. Without voluntary activity I find myself experiencing states of con- sciousness which are like those following upon my own voluntary activity. And along with the former states there arise 'nascent thoughts of some energy akin to that which I used myself. "^ In other words, I cannot in reality conceive of Cause without con- ceiving of it as ultimately a conscious Power. I can- not get rid of the conviction that body, or the resist- ant, is in all its forms merely the medium, or rather mode, of communication between initial force and initial force — between mind and mind. In its fullest reality, then, life is a psychical process : a process which in its culmination consists of intel- lectual and moral activity. Always life is a con- structive process. And, in this highest range which we are now considering, it is a constructive process in which intellectual and moral characteristics are the chief factors concerned. The fixed order of the World, which is in fact nothing else than the Method of the perfect Power, precisely that is the sum-total of "outer relations" to which the thinking unit must adjust all its inner life if it would truly live. Rightly considered, then, this constructive process of Life, here regarded in its highest range of devel- opment as Life in its intellectual and moral aspects, ^Principles of Psycho loi^y, II. 475; cf. the whole chapter. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 21 is but a phase, though it be also the highest phase, in the unbroken process of Evolution. The Total Energy, forever self-conserved, cannot but ceaselessly unfold, and forever present in its own unchanging T« tality, every phase of this Process from the simplest to the most adequate phase possible. No factor can ever be wanting. The total change-pro- ducing Power is itself absolutely changeless : while within it, as 'phases of it, there must perpetually arise living units of each and every degree of com- plexity, from the simplest possible organism to that unit whose nature it is to advance out of the passive, dependent state of merely initial self-mobility to an ever-increasing degree of activity, of independence, of relatively great self mobility. And what in each unit begins as a self-mobility of the predominantly objective or physical type, changes more and more into a self-mobility of the subjective or psychical type. Thus in such unit the continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations rises by degrees into a more and more explicit adjustment of the intellec- tual and moral powers of such unit to what he pro- gressively discovers to be the fixed order of the world, the unalterable method of the Perfect Power — to the modes of the divine Thought as expressed in all forms of existence. It would seem, therefore, that Science, as the process by which man comes to 22 I.IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTAI^ITY. comprehend one after another of the various phases of the fixed order of the world, is in its highest signifi* cance just one essential factor in the larger process by which man as the highest order of living units is ever, and with ever-increasing success, adjusting his inner or psychical relations to all "outer" or physical relations ; while still further factors in the same com- plex process are found in the steadily widening range of commerce and manufactures guided by Science, and in the means to the cultivation of the best qualities in the individual which the social world af- fords in ever-increasing degree of wivSe elaboration. And the further this process advances with each in- dividual, the more evident must it become to him that the universal forms or modes of activity manifest in the objective world are after all precisely the uni- versal forms or modes by which he is to guide his own inner or subjective activity if he would make any advance in the scale of being. Mr. Spencer de- clares that : "If there are any universal forms of the non-ego, these must establish corresponding universal forms in the ego.''^ And why shall we not say more confidently that the universal forms or modes of the Total Energy, which become more and more evident to man as man advances in intelligence, are just those modes which are of necessity forever realized ^Principles of Psychology, II, 36^ THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 23 ill the Total Energy, and which man realizes .stage by stage in his own life ? for thus and thus only is the evolution of man in the highest sense to be ac- complished. That is the highest term of the adjust- ment of inner relations to outer relations. That is the supreme significance of Life. Let us dwell a moment longer on this point of in- creasing complexity of inner relations. We have already seen that advance in complexity of "inner relations" is essentially the same as advance in psychical qualities. Besides this it has also been seen that between the lowest animal and the highest ani- mal there is a striking difference in the degree of self- mobility. It is true that self-mobility in Mr. Spencer's statement has direct reference to physical activity. But it is also true that the statement is followed up with an elaborate representation of the functions of the nervous system as an agency in the production of physical movements. But the nervous system is, let us repeat, the direct instrument of in- telligence ; so much so that the grade of intelligence possessed by a given organism may be roughly meas- ured by the extent and complexity of its nervous sj^s- tem. Nor is this a lesson offered to Mr. Spencer; rather it is a lesson to be learned from him. Essen- tially then, self-movement proves, on final analysis, to be the same thing as what may be otherwise called psychical or spontaneous power — simple spontaneity. 24 I,IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. So that the extraordinary self-mobility of the inor? complex or higher animals, especially as represented in the highest example, man, proves to be of the ut- most moment to man himself. For it is the logical out- come of an increasing complexit}" of those inner re- lations which constitute the living unit in the highest sense of the term. And the central factor in this complex of relations is just i-^//*- relation, under the transfigured form of self-consciousness. For self- mobility that is transfused with self-consciousness can be (here we seem defiidtely to part company with Mr. Spencer), nothing else than self-deter- mination or Freedom. And the full significance of the conclusion just reached appears when it is recog- nized that self-determination is precisel)^ the central characteristic of the Total Energy, the "established order" of whose activity can be nothing else than its own consciously pursued, absolutel}^ self-consistent method of eternal Self realization. Whence it ap- pears that Life, and most of all life as it unfolds in humanity is the process leading ever toward perfect existence 3 . Death . It has been seen that Life is a constructive process, or a phase of evolution. We have now to consider Death as the inversion of Life, or as a phase of disso- lution. And first it is to be remarked that from the very definition of Life as a continuous adjustment of DEATH. 25 inner relations to outer relations, it is evident that in life itself there is involved a factor that is precisely the reverse of life. For a continuous adjustment implies a continuous need of adjustment which must arise out of a continuous undoing of the results of adjustment. Continuous integration implies contin- uous disintegration. And it is well worthy of note that in so far as these complementary processes are balanced in the same living unit there is continued freshness and vigor of life on the part of that unit. So that from this point of view, though death is in a certain sense the opposite of life, it is nevertheless also a normal factor in the total process of Life, and hence is after all not to be regarded as the mere in- version of life. In fact it is this ceaseless reconsti- tution of the individual living unit that makes pos- sible and also perpetuates that extreme flexibility, that extraordinary self-mobility, by which the living units of higher order are specially characterized. So long as life continues, then, death continues also as one of the necessary phases of life. Or, to quote again from Professor Huxley's lecture on the ^^ Physical Basis of Life'\- "Under whatever dis- guises it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless con- stituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died." 26 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. Only wlieu disiiitegratiou becomes predominant is the process of life really inverted and thus presently brought to an end. And with the ending of life death must also have completed itself, and hence must also end. Death itself dies when life ceases. Equally, too, on the other hand, so long as life con- tinues, death is present as a mode of transition from one to another phase of life. So that on this side death is nothing else than a mode of change in a living unit. As long as this phase is subordinated the living unit exhibits the characteristic of growth. When it exactly balances the constructive phase, the living unit just maintains its vigor unchanged. When it becomes predominant, disintegration of the living unit has set in. And this is true of the living unit in its highest aspect as an intellectual and moral unit, no less than of the living unit in respect of its merely physical nature. Indeed the living unit cannot be of a "merely physical" nature. On the contrary, as we have already seen, it must, in the very fact of being a living unit, possess also in some degree a psychical nature. So that in reality what has been said re- specting death already applies to all aspects of life, the psychical and the physical being but comple- mentary aspects of every possible living unit. Thus, as scientists are coming to recognize with perfect clearness, evolution looks both ways. There DEATH. 27 may be degeneration as well as progression. For death may be prolonged through many generations by mere degradation of type, or rather by degener- ation of the realized forms pertaining to a giveji type. And thus, though evolution may be said to look both wa\s, it is yet true that evolution in its normal as- pect is still, as Mr. Spencer has defined it, a progres- sive unfolding of reality, including living forms, and this always from the less to the more complex ; while on the other hand degeneration is in reality an in- version of this normal process of evolution — a going backward instead of forward, a mere retracing of steps that had previously been taken toward the ful- fillment of a given type. In other words, evolution, whether regarded as physical or as psychical, presupposes a definitely fixed type or types some advance in the realization of which must have been made before degeneration could possibly occur. And hence if one holds to the conception of the Conservation of Energy as in its highest significance the continuous, perfect, change- less, absolutely self-conscious Process of Creation, then there is after all nothing so very alarming, nor even anything so very absurd, in the view that these types are among the "pre-established," or rather the eternally-established "harmonies." Nay, Mr. Spen- cer's own theory of evolution implies this, as he him- self in the main concedes, while at the same time 28 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. giving it his own special interpretatiou/ What, in- deed, can the manifold t3^pes of existence be bnt just the special aspects of the faultless self-consistency of the divine Energ}^ in its changeless self-conservation ? Even as commonly represented, the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy clearly implies this. For if we may conclude from the relations of manifold "forces" to each other that they are in reality only so many modes of one all-inclusive Energy, then it seems equally legitimate to conclude concerning this all-inclusive Energy that it is the self-moved, spon- taneous, creative Power which forever manifests it- self in the infinitely manifold forms of specialized ex- istence. It is the total, unchanging Process of Self- differentiation in which integration and disintegration are forever exactly balanced. That, doubtless, is the "ultimate equilibrium" which the Energy consti- tuting the reality of the Universe does not "tend toward," as if that were an ideal unrealized, but rather the ultimate equilibrium, wdiich is the more certainly "ultimate," because it is forever mai?i- tained in the changelessly complete self-manifestation of the Perfect Power. - ^Principles of Psychology, II, 195. -There is surely nothing unwarrantable in regarding this inference as being no less truly within the range of the knowable than there is in regarding the inference that all "forces" are necessarily the complementary modes of the DEATH. 29 Thus death in its normal aspect is necessarily in- volved in the very life of the Universe as a whole. It is the phase of dissolution necessarily involved in the perpetual Process of self-renewal. Is it not reasonable to regard this as the w^ay in which the Universe is forever maintained in perfect maturity, and yet also in the freshness of a newly-unfolded cre- ation ? And here let us again remind ourselves of the fact : That this total, self-conscious Process is the ultimate Type of every thinking unit ; the type, therefore, toward the fulfillment of which the unfold- ing of the intellectual and moral life of such unit must ever tend. Equally true is it that any mode of activity on the part of such unit that does not tend toward this fulfillment is abnormal — is death in the sense of self-dissolution. And because, as being in- finite, the type is absolutely fixed, there can be no variation in the central law of its evolution. Doubt- less individuals and races differ in degree as well as in mode of the realization of this Type ; but the ulti- mate Type itself, toward the realization of which in greater or less degree, all normal life is a struggle, is in its very nature something wholly unchangeable. one truly persistent "Force" or Energy. On the other hand, it certainly is unwarrantable to infer, from the fact that re- lations are everywhere manifest m knowledge, that there- fore one must accept the relativity ^/knowledge as the ulti- mate goal of thought. 30 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. But thus the individual thinking unit, struggling toward the fulfilment of this Type, must find his nor- mal life a perpetually expanding one. Integration must ever predominate over disintegration. Com- plexity and specialization must be ever on the in- crease, and death as the form of change must thus ever be a subordinate factor. Let us note then just what the disintegration will consist of in such normal life. In the first place, in such growing, expanding unit, there will be on the intellectual side a progressive discovery of the in- adequacy of views that had previously been adopted as satisfactory ; while, secondly, in respect of the will it will be discovered that motives which had been unsuspectingly followed cannot be reconciled with higher interests. And again, sentiments which had been entertained and cultivated without doubt of their excellence, will prove incompatible with a well- balanced life. Such views must be modified ; such motives must be subordinated ; such sentiments must be purified. And thus the individual dies to one class of interests which he finds in their outcome to be narrow and unsatisfying, and yet in the very same process discovers that his life is expanding and be- coming enriched through attainment to larger views and nobler motives and purer sentiments. It is thus that, along with Paul, all men sincerely devoted to right-living "die daily." Nay, in the communal DEATH. 31 life also, death is an essential factor. Society in all its phases is ever passing through Death into more adequate forms and modes of lyife. But the very fact that the individual thinking unit belongs to that type whose central characteristic is "self-mobility" of the highest order — that is, power to choose its own course and mode of activity — this very superiority of man's typical nature makes pos- sible also an abnormal life on his part. At best such individual unit is but imperfectly developed intellec- tually, and hence he is liable to error. So also he is but imperfectly developed morally, and hence he may prefer a present good of a lower order to a de- ferred good of a higher order. In either case his de- velopment must be impeded ; and there can hardly fail in such case to result also the disintegration in greater or less degree of the intellectual and moral qualities he has already attained through the normal life he has hitherto led. Thus, to use the ancient phrase in a modern way, "sin enters into the w^orld, and death by sin." It is the irrational, self-contradictory deed that con- stitutes "sin." For "sin is the transgression of the law" in this sense : That the "law" is just the ideal or typical nature of all thinking units. It is there- fore at once the divine nature, and also the true na- ture of man. And this divine nature, as constituting the "law" which man must obey in order to become 32 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. in reality what he is in type or Ideal cannot be dis- regarded or "transgressed" by him without involving him in self-contradiction. For the typical Self is the true Self of each and all such units. And self- contradiction is the process of self-dissolution, of self- destruction. It is the process of death abnormally developed into the zV/version of life because it is the />^rversion of life. Moral death is but another name for moral self-contradiction. And this is the abso- lute justification of that seemingly strange saying : "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." A life of sin is simply a prolonged death. Thus death, especially moral death, is seen to be a process always more or less prolonged. It is scarcely conceivable that the vitality of so complex and highly constituted a unit as the human soul could be quenched in a moment. No single act of self-contra- diction could do more than turn the tide of life back- ward. Only a prolonged course of self-contradiction could even so much as threaten the utter dissolution of a living unit belonging to the highest type. And this brings us to the question whether it is really con- ceivable that such utter dissolution can ever actually take place. 4. Immortality. It would seem then that the question whether if a man die he shall live again, may be given a more hopeful form. And that form is : Whether in re- IMMORTALITY. 33 spect of man's essential nature as a thinking unit, death can ever be more than transition from one to another grade of I^ife — whether so complex a living unit as man can ever wholly die ? To this question the answer has in part been an- ticipated in the foregoing discussion of the nature of life and the significance of death. We have seen that Life is a constructive process. We have also seen that in the continuous adjustment of inner re- lations to outer relations which this process is other- wise described as being, there is necessarily implied the characteristic of spontaneity. Even at its lowest grade life is characterized by "'self-mobility," and this quality increases in complexity and in positive significance with each higher grade in the scale of living units. Indeed, it is this characteristic more than any other that measures the degree of advancement to which any living unit has attained. For the "inner" relations, as we have seen, are in truth the same as subjective or psychic relations. It is intelligence with its accompanying moral qualities that consti- tutes genuine internality. The inorganic world is the world of externality ; or, if one will, it is the world of Reality in its aspect of extent, while Intelli- gence in the range of its significance is the same world of Reality in its intensive aspect. So that in the advance from the inorganic, through the various 34 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. degrees of the organic, to man as the highest or- ganism there is a gradual transition from those aggre- gates of mere "matter" which are wholly destitute of self-mobility, through the automatic phases of self- mobilit}^ manifest in the lower organisms, to the unit in which consciousness has expanded into reason, and in which self-mobility has thus attained its highest type. This unit is indeed a bundle or com- plex of "inner relations" that has become unfolded into an organic whole, the dominant characteristic of which is 5^^- relation. Such unit is self-conscious. It examines itself, criticises itself, condemns or ap- proves itself, and thus shows itself to be its own measure. Mind alone can measure mind. And now as to the nature of mind something also has already been ascertained. Chiefly it has been noted that this self-examining unit can discover no absolute limit to its own development. It can con- ceive of an infinite Mind, and can also conceive of it- self as progressively unfolding its own powers to in- finity. So that there can be no difference in kind between this self-examining unit and the perfect Mind of which it conceives. It is also true, as has been shown, that the perfect Mind can be no mere abstract Ideal which the self examining unit projects from its own phantasy ; but rather such perfect Mind can in truth be nothing else than the aspect of perfect self- consistency and therefore of perfect self-conscious- IMMORTALITY. 35 ness necessarily pertaining to the eternally self- conserved Energy. This indeed is characterized by internality or spontaneity in the highest degree ; and the universe in space can be nothing else than the perpetually complete utterance or ouieraiice of that perfect Mind as the absolutely spontaneous, self- moved, all-inclusive One beyond which there is no realit}^ whatever. I trust that no apology need be offered for further strengthening this phase of the argument by refer- ences to what in such connection will doubtless prove to most readers an unexpected source. It is indeed jiOf''fairly certain that Mr. Spencer himself would re- pudiate the claim that such an inference as the one just arrived at can be legitimately drawn from his writings. And yet there are numerous passages which might be cited in justification of the claim. Nor can I help thinking that the real drift of his sys- tem is in this direction. For example, in discussing "the perception of resistance," he declares^ that we can know nothing of any other order than the order of thought. And again' he says : "To frame a con- ception of force in the non-ego different from the con- ception we have of force in the ego is utterly beyond our power. " And this statement, it seems to me, can have but one meaning, which is : that the inca- ^Op. cit. II, 233. -Op. cit. p. 239. 36 I.1FE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. pacity we discover in ourselves to form such concep- tion is due to the fact that the non-ego is only the outer mode of the ultimate Ego — the et-ernally self- conserved Energy — whose fundamental nature is re- peated in the fundamental nature of each and every thinking unit throughout Creation. But still further, the whole process of evolution as directly affecting man tends to confirm the same view. After referring to the structure of the eye be- fore birth and pointing out the necessary implication thus presented of heredity with reference to the life afterbirth, he declares^ it to obviously follow "that objective necessities of relation in space are repre- sented by established nervous structures implying latent subjective necessities of nervous action ; that these last constitute pre-determined forms of thought produced by the moulding of Thought upon Things ; and that the impossibility of inverting them, implied by the inconceivableness of their negations, is a reason for accepting them as true, which immeasurably transcends in value any other reason that can be given." But "Things" are simply modes of the Total Energy. They can, in short, be nothing else than the outer exoression of the fixed order, the method, the Thought of that "Persistent Force" or divine Energy to whose activity all reality owes its Wp. cit., II, 420. IMMORTALITY. 37 being — in whose activity all reality inheres. Nay, our "reasoning itself can be trusted onl}' on the as- sumption that absolute uniformities of Thought cor- respond to absolute uniformities of Things "^ And on the other hand, as we must insist, such "absolute uniformities of Things" can be nothing else than the perpetual manifestation of the "absolute uniformities" necessarily inhering in the Perfect Thought or self- conscious Method of the Total Energy. Whence it follows that the whole process of man's evolution is only a continuous adjustment of his inner or psychic relations to the "established order" of relations which the divine Thought exhibits in the whole range of man's environment — i. e., in the universe. Doubtless also one factor in the cause of the increasing complexity of psychic qualities exhibited b}^ man is to be found, as Mr. Spencer claims, in the cumulative effects of inheritance. But this appears to me to in- clude the phase of self-mobility in the sense of self- determination or power to choose a course of conduct - either consistent with or contrary to the "established order" of the world, which is also, let it be repeated, the divine Type of every spiritual unit, and hence the divine Type of man. It is thus the evolution of man's freedom no less than the evolution of his intelligence. It is an inherited power-to-do no less than an inherited ^Op. cit., II, 426. 38 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. power-to-think. The individual responds to the ac- tion of the environment — at first automatically, no doubt ; and yet the resp07ise is a reactio?i which be- comes more and more manifestly spontaneous or in- itiative until it becomes an explicit, conscious, intel- lectual and moral response to the appeal of the per- fect Intelligence as manifested in the whole range of Creation. What else is Science than the eager re- sponse which man is ever making to the divine Thought, which is ever appealing to man through the outer forms or uttered modes oi the perfect Mind ? The more we insist upon the doctrine of Evolution the more are we bound to accept its legitimate and inevitable intimations. If man is what he is by descent, it must be borne in mind that he can inherit only what his real ancestry has been, and is, capable of transmitting. And that "ancestry" necessarily includes as its first indispensable term the great First Cause itself. Man as mind can descend only from that which itself is Mind. "The inconceivableness of the negation" of this, as we may well say in Mr. Spencer's phrase, "is a reason for accepting it as true, which immeasurably transcends any other reason that can be given." And Mr. Spencer cannot logically protest. But now, to resume, if there can be but one type of mind, then the individual thinking unit, which may be said to constitute the extreme term of integration IMMORTALITY. 39 in the total process of Evolution, must, as already shown, be possessed of precisely the same typical na- ture as the perfect Mind itself. And in this identity of nature on the part of all conceivable minds there is implicit the answer to the question whether death can mean utter dissolution for man as a thinking unit. For on the one hand the identity in nature of all minds must mean that each thinking unit is in its typical nature infinite. The degree of its present re- alization may be ever so slight, yet because it be- longs to the same type as every other mind and there- fore to the same type as the perfect Mind, it may rightfully claim for itself the full import of its infinite ideal nature. Nay, it cannot divest itself of the full import of that nature, and hence it can neither escape the duties nor abrogate the privileges pertaining to that nature. Even in self-perversion it is exercising its inalienable privilege and power as an independent being. At the same time it is to be noted that such ideal nature cannot be his even as an ideal or typical na- ture unless there also belong to him the full round of conditions for the ultimate fulfilment of that nature. But because his ideal or typical or true nature is in- finite, and because he can accomplish its realization only by progressive, finite stages of development, then evidently man must by his very nature be des- tined to live without end. For in no less than in- 40 I.IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTAIvlTY. finite duration can he complete the realization of his own infinite nature. If in every case Life is a con- structive process, then for man whose life in its essen- tial nature is of the highest type of self-mobility and whose typical nature is infinite, Life must signify nothing less and nothing else than an infinitely ex- tended constructive process — a process of self-develop- ment, the full import of which is .nothing less than this : that it constitutes the constructive realization in his own personality of the divine nature common to all thinking units. On the positive side this would seem to be the an- swer to the quCvStion whether man is by nature im- mortal. But on the negative side there remains the question whether by persistent self-contradiction man can ever actually accomplish his own utter extinc- tion. And here also in a measure we have already anticipated the answer. For we have seen that death is in truth nothing else than the phase of transition from one to another degree of life. In the life of the advancing individual death is present in due subordi- nation as the elimination of factors no longer tending to increase the individual's vitality. Whenever a factor ceases to be constructive and becomes obstruc- tive, death as a necessarj'- phase of life dissociates and removes such factor from the organism. This is true even in the merely physical oiganism. And when we consider the intellectual and moral IMMORTALITY. 41 life then the spiritual organism with its vastly greater complexity, and especially with its immeasurably superior self-mobility, presents the aspect of death in still more perfect subordination as a phase pertain- ing to the total development of the individual. Here, as we have seen, death is simply the progressive, conscious, voluntary elimination of inadequate views, of lower motives, of less worthy sentiments, through the very process of the gradual clarifying and extending of knowledge, the strengthening of the will, and the centering of the affections on nobler objects. On the o'her hand the individual may, through error or through deliberate choice, pursue lower in- stead of higher aims. Instead of following a course of activity consistent with man's typical nature, and which must therefore prove to be a constructive pro- cess for him, the individual may pursue a course of activity which contradicts man's typical nature, and which must therefore prove to be a destructive pro- cess for the one who pursues it. But this is still a process. It is the inversion of the process of life. And it is not to be denied that the inverse process.appears in general to be the swifter of the two. Disintegration is more rapid than inte- gration. And if the process of death as the mere re- versal of the process of life is the more rapid, then death as the utter extinction of life, not only for the 42 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. individual but also for the race, would seem to be perpetually threatened. Indeed it would seem fairly inexplicable that life should be maintained at all, es- pecially in the moral sphere where there is constantly recurring hesitancy and frequent error in judgment, constant struggle and frequent failure as against the lower motives, constant division of the affections as between worthier and less worthy objects. But though in general the phase of self-dissolution may appear to be more rapid than does the construc- tive aspect of life, yet the question may well be con- sidered : Whether after all there is not a more or less radical difference in the ratio of the movement in the two cases. Progress of the morally constituted indi- vidual means constant increase in complexity of realized power. And such increase in complexity of realized power can only mean that with each stage of his advance the morally constituted individual pos- sesses not only a wider range of view and a clearer comprehension of the right method of his own self- development, but that he has also increased facilities and means for accomplishing his self-development. So that his advance should be by a ratio which is it- self constantly undergoing increase. And this view appears more evidently to be the true one when we consider the multiplication of the aids to individual development through the combi- nation of man with man, through that extension of IMMORTALITY. 43 the constructive process of life which we know as social life in the widest sense of the term. A single illustration must suffice. The invention of the steam engine was an exercise of intelligence with immediate reference to the emancipation of man from mere physical drudgery. Or, if one will, it was with direct reference to the more rapid accumulation of wealth. In either case there is increased means for the intel- lectual and moral advancement of individual men. In the one case there is increase in the proportion of time during which the individual may use his ener- gies for the expansion of his own higher life. In the other case there is increased means for the enriching of the individual's life. But the invention of the steam engine necessitates a vast expansion of intellectual life in another way. The makers of engines and the masters of engines must be men of trained intelligence and also of moral self-restraint. And this is only the beginning. For the steam engine opens the way for the fullest effi- ciency and hence for the utmost perfection in struc- ture and in rapidity of use of the printing press. And this not merely nor mainly in the matter of mechani- cal perfection of the press as worked by the power of steam, but also and much more because of the rapid and extended diffusion of the products of the press. And again this opens a way to use information col- lected from day to day from all parts of the earth. 44 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. The steam printing press demands the telegraph, and the telegraph in turn gives to the daily publications of the press their widest value. But this also ripens the demand for universal abil- ity to read. The steam engine and the printing press and the telegraph and the railway lead inevi- tably to the primary school. And schools multiply the demand for books — ^^for all the products of the press. It is thus that intelligence presses upon in- telligence, ever stimulating intelligence, ever multi- plying means and methods for its own further ad- vancement. Nor is this all. For this intellectual advance car- ries with it inevitably a corresponding moral advance. The very publicity given to any unusual deed of the individual is a strong stimulus to the doing of praise- worthy deeds, and an equally strong restraint as against deeds that are certain to be condemned. The newspaper is the daily register of the universal con- science, and thus the conscience of the individual is strengthened and constrained more and more to adapt itself to a rational course of conduct. And beyond this again the criticisms and comments of the press are as a rule uttered with a view to securing the ap- proval of the general conscience. So that there is going forward a ceaseless process of the enlightenment and strengthening of individual consciences, the re- sult of which in turn must inevitably be the gradual IMMORTALITY. 45 elevation of the average or general conscience. And this extends to all publications. One man writes a good book. Another man prints thousands of copies of it. Tens of thousands of other men are made bet- ter by reading the book. Thus each rational deed of each rationally disposed man connects him with all other rationally disposed men and makes him strong with all their added strength. The reader can easily extend the illustration in- definitely and add others at will. Sufficient has been said to indicate the self-multiplying power of a rea- sonable life And this in turn emphasizes the rea- sonableness of the belief that the existence of a unit possessing this truly divine quality cannot be utterly destroyed by any other means at least than persistent self-contradiction. And one may well inquire whether, even so, the persistence in evil doing must not be continued to infinity before utter self-destruction could be actually completed. But the immediate question we have now to con. sider is : Whether the process of self-annulment can, like the process of self-development, be self-acceler- ating and hence self-continuing? And in seeking the answer to this question it will be well not merely to recall the fact already noted : that disintegration is often observed to take place with greater rapidity than is the case with growth, but also to carefully 46 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. consider what are the ultimate tendencies in the neg- ative process. Before proceeding with this particular question, however, it may be remarked that there is strong in- timation of the truth in the generally recognized fact that the more complex the tj^pe the greater the inter- val between birth and maturity ; while on the other hand, maturitj^once gained, death as dissolution must in natural course inevitably follow at a period more or less remote as the period between birth and maturity is greater. The ephemera is born, attains maturity, and again by the inverse process reaches decrepitude and death, all within a day. Man as a physical being occupies many years in attaining maturity, while the process of his decline and dissolution also runs through many j^ears. But in either case the type is finite. It is therefore certain to be fulfilled in natural course and as certain to undergo dissolution in the case of each individual embodiment of the t3^pe. In its very nature the physical unit cannot be immortal. Indeed the most dreadful of all imaginable conditions for such unit would be just the incapacity to die — as is vividly represented in the Greek legend of Tithonos, the human husband of the goddess Eos, who secured for him the boon of immortality, but thoughtlessly failed to include in her request that this should carry with it eternal youth. In short, no living being save one whose typical nature is infinite, could be immor- IMMORTALITY. 47 tal. And for such unit death as utter dissolution must be no less unnatural than immortality would be for the unit whose life is essentially physical. The type of the latter is finite. Such unit must therefore complete the period of its growth, must thus lose the gift of youth, and must inevitably fall into the feebleness of old age, culminating in complete disso- lution. On the other hand the being whose typical nature is infinite can never actually attain to maturity in the sense of complete fulfilment of its typical na- ture, and hence the period of its growth, the period of its youth, can nether reach a natural termination. And now we ma}^ return to the question whether for such unit the period of growth can ever reach an unnatural and utterly final termination. And the special form which this question has already taken for us is : What are the ultimate tendencies in the pro- cess of self-annulment on the part of a being whose real nature it is to be immortal ? At the outset it is evident that if the process of disintegration should continue with even undiminished ratio it must speedily result in the utter dissolution of any finite unit ; and much more must this be the case if the ratio be in- creased. What then is the fact ? It has already been pointed out that for the indi- vidual as an intellectual and moral unit disintegration and growth alike result from a course of action which the individual himself chooses. Intellectual and A 48 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. moral growth results from a chosen course of conduct which is consistent with the ultimate ideal nature of all thinking units. Intellectual and moral disinte- gration results from a chosen course of conduct that is inconsistent with that ultimate ideal nature. But in either case the power actually exerted by the indi- vidual is the concrete result of what has been rea- sonable in his own life thus far. If that power is still reasonably used it must increase. If it be used unreasonably it must by that very fact be diminished. In the former case the capacity for further activity is increased and rendered more complex. In the latter case it is diminished and reduced in complexity. It thus appears that with every self-contradictory act of the individual his total power to perform further acts of a7iy kbid whatever is thus far diminished. And this necessarily implies that his power to per- form further self-contradictory acts is made less. Whence it is to be concluded that the further the in- dividual proceeds in a self contradictory course of conduct the narrower becomes the reality of his life ; and not only so, but the less also must his power be- come to further reduce that reality. So far then from there being an increase of ratio in the self-destroying tendency of a man considered as an intellectual and moral unit, it appears that in the very nature of the case the ratio necessarily diminishes IMMORTALITY. 49 with persistence in a self-contradictory course of con- duct. And the meaning of this can scarcely be mistaken. For though with progressive self- annulment the indi- vidual approximates toward what on first view seems but the necessarily logical result of such course — namely, his own actual utter dissolution and loss of identity — yet in this very process he becomes less and less capable of persistence in any definite course of action whatever ; becomes less and less real as an in- dependent, choice-making unit, and therefore be- comes more and more dependent upon his environment. And as this environment is real, and as some phase of good must therefore constitute its nucleus and sus- taining factor (for the good is the only ground of reality), then there is necessarily a residuum of in- fluence for good in the environment, however low in grade the immediate environment may be. And that residuum of good must tend to prevent the individual from sinking below the grade of existence represented by his immediate environment. And not only so, but the more dependent he comes to be upon this environment, that is, the further he has progressed in self-annulment, the more com- pletely must the factor of good in his immediate environment prove to be the phase of power which he depends upon. And as he is thus at length seen to be dependent upon, and hence to be thus far under the 50 I.IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. influence of some phase of Reason, which is but another name for the Good, there must be a point in his progress toward self-annulment below which he cannot sink without exercising a definite power of choice in opposition to the phase of Reason which constitutes the core or central factor of reality in his environment. And yet the farther he has advanced in self-annulment the less is the actual power o choice he possesses to resist the influence which the rational element in his environment brings to bear upon him. On the other hand the fact of his responding at all to that influence shows clearly that some shred of Good still exists within him answering to the exhaust- less Good above and around him. Only in so far as he is good is he real. And onl}^ in so far as he is real can he perform any deed whatever, whether good or evil. The good alone is persistent. Evil cannot so much as bear the appearance of reality save through some phase of the Good being temporarily perverted. The ultimate divine Energy is in its very nature all- pervasive. Omnipotence cannot be withheld from it even in thought. So that no thinking unit, how- ever degraded, can utterl}^ escape from divine, re- storing influence, save through utter annihilation. And this, as we have seen, cannot be accomplished save by persistence in self-contradictory deeds even after the individual's power has so far approximated IMMORTALITY. 51 to nullity that further persistence in the same course must thenceforward imply an increased exercise of power to choose as against the restraining and re- storative influences in his environment. And yet with each additional self-contradictory deed his power to choose must be still further reduced. Whence it would seem that utter self-annulment must forever remain impossible. But habit — have we forgotten the fairly resistless force of habit ? What then is habit ? To this it may be answered that habit is definiteness of tendency to- ward a given course of conduct. It arises from repe- tition of like acts, is strengthened by such repetition, and hence by such repetition is perpetuated. Doubt- less it is also true that the cumulative effects of these repetitions of like acts are inherited. But this again presupposes only so much the more certainly that the order of the environment is absolutely fixed. For only so can habit, as one phase of the continuous ad- justment of inner relations to outer relations, be pre- served. Indeed habit in the higher sense constitutes the concrete form of self- consistency. And this is itself the highest term of that definiteness and consistency of conscious life which originates from a prolonged course of activity in unison with the established order of the world. But were that order changeable, then with each change the habit thus far developed must tend to the destruction rather than to the preservation 52 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. of individuals possessing it. And the more matured the habit the more certain the destruction. Indeed the whole history of the evolution of life on the earth gives continuous illustration of this fact : that the more definitely an individual living unit is adjusted in its essential characteristics to one special set of conditions, only so much the more is it by that very fact doomed to perish when the conditions become radically changed. Nevertheless it is to be borne in mind that this change of conditions within a given locality is still but the manifestation of what in a wider range is the changeless order of the world or universe. And the higher forms of life give proof of their greater self-mobility and wider range of devel- opment by their continuous adjustment of themselves to the fixed relations of Energy as these relations are progressively unfolded in the advancing complexity of the local conditions of life. It is precisely this continuous conformity of the individual to the fixed relations of energy exhibited in his environment, that constitutes the essential condition of continuously ex- panding life on his part. And it is precisely this same steady conformity of the individual as a think- ing unit to the rational order of the moral world that constitutes what are called "good habits;" while a persistent course of activity in opposition to that or- der constitutes what are known as "bad habits." IMMORTALITY. 53 The former course is self-constructive ; the latter, self-destructive. And here etymology, though often a dangerous guide, may for once help us. Habit is from habere^ to have. On the rational side then it means that the individual has certain definite, consistent, rational modes of activity ; that is, modes of activity by which the individual is more and more fully conformed to the fixed order of the moral world. On the irrational side it means that certain more or less gross, irrational desires have the individual; desires which, followed out, bring the individual into more and more pro- nounced collision with the fixed order of the moral world. This is the real demonic "possession." And this can have no other result than the individual's own undoing. Good habits then are modes of power, while bad habits are modes of weakness. They show, not what the man is, but what he is not. The bad habits are the ones we "fall" into. The good ones are attainable onl}' through an upw^ard and more or less prolonged struggle. Whence it appears that, after all, the question of habit falls within the larger question of the general development of the individual which we have already considered. If now we summarize the results thus far reached respecting immortality, it would seem that on the positive side man's nature necessarily implies his im- mortality because of the highly complex constructive 54 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. character of his essential or spiritual life, and also be- cause his typical nature is infinite ; and that also on the negative side his immortality is fairly insured, because from his very nature as a being possessing the power to choose his own course of action, the tendency toward disintegration which is necessarily involved in the choice of an irrational course of con- duct must rest upon itself and ultimately annul itself. And this annulment of the tendency toward disin- tegration on the part of the individual must ever take place before the annulment of the individual is effected ; and this because of his increased depend- ence upon the element of Good in the environment as he approaches nearer and nearer toward the final term of disintegration. The individual thus remains as an indestructible unit whose central characteristic is : Power to choose his own course of action — the only restriction upon this power being that from his very nature the indi- vidual cannot so far misuse it as to bring about its utter destruction, so far as to effect the individual's own utter annihilation. But it is also to be observed that so far as he persists in choosing an evil course of action, the divine within him is changed inevitably into the demonic. The individual who refuses to advance through rational deeds toward Godhood chooses by that very fact to become or remain by so far an anti-divine power — a "devil." And, so long IMMORTALITY. 55 as this choice continues, by just so long must his anti-divine character continue, even though it be to eternity. He cannot attain annihilation, but he can choose the never-ending death of self-perversion. The persistent evil-doer transforms himself more and more into the moral deformity of diabolism and builds about and most of all within himself the hell of self- contradiction. Thus the law of everlasting punish- ment is rather the everlasting law of punishment, which, being interpreted, is : " Whatsoever a ma7i sows that shall he also reap, ' ' One further remark suggested by etymology may be added. The word "individual" has come in course of history to be nearly equivalent to the word "person. " Nevertheless it is in fact simply an exact translation, through the I^atin, of the Greek word atom — "that which cannot be cut or divided. " But the word "atom" became fixed in its significance during the period of Greek speculation as to the world in its physical aspects ; so that it serves very perfectly the needs of modern science for a term ex- pressive of those smallest divisions of matter which occur in chemical reactions. On the other hand the word "individual" became fixed in its significance through the influence of Christianity, the latter hold- ing up to view the spirituality of each human being and insisting upon his indivisible, inextinguishable nature, and "his ultimate right to the complete fulfil 56 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. ment of the infinite destiny involved in that nature. Thus the word "individual" is found in modern forms of speech as the name of the ultimate social unit or element. Already with Democritus the term "atom" as- sumed a kind of transfigured significance. The atom was described by him as an eternal, independent, self-moving unit, which became aggregated with others into larger wholes rather by accident than otherwise ; these larger wholes in the nature of the case being always temporary. It would seem that in all this — unconsciousl}^, doubtless — Democritus was but presenting, under a universalized image con- ceived as eternal, the fundamental characteristic of Greek life — Individualism. That was the quality which the Greeks so jealously guarded against all those influences tending toward tyranny that have come to be classed as Asiatic. And it is no wonder that, in the first great struggle for personal libert}^, an extreme view should be arrived at as to what per- sonal liberty really consists in. Thus the Individual in isolation, as a unit complete in himself, beautiful and worthy of eternal admiration, even though it be but in his outer form preserved in marble — that was their Ideal, which they still further transfigured into a multitude of gods, each also serenely perfect in his eternal isolation. It is true that a fatal defect lay at the heart £>f this conception ; and even the Greeks immortai.it Y. 57 themselves at length became aware in greater or less degree that in spite of their divinity such gods are still finite gods, and therefore doomed to final over- throw. On the other hand, in the Roman world the subordi- nation of individual man to the law, as the expression of that larger personality consisting of the State, already constituted a stage in the process of educating man up to a rational conception of his universal and infinite nature. With Christianity this infinite nature was explicitly announced, and each man, each human being, was declared to be in his own person an Indi- vidual — an indivisible, imperishable unit. That was henceforth to be regarded as the one veritable ' ' atom , ' ' the one genuine monad in all the universe, the changeless type of perfect Godhood unfolding through the ages in each and every human soul. And inst^-ad of saying that Christ "brought life and immortality to light," it might be more precisely descriptive of the fact to say that Christ brought life as immortality to light, in the sense that he was the first to show that life in its highest significance, life in its intellectual and moral phase, already involves the indestruct- ibility, the immortality, of such living unit. It is this view of immortality, shadowed forth more or less vaguely in the creeds of all races, that has be- come clarified and expanded in the minds of the more thoughtful, until at least the clew to its ultimate sig- 58 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. nificance has been fairly attained. And the process of bringing this Ideal into fulfilment for each indi- vidual has become more and more apparent with each succeeding age. Not by isolation and self-deprivation, but by participation in the universal Life, through science, through all honest work, through the social organism in all its forms — only thus is the life of each to be rendered concrete, real, truly rational. From having been abstractly idealized and figured in the form of the gods among the Greeks, man is now seen to have ever been little by little under- going transfiguration into a richer, nobler life that proves him to be ever more and more worthy of rec- ognition as himself "God manifest in the flesh." 5. Resurrection. (A Corollary'). If God were not manifest in the flesh — that is, in space-filling modes of existence — he would not be God. For, as ultimate, self-conserved Energy, God must be manifest in all modes of existence. In Him the subjective and the objective aspects of existence must be forever perfectly balanced. Thus Schopen- hauer's epigram^ — "No object without a subject is the final refutation of all materialism" — presents an essential truth, but a truth so expressed as to make it seem one-sided. It therefore requires the comple- mentary form : "No subject without an object is the '/?/> Welt als Wille und VorsteUimff. I, 35. RESURRECTION. 59 final refutation of all mere idealism" — that is, of all idealism that assumes to dispense with a world in space. For mind, as we have already seen, is inner, subjective, spontaneous power, and can be conceived as in process of realization only through the medium of an outer, objective, passive instrument. Thought, to be real, must be manifest, must be expressed, must be embodied. The inner necessarily implies the outer ; the subjective is meaningless apart from the objective ; the spontaneous finds its complement in the passive ; power is powerless without instrumen- tality. ' Whence it follow^s that the more adequate and con- sistent thought is, by so much the more complex and extended, by so much the more perfectly adapted to the uses of thought, must the embodiment be. Ad- vance of thought is inconceivable without a corres- ponding advance in the physical media of thought. Perfect Thought can only be conceived as perfectly expressed. And "perfectly expressed" means : abso- lutely j^^-expressed. ^Of course this is not to ignore the further and subtler meanings of the term "objective." It is only the most im- mediate, rudimentary view that recognizes nothing as '*ob- jective" save that which appeals directly to the senses. Images formed in the mind and appealing directly to the im- agination constitute the next higher sphere of objectivity ; while relations which present themselves to — more strictly speaking, in — reflective consciousness constitute the third and highest sphere. We apprehend the "objects" of the senses ; we contemplate the "objects" of the imagination ; we comprehend the "objects" of thought. 60 I.IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. To this view, indeed, science is ever adding definite confirmation. In the field of comparative psychology there is no fact more clearl}^ established than this : that advance of intelligence is invariably accompanied with a corresponding advance of mass and complexity of nervous organization. Nay, advance in complexity of structure, especially as corresponding with advance of intelligence, is true of the whole external form of embodiment. At the one extreme is the amoeba with lis pseiidopodia which it thrusts out from time to time from its tiny undifferentiated mass. These serve alike as improvised organs of locomotion and of seizure, being withdrawn again into the mass when a particle of food is obtained. At the same time the food-atom sinks gradually into the mass of the little animal's body, which becomes folded gradually around the food, and thus constitutes for the moment a simple organ of digestion. At the other extreme is man with his complex structure, having specialized organs of locomotion and of seizure, as well as a jointed skeleton and a vastly elaborated muscular, respiratory, circulatory, digestive and, above all, nervous system, all serving to bring him into contact with his envir- onment in endlessly varied ways. And from the one to the other of these extremes there are innumerable multitudes of organic forms, presenting in the whole range a fairly unbroken continuity of advance in RESURRECTION. 61 complexity of structure corresponding to the advance in complexity of intelligence. And here we may profitably refer again, however briefly, to the identity in type of all minds. As Mr. Spencer seems very clearly to recognize, and as he in one place^ at least explicitly states : ''There must be some form of thought exhibited alike in the very lowest and the very highest manifestations of intelli- gence." It is true that his statement is made while definitely looking backward from man to the lower animal organisms. And yet, logically, it is and can be none the less true when looking forward toward any and all possible grades of intelligence above man, as man is known upon the earth. As already so often insisted in this essay, there can be but one type of mind. There can be, and unquestionably are, end- lessly varied grades of realization of that type. Doubt- less there may be and are in reality not merely indi- vidual but also national "strains" or variants from the type. But such variants, persisted in, cannot fail to result in "arrested development. ' ' Persistent vari- ance from the type means self-contradiction, means death. And it may be remarked by the wa)^ that the ever-widening process of intercommunication between individual and individual, between nation and nation, between race and race, has for its chief value the edu- ^Principles of Psychology , II, 398. See also p. 475, already referred to above, p. 20. 62 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. cation of humanit}^ — the leadi7ig-out of minds from the dwarfing influence of merely local relations into the enlarging influence of genuinely universal re- lations. It tends towards mutual inclusion, intellec- tually, of all men ; towards prolonged national growth, and hence towards the elimination of national death. And now let us note some of the conclusions that appear to follow from what precedes. In the first place, we are met by the truth which presents itself at every turn, that the ultimate Energy is to be re- garded as just the Perfect Mind, and hence that as such it must be perfectly manifested or embodied. Nor is this anything else than the obverse of the statement that, regarded as space-filling Energy, its activity must be shown as the unfolding of a perfect method ; which again means nothing else than that the "Persistent Force" or Energy of the Universe is the one all-inclusive, self-unfolding Power conscious of itself in all its modes. Secondly, it would seem that we may legitimately draw the conclusion that not only has there been a gradual increase in com- plexity of embodiment through the various advancing grades of intelligence from the ai7tceba to man, but that as further stages are reached in the advance of mind there must still be a corresponding advance in the complexity of the instrumentalities through which mind is embodied and realized. Nor is this without its confirmation in human his- RESURRECTION. 63 tory. Not merely is it that the sense-organs of man seem yet to be undergoing development in complexity and delicacy. But with every stage of intellectual progress man has shown his creative capacity by in- venting new instrumentalities for the accomplishment of his constantly multiplying purposes. On the side of man's physical needs this is familiar enough. While man's merely natural phj^sical organism was the only embodiment of man as struggling intelli- gence, he could do no more than creep, snail-footed, from place to place and must depend upon the spon- taneous productions of the soil for his subsistence. Danger of starvation stimulated him to the discovery of implements of agriculture, as danger of being him- self devoured stimulated him to the discovery of weapons or instruments of defense. And with grow- ing intelligence these instrumentalities have been multiplied and increased in complexity and efficiency 'to an extent such that even here we have a fairly ac- curate measure of the enormous advance made by human intelligence since the first appearance upon the earth of a creature that could in any way be rightly called man. But still more evidently has man's embodiment in respect of his intellectual needs become greatly ex- tended, though here too the new instrumentalities constantly reach across and serve as means for satis- fying his needs in the physical sphere, just as inven- 64 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. tions on the latter side are themselves the expression of growing intelligence. The steam engine is an ex- tension of man's hands. It is an added organ of seizure, of manipulation, of mami-iactnre. It is also an extension of his organs of locomotion, and at the same time a multiplication of his power of transpor- tation. The telegraph system is a vast net-work of merves, reaching out to every part of the earth's sur- face, and thus organically connecting each man's inner life with the lives of all other men. The print- ing press is the medium for the ever-renewed em- bodiment of all that is vital in human thought. The telescope, the microscope, and the 'spectroscope are but added organs of vision by which man is able to penetrate ever more and more deeply into the truths of nature. These and endless other instrumentalities that man has shaped show how the embodiment of intelligence may be indefinitely extended, and also show how the extension of the embodiment follows inevitably from the extension of the intelligence itself. As man's com- prehension of nature increases, so his power over na- ture grows. Knowledge of nature has displaced the fear "of nature. The mystery of nature has given place to the ministration of nature. The overwhelm- ing forces of nature have ceased to be worshiped, and instead have become the secure and efficient agencies of human will. RESURRECTION, 65 Is there any absolute limit to this process ? That such should be the case can scarcely be believed. Mind is ever the same in its typical nature. Its modes of development cannot possibly contradict one another. The same general process of mental evo- lution must go forward in the same general course. The power of individual mind over the physical aspects of existence must ever be on the increase. And death, as we have already seen, is but change or transition from one to another mode of life. Man as a thinking unit has for his normal, essential life the expansion and intensifying of his intellectual and moral powers. These powers, too, have constant re- lation to the external or physical aspects of existence. The more matured his powers become the greater is man's ascendency over the merely physical and ex- ternal phases of reality. Man first adjusts himself to nature in the sense of tracing out the method of nature. And that, let us repeat, is the same as tracing out the manifestations of divine Thought in nature. On the other hand, however, in proportion as this tracing of the divine Thought is accomplished, man finds himself able to adjust nature to himself in the sense of controlling the forces of nature in such wise as to shape physical masses into instrumentali- ties, through which in turn those forces may be ren- dered efficient in the furthering of man's purposes in the present world. 66 LIFK, DEATH AND IMMORTAI^ITY. Doubtless it is true, as Mr. Spencer urges, that man is just the logical culmination or highest pro- duct of nature. His powers, his tendencies, his passions, are what they are through that measureless process of evolution which w^e can dimly trace back through countless ages to an undifferentiated nebulous mass indefinitely diffused through a space far exceed- ing that marked out by the present limits of our solar system. But it is also true that, while we may thus trace back the process through which man has be- come what he is, to that aspect of existence in which (as the first law of motion practically asserts), there is no trace of self-mobility, yet through this same process which has such beginning there is seen to have developed a phase of existence in which self- mobility constitutes a definite, positive characteristic. Nay, this special quality had no sooner appeared in a given unit than it proved to be a characteristic mark- ing off of such unit in a wholly new w^ay from any preceding unit within the condensing nebulous mass. And the further this special quality became developed the more radically is it seen to have separated the unit possessing it from the inert forms of the inor- ganic world. For intelligence and self-mobility prove to be but different aspects of one and the same essential characteristic. The more definitely special- ized intelligence comes to be, as intelligence, in like degree does the power of self-movement become more RESQRRECTION. 67 defiuite. Nor may the factor of heredity be disre- garded or lightly esteemed. There seems no good reason to set aside the long-established though vague conception, which Mr. Spencer has more definitely formulated, that the accumulated experience of count- less generations becomes organic in succeding individ- uals ; that the power to distinguish between objects that do not serve for food and those that do, between objects that are to be desired and those that are to be feared, becomes ever more precise ; that the corresponding power of appropriate self-adjustment on the part of the unit thus affected must increase in precision and efficiency of exercise ; and finally that out of such mere instinctive self-adjustment has arisen the phase of self-adjustment that comes from conscious calcu- lation Thus it appears that in its higher aspects self- movement, though in so large a degree organic through inheritance, is, after all, an inherited power ^ which the individual finds himself capable of using iyide- pendently in his own self- adjustment to his environ- ment. And thus the further the process of evolution extends the more significant does the power of self- movement become. So that one may w^ell agree wuth Mr. Spencer in the statement that there is no con- trast between the lowest and the highest organisms more striking than this. It is through this power, in- deed, that man as the highest organism is able to 68 IvIFK, DKATH AND IMMORTALITY. control with ever-increasing efficiency the very forces of nature out of which he has arisen. It is thus that he is enabled to make nature shield him against nature. It is thus that with increase of intelligence he proves to be an ever-expanding power, reaching out through nature and moulding it into an ever- increasingly complex embodiment of his intelligence. And once more ; since nature presents itself as nothing else than the outward form of an infinitel}^ complex and faultlessly rational process, faithful, consistent and unwearying reaction upon which is the indispensable primary condition of the develop- ment of human reason — since this is the undeniable fact we are driven to recognize that the inner Sub- stance and vital principle of Nature is actual and ab- solute Reason ; and that thus the arising of man out of nature is in deepest truth the wa}' of his descent irom the primal world-forming Reason. That is the true "descent ot Man." And man's self-adjustment to nature is but the elementary phase of the total pro- cess of his own self-unfolding, the highest term of which consists in never-ending practical self-assim- ilation to the likeness of the primal world-forming Reason. Primitive man — including the child of modern man — is crude, unrealized as man. Hence is he in that fact alienated from God. Civilization, culture, religion — these constitute the way of his re- turn to God. RESURRECTION. 69 It is to be noted, too, that man's increase of power over nature is manifest in another significant way. The extension of man's embodiment is an extension of his efficient energy without increase in the cum- brousness of the physical aspect of his own per- sonality. In other words, extension of man's em- bDdiment means simply extension of instrumentali- ties under his control — of instrumentalities that can be taken up and put down at pleasure. Thus man's eavironment becomes gradually trans- formed into man's embodiment — into more and more perfectly specialized instrumentality, serving the purpose both of his self-manifestation and of his further growth as a living unit of the highest order ; as a living unit possessed of intelligence and self- mobility so matured and interfused as to make cer- tain the unlimited extension of his existence. But increase of intelligence means increase of power to apprehend and finally to comprehend in ever greater degree the "established order" of the universe. In other words, it is increase of power to trace out and more and more adequately think the Thought of the Perfect Mind, as that is forever mani- fested in the Universe ; while increase of self- mobility is increase of power to adjust oneself to that order, to live in harmony with the law of Reason, which is the law of all genuine Reality. Intelligence is power to know the Truth. Self-mobility (or will) 70 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTAI.ITY. is power to live the Truth. And as these two as- pects of living units expand into their fuller signifi- cance and rise into their maturer forms in man they constitute the vital characteristic which may well be named Freedom. For if Freedom has an}^ meaning at all, it can be nothing else than this : Conscious, glad conformity to Reason — that is, to the "estab- lished order" of the world. And from this definition of Freedom it ma}- be that Mr. Spencer himself would not seriously dissent ; though a hasty reading of his chapter on "The Will," can hardly fail to lead one to infer that w^e w^ould dissent very emphatically. And yet that "freedom of the will" which he and others regard as impossible appears rather to be that immature, merely instinctive phase of will commonly known as wilfulness or caprice, which of course is self-contradictory and hence not free ; while in its proper significance the will is free or it is not zuill at all. For, as already indicated, each concrete will is an evolved power which in its very nature implies freedom. Indeed, as Hegel has remarked, "Will without freedom is an empty word." And if one re- calls Locke's subtlety that the will, being a power, cannot be free though man as the agent possessing the power is free,^ Hegel again furnishes an answer quite in keeping with the doctrine of evolution (for ^ Of the Hmnan Understanding. Book II,Ch.XXr,Sec. 19. RESURRECTION. 71 Hegel himself was a most thorough-going evolu- tionist), to the effect that "the difference between thought and will is merely that between the theoreti- cal and the practical attitude [of mind]. Indeed there are not two powers. Rather the will is itself a special mode of thought. It is thought translating itself into practical forms of existence.'" Thus the conclusion to which the foregoing argu- ment has led seems not only in accordance with the truth, but also to be the legitimate outcome of the doc- trine of evolution as a whole, even as formulated by Mr. Spencer himself. And now let us see what bearing all this may have upon the question of the "Resurrection." As com- monly understood, the doctrine of the Resurrection -has passed out of notice among thinking men, as a curious piece of symbolism belonging to an unen- lightened age. And yet the more carefully the symbols of earlier ages are examined, the more they are found each to involve some shred at least of truth. Is this symbol of the resurrection of the body an exceptional one ? We have only to refer to what precedes to find an answer ; and, I cannot but think, the true answer. Mind is, as we have seen, no less unthinkable apart from its manifestation or embodiment than is the ^Philosophie des Rechts. 8,33. (3te Auflage). 72 I^IFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. latter apart from the former. Mind and matter are the two complementary, absolutely inseparable fac- tors of the totality of Existence. And along with this we have also seen that death is but transition or change — that in such a being as man it is but transition from one to another phase of life. And finally we have seen how with every advance of in- telligence there is necessarily a corresponding in- crease in extent and complexity of embodiment. Is it conceivable, then, that in the very progress of the modes of existence there should at length be reached a stage at which death should prove to be a sudden transition from a state of expanding embodiment to a state of literally no-embodiment for the mind ? And what indeed could the latter state be but a "state" of utter annihilation — a complete severance of the indi- vidual from all relation to the modes of manifestation of the divine Thought ? If what is called the "future" life is really to be Life, it must be a continuance of the spiritual exist- ence of man ; that is, a continuance of the exercise of those intellectual and moral powers (or rather modes of power), by which alone he can be conceived as im- mortal. And so far as these powers are realized in any given unit they imply a corresponding range of control over material forms of existence. Not, of course, that such unit can be conceived as having in any slightest degree a power to alter the laws of na- RESURRKCTION. 73 ture, to change the "established order" of the world ; but that through knowledge of those laws he may- take advantage of them and b}^ conforming to them may still secure the accomplishment of his own ra- tional purposes through them. And those purposes can be essentially nothing else than the further ex- pansion of those same intellectual and moral powers through a continued search after the Truth as ex- hibited in the infinitely varied forms of Reality, inter- fused with a like continuous effort to conform in all the modes of the individual life to the Truth thus dis- covered. And as this implies the constant association of growing mind with growing mind it necessarily also implies the existence of appropriate and indispensable media of association — that is, some kind of embodi- ment. But also, as increase in intellectual and moral power means increased capacity to mould nature in- to the appropriate embodiment of the individual mind, so it would seem reasonable to conclude that through the whole range of existence of the indi- vidual thinking unit there must be a continuance of the same process which we now see to be going for- ward ; the process, namely, of extending the range of embodiment of such unit along with the expansion of its inner reality, and of rendering that embodiment more and more delicately and subtly adapted to the individuaPs needs. Does not the continuity of Life 74 LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. aud its modes warrant us in drawing this inference from our observations and experiments in the only field where we can actually study the nature of mind and the modes of its advancement ? Thus far it would seem reasonable to draw a posi- tive conclusion. The progress of individual minds each toward the fulfilment in itself of the one typical nature of all possible minds must be by a method as unalterable as is the type itself. But if we attempt to picture to ourselves precisely what will be the form or series of forms of the em- bodiment that will suffice for the needs of a given thinking unit in its successive stages of advancement, then we find ourselves wholly at a loss. The general conditions of the Life after Death — and that can of course mean nothing else than the continued life of the individual thinking unit after the dissolution of the present form of embodiment — can be thought out, because those conditions join on to what we already know concerning the nature of the individual think- ing unit. And we may also fairly conclude that, the more advanced the life of such unit becomes, the more extended and complex must its embodiment be- come also But just for that reason it is wholly im- possible to anticipate what the precise form of the em- bodiment may be at any given stage. Nevertheless one further inference at least seems reasonable, though this is on the negative side. It RESURRECTION. . 75 is, that with the increased vitality of the individual thinking unit there can scarcely fail to be less and less dependence upon any one specific form of em- bodiment ; just as with the expansion of the life of such unit it can hardly be doubted that increased multiplicity and delicacy of forms must be demanded to supply the widening range of instrumentality to a power whose growth in extent and complexity has no conceivable limit. Finally, as everyone knows, ''resurrection" means, etymologically, a "rising-again." And this presents an ultimate, transfigured meaning that is essential and valid. It is this : With every sincere, consistent effort, Man — he who thinks — rises out of a narrower into a wider life ; rises from a less worthy into a worthier existence ; rises out of his merely "natural" or predominently physical range of interests into the sphere of spiritual interests — interests which are, in truth, to so highly endowed a unit, still more natural than are the physical. And so Resurrection proves to be a name for that perpetual process through which, stage by stage, man becomes in reality what he is in Ideal or Type. That is, in its most vital significance, Resurrection is an eternal factor in the life of Man the immortal. It is / the never-ending process of the transfiguration of Man as the eternally begotten Son of God. J 11. ORIENTAIv RELIGIONS. Religion is a process. It is the mode of activity by which the individual spirit strives to bring itself into harmonious relation with the highest Power. It is the vital process of the spiritual evolution of man. It is primarily the concentration of the ener- gies of the soul upon interests assumed to be of a per- manent character. The objects of religion are "things eternal." These pertain to the inner life of man, and come at length to be sharply contrasted with "things temporal," with the changing phases of the outer world of space and time. Thus, religion in its essence stands in antithetical relation to all that is external and formal. At the same time, religion can attain realization in the life of man only through the association of man with man. Man gathers some faint intimation of the Divine through his relation to the physical world about him, but most of all does man discover his re- lation to the Divine through his relation to his fellow- man. But these relations are expressible only through external signs. Nay, the very process by which man discovers his true relation to the Divine, and unfolds that relation in his own life, must inevi- ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. 77 tably give proof of its vitality in outer signs or forms. And just so far as the life of the individual is bound up in the life of the community, by just so far must the forms expressive of the individual life be the forms expressive of the communal life. But these outer forms are thus nothing else than the modes by which the inner expresses or manifests itself. So that in the progressive unfolding of re- ligion, in the process of the spiritual evolution of man, there cannot fail to be a progressive modifica- tion of the outer forms in which this inner, vital evolution is made manifest. Forms are, as it were, something non-essential, in which, nevertheless, the inner, essential energy of the spirit gives proof of its truth and vitalit3^ They are the indispensable modes, and yet the temporal, transitory modes, of what is true and eternal. This spiritual evolution of man is, besides, the ren- dering explicit or real in man what was at first only implicit or possible for man. It is a work, too, which, with whatever of divine aids, man must ever perform for himself. And these divine aids are available to man precisely in the degree in which man is himself able to seize upon and independently make use of them. Hence, the beginnings of re- ligion, like the beginnings of all things in the history of man, could not be other than vague and feeble. It is, then, by no means to be wondered at that the 78 ORIENTAIv RELIGIONS. working out of his own salvation by man should necessarily involve a vast degree of fear and tremb- ling on his part ; and this, especially, in the earlier stages of the process. For in those stages man can only vaguely surmise the true nature of the Divine, and can onl}^ grope about in the darkness for the method by which he can attain to a relation of har- mony with the Divine. It is this initial stage that is especially illustrated by the religions of the Orient — a fact proven beyond controversy by abundant documentary evidence now easily accessible. In what follows, an attempt is made to indicate the essential elements and funda- mental phases of the development of the initial stage of religion. In Oriental religions, everything is vague and im- plicit. No clear distinction is developed in them be- tween the inner and the outer. The spiritual is still inextricably involved in the natural. Consciousness is not yet definitely unfolded into conscience. It has just been seen that the outer expression must of necessity correspond to the inner spirit. Hence, vague conceptions can never find utterance in any- thing else than in forms correspondingly vague. But such vague forms rather hint at than express the spirit that blindly struggles up into them. They are, then, at best only signs, premonitions, symbols of ORIENTAI, RELIGIONS. 79 what the yearning spirit vaguely feels, and yet is wholly unable tb comprehend or clearly think. This initial phase of the spiritual evolution of man has been called the "childhood of religion." It is, however, no less truly the religion of childhood. Nothing is clearly thought out by the child, the typical "primitive man." On the contrary, every- thing is to him wholly miraculous ; that is, quite in- comprehensible, and hence a perpetual occasion of wonder. At first, doubtless, no clear distinction is made be- tween the symbol and the thing or idea symbolized. On the contrary, the vague sense of a superhuman Power finds its expression in all the objects of the outer world. But most of all does this vague sense of the superhuman find its appropriate embodiment in just those phases 'of nature that are themselves most vague and intangible. It is by no means strange, therefore, that primitive religions seem invariably to find their basis in the primal distinction which constitutes the condition of vision — the sense through which the individual re- ceives so large a proportion of his impressions of the outer world. That distinction is the one between light and darkness. These opposite conditions of his life come and go, primitive man knows not how. He has, of course, not the slightest suspicion that light as illumination and darkness as obscurity are 80 ORIENTAL REI.IGIONS. but states of his own mind. Whence he can but re- gard them as real existences, quite external to him- self, and having power immeasurably superior to his own. The light comes, and brings him gladness ; the darkness comes, and fills him with terror. He greets the coming of light with praise and thanks- giving. He shrinks from the darkness as from a gigantic power that had slain the kindly divinities, and would bring nothing but evil to man. It is of no little significance, too, that the word "divine," found in so many modern languages, is traceable to the old Aryan root, deva^ which meant "bright." The devas, the gods, were the "bright ones. ' ' And the most exalted worship of the men of the early world was offered to the sun, to the dawn, to the diffused, all pervading light of the sk}^ So, also, the lightning, and all forms of fire, were revered as "divine." Even the sky itself, visible by means of light, high above all, one and serene, was from the remotest times an object of worship. At the same time, it is evident that all this is ex- tremely vague and general. Or, in more technical phrase, thought itself, in its very nature, possesses the characteristic of universality. Hence, the simplest act of worship, as itself expressive of a thought, must have in it something universal. And yet, at this initial stage of worship, the object of reverence is ap- prehended only superficially and in ver}- inadequate ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. 81 fashion. As thus seized, the universal nature of the object of worship is still abstract. The Truth, doubt- less, is always infinitely concrete and real. But man, unable to comprehend the Truth in all its ful- ness, seizes from time to time upon some one simple, universal phase thereof and brings that into special prominence. Thus there is formed an abstract or in- adequate view of the Truth. Nevertheless, continued exercise of thought must have the effect of deepening and enriching man's consciousness of the Truth. And, as a matter of fact, we find that man began at a very early period to notice analogies between the outer light of the sun and the inner light of consciousness. Light came from without, but it also sprang up within. Thus already there was discovered a point of identity be- tween the human and the "divine." The result was inevitable and far-reaching. The "divine" beings, the sources of light outside of man, the sun, the dawn, came at length to be looked upon as possessing the characteristics of consciousness and will. Hence, worship could not but become more definite ; and prayer, the offering of the inner thought, must con- stitute an ever-increasing factor, and tend more and more to displace the outer factor of physical sacri- fices. This process involves another element also. It is this: Just as the rising sun brought gladness and re- 82 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. lief from the terrors of the night, so the reappearance of the father of the family after his wanderings in pursuit of game or an enemy could not but bring a sense of illumination, and drive away the vague ter- rors and sense of defencelessness experienced during his absence. Whence, just as the attributes of hu- manity must inevitably be sooner or later assigned to the sources of outer light, so, on the other hand, the characteristics belonging to these sources of light cannot fail to be assigned, sooner or later, to the strong man whose presence brings security and whose absence causes gloom and dismay. Nor can the final departure of the strong man in death be thought of as anything more than a departure. How- ever vague the form of the belief, the fact of the be- lief remains that in some way the strong man still lives and dwells, though now invisibly, in the midst of his people. And, just because of the indistinct- ness of view regarding the new mode of existence of the now invisible strong man, the imagination easily and inevitably represents him as having grown im- measurabl}^ in power for good or for evil. He is hence to be propitiated, worshipped. The dead man becomes a living God. But this perpetual intermingling of human attrib- utes, on the one hand, with the attributes of physical force, on the other, has also the effect of separating certain specially striking phases of force from their ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. 83 ordinary modes of manifestation, and of personifying them as gods in human form. Thus, while the sun was at first vaguely worshipped as a "divine" or lumi- nous, joy-giving being, the light itself came at last to be spiritualized in human conception ; and this spiritualized light, conceived of as possessing a hu- man form, comes at length to be worshipped as a god of enlightenment rather than as a god of mere physi- cal illumination The most striking example of this is that of the old Aryan conception of the sun as the bringer of day gradually becoming transfigured into the conception of the god of intellectual clearness and moral elevation. It is in this sense that Apollo comes at last to be worshipped among the Greeks. And this worship formed the strongest element in all that was noblest in Greek life and character. It is to be observed, however, that the first vague form of this transformation of the natural into the spiritual in the estimation of men is found in the wonder excited by the fact of life in general. Man can only interpret the facts of the world about him by referring those facts to his own consciousness, to his own personal experience. As his own move- ments are inseparable from his own life, so primitive man could not do otherwise than conclude spon- taneously that whatever moves also possesses life. Nay, in his imperfect, uncritical view of himself and his limited world, he can neither suspect that move- 84 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. ment is separate or separable from life in any respect ; nor can he suspect that life is an3^where different in kind from his own. If the sun, or the wind, or a cloud, or a river moves, it must do so because it chooses to move. And still more must a tree, or a bird, or a serpent seem not onlj' a living being, but also a conscious, thinking being, possessed of a will. Is not the tree a creator of fruit ? Does not the bird by its power of flight transfer itself at will to and from the invisible world ? Has not the serpent power over life and death, as well as miraculous gift of movement ? Such, doubtless, is the clew to the otherwise strange fact that primitive man worshipped all objects of na- tvre indiscriminately, as embodying the mysterious, divine principle of motion. That principle he rightly interpreted as necessarily implying life and conscious- ness, though he failed to comprehend it in its truth as an evidence of the one living, conscious Energy that constitutes the unifying principle of the uni- verse as a whole. Here, too, is found the clew to the way in which the doctrine of transmigration grew into form. If life differs from life, not in kind, but only in form and degree ; and if the life manifested in a given form is still permanent as life, while the form in which it is manifest is evanescent — then a given unit of life maj^ take on an indefinite series of forms lunning through all the grades which are ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. 85 in any way adaptable to life. Hence, a living unit that is now a man may, through former periods, have been an eagle, an antelope, a tiger, a fish, a serpent, a worm. Nor is there any hindrance to his becoming hereafter a god. The worm and the god are but op- posite extremes in the at once upward-rising and downward-sinking scale of life. This is the special characteristic of Oriental re- ligions. Brahmanism rises to the figurative repre- sentation of a unifying principle of all things. Brahm is all. Hence, all is identified with Brahm. This is especially emphasized in the conception of the iden- tification of man with Brahm through the Brahman, the deified man. But it also appears in germ in all primitive faiths in the worship paid to ancestors. In Buddhism, also, transmigration is an essential thread. In this faith, which sets out with ignoring the idea of the existence of a God or gods in so far as worship is concerned, the culmination is reached in man himself becoming a god. That is, man reaches absolute perfection in an abstract universal existence by sinking into Nirva7ia — the indescribable state. To the western mind, indeed, this means non- existence ; since whatever is real must manifest itself to the reason as possessing qualitative and quanti- tative differences or distinctions within itself. And the richer the reality, the more positive and multi- form those distinctions must be. But the Real thus 86 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. manifested is precisely what appeals and must ever appeal directly to reason, and is hence compre- hensible and utterable. The absolutely unutterable is the absolutely non-existent. The Oriental religions, then, present a confused representation, in which everything is divine, in which all is God ; that is, the fundamental charac- teristic is pantheism. But, as man cannot be content with mere passive awe and vague wonder in presence of physical light, so neither can he rest in the mere impression that there is something divine in the principle of life. His own spontaneous nature must impress itself upon the objects of his worship. His vague consciousness becomes enriched and invigorated and defined through centuries of spontaneous activity. And while, in the first vague universality of his consciousness, man was content passively to contemplate the divine in the objects of the surrounding world, he must, with an unfolding and deepening consciousness, be led at length to a more or less definite struggle to construct for himself his own expression of the universal and divine truth which he deeply felt and dimly saw in the world. Thus arose monumental symbolism. It is, above all, in Egypt that this phase of the Oriental spirit is found in its culmination. It has often been said that the Pyramids are a proof of the overwhelming tyranny ORIENTAL REIvIGIONS. 87 of the Egyptian kings, on the one hand, and of the abject submission of the Egyptian people, on the other. A truer view, however, must bring to light the fact that the faith in immortality symbolized in those huge monuments was the faith of the peoole no less than of the king ; and the nation doubtless toiled willingly to give monumental utterance to a sentiment pervading the inmost life ^f the whole people. Doubtless their toiling was directly an ex- pression of simple obedience. But the king was the more v/illingly, the more spontaneously obeyed for the very reason that he commanded precisely that work the accomplishment of which was also im- plicitly demanded by the deepest convictions of the whole nation. But the final, culminating symbol to which the Oriental consciousness gave rise, in its struggle at once to state and to answer its questionings concern- ing the nature of the Divine, and the relation of man to the Divine, was the Sphinx. One of the earliest of Egyptian symbols, it is incessantly re- peated throughout the whole life of the Egyptian people. Even the huge Sphinx of Gizeh, constructed before the beginning of the Memphite dynasty, was at the outset dedicated explicitly to a divinity, and thus from the first possessed a deeply religious sig- nificance. It is remarkable, too, that it was dedi- cated to the rising sun, which to the Egyptians was 88 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. ever a new-born God. This colossal image thus pre- sents in itself the symbol of light, and hence joins on to the primitive phase of the worship of the inorganic in its sublimest form of illumination, as a life-giving divinity. But it was hewn out of a mass of live rock rising abruptly out of the plain. Hence in this rade but marvelous monument there is represented the rising of the inorganic, through the organic as mere animal, to man as the animal in whom the light of the spirit was at last to shine forth in its complete- ness as matured, self-conscious Reason. Nevertheless, it is only in Greece, the dawnland of spiritual enlightenment, that this dumb symbol of the Orientdives and speaks. There for the first time does it audibly utter its question. And yet no sooner does it find answer to its central question than it sinks back into dumbness and even into death. For man, the thinker, proves to be the solution of all riddles — man, the ever new-born son of God, whose undying nature assures him of an eternity in which to rise through all the degrees of realization of the di- vine nature within him. Hence, man is himself the explicit utterayice of the ultimate problem of the world. He is also impli^tly the final solution of all riddles, and thus the final dissolution of all symbols. In the Orient, this culmination is vaguely yearned for ; in Greece, clearly prophesied ; in the modern and Christian world, realized. And yet Christianity ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. 89 began in the Orient, and is now at length shining back with its matured Light of Life into the Orient, giving proof ever clearer that Religion is in truth neither Oriental nor Occidental, nor external at all ; but, rather, that it is something altogether internal and spiritual ; that, as indicated at the outset of this sketch, it is the one absolutely changeless method, which every finite spirit must adopt and unfold into genuine reality for itself as the vital process of spir- itual evolution, if it would bring itself into genuine harmony and living unity with the divine Father of all. HI. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. I. The farther back we penetrate toward the begin- nings of history the more strongly marked become the proofs that the narrators of events in those early times had little thought of representing events pre- cisely as they occurred. Properly speaking there was no history, but only prophecy. And the prophet, far from entertaining the thought of making for future generations a faithful record of what was passing or had already passed, was only intent upon influencing as deeply as possible the people of his own time. Hence he seized events in their main outlines and used them with perfect freedom as plastic materials out of which to construct a representation that should possess a certain artistic completeness, and thus prove specially impressive in the enforcement of some gen- eral doctrine which it seemed desirable the people should adopt. This was true in greater or less de- gree in all the countries of the ancient world ; in China, in India, in Greece, in Judaea. Nor is this an evidence of cunning and knavery on the part of the prophetic narrators. On the contrary, BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 91 it but proves that man had not yet awakened to a true sense of historic values. Thus the earliest "his- tory" took the form of the myths in which the par- ticular event is enlarged into a movement of uni- versal significance ; while chronology drops out of sight altogether — or rather it wholly fails to appear — save in the form of sacred symbolic numbers. This is the simple explanation — now well-nigh commonplace — of the fact that the history of early civilizations can be only partially made out through the most laborious and careful investigation of the fragmentary remains of the monuments and litera- tures which the peoples of the early world busied themselves in constructing. Thus, by a new and wholly admirable development of analytical skill, entire cycles of richly unfolded literatures, which on first view are without date or any external mark of chronological order, have, by comparison of turns of expression and of phases of belief and thought developed in them, been brought into something approaching historical arrangement, from which the historical development of the peoples themselves may now be at least approximately traced. This critical, comparative method, characteristic exclusively of the modern and Western mind, has been applied with special zeal and success within re- cent years in the investigation of Oriental literatures and religions. And, first of all, India has furnished 92 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. by far the most extensive as well as the most inviting of the hitherto unexplored fields. At the same time the critical spirit has fearlessly cl imed the right to appl}^ precisely the same methods and the same tests that have here availed so much, to the literature and religion not only of the ancient Hebrews, but also of the Christians. It has thus happened that wholly unrestrained comparisons have been instituted between these re- ligions, so revered in the West, and the leading faiths of the "heathen" East Many, indeed, have been the parallels already drawn between Buddhism and Christianity ; and not seldom the conclusion arrived at has been that the differences between these widely desseminated faiths are differences of form rather than of substance. Not unfrequently, indeed, those who have most zealously urged the importance of applying the com- parative method to the study of religions, and who have most confidently applied that method in such studies, prove to have quite forgotten a caution of Plato applicable to comparative studies generally. One ought, he said, to be extremely careful in deal- ing with similarities, for they are ''mosf slippe^-y things.'''' It is, in fact, altogether easy to find sim- ilarities between any two objects of attention above or below the sun, provided one does not specially con- BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 93 ceni himself regarding the depth or shallowness of import which the comparison unfolds. It is certainly true — or rather a truism — that the Buddhist fa th failed to find permanent acceptance among the people of the same race as its founder, but spread irresistibly among an alien race, precisely as was the case with Christianity. And yet not "pre- cisely" either ; since Buddhism became, and for centuries remained, the dominant faith in a large portion of India, while Christianity was from the first rejected by the Jews, not to mention the extreme differences of national conditions at the time of the origination of the two faiths respectively. Of course, also, a similarity so striking ought not to be dis- turbed by the further mention of the otherwise fairly noteworthy differences manites between the Chinese, Tatars, Siamese, etc., among whom Buddhism has been more or less enthusiastically received, and the peoples of Europe and America, by whom Christiani- ty has been accepted. It is not, however, the purpose of the present paper to pursue this line of comparison, whatever possibili- ties of entertainment or even amusement it might be found to possess. We shall rather attempt to trace the chief conditions of the historical development of the two faiths respectively, and at the same time to present the fundamental conceptions by which each is characterized. 94 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. It must also be explicitly recognized at the outset that every genuine investigation is an appeal to Reason. Nothing can be admitted, therefore, that is not clear to the Reason — that does not, in fact, compel the assent of Reason. On the other hand, appeal to "miracle" — to something not compre- hended — in proof of the divine origin of a faith, and you at once set aside Reason, which alone is capable of recognizing and verifying the divine elements which a faith may possess. All faiths are, in their origin, based on "miracles." Reason alone can dis- criminate between a true and a false miracle, between a divine and an undivine revelation. If Christianity, then, is superior to Buddhism, it must give to the Reason convincing proof of its superiority. Reason seeks, and from its very nature must ever seek for what is highest and ultimate ; that is, for the concrete Totality of Truth. With nothing less than this can it ever be satisfied ; and to this it can only attain through an independent tracing out of the necessary and therefore rational order of relations in the world as a whole. The final faith of the world, then, can be no other than that which presents to the Reason the clew at once to the fundamental principle of the world on the one hand and to the essential nature and final destiny of man on the other. Does Buddhism present this clew ? Does Chris- BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 95 tianity present it ? Which of these religions has ad- vanced farthest toward the utterance of the final — which is also necessarily the primal — truth? This is the central question, to the investigation of which we have now to proceed. II. What were the chief conditions of the historical development of Buddhism ? To this it is to be an- swered that Buddhism, taking its rise among the Hindus, was necessarily conditioned by the peculiar characteristics of that people. And what those char- acteristics were, thanks to the persistent energy and keen, critical in3ight of modern scholars, can now be briefly and confidently stated. The Hindus are now well known to. have been characterized from the earliest times by an activity and brilliancy of imagination even beyond that of any other primitive people. At the same time, that im- aginative power, under the influence of the over- whelming nature-forces in the midst of which the de- velopment of the people took place, gradually un- folded into an uncontrolled fancy which never ceased to revel in the creation of grotesque, monstrous imagery. Reflection, careful testing, searching criti- cism, found no place , and the Hindu mind was at length overwhelmed with uncontrollable terror and despair in presence of monstrous beings which it had 96 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. itself unconsciously called into phantasmal existence. Thus grew up among the Hindus that fantastic theory of the world and of life at which the Western mind can never cease to wonder. At the same time the development of this theory is essentially con- nected with the attainment to supremacy on the part of the Brahman caste. The members of this caste alone, so they came at length to claim, were in pos- session of the key to the happiness of mankind, whether in this life or in the life to come. And this claim was for a long period almost universally ad- mitted. Thus the Brahmans were enabled to develop a more and more elaborate ceremonial, and to enforce it with ever increasing complexity of requirements upon the hopelessly enthralled people. The climax was fairly reached when, with a greatly overcrowded population, the caste system came to be firmly fixed and unresistingly accepted by the great mass of the population as the true system of relations between man and man. With the endless ceremonial and crushing terrorism of the Brahmanic faith, rein- forced by the narrow, impassable limitations of the caste system, it could not be otherwise than that for a vast majority of the people life should be full of wretchedness and despair. And how much more as the conviction became everywhere settled that life ended only to begin anew, and perhaps in still more wretched guise ! Even the good man, who through BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 97 long penance and multiplied lives of devotion came at length to be admitted to the company of the gods, could not prevent his hard-won virtues from there crumbling away until, himself grown earthy and heavy again, he must needs descend once more to the lower sphere, albeit his return took place in the form of a falling star !' From very early times, indeed, the conception of transmigration became the fundamental tenet of the Hindu creed. And thus the all-absorbing question came to be : How can this seemingly ceaseless round of birth and painful life and mocking death be brought to an end ? By penance and by scrupu- lously minute observance of the Vedic ceremonial, answered the Brahman. And millions of Hindus helplessly, if not hopelessly, followed the injunction. The steps of spiritual development on the part of this people are, then : first, a specially lively imagi- nation which, through its abnormal development, led at length to belief in a wholly artificial relation between man and the Divine Principle ; secondly, a growing dread of that Principle, a dread having its ground in endless mystification concerning the Prin- ciple ; and, thirdly, a consequent increasingly-abject submission to the dictates of a class, the members of which claimed to have exclusive knowledge upon 'This quaint conception also makes its appearance, in modified form, at the close of Plato's Republic, 98 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. these high themes along with power to determine the fate of the individual for good or ill. Manifestly the tendency was ever toward a less and less sufferable condition ; and it is not to be won- dered at that so far as the Hindu mind developed anything that can be dignified with the name philoso- phy, that philosophy should be distinctly tinged with this depressing character of the whole intellectual dev^elopment of India. Hindu faith being pessimistic, Hindu philosophy is pessimistic as a matter of course. For the philosophy of a people is but the expression, in terms appealing to the reflective consciousness or reason, of what is already present, under forms ap- pealing to the imagination, in its faith. But imagi- nation, as we have already seen, is the predominant characteristic of Hindu thought. Hence the so-called Hindu philosophy never rises above imagination. Its best thoughts are still involved in imagery. Nature, says their chief system, is fundamentally active. It therefore involves and is involved in change, and change is inseparable from pain. The soul, on the contrary, is changeless, altogether pas- sive, and is connected with nature only by illusion. It is only through this illusion that the soul comes to be regarded as acting. Even "intellect" is a phase, not of the soul, but rather of nature or matter. Now because the soul is thought to be inactive, and therefore not involved in change, which must - BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 99 ever infallibly bring pain, precisely for this reason is the soul assumed to be superior to nature. And still further ; even this seeming connection of the soul with matter must be broken off in order to put an end to its seeming activity, and thus to bring about its deliverance from illusion and the fateful round of transmigration involved in this illusory existence. But only by knowledge can illusion be done away with ; and, as we would expect, it is "by the study of principles" as unfolded in the Sankhya system, and thus alone, that true knowledge — and with it true deliverance — is said to be attainable. Once in possession of this highest knowledge, how- ever, says the author of the system, the truth for the individual is expressed in the formula : "Neither I am, nor is aught mine, nor do I exist ," or, as it has been otherwise rendered, "I am not, nothing is mine, and there is no ego" or thinking principle !^ Manifestly, then, the author of the system, so soon as he attempted to think of the soul as apart from matter- was able to think of it only in this purely ^Sankhya Karika^ Verse 64. Colebrook translates : "So through study of principles, the conclusive, incontrovertible, one only knowledge is attained, that neither I am, nor is aught mine, nor do I exist." The second rendering is that of John Davies. See his Hindu Philosophy, (p. 46). Lon- don, Truebner & Co., 1881. "And Kapila believed that the soul could only attain per- fection through becoming "wholly separate from matter," and in this state the soul exists "without consciousness or sense of personality." 100 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. uegative fashion, 'that is, to imagine it as existing apart from all imaginable qualities or characteristics ! It is nothing else than a blank denial of conscious- ness or personality side by side with the affirmation of the continued existence of the soul. The only es- cape from pain is through the loss of consciousness, and pain is regarded as unmixed evil. Hence the primal and only real problem of Hindu philosophy is : "How to obtain release from the three-fold kinds of pain ?" Thus the only good toward which this strange system points is the empty abstraction of unconscious existence — an impersoyial personality. Now the Sankhya philosophy is a remarkable for- mulation of the implicit belief in and deep yearning for deliverance from the interminable round of the transmigration of the soul. And it is of special in- terest in the present connection, not merely from this fact, but also, and mainly, because, according to competent scholars, its development took place in the period just preceding that of the rise of Buddhism in India. Or it might be inferred from internal evi- dence, which is well-nigh the only evidence we pos- sess, that the Sankhya philosophy and Buddhism both developed during the same period as outgrowths of the same tendencies, and were but different efforts put forth side by side from different standpoints with BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 101 a view to meeting the most spiritual needs of the time. Certain it is, at least, that at the foundation of both lies the same fundamental conception of the soul entang^led in the meshes of interminable transmi- gration ; of life, with its constant recurrences of birth and death, as hopelessly- full of misery ; while the one only way of escape from pain is assumed to be necessarily that of the complete suppression of con- sciousness. The philosophical system emphasized contemplation and knowledge as the way of final re- lease. It therefore appealed to the few. Buddhism emphasized action, and especially action in behalf of others, as the means of attaining to Nirvana or eter- nal freedom from action. This appealed powerfully to human sympathy and identified in this strange way the interest of the individual in his fellow-men with his deepest interest in himself. Buddhism therefore appealed to the many. Each was, then, in its own way, an utterance of the despair of the Hindu mind. At the same time each, it cannot fail to be noticed, involved the most glaring contradiction. The one declares that the only way of release from pain is knowledge ; and yet the release itself consists in the complete extinction of consciousness. The other no less unequivocally regards pain as inseparable from action, and com- plete cessation from action as the final goal ; and yet 102 BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. this very goal can only be attained thro no- h action. Both, indeed, completely separate the theoretical from the practical ; and thus, in either case, the des- tiny of man proves to be nothing but the gradual canceling of all positive characteristics \\\ his nature until he vanishes at length into something wholly unrecognizable, even wholly without the power of ^■ 192 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. not in the least disturb — or had not yet disturbed — his convictions as to the religion of his fathers. And yet this very element of Greek culture, to- gether with the fact of his Roman citizenship and all that this implied, must have produced in his active mind a ferment which, however unconscious for the time he may have been of the fact, could not fail to produce sooner or later on his part a more or less violent revulsion against the narrow, arbitrary for- malism of the Jewish Law. The serene gaiety of the Greek shines out alike in the rhythm of his art and in the subtle symmetry of his logic. The sedateness of the Roman appears everywhere in his administration of law — i. e. , in the process of demonstrating the folly of resisting the or- ganic might of the principle of Justice as embodied in the State. The infinite grace of the one, the over- whelming majesty of the other, these two agencies were working ceaselessly upon all minds, and most of all upon minds of a deeply earnest and active character. Everywhere the results were plainly manifest. Everywhere, especially the Jews of the Dispersion, and even also the Palestinian Jews, were becoming "Hellenized." Even in Jerusalem this process did not fail to show itself. Exceedingly interesting and important is the fact, too, that it was precisely these Hellenized Jews who formed a nucleus for the development of Christianity CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 193 in its most vital form. Nay, only three years after the death of Jesus a radical Hellenist is found among the seven deacons of the newly- founded church at Jerusalem. This was Stephen, "a man full of faith and zeal, the forerunner of the Apostle Paul," who "boldly assailed the perverse and obstinate spirit of Judaism, and declared the approaching downfall of the ^losaic economy.'" Stephen's genius, energy and nobility of character could not fail of deeply impressing the young Phari- see recently graduated from the orthodox school ; and this the more since he himself already possessed within his own soul the leaven of Hellenism. Nor was it in the least strange that the bold challenge thrown out against the mere legality of Mosaism by the free-thinking deacon of the newly-developed heretical sect should at first awaken in 3'oung Saul a horror and hatred all the more intense because in the same instant the personality of Stephen exercised upon him a genuine and powerful fascination. Thus it must seem to him the supreme duty of the hour to suppress a movement so fraught with danger to the principle of nationality and orthodoxy to which he had but just dedicated his life. The death of Stephen, by the usual means in such cases, could not but appear to Saul as beyond all question a thing 'Schaff. Op. cit. I, 249. 194 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. demanded by the very highest considerations. Should he hesitate he must at the very outset acknowledge himself to be faint-hearted and unworthy of the cause in which he had but just enlisted. Can we doubt that the soul of Saul, in truth so deeply tender, must have reinforced itself with such considerations as the foregoing while he pursued the followers of the recently executed Jesus ; and while he stood by, outwardly calm, holding the garments of those who hurled the death-dealing stones upon the sinking form of Stephen? Nay, more ; can we doubt that, from the moment of this deeply tragic scene, there should be incessantly present, and with ever- increasing vividness to his mind, the upturned face of Stephen, transfigured in death, and that the last prayer of the dying man should day and night ring in his ears : "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ?" Surely in the eager, earnest soul of this young Pharisee there are present the elements whose fusion must result in some memorable miracle ! Born a Jew, born to Roman citizenship, from his youth in- troduced to Hellenic culture, trained by the greatest of teachers in the recognized college of the national party, entered upon active duty as a conservative of the conservatives, consenting to the death of a man whose speech seems blasphemy, and yet whose dying look and word reveal him as a kindred spirit — with all this how could it be otherwise than that in the soul CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 195 of Saul there should at lenj2^th spring up a great light above the brightness of the sun — the clear light of Reason, by which for the moment he should be blinded, indeed, but by which also he should soon comprehend the great problem of Life in its essential features and thus be led to give his own life that he might bring all men to see, and henceforth to be guided by, the great Solution ! All this has come to us, indeed, in the form of a vision, an external appeal to the senses. The heavens opened and the Son of Man was seen. Distinct words also were heard : "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" But none saw, none heard save Saul, hi no other soul were the factors present through whose com- bination such result could be produced. Doubtless the * 'vision" was confined to Saul, and doubtless also it was a "merely" subjective vision. But doubtless also the essential significance of the vision is the eternal fact that the Son of Man is no less truly the Son of God ; that the Son of God, in the universal significance of the term, includes every conscious unit in the eternal process of Creation ; and that there is "no other name given under Heaven or among men whereby we may be saved" but this of the eternal, universal Christ, which is the divine nature common to all spiritual units, and yet which can be realized in and for individual man in no other way than through the perpetual crucifixion of the 196 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. flesh on the one hand and the perpetual resurrection of the spirit on the other. That is the true Damascus vision. Thus Heaven opens. It is the clear recognition of the eternal Son- ship as correlative with the eternal Fatherhood, the clear recognition of the spiritual as the vital, essen- tial, eternal Truth in its own perfect realization. The coexistence of a number of factors in the mind for a considerable period without any conscious com- bination of them taking place, and the subsequent sudden and seemingly spontaneous fusion of these elements into a new and, to the individual conscious- ness, more or less revolutionizing concept, is a fact which must be familiar to all who have a well-de- veloped habit of introspection and observation. Of course the character of those factors will depend primarily, in part upon the character of the mind in which they come to coexist, and in part upon the character of the environment ; just as the intensity and clearness of their fusion will depend upon the depth and earnestness of that mind. That is, given the mind of a Paul and given the conditions of his life, involving as they did the fundamental aspects of refined intellectual life (the Greek factor), of ma- tured, organically unfolded life of the Will (the Ro- man factor), and the most intensely developed emo- tional life (the Jewish factor), and the product cannot CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 197 fail to be the unfolding of a personality thus far unique in the history of the world. The focusing of the wondrously complex environ- ment of the then human world in the personality, first of Jesus, and secondly of Paul — that is the true miracle ushering in the period of genuine freedom, the millenium of divine Humanity. It is the cul- mination of the long process of Preparation, of the elementary aspect in the Education of Man. It is God manifesting Himself in the flesh to the degree of individual self-consciousness ; to the degree of in- finite hope ; to the degree of infinite renunciation ; to the degree of unhesitating sacrifice of all that is merely selfish, and this for the sake of realizing the ideal of infinite selfhood ; to the degree of joyously casting aside all that is merely sensuous and tem- poral because this is seen to be the condition of at- taining that which is spiritual and eternal. Compared with this any conceivable outward mir- acle is weak and meaningless. Nay, even at best the outward miracle, in the very nature of the case, can appeal only to the senses. It is only the inferred spiritual meaning that can be of real interest to man. Reason speaks to reason. The divine light of Reve- lation must spring up within the soul. Jesus as the God-Man who proclaims the eternal Christ-Ideal can- not be revealed to the eyes of sense. He can appeal to Paul, to you, to me, only in that vision in which 198 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. the whole spiritual nature — intellect, sensibility and will — is focused ; only in that vision in which the identity in nature as between God and man is at once seen 2,\i^ felt and willed. With Saul this miracle has taken place suddenly, overwhelmingly. He has seen God. He is blind to all else. Nay, he knows henceforth that the "all else" is yiothiytg. — Fatal mistake, the devoting one's life to this Noihhfg! — Saul is dazed, bruised, be- numbed. His world has in a moment turned to dust and vapor. With furious, feverish velocity he has come into collision with the divine World. He must gather himself as best he can from the wreck. For days he shuts out the external light. It is in- tolerable. It renews the old contradiction of making him see as reality that which in truth is nothing. He would exercise his newly developed spiritual vision so that he may become well accustomed to this divine light of Reason that has sprung up with such dazzling splendor in his soul. This fairly accomplished he finds himself utterly alien to this world that but now had seemed so thoroughly his world. He must foi awhile betake himself to an unfamiliar world, to a world that is out- wardly indifferent to him, so that he may without hindrance or confusion adjust himself to the newly- discovered divine World. Thus for awhile he goes away into Arabia, into the CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 199 desert, into a world that is outwardly but a merely negative, abstract world, in order that there he ma)- with the less interruption meditate upon this sudden revolution in his life ; that there he may study the Scriptures, may sound the depths of the Messianic Idea in its newly-revealed eternal import ; may ad- just himself to this divine World which but now he had believed to be undivine, but in which henceforth he was to find his life as endless approximation, through self-sacriiice, to Godhood ; that there he may learn to love that which hitherto had but called forth his hatred, and to hate, though still with infinite com- passion, all that which thus far he had loved. And now precisely where death unto life began, there the new life must put forth its first manifes- tation. It is most likely that this will be at the risk of death ; but only at the risk of death in a sense that is now no longer dreadful. For him henceforth death can have no other than a normal significance. His w^hole soul is transfused with Love — that is, with ab- solute devotion to the divine Ideal as itself eternally realized in God, and at the same time to be progres- sively realized in the life of individual man. For him, then, death can never mean aught else than transition from a less to a more adequate state of ex- istence. Nothing can put him to shame save his own unfaithfulness to the divine Ideal of Life, the essence of which is infinite Love to the eternal Father and to 200 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. the Son as forever reborn in the ceaseless process of the human race.' He will bear all things, brave all things that he may win men to the actual acceptance of this divine Ideal. Mosaism had sunk into hopeless petref action. As a faultless Pharisee Saul, literal sword in hand, would have constrained men to live contentedly within this life-destroying changelessness. As a man keenly conscious of his own infirmities, but also wholly alive to the sublime possibilities inherent in the nature of man, this same Saul now yearns above everything else to persuade men by loving them, to convince men by reasoning with them, and thus to lead them to know with their understanding, with their hearts, with their whole souls the divinity of humanity, the boundless lyove of God, the infinite dignity of I^ife as conformed to the Christ-Ideal. Mocked, cursed, scourged, imprisoned, stoned, be- headed — from first to last not a moment's hesitancy in presence of a conceived duty, not even resentment save as against the hypocrisy of those who professed to be Christians and yet sought to destroy his work ! Through all this it is not to the present purpose to follow this Apostle of the Gentiles. We have only to emphasize the contrast between the religion of Paul and that of Omar — the contrast between the religion ■ That is, the race of spiritual or diviuely constituted units throughout the entire universe. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISxM. 201 cf Ferocity and Force on the one hand, and that of Love and Persuasion on the other. And to this end we have only to add a summarized view of the ele- ments already present in the doctrine of Paul which must determine the attitude of Christianity, as repre- sented by him, to the scientific interests of the race. We have seen that Mohammed was constrained to reject both Judaism and Christianity and to restrict himself essentially to the narrow type of his own na- tionality, to that simple stage of spiritual develop- ment in which for centuries his own people had found contentment As we have seen, also, it was due to Omar that the religion of Islam was not merely extended to other peoples, but also that it was saved from sinking into an insignificant sect among the Arabs themselves. But besides this we have seen that Omar was a typical Arab. There is no evidence that he ever felt the influence of the Jewish and Christian elements which for a time promised to become real factors in Mohammed's own faith. On the contrary Omar's mind was perfectly satisfied with the idea of absolute service to the one absolute, irresistible Allah. And this service he could conceive of in no higher sense than that of a whirlwind of scimetars cutting down all opposition and exacting tribute from the con- quered. Omar was, then, let us repeat, a typical Arab, 202 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. And to this we may add : that as such his campaigns were really little else than nationalized raiding ex- peditions. Under Omar Mohammedanism resolves itself into a furious conquering Will from which all the higher aspects of intelligence and sentiment are excluded. That is, whatever we may say of the Koran, the Islamism of Omar is a religion of blind Fatalism whose rewards and whose penalties are alike materialistic and sensual. Contrast with this, now, the central conceptions of Paul and his method of presenting those conceptions to the people he sought to convert. It is to be noted in the first place that the discipline which Paul him- self had passed through was of a nature to develop in- to rich realization his remarkably endowed mind. Something of this has already been indicated. We have now to emphasize the essential points. He had learned the Greek language, and this was itself a rare training in the direction of clear and subtle judgment. He had, along with this, become acquainted with much of Greek literature ; and had thus become im- bued with that fine breath of intellectual rhythm in- hering in everything produced by the Greek mind. It is the Greek spirit especially that sees things in due proportion. The Greek imagination was rational and the Greek reason was ever conspicuous for its fine discrimination between the consistent and vital and the fantastic and unreal. The Greek mind was CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 203 full ot gaiety. But its gaiety was ever tempered with sobriety and moderation. But Paul was also a Roman citizen. He had passed his early youth in a province of the Empire suffi- ciently distant from Jerusalem to be free from the ex- treme rigidity of Mosaism, and at the same time to be constantly under the influence of Roman discipline. Only a half-century before his time Pompeius had cleared the seas of pirates, and Roman legions had brought the wild mountain tribes or Cilicia into sub- jection to Roman law. Tarsus, the capitol city of this province, was a Greek city noted for its commer- cial and also for its literary activity. Thus as a na- tive of this city, Paul was from the first under Hellenic influences while also he could not but receive a deep impression of that world-transforming process which in his own time the Roman power was but just com- pleting. That 7iaive individualism which holds tribe in iso- lation from tribe, which knows no law beyond blood- relationship, and has no conception of God beyond that of a neighborhood divinity, all this world of ca- pricious provincialism Rome in her harsh, compul- sory way, had long been educating into wholesome respect for order based on rational method, for order based on law expressive of universal principle, for an order that transformed the mere dweller in the se- cluded mountain vale into a conscious citizen of the 204 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. world. And if, by so doing, Rome was destroying his faith in his merely imaginary local divinities she was also, however unconsciously, preparing him for the acceptance of the message of Reason that was to come to him from the one actual God. Nay, this very unification of the world in the outward form of legal discipline was one of the essential threads of that very message of Reason which God was already delivering to man through Man. For it proved to be the process of rationalizing the practical man, the process of teaching human will this lesson: that the one way to genuine freedom is through obedience to the Law of Reason. Of all this Arabia had remained serenely uncon- scious. Six hundred years after the time of Paul, Omar and his armies swept through Syria, through Persia, through Egypt, without the shadow of a dream as to the significance of what the theoretical reason of Greece and the practical reason of Rome had accomplished for the world. Blind worshipers of Fate, they will do their utmost to blot out once and forever the splendid products of the Greek Intellect alike with those of the Roman Will. Crude children of a natural desert, they would turn the world into a spiritual Sahara. And the one word of mitigation is : "They know not what they do." On the other hand, Paul's fine mind is stimulated to utmost fervor of activity precisely through the as- CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 205 siaiilation of these elements. He is a Jew, no doubt. But he is a Jew who has become both Hellenized and Romanized. Let his education as a Pharisee be ever so rigid, he cannot remain a Jew in any other sense than that of race relationship. He has taken up into his consciousness the elements that in due course must make of him a citizen of the world — a truly uni- versal man who will count nothing that is genuinely human as alien to himself. Recall now Paul's conversion — the moment of cul- mination in the fusion of all these elements in his spiritual life — and we see that his whole previous career has been a continuous, however unconscious, process of preparation for his work as the apostle of the nations, a process of preparation for his career as a proclaimer to all men, without reference to race, of the sublime doctrine that in the nature of the case there can really be but one "race," one type of spir- itual beings, whether on this planet or any other ; nay that, as the one absolutely perfect Spirit, God Himself belongs to this "race ;" and that thus Man, as the created, progressively unfolding Spirit, is the Son of God who is the uncreated, eternally perfect, and therefore all-inclusive Spirit. And now, let us repeat that in the Greek element we have, at the time of Paul, the world's highest achievement of intellect. In Greek art and literature Imagination is realized, while in Greek science and 206 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. philosophy Thought is given substantial objective form. Again, in the achievements of the Roman world the Will has become practically unfolded into a truly universal or rational method. And, finally, in the Jewish world the factor of Sentiment has been raised to its highest and truly rationalized power as worship of the One God — which worship, through the sublime personalit}^ of Jesus, has been trans- figured into the spirit of divine Love, into the recip- rocal relationship between man and God — infinite de- votion of man to God, infinite compassion of God toward man. The conversion of Paul, to repeat, then, was that divine moment in his life in which the Greek, the Roman and the Jewish factors, under the influence of the personality of Jesus, became fused in his mind into a product which must not only be regarded as absolutely unique, but also as up to that moment wholly unrealized in the history of the world. Jewish prophetic intensity, unbending Roman ten- acity, midday Greek clearness, all these interfuse ; and the product is a character, a personality world- inclusive in its sympathy, world-conquering in its energy, and world-illumining in its brilliancy. It is this all- sided completeness of the man that rendered Paul so thoroughly fitted to become the second Founder of Christianity. It is this that en- abled him to discern and state with such marvelous CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 207 terseness and simplicity, the truth of the Spirituality which Jesus had insisted upon as the essence of the highest religion. It is this discernment of the genius of Christianity as the ultimate Religion of the Spirit, and hence as in its very nature demanding the fullest unfolding of every aspect of power inhering in the ideal, divinely constituted nature of man — it is this that proved so undeniably the superiority of Paul to the other disciples of Jesus. Their tendency was rather toward reaction. Left to them, it would seem that the sublime teachings of Jesus would at least have been in great danger of being overloaded with and obscured by mere formalism. It is Paul, un- questionably, who alone sees this danger at all clearly and who accordingly exerts all his genius to show that form is deadly save so far as it is the or- ganic structure unfolded through the infinitely vital functions of Spirit. If, then, Omar saved Mohammedanism from sink- ing into a mere clannish sect among the Arabs, it also seems probable that Paul saved Christianity from being dwarfed into a narrow Jewish sect. And further, if Omar's personal integrity secures to him the confidence and leadership of the simple-hearted people to which he belonged, so, on the other hand, Paul's unselfish devotion to the cause of Truth se- cures to him the unbounded love of clear-eyed people even though belonging to an alien race. 208 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. With Omar it is ''Koran, tribute, or Sword." With Paul it is the crucified aud risen Christ. By the side of Omar's order' to burn the library of Alexandria, place the splendid appeal to the Reason in Paul's ^^ Epistle to the Ro77ia7isf'^ Notice, too, the deeply significant point that Islam secured readiest acceptance among those peoples who were destitute at once of culture and of conviction." Syria was the crossing-point of all the great high- ways of the ancient world, and hence the region where all the crude faiths of that period met and mingled and dissolved by mutual cancellation. Here and in Egypt (which had been conquered and recon- quered), there was no serious native opposition to Islam. On the other hand Paul, once he had entered upon his great mission to the nations, appealed first of all to the Greeks ; and this in the towns ; that is, in the centers of intelligence. It is significant, too, that his appeals were made chiefly to the towns more or less remote from the conspicuous centers of the ancient world. The latter had already sunk too deeply in ^I must remind the reader that the chief point here is : What is characteristic of Omar as the representative of Is- lamism as a religion. Whether as a matter of historical de- tail Omar ever really issued the particular order referred to matters little. It is true (or "historical"), in the deeper sense of being in perfect keeping with his whole character and career. -Compare Essay on Buddhism and Christianity. Present vol., p. 236 fol. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 209 corruption to regard in any serious way the lofty Ideal in behalf of which Paul appealed to them. Elsewhere, where corrupting influences had been less rife the people retained a fresher, more vigorous character. But there is still another point of special signifi- cance. It is this : The way was already more or less prepared for Paul's work by the influence of Hel- lenized Jews. To these it was natural that Paul should make his first appeals. And at the beginning it was through them that he worked upon the Greeks. And yet by degrees he discovered that his appeals were responded to more readily and more perfectly by the ''heathen" than by those of his own race. So that at length he comprehended and openly proclaimed his mission as being that of an "Apostle to the Gen- tiles" — that is, practically, he directed his efforts henceforth chiefly to the conversion of the Greeks, who, of all the peoples of that period, possessed the finest intellectual endowments, and who thus proved to be the one people capable of appreciating the subtle arguments and lofty sentiments which the genius of Paul could not stop short of presenting. But besides this there was another subtle bond be- tween Paul and his Greek hearers. It is nothing less than this : The Christian Ideal is in truth just the Greek Ideal transfigured. It was an old tradition of the Greeks that men — at least the men of their own 210 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. race — were descendants of the gods. And this belief gave them a high sense of dignity and of the neces- sity of self-restraint. For he who felt himself to be a descendant of a God must also prove himself worthy of such ancestry. Hence came that charming rhythm of character represented by the fine word, epieikeia, and which Matthew Arnold fondly trans- lates by the phrase : "sweet reasonableness." And yet, though Paul occupied himself chiefly in attempts to convert the people of the Greek world, and though he found there the one field of genuine success, in spite of this it is still the fashion to assert that only the "poor" and enslaved responded to the early appeals made in the name of Christianity. Whereas, on the contrary, as Renan has well in- sisted,^ the population of the Greek towns were people of intelligence and native refinement. The artisans of that period were very commonly artists, both in their feeling and in their work. And above all, among the slaves of that and later times were numbered people of all grades of refinement; among whom, in fact, were to be found such deeply learned and thoughtful minds as Epictetus. While, therefore, it was mainly to the "poor," it was by no means to those who were poor in intellect, by no means to those who lacked power of discern- ^See his St. Paul (N. Y. Ed.) p. 259. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 211 ment, that Paul addressed himself. It was rather to the people of spiritual vigor and earnestness, people to whom, precisely because of their thoughtfulness, the old religions had already grown shadowy and un- satisfactory — it was to such people, we repeat, that the subtle arguments of Paul proved convincing, and to whom the noble character of Paul appeared as a revelation from a better world. We set out with finding certain striking points of outward likeness between Omar and Paul. And yet, even from such brief comparison as we have here in- stituted, what measureless contrast appears between them ! Everywhere Omar is seen wielding the iron rod of authority, while Paul addresses to men the winning words of lyOve. The religion of Omar is the religion of sheer materialism and relentless Fate. That of Paul is the religion of the loftiest Idealism and hence of ever-expanding Freedom for man. Omar demands exclusive acceptance of the all- suiHcient Koran. Paul proclaims the splendor of the divine Life and illustrates his meaning from the lit- erature of the world ! Clearly if Omar's religion meets with universal acceptance, the doom of science is sealed. Only through the spread of the true Gos- pel of Peace, as proclaimed by Paul can the real scientific interests of humanity be secured against deadly materializing tendencies and inspired with the noblest aims. 212 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. IV. But let us now indicate as briefly as possible the chief points of contact in the further historical devel- opment of these two religions. We have already noticed the two factors which constituted the central threads, respectively, of the two great pre-Christian civilizations lying beyond Judaism ; namely : the Greek Intellect with its formu- lations of Truth in the fields of art, science and philosophy on the one hand, and, on the other, the Roman Will with its elaborate formulation of the method of Justice, first abstractly as Law, and sec- ondly in concrete form as the administrative organ- ization of the State. We have now to add that it was in the assimilation of both these factors that Christianity gave final proof of its universality ; its adaptation to become the religion of the whole world ; and the more in propor- tion as the world should grow in genuine enlighten- ment. The revision and re-enactment of Roman Law under the authority of Justinian, was the explicit, formal announcement that Christianity had found its own essential spirit substantially expressed on the side of the outer life of man in the legal forms created by the Roman people. It only remained for the Christian spirit to revivify those forms with its own CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 213 transfigured conception of the divinity of humanity, and thus to show that what the Roman understand- ing had discovered to be the universal form of obli- gation of every man toward every other man, was in deepest truth the obligation which each man owes to himself as a divinely constituted being. In other words, Christianity discovered the central secret of all institutional life to lie in that spiritual and divine nature of man by which all men are ideally equal. For upon this view of the nature of man the duty I owe to my neighbor, to my fellow- citizen, is due to him on the ground of that universal ideal na- ture which is common to him and to me alike. That is, my duty is to mail as man, and therefore to all men, including myself. Thus, any specific duty I owe to another is only a particular form of the demand which my own nature makes upon me to do honor to the Divine in the Human. Hence, when I perform ray duty to another, I also in that fact and in that far, realize my own right. There is 7io reasonable sacrifice I can make that is not in truth for my own good. From which it is evident that though all institutional forms appear to the un- trained mind to be arbitrary, external powers which are ever encroaching upon the rights of the indi- vidual and restricting his liberty, yet through the maturing of reflection and the clearer recognition of 214 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. the fundamental nature of man the individual must at length become aware that those same institutions are but the appropriate, progressive expression of the universal, divine nature of humanity, and hence that they are indispensable means toward the realization of that nature in his own individual life. When I come to rightly understand Law, then, I find it to be but the outer form of what in truth is an essential, nay the inmost, demand of my own ulti- mate nature. Such, indeed, is the essential significance of the truly divine Law which Jesus announced : "Thou shalt love Wiy neighbor as thyself;'^ and : '-Do unto others as you would have others do nnio y 021.''^ In the light of these simple, yet infinitely profound, principles all institutions are seen to be but the or- ganic expression of the divinely constituted human spirit as it slowly unfolds itself into concrete realiza- tion in the course of the history of the world. Jesus did, indeed, declare that his Kingdom is 'not ^this world," but every syllable he uttered contrib- uted to the perfect shaping of that Kingdom for this world — that is, the rendering perfectly clear its ab- ^In this, as is well-knowu, Jesus but gave positive charac- ter to what was already current in negative form. *'Hillel impresses upon a Gentile, as the sum of the Law, What is hateful to thyself do not to thy neighbor— an interpretation of the Law which was at that time so generally current, that we find it in both Jesus and Philo." Keim. Jesus 0/ Nazara (Trans.) I, 337. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 215 solutely spiritual nature as the one vital principle whose functional activity must determine every as- pect in the development of the structural form of any really rational world. Thus it is in the very nature of the case that Chris- tianity should claim as its own by absolute right whatever rational forms the human world has ever developed. The divine Sonship of man is the cen- tral principle of Christianity. So far as man's acts are reasonable they already pertain to the Kingdom of Truth ; and in just so far is the idea of the divine Sonship of man realized on the earth. But not only had Christianity shown its assimi- lative, transfiguring power in respect of whatever is fundamental in external institutional forms ; it had also proven itself equally capable of assimilating and transfiguring the inner products of the most vigorous intellectual life. While Roman law was becoming infused with the Christian spirit, the foremost grad- uates of the Greek schools of Alexandria were finding the one worthy use for their dialectic in developing the fundamental conceptions of Christianity into ex- plicit logical form. Had Plato, with unaided human intellect, dis- covered those same truths which it had been sup- posed could come to man only through a miracu- lously given divine Revelation? The thought of it must have been like a breeze from the mountains. 216 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. At any rate the fundamental identity of conceptions was in many respects undeniable. The conclusion finally reached was indeed that Plato must have had access to the Hebrew Scriptures. But however it might be explained the identity was the fundamental point. Surely the method by which Plato confirmed to the Reason what Revelation had presented rather to the Imagination, could not but be itself a divine agency. And so Christianity accepted fearlessly the fullest and freest activity of the intellect as a necessary factor in her own ultimate develop- ment. So far from wishing to burn the Alexandrian library, Christianity sought only to spiritually con- sume and assimilate the best thought gathered in its volumes. All this, indeed, could not but lead to grave dis- sension. From Antioch, the Asiatic center, came Arius with his clear, but by no means profound, con- ception of the divine Sonship. On the other hand it was the true Greek, Athanasius, who with his subtle dialectic, States this doctrine with marvelous depth and adequacy, and yet also in a form^ that has proven ^Precisely in what form he stated the argument in support of the doctrine of the Trinity is not known. "Under his name the Symbolum Quicunque, of much later [perhaps early part of ninth century], and probably of French, origin, has found universal acceptance in the Latin Church, and has maintained itself to this day in Iivin<5 use " Schaff. His- tory of the Christian Church. New Ed., Ill, 891. Comp, also pp. 695 and 1034. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 217 the despair of most theologians from that day to this. Indeed for most of them (seeing their loss of dia- lectic skill), the only really frank word of justification for its acceptance must be a desperate repetition of the brave words of Tertullian : Credo qiiia absicrdum.^ For the weal of Christianity, however much for the woe of some of its individual votaries, the speculative habit of mind became once for all at an early period an organic phase of the Christian consciousness. So that for every truly thoughtful Christian.. the motto must henceforth be, as Anselm afterward expressed it : Credo iit intelliga77i; that is, Faith is but the first step toward knowledge. At length Islam too was offered to the Greeks — in Omar's fashion. But in the minds of the Greeks Paul's message had already been in process of assimi- lation for six hundred years. During that period not only had the Christian faith become the accepted faith of the whole Roman world ; it had also given fullest demonstration of its own genuine, vital universality — a demonstration consisting in this : that everywhere the most deeply earnest as well as most keenly critical minds found in the Christ-Ideal that which proved satisfying to the inmost needs of the human soul. That is, Christianity had accomplished the intellec- tual and moral conquest of the Roman world. Thus ^But compare above, p. 124. Note. 218 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. it was that when Omar's Gospel of Scimetars was pro- claimed in the usual manner before the gates of Con- stantinople, all the energies of the Graeco-Roman world were aroused in self-defense. And the result was like a whirlwind recoiling before a mountain wall. The Arabs were never to take Constantinople. Not until eight hundred years later, when the Chris- tianity of the Greeks had become a by- word and when the Arabs themselves had given way as the cham- pions of Islam to a still wilder and more reckless race, was the Crescent to take the place of the Cross above the splendid temple of St. Sophia — a temple from that day forth no longer to be devoted to the service of Divine Wisdom.^ But Omar's plan for the conquest of Europe to the faith of Islam, included more than the assault upon Constantinople from the East. Another invasion was simultaneously made by the circuitous way of the Southern shores of the Mediterranean. ,[n short the deliberate strategic purpose appears to have been to attack the Christian world at the same time both on its Eastern and on its Western frontier, and thus, by driving it in upon itself, to crush it out of existence. Along with this it is a deeply significant fact that 'Unless Christendom should yet awake out of her sleep of shame, induced by wealth-and-power intoxication, as begins to seem dimly possible in these latter days. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 219 no shadow of a thought of assimilating any of the institutional forms of the Grseco- Roman world seems ever to have occurred, even for a moment, to the mind of a Moslem. Islam was alread)^ complete. Nothing but its corruption could follow the fusion with it of these foreign elements. Not to assimilate them, but to sweep them out of existence was the mission of Islam. Thus the spiritual fate of the world depended upon the result of these furious invasions of Christian Europe by Mohammedan Asia. What the final result was is sufficientl}' well known. In Africa the invasion was delayed for a half-century by the imperfectly Romanized and Christianized pro- vinces. Then Spain, which from the earliest times was peopled by a mixed multitude, which had been subjected to conquest by the Carthagenians, and again by the Romans, and again by the Goths in the name of Rome, and again had been made the camping- ground of the Vandals on their leisurely way to Africa — Spain which had thus been harried for cen- turies and which had passed from the religion of the Druids to the worship of Moloch, and from the wor- ship of Moloch to the worship of Jupiter, and from the worship of Jupiter to Arian Christianity, and again from the Arian to the Trinitarian form of the Chris- tian faith^Spain with such a history could not for a 220 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. moment be expected to offer successful resistance to the furious assaults of the Saracens. From her geographical situation Spain had been the crossing-point of the great highways of the Wes- tern nations as Syria had been for the nations of the East. But against this last invasion in the interests of the supreme religion of Fanaticism, Christianized Spain was at length to react with amazing vigor and persistence. Nay, in this reaction Spain was herself to become the evangel of fanatical superstition in the name of the one absolute religion of Reason, the soul of that Christian orthodoxy whose cherished instru- mentality was that of the Inquisition. Through seven hundred years of struggle with Is- lam Spain became more than Mohammedan in her method of defending and propagating Christianity. And yet the seven-hundred-years battle of Spain with Islam is a phase of the world's history by no means to be despised. That long struggle was in fact neces- sary to confirm the results of the great battle of Tours. It is the battle of Tours, indeed, that constitutes the chief focus of interest in the struggle between Chris- tianity and Mohammedanism. It takes place in Gaul, that one of the modern countries which came soonest and most thoroughly under settled, Roman discipline. It is here especially, also, that the Ro- mans first took up the attitude of a civilizing power. Elsewhere, to the East, where civilization was already CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 221 relatively matured, Rome could assume superiority only in a legal and administrative sense. Here in Gaul, on the other hand, she added to her task that of intellectual discipline. It has been well said^ that close upon the foot-steps of the Roman legionary followed the Greek school- master. And it is to be added that, following the Greek school-master, came at length the Christian missionary (himself, betimes, a well-trained Greek teacher), and proceeded unwearyingly in the task of fusing the spirit of Roman legality as expressive of regulated will, with the method of Greek intellectu- ality, in the fire of Christian sentiment raised to the intensity of divine Love. Thus in Gaul, at the time of the Mohammedan in- vasion, the Roman, the Celt, and the Teuton had be- come elevated to the plane of universal manhood. And upon this basis they joined together as brethren in mutual defense of the infinite, divine Ideal which had become the clear representation of all that life could mean to them. For they already felt that in that Ideal there lies the perfect foreshadowing of every factor that goes to complete a human soul and thus to raise it to the rank of godhood. And so, once more, the Christian world proved it- self to possess in concrete realization so much of that ifiy Mr. Freeman, if I remember rightly, though I cannot now give the exact reference. 221 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. divine Righteousness which is "like the great moun- tains" as sufficed to break the force of the plundering whirlwind that had sprung up in the desert and which threatened to sweep from the earth all ele- ments of growth and thus to make the desert uni- versal. V. And yet much has been said of the rich civilization of the Mohammedans in Spain, of their refinement and elegance of life, of their superiority in science and philosophy. This view is well expressed by Emanuel Deutch.^ "The Phoenicians," he says, "came to Europe as traders ; the Jews as fugitives or captives ; the Arabs entered it as conquerors. They inaugurated a reign of science, of poetr}^ of learning, of culture, such as had not been seen since the golden days of Hellas ; a culture which has left its traces upon Europe to this day, and which then shone, the only light in utter darkness, over a people brilliant in chivalry and song, full of noble courtesy and of simple piety. The Jews furthered the work of Catholic human culture : the Arabs inaugurated modern science. The day of the fall of Granada was one of the saddest days in his- tory." ^Literary Remains, p. 169. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 223 Almost immediately preceding this statement the same author declares that : "The new-born Arabs, carrying everything before them, and appropriating to themselves the learning of all the peoples they con- quered in the East and West, made Jewish literature what it now is, kaleidoscopic, cosmopolitan." Just what peoples of any high degree of learning the Arabs ever succeeded in conquering, it might prove a little puzzling to discover. On the other hand it is not to be pretended that brilliant and val- uable results were not achieved b}" both Jews and Mohammedans in Spain during the Moslem occu- pancy of that country. But the essential question for us to consider at this point is that of the relation of the Mohammedan re- ligion as such to the modern spirit of progress. And historical impartiality compels the conclusion that this religion as such has continued to be what it was from the first under Omar — that is, absolutely inimi- cal to science, to freedom of thought in any form, to the whole essential organic process of institutional life by which alone the human Spirit can attain, or even approximate, maturity Few facts, indeed, are more familiar in the history of philosophy than this : that in the realm of phi- losophy, properly speaking, the Semitic race has never shown that deeper originality consisting in the capacity to create a system— that is, in the power to 224 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. trace out in connected form the organic process in- herent in, as the vital principle of, all true thought. And the obverse side of this statement is : that the Semitic race has also and equally proven deficient in originative power in the field of science — that is, in the power to trace out in connected form the organic processes inherent in the world of things. And this latter statement is the obverse side of the former be- cause the process of things, in its ultimate signifi- cance, and as far as it goes, is one and the same with the essential method of Thought. No doubt the Semitic mind has accomplished great things in the history of human intelligence. But its achievements here have been in the field of poetry, of prophecy, not in the field of speculative, or even in that of experimental, inquiry. It may be readily granted, indeed, that the defects indicated have been due not so much to a lack of ca- pabilit}' as to a lack of deep-reaching interest in such modes of truth-seeking. As Sprenger has expressed it with reference to one division of this race : **When the Arabs reflect upon higher objects they think clearly and logically, but they live within the da}- and even the more gifted busy themselves very little with such speculations."^ Granted that such is the explanation the fact can- ^Lehen und Lehre des Moh. III. (Pref.) p. IX. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 225 not reasonably be denied that "Philosophy has never been more than an episode in the history of the Arab spirit."^ Indeed, as M. Renan goes on to say, with the Arabs the term philosophy does not signify "the search for truth in general, but a sect, a particular school, Greek philosophy and those who study it. In so far as the Arabs have impressed a national character upon their religious creations, upon their poetry, upon their architecture, upon their theological sects, in like degree have they shown little originality in their attempt to continue Greek philosophy. We affirm, rather, that it is only by a very deceiving ambiguit}' that the name, Arab Phi- losophy, is applied to a series of works undertaken by way of reaction against Arabism, in thOvSe parts of the Mussulman Empire furthest removed from the [Arab] peninsula — Samarkand, Bokhara, Cordova, Morocco- This philosophy is written iji Arabic, because this idiom had become the learned and sacred language of all Mussulman countries ; that is all. The true Arab genius, characterized by the poetr}- of the Kasidas and the eloquence of the Koran, was absolutely averse {aritipathique^ to Greek philosophy. Shut up, like all Semitic peoples, in the narrow circle of lyrism and prophetism, the inhabitants of the Arabic peninsula have never possessed the least idea of that which can -Renan. Averroes et. UAverroisme. p. 89. 226 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. be called science or ratio aalism. It was when the Persian spirit (represented by the dynasty of the Abbasides), overbore the Arab spirit that Greek philosophy penetrated into Islam. "^ Along with this it is interesting to note that more than two hundred 3'ears before the accession of the Abbasides the dying embers of Greek philosophy had been scattered through the East, and that this w^as caused by the order of Justinian closing the schools of Alexandria. As we have already seen, Christianity owed much to these schools during the period of their earlier vigor. Now in their decline it seemed that they threatened this religion with more or less grave danger. It may be, too, that this danger was not altogether imaginar5^ For with the decline of originality there was inevitably an increase in arbitrary and fantastic interpretation of "authorities ;" and to close the schools was to protect the Church (in which the first great constructive period of thought had passed), from the danger of being led into the caricaturing of its doctrines through further following of a guide that once was altogether clear-eyed, but which at length had grown purblind. Nevertheless, in their dispersion the members of these schools carried with them the works of their 'Op, Cit. p. 90, See also his Studies (cited above), p. 238. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 227 predecessors, including those of Plato and Aristotle. Thus it happened that through translations these great thinkers came to be known to such philosophic minds as were to be found in the East. At Bagdad,^ especially, scientific studies greatly flourished for a time, under the encouragement of the Abbassides — that is, as we have seen, under a dynasty that was Persian in spirit. It was in the tenth century that the influence of these studies began to be felt in Spain. The Chalif Hakem initiated a brilliant period of liberal studies there which, however, lasted but two centuries, and not without serious reactions and more or less pro- longed interruptions. Nevertheless in the reign of Hakem "liberalism" became the fashion — literally "the rage," as one might almost be justified in saying. Of all this M. Renan has given us a very seductive picture — a pic- ture in which Andalusia appears as a charming para- dise both without and within. "In this privileged corner of the world the taste for science and fine things had established, in the tenth century, a tol- erance of which modern times can scarcely present us an example. Christians, Jews, Moslems spoke the same language, sang the same songs, participated in ^Compare Erdmaun. History of Philosophy (Trans.), I, 360. 22S CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. the same literary and scientific studies. All the barriers which hold men asunder had fallen down ; all took pait with one accord in the work of a com- mon civilization. The mosques of Cordova, where stu- dents were counted bj^ thousands, became the active centers of philosophic and scientific studies."^ And yet upon reflection one cannot but recognize the inexorable fact that all this is irreconcilable with the fundamental principle, alike of Mohammedanism, of Judaism and of Christianit}-. As for Mohammedanism, its very conception of the Koran as a literal transcript of the one eternal Book preserved in heaven and containing all truth, was ab- solutely irreconcilable, not only with speculative in- quiries of any kind whatever, but also with an}- other form of faith whatever. On the other hand the Chris- tian consciousness w^as by no means as yet so clearly defined but that the spirit of complaisance might easily obscure the radical differences between the two faiths. If extreme distance reduces a star to a mere ab- stract point of light, so a candle-flame may be brought so near as to dazzle and cause the loss of all sense of proportion. It was needful for the purposes of accurate definition that those faiths should be held well asunder. True Christian tolerance is not one ' A verroes et L" Averroisme. p . 4 . CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 229 and the same either with blindness or with indiffer- ence as to error. The falling down of "all barriers that hold men asunder" is far from being necessaril}' an evidence of either intellectual or moral progress on the part of the human race. In fact it was not to be forgotten that Christianity and Mohammedanism had offered themselves to men, each as claiming to be an adequate and therefore final interpretation of the world and of man. Mere good fellowship, the sinking all differences in simple Edenic placidity of agreeable feeling will never bring the world to perfection. Differences, and most of all the deep-lying differences, must be felt and seen, nay, they must also be willed^ even though in this process the world quiver to its center with pain. It is precisely this necessity that constitutes the germ and ground of existence of all fanaticism. There are," in fact, countless degrees and kinds of fanaticism. Happy he whose " fanaticism " proves to be but the fiery conviction of essential Truth, and therefore of abiding Actuality ! No doubt, as M. Renan remarks, "religious fanat- icism was the fatal cause which, with the Moslems, smothered the finest germs of intellectual develop- ment ;"^ just as it is religious fanaticism which in the Christian world has sought more or less persistently ^Op. cit. p. 4. 230 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. to crush out all freedom of thought, especially as ap- plied to questions of the origin, nature, and course of historical development of the Christian religion itself. But no less is it the fanaticism of "liberalism" to chant a Te Diabolitm over an age or a coterie that has lost all reverence for sacred things, and to whom therefore no sacred things exist — as M. Renan him- self seems in some danger of doing in his reference to '* the blasphemy of the Three Impostors,"^ or as Dr. Draper has done only too unmistakably in his trium- phant " demonstration " that Heaven vanished quite away upon the making known of the Copernican theory of the Solar System. - It may be that here, too, ^^ Refuier c' est faire connaitre,'''' to refute is to publish. For if Heaven has "vanished" before the discoveries of science, it has " vanished " only as the poor, limited, local ob- ject of the more or less grossly sensuous imagination, and in so doing has expanded into infinitely rich reality for the essentially spiritual nature of man. ^Op. oit. p. 292 fol. -Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II, Ch. viii, con- cluding part, on "Progress of Man from the Anthropocentric Ideas to the Discovery of His True Position and Insignifi- cance in the Universe." Evidently human intelligence is just significant enough to comprehend the infinite signifi- cance of the Universe — and thus to know its own utter insig- nificance ! A miraculous "finite," truly, which is driven to the recognition of its own utter and hopeless finitude through the positive discovery and clear comprehension of the true and actual Infinite ! 'Renan, Averroes, p. 281. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 231 Indeed, in our hunting down of superstition we are in danger of falling into a still worse superstition — that of dreading antagonisms and of exalting "lib- eralism" until all differences, all substantial, specific characteristics are set aside, leavingusa world utterly empty and desolate. Such "liberalism," if given full scope in science, would cancel all distinctions be- tween Chemistry and Geology, between Geology and Physics, between Physics and Astronomy, between the physical and the moral sciences ; that is, it would make an end of science and blot out all trace of "Intellectual Development," in Europe or elsewhere. This, essentially, was the danger that threatened at Cordova during the reign of Hakem II. — a danger to which "religious fanaticism" shortly put an end. Such would seem to have been the historical fact rather than that smothering of "the finest germs of intellectual development" which M. Renan fancies to have been the fact. And not only so, but, on the Christian side also, "religious fanaticism" proved in a very important sense to be a saving clause rather than a destroying element. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, after the crusades had brought the East and the West face to face in a relation beginning in the mere ferocity of religious fanaticism and culminating in mutual admiration — military, scientific, social, and even religious — it seemed that the people of Europe 232 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. had "arrived by all ways at the idea of comparative religions, that is to say, at indifference and ma- terialism."^ Now it is precisely this abstract, negative result of "indifference and materialism" toward which philoso- phy as pursued by Mohammedans, has ever infallibly tended. Their crude, dry monotheism could not but culminate in what Sprenger aptly calls the soul- killing i^Geist-todteiide^ doctrine of Predestination. So frankly do they accept this doctrine, indeed, that they ' seldom hesitate to admit the consequences of their premises, and hence most of them ascribe sin to God."- Surely if anything could "smother the finest germs of intellectual development," it must be precisel}^ this "soul-killing" doctrine that the soul's question, alike with the answer thereto, is but the manifestation of an arbitrary, all-decreeing V.^ill which thus must prove to be simply a blind, resistless Destiny ! ^Renan, Averroes^ p. 2S2. -Leben und Lchre des iMo/i^ II, 306. And on the following page he adds : "Wir finden schon fri'ih Spuren des Priides- tiuationsglaubens in Koran. Uas Schicksal jedes Meuschen ist nicht nur vorher bestimmt, sondern es ist auch schrift- lich vorhanden; und das Leben verhlilt sich zu dieser Schrift wie ein Schauspiel zum Text des Dichters. Allein diese Lehre erscheint in Mohammad's Inspirationen, als etwas Unorganisches, Aeusseres, iind es wird daher ebenso oft be- hauptet, dass Engel die Thaten des Menschen aufzeichnen, aber erst nachdem sie geschehen sind. Wo immer Mo- hammad seine eigeuen Empfindungen ausdriickt, erkennter, besonders in der friihesten Periode, die Freiheit des mensch- lichen Willens an." CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 233 Thus, however true Hegel's assertion may be that **Man is a born metaphj^sician," and that only ani- mals are free from speculative difficulties, it is also evident that in men who seriously accept a faith like that of Islam the speculative instinct itself, rather than the "finest germs of intellectual development,"^ must inevitably be stifled, and that hopelessly. Indeed, if such men ever come to make use of philosophy at all, it must be for the infinitely para- doxical purpose of destroying philosophy. And this proves to have been the historical fact in the intellec- tual career of Islam. For a time Greek philosophy seems to be taken up with enthusiasm into the very life of this religion. And yet in the outcome it is found that this philosophic movement, as we have already seen, is primarily a reaction against the re- ligion of Islam itself, while in a secondary sense it is a process of forging weapons against the intellectual aggressiveness of Christianity.^ We repeat that Arab philosophy is so only in name. In spirit it is Persian. And now when we consider that Mohammedanism established itself as a religious movement only by de- liberately restricting itself to the narrow limits of the Arab spirit, we cannot be in the least surprised that the attempt not merely to engraft philosophy upon an anti-philosophic faith, but also to do this in the spirit ^Erdmann. Op. Cit., I, 359-60. 234 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. of au alien and conquered people, should find itself opposed by the fiercest "religious fanaticism." Kven Averroes (1120-1198), the chief of Moham- medan Philosophers, lived a more or less precarious life — sometimes inofficial position, sometimes in dis- grace, and again practicing medicine. Everywhere he "busied himself with philosophy, and thereby brought upon himself the hatred and persecution of his countrymen."^ Under such conditions the fate of philosophy can- not be doubtful. Finding no response in the sur- rounding world it must turn upon and consume itself. This result was reached by the Mohammedans of the Bast more than a century earlier than by those of the West. Haiployed as a teacher at Bagdad dur- ing the last decade of the eleventh century, the philosopher Algazel became disgusted with phil- osophy and wrote "^ RefutatioJi of the Philosophers.''^ On the other hand while Islam recoiled from philosophy as something wholly irreconcilable with it- self as the religion of unquestioning — that is, unthink- ing — submission to the will of Allah, yet in the face of the "Religion of Reason," as Hegel has well named Christianity, Islam was in a measure com- pelled to make use of philosophy. Christianity, on the contrary, had from the first, as lErdman. Op. Cit., I, 369. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 235 we have seen, made use of Greek philosophy for the two-fold reason that (1) the form of that philosophy was found to be precisely the instrument needed for the further unfolding of the new doctrines into that clear and adequate expression which alone could prove satisfying to thought; and that (2) in their inmost spirit the highest speculations of the Greek mind were essentially one with the central doctrines of the Christian religion. It is extremely interesting to note, too, that while the Mohammedans were drawn toward Aristotle, the earlier Christians were chiefly influenced by Plato. The dr}^ formalism of the one, with his elaborate treatment of the phj^sical sciences, with much plaus- ibility could be interpreted so as seemingly to harmo- nize with the rigid materialistic monotheism of Islam; just as the more mystical speculations of the other, with their insistent and inspiring emphasis upon the questions of the nature and destiny of the human soul, might easily appear to early Christians as but another version, addressed to the higher intelligence? of the richly complex, wholly spiritual doctrine of a triune personal God with whom each individual soul stands ia infiaitely intimate relationship. It is true that the early Christians did not wholly neglect Aristotle. But it is not a little significant that with them "the Aristotelian philosophy was studied 236 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. more by heretics than b}^ Orthodox Christians, ' ' * Not until more than a thousand j^ears had been expended in maturing the Christian spirit could that spirit so far comprehend its own deepest significance on the one hand, and the truly organic and profoundly spiritual import of Aristotle's teachings on the other, to recognize for a second time in the history- of Christianity the essential inner unity as between the Christ-Ideal of Divine Love, and the Greek Ideal of absolute devotion to truth as the eternal Divine Order of the World. It is precisely this radical difference in the relation to philosophy which these two religipns assumed respectively that constitutes the secret of the extreme differences of results achieved in the one case from those achieved in the other. In its struggle with Christianity Islam must withdraw more and more into its simple doctrine of the absolute oneness of Allah as Will. And this, reflectively formulated, must be seen to exclude absolutely all other wills. Even in the Koran this ultimate inference is al- ready foreshadowed, as the following will sufficiently illustrate: "These revelations are a reminder, and whoever wills, strikes upon a way leading to his Lord. But ye cannot will unless Allah wills, for Allah is knowing and wise. He leads whom he will into 'Ueberweg. History of Philosophy, I, 403. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 237 his grace, but for the unrighteous he has prepared a fearful punishment."^ If none can will save as Allah wills, then Allah alone wills, and Allah alone is Will. Christianity had made the divine nature of man and his consequent immortality its central doctrine. On the other hand in its very emphasizing of the ex- clusive divinity of Allah, Islam, and philosophy in the service of Islam, was driven logically to deny the immortality of the human soul. Christianity had at first found specially to its liking the poetically idealistic philosophy of Plato. Now, after more than a thousand years of accumulated vitality, all the vigor of the Christian spirit was re- quired to redeem the more rigidly systematic Aris- totle from the wreck of materialism to which he had been reduced b}^ his Mohammedan commentators. It is true that Aristotle was first made known to the Christian world of the Middle Ages through these same Mohammedan commentators. But this is much the same as to say that while the crusaders were making their prolonged and finally unsuccessful attempt to permanently rescue the empty tomb of the historical Christ from the possession of the Moham- medans, the Arabic versions of the great Greek thinker were invading Europe and producing, for the ^From Sprenger's Revision of Sura, LXXVI. 29-31. Lebe^i und Lehie des Moh, II, 36. 238 CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. time, the hope- destroying impression that all the universe is but a tomb in which every human being, each in his turn, will be buried, never to wake again. This materialistic tendency percolates like a subtle poison through the convictions of the period. At Padua, at Paris, in the great universities, the writ- ings of Averroes came to be eagerly studied, so that his interpretations of Aristotle were at length accepted as final. This is not the place to discuss the question wheth- er, as Renan thinks, Aristotle expressed himself obscurely as to the individuality and immortality of the human soul/ Allowing this opinion to stand as representing the fact, it is evident that Aristotle's own presentation of the question admits of an af^rmative as well as of a negative interpretation. And it is al- so evident that the interpretation will be the one or the other according to the attitude of mind with which the investigator approaches the text. With the Mohammedan thinkers the materialistic tendencies so far predominate that the only consistent result possible for them in philosophy was pantheism pure and simple. As Allah is the one will by which all things in the universe subsist, so there can be but one Intellect of which every particular intelligence is but a passing manifestation. The human mind, like '^Averroes. p. i24. CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 239 the flower, the star, the cloud, is but an emanation from the one eternal Reality, into which cloud, star, flower, mind, all alike must at length be reabsorbed. What could lead so directly or so irretrievably to absolute indifferentism as this enervating, materialis- tic identification of man with the fleeting forms of nature? This is, indeed, but the inevitable outgrowth of what, from the first, constituted the true germ of Islamism. Since the Will of Allah is all, since your individual existence and mine, is each but for a mo- ment, what matters it whether we have the same be- lief any more than whether we have the same outward complexion? M. Renan looks upon "the facility wdth which the comparison of religions" — leading to "indiffer- entism and materialism"^ — "oflers itself to the spirit of the Moslems," as itself "a thing surprising."- To the present writer nothing could be more surprising than just this opinion. The saying of the Sufis is the one natural form of confession for this faith: "When there is no more of w^ or //^^y 274 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. no means a clear understanding as to the proper line of distinction between the political and the religious authority as a restraining power. It is true that this differentiation of function had already reached an advanced stage. The State was especially watchful against heresies of deed, as the Church was especially sensitive in respect of heresies of thought. But that these two functions should still be joined under the ultimate authority of the ruler of the State there had arisen no shadow of doubt. Rather the separate existence of Church and State was without hesitation assumed to involve an ex- tremely perilous relation between Church and State. And so the ideal of Henry III reappeared. The Church as the established religion of the State and as thus dependent upon the State for its support, was already subordinated to the will of the ruler of the State. Hence it could be used by him as simply a part of the political machinery at his disposal and through which he might accomplish his own pur- poses. And from the English Henry VIII to the German Bismarck how many conspicuous examples does history furnish to show that the possession of this power presents a temptation too great to be re- sisted ! The extent to which the Church of England HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 275 especially has been put to us*e as a political engine is sufficiently well-known.^ In fact, it was largely the reaction against the Eng- lish Church as a political engine that determined the precise character of the American commonwealth. For that reaction was the reaffirmation of the prin- ciple of individualism or autocracy in its ultimate sig- nificance. And this reaction could with least hin- drance and delay be developed into its positive form in a country remaining to be peopled by a civilized race. This appears the more significant, too, the farther one looks back along the stream of events that led to the settling of America by refugees from Europe. From the Saxon Heptarchy through the Norman Con- quest and the Wars of the Roses, to the American Revolution, there is one continuous process of nat- ural selection. And ''American" is rather the name of a peculiar type of mental and moral development than the name of a resident of a particular country. Doubtless in this sense Americans were born before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic ; but each was thus "a man without a country." Only since the "Treaty of Paris" have the increasing millions of such souls known precisely whither they should go ^The extreme logical outcome of all this is of course to be seen in its greatest fullness of practical illustration in the case of the Greek Church in Russia, reduced, since the time of Peter the Great, to absolute subordination to the State 276 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. in search of what in deepest sense is their true native land. And no matter at what particular spot on the surface of this planet he may have first seen the light, unless a man belong essentially to that type he is not an American, but an alien to all that gives signifi- cance to the name. The true autocrat is the self-ruled man, and that is the typical American. Self-ruled, and therefore is he the direct opposite of the lawless man, the an- archist, who will have no rule — who will least of all rule himself. And so it is in America that the Christian Ideal has for the first time in the history of the world been given explicit utterance in its ultimate significance through the social organism. Here is the true mon- archy — not the rule of one man, for that must vary with each succeeding reign, nay with the successive caprices of each individual ruler — but rather the rule of the one unalterable Principle of Freedom, in- volving identity of nature and therefore equality of rights for all the Brotherhood of Man. The true "monarchy" is based upon the legitimate kingship, not of one man, nor of some men, but of all men. So well indeed was this Ideal understood by the founders of the American Union that the functions of the religious organization were by them completely differentiated from those of the political organization. The church was no longer to be considered as an in- HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 277 stitution of such doubtful validity that its perpetuity could be insured only on condition of guaranteeing its support by the State. At the same time its sa- credness was so far recognized as, by its complete separation from the State, to at least negatively secure its freedom from perversion to other than its legiti- mate functions. Not because the American people are indifferent to religion is the name of Divinity omitted from their Constitution, but because the entire spirit of the people, as voiced in that document, is pervaded by the profoundest faith in the divine governance of the world and in the divine destiny of man as the genuine Son of God. Thus, for the first time since the first three cen- turies of its existence, could the Christian religion as- sume without artificial hindrance a form consonant with the Spirit in which it was received by its votaries. If a group of Christians differed as to the proper mode of worship, or as to the precise form of Christian doctrine — that is, if there proved to be a well-marked difference in their mode of apprehend- ing the fundamental truths of Christianity — nothing more was needed to reduce the antagonism to its lowest terms than to separate into distinct congrega- tions and develop in each group what seemed to it the legitimate mode of embodying those truths. Discussions, often angry, sometimes unseemly, no doubt resulted. But it is also true that these discus- 278 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. sions had the inestimable value of concentrating at- tention upon what were believed to be fundamental questions. And this was the one sure way of discov- ering at length where lay trivialities and where lay the essentials of truth. Meanwhile it is not to be much wondered at that Hegel, with all his marvelous powers of dialectic, should still be so far a victim to the bias of his time and immediate surroundings as to mistake this pro- cess of differentiation for a process of disintegration. Sects were at that time multiplying so rapidly as that dissolution might well be thought to have fairly set in. But this very freedom of division proved to be the means of its own cancellation. Differences which at firstseemed vital proved under the light of discussion and mature deliberation to be but incidental and tran- sitory. The homogeneity of sentiment that consti- tutes the deep-lying basis of the American Brother- hood, also proved to be a check to ecclesiastical di- vision. With no established church political senti- ment served rather to allay than to intensify religious strife — a fact not less significant than novel in the history of humanity. And if the r-esistanee of North- ern and Southern divisions of many of the denomi- nations seems to contradict this, still even here there is rather confirmation than contradiction. For with the vanishing of slavery there vanished also the only HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 279 real ground of both political and religious division. And that division even as a sentiment is now being rapidly succeeded by both political and religious fra- ternity. But this tendency toward unity — has that no nat- ural limit short of the actual merging of all denomi- nations into one United Church of America? Let us attempt to find a reasonable answer to this ques- tion. To say that man is a progressive being is as much as to say that man is an imperfect being. And im- perfect as he is it would seem that the only security against fatal one-sidedness in his development, is to give free play to his tendency to inquiry and experi- mentation. There are opposite tendencies that bal- ance one another in the human world no less than in the inorganic. What at one time seemed mere an- tagonism between the principle of local and that of central government, is now recognized by all thought- ful Americans North and South, as being only a reciprocal relation. Local government is but the mode through which a general government becomes realized in its richest significance. The general gov- ernment is the focal power through which local gov- ernment is rendered perfectly secure and vital. And now comes the claim, repeated again and again, that by analogy the religious organization of the people should be extended and unified on the 280 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. same grand scale. Economy of power, increase of efficiency; these are the complementary aspects of the gain that is thought to be necessarily involved in the merging of all (Protestant) denominations in a United Church of America. ^ Thus the Christian Ideal which is given its ultimate political form in America would unfold in the same land into its ultimate mode of religious development. Protestantism, after reso- lutely separating itself from the tyrannies of the Old World, would thus at length unfold into the fully rounded form of Freedom in the New World. The vision is an attractive one. And doubtless what renders it attractive is just the undeniable germ of truth which the vision involves. But for all that, doubts still force themselves to the surface when one thinks of the form which the vision assumes. That germ of truth consists in the fact that there is strength in union. But while this may be beyond doubt as a general proposition, it is equally true that there are modes of union and degrees of unification the result of which must inevitably be a reduction rather than an increase of strength. It is the "glit- tering generality" that is alluring — so alluring often as to cause forgetfulness of irreconcilable differences. ^Of course the Catholic Church could uot be thought of as entering into a scheme like this, since it could logically con- sider no other union than that which would take the form of the complete submission of all Protestant denominations to and the complete merging of them in the one "Catholic" Church. HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 281 Arguments from analogy are no doubt indis- pensable and highly serviceable. But it is equally true that they are never wholly safe arguments. In them similarities are emphasized and differences slurred over. And the captivating scheme of a "United Church in the United States," appears fatally defec- tive on just this ground. For the religious life of man presents characteristics fundamentally difterent from those of his political life. It is true that the religious life and the political life are but different as- pects of the same life. But that is far from lessening the importance of the fact that the}^ are different as- pects, and that they must therefore demand corres- pondingly different means and methods for their de- velopment. Political freedom is secured by the organic union of man with man. Religious freedom is secured by the organic union of man with God. True, there can be no doubt that these are still but different aspects of the same truth. Doubtless man can be organically united with man only through the divine in man. And doubtless man can be organically united with God only through the co-operation of man with man in the struggle to unfold into reality the divine nature which is implicit in every human being. But there remains a specific functional difference to which there must ever pertain a corresponding difference of structure. 282 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. lu each case, too, there is both a positive and a negative aspect to the process of unification. Nega- tively the process of political unification has for its purpose first of all to protect man from man in respect of physical violence. On the other hand religious unification has for its negative purpose to protect in- dividual man from himself in respect of error in thought and desire. The State is an indispensable institution whose chief negative function is to re- strain men from violent deeds — deeds that are con- trary to reason. The Church is an indispensable in- stitution whose chief negative function is to restrain men from violent opinions — opinions that are con- trary to reason. Again, political unification has for its positive purpose to provide man with such means to the full realization of that phase of his free- dom which is expressed in his deeds, as in the nature of the case he cannot as an individual provide for himself. And religious unification has for its posi- tive purpose to provide the individual with such means to the full realization of that phase of his free- dom which is unfolded in his thought and sentiment, as he cannot in the nature of the case as an indi- vidual provide for himself. Restraint from what is irrational , aid toward what IS rational — these are the complementary phases of the function, both of State and of Church. But it is to be observed that on the one side the restraint and HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 283 the aid are alike primarily physical; while on the other side the restraint and the aid are alike spiritual. Doubtless both the State and the Church have edu- cational functions to perform. But with the State, Education — the symmetrical unfolding of the intel- lectual and moral powers of the individual — must ever be a means ; while with the Church it must ever be an end. Preservation of society as a whole is the supreme aim of political organization. Preservation and normal growth of the individual is the supreme aim of religious organization. And, let us repeat, these contrasted functions are none the less to be re- garded as fundamentally distinct because they also merge into one another and prove to be but comple- mentary phases of the larger functions of human so- ciety as a whole. And now, having thus briefly indicated the essen- tial difference between the State and the Church, both in function and in final aim, we may next pro- ceed to inquire : What are the natural limits of or- ganized religious union ? Or, in other words : What constitutes a church as a truly organic unit ? The clew to a reasonable answer to this question may be found in the fact already indicated that indi- vidualism in its richest significance is the central con- ception of the Christian faith. And it is but a logical inference from this that the supreme aim of a Chris- tian Church should be : the securing for its indi- 284 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. vidual members such conditions, negative and posi- tive, as will most conduce to the symmetrical devel- opment of each as an individual. And here the most vital and permanent interests of the individual are those directly concerned. If the State has especially to secure the individual in his temporal interests, the Church has especially to provide means for the increased vSecurity of the individual in his eternal in- terests. The intellectual and moral state of the indi- vidual — the orthodoxy of his belief and the morality of his conduct — these especially, nay these exclusively, it is the mission of the Church to cherish into fullest vitality. For the unfolding of these into living reality constitutes that process which is known as genuine spiritual regeneration. This accomplished, all else follows. In the degree that reasonable belief and right conduct are matured in the individual, in like degree must he prove him- self to be an exemplary man and a faithful citizen. That is, the more richly unfolded he becomes as an individual the more richly developed his social life proves to be, and vice versa. . It would seem, then, that the Church is an organi- zation which, more specifically, has for its supreme office, first, the formulation of the beliefs that men should adopt with reference to the intrinsic and ab- solutely permanent phases of their own nature and destiny; secondly, the providing a system of prin- HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 285 ciples for the guidance of men in their conduct, and thirdly, the furnishing practical aid toward the indi- vidual's self-realization in both these respects. To show men what is the ultimate Ideal of man, and to guide them as individuals toward the fulfilment of that Ideal — that is the mission of the Church. Thus there are seen to be two special phases of the organic unfolding of a religious body which would seem to determine from within the body itself the limits of its own healthy expansion. The church is, in fact, a human institution progressively developing toward completeness as an embodiment of man's pro- gressively expanding conception of a divine Truth which in itself is unchanging. And for this reason it is inevitable that with widely varying mental habits — as for example those already cited of the Romance peoples on the one hand and of the Teu- tonic peoples on the other — there should arise specific differences of organic form. And, according to the vigor and individualism shown in the mental consti- tution of a people, by so much the more must varieties develop within the limits of the species. And just this characteristic we have seen to belong especially to the Teutonic peoples. Here as elsewhere specific difference of functional activity or vital process must result in corresponding specific difference of organic form. In the religious world it unfolds itself as a process of differentiation, 286 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. resulting in multiplication of specifically different and hence independent or mutually exclusive organiza- tions. On the other hand the true reciprocal of this pro- cess is to be found, as already intimated, in absolutely free discussion, which constitutes the more definite phase of the process of natural selection in this sphere, and through which no opinions other than those that possess some germ of truth can long sur- vive. It is thus that the multiplication of sects is kept within natural or rational limits. It is next to be noted that the tendency toward heterogeneity is on the one hand a mark of relative immaturity. The multiplication of varieties in church organization is based upon multiform modes of com- prehending one and the same truth. But it is equally important to note that the individual can neither ar- rive at, nor even so much as take the first step toward, maturity as an individual otherwise than by the exercise of his own mental powers — otherwise than by exerting those powers for the specific pur- pose of comprehending that Truth. If therefore the supreme mission of the church is to be fulfilled, it must include this very phase of development. The multiplication of sects is one necessary phase in the unrestricted organic development of the church. On the other hand with increasing maturity of mental power, men discover the one-sidedness ot HIvSTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 287 their opinions and recognize the extent to which ap- parently contradictory opinions are in reality only complementary ones. Thus there is brought about a return toward uniformity. But this "return" is none the less an advance. And the uniformity reached is found to be vitally different from that which existed primarily. The initial uniformity in church organ- ization was implicit only. It had its ground, not in thought, but rather in lack of thought. The uni- formity arrived at in later times is explicit, though it can of course, in the very nature of the case, never be more than approximate. It has its ground in the very process of the development of thought. And thus at every stage it presents increasingly rich va- riety, i. e. , multiplied evidences of maturing vigor. The first is the uniformity of a vacuum. The second is the unison of a world rich in harmonious, vitalized forms. With uniformity of inner substance or vital principle there is multiformity of vital characteristics and therefore also multiformity of outer modes of manifestation or embodiment. It thus appears evident that religious organization is no exception to the general law that real advance is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; al- though the heterogeneity in any given instance is nothing else than the necessary outcome of that pro- cess which consists in differentiation, in specializa- tion. In other words it is the outcome of that pro- 288 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. cess which consists in the unfolding into its full sig- nificance and realized form of that one primordial principle or elementary Truth which underlies and gives vitality to the whole movement. Nor should it be forgotten that this fulfilment or realization of the fundamental principle of Chris- tianity, is something that takes place progressively, and that this progressive development occurs b}^ no means uniformly over the world- The ultimate Ideal o-f Christianity — that the typical nature of man is one with the divine Nature — is indeed something in it- self absolute and unchanging. But on^ the other hand it is inconceivable that when this Ideal was first announced it should have been at all adequately comprehended even by the few whose minds were best prepared to receive it and appreciate its sublime import ; while it cannot reasonably be regarded as anything strange that to the many such announce- ments should seem a mere vagary either foolish or blasphemous. Nay, even after centuries of mental and moral development the ultimate significance of this Ideal is yet but very imperfectly apprehended by the average Christian ; while to many it is still a stumbling-block or a mere absurdity. So that the more closely the progress thus far made is examined only by so much the more meagre does it seem to be in comparison with the boundless range of the still unfulfilled phases of possible development. HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 289 Meanwhile there is one thing at least that has be- come fairly evident to many minds and is rapidly be- coming evident to many more. And that is that this divine Ideal which it is the peculiar merit of Chris- tianity to have clearly presented to and to have per- sistently urged upon the attention of humanity, nec- essarily involves the right and duty of each human being to unfold for himself in his own life this divine nature common to all. And in this growing convic- tion there is necessarily implied a further one — namely : that, as each individual is thus essentially an independent unit, having his own special charac- teristics and placed as he is in the midst of an envir- onment never precisely the same as that of any other individual, it must follow that the very Ideal of man which the Christian faith primarily presents in such absolute uniformity, must nevertheless involve end- less multiformity in the very process of its realization by and in individual men. And so, once more, it appears that wherever Protestantism develops it proves, and must ever prove, to be but the manifes- tation of that inner, vital principle of Christianity — the principle of divine Individualism. And as men become increasingly aware of its true import there must ever in like degree be developed a demand for increasingly manifold modes of outer manifestation or embodiment of that principle. In other words, Protestantism is in its very nature 290 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. the perpetual protest of reason against any and every attempt to confine it solel}^ to one single set of formulas. The spirit of man, infinite in its nature, refuses to be checked in its development by being permanentlj^ encased in one and the same mould. Nay, in the final outcome it utterly refuses to be "moulded" at all. It claims to have the inalienable right of unrestricted growth in accordance with the divine type to which it belongs. And this the more as it learns that thus alone can it maintain itself as a truly living unit. It is not for the Church to "mould" a soul, as if it were some plastic, inorganic substance Rather it is for the Church to cultivate and train the individual soul as the most complex and delicate of all organic units — keeping ever in view the soul's ow^n typical nature. And if this be indeed the mission of the Church, then assuredly its outer forms and formulas must be ever maintained in a state of organic mobility. For they are but the outer modes of the inner spiritual vi- tality of the Church itself. And with the unfolding of that inner life the outer form must be ever in pro- cess of modification, so as to maintain continued ad- justment to that life. Permanent incrustation can have no other effect than the death of the organic unit thus enclosed. And here we have to note another specific differ- HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION, 291 ence between political and religious life as expressed or developed in a community. It is this : States never interfuse. Their boundaries are sharpl}^ de- fined in space. In religious organization, on the con- trary, space boundaries are indifferent. Here indeed the boundaries are qualitative rather than quanti- tative. They are to be found not in space but in difference of mental habit. No two states can co- exist within the same space-limits. And because of this mutual exclusion the natural barriers presented in the forms of the earth's surface have ever been found to be an essential factor in determining the boundaries of nations. On the other hand, with the specific differences of mental habit certain to be pos- sessed by the various inhabitants of a given region, especially as the region becomes densely populated, and still more if the people are characterized by vigorous individualism, it is evident that since the function of a church is to embody the specific convic- tions of its members in clearly defined forms, there must inevitably arise many and various church. or- ganizations within the same territory. Indeed many parishes must practically coincide, while not infre- quently members of several differently organized parishes will be found under the same roof. It would thus seem that the natural limits of a re- ligious organization do not consist of lines drawn in space, but rather that those limits are to be found in 292 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. certain characteristic habits and tendencies of mind, the outer form of which must consist of correspondingly different creeds and ceremonial. So that no one form can possibly suffice for the spiritual needs of Christendom. And this brings us to repeat that the existence of these specific differences of mental habit is a mani- festation of mental and moral vigor. It reveals a healthy state of spiritual development. And hence any tendency to repress this free unfolding of the in- dividual mind — involving as this tendency does its own corrective, namely perfect freedom of mutual criticism — is in its very nature reactionary rather than progressive, and so far as it has practical effect can only result in hindrance to the spread of vital Christianity. For vital Christianity, let it be remem- bered, places infinite emphasis upon the divine nature of the individual and hence insists upon the right and duty of the individual to unfold into reality this di- vine nature in his own life, and to do this with the utmost energy and rapidity as being the one legiti- mate purpose of his existence. And if this seems to present the egoistic aspect too prominently, we have only to note that egoism and altruism are in truth not conflicting modes, but rather complementary phases of the one true mode prescribed by Christianity itself for the realization of the highest ideal of humanity. "He that loseth his HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 293 life," in its capricious, narrowly egoistic aspects, and does so for the sake of the typical Man, for the sake of the divine nature in all men, he it is who finds his life in its truest significance. A reasonable altruism is the one only means of attaining the highest egoistic results. It is ^vorth observing, too, that the gradual en- largement of the individual's own life through the free play of his own powers, stimulated as they must ever be to the fullest and most healthful activity through unrestrained criticism of individual by indi- vidual, must tend ever to secure to the virtue of tol- erance a more and more rational character. It is true that just as there are yet many men who persuade themselves that a man's faithfulness as a citizen is to be measured by his recklessness as a partisan, so there are still to be found those who persuade them- selves that a man's faithfulness as a Christian is to be measured by the recklessness of his adherence to some denominational rr(?^^. But the "independents" in both the political and the religious world are steadil}^ increasing in number, and with continued freedom of discussion must continue so to increase. And if this absolute freedom of discussion is a neces- sary phase in the education of a self-governing people politically, so it is none the less a necessary phase in the religious education of man. Thus only can the essentially Christian principle of Individualism be 294 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. unfolded into concrete reality — a result that could hardly fail to be indefinitely delayed by the merging of all denominations into one with the inevitable con- sequence of smothering freedom of inquirj^ and dis- cussion in respect of religious themes. We have said that the Church is a human institu- tion expressive of human convictions respecting a divine principle. It seems needful to add that the Church is made up of human beings with human passions, and that for this reason were the Church once fairly established in America as a single organ- ization with "maximum efficiency," there must then be overwhelming temptation to use its vast power for the purposes of determining political results. The Church must once more become ambitious of ruling the State. Even now it is a sufficiently conspicuous fact that some of the stronger denominations have put forth efforts, and not without result, in that di- rection. And in this field what begins in more or less timid suggestion would be only too likelv to ad- vance toward confident and even arrogant dictation. Nay, in such case, "political" methods must enter more and more into the ver}^ life of the Church itself. In other words corrupting influences must play a larger part in proportion as the prize of power becomes more luring to ambitious men. As it is, the American State has nothing to fear and much to hope for from the influence of the Church as exercised in its own HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 295 legitimate field. As it would be, with a single gi- gantic Church organization, the State must be ever on the defensive against the Church. And this must tend inevitably toward reversion to an "established" Church under control of the State. Strange attitude for America while England is struggling toward dis- establishment ! It appears then that the plea of maximum efficiency is a delusive one so far as it is to be gained by the union of churches. Increase of efiiciency as regards external authority might indeed be attained for a time. But this could be only at the expense of that efiiciency that comes from perfect soundness of inner life. And the genuineness of this latter efficiency can be proven in no other way than by the Church directing all its powers with perfect "singleness of heart" to one end. And that end is the awakening of men to, and the convincing them of, the truth as regards their own natures, with their consequent con- version from the way of Death to the way of lyife. As a final word it may be added that Christianity has long since proved itself to be possessed of inex- tinguishable vitality by refusing to be limited to de- nominational rolls of membership. The Phariseeism that insists upon the restriction of the name Christian to those who are within the "Church" is constantly put to shame by the noble Christian lives of many 296 HISTORY OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION. who fiud it impossible to make profitable use of the ceremonial of existing churches. Doubtless such lives would be still better had they the advantage of a form of church organization adap- ted to their needs and based upon a creed consisting of the fundamental principles of Christianity trans- lated out of mediaeval symbolism into the clearer and more adequate forms of modern intelligence. For man is helped by association with man. And this is no less true of his religious nature than in respect of any other phase of his essential life. Meanwhile, the sincere soul, striving honestly to fulfil its des- tiny — to such soul the name of Christian cannot be Christianly denied. And it is not impossible that yet new denominations may be required for the help of such seekers after the divine life. VI. THK HERESY OF NON-PROGRESSIVE OR- THODOXY. Revelation involves two factors. The one factor is a receptive mind. The other factor is a mind giving utterance to itself. The degree in which the reve- lation is realized as such will depend not merely upon the completeness with which the communicating mind utters itself, but also upon the capacity of the receiving mind. The perfect Mind must of course give to itself un- ceasing, perfect utterance. But only the perfect Mind can perfectly comprehend its own perfect ut- terance. For this reason an absolutely perfect reve- lation is possible only in the sense of the eternal self- communication of the perfect mind to the perfect mind. For any finite mind the divine revelation can never be perfect ; though for the normal finite mind that revelation must be progressive, must be a continuous approximation towards perfection. But now, since individual conscious units are forever arising in the eternal process of creation, that special phase of revelation which consists in the un- 298 NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. folding ot an individual consciousness as a power to comprehend the truth is manifestly an abiding fac- tor, ever present in that eternal process. The changing, the progressive, the struggling conscious unit, which has been named "individual" because in- divisible, that unit is still only a more richly endowed pulsation within the self-sufficing conscious Unit that forever works and moves all, while yet itself is resting in moveless, eternal calm. It is this perfect activity in perfect rest that constitutes the self-conservation of the ultimate Energ}-, the infinite self-renewal of the eternal "I am." The phrase "primitive revelation" is thus seen to have two eternally valid meanings. On the one hand, it is the truth in its unchanging totality, for- ever present in all its details to the Divine Conscious- ness. On the other hand, the primitive revelation is just that primary phase of truth which appeals to and is received by any and every individual consciousness in the initial stage of its development. In this sense "primitive," so far as it refers to time at all, merely indicates "the year one" of each individual's life-history so far as he is a self-conscious being. In this respect, the Oriental method of chro- nology is the true one. For, in the genuine king- ship of humanity, a new empire, destined to infinite expansion, is established with the birth of each new soul; and the life and reign of that royal unit begins NON-PROGRKSSIVK ORTHODOXY. 299 with the initial elementary modes of its intelligence, just as if no such royal units had previously existed. Thus to the individual created conscious unit it is as if the divine revelation were made solely through time, on special occasions, for the special benefit of such created conscious unit. And yet, in reality, the manifestation of the perfect Mind recognized in any given case by the created mind is new to such created mind, because the latter is new to the manifestation. The truth (that is, the particular phase of truth) which I learn to-day seems to me so new that, for the moment, I spontaneousl)'- assume it to be an abso- lutely new development. xVnd for this reason I go abroad proclaiming it until I am met with the calm assurance that the same phase of truth had been known by others before me before I was born, before the tongue I speak had 3^et become a living mode of expression ; nay, that Truth is eternal, and that hence no phase of it can be "new," save to the con- sciousness newly awakened to receive such phase. The accumulated experience of the race of man does, indeed, serve to lighten the difficulty of the in- dividual's development. But it does not and cannot relieve him from the necessity of passing through every single stage of that development. In other words, the individual mind can become realized as such in no other way than through the exercise of his own powers. Or, again, since man is divine in 300 NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. nature, he is a self-unfoldiug unit. His independence is measured by the degree in which he has attained to realization of the divine nature in his own present concrete life. And no single phase of that realization can be attained by any individual save through that individual's own efforts. All the universe may help him, but onl}^ on condition that he accept and inde- pendently make use of that help. It need hardly be added that this is true of every phase of man's nature, — that only by the reasonable exercise of his own powers, whether of body or of will or of intelligence, can those powers increase. Whence it is evident that ready-made opinions can- not make us really wiser ; any more than ready- made spectacles can make us skilful opticians. Only as one thinks the truth can the truth become really one's own. Only by progressively knowing the truth, in the sense of thoroughly assimilating it, can one unfold the divine nature within him, and thus become a self-poised, genuinely free being "Ready-made opinions" may, it is true, be safely adopted by the individual in the elementarj- stages of his development. Nay, doubtless it is exceedingly unsafe, not to say altogether suicidal, for the indi- vidual to reject the opinions of his time and race. It can, indeed, be nothing else than the mark of imma- turity and lack of wisdom to reject those opinions NON-PROGRESSIVK ORTHODOXY. 301 without being able to give clear proof of their inade- quacy or of their erroneous character. At the same time it would be none the less a mark of immaturity and lack of wisdom to overlook the fact that those opinions are themselves no more than the slowly, and at the best but partially, matured fruit of human inquiry. All discoveries are made progressively. The magnet was discovered centuries ago, and it is yet far from being fully discovered. Newton discovered the law of gravity. It had been known long before his time ; and, nevertheless, it yet remains to be perfectly unfolded. The magnet, like any other given physical centre of energy, is but a focus of relations, the total sum of which relations comprises the whole physical universe. In that uni- verse (or, rather, aspect oi the universe) Truth is for- ever present, so far as expressed or expressible, in physical relations. In this round of relations there is presented one fundamental phase of the eternally perfect revelation. On the other hand, man's consciousness of that phase of revelation can unfold by only such slow de- grees as his sense of scientific wonder grows and urges him on to careful scientific investigation. Thus only can he become aware of the abiding Truth thus unfolded. But precisely in the degree in which his investigations have been consistently carried forward, precisely in the degree in which science has become 302 NON-PROGRKSSIVE ORTHODOXY. a reality in this world of ours, in just that degree has man really become aware of the abiding Truth un- folded in physical relations. Precisely thus, too, has he come to be emancipated from superstitious fear, from the slavish worship of natural phenomena, so that at last he stands erect, self-assured, and (at least relatively) free. Similarly, that immeasurabl}^ more adequate as- pect of the Truth which pertains specifically to the nature of the conscious unit is also forever present in perfection in the universe as a whole. Its funda- mental phases were doubtless felt in some measure, however vaguely, by "primitive man," using the phrase now in the sense of the earliest living units on this earth that could rightly be called minds. By degrees these fundamental phases were more definitely recognized, and at length became formulated with greater or less approximation to accuracj^ and ade- quacy by the finest minds of various peoples in suc- ceeding ages — by Confucius, by Buddha, by Zoroas- ter ; with far greater clearness by Moses, and, first of all, with perfect precision and adequacy by the Son of Man. Indeed, the further investigation proceeds — the more searching it becomes — only so much the more manifest is it that, while Confucianism and Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and Mosaism were each and all local, tentative formulations of the truth concerning man's spiritual nature, the formulation NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 303 called Christian is essentially faultless as indicating the ultimate Truth concerning the nature of man and his relation to the supreme creative Energy. But even that formulation, precise and adequate as it is in principle, does not profess to do more than give the clew to the genuine eternal life of man. And by this clew the eternal life of man is nothing else than the progressively unfolding concrete life of each individual man in accordance with the one eter- nal type of all conceivable spiritual units. "Eternal life" is, in realit}^, nothing else for the individual than the ceaseless, progressive moulding, or rather unfolding, of his present life into the "form of eternity." We are now prepared to say that "Progressive Or- thodoxy" is nothing else than the ceaseless deepen- ing and enlarging and clarifying of human opinion respecting the eternal Type to which every individual — that is, indivisible or immortal — spiritual unit must conform if it is ever to rise above a merely phantas- mal existence. So that, concretely, Progressive Or- thodoxy may be again defined as the continuous un- folding of man's knowledge of the Truth in its spir- itual aspect, whereby man brings into ever- increasing realization within his own life that divine self- consistency which constitutes true freedom. At best, indeed, no human formulation of the di- vine message to man can be more than a dim inti- 304 NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. mation of what that message is in its full wealth of significance. All Bibles contain some such formu- lation. And, if the Christian Bible is the best of all Bibles, it is because it presents, in consistent form, the central thread of that message — the veritable clew which, faithfuU}^ followed, must lead to end- lessly progressive realization of eternal life. But that clew is still only a clew. Of itself it does nothing and is nothing. Only when a human soul seizes upon it, examines it, learns its use, and uses it persistently and intelligently and honestly, only then is it of any value whatever. It is a map, not a coun- try. It is not life. It is merel}^ a guide to true living. And I am to accept it ''just as it is." There is, indeed, nothing else that I so much desire to do. I want, above all, to know its true, its full import. I want to know all that it is. And yet its significance becomes richer with each new examination. Be- comes? Does this guide, after all, change, then, and with each fresh glance I give it ? What is it, then ? And how can I ever hope to know it, to receive it, "just as it is?" Nay, but this is mere casuistry. The guide does not change. It is a perfectly definite principle. What I have before me is a finite formula, suggest- ing the infinite import of that principle. And, since the guide does not change, for that reason the change NON-PROGRESSIVK ORTHODOXY. 305 is in me. My mind expands. A thought new to me takes shape and reality in my consciousness. A fresh impulse arises in my life with each additional honest effort I make to find for myself the whole truth contained in the formula. Shall I, then, content myself with mere repetition of the formula ? Or will it be reasonable for me to add to the formula an explicit, progressive statement of the various phases of truth which I am progres- sively discovering to be implicitly contained in the formula ? Newton formulated the I^aws of Falling Bodies — including their ultimate generalization in the Law of Gravity — with such precision that every variation from his formulae appears to have no other result than the introduction of obscurity or even of actual error. The Newtonian formulae seem to be fault- less, and hence permanent. And yet, taken literally (and so much the more when taken separately),, these formulae are mere abstractions. They serve no further purpose than, on the one hand, to indicate vaguely the rich sum of relations existing in the physical aspect of the world, and, on the other hand, to intimate the course of study through which one may hope to become increasingly aware of the beau- tiful phases of truth exhibited in those relations. So the Son of Man gave concise formulation to the fundamental laws of all spiritual being. These laws,. 306 NON- PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. necessarily, are abstract statements. But they serve to indicate the infinitely rich sum of relations exist- ing in the spiritual aspect of the world, and also to make plain the never-ending course of training by which one may hope to become more and more clearly aware of, and in ever fuller degree to realize in his own life, the infinitely varied and surpassingly beautiful phases of Truth forever unfolded in those relations. Doubtless any attempt to replace those formulae could result in nothing else than the introduction of obscurity and error. For the original Christian formulae prove under every test to be faultless, and hence permanent. But to suppose that any one may become a mature Christian through mere repetition of those formulae, however devout and persistent the repetition might be, is no more reasonable than to suppose that one can become an accomplished physi- cist by simple repetition of the Newtonian formulae. Bach formulation of a genuine mode of the divine Energy is so far a truth. But it is none the less a grave error to assume that such formulation is an ex- haustive statement of the truth. For this would, in reality, be assuming that one comprehends at first glance the full significance of a given fact or formula. Untruth creeps into human speech while human thought lies idle. And few of such untruths are more pernicious than the frequent thoughtless declaration NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 307 that "first impressions are best impressions." One need onlj'- call his thought into active wakefulness to recognize that first impressions are commonly the shallowest, poorest, least trustworthy impressions. In the very nature of the case, they can be no more than merely initiatory, rudimentary. They may re- main uncorrected, undisturbed ; but that can be only because no actual examination of the subject is ever undertaken. It is thus that we may, and often do, become jamiliar with objects, facts, persons, while yet remaining in utter ignorance of them. Nay, we may even mistake familiarity for knowledge, and thus unwittingly make sure of our ignorance remaining the more impenetrable. A first impression may in- deed be accurate enough, true enough, so far as it extends. But, even so, as "first impression" it can scarcely extend below the surface, can scarcely be other than superficial. The more complex the case, the more superficial the impression. To remain con- tent with such impressions is to accept unconsciously the limitations of mind in its merely rudimentary stages of development. It is to confine one's self to a merely mythical interpretation of the facts of the world. It is, in short, to repudiate science in all its phases : for science is a process of criticism, of veri- fication. Now, theology is a science. Or, rather, it may properly be said to be the culmination of all science. 308 NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. In its fullest sense, science is the study of phe- nomena, of manifestation, of revelation. And through this study man is led inevitably to inquire concerning that which is manifested or revealed. When the latter phase of study has so far advanced that that which is manifested is recognized, however dimly, as a process of self- manifestation, then theology, or the science of God, has entered upon its realization. And, the further this process of critical investigation extends, the more matured does the science of divine things become. Passing over pre-Christian theologies with the re- mark that they are nothing else than the initial stages of theology as a whole, of which Christian theology is but the culmination, we have to note that Christian theology itself exhibits a sufficiently marked process of development. Its basis consists of the recorded utterances of Christ. And we are assured on excel- lent authority that these recorded utterances consti- tute no more than a very brief series of typical say- ings, collected out of the vastly richer whole of his actual utterances. And doubtless also they illustrate the law of the "survival of the fittest." The assertion, indeed, that, if all he said and did had been fully recorded, "the world itself could not contain the books that should be written," is often cited as an example of hyperbole. And if the asser- tion is to be taken literally, or "just as it is," — that NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 309 is, in its most superficial meaning, — doubtless it can- not be put to better use than that of an example of extravagant rhetorical figure. But, on the other hand, there is a sense in which hyperbole vanishes, and the statement is "literally" true, though with a vastly deeper meaning. It is this : the statements of Christ contain implicitly the whole truth as regards the divine nature, on the one hand, and human nature, on the other, together with the essential re- lation of these, each to each. And to set forth all this//^//)/ would be no less than to re-create the whole universe. But the universe is in actual and perpetual process of recreation. And the self-unfolding of each indi- vidual conscious unit is an essential factor of this process. Let us repeat, too, that such unit is of pre- cisely the same type or nature as that of the divine unit, or Person. One ought, besides, to dwell upon this identity in nature as between man and God so far as to apprehend clearly what is implied in this identity. In the present connection this implication is as fol- lows : If my nature is really infinite, then, because I have as yet realized that nature only in mere rudi- mentary degree, and because I can at best further realize it only stage by stage or progressively, then am I truly an individual ; that is, an indivisible, in- destructible unit. For, if an infinite nature is really 310 NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. mine, then all the conditions for its perfect realization are also mine. And one necessary condition for the perfect fulfilment of an infinite nature on my part must be endless persistence as one and the same unit. For in no less than endless duration can I, a finite being, unfold into reality an infinite ideal. If death, in the sense of utter cessation of my identity as a con- scious unit, could occur, then my nature would prove to be not infinite, but finite. It thus appears that whoever entertains a rational belief in immortality for the individual must also be- lieve in the individual's unlimited progress in the knowledge of God as revealed or realized in the physical aspect of creation, on the one hand, and in its spiritual aspect on the other. And, since this pro- gress in the knowledge of God is nothing else than a progressive clarifying and enlarging of man's opinion respecting God as manifested or revealed in both nat- ural and spiritual phenomena, then "Orthodoxy," as human opinion upon this all-inclusive theme, must in its very nature be progressive. Only a living, growing faith is really orthodox. It is such faith that is ceaselessly, progressively, "swallowed up in sight." It is such faith that 7iozv, to-day, sees through a glass darkly; but which will the7i, to-morrow, see God with truer vision and, rela- tively, face to face. It is such faith that goes on unto perfection in its special, particular phases, and NON-PROGRKSSIVK ORTHODOXY. 311 thus ceaselessly tozvard perfection in its ultimate, universal, divine fulness.^ The antinomy of "Orthodoxy" has ever been this : the finitude of the symbol, on the one hand, and the infinitude of the symbolized significance, on the other. The Bible is the infinitely significant — that is, infinitely suggestive — "Word of God." Never- theless, we are to take the words of the Bible, and, above all, the few recorded words of Christ, "just as they. are. ' ' And strange things, indeed, have been compassed in the attempt to follow this rule. When Jesus said: "If a man keep my word, he shall never see death," the people who heard took the words "just as they are," and exclaimed indignantly, "Now we know that thou hast a devil." When Jesus said: 'The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world," those present took the words "just as they are," and therefore "strove with one another, say- ing, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" And, when Jesus repeated: "Except ye eat the flesh 4t seems hardly necessary to mention that shallow form of "progressive spirit" which indulges itself in mere change, in the mere substitution of one fancy for another, and com- placently regards itself, as for that reason, far in advance of those who have found the clew to fundamental principles, and are content to develop patiently in their own minds a deeper apprehension of all that those principles imply. And yet, now and then, the wildest vagaries of a Tolstoi are claimed to prove the greatness (instead of the painful weak- ness; of such a mind. -312 NON-PROGRESSIVK ORTHODOXY. of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves," many, even of his disciples, taking his words, "just as they are, "grew impatient, declared it to be a ' 'hard saying" which no sane man could tolerate, and hence **went back and walked no more with him." It was of no avail that Jesus at- tempted to show them the higher truth to which he would awaken them by the use of such startling sym- bolism. In reality, as it proved, the twelve alone had progressed far enough to see beyond the mere ordinary use of the words, and hence to appre- hend, at least in some degree, the value of the inter- pretation in higher terms which Jesus immediately gave of his first statement. Even to-day there is persistent insistance that these ''^words'' shall be "taken just as they are." And with what result ? What but this ? That the words, in reality so significant, so full of suggestion, are re- duced to and accepted as a mere fetish, on the one hand, and, on the other, are declared to belong to fetishism merely, whence they are scornfully thrust aside without so much as a moment's serious exami- nation. The reduction of "the Word" to the uses of a gross magic could hardly fail to find its antithesis in a mocking skepticism. Thus, on the one hand, -we see a devout "Christian" opening at random to a text for guidance in case of doubt (like a good pagan casting a glance into the sky to note what bird flies NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 313 by, and in what direction), and trusting implicitly to that as a special divine intimation. On the other hand, we now and then see some one just sufficiently awakened out of the same dogmatic stupor to fly to the other extreme, and in wholly unsuspecting confi- dence that he at least comprehends the case with per- fect clearness, assume it an indispensable and also indubitable mark of his own superior intelligence to look upon the whole collection of texts as nothing else than the outgrowth of superstition, unworthy a moment's notice on the part of a truly wise man. Such in character is the contradiction that must continue to present itself in practical life so long as the antinomy of Flesh and Spirit, of symbolizing Word and symbolized Significance, fails of explicit reconciliation in theology. And Progressive Ortho- doxy is just that reconciliation. It is the recognition with steadily increasing explicitness that the Word is ever dual in meaning, unless it be quite meaningless. "In the beginning was the Z, to the individual intelligence, even the significance of these special forms can become known only grad- ually, through the progressive unfolding of that indi- vidual's power to apprehend the Truth and apply it in his own life. The schools of Christendom in general, then, and the theological schools of Christendom in particular, are in truth nothing else than the media for the pro- gressive awakening of men to a clearer consciousness of the infinitely rich truth symbolized in the original Christian teachings, and progressively unfolded into ever-increasing accuracy and adequacy of expression through succeeding centuries. And not only are the schools of Christendom the media for leading the minds of a given generation to a clearer apprehen- sion of the truth already discovered ; they are, of right, equally the media for extending and deepening that same process of discovery — media, that is, for the NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 315 fuller, richer interpretation of the elementary sym- bols to which Christ gave shape, and to which he gave shape no less for the stimulus than for the guidance of human intelligence. Evidently, then, to apply such schools to the enforcement of mere dog- matic formulae as such is the deadliest of perversions, the transformation of Orthodoxy into the most ruinous of heresies. It is a dying faith that wraps itself in the winding- sheet of mere forms and emblems, and resents all ef- forts to stimulate it into increased life and activity. And whoever insists upon an Orthodoxy from which progress is excluded, by that very fact convicts him- self of heresy in a form that drives out all real ground of hope in immortality. For, as we have seen, im- mortality can really mean nothing else than this : a never-ending renewal, enriching, unfolding of the divine Life in the individual soul. And, it need hardly be added, this must include the unceasing growth of intelligence on the part of each individual soul, involving continuous revision and extension of forms of expression , so that these forms may be ever adequate to the actual utterance of the steadily grow- ing mind. , It can be mentioned here, only incidentally, that in such revision and extension of forms the indi- vidual cannot escape, even if it were desirable that he should escape, the corrective and stimulating in- 316 NON-PROGRKSSIVE ORTHODOXY. fluence of other minds. Indeed, the school, in its best sense, is the ideal community, whose chief en- ergies are combined to raise this corrective, stimu- lating influence of mind upon mind to the highest de- gree of actual efficiency. In the foregoing argument there is implicit the fol- lowing important corollary ; From the fact that im- mortality means unending progression towards abso- lute perfection, the conclusion follows inevitably that for the individual soul * 'probation'* — that is, the possibility of error, with its necessary reciprocal, the possibility of recovery from error — can never be wholly ended, but that, on the contrary, it must con- tinuously be transferred to ever more advanced grades of the soul's life. The possibility of choosing the "lower" instead of the "higher"' can never be elim- inated from the finite mind. On the other hand, with the normally advancing soul, any phase of the lower, which at any moment would constitute a real "temptation," must prove to be of a less and less ignoble character. After the dissonance of actual self-contradiction has ceased to have any attraction, there may still be the choice of a less rather than of a more richly rhythmic duty — as if one were to content himself with a life of mere melody when he reason- ably might (and therefore ought to) add to his ex- perience an ever fuller range of harmony. Let us note, finally, that not only is the "future' ' NON-PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 317 life an extension essentially of the present life, but, also, that the future life is not really life until it ceases to be future and becomes present. Man lives in a progressive Now, as God lives in the ete^nial Now. It is thus and thus only that man attains, or can attain, to ever richer degrees of the I^ife Divine. vn. MIRACLES. As intelligence my nature demands that I shall know the world. As will my nature demands that I shall control the world. As feeling my nature de- mands that I shall enjoy the world. But the "world" — what is it ? That is my question ; and equally, as would seem, the answer must be my answer. No answer coming from without can satisfy any question coming up from within. A question — every question — pre- supposes alienation, in one or another degree, be- tween myself and the world. Were I wholly at one with the world, there could be for me absolutely no question. And thus, in real truth, every question is itself an imperative demand of my whole being that I shall make myself at one with the world. This, too, I must accomplish either by adjusting the world to myself, or by adjusting myself to the world. Ultimately, then, the core of every question I can ask is just this : What z^ the world? For, what the world is that, in the outcome, must I also be. Some- how the world and I must be at one. The question MIRACIvES. 319 is my question and the answer must be my answer. The answer will not come to me of itself, and, as I find at every turn, the world will not come to me with the answer. Rather must I take the initiative, go to the world, fuse myself with the world, the world with myself. Thus and thus only can I hope to attain true and sufficient answer to my question. Fuse myself with the world — that does not mean that I shall stand outside the world as a mere looker- on, and so get my answer. Far enough from that ! Moreover, as intelligence merely I cannot hope for such true answer as my whole nature compels me to seek. I must wield the world to know the world; and to wield it I must will it. Doubtless the world comes to me with stimuli, myriad-fold in number, variety, and quality. But these stimuli serve only to excite my curiosity, only to awaken the questioning mood within me — never to answer my questions. My answer must consist simply in my own interpretation of these stimuli. But also when I attempt to will, or wield, the world it refuses to be willed or wielded. I put forth my Energy as will that I may shape the world and fuse it with my will. Could I succeed in that then the answer to my question would be this : The world is but the expression of my will, of myself. In going to the world I have come to myself, then. And there is doubtless a glimmer of truth in that. 320 MIRACLES. Yet not so simple is the answer ! I do ?ioi succeed; or, at most, my success is only superficial and even illusory. The world ou^ there resists my efforts to fuse it with myself. Resists? Why, then, I have already found answer. The world is resistance And further, through experiment I find that the world yields, or seems to yield, more to my will when I ex- ert my will in special ways. And the more I experi- ment the more I discover that there is absolute uni- formity in the resistances and yieldings of the world to my will. Examining the processes unfolding in my own mind, processes consisting of my own efforts to wield the world, I discover that when those processes are most "intelligent" the world ''yields" most readily and most completely to my will ; and when least intelligent its resistance is most stubborn. And so the world as resistance to my will is ener- gy, as I am energy ; and as compelling intelligent or sj'Stematic action on my part before it will "yield" or prove responsive to my activity it proves to be an en- ergy whose activities are uniform, regulated — an en- ergy, in fact, which can be comprehended only as a concretely unfolded system. Nor can I discover any phase of this system that appears defective. Rather, the more I experiment upon it and examine into it the more am I impressed with its greatness and per- fection as a system. Attempting to adapt the world to my will I find the MIRACLES. 321 world resisting my effort. Thus my intelligence is stimulated to the point of devising new modes of ex- erting my energy as will. And when I have devised such modes as make me the seeming master of the world, I discover that I have reduced m}^ activities to a system which but reproduces thus far the S3^stem of the World as Energy. I dreamed of mastering the world— -of making it one with myself. I have really been mastering myself by making myself one with the world. And the further I advance in this experimentation the more evident becomes to me the fact that the world as Energy is absolutely universal ; it is all- inclusive ; it is literally the Universe — the All turned into Oyie. Thus it proves to be universal Energy constituting a concretely unfolded and all-inclusive System — a System, therefore, which cannot be moved from without, but can be moved only from within. It is of necessity self-moved, self-active, and hence self-regulating. But a self-active, self-regulating Energy cannot be conceived save as conscious of its own activity and of the System or method of its ac- tivity. And a self-conscious unit of Energ}^ can be conceived no otherwise than as Mi7id. Observation and experiment, then, force me to this conclusion : The world is resistance ; the world is energy ; the world is self- regulating Energy ; the world is Mind. As the one all-inclusive System, it 322 MIRACLES. is infinite, self-unfolding Mind. It is infinitely active and hence infinitely productive. Looked at as a Sys- tem, its activity appears as an absolute process of Evolution. Looked at as Mind its activity appears as a process of absolute self-realization. Looked at as the all-inclusive, infinitely live, self conscious One, its activity appears as the self-manifestation of the one eternally perfect Person. And so I attain a glimpse of "the high and lofty One who inhabiteth Eternity," who is "without variableness or shadow of turning," and with whom therefore ''a. thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years." And this brings me to notice that the infinite creative process, consisting of the self-manifestation of the eternally perfect Person cannot but be perfectly regulated in every phase and degree throughout its whole extent. It is nothing less than the perfect reign of perfect Law. It is the perfect Law of the absolute, inherent necessity of self- consistency which constitutes the essence of perfect Jreedom on the part of perfect mind. But I too am mind. Nor can I conceive of more than one type of mind As mind, then, I am already one in type with the perfect Mind. Were I as mind less than perfect in type, I could never know myself as being imperfect in realization. Were not I as mind infinite in nature, I could never know myself as finite in attainment. A finite being can never MIRACIvES. 323 know itself as finite. lyimit — finitude — exists only for that being which sees beyond the limit, beyond finitude. The world is Mind. I am mind. Potentially, ideally, therefore, I am already one with the world. That, in truth, is the reason why every question I ask presupposes practical alienation between myself and the world ; for otherwise no questipn could arise as a mode of my consciousness. And so also I find in this the explanation of the fact that every question I ask is in truth an absolute demand of my whole being that I shall make myself at one with the world. And, as I now recognize, this reconciliation of myself with the world can come about not by adjusting the world to myself but by adjusting myself to the world. I can know the world only by thinking the thought of the world. I can control the world only by willing the Will of the World. I can enjoy the world only as feeling — only as reproducing in myself — the actual rhythm of the world. II. In such world what can be the real meaning of the word "miracle ?" Words, as I have come to notice, are just the outer aspects of ideas. My present question, then, is this : What, exactly, is the idea which has assumed or- ganic form in the word "Miracle?" In its rudi- 324 MIRACLES. mentary form, indeed, the answer to this question is already a simple and familiar one. The word "mir- acle" expresses the idea of something exciting won- der. But also I discover that to many minds it has come to mean : "That which is out of the ordinary course of things, and even that which contradicts the ordinary course of things." In which case a miracle is nothing le.ss than a positive interruption of the great World process itself. It is a "suspension of the laws of. Nature," brought about by the divine Author of Nature who condescends to give to man such transcendent proof that mind alone is essential and that thus nature itself is only incidental, both in use and in significance. A wonder indeed were such things actually to be ! And so long as I "think" only in images ; so long, that is, as imagination takes precedence of critical in- vestigation in my consciousness, there appears no contradiction in such assumption. On the other hand, when I subordinate imagination to reflection and really think what is involved in such assump- tion, the case appears radically different. For I find it quite impossible to represent the great World- process in forms of the thinking consciousness other- wise than as absolutely continuous in its perfect wholeness and self-consistency ; impossible delib- erately to entertain as rational the assumption that the divine Author of the world should suspend either MIRACLES. 325 the laws of nature or any other aspect of the great World-process in which his own eternally perfect, and hence unchanging, inner Life is ceaselessly expressed. To say that the miracle is out there in the form of an interruption of the great world-order — that attracts my imagination, but repels my reason. I may di^eam it ; I can never t/mik i . When reason awakes, the dream of imagination, so far as it conflicts with reason, cannot but fade away. Nevertheless the miracle exists. I can no more deny that than I can accept as true the statement that its existence takes the form of an actual interruption of the perfect and absolutely changeless process which constitutes the outer aspect of the self- unfolding of the one eternally self-equal Mind. And so I am driven to search within my own imperfectly unfolded and slowly unfolding mind ; it must be there that I shall be able to locate the miracle and to find its right explanation. Indeed it now occurs to me again that, in strict truth, the essence of the miracle is wonder ; and I can conceive wonder as ex- isting only in just such imperfectly developed mind as mine. For wonder is only a more developed form of sur- prise ; and surprise again is an uneasy state of con- sciousness, to which I am more or less rudely awakened by some unexpected stimulus or shock seemingly coming from without. In reality it con- 326 ' MIRACLES. sists partly of the sudden awareness that the world is not as I had hitherto assumed it to be ; partly of the fear lest now it may prove to be what I would wish it not to be ; and partly, in such case, of the determi- nation — blind in itself — to bring it back to full agree- ment with my own inadequate preconception of its true nature. The relation between myself and the world has changed. And if the relation has changed one of the related terms must have changed. The change, seemingly sudden, altogether unexpected, has ex- cited my surprise, and surprise has grown into won- der. At first I assume without question that the change is there, in the world beyond me It is that seeming fact which excites my wonder. It is that which constitutes the miracle. And, now that I re- flect upon it, this is itself a wonder. For, if it were in the nature of the world to change, such change could in no way be the occasion of surprise, of wonder, on my part. And so I am led to reflect again that in truth the deepest presupposition of my own nature is that the world in its inmost nature is unchanging. Nay, I also feel that somehow I too am unchanging. The world and I are the two terms of a relation. The re- lation changes ; yet neither of the terms is changeable. And this is a greater wonder still. But also I have already seen that in type, in kind, I as mind am one with the perfect Mind ; for only MIRACLES. 327 one type of mind is at all conceivable, viz., in the sense of being really tJiinkable. On the other hand, while the perfect Mind is wholly and eternally self- realized I as mind am so imperfectly realized as scarcely to apprehend myself as progressively under- going self-realization. Feeling myself to be unchang- ing in type, I fail to recognize myself as changing in degree of fulfilment of that type on my own part. Perhaps that is the real reason why I assume that the change must be in the world and not in me. But also feeling (however dimly), that the world must be un- changing in its nature, I am surprised at the seem- ing fact of change in the world, and so I declare such seeming change "miraculous. ' ' And yet sooner or later I am compelled to recognize that my precon- ception of the relation between myself and the world is full of error. I learn of the universal laws, as ex- pressing the unchanging nature, of the great World- process. In doing so I come to recognize those laws as modes of the thought of the perfect Mind. By as much as I comprehend them I develop them in my own consciousness, and thus prove them to be modes of the thought native to myself as mind. Thus I adjust my thought to the thought of the perfect Mind. Or rather, responding to the stimulus I receive through contact with the great World-process, I de- velop my own thought ; and in so doing discover my thought to be in essence one with the thought of the 328 MIRACLES. perfect Mind. Considering which, I cannot but wonder and say to myself : This is the first miracle of mind. Following such clew I adjust my will to the Will of the perfect Mind. Or rather, responding to the stimulus I receive through contact with the great World-process, I develop my own will ; and in so doing discover my will to be in essence one with the will of the perfect Mind. Considering which I am again brought to wonder, and say to myself : This is the second miracle of mind. And again, in my self-adjustment to the thought and to the will of the perfect Mind, I find myself unfolding within m3'self as mind a boundless sense of unison, of rh^^thm, the perfect degree of which I can- not but recognize as absolutely and forever realized in and for the perfect Mind. So that in this way also r cannot but see that my mind is in essence one with the perfect Mind Considering which, I am still further brought to wonder, and to say to myself : This is the third miracle of Mind. And yet, clearly, these three miracles are but mutually complementary aspects of one and the same inward change. The seeming miracle of change in a world essen- tially changeless is found to have its truth in the real miracle of change within myself as a mind ; and such real miracle is possible only because I am at once perfect and hence changeless in type, and alsoimper- MIRACLES. 329 feet and hence changeable in respect of the degree of my own self-realization in accordance with that type. The relation between the world and myself changes. The world does not change. It is I that change. Striving to make the world one with myself I succeed only in making myself one with the world. The world is perfect. It is the expression of the perfect Mind. I can know the world only by thinking the thought of the world. I can control the world only by willing the Will of the World. I can enjoy the world only as I reproduce in myself the actual eternal rhythm of the world. I can l?e at all only as I make myself one with the world of infinite Reality. The miracle is not external ; it is internal. It is not beyond me ; it is within me. When first awakened to the error of my presupposition as to the world and my relation to the world, I was startled, surprised, alarmed, resentful. As I come to comprehend with increasing clearness and precision and adequacy the world and myself and the true relation between my- self and the world, surprise blossoms into wonder, and wonder grows into love, and love ripens into ador- ation. For through patient, careful investigation I discover that the true miracle consists in the actual self-unfolding of the individual mind into ever greater degrees of realized likeness wiih the perfect Mind.' 'And doubtless here is the clew to the real truth involved in the doctrine of the "Emanation" of the human soul from 330 MIRACLES. And this is actually brought about through willing response of the individual mind to the infinitely mani- fold stimulation forever brought to bear upon it by the perfect Mind through its own faultlessly self- consistent self activity. III. And yet we must not lose sight of the fact that great and unquestionable historical miracles have ac- tually been wrought. What can we say of them ? For answer, let us examine three typical instances. 1. First of all, for our present purpose, there is that great national miracle of which Joan of Arc is the personal focus. How are we to understand that? France is in political death-agony. No one thinks or speaks of aught else than the national peril and the cruel, brutal foe. In the peasant's hut as well as in the palace, fear grips the heart of old and young alike. But there is one heart in France that feels the pulsings of the Eternal Heart. A shepherd girl has God and of its ''reabsorption" in God. "Emanate" from God it no doubt does ; but by a perfectly rational and hence in the outcome perfectly comprehensible process. On the other hand, its "reabsorption" can properly mean no more than the progressive self-unfolding into reality on its part of the primal divine likeness — of its inherent typical nature as mind which at first, for it, is no more than a potentiality, though ii be truly an infinite potentiaHty. It is the process of "identification" of the individual soul with the eternal Mind, but in such way as to ceaselessly intensify, instead of cancelling, its individuality. miraci.es. 3M heard, and hearing has believed, that God is good and trne and infinitely able to save his worshipers from wrong. And God is unchanging. To her there can be no interruption of the great world-order. The King and France have forgotten. If only the King and France could be aw^akened from this dream of fear they too would know, and knowing would take courage and sweep the enemies of the true wor- shipers of God completelj^ from the land. No shadow of question clouds this infinitely clear vision. If onl}' the awakening would come ! It wt'll come, but w/ien will it come ? She watches her flock, keeping it from the wolves of the wood. God watches His flock, keeping it from the wolves of the world. Yet the wolves are savage and threatening. When will King and people awake — when will the flock of the divine pasture seek the one true shelter? Day after day passes. The danger deepens. Can it be? God whispers in her soul a startling message. ''Voii are my under-shepherd. Of all the souls in France you alone have felt the real pulsings of the Heart of Truth. Go to the King ; go to the people ; wake them out of their sleep of fear ; bring them to know again that God is unchanging and that they who trust in his unchanging nature are invincible. " Poor, quivering, fateful maiden soul ! It has been caught in the flame of divinely transcendent duty, and in that flame its earthly life must be consumed. 33Z MIRACLES. What will father think? What will mother .say? Will the neighbors mock? Will the priest believe? Whatever else betide she must obey the divine com- mand and save the flock of God's pasture from being devoured by the savage wolves. Nor had the science of the fifteenth centur}^ a word to say that could tend toward the dissipation of such vision. Rather the habit of mind of that time was such as tended to the ready acceptance and wholly literal interpretation of the message. The only doubt is as to the genuineness of the vision in this particu- lar case ; not as to the origin and nature of the vision in itself. To-day, with our habits of reflection and critical psychological analysis, the claim to having experienced such visiori and received such message, would be set down to the credit of hallucination ; and if the individual persisted in the claim we could only feel bound, sorrowfully, gently, but firmly to consign the claimant to a secure place in the asylum for the insane. On the contrary the uncritical habit of mind of that day made the acceptance of the vision a logical nects- sity, and the map of Europe was shaped accordingly. And as for the tragic soul of the shepherd maiden, her inner life became a consuming flame ; so that her life was the immediate form of the light of the world, guided by which France was redeemed from national ruin ; while her outward life was already consumed MIRACLES. 333 in the great deed of her inspired heroism. And the flame of the otherwise impotent rage of the English Fenris Wolf but made this fact apparent to all the world. A miracle truly ! And we must now add that an age of crude, uncritical faith is just the indispensable pre-condition of every such miracle. And further, the instinctively assumed, wholly unanalyzed under- lying principle in every such case, is that of the ab- solute changelessness and trustworthiness of the es- sential, divine World order. Men may change, but God is in deepest truth "without variableness or shadow of turning." In short, the miracle of which the Maid of Orleans is the focal personage, is not only a real miracle ; it is also wholly to be explained upon psychological grounds. And precisely upon these grounds it is self-evident that the more highly civilized, the more thoroughly Enlightened, the world becomes, the more manifestly impossible must the recurrence of such miracle prove to be. Instead of these we now have the telegraph, and the d5^namite gun, and the electric engine, and the printing-press with its search-light corollary, the newspaper, all ex- pressions and instrumental forms of the progressive miracle of history which consists in the self-unfolding of the human mind through its subjugation of brute force to right reason on the one hand, and through its 334 MIRACLES. own self-adaptation to the modes of the eternally per- fect Mind on the other. 2. But we have now to consider other typical forms of what we may call the miracles of faith — miracles of which we haye the most circumstantial account in a book which has for ceuturie . been held in such reverence by the Christian world that any attempt at interpretation of its contents through critical analysis is still sure to be met with more or less vehement protest. The book is a revelation — the Revelation to man of God's purpose in the world and of God's will as toward the members of the human race. The very earnestness with which this is insisted upon often causes the fact to be wholly overlooked that a revelation, as elsewhere urged in this volume/ can really be such only so far as it is understood or com- prehended. So that in reality the subjective aspect of any possible revelation — that is, its more or less in- telligent acceptance — is the necessary reciprocal of the objective aspect — that is, of its occurrence at all as revelation. No doubt, as the expression of the per- fect Mind, the great world-process is an infinite, eternal self-revelation. That is, the perfect Mind cannot but perfectly comprehend its own perfect ex- pression. And even so the subjective and the objec- tive aspects cannot but sustain to one another the re- ^Cf. above, p. 124 fol., dnd variously elsewhere. Also my World -Energy and its Self-Conservatio7i, p 229 fol. MIRACLES. 335 lation of absolute reciprocals. Whence I cannot do otherwise than conclude that the total world-process can really be a revelation to me only in so far as I re- produce in my own mind the modes of consciousness which that process expresses. Besides, if that process really constitutes the per- fect expression of the perfect Mind, then it must be infinite in extent and in complexity, and hence I cannot possibly attain full, exhaustive knowledge of it in less than infinite duration. And further, after freely admitting that the Bible is the great central Book of the world in point of real ethical and religious import, the fact cannot be put aside that it bears un- mistakable marks of race-peculiarities, and that it is limited to the symbolism of a special phase and grade of civilization. Taken in its external form, there- fore, it is the expression of the imperfect thought of what in this particular world of ours may very well be symbolized as the slowly developing Son, rather than described as the full expression of the perfect Thought of the eternally developed Father. It is true, indeed, that precisely in this Book the Son first appears as clearly knowing himself as Son ; and so, for the first time in the history of this world, as artic- ulately and joyously calling God by the love-warm name of Father.^ ^See below, close of essay, for further intimation of the significance of the divine Sonship. 336 MIRACIvES. In fact, it is just this iufiuitely vital relationship as between the individual human soul and the absolute, divine, eternal Spirit, symbolized in the reciprocal terms : Son and Father, which constitutes the inmost secret of the Bible and makes of it the one gravita- tive, luminous, thermal, magnetic centre of all the finest literary constellations of the world. Its aim is neither to excite nor to satisfy our interest in death- involved matter ; but to awaken us to the comprehen- sion of the ultimate worth of life-evolving Mind Its writers — at least those of the later period — have no care for the external and vanishing, but only for the internal and abiding. They are not concerned wi.th the perishing body of man, but only with man as a growing, expanding, imperisliable soul.^ Now it is precisely to the life of the soul as outwardly expressed in the body that the most vitally signifi- cant of the miracles recorded in the Bible refer. Of these, two stand out as having transcendent interest, and are specially adapted to our present purpose. They are : the raising of Lazarus and the resurrec- tion of Christ. The former represents the power of the Christ in renewing the lives of others. The latter demonstrates the power of the Son to subordinate death to life, first in his own person, and afterward in the life of the race. ^This reservation must of course be made : that the early Hebrews appear to have had no definite doctrine of or posi- tive belief in a life after death. MIRACIvES. 337 In dealing with these we are first to again remind ourselves of the general oriental character of the sym- bolism of the Bible ; of the race-quality marking its specific thought ; and of the highly poetic but wholly uncritical habit of mind constituting the definite and very positive limitation not onl}'- of the writers to whom the record as it has come down to us is due, but of the entire race of which those minds were spe- cially \vorthy representatives. In the second place we are again to recall the fact that in strict truth it is simply impossible to conceive, in the sense of really thinking, any change in the great World-order, whether in the form of the suspension of the laws of nature or in the reversal of the laws of mind. If in the great struggle for possession of the promised land of truth, I reach betimes a turning point at which the threatening twilight of despair is suddenly replaced by the noonday sun of confidence, I may seem in- deed to myself to have won the special favor of the Ruler of the world, who has thus been brought to stay the universal course of things that I might, without interruption, bring my battle to perfectly successful issue. Yet when I review the case with care and reflect upon its real ■motfv'e, I cannot but see that such seeming suspension of the universal World-process for the sake of insuring unbroken con- tinuity in the fulfilment of my individual plans, can- not be regarded as actually taking place. On the 338 MIRACI.ES. contrary, I am driven to recognize that the only really thinkable explanation I can find for such seeming contradiction is this : That the inner process of m}^ mind has been of such nature that with the ac- tual solution of the given problem the sense of relief and triumph, has been so vivid, so intense, that the sudden inner illumination could not but project itself into the form of an external miracle consisting in the actual prolongation and positive brightening of the outer day. A miracle has actually occurred, but it has taken place within my own mind, and it is only by a sort of divine illusion that this inner transfor- mation has appeared as taking place in the form of a suspension of the workings of the actual outer world of Nature. In short, I am driven to conclude that the miracle is essentially psychical and only in ap- pearance physical. The further I examine into the matter the clearer it becomes to me that the outer world of nature is the realm of absolutel}^ unvarying law, of unequivocal necessity, while in mind alone there is manifest the infinitely more complex law of self-activity, of literally free self-definition. And where mind as individual is imperfect in attainment and hence is limited to cumulative self-development through time, there and there alone can there be transition from one to another state of consciousness, there and there alone can there be possibilit}' of the appearance of change in the great World-order. MIRACLES. 339 And yet, being mind, the individual may be said to be by his own inmost nature predestined to attain at length to such degree of critical, reflective con- sciousness as to recognize that the absolute self-con- sistency and self-sufficiency of the perfect Mind can- not but necessitate the absolute changelessness of the actual World-order, since the latter is nothing else than the spontaneously produced expression of that Mind. In which case the individual mind cannot \ but be assured beyond all peradventure that every appearance of change in the total World-process is nothing else than the simple illusion by which the , individual mind itself unconsciously projects into the i outer world of nature its own spontaneously imaged form of a more or less radical transition which in reality has taken place in the inner world of the growing individual mind alone. With the divine instinct of its own inherent changelessness as 77iind the individual mind at first unsuspectingly assumes that change is possible only in the world which seem- ingly exists there, external to mind. It feels, how- ever vaguely, that the inward and spiritual is the eternal ; that the outward and material alone can change and perish. At a later stage it awakes to the deeper consciousness in which it sees that the "outer" is after all only the outer of the "inner ;" that in fact the outer world of nature exists and can exist only as the least adequate form of the outward expression of 340 MIRACLES. the inner, spontaneous, infinitely self-sufficing and eternally self-unfolding perfect Mind. And the awaking to this fact consists in seeing that "matter" is but the illusory form of Energy which, both in its total quantity and in its ultimate modes of manifes- tation, is absolutely unchanging. And now if we remember that the oriental mind is characteristically unreflecting, and hence that what- ever processes take place within it are by it never critically observed as such, but are only unconsciously unfolded in the form of vivid imagery which, in the very fact of being produced, is necessarily projected into the w^orld of outer phenomena and implicitl}^ be- lieved in as constituting part of its reality — if we re- member this we may find therein a valid clew to the reasonable interpretation of those miracles which the Christian world has always, and rightly, looked upon as having a positive and vital import as foreshadowing the real nature and destiny of man. How then shall we understand the account of the raising of Lazarus ? What else is it than a specially striking phase in the drama of the human soul ? "Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died." — "Jesus wept." — "Lazarus, come forth!" — Soul speaks ; soul responds ; and life triumphs over death ! Surely there is a subtler chemistry in that than the mere reversal of molecular relations in a human body already in process of decay ! And even MIRACIvES. 341 when we add to this the calling back of the departed soul and its reunion with the body now revivified, this still is only an external relation. A body re- stored to life is still a body ; and as such is still subject to disease and predestined to a second dissolution. Whence the resurrection, taken in this literal sense — that is, in its lowest terms — must necessarily in- volve whatever agonies a second death entails. Nay, in truth, it is in no wise a convincing argu- ment in proof of immortality. Rather, in essence, it is precisely the same argument agaiiist immortality as that drawn in Plato's Phcedo from the analogy of the weaver and the succession of coats worn out and cast aside by him, though he too comes at last to dis- solution. Let it be proven beyond all controversy that immortality necessitates reincarnation, yet the fact of reincarnation could never sufiice as ground for faith in immortality. If the soul is immortal it must be so from its own inmost nature as self-centered, spontaneous, self-moving ; and this characteristic can in no way be strengthened by any quality in- hering in matter ; for matter is characteristically ex- ternal, each particle having its center in another, and, in fact in all others, being essentially inert and moved only by impressed forces. While, therefore, the vivid dramatic representation of the raising of Lazarus may serve as a means to strengthen the faith and stimulate the hope and in- 342 MIRACLES. crease the present comfort of unreflecting minds, it can have for reflecting minds no such values unless it can be found to involve another and more subtly spir- itual meaning than that commonly assumed. In fact, the story must be interpreted in the light of other central doctrines of the Christian world. One of the profoundest, and hence to most minds one of the "obscurest" of these doctrines is that of "original sin." "All men are born in sin." "Man is by nature evil." Not indeed because he is evil is he immortal ; and 3^et were he not immortal he could not be evil. Not because man sins is he divine in nature ; and yet were he not divine in nature he could do no sin. "Original sin," the primal evil in man, consists in the negative fact of the infinite dis- crepancy between the fundamental T^'pe or divine Ideal, which it belongs to man as mind to fulfil, and the infinitesimal degree of that Type realized in and for the individual at any given moment, and above all at the moment of birth. Out of this state of "original sin" it is the true des- tiny of every human soul to be redeemed. And, it may be added, failure (which involves refusal), to make use of the proper means to this redemption, such failure inevitably resulting in "arrested devel- opment," is precisely and in its ver}^ nature the "un- pardonable sin." Again, "original sin" is "transmitted," only in the MIRACLES. 343 sense that at birth the individual mind is what it is only through heredity/ But also it is simply nega- tive (1) in the sense that the inherited tendencies of the individual mind, by the very fact that they are in- herited, are present at first only in germ and involve endless contradictions because derived through an in- definite multiplicity of lines of inheritance, and (2) in the sense that, as being rudimental, the whole character of the individual awaits unification and completion through its own positive activity as an in- dividual. But the inherited qualities of the indi- vidual are predispositioyis to act in this and in that particular way — in ways indeed which are mutually contradictory, and above all in ways contradicting the fundamental Ideal or typical Nature which it is his true destiny to fulfil, and toward the fulfilment of which the deepest element in his heredity — his divine instinct due to his descent as mind from the perfect Mind — also predisposes him. He is predestined to act sanely. He is predestined to act insanely. He is predestined to act divinely. He is predestined to act satanically. He has predispositions toward the angelic life and predispositions toward the ^That the sin of the first, or any other, parents should be trau£mitted, as si)i, as specific, positive offense, is certainly a doctrine worthy of Pascal's description {Pensees, Article IV, ii), as ''a mystery utterly foreign to our reflective con- sciousness — le viysiere le plus eloigne de 7iotre connoissance.'''' In respect of heredity, compare below, Essay on "Christian Ethics as Compared with the Ethics of Other Religions." 344 MIRACLES. merely brutish life. Such chaos of contradictory predispositions is infinitely evil. And yet it is only as these are merged in him that he can even be conceived as emerging into individualized, con- scious existence. And so the individual is not only predestined to this chaos of evil ; it is absolutely in- evitable that he should be so predestined if he is to exist as an individual at all. Nevertheless, the very fact of his existence as an individualized conscious unit necessarily involves a sense of this contradiction, and this is a spur to remedial thought and action. That is, not only is it his destiny to suffer the pangs of this chaos ; it is also his destiny to enter at once upon a struggle having for its fundamental purpose the turning of the chaos into cosmos. It is precisely this struggle, duly regulated, that constitutes the process of his re- de77iption. And because the struggle is primarily the individual's own struggle, it necessarily involves the individual's own choice as to time, as to means, as to method of the struggle. Evidently, then, man is not only predestined to act ; he is also predestined to choose the time, the means and the method of his own action. But choice is nothing else than self-definition of the mind as will ; that is, choice is just the initial form of self- determination or Freedom. So that, strange as it MIRACLES. 345 may seem, it is but the literal truth to say that man is predestined to be free. But again, his freedom may assume the negative form ; so that the acts he chooses may only fulfil the less adequate — i. e. , the bruteward tending — predispositions of his nature. Nay, he may even choose to fulfil the perverted or demonic predispo- sitions. In which case he only chooses to prolong and intensify the primal chaos of his being ; and that is the same as refusing to realize the cosmos, to which his highest or divine predispositions urge him. And, let us repeat, it is this setting up and empha- sizing of self-contradiction — of "rebellion against the higher law'' of his own nature — as the permanent state of the individual: it is this which constitutes the really "unpardonable sin." From which it becomes evident that the soul that sins dies in the fact of sin- ning ; and "the wages of sin is death,'' precisely be- cause "sin is a transgression of the law" of mind as Mind.^ This, indeed, would seem to be the most direct and reasonable interpretation of the statement attributed to Christ' that "whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him ;" especially when taken in connection with that other declaration also reported of Jesus' that the Paraclete, ^Cf. above, p. 31 fol. -Matthew, XII, 32. •''Fourth Gospel, XV, 26. 346 MIRACI.ES. proceeding from the Father, is none other than the "Spirit of Truth." And now, through the lens of the fundamental doc- trine thus briefly indicated, we may look for a more vital meaning than the one usuall}' assumed as being involved in the story of the raising of Lazarus. In seeking for this more vital meaning it will be well to notice in the first place that the household of Bethany where Jesus was so especially at home, consisted of three strongly contrasted personalities. Of the two sisters one was so intently occupied with present domestic duties as to preclude an}^ very elaborate con- sideration of a world beyond. It may even be sus- pected that her method of housekeeping was not far removed from that peculiarly solemn kind which so cleans the windows that instead of polarizing the light of paradise and filling the atmosphere of every room with the glow and prismatic beauties of the heavenly radiance, only produces such tension in the glass as stops out all the warmer undulations and lets in those alone beneath which all things assume a spectral, sepulchre-anticipating hue. Far removed from this the other sister was characteristicall}' enthusiastic, mystical, devotedly religious. Her chief anxieties were directed toward learning the secret of the leaven of that bread which cometh down from above, and in becoming rightly trained for such housekeeping as will be of most avail in the mansion she had come to MIRACLES. 347 look forward to as being prepared for her in the Father's House. Ouite different from either of these appears to have been the brother. A healthy, kindly, cheerful mind, we may safely assume that he went about his work from day to daj^ with no sense of present burden or of haunting questions concerning the future life. Upon such nature the visits of Jesus would for long be without appreciable effect. No doubt his kindly nature, never yet stirred deeply, would experience a vague degree of added warmth in presence of the mildl)^ grave, intensely earnest, personalit}^ of Jesus. Yet the Master's words, which were as sunbeams to Mary, were to Lazarus no more than far-off music scarcely perceived. How long did this seeming passivity continue? We know nothing of the details. We can only infer that with each new visit the distant music grew more distinct — came nearer. More and more, too, Mary's words must have awakened within him the same vague sense of rhythm. The elements were gather- ing within him for the repetition of the world's first great miracle — the awaking of a human soul to the consciousness of its own true destiny. And while they were only gathering he could not in the nature of the case be in the least aware of what was in pro- gress. At length the fusion came. Just how it came we 348 MIRACLES. can only dimly guess. All we know is that some sudden, terrifying change had come over Lazarus — a change that seemed to involve his death. The most probable conjecture would seem to be that of his sudden awakening to the full significance of life — so sudden and overwhelming as to produce a state of trance with rigidity and seeming lifelessness of body — and that when he awoke, Jesus, who had been called, was there to comfort him and to comolete his waking into actual newness of genuinely spiritual life. With him the primal chaos had been so diffuse that half his life had already passed before the inherent contradictions of that chaos developed sufficient ten- sion to produce within him any really deep sense of insufficiency or need of transformation on his part. And when the shock of consciousness did come it was with such force as to seem fairly annihilating. Living so long without true life, he must indeed be killed that he might be made alive. In short, his appears to have been one of those cases in which the actual inner conscious process of individual re- demption takes place with such suddenness and com- pleteness as well nigh to threaten the sense of per- sonal continuity. Awaking, conviction, conversion appear to take place all in the same instant ; and the transformation which usually takes place so slowly as to occupy a life-time here assumes so violent and miraci.es. 349 impetuous a character as to suggest the simultaneous annihilation and creation of a world. Whence all men look on in amazement, and say one to another : "Can this be the same man we have known hitherto ?" while he himself is also dazed in his own self-recog- nition. He is alive ; but his life to-day gives the color of death to all his past life. Out of such death- in-life he was awakened by the truly divine person- ality of the Master. In these last moments he has been brought to the clear consciousness of the real truth and blessedness of the actual spiritual life in which true immortality inheres. And in ever}^ word he has heard the divine command : "Loose him and let him go ;" and in every movement of his soul he feels the grave-cloths of mere dead custom and formality bursting asunder and leaving him free to live the life of genuine, practical reason and thus to de- velop an evergrowing rhythmic relation to the eternal Father of all. What Lazarus did thereafter we do not know — need not know. He had doubtless always been a kind- ly soul ; he must thereafter have been a noble soul; a great soul he was not in the sense of being fitted to do the great deeds of the world. But what is of most significance to us here is this : That, looked at in the way just indicated, the "raising of Lazarus from the dead" assumes a meaning universal and richly prac- tical as being essentially typical of the process of re- 350 MIRACLES. demption which is indispensable to the reall}- ma- tured life of every human soul. On the other hand, the question whether the miracle of the literal restor- ation to physical life of a man who had been some days dead, so that decay had already become far ad- vanced — such question is in truth of as little real re- ligious moment to the reflective consciousness as is the question whether mere water was ever directly turned to wine. And as for scientific significance, such question, on the face of it, has none whatever, being self-contradictory in its very form. Nevertheless, to the unreflecting consciousness, which sees all things as in a vision and cannot recognize the truth except in the form of imager)'', the pictorial form is undeniably helpful and even altogether indispensable. Let not him who has grown be3'ond the need of the elementary media of the world's education scorn these media as being of no farther use at all. The immature ye have always with you. Let the worthiest and most efficient means to their advancement beyond immaturity be preserved and rightly valued. Na}'-," the beauty of the image as apprehended by the higher sensuous consciousness itself is only enhanced as the image becomes increasingly transparent to reason which is but the more deeply discerning and more widely comprehending mode of mind. So that so far from any one, in the course of truly rational self-develop- MIRACLES. 351 ment, ever getting "beyond" the image in the sense of reaching a stage of advancement where the image ceases to interest and charm him, his higher cultiva- tion only reveals a subtler value in the image than he had hitherto suspected, and thus makes of it a richer means to his enjoyment and further growth. Though here, too, it is not to be overlooked that the real miracle is that primal, essential miracle consist- ing in the inner process of the m.ind's own self-un- folding, the first step in which consists in awaking to the consciousness of "original sin" as consisting in that chaos of contradictory tendencies inborn in every member of the race. And now let us turn to that great central miracle of all history — the miracle of Christ's own resurrec- tion. The rapid culmination of the career of Jesus was but the outward expression of his rapidly self- unfolding inner consciousness. His whole doctrine focused in the conception of the absolute unitj^ of the human and the divine nature. First of all he feels this in his own personality, and through that person- ality in its every mode and every degree he strives to bring his disciples, and, through them, all the world to the same state and same degree of consciousness as that to which he has himself attained. "I and my Father are one." "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." "In that day you shall know that I am in the Father, and 3-e in me, and I in you." 352 MIRACLES. "It is your Father's good will to give you the King- dom." It is this central conception of the unity of the human spirit with the divine spirit, which was afterward so wonderfully summarized by Paul in the declaration : "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.'" As the end approached the consciousness of the Master rapidly intensified. And this intensifying consciousness involved a deepening sense of contra- diction between what had been accomplished and what he had hoped for ; so that on more than one occasion grief at seeming failure threatened wholly to overwhelm him. Yet in. reality this grief was only the measure of the clearness of the vision with which he saw the infinitely rich, divine Ideal of positive spiritual Life which each and every human soul must realize in and for itself in order that the abstract typical oneness of man with God may be fulfilled or rendered truly concrete and vital. It was in this way that, in those last conferences between himself and his disciples, conferences match- lessly epitomized, if not also idealized, in the Fourth Gospel — it was in this wa}' that Jesus was led to dwell wholly upon the future and to see with re- doubled clearness the absolutely spiritual nature and also the world-wide, time-filling extent of his mission ^I Corinthians, III, 23. MIRACLES. 353 to mankind. And as he faced with this steadier gaze the eternal import of his message to human souls the last shadow of temporal Messiahship faded utterly away and every sentence uttered by him seemed only intended to prepare his disciples for that culminating affirmation : "My kingdom is not of this world : if My kingdom were of this world, then would *my servants fight * * * [rather] to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Clear beyond all question as to the true import of his mission, he could not but see unmistakably his own approaching death. Refusing to lead an insur- rection against the Roman power, his own people would turn the edge of the irony of fate against him by causing him to die under the charge of stirring up sedition. And yet the sense of the unity and univer- sality and eternity of the type to which all minds as minds belong lifted him above all fear and all equiv- ocation, and bore him onward without the slightest hesitation to the end It was this truth which he so profoundly felt, and which he so vividly figured to himself and to his dis- ciples under the form of his own oneness with the Father and of their oneness with him. And yet this truth presented a still deeper and wider meaning than could be adequately indicated even through such im- agery. Hence such deeply significant mystical expres- 354 MIRACLES. sions as that given in his reported and, as can hardly be doubted, idealized direct communing with the Father:^ *'0, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. " Being one with God he could not be less than eternal in his existence. And that he did not confine this mystically apprehended univer- sality and eternit}^ of existence to himself is put be- yond all question by the expression just preceding, to the effect that "this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." Clearly the assump- tion here is that the "eternal life" is the perfect life, and pertains to each and all according to the degree of actual rational self-development attained. It was quite in this mood, too, that he said to his disciples : "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world ; again I leave the world and go unto the Father." In fact there were two phases of his existence — his eternal existence with the Fathtr, and his temporal existence with men. But also such announcement could not be comprehended in any adequate degree by the disciples, and so could not but awake within them deepest sorrow and anxiety. And recognizing this he adds'the assurance : "In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so ^Fourth Gospel, XVII, 5fol. MIRACIvES. 355 I would have told you ; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself ; that where I am there ye may be also " The eternal as- pect of life is theirs no less than his. Nay, more, he assures them that he will not leave them desolate. He will intercede with the Father so that another Comforter shall be given them. And that Com- forter, Helper, "Paraclete," shall be nothing less than the Spirit of Truth, who, when he is come, will "guide them into all the truth." The outlook widens, then ! He is going away for their good ! "It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come un- to you; but if I go, I will send him unto you." What a vista is opening out before them, could they but understand I It is in truth nothing less than the whole history of the world. The universal, eternal Spirit of Truth can really be present to the individual consciousness only in proportion as outer sensuous forms dissolve and fade from view. The science of the world is possible only in so far as the things of the world become transparent and reduced to the rank of mere media — media revealing to the deeper vision of Reason the universal, vital relations which give to outward things their reality and concrete sig- nificance. And yet, doubtless, to the man Jesus also, the out- 356 MIRACLES. look was rather a mystic vision than a positively reasoned representation in clear detail, of the actual process by which the Spirit of Truth was to enter into the present concrete process of human development and prove to be the efficient Comforter, Advocate, Helper, Paraclete, of all struggling, erring, despair- ing, hoping individual human souls. Indeed his own assurances waver, and cross each other, and yet blend, like the prophetic dissolving view they really constituted. He has but just promised them the Comforter, whose coming depends upon his own de- parture and hence renders that departure expedient for them. And now, almost in the same breath, he assures them : "A little while, and ye behold me no more ; and again a little while, and ye shall see me." The Comforter is necessary to them. But the Com- forter will not come while the Masterhimself remains visibly present in their midst. Yet his absence is not to be permanent nor even much prolonged. "Again a little while and ye shall see me." After all, though the Comforter will not come while the Master remains present to their senses, yet as the ac- tual Spirit of Truth it will not depart when he returns in his truly universal and glorified form. The dis- solving of his outward form from the time and space to which thus far their consciousness had been mainh' limited, will give occasion for the unfolding of those higher modes of mind through which they MIRACLES. 357 will be able to recognize his spiritual and far more truly real Presence. Such would seem to be the real clew to the actual meaning of the story of the resurrection of the Christ as formulated and related by his disciples. Wrought up to the most intense degree of mingled hope and fear concerning the Master's fate and their own des- tin3^ wholly occupied with the mystic sayings in which he had latterly so much addressed them, and which at the best they could comprehend only in their least adequate import, the disciples, dazed and helpless, could only await the unfolding of events. Stunned b}^ his actual tragic death, they could only cower in fear and gather in secret places to com- fort one another and stimulate hope through repeti- tion of his words and recalling his wondrous per- sonality. Dwelling in timid expectation upon those of the Master's words which most vividly expressed his love for them, they could not but center all their thoughts upon his promise of return, and all their hopes upon its literal and speediest fulfilment. And, utterly uncritical in habit of mind as they were, they could see no real contradiction in the thought that he would bodily revive and once more live and dwell among them. Nay, they could not clearly conceive of his being still alive save in the actual form of his bodily presence. Despairing in his absence, hoping for the renewal of his sensuously real presence, 358 MIRACLES. they were in just such state of expectancy as by mu- tual excitation actually to biing themselves to see what above all else in all the world they most desired to see. The first to experience the vision of the risen Lord is the deeply emotional, mystically minded Mary, who had already beheld two angels in the tomb and heard them speak. Then he appears to the as- sembled disciples while they are mutually encour- aging one another to expect his reappearance. A third time, according to the fourth Gospel, while some of the disciples were engaged in fishing, he ap- peared to them. Going back to the occupation from which he had called them to a higher mission, it is not strange that the memory of him should recur so vividly in their excited minds as to amount to an ap- parition — the act recorded as being now performed by him in their presence being precisely the same as they had so often seen him perform before. Specially striking and suggestive, on the other hand, is the account of the journey of Cleopas and his companion (two otherwise unknown disciples), to Emmaus. These the risen Christ joined on the way, but remained unknown to them, and even made as if he knew nothing of the sad events con- cerning which they were communing with one another by the way. In fact, it was only through his breaking bread and blessing it at the meal at MIRACLES. 359 Emmaus that their eyes were opened to know him. And in that same instant he vanished out of their sight. The more deeply spiritual manner involved in his exposition of the whole of the Scriptures, be- ginning from Moses and the prophets, they had failed utterly to recognize. Only in the simple, sen- suous fact of breaking bread did they discover the likeness. And in that moment the apparition vanished— a moment the psychological significance of which is marvelously (however unconsciously), symbolized in Rembrandt's "Supper at Emmaus," where the joy of recognition is suddenly eclipsed by their amazement at the blinding light which remains in place of the Master's vanished form.' According to lyuke, who alone gives this story circumstantially, these two disciples returned at once to Jerusalem, w^here they found the eleven, with others, assembled. By their testimony these two added to the general rejoicing at the evidence thus far received of the actual return to life on the part of Jesus. And even while they were rejoicing another apparition of the Master occurred to them. And though this was what they desired, yet none the less it terrified them. And their terror was only allayed by proofs of his real bodily presence — proofs by which they were satisfied that they had not "seen a spirit," as at first they feared. Following which the ap- 360 MIRACLES. parition led them to another place, where again it "parted from them," or disappeared. Both Matthew and Mark, however, relate that even then these apparitions were by no means accepted by all as actual appearances of the risen Lord. And as- suredly we may easily see at the present day that these psychological conditions were such as to render the apparitions easily explicable as simple psychological phenomena. In which case we are left free to re- gard the miracle of Christ's bodily resurrection as thus far a purely subjective miracle ; that is, as hav- ing taken place only in the highly wrought imagi- nations of some (not all) of his disciples. But thus we are the more bound to seek for a deeper and better meaning as involved in the hope and the belief of the Church, then and now, concerning this great Mystery. For there can be no reasonable doubt that there is vital truth in Paul's declaration that "if Christ hath not been raised, your failh is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." And, further : "if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.'" And now in our search for this better interpretation let us begin with that wondrous, dazzling Light which the limitations of painting suggested to the genius of the painter as the one way of representing '^I Corinthiatis, XV, i9. MIRACLES. • 361 to the eye on cauvas the miraculous disappearance of the just now visible bodily form of the risen Master, and also the transfiguring effect produced in the minds of the two disciples by the assurance that he still lived. It is a flash in the gloom ; it is the dawn of spiritual day, even while the outer corporeal personal presence is vanishing into the night of dis- solution and indistinguishable, irreclaimable dii-ptr- sion amid the elements. It is the first stage in the fulfilment of the Master's promise that on liis depar- ture from their midst the Comforter, in the form of the living Spirit of Truth, would come to them. The "natural body," consisting of the outward form of their Lord, now present only to the yearning phan- tasy, was already dying and dissolving into the "spiritual body '^ that was to be. The qualities of divine personality, so conspicuous in the living Jesus, now that he had died, were for the first time beginning to be clearly manifest in their truly uni- versal character to the sorrowing disciples. More directly, the immediate indispensable condition of their clear apprehension of the ideal character con- stituting the deeper truth of the Personality of Christ was just the disappearance of the individual, sen- "" I Corinthians, XV, 42-44. The analogy of the seed dying into the life of the plant is of course only an analogy, and evidently so intended by Paul. Yet with him the inference is still left in mystical form— in marvelously beautiful and suggestive poetic imagery— not to be otherwise understood. 362 . MIRACLES. suously apprehended form in and through which that ideal character had just become clearly manifest to men. Doubtless any given t3^pe is at first most easily seized in one particular form. But the permanent holding fast of such single form produces the tacit conviction that the type is really present in that form alone. In other words, through such restricted view of the universal type as manifest in just the one form only, the type itself appears not merely in, but also only as. that one particular form. Whence it is evi- dent that if we restrict our view of the universal type of divine- human Personality to the one man Jesus we lose, or rather we fail ever to possess ourselves of, the real truth of the universal, eternal Christ. The in- dividual, historical, human Christ is held in the im- agination as a fixed, relatively lifeless image pertain- ing to a far, and increasingly, distant past. And this prevents us from developing the richer, deeper consciousness of the infinite, universal, divine and hence eternal Christ who is absolutely one with the Father — the all in all of the ceaseless, living Preseiit. We will not allow the sensuously apprehended Master to take his departure from us ; and so we make it im- possible that the Spirit of Truth should unfold into living reality in our higher or thinking conscious- ness, and thus deprive ourselves of the real presence of the Paraclete — the measureless comfort of knowing MIRACLES. 363 the truth iu its universal and infinitely richer forms. And yet he himself declared in his own mystical way : "If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced be- cause I go unto the Father ; for the Father is greater than I."^ Not distinguishing between the particular form and the universal substance, we check in its earlier, rudimentary stage the great miracle of the new birth — which is also the resurrection — of the universal Christ within ourselves ; and by precisely so much do we fail of realizing that "hope of glory" of which the actual practical unfolding of the true Christ-nature within the individual soul is the indis- pensable condition. Faithless in our faith we bury the image of his crucified temporal presence in the tomb of our phantasy, and will not hear the voice of the Angel of Truth bidding us look up with the Eyes of Reason and behold, as the real truth figured in the story of the physical resurrection of Jesus, the eternal Presence of the universal Christ in humanity, assur- ing eternal life, endlessly deepening in wealth of im- port, to every individual soul really conforming to the divine Law of Reason inherent in each and all alike. And here we come upon the truth vaguely shad- owed forth in that world-old doctrine of the "trans- migration of souls." The universal Christ, the eternal Christ, one in essence with the Father, that is 'Fourth Gospel. XIV, 28. 364 MIRACLES. the infinite type of Personality. And that type is forever reunfolded, and in ceaseless process of un- folding, in individual minds, in self-conscious, spir- itual units. So that the actual arising of each and every unit of this type is the "reincarnation" of the universal Christ. And the progressive unfolding of more and more complex forms as expressive of the ex- panding wealth of continuously developing indi- vidual spiritual life — when individualized conscious- ness has really been once attained — that is the truth of the transmigration of the individual soul. Nay, doubtless such "transmigration" necessarily involves, in its own degree, "reincarnation" also. If physiological chemistry is to be trusted, the in- dividual human soul, in the course of an excep- tionally prolonged earthly life, already passes through a dozen "reincarnations." And doubtless also in the course of its further progress it will continue such "reincarnations," though always in strictly logical consistency with its own needs as a mind or conscious unit of energy developing in accordance with — or degenerating in contradiction to — the fundamental, unchanging and unchangeable law of Mind.' In other words, it will rise in the angelic scale or sink 'Indeed it may be said that even degeneracy still il- lustrates law That sin entails death — spiritual death (cf. above, p. 31 fol.) — is but the negative aspect of the law of mind. And he who breaks that law only breaks himself on the wheel of the law of lawlessness. MIRACLKS. 365 in the scale demonic, precisely according as it con- forms to or defies, the essential, eternal Christ-ideal. But there is a further phase in the miracle of the resurrection of the Christ. Had the man Jesus un- dertaken the Messianic task in the sense expected of him by the people of his own race, he might possibly for a time have led his nation to greater or less vic- tory and temporary independence ; though in that period it can scarcely be conceived that such line «of effort should at last have ended otherwise than dis- astrously for leader and people alike. Happily for the history of this world Jesus chose to accept the then existing political situation and to urge that the first great need was the establishment of the King- dom of Truth in the earth. The greatest epoch in the world's history was already entered upon when a man had arisen divine enough in thought to see and formulate, and divine enough in character to un- flinchingly declare, and in his own conduct to illus- trate the doctrine: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." For such personage, dis- tinguishing with perfect clearness between the inner, permanent Reality, and the outer, passing show of things, the minimum of food, and raiment and shel- tered resting-place suffices. Nay, in contrast w4th the eternal Kingdom of Truth, the kingdoms and empires and robes of state of this world, alike with 366 MIRACLES. the individual garments and hovels of tiie most ab- ject slaves, are but forms of the mere phantasmal "here and now." Social organization and individual organism — these are but the momentary outer phases which the divinely constituted, undying spirit of hu- manity assumes in its own progressive self-unfolding throughout the ages. Only, the richer the degree of actual inward spiritual quality developed in indi- vidual human lives, the subtler and more complex must both the outward individual organism and the outward social organization become. In other words, the universal, eternal Chri-t, the infinite, divine Ideal, realized once for all in the ab- solute, personal Creator in his character of Redeemer — this universal Christ which for every such world as ours throughout the whole of infinite space and in- finite duration, is at the outset only a latent form, an unsuspected possibility — everywhere this universal, eternal Christ works, not merely through but in and for the growing individual and national and racial consciousness ; so that particular personages and special state constitutions unfold, and serve their purpose, and outwardly disappear, at once preparing the way, and making room, for higher forms in any given particular world. And what is this but a glimpse of the truly uni- versal Christ eternally in process of "becoming," of evolution, of "transmigration," as the real historical MIRACLES. 367 Christ — as the actual, eternally-begotten Son of God? Not less than this can the real resurrection of ihe Christ signify. And this includes his "second coming," — includes it as the perpetual reappearance of the infinite, divine Type in the form of individual immortal souls Mew born in perishing outward bodies ; and also in the more cumbrous and wholly perishing forms of those institutions which embody the spirit of an age and serve as media for the education of the self-centered j^et universally related and imperisliable conscious individuals constituting the actual race of the Sons of God. Such, then, is the great, eternal, all-inclu-^ive Miracle of the Resurrection of Christ. And as for the individual human body — including the body of the Son of Man — that is sacred only to the uses of the human soul; when it ceases to be organic to those uses it becomes itself a sepulchre. To be progres- sively redeemed out of this, and out of all other cramping, material limitations, into the genuine free- dom of ever-increasing fulness of rational self-con- sciousness and genuine spiritual life — that is the true resurrection of the individual human soul — a resur- rection that can be completed only through endless individual existence. Jesus is the central figure of the world because he taught mankind the divine secret of genuine spiritual life as the central truth of the world. And in truest 368 MIRACLES. sense the miracle of his resurrection is to be seen in the spiritual resurrection of the world. Bringing life as immortality to light, in the sense of declaring the ideal oneness of the human spirit with the divine Spirit, and thus indicating that immortality pertains to the human soul from its very nature, he proved not only his own immortality, but proved also that above all others he was himself the Christ — the "Anointed One" — because his mission transcends all other missions. Nay, in declaring the identity in nature as between God and man Jesus made practical affirmation of the infinitude of man as mind, and thus opened the way for the demand on the part of man that ultimately for him there shall be no insoluble mysteries, no hopeless wonders, no reason-def3nng miracles ; but that rather, in the course of his endless and endlessly intensif3ung individual existence, he shall be actually guided by the Spirit of Truth into all the truth. Only thus can be rt-alized the good will of the Father to give to the Sons of God the Kingdom. Only thus can rational confirmation be found for those triumphant words : "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." Note (omitted by oversight from p. 359) : A sermon of rare beauty and suggestivene^s was preached, now some years since, b}' the Rev. R. A. Holland, S. T. D., of St. Louis, on the theme, ^' By the Way,"' and interpreting the appear- ance of Christ to the two disciples at Kmmaus. It is greatly to be wished that this and other like utterances of his may yet be rendered generally available in book form. VllI, CHRISTIAN ETHICS AS CONTRASTED WITH THE ETHICS OF OTHER RELIGIONS. It may be assumed as an axiom that Ethics is pos- sible only to a thinking being. Ethics is the science of the principles which are directly involved in moral action, involved to such degree and in such sense as that they determine action as moral. Only a being capable of reflecting upon the nature and end of his own conduct is capable of conduct involving the quality of morality. That conduct alone is moral which tends toward enriching the life of the conscious being performing the actions constituting the con- duct. And this must be understood as meaning that the conduct is of such nature as to enrich the life of the individual in his character as a conscious being, as a mind. All conduct is original, self-determining exercise of power. No one ever speaks of the conduct of an animal, but only of the conduct of a man. Conduct is normal or moral in so far as it results in the unfolding of the entire individual conscious unit of energy, in accordance with the ultimate t3'pe of such conscious unit. To which we may add that 370 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. only a thinking being is capable of developing any science whatever, which implies, of course, that only such being can develop a Science of Ethics. But also it is important to notice that the very un- folding of science by such being is itself nothing else than one aspect in the total process of the self- unfolding of such being. And by as much as the typical or ultimate nature of the thinking being is complex, by just so much must the actual evolution of individuals comprised within the type be complex and prolonged. In fact, this evolutional process is nothing else than the process known as History. And this again must really be understood as including the whole essential process of biological history as leading up to man physiological, as well as the sociological histor}' of man as the process of unfolding the life of man psychical, of man as a thinking, feeling, willing being. The purpose of the present essay is to present in one connected view the fundamental aspects and stages of this evolutional process in so far as it con- sists in the unfolding of an adequate conception of the nature and basis of moral obligation. Of course the -essay, with its deliberately chosen limitations, can be no more than the merest sketch. But the "mere sketch" has, or may have, the value of bringing to light fundamental principles which to most minds are CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 371 likely to be obscured through excess of illustration in more elaborate treatises. The process will be traced through three essential stages : (1) The first will be that in which conscious- ness had as yet attained maturity only in its sensuous aspect. In this stage, accordingly, the highest intel- lectual products are those presented in the form of imagery. (2) The second stage will be that in which reflection has so far unfolded as that imagery has ceased to be in itself of leading interest, but also in which thought has not been able wholly to free itself from imagery. It is the stage of the "abstract un- derstanding." (3) The third stage will be that in which the reflective consciousness has completely mastered imagery, or is in the clearly apprehended way of doing so, and in which it grasps the concrete infinitude and self-containing Totality of the World, It is the stage of Reason, properly speaking. No doubt imagination, understanding and reason are fundamental modes of mind as mind. No doubt, too, they were all present and must have been present from the first in the actual evolution of mind in the history of this or any other world. But also there can be no doubt that in its evolution mind attained maturity first of all in its character as imaging power ; that a longer period was required for it to be- come explicit as a power to seize relations, while still the relations seized were of limited range and in- 372 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. volved in tangible, sensuously apprehended facts. Finally, it was only as the outcome of a still more ex- tended disciplinary course, including those already named, that the unfolding mind of man attained the power to comprehend that total complex of relations which binds all into one — a complex which thus consti- tutes the essence of the actual, total, concrete Uni- verse. The first stage — that is, the stage in which imagi- nation is the maturest phase of intelligence as yet un- folded — presents itself to our view as that period of history known as the age of Primitive Man. It is the period of "ancient history," properly speaking. In its simplest degree also it is the stage of transition out of mere animalhood into manhood, and thus sug- gests the whole process of organic evolution as its logical presupposition. One remark must be made in this connection, how- ever, by way of caution. The theory of evolution, as ordinarily presented, breaks down in its attempt to account for the development of man. In fact, so far as this theory assumes to account for more complex forms of life by tracing their lineage, through less and less complex forms, back through time to the proto- plasmic or germinal aspect of matter at the bottom of the primal sea, it really reduces the whole evolutional CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 373 process to a mere elaboration of relations of physical energy ; in which case it breaks down altogether. For such vastly complex and faultlessly consistent pro- cess as that which, beginning in the mechanical and chemical reactions of a nebulous mass, has un- swervingly pursued its course, through primitive cell, and multicellular unfoldings, to the realization of endlessly varied organic forms including the human organism itself, with its manifold and successively appearing inner indications of relationship to all the essential types of the animal kingdom — such vastly complex and faultlessly consistent process involves of necessity a further factor than the self-styled evolu- tionist is ever willing wholly to admit. The process is one whole process. As such it is but the con- cretely realized form of one whole method. And yet method is really inconceivable save as consisting of thought self-defined. But thought defining itself — that is nothing else than self-conscious energy or mind realizing itself through its own self- differen- tiation. Clearly, then, not only is mind the culmination of the whole process of Evolution ; Mind is also the necessary presupposition of that process. Whence man as organism may indeed be the complex focus of the whole process of organic evolution ; but even so he is not derived fro7n the lower organisms, but only through them. Thus, even as animal, man derives 374 ' CHRISTIAN ETHICS. bis being from tbe primal Energy or Mind, without which self-conscious primal Energy the evolutional process cannot be really thought at all, however easy it may be to imagijie the process as taking place otherwise. How much more, then, is it impossible to really think the origin of man as mind to have its ex- planation in mere physical forces which are them- selves inexplicable save as the simpler forms of the expression of Mind ! Doubtless it is true that individual man is what he is at birth solely through the process of "heredity." But the supreme factor in his heredity is just that which the primal Mind itself constitutes From that Mind, and from that alone, man not only derives his whole being, but above all inherits his esse?itial nattcre as man.^ ^The following is from my volume, "The World- Eriergy and Its Sel/-Co7iservatio?i,'' p. 295, published in 1890: " Evi- dently, then, the descent of man from successively lower and lower orders of animals, which themselves constitute a minutely graded series of thought-forms, and even of thought-functions, is, after all, nothing else than his ascent or evolution in the scale of godhood. And always it is to be remembered that the descent of man cannot possibly have been from animals, merely as animals, merely as physical or material, or brute natures (allowing that such 'natures' are thinkable). On the contrary, every step, every factor in this ascending scale of his evolution is possible for man only because each step and each factor is expressive simply of the method by which Man the Son, is born of God the Father, Just as Life can come only from the living, though it may be through units which are in themselves not living; so Man the thinker can come only from God the Thinker, though it may be through a marvelous series of complex, more or less conscious forms, which in and of themselves cannot be said to think." CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 375 At birth each individual is what he is through heredity. What further inferences may we draw from this ? It is that he is predetermined or "pre- destined" toward manifold courses of action. But we must not forget that, above all, his heredity connects him vitally, in type, with the primitive, eternally creative Mind. So that if he is predestined to feel the pangs of hunger and to put forth effort to satisfy that sense of contradiction in his outer, animal life, he is not less predestined to experience the uneasi- ness of wonder and so to put forth efforts of intelli- gence to the end of satisfying this sense of contradic- tion in his inner psychic life. Man is foreordained to live. He is foreordained to act outwardly. But he is not less surely foreordained to act inwardly. He is foreordained to think, to define himself in con- sciousness and thus to regulate himself in action. Or, as we may just as well express it, man is predestined to be free. Thus at birth man is a complex of qualities all which are due to heredity. But his inheritance is through diverging and vastly multifarious lines. He inherits from all his ancestors, vicious and saintly alike. And all these inherited tendencies constitute in sum the whole of his instinctive nature. As instinctive, therefore, he is a measureless ag- gregate of mutually opposing tendencies. Or, to use a figure, he is a bundle of contradictions, and as such 376 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. is beyond human calculation. In him there shine alternately, and even simultaneously, the life-inviting light of Paradise and the life-withering fires of the Inferno By birth, by instinct, man is at once coward and hero ; at once faithful and treasonable ; at once brute and angel ; at once a devil and a god. Thus the great central problem of human life is this : How to reconcile these inborn contradictions. And it is just the divine instinct of reason within him — the essential, unifying element in his nature as a thinking being, due to his descent from the primal Mind — this it is which makes certain the arising of that problem in his consciousness and also prompts him irresistibly to efforts toward its solution. It is the problem of the Education of man. To unify and reconcile these innate contradictory tendencies, and in unifying them to transfigure the lower by bringing them into full subordination to the higher — that is the central task of civilization and the cen- tral purpose in human history. It is due to the workings of the divine instinct of reason within man that man came at first, and comes forever, to recognize the workings of Divinity in the great world beyond man. It is through this instinct that man has ever discerned, however dimly, the one- ness of the human with the divine nature. But because at first reason was only an instinct in man and, from its subtle, highly complex character, could not be other- CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 377 wise than slow in developing into clearness and ade- quacy of positive power as reason, man could only grope and guess in his earlier efforts to find solution of this great central problem of his own existence. Meanwhile imagination, as the simpler mode of mind, grew into relative maturity and thus proved to be that productive mode ot mind through which for the time man could best satisfy the instinctive de- mand of his rudimentary reason for some expression of his conviction that the powers superior to men are still like men. Thus in the nature of the case, it was but inevitable that the gods should be imaged and that they should be imaged in the form of men. The divine instinct of reason in man could not fail to as- sume that the highest image of the gods must ever be the human form.^ Thus in the phantasy of primitive man the divine world came to be a copy of the human world. Nat- ural elements were, indeed, intermingled ; but the human aspect never failed to be predominant. The natural elements tended to confuse the human, and did in greater or less degree give rise to a confused estimate of Personality. On the other hand the sense 'Xenopbanes (or whoever else), in saying that if lions had been sculptors they would have represented the gods in the likeness of lions, failed to notice that only thinking beings could be sculptors, and that thus if lions had been sculptors they would have been more than lions — they would have been thinking beings ; i. e., men. 378 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. of personality could not be altogether obscured or turned aside. Nevertheless, just as the endlessly manifold in- stinctive tendencies in man remained for ages, throughout the lives of all individuals, mainly an un- reconciled multiplicity ;^ so, in the earlier representa- tions which were made of the divine world multi- plicity and contradictoriness of powers were taken as a matter of course and v\ithout so much as a suspicion that such representation itself was at all contradictory. There were political gods, and gods of commerce, and domestic gods ; gods of refinement and gods of ferocity, gods of truth and gods of falsehood, gods pure and gods impure. Such confusions in the represented divine world did, indeed, bat reflect confusions in the actual hu- man consciousness. Yet such was the only divine world known to man. And so long as men's wor- ship was addressed to such divinities — divinities mu- tually antagonistic and even essentially capricious — religion could afford no real ground of certitude and could therefore be no other than a Religioji of Fear. It follows also that so long as the world of the higher powers appears to man as a world of caprice, there could be no definite standard uf moral obliga- tion, and the Ethics of each tribe and even of each 'And such must ever be the case iu the earlier years of each individual. CHRISTIAN ETHICvS. 379 individual would be always variable and at any mo- ment be high or low according to the character of the god who chanced to be the immediate object of worship. II. But also it could not fail that the divine instinct of reason in man should at length rise in revolt against such self-coatradictory representation of the divine world. For though this ideal representation was really modeled upon the actually existing human world, yet in the immediate consciousness of men the existing human world seemed rather a reflection of the ideally represented divine world. And because the divine instinct of reason worked most effectually in the minds of some — who by that fact were the "best" minds of the race — and because the accepted ideal rep- resentations of the divine world were due to just these minds, it did come about that the actual human world, which at first served as stimulus toward those representations, was more and more reconstituted with the view of bringing it into more complete conformity with the ideal divine world. Though the gods were formed in the likeness of men, yet men never so much as dreamed that this was the way the gods had come to be. The god in man saw God beyond man with so clear and transfiguring an intuition as to leave no room for doubt as to the reality and boundless su- 380 , CHRISTIAN ETHICS. periority of the divine world. To man the gods were real* and the will of the gods must be the true law of the life of man who dimly felt himself to bear the likeness of sonship to one or another of the far-off gods. , Nevertheless the more earnestly men sought to make real the will of the gods in the lives of men the more must the divine instinct of reason in the human soul be shocked into questioning mood concerning the gods through the contradictions unfolding in ac- tual human life ; for human life itself is just the at- tempt to realize the mutually contradictory wills of the many gods. Where is the limit of the one god's province? Where the limit of the province of another ? The divine world — ought not that to be a world of harmony ? The gods must meet in council, then. But who knows the decisions of the councils of the gods ? Who knows what the divine Will is? There must be a chief god, to whose will the wills of the other gods are at last subordinate. But a god subordinated — is that a god at all ? Thus, step by step, men could not but be led to feel the contradictoriness of that ideal representation of the divine world in which that world appeared as consisting in a multiplicity of gods, and to see at length that somehow the world must be swayed b}- a single, resistless Might. Toward this goal all primi- tive religions have manifested an inherent tendency. CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 381 It was the Greeks, with their fine native sense of Beauty, so finely cultivated, in whose religion the sense of the necessity of unison, of self-consistency within the world of the gods, grew into that beautiful image of the Republic of the gods with Zeus at the head and Destiny over all, uniting all into One ; though this One was still only an imaged One whose unity was at best external, and which thus possessed no power really to renovate the human world. In fact, with the Greeks as a race, religious interpretation always assumed the art form, and within this form sculpture determined the character of all. It is the plastic form in which the outward shape must be absolutely clear and exact in definition. It presupposes a mul- tiplicity of gods and necessarily dissolves and vanishes with the development of consciousness that there are no gods, but only God. It grew in might through contemplation of the gods. It could not see God and live. It was in this form of religious inter- pretation, too, that the Greek genius as such ex- hausted itself. And doubtless the conquest of Greece by Rome deprived the world of nothing in possession of which the world would have been the better. It was another race that first broke quite away from definite imagery as direct representation of the divine w^orld, and thus came to behold the world as subject to one measureless, resistless Power. To the Semitic race, indeed, the art form of religious representation 382 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. never developed beyond the rudimentary stage. It was the present living God who appeared to them in the storm-cloud and in the lightning, and whose voice was the thunder, though also God was in the "still small voice" of the inner conscience or divine instinct of man himself ; and this sufficed. And so far as the art-instinct of this race developed in the form of poetry as giving definition to religious senti" ment, the poetry was still pictorial, discriptive, though descriptive of the might and the goodness of Divinity in the world beyond man, or of the yearn- ings within the soul of man toward God. Such was the case with the Hebrews, and this clew led up to the unfolding of a still more adequate and clearly defined conception of God and of man's rela- tion to God as the one perfect Mind. We have now to notice the most conspicuous example of the tran- sition form of faith between the earlier polytheistic rel gions and this modern and highest monotheistic view. This example of the intermediate degrees of the religious consciousness presents itself in the form of the Mohammedan religion, which is essentially the highest term of the spontaneous native Arabian faith. (True, this religion assumed positive form at a rela- tively late period in history, and was the outgrowth of the spirit of a people practically isolated from the other peoples of the world. It was the religion itself in its fully developed character that brought the CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 383 Arabs into actual relation with other peoples and thus introduced them upon the stage of the world's history. On the other hand their earlier religion was poly- theistic and gradually became merged into precisely that form of monotheism which serves as the best, be- cause simplest, logical example of the transition stage in the development of religious consciousness. Of course Mohammedanism no more grew out of the Greek laith than the Christian faith has developed from the Mohammedan. And yet, what specially characterized the Greek faith and is most conspic- uously unfolded in that faith — viz., its polytheism — was in essence the same with the earlier Arabian faith ; just as what specially characterizes and is most conspicuously unfolded in Mohammedanism — viz., its monotheism — is the central element in the Chris- tian faith. Christianity presents itself as an enriched monotheism which has its root in the abstract mon- otheism of the Hebrew faith ; and this in turn is the direct resultant of a struggle, centuries long, through which that devoted people clarified its own conscious- ness and freed itself from the contradictions of what was at fiist a crude polytheistic religion. It is only to bring into sharper contrast the fundamental stages of this evolutionary process that the Greek religion is taken as a conspicuous example of polytheism on the one hand, and that Mohammedanism is selected as 384 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. the most conspicuous example of strict abstract mon- otheism on the other). After this explanatory note we may proceed to in- dicate the characteristic limitations of the latter type of faith as furnishing a basis for ethical doctrine. And the first thing we have to notice is the fact that this type of religion has always developed with a people who have not as yet advanced beyond the stage of the "abstract understanding." They view the events of the world more or less distinctly under the form of cause and effect. But as yet they are unable to seize the causal relation otherwise than externally. The cause is something by itself and quite apart from the effect, which likewise exists for itself and quite apart from the cause. So also with them the process of causation can actually take place only in time, the cause appearing first and the effect after. If God is the cause of the existence of the world, then God must first have existed by himself and must after- ward have brought the world into existence ; though now the world, having been brought into existence, no longer requires the activity of the creative Po\\'er and hence exists as something over against that Power. But also that Power created the world as he chose. By an act of the same power the Creator could anni- hilate the world. Doubtless in his own good time he will do so and create another world as he may then CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 385 choose. His ways are not man's ways and are past man's finding out. The divine instinct of reason in man bows before such Power in a worship which con- sists of absolute submission and self-surrender as rea- son. The ruling Power of the world is conceived as an arbitrary Will which wills what it will, and which therefore no reason can hope ever to fathom. The world, including man, is precisely what Allah wills it to be. If it should prove different to-morrow, it will be because Allah would have the difference arise. No one knows the will of Allah, or can know, save he to whom Allah wills to reveal his will. It is even futile and irreverent to seek to know. It is precisely this fatalistic attitude of mind, which has so often and in such various forms been manifest in the history of the race, and to which Goethe gave utterance in the following lines : "The highest might Of science quite Is from the world concealed ! But whosoe'er Expends no care To him it is revealed."^ ^The English is by C. Kegan Paul. The German is as fol-' lows : Die hohe Kraft Der Wissenschaft, Der ganzen Welt verborgen ! Und wer nicht denkt, Dem wird sie geschenkt, Er hat sie ohne sorgen. Mr. F. H. Bradley makes good use of this quotation as 386 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. It need hardly be said that logically such faith condemns all research and renders science wholly im- possible. And if individual Mohammedans have nevertheless dealt in science and more or less con- tributed to science, it is because the divine instinct of reason was so exceptionally strong within them as to cause them to bid defiance to the necessary im- plications of their faith. But also — and this is what specially interests us here — in forbidding science and rendering revelation altogether arbitrary such abstract monotheism hope- against Hedonism, which is only another reason-paralyzing form of fatalism. See his essay: "Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake." Ethical Studies^ p. 80. Meanwhile the special connection in which Goethe intro- duces the lines above qucted is not without its hint. The scene is that of the "Witch's Kitchen." After wild banterings between Mephistopheles and the witches, the former calls for wine, which is really to be a potion working the trans- formation of Faust. The witches make extravagantly cere- monious preparation, including a reading from a huge volume. First in which there is a pretense of mystic num- bers, ending with : "And nine is one, And ten is none. That is the witches one-times-one." With all which mummery Faust is greatly disgusted. On the other hand Mephistopheles is charmed, and in mock solemnity assures Faust that a "perfect contradiction still is mystery-crammed for wise and fools alike;" adding that "for the most part when men hear but words they believe there must be somewhat in them to stir up thought." Upon which the witch reads on as above : "The highest might," etc. That is, Goethe, in these words, quotes what he deems the sentiment of bedlam. It is of a piece with the witch's multiplication table, and as such would seem well worth considering by those who fancy that the incomprehensible, the unutterable, the Unknowable, is so far superior to defi- nite, explicitly unfolded thought. CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 387 lessly obscures the standard of right doing and opens the way to the grossest license in point of conduct. For in all his deeds, whether of tender kindliness and noble purity or of brutal cruelty and brutish licen- tiousness the individual Mohammedan devoutly be- lieves himself to be but the instrument of Allah's Will and can therefore neither esteem himself for his worthy deeds nor condemn himself for deeds un- worthy. Such faith, indeed, cannot pause with conceiving all inferior gods as merged and cancelled in the might of one resistless Will ; it is also driven onward to the point of regarding man himself as nothing else than simple medium of one Will in whose presence all are as nothing. And thus the clew to the fundamental identity as between the divine nature and the nature of man which appeared in polytheism seems hope- lessly lost in the abstract monotheism which merges all reality in the one measureless Might and so leaves no room whatever for the unfolding of human per- sonality. And this, too, involves a corresponding reduc- tion in the estimate put upon the dignity of man, in- cluding the moral quality of human character. In fact the ethics of Mohammedanism is lower in its de- mands upon the votaries of that faith than was the ethics of the religion of Apollo in its demands upon 388 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. the Greeks. The Turk of to- day is but the practical exemplification of the empty ethics involved in the all-annulling faith of a simple, undifferentiated mon- otheism. Self regulated ambition — above all, ambi- tion toward sustained intellectual and moral self- unfolding and refinement — must forever remain im- possible to the actual votary of such faith. He acts only from impulse. All his impulses are alike divine to him. Hence he neither acquires nor seeks to acquire the subtler, nobler qualities of mind which constitute the tendencies to worthier forms of action. Rather, all his impulses remain of the coarser sort and become more brutal through unrestrained indul- gence. To which, as we must again remind ourselves, there are doubtless many individual exceptions. But, as we must also repeat, this is only because the primal divine instinct of reason is strong enough in such cases to annul the actual tendencies which the faith itself necessarily involves. lyOgically, the Mohammedan — that is, the votary of any abstract monotheistic faith — can onl}^ renounce his reason^ and submit himself unresistingly to the one absolute Will as the mere instrument of that Will. Such religion can be nothing else than on one side the Religion of Fate, and on the other side the 'Cp. Above, pp. 189 and 211. CHRISTIAN KTHICS. 389 Religion of Resignation^ the inevitable tendency of which is to empty ethics of all positive import. And if the votaries of modern monistic doctrines in Europe and America are in practice immeasurably superior to the crude ethics which in strict consistency must follow from such rudimentary forms of faith it is be- cause they owe their education and entire nurture to a race whose whole spiritual life is the expression, the concrete outer form, of an infinitely richer degree of the religious tendencies inherent in the human soul. III. To indicate the central characteristics of the Chris- tian religion as itself presenting in concrete form this richer degree of the religious and ethical tendencies of the human soul is the direct purpose of the remain- ing portion of the present essay. And first we have to notice that the fundamental conception of Christianity is that the world — i. e., the universe — is nothing else than the outward mani- festation of one eternal, infinite, absolute Personality. In this it is contrasted with all the polytheistic reli- gions, the fundamental conception of which is that of a multiplicity of divinities, which are personal, in- deed, but each of which had a beginning in time and is limited in space and in power; no one of which, therefore, is eternal, infinite and absolute. 390 CHRISTIAN ETHICvS. Again, Christianity is contrasted with all simply monistic faitlis in that, as we have seen, all such faiths are logically bound to deny to the ultimate, supreme Power the personal characteristics of actual intellectual self-consciousness as well as that of feel- ing, especially feeling in the form of personal sym- pathy. For such faiths the ultimate Power is the incomprehensible, the inscrutable, the Unknowable. And it can be so only because it is something foreign to mind. Nor must we overlook a further logical consequence, viz., that of regarding the human mind as having merely phenomenal existence — existence, i. e. , only as phenomenon — and as therefore possess- ing no truly individual and abiding life, but rather as being destined to dissolve and perish. In its inception, indeed, Christianity unquestion- ably presented its peculiar view of the world in picto- rial rather than in reflective form. But in doing so it fixed upon a form tor the expression of its funda- mental conception which involved in itself the an- nouncement of the unity and even the identity in nature of the worshiper and the object of his worship. Nor was this without actual genetic relation with the past. Hovering vaguely, but with ever-increas- ing insistance, in the consciousness of the Hebrew prophets was the conception of Jahveh, their God, as deliverer, as redeemer of his people. And this de- liverance came more and more to be conceived as CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 391 inner and spiritual in nature. The true worshiper of Jahveh was to be delivered from his sins — even from his inner tendencies to wrong-doing — not merely from the outward consequences of his sins. It was this vague but always deepening premonition > constituting the true ethical core of the Religion of Israel, upon which the Founder of Christianity seized as being all-essential and which he interpreted into universal form. And the figurative form which above all others he chose as best serving to set forth with richest suggestiveness this relationship between Divinity and Humanity was that of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Man. He felt the eternal godhood within himself, and accordingly declared : '*I and my Father are one;" and also: ''Before Abraham was I am." The man Jesus, the "histori- cal Christ," the Christ of time, felt within himself the universal, eternal Christ. He also beheld the same eternal godhood, the same universal, eternal Christ, in his followers — in those of like mind with himself — and accordingly he said to them : "After this manner, therefore, pray jj/^ : ' 6>^^r Father, . ." Divine Fatherhood necessarily implies divine Son- ship. And this again was directly interpreted into full measure of explicit meaning. "God is a Spirit," — a Mind, a thoroughly self-conscious being — "and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth," — with honest intent and self-regulated will. 392 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. God is Mind. Man is mind. And true worship con- sists in that divine-human activity which brings the worshiper as mind, as spirit, into ever-increasing de- gree of practical adjustment on his part to the eternal Type of Mind as once for all perfectly, and therefore changelessly, realized in the one eternal Person. And here we come upon the imaginar>^ difficulty of an "infinite Personality." Literally imaginary. For it is due solely to the mistake of attempting to do through the power of the imagination what can really be done only through the power of thought. It is not the body that constitutes'the personality of man. Man as miiid — that is the real person. And the less adequately developed he is as person — as mind — the less complex must be the bodily form in which he expresses himself as person ; and conversely the more adequately developed the individual mind as real personal nature, the more complex must be its out- ward embodiment. The mere physical organism of man is by no means man's whole embodiment. Every implement, from pruning-hook to printing-press, from battle-flag to Bible, all are but further embodiments of man as mind, as person. Extend the conception of Personality to its ultimate degree of infinitude, and nothing less than infinite extension filled with infinite- ly manifold forms of infinitely multifarious charac- teristics can be conceived as sufficient for its em- bodiment. Onl}^ an actual polytheist can conceive CHRISTIAN ETHICS, 393 divinity as finding its adequate expression in a single form, whether the form be that of cloud, or of river, or of tree, or of serpent, or of man. But thus if the whole material universe is to be conceived as simply the utterance — the simple, literal self-expression or self-manifestation of Divinity as in- finite Person — as absolute Mind — then it follows that to mind the universe presents no mystery wholly in- soluble by mind. Nay, in such religion, worship it- self, as was but just now said, consists precisely in that divine-human activity which brings the worshiper as mind into ever-increasing degree of practical adjust- ment on his part to the eternal Type of Mind as once for all perfectly, and therefore changelessly, realized in the eternal Person. And this self-adjustment of the individual, created mind to the eternal, absolute Mind, necessarily implies its never-ending growth in power to intellectually comprehend the eternal Per- son in his modes of self-manifestation in and through the forms and forces constituting the infinitely ex- tended Universe as well as in and through the work- ings of the mind itself in its own non-extended modes. Thus to the Christian Faith, in its fundamental character, there is nothing that is ultimately incom- prehensible or wholly inscrutable, no hopeless back- ground consisting in a phantasmal, mystery-crammed "Unknowable." On the contrary in its essence the Christian religion assumes the actual world to be the 394 CHRISTIAN KTHICS. product of Mind and therefore wholly knowable by mind. So far, therefore, from forbidding science, or discouraging science, this religion logically demands the fullest development of science. And if the Chris- tian Church, in one or another form, has seemed from time to time to discourage, and even actually to stand menacingly in the way of, science ; this is only be- cause the fear of polytheism on the one side has driven those in authority — those therefore who felt the deepest sense of responsibility — to interpret the spirit of Christianity in the narrow monistic sense on the other side and thus to establish an "orthodoxy "^ from which all movement, all life was excluded, and which thus turned out to be itself a deadly heresy from the point of view of the central, vital doctrine of the true Christian Religion. And it is just because the Christian Religion has always in the outcome triumphed over the Christian Church, just because the inner vital Spirit has actually, though only little by little, moulded the outer form into the growing Spirit's appropriate organism instead of allowing it to harden into a rigid, changeless, external form consti- tuting a fatal restriction upon the further unfolding of the spiritual life — it is just because of this that Christianity has come to be adopted by those races which are most active and progressive intellectually and morally, and adopted as just that religion which not only best satisfies their immediate spiritual needs^ CHRISTIAN p:thics. 395 but which also in that fact, best serves to stimulate them to still further effort toward, genuine spiritual development. ' But thus it is evident that in the Christian Religion, rightly interpreted, Science and Revelation are' but complementary terms. Science is the self-definition of the human mind as intelligence with reference to the modes of self-manifestation on the part of the divine Mind. Revelation is just this self-manifesta- tion of the divine Mind as absolute Person to the hu- man mind as progressively unfolding Person, It is divine stimulation leading to normal self-activity on the part of man, the end. whereof is man's own self- realization. Nor can this be conceived — i. e., really thought — save as a wholly rational process. In other words, in accordance with the central concep- tion of the Christian Faith, Revelation can have real meaning only as the normal interrelation between the divine Intelligence and individual human intelli- gence. The Christian Religion involves the serene assurance that the World — that is, the Universe — as the expression of the absolute, divine Mind, is ra- tional through and through, and thus necessarily im- plies the endless progressive development of indi- vidual man as a rational being capable of progres- sively comprehending thewhole . Thus the attempt to comprehend the World and to account for the origin of man in strictly scientific 396 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. fashion — an attempt leading in modern times to such magnificent results — is by no means in conflict with, but rather is it wholly in the true spirit of, the Chris- tian Religion. It is precisely this religion, and this alone, that gives the real clew to and also unequivo- cally affirms the infinite worth and destiny of man. And modern science confirms this affirmation in the very fact of the splendid achievements crowning the efforts of man as mind to comprehend the world in its total compass. The total conception of the evolution of man is but the obverse aspect of the total concep- tion of the self-unfolding of God. It is, indeed, as already pointed out, only through such evolutional process that man, even in his physiological character, can really be thought as arising, however easily one may imagine him to have arisen in some other way. But in this very process, let us repeat, purpose is clearly manifest throughout, binding the whole pro- cess into one and showing it to be, what the Christian Religion has in truth always insisted, simply the ex- pression of one conscious, creative Power knowing the end from the beginning, and unswervingly work- ing from the beginning, throughout the process, to the end. On the other hand it is just this primordial factor of a conscious, purposing, creative Power which, in its haste, the current evolutional theory al- together ignores, or else, in its false modesty, simply CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 397 consigns to the limbo of the Unknowable. For which reason the evolution theory, as currently ad- vocated, falls to pieces of its own weight as refusing to allow for any really original, initiative, organically self-unfolding Power, excluding which the process it- self becomes wholly unthinkable." Besides, as mind, man is himself a conscious, self- defining, self-unfolding power including original, initiative impulse. And nothing could be more il- logical than the attempt to derive a being of such character from elements in which that character is conspicuously lacking and through a process from which that character is wholly excluded. In fact, Darwin himself everywhere assumes the teleological principle, though his teleology is that of the agnostic who, while recognizing purpose in the forms and forces of nature, is so modest as not to lift his eyes sufiiciently to see the great purposing Power without which the "purposiveness" of nature is too far re- moved from anything substantial even to deserve being described as "shadowy." On the other hand, let this great purposing Power ^There is something really pathetic in Mr. Spencer's solemn adoption of the term "persistence," in place of the term, "conservation," (of "Force") as a means of getting rid of any shadow of suggestion of a "conserver" — as if per- sistence, in its last analysis, must not prove to be essen- tially nothing else than infinite, self-directed self-conser- vation, (Cf. foot-note to heading of Chapter II, Part II, of his First Principles of Philosophy. N. Y. Kd. p. 185). 398 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. be once frankly recognized in its character of self- defining, self-unfolding Energy or primal, creative Mind, and at once the evolution of man becomes comprehensible. For whatever the forms and what" ever the process through which he has come to be, in his animal nature, the primal Cause is seen to be adequate to the final cause or end of his being. And at the same time, let us repeat, it is clear that what- ever the ancestry through which he may be said to have derived his special qualities of mind and body, yet it is from his primal Ancestor, the eternal Mind, that he has derived his fundamental nature as mind. Not otherwise than upon the basis of divine Ancestry can the descent of man be accounted for in truly scientific way. Nor can too great emphasis be put upon this fundamental truth. And thus the doctrine' of the divine Sonship as applied to man is found, on careful reflection, to be something more than a mere figure of speech. Rather in its essence the expression is justified by the strictest scientific analysis. We say that man is the creature of instinct, of in- herited tendencies. And it is so. It is so also, as we noticed at the outset, that for the individual his instincts are predetermined qualities. Hence as an instinctive being man is, as was noticed, predestined. Nay, as inheriting from innumerable divergent lines* he is at birth predestined to endlessly divergent ac- tion. That is, he is foredoomed to endless self-con- CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 399 tradictiou. He is predestined to sleep and to wake physiologically. He is equally predestined to the sleep of psychical indifference. But he is also pre- destined to the waking of inquiry. Predestined to credulity and predestined to doubt. Born a bundle of contradictions. Born also with a primal unity of na- ture which cannot but awake sooner or later in the form of an irrepressible sense of the necessity of practically unifying the multiform contradictions of his rudimentary existence and of reconciling its in- herent contradictions. And this again is the divine instinct of reason within him. It is, in truth, the secret of all his mar- velous premonitions— premonitions leading to his ceaseless struggle toward a higher stage of being. It is the secret of his inborn sense of the perfection of Truth and of Beauty and of Goodness, And every tremor of dissatisfaction with what now is, together with its complement of deepened longing for richer degrees of life is but a further stage in the awaking of the God-consciousness within him. Man is the Son of God and therefore "thinks it no robbery to make himself equal with God. *' He is heir to all things because his central inheritance is that of infinite Personality. And as this is true of each and every man, then with the primal Person, and with every man who has clear sense of the full significance of divine Personality, there can in the 400 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. very nature of the case be "no distinguishing of per- sons." Each has infinite worth and should show forth infinite dignity, while each should receive from each the reverence due to a being thus divinely con- stituted. Thus all are equal, for all have the same di- vine Ancestry, and hence the same divine nature, to fulfil which requires endless existence on the part of each individual member of the race. So that, as we may notice by the way, individual immortality is of necessity involved in this conception of man. It is this, too, that constitutes the true basis for as- serting the common brotherhood of Man. In their very nature all men are equal. And the religion that assumes the infinite worth of each and every human soul could not consistently do otherwise than address each with the solemn warning : "Call no man master!" for in so doing he must abdicate his own rank as citizen-king in the Republic of God; just as, on the other hand, he who demands to be called "master" proves by that fact his own utter ignorance of true Personality — that central characteristic consti- tuting the essential significance of every human life, and hence necessarily and forever condemning alike the despot and whoever submits to despotism. Polytheism reduces the gods to the level of man. Christianity lifts man as man to a divine level as showing him to be of equal nature with God. And in doing so it presents a final and absolute standard CHRISTIAN KTHICS. 401 of Right. That standard is based not in the will of one or another of a multitude of capricious divinities ; nor in the inscrutable determinations of an irresis- tible and wholly arbitrary Power ; but in the essen- tial nature of Reason itself. In such religion the es- sential, central claim on the part of each is that of fullest, freest conditions, positive and negative, tend- ing toward his own self-realization as a rational or di- vinely constituted being. And because this is an equal right on the part of each as toward all others it necessarily implies an equal and corresponding ob- ligation on the part of each toward every other to aid in the common work tending toward perfect self- unfolding on the part of all. Thus in proclaiming the doctrine of the divine de- scent of man, implying the essential divinit}^ of human nature, Christianity announces the typical oneness of the race, the common brotherhood of man, and also the infinite worth and dignity of each individual member of the race. And precisely in so doing it sets forth the one sufficient ground of a truly rational and vital Ethics as pointing to self-realization on the part of man as a rationally constituted being through his own social-individual self-discipline and self-ac- tivity. Thus the human race is gathered into, or rather it is recognized as normally constituting, one divine Family. And the principle of relationship within the Family is no longer that of fear, no longer 402 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. that of mere resignation, but that of mutual recog- nition, mutual comprehension, mutual esteem. In a word it is the Religio7i oj love- The Christian Re- ligion is the one religion of the world having for its eare the principle of Personality consciously held and adequatel}^ comprehended . It is therefore the one re- ligion of the world which from its very nature de- mands of each and every member of the race moral conduct of the highest order and upon purely rational grounds. Even in polytheistic religions the divine instinct of reason in man has often developed the sense of the divine Sonship of man.^ But for the most part in these religions this foreshadowing of the truth as to the relationship between humanity and divinity was of so crude a character that men gained little and the gods lost much in dignity through the grossly imagined forms embodying what were at best but vague guesses at the truth. Indeed it was not the divinity of hu- manity that was apprehended so much as the divinity in lower measure on the part of individual men of ^The familiar line : ''For we are also his offspring;," which appears in Acts xvii, 28, Paul is represented as quoting in his address to the Athenians, and as explicitly referring it to "certain of their own poets " The line has been found in the Stoic Cleanthes who flourished about 270 B. C. Two centuries earlier, indeed, the thought was already a familiar one to the Greeks. In "The Suppliants" of .^^schylos (of. Plumptre's translation), the Chorus, as the prophetic medium through which the poet expresses his highest notions of the divine World declare : CHRISTIAN KTHICS. 403 loag past ages. Such men were, in fact, the heroes of a past that never was, heroes who could be believed in only by a people whose imaginings had never yet been brought to the test of critical examination. Be- fore that test all such imaginings could not but fade into mere spectral form, leaving faith without sub- stantial ground for its continuance and reducing the standard of morality to individual caprice." On the other hand the more rigidly the essential conceptions of the Christian Religion are examined the more are they found to satisfy the demands of reason and to show that the fundamental basis of all moralit}^ is to be sought in the inmost nature of man himself as the ceaselessly advancing, forever reappearing Son of God. On this basis "Right" is whatever tends to the enriching of the essential life of man considered "And so the whole land shouts with one accord, 'I/O, a race sprung from him, the Lord of life, In very deed Zeus-born !' ****** He is our Father, author of our life, The King whose right hand worketh all his will. Our line's great author, in his counsels deep, Recording things of old, Directing all hisplans. thegreat work-master Zeus." Meanwhile Cleanthes, like3schylos, was still a pantheist, though even the latter is not without indications of a higher and more spiritual faith, as at least the following lines at- tributed to him would go to prove : "The air is Zeus, Zeus the Earth, and Zeus the heaven, Zeus all that is, and what h'aftscends them all.'' -As the Greeks lost faith in their gods their philosophy took the form of reckless sophistry and their ethics developed into the grossest hedonism. 404 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. as divine in nature and hence as destined to endless and endlessly intensifying conscious existence. "Wrong" is whatever tends to impoverish the essen- tial life of man so regarded. The standard is not ca- pricious and arbitrary, but fixed as the laws of eter- nally self-consistent Reason. And as for the simple monistic form of faith of which Mohammedanism presents the most conspicuous example, the fact that, as a faith, it must logically suppress all tendencies leading toward a higher cul- ture, could not but reduce the morality of its votaries even to a lower level than that of the more advanced polytheistic faiths — a conclusion already indicated on a preceding page, and of which practical illustration is presented by the Turks of to-day in contrast with the ancient Greeks and Romans. Such monistic faith is in fact nothing else than a transition form which proves to be a simple and utter negation in which gods and men alike are annulled as individual existences — a spiritual night in which dawning Personality seems wholly quenched. On the other hand the Christian Religion in its es- sential character not only represents the highest de- gree of the human spirit thus far attained ; but also its central doctrine of the spirituality of God and the divine Sonship of Man already involves in itself the highest conceivable ethical principle — the principle CHRISTIAN KTHICS. 405 which demands the ceaseless self-unfolding of man as Mind, and hence of man as the divine Son, into ever richer degrees of realized likeness with God as the one divine Father — the one eternally perfect Mind. IX. ETERNITY. A THREAD IN THE WEAVING OF A LIFE. I. Among my earliest recollections are those of the pictures of hell which I saw from Sunday to Sunday in a country church. They were drawn with wide- sweeping gestures by the frenzied preacher, and colored by the wails of the devout in the congregation. The pictures were balanced by the favorite hymns emphasizing the endless bliss of that place — "Where congregations ne'er break up And Sabbaths have no end," Especially was I impressed with the conception : "When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we first begun." The drawl of the singing only served to intensify the significance of the lines to me, and each repetition filled me with a deeper awe and terror. Out of what chaos of childish talk I can not say, but in some way there developed one day between a ETKRNITY. 407 playmate and myself the question : How far is it to the end of the world ? Where my playmate went I have no recollection. But I know that I ran eagerly to my mother for the answer I doubted not she would give. She was repeating my question, as a mother will, when my father chanced to pass through the ^oom. He understood from the tone that the ques- tion was mine ; and, wiihout stopping, he said in an abrupt, half-bantering manner, "The world has no end." The same vague terror thrilled me as when listening to the voices of the congregation wailing out the hymns declaring the endless life of the saved. I was repelled by it and sojn lost myself in the usual physical life of childuood. This I now infer from the fact that memory shows no record for long afterward. At the age of nine or ten years the idea of endless duration flashed upon me with perfect clearness. And the terror I experienced was beyond expression. I had just gone into a very small "house" which I had been building and which was barely large enough for me to turn in. I had just seated myself with the satisfaction of achievement when all the nebulous im- pressions of former years suddenly assumed perfect order, and I felt that my existence must be endless. It seemed as if all the world were crumbling in upon me and crushing me. I hurried out of the cramped place and ran again to my mother. I asked her whether it was really true that I must live always if 408 KTERNITY. I went to heaven. She seemed startled by the ques- tion, but answered as Puritan mother must, and asked quietly if I did not want to live always. I was too full of terror to answer, and only asked whether I must live always if I went to the ''other place." The same stern Puritan faith answered unhesitatingly that those who go there must also live always. There was no subtilizing, no attempt to turn me away from the theme, to her so solemn, to me so dreadful. She went on about her work while I sat on the floor and sobbed out my despair. At that moment the pros- pect of endless existence, even though it be in heaven, was to me a very present hell. I had not yet heard of the "soul-sleeper's'' doctrine with its an- nihilation of the wicked ; and when I did hear of the doctrine, it was with such strong condemnation on the part of those in whose wisdom I had unshaken confidence that it seemed to me one of the surest of all the ways mapped out to SheoL Just as I reached the age of twelve years, my par- ents — pioneers in spirit — moved to a Western prairie. The summer proved a somewhat severe trial to my health. One day, while lying on a cot, my mother near me, I suddenly felt myself caught up to a height immeasureable, beyond all visible objects, and while I called out an agonized "good-bye" to my mother, I felt myself bound to a huge iron wheel that rolled without the slightest jar and with tremendous ve- ETERNITY. 409 locit}' along a thiu, perfectly straight line of fire stretched through otherwise empty space. I knew that I must go in this way to the end of the line, and I knew that the line w^as endless. It was but a mo- ment, and yet in that moment I felt the doom of an eternity with nothing but the iron wheel and the track of fire, and my soul destined to yearn endlessly for all that it held dear. When I was quiet again my mother spoke gently to me, moistened my lips and brow, smoothed back my hair and presently I fell asleep. But for long afterward the vision would re- cur to me at times and awaken unspeakable terror. And with it my terror at the thought of endless exist- ence became more intense. It was only long after its occurrence that I realized how truly the vision sym- bolized the state of a "lost" soul, which can have be- come "lost" only by breaking connection with all that is good and worthy and enduring, and must therefore be whirled through eternity on whatever fiery track the iron wheel of its destiny may chance to roll. II. In school I found reminders of the same contradic- tion that met me elsewhere. In a text-book of arith- metic I found time defined as a "measured portion of duration." The definition seemed unquestionable, and yet from it I could only gather the impression 410 ETERNITY. that time must be understood to be just a measured portion of the measureless. And yet this dreadful "measureless" I was myself destined to measure. In my thought it was indeed a hopeless contradiction. Yet I doubted not of the fact. I felt myself bound to accept the impossible as the real. Again, geography unfolded the same contradic- tions. Here it was, indeed, not endless duration, but boundless extension. I had chanced to be so taught the facts of geography that, instead of being nothing more than mere words, they seemed substantial realities which I could clearly picture to myself as existing there side by side in space. Especially, I had received a vivid impression of the solar system, with the immense orbits of its members. By degrees this became assimilated in my conscious- ness ; and occasion soon came — as in such cases "oc- casion" must always come — to crystallize the vague impression into form. It was on a summer evening. I was following the cows homeward along a path in a ravine, and looking up now and then at the sky. As the twilight deepened a star gleamed out through the blue depths. Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I felt vividly — vividly enough for the feeling to become a clearly defined thought — that, in looking at a star, I was looking at an immeasurably distant world. And the blue vault ! In the same instant that had vanished. I knew I was looking into the ETERNITY. 411 depths, not at the "floor of heaven." With this there was a sudden sense of giddiness, as if the foundations of the world had that moment been wrenched away, and it and I and all were falling swiftly — whither ? It was the definite beginning of my mental recon- stitution, though I was then far enough from being aware of it. III. Years after, on the march and in battle — for I was just old enough to be accepted among the first volunteers in the late war — I saw how impossible it is to adjust a greatly enlarged and highly complex human world to the pattern provided by the simple primitive life of the ancient Hebrews. It was as if the friction of this great struggle had set my Puritan faith aglow, rais- ing it to the point of fusion and plasticity, I had seen men in blue and men in gray lying where the demonic tempest had left them, with eyes strained widely open as if the unspeakable mystery of eternity had that moment for the first time dawned upon them. And these men — what had their lives been ? What were their lives now ? What were their lives eternally to bef I had left school to take part in this struggle. And the experience of the struggle only intensified the problem of which I had begun to seek the solution in school. Thus it was that when the struggle ended I 412 ETERNITY. was again in school, seeking what help the school might give. And yet, in school my teachers seemed concerned with little else than syntax and mathematical sym- bols. So that, when I asked them to help me con- strue a soul or to find the locus of my own existence, they repeated a text of Scripture and referred me to the conventional co-ordinates. Evidently, then, I must look for help elsewhere. And I was like a beginner in astronomy, who must grope about in the night, through an instrument which he little understands the use of, to find the true polar star. Guides to reading I had none. I went often to the book-stand, and found little else than the usual trivialities. A fellow-student talked admiringly of Dr. Hol- land's Bitter-sweet — think of it ! — as solving the prob- lem of evil. I read, and found nothing but bitter. If evil was to be accounted for as a necessar}^ instru- mentality in the development of good, then "evil" is not evil, but good. It was substantially the argu- ment of the country preacher, that "If Adam had not sinned there would have been no occasion for the coming of the Redeemer, and hence man could never have known the extent of the divine love to man." (Though in this the country preacher was not with- out shining examples, such as Anselm.) Dr. Mc- Cosh's Divine Government fell into my hands. vSurely ETERNITY. 413 this would tell me the thing I longed to know. In reality, the argument became focused for me into something like this : the things we know in part are to be explained by the things we don't know at all. At least, these two books served as an irritant. If the received dogmas drove reason into such self-stulti- fications as these, then there must be something radi- cally wrong with the received dogmas. For reason can only be reason by being self-consistent. And man is man only in the possession and use of reason. While my school-days continued I heard scarcely a reference to the modern English school of thinkers. If Spencer or Darwin were mentioned at all, it was with a condescending smile or with an expression of horror— much as economists of the schools now refer to Henry George or to Karl Marx. Of German philosophy, not a word. It was while teaching a winter term of school in the country that I fell upon Agassiz's papers on the Glacial Epoch, as they ap- peared in the Atlantic Monthly. At the same time, in the school library of the district. I found Carlyle's Heroes and Hero- 'Worship. Here were two streams of vitality ; and they proved a substantial relief from the sermons of a good man who came to the neighborhood once a month to make plain to the people the way of truth, and who labored zealously for two hours one Sunday to show his congregation that all storms 414 • ETERNITY. with their destructive character were due solely to the vicious Prince of the Power of the Air. Happily, school-days come to an end ; and when I had once realized that I was no longer to answer the call of a professor and report upon tasks assigned, I found my way to what seemed a favorable location for work, and began seeking everywhere for light — in magazines and reviews, and especially through the shelves of a library which a Western senator had been wise and generous enough to establish in the town. Carlyle's Sartor Resariiis proved somewhat puzzling at first, with its Titan extravaganza ; though out of it all I at length gathered the significant conception that all objects appealing to the senses are, in truth, noth- ing else than the transitory forms, the mere wrappage of spirit, or mind. Body, that which occupies space, is nothing more than a suit of clothes, or raw ma- terial for such, which mind puts on and off, wears out and flings to the rag-heap. It was well for me that that conception took shape when it did, and that it was reinforced in a subtle way through the influence of Max MuUer's Science of Lajigiiage, which I read with intense delight. It was well to have this clear impression of the power of mind over materiality take shape then ; for I soon came under the spell of Spencer and Darwin and Huxley, whose works so constantly emphasize and so admirably present the aspects of truth unfolded in the ETERNITY. 415 material world as to tend inevitably toward a one- sided, materialistic view of the world on the part of the young and eager inquirer. The First Principles of Mr. Spencer was of special value to me. Its statements of the antinomies, or seeming contradictions in thought, were at once a stimulus and a means of classification. In it I found wide and systematic formulation of the contradictions I had so long felt. And the more clearly those con- tradictions came to be formulated, the less endurable I felt them to be. And if the "reconciliation" offered in the First Principles proved to be by no means a sat- isfying one to me, yet only so much the more did it bring me to feel the absolute need of finding a perfect reconciliation. Indeed, hope of reconciliation seemed to beckon along the lines of investigation presented in the posi- tive portion of the First Principles. The discussion of the Indestructibility of Matter, the Continuity of Motion and the Persistence of Force all pointed to a working Unit, which was, indeed, not related to any other than itself. In that sense it did indeed seem to be "unconditioned." And yet just from that fact it must itself include all conditions, all relations. Nay, it must not merely include them as a vessel includes its contents. As the persistent Unit it must include all conditions and relations in the sense of unfolding them within itself as the modes of its own existence. 416 ETERNITY. And, indeed, this conception has already become measurably explicit in the language of science. For what had previously been spoken of as "forces" are now classed as merely modes of that one Force which persists. And this persistent Force could not be conceived save as having ever persisted — save as ever contin- uing to persist. The "forces" were measurable. And yet they were only modes of the one persistent Force which was vieasiireless. And so I seemed bound to my iron wheel again with the doom of measuring the measureless renewed. And this feeling was rendered increasingly vivid by the disclosures of geology with the accompanying evidences of the continuity of life in the development of our world. Most impressive of all, in this respect, was the ac_ count which Mr. Spencer gives of the Nebular Hypothesis. Time expanded to my mind until it seemed indeed to vanish into eternit}^ — a mere measured portion of Duration. Spencer and I^yell and Darwin and Huxley — what a magnificent, what an appalling, revelation they had formulated ! And so much the more appalling as it seemed clashing ruin- ously with the other long implicitly trusted divine Revelation. No wonder that in the midst of all this poor Hugh Miller, struggling desperately through seas of doubt in search of the Golden Fleece of Truth, should be caught and crushed by such Symplegades ! ETERNITY. 417 Crossing a brook one day, I looked down at the bare strata of limestone. Crinoids weie visible at every break in the rock. Just a glimpse between the edges of the leaves of how old a book ! And with his ham- mer, aided by the occasional crowbar and explosive of the railway builder, the scientist has been for a little while working his way into this huge volume ! How fragmentary, even at the best, his work must still be ! Nay, the book itself, bound in the "ever- lasting hills," has gathered its meaning through myriads of ages, and, according to the estimate of science, must sooner or later be dashed into nebula again, all its rich, slowly gathered significance blotted out forever. And as I stood there I thought how men, in their pygmy presumption, move about over the rugged binding of this huge volume and con- struct their books, fondly imagining that these works of theirs shall last forever ! All this was leading up to a conception of which I was then, indeed, altogether unaware. The concep- tion suddenly assumed definite formulation one eve- ning while I was reading, in a history of philosophy, the theory of Averroes. This Arab interpreter of Aristotle had caught eagerly at the idea of unity and continuity unfolded in the work of the Greek, and had interpreted that idea in the Oriental sense. The Divinity is all. There is but one "active Intellect." Whatever of reality there is in man is but an ema- 418 ETERNITY. nation from God, and must be re-absorbed into the Divine substance. The Mohammedan, looking into the pages of Aristotle, arrived at the same pantheistic conclusion as did the Brahman looking into the swiftly changing manifestations of the world about him. Could it be that this was the truth which science, in these latter times, was also unfolding in its dis- coveries as to the continuity of motion and the per- sistence of Force ? For the moment I could not re- sist the conclusion that such was the case. And I experienced an inexpressible sense of relief at the thought that, though I might be a passing mode of the Eternal, yet I was, after all, not the embodiment of that dreadful contradiction which my early train- ing had led me to suppose myself to be. The Divine is doubtless eternal. But all "else" is transitory. There is one Force that persists. All "else" is but a passing mode of that Force. Or, as Mr. Edwin Ar- nold has since expressed it, "The gods but live ; only Brahm endures " V. For a time I rested in this feeling. But for a time only ; for I soon discovered that it was no more than a feeling. When I began to examine it more closely I discovered that it could not stand the test of analy- sis. It might be true enough that all physically con- ETERNITY. 419 stituted units were destined to dissolution. It might well be that an "atom" — an absolutely indivisible unit — is here wholly unthinkable as a reality. But there seemed to be characteristics in man that could not be accounted for on any theory of the merely "physical basis of life." So that, after all, the cen- tral problem of my life was not solved ; and the for- mer sense of needed solution was renewed and re- doubled in urgency. So far I had trusted mainly to the English school of thinkers for guidance. There now fell into my hands the first numbers of the Joicryial of Speculative Philosophy , with its translations from and interpre- tations of the works of leading German thinkers. I had, indeed, found reference in Mr. Spencer's First Principles to the philosophy of Kant. But these references were only incidental, and by way of ac- cepting the "antinomies" — the alleged imbecilities of reason. But what had Kant really said of positive import ? In the Jourjial I found frequent and highly appreciative references to his Critique of Pure Reason. In company with others,^ I set about the study of this book, and found in it for the first time ground that became firmer the more I examined it. A criti- cal study of the nature of thought itself and of the ^This group was the ^'■Kant Club,'^ of St. Louis, under the leadership of Dr. Wm. T. Harris. Several winters were spent in studying, first, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; afterward, Hegel's Logic. 420 ETERNITY. necessary conditions of the exercise of thought — that proved to be the really indispensable preliminary to all really systematic thinking. I began to discover with the aid of Kant that the "relativity of knowl- edge," to which the English school of thinkers were so entirely pledged, was an ambiguous and therefore misleading phrase. Very commonly the phrase was used to mean the relativity that is of necessity in- volved in knowledge. So far the meaning was le- gitimate enough. Doubtless there can be no knowl- edge that excludes relation. Especially and primarily there can be no knowledge save as involving the re- lation of a knowing subject to a known object. Sub- ject and object are unquestionably correlative terms. But, then, when I think of my own act of knowing, and analyze the act into its correlative phases of act- of-knowing on the one hand and object-known on the other, I have already made my very act-of-knowing an object of my own knowledge. I can not know the correlatives of subject and object as such without making each an object of my thinking. The thinking unit thinks of itself as a thinking unit. That is, the subject, or thinking unit, necessarily becomes an ob- ject to itself. And this is expressed in the term con- sciousness, and is doubly emphasized in the term self- consciousness. Whence there is to be noted this distinction : that, on the one hand, in the experience of the individual, ETERNITY. 421 the relativity exhibited between subject and object does indeed often present the object as a unit separate and apart from the subject ; but that, on the other hand, in all self-examination the relativity subsists wholly within the knowing subject, which in all such acts proves to be its own object. And this is neces- sarily implied in every possible act of knowing. It thus turns out that the fundamental relation in knowing is the rela'tion of the subject to itself ; it is self-relation And, while relativity is necessirily in- volved in thought, there is no real justification for say- ing that thought, as such, is involved in relation. In- deed, to insist upon the absolute relativity of thought is to insist that thought is related to something wholly different from thought. And the relativist himself is ready enough to insist that one can really know noth- ing else than his own mental states. But he also insists that these states are still subject to something beyond us which we neither do nor can know. And so all our knowledge is built up of "ex- periences ;" and, as we can never transcend "ex- perience," it is evident that all our "ideas" must be accounted for as relative, as dependent, as experimen- tally derived. Thus it is that our idea of space is said to be derived from our experience of resistance, and our idea of time from our feeling of difference or change. But Kant puts all this on a wholly different basis. 422 ETERNITY. The question is not how we come to have the idea of space and of time. Doubtless those ideas are derived from our experiences ; and yet it is also beyond doubt that our "ideas," of whatever type, constitute the very core of all our "experiences." But the essential question is: given the ideas of space and time, criti- cally to examine them and discover the degree of their validity on the one hand and, on the other hand, to find their precise relation to those facts of our consciousness which have reference to space and time. Could I perceive a tree or a bird or a star otherwise than as in space ? The question brings its own answer. And the significant conclusion follows that space is a necessary condition of all my percep- tions of external objects. It is only by analysis that I become aware of this fact ; but the fact itself is un- questionably present as a factor in every possible per- ception of such object. From which it follows that space is a necessary condition or mode of my percep- tions, and in that respect is subjective — is a relation that subsists in my consciousness. But it is just as unquestionable that space is a neces- sary condition or relation of the objects perceived. They are at such and such distance from one another and from me. And since I can not perceive objects otherwise than as in these relations, then space is a necessary relation of object to object, and is therefore objective no less than subjective. So that when one ETERNITY. 423 comes and says that, according to Kant's interpreta- tion, "The head is not so much in space as space is in the head," there is strong temptation to comment : Very likely — at least for the one so reading Kant. In the same way, time, as the necessary condition of our perceptions of change, is at once condition of the per- ceptions and of the changes perceived, and hence is at once both subjective and objective. But also since space can not be conceived as ob- jectively anything more than the necessary negative condition of all outer limitation, it is impossible to conceive of it as itself in any way limited. Any boundary we may assume /or space is at once seen to be merely an assumed boundary withhi space. It is true that I can not imagiyie space as unlimited, but neither can I think space as limited. I can not imagine time as unlimited, but neither can I think time as anything else than a measured phase of dur- ation. When I attempt to measure space or time I am hopelessly baffled. They can not be conceived in the sense of imagining them. One can only conceive them in the sense of thinking them. One can not imagine the infinite, though he may think it; just as one can not really think a centaur, though he may imagine it. It is just this failure to distinguish with perfect pre- cision between thinking and imagining that seemed to me a fatal defect in Mr. Spencer's work — following, 424 ETERNITY. as he did, only too closely in this respect Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel ; the refusal to recognize which distinction had enabled the latter to "refute" German philosoph3^ With each of these writers the term "conception" is constantly used as equivalent to "pictorial representation." The "inconceivable" is with them "the unimaginable" or "unthinkable." And it is evidently by this confusion of terms that Mr. Spencer was led to his "Unknowable." VI. With the help of Kant, this at length became clear to me. And, as it did so, I began to realize that I had made a further step in clarifying my own mind concerning the problem that had all along pressed upon me with such force. Space and time were two undeniable modes of existence, both subjective and objective. And I had now come to recognize that they can not be other than infinite. They were in a twofold sense, then, modes of my own existence. They were modes of my subjective or spiritual exist- ence, and also modes of my objective or bodily exist- ence. Doubtless they are in the7nselves ovXy mere blank forms ; but they are infinite forms, which some- how I seem destined, after all, to realize in my own existence. For, as it is impossible to conceive a boundary to space beyond which there is not still other space, and as it is impossible to conceive a limit ETERNITY.* 425 to time beyond which there is not still other time, so I began to discover that there is no conceivable boun- dary for intelligence beyond which intelligence may not pass. I noted, too, that when considered in respect of their infinite divisibility, space and time are mani- festly modes of finite existence ; whereas, considered with respect to their boundless extension, they are as manifestly modes of infinite existence And infinite existence — what could that be but the total of all Reality organically unfolded into every possible phase of finite existence expressive of every possible mode of an infinite Power ! And for myself — I could only be a mode of that infinitely developed Power, though also, it appeared, a mode destined to infinite devel- opment. Evidently, too, that Power could be no other than the ultimate Unit which Mr. Spencer names the "Unknowable." And yet, "unknowable" though it be, Mr. Spencer refers to it as having an "established order. "^ He calls it the "Unknowable Power,"- and yet, almost in the same breath, speaks of it as "mani- festing itself."^ Nay, he is also able to discover "the existence of knowable likenesses and differences among the manifestations of that Power" as well as "a resulting segregation of the manifestations into those of subject and object."^ ^ First Principles^ (New York ed.), p. 117. ^Qp. Cit., p. 157. ^Op. Cit., p. 154 and elsewhere. ^Op. Cit., p. 157. 426 "ETERNITY. True, he claims that these are in the main no more than "postulates." But he also claims to have "shown that, though by the relativity of our thought we are eternally debarred from knowing or conceiv- ing Absolute Being, yet that this very relativity of our thought necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being which no mental effort can sup- press.."^ So that, after all, Absolute Being does prove to be relative to the relative. "No mental ef- fort can suppress" that fact. And yet, though there are "knowable likenesses and differences among the manifestations of that [ultimate] Power," the Absolute is declared to have "neither relation nor its elements — difference and likeness."- It is the "Unconditioned." Yet this un- conditioned or "non-relative" is "an actual exist- ence." And nothing could be more certain than this. For by the very conditions of thought "an indefinite [doubtless he means : imperfectly defined] conscious- ness of Absolute Being is necessitated." ' Nor is this all. For "asserting the persistence of Force is but another mode of asserting an Unconditional Reality, without beginning or end."^ So that ''the phe- nomena of evolution have to be deduced from the Persistence of Force, "^ while the "universally co- 'Op CitTTp. 163. -Op Cit., p. 162. 'Op. Cit.,p. 190. ^Op. Cit., p, 189. ''Op. Cit., p. 398. It is of no little importance to note that while, as Mr. Spencer says, the phenomena of evolution have to be deduced irom the Persistence of Force, our knowledge of the latter is attained necessarily through induction from the former. ETERNITY. 427 existent forces of attraction and repulsion are indeed the complementary aspects of that absolutely persis- tent Force which is the ultimate datum of conscious- ness."^ Surely, I thought, though the Absolute may be in some sense the Unknowable, it seems far enough from being absolutely unknowable in the pages of Mr. Spencer or elsewhere. And I was especially im- pressed with the fact that this ultimate Unit is abso- lutely /^w^ze'?2 to be "without beginning or end." I ' could not but regard the conception of the Persistence of Force as being perfectly valid ; and yet in Mr. Spencer's exposition it only served to further inten- sify in my mind the idea of eternity as boundless Past and boundless Future, while the Present seemed only a phantom rushing from infinity to infinity. VII. I supplemented my study of Kant by a prolonged effort to thread the mazes of the Hegelian dialectic — the most elaborate, as it is the most rigidly consistent, of all the attempts that have been made to arrange the fundamental categories of thought in the order of their complexity and at the same time to show the necessity of their sequence. And yet, however un- expectedly, it was in the work of a poet that I found 'Op. Cit., p 514. 428 ETERNITY. the immediate clew by which to reconcile the contra- diction that had so long perplexed and distressed me. Schiller had been an eager and appreciative student of Kant, and with the poet's gift he had seized upon the most concrete human aspects of Kant's philoso- phy Kant had declared in the introduction to his Critique of Pure Reason that the ultimate, transcen- dently significant problems for human intelligence are God, Freedom and Immortality. Schiller took up these conceptions and based upon them his theory of the Beautiful. He assumed that there is but one ideal or type of personality. Different persons are but different conscious units, struggling in various ways towards the realization of that type. The per- fect realization of that type is the perfect Person, "the absolute subject" or God.^ Thus, freedom for the individual is to be attained only through the realization of this Divine type for and in the individual's own life. And because the type is infinite its realization must involve infinite duration, or immortality. That is the way leading man to God. And because the Divine activity is without external resistance it is forever unwearied. And this is the absolute perfection of play — the un- restricted and therefore unwearied accomplishment of results that must thus be faultless, and hence prove 'See Schiller's ALsthetical Letters^ xi. to xv. inclusive. ETERNITY. 429 the ceaseless occasion of divine joy. And in strug- gling towards the fulfillment of this divine type in his own life individual man participates unceasingly in the Divine life, progressively attains freedom, ap- proximates the Divine, and realizes immortality. VIII. All this Schiller more or less plainly intimates. And now with this clew the doctrine of evolution pre- sented to my mind a new and far richer significance than it had previously done. A distinction that I had not as yet been able to formulate clearly now be- came perfectly plain. The distinction was this : The term "unconditioned" can only mean that the ulti- mate Power or Cause is all-inclusive, and therefore unconditioned, in this sense only : that there is noth- ing whatever beyond it to impose conditions upon it ; while, on the other hand, and for that very reason, all conditioned existences must be involved i7i Abso- lute Being as modes ^it. And since the Ultimaj:e Power as Absolute Being can not change, there must unquestionably be an "established order" in its "manifestations.'' In other words, the ultimate, all- inclusive Power is perfect in its activity ; its activity is in accordance with an absolutely perfect, unal- terable Method. But by this established order or method the ulti- 430 ETERNITY. ' mate Power gives rise to conditioned being — unfolds an infinite series of concretely realized conditions within itself — and thus proves to be indeed, in one respect, the Unconditioned ; but also, and not less truly, it proves in another sense to be the absolutely j^^-condition. And, this distinction once clearly seized, others followed as necessary corollaries. IX. Thus, since in its modes of activity it manifests it- self, and since we may become increasingly aware of the character and complexity of these modes, then it seems impossible to reject the conclusion that while the ultimate Power, or Force, or Energy,^ as being absolute, self-limited, self-sufficing, and therefore perfect or infinite, is "unknowable" in the sense that no created mind can ever acquire an exhaustive, de- tailed knowledge of it, yet in the very fact that it "manifests itself in accordance with a "fixed order" or changeless method, the ultimate Power proves to be progressively knowable to the created mind. And the extent to which it is knowable by such mind can only find its ultimate limit in the ultimate limit of mental growth on the part of a created thinking unit. 'Physicists now insist, significantly enough, on the use of the term "Energy" where the term "Force" was formerly used, as if feeling that the ultimate Power must be spon- taneous and personal ETERNITY. 431 Nor is this all. For Absolute Being, or the all- comprising Energy, can not but be wholly and cease- lessly active. Ceasing to act is ceasing to exist ; and ceasing to act in any degree is ceasing to exist in just that degree. But that something should become nothing is "unthinkable." The idea of the absolute persistence of Energy is, let us repeat, precisely the same as that of "an unconditioned reality without be- ginning or end." In fact, the persistence of energy is an "ultimate truth given in our mental constitu- tion;"^ whence I could not but conclude that caus- ation, or creation — that is, the self-uafolding of Ab- solute Being — is an eternally selt-equal fact ; and I recalled, with a new comprehension of their signifi- cance, the phrases I had so often heard repeated in childhood and youth, declaring the Divinity to be "without variableness or shadow of turning," as being ''yesterday, to-day, and forever the same," as being the "high and lofty One who inhabiteth Eter- nity." Still further, I could not but think that Absolute Being, 'manifesting itself" in accordance with a "fixed order" or method, must, in that very fact, be perfectly aware of itself in both its method and its manifestations. By no mental effort could I suppress the conviction that assumed shape in my mind, to the ^Spencer's First Principles, p. 191. 432 ETERNITY. effect that the ultimate Energy, so unfailingly perfect in the method of its activity and self-manifestation, must, in its perfect self-guidance, be a perfect Intelli- gence. X. And here the objection of "anthropomorphism" seemed to find its answer. Men have conceived the Divine to be embodied in trees and rivers and clouds and serpents and fire and planets and sun and stars, as well as in human form. Was there no germ of truth in all that ? I reflected that a thought is not complete until it receives expression, outer manifes- tation, explicit form orembodiment. It also occurred to me that the more complex the thought is, by so much the more must the expression or embodiment of it be complex. And, when I considered that the total thought of the Absolute Being must be infinitely complex, I saw that only the infinite totality of forms and relations could give adequate embodiment or ex- pression to that thought. So that men have not been wholl}^ wrong in supposing there is something divine in the various forms of the world about them. Their error has consisted rather in assuming that some one form sufficed as an embodiment of the Divine. Nay, even here, they blindly sought after the fuller truth by assuming that each form was an embodied god. They felt that something divine was expressed in ETERNITY. 433 every form, and they could not interpret this impres- sion in any higher sense than that there were as many gods as forms. Nay, I can not but think that the ancient Egyptians felt this great truth and groped about for its expression in their strange commingling of forms as representative of Divinity. But the identifying of the divine with the human form was an immense advance over all previous stages ; for the recognition of the quality of intelli- gence as a divine quality was thus insured. What remained to be accomplished was that man should so far clarify his own intelligence as to recognize the fact of the infinite complexity of the divine Thought, and thus to learn that not any single form or group of forms can embody more than a single phase of that Thought ; that, in fact, nothing less than the abso- lute total of Existence in all its infinitely varied forms could be adequate as a means to the perfect utterance of the perfect Intelligence. XI. Thus, while in one respect Absolute Being would seem to be changelessly perfect as the ultimate Cause forever manifested in all particular forms of existence, such forms being themselves the "effect" or modes of Absolute Being, in another respect it would seem to be also absolutely conscious of itself in all its modes. 434 ETERNITY. So that oue can not avoid the conclusion, on the one hand, that there is no reality which is not a mani- festation of Absolute Being ; and, on the other hand, that there is no minutest phase of reality which Ab- solute Being as Intelligence does not perfectly think or know. It is in this sense that "what is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.'" And now because the same Absolute Being mani- fests itself and knows itself perfectly in its own mani- festation, it seems impossible to avoid this further conclusion : that what the primal Energy, or First Cause, is absolutely , just that is what Man proves to be relatively; that is, a Being who is knowing-subject and known-object in perfect fusion. Thus, if man once thought of the divinities as having a human na- ture, his final discovery is that man himself is, in reality, possessed of the divine nature. And this is but the thought of primitive man unfolded into ma- turity. It is thus that I was brought to what seemed to me the real solution of the problem of eternity in its con- crete significance. Reference has already been made to the fact that space in its character of relation be- tween bodies, and time in its character of relation be- tween events, seem to be modes of existence both infinite and finite ; and, from the point of view now 'Hegel Philosophie des Rechts, Dritte Auflage, S. 17. KTERNITY. 435 reached, they may be said to be the negative modes in which absolute Being unfolds itself in finite and thereforechanging forms. Apart from these finite forms there would then be no relation of coexistence, and apart from the changes occurring in those forms there would be no relation of succession ; that is, there would be neither space nor time in any other sense than that in which mere blank "nothing" can be said to have an existence. Absolute Being, then, is not in space and time in the sense of being subject to them ; for they are but m.odes of the existence of Absolute Being. And, if Absolute Being can not be conceived apart from its modes, so neither can these modes be conceived apart from Absolute Being. Nor is it to be forgotten that the highest — that is, more adequate — modes of In- telligence are wholly independent of space and time. And, further, since Absolute Being is unchangingly perfect, it is evident that it could never have been either more or less in its total Reality than it now is, and that it can never become other than it is ; for that is a necessary corollary from the persistence of Energy. And, as time is a condition of the changing, then Absolute Being as unchanging can not be con- ditioned by time. On the contrary, since all finite, changing things are but modes of Absolute Being, it is evident that time, as nothing more than a condition of the changing, is but a subordinate and vanishing 436 ETERNITY. phase of the total creative Process. For example, much of what is still future to the child is already past to the youth ; and the to-morrow of youth is the yesterday of old age. Past, present and future are all merged into to-day by the coexistence of generations. So the northern and southern hemispheres of our planet are measurably complementary to one another in seasons as well as in geometric form. Summer and winter, autumn and spring, are perpetual, when we consider the earth as a whole. And so in total space there appear to be innumerable nebulae realizing serially all stages of advancement toward solar sys- tems, and innumerable solar systems realizing serially all possible stages of progress from the nebulous state to the state of collapse into nebulae again. So that every possible stage of evolution, from the most dif- fuse and simple to the most tense and complex, in- cluding organisms of every grade — nay, including every grade of human development — we may legiti- mately conclude to be prese?it perpetually in the total range of the divine creative process. And so I came to recognize that all conceivable duration must be merged in the changeless now of Absolute Being. That is the concrete Eter7iity.\ *Cf. Spinoza, Et/iices, Pars I. Def. VIII. Per aeternitatem intelligo ipsam existentiam, quatenus ex sola rei aeternae definitione necessario sequi concipitur. ExpiviCATio. — Talis enim e.ristefitia, ut aetcrna Veritas, sictit rei essentia coticipitiiry proptereaque per durationeni ant tenipus explicari non potest, tametsi duratio principio et fine carerc concipiatur. ETERNITY. 437 And the recognition of this truth brought with it a sense of great peace and rest, for now I have no longer to think of the past or of the future of the Universe. I have only to think of the absolute, ac- tual Totality of Existence — the infinitely rich present, in which past and future are absolutely merged. It is this Totality which endures, and apart from which eternity, which is but the mere form of the enduring, could have no meaning. God is fulfilled eternity, needing not to look bej^ond himself, but resting ever in the contemplation of his own infinite fullness and perfection. The divine Energy, self-active, self- sufiicing, self-ordering, self-unfolding, rests ever in the unmixed joy of its eternal self-conservation. XII. And now, when I recur again to the ideas of space and time, it appears to me that the proper terms are : Space and Duration. These, as already remarked, are nothing else than modes of existence. On the one hand, as infinitely extended, they are modes of infinite existence. On the other hand, as infinitely divisible, they are modes of finite existence. And finite existence itself is but the multiform mode of in- finite existence. Infinite existence is the continuous, or universal. Finite existence is the discrete, or par- ticular. Continuous and discrete, universal and par- ticular, are but complementary phases of the same 438 ETERNITY. absolute Totality. Infinite existence is the power of which finite existences are the modes. I observe, too, that, since this absolute, self- knowing Power is forever completely unfolded in its modes, and since these modes are thus the self-mani- festation of the Power, then, since the modes are knowable, the Power itself must also be thus far knowable. And this conviction became only the clearer the more I dwelt upon the relation between the Power and its modes. I^ooking out at the stars on a specially clear night, I noted the differences in their brilliancy, and along with this the varying ap- pearance of vacancy or of fullness in different parts of the heavens. At the same time, I recalled the fact that the apparent nearness or remoteness of any two stars to each other is no proof of their real proximity, but only of the fact that a line drawn through them and the earth approximates a straight line ; and it oc- curred to me that, though vast spaces seem blank even to the eye aided by the finest telescope, yet, if I were possessed of unlimited power to receive impres- sions of light, then I should see vast numbers of stars now wholly invisible from the earth. Nay, I should doubtless see them in such numbers as to fill the whole field of vision with light of varying degrees of intensity ; and not only so, but with such delicacy of visual power I could so far distinguish between de- grees of light as to judge of the relative nearness or ETERNITY. 439 remoteness of the stars, and so behold what would ap- pear to be a solid, shining dome broken into infinitely complex arches, with the farthest stars for keystones and the nearest stars for pendants. And this mag- nificent vision would be perpetually varying, not merely because of the swift movement of the sphere from which my observations must necessarily be taken, but also because of the perpetual movement of every single element in the fluid-solid dome. But thus also there would be presented an absolute limit to the field of my direct perception ; and yet, as- suredly, I could not then, any more than now, resist the conviction that beyond this limit space still ex- tends infinitely, and that Absolute being is just as ac- tual in every part of that space as in the part thus roofed in by stars to me. And now I reflect that, though my direct perception would thus be limited, yet to that higher mode of vision, consisting of Rea- son, the innumerable spheres that give significance to infinite space are in truth nothing else than prismatic lenses, through which the radiance of the Divine Thought is focused, and yet also dispersed into its myriad forms of beauty. Thus they prove to be the means, not of limiting, but rather of extending vision in its most adequate modes. So that, while in one respect the ultimate Power is "unknowable," yet in a higher sense what prove to be impassable limits to the less adequate modes of knowledge prove also to 440 ETERNITY. be veritable means to the further extension of knowl- edge in its more adequate modes ; whence the ulti- mate Power is seen to be absolutely knowable. For to think truly is but to trace the "fixed order" or method of the ultimate Power as that Power mani- fests itself in the universe. In a word, to think truly is to trace out progressively the eternal thought of God. XIII. And thus once more do I find that in the very fact of my being as a thinking unit I am possessed of a divine nature. My chief, my sole, mission is to think the divine thought with ever-increasing adequacy and clearness, and to conform my life thereto. That is living the divine life. That is the progressive realiz- ation of immortality. That is to bring freedom into increasingly rich reality in my own existence. And it is the realization of immortality, because as a think- ing unit I belong to the same type of being as the ul- timate, self-knowing Power ; and since I can conceive of no absolute limit to the possible development of that type within my own individual life, but rather can only regard myself as being possessed of an in- finite nature, which as mine it is my own natural des- tiny to fulfil, then* clearly I can not cease to exist as an individual. For the perfect fulfillment of this in- ETERNITY. 441 finite typical nature on my part can be accomplished in no less than infinite duration. But I also note that while my progressive develop- ment involves time as a mode of my existence, yet the more adequately I realize the divine nature in my own individuality, by so much the more truly do I become superior to the limitations of time, and thus experience some semblance of the divine repose and peace of Eternity. The way leading man to God then is not a mere path amid the stars through boundless space. It is rather the "way of the Spirit," the method by which the divine ideal or Type is to become progressively unfolded into reality in the individual soul. It is the way of escape from the vacuity of mere initial exist- ence, the way out of the primitive Eden, with its walls and its gates and its insoluble contradictions, the way out of the uncertainties, the anxieties, the weariness and the terrors of Time into the clear as- surance, the self-poised maturity, the invigorating self- activity, the divine repose and joy of Eternity. The way by which man approaches the Divine is the way by which man becomes divine. And so I came at length to see that the one possible way for me to escape from the contradictions of end- less time — the infinitely stretched out eternity — con- sists in the gradual expansion of my life so as more 442 « ETERNITY. and more to fulfill the form of the infinitely present, concrete Eternity, whose essence is the Divine Life — God in me and I in God. Princeton Theological Seminary ibraries 1 1012 01195 6515 Date Due