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THE HUMAN 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 
 
 "That we do know." — John hi. 11. 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODOEE F. WEIGHT, Ph.D. 
 
 IZHkjK 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B, LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 1892. 
 

 Copyright, 1892, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When the Master, who was always teaching 
 men about their relation to God, said to Kico- 
 demus, " We speak that we do know," the words 
 may have seemed an overstatement. K his 
 auditor had imbibed the scepticism of the later 
 academies which taught that there could be no 
 conviction, — and this thoughtful teacher of the 
 Jews probably knew of the current teaching that 
 every sentence must be introduced with a per- 
 haps, — he may have deemed the declaration 
 naive, as many now view it. 
 
 A recent writer, whose book is a healthful 
 combination of theology and common sense, has 
 said of the analytic habit that, " While it tends 
 to accuracy of reasoning, it too often seems to 
 liquefy the mind and incapacitate it for retaining 
 the impress of any conviction except that knowl- 
 edge is difficult." 1 
 
 1 The Rev. P. H. Steenstra, D.D., in " The Being of God as 
 Unity and Trinity." Boston, 1891, page 32. 
 
 8 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 It is probable that every student of philosophy 
 has felt something of this aptly termed lique- 
 faction of mind, and has found the first effect 
 of his reading to be a sense of uncertainty on 
 all subjects. In some cases this doubt is per- 
 manent and causes one regretfully or disdain- 
 fully, as the case may be, to leave to the less 
 enlightened the privilege of expressing them- 
 selves apodictically. Instructors in philosophy 
 have some responsibility here, especially when 
 they advise students to adopt that system of 
 thought which promotes the easiest life, thus 
 instilling at once agnosticism and epicureanism. 
 
 In the following pages I have endeavored to 
 solve, by means within the reach of all, the 
 problems which present themselves to him who 
 seeks to know man and his relation to God, 
 hoping thus to be of some use in resisting the 
 tendency of studious minds to cast oft faith, and 
 in leading them to build on firm foundations 
 houses which shall be both sanctuaries and 
 fortresses. 
 
 The word of God is frequently referred to, 
 but undogmatically, and many writers are cited, 
 as will sufficiently appear without giving a list 
 of them. No quotations from Swedenborg have 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 been made, because I have written in the spirit 
 of his works without consulting them. 
 
 This little treatise would not be added to the 
 number of those which already exist in this 
 field of inquiry if one of them were known to 
 cover the ground here gone over. I have made 
 the chapters as brief as possible without leaving 
 them obscure; if, however, the third be found 
 wearisome, its concluding page will be sufficient 
 for the rapid reader's purpose. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 1* 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Philosophy variously denned ; its change of aim from time 
 to time — "Wisdom and the word oo<j>ia, its origin from 
 tasting, its first duty to ohey the oracle " Know thy- 
 self," why essential in knowledge — Purpose of the 
 treatise 11 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 SELFHOOD. 
 
 Explanation of terms suus,privus, and proprius, their Greek 
 equivalents — Ownership an instinct, grounds of its neces- 
 sity — Development of the sense of selfhood 17 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 THE SELF NOT THE FLESH. 
 
 Socrates instructing Alcibiades, the doctrine of the an- 
 cients — The self mental and superior to the flesh ... 22 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 THE SELF OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Consciousness defined and its testimony examined — Per- 
 sonal identity treated by Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Au- 
 gustine, Scholastics, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Wolflf, 
 Locke, Butler, Keid, Hume, Berkeley, Tucker, Ham- 
 ilton, Voltaire, Condillac, Edwards, Kant, Fichte, Her- 
 bart, Schelling, Hegel, Ancillon, Taylor, Cousin, Kos- 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 mini, Hickok, Schopenhauer, Ulrici, Lotze, Ferrier, 
 Mansel, J. S. Mill, Gatien-Arnoult, Spencer, Green, 
 Bowen, Hedge, McCosh, Malone, Seth, Olssen, Knight, 
 Momerie, and W. James— Criticism of all and sum- 
 mary view stated 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN A RECIPIENT. 
 
 Meaning stated — Metempsychosis opposed, its position ex- 
 amined in views of Walker, Knight, Schopenhauer, 
 Hume, Emerson, and Hedge, weakness of the theory — 
 Other forms of life recipient, so with man the microcosm 
 unless he be Divine — Testimony of experience — The pro- 
 prium, each one's form of reception, more than the 
 stream of thought — Each one given a place by this fact 
 — Heredity — Necessity of a general plan of human ser- 
 vice, ethical value of this altruistic doctrine contrasted 
 with that of metempsychosis 100 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAN REACTIVE. 
 
 Recipiency must be active or passive, passive with Budd- 
 hists, Quietism, Spinozism — Active view defended — 
 Not original, but received activity — Illustrated from 
 nature and the body, experience of the race and the in- 
 dividual — Newman's account of the received life . . . 125 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAN A FREE AGENT. 
 
 Freedom defined, determinism criticised in views of Spi- 
 noza, Edwards, Hume, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Bain — 
 Affirmative view of "Wundt, its moral value with Kant 134 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 man's inheritance. 
 Not to be doubted, Kibot's statistics vindicated by reason 
 — Calvinistic dogma of election destructive of freedom 
 and confusing evil with sin — What is transmitted — 
 Scientific rejection of freedom criticised, a true education 
 leads to control of tbe inheritance 151 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE POWERS OF MAN. 
 
 How many primary powers, triple divisions of Hamilton 
 and others criticised — Will and understanding treated, 
 confirmation of bodily analogy, will as designer, intellect 
 as guide, their conjunction in act — Downward rather 
 than upward inflow of life, use as the law of right 
 activity — Genesis of evil, Spencer's confusion of evil 
 with good, purification of self from selfishness .... 163 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE. 
 
 Ancient perception of the Divine — Passage to polytheism, 
 in ancient and in Christian history, the effect of degra- 
 dation — Arguments for the existence of God examined, 
 best of these arguments from man — No original God- 
 consciousness, but the Divine inferable from man's 
 recipiency, reactivity, and freedom — The creative Divine, 
 infinite love, wisdom, and usefulness — The manifestation 
 of God in the Christ the only perfect theistic argument 
 — Spirit of the Christ, doubts considered, gross concep- 
 tions of His work criticised, the Divine personality as 
 so shown, agnostic substitutes for Christian faith ex- 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 amined — The revelation perfect in itself and in its deal- 
 ing with evil — No limitation of God as so exhibited, 
 Arnold criticised, avoidance of crude anthropomorphism 180 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MAN IMMORTAL. 
 
 Not a fact of consciousness, man's knowledge of the Di- 
 vine plan in his creation, misconceptions reviewed — Man 
 as a spirit co-operative with God, ancient knowledge of 
 immortality, the teaching of the Christ, later return to 
 physical view — Causes of doubt — Inferences as to the 
 future life, death and its effect, the spirit now immortally 
 alive, highest possible aim so afforded 205 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 MAN IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The self in the teaching of the Christ, its recipient reac- 
 tivity and freedom, division of man's powers, the design 
 of utility, evil in man, man as image of God, man as 
 microcosm, advent of the Divine in man, immortality, 
 relation of God, spirit, and matter, vital influence, 
 miracles , 217 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 THE KNOWABLB. 
 
 Need of rational views, criticism displacing dogmatism — 
 Man may know spirit in himself, also the body and thus 
 matter, also the Christ and thus the Divine — The last 
 explained by friendship — God otherwise unknowable, 
 example of Mozoomdar, mysticism once despised, 
 rational mysticism beneficent — The three knowables in 
 their vital relation a unit 254 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Definitions of philosophy have varied in a 
 marked and significant manner from the begin- 
 ning to the present day. Men have been wont 
 to define it as the quest of that which at any 
 time they most desired. With Pythagoras it 
 was the aim of those who sought neither glory 
 nor gain, but to observe; with Plato it was a 
 resembling of the Deity, so far as that is possible 
 to man ; with Aristotle it was the science of 
 being; with Bacon it was that part of human 
 learning which referred to the reason; with 
 Hobbes it was the knowledge of effects by their 
 causes; with Leibnitz it was the science of 
 sufficient reasons; with Adam Smith it dealt 
 with the connecting principles of nature ; with 
 Kant it treated of the relations of all knowledge 
 to the necessary ends of human reason; with 
 Fichte it had the absolute ego for its ground; 
 with Schelling it was the science of the absolute; 
 with Hamilton it was the study of facts, laws, 
 and results ; with Hegel it was the thinking of 
 
 thinking.; with Morell it determined the funda- 
 
 11 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mental certainty of human knowledge; with 
 Lewes it was the explanation of phenomena; 
 with Schwegler it was reflection; and with 
 Ueberweg and Spencer philosophy is the science 
 of principles. 
 
 All these definitions, and many more which 
 might be gathered, for every philosophical writer 
 has given one, are true, and in a sense equally 
 true. They are true if accurately descriptive 
 of the facts as historically represented, for these 
 men were typical men, and their respective defi- 
 nitions of philosophy mark the objects of the 
 best thought of their times. Their rational obser- 
 vations of that which most interested them, each at 
 his own period, constituted their philosophemes. 
 
 If philosophy soared aloft towards the begin- 
 ning and end of all things with Pythagoras, 
 Socrates called it down from the heavens, as 
 Cicero 1 tells us, gave it a place in cities, intro- 
 duced it into men's homes, and forced it to make 
 inquiry into life and morals. Anon it rose 
 again; and so it has gone on, now dogmatic 
 then sceptical, now transcendental then scientific, 
 all the time an infallible indicator of the progress 
 
 1 Tusculan Disputations, Book V., 4. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 of the race, a progress which is thereby shown 
 to have been unsteady but intensely interesting, 
 as it was always intensely earnest. There has 
 been more passion in philosophy than its dev- 
 otees have acknowledged. 
 
 Aristotle gave the most enduring definition, 
 because most free from accidents of time and 
 place, when he pointed out that wisdom {ao<pia, 
 sapientia) was spoken of the greatest excellence 
 in the arts, and also of those men who, not ex- 
 celling in one art, were universally superior in 
 intelligence ; " thus wisdom/' said he, " is the 
 most limited and the most absolute of the 
 sciences ; but, since man is the most noble of all 
 creatures and wisdom relates to that wherein he 
 excels the brutes, therefore wisdom pertains to 
 that which is by nature most worthy of honor, 
 which is intelligence ; wherefore we call Anaxag- 
 oras, Thales, and such men wise." 1 
 
 It would be a profitable study to trace through 
 the languages the root from which is formed the 
 second half of the word " philosophy," noting its 
 kinship with the Greek <ra>^, which means 
 " sure," " clear," as applied to knowledge, and 
 
 1 Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI., chap. vii. 
 2 
 
 7 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with the Latin sapio, sapiens, which means first 
 " to taste," and so to be a keen taster, to be quick 
 in apprehension, to be well informed. The study 
 would lead us to the Anglo-Saxon supan, the Ger- 
 man saufen, and the English sip and sup. Appar- 
 ently, as the child first learns by tasting, putting 
 everything to its mouth, so man has used the word 
 for tasting, of course made from the sound of 
 the lips when taking liquid into the mouth, as 
 the name for all knowledge, and supremely for 
 that which answers the most fundamental ques- 
 tions which from time to time he has been able 
 to frame ; for, as Olympiodorus has reported to 
 us from Aristotle, " we must philosophize ; if we 
 must, we must ; and if we must not, still we 
 must." 1 The non-philosophizing man is brutish. 
 The animal does not question, does not philos- 
 ophize. It is significant that sipping has be- 
 come philosophic and has so long been applied 
 to the getting of wisdom. In Solomon's day a 
 good taste made a wise man. The Proverbs 
 said that as honeycomb is sweet to the taste, 
 so is the knowledge of wisdom ; 2 and we read 
 
 1 Commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, Creuzer's edition, 
 p. 144. 2 Proverbs, xxiv. 13. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 in the Psalms, " How sweet are thy words unto 
 my taste." l 
 
 Philosophy, it would appear, must not lose 
 itself in words, nor mystify the student rather 
 than enlighten him, making him agnostic in a 
 hopeless way ; it must impel him to seek for that 
 which he needs to know in order to rise and to 
 raise others, it must impel him to develop what is 
 best in man, and thereby to make the most of the 
 world, to seek a wisdom which shall be "in him 
 a well of water springing up unto eternal life." 2 
 
 The beginning of such wisdom is evidently 
 to heed the oracle, " Know thyself," which, Pliny 
 says, was inscribed in letters of gold on the 
 temple at Delphi by order of Chilo of Sparta, 
 one of the seven sages. Unless some clear idea 
 of What man is in his own essential self be 
 formed, philosophy must wander in the dark- 
 ness. All other knowledge, if the self be an 
 enigma, is as futile as it is to rule all other 
 things but one's own nature. Unless we know 
 the self we cannot understand the relation which 
 we bear to all else. This is therefore the begin- 
 ning of philosophy. "The geometer has lines 
 
 1 Psalm cxix. 103. a John, iv. 14. 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and figures," said Fichte, " the philosopher only 
 himself." l 
 
 No point has been more difficult in philosophy, 
 though none was more vital. Some have denied 
 the possibility of knowing the self. " The words 
 inscribed on the temple at Delphi have been 
 oracular in vain," said Ferrier. 2 But this self, 
 this " series of faint manifestations," as Spencer 3 
 calls it, must be studied, and can be studied if 
 man be more than a brute. Cicero says that the 
 oracle meant "Know thy soul." 4 We shall 
 find out what it meant if we can find out the 
 self. In attempting so to do, we may take en- 
 couragement from Thomas a Kempis : 6 " An 
 humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to 
 God than a deep search after knowledge." And 
 Professor Schurman 6 has lately wisely said, "It 
 is from its notion of the self, the inevitable centre 
 of everybody's world, that every system of phi- 
 losophy takes its origin and tone." 
 
 1 Sonnenklarer Bericht, Lecture 4. 
 
 2 Institutes, Prop. vii. 4. 
 
 8 First Principles, 4th ed., p. 154. 
 * Tusculan Disputations, I. 22. 
 6 Imitatione, Bk. I., ch. iii. 
 « Belief in God, p. 222. 
 
THE HUMAN 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SELFHOOD. 
 
 The distinction between what is one's own and 
 what is another's, or between what is one's own 
 and what is common property, is everywhere 
 made. The Romans, by their words suus, privus, 
 proprius, clearly indicated ownership and regard 
 to self. It is common to regard privus as ex- 
 pressing the idea of one's own, not another's, 
 which is to put privus in contrast with alienus, 
 and to regard proprius as expressing what is one's 
 own, and not common property, which is to put 
 proprius in contrast with communis. Again, pecu- 
 liaris may be contrasted with universalis, as ex- 
 pressive of one's own rights not shared by all. 
 
 Before the Romans the Greeks had the same 
 b 2* 17 
 
18 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 discernment in using oheToq and tdwq in contrast 
 with drjfioffioq and xowdq respectively, and Idiot; was 
 also contrasted with dUdrptoq. 
 
 It is impossible to think of the universe as 
 having any sort of law in it without admitting 
 the idea of ownership. Animals know their 
 places of rest, their offspring, and their proper 
 food. The ox knoweth his owner, and the sheep 
 the voice of the shepherd. Were it not so, the 
 beasts would not survive a single winter. Men, 
 however rude, know and insist that others shall 
 recognize their right to the fruits of their hunting 
 and their handiwork. Without this sense of 
 ownership they would be inferior to the brutes. 
 Without this the sense of home could never 
 arise. Without this there could be no sense 
 of responsibility to serve others with what one 
 possessed. Without this there would be no 
 nations. The Greeks going to war with Troy 
 because Menelaus had lost his own Helen illus- 
 trate the general sense of property. Amittit 
 merito proprium, qui alienum appetit (" he de- 
 servedly loses his own who covets another's"), 
 said Phsedrus, the fabulist, and no one has ever 
 failed to understand him. 
 
 This recognition of what is one's own is more 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 19 
 
 than the instinct which leads the dog in an 
 Oriental city to defend the portion of narrow and 
 filthy street which is his district, or which causes 
 the bird to utter plaintive cries when her nest of 
 little ones is threatened. With the animal it is 
 irrational and lacks that full sense of the self 
 which enables a man to define it and discuss it, — 
 that is, to understand his own nature. 
 
 The infant is at first possessed only of sensa- 
 tions of pleasure and pain; when at peace he 
 smiles or sleeps, when in pain he cries or writhes ; 
 this is only an instinct with him ; but ere long 
 he learns to distinguish between himself and 
 others, to take an object in his hand and throw 
 it from him, rejoicing in the sense of power, and 
 so he comes to form some idea of the external 
 world. The next step seems to be that of noting 
 the connection between one act and another ; he 
 shakes the rattle and obtains a sound, he cries 
 out and brings the mother to his aid ; it is the 
 sense of causality awaking within him. Finally 
 he learns to distinguish self and self-interest, to 
 make all serve his ends, to know himself as 
 different from others, and to see that he has 
 thoughts and pleasures of his own. As the self 
 thus appears, full humanity is evolved. Before 
 
20 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 this he was as an animal, he is now an incipient 
 man. 
 
 In the development of the race there were no 
 men, properly so called, till consciousness of self 
 arose; when this arose, there was man, and he 
 stood upright, and had dominion over the other 
 animals. As soon as self-consciousness appears, 
 and not till then, there can be self-determination. 
 " One whose action is self-determined is a per- 
 son," said Mulford in " The Nation," quoting 
 from TJlrici. 1 And Heinroth justly says, "With- 
 out consciousness this self would not be I. The 
 brute is a self but no I. I was before I became 
 an I." 2 Everything in nature acts according to 
 laws, is the Kantian idea, man according to con- 
 sciousness of laws. 3 
 
 Not yet to plunge into the great subject of 
 consciousness, I only remark that the most 
 general idea of the self which can be formed is 
 up to this point sufficient. It has always been 
 recognized since philosophy recorded itself, and 
 it is essential to rational humanity. Men philos- 
 ophize in the degree that they use their own 
 privilege of gaining knowledge, and they cannot 
 
 1 Gott und der Mensch , p. 207. 
 
 8 Psychology, p. 27. 'Kritik, p. 575. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 21 
 
 philosophize till they recognize more than sensa- 
 tions of pleasure and pain, more than the exter- 
 nality of other beings and things, more than the 
 causal connection between acts and events, and 
 look upon their own individual natures, in every 
 one a suum, a privum, a proprium. The question, 
 "What is the self? becomes therefore the question, 
 What is one's own solely, and, if he live forever, 
 eternally his own ? 
 
22 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SELF NOT THE FLESH. 
 
 One further distinction, which was an approach 
 to the actual self, was made as the Greeks came 
 gradually to see that a line was to be drawn 
 between the man and his body. To the Ionic 
 School the distinction seems to have been un- 
 known. They were natural philosophers. To 
 Thales all things, man included, seemed to arise 
 from water and to return to it. To Anaximander 
 came the somewhat higher view that all essences 
 came forth from the " unlimited, eternal, and un- 
 determined ground of all things," to which again 
 they returned. Anaximenes, however, sought for 
 a more definite principle, and found it in air. 
 
 Pythagoras and his disciples distinguished 
 their school not only by a rigid moral discipline, 
 but by conceiving of an internal harmony con- 
 trolling all developments and establishing their 
 proportions and relations by the law expressed 
 by number. In accepting also the transmigra- 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 23 
 
 tion of the soul the Pythagoreans would seem to 
 have distinguished soul from body, and we know 
 that they did regard the body as a prison, but 
 this idea was one which they had borrowed from 
 the East, and it did not enter with them into the 
 philosophical teaching for which they are famous. 
 
 "With the Eleatics there is a distinct recogni- 
 tion of being as separate from its manifestations. 
 Xenophanes declared wisely that being must be 
 one, and therefore he condemned the polytheism 
 of his day. Parmenides went further, and main- 
 tained that the one must be fixed and that 
 nothing subject to change could be of it; but he 
 also, when treating of the phenomenal world, 
 found fire, rather than water or air, to be the 
 moving agent. Zeno, as if to reafiirm Par- 
 menides , abiding One, developed with much skill 
 the antinomies of magnitude and movement, in 
 the effort to show that all finite things could be 
 dialectically shown to be full of contradictions, 
 and so unworthy to be regarded in comparison 
 with the infinite and undetermined. 
 
 It is here that one is strongly moved to adopt 
 in full the Hegelian idea that philosophy has 
 passed through the same stages in the race as in 
 the individual. It certainly did begin with mere 
 
24 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 consciousness and natural notions in the Ionics, 
 and did advance to a recognition of being with 
 the Eleatics. We now come certainly to the 
 one who perfectly illustrates Hegel's next step, 
 namely, of becoming (werderi). This is Hera- 
 clitus, with his doctrine of the eternal stream of 
 life in opposition to the fixedness of Parmenides. 
 In the union of greater and less, of centre-seeking 
 and centre-fleeing, Heraclitus found unity form 
 ing and reforming itself without end. The 
 special agent of this movement was fire. 
 
 Not yet, however, had the distinction between 
 flesh and spirit fully appeared, and certainly the 
 Atomists did not make it, though they evolved 
 being per se more fully, as Hegel points out. 
 Empedocles, with his four elements, must be 
 classed with the Ionics, while Anaxagoras, with 
 his doctrine of the world-forming thought (yods), 
 leads the way to the point which, later, the 
 Sophists reached with their full recognition of 
 the ego, joined in their case with contempt for 
 the external world. 
 
 But Socrates, by the length of his demonstra- 
 tion to Alcibiades, implies that the distinction 
 must in his day be taught before it would be 
 acknowledged, — 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 25 
 
 S. " Do you not converse with me ?" A. 
 "Yes." S. "And I with you?" A. "Yes." 
 "It is Socrates who speaks?" "Yes." "And 
 Alcibiades who listens?" "Yes." "Is it not 
 with language that Socrates speaks?" "Yes." 
 " He who uses a thing and the thing used, are 
 not these different ?" " Yes." " Then, does not 
 a man use his whole body ?" " Yes." " A man 
 is therefore different from his body?" "Yes." 
 " What then is the man ?" " I cannot say." 
 " Does anything use the body but the mind ?" 
 " Nothing." " The mind is therefore the man ?" 
 "The mind alone." 1 
 
 This, condensed to one-half its length, was 
 Socrates' lesson. And Plato had no other 
 thought upon this point than his master's. So 
 Aristotle said, " The mind is the man." 2 And 
 Hierocles, the Neo-Platonist, revived Platonism 
 in the words, " Thou art the soul, the body is 
 thine." 3 " We are not bodies," said Cicero, in 
 his first Tusculan Disputation, " nor am I, while 
 saying these things to you, talking to your 
 body." 4 " He who is seen is not the real man," 
 
 1 Plato's First Alcibiades, 129. 2 Nic. Ethics, ix. 8. 
 
 3 Aurea Carmina, 26. * I. 22. 
 
 b 3 
 
26 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 said Macrobius, "but he is the real man by 
 whom that which is seen is ruled." 1 Sir "W. 
 Hamilton concludes a series of such extracts by 
 quoting from Arbuthnot's " Know Thyself," and 
 a few of the lines must not be omitted : 
 
 " This frame compacted with transcendent skill, 
 Of moving joints obedient to my will, 
 Nursed from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree, 
 "Waxes and wastes ; I call it mine, not me. 
 New matter still the mouldering mass sustains, 
 The mansion changed, the tenant still remains ; 
 And from the fleeting stream, repaired by food, 
 Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood." 
 
 This distinction between mind and body rec- 
 ognized, we are brought one step nearer to the 
 actual self, because we are thereby directed to 
 seek for it, not in any part of the body, but in 
 that realm which lies above the bodily, which is 
 not lessened when a part of the body is ampu- 
 tated, and which may and often does endure in 
 strength while the body is going to decay. 
 When we have admitted that it is mental, we 
 have the self in full view. 
 
 1 In Somnium Scipionis, ii. 12. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SELF OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 The self, which is not bodily and not cogniza- 
 ble by bodily sense, is revealed by that faculty 
 which takes note of the mental operations, and 
 which is well named consciousness. One not 
 only knows and desires, but he knows that he 
 knows and desires. He can contemplate his 
 own mind and its varying states. This knowl- 
 edge of knowledge is the consciousness. As 
 Hamilton puts the truth, " Knowing that I know 
 is consciousness." 1 And again he says, "Con- 
 sciousness is to the philosopher what the Bible 
 is to the theologian." 2 " It is like an internal 
 light. It is the knowledge which the thinking 
 subject has of the modifications of its being." 3 
 
 The question as to the actual self is therefore 
 the question, What does the consciousness re- 
 
 1 Metaphysics, Lecture ix. p. 110. 
 
 » Ibid. v. p. 58. 8 Ibid., xi. p. 126. 
 
28 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 veal ? This question was easily answered while 
 men dealt with general views, but when they 
 began to employ more and more subtile analyses, 
 they came to differ and even to doubt. Conse- 
 quently it seems to be necessary to trace the 
 study of consciousness from the ancients down, 
 proving it all and holding fast what is good. 
 
 The first doubt which was raised was as to 
 the connection of conscious moments. At any 
 instant one could say, " I am I, I know that I 
 am I;" but could he say in the light of con- 
 sciousness, " I am the I who was, I am the I who 
 knew, who desired ?" This raised the question 
 of personal identity and made the study of the 
 self turn mainly upon this one point, so that a 
 review must deal largely with this topic, before 
 one can pass to consider others. 
 
 Aristotle makes it evident that this question of 
 personal identity had invaded the Lyceum, for 
 he said, " To be of opinion that a thing which 
 is changed is not when it changes, possesses 
 some truth, but is attended with ambiguity. 
 For that which casts away possesses something 
 of that which is cast away. Let it be granted 
 that a thing does not abide according to quantity, 
 yet we know that all things abide as to form. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 29 
 
 To admit no essence takes away the necessary 
 subsistence of a thing." x 
 
 Here the Stagirite contends that the change 
 which is undergone is not a dissolution, which is 
 not a change, but an extinction, and that in that 
 which is permanent or which endures the change 
 the identity is preserved. If there be nothing 
 which endures, nothing exists except for the 
 instant, and that which only momentarily exists 
 has no subsistence. Every subsisting object, 
 whether animate or inanimate, vindicates its self- 
 identity. Equally so man. 
 
 Plotinus seems to have regarded the query as 
 to identity as already disposed of, for he serenely 
 rhapsodizes in Neo-Platonist fashion : " Often 
 when by an intellectual energy I am roused from 
 the body and converted to myself, and being 
 separated from externals, I retire into the depths 
 of my essence, I then perceive an admirable 
 beauty, and am then vehemently confident that I 
 am of a more excellent condition than that of a 
 life merely animal and terrene." 2 
 
 This merely repeats the saying put by Plato 
 into the mouth of Socrates : " He who knows his 
 
 1 Metaphysics, iv. 5. 2 Descent of Soul, tome iv. 8. 
 3* 
 
30 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 body only, knows that which belongs to him, but 
 does not know himself." 1 
 
 In sharp contrast with the rhetoric of Plotinus 
 is the eager declaration of Augustine : " I know 
 that I am myself, that this I know and love. I 
 fear not Academic arguments which say, "What 
 if you err ? KI err, I am. Mine error proves 
 my being. Though I be one that may err, yet 
 in that I know my being I err not." 2 It must 
 be acknowledged, however, that Augustine did 
 not meet all cavil by his passionate appeal to 
 consciousness ; for if his knowledge were but 
 that of the instant, it was not sufficient, and he 
 was not so successful in his reply to the Academy 
 as was Aristotle, 
 
 The Schoolmen, as skilfully reported to us by 
 Harper, sought to be more thorough : " Person- 
 ality is a substantial mode by which a complete 
 intellectual substance is so individually completed 
 in its own right that it is incommunicable to any 
 other." 3 This is an illogical definition, for a 
 " complete intellectual substance" begs the ques- 
 
 1 First Alcibiades. 
 
 2 City of God, Book XI. cb. xxvi. 
 
 3 Metaphysics of the School, Glossary, article Personality. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 31 
 
 tion by giving to the simple notion " personality," 
 an attribute " complete," which carries with it all 
 that is to be claimed; and the same objection 
 might be made to the word " individually." But 
 the Schoolmen deserve credit for going some- 
 what deeply into the subject when they said, 
 "We are supremely conscious that there is 
 something within us which links the past, so far 
 as memory reaches, to the present in such wise 
 as to give us fullest assurance and certainty that 
 each one of us, during the whole of that defined 
 period, remains personally identical with his own 
 self. This consciousness does not forsake us 
 even in our dreams. We never dream that we 
 are not ourselves. ... Consciousness testifies to 
 the existence of a spiritual something which is 
 permanent and which is the origin of thought, 
 will, and imagination. ... I am aware of phe- 
 nomena that are ever changing; of all these I 
 am conscious ; yet I am equally conscious that 
 the I remains the same through all modifications. 
 The phenomena are not essential to my being, 
 the I is." 1 
 
 This is admirably clear, though it will be 
 
 1 Metaphysics of the School, voL ii. pp. 405, 406. 
 
32 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 found that others doubt the alleged fact that we 
 are conscious of remaining the same through all 
 modifications. Aristotle, with his cautious plea 
 that a part remains, is more safe, because he 
 claims only what he can hold against all comers. 
 
 Now that we are upon the Schoolmen and 
 their authoritative teaching, it may be well to 
 note that the Council of Yienne (France), which 
 met a.d. 1311, decreed that " whoever henceforth 
 shall obstinately presume to assert, defend, or 
 hold that the rationaI : or intellectual soul is not 
 the form of the human body, of itself and essen- 
 tially, is to be accounted for a heretic." This 
 was confirmed by Leo X. in the Lateran Council, 
 1513, and again by Pius IX. in the Brief called 
 Menim, issued June 15, 1857. 1 It is unreasonable 
 to depreciate the Schoolmen. Hampered by 
 authority to be feared and by authority to be 
 preserved they certainly were, and they leaned 
 much too heavily upon their Angelical Doctor, 
 but they retained much that was good in Greek 
 philosophy, and among other things a firm be- 
 lief in personal identity. 
 
 "We reach now, however, a new period which 
 
 1 Quoted by Harper, vol. ii. p. 409. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 33 
 
 had its beginning with Descartes, a period when 
 little more was claimed than the right to reason, 
 and when philosophy looked forward as well as 
 backward, to a new structure rather than to the 
 adornment of the old. 
 
 Descartes said simply, " I, that is, the mind, 
 by which alone I am that I am (sum qui sum), is 
 a thing wholly distinct from the body, much 
 more easily known than the body, and which 
 might clearly be the same that it now is, though 
 the body were not existing." 1 This is plain, 
 except the last part. It is not self-evident that 
 the mind is absolutely independent of the body. 
 It may be alert when the body is asleep or 
 powerless, but this does not justify the much 
 larger assertion that the mind might be the same 
 were the body not existing. The mind without 
 an organ would be like the vision without an 
 eye, it could only potentially exist, and such 
 existence can scarcely be called "the same." 
 
 Descartes was more exact when he said, " I 
 can doubt whether I have a body, yea, whether 
 there be body in the nature of things ; yet it is 
 not allowable for me to doubt that I am or exist, 
 
34 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 so long as I doubt or think." 1 Here he was 
 upon the firm ground of his original proposition, 
 cogito ergo sum., a ground which future idealism 
 would not take from him though scepticism 
 might essay to do so. But Descartes in his 
 principle was only a pupil of Augustine, with his 
 saying, " If I err, I am." Descartes in contrast 
 with the Schoolmen is great; measured by a more 
 ancient standard, his fame diminishes, except as 
 a scientist. 
 
 There is no place in Spinoza's Ethics where 
 one can trace the progress of the doctrine of 
 self, for he excludes it when he says, " When we 
 say that the human mind perceives this or that, 
 we say nothing else than that God, not in so far 
 as He is infinite, but in so far as He is explained 
 by the nature of the human mind, or in so far 
 as He constitutes the essence of the human mind, 
 has this or that idea." 2 He had already said, 
 " The human mind is a part of the infinite in- 
 tellect of God." He adds a request to his 
 readers to defer their decision as to this declara- 
 tion till they have read the whole, but no delay 
 
 1 Meditationes : Objectio Quarta. 
 
 8 Ethics, Smith's Edition, Part II., Prop, xi., Cor. and Schol. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 35 
 
 found Spinoza making man anything more than 
 a mirror in which his Creator surveyed His 
 perfections. " Let us make man" becomes with 
 this pantheistic monist, "Let us make human 
 machinery." The system is a superb theocracy, 
 but the devout Spinoza left no place in it for 
 himself. 
 
 As Descartes repeated Augustine, so Leibnitz 
 renewed the saying, already quoted, of Aristotle. 
 Leibnitz attempted to go further, but with doubt- 
 ful success. He said, " An immaterial being or 
 a spirit cannot be stripped of all perception of 
 its past existence. It has remaining the impres- 
 sions of all that has hitherto come to it, and it 
 has also presentiments of that which will come. 
 That continuation and connection of perceptions 
 makes the same individual a reality, but the 
 same apperceptions (perceptions of past feelings) 
 prove again a moral identity." ' 
 
 Here, in overstating Aristotle's more cautious 
 remark, that a changing thing subsists while 
 changing, Leibnitz has gone so far as to say that 
 a mind cannot lose its memory, when old age 
 affords in every community examples of such 
 
 1 Nouveanx Essais, Lib. II., ch. xxvii. 
 
36 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 loss, and when disease has often obliterated from 
 some mind all recollection of the past. It is true 
 that in no case do one's friends fail to note the 
 continuance of the personality, but to say that 
 this is invariably self-perceived is to exaggerate 
 experience. Moreover, it seems wholly unphilo- 
 sophical to include as evidences of identity pre- 
 sentiments, mere conditional notions of what we 
 shall do to-morrow, along with the impressions 
 of the past. It would seem impossible to admit 
 presentiments to the class of perceptions. 
 
 But, leaving out of account what Leibnitz 
 overstated, we find what is of great and perma- 
 nent value remaining, namely, the sense of 
 identity through the continuation of perceptions, 
 and, included therein as an inseparable part, the 
 sense of accountability for the past. If Augus- 
 tine and Descartes took an ontological view of 
 the self, Aristotle and Leibnitz present the em- 
 piric view. And every one sees the ethical value 
 of the doctrine of personal identity ; for, if this 
 be doubted, even so much as by the suave scep- 
 ticism of Hume, the result is that moral account- 
 ability ceases at once. From Leibnitz forward 
 the doctrine is furnished with the defence that it 
 is essential to ethics, to accountability, and to 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 37 
 
 capability of improvement ; for, if there be no 
 past that is ours, we cannot be instructed by it, 
 nor warned by it, nor encouraged by it ; nor can 
 the poet's word then be accepted, — 
 
 " Men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 1 
 
 Wolff carried the thought no further when he 
 said, " The soul is conscious to itself of itself, 
 and thus of what is in its act or of its acts. The 
 mind may also reflect upon itself and its acts." 2 
 This is a mild way of putting the thought that 
 the mental self possesses itself and is adapted to 
 rule itself. " The mind is its own place," as 
 Milton hath it. 
 
 With Locke the subject was taken up by the 
 strong empirical British mind, and it took on at 
 once a fresh interest. Locke said, "Personal 
 identity consists not in the identity of substance, 
 but in the identity of consciousness. Conscious- 
 ness, as far as ever it can be extended, should it 
 be to ages past, unites existences and actions 
 very remote in time with the same person. In 
 
 1 Tennyson : In Memoriam, i. 
 
 2 Psych. Emp., Part I., sect. 3, ch. i., n. 261. 
 
38 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 consciousness alone consists personal identity, — 
 that is, the sameness of a rational being. Whilst 
 I know by seeing or hearing that there is some 
 corporeal being outside of me, the object of that 
 sensation, I do more certainly know that there is 
 some spiritual being within me that sees and 
 hears." x 
 
 The criticism of these statements is so thor- 
 oughly made by Butler and Reid, who had been 
 stimulated by Hume to use a caution which 
 Locke did not suspect to be necessary, that it 
 may be well to pass on at once, only stopping to 
 point out that, in his desire to avoid the scho- 
 lastic appeal to substance because it is not an 
 object of perception, Locke made an equally 
 serious mistake in ignoring the memory and 
 placing the evidence of identity in that conscious- 
 ness of identity or " identity of consciousness," 
 which is after all the thing to be proved, and 
 which is not proved by the assertion that it 
 always tells us of an inner spiritual being. We 
 may be conscious of such an inner life to-day; 
 we sleep and wake to-morrow with the sense of 
 
 1 Essay on Human Mind, Book II., ch. xxiii., sect. 9, and ch. 
 xxvii., sect. 15. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 39 
 
 an inner being, but, unless memory comes to our 
 aid, these two separated series of moments of 
 consciousness will give no perception of the 
 identity of those inner beings. 
 
 Deferring our notice of Hume till we have 
 brought forward Butler and Eeid as critics of 
 Locke and defenders of personal identity against 
 Hume, we note Butler's remarks annexed to the 
 Analogy, " By reflecting upon that which is my- 
 self now and that which was myself twenty 
 years ago, I discern that they are not two, but 
 one and the same self. Consciousness of per- 
 sonal identity presupposes but cannot constitute 
 personal identity, any more than knowledge can 
 constitute truth which it presupposes. The per- 
 son, of whose existence the consciousness is felt 
 now and was felt an hour or a year ago, is 
 discerned to be, not two persons, but one and 
 the same person; and therefore is one and the 
 same. . . . If the self or person of to-day and 
 that of to-morrow are not the same, but only like 
 persons, the person of to-day is really no more in- 
 terested in what will befall the person to-morrow 
 than in what will befall any other person." 1 
 
 1 Analogy, First Dissertation. 
 
4Q THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 If Butler is justly famous for his Analogy, 
 which opened the way to the grand study of the 
 correspondence of nature and spirit, he ought 
 also to be praised for the fine discernment of 
 these remarks. It is true that the deficiences of 
 Locke's view and the inadequacy of previous 
 definitions of identity had been pointed out, but 
 it is certain that Butler freed Locke's statement 
 of its weakness and gave one of lasting strength. 
 To the suggestion that Butler does not call in 
 the memory, a suggestion which may be hastily 
 made, it is only necessary to answer that he 
 certainly does use the memory, though not by 
 name, when he " reflects" upon himself as he is 
 and upon himself as he was twenty years before. 
 
 Eeid's 1 criticism of Locke is more severe in 
 terms, but not more acute. He notes, of course, 
 that Locke made identity to consist in conscious- 
 ness alone, and he points out that a defect in 
 consciousness, an omission to hold distinctly a 
 past experience, would then destroy the identity. 
 He declares that there can be no consciousness 
 of a past event except through memory, and 
 that Locke could not have meant what he said. 
 
 1 Essay III., chap, iii., sect. 3. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 41 
 
 He shows that sense of identity is confounded 
 by Locke with evidence of identity. He points 
 out that consciousness alone cannot be the evi- 
 dence of sameness of the being because it is 
 " not any two minutes the same." Moreover, he 
 shows that Locke uses the word " same" in a 
 way which lays him open to Hume's attack. 
 Reid had not a hospitable mind, which made a 
 strange doctrine welcome and put the best con- 
 struction upon it, but he was justified in dealing 
 thus with Locke after Hume had opened fire 
 upon the doctrine and had been hailed by some 
 as a victorious sceptic. 
 
 But before proceeding to Hume there is a 
 most interesting passage to be noticed in Berke- 
 ley's " Three Dialogues," in which Hylas, with 
 prophetic instinct, though, of course, an imagi- 
 nary character, utters a doubt which Philonous, 
 who represents Berkeley himself, remedies by 
 statements as positive as any realist could 
 make: 
 
 "Hylas. It seems to me that, according to 
 your own way of thinking, and in consequence 
 of your own principles, it should follow that you 
 are only a system of floating ideas, without any 
 
 substance to support them. "Words are not to 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 be used without a meaning ; and as there is no 
 more meaning in spiritual substance than in 
 material substance, the one ought to be ex- 
 ploded as well as the other. 
 
 " Philonous. How often must I repeat that I 
 know or am conscious of my own being ; and that 
 I myself am not my ideas, but somewhat else, a 
 thinking active principle that perceives, knows, 
 wills, and operates about ideas. I know that I, 
 one and the same self, perceive both colors and 
 sounds; that a color cannot perceive a sound, 
 nor a sound a color ; that I am therefore one in- 
 dividual principle distinct from color and sound, 
 and, for the same reason, from all other sensible 
 things and inert ideas. But I am not in like 
 manner conscious either of the existence or 
 essence of matter." 1 
 
 Nothing could be more positive as to the ego 
 than this, and nothing could have been said be- 
 forehand which would more nearly have met the 
 very criticisms which Hume was about to make 
 upon Berkeley. It cannot be objected to Berke- 
 ley's idealism, as might be urged against later 
 
 1 Works, vol. i. p. 327 et seq. Quoted in Fraser's Selec- 
 tions, p. 333. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 43 
 
 idealists, that it infringed upon the identity and 
 permanence of the self. 
 
 Hume has a long chapter, one of his liveliest, 
 on personal identity. " There are some philoso- 
 phers," thus he begins with his usual wave of 
 the hand, " who imagine we are every moment 
 intimately conscious of what we call ourself ; 
 that we feel its existence and its continuance in 
 existence ; and are certain, beyond the evidence 
 of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity 
 and simplicity : no proof can be derived from 
 any fact of which we are so intimately conscious ; 
 nor is there anything of which we can be certain 
 if we doubt of this." * 
 
 Having thus set up his target, not quite fairly, 
 for Aristotle and Augustine were not the tran- 
 scendentalists which this description implies, 
 Hume asserts that we have no separate idea of 
 self, but always derive it from some other idea 
 of wider content, and that therefore we cannot 
 truly say that we know self, indeed that other 
 ideas always place themselves in our way when 
 we seek to contemplate self. " I never can catch 
 myself at any time without a perception, and 
 
 1 Human Nature, Book I., Part IV., sect. 6. 
 
44 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 never can observe anything but the perception." 
 Moreover, the mind is like a theatre which never 
 presents twice precisely the same scene; how 
 then can we speak of identity ? Again, our idea 
 of identity, if we have any, must be like that 
 which we have of an animal or a plant, but here 
 we can only predicate relation of states, not 
 identity of states, for here we have only resem- 
 blance. The plant or animal cannot be identi- 
 cally the same, for it continually increases or is 
 diminished. The change may be so gradual 
 that we do not note it, but to use the word 
 " identical" of it is only to disclose our lack of 
 observation. A reference is made to Jason's 
 ship. Men say that two sounds, separated by an 
 interval of time, are the same, that two churches 
 which have been erected in succession upon the 
 same lot or under the same name are the same, 
 and so on ; but they do not mean it, any more 
 than they mean the same river when its waters 
 are always changing. " The identity which we 
 ascribe to man is a fictitious one and of a like 
 kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables 
 and animal bodies. It proceeds from a like 
 operation of the imagination. ,, Taking up the 
 subject afresh, Hume then proceeds to hold that 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 45 
 
 resemblance, contiguity, and the succession of 
 states or events which is called causation, are 
 really all there is of identity. Memory merely 
 declares the resemblance between our past and 
 present selves. Causation is only a name for 
 successive experiences, the actual connection of 
 which no one can prove. And memory is too 
 defective to be evidence of identity. "."Who can 
 remember his thoughts and actions January 1, 
 1715, or March 11, 1719 V 91 The doctrine of 
 identity, in fine, rests on verbal grounds alone, 
 on words which have been shown to be used 
 inaccurately. 
 
 Hume does not deny the self; he says, " Our- 
 self is intimately present ;" 2 he only denies the 
 alleged grounds of the doctrine of the identity 
 of self. Exactly what he holds and denies we 
 should have been better able to say if he had 
 not written a strange note beginning, " Upon a 
 more strict review of the section concerning per- 
 sonal identity, I find myself involved in such a 
 labyrinth that I must confess I neither know 
 how to correct my former opinions, nor how to 
 
 1 Human Nature, Book I., Part IV., sect. 6. 
 
 2 Ibid., Book II., Part III., sect. 7. 
 
46 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 render them consistent." He then repeats in 
 briefer sentences his former doubts, but closes 
 with the confession that the difficulty of obtain- 
 ing a perception of a permanent self may be in 
 his own mind. 1 
 
 This shows Hume rather in the light of a sin- 
 cere doubter, endeavoring to be a true Cartesian, 
 than in that of an incorrigible sceptic, and yet 
 the necessity of considering his objections is not 
 diminished by his apologetic note. He is most 
 thoroughly replied to in a little, almost unknown, 
 book, entitled " Man in Quest of Himself," by 
 Abraham Tucker, London, 1763, the only book 
 but one which is known to deal exclusively with 
 this subject. He also wrote under the name of 
 "Edward Search." His little treatise may be 
 summarized thus : 
 
 "While replying to an assault on the individ- 
 uality of the human mind or self, made by Cuth- 
 bert Comment, in the Monthly Review, Tucker 
 attempts to reply to all real and possible ob- 
 jectors by taking up a long line of argument. 
 The word " same," he remarks, is used vaguely 
 enough, as when one glass of wine is called the 
 
 1 Appendix, edition of Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1888, p. 633-6. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 47 
 
 same as another if filled from the same bottle ; 
 but this is a mere statement of likeness, and 
 should not be confused with " specific identity." 
 So a man changes and does not remain the same 
 as to " flesh, blood, bones, and humours." But 
 man is a substance, his qualities are not qualities 
 of nothing; and, when thought of apart from 
 the qualities of his active life, as in sleep, he is 
 thought of as to substance. Qualities may and 
 do change. The same clay may be moulded 
 into various successive forms. The same water 
 may be now hot, then cold. But man, clay, and 
 water continue in existence. Moreover, every 
 man is an individual ; he may be composed of 
 parts, but is their perfect sum. They may un- 
 dergo some change, as the men of a regiment 
 may change, but the Guards remain the Guards, 
 and the man remains himself. Were a man not 
 an individual he would not be a first entity, and 
 he might be reincorporated into other forms. A 
 man's personality is the sum of his qualities. 
 His personality is not a separate thing as the 
 dozen is not separate from its twelve compo- 
 nents, itself a thirteenth ; and the personality is 
 the sum of the real qualities. In sleep we lay 
 down some qualities for a time and then resume 
 
48 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 them, retaining all the time our identity; so 
 may it be in death. Tucker goes into a skil- 
 fully-constructed catechism to show the ab- 
 surdity of making the self anything but an 
 individuality. He does not call the mind the 
 man himself, for this undergoes changes; he 
 postulates an unchanging substance. 
 
 It does not appear whether or not Mr. Com- 
 ment was forever silenced by this reply. He 
 might have suggested that, in taking refuge in a 
 substance and in surrendering even the identity 
 of mind, Mr. Tucker had voluntarily yielded his 
 case, and that the identity ought to be something 
 more than an inference, which Hume at once 
 would call a fiction. The dozen example is not 
 bad, but the trouble with it is that personality, 
 if exhibited thus, seems but a name. On the 
 whole the clay example is much to be preferred. 
 
 Sir W. Hamilton met Hume more acutely by 
 charging him with making the ego only a bundle 
 of impressions and ideas, while he, Hamilton, 
 asserted, " As clearly as I am conscious of exist- 
 ing, so clearly am I conscious at every moment 
 of my existence, that the conscious ego is not 
 itself a mere modification, nor a series of modi- 
 fications of any other subject, but that it is itself 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 49 
 
 something different from all its modifications 
 and a self-existent entity." l He does not try to 
 explain this fact, to go below it and account for 
 it. No one, he truly says, doubts this deliver- 
 ance of consciousness, though Hume doubted its 
 truth. Hume, he asserts, argued against the ill- 
 formed premises of the dogmatic philosophers, 
 and is refuted by the correction of those premises. 
 He commends what Locke, Leibnitz, Butler, and 
 Reid had said of the immorality of the doubt of 
 personal and moral identity. Hamilton must be 
 referred to again when the view of Kant is con- 
 sidered, for he joins Kant with Hume just here. 
 Deferring further mention of Hamilton for the 
 present till he is reached in the order of time, we 
 may go back to the eighteenth century and note 
 Voltaire's sceptical saying, " It would be a fine 
 thing to see one's soul. ' Know thyself is an excel- 
 lent rule, but it is for God only to put it in prac- 
 tice ; who but He can know his own essence ?" 2 
 Condillac is more philosophical if less epigram- 
 matic : " The self of every man is only the collec- 
 tion of sensations which he experiences and of 
 
 1 Lectures on Metaphysics, xix. 
 
 2 Dictionnaire philosophique, Ame. 
 d 5 
 
50 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 those which his memory reports to him ; that is 
 all, — the consciousness of what he is and the 
 recollection of what he has been." l This, of 
 course, stands or falls with Hume and is to be 
 judged by its fruits. If Condillac be right, the 
 self is a fiction indeed, and moral responsibility 
 a ghost. 
 
 Everything that Jonathan Edwards wrote 
 comes to us with the weight of a great name, 
 but it would appear that here Edwards was not 
 in vision. Perhaps he too much approached 
 Spinoza in his form of mind to give man his 
 true place. He said, with conspicuous caution, 
 " We find a great deal of difficulty in conceiving 
 exactly of the nature of our own souls. And, 
 notwithstanding all the progress which has been 
 made in past and present ages, yet there is still 
 work enough left for future inquiries and re- 
 searches, and room for progress still to be made 
 for many ages and generations." 2 
 
 He did not know how soon new light would 
 shine. When he published these words, in 1754, 
 Immanuel Kant was preparing his first course of 
 
 1 Traite des Sensations, quoted by Ueberweg, vol. ii. p. 127. 
 
 2 Treatise on the Will, Part IV., sect. 7. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 51 
 
 lectures. Taking his starting-point with Hume, 
 but proceeding in a much more thorough and 
 convincing way, Kant was, as regards much that 
 he found in philosophy, wholly sceptical, but he 
 was also constructive and positive. What do we 
 possess through pure reason? was his question 
 in the Kritik, We have sense, and we have 
 thought; what do we gain thereby? In sense 
 we have, as & priori conditions of all perception, 
 space and time. Under these and other relations 
 we know. Our objects are the phenomena of 
 experience, not noumena. We think under 
 twelve categories, which are explained. Judg- 
 ments based on experience directly are a posteriori; 
 those absolutely made universal are a priori 
 Having dwelt at length upon these points, in- 
 cluding also a treatment of synthetic and analytic 
 judgments, Kant proceeded to free the pure 
 reason from psychological accretions. " The 
 transcendental doctrine of the soul is falsely 
 held to be a science of pure reason, touching the 
 nature of our thinking being. We can lay at 
 the foundation of this science nothing but the 
 simple and perfectly contentless representation I, 
 which cannot even be called a conception, but 
 merely a consciousness which accompanies all 
 
52 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 conceptions. By this I, or He, or It, who or 
 which thinks, nothing more is represented than 
 a transcendental subject of thought = x, which 
 is known only by means of the thoughts that 
 are its predicates, and of which, apart from 
 these, we cannot form the least conception. 
 Hence we are obliged to go round this repre- 
 sentation in a perpetual circle. 1 All the modes 
 of self-consciousness in thought are hence not 
 conceptions of objects (categories); they are 
 mere logical functions which do not present 
 to thought an object to be cognized, and there- 
 fore cannot present my self as an object. . . . 
 (1) In all judgments I am the determining 
 subject of that relation which constitutes a judg- 
 ment; . . . but this does not signify that I, as 
 an object, am for myself a self-subsistent being 
 or substance. 2 ... (2) The I of apperception is 
 a single one and cannot be resolved into a plu- 
 rality of subjects ; . . . but this is not to declare 
 that the thinking I is a simple substance. . . . 
 (3) The proposition of the identity of my self, 
 amid all the representations of which I am con- 
 
 1 Kritik der Keinen Vernunft, Theil II., Abth. II., Buch 
 II. , p. 404. 3 Ibid., p. 408. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 53 
 
 scious, lies in the conceptions themselves ; . . . 
 but this identity is not the same as the perception 
 of the subject, whereby it is presented as object, 
 and therefore this proposition cannot declare the 
 identity of the person, by which is meant the 
 consciousness of the identity of its own substance 
 as a thinking being in all change of circum- 
 stances. ... (4) I distinguish my own existence 
 as one thinking being from other things external 
 to me, among them my body ; . . . but whether 
 this consciousness of myself is possible without 
 things external, . . . and whether I can exist 
 merely as a thinking being (without being man), 
 I cannot know from this." 1 
 
 The four paralogisms and their corrections, 
 condensed as much as possible, are given in the 
 last four sentences. The whole idea is stated by 
 Kant thus : " The unity of consciousness which 
 lies at the basis of the categoris, is considered to 
 be a perception of the subject as object, and the 
 category of substance is applied to the subject. 
 But this unity is nothing more than the unity in 
 thought, by which no object is given ; to which 
 
 1 Kritik der Eeinen Vernunft, Theil II., Abth. II., Buch 
 II., p. 408. 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 therefore the category of substance, which always 
 presupposes a given perception, cannot be applied. 
 Consequently the subject cannot be known." 1 
 
 So far as Kant was here aiming to show against 
 Knutzen, M. Mendelssohn, and others, the fallacy 
 of grounding belief in immortality upon the 
 soul as a substance, it is not to the present pur- 
 pose to deal with him. This was his main ob- 
 ject in this chapter, but incidentally he sought 
 to show that we know the self only as subject 
 and never as predicate or object. 
 
 Hamilton's answer to this is that Kant makes 
 the selfless substantial than consciousness makes 
 it, and that thus to reduce it is to discredit con- 
 sciousness, — a proceeding which stops all phi- 
 losophizing at once. " In disputing the testimony 
 of consciousness to our mental unity and sub- 
 stantiality, Kant disputes the possibility of phi- 
 losophy, and, consequently, reduces his own at- 
 tempts at philosophizing to an absurdity." 2 
 
 This is scarcely just. Kant is not seeking to 
 do away with the self, thus denying a part of 
 every thought he has and despising conscious- 
 
 1 Kritik der Keinen Vernunft, Theil II., Abth. II., Buch 
 II., p. 422. 2 Metaphysics, Lecture XIX. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 55 
 
 ness as a guide ; he is only seeking to make self 
 an apperception rather than a judgment. He 
 cannot be so rash, skilled introspectionist as he 
 was, as to deny the possibility of thorough self- 
 contemplation, of a train of thought which 
 would end in the sentence, " Such a being, with 
 such a history, such purposes, such powers, is the 
 being called I by my self, by my name by others." 
 
 Mahany seeks to be just to Kant when he 
 says, "Are you conscious of being presented 
 with yourself as a substance ? Or are you con- 
 scious that in every act of thought you must 
 presuppose a permanent self, and always refer it 
 to self, while still that self you cannot grasp, and 
 it remains a hidden basis upon which you erect 
 the structure of your thoughts ? Kant's view, 
 the latter, is the simpler and the more consistent 
 with the ordinary language." ■ 
 
 It is enough to say to this that this is going 
 beyond Kant, who did not make the I a hidden 
 thing, but a " consciousness accompanying all 
 conceptions." In appealing to " ordinary lan- 
 guage," again, Mahaffy is wholly unwise, for 
 that appeal is to ignorance, to Alcibiades before 
 
 1 Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Eeaders, lvi. 
 
56 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 he had had his conversation with Socrates, to one 
 who has not heeded the oracle, " Know thyself." 
 To vindicate Kant from friendly or unfriendly 
 misrepresentation we must briefly remark upon 
 his doctrine of the self as it appears in his 
 " Original Synthetic Unity of Apperception. " 
 He there presents in vivid contrast the merely 
 empirical self of the passing moment and the 
 original and permanent and transcendental self, 
 and declares : " The empirical consciousness, 
 which accompanies each determination as it 
 arises, is in itself broken up into units, and is 
 unrelated to the one identical subject. Relation 
 to a single subject does not take place when I 
 accompany each determination with conscious- 
 ness, but only when I add one determination to 
 another, and am conscious of this act of synthesis. 
 It is only because I am capable of combining in 
 one consciousness the various determinations 
 presented to me that I can become aware that 
 in every one of them the consciousness is the 
 same. It is only because I can grasp the various 
 determinations in one consciousness that I can 
 call them all mine ; were it not so, I should have 
 a self as many-colored and various as the sepa- 
 rate determinations of which I am conscious. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 57 
 
 Synthetic unity of the various determinations is 
 therefore the ground of that identity of apper- 
 ception which precedes d, priori every definite 
 act of thought. . . . The unity of apperception 
 is therefore the supreme principle of all our 
 knowledge." * 
 
 By presenting this transcendental synthetic 
 conception of the self as combining subject 
 Kant seems to separate himself from Hume by 
 the whole breadth of this conception, while in 
 his description of the empirical self he agrees 
 with Hume and covers all that Hume had to say 
 of the self. It is clear that Kant is a firm be- 
 liever in personal identity, and must be counted 
 on the side of those who affirm the positive, sub- 
 stantial existence of the individual self, and can- 
 not be set down as positing only the mere "T 
 think" of passing experience. Only Kant rightly 
 declares that some have gone too far in holding 
 that in thinking we know the self independently 
 as an object. 
 
 Fichte, so modifying or rather transcending 
 Kant's view as to exclude the dualism of phe- 
 nomena and noumena, presented the self as ab- 
 
 1 Kritik, Theil II., Abth. I., Buch I., pp. 183-135. 
 
58 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 solute, but manifesting itself in consciousness as 
 knowing subject and known object: "The I is 
 this, the subject-objectivity, and nothing else 
 whatever ; the positing of the subjective and its 
 objective, of the consciousness and its known as 
 one ; and absolutely nothing else outside of this 
 identity." l 
 
 Of this doctrine Dr. McCosh says that Fichte 
 did for Kant what Berkeley did for Locke. He 
 charges Fichte with denying any self but a phe- 
 nomenon, and argues that a phenomenon, al- 
 though but an appearance, is an appearance of 
 something exhibiting some of its qualities. So 
 with the self, " We perceive qualities of self, of 
 self in such and such a state." 2 Dr. McCosh is 
 too hasty, in conclusion, to do Fichte justice. 
 
 Herbart engages with the question as treated 
 by Kant and Fichte : " "What we observe in our- 
 selves is, taken generally, a very great variety 
 of our thoughts and mental states, a continual 
 becoming and changing. Over against these ap- 
 pears the I, which is always present there, to 
 form a fixed point. ... Of the reality of this I 
 
 1 Sonnenklarer Bericht, edition 1801, p. 86. 
 'Cognitive Powers, Book I., chap. ii. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 59 
 
 we have so strong and immediate a conviction 
 that it has become a form of oath to establish all 
 other knowledge and conviction, ' As true as I 
 am.' . . . What does self-consciousness declare ? 
 The I declares itself, that is, its I, that is, its self- 
 declaration. If the inquiries for the ego, the 
 opening of which is here suggested, be properly 
 carried on, the entrance will show itself in spec- 
 ulative psychology. After Kant and Fichte phi- 
 losophers must go this way." l 
 
 In thus pointing out that the Kantian criticism 
 had opened a new way which would be much 
 more prolific in result than the old, Herbart was 
 surely right. In his strictures upon Fichte he is 
 skilfully summarized in Dr. C. C. Everett's ex- 
 position of "Fichte's Science of Knowledge." 2 
 The result is the vindication of self-consciousness 
 as positing the I in distinction from all else, " In 
 its highest form it is self-affirmation, which is 
 the one fundamental and absolute affirmation." 3 
 
 Schelling, denying the absolutely egoistic point 
 of view of Fichte, and gradually coming into 
 direct opposition in mysticism, held that "the 
 
 1 Lehrbuch zur Einleitung, I. B. 2, IV. I. 124. 
 
 2 Chicago, 1844, pp. 81-87. s Ibid., p. 89. 
 
60 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 I can be conscious of itself only in contrast with 
 a not-self. At the same time this not-self or 
 limit is laid down by itself and is recognized as 
 its own. The I is therefore a perpetual process 
 of laying down and removing a limit." 1 . . . 
 " There is an immediate consciousness of the 
 self as distinct from and contrasted with an 
 outer object" 2 " The question whether the I of 
 self-consciousness is a thing in itself or a phe- 
 nomenon is utterly meaningless. To speak of 
 the I as a thing in itself is to suppose that the I 
 exists otherwise than for itself, which is as ab- 
 surd as to suppose that the I exists before it 
 exists." 3 
 
 This was a transition from Kant to Hegel, and 
 in the latter's view the extreme idealistic position 
 was fully exhibited. 
 
 Hegel, in his "Philosophy of History," said 
 simply, " Two things must be distinguished in 
 consciousness: first, that I know; secondly, 
 what I know. In self-consciousness they are 
 merged in one ; for spirit knows itself." 4 Here 
 
 1 Schelling's Transcendental Idealism summarized by "Wat- 
 son, Chicago, 1882, p. 111. 2 Ibid., p. 127. 
 3 Ibid., p. 110. * Introduction. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. §\ 
 
 he has set consciousness over against self-con- 
 sciousness, and has presented his habitual notion 
 that consciousness, in which the subject and the 
 object stand over against each other, is but a 
 step to self-consciousness in which a synthesis 
 takes place and the mind contemplates itself as 
 knowing. In another place, which Hegel reached 
 in the course of a full examination of his cate- 
 gories, he said, " One has not the least idea of 
 the I nor of anything, even of the idea itself, so 
 far as he does not comprehend anything and re- 
 mains standing only by the simple, fixed percep- 
 tion and name. It is a singular thought, if it 
 can be named a thought, that I must myself 
 make use of the I in order to judge of the I. 
 The I, which makes use of the self-consciousness 
 as a means of judging, is indeed an x of which 
 one, as to the relation of such usage, can have 
 not the least idea. ... A stone has not this 
 awkwardness. If it is to be thought or judged 
 upon, it does not stand in its own way. It is 
 freed from the inconvenience of making use of 
 itself for this purpose; another, outside of it, 
 must do the thinking." 1 
 
 1 Logik, Werke V., p. 257. 
 6 
 
62 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 It is difficult to make an extract, either from 
 the " Logic" or from the " Phenomenology, " 
 which will clearly show how Hegel regarded the 
 ego, for he is discussing only the process of 
 thinking, and thus he presupposes the ego all the 
 way, though at first the object, the "this," is 
 prominent, and therefore mere consciousness 
 precedes what may more properly be called self- 
 consciousness. The selbst may be said to be in 
 Hegel's hands a substance which undergoes a 
 constant clarifying. He is affirmative in regard 
 to personal identity and the selfhood, and in 
 his Nuremberg Outline thus sums up the case : 
 " The content of reason is for the ego no alien 
 somewhat, nothing given from without, but 
 throughout penetrated and assimilated by the 
 ego and therefore to all intents produced by the 
 ego." 1 Dr. "W. T. Harris expresses it thus: 
 " Looking closely at his treatment of idea, we 
 discover plain evidence sufficient to convince us 
 that he has in his thoughts always a personal 
 first principle as the necessary result of his 
 system. We see well enough that his talk about 
 
 1 Journal of Speculative Philosophy for August, 1869, p. 
 174. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 63 
 
 method and dialectic treatment is meant merely 
 for a statement of the nature of this highest 
 personal self-activity." l 
 
 Passing now to such English, French, German, 
 Italian, and American philosophers as it has 
 seemed well to consult in addition, I note Sir 
 "W. Hamilton's remark : " The I is manifested 
 only in one or the other of these modes [of per- 
 ception, feeling, memory, and so forth]; but it 
 is manifested in them all ; they are all only phe- 
 nomena of the I. The self, the I, is recognized 
 in every act of intelligence, as the subject to 
 which that act belongs." 2 
 
 Closely affiliated with this perfect faith in 
 consciousness, which no criticism could shake, 
 stands the view of J. J. F. Ancillon, a French 
 resident of Berlin, who sympathized with Jacobi 
 rather than with Kant. He said, " The con- 
 sciousness or ego is the impenetrability of souls. 
 ... If the consciousness of ourselves or of the 
 ego be not an immediate revelation of the re- 
 ality of our own existence, and if the con- 
 sciousness of other existences be not given us 
 
 1 Hegel's Logic, Chicago, 1891, p. 392. 
 
 2 Metaphysics, Lecture IX., p. 116. 
 
64 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 in the ego, we can never attain to a real ex- 
 istence. . . . Consciousness gives us the reality 
 of our own existence and therein the reality 
 of infinite being. The soul is given us in 
 and by the consciousness which we have of 
 ourselves. It is us, and we are it. The ego 
 forces us to believe in the universe and in our- 
 selves ; and if we doubt it, we believe absolutely 
 nothing." x 
 
 This last is not too strongly stated, as may 
 sufficiently appear from Kant's rejection of such 
 belief as objectively founded or constitutive, and 
 his reinstating it as regulative or practically val- 
 uable. It is right to act, he held, as if there 
 were a soul. It is not important to ascertain, it 
 is impossible to know, whether God be in one 
 person, or three, or ten; it is enough if we 
 accept the number which will give the right rule 
 of conduct. And so on, almost as if one could 
 be voluntarily self-deceived. Ancillon was on 
 firm ground here, and made his statement in 
 another way which seems worthy of quotation : 
 " The reflective ego distinguishes self from its 
 
 1 La Science et la Foi Philosophique, Paris, 1830, pp. 101, 
 136, 163. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 65 
 
 modifications and separates spectator from spec- 
 tacle." l 
 
 It may be well also to hear from Thomas Tay- 
 lor, although he was only introducing Plotinus 
 as the reproducer of Plato : " Prior both to 
 reason and the one life is the one of the soul, 
 which says, I perceive, I desire; which fol- 
 lows all these energies and energizes together 
 with them ; for we should not be able to know 
 all these and to apprehend in what they differ 
 from each other, unless we contained a certain 
 indivisible nature, which subsists above com- 
 mon sense, and which, prior to all opinion, 
 desire, and will, knows all that these know 
 and desire, according to an indivisible mode of 
 apprehension." 2 
 
 In contrast with this antique and dogmatic 
 style is the remarkably perspicuous Cousin : " In 
 every act of consciousness there is the conscious- 
 ness of some operation, phenomenon, thought, 
 volition, or sensation ; and at the same time the 
 conception of our existence. And when memory, 
 following consciousness, comes into existence, the 
 
 1 Nouveaux Melanges, ii. p. 103. 
 
 2 Introduction to Plotinus, London, 1794. 
 
 6* 
 
QQ THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 phenomena which just before were under the eye 
 of consciousness, fall under that of memory, with 
 the implicit conviction that the same being, the 
 same I myself, who was the subject of the phe- 
 nomena of which I was conscious, still exists and 
 is the same whom my memory recalls to me. . . . 
 In the order of nature and reason, consciousness 
 and memory involve the supposition of personal 
 identity. In chronological order some act of 
 memory and of consciousness is the condition 
 of the conception of our identity. . . . The 
 condition of consciousness is attention, and that 
 of attention is the will. It is the continuity of 
 the will, attested by memory, which gives the 
 conviction of personal identity." } 
 
 Cousin proceeds to criticise Locke's meagre 
 definition that " consciousness alone makes self," 
 and declares that the self is known in the opera- 
 tions which manifest it, that identity is the con- 
 viction of reason. He adds : "Personal identity 
 is the union of your being, yourself, opposed to 
 the plurality of consciousness and memory. It 
 is impossible to know phenomena of sensation, 
 volition and intelligence, without instantly refer- 
 
 1 Criticism of Locke, Hartford, 1834, pp. 70, 73. 
 
RELATION TO TEE DIVINE. 67 
 
 ring them to a subject one and identical, which 
 is self, the I." 1 
 
 Cousin seems to go too far in this criticism of 
 Locke ; for, if we admit with him that the self 
 does not fall under consciousness and memory, 
 but only the operations in which the self is en- 
 gaged, we are precluded from making the per- 
 fectly rational statement, " I am." Indeed, we 
 should not find difficulty in criticising Cousin 
 by his own words. 
 
 In the works of the Italian Rosmini, whose 
 system has been conveniently set forth, largely 
 in the author's words, by Thomas Davidson, who 
 compared his influence upon the thought of 
 Italy to that of Aristotle and Kant, may be found 
 clear statements as to the selfhood: "When I 
 think, myself, I, the subject, become the object 
 of my own thought. . . . The human soul is a 
 single substantial subject. 2 . . . The ego is an 
 active principle in a given nature, in so far as it 
 has consciousness of itself and pronounces the 
 act of consciousness. In order to be self-con- 
 scious, that is, to be an ego, the subject must 
 
 1 Criticism of Locke, p. 259. 
 
 3 Rosmini's Philosophical System, London, 1882, pp. 63, 118. 
 
68 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 have combined the feeling of selfhood [we de- 
 cline to adopt Mr. Davidson's meity for the Italian 
 meita] with ideal being as intuited, and then, by 
 reflection, must have analyzed the object thus 
 formed into the judgment, * Myself is.' But 
 this self is precisely what we mean by ego. . . . 
 The identity of principles in different reflections 
 arises from the inner feeling, — that is, from the 
 feeling which man has of his own universal 
 activity, wherein • are virtually contained and 
 identified all partial activities, and wherein it is 
 felt that that act which gives rise to perception 
 and reasoning is nothing other than an act, a 
 partial application of that first fundamental 
 activity, from which likewise proceeds reflection 
 upon that which is perceived and reasoned about, 
 upon perceptions, upon reasonings, upon the re- 
 flections themselves, and that this activity is the 
 very one which speaks and which posits itself 
 by saying ' L' Thus is generated the ego." 1 
 
 Hickok views the subject similarly : " Some- 
 thing is while the varied exercises successively 
 come and go upon the field of human conscious- 
 ness. What that something is, the conscious- 
 
 1 Rosmini's Philosophical System, London, 1882, pp. 202, 217. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 69 
 
 ness does not reveal ; but that it permanently is, 
 in its unchanged identity, the consciousness does 
 testify. It is as if the mirror could feel itself 
 and its repeated throes of reflection, while it can 
 by no means envisage itself, but only that which 
 stands before it." 1 
 
 This is the same as to say that consciousness 
 is a mere mirror. If it were such, the existence 
 of a self would indeed be but a reflection from a 
 passive consciousness, but the mirror is at least 
 so full of life that it can turn a hundred ways, 
 and can itself make up the composite image, in- 
 cluding all the reflections. Nay, more, aided by 
 the judgment and memory, it can say, " Thou 
 art the man," and can bid him repent, or suffer 
 the reward of his deeds. 
 
 Schopenhauer, with his hand against every 
 man and his mind as inhospitable as possible 
 towards other men's views, was acute and bril- 
 liant in thought and speech. His word is, " All 
 knowledge presupposes subject and object. Self- 
 consciousness knows only will, not knowledge. 
 The ego is as described by the Upanishad : ' It 
 is not seen, yet sees all things ; it is not heard, 
 
 1 Empirical Psychology, Schenectady, 1854, p. 75. 
 
70 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 yet bears all things; it is not known, yet knows 
 all things ; it is not understood, yet understands 
 all things.' There can be no knowledge of 
 knowing. 'I know that I know' means only 
 that I know, and this nothing more than I. The 
 subject of knowledge can never be known, it can 
 never become object. . . . The identity of the 
 willing with the knowing subject, in virtue of 
 which the word ' I' designates both, is the nodus 
 of the universe (Weltknoten), and therefore in- 
 explicable." 1 
 
 The answer to this would best be made by one 
 who was learning with interest something which 
 he had not previously known. The will to know 
 would come first, and then the use of knowledge 
 acquired would follow, and then he might look 
 upon himself and say, " You, who were ignorant 
 of this language, can now speak it ; be thankful." 
 It is needless to analyze Schopenhauer's obstinate 
 negations. 
 
 How different the spirit of Ulrici: "By 
 strength of his self-consciousness, his higher 
 spontaneity and his thorough individuality, not 
 only is the man himself in general but the single 
 
 1 Fourfold Koot of Sufficient Reason, sect. 42. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 71 
 
 individual in an eminent sense a subject, a self. 
 Through the fact of self-distinction he affirms 
 and knows himself as self; through the will he 
 actuates and maintains himself as self." * 
 
 These are weighty words which might be en- 
 larged upon, but they are passed over with the 
 single remark that they will repay one for the 
 closest examination. 
 
 Lotze does not go quite so far : " Self-con- 
 sciousness is not an innate endowment of the 
 mind so that from the first we see mirrored be- 
 fore us what we ourselves are. Our conscious- 
 ness never presents to us this image as found; 
 we are merely directed to a more or less obscure 
 point in which lies our ego. . . . Self-conscious- 
 ness is to us but as the interpretation of a sense 
 of self. With culture the content of the ego 
 becomes clearer, and extends over an enlarging 
 circumference." 2 
 
 It is, of course, of this cultured self-conscious- 
 ness, this mature mind obedient to the oracle, 
 "Know thyself," that we ought to think; and 
 that Lotze abates nothing from the objective 
 
 1 G-ott und der Mensch, Leipzig, 1873, p. 30. 
 
 2 Microcosm os, Book II., chap, v., sect. 3. 
 
72 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 reality of this may be seen from his words : 
 " Among all the errors of the human mind it 
 has always seemed to me the strangest that it 
 could come to doubt its own existence, of which 
 alone it has direct experience, or to take it at 
 second hand as the product of our external 
 nature which we know only indirectly, only by 
 means of the knowledge of the very mind to 
 which we would fain deny existence." 1 And 
 still more emphatically he says, "Mortality 
 reaches its highest stage in self-consciousness. 
 . . . Self-consciousness sets itself as ego in op- 
 position to the non-ego." 2 
 
 When in a passage we meet with an apparent 
 contradiction of this, and Lotze is found speaking 
 of the self as " never rising into complete self- 
 consciousness," 3 it seems to be his reverence for 
 man leading him to attribute to him an infinite 
 depth transcending the plummet of self-con- 
 sciousness. There is no harm in this, provided 
 it is agreed that we can know and measure and 
 judge the agent of our own acts. 
 
 Ferrier has some emphatic sentences : " Self 
 
 1 Microcosmos, Book II., chap, v., sect. 6. 
 
 2 Ibid., Book IX., chap. iv. 3 Ibid., chap. iv. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 73 
 
 is the ens unum, the semper cognitum in omnibus 
 notitiis. It is the centre in which all cognitions 
 meet and agree. . . . No cognition in which 
 one does not apprehend one's self is possible. . . . 
 The ego comes before us along with whatever 
 comes before us. . . . "When I observe a book I 
 also observe myself. . . . There can be no knowl- 
 edge of self or ego in a purely indeterminate 
 state. The ego can know itself only in connec- 
 tion with some non-ego. . . . Hume says that 
 he catches his perceptions without any self; in 
 other words, he finds that they do not belong to 
 any one. . . . The essence of the mind is the 
 knowledge which it has of itself with that 
 which it is cognizant of." 1 
 
 The expression ens unum seems too strong for 
 Ferrier's purpose, and we note that his last sen- 
 tence ignores the will ; but his criticism of Hume 
 shows that he means to be counted among the 
 supporters of personality as actual, discernible, 
 and permanent. 
 
 It suited the purpose of Dean Mansel to 
 note the limits of personality, but he affirm- 
 atively said, " Personality is a limitation, for 
 
 1 Institutes of Metaphysics, Propositions I., II., VII., IX. 
 d 7 
 
74 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 the thought and the thinker limit each other. 
 If I am any one of my own thoughts, I live 
 and die with each successive moment of my 
 own consciousness. If I am not any one of my 
 own thoughts, I am limited hy that very differ- 
 ence." This is clear, and he goes further in the 
 direction of definition of the self when he says, 
 " That which I see, or hear, or think, or feel 
 changes and passes away with each moment of 
 my varied existence* I who see, hear, think, 
 and feel am one continuous self, whose existence 
 gives unity and connection to the whole." l He 
 also holds that we are conscious of our selves as 
 depending upon another Person. 
 
 In his note to his father's "Phenomena of 
 Mind," J. S. Mill has expressed himself with 
 great vigor: " Suppose a being gifted with sensa- 
 tion, but devoid of memory; whose sensations 
 follow after one another, but leave no trace of 
 their existence when they cease. Could this 
 being have any knowledge or notion of a self? 
 "Would he ever say to himself, ' I feel ; this sensa- 
 tion is mine V I think not. The notion of a 
 
 1 Limits of Religious Thought, Lecture III., pp. 103, 105; 
 iv. p. 130. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 75 
 
 self is, I apprehend, a consequence of memory. 
 There is no meaning in the word ego or I unless 
 the I of to-day is also the I of yesterday." l 
 
 This is somewhat too strong. It is true that 
 the notion of the self depends on memory, but 
 it is not so true that it depends on memory 
 alone; for an aged person, whose memory is 
 gone, as the saying is, still retains in momentary 
 self-consciousness a distinct idea of self, and every 
 new sensation renews the thought of self. In- 
 deed, Mill says for himself that " there is a men- 
 tal process over and above the having a mere 
 feeling, to which the word consciousness is 
 sometimes, and it can hardly be said improperly, 
 applied, namely the reference of the feeling to 
 our self." 2 
 
 But in another place, having mentioned a suc- 
 cession of feelings, he said, " This succession of 
 feelings, which I call my memory of the past, is 
 that by which I distinguish myself. Myself is 
 the person who had that series of feelings, and I 
 know nothing of myself by direct knowledge 
 except that I had them. But there is a bond of 
 some sort among all the parts of the series ; and 
 
 1 Vol. i., note 75. » Ibid. 
 
76 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 this bond, to me, constitutes my ego. Here, I 
 think, the question must rest until some psychol- 
 ogist succeeds better than any one has yet done 
 in showing a mode in which the analysis can be 
 carried further." l 
 
 Mansel would probably have answered that, 
 by pursuing the subject of the relation of self to 
 the other Person, some further light would be 
 obtained, but this Mill would not have heeded. 
 Indeed he was wholly a sceptic and might be 
 joined with Schopenhauer when he (Mill) said, 
 " There seems to be no ground for believing, 
 with Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, that the 
 ego is an original presentation of consciousness ; 
 that the mere impression on our senses involves 
 and carries with it any consciousness of a self, 
 any more than I believe it to do of a not-self. 
 The inexplicable tie, or law, or organic union, 
 which connects the present consciousness with 
 the past one, is as near as I think we can get to 
 a positive conception of self." 2 
 
 The light that was in him seems to have been 
 darkness. He spoke of his own mind as if he 
 
 1 Vol. ii., note 33. 
 
 2 Examination of Hamilton, 4th edition, p. 262. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 77 
 
 had no more intimate knowledge of it than of 
 another's. What he groped for lay before his 
 own consciousness if he could follow Hegel's 
 advice and raise it to self-consciousness. 
 
 In strong contrast with Mill is Gatien-Arnoult, 
 whom Hamilton approvingly quoted at length. 
 In a more succinct statement than that used by 
 Hamilton this writer said, " The identity of the 
 ego is the continuity of its existence without in- 
 terruption or alteration. It knows by the mem- 
 ory and consciousness that it goes on without in- 
 terruption or alteration. The ego which I am 
 now is no other than that which I was yester- 
 day. I am always myself. The identity of the 
 ego results from its unity,- — that is, its simplicity, 
 immateriality, spirituality." l 
 
 Herbert Spencer, under the question, " What 
 is this that thinks ?" declares the ego to be un- 
 knowable. Common speech makes the ego an 
 entity, and the belief in it is "unavoidable"; 
 but "it is a belief admitting of no justification 
 by reason." He expresses his approval of the 
 views of Sir W. Hamilton and Dean Mansel, and 
 concludes : " A true cognition of self implies a 
 
 1 Philosophie elementaire : Reponses aux Question iv. 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 state in which the knowing and the known are 
 one, — in which subject and object are identified; 
 and this Mr. Mansel rightly holds to be the anni- 
 hilation of both. So that the personality of 
 which each is conscious, and of which the exist- 
 ence is to each a fact beyond all others the most 
 certain, is yet a thing which cannot be truly 
 known at all ; knowledge of it is forbidden by 
 the very nature of thought." l 
 
 Spencer is clearly mistaken here, and the ap- 
 peal from Spencer can be made to Spencer. He 
 has said that we must believe in self ("Belief in 
 the reality of self is a belief which no hypothesis 
 enables us to escape") ; and he has said that " it 
 is a belief which reason, when pressed for an 
 answer, rejects ;" but later he said, " The totality 
 of my consciousness is divisible into a faint ag- 
 gregate which I call my mind ; a special part of 
 the vivid aggregate which, cohering with this in 
 various ways, I call my body; and the rest of 
 the vivid aggregate, which has no such coher- 
 ence with the faint aggregate. The principle of 
 continuity, forming into a whole the faint states 
 of consciousness, moulding and modifying them 
 
 1 First Principles : New York, 1890, pp. 64, 65. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 79 
 
 by some unknown energy, is distinguished as 
 the ego." 1 
 
 This personification of the principle of con- 
 tinuity exercising an unknown energy will not 
 guide Spencer into all truth, but it would appear 
 that in ten years he had come to accept the ego 
 as something distinguishable in consciousness, 
 and this is a really noteworthy progress. 
 
 T. H. Green is full of light, in contrast with 
 Spencer, when he says, " The more strongly 
 Hume insists that ' the identity which we as- 
 cribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious 
 one/ the more completely does his doctrine re- 
 fute itself. In all his attempts we find that the 
 relation, which has to be explained away, is pre- 
 supposed under some other expression, and that 
 it is ' fictitious' not in the sense which Hume's 
 theory requires, that there is no such thing, but 
 in the sense that it would not exist if we did not 
 think about our feelings." 2 
 
 Still more strongly and with equal clearness 
 Green has spoken in a passage quoted by Dr. C. 
 
 1 Principles of Psychology, sect. 4Q2. 
 
 2 Philosophical Works, London, 1885, General Introduction, 
 p. 297. 
 
80 ' THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 C. Everett in his " Fichte's Science of Knowl- 
 edge :" l " If there is such a thing as a connected 
 experience of related objects, there must be op- 
 erative in consciousness a unifying principle, 
 which not only presents related objects to itself, 
 but at once renders them objects and unites 
 them in relation to each other by this act of pre- 
 sentation; and which is single throughout the 
 experience. The unity of this principle must be 
 correlative to the unity of the experience. If all 
 possible experience of related objects — the ex- 
 perience of a thousand years ago and the experi- 
 ence of to-day, the experience which I have here 
 and that which I might have in any other region 
 of space — forms a single system ; if there be no 
 such thing as an experience of unrelated objects ; 
 then there must be a corresponding singleness in 
 that principle of consciousness which forms the 
 bonds of the relation between the objects." 2 
 
 This noble passage might well close the his- 
 torical summary of the doctrine were there not 
 a few other authors who deserved mention. 
 Professor Bo wen boldly defends the self against 
 " all metaphysical cavils" by declaring that it is 
 
 1 P. 76. * Prolegomena to Ethics, 34. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 81 
 
 indivisible; that it exercises one mind; that there 
 is " a direct consciousness of self;" that it is a 
 monad ; that we are conscious of it in itself and 
 in its passing into thought and act ; that we are 
 not compelled to infer its existence from its 
 manifestations ; and that the only difficulty with 
 defining it is that it is indivisible. 1 
 
 Dr. Hedge, however, is more Kantian in his 
 view. In his essay on Personality 2 he " supposes 
 the ego to be peculiar to man ; that the brutes 
 have only simple consciousness, not the reflected 
 consciousness of self." He mentions Jean Paul's 
 account of the birth of his self-consciousness. He 
 proceeds to point out that man has three parts : 
 " first, the unknown factor which constitutes the 
 ground of our being ; secondly, the ego or con- 
 scious self; thirdly, the person." By person he 
 means, in the proper sense of that word, the 
 man's manifestation before men. By the ego he 
 means what Professor Bowen and the rest meant 
 by it. By the "unknown factor" he means 
 either the inmost soul which is not rationally 
 discerned or the Divine mind hidden in its 
 
 1 Metaphysics and Ethics, chap. iii. 
 
 2 Luther, and other Essays, Boston, 1888, pp. 281-285. 
 
 / 
 
82 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 infinity. He declines to say which of the two he 
 means, and it is unnecessary to seek to discover. 
 He should be reckoned on the positive side as to 
 the ego, but beyond that he is a pantheist of the 
 type of the peripatetic Dicsearch, holding that 
 God cannot be self-conscious, and that the word 
 " I," attributed to Him in the Scriptures, is an 
 anthropomorphism. 1 
 
 Dr. McCosh has been referred to as a critic of 
 Fichte. Let him also be heard in saying, " Con- 
 sciousness cannot be said to furnish an idea of, 
 or belief in, our personal identity, for it looks 
 solely to the present. But it reveals self as 
 present. When we remember the past, there is 
 involved a memory of self as remembering. We 
 compare the two, the present self known and the 
 past self remembered, and declare the two to be 
 identical. Consciousness does not constitute our 
 personal identity. It makes it known. A full 
 and distinct knowledge of self is a late acquisi- 
 tion, but from birth there is a knowledge of self 
 in acts." 2 
 
 As to these last words Dr. Hedge is more ac- 
 
 1 Luther, etc., p. 281. 
 
 2 Cognitive Powers, Book I., chap, ii., sect. 1. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 83 
 
 curate when he says, " There is a time, varying, 
 I suppose, from the second to the fourth year, 
 when a human individual first says to himself, 
 *I*' Jean Paul probably meant a point in the 
 same period, and perhaps it will be found upon 
 inquiry that the earliest event which one can 
 remember is one which, through some extreme 
 sensation of pleasure or pain, awoke the self-con- 
 sciousness from its infantile slumber and made a 
 deep impression." 1 
 
 Tennyson has accurately and happily described 
 the awakening self-consciousness, — 
 
 11 The baby new to earth and sky, 
 What time his tender palm is pressed 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 Has never thought that ' this is I.' 
 
 "Butas he grows he gathers much, 
 And learns the use of ' I' and ' me/ 
 And finds ' I am not what I see, 
 And other than the things I touch. ' 
 
 " So rounds he to a separate mind 
 From whence clear memory may begin, 
 As through the frame that bounds him in, 
 His isolation grows defined." 2 
 
 1 Luther, etc., p. 282. 2 In Memoriam, xliv. 
 
84 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Perhaps the only rival of Tucker's " Man in 
 Quest of Himself," as a book treating exclu- 
 sively of the self, is a little volume by one J. S. 
 Malone, of Waco, Texas. 1 His subject is an- 
 nounced as "The Self: What Is It?" and he 
 proceeds in an earnest way to point out that 
 the intellect is but an instrument of man rather 
 than his essential being ; that his real life lies in 
 sensibility and in the principal desire among all 
 the desires of any one ; that this ruling love is 
 the ego; that Descartes should have said, "I 
 feel, therefore I am," rather than, "I think, 
 -therefore lam;" that the sense of responsibility 
 attaches less to our thoughts than to our pur- 
 poses ; that to know one's self requires scrutiny 
 of the heart rather than of the head ; that the 
 development of sensibility must precede that 
 of the intellectual powers ; that the training of 
 humanity requires attention to be given to the 
 affections even more than to the intellectual 
 faculties ; and that it has been the weakness of 
 philosophers to "become wholly absorbed in 
 hair-splitting intricacies of intelligence," while 
 the Christian teaching was directed to the heart. 
 
 1 Louisville: John P. Morton & Co., 1888. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 35 
 
 It would be improper to find fault with these 
 suggestions unless they were in danger of being 
 carried too far. In exalting the will Mr. Malone 
 must not forget that the intellect is not only its 
 servant, carrying out its purposes, but also its 
 guide and instructor, examining those purposes 
 and giving judgment upon them. The intellect 
 trained without regard to the corresponding 
 education of the will corrupts the nature, but 
 the least undervaluation of the intellect in the 
 account causes a serious loss to the nature. The 
 philosophers are not so guilty as they are here 
 represented to be, and will be found in good 
 time to have done an indispensable work. 
 
 In his lectures on " Hegelianism and Person- 
 ality," l Professor Andrew Seth has considered 
 the effect of the doctrine of Hegel in regard to 
 personality upon the conception of the Divine 
 Being. After making a presentation of the 
 views of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Green, 
 he shows that their tendency was to obliterate 
 the Divine self-consciousness in favor of the 
 human or the human in favor of the Divine, 
 thereby confounding the two, and, in fact, reach- 
 
 1 Edinburgh, 1887. 
 8 
 
86 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 ing " a logical abstraction called the Idea, in 
 which both God and man disappear." " The 
 unification of consciousness in a single Self" he 
 considers to be the radical error of Hegelianism. 
 He complains that the self recognized by Hege- 
 lians and Neo-Kantians is but " a logical and 
 not a real self." It is impossible to see that 
 there is not the danger which he points out, 
 yet it is not in the present place necessary to 
 dwell upon it, except to say that any monistic 
 plan, Spinozistic, Fichtean, or Hegelian, which 
 admits but one individuality into its universe, 
 defeats itself by rejecting the microcosm, the 
 only explanation of the universe. If man be 
 not a distinct individuality, the world, made for 
 naught, comes to naught. There is a truth in 
 the saying of the sophistic Protagoras, "Man 
 is the measure of the universe." A God alone 
 or a man alone is an absurdity. Henry More 
 was consistent when he wrote, Nullus in micro- 
 cosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus, 1 "No 
 spirit in the microcosm, no God in the macro- 
 cosm," for both ideas stand or fall together. 
 In a small volume entitled " Personality," by 
 
 1 Atheism, III., chap. xvi. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 87 
 
 Professor W. W. Olssen, of St. Stephen's Col- 
 lege, New York, 1 we find three lectures, the first 
 of which deals with the personality of man and 
 the second and third with that of God. The 
 treatment is wholly untechnical and without 
 reference to the philosophers. It is wisely 
 pointed out that man's personality is not merely 
 bodily and not merely spiritual, but exists on 
 both these planes, in the consciousness of a dis- 
 tinct physical existence with its instinct of self- 
 preservation, and in the will with its conscious- 
 ness of power. 
 
 In the essay on " Personality and the Infinite," 
 which Professor William Knight printed first in 
 the Contemporary Review and then in his volume 
 entitled " Studies in Philosophy and Literature," 2 
 an excellent statement of the question is to be 
 found so far as regards the personality of the 
 Infinite; but, in passing, this thought is ex- 
 pressed : " The radical feature of personality, as 
 known to us, — whether apprehended by self-con- 
 sciousness or recognized in others, — is the sur- 
 vival of a permanent self under all the .fleeting 
 
 1 New York, 1882. 
 
 2 London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879, also Boston, 1891. 
 
88 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 or deciduous phases of experience; in other 
 words, the personal identity which is involved in 
 the assertion, ' I am.' "While my thoughts, feel- 
 ings, and acts pass away and perish, I continue 
 to exist, to live, and to grow in the fulness of ex- 
 perience. Beneath the shows of things, the ever- 
 lasting flux and reflux of phenomenal change, a 
 substance or interior essence survives." * 
 
 That rapid and brilliant writer, Professor A. 
 W. Momerie, pursued a similar line of thought 
 with a similar purpose in his "Personality the 
 Beginning and End of Metaphysics and a Neces- 
 sary Assumption of all Positive Philosophy." 2 
 He means to assail the Comtists with their own 
 weapons and to entrap them in their own web. 
 Taking Professor Bain's saying, that " the ego is 
 a pure fiction, coined from nonentity," as his 
 starting-point, he proceeds, not sparing his 
 powers of mockery, to defend the ego as to its 
 existence, its self-knowledge, and its freedom, 
 concluding with a chapter on the Infinite Ego. 
 He says, " The fact that every feeling involves 
 some one to feel it has never been, in so many 
 words, denied. The most zealous opponents of 
 
 1 Page 79. 2 Edinburgh : "William Blackwood & Sons, 1886 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 89 
 
 an ego avail themselves of ambiguities by which 
 the existence of an ego can, at pleasure, be 
 tacitly assumed. It is sometimes ludicrous to 
 observe how, after denying a possible ego, 
 writers are obliged to resort to an impossible 
 one. Mr. Lewes, in his first volume of ' Prob- 
 lems,' seems inclined to make the ego consist 
 of a mass of < systematic' sensations, namely, of 
 nutrition, respiration, generation, and the mus- 
 cles. These, he says, constitute a stream of sen- 
 tience, upon which each external stimulus forms 
 a ripple, and consciousness is caused by the con- 
 sequent breach of equilibrium. But it is manifest 
 that this illustration goes for nothing without 
 the presupposition of a sentient observer. A 
 mass of feeling, however large, cannot appre- 
 hend a feeling. . . . Since, then, the necessity 
 for an ego is never denied without being tacitly 
 assumed, it may be taken to be really a self- 
 evident truth, the contradictory of which is in- 
 conceivable, that, along with every sensation or 
 feeling of any description whatever, there must 
 exist a sentient principle capable of feeling it." l 
 Dr. Momerie then goes on to consider the aid 
 
 1 Page 29. 
 8* 
 
90 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 given by the memory, since the Positivist may 
 grant that there is a sentient for every sensation, 
 but may deny the permanent identity of such 
 subject. The argument is presented by means 
 of an illustration : " I remember that ten years 
 ago many of my opinions were changed by the 
 reading of a certain book. Now this implies (1) 
 the object remembered, namely, the change of 
 opinions ; (2) my soul or mind which remembers 
 the fact; and (3) a consciousness of personal 
 identity, — that is to say, a conviction that the 
 mind or soul, which is now experiencing the re- 
 membrance of the fact, is the self-same mind or 
 soul which formerly experienced the fact itself, 
 that it is, in other words, my mitid. The identity 
 of which I am conscious is certainly not an iden- 
 tity of body, for during the ten years which have 
 elapsed my body has lost its identity. Nor is 
 the identity an identity of phenomena, for the 
 remembrance of the fact is something essentially 
 different from the fact itself. The identity of 
 which I am conscious is an identity of soul. . . . 
 In every act of remembrance I know that I 
 have existed in at least two different states, and 
 that therefore I have persisted between them." ' 
 
 1 Pages 41-43. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 91 
 
 This is not the place to make use of this 
 writer's argument for the freedom of the ego, 
 and in what he says of its self-knowledge he is 
 not as original as elsewhere, but we must quote 
 a summary paragraph for which we are indebted 
 to him : " The ego is a real existence. Without 
 a permanent subject there could never have 
 existed a single remembrance or cognition, nor 
 even a sensation. So far negatively. But further 
 positively : we are sometimes conscious of our- 
 selves, apprehending ourselves along with our 
 states in the same indivisible moment of time ; 
 and, after reflection upon these past experiences, 
 we are able to form a conception of self not less 
 distinct, at any rate, than are our conceptions of 
 material objects or of natural forces." 1 
 
 Chronologically last, but in the breadth of its 
 scope scarcely rivalled, is the treatment of our 
 subject in Professor James's "New Psychol- 
 ogy." 2 These general points are first treated 
 and are called the five characters of thought : (1) 
 it tends to personal form; (2) it is in constant 
 
 1 Page 62. 
 
 2 New York, 1890, chapter ix., " The Stream of Thought;" 
 chapter x., " The Consciousness of Self." 
 
92 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 change ; (3) in each consciousness thought is sen- 
 sibly continuous; (4) it is cognitive of objects 
 which appear to be independent ; (5) it chooses 
 among its objects while it thinks of them. In 
 unfolding these parts of the subject Professor 
 James seems to overstate in one remark when 
 he declares that there is a " consciousness of a 
 teeming multiplicity of objects from our natal 
 day," l but he proceeds very clearly to point out 
 that "the elementary psychic fact is not this 
 thought or that thought, but my thought, every 
 thought being owned." 2 The conscious fact is 
 not " feelings and thoughts exist," but " I think" 
 and " I feel" ; and he firmly declares : " No psy- 
 chology, at any rate, can question the existence 
 of personal selves. The worst a psychology can 
 do is so to interpret the nature of these selves as 
 to rob them of their worth. . . . There are no 
 marks of personalty to be gathered aliunde, and 
 then found lacking in the train of thought. It 
 has them all already." 3 He then shows that no 
 two states are ever just alike, and argues that 
 the continuous stream of thought bears with it 
 the sense of personal identity, so that " the 
 
 1 Page 226. 2 Page 226. 8 Pages 226, 227. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 93 
 
 consciousness remains sensibly continuous and 
 one." l 
 
 After dwelling upon the feelings of relation 
 and tendency in thought, the " fringe" of an ob- 
 ject which affects us when it is not definitely in 
 view, the feeling of rational sequence, and the re- 
 lation of thought to language, our author takes 
 up his fourth point, that thought appears to deal 
 with independent objects, and remarks that 
 " many philosophers hold that the reflective con- 
 sciousness of the self is essential to the cognitive 
 function of thought : . . . but this is a perfectly 
 wanton assumption." 2 By this refusal to accept 
 the ground of Ferrier, Hamilton, and others 
 whom he cites, he seems simply to draw the dis- 
 tinction, made by Hegel, between consciousness 
 and self-consciousness. In mere consciousness 
 we know that the thought is ours, but we do not 
 stop to objectify the owner. The fifth fact, that 
 the thought always exercises preference, either 
 in careful discrimination or in mere " accentua- 
 tion," is treated in the author's vivid way. 
 
 In the chapter on " The Consciousness of 
 Self," Professor James deals with the empirical 
 
 1 Page 238. 2 Page 274. 
 
94 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 ego, expanding this to its greatest extent by say- 
 ing that, " in its widest possible sense, a man's 
 self is the sum total of all that he can call his." 1 
 His powers of mind and body, his property, his 
 family, his ancestry, his acquaintance, his fame, 
 his works, and his pleasures are enumerated. 
 Thus the constituents of the self may be divided 
 into (1) the material, (2) the social, (3) the spir- 
 itual, and (4) what the Germans would call the 
 pure self. The social self he rightly divides into 
 neighborly, official, political, and so on. 2 The spir- 
 itual self is " a man's inner being," " a certain 
 portion of the stream abstracted from the rest," 
 " that which welcomes or rejects," "which presides 
 over the perception of sensations," " that around 
 which the other elements accrete," " the central, 
 active self," " the self of selves." 3 But this self 
 manifests itself to him also in bodily sensations, 
 and he is inclined to hold that the consciousness 
 of it is mainly corporeal. He does not definitely 
 adopt this suggestion, but takes great interest in 
 the idea as a physiological psychologist, and thus 
 approaches Herbert Spencer's " faint aggregate" 
 of mind and " vivid aggregate" of body. 
 
 1 Page 291. 3 Page 295. 3 Pages 296-301. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 95 
 
 The conflicts between the selves of a man are 
 then acutely described, and favor is given to the 
 " hierarchy with the bodily self at the bottom, 
 the spiritual self at top, and the extracorporeal 
 material selves and the various social selves 
 between." 1 Each self has its form of self-love, 
 which may take the form of either self-seeking 
 or self- estimation. 2 
 
 In considering the pure ego, he discusses the 
 postulate : " I am the same self that I was yes- 
 terday," and defends it on the ground of our 
 warmth of interest in all that has concerned us, 
 holding " the ordinary doctrine professed by the 
 empirical school." 3 But he goes further and 
 uses the illustration of an owner's brand upon 
 his cattle to explain the active possession by the 
 self of all its objects. " Common sense would, 
 in fact, drive us to admit an Arch-Ego, domi- 
 nating the entire stream of thought and all the 
 selves that may be represented in it." 4 Of 
 course, he recognizes that this is Kant's transcen- 
 dental ego. Here again he finds a material 
 basis for the sense of personal identity in the 
 
 1 Page 313. 2 Page 329. 
 
 3 Page 336. * Page 338. 
 
96 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 " sense of bodily existence;" but this suggestion 
 is placed in a foot-note. 1 
 
 Passing then to a discussion as to what the 
 ego is, he finds three theories : (1) the Spiritualist, 
 (2) the Associationist, and (3) the Transcendental. 
 He does not regard the spiritualistic or soul view, 
 commonly held from Plato down, as necessary 
 to explain "the phenomena of consciousness as 
 they appear." 2 The stream of thought is suf- 
 ficient for him. He does not go behind the 
 passing thoughts. The hypothesis of a " sub- 
 stantial soul explains nothing and guarantees 
 nothing." Still, his " reasonings have not estab- 
 lished the non-existence of the soul." 3 He 
 rejects outright the associationist theory as futile 
 in view of the sense of ownership of the sensa- 
 tions. He ridicules Kant's transcendental theory 
 as cumbrous and obscure and mythological : " by 
 Kant's confession, the transcendental ego has 
 no properties, and from it nothing can be de- 
 duced." 4 The words me and I shall, there- 
 fore, mean to him " the empirical person and the 
 judging thought." 5 We do not need to refer to 
 
 1 Page 341. 8 Page 344. 8 Page 350. 
 
 « Page 364. 6 Page 371. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 97 
 
 the carefully-selected cases cited from the records 
 of spiritism, hypnotism, and insanity to throw- 
 light upon the self, but pass directly to the au- 
 thor's own summary : 
 
 " The consciousness of self involves a stream 
 of thought, each part of which as ' I' can (1) re- 
 member those which went before, and know the 
 things they knew; and (2) emphasize and care 
 paramountly for certain ones among them as 
 4 me' and appropriate to these the rest. The 
 nucleus of the 'me' is always the bodily exist- 
 ence felt to be present at the time. . . . This me 
 is an empirical aggregate of things objectively 
 known. The I which knows them cannot itself 
 be an aggregate, neither for metaphysical pur- 
 poses need it be considered to be an unchanging 
 metaphysical entity like the soul, or a principle 
 like the pure ego, viewed as ' out of time.' It 
 is a thought, at each moment different from the 
 last moment, but appropriative of the latter, 
 together with all that the latter called its own. 
 All the experiential facts find their place in this 
 description." 1 Even now Professor James ad- 
 mits that a hard question as to the phases of the 
 
 1 Page 400. 
 
98 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 thought may be asked, but he ends with saying 
 that the passing thought is the proper ground of 
 psychology, and that to go behind this is to enter 
 the field of metaphysical problems. 
 
 This is not a thoroughly satisfactory ending 
 of so rich a discussion, which has been largely 
 metaphysical ; but one is free to take out of the 
 impartially presented materials what he will and 
 to build as he will. The view of Professor 
 James is, it would seem, just that which psy- 
 chology would give when describing phenomena 
 and declining to draw inferences from them. It 
 would then candidly say, " There may be a self 
 of all these selves, a judge of these judgments, 
 but he is not as visible as his acts are, and the 
 acts we mainly care for." Indeed, Professor 
 James transcended this "naturalistic point of 
 view" when he said, " The basis of our person- 
 ality, as M. Eibot says, is that feeling of our 
 vitality which, because it is so perpetually pres- 
 ent, remains in the background of our conscious- 
 ness." l Here, what he means by the personality, 
 or at least by its basis, is apparently what Kant's 
 term, " the original transcendental synthetic unity 
 
 1 Page 375. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 99 
 
 of apperception," means, and what is meant by 
 such expressions as " a man and his moods," or 
 Goethe's saying, "I will be lord over myself." 
 In this attempted summary of the views of 
 philosophers remarks have been introduced 
 which indicate the ground to be taken here as a 
 basis for what is to follow, namely, the reality of 
 the ego, its indivisibility, its distinctly human or 
 rational quality, its gradual emergence into self- 
 consciousness in the history of the individual 
 and of the race, its dependence upon the mem- 
 ory for full recognition, its endurance in spite of 
 physical changes, its insistence upon acknowl- 
 edgment under some mode or other and in a 
 greater or less degree by all philosophers how- 
 ever sceptical, its enthronement where all men- 
 tal operations go on, and, consequently and 
 necessarily, its supreme demand to be studied 
 and understood so far as light is given. 
 
100 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN A RECIPIENT. 
 
 This indivisible personality which each human 
 being has is either a created or an uncreated 
 thing, — that is, it looks to some source of life 
 outside of itself, or it does not do so and looks 
 solely to itself. Is the self self-formed ? Is 
 there a self-made man ? 
 
 To answer " yes" to these questions is inevi- 
 tably to adopt some theory of metempsychosis or 
 reincarnation. Every one's age can be told by 
 somebody, and the only way in which one can 
 make himself out to be uncreated is to assert 
 that he lived previously in some other form. 
 That is by no means tantamount to saying that 
 he had no date of original creation or birth, 
 since he may have been reincarnated a thousand 
 times and still from some superior being may 
 have received his first form ; but those who have 
 believed in metempsychosis have assumed that 
 souls were " from the beginning." Saith the 
 Bhagavad Gita : u You cannot say of the soul, it 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. \Q\ 
 
 shall be, or is about to be, or is to be hereafter. 
 It is a thing without birth." A careful writer, 
 who has given much time to a restatement of 
 all that can be said in favor of this theory, 
 declares at once that this is the truth about 
 it. Note some of his utterances at the out- 
 set of his book, "Reincarnation: A Study of 
 Forgotten Truth:" 1 "The soul enters this life 
 not as a fresh creation, but after a long course of 
 previous existences on this earth and elsewhere. 
 . . . Infancy brings to earth, not a blank scroll, 
 but one inscribed with ancestral histories 
 stretching back into the remotest past. . . . The 
 habits, impulses, tendencies, pursuits, and friend- 
 ships of the present descend from far-reaching 
 previous activities. . . . The soul is therefore an 
 eternal water globule, which sprang in the begin- 
 ningless past from mother ocean, and is destined, 
 after an unreckonable course of meandering, to at 
 last return with the garnered experience of all 
 lonely existences into the central heart of all." 2 
 In this statement, much condensed, but not 
 deprived of any part of its argument, note the 
 
 1 By E. D. Walker. Boston ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
 1888. 2 Pages 11-13. 
 
 9* 
 
102 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 use of the word " therefore" to render " long," 
 " remotest," and " far-reaching," equivalent to 
 "eternal" and " beginningless." This begging 
 of the question seems to be as old as the theory, 
 for the self has, at the most, only signs of 
 antiquity, — to grant this for the moment, — but 
 no signs whatever of eternal duration, and not 
 the slightest mark of infinity. Stripped of this 
 assumption of eternal being, the theory of 
 metempsychosis does not in itself assert that the 
 soul is uncreated, but it has made the assumption 
 and is to be judged by it. Still, Mr. Walker 
 speaks of the " heart of all," and leaves the 
 impression that his book is really an argument 
 for immortality ,^-Christian immortality, too, of 
 course of a Gnostic type. 
 
 Professor William Knight deals very gently 
 with this theory, admitting its ethical value and 
 saying, " The ethical leverage of the doctrine 
 is immense. Its motive power is great. With 
 peculiar emphasis it proclaims the survival of 
 moral individuality and personal identity, along 
 with the final adjustment of external conditions 
 to the internal state of the agent." 1 But he also 
 
 1 Philosophy and Literature, page 139. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 103 
 
 makes the same mistake as to the unbegotten 
 quality of the soul, for he says, in closing, that 
 the only alternative which can be held, if 
 metempsychosis be rejected, is " a perpetual 
 miracle, the incessant and rapid increase in the 
 amount of spiritual existence in the universe." * 
 
 This is the same as to say that the doctrine of 
 pre-existence or reincarnation holds that there is 
 no increase of spiritual existence in the universe; 
 that there is, and has been, no sort of creation in 
 case of the souls already existing ; and that these 
 souls always have existed. If otherwise, then at 
 some time there was a miracle, an increase of 
 spirit. Rejecting such increase, one may seem 
 to be forced to conclude that the souls now in 
 existence have always been in existence, and 
 were never created; that, indeed, there are as 
 many gods, as many infinite people, as there are 
 souls, or, at least, as many " eternal globules," 
 differing from the ocean in size, but not in 
 quality. 
 
 All the way down the theory is traced, through 
 India, Egypt, Persia, Greece (especially with 
 Pythagoras), and western Europe. Schopen- 
 
 1 Philosophy and Literature, page 153. 
 
104 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 hauer liked it as a remedy for the fear of death, 
 and said all he could in its favor. Hume made this 
 argument for it : " The soul, if immortal, existed 
 before our birth. What is incorruptible must be 
 ungenerable. Metempsychosis is the only system 
 of immortality which philosophy can hearken to." 
 The assumption here is in the premises. It 
 is not necessary that the soul, to be immortal, 
 should have had pre-existent personality ; and it 
 is not necessary that the incorruptible should be 
 ungenerable or uncreated. Lessing, Fichte, 
 Herder, Thomas Brown, Shelley, Southey, and 
 many others, are quoted by Walker in defence 
 of reincarnation. Emerson said in his " Method 
 of Nature :" " We cannot describe the natural 
 history of the soul, but we know that it is divine. 
 This one thing I know, that these qualities did 
 not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my 
 sickness nor buried in my grave ; but that they 
 circulate through the universe ; before the world 
 was, they were. Nothing can bar them out, or 
 shut them in, but they penetrate the ocean and 
 land, space and time, form and essence, and hold 
 the key to universal nature." x 
 
 1 Walker, p. 98. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 105 
 
 This is so vague as to mean almost anything, 
 but a cooler writer on metempsychosis follows 
 the same line of thought : " Of all the theories," 
 says Dr. Hedge, " respecting the nature of the 
 soul it seems to me the most plausible, and 
 therefore the one most likely to throw light on 
 the question of a life to come." l The poets are 
 full of what reincarnationists call their doctrine. 
 " Nearly all the poets profess it," says Walker. 
 
 It is, however, very noticeable in all writers 
 on this subject that the exceeding weakness of 
 their arguments from perceptions of new places 
 as familiar, from seeming recollections of persons, 
 and from immortal instincts, has compelled them 
 to grasp at every possible support, so that, for ex- 
 ample, they cite as an authority Spenser with his 
 lines, — 
 
 11 For of the soul the body form doth take, 
 For soul is form and doth the "body make," 
 
 and even find metempsychosis in the words of 
 Scripture, which prophesied that Elijah should 
 go before the Messiah (Mai. iv. 5), and which 
 later reported the Messiah saying of John the 
 
 1 Ways of the Spirit, chap, xii., on " The Human Soul." 
 
106 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Baptist, "This is Elias, which was to come" 
 (Matt. xi. 14). 
 
 "Were the array of authorities, legitimately or 
 illegitimately cited to support some form of this 
 theory, a thousand times larger, the fact would 
 remain that to declare souls uncreated is to de- 
 clare of every feeble infant, of every dunce, that 
 he is a god. 
 
 But even this theory admits that men are 
 passing through states of preparation for higher 
 achievements, and, shorn of its preposterous 
 polytheism, it presents the living man in much 
 the common way, as an infant, a child, a youth, 
 an adult, always receiving impressions, always 
 developing for good or evil by means of instruc- 
 tion received directly and consciously through 
 parents and teaches, or indirectly and uncon- 
 sciously through associations and sympathies 
 and ambitions. 
 
 Even in this view, then, man is a recipient 
 form. Every organism has its cells which secrete 
 that which it needs for nutriment and develop- 
 ment. The brain, the heart, the lungs, the bones, 
 the muscles, the nerves are made of cellular 
 tissue, and this unmistakably indicates a recep- 
 tive life in the body, a body formed to receive 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 107 
 
 from without, to assimilate what it needs, and 
 thereby to live. It is but a step from this to the 
 thought that the whole, being but a complex of 
 cells, is fitted to receive a soul, an animating 
 presence, or whatever the inner man may be 
 called ; and it is but a step beyond that to the 
 thought that this inner man is a recipient, but, 
 of course, this cannot be anatomically demon- 
 strated. 
 
 In respect to the indivisible selfhood, the idea 
 of infinite pre-existence must give place to some 
 view more consonant with reason and experience. 
 The only alternative is that the mind is a created 
 existence, in this respect the perfect analogue of 
 the body. Here, again, two ways appear : for 
 we may think of the mind as created and com- 
 pleted, once for all, at some past time ; or we 
 may think of it as created in the sense that it is 
 so made as to require to be continually recipient 
 of that which it needs for sustenance and 
 growth. 
 
 The former view, that the mind was created at 
 one stroke and sent forth, supplied once for all 
 with inexhaustible energy, is that which is held 
 by those more cautious reincarnationists who 
 avoid giving man self-creative or infinite power, 
 
108 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 and the same view seems to be held by all those 
 who regard 'every one as from his beginning 
 elected or reprobated by his Creator, especially 
 when held in the extreme form that all subse- 
 quent men were on trial for their lives in the 
 first man. l But with the daily-increasing 
 evidences gathered by science that the cosmic 
 creation goes on and always will go on, the 
 general mind is accepting the idea that the 
 individual man, himself a creation, and a mi- 
 crocosmic type of the creation, is in process of 
 development. This only revives the old saying, 
 "Preservation is perpetual creation." As the 
 body, confessed by all to be created, must be fed, 
 so the soul, or immaterial man, being less than 
 the Divine, is a recipient of life, of immaterial 
 " daily bread." 
 
 Every one who has observed the development 
 of an individual from infancy to maturity has 
 noted the gradual reception and appropriation of 
 motives and manners, whether gained by means 
 of lessons learned, or acquired by that observa- 
 tion and imitation of others which is, in a large 
 degree, indiscriminating, and which gives so 
 
 1 The Assembly's Catechism, Question 16. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 109 
 
 much of good or evil to the child. As Emerson 
 said, in his essay on " Spiritual Laws :" " There 
 is no teaching till the pupil is brought into the 
 same state or principle in which you are; a 
 transfusion takes place ; he is you and you are 
 he ; there is a teaching." 
 
 Granting the immeasurable influence of 
 teachers upon young minds, the question may be 
 asked, " Do not the influences of heredity need 
 to be reckoned of great importance ?" Certainly, 
 but this is not an objection to the doctrine of the 
 receptive quality of the self. What we inherit we 
 certainly receive, — by another way, indeed, than 
 that by which we receive the influences of in- 
 structors, but none the less do we receive the 
 traits which are so important a part of ourselves. 
 It is an objection to metempsychosis that heredity 
 seems to destroy the fancy of man ascending 
 independently by successive reincarnations, but 
 against the simple idea of the receptivity of 
 man no such objection lies. 
 
 It is, however, when one examines himself 
 
 that he is most convinced of the fact that he is a 
 
 recipient. As he looks over the library of his 
 
 precious, earliest books he sees from what source 
 
 he drew his information, now made a part of 
 10 
 
HO THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 himself by constant exercise. As he looks upon 
 the portraits of his teachers he recalls the scenes 
 in which they ministered to him of their abun- 
 dance. As he goes back in memory to early 
 days he is like a traveller who views the trophies 
 of his rambles, and says, " This I got one day 
 in Naples, that in Cairo, that in Calcutta." A 
 man's memory may fail to enable him to name 
 the respective sources of all that he has mentally 
 acquired, but others may assist him to complete 
 the account. Especially can they assure him 
 that certain of his tendencies clearly represent 
 his parents and ancestors. 
 
 Thus he learns, from the exclusion as absurd 
 of the view of himself as an uncreated being, 
 from the analogy of all other created existences, 
 from his own experiences revealed by memory, 
 and from the information which intimate older 
 friends can give him, that his life is, and has 
 been since its inception, a recipient life ; that his 
 selfhood is an organism of cells spiritually filled 
 or filling ; that he was made by some power 
 greater than himself, and that his daily life is a 
 process of acquisition from sources outside of 
 himself. 
 
 He, therefore, regards without dismay the 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. m 
 
 alternative presented by Professor Knight : either 
 every man an uncreated god, or the miracle of 
 increase of spiritual existence in the universe; 
 but he corrects the alternative by pointing out 
 that the second member should read, " increase 
 of forms of spiritual existence," for every man is 
 a recipient form of life. If the source of life be 
 in God, his gift from an infinite source to a 
 newly-created form should arouse the repugnance 
 of Professor Knight no more than the irrigation 
 of a hitherto arid and untilled plain which is 
 made thus to increase the plant-life of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Finally, the selfhood of each individual, his 
 proprium, is not uncreated and independent, but 
 it is the peculiar form of life which he is, that 
 combination of receptive qualities, which com- 
 bination makes him to be unlike all others, his 
 own self. It is the special and permanent 
 capacity to receive in his own way, and to exer- 
 cise what common sense wisely calls his " gifts" 
 in his own way by making use of what he re- 
 ceives, which capacity is his individuality, for 
 " what is received is received ad modum recip- 
 ientis." 
 
 Professor James's figure of the stream of 
 
112 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 thought is as graphic as it is convenient, but it 
 should never be forgotten that we cannot think 
 of a stream without its banks ; that we think of 
 a stream with one kind of bed and banks as 
 rushing forcefully along to perform magnificent 
 tasks, and, on the other hand, that we think of a 
 stream with another kind of bed and banks as 
 moving sluggishly, with little capacity for giving 
 power as it goes. It is not our heredity alone, it 
 is not what we have imbibed alone, which makes 
 us what we are, or two boys of the same family, 
 attending the same school, would be much the 
 same ; it is not only our own acquisitions, plus 
 our heredity, for then the children of a family 
 would be more alike than they are seen to be ; 
 it is something plus heredity, plus acquisition, 
 which something is the primary cause of 
 individualization, and which makes every one so 
 distinct a personality. 
 
 What this something is can be told by sug- 
 gesting the microcosmic image instead of that 
 of the stream alone. While the stream correctly 
 describes the thoughts in their flow, we need 
 to think also of the solid ground beneath and 
 beside the stream, the voluntary nature which 
 underlies the intellectual and which constantly 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. H3 
 
 modifies the stream, and we need to think of 
 that which makes both bed and stream to be the 
 man's own and not another's. This is his pecu- 
 liar, original nature, and it is something which 
 the man has not made, and which his ancestors 
 have not made, and which his teachers may in a 
 degree mould but cannot make ; it is the special 
 form originally given to his nature, not by an 
 irrational decision that he shall be elect or repro- 
 bated, but by a decision of infinite wisdom that 
 he shall be fitted to fill a certain place. It is the 
 man whom the Lord God putteth into the garden 
 with its ground and its river to dress it and to 
 keep it. As the Israelites drew lots to obtain 
 places in the promised land, so there is assigned 
 to every one, apart from his parents' wishes and 
 prior of course to acts of his judgment, a place 
 to fill. " Poets are born, not made," is a true 
 saying ; but the word " born" here is equivalent 
 to " are created," and is not to be taken in an 
 atheistic sense, as if the poet were such because 
 he from birth happened to be such. And so 
 Dryden says, " Genius must be born and never 
 can be taught," * meaning the original creation 
 
 1 Epistle X., line 60. 
 h 10* 
 
114 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 of the mind. Genius is an inherent aptitude to 
 do a work, and to this aptitude heredity and edu- 
 cation minister, but they do not do more. It 
 was weak in Gray to sing, — 
 
 " Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air," 
 
 and then to go on about " some mute inglorious 
 Milton," and so forth, because to be seen is not 
 the whole purpose of a flower, and because a 
 true Hampden or Milton or Cromwell is in- 
 suppressible. 
 
 ~No conception of human order at all commen- 
 surate with cosmic order can be formed without 
 admitting that every man has a place in the uni- 
 versal plan, and that his place is worthy of him 
 and of his Maker. We have thousands of men 
 in one profession, it is true, but they are all 
 different, and their propinquity emphasizes their 
 separateness. The greater the variety in a har- 
 mony the more perfect the harmony. Since no 
 possible conception of the human order is greater 
 than this, so all inferior conceptions are unsatis- 
 factory, because they leave one to conclude that 
 some are brought into the world to have no 
 vocation except to imitate others. That some 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. H5 
 
 are of more humble capacity than others does 
 not militate against this conception, because the 
 humility of a task is no bar to its being regarded 
 as important and as conferring true dignity upon 
 its faithful minister. The great are not always 
 to be envied their proportionate responsibility, 
 and it is neither more easy nor more magnani- 
 mous to be a king than to be an artisan. 
 
 " "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws 
 Makes that and the action fine." 1 
 
 It is a part of the wonderful universalism of 
 human order, the infractions of which will be 
 considered hereafter, that one grows into his 
 place. With many a young man an anxious 
 state of waiting to see what his life-work shall 
 be is conspicuous, and this anticipates the deci- 
 sion which will come very gently in the mingled 
 lesson of conviction and circumstance when the 
 time is ripe. Others have no anxiety, but find 
 duty calling them to some task, by no means 
 easy, but not impossible, as it would be if they 
 had no fitness for it. 
 
 In his essay on " Lords of Life," Dr. Hedge 
 
 1 George Herbert, Elixir. 
 
116 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 makes a just distinction between the influences 
 brought to bear upon a man from without and 
 his inward essential life : " It is often affirmed 
 that circumstances make the man ; that charac- 
 ter and destiny are the product of influences that 
 have acted upon us from without ; that we are 
 what these influences have made us, and could 
 not, with such motives, have been other than 
 we are ; that had circumstances been different 
 we should have developed differently, it might 
 have been better, or it might have been worse. 
 . . . This view of man overlooks the element 
 of individuality, or makes individuality itself an 
 accident." 1 But he then proceeds to make a 
 statement which militates against our principle 
 of creative individualization : " If all that before 
 our birth contributed to make us what we are ; 
 if pre-natal as well as post-natal influences are 
 to be reckoned as circumstance, — then it is un- 
 questionably true, or rather, it is an identical 
 proposition, that circumstances make the man ; 
 for then circumstances are the man." 2 
 
 It seems impossible to take this otherwise 
 
 1 Atheism in Philosophy, p. 378. 
 3 Ibid., p. 379. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. H7 
 
 than atheistically. "By circumstance I under- 
 stand external surrounding," is the author's defi- 
 nition. Pre-natal circumstances, then, would 
 mean those conditions which go to make up the 
 heredity of a person, and this is the same as to 
 say that his personality is his heredity, and that 
 his heredity is his individuality. Now, if this 
 were true, the man would be, not self-created 
 indeed, but man-created, — that is, created by 
 parents and ancestors. But if one man cannot 
 be self-created, one's ancestor cannot be self- 
 created ; and if ancestors and parents have not in 
 them the source of life, they cannot create other 
 men; they can be only agencies of creation. 
 Moreover, if the whole man were essentially 
 what his heredity was, what would become of 
 the world plan ? And how could children rise 
 above parents, a David above a Jesse, a John 
 above a Zebedee ? 
 
 Not only is it irrational thus, with Dr. Hedge, 
 to make finite men do the work, unaided, of in- 
 finite energy, but it wholly excludes the thought 
 of a Divine authorship of individual and collec- 
 tive humanity. It limits the Holy One of Israel, 
 and the limited god is mythological. If it is a 
 part of infinite wisdom to make men, who must 
 
118 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 be recipients of life, also mediums of the trans- 
 mission of life, it is a mistake in the medium to 
 say, " I create." 
 
 It is what is created from above which first 
 receives the heredity as it afterwards receives the 
 education, bearing both wisely or unwisely. The 
 man is more than the stream of his thought, and 
 he is more than its bed, yea, more than both ; 
 for he is the owner of both, the user of both, at 
 once a master and a steward. 
 
 When a man begins to discern his peculiar 
 gift and to develop it for the sake of making his 
 life " tell" to the fullest extent, when he goes on 
 chastening and perfecting himself as a wise son 
 uses the portion of goods that falleth to him, he 
 is filling his place in the mighty aggregate of 
 humanity. Acknowledging that he cannot make 
 himself another man, but must remain in his 
 special quality and capacity what he was designed 
 to be, making himself, as Bacon said, " a debtor 
 to his profession," he does not exalt his own in- 
 terest to the disregard of others' interests and 
 rights, but does his work and exercises his gifts 
 in the way which Kant admirably declared in his 
 categorical imperative of duty: "Act as if the 
 maxims of thy action were to become through thy 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. H9 
 
 will a universal law of nature." And, since Pro- 
 fessor Knight has been criticised here, let him 
 be heard from in a wise word on this point : "Let 
 your whole nature expand to the very uttermost 
 of which it is capable, in every possible direction, 
 that it may grow into a perfect structure, com- 
 pacted by that which every joint supplieth." 1 
 
 The ethical effect of this doctrine is indeed 
 " immense." It appoints duty, it enforces duty, it 
 glorifies duty. " What have I to do ?" one asks ; 
 and the answer is ready, " What you can do." 
 And herein is individuality vindicated, for there 
 is neither comfort nor value in the possession of 
 a special gift, or of anything which is peculiarly 
 one's own, unless there be a demand for the ex- 
 ercise of that gift, a place for one's peculiar, form 
 of usefulness. 
 
 This thought is illustrated upon a day's jour- 
 ney, especially among communities not so large 
 that the individual seems lost in the mass, nor so 
 small that there is little room for combination of 
 activities. In a town one sees a few thousand 
 persons exercising the arts required for the 
 general welfare. In ways which need no 
 
 1 » The Summum Bonum," p. 255. 
 
120 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 enumeration all are busy. There may be some 
 idle on account of wealth, and some on account 
 of poverty ; but, between the home of luxury 
 and the poor-farm, the average life of the com- 
 munity occupies itself. It does not matter that 
 several may pursue one calling, for of a dozen 
 physicians, each one has so far his own pref- 
 erences as to treatment of disease that all 
 worthy ones have work, and that no two do the 
 like work. It is so with those who might seem 
 most bound to sameness of task, — the agricul- 
 turists. As to them it is enough to say that no 
 two farms are alike, and no two men alike, and 
 that individuality is even more noticeable in the 
 farmer than in the inhabitant of the city. Pass- 
 ing on his way, the traveller reaches another 
 community likewise furnished with its people of 
 various capacities ; and so he may go on and on, 
 round the world. No two communities, how- 
 ever, are precisely alike ; no two states, no two 
 nations. The cosmos is a unit composed of myr- 
 iads of lesser units, as the body has its multitude 
 of parts ; and the rational unit is a human self- 
 hood, a person. What each one can do is, 
 therefore, what each one ought to do. Selfish- 
 ness raising the demands of the individual above 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 121 
 
 those of the community may sadly mar this 
 system of order, but unselfishness can restore it, 
 and, so far as it is found, it mirrors in its un- 
 spotted surface the plan of the universe, the 
 cosmic unity in variety. 
 
 " Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, 
 But as the world, harmoniously confused, 
 "Where order in variety we see, 
 
 And where, though all things differ, all agree." l 
 
 So wrote Pope most wisely. And others 
 have sung the same strain, as when Shakespeare 
 applies the thought to government, by making 
 Henry V. say, — 
 
 " For government, though high, and low, and lower, 
 Put into parts, doth keep in one consent ; 
 Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
 Like music." 2 
 
 A brief comparison between the ethical value 
 of this view of a recipient personality, part of a 
 universal unity, and the ethical value of the 
 view now known as reincarnation, shows at once 
 the difference to be so great that what Professor 
 
 1 Windsor "Forest. 2 Act I., Scene 2. 
 
 11 
 
122 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Knight calls the " immense" value of the latter 
 dwindles to nothing, and it is seen to be only 
 self-seeking. That theory is wounded in the 
 house of its friends. The misanthropic Schopen- 
 hauer should not have been permitted to praise 
 it as the remedy for the fear of death, for the 
 weariness of memory, and for the tsedium of 
 " life-dreams until the will abolishes or abrogates 
 itself." * Even Professor Knight talks of its 
 " horizon of hope," a purely selfish consideration. 
 This is Epicurean, this looks to Mrvana. 
 "Ethical leverage" must use the strength of 
 altruism. It has long been with many the re- 
 proach of the Christian pulpit that it stimulates 
 self-love, proclaims future reward for righteous- 
 ness, and appeals to the sinful to avoid future 
 misery. In his essay on " Ethical Systems," 
 Dr. Hedge points out this defect in Paley's 
 " Moral Philosophy," once a standard text. In 
 this appeal to selfishness, the pulpit has uttered 
 a false gospel and denied its Christ, of whose 
 unselfish love it was truly said, " He saved others, 
 Himself he cannot save." 2 A good shepherd, 
 
 1 The "World as "Will and Idea ; chapter on Death. 
 3 Matt, xxvii. 42. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 123 
 
 laying down his life for the sheep, rather than 
 a hireling, whose own the sheep are not, is the 
 model Christian. And life lays itself down for 
 its friends when it pursues its daily round in 
 acknowledgment of its obligation to make re- 
 turn for benefits had, and to serve the world 
 with all it hath, even all its living. 
 
 Schopenhauer, pessimistic reincarnationist, felt 
 no " ethical leverage" as he sank lower and 
 lower in despair. The " ethical leverage" of the 
 theistic view may be studied in the martyrs from 
 Stephen down, in every humble and faithful 
 worker, in every pure patriot living or dying, in 
 all such as, with the spirit of Abou Ben Adhem, 
 climb " the great world's altar-stairs." 
 
 In this altruism is no concealed selfishness of 
 the baser kind. The self has consecrated itself. 
 The personality regards itself as a sacred trust. 
 It asks not, " What shall I do that I may inherit 
 eternal life?" going away grieved when the 
 answer calls for self-sacrifice ; l it bears its cross 
 silently; in its underserved suffering it com- 
 mands its friends, " "Weep not for me, but weep 
 for yourselves and your children ;" 2 it makes no 
 
 !Markx. 22. 2 Lukexxiii. 28. 
 
124 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 excuses when called to give account of its stew- 
 ardship, but is ready to answer with truth, 
 " Thou deliveredst unto me five talents : lo, I 
 have gained other five talents ;" * it has no reluc- 
 tance to confess, " Thine eyes did see mine im- 
 perfect substance, and in thy book were all my 
 members written, which day by day were fash- 
 ioned, when as yet there was none of them." 2 
 
 The self, in this view, beholds as its ideal the 
 greatest possible excellence of serviceableness, or 
 more correctly the effort to approach that, and it 
 rejoices in the discipline necessary to its training 
 for the largest, because the most devoted, useful- 
 ness in its own task, its own loved office among 
 the uses of this life, and its preparation thereby 
 for a higher usefulness in another life of imma- 
 terial conditions. 
 
 More wisely than he knew spake Polonius 
 when he said, — 
 
 11 This above all, — to thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 3 
 
 1 Matt. xxv. 20. 2 Psalm cxxxix. 16. 
 
 3 Hamlet, Act I., Scene 3. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 125 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAN REACTIVE. 
 
 If the self be a created and not an uncreated 
 thing, if, being created, it is and must forever be 
 a recipient or perish ; if the fact of this recipient 
 nature be regarded as sufficiently shown from 
 reason and experience, and if the personality be 
 regarded as the peculiar form of receptivity 
 which each one possesses, which gives form to 
 his own life, and which gives to him his own 
 place in the great body of humanity, the ques- 
 tion will arise, Is this reception active or passive ? 
 This is to ask whether the self in man is a mere 
 conduit or not, a passive receptacle or an active 
 agency. 
 
 That man is or ought to be passive has been 
 a favorite view with many of widely different 
 origins. Mrvana is not regarded in precisely 
 the same way by all, but it means to present as 
 the goal of the soul a state that is passive. Sir 
 11* 
 
126 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Edwin Arnold is surely an authority on the sub- 
 ject, and he has said, — 
 
 " If he shall day by day dwell merciful, 
 
 Holy and just and kind and true ; and rend 
 Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots, 
 Till love of life have end : 
 
 " Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins 
 Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes 
 Invade his safe eternal peace ; nor deaths 
 And lives recur. He goes 
 
 « TJnto Nirvana. He is one with Life, 
 
 Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. 
 Om, mani padme, om ! the dewdrop slips 
 Into the shining sea." * 
 
 Here the passivity is not present but to come. 
 The restlessness of man is to attain it by hard 
 striving. But the implication is that the best 
 state of the self is its passive one, — "sinless, 
 stirless rest." 
 
 Similarly the Christian quietist contemplates 
 and cultivates passivity as the supreme end. 
 Molinos, in his " Spiritual Guide," makes a 
 similar utterance : " By the way of nothing thou 
 
 1 Light of Asia. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 127 
 
 must come to lose thyself in God (which is the 
 last degree of perfection), and happy will thou 
 be if thou canst so lose thyself. In this same 
 shop of nothing, simplicity is made, interior and 
 infused recollection is possessed, quiet is ob- 
 tained, and the heart is cleansed from all imper- 
 fection." l Such expressions caused the sympa- 
 thetic Yaughn, in his " Hours with the Mystics," 
 to speak of the " holy indifference" of quietism. 
 
 Schopenhauer is far removed from Molinos 
 and Fenelon, but his tendency to seek for a 
 Nirvana in which the will would cease from 
 troubling has been shown above. 
 
 Spinoza in a very different way came even 
 more openly to the conclusion that man, the 
 wise man, is passive : " He is scarcely moved in 
 mind ; but, being conscious of himself, of God, 
 and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, 
 never ceases to be, but is always possessed of 
 true satisfaction of mind." 2 
 
 But these and similar opinions only point out 
 by contrast the true view. Man is not passive 
 and never will be passive. His energies demand 
 
 1 English edition, 1699, p. 157. 
 
 'Ethics, Part V., Prop. XLIL, Scholium. 
 
128 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 exercise, and his development in any rational 
 way does not diminish but increases his energy, 
 concentrating it on some one function to which 
 all his powers minister, and in the performance 
 of which he contributes his best gift to the wel- 
 fare of the whole. It is unnecessary to offer 
 arguments for the necessity and consequent 
 nobility of work. Without exercise the mind 
 and body wither. Lethargy, whether in Nirvana 
 or out of it, is as destructive as it is abnormal 
 and unworthy. " The gods sell everything for 
 toil," said Epicharmus, and Socrates quoted it 
 to Aristippus, who had attempted to defend an 
 idle life. 1 
 
 There is no true conception of human life 
 which overlooks or depreciates its capacities. 
 The will which Schopenhauer would have ab- 
 rogated must be a diseased will, wanting purifi- 
 cation. If the will to live be or become the will 
 to serve, it is not to be compared for value with 
 an ignoble and self-contented sloth. The " holy 
 indifference" of the quietist can be called such 
 only in the degree that self-interest is subordi- 
 nated to a broader interest in the welfare of the 
 
 1 Xenophon's Memorabilia, II. 1. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 129 
 
 race. All talk of self-extinction is miserable, 
 because selfish, unless it means the overcom- 
 ing of that in a man which limits his servicea- 
 bleness. 
 
 If it be granted that the self is active rather 
 than passive, that its recipiency is not that of a 
 mere sponge or a mere conduit, the question then 
 arises, Is its activity self-originated or reactive ? 
 This is involved in what has been said already as 
 to the created self. If now independently active, 
 the soul can be conceived of as having always 
 been so. If self-propelled thus far, then now it 
 needs no aid from without. And the reverse 
 follows if the opposite view be taken of its nature. 
 Reasons have been given for holding that man is 
 a created and receptive being. 
 
 Receptivity, if at all active, implies, in the 
 degree of its activity, a constant reaction. The 
 mind's agency is a reagency. It is to be re- 
 gretted that the words " react" and " reagent" 
 have only a scientific use, but the fact that they 
 are almost entirely restricted to physics is highly 
 significant. It has not been seen that man and 
 nature are in correspondence, and so far nature 
 is better understood than man. 
 
 The tree is a recipient of all that it can obtain 
 
130 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 by leaf and root, and, reacting upon the life so 
 received, it brings forth fruit stored with the 
 sunlight and the moisture formed by it into the 
 olive or the apple, which contain the seed or 
 germinal cell of a new tree. Sundered from 
 these sources of life the tree would speedily 
 perish. Eeceiving the contributed life without 
 reactive operation the tree would have no seed 
 in itself and would hopelessly cumber the 
 ground. By its reaction upon the action which 
 it receives the tree is a tree of life. The bird is 
 not self-created, but likewise depends upon life 
 which is given to it and upon which it must 
 react in co-operative activity by all the means in 
 its power, building a nest, rearing young, finding 
 food, flying hither and thither as climate requires. 
 Refusing to do its part as a reagent the bird 
 would die. Doing its little part with instinctive 
 faithfulness, it is " the herald of the morn." 
 
 Is not this true, upon a grander scale, of man ? 
 Not self-caused, nor self-perpetuated, like all else 
 that is created, he receives his life and receives 
 it as a reagent. " Freely ye have received, freely 
 give." l Hamilton has well said, " Life is energy, 
 
 1 Matt. x. 8. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 131 
 
 and conscious energy is conscious life." l Now 
 all that is received by mind and body must 
 be energized by the mind or body and sent 
 forth in activity, or there is no life in us. 
 
 The body is certainly reactive. " The vital 
 agencies are at work incessantly all over the 
 system, as if it were a busy laboratory, in build- 
 ing up the tissues, in converting elements into 
 immediate principles [reckoned as eighty-four], 
 and in separating and casting out of the body 
 the superfluous and deleterious materials." 2 
 " The food in the stomach is rolled in a spiral 
 course, is mingled and worked over with the 
 acid gastric fluid whose function it is to set the 
 purer parts of the food free and to separate them 
 from the gross and worthless." 3 
 
 If the mind be not fed, if there be no mental 
 assimilation in it, it is different from all other 
 created things. But since it has been found to 
 be dependent upon life received and made its 
 own, its activity is, like that of the body and all 
 Nature, reactive. 
 
 1 Metaphysics, Lecture XLII. 
 
 2 Hitchcock's Anatomy and Physiology, n. 789. 
 
 8 Worcester's Physiological Correspondences, p. 45. 
 
132 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 The empirical evidence of this doctrine is as 
 perfect as possible. The infant, so far as it be- 
 gins to manifest a thought, is found to be giving 
 to the life which it receives a form, an utterance, 
 which is its own. The child, as it uses its facul- 
 ties to question why this is done and why that, 
 is forming its own opinions, and developing, in 
 reaction upon the information and all formative 
 influences received, its own character. The 
 adult, engrossed perhaps in business, sleeps and 
 wakes, indifferent to questions of his origin or 
 relations, but nevertheless every act is but the 
 result of some life received, reacted upon in his 
 mind, and sent forth again by voice and hand. 
 The most strongly individual men are those in 
 whom the reactive force is greatest, so that they 
 give forth opinions or perform their acts with 
 peculiar emphasis and with marked effect upon 
 others. The more reaction a man has, the 
 stronger man he is ; the more nearly one ap- 
 proaches to the condition of a mere conduit, a 
 mere transmitter of opinion, a mere tool of 
 another, the weaker he is. 
 
 The movement from the savage state to the 
 civilized is in the direction of the development 
 of individuality, that is, of reactive ability. The 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 133 
 
 perfection of modes of education looks in the 
 same direction, and does not attempt to fill the 
 memory and merely enable one to answer the 
 questions of others, but aims to expedite devel- 
 opment, to sharpen the faculties, and to produce 
 noble men and women. Sir W. Hamilton, in 
 his address on " Academic Honors," rightly de- 
 fined the object of instruction as " determination 
 of the student to self-activity," and what is self- 
 activity but the putting forth of one's powers by 
 energetic reactive exercise ? 
 
 Professor Newman, in his " Theism," describes 
 the case : " This energy of life within is ours, 
 yet it is not we. It is in us, it belongs to us, yet 
 we cannot control it. It acts without bidding 
 even when we do not think of it. JSTor will it 
 cease its acting at our command, or otherwise 
 obey us. . . . But while it recalls from evil, and 
 reproaches us for evil, and is not silenced by our 
 effort, surely it is not we. It pervades mankind, 
 as one life pervades the trees." 1 
 
 1 Edition 1874, p. 9. 
 
 12 
 
134 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 CHAPTEB VI. 
 
 MAN A FREE AGENT. 
 
 It is in the acknowledgment of man's true 
 place in the creation as a recipient but not a 
 mere conduit, an agent but not a tool, a reagent 
 and not absolute inactivity, that his freedom of 
 agency is vindicated from all objection. 
 
 It may be conceded at once that he is not as 
 free as if he were not in a world which has its 
 laws, and that he is restrained by his understand- 
 ing of law and of the penalty which its infringe- 
 ment brings, and thus that he is free, not as 
 a lawless tyrant, but within the limits which 
 belong to a rational, created, recipient, reactive 
 being. He is not free to make himself another. 
 He is not free to render himself absolutely inde- 
 pendent of the source of life. He is not free to 
 cease to be a reagent. But, with " the portion 
 of goods that falleth to him," he is free to go 
 and expend it as he will, and free to return ; free 
 to dwell in a far country of ways foreign to his 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 135 
 
 best good, or to abide in peace with bis Father; 
 free, wben affected by a seductive impulse, to 
 refuse to heed it, or free to obey tbe siren's 
 voice; free to decide what occupation be will 
 pursue, and free to pursue it in accordance witb 
 what be finds to be bis capacity, or in defiance 
 of lessons wbicb tell him that he is out of place ; 
 free to be a wise man, or to be an unwise 
 man. 
 
 It is somewhat common to deny freedom on 
 the ground that, when two roads are before a 
 man and he weighs the reasons for taking this 
 or that, he is impelled by the circumstances of 
 the case and makes no free choice. But the 
 fact is that he is just as free to ignore as to be 
 influenced by the circumstances, to remain still 
 as to take either road. A lion being in one path 
 and a lamb in the other leaves him perfectly free 
 to go the way of the lion, if he will. " What 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life ?" l sounded as if 
 the young man, when informed, must go in the 
 way pointed out; but no, he turned his back 
 upon it. " What must I do to be healed ?" one 
 asks a physician, and he seems to have no free- 
 
 1 Mark x. 17. 
 
136 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 dom in the matter, but he can take the remedy 
 or neglect it, as he will. 
 
 There is no freedom with Spinoza, there is 
 none with Edwards, and there is none with 
 materialistic determinism, but in all these and 
 similar views there is neglect of the empiric 
 evidence of freedom. Even Spinoza finds the 
 unwise man using as much " imagination" as he 
 pleases in doing his own thinking; even Ed- 
 wards seems to have given man liberty to sin ; 
 and modern materialism, with all its extreme 
 exaltation of heredity and environment, has not 
 made out its case that man is a slave to impulse 
 and that his acts are the mere reflex of his sensa- 
 tions. 
 
 It would not seem to be necessary to plead 
 against a form of religious enthusiasm like 
 Spinoza's or Edwards's, which would make God 
 to have defeated His own end and to have pro- 
 duced a race whose humanity was only a name 
 for machinery, and this can be considered later 
 when the relation of the self to its Maker is 
 treated of; but the objection to free agency on 
 account of controlling circumstances and inheri- 
 tances requires a brief comment; for Professor 
 Huxley states a fact when he says, " The prog- 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 137 
 
 ress of science in all ages has meant the ex- 
 tension of the province of what we call matter 
 and causation, and the concomitant gradual 
 banishment from all regions of human thought 
 of what we call spirit and spontaneity." 1 
 
 Hume illustrated this tendency when, in treat- 
 ing of liberty and necessity, he pointed out that 
 all movements in nature are necessary : " Every 
 object is determined by an absolute fate to a 
 certain degree and direction of its motion, and 
 can no more depart from that line in which it 
 moves than it can convert itself into an angel or 
 spirit or any superior substance. The actions, 
 therefore, of matter are to be regarded as in- 
 stances of necessary actions ; and whatever is in 
 this respect on the same footing with matter 
 must be acknowledged to be necessary. That 
 we may know whether this be the case with the 
 actions of the mind, we shall begin with ex- 
 amining matter." 2 
 
 Unfortunately for the value of his argument, 
 he not only begins with examining matter, but 
 ends there ; thus : the bodily difference between 
 
 1 Lay Sermons : New York Edition, 1871, p. 142. 
 
 2 Human Nature, Oxford, 1888, p. 400. 
 
 12* 
 
138 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 the sexes is the same as that of their minds, 
 with bodily decline in old age goes mental de- 
 cline, with the hard hands of the laborer goes a 
 corresponding quality of mind, with climates 
 racial traits agree; and this correspondence is 
 so noticeable that it marks a law. Madmen 
 have no liberty because they act as moved ; nor 
 have others because they too act as moved. But 
 men dislike to confess that they are under 
 necessity to act as they do, and they do indeed 
 feel a false sensation of indifference or liberty of 
 choice, and their religion, " which has been very 
 unnecessarily interested in this question," per- 
 suades them that they are free. But every act, 
 continued Hume, has its cause both with God 
 and men, and there is no liberty. "Upon a 
 review of these reasonings I cannot doubt of an 
 entire victory." 1 Later on in the essay he said, 
 " As to free-will we have shown that it has no 
 place with regard to the actions no more than 
 the qualities of men. It is not a just consequence 
 that what is voluntary is free. Our actions are 
 more voluntary than our judgments, but we 
 have not more liberty in one than in the other." 2 
 
 1 Human Nature, p. 422. 2 Ibid., p. 609. 
 
RELATION TO TEE DIVINE. 139 
 
 This view is consistent with itself, but it is not 
 consistent with the facts. It must be admitted 
 that the sexes have physical marks, but this is 
 not to admit those marks to be the cause of the 
 difference between men and women; for the 
 woman, though her frame be weaker and her 
 skin softer, is as brave and makes as unyielding 
 a martyr as the man. It must be admitted that 
 bodily decline is often accompanied with mental 
 weakness; but in the extreme weakness of ill- 
 ness the mind is often strong and the will imper- 
 ative, and in old age there is often discernible a 
 youthfulness and innocence which are exactly 
 the reverse of what a shrunken and marred 
 body would lead us to expect. It must be ad- 
 mitted that hard hands and a certain stupidity 
 are often found together; but, so far are the 
 hands from producing this state of the mind 
 that Tolstoi is by no means a singular instance 
 of hard hands and tender sensibilities ; indeed, 
 every community furnishes its learned black- 
 smith or its studious apprentice. There is reason 
 to think that the hand of the college oarsman is 
 harder than that of the mechanic, and that the 
 soft hand of the effeminate student is not a sign 
 of intellectual superiority. It must be admitted 
 
140 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 that in warm climates the natives are more ex- 
 citable than those of colder regions; but this 
 correspondence of man with nature is carried 
 too far when it makes the climate determine the 
 character, as may be seen with the Africans who, 
 transported to America, make no change of 
 character except through self-determined and 
 persevering effort. 
 
 That madmen have no liberty is a dangerous 
 argument for Hume, since their very capricious- 
 ness in many cases defies all attempt to ascertain 
 physical causes of their moods. They are more 
 free than the sane, seeing that they recognize no 
 bonds of moral and civil law. 
 
 As for Hume's suggestions that liberty is a 
 wilful self-deception from pride of autocracy, or 
 a deception imposed by some other from kind- 
 ness, or a religious delusion, it is enough to say 
 that vilification is not argument, and that men 
 are neither so vain nor so fallible as they are 
 here represented to be in order to sweep away 
 common sense arising from consciousness and 
 observation. Hume felt that his assault had 
 been successful, but his " entire victory" was 
 spoiled by his own performances rather than by 
 those of his unperturbed foe ; for note some of 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 141 
 
 the expressions which he saw fit to use in his 
 " advertisement," in which he was guilty of 
 mentioning " my design" — " the subjects I have 
 here planned out to myself" — " I was willing to 
 take advantage of this natural division in order 
 to try the taste of the public" — " if I have the 
 good fortune to meet with success, I shall pro- 
 ceed" — "the approbation of the public I con- 
 sider as the greatest reward of my labors, but 
 am determined to regard its judgment, whatever 
 it be, as my best instruction." And these phrases, 
 full of liberty in Hume and in the public, from 
 the one who rejected the idea! As with the 
 woman, of whom Valerius Maximus tells, who 
 appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober, so 
 here an appeal needs only to be taken from 
 Hume speculating to Hume advertising. 
 
 Wundt disposes of this cavil against liberty of 
 will when he says, "When we say that the 
 character of a man is a product of light and air, 
 of education and circumstances, of food and 
 climate, that it is necessarily determined, as 
 every natural phenomenon, by these influences, 
 we draw an entirely undemonstrable conclusion." 1 
 
 1 Grundziige, II., p. 396. 
 
142 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Schopenhauer, naming his treatise " Freedom 
 of the Will," hut meaning the opposite, has 
 said, " Man never does hut what he wills, never- 
 theless he always acts necessarily. "While we 
 act we are at the same time acted upon." l To 
 this Wundt also answers. 
 
 This tendency, strongly augmented hy Hume, 
 to consider the mind in the light of physical re- 
 search alone, has been brought to maturity by 
 many modern scientists famous for their achieve- 
 ments as such, hut less successful as metaphy- 
 sicians than as physiologists. Thus, Herbert 
 Spencer has said, " That every one is at liberty 
 to desire or not to desire, which is the real prop- 
 osition involved in the dogma of free-will, is 
 negatived as much by the internal perceptions 
 of every one as by the contents of the preceding 
 chapters." 2 
 
 What perceptions are meant here will be ap- 
 parent in a moment. They are not direct per- 
 ceptions of a character to be compared with 
 those of conscious freedom of the will, but they 
 are physical, and imply to Spencer determinism. 
 
 1 Freiheit, p. 44. 
 
 2 Principles of Psychology, sect. 207. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 143 
 
 He says again, after showing the correlation of 
 physical forces and effects, " The forces which 
 we distinguish as mental come within the same 
 generalization. There is no alternative but to 
 make this assertion, the facts which justify it or 
 rather which necessitate it being abundant and 
 conspicuous. . . . Besides the correlation and 
 equivalence between external physical forces and 
 the mental forces generated in us under the form 
 of sensations, there is a correlation and equiva- 
 lence between sensations and those physical 
 forces which, in the shape of bodily actions, 
 result from them." * 
 
 This bowing out of the freedom of the will is 
 joined with remarks upon the heart beating 
 quickly under excitement, the teeth grinding 
 together in pain, the muscles tightening for 
 energetic action, the circulation of the blood in 
 the brain in connection with mental activity, the 
 effects of stimulants, and other " proofs," as Mr. 
 Spencer calls them. But do they prove more 
 than the corresponding conditions of the organs 
 employed? Looking upon these and similar 
 phenomena, does the observer know what is 
 
 1 First Principles, Part II., chap, vii., sect. 71. 
 
144 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 taking place in the mind of the subject? The 
 observer sees that the man is in pain; can he 
 predict what the man will do ? If these causes 
 have their precisely correlative effects, the man 
 suffers according to his injury; but do two men, 
 under the same degree of pain, act alike ? May 
 not one, while the pain lasts, rail on the Christ, 
 while his crucified companion rebukes him and 
 uses a wholly different tone ? One is reminded 
 of Dryden's lines, — 
 
 " A man so various that he seemed to he, 
 Not one, hut all mankind's epitome ; 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong ; 
 Was everything hy starts, hut nothing long ; 
 But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
 "Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and huffoon." 1 
 
 In defending the freedom of the ego in the 
 volume already referred to, Professor Momerie 
 quotes as an authority Bain's "Emotions and 
 "Will," and answers the arguments of this ne- 
 cessitarian with those of Carpenter's " Human 
 Physiology," and adds what R. S. Wyld has 
 said in his "Physics and Philosophy of the 
 Senses :" " Cerebral actions are the symbols of 
 thought, but they are no more thought itself 
 
 1 Ahsalom and Ahithophel, Part I., line 546. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 145 
 
 than the sentences of a book. "We must assume 
 the presence of an intelligent principle to in- 
 terpret the symbols, or we cannot conceive 
 thought to exist. Though the brain may follow 
 a certain involuntary course of action, and may 
 suggest to the mind a train of thought, we know 
 that the mind has the power of controlling the 
 cerebral action. We can interrupt one chain of 
 thought and start another, and out of a variety 
 of thoughts we can reject those that are the 
 most pressing." "In other words," concludes 
 Momerie, after an exceedingly instructive discus- 
 sion, " the ego is not merely passively acted on 
 by the brain, but is also capable of voluntary 
 self-originated action." 1 
 
 As the exclusion of free agency by Spinoza is 
 due to an exaggeration of the superior influence, 
 so that of the scientists is due to an exaggeration 
 of the inferior influence. Between the two in- 
 fluences, both of which are here acknowledged, 
 a balance exists, and man's choices are actual 
 and not seeming. The youth considering various 
 ways of life among which he must choose, Csesar 
 upon the bank of the Kubicon, every man not 
 
 1 Page 100. 
 13 
 
146 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 a willing slave to habit, is an example of free 
 agency. Each side of the scale is examined, 
 while, by a power not the man's, the beam re- 
 mains level, and then, when the weight of his 
 decision is joined to either side, the beam in- 
 clines. To go or stay, a to serve God or mam- 
 mon," these are the decisions which men can 
 make, and which men must make, or they igno- 
 bly surrender to some enslaving passion and sell 
 their birthright. Personal liberty is the universal 
 demand, but what is that worth unless it be the 
 correlative of mental liberty, of free agency ? 
 
 The moral value of the doctrine of free agency 
 has, of course, always been recognized. Men, 
 regarded as the creatures of circumstance, are 
 irresponsible. Men necessitated from any cause, 
 outward or inward, can have no account to 
 render. The unfaithful servant in the parable, 
 bringing back the unused talent, pleaded that he 
 was under necessity to let it rust, for his master 
 was so unreasonable and implacable that the 
 servant was forced to remain inactive, and he 
 thus represented the large class of people who 
 do nothing but grumble over their situation; 
 but the just answer was and is that the imaginary 
 severity of master or environment cannot be 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 147 
 
 pleaded as an excuse, since there is still left 
 abundant opportunity to turn the talent to 
 account. 
 
 This is the ground taken by Kant in the " Met- 
 aphysic of Morality," namely, that " the will is 
 the causality of living beings so far as they are 
 rational," and "that freedom is that causality 
 not determined to action by any cause other than 
 itself," and that " freedom is a property of all 
 rational beings," and that " a true conception of 
 morality is reduced to the idea of freedom," and 
 that " the idea of freedom explains the possibility 
 of categorical imperatives ;" l but this owes much 
 to Aristotle's treatment of the freedom of the 
 will in the Nicomachean Ethics, the third book 
 of which concerns itself with that subject, not 
 refraining from difficult practical questions : 
 "Praise and blame accompany voluntary acts; 
 pardon and pity, involuntary. Violence, being 
 external, adds nothing of benefit to him who 
 acts or to him who suffers. Choice is accom- 
 panied by reason. . . . Choice is a desire for or 
 tendency to what is in our power, accompanied 
 by consultation. The acts pertaining to an end 
 
 1 Watson's Selections, sect. 3, pp. 250-255. 
 
148 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 must be voluntary and of deliberate choice. . . . 
 In a bad as well as in a good man, there is a 
 power to act from himself. . . . The temperate 
 man acts conformably to right reason. . . . That 
 part of the soul which energizes according to 
 desire should live conformably to reason." 1 
 
 "Fatalism and atheism," said Hamilton, "are 
 convertible terms ;" 2 and here is a profound fact 
 which needs at the present only to be stated, 
 namely, that a belief in God is so far from 
 taking away the freedom of man that it alone 
 opens the way for a clear conception of that 
 freedom, a freedom which he is too weak to 
 provide for himself, but which he constantly 
 receives from the providence of the Omnipotent. 
 
 It may be well here to pause a moment upon 
 the difficult problem of reconciling freedom, 
 especially freedom to do wrong and to inflict 
 misery, with the goodness of God or even with 
 His government. Perhaps the difficulty, which 
 so many writers among the Scholastics have 
 struggled with, and which has led to such noble 
 but fruitless efforts as Leibnitz's Theodicy, lies 
 
 »Nic. Eth., Book III. 
 2 Metaphysics, p. 556. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 149 
 
 in the original misconception of creation. It is 
 assumed that God had many possible worlds in 
 view, and for inscrutable reasons found the one 
 we have, sin and suffering included, to be the 
 best, and so, by a kind of necessity, made it for 
 better or worse, and thus that His plan can only 
 be regarded with a resigned and apologetic spirit 
 which represses question and refuses to doubt 
 His goodness. This is certainly a very crude 
 idea of the Divine. How much more rational 
 it is to regard the world as the natural outcome 
 of the love and wisdom and power of God, a 
 form of Divine order produced by Him for the 
 sake of His children and embodying His pur- 
 poses. If there were another God, there would 
 be another world, but with our God — and no 
 other can be thought without accepting some 
 inferior conception of Him — comes our world. 
 He is not the mere chooser of it, He is the soul 
 of it in an unpantheistic sense. He made every- 
 thing by sending forth His creative energy form- 
 ing its receptacles and filling them with creat- 
 ures, and the world was good as its Source was 
 goodness itself. 
 
 How then with evil ? It is not a foreign crea- 
 tion introduced by necessity or mistake. It is 
 
 13* 
 
150 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 man's free perversion of the good things. The 
 love of self, for example, is surely good in its 
 own place ; but, made supreme, it renders man 
 selfish. The love which would have protected 
 his body now becomes his dominant motive. 
 He bows down to that as an idol which other- 
 wise would have been an innocent thing. The 
 calf was good in itself, but, named Jehovah, it 
 was a means of injury and sin to those at Sinai. 
 This old difficulty was pressed to its extreme 
 form when the question was raised, Is not the 
 Divine redemption itself indebted to evil for its 
 opportunity and so made subservient to disorder? 
 The answer to this is that the redemption was 
 the Divine care of men taking that form which 
 their perverseness required, but which, in its es- 
 sential motive, was, as always, the Divine provi- 
 dence. While the law was in their hearts, God 
 was manifest ; while angelic messengers sufficed, 
 God thereby was manifest ; but, when only this 
 mode would suffice, God made His love and wis- 
 dom manifest in the Christ and perfectly delivered 
 men from the accumulated power of evil so far as 
 they would freely receive the aid. In redemption, 
 as in creation, God was the loving parent, free in 
 Himself and loving the freedom of others. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 151 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 man's inheritance. 
 
 It might seem at first sight highly important 
 to postulate for man absolute freedom from 
 hereditary influence, and to insist that every one 
 is in no sense dependent upon nor influenced by 
 his predecessors. The appearance is that, if the 
 least hereditary factor be admitted into the ac- 
 count, the individuality is so biased as to lose its 
 freedom. To assent to the ordinary claim made 
 in the name of heredity is apparently to sur- 
 render human freedom, making the ancestor the 
 master. But let the questions first be answered, 
 Must the claim of heredity to be a law of life be 
 allowed ? And is it the case that every man has an 
 inheritance which is a factor in his individuality ? 
 
 The answer Yes must be given at once. There 
 is not a shadow of doubt about the fact of human 
 heredity, nor about all other forms of it. Parent- 
 age means transmission of characteristics of race, 
 family, and individual. They are not always 
 
152 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 conspicuous in the descendant, but they are suf- 
 ficiently evident to place the theory among the 
 laws of nature. The accumulation of examples 
 is enormous and need not be gone into. In his 
 book on the subject Bibot 1 has traced the trans- 
 mission of instincts, sensorial qualities, memory, 
 imagination, intellect, passion, will, national 
 character, and disease. Under all these heads, 
 drawing upon the facts collected by Galton, 
 Lucas, Darwin, Montaigne, Morel, Despine, and 
 others, he has shown that the reception of life 
 through a parent brings with it for good or evil 
 an inheritance which may seem overwhelming 
 in its influence upon the will. 
 
 There should be no disposition to ignore or 
 undervalue heredity. It is an indispensable pro- 
 vision for preserving the symmetry of the human 
 race and of all life. Without it the races would 
 lose their distinctive qualities and mankind would 
 be but a chaos, not a harmony of varieties, not a 
 unit. Without the operation of this law, there 
 could be no improvement of domestic animals 
 by careful breeding. Without it the farmer 
 would not know what seed to plant. Without 
 
 1 Heredity: English edition, by D. Appleton & Co., 1875. 
 
RELATION TO TEE DIVINE. 153 
 
 it the order of the universe, in every form in 
 which science observes it, would be at an end. 
 It is, therefore, not only impossible to deny the 
 fact of heredity, it would also be irrational to do 
 it. Does it then take away from man his free 
 agency, and so make the liberty of self a sham 
 and not a reality ? 
 
 As, in the consideration of freedom in the 
 preceding chapter, it was found that the nega- 
 tive side had been taken by two widely different 
 parties, the religious enthusiasts and the material- 
 ists, so here we have two kinds of negative reply 
 to the question, Does heredity leave a man free ? 
 
 The answer of that theology commonly called 
 Calvinistic (but it is older than Calvin) has been 
 that man received from the earliest pair a ten- 
 dency to evil which he could not counteract. 
 This was to deny freedom in the name of 
 heredity under cover of religion. To this Cal- 
 vin added the dogma, derived through his legal 
 training from Tertullian and the Eoman Law, 
 that some were " elected," or involuntarily freed 
 from the controlling influence of heredity which 
 otherwise made them of the reprobated class. 
 But this was only to make men more fully slaves, 
 since it took away from the elect the power to 
 
154 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 fall and from the reprobates the power to rise. 
 A general doom to evil still left room for de- 
 scent, but this took away from the elect even 
 that liberty. Here Calvin was not the first. 
 Five hundred years before him the Angelical 
 Doctor had said, " Many who now are living 
 well are reprobates, and many who now are 
 evil-doers are elect." 1 Du Moulin, Professor of 
 History at Oxford, published in 1680 a little 
 book 2 in which he reached the conclusion: 
 " That there is a million of reprobates to one that 
 shall be chosen so as to be saved ;" by which he 
 seems to mean that the vast majority had no 
 freedom in matters of eternal interest, and that 
 the little minority, " chosen so as to be saved," 
 of course had not. 
 
 Calvin, however, was the chief assailant of 
 human freedom in the name of original sin: 
 " Grace snatches a few from the curse and 
 wrath of God and from eternal death, who 
 would otherwise perish; but leaves the world 
 to the ruin to which it has been ordained." 3 
 
 1 Commentary on 2 Peter i. 10. 
 
 2 Moral ^Reflections, etc., London, 1680. 
 8 Commentary on John xvii. 9. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 155 
 
 "I ask, how has it come to pass that the fall of 
 Adam has involved so many nations with their 
 infant children in eternal death, and this without 
 remedy, but because such was the will of God ? 
 It is a dreadful decree, I confess." 1 Many ex- 
 pressions of a like nature in creeds and dis- 
 courses may be found gathered with the in- 
 dustry of theological controversy in the " Doom 
 of the Majority," 2 by Eev. S. J. Barrows. 
 
 This view of the effect of heredity resulted 
 from a confusion of evil with sin, an inexplica- 
 ble mistake unless the writers of that day are 
 supposed to have been so hard-hearted that they 
 cared to look for no escape from their grim doc- 
 trine. It was seen that evil was transmitted, 
 that lawlessness and passion showed their traces 
 in the third and fourth generation, and this 
 transmission was mistaken for a transmission of 
 sin and guilt. " In Adam's fall we sinned all," 
 was the word constantly spoken, but never ques- 
 tioned. The least examination would have anni- 
 hilated the doctrine of hereditary guilt. 
 
 Understanding by hereditary evil the trans- 
 
 1 Institutes, Book III. 23, 7. 
 
 2 American Unitarian Association, Boston, 1888. 
 
156 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 mitted tendency to repeat the sins of the parent, 
 the disarrangement of the nature, an ill con- 
 dition, there is no room to doubt the fact of 
 such inheritance. The facts with regard to 
 transmitted criminal tendencies are overwhelm- 
 ing ; and, if no such facts had been collected, it 
 would be easy to conclude a priori that all ten- 
 dencies, good or evil, are transmitted. But, just 
 as surely, sin and guilt cannot be transmitted. 
 The infant is innocent, and cannot be otherwise, 
 except he be regarded as a specimen of metemp- 
 sychosis. Guilt cannot be transmitted. The in- 
 clusion of children in the punishment of parents 
 under Greek, Roman, and later law has been 
 seen since Calvin's day to be utterly unjustifiable, 
 and the Constitution of the United States there- 
 fore prohibits it. The very Scriptures on which 
 the Genevan commented would have taught 
 him : " What mean ye, that ye use this proverb, 
 . . . The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the 
 children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, 
 saith the Lord God, ... all souls are mine ; as 
 the soul of the father, so also the soul of the 
 son is mine ; the soul that sinneth, it shall die. 
 . . . The son shall not bear the iniquity of the 
 father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 157 
 
 of the son. . . . Wherefore turn yourselves, and 
 live ye." l 
 
 When this distinction has been made, the fact 
 remains that a righteous parent transmits helpful 
 tendencies to the child, and an unrighteous 
 parent unhelpful tendencies. What is the power 
 of those tendencies to control the life? is the 
 question ; and this may be considered in connec- 
 tion with materialistic fatalism held in the name 
 of heredity. 
 
 There are three views which make heredity 
 fatal to the freedom of the will. The first is 
 that God dooms many and elects a few in spite 
 of themselves, thereby leaving men no more 
 free than Spinoza leaves them. Of untheologi- 
 cal views one holds that the inherited mental 
 qualities control the life, and the other lays stress 
 on the physical transmitted peculiarities as con- 
 trolling the mind and so the life. 
 
 The first view has been considered. The 
 second view is nearly the same except as it may 
 be held by an atheist. If so held, it must be 
 met by an a priori appeal to man's essential need 
 of free agency if he be man, and by an a posteriori 
 
 1 Ezekiel xviii. 2, 3, 4, 20, 32. 
 14 
 
158 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 appeal to experience and observation* Both 
 have been already dwelt upon. It is sufficient 
 to say that a man's sense of freedom, which is 
 not the easy self-deception which Hume de- 
 scribed, has the same ability to disregard in- 
 herited tendencies that it has to disregard cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Suppose one of a passionate race. He looks 
 with envy on others who have inherited no such 
 temper. Does he perceive himself to be borne 
 along irresistibly by his nature, so that it is abso- 
 lutely impossible for him to pause before he 
 strikes? If he has given way already to this 
 tendency till a habit of passionate utterance and 
 action has been formed, does he find it impossi- 
 ble to change his course ? Perhaps as good an 
 answer as any is the increasing conviction in the 
 world that bad men can be reformed, that prisons 
 are not to be conducted in a hopeless, fatalistic 
 spirit, and that the Howards and Elizabeth Frys 
 and "Whitefields were justified in their under- 
 takings. As one reads the statistics of crime in 
 certain families, and sees the fearful effects of 
 heredity, let him ask himself, "Were these neces- 
 sary effects ? and he will find himself answering, 
 No, if he has had experience with criminals and 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 159 
 
 has seen the successful efforts of some to reform. 
 Alcoholism is a terrible source of hereditary de- 
 pravity, but instances are many of its worst 
 effects being overcome. 
 
 Physiological fatalism is the most difficult of 
 all forms of determinism to meet, because its 
 claims are so arrogant. Here the aid of Ribot 
 is valuable : " Suppose it to be proved," he says, 
 " that all modes of psychical activity are trans- 
 missible; is the aggregate of these modes the 
 whole sentient and conscious being ? We often 
 hear of hereditary talents, vices, and virtues; 
 but whoever will critically examine the evidence 
 will find that we have no proof of their exist- 
 ence. The way in which they are commonly 
 proved is in the highest degree illogical; the 
 usual way being for writers to collect instances 
 of some mental peculiarity found in a parent 
 and in his child, and then to infer that the pecu- 
 liarity was bequeathed. By this mode of reason- 
 ing we might demonstrate any proposition." * 
 
 This is a severe arraignment of the inductive 
 method and goes near to being unjust. It may 
 be granted that much evidence for fatalistic 
 
 1 Heredity, pp. 140, 141. 
 
160 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 heredity has been gathered in the way of 
 statistics, but it can justly be urged that statistics 
 of reformation of the character have been left 
 out of the account. Again, Ribot says, with 
 greater force, "By free-will we are ourselves; 
 by heredity [viewed as controlling] we are 
 others." But it must be confessed that he closes 
 with the admission : " This supreme antithesis 
 between free-will and mechanism is insolvable 
 to us." * He has only a hope that the solution 
 will sacrifice neither the one nor the other. 
 
 Neither will be sacrificed. Man will come to 
 say to himself, " I perceive my tendencies, and 
 I learn that they are hereditary; what shall I 
 do ? Shall I go down the inclined plane of self- 
 surrender, choosing always to do that which 
 requires the least exercise of will ? Or shall I 
 resist my tendencies, set myself another goal, 
 and, taking command of myself and my powers, 
 say with the centurion to this one, Go; to 
 another, Come ; and to a third, Do this ?" 2 Ten- 
 dencies so ruled will become servants, and he in 
 his noble purpose will be king, ruling his own 
 spirit. As Goethe said, "I will be lord over 
 
 1 Page 392. 2 Luke vii. 8. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. \§\ 
 
 myself. No one who cannot master himself is 
 worthy to rule, and only he can rule." 1 But 
 long before him Seneca had declared that no 
 man is free who is a slave to the flesh. And 
 long before him Solomon had said, " He that is 
 slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he 
 that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a 
 city." 2 
 
 It may be well to refer again to the fact that, 
 while the physiologist observes from without the 
 movement of the system in reflex action, the 
 man within looks upon the sensations only as 
 suggestions, and is not controlled by them. 
 
 It may also be pointed out that governments 
 must recognize as factors the hereditary traits of 
 the people to be governed, but must not regard 
 these traits as absolutely controlling the people, 
 for there can be no reward of righteousness and 
 punishment of guilt unless the individual be 
 regarded as free, and so as responsible for his 
 acts; nor can laws be made with any hope of 
 their beneficial influence unless the people re- 
 gard the law-makers, and the law-makers the 
 people, as free agents. 
 
 2 Prov. xvi. 32. 
 14* 
 
162 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 In parental government the child's inherited 
 tendencies must be viewed with full recognition 
 of their strength, but the child's ability to resist 
 temptations from within and from without must 
 not only be recognized but pointed out, so that 
 he may gradually learn to rule his own spirit. 
 
 The heritage is not the man, and the influence 
 of inherited quality is not the man's master, if 
 he determine to call no man master upon earth. 
 Neither by motive nor by heredity is the man 
 ruled unless he voluntarily accepts by repeated 
 surrenders such a ruler. " Man is his own star," 
 wrote Fletcher again and again in his " Honest 
 Man's Fortune," and Milton repeated it in his 
 lines, — 
 
 " The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." x 
 
 And Tennyson put into the mouth of Enid 
 the words, — 
 
 " Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown ; 
 With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
 Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great ; 
 For man is man, and master of his fate." 2 
 
 1 Paradise Lost, i. 253. 
 
 2 Idylls of the King,— Enid. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 163 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE POWERS OF MAN. 
 
 The self is a unit, but it has various powers. 
 As it beholds the operations which are modifica- 
 tions of itself, it distinguishes them into classes 
 and notes their interrelations. " Man's spirit has 
 a self-cognizant existence," says Hegel. 1 That 
 consciousness constantly reveals the self, has 
 been remarked upon. As to the proper classifi- 
 cation of the activities which it has and takes 
 note of, there is a difference of opinion. 
 
 Sir W. Hamilton remarks, " The distinction 
 taken in the Peripatetic School, by which the 
 mental modifications were divided into Gnostic 
 or Cognitive, and Orectic or Appetent, and the 
 consequent reduction of all the faculties to the 
 facultas cognoscendi and the facultas appetendi, was 
 the distinction which was long most universally 
 prevalent, though under various but usually less 
 
 1 Philosophy of History, iii. 2. 
 
164 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 appropriate denominations. For example, the 
 modern distribution of the mental powers into 
 those of the understanding and those of the 
 will, or into powers speculative and powers 
 active, — these are only very inadequate, and very 
 incorrect, versions of the Peripatetic analysis. 
 But this Aristotelic division of the internal 
 states into the two categories of Cognitions and 
 of Appetences is exclusive of the Feelings. . . . 
 Kant was the philosopher to whom we owe this 
 trilogical classification. But Kant only placed 
 the key-stone of the arch which had been raised 
 by previous philosophers among his countrymen. 
 The phenomena of Feeling had attracted the 
 attention of German psychologists, and had by 
 them been considered as a separate class of men- 
 tal states." l Hamilton then mentions Sulzer as 
 having done this in 1751, and others later. " It 
 remained, however, for Kant to establish by his 
 authority the trichotomy of the mental powers." 1 
 He then gives some account of efforts to restore 
 the dual classification. 
 
 Krug 2 declares against thus dignifying the 
 
 1 Metaphysics, Lecture XLI. 
 
 2 Grundlage zu einer neuen Theorie der Gefuhle, 1823. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 165 
 
 feelings, because they seem to him to look 
 neither inward nor outward, with no " deter- 
 minate direction'' — " in fact directed upon noth- 
 ing" — " nothing better than a powerless power" 
 — " a wholly inoperative force." To this Hamil- 
 ton finds no difficulty in replying that it under- 
 estimates the feelings, and he calls attention to 
 them as they come into exercise : " In reading 
 the story of Leonidas and his three hundred 
 at Thermopylae, what do we experience? Is 
 there nothing in the state of mind, which the 
 narrative occasions, other than such as can be 
 referred either to the cognition or to will and 
 desire ? Our faculties of knowledge are called 
 certainly into exercise, for this is indeed a condi- 
 tion of every other state ; but is the exultation 
 which we feel at this spectacle of human virtue 
 to be reduced to a state either of cognition or of 
 conation in either form ?" Hamilton grows still 
 more ardent, and cites the ballad of " Chevy 
 Chase," as if it were unmanly to give the feel- 
 ings less than the highest rank. 
 
 Dr. McCosh goes still further back, to the 
 Eleatic School, but he does not modify essen- 
 tially the account which Hamilton gives of the 
 ancient classification. He adds, " Of a later 
 
166 TEE EUMAN AND ITS 
 
 date some have felt it necessary to draw distinc- 
 tions of an important kind between the various 
 powers embraced in the Will, and this led to a 
 threefold division, the Cognitive, the Feelings, 
 and the Will, a classification adopted by Kant 
 and Hamilton. In this division the senses must 
 be included under either the Cognitive or the 
 Feelings, or divided between them. To avoid 
 this awkwardness there is a fourfold distribution, 
 the Senses, the Intellect, the Feelings, and the 
 Will. It should be observed that in this dis- 
 tribution the Conscience or Moral Faculty has 
 no place." 1 This spreading of the classification 
 leads him to propose a new arrangement of the 
 faculties under the two great heads of the Cog- 
 nitive and the Motive, the former including 
 Sense-Perception, Consciousness, Memory, Judg- 
 ment, and Imagination, and the second including 
 Conscience as a motive-power, the Emotions, 
 and the Will. 
 
 Thus McCosh returns to what Hamilton calls, 
 when blaming Reid for accepting it, the " vulgar 
 division of the faculties." Without going more 
 thoroughly into the history of the controversy, 
 
 1 The Cognitive Powers, Introduction, VIII. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 167 
 
 and admitting that the threefold division now 
 prevails, let me examine for a moment the appar- 
 ently firm position of the Hamiltonians. They 
 regard the threefold distinction as self-evident. 
 " I see a picture, I recognize what the object is. 
 This is Cognition or Knowledge. I may experi- 
 ence certain affections in the contemplation, — 
 gratification or dissatisfaction. This is Feeling, 
 of Pleasure and Pain. I may desire to see the 
 picture long, to see it often, to make it my own, 
 and perhaps I may will, resolve, or determine so 
 to do. This is Will and Desire." l This inter- 
 mediate state is the one which is not to be " re- 
 duced" to the others, as Hamilton puts it. 
 
 The only question is, Does the mind proceed 
 from knowledge immediately to desire, or does 
 it pause — a longer or shorter time, as the case 
 may be — between knowledge and desire ? I see 
 the picture in the first place, and I end with a 
 strong desire to possess it ; do I pass from sight 
 directly to longing, or do I abide meanwhile in 
 pleasure? Undoubtedly there is a middle 
 ground; which is neither all cognitive, as when 
 I am first looking at the picture and concluding 
 
 « Hamilton, p. 127. 
 
168 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 as to what it represents, nor all appetent, as when 
 I am borne along by a craving to possess it. Yet 
 in this middle state neither the cognitive nor the 
 appetent is wholly wanting. I continue carefully 
 to scan it. I begin to desire it. What else do I 
 do ? What other states have I than of contem- 
 plating its excellence and closing my affections 
 upon it ? " The feeling of pleasure," answers the 
 Hamiltonian. Certainly, the pleasure of the con- 
 templation and the pleasure of the longing which 
 anticipates possession. In passing from the cog- 
 nitive end of the line, so to speak, to the appetent 
 end I pass through a combination of knowledge 
 and will which is certainly not neutral, — that is, 
 without knowledge of perfection or imperfection 
 and without craving or aversion, but which seems 
 to be a state in which both enter so evenly that 
 neither predominates in a marked degree. 
 
 But Sir William appeals to the exploits of 
 Leonidas and Widdrington, — that is, to past 
 events, — as if to cut off all possibility of will in 
 the matter, and as if to leave one in passive 
 patriotic feeling alone ; but here again the feel- 
 ing only describes the transition from knowl- 
 edge to will, their interpenetration in the middle 
 of the affair. For no one repeats the story or 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 169 
 
 the ballad merely to produce pleasure or pain ; 
 and, if this were the object alone, the mind 
 would not be content with that, but would feel 
 the movement to do likewise, the desire to praise 
 and proclaim the act, and the will to act bravely 
 in the immediate circumstances of life. 
 
 A better defence of the feelings as a third 
 grand division of the powers might be made by 
 appealing to the sentiments of pleasure and pain, 
 which are felt but are not readily accounted for, 
 as a pleasure in tormenting animals or an un- 
 easiness in the company of certain persons. 
 Here knowledge seems to be wanting, and de- 
 sire does not move one so much as in other 
 cases. But is not this pleasure the result of 
 knowing or of desire to know what animals do 
 when tortured, and of wish to obtain the pleas- 
 ure of contemplating the victim's writhings? 
 And the uneasiness in certain company, — what 
 is it but a perception of some unsympathetic 
 condition and a desire to escape from it? 
 
 Another way of looking at the case is from 
 
 the ground of bodily analogy. If the mind has 
 
 three divisions, it must be acknowledged at once 
 
 that nothing in the body corresponds with it ; if 
 
 it has two, everything corresponds. The two 
 H 15 
 
170 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 lobes of the cerebrum, the halves of the cere- 
 bellum, the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the bones, 
 the double lungs and heart, the members, all 
 divide into two, into a right and a left. The 
 doubleness of the body is no more evident, 
 however, than its arrangement into internal and 
 external parts. Every portion has its inner and 
 its outer. Let us see if this universal distinction 
 of right and left, inner and outer, is illustrative 
 of the mental arrangement. 
 
 " The soul," says Schopenhauer, " is the union 
 of will and intellect." * He places the will first. 
 Indeed, Weber, in making up a motto for his 
 " History of Philosophy," says, " The will is at the 
 heart of everything," and places as authorities 
 the names of Schelling, Schopenhauer, Secretan, 
 and Ravaisson. He also quotes the saying of 
 Maine de Biran: "No perception without voli- 
 tion;" and in his conclusion he quotes "Wundt 
 as declaring, "It is from the will that the per- 
 ception proceeds, and not the reverse." He 
 would make the will " being in its fulness, and 
 all the rest phenomena." It is the " essence of 
 the human soul" (Duns Scotus), " the principle 
 
 1 Will in Nature, I. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 171 
 
 on which heaven and all nature depend" (Aris- 
 totle), " the individual's life itself" (Brandis). 
 
 The least reflection shows that the will is the 
 spring of action, as the heart is of the bodily 
 life. Without the will to do something, knowl- 
 edge is as powerless to effect action as the winter 
 sun to produce vegetation. "With will, knowl- 
 edge is operative. With desire aroused, the in- 
 tellect co-operates. With this precedence of the 
 will in potency it is not necessary that it should 
 precede in time. The senses are always reporting 
 to the intellect events and conditions. The will 
 is always instructed and guided by the intellect. 
 If it were not so guided, it would be blind, as 
 when passion controls reason and leads the will 
 to disregard the intellect, making its voice heard 
 through conscience or memory or foresight. 
 But, when the will is aroused, what does the 
 intellect do? 
 
 It ministers to the wish, as the lungs minister 
 to the heart. It finds the way, it provides the 
 means, it puts at the disposal of the will its 
 whole accumulation of information. The intel- 
 lect is a helpmeet for the will. The thought 
 embodies the desire. It is the existere of which 
 the will is the esse. It is the left of which the 
 
172 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 will is the right. It is the outer of which the 
 will is the inner. In their mutual dependence, 
 their co-operative activity, the will and under- 
 standing are in correspondence with the sexes, 
 for in the man the intellectual predominates, and 
 in the woman the voluntary. It is with will and 
 intellect as Longfellow truly says of man and 
 woman, — 
 
 " As unto the "bow the cord is, 
 So unto the man is woman ; 
 Though she bends him she obeys him, 
 Though she draws him, yet she follows ; 
 Useless each without the other." 
 
 The will and intellect uniting bring forth act, 
 as Horus was born of Osiris and Isis. It is easy 
 to illustrate : A piano is heard, and the desire to 
 play upon it and bring forth like music is formed. 
 The intellect responds with information slowly 
 acquired. But daily practice is necessary to 
 bring will and intellect into act. When at last 
 this has been done in the plane of the body, the 
 end is gained. Or, a young man desires to enter 
 the ranks of some profession. The desire is not 
 enough. The intellect must respond, or he will 
 fail. If the intellect does respond, he will slowly 
 prepare himself. His preparation is a constantly 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 173 
 
 perfected union of will with intellect, so that, 
 when he desires to do a professional act, he may 
 know how to do it, and so that, when he has 
 learned how to do this and that part of his work, 
 he may have the will which will give energy and 
 patience and power. 
 
 In the third the former two are one and effi- 
 cient. This is life, not to will only, nor to know 
 only, but to go forth from the will by means of 
 the understanding into serviceableness. 
 
 It will be observed that, in this view of the 
 mental operations, the movement of life is from 
 above downward, from the spiritual into the 
 natural, and not the reverse. Of course it is not 
 denied that the organs of sense, affected by ex- 
 ternal causes, often offer the first incentive to 
 action ; but that they do not control the action, 
 which they may advise, is evident from the fact, 
 already referred to, that the mind may, and often 
 does, reject the impulse to cry out, or to run 
 away, or otherwise to obey the prompting of 
 the flesh. 
 
 Spiritual influx from mind to body, therefore, 
 
 is here maintained instead of the physical influx 
 
 preferred by materialists. Thus man may be 
 
 described as will and intellect looking to act. 
 15* 
 
174 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 His qualities are love and wisdom looking to use. 
 His possessions are goodness and truth for the 
 sake of life, of that life which shall make him 
 useful, which shall vindicate his existence, and 
 which shall make all men rejoice in the exercise 
 by each of his own gift. " Life," nobly said Maz- 
 zini, " is a mission. Religion, science, philosophy, 
 though still at variance upon many points, agree 
 in this, that every existence is an aim." * 
 
 It is, however, in the power of man to will for 
 himself — that is, for some private enjoyment — 
 rather than for others and for useful service. 
 He may love that which is evil. His intellect 
 pointing out to him two possible ways, he may 
 choose that which is injurious rather than that 
 which is helpful. Thus he may refuse to listen 
 to conscience which would guide him, and may 
 degrade his intellect to serve his base desires. 
 In this case, the more intellect, the more harm 
 will result ; because the intellect must serve the 
 will, be it never so depraved. The man finds a 
 way for his anger or his greed. And now man 
 is not love and wisdom looking to use, but 
 lust and folly looking to sin and harm. The 
 
 1 Life and Writings, Chap. v. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 175 
 
 corrupt tree does not bring forth good fruit. The 
 light that is in him is darkness. And instead 
 of life, larger and larger, as the years go on, he 
 earns the wages of sin, which is spiritual death. 
 
 The origin of evil is not entered upon at 
 length here, but it may at least be said that 
 the possibility of sinning is bound up in man's 
 free-agency, and so a selfhood, not devoted to 
 use, reluctant in its obedience to laws which 
 exalt the good of others as of equal importance, 
 at least, with that of the individual, is a source 
 of disorder and danger. But man would not be 
 man were he deprived of this power to regard 
 self as paramount if he would; and that man 
 has misused this power, and has for a long time 
 been transmitting from generation to generation 
 a tendency to misuse it, must be granted at once 
 on historical grounds. 
 
 The history of human decline in innocence is 
 repeated in every wayward youth. It is a move- 
 ment to consult for self, which, imperceptibly 
 originating and increasing with increase of con- 
 scious power, separated and separates the soul 
 from its purity and makes it ashamed before its 
 judge. While men were infantile in intellect 
 there was no transgression. But the growth of 
 
176 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 rationality opened the way to perversions of 
 every kind; and that it was taken and pursued, 
 and is pursued, the wars, the crimes public and 
 private, testify on every hand. " So many laws 
 argue so many sins." l 
 
 It is true that ways have been found to make 
 the selfish man useful, to make the wrath of man 
 to praise God; but this is only a palliation of 
 evil, not a cure of it ; and cure cannot be found 
 except in the formation in the evil man by means 
 of his own intellect, which can discern a better 
 life and is able to rise above his will, of a new 
 heart and a new spirit. 
 
 In so far as this is done, the self dies to live 
 again; it operates in the symmetry of human 
 order ; it is the image of its Maker ; it is such 
 that the king in Hamlet could say, " Try what 
 repentance can : what can it not ?" 
 
 Herbart in sad play on words said, " He who 
 was yesterday the best (beste) may to-day be the 
 worst (bbseste);" 2 but the reverse is also true, 
 and sins, though they be as scarlet, may be made 
 as white as snow. 
 
 1 Paradise Lost, xii. 283. 
 
 2 Lehrbuch, Book IV., chap, ii., sect. 130. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 177 
 
 Man does not escape injury from his trans- 
 gressions ; but, with the change of his purpose, 
 the evil is remedied at its root. He is not only 
 forgiven, but rescued. The self, humbled, puri- 
 fied, becomes a house of God eternal in the 
 heavens. 
 
 The disposition to regard evil as merely im- 
 mature good, as a transient phase of develop- 
 ment, is natural if, by a perversion of reason, 
 evil is associated only with the state of the 
 savage or the ignorant. The mild forms of sin 
 which men commit, knowing no better, are much 
 like the act of a child who throws a valuable 
 vase to the floor to hear its fragments rattle, 
 having no idea of the evil it is doing. The 
 serious sin is done wittingly and purposely. 
 Callicles was intelligent enough to know better 
 than to say to Socrates, " Greatness is providing 
 to the full indulgences of evil passions;" and 
 Socrates was able to show him that nothing 
 could be further from greatness, and to declare, 
 " None but a fool is afraid of death, but of wrong 
 doing. To go to the world below having one's 
 soul full of injustice is the worst of evils." 1 
 
 1 Gorgias of Plato. 
 
178 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Cyrenaic indifference to evil has found many 
 apologists. Herbert Spencer 1 quotes Shake- 
 speare's saying, " A soul of goodness in things 
 evil/' and seems to hold this as an ethical 
 opinion, but Henry V. was speaking of circum- 
 stances then threatening him from without. 2 To 
 say in any sense that moral evil is good is self- 
 contradictory. It is to say that things diametri- 
 cally opposite — a quality and its perversion — are 
 one. Epictetus was more just when, looking 
 upon the adulterer, he declared that he knew 
 not where there was a place for him, as there 
 was no place for a stinging wasp. 3 
 
 The confusion of evil with good seems to be 
 due to the obscurity which arises from associ- 
 ating evil with ignorance and brutishness. Evil 
 is to be found in its genuine form and mature 
 development among the cultured, among those 
 who know perfectly the difference between good 
 and evil, and who are capable of instructing 
 others and perhaps are in the practice of giving 
 such instruction. It is Dr. Faust rather than 
 the untutored Marguerite who can grievously 
 
 1 First Principle, chap. i. 2 Henry V., Act IV., Scene 1. 
 
 8 Book II., chap. iv. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 179 
 
 sin, and who in sin presents evil in its tnie aspect 
 If the men abont the Christ had said that they 
 were blind, they had not had sin: 1 if He had 
 not come and spoken nnto them, if He had not 
 done among them the works which none other 
 did, they had not had sin; bnt now, fully in- 
 formed of the right attitude to take, they had 
 chosen to hate Him, and their sin was without 
 excuse. 9 
 
 1 John ix. 41. 8 John xv. 22, 24. 
 
180 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE. 
 
 The self of man has been found to be a recipi- 
 ent, a reactive agent, and a free agent whose 
 freedom it finds but which it does not produce 
 by the exercise of power sufficient to govern the 
 rest of the universe and to hold it in equilibrium. 
 The implication of these facts is, to say the least, 
 most significant, and has not been sufficiently 
 considered by theistic writers. They seem gen- 
 erally to take too distant views of the Divine, 
 and to view it as if they had no relation with it. 
 
 In ancient times this was not so. " All is full 
 of Jove," said Yirgil, as Augustine relates. 
 "Jupiter is whatever you see, wherever you 
 move," said Lucan. " Think oftener of God 
 than you breathe," said Epictetus. " God is 
 truth, and light is His shadow," said Plato. 
 " There is certainly a God who sees and hears 
 whatever we do," said Plautus. And this con- 
 ception remained while men grew sensual in 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 181 
 
 their lives. But at length their idea of God be- 
 came so degraded that the worship of Him con- 
 sisted of animal sacrifices, and He was thought of 
 as likely to show special favor to chosen peoples. 
 The question of polytheism, whether it or 
 monotheism preceded, and how, if it followed, 
 polytheism arose from monotheism, does not 
 require full consideration here; but the sug- 
 gestion may be offered that the more degraded 
 men become, the more superstitious they are, 
 and the more inclined to make deities to reign 
 over places and diseases and events. Primitive 
 Christianity, with its purity of thought and life, 
 was markedly monotheistic; mediaeval Chris- 
 tianity, with its priestcraft in place of ministry, 
 its defence by tortures of what was called faith 
 but which was ecclesiasticism, its indulgences, 
 its enormities of every kind, multiplied divine 
 persons and saints to be invoked at this place 
 and at that till the litany included as adorable 
 " Maria Dei genetrix, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, 
 angels and archangels, holy orders of blessed 
 spirits, all the disciples, the innocents," thirty 
 others by name, all the popes, and the sanctce et 
 sancti not numbered, but said to amount to at 
 least twenty-five thousand. 
 
 16 
 
182 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 The change from that one God to this pan- 
 theon may be safely regarded as having an actual 
 connection with the ignorance and depravity of 
 the later period; and the inference is that a 
 similar period in antiquity had like character- 
 istics, — priests in power multiplying objects to 
 be worshipped with costly offerings, and people 
 in ignorance accepting with superstitious com- 
 pliance the deities and sub-deities presented for 
 their prayers. A pristine state, however, free, 
 on the one hand, from priestly oppressions and, 
 on the other, from superstitious fears arising 
 from a sense of guilt on account of disorderly 
 practices, may be supposed to have been mono- 
 theistic from the lack of reason to be otherwise. 
 " The one is God," said Xenophanes, striving 
 to cure polytheism. " I am about to become 
 a god," said the dying, avaricious Vespasian, 
 showing the evil at its height. 
 
 Thus, not only does it appear that polytheism 
 arises out of monotheism when unfortunate con- 
 ditions favor its development, but it is also evi- 
 dent that the theistic conception, the recognition 
 of God, has been subject to marked vicissitudes. 
 To one like Augustine, who could find God 
 rather by ignorance than by knowledge, there 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 183 
 
 was no need of attempted demonstration. To 
 one of atheistic temper, however, arguments 
 seemed necessary, and in the formulation of 
 such arguments much mental effort has been 
 expended, with some success and some failure. 
 Some have undoubtedly been thus convinced; 
 others remain unmoved in their doubts, not only 
 as to the pantheon claimed by the medievalists, 
 but even as to the One of the best religious 
 conception. 
 
 These arguments have been stated over and 
 over again, and their respective claims have been 
 examined by friends and foes. 
 
 There is the ontological proof which Professor 
 Knight regards as having " a singular fascination 
 to the speculative mind," * but he finds it incon- 
 clusive. It holds that the notion of God, being 
 conceivable, must be true. The ground of Des- 
 cartes was that all which he could clearly and 
 plainly perceive was true. " Possible ideas are 
 true, impossible are false," is the dictum of 
 Leibnitz. 2 But these are overstatements, and 
 would not be made at the present time when in- 
 
 1 Essay on Theism in Studies in Philosophy and Literature. 
 
 2 Nouveaux Essais, Book II., chap. iii. 
 
184 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 telligent scepticism has forced theists to weigh 
 their words. Wolff was more cautious when 
 he made the declaration, " That is possible to 
 which some notion responds;" 1 but even then 
 he was on an insecure foundation for an ex- 
 tended argument, since it might be retorted that 
 it is as possible to think of a malign God as of 
 a merciful one. " Falsehood can never be clearly 
 conceived or apprehended to be true," 2 declared 
 Cudworth ; but this is also unsound, as the long 
 acceptance of the Ptolemaic theory shows. The 
 ontological proof will never satisfy a doubter, 
 who will not admit that the logical is actual, 
 that an idea well founded in reason is necessarily 
 as well founded in fact. Descartes, reasoning 
 that " necessary existence is contained in the 
 concept of God," 3 is reasoning round a circle. 
 He put the contents into the concept and then 
 drew them. out. 
 
 The cosmological argument seeks for the 
 cause of things. It enlarges upon the order of 
 the universe and concludes as to its Maker. 
 This has been the common way of appealing to 
 
 1 Ontologia, sect. 102. 2 Eternal Morality, p. 172. 
 
 3 Meditations, Objections, 1. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 185 
 
 scientists of atheistical turn. The student has 
 been appealed to on the ground of his own 
 discoveries. But the difficulty with this argu- 
 ment has been often pointed out. It is incom- 
 plete. Its first cause is not necessarily personal, 
 nor intelligent, nor even omnipotent. "In the 
 admission of a first cause," remarks Hamilton, 
 " atheist and theist are at one." l This proof 
 may end in Spencer's Unknowable as well as in 
 the Christian's Father in heaven. 
 
 The argument from design, the teleological 
 proof, is well known. Kant called it "the 
 oldest, clearest, and most adapted to ordinary 
 human reason." 2 Everything has a purpose. 
 The watch found on the sea-shore is not dumb, 
 but has a tale to tell of the intelligent designer 
 and skilful manufacturer. The preference has 
 been given by many to this argument because it 
 so fully presented God as personal. But there 
 is also difficulty here, for many phenomena 
 tempt one to infer an imperfect designer whose 
 plan did not exclude accidents and disorders, 
 and there is all the time the possibility of con- 
 cluding that Law, an impersonal working out of 
 
 1 Metaph , Lecture II., p. 19. 2 Kritik der E. V., p. 651. 
 16* 
 
186 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 a self-caused evolution, has produced what is in 
 itself so wonderful a universe. Professor Knight 
 wisely remarks that from this proof we get 
 Nature, which is not quite what was sought for. 
 He says, too strongly, " The conception of deity 
 as a workman could never lead to reverence," l 
 for this is not impossible ; but it is true that skill 
 is not the best attribute to dwell upon in present- 
 ing the idea of God to a sceptical mind. 
 
 The argument from intuition, from instinct, is 
 preferred by Knight. He grants that the innate 
 idea of God is at first weak and dim, but claims 
 that it improves with mental growth. He re- 
 gards it as a revelation within the soul. This 
 revelation is not qualified by man's conceptions, 
 as in the case of other arguments, but comes 
 pure and perfect from above. It is not constant 
 in the mind, to be sure, but sometimes clearly 
 declares itself. He finds these recurring intui- 
 tions persistent in the individual, the same in 
 various generations, harmonious with all other 
 useful ideas, and vindicated from all suspicion 
 by their beneficent influence upon the mind. 
 He defends this instinct against the " cold 
 
 1 Essay on Theism. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 187 
 
 nescience" of Comte, Bain, Spencer, and others, 
 and charges Sir W. Hamilton and Dean Mansel 
 with being of like tendency. He claims that, to 
 deny this, we must give up the omnipotence of 
 God, for we take away His power to reveal Him- 
 self. He holds that to find God revealed in this 
 instinct is to find Him, not in nature, hut in man, 
 and thus in the most perfect image of God. He 
 finds the whole aesthetic or poetic sense respond- 
 ing to this view. "Worship vindicates it, being 
 instinctive. "With appeal to Fenelon and Cardi- 
 nal Newman, Professor Knight ends his essay. 
 
 On the other hand, Dr. Momerie, in the bright 
 little book previously cited, 1 has a chapter on the 
 Infinite Ego, in which he favors the argument 
 from design. 
 
 Again, Dr. Hedge, in an essay on " Theism," 
 questions all the arguments, concludes that reason 
 alone " does not suffice to prove the God whom re- 
 ligion craves," and looks to faith "which requires 
 the qualifying check of science, without which 
 she would lapse into monstrous superstition." 2 
 
 1 Personality. 
 
 2 "Theism of Keason and of Faith," in Luther and other 
 
188 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 It would seem that an argument drawn from 
 nature must always be inferior to one drawn 
 from man, because the God of nature manifests 
 power, skill, or majesty, — some one quality or 
 other by no means foreign to a true conception 
 of God, but not by itself adequately representing 
 Him. 
 
 Is it then to be held that man knows God 
 transcendentally, that there is not only a con- 
 sciousness of the self and its operations, but also 
 of God and His relations therewith : not only 
 a self-consciousness, but a God-consciousness ? 
 " When I become self-conscious," said Theodore 
 Parker, " I feel that dependence [upon God], 
 and know of this communion, whereby I re- 
 ceive from Him." 1 
 
 It is idle to claim a universal God-conscious- 
 ness in so sweeping a way. History will not 
 support the claim. Observation must reject it. 
 A general sense of dependence on man's part 
 may be admitted. A sense of personal relation 
 with God cannot be admitted as an integral part 
 of self-consciousness, or as a necessary concomi- 
 tant of it. If this were so, there would be no 
 
 1 Views of Keligion, p. 243. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 189 
 
 atheists but the insane. If this sense of God's 
 presence came unbidden to every youthful mind, 
 free agency would be with some affected, and 
 with some at least prevented from development. 
 It is with Parker as with others : controversy 
 spoils calm reasoning and leads to too large a 
 claim for the intuitional proof of a mooted point. 
 The same claim is made by Mulford in his " Re- 
 public of God/' though from another point of 
 view: " From the beginning, and with the growth 
 of the human consciousness, there is the con- 
 sciousness of the being of God and of a relation 
 to God," 1 to all which the answer is every 
 atheistic book. 
 
 But, when we return to the ground that man 
 is a recipient, a reagent and a free agent, we find 
 that he is adapted to, and dependent for his best 
 development upon, a rational recognition of the 
 Source of his life, the One omnipotent upon 
 whose inflowing life he and all conscientious 
 men react with prayerful co-operative energy, 
 the all-merciful One who preserves him in free- 
 dom from hour to hour, save as he voluntarily 
 makes himself slave to some citizen of the 
 
 1 Page 1. 
 
190 THE- HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 country far from the Father's house, the country 
 of the harlot and the swine. 
 
 "With his sense of dependence he freely ac- 
 cepts everything which leads him to acknowl- 
 edge God. As a child, if properly taught, he 
 already confesses Him. If untaught, he has 
 this fact of a Father's care still to learn. If 
 taught a polytheism as the source of his life, 
 he accepts it. He is left of God free to ac- 
 cept Him or to reject Him. He is not com- 
 pelled in this or in anything. He is led, in- 
 deed, as by a good shepherd; but he may go 
 astray, if he will, saying, in his folly, "There 
 is no God." 1 
 
 As revealed to the man who has been well 
 taught, and who has practised what he has 
 learned, such a man as Dr. Mulford had in mind, 
 God is a Father. He is wholly personal. He is 
 the infinite prototype of man. In Him the will 
 is full of infinite love, embracing all, even the 
 unthankful and the evil. In Him the intellect is 
 full of infinite wisdom, caring for no one to the 
 exclusion of others. In Him the union of these 
 is perfect, and they go forth, the Love by the 
 
 1 Psalm liii. 1. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 191 
 
 "Wisdom, the Wisdom from the Love, in infinite 
 activity. God is seen to be humanity in its 
 source. In the imperfect image of weak and 
 wayward man He is dimly seen as having in 
 perfect form every attribute of an infinite Hu- 
 manity. 
 
 It may also be seen that this infinite One, con- 
 cerned with all that He has made or will make, 
 dwells above the laws of space and time which 
 He has introduced into the world as the neces- 
 sary accompaniment of material conditions ; and 
 that He is omnipresent, in all space but not of 
 space, and in all time but not of time, so that the 
 here and the there, the past and the future, are 
 ever in His presence. " Before Abraham was I 
 am" 1 is Divine language as to time; "where 
 two or three are gathered in my name, there 
 am I in the midst of them" 2 is Divine language 
 as to space. 
 
 11 Not circumscribed by time, nor fixed to space, 
 Confined to altars nor to temples bound." 3 
 
 It is by a self-revelation that God is made 
 
 1 John viii. 58. 2 Matthew xviii. 20. 
 
 8 Hannah More's poem, " Belshazzar." 
 
192 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 known, whether directly to one entering into his 
 closet to pray in secret, or by the spoken word 
 of the prophet. To early innocent man the in- 
 ward conviction, to depraved man the spoken 
 word belongs. Had man been left without such 
 a revelation of God by God in some form, he 
 would not have known Him ; for the ignorance 
 of his infancy would, in this respect, have con- 
 tinued. And, having learned to know God, and 
 losing his light through neglect of it, man would 
 have remained unconscious of God if He had 
 not renewed the knowledge among men of His 
 nature. 
 
 But all revelation of God to man, through the 
 ear or in the heart, was incomplete till, in one 
 life, the infinite love and wisdom and gracious 
 activity of God were revealed in a day-by-day 
 manifestation. If the Christ failed to be tender 
 to all, if He failed to be so wise as to know the 
 future and to speak as never man spake, and if 
 He failed to be able to succor the fallen who ac- 
 cepted His aid, He failed to manifest God ; if He 
 were infinitely loving, even to enemies, so wise 
 that He was the very Word made flesh, so pow- 
 erful that no one's cry of anguish was in vain, He 
 was such that he that had seen Him had seen the 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 193 
 
 Father, 1 — that in Him dwelt the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily. 2 
 
 This is not the place to consider the work of 
 the Christ, hut it is proper to point out that, in 
 the Christ, when He had freed Himself by puri- 
 fication through temptation from all the infirmity 
 of the flesh, and when He had thereby made 
 Himself supremely victorious over all forces of 
 evil, — that is, when He had finished the work 
 given Him to do, — the Divine Being not only 
 declared His existence, but vindicated His provi- 
 dence. Thenceforward all arguments, from the 
 possibility of the conception, from the cosmical 
 demand, from the wonders of design, from in- 
 stinctive want, and from human history, must 
 yeld in power to the demonstration of the Divine 
 by the Divine in the Christ. The argument 
 from the Christ, — the Emanuel, " God-with-us," 
 — is, and forever will be, unmatched. He was 
 actually Jesus. — that is, Jehovah the Saviour. 
 He was " the image of the invisible God." 3 
 
 There are two probable reasons why this argu- 
 ment has not been used: first, the histories of 
 the Christ had been called in question ; secondly, 
 
 1 John xiv. 9. 2 Colossians ii. 9. 3 Colossians i. 15. 
 
 1 n 17 
 
194 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 He was not so much regarded in His constantly 
 declared representative, as in His supposed pro- 
 pitiatory, character. This was double surrender 
 to scepticism and to dogmatism. The past time 
 of darkness may have required it, but it is no 
 longer necessary to yield to such influences. 
 As more and more the life of the Christ is 
 studied in the land of His work and among all 
 nations, as more and more His mighty works are 
 spiritually fulfilled in mankind, the scepticism 
 which was mainly the revolt from gross, me- 
 diaeval traditionalism will be cured, and the 
 simple and sublime facts of the life of the Christ 
 will stand forth in their majesty, while their 
 infinite significance will afford a constantly in- 
 creasing proof of the truth of Gospel history. 
 
 Again, the prevalence of juster ideas of God, 
 less marred by gross notions of His temper and 
 judgments, will lead men to look upon the 
 Christ as one with God in mercy and in every- 
 thing, — " the brightness of His glory, the express 
 image of His person." 1 
 
 At the same time the personality of God, at 
 first so clearly seen in the terms Father, Son, and 
 
 1 Hebrews i. 3. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 195 
 
 Holy Spirit of the baptismal command that the 
 apostles obediently baptized their converts in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus, 1 but later so misunder- 
 stood that a return towards polytheism was made, 
 especially when Mary was recognized as a fourth 
 person to be worshipped, will be seen to be repre- 
 sented, not by three human images, but by a siugle 
 human nature with its trinal constitution of love 
 and wisdom and their union in outgoing useful- 
 ness, which three are sometimes spoken of as heart, 
 head, and hand. 2 So God in His essential Divin- 
 ity presented Himself through the glorification 
 of the Christ in a Divine Humanity, forming it 
 as man's soul forms for itself the body full of life. 
 The Son was thus the embodiment of the 
 Father, and the saying was fulfilled : " Unto us 
 a child is born, unto us a Son is given : and the 
 government shall be upon His shoulder : and His 
 name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
 mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince 
 of Peace." 3 In their perfect union, when the 
 Christ had " ascended on high," when captivity 
 
 1 Acts viii. 16. 
 
 2 Campanella's human trinity is velle, cognoseere, posse. 
 
 3 Isaiah ix. 6. 
 
196 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 to sin had been made captive, and when death 
 had been swallowed up in victory, 1 the Holy 
 Spirit was sent forth, as the energy of human life 
 proceeds out of the body from the soul. We read, 
 " The Holy Spirit was not yet [given] because 
 Jesus was not yet glorified," 2 and we also read that 
 He came to them in the evening of the resurrec- 
 tion day and said, " Receive ye the Holy Spirit." 3 
 
 Before the completion in time of this incarna- 
 tion there was the infinite wisdom, the Divine 
 form, of which infinite love was the substance, 
 and from these the spirit of God had created 
 and preserved the universe ; but, with the Incar- 
 nation, the Word, which was in the beginning, 
 was made flesh, that which was to the infinite 
 love as son to father dwelt among us, and, when 
 the redemptive work was done on the part of the 
 Lord, He breathed on His disciples the Holy 
 Spirit, and they went forth to make disciples of 
 all nations, with the baptism of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit received into their lives, making 
 them the sons of God. 
 
 So far as this is received there is a conscious- 
 
 1 Psalm lxviii. 18 ; Isaiah xxv. 8. 
 
 2 John vii. 39. 3 John xx. 22. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 197 
 
 ness of God in the Christ watching over the life, 
 ministering to it, and doing mighty works in it 
 from day to day even to the changing of the 
 nature, so that the blind in spirit see and the 
 spiritually leprous are cleansed. With this con- 
 sciousness the self perceives the Divine Self 
 operating upon it, yet always leaving it free. 
 With this consciousness the acts and words 
 of the Christ become transparent with eternal 
 meaning, and Christianity is seen to be a walk 
 with God, who is but indistinctly revealed in 
 other religions. The self, retaining its full free- 
 dom, takes Him for its Lord, and follows in His 
 footsteps in order to be most serviceable to man- 
 kind. It finds its place in the kingdom of God ; 
 it is a member of the body of which the Christ 
 is the head ; it becomes part of an eternal struc- 
 ture of which the Christ is the chief corner-stone, 
 rejected, indeed, by the builders in their blind 
 depravity, but made according to the Divine 
 plan the head-stone of the corner. 1 
 
 Morell has truly said, after reviewing in his 
 " History of Modern Philosophy" 2 the arguments 
 
 1 Psalm cxviii. 22. 
 3 New York, 1848, p. 740. 
 17* 
 
198 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 for the personality of God, " Were we required 
 to point out the region in which the whole argu- 
 ment is best concentrated, we should refer to 
 man as himself a living embodiment of all the 
 evidences. If you want argument from design, 
 then you see in the human frame the most 
 perfect of all known organizations. If you 
 want the argument from being, then man, in 
 his conscious dependence, has the clearest con- 
 viction of that independent and absolute One, 
 on which his own being reposes. If you want 
 the argument from reason and morals, then 
 the human mind is the only known reposi- 
 tory of both. Man is in fact a microcosm, — 
 a universe in himself; and, whatever proof 
 the whole universe affords, is involved in 
 principle in man himself. With the image of 
 God before us, who can doubt of the Divine 
 type?" 
 
 This is what Jacobi had already said, " Nature 
 conceals God, man reveals God." 1 
 
 But man, so examined, may give only an im- 
 personal deity, only an Over-Soul with Emerson, 
 " a pure identity" with Hegel, Fichte's " opera- 
 
 1 Works, iii. p. 424. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 199 
 
 tive moral order," Leibnitz's " original monad/' 
 Spencer's Unknowable, or some germ from 
 which man may have been developed. It is in 
 the Christ, with God as His inmost soul, minis- 
 tering to man — every motive full of love, every 
 word one of wisdom, every act a gift of grace 
 — that the argument becomes perfect. Lotze 
 has said, "Perfect personality is in God only, 
 to all finite minds is allotted but a pale copy 
 thereof," l and this is true, but to the Christ the 
 spirit was given without measure. 
 
 The Divine Self is in the Christ. The " I am 
 that I am," 2 sum qui sum, is not unrevealed, 
 cognizable only as hidden behind a veil, but the 
 " I am" is before us as " that I am," the esse in 
 existere, the Divine Substance in its Form ; and 
 so it is man's fault if he does not know it when 
 unperverted Christianity proclaims it and pre- 
 sents it in love and light an d life. 
 
 The Divine Self is in the Christ, and needs no 
 other manifestation than its own. Cousin was 
 right when he said, "Everything leads us to 
 God; there is no bad way of arriving thither; 
 
 1 Microcosm, Book IX., chap, iv., sect. 5. 
 3 Exodus iii. 14. 
 
200 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 we may go in different ways." * But of all good 
 ways there is a best, and it is to look to Him 
 who truly said that He was the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life. 2 
 
 As the man walks with God in Christ he has 
 empiric understanding of His wise ways. He 
 finds that evil is to a degree permitted when 
 man is determined to go wrong, for otherwise he 
 could not be led in freedom, and the use of his 
 own reason would be infringed. He learns to 
 say, "Before I was afflicted I went astray." 3 
 He also comes to perceive that the many disor- 
 ders of the world are directly or indirectly such 
 as man has produced by the abuse of the powers 
 committed to him, and yet that they are so 
 wisely watched over that not a sparrow falls 
 unnoticed. The man, with his feeble outlook, 
 does not gain the explanation of every calamity, 
 but sufficient experience convinces him that, if 
 he does not know now, he will know hereafter 
 when he will see eye to eye. 
 
 The objection to this view of the Divine is not 
 a practical one, a charge that it is likely to lead 
 
 1 Critique of Locke ad finem. a John xiv. 6. 
 
 8 Psalm cxix. 67. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 201 
 
 the receiver of it astray from morality ; but it is 
 a theoretical one, namely, that it is an anthro- 
 pomorphic view. Determinatio est negatio l (Defi- 
 nition is denial), said Spinoza. Matthew Arnold 
 declared 2 it a delusion "that God is a person 
 who thinks and loves." God, he would have us 
 believe, is not personal at all, but " a power that 
 lives and breathes and feels ;" " a stream of ten- 
 dency;" "the eternal not ourselves that makes 
 for righteousness." Herbert Spencer selected 
 the term "ultimate cause," and Hamilton and 
 Mansel held that the Infinite, being uncon- 
 ditioned, is unknowable. Mchte's doctrine was 
 that every precise notion we form of God must 
 be an idol ; to have an idea of God is to limit 
 Him : " The act of Thy will I cannot compre- 
 hend, I only know that it is not like mine. 
 Thou art not as I now and always must conceive 
 of being." 3 
 
 Thus is the perfect revelation of God in the 
 Christ set aside, and nothing but a sense of lone- 
 liness is left to the mind, with a metaphysical 
 abstraction to be contemplated. But the weight 
 
 1 Ueberweg's History, vol. ii. p. 66. 
 
 * God and the Bible. 3 Vocation of Man, Book III. 
 
202 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 of this objection is seen to be easily lifted. If 
 we cannot know God in His infinity, we can 
 know Him in His influence upon us. If we form 
 an idea of Him from the risen Lord, we neither 
 degrade the reason nor lower the standard of 
 righteousness. Dr. F. E. Abbot is not unwilling 
 to say, in his " Scientific Theism," "Because the 
 universe is an infinite organism, its life princi- 
 ple must be an infinite, omniscient Power, acting 
 everywhere and always by organic means for 
 organic ends, and subordinating every event to 
 its own infinite life, — in other words, it must be 
 infinite Will directed by infinite Wisdom. . . . 
 It thus manifests infinite wisdom, power, and 
 goodness. It must be conceived as infinite 
 Person, absolute Spirit, creative Source and 
 eternal Home of the derivative finite person- 
 alities which depend upon it, but are no less real 
 than itself. 1 . . . On the other hand, Pantheism 
 is the denial of all real personality. " 2 
 
 In his " Idea of God," John Piske, who is 
 equally remote from mysticism, has said, " The 
 utter demolition of anthropomorphism would be 
 the demolition of theism." 3 
 
 1 Page 209. a Page 211. 8 Page 117. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 203 
 
 This is the same as to say that it is wholly 
 possible to avoid those limiting and lowering 
 notions of God, from which Christianity, in 
 common with all faiths, has suffered, and yet to 
 receive God as revealed in the Christ who, for a 
 time in the flesh like others as to mortality and 
 all that space and time control, rose in the end 
 superior to every limitation, yet remained a 
 Person. 
 
 The spirit which prevents one from forming a 
 low conception of God is commendable. The 
 spirit which puts Him aside behind a veil of 
 metaphysics is wholly to be deprecated, in that 
 it takes away what life requires for its peace, — a 
 shepherd of the sheep. 
 
 To him who abhors gross anthropomorphism 
 much of public prayer must be extremely ob- 
 jectionable. The attention of God to the sick, 
 to the crops, to the country, is urgently asked for 
 as if He were, indeed, indifferent till aroused, or 
 unlikely to provide till informed. This is wholly 
 unbecoming to the present age, and ought to 
 cease. In the prayers uttered by our Lord a very 
 different spirit prevails, that of humble expres- 
 sion of trust, of need, of dependence, and of 
 danger. God is not asked to hearken, nor to 
 
204 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 show special favor, but the soul opens itself to 
 the Divine influence in order that it may say, 
 " Thy will, not mine, be done," and may perse* 
 vere in its patience. 
 
 With all that is objectionably anthropomorphic, 
 because falsely conceived, removed from our idea 
 of God in the Christ, He remains the essence and 
 source of Personality, and reveals to man the 
 Father to his sonship, the giver to his recipiency, 
 the agent to his reagency, the master to his free- 
 dom, the rock to his dependence, the redeemer 
 to his sinfulness, thereby restoring to man what 
 was lost by waywardness, and which only God 
 could restore. "As in Adam all die, so in the 
 Christ shall all be made alive." l 
 
 1 1 Corinthians xv. 22. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 205 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MAN IMMORTAL. 
 
 To the question, Is man conscious of being 
 immortal ? the answer must be given at once in 
 the negative, on the ground that it is not given 
 to man to know by his own consciousness any- 
 thing except what is either present or past. 
 What goes on with him now he knows, and he 
 also knows so much of past experience as he at 
 any time recalls ; but, except for rare presenti- 
 ments, he has no knowledge of the future. His 
 predictions and aspirations are not perceptions, 
 but are inferences from present conditions. He 
 does not live in the future, but only in the 
 passing instant. " The present hour alone is 
 man's/' as Samuel Johnson said. 
 
 But when man has gained some conception 
 of the Divine Lord, his view of life is greatly 
 enlarged. Already he may have perceived that 
 his was a recipient, though not a passive life ; 
 but now he comes to know the motive of his 
 
 18 
 
206 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Creator and Preserver. He finds Him a being 
 of surpassing love joined with wisdom, he com- 
 prehends that the power of God is the exercise 
 of love, and he learns that the whole universe is 
 an expression of love and wisdom, except so far 
 as man may have marred it. But he also sees 
 that he is himself the head of the creation ; that 
 it has been made to serve him ; and that he is 
 superior to it in his capacity to understand it 
 and to make use of it. He distinguishes himself 
 from all else, and gives names to all. 1 He finds 
 that a relation may exist and, for the promotion 
 of his usefulness, ought to exist between him 
 and his Lord; not the relation of the servant 
 who knoweth not what the master doeth, 2 but 
 that of friend, as in the case of a father and son 
 who are at one in spirit. He comes at length to 
 perceive that this God of love could not have 
 dwelt alone, contemplating His own perfections, 
 but must in His very nature have sought for 
 those whom He might bless, thus loving not 
 Himself so much as others out of Himself. He 
 finds, as all students of mind have found, that 
 he cannot think of God except in His universe ; 
 
 1 Genesis ii. 20. 3 John xv. 15. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 207 
 
 that lie cannot form an idea of Him except in 
 the field of His work, surrounded by His chil- 
 dren, or preparing a place for them that they 
 might dwell with Him. 
 
 The arbitrary and perverted ideas of a God 
 before whom the world is doomed, who has re- 
 lented to elect a few, which few in consideration 
 of infinite pain endured by the Son of God 
 are forgiven, while all the rest are calmly con- 
 templated as irrevocably destined to perdition, — 
 all these ideas, it is needless to say, have no basis 
 in the religious experience, except so far as man 
 condemns himself for his own perverseness, and 
 they can have no place in a philosophical view 
 of God. To fallen man He so at times appeared, 
 and, since the prophet's messages, to be of any 
 avail, must be clothed in the language and ideas 
 of the people addressed, He suffered Himself so 
 to appear; but, as the sun emerging from its 
 cloud shows its full radiance, so in the Christ 
 the quality of God was plainly shown, and it 
 was a fearful perversity which led men back to 
 the old conceptions, afresh denying the self- 
 revelation of God in the Christ, or rather insist- 
 ing upon holding concerning it a purely Jewish 
 view, beholding the blood that was spilled, but 
 
208 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 overlooking the spirit that led to the sacrifice. 
 These lurid views of God are disproved by all 
 genuine experience wherein men daily learn 
 that to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken 
 than the fat of rams. 1 
 
 It also comes to be empirically known that 
 God is a spirit; not a law merely, though His 
 name is law and His work is order ; not a force 
 merely, though there is no force but has its 
 origin in His infinite love; but a spirit, whose 
 mind was seen in the Christ and may be known 
 by every child who looks to Him for its daily 
 blessing. 
 
 It is also perceived that man is a spirit. This 
 is made plain from his capacity to grow in intel- 
 lectual power while his body is from any cause 
 declining, from his constant transcendence of 
 space and time as he reads of the past or accom- 
 panies in imagination his friend upon a journey, 
 and from his ability to come into relation with 
 the Divine Spirit. 
 
 He comes to perceive that his highest aim is 
 to co-operate in carrying out the sublime pur- 
 poses of his God, and that his highest attain- 
 
 1 1 Samuel xv. 22. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 209 
 
 ment will be to do so with increasing love and 
 wisdom and power for ever. The perception of 
 these aims, as representing the purpose of the 
 infinite One in creating and preserving man, is 
 the perception of the certainty of immortality. 
 
 " 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us, 
 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter 
 And intimates eternity to man." 1 
 
 That this understanding was that of the best 
 life of ancient time there can be no doubt, in 
 view of the indisputable evidence of this fact in 
 the sacred books of Egypt and Asia, and in the 
 traditions of all nations. " There is, I know not 
 how," said Cicero, " in the minds of men a pres- 
 age, as it were, of a future existence;" and, in 
 the first book of his " Tusculan Disputations," he 
 treats of the " Contempt of Death" by showing 
 that all men look beyond death. "It was the 
 deep-seated belief of those of the Latin race 
 whom Eunius describes as of the greatest an- 
 tiquity, that there is consciousness in death ; 2 . . . 
 that it is not a catastrophe that takes away and 
 
 1 Addison's Cato. 
 
 2 Peahody's Translation, Boston, 1886, p. 20. 
 o 18* 
 
210 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 blots out everything, but is, so to speak, a migra- 
 tion and a change of life." * 
 
 And Cicero made the right distinction between 
 the mortal and immortal parts when he said, " It 
 was not Hector that you dragged, Achilles, but 
 the body that had been Hector's." 2 
 
 In his "Phaedo," Plato treats of the soul's 
 immortality, giving his authorities from Homer 
 down. The Latin poet Ennius, a century before 
 the Christ, wrote as his own epitaph, — 
 
 " Let no one grace my funeral with tears ; 
 A living soul, I fly where floats my song." 
 
 It is, however, in the Christ that the percep- 
 tion of personal immortality is most distinct. 
 In perfect calmness, as He was about to lay 
 down His life, He spoke of the house of the 
 Father and the place to be prepared for the 
 disciples, using as always the language which 
 they would best understand, and promising them 
 that in due time they should be with Him. In 
 all that occurred with Him the perception of 
 immortality was conspicuous. 
 
 But the disciples had originally only the 
 Jewish tradition that the bodies, placed in 
 
 i Page 21. 2 Page 77. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 211 
 
 graves, would at some time far distant be raised 
 again ; and, though they were better instructed 
 by word and example by the Christ, they lapsed 
 again, so that there was no difference between 
 the Jewish and the mediaeval Christian notions 
 of resurrection as to physical bodies to be raised 
 and skies to be rent. That more light is now 
 enjoyed by many is perhaps in part due to a 
 study of the doubtful phenomena of spiritualism 
 and other evidences of a spirit in man and its con- 
 tinued existence after death ; but belief in im- 
 mortality is especially due to a fuller participa- 
 tion in the consciousness of relation with God in 
 the Christ and to a consequent understanding of 
 the words and example of the Christ. He re- 
 moves the fear of death, and it presents itself as 
 the entrance to a life more full than this because 
 less burdened with tribulation and less hampered 
 with doubt, — a life still in conjunction with the 
 Lord, but free from death and sorrow and pain. 
 
 " In the desert of the Holy Land I strayed, 
 Where Christ once lived, but seems to live no more ; 
 In Lebanon my lonely home I made ; 
 I heard the wind among the cedars roar, 
 And saw far off the Dead Sea's solemn shore : 
 But 'tis a dreary wilderness, I said, 
 Since the prophetic spirit hence has fled. 
 
212 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Then from the convent in the vale I heard, 
 Slow chanted forth, the everlasting Word, 
 Saying, ' I am He that liveth, and was dead, 
 And, lo, I am alive for evermore. ' 
 Then forth upon my pilgrimage I fare, 
 Eesolved to find and praise Him everywhere." 
 
 For doubts about resurrection and immortality, 
 arising from a solely material view of man, 
 there is no remedy save in the training of the 
 mind by reason and experience. If Clifford 
 could write for his epitaph only, " I was not, I 
 lived, I loved, I am not," it is evident that, in 
 exclusive attention to science and in abhorrence 
 of unreasonable dogmas, he had closed his mind 
 to the Christ who could remedy Sadduceeism 
 without making a man a Pharisee. There are, 
 indeed, myriads of men who through ignorance 
 do not at present participate with the Christ in 
 the faith of immortality, but as it is certain that 
 all are created for heaven so surely will they 
 sooner or later be given in freedom an opportu- 
 nity to dwell with Him. " And other sheep I 
 have which are not of this fold; them also I 
 must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and 
 there shall be one fold and one shepherd." 1 
 
 1 John x. 16. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 213 
 
 The existence of the spiritual world is not a 
 direct revelation of consciousness, because that is 
 concerned with the work of this life ; but, so far 
 as the mind is enlightened with the presence 
 of the Christ, it draws the necessary and joyful 
 inference that the earthly body and the physical 
 world are not the whole of the creation but are 
 its basis, and that the spirit within man, not 
 physical and not mortal, already belongs to a 
 world of spiritual substance, not, of course, re- 
 vealed to its organs of flesh, but existing as cer- 
 tainly as the infinite spirit itself. 
 
 Reason may also conclude that the world 
 adapted to its immortal life is no place of idle- 
 ness nor of mere ecstasy, but is a world of noble 
 uses, of scenes superior to those of earth, and of 
 indefinite variety of forms of life. As man finds 
 that his conception of God must rise above the 
 earthly rule of space and time, he may infer that, 
 in the spiritual world, space and time will be 
 rather the apparent than the actual environment, 
 that souls in sympathy will need no arduous 
 journey to be in converse, and that time will 
 not be measured, as in this world, by lapse of 
 days, but rather by the movement of the mind. 
 "With the sense of the presence of the Christ as 
 
214 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 the light of daily life may be conjoined the 
 thought that His presence will be the sun of 
 heaven, even as when He was transfigured. 1 
 
 From its own experience in sin, the mind 
 infers that every one, however wayward, will be 
 cared for with mercy and kindness in the here- 
 after, though it is seen that the region in which 
 disorderly thought surrounds itself with its like 
 will be utterly different from that in which the 
 life of the inhabitants reflects itself in holy forms 
 and precious substances, and in which 
 
 11 Trees of life ambrosial fruitage bear." 
 
 The effect of sleep upon the mind is nothing 
 save as, refreshed by gift of life during uncon- 
 sciousness, it gathers strength. The effect of the 
 brief sleep of death upon the mind will be 
 nothing unless it wakes ere long endowed with 
 peaceful and restful gifts. " In the third day He 
 will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight." 2 
 But it is clear that, in a spiritual world, the en- 
 ergies of the soul will find an ability to go forth, 
 which they could not have while using a physi- 
 cal body restrained by physical laws and more or 
 less diseased. 
 
 1 Matthew xvii. 2. 3 Hosea vi. 2. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 215 
 
 The mind now can free itself from an organ- 
 ized body only in thought. It will always be so. 
 Thought alone, not life, works without hands. 
 A spiritual body will be necessary to the spirit's 
 usefulness. And research has already gone far 
 enough to show that man now has a spiritual 
 body encompassed by a physical, but to be freed 
 from it by death. How much of this was known 
 a century ago is plain from Jung-Stilling's 
 " Theory of Pneumatology." Mrs. Browning 
 put the same perception into poetic form, — 
 
 M With stammering lips and insufficient sound, 
 I strive and struggle to deliver right 
 The music of my nature, day and night, 
 With dream and thought and feeling interwoven, 
 And inly answering all the senses' round, 
 With octaves of a mystic depth and height, 
 Which step out grandly to the infinite, 
 From the dark edges of the sensual ground." 1 
 
 The immortality of man is the destiny which 
 infinite Love has assigned to him, and to which 
 infinite Wisdom trains him. To become aware 
 of this great truth, and to keep it ever in view, 
 is human wisdom. So to live that man conjoins 
 himself with God in the Christ is to protect his 
 
 1 Sonnet : " The Soul's Expression." 
 
216 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 recipiency from the intrusion of evil, to promote 
 his reactive work in casting out what is un- 
 worthy in motive and in obtaining what is 
 worthy because helpful to the fellow-man, to 
 magnify his free-agency above all subversion to 
 the slavery of sinful habit, and to open before 
 him a vista of increasing usefulnesSc 
 
 Man can imagine nothing better, he can ask 
 for nothing more, than that he should be thus 
 preserved and promoted in strength and right- 
 eous service, world without end. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MAN IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 If the previous portions of this essay seem to 
 contain rational views, their reasonableness may- 
 be deemed their sufficient support. If they seem 
 to reach the ultimate ground of human knowl- 
 edge, they are philosophically approved. The 
 course of the treatment, however, led us up to 
 God, not as an idea only, but as Himself a self, 
 a personality of infinite and self-subsisting na- 
 ture, self-revealed in part in the working of the 
 world, but especially and perfectly in the qualities 
 of the Christ. It would therefore seem fitting 
 to compare these views with the words of the 
 Christ in order that it may be seen whether they 
 obtain favorable judgment as being of the Truth 
 which was in Him. 
 
 The same order of thought may be followed, 
 and this brings first to mind — 
 
 1. THE SELF OF MAN. 
 
 Of course it will be granted that, if the self 
 of man be but a delusion, there is no rationality 
 
 K 19 
 
218 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 in the words of appeal or warning or instruction 
 which may have been uttered by the Christ or 
 by any other. In that case man does not control 
 his acts, and is not responsible for them. In 
 that case the gospel, or any uplifting message, is 
 a mockery and a part of the general deceit to 
 which man is subject. The very attitude of the 
 Christ is, therefore, an evidence of His finding 
 a self in man, and such a self, it may in the end 
 appear, as has been herein described. 
 
 It would be easy to show from many of His 
 sayings that the Christ found in Himself no 
 mere reflection of Divinity, but an actual per- 
 sonality, whose name was Jesus, whose inheri- 
 tance was weighted with that which made Him 
 open to constant temptation, and whose purifica- 
 tion from all frailty was the work of overcoming 
 the world's evil, and so delivering man ; but this 
 is not the point which needs here to be enlarged 
 upon : only let it be understood that the words 
 of the Christ were not words of which He was 
 merely a messenger, but were words from His 
 own experience. He knew what was in man. 1 
 He spoke that which He knew, and He testified 
 
 1 John ii. 25. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 219 
 
 that which He had seen. 1 The gospel is the ex- 
 perience of the Christ which, for their sakes, 
 He shared with men. For their sakes He sanc- 
 tified Himself that they might be sanctified 
 through the truth. 2 To as many as receive Him 
 is given power to become the sons of God, so 
 that He may speak to each one of " my God and 
 your God," 3 and so that they may say one to 
 another, "Beloved, now are we the sons of 
 God." 4 
 
 It is, however, to His words as to others, 
 rather than as to Himself, that attention is now 
 called. 
 
 A striking passage is found in His address to 
 some Jews who were examining His claim to be 
 from God. They, boasting of their sure inheri- 
 tance of the promise made to Abraham, were 
 warned by Him that they were of another father, 
 another nature, and that this devil, or spirit of 
 evil, was deceiving them : " There is no truth in 
 him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of 
 his own; for he is a liar and the father thereof." 6 
 This is the rendering of both versions. The 
 
 i John iii. 11. 2 John xvii. 19. 3 John xx. 17. 
 
 * 1 John iii. 2. 5 John viii. 44. 
 
220 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 new has, however, as an alternative the interest- 
 ing change, — " When one speaketh a lie," 
 making the declaration universal, and to the 
 effect that a lie, a misuse of intellect and voice 
 to declare the opposite of the fact in any case, is 
 an act of evil self-assertion. "He speaketh of 
 his own," l*. rw idtcov, is as complete a declaration 
 of the selfhood as could be indirectly made. It 
 recognizes the self of man, and points out its 
 power. What man has as his own to use or 
 to abuse is that which some call the ego and 
 others the personality, and which is the proprium, 
 the peculiar possession, intended to be used by 
 each in filling his particular place in the great 
 whole of humanity, but intended also to consti- 
 tute him an individual and truly a man. The 
 lie is not spoken from God by man, and it is not 
 the truth of God; it is spoken by man of or 
 from what is his own, and it is the truth of a 
 wayward, self-directed man who has rejected the 
 father who gave the portion of goods and has 
 gone away to a far country to waste his sub- 
 stance and to join himself to one of that country 
 in place of his father. The lie is riotous living. 
 The same marked declaration of the selfhood 
 is found in a passage addressed to the disciples 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 221 
 
 to forewarn them of difficulties to be met with 
 in their work : " If ye were of the world, the 
 world would love its own." 1 Here the world 
 means, of course, the company of the worldly. 
 If the disciples could fall in with the way of the 
 majority, all would be made pleasant; but if, as 
 was necessary, they must oppose the world, then 
 danger would arise from the general hatred of 
 them. If they were of the world, of the world's 
 party and opinion, they would be safe, for the 
 world would love its own, to Utov. It had self- 
 love and no other. For that which did not 
 serve its self-love it had hatred. Here the men, 
 not loving to serve, but loving each to rule from 
 self-love, were described as having a selfhood 
 perverted and hostile to its true use. If the 
 selfhood of men had not been perverted, there 
 would have been no one persecuted for right- 
 eousness' sake. 
 
 "When speaking to the disciples about faithful- 
 ness, the Christ said, " If ye have not been faith- 
 ful in that which is another's, who will give you 
 that which is your own ?" 2 This is the same as 
 to say that, if, as stewards of Divine gifts, men 
 
 1 John xv. 19. 2 Luke xvi. 12. 
 
 19* 
 
222 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 are unfaithful, they do not acquire thereby true 
 riches, but are wanting in noble qualities. They 
 reject what is given, and then, as to the treasures 
 of heaven, have not any that are their own. 
 Their own possessions are base and, in the sight 
 of heaven, valueless. This passage does not 
 take away selfhood, as might appear to be the 
 case at first sight, but points out the emptiness 
 of the selfhood of the evil as to all that is of 
 true worth. 
 
 An important saying is that which is found in 
 two gospels and which was the subject of an 
 extended explanation : " Not that which entereth 
 into the mouth defileth the man ; but that which 
 proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the 
 man." 1 In another place the saying is recorded 
 thus : " There is nothing from without the man, 
 that going into him can defile him; but the 
 things which proceed out of the man are those 
 that defile the man." 2 The Pharisees had 
 showed their displeasure at a doctrine which 
 neglected their ceremonial ablutions, and the 
 disciples, who were not clear as to their Master's 
 teaching, appealed to Him for an explanation. 
 
 1 Matthew xv. 11. 2 Mark vii. 15. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 223 
 
 It was at once given by making use of food as 
 an example. If a substance which, the body 
 could not assimilate was taken into the system, 
 it was finally expelled ; and so a man might re- 
 ject a harmful influence and go undefiled. But, 
 if he received it with appetite and appropriated 
 it, then it became a part of himself, of his self- 
 hood, and it defiled him from within. This was 
 the only defilement to be feared. 
 
 With this belongs the saying, " The good 
 man out of the good treasure of his heart 
 bringeth forth that which is good ; and the evil 
 man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth 
 forth that which is evil : for out of the abun- 
 dance of the heart his mouth speaketh." l This 
 clearly points out that, whether it be good or 
 evil, and, of course, equally so if it be of a 
 mixed quality, the selfhood is the heart of the 
 man, and its acts are truly his acts. 
 
 A similar recognition of the self in man is 
 found in the rebuke which was given to one of 
 the disciples who, yielding to fear and to a short- 
 sighted affection for his master's comfort, had 
 sought to dissuade Him from going to Jerusalem 
 
 1 Luke vi. 45. 
 
224 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 and death : " Thou mindest not the things of 
 God, but the things of men." l Here the things 
 of men represent those self-seeking and unlov- 
 ing qualities which had unfortunately become 
 the characteristics of the self in man. 
 
 The same unholy condition is fully illustrated 
 in the parable of the wicked husbandmen who 
 refused to recognize the rights of the owner of 
 the vineyard, seeking to render themselves free 
 from his authority, and even killing his son with 
 the hope to "take his inheritance," "that the 
 inheritance may be ours," as they said. 2 This 
 precisely sets forth the waywardness which leads 
 man to refuse to exercise himself for the sake 
 of his God, — that is, of others, for God has no 
 selfish aim, — and to prefer to exercise himself in 
 fancied contempt of God and for his own sake. 
 The good husbandman would have enjoyed his 
 gifts as constituting a trust, but the evil husband- 
 man would brook no supervision but wished to 
 be as God, knowing no superior authority. 
 
 The same thought as to perversion of the self 
 is found in the words spoken to the disciples : 
 
 1 Matthew xvi. 23 ; Mark viii. 33. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 225 
 
 " What is a man profited, if he gain the whole 
 world, and lose or forfeit his own self?" 1 This 
 question is also found in the form, " What is a 
 man profited, if he shall gain the whole world 
 and lose his own life ?" 2 For " life" here the 
 old version read " soul." But the meaning is 
 conveyed by the words " his own self." If he 
 pays away the purity of his nature for worldly 
 benefits, making himself a slave to greed, he has 
 forfeited his own self, he has profaned the dwell- 
 ing-place of God even to the ground. 
 
 It was this evil independence — which is really 
 slavery — which was meant when the Christ said 
 that, if one came " in his own name," he would 
 be received ; 3 for it was plain that His enemies 
 had a high appreciation of the self-assertive life 
 and no respect whatever for the life of steward- 
 ship. 
 
 The possibility of man's self-assertion and 
 consequent abuse of his gifts is implied in the 
 words uttered by the father to his son in the 
 parable of the prodigal: "All that I have is 
 thine." 4 The elder son, to whom this was said, 
 
 2 Mark viii. 36. 
 8 John v. 43. * Luke xv. 81. 
 
 P 
 
226 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 might also go away, it was granted, with the 
 goods of the father, and waste them. 
 
 These explicit teachings show how fully the 
 self, the individuality, the proprium, was recog- 
 nized out of His own experience and through 
 His unmatched enlightenment, by the Christ of 
 God. 
 
 2. RECIPIENCY AND REACTIVITY 
 
 are no less fully recognized. Indeed, they are 
 implied in the passages already quoted, for it 
 everywhere appears that true or false steward- 
 ship, the righteous use or the unrighteous abuse 
 of gifts, is human life as seen by the Christ. 
 Some other sayings will be quoted, however, 
 which especially indicate man's recipiency. 
 
 The question, " Shall He not clothe you ?" * 
 implies man's recipient relation to God. "It 
 shall be given you in that hour what ye shall 
 speak" 2 teaches the same lesson. The parable 
 of the sower 3 presents men receiving with much 
 variety of capacity, as the field receives its seed 
 with varying results which it cannot control, as 
 man can. 
 
 1 Matthew vi. 30. 2 Matthew x. 19. 
 
 3 Matthew xiii., Mark iv., Luke viii. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 227 
 
 The whole of what is said about prayer ex- 
 presses the truth that man receives what he has ; 
 that he is able to enlarge his capacity by conse- 
 cration of his powers, and that his becoming 
 attitude towards God is that of request and affec- 
 tionate trust. " Give us this day our daily 
 bread" l is the model supplication. " Give, and 
 it shall be given unto you" 2 is the law of life. 
 " Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye 
 shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
 you : for every one that asketh, receiveth ; and 
 he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that 
 knocketh, it shall be opened. If ye, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts to your children, 
 how much more shall your Father which is 
 in heaven give good things to them that ask 
 Him ?" 3 And the value of prayer has its fullest 
 statement in the words : " All things whatsoever 
 ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall re- 
 ceive," 4 which words are interpreted by the 
 other saying : " If ye abide in me, and my words 
 abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall 
 be done unto you." 5 
 
 1 Matthew vi. 5. 2 Luke vi. 38. 3 Matthew vii. 7, 8, 11. 
 4 Matthew xxi. 22. 5 John xv. 7. 
 
228 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 A remarkable evidence of the recognition of 
 human recipiency by the Christ is found in the 
 frequent use of the proverbial phrase, " He that 
 hath ears to hear, let him hear," l or, as it is said 
 in one place, " He that is able to receive it, let 
 him receive it;" 2 plainly indicating that every 
 man has not only his inherited measure given 
 him in his creation, but that he makes that 
 measure larger or smaller by his own use of it 
 in life. 
 
 So He spoke of receiving the kingdom of God, 
 saying, that unless one received it as a little 
 child, he could not enter therein ; 3 and to a 
 man making surrender of his selfish interests 
 for the sake of God's service, He promised that 
 he should " receive manifold more in this time, 
 and in the world to come eternal life." 4 
 
 When our Lord spoke of good deeds as 
 "wrought in God," 5 He did not ignore man's 
 reactive free-agency, but He showed that the 
 good deed is the unperverted exercise of the 
 gifts of God. 
 
 It was precisely this relation fully recognized 
 
 1 Matthew xi. 15. 3 Matthew xix. 12. 
 
 * Luke xviii. 17. * Ibid. 30. 6 John iii. 21. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 229 
 
 which led the Christ to say, " I can of mine own 
 self do nothing. I seek not mine own will, but 
 the will of Him that sent me;" 1 for He felt 
 within Himself a power bestowed for good, and 
 He avoided all thought of perverting it by 
 denying its source. 
 
 " I give unto them eternal life," 2 He said of 
 those who followed Him, meaning that as "in 
 Him was life," so by Him it was communicated 
 in rich measure to those who would prepare 
 themselves to receive it. "I am come that they 
 may have life," He said, " and may have it 
 abundantly." 3 And this interprets the words 
 which ignorance, having no living experience of 
 their truth, is apt to regard as mysterious : 
 " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and 
 drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. 
 He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood 
 hath eternal life. He that eateth Me he also 
 shall live because of Me." 4 
 
 Similarly, in the parable of the talents, it was 
 said that the gift was "to each according to his 
 several ability;" 5 and it is made plain in this 
 
 1 John v. 30. 2 John x. 28. 3 John x. 10. 
 
 * John vi. 53, 54, 57. 5 Matthew xxv. 15. 
 20 
 
230 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 and in the parable of the pounds that no more 
 was expected of any one than his nature and 
 acquired abilities would warrant. 
 
 This law is illustrated by the saying in respect 
 to the Spirit of Truth : " Whom the world 
 cannot receive, for it beholdeth Him not, neither 
 knoweth Him ; ye know Him, for He abideth 
 with you and shall be in you." * 
 
 Thus does the fact of man's self as reactive 
 and recipient stand forth everywhere in the 
 teachings of the Christ. It is not necessary to 
 follow any of these points into the apostolic 
 teaching, but this fact is also conspicuous there, 
 for example, in Paul's saying, " The natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God ; for they are foolishness unto him." 2 
 
 Passing to the subject of man's 
 
 3. FREE-AGENCY, 
 
 we note, as before, that this is implied in all that 
 has been already quoted. The recipiency by the 
 Christ of what was of God, and by man of what 
 was of God in the Christ, is never spoken of as 
 a passive, much less as a compelled, agency. 
 
 1 John xiv. 17. 2 1 Corinthians ii. 14. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 231 
 
 The servant takes the talent to be in his own 
 keeping, and to do with it what he will, — this is 
 always the view presented. In addition, how- 
 ever, for the sake of greater defmiteness, some 
 passages may be cited. 
 
 Every command to sinful men to "repent" 
 recognized their self-control, their ability to 
 choose or to alter their course. Such commands 
 as that they were to love their enemies, to do 
 good to them who hated them, to resist not evil, 
 to forgive seventy times seven times, to give no 
 anxious thought to the morrow, to deny self, — 
 all these and many others proposed a new way 
 of life, and one of great difficulty, which they 
 could pursue only by taking command of them- 
 selves and insisting within themselves upon 
 acting freely in spite of strong pressure of scorn 
 without and of self-love within. They were thus 
 not only regarded as free, but they were urged 
 to demand a larger liberty, a kingship over 
 themselves. 
 
 When the Pharisees were warned that for 
 every idle word they must give account, 1 the 
 same meaning is conveyed. The man who sells 
 
 1 Matthew xii. 36. 
 
232 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 all that he has and buys the precious field 1 ex- 
 hibits his liberty. So is it with the man who 
 might have had compassion on his fellow-ser- 
 vant, but did not pity him. 2 So is it with the 
 son who said, "I go and went not;" and with 
 him who said, "I go not, but afterwards he re- 
 pented himself and went." 3 So was it with 
 those who received the invitation to the feast, 
 but " made light of it," and " would not come," 
 and " went their ways." 4 So was it with those 
 whom the Lord would have gathered, but to 
 whom He must say in truth, "And ye would 
 not." 6 
 
 It is noticeable throughout that the freedom 
 of man is as distinctly recognized in his relation 
 to God as in his relation with men. The Christ 
 said to the Pharisees, "Ye tithe mint and rue 
 and every herb, and pass over judgment, and 
 the love of God; but these ought ye to have 
 done, and not to leave the other undone." 6 He 
 predicted that they were so hardened that they 
 would refuse to accept any evidence of their 
 own depravity: "If they hear not Moses and 
 
 1 Matt. xiii. 44. 2 Matt, xviii. 33. 3 Matt. xxi. 29 
 
 4 Matt. xxii. 3, 5. 5 Matt, xxiii. 37. 6 Luke xi. 42. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 233 
 
 the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if 
 one rise from the dead." 1 In a similar strain 
 He spoke of those who " loved darkness rather 
 than light; for their works were evil." 2 
 
 The custom of the Christ to ask one what he 
 would have, before exercising His beneficent 
 power upon him, should not be overlooked, for 
 it was a needless question in itself to address to 
 a blind or sick man ; but it was always asked, or 
 the equivalent of its answer was always de- 
 manded, — " What wilt thou that I should do 
 unto thee?" "Wilt thou be made whole?" 
 Had a negative answer been given, He must 
 have passed on, as He passed neglected among 
 Pharisees or scribes. 
 
 An important passage is that which was spoken 
 when, at the last, He confided many thoughts to 
 the disciples, saying, " No longer do I call you 
 servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his 
 lord doeth; but I have called you friends;" 3 
 meaning that they were to rise above the inferior 
 liberty of obeying or disobeying to that of par 
 ticipation in the plan of their master. 
 
 Another word of the Christ, not in the gospels, 
 
 1 Luke xtL 31. 2 John iii. 19. 3 John xv. 15. 
 
 20* 
 
234 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 must be cited because it so perfectly expresses 
 the free agency of man: "Behold, I stand at 
 the door and knock ; if any man hear my voice 
 and open the door, I will come in to him, and 
 will sup with him, and he with Me." l 
 
 As to the 
 
 4. division op man's powers, 
 it may be enough to note that, in all the teach- 
 ings which have been quoted, the will of man 
 with its loves is constantly dwelt upon and the 
 intellect of man is constantly instructed; that, 
 in fact, the appeal is always to man's love 
 through his intellect; but that the feelings are 
 in no case recognized as of equal importance. 
 It is very true that joy and sorrow are spoken 
 of, and that, in His last words, the Christ speaks 
 of His joy to be fulfilled in the disciples; 2 but 
 it is easily seen that it is the peace from work 
 well performed that was enjoyed in that hour of 
 danger, the joy of the will which had sought 
 and did seek the lost sheep, and of the un- 
 derstanding which discerned the way to final 
 triumph. 
 
 The law that 
 
 1 Kevelation iii. 20. 
 
 2 As in John xv. 11 ; xvi. 20-24; xvii. 13. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 235 
 
 5. USE IS THE DESIGN 
 
 of the self, which destiny it accepts or rejects, is 
 everywhere set forth. The whole example of 
 the Christ indicated this sole aim. It is found 
 in all His words. He said, " Whosoever would 
 become great among you shall be your minister ; 
 and whosoever would be first among you shall 
 be your servant ; even as the Son of Man came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
 to give His life a ransom for many." 1 And 
 again He said, " He that is greatest among you 
 shall be your servant." 2 
 
 He taught them that the talents must be 
 traded with. He showed them that the Sabbath 
 was not made for idleness when good deeds 
 could be done. He likened Himself to a shep- 
 herd whose whole thought is for his sheep. 
 " My Father worketh even until now," 3 He said 
 to the indolent class of His day, "and I work." 
 " I must work the works of Him that sent me, 
 while it is day," 4 He said. 
 
 A striking saying was that in which He drew 
 the picture of the servant coming in from the 
 
 1 Matthew xx. 26-28 ; Mark x. 43-45. 2 Matt, xxiii. 11. 
 
 3 John v. 17. * John ix. 3. 
 
236 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 field, and not demanding to be served, but wait- 
 ing upon his master : " Even so ye also, when ye 
 have done all the things which are commanded 
 you, say, "We are unprofitable servants, we 
 have done that which it was our duty to do." 1 
 This saying is at one with the words, " Freely ye 
 received, freely give." 2 
 
 Such was always His principle of conduct: 
 " Be ye perfect," 3 was His injunction. " If thou 
 wouldest be perfect," 4 was His address to the 
 young man who was boasting his righteousness, 
 as He showed him how much remained to be 
 done. His golden rule, as it is justly called, is 
 an ethical standard, which is not extravagant, 
 calling upon men to forget themselves, but 
 which is perfect wisdom in its requirement that 
 they should remember others with equal care. 
 And this is the law and the prophets also. 5 
 
 The Christ was equally clear in what He 
 said of 
 
 6. EVIL IN MAN. 
 
 He plainly taught its source when, standing in 
 the court of the temple, He charged the priests 
 
 1 Luke xvii. 10. 2 Matthew x. 8. 3 Matthew v. 48. 
 
 4 Matthew xix. 21. 5 Matthew vii. 12. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 237 
 
 with the crime of polluting it : " Ye have made 
 it a den of robbers." l Here was no room for 
 doubt as to the cause of the evil which had made 
 its way into the high places of Judaism. And 
 from this one may conclude as to all evil. But 
 it is even more plainly declared in the long 
 series of woes which He denounced to the hypo- 
 crites, who would not go into the kingdom of 
 God and would not let others go in, who made 
 proselytes and rendered them children of hell, 
 who quibbled about oaths and were liars, who 
 strained out the gnat and swallowed the camel, 
 who cleansed the outside of the cup but filled it 
 full of extortion and excess, who whitened them- 
 selves outwardly like sepulchres but were black 
 and foul with iniquity within, who had slain 
 the prophets and who must bear the burden of 
 their deeds. 2 
 
 There is no evil in the talent, and there is 
 none given to him who receives it; he himself 
 creates the evil by misusing the talent, and is 
 therefore judged out of his own mouth. 3 
 
 The wretched fate of the betrayer was that of 
 
 1 Matthew xxi. 13 ; Mark xi. 17 ; Luke xix. 46. 
 9 Matthew xxiii. 3 Luke xix. 22. 
 
238 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 his own devising. He was caught in the net 
 which he had made. He betrayed himself to 
 his own destruction. " See thou to that." 1 
 
 "When our Lord said that from him who had 
 not should be taken even that which he seemed 
 to have, 2 He meant that, sooner or later, the 
 wilful abuse of possession would bring posses- 
 sion to an end. 
 
 And this leads to the thought of the control 
 of evil, which control, by successful resistance to 
 its continued assaults, He gained, and which He 
 would have others gain by resisting evil for 
 themselves with His aid. Not only the embodi- 
 ments of evil in priest and scribe opposed Him, 
 but even more the people of the other world 
 who were in complete possession of some in this 
 life. It is no fancy that He contended with evil 
 spirits, and no delusion of an ignorant time. 
 Spiritism has confirmed the record. Possession 
 is still known, under the form of " control." 3 
 But the mischievous ones who now torment 
 a mediumistic victim are nothing to those 
 " legions" 4 of the day of Herod and Caiaphas. 
 
 1 Luke xxvii. 4. a Luke viii. 18. 
 
 s New Psychology, vol. i. pp. 228, 394. 4 Luke viii. 30. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 239 
 
 Before the attack of such as He contended with, 
 the Christ bowed in the garden of Gethsemane, 
 and His sweat of blood made record of His 
 agony. 
 
 It was a contest of Person against persons, of 
 one self against many ; yet the many yielded once 
 and again till every plant which the heavenly 
 Father had not planted was rooted up, as was 
 predicted. 1 Yet this kind of enemy was not 
 conquered without " prayer and fasting." 2 The 
 life of the Christ was a contest. The contest 
 was between Him and all the human foes of 
 God. In His victory He led captivity captive, 
 and the prince of this world was cast out. 
 Henceforward evil was limited by the power of 
 the Christ as it had not been limited before, and 
 it still is and forever will be limited by Him; 
 not prevented from arising in any perverse will, 
 but issuing only as permitted for possible good. 
 
 7. MAN THE IMAGE OF GOD 
 
 was an essential principle of Judaism and was 
 taken for granted in all the teachings of the 
 Christ, and distinctly uttered in the oft-repeated 
 phrase, "Your rather," in the instruction to 
 
 1 Matthew xv. 13. a Matt. xvii. 21. 
 
240 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 open prayers with " Our Father," and in the 
 words to Mary Magdalene, " My Father and 
 your Father." " Ye therefore shall be perfect 
 as your heavenly Father is perfect" ! admits of 
 no other interpretation. " Blessed are the peace- 
 makers, for they shall be called sons of God" 2 
 marks the use of the term to designate those 
 who were sons of God not merely in view of 
 their origin, but in conscious relation of filial 
 affection. " The children of God that are scat- 
 tered abroad" 3 was the designation of the people 
 needing help. 
 
 In a marked manner the idea of man made in 
 God's image appears in all that was said as to a 
 new birth, a regeneration, by which a new nature 
 took and takes the place of the old, and a puri- 
 fied selfhood is obtained. "But as many as 
 received Him, to them gave He the right to 
 become children of God ; which were born not 
 of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
 will of man, but of God." 4 
 
 It would not be out of place here to remark 
 that, though 
 
 1 Matthew v. 48. 2 Matthew v. 9. 
 
 » John xi. 52. « John i. 13. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 241 
 
 8. MAN AS MICROCOSM 
 
 is nowhere distinctly presented, for the words of 
 the Christ were always addressed to the practical 
 aspects of life, yet that His teaching is full of 
 indirect evidence of this great fact. To form some 
 idea of what is meant one need only recall the 
 constant use of all nature as representative of 
 man and the absolutely perfect recognition that 
 every visible object and act was significant of 
 human life in some way. A mere enumeration 
 of some of the objects employed will be suffi- 
 cient. Without pausing to give references, we 
 note: childhood, youth, old age, king, prince, 
 noble, beggar, poor, physician, priest, shepherd, 
 bridegroom, bride, fisherman, judge, virgin, ser- 
 vant, thief, heir, hypocrite, adversary, traveller, 
 childbirth ; sowing, reaping, watching, sleeping, 
 marriage, hireling, health, sickness, war, famine, 
 dancing, weeping, purging, buying, selling, pay- 
 ing; eyes, ears, hair, hand, head, foot, mouth, 
 cheek, face, lip, voice, belly, heart, blood, 
 shoulder, loins, finger, hunger, thirst, dinner, 
 supper ; cattle, ass, sheep, lamb, goat, dog, wolf, 
 calf, fox, fish, worm, hen, dove, eagle, sparrow, 
 raven, serpent; tree, fruit, root, harvest, field, 
 
 ground, vine, grass, thorns, reed, vineyard, mar- 
 L q 21 
 
242 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 ket-place, grapes, seed, lily, water, salt, bread, 
 leaven, wine, oil, wheat, tares, fig; sand, earth, 
 hill, earthquake, sepulchre, light, darkness, rock, 
 wind, sky, sun, moon, star, rain, cloud, east, 
 west; house, chamber, closet, gate, mill, throne, 
 crown, seat, beam, mote, altar, door, prison, 
 tower, barn, fold, cross ; lamp, cup, candle, 
 bushel, sickle, needle, plough, yoke, bag, bottle, 
 pitcher, bed, purse, girdle, linen, napkin, coat, 
 cloak, hem, pipe, net; treasure, tribute, wages, 
 talent, pound, pearls, gold, silver, bank, debt, 
 account, alms, burden, snare, sword, furnace, 
 stumbling-block, lightning, fire. 
 
 This enumeration, without further and more 
 full examples of the Christ's usage of symbols, 
 may indicate that, to Him, the environment was 
 transparent with a meaning, a correspondence 
 with humanity, which all poets have seen to 
 some degree, or there had been no poetry, but 
 which has its perfect exemplification in the 
 sayings of the Light of the World. 
 
 9. THE DIVINE 
 
 was fully revealed, as has been remarked, in the 
 Christ. It was also described in His words. It 
 was set forth as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 243 
 
 which terms have been treated of as exemplified 
 in man's will, intellect, and outgoing activity of 
 life. When He commanded His disciples to 
 baptize in this threefold name, they understood 
 Him, and rightly, that they were to think of all 
 three as in Him; and they baptized "in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus." God is the father of 
 man, God is a spirit, there is none good but One, 
 — these are the expressions which lead the 
 thought to turn to God, not as a " stream of 
 tendency," not merely as the Unknowable, but as 
 Person. His love is declared in such teachings 
 as, — " It is not the will of your Father who is in 
 heaven that one of these little ones should 
 perish." * His infinite intelligence, knowing no 
 bound in time or space, is evident in the predic- 
 tions of which Palestine is to-day the unmis- 
 takable fulfilment. His power, the power of 
 wisdom full of love, is manifest in all the works 
 of the Christ, and in the endurance and growth 
 of Christianity. 
 
 When the Divine would reveal itself for the 
 succor of man, near destruction of all that was 
 above the brute in him, and when, with infinite 
 
 1 Matthew xviii. 14. 
 
244 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 patience and skill, the Divine would apply itself 
 to the task of subduing without destroying evil 
 men and evil spirits, it is most important to 
 notice that God made His 
 
 10. ADVENT BY MAN; 
 
 that He was incarnated in human nature as His 
 appropriate manifestation. The Christ came in 
 the name of Jehovah ; He declared the God 
 whose voice had not been heard, whose shape 
 had not been seen ; in Him God was glorified 
 and did glorify Himself; * He was before Abra- 
 ham, 2 and, having conquered, ascended up where 
 He was before; 3 he that hated Him hated the 
 Father also ; 4 he that had seen him had seen the 
 Father ; 5 he that received Him received Him 
 that sent Him ; 6 therefore, when triumphant, He 
 had all power in heaven and on earth. 7 He was 
 the bread of God that had come down from 
 heaven to give life unto the world. 8 The help- 
 less infant of Bethlehem was only in a faint 
 degree, only potentially, God manifest ; the per- 
 fected Christ, forgiving all, knowing all, working 
 
 1 John xiii. 31, 32. 2 John viii. 58. 8 John vi. 62. 
 * John xv. 23. 6 John xiv. 9. 6 Matt. x. 40. 
 
 7 Matt, xxviii. 18. 8 John vi. 41. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 245 
 
 wonders of Divine energy, was one with the 
 Father, the Christ of God. 
 
 These expressions from the words of the 
 Christ may suffice to bring the fact to plain view 
 that God is infinitely Human, not such a being 
 as the Jews worshipped in the desert, deeming 
 Him kind to their nation only, nor such as be- 
 nighted Christians have worshipped, deeming 
 Him angry and appeasable with their tortures 
 or their gifts, but so perfectly Human that He is 
 the One, the " I am that I am," the Alpha and 
 the Omega of being. 
 
 11. THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN 
 
 is as clearly indicated as possible in the sayings 
 of the Christ, but it is an immortality of Divine 
 gift. Men had sunk so low that the full faith in 
 future life characteristic of more ancient time 
 was lost to view, and only later generations have 
 brought it to light as they learned to decipher 
 hieroglyphic or cuneiform records. The Sad- 
 ducees doubted resurrection. The Pharisees 
 regarded it as the exclusive privilege of their 
 sect of that nation, and they held it to be a re- 
 vival of life after long delay and a restoration of 
 
 the physical body. They buried their dead near 
 21* 
 
246 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 to Jerusalem in order not to be overlooked at 
 the last day, or put a handful of Jerusalem dirt 
 into the grave, if remote, to effect its upheaval. 
 
 To all this came the words of the Christ like 
 the dawn to the night. His first words were a 
 proclamation of immortality : "Blessed are the 
 poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven ; blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God; rejoice and be exceeding glad, 
 for great is your reward in heaven." x He spoke 
 of laying up treasures in heaven. 2 He said that 
 he who endured to the end would be saved. 3 
 He told much of the angels in heaven to whom 
 the risen righteous would be equal. 4 He spoke 
 of eternal and everlasting life. He declared the 
 Father's house to be of many mansions. 5 
 
 More than this, He convinced the Sadducees by 
 bidding them know that all the dead were living 
 with God, who was not a God of dead men, but 
 of living. 6 He taught Martha of Bethany that 
 He was Himself resurrection and life. 7 To the 
 dying thief He promised paradise that day. 8 
 
 1 Matt. v. 3, 8, 12. 2 Matt. vi. 20. 3 Matt. x. 22. 
 
 * Luke xx. 36. 5 John xiv. 2. « Matt. xxii. 32. 
 
 7 John xi. 25. 8 Luke xxiii. 43. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 247 
 
 The eternal life of righteous co-operation with 
 God was much treated of: "There is no man 
 that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
 mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my 
 sake and for the gospel's sake, but he shall re- 
 ceive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, 
 and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and chil- 
 dren, and lands, with persecutions; and in the 
 world to come, eternal life." 1 The wicked were 
 not to be annihilated, but their future He de- 
 scribed in terms of sorrow. 
 
 His own resurrection lifted the disciples out 
 of despair, and made them meet death calmly, 
 saying, " To live is Christ, to die is gain." 2 
 Peter spoke of the "inheritance incorruptible, 
 and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, re- 
 served in heaven." 3 John wrote of "the 
 promise which He hath promised us, even life 
 eternal." 4 
 
 In His closing words our Lord manifested 
 His own approaching victory over evil and the 
 grave, and assured His disciples of every age 
 that the other world was a real world, and that 
 
 1 Mark x. 29, 30. 2 Philippians i. 21. 
 
 8 1 Peter i. 4. * 1 John ii. 25. 
 
248 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 He would prepare a place for them, that they 
 might be with Him in the Father's house, and 
 go no more out. 1 
 
 It is important to note that the Christian 
 system recognizes three grand divisions of life, 
 namely, 
 
 12. GOD, SPIRIT, MATTER, 
 
 and that one of these is no more distinctly pre- 
 sented than the other. The prayer in Gethsem- 
 ane reveals God in Divine love prompting the 
 utmost patience in suffering for the sake of re- 
 deeming man, the spirit or burdened mind of 
 the Christ " willing" to do all the Divine pur- 
 pose, and the flesh which was " weak" and in 
 agony. More distinctly perhaps this threefold 
 division of all being is seen in several parables, 
 where the lord of the vineyard, the householder, 
 or the father, represents the Divine, the steward 
 or laborers or husbandmen or servants represent 
 the spiritual, and the pounds or talents or goods 
 represent the material. It will be found upon 
 reflection that God, spirit, and matter are con- 
 stantly in view in the gospels, and that they are 
 spoken of in relation. 
 
 1 John xiv. 3 ; Revelation iii. 12. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 249 
 
 13. THE VITAL INFLUENCE 
 
 is the influence of God upon spirit and through 
 spirit in the inhabitants of heaven and in the 
 mind of man upon matter. It is a movement 
 of life and a circulation of force downward in 
 the scale of being, and it is responded to by the 
 reactivity of the recipient. When the body, 
 which is matter, loses its connection with the 
 spirit or mind or essential man, it dies and re- 
 turns to its dust. When the spirit in its un- 
 faithfulness closes itself to the life from above, 
 its power for good lessens. In so far as it opens 
 itself to that influence by prayerful activity, it 
 lives with eternal vigor. It is an influence which 
 man controls so far as the use to which he devotes 
 it is concerned ; that he cannot utterly cut off his 
 connection with the source of life is the Christian 
 
 teaching. 
 
 14. MIRACLES, 
 
 which have been a stumbling-block to those who 
 rightly refuse to regard them as arbitrary in- 
 fractions of law, Divine or natural, are intelligi- 
 ble enough in view of this vital connection, or 
 constant transmission of life, or perpetual crea- 
 tion. A miracle wrought by human power is im- 
 possible, and so is one wrought by material force ; 
 
250 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 but a coming forth of the Divine life manifesting 
 its quality is not a miracle, that is, a mere wonder, 
 but a sign, as the Greek ayfielov means, and as 
 the revisers have rendered it. A marked sign 
 of Divine power, not annulling law, but quicken- 
 ing it, bringing for the time heavenly phenomena 
 to view upon earth, is the normal accompaniment 
 of the Christ, but at the same time let it be 
 noticed that He did not do such works for the 
 unbelieving or those who checked the inflowing 
 energy. 
 
 Thus His presence brought forth from the evil 
 spirits their ready submission, and even entreaty 
 that He would suffer them to go into swine 
 rather than compel them to retire to their own 
 place ; but nothing of the sort would have oc- 
 curred if He had not resisted His own tempters, 
 thereby achieving by orderly methods the subju- 
 gation of the evil. The miracle is, therefore, in 
 the faithfulness of the Christ ; with this proved, 
 the casting out of the devils, however impossible 
 to others in their doubts, was certain to follow 
 His command. 
 
 In the case of disease, the hand upon the head 
 or eyes put into effect the thought, " I will, be 
 thou clean ;" and leprosy was cleansed, and 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 251 
 
 blind eyes opened, and palsied arms strength- 
 ened. But He gave charge that the patient 
 should sin no more lest a worse thing should 
 come to him, 1 because all the time the man was 
 a free agent, had been healed only through his 
 wish to be made whole, and had retained liberty 
 to involve himself in worse evils. 
 
 In feeding a multitude with a few loaves and 
 fishes, the Christ could have done nothing if His 
 love had not gone out to the people, material- 
 izing itself as it went; so that the loaves were 
 the form of His " compassion." It should be 
 remembered, in connection with this very event, 
 that He said, " It is the spirit that quickeneth : 
 the flesh profiteth nothing." 2 And He gave the 
 clew to the source of His power when He said 
 to the tempter that man must not live by bread 
 alone. 3 
 
 This power of the self over its benefits re- 
 ceived from above was constantly illustrated by 
 the use of the words, " Thy faith hath saved 
 thee," " According to thy faith be it unto thee ;" 
 for the people referred to had received just that 
 which they had prepared themselves to receive, 
 
 1 John v. 14. 2 John vi. 63. 8 Luke iv. 4. 
 
252 THE BUM AN AND ITS 
 
 and the blessing had been awaiting their desire 
 to receive it when the Christ was nigh. 
 
 The forgiveness of sins depended upon a simi- 
 lar state of the recipient. Active repentance 
 secured healing of the nature, — that is, the re- 
 mission of the power of evil; but the opposite 
 state had no forgiveness. " Her sins, which are 
 many, are forgiven; for she loved much." 1 A 
 sin which had no forgiveness 2 was spoken of, 
 and this language has caused much disquiet 
 among Christians. Its meaning was explained 
 at the time of utterance to be that one may so 
 " sin against the Holy Spirit," so determinedly 
 oppose the voice of conscience in his soul, that 
 he actually and permanently stifles it and does 
 himself a lasting injury. 
 
 These signs of the connection of God, spirit, 
 and matter were not wrought to astonish people, 
 much less to gain approval and applause for the 
 meek and lowly One, but were the outcome of 
 His presence wherever need was and wherever 
 the wish to be helped was found. And these 
 signs in their spiritual efficacy may be wrought 
 again, and must be wrought if the Christ is to 
 
 1 Luke vii. 47. a Mark iii. 29. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 253 
 
 be more than a historic figure, even the Saviour 
 of men from all unworthiness. Belief in Him 
 cannot be transferred from one to another : it 
 must be the fruit of one's own experience with 
 the Christ, not an experience merely with those 
 called Christians, but an experience with the 
 Christ Himself, establishing a relation between 
 the human self and the Divine Self, a relation in 
 which the recipient, free in his reactivity, eter- 
 nally assured of his own life and place in the com- 
 monwealth of uses, abides in the Christ and the 
 Christ in him, so that they, God in the Christ 
 and the Christ in men, are made perfect in one. 1 
 
 1 John xvii. 23. 
 
254 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE KNOWABLE. 
 
 A few concluding pages may not be out of 
 place by way of anticipating the objection that 
 the writer has passed, or has attempted to pass, 
 from the firm ground of consciousness to that of 
 mere belief, and has disregarded the spirit of 
 the age, which is above all things critical, and 
 which does not so much ask " What do you 
 know?" as "How is such reputed knowledge 
 possible ?" It is said of Kenan that he praised 
 Spinoza by saying that " he could not accept 
 Christianity, for he could not surrender his lib- 
 erty, since Descartes was his master." * This, if 
 so spoken, was only another and a needlessly 
 deistical way of stating the same unwillingness 
 to be led by aught but reason, which made 
 Dante declare, " Aristotle is the master of those 
 who know." 
 
 1 Quoted by E. S. Phelps in The Struggle for Immortality : 
 Boston, 1889, p. 13. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 255 
 
 Especially since Kant is it impossible to con- 
 found knowledge with assumption without in- 
 stant detection. His strongest claim on the 
 respect of posterity is the revolution which he 
 made by the introduction of criticism into phi- 
 losophy. Descartes had attempted this and had 
 honestly freed his mind of its prepossessions, 
 but had immediately readmitted without chal- 
 lenge such ideas as seemed to him " clear and 
 distinct." Before him Hobbes and after him 
 Hume had carried the questioning spirit on to 
 scepticism. It was Kant who led philosophy 
 back to more positive ground. He avoided the 
 Scylla of a credulous scholasticism and the 
 Charybdis of an equally unfruitful scepticism, 
 and safely made his way where every wise pilot 
 will be careful to follow. His minor tenets may 
 be but stepping-stones to higher views, but his 
 principle of criticism as a substitute for dogma- 
 tism, whether scholastic or sceptical, is impreg- 
 nable. There can be no more scanning of the 
 surface of the field of knowledge with affirma- 
 tion or denial according to the onlooker's real or 
 fancied powers of vision, but men must now sink 
 their shafts and learn what lies below the surface. 
 There shall be no more descriptions of the tree 
 
256 TEE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 of knowledge, but men must tell us how its roots 
 are placed. Gnosticism in the second century 
 thought that it knew everything about thirty 
 ranks of gods ; 1 and, as the natural consequence, 
 there were atheists in plenty then. Now, in 
 place of mere denial, we have criticism, which 
 asks, " How do you know ?" Seeing Q. E. D. at 
 the end of an argument, men do not ask for the 
 figure of the syllogism but for the foundation of 
 the premises. 
 
 Such a change in the state of the public mind 
 necessarily involves much questioning of his- 
 torical beliefs, both philosophical and theological. 
 The scientist who lately said that he attended 
 church till he could no longer endure the re- 
 peated declaration by the clergyman of a faith 
 which certainly was not in any sense knowledge 
 illustrated the common feeling. In its reluc- 
 tance to submit its creeds to criticism and re- 
 vision, the church has been unintentionally a 
 " stone of stumbling" to many, and has caused 
 them the suffering of being drawn in one direc- 
 tion by reason and in another by respect for a 
 traditional faith. A new spirit, however, begins 
 
 1 Yalentinus. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 257 
 
 to be found and to utter itself courageously. 
 Men begin to obey the wise saying of Confucius : 
 "When you know a thing, to hold that you 
 know it; and when you do not know a thing, 
 to allow that you do not know it; this is 
 knowledge." l 
 
 It has already been suggested that man's self- 
 knowledge is a knowledge of himself as spir- 
 itual, — that is to say, of the sensations and ideas 
 which, whatever their source, present them- 
 selves to his mind as immaterial. The ground 
 of the idealist is perfectly firm as to the ability 
 of the mind to have immediate knowledge only 
 of its ideas. The argument of Johnson kicking 
 the stone is out of date. There can be no ques- 
 tion about the dictum of Plato that the mind 
 proceeds from ideas through ideas to ideas. 
 Locke expanded this into the remark, " Since 
 the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, 
 hath no other immediate object but its own 
 ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it 
 is evident that our knowledge is only conversant 
 about them." 2 
 
 1 Analects, Book I. chap. iv. 
 
 2 Human Understanding, Book II. chap iv. n. 1. 
 
 r 22* 
 
258 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 Spirit, then, it may be taken for granted, is 
 knowable in the ideas presented to the mind, — 
 that is, it is known if man knows anything. 
 
 " Kerumque ignarus imagine gaudet." x 
 r 
 
 "I know by seeing and hearing," said Locke 
 again, " that there is some corporeal being out- 
 side of me ; I do more certainly know that there 
 is some spiritual being within me that sees and 
 hears." 2 
 
 To materialists this statement may seem an 
 inversion of the truth, for they may hold that 
 man knows himself only as a body or material 
 organism, the brain secreting thought as the 
 liver secretes bile (Professor Huxley), but there 
 is no ground for such a comparison, since the 
 bile has its limited physical field, while the 
 thought is by no means limited to the brain or 
 body. It is no parasitic Anchises riding in his 
 shrivelled helplessness on the back of pious 
 -^Eneas, but it may say of itself, — 
 
 " I have flown on the winds through the vaulted sky, 
 In a path unseen by the vulture's eye ; 
 
 1 ^Eneid., viii. 730. 
 
 5 Ibid., Book II. chap, xxiii. sect. 15. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 259 
 
 I have "been where the lion's whelps ne'er trod, 
 
 And nature is mute in the sight of God ; 
 
 I have girdled the earth in my airy flight, 
 
 I have wandered alone 'mid yon spheres of light." 1 
 
 In regard to our knowledge of matter, it is 
 granted at once that we cannot mentally go to it 
 and have immediate knowledge of it as we have 
 of spirit. Indeed, to attempt this would be to 
 surrender the vantage-ground of the spirit's in- 
 termediate position between the two other ob- 
 jects of desired knowledge, namely, matter and 
 the Divine. Kant was unquestionably right 
 when he placed the things in themselves outside 
 of the field of consciousness and limited our 
 knowledge to that of the phenomena. In de- 
 claring the noumena to be in themselves unknow- 
 able he wisely followed Aristotle, who had said, 
 H uXrj ayvuxTToq xaff auri^, Matter in itself is un- 
 knowable. 2 
 
 Admitting, then, that the mind has no imme- 
 diate dealing with matter, are we shut up to 
 eternal ignorance of the outer world ? It is by 
 some said that Kant should have been so con- 
 sistent with himself as to reject the things in 
 
 1 Henry Smith, Thought. 3 Metaph., vii. (vi.), chap. x. 
 
260 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 themselves and to hold a purely idealistic ground ; 
 but there is some reason to doubt the positions 
 taken by those who came after him in this re- 
 spect ; and this for the simple reason that a purely 
 subjective idealism, unfruitful of any knowledge 
 of aught above or aught below itself, is as unsat- 
 isfactory in its way as Spinozism, which finds its 
 single ground in the Divine and ignores both 
 spirit and matter; or again as materialism, which 
 ignores everything above its plane, whether 
 finitely spiritual or absolutely Divine. We must 
 hold Kant to be consistent when he says, " Be- 
 hind phenomena are things in themselves which, 
 though hidden, are the conditions of phenomena. 1 
 . . . The conception of noumena is not only possi- 
 ble, but necessary. 2 . . . By means of practical 
 postulates we learn that there are objects corre- 
 sponding to ideas." 3 
 
 If, then, matter cannot be ignored without 
 turning our ideas into phantasies, and if never- 
 theless it is impossible to know matter immedi- 
 ately, how can we know it ? The answer is, of 
 course, that we know it through our sensations 
 
 1 Pure Keason, p. 307. 2 Practical Reason, p. 46. 
 
 " Page 141. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 261 
 
 which come over a wire, as it were, at one end 
 of which the mind is and at the other that which 
 originates the sensation, namely, the body. This 
 is common philosophical ground. For example, 
 in Walter's " Perception of Space and Matter" 
 we read, "By ordinary inference from ideas, 
 sensations, and perceptions we are able to gain 
 a trustworthy knowledge of matter. In the 
 muscular sense something resists our volition. 
 Touch gives magnitude." 1 Bain says in his 
 " Senses and Intellect," " The sum total of all 
 the occasions for putting forth active energy, or 
 for conceiving this as possible to be put forth, is 
 an external world. This leads us to form to our- 
 selves an abstraction that comprehends all our 
 experience, past and present, and all the experi- 
 ence of others, which abstraction is the utmost 
 that our minds can attain to respecting an ex- 
 ternal or material world." 2 Bascom, with equal 
 care, speaks thus in his " Science of Mind," 
 " What the mind directly knows must be purely 
 mental, what it indirectly knows are the phe- 
 nomena interpreted by its own experience. Did 
 not perception constantly involve inference, per- 
 
 * Boston, 1879, p. 405. 2 New York, 1879, p. 377. 
 
262 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 ception and consciousness would give but one 
 and the same set of data, and the distinction 
 would disappear." x 
 
 Thus it would appear that by an inference, 
 which it would be insanity not to make, the 
 material world is known, of course most inti- 
 mately by every one in his own body, and less in- 
 timately, but not less accurately, in other forms. 
 All scientific knowledge is immediately of ideas 
 alone, but infer entially and accurately of beasts 
 and trees and rocks. 
 
 If it be granted that nescience as to the mate- 
 rial world is irrational, and that matter is indeed 
 knowable, a brief survey of our possible knowl- 
 edge of the Divine may next be made. 
 
 No one will deny that we can know another, 
 for example, a near friend from whom we derive 
 information and in whose companionship we find 
 joy. The ideas which come to us by hearing 
 while our eyes are looking upon a beloved face 
 never bring with them any doubt of the reality 
 of the friend unless we have previous reason for 
 indulging a temporary doubt of the healthful 
 working of our organs. "When a man says that 
 
 1 New York, 1881, p. 113. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 263 
 
 he knows another, he means that by experience 
 he has been made certain of his existence, has 
 at first perceived him only externally, but has 
 gradually been made aware of the emotions and 
 thoughts of his friend, who has not only con- 
 vinced him thus of his possession of a distinct 
 personality, but has also displayed that similarity 
 of purpose or sympathetic quality of heart which 
 has made the two one in a real sense. Pythago- 
 ras defined friendship as one soul in two bodies. 
 They are, of course, not one, but at one. 
 
 This knowledge of another is as trustworthy 
 as the knowledge of one's own body, and is even 
 more easy to gain than a knowledge of matter 
 in general, because the other, being a spirit, is 
 on the same plane of life. With our eyes of 
 flesh we see only the friend's body, but we may 
 know him as to his spirit much more thoroughly 
 than we know his body. Indeed, we may never 
 have seen the general of our army or the presi- 
 dent of our nation, and yet we may have come 
 to know this one or that by other means suffi- 
 ciently to put a rational trust in the honesty, or to 
 feel a well-grounded distrust in the dishonesty 
 or incapacity, of general or president. 
 
 !Now, if we are to know the Divine at all, it 
 
264 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 must be as another whom we have not seen in 
 His person. Knowledge of the Divine is more 
 than an inference as to its existence. It is more 
 than an examination of the arguments which 
 were reviewed above in their own place. We 
 may conclude that there is every reason for be- 
 lieving that Washington did exist or that Glad- 
 stone does exist without having any knowledge 
 of them except remotely and partially ; but if 
 we are to know God or man sufficiently to justify 
 the use of the word knowledge, we must have 
 some relation with them. Experience must 
 enter into the acquaintance. We must know 
 " not because of thy saying," l as the Samaritans 
 said to the woman, but must know actually, 
 rationally, indisputably. 
 
 We certainly cannot know God in His un- 
 manifested infinity ; of that which so far tran- 
 scends us we can only use negative terms, — 
 
 " Being above all beings ! Mighty One 
 
 "Whom none can comprehend and none explore ! 
 
 "Who fill'st existence with thyself alone, — 
 Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er, — 
 Being whom we call God and know no more I 
 
 And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, 
 
 Even like past moments in eternity." 2 
 
 1 John iv. 42. 2 Derzhavin. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 265 
 
 But this impossibility of adequately conceiving 
 of the Divine should not lead men, as before 
 remarked, to suppose that they can know in 
 religion only rules of conduct. Even in the 
 material world we find a limit beyond which it 
 is too vast for us. But the scientist, knowing 
 but little of the world, knows enough to affirm 
 it and to claim acquaintance with it. Even with 
 a friend it is not necessary to know everything 
 of his secret thoughts before we can feel at one 
 with him. It is not necessary to be as wise as 
 God in order to know Him sufficiently and very 
 much as a child knows its parent whose vastly 
 greater wisdom it does not fathom. 
 
 The boundlessness of the Divine qualities is no 
 bar to our knowledge, if they be qualities lead- 
 ing to friendship and not to aversion. To say, 
 "Thou art great and doest wondrous things, 
 Thou art God alone," l is not to confess inability 
 to know Him with sufficient certainty, but rather 
 to declare that the mind rests in a sense of its 
 inferiority to Him as contentedly as in a sense of 
 its superiority to the body. 
 
 It is not only reasonable to conclude that the 
 
 1 Psalm lxxxvi. 10. 
 23 
 
266 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 God who made all things is most like the most 
 perfect of His creations, namely, man ; but it is 
 also easy to conclude that His capacity is such 
 that He can make Himself known, and that He 
 has in man the most adequate means of mani- 
 festing Himself. A finite man would, to be sure, 
 reveal God only in the very inadequate degree 
 seen in Moses or Socrates ; but one of such an 
 origin as the Christ might reveal Him fully, or 
 with increasing fulness as He grew in grace, till 
 at length the glorified Christ, with face as the 
 sun, would reveal God as fully as man can ask. 
 " All mine are thine and thine are mine." l 
 
 Avoiding a repetition of what has been already 
 said as to this manifestation, let me only meet 
 the question, Can we know the Christ ? If He 
 be known only historically we do not know 
 Him, and thus do not know the Divine in any 
 adequate sense. We may not doubt that the 
 Gospel account is true, but to assent to it is not 
 to know the Divine as we know ourselves, our 
 friends, and the external world. 
 
 In his " Oriental Christ" Mozoomdar gives 
 this experience: "I sat near the large lake in 
 
 1 John xvii. 10. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE. 267 
 
 the Hindu College compound, in Calcutta. It 
 was a week-day evening. I was meditating on 
 the state of my soul, on the cure of all spiritual 
 wretchedness, the brightness and peace unknown 
 to me, which was the lot of God's children. I 
 prayed and besought Heaven. Suddenly, it 
 seemed to me, let me own, it was revealed to me, 
 that close to me there was a holier, more blessed, 
 more loving personality, upon which I might 
 repose my troubled head. The response of my 
 nature was unhesitating and immediate. Jesus, 
 from that day, to me became a reality whereon I 
 might lean." l 
 
 Such was the experience of the Oriental, for 
 no one can doubt that the account is truthful. 
 Varied according to temperaments, it would be 
 that of all those who can truly say that they 
 know God in the Christ. The zealot, on his way 
 to Damascus as a Jewish hater of Christians, was 
 quickly convinced of his error, and could never 
 thereafter doubt nor be " disobedient unto the 
 heavenly vision." 2 The language of Thomas a 
 Kempis is not extravagant : " All the glory and 
 
 1 Published Boston, 1883, p. 11. 
 
 2 Acts xxvi. 19. 
 
268 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 beauty of the Christ are manifested within . . . 
 and the peace that He brings passeth all under- 
 standing." 1 All the way down the Christian 
 centuries there have been some who could say, 
 even under threats of martyrdom, that they 
 knew the Christ, and, though once called mystics 
 with a degree of contempt, they have endured, 
 and their numbers have increased. Natural re- 
 ligion, with its general perception of the imma- 
 nent God in nature, needs to have no scorn for 
 that more intimate, even personal, relation which 
 the Christ enables one to form with the Divine, — 
 a relation unknown to idolatrous antiquity and 
 unknown to Christian formalism, but definitely 
 promised by the Christ, — " I am with you always : 2 
 where two or three are gathered together in my 
 name, there am I in the midst of them," 3 and 
 so easily realized that a writer says with truth, 
 " Christ never was more really in the world than 
 He is now. He is as much to those who love 
 Him and believe on Him as He was to the 
 friends in Bethany. . . . We may form with 
 Him an actual relation of personal friendship 
 
 1 Imitation of Christ. 2 Matthew xxviii. 20. 
 
 8 Matthew xviii. 20. 
 
RELATION TO TEE DIVINE. 269 
 
 which will grow closer as the years go on, 
 deepening with each new experience." ' 
 
 The philosopher must remove himself from 
 all that is irrational, whether it goes under the 
 name ot Christian theology or otherwise, hut to 
 regard the Christ as the greatest of all teachers 
 is to bring the reason into the largest light and 
 the fullest liberty, " the liberty of the glory of 
 the children of God." 2 
 
 " All knowledge is a gathering into one," said 
 Priscianus, and these knowables, the spirit, the 
 Christ, and the flesh, are not to be thought as 
 three disjoined worlds, but as mutually related, 
 reciprocally active, and finding their meeting 
 point in that which is midway between the 
 Divine and the material, namely, the spirit, the 
 mind. It looks upward to its Lord in prayer 
 and in service, it looks inward with the ability 
 which man alone of all created forms of life 
 possesses and which makes him a philosopher, 
 and it looks downward and outward to the flesh 
 and the world. In its relation to the Divine it 
 finds the purposes of life, in its own intelligence 
 
 1 Silent Tunes, by J. E. Miller, D.D., p. 23. 
 2 Komans viii. 21. 
 
 23* 
 
270 THE HUMAN AND ITS 
 
 it finds the means of realizing those purposes, 
 and in the outer world it produces from its pur- 
 poses by the means or causes which the mind 
 supplies the effects, which are words and deeds. 
 So is humanity one from its Source to its out- 
 mosts. The worlds of spirit and matter are one 
 because they are the homes of men, and the 
 Creator and created are one because both are 
 human, the one absolutely such, the other finitely 
 such; but here is no mystery, for the Word, 
 which was with God and which was God, and by 
 which all things were made, and in which was 
 life, " was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of 
 grace and truth." l " For of Him and through 
 Him and unto Him are all things." 2 
 
 " All human knowledge," says Morell, " rests 
 upon the three notions of nature, man, and 
 God." 3 And this is only repeating the great 
 first note of Holy Scripture : " In the beginning 
 God created the heavens and the earth ;" 4 for 
 man, while he dwells upon the earth, is not in 
 place if he be earthy, and in the heavens — that is, 
 in a spiritual life — he is truly a man. "Knowl- 
 
 1 John i. 1, 14. « Komans xi. 36. 
 
 8 Modern Philosophy, ii. 466. * Genesis i. 1. 
 
RELATION TO THE DIVINE, 271 
 
 edge," said Spencer, "is permanent conscious- 
 ness." l Precisely, it is the permanent conscious- 
 ness of the self in its relations upward and 
 downward; it is a consciousness which is "a 
 temple of the living God," 2 — " a house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens." 3 
 
 " That we do know" is the distinct and per- 
 manent self, its recipiency, its reagency, its free 
 agency, its inheritance which affects but does 
 not determine its acts, its trinal form, its rela- 
 tions testifying of the Divine, its immortality, — 
 aspects which are fully presented in the teach- 
 ings of the Christ, — in whom we have certain 
 knowledge of God and spirit and matter. When 
 the Christ said to Mcodemus, " We speak that 
 we do know and testify that we have seen," He 
 used the plainest terms to declare what was 
 known to Him, and what any man may know by 
 the aid of the Christ Whose light lighteth every 
 man that cometh into the world, and Who prom- 
 ised that His disciples should know the truth. 
 
 1 First Principles, p. 142. 3 2 Corinthians vi. 16. 
 
 3 2 Corinthians v. 1. 
 

 
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