LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 [SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA t 
 
WINDFALLS 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "ASPECTS OF HUMANITY." 
 
 (jLlCu^ui^L 
 
 {L^iutyl 
 
 Forma mentis fugax. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 PRIVATE EDITION. 
 
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TSwrs 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
 Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
WINDFALLS 
 
"CHARITY NEVER FAILETH." 
 
 Man's wisdom takes its rise in fear; 
 
 And " fear hath torment," though in hearts sincere. 
 
 God's wisdom flows in perfect love, 
 
 And lifts the fallen soul all fear above. 
 
 Be ours to search that flood of strength, 
 To trace its rise and prosecute its length, 
 And view its breadth, as finite man 
 Such boundless bliss may incompletely scan. 
 
 See first a righteous fear induce 
 
 Faith in a guidance from which sin broke loose,— 
 
 Enlightened faith, as taught by grief 
 
 Unknown before its act of unbelief. 
 
 From faith so warned to keep its course, 
 And persevering, grows a nobler force, — 
 A faith renewed, with larger scope, 
 In which fear falls, and is replaced by hope. 
 
 So stayed by hope and turned toward things 
 
 Not seen, for else hope were not hope, faith brings 
 
 The faithful soul into such state, 
 
 That all its works on love and knowledge wait. 
 
 Then faith and hope, not slain like fear, 
 Are lost, in that they can no more appear. 
 Through doubt and shame their fires endure ; 
 Love is not love, except its flame be pure. 
 
 So man, in vision clear, discerns 
 How all God's universe uninjured burns, 
 As burned the bush which Moses saw, 
 And yields his heart to love's eternal law. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 A SALUTATION 7 
 
 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE 9 
 
 NUMBER AS AN OBJECT 30 
 
 CURRENT ARITHMETIC 34 
 
 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 35 
 
 THE LAW OF THE ROAD , 41 
 
 ATONEMENT , 46 
 
 THE LAND OF PROMISE 47 
 
 THE PLACE OF FICTION 52 
 
 ROMANCE 56 
 
 THE DRIFT OF SYNTAX 57 
 
 PROPHECY AND INTERPRETATION 61 
 
 UNIVERSAL SCRIPTURE 65 
 
 THE MORTALITY OF KNOWLEDGE 66 
 
 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS 69 
 
 VANITY OF VANITIES 73 
 
 MERIT 74 
 
 THE SUBORDINATION OF LAW 77 
 
 AUTHORITY 79 
 
 ABSTRACTIONS versus DELUSIONS 80 
 
 HIDDEN LIFE 83 
 
 A PARAPHRASE 86 
 
 A POSSIBLE STEP FORWARD 87 
 
 INCIDENTAL EDUCATION 91 
 
 KNOWLEDGE 94 
 
 THE EXPENDITURE OF EXPLANATION 95 
 
 CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION 98 
 
 AN ASPIRATION 108 
 
 1* 
 
WINDFALLS. 
 
 A SALUTATION. 
 
 Greet ye one another with an holy kiss." — i Cor. xvi. 20, etc. 
 
 God speed thee, struggling neighbor ! 
 
 All blessings on thy head ! 
 May we be one in labor, 
 
 Till to temptation dead ! 
 
 So shall we stand united ; 
 
 While parted, both might fall, 
 Although of God invited, 
 
 Who would be all in all. • 
 
 He is before all creatures ; 
 
 In Him we all consist, 
 And glorify his features, 
 
 Or foul them, as we list. 
 
 We tread the world of matter 
 By means of outward sense, 
 
 Whose visions often flatter, 
 While veiling violence. 
 
 But as we win the graces 
 Which wait upon his will, 
 
 We read in fellow-faces 
 The signs of good and ill. 
 
A SALUTATION. 
 
 And if we be connected 
 On the internal ground, 
 
 With joy are we affected 
 
 When outward links are found. 
 
 With honest purpose meeting, 
 All doubting we dismiss ; 
 
 Count every word a greeting, 
 And every work a kiss. 
 
MATHEMATICS TYPICAL OF 
 UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 
 
 " Mathematics is only common elementary philosophy, and philosophy is 
 only higher mathematics."— Novalis. 
 
 [A Word of Caution. — Be entreated, gentle reader ! before devoting time 
 and attention to an appreciation of the ensuing disquisition, to pause and 
 reflect upon the difference between a true assurance and a false. The true ex- 
 plorer and reporter of the realms of thought, relying wholly for fortune and 
 favor on the consciousness that the Truth is inherently larger and clearer as 
 well as fairer than any demonstration of it which he can hope to give, pre- 
 tends not to foresee the suggestions which his report shall awaken in any 
 minds. But while he is thus secured from the temptation to work for mere 
 sensational effect, there must always be effects which he can imagine might 
 be produced in any hearer or reader. He may be a true author, while a very 
 partial seer. The mere literary pretender, however, goes a step farther in 
 the blindness of his faith, assuming that he may be generally as well as par- 
 ticularly unconscious of any virtue passing through him. As the author of 
 Night Thoughts has freely delineated him in one of his epistles to the 
 author of The Dunciad, 
 
 11 Perhaps a title has his fancy smit ; 
 Or a quaint motto, which he thinks has wit. 
 He writes, in inspiration puts his trust, 
 Tho' wrong his thoughts, the gods will make them just. 
 Genius directly from the gods descends, 
 And who by labor would distrust his friends ? 
 Thus having reasoned with consummate skill, 
 In immortality he dips his quill ; 
 And, since blank paper is denied the press, 
 He mingles the whole alphabet by guess, 
 In various sets, which various words compose, 
 Of which he hopes mankind the meaning knows." 
 
 Prudent reader ! if thy time and attention shall here be devoted in vain, 
 cast not all the blame on him who thus forewarns thee. If unaccustomed 
 
 9 
 
IO MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 or averse to " thinking about thinking," examine first the next presented and 
 shorter article or Number, which may possibly furnish a fit introduction to 
 this, probably a more than sufficient substitute for it.] 
 
 TRUTH, in one of its aspects, may be defined to be the 
 power of coalescence. The observation is doubtless as 
 old as Humanity, with distinctness proportioned to the saga- 
 city of the observer, and must ever continue 
 
 The unity of truth. . . . .; . 
 
 with increasing clearness to stimulate and to 
 reward the zeal of Nature's hopeful explorers, that the bound- 
 ary lines of her provinces, as they are fondly and unavoidably 
 called, have in Nature no actual existence. The distinctions 
 of diverse Science, originating exclusively although uncon- 
 sciously in the realm of imagination, as ideas of more or less 
 temporary value, are not natural, but artificial. In technical 
 parlance, they exist, while they exist, not objectively, or in 
 fact, but subjectively only, or in our partial modes of percep- 
 tion and of thought. They are all doomed more or less grad- 
 ually to vanish, as the domain of intellect shall be extended. 
 Whether we will receive it or whether we will forbear, there 
 is a progressive revelation of Nature, in which coalition and 
 co-operation everywhere announce the omnipresent Deity. 
 All things run together, although their wondrous fusion may 
 be duly realized only in the full radiance of that celestial 
 Light, whose straggling emanations even are wont to dazzle 
 our mortal gaze into temporary blindness. 
 
 This doctrine of a pervading unity in Na- 
 
 Essentialtointelli- t ^ £ fa princ j ple of truth may 
 
 gence and certainty. J r fr j 
 
 be said to be an intuitive perception of the 
 healthy human soul. Like others it may be overlain and 
 concealed in the very abundance of fragmentary attainment, 
 and so become temporarily an unavailable if not superfluous 
 element of wisdom. Perhaps even more than others has 
 this doctrine suffered this fate in latter ages. But such fate 
 cannot be final. The lost link must from time to time re- 
 appear in the inevitable successions of universal thought. 
 The forgotten or neglected stone must still retain its place in 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. II 
 
 the eternal arch of truth. How many a weary soul may be 
 even now looking wistfully back from the distraction of the 
 "much learning" under which the modern mind has been 
 staggering onward, to those clear morning hours of philosophy, 
 to the ages at once of poverty and of promise, when the 
 pristine freshness of intellect had as yet in no wise yielded to 
 a sophisticated insensibility ; but when the Pythagorases and 
 the Platos could stride freely over the whole domain of know- 
 ledge, and demand, nothing doubting, from every fact of 
 every kind its contribution to the universal scheme ! A lame 
 induction had not then led mankind into the persuasion that 
 there were two sorts of truth in the world ; the one of which 
 was certain, and the other at best but probable. Philosophers 
 then, little dreaming that the truly probable (ftrobabilis) 
 could be supposed to differ from the truly experimental, 
 seem to have been not only willing but anxious to make 
 themselves extreme upon all points of belief, as if conscious 
 that in such trustful daring lay the most coercive conservat- 
 ism, — the surest preventive of actual extravagance in what- 
 ever direction. Their faith in the every-day details of know- 
 ledge did not, upon the occurrence of apparent discrepancies 
 therein, extinguish their faith in the underlying principles 
 which maintain an ever-increasing predominance in truly 
 reflecting minds, nor yet in the ever-unfolding and possibly 
 unbroken consistency of the whole course of the created 
 universe. Intellectual prosperity has now too largely relaxed 
 our intellectual rigor. Man, being u in honor," " understand- 
 eth not." The very success of those hardy ancients in their 
 introvertive industry has come to be regarded as failure, and 
 their strength as little more than weakness. Plow have we 
 been almost taught even to " account their lives madness, and 
 their end without honor !" Nevertheless, how well might we 
 long for an adequate share of the same method and coherency 
 of intelligence which they so triumphantly derived from their 
 scanty materials, and without which our mental wealth must 
 be an incumbrance, and may become a bane. 
 
12 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 It is universally acknowledged that certainty 
 
 Certainty to be . . , . . r 
 
 despaired of in is pre-eminently attainable in the science of 
 no department of Mathematics. It may therefore be assumed 
 
 kuowledge. . _ . 
 
 that it the toundations ot knowledge are in any 
 case accessible by all men, they must be especially so in the 
 principles of that science. It is the aim of this essay to show 
 that there is a universal thought which is the object of individ- 
 ual thinking, or that all science is based upon pure observa- 
 tion, with no empirical admixture of hypothetical, or theoret- 
 ical anticipation of natural facts, on the part of the observing 
 mind. If this can be demonstrated as a primary theorem even 
 in Mathematics, not only must every vestige and avenue of 
 uncertainty be excluded from that science, but by virtue of the 
 applicability of the same laws of perception and of thought 
 which have there such free and fruitful scope, to the develop- 
 ment of other branches of knowledge which are undisputedly 
 grounded upon the same universal principle of direct observa- 
 tion or rigid inference, the objective reality of all, in founda- 
 tion and in superstructure, must be equally established. The 
 whole creation will thus be intelligibly presented to our imag- 
 ination as a continuous temple of truth and beauty, albeit 
 more or less vaguely, while the lingering veil of moral evil 
 shall at all obscure the perfect designs of the divine Creator, 
 and retard the full appreciation of the willing worshiper. 
 
 ., . . Taking Mathematics, then, as a type of Sci- 
 
 Mathematics a & ' J r 
 
 type of all know- ence at large, let us proceed to consider its 
 ledge m its Ongm hj S (- or y lm der the three heads expressed in the 
 
 Development and J x 
 
 Tradition. Theses three following Theses ; viz : 
 
 propounded. j # That the sc i ence f Mathematics, like 
 
 other provinces of knowledge, originates exclusively in the 
 observation of certain objective qualities of things. 
 
 II. That its cultivation is conducted only by the same in- 
 tellectual processes of imaginary analysis and imaginary com- 
 bination, otherwise called Abstraction and Reasoning, which 
 are adopted in other sciences ; and not by the aid of any sys- 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 1 3 
 
 tern or prelude of mere hypothesis, apart from those processes 
 or unknown to other sciences. 
 
 III. That its exposition, or communication from mind to 
 mind, being accomplished by the emblematic embodying of 
 the ideas and subjective processes thus arising in appropriate 
 objective symbols, which symbols have not the same imme- 
 diate connection and apparent identity with their subjects, 
 which the original objects had with their proper images or 
 perceptions in the mind,* depends upon and proves (as does 
 the language of all original thought) the existence, assumed 
 and admitted though not expressed, of a little reflective capa- 
 city in each of the parties, and also of a will on either side 
 struggling for the union of agreement. In other words, the 
 essential elements and methods of all speech are involved in 
 even the simplest mathematical demonstrations. 
 
 In approaching the examination of these For the definition 
 Theses, it becomes a preliminary duty to as- of Mathematics, 
 sume some definition of the subject which they concern, with 
 whatever novelty of form present perspicuity may require. 
 Let us then simply define Mathematics to be the science which 
 treats of Matter, as it is known in its universal properties, 
 whether original or derived. 
 
 The consideration of this definition of course 
 involves a still preliminary decision as to what some an ff lS ne " 
 
 1 J cessary 01 the prop- 
 
 are the universal properties of matter which erties of matter, or 
 
 are objects of knowledge, with some inquiry the relations of mat " 
 
 ^ J ter to sense. 
 
 by the way into the nature and objects of sen- 
 sation in general. 
 
 *It is impossible but that any one who does not thus distinguish between 
 the connection of words with thoughts and that of thoughts with things, will 
 be often disappointed in his attempts at conversation or demonstration. The 
 more artificial and superficial connection between words and thoughts is so 
 apt to supersede and render nugatory the more natural and profound con- 
 nection of thoughts with things, that there can be no profitable communion 
 between parties neither of whose memory is in this respect rectified by phil- 
 osophy, or by the religious faith which includes the power of philosophy. 
 2 
 
14 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 In the present state of general science, it 
 
 cendental 
 matter. 
 
 dental cannot be presumed that all the properties 
 
 which may be ascribed to matter, are strictly 
 peculiar to it. Impenetrability, for instance, may be sup- 
 posed to be equally a property of the universal medium, 
 sometimes called "ether," or more definitely passimede, * 
 which interpenetrates and connects the atoms and massive 
 aggregations which are properly known as matter. By this 
 attribute of impenetrability, this refined medium may per- 
 haps more immediately affect the nobler organs of " special" 
 sense, those, namely, of sight, smell, taste and hearing (of 
 this at least as regards the direction of sound), without that 
 intervening mechanical impression which seems necessary to 
 the action of the "general" senses known as the tactile and 
 the muscular. But inasmuch as these baser senses may be 
 found to suffice of themselves for the apprehension of the 
 attributes of matter, and the use of those finer in the appre- 
 ciation of matter by these attributes or qualities, is merely 
 the result of an education which they receive by their co- 
 operation with the baser, it seems incumbent upon us to 
 confine our attention to the senses of Touch and of Muscular 
 Resistance, as the primary and proper avenues of all mathe- 
 matical ideas, so far as those ideas may be found to be de- 
 rived from without us. 
 
 The inherent properties of matter, or ob- 
 ^Tx^r^I^ J ects of "general" sensation, may be thus. 
 of matter, pure and enumerated : 
 
 (i.) Impenetrability ; or distinctness of sub- 
 stance, by means of which the presence of one sort of matter 
 excludes that of any other sort, or of any other portion of the 
 same sort. 
 
 (2.) Interrupted extent ; or finity of substance, whereby 
 matter is susceptible of every variety of form. 
 
 (3.) Duration ; or permanence of existence, which is also, 
 
 * From passim, medium, A mere suggestion by the author. 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 15 
 
 or at least may be, interrupted or limited, so far as it is an 
 object of sense. 
 
 (4.) Inertia; or dependence of condition, exhibited alike 
 in the phenomenon of motion and in that of rest. 
 
 (5.) Impressibility ; or mutability of condition, exhibited 
 under the influence of chemical or other invisible power, 
 by the variations of motion in all forms of attraction and 
 repulsion. 
 
 Those chemical or physiological habitudes 
 of matter which are distinct from these me- erti^noTuniverra 1 ], 
 chanical, such as Temperature, Color, Taste, and so not concerned 
 etc., though observable, some or all of them, 
 in combination with all matter, appear not to belong inhe- 
 rently to matter itself, but to be plainly imparted to it by the 
 immaterial agency or agencies concerned, which cannot as 
 yet be accurately designated, even by name. Again, the 
 universal qualities of matter just now recounted, are probably 
 not all in themselves primary and elementary. But that 
 question is here irrelevant, since they have yet to be com- 
 bined among themselves to furnish the perceptions and ideas 
 which are the primary and secondary materials of mathe- 
 matical science. 
 
 These combinations, or compound and still 
 
 , ,.,. r , , , • , i Composition of 
 
 universal qualities of matter, as known in the mathematical mate- 
 mind, may be thus announced : rials, present and 
 
 First ; the perception or idea of Space, re- repre£ 
 suiting from (1) in combination with (2). 
 
 Second; the perception or idea of Multiplicity or Number, 
 from simultaneous repetitions of the same combination. 
 
 Third; the idea of Time from (1) and (3),with the aid of 
 memory. The idea of Number may also thus arise, by the 
 same aid ; and by this duality of origin, the idea of Number 
 may become a representative of both Space and Time in con- 
 junction with their subordinate attribute of quantitative pro- 
 portion. And it is here worthy of note, that since Time dif- 
 fers from Space in being known only through the aid of 
 
1 6 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 memory, its idea can never, like that of Space, be supposed 
 to be instantaneously present in our calculations. Therefore, 
 although we deal with Space, as an idea, either immediately 
 or through the representation of Number, we can only esti- 
 mate and apply the idea of Time, by the imaginary or repre- 
 sentative means. . 
 
 Fourth; the perception or idea of Motion or Velocity, 
 from (i) and (4), under the influence of the unknown power 
 or powers which we can only vaguely designate by the 
 terms vital, chemical, cosmical, etc. 
 
 Fifth; the perception or idea of Force or Momentum, 
 from (1) and (5), also under the influence of power acting 
 from beyond the sphere of natural perception. 
 
 We already find a corroboration of our 
 The assumed de- assumed definition of Mathematics, in the ob- 
 
 finition incidentally , • .■* ,-\ ■» i • . • 
 
 corroborated servation that these last-named cognitions, 
 
 though not, like that of Time, dependent in 
 any degree upon previous mental evidence, can, like it, only 
 enter into mathematical inquiries by the representation of 
 Space or Number ; the reason in both cases being essentially 
 the same, namely, that a part of the evidence upon which 
 they arise is simply foreign to matter, as matter. 
 
 In accordance with this enumeration of its 
 
 Its farther con- . . . . 
 
 sideration * merged proximately elementary materials, we may 
 in that of the first now repeat in fuller form our previously 
 assumed definition of Mathematics, as being 
 the science which treats of Matter, as known in its universal 
 and inherent but compound properties or qualities, Space, 
 Number, and (so far as its nature appears) Time, and in the 
 partly inherent and partly derived compound properties or 
 qualities, Motion and Force. We thus also, it must be re- 
 marked, arrive at a re-statement* of the first of our three 
 
 * As the present Essay in its original shape was written before the appear- 
 ance of Dr. Whewell's Novum Organon Renovatwn, it is with some mortifi- 
 cation that I confess my ignorance of that work until this had been revised on 
 the eve of publication. With the exception of the brief mention made of In- 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 17 
 
 Theses in more explicit form, except inasmuch as the actual 
 origin of every science consists in the application of observing 
 powers to the observable things. Let us now repeat and ex- 
 amine those Theses in detail. 
 
 I. "That the science of Mathematics, like other provinces 
 of knowledge, originates exclusively in the observation of cer- 
 tain objective qualities of things.'*' 
 
 This first Thesis being, as just now re- 
 marked, little more than a repetition of the Possible objec- 
 
 dt r> ... r i_i • .• 1 tions to it antici- 
 
 dennition of the science, particular ated 
 
 consideration of it may now be limited to an 
 
 examination of such objections against the new definition, as 
 
 may probably arise from a comparison with old ones. These 
 
 may be considered under two heads : 
 
 1. The subjects of Infinity and Nihility, 
 
 which although out of the reach of human ts omissions, on y 
 
 £> apparent. 
 
 observation may perhaps by some be inad- 
 
 duction and Deduction in the text on p. 25, 1 am constrained to throw into the 
 margin any remarks suggested by and extracts derived from that lucid and 
 compendious code of progressive Philosophy. The citation next following 
 may possibly assist the reader to bear in mind the distinction assumed in the 
 text above, between the definition of the province, and the beginning of the 
 work of Mathematics, — between the verbal designation of the field, and the 
 actual breaking of the ground : — " In collecting scientific truths by Induction 
 we often find a Definition and a Proposition established at the same time, — in- 
 troduced together, and mutually dependent on each other. The combination 
 of the two constitutes the inductive act, and we may consider the Definition as 
 representing the superinduced Conception, and the Proposition as exhibiting 
 the Colligation of Facts." (Bk. 2, Ch. 5, §5.) 
 
 Here, as well as anywhere may also be cited some remarks which may per- 
 haps to some minds enforce the external origin of our ideas of Number, Space, 
 etc., by showing that forgetfulness of that origin is, or would be, only natural ; 
 so that our primitive perceptions must be more or less laboriously mined out, 
 so to speak, from present accumulations of knowledge, however comparatively 
 vast or meagre : " In every inference by Induction, there is a Conception super- 
 induced upon the Facts." (Bk. 2, Ch. 5, § 3.) " Although in every Induction a 
 new Conception is superinduced upon the Facts, yet this once effectually done, 
 the novelty of the Conception is overlooked, and the Conception is considered 
 as a part of the Fact." (Bk. 2, Ch. 6, § 3.) See also Bk. 3, Ch. 4, §4. 
 2* B 
 
1 8 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 vertently supposed to lie within the range of mathematical 
 inquiry, are not necessarily, and therefore not scientifically to 
 be so regarded. It is indeed often necessary to advert to 
 them ; but they may then be more simply regarded as form- 
 ing the unavoidable boundaries, than as contributing to the 
 subject materials of the science. 
 
 2. It is scarcely necessary to remark that 
 its innovations, idel different views have prevailed from 
 
 essential. J r 
 
 those now presented as to the nature and 
 origin of our ideas of Space, Time, and Number ; and as it 
 is from this previous prevalence that exceptions to the pres- 
 ent Thesis and definition are chiefly to be apprehended, a 
 careful consideration of them becomes here expedient. 
 
 Space, being deemed capable of existing in the form of sur- 
 face without bulk or capacity, and in that of linear extension 
 without either surface or bulk, and being regarded as some- 
 thing which in itself partakes of infinitude, has thence been 
 naturally supposed to have an existence, finitely in the human 
 intelligence, infinitely in the divine, wholly independent of 
 matter.* Time, also, probably in part from the circumstance 
 of its requiring an obvious mental effort for its apprehension ; 
 and partly, perhaps, from its being found the most important ■(• 
 of mundane resources,- — the uniform channel of every exter- 
 nal influence which maintains or modifies the condition of 
 man, — has had a like independent and purely intellectual 
 
 * Probably the idea which is most generally conveyed by the current modes 
 of defining and treating of Space, is that of a sort of ocean in which material 
 things exist much as fish are scattered through the sea. And it may there- 
 fore perhaps at first sight appear as absurd to think of Space as being a 
 quality of matter, as it would be to call the sea an attribute of fishes. But it 
 must be noticed that the analogy fails in an essential particular. The fish 
 displaces the sea, so that where one is, the other is not. Probably no sane 
 person will assert the same of matter in Space. 
 
 t Possibly this peculiar importance of Time may be finally found to result 
 from the fact of its not being universally a quality of matter except under the 
 " curse" (Gen. iii. 17) which the earth incurred in consequence of the fall of 
 Adam ; of which curse mutability, the universal measure of Time, may be an 
 essential and representative feature. 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 19 
 
 or even spiritual existence ascribed to it. Numbers, we are 
 in the habit of using so freely in their imaginary or abstract 
 meaning, sometimes as a gymnastic labor, and sometimes 
 as a wholesome relaxation of the mind, that it may be still 
 less surprising that we should lose sight of their exterior 
 origin. 
 
 However these misapprehensions may have Mischiefs of tra- 
 arisen, it is easily to be understood how, in dltlonal confusion. 
 accordance with them, the science of Mathematics has hap- 
 pened to be defined in a mode very different from that here 
 suggested, that is, as being wholly subjective in its nature, or 
 originating solely in the mind.* That it is accordingly a struc- 
 ture based upon mere hypothesis, or upon assumed dogmata 
 for which no demonstrable authority could be adduced ; — that 
 its sure working and safe guidance are therefore merely a 
 lucky coincidence, and are no example or evidence of any 
 attainable principle of certainty in human affairs — any pre- 
 siding order or convincing unity of truth ; — but that, so far as 
 appears, all things are under the direction of a capricious 
 power of Fate, or mere law of Chance, which may tolerate 
 this inferior and partial uniformity (to such the solitary mys- 
 tery of the universe, the eye of course, seeing in all things 
 " only what it brings with it the power to see") merely as 
 the tangible substratum which is requisite to uphold the 
 chaotic riot of a libertine life ; — these are the conclusions 
 which the ingenuity and influence of the votaries of vice have 
 not been slow to forge, and to link as inferences to that im- 
 movable staple of primary consciousness, which mathematical 
 truth in some way gives to all. Scholars, by confusing ob- 
 jective materials with subjective processes, have necessarily 
 curtailed the true import of the science in its spiritual as well 
 
 *The intellect of ages may be said to speak in these words of the emi- 
 nent and excellent philosopher and historian of Science, already quoted : — 
 " The pure Mathematical Sciences can hardly be called Inductive Sciences. 
 Their principles are not obtained by Induction from Facts, but are necessa- 
 rily assumed in reasoning upon the subject-matter which those Sciences in- 
 volve." — Nov. Org. Ren. y B. 2, ch. 9. 
 
20 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 as in its material aspect ; and the twofold mutilation can only 
 be apologized for as being in accordance with the treatment 
 received at their hands, perhaps inevitably under any hereto- 
 fore prevailing regime of metaphysics,* by that coveted ab- 
 stract and educt of all knowledge, which is termed the Sci- 
 ence of Ontology. For it is surely observable that earnest 
 and consecutive reasoners upon this comprehensive theme, 
 have been almost uniformly landed, according to their taste 
 and previous training, either in the extravagance of an empty 
 materialism on the one hand, or in that of an exclusive spirit- 
 ualism on the other : while those who have advocated more 
 catholic doctrine have as generally done so by a process rather 
 of compromise than of comprehension, having been either 
 secured, at the expense of consistency, by an original and in- 
 superable dread of the glaring incompleteness ; or else influ- 
 enced, however indirectly, by the overwhelming weight of 
 the practical perceptions of the as yet unlearned mass of 
 mankind. So little, it seems, may one science, or all science, 
 avail to prove that which in fact must be the very beginning 
 of any science, or learning, or proving, namely, that there are 
 present to the operation both an animating soul and an ani- 
 mated organism, — each with its congenial adjuncts. 
 
 Waiving, however, any actual appeal to 
 its existence de- metaphysical standards as a thing here un- 
 
 monstrable by ad- 11 j /• i j. • i , i • i 
 
 mined axioms. called for > let us simply test by recognized 
 
 and rigid mathematical law, these speculative 
 views of the subjective nature of Space and Number, and of 
 Time so far as it can be represented by them in mathematical 
 investigation. 
 
 Any number of nothings results in Nothing, 
 
 First, as to Num- r , • c t n • a. • • rt • ±. r 
 
 ber as any traction of Infinity remains infinite, for 
 
 the one reason above intimated, that those sub- 
 
 * In the words of a deservedly popular writer, " The establishment of a 
 philosophy of discovery and invention must await the establishment of a 
 philosophy of the mind which discovers and invents." — Edwin P. Whipple 
 on the Philosophy of BACON. 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 21 
 
 jects not being objects of perception, are unalterable even in 
 idea, by the means of science. It is surely in vain to say in 
 illustration of the subjective doctrine of Number, that " two 
 and two make four," and that " the whole is greater than the 
 part," and to argue as is usual, that these and other such 
 phrases have an ideal or intelligible truth apart from any re- 
 lation to numerable or measurable objects. For these ex- 
 pressions then must mean, that " two nothings and two noth- 
 ings make four nothings," and that " the whole of nothing is 
 greater than the part of nothing ;" which are at best but 
 random and gratuitous assertions, since by our acknowledged 
 rule the two nothings and two nothings do not make four 
 nothings, any more than they make one, or any other number 
 of nothings: neither is the whole of nothing greater than the 
 part of nothing, but by the same principle precisely equal to 
 it. The subjective origin of the idea of Number thus exhibits 
 itself as but an imaginary corner-stone of science. 
 
 The similar fiction of the " three dimen- 
 sions" of Space, two at least of which can c econ y ' as t0 
 
 r 7 Space. 
 
 only exist subjectively, convenient, necessary, 
 and even beautiful, as it may seem to be, may in like manner 
 be regarded as unfounded and inexpedient. Space must 
 have at least a differential* value in two directions, con- 
 joined with an estimable value in the remaining one, to 
 make it truly appreciable. In this case the appreciable 
 dimension will be mere length, and we w 7 ill have a substan- 
 tial and measurable line. If it be appreciable in two direc- 
 tions, we have a surface or area which is also a tangible 
 reality, and which is estimable by the measured line. If it 
 be appreciable in the third direction also, we have again 
 genuine Space, now rendered complete to the sense, and also 
 
 * That is, a value such as may always be imagined, which shall be defi- 
 nite in itself, and yet too small to be estimated in its results except by its 
 practical equality with other like values on the one hand, or by its unaltered 
 ratio to them when they have been reduced to the same degree, on the 
 other. 
 
22 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 estimable by the repeated application of the measured line. 
 We have thus an evidence for the objective nature of Space, 
 supplied by the mode in which alone it is conceivable for the 
 idea of Space to have originated. Again, both surface and 
 bulk being estimable by arithmetical multiplication, and 
 even length being always denotable by Number, we find a 
 confirmation of this view in our mode of computing Space, 
 which is identical with the argument already supplied by 
 the consideration of Number ; the contrary view being here 
 also a violation of the inevitable law, that nothing produces 
 nothing. Two triangles having their three sides equal, each 
 to each, the lines and surfaces being defined in the old mode, 
 can thus be equal to each other, only as they are also equal 
 to a quadrangle containing two figures so defined, or to any 
 other such impossible polygon ; that is, by being each equal 
 to nothing. 
 
 In quitting this branch of our subject, it may 
 Extraneous in- nQt be super fl uous to re mark, that although 
 
 ducements to rec- r . 
 
 tification. the views now advocated, must, as received, 
 
 occasion some slight modification in the lan- 
 guage of Mathematics, this result cannot but be ultimately of 
 use, if it be only in the clearing of the gateways to the science 
 in its different departments, and so smoothing the paths of 
 beginners. Perhaps even minds familiarized to the prevailing 
 inaccurate modes of expression, may find the temporary dis- 
 location of ideas incurred in such a change amply compensated 
 by an expanding appreciation of the truth of the homespun 
 axiom, that " Well begun is half done," and by the whole- 
 some assurance, that truth in general can only be thoroughly 
 appreciated in so far as the end maybe seen in the beginning. 
 
 II. " That its cultivation is conducted only by the same in- 
 tellectual processes of imaginary analysis and imaginary com- 
 bination, otherwise called Abstraction and Reasoning, which 
 are adopted in other sciences ; and not by the aid of any 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 23 
 
 system or prelude of mere hypothesis, apart from those pro- 
 cesses, or unknown to other sciences." 
 
 The consideration of the second Thesis has 
 been in a great degree anticipated in that of ^"Xd^Tof^ 
 the first. It has now been argued that mere veiopment. 
 hypothesis does not either primarily furnish 
 the elementary facts of mathematical knowledge, nor mingle 
 permanently with the process of their intellectual apprehen- 
 sion and combination. It remains to be shown that the con- 
 tinued development of these facts and processes in an ever- 
 serviceable system, is also essentially free from arbitrary 
 assumption, and adheres to the basis of a true or original 
 ground in nature, notwithstanding that that ground may even 
 in this comparatively prosaic science, be somewhat concealed 
 and forgotten, in consequence of the specific materials which 
 are the subjects of systematic development, being often them- 
 selves a mental development or construction thereupon. This 
 imaginative mode of development, and seeming loss of the 
 foundation in the continuing superstructure, may perhaps be 
 most readily illustrated by an analysis and comparison of the 
 four primary operations of Arithmetic. 
 
 Two only of these operations, Addition and 
 Subtraction, can be said actually to occur in 
 nature, and to be truly imitated in our calculations, as any 
 simple idea in mind or memory imitates or reflects a percep- 
 tion of nature. Multiplication and Division cannot occur out 
 of the mind, except as it may be allowable so to speak of 
 them as imaginary consequences of repeated additions and 
 subtractions. Addition having occurred by the repetition in 
 nature of several equal or like elements, the quality of Num- 
 ber thus comes distinctly and impressively into view ; and 
 being, by the legitimate action of the imagination, abstracted 
 from the process of Addition as a ready representative of the 
 productive agent, this quality of Number has quite naturally 
 received first the imaginary office, and then the name, of 
 Multiplier. The mathematical process of Multiplication is 
 
24 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 the retracing,* in a reverse order, of the growth which thus 
 arises, as it were, from external nature into the mind. That 
 is, as in the searching appreciation of the operation without 
 us, we rise from the result therein observed, through an im- 
 aginary multiplication to an imaginary multiplier ; so, when 
 we proceed to anticipate by calculation the result of any like 
 operation probably or possibly to occur in nature, we begin 
 with realizing the " abstract" multiplier in the mind, pursue 
 it downward through its mental combination or multiplication 
 with the " concrete" | number concerned, and alight, with all 
 confidence in the result, upon the common ground of concrete 
 ideas, with an intelligence of natural truth as clear as if we 
 were remembering facts as they had formerly happened, in- 
 stead of predicting them from an exploration of their rela- 
 tions. The connection between Subtraction and Division is 
 of course quite analogous to that between Addition and Mul- 
 tiplication. Addition and Subtraction are therefore distin- 
 guished as being simply ideal imitations in the mind, of what 
 may have actually occurred externally, the ideal numbers not 
 being severed from the concrete association in which they are 
 received into the mind from without ; in Multiplication and 
 Division, if they are intelligently performed, man adopts a 
 course of his own, whereby he estimates the slow results of ma- 
 terial changes without waiting to see them or even to suppose 
 them in detail. A true imaginative insight, an intelligence 
 dwelling in the secret modes of his perceptions rather than in 
 the obvious matter of them, is evidently necessary in the first 
 place to discover to him the fact that the abstract conception 
 of Number, when combined with, the concrete in the w r ay 
 
 * " Induction moves upward, and Deduction, downward, on the same 
 scale." — Whewell, Nov. Org. Ren.^ Bk. 2, ch. 6, § 18. 
 
 t The reader, if there shall be one, who may not at once recognize the 
 justness of the distinction between the "abstract" and the "concrete" ideas 
 of Number, as applied respectively to the multiplier and the multiplicand, is 
 invited to an examination of the old arithmetical riddle, — to take first the 
 square of twenty-five cents, and then the square of the quarter of a dollar, and 
 reconcile the results. 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE, 2$ 
 
 of Multiplication and Division, must give the results, while 
 avoiding the labor, of repeated Addition and Subtraction : and 
 the same insight remains as his sufficient authority for classi- 
 fying these processes rather according to their mental rank, as 
 indicated by their comparative complexity and analytical his- 
 tory, than by a reference to the associations under which they 
 occur or originate in nature. Thus, upon the common prin- 
 ciples of natural science, Multiplication and Division become 
 recognized as allied species constituting a true genus, — Ad- 
 dition and Subtraction in like manner forming a separate 
 genus, of mathematical rules, derivable by processes of in- 
 duction, and available for purposes of deduction.* 
 
 Our observations upon mathematical sci- 
 ence thus far, concern its development, as Sources of the 
 distinguished from its demonstration, and are ^Is™ 
 equally applicable to its four cardinal branches 
 of Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, and Mechanics. In all 
 of these the constructive work of imagination, inseparable 
 from all development of Science, may assume the appearance 
 of random hypothesis, as the form of hypothesis may be in- 
 cident to the work of exposition. But to make hypothesis 
 therefore the foundation or the law of any of them, were evi- 
 dently to confound the channel with the stream. All science 
 consisting in the interpretation of nature, and all truth being 
 one, all permanent progress of the so-called special sciences 
 must be the harmonious growth of component parts of a 
 single whole. The fewness, simpleness and universality of 
 the primary materials of Mathematics, by securing a facility 
 of culture, have induced an overshadowing ideal develop- 
 ment, in which their original relationship seems to have been 
 entirely lost sight of. This remarkable obscuration is wholly 
 
 * " In Induction, besides a mere collection of particulars, there is always a 
 new conception, or principle of connection and unity supplied by the mind, 
 and superinduced upon the particulars. ... In deductive reasonings, the gen- 
 eral principles are assumed, and the question is concerning their application 
 and combination in particular cases." — Whewell, Nov. Org. Ren., B. 2, ch. 6. 
 3 
 
26 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 traceable to the fact, that the foundation of the science in the 
 sensible phenomena of nature being comparatively base as 
 well as broad, the development of universal thought, in rising 
 successively above the level of higher foundations, contributes 
 comparatively more from itself in bulk to this meaner, even 
 as it derives to itself comparatively more in quality, from 
 those nobler sciences. In the eagerness of mental appetite, 
 the influences of quantity and quality, of matter and spirit, 
 have remained in some degree undistinguished, and the pro- 
 cess of discovery been confounded with that of demonstration. 
 A few general observations upon the admissibility and 
 necessity of hypothetical assumption in the work of demon- 
 stration now only remain to be adduced in confirmation of 
 our third Thesis. 
 
 III. u That its exposition, or communication from mind to 
 mind, being accomplished by the emblematic embodying of 
 the ideas and subjective processes thus arising, in appropriate 
 objective symbols, which symbols have not the same immedi- 
 ate connection and apparent identity with their subjects which 
 the original objects had with their proper images or percep- 
 tions in the mind, depends upon and proves (as does the lan- 
 guage of all original thought) the existence, assumed and ad- 
 mitted though not expressed, of a like reflective capacity in 
 each of the parties, and also of a will on either side struggling 
 for the union of agreement. In other w T ords, the essential 
 elements and methods of all speech are involved even in the 
 simplest mathematical demonstrations." 
 
 We must here remark the fact, which per- 
 
 Origin of Ian- . . x 
 
 guage in a lower, haps first found definite expression in the 
 
 and use in a higher, f am0 US WOl'k * of JOHN HORNE TOOKE, and 
 
 consciousness. . 
 
 which can never long remain a mystery among 
 thinking men, that all the materials of language have origin- 
 ated in man's experience of the external world, as derived 
 either from surrounding things or from his own physical nature. 
 * " Epea Pteroenta ; or, The Diversions of Purley." 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 27 
 
 And mankind, it maybe presumed, are now also prepared both 
 to acknowledge and to understand the complementary fact, 
 (through want of which the sagacity even of a Tooke was so 
 much at fault,) that words, so derived, may be available as a 
 medium or spiritual communication, in consequence (and 
 only so) of some appreciable sameness or similarity between 
 those perceptions of sensible objects with which the words 
 originated, and the larger thoughts or deeper emotions which 
 the same words are eventually used to express. The fact first 
 named may be seen to result from the truth universally ob- 
 served or observable, that mankind, whether or not they may 
 ultimately attain to a method of mutual acquaintance and un- 
 derstanding apart from the avenues of sense, are at least by 
 their inherited nature incapable of any intercourse except 
 through those avenues, and by means which must be adapted 
 to their restricted mode of transit. And in that complement- 
 ary fact of the natural availability of such language for such 
 elevated service, the sameness or similarity of meaning in 
 spheres so diverse is equally accounted for, by that unity of ex- 
 perience under diversity of circumstances, which distinguishes 
 manhood, upon the assumption (the general or parent hypoth- 
 esis, which here becomes necessary simply because it is pos- 
 sible and remains as the only supposition which will account 
 for the facts) that there is a pre-established analogy, or an 
 identity of relations, between the material universe and the 
 living body of man on the one hand, and a spiritual universe 
 and the human soul on the other. 
 
 The equal reality of these two spheres of .„_ 
 
 , All figurative Ian- 
 
 existence is therefore, in direct opposition to guage, therefore, a 
 
 the inference or intimation of the author of form of h yp° thesis - 
 " Winged Words," implied in the secret constitution of lan- 
 guage, together with an acquired but enduring consciousness 
 of a certain identity in their experimental significance; — an 
 identity which maybe occasional and temporary in its details, 
 (owing to the variable and transitory nature of our merely 
 physical impressions,) but which is sufficient to originate and 
 
28 MATHEMATICS TYPICAL 
 
 to reinforce indefinitely a language adequate to all social 
 purposes. Hence it is observable that words, while retaining 
 their primitive meaning, and even after losing it, if familiar- 
 ized in any definite acceptation, are liable to be used in two 
 several modes : in their familiar meaning, either primitive or 
 secondary, they may be employed to indicate the familiar 
 idea of a thing or fact, upon the specific ground of a percep- 
 tion, present or past, being common to both parties ; and 
 they may be appealed to in order to convey an analogical 
 meaning, the origin of which has now been conjecturally de- 
 fined, on the before mentioned general ground of like reflect- 
 ive capacities and co-operating wills. 
 
 . c This distinction, thus arrived at between the 
 
 And, as such, of 
 
 but transitional or two methods of language, the literal and the 
 educational value. figurative, or the prosaic and the poetic, not 
 only indicates and explains that objectively neutral or ambig- 
 uous character of all language, by which the same utterance 
 may at some times and to some minds be poetical, which at 
 a subsequent time or to an already familiarized mind may be 
 simply prosaic ; but suggests the farther observation that 
 poetry must take the lead of prose in all education, — in every 
 propagation, whether earlier or later, of actual thought. In 
 such a process mind must ever reach toward mind with 
 strictly hopeful or spiritual purpose ; and the struggle becom- 
 ing effectual only through the common recognition of a com- 
 mon nature and of common aims which are above the sphere 
 of sense, — of a nature and aims existing independently of the 
 mutable objects with which they are conversant, ever reveals a 
 seat of power above the world and not of the world, a spirit- 
 ual fastness, from which more mightily than from the coveted 
 stand-point of the Syracusan sage, all men, singly and 
 jointly, may coerce the things of the world into all the need- 
 ful service of the soul. 
 
 Ultimate results That in the g eneral development and appli- 
 invoived in first cation of language there is no ground of dis- 
 pnncipies. tinction between Mathematics and other sci- 
 
OF UNIVERSAL SCIENCE. 29 
 
 ences may perhaps sufficiently appear from these general 
 remarks thereupon, taken in connection with our previous 
 inquiry into the development of thought in it and them. In 
 all there are evidently degrees of thought corresponding to 
 degrees of experience, whereby the general principles in- 
 volved in particular facts are found to be nothing less than 
 primary facts in the order of nature, although at the best but 
 secondarily appreciated in the course of investigation and ex- 
 position. Like the quinia and morphia of the chemist, they 
 are essential elements of a complete history of nature, although 
 the process of analysis by which they are revealed is a mental 
 rather than a physical one. Their discovery being purely 
 reflective. or ideal, and their expression for that simple reason 
 necessarily metaphorical, the more readily they may be thus 
 identified, the more rapidly will the figurative application of 
 terms acquire a literal force, and the poetry of aspiration be 
 followed by the prose of attainment. One branch of know- 
 ledge may thus be comparatively prosaic, but the essential 
 history of each alike typifies that of the whole tree. The ex- 
 ploration of the mystical and the annexation of the abstract 
 thus constitute the course of all earnest investigation ; and all 
 science and all literature, so far as they may have escaped, or 
 so fast as they may throw off, the discrepancies and contami- 
 nations of misdirected zeal and moral depravity, are thus ever 
 found to verify the familiar couplet of a classic bard, — 
 
 " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul/' 
 
 Rejoice, ye watchers ! at the approaching dawn of that eter- 
 nal day of truth and freedom, in which all speculation will 
 become science and all science intuition ; and in which man- 
 kind will distinguish between prose and poetry, only by their 
 primary functions of communion and praise. 
 
 1858. 
 3* 
 
NUMBER AS AN OBJECT. 
 
 " At any step of Induction, the inductive proposition is a Theory with re- 
 gard to the Facts which it includes, while it is to be looked upon as a Fact 
 with respect to the higher generalizations in which it is included. In any 
 other sense the opposition of Fact and Theory is untenable, and leads to end- 
 less perplexity and debate." — Dr. Whewell. 
 
 " Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word- 
 worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idol- 
 ater or symbol-worshiper by nature, . . . but sooner or later all his local 
 and temporary symbols must be ground to powder, like the golden calf, — 
 word-images as well as metal or wooden ones. Rough work, — hard labor, — 
 but the only way to get at truth." — Dr. Holmes. 
 
 CONSEQUENT upon the too natural confusion of things 
 with thoughts on the one hand, and of thoughts with 
 words on the other, is the natural tendency of traditional 
 philosophy to lapse from the firm ground of observation into 
 the delusive quicksands of speculation. Except as our human 
 nature is continually inspired by a Wisdom higher than its 
 own, to a continual refinement, both of thought and of lan- 
 guage, it is evident that we must corrupt the universal system 
 of truth by the infusing of individual peculiarities, or mar it 
 by the imputing of individual limitations, in all our efforts to 
 systematize our ever accumulating stores of intellectual attain- 
 ment. The philosophy of Aristotle may be said to have thus 
 become engulfed in the absurdities of the mediaeval schools ; 
 while the pro founder system of Plato has survived only to 
 meet a like fate in the extravagances of modern rationalism. 
 More justly than those of many professed followers, may the 
 30 
 
NUMBER AS AN OBJECT. 3 1 
 
 labors of Bacon, and Locke, and many other less appreciated 
 observers and inquirers of modern times, be regarded as sup- 
 plementary, and not antagonistic, to those of the ancient mon- 
 archs of mind, in recalling the attention of mankind from 
 tradition to experience, from criticism to investigation, from 
 words to things. 
 
 Things or objects are the proper subject of all study and of 
 all teaching. Let us however avoid the too common error of 
 confusing an object, with an aim. An object is properly 
 something which is at hand : an aim is something which is 
 ever, in some sense, at a distance. The aim of an intelligent 
 and spiritual being is nothing less than the inexhaustible treas- 
 ure of divine Truth. A demonstrable object is a part of his 
 present wealth of knowledge, although as such also a means 
 of future acquisition. Objects are the only proper, because 
 the only possible, subjects of investigation and demonstration. 
 Surely it is an evidence that the intellect of our age had wan- 
 dered far into the wilderness of self-conceit, that the plan of 
 object-teaching should be announced to us almost as a dis- 
 covery, and welcomed by us as a refreshing novelty. In the 
 motion of the mind as in that of the body, the headlong attitude 
 is unfavorable to safe progress. In both we must plant our 
 feet firmly upon the earth of tangible realities, if we would 
 have the free use of all our faculties. 
 
 In speaking of objects, we of course mean in the first place 
 objects of sensation, as these must be our first means of com- 
 munication, either with young people, or with others who 
 may not have undergone a mental training similar to our own, 
 so as to become familiar with the intellectual objects, or ideas, 
 which we may have derived from these. Of these objects of 
 sensation, which may thus be called primary objects in the 
 order of experience, I now purpose to speak of one which I 
 think must sooner or later be taught more simply and accu- 
 rately, and therefore of course more efficiently than it now is. 
 I mean the object of Number, which we are more accus- 
 tomed to hear spoken of as a deduction or creation of the in- 
 
32 NUMBER AS AN OBJECT, 
 
 tellect, than as a sensible quality of matter. For the sake of 
 perspicuity, let us premise the consideration of this subject 
 with a glance at another more undisputed quality of matter, 
 and object of sensation. 
 
 The object of Color may be taken as a representative 
 quality of matter, although, like all the rest, it depends for its 
 manifestation upon the subtler and more diffused medium in 
 which the principles of light, heat, attraction, repulsion, and 
 polarity, appear to meet and blend. Color, we know, may 
 either belong to a mass or masses of matter naturally, or be 
 imparted by art. The same is evidently true of Number ; 
 and although the quality of Number may be doubtless im- 
 parted or altered with greater facility than that of Color, I 
 cannot think that this is a sufficient plea for our laying claim 
 to its idea as a creation or original endowment of the intel- 
 lect. Similar remarks might be made upon the idea of 
 Space, and to some extent upon that of Time ; but let us 
 now proceed to consider how this view of our knowledge of 
 Number may concern the teacher of the science of Numbers. 
 
 The few remarks which I have to offer on this question, if 
 novel, will not I trust seem unpractical, nor if simple, 
 trifling, to those who know the craving of the youthful and 
 untutored mind for original knowledge, and the inhumanity 
 of offering a stone to the son who asks for bread. 
 
 In the first place then, it may be observed that as the idea 
 of Number exists in the mind as a part of memory, so the 
 combinations of numbers are essentially mere matters of 
 memory. We remember that two and two make four, just 
 as we remember that blue and yellow make green ; but we 
 cannot conceive of a numerous nothing, any more than of a 
 colored nothing. When therefore the pupil demands of the 
 teacher his authority for saying that two and two make four, 
 or that a whole is greater than a part, the teacher may wisely 
 refrain from replying that the doctrine is a self-evident truth, 
 apart from its application to matter. By basing his assertion 
 wholly on the ground of observation, by contenting himself, 
 
NUMBER AS AN OBJECT. 33 
 
 for instance, with showing that two sticks and two sticks 
 make four sticks, he may both guard his pupil from the pre- 
 sumption of more than mortal independence of intellect, and 
 himself from the danger of being requested to explain how, 
 upon conceded mathematical principles, two and two make 
 forty, or an hundred, as truly as they make four, if the num- 
 bers do not refer to anything. 
 
 Another result of this view of the origin of our knowledge 
 of Number, is a consistent theory of the intellectual processes 
 of Multiplication and Division. Although, for instance, 25 
 times 25, if the multiplicand be considered a merely abstract 
 number, are equal to nothing ; and although 25 cents cannot 
 be multiplied by 25 cents, as a late eminent teacher remarked, 
 any more than 25 lawyers by 25 bears, yet 25 cents may be 
 multiplied by 25, as surely as one cent may be, and without 
 any danger of our being at a loss to decide whether the result 
 is 64 cents, or $6.25. Here again the labor of intellect, being 
 confined to perception, recollection and inference, without any 
 recourse to the hypothetical postulates which have heretofore 
 been so largely made the basis of mathematical science, en- 
 ables all to unite intelligently on the firm ground of natural 
 truth. There is hypothesis of course in every movement of 
 the intellect. In the present case both the more concrete 
 multiplicand and the more abstract multiplier, are hypothe- 
 ses, as the result is also an hypothesis until it shall be realized 
 in some external negotiation. But inasmuch as the operation 
 is not ostensibly based upon hypothesis, we may thus far at 
 least avoid countenancing the too often convenient doctrine, 
 that there are fields of knowledge in which it is our right and 
 duty to be unintelligible. How can any doctrine be essen- 
 tially unintelligible, in which the teacher may have followed 
 the example of the beloved disciple and veteran apostle of the 
 Lord Christ, in proclaiming only that which his eyes have 
 seen and his hands have handled, of the object which is his 
 subject? 
 
 C 
 
CURRENT ARITHMETIC. 
 
 " That which is wanting cannot be numbered." — Eccles. i. 15. 
 
 My ciphering is strange work, I find. 
 
 I first take nothings, and in sport 
 Pretend them somethings. In my mind 
 
 I count them, till I cut them short, 
 
 And say, So many. Then some more 
 I take, and mix with them, and call 
 
 It adding. Or to stint my store, 
 I say subtract a part from all. 
 
 Such sport is this Arithmetic ! 
 
 My nothing-somethings thus at will 
 I call to mind, and, sparse or thick, 
 
 By pure pretence arrange them still. 
 
 But one thing more : — as I enact, 
 I still remember what I do : 
 
 I COUNT, I ADD, and I SUBTRACT, 
 
 I order, and keep all in view. 
 
 In added addings, I pretend, 
 
 I have a helper close at hand : 
 A counted counter is this friend, 
 
 To multiply at my command. 
 
 And in repeated stintings, too, 
 
 By like invention or pretence, 
 I find a friend like work to do, 
 
 Dividing, less in fact than sense. 
 
 And so are all the other rules 
 
 Which fag the faculties of youth, 
 Like all the cant of all the schools, 
 Partly pretence, and partly truth. 
 34 
 
THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 
 
 "The earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revelation of the sons 
 of God. Because the creation has been subject to vanity, not willingly, but 
 by reason of Him who made it subject in hope. For the creation itself 
 will also be set free from the servitude of corruption, into the glorious free- 
 dom of the children of God. Forasmuch as we know, that all the creation 
 both groans and is in labor together until now. Not only so, but also our- 
 selves, who have the first fruit of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan in our- 
 selves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body." — Rom. 
 viii. 19-23. 
 
 PANTHEISM and Transcendentalism are terms of mod- 
 ern date, which, belonging rather to the history of grop- 
 ing speculation, than to that of definite progress in doctrine, 
 must convey to the mind of the general reader but a vague 
 or a doubtful meaning. Perhaps they may be most dis- 
 tinctly defined by saying that Pantheism is the doctrine or 
 heresy which confounds God with the created universe, and 
 Transcendentalism that which confounds Man with it. Per- 
 haps it may also be safely said that the two are fused to- 
 gether into the most subtle form of practical Atheism, by a 
 third heresy, which has received the name of Rationalism, 
 and which consists essentially in the confusion, still more 
 glaringly absurd when thus separately stated, of the omnis- 
 cient and prescient Creator with the ignorant though per- 
 cipient creature. Of the three, Transcendentalism is evi- 
 dently the doctrine or assumption which approaches nearest 
 to being an aspect of universal truth or experience, since the 
 external universe is practically found, as well as divinely 
 
 '65 
 
2,6 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 
 
 promised, to be the servant of man, so far as man is master 
 of himself. It is chiefly the want of a due regard to this con- 
 dition of self-mastery or self-subjection, resulting from a want 
 of appreciation of the crucifying discipline through which 
 only it can be truly attained, which makes the doctrine taught 
 under that name unsound and impracticable. We can all 
 see the point of the friendly satire in which its most famous 
 representative has been depicted, as one 
 
 "In whose eyes all creation is duly respected, 
 As parts of himself, just a little projected ;" 
 
 but it is no less evident that the conquest of external nature 
 is an unceasing result of the continuous march of intellect, 
 which again is equally seen in an enlarged view of history, 
 to follow the spread of the religion of self-denial. "Man," 
 says the ingenious author* of The Sexuality of Nature, " is 
 nature concentrated ; Nature, man diffused. " There is evi- 
 dently a sense in which the outward creation as a whole in- 
 creasingly becomes a sort of social, dividual body to the gen- 
 eral human mind, however the believers in an unregenerate 
 " self-respect" may fall short in its attempted possession. 
 Thus far therefore we may recognize an element of truthful- 
 ness in the assumptions of Transcendentalism, without accept- 
 ing its crude extravagances, or at all committing ourselves to 
 the support of the associated delusions of Pantheism and 
 Rationalism. A few words of acknowledgment are here due 
 to our authority for the somewhat transcendental variation 
 from the common version of the above cited extract from the 
 Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 Little appears to be known of Anthony Purver, except the 
 history of his Translation of the Bible. Of the work itself 
 almost as little is known even to his successors in religious 
 profession.f There is ground for believing that the fruits of 
 his industry in that labor of love have not yet been received 
 
 * Leopold Hartley Grindon. 
 t Of the Society of Friends. 
 
THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 37 
 
 by the religious and literary world with the appreciation 
 which they deserve ; but as the triumphs of truth and justice 
 are ever rendered more complete by delay, we may regard 
 this circumstance without regret, on account either of the 
 work or of the workman. " He who believeth maketh not 
 haste," because in and through faith he has " the substance 
 of things hoped for." With the qualification of a scholarship 
 which was rather profound than general or promiscuous, our 
 Friend seems to have brought to his work a zeal for literal 
 accuracy, which was alike removed from a superstitious rever- 
 ence for his materials, and from a presumptuous confidence 
 in his own powers of interpretation. He often calls our 
 attention to instances in which the same word, occurring in 
 different parts of the original text, has been diversely ren- 
 dered in our authorized version, at the discretion or caprice 
 of the translators ; thus perhaps indicating his conviction that 
 the simple language of pure inspiration needs not, nor admits 
 of the gloss of an artificial variety. But in one remarkable 
 instance he deviates, in this respect, both from the original 
 Scripture and from other versions. He presumes, for once, 
 to suggest that the original utterance may not have been suf- 
 ficiently explicit for all time. When the apostle Peter, after 
 telling us to "honor all men," specifically enjoins upon us to 
 " honor the king," he thinks that this is not enough, and is 
 constrained to say " reverence the king," by way of increasing 
 the distinction. In this latter half of the Nineteenth Century 
 such scrupulosity may probably seem superfluous to readers 
 on either side of the Atlantic Ocean ; but we may at least 
 honor the independence of thought which proceeded from 
 such loyalty, as his doubtless was, to the political sovereignty 
 under which he flourished. Our opening text is given accord- 
 ing to Purver's Translation, and may be regarded as a fair 
 specimen of his literal fidelity. 
 
 u The land of Egypt, the house of bondage" of which we 
 so often read in the record of the dealings of Almighty God 
 with his chosen people under the patriarchal and Mosaic dis- 
 4 
 
38 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 
 
 pensations, is an impressive type of the spiritual condition in 
 which all the children of Adam enter into the world, and in 
 which they must at the best remain, except as " the spirit of 
 bondage" may be exchanged for " the spirit of adoption." 
 The power of Him who came to bruise the head of the Ser- 
 pent, and his power alone, is still able, as joined with, to re- 
 move the curse of the fall in its individual application, and to 
 restore us "from the servitude of corruption to the glorious 
 freedom of the children of God." 
 
 As the apostle elsewhere writes, " whilst we are at home 
 in the body, we are absent from the Lord ;" and it is accord- 
 ingly natural for the carnal mind to forget its divine Author 
 and Benefactor. In making idols of the riches of creation, 
 we may thus practically and even avowedly deny the only 
 Creator ; but we will not find that such false devotion can 
 secure us from the power of evil. A much-admired poetess,* 
 whose voice is but lately hushed, has sadly sung, 
 
 " The fool hath said, There is no God, 
 But none, There is no sorrow." 
 
 Disappointments, vexations and perplexities are sure to as- 
 sail and oppress the soul which is not redeemed from all reli- 
 ance upon objects of sense and upon merely human sympathy, 
 through the indwelling of " the Spirit of Him that raised up 
 Jesus from the dead." That merely human " favor is deceit- 
 ful," as merely outward " beauty is vain," is a confession 
 which has been attributed to one whose knowledge of the 
 world was not to be surpassed ; and the lesson is confirmed 
 to us by the testimony of the apostle of love, who ranks 
 " the pride of life" and " the lust of the eye" with the grovel- 
 ing " lust of the flesh," declaring that they all " are not of the 
 Father, but of the world." Whatever may be our worldly 
 advantages, if we turn away from the offers of the Divine 
 Grace which alone is sufficient for us, and which can always 
 
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 39 
 
 adapt our desires to our circumstances, we make ourselves 
 the slaves of our circumstances, and tools of the Evil Power, 
 who through them seeks to blind our spiritual vision. The 
 whole creation may thus become a " a house of bondage" to 
 the soul which regards not the importunity of the Holy Spirit, 
 and which despises the seeming weakness of the cross of 
 Christ. On the other hand, the whole creation will assuredly 
 become a temple of liberty and gladness and praise, " a new 
 heavens and a new earth" beyond the reach of "the second 
 death," to all who by a faithful submission and adherence to 
 the terms of salvation "obtain a part in the first resurrection." 
 Whatever the worldly disadvantages of these may seem to be, 
 they will at least be always the contented masters of their 
 circumstances, and triumphant in them over the wiles of Satan 
 and of human adversaries. 
 
 We read that during the plague of darkness which overtook 
 their oppressors, " the Children of Israel had light in their 
 dwellings." So, in the perfect dispensation in which all 
 transient types are permanently fulfilled, the singleness of 
 vision, which consists in an unreserved and uncalculating de- 
 votion to duty, is the prescribed condition upon which alone 
 our whole bodies maybe filled with light. Imaginations and 
 inventions are of no avail for the attainment of this signal 
 blessing. Both the individual culture, which is grounded on 
 the mere love of what we may call beauty, and the officious 
 action which aims even at the welfare of our brethren other- 
 wise than as an object secondary to the discharge of our own 
 spiritual calling, must be regarded as mere refinements of sel- 
 fishness and self-assertion. We may thus wander into Unita- 
 rian license on the one hand and into Romish supererogation 
 on the other ; but the cross of Christ, as immediately revealed 
 and adapted to the need of every soul by the Holy Spirit, is 
 the one universal and undeceitful rule of duty for fallen man, 
 and the simple means of that union with God and with one 
 another, whereby we may realize in all our actions the effi- 
 ciency and harmony of true freedom. A true sympathy w T ith 
 
40 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. 
 
 our fellow-men will doubtless lead us to seek every refinement 
 of their mental and physical condition, and every enlargement 
 of their opportunities for action, which their constitutional 
 sensibilities may fit them for. Surely, the world affords no 
 nobler object of pursuit ! But is there no danger of our stoop- 
 ing in bondage to " the beggarly elements" even in such a 
 work as this? As subjects of the spiritual and perfect dis- 
 pensation of the Gospel, are we not bound to teach and ex- 
 emplify the entire subordination of the resources of nature to 
 those of grace, through all the diversities of inherited and 
 acquired character and condition ? Let us then beware of 
 allowing our zeal to overrule our knowledge, and by placing 
 sentiment before experience or philanthropy before religion, 
 to confirm our inherited bondage, seeing that " there remain- 
 eth no more sacrifice for sin," to the victims of the second 
 death. 
 
THE LAW OF THE ROAD. 
 
 "Be of one mind."— I Cor. i. 10; 2 Cor. xiii. II., Etc. 
 
 HEAVEN is the reward of faithful labor. It is the rest 
 from labor, and the completion of labor, so far as labor 
 involves struggle and strife ; although it may be called the 
 very beginning of action, so far as action is animated by that 
 divine harmony of pure strength and perfect fitness, through 
 which alone activity becomes entirely effectual and fruitful. 
 In either case the knowledge of this divine harmony implies 
 the knowledge of God, which is life eternal ; and the increase 
 of it w T hich God, through Christ, and by the Spirit, works in 
 the souls of his earnest seekers and submissive children, is the 
 true promotion of his glory. The salvation of their own souls, 
 and the glory of their Creator, are thus practically one object 
 in the aspirations of Christians. 
 
 The Eternal being the only ground and foundation of the 
 Temporal, the unseen world of course supplies the principles 
 through which alone the agencies and circumstances of out- 
 ward life can be reconciled with one another, or appreciated 
 and applied in the simplicity which the unity of truth re- 
 quires. This is obviously what some writers who are called 
 transcendental mean, when they teach that the supernatural 
 is more important and more real, while no less present, than 
 the natural. Through the inherited infirmity which the pride 
 of acquired learning and power cannot ignore, we are natur- 
 ally more prone to the investigation of the superficial than of 
 4* 41 
 
42 THE LAW OF THE ROAD, 
 
 the profound, and have to arrive at our knowledge of force 
 only through our experience of form. We are born as it were 
 upon the surface of things, the first birth being that of the 
 flesh, and not that of the spirit. We are naturally fragmentary 
 and impotent, although seemingly independent, individuals ; 
 but we are called to become sympathizing members of a 
 dividual fellowship, in which the will is free because it is 
 one and comprehensive, while the actions are dependent be- 
 cause they are manifold and comprehended. The natural, 
 or individual and divided, is our appointed road to the super- 
 natural, or dividual and united. The Christian pilgrimage is 
 that by which we must travel from the state of nature to the 
 state of grace, if we ever become true Christians. 
 
 Labor is of three kinds or degrees. There is the labor of 
 the heart or of the soul, the labor of the head or of the mind, 
 and the labor of the hands and auxiliary muscles and mem- 
 bers. The diversities of human labor, like all other healthy 
 diversities, have indeed their common principle of unity, and 
 that principle is here the action of the human will. Involun- 
 tary or unconscious habit is not labor, any more than are 
 the changes of the so-called inanimate elements of nature, 
 which represent no other life than the will of their omnipres- 
 ent Creator. The three kinds of labor may therefore be said 
 to be manifested, so far as they can be manifested, the 
 first in motives or dispositions ; the second, in original 
 thoughts ; and the third, in voluntary actions, or adopted 
 habits. 
 
 In dealing with our fellow men we are constantly called 
 upon to pass judgment upon their performances, as our only 
 alternative from passing judgment upon themselves. Their 
 dispositions and intentions are a part of themselves ; their ex- 
 pressions and actions are the fruits which they impart for our 
 probation and possible benefit, whether they are so designed 
 by them or not. These, therefore, it is our duty to attend to 
 and to deal with, according to our own views of their value 
 and applicability. As external facts, they are the natural 
 
THE LAW OF THE ROAD. 43 
 
 media of communion through which all who recognize the 
 permanent principles of the internal life, may test the de- 
 grees of their relationship in those ties of intellect, which may 
 be said to be intermediate to the strictly external and the 
 strictly internal regions of experience. As it is those only 
 who have laid hold of permanent principles, who can truly 
 think originally or for themselves, original thoughts must 
 imply honest hearts ; and the extent to which such can agree 
 in the estimation of external events, is the measure of their 
 ability to sympathize and co-operate in the work of the 
 world. An inability to agree in thought in regard to the 
 facts of our joint experience, evidently implies either a want 
 of the singleness of purpose which an earnest belief in the 
 unity of principles supplies, or a latent and constitutional 
 diversity in mental prepossession or the habits of thought. 
 The one of these difficulties must be, and the other may be, 
 an insuperable barrier to our uniting in labor as lovers of 
 truth. 
 
 Since, however, union or fellowship is the noblest object 
 of labor with which this world supplies us, and may indeed 
 be said to be the very experience which connects the life of 
 earth with that of heaven, it becomes and ever remains our 
 duty to do all that we can to surmount whatever barriers we 
 may find in the way of its increasing realization. And as 
 true union is that only which proceeds from the fellowship 
 of spirit, this is the standard by which all subordinate forms 
 of fellowship are to be estimated. As similarity of action is 
 not desirable save as it proceeds from and implies similarity 
 of opinion, so neither is similarity of opinion, save as it im- 
 plies similarity of feeling. As has, however, already been 
 observed, similarity of opinion is a measure or test of the de- 
 gree of fellowship which honest hearts can maintain in ac- 
 tion : and since, in the exercise of the charity which "believes 
 all things," we are bound to presume that our fellows, in 
 whatever depth of darkness and depravity they may have 
 been sunk by external influences or by their own previous 
 
44 THE LAW OF THE ROAD. 
 
 transgressions, are at least for the present honest in their pur- 
 suit of good, similarity of opinion may be regarded as the 
 single goal to which our efforts at fellowship should be prac- 
 tically directed. The manifestation of opinions in actions is 
 indefinitely modified and masked by varying circumstances ; 
 and our feelings are naturally inappreciable to others save as 
 they are embodied and communicated in opinions and actions. 
 Fellowship, therefore, in the purely external, being compara- 
 tively unattainable, and in the purely internal comparatively 
 inappreciable, the intermediate or intellectual region of expe- 
 rience remains, as that in which we must in the first place 
 strive to unite, if we aim at a fellowship which may be at 
 once feasible and fruitful. Our law of intercourse is thus in- 
 dicated both by its own propriety, and by the exclusion of 
 others which might be rashly adopted as more practicable or 
 more refined. 
 
 The Present may be styled our road to the Future, as the 
 External is to the Internal. The two journeys may be re- 
 garded as one, and the same rules may be recognized as the 
 guides of our pilgrimage in each. Human fellowship must 
 be regarded in each as the strongest support and the no- 
 blest object, after the pure communion with the divine Author 
 of our being. The surest instrumental agency, as we have 
 now seen, by which we can promote this fellowship, is the 
 labor of intellect. It becomes us, in the next place, to seek 
 to perform that labor with the independence which proceeds 
 from true earnestness, and with the prudence which proceeds 
 from true humility. 
 
 Assuming, as we must, the unity of truth, we may infer 
 that the only effectual labor of intellect is that which tends to 
 realize that unity, by an ever growing appreciation of its pro- 
 found importance. If we thus realize it for ourselves, and 
 subsequently find that it has been realized by others, we so 
 discover a ground of union between ourselves and them. But 
 if we begin by assuming a ground of union with any to whom 
 we may capriciously wish to be attached, and seek accord- 
 
THE LAW OF THE ROAD. 45 
 
 ingly to conform our opinions to what we may conceive theirs 
 to be, we must evidently be living at best upon a borrowed 
 faith, which will lack strength if it do not also lack sound- 
 ness, and which will be sure to desert us, if it do not destroy 
 us, in the inevitable time of trial. In the one case we pursue 
 the path of wisdom ; in the other, that of folly. Their marks 
 are easily distinguishable when thus brought into contrast. It 
 behooves every one to bear in mind the simple difference be- 
 tween them, and to be upon the watch to confirm the good, 
 and to reform the evil, in his own character and career. As 
 each one is busied with thinking upon his own duties, he will 
 not be in danger of attributing imaginary thoughts to other 
 people, either to their annoyance or for his own delusion. 
 The truth is happily so inexhaustible in its grandeur and 
 loveliness, that its earnest votaries will value even the delights 
 of human fellowship, but as brooks by the way, while pressing 
 forward to the perfect union in the Father's house of " many 
 mansions," which is built upon the Rock, Immanuel. 
 
ATONEMENT. 
 
 " With his stripes we are healed." — Isa. liii. 5 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24. 
 
 The word once spoken may not be recalled : 
 
 Time past may not return : 
 How shall the forfeit be forestalled 
 
 To justice stern ? 
 
 I wring my hands and gnash my teeth in vain : 
 
 In view of my mistake, 
 I seem to feel the mark of Cain, 
 
 And fear and quake. 
 
 And still I struggle to restore the debt : 
 
 Alas ! new debts arise, 
 From new-found duties pressing yet 
 
 On me unwise. 
 
 Dread taskmaster ! by thee, O Law ! I die, 
 
 Except some miracle 
 My lack of service shall supply, 
 
 And speed me well. 
 
 Were once the mischief of the past removed, 
 
 My life, from tumult free, 
 Might journey in the path approved, 
 
 Not hopelessly. 
 
 Then should I know a God of strength and will 
 
 To meet my present need, 
 And ready with conducting skill 
 
 My course to speed. 
 
 Spring, Holy Fount of healing love ! for such 
 
 Our fathers say Thou art ; 
 And cleanse with thy sufficient touch 
 
 My leprous heart ! 
 46 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 " Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land be any 
 more termed Desolate : but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land 
 Beulah : for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." — 
 Isa. lxii. 4. 
 
 THE last seven chapters of the Book of the Evangelical 
 Prophet vividly portray the doom of the self-deluded 
 voluptuary, as contrasted with the reward of the self-denying 
 believer in the work and merits of the only Saviour. As the 
 denial of self ensures a devotion to the demands of duty, by 
 simply suppressing the disposition to idle indulgence which 
 is natural to man, Christ crucified is found to be ever " the 
 power of God and the wisdom of God" to all who lift their 
 affections from " the things which perish with the using," 
 " desiring to be clothed upon with their house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens." The cross of Christ, being 
 proposed to us as an universal rule of life, evidently renders 
 all compromise impossible between the pursuit of pleasure 
 and that of duty, leaving, indeed, the impure pleasure which 
 is sought and found for its own sake, as a heritage of corrup- 
 tion to those who despise its discipline, but opening ever new 
 sources of happiness to those who value pleasure merely as 
 the handmaid of duty. The antagonism between pleasure 
 and duty is one which has originated in sin, and which sub- 
 sists only in the u evil heart of unbelief." In the experience 
 of the regenerate Christian, they are reconciled " both unto 
 God in one body by the Cross," which alone is able as sub- 
 
 47 
 
48 THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 milled to, to keep the love of the reward in its proper subor- 
 dination to the love of the work, and to induce a neglect of 
 earthly enjoyment save as it may be the attendant of faithful 
 performance. Duty being followed as the only object and 
 the only law of life, so far as any object and law are needed 
 other than the love of God and of our fellow-men, pleasure 
 will be found at our side as a faithful and useful ally in the 
 work of righteousness, and beauty will not lag far behind. 
 The principle of enmity being thus slain in ourselves, the 
 occasion of enmity with one another will also be removed, 
 and all feelings of division and distance will be superseded 
 by those of fellowship and attraction, as we steadily advance 
 to the goal of heavenly union in the Divine Centre and Source 
 of all good. 
 
 The charity or love which never fails, may be said to be 
 represented in human character by the three subordinate and 
 co-ordinate traits, of humility, simplicity, and activity ; which, 
 again, are respectively manifested in outward life by the fruits 
 of concord, intelligence, and progress. As neither of these 
 traits can be the genuine offspring of the faith which works 
 by love, except as it is accompanied by the others, so the 
 fruits which severally indicate them can actually exist only 
 in combination. Either the concord, or the intelligence, or 
 the progress, seeming to exist alone, must be a mere seeming 
 which is superficial, unsound, and futile. Existing together, 
 they certify a happy approach to that only worthy object of 
 all labor and aspiration, the realization of the Divine Pres- 
 ence by a participation in the divine perfections. "Lord, 
 Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations," was 
 the devout acknowledgment of the Jewish leader and law T - 
 giver, uttered, doubtless, in the intense appreciation of indi- 
 vidual insignificance, of social importance, and of filial effi- 
 ciency for every good word and work, which the view of 
 himself, of his fellows, and of the world, in the light of divine 
 revelation, could not fail to supply. In accordance with this 
 are the words of Elihu, " There is a spirit in man, and the in- 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 49 
 
 spiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding ;" and 
 those of King Solomon, " God hath made man upright, but 
 they have sought out many inventions." The occasion of all 
 our delusions may be said to lie in the peculiarities which 
 attach to our individual life, in consequence of our ancestral 
 fall. Only when we feel, and think, and act, as man, and 
 not as men or individuals, do we observe or regain the integ- 
 rity of our original nature. Despising that spiritual simpli- 
 city of truth and good which can in our fallen estate be real- 
 ized only by the power of faith, and thinking to know good 
 exclusively of pre-eminently for ourselves, we reject the path 
 of true discovery for that of delusive invention. Then indeed 
 are we " taken captive by the Devil at his will," relying upon 
 show as if it were substance, and confirming ourselves by the 
 example of others who may be like-minded with us, instead 
 of accepting the offered guidance of the only infallible Spirit. 
 Then do we lay ourselves open to the apostolic admonition, 
 " I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through 
 his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the sim- 
 plicity that is in Christ." But as we individually wait for 
 "the inspiration of the Almighty," to make us truly acquaint- 
 ed with the spirit of man, and with all its wants, and with 
 its true relations to the Spirit of God, it becomes possible for 
 the empty arrogance, the blinding confusion, and the specious 
 slothfulness of spirit, which betray the continued presence of 
 the old Serpent in the world, to be replaced by the stable 
 dignity, the enlightening simplicity, and the genuine activity 
 of Divine Love. 
 
 The life of true work is one with the life of true faith. 
 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, after writing that 
 u Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence 
 of things not seen," has added, " Without faith it is impossi- 
 ble to please God : for he that cometh to God must believe 
 that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently 
 seek Him." This soul-satisfying conviction is doubtless both 
 the preliminary stimulus, and the growing consequence, as 
 5 D 
 
5° THE LAND OF PROMISE, 
 
 well as the sure test, of an earnest, working faith. The apos- 
 tle Paul testified to his "son in the faith," that "godliness, 
 with contentment, is great gain, having the promise of the 
 life which now is, and of that which is to come." And the 
 same eminent authority elsewhere appeals to "that holy 
 Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance 
 until the redemption of the purchased possession." As this 
 Spirit of promise can only be apprehended by faith, the ex- 
 ercise of faith consisting indeed in nothing more or less than 
 the effectual apprehension of its holy help, it follows that a 
 true faith implies a measurable realization through it of the 
 Heavenly Life. Faith and its consequence being thus prac- 
 tically inseparable, we may understand how the inspired 
 penman, without deviating from the ordinary and necessary 
 license of language, happened to write of faith as being it- 
 self " the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
 things not seen." His object was doubtless not so much accu- 
 rately to define a doctrine, in advance of the then prevailing 
 development of thought, as efficiently to commend a practice ; 
 and his words were clearly neither too few, nor too many, nor 
 illy chosen, for the occasion. The important doctrine which 
 the militant Church is now perhaps preparing to maintain with 
 increasing precision, is, that true working faith, the " obedi- 
 ence of faith" as distinguished from the " assurance of faith," 
 is simply that right exercise of the human will, or power of 
 spiritual choice, which is necessary for the reception of the 
 freely offered salvation. It is the voluntary submission to the 
 drawings of that Spirit of the Father of spirits, which is at 
 once the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of promise. The 
 salvation which comes by faith is indeed the gift of God in 
 Christ our only Atonement and Mediator ; but the work of 
 faith must in an individual sense, begin in ourselves, although 
 that beginning may consist but in the willing realization of 
 our own impotence. Only as it thus begins can it be hoped 
 to result in that experimental communion with the Father 
 which leads to the realization of his heavenly promises, and 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 51 
 
 the fulfillment of his perfect will, through the birth of that 
 love, and the nourishment of that hope, which are the guide 
 and the support of the regenerated soul. 
 
 Many indeed are the occasional promises which are re- 
 corded for the encouragement of those who seek an heavenly 
 country. The riches which the Almighty Creator can and 
 will bestow upon his obedient children, are doubtless as 
 boundless as are his mercies to the repentant sinner ; and lest 
 the sinner should want a motive to repent, he is even re- 
 peatedly reminded that the very revenues of the wicked shall 
 become the heritage of the just. But a written assurance is 
 of merely secondary value to those who have realized the 
 spiritual substance through an immediate acquaintance with 
 the Word inwardly revealed. May we so enter by the door 
 of faith into the synagogue of our own hearts, as ever to hear 
 the voice of Him whose wont it is to be there in the midst, 
 while He proclaims, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in 
 your ears !" Luke iv. 21. 
 
THE PLACE OF FICTION. 
 
 "No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment." — Mark ii. 21. 
 
 IT is worthy of remark that the contrast between Fact and 
 Fiction is less definite than that between Truth and False- 
 hood. Fact, being distinctively the embodiment of Truth or 
 knowledge, and Fiction, that of Falsehood or ignorance, they 
 are of course practically distinguishable from each other, only 
 so far as we may succeed in tracing actions or impressions 
 to the determining principles of character. Fiction, there- 
 fore, as a most frequent if not universal element of human 
 performance or experience, becomes a matter of immediate 
 practical interest to all earnest thinkers, in its diverse rela- 
 tions to Truth or essential good, and to Falsehood, or essential 
 evil. 
 
 So far as human knowledge is conjectural, all thought, it 
 is evident, must partake of the nature of fiction. So long as 
 human systems of doctrine, even though progressive in their 
 tendency, shall be fragmentary in themselves, they must 
 themselves be obviously fictions as compared with the un- 
 seen but undoubted perfect system to which they tend. We 
 can conceive that our rudimentary thoughts and systems of 
 thought might be faultless as well as progressive ; and then we 
 might infer that our own starting-point was the merely nega- 
 tive condition of ignorance. It is the circumstance that we 
 can accept no revelations of God or of external nature as a 
 whole, that is, without the consciousness of subjective imper- 
 fections, or deficiencies of perception, which must be either 
 52 
 
THE PLACE OF FICTION. 53 
 
 left void in our thought, or bridged over by hypothesis, which 
 betrays the ravages of sin in our intellectual constitution, and 
 corroborates the outward traditional revelation that our start- 
 ing-point is the darkness of positive unbelief. Thus, in sub- 
 stance, does every earnest soul, in the light of the Spirit 
 which "helpeth our infirmities," demonstrate to itself the 
 necessity of the faith or heart-belief, of which it is testified 
 that u the just shall live"* by it, and also that the system 
 and substance of divine truth, or the " righteousness of God," 
 is " revealed from faith to faith,"* that is, progressively. The 
 element of fiction, and the trace of falsehood, though un- 
 consciously inhering in every private system of faith, until 
 faith is itself lost in sight, meanwhile steadily decreases so 
 far as the soldier of faith is himself concerned, though 
 ever of course gaining fresh entrance into the conquests 
 which he bequeaths to his still struggling companions and 
 successors. 
 
 From the very constitution of human nature, therefore, 
 fiction is an inseparable element of social life. Individuals 
 may have systems of faith without actually putting faith in 
 their systems. They may escape delusion as their faith may 
 be the leader rather than the follower of their system. But 
 as corporations are said to have no souls, so society in general 
 has no conscience. The social standard is but a sort of 
 average of individual standards, and social progress, of indi- 
 vidual progress. Every one therefore who mingles in human 
 society must encounter Fiction, either as victor or as victim. 
 His destiny takes the direction of his faith. If this shall be 
 but " to himself before God," he will with the best of reason 
 " be fully persuaded in his own mind," and will tend to rise 
 above conventional fiction, even while using it for conven- 
 tional purposes. If on the other hand any one shall surren- 
 der his faith to a clique, a system or a vocabulary, he is sure 
 to " condemn himself in that thing which he alloweth." The 
 infinite capacity commits itself to a finite aim. " The man 
 
 * Rom. i. 17. 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE PLACE OF FICTION. 
 
 falls down"* to an unworthy object, and as he persists, the 
 loss must be indeed " past retrieving." The all-significant 
 if not all-important province of language, being itself wholly 
 a growth of fiction, naturally furnishes the most abundant 
 illustrations of the course of character in either direction. 
 44 By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words 
 thou shalt be condemned/' said the Incarnate Word,f and 
 the testimony of the President of the Apostles may be simi- 
 larly construed, % " If any man offend not in word, the same 
 is a perfect man." 
 
 As Sir James Mackintosh has profoundly observed, there 
 is a special talent of expression to every order of thought. 
 44 Those," said he, 44 who content themselves with the com- 
 mon speculations of their age, generally possess the talent of 
 expressing them, which must have been pretty widely dif- 
 fused before the speculations became common." Even by 
 comparatively superficial thinkers, if but truly circumspect 
 livers, the universal allegory of language may doubtless be 
 safely and profitably, though mechanically or semi-uncon- 
 sciously applied, since, as has been often suggested, truth, 
 like corn, has to be consumed and lived upon, and must, to 
 some extent be sacrificed, so to speak, in the process, — the 
 license of custom serving as a foil to the otherwise dangerous 
 two-edged sword, on the theoretical side. But a nobler 
 application, a deeper work of faith, which is comparable to 
 the planting of the seed-corn, is that in which the same cele- 
 brated thinker proceeds to show that the previous application 
 is found to be fictitious : — u But there are times when there is 
 a general tendency toward something higher, and when no 
 man has quite reached the objects, still less the subsequent 
 and auxiliary powers of expression. In these intervals be- 
 tween one mode of thinking and another, literature seems to 
 
 * " Little were the change of station, loss of life or crown ; 
 But the wreck were past retrieving, if the man fell down." 
 
 Lowell, Mahmood. 
 t Matt. xii. 37. % Jam. iii. 2. 
 
THE PLACE OF FICTION. 55 
 
 decline, while mind is really progressive, because no one has 
 acquired the talent of the new manner of thinking." 
 
 Fictitious narrative, or avowed romance, can of course 
 only have a legitimate sphere and function, so far as pro- 
 fessedly veracious history or biography may fail to reflect 
 the essential elements of actual life in their natural fullness, 
 and just relations of proportion and perspective. Beyond the 
 limits of this want, it must evidently at best be but a second- 
 ary and distorted reflection of nature, adapted only to the 
 imaginary demands of those inferior and sectarian orders of 
 character and intellect, to which sincerity is repulsive, and 
 truth terrible. 
 

 ROMANCE. 
 
 " The dogs eat of the crumbs." — Matt. xv. 27. 
 
 Our common life is creeping prose : 
 We heap our ant-hills high, 
 
 Exultant that our puny toes 
 Should so sublimely fly. 
 
 For how can common life ascend 
 
 Above the things of earth, 
 Or on the baseless dreams depend 
 
 Which poets bring to birth ? 
 
 Upon what common ground, think you, 
 Must men converse or band ? 
 
 Except what lies beneath their view, 
 What can they understand ? 
 
 This nether world alone is ours : 
 
 Weak children of the clay, 
 What boots it to inflate our powers, 
 
 To reach the orb of day ? 
 
 Yet at our daylight's frequent close, 
 See duty's stars grow bright, 
 
 The members of the mind repose, 
 And faith extend its flight. 
 
 Then dreams of beauty find a place : 
 The sternest heart succumbs, 
 
 And for a season gains the grace 
 To feed on heavenly crumbs. 
 
 Oh, tell me of some larger life, 
 
 E'en now on earth begun, 
 Where truth and beauty drop their strife, 
 And rise and rule as one ! 
 56 
 
THE DRIFT OF SYNTAX. 
 
 M Day unto day uttereth speech." — Ps. xix. 2. 
 
 THE iceberg is the child of the snow-flake. Its gradual 
 growth, its formidable progress, and its sudden dissolu- 
 tion, as now observed and understood, alike illustrate the 
 definite action of gentle, but irresistible and all-pervading 
 influences, and clearly indicate that all that is yet unaccount- 
 able in meteorology and cosmology may be attributed to the 
 vastness of the field yet to be explored, rather than to any 
 essential obscurity of the determining principles. 
 
 The field of Language, no less than that of physical re- 
 search, abounds in interesting monuments of the gradual and 
 silent operation of almost inappreciable influences. Though 
 the world of mind, which here comes into view, is indisput- 
 ably darker than that of matter, yet for this element of diffi- 
 culty the explorer has at least the compensating encourage- 
 ment, that inasmuch as he is only dealing with the relics of 
 past thought, he is only attempting to retrace a progress 
 which has been proved possible under circumstances of ob- 
 servation less favorable than his own. 
 
 The elements of language may be broadly divided into the 
 impersonal and the personal. As it is the office of human 
 speech merely to express human knowledge and commu- 
 nicable experience, of course it can suggest the Deity only 
 secondarily, or so far as He may be at once symbolized out- 
 wardly in his creation, and known inwardly in our experi 
 ence. There can therefore obviously be no immediately 
 
 57 
 
58 THE DRIFT OF SYNTAX. 
 
 divine element in language, except such as it may share with 
 other phenomena of more purely natural origin. Things 
 and people, Nature and Man, as the immediate subjects of all 
 speech, are the material of all suggestions, and the basis of all 
 inferences, which can by it be conveyed from mind to mind. 
 
 It is obvious that the personal element of language must 
 distinctively consist in the expression or attribution of action 
 and feeling. The expression or attribution of mere being, on 
 the other hand, is more closely limited, — and with increasing 
 closeness by the advance of general science, — to things, and 
 to human character in its universal or impersonal aspect. 
 As personal views or aims avowedly prevail, therefore, verbs 
 of volition and consciousness will be the prominent members 
 of a sentence ; and, as impersonal interests are discovered, 
 and pursued or professed, nouns substantive, and the so-called 
 substantive verb, " to be." 
 
 Since all intelligent communication presupposes a basis of 
 mutual intelligence, there are always some words in a sen- 
 tence which will be more apt to be anticipated by the hearer 
 as being suggested by the others, than those others would be 
 if left to the latter part or end of the sentence. Whether, 
 therefore, the personal or the impersonal standard of interest 
 and ground of understanding shall prevail between speaker 
 and hearer, the hearer's power of attention will be best econo- 
 mized, and his stock of interest most surely maintained or in- 
 creased, by leaving the more matter-of-course, though con- 
 ventionally, or even intrinsically, more important words, to 
 the last. As the fixing of the point implies the content of 
 the intellectual pyramid,* the care will be first to satisfy the 
 
 * By the use, indeed, of the substantive verb in combination with partici- 
 ples or infinitives in place of the personal moods, every sentence may be con- 
 verted into a sort of equation in which the logical copula, "is," corresponds 
 to the mathematical sign of equality, =. But where an agent is concerned, 
 the subject must be either of greater or less acknowledged consequence than 
 the logical predicate, according as the aim of the narrative or argument is the 
 glory of the individual, or the illustration of abstract truth. In this case, 
 therefore, instead of a suspended balance, the sentence may be compared to 
 
THE DRIFT OF SYNTAX. 59 
 
 thirst for information with the formal little, and afterward the 
 sense of grammatical completeness with the formal much. 
 The prevailing structure of the sentence, in a particular com- 
 munity or at a particular era, thus becomes an index of the 
 prevailing creed of life, as implied in the pre-supposed basis 
 of common intelligence. Where, as among the old Romans, 
 virtue is practically, as well as etymologically, identified with 
 mere manliness, the tendency to hero-worship inevitably 
 shows itself in the customary gravitation of the verb to the 
 bottom of the sentence. Where good, and the Source of 
 good, are sought in things or principles, rather than in peo- 
 ple, as to some extent in the less worldly-minded, though more 
 ancient Greeks, and more largely and avowedly in the more 
 modern professors of Christianity, the human element is less 
 developed, or shrinks into comparative insignificance by the 
 side of that wdiich more immediately and purely symbolizes 
 the Creative, and Sustaining, and " Unspeakable " Word. 
 
 It may be incidentally remarked as being perhaps another 
 result of the defective religion of the great military nation, 
 that in the development of the verb, it seems to have system- 
 atically discarded the use of a simple past tense, which has 
 so generally prevailed both among more ancient and more 
 modern peoples. The Imperfect Tense of the Latins, like that 
 of the Greeks before them, was directly expressive only of 
 either continuous or abortive action, and by no means sup- 
 plied the place either of the Greek Aorist, or of that which 
 
 a standing pyramid. If glory be the chase, the aspirations and volitions and 
 subsequent sentiments of the hero (verbs, active or passive) will be more 
 readily anticipated and less eagerly asserted, than the materials (nouns sub- 
 stantive) on which they are exercised, and which, though thus subordinate in 
 secret appreciation, give point, as we say, to the utterance, by indicating that 
 which is then or there novel in the method and results of the life whose high- 
 est flight is a homage to circumstances. In the investigation and demonstra- 
 tion of truth, again, the mental or physical movements of the agent are in like 
 manner seen to be at once matters intrinsically of secondary importance, and 
 yet temporarily of more urgent interest, as indicating the method and results 
 of the life which is a continual triumph over circumstances. 
 
60 THE DRIFT OF SYNTAX. 
 
 in our own tongue has rather capriciously inherited the name 
 of the Imperfect. The emphatic Perfect was employed by 
 them for the most part in the wide range of occasions to which 
 the simple past tense, whether it be called Aorist, or Imper- 
 fect, or Preterite, is properly fitted. There is a sort of self- 
 assertion, or dependence on mere attainment, in their habitual 
 mention of the past as something which is perfected, which 
 can perhaps only be accounted for as arising from a theoret- 
 ical though doubtless ever confusing and often disappointing 
 dependence on the permanence of worldly interests and insti- 
 tutions. Acknowledging Right only as it was embodied in 
 successful Might, they were, as a modern observer remarks 
 of a modern people, " impious in their skepticism of a theory" 
 which might conflict with their own, but they "would kiss 
 the dust before a fact." * Foolishness, indeed, to them would 
 have seemed the boast of the warrior-prophet and king of the 
 Chosen People, " I have seen an end of all perfection ; but 
 Thy commandment is exceeding broad." 
 
 The vagaries of language are necessarily many, and may 
 often, in the infancy of the social intellect, rise to the rank 
 of temporary institutions. But they can never carry the 
 heart-believer beyond the reach of the voice of God in the 
 soul and in the outward creation ; and all of them must at 
 last meet and terminate in the universal anthem to which the 
 Hebrew lyre was so early and happily attuned : 
 
 '* Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps : 
 Fire, and hail ; snow, and vapors : stormy wind fulfilling his Word : 
 Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars : 
 Beasts, and all cattle ; creeping things, and flying fowl : 
 Kings of the earth, and all people ; princes, and all judges of the earth : 
 Both young men, and maidens ; old men, and children : 
 Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; 
 His glory is above the earth and heavens." 
 
 * Emerson ; English Traits, 
 
PROPHECY AND INTERPRETATION. 
 
 " The word of God is not bound." — 2 Tim. ii. 9. 
 
 "No prophecy of the Scripture is of its own interpretation." — 2 Pet. i. 20. 
 
 IT is a remarkable testimony of Lord Bacon respecting 
 some of the prophecies of the Old Testament, that they 
 are " of the nature of their Author, to whom a thousand 
 years are as one day ; and therefore they are not fulfilled 
 punctually at once, but have a springing and germinant 
 accomplishment through many ages, though the height or 
 fullness of them may refer to some one age." The power of 
 insight, and that of foresight, will doubtless be twin mysteries 
 so long as the objects of truth upon which they may be exer- 
 cised shall themselves present any features of apparent incon- 
 gruity. As the true seat or present origin of all mystery con- 
 sists merely in the clouded nature of our own perceptions, the 
 rectification of these is of course all that is necessary to ex- 
 hibit to us in the boundless scenes of the inward and outward 
 creations an ever prevailing coherency. When the true con- 
 nection of body with spirit, of necessity with freedom, and 
 of time with eternity, shall be intelligently realized, truth will 
 doubtless become in our conceptions the unit which it is in 
 reality; and insight and foresight will become synonymous 
 terms, indicating the sure and ready apprehension, however 
 limited it may be in its reach, of a clear and collected 
 intelligence. 
 
 This view of the nature of our own ignorance, and of the 
 secret identity of the unknown with that which we call the 
 6 6L 
 
62 PROPHECY AND INTERPRETATION. 
 
 known, may not only reconcile to our apprehension the pos- 
 sibility of any alleged degree of intuition or of premonition 
 beyond that which we ourselves may for the time enjoy, but 
 may secure us from rashly discrediting the genuineness of any 
 particular prophetic pretensions on the ground of their being, 
 as it has been termed, " self-fulfilling. " The dependence of 
 the future upon the present being recognized as the basis of 
 all prophetical truth, the dependence of a premonition upon 
 a genuine intuition cannot be admitted as an evidence of 
 cunning contrivance on the part of the seer; but will actually 
 confirm the value of his warnings, however much, by elucidat- 
 ing their mode of origination, it may abate the ignorant awe 
 which may have attributed to him a degree of sanctity and 
 sagacity almost unattainable by mortals. The knowledge of 
 the truth is indeed the great leveler of human distinctions, 
 but it may always be welcomed by the lover of his kind as 
 " a leveler upward." Well, indeed, might the great jurist 
 of Israel exclaim, "Would God that all the Lord's people 
 were prophets I" 
 
 If insight and foresight be two names for one power or 
 process, any definite limit of insight must also be a definite 
 limit of foresight. The fullness of any inspiration which 
 may be embodied in words is thus never inexhaustible, be- 
 cause it is always measurable. Prophecy, however, whether 
 it be called insight, or whether foresight, is none the less 
 valuable' on account of this limitation, since it is always avail- 
 able as a testimony for the truth to the extent of its original 
 design, and at the same time bears witness, by the very prin- 
 ciples of its limitation, as these may be in succession ascer- 
 tained, to the superior and still more enduring agency and 
 efficacy of the spiritual and divine Word which is the one 
 living Source of its manifold lively streams. This aspect of 
 the subject appears to have been overlooked by the translators 
 of the ordinary version of the Bible in their rendering of the 
 above-cited text from the Second Epistle of Peter. The apos- 
 tle's meaning appears to have been too large for them to re- 
 
PROPHECY AND INTERPRETATION. 63 
 
 ceive in its original simplicity of expression, and they accord- 
 ingly appear, in attempting to transplant the form of his 
 utterance from one language into another, to have disturbed 
 its symmetry if not to have destroyed its vitality. 
 
 The comparison of genuine Scriptures with each other is 
 perhaps the readiest and most convincing mode of ascertain- 
 ing the limits of their value. Such comparison seems espe- 
 cially necessary by way of tracing discrepancies of utterance 
 to crudities of experience and doctrine, precision in thought 
 being presumably antecedent to precision in expression, even 
 under the guidance of inspiration. A notable instance of 
 such discrepancy occurs in the Mosaic narrative of God's 
 strivings with the chosen people in the establishment of the 
 Levitical Law, as compared with many other passages in the 
 sacred writings. We there find the account of what was, in 
 the inspired writer's apprehension, a distinct* change of pur- 
 pose in the divine counsels, such as is elsewhere, with equal 
 distinctness, declared to be an impossibility. The great 
 leader, legislator and historian, appears upon that occasion 
 to have been hampered in his view of the divine attributes 
 and purposes, by the limits of his personal experience as an 
 agent in what may be called the merely political changes of 
 his day. " What will the Egyptians say?" is the query which 
 naturally occurred to him, as an instrument who was at the 
 instant but partially conscious of the magnitude of his own 
 mission as it has since been revealed. 
 
 It is doubtless a matter of importance that we should en- 
 deavor to attain clear ideas of the extent of our own capacities 
 and opportunities for the knowledge of the truth. There is 
 doubtless some fact of experience which may be justly styled 
 the limitation of prophecy, since man is evidently not om- 
 niscient. But we have scriptural warrant for believing that 
 this limitation is essentially a limitation of the power of utter- 
 ance, rather than of the capacity of receiving and of the power 
 of retaining. It may indeed be doubted whether the human 
 * Numbers, ch. xiv. 
 
64 PROPHECY AND INTERPRETATION. 
 
 mind is capable of conceiving any question, which it is not, 
 in the light graciously and steadfastly vouchsafed from heaven, 
 capable of eventually answering. The power of conception 
 appears to be, in the ideal world, as well as in that which we 
 more exclusively style the actual, the same with the power 
 of production. The scriptural text which may perhaps most 
 readily occur to the reader as seemingly opposed to this view, 
 may be regarded as rather contributing evidence in support 
 of it. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; 
 but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to 
 our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this 
 law." The recipients of a twilight revelation were here 
 assured of the permanency of their hold upon the knowledge 
 then granted, in spite of the incompetency of its embodying 
 language ; while the suggestion of the riches of truth reserved 
 for a more perfect administration of the Divine Power, was 
 so vague as to claim little more than a negative value. Even 
 then, however, the spiritual travailer for truth could doubt- 
 less anticipate the substance of the testimony of the royal 
 Psalmist, " Thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing," 
 and could thus attain within the restricted compass of his 
 own thoughts, to that completeness and clearness of system 
 which is at once the necessary concomitant of an intelligent 
 consistency in action, the immediate object of an enlightened 
 faith, and the sure ground of an expanding hope. 
 
 May we, who live in the days of increased and increasing 
 illumination, not forget the dignity of our calling as intelli- 
 gent beings, nor the injunction so explicitly addressed to us, 
 that " every man be fully persuaded in his own mind !" So 
 only may w T e hope as " kings and priests" unto the Father, 
 to obtain grace " from Him which was, and which is, and 
 which is to come," to interpret the words of the Law, and to 
 know the Word of the Gospel, to the glory of God, and to 
 our own assured peace. — Rev. i. 6, 7, 8. 
 
UNIVERSAL SCRIPTURE. 
 
 * In God we boast all the day long." — Ps. xliv. 8. 
 
 In words and in acts 
 
 Of human consent, 
 In physical facts, 
 
 In vigor unpent, 
 
 The universe flows, 
 
 A process immense 
 Of earnest repose 
 
 And gathered expense ; 
 
 While guiding its course, 
 
 Revealed or unknown, 
 Its mystical Source, 
 
 Sits God on his throne. 
 
 His heavenly rule 
 
 The rainbow implies, — 
 The chase of the fool, 
 
 The boast of the wise. 
 
 Thus perfectly shown, 
 
 Though late understood, 
 Be joyfully known 
 
 The Giver of Good ! 
 
 For ever He sends 
 
 His edicts abroad, 
 In all that offends 
 
 And all we applaud. 
 
 His servants review 
 
 The line upon line, 
 Intent to construe 
 
 The writing divine. 
 
 E 65 
 
THE MORTALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." — I Cor. xiii. 8. 
 
 THEOLOGIANS have evidently missed their mark in 
 making a bugbear of the doctrine of Foreknowledge. 
 Knowledge, being finite in its nature and particular in its ap- 
 plication, is partial and contingent and therefore self-limited 
 both in its value and duration. Wisdom is infinite' and gen- 
 eral, universal and absolute, self-developing and eternal. 
 These cannot be empty or idle epithets, except to those to 
 whom spiritual existence is emptiness, because of their making 
 the material world their all in all. Knowledge is indeed the 
 means of wisdom, as it is also the means of folly. As the 
 staple material of every degree of intelligent intercourse, it 
 maybe called communicable wisdom, or the "wisdom of this 
 world and of the princes of this world which cometh to 
 naught." Knowledge, even w T hen occurring in the form of 
 the grandest results of the most finished culture, is essentially 
 external, and therefore transitory. Wisdom is internal, and 
 therefore eternal. This distinction doubtless furnishes the 
 basis upon which we must discriminate the manifestations of 
 mind from those of soul. How startling, how terrible, in- 
 deed, is it to the man of culture who does not constantly thus 
 discriminate, to have to meet the announcement that know- 
 ledge must pass away ! And yet how is the mortal despair 
 which may lurk in the reflection that 
 
 " Thought lies deeper than all speech," 
 66 
 
THE MORTALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 67 
 
 extinguished in the " hope full of immortality," as he finds 
 ability to add, 
 
 " Feeling, deeper than all thought !" 
 
 The brain is the seat of thought : the soul is the subject of 
 experience and of independent vitality. The phenomena of 
 consciousness and volition are most intricate, as metaphysi- 
 cians might long ago, could they have anticipated the modern 
 triumphs of mechanical invention, have a priori argued that 
 they must be. That they may be counterfeited to an indefi- 
 nite extent in the animal creation by the mere force of habit 
 or instinct, especially in the more educable species, and pre- 
 eminently in the human animal, cannot long seem to be im- 
 possible to one who considers that the contrivances of me- 
 chanics are human, while those of physiology are divine. 
 We even profess to think and to act, often, " mechanically." 
 Thus it is, that a custom or a notion may seem to be most 
 firmly established by the number of its adherents, when it is 
 upon the very brink of collapse and oblivion. In the never- 
 ending miracle of conscious individual and social life, ideas 
 and institutions are perishable simply because the spiritual 
 nature in man* is a progressive nature, and because progress 
 through a world of intermingled good and evil implies a re- 
 linquishment, sooner or later, of every form of experience 
 which is tainted with the germs of corruption. When the 
 laws of the external life are harmonized with themselves and 
 with those of the internal life, either in individuals or in so- 
 ciety, progress will indeed no longer imply relinquishment, 
 but will be an unwasting development. But until that won- 
 drous goal shall be gained, sacrifice must be the condition of 
 support or formal death of essential life, even in the realm of 
 thought and knowledge. God speed thee, then, honest re- 
 former, of whatever profession, or of no profession, if thy 
 modesty allow thee none ! Go on " turning the world upside 
 down," so far as in thee lies ! The truly righteous man, who 
 
68 THE MORTALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 is " fully persuaded in his own mind," will not fear that his 
 foundation shall be destroyed by thee. Foreknowledge, if it 
 be anything, is but a form of knowledge to him. He not 
 only knows, but he feels, that by the goodness of God, his 
 temporal and eternal security is made contingent upon nothing 
 but the just submission of his own will. His trust, and his 
 glory, are not in institutions or in doctrines, but in God on 
 high. 
 
THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 " He hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we shall see Him, there is 
 no beauty that we should desire Him."— Isa. liii. 2. 
 
 "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto 
 the Greeks foolishness." — I Cor. i. 23. 
 
 " Christ hath once suffered for us, the just for the unjust, that he might 
 bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
 Spirit."— 1 Pet. iii. 18. 
 
 THE call to perfection as sounded by the Divine Man in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, evidently enjoins something 
 more than the freedom from actual sin. His words were, 
 not, Be perfect as I am perfect, but, "Be ye perfect even as 
 your Father which is in heaven is perfect." * This language 
 must be accepted as not only condemning all voluntary trans- 
 gression, but as commanding an actual progression in the full 
 but measurable manifestation of the divine life consequent 
 upon obedience. As a man, the limitations of Him who 
 " was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," f 
 were doubtless in some way more stringent than those of the 
 subsequent generations of the race. Although " God gave 
 not the Spirit by measure unto Him," J He testified that his 
 followers should b ' do greater works" than his, because of his 
 going " to the Father." § As his own perfection in its posi- 
 tive aspect consisted in a progressive development of the 
 Divine Life, so must the perfection of his faithful followers 
 include an ever progressive triumph over inherited or ac- 
 quired infirmities. As such triumph can ensue only upon a 
 
 * Matt. v. 48. t Heb. iv. 15. J John iii. 34. § John xiv. 12. 
 
 69 
 
?0 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 thorough spiritual conversion, the attainability of such con- 
 version becomes plainly a most important doctrine. 
 
 Accordingly we find ourselves exhorted by the early apos- 
 tles of Christianity, not so much to imitate the works of the 
 Saviour, as to seek the aid of his Spirit in the determination 
 and performance of our own. The fruits of the Spirit are 
 carefully commended to our cultivation, and primarily among 
 them that of patience or " long-suffering," as a necessary 
 pioneer of Christian experience. Says one, " We glory in 
 tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; 
 and patience, experience ; and experience, hope." * And 
 another, " The trying of your faith worketh patience ; but let 
 patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and 
 entire, wanting nothing."! As we read that it became the 
 Father, "for whom are all things, and by whom are all 
 things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Cap- 
 tain of their salvation perfect through sufferings," \ so for 
 confirmation of our patience we are directed "to Jesus, who 
 for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despis- 
 ing the shame." § Says yet another, "For even hereunto 
 were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us 
 an example that ye should follow his steps." || 
 
 As the work of spiritual progress can only be manifested 
 in a progressive emancipation of human life from that bond- 
 age to the corruptible forms of outward experience which is 
 the only possible worldly manifestation of spiritual stagna- 
 tion, the contest between formality and spirituality may be 
 said to be not only the engrossing engagement of the repent- 
 ant sinner, but also the incessant labor of the militant Church, 
 even within its own limits. It is conceivable, it is indeed in- 
 evitably consequent upon the doctrine of perfectibility, that 
 spiritual and formal progress may not necessarily involve a 
 lifelong conflict with "the world, the flesh and the devil" on 
 the part of individuals ; but as a whole, the Church on the 
 
 * Rom. v. 3. t James i. 4. % Heb. ii. 10. 
 
 § Heb. xii. 2. || 1 Pet. ii. 21. 
 
THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 7 1 
 
 Earth is doubtless ever a Church Militant, and must expect to 
 encounter opposition in its work of u forgetting those things 
 which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
 are before," and so pressing toward the mark for u the prize 
 of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."* "As then he 
 that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born 
 
 after the Spirit, even so it is now If I yet preach 
 
 circumcision why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the 
 offence of the cross ceased." f Progress, individual or col- 
 lective, is manifested in the refinement of the outward forms 
 of action and experience ; but the spiritual power of the 
 Cross is the only refining and truly vitalizing agency. That 
 it is an offensive agency is indeed implied in its very name ; 
 but that it is eventually a harmonizing and progressive 
 agency is implied in the doctrine of a Divine Resurrection. 
 Successive forms of traditional propriety may and do from 
 age to age share the fate of the obsolete observances of the 
 Jewish ritual, supplying thus the ground of conflict and the 
 occasion of triumph to successive generations of spiritual 
 warriors ; and the all-important strife must continue to rage 
 and to advance until the prophesied day of consummation, 
 of which " no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, 
 neither the Son, but the Father knoweth." \ Until that eter- 
 nal Sabbath shall dawn upon the Church, it must contain 
 struggling members, who will find a labor of suffering, en- 
 grafted upon their zeal for the truth by their love for the 
 brethren, and therefore seemingly undergone on their behalf, 
 to be the constant condition of all their rejoicing. Surely, 
 they may be well content to " fill up that which is left be- 
 hind of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh for his body's 
 sake, which is the Church," § being emboldened by faith in 
 the insurrectional power of a spiritual crucifixion, to defy the 
 imitative transformations of the subtle Power of Evil, although 
 standing " in jeopardy every hour,"|| until the complete re- 
 
 * Phil. iii. 13, 14. f Gal. iv. 29 ; v. 1 1. % Mark xiii. 32 ; Matt. xxiv. 36. 
 § Col. i. 24. || 1 Cor. xv. 30. 
 
72 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 covery from their natural depravity shall turn all their sorrow 
 into joy. 
 
 " Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even he 
 shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." * By thus 
 securing an interest in the "one offering" whereby the con- 
 tinual High Priest " hath perfected for ever all them that are 
 sanctified," will the Christian warrior of whatever degree 
 ever be able to conclude his remonstrances with vacillating 
 brethren, with the confession and admonition of the catholic 
 apostle in his epistle to the "foolish Galatians :" — " But God 
 forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto 
 the world. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth 
 anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as 
 many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and 
 mercy, and upon the Israel of God. From henceforth let nc 
 man trouble me ; for I bear in my body the marks of the 
 Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with your spirit. Amen." 
 
 * Ps. cvii. 43. 
 
VANITY OF VANITIES. 
 
 ■• If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." — i Cor. 
 
 xv. 19. 
 
 The force of attraction is doubly displayed : 
 
 Between subject and object it acts, — 
 The clasp of a fitness transcendently made 
 
 By the God, or the will, which attracts. 
 
 All knowledge implies but a fitness, as shown 
 
 By attraction, when conscious as love, 
 While subject and object in concert are known, 
 
 Through an impulse derived from above. 
 
 One world we discover within us, as one 
 
 Correspondent is opened without : 
 By various progress their circle is run, 
 
 As we move in assurance or doubt 
 
 Meanwhile, whether faithful or doubting, we find, 
 
 By the inward the outward controlled, 
 And matter submissively carried by mind, 
 
 As by solvents, the solids they hold. 
 
 In running the round, if that inner world share 
 
 With predominance due our esteem, 
 Its certain completion in joy or despair 
 
 Will no meaningless mystery seem. 
 
 Not matters without us, nor motives within, 
 
 Can be heralds of God, to the thought 
 Whose course is involved in the darkness and din 
 
 Which prevail when mere objects are sought. 
 
 And joyless indeed were the Christian's career, 
 
 Could the bawbles which dazzle the sense 
 Of idler and worldling, supplant the pure cheer 
 Which enlivens his labor intense. 
 7 73 
 
MERIT. 
 
 11 1 have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding 
 broad." — Ps. cxix. 96. 
 
 IT has been remarked by a celebrated author, as a charac- 
 teristic of the unsophisticated vigor of the earnestly in- 
 quiring mind, that " things take the signature of thought."* 
 The longer we live, if we live deliberately and independently, 
 the more fully do we realize the fact that external nature is 
 but a mirror upon which are shadowed in demonstrable out- 
 lines of beauty or deformity, the principles of our interior ex- 
 perience. To assert this, even in anticipation of the realiza- 
 tion, would be but to extend to our human nature, the 
 observation which we all find to be true in subordinate 
 spheres of knowledge, that force is ever interior to form. 
 In both cases is the force, or life, concealed by the form, or 
 body, and yet revealed by it. Indeed it may be said to be 
 concealed by it in order that it may be revealed by it, as the 
 ordained channel for the communication of intelligence. It 
 is thus that the material world may be said to confess itself 
 the servant of the spiritual, ever closely following and legibly 
 registering its progress in the harmony and pow T er of truth. 
 
 Never, indeed, without conflict, is the supremacy of the 
 ideal over the actual experimentally maintained. The spir- 
 itual domain of emotions and motives must witness a triumph 
 within itself over the intrusive suggestions of sloth and dis- 
 cord, before it can manifest itself in efficient and harmonious 
 action. Only by perseverance in the uncompromising war- 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 74 
 
MERIT. 75 
 
 fare which the Son of God, and Saviour of men, descended 
 from Heaven to institute, and lives in Heaven to direct, are the 
 eternal freshness and power of truth to be realized in inward 
 and outward fruits of happiness and peace and glory. The 
 life of the faithful Christian, and it alone, is endowed with 
 the subtle graces and genuine activity of perennial youth. 
 
 Youth itself, however, may be said to be a form, as well as 
 a force. As a phenomenon of time and space, it bears pre- 
 cedence among the controlling conditions of every individual 
 existence. Through the neglect of its spiritual potentialities 
 it may become a decaying and corrupt form ; but as it is ani- 
 mated by the love of truth and duty, it is found to be at once 
 firmly conservative and irresistibly progressive. By the ex- 
 ercise of the Divine charity which believes, hopes, and en- 
 dures all things, while it may seemingly ignore the existence 
 of essential evil, it grasps and wields the only weapons which 
 can oppose and overcome it. Steadfastly ceasing to do evil 
 in its own preconceived forms of work, it as steadfastly learns 
 to do well in the life of faith ; and its path is " as a shining 
 light, shining more and more unto the perfect day." The 
 perfection of yesterday may become the imperfection of to- 
 day ; but the u exceeding broad commandment" remains to 
 conduct it onward to the perfect manhood of " the measure 
 of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 
 It is perhaps one of the least imperfect or improper, and 
 therefore one of the most persistent and most useful illusions 
 of the youthful pilgrim, to place more or less confidence in 
 the fallible authority of his fellow-man. The prescription of 
 tradition, and the prestige of service, seem to him to invest 
 merely occasional rules and merely mortal examples, with 
 the sanction of universal and enduring applicability. By 
 them he is willing to be guided, and to them he would fain 
 appeal " that his deeds may be made manifest that they are 
 wrought in God." For only as the education of nature is en- 
 tirely subordinated to that of grace, is the promised sonship 
 attained, whose happiness it is to distinguish the one imme- 
 
76 MERIT. 
 
 diate, undeceitful and Divine Light, from all transmitted or 
 reflected radiance. But so far as the standard and the sanc- 
 tion of the Christian neophyte may be thus in the keeping of 
 his fellow-man, he cannot u be fully persuaded in his own 
 mind," and his store of rejoicing must be accordingly not in 
 himself, but " in another." The depth and fullness of the 
 promise, " when my father and my mother forsake me, then 
 the Lord will take me up," must remain to be realized by 
 him. One by one his mortal authorities must fail to fulfil his 
 purest expectations, as they more or less gradually expose 
 their own natural limitations ; while still others will be at 
 hand to attract the allegiance of his imperfect faith, until the 
 revelation of righteousness in the gospel "from faith to faith" 
 shall finally emancipate him from all dependence upon mor- 
 tal priesthoods. Then will he first fully realize with regard 
 to his fellows, that which he may perhaps long before have 
 discovered with regard to himself, that whatever merit there 
 may be in human works, there is none in the human worker ; 
 but in Him who shall have wrought all their works in them. 
 
 ISA. XXvi. 12. 
 
THE SUBORDINATION OF LAW. 
 
 " Every man in his own order." — i Cor. xv. 23. 
 
 IT being the object of Law to define duty rather than privi- 
 lege, — the right of work rather than the right of enjoy- 
 ment, — they who seek through it for privilege or enjoyment 
 are apt to find themselves grievously disappointed. It is only 
 secondarily, or by being primarily the surety of work, that Law 
 is ever the surety of enjoyment. The law of labor can never- 
 theless become the law of happiness to those who order their 
 desires in accordance with the terse and trite proverb, " Busi- 
 ness first, and pleasure afterward." " Blessed," exclaims an 
 indefatigable though variously appreciated teacher,* " is the 
 man who has found his work !" The intelligent and faithful 
 workman is indeed a freeman, and a sovereign in his sphere. 
 As there are, however, different spheres of labor, so there 
 are different spheres of Law ; the superior in either case, by 
 virtue of the unity and consistency of all truth, comprehend- 
 ing the inferior to the extent in which they maybe associated. 
 The law of the subject is thus identical, so far as it may reach 
 with that of the ruler, and can only gain in efficiency and 
 interest by approximating to it. The suggestions of a true 
 superior to a faithful inferior can therefore never be intrusive 
 or annoying ; but being a part of the communion of love, they 
 will, like every other form of genuine charity, be elevating 
 and enlarging to both " him who gives and him who takes." 
 The same power of love, which can alone, as the law of 
 labor, perfectly " cast out fear" in ourselves, may also, as the 
 law of happiness, exclude hostility in others, and thus become 
 
 * Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 7* 77 
 
78 THE SUBORDINATION OF LAW. 
 
 both privately and publicly the law of prosperity and of peace. 
 Subordination is thus simply one of the elements of harmony. 
 Step by step must the naturally dependent and short-sighted 
 worker rise to the discovery that " he that dwelleth in love 
 dwelleth in God, and God in him," realizing therein only the 
 fulfilment of the divine injunction, " Whosoever will be chief 
 among you, let him be your servant." 
 
AUTHORITY. 
 
 1 In that day shall there be one Lord, and his name One." — Zech. xiv. 9. 
 
 Thou wouldst not lose thy dignity ! — Well said, 
 If so thou meanest humbly to confess 
 
 Thy own subjection to the mighty Head, 
 
 Whose will each member must in acts express. 
 
 But art thou yet indeed his member ? Hast 
 Thou naught of joy in any life, except 
 
 In that clear stream with which his Oneness vast 
 From kindred veins each selfish taint hath swept ? 
 
 Authority, where decently maintained, 
 Must flow in living order. Stagnate not 
 
 By resting in the posture thou hast gained, 
 Dreaming thyself creation's central spot. 
 
 Forsake thyself : reject the bonds of sense : 
 O'er time and space, seek with thy spirit's eye 
 
 An Essence vaster than their vague immense, 
 And find within thyself the Eternal Why ! 
 
 Within thee, though not of thee, God shall then 
 Extend his throne, and share with thee his rule 
 
 O'er all his works, and o'er unholy men, 
 
 To curb the headstrong, and reprove the fool. 
 
 Subordination then will be thy aim, 
 
 First for thyself, and then for those around, 
 
 That each thereby may press his humble claim 
 For strength and joy, where both are fully found. 
 
 All nature, then, true to the primal law 
 
 Of order, shall show forth its Sovereign's will, 
 
 While gently tempering his o'erpowering awe 
 Through his vicegerents widely working still. 
 
 79 
 
ABSTRACTIONS versus DELUSIONS. 
 
 " For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine." — 
 2 Tim. iv. 3, 4. 
 
 THERE is what may be called a divine music in a well- 
 ordered life. The genuine intelligence and ample com- 
 prehension which belong to the divine nature in the renewed 
 man, express themselves necessarily and yet freely, to those 
 who have " ears to hear," in the language of an unbroken 
 harmony. All things being u done decently and in order" 
 no true interest is neglected, and none is pursued in an im- 
 proper time, place, or mode. Such a life will be likely to 
 appear monotonous if not unmeaning to observers whose 
 habits of thought are dislocated from its happy integrity by 
 an undue devotion to any of the subordinate interests which 
 enter into the composition of its one leading interest, because 
 to such the main objects of their life will seem to be recog- 
 nized only to be set at naught. They will see that everything 
 which is necessary for the existence of their idols is preserved, 
 while the idols themselves will appear to be overlooked from 
 the mere fact of their being in turn subordinated to the preser- 
 vation of the still larger interest or interests, which ever lie be- 
 yond the reach of an imperfect faith. Truth, which is the great- 
 est reality, is also the greatest abstraction ; and there is always 
 a point at which the pursuit of it for its own sake, must appear 
 but as weariness and foolishness to all whose vision is either 
 lost in the mists of a groveling sensuality, or diverted from 
 the Central Luminary by the gilded clouds of a more refined 
 and aspiring selfishness. While this is their condition, how 
 80 
 
ABSTRACTIONS VS. DELUSIONS. 8l 
 
 can they do otherwise than "despise the voice of the charmer, 
 charming never so wisely?" 
 
 Every definable rule of life may be called an abstraction, 
 and must become a delusive one as it is made to usurp the 
 place of the indefinable and only universal rule of the Divine 
 Spirit of life and truth. This only can enable us in all cases 
 to observe the Divine precept, " Judge not according to the 
 appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Every motive 
 which may seem to ourselves to begin or end in any definite 
 object of created good, is but " vanity" and must land us in 
 "vexation of spirit." The only remunerative service is the 
 service of the bountiful Creator, and this is at all times incom- 
 patible with a primary pursuit of worldly attainment. " Ye 
 cannot serve God and Mammon." Money, which is the 
 most universally recognized representative of worldly good, 
 thus becomes the most delusive of abstractions, as it is men- 
 tally abstracted or detached from its place in the divine order 
 of truth, and elevated from the rank of a means to that of an 
 end. Here, at least, experience is found to agree with theory. 
 The late Stephen Girard, whose success in accumulating 
 money was of course no proof that he was at heart a wor- 
 shiper of Mammon, however his mind may have lacked the 
 development which a timely discipline of nobler rules might 
 have ensured, avowed at the very zenith of his seeming pros- 
 perity, that his main object in life was to work hard enough 
 in the day-time to be able to sleep soundly at night. Accord- 
 ing as his success was a substantial or an empty one, how 
 must he have smiled, either in pity or in scorn, upon the mul- 
 titudes whom he beheld around him eagerly enlisted in the 
 pursuit of his glittering abstraction ! 
 
 Position, popularity, reputation, praise, and immortality, 
 are names by which "the world" recognizes different degrees 
 of its other favorite abstraction. These also, so far as they are 
 realities, are but variously imposing and fleeting forms of the 
 Power which consists solely in the knowledge and love of the 
 truth. As they are attained in the spirit of insubordination to 
 
 F 
 
82 ABSTRACTIONS VS. DELUSIONS. 
 
 the truth, they too must prove to be but delusive phantoms, 
 and the unhappy aspirant will ever be constrained mentally 
 to repeat the melancholy demand, " Is this all?" 
 
 "The concrete" is in some sense the opposite of "the 
 abstract." By the one epithet we mean an embodied or com- 
 municable good or evil ; and by the other, a disembodied or 
 incommunicable. The rule of self-denying love, which is the 
 law of liberty, is also that of all true realization and commu- 
 nication. By it only, as revealed through faith in the Divine 
 Son by the Holy Spirit can we realize the strength which 
 is to be found in union with one another, and in communion 
 with the Father of spirits. The only way to avoid the delu- 
 sions and disappointments of the scattering voices of " Lo ! 
 here," and " Lo ! there," is thus to seek the kingdom which 
 is only to be found within us. This pursuit will involve a 
 willing abstraction from all dependence upon sensual and 
 artificial aids, but it will be a triumphant abstraction, whose 
 victory will be qualified by no mixture of unhappy disap- 
 pointment. "The concrete" may indeed be said to mean 
 the whole of life, but the promise of the blessed Saviour re- 
 mains in force, "He that loses his life for my sake and the 
 gospel's shall find it." 
 
 Only as w T e begin our pilgrim course with this holy ab- 
 straction, can we hope to avoid by the way those which are 
 unholy and delusive, and to close our struggles with the ex- 
 ulting exclamation, " the half has not been told." Only as 
 we thus bring all our crowns to the foot of the cross of 
 Christ the Saviour, can we hope to join the throng of those 
 who even now come " from the uttermost parts of the earth " 
 to behold the glory of Him who is "greater than Solomon !" 
 
HIDDEN LIFE. 
 
 " The grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee : they that 
 go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 
 
 " The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day : the father 
 to the son shall make known thy truth." — Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19. 
 
 FAITH in doctrine,* hope for truth,! and love to God, J 
 may be styled the successive stages of a religious life. 
 Each of these stages, after the first, being essentially a con- 
 firmation and extension rather than an abandonment of that 
 which has preceded it, the aspiration of such a life is for 
 growth or development, rather than for any externally pre- 
 scribed attainment, which might be at the best but a rambling 
 appearance of gain. Owing to the variety of present circum- 
 stances and previous opportunities in different individuals, 
 the manifestations of these different stages maybe often alike, 
 or indistinguishable from each other by any prescribed rule, 
 so that no definite standard of spiritual vitality can be safely 
 assumed. The " fruits of the Spirit" must indeed be sooner 
 or later recognizable, either in their increase or in their 
 decrease, to the spiritually minded observer, whose eye is 
 single and whose "whole body" is accordingly "full of 
 light ;" so that such an one may be divinely enabled to see 
 the direction in which the feet of his fellow-man are moving : 
 
 * " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." — Rom. 
 x. 17. 
 
 t " We are saved by hope : but hope that is seen is not hope." — Rom. 
 viii. 24. 
 
 $ " God is love : and he that dwelleth in love dwellcth in God, and God 
 in him." — 1 John iv. 16. 
 
 S3 
 
84 HIDDEN LIFE. 
 
 yet even such an one is for the most part happily exempted 
 from the necessity of deciding how nearly the steps of a com- 
 panion have reached, on the one hand, to the goal of perfect 
 devotion, or on the other to the limit of the Divine toleration 
 and mercy, and of distinguishing the precise period at which 
 his face may begin to turn from the course which he has been 
 pursuing. We may even be fct living in pleasures," and there 
 fore " dead while we live," and the dreadful reality may, in 
 very mercy, be indiscernible to those who love and care for 
 us, that our religion is an empty form, our faith that of the 
 devils who " believe and tremble," and our whole life a state 
 of spiritual bondage, under whatever disguise of seeming 
 freedom and happiness. 
 
 The grave is the hopeless home of corruption to all who do 
 not spiritually descend into its inevitable gulf by faith in Him 
 who overcame death. So far as any have experienced the 
 power and submitted to the dominion of sin, they must be made 
 " dead with Christ," before they can also live with Him. 
 The outward interment and decay of our corruptible bodies 
 is not more fitly symbolical of the spiritual condition of those 
 who reject the terms of heavenly grace, than the temporary 
 repose of the mortal part of the holy Captain of salvation in 
 its rock-hewn sepulchre may symbolize the temporary or ap- 
 parent withdrawal from wonted scenes of action, of lives 
 which are undergoing the all-important conversion from the 
 state of nature to the state of grace. The strength of these 
 may be as completely veiled from the view of their fellow- 
 mortals, as is the weakness of their benighted contemporaries ; 
 and they may appear by comparison as ghastly spectres, walk- 
 ing the Earth but to destroy the pleasant pictures of God's 
 creation. Already, nevertheless, such are practical preachers 
 of the " baptism of repentance," and heralds, to those who 
 have hearts to understand, of the solemn decree, that the 
 "fashion of this world" shall pass away. As they keep the 
 word of Divine patience, the promised day of redemption 
 from the power of temptation will follow. Their Saviour 
 
HIDDEN LIFE. 85 
 
 will " come quickly," and the crown which no man shall 
 take away will be their reward. Only such can ever be en- 
 titled and prepared to respond to the animating summons, 
 u Arise, shine: for thy light is come, and the glory of the 
 Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall 
 cover the earth, and gross darkness the people : but the Lord 
 shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." * 
 For of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, some shall 
 awake " to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlast- 
 ing contempt." " But they that be wise shall shine as the 
 brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to right- 
 eousness as the stars for ever and ever." f 
 
 * Isa. lx. 1, 2. t Dan. xii. 2, 3. 
 
 8 
 
A PARAPHRASE. 
 
 Ps. cxxx. 
 
 Out of the depths we cry to Thee ; 
 Hear Thou our voice attentively ! 
 O Lord ! with all our dreams of merit, 
 What wealth can willful works inherit ? 
 
 Forgiveness is the boon we seek, 
 Before the blessing of the meek. 
 Let mercy's gates expand before us ; 
 Then as we run, do Thou restore us. 
 
 Our startling fear, our steadfast hope, 
 What scheming with thy Word can cope ? 
 For Thee we wait and thy adorning, 
 Like watchers wishing for the morning. 
 
 More eagerly than these we pray, 
 Spread in our hearts thine endless day, 
 As, through the scenes of thy creation, 
 Each soul pursues its own salvation. 
 
 Thy called and chosen each shall be, 
 Who struggles in sincerity, 
 To conquer every inbred giant 
 Which mocks thy rule with deeds defiant. 
 
 Like Israel, then, may we prevail, 
 As one man, o'er our common ail ; 
 And, shielded by thy Son's exemption, 
 Attain thy plenteous redemption ! 
 
 Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, 
 While thus our earthly race we run : 
 And o'er each good Thou still suppliest, 
 Sing we thy glory in the highest ! 
 
 4th Mo., 1863. 
 86 
 
A POSSIBLE STEP FORWARD. 
 
 " Where is the promise of his coming V — 2 Pet. iii. 3. 
 
 [Note. — It may be due to the reader to state that this piece was designed 
 as a substantial reproduction of the first few pages of that on Conversation 
 and Education, which shortly follows. It was written wholly at the sug- 
 gestion of a valued counselor, who thought the matter might be thrown into 
 a more popular form, for a philanthropic periodical just then, as it turned 
 out, on the eve of discontinuance.] 
 
 " r I "'HE desire of a man is his kindness," said the wise king. 
 JL Necessary as it is to preach the gospel of good works 
 by way of shutting out bad works in our age and country of 
 physical energy and material abundance, we cannot yet afford 
 to lose sight of the principle that it is the spirit of the doer 
 which mainly qualifies the deed. The great circle of practi- 
 cal truth may be equally broken, and the work of practical 
 religion equally interrupted, by a misanthropic listlessness, 
 and by the merely formal or imitative activity which may 
 equally coexist with an actual sluggishness of spirit. 
 
 But while all earnest workers must be at times painfully 
 conscious of this tendency to superficiality and consequent 
 futility in our best life, we seem to have been as yet much at 
 a loss for the means of expressing our condition and of so 
 being prepared intelligently and unitedly to shun its dangers. 
 It is naturally difficult for any of us, — and the difficulty may 
 be only confirmed by association with those of like antecedents 
 and surroundings with ourselves, — to realize that the most 
 seemingly definite knowledge is modified by the extent and 
 
 S7 
 
88 A POSSIBLE STEP FORWARD. 
 
 form of our individual capacity, or that every item of truth 
 has universal relations by virtue of which it is capable of ex- 
 panding with our expanding capacities. Knowledge is a 
 progressive, because a relative, thing. While Truth is im- 
 mortal, " Knowledge," we are divinely assured, "shall vanish 
 away." Knowledge consists in the conscious adaptation of 
 our present selves or senses to our present circumstances, or 
 in other words, in the relation of a "subjective" or internal 
 element to an " objective" or external element, and rs neces- 
 sarily as transient or mutable as either of the elements upon 
 which it depends. In these qualities of all merely human 
 knowledge, w r e may trace the original necessity of the myste- 
 rious bond of individual faith (Rom. xiv. 22) as the only hope 
 of consistency, and the reason of the subsequent supremacy 
 of the rule of individual experience. Rom. xiv. 5. 
 
 The distinction between subjective and objective truth be- 
 ing a primary condition of all human consciousness, is there- 
 fore also a primary consideration in the just estimation of 
 human motives. These terms " objective" and "subjective" 
 have been too long the exclusive property of metaphysicians, 
 and, as might have been anticipated, the metaphysicians have 
 to some extent abused their monopoly. They have too much 
 failed to teach the transitory value of thought as an object of 
 endowment, and the still more transitory value of language, 
 as a still more superficial object. The so-called " Philosophy 
 of Common Sense" of Reid and Hamilton, now widely pre- 
 vailing, may be styled a systematic repudiation of the objec- 
 tivity of Thought. Maintaining that external things are 
 themselves the real objects of original Perception, and thus 
 implying that we see everything that we see at all exactly as 
 it is, it so far removes all inducement to correcting our per- 
 ceptions and extending our insight by the processes of com- 
 parison and analysis. We need not inquire whether it pro- 
 fesses to do so, since error is ever inconsistent. By failing 
 justly to distinguish between thoughts and things as objects 
 alike, though in different degrees or distances, external to the 
 
A POSSIBLE STEP FORWARD. 89 
 
 thinker, it admits if it does not advocate a repeal of every 
 principle of progress. Crescit eundo, " it grows with going," 
 is a law which is especially applicable to the march of mind, 
 but no scope is allowed for its operation here. Old forms of 
 thought perish by being absorbed and transformed into larger 
 and fairer ones, which they could not be, were our perceptions 
 originally of things as they truly are. 
 
 There is a constant revolution in the progress of mind, and it 
 may be that that revolution and progress cannot be understood 
 without a regard to the principle of Polarity. It would seem 
 that there are subjective and objective poles and hemispheres 
 of experience or knowledge, just as there are the North and 
 South poles of the globe we outwardly tread. Scriptural 
 testimony is not wanting as to the fact and mode of the con- 
 tinual growth of mind. It must clearly be by reason of such 
 growth rather than of any selfish or studied reserve, that the 
 " wise man" keeping his thought " till afterward" is present- 
 ed as having an advantage over "the fool" who "utters all 
 his mind ;" and this because his sufficiency is not of himself, 
 his supplies being all drawn from a Source which is confess- 
 edly incomprehensible to himself. In the more explicit 
 though more comprehensive language of the New Testament, 
 " the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith ;" 
 and is not the philosophy of polarity poetically recognized in 
 that of the Psalmist, " Beautiful for situation, the joy of the 
 whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the North ;" and 
 again, " Promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from 
 the West, nor from the South" ? 
 
 Purity and peace are primary characteristics (James iii. 17) 
 of the "Wisdom which is from above." I would say nothing 
 to degrade them either as subjects or as objects from their 
 scriptural eminence among the Christian graces. I have only 
 to urge that they should be pursued as being indeed qualities 
 of the Wisdom which is from above, in which case there will 
 be no danger of their being detached from other virtues. 
 With this view we assuredly need to study the laws of 
 8* 
 
90 A POSSIBLE STEP FORWARD. 
 
 thought in their necessary connection with the laws of action 
 as important means of preserving us from superficial activi- 
 ties, or so-called hobby-riding. Where the love of displa}', 
 which is so apt to attend the pursuit of any definitely pre- 
 scribed effect, to any extent supplants the disinterested guid- 
 ance of individual faith, spiritual intelligence must be propor- 
 tionally dormant, and religion at best retrograde from the 
 freedom of the gospel to the bondage of the law. There 
 must sooner or later be a subversion of the true motives of 
 thought and action, the unknown being subordinated to the 
 known, or aspiration to attainment; and the comparatively 
 trifling mysteries of the latest witchcraft will so far obscure 
 and obstruct the miraculous growth and triumph of Christian 
 truth. One of the broadest injunctions of Holy Writ is that 
 of him who may be called the analytical apostle, " Let all 
 things be done decently and in order ;" and it seems to me 
 that one of our next steps forward must be a more general 
 recognition of the just subordination of the Objective to the 
 Subjective, of the phenomenal to the real, of the past to the 
 coming, of the passing to the lasting, which is traceable 
 through all degrees of progress in knowledge. Let us re- 
 member that all the efforts of skepticism have failed to dis- 
 prove that there is a real and lasting Power of Evil, to which 
 we may by carelessness in any direction become victims. 
 
INCIDENTAL EDUCATION. 
 
 " I WILL bring the blind by a way that they knew not." — ISA. xlii. 16. 
 
 EDUCATION, like every other special business or expe- 
 rience, may be either direct or indirect. As the influ- 
 ence of the teacher may be either designed or undesigned on 
 his part, so the progress of the learner may be either con- 
 scious or unconscious on his. By indirect or incidental edu- 
 cation, I mean the progress which while unconscious on the 
 part of the pupil, is not undesigned on that of the tutor. By 
 virtue of the fact of his having been before over the ground 
 which they are traversing together, the intelligent tutor is able 
 in the realm of his own consciousness to be at once before 
 and behind his junior companion, while seeming perhaps to 
 be only at his side. It is his business to know not only the 
 work which is to be done, but also the character and circum- 
 stance of the worker, in some respects at least, better than 
 they are known to himself, so that speaking as it were from 
 behind him, or from the direction in which he is least 
 known to himself, he may be able to check every deviation 
 with the cry, "this is the way, walk in it." 
 
 I do not mean to claim for the teacher the prerogative of 
 priesthood beyond the necessity of his calling; but it seems 
 clear to me that to a certain extent he must, if he teach any- 
 thing thoroughly, realize and illustrate the doctrine that faith 
 must precede mental and spiritual vision. So far as the 
 pupil may need to be supplied through human channels 
 with the inspiration which shall impel him to make use of 
 
 91 
 
9 2 INC/DENTAL EDUCATION. 
 
 his opportunities, I would say that it is the teacher's business 
 intelligibly to point the precept, " Know the Lord." This, I 
 conceive he w T ill surely do by a faithful adherence to the rule 
 that the development of hidden principles is incidental to the 
 teaching of obvious facts. 
 
 The direct teaching of facts or objects is conscious learning 
 to the pupil, because it consists in a definite addition to his 
 fund of knowledge. The incidental development of princi- 
 ples is indirect teaching and unconscious learning, because it 
 seems at first to be nothing more than the orderly arrange- 
 ment of knowledge. As the learner, however, becomes famil- 
 iar with this orderly arrangement of knowledge, the princi- 
 ples of harmony and unity on which it depends become 
 recognized by him as being themselves the most substantial 
 of facts. Although at a previous stage of his progress he 
 might have spurned their announcement as the preaching of 
 mere abstractions or purely subjective notions, he now values 
 them as being in his own experience the most permanent 
 of realities. Thus he is qualified to act in his turn the part 
 of an intelligent truth-teacher to those who may still be in 
 bondage to the beggarly elements of a comparatively super- 
 ficial life and knowledge. 
 
 The science of language, being a metaphysical science, is 
 of course one in which we cannot look for such an early 
 appreciation of principles as in the mathematical and more 
 obviously physical departments of knowledge. In all alike a 
 hint may be taken from the recipe of the facetious cuisinier, 
 "first catch the fish." The " raw material" is of course, in 
 all, the basis not only of observation, but of communication. 
 To the pupil, at least, the teacher ought always to be wiser 
 than his books, — the virtual embodiment of the truth which 
 they profess to illustrate. In contemplating language as the 
 vehicle, and thought as the material of education, let us re- 
 member that while the science of language is practically in- 
 separable from the science of thought, it is truly subordinate 
 to it ; and let us accordingly be prepared to inculcate, at the 
 
INCIDENTAL EDUCATION. 93 
 
 very outset, the view that thoughts or ideas do not lose their 
 rank as things or objects, merely by being reduced, and as it 
 were refined, into a concentrated form of experience, so that 
 they can be carried in the memory along with their associ- 
 ated words. There may be a transient mysticism in such 
 teaching, but even this may be regarded as an incidental 
 advantage in a doctrine so fundamentally important. Even 
 children cannot too early realize the truth that knowledge in 
 the distance is necessarily mystical, nor be too early guarded 
 against confounding mysticism with absurdity. Their inter- 
 est will be more likely to be stimulated than checked by this 
 simple, straightforward policy, not only in the study of lan- 
 guage, but in that of every other science which can be made 
 the subject of language. By their unsophisticated instru- 
 mentality, let us doubt not, even teachers may be incidentally 
 aided in developing the order of wisdom out of our chaos of 
 knowledge, so that the world will again be able to accept and 
 careful to cherish the now discarded maxim, Scientiarum 
 janitrix grammatical Grammar is the jani tress of the 
 sciences. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "Add to knowledge temperance." — 2 Pet. i. 6. 
 
 The knowledge which answers a need, 
 Is that which wise learners will love : 
 
 Where our nature is wanting indeed, 
 May its guidance be sought from above ! 
 
 For who of us fathoms his wants ? 
 
 Who sees through the crowd of his cares, 
 And, in fairest or gloomiest haunts, 
 
 To meet each in its order prepares ? 
 
 Man's cravings, of hunger and thirst, 
 For action, and thought, and repose, 
 
 In their freshness rank each as the first ; 
 And of each, by its objects, he knows. 
 
 Such knowledge avails him not long : 
 In physical concert it stands, 
 
 And ensures not the nutriment strong 
 Which the flight of the spirit demands. 
 
 That nutriment still, as a child, 
 Truth's earnest explorer shall find, 
 
 And with knowledge imbibe, unbeguiled 
 By the adjuncts of matter or mind. 
 
 So reaching from every height 
 The knowledge in feeling begun, 
 
 Will he soon in the verdict unite, 
 — There is no new thing under the sun.* 
 
 But gaining by staff and by rod 
 The comfort which all things augment, 
 
 He will know of the only true God, 
 And of Jesus, the Christ He hath sentf 
 
 * Eccles. i. 9. t John xvii. 2. 
 
 94 
 
THE EXPENDITURE OF EXPLANATION. 
 
 " From the fact that they had Reason in abundance, they were somewhat 
 chary of reasons. Their thinking, indeed, gives us the solid, nutritious, en- 
 riching substance of Thought, .... and especially avoids the thinness and 
 juicelessness which are apt to characterize the greatest efforts of the under- 
 standing, when understanding is divorced from character." — E. P. Whipple, 
 on the Thinkers of the Age of Elizabeth. 
 
 IN the Scriptures of the New Testament, besides the gen- 
 eral commendations of the spirit of unsuspecting charity 
 on the part of all men toward their fellow-beings, we find 
 particular occasions or modes mentioned for its exercise. 
 We are distinctly exhorted to give alms of our material and 
 intellectual substance as well as of our spiritual sympathy, 
 with the view, doubtless, of leading us to realize in ourselves 
 the riches of the true spiritual charity, which cannot be main- 
 tained and demonstrated without such outward communica- 
 tion. He who shall petition us for a reason of " the hope 
 that is in us," as well as he who shall come to us for the re- 
 lief of his bodily necessities, if we can believe that he is 
 making his request with a single view to qualifying himself 
 for the discharge of his duties in the Divine sight, is to be 
 treated by us as one of "God's poor" whose claims upon 
 our attention are incontrovertible and imperative. By the 
 neglect of such we lose the opportunity of laying up " treasure 
 in Heaven." This is indeed a consideration of primary and 
 permanent importance to all who may find themselves to 
 be in any degree the stewards of any kind of influence over 
 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 95 
 
9°* THE EXPENDITURE OF EXPLANATION. 
 
 There is, however, another, and an opposite danger which 
 besets all professors of religion, in proportion as they may be 
 remiss in the ever urgent duty of scrutinizing their own 
 motives and rules of action. The vice of officiousness is sure 
 to overtake those in whom slothfulness of spirit has induced 
 a reliance upon the mere letter of religion. Both the nature 
 of their own emotions, and the characteristic circumstances 
 of those with whom they have to deal, will be sure to be mis- 
 interpreted by such, and there must be a correspondingly 
 ignorant misapplication and practical waste of their labor 
 and means. The evils of material thriftlessness which may 
 be thus harbored, and even fostered to the magnitude of 
 oppressive social burdens, are comparatively well known in 
 our day. The danger of fostering a permanent system of 
 intellectual pauperism seems to be less generally deprecated, 
 as being less superficial, and therefore at once less obviously 
 disgraceful to its victims, and more secretly seductive to those 
 who may find in it a source of factitious influence. Its mis- 
 chievous results must doubtless, however, be more extensive, 
 in proportion as its origin and operation are more insidious. 
 "Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is like the 
 brutes that perish." 
 
 The application of the divine precept, "Give not that 
 which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls 
 before swine," must be to some extent obvious to almost all. 
 The great difficulty here, as in the observance of every literal 
 precept of social duty, is that of remembering upon all occa- 
 sions that our own impressions of character may be at fault, 
 even where they appear to be most distinct. If, when com- 
 pelled by the conduct of our fellow-beings, according to our 
 best interpretation of it, to treat them as insensible beings, we 
 are careful to bear in mind that our interpretation may never- 
 theless be deficient, the harshness of our demeanor will not 
 be aggravated by the spirit of arrogance. Whether, then, 
 the discipline which we have to administer be that of neglect 
 or that of attention, its outlay must evidently, by the avoid- 
 
THE EXPENDITURE OF EXPLANATION. 97 
 
 ance of futile exasperation, be economically adapted to any 
 remaining sensibility of the recipient. The sources of health- 
 ful feeling, which are the sources of accuracy in thought as 
 well as of harmony in action, will thus be as effectually 
 reached and stimulated as they can be by human agency. 
 
 As the work of education in both young and old consists 
 in the development of the power of independent observation 
 and reflection, so the labor of explanation may be said ever to 
 resolve itself into one of mere suggestion. Dictation, in mat- 
 ters of opinion, ever implies officiousness, or the zeal which 
 is u not according to knowledge," if it do not proceed from 
 outright hostility. As the constitution of human society 
 approaches the ideal of perfection, the old and serviceable 
 trinity, of duty, power and privilege, must still determine the 
 degrees of worldly rank; but in the. administration of an en- 
 lightened charity, the duty, the pow T er and the privilege, must 
 be increasingly manifested, as to their merely social bearings, 
 in the mere labor of making suggestions. Not the less, how- 
 ever, will the continual fruitfulness of all feeling, thought, 
 and expression, depend upon the spiritual vigilance which 
 shows itself equally in the anticipation of all genuine de- 
 mands upon its resources, and in the avoidance of all offi- 
 cious wastefulness. "Wisdom is profitable to direct."* 
 " Wisdom is justified of her children." f " In thy light shall 
 we see light." % 
 
 * Eccles. x. 10. t Matt. xi. 19. J Ps. xxxvi. 9. 
 
 9 G 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 " Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching 
 and admonishing one another." — Col. iii. 16. 
 
 START not, O gentle reader ! and frown not, O strong- 
 minded ! at any seeming incongruity in the terms of 
 our title. Even among those to whom we may seem to 
 be confounding beginning with ending, opin- 
 Umty and scope j ong ma y jjff er as to which is the beginning 
 
 of the subject. J & & 
 
 and which the ending ; and is it not always 
 worthy of commemoration that extremes of experience, save 
 as contingent upon extravagancies of conduct, are secretly and 
 harmoniously correlated ? Even Etymology indicates that the 
 most contrasted objective terms are, or express, but opposite 
 termini of practical truth ; and Cosmography assures us that 
 the North and South Poles are but a sort of Siamese Twins. 
 Let us see if we cannot so identify the world of Education 
 with that of Conversation, as to give to both of those terms a 
 vitality and an interest which we too often fail to find in the 
 imperfect abstractions or the capricious developments which 
 they are made to represent. 
 
 First, as to motives. In both we have at 
 
 A view from within. * -, , .,, ,. , 
 
 first to deal with the comparatively super- 
 ficial love of man and the dependent desire for human appro- 
 bation, rather than with the deeper-seated love of God and 
 the more independent aspiration for abstract truth ; while in 
 both, with the development or manifestation of independence 
 of character, the labor of exhortation and dictation will be 
 replaced by that of intelligent demonstration and candid in- 
 98 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 99 
 
 quiry, as becomes the possessors of an illumination by which 
 all distinctions of personality are thrown into the shade. 
 Alike in Science and in Religion personal authority must 
 give way to that of argument and of a dividual experience, as 
 the neophyte is graduated into the proficient. Abstractly, 
 this consideration may seem almost too simple and obvious 
 to demand mention ; but in practice it must be acknowledged 
 that it is very often lost sight of, owing to the imperfection 
 of prevailing theories inducing imperfection of practice. One 
 of these imperfections we may now pause to contemplate. 
 
 Thought is superior to language. But it 
 becomes practically inferior in the experi- Hidden errors, and 
 
 r 1 1 , 1 i 1 the hidden clue of 
 
 ence of any who have not learned, or who h 
 do not bear in mind, that they are indeed 
 two distinct things. Speech being but the means of our 
 meaning, the mere vehicle of the treasures of mind, should 
 never be pursued or paraded as an end. When we speak, 
 we should speak as those who are trying to be silent; 
 and not, even when silent, be silent as those whose powers 
 are consumed by the desire to speak. We have too much 
 lost the meaning of the sacred proverb, " A fool uttereth 
 all his mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till after- 
 ward." It is only by a continual comparison of our words 
 with our meaning, that we can assure ourselves that we are 
 indeed willing to be still, and possessing our souls in patience, 
 while giving vent to our feelings in speech. This consider- 
 ation brings to our view a more general principle, of which 
 the distinction between thought and speech is but a single 
 aspect or illustration ; namely, that primary condition of all 
 human consciousness, the distinction between subjective and 
 objective truth. These terms have heretofore been too ex- 
 clusively the property of the metaphysician. The common 
 mind seems now preparing to assert its right to their use, 
 and to profit by the observation that Thought relatively to 
 Language is Subjective, and Language relatively to Thought, 
 Objective. 
 
ICO CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 The whole mystery of these terms lies in their relativity. 
 Thought, although subjective in its relation to language, is, in 
 accordance with a more or less prevailing sentiment among 
 investigators in all ages until our own, objective in its relation 
 to the Thinker. It is the bane of modern Philosophy, as rep- 
 resented by the now dominant school of Reid and Hamil- 
 ton, that it fails to recognize the distinct existence of ideas 
 as the immediate objects both of reflective Consciousness and 
 of direct Perception. The assumed alternative, that external 
 things are the immediate objects of Perception, is essentially 
 absurd and suicidal, since it plainly involves the assumption 
 that the mind, or percipient subject, is in direct contact with 
 things as they are, and the inevitable inference that we per- 
 ceive more than we either understand or remember, and are 
 in fact unconsciously omniscient. There are indeed the ab- 
 stract ideas, which, as the objects of Memory and the mate- 
 rials of Imagination, are distinguishable from the concrete ideas 
 of actual Perception, and which by reason of their prior in- 
 corporation with the mind may be termed subjective, rela- 
 tively to those which are the immediate results of present 
 Perception. But this subjectivity is simply identical with 
 that of all Thought to all Language, the materials of language 
 being, as is now conclusively established, wholly supplied by 
 those external impressions in which all men most unmistaka- 
 bly agree, and subsequently subjectively refined pari passu 
 (even-paced) with the refinement of Thought. It extends no 
 farther, because a healthy Memory and Imagination follow so 
 closely in the wake of Vision, that there can be no practical 
 discrimination between their objects for individual purposes. 
 As a rule, old ideas become continually in themselves more 
 objective and obsolete, and seem to retain their subjective 
 vitality only by the continued development of mind resulting 
 from continued observations upon life and nature, and the re- 
 tention of old terms of language in correspondingly extended 
 significations. "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
 away." The universal subordination of the Objective to the 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. IOI 
 
 Subjective, including that of parts to wholes, and indirectly at 
 least that of individuals to communities, is the only intelligible . 
 clue of approach toward the perfection in which all u that 
 which is in part shall be done away." 
 
 The independence of Thought upon Lan- The precedence 
 guage being thus, as it were, a constituent part of thought. 
 of healthy, human character, must be cherished as a leading 
 motive in every worthy labor both of language and of thought, 
 and so become a most important bond of union and law of 
 relationship between the great and greatly unknown provinces 
 of human Conversation and human Education. Let us now 
 turn more particularly to an examination of the materials 
 which are common to both. 
 
 Here again we are met by the relativity and 
 
 , External aspects. 
 
 seemingly merely verbal nature of intellectual 
 distinctions, the consideration of first and final causes of ac- 
 tions being inseparable from any earnest consideration of 
 their nature and value. We cannot, that is, pretend to draw 
 a fixed line here between motives and materials ; but by 
 making due allowance for the subordination and inherent im- 
 becility of language as the mere tool of thought, we shall 
 doubtless be enabled to proceed both more intelligently and 
 more hopefully than they who cripple their own minds by 
 secretly imputing to Thought the limitations of Language. 
 
 For the proper materials both of Conversa- 
 tion and of Education we must doubtless look , ! e Istmct, °" a 
 
 relative one, de- 
 Withoilt Ourselves, aS for the motives of both pending on the men- 
 
 we have had to look within ourselves. The ! al position of the 
 
 inquirer. 
 
 progressive enlargement of the internal realm 
 by the progressive subjection of the external, inevitably occa- 
 sions a verbal and objective confusion of those realms, where 
 self-knowledge or wisdom does not keep pace with the know- 
 ledge of things ; but the subordination of the objective to the 
 subjective is here also the sufficient law of order, as well as 
 of illimitable progress. That knowledge of external things 
 which may be already at any time attained by any, is definite 
 9 » 
 
102 CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 and objective as compared with that which is as yet unat- 
 tained, and therefore as yet, in its unknown relation to the 
 same explorer, purely mystical and subjective. Objects of 
 aspiration in some being often objects of attainment in others, 
 the utility both of Conversation and of Education thus of 
 course lies largely in the fact that our shortest road to the 
 unknown truths even of external nature is often through the 
 minds of other people. Hence it may well be questioned 
 whether the study of Thought in its objective aspects has 
 ever received that place of primary importance in the work 
 of Education and in the display of Conversation which rightly 
 belongs to it. An objective Science of Mind is plainly one 
 of the indispensable materials of both, if perfection, or. even 
 if progress, be possible in either. 
 
 As regards the purely external world the 
 distinction between subjective and objective 
 truth may be defined as identical with that between sub- 
 stance and quality. Here we again discover the subtle and 
 shifting trait of relativity , — the substance, {quod stat subter, 
 as Coleridge writes,) ever retiring from Perception into the 
 realm of Imagination, behind the new qualities which it suc- 
 cessively gives off as it were to the investigating mind. The 
 materials both of Conversation and of Education must clearly 
 be for the most part, as regards the external world, deriva- 
 tive rather than immediate, or essentially intellectual rather 
 than sensational. The laws of Mind are from first to last 
 our chief guides and standards for classifying and estimating 
 the said materials. Those materials are thus broadly and 
 simply divisible into objects of Introspection and objects of 
 Perception ; the law of relativity, as already intimated being 
 our safeguard from confusion, by allotting to the definite and 
 demonstrable educts of thought which most largely influence 
 practice, the rank of objective perceptions, while reserving 
 that of subjective imaginations for the more vague but hope- 
 ful impressions which govern theory. Who can fail to see in 
 these contrasting and yet co-operating elements of Mind, — 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 103 
 
 the one deriving its inspiration from within and the other 
 from without — a true sexual relationship, for which it may 
 be the highest temporal significance of sex corporeal to serve 
 as a symbol? It is certain that the law of mental increase is 
 often strangely overlooked in the contemplation of its results. 
 Said Dr. Johnson in his appreciating biography of the accom- 
 plished and indefatigable John Dryden, " A writer who has 
 attained his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre. 
 Of an opinion which is no longer doubted, the evidence 
 ceases to be examined. Of an art universally practiced, the 
 first teacher is forgotten. Learning once made popular is no 
 longer learning ; it has the appearance of something which 
 we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to 
 rise from the field which it refreshes. To judge rightly of 
 an author we must transport ourselves to his time, and ex- 
 amine what were the wants of his contemporaries and what 
 were his means of supplying them. That which is easy at 
 one time was difficult at another."* The light of inspiration 
 becomes inappreciable alike behind us and before us, where 
 attainment is not constantly combined with and subordinated 
 to aspiration. 
 
 The duality of mind at the contemplation 
 of which we thus arrive, is perhaps suffi- of ™ e n d Ub ° rdinati ° n 
 ciently represented for most occasions by the 
 distinction between abstract and concrete ideas ; the abstract 
 being ever the leaders in the common progress, and leaving 
 to the concrete the function of expression. The first Rule of 
 Arithmetic, for instance, is Addition, (not Numeration, which, 
 as its etymology indicates, is more justly to be regarded as a 
 synonym for the whole science) which deals wholly in con- 
 crete numbers. When, in the labor of adding or numerating, 
 we reach the number Ten, we cannot proceed farther, accord- 
 ing to the received system of notation, without introducing the 
 Rule of Multiplication, in which, as is well understood, an 
 
 * Similar remarks may be found in Dr. Whewell's Novum Organon Re- 
 navatuniy Bk. 2, ch. 5, § 4 ; ch. 6, § 3 ; Bk. 3, ch. 4, § 4. 
 
104 CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 abstract number is always necessary as " Multiplier." 
 Everywhere the subjective faculty of Introspection or Imag- 
 ination must reinforce the objective faculty of Perception or 
 outward Observation, or Science must stagnate, Conversation 
 become purposeless and vapid, and Education futile. 
 
 incentives to as- Although the pursuit of objects or economy 
 piration. f materials will doubtless ever be the more 
 
 successful when subordinated to the culture of motives, by as 
 much as the known appearance falls short of the unknown 
 reality, yet the contemplation of prospective privileges and dis- 
 tant glories is an important aid to aspiration, especially when 
 our imperfect vision may be assisted by the descriptions and 
 suggestions of more experienced and far-sighted explorers of 
 truth. To a want of faith in our divinely bestowed, — or at 
 least, reverently and thankfully be it spoken, to our divinely 
 purchased and practically possible, — capacity, ever increas- 
 ingly to comprehend the secrets of the universe without us 
 and within us, we may attribute that general superficiality of 
 the social instinct which constrains mankind to court misery 
 in crowds, while the riches of nature rot in her ample and 
 luxuriant wildernesses. Ignorance makes us miserable, and 
 misery, while loving company, naturally measures that chief 
 blessing rather by the quantity than by the quality, seeking to 
 satisfy in the attainable extent and diversity, its cravings for 
 the too unattainable intensity and geniality. Hence, as has 
 been well observed, while older countries are " groaning 
 under the necessity of contributing to the support of an ex- 
 cessive population," the progress of settlement and civilization 
 " amidst virgin lands, forests and waters, is of an almost geo- 
 logical slowness."* Let us not conclude the consideration 
 of our world-embracing theme without adverting to the anti- 
 cipations of that eminent patriarch of Science, Sir John 
 Herschel, of the results we may hope to realize when the 
 individual discipline of mind and the general freedom of com- 
 
 *" Primeval Forests of the Amazons," N Monthly Mag. vol. 128; LlT- 
 TELL's Living Age, vol. 78. 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION 1 05 
 
 munion shall make Conversation truly profitable and Educa- 
 tion truly familiar. 
 
 " There is something in the contemplation of general laws 
 which powerfully persuades us to merge individual feeling, 
 and to commit ourselves unreservedly to their disposal ; w r hile 
 the observation of the calm, energetic regularity of nature, 
 the immense scale of her operations, and the certainty with 
 which her ends are attained" (/. £., the perception of estab- 
 lished order, as the wary writer might perhaps have expressed 
 himself had he not written before the dangers of Pantheism 
 were so distinctly manifested as now) " tends irresistibly to 
 tranquilize and reassure the mind and render it less suscepti- 
 ble to repining, selfish and turbulent emotions. And this it 
 does, not by debasing our nature into weak compliances and 
 abject submission to circumstances, but by filling us, as from 
 an inward spring, with a sense of nobleness and power which 
 enables us to rise superior to them by showing us our strength 
 and innate" (potential) " dignity, and by calling upon us for 
 the exercise of those powers and faculties by which we are 
 susceptible of the comprehension of so much greatness, and 
 which form, as it were, a link between ourselves and the best 
 and noblest benefactors of our species, with whom we hold 
 communion in thoughts, and participate in discoveries which 
 have raised them above the level of their fellow-mortals, and 
 brought them nearer to their Creator." — Discourse on the 
 Study of Natural Philosophy, 1 83 1 . 
 
 " That Astronomers should congregate to talk of stars and 
 planets ; Chemists, of atoms ; Geologists, of strata, is natural 
 enough. But what is there of equal mutual interest, equally 
 connected with and equally pervading all they are engaged 
 upon, which causes their hearts to burn within them for mu- 
 tual communication and unbosoming? Surely, were each of 
 us to give utterance to all he feels, we would hear the Chem- 
 ist, the Astronomer, the Physiologist, the Electrician, the Bot- 
 anist, the Geologist, all with one accord, and each in the lan- 
 guage of his own science, declaring not only the wonderful 
 
106 CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION. 
 
 works of God disclosed by it, but the delight which their dis- 
 closure affords him, and the privilege he feels it to be to have 
 aided in it. This is indeed a magnificent induction, a consil- 
 ience* there is no refuting. It leads us to look onward 
 through the long vista of time, with chastened but confident 
 assurance that Science has still other and nobler work to do 
 than any she has yet attempted ; work which, before she is 
 prepared to attempt, the minds of men must be prepared to 
 receive the attempt — prepared, I mean, by an entire convic- 
 tion of the wisdom of her views, the purity of her objects, and 
 the faithfulness of her disciples." — Address to the British 
 Association for the Advanceme?tt of Science, 1845. 
 
 Equally hopeful are the utterances of less famous voices of 
 our Western world. Onef of these may perhaps here suffice. 
 
 " The highest Science must eventually exhibit a unity 
 which shall correspond with that of Reality. Indications are 
 not entirely wanting of an approaching re-union between the 
 two great branches of Investigation — those which concern 
 respectively the Material and the Spiritual domains of nature. 
 Our present arbitrary division necessitates a one-sided devel- 
 opment of the scientific faculties of the mind. Physical and 
 Metaphysical study being each vitally connected with the 
 whole of Science, it is only by the simultaneous pursuit of 
 
 both, that the inquirer can fit himself for either 
 
 The recognition which is to come of the omnipotence of Love 
 and Thought on the one hand, and of the undeveloped capa- 
 bilities of the lowest human being on the other, will be ac- 
 companied I think, whether as cause or as effect, by a new 
 
 * "The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an induction obtained 
 from one class of facts coincides with an induction obtained from another 
 different class. . . . The Consilience of our inductions gives rise to a con- 
 stant convergence of our Theory towards Simplicity and Unity. . . . 
 That rules springing from remote and unconnected quarters should leap 
 to the same point, can only arise from that being the point where truth re- 
 sides." — Whewell, Nov. Org. Ren., B. 2, ch. 5. 
 
 f The author's much lamented friend and kinsman, the late Philip Phy- 
 sick Randolph — 1869. 
 
CONVERSATION AND EDUCATION, 107 
 
 era of Science, Philosophy, Philanthropy and Religion. In 
 their present condition, Science denies the existence of a spir- 
 itual world ; Philosophy merely affirms the existence of that 
 world ; Philanthropy is without a scientific basis for her effort, 
 and Faith is blind to her own power. In the future which 
 we anticipate, the Man of Science will recognize the conti- 
 nent of permanent Fact and invariable Law which is the fair- 
 est portion of his domain ; the Philosopher will pass beyond 
 the mere recognition of that region, and carry into its explo- 
 ration the patience and humility which his compeer has dis- 
 played in a lower field ; the Philanthropist will commence 
 his labor for Man in the study of the Science of Man ; and 
 the Believer will gather the full import of the good tidings 
 which are his all in all." 
 
 Courteous and patient reader ! let the depth Deprecatory and 
 of this borrowed introspection, and the large- hortatory, 
 ness of this borrowed aspiration, account for the discursive 
 and partial manner in which only we have been able to deal 
 with so large a subject, and avail to palliate any occasional 
 irregularity in the flow of expression where the continuity of 
 meaning may upon examination be found unbroken. Let us 
 be content with bearing all timely witness, and lending all 
 possible aid, to the progressive transmutation of our human 
 and too discordant Polytechny into a divine and perfectly har- 
 monious Monotechny ; and let us part in the faith that all the 
 truths of Science, Conversation and Education are among the 
 " all things" of which the zealous but practical Apostle 
 writes as " pertaining to life and godliness," and so qualify 
 all that has been here said either at first or at second hand 
 respecting them, by the confession that if indeed ours, they 
 can only be so, as the same inspired penman further writes, 
 (when rightly read) "of his divine power which is given unto 
 us through the knowledge of Him that hath called us by glory 
 and virtue." — 2 Pet. i, 3. 
 
 1868. 
 
4?fl 
 
 G 
 
 AN ASPIRATION. 
 
 " Let us go on to perfection." — Heb. vi. i. 
 
 Goal of devotion, and Spring of affection ! 
 
 Quiet our terror, and quicken our hope : — ■ 
 Rise like a sun for our light and direction : — 
 
 Banish the darkness wherein we yet grope ! 
 
 Palpable darkness still hovers around us, 
 
 Braving the brightness of thy blessed strength : 
 
 Come in thy fullness before it confound us, 
 Shine on thy chosen, and save us, at length ! 
 
 Voices behind us, and pitfalls before us, 
 
 Hide in the clouds which dispute thy design. 
 
 Break their besetments, and richly restore us, 
 Ere their contagion our faith undermine. 
 
 Where is our standard if Thou shalt forsake us? 
 
 How shall we rally without a device ? 
 What can devices of men but unmake us, 
 
 Ordered themselves as by falling of dice ? 
 
 Chance-born, if ever chance lives in thy system, 
 Diverse and fleeting as hues of the morn, 
 
 How can they lure their observers to wisdom, 
 Past the brief twilight they rose to adorn ? 
 
 Not as strange gods shall thy sons climb to glory, 
 Parted in empire, or hostile in aim : 
 
 One in their nature, and one in their story, 
 One Love shall bind them, an infinite same. 
 
 Rise for the seed of thy holy election ! 
 
 Scatter the desperate spirits of ill ! 
 God of the just ! for thy name is Perfection, 
 
 Gather thine own to repose in thy will ! 
 
 108